order of business tonight is the program review progress and and math. I think that cut got cut off a little bit. Anyway, welcome. Come on up to the board table. excited for this um presentation and thanks for being here this evening. Turn it over to Dr. Mary Perry Reed. Thank you, Chair Andrea, and good evening to board members, community members, and um staff. So, as our presenters approach the board table here, I'll just provide a quick framing and then turn it over to Dr. Erdle. Um, as we have reviewed with our board before, one of our district's learning and teaching goals is that by June 2025, in partnership with our math specialist and innovation design and learning team, we will select and prepare for the adoption of a new K5 core math curriculum that is evidence-based, equitable, and aligned with district learning goals as well as state and national standards. So, under the guidance of our innovation design and learning team as well as our district math specialist, Elsa Gaul, um a district-wide team of teachers has been reviewing um this process and engaging in this in this process. The selection team ensured that math materials piloted were vetted, aligned to state standards, and offered national proof points for achievement gains. We also looked very carefully at teacher feedback as well as met with our ESAC committee and community members. So, I'm really pleased to have our presenters share more information with you. As we know, mathematics learning and teaching is critically important not just for each and every one of our students, but for the future of this country. We need to produce students who are mathematicians and scientists, data scientists, and are using math in all kinds of ways. So we take this work very seriously. So I'm going to turn it over to Dr. Erdle. We also have Dr. Campy, Alyssa Kappell, and Elsa G. And thank you very much for being here. Thank you very much, Dr. Mary Perry Reid. Good evening, board members. Um we're pretty excited to be here tonight and talking to you about um really one of the most important core functions of a district level learning and teaching team which is program review and continuous improvement processes. So tonight we are going to be discussing our progress in really revitalizing our program review um and continuous improvement process as well as standards review and utilize a K12 math as a our case study. We'll be ending the presentation tonight with a recommendation for an elementary math materials adoption and then have time for your questions. So as we begin this conversation about our program review process, I wanted to ground us in three guiding principles which is which are inherit inherited, interconnectedness and intentional. So inherited reflects the foundation that we've built over time in this district. Our curriculum is shaped by years of research, practice, and community values. And we want to honor what's been passed down and recognize the need to evolve and improve to meet the needs of today's students. Interconnectedness reminds us that curriculum is not developed in isolation. It's part of a broader ecosystem that includes our learning framework, educator practices, and student experiences, and community input. Our review process reflects this by intentionally integrating voices from across our system, including educators, students, caregivers, community members. Intentional speaks to our design approach. We're not reviewing programs for compliance. We're doing it to create meaningful, equitable, and future ready learning experiences. And that's why we are aligning our program review cycle with our lab operating system to ensure that every decision is grounded in real time feedback, design thinking, and our long-term student outcome goals. So this framing will help us kind of move forward with clarity and purpose as we examine where our curriculum stands today and where we want it to go. So let me walk you through really briefly how our program review process has evolved and how we're aligning it now. Historically, this district followed approximately a 10-year review cycle um for all curricular areas, unless that was accelerated by the adoption of state standards that were at a different cycle. In 2018, you'll recall we restructured our teaching and learning department into the innovation design and learning team, which marked a departure from content area coordinators in each curricular area. And that same year we were in year three of a science review. Then 2019 the pandemic disrupted our own internal processes and timelines but also the state's rollout of academic standards. Many of them got delayed in the postcoid period. So far we have resumed with reviews in physical education which is now in year two of a standards review and implementation and the arts which is also in year two. So it's important to know that we're not just restarting we are also rethinking the processes. We want to retool the process to reflect our learning framework and to integrate the lab operating system. And this is more about um more than just the structure. it's actually changing the drivers for the implementation. So, previous curricular cycles have focused on textbooks and we know that we want to move away from sort of reactive and print-based approaches to more flexible approaches and also we want to move toward timely and researchbased practices that are responsive to students needs right now and also grounded in real-time feedback. So, by embedding design thinking, community voice, and iterative improvement to every phase of our program um development, we're building a system that's more coherent, transparent, and impactful. I hope this graphic looks familiar. So, to strengthen our system of continuous improvement, we're redesigning the cycle using the lab um operating system as our foundation. As a reminder, the lab operating system, it's our internal framework for piloting, refining, and scaling successful practices. And so by integrating it with program review, we're creating a more dynamic process. And that alignment ensures that design thinking guides each phase of curricular and program review. Community and caregiver voice is intentionally embedded in decision making and scalable solutions are grounded in real-time feedback and aligned with our long-term strategic goals. So ultimately this approach helps us move from exploration toward implementation with more coherence and transparency. So I'm just going to walk through the stages of the review cycle. You'll see there are six steps and it's a circle for a reason because improvement obviously is continuous. So the first phase is empathize to understand and that means we're beginning by centering the voices of our students, family and staff. The step is about listening deeply to understand their lived experiences and needs and sets a foundation for equitydriven decision-making. Stage two is disrupt or optimize. At this stage we have to make a critical decision. Do we continue optimizing with our current approach or is a more disruptive change needed and that is where innovation and um bold big bold moves come into play. Step three is test and collect. So we pilot on a small scale collecting data to assess impact and this allows us to learn quickly and make informed adjustments before scaling up. And stage four is plan, do, study, act, PDSA. We reflect on what we've learned um and revise our approach accordingly. This step ensures that our actions are responsive and grounded in evidence. The next step is optimization. So once we've identified if there are gaps, how do we optimize existing practices? And that might mean a reallocation of resources, adjusting strategies, or enhancing supports to better meet student needs. And finally, oh, you know what? Actually, I think I've got these reversed. So, the gap analysis comes before optimization. They're correct if you follow the circle around. So, um, the reason that it's a circle is because it's dynamic and it's iterative, which means that we have to revisit it regularly and constantly reassess which phase we are at. And a lot of times you have to go back and retest what you're doing to see if you are making an impact on student outcomes. So as part of the review process, we will engage caregivers throughout the process. Our board policy says that we will engage an educational services advisory committee fondly known as ESAC um as a formal component of our program review and continuous improvement cycle. So following the evolution of the teaching and learning department into the IDL team, we identified a need to strengthen engagement with caregivers and community stakeholders. So in response, we broadened participation through more open invitations to include more inclusive input. Uh to build on this momentum and ensure more sustained and meaningful engagement, we will now formalize ESAC with more standing membership. So this structure will com provide consistent representation and ongoing feedback to support decision-making. This team will offer insight and recommendations for each curricular area or program as it enters into its scheduled phase of review, helping to ensure that the alignment is with district goals as well as community expectations. So now I'm going to turn it over to Alyssa who's going to talk more in depth about the phases of the review process and she'll be followed by Elsa who is going to share more about the process specific to math and where we've arrived. Thank you Dr. Erdle. Thank you to the members of the board and Dr. Mary Perry Reid for your support as we build this process to design amazing learning experiences for our staff and students. As an alluded to, we are very excited to articulate this intentional cycle that demands interconnectedness. And I'd like to spend the next 10 minutes or so sharing the importance of each phase. Each phase contains research practiced change management. Each every component is in service to the Hopkins learning framework. Many systems overemphasize the material components of curriculum review. We need consistent assessment plans and strong pedagogical practices guided by the Hopkins learning framework to transform our learning opportunities. If only all it took to be a better golfer was a better set of clubs, wouldn't the world be different? So, let's tee off with phase one. So, the phase one, we focus on what are we doing and why. That leads us into establishing the foundations for this practice. And as we look at what is the underlying current, this work is led and driven by a group of teachers to best celebrate and honor where we have been, where we dream a bit around what transformations could be and to do some technical work a little bit differently, all while focusing on student outcomes. Phase two is guided practice in the art of letting [Laughter] go. Gap analysis helps analyze. You can go ahead and switch that. Thanks. Gap analysis helps analyze the discrepancies between reality and desired outcomes. This is also the point in the process where we need our biggest paradigm shift. We are not selecting a text and then deciding what we want students to learn. We are designing the student outcomes and then finding the resources to support that learning. Ultimately, our gap analysis encompasses these three areas. We look at cultural belonging, consistent instruction, and coherent curriculum. We want to make sure we move everybody to an optimization of that no matter where we have been. Not to degrade what we've done before, but knowing that we can always do better. So no matter what the content or program, we c we compare this configuration to rightly inform our recommendations that move us to the ideal state of rigorous student outcomes. We systemat systematize horizontal and vertical alignment along with the evaluation of the tools. So in phase two, we use rubrics that demand interconnectedness with vision 2031 standards around equity, inclusion, and innovation to find the best fit for teaching and learning in our demanding ecosystem. By bundling standards and focusing on student outcomes first, we can leverage the resource recommendations with confidence that it supports our state standards and that it lifts up best practices around for our students to experience. We could be here for days celebrating implementation science. I know it's a little nerdy. We could I could be here for days. We actually do really get really excited about this. We're a little We're a little Yeah. So phase three is about the idea of launching that initial implementation. And you're going to see that really well illustrated with the case study for math. But this is the how we're going to do this. And not just how we're going to do it, but how are we going to do it? Well, we're going to talk about hard words like fidelity. Intentional moves ensure that our teachers have professional learning opportunities along this whole journey. This increases fidelity and builds interconnectedness as we implement the scope and sequence with our scholars. After all of that and whether those phases each take a year, those are the first three. They might not take a year. We might be able to do phases one and two concurrently just depending on where a program or content area is at. But after all of that, we move right into continuous improvement based on Dr. Deming's integrated learning and implementation model. Plan, do, study, act. We repeatedly examine needs, data, and outcomes to address any issues that arise. We need to be responsive. Yes. Years four to six. Notice how I shifted from phases to years. It is intentional that years four to six are all focused on revisions while optimizing experiences. So even though phases 1 through three might not take three years, phases four through six are intentionally there so that we can be good at what we do and then do better and make those improvements where needed. This ultimately positions us to undergo gap analysis in a timely manner which then supports us to return to phase one. To best manage the load on our resources, we have scoped which programs enter phase one from year to year. Here is a sample of some of the programs and their current placement in the cycle. There is also a link in there for you to see the draft working draft of that schedule. Please note that this process is not just about core content areas. If you notice under phase 1 for 2425, it's listing math 612, which is our example for tonight, but it's also listing CCR, and that stands for college and career readiness. Our high school, our secondary counselor, 612, worked very hard on the scope and sequence and aligning national standards around college and career readiness for our scholars in conjunction with the adoption of a digital tool or digital resource called Maya. We sunset Naviance last year due to lots of reasons, functionality and all the things onboarded Maya and so we wanted to optimize the use of that tool. The counselors immediately jumped in with the idea of like wait, we're not going to let the tool tell us what to do. We're going to say what we need to do and then we're going to build the tool to support it. And that's exactly what they did. So this process includes all program areas across all of our systems. This recalibration of the program review process worked seamlessly through a case study approach with our K12 math content area. Postcoid, we recognized that we did not have a standardized coherent curriculum or consistent teaching practices. One of our superintendent's goals was to prepare the system for an elementary math adoption. We've done that. Elsa here is going to share how the review process has evolved specifically for math. Thanks, Elyssa. Good evening, everybody. I'm Elsagal, the personalized math specialist here at Hopkins. And I just wanted to take a moment to acknowledge that I work in collaboration with many amazing educators, coaches, and staff across Hopkins as a facilitator in doing the math program review work. So on your screen is um a list of the group that I've been working with for this time. In the beginning of our program review process, we wanted to identify the current state of math at Hopkins and identify the belief practices and resources that were being used across the system and identify how well they aligned to our Hopkins learning framework as well as the new mass standards which are called the 2022 mass standards. They'll be they'll be implemented in the year 2728 for our first MCA round. So, our first step was to do those identifications. And you'll notice beliefs, practices, resources, and standards are noted, but kind of in a gray color because although we're seeing excellent uh beliefs, practices, resources across the system, there's lacking some consistency. So, it's really hard for me to name any one of these things in a in a clear and consistent way across the district. So, one of the inherited uh features of the math program was a visioning committee that was working in 2023 and they wrote a vision statement. That vision statement has helped to guide our work. As we are looking around the district doing some observations, I am really proud to say that we have some amazing math practices happening in our classrooms that are researchbased and um what I would say are considered to be best practices in this 2025 lens of of math education. So, we're seeing hands-on conceptual real world mathematics, but again, those practices can be inconsistent across the system, and we're we're really seeing that kind of lack of coherence as we go from space to space, but still great things happening. Continuing to identify the current state, we did a lot of looking at data. So, you've seen the street data framework before and we looked at satellite map and street data. And satellite would be our NAPE data, which is our nation's report card. MCAs, which is our state tests. Um, on our map level, that's getting a little more close to home. That would be our FastBridge data where we get a little bit more information about classroom and students. And that street data though, that's the actionable data that teachers need to make those momentto- moment decisions for students. Um, and although we're seeing a lot of coherence in that satellite and map level data, the street data is inconsistent. So we have teachers doing lots of formative and summitative assessments, but they're not necessarily using the same types of assessments or same assessments in general and then it really creates some barriers to being able to make some collaborative decisions based on data. So we're we're kind of seeing although that's happening again that coherence is lacking across the system. Uh the current state of math according to our nation's report card is not where we'd like it to be. So, um, this was released in, I believe, mid-Marchch, and it identifies a call to action, as I see it, for our entire nation to really take an urgent look at what we can do to better serve our students with our math education. Going a little closer to home, these are the Hopkins MCA math results and um, mapped over between 2019 and 2024, noting that in 2020 there was no MCA data. And again, I think this reinforces what our NAPE data is showing that there is an urgency. This is our call to action moment. As we looked at the resources um that were inherited in the system, um we had Everyday Mass CMP and McGra Hill, we did an evaluation and discovered that a lot of those resources were no longer in use across the system because they didn't seem to be effectively serving our students and teachers. And as a result, many teachers went out seeking more uh appropriate products and and tools to use. Again, with all those variables in the system, it made collaboration really challenging for teachers and data use also challenging. Our review crew then went into a deep dive of research and we read many books and uh articles and papers and reports and did a lot of learning to guide our work. So this was this was no short uh order. One of the reports that we read was by TNTP and they did a report called the opportunity makers. And what was really interesting about this report, this really struck us as something to dig more deeply into. And it says of the 28,000 elementary middle schools studied where students start out below grade level, 5% of those schools help students gain more than 1.3 years of learning per academic year. And that call to action on those previous graphs that I showed demonstrates that we need to be making more than a year's growth in a year if we are going to try to see some big uh trajectory changing outcomes for students. So we leaned into this study a little bit more and some of the the key features of those districts had were these three parts of belonging where we're making sure students feel seen and heard and part of the climate and and culture of their classroom. consistency. So that consistent good teaching and especially touching on grade level content for every student and coherence building that unified instructional program and having very clear priorities for all. Uh you may have also heard that the state of Alabama is the only state that showed uh better math scores with their fourth graders coming out of COVID than when they entered and that was very uh different than every other state. So there was a study u many studies being done on the Alabama district and what they discovered was a lot of uh a lot of those same features in the previous report that I shared along with um very deep teacher support and coaching very uh well-informed instruction and interventions based on data hands-on manipulative work with students with conceptual learning for deepening understanding and then also just making math part of the culture and celebrating that we use math as a way to make sense of the world around us. If you've seen the Scarbor's rope from uh Kim Smith's uh reports on reading, there's a there's a rope for math as well. And so we have these five features that uh indicate math proficiency. And I think most of us feel really comfortable with that procedural fluency, the green strand, that is that you can carry out a procedure correctly and officially in a different way. that feels very familiar and comfortable for most of us and how we experience math as students. Also perhaps strategic competence which is setting up and solving problems using a variety of strategies. Where we are leaning more into um in 2025 as math educators are conceptual understanding understanding the why behind the mathematics adaptive reasoning. So you have a variety of ways you can approach problem solving and you can express your process and justify it. And then finally that productive disposition where you see it as useful, worthwhile and that you see yourself as a mathematician as well. Continuing on to the standards. Um, believe it or not, this is really exciting looking at these standards because uh there are on the left a just a two paragraph introduction to the standards and there should be a video playing but unfortunately it's not. it is me scrolling through over and over and over all of the um the content that leads into the benchmarks. And so there's a big shift in our standards rather than just being a checklist of skills for students to do. This is a very holistic approach to math education saying we want students to understand so much more about what it means to be a mathematician, what are the behaviors of a mathematician and what context do we view math through? And so there's a lot of um there's a lot more than just a checklist of skills for students. And then we have our mathematical rigor defined with three branches with procedural skill and fluency like I mentioned before as well as conceptual understanding and applications. Now this is the Minnesota math standards again that were started to be built in 2022 which is why we call them the 2022 mass standards. And and all three legs of this stool are represented um in a balanced way in our in our new benchmarks. The next slide indicates the math practices and this would be the behaviors of a mathematician. These appear in NCTM literature as well as the common core. So there's a lot of cohesion now with Minnesota standards and these these bigger more national sets of standards and recommendations. They're embedded through all all the standards and grade levels. And these dispositions are also appearing in other content area standards. So there is some overlap and coherence there. And then finally dimension two where the context in which we view math. And then the makings of our benchmarks. They're broken into three strands between data probability spatial reasoning and patterns and relationships. We are noticing a significant increase in the number of data science chance and uncertainty standards and benchmarks coming into these new standards than were prior. As we are in a very data-rich world today, the standards are acknowledging that and um bringing that more to the forefront for our students and teachers. The next slide is a uh side-by-side comparison of just a handful of benchmarks from the 2022 and 2007 standards. And green indicates brand new benchmarks. And we have quite a few green benchmarks in every grade level. Yellow is similar but with some significant change. And purple is pretty consistent from one year to the next. So you'll notice there are a lot of new uh learnings that teachers will have to first make sense of before then making those adjustments for their students. And then finally with the benchmark language I think it's important to note that the language is much more broad and um might surprise you. It's not just can solve or calculate or compute. There's making conjectures and justifications and creating representations. And so these are the what the students should be able to do. And if you'll click ahead, what's really interesting about these are these are just examples from kindergarten, first, second, and third grade benchmark. So these are not high school language benchmarks. These are these are for our primary school students. And all of this to say that we can't do any of this work without a robust professional development plan. Now, I think it's important to note at this point in our program review that we are looking at a 3 to fiveyear process in really helping teachers to make these deep uh shifts in their practice. And so, we are very committed to sustained professional development for teachers as we are making these transitions. And I had the absolute pleasure of leaning into an outstanding professional development opportunity last month where 25 leaders across the district, teachers and coaches attended the MCTM annual conference in Duth. So our teachers are already leaning in um very enthusiastically to this work and I would say we had the biggest delegation across the state. Hopkins was very well represented. So I was very proud. So, as we did that deep dive on on what our current state is, doing a deeper dive on our ideal state, we then did the gap analysis as Alyssa had shared and noticed that although our culture of belonging is consistent across the district, I would say that um instruction and curriculum is where we have room to grow. And that aligned with uh our next step, which was how do we build for that? Um, you'll see here a a snapshot of our K12 math pathways, which I think is is something to be really proud of. There are so many different ways for students to experience math in Hopkins. And um although there's a lot to get into there, I'm going to uh say that from here on out the presentation will be focused on elementary because we're here today to talk about an elementary resource adoption recommendation. The middle and high school we will come to a little bit later. When we got to this phase of program review, we discovered that elementary was ready to go with that resource um discovery process and our secondary teams were not quite there yet. A big feature uh that we were waiting on was some guidance from the state on some significant changes to our secondary standards which may impact um our course design and layout. And that information was just shared with us through a task force in late April. So it just sort of slowed our process down because we wanted that statewide guidance before going too far into our own district level process. Uh so we'll be digging more into secondary uh in the coming year. I will be back later though to share with you about the compacted courses which is in the schoolwide enrichment presentation. So we will touch on middle school a bit today. All right. So then going into the resource adoption timeline, the first phase was prepared. So we established a process and we convened this program review crew and decided what uh the gap analysis between our current ideal state would be and then we developed the lens. So we created a Hopkins learning framework aligned resource rubric which is content agnostic. So it's not something we only can use for math. We can now use this in other content areas as well. And then we also designed a rubric that focused on teacher and student experience with materials. In November, we gathered for some collective learning. And the next image is of a group of the review crew doing a standard sort. And I cut up all the standards and made them put them back together. It was a really fun activity. Believe it or not, I can I can do that with you later if you'd like. So nerdy. It's so fun though. And then we moved into the next phase, which was studying where we decided, okay, if we could have any product, what would it be? So sky is the limit and um I didn't have any parameters for for making a recommendation and all recommendations were welcomed and 15 recommendations came to the team and we used uh their the Hopkins learning framework to narrow from 15 down to five resources pretty effectively. I was surprised at how quickly this team was able to say this does not work for us. Um, and so that was that was that was a huge celebration because I was feeling a little overwhelmed by 15 and they did quick work of of bringing it down to five. And I'll be honest, there was a resource that was coming to the top in that first session and I was also very surprised to see that we kept meeting and investigating materials in February, March, and April. In February, we went from 5 to three. The team was actually requesting to go from five to one and we had to slow it down and keep digging deeper and uh then we went from three vendor presentations down to or kept it at three and brought those materials over to elementary sites for then teacher input. So the next slide is uh the three resources we were looking at which were I Ready Classroom, Bridges and Imagine IM. And we brought these resources to every teacher lounge. And so there were a few weeks where teachers had time to pruise the physical materials as well as all the digital content and then share feedback with us on their preferences. And so today we are here in the decide and launch phase which is making a decision which we have come to and then hopefully be implementing in the fall. So today we'll be making that recommendation on June 10th. we will have uh the purchase approval process ready to share with you once we have uh the bids in place and then uh the 2025 school year will 2526 school year will be our first year of implementation with these materials so without further ado the three materials uh that were compared again were bridges Imagine I am and I ready and you'll notice that in our Hopkins learning framework rubric imagine I am came in first with the teacher and student experience rubric they came in first as well the vendor presentations um really Imagine IM came out in front on that and then finally the sitebased feedback imagine IM came out in first there as well. So this was a delightful process because uh there was not a lot of challenge it it really seemed that it was a clear choice for us and this group and so that was a real celebration I think for our process. a few key considerations to share with you. There were a lot of things that teachers and coaches were very excited about. Um the things I'll just kind of highlight would be that it supports a very strong multi-tiered differentiated pathway of learning for students. And if if you know anything about teaching, you know that differentiation is one of the biggest challenges meeting all of the varied needs in your classroom. And so this this resource really provides quite a lot of um opportunities for teachers to use the resource for different students in different ways. It includes also readymade materials for student centers. So if I have a my tier one instruction um occurs and I discover I have a small group of students that need something extra, I can just grab and go with a student center that's designed for that lesson to do kind of a quick small group intervention with that group. And um that's not a common feature in a lot of resources. So teachers were very excited about that so they could be kind of in the moment and being responsive to student needs. Also everything that is digital is also in print. So it doesn't matter the mode of learning you prefer to do. Everything is provided. Even the physical manipulatives like the blocks um pattern blocks or unifix cubes base 10 blocks. They have digital versions of all of those manipulatives for students as well. I mean it's just it's pretty great. We're excited. So, uh, this evening we are recommending for the purchase and adoption of Imagine IMK5 curriculum. And just a reminder that you will see this on the agenda for approval officially on June 10th. Wonderful. I was going to say there was one more slide. Yeah. Yeah. I don't think I had that one. Oh, I didn't know you guys. Well, that's okay. It's okay. So, we do have time and um if anybody has any questions or follow-ups. Thank you so much. This is exciting to know the whole process and to to know where we landed. Um any comments, questions from my board colleagues. I have a quick question. Chair Andre, thank you all. I came to the ESAC meeting where you all have presented this. So, thank you so much for presenting again. It's so great. Um just a really quick question. Is the IM um curriculum is that what was used in the Alabama um research when we talked about some of their um I don't know that for a fact. No, I'm not sure. Okay. Chair and Dre. Yes. Um yeah, thank you. And I I think um you know one of the things I'm most excited about is is hearing this framework that we have established here and you know able to you know kind of we created it for math and now we can leverage it for other curriculum areas. And I like the point about um you know it used to be a 10-year review cycle now it's more real time and and going like that. I think that those are all positive developments. Um just one question I had and it kind of piggybacks off of Director Roberu's question is um I had heard mention um at the last board meeting that we'd maybe be supplied some national proof points for achievement gains. So do we have anything that shows like other districts somewhere else have used this curriculum and here's what their achievements have happened. I don't have that data prepared for today, but I can certainly pull that together for you. That would be great if we could get that before June 10th. We'll look at that. Sure. Thank you. We do know um this is not national. This is hyper local, but um Elsa has been working with the math coordinator in Shakape who uh and Shakape is in their year one of this adoption with this curricular set. And so, um, we've been kind of getting some some information from them about what's going really well, things that they would have done differently in their adoption, but we can definitely look that look for more data on that. Thank you, Chair Andre. Yes. Yes. Hi, I do have a question. Um, so uh thanks for preparing all this. I I think uh uh it looks good as far as like uh preliminarily. I do have a question about kind of some of the MCA data though. Um even it looks like we're like in two modes, right? We kind of have the third grade, fourth grade, and then the other folks. Why is there a differentiation in outcomes there? Do you have a theory? I guess even pre- pandemic, it looks like the grades three and four were higher, right? So what's off the top of my head my response would probably um be related to standards and and in the earlier years the number of benchmarks you know if you think about the progression of learning is um more limited in the younger years and continues to grow and expand. So if a student does have some uh some time where they're falling behind or not meeting any grade level of standards, the gap can tend to widen as years go on and the number of benchmarks increase and increase. And so where we see gaps, gaps tend to continue to grow. So my my my kind of quick answer there I think there's obviously a lot of different factors that would play into that, but I think one that just kind of comes to the top of my head may be just that it's in the earlier years of math. Okay. I think the other thing we've talked about too is um I've heard Kim talk about this in terms of the efficacy or the the the value of the data we get from some of the literacy assessments and she has said that inherently in the middle years the data tends to be tends to decrease or go down and one certainly not the only factor in that could just be sort of the students um view of of the assessment itself and maybe the level of of seriousness they're taking um that assessment changes once they go to middle school versus when they're elementary students. So that again off the top of my head that could also be a factor. I think I would also wonder about the fact that um as they move for sure into middle school and beyond and for several years it was even before that we had students who were going at different paces with math and so a student who was taking the MCA in 11th grade could have a wide variety of math backgrounds and I'm just curious about how that might contribute to um their ability to the the standards are the standards right but if you've had those standards and beyond then you may perform differently than a student who is just encountering those standards that year. I want to add a little layer as well. I think there's also this um concept of approaching and seeing a student or letting them see themselves as a mathematician or seeing themselves as a scientist. And that was never a celebrated part of experiencing standards or the learning around it. And I can speak to the science standards because we see the same trend in science as well. And now looking at how if we've introduced that mindset of I see myself as a mathematician I wonder how that will impact the approach and the outcome of that data as well. Um I know that we are starting to see a difference in the science data. So it's a hopeful moment. I don't know that that's the it's not causal but I think we need to keep that in mind. And I'd also say the the variability in our system is kind of to my point as I'm trying to use uh data and evaluate what is or is not working and MCA data is really our system check of how we're doing as a system and I think this data also reflects um you know that the lack of coherence is creating great variability with our student outcomes and so my hope and more than just my hope I suspect that in bringing this consistency and cohesion to the system, we can see more predictable outcomes for students. Okay. Thank you, Chair Andre. Yes, I want to thank you for the presentation. I think it's really helpful for our community to understand how much intentionality and work goes into these review processes. um you touched on this a bit with the recommendation um for the new um the new curricula and I'm thinking about like how it will enable more agility around differentiation in the moment and I'm wondering maybe if my kind of two-prong question might be a good transition into the next workshop topic. Um, I'm curious about kind of like what that's looking like right now, differentiation. Um, and kind of what what the aspiration is with differentiation. Um, and then I'm also curious about the impact of AI on math education and some of the challenges and possibilities that exist there. um as somebody who in my day job is firmly entrenched in the humanities, we're really grappling with it there. Um and um kind of curious what some of your experiences and um and perceptions are. So I'm really excited to talk about differentiation. I'd say what's challenging today is that teachers are really having to seek out materials and it's a lot of work to go and seek out materials that feel like a good fit for your students. you have to be so thorough and and vet everything. Um and so if each person is doing that, it can be again a lot of varied opportunities for differentiation. Um although we're seeing that happening, a student needs an intervention and a teacher can address it without that coherence. It's it's really hard for me to say what it looks like today because it looks very different in different spaces. But the idea with this new program is that if we are all using the same program on a similar scope and sequence and pacing, then if I am teaching something in my class and I recognize a student could use a little tier 2 small groupoup reintroduction of that topic. If I have a learning support pair professional that's available to me, they would know what lesson the whole grade level is working on and I can provide them with that center to go do that with coherence. If a student is moving into a special education support space, those special educators will have the same curricular resources and can then reinforce the grade level mathematics happening. So I also see um better opportunities for enrichment. So these low floor high ceiling tasks where every student has an entry point, but that students can really stretch and go as far with the content as they can. So not just differentiating for um supporting a student who may be having some some prior prerequisite skills missing but also helping students to feel stretched and challenged in the resource as well. So I think there's a lot more um that just comes with the program and the feedback from Shakipi was to go really deeply with the resource without layering in too many other supplemental tools because they really felt that going more in depth was was where kind of the magic happened when everybody was using and pulling from the same curriculum. So I think the future looks much better and I think there's kind of this sigh of relief too for teachers where they don't have to go looking for anything. So, it's such a great time saver and also they can um have faith that the thing that's in front of them is something we're all using collectively and AI. I'm very excited about AI and math. I'll let Alyssa answer about it first though. So, I was going to say that's my that's my project of love right now um is our AI guidance um work through IDL. And I don't think there's a I can't give you like a really two sentence answer. What I can tell you is that we're working very diligently on developing strategy and guidance and understanding and building that the wherewithal around the here's the good in the tools and here's how we teach our students how to be um efficient and effective consumers of those things and when to use them and when not to. Um it's also looking at what tools are out there and I think the biggest or the funnest thing for me is also preparing us to be nimble. Yeah, like we what we say today is the truth is not the truth tomorrow and how do we make sure we're ready to do that shift when we need to. So to go back to your question about how does it impact math? I mean it's as simple as there's a calculator function on the iPads that we're going to need to coach students on when they should use it, when they shouldn't, right? And that's the base level. Then there's also the fact that Khan Academy, all of their AI help will never give an answer to a math problem. All of their AI help is designed to coach a student into the next step of the process or ask them about what they're learning. So, we have these nuances that are happening that we're super like goosebumpy about and getting excited about what could happen next. So, it's fun. Thank you. Thank you so much for this presentation. Um, I appreciate the detail and also that you're you're focusing on math. um I took a moment to just look at the MCA scores and to place my kid in those years and um I think it's it's very interesting to look at um the progression across the years. Um so thank you all for being here. Um we will then move on to our next topic which is schoolwide enrichment. So, I think half of you get to stay with us. Could you reload just to make sure we have the most recent and I'll turn it over to Dr. Mary Perry Reed. Oh, that we can't we're not going to present live. I think a lot has changed since the PDF. Yeah. Do you want me to just re reshare it with you? Okay. So, while we're doing that, I'll provide a quick framing. Thank you very much for all of the heavy lifting going into the math curriculum work. I know it um was a lot of time and um study and leaning into just collaborating with teachers and so thank you very much. So, let's um let's move to schoolwide enrichment. And I want to start by first sharing that in Hopkins, we believe that all students have unique gifts and talents and that as a public school system, it's our educational responsibility um not only to discover but also to nurture each student's strengths. And because traditional gifted and talented programs typically operate with rigid entry points and limited definitions of intelligence, they do often perpetuate and exacerbate opportunity gaps that may already exist in our system. So as a public school district, it's our ethical responsibility also to broaden our talent development approach and ensure that it is more reaching, more inclusive and more holistic than the traditional exclusionary approach. We have been studying and implementing a researchdriven model of talent development called schoolwide enrichment. and we want to provide our board members as well as our community members with an update on this work. So I will turn it over to are all four of you presenting or just Dr. Erle and Dr. Campy. I think we're all staying just because we figured it was easier less transition and three of the four of us are going to talk for sure. Maybe all four. Thank you. And I'll turn it over to you. Thank you again. Hi again. Still here. Um, I'm not going to say a lot except that, um, I'm really grateful to Dr. Campy's leadership on this topic. Schoolwide enrichment um, got off to a rocky start and, um, and again, yet another thing that was sort of exacerbated, our timelines were exacerbated by the pandemic. And so, um, Dr. Dr. Campy is going to provide an update on the work that uh she has been doing really in collaboration with our school leaders to ensure consistent experiences for students across our schools. And I'll let her take it from there. Thank you, Dr. Erdle. Good evening, Chair Andre, board members. I'm happy to be here and provide an update if you want to go to the next slide. I have an agenda. Uh my plan is to recap just so that we're all on the same page what was shared about a year ago and then talk a little bit about um with schoolwide enrichment what would the expectations for year 1 implementation look like and what is our progress with regard to those expectations. I also want to make sure that we are all grounded in the research that the schoolwide enrichment framework is based on. And so I'm going to briefly share some of that. Uh and that will be a great transition because I'll talk a little bit about the components of the model. One of the components of the schoolwide enrichment model is compacted curriculum. And so that'll be a transition for Elsa to talk a little bit about what we did with that at the middle level this year. Um and then I'll share some data from year one from our teachers and students. Um it is perception data but it is also directly aligned to the components of the framework. And then I'll talk a little bit about next steps. So if you want to go to the next slide, Natalyia. Um, like I said, I want to just I'm not going to do my whole presentation from spring 2024, but that was a year ago. And so I thought it might be a good idea to just make sure that we all have that background. Um, so you might recall last year that I shared information with you about our implementation and I talked about it in the context of MTSS or multi-tiered systems of support. With our model, the enrichment that's being offered to all students is tier one. But just like when we're looking at um tier one instruction in the classroom and thinking about students who might need extra because they're struggling, there are also students who are going to need extra because they need more challenge, they need more enrichment. And so tiers two and three are intended to provide that support to small groups and individual students that demonstrate a need for or capacity for deeper learning. These students can be identified via their interests as well as through their aptitude. And they can be identified through coming forward themsel through a teacher making an observation or from their families saying, "Hey, I think my student really could use extra here." So, as I said previously, the tier one enrichment is what we're providing for all students and it can come from a variety of sources. So, it does not have to be a specific class. In fact, ideally, we want it to be happening in our classrooms and not as part of a specific class. The important element is what it looks like, not the who or what is providing it. It involves exploration, which is an inherent part of the Hopkins learning framework. And all of our sites are making actually really great progress in their implementation of the framework. So therefore, all of our students are experiencing varied levels of enrichment in their regular classrooms. That said, we identified that year one of our implementation this year would involve being explicit about how this enrichment is happening at each elementary school. Four of our elementary settings have a schoolwide enrichment class that all students attend. Our other three elementary sites have specific curriculum aligned experiences that provide enrichment for students. Glen Lake GO, which is experiential learning, the outdoor immersion program at Gatewood, and project-based learning at VU are the mechanisms for tier one schoolwide enrichment at those sites. As I shared last spring, this plan um was involving that we make involved making sure that all of our students will get the tier one supports this year while also working on our framework um our Hopkins learning framework. And we spent a lot of time in our Hopkins instructional leadership team meetings this year focused on that framework. So it was kind of coming from multiple sides specifically towards our leaders because they were at all of those Hilt meetings but they also participated in the professional development that was provided around schoolwide enrichment. So let me talk a little bit about what could be expected in a year one implementation. Um it's expected that in the first year of implementing this program that we would provide training for the administrators that we would provide training for instructional staff on the definition. So what is schoolwide enrichment? how we would identify students, the programming model, and the responsibilities of instructional staff, that each building would have an enrichment team, and that we would begin the process of identifying students with tier 2 and three needs, providing service to those students at a pilot level. It is also expected that in the second half of the year, we would start some pilot enrichment cluster programming, which I'll talk about briefly in a moment, and then that we would do what we're doing tonight, evaluate the work and present to you at the end of the year to kind of give you an update on where we are at. So, I'm going to actually go through each of those expectations for year one and let you know what is done and what is in progress. Um all of our staff who are teaching schoolwide enrichment are providing that program and our administrators at the elementary level participated in taste of conffort training this year which is a training that is organized by the University of Connecticut. Uh and then we have several who are interested in uh maybe joining the confer institute this summer which is a more intensive week-long experience. Um but we did do virtual training with all of our staff um this year. We did not do training with all of our instructional staff. So that is something that we need to look to for next year. And what we need to do is we need to make sure that they can see the intersection of the learning framework and what schoolwide enrichment looks like because it is not doing something different. Um it's been an ongoing message to our teachers over the past several years that their responsibilities include a shift in instruction aligned to the learning framework. And so as we move forward, being explicit about how that connects to the principles of schoolwide enrichment will be important for making sure this tier one piece is delivered as well as addressing the other types of training. Our uh schools all have an instructional leadership team and so that team uh is the team that serves as the enrichment team and at various times throughout the year as I was meeting with families and students who were asking for additional support, people from those teams and the administrator would be part of those conversations. We uh began the process of identifying students with tier 2 and three needs and providing service to those students at the pilot schools. I would say that Metobrook has really developed this system um and other sites were piloting pieces of the system. And again, we also had the middle school compacted math course that I'll have Elsa talk about in just a moment. What we did have piloting in some sites was something called enrichment clusters. So enrichment clusters are multi-age interestbased groups where students and adults come together to explore real world topics, solve authentic problems, and create original products or services. Our PYP primary years program for the IB schools will be able to meet that need through their exhibition. Sites that host imagination fairs can meet that need in that way with some small adjustments. and our project-based learning sites meet that need by hosting public exhibitions of student learning as the learning that occurs throughout the year focuses on creation and solving authentic problems. The other thing that I would add uh here is that we have some really cool things happening at some of our sites in smaller pieces like book clubs um highinterest lunches. Glen Lake started that last year. They continued it this year and those are examples of how this can also be provided for students. At this time, I will transition to Elsa so that she or sorry, I'll transition into my research and then we'll have Elsa talk just so I can tell you a little bit about the components of the model. Um, and that way that'll put uh this work we did at the middle level in context. Oh, did we lose our screen? Okay. Um, is it okay with you if I just keep going? Okay, we have it. All right. So um the schoolwide enrichment model was developed by Joseph Ranzuli and Sally Ree and it is a comprehensive model meaning that what we've been working on this year is just a part of it. That is not the whole model. So the part we started with is the part that everyone gets but as I already alluded to there are other um supports available for students who need more. It is researchbased and I'll talk a little bit about the research on it momentarily. It as Dr. Uh Mary Perry Reed talked about it promotes talent development for all students by integrating enrichment into the regular school program and it's grounded in the belief that gifted behaviors can emerge over time with the right opportunities and support. And I I can't emphasize that piece enough. Um, I would imagine that every adult in the room has had a moment in their life where they became interested in something that they were not interested in before or they where they decided to work hard at something where they didn't work hard at it before. Like we all have the capability to make choices about how we're going to invest our energy, but time um, opportunity, support has great bearing on that. So when I was working on my doctorate, I wasn't learning about 500 other things because I was too busy, right? So like when you your what's going on in your life has a lot of bearing on when you're ready to take on a lot of challenge and that's a big piece of this model. So some of the components that are part of the model um and that we uh have connections to already are uh there's something called a total talent portfolio and that is a focus on student strengths and data collection related to those strengths as a way to determine what are the opportunities for enrichment in the classroom as well as enrichment clusters and a continuum of special services. So the idea with this is that we would be continually gathering data about our students strengths and interests and we would be organizing them into categories of ability, interest, and learning styles. Our Hopkins scholar traits and academic competency work will address this component over time and that is under development right now. A second piece which is what Elsa is going to provide more information about in a moment is curriculum modification and curriculum techniques. So this um is an opportunity for us to uh look at the curriculum we're teaching, think about the strengths that students have and decide what needs to be different, whether that's in how we teach it or what we offer the students. It is intended to create opportunities for deeper learning experiences. And it does include curriculum compacting which is the format of the middle level math courses that we offered this year as well as increased use of greater depth in regular curriculum which is inherent to IB and the Hopkins learning framework. So in other words, not just being at the knowledge level like Elsa talked about with the math standards, but going beyond that is a way of modifying curriculum, especially if the standards aren't there yet, which is true in some cases. And then finally, um enrichment, learning and teaching. Um, this is learning that is personalized and situated in real world contexts. The focus is on how to apply the knowledge you have and the skills you've learned to create meaning for yourself. And that is the central focus of the Hopkins learning framework. Uh, I think I'm on slide 17, Natalyia. So, there is some specific research that supports the model that I wanted to make sure I shared tonight. Um, that's been done over time. Uh students in schoolwide enrichment settings do report increased motivation and interest and you're going to see that in some of the data that I share with you from our students and they attribute that to autonomy and feeling like what they're learning is relevant and hands-on. Student uh schoolwide enrichment promotes cognitive growth in areas such as divergent thinking, problem solving, and originality. You will also see that in the data from our students. It shows that the research shows that it can lead to measurable gains in student achievement, particularly when it's integrated with the core curriculum. And finally, it is very effective at increasing participation of culturally and linguistically diverse students in enrichment and talent development opportunities. You may recall that last spring when I was here, I talked about the data that influenced our decision to make a change in this programming and that it was informed by a test that students took in second grade that identified them. But the pattern that we saw in that test replicated itself in middle school and high school when everything was completely choice-based. And so what's important here is we are trying to intervene at an elementary level to show all students that they have capacity and that they all have gifts and talents that can be developed so that no one shuts the door on believing that they can participate in higher level learning opportunities at a later date. That is similar to the idea of wanting every child to see themselves as a mathematician. We don't want anybody to feel like just because I can't do it right now doesn't mean I can never do it. So that's why it's so important that we really emphasize this tier one piece at the elementary level. There uh is a lot of alignment between this model and uh widely accepted definitions of giftedness. So the National Association for Gifted Children uh defines giftedness as students with gifts and talents that perform or have the capability to perform at higher levels compared to others of the same age, experience, and environment in one or more domains. They require modifications to their educational experiences to learn and realize their potential. And in schoolwide enrichment, potential is emphasized, talents is developed, and they identify multiple domains of giftedness. And they also identify that at tier 2 and three, extra support will be needed for some students. The federal government's definition of giftedness is that students, children, or youth who demonstrate high achievement, capability in areas like intellectual, creative, artistic, or leadership abilities or specific academic fields are known to be as gifted. These individuals also need specialized services or activities beyond what the school typically offers to fully develop their potential. Likewise, the schoolwide enrichment model recognizes that students with high achievement capability and those that need services not ordinarily provided by the school will need something extra so that they can fully develop their capabilities. And then finally, Renulli, who is the developer of this model, but is also a widely known researcher in this field um has a three- ring conception of giftedness. He talks about giftedness being the intersection between high ability, creativity, and task commitment. So the idea is if you are really good at something, you catch on to it quickly, you have high aptitude and you're a creative thinker and then you can just zoom in on something and just really be interested in it. That intersection is the definition of giftedness according to his three- ring conception. This model does create opportunities to develop areas of high ability to use their creativity and to learn the skills that support their demonstration of task commitment. So for example, um as I said earlier, it should be happening in our regular classrooms and in our IB schools. The approaches to learning are the skills that are needed to develop the ability to be really highly committed to tasks. So, we want to make sure that we're teaching students to do those things, not just assuming that if you are already persistent, then that means you're gifted and if you aren't persistent right away that you're not. So, that will bring us to um an example of the middle uh piece of the model that I talked about, the curriculum modification, and we see that in the compacted math courses that Elsa helped design and uh implement this year. Hello again. So um to give us a little bit of a grounding with the compacted math courses, we'll start with just the origin story. There was an inherited situation with uh some sites using packets for math acceleration and maybe some one-time tests to do a skipping of a grade level of math to move ahead. And the feeling in within the school and the community uh the feedback was that those were not the preferred methods for acceleration but there was still a desire for some math acceleration opportunities in the middle school. So um again this high community interest in acceleration was the driver behind the work but we wanted some alternatives to what was already in place. Also, I want to note that there was inconsistency to the offerings between the sites of North and West. And so, there was also just a desire for coherence of opportunities to be the same between all sites and and um students. Uh working within system limitations, we uh I met with a group of teachers just like with the review crew. Uh we worked together with site leadership and these math teachers at the middle level and I facilitated this group to design two compacted math courses. One was for pre-alggebra to be offered during the year of math 6 and the other is intermediate algebra to be offered in the same year as algebra 1. Access and equity were the priorities and we wanted to make sure that any student that was interested had access to this with some clear uh expectations laid out what they would be experiencing potentially in having uh signed up or enrolled in the course. We also had to work within system limitations and developed the idea that we needed a flexible and um kind of an add-on format for students to be able to opt into it. Uh so the courses are asynchronous, digital and self-paced with benchmark deadlines and teachers supporting students through canvas and during win sessions in person. So the course structure overview is that again we have digital content which has some immediate feedback for students and also some responsive teacher feedback where the teachers would construct messages back to students. Each module would have about 10 lessons and end with a summitive assessment where a student would demonstrate their conceptual understanding on the content in a module and their summitive performance would then indicate their readiness for the next module and being able to be successful in that space. And we also felt it was important to not uh to hold not to hold students to uh go through an entire course if it wasn't if they weren't demonstrating readiness. And so we we built in these low stakes offramps. So there was no consequence if you wanted to try the course and discovered it wasn't a good fit for any reason, you could just opt out at any time. So there were these low stake offramps for students after a summitive or even within a module if they didn't they chose not to continue at any point. And the key takeaways from year one as we do anything in the first year um we we learned quite a lot and uh the first thing we noticed right away was that the completion rates in module 2 were significantly higher than in module one and that wasn't really a surprise to us as a student had to have demonstrated readiness before going into module two where they didn't have to do that in module one. Uh the other thing we noticed is that students had higher rates of success at the west uh compacted courses compared to the north compacted courses and I'll talk more about that. We do think that the rollout practices and how students were enrolling had a significant impact on the number of students enrolling and the student outcomes and the student support and communication are are really high priorities. Um and we discovered that very clearly in this first year and kind of the big takeaway is that we see think this program does show promise with refinements going into next year because again as a year one we learned quite a bit. So again uh as Alyssa said we could talk about implementation science for days. Uh this is another opportunity for that. And again, in year one, we really want to think about uh sticking to the program as designed with fidelity so that we can identify what is or is not working. If we're constantly making adaptations while we're in our first year, we don't really know um what was what was or was not working. And I'll be repeating that again when we start our implementation next fall with our new math curriculum doing year one with fidelity. So uh again like I mentioned West had higher module completion and lower attrition rates. And some factors that we identified in doing an analysis about midway through the year with with the teachers and principles was that uh the enrollment process differences were really significant and although well-intentioned adjustments were made it resulted in very different outcomes. So at West for example, uh the design that we had come up with was for parents and students to enroll together, make a a big uh decision of is this a good fit for me or not using the materials we provided, which was a slideshow, a one-pager um and some other some other narrated slides as well. And um in the interest of expediency and because we had some circumstances outside of our control with North um the teachers decided to in instead put a QR code in classrooms for students to just self-enroll. And so the result was many students who maybe were not fully aware of what they were signing up for had signed up at North whereas at West the there was a caregiver component for the registration process. So we we had very different um results of who signed up. And to give you a clear number, 78 students overall signed up at West versus 188 at North. Now, we only had one teacher with a very small component of their day assigned to do the compacted courses. And so the teacher at West had a far more manageable workload with 78 students than the teacher at North with 188, which was far exceeding what we had anticipated was was going to happen. So again, those were well-intentioned adjustments. Um they were kind of trying to solve for a a change that was happening at that site. And so again, it wasn't anything to intentionally be disruptive um with through trying to be coherent. They were actually working very well together. It was a celebration of the middle schools coming together on this project. Um I would also say that another thing that was just noted at West was it happened to be the sixth grade math teacher who was supporting the compacted course for sixth graders. And um kind of anecdotally, I do think the relationship of having your regular classroom teacher be the teacher who's supporting you in this more online space was an added benefit. I don't know that we can always replicate that, but we did note that it did make um make a difference. And I guess all of this to say it suggests an opportunity to apply what we learned with the West roll out as something we would want to more, you know, coherently uh do for next year moving forward with this. So next I'm going to put some data on here. So these are the enrolled students and some completion rates, exit rates, and who is currently working in module 3. So I don't have our our full picture of data today because we still have students working. And we also have a survey that's live with families to provide feedback. So we'll be kind of gathering all of that to get the full picture of what we learned in this first year of these compacted courses being offered. So you'll note that again double the students at North enrolled for pre-alggebra than West and the completion rates were uh higher in module 2 than module 1. And the exit rates um varied. Obviously we had more exiting in in unit one or module one than we did in module 2. And um I also think there's something really wonderful that students were willing to try and then maybe decide it wasn't a fit for them. So, so I see I see that flexibility um kind of that rotating revolving door being um an opportunity for students to just take those low stakes risks and and try something. Mhm. Moving on to intermediate algebra again 30 students compared to 96 students um very big difference in number of enrollment. So I think a lot of the north students um that enrolled you see quite a few more exited than completed. So I think it was just oh I'll try this out and then wait this is what I signed up for. I think there was a little um maybe a little less lack of uh clarity on that one. So, uh moving into the feedback, I just want to note that this was designed intentionally to provide an opportunity for very motivated students to ex to access accelerated math opportunities. Um, I want to also note that there is a desire in the community that has been very loud and clear that we want more rigor in the middle level. And so I think that although we wanted to meet the need of acceleration, this is also a call to action for us to build in more enrichment and higher rigor in our grade level math classes because clearly we have kids interested in wanting to do more, but acceleration may be too big of a lift. So we need those in between measures as well. So I just I want to point that out as um another feature that's coming up in the program review part of this work. Um so it's not part of the compacted course, but I think we need to have multiple modes of enrichment for students to engage with and that our opt-in opt out whenever they'd like to throughout the year. Um, I also want to note that I I really deeply value the time that students and families put into trying out these compacted courses in the first year. And and although for some students this format was a strong fit and they felt well informed and they were able to pace themselves um there were some students the format and demands may have posed some unexpected challenges that they weren't quite prepared for. And as our first year, we really learned quite a lot and and saw that students could thrive in the structure. And at the same time, we recognized that that strong engagement in in having setting out those clear expectations. Um ensuring strong caregiver communication are essential for us to make sure that that students and and um their families help feel supported in in making the right decision in whether or not to engage with the content. And then I want to also state that we are committed to refining the program going into next year and we have again learned so much and are really feeling way more set up for success for more students going into year two. Just want to quickly note, sorry to interrupt, that um we we have two more agenda items to get to and we um have eight minutes left for the rest of your presentation if that's okay. So, we have time for those next two agenda items. Just wanted to do a time check. Okay. Do you want me to finish my last two slides quickly or I think finish however feels good and I'm I'm good with making the rest of it fit. Okay. So, I just uh will just close out in saying that the consistency um pacing guides and expectations being more clear are big goals for us for next year, including also maybe a self assessment for students to decide whether they have those prerequisite skills. And I think I already touched on including rigor in our grade level courses and more enrichment opportunities as the in between um accelerated math and core content. And I think I can wrap it up there. Okay. Thank you. Um I just will quickly share some year one data from our teachers and students at the elementary level. So if you want to skip to the year one data slide and tell you. Um so I did a survey of the teachers doing schoolwide enrichment and at the sites where it wasn't a single teacher I asked the administrator to fill it out to just give us some uh feedback on how implementation went. So one of the questions I asked um what slide is it? Uh, it's slide 33 that I'm on. Yep. Right there. So, one of the questions I asked was just how consistently do you feel like you've implemented the model? And you can see that they feel pretty good about their ability to implement what we did this year. Next slide. And then I asked specifically, what are the pieces that you have implemented? And they could answer with multiple choices. So that's why there are multiple answers there. Some of them maybe checked all of them. Some of them only tried a couple of the things, but everybody did something. Um, and then I asked them, "How confident do you feel in your ability to implement these strategies effectively?" Next slide. And you can see that similarly to what they said about how much implementation they did, they also feel fairly confident about their ability to implement the programming. I then went on to ask, have you received enough enough professional development or support to implement the program effectively? And I think the context for the u there were only two no responses, but I think the context is important. Um I won't read that whole thing to you, but essentially the person said, I think it takes 3 to 5 years to develop something like this. And so have you had enough to implement it? I think you could interpret that as for right now or is it where it needs to be? Right? And I think she's saying, "Well, I don't know that it's where it needs to be, but you know, we I feel like I was successful this year." Next slide. And then I talked I asked them a little bit about engagement and um you can see that they said that the engagement with the activities they were doing as part of the model was really strong. Um they also said on the next slide that they really observe students choosing to participate in activities based on their interest. So that component of the model is a key feature that motivates kids from the teachers perspectives. They also said next slide that they saw a really good increase in student mo motivation or academic performance when they were doing the schoolwide enrichment activities specifically. And then on the next slide I have some staff perspectives contrasted with student perspectives. And uh what I did was I took what staff and students said in openw answer formats and I aligned it using AI to the components of the schoolwide enrichment framework so that I could see what are they responding to that we want them to be doing and what is sort of maybe extraneous. And you can see that there is some overlap there. But what I thought was super interesting was what came out of the students honestly. Um we were giving the teachers professional development. So, I would expect them to be able to provide some information of what they think about it that aligns to what the model says, but the students were just telling us what they experienced and they're saying that they experienced pieces of the model just as we would have hoped that they would. Um, on the next slide, I have a quote that I thought um was a good example of the divergent thinking from a student enrichment class changed the way of how I think. Mhm. Then um I asked for uh some explanation when the teachers gave the uh information about how much engagement they were seeing from students. I asked well what what did that look like? What what does more engagement look like? And so you can see there that they talk about joy, agency, collaboration as well as behavior and like actual participation, engagement improvements. And a quote from a teacher on the next slide is students are excited and want to share their learning with their peers and people in our community. Uh elements most effective at fostering student engagement. You could probably predict things that were focused on choice, strengths, individual work, small group work, thinking skills, blending technology, hands-on learning. And the teachers did identify some barriers. They talked about time and scheduling constraints, staffing and capacity gaps, student readiness, skill gaps, as well as materials and resource limitations. Um, slide 46 is just more of what the students liked about um it at our tier 2 and three options at Metobrook. So, that site is has a really well-developed tier 2 and three program. And so, we had separate data from them as well as data from the students that were part of the schoolwide piece, which was the first bit that I shared. So next steps uh we are thinking for next year that the implementation plan would ask that we continue our preceding year's activities. So we will definitely do that that we would consider when and how to expand the program depending on available staff and resources and I think that we do need to really think uh clearly about that because resources were al was one of the factors that influenced the change in the program to begin with. Um 90ome,000 from the state is currently helping pay for AP classes. um materials. It's helping pay for the compacted courses FTE and it's helping pay for professional development for this program that we would start to develop resources beyond our schools. So other faculty and community folks that could help us plan out a beginning scope and sequence for the tier 2 enrichment and that we would developformational materials that can be set more broadly. So we did have some presentations at PTO's this year. we did some um communication out to families in a broad way, but that we need to continue to develop so that people can all be growing their understanding of what we're doing. And that finally we would be looking at uh organizing a tier three fair, which is what I talked about earlier with like an imagination fair or the PIP exhibition. So that uh brings me to the end. I don't know if you have time for if we have time for questions, but I do want to say thank you for your attention. Well, I want to say thank you for getting through that in the a lot of time. That was impressive. That was a lot of slides. I don't know how much you were able to retain of what I just said. No, a lot of really great information. And I did quickly just want to say um I I was part when I was a community member and a parent part of the re-imagining gifted and talented um task force that happened feels like a lifetime ago. um but it was pre- pandemic and um have kids um who were part of that program and have transitioned out and experienced the the the other pieces. And so I just want to say deeply appreciate this presentation and the work intentional work that's been done um as a parent and as um now a staff member and a member of the board. So thank you. I see the impacts on our kids in the building on this program and it is um truly remarkable. So, thank you. Thank you. Appreciate it a lot. I know we're short on time, so I would just invite board members to reach out if you have any questions that you would hoped to ask. I'd be happy to respond via email. Thank you so much. Thank you. Yes, please do reach out via email. Are there any like really quick questions from my board colleagues? Email's fine. Thank you. Thank you. Okay. Thank you. Thank you, IDL team. Great work on both fronts. Thank you so much. Um so that takes us to our um third agenda item which is even your elections and I'm going to give us all about 15 minutes to talk about this. Um, uh, Treasurer Hartland, do you want to start the conversation or would you like me to do some framing? Um, I would be happy to start it. I do have a slideshow. It is not beautiful. It is not Hopkins colored approved. Um, but we can we can go through it. And starting here, I have put together just a little bit of framing both for the board's sake and for the community's sake that today we'll be sharing a little bit of information. We will have the opportunity to ask questions of me, of some admin that's in the room. We many of those questions I expect that we will have to take away and and work to get answers back to the board members. And this is really a reflection of the board's desire to be transparent with the community about some of these conversations that were happening as the result of a possible mandate from the state of Minnesota when the state was considering um mandating it. So every municipality and school board that had oddyear elections, they were going to actually make that not allowed anymore. And so the legislative action coalition did some exploration of this topic with the district and so we just wanted to have that conversation more transparently. We will not be voting on whether or not to move schoolboard elections to even years this year. We are we are not there yet. Um and so this is just as we mentioned um a discussion for the boards and the community's sake. the next slide. We left last discussion not being totally sure on what the district's costs were. And this is a this is something that is really difficult to piece together. Um it might seem like, oh, why don't we know what it costs? But the truth is is that we have to pay for we have to pay multiple entities and we have to estimate how much of our district personnel's time and labor went into supporting an election. And so the ask to come up with this is a big one. And you can see some estimate of costs here. And we'll we'll discuss a couple of those specifics as we move on, but I do want to take just a second to point it out. Um, our business services staff had the opportunity to talk to our financial advisor company, Ailers, to talk about what it might look like to move to evenear elections. And our financial advisor company agreed that we would see cost savings because county officials would take over quite a bit of work. And as we already discussed in our our last conversation, we would split the cost of these election equipment rentals and printing and um the election judges amongst many municipalities instead of only several. However, they we do not even as of today do not have a great estimate of how much money would be saved because it is kind of a moving target and our financial adviserss have not had time or and we haven't authorized them yet to really explore that question. So the board, you know, we would kind of need to decide if we are serious about wanting to do that and wanted that that question more fully answered. So this is our kind of a best estimate of costs associated with running an election this fall. Can we go to the next slide? Um we also talked about so this is still framing kind of reviewing of questions that we had last time. These are our kind of neighboring districts and whether they are on odd or even years. And I don't need to read them all for you, but you can see it's it's something of a mixed bag. Um the next slide, please. Here is the status of neighboring cities. And I do have an update for you. After we left our last conversation, we talked about aligning more with our um neighboring cities as they explored the move to evenyear elections for kind of the same reasons that we had discussed about saving costs and about driving more turnout. Um the city of Hopkins their city charter requires that that pass unanimously and they didn't clear that hurdle and so they are holding oddyear elections this year and they are going to put the question of should we move to evenear elections to the voters. Um the city of Minnotonka has also deferred on this issue. It's not um anywhere on their radar at the moment. the current mayor is resigning and so there's already um kind of people and mechanisms in place there to host an election this fall. And so you can see here what um what our neighboring cities want to do or are doing. And then the city of Edina public schools was kind of an interesting case study because we share a lot of characteristics like our constituent body is similarly sized. Our um student population is similarly sized and so um I will make sure this slide deck gets shared with the board but you could read the Star Tribune article. And whereas Hopkins kind of manages our own elections, the uh Edina public schools outsources that to the city of Edina. And so therefore, the schools gets more of a clear cost understanding than um than we have. And so they re received this $153,000 bill that they owed the city of Edina for their elections. But if you read this article, even the city suspects that $153,000 is not the real cost. The city, not the school district, but the city who has to do this work says that their cost does not include some really difficult to count costs like staff burnout, the office space that they have to dedicate to their staff and the cost of all the non-election tasks that didn't get done due to the like burning important nature of making sure that elections run on time. So, we have reason to believe that our costs are that we estimated on a previous page are somewhat underestimated as well. Um, and only 10% of Minnesota school districts still use oddyear elections. Back in 2023, so that's under 40 right now. Under 40 school district use oddyear elections. Back in 2023, that number was 164. In 2005, that had dropped down to 123. And in 2007 that number was 85. So now we're at sub 40. And the reason is because it costs a lot. And the requirements of a district to run a secure election and to comply with all of the deadlines um only increases every year. There's Would you go to the next slide, please? I don't want to go into this too um too much because of our time. I want to leave some questions for the board to ask, but as I said, I will share this slide deck with all of you. Um, but this was kind of an intense study done by the U of M. The city of Minneapolis actually requisitioned this study when they considered moving their municipal elections to even years. Um, so you can see the sentence here that 80% turned out in evenear elections, 30% turned out in oddyear elections. voters in oddyear elections tend to be older, whiter, and wealthier than in evenear elections. So, it's potentially an equity issue. And for those reasons, the city of St. Paul just in November um voted to move their municipal elections to even years. Um so, I won't go on anymore and I am wondering what you all at the table have think or what questions you might have. Thank you, Treasure Hartland. I appreciate it. Any feedback from my board colleagues, Chair Andre? Yes. Um, yes. Thank you, Director Hartland, for compiling all of this information and walking us through. I'm curious if folks who serve on the LACE um have a sense of whether the legislature is planning to take this up again next year. Um, and I know you can't read their minds. Um, we wish we could, right? Um, but if I know, um, Senator Swedinski, who represents part of the Hopkins School District, was um, the lead author on the bill um, on the Senate side and just kind of wondering if there's a potential that this will come before the legislature again next year. Sure, I'll take a stab at answering that. I did have a chance to talk with our LAC lead um earlier today and it was deemed a non-priority this year in a funding year. Um but it doesn't automatically come up for discussion again next year. It has to be um it has to be a priority for our legislators. And I think the legislator that um you mentioned has not made a super clear indication of if you will or will not support it. So it is an item that you know if the board wanted the LAC to do that to advocate for that the LAC could specifically inquire about it. Um but I don't know for sure. Okay. Thank you. Any other feedback or questions, Chair Andre? Yes. Yes. Hi, uh, Treasure Hartland, thanks for putting this together. I think it's brings some light to the issue. Uh, so I appreciate that. Um, has there been any conversation about um the the bond referendum and as far as like saving money with we're doing it anyways and we can piggyback? Is there has there been any discussion about that? That's kind of a more complicated issue. Chair Andre, do you have any thoughts about that? Yeah. Um, so I um have we had a discussion with um Morrison Leatherman who did the survey results on the referendum and presented to the board those findings. Um and the my understanding is that um bond referendums and school board elections are separate. Um and it turns out that every once in a while they align, right? They fall in the same year. Um it is best practice um to continue to have bond referendums on odd years. Um, and this is not coming from Hopkins, it's coming from um, National Research. And so that would continue to be the practice of the district. So every 10 years we would have the cost of an election. Um, the question before us as a board is do we want to continue to incur the cost of an election every two years? So that is the discussion um we're having um separate from the bond um from the referendum question. Do we want to continue to incur that cost? Um, and also, um, is that something that we think is more or less aligned with district values, I think, is the question that we are discussing. It just happens. Got it. That while we're having this discussion, there is a bond referendum coming up. But there is no um talk I believe of moving those votes to even years because the research doesn't support that there's better turnout outcomes for that. It's a different population that votes in referendum than in elections, school board elections. Is that Yeah. Got it. Thank you. That's makes sense. Chair Andre. Yes. Um, so I think before I'd be prepared to vote this up or down, um, I would really need to have a better understanding of the cost savings. So, we see the total cost. Um, and I'm thankful to our business office for providing this information. Um, but it's really hard for me to parse, especially with the cities retaining their elections on odd years. um at least the major cities um where we have the majority of polling places um Hopkins and Minnotonka for the time being right those elections will remain on odd years um it's hard for me to kind of parse out what the savings would be as I look at these line items like election equipment you know time and labor and I think that's what you were getting at Director Hartland is that this is really complex and I'm wondering if there's a way to simplify it just a bit more so that we and our community can understand what the actual cost savings would be um for us as a district and then some of those hidden costs as well um around staff time, labor, um what you were talking about with um the city of Edina, their considerations that you know is spelled out um in this article that I did take a look at. Um just I would like more detail on that. I would feel much more comfortable voting on it if I had that. Chair Andre, yes. I would just like to uh first thank you so much, Treasure Hotland. You are always on point with like your financial reports and how you report out to the board. I will say that I will also need a little bit more um to do like a bit more research on like the pros and cons of like the odd and even years elections and also looking at those cost savings just to see where those would be allocated towards like in our budget for the next year. Um and I do also agree though with like the equity issue like that's I'm all about equity. We want to ensure that we are making decisions that do does focus on inclusivity within our whole community because um I know that we did have a lower turnout for votes last election. And so if we can increase our voter um turnout, that would be something, you know, that I would be considering um in the decision to either yay or nay this decision. So um yeah, so that's just kind of where I am with the elections. Thank you. Um, I do want to remind all of us, I think this is an important topic, but we only have 13 minutes to get to our next agenda item. Um, and just want to quickly say that, um, I think that all of the research I have looked at bears out the idea that there it is more democratic to have evenear elections. um there is higher voter turnout and the trickle down does um happen. So there are more people making their voices heard on um candidate elections and school boards um on even years. And I also understand um and hold very um dear the idea of not politicizing school board and also education in general. So Mhm. with that any other quick input? Okay, thank you all. Yeah, still email me and and then we'll kind of decide on if we can get information together um in time before our next meeting. Yeah. And we can if if we decide that this wants to rises to the level of coming to a vote, we will have another discussion at the board table at that time. So thank you all. I appreciate you weighing in and um helping this discussion go further along. And that brings us to our last agenda item um with 12 minutes to spare. Um I will turn it over to Dr. Mary Perry Reed. Thank you, Chair Andre. So the next agenda item is bond referendum debt structure. So as our presenters are coming to the table, I'll just provide a quick framing. So, yes, our district is preparing for a bond referendum in November of 25. This would be an ask to our community to support important facility upgrades, including safety, security, and ADA improvements and enhancements, renovating single stall bathrooms at the high school, and expanding as well as improving academic and athletic spaces across our facilities. So, we have been engaging with our partners on the very detailed work of getting feedback from staff, parents, and community members, surveying all of our facilities, and identifying the projects in need, looking at uh state regulations to identify what ADA and other uh uh requirements we need to meet within these projects. and also just paying attention to what facilities of the future offer and how we will serve our students, family and communities uh families and community well and we do work with Ellers on the financing component of the bond referendum. So now um Shelby, thank you so much for being here. Shelby is here from Ellers and our director of business services uh Mr. Chapanduka um are both at the table to share more detail about the bond referendum debt structure. Thank you so much for being here. Uh thank you Dr. Milid. Uh without wasting too much time, I know we have 10 minutes. This is a very a very complicated topic. Uh and I know it's a continuation of uh some of the conversations we had uh two weeks ago and uh a couple months ago when we brought our partners from Ellis to come and uh kind of give us uh some foundational understanding of uh what uh the debt structure looks like and what this might mean for our taxpayers if we go for a referendum. So without taking too much time, I'll give this to Shelby to take us through the process. Thank you. All right. Thank you. Welcome, Madame Chair, members of the board, Dr. Mary P Reid, thank you for having me. I will um talk through this quick, maybe um please stop me at any time so we can really get at what you need to understand in order to move forward with some decision points that the board will need to make um on on these larger issues. So um just to sort of preface from the conversation that was beforehand, schoolboard elections are general elections of the board. Anything beyond that is considered a special election. So whether or not you h hold this during a general election um sort of an even year when when we think of a statewide election or not, you will be holding a special election for a bond referendum. So, I think that's an important distinction that just because you would hold it um would hold an operating referendum or a bond referendum during an even year, that would continue to be a special election because it's not required like a board um board member election is. But to preface the entire um capital plan here, I think it's a good place to start in terms of your LTFM plan. So, the district has outstanding debt, has an approved capital project levy, and um at a regular cadence, you have the authority as a board to issue bonds or um pay cash and levy that those dollars of your um your community to um maintain your facilities. And so that is a um authority that is given to you um as Hopkins School District but also to um 27 other large and old school districts in the state. It is a statutory distinction that allows you to set forth the projects that are allowable and then um be able to levy or um bond for those dollars. And you have done so in a way historically that has managed your tax rate to keep it very steady over time. And so when you're doing that, you are not that is just board approval to pursue all those projects. And so it's very very important to make sure that that stays level and does not create any sort of roller coasters in your um community's tax base. If you for instance have a $15 million andor air quality project in one year and maybe just a $5 million project in the next year, you need to be able to maintain that and not have to levy those dollars um up and down each year. So that is what the overall plan does. We have in there about $122 million of projects and you'll hear more about that from site logic um for the 10 years uh FY27 to uh FY uh 2036 and we have regular bond sales scheduled. Um I think the important part to note here is the um those general fund dollars, the dark blue portions um is the the cash mix or the levy. um that's just a pay as you go portion that goes towards those projects. And so that really becomes your opportunity um leverage that you can shift more into a bond payment than straight cash that will allow you to take on some of those larger voter approved projects and mitigate the tax impact to the voters of that over a period of time. So then on the next slide, you'll see how we can incorporate that in yellow um to have voter approved projects. Now you'll see that we um wanted to make sure that we could size in an upper limit of what you're considering um or one of the high-end limits of what you're considering. So, this would be $140 million that we believe can fit in your plan by min um uh sort of shrinking those dark blue bars, shifting more into um bonds overall than cash to be able to maintain that levelness over time of the tax impact. And um that would allow that increase of the yellow or that voter approved portion to be from the prior year in terms of your capital plan an increase of $7 per month on a $500,000 home. And that is the average home in Hopkins going into taxes payable 2026. um the overall structure of this and you can see we're going to maintain all of those deferred maintenance um plans that you have in place over the period of the 10 years and some assumptions going forward. Um we'll maintain the cadence of bond issuance and um for those facilities maintenance bonds while braiding in the other um bond issues for the voter approved. It also um included sort of the background of this very complex picture that we've made m tried to make very simple here um is the fact that you would not likely it would be very unlikely for you to um uh do $140 million of projects in one summer. That's just not going to happen. And so what this assumes then is that we're going to issue a number of times uh to match it up with the construction schedule to make sure that we're issuing when you start to need that money for the projects. Um if you issue too soon, um then you'll just be levying those payments of the taxpayers and acrewing interest prior to when you actually need the money. So, we want to just marry those those up a little. And that's the intention of this. And while why you see those bars extend out 22 years instead of 20, that's because there's two 20-year issuances there. Um, so then I think some decision points that maybe will help frame the discussion or frame your questions overall is that um that borrowing amount or what the ballot amount will be. So I think it's um important to recognize that you will collectively create a project list and that comes up with a number that Silogic will work with and then you ask the voters to um for the authority to issue a certain amount of bonds. So that bond amount is higher because you can pay the issuance costs out of those bonds. And so th that number just I suppose know that if you put 140 million on the ballot, the project amount will not I I um be identical to that amount. Um, in terms of the election costs, there are some uh um election uh costs that you can um include into the ballot amount or sort of the the attorney fees or our fee as part of that, but you cannot include the full election cost. That will have to come out of the general fund for the um for the uh for the cost of running the election. Um and so while that's a consideration in terms of going out in 2025, I think the larger um concern or um point to be made is that when you are looking at a project amount of this size, you also have to um understand that that same project list will be um more expensive in the next year. And so that ballot amount that you approve will not get that same amount of um projects in the following year. Uh the next um few slides just go through a couple bit of the ballot language in the capital project levy referendum. But on this um on this slide right here is just the um I think you've all seen this before, but we just wanted to demonstrate to where other metro elections have been in terms of where their um where their um voter approved tax impact is. So um this is another good opportunity for um to just demonstrate the difference between the project the ballot and then of course the tax tax impact. So the project amount is what you approve the ballot amount um or the project list is what you approve the ballot amount is what the voters approve but they are basing their tax impact on both the principal and interest payments. So we that is completely factored into those yellow bars. Um and that so the tax impact is of the full um payment on the principal and interest and that's um that's sort of recognized throughout this um metro area election comparison. The average there is on an annual basis $129 a year. Um $10 a month is what those voters have approved throughout the last um several years. For the um for the sample ballot language on the next slide, uh it is statutoily required that you uh list in your ballot question the uh upper limit of funds that the district will voters will be providing and you must include language that states for the acquisition and betterment of school sites and facilities. Anything after that is up to your um purview to um include that. So an operating referendum, you don't have that authority to change the language, but um you all are probably aware that um as much as you'll communicate this out, voters will still show up and not having known that there was um a a ballot question there. So it does give you a little opportunity and the district took that opportunity in the 2017 election on the next slide to explain what the overall projects were. So I think it is um it is going to be part of the process once you define the project list um to review the ballot language that you want on the ballot and then we will provide whatever the the um authority is based on the project list. The other decision point that um that I think you should um consider here is that that you can break out the the bond referendum into any number of questions. The more questions that you put out to the voters, the less likely they are to pass as you go down the list. Um that's that's been sort of statewide data as well. you do have a capital project levy that needs to be renewed by the voters and the final um election by which to do that is November 2nd, 2027. Uh and you can do that anytime before then. So, um this would be an opportunity to put that on the ballot. Um but you do not need to. You'll have more opportunity to do that. So, um just know that um if it is if you do decide to to put that on the ballot, you could put that as question one. You could put that as question two. Um that is up to you. And then the other decision point is the contingency. So if you have multiple questions, you can determine the contingency and then know that that because it's a renewal, you'll get the favorable language that says by voting yes, you're voting to extend an existing property tax levy scheduled to expire. Then my final slide here is on the timeline. I'll just walk you through this a little. you are um required to call a November election by August 12th um to submit that to the county uh auditor and to MDE. And so we're going to step back a little bit from that um timeline and um at your May or June board meeting, you can do a simple motion to approve moving forward with that. uh you need to submit the review and comment in time to publish it prior to the election. So that submission of the review and comment really triggers off when you need to publish that. And so that is a window August 26th to September 17th in your local paper of record. And so in order to meet that August 26 deadline, we just suggest mid um mid June because the state is allowed 60 days to turn that around and they will take that full 60 days. Um and then um so that that sort of backs up the timeline a little and it would be helpful in meeting all those deadlines if the board were to make the decisions to um outline the projects uh okay the draft ballot language um at either uh at the at the June board meeting in order to meet all those deadlines. So I'm happy to answer any questions. That was a lot thrown in. Again, impressive um getting through the all that information in the time allowed. We have run a little bit over um time, 3 minutes. So, wondering given that information if um my board members have any quick feedback or questions for our presenters. Yes, Treasure Heartland, I have a super quick question and it was the one that was sort of concerning me the most. On one of these slides, did it say that are and given an upper limit of $140 million that the estimated tax impact was that it was $7 a month on a $500,000 home? Is that is that accurate? That's like 4hour tax base for the potential um maximum dollar amount that we're talking about. Yes. So, a home valued at $500,000 would have a $7 per month tax impact increase over what they're currently paying. Okay. Thank you. And I calculated that quick. That would be $84 a year. So, well, under the that average that you showed us of 129. Yes. Okay. Thank you. Thank you. All right. Thank you everybody. Um we have a full room which is really exciting to see. Um I will adjourn the uh workshop um this evening. Thank you so much for being here and going through that information so quickly for us. Um and we will take just a couple of minutes to regroup and start our board meeting um at 710. Thank [Music] Hello everybody. Welcome. I'd like to invite my board colleagues back to the table so we can get started. [Music] this thing on. Did you ever have a good community? They're over. [Music] Yeah, I can [Music] see they were like here. [Music] I would like to call this meeting of the Hopkins School Board to order. The time is 7:12 p.m. I would invite my board colleagues back to the table. I'm trying to be louder. Good point. [Music] Order in the court. There you go. So, this regular meeting of the Hopkins School Board is called to order at 7:12 p.m. Thank you and welcome to everybody here this evening. Uh we are going to start off our meeting um doing one of our favorite traditions which is recognizing our amazing students and the adults who support them in um our royal blue carpet ceremony. Um so I would like to invite everyone down to the front of the board table to recognize our students. [Applause] So, we are excited to welcome you tonight to celebrate the incredible achievements of our West Middle School students. This evening is about honoring growth, perseverance, and excellence. And we have so much to be proud of. Tonight, we have the privilege of recognizing students who have shown exceptional growth this year. Growth that may not always be loud, but is always powerful. Each grade level team at West Middle School nominated students who have demonstrated significant progress in academics, personal behavior, and decisionmaking, attendance, or positive social emotional development. These students showed what it means to persevere, to rise to challenges and high expectations, and to believe in themselves. These nominations reflect the beautiful diversity of our school community, including students representing different cultures and heritages, students with IEPs and 504 plans, those in Chinese immersion, English language learners, and multilingual students, and members of our many affinity groups. These students stories are a testament to the strength and potential within every student. Thank you, Chair Andre, and good evening to everyone. I'm going to continue with this recognition. We also want to recognize the families and caregivers of these amazing students. So, if you are here tonight, thank you for everything that you have done to pour love and high expectations and structure into your young person. Your encouragement and support is a key ingredient to our students being successful in school. And watching these students grow and thrive is inspiring. And it reminds all of us the power of patience, belief in our students and shared perseverance. We also want to recognize our fabulous principal at West Middle School. You want to step out and give a wave? Serita Mate. Serita Mate um is are you a secondyear principal? Principal Mate. So um she is truly amazing and she works hard to build a schoolwide culture of kindness, student voice, collective efficacy amongst the staff and high expectations for students. Are there any educators from West here? because you are very special as well. Miss Philippo, I see you. Miss Julian, can you make yourselves a little bit more prominent, please? [Applause] Yes. Thank you, West Educators, for everything that you do for our students. All right, so I was talking with a few of the kiddos back there. They were wondering if all of you are going to be in the room when they're recognized and I said yes. Okay. So students, this recognition is just a few minutes in the spotlight, but it represents an entire school year of effort and resilience. We hope this moment reminds each of you that we see you, we believe in you, and we are proud of you. And so we are going to um now recognize by name our West Middle School growth honores. And you know what? Every teacher was also kind enough to write a very descriptive um explanation for how each particular student demonstrated their growth. We didn't feel comfortable reading those because students get very self-conscious about, you know, what we share about them. But we can provide those descriptions to parents and caregivers. I know that um that would mean a lot to you. So, we can do that at a later time. All right. So, West Middle School students, what you need to do is like move your way through all the people in the room. Come to um the the front of this column. Do you see this column right here? And maybe you see the royal blue runner. If you could sort of position yourselves so you can walk up the royal blue runner when your name is [Music] called. Okay. Wait, wait for your name. So, wait for your name. And we have 24 students on the list. So, um it's becoming obvious that we don't have 24 students here. We'll read each name, but if you do hear your name, then please walk forward. Alice Floyd, are you here? [Applause] Alice, Amin Ali, Ben Everson. Okay, congratulations, Ben. And you're going to hang out with us for a little while. You want to stand up here because we're gonna take a pick at the end. Colin [Applause] Winship. Congrats, Colin. Connor Houston, Dylan Martin Garcia, Elellanar [Applause] Manley, Evan Vu, Gavin Caspers, [Applause] Haley Gates [Applause] Bus, Hamdi Ali, Kizzy Nuan, Landon Blades, [Applause] Leslie Dunham. Did I say your last name right? Leslie. Okay. Um, London [Applause] Hardaman, Roberto Mesa, Sif Osman, Salma Osman, Scarlet Keane, Stella Dexter, Terren Taylor, Valentina Chulka Chinchin, Veronica Bco, and Javier Hernandez. [Applause] All right. And if you're a parent or family member, would you stand so we can just acknowledge you? Looks like you're already standing in the back. Okay. Very good. All right. So, kiddos, come up here. Stand in front of a photo. Yeah. We're going to take a photo. Yeah. So, stand in front of us and then parents, you're welcome to come up here and take photos. And actually, Ann, could you be our our um official photographer because our communications and marketing person normally does this, but she had to attend her son's band concert. All right. So, everybody smile. One more. [Music] Congratulations all of you. Woohoo. [Applause] And thanks families for being here. You're welcome to hang out for the meeting or if you have other things to do that's cool too. Thanks for being here. [Music] Thank you all so much for being part of that um celebration of growth um from West Middle School. And I'll just say I have a particular fondness for West because that's where my school my kids went. Um so that made me particularly happy that um the completion of that takes us to the next item um on our agenda which is open agenda. This is where we um host public comment. The Hopkins School Board um believes that hearing from our community members is crucial for implementing vision 2031. You can contact the board in many ways. One is via email. Um you can also come and do public comment. Um which we host two versions. One at two sessions of public comment. One at the beginning of our meeting uh half an hour and one at the end for a half an hour. Uh we do prioritize uh public comment for the first session um that for items that are on the agenda if um it's necessary to do that if we have more than what will fit in a half hour. Um and you can either leave public comment via a voicemail and directions for doing so are on our website or you can come here in person and hang out with us for a while. um and fill out a comment card to um address the board. So um this evening we do have some public comment cards. And do we also have any voicemail? We have one and we have we have eight public comment cards. So we will be able to get them all into the first session. Um we have room for 10. Um so we will go ahead and get started with um public comments. Um if everyone's okay, we can um start with the voicemail. Um and I will go ahead and read our public comment guidelines. Um yes. So bear with me as I go through this. Uh, please keep your comments to 3 minutes or less. Public comment is for input only. Members of the school board will not respond directly to public comments that are made at this meeting. No specific action will be taken at this meeting in response to comments that are made or issues that are raised during the public comment period related to items not on the agenda. If the board determines that action is appropriate, the action will occur at a future board meeting. If you have left your contact information on the comment card, a district representative may follow up with you after the meeting. I will recognize one speaker at a time. Um, only those speakers who are recognized will be permitted to speak. Individuals who interfere with or interrupt speakers, the board, or the proceedings may be asked to leave. Personal attacks on any individual, including any other speaker, during the public comment session, are unacceptable, as are obscenities or profanity. Persistence in making such remarks will end the individual's opportunity to address the board and may result in the individual being directed to leave. I will rule out of order any statement that would violate state or federal law, schoolboard policy, or the privacy rights of an individual. Minnesota's open meeting law prohibits the discussion of private educational data during an open meeting. Accordingly, during the public comment session, no person may discuss private educational data on an identifiable student. The open meeting law also requires the board to close a meeting for preliminary consideration of allegations against an employee. Accordingly, community members who have concerns about an employee or want to file a complaint or allegations against an employee are encouraged to contact the superintendent. We ask you not to name an employee by name during your comments. Repeated violations of these place, time, place, and manner restrictions may also lead to the meeting being briefly recessed. Community members will have an opportunity to be heard within the limits of the law and subject to the time, place, and manner restrictions above. And thank you sincerely for participating in public comment this evening and for listening to all of that. Um, Natalia, can you please play the first um public comment? Okay, talk amongst yourselves. Wait. Do we want to go ahead and maybe start with people who are here while that loads? Okay. Um I would like to invite the first um person up to the board table, Eric Mandal. and please correct that pronunciation if it is incorrect. Um, you are here to speak about restorative culture update. Welcome. Thank you for being here. Thank you for having me. My name is Eric Mandel. Um, some of you have read my blog at Hopkins 270. Um, some of you know me uh by the individual who wrote a letter to the editor in response to Dr. reads um guest column in the sun sailor. Uh I have I'm the parent of two high school students and I'm here to talk about the restorative culture update that's oncoming. Uh we have been working on restorative culture as part of vision 20301 for about seven years now. Uh in December of 20th 2022, there was an update that was presented to this board. That's two and a half years ago. Uh, Director Hartland actually asked a question if there were data points that show if the program was delivering results that improved safety um and that were reducing disproportionate suspensions and expulsions of children of color. Important things. The answer was no. Why? Well, that's because the team was unable to adequately track the necessary data points. It's two and a half years ago. Tonight's presentation, we're getting the same answer. That's it. We are not tracking the information. We cannot do it. We cannot manage this. We are looking for results and we're not seeing them. And unfortunately where we are is that we cannot establish a causal relationship between seven years of effort and a results that we're looking for. We have these great ideals. We have wonderful ideals with vision 2031. We have things that we all want. We all want equitable outcomes that serve every student, no matter where they come from. We all want these great ideals that are being sold at this table on every time we come here, but yet we're not seeing the results. In tonight's thing, in tonight's show, we're going to see a lot of beautiful slides saying about how wonderful and greatly ideals these are of restorative practices and they might be, but we're seven years in. We don't have results that it's working. We are spending money. We are spending resources. We are challenged in those monies and resources yet we keep going after the same thing. It is important to understand that we can share the ideals yet we have to look at some point in time and say are we achieving the results that we want. I can agree with you on ideals but at some point when do we say enough is enough and we have to look for alternative solutions for what we want to achieve. This is happening in terms of many different areas including our academics. I pointed out as well as others in the community that we are seeing test scores falling. We are seeing graduation rates falling. We are not keeping up not only with districts here across the other parts of the city including in Hipinanoka and Oo. But we are having real problems. We are failing our children. Yet we keep doing the same thing over and over again and somehow expecting different results. There's a name for that. We have to look at making real change and affecting change so that people feel good about not only what we're doing, but that our children are getting the results that they deserve. We cannot keep hearing about, oh, we're doing nice things, but basically we're moving around the debt chairs. We need results and this board needs to ask hard questions and demand real answers and not softballs. Thank you. Thank you. [Music] No. Okay. I would like to invite uh Lucy Pharaoh and Rose Christensen to speak about class sizes, student experience, future of district budget. That's a lot of topics. Do you want um three minutes collectively or three minutes consecutively? We'll do con um together. Three minutes. Okay. Thanks. Good evening. My name is Rose Christensen and my name is Lucy Pharaoh and we are both graduating seniors. I'm also one of the co- studentent council presidents that served for Hopkins High School this year. We are here tonight to share some concerns that many of our fellow seniors share about the future of Hopkins. We first want to thank the board. I've had a great experience these past six years and graduate in two weeks grateful for the experiences and opportunities Hopkins has provided. But I attribute much of my success to the amazing educators that work tirelessly even when they are thrown curveballs from our school administration or required to teach classes larger than is humanly manageable. To all the teachers that are here tonight, we want to thank you so much for your unwavering support of our education and all the effort you put in every day. I truly believe that students succeed when they are allowed to build one-on-one connections with their teachers and encouraged to push themselves to try harder classes and programs. With the budget changes and limited class opportunities proposed for next year, it will become almost impossible for every student to build meaningful connections with staff. Class sizes have already risen to unmanageable levels for students and teachers. And in classes with 35 plus students, it is hard to even get your questions answered, let alone build a meaningful connection with your teacher. I have been in Hopkins since preschool and I'm so thankful for the countless teachers, mentors, and staff who have guided me through these years. Many fellow students and I have benefited tremendously from programs like college and schools propel and advanced placement. These classes challenge us academically, prepare us for college and future careers, and give us a head start on our goals. They are not just extras. They are essential parts of our education. I have gained 10 college credits from college and schools Spanish classes and would be greatly disappointed if other students like my younger brother aren't given the same opportunity. In addition, the arts, music, and career teched programs in our schools provide students with creative outlets, alternative career paths, and important skills that aren't always taught in core classes. Limiting these programs and not providing adequate staffing limits opportunities for students to explore their talents, build confidence, and stay engaged in school. We should be promoting these opportunities to students as many of our classmates are not aware of the possibilities that Hopkins holds. Lastly, propel or professionals providing experience in life gave me the opportunity to not only acquire an internship for these past few months, but also provided me with invaluable skills that will guide me through my time in college and beyond. I am forever indebted to my Propel teachers for believing in me, supporting my growth, and allowing me the chance to take this meaningful step forward. As a school board continues to edit the budget for upcoming years, we understand that things need to be cut, but urge you to consider the most important part of school, the student experience. When you invest in programs that give students more opportunity, whether it's smaller class sizes, college level courses, and alternative pathways, you're investing in their future. You're giving them the tools to not only succeed academically, but to grow into confident, capable individuals who are ready to take on the world beyond high school. We are grateful that we have had these opportunities and want to ensure that all future students have them as well. Thank you for your time. Thank you. like to invite Jonathan Fner to speak Jonathan Fulner Hopkins music. Thank you. I brought some hands out and I'll um I'll leave my notes like it's requested on a card at the end too. Thanks. I know you've got experience. Hi, my name is John Fner. I've taught music in Hopkins since 2014. Uh my family moved into the district a few years later. One of my daughters is a Hopkins graduate and the other is a soon-to-be graduate. Uh I have a history of innovation within the music department bulleted on the handout I'm sharing. I examine data, attend workshops, experiment, and collaborate with my colleagues so their work pushes mine and vice versa. Music teachers work together at all levels in Hopkins to align our curriculum and assessments. So, however a student chooses to explore music, they will have opportunities to create, perform, respond, and connect as laid out by our state education standards. I'm here tonight because our work, innovations, and teacher agency are all inhibited by the district's current staffing processes that especially impact teachers with K12 lensure. After enrollment dropped during the COVID pandemic, music teachers did two years of a quality improvement process to examine attrition, identify program strengths and barriers, align our outcomes to vision 2031, and create a pathway for regrowth. We presented this work to district leaders and continue to develop it with the support of a state grant. One barrier found was a lack of entry points to music after elementary school. So, as teachers, we've introduced entry- level classes at the high school. My DJ techniques class is one of several and my learners perform at lunches on Fridays now this month. Uh, as far as I know, it's the only DJ program in the metro area and you can see more details on the handout. Uh, in Hopkins, teacher agency is deincentivized. Uh, each spring staffing reassignments feel chaotic and random. Teachers feel insecure as choices seem driven by tenure obligations and budget shortages instead of curriculum. Insecurity discourages innovation and one questions the value of work in an environment where reassignments aren't justified pedagogically. This doesn't show value towards teachers or innovation and creates results not aligned with our district values. The D uh sorry uh the music department has raised this concern multiple times and today I am another example. Enrollment changes are affecting my classes, but additional classes I developed are being reassigned to other teachers with less experience in those subject areas, and I'm involuntarily transferring to another school. Whether that's a partial or complete move is at the discretion of the principal at a the new site who I have not met and who isn't familiar with my work, and whether they will inconvenience their own hiring process at my principal's request. There's no one at a district level facilitating that conversation between principles to inform curriculum priorities. And there is no protocol or flowchart for decisions to make sure they align with our values and vision. A major factor seems to be whether leaders think it will be easier to hire partial FTE at the high school or at elementary. That practice has created a racially biased outcome. In the case of my DJ class, opportunities for students of color to perform an art created in black American culture will go away. The FTE of the person developing those opportunities is moving to maintain traditional ensembles where enrollment swings majority white. This is an excellent example of how systemic racism inhibits school music programs, even in an equity forward organization, when we don't have an informed decision-making process. The real problem isn't actually a lack of elective class enrollments. It's that Hopkins doesn't fund middle and high school music ensembles the same way surrounding districts do, and we're scrambling to fill course quotas for music teachers. Appreciate it. Thank you, Jonathan. I'd like to invite Brent Ehoff to the table. Oh, you got the voicemail. Okay. And if I realize you're showing support, which I think is great, but if you could pause to let me invite the next speaker up while before you start clapping, that would be great. It'll save us in time. Yes. Hi, my name is Beth Sturker and I'm calling about the budget read through on the agenda for tonight's uh school board meeting. Um, first of all, under the uh efficiencies area with instructional cuts. I was curious um if we know or and this may come up at the read through. I'm especially concerned about the secondary schedule reductions that are listed there. uh the course consolidation that's mentioned and setting minimal minimum course levels um if there's any specificity with what those will look like how those decisions are made um I am curious to learn more about those as I will have um two students at the high school in the coming two budget years um so schedule reductions around course consolidation and also what is the the meaning of minimum ource levels like in a subject area, what does that um look like or what does that mean? Um thank you again for your time and for answering my question. Thank you. Um so I would like to now invite Brent Eoff to the table to speak on long-term consequences of short-term solutions. Thank you for being here. Welcome. Thank you. And thank you board for having this this open agenda so we can all talk. Now, although I have worked in Hopkins public schools for 18 years, I'm here tonight as the parent of a rising sixth grader who will attend North Middle School next year in the Hutos program. As an educator, I get the need for budget cuts. I don't think there's been a single year in my career in Minnesota and outstate where cuts didn't happen. Sadly, it has always been part of our reality. I'm here tonight to simply ask those who are burdened, and I do see it as a burden. I'm glad I don't have to do it with making the final call on the cuts, to please consider the future of Hopkins as much as the present. My family and I live in Minneapolis, where our children have attended school since kindergarten. We made the decision to bring our oldest to Hopkins because of the promise of opportunities. opportunities around high achievement in things like art, music, language, as well as the general influence of the amazing educators Hopkins has on staff. I can't wait for my child to be in a school system where so many of the teachers are excited visibly to be in the classroom. Again, I know cuts are inevitable in these unprecedented times, but I would ask that in making those tough decisions, strongly, I bolded it, so I really mean it. Consider the long-term consequences of short-term solutions. Hopkins has a reputation for amazing sustained opportunities, which is why people bring their children here. Please protect those entry point courses to our long-term elective programs. find ways to ensure that there will be enough AP, C, and CIS slots for scholars who spend five to seven hardworking years hoping to save their family tuition money. We've heard the phrase, "Our budget is a moral document over the years. Please work to show that Hopkins values our opportunities and promises." Thank you. Thank you. I'd like to invite Melanie Bristster up to the table to speak about FTE allocation in budget. Thank you for being here this evening. I have some data. I have a few printouts. There's two sheets. You might have to do some sharing, but this Yeah. Thank you for the opportunity to speak tonight. The current FTE allocation model works well in some elementary schools, but not at Eisenhower because it's not one school, it's three separate schools under one roof. Unlike larger schools with a single program, Eisenhower cannot average FTEES across grade levels. For example, a school like Metobrook might need 4.75 FTEEs for second grade, equating to an allocation of 4.0 FTEES. They are able to spread the remaining 75 FTEEs across four sections, keeping class sizes relatively reasonable. At Eisenhower, the community school might have a grade level needing 1.75 FTEES, which would then receive an allocation of 1.0, rounding down as per policy, but nowhere to spread the remaining 75. According to this calculation, next year Eisenhower would have projected class sizes of up to 42 in community school, 46 in Huntos, and 39 in Shinshing, compared to only 32 at Metobrook. While other schools can use general funds for support staff and enrichment, Eisenhower must use nearly all of its general funds just to hire enough teachers. This model leads to an inequitable situation compared to other schools across the district. Eisenhower is essentially managing three staffing crises in one school despite having the district's highest needs for behavioral, language, and social work support. Having personally spent many hours in Eisenhower as a volunteer and substitute teacher, I have observed this strain firsthand. A full data breakdown will be shared later this week via email, but here's the bottom line. Shinshen is short 50% of its needed FTEES. Huntos 20% and community school 57%. When combined, this results in a severe shortage of adults to support the number of students walking through the doors each day. The board has made reducing class sizes a priority. It's time to align funding decisions with that commitment, even if it means making difficult choices elsewhere, such as reducing district administrative costs. Thank you. I'd like to invite Megan Kolinowski. Did I say that correctly? You were very close. It's Kalinowski. Kalinowski. Um, speaking on changing election years. Thank you. Oh, election years. Yes. Thank you. Hello. My name is Megan Kalinowski. I am the proud parent of a third grader in the Hooptos program here at Eisenhower. I'm here to express my serious concerns about the conversations related to changing the school board's election year in a way that would effectively extend the current board members terms. While administrative changes to election timing can sometimes be justified, the context here makes this decision deeply problematic and frankly damaging to public trust. First, the optics of this decision would be very troubling. In a year when the superintendent's contract will be up for renewal, a decision that will shape the future of this district, it raises valid concerns about accountability. Extending your own terms at this moment can appear self-serving, especially if it allows sitting members to make high impact decisions without facing voters first. Second, trust in public institutions depends on transparency and respect for the democratic process. Voters elected board members to serve defined terms, not to extend that term by changing the rules mid-stream. Even if technically legal, this kind of decision undermines confidence in the board's commitment to fair governance. Finally, this sends the wrong message at a time when many in the community are already questioning how decisions are made about student retention, fiscal priorities, and district leadership. Now more than ever, the public deserves to know that their voices matter and that elections and term limits will be honored. I urge you to consider not just what you can do, but what you should do to protect the integrity of this board and the trust of the community that you serve. Thank you. I'd like to invite Mark Mike HS to the table to speak on student Oh, sorry. Um to speak on student safety. Mike Harris. Oh, Harris. Okay. I thought you said Paris. Like that doesn't look like a P. Hi, I'm Mike Harris and I'm um community resident. I'm parent of two kids that have attended Hopkins. One's currently going to graduate this year. The other one already has. I'm a coach. I'm a teacher. I wear many hats. and I'm probably the one of the oldest members of Hopkins community that's done all three of those roles here currently and have a different perspective. Um I have a lot of pride, a lot of pride. I've coached three Olympians with the programs I'm involved with. Um along with my uh colleague Nick Levice, we've coached 13 state championship teams and we know what pride is. And I it's it's disheartening because I come to you and I ask you to look at some of the aware safety awarenesses that we as parents were given initially that um is not happening or hasn't happened yet at high school and that is uh we were looking at smoke detectors or vape detectors. Now, I talked to um uh some people in the back and they did say that they were currently being installed um but they weren't in use this whole year at this point, which would have saved some problems because I come to you as a coach now saying that some of my cross country and track athletes wouldn't use the restroom because of safety concerns. And that's a problem when they come out to the track and they would rather use the portaotties than be confronted in the bathrooms. That's a problem that I I see that we haven't solved yet. And if vape detectors and things like that would have helped, I would I would gently uh say we should do better and make sure that those are in place. Um the uh the number of students in the hallway um as an observation still are problematic. They there are fights that still exist in the bathrooms. Um my own son uh is very aware of it and he's talked about the fights that are occurring and the videos that are occurring um and given us a reputation that does not make me feel happy or proud. um and amongst the other schools and the people that I visit with from the educators and the teachers. Um so perception is everything and um I just want there to be consequences so that students know even though we don't have a student handbook I want students to know that there are certain parameters you don't cross and the the challenges that we have with that is that if you have no um barriers then students are likely to do it again and again. Um and that's where we're at. There are no consequences so therefore they continue the same bad behavior. and I want to stop the behavior. Um, I want to be proud of Hopkins High School. I want to be proud as a teacher. I want to be proud as a parent. Um, and there are some things that have come up that just make me look that, uh, um, we can do things better and we can do things differently. Um, and that's where we need to be. We need to do things do differently and better. Thank you. Thank you. [Applause] I'd like to invite Kendra Theory to the table to speak on budget. Welcome. Thank you for being here. Hello again. Good to see you. Good evening. Have you missed me? My name is Kendra Theory and I'm here as a parent to two first graders in the Huntos program to highlight something I see in teacher funding and how it's structured across our district. Right now, each school's FTE allocations are rounded down at the whole school level, a method that doesn't account for how staffing needs differ based on the school size and program complexity. if schools were forced to operate strictly within their budgeted FT FTE allocations. So if they just took that and used it as their teacher allocation, class sizes would exceed 32 students per teacher in 22 out of the 48 elementary classes. That is unsustainable and it directly harms students. As Melanie had stated, Eisenhower faces additional challenges because it operates as three separate schools within a larger school, Hunto's, Jing Jing, and Community School. Yet, its funding is treated as one. Literally, all the students are combined and then divided. You can't do that across three different languages. You can't balance students across Chinese to Spanish. It doesn't work. Um, so this forces our principal to stretch staff across those three programs using one budget. We saw the impact of underfunding this school year when Eisenhower had to cut kindergarten paras not because they weren't needed but because the budget left no room for them. If we don't fix these FTE allocations this year, we'll repeat these same mistakes for next year. again forcing our youngest learners to go without critical support and for us to come speak to you again next year. The board must adjust how teacher allocations are calculated so schools receive staffing based on actual student needs, not rounded formulas. Be before approving this budget, I would ask you to critically review this model to ensure staffing is determined by actual student needs rather than a formula that rounds down. I provided you with a sheet that shows the school, the grade, the projected students based on the budget, how many FTEs are allocated based on the budget in each school, and then how that would be spread in reality based on those numbers, and then what the class size would be based on those numbers. Then I put how many FTEEs are actually needed to get all but one class below 32 students. And I listed how many teachers that is per school. And it's significant. Like she said, the Eisenhower Community School needs four additional teachers, which is a 57% increase from what they're allocated right now in the budget. That can't happen without cuts to other essential supports. The end. Thank you. Thank you. [Applause] And our final speaker this evening is Daphne Groster. Sorry if I pronounced that. Please correct me. And to speak on uh student is it center? Just all student stuff, you know. Okay, great. Thanks for being here. Hi, I'm Daffhne and I've been going to Hopkins since I was in kindergarten and you know it's been a good 13 years. I' I've been uh in the cross country, Nordic, skiing, and track program as a varsity athlete for the last six years. And it I think I believe that I've shown what it's like to be a good student and a well-rounded individual. And I'm probably what you'd want to see at an athletic event or a school event, just like a lot of my teammates and the people I surround myself with. I'd like to speak on behalf of my French program and how I I find the cuts and the reducing in number sizes really disheartening to me because French has been such an impact on my life the past six years. I've had amazing teachers and I've every day I've gotten better and it's probably one of the only programs I've gotten better in every day. And it's amazing to see like the transition from like even last year to now on how much I can do now. And it's and to my and I'm leaving because I'm graduating this year, but to my teammates, it's hard for me to knowing that there is going to be a reduced number of sizes in um people being able to take French one through four, but five and six are going to be increased as that wouldn't even matter to the point of if one through four are getting decreased, what's the point of increasing five and six because you're going to have no one left. But it's sad because that's what you that is that what you want as Hopkins. We are here for um diversity and we want to be inclusive, but if we're eliminating our cultural programs like our language, it seems a little bit ironic to me. And I really really hope that we can keep the French, you know, keep all the language things because I mean it's just it's like weird, you know, and I want Hopkins to have a good reputation. It's like we're eliminating like we're not even thinking about our future here because if we're not having a good school program, what's the point of coming to Hopkins anymore? It's like that's what our we got to have a good representation and you got to keep the students that aren't the ones that aren't watering the wandering the halls are the ones taking the CIS the APS and all that and if there's no APS CIS's left they're going to be just wandering the halls and it's then you go in the bathroom and you walk out and there's weed smelling everywhere or a vape and it's hard because that's that's not what you want as a as a high school and we're 15 to 18 years old, you should not be smoking weed in the hall. You shouldn't be doing anything. You need to be taking rigorous courses if you want to get a good education. I really hope you don't blow this off like I've spoken before. I've written letters. I really hope this makes an impact. So, thank you. So, thank you all for being here this evening and for your comments. Um, I am in particular appreciation for the students who showed up this evening and shared your perspective. So, thank you. Um, that takes us to our reports section and we will continue to hear from our amazing students. Um, and so I will turn it over to you for your board reports. Hello everybody. My name is Claire Fischer and I am a junior. Since this is our final board report of the school year, I would like to thank all of you for having me on this board this year. This is my first year being a student board representative and I have greatly appreciated my time here and the experiences I have gained. First, I would like to talk about signing day, which happened on April 16th. This was a day where our student athletes, continuing on with their sport and college, signed their national letters of intent to commit to their college of choice. This goes handinhand with our decision day for all seniors, which was on May 1st. On this day, the student council hosted their first annual decision day pancake breakfast, where all seniors enjoyed complimentary pancakes, watch a sentimental slideshow, and rep their colleg's merch. This seemed like a very fun experience for everybody who participated. This past weekend, two of our Environ teams placed at state. One team plays first and one team plays third place. Environ is an annual themed um academic competition for high school students. Um they are tested on a variety of environmental science topics and are challenged to apply their knowledge of environmental science to real world issues. For the past two weeks, AP exams have been in full swing. So, it's been a very busy time for a lot of students. Um, I had three this year, so it's definitely I'm definitely relieved that it's over. Um, I think that it went pretty well. I actually had my AP language and composition um exam in this room. Um, so I was pretty surprised I found out my test was in here. Um, I think I take it as good luck. Um, our AP coordinator, Mr. Samler did a great job organizing all the exams and ensured that they went smoothly. On May 16th, we celebrated Hopkins High School alum Paige Beckers for her first game with the Dallas Wings. Um, many people wore number five jerseys and there was a watch party for the game after school that day. And lastly, I would like to talk about our prom, which is on May 31st. um prom is at the Fillmore this year like it is always um in Minneapolis from 7:30 to 11:00 and the theme this year is a night in Paris. So that's very exciting. I would like to say thank you again um to everybody on the board for amazing year. Um I'm very excited for next school year on the school board. Thank you. game player. [Applause] Hi, my name is Manuel Wahu and I'm a sophomore student board rep. So, in Mr. Herring's AP Calculus BC class, since we already took the AP test, which I actually took right there. Um, we are now working on our teach for the day projects. So the class is split into seven different groups and each group has their own calculus topic which is a topic that we did not cover in AP calculus. So every group has a designated day where they will be teaching their topic and we have to prepare a note sheet, review questions and test questions for when we teach. And after every group has taught for a day we will take an open note test using the test questions made by each of the groups. U my group's topic is hyperbolic functions which are the analoges of ordinary trigonometric functions but they are defined using the hyperola rather than the unit circle. Um and hyperbolic functions are written as the trigonometric functions are but there is just an h at the end. However the pronunciations are a little different and instead of the trig function s cosine and tangent um the hyperbolic functions are pronounced as cinch kosh and tanch. Um, so next Tuesday at 7 p.m. in the auditorium, our high school band will be having their final concert of the year. And this concert will be filled with many senior spotlights and features because it will be their last ever high school band concert. And also, students who have lettered in band this year will be receiving their letters at that concert. And finally, our juniors who recently took the ACT, um their scores have come out and four Hopkins students earned a perfect score of 36, which is amazing because um nationally only 0.2% of students who take the ACT get a perfect score. So, congrats to these four students and also congrats to everyone else who took the ACT. And um thank you to everyone on the board. I'm really excited for next year. [Applause] Uh hello everyone. My name is Sufan Osman. I'm a freshman. Today is my first year uh on the school board. Start off mine. Next week, no not next week. I think the week after spirit week and I don't know what next week. Next week is spirit week. I don't know what we're doing each day. I honestly didn't check. And uh moving on, uh Iris couldn't make it here, so I'm doing her teacher spotlight. She decided to spotlight Mr. Bey, the AP world teacher and AP psych teacher. Uh I had him earlier this year. Pretty hard class, but he's a nice teacher. Uh but in her class right now she's doing the festival of nations which I didn't get to do but uh she uh what they're doing is like they spotlight uh an a nation and like just their traditions and festivals and she's doing Pakistan and she told me a little bit about that. Uh this week synch the girls synchro team went to state is going to state and they're going to be competing on I think Wednesday and Thursday. Oh wow. And finally orchestra concert is tomorrow the final one. Thank you. [Applause] Hi everyone. My name is Prainell and I'm a senior and have been on the board since fall of 2023. I started going to I started going to Hopkins in fifth grade at Metobrook. And being a part of this board has been one of the best parts of my high school experience. So, I'll get into my board report really quickly. Starting with my teacher spotlight. Myself and another student in my class named Javvon got to attend a UN climate justice summit this past week. We got to hear negotiations, important decisions, and even received complimentary shucks, which are shank bucks, because this UN climate justice session actually took place in a nth grade classroom. Uh, where was I? Me and Javon sat in on this class during block one because we were giving a we were given a very creative assignment by Mr. Leapa. We were tasked with producing a poem based on a random conversation we overheard by being sneaky. After getting permission from the teacher, Mr. Jensen, we took notes on words and phrases we heard, some of which included dude, industry and commerce, deal, pinky promise, heavily tax, oil, emerging nation, carbon dioxide renewal, and you're not going to find this anywhere else. As you can tell, me and Javvon were able to write some pretty good poems based off of this. It was honestly a very fun moment because the teacher of this class was actually someone I had gotten to know over a year ago when I received the opportunity to sit in and be a part of their interview panel. It was very exciting to see learning happening in such young minds. So, thank you to Mr. Leapa and his creative writing class. And now on to some more things related to the graduating class of 2025. The Hopkins Student Council has set their date for the annual senior sunset to happen on June 2nd as a way to commemorate the end to our entire school journey from K through 12th grade. With commencement happening just a few days later on June 6th, finally, the class of 2025 scholarship ceremony occurred just yesterday evening. It was fun to see some of the schoolboard members there and even more amazing to see the $56,000 of funds distributed to well-deserving students. Almost a quarter of those that applied were recipients from the AVID almost a quarter of those that were applied were selected as scholarship recipients. A 36%age and almost 50% of those selected recipients were students from the AVID program. AVID, which stands for advancement via individual determination, is dedicated to closing the achievement gap in education for first generation students like myself. It is more than just a study hall as claimed by those who aren't familiar with it. Instead, it is a space where students who don't have access to parents who have been through the college admissions process or the wealth to afford private college counselors can find a support system. Unfortunately, during the scholarship night, I was sad to notice that a good portion of the names, specifically the names of students of color, were not accurately accurately presented. This was disheartening as the day before I had attended another ceremony hosted by the Alpha Kappa Alpha Sorority Incorporated organization where the phonetic spelling of each student's name was considered before the ceremony. I understand that this of course does not land in the hands of the board. However, I believe that a night like the annual Hopkins ceremony should be a time where students feel celebrated without having to deal with the misprononunciation of their ethnic names. In closing, next year I will be attending the George Washington University where I'll be majoring in cognitive neuroscience with a minor in computer science on the premed track. I'm really excited for this next chapter, but saying goodbye to the student board program definitely is not easy. So, thank you. [Applause] Go for it. Hello everyone. My name is Mia Osman and this is my final report as a senior student board representative. I've had the honor of serving on this board for three years and I've been a part of the Hopkins community since 2014. As I prepare to graduate, it's hard to put into words how much this space has meant to me. In the fall, I'll be attending the University of Minnesota Twin Cities, majoring in political science on a pre-law track with a minor in history. Even though I'm excited for what's next, it's still tough to say goodbye to something that's meant so much to me. Over the years, the sport has been more than just a seat at the table. It's been a place for growth, purpose, and connection. One of the most meaningful experiences I had was participating in the social connection leadership summit during my sophomore year with director West Morland Henipin. Working with Henipin County and students from other districts, we worked on initiatives to decrease this connection and make schools feel more welcoming and supportive. I have also had the chance to visit the capital twice with the legislation action coalition where we spoke with Minnesota representatives and senators about school policies and student needs. I'll never forget the feeling of walking through those halls and feeling powerful. Another favorite memory was going to the MBSA event in Shaki and learning how student how school boards and student leaders can work together to uplift more voices, especially those that don't always get heard. Before I wrap up, I want to take a moment to also spotlight a teacher who's helped me get helped me and many others get to this point. Miss Heimlick has been such a strong and supportive system in the Abbott community. And I know we all I speak for all of us when we say we wouldn't be where we are without her. From the ACT prep at the beginning of the year with help from our AVID tutors Kristen and Nicole to college essay edits, she's never gave up on us. She stayed after school, answered our endless questions, and believed each and every one of us when we doubted ourselves. Miss Heimley, thank you for pushing us to rise higher and for going above and beyond every single day. For my final report, I would like to say that this year our choir won five of the 10 best insight awards at the Lake Conference Vocal and Choir Competition. This means our five ensembles were the best and the judges heard that day that heard that day. Congratulations to the following scholars for their outstanding work. Rose Calibria and Sophia Peterson for their duet. Rose Calibria for her solo. Sophia Peterson for her solo. Ella Moore for her solo. And Ella Moore and Lauren Delby for their duet. And then a huge congratulations to Miss Hansen um the choir director for leading with excellence and getting the students to where they need to be. Summer school will also be taking place from June 16th to July 14th, running Monday through Thursdays from 8:30 a.m. to 12:36 p.m. Students have the opportunity to recover up to four credits. Register registration will be managed through Infinite Campus and counselors will continue identifying students. Um, meals and transportation will also be available for students to attend. And then starting next school year, a new student led group called Women in Strings will launch, bringing together young women musicians to perform collaborative and spotlight female talent in the string community. This would include instruments like the cello, violin, viola, etc. This initiative is a beautiful example of students taking the lead to make our programs more inclusive and inspiring. Finally, AVID night is on Tuesday, May 27th, and is a special event where AVID students reflect on their high school on their AVID journey. Two students will be selected to give speeches about how AVID has shaped them, and we will we will all be able to invite teachers, staff, um, who've supported us along the way. Each of them will be recognized with a flower and a thank you for helping us to get where we are now. It's a super meaningful way to wrap up the year and celebrate the people in the moment that made it all possible. As I close out this report, I just want to say thank you. Thank you to the board, the staff, the teachers, and my fellow students who have made this journey unforgettable. I'm proud of the work that we've done and I'll carry these memories with me forever. Thank you. [Applause] Thank you. Um you you all are going to make me cry, so I will open it up to um if there's any comments from my board members. Chair Andre. Yes. Yes. I I do have a comment for our uh student board reps. Um you know, I think especially near the end of the year, I think you really remind us why we do all the things that we do, right? We don't necessarily like to sit in budget meetings for hours and hours, but uh you know really it's for it's for you and for your uh to see you grow and blossom and become awesome people. And uh I just really wanted to thank you guys. You are uh in some ways the best of us, right? And I want you to go uh move the world. So go do that. Thank you. Okay, that didn't help. Sorry. what he said. Yeah. Tier and Dre, can I say something? I am so proud of all of you. I was able to attend the scholarship meeting uh ceremony last night and was able to see like Mia and Praise get their scholarships and it has just been a wonderful experience connecting with all of you on the board. I've learned so much about each of you and you know I'm going to be an elder soon. um not too soon, but I'm going to be an elder and um you all are the future. So, I'm going to be looking to you all to run our countries, to run our cities, and to, you know, just make innovation happen for us to live fruitful lives. And so, I'm so excited to see what life brings for all of you. And whatever it brings, I'm sure you're going to take it head on with a charge. Um because you all are just those type of folks. And so, um, I'm going to miss you guys and I'm going to see you at graduation and I'm looking forward to still connecting with all of you next year. I hope that you all are going to still be on a board, but um, yes. So, thank you. Thank you. We'll miss you guys, too. Um, thanks um, for the reports. I always appreciate you all do a great job coordinating what you share and it's a nice um mix of uh academic um arts, sports, student life. So um thank you for that and um I will just reiterate your your service is um above and beyond. you do so much and it has been delightful having you be a part of these meetings and um really really really proud of you and your achievements and I can't wait to see what you do like so excited for the two of you and really excited to see the three of you back. So that takes us to the superintendent report Dr. for Mary Perry Reeds. Thank you, Chair Andre. So, I think we already began the um this moment where we want to give our board members accolades for all of their contributions at the board table. Um so, we wanted to start this report by just thanking our student board representatives and congratulating our senior representatives. Um, I too have learned so much from you and what I especially appreciate is having you at the table to candidly speak to what is going well and also highlight some things that we need to pay closer attention to and you do it so well. And um, we're probably going to be reading about the two of you and like the local and national newspapers in the future. We're very excited for your future and thank you so much for everything you've done at the board table. I'm going to turn it over to director West Morland who has additional praise. Thank you. Yes, I will. For praise and others, right, I will add my voice to the chorus here. And um I want to thank all of our student board reps. It's been a pleasure working with you. I officially came on board as your liaison um in January. And I've had the pleasure of working with Mia and Praise now for several years um in various capacities. So Mia, Praise, Aisha, Claire, Amina, Manuel, Eloise, Iris, and Sufan, you have served us so well this year, and you've served our entire community um with integrity and purpose and truth. And we witnessed that during your participation in workshops, during your very insightful and entertaining board reports at our meetings. You have also as a group um accomplished amazing things over the past few years such as serving on our legislative action coalition, our policy and budget committees. So you are in the room where it happens, where those decisions are made and then brought forward to the board table. you hosted our legislative action coalition breakfast and we have a couple of photos from that on the slide here. Um, you co-hosted a fall 2024 candidate forum ahead of the 2024 election. Um, as you mentioned in uh your reports tonight, you advocated at the Capitol for policies around um replacing the high school MCA testing with the ACT. um rules around vaping in schools and to support to help kids stop vaping and to strengthen rules around how far vape, smoke, and alcohol shops can be um to public schools or how their proximity to public schools um among other important issues um that were you advocated based on your lived experience. you attended the statewide student board rep conference and um from what I heard really wowed some other districts because I've had school board members from other districts reaching out saying how do we design a board rep program like yours. Um so you are impacting how student voice is integrated into educational decision-making spaces across the state. Um you took part in the district mayor and city managers meetings that happen regularly. So you are also shaping how things happen in the cities um that comprise our school district and we are currently working as a group to expand the student board rep program to include more voices including adding a virtual edu rep. We already have one Amina who does a wonderful job um working on adding another and going out to some of our elementary and middle school sites to hear about student experiences there and bring the their voices into the conversation. Um so it has just been an honor to work with you. I can't wait to see what we do um this summer. We're going to do a little bit of work this summer um and come back um with with a new group um in the fall. Well, some returning SBS of course um and new members. Um and we are going to miss Praise and Mia so much. And I want to award each of you the Minnesota School Boards Association Service Award um for your service to our community and as I mentioned to the state of Minnesota. So, thank you. [Applause] [Music] [Applause] And I will pass it back to you, Dr. Mary Perry Reed. Thank you, Director West Morland. And congratulations again, Mia and P and um praise. All right. So, um, what I'm wondering, I actually can't see if principal mate is. Oh, she is here. Oh, there you are. Okay. So, um, well, before I do usually have a few slides just um, sharing some highlights from across our district. And, um, before I start speaking to those, I do want to take a moment to acknowledge the Fierce Hopkins supporters that we had in the space today. We we still have a few who are remaining for our meeting. Thank you for being here. Um each issue raised tonight is worthy of our attention and effort given our present resources. So it's um really important that you are exercising your voice and we we take all of these issues very seriously. Um, and while it's not in the board's protocol to respond right now in real time, I do want to let our speakers know that you will receive a response within um, 3 days. Um, and finally, I do think it's important to share that um, while the concerns raised um, absolutely do need to be addressed, there is also a lot to celebrate in Hopkins public schools. There is a great deal of pride. Our students um you can you can see from all of the student speakers um that they have they have really thrived in our system. I was especially impressed with Daphne. She presented without a script. That that was very impressive. Um, so there's a lot to celebrate and systems always have challenges and um, we will honor those challenges by um, paying attention to um, what folks are seeing and experiencing and determining a path forward. Um, a couple things to look out for. Our annual report is a multi-page document that will highlight our successes and will be soon mailed to the community. Our communications and marketing department is working on that right now. And then our upcoming state of the district virtual sessions as well as bond referendum engagement sessions this summer will give community members additional opportunities just to engage in dialogue and particularly in the state of the district to um hear more about some of the concerns raised. So there are future opportunities for continued engagement and again as um staff and leaders who serve you, we will attend to the concerns that were raised. Okay, so this um slide here and I'm just moving on to a few highlights from across our system. First of all, uh six Chinese immersion students from our Shing program represented Hopkins at the Midwest Chinese bridge, which is a Chinese show in Chicago. Our students competed against 20 finalists from across the region. each student delivering a speech in Chinese that was evaluated on pronunciation, fluency, and content. All six of our students earned a top honor, placing first, second, or third in their group, which is absolutely tremendous. And this really speaks to the incredible Chinese instruction provided by our Shing teachers and of course supportive parents. So, we're very supportive of our Shing students. Um, we're very proud of our Shing students. I'm talking way too fast. and program. And by the way, we did want to let you know that we are launching um Chinese immersion preschool this fall. So, we do need to work together to recruit 16 four-year-olds for our Chinese immersion preschool. Please contact us if you have a four-year-old and you are interested. Okay. So, next I wanted to um share that across our elementary schools and this is about literacy. Now, our instructional coaches are observing literacy instruction in action, and the goal is to gather baseline data and monitor how well new literacy practices are being implemented. We've talked a lot at the board table about the letters training that hundreds of our teachers have um completed um last year and this year. and instructional coaches use a tool called Otus which stands for the observation tool for instructional support systems. This tool called OTUS helps us to identify and address gaps in the supports teachers need to effectively use evidence-based practices. The tool helps us look beyond individual classrooms to assess broader instructional support and evaluate key areas like leadership, teaming, professional development, and datadriven decision-making. So, we're looking forward to using this tool with Fidelity as we strengthen the instructional supports that will improve literacy outcomes for our students. So next slide, the next two slides are about the work being done by students at virtual edu. So first, do you ever have water leaking in your home and want a way of stopping this without paying too much? That's why this elementary virtual edu student created glassin, a gel that absorbs little and big messes that can be absorbed when you wipe away with a paper towel. With Glasscutin, you protect your time and protect your dimes. This example of an elementary vo students project met the requirements for their unit on design. Students put their young innovators hats on to tackle real world problems with inventive solutions and then presented their ideas Shark Tank style. Check out the invention on the right hand side of the slide. And this is to cure your mouse pest problem. Not by killing the mice, but by building a condo for them inside your home that mice can live in, but not escape from. I mean, very creative. So, from thoughtful design thinking to confident presentations, these kindergarten through grade five students showcased ingenuity and perseverance. Also check out how much more advanced these projects become as students get older. For the unit six on identifying chemical reactions, secondary students at VU were tasked to create infographics that identify chemical reactions. And for unit seven, which is understanding mental health on the brain, students learned about the impact of mental health on brain regions, neurotransmitters, physical symptoms, and daily life. They then created patient profiles and developed treatment plans based on the patients presentation, family history, and demographics. That's incredible. Treatment options included different medications, therapy modalities, strategies to try at home, and symptom trackers. So, after graduating from VU, these amazing students are skipping college and going right to med school. Students from North Middle School and Hopkins High School recently attended the regional Environ competition at Oliver Kelly Farm in Elk River. Environ is the longestr running environmental science themed quiz competition in the world. There is a junior level competition for students in grades 6 through 8 as well as a senior level competition for high schoolers. And this involves teams of five that take knowledge exams on environmental science topics including aquatics, soils, forestry, wildlife, and a current event topic which for 2025 is the resilience of northern forests to climate change. Five teams competed from our high school. Four teams competed from North and uh the North folks, the North students competed with second and third place awards being earned. So really phenomenal work and also a fun-filled day. Last week, our American Indian educators Annie FA and Deb Andrin hosted a feather ceremony, which is a traditional celebration of graduation for native students. Director Jiming Jao, Principal Ballard, and quite a few educators attended to celebrate with the five soontobe graduates and their families. It was a really beautiful ceremony that included traditional drumming and singing, a delicious native uh meal, and gifts, including an eagle feather that were bestowed upon each of our five soon-to-be graduates. So, congratulations to those students. I'm also excited to share that our new Latino student success liaison, Brando Rojaso, recently led a group of Hopkins students to the Latinex Youth Leadership Conference at Metro State. This annual event brings together high school students from across the Twin Cities to celebrate Latino culture in the US. Our delegation included nine students who participated in a variety of workshops, heard from an inspiring keynote speaker, and wrapped up the day with a lively DJ set featuring Latino music. Students had a really great time. And as a reminder, our student success liaison in Hopkins public schools, our dedicated staff who support student engagement, cultural identity, and academic achievement, especially for students from historically underserved communities. Brand's leadership on this trip is a great example of that mission in action. And as Claire mentioned, the Hopkins Education Foundation or HF hosted a very exciting page watch party this past Friday at uh Hopkins High School. is a really fun event attended by our Hopkins mayor Hanland, city council members, school board members, uh, Jiao and Roper, students of all ages, parents, community members, all of the local news stations were present, which is, I don't know, a little intimidating, but also fun. And um it was very cool for Hopkins to be on the news. Not just um showcasing the Paige watch party, but also to report the fun fact that Friday, May 16, the city of Hopkins changed its name to Paige Beckers, Minnesota. And finally, the end of the school year is a really exciting time for our community. Um, let's see. Our student board reps talked about the senior scholarship ceremony last night. We had AVID celebration tonight. We have graduations coming up and um lots of opportunity for engagement and celebration. So, without further ado, Principal Mate, I know that um you had a loved one to attend to at home, so I appreciate you sticking around. During our superintendent reports, we do feature a school to spotlight and I'm very pleased to have you here. It was really fun recognizing students from West earlier in the board meeting. Thank you for being here and I'll turn it over to you to spotlight West Middle School. Um, it's nice to meet everyone. I was trying to figure out how I could narrow down all of the things that are happening at West for into like five or 10 minutes. And so what I decided to focus on today is really how we are building uh an intentional culture like restorative culture of belonging and joy at west. And I think that there are two major drivers for that. I think that our advisory or crew curriculum uh where students um are intentionally building community in small cohorts is really important. Uh I also think that um our monthly class meetings is a a major driver. And so during our monthly class meetings, it's a time for us to recognize our students who are embodying the IB learner profile traits. Um it's a time for us to build community as a class and to have fun together because if you have a middle schooler or have ever had a middle schooler, fun and connection are really important to them. Um, and it's also an opportunity for us to celebrate the winners and the successes um, from our crew competitions. And so our most our latest uh, competition was a schoolwide power up competition where students were charged with um, reading as many minutes and doing as many minutes in the PowerUp program as possible. And if they met a threshold of 75,000 minutes as a as a school, they would get to slime the admin team, which is what what occurred a few weeks ago. Um they also got to throw pies at um teachers faces and they were um the other one was shaving um teachers heads. So all in, you know, all for literacy. The pages were definitely turning and the students had a lot of fun. So that was um great to see. Uh when you begin to like create a foundation of belonging and joy, it's really important to then step it up and make sure that you are promoting like voice and agency. And so we do that in lots of ways. Um so this is a survey that we took mid year just trying to get some feedback from students about crew and how they were feeling about crew. Um the majority of our students are having a really positive experience and they attribute those things to four major factors. The fact that they have time to spend um and connect with like their friends, the crew teacher vibe and the support that they get from their crew teachers um having enjoyable and fun activities and the length and structure of crew. So crew is 55 minutes. um it's broken up into restorative circle time and check-in time and then we have all of these activities and so it's the right amount of fun and connection and more seal development. Uh, one of the ways that we've increased student voice and agency within our crew curriculum is by putting the the reigns into their hands essentially and having them come up with the questions that we do during our crew circles. Um, and so this is an example of, you know, Miss Julian's crew who I believe she was here earlier. Um, just this the check-in questions that they came up with. Uh so there's like really surface level questions and then there's questions that we use to really go deeper into conversation with students. And so having them um create those questions and then the entire school does those questions for for the week um has really increased engagement in students wanting to be a part of the circle and putting their voices in the room. And so, Miss Filippo or she goes by Granny P, her crew also does like this is an example of her crew questions. And so, um, again, this has been really impactful for students because they want to participate in circle more because the circle is is theirs. Um, other ways that we've really increased voice and agency is when as a school leader, I think that when students come to me with an idea, my job is to make sure that I can help them bring it to fruition and then to get out of the way. Um, so because we have a pretty solid foundation of belonging, students feel really comfortable coming and saying, "Hey, we want to try this. Like what do we need to And so our play for all kids came to us and said, you know, we want to do this kindness week. Um the answer was yes. And that was a really successful event. They wanted to not only stay true to like the core values of play for all, which is inclusion and kindness, but also use it as a fundraising activity. Um and it culminated in our polar plunge. I think students raised about $13,000 in total. Uh our student council students uh they do a lot of planning in the building and they do a lot of activities in the building, but they really felt strongly that they wanted to go out into the community and do some kind of community service. And so they came to me and said, "We really would like to do um some service at some of the elementary schools. What do we need to do to figure that out?" And so through connecting with uh Dr. Nolan and Jeff Rael. The students were able to go to Gatewood and go to Glen Lake uh spend some time doing some service there and they had a really great time and really hope to continue that next year. Additional things that uh just show a little bit more about voice and agency. So, our student ambassadors just welcomed our fifth grade rising student families to our building last week. They held tours. they were strategically placed around the building and did Q&A sessions with families. Uh, and the families were really excited to just get a student perspective. And so just making sure that, you know, you give students an opportunity to shine is really important. Uh, we just hired our new associate principal and I had a small group of students, there's about eight of them who served as a hiring committee. And so they were recommended by teachers. Um I reached out to their parents and said, you know, are you okay with your kid being a part of this group? This is the purpose. And they met with our counselors and figured out um what are the attributes of like a good leader? What do we um enjoy about our current leaders? What do we wish we saw within, you know, our current leaders? And then based on that, they came up with a list of questions and they actually interviewed the final three candidates that we moved on to round three and then they were able to give us feedback about who they felt would be the best leader um for West. And so th these are just examples of ways that we are trying to share power with students and really get their voices into the room. And then finally um a big event that just happened was our career day. So, our eighth graders, you know, come once the spring hits, eighth graders are very very much ready for high school. They do not want to be associated with anything sixth or seventh grade. Um, and and that shows. And so, we need to figure out ways to engage them and to make sure that they are leaning into the supports that we have access to. And so, we asked them like what we needed to do to really get them to engage in crew. And they said that they wanted something different. they wanted to be um the curriculum to be different. They wanted it to focus more on like you know high school type events. And so one of the things that they felt really strongly about was career day. So we surveyed them. They came up with you know a number of careers that they wanted to learn more about. And then we went out into the community and we recruited people. Um it was 100% student driven in terms of interest and we were able to get 23 professionals to come and spend time with the eighth graders. They felt very special and you know it was just for them. So it worked out really well. Um so yeah there's lots going on at West. Come visit. We'd love to have you. Thanks. Thank you. [Applause] Thank you Principal Mate. Thank you so much. Thank you. Any um feedback or questions for Dr. Mary Perry Reed? Um thank you for that really nice snapshot of what's going on around uh the district. I'm actually delighted about the Jing Jing um in Chicago, but also that we're going to have Jing Jing preschool. That's like I really want to see those littles running around. Anyway, um it was just an unexpected and delightful um thing to hear. Um so, thank you for that. And I would then look for a motion to approve our agenda for this evening. So moved. Second. I have a motion and a second. Any discussion? Seeing none, all those in favor, please say I. I. Any opposed? The chair votes I. And the agenda is approved. Uh we will now go to the consent calendar. This is part of the agenda that for items that um give the board information but are considered to be more routine in nature. If the board does deem an item to be necessary for additional discussion, a motion will be made to move the item to new business. I would look for a motion to approve the consent calendar. So moved. Second. I have a motion and a second. Any discussion? Seeing none, all those in favor, please say I. I. Any opposed? The chair votes I. And the consent calendar is approved. And that takes us to our treasures report. Treasurer Hartland. Wonderful. Thank you so much and good evening. Uh my extra research for this period was primarily centered around gathering info uh for the board and our community about the potential impacts of moving to evenear elections. So um please see this evening's workshop if you'd like to revisit any of that really fascinating information and in deference to our very full agenda tonight um and the time that so many of our community members are investing in us. I'm not going to repeat it all here. Um, I will remind the community that on our website they can find the financial register that I will reference here. And additionally, these treasures reports cover the approximately 19% of our budget that is not salaries or benefits. And this will be a shortened review of some of those expenses. For the period of May 1st to May 15, 2025, we paid um $1,225 to keep up the landscaping at our Katherine Curran building, which is the building that the Hopkins district owns and leases out located on Hopkins Main Street. We paid $5,628 to the International Bealate Organization for their required um cyclic evaluations and reporting. as is many uh for many months transportation was a very large expenditure and we paid $492,000 to Lake Country which is just one of our busing contractors. $48,595 of that was for charter school transportation that we are required by Minnesota statute to provide for charter schools within our boundaries. Um, $637,948 went to Metropolitan Transportation Network, one of our other busing contractors. Uh, we paid $1,890 to Metro Volleyball Officials Association for Volleyball Officials. Um, and it's just one of the many expenses that the district bears in order to provide a really wide array of extracurriculars activities for all of our students. and family paid fees do cover some, but not all of the expenses that are associated with providing um such a wide array of activities. We paid $1,640 to test some sump pumps at a single site. So again, that's just one of the many um similar expenses required to keep all of our many facility systems both safe and compliant. We paid teachers on call $145,690 for substitute teaching coverage. Um, and with that, I move that we approve dispersements in the amount of 2,16,3226 for the period of May 1st to May 15, 2025. I have a motion. Is there a second? Second. I have a motion and a second. Any discussion? Chair Andre, clerk Thompson. Um, thanks for the report, Treasure Harland. I just had a quick question. Um, I had seen that we paid Henry Ford Learning Institute for that phase one that we're kind of in the exploration phase, $31,200. Do you know how much do we is that the entire cost of the phase one or will there be more coming? Do you have any idea? Um that is a good question. That is the entire cost of the phase one. Okay. And then do we make a decision to move into phase two or is that already We have to make a decision before we move into phase two. Correct. Okay. Thank you. All right. Appreciate it. Thank you. Any further discussion? Seeing none, all those in favor, please say I. I. I. Any opposed? The chair votes I and the treasur's report is accepted. That takes us to new business and our first order of new business is an update on student wellness and restorative culture. I would invite our presenters up to the table. Thank you for being here and turn it over to Dr. Mary Perry Reed. Thank you, Chair Andre and thank you very much to our presenters. Um, so uh just for a quick framing here. So actually three years ago, not seven years ago, three years ago, we began to build our restorative culture framework. So this would be a district-wide approach to implementing restorative practices across all of our schools. Um, this work is in accordance with the Minnesota Department of Education's focus on building restorative schools across the entire state. Restorative practices are specific techniques designed to create belonging as well as facilitate restorative processes when harm is caused to others. Uh, restorative practices are not in lie of natural or imposed consequences. Um I do think it's important to clarify um because one of our previous speakers during open agenda did you know did say that there are no consequences. It's very important to clarify that we have restorative practices and unfortunately we have um a fairly high number of suspensions. So we do suspend uh students for any and all instances of fighting um or dangerous behavior. And so that's um very important for our community to know. And we have to work harder at implementing restorative cultures with fidelity so that we can mitigate and decrease uh uh unproductive or harmful behavior responses from students. Um and so the theory of action here is if students feel an increased sense of belonging and if they have access and opportunity to build their social and emotional um senses of selves then they will rise up to u high academic and behavioral expectations. So that's what we're working on here. And I also wanted to share that um to help build restorative schoolwide culture, we implement social emotional curriculum at all grade levels and we use Panorama to assess and measure students social and emotional growth and sense of belonging. And I think we can get better at quantifying the impact of our restorative practices across our sites. And there's some systems work that we have to do with our um student information systems and our our reporting and recording practices. So those are things that of course as a system we can get better at. So without further ado, um thank you very much Miss Whitlock and Mr. Stanley and Miss Wilcox for being here. I'll turn it over to you. Awesome. Good evening everyone. I'm Kavan Whitlock. I'm the student wellness coordinator here in Hopkins Public Schools. Um Brian Stanley, assistant director of special services. And so tonight we will um we kind of have two separate presentations. Um so Brian and I will be presenting on student wellness. Um and then Miss Wilcox and I will be presenting on restorative culture. Awesome. Thank you. Um so just to overview kind of what we'll be covering in regards to student wellness. Um excuse me. We do know that students are experiencing an increase uh increased challenges uh due to uh mental health. And so with this presentation we'll cover um the panorama data regarding students mental well-being um as well as some strategies and supports that are currently in place here in Hopkins. Um, so in regards to the panorama data, um, I do want to preface that, uh, we used the fall 2024 data because that was what was required for students to complete, um, at the beginning of the school year. Um, and the spring was not mandatory for students to um, to complete the survey. Um, and that we did, uh, Panorama data for grades 3 through 12. Um I have the next four slides. Um the first two are grades three through five. And if you look at all four slides, they have to deal with challenging emotions. Um as well as a student's capacity to cope with those feelings. I I'd often times say when they're challenging feelings, they're um described best as painful or threatening emotions. So the term of you know the concept of embarrassment um comes up quite frequently in the middle school which where I was today. So um the grades three through five the one you're looking at right now has to do with how do students how how frequently do students experience those threatening or painful emotions. Um and the higher than percentage here actually the better. So what this indicates is that you know only about 15% of our students in grades through 3 through 5 have frequent challenging feelings. Um so that's that's a nice um improvement over previous years. Um go ahead Kavan you can and then the emotion regulation has to do with the skill enhancement or the acquisition of skills. Um and what you can see is that when students are feeling disregulated or experiencing those threatening and painful emotions, uh 90% of them um out of the 1,500 that um took the panorama responded favorably. And if you look at those two questions there, um that doesn't help. You're even smaller. When everybody around you gets angry, how thank you. How relaxed can you stay? If you look at that 43% increase um from the spring of 2024 and the third question, how often are you able to control your emotions when you need to? 90 92% responded favorably, which is an increase of 38%. Um so that speaks to um some of the work that's been being done that I know Cavon will talk about with purposeful people um in the SEAL curriculum that's being utilized in the elementary. And then the next slide now we switch over to grades six through 12, we had about 3,000 respondents uh to Panorama. Um and this if you look at the trends have stayed pretty even um over the course of the last four or five years as well. So obviously our adolescence um scholars are experiencing challenging feelings, painful or threatening emotions. you know, about 50% um 45% of the time they're they're communicating to us that they're pretty intense feelings that they're having quite frequently. Um and unfortunately, the next slide will will tell you kind of where we're at as far as the acquisition of skills. Uh if you look back, you know, prior to COVID, you had uh students reporting the ability to um regulate their emotions, cope with what their um experience on a daily basis at 54 54% and over the course of the last 6 years um we have not seen an improvement. We actually seen a decline in a student's capacity. the adolescents are uh reporting only 44% of them are indicating that they um know how to they have the skills to be able to cope when those uh painful or threatening emotions are that intense as well. So more work needs to be done um with the component there. Um but there are a lot of environmental, social and academic stressors that obviously our adolescence are facing. Um, and you know, this was taken in the fall, which is, you know, I think there was a lot going on in society. A lot of emotions were high, um, in our schools and outside of our schools, and I think that transfers to our students as well. Awesome. Thank you. Um, so then to kind of just go over some of the mental health uh, resources and supports that we have here in Hopkins, um, we have for our school-based mental health, um, we have St. Davids who is providing uh therapy services um at all six elementary schools. They are also supporting um the autism um program at Harley. We have move forward um at both West and North as well as the high school. Uh Relate Counseling also at West and North and the high school um and VDU. Um and then we have Reed Behavioral Health who was supporting at uh the high school. Um, also want to add that we also have Growing Through Grief um, who has been a long-term uh, partnership here in the district. I want to say about 20 years, more than 20 years at this point. Um, who's provided services um, and supporting our scholars and families in the district. Um, like Dr. Mary Perry Reed stated um, for our universal implementation here in Hopkins uh, for that tier one social emotional learning for preK through 12. Um we have purposeful people um and character strong same organization purposeful people focuses more on the elementary um and then character strong focuses on our secondary um of course across the district at various sites we have wellness centers and calming spaces um restorative culture and practices um and then the strong connections grant through uh MDE um that we have up through till June of 2026 uh which does help cover the costs of a lot of the services we provide. Uh so here uh the next few slides kind of just breaks down uh each of our providers, school-based providers and who they serve. Um so at St. David's we have 6.0 FTE um again servicing all of our elementary schools. Uh, one thing I did want to highlight um is that 106 active clients um are the ones who are receiving the therapy services. Um, St. David's does also provide diagn diagnostic assessments uh for probably about 20 to 30 more of our Hopkins scholars um that may not receive the uh school-based therapy but more outpatient. Um and then of course we all know with funding being funding being a bit scarce um St. David's hopes that if we are able to get more funding um that they would hope to provide an additional 2.0 FTE um at each of our sites that they support um cuz that's just that's the need that they're seeing right now. Uh next we have Reed. Uh this was the first year using Reed. They provide uh chemical health support um at our high school um as well as mental health support um as well as chemical use prevention and education. Um it has been a great partnership thus far with Reed. Um and so we definitely look forward to continuing that partnership next year. Uh for Relate Counseling Services, we have 3.6 FTE right now. Again, they are uh offering services at Northwest the High School and VU. um they will be offering um therapeutic services throughout the summer. Um and they are currently taking new clients as well. Um and so that was something that they shared districtwide. Um I believe K through 12 they're open to providing services for um let's see. And they did offer some uh groups this year at the middle school level. Um sports psychology, anxiety and skill building. um building relationships and connection and then self-care and embracing me were some of the groups that they offered. Um out of those out of the 64 referrals that they received this school year, uh 46 of those followed through with wanting to receive services. And then for move forward, um the numbers that you see here, they kind of are all-encompassing of services here in Hopkins. Um so the numbers that you're seeing here do reflect their youth case management, mental health services, as well as the school to housing program uh that we have through Henipin County. And so to continue with move forward, um the eight that you saw on the wait list are for therapy. Um but they will actually be starting intakes soon for summer services. As far as school to housing, they've had 11 referrals um six active and they've discharged six from some of our elementary schools. And then some additional support and services. They have a drop-in center uh right down the hall. Um actually um they do offer therapy services in Somali, Spanish, and English. Um, and another big thing, they partnered with our community, um, and they will be running a mental health wellness camp um, this summer. Um, and they do free walk-ins one day per week for the ages 18 to 24. And then some additional support and services partnerships that we have here in Hopkins. Wanted to highlight my health. Um we have three FTEE uh health mentors at both West North and the high school. Um so these are trusting adults that also support with the health curriculum and in classrooms. Um they also provide a plethora of other services, your general medical care, sports, physicals, mental health. Um and they did actually state that we uh are their largest client base um that they support and serve um especially out of the three counties that they support. And then just wanted to highlight the high school. We heard some recently at a hilt um some amazing things that they are doing. So just wanted to highlight just a handful um in regards to their student wellness initiatives. Um Kings and Queens, Boys of Hope, and then Girls Taking action just to highlight a few of those programs. And so this was a quote um from my health that I just wanted to leave with everyone um just that they really appreciate the partnership. They really appreciate um working with our scholars and their families um and definitely looking forward to continuing this partnership with them as well. I'll take any questions regarding student wellness. Thank you so much for that presentation and for being here this evening um and giving of your time. Any um questions or feedback from my board colleagues? Chair Andre. Yes. Um thank you for the presentation and for this information. I was curious about whether or not have you seen any particular attributable jump in request. I know there was a jump back during COVID of mental health um that students were needing. Didn't know now if since 2024 like basically did it go like this in 2020 start to dip about maybe 2022 and then did it spike again about 2024? I would say this is also my first year, so I will pass it to Brian who will be able to give more of that historical context. Um, but I will add just really quick, at least in this year that I've been here, I have noticed an increase more in the chemical health support and services that are needed and requested. So, I will I would say that um, but I'll pass it to Brian. Yeah, I mean I think the data on the slide in terms of that emotional regulation reflects what we're continuing to see with mental health. Um we're still seeing a progression upwards. Um and you know with the additional services relate came on board uh recently within the last two years. We did did have St. David's but we're continuing to increase the amount of colllocated services fortunately through variety of different grants federal, state or comm or um countywise. So what we're seeing is actually more students taking advantage of what we have available. We have streamlined the intake process uh as well with working with our co-f facilitated a agencies to ensure that there aren't barriers with that. So we're actually seeing more students accessing the services as well as students coming forward and advocating for more studentled opportunities there. Uh we added the group therapy component or psycho education component at North Middle School this year because there was such a high demand from the students. They were excited about it. So we made that happen as well. So basically seen the demand outstrip the supply. Thank you. Yeah. Chair Andre. Yes. Praise. Um I'd like to make a comment kind of slash question. The presentation was really nice. Thank you so much for everything you guys just shared. I also just wanted to ask if you guys have been able to kind of connect with the mental health awareness and psychiatry club at the high school at all. Um they recently started I think at the end of last year and they just started having meetings this past school year and that would be a great resource to kind of um get more of this information spread out to the Hopkins High School student body that way that they're aware of like the initiatives that are being made and all the efforts that are being be that are being made on behalf of the district community. I have not, but they should be on the agenda in the future. That's for sure. Um, I think that's an important piece because I think I' I've presented on this before um our generation, meaning mine and and people of similar age have an idea of what mental health is, how we define it. A lot of times it has to do with mental health issues, challenges, diagnosises, and we forget some of the components um of more of the mental health that we all have and the positive components. I'd be real interested to see how students are defining mental health and how they uh foresee receiving services, you know, both when there is a challenge in the acute nature, but as well as proactively as well too. I so I feel ignorant that I didn't know that was available and and that the the student body is taking that on because I think we need to listen to you and uh allocate resources in the way that you start to understand mental health so we can understand it. And to piggy back off of that, um, praise will definitely connect after this. Thank you. Absolutely. Chest. Can I ask a really quick question? I'm trying to just be um mindful of time, but um do you all see that there's a like for so I know there's like a host of like grants and funding opportunities for school districts to invest in mental health. Do you see or would you say that like um funding for positions would be something that you all would like to see from like or may requesting like a funding request for mental health support? Like do you feel that that would be something that is like extremely needed? Like if you know there's mental health curriculum but then there's also positions that need to be filled. So, like if you had to choose between a curriculum or position, like which one would you apply for in terms of funding? Oh, wow. I mean, we always need people. Yeah. Um, and why not that individual deliver the curriculum, have the skill set to deliver the curriculum where you kill two birds with one stone? Um, I think definitely needing the um physical support. Um, well, what about you, Brian? You know, I don't want to forget about the importance of the tier one and I think we need to continue to develop that. We made a conscious decision a few years ago. Uh, Dr. Clay Cook um who is kind of the ones who develops the curriculum for um purposeful people and Character Strong. We abandoned other curriculum because they were kind of a one and done. You bought them and they weren't evolving and what Character Strong does in our relationship with Character Strong and Dr. Cook is reciprocal in nature. We he um we provide uh Dr. Cook and his organization with feedback, you know, both from a student perspective, but as well as staff perspective as far as implementation and impact. Um, and that's so what you're seeing with um character strong and purposeful people is an evolving curriculum based on the ability to respond. So I mean I I also want to make sure that when we're thinking what allocation of supports and services we need to provide our teachers so they can uh provide character, strong purpose purposeful people with fidelity. So ensure professional development on that. As far as real quickly in terms of staffing, um you know, the one thing is our psychologists, our social workers are all funded out of special education. Um so they are responsible for the services specific to IEPs. Um, we do have a few schools that have purchased services out of the general ed budget for social work that I think is helpful because then they can kind of spread um their eyes and ears to the general population as well. And you know, as far as the the impact of our budget, we're also seeing that in our community agencies growing through grief move forward the um grants that are available around mental health. Um I'm concerned about those. So I think we need to be for forward thinking in the next 2 three years as the next round of grants come available. What one are they going to be available and do we have the resources to one write the grants and monitor those grants as far as the reporting mechanisms as well. Thank you. um that I just want to quickly um ask a question that came up for me um because we're talking about it right now, but I know that the LACE has been advocating since I was on joined it 14 years ago for um increased and stable mental health in the schools funding and I'm wondering is that where the St. David's two additional two FTE, you know, two people come from. Should we be um advocating at the state level to increase that funding so that our partners can can staff additional people in our schools? Yeah. Especially with our colllocated services because the grant money doesn't flow to us, right? We partner with St. Daves. We partner with relate and work collaboratively to secure those dollars but those dollars flow directly to those outside agencies. So yes, the answer to that it is a specific state program mental health in the schools that funds these therapists in our building. Correct. Thank you. And just real quickly, there is one more mechanism for us to recoup dollars. Now, our school social workers, as long as they're clinical social workers, and even if even if they're not, they can still be mental health providers where we can do third party billing. Now uh for the actual services that social workers are providing in um special education similar to what we've been doing for years for nursing for speech pathologists for occupational therapists the state department and department of human services have now made that operational and we'll be able to start billing for those services as long as uh the students receive MA. Great and that's medical assistance. Correct. Thank you. Any other questions? Chair Andre. Yes. Yes. I should have a quick one. Um, and I know it's uh this is, you know, we're asking schools to solve a lot of society's problems, so I understand this is tough work. Um, but the emotional regulation number is uh troubling to me. Do you know um contextually what the nation is at? I my understanding is Panorama is national and so we do have comparables. Is that true? We do. I don't have them available, but uh we can make sure that we work with Jillian Randall and get that information too that looks at both kind of Minnesota, but as well as uh nationally. Okay. Thank you. But isn't this isn't this 44 percentile um as compared to everyone at that grade level tested nationwide? I can't speak to the metrics on it, but I that would make sense to me as far as the norms. Yeah, it's a nationally normed assessment, but we can get back to you on that specific question. That's an important question, but it's similar to I did pull out in case there were questions about national data from the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention in 2024. 42% of teens experience persistent feelings of sadness and hopelessness. So that would kind of fit uh and in some ways uh what you would see is that Hopkins is above that as far as students being able to cope and and deal with those type of feelings. Thank you. Any other questions? Thank you for that presentation. So we can um move on to the restorative culture portion. Absolutely. If I may interject, and I don't know if this is appropriate because we're not supposed to name people, but I want to give accolades to Cavon. This is her first year. She's worn many hats, you know, both with restorative culture, um, seal, but also Mckin Vento and I've worked we work in the same office and we can spend almost a full day on one McKenna Vento situation and working through it and she has stepped in and she has done a marvelous job and I don't want that to go unnoticed. Oh, thanks. Thank you, Kon. You are doing important work. Well, and thank you for that attention to that. Thank you. My introvert doesn't like that. No, I'm kidding. Um, okay. So, to uh shift to uh restorative culture, um I will have my other co-presenter introduce herself. Hello, I'm Angela Wilcox. Tonight, I'm here with my restorative culture hat on. You also know me as the IB coordinator and a design teacher at North Middle School. And I'm happy to be here with you tonight. Awesome. Natalya, you can go to the next slide. Oh, that's right. You have a you have a different one. Um Okay. So, um, to kind of, uh, piggy back off what, um, Brian surprised me with, um, this year was the first year that they combined this role. Um, so this role was once two people. Um, now it is just one. Um, so to kind of just briefly highlight a few of the things that I do, um, seeing as this is my first time in front of you all. Um, so in terms of McKenna Vento, I do a lot of the coordinating um of partnerships um for Hopkins Public Schools for our McKenna Vento population. Um, I do meet regularly with uh other district uh departments um to build and strengthen that support for our homeless, highly mobile families. Um, so I work closely with enrollment. I work closely with transportation. Um, I also work closely, of course, with our social workers and our McKenna Vento site leads at each of the sites as well. Um, I do attend the MDE, uh, McKenna Vento webinar trainings as they pop up and as they are appropriate for me to attend. Um, I do submit all of the transportation tickets for our uh, McKenna Vento and Foster um, foster students as well. Um I do consults with our MV site leads for those kind of mucky gray area um scenarios. Um I do meet with our community partners regularly. So like school to housing um I meet with them on a bi-weekly basis. um in July. Um I do all the re-qualification re-qualifi re reququalifying um for our McKenna Vento families um whether that be submitting disc emailing discontinuation letters or completing a um envy intake form that I created earlier this year. Um, in regards to restorative uh culture and being the district coordinator for that, um, I coordinate the monthly meetings amongst the uh, restorative RC leads across all sites. Um, and then I attend any MDE trainings as well. And then in regards to social emotional learning um and student wellness, I lead those initiatives and bringing in um community partners um into the district to continue to support um our scholars and families. Um and then I collaborate and work closely with uh character, strong and purposeful people. So like Dr. Cook, um I know we have some trainings coming up here this summer with some of our leadership um as well as when our staff return in August. [Applause] So, I will walk us through again and I it feels timely because we had some public comments tonight. Um, I think there's a lot of ways that we talk about restorative practices that don't reflect what we are trying to accomplish here in Hopkins around restorative culture, but we're still in this is year three as a district-wide initiative. And I think we're still becoming familiar with some of the language. I've been doing this since 2000 and I know that there are people in the community of practitioners who have been doing this for 25 years who are still grappling with some of the language and mindset. So this is this is long-term work. This isn't a quick fix. So if you'd go to the next slide, this I'm not going you have the slide deck. I'm not going to read every slide to you, but I think reading this definition of restorative justice and education warrants a moment of our time. Um, it is facilitating learning communities that nurture the capacity of people to engage with one another and their environment in a manner that supports and respects the inherent dignity and worth of all. And there are three components that have to be present in order for restorative justice and restorative culture to be established in a school in a institutional level. The one that is often the hook for school districts is um addressing harm and trying to reduce suspensions. That's that blue circle. The second circle that often gets layered onto that is the social emotional learning and trying to build and nurturing school culture through advisory programs in particular. Um the one that's not as often discussed in instit at an institutional level is how is the call for restorative culture being addressed through shift in pedagogy and pedagogical practices. So instruction but also the relationship between student and teacher and between students and students. Um and without all three of those domains being transformed you can't build a restorative culture. So again, this is long-term work and we're trying to balance the work in all three of those domains across our whole system. Um the next slide is just grounding again. Um there are seven core principles reinforcing that idea of holistic powerful humans are good. We want to be in good relationship with each other. restorative practices both names this and then gives us tools to practice being like this with each other. Um on the next slide um we can see the shift. The next two slides talk about the shift from sort of a traditional school system where we ask who's being held accountable and how have they been punished and that kind of hunger to know what happened to the student and does it feel like it adequately address the wrong that happened. The shift is where we ask about the context. We hear the story. We acknowledge that relationships get harmed in context and in relationship and they have to be healed the same way. Um and so that shift from demanding accountability as a traditional punishment, that punishment may still happen as um Dr. Mary Perry Reed mentioned, but it happens in conjunction with conversation, in relationship, in proactive ways that bring the family and the student back into the community. So, just this week, I spent several hours in circles with students who had been suspended, but then we sat with the families and we talked through what happened and what do you need, how what are you willing to do, how can we support it? We had lots of tearary parents and lots of squirming children watching their parents cry. But it was very moving. And almost every circle I do with families and students, one of the parents says, "I've never felt like this in a school building before. I've never seen a school respond to something like this before." Um, so it's it's very powerful that shift, but it takes time and it takes human capacity. Um and the next uh slide again you have in your slide deck so you can read more closely but it's that shift from focus on misbehavior and punishment to inclusion relationship dialogue um and communication. And we have these cards um these have been distributed uh systemwide. So every restorative culture um coordinator in their buildings have passed these out to staff um as part of our training and um in my building most people have this right in their badge holder these seven restorative questions to remind people that we always start as a humanto human. So when harm happens we start not with what did you do but we start with hey are you okay? Do you need anything? Let's talk about what just happened. Um, so we and it's amazing if you start with the question, are you okay? Kids are like, wait, what? But now we're humans and now we can have that conversation. So, we have some of these if any of you would like them. Um, but that is a specific tool and training that adults of in our buildings have had to start to build that restorative impulse to notice and treat everyone in your building like they are human first. Awesome. All right. So then shifting to kind of where are sites at when it comes to um restorative culture and the work and what are sites doing? Um so at the Natal you can go to the next slide. Um so kind of just an overview um of what you're seeing we are continuing that work across the district um to develop that shared language and communication between sites. Um and of course given the shifts and changes in the role um at each of the sites um it is a part of the district plan um to utilize some of our tools that we used um like the must do should do aspire to do guidance which I'll touch on later. um we utilize that tool to really help craft um kind of what the role is going to look like since the changes and shifts um with the restorative culture role across the district. Um and so we also know with utilizing that I did connect with a lot of our restorative culture um leads at each of the sites and kind of got an idea of where they felt uh they were landing at. And most of our sites said they were landing in that mustd do level of that um of that guidance and then next slide. Awesome. Um so in a lot of our Hilt uh meetings uh there is always a restorative culture component. Um and that does trickle down into our built which is our uh building instructional leadership teams. um that is also trickled down into the built meetings as well. Um like I stated there are cross-sight monthly meetings um that I facilitated. Um we got a little late start this year um just due to a lot of the restructuring that had to happen with the McKenna Vento process. Um so we got a little bit of a late start this year uh but the goal um before the school year ends to is to kind of get those established um before the school year starts. Um and then each of our sites have um RC teams um that do meet regularly. Oh, this so uh one of the bullet points on the last slide was about uh the build the building instructional leadership teams being being the holders of our restorative culture work especially as it relates to that domain of pedagogy and instruction. Um and so this is just an example. Our North Middle School goal um last year and this year has included restorative practices um as part of our instructional goal and it's a really intentional part of our professional development training in our IB collaboration in our grade level instructional teams. We are talking about restorative impulse and restorative um educational practices as part of that pedagogical work. Um, so I mentioned earlier we have a handful of tools uh that we utilize here in the district and this is one example. Um, it's the Hopkins restorative process flowchart. Um, this was co-created by myself uh Dr. Lean Campy and Dr. Stanley Brown. Um, where we kind of took whatever whatever the conflict is, who does it involve? Um, and then we kind of then kind of gave it a pathway. So, it's a nice visual to see that, okay, if it's a student to student conflict, ideally that would get resolved utilizing the building resources. Um, if it gets to a point where maybe it's a staff to admin conflict, um, then that'd be something where they would consult with Dr. Brown um to receive maybe some additional support, resources um or maybe lean on him um to assist in uh resolving um and repairing any sort of harm or conflict. And then um so next we have the restorative culture innovation configuration map or RCIC map. Um this is essentially a rubric that has five components. um that kind of shows that ideal entry level in terms of um what should be implemented at each site when it comes to restorative culture. Um and then kind of goes to like you know that exemplary um level and so um I previously mentioned the must do should do aspire to do guidance. Um this is specifically in regards to the RC role. Um and so like I said before, we utilize this um to really establish what the work would look like given uh the change uh due to budgets um with the RC uh roles at each site. And this also will ensure um to maintain the fidelity that our that RC here in the district will continue. Um, and it'll also create that alignment too. Um, and I feel remove barriers for those sites who may have the funding allocated to hire a full-time restorative um, individual. Um, but then to remove those barriers to move them to the group 50 contract. um which will then kind of open that door for like for example some sites had a restorative culture parah who likely will not have a teaching license. So it removes that barrier to where uh folks who may not hold a license and but who are still amazing people and who could who are fully qualified to do the work they're still able to do that work. All right. So we will shift to data. Um so the data that you see here is from um our Tableau uh data cloud. Um this is the entire district and this is comparing uh the 23 24 school year to the current 2425 school year. Um and this is uh in regards to the number of behavior events each month. Um, so you'll see aside from September, we see a decline comparing last school year to this school year, we're seeing and noticing a decline in behavior events. Um, and then on the next slide, you'll see um some of those noticings and wonderings we had when we were looking at the data. Um, and so some noticings again, that decline um in the behavior events monthtomonth. Um, and I believe what was also mentioned earlier was that inconsistent data reporting. And so is that due to how behavior is interpreted? Um, and what would thing and some things to consider. What would it look like um, if we were to find an effective um, way to gather that data when it comes to the level one and level two behaviors? Because right now what gets reported is those level three, level four behaviors which because of them being bigger behaviors do result in a more punitive response um in terms of disciplinary action. Um so definitely some things to consider um and how can we then utilize RC and have it be rooted in that day-to-day functioning. Um, are we seeing these numbers decline because behavior is interpreted different or is it that we're not or it's not getting reported at all because RC is the root or the foundation of what's happening in that building. Um, so some challenges uh so we know there's inconsistencies um in the way data is reported collected. Um, so that's definitely something uh that has been a challenge um and sounds like has been a challenge. Um, of course the inconsistencies with funding and those being more consistent and sustainable. Um, though there's been shifts in the RC role just due to budget constraints. um some sort of alignment has been created um to where utilizing that must do level um and connecting with individuals who hold the RC title currently connecting with HR to seeing how we can establish that consistent foundation um and though now maybe some of those individuals like um like Miss Wilcox who are dual rolled um or even like myself multi-rolled um but Now, how can what will that look like at sites so that the work continues with fidelity? And how then can that individual lean on their building administration or other additional staff within that building so that it's not just held by one person, but it's held by the whole system. And then some plans and ideas uh for next year. Uh goal is definitely to really review uh the current impact data and processes. um of restorative responses. Like I said, we're only reporting on level three and four behaviors. Um and of course, those result in more punitive responses because they are bigger behaviors. Um and a goal would definitely be to consult and collaborate with each of the RC leads at each of the sites. Um pulling in Dr. Brown pulling in site admin as well to determine what can be some effective ways we could effective as well as practical because reality is the school day is hectic and crazy and busy. Um so what are some effective and even impractical ways where we can track those restorative responses at those level one and level two types of behaviors? Um is it real- time tracking? Is it like a little tally mark? You know, whatever that looks like. Um but definitely getting those stakeholders together to really kind of brainstorm some ideas of um what that could look like. Um and so with some of even our district project plans um as well there will be some kind of rescaling and recalibrating of uh those district project plans too throughout the summer um given the shift and change with the role. So, this brings us back to the heart of what it means to build and sustain a restorative culture that you don't have to have everyone agree with you and you don't have to know that you won, but you do have to know you were heard. And so, how do we build spaces where people know that other people are listening? That's our work. And now we will listen as you ask us questions. Thank you so much for that presentation. It was very thorough and provided a lot of I think illuminating information. Um any questions or feedback? Chair Andre, I just want to acknowledge that the work that you all are doing and that you've presented here is deep culture shift work. Um and that doesn't certainly doesn't happen overnight. It doesn't happen in three years, especially in educational cultures that were designed to do things much differently. Um, and so this has been an incredibly heavy lift and chair and talked about dedicated funding for mental health. Our LACE has also advocated for dedicated funding for restorative practices because if this is a priority for MDE, then they need to fund it fully. So, so we are going to um to stay on that message um because we know that every time we make budget reductions that it does impact the efficacy of this work um and it puts more of a burden on you um the folks who do it and who are passionate about it. So, we know. So, thank you. Thank you. J say something really quick. Thank thank you all so much. I definitely agree with director West Morland on the heavy lift that this is happening like the culture shift. Um I would love to see more um communication with our families about the systems that some of these things are happening through. Like for example, when students are getting phone calls home, like what type of system does that go into? And then what does that activate at the end of that um you know uh process, you know? So I think that gives families like a little bit of anxiety when like they're um you know not understanding what the consequence is um of a action that their student is doing and not understanding how um you know the the system and how it will impact their families cuz you know we do have families who are a part of larger Henipin County uh government systems and I think that you know just having that communication on like what that looks like um and that's It's not even from you all but that also like a call to principles too to like have more conversations about you know like how that is restored like their restorative practices to ensure that families are heard seen and that we can do more accountability together. Um I think that would be something else be really good for uh us to begin to practice a little bit more especially going into the new year. So but thank you for all the great work you all are doing. We have a presentation tomorrow with the children's mental health collaborative um with Henipin County and so we will be talking about some of the mental health work that we're doing here in the district. So thank you. Thank you. Thank you Director Roer Johnson. Uh thanks. Yeah I had a a a comment slash compliment and then a question. Um my comment is I I I'm really impressed that you know you showed slide 17 with the change in the bar graphs and it's like every month month over month it looks like we've had fewer incidents and so it's good and so you know you could have just showed that and said it's working you know but then to go to another slide and say you know there are some things we need to look at to like be sure that we trust what we're seeing here is very commendable. So really nice job on that. Um the just one quick question I had was um is there and talking about data and getting the reporting and whatnot is are certain level incidents required to be reported to MDE I believe so is it all one two three four or is it just some of them that's a great question Brian are you familiar with what incidences are reported or is lean for sure sus for sure suspensions suspensions and um classroom or school exclusions, exclusionary practices. I do not unless Yeah, there's there's report that there are specific behaviors that are reported. Yeah. Not level one and level two behaviors. And can you just provide some examples of what level one and level two behaviors are? I would be happy to. So in my role for example, teachers will occasionally reach out to me and say, "My fourth block class is driving me crazy." And I will go in as the restorative coordinator and we do a circle to reset the culture of the classroom. We talk about what's been happening in the room, what are the expectations, but also what do you need, what's working, what's not working. Um, so we're centering student voice. The teacher is just another person in that circle. I'm the facilitator. So, they just get to talk about how they're being impacted. Um, and very frequently what comes out of that is the kids who are being driven crazy by their peers who are acting out. It's the only appropriate way for an eighth grader to say, "I'm actually really tired of you goofing around." Like, there's no other appropriate way for an eighth grader to say that to another eighth grader. But in a circle, they can. and we get to take a breath and we reset the culture of the room and most of the time kids feel then empowered to hold each other accountable. Sometimes one room of kids said if you start driving me crazy I'm just going to yell banana split and the kid was like okay and that's what they did and it helped like they made it into a joke but it reset the room. That's a tier one like we're not pulling a specific group of kids out to do an intervention. We're just acknowledging like we need a culture reset in this room and we're going to use restorative practices in a circle to do that. So that would be a tier one. I have not trai I've been doing those for years and years. I've not traditionally documented that anywhere because we don't report it. But that's the kind of intervention that I think could be helpful for us to start collecting data on just to say, okay, so then were there fewer behavior incidents in that room after we did that circle? And that's going to take time to build those systems, but if that's helpful. Yeah. Very. And are there ways to do that that don't tremendously add add to people's workload, especially classroom teachers? Exactly. Especially because my restorative job is like half of what it next year of what it is this year. So yeah, I'll have less availability to do that with teachers. help you. So the um DURS discipline incident reporting system that is the mechanism that MDE uses. I just looked it up. So we need to report suspensions, expulsions, dangerous weapon incidents, referrals to law enforcement and school related arrests. Thanks. Thank you. Anyone else? Um I just want to thank you for this work that's being done across the district. I know it's a heavy lift. Um we were deeply involved in the shift um based on legislation in the state but also aligning with our Hopkins values. Um when we redid the um student conduct and discipline policy and a lot of the foundation that was laid by work done on restorative culture and practices um at the district level informed that work. So um it was really appreciated that Hopkins had already started doing this and implementing it because we had real world feedback in order to inform the the shifts that we had to make in our policy. So, I appreciate that. Um, making our work easier and also I can see it in the classroom and in the culture of how kids are responding. And, um, I think it's important for us to remember all the time that when we're talking about um, the people who work in this district that it's people doing this work, that this is about relationship building. And I loved your comment when you when um director Roer asked would you want a person or curriculum and and and you just simply said people are always, you know, the priority because we're the ones doing it. And I think that often we see a separation between the teacher or the people in the classroom and the people sitting here in this room. And um this presentation to me showed that there isn't a separation, that it is all connected and we're all people in relationship with each other doing the best for um our families. So, thank you. Appreciate it. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you very much, team. You're awesome. Thank you. Thank you. Have a good night. Yeah. You too. Mhm. Um and that takes us to our next agenda item, the long-term facilities maintenance plan. Um I would invite um Director Chapen Duca and Newman to Oh, and um Mr. Berg from Site Logic up to the table and turn it over to Dr. Mary Perry Reed. Thank you, Chair Andre. So, as our school board is aware, every school district is required to update their long-term facilities maintenance plan um and then submit it to the Department of Education. So, we um are prepared to present you with the details of that plan, and we will be uh recommending that the school board approve this annually updated 10-year long-term facilities maintenance or LTFN M LTFM plan. So, thank you um Mr. Chapanduka, Mr. Newman, and Mr. Berg from Site Logic for being here. Thank you Dr. Mary Period and uh good evening uh chair Anderson and respective board members uh with here uh is Mr. Beck from site logic I think his face is already familiar has been uh presenting to the board here for the last couple sessions and uh Mr. New uh Newman, our assistant director of uh buildings and grounds. Uh this is actually a continuation of uh the conversations we had earlier on during the uh board workshop. I know it was uh all jam-packed and uh didn't get any opportunity for uh board members to uh ask any leading questions around the funding component of uh both our tenure capital uh plan as well as uh what will be uh strategically uh staged within uh the current date structure. if we are going for a for a referendum. So as alluded earlier on uh by Ellis uh we have a about 122 million uh long-term facility maintenance capital plan for 10 years uh from 2027 to uh 2036 uh which is structured so that uh it doesn't burden our taxpayers in terms of uh property taxes. is as well as you know uh also factoring in any potential of a uh bond referendum from a capital bonds uh perspective. Uh I know it's getting late so I want to give an opportunity uh for uh Mr. B to take us through the long-term facility maintenance which is uh required by statute uh to be approved by the board and uh filed within the Minnesota Department of Education the commissioner uh by July 31st. Uh you can go ahead and uh uh take the presentation on uh Mr. B. Thank you, Director Chapanduka, and good evening to the board and Dr. Mary Pier Reed. Thank you for the opportunity to present this evening. Um, I will try to be brief as uh Dr. Mary Puried and Director Chapanduka framed this quite nicely and we're getting late into the evening. Um, what we have tonight on the agenda is to present a recap, a brief recap of the past 20-year history of Hopkins and their LTFM plan, share a status update on the current 2-year cycle as we reviewed last year, and then look forward into the next 10 years. Um, as previously stated, each school district MDE requires an annual submission of your 10-year expenditure plan. The expenditures within that are restricted to a specific purpose uh related to deferred maintenance and health health and safety projects. They categorize those within 15 different categories uh that the projects fall into. The district in Hopkins assesses its infrastructure needs annually um and updates the the plan the expenditure plan as well. Um proceeding to the next slide. Um here you see a bar chart of review of past um LTFM plans. This actually goes back 20 years to 2025. Each bar chart represents a 2-year planning cycle. Um as referenced earlier in Eller's presentation, uh the the effort has really been to keep a a flat level of um LTFM deferred maintenance work to reduce potential spikes and impacts on on the community. Um we are currently on the far right side in the 2024 uh bond 24 phase. Um we are in about rounding out year one of that program right now. Um again level and consistent with with previous phases. Next slide please. Here's a a a breakdown a little bit of of bond 24 shown in the district's um cloud-based facilities planning program highlighting uh calendar year 25 and 26 which comprise bond 24. Um you can see the allocations in here by facility um by facility system as well. So this was the the plan that was reviewed last year. the projects in 25 and 26 uh remain unchanged from from previous year's review. Next slide. And I did want to provide a status update as we are a year into the the 2-year cycle of bond 24. Uh so last year when we got together reviewed there were a total of 66 projects organized into a handful of bid packages. All of those projects have now been designed and bid out. Um and happy to report that all of the projects came in on or under budget. Everything is on schedule to be completed as planned. Uh our first uh real heavy phase of construction will start this summer at the high school. uh next summer summer's phase will target Alice Smith and there's already been a significant portion of work completed at the bus garage as operationally that lends itself to a wider construction window than a typical school environment. So, so moving in here, uh, I wanted to throw this slide in to really note that there's a difference as you review the LTFM plan in calendar year, which is on the right, versus fiscal year. So, calendar year is important to us in the facilities and construction world because that's how we plan and budget projects and cycles. So, we think of things in terms of a calendar year. MDE and schools look at things in terms of fiscal year. So everything you'll see there it will be shown in fiscal year but wanted to provide some context and translation as you see some projects um in in say 2025 or 2026 calendar year you'll compare that to 26 in the fiscal year and it's just because of the timing difference there the fiscal year obviously being July 1st through through June June 30th. Next slide please. So, here we have a breakdown of the 10-year LTFM plan by building. Um, you really have a fantastic plan here that continues to to address all of the deferred maintenance needs um in the district within that fiscal structure that was described earlier. Um, estimated project values here are listed by facility types. There were some minor changes to the 10-year plan versus what was reviewed last year, and I'll highlight those briefly. So, one of the one of the updates was a a renewed pavement management plan, which incorporated some updates to some some parking lots. So, all of that has been incorporated into the the 10-year plan that you see here, as well as as the district is considering potential bond referendum projects. We looked at the long-term facilities maintenance plan to identify any potential overlap in scope. So, we wanted to make sure that there there was no double planning um during projects. And an example where we where we found this and eliminated it from the um from the plan was in fire alarm systems. So, each fire alarm system, it's a critical piece of in infrastructure that has a life cycle associated with it. So it's very predictable in terms of when it needs to be replaced to ensure proper operation. Those were included in the LTFM plan at the their end of life cycle replacement. Now as we look at some of the potential projects being considered in the referendum, they require a new fire alarm system as part of a recently um passed code change. So those will will be done at the time if those projects are brought forward. So we made sure that there was no overlap between those. Um those were really the two major differences in the in the plan that you see here today versus what was reviewed last year in the plan along with the addition of course of a of another year coming on the role at the end. Next, another breakdown, and this depicts the 10-year plan by the MDE's uh category of projects. So, on the left side, I know it's hard to read there. I hope you have a are able to zoom in on your screens. Uh but all 15 potential categories are listed there on the left. Categories include things like mechanical systems, electrical. Um I mentioned that there was a update on the pavement management plan side that is listed as site projects below. Um, so you can get a sense for what types of projects um, and what types of needs are out there in a district and when throughout based on those categories and the years they're presented in. And finally, here is a snapshot of the expenditure plan uh, that has been prepared within the MDE templates provided to your financial partners and Ellers. they have a contribution to make on the um the revenue and the financial side that'll be packaged together. Um and upon the district's review and approval, this has been assembled and ready to be submitted to MDE. And and in terms of next steps, um feedback. Chair Andre. Yes, Treasure Hartland. And thank you for coming tonight. I know it's late. Um I um appreciate this information very much and was kind of heartened to hear that very little had changed. That indicates to me that our plan for and our systems for assessing all of our needs are pretty stable. They're fairly accurate. And so then we can kind of do right by our taxpayers by not having a sudden spike of something that we did not foresee. Okay. Um, just to clarify for our community as we're talking about multi-million dollar deficits, this long-term facilities maintenance plan is a separate fund and is not part of our operating fund deficit and separate in our discussion that we're going to have later on regarding approving the budget. Is that accurate? Correct. Uh so the long-term facility maintenance and I'm not sure uh if uh the board captured earlier on uh that we are one of I think about um uh 27 uh school districts who were grandfathered into uh where the board has approval uh authority to sell uh bonds on a benium. Uh the other portion of this is also what we define as pay uh pay as you go. Uh we get some general uh levy dollars uh to actually uh prop up the sale of bonds uh and that's used to um uh maintain our buildings as well as address any def maintenance uh needs in the district. So it's separate from the general operations of the district where a lot of the FTEES and uh a lot of the operational costs uh actually uh budgeted. Thank you. And kind of a follow-up question to things that might be separate um in here since this is kind of a long-term plan given the context where like say in northern Minnesota right now there are wildfires and you know in our southeastern United States there were like heavy storms and damage. Where does planning I know we have insurance of course, but if one of our buildings was to be majorly impacted by one of these severe weather events, where would that money come from? And do we have, you know, if I don't want to go like too crazily far off the long-term facilities maintenance, but I did kind of look through here to see if if we do have any sort of set aside for such emergencies. Yeah, we do have some uh contingency funds we've put aside uh where uh cuz we know for certain that outside of the uh 10 year plan their e situation which always okay in the in the district. So we do have uh some contingency funds which are um um budgeted uh in the facilities operation area. Uh and Mr. Newman can speak to some of the uh items which we use those contingency funds to address. Um but from what you just uh mentioned treasure heartland in terms of like let's say say fire uh it depends with you know uh how extensive the damage is uh because our long-term facility maintenance uh uh used for specific uh costs which are related to uh the maintenance of those um those uh uh facilities. uh and some of it if it's kind of repairs then we just have to uh make a determination of whether it qualifies within the deferred maintenance or uh we we use our our general fund. I don't know Miss Newman, do you have any examples of we've used the some of those contingency funds we set aside? No. Uh well, we had a water main break at Metobrook earlier this year. So there we used emergency. So we didn't have that identified as a project in the LTFM. So there we would have used emergency funds for things like water mane breaks. We had a ruptured pipe over the wintertime or ear early spring where a pipe froze. Again, a major project not uh identified in the LTFM, but used other funds to cover those type of events. And I'm sorry, did you say that those are from our like set aside from the operating fund or it's maybe a combination not identified in a certain budget with the state, you know, we identify each project. So the state gives us some leeway in redistributing some of those funds, but in some cases we have emergency funds available for those type of events. So the do the the funds uh actually we just kind of pull those out of the uh port of money when we either sell the bonds or when we get the general levy uh pay as you go long-term facility maintenance. and those we maintain within uh the facilities operations uh to address some of these uh nuances which which are more of an emergent situation. Thank you. I know we steered a little bit off long-term facilities maintenance, but I appreciate that information and its overlap with the plan when things don't go to according to that plan. Thanks. Thank you, Chair Drez. Yes. And so along the lines of distinguishing, can can you also just comment on how this the long-term facilities maintenance plan differs from what we're looking to do with the referendum dollars? And I had heard you say, you know, take out the overlap, which was nice to see that that would be done. Sure. Did you want to take that? Yeah. So, at a high level, you can think of uh long-term facilities maintenance dollars as being being allocated to maintaining or improving infrastructure and systems you already have in the district. You are um in in most cases they're restricted from using those dollars and that levy authority to say add a new addition, add something in that you don't currently have. Referendum provides more flexibility in terms of what scope that can be used for. So, if you are looking to renovate, add new space, um do things that aren't currently part of your infrastructure, that's where you would look to to bond referendum funds. That's really helpful. Thank you. Any other questions? Well, thank you very much for the presentation. I think um and also the clarifying information around um differentiating the funds and and how they're used. I thought the specific examples were um really helpful. Um I would look for a um a motion that the board approves the 10-year long-term facilities maintenance plan as presented. So moved. I have a motion. Is there a second? Second. I have a motion and a second. Any discussion? Seeing none, I will ask the clerk to call the role. Chair Andre I. Treasure Hartland. I. Uh, Vice Chair Ross. I. Uh, Director Roer. I, uh, Clerk Thompson. I, uh, Director West Morland. I, Director Xiao. I, you have all eyes. chair. Thank you. The motion passes and that takes us to the next item on the agenda, which is the district 287 LTFM resolution. I believe you're all staying here for this, too. So, sure. Uh, thank you, J. You're like, sure, I'll do. We're just getting started. the beginning of the night. Yeah. Thank you uh chair uh Andre. Uh as the board knows that um uh Hopkins is one of the 12 members uh who make up intermediate district 287 and as part of being a member of district 287, we are also obligated to contribute to the long-term facility maintenance of the district facilities where our students uh get quality services. So on uh April 10th, the uh district intermediate district 287 board uh passed the long-term uh facility maintenance uh resolution uh approving the allocation of uh costs to member district. Uh so before the board is a uh resolution which requires a uh uh voter role uh for for the board uh to approve a proportionate share of $158,290.32 uh consisting of $85,62.80 80 for pay as you go projects and $72,68752 uh for debt service payment on the 2017B facilities maintain maintenance bond and the 2022A uh facility maintenance uh bond. So the total obligation for the district uh based on this resolution is $158,290.32 cents for fiscal year 26 and I'll take any questions if there's there any questions from the board. Thank you. And I did also want to mention as the board representative for um district 287 um that I am also open to any questions if you have any. Great. Um I think too just so that you know this is a a member district. So, there are other school districts doing this and that um district 287 was very um conscious of making sure that districts were doing this proportionately. So, if you have any questions about that, you can certainly refer you to um their um director of business services. So with that, I would look for a motion to approve the resolution on district 287, long-term facilities maintenance budget and the portion of the allocation to be shared with the school district. So moved. I have a motion. Is there a second? Second. I have a motion and a second. Any discussion? Seeing none, clerk, please call the role. Chair Andre I. Treasurer Hartland I. Director Roer I. Vice Chair Ross I. Clerk Thompson I'll say I. Director West Morland I. Director Xiao. I. All seven eyes. Thank you. The um motion passes. Thank you so much for your time and for staying so late in the evening. Um, thank you. Thank you. And I guess it's just you, Director Chapenuka, who gets to stay with us. Thank you, Mr. Newman. All right. Thank you. Thank you, Mr. Berg. Thank you, Mr. Newman. So, this is a [Music] um information. It's a first read. Um no action to be taken on our fiscal year 26 budget. I will turn it over to Dr. Mary Perry Reed. Thank you, Chair Andre. Um, I know that our school board has had a lot of touch points with our budget, but I do want to provide a proper framing for any community members who might be listening in for the first time. Um, and it's really important for our community to know that school districts across the state are facing budget shortfalls this spring. Um, we heard one of our speakers during open agenda earlier say that he's been working in public education for I think he said 18 years in and outside of Minnesota and seems to remember budget reductions for most of those years. Um, this year the shortfall is more than 300 million across the metropolitan area and 7 million specifically here in Hopkins. these this budget shortfall is due to rising costs in all categories of spending, inflationary increases, flat enrollment. Here in Hopkins, we have um stable or flat enrollment um and in other areas of the state, districts are experiencing declining enrollment um which doesn't help district budgets. And then all of this combined with the most significant factor of state funding not fully covering past, current, or projected public school expenses. Here in Hopkins, our process begins really we engage all year with with our budget and the budgetary process, beginning with interaction and engagement with our citizens financial advisory committee or SEFAC. And then we start working with our principles and district leaders analyzing our spending and identifying areas for reduction um as compared to or in consideration of our uh instructional and operational priorities. And what I've um also frequently shared is it it has been a difficult process. One one easy area that we identified for a reduction was transportation. And I've shared in um many places that before co our transportation costs were about 6.5 million. Mr. Chapanduca, does that sound right? And this year they're probably going to be 11.5 million. So that was an easy area to identify, wow, we really need to try to reduce this budget by one or two million and and and so we engaged in that transportation audit. Um and you know we heard many uh parents and students and teachers in the audience earlier today talking about their concerns and worry over uh secondary course offerings um limitations or reductions, right? And we've talked a lot about how we can preserve our programming and try to protect classroom instruction, teachers and support staff and um and identify other areas to reduce. So it's it's all this to say it's a very um difficult process both in the analysis of what we can do differently but also um just um emotionally as we try to provide highquality service and education to our students but also manage within the resources that we have. So I'm grateful to you um director Chapanduka for the leadership and guidance that um you provide and to um other leaders and um colleagues in the system. And I'll turn it over to you right now then to provide an overview of FY26 um budget first read. Thank you Dr. Perid for that summarization. Uh I know for the most part uh a lot of this information has already been shared uh with the board um in previous sessions as well as at the uh April 22nd uh board meeting when we did the uh preliminary uh uh budget approval. Uh a lot of that information is not uh really changed. What I just was going to highlight is some of the parameters which uh we actually factored in to actually come up with the uh initial uh budget which actually reflected that deficit of uh $7 million. If we had uh operated at the same level as we have operated uh this current year uh which culminated us to go and uh do some introspection and uh make some adjustments in a creative and strategic way uh with the understanding that the board didn't want to uh have impactful consequences to quality of education services as well as uh class size. Uh can you go to the next slide uh Natalia? So uh and again this is information which has already been shared but there might be other community members who uh actually tuning into this conversation for the first time. Uh initially the citizen financial advisory committee uh brought some recommendations to the board in uh in February and those recommendations factored in a 2% uh inflationary increase based on uh what we anticipating from the state for uh our basic revenue allowances. uh it also uh projected uh flat enrollment uh into fiscal year 26 and uh the foreseeable future. Uh we also factored in based on uh what we are seeing in terms of trends with um our bargaining units a 4% uh cost of living adjustment uh for fiscal year 26 knowing that the majority of our expenditures are human centered uh in salaries and um in salaries and wages and benefits. uh we maintained our fringe benefits at 42% for fiscal year 26 and we'll be monitoring those uh since we've uh been watching market conditions and uh determining that there are some increases you know in some of our uh fringe benefits uh but at this point in time we are maintaining those fringe benefits at about 42%. So if you uh factor in our salaries, wages and benefits, that um makes up about 80% of the district's uh uh total expenditures uh in terms of our general fund expenditures. Uh we also factored in a 3% uh consumer price index uh inflationary increase. Uh and on top of that has just been alluded by the superintendent. Uh we also determined that our transportation operations costs have been escalating. So uh we did factor in a three uh $3 million uh as an initial starting point of the uh of the budget uh planning. Uh that brought us to a deficit of close to $7 million. And then we started working backwards in terms of trying to determine uh what programs we may need to realign or make adjustments and uh what uh factors we need to work with our uh buildings and our department leaders and the community in terms of uh making sure that we are intentional and uh strategic around uh what cars will uh cause uh less impact. Um but anyway, any budget cuts uh do have impacts. Uh but we're trying to be intentional in terms of uh what we can adjust uh what programs we can realign and uh what services we can scale down. Uh considering that uh we are coming from a period where we also had some extra resources through uh the stimulus packages which are no longer available. uh and um scaling down in terms of uh making sure that uh the services we provide are still quality services but the resources are no longer available based off of the uh pandemic uh stimulus packages. Uh can you go to the next slide? Yeah. So I don't want to go deeper into the budget process. I think the superintendent kind of gave a summary of some of the stuff we've done uh starting with you know uh some b uh bi-weekly meetings we had with our leadership and uh which culminated into some weekly meetings with the uh swift action budget team and then coming up with uh a list of items which we costed and uh made adjustment a combination of uh uh making reductions as well as um leveraging some of our restricted uh fund balance to be able to close the the budgetary gap. So as uh the community and the board knows that uh what drives revenue into the district is enrollment and uh we are projecting a flat enrollment going into next year. Uh at the same time we also know that uh the state uh increases in terms of re uh revenue uh very very finite and uh uh we have seen upside of uh fiscal year 23 into fiscal year 24. uh the state has always uh give us uh given us inflationary increases between 1 to 3% for the most part around 2% and uh just knowing that uh there has not been uh really positive uh outcomes coming from the legislature around uh increasing you know the uh revenues uh beyond that threshold of 2 to 3% uh We budgeted for fiscal year 26 using a 2% uh inflationary increase. Uh and if we factor in the 2% in inflationary increases as well as uh shifting some of our uh uh restricted fund balance. Uh we ended up with a total revenue for fiscal year 26 of 130 million 575,130 uh which is spread between different uh categories of uh revenue. U the majority of our revenue is actually um calculated through a formula by the state. So we really don't have a lot of uh uh influence into how that revenue is uh shifted into our system. Uh but uh after factoring in all those components and uh making those shifts uh we're able to at least uh come up with a a reasonable uh revenue coming into the system which uh shifts into some of our expenditures. Uh can you go to the next slide please? Uh got the next one. So on the expenditure side uh we did shift some uh different components which I'll touch on uh uh in a little bit here but um our total expenditures are sitting at $130,575,130 uh which comprises of about $72.3 million in salaries and wages which uh accounts for about 55% of uh our budget. Our benefits about $30.3 million which accounts for about 23%. Uh purchased services about $20.3 million which accounts for about 15 16%. Supplies $3.8 million which account for about 3% of our budget. Uh capital expenditures about $2 million which account for about 1.52% of our budget and other expenditures uh $1.7 million. 1.3% uh for a total of $130,575,130. Uh and the next uh slide uh actually just show uh the big uh challenge uh with uh funding. Uh as you can see from that uh graph that uh between 2003 and 2025 uh the gap has been increasing between uh what the state gives us in terms of um uh formula allowance uh visa v what we could be what we could be getting uh which accounts for a gap of almost 19%. uh as long as the uh state doesn't increase or compound our revenue increases uh will continue to face budgetary challenges. And I know there's been work uh uh at the legislature and lobbying for uh increases in our different categorical revenues coming in. But at the uh at the current uh trends and as we see things uh our our inflationary increases as well as uh what we should be getting keeps growing and uh it uh poses a lot of challenges. Uh the next slide uh just kind of summarizes what I've already uh mentioned between uh what we anticipated in terms of revenue at uh current uh enrollment projection as well as uh the uh expenditures and then the uh reductions we ended up making uh to structural very balanced our budget. Uh the next slide uh just kind of shows a breakdown of the different components we have uh uh factored in. I've made some adjustments to that uh putting into consideration uh some of the work we are now doing for example with our transportation operations. uh we've kind of started operationalizing the work around how we are restructuring the operations and realigning some of the uh services based on the audit recommendation and we are hoping that uh that will increase the uh capture of uh savings uh into into the district and we'll kind of start to see some of those as we go into fiscal uh 27. Uh some of the stuff we have shifted uh around uh using some restricted resources. For example, uh we have the holistic uh holistic school safety uh budget which we started about 2 years ago using the general fund. Uh we'll be leveraging some of our safe school uh restricted uh resources to be able to cover for that. that actually uh frees up and leverages some of the uh deficits we uh we have um affected into the budget. Uh same thing with some of our operations and maintenance. We'll be using uh leveraging some of our fund balance within our uh operating capital. Uh we are also looking at uh some shifts within our capital project slvy to free up resources which are now paid through the general fund so that those can be paid through the capital projects slvy. Uh some reinvestments to the general fund from community education as well as nutrition services for uh certain expenditures which are covered by uh the general fund. For example, utilities. The general fund has been paying for utilities for uh food service and community education. Uh there's a provision uh based on uh statute where we can recapture some of those dollars back into the into the general fund putting into consideration that the food service and community education funds are proprietary funds uh which generate their own uh revenues as well as uh pay for expenditures within within those funds. Currently those funds do have uh health fund balances so they should be able to absorb some of those uh some of those costs. Uh can you go to the next slide? Uh the other items here uh we did reconfigure our substitute model uh to the tune of about 400 $400,000. Uh we also did reconfigure some of the set aides in terms of contingencies we have done in the past uh uh in terms of uh what we may not uh anticipate in when we do the actual projection of our enrollment and when students start to come into uh into our buildings. Uh so we make some reductions to cover for that. uh we also uh strategizing and working on identifying some of the reductions in extra payments to to staff. So we anticipating to capture some resources from from uh from that uh allocation which we have seen uh over the years. I mean it used to be uh a large dollar amount but it has kind of been reducing. Uh we also did some reconfiguration of our uh counselor uh model where we are leveraging some of the categorical dollars in achievement in integration to cover for part of the uh counselor positions across the district as well as some of the course consolidations which uh uh at the high school uh which will capture some some resources Uh we did uh take another look at our um um at our predictable staffing model and uh we're able to make some adjustments so that we could uh capture some resources uh resources back into uh into the cost savings to the tune of about $621,000. Uh I do have some other stuff I didn't include here because we are still trying to mechanize those but uh we should be able to uh close the uh budget gap and bring the uh structurally balanced budget to the board for the final approval uh on June 10th. Uh so when we uh go down and start to break down and I know you know there's always been questions around uh out of the resources out of the $130 million how much of that goes into directly into our schools? How much uh uh goes to districtwide operations? How much is sitting in you know at the central office? Uh so we did a breakdown. Can you go to the next slide? Uh Natalia, go to the next one. Yeah, just for context uh purposes, we did a breakdown. So right now about 76.8 are direct allocations to buildings, which accounts for almost about 59% of our budget. Uh uh districtwide allocations, it's about 35% or $45 million. and uh districtwide allocations uh encompasses uh you know um budgets in transportation uh we centrally uh budget our transportation but uh the majority of the costs are actually going direct into buildings. Uh our custodians uh they are centrally budgeted but they are all uh in our buildings. Uh we also have certain allocations for example within our special services where they might be centrally um managed but they are they are in our buildings and then we also have uh department allocations for example business services you know we process payroll uh we process accounts payable payments for our vendors uh those are central but uh they are servicing uh the districtwide uh operations of the uh of the system, you know, human resources, uh governance and management. So, they fall within that 66% or uh about $8.6 million. So, uh that's what I have. Uh I would take any questions from the from the board at this time. Thank you, Director Chapanduka. I appreciate that. Any questions? Chair Andre, director West Morland, this may be more of a question for Dr. Mary Perry Reed. Um, but I'm wondering if you can comment on the impact of the FTE roundown. We've been receiving emails about it. We heard some public comment about it tonight and how building leaders are thinking through these impacts. um you know, especially at some of these buildings that h that house multiple programs and just have different needs um at the elementary level specifically. Sure. Well, I um I would like to answer the question, but I think I want to start with secondary first. So, I was really um leaning into what we were hearing from our uh educators and parents and students earlier during open agenda because um I'm just wondering if there is a lot more worry than um than what will actually take place with course reductions at the high school. I'm just for example looking at an email from a parent of a higher achieving student and they're talking about um the concern around proposed cuts to AP and CIS classes. And then when we check that particular student's course request for next year, none of the classes on that particular students um course request list are being considered for elimination. And then we have asked our master scheduler at the high school and principal Ballard to provide a list of courses that they think they won't be able to offer due to low registration numbers. and the list is um very short. So um at the same time, what we also don't want to see is um packed classes of courses that are being offered or large study halls. And um so those that that um just the process of putting kids into courses is still being finalized and we are trying to watch it closely and it's just a complicated process. But I I'm just worried that there's a lot of fear and maybe the result will not um will be better than what people feared or are expecting. So we'll continue to watch that. terms of um elementary um Nick I actually might need your help with this. So we are we we went through some staffing lots of staffing conversations with our elementary and secondary and then with any K12 lensures then everybody was in the same room and because we did limit we did reduce the number of dollars that we typically put in our targeted staffing. I wanted to know what we wanted to know as a system if we asked each principal what they were direly hoping for if they were able to get another 0.25 0.25, another 0.5, another full-time FTE. Where would they apply it? How are they feeling right now about their staffing for next year? Of course, we've heard from uh Glenn Lake, they feel strongly that they need one more teacher, right? And I'm just wondering, Nick, if we have a a specific sense kind of school to school, how the school leaders feel they are um presently being impacted by the the result of the round. Mhm. I think as had been identified at the table as well, the impact is that discretionary dollars that are available for sites are automatically directed toward class size reduction. So the programmatic impact across the board is that as people look at what they're choosing, they're prioritizing class size as such. that then has the impact of limiting any other consideration for the available funds that might remain once they consider what they have to do to look at maintaining those reasonable class sizes. So in answer to your question, I would say everybody's priority is really to look at additional FTE that would in addition provide that additional sectioning that would um alleviate the class size concerns that of course come forward when we look at those reductions. And I think you heard a couple of our parents speak to the complexity and maybe the frustration of staffing for a school like Eisenhower, which has three different programs. And um if you look at how many students per grade level, let's say how many students at the second grade level, it will be different for Chinese immersion, Spanish immersion, um community school, but you can't necessarily combine classes, right? And so um staffing that model um is is more challenging as well. And so um what we can do and you know we try to look at this every year but we can are there ways of of nuancing our predictable staffing model to take that into consideration as we iterate that that model over time. Thank you. That's helpful. I mean, none of this is easy, right? Because like we're operating in an environment um where there is scarcity, like where there is actual scarcity of funds and resources. Um and so it sounds like some of these challenges are being addressed through discretionary dollars when they're available at a site. Um and then some of this is something that this board may have to look at structurally in terms of the staffing model moving into future budget cycles if we are to expected to continue to function in this like environment of scarcity that the legislature has put us in. Thank you, Jared Dre. Yes. Can I ask a question that you know I thought of this the last time we saw this in April on April 22nd. Um and and so if we're ex you know it almost seems like an expectation that the you know flexible dollars that the school site gets is going to a teacher to maintain lower class sizes. So if if that's like the expectation I mean why why not just you know do it for the principal before you give it to them? You know what I mean? like I if it's basically expected that they're going to use that to hire some degree of FTE, you know, why wouldn't you just say you get fewer flexible dollars and more FTE? I don't know. Does that make sense? Well, and I think we attempted to do both, right? Like have a conversation with our school leaders where um they apply. So if they're given a um an amount for teacher resource, they use that teacher resource for teachers. Whereas in the past, you know, there were some different decisions being made with that teacher resource and not wanting to completely strip away their discretionary dollars knowing that, you know, every every school has a unique context and there might be needs in one school that another school doesn't have. So, we don't want to completely micromanage the use of discretionary. Um, however, this year I believe we shared with all of our principles that the amount that you get for teachers, you have to use on teachers. So, I think we did both, if that makes sense. It does. Thank you for that clarification. Um, thank you all for the questions and the the information. Um, I did have just a couple of followup things because I don't think at this hour my um processing speed is up to normal. So, I'm wondering if um I know that there was a direct question about the course consolidation um that's happening at the high school and I think um I guess I'm wondering about that explanation as well um given you know that we have I think at the high school the email that was sent out is, you know, a one an FTE to 38 students, right? And if we're looking at like say how many students register for Spanish, um are we is the current practice to say, okay, if we have 80 kids, then we only need two. Or if we have Yeah. If we have like 90 kids, we only need two classes and then the rest of them can do a study hall, right? Instead, we could have three and have class sizes of 30, right? Like I'm wondering how is that working? Is that what's happening? Is that where the concerns are coming from from families? And yeah, I think you've identified that correctly. And you know, to provide um a response that is completely accurate, we would need to get the master scheduler at the table. And so I'm trying to think of a way that we could provide some examples maybe in writing to our school board that um describe what's happening. But you're right that let's say 80 or 90 kids sign up for Spanish 2, then we would I believe that um they would have the um the level of resource to offer two but not three sections. And then because we don't let's say it's um I don't know 90 kids, we wouldn't want 45 kids in each class. So then that means that some of those students need to then be moved into another elective that they chose and through conversations I am imagining through conversations with the student and the parent and the counselor then there are some decisions being made about what some other viable opportunities would be. Okay, thanks for that. Does that make sense? Yeah, it does. Thanks for that clarification. Um and then and that is what you mean in the budget by course consolidation correct that's yeah um and also ways in which departments um and you've heard students mention this as well when they look at for example some um art electives that will be offered in the same course um in the same space and and might be running two courses simultaneously in that consolidation component um so that students can get the experience that they're looking for. And it's really about skill sets of teachers that can look at looking at um some different levels of opportunities within that um area of study that they can combine classes to look at increased numbers of students in the space um so that they can kind of run two at the same time get that economy of scale. some of those consolidations as well. Okay, thanks. That's helpful to know like maybe ceramics two and three. And I think what we hope is that those decisions are being made with teachers because teachers have to look at, you know, their course content and then skill levels of students. So are we com talking about combining, you know, ceramics one and two or ceramics two and three, right? and what what's possible given how many students have signed up for all those levels, but also what the what those levels require of students and their skill sets. Thank you. That's helpful information. Chair Andre. Yes, Treasure Hartland. Um, we had a few handouts given to us by um, speakers making public comment today and several of them attempted to create kind of a class breakdown in like a classroom size based on FTE allocations. And I can kind of understand that none of these reflect the use of a building leader discretionary dollars, but does the district do something similar to this? Like how does your classroom planning happen? And and does for either the board or the community or both does such a right like classroom by classroom accounting for how big each classroom is going to be does that exist or does that not happen till fall or or excuse me the end of summer before fall? Do you want to speak? Yeah. So we do meet with um so we do the tie out process. So we meet with each principal and then they go through uh their classes and uh cuz we want to also adhere to the spirit of uh how we allocate the resources using the uh predictive uh staffing model formula. So we we do meet with principles during planning and then kind of they show us then we stage that into uh into into the system. uh they show us how many additional FTEEs they are buying uh out of their discretionary or uh complementing that with their categorical revenue if they are receiving categorical revenue because some of the categorical revenues should be used for specific uh statute required uh mandates. So we we we do meet with them and kind of uh come to a common understanding of how they will be using their uh discretionary dollars. Uh just like the superintendent said, I mean in the past we've been very flexible in terms of when we allocate them what we call the base allocation in terms of FTEES. Sometimes they would take those FTEEs and use in other spaces. But uh for next year uh we've been at least uh collaboratively working with them to make sure that uh class size at the top of the priorities. Okay. I appreciate that because that has been kind of a priority of this board and we definitely don't want to see them creep too high. Um, as that work goes on and as we get enrollment numbers and as the principles finish making these decisions about their discretionary dollars, will we be able to see like I know we have an August board meeting. Will we be able to see class sizes kind of by building because you know some of these numbers and again I understand that these are without compensatory dollar or excuse me not compensatory it's late discretionary dollar um spending right but some of the numbers are concerning like as a just a straight up FTE allocation with how many say kindergarten students we're anticipating it's it's concerning and I know it's something that will will want to know. Treasure H Heartland, we can definitely provide that information. And then just remember that um oftent times in the first like 10 days of school and I think really up through October 1, then we're sort of looking at um both how many students are on that roster and how many students are physically showing up. And so we want to pay attention, I think, to both of those data points, especially at the secondary level. Sure. Yeah, I can appreciate that. I know we've seen that in the past in the fall that numbers on day one aren't the same as numbers on day 10 or 30. Chair Andrea. Yes. Yes. Uh, hi. it. So, I'm just trying to think about um is it is it a thing that if there is like an edge case, right, where maybe we don't have like support for three classes, but we're kind of at that twoish, is there is there ever an opportunity to share like have half have like share one resource between two different classrooms and maybe the teacher could float and provide some differential or s uh enrichment type stuff, right? is that you know technically it's not another class but at least it's another teacher or adult in the room helping. Is that is that a thing that we do and is that a possibility? It is and it speaks to the flexibility that discretionary um can provide spaces when they see some of those numbers that may be on the cusp and they're trying to adjust for different models and different ways that they can provide as you mentioned potentially some breakout um opportunities, some push-in modeling um and additional shared resource through instructors through other considerations that the sites take a look at um with their leadership. teams as they're evaluating options and would that be reflected in this kind of straight up analysis would or would we miss that? Potentially you'd see that um as director Chap and Duka mentioned within their tieouts as they're starting to do their modeling. Um so as sites look at those and start to then finalize their plans for the year with the available resource um then they'll draw those or map those out as part of their um budget consideration so that we arrive then on um assignments that will be um delivered for the following school year. Thanks. Um, I did also want to get just a little bit of context around the the last slide that you showed that was talking about the different allocations. Um, I think one was was it site specific and then districtwide and then department allocations. Was that it? Building allocation. Yeah. Um, I'm just wondering I I know you gave lots of examples. Um, but just to to put a little bit more context and maybe some tangible examples around those, um, I know you were saying that part of that districtwide is some is is things like transportation and um, maintenance. And those are those are staff that are in are they in that district-wide category, but as you noted, they do building specific work. Correct. So even if they're not part of that building specific category line item, that's what they're doing. Correct. So majority of those positions are actually in buildings uh doing the work even though uh the planning is kind of done at the central level but they are being fed into into the buildings. So we do have quite a number of uh areas where we have situations like that you know uh like transportation obviously uh operations and maintenance you know with the custodians uh it uh has majority of their uh ftees uh sitting in buildings but um planned at the central level. Thank you. I think that that's I'm glad that you included that because I think that's just another way to look at how resources are allocated across the district and um it's important to understand what you mentioned that even if they're districtwide, they are actually in the buildings doing their work. Chair Andre. Yes. To to that point, I I like the inclusion of that slide as well. I it would have been incredible if we could see how that stacked up to a previous year. Is is that easily pullable by any chance? Yeah, cuz I mean every year I've always kind of shared that slide so I can go back to my previous year and then we can see but uh it's pretty consistent. Is it pretty consistent? Okay. And um can you just define the the third row was department allocations. What would what would a department be as an example be? Yeah. So for example the business office. So the staff in the business office process payroll. They do accounts payable for the district. They do purchasing um and uh procurement for the district. Uh so all those elements they are sitting at the at the department level but they're processing uh services for the entire district. Yeah. Human resources same thing you know recruiting retention uh it's in a department but they are servicing our buildings and departments. Thank you. Thank you. Well, I appreciate this and tonight we do not have um an action item around this. This is the the first read. Correct. And then um it would be our next meeting where we would have a um action item. Correct. Correct. Okay. Well, thank you for your time. Thank you. Um you had a lot of heavy lifts at this meeting, so I appreciate it. And I don't think you get to go anywhere. Um, assistant superintendent lay foot. Oh, okay. Well, I'll let you do that. You can't boss around. I know that's her job. Thank you, Mr. Chapanduka. Thank you. Um, so we will now move to policies in first read and I will turn it over to Vice Chair Ross. I know. I love it. Thank you. Uh, we have two policies tonight. uh they go together. So it's policy 516 and 516.5. Um 516 is going to reference administer administering medicine to students and then um the next one would be overdose medication. So with that I will hand it over to assistant superintendent life. Good evening. Good to be with you. um in specific as has been identified we're really looking at the administration of medicine to students and teleaalth um that is the first policy it's policy 516 I would do one section of note to the policy um changes were made on 516 the Hopkins uh in red the other piece that we would be adding um is section four on teleaalth from the model MSBA policy that is statutory language um that if you want to look at the policy itself um the Hopkins policy 516 would be adding section 4 from the MSBA um just to note that that will be added that is statutory requirement um that would be added to what the work is um and the changes noted so far on Hopkins policy 516 so just wanted to make that clarification And with that, there are questions on 516. I'm happy to address those. Chair Andre. Yes, Treasure H Heartland. Um, mine is more of a comment, but I just wanted to thank our policy committee for it. Like, it always astounds me the absolute breadth of topics that you guys must consider and the sorts of things that schools have to be accountable for and have policies and procedures around. And tellahalth is not one that I expected to be reading about, but I guess it makes sense. I mean, I'm reminded of how we at this table have discussed how we also have like end of life care plans and and I'm just amazed at all of the the balls that public schools juggle and thank you guys for your work. Thank you, Treasure Heartland. Um, I agree wholeheartedly. It is amazing once you see everything the the um that the policy committee works on. I did have one just little typo reference in one of the changes under medication requirements um in section two or part two. Um there it's line 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 eight. Line 10. The first word is I think supposed to be approval and it's approve. So just get rid of the I. It's French. Approval. There are not enough consonants that need to be swallowed for that to be French. You can tell it's late because they're laughing at that. And you're right. Great. Thank you for that. Yeah. Come on. Um, and if I'm understanding correctly, this is statute driven changes, but Yeah. Correct. Great. Thank you. That was all I had. And then if nothing further, 516.5, we are lining these two up so that they'll be on cycle for approval simultaneously into the future. There really are no changes for 516.5. That's the statutory requirement for um Naracan um for the administration of that element of medication required by statute. Um, if there are questions on that, I'm happy to address the uh overdose medication. I don't have a question on the policy, but a little bit about um the impact on our practice in schools. Um, have we gotten any sort of information um that would lead us to be concerned about our ability to stock Narcan in our schools? I know that that's problematic for some states right now. Yeah, it has not been an issue. We continue to operationalize the policy and uh deliver accordingly. Um I will double check with our health and safety to make sure um that there isn't anything that we're not aware of. Um, always good for us to be on top of it. But everything that we have so far um has continued to move this forward um as stocked, as provided um and as contained here. Okay. Thank you, Jes. Yes. Yes. Uh I was just curious uh does every I read it as every school should have two doses. Is that include elementary as well? Um that is my understanding. Okay. Interesting. Okay, it looks like um we don't have any further questions on these policies. Um, so I would then look for a motion that the board approve the above policies in first read and further the board um direct the administration to prepare the policies with any suggested revisions for approval in second reading at the next meeting as part of consent. So moved. I have a motion. Is there a second? Second. I have a motion and a second. Any discussion? Seeing none, all those in favor, please say I. I. Any opposed? The chair votes I. And the policies are approved. Thank you. Assistant Superintendent Lightfoots. You're welcome. And monitoring committee. I appreciate the work. I think that will be our final policies in first read. for until we come back. Um, and now we need to um move to a closed session. Um, it's proposed that an executive session be called. Um, as permitted by the attorney client privilege, Minnesota statute 13D.05 05 subdivision 3B to discuss a lawsuit involving the school district's handling of a student injury matter. I would look for a motion. So moved. I have a motion. Is there a second? I have a motion and a second. Any discussion? Seeing none, all those in favor, please say I. I. Any opposed? The chair votes I and the meeting is moving into close session. We'll get our recordings to