Wayzata Public Schools — Transcript
Monday, October 26, 2026
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Meadow Ridge Elementary Cultivates Belonging Through Innovative Mentorship Program
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Wayzata Schools Tackle Persistent Achievement Gaps Amid Strong Overall Performance
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Wayzata Public Schools Drafts Policy for Responsible AI Use
Employee Recognition
Votes (4)
Recognition of Allison Frasier, Employee of the Month
Dr. Virgin introduced the recognition, sharing remarks from Meadow Ridge Elementary. Allison Frasier, a school counselor, was lauded for her empathy, support for students/families, and proactive communication. Frasier herself spoke, crediting her mother (a lifelong educator) and sharing her motivation to prioritize children's mental health, inspired by the loss of her cousin to depression. She highlighted the district's elementary school counseling program, now in its fifth year with counselors in all nine elementary schools. She thanked staff, administrators, and the Meadow Ridge social worker.
School Spotlight Presentation: Merryold Buddy Program at Meadow Ridge Elementary
Principal Sarah Beth Denui, Associate Principal Brianna Blood, and teachers Lucky Omar and Sarah Gamik presented the Merryold Buddy program. The program, inspired by the 'Marigold effect' metaphor, aims to address a lack of leadership, responsibility, and community among students (especially older ones) by intentionally pairing older students with younger ones. The goal is to build relationships, friendships, and safe spaces that might not happen organically in a school of over 800 students. Data from a survey showed high rates of students reporting friends in class (98%), at Meadow Ridge (99%), and a trusted adult (96%), but also identified areas for improvement, particularly concerning trusted adults. The program involves intentional pairing, accessibility for special education students, and inclusion of all adults in the building. Feedback from students and staff was overwhelmingly positive, emphasizing the value of connections over activities. Board members praised the program for instilling a 'value of belonging' and fostering mentorship.
Administrative Reports: 2025-27 State Annual Report Student Achievement
Dana Miller and her team (Dr. Lackner, Austin Terson, Abby Bra, Julie Schneider) presented student achievement data for the 2025-26 school year. They covered KCER goals, local literacy plan objectives, and ANI goals, using FastBridge (screening/progress monitoring) and MCA (state accountability) assessments. Key findings included slight increases in K-1 literacy, but mixed results in grades 2-8, with a 2% decrease in overall proficiency for grades 6-8 aReading. Significant and persistent achievement gaps were noted across racial, economic, and special education groups in both reading and math MCAs, with Black African-American students showing the largest gaps. Math proficiency (72.14%) was higher than the state average but missed the district's goal. High school graduation rates showed students catching up by 12th grade, but gaps persisted in earlier years. The team emphasized continuous improvement through CEL, PLCs, and MTSS, acknowledging the difficulty and time required to close gaps. Board members expressed concerns about the slow pace of gap reduction and questioned the ambition of district-set goals and the definition of 'graduation readiness,' suggesting a need for deeper analysis of post-high school outcomes.
Responsible Use of AI Policy (Background Presentation)
Austin Terson and B. Phillips presented the background for a proposed AI policy. They explained the 'why now' by highlighting the exponential growth of generative and agentic AI since 2022, which goes beyond previous 'task-specific predictive AI.' The policy aims to provide clear guidance and protection, defining responsible use, building AI literacy, ensuring human accountability, and safeguarding data privacy/security. They outlined a 'human AI human' framework, emphasizing human inception and accountability in any AI-supported work. Expected outcomes include clarity, approved tools, teacher-directed student use with a developmental access approach (restricted in K-5, introduced in middle school, greater access in high school), and explicit limits on data entry. The policy and regulation have been developed over 5-6 months, incorporating feedback from MSBA, MDE, and district committees. The first reading is planned for the next board meeting.
Notable Quotes (17)
Meadow Ridge Elementary is pleased to announce Allison Frasier, a school counselor as the Wisetta Public Schools October employee of the month. Allison's warmth and empathy ensures that every student and family feels seen, heard, and deeply supported.
What's best for kids is having adults who are trained to identify and respond to mental health needs early so that families can find the right support. What's best for kids is proactive social emotional learning, how to handle conflict, how to be resilient, how to use coping skills.
I'm really grateful that Waysetta School District came to the same conclusion as me about what kids need. Thanks to the school board and our families and our teachers and administrators, our district launched an elementary school counseling program 5 years ago. We are proud to now have a school counselor in all nine elementary schools.
Our belonging goal at Meto Ridge is to have a 100% of students who will report their sense of belonging as related to peers and adults. So each quarter we will give them a survey with these three questions. I have a friend in class. I have a friend at Meadow Ridge. And I have a trusted adult at Meadow Ridge.
We started thinking if we wanted to see a stronger community, we had to actually create opportunities for students to build one. As staff, we read an article about something called the Marold effect. It was essentially um a metaphor that described people as being Marolds or walnuts.
I like Mary Gold buddies cuz it's a good opportunity to learn like about other people and how to be a good friend.
Um this was amazing. Uh, it's really exciting and I think the thing that I'm most excited about is you're you're creating a value of belonging. It's not just a sense of belonging, but you're instilling a value of belonging and teaching them how to do that.
I think it makes sense to have fifth graders who are much more mature to be paired with kindergartens gardeners who who really are not that developed as the first, second, third and fourth graders are.
Our goal last year was to move from 71.3% to 73 um.3% uh, from the 25 to 26 um, data. Um, and we still can celebrate some of that success, uh, particularly as compared to our state average. So, as we look on this slide, we'll see that our average in grades 3 through eight for MCA was 71% as compared to a state average of 49.5%.
Our Asian students performed the highest with the proficiency rate of 86%. Followed by our white students who had a proficiency rate of 75% which represents a performance gap between our highest performing students and white students of 11 percentage points... and our largest gap continues to exist for black African-American students who had a proficiency rate of 35% and that is a gap of 51 percentage points.
Given the persistent proficiency gaps reflected in these data, how are we determining whether these approaches are producing the results we expect? If the results are not improving at the pace we need, how will we determine what needs to change?
It's also deciding what is that next actionable step we can can take to make that um achievable and feel like we've talked about sometimes when we've used a 100% goal with the board and it's like well how will we ever get to that if that is if that gap is so large. So it's breaking that down into those small chunks and being able to take off um bigger certainly you are correct bigger chunks than what a 2% sure allow us to do.
I think the both the teaching and learning team and the board um in different words what I was hearing tonight did a really nice job of outlining that the journey for continuous improvement in a high performing organization is fundamentally different and that's what Wisetta Public Schools is and it's different from a turnaround school.
What has changed so significantly since 2022 are these new models, generative AI, multimodal AI, agentic AI. I'm sure by tomorrow there'll be another version, but the growth of artificial intelligence has been exponential. Now AI can in in addition to doing specific tasks that you direct it to, it can do novel tasks on its own.
On the protection side, this is probably like the number one um area of of concern right now from an organizational point of view. We want to make sure that um we're really mindful about the the safety of our the data, the security, and the conf confidential information in the organization.
One principle that runs through this proposed draft both in the policy and the regulations is human judgment. And that's what the human AI human framework is centered around. that human judgment and human control is central to any work done with artificial intelligence.
We believe that a developmental access approach uh might be suited for this policy for example for our elementary our youngest learners uh kindergarten through fifth grade we believe that AIU should be restricted that it should be completely teacherdirected with focus on understanding of the concept of artificial intelligence.
Ordinances & Resolutions (12)
Weisetta's plan for literacy support systems, aligning with the Read Act and KCER goals.
State legislation placing emphasis on K-12 students reading at or above grade level each year, replacing 'Read Well by Third Grade'.
New state reading assessment based on 2020 ELA standards, establishing a new baseline.
Current state math assessment based on 2007 standards, used until a new assessment in 2028.
New English Language Arts standards on which the MCA4 reading assessment is based.
Previous standards on which the MCA3 math assessment is still based.
New math standards being implemented across Minnesota, though current MCA still assesses on 2007 standards.
State-mandated achievement and integration goal focused on reducing achievement gaps, specifically for Asian and Black students in Weisetta.
State-mandated goals (e.g., 'all children ready for school,' 'all students ready for college and career,' 'closing all racial and economic achievement gaps').
Model policy provided by the Minnesota School Boards Association for responsible use of AI.
State Longitudinal Education Data System, used to track post-secondary outcomes like college persistence and remedial coursework needs.
Previous district initiative related to technology use.