[0:12] all right welcome everybody I'm going to call the meeting to order we do have a [0:17] quorum tonight this is the Monday April 15th 2019 regular meeting of the ADA in [0:23] a school board well this system works great all right so John can you just go over [0:30] the agenda for us briefly yes well we have a lot of recognition they're all [0:36] sitting in the room here tonight so that'll be great we have some consent items just in accommodations that we'll [0:43] go over in recognition we're gonna have a presentation about our community [0:48] education program by Val the school district is starting curriculum study in science and engineering so the [0:56] discussion around that and policies and there's several action items are on long term facilities maintenance some [1:02] renovations at the Edina Community Center Normandale Elementary Creek Valley playground and and then some [1:09] other policies so that's about it for the agenda great thank you [1:15] first agenda item is approval of the minutes can I get a motion to approve the March 11th work session minutes the [1:21] minutes from the March 11th regular meeting and the minutes from the April 9th work session so moved second are [1:27] there any changes to the minutes right all those in favor of approving the minutes from March 11th work session [1:34] March 11th regular meeting and the April 9th work session say aye hi any opposed motion carried all right [1:41] next we are on to recognitions the first recognition is Claire Anderson McGill [1:46] ikot where it is Claire [1:51] oh there you are so my name is Eric [1:59] Cantor's hello my name is Eric Anderson and this is a Claire Anderson mikela gait and she is here tonight because she [2:07] had the outstanding information passed on to her just recently from last year [2:12] actually that she achieved a 120 out of 120 on the Advanced Placement US [2:20] government and politics test for last year you might wonder why it took so [2:26] long to get the information we're kind of wondering that as well but Claire I just got some information we have about [2:32] 120 to 140 ninth grade students that take the test every year we've offered [2:38] it for seven years now at the ninth grade level and so she's the first that we know of that has gotten a perfect [2:44] score on the test in ninth grade at Edina nationally Claire is one of 113 [2:52] students to ace the test last year out of 320 6292 people around the country [3:01] and around the world that that take the test which is point zero three four [3:06] percent if you're if you're counting at home okay so big round of applause [3:15] and of those of those 326,000 people students only ten thousand two hundred [3:22] five or ninth graders so a very small number of students take this ninth grade [3:27] year and Claire was one of nine total ninth graders to get a perfect score in the whole entire country so another [3:33] outstanding accomplishment the test is rigorous it's 60 questions multiple [3:40] choice in 45 minutes it's four essays 25 minutes each for a total 100 minutes and obviously any one [3:49] little thing can go wrong in the mean time and it's amazing they may it's an [3:55] amazing amazing accomplishment so just a couple questions for Claire I'm not gonna ask too many but you want to tell [4:00] the story about your friends and the studying episode with my friends it was [4:06] mid April about this time last year and they had already started studying they bought their study books and we were in [4:12] the library and I opened my study buckos brand-new I'd never opened it before they were like you haven't started studying yet I was like I didn't know I [4:18] was supposed to supposed to do that but I apparently I have a good teacher and [4:27] another thing Claire is obviously a very bright student but really what I enjoy [4:32] about Claire in the classroom is she combines a lot of knowledge and a lot of [4:37] skill in our debating program as well and she integrates the debating aspect with the class and you want to talk [4:43] about that really quick how that works out sure so I do debate it's usually a [4:48] resolution about the United States federal government and I find it useful especially in super-useful because I had [4:56] some background knowledge about how the government works and who passes the laws and that and so ninth graders in the [5:08] crowd you get a chance okay it can happen mark it can happen so [5:13] congratulations to Claire and I just thank you for having her and knowing what a great and rare honor this is for [5:20] for our students so thank you [Applause] [5:39] [Applause] [5:44] next we have a recognition of the boys alpine ski team okay [5:52] my name is Troy Steen I'm the assistant principal and director of athletics and activities at the high school and [5:57] certainly excited to be here tonight so - recognized for outstanding winter [6:03] teams that not only advance to the state tournament but one state championships it's been a remarkable year certainly we [6:11] don't we don't measure success purely on wins and losses and winning state championships but but we like you to [6:17] recognize that when they do because it's a special accomplishment so what I'd like to do is pass the mic I'm and I [6:23] have them introduce themselves tell us your grade and then and then [6:28] tell us how long you have been skiing in your lifetime okay all right my name is [6:34] carl berg halt I'm a senior and I've been skiing for about 12 years my name [6:39] is Andrew Anselmo I'm a senior and I've been skiing for 16 years Gavin Richards I'm a sophomore and [6:47] somewhere around eight years I'm Adam Burke Hall I'm a ninth grade I've been skiing for ten years [6:53] my name is Norfolk I'm a ninth grader and I've been skiing for 10 years I've [6:58] jerod Scribner I'm the head coach and we're missing one other team member so Tanner Hopkins and he's been skiing for a couple weeks - so he's I think he's [7:06] got a baseball game tonight so I've been the coach at Edina for this is my third [7:11] year as the head coach and an approval privilege to be able to coach these guys [7:17] they're great group of group guys they get along really well together it's [7:22] awesome as a coach when you have that that team chemistry and it's a lot of [7:27] fun they worked hard they earned it so really appreciate all the effort they put in [7:35] all right so if we can give Boyce alpine ski one more last round of applause next [8:16] is Boise women dive they're coming in [8:52] all right so we're here welcoming our swim and dive team if you didn't figure [8:58] out what their sweatshirts congratulations on winning the state championship this year this group has [9:04] worked extremely hard over the years and one of those one of those sports where [9:09] individually it's it's a it's a competitive sport to be in the water in [9:14] your own thoughts for a couple hours and continually push yourselves and I'm continuing amazed that at how well they [9:21] do that and they do it with class and dignity and so extremely proud of all of [9:26] you what I'd like you to do is introduce yourself your grade and then tell us a [9:33] little bit about what what you're thinking about in those grueling practices okay just a quick quick couple [9:39] sentence what what keeps you motivated in your own mind when you're practicing like that I'm Kai I'm in ninth grade and [9:46] I'm just trying to like get through it thinking about the next thing I'm in [9:52] ninth grade and a lot of the motivation comes from the food afterwards I'm max [9:58] I'm in ninth grade and sandy with Matt I just think about what I'm gonna eat afterwards [10:03] I'm Henry I'm in 11th grade and I like just playing a song over and over in my [10:10] head I'm Gabe when the seasons done I'm [10:18] Patrick I'm a freshman I also like to think about the food I'm JJ I'm a sophomore [10:24] and yeah Michael I'm a junior [10:29] I usually just watch the clock till it's over I'm Jacob I'm a junior and I [10:35] usually just think about what's next I'm Jake I'm a senior like Henry kind of [10:41] listened to music in my head my name is Keegan I am a sophomore and I've got a [10:46] true love for the sport and so really just trying to find out what our end goal is as always what gets me through [10:51] I'm Andrew I'm a senior and just training hard so we can win the next big meet I'm Liam I'm a junior and just [11:00] supporting teammates and putting the hard work in my name is Scott Johnson I'm the head [11:07] coach of the boys swimming and diving team I can vouch for these gentlemen there they're not only outstanding [11:14] athletes and swimmers but they're also men of high character very proud to have [11:20] them represent he died in a high school he died of public schools and the community of Edina wherever we go they [11:27] always put on a good show on the water and they're very humble and winning and [11:33] I don't know how they are in defeat because we weren't defeated this year so so I guess so I don't know how we do [11:39] there but but they do very well and I'm very proud and we look forward to great [11:46] things with them in the coming years as well all right yeah one one round of [11:54] applause again so to add to it so this is the third time in school history that [12:00] boys and girls have won in the same school year is that is that correct okay [12:06] so an amazing feat and I know that both programs are gonna be shooting for it again next year so we expect nothing [12:12] less coach all right one last picture here [12:24] thanks for coming everybody alright next [12:47] is girls hockey they'll be in in a minute [13:32] let's welcome our girls hockey team so [13:41] for the first time in state history our girls hockey team and our boys hockey [13:47] team won the class double a state championship certainly first time in school history as well so congratulations to all of you [13:55] and if you would please just introduce yourself your name your first name last [14:01] name your grade and then what position you played for the year hi I'm Hannah [14:08] Tosi and I'm a sophomore and I played a little bit of center and right wing I'm [14:17] a junior and I play right wing I'm Annie keel I'm a senior and I played Center [14:23] I'm Sophia doll I'm a junior and I played defense I'm Evelyn Adams I'm a [14:29] senior and I play defense I'm Lucy will be I'm a junior and I played left wing I'm c0v I'm a senior and I played Center [14:38] I'm Haley Maxwell I am a freshman I played defense I'm Elliot Ramona I'm a [14:44] senior and I played goalie I'm Jane Kiel I'm a freshman and I played Center I'm [14:50] Mallory Lyon I'm a senior and I play defense I'm Sarah Swan I'm a sophomore and I played goalie [14:56] I'm Olivia swea I'm a senior and I played forward I'm a Lyra and I'm a senior and I was manager I'm senior nas [15:07] manager I'm Olivia Stettin and I was a manager as well I'm Ellie Lee and I am an [15:14] assistant coach Sammy reburn the head coach [15:24] yeah it was a super super fun year our third year is coaching these guys it was [15:30] we had our ups and downs our battles and everything but these girls made have fun coming to the rink every single day good administer sixteen years on the [15:37] team and glad that they were able to go out with a bang by winning state this year but yeah just very thankful for [15:43] this group of girls in front of you guys and yeah it was just overall really fun year for everyone [15:51] [Applause] [16:22] [Applause] [16:48] alright next we're gonna have the boys hockey team they will be in shortly [17:30] okay so let's give a round of applause a boys hockey welcome them tonight [17:40] so with boys hockey they won the last winter state title which brought our [17:46] school record to 181 state championships the most in any other high school by far [17:52] in the state of Minnesota and like we like we talked about at the beginning of this and and we really strive for with [18:00] all of our programs is to represent Edina in a great fashion in first-class attitude and approach all the time and [18:06] these guys along with the three prior teams really strive for that and I know they work hard on that and I know that [18:14] Coach Giles is back here but I was I was impressed to see when when the mic was [18:19] put in his face at the end of that state championship game and they said you know the expectation must be to win all the [18:25] time how do you handle that and he just said you know what we are here to develop fine young men and that's that's [18:31] our that's our definition of success so thank you for being here I would like to just have you introduce yourself your [18:38] grade and if you're if you're a senior tell us where you're going to college [18:44] next year okay I'm Lou Kruger and I'm a junior Lea mom quiz senior undecided jet [18:53] jungles senior northern Michigan Mason Reiner senior undecided Kevin Delaney [19:01] senior Louden hoax sophomore Mike Varla key [19:07] senior Wisconsin grant Martin I'm a junior Mason Evers senior and then I'll [19:15] be playing juniors next year Jake Bultman junior Nick Williams [19:21] sophomore Peter Colby senior undecided Cole Cavanaugh junior drew Bishop senior [19:30] undecided Michael shoemaker senior um I'm gonna [19:37] Johnson I'm a junior jack Wolffe senior Minnesota Brett Zaretsky senior [19:44] undecided Josh Harding assistant coach [19:53] Kurt Giles he done in high school next year dick blows stand undecided dave [20:02] Terwilliger I hope to be back i coach [20:11] say a few words on how the season went from your perspective well this is a really highly regarded group of kids [20:18] that we've had we're extremely proud of them the way they conduct themselves the way they carried themselves all year [20:23] they always had a successful season but the big thing is with these guys is as a [20:28] group one of the best groups of kids we've had strong supporters of the school good students good citizens so [20:36] we're certainly proud of them so it's pretty much all I got to say good group of kids great group of kids and you're [20:52] gonna look at the camera this way yeah you might have to go on a knee [21:15] all right thank you one last round applause thank you [Applause] [21:59] alright alright everybody that was great [22:04] let's have one more round of applause for everybody I know they've left but still alright next we are moving to [22:14] hearing from members of the audience we do I'll have time period each meeting for members of the community to come and [22:21] speak to the board they are limited to three minutes and time for speaking to the board if you have complaints about [22:27] individual members we ask that you not raise them during that time period but instead you bring them to the attention to the superintendent or another [22:34] individual at the district typically questions that are raised that the tonight's meeting will get answered [22:39] separately by the superintendent or responsible person giving a call back and with that our first speaker is mr. [22:46] Wayne winger welcome again [23:06] about avoiding future conflicts of interest at the Dinah school board [23:12] during the 2017 school board election that teachers a union endorsed five [23:17] candidates they spent thousands of dollars mailing postcards to all the [23:23] households to support those five candidates the reason the teachers union [23:28] does that is to elect school board members that are sensitive to teachers interests including highly higher [23:33] salaries and yet at the same time we've got a situation where our income is [23:39] going up about two percent every year and our expenses are going up three percent and this past year I've heard [23:46] many conversations about important programs and decisions to make cost cuts [23:52] and it's a real challenge and maybe we've we've delayed made maintenance or [23:59] investments in schools and sometimes we don't invest money in programs that are [24:05] good for our kids teachers payroll is a large expense for the school if the [24:11] school board votes for a teacher's salary increased greater than expected revenues they're being fiscally [24:18] irresponsible a conflict of interest arises when school board members who the [24:24] teachers union helps elect vote for salary increases greater than revenue increases to avoid this I recommend that [24:33] the school board create a policy beginning with the 2019 elections that the school board candidates do not seek [24:40] endorsement by the teachers union further that if the teachers union does endorse a successful school board [24:46] candidate that individual must recuse themselves from voting on all salary contracts with the teachers union I'll [24:54] send you a copy of this letter tonight and that's all I have to say thank you [25:00] thank you next is Michael Bergman [25:07] welcome [25:17] give you me not Michel Birdman I have a student fourth-grade student in Highlands and CP and a daughter who's in [25:23] second grade at Normandale the reason for my my coming forth this evening is that we've been recently diagnosed with [25:31] several different learning disabilities with my son all for which we had to determine what that was we were the ones [25:38] who had to determine what his needs were what the assessment was what the programs that were gonna be there for [25:44] him he has ADHD he has dyslexia has dysgraphia we've been working with the [25:49] school at Highlands I'm along with outside of physicians to determine [25:54] what's best for him he is not a non-functioning or substandard or [26:01] failing student at Highlands in fact he's in gifted math and he has struggled [26:06] with writing because of his dysgraphia he does able to read but he needs help with kind of learning what he needs to [26:12] do from a phonics standpoint his math is going to start to suffer because of the fact that he can't do more advanced [26:18] reading from that standpoint so even though he's on the 90th percentile he will eventually start to come down from [26:25] that the biggest challenge I see is that the school doesn't seem to be prepared or have the skills necessary to first [26:32] help us identify what those needs were now that we've identified those needs and come to the school we now have an [26:37] IEP in place but were the ones who had to drive what that was going to be now I have a master's degree and I am a leader [26:45] in the community in business and so and so forth I am NOT educated in what it is to be a child psychologist and an [26:51] educator I'm looking for what are the needs that I as a parent as well as any other parent out there who needs to [26:56] figure what this is out lastly is that we have to we've come to the conclusion that for fifth grade which we'd like to [27:03] have them continue at Highlands we probably will not be able to do so because Highlands will not be able to produce the types of skills and services [27:09] that we need to have and so we're gonna have to take him out of the district in order to get him the needs that he has now we're capable of doing that [27:16] this is everybody who lives in Edina capable of doing that I'm not here to [27:21] advocate for services for me or my son but I am asking you to take seriously reading proficiency within the school [27:27] district everybody should be able to learn to read at the level of their ad whether they're at the high end of the [27:33] socio-economic scale or the lower one and what are we doing as a community to prioritize that in school I should be [27:40] able to bring my kid back once I get that for him and I hope to do so but I shouldn't have to do that but I'm left [27:47] with that as the responsibility as a parent to do that for my kid thank goodness it's he's in my family if [27:54] there's other people in our community who could not afford to do that what would you do about that I'd ask you to [28:00] consider that as you're thinking about your strategic plan what services you provide for reading math dyslexia [28:06] dysgraphia all those other services and how on earth do you help parents identify these things early and help [28:13] them navigate this very tricky process for doing so thank you thank you next is [28:22] Matt stump [28:33] welcome thank you very much mr. chairman [28:40] and ladies and gentlemen the board I appreciate the opportunity to come here and talk to you my name is Matt Stumpf [28:47] I'm a fairly recent resident of Edina [28:52] and I'm here to ask for guidance on how [28:58] to have one of the school board policies reconsidered specifically this is [29:04] appendix one to board policy 713 and I'll just read it for the record and the [29:10] benefit of others here this is a policy that states the state of Minnesota currently requires transportation [29:17] services for students who reside more than two miles from school Edina public schools provides [29:23] transportation to elementary students K through five who live more than 0.7 [29:28] miles from school and middle and high school students who live more than one mile from school students that attend to [29:34] school other than their a science school because of their inter district transfer or are open enrolled are not eligible [29:40] for transportation regardless of distance from the school so I'd like the [29:46] board to consider changing that policy to to make the the maximum distant [29:52] distance from school for elementary age students be closer to walking distance [29:58] for those elementary school-age students I understand that transportation services don't come without a cost I get [30:06] that but I think another way to look at a policy that you know requires kids [30:12] that are in K through five creates K through five to provide their own [30:17] transportation that live you know half of a mile sick six tenths of a mile from [30:23] school to really be tantamount to delegating that cost back to parents and [30:29] I think that there's a really good opportunity here to to be more efficient and leverage economies of scale by by [30:36] shortening that maximum distance so this is my my first board meeting it's [30:41] actually my first political activity ever I'm not exactly sure what the next steps would be I would just ask for the board [30:47] so maybe reconsider that maximum distance or provide guidance on the best [30:52] you know most effective way to try to lobby for that change thank you thank [30:57] you thank you okay next is Matt sure oh [31:07] I think what Matt is referring to is that we have a 6:30 session in which you [31:13] can bring questions in as long as you let us know a week in advance and then there's more of an exchange where the [31:19] question will get a response at that particular meeting and yes if you've got a short follow-up you can go ahead this [31:25] isn't the six the 6:30 time but then got guided and said it might be more [31:31] effective to just come and present to the board but if it makes more sense to do a Q&A topic I can certainly come back next month and we can address it that [31:38] way okay okay thank you very much thank you thank you don't worry I didn't start [31:44] your time yet thanks members my name is Matt chair and I have a first-grader [31:49] Creek Valley Elementary and actually I'm here to talk about the same issue that the prior testifier was here to talk about I want to preface my comments [31:57] first letting you know that I grew up in the area and I walked to school every day for first grade through 11th grade [32:03] and I served as a crossing guard at Creek Valley and I also currently sitting in the dinin Transportation [32:08] Commission a couple of things that we received an email today that basically said that since we're right on the [32:14] border we currently have busing we're no longer going to get busing next year so I wanted to come and talk to you today [32:20] first I'd like to observe that after reading statute and school policy how the distance is calculated is not [32:26] well-defined from that perspective it says 0.7 miles my house is within a [32:32] point seven miles circle however if you actually walk the distance it's 0.8 miles to the school so I think I would [32:38] contend that I'm actually inside of the transportation zone but I'm not the one that's determining how that's calculated [32:44] second not all schools in Edina particularly elementary schools I would say would be considered neighborhood [32:50] schools in particular to stand out to me Cornelia and Creek Valley both of which are abutted by major highway [32:57] is major roads and the bulk of the area that would be impacted around Creek Valley would require students to travel [33:02] winding roads that feature Hills many blind corners no sidewalks and a crossing road that has similar [33:09] daily traffic to West 70th Street with none of the traffic calming that has been installed on West 7th 70th Street [33:15] that's Gleason road at Indian Hills Pass I didn't call the school today and I [33:21] talked to the director of transportation I asked if there is gonna be any changes for crossing guards because there's no [33:27] crossing guards at that closer location and that's not something that's been thought of so I think it would be nice [33:33] if you try to couple this change with thinking about how we're gonna get kids to and from a school safely and also as [33:43] a Transportation Committee Commission member I did want to say that it's our goal to make roads safe for all modes of transportation in Indiana that being [33:49] said we've identified the area along Indian Hills Pass for a sidewalk but that funding isn't going to come through [33:56] for a number of years so trying to make these changes by not thinking about how [34:01] the whole system works in time is a little challenging additionally some of my other neighbors who live along the [34:07] frontage road on 169 you'd be asking those kids to basically walk on a frontage road were routinely cars drive [34:14] 40 miles an hour there is no sidewalk there's not even a curb so I don't know how these kids are [34:19] gonna safely get to and from school without transportation if their parents can't drive them and finally I did want [34:26] to say that I did a little research today and that all school districts are different Bloomington is anyone beyond [34:32] point five if he Dinah's beyond 0.7 richfield beyond one and Eden Prairie is beyond two and for those of you little [34:39] kids you might be familiar with Sesame Street's on one of these things is not like the other an action for this instance it's Edina all of the other [34:46] school districts offer a pay for service model for people that are within that area and I wouldn't be opposed to paying [34:53] for the privilege of allowing my student to be able to take the bus but we don't [34:59] have that option so that's something I think you should consider too for those of us that the students have to cross a [35:06] really significant Road in order to safely get to school thank you thank you next is Siobhan [35:14] white welcome [35:26] do you all have your decks we do yes great I'll get to them in a second my [35:31] name is Siobhan white and I am the parent of a sixth grader at South View and a third grader at Normandale my [35:39] question tonight is why have dinah public schools gone all-in on personalized learning we were told that [35:45] PL was going to help all students grow particularly those who are struggling the most to reach grade standard I've [35:51] spoken to you before about how PL looks in practice one teacher facilitating four levels of kids in the same [35:57] classroom high-performing kids can get a Hall Pass to work independently kids who struggle the most can meet with the [36:03] teacher for extra help and all the kids get the same content whether the content is appropriate for the students learning [36:09] level or not here's an example my son will be reading the Phantom Tollbooth in [36:14] language art six the problem is that this was a novel study choice in fourth grade gifted reading yet Edina doesn't [36:20] offer an advanced language art six class nor one for science or social studies whether your child's in the bottom 10% [36:27] need support services or in the top 90% or anywhere in the middle all students [36:32] are in the same class being presented with the same grade standard content and learning at the same pace the principal [36:39] of Edina High School has said he favors only two tiers standard in AP if a student is not ready for AP which is [36:45] college-level work then he or she is in a standard class which means that one teacher is again instructing multiple [36:51] learning levels is this equitable I would argue that by limiting our high achievers to grade standard material [36:58] their growth is being suppressed I would also argue that the same curriculum may not work for all kids particularly kids [37:05] with learning needs such as dyslexia or gifted and talented students one size does not fit all and we should not be [37:11] limiting our kids to only two tracks we can do better I just came from the work session where the map results were [37:17] shared and we learned our most vulnerable kids are still the ones showing the least growth I would like to [37:22] share some slides of MCA data that from the Minnesota report card website to compare Edina public schools with [37:29] Minnetonka this is a district that's outperforming us does not use personalized learning has similar [37:35] demographics and it's one that many Dinah families have left our schools for I'm not going to walk through every page [37:41] don't worry but if you look at the deck you'll see that pages 1 through 6 show [37:47] overall MCA data free Diana Minnetonka for reading math and science broken out [37:52] by all students and then for students identified as receiving free and reduced lunch as you can see Minnetonka shows higher [37:59] percentages of kids in the exceeds category and lower percentages of kids in the does not meet category across the [38:05] board pages 7 through 14 compare the middle schools Minnetonka continues to [38:11] outperform Edina page 14 in particular shows it for math and grade 8 itself you [38:18] 52.8% of the free and reduced lunch students are not proficient and that is more than double what Valley View has [38:25] pages 15 through 18 compares the high schools if you know that I'm page 18 [38:31] you'll see that more than 53 percent of the free and reduced students are not proficient in grade 11 math at Edina [38:39] high school and while Minnetonka's number of students who do not meet their [38:45] percentage is also high at 45 percent if you look at how many meet and exceed in [38:50] under those categories in comparison to Adina's they're much higher they have [38:56] 28.9% meeting versus our thirteen point three and ten point five exceeding [39:01] versus 6.7 percent if you'll go to page 19 which is the second to last page I [39:10] just wanted to show the difference in schedules and the amount of time spent in classes classes at South few versus [39:17] the Minnetonka middle schools the Valley View has a different flex advisory scheduled in Southeast and more time is [39:22] spent in the classroom but still the students are not receiving as much class time as Minnetonka with the exception of [39:29] reading which is standard and gifted and the math options of three tiers all of our other classes are standard at South [39:35] you middle school and I use my son's schedule as an example kids have no formal instruction for 56 minutes a day [39:42] twenty minutes which is in advisory and thirty-six minutes which is in Flex students need I know spend seven hundred [39:48] and sixteen minutes in each core subject in a 20-day period stew spend 36 minutes in each skinny elective [39:55] in a 20-day period and students who need special services for reading or math can receive up to 600 minutes of services [40:02] during Flex by comparison if you look at Minnetonka's model on the next page you'll see that kids spend much more [40:08] time in a classroom learning at their level there are options for three tiers of math and two tiers for every other [40:14] core subject students in Minnetonka spend 1100 minutes in core subjects and [40:20] 550 minutes in each elective in a 20-day period students who need special [40:28] services for reading or math receive their services as an elective class during the school day and get 515 [40:34] minutes in the 20-day period while they do receive 50 minutes less over the course of the month they still have [40:40] nearly 6 hours more of actual class and instruction time for both English language arts and math versus Edina is [40:47] why could you come to yes okay you're a few minutes sorry I didn't realize that was ever so my final just to sum up then [40:54] so is the personalized learning experience experiment helping our kids are hurting them as you move forward [41:00] with your strategic plan I ask that you take time to review PLN flex to assess what may be working and what may not [41:05] please look at the best practices from other districts like Minnetonka's please commit to multiple tiers of classes so [41:12] all kids can be taught in a classroom by a teacher with their peers and given the appropriate level of content and [41:18] curriculum our students need to have options and choices one level of class does not fit all all of our students [41:24] deserve to exceed their growth targets and all of our children deserve a commitment to academic excellence thank [41:29] you thank you [41:38] sir were there any other no all right thank you for the members of the [41:43] audience that came up and spoke someone looked back in touch with you we do have a number of staff recognitions tonight [41:50] the first one is for Laura brower's who is a teacher at the Early Learning Center this was actually an email from a [41:57] staff member who said a group of us in the Early Learning Center would like to recognize a new teacher and our group [42:03] Laura brower's she's brought innovative creative effective and engaging teaching to her classroom students and Families [42:10] she's one of those teachers who brings light energy and a love for learning to all of her students that was Laura [42:15] brower's at the Early Learning Center we have a commendation of Steve Buettner and Adam Duffy mr. Buettner is sitting [42:22] over there this is from Mehta Inc they [42:27] said we wish to express our appreciation for Steve weiners contribution as a presenter at this year's brainstorm 2019 [42:34] event don'ts not surprising that he would be speaking at a brainstorm event [42:39] he showed a high level of professional development and great education in [42:45] technology for the professionals that were there they also wanted an ode appreciation for Adam Duffy as presenter [42:51] also at brainstorm that Adam is listed as a true asset to the Edyta public schools and next we have a Khan [42:58] commendation of gene crunch who was a fifth grade teacher at Concord elementary there was an email from a [43:05] parent who praised his crutches response to a child that had I think a medical [43:11] issue in her class and wanted to thank the teacher for her work and those are [43:16] accommodations for tonight and thank you to all of our teachers and staff next we [43:23] have our consent agenda are there any items to remove from the consent agenda [43:28] otherwise can I get a motion to approve the consent agenda in a second please [43:37] I need all those in favor of approving the consent agenda say aye aye all those opposed motion carried next we get to [43:45] reports and discussions starting with communicating community education program eval I believe you are up [44:09] and I'm guessing that all the students here are ninth grade government if you're in the ninth grade government [44:14] class you want to raise your hand and we're gonna see you here in a year and a [44:21] half to get your accommodation for a perfect score excellent all right Val you are up Oh in its green [44:30] good evening members of the board superintendent Shultz colleagues and [44:35] community members the pleasure to be here and it's a pleasure to be with so many students but I would very quickly [44:41] like to introduce you to the four coordinators that really articulate create and develop the programs and [44:47] services free data community ed two of them are new so I just thought it'd be a great opportunity Sharyl Gunness is our community [44:55] involvement and adult learning coordinator second year oh thank you we [45:04] have Lea Byrd you've had the pleasure of listening to with our early learning center she yeah she and Lisa Hawthorne [45:14] from early childhood special services coordinate that program to people new since March our Julie Gabrielson Julie [45:23] comes to us from the University of Minnesota she is replacing Seth Ryan and overseeing our operations and facilities [45:29] and finances for divided community yet and finally Rachel Hicks she comes to us [45:36] from Eden Prairie Schools she replaces Meg Barrett who had a 35 year successful career here and Rachel oversees all of [45:44] our youth programs k5 primarily with school aged care and youth so I just [45:50] would have been remiss if I did not introduce that tune so thank you so [45:56] tonight we're talking about Edina programs and services and budget and a little bit of history primarily we are [46:06] about shared resources shared responsibility and shared responsible responsiveness community add this year [46:13] is 50 years old in the state of Minnesota in 1969 the slighted schoolhouse [46:19] legislation passed and it's been going on for 50 years and when you think about community ad what [46:26] programs look like then 20 years ago 10 and even 5 look different and that is [46:32] because we have a commitment and I'm not sure thank you to keep pink user to [46:40] community advisory councils we believe at our core that citizens have a right [46:46] and responsibility to educate all residents birth through adult plus by [46:52] statute we are required and by your ruling as school board to having a [46:59] Community Advisory Council also by accepting early childhood family [47:04] education levy we're required to have an early childhood Advisory Council Edina [47:10] goes above and beyond by also having a Youth Advisory Council to oversee our wide array of youth programs in a Dyna [47:17] Community Council which is an outward facing Council bringing in voices from [47:23] our food shelf from Community Action Partnership for suburban Hennepin from [47:28] Bloomington Public Health because we determined as a community about 15 20 [47:34] years ago that our residents needed to have information and access to resources that would support their needs [47:41] collectively there are about 60 residents that are involved in those community advisory councils alongside [47:49] that we do evaluations for our classes we have focus groups and our the [47:55] different areas and ages and stages and we've also hired to outreach staff that [48:00] help us get into our community alongside our colleagues to make sure that we're hearing voices from those that aren't [48:07] able to make meetings or traditionally have not been a part of the conversation [48:14] this is the amount that programs and services that are currently being offered by the voices and choices of our [48:21] community sometimes it's sort of fun and it's instructive to go back and look [48:28] where you were as we move forward as I mentioned we started in 1960 [48:33] as a state in community education services and here in Edina we began with [48:39] adult programs and volunteer programs primarily volunteer programs were the [48:44] curriculum resources and programs that brought experts speakers into our [48:49] classrooms to enhance and support the curriculum I'm really proud to say that we continue that effort along with a [48:56] robust volunteer program that brings in individuals and students today in 1980 [49:06] it's kind of hard to imagine but at that time the culture in our community was [49:11] shifting parents and females particularly began working and we were asked by the community to start a school [49:18] aged care program at that time it was at one elementary 50 residents from the [49:24] entire school district participated in that first year of school aged care by then the principal said we need it in [49:31] our buildings you fast forward between our pre-k our k5 and our 6 through 8 [49:37] morning school aged care program we have over 1600 students it's a pretty pretty [49:43] significant change in a fairly short period of time 1981 was a large change [49:49] for community education in Edina because this building was at one time the Edina East High School in 1981 the school [49:57] board then determined that we would be closing that because of an enrollment shift we as a community decided not to [50:05] sell that building but to reimagine and recreate it so a community education [50:12] director was hired in the building at that time was 25 tenants at least was [50:19] community had staff small district office staff and some adult programming [50:26] at that when I was hired initially a super at one of our former superintendents told me this was an [50:33] accordion building it was meant to be able to expand as our programs expanded and that has certainly rung true as we [50:41] now have two schools our Early Learning Center and Normandale Elementary we have reconfigured the bill [50:47] building to have all of our district move up we and we continue to reimagine this building that comes from the [50:53] community in 1994 as a school board it [50:59] was allowed for the community decided to levy for early childhood Family [51:04] Education dollars and with that we began to have early learning down on the first floor 1996 in the 90s youth development [51:13] youth service became really important in the state of Minnesota and to this community we treasure our youths options for spark [51:21] and enrichment as well as service-learning and community service options so we began middle school [51:27] programs from community ed and I'm proud to say that the first ever community service letter program in Minnesota was [51:34] started right here in Edina 2001 the United Resource Center began we talked [51:39] about that where there was a demand for services that could meet families needs and now we celebrate 50 years so how are [51:48] we funded it's sort of an interesting unique mix but we are one of six and [51:53] sometimes there are more funds in Edina schools much like transportation or food [51:59] service we have a funding stream committed to 0 for funding mechanisms [52:07] come in as a result of 17 state statutes that oversee community education [52:14] services some of our programs receive state aid some of them receive levy [52:19] money and some of them one of them receives some federal dollars collectively and I'll have you go to the [52:26] next one thank you you can see that it's a fairly complex no different than [52:34] general education really or most other complex but there's a variety of different ways we're funded and there [52:39] but collectively the state aid levy and federal aid makes up about 10 to 15 [52:46] percent of our seven and a half million dollar budget so about 85 to 90 percent [52:51] of our fees our fee are our budget is fee based we have pretty close to [52:58] between part-time and full-time about 300 laughs and about 87% of our costs our [53:04] staff are humans our interaction the joy [53:11] of our job is our internal and external collaborations we are we and our job is [53:19] to support and enhance the programs of our k-12 learners alongside with [53:24] developing robust programming for our adult learners together we collaborate [53:30] on volunteer programs in the Dyna Resource Center on managing our [53:35] facilities and overseeing the policy and then we share expenses in some of the [53:41] services that support our entire public school system but really the real hard [53:47] work and the probably the most interesting work comes in our collaborations with each and every [53:53] school in each of our principals because together when we were making a school start time change our staff met with our [54:00] principals at elementary at middle school and at the high school to determine what we could do together to [54:07] ensure that we could still deliver on many of the programs that are dear to our community [54:15] annually we're asked to do a report to Minnesota Department of Education so [54:21] that collectively statewide we can tell a story about how many folks are [54:26] impacted by community education services programming this is three year old data [54:32] at that time there were nine hundred thousand adults Adult Basic Education is a consortium program were involved with [54:39] adults with disabilities is another consortium and what I mean by that it's with Bloomington Richfield Eden Prairie [54:45] and Edina that together we we pool our state aid in order to create a more [54:51] robust program for families in the area a million three hundred thousand youth [54:57] are served in over two hundred thousand preschoolers Morris Leatherman does a [55:04] study on community education services impact about every five to seven years [55:09] and they continue to report this data doesn't change really people that are involved in community [55:16] education programs in their in their town are more likely to recreate the [55:23] quality of education hire more positive about their financial management or [55:28] positive about us as administrators you as school board members stronger [55:33] supporters of our referendums and most importantly they feel better informed and connected to their community so I'm [55:42] very proud of our staff I'm proud of our program and I'm really thankful for the [55:47] opportunity to share a little bit with you and I'm available or our staff is if [55:52] you guys have questions thank you [56:07] I know it must be release time right was [56:23] it me [56:45] all right oh and you had a question uh two things first off I want to fully [56:50] endorse what you are doing and what all of the dinah community action is doing I [56:58] was in Dad's EC Fe for six years in this building and it was fantastic for me [57:05] learning how to be a dad most of us actually if we had a dad's class [57:11] separating from the kids and we talked about the wives one-third of the time so that was good too but it was it was fantastic and it is a [57:19] great use of resources and I'm not surprised that the community reflects [57:25] well on when a district does that so [57:30] commendations the one concern I have is I want to make sure that our community [57:36] edie services does not squeeze out organic community organizations such as [57:43] Boy Scouts Girl Scouts 4-h what have you that are self-funded that the large [57:51] majority of its members come from the community and that we more than just tolerate these groups that we embrace [57:58] them to because they're part of the collective resources of for emotional [58:04] resiliency for our children so we've talked about this in the policy committee meetings before so I just want [58:11] the public to know that we have this discussion as well to sell but again Val you run a fantastic program and just [58:17] keep going at it thank you I'll just really quickly would just say just one thing as we've gone through [58:24] this construction cycle and as we've almost doubled our square footage to [58:30] truly appreciate the time we have needed to look at what district policies are [58:36] all over our metro area to help us figure out and we will be coming forward [58:41] as you and I have talked with some you know added of suggestions to policy but all along [58:48] as we've grown we've kind of held hands with our new activity center and some of [58:54] the other new spaces to say let's taste them try them let's see how they are operating what the needs are and then [59:01] let's adapt them but thank you it's good [59:07] other questions great thanks guys they're an easy group thank ya alright next is the science and [59:15] engineering curriculum study review Randy you're here to bring us up to date [59:21] Owen is Vil good evening chair Wallen [59:42] Friedman superintendent Shultz our board and community members I'm joined here by [59:47] ease upon chaired who's our elementary curriculum specialist and my name is [59:52] Randy small director of teaching and learning we are about to head into the [59:59] science and engineering study and the state of Minnesota publishes a schedule [1:00:05] of different curricular areas when different curricular areas are to be [1:00:11] reviewed inside of school districts and so Edina public schools has aligned to that schedule and so it is our time to [1:00:19] begin the process of looking at science and engineering across our school district k12 so the draft did you say [1:00:27] that the state looks at the standards across the entire state of Minnesota and [1:00:33] what the schools will have to implement right so what I'm saying is that there's a cycle for a different content areas [1:00:39] and so science and engineering is up for review and so we've aligned to that so it's our time to start the science and [1:00:46] engineering review as a former science [1:00:51] teacher still a science teacher mr. Schultz Sameer [1:00:56] we are very excited for this review in Edina and I haven't had an opportunity to be able to do this since I've arrived [1:01:04] in Edina and so we're we're very excited headed into this for next year I'm gonna [1:01:11] take us through just a couple of slides and then ease is gonna join us here in just a few so what do we do we start off [1:01:19] with the design team of teachers and we have representation from each of the [1:01:24] schools courses different programs and that design team of teachers then lays [1:01:31] out some of the steps in the process now we have a generic process that we use inside of our teaching learning [1:01:37] department and then we adapt it to each of the departments as they undergo these reviews so through this curricular revision [1:01:43] process the design team is going to look at the standards that came out from the state and how we're going to align our [1:01:49] instruction to that they're going to look at new materials and resources and what we might need to teach those new [1:01:55] standards and then they'll help determine the professional learning needs of our staff among a number of [1:02:01] other tasks but if you had to pick out three of the big ones those would be three of the big ones what we will do is [1:02:08] we're going to begin this data collection process and we're actually going to begin this this spring and part [1:02:15] of the part of the data collection is looking at our assessment data excuse-me looking at tests how students [1:02:23] have performed across the school district from MCAS to AP - a CT will [1:02:31] also do surveys and we'll look at survey responses from the experience and from [1:02:36] the perception side and then we're going to do focus groups in particular with parents to gather more insightful and [1:02:43] specific information about the experience that their child has had any dynamic what the design team will do [1:02:51] then is they will begin to work with this plan of implementing these new [1:02:57] science standards in kind of a multi-phase multi-year approach and so we'll have kind of the round one of [1:03:04] professional development with the first cohort the design team members and other teachers that will begin [1:03:10] to implement these standards the following year we'll have the that [1:03:18] second cohort group that will begin that implementation know that the strategy [1:03:24] behind that is that we're growing capacity as a district to implement well [1:03:29] and so the first cohort will collect data around that implementation and look [1:03:35] at what has worked well in what hasn't so that we can build the capacity to Train everybody across the district what [1:03:41] we're really trying to do is to build that capacity in each of the buildings first to some level before we roll it [1:03:47] out across all of the buildings so by 2122 we have our second group our full [1:03:55] implementation started will continue professional development through that time and continue to collect data on how [1:04:04] that implementation is going in terms of feedback from the teachers and then the [1:04:09] expectation from the state of Minnesota is that by the spring of 2023 our [1:04:14] district will be prepared will have prepared students for the new science [1:04:20] MCA which will be launched that first year so on the design team across k5 [1:04:28] what we try to do is get representation from each of the buildings and we can try to get representation at the [1:04:33] secondary level across the different disciplines and this is really this part [1:04:39] of the work is really teacher work because they're trying to unpack the standards they're trying to look at how [1:04:45] the standards aligned for particular courses and then map that out and then we pull in different levels of expertise [1:04:51] depending upon where they're at it might be media specialists it might be e L gifted sped it might be community [1:04:59] education along that journeyman summit turned over to either to talk a little [1:05:05] bit about the content of those new science standards and what that looks like so what I'd like to talk about is [1:05:13] what has changed and what has not changed in these new standards we know [1:05:18] that we have some legislative requirements that the State Department has to abide by and here's the first few [1:05:25] of these I think noteworthy are the k8 benchmarks are great specific whereas by [1:05:31] grade 9 9 12 the standards are banded to allow for more flexibility of courses [1:05:38] another element in these requirements they must include the contributions of [1:05:44] Minnesota Native American nations so Dakota and Ojibwe for us and we also [1:05:52] want to make sure that they include the ISTE standards OST as you see here is [1:05:57] the International International Society for technology in education and you will see these reflected in some of the [1:06:04] practices that the standards are organized around so the major shift I [1:06:11] think for all of us as teachers is going to be the fact that students that are [1:06:17] not just expected to learn scientific facts but they're expected to explain [1:06:22] phenomena and a phenomena is defined as any event or activities for which we [1:06:28] need a scientific explanation and an example that we actually did at one of [1:06:33] our very first workshops at the State Department of Education was here are three petri dishes with M&Ms in them one [1:06:41] is cold water one is room-temperature water and one is hot water now tell us what's happening [1:06:48] you know or in the case of the one on this slide would be something like mountains why are some muttons really [1:06:54] sharp really tall why why do we have mountains that are softer and and more [1:07:00] shorter as well so kids are supposed to just figure out everything that they know and try to explain this with models [1:07:07] and things like that that's the phenomena instead of just learning about molecules or learning [1:07:13] about erosion you have to be able to explain it so the new standards were [1:07:20] based on two major publication and you see them on the bottom here in 2011 was [1:07:27] the framework for k-12 science standards that gave us then the National [1:07:33] next generation science standards that we refer to as the NGSS and what these [1:07:39] standard how they're different is they reflect an interconnectedness between three dimensions that you've seen that [1:07:46] little rope icon and I'm gonna go into details on these so you have practices [1:07:52] you have core concept core ideas and I can't even read this cross-cutting [1:07:59] concepts thank you so far there are about 20 states that have adopted the [1:08:05] next generation standards as is and about the same amount of states that are adapted them my Minnesota is adapting [1:08:13] them one of the differences for example would be that in the NGSS the [1:08:18] engineering standards are separate and they're not grade specific whereas in Minnesota they've been embedded in the standards [1:08:25] for the grade levels so the practices [1:08:31] are really how the standards are organized there's eight of them and you'll see the different colors meaning [1:08:36] different things the ones that are in blue are ones that currently were doing [1:08:42] very well in our standards they're pretty well aligned with what we're currently doing the ones that are in [1:08:47] blue I mean by meaning Green are the ones that are new and I'm going to explain those a little bit more in [1:08:53] detail in just a second and then the red ones are the connections that we have with the English language arts standards [1:09:00] and by the way when we're looking at building survey tools to figure out how [1:09:06] we're doing currently with our curriculum relative to what's coming we're gonna organize these questions [1:09:12] around these practices as well to see where we have gaps and when we don't where we don't so for example with the [1:09:20] models this is what I meant when I talked about those mmm so if I gave you [1:09:27] the three petri dishes and then I give you a chart paper and some crayons markers and I'd say okay draw a model [1:09:33] for what you think is happening and you'd have different answers different levels of sophistication of answers but [1:09:39] that's really going beyond describing what is happening - then telling us why you think it's [1:09:46] happening the mathematical and [1:09:51] computational thinking is also a new area and for example it starts at the [1:09:57] elementary level where students are going to be including in their explanations bar graphs or pie charts [1:10:04] going more in depth as the years go to [1:10:09] computational thinking in high school could include computer simulations so it's really increasing that level of [1:10:17] mathematical thinking in the sciences and then the last one that was [1:10:25] highlighted in red on the other slide is really about communication so how do we [1:10:31] make sure that students can understand scientific text how do we make sure that [1:10:36] they can write scientific reports and we have a unique opportunity with these practices to really do interdisciplinary [1:10:43] work with English language arts colleagues for example at the elementary [1:10:48] level in both our reading and our writing program there are units about expository nonfiction where students are [1:10:56] taught how to interpret what a scientific text would look like what are [1:11:01] the text features of a scientific text and they're also taught how to write how do you write a report on a subject that [1:11:07] you have researched and then at the secondary level science teachers also [1:11:13] have English language arts standards that are assigned to teachers of scientific history and scientific topic [1:11:20] content areas as well so the [1:11:26] cross-cutting concepts are going to be those what connects the various [1:11:32] disciplines together because whether you're looking at earth science or physics or life science you're gonna [1:11:38] have things like cause-and-effect you're going to have patterns you see the different sizes reflecting the number of [1:11:45] benchmarks that are associated with these particular concepts so many more [1:11:52] benchmarks are going to be looking at cause and effect as opposed to the idea of scale for example and in the last [1:12:04] element of the the three dimensions is the core idea as the core ideas help [1:12:09] students understand how the content is applied to real life and for example in [1:12:15] the past we may have learned facts or details about some of these but now the [1:12:20] facts and details become more evidence but they're not the sole focus of [1:12:25] instruction so most of these are new some of the ones that you'll see it's [1:12:30] kind of hard to see but that ps4 which talks about waves and their applications [1:12:36] in technologies goes all the way in to looking at what is an MRI what does it do what how do [1:12:43] the the concept of waves how does that apply to that kind of technology and why is it important to know that so when you [1:12:51] think back about those is the technology kinds of standards you're gonna see that some of those are gonna be in these core [1:12:58] ideas anything else you want to tell on this ok so that's kind of what I have [1:13:05] right now for the organization of the standards and I'm wondering if you have any questions you're talking about we're [1:13:18] not just gonna be about facts it's phenomenon and aren't we how are we [1:13:24] doing that right now or how is that going to be different because I was assumed that we're already talking about [1:13:31] scientific phenomenon past facts I think it's the what's different is the way [1:13:36] that it's that the instruction is going to be organized so instead of focusing mainly on facts which i think is what [1:13:42] we've done a lot of in elementary science for sure I can't speak as well to the secondary science now it's going [1:13:50] to be the phenomena becomes what you're studying not the individual effects [1:13:56] because phenomena is so complex so that instead of saying we're gonna study this [1:14:01] little these facts in isolation and then at point you're gonna put everything together in a real-life phenomenon now [1:14:08] it's almost flipped on its head where the phenomena becomes the driving force [1:14:13] for the unit here's our overarching question so the the essential question [1:14:19] of the unit will be more around that phenomenon and now let what do we need to learn in order to figure this out so [1:14:25] it's the organizing principle mm-hmm definitely and you're talking about computational thinking and there may be [1:14:32] computer simulations as the students get older what we need to get new equipment [1:14:38] to accommodate this or we're going to do timeshares on mainframes or how's that gonna I think it's a little early to say [1:14:43] because we first have to see what the final standards the final draft of the standard is going to contain and then [1:14:50] there will be the work of the design team as they look at where our gaps do we have what we do or do we need to make [1:14:56] recommendations for materials or maybe it's just software we'll see and right [1:15:02] now the draft of the standards is sitting in the legislature on the second draft and will be voted on in May and so [1:15:11] once those go into statute then we'll have kind of our final set of standards to work from mm-hmm and what did you [1:15:21] mean by Native American how's that going to be integrated in so by law every [1:15:27] content area that when they revise their standards has to include the contributions of Minnesota Native [1:15:34] Americans to that field of study one example for example in third grade we [1:15:40] have even currently a unit called Sun Moon and stars and one of the things [1:15:45] that we look at is how did Native Americans use the Stars to predict [1:15:51] seasons and what was you know moving camps things like that so there's that's [1:15:56] one of the connection that's kind of easy to make at this point but if in the final draft of the standard what we hope [1:16:04] to have is some suggestions because sometimes the state will give you a benchmark and then some suggestion ideas [1:16:10] for this could be and that's usually where they put their suggestions for how to address the Minnesota [1:16:17] American contributions okay thank you [1:16:22] do you anticipate this curriculum to have more intense and more teacher [1:16:30] training needs than other curriculum rollouts because it sounds fairly sophisticated [1:16:35] and then I guess in addition to that do you anticipate it potentially needing [1:16:42] cross functional training because it looks like it could or would involve language arts and math so I'm just and [1:16:50] you might not be able to answer that right now I realize because we're early in the phase but I'm just I'm trying to [1:16:55] understand if you think this would be so we're definitely thinking there's gonna [1:17:01] be a lot high need for professional learning which is why in our timeline [1:17:06] you see that before an implementation after an implementation and a continuous [1:17:13] improvement that you keep doing long after the first year is over is really about that as well [1:17:19] at the elementary level I think the connection between the language arts and the science is gonna be much easier because teachers teach those content [1:17:26] areas anyway and at the secondary level we'll have to see how we can figure that out that is one of the things the design [1:17:32] team is going to look at is what are the professional learning needs so just a [1:17:42] couple of questions one is how is this going to connect with Project Lead the [1:17:48] Way are you reviewing Project Lead the Way at the same time and then another [1:17:53] question on that is a lot of coding [1:18:00] question schools are now implementing coding from kindergarten throughout the school years and I'm just wondering how [1:18:08] this might be impacted and whether or not just on those two Thanks yeah we we [1:18:15] see because there are also engineering standards under the science standards umbrella that it's really an opportunity [1:18:22] to look at science and engineering k12 and so looking at what those specific engineering standards look like [1:18:29] the elementary level will be important and then looking at the kind of scope [1:18:35] and sequence of what we do in terms of engineering offering 6:12 will also be part of this review so we do have [1:18:42] teachers that we've contacted already that are that teach those engineering courses and particularly at the [1:18:48] secondary level and so we will look at the course sequences will look at coding will look at gaps will look at some of [1:18:55] the new and emerging trends in engineering and look at our overall course sequence as part of this review [1:19:02] could you speak a little bit about how the new accelerated science course at [1:19:09] the middle school is going to be impacted by this well these standards certainly will [1:19:15] drive the content and the design inside of the class we do have a bit of a [1:19:22] timeline that we're working around because we will be launching in the fall and so our teachers will be doing a lot [1:19:27] of work later this spring and over the summer we do have a date set in May to begin more of that curricular unpacking [1:19:34] and repackaging work but we really are a bit stuck until the state finalizes [1:19:40] those standards because we don't want to invest a lot of time into it and so we're in that final draft but these new [1:19:45] standards will be embedded in that accelerated course and then I'm curious [1:19:54] as to what types of programs you're looking for in terms of high school and [1:20:00] whether or not you you've talked with business like them how are you going to [1:20:05] be engaging businesses and other other people in this process it's a great [1:20:12] question we do have a stem advisory group that meets once a month and part of the conversations we have had is how [1:20:20] do we partner with our community around this opportunity that is science and engineering sitting in front of us and [1:20:26] what kinds of things might we want to do differently moving forward so that is a [1:20:31] great group to take questions like that to about how can we partner together to [1:20:37] enhance the experience for kids enhance the training and learning opportunities for our adults so we're [1:20:44] gonna try to leverage that group Randy [1:20:51] one of the questions I had and I don't think we covered this in teaching and learning but we maybe just touched on it [1:20:57] is the the fact that we have the flexibility in 912 to place the various [1:21:03] subject at the grades that we feel they best fit within our own district and I'm wondering if this is the time that you [1:21:10] guys may take a look at that and and essentially I don't know verify or [1:21:16] confirm that you feel that we are on the right path or maybe we want to move some things I know there's been talk before [1:21:22] about physics being in ninth grade and for some kiddos it may not be math wise [1:21:28] appropriate for them and so I'm wondering if this is a time that we would discuss that when we're looking at this type of um change in curriculum [1:21:35] yeah it's a great question well absolutely look at the course sequence and what the scope and sequence of that [1:21:42] curriculum at the secondary level looks like one of the interesting things that the committee has done at the state [1:21:48] levels they've really put a greater emphasis on earth science than in the past and so we'll have to look at how [1:21:54] does that fit in with what we've been doing where are the gaps and where might we need to change so we will we will [1:22:02] bring forward to the board recommendations about what we see needing to happen to implement these new [1:22:08] standards and what that might mean for program changes I don't know what those are right now of course but we will be [1:22:14] taking a look at that something we would consider while doing this work yeah we [1:22:20] will definitely look at our scope and sequence of courses great any other [1:22:26] questions Ahmir yeah my biggest concern gets to an [1:22:31] overarching concern about how Edina sets expectations high expectations [1:22:38] expectations based off of where students are and trying to grow them not not [1:22:44] based off of some national typical student but based off of where this [1:22:50] student has been where this students trying to go and some of that some of that would be here and some of [1:22:56] it wouldn't and so I want to emphasize the difference between our expectations [1:23:02] for our standards and how we run our horses and what the state's coming up [1:23:07] with and of course the state gives us guidance and we comply but you would [1:23:13] agree that this isn't curriculum and so what we're offering students what we're [1:23:18] expecting still needs to meet our expectations and our understandings of [1:23:24] what's a good idea and what's not because some of the things in here might not be a good idea and we shouldn't just [1:23:30] quit doing what we think is good best for students because something was [1:23:35] approved that isn't even holistically binding so I want to be very clear when [1:23:40] you're looking at this that we are not to to tell people that everything you're [1:23:46] doing needs to stop and comply with this even in spirit that we need to have our [1:23:51] own idea of how we teach science and standards and it needs to comply with this state law but not not act like this [1:23:59] is curriculum and some of it is just almost incoherent you know they have [1:24:05] eight excellent practices they just love the practices but Minnesota as you say [1:24:10] that one of the states that's adapting them to what's already in law they're really messing this up in my opinion in some places for example the Native [1:24:17] American reference there is a law that says when the Commissioner is going through these reviews you must include [1:24:25] contributions of Native American communities as related to the academic standards it's a relatively mild [1:24:31] requirement and yet it's everywhere in this document in places it doesn't make any sense to me and I would hate for us [1:24:37] to bend over backwards to follow that for example one of the practices constructing explanations and designing [1:24:44] solutions you'll read a little bit right and it says well what you need to do is [1:24:49] be able to apply historical examples from Minnesota Native American [1:24:54] communities about their knowledge systems and how they did it that's not a [1:25:00] social studies class we're not here in science class to study how one particular group did things [1:25:06] that's the social studies thing this is science and needs to be all about the contributions to the scientifically [1:25:13] accepted understandings and you can of course make things interesting and show differences and we often show how things [1:25:19] have changed over time and I was a key science lesson there but that's very different from teaching a particular [1:25:26] groups history as science it almost reminds me of intelligent design right [1:25:33] we're teaching we're warping the science to what a group had and it really worries mean it's all over this document [1:25:39] and it only came out in giraffe - it wasn't a draft one and we if we can't stop it from getting approved that way [1:25:45] we need to be wary of how much of this we bring in likewise it says under this [1:25:51] constructing explanations well you need to gather information about present historical technologies used by various [1:25:57] human groups including the Native Americans about ways that that they've they've changed or they've had [1:26:05] inheritance and and desired traits and organisms change they're really starting talk about natural selection yet they've [1:26:10] honed in on how natural selection has impacted Native Americans in Minnesota it's just bizarre that they're going [1:26:16] there when the law says recognize contributions as related to the standards so this this whole document [1:26:22] aside from the eight practices kind of worries me and I would hate to see us [1:26:28] wreck an ideal science education in compliance with what a committee is [1:26:34] coming up with and proposing the legislature and I'd put that under the banner of our standards of course comply [1:26:40] with state standards but they need to be what we think is best for kids based off of our curriculum we think special kids [1:26:51] so I think one of the things when you read the benchmarks there are general statements of learning what we want kids [1:26:59] to learn and be able to do and I believe because I'm not sure what document you're reading right now if you're [1:27:05] reading draft 2 of the standards so you'll see a difference in the way the benchmark is written as opposed to the [1:27:12] italics that follow which are the for example it could mean this that or the [1:27:19] other and I think that's where you're going to see the Native American connections that the State Department [1:27:24] has provided so that school districts matrice to use them so they will tell [1:27:30] you that what is in italics is an example it doesn't mean you have to do all of this just like when we had [1:27:36] examples in the English language arts standards of names of texts it did mean [1:27:42] we had to read those texts it was chosen well I do see I'm not referring to italics I believe they're not italics ok [1:27:52] you were looking at the the new second draft correct right and I don't mean to put that on here that's right this is [1:27:59] the newest draft not italics I don't mean to put that on you because it's you know it's a state-level initiative so [1:28:04] what I would hope to see from our district is complying with this taking [1:28:09] the part that we appreciate having some reprieve because the old standards were so extensive that they didn't leave a [1:28:17] lot of room for radical departures and I think this allows a lot more flexibility [1:28:23] the study of phenomena I would hate to see facts become a dirty word so when I hear people talk about this or say well [1:28:30] you know straight now the students learned a lot of facts so that's got a stop that has no place in science which is of course not you're saying and be a [1:28:35] little exaggerating here but studying questions open-ended is marvelous and [1:28:41] hopefully we can do a much better job of getting kids to like science and get them to actually be curious but the [1:28:47] foundations of facts have to be there for people to be creative for people to build an explanation and so I would I [1:28:55] would hate to see any guidance to teachers that says that you know if you're giving too many facts today you're not a good science teacher [1:29:00] anymore that you're doing it the old way and instead maybe try to prompt try to bring it back [1:29:06] bring it to suit an interest bring it to something that's interesting make relevant connections to modern technology modern and medical solutions [1:29:12] are all sorts of ways to and we can have more extensive time having students try to develop these ideas and debate them [1:29:20] and I think that's what these standards are getting that and that's a beautiful thing but it does need to be grounded in facts [1:29:27] and if you start doing a word search for various words and benchmarks that were [1:29:32] in the old standards for ones they're in the new they're just not there because the emphasis is on is on discovery a lot [1:29:38] of the time but those facts still need to be presented we still need students being prepared for high school level AP [1:29:44] exams for college-level science classes and of course there's always a risk in phenomena that you bite off more than [1:29:50] you can chew and the thing you wonder about has an explanation that starts years earlier and I would hope that the [1:29:57] education we offer started years earlier to the phenomenon offers context an [1:30:03] opportunity to learn the vocabulary and that's so I think they're they're want to making they want to make sure that [1:30:09] that information has an anchor you know it has an experience to anchor because [1:30:15] we know that when kids have experiences they can anchor that vocabulary to it so [1:30:20] it's a stronger way to approach it from a pedagogical standpoint so I don't I [1:30:25] hope we are not giving the impression that those kinds of things aren't important or vocabulary is important and [1:30:30] skills aren't important they they certainly are it's just how you get to them that's really important I just want [1:30:38] to point out that a mirror is a current high school physics teacher I know but [1:30:44] but your your wealth of knowledge is well exemplified this evening all right [1:30:52] mmm any other questions great thank you for the update thank you [1:31:01] next we shift to policy review Amir you want to walk us through some of these [1:31:08] look pretty absolutely we've got several up for discussion two of them are let's see 507 while [1:31:15] corporal punishment and 508 about the extended school year for certain students they refer you no changes [1:31:20] proposed extended school year for certain students what it means is if in accordance with a student's IEP we have [1:31:28] come to an understanding that the regular school year doesn't meet the needs of that student and in order to provide them which they're legally [1:31:33] entitled to have a free appropriate public education they need to continue [1:31:39] to meet in times when their students aren't here but that's that can be worked out like whites corporal [1:31:44] punishment rather straight to the point it's not okay any nine public schools policy 538 has a long history here we [1:31:51] had a work session on it a lot of concerns is about student travel field trips really as a lot of people are [1:31:57] familiar with the term and there were a lot of concerns that came up some had to [1:32:03] do with safety some with liability some with cost and the equity around that some with just the wisdom of certain [1:32:11] endeavors and staff time went around it and what you see before you is the result of of that talk and a search for [1:32:19] consensus and a search for a rally and it gets more people to to consider [1:32:25] certain concerns the biggest the biggest change that came out of those [1:32:30] conversation is a phrase that's in the policy section that says in in response [1:32:36] to a concern let's see in the interest of providing lower cost opportunities [1:32:42] for students a regional or national travel study experience with similar educational objectives will be offered [1:32:49] to students in the prior same or following school year as an international trip and what's built in [1:32:54] there is that these international chips tend to be of course the more expensive ones less access the original wording [1:33:01] actually from our high school principal even suggested putting it in the same year and we backed off on the policy [1:33:08] committee and made it prior say more following to try to try to target the same cohort of students [1:33:14] without being too restrictive and we added language about similar educational objectives to get at the question of [1:33:21] what international trip prompts what more affordable regional national trip is it is it like the band or is it [1:33:28] something that's about a certain study so we're trying to have language there that captures our intent of a rotation [1:33:36] of affordability for similar types of trips a mandatory rotation with this [1:33:42] flexibility here so it's not exactly a one-to-one in the same year or something [1:33:48] like that but this is our compromise language you also notice a lot of the language in this policies in the appendix that came up in our work [1:33:55] session it didn't get resolved there if you have concerns about certain points [1:34:00] that are in the appendix that you think should be in the policy we listen to that I'd say the background is we didn't [1:34:08] want to move the whole appendix one up into policy we didn't want to start breaking apart a logical flow and we [1:34:15] didn't have a strong concern that if something was in the appendix where the board tends not to have to what does not [1:34:22] in our operation have to approve change before it's made that change we made [1:34:28] that the board would be discouraged about also we have we have a past [1:34:34] anning tradition here of the administration notifying the board when an appendix change is made at the next board meeting so that that sort of thing [1:34:40] would come to the attention of a board just not seeking approval so that's the background on 538 I think I'll pause [1:34:46] there for feedback there questions Sarah [1:34:52] I know I had brought up appendices versus actual policy and you know an [1:35:00] example this evening in our information portion of the policy changes have been [1:35:08] made to appendix two and it's simply under information so I guess you know [1:35:14] when we're you know one of the things we are supposed to be as a governance and policy board and so it does concern me [1:35:20] and not just this policy I think policy overall that we have coherent thought around what we believe [1:35:29] is best to be in policy versus in appendices because that is supposed to [1:35:34] be one of our core functions we are a policymaking board and you know even when I look at MSP a and their [1:35:41] guidelines and their guideline handbook about you know why do school board's write policy you know just to create you [1:35:49] know guidance and continuity and all of the other reasons that they list so I question why we took a policy that was [1:35:56] very engaged and had most of the language in policy and moved it all to [1:36:02] appendices so I I would advise that we reconsider that move and put things back [1:36:09] into to the the actual policy I do appreciate the work on the language [1:36:15] around trying to have opportunities for students that are not just international [1:36:21] I do know that at least from my own kids experience the bans will rotate a bus [1:36:30] trip as I think I would call it versus a domestic plane trip versus the [1:36:36] international trip yeah passport needed so I I appreciate that we're trying to [1:36:42] take a look at that for our kids because I think opportunity is definitely one of the things we we were concerned about in [1:36:48] terms of socioeconomic but my key point tonight though was to just say I do [1:36:54] think we need to think about our responsibility as a policymaking board and it's not just this policy but I [1:37:00] think we need to think about it broadly thank you so is the question and [1:37:06] policies that the policy should set up the general rule versus the process of [1:37:12] how to accomplish that rule would be in the appendix is that one way to look at [1:37:18] it yeah I guess another I guess outside of your paradigm though is say if there [1:37:25] is a constraint or if there's a requirement and then the board has [1:37:30] consensus around that is it fine if it stays in the appendix and it's adhered to or should it be in policy to [1:37:36] communicate that that came from is there any value to that any difference and some of these things are procedures and typically procedures are [1:37:43] clearly in the appendix but if a procedures trying to get at a board concern is I don't know that we're gonna [1:37:50] get a clear a clear algorithm that helps us sort this sort of work which is one [1:37:55] of the reasons a lot of the state in the appendix but why did we move when you [1:38:00] brought us this policy a month or so ago why had we moved everything out of policy into appendices a couple of [1:38:07] reasons one is a lot of the changes where it was significant the overhaul to the structure in the format so there was [1:38:13] a big change anyway and there was a time we consulted with district counsel and his advice generally was keep your [1:38:19] policy slim but when he was telling that to us he he wasn't he wasn't necessarily tracking that we have a system of sort [1:38:27] of saying board work admin work board work management work which doesn't quite fit the idea of a policy mean slim but [1:38:32] at that point it was it was already a coherency to how the appendices were laid out and that's partially why it [1:38:38] looks like it does today right so because unless I'm wrong we've always [1:38:45] been told that policy wise that we appendices can be action can be [1:38:51] actionable by administration without board approval and unless that has changed that is my concern for so much [1:38:58] being in appendices oh that's okay so one question I have which doesn't [1:39:04] totally answer your point but if you look at the last part of the policy D it [1:39:11] says employees may not enter into contracts or agreements with commercial agencies without formal district [1:39:16] approval it says as such all travel experiences must meet expectations as outlined in this policy and my question [1:39:24] was I'm sorry 4d under guidelines so my [1:39:31] question was because so much from a expectation perspective [1:39:38] dig dig it move to the appendix portion [1:39:43] does it make sense to put in the policy that all travel experiences must meet [1:39:49] expectations as outlined in this policy and appendices and so as part of our [1:39:56] policy we're telling people they have to meet all the information that's in the appendix because there really aren't [1:40:02] clear expectations outlined in the policy they're all outlined in the [1:40:08] appendix does that make sense and so I think if we as a board say that we [1:40:16] people have to meet the expectations and the the appendix it still gives us some [1:40:22] control without moving everything into the policy but if we're not going to say [1:40:28] that I don't know why we even have that sentence because there really isn't anything other than laying out the [1:40:36] mileage that really is controlling anything in the policy does that make [1:40:42] sense and I guess I would add that not all of this is just procedural stuff I [1:40:47] mean we talked about bus times and you know if kids are going to be home later than a certain time what the I mean [1:40:53] there's rules in this appendices so to me it's not really just procedure right [1:41:02] and and and many other districts call those appendices regulations and that actually may be more clarifying I've [1:41:11] wondered if if we need to do shift from following them appendices if we are in [1:41:19] the process and it seems as if administration is really coming to the policy committee is saying we'd like to [1:41:27] to do a slight rethinking of how we [1:41:33] handle policy and shift it to being a little bit more [1:41:40] is what I guess and then but but then we'd need to really clear maybe we need [1:41:46] to clarify that they should be called regulations instead of appendix and is [1:41:53] that - or is that any worse I mean if it's an appendix it would be similarly attached to a policy I don't I don't [1:42:00] know I guess I don't understand enough about why the why that we would be making policy skinnier based on what you [1:42:07] just said so I think that would require a full board discussion if we're going to change our policy practices I just I [1:42:16] think there's there's some some reading into the word policy so we've been [1:42:22] making a distinction about what's in the top document versus an appendix and then as the sentence you read indicated that [1:42:30] people need to comply with the policy and in that sense it's it's a holistic word it's including the appendices I [1:42:36] don't know if you're worried that it's not clear to the reader if you're trying to find a compromise for this table and [1:42:42] I just wanna clarify the appendices are not optional and they are there's nobody who can choose to not comply it with [1:42:49] anything of the words it's written there except John as he is he at the top of [1:42:56] the management decides to change a procedure in which case it it goes to the board it's nothing secret about it it comes to [1:43:03] the board in a notification and if it disturbs enough people on the board there could be board action at that [1:43:09] point or or it could go to a committee there's all sorts of routes that could be a conversation and all sorts of routes to respond I feel like we've got [1:43:16] ourselves a little I want to say stalkers I don't want to dismiss the concern but we've got ourselves talking [1:43:22] about a concern in the abstract without any any actual problem or something [1:43:29] that's gone wrong you can ask a simple question if it's in the appendix rather than the policy as a carry less weight [1:43:36] it carries no less weight the only concern is who could modify it is it [1:43:42] only board approval or is it superintendent with board oversight okay [1:43:48] so if it carries equal weight we did this in the work session for a good 45 minutes as well [1:43:53] that perhaps we just follow through with what the Policy Committee recommends for now and revisit it in a work session no [1:44:03] I'm not calling for additional work session on this topic I'm saying said III I think that an appendix is never [1:44:11] going to clarify every instance of what a policy is intended to meet and there needs to be a certain amount of latitude [1:44:16] given to people that are running the school so I think that the policy is feel relatively clear and we should [1:44:22] debate those and appendices are practices from an operational perspective and that we're not all agreeing on that but I've listened to [1:44:29] this twice now for almost an hour I'm trying to figure out what we're what we're doing so I have a different [1:44:41] question so you talked about the lower cost option being made available you [1:44:47] said the principal had recommended in the same year and the committee elected on prior Sambor following did you [1:44:55] discuss that sub C being offering students in the same cohort prior same [1:45:01] or next in other words right now if you have a 10th grade class that has an option then the next year under this [1:45:10] policy of that 10th grade class could have a different option but you've now missed a year so in other words did you talk about the applying to a cohort only [1:45:18] the extents that that's the consequence that might happen we did mention that we didn't we we did not write a policy that [1:45:24] said every student has a choice between international and regional for every [1:45:30] learning objective that's very constricting and we decided not to and we said and I think Sarah you've mentioned this before that the rotation [1:45:37] idea is already resulting in some students having a chance to travel on [1:45:42] some night and the orchestra the madness is the key example people go to and you know what you're going to with those organizations early because they have a [1:45:48] reliable cycle but nonetheless no one's no one's promised that every student [1:45:54] travel opportunity for every learning objective will get a choice for every student and we started to get towards [1:46:00] that promise with the constraints we put on that within [1:46:07] three year time period there'll be a trip that's not requiring a passport for [1:46:12] similar objectives for one that was we're getting to that but we didn't go I'd say so tight as to come up with your [1:46:21] proposal in fact we we actively acknowledged that there will be students who don't have a choice was one great [1:46:27] for one learning objective so under this one so if there's a science trip to Borneo then some time [1:46:32] you the year before the year after there has to be a similar science trip that [1:46:38] meets the same educational objectives but not necessary for the class that went to Borneo exactly yeah I mean from [1:46:44] my perspective this is an improvement I guess I would kind of look at saying okay let's see how this works in [1:46:50] practice before we start to wordsmith it to death yeah and the and the concern is [1:46:56] you know for for people who are looking forward to that [1:47:02] junior year trip that would always the science trip that seems to always come [1:47:08] up in the international science trip that would be every year and then they'd say now we are not going to be able to [1:47:16] do that so we have to as a as a group realized that this might have that type [1:47:22] of dampening of offerings for [1:47:28] international travel might also open up [1:47:34] travel to students that don't current it does that's a balance it's a balance but it is I mean that's what's going to have [1:47:40] I mean what is the effect of this there's going to be either more or less travel and your guess is as good as mine [1:47:48] but I'm trying to think of what opportunities what are the trips that I know of that are going to be impacted by [1:47:56] this and the only one that comes to mind right away is the science trips and so [1:48:03] what would the effective date of this be so let's say someone is curl if we [1:48:08] approve this next month and someone is currently in the process of scheduling a [1:48:14] trip so do we grandfather ends trips that are currently [1:48:20] in a certain stage have we thought about that [1:48:26] maybe grandfathered into the old policy if they're already in process great well they would get approved but then are [1:48:32] they now required to come up with a lower-cost opportunity that's national [1:48:38] or are they exempt from subsea and that it's anything that comes up and after [1:48:44] anything that's proposed after this notice there has to be an effective date and then the other the other question is [1:48:52] like for foreign exchange trips to Korea what does this do with that you're [1:49:01] probably gonna have to analyze them on a one-by-one basis would be my guess cuz I'm not sure it's as simple as a [1:49:07] broad brushstroke across all so I do think we should just figure out it when [1:49:13] it's effective and to what just so that we don't get kind of in between if this is approved where somebody goes you have [1:49:19] you didn't do such and such and then in the appendices there are some questions [1:49:27] or comments along the side are you looking for answers to those I think [1:49:32] it's more transparency about the discussion and if there's somebody who wants to to add their opinion to those [1:49:40] you're welcome to do that so if the board stays silent and we stay with the language that's within this is F I don't [1:49:48] remember what Roman numeral it is but F [1:49:54] right the question is should it should homestays being only allowed for [1:50:01] international travel so the background [1:50:07] now that watch Mike just kindly sir we haven't had homestays nationally we [1:50:12] talked about whether we should specifically prohibit them and decided [1:50:18] not to at this point and if if for some reason somebody finds a proposal that [1:50:23] includes that across that bridge when we get there is where the committee left it [1:50:29] but those comments are still there for transparency for the board okay can I make a request because I [1:50:38] enjoy the comments on the side it's very helpful and I actually really appreciated your email that you send to [1:50:44] the board with just some background notes but it would be really nice when [1:50:49] we look at policy if whatever was changing from the previous version that [1:50:54] it's somehow in a different color underlined something because as a border I know I know I think you do that in [1:51:00] committee but it really would be nice as a board member to to see that as well so we don't have to sit and go back and [1:51:07] forth between two policies on a regular basis to try to figure out what the changes are I think normally it's in there at just this policy was yeah it [1:51:15] sounds like excuses but this policy was so extensive all right next policy is new the two before it had no change and so there's [1:51:21] no color in the discussion line right no I think that you're typically changes have been highlighted and they are on [1:51:27] the action side today but I see your point sir I think the question is what to do when the changes are so extensive [1:51:33] and I think Lenny you've had the opposite comment of there's so much here so much crosstalk so much moved around it's not clean right Jenna being secular [1:51:41] somewhere that tells when it's knowledge both well one more for discussion [1:51:50] I don't know how brief this one is but the service animals in school this is not the police canine one this is about [1:51:56] Americans with Disability Act compliance this has gone through legal counsel this is that input from some some expertise [1:52:04] as well at the Public Policy Committee it's fairly wordsmith at this point I [1:52:10] will say there are a couple points we will see we're requesting something without mandating it we'll say people [1:52:15] are requested to provide because there are limitations as to what you can require their federal the federal law [1:52:21] lists specific things that you may ask an animal to be removed from grounds for [1:52:27] and some ideas even simple ideas like evidence that the animal is vaccinating [1:52:33] compliance with local laws any evidence of training those are things you may [1:52:39] politely request but you can't stand your stand on your policy and say that we we [1:52:44] demand it you must comply so that some of those are in here to try to help our our system run smoothly but we also are [1:52:50] complying with federal law I have a question I realized that it says in here [1:52:58] that fear of animals and allergies are not a reason not to allow service [1:53:03] animals yes which I totally agree with however my question is from a procedural [1:53:11] perspective will parents and families be notified if a service animal is going to [1:53:17] be in a classroom to balance then because there are families that do have [1:53:23] allergies so not that we should not allow the service animal but so parents [1:53:31] can be notified in case there is a severe allergy that the school can accommodate that prior to school [1:53:37] starting or something like that I don't know John I'd ask your thoughts [1:53:43] on that I'm notifying say a class about the an incoming service animal for the [1:53:50] sake of of consideration of fear or allergies even though it's not the kind [1:53:56] of thing that you can beat it was animal for notify about allergies like don't [1:54:02] bring peanuts into the classroom and stuff like that I didn't know in a situation like this if we would if we [1:54:08] would also notify families in case there is an allergy to the animal [1:54:27] and my second question is and this I [1:54:32] know there have been is there limitation to the types of animals that are [1:54:39] considered service animals because it's not specified in specified oh yeah yeah [1:54:44] I read it to service animals any dog or in some specific circumstances a [1:54:51] miniature horse oh I'm sorry I didn't see that I saw that peacock on the [1:54:57] United Airlines and I just wanted okay thank you okay okay thank you their site is we didn't [1:55:06] mention transportation whether or not it would be I mean I'm assuming we would be [1:55:14] able to take them on buses thank you um [1:55:22] I would just say one final point although we may have discussed this a lot about the Panda C's I think maybe [1:55:29] some clarification is helpful then because past practice has been and we [1:55:35] have been reminded many times that appendices are not in full control of the board so I think part of that is is [1:55:40] is a is a is part of the whole that particularly for me I want to understand [1:55:46] what that means and so if you're talking different language I can't remember what you called it [1:55:52] guidelines or something Ellen regulations then we need to discuss that but I think it whose clarity it will say [1:56:01] that sometimes when there is a change in how we're doing policies that as policies come up every single one is scrubbed to comply with a new lens and [1:56:07] that's not the case here with this discussion so most policies that's not a lens who are looking at to move things [1:56:13] around and to make the policy skinny it's kind of an explanation as to why 538 looks like it does with this [1:56:19] background with discussion we've been having all right any other questions on [1:56:25] the policies right now we're actually gonna take a five-minute recess now we've been going for about three and a [1:56:31] half hours we had a work session before this and then we will come back in five minutes thank you [1:58:23] you [2:03:34] you [2:04:32] all right we are back from my recess thank you everybody we are moving on to [2:04:38] action items and before before we get to action items you thought you were ready [2:04:44] so we have one of the action items which is the purchase of Chromebooks which can [2:04:49] I get a motion to table that till next month it is actually not ready yet so moved are there any questions about [2:04:57] it simply it just isn't ready okay all those in favor of tabling the purchase [2:05:02] of Chromebooks to next month say aye hi any opposed motion carried and now [2:05:08] see we got rid of one of the items on the action long-term facilities [2:05:13] maintenance bond issues can I get a motion to ratify the award of the assail prescribing the Forman details in [2:05:20] providing for the payment of twenty four million plus and general obligations bonds all right now you're up Margo good [2:05:31] evening board superintendent Schultz we started this conversation actually last [2:05:37] November while these new microphones are really loud last November and financial [2:05:43] facilities you as a board in December approved the long updated ten-year long term facility maintenance plan revising [2:05:51] the overall the Edina Community Center projects and instead of a four year [2:05:58] period in about a two and a half year period but yet keeping the tax rate the same Jody and team were were critical in [2:06:08] helping us make sure that we were still able to do that and then in March you [2:06:14] approved a resolution and giving elders and associates Jody's s bun team and [2:06:21] Matt and myself the authority to approve on April 10th last Wednesday bonds if [2:06:29] they came in within the certain parameters that you as a board approved and so we did that and are happy to [2:06:37] report the results came in very good and with that I'll let you give all the good [2:06:44] news house and answer any questions yeah great we have lots of good news to share tonight so on the inside front cover of [2:06:51] our report you'll see a summary of the results of the sale which was last Wednesday and you'll see that the rating [2:06:58] that was assigned again the rating agency Moody's affirmed your triple-a which is the highest rating that they [2:07:05] will give to any school district you are one of only three school districts in the entire state that have their highest [2:07:11] rating so I want to let you know that Margot did a really excellent job of [2:07:16] representing your school district answered all the questions that they had provided lots of additional information so she was key to making sure that you [2:07:24] maintain that high triple-a rating and we were really excited to see that affirmed we did also have the yes well [2:07:38] deserved so he's a team effort it was but you were key to it yes so and then [2:07:47] the Minnesota State credit enhancement rating is also assigned it gives additional insurance to the investors in [2:07:54] the bonds so that was also applied and then the number of bids we received ten [2:07:59] bids so we like to see at least three bids ten bids was remarkable we thought early that morning we had eight signed [2:08:06] up we were just excited about that and we ended up receiving 10 bids so you'll see the low bid at two point seven six [2:08:13] eight zero and the high bid was two point eight nine in the notes at the [2:08:18] bottom of the page you'll see that we had been estimating three point two seven when we met with you on March 11th [2:08:24] so we had a little cushion built in that but rates actually came down so as a result of that nice low rate that you [2:08:31] received there will be payments will be 1.2 million dollars less over the life of [2:08:37] the issue so it makes a huge difference and again thanks to to Margo for being [2:08:44] willing to allow us to follow the schedule to at the parameters resolution I think that really helped I think we [2:08:50] may have hit the low point in the market because rates then went up a little bit at the end of last week so I will step through a couple of [2:08:58] other items within the report and again the rate that we had in the parameter [2:09:03] resolution as you can see on the second page there was four percent so we were well below that no problem they have [2:09:10] already signed the proposal form and locked in to that rate on behalf of the district so you will be ratifying the [2:09:16] sale tonight as part of the resolution that is before you I will go through the attachments so attachments page one and [2:09:23] two are the bid tab the nice little bit from Piper Jaffray out of Minneapolis Minnesota but you had bids from throughout the country within those ten [2:09:30] bills newsy Tennessee a number from New York others from Minnesota Illinois so [2:09:37] that was nice to see and then starting on pages three those are schedules that [2:09:43] were included in your presale report last month so we just have updated those to include the sale results but lots of [2:09:49] good news on page three the sources and uses schedule the premium that we received was actually a little bit [2:09:54] bigger so we don't need to use any of your debt service funds on hand which we had planned to use and we have a little [2:10:00] bit more available for your project costs so kind of a win-win-win in terms of the information included on that page [2:10:06] the detailed debt service schedule for this issue is on page four and then your [2:10:12] long-term plan which we show you many times you'll get used to seeing that from us on pages four and five showing [2:10:18] some of these step downs in your tax rate two on page six then of the report page seven then shows you the the tax [2:10:27] rate or the interest rates over the last couple of years and you'll see that we [2:10:33] definitely hit it on a downturn in the interest rates over the last month so that's good to see I think we're gonna [2:10:39] see that tick back up a little bit but we're happy that we got you in last Wednesday at the low point and then the [2:10:45] press release from Moody's is on page eight followed by the detailed credit opinion on pages 9 and 10 so you'll see [2:10:53] in terms of this credit strengths on page 9 they mentioned the large wealthy tax base very strong income levels [2:10:59] border support for operating levy increases so we talked about that quite a bit in terms of the initial levy [2:11:05] increase and then this step up in fiscal year 2021 which will be coming so they were happy to see that [2:11:11] and encouraged by that news and then credit challenges they did mention [2:11:17] satisfactory but below sector median reserves so your fund balance is a little bit lower than what they see nationwide for districts that are rated [2:11:24] with a triple a and then the above-average debt and pension burden is one that we commonly see for all school [2:11:30] districts in the state of Minnesota especially because of the TRA plan so that is a comment that is almost always [2:11:37] in the Minnesota school district credit opinions and then followed by lots of [2:11:43] detailed information sorry what is the [2:11:49] median reserves for for our season they told us that was about twenty percent so [2:11:54] it is in many states you know it's nationwide so there are a lot of states with much higher fund balance reserve [2:12:01] levels than we have in the state of Minnesota so that kind of skews the data too but yes yes [2:12:09] there's also relative factor of how much states have on hand that affects them now below that you need and there how [2:12:16] much they have what their funding and payment schedule is and also how you operate your districts all factored into [2:12:21] that so it's not just as simple as a number so then lots of detailed [2:12:28] information on the credit opinion continuing through then page 13 is the final page really of that report and [2:12:35] before I forget I don't want to I don't want to forget to mention that we but we [2:12:41] take a look at all of your existing debts continually to see if there's any refunding opportunities and we [2:12:47] summarized kind of your refunding opportunities in a report that we send out to the district twice a year and we [2:12:54] do have a nice refunding opportunity that will likely be the best time to [2:12:59] probably do it will be this fall you have a 2011 B bond issue that has a to [2:13:05] February 1st 2020 call date you can actually close on a refunding of that [2:13:11] bond as a current refunding within 90 days of that call date so in the past I think we've looked at refunding [2:13:17] opportunities for you and have brought those forward to you sometimes as advance sometimes as current the Tax [2:13:24] Reform Act of 2017 disallowed tax exempt advanced refunding transactions so we [2:13:30] can no longer do those but it's going to be a really attractive current refunding opportunity this fall and our current [2:13:35] estimates are showing savings of just over a million dollars so millions sixty-nine thousand dollars so we'll [2:13:41] hopefully be back with more good news again this fall for your taxpayers so just kind of wanted to let you know that [2:13:47] that's on the horizon in addition to the great rates that we got here we think we'll have some nice savings for you [2:13:53] this fall for your taxpayers any [2:14:01] questions this is this really is a huge accomplishment for the finance group as a whole and also speaks to the strength [2:14:07] of our community and our schools and the district as a whole that is the main balance upon which is judged so it shows [2:14:15] the strength of the EPS district thank you guys all right all those in favor of approve of ratifying the award of the [2:14:21] sale described and say aye aye any opposed motion carried great thank you [2:14:27] very much [2:14:38] next can I get a motion to approve the contract provided to us for the United [2:14:45] Community Center Norma Dell toilet renovations [2:14:52] [Laughter] [2:14:57] all right Margo this went out for bid yes and it was already titled I almost [2:15:04] renamed it but that's what the backup said so it truly is what it says it is [2:15:11] part and in all seriousness it is part of the deferred maintenance that we just approved bonds for this is one component [2:15:18] of that so it flows well together and happy to report we got very competitive [2:15:24] bids and are able to recommend base bid plus alternate one and we are within [2:15:30] budget and what answering and we have worked with this contractor before any [2:15:38] questions all those in favor of approving the contract for the renovation say aye [2:15:43] hi any opposed motion carried next can I get a motion to approve the contracts [2:15:49] for the Creek Valley elementary playground improvements Margo I think it [2:15:59] was that last meeting a gift or was approved for the donations from the PTO [2:16:05] for the playground this is awarding the various contracts and so there's quite a [2:16:11] bit of detail in there it's all within the budget the the playground will be [2:16:17] funded primarily through PTO well partially through PTO funds a little bit [2:16:22] of creek valley capital a small amount of district wide capital and then the [2:16:28] remaining is long term facility maintenance because there is a portion that does qualify for that so the two [2:16:34] major sources are the PTO funds and long-term facility maintenance and again [2:16:39] it's within budget and would ask for your approval oh go ahead no I was [2:16:45] asking if there were questions do you know how if we have a guesstimate is how long it took their PTO to raise [2:16:53] that amount of money to to support this because it's quite a quite a bit I don't [2:17:00] know that I'd have to ask Carrie looks like Erica might know okay it's been about 10 years that's kind of what [2:17:06] I figured yeah and is this just just to help all of our PTO s and obviously [2:17:11] Elementary's in this case is it about a ten year or ten plus year okay Chanel [2:17:19] you know setting aside funds for for updating playgrounds I think that would [2:17:26] be a good benchmark we're just because of we've been doing long-term facility [2:17:31] maintenance with the ten year plan just in our facilities in general and now [2:17:37] that we got through the bond construction Eric Hamilton director of [2:17:43] buildings and grounds has really been working on okay we have our indoor spaces but also our outdoor spaces and [2:17:49] what kind of cycle could we be on how do we partner it with our long-term facility maintenance so that it can be [2:17:55] helpful to PTO is because it's a lot to do it's very very expensive or though [2:18:01] worth everything the equipment the earth moving all of it so but I would say [2:18:08] every time it may need to be done sooner but realistically it's probably going to [2:18:15] be that so between the fundraising and getting back to it and just one final [2:18:20] question because I know this comes up a lot the PT in whatever fundraising that [2:18:29] they do then their efforts though for any playground work needs to be coordinated with the district and all [2:18:35] that playground then is owned by the district yes yes and we do want the [2:18:40] coordination with the district because we want their funds spent wisely and we [2:18:47] have it many many years many years ago where well-intentioned parents fund [2:18:54] raised and had a plan started but there wasn't a conversation about the actual [2:18:59] space and the earth were what needed to be done under the ground and so there [2:19:05] were additional costs and and that's where we need to work on it together so that if people have really worked hard [2:19:11] to generate funds we want to make sure we're maximizing those and doing what's intended and then there's not surprises [2:19:18] along the way because that doesn't make anybody happy I had a quick question I [2:19:25] don't know if you can answer it but might be more an Eric Hamilton question do you know what surface they're [2:19:31] planning on using around the play equipment and the reason I'm asking is because I know when Cornelia did their [2:19:40] renovation the play or the material they used for infill is a DA compliance but [2:19:47] they now are having issues with students with wheelchairs actually accessing the playground and I wanted to just check to [2:19:54] see if Creek Valley has considered that especially with the student population that's that Creek Valley I I believe [2:20:02] they have but I can't say a hundred percent for sure so I will make a note I'm going to get back to and I'll visit [2:20:08] with Eric okay thank you all right all [2:20:13] those in favor of approving the contract for the Creek Valley elementary school playground improvement say aye aye [2:20:19] any opposed motion carried can I get a motion to approve the purchase of five used buses from Oakland bus company [2:20:29] Margaux this is our annual replacement of aging buses I'm happy to report [2:20:36] similar to two years ago David was able to Huglin bus actually has some buses [2:20:43] coming off a lease early only used one year low mileage warranty still in place [2:20:49] has all the Minnesota state requirements for a vehicle so were you able to [2:20:54] actually purchase five with the dollars that we have which is awesome your I do apologize I had attached last [2:21:01] year's detail for you in your board packet but that's part of the handout one of the handouts that you have the [2:21:08] quote analysis for this year I would ask for your approval and answer [2:21:14] any questions that you have and this [2:21:21] just continues our cycle that you guys have put into place to replace buses on a regular basis rather than falling into [2:21:28] a situation where we would have to place a great deal at one time yes thank you annual allocation and it comes out of [2:21:36] capital and you're comfortable that this [2:21:42] approach gets us more years per dollar of usage equal to or more years of usage [2:21:50] per dollar so if we bought a new bus you'd get comparing a new versus used [2:21:56] you've kind of looked at it go this one will get us an equal or less expensive [2:22:02] yes because they're only a year old and they're still under warranty and also now with our new facility and we have a [2:22:09] wash Bay so I think all of that combines together any other questions all those in favor [2:22:17] of approving the purchase of the five used buses from Hogan bus say aye aye any opposed motion carried [2:22:24] next can I get a motion to accept Thank You Margo mm-hm [2:22:31] Jake a motion to accept revised policy 502 I get a second Emira all right so [2:22:45] it's policy we discussed last meeting and it has since been narrowed to only [2:22:52] authorized use of the trained canines in school parking areas other other areas [2:23:00] inside the school would still be subject to to search as long same policy has if [2:23:05] there's reasonable suspicion but that reasonable suspicion isn't authorized to come from our trained canine questions I [2:23:14] have questions I personally would I would like to [2:23:20] request that we have time to discuss this at a work session so we can have a [2:23:26] more in-depth discussion about this policy and some questions that I [2:23:32] personally have that I think that we need to discuss before approving this policy and one thing that I would like [2:23:40] to understand which I asked last time is I'd like to get a better understanding of what is the high schools in our [2:23:47] districts holistic approach to the drug issue at the school and how does this policy support these efforts and I want [2:23:55] to make sure that we're doing our due diligence to map out what are the implications of instituting this policy [2:24:01] do we need to look at the discipline policy does this policy help with things [2:24:06] like kids selling prescription pills I just want to make sure that we're doing [2:24:12] what we need to do from a school management and implementation perspective and that that's driving [2:24:17] policy not that our policy is actually driving what we should be doing from a [2:24:22] drug safety perspective and my concern is that this is just one tool in a [2:24:31] larger toolkit and I think it it's such an issue that it deserves a broader [2:24:36] discussion for us to have as a board so that's so I would just throw out there [2:24:43] that I think there kind of three ways to approach what you're saying one is if you think that the broader conversation [2:24:50] and now that there isn't a holistic approach but the broader conversation reviewing that wouldn't happen if you [2:24:55] don't hold this up that this is like a trigger to make that conversation happen I don't know that that's the case another way to look at your your request [2:25:03] is that that broader conversation would uncover a reason that this is a [2:25:08] misguided plan and I don't know that that I don't see any indication of that at this point and then the Third Way [2:25:15] which is kind of where I approach it is that what you're saying is reasonable and prudent and there should be maybe a [2:25:21] more of a more of a longer look even from the governance level at response to [2:25:27] the concerns about illegal substances and and the accompanying problems in our [2:25:33] schools and I would support that I don't push back on that but I don't I don't see that tied to not getting this [2:25:40] particular measure approved this meeting and I will say there's been there's been some talk about when the first use would [2:25:46] be maybe it would be delayed to be part of more of a comprehensive look or to be part of a longer consideration of this I [2:25:53] don't know that that has unanimous support either I think there's also a concern of look if you know that this [2:25:58] one thing is a reasonable step and you had some intention to take take the [2:26:04] first week maybe even this school year don't hold up just because there are other things to do with no one says that [2:26:10] we have to move forward in lockstep but that's also not eat animals position I support that but I just want to clarify [2:26:15] I would support pushing this particular approval forward tonight and not letting go of a another concern of yours [2:26:23] and bringing it up again I'm fine with that I just I want to make sure that my [2:26:31] main concern is I want to make sure that we're not approving this policy under [2:26:36] the presumption that doing this is the only thing that needs to be done about [2:26:41] what's going on at the high school and that we really need to have a broader discussion from a governance perspective [2:26:48] to make sure that are there other things that we need to do do we need to add [2:26:55] things to this policy and like I said do we need to look at our discipline policy in conjunction to this and that that's [2:27:04] what I that's my concern is that were taking a more holistic approach and it's not just about now that we have these [2:27:12] dogs in the parking lot and I'm not saying that's what we're trying to do but I do think that this needs to be a [2:27:19] larger discussion and then in addition to that I just had a question from a [2:27:24] policy perspective and it talks about we have and just for everyone's reference [2:27:31] in section 2 the general statement of policy D says under personal possessions [2:27:39] and students person it says when a school official has read suspicions that a search will uncover a violation of law the school basically it [2:27:47] says the school official may search a student's personal possessions and then [2:27:52] the second section is about k9 searches so my question is do cars fall under a [2:28:01] personal possession because then if a car is a personal possession we say that [2:28:08] it requires a reasonable suspicion but under k9 searches it looks like it's [2:28:14] more a random search and you wouldn't require the reasonable suspicion the [2:28:20] indication from the k-9 is the reasonable citizen that's not the only way to come up with a reasonable [2:28:26] suspicion which is why student lockers could also be searched [2:28:31] we wouldn't authorize a dog near the locker and yet you may still have another source of reasonable suspicion it's a relatively low threshold as far [2:28:39] as these legal thresholds go it can't be a hunch it can't be a guess a suspicion [2:28:46] it can't be random but it's relatively low threshold that students don't have [2:28:52] very much power over their locker to say you know I need to see a warrant and [2:28:58] then they can record themselves they told me got to have a warrant you can't do that and so it's that section D is [2:29:05] separate from section II Section D says if there's reasonable suspicion the [2:29:11] school could look in a locker and other place isn't in compliance with law and policy and rules so what it's getting [2:29:16] that and then section 'ya mentions that we authorized the use of specially [2:29:23] trained dogs in the parking lot by school officials which is more of I wouldn't say random search but it's it's [2:29:31] a and on with it's a search that doesn't require a reasonable suspicion to get it started and then once the dog indicates [2:29:37] that it has detected something in a particular student's car then you have [2:29:44] reasonable suspicion to contact the student ask to have them open the car they may still refuse and it's not like [2:29:51] we would put a boot on the car and and go that route but they may they may suffer an administrative response as the [2:29:59] policy says here such as loss of parking lot privileges so I guess from my [2:30:04] perspective it would be more clear if in Section E it stated that an alert from a [2:30:11] dog is considered a reasonable suspicion it says that a number three definitions [2:30:18] reasonable suspicion and it's been added and alert from a specially trained dog thank you yep no problem now that makes [2:30:25] more sense thank you so I have a couple of [2:30:30] questions I actually thought principal Beaton was going to be here to answer them but maybe you know them first what [2:30:37] is the issue that were after by having dogs in the parking lot I mean I know [2:30:45] the say that I have a holistic response here question I mean I know this was a recommendation from the principal which [2:30:51] is why and in fact I just went back to the minutes and it said that we had asked for him to be here and so I [2:30:57] thought because before adopting a policy my first question is so what are the issue we're trying to address so I don't [2:31:08] have to show for it I just want to throw it when one particular point and that is [2:31:13] I think it's a reasonable request among [2:31:19] many members that if there is if there's concern about drugs on campus and you [2:31:24] know that this is one measure that could help deter that problem and it lends [2:31:31] itself to to a lot of things education deterrent supervision enforcement and if [2:31:37] it's as simple as as authorizing this [2:31:42] particular measure and then the administrators have so much discretion so much other power and control and [2:31:48] resources that they can leverage and and adapt to what they see is best for our [2:31:53] students in compliance with law and policy it's all part of a big response and to say no here sounds like we're [2:32:01] we're erring on the side of something that I wouldn't want to err on that's if that's denial or privacy or [2:32:08] something where we just there's there's enough reason to at least authorize the [2:32:14] administration to have this this tool and I I agree with you at you know we [2:32:19] did sort of say we shouldn't say so we did say it would be helpful to have him here again he didn't come to our first policy committee meeting I didn't ask [2:32:26] him to come to this next meeting it wasn't at our second policy meeting so maybe that's on me but there wasn't in [2:32:33] particular something that I found lacking in in his response and John I'll let you speak tortue but I found this to [2:32:39] be a reasonable request and one that has concerns about a holistic response which [2:32:47] you know he has off authorization already for many of those levers but maybe concerned about providing him more [2:32:54] resources more training more time there may be some of those but but I think this is a fine request and I'm in favor [2:33:02] of voting in favor tonight so so the [2:33:09] rationale that principle beaten and I talked about when this came forward it's [2:33:15] really just to give the high school another tool for managing the presence [2:33:21] of chemicals on campus it's that as simple as that and to I mean I could [2:33:32] infer that if you have dogs that it might might slow down drug use or drug [2:33:38] prevalence it seems to me that we've talked about being a data-driven board and so now I'm faced with a policy and [2:33:47] so the question is what's the issue or after what's the evidence that this will solve the issue as opposed to [2:33:53] assumptions that were making at this point what happens if they find [2:33:59] contraband so there are options for a [2:34:06] student discipline I take it but do we know what do they notify the police if the contraband is an illegal substance [2:34:18] you have to be under the discipline policy and I don't know that well enough to say that enough anybody when you have [2:34:26] any actually excuse me it's the question [2:34:33] that if drugs are found by a sniffing dog is that what you're asking Lenny or is there a different question [2:34:39] well the buddy the police officer has those the dog and so if drugs are found [2:34:45] then it's becomes a police matter [2:34:51] well what you said was a little different Paul that's what I clarified it's not the same as saying the police officer would search the vehicle is that [2:34:58] the police officer would report an indication from the dog and then from there it's an administrative response [2:35:07] but I thought money was saying if there were drugs and he found but maybe I [2:35:13] misunderstood thank you that way that if the police officer found the drugs but our response as communicated at the last [2:35:21] meeting in policy committee was that this would be this would be an administrative response to that [2:35:27] indication that our administrators aren't handling the dog but they take the information about what the dog [2:35:33] handler found something there's yeah so you're stealing that administrative Lea I think there's two things gone here [2:35:39] there are two parts to this now and so one is there's a police matter and then the administrator sorry but the [2:35:46] administrator then works with the police as well on on the situation so it's a [2:35:53] it's a dual process that we that we work with with the police and then notifying [2:35:59] the family the administrator notifies the family that drugs have been found and then we follow the policy our [2:36:06] discipline policy as well as well does that answer your question [2:36:12] Lenny because I'm still not clear what so typically your question was so Mike [2:36:18] when I read through this if the student says you can't you know if the car is identified by the dog and the student [2:36:24] says no you can't open it then it presumably stays in an MS of matter because there's no illegal [2:36:31] substance that's found it seems to me if they then open the car and find an illegal substance that that becomes a [2:36:37] police matter as well as an administrative matter just because you can't stop the police aspect of locating [2:36:44] an illegal drug I think that there's two parts to things going on one is when the [2:36:50] dog is doing a search there is a hit on the car right and then the then it's the [2:36:56] administrator to bring the student in and do the search or proceed with the [2:37:01] procedures for the search of the car if contraband is found then it's like finding contraband in our school isn't [2:37:06] any different whether you find it on grounds whether you find in the school are you finding in the car and then we go through the same procedures that [2:37:11] we've always gone through with drug contraband I guess that was gonna be my [2:37:18] question is what is the difference if a dog sniff hit the made a hit on the car [2:37:24] what if it fell out of their backpack or something I mean whatever way you find it we must have a procedure of how that [2:37:31] is handled so I don't see how this would be different just because it was a dog sniffing it well it says in Section six [2:37:44] it says if a search yields contraband school officials will seize the item and where appropriate turned it over to [2:37:49] legal officials for ultimate disposition and that was in there prior to the dog [2:37:57] part time do do we have an opinion from [2:38:02] someone with an administration that there's an issue that exists that they believe that this will address and that [2:38:08] this is the best way to address it and I don't mean a written opinion but I mean it is that the gist of what was [2:38:14] presented to the policy committee or are we just making assumptions I I think [2:38:21] this was a request by the principal to have an additional tool to have another [2:38:32] area of the school be sir you know have [2:38:38] surveillance of another area of the school related to Kim that we don't normally look at so to say [2:38:48] it's tied to a data point related to drug use no we don't have any of that [2:38:53] when it goes to Erika's argument of having a more holistic look at this which is something we can do too and I [2:39:00] think the holistic approach is good and I do think there are other things going [2:39:06] on but when we take a look at this to me [2:39:11] we already have a search policy this is just adding an another way of doing [2:39:16] searches and the bottom line is it's these are looking for illegal substances [2:39:22] substances that a student shouldn't have in the first place let alone have on our campuses so the I'm not sure what we're [2:39:32] trying to protect somebody from in finding that they've broken the law or [2:39:40] rules or policy to me to me this seems I mean because this could have gone [2:39:46] further and dogs being in school and finding it in other ways so I I guess I'm I'm not understanding why there [2:39:54] would be a problem with this I mean the bottom line is to me it's unwelcoming that my kid has to go to school and see [2:40:01] these things or be exposed to these things at the high school so this to me [2:40:07] is a just exactly what dr. Schultz said it's a tool and I hope it in and then [2:40:14] ultimately it should discourage students but in the end they shouldn't have had it there in the first place [2:40:20] so I'm certainly not in favor of illegal substances in the school what I'm trying [2:40:26] to understand is just to make sure that there's someone who behind this policy who says they believe there's an issue [2:40:31] if they believe this is the best way to address the issue and that we as a board understand the consequences and then [2:40:37] just as a technical matter this is a contraband policy but it doesn't call for a search of the vehicles for [2:40:45] contraband it all sudden uses prohibited items and illicit substances it kind of changes the terminology right in the [2:40:51] middle of what is being authorized and that logically doesn't make sense it [2:40:56] should say that it would alert officials to the presence of contraband since [2:41:02] that's what the policy is because now you're using terms that are undefined [2:41:07] but so all I was looking for was is there so is there it is there so when [2:41:21] you have a defined term and your policy is set to address that defined term to start using other terms within it [2:41:28] without defining them becomes problematic so it illicit substances what would that be that chemicals aren't [2:41:34] or drugs aren't I don't know what an illicit substances I mean it could be an [2:41:40] illegal drug it could be a prescription that isn't made out to you because [2:41:46] you're not allowed to have have a prescriptions not made out to you that might be enough I don't know if you're [2:41:53] telling me that someone came before the committee and said that this is a policy [2:41:58] that is intended to address an issue that they professionally believe exists and that this is tailored to address it [2:42:05] then I'm ultimately not going to oppose it I do think that this policy needs more work and it does need as Erica said [2:42:12] a more holistic approach if I could jump [2:42:17] in it was administratively driven and I don't know if we heard of counts and I [2:42:23] there wasn't data behind it but I do know that anecdotally there are kids who [2:42:33] are taking advantages of taking advantage of drugs when they otherwise wouldn't have it seems to be a problem [2:42:40] of opportunity the opportunity of availability and were the availability not there that the child would not have [2:42:47] been tempted to use it and so there's a very act of concern among a set of [2:42:52] parents that their kids would not have been involved had the availability of the substance not been there on school [2:42:59] on school property and I think that that's driving part of this [2:43:05] and the rules are already in place it's just an extension of the realm that we're going actively into the parking [2:43:13] lot which is already school property and the substance shouldn't be there so and [2:43:19] I think it's somewhat urgent in the sense that the earlier a child starts [2:43:24] abusing drugs the more likely they are to have a problem with it in their lifetime and so I think some mning the [2:43:34] tool set of our administration to get on top of this fast is pretty important and [2:43:41] so I like to move this forward pretty quickly and then to address Eric is [2:43:49] concerned that this is incremental it is in no way to be interpreted as a holistic drug policy drugs are talked [2:43:57] about in health classes so but I think that I would be open to a workshop a [2:44:04] work session where we do talk about it so to me approval of this policy does [2:44:10] not in any way mean that this is a substitute substitution for other very [2:44:16] significant education and other interactions that we ought to do as a [2:44:23] school district regarding illegal substances and I just want to mention I [2:44:30] don't know if I don't know what the situation is you know we want to talk [2:44:36] about data-driven is it is it on the rise or is it unusually high I have no [2:44:43] evidence that it's any higher than in any other high school so I'm just gonna [2:44:48] say that I know that Andy Beaton came to [2:44:54] the policy meeting and he's coming he came here from Bloomington and they have [2:45:00] this policy there he told us that Wayzata and Minnetonka have this policy [2:45:07] as well so it this isn't something that seems as if it's I think we are more the [2:45:16] outlier without having this policy than than having it and when the principal came I had to [2:45:23] listen to him and think that he understands how he would manage this [2:45:29] situation and I took his advice that's where I was going so then you I want to [2:45:35] respond to some of your points and then offer a correction to some of the points I would normally applaud you know the [2:45:41] request for data where's the data and that's something that it's kind of been a minority champion point for a long [2:45:46] time I mean interrupt for a second because I have scaled it back to at least is there you know recommend I know [2:45:52] I've heard that too I mean you're being very clear and I think you're you're you're looking for something reasonable [2:45:58] but you're also at one point you mentioned the policy needs to be holistic but I think what you meant was maybe like the district's approach or [2:46:05] its its response to a very complex problem needs to be holistic not this [2:46:10] policy this is a very narrow policy about search you're concerned about the [2:46:17] word I respect that that technical catch I will say it's not like it's a glaring [2:46:22] loophole because it does say contraband but it says contraband is an unauthorized item possession of which is prohibited later it says prohibited item [2:46:29] and it says contraband includes controlled substances later it says illicit substances so you're right [2:46:35] it's not exactly a match but it's also not a glaring omission if the board wants to to edit those words and come [2:46:43] back to this in a month oh I'm not gonna argue that point but I don't think it's a if we approved it tonight I don't think it would be limiting and and the [2:46:51] correction is they did I did confirm our discipline policy about controlled [2:46:56] substances and alcohol are chemicals if it's for personal use possession or uses [2:47:03] up to the building administration in primary but in secondary well six [2:47:09] through 12 I should say six through twelve it's three days suspension and police referral is our policy in a [2:47:15] separate policy and it gets more of a suspension ten days if there's an intent [2:47:21] to distribute so to the extent that I've been repeating the notion that should [2:47:28] the car have consent to search and the administration finds a sir and we complied with our policy that [2:47:33] does include this please referral which I've said otherwise previously tonight [2:47:40] so it is the bottom line from it that the presentation to the committee was [2:47:48] that this was proposed by principal beaten because he believes there is a [2:47:53] legitimate issue out there and that this is a reasonable way to address it that's yes and that this is the reason this is [2:48:00] a part of a reasonable address it which is currently not addressed in policy and so he was coming to the policy committee [2:48:06] for a detail of his thoughts which was it wasn't exactly prohibited but it [2:48:11] wasn't addressed in policy and so he wasn't coming to us in response to board [2:48:18] and committee concern about the drug problem but but out of a need to update [2:48:23] policy to come to have his response be backed up his response which included [2:48:30] this component and I think that's that's partly where this conversation is [2:48:36] getting stuck is that we keep thinking about a bigger picture when it really [2:48:42] this whole conversation began with a rather narrow component that touched the [2:48:47] board policy directly and so if we pass this then we're agreeing that we'll come [2:48:53] back and try to and request a broader approach to issues within the district I [2:49:00] think that has broad consensus i okay all right I think I because I don't [2:49:07] think technically these dogs are going to be catching vaping materials and [2:49:13] making materials are a huge problem well same with alcohol and I would it and I [2:49:19] wouldn't describe how I was a huge problem but it is an issue I wouldn't want to start throwing in but the fact that student can't really use a high [2:49:26] school bathroom without being exposed to vaping is is getting out of control so I [2:49:31] wholeheartedly endorse a further discussion on this and how we can work [2:49:37] with our kids to move past these things and I agree I didn't mention it [2:49:43] I agree that there should be a board work session or discussion on what is [2:49:50] going on I I can't say that I know even but I I believe that we really do have [2:49:55] programs at the high school I that we do and I'd like to hear about them before [2:50:03] we are just assuming that we don't and that we're not actively working toward this so I actually I I do feel strongly [2:50:12] that there should be a holistic approach I am a little I can understand I do like [2:50:19] having a tidy policy where everything is defined but I don't really want to [2:50:24] necessarily wait on this either the only other request that would make [2:50:31] us as we look at consequences that we might want to get information on first [2:50:36] offense because I think that we can understand that teenagers sometimes make [2:50:42] bad decisions and I'm not sure that I want to have a policy in place that [2:50:49] creates an issue over a lifetime for a bad mistake that's once all right any [2:50:57] other questions all those in favor of approving policy 502 as presented say [2:51:03] aye hi any opposed motion carried [2:51:15] we have any updates committee updates I think that's what round are no committee [2:51:24] updates I think we've had alright we had [2:51:32] talked about possibly having a further discussion and I can try to relate this [2:51:38] back to teaching and learning so in our discussion this evening at our work session we were talking about map data [2:51:43] and there were some questions within that and then board member Ellen brought [2:51:49] up wanting to take a deeper look at how that can tie into the strategic plan and [2:51:57] many board members brought that up so I'm just wondering I think there was talk right at the end possibly looking [2:52:03] to add a work session regarding strategic planning around assessment and [2:52:09] data and and trajectory of what has caused some of the the the drops in in [2:52:18] test scores so I thought I'd just bring that up as part of our update to see if [2:52:23] there was any consensus or further discussion around that topic of adding a work session so I think Matt had also [2:52:30] talked about having a small group of the board get together to try to create an outline for a next meeting and getting [2:52:38] that approved by the board and then I mean we can scheduled a meeting in the interim and I think we had had a [2:52:43] placeholder of may 6th it's just a matter of how quickly we can get information together but I think that is [2:52:49] the plan oh no I I don't have answers to [2:52:57] any of my questions anyway I think that the small group will help facilitate [2:53:03] that so just for clarification Matt's idea would be that we'd have somebody before May 6 yeah my idea was listening [2:53:09] to the conversation we've had going into the strategic planning meeting one of the goals was to have a consistent set [2:53:15] of data upon which we would all review it and discuss it and then think about what's working what's not what do we [2:53:22] want to change what's not and how do we track Changez we all I think felt like as especially myself Alan and Sarah working [2:53:30] as kind of according to command the strategic planning a group that we were a little data light in some of these [2:53:35] categories so the question now was instead of having more work sessions without giving guidance from the board [2:53:42] initially what we're looking for to the administration that a smaller subgroup of the board would work with if you lead [2:53:48] team members and John to talk about what would be a great way to present the data between us and then have a work session [2:53:55] after that rather than just the idea of going into the work sessions when it seems like we're just kind of missing [2:54:00] each other a little bit would be better so small groups would connect then I have another work session so how what [2:54:09] kind of small group are you going to assign to this that would be my question so would you send it back to that [2:54:14] original committee that worked on the strategic plan so either I would so I [2:54:24] don't have an answer that yet I would like to know who would want to be on that small subgroup though I would I [2:54:32] think I would I'm certainly willing to [2:54:39] be on it as since I was on the other committee but I don't want to bounce to anybody else who wants the wants to do [2:54:45] it so I'm just collecting names for the moment all right all right anything else [2:54:55] we have completed our agenda is there any objection to a journey hearing none we are adjourned thank you everybody