[Music] wave good evening and welcome to the March 17th 2014 regular meeting of the dino School Board we do have a quorum this evening first item on the agenda is the approval of minutes uh we had a special meeting on February 24th and a regular meeting on February 24th can I get a motion to approve so moved second it's been moved and seconded to approve the minutes uh any items uh for correction or addition or deletion from the minutes seeing none all those in favor of approving the minutes as written please signify by saying I I oppos motion carries any requests for members of the audience to speak this evening thank you Sarah uh we have Countryside Elementary patiently waiting tonight Karen Bergman principal from Countryside and a team of staff and Young Learners are here to tell us a little bit about the good news happening in Countryside we welcome them thank you very much superintendent dressen board chair Meyer and the rest of the board we're so pleased to be here tonight um I I have one job and one job only and that is to introduce these wonderful students and their teachers and let them show you what it is that they're here to talk about tonight basically what we're we would like to show you are some of the great things that we've been doing with the resources that have come our way in the in the last couple of years namely our iPads in some of our primary classrooms and then also the Chromebooks our our kids are doing awesome things and they are here to tell you all about it so with that I'm going to turn it over to um our our classroom teachers and before I do that I also want to recognize Mr Banks our our technology PA without whom we would not be here here and and able to show you so many great things so our continuous progress classrooms that are here represented tonight are our first in second grade Mr Lindsay and Miss Carlson so we will turn it over to them we have a couple students that are going to share some projects with us thank you so much for having us here tonight it truly is an honor to share with you some of the things that are happening in our classroom and get a window into our world of what's happening in first and second grade and first to share with you is Carter Lund he is a second grader and he's going to talk about an app called Storehouse hi my name is Carter and I am in second grade I worked with the App Store house to present my informational writing first I went on the iPad and searched for information on my Minnesota animal the links I wrote my notes down in five categories look like food habitat fun facts and predators then I went on the iPad to search for pictures to match my notes after that I imported the pictures to Storehouse typed up all of my information made a quick video and published my information to the web I really enjoyed how easy it was to use Storehouse for my presentation thank you Carter here's just a little look at his project um he did the links hi my name is Carter and here's some information on the links a common Minnesota anal and you'll see he just took his notes put them in his own words found some great pictures to accompany them and plac them up yeah that was that was a particular favorite he asked for permission it was granted um and he you know the great thing about this was he just went and he found these pictures on his own and I said keep make sure that you find pictures that match what you're talking about and he did a great job and like he said it was really easy to use so thank you Carter and next up to talk about another really intuitive device that we use in primary is iMovie and Braden cavanda from my classroom also a second grader will be sharing some more with you hi my name is Braden and I'm in second grade 2 I worked with the app iMovie to present writing digitally first I worked with my team of four to create a story that had to do with superheroes we planned what we wanted to happen in the video and what props we should bring after the script was done we got to take videos inside and outside that would match what we wrote when the videos were done we edit them together with our teacher finally we published them to YouTube I really enjoyed the filming ability about using this app thank you Braden let's take a look this is one of my favorite projects every year it should make you laugh [Music] [Music] thank you so much for allowing us to uh share what it is that we've been doing in our classroom it's um something that we really enjoy um next I'd like to pass it to Jen gross third grade that's good evening I'm Jennifer gr I teach third grade at Countryside and I'm going to pass it over to the experts right away hi my name is blaz Avery and I am a third grader at Countryside I'm going to show you how I created a Blog to share my technology projects this is especially fun for me as I just moved from New Zealand and I am able to share my work with my family and friends first we created a Blog then every time we finish a project we embedded it onto our blogs this allows us to share our work with our parents friends and relatives the coolest part is you can see who is viewing your blog all over the world by looking at this map okay this is an example of my favorite project this year my family Story by bla Avery I dedicate this family story to my great grandma because she died and I'm very sad about that this is a story about my great grandma in an earthquake it takes place in Hastings New Zealand it all started long ago when my great grandma was at school one morning at 10:47 on the 3rd of February 1931 a 7.8 magnitude earthquake struck the region an earthquake that strong does a lot of damage my grandma grandma and her all her friends were very scared luckily the school building was not damaged and no one was hurt if that was me I would be super scared my grandma and one more thing I wanted to say about the blogs you can see up there that blae has hits um being that she just moved here from New Zealand she has 11 hits from New Zealand 12 from Australia she thinks they're all from her godmother right um and then a couple or one from Poland the Ukraine Germany so it's kind of fun for the kids to really see people you know all over the world just clicking on their blog checking out their work hi my name is Amin Hussein and I'm a third grader in at Countryside I'm going to show you a really cool app called arasa we are using it to create a scavenger hunt for Mrs gross next year's class first we wrote about an important place in the CL in the classroom and and videotaped it then we took a picture of the place in the classroom the app links the picture to the video as you scan your iPad over the item watch a really important object in Room 101 is a silver basket labeled Mrs gross's mail it is important because we turn in our homework field trip slips l to the teachers from our parents and any other important form we need the basket because then we know where to put our put important things you shouldn't just hand it to the teacher she might lose it it is good to be organized this helps me because it helps me get my homework to my teacher and it makes it easier for everyone really all right thank you very much I'll pass it on to the fifth grade team hi I'm Paige I'm Reagan and I'm monuk we are here to represent the Countryside Elementary School fifth graders we are here today to talk to you about the Chromebooks we use Chromebooks in multiple ways we use Chromebooks almost every day in our classrooms some ways we use Chromebooks in our classrooms are to write me or me books create presentations and to do research another example of how we use Chromebooks is to make PowerPoint presentations and prees we also used Chromebooks for a recent project to find research for diseases that we chose we can get to Moodle from our Chromebooks we can also make Cahoots and deities Cahoots are online quizzes and deities are online timelines be ready you will take a cahoot a little later we also play educational games on our Chromebooks Chrome Chromebooks are very helpful for our class work and activities some good qualities the Chromebooks include are that it's lightweight it turns on quickly it is not too large and it is easy to carry the Chromebooks load faster than the desktop computers that we have been using in past years one drawback with the Chromebooks is that we have to share with the other fifth graders in different classrooms one way to make school Chromebooks even better would be if each student had access to one at all times they could work on late work assignments and teachers wouldn't have to create schedules for using the Chromebooks thank you for listening to us now our fellow fifth graders Olivia Olivia and Emily and Alec um will demonstrate one of our activities on the Chromebooks thank you a cahoot is an a cahoot is an online game or quiz that you play with friends or family or classmates on a project that you have just recently done or stuff like that and how you play is that you have to sign on the cahoot D it which he's already done for you and I will give you the game pin when I'm done speaking and once you sign in you can give yourself a funny name and then wait till everyone has signed in after that what will happen is there will be a square a circle a triangle and a hexagon and on the master screens are all all over here you will have a choice to pick those and there's different answers for each question you're going to choose the best answer that you think there is and your objectives is to get the most um points and things like that so here's like a hoop so type the word connecting going to be don't present 44 right there oh got it thank you very much I okay do you yeah that's me what's up there yes okay who are you [Laughter] Sparky is everyone logged on everybody's in 10 seconds to answer the question oh okay oh wait a minute as much time as I want the questions up there confusing okay try again try again we start over I with [Laughter] you okay Team Green is the winner so far why do we use Chromebooks instead of paper and pencil I can't read and the correct answer was they're very handy what is the best thing we have done in a Chromebook I'm not use Moodle to type me books they going in hey I'm winning imagine that that's why the CH how will we use Chromebooks to Advantage fight UPS in the future it will help us with their homework oh all the above yes why can't fun how careful are we with our Chromebook correct answer was none of the above [Laughter] he knew the answers before what do we use with what do we use vys for correct answer was school workor or presentations hey two correct okay oh my ranking just dropped what can't we do want a Chromebook GRE all of the above I didn't look carefully okay no clue in what class did we use Chromebooks to write our um pen pals correct answer was reading SL La how much do we appreciate using Chromebooks when editing me books the crunch answer was lots got it right okay we're finally getting it we use Chromebook four my little apple correct answer was all of the above better after this this one will be the last question the winner no our least favorite thing our least favorite things we do on Chromebooks are least answer was we love everything about Chromebooks too slow look I'm on the green I'm finally off green the winner is Team Green who's Team Green by the way thank you we learned about Cahoots at a staff meeting a number of months ago one of our kindergarten teachers actually brought it forward and had us practice as staff and now the kindergarteners are using it as well as all of our other students so it's a it's kind of a cool tool um congratulations Countryside students well done we're we're pleased that you uh showed things to our school board tonight and to our community thanks for having us we appreciate it thank [Applause] you Steve did you set that up you couldn't have written that next up we're on to reports part of our strategic plan back in 2012 was to uh really take a look uh where we wanted to be as far as a school district and Next Generation as far as a school district and our start was to take a look at our secondary program grades 6 through 12 uh last spring the board approved a series of recommendations that required an implementation effort on a phased in process of how we might do that I'm going to give a quick overview of uh the work that's been done uh with his implementation team made up of six teachers and uh three administrators and several district office administrators over the past year they've been meeting on a regular basis I've got with me today Paul Kyle who's a uh instrumental band teacher at the high school Mark Carlson who's a math teacher at valy viiew two of the members of the committee of six teachers that are meeting on a regular basis I'll let them uh give kind of the details but I'll give the quick fly over I do facilitate this uh team that meets on a regular basis and do a lot of our work electronically as well as in person again it's uh built on the theme that uh learning is our constant and where we need to get more creative is how we can use our resources of time Talent funds and space and those become our variables so in our problem solving that has been our Focus we are built around this belief system of a personalized learn system within the schools and among those beliefs is that students need to own their learning that we need to take a look at how we can do this in a flexible fashion that we recognize the role of teacher is going to continue to evolve it's still very and the key role in learning but how do we use that 21st century the importance of relationships and connections uh the importance of families being connected with the schools the teacher the parent and the student forming that bonding triangle and that we need to adjust the learning opportunities as success occur occurs or as struggles uh may continue um we are based again on educational competencies this was shared at a previous board meeting but this whole thought of it's no longer about a degree and taking so many courses of this or so many courses of that to get your diploma but really starting to look at mastering levels of competencies we believe these are key competencies that need to be part of every child's life going forward and that are will drive our curriculum to have it focus on that again we're reminded that we're still about Edina excellence and we've identified through the uh implementation process what we really value and what we really think is this is going to be part of our brand going forward this is not going to shift it's what do we need to do to keep advancing our Excellence what's our continued our commitment to continued Improvement uh among those Excellence areas we can identify things like personal relationships we can identify things like high expectations and the academics the Arts the extracurricular this whole thought of what we're really doing is preparing children and our youth um right from that get-go so they can be successful in their college careers and life experiences um we built it off again this thought of the global competencies that we're going to identify key standards that align through a course audit process and then we make sure if we have uh courses that aren't being provided that we develop new coursework again this is all to be phased in over a variety of years this is the work the implementation team has been working for um recognizing it's more than just a report card that gives a letter grade but really taking a look at the full child experience uh from the academics the wellness the lifestyles the interest inventories the personalities around strength and challenges and then actually setting goals and that we'll have a measured way of doing this in a very electronic fashion you can see this is again something we're not rolling out next fall but this is on our march to make this happen we've been in this continuous improvement process and uh we're moving through the first two phases into this idea phase and experimentation phase with the implementation team so they've been doing a lot of research they've been building prototypes of seeing what could work and bringing things to scale so that as we get into that Evolution stage next year and the years following we've done our homework to make sure we have a successful experience for our Learners as they prepare for their world that lays ahead of them we identified five major areas of study and the implementation team's been working off based on the recommendations from that uh approved product from last spring these recommendations focus on a variety of different areas I'm going let Paul and Mark talk a little bit about some of the work that's occurred in these areas and then um kind of move us through and then we'll open up for some board discussion uh in these recommendations we've looked at a variety of different things from yearly schedule to daily schedule uh to opportunities for personalization opportunities for uh delivering curriculum in a different way tying in some of the esquared learning um and looking more specifically at certain elements like the World Language element and looking at space and how that might impact learning uh some of this has been site visits some of it has been articles sharing together different information but uh trying to pull together uh as many ideas and recommendations as possible to roll out uh an effective plan for ourselves we're really looking at different ways that we can help personalize the learning for kids uh we we've really looking at the expanding of advising and kind of expanding that maybe to the high school level and maybe making it a little better experience at the middle school level as well and really kind of the alignment from middle school through high school so that transition as a kid moves from sixth grade all the way through 12th grade is a smooth and and a a nice transition for them uh whoops this the wrong way um we've looked at digging deeper into the power standards and taking a look at how that affects our course and allowing us to do a course audit to see where those alignments happen how we've looked at grade configuration and again the idea of having a coherent 6-12 model something a little bit more more cohesive um that helps the transitions as we move forward um looking at course offerings that accommodate not only personalization but the developmental needs uh but still offers opportunity for student to staff colle collaboration as well as staffto staff collaboration um and then also taking a look at what our outro might be what the exit strategy is post-secondary course options uh as well as looking at facilities plans that can help further some of that learning I think one other thing with collaboration is the student to student collaboration as well that building that time in so right now we've um shared much of this with our colleagues through a variety of formats and still seeking feedack back from them they're still chiming in um and we're test driving a few ideas our next step will be to do a pilot process and ask for the shared expertise of our colleagues to um see what next Generation Pilots might look like uh the timeline is right now we're in the initial discussions and kind of faring out some of those ideas and see what they might offer as ideas for per possible Pilots for next year these are the different areas that we're looking at um for Pilots integrated content um Flexible Staffing models is there ways that we can do things a little bit differently to to help meet the needs of students uh student design program so is there some independent study type work that kids could do uh uh personalized advising models and looking at that from a maybe at at the high school level is there small scale thing that we could work with uh World Language competencies we're working with the World Language Department to see if there's some some areas that we can begin to work with next year and then also um are there some small changes that we can make in terms of space that could start making a difference in that area Mark if you could just play back um because you were pretty involved in some of the personalized advising model early on of just some of the research you did and how you moveed through that so that you were able to narrow down as a team to like three options that we're now studying but I know you looked at literally dozens of different bottel and so I think what what we really found was um there that the research really says that that kids benefit from having a personal Advocate um in their schooling whether it's sixth grade ninth grade 12th grade it really doesn't matter having that personal Advocate that they can feel comfortable with and really get to know is really um going to be key to their success as they move through the secondary program uh there are a lot of options and really a lot of you know any of any option that we go with I think we can make successful it's really about um finding the one that's going to be a best fit for Idina I think as we looked at I think we have three models it's one one is more of a traditional model uh one teacher to 25 students kind of like we would in a classroom one would be where you you take maybe three teachers together uh with like 75 students so that they're they have a better chance of of you know if they don't make a connection with one teacher there's two other ones there that that would be there and then they'd be with that group for their kind of time in that school and then the third model would be kind of having some specialized advisers um who would um really that would be a part of their day where they would they would be um an advocate for a larger group but would be meeting with those on an individual basis as well I think the other challenge with that is um in an effort to be cohesive 6 through 12 also honoring the developmental needs sixth grader advising will look different than 12th grade advising so not um forcing one package that umbrellas everything and and misses the picture um but accommodates for each of those varying grade levels but still is a cohesive project and and also making sure that as they move through it Mak sense for that step by step as they move from sixth grade all the way through to 12th grade and again this uh timeline just shows how we're phasing it in that we are in this uh 134 year which is developing these strong recommendations in 1415 we'll be doing some piloting and some phasing in of some of our major uh areas of study but uh we'll also be learning more before we can really say this is the best schedule to go with or this is the grade level configuration this is the space we need um we really need to get some other items in place including learning more about the birth through grade five study as those recommendations move forward we need to go deeper with our power standards and how this these educational competencies are going to affect everything so we recognize that it's going to be a phased in approach that will continue to grow on our Excellence but it really literally will be in 2017 2018 2018 2019 before we see this fully implemented we will phase this in we'll see the successes we'll pilot things to make sure that in the end of the day we are uh having our kids continue with their success today and going forward with that in mind I think I'm going to pause and ask the board some open up to questions or thoughts you might have uh regarding the work that this I implementation team is doing can you tell me and maybe the audience at home as well a little bit more about integrated content areas and what we're what we're thinking about with a pilot like what does that mean um these six areas are the options that they could choose from when they're looking at um the pilot program so if they're looking at some sort of um integration between classes combining class work uh maybe doing interdisciplinary work uh whether that is uh through technology or through just combining in certain classes uh that's an option that um is out there for piloting so this is between individual teachers that's correct y but as they're doing Pilots it can't it's it's interdependent to to the bigger picture so if it isn't something we can bring to scale then it probably be have less of an interest we still might benefit from the power of collaboration but we still want to make sure that if for example we're doing an integrated unit or integrated curriculum that's something that would align to where we're taking with the educational competencies so we may see some combination in the science and maths area for example rather than a standalone of blending those or we may see some in the Fine Arts and language arts we've seen some course work around that or the combination of um language arts and business and some type of communication where those standards can be met so there are otheris out there or different approaches that use that and we just want to start piloting into those so on that same line are there models of integrated content that you've seen at other districts that would suggest some blending opportunities or would the suggestion begin with just introduce some Pilots between disciplines such as language arts business or something like like that there there are definitely programs that are out there uh you know Min tanka runs a vantage program where they bring together uh several different curricular areas looking at different standards within that uh so that that would be kind of a model type that we would be looking at but really we'd be looking for teachers who are interested in piloting something in that area and maybe taking those ideas and seeing if we can run with those a little bit yeah and as Dr Dron alluded there's there'ss that are run there School within the schools um there are schools that use content bases to um in in essence create their own course and then pick from a menu of content standards and check off um there's no shortage of of ideas this is a little bit of an effort to see what sort of creative juices are flowing with our own staff what are the things that they see and what might we be able to pluck off that has that broader um stroke or that that hierarchy that we're looking for I think definitely a is can we take whatever the pilot is to scale I mean we don't want to have one little offshoot program we're really looking at scalable ideas you guys are doing a ton of work what's what's the biggest challenge um it's it's a very ambitious goal um I I you know I I think of there are certain trees that have um roots that grow close to the surface and they're they're long and it's a big and beautiful tree and you think it's wonderful but over time the tree will eventually topple um so for me the biggest challenge is that I feel like these roots are strong and they're deep and they're going down far but standing on the surface people are going how come this tree isn't growing faster we don't see any progress and all the growth is happening underneath and it will stand the test of time it will have roots that um are strong and connected and healthy and vibrant so even if something happens to the tree the root system is still intact but that's terribly frustrating and um and it's slow and arduous my other other analogy is it feels like we're all standing together with our shoes tied and we say scheduling move and we take a step and forget that we're tied to space and time and how do we do that so it's that's also a little bit frustrating and challenging because you're moving many pegs at once to get the whole building to move I think it's also really you know Edina has a a strong history of excellence and we because we're we've always been good at what we've done to try and create change in a system that's already good it's a little bit harder than when if something's not so good change is is more seen as being more necessary and I think that that within the system it's really hard to convince people that they have to change that the world is changing along with us thank you that's it's very help and also uh you don't have to answer it now but also how can we as a board support you as well in this effort it's echoing what Randy said you've done a tremendous amount of work and it feels like you've had this opportunity to look around the corner into the future that a lot of us don't necessarily have because you're putting in all of this time in active research have you identified risks of not moving in this direction or risks of just saying Adina does have this history of Excellence if we stay the course that's set what risks have you seen that emerge I don't know if we've had that direct discussion but I mean we we certainly um I think as a group we have a strong opinion that that the world is changing and then we do need to change I don't think we we're really even prepared to think about what would happen if we don't start to change with it can you just talk a little bit about the student design program and is do you see that as an as an older with seniors more um and then what are the different practices that or ways that they can use that yeah it's a it's a good question some of that comes off of uh a spark idea of how can we engage student interest it makes uh probably the easiest and most sense to be looking at that senior level not unlike the term or an expansion thereof to try to um have a student sculpt their program and we do have students that do this on a relatively regular basis um but it's a small number and individual and and not every year every year um so offering them the opportunity to design a program and then for us to support that or for them to pull other students in and have it be a smaller cohort to move forward and really provide a system for that to happen as well so the student designed aspect of it might end up in a junior senior year but we really need to provide the structure for for students as they move through the system to to set them up for success for doing that when they're juniors and seniors yeah one of the elements we've also talked about is perhaps uh designing an advisory or a course that supports them to be eventually leading towards an independent project something where they whether it's a Capstone project or uh but training along the way so it's not suddenly plunk here 9 days go for it and they really don't have the tools to help that come to fruition can you tell us about the opportunities for the community to hear more about this and have some dialogue and input we have uh this coming Wednesday March uh 19th next Tuesday March 25th are two of the early early opportunities we also come back in April and May along the way but um as we continue this work and as it we start picking up speed there are going to be there's a need for it to be a community a parent a student a a staff dialogue around this because our power in the dynamic remains partnership and so we will have um those in-person conversations we'll likely have some online opportunities um to do this I think the next five to six months are going to be critical for us as a school district Community because we'll have really the prek through 12 um framework work in place it's now how do we start pulling this together to make sure that we have the resources in the proper place to make this successful and so the power of this Tactical Team which is the six teachers who meet on a daily basis and spend unlimited hours just researching and going deep into this work and doing um video conferencing with colleagues uh throughout the United States and doing site visits where they can and still stay within budget and all that work is really going to Pro really allow us to be successful but in the end it still needs not just research it needs that Community component additional questions thank you for all your work thank you thank you very much e learning squared y e-learning squared up next welcome good evening board good evening superintendent tonight we'd like to provide an update and U some uh discussion points on the e-learning squared where we've been and where we think uh our path going forward just want to uh reiterate what the ideals were for e-learning squared and that is and I think you've seen a little bit tonight of is just this increased emphasis on how do we retool our instruction in a digital age and so we heard we saw the fifth grade students from Countryside we just heard from the secondary study and that talk about how technology is helping to forge that and enable us to do that and so our large part about uh e-learning squared is is preparation with our teachers to um help them as they retool that instruction and then also finding digital assets and finding digital content but the third component of that is ensuring that our students actually have access to technology so that they're able to engage any time anywhere or any place and have these authentic ex um experiences e-learning squared unlike other onetoone initiatives though really looks at a student as the PO person who has choice that student is someone who can decide what device that they use and how they use that device and it's in a Walled Garden so we're not saying that that student can just go off and do anything they want but we really look at practicing or introducing and practicing those skills that these students will need as they go on After High School into college and life to be able to leverage technology to their full advantage up to date we've had close to 1300 devices sold we have uh provided quite a bit of professional development and Mike will talk about that in a moment with our teachers we do uh continue to have Rich dialogue with our families to talk about the positive aspects of e-learning squar but also about some of the negative issues about that and how do we mitigate some of the negative is issues of it and in particular what we really like to do is hear from our community and our stakeholders to find out what's working and what's not working good evening um with our survey that we conducted this spring we we surveyed our students our staff and our parents and we had about 401 parents uh fill out the survey um and their overall their uh satisfaction with the device was pretty good uh they talked about how easy it was for their child to be organized they talked about how they're not fighting over the family computer anymore things like that um on the negative side they said that setting some boundaries at home uh and managing child's use of Technology at home was was difficult and that they weren't necessarily seeing what was happening in the classroom as much from our staff uh the attitudes toward e-learning squared has increased uh from this year compared to last year um and the access to technology this students able to access resources and complete things um they've seen some increases with that 88% said that they are uh asking students to U utilize their devices in the classroom at least weekly if not daily um on the student side uh we heard that it helps them stay organized that and communicate with their teachers and fellow classmates it's uh every tool they needed their fingertips was one of the quotes um students admit that sometimes in class it's a distraction in that and that sometimes some teachers ask them to bring the device but many others don't and so when to bring and when not has been an issue but when we ask the students how has it impacted your learning 93% of them responded favorably to that um as we so as we looked for next year um we can we have a few scenarios that we' like to propose to you and I'll have Tim talk about those good evening um we've been uh working on an e-learning squar for about 15 months now so um we've learned a lot and uh we've been uh engag with the community with the teachers with the families um and we've uh we're looking at kind of what we can plan ahead for the 145 school year we can continue with our current plan or we've got another option so as we look at the current framework right now currently we have Sixth and nth grade students uh with the opportunity at the the Best Buy Web Store we're also supplying um Chromebooks to our free and red free and reduced lunch students uh but as you look at this graph here you see two two of the the red uh spaces and what that means is that our current 8th and 12th grade students do not have access uh compared to the uh Sixth and Ninth Grade so um and going into this school year we knew that there we would have communications with those families just inquiring about why there they were not chosen uh to have access to this web store and it's it's been uh kind of frustrating for me to uh cuz feel I feel a genuine um you know I feel sadness that they don't have the opportunity and it's it's a difficult conversation to have because uh just because they're aren't in that specific grade level they just don't have the same opportuni so as we look ahead to the next uh opportunity for uh what of what we're proposing is that we changed the the phrasing the framework from highly recommended to required and that's a that's a very significant change and what that takes away is that for um and this this impacts the teachers because for perhaps the teachers that may not have actively engage technology they had a way out saying that you know because it's highly recommended it's not required that was an opportunity for them to not participate compared to other teachers but as we switched from the mentality from highly recommended to uh required that takes that uh out of the equ equation so what we're pro uh proposing is that every student in grade 5 through 12 will have access to uh a technology learning device and as we look at this graphic we see grades F five and 12 and what we're proposing is that they will receive a uh District provided Chromebook and uh for the fifth grade model we are proposing that that will be uh in the form of a Chromebook cart in every fifth grade classroom that will um consist of 30 Chromebooks and knowing that there will be anywhere between 20 to 25 students in that class they will have five extra Chromebooks so in case of accidental damage or um issues with the device they have uh some extras there and then for the 12th grade uh if those seniors elect to have to receive a a Chromebook that's provided by the district they can opt to have that or if they choose not to receive uh a a Chromebook then that's uh an option as well and then what we're thinking of is uh 6th 8th and 9th grade um will have access to the Best Buy web store so as I mentioned uh grade five uh we see this as a great opportunity for this grade level not only just because it will help for the the transition when they get to middle school but also because we see this as a Walled Garden as Steve mentioned that uh we kind of condition the kids on EX acceptable use we engage those families with this partnership we invite them to our uh community events our parenting in the digital age classes and we just kind of give them the opportunity and as you saw earlier elementary students are highly engaged they're excited to use this technology and we hear from many of the teachers that all if they had just three or four or five more in their classrooms then um it just offers more opportunities for for more students to use the technology so as we look ahead at our Best Buy Web Store um we're excited to announce that Apple can now be a part of that web store which had previously was not an option and what we're looking at is uh uh the MacBook Air product and as well as a Chromebook and then two Ultrabook uh PCS um we're specifically not um at this moment pursuing the iPad um just because after talking to teachers and uh building administrators we feel that um although it's a very it's a very uh powerful tool um and it's it can offer a lot we feel that um you know specifically in our software ecosystem of Moodle and Google Apps there are some limitations that we feel um would not be as uh beneficial compared to the Chromebook model and the other options for our web store so as we look at our transformation um we're going to be working closely with the teaching and learning department and have been to accelerate moving our content to more of a digital format um many of our staff have developed moodal courses where they have content available along with the digital textbooks but we're continuing to expand that through our partnership with the Minnesota collaborative curriculum Consortium um along with that providing opportunities from a professional learning standpoint for flipped instr instruction um in increasing the number of videos in our e Academy A Renewed emphasis on digital age learning by creating expectations for utilizing apps through content through collaboration through creation of student work as you saw earlier today and then make sure that staff have the tools necessary in their classroom and then as we look at priority needs for our professional learning trying to make sure that um everyone has the opport and um it's embedded in what they do so our our next steps is um we're working uh with budgets right now to determine what the budgets and the costs of this project would be either scenario A or B and then from then we would uh seek a board res recommendation from that then what we would do is is ramp up quickly to work with our partner uh Best Buy to identify the products in the spring we would uh continue continue to uh work and have communications with our families to talk with our families uh Tim's done a fantastic job of communicating with our families letting them know the options we'd have uh parent and family kns uh communicating with them and then we're really interested in providing aorus Borg if you will of professional learning opportunities for our staff and that would include anything from uh a tech Day in June 12 to online learning opportunities throughout the summer working with the uh Adina ideas uh um conference in August and then also just throughout the year with the plc's and working with the teachers so we have a lot of opportunities that we'd like to use to address those students and be able to uh hit the teachers where they need it and provide the professional development for them and then continue to evaluate it going forward and finally I just like to uh before I turn it over to questions I'd like to thank Tim Mike Susan Randy and Chad and Susan Tennyson that have helped with this project to do the evaluation to help in the community ation it's been a team effort and I think to be successful it needs to be a team effort I want to personally acknowledge all their hard work and with that I'll take questions we did have a presentation on this earlier this evening and have some discussion around this any questions additional questions at this time so the cost of the device to a family that's currently subsidized by the district right uh it's not subsidized by the district per se but what we do do is every device that's sold we uh incur a charge through Best Buys web server uh store it's a fee for service and so that fee includes the cost of Geek Squad support as well as the web store and then the aggressive pricing on the device so if I were to go buy that device on my own versus through the store what's the approximate price difference there'd be at least a $150 price difference between what you can get at Best Buy retail and what you can get through the e-learning squared Web Store matthy I was just going to say was we were going quickly through the slides I just wanted to make it clear to the audience at home what we understood because we've already gone through the workshop is when you were showing what was happening next year because of the way we rolled out our pilot with ninth grade last year and then sixth and ninth grade this year for next year those kids rolling up the devices they already have everyone in sixth through 12th grade would have devices except the eighth graders and the 12th graders because they just got missed the way we put the pilot into place and that's why you put them in the red boxes and that's why we're talking about doing something different for next year the other than the way we've done it we continue to do the sixth through nth grade but we wanted to do something so we didn't have two classes of students who simply weren't participating in this technology thank you Kev that's exactly right we work very closely identifying what grade level to Pilot at and what we heard uh consistently from the middle schools was ninth and sixth grade uh what that does is PR some challenges because as we do the imple phased implementation it leaves a couple of spots and now it's coming to get at it what we're really starting to hear here is we're we're reaching a critical mass in our schools where at the middle schools at those grade levels everybody's bringing a device and using a device and what we hear from our teachers is that if we can get all a Chromebook or better in those classrooms that there's really going to start seeing a larger Tipping Point if you will for that transformation to digital learning Steve as as more students have these is there any opportunity for forming a secondary Market or supporting one for families who Maybe would would prefer to spend less and get a used uh Chromebook or device and other families that maybe are looking to upgrade uh that's a great question uh we're still new in this in this process but in in another year we'll start hitting our third year and so that's a great opportunity the other thing we do is we do work within the law which says that our when we re recycle our district own technology we can provide that to families of need of free and reduced lunch and so we have been actively engaged in we call it's part of our dmts is all forall or how do we help make sure that every uh family has a device and try to get those devices in the hands of the family so we have a number of our staff during their lunchtime refurbing laptops so that we can then provide them to families of need and that is in a that's a unlimited loan if you will so we provide them through that through our refresh but I think in a few years time as we start seeing more and more devices I think that'll be a great opportunity for that we also had this spring Tim and Mike in conjunction con Junction with Best Buy we held a Geek Squad Community Ed Course and so we trained 30 students became Geek Squad Cadets if you will and so we're starting to build this capacity within the organization with our students through the The Geek Squad relationship where we're training our students to be Geek Squad support agents within our district Steve this is a little off topic but how are we doing with home access uh to wireless or internet access for those families who do not currently have it you know I think that's that's still going to be a challenge um as we go forward because there is this idea of a digital divide here's a couple things that we're doing to address that uh one is we're working closely with Comcast which does offer a very aggressive price for our families that fit in the free and reduced lunch and then I'm also proud to say that we're working very closely with the Adina give and go and the Ed fund to help provide internet access and work with them to provide internet access for families that we identif so one of the challenges that we're doing we need to be very cognizant of of data privacy and and respecting families but we are building a list where we identify families that don't have internet access and then working closely with these third parties and you leveraging the district to be able to purchase the devices so that they're aggressive pricing and then providing them to those families so as we hear about it we get after it thank you additional questions and you'll have your recommendation to us um next month I think it's discussion for just for discussion tonight thank you just anecdotally Steve I will say that I have a daughter in sixth grade and the Chromebook has worked out very well and this is coming from a student who K through five had zero desire to do have anything to do with electronics and the work that you guys have put into this and the teachers that she works with it's been a really great program that's great to hear thank you thank you all next up we have our district leadership update Dr dressen I know I know the school district is very active both in the classrooms because these are just important uh days uh for learning as we uh gear up for for this final Rush before spring break but also at a district level uh we have a lot going on because we're very active in 201 U 134 but we're also really focused on 20145 and so I just want to give a quick update uh on some of the good news things some of the uh action items that are going to occur later uh as the board moves through its agenda tonight uh first of all I want to recognize a variety of Staff members and this is again why I think our pilot effort at the secondary level is going to be very successful uh the ad Ed fund has been a great uh partner for us and have been very active in supporting innovation in the classroom and we've had a variety of initiatives that uh really did come from an idea a teacher got from who knows where and that they requested some small amount of funding just to try it out and see if it could help Advance work and then if it was successful we contined to grow that but um over the past month the Adina Ed fund has gone around the school and awarded a variety of Grants to staff members for a variety of different reasons uh and it's always an exciting day because they surprise the teacher and the students with that awarding them checks for a variety of work that uh will help Advance learning in very creative ways uh from things that happen in the classroom to some of the staff development training that we've got planned a variety of ways that uh again great great things happen because we have uh groups like The Adina Ed fund that seek additional funding support and this is not their major funding they also do some major initiative work but this is that Innovative Grant Awards and uh typically we've had the staff members come and attend the board meeting to today we're just doing it from a virtual standpoint but again many good things a lot of excited people and a lot of excited children ask Mary Manderfield to come forward Bo I'll tell you she knows cues uh Mary oversees our uh District integration plan it's a plan that we work closely with the Minnesota Department education on it's an action item for the board later tonight that we do have to align with MD's timeline and so Mary if you could kind of walk us through uh two action items really one is around the revised budget and the second is around the budget for next year so the revised budget the reason we are coming in with a revision is we have found out we qualify for incentive Aid and it wasn't until within the last month that mde identified what categories you could use for incentive Aid and for us it's about $97,000 so some of the things that you can use incentive aid for are our program with Minneapolis that uh used to be known as choices yours and now we refer to it as Minneapolis transportation choices yours ended uh when the lawsuit ended and uh weap chose to no longer support that particular program and so uh by revising the fy14 budgets it's an opportunity for us to uh qualify for almost $100,000 so with the F uh fy15 budget that is now a change so last year the legislature said we are changing how we uh fund integration and is now called achievement in integration the purpose from uh the statute is four-fold to pursue racial and economic integration to increase academic achievement to increase to create Equitable educational opportunities and to reduce academic disparities based on students diverse racial ethnic and economic backgrounds every plan must include goals for reducing the disparities in academic achievement among all students and then specific categories of students American Indians Asian natives Alaskan natives uh Asian Pacific Islanders Hispanic black and free and reduced priced meal students that would be the achievement goal and then the second is increasing racial and economic integration in school and districts and that's the integration goal so the slide before you will be our uh achievement goal it is the reading Target based on 2013 data with the goal that we will cut the Gap in half for all students by 2017 there are a number of activities and strategies that we have in our plan uh they include uh the the uh we were also given very clear direction that there are categories the funding had to fall under College and Career Readiness integrated learning environments family engagement and training teachers and administrators we've got College and Career Readiness which is our uh AVID program and increasing participation in enriched or AP courses an integrated learning environment we got we have programs like young scholars extended school year programs RTI and our inter intervention reading classes at both middle schools family engagement we're going to have a goal of increasing the percentage of participation in conferences and other Outreach programs and with teacher training and with training of teachers and administrators we will continue to work with all staff in supporting academic achievement for Learners from diverse cultures incomes and ability levels will provide professional development resources and training to improve achievement for all students uh the integration goal uh we we will uh hit that in two categories one by our participation in weap and having students our students attend the fair school and the second is we will continue to support our program with Minneapolis through Transportation that's a program formerly called choices yours these are students who come to our schools with diverse economic backgrounds uh as I mentioned earlier we will uh we can qualify for this budget this for FY 15 93,000 in incentive Aid so our initial budget is 8 $858,000 we qualify for in incentive Aid and then we have to contribute $176,000 to weap and if you look at the budget this evening you will see that we put a percentage of it into to the uh staff development and the other percentage into student programming in the past when we had these budgets we had a line item that we contributed to to being part of weap but we never had to allocate what line item it was going to fall into this year with the new achievement and integration budget 80% of the funding we get needs to go directly to student programming you can spend 10% on Administration cost and 10% on staff development Mary the numbers you provided are different is it did we did we provide the wrong presentation no no and and really one of the reasons the number to we map is different is if you if you looked in the budget the total is 176,000 the 12,154 is going into the student programming the other 504,000 is uh it probably was just missed it's going into the staff development um uh okay same with the 761 was a little higher when you gave it now if we can go back a couple of slides Rick the I'm not clear how you're calculating this total increase or if there's an error in uh how that's arrived upon from the are you looking from Total increases from Baseline data yeah and and the Baseline data is to R reduce it by half in each category uh to for 2016 but like the minus 1% for Asian I don't know how that adds up well so here's uh mde requires us to measure not against the top performing group but they require us to measure against white students so every group we are measuring with is against white students so do we expect that our Asian uh students are going to go down in their performance absolutely not but if you looking at the measurement of trying to cut it in half that's what the calculation comes out as okay now y yeah okay in the future we may want to just put a footnote on to say increase based on you know C crazy MD calculation in those [Laughter] words thank you I had a question um the program that used to be called choices yours and now I think you called it uh Minneapolis Transportation are there any ma core differences between the two programs so one of the things that we have done in our particular plan is continue to support our academic achievement Specialists that are three second Ary schools we have funding in for scholarships uh really the biggest thing that happened is the lawsuit expired and so we there and and we maap decided a few years ago part of the incentive of the lawsuit was really to integrate all the schools and what has now happened is some of the schools uh or have a higher percentage of uh of students of color than Minneapolis so the the point of lawsuit kind of moved away so in answer to your question we will still in Idina we will still be providing Transportation uh for the students from Minneapolis that would qualify for what uh essentially for free and reduced price meals and we will still continue to support them with uh computers technology some of the same things that we have done in the past and so the transportation is to and from school for the regular school day I'm assuming correct yes so we uh have buses that pick students up in uh at their homes and bring them to Edina and then back home at the end of the day and we can do that because it's a partnership and there's a economic need that the students have unlike being able to go into another Community where we have open enrolled students and provide transportation for them and we don't provide transportation for all Minneapolis students that come through open enrollment it's only those who qualify specifically for this program program okay thank you and thank you Mary so when I was looking through the entire plan that we have in our in our in our board book um one of the goals is actually a weap goal about how they pick students and balance their student population and so that weap goal is in our goals because of part of our way to increase integration is that we're supporting the weap programs and sending our students to the fair schools correct yeah thanks for pointing that out we every one of the 11 members of West Metro education partnership will have to have a goal that's aligned to uh to the weap goal okay thank you on the on the wi map I would double check the statistics because we had a discussion about whether the numbers were correct in terms of their ratios so they're looking at that again maybe before you submit it you can just double check with them to see if they've changed their numbers thank you thanks Mary later tonight the board will be taking action on uh identifying an architect who architectural firm who will be providing us services for our ongoing projects and a possible future construction project um we did have a team of uh board members and administrators who served in this interview process Lisa and Kathy and uh Margo and uh Eric Hamilton who's our director building and rounds and maybe uh Marg can give us a quick update on the findings and the recommendation recommended action will be occurring later in the meeting guess it was already on good evening um the the team reviewed um uh four of the firms um in terms of future instructional programming experience um looking at financial and our facility limitations and considering our Dem graphic study in 21st Century Learning some of the information you heard tonight just in terms of what our study groups are talking about for programming for students but then the potential that that uh some of that information what uh what we're doing for students may have a facility impact um this successful firm we wanted to be able to assist with Bond referendum planning and um preparation planning and communication and if the bond is successful that the firm would implement uh be involved in implementation of that Bond and also continued imp implementation with our 10-year alternative facilities plan um and as Dr Dron said we had four firms narrowed it to uh two for a second interview and did reference checks um and asked a variety of questions and the committee's recommendation was to move forward with approving W Architects as our district architect firm architectural firm and we can uh take action on that later in the evening but thank you want to just mention two about the uh budget the board will be taking a discussion item as relates to our general fund budget and we're trying to move this through uh as quickly as we can yet still be fiscally responsible so we're on this phase process that we're trying to move the budget plan forward we've had a task force of building principles and District administrators who've been working uh since January we've talked about it several board work sessions tonight we're presenting some general findings and recommendations that we're asking the board to discuss and then we'll be bringing a recommended budget forward uh later this spring uh we recognize that we have a differential where we have uh more expenditures if we move forward then we have revenues and so we recognize the need to make some adjustments those targeted adjustments are someplace on a100 million budget we're projecting someplace between $500 and $750,000 um we also recognize there's some things that we want to enhance and how we're programming those uh dollars and so um what we've done is this task force has broken down uh first taking a look at some adjustments or possible reductions or new revenues or some reallocations we've been able to identify $963,000 of potential uh we're asking the board for consideration of about $527,000 of adjustments that will continue to support um moving forward in that adjustment process a lot of these are new revenues uh be it from retirees uh who are we had more people retire than we had previously projected so there's a cost saving there we recognize some revenues from um thirdparty billing revenues this is part of the special education process we've generated some funds there we're looking at a half percent across the board cost center reduction seeing 14 $1,000 there uh considering some athletic fees we'd ask the board to be acting on later the spring some savings there um some areas that we're still studying under this tier two uh would be looking at some possible support staff positions um that we might be looking at differently we're also looking at some special education Staffing models that we might be able to adjust and create some savings as well we'll be more specific what we really want to do is work closer with the the direct staff involved in these decisions to to make sure we have strong recommendations that we bring forward under the enhancements we do see some enhancements that we'd like to consider uh some of them include uh continuing to offer our Saturday school program for some of our students who need that extra boost and are interested in joining us on Saturday mornings um we're possibly looking at some additional special ed needs in the area of kindergarten uh again generating some new revenues uh to cover some of our costs as relates to Athletics um and those have become very uh comparable then with our neighboring school districts as well as look at uh a Success Center and some summer learning programming for some of our students again who need that extra time and extra skill sets um some areas we're still stud studying a little further is around some support staff help for the fact that we're going to an all day everyday kindergarten program we're looking at how we can advance some our intervention support for our language arts program at the elementary level as well as providing some additional Staffing support for our swimming classes at the middle school and so looking and studying and uh Discerning what the best way to uh possibly consider that some one-time funds um trying to make sure we have support if we possible for our writing and math centers at our secondary schools the secondary intervention support again some more programming to support kids who uh have that extra need for support and then some plans as as we roll out our strategic efforts so those are all areas that we'll be bringing for board to discuss uh further but want to touch on those at this point uh would also recommend that we continue to move forward with the hiring that we feel um all of the recommendations bringing forward would not impact the hiring proposals for a variety of Replacements as we do want to get out in front of our hiring process yet this spring and so we like to be able to post those later this month interviews could take place in April and early um May so that really kind of gives you an over where we are with our general fund budget board did approve the capital fund budget last month but this just gives us a good flavor of the status that we have at this point I would entertain any questions at this time would ask Margo and Gwen and any other administrators to uh assist um in terms of the support Staffing um I know that you're still working with the principles primarily on looking at some of the different support staff positions do you see maybe a hybrid coming out of that or we we are studying that of um one area is our media clerks and looking for additional support in the area of Technology can they can they provide that service or not um again just trying to take a look at and a lot of them fall because we're trying to maintain that class size where really do want to keep that ratio of number of teachers in front of students as low as possible so it does fall to some of those areas one of our reduction areas that we are taking uh in the tier one is 05 FTE uh Staffing position in the district office so we've already accepted that that's a position that we think we we'll have to do without even though it's a need um so we are trying to be as creative as possible this no questions thank you Rick now move on to the uh consent agenda can I had a motion to bring the consent agenda to the floor so moved second so moved and seconded uh to present the consent agenda Rick could you please walk us through the consent agenda consent agenda includes the Personnel recommendations we do have one or two personel recommendations I'd like to note one is uh Nikki toucher who has been our human resource manager has accepted a position in another district and we wish her well she'll be with us until the first part of U may also Jerry lcasa who has been the uh Normandale principal for the past two and a half years is retiring at the end of the year and we wish Jer the best and um those positions um along with the other ones I mentioned we plan to post as soon as possible uh get some good input from staff and Community as we build that profile and fill those positions other Personnel recommendations from Community Ed exists um we have a variety of terminations and non-renewals this is part of our routine action items in the March meeting and those again are not surprises to the staff involved we have expenditures we have a two student agree student teacher agreements by policy one with Luther College College another one is Minnesota University Mano and then several gifts and with that that would conclude the consent agenda items thank you Rick uh any discussion same go ahead I had just asked about the afon Press gift um and I just tried to clarify with Randy if that was typical that we receive um books as a gift and particularly since they were assigned to a certain um uh grade level if there was I just was curious about policy and if that was typical because I've always been under the impression that the the print industry can demand what they want so um um I had asked Randy about that earlier in the day so just a quick uh first of all good evening um just a quick note about that particular book it's from Afton press uh our gift was for 650 copies of it um initially this book was given as a free copy to Jackie rail in her uh receipt of teacher of the year award when Jackie had contacted the company um asking about the book asking for basically classroom sets of the book uh the company was more than happy to oblig with classroom sets uh we then asked again if the uh the company would provide additional books for other teachers wanting to use this particular book and they said that they would provide up to 650 copies uh so we did accept the 650 copies um one of the interesting notes that came in the letter was that this also supported them in their uh moving to a new office where they were reducing inventory um so we did receive an excellent book uh it met their needs it meets our needs and it's a book that we feel that we can use in classes around culturally responsive uh instruction with our Equity teams the title of the book is to be free understanding eliminating racism and it it just offers some history uh and perspective for students as well thank you Randy for the background uh any additional questions or comments regarding consent agenda all those in favor please signify by saying I I I opposed abstentions abstain motion carries uh next up we have our action items first item is the 201314 integration budget as amended uh Mary manfeld presented that earlier can I have a motion please still moved second been moved and second uh to accept the uh 1314 amended integration budget any discussion all those in favor please signify by saying I I I opposed motion carries uh next item is our achievement integration budget and plan that was also part of Mary's presentation can a motion please so moved second moved in seconded discussion seeing none all those in favor uh please signify by saying I I I opposed motion carries uh and a motion for the architectural services which Margot touched on earlier this was walked in this evening I should have a copy in front of you and a motion to bring this to the floor please so moved second been moved in second seconded uh any additional discussion or questions least I'd just be curious to see hear your inside as a new board member getting to know because we've all worked with wal for a while um what were your thoughts it's it was a very interesting process um they presented they W came to us with a very wellth thought and um presentation and they seem to touch on every aspect that we we're concerned about and I appreciated that um the relationship that Eric Hamilton Eric Hamilton has with bold um has been going quite well and so since he's going to be the point contact person his he his opinion carried a lot of away with me so of the four I felt most comfortable with thanks any additional questions or comments I know there was some questions at least from myself you know handing off on new construction project before we're clear on what we're doing did that come up at all in your discussions or did you guys get any more comfortable with that yeah we did we did ask that question and about what the uh process would be for um looking at something new such so that it would not be designed by small committees and too much input but be able to have that broader you know Visionary thinking and they had a good explanation for how they do that and we felt comfortable with their response okay because I think that's critical uh any other comments Margo in addition to that Eric Hamilton had internally some conversation with the committee on how he would handle it internally from The District's perspective and then we also heard that from The Architects too great seems like you've covered the topic any other additional questions or comments thank you all for your work on this all those in favor of approving uh architectural services for w that was as was selected to the pl process please signify by saying I I opposed motion carries uh next up we have uh audit Services a motion to bring this to the floor so moved second moved and seconded to bring up Auto uh audit services and Jim Gilligan had nothing else to do tonight so he's been sitting in the back Pati L waiting welcome good evening um I asked Jim Gilligan our controller to join us tonight since um he leads the audit um uh from beginning to end with uh his team of people and led this uh request for proposal process I was a part of the team as a team member um but it's really Jim and his team that uh works with these people uh more closely and uh led the process we did run a similar process to to the um architectural process and um Incorporated the audit RFP as part of periodically every so many years we do need to have a process to have requests for proposals for our services so this is the second of I think five or six that you will get over the between now and June uh in terms of official bids or outside of construction official bids or request for proposals so um with that I'll hand it over to Jim and you could that one should be on yep good evening thank you um our evaluation team consisted of four people Margo mentioned she was one of them I was one of them obviously and we also used robbert plaman our assistant controller and Liz lanto our accountant they both have audit experience and ound all right um so four of us uh Liz lanto I'll move on um we received four proposals back through the process um each of us went through the four proposals individually and then we got together and quickly realized that there were two top Runners uh mmkr and Clifton Larson Allen um both very respected audit firms within the school district in government accounting field um very very strong so we had them come in and do a presentation to the committee um of a kind of a mock Schoolboard presentation that you'll be seeing once our audit is completed and then uh a short uh sales pitch basically why should we hire you um after that process the the team felt they were still very strong they both they both did very very well um and the at the end of the day when we when we looked at the qualifications um the criteria the criteria that we used which I cannot read now um we used the cost we used the estimated total hours um the allocation of hours amongst their staff um the experience of the firm and their presentation Styles the audit report and the management letter uh readability of those um during the presentations mmkr really reiterated um that Edina is the a client for their company um and for us what that meant is they are willing to give us their best resources and that really showed in the allocation of hours for the audit they had uh 65% of the hours that are being done on our audit are being performed by senior level all the way up to partner level so very few of the hours are being done at the entry level or clerical level so those two things are really what drove us to recommend mm KR as our audit firm for 2014 thank you Jim any questions basically I mean they're a little bit higher in cost but that higher in cost is because you're going to get more senior people that you can go get do a better job for us exactly we figured we were getting more bang for our buck um the costs were pretty close they are a little bit higher um they are however um lower than what they have have been for the last few years and they've actually maintained a flat rate for the last few years as well um thanks to some pushing from Margo thanks for your work Jim you're welcome thank you all those in favor of approving uh M mmkr for our audit at a cost of 34,800 please sign if I saying I I oppos motion carries and just as a side note they were about a little under, 1400 or a little over $1,400 uh higher but it's still relatively in the ballpark uh next up we have uh our field trip a motion then a Japanese to Chevy Chase Maryland before we do this question we don't usually vote on field trips don't they usually just come through in the consent or in I wondering why okay okay okay we still just going to say when I read Japanese I thought maybe they're going to Japan and that's the reason it would come up as a motion no problem and uh this policy those intended for Action this evening correct uh can I uh get a motion to it was consent we need to approve it independently move to retract the uh motion no I no no no we go ahead with it approve did we actually move it you had a question I had a question but I'll move it moved in second it all those in favor of approving the Japanese trip to Chevy Chase please see saying I I opposed motion carries next up we have our scheduled policy review student policy 533 we've seen this before can I a motion so moved second moved and seconded anything changed since we saw this last nothing has changed there we did have continued discussion at the policy level pardon me I thought you we did have continued discussion at the policy committee following our discussion at last month's board meeting there was a question regarding the use of the word Wellness in the title of the policy since Wellness in Adina is being developed to Encompass many more topics in addition to food nutrition and physical activity what the committee discussed is the fact that there is a state mandate that the district have a wellness Poli policy so given that mandate we feel it's helpful for searchability to have Wellness in that title uh there was between the board meeting and the last policy meeting there was an opportunity for Nicole tisher and myself as a representative of policy to meet with the wellness committee and then we had some continued discussion as a full committee regarding um in particular appendix to and taking a look at the healthy and hunger-free kids act regulations and the additional Provisions which at this point in time are proposed as aspirational goals for the district some of which are quite specific in eliminating or decreasing particular food items um after significant discussion the committee does support the current language in appendix 2 Lisa and Kathy what else can we add M did you discuss number seven in appendix one I think we had talked about that at the last board meeting thank you yes we did and in appendix one number seven what Sarah's referring to is consideration of religious ethnic and cultural diversity of the student body in meal planning and um we discussed this both at the wellness committee level and then back again at committee level considering that there could be more than one meeting as to whether or not there will be a variety of cultural religious ethnic foods provided to give students a variety of experience versus the opposite of complying with different potential needs so the response that Mary Lombardi was able to offer during the wellness committee is that the sedexo does currently do what they can to comply but it's not necessarily the intent of number seven the primary intent is offering a variety of experiences okay so it is ex okay perfect thank you thank you Regina any other questions or comments I just have a friendly Amendment there's just a subject verb issue in um the guidelines three number two where it says food and beverage selection made available on campus to ensure those choices should be our consistent not is consistent it's just gone back friendly Amendment accepted and we need to be R thank you Kathy you got competition I additional discussion all those in favor please signif by say I I I oppos motion carries uh we're on to uh discussion information announcements this discussion uh budget adjustment plan for 1415 anything we thinking about there previously discussed board also in a work session uh we will continue to advance this and um at the work session there was discussion again to make sure that uh before we bring this forward um for a full board vote if there's some things that we feel there needs to be uh a disc a round of discussion that we would uh make sure that that gets worked into the process yeah I think the the key takeaway that I got from our discussion pre previous to this meeting was that this is such a still a moving Target and a fluid discussion that we've got to that we can't come to a final here's the proposed budget and but I think it's good that you're working with the right staff people to figure out where to go with this and that that we're feeling comfortable that we will make sure that the community is aware of where we're going with things um so I appreciate all your work on it great thank you additional comments or questions uh regarding uh budget uh next item we have schedule review of policies 427 9003 and 9904 relating to immigration work visa community relations and visitors to school and distribution of materials with um 427 the recommendation is that this policy be rescinded it's not a required policy and the district currently does and will continue to comply with all immigration requirements uh policy 903 on materials are I'm sorry community relations and visitors to wait am I on the right one 903 yes 903 is next visitors to school district buildings and property right part of what was recommended is we amended the language for clarity [Music] and that's our primary amendments on that Lisa and Kathy additional notes no there's really nothing 93 nothing substantive and then the there's an appendix about traffic and parking and there was some oh appendix number seven uh in the appendix number seven the appendix number one is identical with additional language that already exists in policy so item number seven is amended language to better align with this particular policy for visitors so they talked about high school students and they're not visitors the language is identical to policy 527 which is student use and parking like those and much of it does apply but number seven did not make sense now we hope it does 904 again uh the changes are mostly for cl it there was one addition of the word display in the title display of materials and in a definition under ran numeral 3A adding display to the definition for the sake of clarity and most of the language in here uh a lot of the definitions is is straight out of um state and federal law so it's language that were mandated to have so in layman's terms does this Li limit organizations like a like a PCN or you know from you know wanting to make sure that parents are aware of upcoming events or is it more meant to just give us some general guidelines so that principles have some control over materials that are in their buildings it's it's it basically applies to um Distributing or displaying materials in the school by non-district persons and organizations so it's basically outside organizations when they can come in how they can come in so they don't disrupt the school process okay yep they have First Amendment rights but we have the right to maintain order in our buildings okay I just thought for our partnered people should clarify additional comments questions seeing none we're uh on to information and announcements thank you uh policy for your work on that Rick anything uh just a follow up that uh at the February board meeting we did have uh constituent from the community visit with us lonel dville I did meet with him and have done some followup he had some good insights I think some of the sharing that was provided tonight around our advisory program uh is really uh talking to some of the concerns she he expressed and uh he also an active member on our district Equity advisory Council and so um again the valued voice and that was very helpful and just wanted the board and Community know that we did the followup excellent uh any other announcements committee announcements upcoming events a motion to adjourn so moved second it's been moved in second to adjourn any objection to adjourning at this time seeing none we are adjourned thank thank you all