few minutes for Director West Morland. Um, Director Clerk Thompson will not be joining us this evening. He had family obligations. There she is. Don't forget me. Oh, should we say hi to Jen in unison when she sits down? Okay. Like, how about when she reaches the chair? >> Okay, Brook's ready. Oh, Brook's not here. Right here. >> Hi, everybody. >> Hello, dude. >> Hi. >> Hi, Jen. I feel like Norm. Thank you. >> Yes, you did. >> I was like trying to >> Oh, God. >> mentally pull you. >> You did. You can say your own hygien. That's still allowing. >> Well, we all like in serial form were like, "Hi, Jason. Hi, Jason. Hi, Jason." >> I like the I like that it's choreographed. It's very satisfying. >> That was That was our fearless leaders idea. See, it's all right. Since we're all present and accounted for, um we can get started with our workshop for this evening, um welcome back everybody from what I hope was a lovely, um summer break. Um, and we are looking forward to getting back into board business. Um, so to kick off the workshop for this evening for the Hopkins Public Schools School Board, um, we're going to go ahead and look at our um, board goals. I sent out a copy of our current board goals to all um of the board directors and um we're going to go ahead Natalia if you want to present that. Um every year the board um establishes new goals for the year. Um and so this is an ideiation session for um all board members to contribute to those goals and to see if we want to continue any from last year because we don't feel like we quite achieved that goal or it is an ongoing um part of board work. um or if we want to change them and or uh put in new ones. So, hoping everyone had a chance to just kind of glance over. We do this periodically um especially um throughout the year mid year we um give updates as to how we are progressing toward our goals and then also an update at the end of the school year. So, with that being said, um, does anyone have anything they'd like to add? Did we all have a chance to kind of look through them? Do we also feel comfortable with the way in which they're structured? feel like we did a really good overhaul under um Director West Morland's leadership about aligning with our strategic um leadership framework that um all Hopkins school districts use to advance uh vision 2031. So, I feel like that's a nicely aligned practice, but if other um board members have thoughts on if something would be more useful, helpful, maybe more communicative to the general public. Um, open to that discussion as well. >> Chair Andre, um, I just wanted to check with Dr. Mary Perry Reed to make sure that those categories are still what district leaders are using to do their goal setting and evaluation work or if we need to adjust those a little bit. So our strategic plan as part of vision 2031 includes three goal areas teaching and learning, district and school culture and operations. And then we have equity, empathy, and innovation themes interwoven throughout those goal areas. >> Okay. So, an opportunity for additional alignment by really being explicit about those themes perhaps because I think they appear here. Um, but if we wanted to be even more in alignment, we could we could call those out more specifically. >> Are those annual things that shift? No, they are not annual. They are they are embedded in our strategic plan as offering a space for both for longterm goal setting as well as yearbyyear deliverable articulation. But I do see on the document that we do have teaching and learning, school district culture, operations. So it seems like there's some really good alignment and they will not change. >> So the themes are equity, empathy, and what else? >> Innovation. >> Thanks, Jen. >> Sure. Thank you. >> Any other thoughts on those? Do we all feel comfortable? >> Chair Andre. >> Yeah. >> Um I do feel comfortable with the structure and would be completely fine with kind of explicitly aligning with those themes or or not kind of depending on how we feel once this work is completed. Um, I think it might be helpful. And I mean, unless someone has something big that they want to devote a lot of time for, it's possibly even just going section by section. And it would be good, I think, to go through our key actions and see how we did. Um, I don't know if there's ever a place where we I know that we do kind of a mid-year checkup of this. I don't know if there's ever a place where a board workshop or something where at the end of the year where we provide feedback to think about this, but I um appreciate it being right here at the start of the school year and that you allotted so much time to think about it. >> Great. Yeah. I think um how we've done it in the past is we do goal area through and then the key actions is where we do give those updates like you said um Treasure Heartland around um how we're advancing toward those goals and or if we feel like we've achieved it and we want to continue going forward or feel like you know that's done um let's have a different goal. So with that, unless there's any other comments on the overall structure, um we can go to goal area number one, which is teaching and learning. Um and this is um I think focused on our schoolboard professional development. um which I think has become increasingly difficult I think for all of us to um do in kind of more of the traditional way. I I don't think a lot of us feel comfortable um traveling around the country anymore. But um I'm also impressed with how how creative all of us are in getting that professional development. And specifically, I think that we've um our key actions have been said. >> Okay. >> Hi. Um our our um key actions have really been focused on ways in in which we will have I think a deeper and broader understanding of um what our district staff is implementing in the classrooms. So, just wanting to get some ideas about where we're at with those um goals and where we feel like we could add on or adapt. Any thoughts on those? >> I think the key actions are certainly applicable to our work moving forward. Um I appreciate in the second one um that last line in awareness of community needs is essential to be proactive instead of reactive. >> Um I think that's really important and it's something that we've done a good job of as a board remaining aware of what the community needs are um even if due to fiscal constraints we can't always meet those needs. Um, and so I think it's um I I would support keeping these key actions in and moving them forward and adding one um that has to do with coordinating with other school boards and schoolboard organizations um to really protect public education during this period when funding is being stripped away, when protections for students are being stripped away. um to be really proactive about that. And I think that as I look at the three categories, it seems to fit best here. Um but obviously I'm I'm open to your input on that. >> Chair Andre. >> Yes. >> Can I piggy uh back off of director West Morland? I do think that is really important. I think all these key actions are very critical especially um also outlining the awareness of community needs. I think that's um something that we um you know could one be more in community and engaging more in community events and understanding the different cultural needs that we have. And I do like the fact that we are a proactive district, not reactive, and try our best to implement um you know to to implement initiatives to uh support our families and our student achievement. And I do agree that it's really important for us to connect with other school boards and to with other schoolboard organizations to understand where they're going and to learn from them as well because there are some things that other districts are doing that we may not be aware of that's working over in their district. And so I think developing that key relationships would be um is going to be very vital moving forward especially where we are currently today. Thank you. Um let me know if I can spell a word. Um, let me know if this captures what you both were talking about. Um, so one of the key actions would be school board directors will actively partner with elected officials, specifically other school board directors across the state, we could put in nation to protect and defend our famil family's rights to a public education. within that families, right? >> Now that in community presence, we do have a key action that has to do with advocacy. Um it's specific to caregivers and we have a um a resolution coming forward at the meeting later that that addresses that as well. Um, so yeah, I guess I'm just questioning where we should put it, but I really like that wording. >> The seek engagement. >> Um, right. Yeah. Like, can you read it again? Can you read the really good thing you wrote? Um, >> school board directors will actively partner with elected officials, specifically other school board directors across the state and nation to protect and defend our family's right to a public education. You said our famil family's right. Should it be our students rights or >> It could be >> our student and families cuz >> I feel like it's families too. >> Yeah, >> maybe they don't have a right to it, but >> Well, no, they definitely have a right. >> We could change that. We'll go to the Supreme Court. >> But it also sounds okay, too, though. Like it's it would be fine if it stayed family. I think if we place the key that key action right after the second one because we talk about learning best and next practices and we talk about community then it's kind of like and then we're going to use these this information to do this right to partner with electeds across jurisdictions so I think then the flow makes sense Do we all like that? And I can continue to word smith and if people have any ideas um because we'll be presenting this at the future board meeting so we can certainly make changes going forward. Any other thoughts on this first section? Do we like our we like all of these so far? Still, >> Chair Andre? >> Yeah. >> Um, so on the fourth bullet, um, I'm just wondering if we could do something else to try to reach people, right? I think we've talked in the past about, you know, there's a certain subset of people that know about the workshops and, you know, listens to our board reports. Um, but is there anything else that we can do to reach the folks that don't attend these things? Right? Thinking maybe like farmers markets or I don't know, uh, just having somewhere somehow some way to reach folks where they are where they're at. Um, I'd be interested to think if we could be innovative in that outreach. And I I think that um I know that for me a lot of that it feels like it fits in the community presence, the school district and culture. >> Okay. >> And um I have some ideas that I've been thinking about as we're moving into this next year that I think would speak to what you're >> okay. you're talking about if does everyone feel comfortable moving to the next sessions section so we can talk about that. Um but I also agree um director Xiao that this fourth action leads directly into how do we get that information to our community? Um because I think that's essential. Oftentimes I think it does just stay in this room. >> Yeah. >> Um and we might want to um for that report I mean we've we've always put board member reports at the end of the meeting. Um, and maybe just an idea we could think about. Would there be a way in which if something is really impactful to our community, we could do a short thing like that that a board member is bringing something from some national meeting that they went to or something. Um, that they could have 15 minutes at the beginning of the meeting when more people are paying attention and awake. Um, so that might be something we want to discuss. Um, where those board member reports fall in the meeting. So I like that idea. That could be something we talk about. >> Shar Andre. >> Yes. >> Do we have a place? Do you have a separate document or um could we create one about sort of the methodology as we're having these conversations? You just mentioned one way where potentially we could move the timing of schoolboard member reports. Um, another that potentially comes to mind is I don't know that this needs to be a requirement, but a board member giving a report could specifically reference a goal area potentially. Um, we could say, you know, in support of goal area number one, I did this thing. So, we could tie it back and that would keep it to the front of our mind a little bit. And and then when we're trying to evaluate ourselves mid year, we'd have something to point to that'd be a thing that potentially I could take on would be to go back and be like, I heard, you know, we had nine reports, say on goal area number two and nothing on three. Um, so that's a thought. And then I also wanted to voice support for this idea of bringing the board to the people a little bit. And that's kind of very specifically why I wanted to know if you wanted to make a separate document with notes about potential ways we could do this. Um, sorry. Sorry, Rachel. Are we moving then into goal area number two? I yeah I suppose you told director Jaw that that's where he wanted to discuss that. So sure as long as everyone else is ready. >> Okay. And as far as a a separate document I'm kind of making the notes in this document. Okay. >> Just so that um if it comes to things developing into a key action, they'll be part of our board goal document. um if we do at some point want to shift things from a board goal to maybe something that we're looking into more um we can I think it's a good idea to have a document like that and I think Natalia set one up for us last year um so we can definitely shift those things over um once we determine where we want them to live if they're a developing idea or if they're a part of our goal document. So, thanks for that. >> Okay, so we move on then to school district and culture and that is our um community presence where I think a lot of um this thoughts and ideiation have been going on. Um, and I I I want to preface this with these have always been um I think a big part of board work and we've um focused on them. So, just to let everyone know and to remind all of us, we do pair up with schools um and we participate in the events of those schools and intentionally engage there with the community. Um, school board members are expected to be present at district events whenever possible and school board members will hold engagement sessions about schoolboard decisions and we will actively seek engagement of caregivers and committee work and schoolboard members will collaborate with student board representatives um and that they will serve on committees of the school board and I believe there's a specific ask around that um director West Morland. But I also think one of the things that I am wanting to be more intentional about is talking about our communications practices um as a board. What we have found in I would say the past year and a half to two years is that communications and interactions with the school board have gone gotten to the point where they're almost at pandemic levels. Um and so if the board would entertain the idea, I would like us to revamp how um we are accountable as a board for our community presence and engagement. Um, one of the things I think that is critical is that we have an automatic reply to emails that come into the board. >> Um, that say it says something like, and we can talk about what that would look like, but we've received your email. We um, you know, appreciate that you're reaching out to us. someone who um has some understanding or I not quite jurisdiction but has some um ability to respond to your email. will get back to you within a week. And then at that point, um myself and um the superintendent can designate who would respond to that email. Um and because I think it's largely falling on um Dr. Mary Perry Reed to respond to most emails because most emails we get are not about board governance. They are about operations. Um and but I feel like it is the board's responsibility to have that initial response to the community to say someone will get back to you and then we will go through and decide who's responding. Um, I also think that we can start making sure that a board member, like if it's coming from a specific school, if that is your school, then it would be your responsibility to reply directly to that community member alongside whatever staff member is designated. >> Um, so that they know that the board is listening. I mean, we are we read everything. Um, but this would increase our engagement with the community by saying, "I'm here. I hear you. I am specifically linked to this program or school. >> Do people feel comfortable with that shift? >> So, Chair Anderson, will that be a slippery slope for like the high school for instance?" So since there's not principal there at the moment and we have interims I guess where I'm seeing it is that to your point since most of in my opinion most of the feedback that I'm seeing is more operational. >> Yes. That is probably where I'm like I don't know how comfortable I feel especially if I'm not aware of like if there was a fight that happened at the school. I'm not aware of all the details and I want to be very careful about I mean I could send like a broad statement of like we see your feedback uh somebody in the administration will get back to you. that I feel good about. Anything more than that I don't feel good about from an operational perspective. But that's that's my opinion. >> Yeah, >> maybe we're saying the same thing. >> No, I Yeah, I agree with you. And I think that would be like I think that we as board members would have to really be careful about what we're communicating as like the assigned board member. Um, and to your point, if you don't feel comfortable replying, then that becomes something that you could say like, you know, I don't know anything about this. Shannon, can can you send it to ROA? >> Or what I often do in my emails to community members is I say, I have CCd the appropriate staff member on this email and then leave it at that. Um but yes, board members would have to feel comfortable in their replies and to be measured in their replies. >> Sure. Yeah. >> So yeah, I think everyone would have to feel comfortable with that. >> Yeah. That I'm not cons. It's just there's always two two sides of a story. Yeah. And that's where I'm like unless you do like and depending on like how much time you have to do an investigative like understanding to me I feel like it could be a slippery slope because then you don't want to say something and then next thing you know nope that all the uh facts I was everybody I was raised by a lawyer so that's just my lawyer that's just the child of a lawyer is like you have to be very careful if you don't have all the full facts of the situation. >> So that's where for me >> I'm not speaking for anybody else. >> Well, I think I think you probably are cuz I'm seeing lots of nods. Um so maybe we do want to keep our current practice of operations goes to admin. Um and then school board. We have already replied by saying the appropriate staff person or appropriate person will reply within a week to your email. >> Do you feel comfortable with that, Dr. Mary Pur? >> Um, thank you for asking. So, two things. Um, I'm not sure what that reply is going to look like. So I think we need to clarify if because the entire board and the superintendent receive and Natalia receive the emails and then is the designated board member only replying to the individual and CCing the superintendent so not a reply all. Is that correct? And then also um I I think because the superintendent is the board's employee then it's always it's going to be important that the superintendent always gets CCD >> and then I will designate which additional staff persons if not me will follow up with the operational response. >> Yeah. And I think what we're talking about is that we would have an automated response when an email comes in to through the form. The automated response would I think go to Can it go to everyone? >> Um I feel like >> so we need to figure that out. >> No, it can't. >> I don't. >> So it would just go to the person who sent in the email. Um, so it would go to them and it would say the appropriate staff person or appropriate person will get back to you within a week and then from there you and I could decide who it goes to knowing that 99% of them go to you. >> Okay. >> Um, but if it was a board, I would give it to the appropriate board person. Like >> Sure. I I would be like, "Oh, you know, Jen is the board member at West." And >> so then she could reply instead of it always coming from me. >> Okay. >> Do you feel like that's a good practice? >> I think that's a good system. And then I did want to just clarify that we do have a leadership structure at the high school that is operating in the form of a principal with Lisa Tao being the lead, but the four administrators will be working in concert with together all the time to step into that to that leadership role. So we're we're operating with them as though there is a principal there because technically there are four. >> Um and it's an interim model. So just to clarify, >> thank you. >> But I do like that structure. I think it's a smart idea. >> Great. Chair Andre, >> yes. >> We have a document that's called board processes for communication that we created during COVID and then updated as we all came back in person. And I agree with you that it would be an appropriate goal to revisit that document and the processes. >> Oh, great. So we already have a template for it. So kind of a lot of these things have already been worked through like the technical aspects. >> Um but I think if the if the goal if the if the action item could be you know the board um revamps board processes for communication something like that just really high level. then that gives the board the opportunity to have a more in-depth conversation at a workshop um and kind of work through some of the the technical aspects and then really identify like what is the goal of having the automatic response you know I think that that's an important question like what are we really trying to achieve here um are we wanting to ensure that community members know we've received it do we want community members to know that they're heard you know like getting really um a little more granular about that about the why. Um, and then I think an important part to bring into the conversation because communication is a two-way street. Um, and I'm I'm so happy that we don't have a real strong culture of um, vitrial and abuse of language um, in hop in our Hopkins schools community. Um, I know that other districts are struggling with this a lot more. Um, but I think something to consider would be, you know, um, and we say this during our public comment guidelines, but, you know, broadly speaking that, um, you know, I think that there is agreement across Minnesota that we really need to tone down the vitrial and the hateful rhetoric. Um, and so acknowledging that as a value that we hold in our board communication processes as well. So obviously a lot there to talk about. So I I really like the idea of having it as a goal for us this year. >> Thank you. Um so the goal would be to revisit the board processes for communication and increase um board accountability. >> And I'm going to share that doc so that everybody has it. >> That'd be great. Um, another piece of this and it I'm not quite sure where it we kind of broke up. I think I guess it would be more board culture, but um one of the other things we were talking about for communications is to um start hosting like a a number of our board um colleagues um locally nearby host what they call listening sessions and those are separate from board meetings. Um, one of the things that as board chair I feel responsible for is um how long our meetings are going. Um, I think last year we saw very late meetings um where I think um few of us at the board t table feel like we can do our job to the best of our ability at that point. And so, um, hoping that these listening sessions would be a space in which the community could come and it would satisfy that desire to be heard by the board. Um, and these would be above and beyond our engagement sessions, which are limited to three board members and are a space in which community members can ask questions and get responses. It's more of a back and forth. But the listening sessions would be a space in which community members could show up, could address the board. Um, and then at that meeting, at that time, we would um assign a board member or a staff member to reply to that community member. Um wondering if that kind of goes within what you're think what you said director West Morland around processes for communication or if we feel like that would be a separate key action item to establish a format for those and to get dates and and those kinds of things. Just wondering what you're thinking >> or if you think we meet enough and maybe don't need those at this time. >> Chair and Dre. >> Yes. >> Uh I think that's a a great idea. Um I guess logistically would um is there a requirement for transmitting it online and could we and if not could we you know roundro in our schools right and maybe that you know the folks that don't have a car or transportation they could go to familiar area and uh you know kind of be where they know the school is right and and you know or or are you thinking it's always going to be here at Ike in the community center. >> Um, so are are you proposing like kind of a hybrid situation or like maybe alternating like we could have in person and virtual like one is virtual, one's in person? >> Yeah, I guess that's my question is what's the format, right? Are we I mean is it going to be in person, online? You know, >> be curious what people think. Um yeah, >> I feel like uh virtual would be easier. >> Yeah. >> Right. Then but I don't know then do we run into issues where people have to be part of our Google staff like how could people join? Are there any tech constraints for having a listening session virtually with the board? We'd want to prove that they're in the district, right? They have a student here or or either either they're in the community or they have a student here. I would think >> I think it's more around how structured we want the Q&A portion to be or if it's more >> I don't think there would be a a portion. It's just a listening session. >> Oh, just listening. >> Yep. The engagement sessions are the ones where we just have three. >> So it would be basically an expansion of our public comment. >> Oh, sure. Okay. Mhm. Chair Andre kind of what has already been brought up as far as location was just mentioned recently about communications that anything >> I didn't really follow that is it possible to have like a virtual listening session or No. >> Yeah, it would be possible. Um, it would just be around what does moderation look like then? As well as >> if it, you know, if it's open and it's open everywhere, would you have to have some sort of a location verification or something like that? That would really have to be some details there would have to be figured out. But I think those are the two items that most immediately come to mind that would have to be considered. >> Okay, thank you. So I have down here um I think are most of us in agreement that we like the idea of having these and did you have something to say Rachel? Sorry. Um yes I did and I am interested in board listening sessions and in this you know collaborating with other school districts and have taken some time to look into it a bit and I know that in Bloomington and Robbinsdale they have forms that you must fill out. So similar to how if you show up here you have to fill out a comment card or if you're going to leave a voicemail there's a time cut off. So there's either an online form or or someone can call and there's a time cut off in order to participate in the listening session. Um I know in other districts if nobody signs up for it the listening session does get cancelled. I know that in at least one district they only post audio and that has allowed them some flexibility with location though I think typically the location is in their boardroom but one other thing that it does is it kind of reduces people's potential anxiety about appearing before the board >> because as you mentioned director Jao I mean we the amount of people that like on one hand we get hundreds of emails and on the other hand those hundreds of emails often come from the same say 75 stakeholders not exclusively of course but there's a portion of our community that is comfortable with engaging with the board has the time to engage with the board is okay with speaking on camera and so there's some ways in potentially in which this listening session could either meet pe you know be virtual and meet people more where they are um or even as a matter of public record be less high stakes. >> Thank you. >> Okay. So I have um one additional goal is that school board members will revamp board processes for communication and increase board accountability. >> Um I think we can say to the community. Yes. >> Chair and Dre, can I um ask a quick question? So in terms of um board communication, I know that often when we are assigned to schools like I did, you know like a few school tours um but really want to understand like what like what is our goals of like our school tours and our school visits. So I don't know if there and maybe this is the document that director West Morland is talking of but like do we have like certain governance questions that we can ask you know like the principles just to kind of get like their feedback on governance things and bring it back to the board regarding like that specific school. So we won't really get into like operational things you know and and if they do want to share operational feedback that's totally fine and we provide that to Dr. Mary Perry Reed, but operational things in terms of like policy and you know or some things that like are a potential violation or something at the school that may have gone unnoticed and we take that feedback and bring it to the board as a whole and um address it that way. Um just as like some key talking points when I'm going cuz I noticed that you know folks may feel intimidated when a school board member just comes and do and do a tour and visit their classrooms. Um, I want to just make sure that I'm being very effective in my schoolboard tours. Um, and also is there way that we could do maybe more collaboration with our principal. So, could we maybe attend one of their coffee with the principles and just let people know that we are their board reps? Cuz I don't think a lot of people know that we are that their school even have a board rep. So, I think um I know Dr. Nolan does them pretty frequently like he does them in the morning or sometimes he'll do them in the evening or even just like co-host like an event or I don't know maybe not co-host an event but I think definitely the coffee with the principal and we don't have to sit there and talk or anything right but just showing presence and being >> in there for support to let them know that we're the board rep and sharing the process of hey you know if you do have a concern um you know I am your school board rep please reach out to me and I think that will lessen the confusion of like people addressing the whole board about a specific school and just maybe all Gatewood parents come to me and all Tanglin parents go to director West Morland, you know. So, I think we can tighten up that process just a little bit. >> Yeah. Thanks for that. And I think too, um, I like your idea of, you know, the more you're at the school and you introduce yourself to parents, they'll come to know that that's your school. Um, and also I know a big one is PTO. I think director Xiao, you go to the PTO meetings at your school. Um, that's a great way for parents to get to know you. Um, so thanks for that. Anything else on this topic? Oh, and so the the other goal is um board listening sessions will be established to account for format, frequency, moderation, sec security security concerns. At that meeting um a follow-up design will be assigned um at that meeting. I said it twice and the speaker um will know who that is. Does that sound good to everyone? Yes. Um, chair Andre. >> Yes. >> For number I have thoughts about a couple more of these bullet points. Number four, schoolboard members will actively seek engagement of caregivers in board committee work and advocacy. Um, while I like the spirit of it, it carries like kind of very little meaning for me and the operation of each committee is just is such that the like the appropriateness and the the ability to do so and then the method by which you do so seems so varied that I have a hard time like I don't want to take out actively seek engagement. I want to more actively seek engagement, but that piece doesn't have a lot of meaning >> to me. um and would rather wrap it up in something specific like the third like I'd rather us adjust the this third bullet point about where we might hold engagement sessions and maybe you know in this committee work like for example policy is there in the third bullet point >> like I'd rather kind of designate a few areas in which we might hold engagement ment sessions then keep this vague fourth bullet point. Um I think the thought behind that was to ensure that we have um caregiver voice on our committee work which I think engagement sessions are different. So, um, you know, I'm thinking about the LACE, >> um, and I'm thinking about SEFAC. Um and just yeah so I don't I think the engagement sessions have a different function than what the committee work this one is trying to reach. >> Does that make sense? >> It does. Um, and I als I can appreciate that this is a different piece. It still feels too broad, unmeasurable, like we will never take that, like would we ever say that that goal was achieved? And maybe that's not even really the function of this document. But, um, there's a couple things on here that strike me as either really vague or like kind of business as usual. Like we'll be present at district events and like that's >> fine. we can there's no reason we need to take that off of there. It is like there's there's just a few pieces that seem difficult to measure, difficult to say that we've accomplished and then therefore are they goals or are they like expectations? >> Yeah. And are they action items? Right. >> Other thoughts Well, I know I know I keep bringing this up, but we do have this resolution tonight that's coming forward that's all about a family engagement plan, a caregiver engagement plan. And I think that um the idea of welcoming caregivers into committee work, that also comes with a time commitment. um the times when our committees meet are not always uh feasible for community members. It's not always feasible for them to join us. And then as the the resolution that we're going to talk about tonight addresses, there's um there's a financial aspect too that people are missing out on work. And so I'm wondering if this could be like the goal could just be broader um until we see what happens with the resolution tonight um and kind of the actions coming out of that and so that it could be more aligned instead of like we're talking about this thing over here and then we're talking about this thing over here. Does that make sense just in terms of process? >> Um how about this? I like what you're saying, Director West Morland, and you too, um, Treasure H Heartland. So, I revamped it to say school board members will address barriers to full caregiver engagement in board committee work and advocacy. >> Okay. >> Yeah, I was going to say that that sounds good. >> And we can already check it off, Brooke. >> Done. I like that. Thanks. Um, did you want to do anything about the be present at district events? >> Um, I mean I don't again I don't think that it's bad on there and like we'll continue to do something. It just was that um >> I think it's fine. Or we could put a number so it's measurable >> like for each school's events. >> A number of uh how many events like one board member >> or we could say a board member at least one board member will be present at all district events. All all including athletic events. >> I I I will chime in and say I think that's unrealistic for me. >> Like no >> I mean I >> there are a lot of events if you think about open houses, kindergarten play nights, athletic events. So then you might have to specify which kind of events you're >> wanting to be ro you know rotating through. >> Yeah. Yeah, if I didn't have three kids, I could probably be at >> I could be in Jamaica right now, too. So, >> but >> I guess I don't think that it's a bad thing if the key actions list just gets longer. It kind of shows that we more fully understand our our role and I don't think it's a bad thing to keep on there. And I guess in a way the schoolboard members will be present at district events is not the actual goal, right? The actual goal is as representatives of the community, it is important that schoolboard members engage with scholars, staff, parents, caregivers, and community members to understand their priorities and how the school board's decisions impact them. So potentially there's some amount of needing to think about our goals measurability, but this specific bullet point that I and I'm the person who brought it up as not measurable. I don't I think it's a good example of a key action and doesn't need to be measurable in and of itself. I mean, we could say a major district or major district events because I feel like there'll be a board member at the Rock and Royal there. I would assume there would be at least one board member there. There would be at least one board member at one of the games. Um, basketball for men's and women. >> I mean, you could go down the list. I I usually feel like when we're all either given board reports or I mean I've seen a few of us out Halloween in Hopkins >> so I mean I feel like I've seen people out in the community. >> Um but yeah I think maybe the major district events >> versus Yeah. I'm not going to go to every single kindergarten roundup or >> I mean some of us has probably been in at least one PTO meeting. >> Yeah. >> Right. >> That's true. Can um Chair Andre, as we're talking about events, is there a way that we can like have name tags for us? So like when we are at events that we can >> um have a name tag and then also like when we do go to events like Halloween and Hopkins or you know like the raspberry festival that we maybe have like some little paraphernelia to give out like board paraphernelia like little gravels or something something that we can give out to kids um because I do think there's a gap of understanding of what a school board member is >> um and what we do and so and maybe we have like littleformational things of what >> a school board member is. That's cool. We don't have to have like, you know, like a major book, but I think something to give folks an understanding. I think there is this assumption that we know like what a school board is. And I've had to explain to like several staff member what a school board is and like they work at the Hopkins district. So, um I think there's something there. And I think some cute little stress balls or something. I I don't know if we have our own like logo for school board, but just something Stress balls seems on brand. So that'll be better. Here's a school board. Stress ball. >> I also think that one of the um >> that's funny. >> One of the key actions should be put on your >> on your email page. >> Schoolboard stress ball. >> Just a picture of it. Um >> a whole bunch. I also think that one of the key actions should be Z is required to be at every major district event doing balloon animals. >> Yes. >> Or as a panda >> or wearing the panda. >> Or wearing the panda. Doing balloon animals in the pants. >> We had a sumo function. That was >> um >> that's embarrassing. >> We could put in our budget to get a new one. >> How about this? um Brooke that um one of the key action items under this would be to increase understanding of who and what school board members are and their role in the community. >> Yep. >> Does that work as an action item? >> Okay. So, we have five minutes of course in classic fashion. Um so wondering if we can can get through goal three um operations and the first of course is fiscal transparency and understanding wondering if anyone has any thoughts on these. I feel like we did a great job last year. Um, we can pat ourselves on the back. Um, of really endeavoring to do that by hosting engagement sessions um, in particular appreciate your reports, Treasure Heartland, and the way in which you connect them to the LACE um, advocacy. Um, but just wondering if we want to do more, do different this year. And right, we do have that we will partner with the superintendent and director of business services to hold a budget education. Do we want to change that to fiscal director of finance? >> You mean the title of the No, we can keep the title direct business services >> employed by Cecil if Yeah. >> Okay. >> Um I think my thoughts are I think this first one's the most pertinent to me though of course all of them are pertinent to all of us. Um, we did manage to hold a budget engagement session um last session and and something that I'll be looking forward in um business service leadership as some partnering on that and how to get even more people involved. Um, I am really proud when people come to us, come to the meetings to talk to us about the budget and have spreadsheets and are have their ideas because I don't feel like that is something that would have been very possible >> um just a short time ago. And so I like the work that we've done to kind of break the budgeting process down and I'm excited about continuing that work. Um, the fourth one feels a little bit too specific possibly. And what I think instead I kind of I can see you typing there and I think talking about the the interplay of the levels of government and how um we are facing challenges um from funding that comes towards our schools at from different levels being changed or challenged or frozen. And um that's work that I feel pretty strongly about. And specifically that mechanism of privatization seemed very specific and not something that we really did last year. How are we feeling? Like um so board members will acquire an understanding of the unique pressures upon public education and its impact on school funding from from all levels. Or we could say from >> even it's impact on school funding like you have >> state >> possibly >> local or just impact on school funding. Keep it simple and share that with the community. How does that sound? >> Personally, I like it. >> I think >> Okay. And now policy. This is where you get to shine, Vice Chair Ross. Um, policy, transparency, and understanding. Are we feeling like these still hold true? I think we also did a great job last year um in particular around the cell phone policy um of being very transparent, collecting tons of feedback um from our community in particular. I loved the ways in which students felt empowered to speak up about their experience and staff as well. Um but any other thoughts on these goals? Are they good? Do we want to do anything different or better this year? I think I still like these three particular goals, but would be open to if we would like to amend um because I know to your point um when we were working on the cell phone policy that was pretty expansive with one seeking the feedback of our peers here at the table, initial feedback and then you know working it was it was actually very robust to be able to reach out to the community, parents, um, students. Not shocking that both parents and students weren't on the same page of like, uh, when it came to the cell phone. Um, so I thought it was a very robust I mean, the only thing I could see is we didn't hold like an listening session, per se, >> right? Um, I think we were up against a very tight timeline that it needed to be um, basically executed and then um, approved by the board, put in, you know, process and then implemented. And I think most of the questions that at least I was seeing were about implementation versus the actual policy per se. Um, you guys can keep me honest, but that was I think if my memory serves me correct, I would say 90% of the emails had to do with how is this going to be implemented? How are you guys going to be able to ensure that students? So, I mean, I'll be open to if we want to add more on here, but definitely I like the I mean, I would be interested to see what a community engagement um session would be with a major policy change, but yeah, I like these. >> Great. >> I don't know if my peers um >> I don't want to make it seem like it's just a silo opinion. So, if my peers have anything else they feel they want to change or add or keep as is. >> Well, it's been a full-time job keeping you honest, Jason, as policy chair. So, there's that. But, you know, um that's fair. >> You've just been really grateful for your leadership and um I I I like the As I'm squinting at them, I just like lost the doc on my computer. Um, so I I like the the action items that we have. Um, I think they're high level enough so that we can continue to be agile so that we could as a committee identify some policies that could be like bigger ticket policies where there would be um more of an impact in terms of implementation and then hold um very specific and tailored engagement sessions around those. Um, but I think just being we could even phrase it to be a little bit more general because we we get really valuable information from surveys as well, both qualitative and quantitative data that's informed our decision-m as a committee. Um, so I don't want to discount um those different types of engagement because those have been really important. >> I do have one question. Do I know Dr. Abby Holm is no longer with us. Do we have I guess who is on point for any statistical significance data pulling? We have data specialists who remain with us and one of them IANG is in the audience but we we do have folks who can pull data and help you tell a story about what the data is saying. >> Awesome. Thank you. Uh, so Jen, were you suggesting that um we incorporate um survey responses in the policy education and engagement sessions? >> Oh, absolutely. We could do those. Um I just wanted it to be inclusive of other forms of engagement and and getting feedback from people, not just the sessions. Yeah. Does that work alongside community surveys? >> Yeah. cuz I think there are some people who would prefer to fill out a survey than come to a whole engagement session about a policy and then I'm the person who wants to come to the whole engagement session instead of filling out the survey, you know. So like there are a lot of different styles and bandwidths in in our community in terms of how people want to be involved. >> Well, thank you all. Anything else? >> Just super duper quick. Is there any way that in any of the policy like we can talk about like just having multiple times that we meet so if parents do want to join they could join like um we just have like different sessions that they can attend that would be more equitable. So like I know we meet at 4:30 but like we maybe meet at 6:30 to meet for those parents who get off of work or maybe a 9:00 meeting for those parents who can make it in the morning. Just thinking >> I think for the policy committee that's more of a working group. >> Okay. >> Um so like parents wouldn't be members. They can certainly observe. >> Okay. >> But they wouldn't be >> members. Okay. >> Members of the policy committee if that makes sense. Am I thinking of that correctly? >> Um I think actually you've landed on I think that's our only committee. Um, anything else >> to director Roer's point? Certainly for the engagement sessions, making sure we understand like the >> Yes. >> the optimal time for people I think is really important. >> Yeah. >> And we'll do that with that key action. And I think too um I do know that you uh director West Morland had talked had spoken with our student board reps and they are also asking for that. They want to continue their service on committees and are asking for times to be um inclusive of their schedules. >> Exactly. Or the ability to participate asynchronously. So, we talked about like putting the policy we're working on in a Google doc >> and giving that to the student board reps and that's their copy and they can comment on it and then we take a look at their comments during our our monitoring committee meeting. So, we're looking at just kind of some different ways of doing things. >> That's great. >> Okay. Well, thank you everybody. I think this was very productive and lots of great ideas. appreciate it. And that takes us to um the next item on our agenda, which is the fall data report, and it's part one. So, we can anticipate a part two. I will turn it over to Dr. Mary Perry Reed. Thank you, Chair Andre. Well, tonight we are beginning our rhythm of quarterly student achievement reporting and um we want these reports to be part of our commitment to transparency and to ensuring that our school board, our staff and community have a clear picture of how our students are doing across the system. These quarterly updates will allow us to report progress over time. Some of the achievement data that you'll see is summitive um and this is important but we also want to emphasize the importance of growth as well. We want to share um how our students are growing, how our improvement strategies are working and where adjustments might be needed as well as overall how we are doing with the mission that is outlined in vision 2031. And so I'm very pleased to have Dr. Anne Urle who leads our innovation design and learning team and IA Vang who is um a really um highly capable uh data specialist in our system. uh IA was at Metobrook before and now is helping um more at the uh central office space at the district level. And so very grateful to have IA on the team. And we hope that um these reports will give our schoolboard and community some information about our achievement data, but also spark some conversation and some staff and leader reflection as well as point to potential instructional or resource alignment. So, we're really excited about sharing this um information with you and we look forward to a time to answer questions and engage in discussion. Thank you an andia for joining at the board table this evening and for all the work that went into putting together this report. >> Thank you Dr. Mary Perry Reed. Good evening board members. It's nice to nice to see you at the kickoff of this year. >> Um as Dr. Dr. Mary Perry Reed mentioned this is part one. There is a part two to the fall data. Um and then there are many more parts throughout the rest of the year. So um get used to our faces. We'll probably be here a lot. Um we decided Go ahead to the next slide, Natalyia. Thanks. Um we we did decide to break the fall report into two pieces. One just because of the availability of our MCA data and access data. still embargoed. Uh but also there's it's sort of a lot for the fall. So we just thought maybe we would we would ease in. Um and then this also gives us a a chance to just kind of at a high level talk about overall how we're thinking about data and what our data strategy is as well. So um this slide really kind of illustrates how data flows across our system from classrooms to schools and then to the district office and then back again. And it's meant to be a continuous cycle that not only supports student learning but also instructional improvement and our strategic um decision-making processes. So, uh, just really quickly, I'm going to talk about data at each of the levels. Um, at the classroom level, our teachers are encouraged to use collaborative team time. So, you'll see collaborative teams on there. Um, really to analyze student assessments and student results and then adjust instruction. Data is used there to ground and inform instructional coaching, some teacher evaluations, and this is where data is the most actionable. where teachers can make those real-time decisions about student learning. This is also we've um you've heard us talk about street data. This would be our street data level. Um the next sort of stop in the cycle. Sorry, you can go back one um is that school level data. So, school leaders are engaging with their building leadership teams regularly on schoolwide data and IA and the data specialist team and the IDL team are working with our schools to build their use of standardized systematized protocols and those quarterly data meetings uh to look to do those deep dives into what the school data is telling them. Um, another school level piece of data is a new principal evaluation model, um, which is a data which is also a data informed way of helping us support our leadership development. And this is something new that Dr. Campy um, has been working on developed in response to new legislation. And then finally, uh, fidelity checks, which are to ensure that data practices are implemented consistently. Finally, we've got that district level data. And so at the district level, and you've heard us um a little bit about this last spring, we've got a few key structures. We've got our big data project, um which is in helping us to understand what our data looks like really over a long range term. And then our Hopkins instructional leadership team, Hilt. Um the big data project has been helping us not only um center or excuse me centralize our data systems but also again make those sort of see what our data is telling us over the course of in some cases decades. That's with some of the data sets that we're looking at. And then in turn, our data specialist team and our IDL team are working on um what are going to be the shared protocols, you know, what does it look like at the high school level versus Harley Hopkins to really use that data consistently. And then the this district level data is typically what we are building our board presentations on. So we aren't necessarily sharing specific school level data at the board table. Um but those data reports that we are generating at the board table, we're working with our data team to make sure that they're getting the same thing at the school level and then able to utilize that even at the classroom level as well. So it's a simple diagram, but it it really is a model of how we're working to operationalize our data um in service to equity and excellence for all of our students. And every level plays a role. uh they're they're they're complimentary roles, but in some cases pretty different roles, but together we are creating a system that's grounded in evidence and responsive to student needs. So with that, I'm going to turn it over to Ia and she is going to talk about um the sets of data that we're going to be looking at tonight. And I know she wanted to start with these norms which uh were developed with with Dr. Abby and our data specialist team um just to sort of ground us and help us as we are looking through what our data is telling us. >> Okay, thank you Ann. Um hello everyone and thank you for having me here to share some data. So again like what Dr. Erdle said, we'll uh begin with looking at our Hopkins data norms because we're going to look at some data. Um and it's good for us to understand these norms so that we could make sense of the information together because when we talk about data we sometimes come with a lot of feelings too and so um it just helps us to all be on the same page. So the first one is we stay low on the letter of inference. What that means is that we focus on observing and digesting the data before jumping to assumptions or conclusions. The second one is we remember that behind the data are people. This one is a very important one for me. Um, just know that every data point represents a real person in our community, whether that is a student or staff, family, and should be treated with humanity and respect. We check our biases and assumptions. We acknowledge our biases, especially confirmation bias, and work to prevent them from distorting our data interpretation. We don't let perfect get in the way of progress. We use data even if it's imperfect to make important decision while giving grace as systems and practices improve. And then we know that how data uh are presented matters. So we present data responsibly avoiding misleading interpretation with statistics correlation or percentages. So as we talk about the data just keep these norms in mind. >> So the first >> we could end here. The first no um data set that we're going to explore is the internal graduation rates. Um and then we'll talk about ACT and then AP data. So for our graduation rates, you've seen this slide. Um here's a quick recap of the graduation rates we shared at the end of the school year. So in the June school board meeting, you are familiar with this slide. Um, according to MDE calculations, the graduation rate for the 2023 2024 school year was 85.6%. 9.2% of students are continuing, 4% are unknown, and 1.2% dropped out. MDE reported a total of 374 students graduating from Hopkins that year. I believe the Department of Education um calculates graduation rates based on when students begin nth grade. So, the data you see here is a four-year period. Um, and so let's move on. Um, and then apologies, but just making sure that the state was 84.2% and Hopkins was 84.6%. So, it's a little bit higher than the state. Um, and then here is a recap. Um, Dr. feel free to jump in, but here's a recap of key findings, current actions, and next steps to help us better understand and improve graduation rates. One area for further exploration is how the state classify graduates and how our internal coding in epid campus, which is our student information database, aligns with those classifications. So, reviewing these practices will help identificate gaps and strengthen the accuracy of our graduation reporting. Another important takeaway is the need for consistent and accurate data entry and ethnic campus. And then moving forward, we'll focus on strengthening um communication and family engagement, holding regular data meetings to identify and support students. This could look like a credit uh status checks, right? Implementing those after each term, and then also family engagement. Anything to add? Okay, next slide. All right. So, I had a lot of fun with this. In reviewing the graduation coding process in Infinite Campus, we have found it to be very complex with multiple layers. The two graphs I wanted to present um represent projected 2025 graduation rates. We are not going to get these graduation rates from MDE until the next spring. And so, we're just going ahead and trying to see where the gaps are. Um so, you'll see there are two graph two graphs. The first graph on your left uh shows a 79.3% rate. This data is po represent all of the student who are enrolled in that 12th grade um cohort during that year. So the last year, their senior year and it includes all students who enrolled whether they only attended for a while or whether they did not finish with us um is the the total number of students who enroll in that year. And the second graph shows a 89% rate if we exclude students who moved, transfer or were dropped. So the graph to your left is all of the students who have enrolled as seniors during 2425. And you'll see that um 9.8% is continue and the 10.8% are students who are either they're enrolled and then they dropped or they're only here for a few days. if you still have an enrollment status from them or if they transfer or they had an attendance drop which is a 15-day consecutive dropped. Um so yes so you see two different graduation rate. I don't know if VU is a part of our virtual um school is a part of that MDE calculation. I believe it is but I thought it was interesting to see also VU 12th grade just by themselves. Um, and you'll see that in reviewing the graduation coding process at Infinite Campus, we also uh found that it was also complex. Um, and so when including all 12th graders who enrolled that year, the 12th grade cohort shows a 50% graduation rate on the left graph, the rate increases to 69.5%.4% if we exclude students who drop, move, or transfer. So these differences highlight the layer nature of the complex layer nature of graduation rates. A recommended next step is to analyze outcomes by student cohorts. For example, how many students started at Hopkins in 9th grade and graduated from Hopkins High School or virtual edu? How many began in kindergarten and graduated from Hopkins? And then also how many enter in secondary like during middle school and also graduate, right? I think those three data points would really tell us a lot more. Um, at this point I don't have access to those calendar years. So when I do, we'll analyze that data and see um what that looks like. >> Right. The next >> Can I just ask a question? When you say dropped, >> um, what does that mean? >> Yep. So when I in our infinite campus student information database, we have something called a data fields called um end status. And so a 40 means give me a second. For example, a 40 will mean they enrolled the last day but they may not graduate. If they had a code of a eight, it mean they graduated. 20 mean transferred, right? So different codes mean different end status for that student. Um, and so drop would be if they had like a 15 day drop, then the end status is a 50-day drop. Yep. So, it's just really based on those codes. Um, and it's not even based on like what what we're not looking at the student finding out exactly what happened. I'm just pulling that raw data right there. Mhm. >> And I think just to emphasize why that matters is >> um >> well first of all who who's entering those codes is really really important and then the consistency of practice because >> um that that is what gets reported to the state and that's the only way we have to look at our rates using infinite campus is based on those codes. And so this is another area that um we are working with our high school but really all of our schools to build those consistent um data entry practices so that we can be really confident that you know when some when there is a code 8 entered that we we all know what a code 8 means and that it's consistent across all of our schools. >> Yeah. And in that database, it also has a graduation or a diploma date. And we can also pull that and make sure that those two spreadsheet when we pull match each other. >> And I just want to clarify that the 15-day drop, this is this refers to a state statute that mandates that we drop that the school system drops a student who is absent 15 consecutive days. >> Thank you. >> All right. The next set of data is on ACT. Uh this spring, Hopkins Public Schools continue its commitment to college readiness through strong ACT participation. So you'll see here that 529 students participated in the ACT assessment in spring 2025. Um 85.8% um took it once and then 13.2% of students took it twice and then we do have a few number of students who also took it three time or four more times. And then here's the breakdown by ACT uh participation by race and ethnicity. So you'll see here uh 49.6% of the students who took participated in the test identify as Caucasian and white. Um 27.5% African-American black students, 3.8% Asian, two or more person uh racist 8.2, to and that there were a few unknown or other as well. Compared to the state averages reported by ACT, so class of 2024, Hopkins matched the state's composite score of 20.7, a higher percentage of Hopkins students met the English, reading, and science benchmarks, while a smaller percentage met the MA math benchmark. So on this graph right here, the darker blue is Hopkins, the lighter is Minnesota. Um and you'll see that the student who participated that year their um score is higher. There's a higher percentage of them meeting the benchmark compared to the state. All right. By race and ethnicity for this one, white Caucasian students had the highest average ACT composite score at 23.6 whereas African-American black students had the lowest at 17.1. So these are the average ACT composite score by race for our students who participated in ACT testing. All right. To meet the English benchmark for the ACT, students need a score of 18. The graph shows that 82.2% of white Caucasian students who took the ACT met this benchmark, which means that they had a score of 18 or higher. This racial group had the highest percentage of meeting the benchmark while black African-American students had the lowest percentage meeting the English benchmark. If we look at reading, it is similar to meet the reading benchmark. Students need a score of 22 or higher. The graph shows that 69% of white Caucasian students who took the ACT met this benchmark, the highest percentage again, while black and African-American students had the lowest percentage meeting the reading benchmark. And then to meet the math benchmark, student must score at least 22 on the ACT. According to the graph, so based on the graph, 54.8% of white Caucasian students met this benchmark. uh while only 13.7 of black African-American student reach it. This represents a significant disparity for math and it is also very similar to science as well. So to meet the science benchmark, you can go to the next one, Natalia. To meet the science benchmark, uh students must score at least 23 or higher. And then here you'll see 60.7% of white caucasian students met this benchmark. um and then only 13.7% of black African-American students reach it. So this also represent a significant disparity. Should we hold questions for the end or can we do it as we talk as they talk? >> What is your preference either? >> Yeah. Yeah. >> Okay. So can I ask a question then or com? So obviously that disparity is stark and >> frankly >> to me unacceptable. So what's our plan for closing that? >> Well, I think um the the most important well not the most important an important first step is to acknowledge that that disparity is there and then because ACT is what we would consider sort of this more sumitive satellite level data. I think we have to dig into a few things. One, one of which is probably um re reviewing our programs. Um even though these are high school students, it's reflective of students who have been in our system, we presume for a number of years. And so this I think is one of the critical areas that our program review has to address. And as you know, Elsa came and talked about math last year. We're looking at math at the secondary level starting this year and then also English language arts and reading. So I think program review is a critical component because these results don't reflect where we would like to see our students. Um I think the other thing that this um nods to though is um really more I guess pedagogical in nature in the sense that um you know I I believe I and I think this deserves further research that we likely have some students who are accessing uh ACT support structures and other students who aren't. And so I think we would also want to examine other contributing factors like that to help us discern um what is going on but then also what what are the interventions that we can provide as a school system that maybe some families are accessing on their own um but other families aren't for for a variety of reasons. So I think um you know I think it's it's probably a multiaceted multi-pronged approach. There are certainly things programmatically that we can and should be looking at for improvement. I think there are probably also some um sort other barriers that we certainly can influence but um definitely need further study and investigation. >> I'd like to add to that. Um thank you Dr. Erdle. So two things. One, Dr. Cool is working on a structure for teachers who teach English, math, science, and social studies to embed about 10 minutes or like a um a small amount of time every day so that students can engage in ACT prep which they can access for free through Maya learning which is the college and career readiness platform. So that is something that um we're going to be incorporating this year. And then I do think that um we can host a data review session with our math specialist and with our math teachers so that they themselves can see how students are doing on the math component of the ACT and start to put together some support strategies for students who are in their math classes. But we also need to identify students who because this test is um taken in October or in April or both. >> I think it's it was offered multiple times. >> So if there are students who are not in math all year, right? Then which students are taking the ACT test during that semester or which yeah which students are taking the ACT test but are not enrolled in math at that time and how do we identify and support those students. So I think a multi-pronged approach is um very important here. >> Um also do we know which of our students are taking this? Are they all are now were they juniors? Is this >> Yeah, >> majority are juniors. >> Yeah, there were a few a few tenth graders. >> 10th graders. >> A few 12th graders as well. >> Okay. Um, so one of the things I I have context around these scores because I have a junior who took this test at that time that we're looking at. And I can also speak to the disparities um, which I also feel are not where we want to be as a system. And yet I know that my child was educated um underneath our much more segregated enrichment program than we currently are practicing. So I feel like we are looking at data that is reflecting our past practices here in the district. And I can tell you by looking at the programming that my child was in um I would expect these results. So >> thanks >> to put more plainly, right? like when our black students are mostly excluded from access to rigorous math instruction, then they don't have the opportunity to advance and excel in ways that other students may have that opportunity. >> Yes. >> Clarifying question. So if I look at this these data points not um and obviously thank you there's quite a bit. So if I look at the ones that I mean we could just take math for instance and shows the 13.7. Do we know if the 13.7% of the black students were taking advanced placements >> or have we met probably that's inappropriate I guess. How do you identify a volunteer who could say what that particular that 13% were doing? >> That the obviously >> uh the six the you know rough math I would say the 40% >> weren't doing. And so the question I'm wondering is were those black students in advanced placement or were they using my learning a little bit more? I think I just don't have an obviously >> to director Xiao's point it is stark um difference to see >> compared to everybody else and obviously I know you know this is not reflective as of today of like the rigorous math but I also know that the roll out at the middle school for North was kind of not great from the math perspective and if you want to say emails those emails that I did see, but it seemed like not just I mean I couldn't identify whether or not the parent was black, white, >> sure, >> or how they identified, but I could definitely tell >> there were a lot of parents who are frustrated. >> I got a lot of frustrated parents from North who thought their children were on a trajectory to be able to take. So I think there's multiple variables that I don't understand of whether or not I think the main thing I'm trying to understand is the 13.7 what were they doing >> and nothing to cast a spurgeon to the remaining population but what were they doing where if you look at people who identify as white >> 54.8 eight. So then what were the 6% that you know we're doing? >> That's really interesting. You know what we could probably do is look at because we know we do we know who these kids are. We actually probably could look at for example which math class or which math classes had they taken just even in the context of their high school years. And we and that might be an interesting um data point. I don't know if it would give us causal data, but it would at least um show us, you know, do we see any trends with students who by the 11th grade have taken XMath class or Y math class? We could I think we could start to tease that apart quite a bit actually. >> Sure. Thanks, >> Chair Anderson. >> Yes. Um, might a data point in the future include the percent of I know you said there a few tenth graders and a few 12th graders, but typically >> this at ACT is geared at juniors, correct? >> Would we be able to see say what percentage of juniors >> took that test because that's something that >> the numbers are really pretty small, but we could definitely disagregate that in the future. Absolutely. >> Yeah. >> Okay. Thanks. So is that different than the participation rate that we have at the beginning? >> The participation rate is any student who took the test that year. >> Mhm. >> So it encompass all 10, 11th, and 12. >> Okay. Thanks. Um and I did too just want to know um if we're b breaking it out by race, ethnicity, is there a way to include our Native American students as well or was that not significant enough? >> It was a very small number. So, we didn't want to >> Okay. include >> Thanks. Yeah. >> Same with our American Indian students. >> Yeah. Okay. >> Okay. The last data set we'll look at is advanced placement courses. Um, so in spring 2024, 883 tests were taken. Um, but this year 1,166 tests was taken. So, this is a 32% increase. And then last year, 558 students participated. And then oh sorry in 2024 and then this past year it was 705 students. So there was a significant increase 26% of students taking at least one exam. All right 37% of the whole school so the whole high school took an AP exam. So 37% of that student population around 45 to 50% of students enrolled in at least one AP class. So this is a very high number of students participating. 45.8% of the class of 2025 took at least one AP exam and this was a 20.2 increase from last year and then from 2024. Um and then in se 79% of students earn at least one passing AP score which is also a 2% increase. And then 76% of all AP exams taken received at least a passing score. And then here is just um letting you know that 15 out of the 22 subjects scored above national or state averages for those students. So um the course the subjects are listed on the right and we'll do more analysis of it when we get the data as well. So this was reported to us. Any further questions? Thank you. I appreciate having this before us before the um the school year starts. >> Um and just a side note, I love that we have AP ceramics. But any any comments? >> Jar Andre. >> Yes. Director Joe. >> Yes. Uh well, 32% increase is amazing and actually like miraculous even I would say. Um what what do you attribute it to, right? like what I mean is are things just are we firing on all cylinders or you know was there a change in strategy? I'm just curious. It seems high in a good way. >> Um I well I would answer that I I think um though the participation numbers are rebounding from COVID still. So, I I think part of it is is that, but I do think that our high school leaders and also the teachers are just really intentional about recruiting students >> um and and being very um >> you know, there's I I think students have a a lot of feelings about the the the idea of taking an AP class, especially if they don't they've never taken one or they don't know anybody who takes them. So, I think our teachers have just done really an outstanding job at making the idea of taking AP accessible and then really working hard to match students who um might have an interest in a particular area and really pushing them to try an AP course. You do see sometimes um with our uh AP numbers in the fall, there are some volatility sometimes. we we reg we try to register a lot of kids into those AP courses um to give it a try and and sometimes there's a little bit of attrition with that but I think overall um the strategy of of targeted and really inclusive recruiting has yielded just a a better participation rate >> please thank the teachers and everybody involved with that because I think you know not only are more people taking it the scores also increased right so we're not just like throwing having students at it and you know wishing for the best but they're passing you know I think they're s seems like probably millions of dollars uh for their parents and families. >> Yeah. >> So that's a really really good story and uh >> you know I that energy if we apply it to ACT right like that's kind of what I'm trying to connect right is like how can we take that energy bring it to other score other things right and like we know how to do it we just you know >> how do we do it? Mhm. Absolutely. >> Thank you. >> When I think it also sort of speaks to >> um the underlying things that you don't always see in the data, which are which could include things like motivation. So it so um students who have invested a lot of time in in preparation for their AP assessments might have a different attitude about that assessment than students who sort of feel like they have to take the ACT. And so I think and that's that's just a a a mindset. So those kinds of things I think we can work with our students and our um college and career readiness folks, our counselors to help um students see the value in in all kind of all of the assessments that they that they take. >> Yeah, I want to echo what you shared um just now, Director Xiao. I think that our students respond to what they see the system values and there's a lot of marketing efforts that we are engaged in to promote the importance of taking rigorous courses such as AP CIS. Our students hear about this. Dr. Erdle talked about the promotion of advanced placement opportunities within the high school. And I agree that if we also let our students know in a myriad of ways that taking and doing well on the ACT is important, doing well in math is important. Like how do we increase the um attention the strategic and intentional attention paid to um these different course experiences that are important for students. I'm assuming we have also a racial breakout since there's a number jump from 883 to 1166 of like which races are from a percentage taking the AP classes >> with this percentage jump. Um, and then my second question is, [Music] is there a seminar that happens for the freshman that kind of like somebody who's already a student, they're not going to really probably listen to an adult, but so another student who's in an AP class kind of gives them like, hey, this is what macroeconomics is like because I would be interested to see like how many black students are in macroeconomics are biology or computer science principles. >> Um, I'd be very curious about that. But whether or not there's a seminar and I know Dr. Cool is probably working with other counselors to see how they identify >> students that probably are not going to naturally you say, "Yeah, they should be in AP." the people who have like a gift that I mean I feel like every student has a gift but you know you say this child would probably you know benefit in AP and then somebody's talking to them like your future endeavors because I would imagine freshman year is kind of can you figure it out sophomore years you better hit the ground running especially if you want to get to the Harvard Stanford MIT >> and pay half the percentage >> right well I think um Dr. or Director Ross, I think um we can work with Mr. Sandler, who is our AP coordinator at the high school, to get a demographic breakdown. We don't have that information tonight, but we can provide that either a as a followup or we can revisit it when we're back next month. >> Um but to your other point about the influence, the peer influence. So um actually one of the things that our big data project studied for us was around um college applications and one of the findings um and I don't have it in front of me so hopefully I don't um mess up the details too much but one of their findings was that of as you noted peers of course are highly influential in even which colleges that students are are thinking about applying to. And so one of the things that Dr. Premier Perry Reed and I've been working with our big data team on is developing um kind of what you described which is sort of a a peer ambassadorship role for students um so that they can be encouraging their peers not just around college but around some of these topics that we've been discussing tonight trying AP courses um taking the ACT test seriously and how to find study resources and things like that. So that strategy that you alluded to is actually something that we're um going to work with Dr. cool on to really identify um you know not not just who are the students who always are very visible in our system but who are those students that maybe are a little more behind the scenes but actually have a lot of social capital with their peers and um and and leverage um those students to be sort of the um the on the ground with their peers and really promoting uh the importance of some of these Thank you. >> Yeah, >> thank you both. >> Um, can I ask a quick question? >> Yeah. >> Uh, so really quick, um, are we also asking the students about their um, like their ACT scores and processing with them, you know, on like what went wrong, what was like what were you like where were you thinking like what were your struggles with the test? Um because I remember when I took the ACT, I guessed on every question. It was cold. I had to catch the bus down to MCTC to take it. I had just lost one of my first friends, like my first funeral ever I have attended for a friend. And so my mind wasn't there. And so I know that my answers wasn't reflected in what I had learned. But I also didn't have anyone process with me either about what were some of the struggles on the um on the test that we could maybe you know um you know talk and support other students with or kind of just getting some feedback about it. So is that type that level of engagement happening with our students to ask them maybe what are some of the bigger struggles with the test and the test questions? Maybe >> that's a really good question. I don't I don't know um the answer to that off the top of my head, but I think that's definitely something that we can explore with uh Dr. Cool and our our high school counselors because I think that would be especially >> um if a child already knows that they're going to take it again or like that could be an opportunity really to talk to a student about like what what happened do a debrief what might do you know you can take it again here are some strategies that we could try. So, I like that idea a lot and we can talk to our high school staff and see what is in place now and what might be possible. >> Awesome. >> I think that's incredibly important, Director Roer, because it gets that this idea of self-efficacy. Um, a colleague of mine did some research on the impact. He was focusing on black boys, the impact of them seeing like like bad grades, right? Like over and over and negative feedback. um and like the experience of getting an ACT score that is not what you hoped for, right? That it does have a psychological impact. And with students who have experienced that throughout their educational journey, having this happen at the end of it, it really impacts their sense of like what is possible for them and and very real like materially what is possible for them as well, right? Um when they leave our schools. And so I think this piece of processing and like really getting at that street data right around like why did this happen um and helping students understand too that like you are so much more than this one standardized test right your brilliance is um is so much bigger than this is really important work. So thank you. >> Yeah absolutely. Another important point is that many colleges are returning to requiring the ACT as part of the admissions process. So I think for a while our students were like, I don't have to take that, right? I can apply to college and be seen as a competitive um candidate without that score. And now, excuse me, now many colleges are returning to that to requiring that. And so we do need to um just emphasize the importance of ACT prep and then really showing up strong on exam day. >> Chair Andre. >> Yes. >> I have kind of a specifically a board question. Can we have because I know I've experienced the like we have this great data piece attached as a slideshow to this agenda and then when we see it again in a quarter like trying to go back and find it and either it's like oh >> either it's still not shared with us or whatever can we since this is a big movement from our partner it's something that I think this board should be really proud of that we are moving in this direction of of wanting to show this to our community and I think the district admin and and all of our staff should be really proud of it. Can we is it going to be posted on our website or at a minimum can we have a copy of it in a folder for the board so when in a quarter or a year >> we come back to this we can be sure that we can see >> or can it be archived in on our agenda? Well, so one thing that I and I are planning on doing um is we're going to keep all of our data presentations in this deck. >> So it the I mean it's going to end up being tons and tons of slides by the end, but they so at least for this year for 25 26 everything that we review with all of you will be in one slide deck. So that's maybe a small help. Um, but as far as any kind of um I don't know, any kind of print out, we're happy to package it as a one-pager or um a set of handouts. Anything that would be helpful and useful, we're very happy to provide. >> Okay. >> Perhaps maybe Natalia, if you could look into like is there a way to like I know in PowerPoint you can generate PDFs of >> Oh, sure. >> and maybe we do that and link that in the agenda so that it's static >> um and yet you can still have your presentation being functional. >> Absolutely. and and for future I mean as as you are interacting with our community if there are sharing structures that would be useful like a one pager kind of a reference or something like that we're happy to provide that too >> great chair chair >> and yes >> yeah uh for we're talking about usefulness too like I think in one year right on on this meeting for next year when you're presenting um this I think it'd be useful to show like the same data side by side, right? So like last year we were 13.7, right? And this year we're, you know, 20 or 30, you know, higher I hope, but I expect I need to be higher, but uh you know, so we're we're closing the gap. We're not there, of course. You know, it takes time to turn the ship and all that, but it would be useful to be to have that context to be like, oh yeah, we're improving. That's good. Versus like going back to a deck, you know, I don't it's hard to do, >> right? and our um our MCA results are set up that way, but we can definitely employ that with our data sets. >> Thank you. >> Great. >> Thank you so much for all your time putting this together. Um appreciate it. >> Thank you both. >> Thank you. >> And we all have seven minutes for a break before we're back here for our organizational meeting. That was fake news. We have six minutes. get started on our meeting. >> Look at how good we are. We're your favorite. >> You love us. God working on my lonel. >> Oh, is that just like >> Have you heard of capacity? >> Have you heard of Ellie's? >> No. Alo. >> How? How do you know Ellie? >> Like that? >> No, but with like the >> Oh, with her hand. >> Yeah. >> Oh, no. She has showed me. >> Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. >> Yeah. >> Yeah. >> I'm trying to work on it. >> That's how we get people back. >> Oh, that's good. >> I know. So good. minutes. >> I would like to call to order this meeting of the Hopkins Public School Board at 7:02 p.m. on Tuesday, August 19th, 2025. Thank you all for being here. Um the first order of business is our organizational meeting that we do at the beginning of each school year um to get some business items out of the way before we can begin. Um so I would like to um seek a approval of tonight's agenda. >> So move. >> 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 agenda for our organizational meeting is approved. Our uh first order of new business is the designation of the official district newspaper. I would like to invite um director Goldadi up to the board table and we'll turn it over to Dr. Mary Puri Reid. >> Thank you, Chair Andre. So just for our community members, every year during our organizational meeting at the board table, we do name the official newspaper for the district and our director of communications and marketing did some research to look into what the pricing structures are and just to confirm that the Sun Sailor will continue as our official newspaper. Anything you want to add to that, Director Goldad? >> I don't think so. Um I uh the rates that are currently in the agenda I believe are the updated rates. We they the sun sailor has um has gotten back to us with that information. >> A pretty simple designation unless the board has questions or concerns. >> Any questions or concerns? Um, I would just like to comment generally that this is required um and something that school districts have to do um is to post things in a uh local paper. We are lucky that we actually still have a local paper. A lot of districts don't. Um and so um the only thing I am wondering and we can um look into it later is I often find because I live in Minnotonka that the Minnotonka um Sun Sailor doesn't necessarily post our Hopkins school >> stuff. So, we might want to be in conversation with them that actually they need to put it in both the Hopkins and the Minnotonka versions. Um, because technically more of our district is in the city of Minnotonka. >> So, just to remind them of that, >> I think that we um I have I have to verify this, but I I I think from the latest like physical copies of the paper I've seen, we've they seem to have merged us with St. park which is which is very different and that's a a very different poll from um our where our residents live. >> So yeah, I do think we should look into that and make sure that we are in both. >> Great. Thank you. So with that, I would look for a motion to designate the Sun Sailor Sun Post Publications as the official newspaper of the Hopkins Public Schools for the 202526 school year. I have a motion. Is there a second? >> Second. I have a motion and a second. Any discussion? Seeing none, all those in favor, please say I. >> I. >> Any opposed? The chair votes I. And the um design the official district newspaper is designated. Thank you, Director Goldie. >> Thanks, Julene. And next we will look to the appointment of our legal firm. Um I will invite Assistant Superintendent Lightfoot to the table and turn it over to Dr. Mary Perry Reed. >> Thank you Chair Andre. Again, this is an annual and standard procedure to approve the legal firm that we use when Dr. Lightfoot who is also an attorney needs that thought partnering for our system. So appreciate the expertise that he brings to the legal space, but also anything you want to add, Dr. Lightfoot, about this um designation of Ratwick, Rosac, and Maloney. Yeah, the only thing I would bring to the board's attention is that as um outside council, they do provide general information to us and if necessary on matters that may require some very specific um counsel in specific areas, we do also um keep that open as options. So, for example, if we have any need for um immigration work with staff on H1Bs or other kinds of very particular areas, um we will work outside of Ratwick um to get that level of expertise if needed, but in general, they are our outside counsel that we go to first for any general needs that we would have. And is this um sorry I'm just wondering is this the how long have we been using them as our >> um attorneys? >> I'd have to go back and double check. Five or six years now. >> Okay. Thank you, >> Chair Anderson. >> Yes, Treasurer Hartland. >> Thank you for coming here tonight. Um, I imagine that this is a relatively niche specialty to be able to provide the information that a school district needs, but um, if you say that we've been with this firm for five or six years, uh, how often do we shop for other either experts or compare the rates of these attorneys with other firms? >> Um, we don't necessarily run our FPS. Um, I mean, we certainly could if there was a desire and or need for direction from the board. >> Okay. >> Chair Andre. >> Yes. Director West Morland. I think something that I've really appreciated working with this firm in the monitoring committee for policy questions um during some of the things that we need to consider during close session at times is their deep knowledge of our district >> and that they we've worked with Laura for longer than five or six years is my memory. >> Um Laura's been close to about um different firms but close to about 30 plus years. >> Yes. So, she has a deep knowledge of our district and has helped us with a lot with various situations over time. Um, and so I just I think that that's um a really important consideration here for retaining their services. >> Thank you, >> Chair Andre. >> Yes. Director Contrus would like to add maybe something about this firm also specializing in special education law or >> Okay. >> Um, >> thank you. >> I know our district first of all, good evening everyone. >> So, I know our district um encompasses more than students with disabilities and I think that is probably the number one source of um lawsuits, if you will. um in districts. I was just at a training last week um at MDE and because special ed and 504s are so much about laws being followed um I've worked with Laura prior to coming to um Hopkins, but she definitely um helps lead and guide us in multiple ways. And it's whether students are on IEPs or not. It's the 504 plan. They She is the number one trainer in the state of Minnesota for 504s and IEPs. And unfortunately, many of my colleagues have been to court. Um I won't name the surrounding districts, but um there's more that have been than have not been. And so I think our legal counsel helps to train on the proactive side and guide us when things come up cuz everything about 504s um and um for IDA everything about 504s and IEPs are legal. So that's just my two cents. So I've been doing this over 20some years and I think um her guidance and teaching has um been supportive for us. >> Thank you for that context. >> I appreciate that. >> Thank you Fonda. >> Any other questions? >> Um well thank you. I appreciate um all the comments and the fact that um I think that administration appreciates working with this firm which you know is a great um recommendation for me. So with that um I would look for a motion that the board approves utilization of the legal services as provided through Ratwick Rosnack and Maloney. I hope I said that right. At hourly rates as noted above for the 2526 school year dependent upon the services required and that the board allow district administration the discretion for the 202526 school year to seek other legal counsel andor utilize a licensed attorney when there is a need to acquire special expertise. >> 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. >> The chair votes I. And the legal firm has been appointed. Thank you, Assistant Superintendent Lightfoot. >> Thank you, Nick. >> And now we will go to review of school board policy 253, which is board member compensation and expenses. We need to do this every year. Establish our compensation um for the school year and a review of um the expenses which would be for um participation in appropriate conventions, conferences, workshops, seminars and similar meetings. Um so yeah, I would open it up then to any questions, comments from my board colleagues. We also have here a background in compensation going back to August 2020 um when we had a 0% increase in our compensation. >> Chair Andre, I'm happy to give a little bit Thank you. I'm happy to give a little bit of historical context here. So that 0% increase was um as you can see by the date in the thick of COVID um when we were not quite sure what our financial situation would be. Um and then you see the subsequent years we have a 2% increase which um is aligned more or less with our union the increase that our our teachers have gotten. um we have discussed before as a board that we would not feel comfortable going over that um just historically. And another key component that has come up every time we've talked about this um since I've been on the board is that board member compensation is absolutely an equity issue. This is a laborintensive role. um we you know I I don't even want to do the hourly what we're compensated hourly if we divide that out. Um and so that means that historically board service has only been available to financially privileged people um or not people who are not financially privileged and really make a sacrifice um in terms of time and their earning capacity um in order to do this work. And so, um, I always advocate for an increase, um, so that we can keep that moving forward. I think there needs to be a much bigger fix, a statewide fix and conversation around this. Director Roer and I have talked about this before um, so that we can really ensure that our school boards are representative of our communities. >> Thank you. >> Anyone else have any >> chair Andre? >> Yes. >> Yes. I I have a comment I guess. Um so last year I I voted actually no uh for this and um and it occurred to me I didn't explain why. Um so I you know thought I'd like to just talk a little bit about that. So you know I think uh it is true that um you know uh from an equity and perspective and from a you know amount that we're earning perspective it's just a token. Um but you know I view it in the uh kind of um context of the historic budget deficit that we're still in and you know we h we don't have the numbers yet quite yet but I expect probably um you know we're going to be in a situation where there's not going to be a lot of resources to go around and so you know controlling what I can control or what we can control is important and you know it is again just a token but it's like if we can control certain expenses you know I think that is an worthy message. Um, but I do definitely agree that it's an equity thing. Um, but it's not something that is solvable by just us. So, just wanted to explain. >> Thank you. So, you would be advocating for a zero increase. >> Yes. >> And if I heard correctly, Director West Morland, you would be in favor of a 2% increase. >> Correct. in line with what other staff are seeing in the district. >> Thank you, Chair Andre. I think, you know, it's important to note that the reason that we have a deficit is the structural underfunding of public education over time. And that is not a problem that we have created as school boards. In fact, we have worked to remedy that. Um, school boards for decades have been working to remedy that. And the fact that we do have a budget deficit means that we have even more work to do as schoolboard members in terms of engagement um in terms of making really hard decisions at the table which means those decisions need to be well researched and so that would be an additional argument for the 2% increase. >> Chair Andre. >> Yes, Treasure Hartland. >> Yes. Thank you. I I mean I appreciate both of those perspectives. We certainly are. I mean, a school district is um not a place that's overflowing with um with wealth and resources, but I think that it is fairly compelling this point about how this the very underfunding of this makes this job even more demanding both in time and in kind of mental and emotional power that you bring to it even even more demanding. And and I think last year we had a very similar discussion and the truth is that a 2% increase we're talking about $121 a person or about $850 for the entire board. So that's you know it is of course not nothing. It would be kind of obtuse to call $850 nothing. Um but as far as the collective efforts of the people in this board, I think that it is more than worth it. And if you use the US Bureau of Labor and Statistics, use their inflation calculator to say what the $5,578 stipend that's quoted here as our 2021 as the 2021 stipend. If you run it through their calculator, it says that in for July of 2025, you would need $6,888 to equal that same amount. And so I think by a 2% increase we'll be at something like $6,150 annually. So we'll we definitely have lost wages compared to inflation. >> Thank you for that context. >> Chry, can I >> Yes, director. >> Thank you. I I wholeheartly agree with um you know uh director West Morland and Treasure Hartland. Um, and also understand your perspective too as well, director Zo, about the school board pay, but I do want to emphasize like I've been emphasizing for a long time that this is absolutely equity issue. Even talking to folks who have considered running for the school board have definitely declined because of this very issue. They don't have the resources to be able to sustain themselves as a school board member. And the the work is very levy I mean very heavy. Um we are I mean we are a smaller district so I know that our pay is smaller but compared to other districts we are on a lower scale. Um and not saying that the money is like you know like the main factor but it is you know we do often give up other benefits you know of a school board like a school board right like we look at our professional development and we look at the things that we're needing to sacrifice in order to even make up some of those deficits. I think um an investment in us is very key and also having that representation on the board is very critical especially in our divisive times that we need to think differently about public education and how we're going to structure that for our next generation. So thank you. Um any other thoughts? Um, I have to say I um it gives me pause to approve a 2% increase in compensation for the board in particular um being aware of where our um salaries or compensation or stipen falls in the budget. Um and I want to be transparent about that. it does fall in admin services which we have received direct um feedback on from our community that they feel um we need to dial back on. I also know that with the historic cuts in the district to administration services, we are um as a board feeling the pressure to take on more work and responsibilities and I think that our community needs to be aware of that. In particular, I know a big lift is the upcoming election. Um, and Natalia is is working really hard to make that happen. Um, and we have had to ask our clerk to step up and do a lot more than has ever been done historically by the school board directly. And so, balancing those two very real um, tensions um, is what I'm thinking about when we look at this discussion. I also recognize, yes, $800 to show um that the community in the district values every person at this table, I think is more than appropriate. Um, and I'm just sitting with that tension. So, that's kind of where where I am. And I agree it is an equity issue. Um, and I think if you are serving well on the board, you you really don't have the time or energy to pursue other other things. Um, so do we want to just take a around the table? Do we want to put it to a vote that we're I think what I'm hearing is the majority of the board is for a 2% increase in compensation. >> Yes. >> Should we vote? >> Okay. Um, I would also just quickly want to note, um, to support what you said, Director Roer, we as a board are very intentional about keeping our other expenses minimal. Um, and I think that that also needs to be um, part of the public discourse. We we are very conservative about our professional development. We do a lot inhouse which is another thing that the board is taking upon themselves to um do our own professional development um to save the district money. Um and so just making sure that the community is aware that we are doing things to save as much money as possible and have cut that budget item from um repeatedly. So, um I would uh entertain a motion that the board establish establishes the appropriate compensation for 202526. Also, that term life insurance in the amount of $50,000 for each board member be continued. The total cost of the insurance for the seven board members is $525 annually and $75 per person. Um, and there's no increase from 2025 to 20 2024 through 25. Um, and that we are approving a 2% increase in compensation for the board. >> So moved. >> I have a motion. Is there a second? >> Second. >> I have a motion and a second. Any discussion? Seeing none, all those in favor, please say I. >> I. >> Any opposed? >> Nay. >> Um the chair votes I. And the um motion passes. Thank you all for the discussion. Now we go to authorization of district memberships um 2025 through 26. And I will turn it over to Dr. Mary Perry Reed. >> Thank you, Chair Andre. So, there are currently two memberships for your review. The first is AMSD, the Association of Metropolitan School Districts. And um what this is is a a board that consists of the superintendent and um one board member, sometimes an an alternate board member from about 47 metropolitan districts that gather together monthly to review the legislative platform and to engage in professional learning that advances uh the support that leaders and board members provide their systems. And as you can see, the membership fee increased very slightly to amount to $10,286 for this school year. And um the second one is Minnesota School Boards Association, which is the a key support organization for schoolboard members across the state of Minnesota with the 2526 Huh? >> Well, we have the 2425 membership fee listed of 13,317. And do we know if it has increased for the 2526 school year, Natalia? >> Yes, that should have been this year. 2526 membership fee is the one that's highlighted. >> Okay. So, just the date is incorrect. >> Thank you. So board members, you can see what the fee is then for this school year and we're correcting the date and um this is a membership that is um very specific to inform the quality and support for your roles. I'm not sure if any of you would like to add to the value that being a member of MSBA brings the school board here >> and AMSD >> to both. >> Sure. >> Mhm. >> Director Ross are sorry, are you our current AMSD >> representative? Great. >> Yes. I think both of these um organizations, I will speak specifically with MSBA, um just being able to have those model policies and be able to um reach out to MSBA to be able to ask some questions, um to be able to ensure that, you know, we have a seat at the table and that they are working um legislatively And I would say same with AM um SD AM at SD is very very good about keeping members apprised of any legislative um situations that are coming down that if you're not you know watching C-SPAN um sorry I'm old school uh if you're not watching C-SPAN on a regular basis they are you know letting you know. So, I think both of these organizations um help are helping out our district as you know best as possible and um we do have a seat at the table which I like. >> Thank you. >> So, I'm for it. >> J Andre. >> Yes, Treasure Heartland. >> I think last year knowing that we were going into something of a deficit year, I was a bit skeptical or at least brought up for discussion. you know, are we getting our values worth out of these organizations and have kept that in mind all through the previous school year? And I think that um my answer to my own question from a year ago is yes, that we absolutely have gotten the value out of having a professional network and having access to the professional network. Just like um Vice Chair Ross said, especially in times like this where there's so many changes where so many districts are in a deficit where we're seeing ch the changes aren't just coming from our state level. They need to be kind of interpreted what's coming from our federal level. and that to take away this network would increase the burden enormously on us and the and district admin and staff and would advocate for keeping both of these memberships. Thank you. Um I I have to agree Treasure Heartland. I too was very much on the fence about the value um and have found myself increasingly in particular reaching out to MSBA as um the the need to um answer community questions in a legal and appropriate way. um as those are becoming more and more frequent and more and more um indepth um I found myself utilizing MSBA a lot this year and really value that they are there and a partner and are able to guide us as board members so that we are meeting state statute and are continuing to run um the school board and best practices. So I would say I am in favor too of continuing both these memberships. All right. So with that I would look for a motion that the board authorize continued memberships in AMSD and MSBA for the 202526 school year. >> 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 the motion passes. And with that, we have completed our organizational meeting. So I would um look for a motion to adjurnn. >> So moved. >> Second. >> I have a motion and a second. Any discussion? Seeing none, all those in favor, please say I. >> I. >> Any opposed? The chair votes I. And we are adjourned at 7:33 p.m. >> And we get to move right in. >> Not for long. >> To the next meeting. We're going to call to order once I get it pulled up. Okay. So, I call to order this meeting of Hopkins Public School Board uh for Tuesday, August 19th, 2025 at 7:33 p.m. Um so, welcome. Thank you all for being here, um for tuning in. If you're here online, we are coming right off of our organizational meeting which we do um to establish um different things that need to be established before the school year starts. Um our first order of business um usually in our um meetings is our open agenda which has a public comment section. Do we have any voicemails or comment cards for this evening? Great. Thank you, Natalia. >> Thank you. >> Sure. >> Thank you, Director West Morland. Um, I am going to trying to find my open meeting. Um, here we go. Um, so welcome. Thank you. The Hopkins School Board believes that hearing from our community members is crucial for implementing vision 2031. Um, there are several ways besides I'm showing up here for public comment that you can contact the school board. Um, you could do so via email at school-board@ hopkinschools.org. Um, on the board on the schoolboard page on the district website, you can find a contact the board form and email the entire board. Um, and so at board meetings, public comment will be received both in person and through voicemail. We do not have any voicemails this evening. Um, and we do host two public comment sections. We will not need our second one. This one is 30 minutes long. Um, we have one comment card, so we will not need the full 30 minutes. And here are the guidelines for public comment. Please keep your comments to 3 minutes or less. Public comment is for input only. Members of the school board will not respond directly to public comments that are made at this meeting. No specific action will be taken at this meeting in response to comments that are made or issues that are raised during the public comment period related um to or that um prioritize items um on the agenda. If the board determines that action is appropriate, the action will occur at a future board meeting. If you have left your contact information on the comment card, a district representative may follow up with you after the meeting. I will recognize one speaker at a time. Only those speakers who are recognized will be permitted to speak. Individuals who interfere with or interrupt speakers, the board, or the proceedings may be asked to leave. Personal attacks on any individual, including any other speaker, during the public comment session, are unacceptable, as are obscenities or profanity. Persistence in making such comments will end the individual's opportunity to address the board and may result in the individual being directed to leave. I will rule out of order any statement that would violate state or federal law, school board policy, or the privacy rights of an individual. Minnesota's open meeting law prohibits the discussion of private educational data during an open meeting. Accordingly, during the public comment session, no person may discuss private educational data on an identifiable student. The open meeting law also requires the board to close a meeting for preliminary consideration of allegations against an employee. Accordingly, community members who have concerns about an employee or want to file a complaint or allegations against an employee are encouraged to contact the superintendent. We ask you not to name any employee by name during your comments. Repeated violations of these time, place, and manner restrictions may also lead to the meeting being briefly recessed. Community members will have an opportunity to be heard within the limits of the law and subject to the time, place, and manner restrictions above. Thank you for participating in public comment this evening. And I would like to invite Rachel Mehini. And please correct my pronunciation um up to the table to speak about transportation and child care. Thank you for being here this evening. >> Okay. If I sit here with the sunlight. >> Sure. >> Oh, sure. >> Yes. The shades don't go down. >> They don't go down. >> Appreciate it. >> Oh, hello. Uh, my name is Rachel Managini and I'm a parent of a student, an elementary school student in a newly designated no bus zone. We applied a month and a half ago to the busing lottery. And we're told we would know if we won that lottery last Friday, the 15th. We are 4 days later and two weeks from the start of school and I still have no answer about that busing lottery. Furthermore, up until yesterday, we were on the wait list for kids and co- childc care. There was no movement on the wait list for three months. 45 of my friends are still on the wait list at Glen Lake. Last year, we were on the wait list as well until October. Parents are told to be patient, but where is the accountability at the district level? Why have weight lists and lack of information become the new norm? I'm here to point out that child care and transportation are interconnected. Children cannot be dismissed at 2:10 in the afternoon without knowing that there will be an increased need for child care. Children in no bus zones should be given priority into kids and company and more staff need to be hired. The school board should also make great effort to team up with city governments to install crosswalks with traffic signals and install sidewalks for our youngest students who are being asked to walk home alone. Frustration is growing amongst parents and these chronic issues do not shine well on the district. If nothing changes, my family and many other families will be in the exact same situation again next year. Thank you for listening. >> Thank you. >> Thank you, Rachel. So that concludes our public comment section of open agenda and we move to the superintendent report. Dr. Mary Perry Reid. >> Thank you chair Andre. Uh so I want to um offer a greeting to schoolboard members um colleagues and staff in the audience and community members and welcome everyone to the 2526 school year. I also want to begin with a spirit of celebration and connection. On the screen, you'll see a glimpse of how Hopkins showed up this summer at Twin Cities Pride and also at the Raspberry Festival parade. These moments matter because they do remind us that Hopkins schools don't only exist inside classrooms. We're a community and wherever Hopkins schools are, our families and staff and students are as well. And so, it's really fun to be in these spaces this summer. I also want to make sure that a sense of belonging, joy, and visibility is reinforced throughout the school year and also reinforced throughout the superintendent and student board reps this school year. I hope that you can see whether in classrooms or in celebrations or behind the scenes, our work really is all about making sure students are achieving and families as well as staff know they are seen, supported, and set up for a brilliant future. I also want to take this time at our first board meeting to reference vision 2031 and just remind everyone that having a bold vision is very critical in public schools today. And this is because our status quo system has not effectively served each student. Public schools have a long history of varied and predictable outcomes informed by student demographics, which are factors outside of students control, including race and family income. And vision 2031 really calls for us to think differently about the ingredients that will allow every student to be successful. Vision 2031 is a 13-year vision launched in 2018 because that's how long students are with us. if they begin in kindergarten and then graduate as Hopkins Royals. On this slide, you can see our success indicators which include continuing to be a beacon of innovation across the state as well as a destination district for employees and families. Hiring intentionally so that by 2031 our staff demographics are reflective of our student demographics. ensuring a 100% of our graduates have a college or career placement after high school that is well aligned with their strengths and talents and also eliminating racial and income predictability from our student outcomes. Our vision also includes a profile of a Hopkins graduate, six core values, and a strategic plan with deliverables in three focus areas which include teaching and learning, culture, and operations. And while there is no perfect organization and we have work to do, certainly we heard a parent um Rachel speak earlier to some of the ways her ch her family is currently challenged. We do have a strong road map in our vision in our strategic plan that spells out what success looks like and I'm grateful to our community for the hundreds of folks who contributed to this vision and strategic plan. I want to shout out a couple of Shing parents who invested a great deal into organizing our Chinese immersion communities participation in the Raspberry Parade last month. What a great group of Shing Xing supporters and our very own board member Jiming Jao dressed up. It's really not funny. It's very serviceoriented. >> Funny, >> is it? Okay. So, uh, Director Jiao dressed up as a royal panda for the big day. Also spotted at the raspberry parade was new Ellis Smith principal Sabrina Schmidzkkey, our marching band, and many athletic and extracurricular programs who were showcasing their opportunities for students. This summer we had thousands of students enrolled in summer programming from Kids in Co. to Camp Royal to extended school year to freedom school and more. Our students had a lot of unique opportunities to be entrepreneurs, engage in enrichment, and practice leadership. When I visited kids and co at Glen Lake, they were proud of the weekly student designed newsletter sent to parents and caregivers. Reading these student written articles is very joyful. So, for example, on the left, the submission titled basketball and adventure clubs begins with, "This week in the dock and the lake, clubs were all chaos. In the lake, the basketball club was lining up to shoot hoops. They were doing free throws. It was pure chaos. In the dock, adventure club was happening. Everyone was discussing how to make characters. After that, they were thinking about playing games. So, um, got to check out those student designed newsletters. Also check out the kiddos having fun in kids and co, but also early childhood had a ton of summer programming this summer. And believe it or not, if you're in kids and co, you could join a Barbie themed playroom and stay there all day. All of the contents in the playroom were donated by parents, including dollhouses, pink tryon clothes and shoes. It was a total dream space. And then on the left, you'll see Miss Kimberly with a group of rising kindergarteners who spent their summer at Alice Smith. In the beginning of the summer, our Hopkins Clay Crushers just wrapped up their 20th season. A huge milestone for one of the most consistent and hardworking teams in our athletic programs. Clay target competition is all about discipline, focus, and precision. The sport demands steady nerves, sharp concentration, and countless hours of practice. This team has a lot of participants and some of the student athletes who demonstrated extra noteworthy performance are Andrew Sorheim, Will Tuto, Ashley Sarvy, Sawyer Nixon, Ben Holliki, Max Quinn, and Alex Wolf. Also, gratitude to coach Mark Z Mark Ze who is a former Hopkins High School teacher who um retired a couple of years ago and has steadily coached this team over the years. In mid July, I attended the annual regional mayors and superintendants meeting with Mayor Hanland from Hopkins and Mayor Wearsome from Minnitonka. The guest speaker was Mary Rearsy who is a senior leader at the XQ Institute and also someone I sit with on the education evolving board. Mary talked to mayors and superintendent about ensuring that our high schools are places that offer students competencybased relevant interdisciplinary learning that effectively prepare students for real world environments. During her presentation, Mary referred to a report titled Lives, Economies, Nations, High School is the future of everything. This report compares and contrasts the traditional high school model, which is outdated, with the design features found in future forward schools. If you review the compare and contrast chart on this slide, you'll find examples that place Hopkins on the right path. To contribute to the discussion, I shared the work that we have done with Ford NGL. To set the stage for transformation at our own high school, and we hope to get you an update on a potential partnership with Ford NGL at our September 9 board meeting. This November, Hopkins voters will decide on two important school funding measures that directly support our students and community. In June, our school board approved Hopkins, putting the following two questions on the November ballot. Question one is a bond referendum. If approved, this investment will fund safety and security upgrades to all of our schools, ADA regulatory improvements, single user restrooms at our high school and other schools, renovations to our high school's career and technical education or CTE learning spaces, playground and parking lot updates, enhancements to learning and athletic spaces across the system, and more. If approved, this investment will cost the average homeowner about $7 per month. Question number two on the ballot will be a capital projects levy, which you might see also referred to as CPL. Capital projects levy or CPL renewal. This renewal will not increase taxes for homeowners, but if approved, will continue to provide critical funding for technology, for cyber security, infrastructure improvements, as well as to procure necessary curriculum and also band instruments. Together, these measures will ensure that Hopkins students will continue to learn in safe, accessible, and future ready spaces while we remain fiscally responsible. I do want to publicly recognize all of the time that many groups are investing in ensuring our community is well informed and has what they need to participate in the November election. These groups include our amazing communications and marketing team, a group of about 10 parents who have volunteered in this um in the uh vote yes parent effort, members of our Hopkins Education Association or HA as well as Natalia, Christina, and Andrew, a team of three colleagues who are prepping for this November's election. And so thanks to those groups and um actually many other individuals who have done a lot to uh prepare us for this time. And finally, I just want to conclude. We're not going to have a department or school spotlight this evening, but u school board members, if you remember, last year embedded at the end of each superintendent report was an opportunity for one of our school principles to come and talk about the school that they serve and how they are advancing student achievement and positive schoolwide culture in all of those spaces. And so what I'm going to do this year is turn the focus to our department. So each of our department leaders will have an opportunity to come to the board table and talk about what um each of the district departments are in our system, who sits in those departments, and what are some of the key functions of these departments. but we will also be able to have a chance to hear from our co-leership team at the high school and then our new principal at Alice Smith Elementary. So, I just wanted to provide a preview of what those department and a few school spotlights will look like for upcoming superintendent reports. And I think I'm done with that. I could take questions if you have them. Thank you. >> Thank you. I appreciate that. Any comments or questions? >> Dr. M. Well, Karen, you to ask a quick question. >> Thank you so much, Dr. Mary Perry Reed for that um thoughtful um you know, superintendent report and just all the work you're doing over the summer uh to ensure our school is ready for the school year. A quick question about the the two questions for the um for the levy. So when we talk about uh preparing community, are they sending out like cards about like the levy or um are they helping people like are they holding likeformational sessions in community about it or like some listening sessions or maybe some graphics that we could share online about the levy and just giving folks more information about it? >> Yeah, so several things. Also, our communications and marketing team has um is putting the finishing touches on a referendum web page which will have all things bond referendum and CPL renewal. Um I as the superintendent um will be out and about in the community and also at all of our school staff meetings ensuring that staff and parents are uh well informed. We also have a parent group that is organizing right now who will show up at various events including school open houses and events out in the community parentto parent talking about the referendum and asking for uh positive support. And we have members of the Hopkins Education Association or um teacher union who are saying we we would also like to help and they they may be more teacherf facing but through a multi-pronged effort we're hoping to take the next um two months to make sure that our community is well informed. >> Okay. >> Does that answer your question? >> Yes, that does. Thank you. >> Chair Andre. >> Yes. Director West Morland. >> Dr. Mary Perry Reed, I remember the last time that we had a referendum that coincided with a schoolboard election. You gave a presentation before the League of Women Voters Forum and that was really helpful for our community. I'm wondering if um there are plans to do something similar this time. >> Sure. >> Is that the right answer? You know, we talked about the >> Yes, we did. >> The memory issue. Yes. Yes, I we would love to. So, I think um what would be really helpful is if our school board and other members of our community have ideas, specific ideas of um events, then we'll just put together we we already have a draft calendar of some events. We'll just add them to that calendar and we'll show up. You know, it's going to be a really um a very intentionally intense two months because we do want to really get out there and make sure that people have access to information, can ask questions, and um can really contemplate what this means to our community. >> That's great. Thank you. >> So, the answer is yes. >> Great. Although I don't remember that specific presentation, >> it was very good and um I my memory is that we embedded it in the website like just that part of it. >> Sure. >> Um so that could be >> you know it could be used for that purpose too so that folks who don't watch the forum could just watch that part. >> Absolutely. >> And this is um and it's just specific to Hopkins, right? It's not any like in like Mitanka district or anything like that. It's just only Hopkins >> Hopkins school district. >> Hopkins school district. There are other districts going out for referendums. But this is just about Hopkins public schools. >> Okay. >> Within the seven municipalities that we serve. >> Okay. So that that's what I was asking. So basically, so it would be like in Eden Prairie, it would be over in Hopkins, Minnetonka. Okay. >> Yeah. So that's a really good question. So for our community as a school district, we serve all of Hopkins, twothirds of Minnetonka, half of Golden Valley, and then small portions of Eden Prairie, Edina, Plymouth, and St. Louis Park. So we would be engaging with community members in the Hopkins attendance areas for all of those seven cities. Okay, >> make sense. >> Any other comments or questions? Um, thank you for that. I enjoyed seeing photos of the summer celebrations, so thank you for including that. Um, so then we will move on to approval of tonight's agenda. I would look for a motion. >> 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 the agenda is approved. We then move to the consent calendar. This is a uh the purpose of this um item is to provide the board with information considered to be more routine in nature. If the board deems an item to be necessary for additional discussion, a motion will be made to move the item to new business. The recommendation is that the board approves the consent calendar. Do I have a motion? >> 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 >> I >> any opposed? The chair votes I and the consent calendar is approved. And that takes us to the treasures report. Treasure Heartland. >> Wonderful. Thank you, Chair Andre. Um good evening everybody. It is a privilege to be back here with you tonight as we kick off another school year. And I think it is important to acknowledge that while yes, it is a very exciting new beginning that many people in our community will be starting the school year carrying the weight of their various challenges and worries and many of those challenges are related to the systems that we operate in. And and one example is that this board um the Hopkins Legislative Action Coalition and then the district at large has been wrestling with this summer is the federal administration announcing the freezing of $6.8 8 billion in federal funds to public education. Um that money would be used for before and after school programming, teacher development, STEM education, career and college counseling, and adult education and literacy programs. And so the impact to our district if such a freeze actually happens is somewhere between 700,000 and 1.25 million. And just as a reminder, our budget here in the district is approximately $150 million. And the impact to the state of Minnesota at large is closer to $70 million. And so that would be a gap that either our state would have to close or the districts would have to eat and somehow cover in in other ways. Fortunately, on July 14th, Minnesota's attorney general, Keith Ellison, joined a coalition of 23 other states to sue um arguing that this freeze is unconstitutional. Um, this case is currently in process and the federal government has authorized the release of some of those funds. And so that's just one of several impending changes that could impact our district. Another is the passage of the most recent budget bill which has large cuts to Medicaid. And our district does get money from Medicaid for certain services that we provide to students. And cuts there will certainly impact us. And so this comes at a time when we need to be finding ways to actually reduce burden on teachers and district staff. And yet this uncertainty is creating more worry and more work. And we in the district are fortunate to have support from many resources including the Minnesota Department of Education, the various professional organizations we discussed um in our organizational meeting just a moment ago um the Hopkins Legislative Action Coalition and some deep partnerships with our local represented representatives. So we will keep monitoring these legislative changes and assess the impacts to our district and then work to accommodate or counteract them whenever possible. So, moving on to the expense report. Uh, remember that the summer is actually a very busy time in the district. It maybe doesn't seem that way because students are typically home, but remember that we provide some form of school or camp to thousands of students. We have teachers working and attending professional development. We are securing supplies and equipment for the upcoming year. We're hiring and training people. We are fixing, cleaning, and updating our buildings and grounds. And so therefore, you will see a greater than average amount of line items for June and July. Uh we did still have transportation costs from the last month of the school year, and those expenses totaled $393,227. We paid Blake School, a private school within our district boundaries, $50,560 to support their curriculum with books and other materials as required by state statute. We paid $20,321 to Project SOORE, which is a program our district participates in to support the continuing education of our community's adults with disabilities. We paid $916,392 for our hardware lease agreement with Apple um for our district's Apple devices and the support for them. We paid the exact same the last two years for these devices and have that same contracted rate for the next year. Um we paid $262,797 to CDWLC. Um that's a company that provides a lot of our behind thescenes IT support. So if you think about how many thousands of devices we have, how many different applications we use, and all the storage and networking we need, this service helps all of that work together, and it's much more cost and time efficient than having to install and manage all of these components inhouse. We paid $170,480 to construction results group as part of a project to upgrade the ventilation at the high school. And whenever an expenditure description says app, like it does for this one, it says HHS app 2, that does mean application. And that's because especially for our long-term facilities maintenance, there is a lot of bureaucracy and requirements around the construction work in the schools. And so we do actually have to apply to the state of Minnesota to be able to use some of our funds. And in that, we provide the scope of work and how much we're paying for labor and materials. And so that abbreviation appears a lot in this expense report. And so anytime you see that, it's a highly regulated expense and we have a whole paperwork trail around it that's filed with the state. We paid $13,35 to clean up storm damage at our various sites. Um we paid $1.052 million to McFillips Brothers Roofing Company for roof work that was done at the high school in the spring. That is another one of those expenses with the whole application and tons of documentation attached to it. Um, we paid $22,261 for ACT testing, $58,210 for AP exams, and $18,940 to Normandale for the tuition for all of our students who took PSO classes there in the spring. And so just a reminder that in this report I always try to highlight notable expenses and provide some answers you might need to better understand the expense report when you look at it. So as always I mean I could have we could do this for another hour and we wouldn't hit every expense that was in our list. So if you still have a question um about any of them happy to take them at the table or via email. And with that, I move that we approve total dispersements in the amount of 13,289,183.79 for the period of June 1st, 2025 to July 31st, 2025. >> 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. >> Right. >> Any opposed? The chair votes I. And the treasures report is accepted. Thank you, Treasurer Hartland. Now, we will go to our first item of new business, which is the strong school start update. I'm very excited for this. Um I think there is a whole suite of people coming to the table. So I will turn it over to Dr. Mary Perry Reed. Thank you chair Andre. So board members and community members, we do have a number of presenters approaching the board table and I'll provide a framing for what this agenda item is all about. So, every year a successful first day of school depends on months of careful coordination across our entire district. And to support this, we bring together representatives from all core departments for what we call our strong school start meetings. Thank you. >> These monthly meetings provide a structured space for transportation, nutrition services, technology, teaching and learning, facilities, human resources, and other critical teams to share updates and uh anticipate potential challenges and coordinate solutions. Our goal is to ensure that every system and service is ready to support our students, families, and staff from the first day. and we want to do this work carefully by aligning our work. So, um this evening we do have um quite a bit of information for you. And I think what we're going to do is have our presenters just go in order of Natalia, do you want to go to the next slide? I think we have an order of presenters. So, we'll go in this order and then maybe presenters, you can make a note of who's following you and introduce that next person. And I appreciate all of the work that our these leaders that you see here and and all of our teams are putting into ensuring a strong school start for our system for the 2526 school year. So, with that, I think we're going to start with you. Um, Director Goldady. Jolene is the director of communications and marketing for our system and we um in the last couple of years have blended enrollment and marketing so that we can be more strategic with our enrollment and marketing effort. So Jolene also supervises the enrollment team and she'll provide a highle enrollment update. And then I do want to make sure our board members and community know that we are coupling this report with a school opening report on September 9. So this reflects the work that we have been doing to ready our system and then on September 9, we'll hopefully share some good news about how school opening went. So Jelene, you want to take it away? >> Sure. Thanks Dr. Mary Perry Reed. Um, okay. So, I'm I'm going to start my enrollment presentation off with a bit of a disclaimer, which is not typical, but um the one thing I want to just make sure everybody understands is that um August 18th is not necessarily a date where we can predict with any certainty like how numbers are going to fall for sure. Um there's still a lot of variance um involved. A lot of people are still enrolling um into our system. We see that in our um enrollment office. it starts ramping up and we see a lot more humans in the building starting in um August. So, what I'm going to share is um at best information that is going to likely change the next time I come to the board table to present on it, but it we can sort of look at um the information that we have now and and and um kind of look at where we were last year and begin to make some predictions. So, um just just keep that in your brain that this is this is preliminary information. Um so with that said um the good news is is that overall our um enrollment numbers are really strong. We are um above projections um currently and so that's always a good place to be and so we're outperforming but we also know that we're going into a really challenging year. Um we are um welcoming our our COVID babies into the system. They were the babies born in 2020. Um and that was a really low birth year, the lowest birth year on record for at least like the last 20 years, probably longer than that. So we are going into that headwind. Um and then looking at our preliminary results, um we see that um our we have the strongest growth at the secondary level, which makes sense given that um there's lower birth rate at the at the younger level. And um our Spanish immersion program continues to perform really strongly. and virtual edu um is also there's some um really bright spots there too. Next slide. So um if you want to know what you're looking at, I tried to think about how this, you know, how to compare apples to apples. So what we did is we compared um August 18th, which was yesterday. That's when we pulled the data um 2025 to August 18th, 2024 just to sort of look like um you know like how how how are things and how were things last year. So currently we are um about 99 students above projection. Again that that doesn't mean a whole lot on on August 18th in all honesty. Um but it is a positive place to be. It certainly is a better place than um than negative. Um but we also know that uh we have a lot more families coming into the system. Um last year at this time, same date, we were um up about 283 students. And then then I looked at where were we September 30th, 2024, which is um really close to the time when we solidify our um our numbers for the start of the school year. We kind of know at that point who is who's staying with us and who who who has left. And then that number had dropped to um we had a positive variance of 56 students. Still really great, still really positive. But the one thing I want to emphasize is just because the variance was that um drastic last year, I don't think that we're going to expect to see anything like that this year. Next slide. Um and there's a couple reasons for it. Um I think that our numbers are likely more accurate than than than they were last year. Um last year we were still in a bit of that COVID swing of like going over here to all the way over here. Um and and not really finding any um balance yet. Um but the other thing that um has changed is we've done a number of things in the enrollment office to help make sure our numbers in the spring are a little bit more um reliable. So, one of those things um is that we had families um this is sort of a real technical detail, but when they were on the waiting list, if they wanted to um to to to enroll into Hopkins, we required them to actually um like to apply and to and to go through that enrollment process. Before, what we would do was we would say, "Okay, great. You want to come to Hopkins? Um we'll just, you know, like we have you down as yes, and you can enroll when it's convenient for you." And the thing about the open enrollment climate especially is that a lot of families are on multiple lists. They are and you don't know if you're somebody's first choice, second choice. So requiring them to actually enroll within two weeks otherwise you're going to go down to the you know bottom of the waiting list and somebody else is going to you know get a spot that really gives us a picture of who's serious about um enrolling because it's a process and also it's it requires a records request. It triggers all these things. So we are hopeful that that will give us a more accurate um picture of who is with us and how serious they are about us. Um and um and maybe that will begin to take some of that variance out of the picture. Um the other thing is our clerical staff was really diligent about calling every certain every student that was in the census and getting clear on are you coming, are you not coming. So we had that information um as well. And then an unexpected thing that happened was um a lot of our opt-in uh uh engagement was during the summer and um that happened to be like a a reminder to some families of like oh yeah I got you you emailed me and um I I need to let you know I'm not coming. we've moved or um so when we would send out messages as part of the opt-in, the enrollment office would get this spike of people, you know, kind of like letting us know that they um of their status when maybe we wouldn't hear from them from them until about now. And so sort of what's resulted from that is um our enrollment office is kind of like eerily we're not quiet, but this is it's usually insanity and it's not insanity. It's it's it's kind of manageable right now. So, um it's just been a really interesting um dynamic and another like a reason to think that our numbers are um pretty solid. Um next slide. So, here's what we are seeing and again it's it's just August 18th and so take all of this with a grain of salt. Um our strongest gains are in secondary. We are 128 over projection there. Um and then we have really deep waiting lists as well. So in at Hopkins High School alone, we have 102 kids that want to get into Hopkins High School now and we cannot um accept them because we don't have the capacity. Um West and North have a combined waiting list of 77. So in addition to, you know, us being going into the year pretty strong, we have these really deep waiting lists of people wanting to get in um as well. And enrollment, we have a slight negative variance of 30 students and um that means that we're 30 down off of projection. Um which is definitely not a terrible place to be, especially at this um point of the point in the game. And probably wouldn't even be that terrible of a place to be even if it was October 1st to be honest. Um and even if we look at that 30 number um we have a variety of students that are um are enrolled in our system but just haven't given us their proof of residency and when they um finish that technical detail they'll be in our count. So if we bring those in then actually that var that negative variance is down to 14. So 14 kids off projection um which is pretty good. Um, but we do know that that low birth rate is going to play a factor because we, you know, we can only recruit so many kids and if they just aren't there, it's it's not as pos it's not possible. Um, next slide. Um, and then I just wanted to give a little bit of a snapshot on our choice programs. At least for Huntos and Jing Jen, we can say with more accuracy at this point that these are these are probably our numbers. Um, just because we um we have applications for them so much earlier into the process than we do anything else. Um, our Huntos number looks really good is 410 total. Um, that K5 number and then we obviously have a middle school program as well and I didn't put that into the count. Um, so that continues to be really strong and that's about where we projected it to be. And then Jing Jing is a little lower at 1991 students, but again that's right where we projected it to be. So in terms of um budget and staffing, that's that that's what we wanted. That's what we expected. Um and then virtual edu is um continues to be um just this really interesting case. So we are over projection um at at both the elementary and the the um secondary level much more so at the secondary level. um we are projected for 108 uh students and we have 130 that we're going into the year with. And this is interesting because we know that virtual edu actually spikes after the school year starts kind of like around that September 15th time to to all the way into like November, December. So, it's going to be really interesting. Something we'll be watching is what virtual edu secondary does. Um, and we've done some specific training um, and and sort of like branding and persona building around that that particular department uh, or I'm sorry, school. Um, so it'll just be interesting to see how that all plays out and uh, and I will come back to you with more in October. So, I'll give it now to um, Dr. Dr. Lightoot. >> Thank you. Um, as was mentioned, uh, it has been a busy summer with lots of activity and, um, as also was mentioned, we're still in process, even looking at making offers today for positions that start, um, as soon as possible. And of course, we're doing all of that work to get ready for the first day of student attendance. So, with that, just a couple key highlights. Um, we have been doing some leaders leadership searches. How about that for a tongue twister? Uh for administrative search, it says that we were conducting and are happy to report and you'll get that through some of the uh introductions that were provided in our superintendent report as well as information that will be presented to you from individuals at the table who are joining us um as well as individuals who will present to you at our next meeting as well. Um so very happy about where we are with our search um for that additional uh leadership opportunity that we have here in Hopkins. Our general staffing process, most departments are fully staffed or nearing full staffing at the start of school. Happy to report on that. We are seeing some part-time vacancies in some real key areas. We're looking uh to try to consolidate and make some offers in English language learner positions. We do have a reading instruction part-time that we're looking at potentially second semester I believe um is what we're looking at right now. And then we do have a few select classroom pair professionals nowhere near what we have had in previous years. So good to know that the work that we've been doing to recruit and retain pair professional staff members is helping us start the year strong. And then as well with special services um in special services and I'll let director contrarus mention a couple things there um but what we have seen is we have seen and we started really strong as we approach the summer um couple positions have shifted um due to some um lastm minute uh resignations. Um but beyond that it's a little bit more with speech but other additional points you'd point out there. >> Sure. Um this is probably the best retention we've had in special ed um prior to like co so I think we have three teachers um we received last minute resignations as of July 15th. So um three teacher positions opened less than five pier positions and a couple SOP position each. So this is like the best um we've done. I think retention is up and we'll talk more about that later. >> And then also as mentioned with some of the dynamics that we're seeing related to enrollment, we have been doing some monitoring on a very close level in the particular areas that we were seeing where we were on the cusp of looking to add additional staff. Where we have placed staff right now is we've done a new classroom section that was added uh to an elementary school, Glen Lake, to accommodate the enrollment shifts we were seeing there um in specific grade levels. So, we have done that with targeted work. Um, we've also been looking at an elementary immersion programming area within Shinshing uh so that we could look at bringing additional support staff uh to that grade level so that we could uh be mindful of what we were seeing with some of the cusp uh numbers and they're again still early where one or two students might shift and may um put pieces in a different place. So, we're mindful of how we're watching that in this next week. Uh lastly at the high school and the middle level, what we've been looking at are real particular sections where um based on for example Wes saying we just got five seventh graders today. Um those kinds of experiences that we're really responding to where we may need additional sections depending on what particular classes we're looking uh at that point in time um that we know that we'll continue to see as we start the school year. So, we've added those in an individual capacity as well to address that. Um, so I believe that's the brief update. We as well will have more information when we get to the particulars with the start and I'll turn it over to Dr. Campy. >> Good evening everybody. Um, as Dr. Lightoot said our sites are mostly fully staffed and that is a huge thing for principles at this time of year to be thinking about hiring as a distraction unfortunately as you have so many things to do to prepare for staff returning and students coming right behind them. Uh we do have a new principal at Alice Smith and she is starting strong, Sabrina Schmidky and a very dynamic leadership model at the high school that is providing some stability there um because that team is very familiar with the staff, the students, the space um and it's also giving an opportunity for them to uh strengthen their leadership skills with some new responsibilities. Last week the leaders spent three days in professional development or maybe that was two weeks ago. Wow. um and they were there with their um instructional leadership teams and they all shared their learning and teaching goals as well as their plans for how they will achieve it. They will finish their goals and submit their final goals for um learning and teaching culture and operations by midepptember and have their professional development plans that will support those goals solidified by the end of September. As you heard from Dr. Earle earlier um talking about the data review meetings that we'll be doing. Those will be coupled with our quarterly goals meetings with leaders during which we monitor their progress towards their site goals. Um and then we have new teachers that started I think was today officially their start iffy. They had the big kickoff today with the amazing chocolate cake. If you haven't tried it, you should really come to kickoff and have the cake. Um, and then our returning teachers will be coming back to us next week with our district kickoff a week from today. I will pass it to Disa, our lead for before and afterare. >> Thank you. Um, hi everyone. Um, Kids and Company. Um, I'll also give a disclosure that these um, numbers were on Monday and I I have different numbers today um, because kids and company is constantly moving as we begin the school year. Um but Kids and Company is currently preparing um to begin the school year with 808 um students across six sites um in before and after school care. We currently have um 136 students waiting for contract approval. Um the bulk of those students are new to kids and company or requested care after um or outside of our request window in April. Um during the request window, we received about 1,073 requests for care, which is a 22% increase from last school year. Um requests are still coming in to date. We received quite a few um today as well as we're seeing some movement between schedule changes as well as contract with withdrawals. Um as well as this year we'll continue um to implement our shared site model between Gatewood and Glenn Lake. Um this will be for afterare and then Gate will Gatewood will um open for before care on location providing care at um students home school site. Um we will have our non-school day options. So, we'll serve students at three sites across the district um being Glen Lake, Eisenhower, and Metobrook from 7:00 a.m. to 5:00 p.m. on those non-school days. Um currently, we have um a pretty full team. We also had really great retention of about 85 to 90% of staff returning um from school year, but about 100% returning from the summer. Um we currently have a team of five site leads, 13 supervisors. Um, our newest position, um, we will have five inclusion specialists supporting students and program and 37 activity assistants. Um, we continue to hire as we get closer to the school year. We currently have 11 job offers out pending and going through the HR pro um, pipeline. And then we're continuing to uh, recruit for about six to eight additional staff um, to join our team. um compared to uh this year compared to last year. I guess I should give the comparison. So I said 808 will start the school year with us. Last year we had 668 start with us. Um this time on this date last year um we had 239 students on our weight list um with current being 136. So, we're seeing some really great movement um with our efficiency as well as being able to retain staff and find staff who are willing to work in childcare settings. We know um two years ago we seen a really big shift on child care not being the premium um career path and I think we're starting to see a shift. Also, we've done a lot of great work with partnering with talent agencies to kind of learn more about um hiring trends and continuing to adopt some of those um best practices as well as researching our own and f finding new and great ways to partner with HR um to try new initiatives and those sorts of things. Um thank you for your time. So, I'll hand it over to Dr. Erdle and Director Conturus. >> Hello again. Um Fonda and I are going to talk a little bit about professional development and training. As um Dr. Mir Puri mentioned um well actually Dr. Campy mentioned we were excited about our kickoff on August 26th which is a week from today. And um I know that sometimes board members attend the morning session and the lunch, but I just um want to extend an invitation that you're all welcome and in um enthusiastically invited to attend the program review launch, which will also be at the high school in the auditorium. Um, I of course I think it's going to be really exciting and fun, but I think um that you might be interested to see to be in the space with all of the teachers who are getting the first blush of what um that continuous improvement process is going to look like for their curricular area. Um, Hilt has a new draft theory of action for 2526. Just as a reminder, Hilt is the Hopkins instructional leadership team. It's a team of about 60 to 70 um school and district leaders who gather on a monthly basis hosted by the IDL team and their the goal is improvement in learning and teaching. So, our draft theory of action for this year is if we engage in consistent data review protocols followed by coherent actionable strategies designed to improve student achievement, then we will increase the percentage of students successfully accessing tier 1 instruction from X to Y uh with a goal of 80%. And so, um as Dr. Kami alluded to, we are having um quarterly goals and data meetings um just to really sort of um attack this issue on multiple fronts. Um on the right you see um belonging, consistency, and coherence. In the spring when Elsa talked about our math adoption, um some of the research that we mentioned at the board table and have also been utilizing is from the opportunity makers, which is the new teacher project. And the three factors that they found in schools that are truly changing trae trajectories for children are belonging, consistency, and coherence. And so we have really adopted that as a frame for how we are approaching a lot of our work this year. So you'll you'll be seeing a lot about about that. Belonging refers to the emotional climate for learning. Consistency is consistently good teaching and standardsbased content. And coherence is unified instructional program and clear priorities and outcomes. Next slide please. Um our new math materials are Nroot. So far, they've been received at virtual edu, which is ironic because that's a tiny site for us for the elementary. Uh, but they're in route. Um, so we're pretty excited about that. Also on the 26th, if you're around, you are welcome to join our elementary teachers in the cafeteria um as they are getting their some for for most of them their first um real lesson in you know how are they going to start using these materials. our principles, elementary principles got an onboarding with that this afternoon and we have um we're engaging um some math implementation specialists to support that professional learning and growth for our elementary team because it's a heavy lift. Um and so those folks will be across the elementaryaries supporting teachers really on the ground with getting comfortable with these materials. Um it would not be a board meeting if I didn't mention letters training. So here we go. Um we have 130 teachers who are taking volume two this year and six administrators who are doing letters for admin. There are 109 elementary teachers who are totally completed and 37 early childhood educators who are completed. So we're really proud of those of those numbers. It's um because we started early, we are have people that are finishing ahead. So we're happy about that. and I'll turn it over to Director Contraras. Thank you. So, one of the things that I'm super excited about is Parapeddm onboarding. I think for so long we've just had vacancies and have been so desperate that we just get those folks into the classrooms before really slowing down the process and equipping them to be in that space. So we are rolling out PD once a month um or I should say onboarding once a month for any pair that comes on board like in between. It's our highest turnover area in the district but when there are openings just slowing down the process getting them onboarded making sure they're highly qualified. So we'll have last year we spent a lot of time getting um folks we had to do multiple processes including them taking tests if they didn't have at least two years of college. So trying to get them highly qualified. Um and then we had to do like a local assessment for those that had been in the district longer than 3 years but maybe weren't college educated. So um now we just will start that process for any parah whether it's or not of um having them take the parah protest as they come aboard and go through some trainings. The other thing is that we will have site mentors um so that the new paras can follow them at sites. Um I think a couple years ago there was a person hired for the position. Um but she was pulled a million different ways including supporting Oracle. So we've created a process that's going to help and then in addition to that each site will have um sped or I'm sorry parat training that encompasses the needs of the building. So for instance, if it's belonging or if there's a need to do traumainformed um PD um those site leaders will look at insp. So, um creating different opportunities sight specific on what the needs are and really getting into um supporting teachers and other staff in the buildings um through trainings. So, we've talked about it, but now we're actually asking building leaders and sped leaders to carve out time for the needs of their buildings and tapping into the resources of say our occupational therapist if there's a need for regulation training um or tapping into the social worker counselors and other staff to meet the needs of the students because they're the ones that hold that expert lens. And so really doing some planning about what are the needs of sites um or classrooms within the building to get at those needs. So kind of comprehensive PD and I will turn it over to John Weather. >> Thank you Director Contrarus. Uh good evening everyone. Uh I will be talking about some infrastructure upgrades throughout the school district um both in technology as well as in buildings and grounds. Um as you may remember this last spring our assistant director for buildings and grounds uh uh left for another opportunity and so I have stepped in with a team to help uh make sure that all of our projects kept moving through the summer as we need to be ready to go. Um, so I'll be speaking to both of those as well. Um, and happy to announce as, uh, Dr. Lightfoot mentioned with some of our hiring that our new assistant director for buildings and grounds, um, uh, Gino Miselli, uh, started yesterday. So, uh, we'll be certainly working with him to get all of that, uh, get him up to speed and understanding where we're at in the district as well. Um so starting into our uh network infrastructure project uh an introduction uh to the board uh was presented back in November. Uh so really right now we're nearing the culmination of about 18 months worth of planning uh that we then executed in 6 weeks this summer. um which resulted in all all schools and buildings having modern network infrastructure installed including new Wi-Fi across all of our schools both inside and outside uh providing Wi-Fi for outdoor learning as well. Um as well as some of the uh back hall infrastructure. So that's our fiber optics and other pieces to make sure that we have all of that in place um and in a robust manner and all of that being backed uh by upgraded power systems. Um uh we've experienced many times of storms this summer and we experience throughout every year we have a quite a few power uh outages across the district with really almost any storm system that goes through the area. Um really reliability uh has been paramount in making sure that we are on top of that. So a lot of new power systems installed um battery backup systems as well as at the high school for the first time now uh working with the facilities project that I'll be mentioning here in a minute. We'll also have a generatorbacked um uh power systems for most of the school. Um really making sure that we're ensuring that connectivity for those life safety systems even in a power outage. Um that work began on July 1st um which is our required start date for our federal regulations. Um and that work has completed on schedule um and is now in what we call the stabilization period. So everything is installed, everything is in place. However, we still have uh a lot of details to go uh through and putting into place, you know, and that Wi-Fi tuning uh will continue uh until about fall break. uh we have the systems ready to go. Um but may not be widely known you actually can't fully tune a Wi-Fi system until you actually have people in the rooms um because people are actually an absorber of uh radio waves uh because we're mostly made of water and so you cannot actually uh tune your system until you actually have people there. >> So u that work will certainly continue over uh the next few weeks. Um and any any final details around that we would be putting in place over uh over fall break. So next slide. Uh also uh happening this summer was at Hopkins High School was our major construction project. We had smaller projects um you know small maybe outdoor uh landscaping pieces, some infrastructure pieces at a few other of our schools, but the majority of the work this summer happened at the high school. Um as well as a project at our bus depot where we replaced uh a couple of the rooftop units there for HVAC. Um uh as well as some of the heating pieces in their shop area and other pieces at the at the bus depot. But at the high school, uh the investment this summer is about $17.5 million uh into the high school where we replace the majority of the cold and hot water piping uh in the school um including both drinking water as well as the heating and and cooling systems. Uh that upgraded also the school heating system, moving away from boilers that were installed back in the 1950s uh to a modern high efficiency hot water uh heating system. Uh so this changes some of the license requirements, makes it more uh simplified licensing for the school district as we go forward, as well as really increasing our energy efficiency as well. Uh this concludes 19 years worth of work at the high school to get us to this point. Um, as we've been doing the high school through sections of project over all of the years, um, we were almost two miles of piping were installed into the high school this summer. We were one of the largest pipe fitting projects in the Twin Cities, period, this last summer. Uh, so a major undertaking. Um, and you know, really credit goes to our contractors who have been on top of it. We've had very smooth progress throughout the summer. uh with our substantial completion being uh this last Friday. The only hiccup being that is the system was coming online today to cool our auditorium and our part of the cafeteria for our new teacher day. Um the system would not run for more than about 30 seconds at a time. That will be getting work done tomorrow morning. Um so there are always some of those last second things after it's been running great for two days that all of a sudden decided today was not going to be a day. But uh that will certainly get uh smoothed out as we get closer to school here. So next slide. Um also at the high school besides all of that piping that happened was new cooling system serving part of the east wing. Um, also overall the entire high school, a whole new HVAC control system upgrade as well as the um, the services that support the entire district were upgraded as part of that project um, to the to the new system as well. And so, uh, in addition to that, um, it also partners with buildings and grounds in these large projects to make sure as long as we're going to have all the ceilings down in these areas and doing this major infrastructure work, we also replace all of the IT cabling in these areas to bring them up to current standards as well. Many of the much of this cabling being original to when these sections of the high school were built. Um so all of that was upgraded here and um the networking in that area of the school went live yesterday morning. Uh we started moving air uh yesterday morning in those areas and I expect that we'll have cooling in those areas starting tomorrow. So uh those are the infrastructure pieces that we've implemented throughout. Uh next slide I will be handing off to transportation and assistant director Naisha Williams. Thank you, director. So, oh, sorry, I went back. For transportation, we have begun routing over the summer in our new routing platform, which was utilized this year to improve the efficiencies and the strengthen the communication. I will say we started routing long before school ended um with different hiccups because it's a new system. Um we we went through summer with our trial phase and we're fully all routed in our brand new system for this new upcoming school year. Um our updates were implemented to support the move to our two elementary schools that moved over to the third tier along with our non-public schools moving to the third tier which is aligning with our bud budget considerations. Also, um moving the tiers in addition to the new system was probably the most that we've done with different changes at one time. Um a little bit more work to do both at the same time, but we we successfully moved over into both of those new different um processes. Our route registration process for our opt-in is complete and we adjusted all of our routes for efficiency based on the registration data. So what we started doing was routing every student and then we adjusted after we we received our opt-in data and we are still partnering with MTN in Lake Country for our transportation services. Um this helps us with our driver shortages. We've been doing pretty well with driver shortages by utilizing both contractors where one may not have drivers, the other seems to have them. Um it's it's still difficult and a hard time across the US for drivers right now. So we have been doing pretty well with the two um and it's kind of a disclaimer but not really. It's the same as what we're dealing with with enrollment and with our kids in co is routing is still in progress. Um we still have families that find out that they're in Kico so they don't want to use the bus anymore. vice versa. We have families that are new enrolled and so we're still routing student counts and route assignments are aren't going to be shared at this time and that is because it is ongoing. We're not complete. Um we have most routes configured and where they need to be but we are still adding kids every day all day. I'll turn it over to Director Chief. >> All right. Well, good evening and thank you Director Williams. Uh I am excited to start the school year as the uh new emergency management and school safety coordinator. So how we address the school year's uh safety and security initiatives is by engaging in a four-prong approach. And ultimately this four-prong approach can be summarized into one word, collaboration. Uh collaboration from our students all the way to our community partners such as law enforcement. And through this collaboration helps us understand and navigate our evolving security landscape within our unique educational ecosphere. uh that translates really to us as decision makers enables us to implement and develop and augment our response typology. So our response procedures and through that is how we accomplish a more safer and secure environment for our students but also our staff, our parents and our community. That's all I have. Thank you. >> Thank you, Chi. And we wanted to end this presentation with a note um about our finance and budgeting challenges and also opportunities. As um you can imagine, all of this work that you've heard described in the last 30 minutes or so requires resources. And we wanted to share the um the journey that we've been on to um provide stability for our uh finance office and budgeting process. Um, so I think most of our board members have read the updates that have been provided to you, but um, this is a good time to update our community as well. So, we have posted for a director of business services twice now. Our former director of business service, Turo Chapanduca, did move to another opportunity. He returned to uh, Minneapolis public schools and that left a vacancy with this uh, very critical position. And what we've discovered throughout the last 2 3 months is that there are multiple systems across the state of Minnesota who are experiencing transition in leadership in staffing within the finance and budgeting space. So we're not the only school system to now not have an official director of of business services. However, we we are um putting together a solution for that as we speak. As um earlier this evening, our board did approve a contract through the center for effective school operations which will um provide um support and service in the area of finance. Um we'll provide an individual who will serve as our director of business services. although they they will be a consultant, but they will serve Hopkins Public Schools as our director of business services and um the Center for Effective School Operations, otherwise known as CISO, will also provide services that um normally are are produced um by a position called the controller. And so we are excited to um transition to an opportunity to really stabilize um the core functions of our business services department which is a really small team of very hardworking folks. Um Dr. Lightfoot has been working closely with our business services staff and um the two of us have been just really trying to lead an an effort to um to secure the um the staffing support that will allow us to start um a responsible and accurate budgeting process for the 2526 school year. Also of note is an organization called Clifton Larson Allen. Hopkins has partnered with CLA for some time now and they are completing our fiscal year 24 audit hopefully by uh mid to end September and they will also facilitate our fisc year 25 audit. So that's just a highlevel overview of um what we're um with with the challenges and opportunities in the business services department. And Nick, your name is on the slide also. I'm not sure if you have anything else to add. >> Oh, I think that's great. Um the other work that we're pulling together is really the coordination of CISO and CLA so that we can not only think about where we are right now but as we gain that set of information how they both can partner in us really looking at that design and pulling that information together collectively. So we feel really good that there's a team approach to this work as well. Well, thank you everyone for this very comprehensive report um on our our strong school start. Wondering if there's any comments or questions from my colleagues. I had just a couple um given um what we heard earlier. Um, so just a question about the waiting lists in kids co. Are they different? Is there differences per site? Like is one school experiencing a much bigger weight list than say Eisenhower or another? >> Uh, yes. So we are seeing that our early um start schools are seeing the most significant weight lists. Um while um I would say for afterchool care, our later schools um do not have a wait list for afterchool care or there may be some kind of communication issue that's happening that puts one or two on our weight list in those spaces. But yeah, I would say our early start schools. >> So it varies according to which schools. So some community members might be experiencing very small weight list for kids and co and others could have a bigger one. Correct. Um I can give you an example really quick. Um like I would say um Glenn Lake for instance um they're seeing about uh 45 students on their weight list versus like Ella Smith for care um has like 10. >> There's a there's a there's a big discrepancy I would say. >> Okay. Thank you for that. Um, and then I was just also wondering about um transportation. Um, you said that you're continuing to update the um the routes. Does that mean um that are are we communicating with families as they're being placed on a route or like so could some families have not heard yet? Yes, we are planning to send bus information to all families on Friday the 22nd. So, as we're adding new families, new enrolled families, they will receive bus information on that date. >> Okay. So, everyone will know by the 22nd. >> Yes. >> Thank you. >> Everyone that is routed on a bus to start for the first day. >> Okay. Great. Thank you, >> Chair Andre. >> Yes. Director Xiao. >> Hi. Uh so my question or comment or thought uh is somewhat related to that and uh you know I think it is uh you know as a parent uh in the district of course it's a just trying to figure it out is tough right and so um I I I'm curious right if you know there's an interplay between transportation and after school care um can we kind of think of like the implication right and if like there's a you know a cancel fee or there's like a late fee or anything like that. Can we like knowing that there's a lot of turbulence, can we wave those things? Right? Like if we know that, hey, we had a transportation difference, right? We can't can or can't get to you. Now you have to make a different choice with after school care. Um I've heard, right, and maybe it's not true, but I've heard there's a like a late fee or a cancellation fee. And so if we could wave those knowing that there's so much flux, I think that would be appreciated uh by parents and and me anyways. So, it is true that when a family lets us know that, you know, I receive my transportation now or um or something of that, we do wave those fees. Now, we do have a registration fee that's un non-refundable, but um we do kind of we zero out that balance. We make sure there's not um the withdrawal fee um and those sorts of things because we're in partnership with transportation. Now, there are some times when we miss that because a family doesn't say why they're can why they're cancelling. Um, and you know, with the hustle and bustle, sometimes we forget to ask, but if a family does let us know, we do try to make sure it feels like a partnership. >> Okay. Yeah. I mean, maybe for it might be easier just to wave it. I don't know. Like assume that it's because it's that, right? Like is there a lot of people dropping and getting charged a fee without because it's not transportation or we're not sure? >> Yeah, there's tons of reasons that folks are dropping. Um you know some folks remain in remote like uh they thought they were going to go back to the office and now they get to remain remote. Like there's been lots of different variants but for sure if it's an internal partnership be it that they're going to do something else um we make sure that we wave those. >> Okay. Thank you. Appreciate it. Thank you, >> Jalisa. What percent of families who initially request a contract end up cancelling? >> So, I think um this year we've actually seen an uptick um in cancellations. So, we were actually just trying to um today that was something that we were trying to figure out and get some data on because we've had quite a few. Um so so far what we're assuming is out of those um 1,073 we've maybe had about 45 to 50 families come and withdraw their contracts. And generally we probably only see about 20 um with 20 to 25 withdrawals um each school year. So there has been an increase. It's not a percentage. Sorry. >> So fewer than five four or five%. >> Yeah. Four or 5% I would say. >> Okay. Thank you. >> Ching as a question. >> Yes. Director Roer. >> Thank you. Um, thank you all for being here tonight. It was really great and I know it's getting late so we'll keep you all along. Um, Julisa, are there any plans to reestablish any community partnerships to offset some of those waiting lists? Cuz I know that um the rear YMCA was a really big one that a lot of families utilized, including myself. Um, and when it had abruptly um, ended, it was it was a little bit difficult. And so just under just want to know like are there any plans to reestablish different community partnerships? um not at this time. Um with budget considerations, we did have to consider our partnership with transportation taking families to and from the YMCA and it did con take a significant capacity as well as financial burden. So that was one component and then also YMCA was not able to cover their expenses for providing care. as we were able to retain and hire, we were able to take in those families. And so, um, we ended up as the as a district going below the YMCA's threshold for partnership. Um, but, uh, we're willing to learn and have conversation with other child care agencies, but they would need to be able to provide transportation to our families um to relieve some of that burden for our own department. Um, yeah, >> have the one Andre. >> Yes. Julisa, >> sorry. Um I have a question about the I think you mentioned that there are 11 prospective candidates who are processing with HR right now and if those individuals then um go through the process and are onboarded will they start taking students off of the weight list that currently has 136 kids on it? >> Correct. >> Okay. So about how many students would then come off the wait list with those 11 staff persons? >> Yep. So um I said that we're like at about a 85 ret% retention. So some of those staff will replace staff that didn't come into us come in with us uh for the school year, but we are anticipating maybe being able to take off >> and because they're at various sites. So it sounds like a little amount, but they'll help >> relieve a whole weight list. So maybe about 45 students. Oh, that's great. Okay. >> Mhm. >> Thank you. >> Is there anything that we your community members can do to promote the opportunity for before and after care um employees to work for Hopkins? What are some suggested tips for recruiting? >> Yes. Um I would say yes. So, um, for families, if they are a part of social media groups that, um, have college students or retired folks or just their community in general, um, posting out the job, um, posting there or if they know a college student that lives at home, is in the district or an alumni that maybe we haven't tapped into to come back and um, work for Kids and Company would be really great. Um, green teachers. So, if you're a part of any uh or green educators, I should say, because youth workers as well, um if they're, you know, maybe not working in something that's fulfilling and they're wanting to get their toe into the district, um while we don't like to see them leave us, but you know, we like to think of oursel as um a door into the district. So, um, any of that sharing, um, you know, I'm not going to lie, I'll be at the grocery store and the cashier is talking to my own daughter and I'm like, "Have you ever thought about working with children?" Like, you know, I have no shame at this point. Um, you know, doing those kind of probing and sharing out. Um, I think, you know, Kids in Company is a really, I mean, being young or retired, it's a really great opportunity to give back, to earn income, to have really great, you know, fringe benefits and those sorts of things. I mean, it's a position that can launch you somewhere and you're not working weekends, you know, so I try to share that out with folks. So, if families can do that along with us, it's really helpful. Um, but our campaign with HR right now is going really well. Um, we're catching a lot, but um, the traction is is slow. And, um, if I could give a shout out to Michelle Wilcox, the kids and company program manager. She's solely doing the hiring on her own right now. >> Oh, wow. >> Um, so we have one person trying to, you know, she's in interviews back to back, but also needing to end the summer and start the school year, right? >> Um, and everybody in the community ed office right now is interviewing and recruiting. So, um, we're we've we're digging in for sure. That would be helpful if families can do that. >> Thank you. That was all really helpful. Thank you, >> Sharon Andre. >> Yes, Treasure Heartland. >> Thank you. To kind of piggyback on the, you know, the request for help. Um, directors, um, Smith, Breedlove, and Williams, I'm sorry. you guys are like really kind of catching the brunt here of our questions and I I'm sure that you feel that and just want to acknowledge it and thank you for your work. I know that like you are right there on the bleeding edge and so I don't want to target you guys in particular. Um, and there's also this fact that like if students can't if parents don't know their options or what's going to happen for transportation and they don't know about care, they could choose a different district or they could choose um some other way to educate or their kids. And so I'm wondering if there's anything you guys else need, if there's anything that comes to your mind like from the board, from legislature, from from the other people in this room that can help you guys get students matched, can help us meet our deadline so that parents know, you know, honestly, even if it's bad news, >> right? Just so that they know and can make a plan and accommodate what's going to happen for their kids. I would say we have done a really good job in working with communications to make sure that we're communicating as much as possible. Sometimes they may seem like overcommunicating. Um, and the reason being is because then families start signing up for everything and they may not qualify or whatnot, but we have sent out a lot of different messages. Um, as for kids and company, Julia and I sit down and we work together to see if there's anything that we can do in our structure. So that's after we have our routes together, we know what programs are running, what we have, we go through and see what we can do to work together to partner and then if there's something that works, we make sure that we make it work. So we have been looking at if it costs anything, um how much work to put into it, what we need to get there, and we'll try our best. We also do share lists in the beginning of the school year. So when families are signing up for kids and co, we share the list to make sure that we know we can take them off the bus if they're not and they can relieve a space so that then other families we can add on the bus. So those are things that we've been doing for a few years now just to make sure that and we've catch a lot. So our list together, we do find families that just don't notify us that they don't need the bus. And so we do end up taking a lot of families off just due to that. And then to speak to the fees, if we're in communication, we see them on each other's list. The fees are usually waved um from conversations that we've had before. So, if we have anything else that we can use the community for, um, I would say we're working on having community leaders for schools helping us with, um, our safe walks to school program. Just whoever at whatever site, if your students go there, if you volunteer, it'd be helpful to help with the community or have the community help to work with. We have a a transportation safety coordinator that connects with the schools about safe walks to school. We're looking for school personnel to help team up with the community in order to help get the students on their way to school. Now, that is not um saying that we are saying that students should walk in the no bus zone. That is just us saying that there is a program out here in Minnesota that is called Safe Walks to School that will help with certain things. Sometimes we can reach out and find grants and things like that if possible. As a community, there's literature that we'll send out to all the schools just to make sure that they know and if there's anybody that wants to sign up, they can let us know in transportation and we'll try to pair them with the school and see what we can do to have the community help. >> Thank you. And and one other thing that just came to mind while you were speaking right now is that we had a community member call >> and leave a public comment in the spring talking about Metro Transit. >> Mhm. if there's any possibility. I know we do have some students. It's not necessarily that we have tons and tons of routes out here, but I know that a community member asked that we contact Metro Transit and see if there was, you know, there were any routes or anything that aligned. Do you know if that has happened? I've heard some things from some families, but that would be from families to Metro Transit. We wouldn't be able to partner as a district with Metro Transit. uh if it would be a bigger conversation if we as a district did partner with Metroransit. So for right now, what I did speak to families about is you're more than welcome to contact um a group of families together is always better if everyone at the school wants the same thing. Contacting Metroransit or other places for private help is is a good way to try. Um, but we as a district right now, we'd have to have some type of partnership which would be us digging into other funds from somewhere. So, it would have to start and be a way larger conversation for that. >> Sure. And I can appreciate that you had a big enough lift. Um, is it something that potentially we can see how this year actually goes and see what the community demand is and revisit. >> Director Hartland, if I can also answer your question. Um, and I know Naisha probably won't say this, but I think one thing we could ask families to do is to lead with kindness at this point >> to remember that there we're also humans and parents on this side of the table and we empathize. You know, we both have to find child care for our own children, transport our own children, >> and I'm always on the waiting list for kids and co. >> Don't say that. So >> yeah, but you know just remembering that you know the folks that open the door for your your children, the people who teach your children, the people who feed your children, who watch your children are also humans with their own children or families and just remembering to lead with kindness and that's you know and love like that's the value that you've bought into when you've enrolled your student into Hopkins and just to remember and also there's lots of system changes that should take place for education that we know is very broad and very slow. Um, but I think you enroll your children in Hopkins because you know that the folks who work here care and just remembering that I think from a community standpoint is helpful is one thing I would add. >> I really appreciate that and thank you for calling it out. It's it's tough and I cannot I mean you guys clearly have everyone here has a very hard job and I know that you guys >> in particular have a hard one. I would I would concur with that. You all have a very tough job and it's really difficult um managing all the expectations of you know like the parents and the governance and the board and so however we can support spec like specifically me like however I can support with helping you all please let me know. Um I'm down to have like brainstorming sessions on how we could support with any um you know like like strategic directions or connecting or either we can think about some engagement sessions with parents throughout the year so some folks won't you know feel like the brunt end of the stick like you know if they miss a deadline and so I think there's just ways that we can you know do some process improvement that would really support with um you know parents feeling more engaged in the process and not feeling frustrated with like getting transportation updates like 10 days before school start and um or kids and co- waiting list. I know that is difficult for childcare everywhere but we are your partners in this so please don't feel I know it's overwhelming but we're here to help. >> Thank you. >> I also appreciate you >> saying that. Um, and I think that it is a good reminder to all of us that we are all doing our best to support our community and our families. Um, and I think that having this comprehensive report is a great way to start the conversation about how we're doing that. Um, and I think that there are community members that are already working amongst themselves. Um I know that one of the big things that's happening at West um I almost said junior high um middle school is um what you mentioned the safe routes to school um and that's a huge partnership with county municipal um even state level agencies that that help with that. So that's a great resource. Um as well as your neighbors are great resources. And um I just want to reiterate that um not only I think is public education facing um a lack of resources, meaning finances, but one of the the biggest lack I think recently is um goodwill and community um engagement in a positive way with public education. And I just want to remind our community that um that is something that we cultivate in Hopkins and is a vital resource for all of our families to have and it comes here um it coaleses here in in the public schools. So thank you for doing the work you do um every day for our community. We really appreciate it. Any other questions or comments before we move on to our next item? >> Chair Andre, just before the team goes, um I I'll want to um thank the board members for empathy and just really looking out for u my colleagues in the space for these amazing leaders who serve our district. Um, I also want to just posit that with um the fact that some of our families are feeling challenged and so we hold both of these things and um I don't know if you can tell but there's there's a high level of fatigue and um I I just want to thank each of you for all of the things that you have done throughout this entire summer to rightsize a system that as director West Morland mentioned earlier is suffering the compounding impact of being perpetually underfunded. So like this is none of our fault and we had to make a giant budget reduction. We had to make some hard decisions and then this team of amazing individuals came together to figure out how we're going to make it work. And so it's very challenging the work and it's also challenging when we, you know, want to have all of our families be happy and satisfied and we're we're not always able to do that. So I just want to hold both of those and and thank you tremendously for all the work and then being so thoughtful in the presentation. It's u much appreciated. >> Thank you. >> You Thank you. >> Thank you. Um, now takes us to a um resolution um supporting uh paid family engagement leave and calling for local collaboration to strengthen family empowerment in public education. Um, I will before um turning this over to Director Roer who crafted and brought this resolution to the Hopkins School Board would um like to say that it is before us um today because um of the the requirements now to get um resolutions into the Minnesota School Board Association's delegate assembly. um the board, the h the full board has to approve a resolution before we can take it to that delegate assembly. That is um uh a place that uh Vice Chair Ross and I go every year to hear about um different resolutions that are looking to be added to MSBA's slate of legislation that they're going to be working on for the year and beyond until it it get passes it passes. So that's why we have it before you today because they are we are currently working MSBA is currently working on resolutions um for the delegate assembly which happens in December. And so, um, once we get this, um, once we've had the discussion and if we pass the resolution, we can then take it to the delegate assembly, but we're also going to, um, bring it to other school boards so that they can join the support at the delegate assembly. And I think that um we will find that a lot of collaboration and work across jurisdictions is going to be necessary to get this passed. Um um but I will turn it over to Director Roer to talk more about what this resolution means and the impact it could have here in Hopkins. Thank you so much, Chair and um so you know again thank you all. Um it is both an honor and a responsibility to speak tonight about the family engagement resolution. At its core this resolution is about partnership between families, schools and businesses to ensure that every student in Hopkins and our state has the opportunity to succeed. This is not only about education. I want to just be very clear. is about the health of our community, the strength of our economy and the promise that we are making to the next generation. So I want to name the challenge and the in Minnesota we are currently facing a serious one and before some of the statistics that we learned about tonight um during some of our workshops and some of the presentations is that we understand like before the pandemic about 85% of students um attended school regularly. today that number has fallen below 70% statewide and in some high poverty schools fewer than one in four students attend consistently and that is information from the Minnesota Department of Education. Um and we know that chronic excuse me aptism uh excuse me aptism directly impacts student achievement behavior and long-term opportunities. And here in Hopkins, as we know, we are seeing the same trends. Attendance struggles, behavior challenges, and the need for stronger connections between home and school. Um, and the research is very clear that family engagement is one of the strongest predictors of student success. Students um with engaged caregivers are twice as likely to earn higher grades and graduate on time. And that is also a data point from Harvard Family Research Project. And they are also most likely to attend school consistently, show stronger literacy in math and growth, um, and experience fewer behavior challenges. Now, I also want to note the workforce connection here. And why this matters because today's students are tomorrow's workforce. And so, right now, employers across Minnesota are seeing the same thing. They need a workforce that is skilled, adaptable, and ready for innovation. And the world uh according to like the world economic forum uh you know reports that 50% of employers are moving toward skills-based hiring. That means that academic achievement, attendance and engagement are directly tied to future workforce readiness. And if students are missing school today, they are missing the preparation that are needed for that's needed for tomorrow's innovators, entrepreneurs, and leaders. And family engagement is not only an education issue, it is a workforce pipeline issue. And so I would love to position this I am positioning this as a win-win for businesses because um our businesses are not bystanders in this. They are uh partners and heroes. And from the research we knows that when employees feel supported in balancing work and family they are 20% more likely to stay and 15% more productive. And that's also a data point from Boston College Center work and family. Um, and 52% of employees say that when say they would leave a job for one that better supports their family, and that's a data point from GA uh Gallup in 2022. Um, so familyfriendly business practices aren't just for good for families. They strengthen retention, reduce turnover costs, and improve the bottom line. And so by partnering with schools on family engagement, businesses can help ensure that Minnesota workforce or um of tomorrow is stronger, healthier, and better prepared to compete in a global economy. And so I want to just be very clear that this resolution is not a mandate for businesses. This is a for the district to engage in a district-wide plan for family engagement, but it's also an invitation for businesses to be partners um and co-designers of a model that works for everyone. And so that's how we are positioning this today um with this tiered excuse me resolution. And so um I don't know do we read the resolution now or how we >> um >> or do I ask do sorry any questions is that how it goes. >> Yeah we can we can talk a little bit before since um uh our board colleagues are seeing this for the first time. So just wondering if there are any questions and just to reiterate that the um resolution would be um the you know we would be asking our administration to um craft and create a comprehensive um parent um not parent but family engagement plan. Um, and that would be that would have goals. And this resolution is to call on community partners um whether they be local um state or national um elected officials or um uh uh businesses as director Roer said to um ensure to remove the barrier um remove a barrier for full family engagement in public education by offering um hours up to 16 hours of paid leave annually for their employers. Um so that is how we are inviting our community partners in um to support our family engagement plan as a district. So I think those are the big asks. Um but open up for questions from board colleagues, thoughts, comments. >> Chair Andre. >> Yes. Um well, first I want to say I'm incredibly supportive of the resolution. I think it's a conversation that's long overdue. Um I like the positionality that we need to collaborate with um electeds across jurisdictions, our local business community, certainly our legislature. Um so kind of embedded in this is um kind of a framework for the LACE as well to um really amplify this particular issue. Chair Andre and I appreciate how you talked about the MSBA delegate assembly so that this could potentially if it's voted on if it's approved by the assembly become part of the slate of priorities for the Minnesota School Boards Association which of course then amplifies it and brings it to the next level. Um, Director Roer, thank you so much for the background on it. I'm curious about um how you found out about this and if there are already other districts that are working on this or would we be the first to pass a resolution like this? >> So, we would be the first district to pass a resolution um asking for paid leave for um for family engagement. So, right now there is a law that exists already within the state that has unpaid leave um up to 16 hours that was passed in 2020 three. Oh, excuse me. No, I'm sorry. I think it was in 1990. I'll have to get the um the exact date of when that was passed. But um there have been efforts before to transition, excuse me, to um get this to be paid um family leave. I know that there's like a lot of hesitation and like a lot of push back from you know um the business community. And so, um, I discovered this as I've been talking to families and, you know, uh, just understanding the dynamics of why family engagement is so low, especially within our black and brown communities and how we could involve them more in the school district. And one of the bigger um, you know, uh, patterns that I was hearing in the conversation was that it's hard for me to get off work. I can't take off work. Um, you know, I'm in a hourly position. taking off even two hours and having two hours off my paycheck would be an incredible detrimental um impact to my family's finances. Right? And these are single family um homes that we were talking that that I spoke to middle class families who don't qualify for any assistance, right? Um that's a whole another conversation about middle class and uh what we qualify for. But um so that's really where this resolution came from was trying to really think creatively on how can we get families to engage and also understanding to also just understanding my own involvement in family engagement and what I have been doing would love to see more creative ways and pathways for families to engage in a classroom outside of traditional methods such as like field trips or you know um maybe we'll come to like an event but how can we thoughtfully create um relationships with our teachers that will help increase um you know some of the student achievement that we're looking to um you know have in our outcome in our student outcomes and so and with the ordinance I've just been looking around just to see you know like how can cities support and also wanting to build a deeper and evolving our relationship with like our city partners. Um, so that's how I thought about and discovered that a city can also pass an ordinance that require their businesses to um, you know, that would require their businesses to offer this paid leave. So, there was a lot of research that went into this, but of course, we'll be like one of the first districts. >> Thank you. Thanks for that background. Mhm. >> And I think too um looking at it in partnership with the district um having a fa a comprehensive family engagement plan. This is one piece and this is something that community partners can do to remove a significant barrier. Um but it is not the only way in which the district is going to be um seeing this as a focus and a priority going forward. >> So that is one of the other things this resolution does is establish that um creation of that plan. >> Absolutely. >> I have a question for director Roer. Have you had any off thereord conversations with any businesses or business? Cuz I could see where the push back would come from. >> Yeah. Yeah. >> Is because this would be for non-exempt and this so since this would be private, we'd be asking the school district to collaborate with private businesses to basically provide some level of paid leave for families so they'll be able to attend their child sporting event. I just don't know whether or not you've gotten any support from any local businesses that would be like, "Yeah, that would be something we would be inclined to support." So then that child or the caregiver can attend the child's um whatever the event is is going on. >> Yeah, absolutely. So, I've had like a few conversations with some small business owners um around this subject, not particularly in Hopkins to be completely honest. Um that deep level of engagement is uh is uh is takes a a creative design process. We need to include our chambers. We have um different organizations. There are community stakeholders. there are legislators that is going to have to um who's going to have to lead that conversation in collaboration with us, right? So, this is just the the this is like the start. This is putting the stake in the ground saying, "Hey, this is where our values is. This is where we are leading to um to enhance our engagement plan, but also to improve student outcomes and also um to support families and um and we're inviting people to the table to come." And so this is step one and we have like many more steps to go and that does include very deep very intentional thought partnership and engagement with different f I mean excuse me with different families um job comm I mean business communities again like legislators different nonprofit organizations like every we're going to have to really design and build a big coalition around what this could look like. >> Thank you. Chair Andre. >> Yes, Treasurer Hartland. I think um to kind of piggy back off of what you just said, I mean, this school district has partnered and been kind of on a leading edge of several legislative um initiatives in the past and any like anything that comes with a fairly large dollar amount. I mean, it's a yearslong process. So, I know chair and that you experience that like with universal meals. Um, so I mean I so appreciate you, Director Roer, bringing that right now and look forward to like signing this into law with you in six years or >> or whatever it's going to take. >> Sounds realistic. >> And you know, I say that as a joke, but it but you're absolutely right that this is kind of an opening salvo and then getting that support from the MSBA, um, finding a model that works. All of those pieces are the next steps in a very long process. >> Yeah, it it is a very long process and that's why I position this as like a win-win for business, you know, the business community as well because it is also their you know like their um their co-designing that's going to really help shape what this looks like. Um especially in terms of like workforce innovation. And I know more employers I mean employees are running towards familyfriendly um um familyfriendly businesses and you know um opportunities that works best for them and also just being on the side of someone and I mean just to be very completely honest as someone who have been on the side of you know needing having to choose between can I take this day off for my mental health or having to go engage in my son's classroom when my son was first in kindergarten was a really big um red flag for me. I said, "Wow, like I'm really having to choose between taking care of myself and taking or engaging in my child's education." Um, and there was a really big imbalance that I noticed. That's why I got involved in the school district right away because I have been a disparity, continue to be a disparity, but now I'm on the side of disparity reduction. And so I have really deep insight on how this could be very beneficial for a lot of parents who are in the same boat as me. So that's why I I know it's a bold and ambitious uh ask and a move. Um though it's very needed right now in our community and I think about our bottom line for our families. I think about the bottom line for the businesses creating a workforce that works for everyone and today's students are tomorrow's workforce. So about that chair Andre. >> Yes. Um Dr. Mary Perry Reed, do you read this? And it has uh you know, it's got a uh resolution that the administration will establish a family engagement plan. Um obviously we are in a spot where it is, you know, everyone's kind of tapped out. You just referenced fatigue from your leaders. Is there buy in? And I mean I know that there are like NASA and family engagement plans in already like especially in special services and and transportation has to has to engage with families constantly. Is this something that can be done by the district? Do you have concerns or thoughts? Um, I do not have concerns because this is work that should already be embedded into what we do and how we operate. Also, um, if we were to find ways to, you know, like systematize or standardize, well, standardize is probably not the right word. I say systematize because we would want to engage in a family engagement effort that systematically reaches all families, right? But of course it can't be a standard process because we need to um we need to use unique and varied ways of reaching out to our um different families. Um, and I would say that our elementary schools are well positioned to like bring their family engagement efforts to the next level with um, last year's focus at the middle school level on increasing family engagement at both North and West. I think that those two schools are well positioned to, you know, maybe bring this their efforts to the next level. And then I believe that our team at the high school would be genuinely interested in this work. So, you know, there's always a little bit of extra work involved and we we have school leaders here who recognize that authentic family engagement only helps students feel better about their learning, learn at higher levels. So, it's it's an investment that is well worth people's time. So, we can definitely work with our schools on this. >> Thank you. >> Thank you for asking that question. Anyone else? I'd just like to um draw attention to one request that was brought forward from a leader in um under the now therefore be it resolved section in um the fourth um bullet. it. There is a sentence that includes that says K through 12 students. Um, and the request was that it be preK through 12. I would also say that um I think we could add a plus there because we have students outside of 12 who do our transition plus. Um, so just wanting to make sure that all of our kiddos are included. Um, so that's the only suggested change I have. Does anyone have anything else? I would just like to add to like this is a lot of the work that um I'm doing in collaboration with like our community education. So like with um like with Lindsy Leeman and another few parents like Valita Moore like just designing a coalition um you know like the the Hopkins coalition for like black scholar success like this is the work that we're already doing um that would complement the district's family engagement plan. So we're really doing a lot of comprehensive work right right now. But also I want to just ensure that this is while we're working with black and brown students. This is going to benefit every student and every student, every caregiver, every family regardless of how you identify is going to benefit from the enhancements that we're making right now. So like I want to shout out the parent that's in the audience right now who stayed so gracefully for our entire meeting, being here advocating for child care and for transportation. like those are the families that we I think about in mind when we're thinking about being bold in action to move things forward. So this is why this is super important and it's a an advocacy point. Again, we have to still get buyin from our city partners and you know our business community. So that's going to be a lot of conversation but I think we're able to achieve this with the right amount of work and um grit behind this. So >> great. Thank you, Director Roer. Um, so there's a couple of logistics that we'll need to go through for this. Since we do not have a clerk, I'm wondering if Vice Chair Ross would like to reprise his duty. >> Don't tell uh Clerk Thompson. >> Steal. >> Mom's the word. I am a clerk of Merita from like eight years ago. >> Oh, that's true. >> So, if if you ever find yourself in need, >> all right, we'll call on you. Um and um so what we can what we'll do is um read the resolution. Um Director Roer, would you like to do that or would you like me to read it? you can since it's okay. Yeah. >> Um so I will read the resolution with the suggested change and um then the the I guess we look for a motion. Okay. So first um I would look for a motion um that the board pass the following resolution. Uh whereas family engagement is a proven driver of student success and well-being and strong caregiver school partnerships create more accountable thriving schools. Whereas families across our community, especially low-income and historically underserved families, face barriers to attending school events, caregiver teacher conferences, IEP meetings, and other critical engagement opportunities due to work constraints. Whereas the current system disproport disproportionately disadvantages workingclass caregivers and perpetuates longstanding inequities which the board is committed to address. Whereas the Hopkins School Board affirms that no caregiver should have to choose between earning a paycheck and engaging in their child's education. Whereas community- centered leadership demands collaboration between schools, cities, counties, and state government to remove systemic obstacles that limit civic engagement and educational opportunities. Now, therefore, be it resolved that the Hopkins School Board directs the district administration to establish a family engagement plan that establishes family partnership goals at the district and site levels. The board calls on local leaders and the state of Minnesota to create and implement a policy providing up to 16 hours of paid leave annually for caregivers and guardians to participate in school related activities. The school board encourages municipalities within our district to put in place an ordinance establishing a requirement for family engagement leave which will serve as a model for the state and complement the district's family partnership goals. The school board urges the Minnesota legislature to pass a law that guarantees all caregivers and guardians of prek through 12 plus students access to paid time off for school related involvement. Aligning this law with workforce participation, public health, family stability, and educational goals. The school board commits to collaborating with local and state leaders, businesses, and advocacy groups to pursue this policy across jurisdictions. Be it finally resolved that the Hopkins Public School Board remains committed to bold, cooperative, family first solutions that strengthen our democracy, empower caregivers, and uplift the academic and social success of every student. Do I have a motion? >> So moved. >> Is there a second? >> Second. >> I have a motion and a second. Any further discussion? >> Vice Chair Ross, please. Please call the role. >> Chair Andre, >> I. >> Director Roer, >> I. >> Treasurer Hartland, >> I. Director West Morland >> I. >> Director Xiao >> I. >> Director Ross I. >> Thank you. The uh resolution has passed. Well done. >> Thank you, Director Roer. >> Thank you. >> Um and now we begin our work. >> Thank you for your partnership, everyone. Um, so we are going to have um a a resolution calling an executive session coming up. Um, I do want to give all board members a chance to do a board member report before we go into close session and um then we will approve the incidental report. I hope everyone had a chance to take a look at that um before tonight's meeting and um it is on it is a special services update and it talks about our current um health services. Um so first we will go ahead and go around the table introduce ourselves and if you have a report to share please do so. Would you like to start director Roer? Uh, sure. So, um, my name is Brook Roer. I am entering into my third year on the school board already. Um, I have two amazing kids in the district. Um, for the sake of time, I'll keep it very brief. Um, just been able over the summer just been engaging in different activities and um, events just related to education. And like one event that I went to was with um the African-American leadership forum and just talking to a bunch of different um leaders in our uh in our city, excuse me, across the metro who are leading work in education and just discovering a lot of synergy around partnership and just wanting to be involved in our district um about family engagement as well. And so those are conversations I've been having all um all summer. and taking time to just really seriously like mentally rest over the summer as well. Um and just taking time to debrief and um um treasure hotland and I had an opportunity to go see and I think director uh West Morland too went to go tour um of the arts and it was an amazing amazing tour. Algra is doing such great work over there. It was I encourage everyone to go see it. And I would love to give a huge shout out to Mad Dad's You Matter and Foundations Church for their donation of backpacks that they gave to the district. Um they gave over four boxes of backpacks uh to uh resource west to support with their um backpack donation drive right now. And so this is the second year they have done it. I am so grateful for Jordan and Nissa um for their dedication towards um you know our educ just our education and our district and would love to work with them to find ways to work with their organization because they are so critical in our community and just moving great work. So shout out to my dad's matter foundations church and thank you. Um and am I missing anything? Please charge it to my heart and my head cuz it's getting bad time. You all know how I am. it has not changed. So, um I'm ready to go sleep, but I know we have important work to do. So, um but thank you all for all of your work. I'm looking forward to working with everyone. >> Um good evening. I am Rachel Hartland. I use she her pronouns. I'm currently serving as the treasurer. It is my fourth school year as a member of the board and um yes that as we kind of mentioned a few times over this meeting that a lot of work continued over the summer. So, um, in addition to staying up with community engagement and and conversation, I have been I've met with a individual school board members from surrounding districts and looked at ways in which um, we might uh, collaborate just a little bit. One example of a way that we found we could collaborate was um connecting some local elected officials with the leaders of the Hopkins Education Foundation and in this case the Robbinsdale, their equivalent of um the Hopkins Education Foundation. I'm forgetting the exact name right now, but to ensure that we don't schedule our major events on the same day because then elected officials that would like to attend both can't and that is something that happened last year. And so there are ways in which um we can kind of streamline the things that we do and work together. Um I robot let's see robotics continued throughout the um school year and so did band and marching band and so I marched with the Hopkins marching band in the parade and there's been a variety of other smaller things that I did over the summer and I'm looking forward to the year getting going again. >> Good evening. I'm Roa Mary Perryi Reid superintendent. I have provided my uh board report already earlier this evening and I do have um two children. Maddie will be um in 8th grade at West and then I have um a high school senior as well. >> Thank you. Hello everyone. My name is Shannon Andre. Um, this is some number of years I've been on the board. I can't remember. I'm in my second term. Sorry everyone. Um, and I have a senior this year um, at the high school, which I can't hardly believe it. Um, and I also, um, get to work, um, as a special education pair professional in the district, which I enjoy, and I'm so excited to get back to school, um, and be with those kiddos. And, um, just wanted to remind everyone, I think, um, uh, superintendent's report touched on it, but, we do have an election coming up. our um staff is working diligently and very hard to make sure that this goes seamlessly. Um we um will be um filing has closed. Um we will be hi um uh electing some new school board colleagues. Um so just wanted to make everyone aware of that to get out and vote. Your voice needs to be heard. And also um I don't know if we can say this from the table, but we would like you to vote in um also in our referendum um coming up in our bond and CPL. So just a reminder, uh early voting starts um September 19th um and all the way up through election day on November 4th. Um and the half block party is coming up on September 13th. It's a great fun way to support um Hopkins um education foundation and the schools and teachers and students. Um and that happens in the downtown Hopkins area. And then I am on the board of Resource West. O wanted to let everyone know that they are starting their back to school um supply drive. Um so community members can sign up and go there and pick out their backpack for the year. It's always a really exciting event. Um and they are also having a gathering to grow event which helps um support the um scholarships that they do for um early childhood. And Hopkins is one of the um districts that provides that um early childhood care. So that is a great way to support um our families um and a great organization. And that is on September 26th, 5 to 8:00 p.m. It's a ton of fun. Um so those are my big things coming up. >> Good evening. My name is Jason Ross. I have three kids in the system, two seventh graders and one fourth grader. And I do not have a board report tonight. >> Hi, this is uh Jiming Jao. I've got uh two kids in the district. They're in fifth grade and second grade at Shing uh at Eisenhower. Uh I think uh we um sent our kids for summer camps at Camp Royal and uh they had a really good time. So uh I think the the summer programming I have firsthand experience, it's very good. Um, I guess things of note are uh we had a over the summer uh the safety uh work went on and uh I got to meet uh our our safety coordinator uh Chi and uh sorry if I mispronounced that and um and uh had a good very good conversation with uh local um leaders in uh around uh safety, you know, things that we can do better as a school, coordinate better and uh so that was really good And um yeah, thanks. >> I am Jen West Morland. I am a proud graduate of Hopkins schools. Um my experience when I was a student here a while ago um is the reason that I went into education professionally and um that the reason I'm a professor today and I have a rising ninth grader. I can't believe it. Um probably won't be hanging out with your seniors. Um, but she'll be in the same building and is very excited. Um, and this is my eighth year on the school board. I will not be seeking reelection. Um, and so I have been working with our student board reps over the summer. I've had the privilege of being the liazison to the student board rep since January. um really working on a strong plan uh for recruitment and onboarding and then continuous engagement with younger students throughout this year and um more robust participation in committees. Um so preparing all of that now so that when I leave the board that we can have a smooth transition to whoever will be the next liaison for the student board reps. As you know they are brilliant. So basically my job is scheduling the Google Meets um and they're doing all the rest. So thank you. >> Great. Thank you Director West Morland. And I did also I'm sorry forget to mention an exciting opportunity that um I just learned is probably is going to happen at um Gatewood Elementary. We um have been working on providing some um uh before school um freedom school inspired um uh offering for families and that is going to happen this fall. Um and I just want to thank um the partnership of um people in the administration as well as um uh Dr. Nolan for making that happen for our families. I think it's going to be a great opportunity. And what I am hoping is that this pilot um can roll out to other schools in the district because as we know our um offering in the summer is widely popular um and does a lot for our community. So I'm sorry I forgot to mention that. So any Gatewood families paying attention, you can sign up for um it's going to be called I think Gator Academy. >> So >> that's cute. >> Yeah, we're very excited. >> That is so Thank you. Yeah, that is amazing. And >> pretty sure Jalisa would love to >> listen I mean hear about that as well. I mean she probably knows but just in general. So, um, oh, I forgot to quickly mention I will be at the state fair this presenting at the state fair this Friday, the first day it opens, I believe, um, on electric school buses again. So, um, I did it last year with my coalition and we're going to be back there again at 5:00 in the Echo building. So, if anyone's at the state fair, um, feel free to stop by to see us present and bring me some cheese curts. >> Okay. Um so with that I would look for um a motion that the board accepts the incidental report as listed. >> So moved. >> I have a motion. Is there a second? >> Second. >> I have a motion and a second. Any discussion? >> Chair Andre. >> Yes. >> I would simply like to note that this the community really should take a peek at it. It lists an enormous amount of resources. if families need something. There are tons of organizations that our district works with. And want to highlight that health office visit totals in the 2425 school year were 57,526 >> and that is up significantly from up last year >> from the previous year. So our our health services staff is is doing amazing things. Yes. Any further discussion? Seeing none, all those in favor, please say I. >> I. I. >> Any opposed? The chair votes I. And the incidental report is accepted. Um so then I would um look for 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 session to discuss negotiation strategy related to the HA contract for the 202526 school year. that the meeting be held in person and commence immediately following the um adjournment of this regular meeting. Um further that it be noted that all board members, superintendent and clerk were duly notified of intention to call this executive session. >> So moved. >> 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 executive session has been called. Thank you all for attending. >> I'm not going to get I can't gavl out till we adjourn. >> Change this adjournment thing. >> Thank you everyone. Have a great night. Safe travels home. printed shirt less. [Music]