good evening and welcome to the Monday May 19th regular meeting of the din School Board we do have a quum this evening uh first time on the agenda is approval of minutes we had a meeting on April 24th and also a special meeting on May 5th a motion to approve so moved second it's been moved and seconded any additions or Corrections or deletions to the minutes as written sign that all those in favor of approving the minutes as written please signify saying I I opposed motion carries uh we do have one item I'd like to insert into the agenda at this point uh can I get a motion to insert the updated action item of the 20145 uh Elementary instructional size guidelines so moved second moved and seconded uh any uh discussion this was just a correction to the 6j the action item okay so it's just amending it's it's pulling the the the uh recommendation we have under 6j and inserting this repl and we'll talk more about it at the time of the meeting or at the time of the action got it discussion all those in favor of approving that uh replacement into our agenda please signif saying I I opposed motion is carried uh next up we've got a couple members of the audience who'd like to speak this evening uh reminder that uh please limit your discussion to three minutes and uh try to avoid repeating points that have been made uh at a prior time in front of the board uh and Erica is up Erica welcome y thank you thank you um thank you for allowing me time to address you tonight my name is Erica allenburg and I have three children in the district and I just wanted to commend the district for the progress that's been made um addressing some of the gaps in the budget that was proposed in April I'm here with Janie Shaw who hopefully will speak after me to ask the bo board and the district to give permission to elementary schools to self-fund intern positions like Normandale Elementary School does I would also like to add that myself and others do not dispute the value these interns bring to Normandale nor is there any support for asking Normandale to discontinue this program however the reality is that right now our district allows one of our elementary schools to sell fund interns and does not allow any of the other elementary schools to do the same the rationale used when I ask why is one of three things you cannot do it because the district cannot charge fees for instructional or academic progress programs because it has to be sustainable and because Normandale is an immersion program and they have unique needs as a school first of all while I understand that the district cannot assess fees for direct instructional programs I'm asking the board and District to consider mirroring the intern program at Normandale where interns are self-funded by parents outside of the District budget Normandale currently charges families an optional $85 or $155 fee the $55 $155 fee being if they don't want to participate in fundraising during the year and this money goes directly to sustain their internship program according to the Normandale website or PTO website I'll clarify their interns play a vital role in their classrooms they provide instruction by following lesson plans participate in or lead group small instruction circulate in classrooms to support students and keep them on task present on French culture in their country assist with supervision of daily classroom routines assist with clerical duties and assist with correcting papers and most importantly they provide TLC the other push back I receive is that this has to be sustainable well I guess my main question is in 1991 when Normandale created their self-funded internship program why was this not an issue that derailed the creation of their program we are pulling from similar parental demographics and the board and District would have no reason to believe that we could not be just as successful as Normandale additionally in our schools we are continually piloting and changing things if we use Pro proven sustainability as our Benchmark for whether or not we try new things then we would not do half the Innovative stuff we do now finally while I do not doubt the value of our emersion program and I know the district has actively worked to try to shift demographics I think it needs to be said that having an immersion program in our district means that the remaining five elementary schools get a disproportionate member number of students that need special care and extra time from teachers I want you to listen to three key indicators provided to me by the Minnesota Department of Education for this school year for the percentage of kids on free and reduced lunch Normandale has 2.7% of their school population the other remaining schools in the district elementary schools have 8.7% kids labeled inclass special ed Normandale has 6.9 the other schools have a combined 9.9 and elll kids those kids were English is not their primary language Normandale has 0.5% of their student body at those designated those kids in other schools have 7.5% I do not think it can be argued that the unque you passed your time but please wrap up I just have one two more sentences I do not think it can be argued that those that the unique needs of an immersion school are any less challenging than those facing the rest of our schools on a daily basis but we all deserve the opportunity to have our kids get the same support whether they choose an emerging School continuous progress or neighborhood elementary school thank you next up we have Janie good evening and thank you for this opportunity to speak tonight my name is Janie Shaw and I am a mother of two one third grader at Highlands and one soon to be kindergarten next year I am a dedicated volunteer in the schools currently ending my third year on the ECFE PTO as well as I'm the president of the PTO at Highlands Elementary I believe in our school and I believe in our Educators I trust them and you with my children's Futures to piggy back off Erica's comments my concern tonight is the inequity among elementary schools to create this parent funded instructional support positions like those of the Normandale interns those interns do play a vital role in the success of the students from the beginning of their Learning Journey Through Middle School I believe it's a wonderful program with amazing benefits to both the students and the Educators but I also feel that my children deserve to reap those benefits as well I want their classroom to have someone who can participate or lead small group discussions circulate in the classroom to support students and keep them on task assist with supervision of daily classroom routines assist with in the correcting of papers and clerical duties and especially in that first and most formative year of kindergarten provide TLC as a parent of a 5-year-old I argue that kindergarten in and of itself is a foreign language to the majority of kids and a french-speaking teacher is probably one of the least confusing things in their day tonight I'm tasking the board and the administration with helping the PTO of the other five elementary schools create a framework to Pilot similar programs when confronted with ongoing budget adjustments the parents of this District deserve to be on a Level Playing Field in problemsolving ways to keep their schools functioning at the high standards we have come to expect I'm not saying that this is the correct answer for all schools and all positions but I believe we have a right to that option another concern I would like to address is the evergrowing belief that volunteers will backfill the needs in our schools I have zero doubt that our community of parents will rise to the occasion if needed to make sure our teachers staff and students have what support they need to be successful with the recent adjustments that's just who we are but I come to you with what I call a fair warning to my kids that I fear our district has reached a critical saturation point with volunteers and this threatens to dilute the framework of our schools I am a volunteer this is different on so many levels from a paid staff member I do not have the support system in place in the event of a sick child I do not have the access and Authority at the school to make the absolute best decision for all kids at Highlands alone we have approximately 750 volunteer positions open during the year that does not include what the teachers ask for and what the media Specialists ask for those are an additional 100 to to 20 150 to 200 open positions during the year that's a lot we ask a lot from our parents please know that it's getting harder and harder to fill these roles we ask so much from them along with asking more and more from our students I ask that you be aware and be cautious about making choices between staff and stuff in your decisions thank you thank you both for presenting tonight the administration will follow up with each of you individually so thank you uh next up we have our report our technology plan good evening Adina board ad superintendent my name is Steve Butner I'm the director of media and technology for the Adina Public Schools tonight I'd like to provide you an update on the technology planning for the Adina Public Schools before I'll say before I get underway I just want to say is is that uh what I'm what we're learning with technology is the rapid pace of Technology um necessitates that plans never get written in indelible ink uh things are changing rapidly and so as we put to pen this technology plan only two years ago when we started looking at it this winter we recognized that it really needs to get reviewed not the philosophy not the goals but the key initiatives and so we decided to really take a look at the key initiatives of the technology plan to uh ensure that they're relevant still and what we found was that a number of the key initiatives we've already completed so we could check off the plate we also recognize that some needed to be revised and more importantly as we started looking at the birth the five study and the secondary study and the rapid pace of Technology change that we needed to make sure that we were covering all potential key initiatives we brought together a group of stakeholders that included uh inside District staff principles from uh the secondary and the elementary teachers media Specialists and parents and community members uh Dennis cheeseboro helped us facilitate those meetings and we came up with revised technology initiatives so I'd like to share those with you now and again when we looked at this we noticed that I don't think the technology philosophy has changed indeed we still believe that technology is the tool and the Catalyst for excellence in ad public schools and we're recognized around the world in the state of Minnesota and nationally for our excellence and education nor do we think the goals have changed how does technology create a spark create a pathway for our students to pursue lifelong learning how do we capture that passion how do we hold that in our children children for our Educators who are recognized as some of the best Educators around the country how do we provide them the tools like technology to make them exponentially more powerful how do we make technology help facilitate a community of Learners how do we provide them data they need to be instru be informed in decision making and help communicate with them effectively and finally how do I and the rest of the organization demonstrate an excellence in the productivity and the operation in the delivery of Technology here are the key initiatives under the idea of passion for learning three years ago I told you about how our wirless was growing and how we had 1,500 wireless devices on our Network in the last six weeks on average there's over 6,000 devices daily on our wireless network and indeed we're building Out Wireless so that there's an access point in every other classroom in the secondary schools and as we do facilities makeover we're putting an access point in every classroom so ensuring that we have the anywhere anytime access to the internet is a key component four years ago there was no such thing as an iPad and now personalization of technology I believe is the future that doesn't mean that it gets used all the time but it does fundamentally shift the way we purchase technology instead of buying technology for things we do we buy technology for people to do things we believe that at some age level every student needs to have access to technology anytime anywhere any place that doesn't mean they get to use it all the time or should be using it all the time but they have access to it so that they can be utilizing it that also means our content needs to change no we won't be getting rid of textbooks or library books anytime soon but I do recognize that technology provides an incredible opportunity for our students to be able to access information and learning opportunities that they would never have in their classrooms that it provides them opportunities to interact with people to provides a world of opportunities outside their classrooms and just like our content is changing our space is changing and and our media centers are the focal point for our learning in our classrooms and our schools and so how do we revision our media centers so that they still have the Excellence in library books but they also jump on to the digital age learning and help Foster that as I mentioned our teachers are what makes a din excellent providing them the tools make them exponentially more powerful when I came on board and three years ago we worked really hard to create a digital classroom standard what are the tools that the classroom needs what I'm happy to say is that's not written in stone we review that every year and it changes and what it does is it provides the tools that the teachers need in order to be successful but choice is going to be an important piece for our teachers as well as our students and how do we provide choice and personalization in technology for example what's the opportunity for us to provide a BYOD for our staff so they can provide they can use techn techology that they're personalized that they use in their personal world and they use in their professional world technolog is crazy isn't it we have Twitter we have Facebook we have Snapchat we have Instagram we have all these venues of information it's up to our technology department and our systems to try to Crow some of that in that's a tough task because it goes against the internet the internet wants to be decentralized but we need to continue to look at how do we simplify and improve technology and operational tasks to make it as easy as possible for our teachers we have to provide them some guidance on what does it mean to utilize technology in their classroom and what does it mean to be competent in the use of Technology we're adopted the saml model what that means simply is that technology can be used for substitution which just means that I'm going to use technology to do something that I used to do with paper and pencil in my classroom all the way up to definition which means I could never been able to do this without the aid of technology and we saw some students using that at Countryside earlier this year and we see it every day the analogy is the pool you can be in the shallow end in the substitution you can be in the deep end in redefinition but you can't sit on the deck chairs for always you've got to jump in how do we help Foster that well we have to provide professional development and this is thing one thing you can accuse me of I give lots of options some of the options I have is one-on-one training with our teachers Summits like the Google Summit cohorts substitute time pay for product online hybrid courses learning institutes I've provided wealth of opportunities for our teachers to be able to access that technology and we're going to continue to watch that and ensure that our teachers are taking advantage of that and finally we're going to leverage the media center and the St staff in the media center the media specialist who's that digital learning specialist the technology PA professional and the media clerk to help support our community our schools students and staff we're going to simplify the way we use technology to communicate School viw continues to be our one point of contact and from the last three years I can say that we've come great strides but we still need work to go on that but we can now see the grades and every two weeks they're up to date for our secondary students we can change telephone numbers and this year when we had the cold winter it allowed us to update our records and we communicated effectively with our families but as the secondary study and the birth the five study start talking about personalization increasingly we're going to need to have technology and a technology solution that helps facilitate Monitor and track personalization of learning what's the choice what's the cohort that we're going to work with how to remediate when we're not on Target and how do we accelerate when we can we need to formalize expectations around technology our team I think has done pretty well this year talking about parenting in the digital age so this isn't just for our staff but it's with our parents as well but this is not a a school issue this is a societal issue I challenge us all to go to a restaurant this weekend or at your next family event to look at each one of us and see how many of us have our heads our in our hands in our cell phones and not engaged but what better environment to practice positive behavior around technology use minimizing screen time than our schools of course we can't forget our families of need so how do we continue to ensure that our families have technology in excellence we need to continue to work just like our teachers our students get grades they're told what to do they get tested on it and they get a report card we're doing that same thing in technology we call it our service standards what are the standards that we're going to set for ourselves what are the tools we're going to measure ourselves and what's the report card we're going to use this year we set that in place next year we're going to measure ourselves I like my friend Margo Bach are in an an unenviable position to know that there is a limitless amount of needs in education and limited resources my department we have that same challenge so how are we transparent in the decisions we make with the limited technology resources we have we use total cost of ownership it's not just the device but it's the device in three years when it needs to get replaced it's the support that we need to provide for that device so that our staff can use it efficiently and what are the roles and responsibilities what are our expectations and what are the expectations of our staff our band with grows when I started he 50 Megs was sufficient today we had over 400 Megs on our internet connection and it isn't uncommon to get up to 700 Megs of internet connectivity at burst we need to ensure we have sufficient bandwidth we need to make sure again when our technology gets old it's being replaced we need to create Partnerships like we did with the uh Minnesota Google Summit and with Hopkins to provide opportunities for professional development and Leverage The expertise outside of our organization we need to create efficiency and Effectiveness in our systems and we need to continue to review our information systems to ensure that they're the best of breed today they're okay what does it look like tomorrow when we have personalized learning when we need the data in order to make decisions effectively when we need to be able to access information and communicate effectively we need to continue to look at those systems and adapt to the Future that's the revised technology plan thank you thank you Steve questions thank you very much Steve well done yeah I really like your passion for saying we're better than the schools to teach kids appropriate use of screen time when it's appropriate socially in in in in groups I like that that we're going to concentrate on that a perfect example is just the use of cell phones and and for a long time um you know cell phones are critical communication tool in emergency but we really need to work with what are the Norms in our classrooms what are the Norms in our schools so that we we put those cell phones away or they're out of sight until we have appropriate use of those they still still can be a technology tool no one's denying that but there also can be a huge distraction in our classrooms so how do we put together Norms how do we work with our Middle School teachers and our students and our parents to say hey you know what those are appropriate uses but they have their place and time in the classroom until a teacher says so they're not supposed to be used and that's what we're going to be working very hard with e-learning squared on and our little guys need to learn that lesson early I think that is so critical and I I mean see it whether third grade fifth grade you know they have access and teachers and the kids are having to learn that balance between I could go on and look at some Minecraft video or something versus get my homework done and so you know let them learn and have those little failures young before they you know that's right becomes more critical additional questions well done Steve thank you thank you thank you next up Dr dr's going to provide a leadership update uh thank you Mr chair and members of the board members of the administration and Community just again uh this is the fly over of what's going on in Idina uh Public Schools uh want to just take a moment to take a look back as we could around our pilot projects for 1314 there are a variety of initiatives that we have brought forward or projects we brought at a piloting level this is one that says that it's uh Innovative creative it's something that that we're exploring it aligns with where we're going strategically and and we're still in a point of gathering more information um as I look down this first page of items uh the conquered maintenance is the first school we we're doing that taking a look a different way of uh looking at our cleaning and our efficiencies with our custodial team uh by purchasing some new equipment and looking at some alternative hours again we we're not far enough in that to make a full assessment but that's something that we're monitoring going forward this dates us back to some of our work that we did um when we audited our custodial Services two or three years ago the uh High School collaborative Wednesdays we did have a report on that this fall from the high school they continue to have that to be a very positive experience that will likely not expand but continue to be part of the high school uh daily weekly schedule and as we look at where we're going with time and schedules for the future with our next Generation I'm guessing there will be a role around this type of collaborative efforts uh going forward e-learning Square was again something we piloted and earlier this uh this um school year the board did approve that to bring that to scale we have a pilot that we're taking into a second year around our elementary Specialists this is a plan that uh how we're trying to look at using our specialists at the elementary schools differently and we're piloting a site at con or Countryside I should say and that again is part of our birth through grade 5 study we'll go deeper into that um looking at space uh we've done some uh initial look at uh putting technology on a cart actually having some virtual classroom spaces and assessing the effectiveness in that we'll continue to probably explore that again a little bit deeper um the parent teacher conferences is something that we've allowed each School to take a look at how they want to conference with their parents and uh have gotten some feedback and that flexibility has been positive so we're going to continue to carry that approach as we look at calendars for the future um just jumping down to uh the there's two around school buses one on video cameras we did have four buses install devices and at the end of the year we'll assess how effective that was as far as referrals as far as safety uh some of that interaction um but need to say up front that we have some awful good students and some very effective drivers who do provide those services so um we'll just see how that uh does as far as enhancing our safety on those routes to and from school and finally we're just starting to explore the hotspots on the buses for Wi-Fi and just seeing what type of use we're getting in that and the effectiveness of that so all of these projects we bring forward um either align where we're going to go further study because of where we are with our strategic plan or we need more data before we come back to the board with a recommendation of whether we would take it to a larger scale than it currently is budget We'll be asking the board to vote later tonight on our budget adjustments um and our budget enhancements um going to replay a little bit of our work and 24th of excuse me in March we we brought our first discussions to the board around possible alignment efforts we're going to be doing around our funding because uh we know going forward that our expenditures were exceeding our Revenue um and so in March we did that read a step with the board and we got some more guidance from the board uh to take a look at our various uh specific um challenges that we are addressing both on the uh uh adjustment side as well as the enhancement at the 24th meeting we brought the administration brought a package forward that was hitting that Target we did receive feedback from staff we received feedback from the community um again I think we tried to weigh in and listen the board had a work session on May 5th at which time the ad ministration brought some ideas forward to the board of things that we could be considering but we also felt that we needed approximately another $100,000 of onetime funds to help us um move forward on some of our challenges going forward that being said our Target remained someplace in that 500 to $750,000 of adjustments um knowing that um we needed to uh again be phisically responsible we also recognize that as our strategic plan goes forward as we see needs we also want that could possibly bring in some uh enhancements so as we look at the picture now this is the change we've had we've actually increased um our adjustments by $100,000 where our now total budget adjustments will be just over a million dollars we've got approximately $231,000 of enhancements that's bringing the the alignment to $850,000 which is uh in that comfort zone of targeting but we're also doing some one-time spending uh off our fund balance to allow us to move on some initiatives that we think are of value as we move forward with um our strategic work and some of the needs that we recognize so this is uh what the administration feels is a good place for us to be um given that what we have as far as our financial resources the bridging areas are the some of the challenge areas that we are addressing from the first proposal that we presented in April April 24th one was around the all day kindergarten proposal where we're actually adding some addition support we're trying to bring it a little bit more to a scaled approach where it's dependent on the number of students in the classroom and then trying to scale up uh and adding hours of of time uh so that we can recognize that there's other Alternatives we'll be working with the with the teachers and the principles at the elementary schools of how we can creatively use U prep time possibly some other support services so that we do try to get as much help as we can to the kindergarten uh program but we do see this as a 30 ,000 increase in funding there'll likely be some internal adjustments that we're going to also do but we're just a little bit early into that to finalize it and we'll come back uh this fall once we have our numbers set um to to address that more fully uh with the elementary math and science Paras uh we're recommending uh that we would have two full-time elementary math and science Paras one for our East Side schools three School covering three schools and one on the west side for three schools we feel that's a good good place again for us to make sure that we are getting those supplies necessary for the science and math given what we have as budget restraints and then we can go into further study we're also checking what other schools are doing around this that uh how they manage with um either uh Paris support or not having Paris support and we know that there needs to be more study before we can make any further recommendations the elementary gift and talented language arts proposal we're holding on that so that's going to remain the same again it's one-time funding and so we'll watch how the birth through grade 5 study moves forward of how we can service those students again there's opportunity here with schedules that we could possibly looking at something different going forward on how we serve those students special education we are looking at a you know an adjustment there about $200,000 some of it as results to uh shift in our student population and where we're able to group some of our students some we're also building in some contingency funds so that if we do need Services we have a contingency fund built into those $200,000 which allow us to respond based on the needs of the families and the students the services we need to provide uh the grade six through 12 interventions again this is some one-time funding being responsive to our students so that uh we can do that often times in the secondary school they get those dollars set the allocations are there and it's tough for them to bring in some additional support this is some one-time funding to support that effort and some of the Strategic work we're trying to do around supporting our students uh with some needs then finally our strategic plan continuing to support that then this again would help us move our next Generation funding next year we'll have both the secondary study moving forward as well as the birth through grade five study trying to move forward and so we need we we recognize some R&D money is needed uh to help us make sure that that moves forward in a timely fashion what I'm talking about on all those are bridges because we know that uh it's going to take us that next Generation study that we need to go deeper through Staffing studies through our strategic work and uh make sure that we are able to staff on a sustainable approach some of the things shared at tonight uh with our public comments those are also things that we'll be studying as we look at our staffing of our next generation and so one of the recommendations that came out of our brainstorming on May 5th uh at the board work session is that we do a staffing audit that we step back and take a look and we probably will bring in some outside resource support um to help us take a look at how uh what is the best way to staff what are other systems doing be it in the nonprofits be in other schools uh what is the best way to make sure we're getting the maximum support given the funding and the Staffing model that we have and so we will bring those recommendations back early this fall so that we could Implement them if necessary in the 20145 school year there' likely be a set of recommendations that would be kind of a short mid and long-term plan because it might take some time for us to just to respond to the those um we're seeking Innovation we'll be seeking a lot of input uh from staff and Community to help that but we think an outside team coming in will be the best resource we've had some very strong success with outside auditing occurring in other settings such as technology or in our business services and our custodial model we think this is the way to do it um we've seen it successful in other places so this is something we'll continue to explore we don't see it as an additional um request for funding that'll fall within our consult fee structure and we also think we've got some creative twists on this of how we can build that in so that'll be how we're responding to the funding uh challenges going forward and our recommendations for uh tonight uh we're also continuing to monitor enrollment projection and the 2014 legislative session our enrollment numbers look strong and look like they'll be on target we're watching our kindergarten numbers specifically uh and then managing that off our open enrollment numbers 2014 uh legislative session has complete uh there's a lot of detail that has to be shared before we really know exactly um I think probably the best example is that that we the first read that you get is that there's a 0 five increase in the general fund and now we're coming to find it's only a point for Revenue increase maybe Margo can just touch on that but it's an example where we need to get the details before we jump too far uh correct I think there's some rounding that they do and how they make the calculations and so we don't have enough detail to be able to say um however it does appear that there is an increase uh in the formula gen General Ed formula allowance could be could be roughly 200,000 for us um but later in a agenda items I will also share where we're at for 1314 and um uh we also don't know language other types of language items in the legislative session in detail that may have an additional cost to them so we just need time to review it Susan BR watches our a lot of our the language side of the world with a legislative session and we'll be presenting a summary later this spring on um here's what happened in the legislative session here's the impact we in public schools locally so that and that's a Public Communication that both our staff and Community benefit from uh we'll continue to get input from our staff and the public as we continue to refine our work both for next year and going in the future and then we'll just doing through the process we have uh uh within our governance structure where we work with our finance and facility committee as well as in the work sessions that we have uh to continue to monitor our funds and our budget uh going forward this is a graphic that we've uh shown before it talks to um our strategic work where we do already have that Vision already in place uh around our next generation of Edina Public Schools uh that we continue to want to have a strong National and we're going to start looking at talking International presence because we think that's the world our students will be uh living in and working in uh we have done a lot of work on the what side of it where we've identified our priorities at the secondary level that was uh approved by the board in June uh now this June the birth through grade five recommendations will be coming forward for the board and out of that we'll drive that into action and then next year Community Education a a lot of our work that will now be moving in especially with the secondary studies in this how Arena how we're going to advance what we said we'd do and so that is a lot of our Focus going forward um from a district standpoint the educational competencies those are the things that we say our kids need to be competent as they leave the system uh these are the key pieces and uh at the April meeting Randy smle delivered the first draft of that we come back again in June to talk more about that the impact that'll have on the coursework and how we deliver to make sure our students are accountable for that at every level at that high level the middle level uh the early ele the elementary as well as the early years um so we're looking at creating uh educational compeny narratives we're also developing our power standards and so what are the key standards that we want to make sure are being delivered uh and then what's the common assessments to ensure that those that are being delivered that we're measuring and then how we doing grading and building some grading consistencies these are all strategic uh looking districtwide we'll also be bringing to the board in June the position statements on what personalized learning we've worked real hard on trying to Define that and yet there's a variety of definitions out there as a district we'll take a position on what personalized learning is as well as around racial and cultural Equity the other uh areas of direction that we'll be seeking over the next uh months will be a World Language Direction both the secondary study and the birth through grade five study have discussion on the role of world language in our schools and we need to do some revisiting of that and that'll be a big item of uh discussion and problem solving to make sure we set that direction correctly uh we'll be now starting soon in May talking about our facility enhancement plan that we've had a lot of preliminary discussion talking about the need and how we can use space differently to help our students learn uh we'll be taking that more formally uh starting in May we'll be doing some Community survey we'll be doing some data collection uh taking a look at other options out there engaging the staff and the community as we move that forward and finally as I mentioned the Next Generation Staffing model uh and the secondary program um what we know is the phase one advancements uh received a first reading uh in April and talked about some of the things we've already approved the e-learning squared initiative um tonight the board will be asked to act on the grade nine uh grades counting toward graduation uh we'll be talking a little bit more about personalized learning we'll also be talking again on June 2nd around grade level configurations that we think is the best way that we can have our students to make sure they uh meet those educational competencies we'll be talking a little bit about defining the Middle School programming plan a little bit about daily schedules yearly schedules um this personalized Pathways so if students have interests how do we make sure that we're getting there and then we'll put a timeline out there because these things are not going to happen in the short term it's going to be this phase process it's going to take one two three years for us to implement at the secondary level as well as the elementary level but those are all things that are going to be starting to roll out uh get more formal discussion going um with the board starting on June 2nd in the birth through grade five study recommendations we've identified four themes we'll get much deeper into these themes but with the data collected the research collected um this design team made up of principles and District administrators has has put together four General themes one around an integrated curriculum this whole thought of a student wellness and engagement process a global competency which gets back into some of the World Language but gets beyond that then finally taking a look at how we can use time space and talent differently so a lot of the work that we've talked about um and at tonight's work session that the board had prior to this regular meeting we spent quite a bit of time just talking about the secondary program study um but on May 2nd we'll be formally roll ping this out and then this will then go public the board may be asked to act on some of the items that are more direct at the uh June regular board meeting but other than that it will roll forward uh going deeper but we will frame all of our work at the June 2nd uh special school board meeting at 5:00 pm with that um I want to give a quick update on some of the leadership actions for the 2014 15 years so beyond the work that we've already talked about around our three General themes of personalized learning and this comprehensive and coherent educational program and Partnerships we have some very specific things we're working on we'll be implementing the technology plan and later uh yet this school year we'll be learning about the special ed uh strategic plan that was uh just been finalized and Penny cich will bring that forward for board discussion uh the g&t alignment study so we're looking at doing some things with our gift and talented program this would be another area of support that we have and need to do some strategic work around that then taking uh our all forall plan and moving that forward to the next level we we're finishing our first year and saying what do we need to do to advance that the second area will take a look at those studies around their birth through grade five in the secondary study the Community Education strategic plan and the facility study then finally we'll be doing some partnership work we have a new teacher appraisal process and our professional learning communities advancing that work we'll be doing the study around our staffing model and then we'll be formally looking at some new educ ational Partners we have some formal Partnerships already but we're going to be exploring um new ones that we think uh will align well with where we're going strategically we also may be a be identifying some Partnerships that we don't think can be successful for us going forward that we need to look at differently and the board or the next months we'll be looking at some policies that helps Define those Partnerships one area that we really want to grow in a partnership would be our postsecondary educations and should we be creating a more formal partnership than we have right now with some of our postsecondary institutions with that that kind of gives the overview of the leadership update so we touched on budget we touched on some of our strategic work and some of the key initiatives going forward with that I'll open up to questions and may ask my colleagues on the side here to help me question Rick at that one um in terms of the bridging um what do we have in place to make sure we use the year wisely and come up with solutions that are that justify the investment of of the $100,000 so I I think the plan we'll have in place is um for the kindergarten Paris that additional support and again there'll be a regular meeting process the kindergarten teachers and the principes in touch with the administration to be assessing how this is working and uh you know taking a look at what opport you know given the parameters what can we do it'll be a new experience because this all day everyday kindergarten is going to be new so we're even looking at programming and assessing pacing around that so I think there will be some regular check-ins and we certainly come back to the board to give an update around that the um Paras as it relates to the math and science we'll start assessing that seeing what other things we can do um but we're probably going to be looking at all of our pair of professionals and seeing what's the best way to use all of our pair of professionals as well as our our you know licensed profession just across the board I think that's where that study is going to come in and so we'll we'll take a step into that but I I think it it may be pertinent for us for sure through the uh human resource Committee of the board but maybe uh you know a checkin in the fall and a check-in prior to our planning for the next year to give the board an update of how we're using those funds that we certainly could do that and it's not so much using the funds for that but since we're buying the year making sure that we're really using the year wisely okay additional questions I just have a question on the personalized learning aspect here so how do the different strategic plans for special ed and GT fit in with our all forall because when I see all forall I include those that's correct there and so I'm trying to I'm gonna ask Randy and or Chad to talk a little bit about our educational delivery uh committee that oversees the all for all and it has all the players on it so it has our gift and talent service our special ed but maybe Randy can so we have a committee called uh educational delivery and our director of special ed our director of research and evaluation our director of enrollment uh mayor manderfeld and myself sit on that committee and that is really a partnership between these various Services as we look at programming um from the perspective of our four departments and how we are really going to continue to move programming forward so that we are meeting the needs of all students so whether it's teaching learning whether it's special Etc how are we going to meet the needs of all of our students so we work collaboratively together to design uh plans for that as in the all forall plan so looking at all staff for all students um so that's part of our collaboration and these are all many strategic plans there are three to four sessions predominantly with staff and then you know we'll we'll draw in community or parents as we go but what we want to make sure is this work is aligning to our strategic work so everything Steve talked about tonight aligns with our strategic plan uh as we look at um our activities program and Kathy served on that committee a couple years back they did the same thing of just making sure some of these groups that have been traditionally siloed get brought into our master plan I'm what I'm hearing from particularly GT families is they still feel Silo that's right and as we talk about that committee so our GT person Deb Richards isn't on that committee and so that she is actually sorry that wasn't listed in the four you just mentioned oh yeah so I'm sorry so she's in teaching learning okay so Deb and the other teachers on special assignment osas are also on that committee so it is it wasn't just one of the four so that's why I and and our principles so it is it it really is a large group that looks at programming from the standpoint of District level support and from building level leadership so that we have all of the key stakeholders in the system putting together the plan of how we move forward thank you thank you thank you next up uh we have our consent agenda we could also get review of the overall agenda a motion to bring the consent agenda to the floor so moved second moved and seconded uh Rick could you uh walk us through the consent agenda please I will I will uh we have our Personnel recommendations um and uh we continue to um have it as a busy time of the year given uh that this is also our Hing time so we'll see a variety of those we uh will be taking action later in the evening on a few of the unrequested leave positions but worked hard to try to find positions for all of our staff uh we've got agreement with Mark Wallace Mark as a teacher at Highlands Elementary and is leading our charge as it relates to uh our workflow Institute which is being supported by the Edina Ed funds so we wanted some clarification around that given the fact that we're also working very closely with the David Allen Company and so this is a standard procedure um to make sure that we all stay aligned we've got approval with the Three River Park Trail uh Park District Trail again this is just some refinement of an agreement that was previously approved but we're getting closer to putting that Trail in uh down the lower fields at the high school uh the Google Summit was held and uh we have a protocol that if a sponsorship or some type of action needs to occur in a timely fashion prior to the board the superintendent has the authority to tantly approve it but then bring it to board for formal approval and that is what we see we have a variety of field trips coming up for next year as well as gifts and that would conclude the consent agenda uh the I've got actually a couple of questions about the verbiage on the trail approval for Three Rivers so can I get a motion to pull that from consent and we'll drop it down to the bottom so moved moved and seconded to remove the uh Three Rivers Park District uh Trail item from consent uh to the bottom of the action item which I believe is item o uh all those in favor any discussion all those in favor please sign saying I i i i opposed motion carries uh we still have the remaining consent agenda on the table any items anybody like to remove or any uh other points of clarification uh seeing none all those in favor of uh approving the consent agenda as amended please signify by saying I I I oppos motion carries uh Rick can you walk us through the action items because we haven't reviewed those yet please sure can um under the action items uh we have um unrequested leave uh Again part of our both our contract and state statute we have a variety of budget items one is taking a look at the budget items for this current school year as well as looking at some budget uh alignment items which I talked about earlier tonight that full budget uh will be brought to the board for Action in June uh we have a food service management contract that we'll be presenting to the board based on recommendation from a task force uh that'll also include field prices we've got uh it's purchase time so copy paper we've got some buses Again part of our capital expenditure process um looking at some rof replacement with our uh long-term maintenance plans uh Steve's got a variety of Technology purchases then we move into our um items that we've also talked about at the April meeting around our class size guidelines the grade n GPA counting um we've got a request on the SCH calendar change going to late starts our meeting dates for 20145 have been identified as well as our scheduled policy reviews and the discussion has our policies reviews as as well as a possible language change around our bus garage relocation agreement and that would pretty well take us through our action and discussion items for tonight's meeting thank you Rick noting that we do have that change with the instructional class sit thank you uh first item on the uh action item is the uh unrequested Lees absence uh and a motion please so moved second moved in seconded uh go a little background please surely um what we have unfortunately is we have had five teachers whom we just did not have positions for um three of them because of the fact that the board took action to have full day kindergarten now um we no longer have half day kindergarten positions so that resulted in some of the unrequested leave positions um that I'm bringing forward tonight and then a couple of years ago we had reduced Spanish and we continued to have a reduction of Spanish um offerings at the secondary level and so two of our teachers are on here due to reductions um in that manner and we are working very hard we had a meeting just this evening prior to the work session to to continue looking um for ways to fill to give these teachers positions and um and so we have been able to remove one name off of the list because we have been able to offer a position the the changes in Spanish is that actually due to fewer uh students signing up for Spanish is we have had fewer students at the middle school in particular as well as thanks additional discussion all those in favor Fab saying I I I opposed motion carried uh next up we have our budget adjustments and if I could combine that with our uh budget alignment for 1415 I a motion to combine those two into a single motion U move to combine items B and C under action discussion a second second second seconded uh all those in favor of combining please have it signify by saying I I I oppos motion carries uh a motion to bring items B and C to the floor for a vote so moved second moved and seconded uh background please good evening little bit of background um especially since you com the agenda items in terms of process the business office staff has been working for several weeks um and we'll continue to to update blind item budget Staffing everything for 1314 and then also 1415 so you have both agenda items in front of you what we do now is take um the overall 1415 budget plan that you as a board are approving and work that into the details we've started on some of it but finalize it based on your approval get all the details ready also take the legislative session into consideration and bring that information to finance and Facilities committee the beginning of June and ultimately to you the board uh for approval uh in June for 1415 um as required to be approved by June 30th so that's our process we've been working on it for many weeks and we'll we'll continue to bring you more detail throughout June um 1314 budget adjustments uh in our overall hundred million budget there um relatively small or minor adjustments we did have a positive Revenue change in terms of a uh prior year special education Revenue adjustment um that can be a very volatile for formula and so we're very conservative in those projections in the audit we um the legislature last year changed that formula so hopefully we start seeing in future years a little bit uh um more stability and the the ability to be able to project those dollars but in any case that was favorable for 1314 on the expenditure side uh we did have uh more uh retirees than expected um teaching staff administrative um and even support staff so with that comes uh depending on the contract L language um some retirement payments we have on the 1415 side in our budget plan plan for uh rehire savings uh from the more senior staff to H hiring uh new staff so we've planned that long term but there is an impact on 13 14 and we did have a cold winter and so we did feel some effects of that like we all did as homeowners too and so that was uh part of the major change some areas some funds did not have any uh adjustments for 1314 we also updated uh for construction and uh so that those are the major changes for 13 14 14 and then again 1415 is based on the budget plan um the detailed information I have highlighted what changed uh from April 24th board meeting uh and Dr Dron gave the overview of what has changed and how we're bridging and and adding the additional 100,000 in those changes um and all in all I'll go back to 1314 it's 186,000 less than what uh we projected in December and then we'll have the audit process to come in with actuals so um the combination of the legislative session and maybe getting a little bit more money we have 133 14 came in is going to come in at potentially a slight B bit L less out of our $100 million and uh the 1415 budget plan and we'll keep it moving forward still overall very solid uh financial position for the district so for the um 134 adjustments these are the last adjust for adjustments we'll see the next time we see this it'll be the actuals once it's audited correct okay if for some reason which I wouldn't anticipate there was something really material I would bring it forward as a separate item to the board I've never had that occur okay there no questions or uh comments uh teacher retirements was toal count and what what do we normally anticipate we historically on average we've had had around six seven or eight and we had I can't remember how many 14 thank you any other items related to these two uh action items seeing none all the those in favor of approving the budget adjustments for 1314 and the budget alignment for 1415 please signify by B saying I I opposed motion carries uh next up can I get a motion for the food service management contract so moved second and moved and seconded uh Margo you would you like to walk us to that please as well yes as required by the state uh we were we did go out for requests for proposals for a food service management contract this year uh we're also required to have an evaluation committee and what that committee does uh had we have parent representation uh Sarah was our board and finance committee representative on the um we had some Administration and administration and parent reps um so we are required to have evaluation criteria and that's the first job of the evaluation committee is to look at the state criteria and then tailor it to our needs um within the district and some of the categories of that price certainly is one um nutrition education food quality plan of operation are just a few of the areas and theyve evaluation committee went through those and point rated them um we are required to have cost as the highest number whatever evaluation number and uh we had four vendors that were interested and submitted proposals uh for the Food Service management contract the eval evaluation committee um reviewed all proposals and uh took many many hours to review all the proposals and came back together uh performed reference checks did uh clarification uh information and the evaluation committee recommendation is to uh recommend Chartwells as the Food Service U management company for 1415 uh with the option to renew for subsequent two years and then in another three years we'll be required to bid Again by state law uh I would like to mention and say um the district has had a long history with Deo and we very much appreciate that they have served the district well uh thank you to specifically Mary Lombardi and her team uh the staff is part of our daily operations here uh our students our parents and our family um they are here every single day and uh we very much appreciate the work that they have done and we will work in partnership with both sedexo and Chartwells to U make as smooth a transition as possible as we can Sarah would you have anything to add or yes as a member of that committee Review Committee we did um the decks from from each proposal were about this thick and we spent a lot of time sitting in Marco's office just just simply reading them and then giving the the point evaluation system as appropriate to each proposal and then um Lori and I who was our parent representative one of our parent Representatives we went out and actually visited another school district to actually review uh chart wells in practice um because proposals can always look beautiful but we wanted to see it in practice and so we were able to um see an elementary school a middle school and a high school and see what the Food Service looked like how they were delivering on things that actually are federal guidelines um since we've had the recent changes like um our students have to take a fruit or vegetable when they leave the line but looking at how they displayed that how they educated our students about nutrition and we were very impressed with you know some of the beauty of but in a kid-friendly way of how you know fruit was available at almost every turn in nice bowls whether it was apples and oranges and or the way they distributed vegetables getting our elementary kids or middle school kids to have cucumbers but precued sliced all nice and you know they still have the access to the the nutritional dips that they can add to that um we just we really were very impressed with some of the things that they had to offer and also on a technology side um we're very impressed with the innovative ways that they have for students and parents to access nutrition information about the menu items whether it be on a mobile device or on their computers um and then even getting student feedback in process uh you know if the kids do have devices being able to give Fe feedback right there on maybe a taste test um displays in the way that they were giving the students information about the menus for the week different things um we just really felt that they could bring some new things and we do have to work with our kids our kids eat with our eyes as many of us adults do um to bring them along in nutrition education and getting them to taste and try new foods uh it's it's not easy and we felt that the the partnership could be really great but it was a difficult process too when you're when you have staff people that you work with on a regular basis and um you know having to you know break that news isn't always always easy but um it looks like there'll be ways that possibly we can make that transition easier we will work to make the transition as good as it as possible additional questions or comments thank the committee for lots of work here and uh making this decision and also doing the due diligence related to it as well uh no additional comments all those in favor please signify by saying I I I opposed motion carries uh On a related item meal pricing for 1415 can I a motion please to bring that to the floor so moved second moved and seconded uh little followup Margo meal prices are uh partially or more regulated uh federally than they used to be uh so part of the recommended increase is due to the federal requirements that we must at least uh increase uh 5 cents based on the formula that they have set also took a little bit more time to go through um and compare where we are at with other districts um and would recommend uh providing greater Clarity on the breakfast uh side of the um the fee where we we do not currently break out between Elementary and secondary but would recommend that we do that similar to some of our uh neighboring districts and um so make a recommendation to split that out and then also um get our elementary and secondary um to be where at the average level uh so that we um aren't below the average and then at some point have to have a greater increase we also had survey results I think it was a year yeah last spring uh that that parents were receptive to uh a nominal increase in in Food Service rates if there was something with it so um that was the analysis behind uh the combination of of the rate increase and would recommend your approval it did go through finance and Facilities also yeah so we've seen this and thought that it seemed Fair based on all of your your assessments thank you any questions or comments with any new federal guidelines coming along or so this is moving towards that whatever is coming down the pipeline allart next year has new federal guidelines right Marco uh alart has new federal guidelines um so in terms of the pricing um we've kept that relatively consistent where our neighbors are are comparable and so we'll have to the greater issue versus pricing may be in participation and so we'll have to bring students along kind of what Sarah was referring to earlier to make sure that we continue to have participation but we'll we'll continue to monitor that thanks so the big impact is the elementary is effectively up 15 cents and the secondary is up 10 cents correct correct and then breaking out uh the breakfast between Elementary and secondary y additional questions or comments all those in favor of approving type a meal pricing for 1415 please signify by say I i i i opposed motion carries copy or paper uh can I a motion please second moved in seconded uh to approve the copy or paper bid for next year any background Margo just our annual process to uh for what we need to order for the upcoming year um the sites submit what they need and it's a very competitive process and would recommend approval of will Cox paper any discussion all those in favor of approving the uh paper quote and bid for next year please signify by saying I I I opposed uh motion carries uh next up we have bus purchases for 1415 can I get a motion please so moved second moved in seconded uh to approve uh bus purchases in the amount of 367,000 uh Margo um the bus purchases are off State contract which is competitive pricing um and also funded through operating Capital the one thing I would mention on our purchase as we uh first of all this is we annually need to purchase uh four buses um because so we keep our Fleet fresh and then we will retire for buses that are older um but with that comes the newer buses are a different size than our buses that are over 10 years years old and so uh with that becomes particularly with this purchase a a challenge in spacing uh especially in the winter in where we are able to plug them in if they cannot be put inside so we are brainstorming about options um in terms of where we can locate them and have them plugged in so you may uh see buses uh even parked here at Normandale near the shed so that we can if during on a cold day we can plug them in and just know that uh we are using all our options available um but research there really isn't um a better option um you have to adjust the bus in order um I mean you can't make it shorter I mean you can lower it but there's some manufacturer issues with that so we want the safest possible recommendation um and also uh larger capacity buses to to make sure we're operating as efficiently as possible so so can you just explain the difference between the 77 and the 71 passenger bus why we why we need both in the district so the certainly from an efficiency standpoint the 77 if we continue I split the difference on that it's a length issue of the bus if we got to a point where we absolutely had to um get the buses inside there is a way to M David can explain it better but to modify the bus so you can actually lower it to get inside our current storage area that would not work with a 77 passenger bus it will work with a 71 and I'm not recommending that we go that route because there's um warranty and manufacturer issues but if from a storage and a space issue we had in the future to do that at least we have a couple of 71 passenger buses that we would be able if we needed to modify um so than I didn't put all my our eggs in one basket so to speak additional discussion all those in favor of approving the four buses being purchased please signify by saying I I oppos motion carries next up we have the Valley View Middle School partial roof replacement can had a motion please so moved second moved and seconded uh to approve a partial uh roof replacement uh contract amount of 216,000 Margo this is part of our alternative facilities funding with our deferred U maintenance plan and happy to report that this one came in budget very good um and we do know the contractor they um have recently done some work in in Hastings and would uh recommend your approval so are we not doing the alternate add-ons though we are not so my one question is the one of them was where we're having leaks and so I assume there's another way to fix that if we're not doing that as part of the bed we we're doing what we can and um we are it wasn't part of the original scope but we will do what we can because that's problematic certainly and um the other thing that we are doing as we are in the buildings with alternative facilities um Eric is making a comprehensive list of ongoing things that if we aren't able to address it now whether it's alternate or we're in the buildings and we identify something but it's not a part of the project keeping that ongoing list for our 10-year plan okay any additional questions or comments all those in favor of approving the Valley View partial roof replacement please signify by saying I I I opposed motion carries uh technology purchases we have eight separate items uh can I get a motion to combine them and we'll walk through the entire group together with Steve so moved second it's been moved and seconded uh to combine all the items under Section I 1 through eight all those in favor please signify by saying I I I oppose motion Carri carries the items have been combined can I a motion to bring those 8 items to the floor so move been moved and seconded Steve where would you like to start uh thank you uh so as I talked about refresh and life cycle management I'll start with how we do that our process is um we count up every computer we have in the district and we create what are called allocations and buildings have the opportunity to um put choice in their decision- making process they can get a desktop computer a laptop computer a all-in-one computer or a tablet PC so what you have uh when we talk about the all-in-one computers and the laptops and the tablets we sent out quotes to four of our vendors and so what we do we don't designate what type of a model of computer just the specifications of those computers we received three quotes back reason CDW and TI's Depot and those provided a blackbox kind of computer a Lenovo computer and HP computer Dell didn't respond this year sometimes they do this year they decided not to respond when we looked at the uh price for those um the all-in-one computers and the tablets and the laptops actually turned out to be a little bit better with the Lenovo price and CDW uh got that bid so that's for the all-in-one computers the laptops and the tablets for the desktop computerss uh and the Project Lead the Way computers uh we've been working with a company called reason for the last few years but again we sent those quotes out to HP Lenovo and um reason company fiveyear warranty which makes it a little bit special that means that it up uh five years up to five years if the computer breaks we have a 2-hour response time to have someone come out and fix that for us it's a pretty uh unique situation and the uh prices came in a little bit cheaper with reason company for those for both the regular computer and then what the Project Lead the Way computer so we refresh those computers those need a higher-end graphics card for the uh monitors for our desktops we went out again and ties came back $1 cheaper per monitor for those so that was nice we save a little bit of money there um what we run on all of our district computers and what we manage our windows and our Macintosh Compu computers is uh using Microsoft Technology active directory is the name of that that's what you use to log in and hopefully it works when you have to get to your web portal things like that also provides our email and it provides our antivirus and our management of our computers um this we instead of owning it outright we lease it every year based on uh FTE count of 910 and so we sent that out for uh quotes this year and we've received two quotes back one from onpo and one from Shi and the S on point1 was a little bit cheaper so we're actually going to save ourselves about $8,000 on that quote this year when we look at um options for our classrooms we have um in the elementary schools we allow schools to pick two products either Apple computer Apple iPads or Chromebooks and we had pretty much a mix and so some schools decided to pick iPads and those un fortunately there's only one person in town to buy those from Apple company and so there was just one quote for that for those uh iPads we purchased Apple iPads and Apple iPad Minis and so iPad minis are just a little bit cheaper we receive those and then to house the Chromebooks we looked at purchasing carts for those 30 carts and that's for the fifth grade e-learning squared 1:1 as well as additional carts for the Elementary class classrooms on this one uh we had two models that we looked at one was from Spectrum one was from zon's computer and uh though both the carts can hold 30 computers we looked at the additional features on the Zone uh cart it had an additional handle its locking mechanism was better its ability to get car uh cables manage was just a little bit better and so though it's a little bit uh more cost cly we think the value of the additional handles swiveling casters the longer hookups and things warranted the extra uh $17 in cost so we're recommending purchasing it from zones and the Zone cart uh for our fifth grade e-learning squared and for our 12th grade we're looking to lease uh Chromebooks this year so we sent out a request a proposal to four vendors and uh we evaluate those based on cost uh critically important was the ability to deliver the product July 1st uh because of the shortened um uh summer break it's critical that we have the time to put these together and get them ready to go uh optional items like uh Parts Depot spare parts and then just the relationship so important that we have a relationship as you see all the uh four companies came in very close but Best Buy was um not the cheapest product but uh very close to the cheapest product and we had a relationship with them so we're recommending going with them for a three-year lease on that and I believe that oh and then the finally I just want to bring your attention to the Best Buy web store so um every year we'd like to go back on the Best Buy Web Store just to set the pricing for our parents on the device and the cost of that uh although uh we are able to get that price a little bit um lower on the second page or the amendment page in the service agreement I did notice that actually a board member pointed this out to me there is an error in that document it says fees for on-site Support Services they have it as 200 but then they went in and they articulated the proper price which is $150 for the web services and $20 for the support services I don't know if we want want to go forward with this or if you'd like I could table this and bring this back at the next uh meeting the the price is correct in the red or in the but it isn't they have a old number there for the total price can we just do a friendly Amendment and you can just edit it later I'd be more than happy to thank you okay thanks um I'm going to walk through these all so everybody sort of gets a snapshot of what what we're buying here uh Steve my one question is for the the uh computers were renting for the the the fifth and the 12th graders it's over three years are we confident that overall three years we're going to need those computers absolutely so um three years is is a lifespan of a technology these days that's generally the industry standard threeyear leases threeyear uh warranties on devices we think that um the fifth grade will continue continue to use them for those three years and then we also are pretty uh confident that as we look to support the 12th grade classes or look to push these devices down into other grades that we can repurpose them for other grade levels and so they'll definitely get used especially as we can um hone in on the birth the five recommendations on what is the ratio of devices to students and so if they don't get used in the secondary they'll definitely get used at the elementary level Steve can you just explain why for most of the um other purchases they're outright purchase and not leas so why are we leasing these um and what's the difference there that's a great question uh typically it's been our past practice to purchase outright um we own those devices we manage those devices and that's been a great decision but we're at a Crossroads I think in at least at the secondary level of ensuring Fidelity to the use of technology and so we have a number of teachers and a number of students matter of fact in the zeph last week we had a great student right in oped talking about the value of e-learning squared and just the fact that they were dubious at first and then they talked about how it was transformative I feel it's critical that we get to scale in the secondary levels and so that we get beyond the aspects of kind of half in halfed out on this digital transformation again this doesn't mean that we use the devices every day all the time but until we get to the point where the devices are readily available for our students and for our teachers to have Fidelity and confidence that they're going to be available we're not going to make that next step in this transformation and so uh in order for us to get to the quantity needed to kind of get beyond that uh Mass quantity for fifth through 12th grade we decided to lease them instead of purchase them over three years and so this would have taken us three years to get there we're going to get to our get there um next year and there is an opportunity cost the leasing value of it but we believe the opportunity cost of having a device for every student is going to transform our education and our teaching and learning and it's going to impact there's going to be value in that thank you say Steve I had a question on the the contract with Best Buy just in terms of the pricing because at the top it says purchase price to be paid by parents is what is the difference between this and then when we when we have the partnership with the purchase because like the the Chrome book is $250 but I thought we've been able to purchase it for on are we talking about the best by web store yes okay I'm just trying to understand the pricing on that page just the just the exhibit a page so last year we did have the Samsung Chromebook and what we heard from parent feedback was that was indeed a $250 device but the breakage rate was unacceptable so we looked at a different model unfortunately um the we were able to get this price reduced from what retail is but it's still a little bit more it's like $15 more expensive than what we were pay purchasing for the Chromebook and so that's where you see a little bit of the the difference on it but will we oh have the partnership price I'm sorry yes you're right that should was confused on the pricing that's the the retail that's not the retail price that our parents that's the retail price but not the price paid for our parents thank you very much yeah the par the price paid to for our parents is $115 okay so do we do we need to amend that or is this just the agreed I would suggest I think I pull it let me pull it and bring it back there's time in June I can work with them to ensure that it's done properly okay so we have a motion on the floor that includes all these items can I now get a motion but we're going to pull but we're going to pull this pull the agreement of the co-branded Pati my my fellow board members patience we have a motion on the floor that includes eight items and now I'd like a motion please to pull the web store item from one of those eight and table it until Steve chooses to bring it back I would like to move that item one under item I which is agreement of co-branded customized Web Store be removed and tabled until the next meeting second second discussion all those in favor signify by saying I I I opposed motion carries we now have uh tabled item one uh can I a motion we have this on the floor now I'm going to just walk through these just because it's a little confusing for anybody that's not looking at this uh item two is the purchase of the all-in ones the laptops and the tablets uh the total there is 82,000 Chromebook carts is the next item uh for 43,000 then we have our desktop toop computer purchase uh which is 158 for1 139,000 desktop monitors 210 of those for $22,000 we have our Microsoft uh subscriptions for 51,000 iPads and iPads minis for 48,000 and the first year lease payment for our lease is the amount of of 198,000 and that totals up almost 600,000 over 3 years any additional discussion can we just say where this what fund this is coming from I was just GNA thank you uh this is uh from the technology Levy dollars and it will be for the ne upcoming july1 do thank you Stephen thanks for the presentation all those in favor please signify saying I I I opposed motion carries uh next we have our amended instructional class size guidelines hadit a motion please so moved second it's been moved and seconded Mary would any anything you'd like to share so when the initial proposal was uh presented in April we talked about 1 Point uh 25 hours The Proposal is now uh we were given some additional funding we revised our recommendation to include additional kindergarten par professional support depending on enrollment so the proposal is currently similar to what is currently in place for the fee based kindergarten program so one hour of Paris support will be in every class where there are 19 and 20 students when it gets to 21 it will go up to 1.5 hours 22 it will go up to 2 hours hours 23 will be 2.5 hours and 24 will be 3 hours of par support during the day in addition the K the elementary principles are going to look at how the kindergarten day is structured in term of teacher preparation period to maximize the paraprofessional um support time and there were no other changes in the guidelines from our previous year or from the first reading in April can you just tell me we have a a new version of this at our place and just kind of looking at what's already in my boardbook how is the new version different is there any difference yeah one just the kindergarten and I so on that table um in the gray shaded area where it talks about additional Paris support the item that we had prior to being walked in said 1.25 all right I was going to the numbers I wasn't going to the language gotcha so that's for the sliding scale in place say one thing that I noticed isn't in the packet but actually was in the the email that we sent out on Friday was what you were just verbalizing the um scaled hours for what is proposed for next year for the kindergarten uh Paris support and it's not in the packet so I'm wondering if we can just get that added as a friendly whatever Amendment or just or is that so we not in this do that not included in this type of thing so typically we haven't we'd like to stay with the guidelines oh okay and then we're working again with the kindergarten teachers and the so we don't want to quite lock that down that's our plan to use that that formula but we still want to work more closely before we lock that down okay so that's why we have it as including additional based on number of students that's correct all right thanks additional discussion thank you Mary all those in favor please signify by saying I I I opposed motion carries and a motion to uh bring you the floor the grade 9 GPA counting for graduation so moved moved and seconded can we get some uh background Randy sure um in the resolution that was submitted to the board uh we're asking that the school board approve the proposal of letter grades in nth grade uh this recommendation comes from was originally developed by our design team in the secondary Study last year it's also supported by our secondary implementation team we did have some questions around whom does this benefit as a system does it benefit a particular race in our district does it benefit a particular group of students and so we set out we did a data study to answer that question we also did a study to look at um this question question around whether or not colleges recalculate GPA U for 9th grade because that isn't currently in our GPA so you see a chart in the resolution of colleges that are popular colleges that our students attend from ID Public Schools when we look at our profile as a district these are the most frequent colleges our students have attended over the last five years and most of those colleges do indeed um recalculate GPA not all of them but most of them do when we did a um a search around recommendations from National organizations we looked at National Association of Secondary School principles Association for college admiss College admission counseling and the Princeton Review all of those National organizations recommended that um ninth grade um grades be part of the high school transcript of course they are on the transcript currently it's just not currently calculated in the GPA another question that we set out to answer was well what would happen if we did do this and so we looked at five years of data five different cohort groups and we looked that their ninth grade GPA and what would happen to their GPA if it was uh or how that compared to their GPA in grades 10 through 12 uh you can see that on the chart on the the next page of the resolution and in general across all five years the GPA 9th grade was higher than the GPA in 10 through 12 so that would lead us to believe that the cumulative GPA would only go up overall which is the case however it's such a small amount it's really not statistically significant then we did uh uh pursue the question of whom does this benefit does this benefit a particular group of kids a particular race and although there are subtle differences in the GPA on the 12-point scale these again are not statistically significant from a statistic standpoint so to whom does it benefit it really doesn't create a benefit nor a harm for our students but this is really about a communication to um universities to community colleges to wherever the student goes next it's about communicating the experience that the students have had in grades 9 through 12 we currently communicate the letter grades we just don't communicate the GPA and since most schools do recalculate uh this is an item to help support our communication to colleges to community colleges and how students have performed well in high school um there was a question about our open enrolled students and how our um and that was uh posed by one of our counselors at the high school how would this impact our open enrolled students and if our open enrolled students enter our system prior to 9th grade their data has been entered into this calculation if it is a transfer for student um after 9th grade we don't currently put transfer gpas into our GPA so those gpas are held separate and so students who transfer in would have typically have a transcript from both EPs and their previous school that would be entered to colleges so it's really a nonissue for open enrollment so again the grades are on the transcript um we're proposing that the GPA from 9th grade also be counted into that cumulative GPA and tried to answer the questions that remain from the previous presentation for discussion on this topic I just want to thank you very much for going back and getting that data after we asked the questions it it was very helpful and it makes me feel much more comfortable about voting about this absolutely since we're talking about gpas can you just explain maybe what the background of why Edina does it on a 12o scale instead of a fourpoint scale so as I understand it I will try I don't have a kid at that level yet so a 12 a 12-point scale so at one point in ID we did um have a ranking system for our students and so a 12-point scale allows the spread of that ranking to be a little bit easier to accomplish uh we no longer have ranking of students in our system and so there is some question on around whether or not we need to continue to report on a 12-point scale on our transcript we have a 12-point scale and a 12-point weighted scale a fourpoint scale and a fourpoint weighted scale and so that may be another item that our policy committee could take a look at down the road and see if that's uh needed at any if it's needed any longer for for us thank you Randy years years ago we didn't have salutatorians and valedictorians because of the class sizes so we had like the top 10 students and so to be able to differentiate and pick the top 10 students you had to have a larger scale okay yeah and so Randy I suspect that this it doesn't make a difference but did we look to see if there were different ability students like are struggling students does does it affect their ninth does their GPA change dramatically we taking their ninth grade into account so um we looked at our elll Learners as an example and they're uh the the number of V students that were um in this calculation were about 22 students across this study so it's a small number and what typically happens when our n value is so low that a range can drastically affect what that looks like the difference was larger but still not statistically significant okay thanks additional discussion seeing none all those uh in favor of nth grade GPA counting for graduation please signif saying I I opposed motion carries uh next up we have the Early Childhood through grade 12 calendar for 1415 revised can I have a motion please so moved second moved and seconded uh Gwen our favorite calendar back up again absolutely so uh we're uh proposing a slight modification to the calendar for 20 45 we had four late starts this year excuse me two late starts and two early releases to offset um the difference between half day kindergarten and um between morning and afternoon sessions and in light of the fact that we will not have a full day or half day kindergarten next year we are proposing that we have all late starts uh four late starts and that's more consistency for families as well as our staff and students thank you questions comments I know our sixth through nth graders will appreciate that change all those in favor please see saying I I opposed motion carries uh next up we have our policy review we have meeting meeting dates oh I'm sorry that uh school board meeting dates 14 15 can I a motion please so moved second moved and seconded any discussion had some tweaks here from the last time we've seen this no changes discussion all those in favor please saying I I oppos motion carries now we're on end scheduled policy review 413 435 can I a motion to combine those please so move to combine those items second been moved and seconded to combine uh policy 413 uh review with 435 any discussion unchanged from the last time we saw them at the discussion level at our last board meeting okay uh all uh all those in favor of combining please signif saying I I I oppos the items are combined can I have a motion to bring them to the table so moved second moved in second Kathy apologize I jumped I jumped no changes that's okay uh lot of lot of uh work tonight um any comments questions we've seen this before seeing none all those in favor of approving both policy 413 personnel and policy 435 Personnel please signify by saying I I I oppos motion carries uh and our last action item uh is an item we pulled out of the consent agenda the approval of the Three Rivers Park Trail can I have a motion please so moved second it's been moved and seconded um the approval of the park uh Three Rivers Park District Trail and spur connections at e Dina High School um and I had a couple of uh can the motion is on the floor right we do that yet no you have a motion no no didn't we bring it to the floor yeah we did yeah okay we brought it to the floor okay um couple of questions Margot so just want to clarify it states in here that the The Three Rivers Park District has committed to paying for it have they committed to paying for it or they've committed to find us funding it maybe it's semantics the original agreement from a couple years ago was they would commit to finding funding okay and we do have a follow-up letter um actually it's sitting on my desk but uh that confirms that they will look at sources of funding for that okay it's just written like they're going to write us a check and that's not the case but but that's okay just wanted to clarify um and then have have our Architects look at looked at this in case of any building modifications that could require us to move this uh at some Future Point yes we have been uh Eric Hamilton has been directly involved actually he uh did a presentation to finance and Facilities committee last week and we have also had um Aja out and Architects to Eric is leading it being the main district contact person and then he's involved uh with Consultants so and keeping in mind um obviously any future planning that we might do and uh is is will will it will the sprad to the high school be 8 compliant that I will have to talk with we anytime we make a modification it will have to be okay I would think so I didn't see that anywhere and would it would not be the Trail's responsibility the the Spurs we didn't we weren't in it wasn't indicated that we that that was being paid for by three rivers that was more just proposed attachments is that correct the the commitment in the original agreement is that they would assist in helping find funding but we may we may not want those Spurs either there's some discussions May that's my confusion yeah and there was some discussion Randy even about when we were looking at the map of the spurred you know coming into like the elementary seeming yeah like do we want that do we want that easy access but you add D yeah no I think there was an agreement we didn't there was some the yellow line is was all we were really all that's been approved that facil Finance appr yeah the Spurs are proposed thank you for the color clarification since I don't have it in front of me I yeah it was just the yellow that we really right the the red Spurs were still in discussion and then I had a question about since since this this Trail is coming into District property who has liability on parts of it if there is an accident or I can check on that one thanks we re I mean again there's going to be a degree of risk liability so I think we do need to get some clarification on that so here's my question if if law Finance only approved the trail itself but the motion is saying we're approving the spur connections as shown on the map are we really approving something we aren't intending to approve and I apologize I should have called earlier and asked a few questions uh before tonight's meeting so the background states that we're approving in yellow only but he's saying the language says that we're approving the the sub the subject says that right and then the description well and also the the motion itself does yeah right he's I think it's a valid point yeah I I would we probably so we can we can edit it right here I'm just what's what what do we want to accomplish here and is this time sens is it is do does it have to be done tonight you only got a million things going Mar you know you can't pull that up just like that we finally stumped her though pass it all after all those other agenda items I what I'm Wonder to be hon Eric did the um resolution and I that was done prior to um the then looking at the maps and so maybe we need to provide some clarity I'm not aware of a t a Time issue so I think we could hold it and just get some more clarification around it and I apologize I should have that um no there's there's a lot going on we totally understand so I'm glad I yeah I'd offer that we table yeah yeah uh move to table uh we have an item on the floor uh can we amend it to uh table uh till Margo wants to bring it back I propose that we table this uh action item and probably send it back to finance some facilities for cl we can look at it in June and can be on the June board agenda had a second second any discussion all those in favor of tabling the approval of the three ver par Park District Trail and spur connections please signify by saying I I oppos motion carries the item has been tabled thanks for catching that Randy no problem so uh we have discussion items now we have the scheduled review of policies uh we have policies 56 student student medications 9006 Community Rel ations uh and several other community relations issues uh where do we want to start well I can I can just talk generally about all of them if you want to hear to hear what the corrections are if you look at the 516 which is student medication that's going to look very marked up but really it's more of a reordering of sections in a reader friendly fashion so grouping things that were like together rather than having them scattered throughout the policy um just so that when our par parents are reading it they they they see see how things fit together and also a few changes to just um track with the way we actually um uh what our actual process is there were some some minor changes in in processes and we just want to make sure that those were reflected then um process changes impact our parents at all no no well they're mainly inter internal then the next three the 90 the 9006 Community notification ofid predatory offenders 9007 reward for solving a crime and 910 um the tobacco alcohol and drug-free um policy those are just stylistic and clarity as we're going through the 900 series we have sort of standard ways we do policies now and some of the language wasn't standard so that's all that was really done in those um and then 911 actually uh again it's stylistic um and Clarity uh but it does reflect a name change within Community Ed The Entity that runs the volunteer pool is a different name now so we made that change and then also you'll note that the authorization form for the background check has been cleaned up a little to make sure uh clear that it applies to volunteers as well as employees and so those are the major changes in those policies I've got a question is an employee paying the fee for their background sure mhm okay employees and volunteers any other questions if you have if you think of things these will be back at the policy committee meeting in the first week first week of June June 3 so if you think of anything in the meantime June 2 June 2nd okay one of those days in June here all day yeah okay that policies I think we're good uh bus garage we have a discussion item uh this is an really a revision of an old 1999 doc um that we've talked about at a prior Workshop uh and we tweaked it a bit and here it is again any discussion or comments just the one question in item three we had talked about any relocation not affecting ongoing operational costs in the district and in the revision we specifically talk about operational costs of the transportation department are there other is that because we don't think there are any other areas that could impact operational costs or was that intended to be less broad I think that was just to provide Clarity um I think as we had talked about in finance and fac facilities um there potentially could be just by the natural um change of it or there may be need to be an evaluation of increased operational costs versus the need uh for space and location and that that we would have to evaluate that and so um may need to come up with like how we would measure that in uh with David the director of Transportation in terms of we don't want excessive increase cost um there's no other places in the budget that the either the operation of the new garage or the relocation of the old one could hit us um you know you're going to have your utilities and your fuel and your acrost the buses and your employees and those would all fall under that trans that would all fall fall under that description is what I would say yeah thank you and so the thinking is that this would come back for approval at the next board meeting and then this would be the document that would be use with the city or whoever else is looking at that we did talk about it at finance and Facilities also um you know some of it reflects uh what we had in 1999 and also talking about what are the the current needs uh what are the vision that we have for transportation for example if at some point we do would like to bring special ed Transportation inhouse um what what type of facility what we would we need what about security at the time the bus garage was built many many years ago security was a different issue than it is now and also uh talking about geographical area of the school district um and just even just outside the proximity Is that favorable as long as we can keep with uh obviously um getting to get student picking up students and getting them to school on time so all things where we brainstormed and are taking a look at so well and then the the final sentence in this um document talks that the school board will be the determiner whether the expectations are being met so while this is a document that goes out and some developer may look at it uh it is the board's call and representing the district to say yes or no to whether a property or a facility that we might be looking at with relocation would meet the criteria that we need and so we thought that was an important piece that was added and that came out of the board Workshop very good any comments or Corrections or thoughts seeing none we're on to uh got some informational items any uh announcements um just from a leadership update we are uh moving through uh our interviewing process with our key leadership positions we have completed uh the district site of the work on the interviews for the South viiew assistant principal position we're now doing reference checks and uh continuing to look at leadership profile work that's being done so we expect by the end of this week we would have a recommendation um we will be beginning our Cornelia Elementary principal uh interviews this week and the following week we'll be looking at our director of student support services so we're moving forward on that um I think that covers there's just a lot of good things happening because it's the end of the year with all the different recognitions that we're providing and it's exhausting time of the year for families and staff but everybody's hanging there well and with that we're expecting a good close to the school year thanks Rick uh any committee reports or any other updates seeing none I think we are ready to adjourn had a motion to adjourn so moved second it's been moved and seconded to adjourn any objection adjourning at this time seeing none we are adjourn e