so there's just good evening welcome to the October 19th uh regular meeting of the school board I had my other one up I October doing too many things on here good evening welcome to the November 16th regular meeting of the din School Board we do have a quorum this evening I'd like to call the meeting to order first item on the agenda is our approval of minutes we had a work session and a Clos session on October 19th a regular meeting on October 19th a work session and close session on October 26th special and closed section on October 30th and a special and closed section closed uh session on on November 9th you had a motion to bring those minutes to the floor second it's been moved and seconded to approve those minutes as presented any additions corrections to those minutes as written seeing none all those in in favor of approving the minutes as listed please signify by saying I I opposed motion carries uh next up is our recognition uh Rick you want to walk us through the agenda before we go there I certainly do um we do have uh we've had some board meetings since the October regular schedule meeting uh several uh close sessions around land negotiations and work agreement negotiations uh the other area that we've been uh dealing with as a board it continues to move forward on our construction planning around the schematics at uh our high school middle school elementaries and also our outdoor facilities so you can see uh through the process we've had a variety of them we've also approved uh the election results from November 9 and um we've had a discussion on school calendar that'll be discussed further tonight uh as far as the agenda tonight um we will do some recognitions and we have some hearings from the public so we'll make sure we do that we have consent agenda items all very routine items that we'll talk about uh as we move through the consent agenda we do have some report and discussion items around uh student enrollment policies we have a guest uh legal council Kevin Ruby joining us we have some other policies uh the board has been working very closely with the administration and the district calendar committee on school calendars as we look to the future we'll also get an update from our Architects on some of the schematic drawings and the infrastructure improvements occurring uh in the district as we continue with that the action items tonight will be around the world's best Workforce this is a state report that the district has completed and we'll be giving the board a brief update we also will be taking a look at student information system purchase this is a major purchase for us as we look to the Future to make sure we have a software system that aligns well with our desires and finally uh some action on some policies that were reviewed previously as a school district uh that would take care of the evening for us we have two modifications I'd like to call attention to to the board um under the consent agenda item uh agenda item 5G would like to table that agenda item that is related to a nurses care a nursing care contract and we just wanted to make sure that that language is tight and so we've asked the board to pull that tonight also um item 7B uh the contract as it relates to Infinite Campus the board did have included in their folder tonight uh modification in that work agreement which will address again that's the modification on Section 7B and those will be the two modifications in the agenda thank you Dr Dron can a motion to amend the agenda this evening to reflect those changes so move second been moved in seconded any discussion or questions regarding those amendments to this evening's agenda seeing none all those in favor of accepting those amendments to this evening agenda please signify by saying I opposed motion carries and now we're on to our recognitions Rick I'd like to call Mary Hyman for him Mary is our district Health coordinator and earlier this year she was named the Minnesota school nurse administrator for 2015 a great honor and merry congratul ulations on that award uh recognized by your [Applause] peers uh I think anytime a peers uh recognize you for your award uh it really is uh very deserving uh we also as a district recognize your great Services uh but let's talk about your work a little bit uh you went into the world of Health um health care and yet you've kind of moved into that leadership coordinator role how do you see that passion you first had around Healthcare and Leadership how does that blend together and really brings your passion out uh I've always been in uh pediatric Pediatrics so it's kind of evolved into school health um and it it morphed from working in a clinic situation for kids with special Health Care needs to it fits really really well into the school scenario or School situation and a lot of people might not understand the the Acuity and the depth of the role of the that the school nurse provides for all the students in the school district so that's been how it's um transitioned for me and this isn't your first district Mary you worked in Minneapolis as well and um again how do you see the role of education and health care how that comes together and the important role what are any tips you have for families out there uh to make sure that we can really maximize that learning experience for our our Scholars uh well to start last August when I was in the um the the workshops there was um one of the presenters that that mentioned um Alvin tofler I think he's a Forbes Magazine editor and he said that illiteracy in the future is not going to be just the lack of ability to read or write it's going to be if you cannot learn re unlearn and relearn and so I challenged our our health staff that we've got to continue to figure out ways that teachers um Community Health needs of the students and therefore academically they're going to be more successful so it's always that Mantra of um you know healthy students better outcomes great Mary hman congratulations I want uh chair Meer to recognize you at this [Applause] point and at this time I'd like to call uh coach pson coach forer and the Adina girls tennis team forward for their annual event so we have been winning state championships longer than you guys have been alive in conc that is an amazing story um how about if we uh just talk a little bit about the season if we can if we could just go down as I um maybe a highlight that you had on the season so if you could give name grade and a highlight that you had on the season as you looked back on a very very successful season okay um I'm Katie inle King I'm a senior this year and so this being my last season it was really special to um I don't know I think while like all the times on the court have been super fun all the things we do outside of tennis um like the sleepovers and the pasta dinners and the um jams in the car and stuff like that are always my favorite and so I think those are probably the highlight of my season great hi I'm Hannah Hinson I'm a senior and I would say that my highlight this year is just continuing to um do all the Traditions that we do and the team bonding and everything hi I'm ESD wow I'm a senior and my highlight is probably the camaraderie that our team has they like a really strong bond with all like the things we do outside of the um like tennis season as well I'm Brooke gudal I'm a senior and for me all like the team camaraderie is like the biggest part like yes it's fun to win and like play on the court and stuff like that but the stuff that's like the best is like all the team stuff that we get to do as a team and like bonding so that's my favorite I'm shayen rer I'm in eighth grade and the highlight of this season was probably just to see how this um our team has evolved throughout the season and like through the traditions and yeah great great and Coach what makes it click I think we kind of heard the story didn't we has this been your magic really it's about the relationship and the team it's a big part of it but these girls spend a lot of time um during the offseason especially and putting in time and effort and hours on the court to to make it to make it work then they uh they usually come through in the state tournament that's that's their most fun time of the year I think so that's pretty special coach Forester how about you what's you were at the uh in at the state tournament and it was with Prior Lake Savage it was a back and forth match it could have gone either way what were you thinking as as we were moving toward those final sets uh just that you know everything that that the girls talk about the bonding and the the different uh team building and what Steve always talks about with them is is that there's never pressure on them to win there's pressures just to do their best and you know the that two doubles team that got that fourth point they just hung in hung in hung in and just uh just we go through this and uh we just uh hope we can do it one more time next year that's it that's it and Coach um you were recognized uh this past week for as the Minnesota State High School tennis coach uh Again by your peers powerful statement um lots to be proud of of you're a humble man and uh we know that but but um what you know what counsel what advice uh just about life I mean here's your opportunity coach us a little bit what what what what do you really think is it's all about uh first thing it's it's it's an honor to be recognized as such by um through by the peers but uh listen to The Players listen to the to and I think they've spoken loudly is they it's not just about tennis it's about some life lessons that we teach on and off the court and um I'm proud of the girls for for how they've grown throughout the years so I think that's a a big key well congratulations to you congratulations coach Forester and girls it is just an amazing story that uh I don't think anybody really recognizes um I was at that finals and the pressure was unbelievable and you didn't show it um could you feel it oh for sure um for those of you who don't know um we lost to Prior Lake earlier in the season and um which and we lost two5 which in tennis isn't the closest match and so um I think that actually helped us and it motivated us to get better and then um going into that final match um we had a lot of motivation to do well but um there was definitely some pressure and what was the feeling when when we saw that fourth Point scored what was that first emotion you had um it was definitely I was more excited than any other year just because we were The Underdogs this year and it was also so kind of a feeling of relief that we kept the street going cuz we really didn't want to end it this year especially being seniors so that was really fun well congratulations team coach let's get a picture here uh but again thanks for coming in and again [Applause] congratulations next up uh we have our hearings for members of the audience uh we welcome Community input on subjects to the school district and relevant to the school districts uh requests need to BR your seat to the board secretary prior to the start of the meeting each presentation is limited to 3 minutes we ask you not duplicate information that has previously been presented all public uh participation must be in accordance to policy 206 public complaints about individual board members employees or students must be submitted in writing in accordance to our policy there is no board discussion on the issues presented questions raised during presentations will receive responses sub subsequent to the board meeting as directed by the board and if there's further information you'd like to share you're welcome to submit that in writing um everybody's talking tonight about policy uh 510 open enrollment related issues and we are having a presentation which actually be a few minutes after this in our first report related to policy 509 and 510 uh first up I've got alen koher alen welcome following alen will be Gary Jam I just have to grab a mic okay when policy 510 was first adopted in May 2008 it included three priority placements priority placement for children of Staff priority placement for siblings of Staff children and siblings in general when this policy was implemented there was no specific language in the state statute that said you could have such priority placements in a policy this such language remains absent in the statute today however the statute also does not say that you cannot provide such priy placements and so it is clear that when the board passed this policy it took what you would call a loose constructionist interpretation of the law there was ambiguity and they decided that there was discretion to fill it I will note that at the time superintendent dressen as the meetings reflect stated that the district has been in contact with the Minesota Department of Education and is acting appropriately therefore priority placements that didn't have specific language in the statute were included and was be acting appropriately I also point out that at the same meeting minutes indicate that member Johnson shared that he felt students who live in the city of Idina but that part of the district should have priority over other open enrollment students however member raw pointed out these families do not vote in the district referendums there's no indication that it was not allowed because of State Statute it was a policy preference in the time since we have come forth before the board in 2011 and requested a policy change be included to allow priority for Ed City residents after eight months this request was denied the reason being that the minister Department of Education had what we could call a strict constructionist interpretation of the law if the law doesn't say you can do it then you can't we were stunned by this because that was in direct contradiction to the policy in place Ed public schools which did have some party placements even though there was no language allowing for that we were further stunned by the fact that even having received this strict constructionist interpretation by the mde D public schools did not change their own policy this is 2011 and in fact it was sustained in 2012 twice when the policy was amended in the summer of 2014 the superintendent brought forth what was called the enrollment projection Direction a very awkward title thing which asked that the board reaffirm the policy es used in open enrollment including party placements for those even the statute did not expressly permit it we're now to 2015 and we once again made a request that the board include a provision allowing priority for udina City residents and what we see before you tonight is actually a 180 degree reversal from 2008 it appears that we're now all strict constructionists and that all the previous discretion supposedly has been removed I hope that you all take ample opportunity tonight to investigate this to question why this reversal is taking place it is dramatic and it has repercussions and in the end if you decide that you agree with this and you are all strict constructionist now I hope that you will also then think about what are other ways of addressing this long seated situation you are elected community members we hope that you will then if not this become actively engaged in finding other alternatives to finding a solution this cannot be delegated to anyone in staff you need to be involved we hope that you will be thank you thanks alen next up is Gary uh followed by uh josa I can't quite read it okay thanks for the opportunity I just want to uh reiterate again I'm a ID Community member but I'm outside Idina school district and and overall I think between the city and the district uh there are pretty kind of good and strong relationship a lot of collaborations and I also understand uh from the city side and also Community side there are a lot of support in many different ways to the district so so I just want to add okay again as a udina community member I really like to have the privilege to be kind of given uh some priority in the open enrollment process and and I I think that will further Advance the uh the relationship between the Ed City community and also the school dist District as well and again use my personal experience uh we have started the kind of to do the Open Enrollment applications starting grade six but from sixth through 9th grade we are we were out of luck we didn't get uh you know selected uh that's kind of the scenario I feel like uh probably this thing can be done in a slightly different way so overall I really appreciate the consideration thanks thank you next up is Joseph I believe is once I deciphered your uh uh handwriting I'm sorry I write the same way so hi I'm josa schores I'm the parent of two-year-old twins who uh we just moved into Edina we're part of the 27% of Edina residents who are not part of the school district um I think when I talk to a lot of neighbors and friends they have no idea it's 27% they think it's a small little piece that you know just go to Blake just go to Breck you know there's there's all kinds of answers that are out there but it's where we want to be green we want to be with the people um and listening to Gary before me uh it's not whether my twins actually get into Elementary School it's going to be a struggle if we don't solve this it's going to be a struggle all the way up through High School whether or not we're going to be able to uh go to Ed so it's a decision that my wife and I have to make now is do we move we've lived here for two and a half years you do we have to pack up and move so these are the types of things that weigh on the decision thank you and I support Alan thanks J next up we have Christian and Sher welcome I guess somewhat uh my name is Christian ien uh my wife Sher H um we are Edina residents um that live in a pocket on Blake Road where our neighbors 100 feet 200 feet to the south of us or go can go to schools and a block to the north of us can go to ad schools but we're forced to use the Open Enrollment program um I guess we're here tonight to to support a change the policy 510 to be able to just simply allow our son to be able to go to the same school as his friends that are just a couple houses down I mean it's it's not like we're talking Miles and Miles the school is less than a mile from our house um we we just simply would like to ask that um policy 5 time be amended so that there's some priority for presidents of Idina students of ID to be able to go to UD schools um I guess that's that's it thank you thank you appreciate thanks for coming did I miss anybody who submitted thank you all uh next up we're on to our consent agenda had a motion to bring the amended consent agenda to the floor so move it's been moved and seconded to accept this evening's consent agenda any items on the consent agenda that have questions or items you'd like to remove from the consent agenda seeing none all those in favor of approving the consent agenda as amended please sign we already did that when we accepted the we did the modifications y May a little thanks we'll take that as a friendly Amendment correction any additional items questions comments all those in favor of approving the consent agenda with those uh two one minor Amendment one major Amendment uh please signify by saying I I opposed motion carries we're on to our reports uh first item is a revised policy 509 and 510 Rick I'd like to welcome Uh Kevin rup uh to the table Kevin's been our district legal council throughout our discussions with open enrollment and has worked closely with the Department of Education as well as other school districts and helping us try to sort through this uh policy um Kevin we welcome you tonight I know uh you've been engaged in dialogue with the Department of Education and earlier uh this fall we met with uh assistant commissioner on this and just asked that you could uh kind of walk us through next steps as it were thank you um so if you think about the Open Enrollment um statute itself it contains standards that a school district is prohibited from using with respect to applicants under the enrollment open enrollment process and the school district's decision of whether or not to allow them uh to be enrolled in the district the statute also contains standards that the district may use in that process so we've got prohibited standards and then we also have standards that the district may use in 2014 the legislature stepped in um to add another provision to the statute that I think is um quite relevant uh to your decision when it comes to the the statute and the board's policy and so what the the legislature did in 2014 was to say that um in situations um where the number of um applicants exceed the capacity at a grade level then uh the district is required to to use a lottery in that process the statute does say that um preferences can be allowed in that Lottery process so again we're talking about situations where um where we are not um um uh prohibited from using factors and then also situations where we're not allowed to use factors we're kind of talking about that middle ground where the statute steps in and says a lottery is required within that Lottery there are two permissible preferences one is for um SI siblings of enrolled students and the other is so that the district uh can uh comply with an integration plan that has been approved so um along those lines um we then went back to the mde um with the district's policy and focus primarily on two questions the first question was um the current policy has a preference for District employees for the children of District employees and for those who reside outside of the district so the preference would be for employees their children to be to receive a priority in the lottery process the mde took a look at that in the statute and said that that is not a permissible preference or priority that the district can have in its policy the mde said um it's a preference that that's not required by the statute and they also said that it's not even allowable under the statute the policy that you have before you 510 then removes that preference from the um uh existing policy the uh mde looked at the second question which was um we asked whether the the policy could include a preference for children residing within the city of Edina but outside of the district's board ERS um in in essence it would be a city of Edina preference and whether we could include that preference in the language of the policy again the mde looked at it um there there are really two parts to their answer on this question first would be that such a preference would be based at least in part on the students school district of residence um that is in order to receive the preference the student would have to reside within one of the school districts that's within the boundaries of the city of edina's borders um the uh mde said that um that in effect would be a preference based upon School District uh attended School District residents excuse me School District residents and said that that's not allowable it's one of the prohibited factors under the statute so in other words the notion would be um for the districts within the city of Edina um uh the the notion would be this was a be this would be a preference for those school districts um if their children again reside outside of the school district's borders the mde went on though from there to say even if this is not um a prohibited preference being a school district of residence preference which is prohibited under the statute even if it's not that it again is not a required standard that a district can have and um or even is an allowable standard that the district can have so the mde by and large went back to this would be a lottery situation it's not listed as an allowable preference under the lottery situation and could not be allowed so that is the reason why that preference also is not included in the policy that you have before you um um and um I do agree with the MD's interpretation on the on that issue and so I do not recommend that either of those preferences whether it be the employee preference or the city of Edina preference be included in the policy I think if there is to be a resolution it it will have to be by some means other than uh what I think would be a a reasonable interpretation under the statute questions so just for clarity I mean we just had a request that we have our open enrollment policy provide a preference for residents of Edina that are not within the school district and you're saying that that's not permitted under statute yep that's correct and that that's um the MD's um opinion on the matter and as I said I do agree with that interpretation of the law and Kevin when you referenced that there needs to be some other Avenue that would be pursued uh could you outline what that other Avenue is because we you know we've heard from the community we appreciate hearing from them tonight this is clearly not a new issue that's come before the board so we've given it a great deal of consideration as to what those Avenues might be but could you provide some more background on what those options could be um I don't think that I have anything new for the dis the district or the board in that regard it's either the notion of um getting the approval of the um adjoining school districts to a change of of boundaries um or some type of legislative um adjustment to the to the boundaries so is this a change of interpretation I don't think it is and um even if we um well if we do go back to 2011 and um there was a reference to the mde weighing in on this issue back in 2011 they did and at that point the mde said that you know again if we're talking about that middle ground where it's neither required nor prohibited under the statute um that uh they believe that since it would not be a permitted standard the city of udina um preference would not be a permitted standard under the under the statute their opinion at that time was that it was prohibited they at that time in their letter to us on that issue referred to a random Lottery kind of process uh at that time I thought okay where are you coming up with a random Lottery process under the statute because it didn't provide for that process at that time in 2014 the letter the legislature stepped in and put the lottery process in play so I don't think there's room to um attack that opinion so to speak on that ground additional questions for Kevin or for policy or anybody else do you sorry just clarify for me the distinguishing when you distinguish um city of residents versus uh I wrote it down here uh school district of residents and why we're clarifying that yeah it's it's um uh a little bit diff difficult to Grapple with I think as well the statute itself says that school districts cannot have a preference um based upon the parents or students residence in another school district so we cannot say for example we will give a preference to pick um students parents who reside in District a um the and that was the issue also that I think mde was grappling with in terms of okay is this would a city preference really be a school district preference as well so if we have um Hopkins Richfield St Park um in effect we'd be saying the preference would be two students who who parents who reside in those three school districts plus one other Factor though they're in the city of udina as well the as the mde looked at that and said well that's really a school district preference at that point uh you know I think there's room to argue uh on that issue but then they do get to the their second point on that piece which is this is not a required standard and it's not even allowable under the statute and that's where I come back to the lottery that was put in place in 2014 is really being the controlling piece here so so you cannot geographically because I residents versus School District so even that is is not is in their list of not being allowed um the school district of residence is specifically stated in the statute is being prohibited Okay Kevin can you review the whole process so um if someone wants to change districts what's the what are the steps do you have those um and I I don't have the full L uh list so to speak in front of me but it's a it's and it's a process of getting the adjoining um land hold holders um in agreement and then seeking ision from the two school districts I may have missed out on a few steps in that process but that's the general not as far as I understand the county has to sign off on it then as well uh that's correct it has to be then be submitted to the county for approval as well any additional questions comments other things you considered in policy as a part of the discussion or other changes that are in this no additional changes the biggest consideration that policy has had and we've discussed this particular policy many different times but it's clarification of State Statute it's making sure that we can that we comport which is a good word but you they comport that what we're doing is legal and recognizing that it's taken some navigation to figure out what that is so making the necessary adjustments now that we know and I would just also note that that um the policy also impacts again our teachers who are not residents of the school district as far as not having preference and that's been something that was in previous policies and we've been in touch throughout the process with um representatives from Education Minnesota daa make them aware of that and keep them informed in the process and they actually were part of some of the dialogue that we had with the Department of Education on this matter all the changes that you see redlined in the policy are based on State Statute the changes that were made in 2014 and so we went through and we're very careful to make sure that our policy was tracking with what state law said additional questions or comments thank you Kevin thank you Kevin next up we have our schedule review of policies 538 6 61 and 634 switching documents so I'll begin with 538 uh this policy has come before the board frequently it will continue to circulate back um as we take a look at field trips and how this particular policy and practice is changing as we move forward in particular with a goal toward Global competency so part of what we reiterated at the policy level and um believe shared at the board level is support for field trips we recognize that this is an important part of the educational experience and our job is to wrestle with how to make this the most effective and safe process that we can so some of the changes that are before you in the policy this evening particularly address adding a field trip coordinator position because we recognize that this can be a difficult policy to navigate and so adding this position uh will hopefully help address that we also addressed the need to tie back the educational experience with some of the competencies that the district is offering uh a request that estimated costs be addressed UPF front early in the process addressing accommodations for students with special needs and also um taking a look at the option for hom stads so we haven't landed on the solutions for all of these particular issues but this is where a lot of the discussion has been flowing with the field trip policy any other field trip notes because we talked about a lot fundraising also oh thank you big issue discussed as we continue to have a more Global Focus to our curriculum and we want to encourage foreign travel obviously those costs are more than going to Chicago or even going to New York and so how do we make that affordable for all students and so we are trying to start addressing that problem but it's certainly by no means finished with this policy right thank you so and that that's the equity piece is just making sure that there is access to these trips for all students I think the one other thing that we talked about um is for trips in which most of the students go but not all go whether um I think there's a responsibility for the administrator teacher whatever to make sure that there's plans for the students that do not go so that they're getting an actual learning experience in the school if maybe there's only four in a class that don't go um and so to make sure that Equity piece on the other end happens as well so we did address that in the policy we talked about it we haven't landed this policy will come back because the we've had a lot of really solid discussion we've gone in depth but right now what we're continuing to identify is these are issues that need to be addressed and we have addressed some of it but some of it is still language that we need to develop we're trying to get some pieces in place now so that for example for May term and for next year's planning for any foreign travel that they have the new guidelines and policies in place with the idea that the the field trip policy as a practical matter is always a work in progress and it's something we work on every year it keeps coming back so it's not finished but we wanted to get some things out there so that we could keep moving forward so people could at least um comply with the new procedures that we had adopted as we get closer to that time period thanks so this will come back it's been good discussion 611 and 634 have fewer well in 611 there is quite a bit have a question pardon oh go ahead I left tra which appendix it is but one of the appendices talks about uh site visits prior site visits and so I know that we don't address the appendix that that's Administration but I think that we need to take a look at that appendix and if it calls for a prior site visit that it is either accomplished or we figure out what are the exceptions to that rule because it's a box to be checked so I don't want that box to be skipped good point and do a site visit or have no site visit a potential issue and then it kind of comes back because I think there's a purpose to that site visit there is a purpose this has been part of that particular item in the appendix has been addressed by policy in the past but you have a good note uh something that we can address possibly with additional job description of our field trip coordinator so thank you so do we do state visits on the Europe trip yeah we do through the travel agencies okay they're cleared through the travel agency okay policy 611 the primary changes here well there are quite a few changes but this is about alignment with State Statute and Kathy do you want to add anything other than the compliance with State Statute oh it's um this is the homeschooling um policy and um there were some tweaks to it to comply with State Statute a lot of the other things you'll see are language taken out of the direct policy and put into an appendix because a lot of the policy was actually procedures that need to be met by um parents who are going to homeschool their children but it doesn't have to be part of a policy because it's procedural our usual practices to put that in an appendix and it just makes the policy cleaner so and then 634 electronic Technologies acceptable use primary change uh is really taking a look at 5n new language about unmanned Airborne Vehicles so our Electronics policy now addresses drones so I think that's 21st century language drones are not drones are not permitted on school grounds but without I think that there's they would need to have prior approval so there there could be instances and educational instances but it's the prior approval piece that's correct sometimes we have fun in policy we always have fun in policy and and so what's the path here for all of these policies both uh 59 510 and the three we just went through I would say uh we'd probably move for action on majority of these policy 538 might be one we continue to work with we we do want to send this back out to staff we're more directly involved and get a little more feedback we did have a task force of Staff members that did uh work with us on the development of the revisions but think we have a little bit more work to do on that would probably let that float a little bit but I think the other policies we'd plan to bring back for Action I think it's important that we bring back both 510 and 509 simply because we have open enrollment uh headed our way and that deadline is January 15 so we do want any revisions to be included in that policy excellent anything else on any of the policies not until we get to action uh calendars 16 17 178 going and Randy yes thank you uh we had a a calendar committee that was comprised of parents teachers and administrators and um it included folks from Early Childhood all the way through um high school and we worked on a variety of calendars after looking at the parameters that uh the board had given to us we also sent out a survey and was very pleased with the uh response of the survey we had over 2500 responders um the calendar is quite a topic um among many people and so we um devised some calendars based on the parameters we looked at the survey results we went back to the calendars that we had had um had developed and to see if there were some that really went against the survey results we started over again in many cases and then um we came to the board some committee members and Randy came to the board and asked if um gave you um several calendars and there was a lot of discussion about some of them we went back we took a look at the calendars we made some revisions we developed other calendars we came back and um I think last week we presented three three calendars to you and um based on that or actually excuse me to the board HR committee there were three calendars that we presented after with that feedback the calendar committee went back and we then presented two calendars to you last week and you have decided on the one that is before you tonight um Randy did I miss any process no just that the calendar has embedded in it um five district Workshop days at the beginning of the year um opportunity for teachers to get ready for the beginning of the school year prepare their rooms and also have an opportunity for professional development at the building level at the district level an additional district and service day throughout the year uh several uh additional building in service days throughout the year and then four late starts or early releases as part of the embedded professional development time throughout the calendar I think uh one other change that we had was that it was preferred that um the school year began before Labor Day and we worked on that but we also realized in the summer of 2017 there would be eight buildings that would be under construction and um and so the board asked us to go back and take a look at developing a calendar that gave us much time off during that summer summer of 2017 as possible so that we could get as much of the construction done as possible and that was the other thing that we we worked on so I would welcome any questions or comments questions no just thanks that's a lot of parts I would Echo that I want I want to thank first Gwen and your and all of the members of the calendar committee because it is a lot of time and commitment wrestling with as a couple of committee members have shared with the board during Workshop recognizing that often there's very little movement there aren't a lot of options available but we appreciate you creating as many options as you had for the board and then also appreciation for Community feedback because it's a a difficult process and we appreciate hearing the feedback and doing what we can and I think it's it's worth just pointing out some of the differences in the calendars in the next couple of years is it not on it's on um just how we are changing Thanksgiving a little bit Thanksgiving break um being the kids will be in school two days that week um listening to the community's feedback on Spring Break um and moving that into March in both of the two following calendars and then as Gwen was uh discussing you know the the whole Labor Day start and and being able to gain that time over the summer um it would make the second calendar of the two calendars um a post Labor Day start whereas the first calendar will be a pre-labor day start so there are some nuances worth taking a look at that are differences and things that were found within the survey um Thanksgiving being um throughout survey seeing that that was the least important of the breaks to keep extended at the level that we have it extended now so I just thought those were worth noting and consistent with that there is not the two We pre-labor Day start the pre-labor day is one week right one week not two we we hear that concern about that y two weeks before Labor dat I would just like to say I and I shared this last week but I would like to share it publicly I've worked with a lot of committees and I thought that this committee was absolutely fabulous we really uh we weren't necessarily all on the same page but we all heard each other and that is really greatly appreciated so I really thank the committee members very um as well publicly Y and I want to thank it's on and and thank you for listening to the community because um and thank you to the community for taking time 2 200 people is a lot of responses and so um we really appreciate hearing that so that's help guide thank you very much GW Randy and the rest of the crew um can you walk us through the timeline now this comes back in December for approval is that our current track yes unless unless there are any concerns tonight we um we could create more calendars but it doesn't sound like there are are any and so at this point this uh calendar that is online will be the one that's part of the board packet will be the one that comes back for um you to vote on in December any other final comments or thoughts thank you all thank you next up we're on to item D Elementary schematic designs V good evening great so we've had a number of meetings with the elementary teams uh as you recall we are doing work in every building in the district as we move forward with this referenda and so we thought it was important that we establish commonalities between the buildings look at how they compare from building to building and really approach everything that we're working on as part of the referenda initiatives as a districtwide approach to things so over the course of the last uh couple of months we've actually had 32 separate meetings with the elementary schools we met with each one uh we started them together as an entire group so representatives from every building uh meeting to look at what should be consistent between the elementary schools then we we broke into site based groups uh met with them to look at their specific buildings and come up with an approach for how the elementary schools would operate and work my intention is not to go through all 44 slides in this tonight but rather to provide this for you if you want to drill down deeper into the presentation uh but when we started and met with the groups we talked about what would be consistent between the buildings as you went from site to site what should be the commonalities and so we started with just basic Elementary commitments and we moved on to looking at Extended Learning environments or how you'd handle personalized learning in the building at all different scales large group small group one-on-one how that would act with the classroom environments and looking at again what would be consistent from elementary school to elementary school we talked a lot about the learning Commons which is a space directly adjacent to the media center and this evolved out of a separate parallel set of meetings as you recall part of the referenda was to look at media centers throughout the district and to really examine the delivery system for media centers and to look at what necessary improvements would take you into the next 10 to 20 years and so we met with a separate committee that only looked at the media centers from Early Childhood through 12th grade and they developed their own set of criteria for that we'll go over that in a second we talked about Outdoor Learning environments and really came to the conclusion that each building as a site based building had its own unique Outdoor Learning environment and what they wanted to approach with the architecture is making sure that they had easy access from inside the buildings to those Outdoor Learning environments but that the learning environments themselves would remain reflective of the culture of the of the separate elementaries I talked about the media centers as I mentioned uh this group really was made up of media Specialists and Educators from all levels in the district uh Early Childhood through the 12th grade and they talked about a concept that would reinvent the media centers to say we're not uh getting rid of books instead we're thinking about why do students go to the media center in the first place and it's really to retrieve information and to explore ideas that they're more interested in and so the idea of relating media centers to maker space evolved uh media centers would become a place where you go to do your research you incubate those ideas and then you leave the building whether it's at the elementary level middle school or high school to go out and create those ideas in specialized spaces and so with that as a background we were able to not only work on this in our high school user group meetings as we talked about at one of our previous presentations but also approach it with the elementary school so that each core planning team had this philosophy to build off of we also had a parallel track on special services and special education as we looked at the buildings uh that special focus group looked at how Center based programs would work inside the buildings as well as resource programs inside each of the elementaries and develop their own diagram for how those spaces related to not only classrooms but the commons environment and this again became a starting point for each separate core planning team to assess in relationship to their building and we looked at Safety and Security again from a separate parallel uh committee and then overlaid that onto each one of the site based teams so they had a lot of homework discussion to look at and review as they move forward before we ever got into uh individual sites and this is the diagram that really as you think about the elementary schools became our commonality uh between the buildings and that each Elementary School would would be organized around three separate large common areas or large group meeting spaces the learning Commons which is an extension of that media center student Commons areas or large group Gathering spaces that mostly exist in the form of cafeteria and physical education spaces and the Outdoor Learning environments and then they had personalized Extended Learning environments in relationship to each of the classrooms so as you look at the buildings this was the framework that you can start to see we organized each space around uh as it related to each individual site at conquered Elementary uh they really talked a lot about their Five Section building it's the largest uh section building in the the district and how those would be organized and they wanted to be organized by grade we looked at uh that in relationship to their center-based education program uh special education excuse me and the multi-purpose room this is their diagram as it relates to our previous uh commonality and so you'll see the similar approach for each of the elementary schools as we move through tonight so you can see how each relates to each other but how they work within the individual buildings so our large Blue circles represent those large student-based common spaces our purple areas represent the learning Commons and Extended Learning environments the green would be the classrooms and the orange would be administrative or staff areas as we move through this is what is proposed in terms of what they would like to see with a reorganization for the building and so as we take a look at the existing buildings with this being existing using those same codes and this being the proposed so what we were able to do is through an addition on the building of classrooms which was similar to what was in the referenda diagram uh but in a slightly different location we're able to create an Extended Learning environment around each of those five section classrooms the media center or learning Commons area takes place at sort of the elbow for the building so directly located in the middle of all the classroom areas uh what's currently special education on the lower level becomes a separate uh Five Section team uh cluster Space special education moves on the lower level adjacent to the center of the building as well and then this will be our addition on two separate floors here so when you come in the main door uh we'll have a revised office space with a your entry point and then each of those Extended Learning environments around the classroom organization so Von I remember when we talked about this before and the previous schematics didn't have grades in there and and I my my hesitation is that if we're looking at that putting the grades in there makes me feel that it's is rigid not flexible and so I'm just wondering and I and I know the core planning teams put a lot of effort in a lot of thought into this but I still worry that we are constraining ourselves that's a it's a good point to bring up uh one of the reasons that we labeled them with grades is because as we met with each of the teams uh they had difficulty uh providing context without knowing well how are we going to look at it next year and looking at in comparison to what's there but one of the things that we challenged as as a design members was looking at okay five years from now what if that isn't the approach how are the classes organized what if you decide to go more to a proficiency based approach or what if we want to uh create a stem based Suite in here for example and looking at are we Distributing those personalized learning spaces within the building enough is there an ability to reorganize the classrooms enough as we look through and so from a design standpoint we actually stripped the labels off and looked at them as the core pieces to give you the flexibility for the future so while the labels might exist today it's really to help uh understand if we were moving next year how would we want the building organized that's the desire from the planning team but they have the flexibility to organize however you might look at it for the future sure okay and V so when you took a look at this was there any study done of the potential utilization of the flexible space so for example if you get one flexible space for a four classroom cluster does that mean all four classes can use it at the same time two can use it I mean are we do we have enough flexible space for what we anticipate the usage to be uh we actually uh from a starting point standpoint as we talked about with each group they really looked at it as we current currently have students sitting in the hallway for a lot of these types of activities or we're taking them to a different part of the building and so as they looked at what would take place in those Extended Learning environments it wasn't so much that they were looking for a place to gather 60 students at once it's a space for more small group uh work to take place an extension of the classroom so around each one of these Extended Learning environments for example there'll be a lot of glass and openness to that area so you can visually observe what's happening there uh for students that need more one-on-one help with special education resources it would take place in those areas uh and it might be more of a an active Project based space if they're going to have the 60 person uh type assembly or or more they're likely going to be using the learning common space outside of the uh media centers for that type of activity to take place so it's really a variety of size of spaces but even if even if it's going to be used for a small group we still need to know whether it meets the needs of the number of small groups that might want to utilize that space and so have we done any type of assessment that says here's what we anticipate the the need is going to be so that we don't have the hallway classrooms anymore we haven't actually built that level of usage into the design elements that's currently something that we're studying with each of the principles in the buildings in terms of potential programming for those spaces and how they would be uh utilized and what type of uh Furniture if there's Furniture would there be in these spaces uh Mobility is the key to that the ability to rearrange those spaces it's likely Furniture than that's different than the type you'd find in the classroom although although that furniture will be mobile as well uh but it's probably more uh soft seating more conducive to small group uh interaction uh they'll likely be conference room space in these areas uh so it' be a variety of of different types of furniture but U consciously different than what you experience in the classroom environment that's another big part of the reference obviously is is uh replacing classroom furniture with the ability to uh rearrange and transform the rooms into different types of settings to allow for other activities and learning styles beyond the lecture-based only model and Van just with either the concerete example or one of the other elementaries can you identify what the security changes will be to make the sites safer uh number one security piece is the main entry sequence and how we move move into the building and so at each of the buildings we're moving to a secure vestibule model where visitors to the building after the start of school would come in uh the interior vestibule doors would be locked and all visitors would have to pass through the reception area before gaining access to the building from that point they're registered uh sign in and then move through that space out into the rest of the building uh exterior doors are going to be locked and card access only so that uh students leaving the uh building would have to be accompanied by staff member to come back in and we we're looking at bus and parent traffic on site as part of our driving sequence coming on to each of the sites as well and as we look at the site uh you can see the where the addition would take place on conquered and how Bus drop off uh would work uh currently uh We've explored different models of Bus drop off and parent drop off above and below for Concord and are looking at a revised model that would have Bus drop off on the um upper level with parent drop off on the lower level uh excuse me vice versa a bus drop off on the lower level with parent drop off up above our labels are backwards but that's still under investigation yes we're still looking at that and working with David White and Eric Hamilton in the district as we explore that and each of the separate principles at Cornelia uh we talked a lot about how they would be organized uh and this one it's a four-section building and wanted to have their pairs of grades um or their grades uh set up in in four classro rooms adjacent to each other uh they wanted to have Extended Learning environments that were a little larger uh so their Extended Learning environments revolved around pairs of grades uh so that they could have some cross-pollination as uh between age levels we looked at a centralized space for the building so when you come in the front door making all of our community- based activities centrally located uh that was actually another meeting that we had with Community Ed um kids choice programming in the district and how the buildings would be used before and after school and taking a look at the community use for that um we looked at gifted and talented with uh some different location and space and looked at relocating that center-based uh DCd population closer to the office area to make use of adjacent nursing this is how their diagram worked if you remember Cornelia and Highlands have a similar floor plan and their uh gymnasium space is the smallest of the district so part of it was increasing their gymnasium space or their physical education space part of it was providing more specialist space for this uh site and so big part of this revolved around a gymnasium addition onto the building uh we'll actually be converting the existing gym to their media center and learning Commons uh adjacent to the main entry as you come in uh with a new gym towards the back of the building or off of that main Central Corridor and this is how it translates into the floor plan so classroom additions on the south end of the building uh small uh specialist addition to the north end of the building and the gym off of the West side coming in office reconfiguration again to create that secure vestibule our media center and learning Commons directly adjacent to the main entry Extended Learning environments here and here on either side of the courtyard our grade levels U moving along uh the corridors here first grade in kindergarten in this portion of the building uh with our Center based program being relocated towards the um center of the building as opposed to its current location down this wing so for corelia the Extended Learning spaces are not clustered near the classrooms they're sort of more centrally located they're centrally located along the space so that um uh they have equal access to that area that also provided us a larger space for those Extended Learning environments and it made use of the courtyard so that we could get some visibility across the building and daylight into those areas we have a small one in this area as well the media center is a very large Chef the current Media Center is in this location this now moves it adjacent to the main entry and really provides that learning Commons at the Hub of the building the special edition is contemplated for uh they have a lot of intervention specialists in the building that need additional space uh currently they're sharing closet space they're sharing uh just about every nuok and cranny they can find and so this would provide dedicated space for those intervention specialists so it's not specific to the special ed no it's actually flexible in terms of uh different types of student based help that okay could occur in that area just seems like it's off in the far end of the Building compared to where the students are uh part of that was looking at uh where they wanted to have more of their commonality uh based in the building and how make use of that Central spine and looking at pulling the students closer to that area as opposed to a group of intervention specialists thanks uh if you take a look at actually uh the majority of our students uh would be in this portion of the building so it's heavily weighted to where we feel the most of the students are in the building as well uh with kindergarten areas most of their uh activ take place within the classrooms themselves and so you'll find with each of the plans most of the groups said U we want to focus those Extended Learning environments around our first through fifth grade students part of the limitation also with this obviously is the existing architecture and the existing buildings we have very different buildings in the district uh corneel and Highlands are the only ones that have a similar floor plan and so we're looking at from the infrastructure of the building where can we make these moves uh what makes the most uh use of the space and how can we work with the classrooms in somewhat of a similar configuration than they're in now and then this is a site plan showing where the addition for the building would be we do have some play equipment that will need to be slightly relocated as we take a look at this area are additions are smaller on the building itself in this corner yep uh Countryside uh a little bit different it also has a two-story classroom portion of the building like conquered but at Countryside uh most of our uh large group spaces are on one side of the entry and our classrooms are on the uh opposite side uh they spent a lot of time looking at the architecture of their building and talking about the spaces and came up with a slightly different approach on how they would handle Extended Learning environments similar to uh maybe a a Housing Development uh with Park land or green space and they said rather than have four separate ones can we pull them together in a centralized location for the building so we had have not only small group area but large group Gathering space and so that became a framework that we looked at for the building we spent a lot of time talking about the entry sequence there uh with it being sort of a pinch point for the building how we handled security and moving students back and forth between the two different sides what's going to be important so their diagram uh you can really see our learning Commons in our Extended Learning environments on the upper and lower level uh they're making use of that learning Commons outside the media center heavily for the upper level our large group Gathering spaces are current spaces in the center of the um the northern part of the building and this is how it translates so at the bottom of the ramp on the one side our Extended Learning environment for our four groups of three section classrooms uh in the center of that space our learning Commons on the upper level um with our three fifth grade classrooms their continuous progress classroom rooms they felt it was very important to um no pun intended continue the design that they have currently with the uh access between the rooms and wanted those lined up five in a row uh this represents a small addition on this portion of the building uh moving the office from its current location adjacent to the entry to create that secure vestibule coming in art now becomes centrally located as a student uh component function and our music spaces uh currently it's art and music in this location this relocates music into an adjacent music Suite in that area and our kindergarten remains in the location it's currently in so van um you mentioned something I have two thoughts but so you said that there was access between the CP classrooms with so that there was access in between the classrooms within the classroom are we looking at that with the other classrooms that actually is part of the architecture for the building currently and so with that in place and not wanting to modify the classrooms lining the five CP rooms up allowed them to look at a structure that uh move from age levels easily between the buildings so it's a feature that already exists in all the classroom spaces I meant for like the noncp classes it it already exists in those room as well okay and is that consistent across all the all the schools no it's not that's unique to this building so that's that's my that's my concern because like I said it still feels very rigid to me um particularly for the CP maybe CP in five or 10 years doesn't exist and now we have five classrooms and maybe so that's my concern correct no no neither is conquered I see the potential uh potential expansion at the end is there is there a reason that's there uh we have always like to take a look at your buildings and determine if they did have to expand in the future what might be a likely place that that could occur and explore that as part of the possibility and so it's a a part of the diagram that shows up on there um just to Simply indicate if you're in the future if you were to take a look at how you might expand it's been thought through in terms of how we'd structure the building and look at that approach but the addition as it exists is is basically two classrooms two stories correct thanks this is where that addition went fit on the site plan as you take a look at the building for Creek Valley uh Creek Valley is probably the most interesting architectural layout uh with the hexagonal classrooms uh we took a look again at how that uh building would be arranged and based on not only current configuration but also likely age scenarios the four section classroom cluster made sense for that building they wanted to maintain that uh we wanted to make sure that uh music and art Art became centrally located in the midst of the all the student needs uh spent a lot of time talking about uh our Center based program in this site as well and what the right location would be for that and how we would handle additional specialist spaces so in this diagram uh you can see our large group Gathering spaces are currently anchored by our cafeteria and our gymnasium our media center remains in the center of the building but this one moved towards uh similar to Cornelia a large learning Commons directly inside the main entry to the building looked at relocating art and music to a central location and working around that hexagonal arrangement of the classroom to create separate Extended Learning environments this is how that translates into the plan so you can see here again uh we're label labeling them by grade but it could be any configuration for classrooms around an Extended Learning environment this moves the entry wall the actual uh hexagons are not pure hexagons in the current layout there's a small entry vestibule that's really not used for a lot of space so we're recapturing that around each one of the areas by moving that entry point back slightly into the room and maintaining our 900 foot classrooms uh they all have that Extended Learning environment viewing into that space now from those four section clusters uh the exception is fifth grade which is organized around pairs around either side of the learning common space coming into the building our Center based uh program moves from its current location into the addition on the building part of the referenda was to uh add specialist space spes at this building where they were undersized compared to the other elementaries so instead of building an interventionist addition on the building we're looking at special education Edition for that center-based program puts it closer to an entry drive and sequence coming into the building and locates our interventionist more centrally located to the student population and this is where that addition would be on the site I I think once you start breaking the buildings down and this is what we found with each one of them is that you're really looking at how are classrooms arranged are they arranged in pairs are they arranged in three are they arranged in four are they arranged in five and five would be our maximum at conquered which provided us with a few more of those Extended Learning environments but each building has that type of of module attached to it and so as you look at how the grade structure moves to the building it gives you that flexibility hopefully too with this one uh from our learning Commons if we're to open this portion of the building up um you experience a little bit of uh trying to find your way or difficulty finding your way in this building based on the quarter system this actually from this location will give you a view down either one of the corridors into the space and will help clean up some of that circulation ambiguity at Highlands again this is another one of the uh continual progress buildings paired with Discovery classrooms so we looked at how those are organized uh the continual progress classrooms were to or be organized in four pairs so again looking at that two pair module uh with CP as uh four classrooms uh organized together uh we looked at how U what the pairings would be for examp example first and second grade adjacent to each other or as we broke it down further that's really for us that meant four modules of classroom so looking at the numbers as opposed to what the grade labels would be uh which spaces would be organized around the learning Commons which ones would be organized around extended uh learning environments and looking at those common spaces towards the center of the spine similar to a Cornelia so this is how their diagram uh looked one option that we did question back and forth between the groups as uh as we were meeting with them was we were sharing information about what each individual site looked like and so we had a lot of conversation with Cornelia about Highlands and Highlands about Cornelia uh and rather than make the buildings identical in terms of their approach uh we chose for a site based uh option and layout the buildings actually themselves despite having similar floor plans are already not identical and so uh that seemed to validate that approach their Media Center would remain in the center of the building with the learning Commons off of that main joint Extended Learning environments uh dispersed out out into the wings reorganized office space again gym and cafeteria and their current locations and this is what this looked like rather than make one large gym they really approached this around the idea of an activity based multi-purpose room and a project-based multi-purpose room for art as we took a look at what that would be so creative uh Art Space here our activity room our media center our cafeteria all gathered around that centralized learning Commons our uh Discovery classroom on one side of the building with a large uh portion of the corner opened up for Extended Learning environment in this area our CP classrooms currently on this side of the diagram and relocated uh special education programs adjacent to the main entry with our office Renovations and our secure Vestal in this location as well sorry this does also uh provide a classroom addition on the uh side of this Corridor similar to what exists currently at Cornelia can you explain the difference in the Extended Learning spaces that are clustered um around the media center and then the discovery classrooms versus the two that show more I don't know diagram within the Extended Learning Spaces by rooms we're just starting the user groups with these uh groups right now and so the fact that we had separate rooms on there was only drawn in to explain to any of the groups how one of these Extended Learning environments might look so we're saying maybe there's some small group conference area maybe this is large group this really could be a diagram that would apply to each one of those and that's the process that we're working on right now is further delineation of those Extended Learning environments so on this one my concern when I look at this is the the learning spaces between the CP classrooms I could see that that ends up being that learning space that learning Commons is for this group this one's for this one and then all the discovery ones have to use that one and I can just see how that could easily be owned that way because you have to go way across the school to get if you wanted to use a different one so this one balance seems a little off to me uh in the original design we actually had classrooms in this location and we had our uh our creative multi-purpose room or our art room in this location and one of the steps that we uh took with Highlands is having a staff-wide meeting where they looked at the building and we got a lot of feedback from the staff in terms of what they saw and what they um what they thought may work better for the building uh but because of the process we didn't have that just be a staff decision we we um had our core planning team meet again and re-examine the criteria and take a look at it uh and in the end they decided that based on this being a specialist space with art they'd rather have that in the center of the building as opposed to One Wing they felt that the students in this area of the building maybe being the oldest students would have an easier time traveling to that area and they really wanted to make the most use of that learning common space as part of uh the Extended Learning environments for those areas uh based on their strong desire to have those pairs of classrooms together this was the plan they felt worked best for that building and again from a module standpoint we were really looking at it around the idea of two if two we have two pairs of spaces we we've got this classroom above the cafeteria there on the diagram but and then we have an activity based multi-purpose room right next to it this is more fied based activities it's more like an aerobic Studio Fitness Studio this is really more of a maker space for art and other types of functions okay and the and the the gym Spa is that going to be a gym is it going to be high ceilings or is it going to be more like this room it's probably about a a story and a half as opposed to a full two-story gym uh it's not really intended to be a basketball gym as much as it is uh type of gym to do different um types of physical activity more along the lines of uh really about the only reason you would have that high base space would be for volleyball and basketball and with the spaces that are available in the district that was another question that we had with activities director in terms of how do we distribute spaces and having some more uh aerobic space space was seen as a positive in terms of a variety space within the district okay I I guess I share a little concern similar to Lisa's just that this I hate to see us Base building purely on the current program that's there so because I it does seem like the Extended Learning spaces that go with the libraries may be or sorry excuse me media centers um I don't know I have a little concern with this one that it's based it's very heavy program based and that we're not considering that someday programs may change in these buildings part of the process and working through the user groups with the spaces uh we we tend to keep design somewhat fluid as we move through uh we don't sign off and just say okay this is done we're moving on to the next phase so as new information comes out we're looking at those types of issues as well uh we're trying to find that balance between the buildings I'm not positive that the Extended Learning environments will end up between these pairs of classrooms as opposed to shifting towards one end or the other um but one of the difficulties does come in the fact that uh some of your buildings U actually almost every Elementary with the exception of conquer and Normandale uh have a very strong divide and you have classrooms on one side or the other and so when it comes to trying to find that balance it's sometimes difficult to get the spaces balanced out and to have uh equal space from one side to the other so we'll continue to explore that I if I could follow up on that and this may be a question as much for Randy as as it is for for you Von you when I when I looked at the schematics for the high school I understood what we're trying to accomplish how the architecture fit in with that and how it would be used and it all made sense I look at these various schematics and I don't it's not obvious to me and I I may be missing something other people see but a lot of the questions are how's it going to be used have we preserved enough flexibility and those are all questions to me that indicate we don't really know what we're going to be doing with the space and it worries me to move forward with modeling before we know that so maybe between the two of you you can you explain how that was addressed by the Committees and and how it's addressed in the schematics want to start or would you like me to start um go ahead and then I'll follow up uh i' I'd probably start by taking you back to the original task force that met ahead of the referenda and looked at the different spaces and talked about what the needs were what they wanted to see for their students um with many of the new elementary schools that are designed uh those Extended Learning environments are designed in around those classroom spaces and they're put in place specifically for those types of activities that are currently happening in the hallways or happening in spaces that aren't adjacent to those rooms so they really are breakout environments around those classroom areas to uh be used for those small group or personalized type of activities at the elementary level you still have a lot of work happening in the classrooms themselves and happening in the group instruction this is really meant as an extension of that environment outside the classroom and so uh was refle ction of an outcome of that referenda committee that um or the longrange planning committee that happened ahead of the referenda and looking at what's happening in other types of new construction I would just add that um for about four years maybe longer this was prior to me coming here uh personalized learning was established as an essential component one of the big three elements of our strategic plan and personalized learning involves students um Lear learning how to manage various Pathways for their own learning and incorporates different modal modalities for learning which might include large groups medium groups small groups clusters of students working with adults students working individually on computers etc so a central element to design for a personalized learning environment is really flexibility and as van mentioned at an elementary level much of that does happen in a smaller space often times and or in classroom space but also built into this design are flexible areas to go into larger group spaces as well programs are going to evolve over the next 15 years and we're building spaces through 2030 and as those programs evolve um the central element that remains critical is that we have as much flexibility in the design of the structure and the building as possible knowing that the personalized learning framework is going to be something that we're going to continue to grow um and expand upon the program itself is simply how we organize the different learning activities and what themes or key characteristics we use to kind of glue The Learning Experience together and again as those programs continue to evolve and grow and reshape we want the design of the building to be as flexible as possible so my concerns about the drawings are that we started the referendum with the idea that programming would drive facilities I think that we're at this moment probably a little bit ahead of that where facilities are getting put together and I think what you said was we we're addressing what's currently happening in the hallways and so it seems to me that we're looking in part at addressing where we are today and we're not necessarily looking to where we're going to be and so that we don't have the programming in place yet I'm a little concerned that we don't know how utilization will work for these spaces and I wonder whether we shouldn't get answers to those questions before we start to approve these schematics so this project has to last us 2030 and that that's what we have to have designed flexible enough and responsive enough the the key again is an elementary level is much different than than a secondary level this is where breakouts fast is going to happen and what's important about this is just paired classroom events you know we can create flexibility within the paired classrooms to to allow that responsiveness the what we have basically are maker spaces you know large group spaces that are going to continue to evolve going forward uh whether we have specialists in them or whether what other type of production areas evolve going forward we don't know exactly how curriculum is going to be integrated going forward so what we need is that paired classroom space because it's still going to be core of to have that classroom teacher at the elementary level with a group of assigned students and then they're going to f flex and Blake break from that with additional staff members so being able to have furniture that is flexible is really important and then having this breakout space those are those are going to be super supervised areas I mean what's different from uh a high school setting is many of those breakouts as we look at them uh are going to have uh interventions or acceleration or some type of support experience space so that is um you know again always going to be part of an elementary program it's going to be less about independence and more about interactions with adults be it volunteers or be it classroom teachers so I think the key again is going to be some flexibility within the classroom which blends this and uh given what we are able to do with the structure that we have and the funds we have available this does create that flexibility for programming today and yep we are locked in because people still need to have figure out how it fits today how it fits today and so we have class you know classrooms assigned to it we have space assigned um but as we go to the Future and as we redesign program uh we will have that flexible space and those classrooms won't necessarily be played out that way as we look to the Future so we're currently looking at the elementary level at different programs that we might put in place IB or or a type of IB uh Highly Effective Teacher and I can't remember all the acronyms but so we haven't decided which of those paths we're going to will all of those paths be accommodated by these drawings yes I'll let Susan speak to that I think we did excuse me we did talk a lot in the elementary but um didn't know which Susan but I was going to speak first um uh we did talk in the elementary meetings about that and that we don't want to be limited by what we're currently offering and I think when we talk about whether it's um stem or steam or IB or however whatever we decide to go with and I know those discussions are ongoing is that the flexibility of those kind of spaces that we might have it labeled right now as a Creative Commons or an art room but maybe that looks a little bit different if the program changes we have um some other resource spaces that could become more science labs or maker spaces and so I think as Lisa pointed out early that those labels are based on what we're currently programming but the discussions have really evolved around what could they be if we don't label them that way and I think we're kind of in a it's a catch22 if you don't label them people can't figure out what it is that we're looking at and if we do label them then people get restricted but the discussion having said through all of those 32 apparently um meetings that they really were robust and not just looking at what we're currently doing and I think the flexibility is buil in there to the even to the point of you know we don't know those those what look like walls between those classrooms might be glass they might be movable those are decisions that have not been made yet and but yet we feel like as as Rick had has pointed out you know the buildings were built in a different time we talked about that a lot last spring and we're trying to adapt them as best we can given the physical structure that we're limited to when you have buildings that were built in the 60s maybe another way to think about this and we approached it this way with each of the groups is what would we do if we were doing a new building versus an existing building and we're often times limited to how people see existing buildings and that your your contextual reference is so strong with that building but we said okay here's the conversations we would have if we were doing a new building we'd start with what are the community based spaces and what are the largest group spaces are those hubs or are those destination areas and how would you organize the rest of the spaces around that from there it really breaks down into how many classroom environments do you have in the building what's the um the arrangement to those and how do those Extended Learning environments for those spaces plug into adjacent areas we know that in order to really be flexible it shouldn't be designed around one um pedagogy it really should be the architecture doesn't limit what you want to do in the building uh currently if you look at the buildings there's no space other than classrooms they're very uh compact they're very dense in terms of the classrooms and really what these projects are doing is they're starting to open up some of those spaces they're providing a little bit of relief around groupings of classrooms so that you can have different types of activities happening that maybe can't take place as easily within the classroom uh would be disruptive if you started to divide the classroom into these students are going to do some of this these students are going to be some of that and it's starting to create different types or styles of spaces for you to do that it doesn't eliminate the classrooms but it starts to organize how the classrooms work and provide some of that flexibility and breathing space within each of the buildings to accommodate not only what you might be doing today and tomorrow but how you might look at the buildings 10 years from now 20 years from now CH change the subject a little bit if I if I can um and and I you know we're trying to build far into the future and it's obviously hard to predict but you know one thing that I think we've all seen in public education is Spaces end end up getting pressed into uses that weren't anticipated uh we don't know know what the city's plans are for development or higher density housing we we don't know what our student populations will be are we giving any thought to what would best preserve our ability to provide excellence and education and stay with our programmatic commitments if we have to deal with greater growth in student population than we anticipate and is there any way to deal with that maybe as a fair part of the question too part of the reason that uh to the earlier question know why would we show a potential expansion on there was to look at how you might expand each of the buildings and studying those Concepts in terms of what it might be uh I think to recapture those Extended Learning environments and turn them back into classrooms while a possibility would put you back into a position that you're looking at today in terms of the density of the building and so I think that's really um probably the best way to look at it is as needs change in the future if you do have more students in that building how would you accommodate that is well part of it is again remember we have open enrollment is about 15% of our population so that's been our flux so if we have more residential growth we would uh have to limit our open enrollment and that's another way to control it um we don't know how education is going to continue to evolve we don't know the impact of Early Childhood for example and are we positioned well for Early Childhood me there may need to be um you know more study going forward as we look into the 2020s exactly how early education is going to impact this um and then what impact does that have on a kindergarten program and a K5 and we're just in some transition but I think uh we do have a good handle on enrollment because of uh the way we can manage our open enrollment numbers um and that that would probably be the best solution but we you know we are having additions we've identified areas that we can Flex um and that that would probably be our our two solutions we've looked at five uh the Normandale is maybe uh light Creek Valley it's the most interesting that was never designed as an elementary school start it's a former High School uh that was converted to an elementary school and so as we look at the floor plan it has some of those issues to address it's also the only one that's entirely sandwiched between two other floors of a building uh so has some unique characteristics as well um this building really looked at again starting with grade configuration and classroom configuration as a organizing element and looking at how the current Media Center which is really it's although essentially located it's a destination then it's locked on both sides how that could unlock the keys to the building and with the relocation of district offices off of the second floor how it could improve circulation improve unity in the building and uh improve security overall so their organization really has um their main entry their theater component uh to one side of the building their cafeteria Media Center to the other side their gyms as you recall are on a separate level for the building um looking at Extended Learning environments around those classroom areas and creating a small student Commons in directly inside the front door so using some of that satellite space from where the classrooms are for student use so in terms of the building layout itself Media Center centrally located but opening that up to create learning common spaces to both sides of the corridor uh they took an another interesting approach and saying our office is so far away from where the students are can we take a look at our student service based functions like nurse's office for example and social worker psychologists as being more centrally located the students so like the high school splitting those office functions as a a response to the limitations of the architecture itself expanding classrooms into the area currently occupied by the district office and expanding their cafeteria space as well to get more of an appropriate size our circulation now can move through the building and we can secure the building at the stairwells as opposed to the um the configuration that exists um and then reorganizing our front entry sequence to provide more of that secure lockdown point so kindergarten area uh directly adjacent to Art and music and then the classrooms circulating through the wings no addition onto this building are the current elevators adequate and do we have any issues regarding safety of having people access it using the elevators uh with the elevators because they need to get to the first floor and third floor will'll have to rely on digital uh controls within the elevator to not open up on the second floor without having the correct uh password or key code rather uh but the quantity of elevators and the functionality is appropriate for the building thanks so the flexible learning space that's near the reception I mean is that really a functional space given that the classrooms are in so far away uh this is actually maybe more in response to your uh question of what if we want to do something that's maybe a little bit larger group uh or large variety they said we could bring groups of students down here in an area that would be um give them the ability to be a a little bit louder would actually uh they would like to create their access point to their Outdoor Learning environment off of this common space coming in so that they have the theater that entry point in their Outdoor Learning area accessed off of that area I believe that is it for the elementaries any additional questions last question on the Normandale the new Normandale classrooms that that you're looking at that we're adding in the what is now the district office um are those classrooms rather long and narrow or is that just the current diagram and it won't be reflective of that the new ones that will be added oh um that's actually uh that's the original uh classroom layout from when it was a high school if you go back to the structural uh layout and so they're the same square footage they're a little bit more rectangular but it works off of the ex original classroom Bay proportions so we're taking advantage of that structure so when when we look at all these classrooms that are existing do you envision that a teacher can set up different stations within those classrooms or are they not going to be big enough so for example you might have in 25 kids you might have 20 in one area and five in another because you're doing some sort of grouping is is that an option within the current layout it will definitely be an option and I think that's the one thing that doesn't show up on floor plans is remembering that we're we are outfitting the classrooms with new furniture at each of the classrooms and so while the Extended Learning environments might be more of an architectural response to the personalized learning approach every classroom will have new furniture in it allowing you to do much many different things than a attached chair and sled based Des style uh piece of furniture we've looked at the square feet for the classrooms uh we feel that they're they are appropriate in size again though we are uh let's say that we felt they were 20 squ feet too small we don't have the budget to start moving walls 3 feet or 4 feet here and have a chain reaction down the line and so uh we where we saw classrooms in buildings that were currently being utilized as smaller spaces where you've um adjusted to the need over time we're trying to correct those areas and get back to an equitable siiz classroom across each of the elementary schools if one doesn't exist does the cafeteria remain its current configuration no it actually the current configuration ends right about here and so it's uh it's increasing in size by about 50% okay thanks so when we were in Omaha for bondle or whatever and so some of the spaces we saw there that were interesting was essentially no wall between two classrooms and two teachers merging and then there was sort of a traditional setup on one side and then the other side of the classroom was really small group and and different things and they would merge back and forth sort of fluidly about that is that sort of vision able to be done here uh it could be done uh we didn't get a lot of that actually in terms of questioning about how the classrooms would work and um how they'd be utilized U most of the dialogue uh where that took place was around buildings where currently the teachers are working in pairs are comfortable working in pairs uh it's something we could provide but to do it everywhere districtwide on the possibility that somebody might do that uh is a pretty major uh budget impact and so it wasn't a move that we necessarily jumped to however uh uh I will say at conquered in each one of the five sections two classrooms have that ability so we have the classrooms that have the pair at Creek Valley two classrooms in each four section have that uh as we looked at each of the buildings we tested it and thought about how that would work the limitation came down to teachers saying well in order for that to work we would have to work together as a group of teachers and decide who needed the large room during that day who needed the smaller room and so they started to take the labels off in terms of saying this is my room and looking at it is this is a a group of five classrooms that the teachers for this grade level would organize and discuss collaboratively which teachers would need that space for the day and what they might be doing in that area which is more of a middle school or a high school approach when we think about it so we did talk about those types of things but we didn't do it between every space on the possibility that somebody might want to do that we looked at more of a limited approach vanon will have restrooms in in Normandale be redone some of the yes more traditional 50s style we're going to get them up to 1962 standard no uh there's actually there's a on top of the referenda and the programmatic components you're also uh you have a long range plan for both your two-year and 10 year that addresses infrastructure needs we know that this building has um some significant infrastructure needs around plumbing and piping so as we do some of this work we're building in how it overlaps with the construction or how we're prepping for it for future projects as well we're looking at that with each of the buildings um you're not doing projects simultaneously at each of the buildings in terms of those major deferred maintenance items so we have to plan for those in the future to make sure that any work you do now as part of the referenda isn't disrupted at some point so the Normandale schematic has a couple of these operable walls so correct I I take it then each of the elementary schools has has a couple of those operable wall classroom setups at some point uh it's not uh in every single uh cluster as we go through but in many of them yes so every school will have some classrooms that will have the ability to join together correct so we could call that an incremental change yes but what um what non-weightbearing classrooms like the ones we saw in um Omaha can be those changes can be made you know if we're looking at different types of pairing and sizing those can be made relatively easy down the road at a future point to be responsive to the curriculum there are no for the most part uh the structure runs from inside quarter walls to exterior walls and so making those changes at any point in the future is is pretty easy to do it's just it's a a project that requires some amount of construction over that summer period so again I keep picking on Randy but to to to the extent that we're also doing a lot of this remodeling to try to drive change and Improvement in the educ ational program by failing to build some of those things in now are we making it harder to get where we want to be so I go back to again what's in our strategic plan around personalized learning and how that can be created in an existing classroom right now but how the addition of other key types of spaces really Fosters growing that personalized learning environment across the school and some of those key spaces that we don't have right now are larger group spaces and what's really critical in this design are these maker spaces we have in our educational competencies the desire to grow inquiry creativity critical thinking um collaboration skills amongst all of our students and those learning common spaces with maker spaces as part of that element really offer that opportunity in that school design so in an elementary level um again we have many existing classrooms where personalized learning can take place but one element that we are missing are some of these other types of spaces across the schools so that being the central framework of what we want to do moving forward how we package standards as part of The Learning Experience that's going to continue to evolve it it could be that we are you know looking at stem schools down the road and those maker spaces would be critical as part of that design or it could be that we're looking at IB or looking at some other type of curricular framework so we believe from the from the standpoint of what we've seen in the design that that will allow us the flexibility for how the program is going to change and evolve because we're building we're building sites that have to address current program needs but program needs 5 Years From from now and program needs 10 years from now so that's going to have to remain flexible in itself so that we respond to the needs and desires of the community so from a teaching learning standpoint it's hard to predict exactly what is going to be where and what is needed where so we're looking at just the general design element of flexibility around different size spaces different types of spaces knowing that personalized learning is going to lead us to the direction we're headed around excellence and equity for all students not to keep harping on this but we've talked at times about how our physical plant limits what we can do so you're comfortable that this new physical plant isn't going to limit the options that we want to pursue I'm saying I'm comfortable that people are having the dialogue about that now whether or not these are the final final plans will remain to be seen But as Susan mentioned people are having that dialogue what do we want this programming to look like what can we do in the future that's part of the process so aren't we better served to wait till that dialogue is finished uh I think that dialogue is happening parallel to the plans that we are building so that the design elements are being Incorporated in these plans that you're seeing I I just have to you say for me voting yes to approve the plans before you feel comfortable answering that question that you know we're now at the point where these facilities won't impede accomplishing what we want you was troubling to me I I have trouble with that I'm completely on board with where we want to go in terms of personalized learning more C more collaboration with students and and between teachers but I just you when I hear an answer like you know we don't have more flow between the classroom is because none of the teachers given their present practices and programs asked for it or questioned it you know that answer concerned me that you know maybe the right things aren't driving the the schematics if I may I would I would say that um maybe to to clarify Bond statement about that I think those discussions did come up they didn't specifically talk about well I'm going to pair with this person what they didn't want to be making decisions on a core planning team which were representatives of staff and families was that that there shouldn't be those people should not be making those decisions those should be made broader and when we talked about certain um Extended Learning spaces being in certain parts of the buildings and and we talked about maybe those teachers at at a certain time in the future that are more conducive to and more flexible with that and more open to that should be for that year placed closer to those spaces into tell because we know it's going to be a process to kind of help our staff evolve and I think one of the things that I've I've been really learning about this because I'm I'm you know kind of linear sometimes in my thinking is that this is not a linear process and that there is going to be discussion going on at the same time there's always going to be a program discussion happening and we need to create the flexibility in our spaces and I I for one feel that there is a lot of flexibility built into this even though a drawing might not reflect it and I feel I can say that based on the conversations that were happening in those meetings and if I might just add one more thing um that I also think that while we talk a lot about program driving facilities and absolutely that should be the way when we get there and we do the construction and and when we decide who's going to be in what part of the building at you know in a year or two um I think it's also about until people see those spaces it's hard to make those changes and so there is sometimes a flip of until you get in a space and then suddenly the light bulb goes on and so when they look looked at visiting other schools or when they looked at virtual tours that's when their light bulbs started going on for them about what could be so you had said that decisions should be made by a broader group than the core planning team as to some of the decisions so what's our timeline for getting that feedback I think that's what comes in in the next stage as we're seeing now at the high school with those user group meetings schematics kind of placed you know where where things might go and can speak more specifically to that but the user group discussions are what exactly does that little corner of our world look like and so what would that space look like what do those Extended Learning spaces look like what do what does the larger learning comment look like is it just an open space are there little pockets of spaces for people those are the discussions that happen in that next phase because really we really drilled into them that the point of this exercise and this phase was to say are the big pieces where they need to be I wonder if part of where we're struggling is just that juxtaposition of having gone through the process of the high school design and then the elementary because they are two obviously different ends of the Spectrum High School allowing much more Independent Learning options and therefore it does flow more we have more open learning spaces what I remember from our conversation early on in the strategic planning process is that at elementary it's not necessarily appropriate to have the you know a priority on all student-driven Choice there is certainly student choice but it's under a different it has a different structure to it so that choice might be happening more in that environment with a teacher in a classroom or you know a few instructors in that classroom whereas it does open up as we progress through and and that's just that's my interpretation I don't know if that's the same as what other people are struggling with but you know we could open these up we could open up walls we could have it flow across the hallways as we've looked at for some of the middle school I'm not sure if that would be appropriate in the elementary setting and I think what I'm struggling with is that because we haven't landed there we don't necessarily know whether it's appropriate or not and so that that's that's where I'm having this push and pull because we have seen districts that do more of that at the elementary and this doesn't quite get there but maybe we can't afford it well I don't know because if it's if it's a matter of moving internal walls as V pointed out that can be supported by our current building design so if we find that we need to flow in that direction it sounds like we we can adjust to that what we wouldn't be able to go back and do is adding square footage to a building so with the drawings at these sites it appears that that conversation has been held and looking at where's the most appropriate place and way to add space that's been addressed but internally it sounds like we will continue to have those options probably through the next couple of decades that particular option won't go away correct uh you know I I think part of our job in facilitating the design and the process is not to just take someone's um statement about what it's like today and the statement of well we don't know how we'd share room so don't do that and to take that at face value and say okay well we won't do it then it's to really look at where your opportunities are and to think about and compare it to other schools we've designed other groups that we've worked with and the issues they've brought up and then to find subtle ways to question that to push back on that and to challenge that so for example uh as Lenny pointed out we do have an operable wall an operable wall an operable wall in these pair or these groups of four classrooms and that came as a result of saying well what if you wanted to do some large group teaching together well we don't do that currently well what if you did want to do that how would how would you do that maybe if we were to put a wall between here that could collapse down and you get to that large group well what kind of Acoustics are going to be in that wall they're they're great we can get that wall to work in a way that's going to be the same as if we put a drywall um insulated up between the classrooms well does it have to be open all the time no it can be closed it's very easy to work with so that if you want to open it up you can and pushing back to the point where we could get them to soften up on some of their statements of don't do it into well as long as I can do what I do today and I have the possibility to do it for the future then I could go along with that I could get on board with that we talked a lot about visibility between the rooms and who can see in versus who can see out and the fact that you're unlikely to use those personalized spaces unless you have some level of transparency and glass to happen there we talked about well is that distracting for the kids or not distracting for the kids and really working through a lot of those issues with the groups so that we know that we're designing in enough of those components and flexibility to give you that opportunity whether or not the planning teams have said we can Envision that today but pushing back and challenging a little bit to give you that level of flexibility that's designed in those bases for the future do you have an estimated cost for these items in relation to what has been set aside through the referendum I I wouldn't say that we've looked at the line item of saying exactly this is what this operable walk costs as much as we're working with Krauss Anderson on the overall approach for these uh having gone through the schematic design to this point Krauss Anderson has uh taken a look at it we've compared it to heavy renovation light renovation looking at the scope of what we're doing to make sure that we're staying on budget for the amount allocated towards the elementary schools as a as a whole as opposed to looking at individual line items until we get into the construction documents phase where we're drawing it out in detail it's much more difficult for a cost estimator construction manager to do linear line item takeoffs but if you look overall for the total estimated expense for these schematics how does that relate to the dollars that have been set aside through the roon budget I wouldn't do we have any extra money no did I say that too fast that was that was a definitive response thank you I think that we never want to bring something to that we show you and go this is completely beyond what we're capable of doing and have to scale back significantly obviously we will get to those points where we have to look at balancing and saying you know we have to change a little bit here we have to adjust the scope but I believe for what we're showing for what we've talked about with the teams what we talked about construction managers that we're presenting options that are achievable within the budgets that we have and I know this goes without saying but I'm going to say it anyway that we are considering because not everybody's getting done at the same time that we are making sure that we're budgeting and allocating so that those at the end of the construction aren't going to get less because they're at the end that's one of the reasons that we're trying to work on a cohesive design approach and and designing all the buildings simultaneously yes it it's uh it's a lot of work for the groups to get all together and to pull all the people at once but it does allow us to look at from a phased approach what are we doing how is that going to be achieved do we have the funds available for both summer one and summer two so that one group's not taking advantage of a situation one group's going to get nothing left over so that's why we're running our estimates as a whole as opposed to waiting till next summer to do another round of design so what what is the next step then with these plans and as I recall with the high school they were going to the next level of design is that what would happen here that is absolutely what would happen so at schematic design where we are currently it's very function based in terms of the plans that you see things are represented more as two-dimensional diagrams and floor plans and site plans at design development we not only meet with the individual users of the space to lay out all the detail where are the light switches the power how does it interface with what dmts is doing uh how do mechanical electrical work into it but we also start to develop the architecture more of the Aesthetics materials the architectural design of the space so we go from two-dimensional to three-dimensional at that point work through all that level of detail and that's really the design development is where at the end of that phase we're saying this is the design we can now proceed with construction documents to draw it in ways the contractors can bid off of so uh schematic design gets the functional components in place design devel velopment looks at the detail and the design for it and construction documents are just that creating documents for the contractors to bid off of else Elementary I I do want to we we've asked a lot of questions I I know a huge amount of work's gone into this and do want to recognize it and I think there's a lot about this that's excited exciting and the questions are I think a reflection of how seriously we take it we want it to be right it's there's no criticism um and and you know do want to recognize a lot of people did a lot of good work here so thank you yep I second that yeah so is the the the intent is still to hopefully work on three elementaries this summer is that correct Bon three elementaries in summer one three elementaries in summer two uh the high school will be under construction both Summers uh the middle schools will have to wait until the second summer because we need to have a place for the ninth graders to go before we can start renovating those spaces where the nth grades currently are so a very heavy uh intensive 2017 although 2016 is going to feel more intensive than anything we've been through today so two tough summers in a row get ready for that that's what we've been telling every group and the middle schools are going through this process middle schools are currently going through this process as is Early Childhood right than we're infrastructure improv I'll let the wizard set up the next no of course not we do that there we go hi so I'm here tonight to talk to you about infrastructure improvements at the campuses uh so as you recall uh we're my is Von derks I'm with World Architects and Engineers um part of the the process at both of um the East Campus and west campus is that we have a lot of activities happening here with both the high school and Valley View we have a lot of cars and parking at this site uh we have a lot of activities taking place and a big part of the referenda was looking at not only the insides of the buildings but the outsides as well so our existing High School site uh you can see all the different components here uh the big one is the 70 foot Hill from top to bottom uh we also have very dense uh property lines or excuse me tight property lines that create a dense site as you come on board uh there's an existing sanitary ement that moves through the site but as we take a look at the different sites I'd like to walk you through where we currently are in terms of site development uh this has another layer that's currently being added in terms of separate Consultants that have been brought on board to study uh pedestrian and bike traffic as well as vehicular traffic on site a separate consultant that just look at parking counts uh what we're currently approaching with the uh West Campus site is an additional 100 parking spaces which is about a 10% increase in parking on site we are looking at redefining how bus traffic works on the site so creating one common bus Corral to the um to the east side of the site as we come in uh this would create a new bus entry component for both the high school and Valley View uh for our our bus riders coming into the building as well as creating uh more appropriate entry space for them um as opposed to our Ring Road that currently moves around the north side of the site this would expand and and create more parking on the West Side you can see our addition to the building here uh turnaround point at the end here for service vehicles and emergency responders uh and then all of the space in addition to the 100 line spaces that would add to the site during the day the bus Corral is also going to be striped to pick up possibly an an additional 50 to 100 spaces for events so we're really increasing the site by 150 to 200 spaces as we move through um the final component to this which is the next step for us to study is our parent drop off sequence along Valley View Road and how that will work in in conjunction with changes the city is proposing the Valley View Road as we move forward uh but this allows us to move the design uh into our water mitigation studies working with 9 Mile Creek and the city responders in terms of looking at the sites as we move through our fields in this area are being uh replaced with Synthetic Turf to provide uh two additional lacrosse football fields in this area and baseball will be striped over the tops of those fields so Synthetic Turf in this area and our proposed service access drive along the side of the Hill uh coming down in uh so this does provide U pedestrian Pathways but not vehicular Pathways along the north uh vehicular service access drive along the east it does not connect along the uh two neighborhoods for Creek Valley Road as we move through so so a bus pulls in where are they going are they always going to the end it's going to go to the end and turn around and then queue up as they come back back in uh this design allows the buses to enter the site in whatever sequence they want they don't have to arrive in a linear fashion so bus two doesn't always have to follow bus one and at the end of the day the first bus uh leaves the site the rest follow suit and pull out and this will exit the buses in one step uh so we get our buses off the site as fast as possible so that our our parents that are coming for pickup and our staff leaving the site U are held until the buses are off site where do parents pick up currently parents pick up along the east side or excuse me the west side of the building but we know that this is problematic and so this site does not have the parent sequence uh redesigned into this right now we mostly are concerned with getting our uh parking and Turf and Roads determined so that we can move forward with the water um storm water management plans for our Regulatory Agencies so in terms of a step in the construction that's a long review window and we needed to get to that point first before we uh reorganize this part of the site and where is High School drop off I I realize it's not designed yet High School drop off actually uh moves along this part of the site so this is our new main door coming into the site and we're queuing uh more people up along this point if you remember currently uh drop off revolves around a small turnaround point right about here and so we're eliminating that small point and creating a much larger queue area and sequencing people back off the site in that loop as they move through but you still have sidewalks next to the building we still have sidewalks next to the building we're still working with uh our consultant on uh bike traffic bike parking and pedestrian routes alongside the building as well one of the things this site plan does do in order to maximize our parking look at use on site is currently we have uh our tennis courts in this location this is relocating tennis to Creek Valley so our tennis courts now will have more direct parking adjacent to it will'll be more of a community- based component as opposed to where they're currently located so more people can use those it's within walking distance for the PE program uh and it takes uh takes place on an area of the site that's currently uh underutilized for Creek Valley and so this would relocate tennis to the creek Valley site so the these tennis courts are along gleon and not up where there are currently City Tennis Courts correct oh they're on gleon so so how do you get there from the high school uh from the high school you uh there's a pathway that uh Works in conjunction with 9mile Creek and connects back to Creek Valley in this part of the site so it's a walk walk around the back and then back up front so they're not anticipated to be used during the day uh if they would be used during the day they said that they would likely use a shuttle uh if they needed to to get over to that point which is what they currently do for other offsite activities uh and the tennis is a pretty small unit of the PE component and so in terms of looking at an overall picture and a districtwide approach activities felt that that was uh as did as did the curriculum as to the curriculum for location of that that that that was an appropriate location to consider they preferred the turf on site versus tennis courts the tennis courts okay and it's supported by the uh activities program and the tennis program obviously has been communicated with on this too okay is is that space where the tennis courts are going is that space that the elementary school uses for anything during the day or it's part of their programming no they actually use more of the sites that are developed in the the Northeast part of the site it's used by the park system right and uh actually when you start looking at the turf we adding and the opportunities there's your tradeoff and so we'd be recognizing there a tradeoff and this is not uh again it's it's common practice that uh those Suburban schools that are trying to rebuild you just have to do some of the your large group space activity space off campus and this is actually a pretty convenient location I think it's uh also again balances out some of the traffic flow and there's some opportunities here with summer camps and we have that grass and we'll now have tennis camps and some of that there's just a better flow not even during the B uh the school Seasons but also during the summer can I just ask about restroom facilities when we move this all here where are we directing people for camps and so there is of portable facilities okay and we also are uh right across the street from um city city okay one of the things the mde often looks at when we um are studying referenda and site use and looking at site size is in urban areas like you're set in uh what other adjacent land do you have in terms of parks and what contiguous land do you have with other District property and the fact that we have contiguous property between Creek Valley and the high school uh we felt it was important to really explore the use of that and to look at it as a whole site development as opposed to Simply limiting us to the land to the south of the hill at the high school so is that used for soccer right now youth youth soccer it's not a full soccer field right no no I I definitely use soccer I just remember driving past there and seeing yep that's correct so then they go to we we're adding tur Fields we're rebuilding West Campus Fields so part of the work that we'll be doing we'll also be looking at how uh the lower fields are grassed so we've got available uh grass fields and we know we'll be able to control those grass fields as well so that if we can have quiet seasons for them one of the problems we had with our current grass field was we never had a Down Season say somebody asked me uh recently in the last couple of months um now that we're looking at all the additional turf field um there apparently was some issues with with the fill that's in the fields with these artificial turf fields and are we at least researching what fill is in there and if there's any negative components in it we're always trying to stay on top of that uh this isn't the only District that is putting in Synthetic Turf and so we're always looking at that with our civil engineers a lot of the issues around Synthetic Turf came out of the East Coast where they first developed and put in uh and they're decade old plus and so um that's not to say that there aren't issues there's microclimate issues that you have to be aware of especially around hydration of athletes it's warmer on the turf fields than on natural grass fields and so that has to be in Awareness but they have changed the field component they've looked at how they deal with that the last thing the turf industry wants is to have those issues as well and so they're constantly uh looking at how they improve their the quality of their field to make sure they don't have those issues as we move to the East Campus uh if you remember we were um we rebuilding the track as part of the referenda uh we're replacing the turf on the stadium as part of long-term defer maintenance and we're converting the upper McCarthy Fields into Synthetic Turf Fields as well in this location uh currently we're exploring uh options around the baseball field do we relocate it do we move it further to the South versus do we simply provide turf at the infield uh to provide a playable surface uh even in storm water management items if you remember the outfield for this is a a joint use would probably be the best the most polite way to describe it uh and then as we look at oops at the stadium um relocating discus and shot into this area and working with conquered to make sure that we have a safe facility uh in that area with fencing and shared use as well and the turf baseball field could be used by conquer during the day H they also felt that the East Fields would be available to the conquered uh fed program as well as um the Normandale program so again maximizing the fact that we have a three-building campus here and looking at it as a contiguous campus as opposed to Simply one elementary site or Middle School site do do the fact the fields are East West limit their ability to be used for games uh those really are intended to be more practice facility or lower level uh sports games uh and they don't fit north south so East West is our only configuration that's possible and the parking lot holds sort of its current capacity capity uh parking lot holds its current capacity although I will say that uh just like the other elementary schools we're looking at our parent drop off sequence uh parents are often the most difficult people to retrain and so we want to make it as intuitive as possible so we may end up make making some uh parking lot changes to this area we're also as part of the Middle School Examining The Bus drop off sequence and parent drop off sequence and with Early Childhood our early childhood um drivers so this campus is uh despite having fewer students than the west campus with valy View and the high school it's more complicated it's a little bit more convoluted and has many issues around it so we're uh just now getting into developing the overall East traffic patterns as we look at the site we recognize that both east and west campus that still in the evolution of how those will be presented to the board but those will be coming back to the board in uh December along with the uh Elementary programming we'll also be updating the board on some of the middle school work being done in early childhood in December we also know we have a Safety and Security proposal that we'll be presenting to the board um as we move all of our projects going forward um Susan what am I missing on high school design update yeah so um everything uh we're still on schedule with everything we're doing and appreciate V and his team have been um very thorough in their work uh very responsive they always bring a team of three to four players out to help uh make sure this gets done and then respond immediately with follow-up so I think it's keeping us on a tight time schedule again thanks to the staff and the parents and the students who've been involved and Susan BR for all her ation work with this effort thank you you I just had one last question when is the timing of the turf is that first summer second summer or combo of the two right now we're actually working with the civil engineers and the installers of turf fields to try and determine how much work is happening in the state right now there's limited installers for turf fields and we don't want to be bidding in a time where we're creating our own problem and so we're trying to figure out how that works how it works around practice schedules and make sure that uh it may not be that all the turf fields get done at the same time we might do some this summer might do some next summer so we're still working through that issue thanks Vine next up is our action portion of this evening's meeting the first item is the world's best Workforce report 20145 can I get a motion to bring that to the floor so moved second so moved and seconded uh to bring the world's best Workforce first uh report uh that's been uh for presentation Rick um Randy smle and Donna roer and Mary Manderfield are our key players but there's a whole team of uh task force members who've been involved in the world's best Workforce uh this is again the legislation that has been put in place um to uh kind continue with that level of accountability at a district level back to the state and the Department of Education and with that I turn over to Randy and team good evening uh chair Meyer superintendent Dron school board members and community of Ed Public Schools uh we are very fortunate to have here this evening some members of our world's best Workforce committee so on my left we have a student from Edina High School Madison cely she is the world's best Workforce of the future and we have Carolyn Jackson one of our parents that are on the committee Donna roer our director of research and evaluation and Mary manderfeld our director director of equity and enrollment so with that I'm going to turn it over to Carolyn to give us just a little bit of background about the world's best Workforce and the committee and uh and then it'll slide to Donna all right thank you thank you good evening um I'm very pleased to work on the world's best Workforce committee it's a good Committee of a broad section of community members and staff members in 2013 the legislature passed passed a bill called the world's best Workforce and it looks at Key development sections of a child's life and how are schools making sure that each of these key development places our kids are ready to move on to the next level so first are they ready for school prek are all third graders reading at third grade level are the racial gaps diminishing down to zero when the kids are ready to go out are they ready for career in college and finally what's our graduation rate so that's what the legislation requires us to look at how do we do that well fortunately Edina had a lot of this in place already and it was more a matter of alignment than it was of creating any new programs so the world's best Workforce was originally the student achievement committee and we took a lot of things and Randy put a lot of time into this uh that the district was already doing and aligning them with these the new goals of this legislation and so we spent a lot of 2014 and 2015 working on what do we have have how do we present it how do we make it accessible to the public and align it with this goals now having done that we're at the stage where it's time to start reporting what we've done and that's what tonight's presentation is about so I'm going to share with you um some results for each of these five strategic areas and um these are not by any means done cooked baked they're in the beginning stages we're developing and um so we'll look forward to more discussions each year as we work on this so the first area is all students ready for K and we had in 2014 15 70% of all of our students in the early childhood special education programs between the ages of three and prek meeting appropriate literacy learning expectations as measured by the teaching strategies gold assessment um once those kiddos came to us in kindergarten the four-year-olds over 74% of them um met the early literacy screening benchmarks in the fall and this will be a year where we work really closely with our early childhood folks in the district establishing goals for 1516 and putting in place data collection uh for us to report out um the next area is third grade so any any context there is that compared to Prior years or have we not been doing the same assessment I so I think the golds is new and early childhood um outcomes are a big deal and every district is going to be required to put together kindergarten entry profiles for their students and this is a year where a lot of that work is being defined so we'll have more on that as we go forward um I I don't think this is inconsistent with what's been happening I think it's probably um this I I feel like this is a really good place for us to be and I have to be honest I don't know what the historical trend is on this we'd have to put that together and we could um but that would be another just just trying to get a sense so that's that's good and do we do we know how we how this Compares with other districts is this a good result not at this time I don't know that so this is fairly new for all districts and we'll start to to to get more on it as districts report my question was um the 70% three to pre how how many of our kids actually come to the school are we TG are we getting access to there we missing some groups prek before they come in and and I really have to apologize because I don't know the answer to that I think our early childood folks are the folks we need to talk to about some of those details if that's okay yep y right and and my understanding is that these are the kids that we assessed where our early childhood special EDS students for with the golds because it was about servicing um academic needs so you can see this is an evolving field I mean we're still at the legislative level still determining what Early Childhood is and how does that line up with uh the three and foury old program so I you know talking to my colleagues this is where we're at this is a brand new field of study and uh even the data that we're looking at Donna is working very closely with MD and other colleagues to say what is critical data data going forward so it is an early part of this journey right or even how we partner with private that's correct programs instead of us doing all the and there's a lot of debate going on here y okay uh the next big goal area is third grade we want to um share with you some data points on our third grade reading proficiency scores and we have MCA which is a metric that the state requires us to report for this and you can see um 75.8% of our third graders met proficiency on the MCA and then they also are asking us to break it down by demographic group and so that's what we have here and for our 15 Target we are looking to increase it by a minimum of just under 3% or 3% or over we're we're putting minimums in for district goals what does unroll mean just those are the number of students uh enrolled en okay en 2013 prior that's just the data from 2013 and then what does 2014 Baseline mean so that's the Baseline year that um was used for the integration achievement and integration plan which Mary's going to talk about next so the 2013 to 2014 numbers those are both actual numbers correct yep um the next data point on third grade that we have is related to our map proficiency um and growth and again on the day that students took this in the spring you can see we had a little over uh just under 72% of the students proficient on the map and um we have it broken out by demographic group for you there to see as well and then the number of students meeting projected growth targets was 53.4% and that is we would expect our kids to be in the 50 to 6 % range and so we're making goals for 1516 to say we would like to increase our proficiency on map by Five Points as well as our growth targets looking for a fivepoint increase can I is there something unusual and maybe it's changed with the map so for a while the map sort of had 50% are going to meet targets when they normed it and 50% weren't going to meet is it has that been changed so the way the projected targets work is they are an estimate of a projected growth Target we would expect to see kid our our kids in the 50 to 60% range and so that's just the normative nature I mean that's the nature of a normative assessment so you're correct Lisa students right [Music] so they are a tests that's taken at a point in time and at the point in time that we gave the map and and also it's a normed test which is different than the MCA which is Criterion referenced so these tests assess different things so that's that's one thing one assesses the Minnesota state standards the other assesses how kids are doing in comparison to their grade level peers it's a normative test and so I I really can't explain exactly why are black students performed one way on the MCA versus another way on the norm it will it'll take some digging and that is what our sites are doing they have this data at a very detailed level they're looking at individual students they're looking at their growth they're looking at their proficiency and they're they're figuring out what they need to do to move these kids for next NE the next test soar points time they are one right after the other so the MCA comes first and the map is given after that in the spring happy to do that also understand it's a pool of 29 so uh for the map test I think it was yeah like 39 kids that took the test so a small volatile with good question so the next goal area I'm going to pass it over to Mary she's going to talk about that good evening as you remembered we wrote a three-year achievement and integration plan we had to write an achievement goal which was related to reading so the achievement goal related to reading was the proficiency gap between white students enrolled for the full-time Academic Year for all grades tested within Idina public schools in Reading on all state reading accountability will decrease by increasing the proficiency of our Hispanic black and free and reduced price meal students so we were not looking at our special ed students we weren't looking at our L students they're listed on here as points of reference but the categories that we really want to focus on are those that have a meets Target yes or no we did not meet Target in any area although you will see that we did show some gains with our Hispanic students our black students uh our Asian students we did have slight decreases with our white and free and reduced price meal students and this is a three-year goal so we are supposed to decrease the Gap within the next three years so we have a new Target for 1516 we'll have a new Target for 1617 the way the Minnesota Department of Education is now asking schools to report are has the goal been achieved have you made significant progress have you made some progress not making progress or other so in that category for our achievement piece you can see we've we've made some gains in the uh Target populations that our plan was addressing any questions about this particular slide yeah yeah that is the rate of proficiency so we are again no I'm sorry Mary I'm not being clear uh how many students yeah what grades yeah that was sort of what well it's all grades of students taking reading the reading assessment so again it's all state reading accountability assessments so we yeah we test in grades three we test in grades is Alles and we give the so we sort of have a difference between what the states requiring us to report versus what's really helpful it sounds to me in terms of changing instruction is that valid because I don't know if third grade is actually making a lot of gains and 12th grade isn't or fifth third grade is or when it's a MAG when it's all I don't know what to make of this really in terms of how to help our student make Gates Right and and I think we're not the only District kind of dealing with this mandated sort of required formula to show progress um so so is this chart one that's basically designed to comply with what the state is requiring so this is not designed to give us information about how a particular grade is performing it's simply world's best Workforce says you got to fill in these data points whether you can use it who knows but these are the data points so that if we keep asking you questions that don't relate to these charts you need to come on a different day is that that would be correct a fair statement you know and I think at least to your point that is a goal and a challenge we continue to have is that we need to close gaps and so you again have are we making the progress we want to absolutely not we did make some gains slight gains in in a couple areas that we are measuring uh but we continue to need to do better and and the we are measuring the Gap per mde based on our white students against other groups when in fact in Edina our highest performing groups are our Asian groups so again per what we're required to report is how our students are doing in relation to our white students because typically across other districts that seems to be the highest per forming group so I Randy go ahead I would just add that um we are given a template from mde to complete as part of this report and so we've completed that template and we are presenting it to you and so the format might not always facilitate our deep understanding of what's going on but it's meant to be in summary in nature and I and I heard reference to the 2016 targets now will be adjusted or are those our current targets those those should be our current targets we should not be adjusting anything this is based on um the data we have okay so they don't re based on your results in year one they don't readjust the follow on years or they do okay okay you're always readjusting your targets based on realized results which is what we did here which is what you're seeing okay so these are the targets based on what we are yep required to do thank you okay the next piece is our achievement goal so again we had to write an achievement goal so our achievement goal and that is not the I apologize that is not the slide you should have in front of you I think uh you were given a copy of a different slide but let me speak to um to speak to what you have so our achieve our integration goal was really related to the retention of students that are part of our Minneapolis Transportation program and so in the um our Baseline data uh had us Baseline data we had 167 students that were part of our Minneapolis Transportation student uh program 15 of them graduated which gave us a pool of 152 to try and retain for the following year so in 1415 we did retain 132 students which was a uh is that you have it up now thank thank you which was a uh 80 almost an 87 uh 87% retention rate I'm happy to report though that with 20145 we retained 155 out of 160 so if you compare 20145 to retained you can see in our white we had 15 students part of the program 12 of those 15 students are now back in our schools this year our Asians two of three our Hispanic was 27 of 39 our black 114 out of 30 we had 27 that graduated so the population again was 160 that could have been retained and we retained 155 if you look then what does new in 20156 means that means what are our new numbers because I think there are two pieces how are we retaining the students that are presently part of our program and then how are we increasing access for those students so is does this uh provide any questions questions about this particular uh chart so again the integration is how are we partnering uh to increase access to our schools rain 155 but now we're serving 180 so we've actually increased yes well actually we could have retained 160 if you look at and we did retain 155 but we've actually increased the number of students we're serving this year so I think there's really two pieces how are we retaining the students that are part of the program for multiple years and getting them to graduation and how are we increasing that number of students and this these we're just looking at students who are part of the Minneapolis Transportation yes because one that is part of Minneapolis which is um uh it it and it used to be called the choices yours program so the qualifier to be part of Minneapolis transportation is you have to qualify for free and reduced price meals and then we provide transportation to them to come to Edina Public Schools okay thank you uh the fourth big area goal area is career and college readiness and you've seen some of this data already um our ACT scores are maintaining very high scores um we had additional students testing on act um but this this slide I believe everybody has already seen and it's one we're sending in with our report the next slide so can I just so this was the Year everyone took it correct th this is our seniors this is how our seniors across um the system correct yeah I'm just so we didn't really see much of a drop considering we now went to Universal testing because that's what I was asking right the the state is not about the seniors this is about the seniors all Juniors took it last year okay so that's the that's sort of what I was curious about sorry okay so it's still not everybody taking it so the next Slide the next slide will show you everybody we added that for you and what you'll see here and this is just phenomenally good data you guys our students are performing um really well on this academic preparedness measure for college readiness 71 over 71% meeting the math benchmark and more than you know 69% meeting the uh reading benchmark and on a Statewide level it's you know they're in the 50s um where they're meeting this Benchmark so students are performing really well on the academic preparedness metric called the ACT um but in saying that we also recognize that it is only one indicator of preparedness for college and life and so I think we at this point maybe want to hear from yeah maybe we can here from Madison to get um just a perspective of what it's like to be a student at Edina High School and what are some of the other opportunities to learn that don't always get demonstrated on a high stakes assessment like the ACT Etc okay hi uh as you know Randy just introduced I'm Madison I'm currently a senior at Edina High School uh and I guess yeah I'm here to elaborate on what it's like to be any student so I think that my high school career as many people perceive uh like me is that it's really based on numbers and I think in response to that I chose to write a research paper uh my passion project if you guys are familiar with that term my sophomore year about basically the shortcomings of standardized testing and what I actually interestingly enough that actually did lead me to this group so I guess it was a positive thing in in the end um I think what was really interesting coming out of that is I find that a lot of high schools end up using you know these standardized tests to really Define the intelligence and Define the college preparedness of students and in short that's really not effective and doing some uh I guess relationship work between what Edina does uh in comparison to like the regular Trend with the system I actually feel like Edina does really a good job I guess of kind of differentiating themselves from academic preparedness and character preparedness uh I think that Edina does a lot in regards to making sure that students test scores are at the best that they can possibly be and obviously I'm really lucky to be in an institution where that is the case however I do think that they have a really high regard for other skills such as social emotional uh intelligence uh the power of communication I think are really honed uh in classrooms and I I don't know if that's really intentional but these are definitely skills that I've obtained and I think that there's also a really big push for participation in extracurriculars to further kind of refine those skills that you're learning in the classroom and I think that's such a wonderful opportunity I mean going to the activities Fair earlier this year we have clubs in everything so it's really a great opportunity to find an area that interests you and really develop yourself uh with these skills that really do provide uh you know better life opportunities for you so I mean ranging from anything from modern day slavery to math team there are really an O there's really o an opportunity for everyone uh as someone who was not satisfied with all the offerings at the time I did start my own club and I can vouch for the ease of that process which I guess further hudy D is true commitment to allowing students to uh engage with their passions and really give them the best opportunity to learn these necessary skills before going out into the world so you as someone who really loves her extracurriculars thank you for this opportunity so what club did you start oh I started Amnesty International uh I was inspired by Model United Nations which is another club that I participate in and I kind of wanted you know more of a direct Avenue to solving International problems whereas I feel like model un was more like hypothetically how could we solve them and so I was really drawn to amnesty's kind of um more direct grous Roots organization kind of type in dealing with these problems so I thought that was a really great experience and I would highly recommend so thank you Madison for very articulate painting of your experience Donna then the last category is graduation rates and you can see we have a very high percentage of our students graduating um but our goal for 1516 is to increase graduation rates for our demographic groups that aren't graduating at the highest rates our El English language Learners special ed free and reduced price lunch Black and Hispanic students we are looking to increase their graduation rates at a minimum of 4.5 points for next year it's our goal again this is the world's best Workforce report and our goal is to create graduates that are ready for uh a globally diverse rapidly changing environment a couple of slides summarizing U Minnesota's job outlook um some worker tasks in the US economy and how um the jobs that require routine cognitive work are shifting and so our goal again is to put in place the elements that are indicating tests that we're preparing our students for the future that they're going to experience and with that we'll uh take any questions before we close questions thank you all great thank you all for staying so late tonight to present we appreciate it thank you and I just want to publicly thank uh Mary Donna and Carolyn and Madison for all the work and being part of the world's best Workforce committee thank you and again I would affirm um this is a state report that we have to fit into that box it's still uh important um but also what we are building is a dashboard that will go to staff that is um documentation so that this data is at at the staff's on the staff screen we're building one also for the board and at District level too so you'll have this live screen growing as well and Donna and Steve are working hard on and bringing that forward in 2016 so that is the world's best Workforce it is an action item excellent so we've got a motion on the floor any additional questions or comments I don't think we have ation we didn't make we did presented it before we it's a late night but I caught that one uh additional questions comments all those in favor of approving the world's best work Workforce report 201415 as presented please sign saying I I opposed motion carries next before us is the purchase of student Information System Program of software products from Infinity campus can a motion to bring that one to the floor second moved and seconded to approve the purchase of a student information system of software from Infinity campus for 97,000 for year 1 and 75,000 annually thereafter Steve you want to walk us through certainly good evening uh superintendent dressen and din board members in May as I mentioned pre previously uh TI which is our current information system provider uh decided to cease development of their student information system this provided us actually an opportunity to evaluate what is going to be the next student information system that we're looking for not only for to meet our today's need but to meet a lot of the Next Generation learning and and the personalization of learning in order for us to really make sure that a proper decision was being made we developed a number of stakeholder groups these stakeholder groups comprised our teachers Elementary secondary our power users the folks that move data back and forth our administrators and our parents and students we conducted a number of evaluations and at the end of the day um Infinite Campus uh Rose the top with those groups not only that our Administration met a number of times with the uh leadership of Infinite Campus to talk about our next Generation talk about our idea of personalized learning and Competency Based learning to ensure that we were in alignment with our our Direction and we're able to modify this contract to make sure that those criteria were put into the contract so I'm recommending uh the the moving to Infinite Campus this does mean a big change for the organization but we think that this is going to be a change that's going to position the district to be able to Foundation of the data in order to move forward on Next Generation learning thanks Steve uh and you have in front of you an uh Amendment uh and the change took a notice of 30 days uh by either party and increased that to 12 months so we aren't stuck in the middle of the school year missing our system um and that already has been incorporated into the document on the floor any questions or comments can can you just give me an comparison of I mean we don't have ties but the cost difference are we is it a significant jump what are we looking at in terms of operating expenses with the new system no it's actually a savings hear that okay and then in reference to the 75,000 annually after the first year and any anticipation that that would need to adjust one way or the other if our needs change or if there's a need for increase on their behalf it's a great question uh the cost is associated with enrollment so if we do have an increase or decrease in enrollment we should see our prices fluctuate uh based on enrollment also they do do development work so if we wanted to do some custom development that's not in the product we can seek assistance and that was one of the I think the contributing factors of looking at Infinite Campus is they're willing partner they're very excited about our vision of Next Generation learning and very uh interested in partnering with us to help make that a reality as they've mentioned we're not the only School District that's looking at how do we Leverage The Tool uh uh technology and information to really help us move along this Continuum of of Standards based learning and so they're very excited to work with us as well um I sometimes really have fun reading these contracts but this wasn't one of them so do we have legal review these things I mean what's the process for reviewing the language in these contracts and whether they're good bad or indifferent that's a great question so first I review it which is um I suppose okay but then we did have legal review that and we went back and forth with Infinite Campus and our legal team a number of times to come up with um the uh language that would be acceptable to our attorneys and to our organization and indeed just this evening we made this last minute change to move from a 30-day to a 12 month and so it is a um a process of uh working back and forth and making sure that we comply to state laws as well as making sure that we have a contract that's going to serve us going forward Steve I also want to mention that um you work closely with other school districts and we know of two other school districts using the same product line and so we were able to to compare how their contracts were developing and evolving as to ours so and they had had legal eyes on it as well so I think we've had more than just one set of legal eyes on it indirectly yeah the world is evolving where Infinite Campus is one of the largest student information systems and so a number of our neighboring school districts use this tool right now and so I think uh it'll be a great opportunity for us to learn from our neighbors as we go start um converting to Infinite Campus and start leveraging that in our Educational Systems and and what is their total installed base at this point do you have a sense how many districts are using this system Nationwide I believe I don't but I believe there's over eight million students um that are that are using it and so Infinite Campus is the largest US student information system in the country um so there is a larger British one from power school but they are the largest one they are located locally and so they're located uh north of the Twin Cities and uh the owner Charlie uh got to start as a ties coordinator actually and and um is a person that's local so though they're large um they have a local they're local and so uh the ability for us to tap them uh as we start moving forward will be something that we can take advantage of so uh looking at the scores uh some interesting things pop out number one is the data export import is that just preference or is that some real technology issues there and also we have this big jump in schedulers and counselors and admin you know they're always causing problems so just curious what the real differences were there once you looked at it um first thing I want like Gwen mentioned earlier um the design team that was made up of Marilyn cuppy Diane Morris Peg Wickland and myself they did just a fantastic job of developing the criteria that we need in order to make sure that the product is being being evaluated on real world scenarios and so the schedulers uh counselors and admin um Infinite Campus is really known for a powerful scheduling tool and so as we start looking at how to develop flexible schedules and how to be able to run a schedule daily or weekly it was a really powerful tool and uh it was a lot of excitement from the secondary schools the data Import and Export that's the folks that are really familiar with ties right now and it this is using SQL technology which is the modern way to move information back and forth and I think um they were um looking at from a tool set that they might weren't as familiar with but it is the industry standard since then that that same team has gone to some SQL training has gone to other districts that use infinite campus and they've come back reassured I think that the uh ability to move information in and out of that system is going to be uh something they can do the other thing I will say though is ties has been a incredible partner for us and so they were always a phone call away they were a smaller organization and we were a big partner with that group and so Infinite Campus is a larger organization and so there will be some um of that tradeoff of being able to pick up a phone and talk to the programmers right within ties whereas with Infinite Campus they have a very mature product but we are going to be someone that's going to have have to uh have discussions and work with them to ensure that we get the things we need and hence that's why we put into the contract some of those conditions to make sure that we're able to have our voice heard excellent additional questions or comments all those in favor of approving the purchase of student Information System Program software products from Infinity campus as amended please signify saying I I opposed motion carries next up we've got schedule review of policy 629 can I a motion to bring that to the floor so moved second it's been moved and seconded uh to approve our schedule review of policy 629 student fundraising we've seen this before who'd like to start there's um primary changes in this are in Section 8 just reworking it to clarify The Language clean it up align it with actual practice for fundraising events on site but no changes since the from the last time we saw it right section 8 is sorry section8 yes 10 no that's right it's no we cleaned up section8 section8 was was combining a couple of different ideas and so that's cleaned up a little bit since the last time you saw it okay than any other questions or comments so I've got just a a clarifying question because I was bringing up other groups so is the line completely clear at who's covered under 629 versus 630 629 is student fundraising only done by students at the sites right 630 is addressing Community organizations from boosters are we understanding your question yeah but I'm trying to make sure the line is clear so band is where the booster band booster band it's effect 630 has changed to it's now 9913 so that would be where ban fundraising would okay belong so student fundraising an example of student fundraising would be a Student Activities group uh who wants to raise funds for another nonprofit possibly in terms of awareness of world hunger awareness of a need that exists so the student group organizes an activity to collect those funds it could also be part of bringing in a group like Feed My Starving Children but that's not organized by an outside booster group so this is directly related to activity student driven correct student driven is typically service some type of service learning project okay it's it it's specifically in the definitions and and in the purpose of the policy is limited to a student group or student organization so it would take out the you like I see music there and I confuse that with band right with band booster so and so a booster anything that is not a student would be parent or booster organization and that would belong in 913 so so now that so now 6:30 is 9:13 is that what you said but in the purpose in my we refer to policy 6:30 then well I'm referencing my policy chart so I'm wondering the policy chart says that 9:13 used to be 6:30 I believe what I remember and this was 2014 when we reviewed that but the change I believe was made in 2013 and we had some redundancies so we combined them so that's probably a friendly amendment to clean up the reference to 913 in the purpose paragraph from 6:30 to 9 am I accurate though is well on on our on our website we still have 6:30 as Community organizations parent organizations to my policy chart so this is that was before we compressed them I believe and and your policy chart says what that 6:30 and 913 were we no longer show a 913 so it went the other way it went the other way there we go so it's correct we no longer have a 913 we used to never mind then so but now we have a 6:30 we still have that are the policies on 319 on the bottom there the 900 policies are those still correct or have those numbers been as well which oh on are you referring to four that number four equal opportunity and harassment just those those are correct those are all correct any additional discussion all the those in favor of approving revised policy 629 student fundraising please signify saying I I hi opposed motion carries information announcements uh just again to um congratulate Sarah pela of Lenny wall and Friedman and Amir Garvey um for uh their new duties as they begin January 1 2016 uh the election board did approve the results of those elections earlier this month um board was at in West Side School District down in Omaha Nebraska team of board members and I travel down there to take a look at our partnership efforts there um and I we are active right now on a variety of venues it's parent teacher conference time so that's an important time and really looking at some creative ways that we continue to make sure our families are engaged fully in their child's learning opportunities we've got some good things going on there and uh earlier this evening we did have a very nice annual event where we recognized the national m Scholars we had uh over 40 National Merit Scholars that were celebrating in 2015 and it's a time where they step up and uh recognize a teacher that has made a difference in their lives and tell a quick story of of that impact it's a very wonderful Community celebration and we thank the students and the staff uh for their great work as well as everybody involved to make that a success story thank you Rick any other additional items committee reports other information seeing none uh can I have a motion to adjourn at this time so moved second moved and seconded to adjourn our meeting any objection to adjourning at this time hearing none we are Jour thank you all