uh call the meeting to order we do have a quorum here uh thank everybody for waiting for us we were at a work session and so kind of ran a little bit late tonight but we're ready to roll Rick can you uh walk us through the agenda please certainly can I remind the board um that we did have a work session on the 29th of uh February which time we did uh some discussion around our budget and finance plans as well as received a leadership update uh and then earlier this evening uh we began at 5:00 and we took an over of our construction plans especially as it relates to the furniture that we're proposing to bring forward we also discussed some policies talked a little bit about our education Partnerships that we have and then did a little bit of a leadership update uh for tonight's meeting the board will act on its minutes we also will recognize Our Boys Alpine ski team as state champions we'll have any hearing from the audience from there we'll move to the consent agenda that time board members we will have a couple consent agenda items to pull off the consent agenda and we'll talk about that at the time of the the uh action a variety of items again there our report and discussion we'll do the monthly leadership update uh we'll also talk about the plans for the 201617 general fund budget alignment we've been talking about that since January we'll take a look at the proposed curriculum reading program materials that the team has been studying be looking at board meeting dates starting for 16117 that begins July 1 and then we'll look at some policies our action items again we'll be looking at some budget as relates to integration budget we'll also be doing some work on our reof our roofs this summer and so we're approving some bids there we'll be taking action on our guiding change document related to grading and Reporting uh some work on the World Language C proficiency we've got potential agreement with the athletic boosters that we might begin asking the board to table that until we get some final details worked out and then finally policy and that will take us through the board agenda for tonight thank you very much the uh first item is the minutes we have the February 22nd regular meeting we have the February 22nd 2016 work session and the February 29th work session can I get a motion please so moved second second uh any questions or discussion all in favor say I I any opposed motion passed next on our item is recognition so i' ask May the finsand and the boys team to come forward back again oh yeah so it's been uh a little bit light on the snow but it didn't make make a difference as far as your team goes uh with the season coach why don't you tell us just a little bit about how the season went for the team yeah so like you just said the without the snow in the beginning of the Season it kind of we had like maybe three weeks we could have been in snow and we actually were in the school cafeteria doing dry land um but I think the biggest thing was that these guys have been you know ski racing for so many years that even though you know we didn't were in on snow U we were doing all these other things that were helping us um you know making us stronger so that when we did get on Gates we were the best that we can be um I mean these guys showed up at every single practice not only my practice but then went after my practice and went to a club practice so every day after school they're going and skiing for Plus hours um and on top of that then going and skiing out west on on most weekends so um I'm not really surprised with the way that the things turned out this year but really excited about it okay let's go down the ladder and we'll just uh name a grade level and if you're graduating as a senior you've got plans for next year already figured out um my name is sa linquist I'm a sophomore uh my name is Daniel brunker and I'm a junior I'm Andrew shyman and I'm a sophomore Chris Richley and I'm a sophomore I'm Jack Keenan and I'm a junior this could be a repeat you're just telling me coach that's what I'm kind of thinking Jack talk a little bit about the the season so what is this passion that drives you guys so hard that you're willing to just keep giving of that time and the love that you have for the event um we just all have a lot of fun doing it so we want to keep training so that we can do better and keep having fun and so what does that mean once the season now the season's over is the season ever over for you guys what's the training going once the snow starts melting um most of us go out to Oregon or Spitzer land during the summer and train what's team mean because it's a pretty lonely sport if it's not about team how do how do you guys build team what are some of those activities um we do a lot of team building exercises at dry land and stuff to get to know each other because really when we get to competition like your team is really important you rely on them a lot to have a successful race so how about talking a little bit about dry land what is that dry land experience how do you stay motivated to give your best in in that effort uh during Dryland we do a lot of exercise to strengthen our legs and core which is what we use most in skiing and I stay motivated because I just know it's going to help me ski faster okay let's talk about the the state tournament how do how are you feeling about it were you nervous going into it who was your top competition when was the feeling like yep we've got this in the big uh well we all had a feeling in the beginning that we were going to win because we were all confident in our abilities and uh we were going up some up against some pretty hard uh teams but you know we we knew as you know as soon as we all finished all of our runs coach how does the interest of this sport grow I mean you know we keep hearing about this global warning or we don't have the snow that we once had and yet we've got kids with this High degree of Interest something that comes from you and from the leadership of from the families everything can you talk a little bit to that um yeah sure so I mean for me the interest stems from the fact that I was in their shoes you know not many years ago um and so I kind of know what they're going through day in and day out the injuries they have um what they deal with you know in the classroom um like I mentioned earlier they're traveling a lot and that's something that a lot of other students don't uh deal with um but I mean gosh I hope that global warming doesn't affect this sport I don't think so um because for me it's I mean it's fun I mean you know being able to watch some people that I used to ski with now you know gunning to get to the Olympics and I see it in these guys eyes I see it in you know some of the other kids eyes and on my team you know wanting to be the best and they have that you know opportunity to do that like even in the midwest here so that's really um really special even at a you know smaller school like a dino well team congratulations on the state championship and enjoy the summer and we look forward to seeing you come back again next year we've got a picture time right here congratulations like thank you [Applause] next on the agenda is hearing from members of the audience we do encourage people to speak from the audience um the process is to submit a request before the meeting we do have one request today each rep each uh speeching speak should be limited to three minutes we ask that youd not speak about people individually that if you have an individual complaint about a person you bring it to either the board or the superintendent we typically do not have board discussion but someone will get back to you so today's speaker is M Hackett come on up grab a microphone yep that's what you got to do make sure it's on have a seat sounds like it's on um I sent you all a email on Thursday um and I printed out articles that I attached if you sorry if you didn't get a chance to read it already or if you want to read it later um so I was just going to read from that email um and I did mention somebody's name in it but I will just mention a person that I spoke with um so it reads hello my name is clover hacket and I am a parent to two children at conquered Elementary fourth and second graders I also have a younger child who will be in kindergarten fall of 17 I wanted to contact you because I'm very concerned about the new artificial fields that are being put in this summer at the community center South View in ad High it is my understanding that EPS will approve bids on an infill type very soon I have been in touch with somebody at facilities for din of public schools regarding this issue as I have discussed with him there have been countless articles published about health and safety concerns with crumb rubber info which is currently the most popular choice for artificial turf there are different types of in F available one of which I included in your packet um for the same application which seemed to be safer in case of accidental ingestion by children as well as safer in terms of environmental concerns the person I spoke with at EPS was nice enough to talk through the issue with me initially however he did not want to commit to the idea that crumb rubber would not be used and as of two weeks ago he is not now not returning any of my correspondents this is a huge concern for me and other Adina parents and I feel that in a community full of educated intelligent and thoughtful midwesterners we should be operating on the precautionary principle we should not be ripping out huge amounts of natural grass fields and replacing them with a substance that has not yet been proven to be safe for our children to play on I recently been in touch with parents in motanka and due to Rising concern over this issue they will be converting all of their playgrounds and Fields that contain crumb rubber to a safer alternative this summer in Southwest Minneapolis there has also been a successful change.org petition that is slated to do the same President Obama has just convened a task force of the CDC EPA and cpsc to study the toxicity of Crum Rubber and the Minnesota state legislature has also just allocated $50,000 in their budget to St study the issue as well I also know that the city of Los Angeles cities of Los Angeles New York City and city of Santa Monica where I just moved from are all looking to transition their field and playgrounds away from crb and rubber I would hope that at Din of public schools would follow suit however because I cannot get a straight answer from this person that I spoke to I'm concerned that EPS may be looking more to bottom line than safety concerns these studies that are being convened right now will most likely bear conclusive evidence that crumb rubber is Toxic by the end of the year I urge you to find a different solution to replacing these fields either keep them grass or use them more environmentally friendly infill please do not approve a bid for crumb rubber our children and Community deserve better and I said I will be attending the school board on March 22nd because I wasn't sure of the date but I'm here now so um I'm happy to talk through the issue with any of you if you have further questions thank you very much uh we will follow up I'll make sure that uh whoever isn't returning the calls at least you get a feedback from somebody okay thank you so much thank you very much looks like we have a room full of ninth grade students who want to welcome them to in tonight's meeting it's glad to see faces in the crowd and so does anybody have a question they might want to throw out all right you can save it for later the next item is the consent agenda first are there any requests to remove as opposed to table anything to remove from the consent agenda yes Mr chair I'd like to remove uh two items one would be under um G one the Augustana College of sou Falls agreement we'd like to uh remove that from the agenda or table that I should say wish to table that okay um and then the second would be uh the field trips which is I field trips to civil rights research tour and the Civil Rights research um movento um those two trips we'd like to put that to information we're going to move that to the information as that's not an actionable item okay so i1 and two are moved down to information that's correct that would be under 8D move to 8D okay are there any other requests to table any items yeah the agreement with the dino boosters is the other item we want that's correct we want to table that as well and so can I get a motion to table those two items all in favor any opposed all right those are tabled all right now can I get a motion to approve the consent agenda so move second all in favor any opposed that passes and we are on to reports and discussion okay so if we get the leadership update um popped in want to do a quick update on our construction plans that are evolving um we are looking at continuing to move forward with the Land Transportation uh excuse me purchase the land for the facilities uh transport let me try that again the transportation facilities there we go it's been a long day already here so we're moving mov forward the land purchase for the transportation facility uh within the district um that is working going to the city to take further action but again that we hope to have that finalized yet this spring um tomorrow the bids will be open for our three elementaries Concrete Elementary uh Countryside and uh um Highland Elementary be uh construction projects we'll open those the board will be acting on that in the following week uh we are looking at East Campus Turf and so we will uh continue to address that that um still doing some study with the city on some variants around that and we'll make sure we have the necessary followup on those turf fields that would be here on the East Campus uh it would also be replacing the Coleman turf field uh we boarded her earli tonight a little bit about the new furniture selection process uh we've been doing a thorough study of furniture working very closely with h staff and the students on this project uh as we take a look at updating our furniture to make that align with how our students are learning and the best way to create a positive learning environment um again we're also looking at furniture at our middle school and high school but those will not be purchased so the following year we're also going to be planning on purchase for the uh student Commons area which is being remodeled at the high school and that will be ready for fall 2016 Summer plans for 2016 will be getting information out to the staff as well as to the public in the weeks to come with a detailed plan of how everything's rolling forward and information people will need to know as we continue with this next Generation construction plan it's going to start getting busy here this spring we'll stay busy right through uh 2017 again communication will be our key and so we'll continue to find vehicles to uh make sure people know uh how our progress is being made we're starting to work with the public a little bit more on Public Presentation as well if you go to the website there's some great videos we appreciate the work of the communication department and putting those together so that's kind of the latest with the communic with the construction side they'll be know um strong action tonight on the board from a teaching and learning standpoint um i' ask Randy smle just to step up a little bit we have an action item here a little bit later but maybe Aon if you can give just a quick update on some of the things happening in the teaching and learning Department good evening um teaching learning we are working on a a couple of different things the um we have a guiding change document that we'll be asking the board to approve around the uh grading and assessment work that we'll continue to do to offer personalized learning uh as a little bit of background from February 16th we had all of our staff at the secondary level and at the elementary level talk about personalized learning how they're currently implementing personalized learning uh where they would like to head next with personalized learning and what are some District supports and strategic supports that they need to continue on that Journey we've analyzed all that data and we are working now on a formal plan around how we're going to move personalized learning as a school district uh we have some exciting uh opportunities for students who have World Language proficiencies to do some testing this spring in April and get recognized with a certificate or seal from the state of Minnesota for their World Language competency and that's in our um that's in our agenda this evening and uh we're continuing our work around our gifted and talented study thank you um just a quick leadership update we're in the midst of planning for 201617 on our staff and so Gwen Jackson and her team are uh busy meeting with principales as we shape plans with students or students at the secondary level are going through the registration process so that's helping to shape schedules which will drive our staffing plans and we expect to have that covered over the next couple weeks uh the leadership hiring process we are currently in active searches for the South viw Middle School principal ship as well well as the Highlands Elementary principal ship soon after we'll be looking at the Valley View assistant principal ship uh again uh these are very important positions for our school district going forward and so we're going to be actively involving staff students and parents with this process uh also on a regular basis we do update our crisis and emergency response plan uh earlier this month we did have a the committee got together and reviewed the entire plan from step one to the final step and we did a couple 360 review of uh situations that we've had over the last couple months just again assessing our Readiness and our responsiveness to situations um so that we indeed if something would occur we'd be able to respond we continue to get unbelievable cooperation from the city of VI and their emergency response teams uh on helping us in addressing this this again is not something we just do once a year but it's an ongoing tabletop experiences and practice to make sure that we are ready uh at the site level as well as the district level to respond the last one is uh hopd which is a partnership between the Hopkins school district and the Adina School District continue to have some great partnership growing there in the area of Technology staff development and in our Equity work and so those are three areas that the administration have been working collaborativ on to share um some of our resources back and forth and I think it's a huge win-win for both school districts and we'll continue to uh promote that partnership going forward I'm going to turn it over now to uh Steve Butner who's going to give us an update on some of the work around technology welcome Steve thank you good evening Dr Dron School Board tonight uh it's my privilege to provide a quick update on technology in particular two major initiatives that we'll be undertaking this year or actually we're undertaking but I thought I would share a couple of numbers of just the importance of technology in our ecosystem in 2010 when I arrived we had around 3,000 Windows devices um as of right now we have over 12,857 devices and I'll point out that uh of those iPads that didn't exist in 2011 and Chromebooks that didn't exist in 2012 if you take that and divide that by our staff and our students you'll see that we are more than a onet toone district also we continue to uh consume internet bandwidth so that we can engage and access information anytime anywhere when I started in 2010 our internet pipe was 50 Megs in 2014 we had a little over 350 Megs and today on any given day we are consuming over a gigabit of internet traffic every day you'll also notice that it's made a considerable shift between a wired world and a wireless world most of our devices now are consuming the internet on wireless devices as we all are this evening but it's not just about the devices though I'm incred L proud about what dmts does to be able to ramp up and to continue to provide support in increasingly complex environment it's about how we use those devices instructionally and that framework is e-learning squared e-learning squared again has three major components how do we use digital how do we look at content and apply digital content where appropriate how do we work with our teachers to identify how to use digital content provide professional development and leveraging that and integrating technology in the classroom and also how do we mitigate negative aspects of technology and so there's a major Push by our district our media Specialists on digital citizenship and the proper use of technology and finally it's ensuring that our students where appropriate have access to a digital device that they can use in their instruction I'd like to share with you some of the survey data that we're still compiling but I thought it was pretty promising of the 302 parents that have responded to date 39% strongly that they believe that we should continue e-learning squared and 21% somewhat so that is over 80% in the positive direction what's more important 87% of those responded believe that their child has greater learning opportunities while in school because of e-learning square for our students 88% are satisfied with the device they use and 86 agree 86% agree that having a device device makes them work harder in school and if if how technology has changed 78% positive reading and a 14% negative reading so we're going to continue e-learning squared providing the professional development working with our teachers to convert where appropriate into digital content and use digital tools but we're also going to ensure that our students have access to devices this slide shows our framework of how we provide digital devices in our K through two we have what's called a pick two that allows any grade level each year to pick two uh either a cart of Chromebooks or iPad minis we'll be providing our third grade uh classrooms with a cart of Chromebooks and then we'll be opening up the Best Buy Web Store next fall to our sixth and Ninth Grade families this will be the third year of a three-year phase and after this we will be have implemented our e-learning squared of course we'll continue to modify continue to evaluate it but we feel pretty proud that we're able to move uh Along on three years on e-learning squared as you know the district is implementing a student information system called Infinite Campus and I'm pretty proud of the progress we've had so far but we felt that as we were implementing a student information system we wanted to also look at our instructional tools as well and what type of instructional tools are going to bring us to our vision and Mission in particular we had a couple of goals that are in our technology Vision which is simplifying one point portal for our students and parents to access information about their child's learning to provide a consistent way for our families to access information about their students learning and track progress of our students standards and competencies we're calling this future um e-learning ad dinina apps 2.0 we think it's going to deliver some wins not just for our staff our teachers and our students students but our parents as well in the area of a unified calendar so our parents and our district can have one calendar that brings all the events and the and the events happening in the assignments in a classroom into one calendar that a parent can subscribe to on their phone or access from a web page simplified Communications so our teachers can communicate effectively with our parents and our students through one portal that newsl newsletters and updated websites can be done and again parents can access this one thing we've heard quite a bit from our secondary families is I need access to Moodle to find out where my homework is our tool our LMS systems that we're looking at will provide that access for our parents something we're really excited about is a live grade book not just 6 through 12 but K through 12 that shows our traditional grading as well as our competencies towards standards our plan is to continue to upgrade the sis and we're in the process of evaluating two final products that potentially would replace Moodle that is canvas and schooly both are being used considerably in the Twin Cities schooly is being used quite a bit through that then we would determine and Define the communications and data practices for our staff provide training for them and work with them to Le move migrate data from Moodle into the new LMS we're excited about opening up the portal not just to our staff board members and our students but also to our parents as well so they have one dashboard to access that information and continue to link those systems together through that portal as much as possible and then phase two is working closely with teaching and learning and the assessment research group is to have an analytics engine that reads all that information and creates a portal uh profile for our students those are the two major initiatives the learning management system in sis and e-learning squar that I wanted to provide to you tonight and I answer any questions questions at this time no questions I just think it's um really nice that we're having a that our software is moving towards helping us find personalized learning so particularly with the um live grading you know really provide the opportunity for everyone to know to catch the kids before the report card comes and so I'm I'm hoping that allows more time for really to get parents up to speed so yeah it's our hope that we always call it a engage in a community of part or a partnership for Learning and so that's exactly that is we want to be able to not catch our parents off guard when a child might be uh showing signs of needing some additional help and we think all of our kiddos are going to be successful so how do we help push that information out to our families and allow them to be engaged as well Steve as we move towards these uh new platforms how will you bring along the students who you know are current middle schoolers who are already very familiar with with the platforms that they're using and also their parents who often are a bit more on the dinosaur side of things but that we can come along with them that's a great question we we are working closely with our staff right now on this transition we hope to have a decision point on the LMS by before spring break we'll be bringing that forward to the board if we move forward and then it'll be a Communications plan I'm already engaged with pto's and the and other parent organizations to be communicating with them about this change but then we'll probably will'll be providing training as well and so we're thinking about how get connected days might look differently in the fall so that we can have perhaps training for parents and students and so we'll have our students looking at digital citizenship and the new platform and our parents looking at how they can access the system getting signed up it's also it will be some mailings and so we will probably be mailing usernames and passwords out to parents so that they can get into the portal as well we're really excited about having one portal that serves the whole stakeholder constituent constituency of the district other questions thank you Steve thank you Mary you're next with achievement and integration budget good evening I'm here tonight to present information on the fy17 achievement and integration budget uh later tonight it will come before you as an action item along with the revision of the fy16 achievement and integration budget Edina rece will receive next year approximately $970,000 in initial Revenue we also have a chance to capture 93,000 in incentive Aid and I will talk about that it speaks nicely to the partnership with Hopkins at uh Dr dressen had alluded to earlier of our total million dollars that we receive Approximately 80% or more must go to direct student programming no more than 10% % can go to administrative costs and between administrative costs and professional development you can't spend more than 20% of the budget so if we spend less in admin costs than 10% we can move that into the professional development as long as between those two it doesn't go over 20 20% of the budget at the top you can see with our budget we will spend 83 uh almost 84% of our budget will be on direct student contact all of the all of the parts of this program that we are talking about tonight are part of a three-year plan that was submitted to the school board in March of 2014 that plan will conclude in June of 2017 so this will be the last year of our three-year plan an update of of progress of the plan is given annually when we present information on the world's best Workforce which we did in November so when we look at the programs uh involved in direct student contact Young Scholars Program young scholars is also part of our gifted program it is part of the review that we're presently doing it is offered in all six elementary schools it continues to be a program with the hope of increasing participation in advanced enriched and advanced placement courses for our uh underrepresented students as they move through our system Avid advancement via individual determination is a national program in 48 states 12 countries it's really a push we are trying to get students College and Career ready this coming school year this 16 17 year we'll have our first graduating class of seniors we have presently 18 Juniors all of these students are on track to be um uh postsecondary uh candidates reading intervention these are and and some of these positions are not all full-time FTE for example the reading interven vention is 0.5 at each Middle School this allows our middle schools to give a double dose of reading to students that are uh struggling a little bit in Reading uh part of the reason we allocated to the middle school is a few years ago as we looked at our our Title One allocation and made a determination we really wanted to allocate that at the earliest level with our elementaries and not giving it to uh any secondary schools this was a way we could continue to help in that Guard college possible if actually if you go to our home uh web uh home page today on the website you'll see an article about college possible College possible is a national nonprofit they typically would not pick a school like Edina Public Schools their criteria is really districts that have more than 50% of students that qualify for free and reduced price meals they decided to do a pilot with Edina this year with us giving a small uh a small portion to them uh we started a CO first cohort 22 students they will follow those 22 students through graduation so those students really kind of stay with them for six years we have a coach on staff the high school next year will Ex be expanding to another group of Juniors so we will have two uh two sections of college possible our academic support Specialists and leaon academic support Specialists we've had for the last six or seven or eight years at all three SE secondary schools last year as a result of a English Lang language learner task force we made the recommendation to hire some additional Liaisons some of that budget came out of some of those positions came out of this budget some also came out of the general fund some also came out of title three we found those positions very valuable for our families and students uh Saturday school we continue to operate this year we have our highest numbers we have upwards of 70 to 75 students coming every Saturday uh we have licensed teachers that uh some of our licensed teachers that are involved in it in addition to maybe getting some additional help on math and reading there's also some enrichment parts of the program the transportation budget includes not just transportation for Saturday school when we decided to put this program in four years ago we really felt that it was only going to be successful if all children could get to it but we also provide transportation for some of our students and other seniors on to for college field trips and then finally we have to make an annual contribution to weaps for student programming some of thatu student programming you'll hear about for information tonight is we're sending um approximately 20 plus students on various tours over spring break the second piece is the professional development of which 99.5% of the budget is allocated towards that the first piece again is our contribution to weap so as part of a member of West Metro education partner we need to contribute a certain amount of dollars for the professional development which comes through in cultural collaboratives uh in addition we will continue our work with clrt culturally and linguistic responsive teaching with Dr shiraki Holly this year he has worked with each of our 10 sites with uh at least a minimum of 10 teachers at uh I'm sorry a minimum of six teachers at our elementaries and up to 28 to 30 teachers in our secondary doing a coaching um two coaching sessions on um again how teachers can continue to be culturally and linguistic responsive we are also working on building capacity within our own system so that we will not be dependent on him for too many more years we will also be spending some of our funds on IDI we have uh a team of six of us that are qualified administrators this past year we administered the IDI to one entire School building along with pockets of um staff and some of our other buildings this money will uh allow us to continue to um hire more or to train more qualified administrators and also allow us to give more assessments and finally a small amount for substitutes as we have teachers going out in the classroom working with Dr Holly Etc we are sometimes in need of substitutes and this provides an opportunity for that the administrative cost 35% of the uh of the director of equity and enrollment salary comes out of this budget and 0.17 of a um Administrative Assistant comes out of this which is 6.72% I mentioned the uh incentive Aid which is 93,000 so for us to be eligible for this 93,000 we need to partner with a district that would be considered racially isolated from us Us by you racially isolated it would be a district whose population would be 20% higher with students that are considered in the protected class than an adjoining District so Hopkins population of students in what's considered the protected class is at 44% it's over 20% higher than ours so we can use this 93,000 to partner with them some of the ways we want to do that is and we haven't landed on all of all of the classes and programming but a team of Edina staff is working with a team of Hopkins staff to create student programming uh between the two districts we are also partnering with Hopkins on hiring a clrt coach so a person who will work with both both districts in a partnership that will promote the collaboration between Hopkins and Edina staff in the implementation of the clrt strategies this person would Pro assist with delivery of some help sessions would help with ongoing communication Etc uh so that would uh and that will continue to um evolve as we go forward any questions just want to mention uh for the board's sake the board is acting on the budget later tonight this presentation is part of the requirement is to share it uh Mary thank you for your great work on uh all our integration work and our Equity work and the support that you continue to provide uh our staff and helping our Learners be successful in the initiative around all for all thank you the last thing I would say and it will come up so part of the reason we're bringing fy16 up for revision is any time you change a particular line item by $33,000 or a budget item by more than 10% you need to have a revision well two things happened when we did the initial budget we were alloc ating $19 per student to weap that got reduced after the fact to 16 which allowed us to have some additional money and then as it as the teachers contract got settled it really allowed us to put more accurate numbers there so that will come before action and if you have any questions at that point I'd be happy to answer them so thank you very much thank you Mary thank you don't have question Regina thank you Mary next is general fund budget Margo you're up so as the board is aware the district has been working with a budget advisory task force to help uh shape our general fund budget for 201617 both uh Margo and Susan BR were very instrumental in um working with the task force on their effort and they're here to present tonight we welcome them good evening Mr chair Dr juson and Schoolboard um some of this presentation you have seen parts of it either in finance committee or full board and is just a quick update um but the rest is it's hard to do left-handed there we go here um update where we're at in the process um we have met with a budget advisory task force um many of you were able to attend and observe in that process the task force provided us input Susan will go into more detail on that that um a little later in the presentation we took that feedback and as an Administration are bringing forward a recommendation here tonight for discussion purposes um an opportunity to have feedback between meetings and then we will um bring for approval on April 11th these are the overall adjustments and recommendations that you'll um approve in some form or fashion on April 11th the full complete budget isn't approved until your June meeting it takes takes the business office a good uh eight weeks to go staff person by staff person and code by cone code to develop the entire budget for you so just to update here where we're at in the process um and it is about aligning our finances to our learning and um Edina has done an excellent job over the years of educating our students and balancing U maintaining a good fiscal position which is uh and a standard of Excellence in that regard also our Focus was on the uh multi-year approach as we often talk about at the board level and uh reductions reallocations and revenue generation uh our current reality that we have uh discussed with the the task force is um evolving state and federal laws and our our regulations that we must comply with uh the increasing funding Gap we receive over 70% of our dollars from the state and on average historic torically we get about 1% from the state we have been fortunate in the last couple of years we've gotten 2% but then our average expenditure increases about 3 and a half% and unless there's some other uh corresponding increase in enrollment or those kinds of things it it's hard to make up um th those dollars demographic changes and also um upcoming local changes with implementation of Next Generation programming and facility changes and again we have a strong financial history we do have stable enrollment just slightly growing at times but not significantly growing great staff vision and community and of course great students um our where do we receive our money as I said we get most of it from the the majority of it from the state where do we spend our money uh we are providing service to students so it is in staff and um as you would hope and expect uh the majority is in instruction or instructional support types of services uh this chart uh presented to you in January uh with the initial projections of where we were at and reported that 1415 uh and during the audit we had ended really uh very well for the fund balance um and they updated of the 1516 final budget uh we were going to use some fund balance down if you look at the red line um that that is the projected fund balance and that we needed to address 1617 um just to take a look at the multi-year impact in 1718 so that's what the chart looked like we'll come back to it a little later in the presentation and we worked with uh the budget advisory task force on uh three areas to to um consider as we evaluate different ideas that came forward one ensure compliance and these were the given we had to uh obviously be maintain um compliance with any local state or federal guidelines and and things you would expect and two that we wanted to maintain alignment with our minim uh Mission and minimize impact to our strategic directions that you can see listed there and our next Generation plans and we focused our work on phase three um and we brought forward other previous U Burg or budget process items from previous years and um also ideas gen generated uh through the system and focused on tier 1 and two to consider for 16117 uh here's our previous Burg history I believe we've gone through this before it both one in dollars and one in uh percents uh these charts show that we have uh attempted to make sure that we try to avoid the classroom or stay as far away from it as possible um we can't do that 100% but it shows that we have um um made an impact and trying to stay away from that the alignment impact we want to focus incrementally our conversations with the task force focused on 16117 but also did uh with the multi-year ideas in Next Generation implementation in in mind and our financial position in mind multi-year so it was um again uh looking Beyond but also keeping focused on what we had to get done in the task we had to get done in the next three weeks so now Susan will talk a little bit more in detail about the advisory task force right and just a reminder that the advisory task force um did meet for three times and we'll kind of talk a little bit about that but the roles and responsibilities we really tried to make sure that they were clear on what we were asking them to do and that we weren't asking them to craft a whole budget that we were really looking at them to advise Administration um and ultimately the school board on that so we did Focus those discussions as she said and sort of outlin as Margo has stated and outlined the different roles between the task Force the administration and the school board as far as the task force itself this time we did an open call for applications and so anybody in the community was encouraged to apply we had over 50 applicants um and we ended up choosing about 24 of them to really get a good broad representation we had staff members um from all levels of the organization we had Parents we had General community members who weren't necessarily parents in the community and we had a one student who was able to make it a little bit it was a tough timing for for some of the students that were interested at the time but it was good to have that student voice there as well they were charged with analyzing the data that we presented to them and really advising us and also exploring some additional options um we had three meetings with them uh really was a short condensed time frame but actually kind of kept us focused which was sort of nice we end uh spent a lot of time identifying what does the community value in our in our work in terms of educationally and then how did we look at that for um in terms of aligning our financial resources we did have them focusing just on um the reductions of reallocation and revenue and so as you'll see later in the recommendations there is a small enhancement we didn't have them talking about that because we knew we wanted to kind of focus on the future um for 1617 so the outcome of those as you can see there and then we did at the end um we spent um at our last meeting last week we had um had them look at our recommendations for 16 17 for Revenue uh reallocation and reductions and then also spent a number half the time there talking about what goes to the Future how do we start looking at the future knowing that we're going to have some different of instructional needs some different sorts of approaches to learning and personalized learning and how do we make sure that we're aligning our resources to that so we had some great discussions with that and with that there were a number of people that um thankfully at the end when we asked the question would you like to stay engaged and they said yes and so we look at how we might be able to do that um come fall but also just continuing this communication with them right now but then how do we continue that in the fall obviously looking to you as a board on how you might want to continue to do that and keeping perhaps expanding the the resources as as well so we looked at shortterm and some of the the insights that we really heard back from and this is just a summary obviously but really looking at sustainability and so some of the things that we're doing next year we know are one-time sorts of fixes for our budget and looking that we need to look at long-term as well and really making sure that we're not making any adjustments next year that could impact the future implementation of our next gen strategic plan um so again as we've seen with pburg processes we've talked a lot about how do we minimize that impact to the classroom and continuing to explore some creative Partnerships in the future and and I thought there were some great ideas that came out of there whether it's with PTO Ed funds other districts other ways to look at that so so then the uh budget alignment proposal that the administration is bringing forward um based on our work with the advisory task force um is to be financially sustainable and align again aligned to our strategic plan and all for all uh only include budget enhancements that are cost neutral we did not have enhancements uh in this part of the process nor did we have enhancements um districtwide this year any new enhancements districtwide this year the only conversations um and you'll see them a little later in the presentation were one time um enhancements that were approved last year in a discussion in regard did they need to continue for one more year until we get some studies further along the road we targeted around 750,000 uh for the Berg process and um also kept in mind the multi-year to identify adjustments for future years 17 18 and Beyond so um I will spend a little bit of time going through the draft recommendations and um then answer any questions that you have so this first slide uh discusses the revenue generation and reallocation types of adjustments um revising the post-secondary enrollment contract there are two different ways that districts can um have students attend postsecondary um and in looking at the the current number of students and the tuition that the postsecondary charges it actually is more favorable for us to switch the way we are doing it it generates more Revenue it is no change to the student uh and how we offer the program so um that was a new Revenue generation uh then reallocation of Staff in two two areas one to the integration fund which Mary just reported to you on tonight um because of the dollars there uh increasing for the next year and then also as she talked about the weap budget changing uh we're able to uh reallocate some uh staff costs for cultural ASI to to that fund and then also um exploring options for reallocating some staff costs to our alternative compensation fund uh then realigning special ed expenditures to maximize the new funding formula the funding formula the special ed fund funding formula from the state has been in a two-year transition and now is fin finally implementing to a new formula and we've U had discussions with um um experts on this formula and Advising us on how we can maximize those dollars so we'll be doing that and then realigning special ed services to the current student needs we do have some retirements in the special ed department and then also looking at the students that are exiting the system and the students that have identified needs coming into the system and we are able to uh make a reduction there and then reductions or savings uh clerical office hours this uh would be a combination of subs or when we staff uh to come up with that consultant or contracted Services um I do want to point out that that line item and the postage line item are switched in terms of the dollar amount so the postage reduction is $20,000 the consultant or contracted Services is $10,000 overall everything in the total is the same um but there would be a reduction in districtwide um use of consultant Services by about $10,000 and postage we are doing less districtwide um postage mailings and so we're able um we're communicating more electronically and able to see some savings there unemployment cost um we are able to reduce there we have not done a significant sizeable Staffing re reductions in the last few years and so we're able uh we're seeing that expenditure go down uh Transportation diesel fuel prices are very good so we can have a one-time savings there uh for this year sum are maintenance and snow removal um while it wasn't good for our students that were honored here earlier tonight the uh lack of snow has been good for the snow removal budget so we are um able to take a one-time Savings in that area and testing and assessment costs we are exploring different ways um and assess assing our tests and what kind of testing we are doing with students this actually was a tier 2 reduction and uh at a a different dollar amount but the with the feedback we received was um let's move slowly into that and maybe uh try a lesser dollar amount in tier one uh reductions and savings continued is uh looking at reducing substitute staff um by $50,000 this would be a combination of looking at when we are pulling staff out of the buildings and uh requiring substitutes um can we do that a little bit differently are there creative ways particularly at the secondary level where if a teacher is out that we are able to um supervise that class uh free suppli budgets which basically means no inflationary increase uh cap on extra pay types of sens that would offer consistency um districtwide uh additional retirement savings um we also probably could save on utilities if the heat went down right I can see yeah addition additional retirement savings we do have a number of retirees and we do plan for that Savings in the long range plan as I reported to you uh when I presented that in January um if we are conservative about our hiring and Target ranges of new hires uh we can secure some additional savings um without having a strict mandate on that but I do believe we can um secure some more savings Athletics and activities um some additional dollars there it might be through Revenue generation or expenditure savings either one and then reduction in special ed contracted services that would be um through our um 287 in uh we always evaluate can we offer programs more efficiently service students needs more efficiently inhouse versus having them go uh externally and we feel we could make some savings there and also um there's some additional days beyond the school year in special ed and a reduction in those did you have something to add I was just going to add that one of the when we looked at the Athletics and activities and our continuing investigation with that with the um activities department is that they feel like they should should be able to achieve those $20,000 without significant increases in fees which is was helpful at this time although we are doing an evaluation on how to our fees compare but at least for next year it doesn't look like there will be significant increases there and so now this just as this is as far as we got with the task force um the next slide talks about some enhancements that we want to continue from this year to next year but this is what we asked the task force to focus on so it's very similar to what they sort of signed off on in a uh consensus Gathering way um and part of it is that the the if you look at the task force um recommendations and the language that we've put online as far as the materials from those meetings the language has been changed a little bit and that was really based on their contributions saying we needed to kind of explain this in a little bit more uh no offense less of a eup far's budget code way and more of a general public way and so um that their feedback on that was very helpful as well as the feedback from the finance committee last week did we say something yeah um so finance committee and the board knows that when we go through this process and we make have approvals from previous years that include onetime enhancements from a previous year the Assumption in the long range plan long range plan is that one-time expenditure is gone um so that it just automatically doesn't continue to carry forward without you as a board approving it so we did review U the one-time enhancements from last year um and have brought forward not all of of them are being brought forward but assess them to uh where are the needs and where are the studies that are associated with them and would recommend that uh the gifted and talented language arts uh Staffing onetime enhancement continue for another year and then secondary intervention support uh the areas that uh and the secondary intervention support is at a lower amount than it was uh in the previous year and the other areas that uh we did not carry forward were the strategic plan dollars and professional development dollars we think we can address those in some different ways did you have something to add yeah in the elementary uh para dollars so which again the principals feel they can address in a different way yeah they have some plans for that so a summary is that we have onetime enhancements of $200,000 onetime reductions of $90,000 and ongoing adjustments of $645,000 for a net reduction ction or adjustment to the budget of $535,500 and I think this the next couple of slides here um especially this one really put that into perspective um to individ us individuals personally $535,000 is a sounds like a lot of money um we have almost a hundred million budget and while it's not easy to go through an adjustment process when you're talking about education of students um this puts uh those program areas U where we summarized how we are spending our money um for the advisory task force uh summarize it in that way asking for well what percentage of regular instruction is this the question came up what percentage of District um instructional support is this and um that way we were able to frame the percentage of the reduction and even on the overall impact to be about it's half percent of our overall total budget and then uh came back to the infamous graph and then added a dotted Kind of Blue Line there it's the dots above the red line to show that by um making these adjustments net adjustments of about $535,000 that we do change that downward tra trajectory and certainly we on an annual basis come back and update our projections for audit fall enrollment all sorts of things and bring this forward as you well know it's an annual discussion and um and and hopefully that we can continue to you know straighten the ship there and we usually do it always looks pretty negative but that shows the impact of what this proposal would be and I would open it up for any questions that you have at this time just want to thank you for the great process you reassuring to know our invol and helping us decisions have I app they were a great group to work with and I um I think that we were very focused on 167 because we had a job to do to bring this forward to you but a lot of brainstorming uh for the future and the multi Year too which was very very helpful and I think uh for our ongoing longterm discussions and I would concur and I do want to say thank you to the team um they were a wonderful group and it was wonderful to see um a lot of Engagement of some new people who maybe haven't been engaged in the district before and that was it was great to get you know it's always great to have some of the people that we know come back around but to have some new faces and voices as well was great and I know several of them are interested in serving on the finance committee so you know we we have great just have to find the right ass aspect for people to get involved anybody else have questions so the the one question I have is typically we have a much higher level of enhancements I just want to make sure that we're considering all the enhancements we might look at as onetime expenditures I know with construction going on and everything else I just don't want to go fly past that because we always see that as opportunities of of doing new things or with all the Chang is going on do we have the the funds directed as best they could be and I leave it at that so with um enhancements related to construction uh in in terms of operational costs those would take place uh in 1718 and I think as some of our discussions were taking place even on the programming side many many of those start with the shift of nth grade to the high school and the results of the studies for 17 and 18 and that's why it was so critical to have um not just a conversation with the task force about 161 17 but start the conversation about 171 18 and for us to I mean we always look multi-year from a financial standpoint but I think it's even more critical for us to be doing it this year um Susan or see I would just add that I um I think we've done a good job of just planning for the enhancements so we've either been able to embed them into the regular budget or we've through the the piloting process said nope this isn't going to be a goal for us going forward I think we are backing off just a little bit because we have so much on our agenda that we're pretty targeted in what we're doing so we've been able to conserve some of that and prepare for the 16 or excuse me the 17 18 years so I think we're kind of walking that double path and there was a lot of comments from the task force themselves that said you know that would be great but with the construction happening and with the program changes happening maybe this isn't the right time to be doing some of whether it was a reduction or and then we took some of that um as well with the enhancements so I do think that we're being conservative this year because there is a lot on people's plates right now I have a question we talked a bit at length in the committee actually about the special education chunk and a lot of it sounds like it could be transparent like the savings on fuel we've had the savings on snow removal you say there were some retirements and some students who are EX in the system is it all transparent or are there going to be some noticeable changes in the Services we provide with special education with $200,000 so we did um based on finance committee feedback because we had condensed the special ed we did spend more time and worked with um Jeff Jorgenson the director of special services to be able to separate out in those four areas a special ed and really feel that that is where we're going to be able to make those savings and uh with the you have the revenue generation to maximize the formula uh reduction in contracted Services um and reduction in extra days you know feel very comfortable with those and then with retirement and aligning staff to um to the student needs because we have some students exiting the system feel very comfortable with that and providing and that's transparent and providing more detail than what you saw with that uh what finance committee saw yeah and I would concur with that I mean part of this is we also recognize that this is another area of budget that if um we have students move in that need additional Services we have to respond to those too and so then we'd have to bring the hiring process back into play if we indeed need to add staff so I think it's it's very much a flow of the system um we're also doing some efficiencies in how we're servicing and that was something that was part of the Strategic plan for special education so I think both of those are occurring one is being responsive to how the staff popul or the student population is Shifting but two on delivering on some of the second year of the Strategic plan so this is actually uh Improvement in services but also creating better efficiency it's around the training for some of our par professionals and so we we are creating an efficiency out of that but providing better Services another followup from our commune discussion was about the well before we had talked about it as a hiring cap ma ma 15 credits or less and even then it wasn't quite a firm set of guidelines with more of an average Target but tonight I heard that would be even even less of a strict mandate is that right so what kind of guidance would go out to hiring managers is it still related to just top-of-the-line credentials when you see someone's resumee kind of have a red flag or how would you discuss that with hiring managers so the for the present we tried to not as Susan mentioned uh not have the technical internal terms in there so we just use Target ranges versus if people aren't familiar with the teacher schedule saying ma or VA or what whatever levels but we would have Target ranges of on average Sim similar to what we talked about in finance committee we haven't made made adjustments or changes to that okay I do terminology one thing that makes us excellent that people love about our schools are the high quality staff and so as we start to look for new hires I understand that some of the best applicants maybe some of the younger teachers maybe people with new ideas people that fit personalized learning but I get wary about guidance from the budget folks to the hiring managers focused on on the initial cost of a staff and what that might have an impact for us for 10 15 20 years I'd ask uh Dr Jackson to respond to that if she could please yes what we're planning to do is uh I will work closely with the principles because we do want the best teachers in front of our children and so um I will know what if there's if there are one or two applicants that they're interested in having I will be able to look on the salary schedule to see where they are and then we would have conversations in terms of deciding uh which person it would be so the bottom line is to get the best teacher right thank you and then just the final one was about the activities in athletics saving $220,000 so that was a concern and I appreciate you addressing it uh is there any way of knowing what this looks like for a given event to have an activity or for a typical family that might have say three students Each of which does two sports in an activity just trying to figure out what this will feel like to the families mostly secondary families um in talking with our activities director he doesn't feel that it's going to be an impact on the family directly that it's more about looking internally perhaps boosters um might be helping support some of that or looking at how our how many coaches are needed how what does that look like so it's less about the impact on the family in terms of of I have you know we're keeping the same sorts of processes for a cap for families in terms of participation fees um but I think uh Troy Stein feels as though that can be achieved through efficiencies within the budget just looking at how it is run right now is that I imagine it's not strictly contingent upon it noty on families but is there some notion of we've got to make sure this isn't mostly on families or um I I think what we're looking at here and I know um superintendent J has been pretty clear that these are all the targets that we're looking for and so that's sort of the charge to go back to the department so in any of these sorts of line items to say here's your Target and try to find some efficiencies within that and I I didn't speak directly with Troy but I know that that was the message that was relayed back to us was that that was a doable amount and just for reference that if there were to be if if Troy the uh activities director would uh make a recommendation for a fee increase that does come before the board there would be some uh analysis of how we compare with other districts so that would be a separate approval similar to any other type of increase um you food lunch price increases that come before you separately as a board too so thank you any other questions any other questions so I want to specifically note Margo and Susan you led those discussions and I think you did a great job with it I want to thank you both personally lead team was there every single night and a little thanks to them Dr Dron was there helping out and of course the uh Volunteers in the community thank you for your work on that so I think thank you I think we're on to our next topic which is purchase of K5 reading program materials so move no it's just a report and [Laughter] discussion oh man the he really bad it's good good evening uh chair Wen fredman superintendent Dron our school board and community members of viina public schools uh we're excited this evening to uh share a process and a report with you uh this goes back to a great deal of work that was completed over the last school year facilitated by our teaching and learning uh specialist for language arts Caroline Lyn sitting off to my right uh my name is Randy smel director of teaching learning we have Lisa Hopkins a continuous Improvement teacher from Highlands Elementary School and sitting to her left we have Olivia sucho did I say that right I did okay uh she is a student a fifth grade student at Highlands Elementary and they're going to give you a bit of their insight as to some of these materials as we get a further in this presentation about every seven years a curriculum review process is is conducted for a particular content area as part of our ongoing cycle of curricular reviews what you and the community will be hearing about this evening is a presentation summarizing the process and outcomes of our K5 reading review um we brought an adoption for K5 writing to the board last year that has been implemented and uh staff have been trained in those materials and we feel that's going very well and at this time I'm going to turn it over to Caroline to get us started on our process good evening board members I appreciate the opportunity to speak with you tonight about a very uh complex process and I do apologize for the density of the information on the slides but again it is a process that is complex and has far and long re reaching impact for our teachers and students and community so I wanted to make sure you had all the information so a committee was formed it is a a long process as Randy said we did begin last year actually two uh the process started last year and we looked at writing materials first the committee decided that that would be a two-year this would be a two-year rollout uh literacy is a large part of elementary teacher and students day and we thought about the capacity of teachers to to learn and really Implement at a high fidelity level the literacy materials so last year uh being a writer was brought before you and implemented and the feedback on that has been very good the committee looked and developed looked at Best Practices first and then we developed criteria vendors were brought in and uh presented to the committee and the committee did come to consensus to recommend being a writer which is a foundational reading skills program for grades K2 and making meaning which is a strategy based comprehension program for grades K5 and these materials are published by the same publisher as being a writer so there are many benefits to having programs that talk to each other but aren't necessarily one in the same it allows for some flexibility yet some consistency as well one of the major things that the committee undertook was developing some very thoughtful and lengthy criteria you do have a copy of the criteria that was used in your appendices one of the most important things of course is that it is based on current standards it also supports all for all and I won't go through and read each of those budget items but please know that the committee was very very thoughtful in looking at a number of sources for best practices and based their criteria very thoughtfully with students and teachers in mind so right now I'm going to have Lisa Hopkins who was a member of our language arts design team go ahead and talk a little bit about some of the work that she's uh been able to Pilot in her classroom this year as far as making meaning and then we'll hear also from Olivia a little student perspective about her experience so far good evening thanks for having us here tonight we're I'm a longtime member of the language arts committee and a passionate reading teacher and writing teacher at elementary Olivia I'm going to have you start with a couple of things that you like about the new materials I like that I think more because my teacher reads the stories without the picture so I have to visualize the story and we use Partners a lot and this makes me think more and think in new ways talking about what I read helps me learn so the word think came up in her um little um section there a lot and so thinking is um Paramount and crucial for our students to become better critical thinkers thinking and these materials provide frequent opportunities for that they also um enhance integrated instruction and they really will allow teachers to personalize learning better than than ever before I'm super excited about that possibility it also we've at Highlands have been very involved with shiraki Holly and these materials are very culturally responsive and the vocabulary piece that he addressed at our last staff development um in February these are some of the best materials I've ever seen to support those Endeavors with um en enhancing our environments with vocabulary rich opportun unities and um assessment drives instruction and it has um a lot of um new kinds of assessment that we haven't had before that will um stretch us and allow lots of professional development um the personalized learning approach is a workshop model using IDR which is independent daily reading and the students um set goals um teachers confer with students students there's a built-in set of accountability and there's a really nice balance between independent work and and collaboration and the culturally responsive piece um there's um a really big immersion in language both um oral and written and um I have one a student who um raised her hand and said the character set it in an indignant way and so that piece about transferring the vocabulary and um ways for teachers to assess it is um evident um there's lots of self assessment lots of written response um formative assessment rubrics for teachers and then passage assessments that will help for the MCA development so I'm super excited about these materials and circling back to what Olivia said um getting our children to think as often and as many ways as we can is what's going to drive learning thanks Lisa I don't think I need to say anymore you'll see Echoes of what Lisa shared and Olivia shared with you as we go through the the ne the rest of the slideshow here so one of the main things that we want to make sure we're always thinking about is all for all we want to make sure that our students are all learning at high levels and so again Lisa said that this is based on a workshop model which is a balance of that whole group teaching that small group teaching Based on data student need whether students are grade level above or below and then also that individualized instruction so there are supports written right in the materials for English language Learners the the mentor texts are culturally diverse and students are able to then apply with their learning whole group on an independent level text so if you're reading above grade level you to apply the strategy that may have been explicitly taught today to the book that you're independently reading whether that's above at or below grade level also in addition the set of materials includes social emotional pieces that are built right in collaboration techniques for our students and so next I will talk about how that uh supports personalized learning and then the competencies as well so I mentioned earlier that this is a strategy based comp uh comprehension set of materials and Learners actively participate they have choice they have voice they work both independently and collabor collaboratively at their own pace some of the time and teacher directed some of the time there are interconnected opportunities for students to grow academically socially and emotionally and I mentioned earlier student choice so competencies uh how will this uh recommendation of materials that will go for your approval aligned to our competencies and help get all our students there the collaborative classroom which is the Publisher's name is the center for the collaborative classroom it is a nonprofit organization and what does a collaborative classroom mean it's it's an environment in which collaboration goes beyond conventional cooperation and compliance students are really able to learn think and share ideas while also coming to Value the thinking of others in the class it really creates a community of Learners through oral language development through learning critical thinking skills and strategies helping students resolve conflicts and practicing compassion and empathy while learning to work with one another so it's these skills that are embedded into the materials that will help our students not only ress academically but socially and emotionally as well so one of the other important pieces that we think about as a K12 system is how will this prepare our students for secondary and so the reading strategies are strategies that can be applied throughout the day for students so students uh learn those foundational reading strategies that they can apply for uh just in reading for fiction in those types of things but also across non-fiction and content areas as well it aligns to the standards that are have been aligned vertically K12 vocabulary development as Lisa alluded to is uh specifically in this set of materials in addition kids learn to love to read we know that kids we want them to continue to to read and one of those main things is giving them that authentic experience and student choice so they become the lovers of reading it also teaches independent work habits and procedures and there is a very robust assessment system that is um both student self assessment and teacher whole group small group and individual assessments which will create some consistency across teams and buildings uh rationale again the the committee studied best practice developed criteria and decided that it was time indeed to look for some new materials the materials that teachers have been using have a copyright of 2005 they were also written prior to the adoption of the Minnesota Ela standards and prior to Common Core our current reading scores according to the MCA which is one way that we measure Student Success have plateaued in recent years and this offers uh as Lisa said an opportunity for that inter interdisciplinary and integrated teaching throughout the day because it is strategy based that strategy can be applied in social studies it can be then applied in science across the day so making meaning is that comprehension based set of materials it includes you can see some of the items there there's an extensive digital set of resources there are QR codes embedded right in the materials so professional development is can occur at the point of need all day long for teachers and that's the K5 recommendation the committee has uh selected we know that K2 readers need some very specific foundational skills and so being a reader is a complimentary program that goes along with that reading comprehension program and it's a a read-aloud based set of materials as well and then teachers are also going to be getting some small group teaching sets so they'll have sets of materials that can be used with different groups of students as they're flexibly grouped based on that robust robust data system that comes with the program also uh there is handwriting and letter formation instruction that will be consistent in grades K and one as well so thank you for your consideration again the committee was very pleased to have uh the ability to bring this these sets of materials for you that align so well with our competencies with personalized learning and with our mission of all for all so thank you for your consideration this evening any questions thank you Olivia for being here tonight Olivia and my son went through the family center together and' been fellow students at Highlands so I'm really appreciative and thanks for staying so late I know the beginning part of the meeting got a little long so um in terms of the you mentioned specifically that some of the work that you've done with shrai Holly will be especially applicable to this new set of curriculum can you just expand on that a little bit maybe give us an example sure um when we work with shiraki Holly he talks about the importance of immersing children in a vocabulary Rich environment and and really exposing them to um a lot and also the piece of the oral language development and so these materials are really rich and resourceful and as you said learning how to um open your mind to other opinions to share your opinions to listen there's discussion protocols there's um uh very structured ways that you can get children involved even if they're hesitant or um afraid they're not the types that usually raise their hand um but there's ways that you can structure the lesson and the unit um to get that engagement and that act involvement in a safe way and it's very Community Based so it really supports his work and it's infused and it's not additional excellent and then my other question on materials was around I noticed in the presentation we talked a little bit about uh there will be specific materials for K2 I believe what type of materials will then 35 be using so the comprehension strategy based instruction is called making meaning so grades K through five will use that comprehension set of materials but in addition since we have emerging readers and learning readers then K2 also has that additional piece that is um a beginning reading curriculum so then that drops off after grade two then students are focusing more exclusively on comprehension so there is a common comprehension language that's going to be consistent for all K5 students but then those young readers also have that very specific pheic awareness and phonic support excellent thank you so I have a question so um I love that this has a lot of a student choice that you mentioned so can you give me an example about what that might look like what is student choice or what do students have a choice of in this program sure so in making meeting students have that independent daily reading time that's built right in and so students will have Choice over Which novel or which non-fiction book they would like to read and so if students need direction in selecting books then the teacher would definitely provide that and we want to make sure that students are continuing to push themselves but that choice is really important in developing that love of lifelong reading so that independent daily reading time in conjunction with that explicit instruction from teachers that small group instruction from teachers then kids can apply that to their daily reading time where they'll have some Choice over what they're reading so so can you help me understand um if you have for example a second grade reader who is reading at an eighth grade level how does this program help help a teacher support that and help a student get a peer group to to at what they need so the explicit teaching of that standards based lesson and that strategy based lesson can then be applied to the eighth grade level text that a second grader might be reading uh in conjunction with families we want to make sure sometimes you know that's a big stretch you want to make sure that the content and theme of that book is going to be appropriate and not just take into the consideration that readability so we want to make sure that that book selection is also framed by instruction and guidance from the teacher if it's needed but students would then be able to take that comprehension strategy apply it to their book find a peer that encourages random pairing so we might have our our highest level reader still talking about the book that was read by the teacher because the mentor texts are also very diverse and a very um promote thinking among students so all students whether you're an eighth grade reader in second grade or an under a student that's struggling in Reading you're still able to have that high level of conversation maybe not around the independent book but around the the read aloud book that the teacher presented during the lesson and this program produced and I saw the little thing here FX grouping so is that across the classroom across classrooms so that would typically be an administrator building level or team decision so the materials can allow for that Flex grouping if that is what the uh teacher or the team or building decides I have a question about inter disciplinary flexibility and I'm wondering if there are ways that our teachers can take this curriculum and adapt it for social studies science and flex it in that direction absolutely so one of the things that makes the set of materials very flexible is that it is reading strategy based so it isn't based on the texts that teachers are using it's really based on a variety of texts that are used as vehicles for the teaching of reading comprehension strategies that strategy then can be carried throughout the day whether it's in science or social studies the committee will Implement uh teachers will Implement next year but then the committee can continue the work of trying to pull in content into reading and also pull those strategies out into the content so it's very um conducive for that kind of interdisciplinary work and then I'm I'm extrapolating but is this also true of the writing program that that you you could apply what I'm hearing is that that writing curriculum could be used in a social study setting or the reading curriculum could be used in a science setting or vice versa absolutely so while we may not purchase new materials every seven years we really are in the era of really looking at implementation on a year-to-year basis how we can can we continue to make this better and more efficient for both teachers and students and make those connections throughout the day so I anticipate if people will continue to come that the committee will continue to meet in following years to continue that work and create those efficiencies and connections I've got two questions um one is how do the ongoing cost of this program compared to our current curriculum at this at these age levels and two what are we giving up by phasing this over effectively three school years uh to my knowledge there won't be continuing costs uh the materials come with a seven-year subscription digitally we're still working through some of that contract with with the publisher uh so I would not anticipate that there would be ongoing costs um other than additional phases one of the uh items that the board will see associated with this purchase is a formal contract with this vendor and we're going to formal contracts and um for material purchases to do exactly what you're um articulating Randy and that is to guarantee pricing over the life of those materials so that if we have replacement costs Etc that we get that original cost as for those Replacements but also to guarantee and clarify what is it that will be supported and what will that support look like through that materials adoptions because without those vendor contracts sometimes we run into issues of things being free for the first few years a rep changes position and then no we have a whole new policy and how we're doing that so we're getting all of that articulated on the front end which helps us um understand and predict our costs throughout the adoption which helps with budgeting Etc so trying to be more um responsible in that area and then specifically is there a reason if we had the money would we buy all three phases right away or is it also just an implementation issue as well I think part of it is we're still defining what the interdisciplinary themes and and direction will look like at the elementary school so the flexibility of the purchase is to get those uh instructional materials in place and then to follow into phase two with the leveled libraries and classroom libraries so that they can support the interdisciplinary themes that are created as we continue to move in that direction great thank you and then I just have one other question in terms of um the assessments uh is it so we're really trying our goal is personalized learning obviously and so how are the Assessments in terms of homework and and all of that tailored to the students level is everybody getting the same same assessment wherever they are same homework wherever they are so assessments are currently being looked at is my understanding at the district level and this would be part of that so uh there's lots of ways to measure growth in reading and uh to know in order how to instruct a student we need to know many things about them one of which might be what is their independent reading level which we can then help determine uh you can be used to help determine their instructional level so there are materials that are broadly based so the assessments are not necessarily grade Lev specific so we can if a child is outside of sort of the typical age range uh there are ways to diagnostically figure out how and where to go with each and every students exactly what that looks like we have yet to determine but the possibility is there I have question about I guess the assessment of the of the curriculum here determining its Effectiveness we've had public comments asking how do you ever determine as a district what's effective with the decisions you make and so so obviously MCAS is one way and those coures have plateaued but we don't want them to rise at the at the extent of uh I guess the enrichment opportunity so this curriculum seems very promising but how will you follow up are you going to do a baseline of some of these collaborative assessments that the teachers have and track that over time are you going to survey students to see if they're reading more on their own than they currently are because you have a lot of goals that seem to be about individual behavior and team behavior is that something that you're able to track and determine if weting better and this is an effective Choice So currently there are lots of ways that we collect data around student achievement report cards are another way that we also have a lot of longitudinal data based on an informal reading inventory that we currently use that may or may not uh remain the same so we do have that student information system that we do track student learning from year to year and that does follow that student so the assessment discussions I think will will revolve around that how do we not only only assess students for individualized instruction but how do we assess uh our students as at by grade level or by cohort and also as a system so definitely we will be looking for ways to do all of those things the world's best Workforce legislation articulates that all students will be reading well by third grade so that's a that's a mandate that we have to hit and we know we have work to do around that so we do have Baseline data as you mentioned around MCA around map uh around local data in the classrooms so we have that Baseline now we know what our data has looked like for the last five six seven years and so we'll be able to set that as a Baseline and also look at how are as as Caroline mentioned how are cohorts of students performing on these assessments around reading that are standardized Andor National assessments state or national assessments but we'll also be able to as we build this learner profile this analytics and dashboard as Steve was Des describing a few minutes ago when he was presenting we also be able to look at individuals which standards have they met which standards have they not met and will have that as an ongoing running record for a student in that data and analytics dashboard what about some of the more nebulous ones about collaborative team members lifelong Learners committed to reading on their own is that something that can be worked in something that will be on part of this profile personaliz learning profile so part of the idea around the competencies is to continue to unpack them developmentally and then articulate and track whether or not students are meeting those competencies at their developmentally appropriate level so those will be embedded in local assessments and we will have to track the development of those competencies in local assessments but they'll be done in a developmentally appropriate way so our hope to get at some of those other things I think think is through our local assessments this um system is a has a very robust assessment structure to it it has uh um numerous different types of assessment designs with scoring rubrics so it really gives us a jump start to not only uh clarify what is it we want students to learn but how we're going to know when students have arrived at that destination so it gives us a very good starting base around uh being able to assess some of that that's exciting thanks for wrestling with some of the the harder ones yeah can I just so this is to start if if all goes well to fall and roll out in the all the elementaries just so just so I understand when it rolls out yes looking for implementation this fall and then teacher training and professional development between now and then and Ono yes so I will be working on continuing to work on that plan yes what we what we've done in the no um for a few months for a few months okay yeah we got some materials from the vendors to try out various things so for several months excellent thank you our goal will be to offer some flexible training dates so to be able to offer opportunities in June offer opportunities in August opportunities during Workshop week and then continuing on in the fall with similar to how uh Caroline and the team implemented the writing training and that seemed to work quite well so we'll probably mimic that process thanks for all your work all right thank you very much and i' also remind this this will go to action for uh at the next meeting in April but we're also bringing a vendor contract back because one of the things we also want to do is uh ensure that what the vendor says they're going to deliver on they're going to deliver on through contract and so I appreciate Caroline and Randy taking the lead on that Leisa I really appreciate you taking the extra efforts um as well because uh we've been implementing writing curriculum and you've been right there on that as well so you've been a great champion and Olivia um you can go late to school tomorrow I'm just [Laughter] saying good thing you're at a late start school right all right thank thank you thank Youk you all right next is board meeting dates an exciting topic we'll have a presentation on that no uh we do uh get out in front of uh dates uh for the board meeting again these follow very much the same pattern that we've had in the past uh and it's a first reading we'll take a look at that and then probably even before we get into the year next year we'll take one more look the board will also at times add additional work sessions but these would be the regularly scheduled meetings and uh would ask the board to move forward on this for Action in April ail I had one question on the proposed dates um the January organization meeting is scheduled for the 17th of January which seemed really late to me because I thought there was some limitations about us meeting before we have the actual organizational meeting so I was wondering why we're doing that so late um it's part of it's because of the break but also we're not having new members so we're an ongoing so it's an non-election year so we have a little more flexibility in that and so we felt like we could allow us to get back from the late session and the late break and then still get the work done because we're not having a transition any board members and then I I don't think this matters just October 10th is Columbus Day does that have anything to do with anything just making sure okay it's not a district holiday so we're okay that's I just to thank you all right thank you next is scheduled review of policies Regina are you our spokesperson for that I can be and this one Margo may have a little more background than I do but in terms of 7:15 the food and nutrition services program this is a slight revision uh at the request of the business services department to clarify the time frame when food and beverages can be sold in cannot be sold in the cafeteria that are not part of our food program so as opposed to saying during the school day this is a more specific more specific chck yes um the it it actually refers to being sold in the building and while the policy did have um language in terms of uh the food service director whether the district contracts or not would need to be contacted um we feel it needs a little bit more feel it needs more strength in the language because of the recent changes in the last year uh year with the um Federal requirements of what can be offered uh between midnight and half hour after the school day we really do need to have our food director of food service and dietician involved in anything that is sold uh at that time and and and we can have a partnership and and all of those kinds of things in but we do we do need to have a little bit more strength in the language so my question about that is our school day ends at two o'clock here here in the it says two o'clock but our school days end three or four how does that work so we would be now we could expand it to at actually at we wanted to make sure that at least it was um after lunch was served probably making a bit of assumption that you know the hour between lunch and then the end of the day that hopefully would be okay uh we could we could go to 30 minutes after the the end of the day if certainly I just wanted it to fit with whatever federal guidelines or that we needed I just when you mentioned that I thought well before that so whatever you guys need is what it is we can we can consider that too so Margo on this uh part of the policy where we're talking about is it just the sale of food because I'm just thinking if if people are listening to this um you know you have school parties and things like that where people are bringing in food that's not that's not being affected this is just about the sale of food this is just a sale of food um parties or people donating bringing food that's a different type of policy with within the school and um you know health related issues that some of our students have but this is specific only to the sale of food right thank any other questions all right now we move to our action items the first is the achievement and integration budget for fiscal year 17 can I get a motion so move second all right and do we have anybody Mary I guess you've done a presentation on this anything to add no no any additional questions or discussion hearing none all in favor say I I I you all opposed motion passes uh the next is the achievement integration budget fiscal year 2016 can I get a motion please so move second Mary you're up again anything no just a reminder that any time we change one line item by more than $3,000 or a object by more than 10% we need to take this back to the board for a revision and that is the reason I'm bringing it here tonight it has to be uh at mde by April 1st and you already mentioned earlier what the uh the items were that led to that any questions or discussion hearing none all in favor say I I any opposed motion passes next motion is to approve the re-roofing bids for 2016 is this Margo moved second Margo can you give us a little background on that I certainly will thank you um happy to report that uh Roofing bids came in under budget I always like to be able to report that um this one was unique uh because we have um multiple buildings and so it was broken up uh into bid item one which was Countryside which is the large the larger project and then Highlands and ECC the low vendor uh for uh actually both is a smaller vendor and uh from a capacity standpoint requested just item one and so that is why you see two different vendors in the recommendation here than for the uh item two which is Highlands and ECC we went to the next lowest vendor and so we would recommend Thomas Finn company for Ru bid item one for Countryside and Palmer West construction for bid item number two at Highlands and ECC and we are familiar with both companies and they have done good work any questions discussion and I assume this is I know you've done this but I'm G say it out loud uh this is we're looking at the construction coming up in the current needs and whether it needs to be done now versus yes okay yes definitely I know the ECC if we could we'd hold off on that little area but we have to do it I've got a question on the letter uh to Eric in why they acknowledge addendum one for Palmer West but not for the other one is there some specifics about that project and you don't have to get into it but it just seems like they're pointing out one but not the other other uh I was at the bid opening they both had the addendum so that might just be a typo and not explaining that but I can follow up on it any other questions all in favor say I I I any opposed motion passed the next motion is the guiding change plan for next gen assessment grading and Reporting can I get a motion please so moved second you got that take your pict your choice who's going to do the honors of presenting this one uh I would just like to do an update on this uh document it's changed quite a bit since we brought the previous document to the board so you have both the old document and the new version I would like to uh add also I think we left a couple of bullets off on the Y bullets of inform information that we've talked about but um didn't make it to the final document and the first bullet is that many of our students are performing above grade level and as an example on the last winter map assessment 20% of our students were at the 90th percentile or higher one out of five students across the district in our Elementary grades is is is a very high number at the um in terms of reading about 177% of our students were're above the 90th percent of so again we have a a huge number of students that are performing above grade level which is a significant consideration as we move into this guiding change process also we would add a second bullet that not all Learners are learning at high levels as evidenced by our significant achievement Gap across the system so I think that both of those warrant um additional consideration the process um that we are laying out will be to uh standardize uh assessments AC across the system as part of a master plan and clarifying um what standards we'll continue to use as we move into next gen and if there's an opportunity to prune standards from the system and it'll also be an alignment of our grading and reporting practices to the use of standards as we move through implementing this any questions I would just clar uh if we could insert that information that Randy just shared so it shows up in our in our board packet and and secondly if we could label the second one or do something so we see this is the old version versus new it's it's not instantly clear when you look at the doc thanks we will make both of those adjustments thank You So Randy you had said that uh 20% of our students scored at the 90th percentile I thought the numbers were different than that that we were provided earlier and it was different than in the past when we were looking just at the through nth grade map it was actually 20% at the I I can't remember maybe maybe it's close to that I don't know I I think this is in reference to the last winter map test at the early grade levels 20% of our students scoring in the 90th perc higher from math Donna maybe to jump in on that data piece that's just grades two through five on the winter map math test all right any other questions um I just some people have asked me why we're no longer doing the coap and that's not listed in here and I don't want to take tons of time on it but do we have a quick microphone so we did do a review of the coat um um to kind of look at the utility that we were getting out of administering a districtwide assessment that took you know roughly um two class periods in some cases for our students and the um the return that we were getting from administering that particular assessment seemed really low um it was allowing us to maybe identify less than 1% um additional students for some Advanced programming so we think there are better ways to get at realizing you know an additional dozen students or so for that time we use the coap for nothing else I mean does it not give us any other information in terms of helping us with possible learning difficulties or you know a significant difference between someone's verbal and non-verbal the the particular cette that particular the particular coat that we use so the particular instrument that we're using the coat that we're using is different than the one that our um special education services might use it's just a different instrument so have you substituted something else instead of the coat or is it just that you think that the other tests that you've been doing are sufficient right it it's we're giving multiple assessments and achievement and so we feel like we have enough standardized achievement measures to kind of get at it I don't want to harp I don't want to harp on this but um um so the coat this the version of the coat that we were using didn't highlight any possible learning difficulty it it didn't catch anything and because if we're not replacing with some that's my only concern is is it is it not sensitive enough to get at so right so I think I think one of the things we'll do with the district assessment advisory committee is look at what our needs are in that area Lisa especially with regards to um learning disabilities and using an instrument to help us identify where kids are struggling and the Kat there is a version of the Kat that's really um used quite frequently for learning disabilities so as our assessment advisory committee gets together that probably will be something we look closely at and and it may may come back in a different version for a different purpose because I I just sometimes um a screener like we're even thinking of going to a mental health screener and if there's a a screener like the coat might might um give us indications of kids that maybe need to go on for further assessment and if we don't have that we might be missing kids um because not everybody's going to say well I think you need to go for a further assessment I'm just looking for is there a screener so we're not creating cracks so the map is a really good screener for identifying kids who are achieving at high levels and um so the purpose of the map and the Kat at some point they're both used as screeners and so it was redundant in in my view to give both the Kat and the map for screening I'm not just looking at high levels I'm just looking at verbal versus non-verbal and I I because I'm trying to remember the coat it isn't there something it's not just math and reading correct or is it no and so so the math only does me math and reading but it doesn't look at visual processing or visual spatial skills or that that's my piece that I'm I don't think we have a screener for that type of material particularly if someone's an English language learner if we're getting rid of a m of a of a screener that the map is very language based and so the coat not so much at least on the non-verbal section so that's the piece I'm right concerned about right and so we may look at the nnat and some other instruments that get at um our El Learners in their language um so this is still a work this is still a dynamic document to be as we get information might change yes right the district assessment advisory task force will be looking at specifically what measures we want to use but if there's a item on this particular guiding change document that we need to update as we go then we would bring that item back to the board and review that with rationale okay okay I think I think I call a question all in favor v i i i any opposed hearing none the motion passed next moot next action item is World Language proficiency acknowledged on transcript can I get a motion so mov okay you two are going to need to get some space this did come before us last month uh Randy any update uh just that uh in July of 2015 the Adina School Board adopted the Act full standards as our world language standards the official World Language standards for Adina Public Schools uh there are five levels of proficiency associated with those standards and this spring uh for the first time at Edina High School we will be offering World Language proficiency testing to any student attempting to earn a certificate or a seal and the cost is $20 this will be offered only to seniors the the dates are in early April um a second route to earning a certificate or seal Could Happen through advanced placement testing so that would be another way that kids could go about doing that the certificates and seals are listed below as the bullets of intermediate low intermediate high or Advanced low if students earn any of those levels of proficiency then that would be recognized either through a certificate or a seal on their transcript and also transfer to college credit in the minsu system um so we are just wanting to move forward with that process of offering kids an opportunity to obtain that seal on the transcript and uh not having done this before um know that our Juniors uh have opportunity next year to earn those seals if they haven't already through advanced placement uh so we're just offering this as an additional opportunity for seniors Randy if if a student has uh financial needs will we have ability for to offset the $20 fee for students yep we will do that great thanks and so I think I just don't understand that for seniors only is that a onetime thing or is that always uh that'll be for this year typically students who would be trying to earn a World Language proficiency would want to do it in their spring of their senior year um just because that's current when they're applying to colleges Etc sure or after they finish their last language class right right so it's current to them possible right so is there anything that prohibits us from offering this to anyone so for example if we have a student that is proficient in a second language because they learned it at home may may they take the test right so we do have some for example some Heritage speakers that have uh inquired about taking the test we have one student who uh um uh is asked about Hebrew we have um the opportunity for Russian and Arabic and those are kind of a caseby casee basis there are some assessments of languages that aren't yet available so we can't always offer everything but we are also um working with mde to pursue expanding that database of other assessment tools so there are other types of Assessments like um like I said for Heritage language speakers who are bringing a language to the district or to school maybe from outside of their experience here that we can recognize and provide credit for but it's within a limited range of languages currently so I would hope that for those languages for which there is a test we could offer it to whoever felt that they were ready to take the tests so for example we have our French immersion students who may be ready before their senior year we may have these students who learn a second language at home and then of course once you offer it beyond the senior year can you take it twice so if you get a certain proficiency as a ninth grader I mean unless we're losing money or something on this testing system I would hope that we would open it up broader than seniors yeah and we we know that we have opportunity to do that this this was just where we're starting this year but absolutely students have the opportunity to retake the test and trying to gain a higher and higher proficiency with each successive attempt and are we doing the testing at a certain dates and time or is this an online how is how do how do students and families get to take the test so we are offering um these tests on April 5th 6th and 7th at the high school Jen Carter um and the team over at the high school have prepared letter uh to send to Edina High School senior students so they'll be getting that information in the mail explaining the testing opportunity and then there's a Google form link for folks for students to register for the assessment and is it a written test ver verbal uh it has multiple parts to it okay right but this year it's limited to only seniors uh this year the Apple test is limited to only seniors if students took an advanced placement test in a language and got a score of a three they would earn a certificate if they got a score of a four or five they could earn a seal on their transcript so that's another route that students could automatically take to get a um a language not uh competency on their transcript but in terms of just the Apple test uh we're experimenting that with just the seniors this year can they get more than one seal on the transcript they can get multiple seals so if a student is proficient in multiple languages they can get multiple seals and then those seals indicate their level of proficiency and in what language so I've already heard some um ninth graders apparently heard about this and they're already talking about it and enthusiastic so uh roll it out for seniors but I hope you come back to us and say we're rolling it out for whoever requests it I I think there's there's opportunity of course for the underclassman to to participate in in this next year but I think that's the thinking is let's try it with the seniors this spring um Jen Carter and team are just putting this together in about the last month and so now we're trying to implement it but that's the intent is so that whenever a student reaches that competency then they can take that assessment and then receive that certificate or seal at that time I just want to point out in the actual action language it says in the spring of 2016 Idina High School offer World Language proficiency tensing to any student attempting to enter a certificate or transfer it doesn't say senior and so if someone's reading this they're going to think that it's anybody and that's what I thought when I read it okay I apologize I will enter the word senior in that front language but friendly am randy you mentioned that uh not all languages are available for testing um I'm assuming though that at least all the languages that we're offering is available for testing including Latin uh well actually Latin is a unique language and there's some uh dispute with uh mde about the testing process around Latin since they only assess reading and we cannot qualify as an assess and that will not qualify as an assessment for a certificate or seal uh in order to get a certificate or seal the law requires proficiency de be demonstrated in listening speaking reading and writing and that currently isn't part of Latin instruction and so the um so there is a bit of Disconnect between Latin and this particular competency requirement the one other opportunity though that students have to mitigate that is that we do offer a Latin course um called College in the schools and so when students do take that Latin course they are automatically earning college credit on their UFM transcript so there already is a different opportunity for students to earn college credit in Latin that is different from from so it's the are we forbidden from putting something on their transcript because I see this is an authorization from the legislature that we can do the seals in the first place so we can't do our own plan with Latin um there is a there is a mismatch between the information about the seals and certificates and the requirements for the assessment for Latin and we're working with mde to correct that because actually the statute needs to be tweaked a little bit for Latin specifically Latin is is different in terms of the other languages it doesn't have all of the four components as part of the instruction that the other languages have and so we're trying to resolve that with mde so we can't do anything unilaterally this has to be something the state either authorizes or we do nothing for Latin this is a a specific issue for Latin yeah we we've contacted them and they haven't budged on the seal process for that particular language yet and I have one last question um I know I'm sorry um just if if students are worried whether they could pass this test is there any downside for them taking it and not passing it in terms of is it noted on their transcript that they tried and didn't pass I just want to I want to make sure that people feel it it'll only be noted on their transcript if they earn the competency we will not put anything on the transcript that they attempted and they didn't earn it so uh they're safe in that attempt thank you good question all right any other questions hearing none all in favor say I I any opposed motion passed the next motion is scheduled review of policies and need a motion to approve policy 503 so move second three yes anything new on 503 there are some slight changes in 503 I do want to thank Sarah shandel for her great cleanup and revision of 503 based on our earlier conversations of the policy based on that there were some minor changes just for clarification in the appendix nothing for Content any questions hearing none all in favor say I I any opposed motion passed next action item is scheduled review of policy can I get a motion to approve policy 902 use of District facilities second there are no changes since we last saw this policy at our February 22nd meeting all right any discussion hearing none all in favor say I I any opposed motion passes next is information items Rick you have anything no we have enrollment we have the appendix as Rel relates to grading and Reporting this is a change going from a 12o to a fourpoint scale just again aligns better with our uh new software system coming in this will be effective uh for next year 16- 17 um and principles have worked through that uh then we have the field trip approve uh just a informational piece on the field trips that are being run through the West Metro education program and we have students from our school district attending those and that would we have some staff recognitions that would conclude uh information items okay and the two staff recognitions are Peggy chapen there was an email coming in commending her and a second one for cesley bergston an email coming in commending her also any other announcements yes if I could add an announcement because it's breaking news that uh Michael Tang who is a junior at the high school did just win his third straight math bowl today um that was just announced and then we also o had a Adina high school student in honor of Pi Day as we celebrated here at the district office that an Adina high school student recited Pi up to 59 digits so I just thought that was a nice uh that was Kenrick belland uh did that as well he's a senior at the high school I remind the board that we have a meeting on March 22nd to approve the elementary construction bids at the three sites and also um chair Wen Friedman and I will be looking at a possible extended board meeting for sometime in April as we start getting closer to uh moving some of our work into action um as relates to some of the nextg efforts both at the elementary middle and high school level and the Tuesday one is it three hours a Tuesday one it's not three three minutes minutes all right nothing else can I get a motion to adjourn so mov so mov can I get a second second all in favor say I I any opposed we are adjourned thank you everybody yeah I agree