evening. He is sick. Um, have not heard from Director Roer, so I imagine she will be here soonish. Um, because traffic is always iffy these days. But thank you for being here. I'm super excited to see our student board reps. [Music] Yes, we are very lucky that in Hopkins schools we have a strong tradition of bringing student voice to the table and we have incredible student leaders in our district. We have had our student board representative program for the Hopkins school board for 26 years. Um in fact we were I know very impressive. Um, we have what's that? >> Are we starting? >> I believe so, right chair? >> Sure. Yes. Go ahead. >> Okay. >> Oh, okay. Um, so we're really fortunate in Hopkins schools to have a strong student board representative program. Um, we're our student leaders join us here at the board table. This program has been happening here in Hopkins for the past 26 years. We have iterated that model over time and our current model has two student board reps from each of the grades at the high school and currently one student board rep from VU. We're working on getting two student board reps from VU. So we have a really wonderful cohort of reps who bring different perspectives, different lived experiences to our work here at the board table. Um, our program is obviously very well established. We have been asked to consult um with other school districts about our student board rep work. In fact, Claire and I went to the Weisetta school board work session a couple weeks ago. Um, they are a district who they do not have student board representatives and their board is exploring adding that program and they're very curious about the work that we've done in Hopkins. Um, so the reason that our student board rep program is on the agenda tonight is we are welcoming two new ninth grade student board reps to our collective work. Um, so I thought we could start with some introductions starting with our two new student board members and going around the table um so we can all start to get to know each other a bit. Um, so name, um, pronouns, what brought you to this work? What brought you to the table to now? >> Um, my name is Adena Togal. Um, my pronouns are she, her, and I was brought here because I really just wanted to have a leadership part in like the school's decisions and like just be part of the school board. I thought it would be fun. >> Um, hi, my name is HSA. My pronouns are she, her, and I mainly joined because I did some clubs back in my middle school that kind of collided with this. >> Could you say your name again? Sorry, I couldn't. >> Ha. >> Ha. Thank you. >> I'm Iris. Um, my pronouns are she, her. I joined student board because I thought it sounded like a really cool opportunity to um express my opinion and have leadership in something that I find really important. >> Hi, my name is Claire. My pronouns are she, her, and I joined the student board representative program because I wanted to help bring student perspectives to the board table. My name is Manuel. Um, my pronouns are he, him. And the reason I joined the student board rep program is because I wanted to make sure that the student body was represented represented at the board level. >> Thank you. And for my board colleagues, um if you could talk about, um your involvement with the district, if you have kids at specific schools, um how long you've been on the board, and then also answering the question, what brought you to this work? >> Director Thompson. >> Sure. Hey, I'm Kai Thompson. I am the clerk on the school board and I've been here about a year and a half. I have three kids in the district at Metobrook North at Metobrook and two at the high school. Um, and you know what brought me here was I wanted to see us try to improve student outcomes. Uh, thinking about how we can help kids do better here in the district. So, welcome. >> Clerk Thompson, what are some of your clerkly duties just to give our student board reps? So when you first came here, you saw me signing some documents. So after our meeting, we put together minutes as far as what was discussed, what was on the agenda, and then I make sure that that looks all right. And then I sign that and then that gets posted so that the community and anybody interested can um look back and see the minutes as to what what happened. Um, other things I would do then is, you know, at times where we have like a roll call vote. So that's like a very special vote where we we need to be really clear each how each person voted. Um, I'll conduct that roll call vote. Um, so those are kind of my big pieces here as the clerk. >> Thank you. Hi. Um, my name is Brook Roer. Um, and I am I use she her pronouns. I've been on the board for 2 years going into my third starting in January. And I have two incredible kids over at Gatewood Elementary. Um, and I will say what led me to this work is when I have been doing youth development work for over a decade in many capacities. I've worked with young people from homelessness prevention to mental health to um parenting to uh higher uh education access. I've worked in many different um areas with young people and I wanted to take that work a bit higher and I wanted to um make a difference um for education and also to reduce the disparities that's within our public education system, innovate our public education system and to also bring representation to administration um so it can be so um black and brown students can see that it's possible to lead um in a high level for education and also So like Clerk Thompson, I want to improve the student outcomes and you know make Minnesota the number one state for education for our students and also make a big difference nationwide um what's possible for education. So that's what brought me here. >> Wonderful. Hi, I am so glad to see you all here and so I'm very excited about some new board representatives. Thank you for your interest. And um I want you to know that as part of the student board rep program, we really actually like when so you guys all have board reports that you prepare and give the board, but we really like when you ask us other questions and weigh in on the other issues that we discuss. Hear your voice is really important and it's powerful. So thank you for taking the time. there's so many things you could be doing. Um, and you chose to be here with us and that means a lot. Um, I mentioned I'm Rachel Hartland. I use she her pronouns. I have three kids in the district. So, I have a sixth grader and an eighth grader at North Middle School and I have a 10th grader here at the high school or here at the high school. And I am about finishing my um fourth year on the board. So, that'll be the end of my first term. and I am seeking reelection and so hopefully I will still be with you uh into the next several years and I'm the current treasurer of the board. Do you want me to talk about treasurerly duties to >> Yes, I do. I was going to ask >> um treasurerly duties are um somewhat boring. We have like official duties about being responsible for depositing the funds of the district, but we we do that by making sure that we have the appropriate staff to do it. I don't ever actually make any deposits, but what I do is review our um the treasures reports that are linked on every board agenda is kind of a list of our not payroll expenditures. So, not the expenses to pay for our staff, but a lot of the other expenses that our district has. So, I review those and make a report about it that you guys will hear at the board meetings. And then also, we have a couple of committees that have to do with money for the school. As you can imagine, money to pay for things is somewhat important. And so, oversee some of that. And one of the the reason that I'm on the board is I love this district. We moved here on purpose. I am uh always a person that is asking why. And so four years ago when there was um the opportunity to run for the board, some people were like, "Hey, you like to ask a lot of questions. Do you want to come be on the board?" And so so I did and I'm happy to be here and glad to see you all. >> Hi there. I'm Dr. Reid, superintendent. I've been in my role for nine years. I use she her pronouns. I have um an eighth grader at West who has been in the Chinese immersion program since kindergarten and now is thriving at one of our two fabulous middle schools. Um my my purpose for um the professional work that I do is to create conditions of belonging for each and every student and also create conditions so that our students can achieve at high levels. And that means supporting and building the capacity of all of our school leaders who work together to um support the skill sets of our teachers and our staff. And there's just so many adults in our system who come to work every day to serve our students and to make sure that you have the skills and dispositions um and qualities to thrive in the world. and that has always been um my professional passion and I'm really happy to see all of you. I enjoy the student board reports. I think I do happen to think they're the most interesting part of the meeting. Um and they really give our conversations a lot of of flavor and nuance. And so, um, like board members have said, it's super important for you to find your voice at this table and contribute or ask questions when you feel like you have something to offer that might um, elevate our thinking or make us help us think differently about an issue that pertains to our students. So, nice to have you here. >> Hi, everybody. My name is Shannon Andre she her pronouns and I what is this looping up my sixth year finishing off my sixth year on the board. Um so in the middle of my second term I am currently chair of the board and um have a senior at the high school which is hard to believe. Um, and I also get to work at Gatewood Elementary in the um, special education department there as a parah. And so that gives me, I think, a nice perspective about what's actually happening in our schools, which is what I appreciate so much about the schoolboard reps when you come and you tell us what's going on in in at the high school, but also in your lives. I really appreciate all the many things that you do and that you bring to the table. Um, and also I've just found um, Hopkins students across the board and our student board reps in particular to be so community focused. Um, and that's one of the reasons why I do this work is this community is amazing and the people that make it up are um very community-minded and want to see everyone succeed and that's why I show up here and continue to show up and um get energized by coming to these meetings and you all are a big part of that. So, thank you. Do you want to talk about chairing? >> Uhhuh. >> Except director uh Wes Morlin knows a lot about um chairing the school board. She did it for a long time and did it really well. Um so what the the board chair does, I think the main role is setting the agenda alongside the superintendent. So we meet often to talk about um what things the community um needs to hear about um a deeper dive into certain things and then there are of course just all the things that we have to get done because it's board business. So you'll you'll see some of our meetings are actually really interesting um and we don't have very many votes and then there are other meetings where it's not as interesting and we're voting a lot and I think that's that's kind of the the balancing of the two. So setting that agenda I think is the most important role of the chair and then also um I think culture building and making sure that um all the board understands our role our individual roles within the board and how we work collectively as uh a group. uh the the power of the school board is in the collective um not in the individual and that is often a big shift for a lot of us because we're community people and so we are often out there doing things individually. So was that good? Beautiful. >> Good evening future leaders. Um my name is Jason Ross. I am the vice chair of uh the school board. I've been I'm in the fourth year of my first term. So, I have two more uh meetings and then um I am not running for uh reelection. So, I'm not going to take on the mantle like my other peer cohort um Treasurer Hartland. So, I will not be running. So, two more meetings for me and then that concludes my term. I have three children in the district. two seventh graders uh moved here 11 year 11 and a half years ago. So um you know it was uh very very interesting to be able to move my kids while they were still crawling and you know trying to figure uh navigate the stairs and you know my wife and I have purposefully uh moved to this district. We heard very good things about the district. Uh the reason why I served is wanted to be able to understand and bring um any issues that I felt like resonated with people who look like me like understanding how do you have the seat at the table uh ensuring that um you know I was able to serve my community so I can afford to make comments about uh public education and about representing uh the constituents. So, I know there's a lot of people who provide a lot of feedback, but I can say if my uh fellow cohorts are knuckleheads because at least I have served versus me being on the outside looking in. So, it was definitely um a great opportunity. I've enjoyed it. I learned a lot more than if I were to not be on the board trying to understand everything from an high level finance to policy. So, I chair uh the monitoring committee, which is your guys' favorite subject, looking at reams of paperwork online, and you know, trying to understand how does this policy impact >> individuals like yourself because ultimately the policies are going to impact you and impact the rest of the community. Um, in ensuring that the pop the policies are student centered on student voice. So then you guys feel like you do have a seat at the table. So these are not policies that are passed without any impaire any input from any student voices. So that's really one of the big things that I want to champion for sure while I only have two more meetings left that if anybody here has pleasure or I don't know maybe you don't have anything else you you don't want to look at calculus and you're like I prefer to look at policies instead you know you should join the committee because it ultimately >> is going to impact you and then whatever you decide to do in your future when you move into a community and and you understand what's going on in the school district. At least you have that frame of reference. >> Did I hit on every amazing as usual? Thank you. >> Um, hi, I'm Jen West Morland. This is my eighth year on the school board. I mentioned to you earlier that I'm not running for reelection. So, um, two meetings left, but who's counting, right? Vice Chair Ross. Um, and I joined the board, uh, or ran for the school board eight years ago, um, because I'm really passionate about Robert's rules of order and sitting for long periods of time. Just kidding. Um, we talked about Robert's rules and chair, what I said is that student board reps do not have to be experts in Robert's rules. They just have to get your attention if they want to say something. and chair Andre is wonderful about looking around the table to make sure that everybody has a chance to um to make the comments that they want to on a certain agenda item. So, um no, the real reason I ran for the school board is I grew up in this community. I graduated from Hopkins High School in 1997. It looked a little different back then. Um and I have a ninth grader at Hopkins High School now. um they were in first grade when I first uh ran for the school board. And um I have a background in education. I've been a faculty member in the Minnesota State Colleges system for the past 16 years. Um and a lot of my research and work centers on educational justice. So I wanted to bring my knowledge of that work to the school board and to work collectively. Um that's how I prefer to work and u make some real changes in this district. um which we have done over the last eight years. So um one of the the areas of this work that I've been most passionate about is student voice and making sure that our student board representative is strong and what you wanted that our program is strong and what you want it to be. Um and so we've been talking about some some changes um that we want to make. Um, Iris, you've been taking the lead on kind of expanding how we represent student voice in the district. Would you mind talking a little bit about that? >> Yeah, so I started this a little bit last year. Um, around this time of year actually, me and um, Mia Osman and Sufyan Osman went to um, a student board conference in Shakipi. And there I talked to a lot of other student board representatives and many of them had systems where they would go and visit elementary and middle schools so that they could represent the entire student body of the entire district instead of just the high schoolers. And I thought that was something that we could work on implementing. So last year um more around the springtime I went to visit um the North Middle School and also Eisenhower Elementary um and I just kind of interviewed some students and kind of got their perspective on life at the middle school and life at Eisenhower Elementary. And um I'm working on kind of expanding that this year. So trying to kind of create student ambassador groups um starting with the middle schools and then hopefully going on to the elementary schools. This is all still um being developed so there's nothing concrete yet um but hopefully we can get some groups with um a few people from each grade at the middle school and maybe a few people from upper grades at the elementary schools so that we can consistently as high schoolers meet with those students. meet with the administration of each school and maybe um and or maybe shadow like a class for a little bit of time so that we can get a better understanding of what's happening at all the schools in our district instead of just the high school and we can truly represent all of the students to our best abilities. >> Thank you. Really important work and um evolving work, right? And um we'll we'll continue to update the board on what that structure is going to look like. Um Manuel's been doing some work around participation, student board rep participation in committees. Um did you want to talk a little bit about that? >> Yeah, of course. So, um, something that I noticed last year, um, and I'm sure a lot of the other student board reps noticed is that we can't really attend, um, the committee meetings because usually they're at, um, times where we're either at school, we have sports practices or something like that or it's like early in the morning. So, um, the times obviously work for adults, working adults, but for students it could be really hard. So, um, we're starting to work towards maybe an asynchronous option or getting meetings moved around so that, um, student board reps are able to have their voice heard at the committee level. So, an example of an asynchronous option with the monitoring committee could be a Google doc that has the upcoming policies on it and then student board reps can go in and leave comments about, you know, language that they'd like to see adapted in those policies and then we could take that into consideration in our monitoring meetings. So, we're going to be um iterating around some like creative asynchronous uh multimodal options for uh participation. And then also we talked about earlier during our onboarding um making this part of the conversation in January when the board is deciding on committee assignments because oftentimes the scheduling of when committees meet has to do with the board members who are serving on those committees. Um so to see if there could be a little bit more flexibility to ensure that student board reps um can be part part of those meetings. So I don't I know we have a limited time for our agenda item. we have already gone over it. Um, but I wanted to thank our student board reps uh for being here and we're going to continue the conversation at the meeting. Um, in the in the workshop packet, I linked an onboarding doc um that we created for the student board reps and board colleagues, if you think that there should be something added or changed in that doc, um, please let me know and I can make those edits. Um, and we're going to continue to um to evolve that document as well through our conversation. So, thank you, Chair Andre. >> Thank you so much. Thanks to all of you for being here and all your ideas and all the energy you bring to the table and for taking time out on, you know, a school night to to come early and to talk about schoolboard stuff. So, thanks. And um yes, I appreciate having that document that we can all talk about um and comment on and we'll be sure to send any of our thoughts to you. Um Director West Morland, >> thank you. >> Great. Thank you. And that takes us then to our next agenda item, which is student clubs and activities update. Um I will turn it over to Dr. Mary Perry Reed. Thank you, Chair Andre. I'd like to welcome our athletic and activities director, Mr. Jared Ellerson, to the board table. Thanks for being here, Jared. And um just for a quick framing as we get the slide deck ready, um many of us have read the research that supports students um strong involvement in extracurricular activities and the positive impact it has on academic achievement. Um, students who are involved in athletics, in the arts, in clubs tend to have higher GPA, stronger attendance, and greater persistence even through graduation and beyond. Um, so we just appreciate all of the efforts that Mr. Ellerson, his assistants JP Frederick and Nicole Hartert, as well as we have many staff who serve as coaches who are adviserss for our clubs and activities. There are so many adults who um provide very important and often lifech changing support and impact for students who are involved in extracurricular activities. It's an extra duty beyond what's already a tough day for teachers, right? And so we're very appreciative and um you know Jared, you run a really strong program over there. Thank you for all the work that you do. And with that, want to turn it over so that you can give our schoolboard and community some interesting information on all that we're doing in athletics and activities. >> All right. Well, thank you for having me. Um Jared Ellerson, year four as AD here and uh happy to be here. Go through some numbers with you. I was just asked to put together some stats on um kind of our participation numbers and then some few facts of what we've got going on this fall. Um first slide really touches on um participation through of 7th through 12th graders. Um you'll see the one on the left is the total participation. So that number shows if I'll say Lucy Johnson plays three sports, she's counted in that number three times. Um and on the right it's unduplicated. So that's just one student. Um could be doing doing multiple sports but just counting them as one. Oh, I don't have you can go to the next one. Um so and then just males to females um participation numbers by grade. Um these hold pretty steady for me when I look at it. It's um looking at what's coming um where we're staying consistent and how it changes throughout the year. Um who's metriculating through that 9th grade all the way to 12th grade. Um you'll see I think personally um the numbers drop down just because Hopkins is super competitive. Um, so when you're looking at the athletic side of things, some people kind of tend to fall off a little bit if they're not um, you know, developing or growing at the rate they necessarily like. Um, or interests change as well as they get through school, get to that junior, senior year and um, understand that, you know, school academics are tough along with doing multiple sports. next couple slides will really just be um by term. Um throw some little facts in there, but um so these numbers when I look at them and comparing them to this is for 2425 obviously. So we have the whole um school year, but if I look at it and compare it to 23 24 um our numbers stay pretty consistent with some jumps um in the fall was not alarming but there was a larger drop in girls soccer. Um so when I see things like that, why right? Um and that this year I'm I'm equating that cuz we lost about 15 girls from our girls soccer program. um which struggles when you're trying to put four teams together, but uh Minnesota State High School League changed a a policy, a rule. Now they govern all ninth grade sports. Um and some of our seventh and eighth graders that participate in girls soccer that make our ninth grade team opted to stay down and play middle school or continue to do club because um once you do a Minnesota State High School League sport, you cannot do your club in that same season. So they were kind of forced to make a choice and they made the right choice I believe. Um they get almost triple the game. So they were getting more reps um at their sport, but that was one where we saw a dip that was kind of like, oh, what was going on? But when you look at it, it makes sense. Um we can go to fall or winter, excuse me. Um same, right? So we saw some growth in participation here um in a couple I say individual but still team sports um specifically Nordic ski. Nordic ski went up 20 um 20 additional participants. Um it was already a larger team. Um but when we do that we're not cutting kids. Um if you are interested in it um we've done this with some other programs where we started a developmental team. So we've had a lot of young kids come out that oh you know they probably did cross country. Um it's a lot of crossover in that one. Um but we started a developmental team there so they can learn the basics. You know we cut down on the hours of practice a week but they can still be a part of the team and be involved. Going with spring once again just numbers on a sheet but um when I look at it growth in a lot of areas as well here um our boys golf team had 20 new participants last season um and girls were up 10. Um, and this was another sport that we added a developmental team. So, once again, we're not cutting kids and they are they are getting an opportunity to participate um enjoy being around their friends, learn a new sport in some instances or just develop um to where they can get their skill to a level to participate on the JB or varsity squad. Um, also last spring we added the boys volleyball team. So, it was the inaugural season for them. um being a Minnesota State High School League sport and they did awesome. I mean I it was the inaugural season. Um it was a three school co-op so our numbers look kind of low on the screen but um it doesn't count the kids from St. Louis Park and we had one for many haha participating as well. Um and they had an awesome season so I'll give them a quick shout out. They were section champs and made it to the state tournament um out the gate. So, I think it was it was a good experience for them and it's been fun. Um, kind of looking at our clubs, fine arts and some of our other activities. Um, once again, the numbers are there. Um, LMPM is one of those that I feel like is just growing. Our lean mean performance machine. They help us out a lot in the athletics activities world with showing up to all types of events to perform. Um, but you know, good numbers there. Clay Target is one that's kind of under the radar, but their numbers are good. Um, and then our the active clubs, so we don't take participation. It's um the clubs are studentled. Um, I think I presented last year at a board meeting on that and there was some feedback. So, we've kind of updated how we do it. We updated our form to where it's a live form. So, if a student wants to start a bat mitten club, they would stop by the office. We'd have a conversation. How many kids do you have? Do you have an adult supervisor? We direct them to the website um on the club's page where they can then go in and fill out that sheet. It populates, comes back to our office. We follow up with the advisor, make sure they have what they need, and they're kind of off and running. Um right now on our active sheet that we have, there's about 53 plus, we got another one today, um of active clubs. Now, I don't know if that's 100% because there are some clubs that have been active for 10 years and they're kind of still off doing their thing. Every every year, this is my fourth year now, we send the form out and try to get the um the students that are in charge of the clubs or the adviserss to kind of refill out that form, update it with information so we have a more live and up-to-date um roster of what's going on. And then obviously the musicals and the plays. Um numbers are up. If you look, the fall musical is our largest one almost every year. It's just gets a lot of more kids involved. We use our orchestra or band. Um so it just has a lot of more students involved. Shout out to them. Dracula, they've been working hard. It's opening this week um 23rd, 24th, and the 25th. Um, so for me, since I was doing this, I just I did I did the middle school numbers, um, and just participation just to kind of once again see what's coming to us. Um, and looking at this, we're in good shape. What I'll say is that a lot of times the middle school kids all come over and then you'll have 9th graders that transfer in or open enroller and they want to get involved as well. So, drives those numbers up. Um but the middle school programs are doing awesome and it's got awesome teams over there as well. Um uh so educational benefits percentages. Um thank you scoreboard for allowing us to um adjust some of our participation fees. Um this is a little research that we did to kind of see how it would affect us and where we would be able to use those funds. So this is really just showing this is for any activity, club, sport that we have that has a registration fee tied to it that goes through our system. Um so that totals about 2344 students um middle school, so 6th grade to 12th grade that are participating in something. Um and it just kind of shows, you know, those that are on free and reduced lunch, um those that hit student max and those that pay the full amount. So that helped us make kind of the correct adjustments to make sure we were kind of keeping pace with um metro area schools specifically in the late conference as well. >> Um and then just kind of some highlights from fall. It's still going pretty quick, but big one that pops out is our Hopkins football team were actually the Maroon District Champions. Um, I'll say in the last four years, we were not, you couldn't say champions with anything related to football as we hadn't won a lot of games, but um, you know, new leadership, new commitments, and and they did really well in their, um, district going 4-0. Then we have crossover games that are a little tougher, but we're getting there. So, shout out to them. And then girls tennis, I say sexupled because every time they would win a match, coach would text me, "Oh, we doubled our record last year. We tripled our record. We sex it." So, it's like that was really cool. They had an awesome season. Um, new leader, new coach who's not really new, Coach Barb. She coaches our boys, but she's taken over the girls again. Um, and then they also won their first round of section game, which hasn't happened in a while as well. Um, other things, I mean, so we've got cross country sections is tomorrow, so I'm sure we'll have some student athletes qualifying out of that, making it the state as we have the last couple years. Um, volleyball has their section section match on Thursday. Um, we go to Weisetta. It's tough match up, but we'll shock the world. That's the plan. And boys football um plays uh Centennial on Friday at Centennial for their first round of sections. So, still wrapping things up here and gearing up for uh winter. Um kind of places to stay in the know, just our athletics website that we went live. um that's connected to the high school uh last year and that's been awesome. Um we have a late conference network page that um the Lake Conference streaming. They stream all of our games um and we have the ability to stream um our theater programs um productions and they have a Lake Conference network. They do pretty cool interviews of our student athletes, coaches um for the entire Lake Conference. Um, obviously we get info out through the activity fair that's hosted every year. Um, our Instagram page and then any, you know, policy or things that you're interested in. Minnesota high mhsl.org um is I kind of live and die by that website. So, um, I think that kind of wraps up what I have here. I don't know if you have time to open up for questions. I'm always hesitant, but hey, I'm here. >> You Thank you. Um, appreciate all this information. Just wanted to quickly um um talk about the the fall musical. I only know this because I have a kid in it. It's Greece. >> Is it Greece? I thought >> it's Greece this year. They're also doing a fall play which is Dracula. >> Oh, okay. Yes. >> They're like double hitting it this um this fall. So, >> thank you. >> I only know that cuz >> Yeah, >> I have one that chose not to do the other. >> It's on both. Good deal. >> So, thank you. I think this is important. I like to um have this at the beginning of the year so families and students know just how much there is at Hopkins to get involved in. And um I I like to see that numbers are I think going up, I think, is is what I heard. And also that we're having these um different levels of entry points for for kids in sports because I know Hopkins in particular can be really competitive and just knowing that there's opportunities for people to do this students to do this for social and developing their skills and not necessarily to be part of a highly competitive team. So I like seeing that shift. Um, and I just love the fact that we have volleyball for boys. It's great. >> Thank you. >> Thank you. >> Any comments or from my board colleagues? >> Cheer Andre. >> Yes. Um, another activity that I didn't see mentioned is robotics. I know that I kind of personally plug that program a whole lot, but that is a a space that I have um some pretty deep familiarity with, and I know we have both middle school and high school teams. And our high school team grew a bunch this year. And one of their their favorite ways that they've grown is recruiting and retaining um uh girls and um even non-binary students on our um robotics team. And that is a really big step. It's an important program that has realworld students leave the robotics program and can directly use those skills to get scholarships for college and first jobs. And so Hopkins has done a really good job of growing that program inside um inside our district and I'm grateful for the support you give that team. >> Yes, absolutely. And that is 100% my fault on the oversight because they are actually a Minnesota State High School League sponsored sport as well and but yes, they are once again on track with everyone else growing, thriving. >> Yeah. >> Yep. And they have some big tournaments. We host the middle school one um over at Tanglin and it's been awesome last couple years and then I always try to catch them when they're here in the city somewhere. So >> yeah, thank you for that. >> Yeah, I've heard in the last couple years that the support from your department has been really fantastic. >> No, thank you. >> Chair Andre. >> Yes. >> Um Mr. Dr. Ellerson, do you know of any are there any programs that you wish that we had or that would give us even more of a competitive advantage in terms of broadening the opportunities for our students? >> Um, right now I think we're we're on par with almost everything. Like we don't have a bad mitten team right now, but that's kind of a I won't say niche. It's just a smaller population that plays it. But there's a lot of schools that are growing those. Um push for pickle ball teams coming as well. We have those conversations in our late conference AD meetings. Um and then the separation of girls wrestling from boys. Um is a big conversation right now to help grow the girls wrestling program. Um just trying to get the separation from the boys ultimately. Um, and that's it's coming, but for a lot of schools, it's just the the space for it to actually say it's separated. >> Mhm. >> Yep. So, those are I mean, pickle ball and Batman are two that um some of our neighboring schools have where we're kind of missing that. Um I believe we actually have a bat mitten club um that Pali's kind of helping out, but you know, it's just smaller numbers right now. >> Yeah. >> Okay. But I think I kind of mentioned the developmental squads um and you touched on them as well. I think those are when we get to those places in some of the activities and sports that we have um it just creates that lane so we're not cutting we're not saying you know thanks but no thanks. It's giving everyone an opportunity to get involved at some sort of level. So >> Chair Andresa. >> Yes. Uh, thank you uh, Ad Ellerson for this presentation or do you prefer to director Ellison? Not sure. >> Whatever works for you. I'm good. >> Um, thank you for this. Two questions for you. one did is there any demand in any martial arts or any form of martial arts by chance um within I don't know what other surrounding uh communities or if the competition is just managed somewhere else with like independent and then two is there any benchmark so next year if you when you're looking at 25 26 and for instance looking at women's soccer at 73 if that dips to like I don't know 50. Is that going to be a concern? Like is there a benchmark? Like obviously I know you want to have higher than 73, but I don't know if there's like a floor of like we definitely don't want to have 25 or something like that. >> Yeah. >> Um I would say as long as we can have at least three levels of play, um we would be good. And that's probably 18 on the high to middle side, um per team. So, we're we're we're getting close, but we we still have some wiggle room there. Um, making sure we have three teams. Um, levels of play in the late conference is important. Um, even though it's awesome conference, ads, we work together, so if we do have to drop one, um, we can back field those lower level games. Um, so yeah, I hope that kind of answered that part. And then on the martial arts piece, um, I would say every year, so year four, there's probably been a request for um, like a boxing club. Um, so but it's >> the interest, right? So I tell it's like if you can get six to maybe 10 kids that are in interested like we can find you an adviser and we can help try to facilitate a space time that you can do that. Um, but a lot of the martial arts is more wreck right now. So like there's a judo and taekwond do um outside through the city of Minnotonka that uses our space in the evenings. Um, but yes, for boxing, there's always been a couple of students that that have asked for a club to get a club started there. >> Well, I got a rising fourth grader who's >> That's okay. >> some level of interest. So, >> okay. >> Taran Dre Kai, a quick question. >> Yeah. >> Um, thank you um, uh, Vice President Ross for mentioning like martial arts and, um, boxing cuz my kids are so very interested in that. Um, but I just have a quick question for you and sorry you've already mentioned this, but do we have any partnerships with any of like our um, state sports teams like Vikings or Timberwolves or any of them um, that like maybe offer like mentorship, you know, programs or initiatives. Like for example, I know an organization that I adore in North Minneapolis, like a mother's love, they did um a links clinic with like a basketball team in Minneapolis and like some of the girls are able to go there and practice with the links. Just wondering if that's something that has ever been offered to any of our students given especially given our championship status that we >> Right. So not not like on an individual basis, but um the NFL and the Vikings um they are sponsoring um girls flag football. So, there's a partnership there where they help uh give us funds to make sure we have the equipment for them and for that group. Um, but outside of that, not really. Yeah, they're not reaching out. I mean, they have their camps and they'll send us their camp information that, you know, we can send our kids to those. Um, but most of it's for youth. >> Thank you so much for one more question. Okay, I have one more question. So, I remember a conversation that I had with U. Mia Osman. She was a student board rep and I asked her about um the participation and athletics of our Somali girls and what what accommodations can we make with uniforms to encourage more girls, more of our um Muslim girls to participate? And do you know of any examples other districts that have higher rates of participation with our Somali girls? >> I mean, I don't know if I'd say higher rates, but I know I my first job was in St. Cloud at Apollo and there's a large Muslim um population there and to get some out for whatever sport that they were interested in. And a lot of time it was like, hey, if you do track, we can get you an altered uniform that would fit um um that would meet your requirements. Um we purchased some hijabs um and just things like that. So we would offer the same thing. I would offer the same thing here. Um I guess I don't want to say if requested cuz but it is kind of if if requested, right? like yes, we can do that and we can make sure everybody has what they need >> um to feel comfortable and to be able to participate. So, >> okay, >> but nobody's actually come and asked um trying to think. Yeah, >> maybe promoting the possibility might >> Mhm. >> make a difference. >> Mhm. >> Like just having that as part of the activities announcements that >> go out >> upon request this is available. >> Okay. >> The assumption might be it's just not. >> Very true. >> So yeah, we can definitely put something together to include in our messaging that goes out with each season. Yeah, that might be good. Like a welcoming >> Yeah. >> Thanks for that question. >> Thank you >> and thank you for your time and bringing this to all of us. I appreciate it. >> No, thank you for having me. >> Appreciate your leadership. >> All right. Thank you. >> You're doing good work, Jared. Thank you. >> I appreciate it. Thank you. >> Thank you. And that brings us to our next topic of um discussion, belonging, a shared approach to equity and inclusion. I would invite our next presenters up to the table and turn it over to Dr. Mary Perry Reed. >> Thank you, Chair Andre. So I think along the theme of belonging, right, continuing with the theme of belonging because athletics and activities um they do create opportunities for our students to experience belonging on those teams in those sports in our schools. And so this next topic is continuing on that same theme. We have with our leaders and teachers actually on our uh kickoff day we talked about the importance of a strong sense of belonging for each and every student and staff. In fact, we talked about belonging as a non-negotiable, right? And we know that strong belonging is one of the conditions that um that are necessary for students to thrive and learn at high levels. So, I'm very excited to have this brilliant team of presenters all working together to help our school board members and our community better understand what are what are we doing to create those opportunities for student and um staff belonging. So, here with us we have an Erdle who leads our innovation design and learning department. We have uh director Roer who is working with our parents and caregivers of um African descent. We have Laura Jensen who is our LGBTQ plus community liaison and Ayan Bundid. Is that the correct pronunciation? Okay. Excellent. our student success cultural liaison and Paris Timmans who does a lot of programming in our um alternative and transformational program space. So, welcome team and I'll turn it over to you. >> Good evening board members. Thank you Dr. Mary Pier Reed. Welcome to our new board members. Thanks for having us here tonight. I'm not going to add much to Dr. Mary Perry Reed's framing other than to say um creating a sense of belonging is not um a lot of random acts. It's actually a very intentional and concerted effort. Um and it is an absolutely key ingredient to student success and outcome. So, um I'm really proud to sit at the table with these brilliant colleagues who um both in who they are and the work that they are doing with our students, our staff and our families are um creating through their um acts individual acts of belonging are creating that culture um for our students and staff and families. So, thank you for coming tonight. >> Okay. Hello. >> Hi. >> Um, it's great to see everyone. Go to the next slide, please. >> Thank you. Um, we just have a couple slides with some of our scholar racial demographics um to to show you of the scholars that we are serving. Um, as you can tell, well, it's a beautiful document. You can look at it. Um, next slide, please. Here in Hopkins, we have um 66 home language languages represented um within all of our um schools. Um feel free to take a look at that a little bit. Um as well get to the fun stuff. You can go to the next slide, please. Um so our team tonight, um we are we are missing a couple folks and that's okay. Hey, we're we're here. Um so Brando um Roas is was not able to attend tonight. Um so I'm happy to share um his his work that he's that he's up to. We have Ayan, um Deb and Laura. So Ayan, will you please start us off with >> as student success culture leaison? Both Brando and I have four different hats that we fill into throughout the district. Uh, student support, affinity groups, family engagement, and corporal cultural representation. Um, for student support, that looks different throughout secondary and primary schools. We um regularly meet throughout the week to support, represent, connect with our kiddos. um whether that's through win, whether that's through lunch, whether that's through um RC at the high school. Um for affinity groups, that kind of blends in with both students and families. Um we're kind of expanding more into the elementary level with affinity groups, but um have done middle school and high school um within the past year. Um, for affinity groups and family engagement, we hope to create safe and empowering spaces where students celebrate their culture, share their experiences, and build community. Family engagement is doing the same thing, but kind of hearing our parents and what their concerns are or any of the things that they're facing during these times or just at day-to-day life. Um, for cultural representation, we help staff in school find meaningful ways to represent diverse diverse cultures within our buildings. Um, from classroom inclusions to community events um because students need to see themselves throughout the district in different settings in different situations. Um, and that looks different. um we can have staff members reach out for clarification on a certain situation or a student who doesn't really understand who's new to the country who doesn't know what a school life is. Um so yeah those are the buckets we fill just for a brief sim but we we can go in depth. Um, so our cycle of belonging is cultural representation. Just being there representing um seeing someone that you know. A lot of times when a little kiddo sees you, it's they're bright and they're like, "Oh my god, you look like me. You're wearing the hijab." And then with student support, that's making sure that they fit in. They they know that they're supported. They have that person to check in with. Um leading that into affinity groups where our students can pull our parents in with their concerns. They're like, "My student joined an affinity group. What is that?" And we pull them in like, "Oh, glad you're here. Let's talk more." Um, and then that leads into our family engagement where we can hear those concerns and listen to them and make sure that they know that they have a seat at the table as well. >> Um, do you want me to go this? Yeah. So, both Brando and I uh serve around about 875 primary students, that's our little kiddos, and 826 secondary students. Um both Latino, Somali, and Asian culture communities. Um it's not about language, it's about being able to know that there's different cultures, making sure that they're heard, making sure that they have a seat at the table, and then also making sure that do you know who I am? Like, do you know what a Somali person is? and making sure that they know that everybody else knows that. Um it's harder for our little kiddos to say what those are and what what that looks like, but um having just a representative there is also helpful too cuz they're like uh Miss Ayan can tell you. So um yeah, or Brando can tell you as well. So um looking into just the history of of the roles of our student success cultural leaison. Um looking into the or looking back at our early 2000s um we had like more informal support uh community volunteers, translators, family connectors and we transitioned in the in the next decade to more formalized equity roles which includes which included um inclusion and planning um tribal consultations, integration and flash forward another decade um we are more strategic um with our with with leadership and cult with having cultural brokers um cult curriculum co-designers and e and equity advocates. >> Could I just ask quickly? I don't I'm not quite sure I know what a cultural broker is. Could you expand on that a little bit >> or is that something I should just Google? >> Yeah. So, more spec like more specific to um it's not just like a like a broad um you want to can you expand on this? Help me expand on this >> what a cultural broker is >> because it's more specific. Um, I haven't come across cultural brokers before, but I'm I'm my understanding is that it's more with the legal help. Um, >> I can I can help a little bit too. I think, you know, um I think that historically when districts have had folks in a cultural liaison role, it's been um kind of um it can it can be um a range from sort of represent representative sometimes tokenizing and I think cultural brokering is really more of um a reciprocal relationship. So we are um providing um not just not just you know translation services or interpreting services but we're actually um h our liaison are helping us not just um with our Somali students or Hispanic students or our GBTQ students but they're really working on behalf of the district as well to to make sure that um our curriculums are inclusive and that our environments are inclusive. So, it's I think it's um sort of moving away from this um yeah, I guess tokenized representation to more like deeply influencing our systems and how we do our work. >> Thank you for that. Appreciate it. So I'm going to share some of the work that um is being done um on behalf of Brando. So for our family parent and student affinity groups um specifically looking at our family engagement creating welcoming spaces. Our family engagement work happens in multiple ways. We host parent affinity groups both separate community groups and combine multicultural sessions where families feel heard and valued. We recently held a parent uh academy designed specifically for our multi our multicultural families, Hispanic, Somali, M and and other groups. We organized it around small group sessions tailored to what families actually need. Helping navigate the parent portal, accessing language support, connecting to community resources. It wasn't a one-sizefits-all presentation. It was responsive, personalized support. families come to us with real challenges. They need help with attendance or enrollment, understanding IB schooling, connecting with counselors. Um, and now there's a fear there's a fear around the cultural polit and political climate around immigration. So, families are are apprehensive um to engage with systems even when they need help. So, that's why our work is so critical. We're not just translating words. We're building trust and creating bridges between families and schools. Student clubs during Royals Connect affinity groups safe spaces to belong. Um so we're scaling affinity groups from pilot programs to districtwide implementation between our Somali and Latino groups. We're seeing 30 to 50 scholars consistently participating at each level. These aren't just social clubs. They're spaces where students who previously felt isolated now have community. They develop leadership skills while celebrating their heritage. The study attendance tells us everything. When students have a space to truly be themselves, they show up. Supporting Hopkins public schools. A shared approach. Um, our work extends beyond student and families. So, we also support staff. We don't do formal trainings, but we provide situational um, advice and cons and um, consulting if needed. when a teacher has a question about how to support, excuse me, how to support a student, um when staff need guidance on inclusive practices, um or when someone wants to better understand a student's cultural context, we're there. Uh we help them understand identity, diversity, and how to support multilingual learners beyond just language. It truly is a shared approach. Staff learn from us, and we learn from them, and families inform us both. We encourage all teachers, staff, and the Hopkins public schools community to continue embracing identity, diversity, inclusion practices, and culturally responsive support. When everyone in the system feels they belong and understand each other, that's when we will all see real transformation. I'm going to pass it over to Brooke. Hello board. How are y'all doing? It feels so funny addressing you all. So I am here just to briefly talk about the Hopkins Coalition for Black Scholar Success. It has been something that we have been um implementing in different iterations over the past several years and refining and precising like what it is that we want to um how we want to lead in the district. And so I'll just go over the vision quickly. It is to create a united movement that strengthens the black, excuse me, that strengthens and empowers the black community within the Hopkins public schools, ensuring every black scholar thrives academically, socially, and emotionally. Um, looking to also strengthen the movement of our black um scholars as well. And I want to just be very clear that even though this coalition is focused on the advancement of black students, this is a coalition that is um available to everyone to join. We would love partnership from all of our affinity groups and from our district and our community to be involved in this work because one of the bigger goals is that we are trying to improve student outcomes through targeted services um and targeted out um excuse me initiatives to ensure that we are um our students are achieving academically um that we are reducing disparities and also celebrating black joy um and making sure that we are providing them with all of the um support that they need. And so our goals is to um amplify collective voice in the district decision-m through sustained caregiver and community leadership. Um foster belonging, cultural pride with culturally uh affirming programs and advocacy. Uh strengthen trustbased family school partnerships that support equity and shared accountability just like our um the resolution that was passed earlier this year for um paid family engagement. That's something that we're going to be exploring and looking to uh advance um at a state level. And then um advancing equity, educational equity, safety and opportunity and collaboration with the district. That does mean, you know, that we are going to be um designing accountability measures to ensure that the district is supporting students with their achievement and understanding what those what that process is looking like. Um and then to champion black student success and leadership through shared learning, healing, and growth. And so one of our mantras is that you are not the work that you do, you are the person that you are. Because one of the things by one of my favorite um people is Tony Morrison because one of the things that we know students are based on their test scores or they're based on their um how much they can achieve academically and you know we want them to understand that you are not just a student you are a um we you are in like an empowered um leader. you are someone who no matter what your test score is that you can achieve anything that you want to achieve. Like just because you may be doing um your score may be lower than someone else's doesn't mean that you are um inferior to anyone. And so we want to make sure that we're leading with that even with our caregivers. Like you are not the work that you do, you're the person that you are. And so um that is the work that we are doing. And one of the quick uh quick things, one of the models that we're trying to increase is that we are looking to set up site councils at each of our elementary, I mean, excuse me, each of our schools. So, we want our principles to choose two parents to be a part of this coalition to represent the school so we're able to make sure that we're reaching every community at every school um including our virtual edu um so our parents can have a voice. And so this is continuously being um uh you know uh designed and implemented and you know we're building this thing up. So please join if you can and if you're willing. So here we go. >> Hi Laura Jensen. I use she her pronouns. I'm a reading teacher at North Middle School and the LGBTQ plus community liaison. I'm also a member of the queer community. Um I'm super lucky because I actually get to see a lot of the work that u the other liaison do at my school. So um I see Ion and Brando and Deb um at the school all the time. Paris, I just saw you today at school. Um so they are really transforming I think that role of liaison. I liked how you talked about it as a, you know, moving away from just kind of helping just one population of kid, but they're transforming how we're doing things in the district. Um, so I uh work with LGBTQ plus students, families, and staff. Uh, one of the main things um we started last year was the welcoming schools professional development. It's from the um human rights campaign. It's really considered the premier professional development uh that is anti-bullying uh based that includes LGBTQ plus communities as well. Um and I'll go into some specifics in a minute about how many people participated in that. We also have a uh LGBTQ plus staff affinity group. It's for licensed and non-licensed staff. If you work for Hopkins Public Schools and you self-identify as part of that community, we welcome you to the affinity group. Uh I also have the unbelievable privilege of facilitating the caregivers of gender expansive kids group. Um, and last year our my health mentor at North Middle School, uh, Ben started helping out with that group and we are actually at a point where we're going to start offering, um, a kids group at the same time that we're offering the caregivers group. Uh, so it's very exciting development um, where kids will be able to have a space um, at that same time. Uh it provides a space for parents and uh much like Paris discussed around the climate regarding immigration. Our political climate for um families of trans kids has become uh very challenging to navigate and that is a safe space for parents to be able to um ask questions, get support and sort of navigate uh being the best parent or caregiver that they can be. All of our secondary schools have gender and sexuality alliances. A couple of the elementary schools do, too. Um, and I do a little bit of work with some of those advisors. And then district-wide responsiveness, just uh sometimes, uh, a family will reach out and say, "We're considering coming to Hopkins schools. What can you tell us?" Um, we have a kid who's maybe non-binary or trans. What will their experience be like? um staff asking me questions um of a wide range. Um unlike our other liaison, it's a little bit harder to um tell you specifically what our demographics are. We don't ask kids and families um their sexual uh orientation or gender identity. But from this graph, one of the things that you can see is so I'm Gen X uh and it's of my generation 4.5% identify as LGBTQ. Um for millennials, 9.8% and Gen Z, 22%. So what we're seeing is that younger generations are far more comfortable self-identifying as part of the LGBTQ plus community. And so um we are seeing a larger percentage of kids in our schools who are also identifying. Um so just a little bit about who served. We have over uh 50 families on the email list for caregivers of gender expansive kids. They don't all come uh to the meeting at the same time. Uh but we try and get information out through an email list. We have over 50 um staff members from early childhood um to high school as well as district office staff, par profofessionals, administrative staff uh who are part of the affinity group. Um various GSAs from a dozen members at some sites to up to 50 at other sites. And then every year we take approximately 50 to 60 secondary students to the Qest uh conference. Each year they have a middle school day and a high school day and it's an opportunity for our kids to attend workshops, develop some of their leadership skills, uh, and frankly just see themselves represented um in a in a conference. It's very affirming to them. Uh, tends to be one of the highlights of kids in our GSAs when they get to go to Qest and I mean a field trip. It's super fun. Um and then just a little bit of detail about the welcoming schools professional development. Last year was the first year that we offered this. Three of us were trained uh to provide the professional development. So um Karen Larson who's a school counselor at West Middle School, Harold Fabber who's um in our special education department and serves multiple schools. Um, and I also went out, we went out to DC, were trained by welcoming schools. Last year, we offered over 50 hours of training to staff. Three schools participated in schoolwide professional development. Uh, Metobrook, Glen Lake, and Alice Smith. And then 30 teachers and pair of professionals participated in the full 15 hours of professional development. Uh, and they went through the entire curriculum. that was after school after they had already worked a full day. Um and they participated in this. They were an amazing group of of um educators. Uh one principal uh from Metobrook also participated in that. And I think Oh, the last thing I I just want to say is this. Um I love Brooke that you first I love that you used a Tony Morrison quote as a former high school English teacher. Nice. Um, and like Brooke talked about, like it's not just about representation. It's not just about um, you know, making sure that everything is equitable. It's also about like that joy. So, we want our LGBTQ plus students to feel and experience queer joy. >> Yeah. Any questions? >> Thank you. Appreciate you being here this evening. And for the slides, I I like seeing >> so often we get questions about data and this is I think one of the hardest things to measure. Um yet it is I feel when I am in a Hopkins school one of the clearest things to see and feel. So thank you for the work that you do. Um, and also thank you for providing what I feel like is really good data about something that's very difficult to measure. So, I appreciate that effort. Um, any questions or comments from my board colleagues or student board reps? Chair Andre, I do have a question. Um, thanks so much for the presentation and I appreciate the focus on this kind of evolving approach that really honors intersectional identities, layered identities, whatever framework you use to understand the fact that we all contain multitudes, right? Um, and especially our students. I'm wondering, you know, Laura mentioned that there's kind of like a a sightspecific thing that happens in terms of seeing each other's work um and being able to collaborate in that way. I'm wondering if there's an overall structure in place or if we're kind of moving toward that so that the brilliant people up here have time to collaborate with each other, learn from each other, figure out how the groups could potentially integrate um so to continue to to move toward that shared approach. So, kind of wondering where we're headed with this. I can I can start and then um team you could add. One thing that um has been really important as we have really deliberately and intentionally involved or evolved the role of our um student success liaison is um it's it's very important that they are student and family facing as the primary role and I think um you all know that I'm an EL teacher by training and so my experience in this area for the last 25 years or so has really been seeing um folks like ION really only serve in within an interpretation role um and be very like adult focused, right? Helping teachers, helping families and those things are are very important. But I I think where we are intentionally taking it is is to ensure that our students um are getting to experience have those cultural culturally affirming experiences as part of their school day and then also obviously after school and and in in all kinds of areas. And so um they they do spend a lot of time in our schools versus kind of at the district office providing um interpreting and translation services. Um I would just I would just say for like even like the um the Hopkins coalition we are we have an executive committee of parents and so like um we are we're doing like a shared leadership model even though like I'm the board member um these parents are going to be like the front and center of the um of the movement. And so we're looking to eliminate like the top down hierarchy and to do like this shared empowerment of decision-m. And so if you all do have like um any executive committees within your respective offices, we would love to, you know, maybe get a meeting like a monthly meeting or something going um with like those folks who are kind of leading those affinity groups. I think is that kind of where you're going with director West Morland? >> It is. I and I want to acknowledge too how critical this work is especially in this moment. It's always been critical um and how challenging it can be. And I'm thinking about um support and ideas and kind of keeping that energy and finding the joy in that work and how that um like a structure for collaboration amongst colleagues can be really important for that. Um so yeah, that absolutely is kind of where I was headed with that. Director Roer. Thank you. >> Thank you. And I just want to say welcome to everyone who's joining us. I'm assuming you're here for the AP scholar recognition. So, we are just wrapping up our um workshop which started at 5:30. So, we'll probably have about five more minutes of questions and then um we will get started promptly at 7. So, welcome and thank you for being here tonight. Um any other questions or comments? I did have one. >> Chair Andre. >> Yes, Treasure Heartland. >> Hi. Thank you guys so much for coming here tonight. It is lovely to see you. And I think that something that is important for me um sitting at the board table is making sure that all of our communities know that the board represents them equally. And I think that it is not the case that this board hears from a really diverse coalition of our students. And so I'm wonder I have um multiple ideas ways that the board might go either the entire board or board members might go be parts of the community. And so I wanted to say a that I'm open to invitations if that's appropriate. um because I also recognize that a community due to the topic or due to the moment might not want a a board member there. But I'm open to that. But also I'm interested in your thoughts about what else this board might do so that the various community members that you're plugged into can come here. >> I'll speak just about the parent group that I uh caregivers group that I facilitate. Um, we have had some board members there and I think they have really appreciated that. Um, and I think I really appreciate um how you talked about when when appropriate or at the comfort level of of the group. And I think that the groups have really like the group I facilitate has really appreciated that. Um, just the sensitivity of a board member um being upfront like, "Yeah, I'm in a position of power in the school district and I want to hear you and if now is not a good time, let's come up with a better time." And so that has meant a lot to um that group of parents and caregivers. Um and I think they've even um suggested to me like, "Hey, here's someone from the district. We'd really like come speak to us." And I'm like, "Absolutely, I'll give that invitation out." And I think just that awareness for the different groups to know you can request anyone to come and we'll figure out a schedule. It might not happen immediately. Um you know, Dr. Mary Perry Reed, you've also been to that um that group and I think that they've really have appreciated that. >> I think for our Sima community um not knowing that they can speak to board members has been an issue um that has arisen and not knowing what that process looks like or if they have things to talk about who to go to and kind of navigating that system is where we're at right now. um and kind of communicating as well like this is something that we all can work on and not just one person saying it and and or maybe they don't say it and they think about it um and then they tell me, "Oh, I was thinking about that as well." Um so that's that's something that I had in mind as well. I think too that could be um part of our board goals um as we continue um working on them, making sure that there is a space in which we um can either receive invitations to join and or um have a a open invitation to members to talk to us. because oftentimes it can be intimidating to approach >> a big table like this. So, thank you for that question. I just quickly wanted to I think the the topic was touched on, but I was wondering do we have an idea of if there has been a chilling effect on um parent andor student attendance to um either events that are put on or seeking additional support um just based on I know that Hopkins has really strong policies about this, but wondering if there has been a reduction in the amount of community members, caregivers or students that are accessing these services. >> Can you repeat it one more time? >> Yeah, just wondering since we see overarching culture shifts in um the welcomingness to certain community members. Um just wondering if we have seen kind of a chilling effect on how many parents are reaching out to us. I know that often times I've heard that um parents uh that may be of an immigration status might not want to reach out to a institution like a school. So wondering if we're seeing that in our data. >> In the data, no. Because communication has always been us reaching out either through um phone calls or face to face. >> Okay. >> Um a lot of the communication that we've noticed um a little bit of a gap between is through email or online sites or anything like that. Um there has been obviously a dip in parent engagement um when it comes to events or talking about very uncomfortable topics. Um do we have the data for it? No. Um that's because a lot of our families don't like um giving data um because of the fear because of the system that we are always in. Um, I can speak for my families that there hasn't been a lot of families who show up um because they I think the times have not been working for us um or um I think a lot of our families love just having communication through phone or check-ins or um when the conflict arises immediately at 5:00 a.m. Um uh or families don't even talk about until you bring it up. Um, so that's why I push towards um, always just communicating as much as I can. Um, talking to my kiddos as much as I can about it and if they hear about it through their their students and that's great. Um, I think Brenda would have a different story for you because of all the things that has been going on. But I can definitely say that there has been um less parents showing up or less parents reaching out because of this or we don't know the parents who are struggling or we find out through other means. Um for example, we find out uh a parent is hesitant to talk about anything regarding her student because of this action. Um and we only find out because a student hasn't come for 15 days. um or a student hasn't um or there's some inflicts or conversations that need to be had. Um so we're not having the same conversations directly through our normal means of communication, but there are other ways that other avenues that we've seen um that have risen for us. >> Great. Thank And then the one way I would like to just add on for the unique population I've been working with um we've had caregivers and parents concerned about uh implications of maybe some of the data that's in our system. So, for example, maybe something like a name change or pronouns and uh reaching out to me about whether they think this is um still a safe thing for them to do, recognizing there's a balance between maybe broader political implications and making sure that their child is affirmed every single day by their teachers in the classroom, in the school building. And so, trying to just balance that out. So, I've had more parent contact um around maybe concerns and fears. >> Thank you for that. >> And I would just quickly just say um well, one of the things that I found that works when gathering parents is that we are trying to offer more child care so parents can come in person and not be like distracted virtually. Um so that's something that we are looking to implement like in every in-person meeting. like it's an effort but that has like increased a little bit of our parent engagement and I think again like they all said that like um you know parents I don't think they know that some of these groups are happening or they don't have the information or feel like intimidated to talk to board members or um administration. So um we're looking to change that through different ways of uh communication. So >> great. Well, thank you so much for being here this evening. appreciate all of your time and the information you brought and the work you do every day for our families. >> I als I also want to share with um with our board and our audience um I'm very grateful for the work that you do. We've had a lot of questions about how this work would continue um especially with the retirement of our dire director of equity and inclusion and you know that was one of several administrative positions that due to budget pressures we were just not able to fill right and so your the work that you provide is extremely important and the system is um grateful for that. So thank you for being here. >> Thank you. >> Thank you. and we are right at 700 pm. Um, so I will um make sure that we are staying on time because we have a lot of really fun things happening in our open agenda part of our meeting. Um, but first I will um call this regular meeting of the Hopkins School Board to order. And I got to gavvel um at 7:01 p.m. on Tuesday, October 21st. And the first um thing on our agenda is to be to recognize our um AP scholars. um is running to get the microphone. So, we might have to transition like start here with the speech and then transition. >> Okay. >> To the front. >> Um normally we come down to the front, but we're um we're without a microphone, so I'm watching people filter in. Come on in if you're here to be recognized um as part of our AP Scholar program. We are thrilled that you are here this evening. This is our favorite part of our board meetings which is um recognizing the wonderful and brilliant things that our students do every day. Um so I will look like she has got we've got it. Okay. So I will ask um board members to come down to the front of the board table. Um we will get started. I know. >> Um, so welcome everybody in Hopkins. We believe all our students have brilliance and their brilliance is demonstrated in many ways. Before every school board meeting, we take a few minutes to honor students who have worked hard to achieve at a high level. Tonight, we are rolling out the royal blue banner somewhere. Um, for our AAP scholars, it's in our brains. We're all brilliant. We can imagine it. It's right there. Um, this past school year, Hopkins had another great year with our advanced placement programming, otherwise known as AP, yielding excellence across many subjects. There are many highlights, including last year and this year, nearly 50% of our high schoolers enrolled in one or more AP course, of which there are 24 different courses. That's pretty big. I remember at my high school, I think we had two or three. Last summer, we administered the highest number of AP exams in the history of the school with 1,166 tests taken amongst 705 students, representing a 32% increase in exams taken and a 26% increase in students taking one or more. 79% of students had at least one passing AP score, increasing by 2% from the previous year. This is the highest passing rate we have seen in many years. 15 course exams had score averages that exceeded state andor national averages. 13 courses had very high scoring, which is defined as over 10% higher than the national pass rate. Some examples of this very high scoring include Spanish literature. For the last three years, all students passed the exam. That's amazing. US government, all students taught by John UF passed the exam and the average score was 4.32 out of five, which is, I'm told, absurdly high. US history had the highest scoring averages in at least five years with a 3.6 62 out of five. This exam is one of the most failed exams on a national basis. So this average is great. And AP Chinese had the highest averages we have seen in many years. We also gave it to the largest number of students ever. It has high national averages, but this is mainly because mostly heritage speakers take it. This exam is tough for immersion students, but ours did great and had wonderful scoring averages. So, I'll continue with a few more accolades. And for families and students who are just arriving, there are many chairs here in the front. Plus, you'll get a great photo if you come to the front. So, come on through. Even while we're talking, it's fine to come up and sit in the front. So continuing with um specific course recognitions. So world history exam had 89 9th graders taking the exam. This is the first time ever that 9th graders took the exam and these numbers are really strong. English language and composition had a significant increase in scores this year with an 80% pass rate. This is impressive for this course that typically is the highest enrolled AP course. Spanish language had its highest scoring average in at least 5 years at 3.97 out of five and macroeconomics had the highest scoring average we have ever seen in this subject with 4.04 out of five. So really tremendous scores and average scores. So, as you can see, we have a really exceptional advanced placement program at Hopkins High School, and that is driven by and was built by and driven by our amazing AP teachers. I do want to recognize John Samler, who is back there. Wave to Mr. Samler. So, Mr. Samler is our AP coordinator. So, not only does he teach environmental science, but he supports all of our AP teachers. He makes sure that our AP teachers are properly trained. He coordinates the exams and he also provides all of this really interesting data and much more so that we are continuing to track our pro progress. So, thank you, John, for all of your efforts. We really appreciate it. And I just want to also thank all of our AP educators. And there I think are a couple. I see Mr. Coker. Not sure who else is here, but um we have Jennifer Heimlick, Jacqueline Miller, Becky Murray, Bethany Henshaw, Peter Ilton, Dane Leapa, Vianne Hubble, Mike Babin Denan, Anne Saturn, Latispel Himenez, Veragara, Gabby Atoga, Kuba, John Uf, Eric Swenson, Karen Johnson, Kevin CS, Felicia Hamburger, Jeff Coker, we see you Rick Rexroth, Shinshu and Derek Johnson. Did I miss any AP instructors? Would you know, John? Did I Did we get all of them? >> Okay. >> Did we say cause? Mr. C. Yes, I did. Okay. Wonderful. Okay. So, now for the recognition. So, honestly, we must we have to go on the hunt after the board meeting for the Royal Blue Runner because apparently it's been stolen or lost. I don't know. But normally, we have it down the center of the aisle here. So, you'll have to um put that into your imagination, scholars. And um and we want to also share with you that the college board so the college board is the umbrella organization for advanced placement and they recognize several levels of achievement based on the number of exams taken and the scores that students receive on those exams. And obviously you know it's 1 through five. Five is the highest. And you can get college credit or college placement um and accolades for scores of three, four or five, especially if you have several of those scores. So this summer 128 students earned AP awards from the College Board in recognition for their exceptional achievement on these college level exams. And there are three categories of AP awards we are recognizing. So, if you know that you are an AP scholar, then what you can do is just um kind of venture to the back of this aisle here by that poll that sits in the middle um because we're going to call you by name and there are quite a few names. So, thank you for your patience and your recognition. So, students qualify for AP Scholar Awards by scoring three or higher on three or more exams. There are 72 current juniors or seniors who qualified for AP scholar awards. I don't think we have all 72 scholars here and you know earlier our athletic and activities director Mr. Ellerson talked about all of the kids who are in athletics and activities and you know many of those very busy students are AP students right so if you're not here you're probably out practicing or in a competition or I don't know studying for being the president of the United States or something like that. Okay. So here we go. Um and then what you're going to do is come up and do a fist bump or high five with a board member. grab your certificate and if you would please stay up here so that we can take your photo that would be amazing. Livia Aladdin, Pratiksha Babu, and if I'm mispronouncing anything, uh, please correct me. Is Belan, Maximus Burnt, Brinland Black, Ezra Black. I think I see Mr. or Mrs. Black here. Calvin Breen, Amelia Caribou. I think I see Amelia. >> She's not here. She's at robotics. >> Oh, she's at robotics. Okay. >> Okay. Uh Christian Cisneros, Angela Dedric, Piper Dos, [Applause] Wyatt Dunham, Blair Dickstra, Santiago Fernandez, Ian Forbert, Mary Foster, Mora Frana, Rachel Kelly, Estelle Galperin. Oh, Rachel is here. Who's here? Who are we clapping for? >> We don't know. >> Oh, >> we're just I mean, we can clap for everyone. Okay. >> Okay. Here we go. I said Estelle Gelpin. Okay. Maxwell Green, Aubrey Gratz, Nolan Har, Jesselle Hall, Sophia Hammerland, Osa Hanaman, Lily Hter, Merrick Hammond, Henry Hilner, Henry's not here. This is the mother. Grant Hirschman, Sadie Ingram, Hunter Jenkins, Adeline Julian, Iris Kaplan, Isabelle Koig, Katherine KRS. Oh, Catherine, did I say your last name correctly? Katherine. >> Crayons. Okay, thank you. Revante Krgler, Hannah Cumro, Ruby Lice, Elena Lepley, Marley Lemon Swanson, Alexander Lubers. I know Alex. Okay, here we go. [Applause] I know your mom and dad so well, but how do you say your last name? Sorry. Lubers. Oh, good. Okay. Thomas Lions, Shea McFale, Nicholas Messerly, Muna Muhammad, Elmore, Camden Wyn, Ethan Wyn, Aaron Paul's, Cesia Perdomo, Santos, Wyatt Peterson, Charles Pollen, Margaret Pston, Aayou Putra, Bria Roll, Eric Romero, [Applause] Owen Rosenquist, Nolan Sners, Nora Soderberg, [Applause] Zachary Somerfeld, [Applause] Henry Swiggum, Ariel Terrell, [Applause] Did I say your name correctly? Okay. Justin Trimbach, Jaro Vila Sanchez, Via Sanchez, Morgan, Wer Carter Wagdorf. [Applause] Did I say your last name correctly, Carter? Okay, awesome. Courtney Weber, River White, [Applause] Ezra Wolf, Audrey Wright, Sarah Yaha, Jesselle Zaver, [Applause] How do you say your last name? Jazelle. >> Zbar. Zbar. Okay, awesome. Okay, that's the long list. Congratulations to all of you AP scholars. And we're going to take a photo, right? [Applause] >> This group and then the next group. >> Yeah, we'll take we'll take a photo after each group. Is that okay? >> You have to get in front of us. Yeah. Come on over here. >> Are we missing AP? >> Oh, yeah. This is the first category. >> There's two more to come. Did everyone get their photo up? >> Okay, congratulations. >> Thank you. And big applause for all. [Applause] The next recognition group is AP Scholar with Honors. Students who qualify for the AP Scholar with Honors award have earned an average score of at least 3.25 on all AP exams taken and have scored three or higher on four or more exams. 37 current juniors or seniors qualified for AP Scholar with honors, including Seth Abrahamson, [Applause] Olivia Anderson, William Arnold, Satie Burgerer, [Applause] Kendall Brown, Owen Dexter, Micah Eaton, Claire Fiser, we know she's here [Applause] Anie Flam, Abby Garrett, Anders Hall, Aurora Hall, Carter Herring, Cassidy Hill, Dominic Jameson, Leland Jarda, Charles Carlgard, Avery Clever, Bradley Nodal, Rosalie Craig Torp, Levi Leg, Caleb Mary Perryi, Kadesia Muhammad, Elio Moro, Shia Murphy, Joie Palm, Heath Patelco, Chase Rael, [Applause] Andre Ree, [Applause] Clara Sarah Rio Dvers or Devers, Harley Rosati, Summer Seer, Maline Sheety, Max Turner, Amalia Tycast, Emma Zimmerman, and Johanna Zochi. So, we have one more category. Do we want to take a picture? Sure. Let's take a picture with the AP scholars with honors. [Applause] [Applause] And then our final category is AP Scholars with Distinction. AP Scholars with Distinction is given to students who earn an average score of at least 3.5 on all AP exams taken and score three or higher on five or more exams. 18 current juniors or seniors qualified for AP Scholar with distinction. And I will start calling names. Fatuma Abdi [Applause] [Applause] Lily Anderson, [Applause] [Applause] Rose Calabria. [Applause] >> Did I say your last name correctly? >> Calabria. >> Calabria. >> Yeah. Congratulations. Elizabeth Ducher Ian her Luca Coppelman Lee Joseph Maztec Matt Zack Matzac [Applause] >> Say it correctly for me. Matzik. >> Matsik. >> Thank you. James McGarvey, Darren McClean, Benjamin Molinger, Matteline Olsen, Charlotte Pulcharsski, Kieran Rael, Emil Sitars, Delaney Smith, Josephine Stuick, [Applause] Did I say correctly? >> It's strike. Okay. Thank you. And Manuel Wu, [Applause] you have to go to the back. We're kidding. And how do you say your last name? Congratulations. And that concludes the student recognition. Congratulations all of you and also to the caregivers. You play a big role in this. So, thank you. We'll take a picture with you also. Oh, and there is another one that we have an AP international diploma um that is awarded to Ella Moore. >> Is Ella here? >> I can take it from her. She's my sister. >> Oh. Mr. Sandler, you want to come up? [Music] [Applause] Thank you all. Want to say anything? [Applause] >> I I just want to say a huge congratulations to all the students. I see your hard work in the class. I see maybe laborious efforts on the test days. You have done an amazing job. Um to see this many juniors and seniors who have taken this many exams so far and still have maybe some more to take this year. So impressive. I want to acknowledge too that a lot of people that also made these accolades have moved on to college just like you will into amazing places. So great job. Congratulations to the families. Please celebrate this at home. I think we don't celebrate these things enough. We expect that it's just part of school. No, you've really put in the effort and time. And a huge shout out to our teachers. If you thought you had a great AP experience and you've had a positive score, please let them know. They are putting in so much effort and time. I'm super impressed with these colleagues of mine. They are grading all sorts of stuff. Even with increasing class sizes and stuff, they're making it work. and hopefully delivering high quality instruction to you and I think it shows. So, huge accolades everyone. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you. And if you haven't registered, tomorrow's the last day. Okay. Well, thanks to all of you for being here. Thank you, Mr. Samler and AP educators who are in the space. families, you play a big role in helping your kids uh thrive and be successful. And students, if you have peers who are capable and have not yet tried an AP class, make sure you spread the word about what AP has done for you. And again, thanks families. You can stay for the meeting, but you don't have to. Have a great night. listen. [Music] So that's would like to move on to our uh next open agenda item and we are thrilled to invite our um our play for all group Minnesota play for all is my >> Yeah, I think the people are absorbing the the Oh, yes. They're right here. >> Oh, that's great. >> Um, actually, I'd like to have Henry's pulled out if I may. >> So, I think Henry, was he in the second category? >> Hey, welcome. Thank you so much for being here tonight. Um, we are welcoming our our group, the Minnesota Play for All, who um are coming as part of our open agenda to present to us a really important policy that they want the board to consider. So, thank you so much for being here. We um are thrilled that you have taken the time out of what is already a long day for you because you've already attended a full day of school. to be here to let us know about your proposed policy, the work you've done in the district. Um, and I will turn it over to you. I know you have a presentation and I will let you get started. Thank you again for being here. If you want to share your names so we all know who you are. >> It's okay. You can start your presentation. >> Okay. >> Hello and thank you for having us today. We are presenting our ideas for a proposed playground policy at Hopkins Public Schools. We are all a part of Playfall, a club and a nonprofit at West Middle School. We are all in eighth grade and a part of the student advisory board. I'm Alice. We have Gemini, Trevor, John, Madison, and Miss Julian. We have had many adults that have met and helped us with the first draft of this playground policy. If you are one of these awesome adults, please stand and wave. Oh, this is our this is the new view from the fifth and sixth grade classrooms at Glen Lake Elementary School. It is now a place where we can all be together, play, and have fun. Lots of us on the advisory board went to Gone Lake. One thing we learned after completing this playground is that we use the IB design cycle just like we used in our middle school just like we just like what we use in our middle school design classes here at Hopkins. First, we identified a need and visited other playgrounds around Minnesota. Next, we developed ideas and came up with an initial design. Then we discussed changes that need to be made and came up with the final design. Lastly, the playground was installed and we were able to evaluate it. After completing the Glen Lake accessible playground project, we learned that evaluating was the most important step. It was a way for us to take everything that we learned along the way and figure out what we would do again if we were to create another playground. That brings us to our why. Why do we think it's important to have a playground policy in Hopkins? For us, it's simple. We want to make sure that all future playgrounds created in Hopkins are accessible to all. We also want to be one of the first school districts to have an established playground policy, a document that guides our work. If you look at the document provided to you all, we have two parts of the playground policy. The first part talks about the collaborative design process. This is the who who needs to be involved in the designing process. students, including those with and without disabilities, parents and community members, special staff education, uh general education staff, physical therapist, building and ground department, site site, >> administration, >> administration. Also, this planning committee needs to meet a minimum of three times. I think our student group meet met at least 20 times to talk about the playground design. So the more the better. Lastly, a clear timeline will be created so all voices can be heard. Um, for example, allowing time to survey students and parents, deciding layout, colors, and placement of equipment. That's on the document. [Music] [Laughter] on the document on the uh school student on the second page of our playground policy includes playground uh considerations for children's with various disabilities. We have highlighted for motor, vision, hearing and sensory mobility. Um fencing. We believe that at least one Hopkins playground needs to be fully fenced in. This would help students uh this would help keep students safe, enclosed, and avoid any elopment. Also, it would give caregivers and teachers a peace of mind and a safe place to gather. We currently don't have any playgrounds in the city of Hopkins or Hopkins public schools with a full fence around it. PIP, this stands for port in place. This is the squishy flat surfacing that allows wheelchair users to roll around the playground and access all parts. Currently, the ADA only requires a path between accessible play equipment. At Hopkins, we'd like to push that to a certain percent or simply more than what is standard. We understand that PIP is expensive, but it allows all to play. Inclusive equipment. We'd like at least one wheelchair accessible piece of equipment included on the playground. This means equipment that a student can access and and stay in the wheelchair slide. At least one slide that can be reached by a child with a physical disability and access by a stable platform, stairs or ramp. The slide should also include a transfer platform. Curbing. The curbing allows the playground uh the curbing around the playground should be smooth and have a low transition between surrounding area and play area. Ramp. At least one piece of equipment must allow a wheelchair user to enter using a ramp. Imaginative play. This should be installed at ground level and by accessible surfacing PIP. Basketball hoops. If installing basketball hoops at your site, install one that is lowered and accessible. Rest places. These should be around the edge and somewhere in the middle of the playground for students to easily access. And finally, buddy slide. Lastly, this type of slide is great for social engagement and those less secure. hearing musical instruments. We all we love all of our musical instruments at Glen Lake. They have chimes, bells, metallophones, and drums and are accessible to all slides. When building a new playground, you should avoid plastic slides when possible and instead install roller slides. Plastic slides generate static electricity which can damage coclear implants. Roller slides are specifically designed to eliminate static electricity, allowing children with coclear implants to safely use the slide. We have four roller slides at Glen Lake and they are a highlight vision. Uh so starting with shade, you need at least one shaded spot on the playground. Students who have sensitive sensitivities to sunlight need a safe space that views comfortable for them to on the playground. And let's be honest, who doesn't love shade on a hot summer day? Pathways and edging. If someone has a vision disability, including yellow lines on stairs or at the start of ramps or or curbing can make a huge difference. Tunnels at Glen Lake. We have all kinds of tunnels of We have a tunnel all kind of color. We have a tunnel with all kinds of different colors on of the plastic on it. It varies from colors. It varies of color to come through, but softer and less dramatic that a bright than a bright light. This is our compass class favorite place. Mindful of color choices. Lastly, be mindful on not only contrasting color sections selections, but also looking what colors are most switched if you are color blind. Sensory dome dome. A dome allows a cozy place for children to enter or interact or even take a break if needed. Sensory panels. Sensory. You need sensory panels to have a v variety of choices at ground level so all can access spin sens sensation. This would be a feeling you get from a merrygoround. It might take it might make adults sick to their stomachs but children love it. M it's Miss Julian's son favorite activity. Spinning swing sensation. This would be the back and forth feeling you get from a swing. And who doesn't love a swing? You can see Dempsey using the green oodle swing in the bottom picture. Shaded rest area. Shaded areas to take a break are a must. They also serve multiple purposes. You can have a snack outside, read a book. If you don't want to play, take a break, or a teacher can watch their children play. In summary, in summary, we believe that a playground policy here at Hopkins would be pushing us. It is a concrete reminder on what has been tried and what is considered excellent at Hopkins. I know we are always pushing to be great. This policy would not only benefit our schools and border community. We would be leading to work to the work in expanding what is a law on playground to what a playground should have to make sure that everyone can play like what it says in our book swing for tomorrow. We are when everyone can play everyone wins. Thank you. Do you have any questions? >> Thank you so much. I appreciate the presentation and all the work that went into this. You said you met over 20 times just to get the playground up and going. Is that correct? >> Yes. >> And then beyond that, you've met several times, I'm sure, to come up with this process as well. So, thank you so much for doing that, for being so community-minded to include not just your school but the entire district. Um any questions or feedback from my board colleagues? >> Go ahead. >> Chandre. >> Yes. Director Roer. This is I love seeing a group of students up like presenting on trying to make a change. This is the best part of um the work is seeing you all engaged um in civic engagement. And so I love it. Um I know that we've been having meetings. I think I missed one or two, but I vowed to be at the next one. I was wondering, and sorry if you did mention this, do you all, so since we're talking about White Hopkins as a toll, have you been meeting with the city council or the mayor to talk about some of the playgrounds like just across the city, have that been a have there been like any connections with them? Well, one thing one thing I'll say is that we did meet with the city board, I believe, uh, city park board not too long ago, and um they kind of um pitched u well, we kind of um told them about like what we did for the playground cuz I think I can't fully remember um I think they were trying to um they were like trying to remodel like Central Park. Um so we kind of told them what we did. So um yeah, we did meet with the uh city park board. So >> yeah, >> that's fantastic. So for Hopkins >> city, >> they're redoing Central Park. >> Nice. and they asked Playforll to give insight on what they thought were good recommendations from Glen Life which is a big honor and then they're going to meet with them again in January before they do their final draft. >> So fantastic. >> Thank you for doing that work. >> Absolutely. And if you all are interested in even just like talking to the mayor or the city council, I'm happy to make an introduction. So >> thank you. >> Chair Andre. Yes, Treasure Heartland. Thank you all so much for coming here. I know it's not easy and that you all had a very busy day all day, but I'm really happy that you're here and really grateful for all the work that you did for your school and for your community. And we have this opportunity now to potentially get some more money for our school and to make some changes to other playgrounds within our school district. And so I know that that's part of the reason that you're coming here to talk to us today so that we keep all of these things in mind when we're planning those playgrounds. Do you guys have any plans or any interest in, you know, when another school is ready to make their plan? Are they going to know to reach out to play for all and to get the information that you guys have learned? Yeah, we they made connections during our district kickoff day and we have North is going to start a playforall group which is really exciting. Um and that North group of students um are going to do some inclusion work but then also they want to be on board with helping make decisions if there's a play space at their school. So, yep, we did reach out to schools. Our hope is that we get a play forall group that can help with future playgrounds at each of the schools. >> Okay. Thank you guys. >> Yes. >> So, I have a question and also just echo um the thank you to each of you for all of the work that went into this presentation. Um it's fun to hear from you and it's also offers a lot of learning. Um so, you mentioned the middle school play for all. Um and our uh board treasurer Hartland uh mentioned the funds that we have the opportunity to potentially access to make these improvements. I'm thinking about the two middle school fitness courses. Do do these um playground enhancements also apply to middle school? >> Yeah. Yeah. horses here >> at our school like at Hopkins West. We're like we're thinking about making a basketball court for outside and like other stuff for outside like on our grassy area. We're going to have like basketball hoops if we get the funds and the help we need that's shorter for like wheelchair accessibility and then we're going to have like basketball hoops for kids to include uh >> they've been dreaming for about about a year about this. So they're like ahead of the game. They've they've designed um three playgrounds with three different companies already for their school. >> Oh wow. >> And so yeah, so they're excited for referent the referendum to pass and get started on a playground. So >> Okay. So for elementary and middle school, >> I think that if we decide to go with something similar, this will definitely be a um elementary playground and then there'll be an adapted version for middle school. >> Yeah. Awesome. >> Yeah. Thank you. >> So, thanks again for all of this information. I um I'm particularly thrilled that you are coming here at this time because as as we've stated, we're hoping to get some money to do this and all of our playgrounds are up for a refresh across the district. So, having a policy that will help guide that work, I think, is essential. and the fact that you have already done this um at one of our schools. You are the experts to inform us on what this policy should look like. So, thank you for bringing that to us. Um, I am going to direct our vice chair Ross to um take this to our policy committee so that they can look at it and see how your excellent suggestions will translate into a policy that will guide the entire district um and all of our play inclusive play spaces going forward. So, you've had a huge impact far beyond Glen Lake. So, thank you for being here tonight and for doing this work. anything else you want to let us know that's really important for us to make sure we keep in this policy or um include or like I'm thinking maybe having a group of kids be um a a consult group um would be a great way to go forward in the design process >> before any plans are approved. approved. >> I think that's a great idea. >> Yeah. >> Anything else? >> They said they would love to do any of that work. >> Nice. >> So, we have volunteers. >> Yeah. >> Perfect. >> We're always up for a challenge. >> Love it. Thank you so much for being here. >> Thanks for having us. >> You guys ready? >> Thank you all. >> Thank you. >> Thank you. Thanks so much for having us. >> Thank you. [Applause] So, thanks for that. That will um that takes us to our last open agenda item for this meeting, which is public comment. Um did we get any comment cards filled out this evening? Um, so there are two ways to make public comment to the Hopkins School Board. One is to show up here in person and fill out a comment card before the meeting starts to um address the board. You can also leave a voicemail um that will be played as part of the meeting uh a part of public comment. Did we have any voicemails? So there are no public comment for this meeting. Um, but we do value hearing from our community. And, um, in case people weren't aware, um, as part of our board goals this year, we, um, decided to institute a new, um, process of the board, which is to host listening sessions where we can hear from our community and also where the board can be sure to follow up with those community members in a timely manner. Um, and so I'm our hope was at the time that it would take a little bit of pressure off this part of our agenda at our regular board meetings. And um, so just letting um, everyone know that not only can you show up here at our public comment session as part of open agenda, but we will also be hosting regular listening sessions. So thank you all for that. We it is a community effort to do this work. So, we appreciate everyone that shows up and provides us with feedback. And then that takes us to our student board representatives report. Um I'm not sure who's going first, but we >> I'll go first. >> Thank you. >> Um so, my name is Manuel. I'm a junior student board rep. So, I just wanted to start out with my teacher spotlight, and he's actually here, Mr. Coker. Uh, so I'm in Mr. Coker's AP English Lang and Comp class and currently we are working on our rhetorical analysis essays. So an AP lang rhetorical analysis essay is a free response question that requires us to analyze how an author uses rhetorical strategies in a given passage to achieve their purpose, persuade an audience, or convey a message. We were given the choice to analyze one of two speeches given by Martin Luther King Jr. I chose a speech called I've been to the mountaintop. This speech, which was given in 1968 in the midst of the civil rights movement, was given in the Mason Temple in Memphis, Tennessee. This speech was also Dr. King's final speech as he would be assassinated in his motel the following day. >> So doctor Dr. King in this speech, he was speaking to sanitation workers and their supporters that were on strike due to low wages and bad working conditions. So after reading the speeches for a rhetorical analysis, we had to consider what Dr. King's purpose was in these speeches and also what rhetorical strategies he used to achieve that purpose. So that's something interesting that's been going on in AP Lang. Um moving on, recently three clubs at the high school received a grant from the Hopkins Education Foundation. Um the three clubs are the Craft Club, which is led by Lucy Johnson, the Breakfast Club led by Liam Dolly, sorry if I pronounced that wrong. And uh letters of love, which is led by Claire. Um, okay. So, next, uh, last week the juniors at the high school took the PAT, which is the prelimin preliminary SAT. This test measures reading, writing, and math skills. And while this test serves as a practice test, it also serves as the National Merit Scholarship Qualifying Test. So, students scoring in the top 1% of the state will qualify as National Merit Semi-finalists. And, um, on the same topic of tests, like Mr. Samler talked about earlier, AP exam registration is currently open and it'll close tomorrow. So, if you have an AP ex if you have an AP class first semester or if you're self-studying for an AP test, um then make sure to get signed up before tomorrow. And finally, student council elections are coming up and the student council is looking for six motivated freshmen and one additional council member per grade. um because the student council structure is changing. So now there's going to be six student council members instead of the original five. And another change being made is that instead of serving all four um serving a term of all four years, moving forward, the student council members will serve two years and then they'll be up for reelection. Um, so a town hall will happen on November 5th during Royals Connect, um, where student council candidates will be able to speak and then students there can ask them questions and then on November 7th, students will vote and the winners will be announced on November 10th. I'm super excited to see all the campaigning going on at our school. Thank you. >> I can go second. Um, hello everyone. My name is Claire Fischer and I am a senior board rep. Um, first I would like to talk about the Propel fundraiser. Um, Propel is hosting a fundraiser to raise money and resources to give back to the community. Propel, also known as professionals providing experiences for life, is a program at Hopkins High School that pairs students to internships related to their future career interests. The Propel program also includes various opportunities beyond the classroom, which includes fundraisers and community service projects. This fundraiser they are hosting is aimed at providing resources such as food and clothing for families transitioning out of homelessness. Um they are accepting their physical donations at a bin at the Hopkins High School front office. Um next I would like to talk about the student safety and security advisory committee volunteer opportunity. So, the student multi multicultural advisory committee, a partnership between Hopkins and Minnetonka police departments is partnering with the student safety and security advisory committee to create a volunteer opportunity for students aimed at creating a safe space where youth and police can u um elevate student voices. The student multicultural advisory committee will empower youth advocacy and engagement by receiving their input on community concerns. Their input will help inform safety priorities in planning as well as as directly impacting the safety and security program at at Hopkins High School. I think that this is an amazing program for students to get involved with maintaining safety at school. And lastly, I would like to talk about Hopkins Tech and Media Night. Um, Hopkins Tech and Media Night will be taking place at 5:30 p.m. on October 28th here at the Eisenhower Community Center. It will be an interactive open house where families will explore hands-on stations with tech experts who will answer questions related to the digital tools that are shaping um, education here at the Hopkins School District. Thank you. Uh, hi. I'm Sufiana Osman. I'm a sophomore board rep. Start mine off. We just got off MEA break. Uh, I had fun during mine. I I slept in >> and uh it's nearing the end of the term. I think it's in two weeks now. So, turn in your assignments. >> Turn in your assignments. >> Family financial aid plan night. This event has been rescheduled to Tuesday, November 11th, 2025 from 6:00 to 7:00 p.m. uh in the cafeteria. And they're going to talk about admission trends, ACT and SAT testing, and the number of schools on the more selective list continues to grow, and FASA like stuff. And uh one second. Fall spirit week is uh soon. And then my teacher spotlight is KJ and we took a test. Yeah. Today actually uh she teaches AP bio and honors chem. And right now I'm in honors chem. And uh it was about no organic nomenclature which is the study of carbons >> or carbon ions. I think I did good. Thank you. >> My brain just like short circ. >> My name is Iris. I'm a sophomore board rep. This is my second year on the board. I wanted to start off just by talking about a few field trips. So tomorrow, um, Huntos is going on a field trip to Raspberry Island to see ales, which are Mexican folkcloric sculptures that represent spiritual protectors. They're often seen in Day of the Dead celebrations because they can guide souls to and from the afterlife. Um, they also are just general wardens against evil and protectors from bad omens. Um, they have a lot of vibrant colors that represent the duality of good and evil and life and death, but they also just show traditional cultural creative styles of Mexican folklore. Um, the Albri will be up starting today and ending this Saturday, the 26th. Um, there were also a bunch of outdoor adventure um, field trips that have happened today and are going to happen soon. So, um, all Outdoor Adventure field trips are open to any current outdoor adventure student and any friends, um, that they invite on the trip. Um, but they aren't required. So, last week there was a camping trip from Monday to Tuesday. Um, apparently it was super fun. I didn't go, but they went somewhere in Wisconsin. Um, it did rain on the second day, but other than that, they had a great time. Um, today we went to Vertical Endeavors. I did get to go on this field trip, and it was super fun. Um, we all got the opportunity to get ballet certified, which I did. Um, and climb for a few hours. So, that was a great experience. Um, and then this Friday there's a trip to go paintballing. Um, I'm not going on this one, but I'm sure everyone who does will have lots of fun. Um, and then the last trip is not a field trip, but an international trip. Um, so current sophomores and juniors who took AP World or AP Euro last year are able to go to Japan next year over spring break. So there are 35 to 40 spots open, 18 of which are already taken. I'm very lucky to be one of those 18 and I am so excited. Um, although AP Euro students didn't really learn a whole lot about Japan in their course because it's not in Europe. um they're still invited um um because that is still an AP history course. As someone who took AP World, we did learn a lot about Japan and it was arguably one of the most interesting countries that we learned about. So, I'm really really excited to learn even more about their rich history. Um as mentioned in the workshop briefly, Dracula and Greece are the fall productions this year and they're coming up. So, the school play is Dracula and the musical is Greece. Um, Dracula is opening this Thursday and closing this Saturday. And Greece is opening this Friday and closing next Saturday. And then for my spotlight, I wanted to spotlight Miss McClennon. Um, I'm in her alternating algebra 2 class and she always takes the time to explain concepts really, really well and make sure that every single student in the class fully understands what we're supposed to be learning. And she gives us lots of practice that we almost always have time for in class. And it's so so helpful because there are so many different practice questions that we can do and we're always prepared for the next concept that we have to learn and the test at the end of the unit. She's also super organized with the every other day schedule and she puts every single thing on a calendar in Canvas. So, it's always so clear what we're going to work on next. Um, and it's a really really nice class to have >> and that's all I have to say. >> Hi, my name is Hassa. I am a freshman and today is actually my first day on the board. My hands are shaking. They're not literally shaking. Um, today I would like to have my teacher spotlight be Mr. Love, who is my eighth grade world history teacher. I wanted to spotlight him today because he creates a strong sense of community in his class by making jokes, making sure everyone is included in class, caught up, and needs gets the help that they need when they need it by changing up his teaching style to adapt to his students and their students needs. And today we were um watching the movie Gladiator which is basically like a Roman Empire type historical movie that we're wrapping up our what is it empires and their that was wrapping up our unit on classical civilizations. Um that specific movie mostly talked about the Roman Empire. Um the test is mainly on their culture traditions and how they affect us in our present lives through their language, art, and literature. Thank you. Hi, my name is Adena Togo. I'm a freshman and today is also my first day on the board. Um I would like to spotlight my AP European history teacher, Mr. Rex Roth. He does a great job at making sure his class is fun and educational. Currently, right now in the class, we're preparing a project that spotlight that spotlights someone from the scientific revolution. I chose Francis Bacon, who was an English philosopher. Within this project, there are two parts. The first part is creating a simple page including some history background about the person. And the second part is creating a video presenting yourself as the person you chose and answering some questions. Um, thank you for having me on the board. Thank you and welcome. Really happy to have you. Any comments or questions from my board colleagues? >> Chair Andre. >> Yes, Treasure H Heartland. >> Thank you all for being here tonight. Um I think Claire you'd mentioned a a volunteer opportunity for this multicultural um advisory committee working with or or possibly a subset of those are forming the safety and security. I guess maybe I didn't fully understand the relationship. Will you say that part again and then say which of those options students can still volunteer for and how they do that? >> Yeah. So, it's kind of like a mix between the student safety and security advisory committee and then also the student multicultural advisory committee. So, they're both working to get together to create this volunteer kind of leadership opportunity for students um to contribute to the safety policy in their school. Well, I'm not exactly sure if it's just the high school or maybe middle school as well, but um it's a really great opportunity for students to get involved with their school and just contribute to making it a better place. >> Are they still accepting volunteers? >> Yeah, they are. >> That's a great way. Thank you for highlighting that. Do you know who they an interested student might talk to? Um, I'm not exactly sure. On the like Hopkins High School like newsletter, they had this little section like talking about it and then they included a link to the application. So, that's all I know about that, but I can definitely like look more into that >> to understand who's leading it. >> Yeah. No, that's a great place to direct and thank you for highlighting that that new way even that our district is um interfacing uh with our local law enforcement. Thank you. >> Thank you. I don't see any other questions or comments. Um, so thank you again. I personally really like the um teacher highlights where we get to hear about what you're experiencing in the classroom and um I'm pretty sure that our educators appreciate um your perspective on what they're doing in the classroom. So, thank you for adding that. Um, and that takes us to our um, superintendence report. Dr. Mary Perry Reed. >> Thank you, Chair Andre. Um, and thank you, Claire, for bringing up that volunteer opportunity. I just wanted to add so the multicultural advisory group had um they partnered with the Minnitonka Police Department all of last year and then with the new hire of our emergency management and safety coordinator um he is going to um add additional students to that group for that um extra sort of safety and security layer. So, thanks for drawing our attention to that. And um interested students can see Mr. Mua if they'd like to be part of that group. Okay. So, it's um really hard to believe that we're into the ETH. Are you students taking off now? I see you packing up. No, it's it's fine. Go ahead. Okay. Nice to have you. Study hard for those exams. See you later. So, our students mentioned that we're just um a week or so away for the um from the end of the term. We're into our eighth week of school, and it's um crazy how quickly the school year flies by. Um I am hoping that everyone had a restful MEA break and returned ready to support strong teaching and learning across all of our classrooms. In uh my visits to schools over the past few weeks, I've observed many examples of warm and welcoming classroom and school environments, strong instruction. I observed a data a data meeting at one of our middle schools and watched um and listened to the team as they were identifying individual students who need specific support. I am also observing calm hallways especially at our high school. I'm just so pleased with the dramatic reduction in block one late arrivals and um there is a renewed energy and focus around students just being where they need to be which is inclass learning and um seizing a hold of opportunities to prepare for their future. So really pleased with all of our schools and also observing teams here at the district office who are supporting our school staff. So thanks to everyone for for what you do to contribute to our system. One of the things that adds value to our students learning experiences is positive peer relationships across grade levels and across schools. So on this slide you see um pictures of students who are fifth graders from Tanglin partnering with high schoolers during a collaborative outdoor adventure class. Together they tackled that high ropes course, the zipline and the rock climbing wall. The younger and the older students encouraged each other finding their confidence and facing their fears. And again, this studentto student collaboration is a really great way to help our high school students grow as leaders while our younger students uh build their sense of selfmpowerment and believing in themselves. A few minutes ago, Iris mentioned the camping trip. So, if anyone wants to chaperon a fall camping trip with 85 high schoolers, it's actually too late to do that this year, but you can do it next year. So, last week they camped in tents at Willow River State Park in Hudson, Wisconsin. Hiking and campfire s'mores added a huge fun factor to that already fun experience. And we want to thank our Hopkins Education Foundation for sponsoring and funding outdoor learning experiences for our students, which was the focus for last spring's special appeal. And uh earlier during the board meeting, we recognized our advanced placement scholars. I imagine that this student, Eve, will soon be taking AP courses at our high school and we'll probably need to invite invite her to walk the royal blue runner here at a board meeting. She recently made international headlines, winning first place at the America's region and third place globally at the international Chinese bridge competition in China. Eve began learning learning Mandarin in kindergarten in our uh Shing Chinese immersion program. And after just seven years of instruction, she delivered a professional speech in Mandarin and performed a traditional lion dance on the world stage, winning this very prestigious award. So, congratulations, Eve. And also kudos to our incredible Chinese immersion teachers who are exceptional at teaching Chinese language. Speaking of excellent instruction, our music teachers in Hopkins are doing a great job building students into musicians. Two weeks ago, we welcomed K5 families to our high school to enjoy a band concert on a Tuesday, followed by the orchestra's young people's Disney pajama concert on Thursday and the choir's Disney Dazzle concert on Friday night. So, that was a very busy week packed with lots of musical performances and thanks to all of the instructors. It is seriously a giant um feat just to prepare all of our musicians for those per those culminating performances and then of course to organize uh those evening events. So, thank you instructors and we hope that all had a great time. If you haven't seen pictures from homecoming, please make sure to check out the royal report which is sent bi-weekly by the communications and marketing team on Mondays. The best pepfest is when students are having a lot of fun while paying respect to their peers who are doing super silly things on the floor. So, this homecoming pepfest was um just as you can see in those pictures, a lot of fun and kids were um incredibly respectful to each other. I know a couple of our board members were there. If you haven't been to a pepfest, you've got to go because we have 2,000 high schoolers packed into the Royals Athletic Center. And um they're always I'm so impressed with that many students being in the same space, having fun, and giving each other props and cheers while lots of really weird things are happening on the floor, but innocuous fun. and kids have a lot of fun. And then of course the festivities culminated in a victory with our football team beating their opponent 45-21. I wanted to share that we are now in season three. This is our third year of Inside Hopkins, our district podcast. And I'm grateful to Thomas and Michelle and Jolene who often help with this. Um, episode one guests who you see on the slide there engaged in a great dialogue about modernized learning environments, what they are and what they do for student learning. And then today we recorded an episode focused on the importance of cyber security in protecting student family and staff information. So, um, be sure to check out Inside Hopkins, which drops, um, we drop a new episode every two weeks with each episode being only 20 minutes long, so maybe a car ride, and we invite you to listen in. I am excited to introduce our high school's National Merit Commended Scholars. So, Manuel talked about the PAT being that initial qualifying exam. Each year about 34,000 students across the country earn this distinction which is the National Merit Commended Student Distinction by scoring in the top three to 4% of all test takers nationwide. This recognition reflects strong critical reading, math, and writing skills and often leads to scholarship and college admission opportunities. So, congrats to those four scholars, Fatuma, Otto, Ian, and Kieran. I would like to remind our community that Hopkins Public Schools is asking voters to consider approving two November 4 ballot questions. The first is a $140 million bond referendum, and the second is renewing an existing capital projects levy. The bond referendum, if passed, will cost the average taxpayer about $7 per month. And the capital projects levy, if passed, will not result in an increase to homeowners uh property taxes. The bond referendum will fund safety and security upgrades across all of our schools as well as modernized outdoor and indoor spaces. And the capital projects levy funds all of our staff and student devices, cyber security support. It will help us secure musical instruments for students and a few smaller vehicles for during the day trips. And uh you can find information on our website. Please learn more. Please vote. And with that, I we'd love to show about a threeinut video and then we'll do a spotlight on one of our district departments, teaching and learning. Here we go with the video. In Hopkins, every student belongs and every student deserves schools that are safe, welcoming, and ready for the future. This fall on November 4, our community will vote on a school funding referendum that includes both a bond and a capital projects levy renewal. Together, these investments will strengthen safety and security, modernize classrooms, and ensure our technology keeps pace with the world our students are growing up in. The bond addresses urgent facility needs like storm shelters, secure entrances in all of our schools and learning spaces that prepare students for college careers and life. If the bond passes, every school will receive comprehensive safety and security upgrades to keep students and staff safe every day. Safety is about preventing emergencies from happening, but it's also about healthy classrooms and reliable systems. This referendum funds heating and cooling systems, roofs, and electrical upgrades that keep learning environments safe and well-maintained. For the average homeowner, the total tax impact is about $7 a month. That's a small investment for schools that protect our children, reflect our values, and build a stronger future for everyone in Hopkins. >> The capital projects levy funds technology and cyber security throughout the school district. Hopkins was one of the first districts in the state of Minnesota to pass a capital projects levy back in the early 2000s. Now nearly every school district has one as technology networks and cyber security infrastructure are essential components both from a business standpoint as well as part of our holistic safety goals. A capital projects levy needs to be renewed every 10 years by the community. Renewing it does not require a tax increase, just continued support for the tools and staff that keep learning safe and connected. But this referendum is also about opportunity. >> At Hopkins High School, new career and technical education labs and modern music and media studios will prepare us with real world skills. >> At our elementary and middle schools, new flexible spaces, sensory rooms, outdoor learning areas, and ADA accessibility improvements will help every student feel included. This also includes single stall bathrooms, which will be included in all of our schools. And with athletic and art upgrades, we'll have more chances to grow our creativity, teamwork, and Royal's pride. When our community invests in these improvements, it's about more than buildings. It's about giving every student the chance to succeed and feel proud of their school. >> So, please remember to vote on November 4th. >> Please remember to vote on November 4th >> and let's secure our future together. [Music] Thanks, Natalia. So, we're going to close out the superintendent report with our department spotlight. Last board meeting, we featured the business services department. And this evening, we're going to feature innovation, design, and learning, which is our teaching and learning department. We have a really strong team of uh educational professionals and specialists in teaching and learning that help ensure our schools implement practices to cultivate belonging, ensure curriculum consistency, and build school coherence around our Hopkins learning framework. So, thank you Dr. for being here and spotlighting IDL. >> Hello again. Good evening board members. Um I am going to start out by just talking a little bit about uh myself um and what I have um the experiences that I've had that have led me to Hopkins and um have influenced me as a leader. So I was born and raised and started my career in Anoka Henipin. Um since then I've gotten married. I married a a business guy and I've learned a lot from him about strategic thinking and problem solving and structured approaches. And I'm also a parent. I have a fifth grader and a seventh grader. And thanks to them, I'm continually reminded how different every learner is, even within the same family. Mhm. >> Um, as a high school ELEL teacher, I understood that language is power and it provides access. And I also quickly realized that school works well for many, many students, but it doesn't work for all. And changing that requires shifting our practices as the adults in the system. Um, for those of you that don't know, Anoka Henipin is very large and it's a very uh, highly centralized district. And it was there actually that I first worked with Dr. Mary Perry Reed. Even though you were neither a doctor nor a Reed at that time. Um, and I've been very fortunate since to to learn from her leadership both there and here. Um, during my time in an NOA, I was part of a transformation that I didn't even fully appreciate or recognize at the time. And that was from schools in a system to a system of schools. Through a curriculum design process, we articulated common learning expectations and assessments across all of our schools, ensuring that every child, regardless of which school they attended, experienced consistency and coherence in their education. And that work really helped me to understand how to design systems to support strong outcomes. When I joined Hopkins in 2018, I came as the EL coordinator and I was immediately struck by the deep sense of belonging that is cultivated in our schools. Um, the honest conversations and Chair Andre alluded to this, the honest conversations that we have in this community about inclusivity and identity are rare in other districts. And I think if you haven't experienced that either as a parent or as an employee in another district, it's actually pretty hard to grasp how unique and special that is in our spaces. Um I've had the privilege here in Hopkins of working alongside some of the most exceptional principles, staff, and of course our students I think in the state. So I'm going to give just a real brief history of IDL. uh back in the fall of 2018 when I joined we were a more traditional teaching and learning department and also teaching and learning efforts were distributed across several of our departments. So curriculum and instruction operated independently. Uh we had an assessment coordinator but that person was part-time and functioned as a consultant. summer programming lived in community ed and our SEAL efforts were largely held by our student services um department. So with the launch of the innovation design and learning team in 2019, we began to try to take a more holistic and systemsoriented approach. We reorganized and integrated existing services and service providers. So like summer programming, Indian education, instructional and peer coaching and technology were unified into a more collaborative structure. Many roles were aligned to work in tandem and our data team helped systematize the focus on student learning and datainformed decisionmaking. By realigning things like summer programming, targeted services, the ALC and credit recovery programs, we are ensuring that all teaching and learning efforts in our system are moving in the same direction. We've also strengthened partnerships with school leaders, recognizing them as the key drivers in student success, and we work to align our strategic goals more closely with site level leadership. Now, each year, our school leaders and teams develop improvement goals aligned to the district's strategic plan in the areas of learning and teaching, operations, and culture, which I know you're all familiar with. So, in other words, next slide, we are moving from fragmented efforts to a more unified system where student outcomes are by design and not by chance. uh by getting all of our arrows moving in the same direction. It's not only increasing impact but efficiency as well. So this is a look at the team. Um you can see each person has some individual and some shared responsibilities. The strength of this team is um because of its people and the leadership model is to set the strategic direction and then ensure that everybody is in a role where they can contribute uh their very best. When the right people are in the right place, the focus can shift to supporting them, removing barriers, advocating for resources, and fostering a culture of trust and accountability. Some of the shared work in IDL are is around curriculum support, pedagogy, site partnerships, implementation, policy and legislation. And we do that in a variety of ways. Uh we have a structured and highly disciplined approach to project management and deliverable or delivery. uh consistent and coordinated communications, the goal setting practices that I me mentioned early and uh we leverage cross- department collaboration really heavily. So this is just an overview of the some of the work streams by category and it's important to note that everything is guided by the Hopkins learning framework. um the la this the next few slides I'm going to go through pretty quickly um but they're just going to highlight some of these work streams and some of the current efforts that are happening in those work streams. So in the area of assessment and instructional data, our data team is supporting our Hopkins instructional leadership team right now this fall in understanding and creating data insights on MCA, Fastbridge and Panorama using our our fall um administrations of those. And our data team is also continuing to build and test dashboards with teachers to make sure that we are providing teachers and school leaders with the data that they need to to do their jobs better and more efficiently. Curriculum and material support. Some of our current efforts are standards review and um program review in phases one through three across several curricular areas. Uh we are also working continuously on systems alignment across our IB, PBL and other school-based programs. We know that all of our students across our elementary schools metriculate into two middle schools or our online school and all of our students who are at our middle level metriculate into one school. So we want to make sure that whether um to enhance sort of each school's instructional uniqueness, we are providing and and creating conditions for consistency as well. [Music] Technology integration has been a really important partnership between Dr. Weder and I um excuse me, Director Wedder and I. And um some of that work currently are our our TIS or our technology integration specialists and digital literacy specialists are developing computer science for all across grades and schools. That's under the leadership of Dr. Neielson Wkelman. Um and also te our TIS team are leading AI popups and other learning opportunities for educators so that we can start to leverage the AI technology and um create more opportunities both for our students and staff um in the areas of of teaching and learning and efficiencies. In the area of restorative practices, our student wellness coordinator is supporting restorative practitioners to create those consistent practices across school and we are conducting quarterly behavior data reviews with school leadership teams. In the areas of professional learning, our coaching coordinator and HR teams are working together in um on a PD for all effort to make sure that we are developing the workforce across all of the um all of our system and future focused there. It's possible that some of the state funding in the area of um Q comp what we call Q comp or HCM in Hopkins um might not be in existence. And so we are trying to plan for what that support for our teachers who are doing the heaviest lift in terms of implementing changes. We want to make sure that they still have support um if that funding goes away. So we're planning for some alternative models in that area. In terms of extended learning, we are partnering with Eden Prairie to develop a new uh sort of internally housed ALC model to support students who are credit deficient. And we're planning for school year targeted services opportunities at all of our title one schools for 2627. State and federal programs falls under the purview of IDL. And I'm excited to tell you all that just yesterday we um onboarded a new American Indian education coordinator. Her name is Katie Sulco and I'm sure you'll be meeting her at a future board meeting. Um we're are working on the planning and integration, excuse me, planning the development of the next achievement and integration applications. Not ADS, that's actually a typo. And then um we are leveraging our access data in HILT to inform and enhance our approaches to meeting the needs of our English learners. And you als you met our amazing um student success liaison. And so I don't need to talk a lot about this, but we are making sure that uh in addition to really our focus on academic outcomes, we we know that belonging is a huge component. and that team that you met earlier plays a huge role in that. So that's a brief snapshot of a lot of different moving parts all the time. But um do we have time for questions or questions? >> Yeah, I think so. >> Okay. >> Yeah. >> Any comments or questions? >> Well, thank you for being here. I I was thinking as we were um getting this presentation how much of this I've seen already um because IDL is part of almost every presentation we get here at the board table which I think is great. Um, and I appreciate though the the the way that you brought it together gives it a different context that it is actually a a part of our district that you're housed together and um that you are working to get all those arrows in alignment. And so just appreciated that perspective. a standalone from you is is really I think illuminating. >> Thank you. >> So, thank you for that. >> Yeah, you're welcome. >> Um Dr. Dr. Erdle, thanks for your um spotlight and presentation and I just want to commend you for the work that you've done to build our instructional infrastructure which is so important and you know like um us as educational professionals slash researchers like the knowing doing gap is real right and you have created the mechanisms to ensure that from our Hopkins instructional leadership team to our school built teams are building instructional leadership teams to the classroom that what we are learning about what we need to do for students translates into the classrooms with the support that educators need. So I want to thank you for that really hard work and um please thank your team on behalf of all of us. >> Thank you. >> Thank you everybody. >> Appreciate it. >> Any other um comments or questions for Dr. for Mary Perry Reid on her report. >> Well, thank you so much for that delightful snapshot of what's happening across the district. It's always fun to to see what's going on. >> Um and the video was okay, especially not the part I was in. >> Um >> that's what we all say about ourselves. >> That's great. Um so then that takes us to the approval of our agenda. Um I want to thank um Natalia for sending an email to all of you to let you know that um I will be looking for a motion to add some items to our agenda and um new new business that need to be um approved. So, I would look for um a motion to add three items to our agenda in new business. Um they can all be one item. Um, so I would make a motion to add the notice of general election, a notice of location where ballots will be counted, and a notice of a public accuracy chest um be added to our agenda in new business. >> 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. >> I. >> Any opposed? The chair votes I. And those three items are added to our agenda as a part of new business. I would now look for a motion to approve the agenda for tonight's meeting. >> So move 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 for tonight is approved. And that takes us to the consent calendar. The uh purpose of this uh part of our meeting agenda is for information considered to be more routine in nature. If uh the board deems 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 recommendation that the board approve the consent calendar. >> So moved. >> Uh there 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. >> I. Any opposed? The chair votes I. And the consent calendar has been approved. And that takes us to the treasures report. Treasure Hartland. >> Wonderful. Thank you, Chair Andre, and thank you everyone for being here tonight. Um, business services has been very busy these days, but Miss Teronda Howard did make quite a bit of time to meet with me ahead of this meeting. And I learned that some of our business service employees were able to attend the Skyward users conference, and that's the software that we use to manage our our payroll and finances. During that conference, our business services team got to learn about some of the updated features of Skyward uh or that Skyward offers and we have employees in our district with considerable expertise and experience using that platform. Um so much so that in fact Miss Howard has um some neighboring districts that are now going to come learn from her about our accounts payable best practices and the work of our business services department as you guys know is very important. it. They were the subject of um Dr. Mary Perry Reed's um department spotlight last board meeting, but as a reminder, they manage a $130.5 million general fund budget. And when you add in our various specialty funds like community ed or nutrition, our total budget's about $177 million. So, it's a big job and there are a lot of strings attached to some of those monies. Something that I mention often is that the reports that I give cover the 20ish% of our budget that's not payroll or most of our employee benefits. And that 20% has to cover all purchase services like transportation or substitute teachers, all the utilities and repairs that keep our buildings running. And and really when most people think about what does it take to run a school, you think about paper and books and chairs, but those types of supplies actually only account for about 3% of our expenses. And that directly relates to some of the expenses that you'll see on on our report for this meeting. Quickly, I'd like to note that due to our schedule of board meetings, the time period for this report is a bit longer than we're used to. It covers August 16th to September 30th. One expense of note was 99,000 approximately $99,500 to Dakota truck underwriters. That is our workers comp serer which is a mandated expenditure because this district is of course an employer with 1300 employees. So it's a significant expense. Each year we have to pay something like 1% of our total payroll. Um, it fluctuates, but and I've said this at during a board report before, but as a reminder this year, it's approximately $3.5 million per pay period that we spend on payroll. Um, and the percentage that approximately 1% of total payroll that we have to pay for workers comps determined by a formula from the state of Minnesota. Um, related to our earlier presentation on athletics and activities, we paid Arbiter Sports $10,000 for fall sports officials. Um there are several expenses for inspection and repairs as the the time period this report covers um covered the end of summer. So, I won't name all of those, but a few are $38,525 to A1 stripes to restripe some of our parking lots, $2,892 for elevator repairs at the high school, $30,760 for required sprinkler system testing and inspection, $16,158 for security system testing and upgrades. We paid the international balorate program which certifies our IB schools $20,840 for their various fees ahead of the start of this school year. Um the district again applied for the coming year's Freedom School program and that application fee was $175. We paid Brex schools $11,427 for their various allowed expenditures and $23,938 for books and supplies to various other nonpublic schools inside our district. Because I mentioned we spent about we spent about 3% of our budget on supplies. During this period, we did pay $8,615 for paper and another $2,964 for gas and various district vehicle mowers and lawn equipment. Uh we paid $14,000 to answering the call. Um that's for mentoring and professional development at West Middle School. And for some context, every each of our schools has discretion discretionary dollars that they get to decide where to spend. um in order to augment their school's culture or outcomes, whatever is needed inside their building. And what's more, each public school district is obligated by statute to spend at least 2% of their basic revenue budget on professional development. So, as a reminder, our basic formula is per pupil is $7,481. And so that total comes to about $56 million of our budget and that and 2% of that is $1.12 million. So that is the mandated minimum that Hopkins schools must spend on professional development this year. I think that is enough from me for the moment. And so with that, I move that we approve total dispersements in the amount of $400,18,000 and 29 cents for the period of August 16th through September 30th, 2025. >> Treasurer Hartland, could I ask you to repeat that number? >> 4 million. Yes, you can. I mean 4,18,000, right? Four comma 108 comma 0000.29 $4,18,000 29. >> I'm just asking because that is different than the number that's on our agenda. So, >> let me look real quick. >> Wondering if the agenda needs to be changed or >> I think No, I'm sorry. It's 4,491,948.13. I apologize. Our um for the community, our treasures report was split from our old software and our new software, so there are $2 amounts and I did not add them for the final line. Thank you very much, Chair Andre. 4,491,948.13 for the period of August 16th through September 30th, 2025. >> Second. I have a motion and a second. Any discussion? >> Chair Andre, >> clerk Thompson. >> Uh, thank you for the report, Treasure Harland. It makes sense that we're seeing kind of two formulations there with some from Oracle, some from Skyward. Um, I I just had a couple I think just two questions. >> Sure. Um, first of all, so I I see Clifton Larson Allen, who's our auditor, but then there's also Bergen KDV Limited, um, a charge for $40,000 for interim billing of audit of financial statements for the year ended June 30th, 2024. So, is there another audit firm in the mix here? Um the second one that you mentioned is the firm that's actually managing doing the audit. Clipton Larson Allen was our previous doing the audit company, but now um due to our um needing to get caught up and our change in our business services director, they are augmenting our um audit prep. So CLA is now consulting with us. And I don't know if you want to speak further on that. >> So, um, Clifton Larson Allen is supporting the work around preparing all of the information that KDV the auditors use to um, assess and finalize and provide the audit. >> Okay. Thanks. I appreciate that explanation. Um, and then I just had one other question. Um, so we've engaged CISO as to do our CFO work and I I know we had kind of asked like, hey, if can we find out how the hours are tracking? Um, and it it looks here like in September they they didn't go over based on what I'm seeing here. Is that a fair interpretation? >> Correct. >> Okay. I um I mean kudos because I I thought getting up to speed it would take more than the hours allotted just to get a handle on it. So um I I think it's great news that they stayed within that aotted time. So that's really good. >> It is good news and um I think it would be appropriate to give Dr. Lightfoot credit for stepping into that department to um to provide some help and partnership to CISO as they work with the other uh business services professionals. >> Okay. Uh thanks Treasure Harland. That was all my questions. >> Okay. >> Any further discussion? >> Seeing none, all those in favor, please say I. >> I. >> I. Any opposed? The chair votes I and the treasures report is accepted. And that takes us to our first order of new business, which is the transportation update. I would like to invite Assistant Director Williams up to the table and turn it over to Dr. Mary Perry Reed. >> Thank you, Chair Andre. And we're actually going to have a whole small but mighty team of people come to the table. to um present the transportation update with Miss Williams. Um so as you all are approaching the table, I'll just um provide the framing and then we'll get right into it. So, as we ended last school year in the spring and then worked throughout the summer, our transportation goal was to design and implement a more efficient transportation system that would both serve our students and families while reducing costs. And so this was a very ambitious goal knowing that we have thousands of families who either need or request transportation and we had a budget reduction target of between$1 and $2 million. So we did assemble a cross departmental team knowing that the types of routing changes and implementing these changes would require a systemwide effort. And so after a very demanding summer and early fall, we are glad that 3,900 students, so 3,900 students were successfully routed and transported on day one. At the same time, there were some implementation misses that resulted in pain points and frustration for our community. And so for our transportation update this evening, we want to walk you through what we intended to do. And you can go to the next slide, Natalia, what actually happened and what we wish had happened. We thought for a long time, you know, what what do we want to share with our school board and with our community about this entire transportation implementation process knowing that there were some significant changes that we needed to manage. And um we thought that this theme of what we intended to do, what actually happened and what we wish had happened hopefully will give you a comprehensive overview of both our thinking but also literally the the moves that resulted in where we are today. So we'd like to highlight the successes. We'd also like to be transparent about the pain points and of course our aim as system leaders who take uh customer service um very um um seriously. We want to learn from our experiences and ensure that we're trying to figure out how to build stronger systems and stronger communications moving forward. So on this slide you will see that um you'll see a list of sort of bulleted items under those three themes. So what we intended to do was to reduce transportation costs so that we could minimize uh cuts to the classroom. We uh knew that we needed to conduct a transportation audit so that CISO who this is a different arm of CISO really was assessing our transportation system and letting us know what were the recommended changes so that we could trim our transformation transportation services. We uh created a crossf functional team. We knew that we needed to do that um because this this was a a systemwide um uh systemwide need requiring a systemwide effort. We knew that we needed to implement board approved recommendations. We knew that we needed to communicate frequently and specifically with our site leaison, our transportation site leaison and also with families. We knew that we would have thousands of students to route and we wanted to have a strong school start. So, one of the um crossf functional meetings that we have here every month in Hopkins public schools is a strong school start meeting where we meet once a month to talk about all of the different facets of starting our school year in a strong and positive way. Transportation is a component of that monthly conversation. And so we always have our eye on what do we need to do to deliver for our students and families. So what actually happened? So yes, we conducted the transportation audit and we did pro provide the the research and the findings to our school board and our community. We did create this cross functional team that you see in front of you, but also there were, you know, many other individuals involved in this entire process. We did follow a an implementation plan that was co-designed by members of this team and a few others. We did communicate extensively with our site administrators, with our site liaison, with our families. We did miss an August 15 communication deadline which then resulted in a pain point for our families and for our organization. We did route about 3,900 students successfully and picked them up for that start of school, that first school day. We did before the start of school route some openen enrolled and some uh NBZ what you'll you'll see NBZ. So that's no bus zone and we'll explain that later. But we did route some open enroll families and also some families who were identified as uh residing in the no bus zones. And we did grapple with meeting expectations that um I think in real time and now in uh reflection did exceed uh what what we believe to have been our our capacity throughout the process. Now, um if we just move to what we wish had happened because again as um our our charge is to is to serve our families within the resources that we have and we want to provide quality services. So, as we're learning and um and identifying lessons learned, then I think it's important to say, well, gosh, there is a gap between what we intended to do to do and what actually happened and just be transparent about what we wish had happened. So, we do um believe that we needed to have designed an implementation plan that better aligned with the time that was available. It was a very short period of time between the spring and the fall to redesign our whole transportation system and we wish that we had managed our own and other people's expectations more effectively and had a plan that matched the time available. We we do wish we had effectively met all of our communication deadlines. We do um wish that we had not overed and we'll explain that a little bit later but you know we're so I think I'll just maybe keep it local, personal and immediate. I believe that often we are so fearful of disappointing our families or um you know missing that service that sometimes we'll we'll overdo it and then you know we're in a place where um we've in in the case of transportation we've overrouted. So, there were some families, and we'll get into this later, that, you know, said, "No, I don't need the service." But because they didn't like officially complete that entire opt-in survey, we routed them just in case, right? And and some of those families, you know, reminded us we said we didn't need it and we were being overly cautious. We do wish we had developed a fee or we we wish that we had told our our school board, our community, and our families ahead of time that the fee collection system would probably need to have been developed during this school year. That we we didn't have time to do it in the summer. And um and we wish that we had communicated that timeline differently. And you know um you are going to find board members and community members listening in. You'll see a few places where there may be some practice policy gaps. So one of our you know moves for being future forward is to better align policy with practice and we do wish that we had um made sure that those alignments were there or had adjusted ours and others expectations. And then we do um have some reflection around partnering with our safe routes to school liaison so that those safe routes to school leaison and families had some clear communication and problem solving mechanisms and then of course you know we wish that we had met everyone's satisfaction standards and I think we met most people's satisfaction standards and expectations but there was um a group parents that we did miss and that is a regret for us. So you can go to the next slide. So then I just wanted to review for our board and community that when we brought the um the transportation audit overview and the research and the findings to the board table, there were three uh major changes that were recommended. One was to uh to move back to three tiers. So moving two elementary schools back to a later tier and also moving uh two non-public schools to that third tier. The second uh recommendation was expanding no bus zones. So previously as of last year there were no bus zones that we referenced as walk zones in our knowing clature and also in our policy language. those. Um the recommendation was to expand those no bus zones and call them no bus zones. And then the third recommendation was to not add extra buses. And um so our our past practice for many years is like you know open enrolled families, families who um are um are in district transfer. So that means that their their child lives in one school's attendance area and has applied to attend a different school in Hopkins outside of their attendance area. That's an indistrict transfer. And um we we we have a history and a historical practice of providing busing to those students. And so when we add and add and add buses, that obviously adds to a a huge cost. And so the recommendation was to really be be strategic and thoughtful about how to provide available in district seats to families who request a seat without adding extra buses. Um so really sticking to what that um minimum uh large bus uh threshold would be. And we can go to the next slide. Now going into this process then because of those three changes then we knew that these changes would impact some families who open enroll into Hopkins, some families who live in the expanded no bus zones, some families who are whose children are in district transferring to another school and also some families who do attend Alice Smith or Gatewood elementaryaries, the two elementary schools that were moved to the third tier. And we can go to the next slide. And so I think this um is where I turn it over to Dr. Erle who will talk about our timeline. So throughout the presentation we've we've identified who will speak to each slide and then we'll open it up for board member reflections and questions. Thank you. >> Um I will start us off just by um giving a a highle overview of the timeline. So, um, in late April, the board approved the transportation audit and and we went with those recommended changes. Right after that is when sort of the people that you see in front of you formed um kind of a swift action team or or really at the implementation. We're going to design the process and um all of the sort of associated needs. um in mid June that's when um the communication to impacted families began. Um that's also around the time that we started training um internal folks because we knew that there would be an increased need for um questions to be answered and communications of various kinds. So we identified people um to be trained in what some of these changes were so that they'd be able to help uh communicate with families. And that team was deployed then in middle June all the way through August. Uh that July 15th date was important because that was the deadline for the opt-in survey. And then immediately following that, not immediately, a month later, uh we had a deadline of August 15th for communications. And so what happened on August 15th was we did communicate bus assignments to families of students who were open enrolled and in district transfers. Um but we did not notify families in the no bus zone about their transportation status whether they had a seat or didn't have a seat at that time. and that was a breakdown in our process and we know that that created a pretty significant pain point for our families. Um following that um August 22nd is when most bus information went out which means the specifics on bus times and bus numbers. And then since the start of school, we've been working on ridership assessment and um as of October 1st and even beyond that um additional offers are being made based on those ridership assessments. You can go to the next slide. So again um and this is this is sort of um the process that we followed. So again, we created that crossf functional team and started out by building an implementation plan. The we designed and how we were going to collect the opt-in data from that survey. Um and Jolene will talk a little bit about the logic behind the survey on the next slide. We had we um had to develop new maps for the nozzone and what what is also happening at this time is um transportation had also been moving to a new routing system and so we were um the the development of the maps and the drawing of the maps was a pretty significant undertaking um and John will be discussing that a little bit more further. Um then we had to think through all the different sort of um I guess identities that exist in in the district and how we were going to map the transportation need depending on the specific identity that a caregiver or family had whether they were in district transfer or open enrollment some of those things. Um the communication is kind of happening all along and then we had those touch specific touch points. um we we determined the sequence by which we would route students. So we know that our board and community felt very strongly that we needed to um look at students who had identified as a financial hardship first. So that's what we began with and then we had to kind of create a prioritized list of how we were going to um look through the students um and then send of course send information to the families before the first day of school to prepare for that first day of pickup. And Jolene's going to talk a little bit more about what that the mapping of um the survey and really the process in general looked like. >> Sure. Um so as we were discussing what to bring to the board um you know we're kind of grappling with um how how in the weeds do we want to get and we will not be walking through this entire process map. I I couldn't even read it to do that if I if I wanted to. Um but what we are trying to sort of convey with this one you have you have record of it so you can um look at it later in more detail but this sort of outlies um the the process that a family would go through in that optin to transportation survey um which was a I mean that was a really complex survey the year before when we did an opt-in process we um actually took out open enrolled in IDT in district transfer sorry um and uh they kind of had their own survey and process. This one we combined it all into one and we have um there's so many different tracks and there's so many different things to consider um within that survey um which may not seem fully obvious to anybody who's not like immersed in it. Maybe not even to ourselves as a team. I mean this was something we went through many many times and it's like oh okay what about equity options? what about you know and we would um what about virtual edu okay that's going to be its own thing so um this really was was very it was a comprehensive process um and a very complicated process so after we came up with a process then this had to be translated into a a survey and um that in itself um with sort of like really good data but a little bit of imperfect data and so then we knew like we're going to have to account for Um, we know we knew we couldn't depend on the data to sort of self-report people. They were going to have to put in am I open enrolled, am I um an indistrict transfer family? Am I a choice program family? And you may not even be fully sure. There was a number of families that I talked to um because I was also doing the customer service piece that were in the Jing Jing program, but they signed up for an industry transfer. So, nope, let's get you figured out and, you know, tracked right. And so what I'm saying here is that um it was impossible to sort of um I think anticipate every every single scenario that might happen in the survey and we we probably needed to have more testing done. I mean we didn't have time um was the problem. We were on this really aggressive deadline where you know a couple of days would really throw us off. So kind of everything had to go perfectly which maybe wasn't realistic from the get-go. So, um, as we were putting together the survey and doing the limited testing that we could do, it did it did we did take a few extra days to sort of get things right and to get the data mapped correctly to this um, process. But what we realized after the fact, and Natalyia, if you hit the slide one more time, you'll see this um, decline transportation part of the survey circled. So, one thing that like we probably would have realized if we had tested it a little, you know, like like and tested it with different people who weren't so immersed was that you could very easily opt out of transportation but actually not complete the survey. And so there were a number of people who did this because you actually had to like click this final button and it was easy to miss. like he was like, "You thought you opted out?" And and it was like, "Oh, when we went back to look at how many people um had not opted into transportation, but had not opted out either and had an incomplete survey. It was a lot. And what we didn't realize until we until after the fact was the why. And again because we were struggling with time um we made this decision of like let's just air on the side of caution and assume that you know let's give transportation. Um we also went and looked at if these if those families had um had transportation previously and the majority of them had. So that made us even more concerned and so we just wanted to air on the side of caution. However, what happened um I think with with some families is there was a um belief that that um these families being routed was impacting the number of families who weren't and wanted a bus stop. And that wasn't that that isn't actually fully true because everything sort of has to match up. Um so it probably didn't affect things maybe as much as people thought or at all even. Um but it certainly had a perception of affecting things and it was one more thing to muddy the water. So this is what we identified as our second sort of major pain point of like especially with it being conflated with the what happened on um August 15th and I think now it goes to Naisha. This slide outlines which transportation services we're required to we're required to provide versus the ones that we are not. So our may dos and must dos. Um for Must we have elementary residents beyond the one mile and secondary 2 miles and beyond our homeless and highly mobile students, our early childhood to 22 um year old students, which is our transitions plus with IEP required transportation. So that's a key point. They must have IEP required transportation. care and treatment students that live in Hopkins district available in district seats for open enrolled students. So if there is a seat available, we will offer that to our open enroll families, our transitions plus students which are in the early ch or I'm sorry in the um IEP required transportation, but it's a separate program. So that one is just on here extra our resident non-public students that we either transport or we reimburse if we don't transport. So that is all families that live in Hopkins school district that attend any other non-public school and our pay to ride options for no bus zones. Our may are our early childhood general ed students. So these are the students that are prek um kaleidoscope different names for those. They do not have an IEP are available in district seats for in district transfer students, available in bus zone seats for no bus zone students and in district seats to virtual edu blended learning families and our high school watt students that um they are a part of district 287 but they reside in Hopkins and we transport them over to the W program. Those are our may dos um and our must dos. Another constraint for us um our capacity limits and our turnaround times. Um given our three tiers that we have, we have our three tiers. The bus capacity for our elementary students, we like to stay at 64 students. Um secondary 54 and then a general turnaround time of 45 minutes for each tier, especially in between first and second tier. Next slide. Oh, this one's John. >> This one is for John. >> All right. Good evening, everyone. Um, as we've walked through both our timeline and then kind of building out our survey and information, then our mustd dos and candos really then starts to set uh starts to move into some of that operationalizing of the plan. um one of those first elements that we have to put in place was uh the necessary mapping for the no bus zones. So taking the available information um provided from our routing software for our transportation system and then making those maps into something that's usable uh able to be communicated and understandable uh for folks as we uh move forward in this process. So the first uh step along that way there was really getting that data from the routing software um for the onem and two mile um uh driven routes. So that's the important piece of that is as it's a transportation software what it does is translates that into the driven route for one mile and two mile. So that will come up later as an important piece of uh information. Uh so then that data is extracted from the routing software and then put into a geospatial uh suite to really help determine those areas and connect um some of those additional data providers that we then needed to do to move forward into some of the surveying for the opt-in pieces. um interesting pieces that happened there is really understanding and um more members of the team understanding some of the very important intricacies of how mapping actually works. This certainly is why there are entire careers available to our scholars uh around geospatial mapping and helping to understand what that looks like. Um, for example, you may not know that there's a couple different types of mapping data of which pretty uh intimately impacted some of our mapping here in Hopkins. Uh, for example, the the data that's uh used by a lot of systems because it is free is the US census data um which uh reports out to the uh for federal level. However, Minnesota does not participate in that reporting structure. And so there were some very important um uh streets missing within that data that really impacted our ability to build uh some of these systems. Um notably uh in that federal data, Hopkins Crossroad and Minnitonka Mills Boulevard either some segments did not exist at all or had significant errors in it. As you can imagine, those are pretty significant roads that run through the middle of our school district. Um, but working with the the state of Minnesota, uh, we were really able to help pull some of that data together now in the back end of this uh, this work. So, we're going to be able to have this uh, optimized as we as we move forward into this. So, working with both Henipin County as well as with the state, we have made some of those connections to be able to have that data in a much better place going forward. So once that data was available um and uh put into that uh geospatial suite, we were able to then optimize uh those routes or the boundaries of that no bus zone for routing um with kind of the following considerations through um really looking at through streets versus roundabouts. For example, with a roundabout, we would use an area analysis of if half of the roundabout is in the no bus zone or greater than half of the roundabout is in the no bus zone, we would include the entire roundabout in the no bus zone. If less than half of the roundabout uh street was in the no bus zone, then that we would move it in that direction. Um, also um really the bus route characteristics. So really the length of the route, the ability for a bus to turn around, um where that lies within the school district, um trying to understand, you know, if a bus has to drive down the street and around a corner, uh how do we include or um in the no bus zone or outside of the no bus zone, that whole street. Um, also really close attention uh was really needing to be paid to addresses and driveways using the Henipin County geospatial and property database information. Um, so it, you know, when you're really talking about these streets, it matters which way of the property did the driveway actually go to um for where you're going to pick up that student. Is that a street where a bus is traveling down um as part of the the uh routing being routed efficiently? So those were all the considerations and those pieces that we put into our methodology u for creating those no bus zones. Um in the next couple slides we have a couple examples where we can show you. Um Nataly if we can go to the next slide. Um this one um on the left is kind of that machine created default onemile um drive uh path which you can see has a lot of spikes and kind of corners that certainly don't make sense that a bus could maneuver you know part of a street or around a corner like that. And so really moving that then into the to the right hand side of like what the no bus zone actually ends up being here. You can see in this example some areas that would have been included in the no bus zone but was only maybe two or three buildings of an entire apartment complex. We moved again based on that area calculation. We moved that entire apartment complex out of the no bus zone so that there would be a like neighborhood experience there. Um so in this example to kind of help reference orient you um the north south uh main road right in the middle there is Hopkins Crossroad and then it's Cedar Lake Road uh kind of moving east to west there. So that's really a case where um you know some of those areas moved uh out of that no bus zone. So transportation was then provided. And going into the uh next slide here is a a case kind of on the other side of that and where you can see the street kind of right in the middle there um was a um uh a roundabout involved there. And so looking at that there were about 16 houses um who were uh would have been in the no bus zone and about seven houses that were outside of it. And so there again for that uh efficient uh navigation and routing of the buses um all of that was included in the no bus zone. So, an example kind of on both sides of that and really some of the challenges that um we had to look at and make sure we really understood the data because you also had some fine line differences like there on the kind of the top right side. you see that of where uh partial properties were included in that data again because it was kind of that artificial onem drive zone um where then we had to look at the Henipin County um property um database to then kind of follow those property lines and make sure that we weren't accidentally including or excluding a single house down an entire block. So that's quick look at the um um at the kind of methodology around that mapping. I'll hand it back to assistant director Williams um to talk about some of the the numbers. >> Thank you. So in 2024 25 we had in previous years also we had walk zones which were expanded this year for our cost savings. Our elementary walk zone was about.5 and our secondary.8 eight. And I say about because we did make considerations based on hazardous roads. We had some families that were way maybe 0.2. Um if they're elementary, we could have had a.5 for our secondary. It wasn't consistent. It was pretty much based off of we see a hazardous road and we made a decision. So with this year, we went with the no bus zone, which replaces the former walk zone terminology to better reflect that the buses are provided rather than implying that students are expected to to walk. And with that, we were consistent with the one mile for elementary and the two-mile for secondary, which meant that we did not include, we don't have differences, I would say, in any of our um boundaries right now when it comes to hazardous roads or whatnot. Um, our stats, just based off of our walk zones previous to this year, these are our stats. Um, I can go through every school. Ellis Smith had about 30 students in their walk zones last year. Uh Eisenhower had 11, Gatewood 2, Glen Lake 31, Tangland 21, Metobrook has zero because we did not consider a walk zone at all for Metobrook prior to this year. Um North Middle School had 37, West Middle School 12, and Hopkins High School 67. So this year with our no bus zones, we have 123 students at Alice Smith in no bus zone, 46 at Eisenhower, 17 at Gatewood, Glenn Lake 65, Tangland 68, Metobrook 71, North Middle School 119, West 55, and Hopkins High School 169. So the third difference portion is just explaining what the difference is between the walk zone and the no bus zone this year. Um just subtracting the 30 from the 123 for Alice Smith will give us the the numbers and the difference that we're so that we can see the impact on how many families were actually changed this year versus the 123. I guess when we were giving out numbers, we would say there's 123 Alice Smith families that are impacted, but 30 of those families were already in the walk boundary last year. This year, it's just changed to a no bus zone and we added additional students. Next slide, Natalia. Thank you. So for this one, this slide is just to give you an idea of what it looks like when I guess in different areas when it comes to routing. We did perform our writership audit and with that it's continuous throughout the year. So we we don't just um have a writership out a audit once a year. We do it periodically through the year just to see how many students are riding, what routes are looking like, if we need to condense or add anything. And this is an example for you um to understand what it looks like in a max time low capacity, low density neighbor neighborhood. So that's a neighborhood that has more land than homes. And in this area, if you can see, there is 24 stops on this bus route. And the route is at least 45 minutes long, but only 38 students are on the route. So this is an actual high school route. What that means is there are the stops are so far apart, reaching all the students takes longer, which means that we cannot add any students to this route or I'm sorry, add any stops to the route, but we can add students. So if there are any students that would like to get on say stop 15, we can add students um to these ex existing stops but we will be unable to add any more stops for this route. Next slide. This slide will show you more of a low time max capacity highdensity neighborhood which is one of our apartment areas. We have many of those especially now we've had quite a few in the last few years built in certain areas. This one is a low the timing is very low 25 minutes and that's to pick up the students and drop off at the schools and there is already 55 students on the bus for secondary. So this is one apartment building. The bus shows up, picks up all 55 students and heads straight to school. there's not much room to add anyone else without our larger students, well our older students I will say, um being squished together in three to a seat. So that's why we're at 54 for our secondary. And with this, this just explains for us where there's no more space on the bus, but it looks like we have a lot of time. Next slide. This slide is showing you from October 6th through October 10th what it looks like with our we had a daily GPS download of the arrival times of our bus times for the high school. This color key will help you just see what it looked like. Which buses were arriving before 8:30, which is our scheduled time, which ones are exactly at 8:30, and which ones were after 8:30, whether it be from 8:31 to 8:35 or later. That blank white line is actually the GPS was down on that one vehicle, and that's why that one just doesn't have any data for that week. Um, with this slide, things have changed since then. We've made a lot of changes when it comes to our late buses. Some of the majority of this is construction and traffic and once we do pinpoint where these areas are, we go through and change those. This again is from the 6th through the 10th. So this would be different if we went um for last week or even this week. Next slide. This slide will provide you a snapshot of our current routing. Um, what I wanted to show is what it looked like on the first day of school versus October 14th, just to give you an idea of what movement happened in transportation from the first day to October 14th. Um, our current big yellow buses are at 48, small at 39, and our vans or type 3 vehicles at our are at 11. We started out with 3,900 students total. And this breakdown of each category is not to sum up the 39. It is to explain our different categories of families that we or students that we actually route for. So we have no bus zone. On the first day of school, we had about 30 of them routed. In the in parenthesis, we have 124. We had 124 apply for the pay to ride option and 30 of them received a bus by the first day of school. The no bus zone financial hardship families we had 69 apply and 67 received transportation by the first day of school. Open enroll families for students there were 30 in district transfers 50. for our special services 362 our homeless and highly mobile 29 early childhood 95. So for October 14th, we had a total of 4209 students routed. Our no bus zone payto ride option families 122. Um out of that 124 no bus zone hardship still at the 67. Um the two in for each one of those two categories just to add are families that declined the transportation. um open enroll 38 in district transfer 53 sped 384 homeless and highly mobile 74 and early childhood 106. Next slide. This slide is about our safe routes to school. So safe routes to school is a program that is a Minnesota law which encourages school districts to partner with the schools to provide education on walking and biking safely to school. What we do is we in transportation have our buildings appoint a liaison at each building so that we have someone to connect with and they can share the education on the safe routes to school website with our students. The goal there is to make sure that they again provide student education on walking and biking safely to and from school. This is a program that is a Minnesota law as of it's been about two years now. So, we've been working and and collaborating with schools. Um, it's still kind of in the works of getting it up and running, but we hope to have more partnerships. Um, kind of something Dr. Mayor Piri talked about was what we wish that we done was connect our our liaison with families. It's a little more difficult in the summer because we have staff off, but what we want to do and what we wish to do is to be able to have these these connections with families long before school starts, which will help us be able to make sure that they have the information that they need before the start of school. So I'm just going to recap a little bit by talking about the some of the strengths and growth areas and um we've been engaging in an afteraction review process um that has yielded some of these insights. So, we did create that crossf functional team of district leaders and school support personnel who worked together and um speaking personally, but what I've learned from my colleagues is we've all learned a lot about the complexities of transportation and I think that has um built the awareness of a lot of people in our system. Uh we are we have fully transitioned to the new routing system that we mentioned earlier. 39 over 3,900 students were routed before school started. We're proud of the some of the organic sort of school-based efforts that families have engaged in around car pooling and and and um things of that nature to get kids to school and uh we Nisha is having monthly meetings with our principles to to receive feedback from them directly on how it's going. Um and we had a lot of barriers. Some of them were uh within our sphere of control, some of them were outside. Um the scope of these changes was too ambitious for the timeline as we've indicated. We know that um again the there was that major sort of pain point on August 15th where the missed communication with about 225 of our no bus zone families. um our internal systems like the routing software, our ticketing platforms. John talked about the mapping um were not really fully equipped to support the complexity of this change. Uh we did not build a fee collection mechanism within Infinite Campus yet. Um all of the transportation in general as you all are well aware has been impacted uh by driver shortages which um hinders our accuracy and our timelines. And then um finally the sort of the the scale of of these changes made it difficult to customize solutions for families um that had some pretty unique circumstances. And we know that we deployed a lot of folks to try to talk with our families and provide those personalized experiences and um it wasn't it it was not adequate to meet the need. So this slide that you see in front of you, board members and community members listening in, this is our last slide and then we invite our uh school board to um provide questions or reflections for the team. Um we do consider ourselves as a a learning oriented team and um the afteraction reviews involved a lot of people providing reflections. Our school board members received some questions from Dr. Erle to also participate in the afteraction review reflective process. Um so we know that there is some significant work ahead of us and we wanted to highlight and categorize some of that future work for you. Um one is in the space of policy. Of course, we need to ensure that the the kind of the operations and regulations of our policies actually match um the policy language. Excuse me. So we would like to invite our just our um engage our policy monitoring committee to review what is our current state are you know um we would like to gather some additional feedback from families especially those impacted by the expanded no bus zone. So are we within the resources that we have right because we we do want to make sure that we're operating within our resources. Do we believe that one mile limit and uh for elementary and two mile limit for secondary is is the right thing? Right. And what is right? Well, that's going to be informed by a number of of factors and variables. Um and then is there some further definition needed to hazardous areas? Um our current policy talks about extraordinary hazard areas, right? And that language has existed in our policy for um quite some time. But it, you know, it's subjective what what is a extraordinary hazard area and does our policy committee um seek to provide some further definition within the routing and efficiency adjustment space? Um, Miss Williams, assistant director Williams does continue to explore adjustments that need to be made. Uh, we, uh, uh, assistant director Williams is continuing to go through the list of open enroll families who had initially required or requested an in district seat. What are the additional any other additional efficiencies or needs or requests that we would like to meet? For example, there is an early morning program at Gatewood Elementary called Gator Academy that we la that our system launched in response to moving Gatewood to a later start time. And so we, you know, that's an example of a program where those students need buses. What are all those needs and requests currently? and are we able to meet them as well as are there additional efficiencies? We do know that we need to build the fee collection mechanism. We have um two specific aspirations which we hope to turn into excuse me specific goals around assessing our activity bus system right now. So, those are the the few buses that transport some of our middle school and high schoolers home at I think around 6 5:30 or 6:00. I have >> 540. >> 5:40. Thank you. >> So, precise. Um, so after their their practice and competitions, there are buses that take our students home and are there efficiencies within that system. And then we want to take a look at additional special education routing efficiency. So we said that we said earlier that of course if transportation is required in an individual students education plan then we must provide it and within that are there additional fish efficiencies. And we also we've been in conversation with a few um parents and um and transportation staff around partnering with Metro Transit. Some of our secondary students are actually using Metro Transit right now. So, how do we how do we systematize that? How we how do we turn it into an opportunity for a larger number of students? And again, there's that the the fee collection mechanism. How do we build that into our system so that we're being responsible with the um the funds that families give us? And uh what else? We want to Dr. Erdle, are we planning on doing an additional afteraction review then in November? Because I know we've we've conducted two so far. >> Yep, we've conducted two. Um, and so what what I've done with that feedback, I've got that feedback. I also have the written and verbal comments from the transportation listening session that we conducted that will be incorporated. Um, and then I did reach out to the board if anybody wanted to provide any feedback in writing or um, we could we could also meet and talk um, and I could record it that way too. Um and um so then all of that will be compiled into one report um that I'm hoping to get done in November that is kind of a retrospective from all of the different perspectives. >> Thank you. We've mentioned several times how complex the the routing process and the the transportation systems are. I mean really it's a a collection of micro systems within within a larger system. And so we do need to um continue making assessments around our staffing structure. How many routers do we need? What does our dispatch office look like with both of our um our contract providers? Um do we have enough drivers? Driver shortage was one of the barriers. And how are we continuing to ensure that a driver shortage doesn't get in the way? And then of course the work around um accurately assessing our current cost savings and we're starting to do that right now. We won't have a complete analysis for the board um for a few weeks here but we are hoping to be you know specifically identify how much money we've saved through these these efforts. So, with that, I I hope that board members, you have um experienced a comprehensive transportation update, but we do invite your your questions and and reflections. Thank you. >> Thank you everybody and thank you Dr. Mary Perry Reed. Um any feedback or questions from my board colleagues? >> Chair Andre. Um, I'm curious about whether or not knowing how complicated this process was and I will admit from a policy monitoring perspective, it felt rushed with the I felt a lot of pressure of getting the policy put through. So my question really comes down to is could we have just robbed Peter to pay Paul and just said we don't really need to save a million dollars uh for next year and just think through what the implementation plan because once the to me once the policyy's written I my first thought is I don't know how this is going to be implemented. So that was my concern and obviously I know um uh super uh assistant superintendent Lightoot and I that was one of the things I was just like don't know how this is going to be implemented considering this is now April and now we need to ensure families are ready to go by August. some of the stuff I think with in the weeds. I mean, at this point, might as well just be in the weeds because there was so much going on in regards to the survey. If so many parents did not complete, was it just too many questions that were in the survey? I I guess I I'll be honest. I don't even remember what was in the survey of how many questions were there knowing we live in a society where everything is very quick and the attention span is very short. So, I think those are my two things of like I know realistically we wanted to save money but then I don't know do you just say how do I just rob Peter to pay Paul with this right now take now this entire school year to say all right we need to implement we have a policy now do we need to do a community engagement because with the cell phone policy we were getting different perspectives from students teachers community and nobody was on the same page. So, I'm just guessing that's how the survey was based on your your analysis is that not everybody was on the same page. You had to go out and, you know, connect. And I know like what is this? This is now the third board meeting potentially going to 11:00 and we're talking about transportation. So then that to me I'm just like yeah there's probably I don't know there there's just a lot of things that are going through my head and I think the first thing is maybe we probably just should not have passed the policy last year as fast as we did and we should have I will take responsibility as a board member to probably push back to the administration say do we really need to do this knowing like the scale of how this is going to impact families because I think I just didn't know like now this is much more information that if I would have known upfront I probably would have voiced more concern of implementing this savings when I would have probably said let's just rob Peter to pay Paul it's a million dollars and then let's just use this next school year to kind of identify. So, I don't know who wants to answer that one, but >> I'm not sure >> speak to the um answer that >> I can Well, I can speak to the not the Rob Peter to pay Paul that that uh that that I I can't speak to, but um the survey part you you bring up some really good points. I think I can make some guesses on uh based on the behavior that we saw. I don't I don't think it was too many questions because um you know, like you only you kind of were like you had a path to go down. I think what happened was if you declined transportation, you actually had to kind of like like looking at it a little closer, it it would be very easy to think you opted out and then there was this this additional step like you need to say complete and that wasn't something that we probably paid enough attention to in testing because we were paying so much attention to the functionality of the survey. So, like if we had the luxury of of of that time you're describing, which I think maybe that would be the the the root problem that this team would identify, it was just like we really just needed more time. But if we in an ideal situation, we would have tested functionality and then like tested it with some people and said like, okay, like where did you get lost? Where did and we weren't able to do that in I think maybe as you we just didn't have that time and actually even people around in the summer. Um, so we were just like functionality works. Okay, we have to we have to go because we're already a couple days behind. So that's that's what I can speak to on the survey. I can also say that like um from an enrollment perspective, we took some really strategic um moves to make sure like our equity options families, we um they they were not strong responders on the survey. We didn't hear from them at all, which wasn't surprising cuz they're highly mobile and um and so we were worried about them and weounded them like we just texted them until they finally like do you need transportation or not to make sure that they they were they were included because we were really worried about them and they um so we tried to we tried to identify e in this process like people who weren't responding especially marginalized and um families and students to make sure that that like we had an answer from them but we weren't able to do that at scale for like those other people that responded. So that's gives you a little bit of a picture of what we were trying to grapple with. >> I will say that for the survey there are some key things that we still will need. For instance, there are questions about AM versus PM transportation. You may not need AM transportation, but you wanted to opt in to PM transportation. So there were some mixup with those questions, but they need to still be in the survey. So I think what we missed was airing on the side of caution. Instead of saying, you know what, they did not finish the survey and running the risk of not routing them, not having enough buses if they came back and said, hey, we really needed it, we routed them on the side of caution. So the difference of what we could do next year is not route those families. and if they made a mistake and they really wanted to opt in, we will be in the position of saying, "I'm sorry, you you didn't complete the opt-in." So, I think that's where where our confusion was with the survey. It wasn't 100% on the survey. A lot of it was on just what we would do in those situations. Um, Vice Chair Ross, in response to the budget question, I you know, it's to me it's very difficult to have this large of a regret, but I do understand the question and what I am thinking about is the enormity of a $7 million budget shortfall and the pressure that certainly I myself as a system leader felt to figure out how we were going to reach that $7 million uh uh reduction target knowing that perhaps we could save as much as 2 million $2 million if we are more efficient with our transportation um routing system. So it's a very hard question. I do I have often asked myself the same question. Should we just have figured out ho how we were going to proceed with um you know making a $5 million budget reduction and then taking a whole year to then determine a longer implementation plan for potential transportation changes. And that would have also been risky because then we're we're we're in another predicament in the winter going into spring with you know what may have been an even larger budget shortfall than what we might be facing this at at this point. So it's I don't know how to answer your question. No, >> other than other than acknowledging that we were we had a very large task in a short amount of time and the budgetary pressure was significant. >> No, I appreciate the cander. I mean, it's fair. I mean it's it's one of those things like now looking through this it's like okay there there was a lot if you put construction to the side there was just a lot of probably concern and it was in my opinion probably more implementation but I I'm saying for me for retrospect probably maybe having a survey out to the community with the policy to say do you think this is something that will work for most families case that will give you a better indication of like yeah this is either one going to work and I I don't know I mean I'm modeling it after the cell phone policy of like what we were the goal was is like I did not foresee parents over here kids over here even though that's how my household works is the kids say this the parents say that and we have to meet in the middle so I mean there's no like trying to point fingers is just trying to understand like could we have just gone to our savings account put the money in the checking and just said okay this is not ideal but here we are >> chair >> yes so it's been >> Morland >> it thank you it's been the priority of this board um to achieve a structurally balanced budget every year and so I don't understand like who the Peter would have been in this scenario right the Peter would have been um staff in our schools cutting those positions and I hear what you're saying about community input and responsiveness and our community has told us over and over again that they want us to keep cuts away from the classroom and that was a basic principle that we were using to guide our budgeting process and I appreciate the afteraction review because It shows just how complex this type of implementation is and it shows responsiveness to the community in how many additional students have been routed since the initial report, right? And the fact that this team has been working, I'm sure, continuously around the clock to improve the implementation of the policy. Um, and so I think it's it's hard to um, you know, we don't have a crystal ball. Wouldn't governance be wonderful if we did, but we just don't. And we were making decisions at the time based on our community stated values and the financial realities that our state legislature has put us in. So, thanks. >> Thank you, Director Wes Morland. Chair Anderson. >> Yes, Treasurer Hartland. >> Thank you. Thank you guys all so much for this work. I can only faintly imagine how much work it's actually been and um I have a couple two really brief comments and one which leads directly to a question. I would say that an additional gap, if I might be so bold as to state it, I don't again also don't mean to call anybody out, but I would say not speaking to local law enforcement and other city leaders earlier. I happen to be campaigning. I don't know if I'm really even supposed to say that from the board table, but I happen to be and I have heard from at least six city leaders and one police chief that was like, I would have loved to have known this because when especially when our transportation department was not because they were overwhelmed with calls and emails when they were not being answered by us, they used their community resources and that did not reflect well on us. And that has been kind of a hard thing to to be out in our community and grapple with. And so that is something that I would really love to see us do especially if we uh revamp the policy or take some input on the policy going forward. Um and then my my question is and it is related to this comment is what kinds of things do you leaders do to assess the pain points and and what like micro practices have you I know you you have a bunch of future action which I appreciate but I have actually noticed a micro action already and that is that for the first time that I can remember when we had a transportation issue about blackboard. Thank you so much, Director Guldady, because you went you used every communication means including Facebook, and you went there to say, "We know this is a problem. We are sorry. Call us here. It will be fixed soon." And I actually literally teared up when I saw that because I I think that that would help us so much because you have talked so much about how many students you actually routed. So many of them this huge percentage that you guys succeeded in routing but this percentage that didn't happen. I have seen us in the past let other people tell our story and give this impression that we are not responding and we are not understanding. And there's so much benefit to saying we see you expect an update tomorrow. We're sorry. And I just so appreciate that that happened. I can't even tell you. So I my question was about like the microp practices. what did you do to to assess this kind of crazy system and and what kinds of things are you doing already? I think we could speak to that when it comes to our afteraction review. Um, our communications, this whole team here, we work together more often now. Um, we were more, I would say, in silos, I would say, but now everybody has a hand in understanding a lot more about transportation and we all are connected. So even Jolene's message we all connected on made sure that we were all on the same page and that's what we've been trying to do going forward to make sure that we have this cross functional team to help us all because in the end it is the whole entire district and so I I think that is one big thing that we've been doing that's been great and then we identify everything else along the way anything else that we need any pain points we make sure that we figure out the best way to correct them. So I think mainly we can just say this team here is what's been great for us >> and I think um like when we were going through our process um I I do think we had identified many of the pain points actually like we had that isn't I think that we we knew this would be a tough message. We knew like we had every single audience mapped out and here's when they're going to need communication. I mean down to like this is going this audience is going to lose their bus stop and but this audience is going to lose their bus stop but they are a Jing Jing student so they get a different you know it just was it it was so um down to the detail. I think I the law enforcement thing that that I don't think we had thought about like what I I can personally say I was surprised about um was um how how much people were were thinking we were saying to to walk because I think we had a we had a misunderstanding there. We were thinking we were creating sort of a different um strategy where we weren't necessarily saying that. Um, so that I think for me was a blind spot. Um, because I think our focus was on just like that saving money and okay, we just have to be really this is a tough message. These are tough maps to prepare. These are um and we really thought about like I mean like here's here's everything people are going to need and we're going to have to move you know really fast. I mean, we put so many I mean, it's it's like kind of a, you know, like a it's one of those things where it's like if it would have worked, it would have felt, you know, like we would have it would just be a different experience. But we actually had a pretty good process. I think um I think we there were some things that fell apart when we couldn't meet those like razor deadlines and then things that we didn't anticipate and it was so complicated and then it just kind of it it I think we just it was just too much, you know, like there was too many things. Um, I think if we had more time, I can't speak for everybody else, but I think I really think we had some really smart people in the room that were working really hard and we're trying to trying to really save as much money as possible and to be as honest as possible about that. >> So, and and we I think feel not great about not not meeting that mark. >> We identified every group and they all had messages tailored for them, which is a lot of different groups in our district. And I think we just missed the one group based off of a oversight. So we we had a a lots of meetings of us coming together to identify each group, understanding what they need and what type of message that they need. And we miss the group. >> Thank you. Um I just want to remind everyone of something um Vice Chair Ross said. It is now 10 p.m. and we are only on our first order of business. Um, so I I appreciate this this full um report. I think um if the team is open to it and if it would be appropriate, Dr. Mary Perry Reed, I would ask um the rest of the board members, myself included, I have a list of questions that um came out of this presentation, um wondering if we can forward them to you um so that we can get a response that way um just in the sheer um uh because time is so late at this point. If that would be acceptable to board members and also to Dr. Mary Perry Reed, >> we can do Do we have um Jolene, do we have an FAQ that we could maybe make more current so that perhaps our community would also have access to some of the questions, I guess, questions and answers. I don't remember the I know we we have some FAQ tools. >> Yeah. Mhm. >> So would these be questions that the board is asking for the board's awareness, not >> not necessarily for >> Yeah. >> community awareness? >> I would say it's question. Yeah, we have questions based on this um update and if we could submit them to you to forward to the appropriate >> person. Um I think that we did address in our listening session commu community questions and hopefully those specific concerns are being addressed. >> Okay, great. >> Without having a FAQ document created. >> Um >> however, I think that all of us would like to hear the responses to individual board members. So maybe >> um if board members if you want to direct your questions to me, I can put them in a Google doc and forward it to you um Dr. Mary Perry Reed so that we all hear the responses. Would that be acceptable? >> Sure. >> Okay. Thank you all. Um appreciate um you being here tonight so late. I'm looking at you, assistant superintendent Lightoot. You get to stay with us. Um um so thank you and thank you board members for being flexible with your questions. Um I know this is an important topic to all of us. Um thanks. >> Thank you team for the preparation and the delivery. Appreciate you. >> Um so that takes us to um our next item on the agenda which is the 2627 draft calendar. Um, I will turn it over to uh Dr. Mary Perry Reid. >> Thank you, Chair Andre. Um, I will just turn it over to Dr. Lightfoot. We do have a small team um from various sites working together in a draft calendar and it has been shared with cabinet. We'd like some board input. I think the next audience would be principles and then we would bring it back for second read and hopefully approval. And this is for the 26 27 school year. >> Thank you. >> All right, I can go ahead and get started. I know we have a couple members who will be coming back. Um, but just in general, uh, just as a reminder, uh, we do look at the calendar with you. uh in partnership. This is a co-created document. Um the work that goes into this um truly in partnership with our Hopkins Education Association and the input that comes into all of this, it is at this point um a first read uh and continues to be reviewed, continues to be looked at, um continues to be shared and input sought into the process. Uh for the calendar, we do look at two reads. So the second read is in November when we look at that final adoption so that we can um be specific and move forward with the community. And part of that conversation we've also been looking at our previous practice was to look at two years um based on where we have been um in looking at trying to be uh tailoring to the needs of the community as well. It had moved toward a one-year approval component. And now we are looking at um giving this to you in a year and then hopefully being back with you in March or April to look at a subsequent year so that the community can have its set of information sooner. um which has been a set of feedback that we've heard from our staff members as well as our um families and community um that it helps with the planning and the necessary scheduling that just um becomes more efficient when people have the better set of information sooner. So I just wanted to make sure that you knew that that context is in place. Um and as part of the work that we do um this is the balancing act. We take the best set of information that we have. We put it into what it looks like with a calendar. And this year is no exception. Um, as you can see from what's in front of you, we were faced with the challenge of looking at a Labor Day late start, which means um that when we see that, we start to take a look at do we have the option in this case with our construction and state statute to look at starting before Labor Day. And we did. Um based on that analysis, we then as a group worked on a couple scenarios. The first scenario was looking at starting before Labor Day. The second scenario was looking at starting after Labor Day. Quickly, it became very apparent in the work that we were drafting that the late start after Labor Day would push it literally um if you went into June, you would be looking at under those conditions a set really of looking at June 19th potentially at being the last day of school. >> Thanks. So when we started to look at that scenario, much more of the focus really went toward what does it look like for the opening of school to be before Labor Day. So that is really the impetus of the draft that you see here. Um in part as we worked through that um we also wanted to take a look at and part of the balancing that we need to do is where quarters fall. um what that looks like when we think about our terms, when we think about balancing out the number of days and where that falls and how we look at the placement of spring break. Part in the looking at that placement um also is in line with conferences. It also is in line with giving our educators um time to look at the grading aspects and giving our young people the opportunity to make up work at the end of a term. Um, so we build those structures in as well with the draft that you see in front of you that we have here. Um, as I identified, it really is a pre-LOR day start. It also looks at um, when we are trying to look at placement of professional development, when we're trying to look at placement of grading days. One of the key items that we have received feedback is this year we tried to take a look at what does the Monday after break look like for some training. Um, and when we've had the read act, we tried that. We've gotten some feedback on that. Um, I think the majority of the feedback that we've received so far really has said even in the draft, when you look at it, there's the day that follows um, spring break and that April 5th is there identified in this draft as a grading or PD. But given the context of what we see, people are looking at really the benefit of that Friday the 26th as being a better place day for the grading for the professional development rather than having that Monday after break. Um, in part, some of the strong reasons have been if we're asking people to complete work, if we're really looking at the end of a term, if we're allowing students to come and to um complete work, it seems more effective to do that before the break rather than after. So, that has been a clear suggestion that has been put forward to make that change. Um the other change that we're looking at is really a conversation with our middle level leaders on the conferences in May looking at the effectiveness of that um identified conference and is that a space that we want to continue with a conference or do we feel at that point that that instruction instructional day holds more value. So that's been more of the conversation that's been happening really kind of on that micro level about those two particular items and looking at what that could be. Um, and overall this is really kind of the culmination of the work. Um, it's been in front of our education association, it's been in front of our cabinet, it's been in front of our leaders. Um, it continues to be looked at. And here tonight is really the board's opportunity to provide some of that feedback feedback and oh my gosh, it's close to 10:00 or after, isn't it? uh feedback and input uh into the next set of processes before we bring you another draft which would be to you in November. So with that open for additional questions, comments, insights, opportunities, things that you see along the lines of calendar and any additional thoughts that you would offer at this late point of the evening. Thank you um for presenting this and also for the additional context about when our community can expect to see something like this for subsequent years. Um I do know that that's questions we've been getting. Um does anybody have any feedback or questions? >> Cheer and Drezen. >> Clerk Thompson. >> Yeah. Um, appreciate this, Assistant Superintendent Lifeoot. I think um, you know, obviously it's kind of like eyebrow raising to start before Labor Day, but you know, given where it falls, I don't see that there's much choice. So, you know, appreciate the cander around that. And um I really don't have much to add or I guess my only question is I mean do you ever think about shortening winter break from two weeks to a week and a half or something like that? >> Yep. Excellent question. And we, you know, in part, yes, you can because then that looks at the tradeoff of that June not being as late into that 11th. Um, part of that dialogue that we've had over the years, um, really with our education association and with the school system in general is that people's one of people's top priorities again and again and again is two weeks at winter break. We hear that so consistently and we've heard it for so many years and I hear it. It's that trade-off of okay, are we really in the space where those two days in June would make that much of a difference or is there such value in that twoe period of time for that reset um that that people have around um around that two weeks at winter break? It's a tough call. Could it be considered? Yes, it could. um in this draft really the feedback that we got was top priority is to preserve those two weeks. >> Thank you, >> Chair Andre. >> Yes, Treasurer Hartland. >> Um thank you for this presentation. Thanks for the thought that goes into it. I did look briefly at our surrounding districts just because I was curious and I saw that um so we have 168 school days um slated for at least for our secondary students and I looked at Edina and they had 168 and AIO had 169 and Minnetonka for 100 had 170 and incidentally a lot of those districts have followed us now and offering at least some of the cultural holidays off so I know that's something that kind lends itself to us slightly disjointed, especially in the fall. Seems like we have a lot of days off, but I think it's a worthy practice and and was glad to see it continued. Um, do we typically assess like how many days our surrounding districts are >> Yep. Excellent question. We're looking at two things. Um, number one is the conferences and then number two, election day. Um, in the past that election day has also been an instructional day and in many places in the districts you identify it is part of the challenge for us has been polling sites and we've had conversations with our municipal partners and really saying is there a way that we could relocate because part of the challenge for us is that the learning experience on those days and having any individual coming in and the regulations around um voting in the open nature of the polls was that literally we could not feel comfortable about the operation of our schools and not being able to reconstruct entrances and exits that would not have at some locations individuals who were not um through our um visitor management process coming into spaces that we couldn't feel strongly about our ability to manage and secure in ways that our students felt secure about learning in the space during that day. And if we're able to solve for that challenge, >> then we have the opportunity to look at that day. Um, so we're really kind of looking at that as an option. Um, also like we said at the middle level, looking at some of those conferencing components and what that might look like um, and trying to weigh what those opportunities are um, to gain those days like we've said that we know learning happens and we want to make sure we maximize. >> Thank you. >> And I do see too that that ha that is being used election day is being used as a grading PD day. So I I I find that creative. >> Yeah. >> Doesn't always work out that way. Um but you know in the long run um we're trying to really explore as identified all the ways that we can maximize potential. >> Thanks. And I I I appreciate this as well. Um and just being um someone who has experienced a full week off um in elementary school um and coming back it's pretty difficult. Um, so thinking about um perhaps um I know that the adults in the system appreciate the the time off and that it's consecutive days um but also just um considering that sometimes those long breaks can can be harder to return from. Um that's my only comment. I think this looks great. Um I appreciate the ways in which we're um solving for a lot of different demands on the system um in a great way. So thank you. Any other questions or feedback? Um, so it's my understanding that this is um a first read um of a draft calendar. Are we um voting on it or just um are we approving it in first read? >> Not necessary. um the final read in November. Really, this is the input and the opportunity for additional suggestion to consider before we um work through the final draft and consideration to bring forward to you in November. >> Great. Well, thank you. Um that now takes us to policies in first read. I will turn it over to Vice Chair Ross. >> Thank you. Uh we're going to have six policies that we're going to review here and first read 202 203 203.1 414 524 and 524.1. You'll note um in most of these policies there was no changes uh made minus uh 414. So I'll pass it over to assistant superintendent life. Director Leford. >> Thank you. Uh hopefully uh we can work through these pretty quickly for you all. Um first we'll go through uh policy 202. 202 is the board responsibility policy. Really here no suggested change from the monitoring committee as it looked at our policy and the uh model school board association policy. Of course is there if there are questions uh from board members related to this. We are open to any questions, insights, um, edits, suggestions, and would be open to those questions for policy 202. >> I don't see any changes necessary or comments. >> All right. Uh, policy 203 meeting rules. um those meeting rules again um there really was no specific change recommended from the Minnesota Schoolboard Association as well in their model policy um after monitoring committee review we did not um see any significant change that um the committee would recommend. So no change as well for policy 203. Um in addition 203.1 is the rules of order that accompanies that uh 203. Um there again no significant change suggested by any Minnesota school board association model policy or any observations from the monitoring committee. So both 203 and 203.1 we would bring forward with no change. If there are questions or concerns we can address those for these two as well. >> Thank you. Silence is not sleep time. >> Yeah, exactly. This is a good time to bring policies before the full board. >> Absolutely. >> We'll remember that for future meetings. >> 414 is statutory updates. Uh the statutory updates uh were um specific to the changes that were recommended in the model policy and as such um the monitoring committee did uh recommend that we make those statutory updates. as identified in the Hopkins policy. Um, and if there are questions on those, can happily address um what those might be as well. >> Uh, Jianz, >> clerk Thompson, >> I mean, is the the takehome there that statutes were numbered different and so that's kind of what needed to get pulled into the change? That's kind of what I saw in red there. Yep. Um in 414 there were two components. One was a statutory update um and the other one and it was really around some um definitions and so part of that was built in with 414 um and a statutory change and then there was some numbering change as well. >> Okay. Thank you. Um, I would just like to comment um on on the fact that um school board um I mean school district personnel are mandated reporters. And I think that is something that um is a heavy lift and also um just making um people aware that that is an extra layer of protection and safety that um you experience when you um send your your child to a school. So I think that oftenimes we don't pay attention to that fact that that's part of the role of personnel at a school district. So sorry boy it is hard to talk after 10 p.m. >> I think we can move on to 5:24. >> All right. Um our next two um and last two 524 and 524.1 um 524 is the acceptable electronic use. There was a change here as well statutory update um related to filter. So you'll note that in the section that is there um already compliant already on our end. uh we just wanted to make sure we did note that for the committee and making sure that we have that note um as part of the policy and that's 524. So any questions on 524 >> don't see any. All right. Then um 524.1 524.1 um is the student cell phone policy. As you were aware um we did when we went through this made sure that this policy is an annual policy. So it is reviewed on an annual basis. As such that's why it is in front of you so soon. Um here there really are no recommendations for changes at the present time. We're still collecting data. it's been less than a year. Um so we are looking at the additional sets of information that are coming in. Um being mindful of that um as we are in its annual review and part of the phase that we would be looking at here. If there are additional insights or comments from the board, we certainly can take those at this time. >> Chair Andre. >> Yes, Treasurer Hartland. um what kinds of things are you doing to collect feedback and data about this policy? >> Sure. Um I think some of the initial sets that we're looking at are how is it playing out with any of the um insights and fractions. You know, I think you had heard some of the quarterly updates that we're getting from sites regarding what that means, what people are seeing at the sites and getting that feedback from administrators. That's kind of the first set of data that we're looking at. Um I think probably the second set of data to be determined after we've had the opportunity to go back and look a little bit further is what kind of feedback do we think would be helpful with this. Um I think certainly in part of the monitoring committee as part of its work is policy monitoring. Are there sets of data or feedback that the group would want? Um is probably the next step in the collection process so that we could make sure that we would have that information when we think about bringing that forward to the board for its next annual review. >> Okay. So if we approve this now and I mean is that kind of the cycle that you want this whole school year to go? I guess I wonder if if you're in the process of collecting data and let's say in March when it's actually been a year um there is something that your school leadership really wants to see change. Does that mean we can't make a change? >> Oh, not at all. No, the policy can come forward any time. And generally our practice is in the first few board meetings, we look at all of those annual review policies and get those out of the way first. And then all of our other policies are on a three-year review. Um so here just getting this lined up on the annual review would generally be August or September where we generally look at this policy and moving forward on an annual basis. at any point in time if there were feedback um certainly the monitoring committee can take that and bring any policy in front of the board for its review. >> Thank you. >> Thank you for that. So that concludes the policies in first read. So, I would look for a motion to approve the above policies in first read and that the um board directs 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. I. >> Any opposed? The chair votes I. And policies in first read are approved. Thank you, assistant superintendent like. >> You're welcome. Thank you. >> I will now invite our election guru to the table, Natalie Pel. Um, please tell me if I'm saying your name incorrectly. Pushald. >> Pushald. Thank you. Um so this is our item that we added to the agenda. Um we are looking at um approving the notice of general election, the notice of where ballots will be counted, and a notice of public accuracy test. Um those are all linked in the agenda if you've had time to review them. Um, I know that we all got an email about them before, so I hope everyone has had that chance. So, does anyone have any questions or comments on these items? >> I can share about what the PAT is if if anyone has a question about that. >> Anyone have a question >> about what? I'm sorry. >> The public accuracy test. >> Accuracy test. >> Oh, okay. >> Yes. >> Like what it is? >> Yeah. Um so the public accurate accuracy test is we will be lit we will be taking our equipment that we will be using for election day and doing a test run with all the equipment and it's open to the public um just to show that everything is running smoothly and that all of the data is collected properly and sent off to Henipin County properly. Um, we will also have this posted in the Sun Sailor as well. >> And that is scheduled for October 28th at 3:00 p.m. >> Correct. And um, that will be done here at Eisenhower. >> Yes. >> Great. Thank you, >> Chair Andre. >> Yes, Clerk Thompson. >> Just a procedural question. And I know when we had approved things similar to this in our special board meetings recently, we had had to do roll call votes for them. Do you know if these need a roll call vote or if we can just approve all three of these with >> I don't because they're not resolutions, they're just notices. So I believe they just need to um >> Yep. >> be approved. >> Okay. >> Cuz ideally they would have been part of consent. Correct. So, okay. So, I would look for a motion to approve the um election notices listed here. >> So, >> 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. >> I. >> Any opposed? The chair votes I and the election notices are approved. Thank you. Natalia. And that takes us then to um a res we're going to have a resolution calling an executive session, but I would uh invite the board to um make any necessary board member reports before we adjourn to that um that executive session. we don't have to go around the table at such a late hour. Um, does anyone have a board report they would like to give? I don't see anyone. Um I would just make a a mention that um in the consent agenda that consent calendar that we approved earlier this evening there are the um the new board member board goals for the 2526 school year. So just drawing your attention to that they will be put on the website. Um and just wanted you all to know that that those are up and in there. So I will then look for um the a motion to approve the following resolution. It is hereby resolved that the school board of independent school district 270 Hopkins Minnesota meet in executive sess session to discuss negotiation strategy related to the HA contract for the 2526 and 2627 school years that the meeting be held in person and commence immediately following approval of this resolution. Further that it be noted that all board members, superintendent and clerk were duly notified of intention to call this executive session. >> So moved. >> Second. >> I have a motion and a second. Any discussion? Seeing none, all those in favor, please say I. >> I. I. >> Any opposed? The chair votes I. And this meeting is the resolution is passed and we are entering into executive session. Thank you all. Appreciate you being here. Let's have a little bit of a break. Um,