Good evening. Uh, this work session of the school board of AIO area schools is being held in the forum room of the educational service center on Tuesday, September 9th, 2025. The work session is being audio recorded. The recording will be made available on the district website within two business days after the work session has ended. With regard to the audio recording, our communication staff has asked that we share a friendly reminder that side conversations during the work session are picked up by the recorder and can affect sound quality. Also, conversations during transitions between agenda items are on the recording as well. The intent of the schoolboard work session is to allow for schoolboard discussion of topics. Work sessions do not include an opportunity for audience members to address the board. To acknowledge attendance this evening, I'll ask that all present at the table state their name starting with the person to the left. >> Tanya Prince, school board member. >> Keith Tate, school board member. >> Erica Foster, school board member. >> Ivon Schwarzland, executive director of HR. >> Brian Severson Hall, executive director of community engagement. >> Brian Bass, assistant superintendent for achievement. >> Robert Sand Architects and Engineers. >> Sh Architects and Engineers. John Morset, executive director of finance and operations. >> Executive director of community relations. >> Steve Fisk, assistant superintendent, elementary. >> Anthony Bis, executive director of technology. >> Sarah Mitchell, school board member. Kelsey Dawson, school board member. >> Kim Hil, superintendent. >> And I, Thomas Brooks, uh, school board member and president. The purpose of schoolboard work sessions is to build trust and teamwork to exchange information and when applicable to provide direction in order to facilitate efficient and effective decision-m at regular board meetings. Dr. Hy, will you please share your check-in? >> Thank you. I'm excited for us to get started today. So, thank you Vice Chair Brooks and good evening board members and everyone else here this evening. So, we're going to get started right away with our Crest View update and then I'll have John Morset introduce who's uh presenting with you this evening. >> All right. Thank you, Dr. Kyle, uh, Vice Chair Brooks, Chair Prince, board members, the whole gang. Um, great to be with you again today. So, with me today for this presentation is Len Shonne from Wol and Robert Satin from W. Um, and then also Dr. Bass and Brian Severson Hall will be involved as well. Um, so as we were talking about and I was thinking about the Crest View, what started as a repurpose and is now a complete rebuild. Um, a whole lot has changed from what we originally thought was going to happen in this building. And we went from it was a very common practice in schools to say, well, we've got this building. What can we fit in it? Um, to what we're going to show you today, which is, you know, very stark contrast different. It is um we're I think it's safe to say that we are all extremely proud and excited to be presenting this update to you of where we are today versus where we were almost a year ago when we were digging into this process. Um and so it's been a great opportunity and we're we're really happy to be able to do this. So the opportunity that unfolded and led us to recommend to you to tear down the building has allowed with your direction us to really dig into what's important for our community and that what this facility should be to represent the district as a whole. So tonight we're going to walk you through a little journey starting with um where we went from the direction you gave us. So, we're going to kind of not talk about the first round of of what we did, but but from where you said, hey, when you starting over with a clean slate, we need you to re-engage the community and moving forward from that point. Um, working with our community, working with stakehold uh stakeholders to come up with this a flagship facility that is intended to be a huge community asset for generations to come. So, that's where we're at. Um, I'm going to go ahead and turn it over to Len who's going to talk and walk our way through the de design development process, um, timeline, community input, some of those pieces, and we're going to kind of interject through it and talk about all the different things that we've been doing to get to today. Um, and ultimately to the design update that we'll show you at the end for what we expect the building to actually look like. So, Monet, I'll turn it over to you. >> Thank you very much, um, Vice Chair Brooks, Cher, Dr. Kyle, members of the board, the rest of the game. Thank you so much. Robert and I are excited to share with you um and team with Brian and Brian tonight presenting the Brian um on this exciting project. Once again, on behalf of architects and engineers, thank you so much for this opportunity to pair and team with your community on this exciting project. Um we are excited to talk a little bit about the design development process. Much like all of your buildings, um new ones, remodels, um small projects, big big projects, um we've really included a participatory planning process. Um we know that you hold that dearly as a board to include your community in this um really important work. We're going to talk a little bit about the timeline, just refresh you, you know, where where we've been, what we're up to, and where we're heading next. Talk about the community input because that's been a lot of heavy lifting and exciting conversations. Um, we're also going to talk about the format of the user input that we have gone through. Um, we're going to talk um as a team here on the anticipated programming for that building. Um, and then give you the design update and show you some of the images as we've done in the past with other projects on what this is starting to look like. Um, so I'll just refresh the team here where we're at with the project. What you're looking at is um a diagram that shows the project broken down by phase. Um, and so we've broken the project down by um really looking at the site, if you read the chart from left to right, doing schematic design, which is big picture visioning, and that's where we've engaged what we call a core planning group. You'll hear about that group in a little bit to just really set the boulders on um how the building is organized and the vision setting for the project. Then we get into design development which is the phase that we're just starting to wrap up where we again we've met with more users and started to actually design the building. And we're at the point now where we're starting to roll into what we call contract documents. That's actually um creating the blueprints, if you will, for the project. um working and coordinating with your technology team, your safety and security team and making sure that we've got all those important elements in the contract documents and then we will start construction. So we plan to go through the public bidding process on this project in January, February of 2026 and then um start construction. I do want to share that one thing that's unique about the schedule is that there is the existing building that we do need to take down on that on that site and as you can see here um we are working on documents and you will start seeing action on that start happening at the beginning of October >> and an anticipated occupancy event again is fall 2027. >> Yeah. And I think the last time we were together was all the way back like the end of January. So, it's been a while since the last time we talked about the the repurpose site at Crest View. Um, but just a couple of highlights from the last time we were together. We had um some discussion about what it really means to be a repurposed site. And that's where the kind of the mandatory prek or settling on prek as being the significant academic component of the site. Again, to refresh everyone's memory, we significant isn't defined. That's kind of a loose term, but we said at least half of what is currently there. And uh previously there are around 200 students prek through grade 5 attending Crestview. So uh the mandatory prek uh we set that to try to serve between 100 and 125 students to meet that state statute threshold for uh repurposing a site. Uh this group talked a lot about what might happen in this building uh during the non-school hours and the summer hours. So there was uh some feedback on that. There was some strong feedback about what might academic support look like at this repurposed site. And then also some oh I don't know questions wonderings about what might community opportunities or partnerships look at at this site. Those were kind of the four uh takeaways that our group had uh thinking back to what happened in January. So um after that meeting that influenced our inter session work that we did uh in these last nine months. So you can see we'll we'll cover some of these and I think Steve and Brian and John anyone else can jump in uh because we all experienced these in different ways. Um we had a meeting uh with Minneapolis public schools admin team including their uh early childhood coordinator. They have some uh heritage ECF classes uh which include uh classes in multiple languages. It includes they have even specialty classes for um parents who are single parents. They kind of have a wide range uh of programming. We do have some of that in ECF, but we also thought this was a nice tie-in uh to our suggestions from having heritage prek programs like in Dakota M uh Hispanic uh and infusing that into the curriculum for students who will be able to attend uh prek programming at the new repurpose site. We also did site visits to see uh I'll use the general term to see other like multi-use buildings I guess would be the way I would phrase it. So you can see up there multiple visits Hugo Elementary uh cultural uh some Hakokata Cultural Center. So um some native um programming uh American Indian Magnet School, Dakota Valley Early Learning Center and the Minneapolis YMCA. So, all of these are different buildings that uh some of them are more multi-use than others. Some have a very specific purpose plus uh have other community meetings uh in them. So, you can see some of our you see pictures from some of our visits there. Um and then a couple of things we did, we did a little targeted services review. So um you know what programs we currently offer in targeted services and at what schools um in our school district currently we've we operate uh targeted services at nine our BPK at nine of the elementary schools and targeted services at 11 schools. So we do already have after school academic enrichment at a lot of sites, but we just did a because of that interest in that what might academic support look like in after school hours, we thought it was a good time to kind of do a what would you call that? A census or a survey of what we currently offer. And then one thing we added was um VPK interviews. So a big shout out to um Carrie Cave and Sarah Lubie within our district. They visited all nine of our VPK sites. Um they they typically spent around two to three hours at each of the sites interviewing the principal, the teacher, and the ESVs who are in the VPK programs to get an idea of what is currently happening, what is missing, uh how is our VPK programs aligning with our kindergarten curriculum, what might it look like to do culturally specific classes, and then also um I just our BLAST program. They also visited our blast program. I think I mentioned um this year we added a program at Oakview that combines voluntary prek with a feebased wraparound prek. A lot of the feedback that we get from our families that participate in voluntary prek is that a 2.0 2.5 hour program just really doesn't fit people's schedule. For a lot of people that just simply doesn't work. Um, so what would it look like to offer some wraparound care and do uh we call it sounds fancy but braided funding, right? So like how do you do some funding that's provided through the government, some funding that might be provided by individual parents and then it allows them that full day experience that they want, especially for folks who are working families and can't can't do drop off pickoff, can't do, you know, that just doesn't work for them. Um, and we're in year two of that uh program at Hopeview and it spilled up both years, you know, not quite that fast, but within an hour and a half of opening that which is pretty quick, right, to get 20 25 kids. Um, so we think that's a possibility um at at the repurpose site where you may be instead of just saying this is BPK, this is ECF, well, here's kind of preK offerings and here's one classroom might be more of a wraparound BPK, one might be a traditional BPK, one might be a 4-year-old ECF program. So we think there's through these um interviews of well and to to say that VPK people are excited to see a that a school or a wing of a school might be dedicated to them solely is an understatement. Um I don't know Steve if you would add anything from Carrie or if anyone wants to add anything from either any of these four. This is just the visit intercession work. We're going to get to the other input from our actual, you know, folks who uh live and work in our school district, but this is kind of our visit interession work. I >> I would just underscore again, I think, the options piece and kind of the the exciting the exciting experiences that we at Oak View and what what what the newer site may mean. And then obviously um and you'll I think you'll see some of the spaces here what that's going to be for that for the for the real littles and the experience that they have and the options. So I think part of that excitement too is that uh purposeful investment in the programs and you know kind of how you know the history of the roll out of EPK to now this real sort of active purposeful planning um I think is going to be an exciting opportunity and um and two with the with the BPK we at times uh look at that as sort of our front porch a bit for the district and so how we invite families in and so I think that combination of of the new facility is just going to be pretty powerful. >> I don't know John or Brian if you have anything to add for like the site visits or >> you did it. >> Oh, I did. Okay, good. Um, one thing I didn't say in my note I didn't cover that I just noticed in my notes. Um, the way I phrase this is because we talked about some like really big programs that happen in some other communities as well, right? You know, so I think one of the things through doing some of these studies is what what's the right scale for a smaller site like this versus some of these programs, whether it's a NAS or whether it's a district-wide program that's a different scale than here's one smaller site. We looked at all of these things. That's why we visited some of these bigger multi-use sites. Um, so it felt felt good in what might programming look like for one site and to also have great learning. So that was a little bit of the inter session uh site visits program exploration from other school districts and kind of an internal review of some of the things that we're currently doing. So those are some of the things we've done in the last seven months since we all were because it feels like a long time. Well I feel like it's been a long time since we've talked about crest. I don't know everyone in here, but um we've done a ton of work uh with these site visits and you're going to get to hear next kind of what we've done with actual meetings and I know some of you attended our community gatherings at Crest View to get community input as well. We're going to talk about that. So, we just wanted to make sure um while we don't always are able to 100% cover everything you uh give us feedback on, we do everything we can to to go back and follow up on it. And frankly, uh, I think the BPKA interviews was, it was not my idea, but it was brilliant. Uh, and uh, I think it was well worth the 27 to 30 hours of interview time that Carrie and Sarah did on our behalf to go and find out what's going on in BPK, what can be improved if we're going to really go for it to have a community center, community school that has a early childhood emphasis to it. So that would be my summation of the site uh, intercession work. And one of the things I would add to go with that is you learn so much on a site visit to someone else's site. >> Um because number one, they they've thought of things you haven't thought of. >> They've found problems that you haven't discovered are there yet. And one of my favorite questions to ask is what would you do differently? >> You've had this you've lived in this for x amount of time. What would you change? Um, and you start to uncover really a lot of the little nuance things that allow you to make some very thoughtful tweaks to maybe the direction you're going or to go, "Wow, I never would have considered pairing those two programs together." >> Um, I don't have a good example of what that is, but but to go, "Oh, um, that's a really cool way to do that. I wonder if we could make that work." So, so being willing to get outside of your own district and and see what those new things are. And the the conversation with Minneapolis when they came in here opened my eyes a lot just to see what the possibilities of of of what we can actually do if we are really willing to take a couple risks. And that's I think that to me really sums up the direction that I felt you guys gave us, which is be willing to take a few risks and look and see what else is there that's important and make sure that we're turning all the students. So yeah, and I think the Minneapolis one too um speaks to something that we've put in the space before already. But just because when you open the doors just because that's the programming that's happening in September of 2020 or 2027, is that right? >> Yeah. >> Um of course you still adjust to what are the new community needs as they come up, right? So each of these heritage ECF classes um that they were describing, they didn't all exist at the same time, right? They were all added or subtracted based on what the needs of the community were at any particular time. So I think that was u affirming to us on these things aren't as static or as set in stone as they might look. There's going to be some core uh cornerstone programming at the site, but there's also the ability to adjust as needed. Brian, >> yeah, I just would would offer that as we think about like how do we as as the architects are taking our ideas and taking the input from the different user groups um to see how other buildings um and other spaces how they did that work and did they get it right. Right. And so John's point about like what they learned, the problems they discovered or what what challenges they had along the way, it it it it um for me it opened up an intentionality of when we come back to our space, here's what we want to really be intentional and thoughtful about given all the different examples that we looked at. Um because folks were trying to capture it in a way that they thought was the essence of that programming and then they learned all this stuff along the way. And and so to be able to have the benefit of of seeing those spaces and seeing some of the challenges in those spaces and then saying, "Okay, we we can't do everything, but the things that we do, we want to do it very well and very thoughtful and it just was great to see to see um to see those examples." Um it just it was it was super helpful for that perspective. >> So we'll jump I jumped one. Yep. Sorry. So, um, and Len, you could maybe go over the process at court planning because you know better than the rest of us. >> Sure. Um, this is a key piece of the process that we start with and we started with the same process for um, a lot of the larger remodels and the new elementary school. And so, um, the district was so kind to put together a representation of, um, program leaders, parents, students, um, your facilities team to help guide the conversations on what did you want the school to be. Um, it was a beautiful blend of people that represented multiple different programs. Um we had some wonderful conversations with a couple of students that joined us and really gave us some input on um community outreach and what the students would like to see and and um um students that actually lived in the neighborhood that would participate in this. And so it was it was really great. So we had blended conversations. This is the group that actually toured all of the buildings as well. So you'll see them kind of show up in some of the photos that we've included in the presentation. um but they helped build a common language as Brian had mentioned um so that we could talk about what that vision is and using the same terminology um as we design. So here's a great photo of that group actually rolling up their sleeves and doing the work. So um we had um some community input sessions. I can speak to one um that we had at that building which was great. Um thank you to those of you who were able to join us. Um we had members of the community that were invited to give input. We really just had kind of a an open work session. Um we set up stations that really allowed um the visitors to come through and provide input on exterior design aesthetics. If you live in the neighborhood, what do you want to see when you look out your window or when you're taking your walk with your pet or your children in the stroller? What do you want to experience? Interior design aesthetics. what represents you as a community member, whether it's color or art or natural light. We had another station that talked about site design, you know, h how would you engage with the site in regards to how um walking paths engage with the building and natural topography you'd like to see? And then also construction information. And again, if you're going to be looking at this site for the next year or two, um we wanted to share the information on what this is going to look like in the process for that so that your neighbors are well informed. Um this is an example of the um the output of some of those conversations. What you're seeing here in these photographs are just some images that we like to bring with us so that people can engage and have something to react to. and this is what I like or this represents what was in my head and what I'm trying to articulate. Some of the things that you can see here were obviously marked things up. We went through the exercise where people were able to say, "Hey, give us a green dot on some things that you really enjoy. Give us a red dot on maybe some things that aren't in alignment with your vision." Um, and you can see here here are some of the common themes that we heard in regards to interiors um of the building and exterior of the building. natural tones, contrasting materials, stepped massing, wood accents, um indoor to outdoor connection. You're going to see a lot of that is the result of the project of being able to connect with nature and be able to see the outdoors. Um outdoor seating, places for wandering, natural color tones, exposed wood, places for display was really important, natural light, and making sure this building was warm and welcoming. Um the next round then is that big picture vision was set and again that was only just one round of participatory planning. Um multiple meetings, 2-hour sessions every evening. We then broke down into user groups where we were able to meet with the people who actually work and live in these spaces so that they can share what they need. Um so for this part of that participatory planning it was around we did two rounds of meetings approximately 20 meetings if you can imagine six to eight to 10 people at each of those meetings. So really covered a lot of ground and input. The meeting groups were broken down into preK Avenue American Indian education community kitchen um thinking about professional development in that workforce center or that welcome center um receiving custodial. How does how does facilities need to um work in this building the phase program and program and then again academic enrichment >> it's important to note in these so you we mentioned the core planning group so that's this group of a variety of experts and community members and so forth these groups are people who are going to live in these spaces or potentially use these spaces so they're not the same some of the same people but you're also digging deeper you're bringing in prek teachers parents who might be using that or ECF programming. You're bringing in the staff from Indian education and um some community members with them to get input as you work down each one of those those layers. So, so you're trying to this is the detail of like what do you physically want to see in the building? Um where is it important for you to have certain um aesthetics or functionality? How do you want a maker space to look? How are you going to use it in your group versus how are you going to use it in this group over here? So there's times when those intersected. So especially when we're talking about a community kitchen or a maker space, multiple groups, we needed input from all of them because they're all going to use it a little bit different. So it's it's I just think it's important to know that this this is the really part where we expand out and get a lot of opinion from a lot of people to say how exactly would you use a space that might look like this? And then we tweak from there and go, okay, we'll add this, we'll take away that, and so on and so forth. A >> lot of sketching and drawing with this group. with these groups. >> Okay. So, what we have here is just I had one and one thing that came about on some of the user groups is um this is a roommate situation, right? So, how's the space going to be shared? So, this is very different than saying here's an elementary school and it's K through >> prek through five >> every day, right? This is multiple programs, multiple community users, multiple ages, multi-generational, right? So, there was some how is this space going to be shared? There was also some agreements um that were reached um mixed use at all times, right? So, this isn't uh like we traditionally have in our you know, I can speak to this as the person who oversees community use of school facilities. This isn't like this. All these schools are blanket reserved by schools from 7:30 till 5 and then they're open to community, right? This is a community space. So what does that look like? So there's not necessarily a designated school time, so to speak. It's a school. There will be designated times when the prek programs are happening. But that's why I don't know if there was always a security meeting in the other core planning teams, but we definitely added a security meeting to one of these user groups that wasn't up there on this slide um to talk about what would it look like um to have VPK going on, ECF going on, and 200 people showing up for a professional development or community gathering at the same time in the same building. Right? of that was when we kind of landed on this. We're roommates. It's it's a shared space. It's mixed use. It's mixed use at all times. Well, how the heck are we going to think about safety and security in that type of space? And there are ways that we'll see as we go along that you can block off certain parts of the space while you're doing it. So that that was just one thing that came when the more you get people together the more um well the more ideas you get and also the more holes get poked in your ideas right or more questions get asked. So, I think that was one thing that I made note of quick on this security meeting that got added to just think about it's different than some of our other buildings, right? So, how might that uh look on a daily basis? >> Thank you. >> It's a great segue into the roommates so we can introduce to you just the general diagram of the building. And we won't go into the detail of of all of the details of the floor plan, but one of the most exciting conversations was how do you blend that um open door type of environment, welcoming environment for the community and how do you meet the standards that the district has set for your school facilities. Right? So, if you're looking at this diagram, I'll just point out the blue area that's really representing the the prek component. You know, we have to have that secure entrance. We want to be able to control and understand who's engaging with our kiddos during the school day. Um, and so that portion of the building really has that lockdown capability so that you can manage um, who's who's in that part of the building. Um, one thing that's also exciting too is that the building is designed on the exterior for perimeter security to act just like a school so that you are able to lock it down. You are able to manage the front door if you want to manage the front door. So, um, as Brian mentioned, we met with your safety and security team as we always do. We talk about where's that flexibility. If you want an open door policy every day or during certain hours of the day, you can do that as a district. If you want to be able to lock it down, you can do that as a district. And so, you have the opportunity to choose to manage that building however you'd like. Um, there's a welcome center, which is the core component and area of the building. And then there's the ECF component and then there's that American Indian ed portion which is in the green. And you can see a lot of arrows there that connect the building to the site. Upper level is professional development and a lot of flex couple of flexible classrooms up there too. >> Yeah. And then upper level is that be the lower portion is like the professional development and then the on the left where you see those three rooms that's where we added um academic enrichment support. uh spaces to that upper section. So, it's not all PD, it's a kind of combination of PD and an academic enrichment support area designated. And there's also still multi-use spaces on the lower level, too, that could be used for either, but we we specifically added some spaces that'll be pretty easy or yeah, pretty easy to use for things like academic support, tutoring, things like that. I would add the the large PD space is more like a large multi-purpose space. Um because I know we had talked about, you know, you could host a youth summit in there if you need to bring 100 to 200 students into a common location. So, it's just a large gathering space that could also be used to serve and support different academic opportunities if we needed to bring a large group of students together. Um, and then again like all of the other projects, the exact core planning group that we mentioned put together some guiding principles. We won't go through all of these, but you can see some common themes are safe and welcoming. Um, making sure that this building is designed of the community. I thought that was a powerful statement. Um, universal design. Um, outdoor features should be prominent. um celebrate the multicultural community, community partnerships, cultural heritage, making sure that we're inviting and inspiring our visitors and interactive learning. So now as you're looking at this, we're going to kind of go through and I'm going to lean on my program experts over here. What what programming we see as um in two different categories that that would most likely live here. I'll start just discussing the basics of the anchor programming. So things like the ECF prek or VPK. Um originally when when we made the decision to temporarily close the building, it was for grade reconfiguration. So, we need to change the grades that are in the school, but it's still a school. And so, BPK is really the representation of that. So, we still fulfill what we said we would do with with the Department of Education. American Indian Education is in this building is is intended to have a permanent home within the district. They've moved numerous times over their lifetime in our district. We wanted them to have a permanent home. This is where that's intended to be. And then the family and community engagement program, and I'll let Dr. Bass talk about that. um as the expert, but but again uh just seemed like a really really good fit for what we're trying to accomplish here. >> And as we mentioned earlier too, the the the prek meets the legal requirements of state of Minnesota for repurpose site. And then the first uh ACF prek, BPK, and American Indian education. Um, all three of those programs meet one of our goals and one of our focuses on academics. And uh, did K just put these new strategic priority chart on here? If you look on uh, strategy B, build and nurture a culture of achievement by providing contentrich, rigorous, equitable, and individualized pathways. So, we think uh, those top three programs meet uh, strategic priority B and certainly and Brian, Dr. Bas can speak to the face but that meets priority C around inclusive participation of our communities. Okay. >> Thank you. So I actually connected with Ethan Nearvilles our AIE American Indian Education coordinator. Um and and he offered some thoughts about the space that I wanted to share. Um the American Indian Cultural Resource Center will serve as the hub for the American Indian Education Department and its community-based programs. The center includes a Dakota and Oi language learning lab. a maker space for traditional arts and food sovereignty initiatives. The this is a oay uh miguan equi collection and dedicated offices. Um so there's over 2,000 books um by indigenous authors in that library collection and dedicated offices for Indian education staff. In addition to housing these resources, the center will provide space for community gatherings such as drum and dance, regalia making, and American Indian parent advisory committee meetings as well as professional development opportunities for staff. So that's how um he and his team and the user group um that he got to work with. Those are some of their thoughts about the space for family and community engagement for some of our um newer board members um to to to this conversation around face. The face department has a goal of strengthening and sustaining authentic relationships. So this is all about our strategic direction. C promoting inclusive participation from all uh community stakeholders face um host cultural celebrations, family enrichment events and scholar engagement opportunities that honor and reflect the the breadth of diversity across our school district. We also provide face also provides gathering space for community partners, offer enrichment opportunities for parents and caregivers and deliver professional development for staff. So you see some of those intergenerational themes coming up in face in the face department's uh programming. >> Yeah. So thanks Brian. And then on the So I just made up these words. Those aren't what we're maybe going to use, but kind of the anchor programming, right? It's kind of how we're thinking about it. And then all the rest of the spaces are really dynamic programming, right? Because the spaces can be multi-use. So, community kitchen certainly can be utilized to support groups that are there, but also can be utilized to support some of our transition programs. So, even here at the ESC, we've got our 279er diner where uh young people who are transitioning uh receive student services uh get some job training. So, that's an opportunity. Certainly the professional development space is just going to be gorgeous and uh meet all of our need a lot of our needs for I think a lot of folks in the room are aware of how often we pay for space uh because we don't have spaces in our district that can accommodate some of our larger groups and certainly I think community groups once they see um a you know up-to-date state-of-the-art professional development center they're going to want to access that as well. um the academic enrichment and professional development spaces certainly can meet some of our needs for summer targeted services potential to bring back freedom schools because they're just going to be a nice size uh space for that tutoring credit recovery. Um we'll get to talk about the welcome center a little later. It's really large. I happen to be at um where was I today? Park >> park center. was one of the stops and um I was talking to Eric Thompson, one of their assistant principles, and he's like, "Oh yeah, I wanted to ask you about that." And he's like, "Here's how I want to use it." And I said, "Okay, just text me." So he said, "Um, as a part of our district's commitment to CTE Strands, Park Center senior high students participating in our exploring the teaching profession course would like to go to the new community school once it is open as a part of their coursework. Students can assist in early childhood experiences. this will increase their opportunities to engage in practical experiences. So I think one of the things that's going to happen when we create dynamic spaces is people are already thinking about how they might access it in a way that they don't have the ability to do for programming that they currently have have. So um I'll be curious even as we get further along in this process. um cuz I don't unless you know we ask people or unless people offer it up we don't know what they're thinking about yet but it's still so not early in the process but still toward the beginning third of the process um I think things like this will come up that was just literally in a conversation while we were we were working with some students and then last not least of course all the community partnerships that are possible like Brooklyn Bridge Alliance youth youth summits there's all sorts of things that I can be utilized in that space. But kind of anchor programming, dynamic programming and again dynamic programming can change based on the needs that are arising >> in the professional development space. I think uh Anthony Patter spoke a little bit. >> That's an understatement. We we never have I'm sorry, Brian, but we never have enough room to put to have professional development for our staff. We're at churches. We're in >> everywhere to ex we're everywhere and we're quenched like this where we're in a room together too. So >> I'm sorry. Go ahead. >> I did I did ask uh Emily Woolsey and so for the division of leadership teaching and learning to to put some numbers together just on average how much are we spending annually by not having our own space and and she said we spend between 31,500 and 37,500 each year renting outside venues for professional learning. That's just >> that's just their department. That's not That's not >> Could you repeat that? >> It was 31 >> 31 to 37,000 a year >> just for just for >> Yeah. Just for D. >> Yeah. And even you know my community head department, we rent out Three Rivers Park District. We rent out all sorts of we go to all sorts of different places to to because you know like my kids stop team just for one example that's you know 250 250 staff. we just don't have a space that's uh conducive for a true professional development. So, we go elsewhere. So, those there's that's a good number. We hadn't spelled out the actual what we're spending on on that. >> And it have a and it have a state-of-the-art facility that emphasizes um our core values of innovation and excellence. I mean, this this space is going to be laid out for ideal collaboration. Um and and that that's just I mean it's going to be transformative um for us to be able to have that in district to be able to to to have the space in district. So those were a couple of points we wanted to also emphasize around the professional development space. >> As a curiosity, Brian, could it hold the 279 gala? >> You know what? It's funny because we were just talking about that. >> I think it could. >> No, we have to work around the >> 100%. >> Yeah, we could. The downstairs would be where the we did the auction downstairs. >> Where the auction would be downstairs. >> Look what you're doing, Tanya. >> I don't want to squash ideas, but we'll >> we still have to think about um well, this might be a conversation for another day or when legal counsel is in here. Um, you know, community spaces do have to not all governmental or school district community spaces allow things like alcohol or, you know, but those are things that have to be discussed. Some do, right? Some do for specific events, but you kind but I love the idea. It it could hold >> a gala of 250 people plus the welcome center and all that kind of stuff. >> So, on that level, it could. You just have to also think about um how we how we want community use space and also how not only with um we've already talked a little bit about security but also kind of what is the spirit of a school building and and what do you have there and what do you exclude from there as well. But those are great. Uh it's fun to dream about those things, right? And to think about those things and that's that poke hole and things like Yeah, we Yeah. But maybe we do something that's uh a fundraiser that's more, you know, my favorite thing, coffeeentric, you know, coffee coffeecentric or, you know, there's other things you could do >> when you're gathering. So great idea though. But that's the kind of thing we hope people bring forward, right? like, "Hey, we do it's Librarian Independence Day. We want to do this gathering. Here's a space we can go to. Here's what's going on. We want to have a space we can go to." I think those Tanya are exactly what you would hope people would bring forward. And then you get to work with them on. Yeah, you could do that. And you might want to eliminate this little part of your plan, right? That would be a different community center, not >> Well, and we know, Dr. H, I apologize. We're a little bit beyond our time. So, we still want to show you like what this thing could actually look like. Um, so we're going to go relatively quickly through some pictures. You have them in your deck there. Um, but wanted to kind of walk you through. So, I'm going to hand it back to Len. The first view here is our site diagram. So, this is what the physical property is intended to look like. >> Yeah. Thank you. Some of the features here, you could tell that the those of you who've been to the site, it's sandwiched between Yates and Zane. Um, this is showing the building a little closer to Zane, which was a high priority for the district to have that polished there, but you can start to see the parking evolve. Um, again, applying parent drop off with a separate bus loop, which is exactly how your elementary school is designed as well, having green space for fields. Um, you can see a lot of that community garden type of development and interactive space, right, that just hugs up to the building as well. um show you a little bit. Again, this is the floor plan. We won't won't go through it in great detail, but you can categorize that blue area as your um prek type of space. And then the yellow gold is more of your ECF, your phase, community kitchen. The green wing is all that American Indian maker space, library, museum. >> Important to note, all the red dots are different places where we can segment the building from a security standpoint. So we have different points where we can control things. And as Len had mentioned before, we can turn the front entry into a secure front entry if we want. We can also have it a little more open and welcoming. We have a flexibility to do either at any time we would like to change it depending on what's coming in. >> And John, the size of that welcome center space. Can you share that? >> The the welcome center. Sure. In the middle here, that area is about 4,000 square ft. So if you imagine a normal say 3,000t home, that easily fits within this that welcome center. Um, we'll show you some pictures of it where you get to see a much better idea of what does that feel like? Um, versus just here it kind of just looks like, oh yeah, it's just a little connection spot. I can get across it real fast. There's a little bit more to it. And this is the upstairs. Um, go ahead. >> Yeah. On the upper level, um, you can see that there's an open below component to it, but the gold is again those academic enrichment areas with some flexibility to go from small group to a little bit larger group. So the the beauty of how this group this building is that there's that that flexibility of more intimate settings of 10, 20, 30 people. Open it up to 60 or 100 or go back into the professional development training space for a couple hundred in that area as well. >> And the production kitchen that's on the main floor here is designed so it can be multi-use as well. So, it's a production kitchen. It's also the kitchen to serve u the littles in in the prek program. So, they can come up to a counter and get their meals and go. And it also can cater to events up here if they need. Um, we'll just kind of go over real quick. We're going to get into to the design here now. And just some of the the wonderful things that the core planning group talked about is and and we've really worked on as a design team was tying into the natural topography. We understand we've got an urban environment, but we want to include site, green space, nature. So, you can see a little bit of that. some of the influences on um activating those outdoor spaces, some influences on color. Um the real the real key component to the design here was that the team really had said we want to we want all cultures can can connect with nature and so that's something that is universal and that's really something that um should be influenced in the design here. You can see natural local materials, limestone, wood, um very natural, welcoming, warm, calming type of materials and finishes. So, here we're going to start getting into some images. So, I don't expect you all to remember the site plan, but if you're standing in the parking lot upon your arrival, this would be the view that you see here. And what I just want to point out is that you see your main entrance on the right hand side. You see that twostory component there where you have your professional development um meeting space um academic enrichment and then to your left you have your separate entrance for um the prek component there. Um this is a closer view of what that front entry can look like. Again you can see a lot of those natural materials, native grasses, a patio gathering space at the front door. Lot of natural light and windows. Very inviting. a little bit of a closer view of what that would look like there too. Just stone and wood. >> And I will point out as we go around the building here, we we mentioned there, you saw on the site plan that they were very distinct kind of garden and community circle areas. Those are not represented here on purpose. They're they're held out so you can see the building itself. When we come back in February to show at a at a at a um a regular board meeting to ask you to approve a bid on the project, we'll show more detail that includes that. >> And the intent for this site development is really to invest in the construction project, the more permanent features. And then all of our users talked a lot about the gardening opportunities and influencing some of those those spaces as well. So some will be left ready for active involvement. This is if you're um on Zane and you're looking at the building coming from the south. Um you are looking at a lot of um open natural light into that professional meeting space up top and then providing a lot of glass and natural light into the classroom spaces that are down below. If you continue around the building, um this is looking direct on to that professional meeting space that's up high. some great views um of the site from that area. And then on the right you're looking at this is just kind of wrapping around the building that American Indian Ed component is down low. There's a maker space that opens up and connects to the nature. So that indooroutdoor space can be very connected when the weather is right here in Minnesota. And then you start to see the prek wing and um playground to the right. Again, this is just an overview of the interior materials. You can see a lot of the materials are reflecting that original color color palette of representing nature um with tile, stone, carpet, etc. And these are a couple of views of what you'll experience at that front entry. So when you walk in, um one of the building a better future commitments from your team was making sure that we see some multiple languages in the building. And so making sure that we've got that welcome component. you see on the left once you get into the building an opportunity for a greeter. You can see some of the display areas for some of the regalia that the um that was talked about earlier so that that culture component can be on display throughout the building. >> One of the things I would state especially if you're looking at this renderings the signage in the renderings is just put out as a little bit of a generic because we haven't had the conversation yet. So it's just there as the first representation of we'd really like something that says welcome in to all of our communities at the entryway. So we'll gave their first stab at that. We may choose to do something different. It's just to give you that idea >> just just providing a space and a holding spot for it. And then we can choose to say okay this is what message we we want displayed here. >> And we'll just kind of zip through these. So this is the um the gala area champions. Um this is the welcome center. So you can see that again using a lot of um components here. Some of the functions are professional meeting, gathering for families, grabbing that cup of coffee, um having furniture that you can move out and clear out the space and have a couple hundred people in there for an activity if you choose to do so. Again, connections to natural light in the site behind the fireplace there. Um including some space that's designed intentionally for for family engagement. Um you know we have multigenerational um activities and experiences happening here. Display um for all of the um components that you might want to display whether it's active or passive. Um the museum and library there calling that out having a lot of visual access to space. A lot of um glass for natural light. Um, we just put in a couple of photos here of the um, prek flex open area. Um, the beauty of of this area is that a lot of these spaces have been designed in your other buildings as well. So, always checking in with the with the team here and and Carrie's been involved in a lot of the planning group. a lot of consistency. Whether it's the new elementary school that has these spaces on the west side of your district or if it's this new building here um that has the same programming on the east side, those spaces will look and function very similarly. >> One of the unique pieces here that we did add in that's slightly different is there's a display space for each individual classroom. So if you chose to do a more specific heritage here, you have the ability to display what that is um or or you know highlight something there versus in this classroom it's a little bit different direction. So but each one of the classrooms has that ability whether it's a heritage program or a wraparound program and we leave that open to um the program side to determine what you're going there. >> I think we can just show a couple images there. This is that you see a big corridor again color natural light and this is upstairs now. So if you're at that center for professional development you need um there's professional space outside. So if you all are there for a meeting there's an opportunity to step into an acoustically sound space. If you need to do a Zoom or a meeting virtually there's some soft seating. You can have breakout areas and then um there is that kitchen component that's behind that board wall there um so that you can serve and prep food up here for large events. This is a view of the large professional meeting space. They're actually showing it closed up so it can be two spaces. You can see a window divider on the left. You can start to see that natural glass so you can have that connection to nature if you're working in there all day. And this is a view of it having it open. so that you can see um you know how the space will be open. >> I think that might be it. Welcome any comments or questions that you may have. >> Thank you. Uh board members, uh we are already 10 minutes over. Um but any questions? I know I have plenty. I think my only comment or question, I don't even know if it's a question, but um the emphasis on safety and security, and I know that it's kind of like a welcoming front door for the building is important. Um but I think as a school district, safety has to be top of the line for us. And um I do have some concerns based on how that desk was set up that even just for that staff person, like what kind of safety is there set up for them? What what I would I guess respond to that is that's in the open version. >> So we also have the ability to not staff someone at that desk and say now we're going to turn it into a secure entry. You have to come in >> perfect >> with raptor in through the vestibule just like you would in a traditional elementary. This one's just designed so that >> depending on what is happening in the building or say the heightened climate at the time we can say you know what I think today needs to be a little bit more secure. But then for like the prek it'll be set up permanently >> like the double vestibial almost because we all have the ability to do that function at the front door and appreciate you can engage the front door. >> Thank you. It's I appreciate the focus especially under the current times and we've had a lot of conversations about what that looks like, what that feels like and how can we be welcoming. If we know, hey, we're bringing in 200 of our own staff, we could probably open the front door. Um, but if it's a open community event or we're doing something that's more prek driven, maybe we're not going to do that. Um, and I think it's just important that whoever's the person ultimately in charge of the building be able to make the decision to say or again, you know what, the climate's a little uh people are a little edgy about this. Let's make sure we're we're showing that we're a good secure facility and be able to flex that way. >> We talked about fluidity of the building a lot. >> Yeah. >> And as long as it's there and we don't have to come back and build it back in to cost us more. That's the primary question I have. I so on the security question I have that was the same concern I had throughout the presentation as well. Um that's not to say that you all haven't have plenty of meetings to talk about it but just as I'm looking at it there are some logistical things kind of stressing me out about it. Um, I know you said that there's more to come on the outside, but I was just curious about the play spaces and how secure those are from the public or just adults that may be accessing the facility. >> Yeah, great question. So, we know the um the playground itself is fenced off um and and secure from a standpoint of these are the littlest kiddos, so we want to make sure that they're not running loose. Um it is part of what's on that facility today is a community walking path. Um you know so the city has helped pay for that to go in and we we're going to end up integrating that in other walking paths into the exterior part. Um but every doorway the floor that you're seeing in there, every entryway has an additional level of security built into it. I won't get too super far into the detail of why. Um, but kind of going back to the the security conversations that we've had um recently, there's multiple layers built within the building itself. Um, the trick for us and being a little bit new is that community space outside and and how that's used and and how we choose um to manage that, whether it's classes coming outside or a community event outside. I I think that's there's some learning curve and some more conversation around how we actually operationalize and manage that. Um but a great question and something we have to make sure we address. >> Um on that same note, the lunch space or the community kitchen, how are the kids accessing that space to get to the counter? >> So that is the community kitchen is just a community kitchen. It's almost like a fax lab. It's not the part of the prek program. So there's also a production kitchen that's over on the receiving end of the building. That's the kitchen that is um there's a hallway where the prek students can come out, go around, we can open up a gate and essentially they have a a cafeteria style serving area and then they're going to either go back I believe Brian tell me if I'm right or not on this that most of the time with prek we actually have them eat in their classroom but there is a large motor or shared area that we could use as a cafeteria if we wanted to. Just depends on furniture. Um, but they would go get their food and come right back into their space into their and that's still secure at that end of the building. That's not not the public end. We can't a production kitchen I can't open to the public. You have to have licensed food service staff only in it. That's why we have a production kitchen at one end and a community kitchen at the other end. It's much more for um, as as Dr. Bass was saying, an indigenous cooking class. That's what that kitchen is for. Okay. So, >> and then the last question, the doors to ECF in the prek spaces, are those glass doors? >> Um, I believe >> um they have a little glass in them. Um, they aren't necessarily all glass and I think the function can function the same. You can lock them down. You see the vision there. So, it's going to be a little bit more open. >> Yes, those can be locked down. And there is a little bit of glass in there. >> Just a little bit of glass. Okay. >> So, what and but what we do on any of the entries and we can do this on the interior as well is it's an enhanced glass. So, it's got some protection factor to it. Now, does that mean it's going to stop a a bullet mill? Um, but it will prevent you from breaking through if we've locked that door, much like we employ similar things in other places in the district. The idea is to to slow people down so our staff can make decisions to take care of what needs to be taken care of. So that's incorporated all over the building. >> So that's the whole building. All the windows are that >> I'm not going to say all windows. I'm going to say entryways. >> Okay, perfect. So interior entryways included where you would have the safe entries. >> Okay. >> Sorry, I had to go over your question. >> Oh, um I think that was the last one. >> Yeah, these are helpful for Thank you for adding some of the but we have vigorous discussions on this, right? So like one of the ways I think about this is it's kind of in between well it is going to be a school but it's in between what we think of as a traditional school and a community center >> right when you walk into Maple Grove Community Center you don't check you don't go through any security there's there's no locked doors you walk in and there might be a greeter there right and then you have free access to the whole space at any time that you want to >> right because we're doing dynamic programming We're we're kind of making in between there like you can see all the spots where we added where like nope these are totally locked down and then I think the front entryway this is good feedback cuz we were trying to find the sweet spot between do you really want 400 people checking in oneonone clearly here when you walked in at the ESC you didn't enter a secured entrance right you walked in this is community gathering space, the ESC for board meetings, things like that. So, we're trying to do and we're kind of I don't know what's the right word, threading the needle or however you want to what however you want to say that. So, I think these are helpful to us because we had uh there were some people on the team who wanted it to be more like you would experience, you know, between 7:45 and >> 2:30 at the high school. >> And others who said, "No, this is a community center. It's not welcoming to do that at a community center, right? So, I think we've done in between with the kind of especially the prek programming on both ends. I think that was the right >> compromise. the prior and as we're you know kind of relabeling the school since the priority is on that BPK academic portion that we do have to prioritize and the ECF prioritize that safety and like make sure that that's >> what we work around not the other way around because >> you know you're coming into a child's space and that's who we have to protect as >> a school district >> and it's important to note that this building from a design standpoint is designed the same way we design a school >> and that entire BPK area is also a storm shelter. So it is walls that are this thick concrete. >> Um so just one of those added perks of of storm shelter is it's super super secure. >> You're not going to break through that block wall with any ease. >> I also don't love this idea of a staff member being able to make a call about the fluidity of security on any given day or any any given time. Um, and I don't know what that actually looks like on a dayto-day if it's if we have certain hours where it is more secure or whatnot, but I just what I don't want is for something to happen, the worst to happen, and it was on a day where we were more fluid, more flexible. >> Um, so that's Yeah. So I I see what you're trying to do and it's coming together. But yeah, just some of the thoughts >> if we need to have um a particular security briefing on it like we have had where it's not open to the public, we I think can do that. Given what we've um discussed as a district, I'm confident that the aesthetics are not in conflict with safety and all of the things that you outlined. So, if we need to have more information to the board to get everybody to that comfort level, I think we could do that. And um I think we entrust site leaders to make many decisions in our school buildings. And so I'm confident that the site leader who's put in authority over the building would have the protocols and decision process on the details of secure entrance. >> Yeah. But that and thank you all for and this is why we're doing this presentation again, right? So that we can do more inter session work again >> based on the feedback we're getting tonight. And and so we're you know we hear you and we're we have been debating this, right? and what it really looks like and how it might feel. So, thank you. >> It's not an easy answer, I'm sure. >> No, it's not. It's a little Yeah. Well, it's easy in that. Yes, we're going to make sure it's safe and secure for the people who come there. That's easy. And then the hard part is well, what does that look like when >> um you know, how welcome does the community feel if you're trying to make it a community space, right? How how how logistically does that work when 250 adults are coming in for >> professional development day while there's that's why we kind of tried this wings >> lock be able to lock down certain wings while people come in like so that's why we tried to do this but that's why we're doing this so we could get the feedback on your initial reaction like >> oo I I love it or oo I got a little >> uneasiness that kind of >> my previous district had it so the previous district that one whole other side was the community area and the whole other lockdown side was prek and early childhood. No one went past and got in those areas. So >> these are good and it's important to note that the theory and idea so far until you put it into operational practice there's going to be some hurdles >> and we got to figure out what the right way to do that but until we build it we don't. and the fear of being obvious, the the benefit of building it up from brand new and to to benefit from all the enhanced security and things that are are at our disposal now that wouldn't necessarily have been had we not made that decision or use as the board to approve it. I think it's also going to help direct and make this a very safe space for us. >> So, um I think it's phenomenal. I think the opportunity for enrichment and academic programming there um is is clear. So then it's a matter of once we're up and running, making sure we fulfill that promise that that is what we're doing there and that we can see the benefit to our students from it in addition to some of the community. But the opportunity to bring in other community groups. I think about mentorship. I think about um different organizations that can serve multiple ages of students there. It's just it's huge for the opportunity. Um an interest I have after this meeting at some point down the road is to understand a comparison of like the the operational budget. Um, so are we did we change the mix at all from moving from uh Crest View to now um this building? Does it um take anything out of our general funds? I'm just I'll be interested in that. Not a go do something right now. >> We did start gathering Tanya. We >> This is like step C on steps A through Z. We did start gathering potentially like what level of staffing might you need there custodian site leader. So we started putting that together so that we could um the goal would I think be to at least have that mocked up a bit by the time we get to kind of February the initial budget cycle so that because we're going to need to bring things forward to say here's how much money was previously spent at the Crestview site on an annual basis. Here's what we think we're going to need to operate this particular building. What does it look out like for the budget? So, thank you. We we're literally like step B or C on A to Z steps. So, just >> I'm guessing there's like community ed versus general, too. >> Yeah. But how we're going to how we're going to do it all. Yeah. you know, I I think it looks excellent and um I think it really aligns with kind of where we wanted we we wanted to be and I think we had this opportunity to, you know, pivot and and like in rebuild or build a brand new and I think we're there. I mean, I'm really interested in just like how we partner with our communities. And I think we talked about that in January, like the intentionality around our mission and our vision and our values and ensuring that whoever comes into that space um aligns with that and that our value, you know, we have like similar values and the mission that we're trying to to achieve. Um I love what you shared about um uh Eric what he said about just connecting RCT. I mean that it's so important. I think about Brooklyn Park and their like tech and innovation district with the mayor wants and just like how can we, you know, really align so our kids can just reach unleash their brilliance, reach their fullest potentials and their families and like and just and continue that in that spirit and that aspiration, I And I it looks just like amazing. Like it's something that our community can be so proud of. Um and um and really really meets to where we're going to where we want to go. I love I hope freedom schools. I mean I know way down the line like please let freedom school come back. Um, and I'm always going to say, I know, you know, I I know we talked about the preK, BPK, but I um I mean, I'm huge advocate for I I like love to have like Native American and M and everything. I do think we really need to also focus on our African-American students. >> That's what we're bringing more. >> I know that's not what this is about, but you know, when we get to that point, I'm going to continue to advocate for that, too. So, um, but yeah, thank you so much. This is and the work and the like going back to the community. I know that wasn't part of the plan always, but um thank you for doing that. It looks awesome. >> Thank you. >> I just have one quick question. So, we we were talking about, you know, the parent, student, and do we have like numbers of how many people we kind of reached or kind of came to these feedback sessions and stuff? >> Uh for the community input session or all of the groups that we were talking about? >> I think just everything. Yeah, >> just everything. Um so the core planning group was a group of 15 to 20 um and we um met with them six or seven times. They toured they helped with the diagram in general. So that was a great cross representation of Page and um whether you're a community member, parents, a lot of people wear multiple hats which was really cool. Um and then the users again I think we have two rounds. Those groups range anywhere from probably six to 15 people and I think there was a list of about 15 of them. We met twice. um 15. We're at a well over like people touched throughout the process or connected to is well into the you know hundreds to like we did a thought exchange um in the spring I think it was of 2024 and then we when we decided that was before we decided on the rebuild um and then we um shared once again an opportunity but we had 249 participants on that um and 97 dots 2 was, you know, reacting to other people's thoughts. So, um, and that was shared prior to >> You said 2,000 reactions. >> Yeah. >> Okay. And once it opens, I I think our feedback will go through the roof, >> you know, because, you know, once you actually get to be in a space and interact with the space, you know, we'll make sure that we have just like we do in all of our programming, whether it's participation surveys, different things, what did you experience? There's I mean, even when you go to like the Minnesota Historical Society and you can put your you can bullet on little things. They have interact there's interactive things in all sorts of community spaces that you can ask for input as you open it up because we're going to want that input right away cuz although I do think the primarily these features will be there. I think we're feeling good about the programming that we're recommending, but I'll also be we're 100% open to what people will share with us once they experience the space, right? Even Tanya is like, you know, whether it was for real or a joke to say, "What about the gala?" Well, I don't know. That's what people are going to do when they walk in the space. >> I can I can we can figure out a gala here. >> If everyone puts in $100 donation to start, I'll explore it >> to the foundation. Thanks for clarifying. >> But thank you for your input. We we you know I I know I can speak for the whole team. I'm This is pretty exciting there. You know, there's not a for me I I I'm dreaming about the day we get to do the opening. I really am. You know, I've been here 15 years. This is pretty cool. This is this is this will be a crown jewel in that Z. It just will. >> Then you have the new community center. >> Yeah. And teen and then the teen center opening. This is really cool you guys for the community to have these two things kind of serendipitously. They they're happening kind of coinciding with one another. It's really cool. it it's pretty pretty awesome that we all get to be a part of the team that's going to make this happen, right? We're going to get to say we're part of the team that did it and the community is going to love it. So, I just wanted that's just how I feel about it today. >> So, it's it's really fun to see this and see these drawings. Pretty cool. >> It's awesome. >> Thank you. Thank you all. >> Thank you. Our vision card a group was like >> we're like done for the night >> Starbucks. >> All right. Well, everyone's getting settled. We really literally went and got a bucket of chocolate. I said the board needs chocolate. >> Oh boy. >> I know. >> These are my guilty. >> All right. So, we'll go ahead and get started our next group. And um so I'll have Dr. uh Brian Bass um introduce your presenters on monitoring report a force. >> Thank you Dr. How. Good evening uh Vice Chair Brooks, Chair Prince, members of the board, cabinet, and community members. Uh it is it is exciting to bring the final vision card forward from the 2425 school year um to you this evening. Um our outcomes uh for this evening is to learn about and discuss the data measures for the high priority initiatives for strategic direction A and explore the enhanced alignment between strategic priorities system strategies and the measures that show implementation fidelity and impact. So I'll say that one more time. So the alignment between the strategic directions, priorities that that you all have helped us set, what the strategies are that we've invested in as a system and the measures the metrics that show our implementation fidelity. So what adults are doing and then the impact that's having on student outcome. So just to walk through that in case you didn't get a chance for the podcast. Um it's quite repetitive in the podcast. Uh so just a reminder, vision cards uh serve as critical data points toward the realization of the mission for our student, staff, and families. Vision cards measure the district's success in achieving our strategic directions. They provide the data to support and assess progress toward our mission and vision. And vision cards set the ongoing district goals for performance and continuous improvement. So, uh, at your, um, seats, you you have the latest hot off the presses, uh, strategic priorities document for 2526. Thank you, Kay, and your team for the graphics and and really getting that magnifier, uh, visible in the graphics. So, thank you so much for, you know, your team's efforts around that. So, let's let's look at this from left to right. So along the left side you'll see uh the mission vision core values that you all have set. Um in the center is the continuous improvement magnifier wrapping around the four strategic directions A through D. Um and so you'll recall in June uh we proposed to reframe strategic direction E as a continuous improvement to have a continuous improvement lens with it that we want to apply to each of the strategic directions. So our mindful critical question for the magnifier is at the bottom of the document. How do our continuous improvement cycles and processes help address and eliminate disparities, inequities, and achievement, which is to move our our mission forward and to show um increased outcomes uh academically. Um along the right side, you'll see the three C's um that you have heard Dr. Hy mention uh quite a bit. Consistency, connection, and coherence. So, just wanted to walk through um that document. So, that will be distributed to all of our learning leaders and you'll and they'll be in buildings uh in the next couple of weeks. At this time, uh I'll hand it over. Um I probably should have started with introduction. I don't know. So, let's let's introduce the dream team here uh from left to right as you're as you're looking at them. Our director of student services, Sunny Burkin. Our director of learning and achievement, Dr. Joe Kind. Our director of educational equity, Dr. Michael Walker. I feel like I'm missing a starting lightning. [Applause] [Music] >> So, I'll hand it off to Dr. Jill kind at this point. >> We were discussing we put our walk out songs. Yeah, order we should go. Uh so good evening everyone. Thanks for having us tonight. Uh this is a just a reminder that this is our system strategy snapshot for strategic direct priority A and this is came out of a partnership with educational resource strategies that works with districts across the country to assess the impact of their system strategies on positive outcomes for students. This visual is strategic direction A. We're going to go into it more throughout the presentation. And this would be strategic direction A but with the continuous improvement magnifier for E2. Again, this is just a reminder. You've seen this a couple of times that what we talk about when we talk about priority. It's the most important focus with any strategic direction. What our expected outcome is? What's the goal? What strategies are we going to use to accomplish this goal? How will we monitor progress along the way? The implementation measure and how will we measure the impact of the prior of the strategies. So let's dig into strategic direction today which is create a safe, welcoming and inclusive learning environments that foster global curiosity, belonging, innovation and achievement. That highle overview of our highest priorities to implement the conditions that respect and value each and every scholars's race, culture and identity. And our expected outcome is to increase students sense of safety, belonging and inclusion. The two strategies highlighted here are tier one social and emotional learning curriculums and PBIS positive behavior intervention supports. One process measure is the tier fidelity inventory and one of our outcome measures is to increase an increase in non-exclusionary disciplinary actions. So looking at priority A1 our strategies we as I mentioned we have our tier one social emotional learning curriculum in elementary that is harmony and at secondary grades 6 through 12 that is character strong. We also have positive behavior intervention supports that each school has in place and our district behavior specialist program are our main strategies for our social emotional learning curriculums. One process measure that's being developed which is why it is in the purple color uh are learning walks. These are non-evaluative walk visits to classrooms to determine what additional learning adults need to implement this curriculum with fidelity. So they're just quick check-ins. uh a process measure for PBIS is tier fidelity inventory which is a survey of schools that schools take to monitor their implementation of PBIS and for our district behavior specialist programs we have quarterly data reviews we have five outcome measures in this priority for an increase in non-exclusionary discipline actions 92% of students maintaining their federal settings we have student stakeholder surveys the scales of belonging help and trusting adult the family stakeholder survey and the equric survey. Going to turn it over to director of student services going to talk about the district behavior specialist program. >> Yes. Good evening everyone. I'm very excited for the opportunity to be here and share with you about our district behavior specialist program. Um specifically because it um has been so successful. uh is something that we really pride ourselves in within our department and uh the work that's been done um to assist students in maintaining their federal setting which is one of the goals we have um within our student services um department as a part of our operational plan. Federal setting refers to the amount of time that students spend in their mainstream or general education classroom. Um the federal goal um for for school districts is that students are spending at least 80% of their time in the general education classroom. And that is true for the vast majority of our students. Um but we also have students that um are spending up to 100% of their time in special education classrooms based on their unique needs. Um we also have students that access services um in other settings such as intermediate district 287 based on their unique needs. So um students across the spectrum um but one thing that we we look at is um where our students are falling across that spectrum and then we create goals around that so that we are um always moving towards having our students in the classroom as much as possible. Not only is this law and it's best practice, research continues to um support that inclusion is beneficial not just for students with disabilities but for all students. Uh so our district behavior specialist program um we employ five teachers um and um for ESPs uh that support students and teams uh when a need arises that is beyond the capacity. um of the of the staff that are in the building. Uh and so we'll get a referral to this team and these specialists will go out and provide um a unique and heightened level of support. This can be support directly to a student um and directly surrounding one specific student or it can be for a program or it can be for a group of staff. Uh this past school year um our our DBS's um provided were called upon 76 times. Um 39 of those were provided to provide direct support to um individual students and the team supporting those students and the other times were to support programs. Um sometimes this is because we have a brand new teacher in a program and they they need some support um to get that program set up and functioning for all students in the space. Um, our goals with our DBS program specifically is that students maintain their federal setting. So, if we're supporting a student that right now is in CLA in their general education classroom about 50% of the time, our goal is that when the support comes in and we provide these wraparound services, um, that that student continues to access their mainstream classroom 50% of the time um, or increases. Um, and that is a a lofty goal considering we're typically called in when we're kind of at a level of um of crisis of high need. Um, and I'm very pleased to share that due to the um skills of these staff um and the the structure of this program that 88% of students last year that received support from DBS uh from a DBS maintained their federal setting. they did not need to be further removed from the class in order to gain skills. They were able to gain those skills in their um right where they were uh and which is which is a goal of ours um but this program um has been meeting and why we continue to um invest in it. I do want to highlight one change that we made this past school year um we added a general education DBS. So, previously we had been only servicing students that were on IEPs. We used um some of our cease funding or coordinated early intervention funding um to add a general education DBS this past school year uh which was very successful. Uh they were able to work with students in um prior to them needing or receiving any special education services um and either um delay the need for an evaluation because we were able to make um interventions successful um or prevent the need for an evaluation altogether um or if an evaluation was needed. Um it was really starting off with a lot of great data to minimize the level of service a student needed within special education. So um a great investment that will continue into next school year. Um yeah. So Ryan said I get to talk about inclusion and I was like you're going to have to hold me back. Um but yes, thank you for the opportunity to share that. >> Can I just like so I'm I mean I'm not obviously in the school dayto day but I mean so what does that look like though? Like so if somebody is like a student is what's happening that you would what would trigger that calling this team? >> Yeah. So there's a few a few different and this isn't a a crisis response team and like that you know there's one particular incident and then we are coming in as the crisis response team. It's more so that a student is demonstrating either new behaviors that we haven't previously seen um and we can't as a school team um with the resources that we have on site figure out how to why that's happening and how to stop it or um it's an level of um intensity that we'd like it to stop right away. Um so those things trigger a referral. The DBS usually comes in and does some observations and then they're um going to make recommendations around staff professional development if there need to be changes to that students um IEP or behavior support plan. Uh and then general accommodations. Um so I was looking through some of our referrals to prepare for this and I I found a few good examples, but um we had a student that was trying to leave the elementary building um um student with autism and was non-verbal. Um, and so every day just they were just trying to go home. Um, not a safe walk. Um, and so the team was struggling with how do we keep this kid in the building safely? Like we're we're very concerned. Um, and so DB DBS came in, did observations, and was able to um make recommendations of accommodations that weren't already in the plan. So they put um large visual stop signs on all the exit doors and did some teaching around that with the student. And they also came up with common language that not just the um small team working with that student knew, but every staff in the building was taught. If you see this student um moving quickly in the hallways without an adult, this is what you say every single time. Um, and those two things really worked for that student and the team that, you know, the case manager, this was one of their 17 students and so they're doing everything they can and sometimes we need a little more. >> Yeah. >> Is that helpful? >> That's very helpful. Thank you. Yeah. Yeah. Thank you very much. >> And now Amy Talson will come talk about non-exclusionary discipline practices. >> Yes, we heard. Uh, thank you for having this evening. um we heard as one of our outcome measures is to increase in non-exclusionary discipline measures. And so before I get into what that really means in terms of language from state statute, I just want to revisit the last time that we were here talking about school safety with our four wonderful principles um sharing information because really all of the things that they were talking about were really referencing what is under the umbrella of non-exclusionary discipline practices. all the ways they're trying to provide different levels of support and kind of the unique needs of each of those scholars when they become more regregulated. So where that really comes from is one our belief that if students are in the classrooms that's where they're learning and that's where then academic achievement improves and they also benefit from social emotional learning. So that also comes from in 2023 there was um change in state statute language. So it gave us direction in two different ways. This particular um slide speaks to the information around K through three and that's where it gave us direction that we are unable to suspend students in K through three. So that simply means that we are not able to uh suspend a student for a full day um and send them home for a full day. If there is a student that comes to school and um is having a really tough morning and they're maybe exhibiting some really challenging behaviors and the uh administrator determines that they just really need a almost like a timeout, they certainly can call the family and ask them to come and pick up because that's a day or less. So that we get an administrative dismissal. That is allowed. But what we can't do is then tell the family you are not able to have the student come back the next day per our direction because that would be a full day suspension. So that's what that looks like for K through three. So then if you can recall um principal Gibbs and um principal branch really speaking to all those different ways they were giving examples and supporting scholars. Um those are kind of what fall under that umbrella of non-exclusionary discipline. um it's only used as a very absolute last resort. I think last year as a result of some incidences maybe we had two or three students at the elementary level because of the very serious nature of what happened or severity of it that that um was a response. And really we're trying to um follow those three supports of really partnering with family and offering and providing community supports. could be that we have a written safety plan in place um and leveraging you know our collaborative teamwork and thinking about are there other supports um and partnering especially if a student receives services along the lines of what Sunny just spoke to are there different ways we need to leverage um services or through due process or again different things that Sunny referenced and supports. So that's our that is specifically what the statute speaks to in K through three. The statute also speaks to K through 12, which these are all the general um supports that you heard really reflected in action from our principles last uh meeting. So I'm not going to read through all of them. I'll just let you take a minute because we really did speak to these more in depth. So I don't think I need to repeat through all of those. and then just um cites the actual um statute if you'd like to revisit that. Go ahead. And then this is the last piece just to really emphasize what that looks like. We kind of outline the three different areas around K through three. Um these are the different ways that if we say we're working with families, what does that look like? It could be a parent conference. It can be a phone call. It could be in collaboration with parents coming up with um like a behavior support plan. Uh when we're talking about writing those plans, it could be a learning plan. It could be that the student is removed during the school day for um a part of the instructional period of time to help try to teach some of those behaviors and self-regulation. Um and then referring to needed services. Again, we spoke to a lot of those, but those are um pieces that that we're really trying to leverage all those different aspects around supporting our scholars in K through three when again suspension is not allowed. So, um, our principles do amazing job of being really creative and working really hard with their teams to be responsive. And that just really specifies when we're speaking to this metric around non-exclusionary discipline that gives you a better understanding of what we mean when we're using that language. >> So, now we're going to dig into some data. Can >> I ask a question? >> Oh, absolutely. Um, when it comes to expulsion, like when like when is last time we've ever expelled? >> Not since I've been here. >> Yeah. And so like what when you say it's like the last resort that is like everything else is totally exhaust because doesn't that would have to go to the board to >> Okay. You do it, Kelsey. >> Yeah. >> I don't want I don't want to do that. >> No, but um Yeah. Yeah, I just >> Well, I guess my question is cuz in kindergarten this I we have kids like from four to almost seven, right? Is there a conversation about hey maybe you know is your child ready for kindergarten? Do we red do we red shirt or something like that? Is there those kinds of conversations with the parents and stuff? So, >> as a parent, we've red shirted a couple. So, >> so those are conversation. I would have to get more information for you because when I'm supporting principles or being responsive, you know, they're already in school and that decision has already been made. So, I would need to have someone else speak to those conversations. [Music] There wouldn't I don't think though is one is part of your question. I don't I don't there's not any process like for instance where we would say a prekare wouldn't go to kindergarten. Do you know what I mean? Is that part of what you're asking? Like do you ever consider if someone's ready for kindergarten? I'm trying to understand what you're asking a little bit. >> Yeah. Yeah. Because is it that's not really an expulsion but it's a conversation still with the parents and the caregivers. >> Yeah. Yeah. >> The general philosophy is that it's not a child's job to be ready for school. It's our job to be ready to receive the child. >> Preach girl. >> Sorry. >> All right. Let's dig into some data. So, the first measure we're going to look at is our equin survey. It's a climate equity review uh that includes three scales: diversity, equity, and inclusion. It's a survey that we engage in each year with an outside agency and we're there are nine scales, so groups of questions and today we're going to look at just three of them. In 2025, uh a total of 1,097 staff members completed a survey for a response rate of 34%. Which doesn't sound great, but it actually is pretty good. Uh to each question, staff responded on a scale of 1 to 10. A response of 9 to 10 is strongly agree and a response of seven to eight indicates they agree. Anything less than that is not included in this data. So this is just agree or strongly agree to the each of these questions. Overall in each year of the survey uh inclusion had the highest rate of agreement at 72% for the last administration. The two statements with the highest level of agreement are my organization actively promotes diversity within the organization at 78.6%. And in my organization, people are included regardless of background or experience at 76.4%. Additionally, this year, every question within these three segments of the climate equity review saw an increase in agreement. The next piece of data we're going to look at is the student student stakeholder survey, which has been administered to most students in grades 3 through 12 since 2015. This indicator has three scales: belonging, help, and trusting adult. The table includes the percent positive students responding yes always or mostly less mostly yes for each question on the scale. In the spring of 2024, a new survey scale was developed uh which so we couldn't compare to previous years. Accordingly, a new baseline and new performance levels were established for vision card A. This table survey questions and scales and use for spring 2024 and 2025 along with the percent positive. uh the highest is uh increase between these two administrations is that I feel respected at school from 68% in 2024 to 72% in 2025. We're going to go a little deeper now and look at just the student belong sense of belonging questions and this first graph graph represents dis the scale disagregated by race and ethnicity. Uh the gray line is the average for this year's administration. The green dotted line is the average for over six years. All groups are at or above the green line for the 2025 administration which represents the six-year average. Asian sorry Asian, black, and Hispanic and multi-racial students reported a greater sense of belonging in 2025 than in 2024. And all students are above the district average. This graph identifies students who receive free and reduced price meals, multilingual services, special education services, and female and male students, and how they responded to the sense of belonging questions. No student group in this data set reported a decrease in their sense of belonging in 20 2024. All student groups are above the gray line, which means they are above the district average. Lastly, in the sense of belonging data set, uh this is data disagregated by elementary, middle school, and high school. Students at each level are above the green line, and all groups report an increase in presenting from 2024. The next set of data focuses on the extent to which students feel they have support they need to be successful in school. For the health scale, there was less variability between student groups, which means students report similar levels of access and health. And all student groups are at or above the district average. White and multi-racial students responded more positively in 2025 across all groups. This graph identifies students who received special education services, multilingual services, free reduced price meals, and male and females. All student groups saw an increase and each student group is above the gray line with male and females above the average of the green of the six-year average of the green line. Again, this graph shows the data is segregated by elementary school, middle school, and high school. Students in each level reported an increase in having access to the supports they need, and middle school has surpassed the six-year average. Moving on to another scale within the student survey is trusting adult. Uh for the scale of trusting adult, black students in 2025 reported higher levels of having a trusting adult than in previous years and were still below the district average. All other student groups were above the district average. Looking at students who received free and reduced price males, multilingual services, special education students, and male and female, all student groups met the grrey line and females reported higher than the six-year average of feeling they have a trusted adult at school. And lastly, looking at this data by elementary, middle school, and high school. Students in middle school and high school both reported increases in having a trusting adult while elementary remain stable. The three levels are above the district average. And you can see that middle school is super close to meeting the six-year average. And as I think about the DPACK presentation from May and the concerns around middle school, this is really a positive thing for our middle schoolers. >> The last metric for this indicator is the family stakeholder survey. Safe, welcome, inclusive learning environment scale. So we're just focusing on that one scale from the family stakeholder survey, which was last administered in the spring of 2024. It's an every other year survey. There are eight questions on this scale which you can see on the screen. The first set of data will look at disagregated by race and ethnicity with the except exception of Hispanic families which saw a decrease in positive responses to having a safe, welcoming and inclusive learning environment. All groups saw an increase. Most notable are American Indian families reported a a more feeling more safe, welcoming and inclusive learning environment. The next graph represents students who receive free and reduced price meals, EL or multi and multilingual services, special education services, females and males. All families reported more positive experiences with all groups above the district average, the grade line. And this last graph depicts the same types of questions with responses by laws. In this survey, we ask about early childhood as well. Elementary, middle school, and high school families responded more positively than they did in 2021, 2022, the previous administration. Middle school is still significantly below the other two. With that, I'm going to turn it over to Dr. Bass. >> So, as we did with the other vision card uh presentations, we wanted to allow time for you all to um have time to process um and to provide us with uh any questions, thoughts um that you have. Um, and we offered these two questions to um to stimulate the conversation. Um, we previously scaffolded this as giving you all some individual time, you know, 3 to 5 minutes to to jot down your thoughts to look at some of the the the graphs to see what stood out to you. Did we, as this first question, do the measures clearly communicate our progress? Um, are we are we being transparent about the things you want us to be transparent about? Um, and then what do you feel could strengthen uh our our community connection? Meaning what other pieces of information would the community be interested in us making more transparent, more visible? Is that is that helpful? Um, in terms of Okay. So, let me be quiet. You all like are ready to go. All right. So, we'll put the timer on five minutes and we'll come back in five minutes and then we can stay in large group or if you want to have small group person come to large group, we can decide it at that point. You want to stay in large group or you want to go >> small groups first? >> Small group. >> Small group. >> You want to go three and three? >> Take another five minutes to talk through. Okay. Is that the timer? >> Or you can see where you're at. We can figure out where you're at. Whatever. Well, and it's always >> All right. So, this is our first of the two pauses. We just have a few more slides uh in the E magnifier realm after this and then we have one more pause. But um we we want to we we definitely want to hear your thoughts about um the alignment, the measures we've selected. So I don't know who wants to jump in first um to share. That would be great. We'll take notes here. >> You guys can go. So we um did have some obviously the middle school piece >> but we know we're working on that >> and um really intrigued to see how AVID is going to impact that in the next one. Um can I say one thing with the middle one of the things we talked about doesn't really have anything to do I don't think like necessary with this but I um you know some of our middle schools are really starting to do like kind of like PTO versions of like you know and I wonder cuz you know you have all these parents super involved and engage at the elementary school right and like with teachers and princ they know everything then you go to middle school and you don't as much you know but like I wonder with like BMS and I know Maple Grove Middle you know they've just over the last couple years started these like PTO osed to like get more engagement and like kind of more of that sense of belonging for families which I think just then kind of bleeds into their kids. So I'm like wondering if that if at some point there's some correlation there as those programs strengthen because they try to do a lot of community you know the dance and the you know the middle school stuff to kind of build and I've seen that more and more the last few years since I have so many kids in our district. Can you speak to uh the goals for uh the goal the big goal for around family engagement from from our department? >> Yeah. >> Yeah. So >> I think that relates exactly what >> it definitely does. Uh so one of our things we're as our operational plan is we are focusing on how do we be more connected to families and community partners. And so for our department, we have an overarching goal for the Department of Education because each area is having a smart goal that is connected to that of what they're going to actually do to try to better support or connect and partner with our families. To your to your point, we know that as students get older, um parents participation starts to decrease a little bit except for around like events, >> right? >> So they're there for like sported events and band events and those sorts of things and plays. they will show up for those, but sometimes around like parent teacher conferences, you start to see that decrease. Uh, and so we're trying to figure out what can we do differently to keep that level up or do we have to change our way of thinking of saying what does engage look like at this level for this age group? Because it may be we need to engage differently with our families. Uh, and I'll just speak from my own personal life. Um, you know, it's six kids growing up. >> So, as I got in high school, my mom, I ain't coming to those parents anymore. I got to go to the younger siblings who are in third, fourth, fifth grade. And so that starts to parents start to try to make have to make decisions. So depending on what their family structure is, that could also be an impact. You're doing okay. We make sure I get these ones that are younger off started and boosted into the system and understand. >> Yeah. I mean, I love that cuz I think that that could be something we look at too, like as you kind of build that like how, you know, what does that look like with the or the survey around belonging or you know, all these questions that we're asking. Uh from a data standpoint, we talked about that it's heavily reliant on perception. Um and there's not objective um data. Uh we do have stop it, the racial harm protocol. Um you know, what about data around bullying reports? Um like what what are the referral types? And now what we did connect that to is the question of up and out to the board and community. So right now, what controls the community narrative about our is it's are there fights? Are there bullying? Like that's the community narrative. So what type of measures should we have in place to provide clarity about our schools that counteracts a narrative that's out there. So providing some more objective facts might be helpful so that um we're having the right um external perspective of our what's happening in our schools. We we had uh quite a heated conversation around the the role of discipline data and what story is disciplined data telling us and is it is it saying um here's the thing we don't want right because board has talked about like so how do we present things in terms of what we stand for versus what we what we're against right so so so this was our this was like well let's toss this out here and see um but if you all feel that like there needs to be greater transparency of those pieces, but what's the what's the story? >> Go ahead. No, >> what's the what's the story that that data tells at any given in any given year? >> Well, and we did talk about what might be external consumption versus internal consumption as well. >> Um, but that you know it we have to identify a problem to solve the problem. So, we shouldn't be afraid of >> data. Um, but to your point, we we should have the balance of like how are we promoting what's working, but having some facing some reality as to maybe things that are more difficult or challenging. >> And I do think it would lend a lot of um give the school district a lot of credit in parents eyes and in community stakeholders to say, you know, we deal with these solid facts and this is what we're working with and this is why we implement these measures and this is how we handle them. cuz the stories that the principles told last week were really compelling. >> Um I think if that was tied to those hard data points, it would bridge the gap for a lot of parents cuz they don't speak in education. >> That's what we talked about too. It's like almost like humanizing the data like the data is solid and then like how do you like your like story, right? Like that example like I'm just kind of like okay what does that actually in practice mean or look like? And when you told me it clicked, I'm like, "Oh, okay." You know, and I think that like that humanizing that piece will really help with just what you said. >> Yeah. I think I was thinking the same thing where it'd be great if you could have like some kind of not executive summary, but just some kind of like here's the here's the awesome points, you know, within the data. Here's the things we're aware of that are issues still that we're working on. Um because this is this is just a lot and it's a but it's awesome but you kind of have to dig through >> to find the right. >> Yeah. Yeah. >> Okay. >> There is some reality though to the consideration if we have data available in our district that other districts don't publish. >> That's a whole different narrative too. But I'm just trying to think through like where do narratives come from and how do we present facts um so that those narratives that may be false are not dominating the story about our district. That's the thought process. >> Well, and you feel like you what the squeaky wheel gets the grease or whatever that saying is. So it might seem like there's a perceived notion that there's a lot of issues in our district. Is that the situation? And I think it's like cloak and dagger. We don't really know. Um so even knowing at a board level what that would be would be really helpful as a board member um as I engage with people and the decisions we make. I think we do know I think it's a matter of what's operational data um that um maybe we monitor versus what's vision card or what's publicly consumed data and what's the right threading of the needle especially if other districts aren't publishing certain data points. Okay, >> super helpful. >> Uh if aren't any other points, uh we are going to pause again. So if there's >> I think we just had a question about wondering if in any other in the other vision cards is there something around attendance because we were just saying that >> um >> you know when you look at like a like discipline what however you're talking about it I mean if if our kids aren't showing up to school >> there's already like a lack of sense of belonging right like you're miss school for a week and then you come back and then it's like I'm here, you know, and then depending like depending on the school, right? Like it it pro, you know, it just depends like um does that then equate to issues around behavior or kind of that lack of engagement? And so like how does that does is that data considered in this piece? >> So attendance is not part of any vision card, but uh I remember we talked about it when we talked about vision card with achievement as well. So I think that's something that we can talk about as we think about monitoring and uh or implementation data and >> Brian, could you just remind me again what is the percentage of students that participated like of our total students in the survey? >> Do we have that number? >> That's a good question. >> I can I can get it after the presentation. It's just in another document. >> Okay. I think that'd be helpful. And the staff I think you gave the staff survey though, right? Could you put those in again? >> Yeah. >> Yeah. >> Just the total number. >> Thank you. >> Okay. >> All right. Good evening. Um so you all have seen this the continuous improvement magnifier and just remind us of our two questions. what the effective procedures are creating disparities, barriers and inequities and then how do our continuous improvement cycles help us eliminate those disparities and inequities. And so when we look at these questions on the slide, um it really helps us keep equity at the center of our improvement work. And so that's what we want to make sure that we're doing and and this push is to not only like identify what isn't working, but it's to transform those practices into systems that produce equitable outcomes, right? So we want to make sure that we're producing equitable outcomes. And that's how we use this magnify in this regard. So this next slide shows what our priority is. So apply evidence from multiple data sources to uh to drive rigorous system improvement. And then we have a couple strategies. One strategy is the um implementation of the equity transformation cycle. And the other one is around site department leadership and coaching. And so uh you can flip to the next one. So we talk about the um the equity transformation cycle. You all have seen this a couple times. And really what we want to emphasize here is just this is about the listening, the uncovering, right? The reimagining and then actually moving into action. Um I I'll just say like earlier tonight you heard Brian talk about them using this format. They may not have called it the equity transformation cycle when we talked about going to the uh VPA VPK um interviews like that was going to listening to the community, hearing what they had to say and then saying, "Okay, so how do I take this back?" because once I was listening, I was able to uncover some things and now I can reimagine how we're going to use this space. Right? And now the next part is we got to move to action. >> Right. >> Right. And so that's part of some of the work that we have to do around this. And so we want our building leaders to really embed this in all of their systems within their sites. Right. Obviously right now we're really focusing on the equity teams that uh they will have. So each school will have standalone equity team that they're using this with around their equity challenge. But hopefully as we continue this process, they'll start to implement this in other ways so that this becomes a strategy that we use all the time that it's not just with a quote unquote equity challenge, right? Just like what you uh you shared tonight. Um and and the other piece I I just really want to make sure that you know these strategies are are just not aligned. But also the um we really want to reduce the inequities in this. And so if we really want to reduce the inequities in this, we have to be willing to really stop and slow down and listen a little bit. And and I I think you all heard me say this maybe last month or a couple months ago. Sometimes the listening is the hardest part, right? Because we may not want to hear what the students or the families have to say to us, right? And sometimes I I'll just speak to myself here. You know, when people say stuff, we make facial expressions and all those things and that will shut sometimes shut people down of giving us their real true uncut raw insight. And we actually need that insight. So the listening part to me becomes the really hard part. And then another um area that we can really grow in is the reimagining. You know, I as we were doing this with data digs with um building leaders and their teams, I asked like how many of us have been in education for so long, right? I've been in education for 20 plus years. Well, if I've been in education for that long, I'm conditioned a certain way around education. So, it may be tough for me to reimagine what is possible, right? Which is why it's important for us to listen to those voices that don't typically have the opportunity to share their perspective so we can say, "Oh, let me see that a little bit differently." Right? And then we all know about the movie, there's going to be a whole lot of barriers and obstacles in the way to move things. We got laws. We got just traditions and those sorts of things. So this is just really about how do we continue to practice this? And so uh the second strategy that we have on there, let me go back to back page. Yeah. The second strategy we have on here is really around coaching and and coaching leaders is really like important to me and and the way I say this is that um this when we do like big professional developments I like to get people's like throat wet and get like interested in the idea but in order to see real change we have to do some individual coaching and so this work around uh departments and and site leadership coaching for for us is really saying how do we fill up alongside our building leaders, our department leaders to be that thought partner with them along their journey around this equity transformation cycle. How are we posing those questions? How are we helping them put this work into action? Because if we don't then it just becomes the regular cycle, right? Uh the other thing is that we all have blind spots and so uh typically we do we you know we talk about being self-reflective and we always wonder like I should be reflecting on myself and what I'm doing and how I'm doing this. Well, if I got blind spots, I can be reflected, but I can still be perpetuating the same issues that I've always done because I don't have that other visual, right? Someone to help me see what my blind spots are. And this is where that coaching comes into play at, right? So now, how do we have people that can pull up alongside you to help you see some of those blind spots that you may have so we can do things differently for the students and families that we're trying to serve? Does that make sense of of what I'm saying? Okay. Want to make sure that that's making sense. Um, and so the measures that we're using, we're doing like equity team charters, monthly equity, uh, team agendas, percentage of site participation in E team seminars and that sort of thing. And I want to slow us down u around. So we brought in Shane uh, Seafir and Joe Truss to really come in and work with our leaders around this. Uh, and the reason why it's important to work with our leaders, I'm going to be be a counselor for a quick second. You know, I've been there all the time. That's my favorite job I've ever had in school is being a counselor. Um, but you all hear about mirror neurons, right? Are you all familiar with mirror neurons? Many of us do it without even being aware of it. So, sometimes we have people that are heightened and then we like calm our voice down. We kind of like sit down and do these things to help the person either calm or get into a space where we can have a conversation or dialogue. Right? So, that's just one way to describe it. But, we want our leaders to have these mirror neurons too. So their stack can see them being equity leaders. And so our work is really focusing on the leadership in those buildings to help them develop their skill set so they can per so that can permeate throughout their building based on their actions based on their modeling of this uh this process. And so when we think about like I said equity team charters well that is the why of what we're doing. And so as we're building these equity teams, how do we keep that at the center of what we're doing and who we are recruiting to be on these equity teams within our schools, right? The monthly equity team agendas, you know, obviously this is a way for us to again measure to make sure that they're having these meetings, make sure they're staying connected and what those topics are. And then um percentage of the sites participating in E seminars. So throughout the school year we'll have um three well we have four sessions but one is a review session for folks who are new to the equity team and then we have three sessions that they'll come through throughout the year that we will have Shane and Joe for two of those sessions and then the third or last session will be them kind of giving a report out around how have they completed this equity transformation cycle. And so that's going to be kind of our way of documenting seeing where we're at, where we're going, how do we get there. The last thing um kind of before I close and I'm not I'm going to read this because I want to make sure I hit on some specific uh points is like I want to acknowledge something that's really important and that this type of work is not always easy to measure with traditional quantitative outcomes. Let me say that one more time. This work is not always easy to measure with traditional quantitative outcomes. Progress in this work often shows up as relationships. It shows up in the difference and feeling of the culture and in ways that students and families experience school before it will ever show up in like test or graduation rates. Right? So I I want to be really clear on that. Um so I I don't want us to have unrealist expectations on what we're trying to accomplish here. I I'll I'll tell a story, not a necessary story. There's a video that people may have seen that goes around about this guy trying to ride a backwards bike. Have you all seen this video? >> So, basically, when I turn the steering wheel left, it'll go right. The tire will go right. If I turn right, it'll go left. Right? And so, he talks about his uh his trials and tribulations of trying to learn how to ride this backwards bike. And he practiced every single day for 10, 20, 30 minutes. And it took him eight and a half months to learn how to ride this backwards bike, right? So now he had to unlearn how he learned how to ride a traditional bike when he was 6 years old or 5 years old or whatever. So it took him eight and a half months to unlearn that and to learn this new thing. Then maybe like four months later, I think he done rode this bike. He put into this uh like Tik Tok or something like, "Hey, somebody meet me here." I think he was in Amsterdam, the capital of the world or whatever. Hey, meet me here. I want you to see me record me to ride the regular bike down. So, he got up there and he couldn't ride this regular bike. He couldn't ride it. He was falling off. He couldn't do it. But at some point around 20 minutes or so, it clicked and he was able to ride this regular bike. Right? And so, the reason why I share that story or or I want to explain that is that when we are trying to unlearn something, it takes us longer to unlearn it, right? or learn this new strategy which is the backwards bite. And so now I got to be very intentional about that, right? But I can slip right back into my old ways in less than 20 minutes. >> So we think about this journey and the reason why I'm saying that we may not see the outcomes right away connected to test and and and graduation rates is because this is a journey for people. This is why the coaching is really important. This is why the coaching is imperative so that they have somebody alongside them that can help them continue to stay in that tough difficult spot to unlearn some of these things that have been embedded in our society have embedded in us that we all have to work on, right? We all have these biases. And so I just want to be clear like that's what we're really attempting to do. And so some of the data points that you may be looking for initially may not show up that way, right? Um so I just want to be be be really clear on that. Um, anything else I want to add to that? >> I thought you were talking about the read act there for read. >> So, so again, I just want to say that in short, this work is >> Let me let me I think I think uh chair Prince, you talked about um when we're talking about continuous improvement, you have leading indicators and you have lagging indicators. And I think um Dr. Walker's point here is that as we're really trying to um as as you you spoke eloquently to in the example, we're trying to pull up alongside and help leaders grow their capacity to see the things that they haven't been conditioned to see in their role and in our system. And so that's going to take some time, right? Um before that that automaticity and that proficiency appears. So I just I appreciate that. >> Absolutely. >> So that's pretty much I mean I'll just end it there. Yeah, you closed up perfectly. Anything else? >> Dr. Pass, I have a quick question. >> Sure. >> Is there was there feedback It's been a while. Was there feedback from the board >> that led to this measure being developed? >> Where is this coming from? >> Uh the percentage of site documentation and evaluation of the equity transformation cycle. >> Like how did this become a measure is what I'm trying to figure out. So as uh okay so that so the task force as we look at um each of the strategic directions and then the priorities that we identified we looked at strategies that would align to that priority in that strategic direction and then from that point we're like okay so what measures do we have what adult moves would we want to see that would show that that strategy is being implemented with fidelity right so that's how the process measures are selected and the outcome measure would be okay so what's the impact that we want to have. Now, um this I would say this is probably a leading indicator and not a lagging indicator. meaning meaning that um the more reps and confidence they have in completing uh the the ETC and then receiving feedback on their uh on their execution of the ETC, the more that they're going to start building confidence and interrupting some of the patterns in their in their achievement data that they want to get curious about. So, for example, 279 online noticed in their achievement data last year that ML scholars, multilingual scholars um were struggling a bit and so they invited the SDS's in from the ML department to work with their staff on elevation practices, asked them to submit lesson plans that reflected that they were integrating these uh ML uh instructional strategies and then looking at the impact of that. So they cho so so so they're they're using the ETC to identify a specific challenge in their building and then they're going about interrupting it. So again this is some of these pieces are hard to make visible all the things that are happening along the way but um having documentation of that cycle will be super helpful for us. >> Is that does that get at it? >> Mhm. >> Okay. >> Thank you. I think we can stay in large group unless you all want to take uh time to individual time. I mean I know we're over like 20 minutes. >> You want to stay in large if there's any thoughts or questions? >> All right. >> Can I just ask a question Dr. Walker? You're talking about the coaching on strategies in like individual who in the district like who are you talking about is doing that coaching? >> Yeah. So our department so department of education we have coordinators who pull up alongside each one of the leaders. So we have well we have two now we have one position open but they are split up. So one has secondary and then the two ele or two have elementary split up in half. And so they have eight sites or nine sites that they're working with those specific leaders to pull alongside in that journey, in that process, which again takes building a relationship with, right? Because I can't just come in and like I don't tell you where blind spots end up. >> Probably not going to work too well, right? >> So it's going to take a little bit of time for them to build some relational uh capacity, relational capital with that leader to even get to that level of uh vulnerability with each other. So that's going to take some time. That's why I want to be very transparent is that this is not like a easy you can just flip this switch and you know get these numbers. No, it's going to take some time because folks are not >> traditionally used to being vulnerable around that. And this is where what we're asking them to do. And so we got to be very mindful about how we're building that relationship, how we're building those conditions that this is coaching. This is not me pointing a finger at you. This is about how we all looking at the mirror and saying, "How is Michael Walker showing up today in my how is this impacting students? Is it positive? Is it negative? If it's negative, what the heck am I going to do differently to make sure that it's not negative and that it's positive, right? So, we all are holding the mirror up to ourselves. Again, it's not pointing the finger setting that mirror up to ourselves. >> The other the other part you talked about was um so the very things that we're asking principles to facilitate in their buildings are coordinators right within your within your team are are actually engaging in these same cycles. Yes. >> Right. So that their their expertise is emerging like alongside um the leaders that they're working with. And then they also um have reached out to you and you you've led some professional development for some of the department >> sites partnership for departments and school sites. So yeah, it's it's it's a work in progress, but uh we're moving in the right direction. And so yeah, that's the goal. >> So the data conversation just um I think for me has me thinking I just kind of googling what is the old adage of how much positive has to offset a negative. To your point about thinking about positive measures and what's public facing, what's board facing, what's internal management. just has me thinking about some of the data and how we review this kind of at a point in time and we end up asking a lot of questions about especially when it gets to the end of the year and we're like well these aren't the numbers that we wanted to see often and they're going the right direction but um I'm just wondering if we should be thinking about kind of how are we um maybe as a board having various monitoring reports during the course of the year so it's not like we get to the end and we're and it all comes at once. Um, so that's just one thing that's kind of surfacing and and I'm just maybe thinking of all the discussion we had tonight maybe to takes take take this in but also I think we have to be careful about what we publish publicly um because there's one thing that can be perceived as transparency but is actually creating a false narrative. So I want to be mindful of that through all of kind of the data reflection back and um maybe we just need to have some more conversation about what are the type of metrics we need as a board on what frequency to kind of stay along tracking with kind of what's taking place so it's not at the end of the year we're like digging into it and asking a bunch of questions that maybe could be answered by having something throughout the year. >> Yeah, I I agree with that. I think specifically reflecting on this last strategy um and the outcome measures I like I love hearing about your work Dr. Walker. Um I definitely want more of that information. Um fill in like like this one feels heavily operational. Um like it doesn't need to be like at a vision card level. Um, I think what's missing for me, um, like it's nice to know like the number of coaching hours or the percentage of documentation, like those things are great, but like what comes from that I think is what's missing. Like what are we evaluating? Um, I think that needs to be the outcome measure and I feel like we're not quite there yet. Um, so that's just where my mind is right now and just figuring out if like this is the right place for us to receive this information or can this just be a report from you at any given time or um an update in a work session or whatever that looks like. But um yeah, I mean happy to hear about it. Thank you for all of your work. Um but just yeah, focus in on the measures and what the vision card actually looks like. But I guess I'd like push back a little bit on that because at least for me it helps me ground kind of like the underbelly of how we get to these outcomes that we're looking for. So I think it helps me understand like there is significant um investment in our building leaders to ensure that they are able to meet the vision that we have in these cards to say like this is the the heart of what we're trying to do and like and and to kind of build that up. So I like really find value in it. Um, I do agree. Like I think that like since I've been back on the board again, I think like these vision cards become they're even they're more digestible than they've ever been. And I think that has triggered us to be like okay so like what out of these cards do will be helpful if it's like a quarterly like even emailed to us to say this is like the progress. I think as a board we need to decide though like >> we don't want to like put all this work on everyone either. So, we have to like I think like hone in on like what actually you know we would want to be able to like post about or say like hey look you're like for public consumption and I think that's like that's why this I think these are really good conversations we do breakouts and like you guys have allow us the opportunity to ask questions because I think it does get kind of even my real turning of like what it like what data like this is so good to have and then and then like what's kind of the snapshot data that would be really good they have a little bit more often that probably could come as an email to us to say like >> I don't know what I don't know why I don't even like know what it would be but um but yeah I agree like it would it's instead of having it like all at once it'd be it would be kind of nice to have some things like throughout the year but >> and I do your I think you're probably experiencing us process and the pendulum of >> um we want to know what you're doing and then you tell us what you're doing like well you don't need to know all that. I feel like kind of but that's why I do like the card that has the this ties together the priority to the outcome to the strategies because that's saying what you're doing >> and then we've got the process measures about how is that work coming along and then what's the outcome. So I do like the the layout of this page for sure. Um but I I think you're just you're always you know we're digesting this and discussing so you're watching us process >> and this is our our first experience right um articulating this for you >> and so when we think about the magnifier right for each of the four strategic directions what's the continuous improvement process that we're trying to tap into and and like as a lever adjust so that we can stimulate some growth in each of those four strategic directions, right? So for each of those cards, so as so um vice chair Brooks, when you were asking that question, I was like, "Oh, right." Like, so we didn't explain that well. So So how do we how do we understand it? The magnifier is trying to really amp amplify what is the process that we're going like we're digging into to interrupt that pattern that we're seeing happening in our data, right? And so we've got to coach leaders, right, on how they're using their data dig data to identify a challenge that they or a subgroup that they want to focus in on and work with to to drive stronger and better results. Like this is what we're what we're trying to do. So we are making visible some things that we wouldn't typically make visible, but we're showing you how we're trying to interrupt those patterns through the magnifier >> if that if that makes sense. >> Yeah. >> Okay. >> And I like when we had some Oh, sorry. Wasn't I interrupted? >> No. Okay. I like um pre previously when we've had some example of some outcomes from these continuous improvement cycles. So even hearing some of those wins during the year of kind of the aha we took this action is just like highlight real just >> well I think even we heard the principal speak you know I mean like I think we all were like oh my gosh like that like obviously had I mean those are building leaders that have gone on this journey and like to hear how they are in practice what that looks like in their building like yeah I get on the floor and I play with a kindergartener like half of my day like I mean you know I mean that's like that's pretty like that's a big you know, like I don't know if people know that, you know, and I think that that was probably one of the highlights that I've even my duration on the board, like to just really hear that from our leaders in a in a setting like that. >> Okay, so our next steps I wanted I was going straight to Thank you. Um, and we're done. Uh we'll continue to collect uh input and develop uh the new process uh and outcome measures. Uh uh part of what uh will be uh shared later is uh we will be engaging students in listening sessions to um we've received feedback from you all around man some of these scales some of these items seem antiquated or like the way that they're written feel old. Um and so we're going to engage students in the process of helping us um with uh the student stakeholder being revised. Um we've got uh the we're going to continue to complete the system strategy snapshot for all of the the strategies uh that are happening around strategic direction A and then of course we're integrating your feedback um for further refinement. So thank you. >> Thank you. Thank you all for coming. Thank you. >> All right. While you guys have shifted, we're going to jump into the one-year schoolboard calendar. And I just wanted to bring to your attention because I know you can read by yourself, but originally in um November, December, January, we're going to be working with our scholars, our board uh reps on um standardbased grading. And so we're going to shift that. So, we're going to be having our students uh Amy T helps guide their work. Um they're going to have an internal session with Amy Moore and Amy T learn about our some of our 500 PL policies, get that input. Then they'll come to the work session on 129 and discuss the 500 policies with you all and get input and go back and forth. And then at the board meeting on December 16th, they'll do a presentation about meeting with the board and discussions they had around the 500 policies. So what changed was um is a standardsbased grading. So the more we started thinking about it that we wanted to have those discussions. It's just that um as we peel the onion, this may be a need to be a longer action research study. So we won't be able to go, okay, that's it. We're done. No, that's we need a lot of input on that. So, in January, uh, the standardsbased grading practices is that we're actually going to teach the board what that is, share with the board what it is, what's the history of it, what's there, we'll have some questions where we can go back and forth, and then the students during that month, we'll be working with Amy T and probably Dr. K learning more about standardsbased grading. they'll come to the board meeting uh excuse me the work session in February on uh to talk to you all about thoughts on standardsbased grading then they'll share it at the board but I just want to let you know this is something that's going to have to go further so this is something that standardsbased grading we're going to have to get input from administration we're going to have to get input from teachers we're going to have to get input from parents so you know we started where we but you know once you start to dig in this is a big thing if all of a sudden we're going to change >> I'm not saying we're saying we're going change but we really need to have a thorough study >> of is it the why the impact and yet we still want to move forward with it. So that's the part I just wanted to share on that. >> So okay I love it. >> I'm excited for student the student. >> All right. Um meeting >> no no no resolution. >> Oh okay. >> Okay. So I sent the board an email. Um MSBA has changed how they um uh take in resolutions to the MSBA platform. So I'm talking about MSBA platform, not our legislative platform. In the past, any board member could submit to MSBA a resolution and then it would be voted on by the delegate assembly. Um so that change is creating some disruptions across boards because it has the perception that we all have to agree on this resolution item for it to go to MSBA. Um we vary year by year on if we have resolutions, if there's interest in resolutions. Um but if there um is a desire by any board member to submit a resolution for the MSBA platform, we'll have to vote on it at our next um board meeting in order for it to be an application to MSBA. So um let me know so that we can add it to the agenda. I mentioned one resolution um that's focused on um encouraging the legislature not to have uh significant legislation of mandates or cutting funding or things that are cost burdensome passed in May for implementation in July that there's um some language about um giving us the time to react to that. So that looked like a good one to we might want to consider. So I'm um considering bringing that one to our board in order to submit. My thinking is that um because this is a transition year, I don't think I think that I would want I think my personal view is we should have as maximum opportunity for board members to pass through our board to MSBA. Um so that that's my mindset I guess going into this that if we were to pass resolutions to continue on to MSBA, it's supporting that board member participating in the process, not necessarily saying this is for our legislative platform or we all have to agree. That's that's my thinking on the approach on it. Um I don't know if anybody else has a resolution that they want to bring, but I think we should with again with this transition year, it's like kind of hot off the press. I would not want to impede board members opportunity to participate at MSBA. But but does that mean then that we're I feel like if we pass it like if something I hear what you're the spirit of what you're saying but like if we as a board pass something >> and what if like I don't particularly agree with it. >> Yeah. >> But I I hear what you're saying but then doesn't that mean like as a board we are endorsing that if you >> It depends on how we do it. We can approve that board member's submission to MSBA. Um, I think we language not in a >> and I don't know if anybody has resolution. So maybe it's a matter of we see if anybody has something. >> Um, yeah, cuz I see your point and that's what's causing division on some boards where it's like, well, I don't agree with that so I don't want to pass it. >> Yeah, cuz it's like is it are you by >> Yeah. >> approving it, are you saying that AIO school board then we're like here, you know, we're a big muscle so we're like here we go. Yeah. Question. >> One school district I saw, they actually they didn't have their own resolution. They actually had the MSBA submission form >> and they voted on that submission form um to approve it to go to MSBA. So, it was not like really for their district. It was for the application or the submission. >> Um but maybe it's a matter of see what interest there even is and maybe it's a non-issue for us. >> Yeah, I don't know. I was asking >> Okay. Well, let me know because we'd have to vote on it by next board meeting. So, if we can maybe within a week from today, >> let me know if you have something that you would like to bring to the board meeting so we can have it on the agenda. >> And that way we can also make sure everybody sees it before. >> Okay. >> Okay. Now, I'm done. >> All right. Now, meeting 8:30.