[Music] I'm David law superintendent of schools and this is Ohio Minnetonka a podcast featuring all the incredible things happening in the Minnetonka School District I invite you to join me through this series of podcasts to meet all of the people that play a role in Maine King Minnetonka school history such a special place together we'll learn the stories and talk through the ways we all work together to pursue excellence in the ways we live lead and learn today in our first episode I have three special people with me our school board chair our director of communications and an alumni and I'm going to invite them to introduce themselves hello I'm Lisa Wagner and I am the school board chair and have been on the board for 16 years I'm also the proud parent of two Minnetonka graduates from 2016 and 2019 including one who was in the first class that graduated from the Spanish Immersion program I've also been involved actively in the district since 2001 and have had the pleasure of volunteering all the way from Early Childhood through Adult Community Ed thanks for letting me be here today hello everyone my name is Matthew wadman I'm an alumni at Minnetonka schools I graduated in 2022 and I was also in the Explorers Club pre-kindergarten and I was also an intern in the district and worked for the communications team as well as some on some of the administrative teams at the high school level I'm Jackie Getty I'm the executive director of communications I lead the team of communications professionals here at Minnetonka schools I've been here six years storytelling is one of the biggest things that we do on our team and we tell it in so many different ways and it's really exciting to be able to now have a podcast as an additional way for us to tell the amazing stories of what our students and staff are up to it was just over a year ago that I accepted the offer to become minnetonka's next superintendent and it's been quite a journey during that time since that time I've had the chance to visit our school sites meet our students our staff our community members parents local elected leaders and see every facet of our facility from our incredible Community Education Program through our robust Elementary Middle School and High School opportunities our post-high school opportunities for our students at our sale program and our community education programs that are top tier Tour de Tonka the mud run different events that happen throughout the year to keep our community engaged we're hoping to Showcase those events throughout this podcast I invite each of you to be part of this maiden voyage of Ahoy Minnetonka and learn a little bit more about our district things you maybe haven't heard before Wagner is our current board chair and our longest running board chair our board member excuse me I'd love to have you begin with what you have learned along the way in board leadership some of the programs that you've seen built over time some of the things you're excited about during your time serving on the board thanks um so it's been really a great time in Minnetonka in the last you know decade and a half I guess it's been that I've been on the board we've been able to introduce a lot of really wonderful programs that meet each child where they're at so we've been able to create all kinds of different Pathways and opportunities from bringing the language immersion program all the way through to 12th grade to us expanding uh thing into things like Vantage and momentum for all of our different types of high school learners science research we've had extensive work in the Arts and done a lot to expand our facilities for the Arts we've also done a lot of facilities work in general built buildings and now at this point added classrooms and really looked at how Learners have evolved so that we can make sure that we're being relevant to today's Learners looking in our spaces so they could be more collaborative and allow our kids to work together and interact with the iPads we spend a lot of time looking carefully at which was the right device to bring in a one-to-one program and really thinking about how it would impact The Learning Experience not just something that would be a to be a device to use but something that would be truly an accelerator for learning um I think we've also done a lot of work in our financial area that sometimes gets overlooked but we've been fortunate not to have to cut Budget on the entire time I've been on the board and that makes it a lot easier as a board member to think you know forward and to look you know use your vision to see where we might be able to go it's incredible to think of a district that's funded at about the 50th percentile across the state and yet hasn't made a budget cut in over a decade it's a a strong statement to the strength of the board and the supportive Community because that is that's really unheard of to have such a long run of financial stability Minnetonka really is a district of innovation that continues to innovate and reinvent itself and to constantly renew its excellence and the range of programming offered to our students Matthew you've been out of the high school for just a year do you have some lessons that you've learned leaving the high school going to St Thomas thinking back about your high school experience uh some reflection maybe for community members that that haven't made that transition what have you learned absolutely I should start by saying I participated in the Vantage program uh which is minnetonka's a professional academic studies it really is an immersive program that kind of tags off of experiential learning and involves students in a lot of real world stuff and so I participated in that junior year as well as senior year Global business was my attract Junior and then senior year in business analytics and that was has truly been something that's really helped me transition into college and really given me a head start a part of some of my peers at College I've noticed the program so I guess I would just say Vantage has been a big thing that had helped me in high school transitioning into college and that's something that I've noticed for sure that students without that experience um are just don't have as much of a head start which has been really good I've also noticed that students at Minnetonka have a lot of buy-in I feel like too the learning that occurs in our district there's so many individualized opportunities for students you know there's momentum Vantage we talk about all those things and I think that really enables students to take ownership of what they're learning in school a lot earlier which when you move into college that's typically a good thing because then you're kind of already you have that experience of like you know I'm here to learn this you know whatever and you're able to just take more ownership of that and be more involved and be more invested so I think that's definitely another thing and then I guess I would say those two things to start thank you that's great just for the audience we will probably do a whole podcast on experiential learning that talks about Vantage and momentum because people will hear those words a lot from our students as the strength of the program but we can we need to spend some more time on that you've we've talked a lot about the stories of students and staff during your time here and our Communications Department floods our community with information about what's happening because an informed Community is a supportive community tell me about some of your favorite stories during your time here that you'd like to share thinking about what I might talk about during the podcast and just thinking back I've been here six years right and um honestly I could look back three weeks and come up with three fantastic stories who you know that I would think are these are among my favorites and it's like that almost every month there's just so many things to talk about that are happening in Minnetonka so here are a few recent there are students at mme that in a class created solar suitcases they learned how to build these and they're sent to Uganda so that families and a school can be powered by these so they they light up areas of that I mean incredible that kids are building this in middle school and then it's helping a community the two of you I know have traveled to Guatemala on separate trips with rotary and we wrote a article about superintendent Law's trip to Guatemala to build a school there are so many service projects that are done and they're passion projects by staff or passion projects by students and then they become something the interact Club a group of high school students partnering with rotary created a food shelf in the high school and a few weeks ago raised 600 pounds of food to stock that food shelf and now they're looking at even more ways to get the word out to the community so that families that have food insecurity know that there's a resource here and that's something that's really being provided by students and they're very passionate about it so while there are so many academic opportunities here and something for everyone as Matthew said there also are so many ways that we can Empower students to really serve the greater good and they have that drive and desire it's sort of a big part of of the experience of being a student here and also being a staff member and being able to be involved with it several of us are mentors in the Vantage program and really have those amazing experiences and get to hear from students firsthand about their stories and so some of my favorite stories are ones we haven't told yet you know the ones we hear from my fellow colleagues who have Vantage mentors men T's and who talk about what is happening in their students life so it's amazing and we have an incredible Communications team through video through social media through the print Publications through the awesome events that we get to do superintendent law and I have been at a bunch of different recognitions this last few weeks yesterday we sat down and said okay let's just run through the day for tomorrow there's going to be Service Awards here and then we're going to go and you know and do teacher appreciation we're going to hand cookies out classroom to classroom and I mean there's always something to celebrate in this district and so that's been a really incredible part of of this world too and next week is our celebration of excellence and we get to honor a whole bunch of teachers and community volunteers and staff and that's always one of my favorites it's funny you know people talk about my first year in Minnetonka and one of the the things that have experienced and I have had the privilege to work in five different school districts during my career and people say well what's different in Minnetonka and what what the magic is if I could capture it is the community's supportiveness of innovation you know I I think back to uh bringing immersion into the district and you know reallocating staff and training staff and bringing up A New Concept for the district and for Chinese and Spanish Immersion there's a lot of districts that can't get off that ground and stay with that because you need constant Community Support not detractors and um what I think the Magic in Minnetonka is that the willingness of the community to say wow you've done some great things for our kids we've seen it pay off what's the next thing and so as we bring on a New Concept like Aviation that will likely be another podcast as we bring on a New Concept people are eager for the change not questioning the change every step of the way I think that's something that I've learned over my last year and something that in public education so many times people are arguing to put the way you know they they say don't have it like it was 50 years ago but don't change anything that isn't the motto in Minnetonka um I you know I would highlight two stories that I think are are pretty incredible to me that are irrelevant and one of them is you know really touches in this room I've had the chance to meet with our Communications team and if you've ever been at Minnetonka High School you'll know that our Communications person who works here Andy who's in the room today um takes on a flock of students to help do Communications and and I learned that one of our graduates who was a mentee of Andy's went into Communications and bumped into Andy and with his parents at a local store and found out that that person has a pretty amazing job in Communications and there was a national conference on Communications in Las Vegas and Andy went with that student out there separately but connected and follow that or help that student navigate that first time conference as a young adult and ended up helping that person secure some amazing opportunities so it speaks to the connections we make in this building and the lasting connections you hear that a lot from students about the lasting connections they make and the other one was at a board meeting a few weeks ago or maybe even months ago about some special programs called best buddies helping some students with some unique challenges feel connected at school and very heartfelt pair of students at the school board talking about a girl who can't verbally communicate very easily and her friend at school that sought her out all the time and a very a very emotional story at the board and then I had the chance to go to that school for a different reason I was walking through and who first who greets me in the classroom but this exuberant young female student who was I don't know if she remembered me but she was thrilled to see me and her friend right there wasn't just a short the board meeting was what was real in school and those are that's a lot of pride in our system those examples of of life-changing experiences so one of the things that as I transition to superintendency I I work with the school board on is uh you know the vision where are we going what are our aspirations for what every student will experience and within that document that the board worked on are you know relevant experiences for students that you're going to hear about throughout these podcasts every student feeling connected every student feeling valued in our system strong communication and and connections within the community and driving for excellence not meaning that we'll have the top student in the state but this district has has defined Excellence as every student deserves an excellent experience and striving to meet Excellence for every student and so I I have come to appreciate that that's a commitment from the school board and from our employees just in my short time here um I think if we talk about the goals for the year uh chair Wagner do you want to talk about you know the the three areas of goals that we're really focusing on for this school year and probably next year's too sure so we we've really spent a lot of time taking that vision and talking about the importance of excellence in a lot of different areas and the vision actually chunks it out and everything from facilities to finances to community our goals this year we've we've spent time talking about excellence in student learning and looking at the important ways to focus on that the second one is excellence in well-being connection and belonging so making sure everybody has that that place and feels connected and feels valued and seen and then excellence in organization and Leadership you know how can we be as a board excellent how can we as a district be excellent how can we do the things to make sure that we we provide an excellent experience for our staff that we provide a very diverse group of staff and that we put all of our best put forward for our Learners at all levels and you know all Sites all abilities so that we're really delivering a product and I think there's also um a lot of the the values and the assumptions that are listed in those goals which is a change that we made this year to make sure that it was really clear to everybody about what the foundation was and how we were getting there and I think that that's important you can't assume that people know right I mean many of our parents are parents with with less than five years in our system and so we want to make sure to continue to educate them about all of the great things that we have in that vision and that we're not you know resting on our Laurels that we need to continue to evolve Matthew as you as you think back on your experience and the concepts about excellence in programming excellence in connection are there some memories you have that you think well that exemplifies that experience for me I would definitely go back to like I talked about before Vantage and I've heard I have friends that went through other programming like momentum and and just immersion and other things but I think that Minnetonka does a great job of you know inspiring excellence in those programs but really like in all all aspects of every school as well I'll talk about the high school especially and just does a great job of ensuring that students are supported as the whole student instead of just you know with their academics like I think we talk about in traditional schooling which is evolving um so I would say Minnetonka does a great job of that and then the other thing that I would comment on there is with college prep or you know just post-secondary planning and just ensuring that students have the tools that they need to make their decisions post high school and in many different areas or you know whatever that might might look like for them I think the district does a very good job of ensuring that that um that has hit well and that students are prepared for what's After High School Dr Yeti you've been telling stories for a handful of years about programming and about excellence and programming is there something that jumps to mind about a story you told where as you were new coming from post-secondary that you were shocked that Minnetonka offers I will say that the first week I was here it hit me full in the face I came from higher ed and we used to wonder why we didn't get more students from Minnetonka it's good school but I worked at and why wouldn't we and I learned about our Minnetonka research here collaborative research and at the school I was at which was really Advanced when it came to collaborative research we offered it for juniors and seniors in college and the case studies that our students are doing in Vantage are things that our MBA students were doing their final semester and I thought well that's why we don't have more students they're getting such amazing experiences in college or in high school that kids in college aren't even getting until their later years we had a student this morning in a listening session that talked about how in going to college visits and learning about things that there were a lot of things that were happening at MHS that she said oh well they're being offered at the college level and for a lot of kids that's going to be new we get those in high school and so for me that was a big learning lesson coming in here that there are just so many options and and such Advanced learning options for students to really be able to dig into things one of the really neat things that I got to be a part of probably the second year I was here was the high school had heard repeatedly that there were students that really wished that we had more in the trades really didn't want to have to leave if they wanted to do Automotive to go spend half a day somewhere else could we offer more in the trades and so the high school leadership partnered with Communications and we did a focus group on kind of a branding exercise to talk about um what we offered in Tech education and we talked with the students not only about from the high school perspective what curriculum they could offer what programming they could offer but also what would this be called and why and so the students you know we kind of narrowed it down to Minnetonka trades or momentum and the students in this focus group were talking a lot about automotive and they were talking about all the things that they wish we could broaden out in the trades and one student said it very clearly to principal Erickson if you're just going to add a class here or there and kind of beef up what we already have just call it Minnetonka trades because that's what it's going to be but if you're going to do something that really takes us to a new place call it momentum and Jeff said we're doing momentum you know and it really has become that it's not only building out the automotive Wing right it's also building out the programming and talking about really infusing those academics so it's physics of home renovation it isn't just home renovation and now doing this whole Aviation strand so being a part of it from the very beginning where the students really had the voice to say this is what we want and then the high school leadership said well let's do it and then the community got behind it and the school board got behind it and the superintendent got behind it and we're moving forward that to me is really exciting and being even just a little part of that for our team that's fantastic and that makes this kind of work so worth it that segues into a a concept I have about Innovation and this board takes pride in innovation uh Lisa do you remember a time where the board overtly said Innovation is a priority because it clearly is it's written in our goals for the next few years is there a backstory behind that and and how did we get to where we are well we spent a lot of time um as as a board talking about how can we continue to grow and learn and um we really honestly found it challenging as we try to look to you know where would where would the the inspiration for that come from like and so we we looked we had a really robust strategic planning process that had been in place in the district for a while and that involved a lot of community members and we and a lot of students and we heard a lot of different voices and we thought well how can we leverage that with doing more right I mean we don't want we who can we learn from where can we learn where can we go and we started talking with a lot of of different um Business Leaders you know not outside of education and came up with some ideas of of really rebranding how we did Innovation and looking to encourage staff to submit ideas and we went down a a path of using a system that allowed for input from various staff members kind of a crowdsourcing sort of document that had not been used in education before and brought that in and you know started the big idea hunt and the hunt for Big Ideas and we really as a board talked a lot about how that was important in taking us you know and continuing us to evolve right we wanted to make sure that it was intentional and that there was growth there it lives well today as we just had a presentation on our board last week about Innovation and how we do how do we tackle some of the current challenges in public education Gathering Innovation from within our system in our community I I want to as we wrap up I want to talk a little bit about the importance of gathering voice and I'll ask each of you from your perspective Matthew is you're a student here were there examples where the school asked for input and you could tell hey it matters what students are thinking I would say absolutely I think there's deliberate um programming and involvements that you can get involved in there's like principals advisory council at the high school level Innovation teams other activities as well but I think there's just this kind of General feel and vibe that the students kind of are really involved in what goes on I think compared to what I hear from you know some of my peers in college about you know how the administrators run the school and just determine how things are I think Minnetonka one thing that's unique about it is that students are really involved in a lot of the conversations and the change and The Innovation that you talk about that happens here and I think looking at how that prepares you for college is somebody that's in college I think that's a really beneficial thing because it gives students the tools to ask really important questions about you know things that go on in classes or in organizations and you know is this something that we can change or is this something that benefits our students so I definitely agree I think student voice is huge and I think it's really important in Minnetonka as well and I think even you know like there's the whole the school as a whole but as you like get into more of these programs and such um I think those are really where the student voice and your opportunity to make personal change uh really kind of exists thank you uh Dr Getty Jackie you your department manages a lot of ways for the community to provide feedback do you want to just cover some of those ways that that we gather community and put to steer our work absolutely one of the one of them is coming up so we have an annual parent survey that we put out to all of our parents and families and ask for them to tell us what the experience has been like for their family and for their students and We Gather that we present that to the school board in August that's a really important one because it does help you and helps the school board to think about the goals think about where we're at what are we doing well what do we need to improve on there are a lot of different ways to get involved as Matthew said there are a lot of committees for parents to be a part of I'm Reviving The Parenting with purpose committee over covid it wasn't active and so now we're rebuilding a lot of the parents their students are ready to graduate and so it's a time to rebuild so I'll be putting out Communications about how parents can get involved with that but there are so many volunteer opportunities there are other things to to be a part of Tonka Pride does their sales three times a year there are ptos and ptas that are always looking for volunteers for students we're always looking for student voice and so whether we're working on stories or coming up with or finding new interns we're always looking to the students it's it's such an important thing and then just all the ways that we get to interact with everyone with the school board with the superintendent with our leadership across it's been fun to be a part as our team of part of the other committees we have our creative director on the Innovation committee to add that lens as well and I think that all of the leaders across the district do a great job principals executive staff of inviting parents and students and other staff teachers especially into different committees and and different ideas to give their input that input is critical chair Wagner we've had the benefit of some unique opportunities just in the last few weeks but this is clearly a board that has a history of bringing Community input what are some of the things that the public might not know that the board does to gather voice so we've that's been something that's really been important the whole time I've been on the board we've spent a lot of time as board members we're assigned to different committees and so we get to go and interact with those different committees at the district level to hear what the parents and the staff members that are involved in the Committees are doing and and ask them questions have them have a chance to have a relationship with us we also do a lot of different types of listening sessions so unfortunately during covid that was difficult to do but we've been able to start Reviving those I'm going to the ptos and ptas and presenting to them about our goals and getting questions from them um you know having student listening sessions which we've done at all the levels uh even you know elementary schools we'll get back to that that was pre-covered we were able to do that I think another really important one is that recently as part of the search to find you I was the chair of that search committee and one of the things that we did is we had over 40 different input groups that we asked questions of and got feedback from about what they were looking for in a leader and what they hoped our next superintendent would be and the qualities that they hoped that person would bring to the district and so you learn a lot about what people are thinking through what they value in a leader yeah I I think as we're wrapping up this first podcast it's a teaser for what we think is the Excellence within the system both from a student an alumni standpoint someone who works within the system who's been telling the story someone who's lived through this story for over a decade and someone who's new to this system uh We've teased a little bit about some of the stories that are coming up hopefully you've heard some things that you can't wait to hear about like Vantage or momentum or or research or our sale program or our best buddies program or different ways that we work on inclusion and belonging academic Excellence or innovation thank you all for being here uh Matthew thanks for coming back from college and good luck in your next few weeks Dr Getty thanks for uh kicking this off and for telling the story really doing a great job telling the story and chair Wagner one thanks for doing all that work you did a year ago and then thanks for giving me this opportunity that was great but thank you for your leadership during some really tough times across our country as we challenge you know the community wanted to be part of the things happening with their children and you navigated that that was those were tough and we're hopefully moving forward talking about the amazing things that we'll be doing in our schools again so thank you all for being here and Ahoy Minnetonka foreign [Music]