Welcome to tonight's school board workshop agenda. Today's date is Tuesday, May 19th. It is 5:32 PM, and we will go ahead and get started with our first and only workshop agenda item, which is the ESAC program review. I would invite our presenters up to the table. Welcome. And just so everyone is aware, Superintendent Mary Peery Reed would normally be here, and she would be welcoming everyone here to the table and helping with this presentation. But she is at our annual scholarship award ceremony, which is scheduled at the same time, and I personally am sad to be missing it. It's one of my favorite things to do every year. And I am really grateful that you all are here. So you're going to have to put up with me to get started with this. And so I am literally just going to turn it over to you because you know more than me. Thank you, Chair Andresen. Yeah. Thank you. We'll do our best to be as compelling and interesting as the scholarship ceremony. All right. Good evening, board members. I'm Ann Ertl. I'm the Director of Innovation, Design and Learning. We're here tonight to talk to you about a year's worth of work with our Educational Services Advisory Committee. And so tonight's presentation is intended to provide you and our community with a clear understanding of how ESAC connects to our broader continuous improvement efforts, including program review, community engagement, and long-term instructional coherence across the district. So tonight we'll briefly revisit the purpose of ESAC and then share how the committee has evolved this year, and then also how this structure supports the district's ongoing work to strengthen teaching, learning, and student outcomes. So just a brief overview and a reminder of the purpose of ESAC. Board policy calls for the district to engage an Educational Services Advisory Committee as part of our instructional accountability and continuous improvement process. Throughout this year, ESAC members engaged in conversations connected to program review, Minnesota state standards, elementary and middle school mathematics, and in general district continuous improvement efforts. Members provided feedback, surfaced questions, and helped us better understand how district initiatives are experienced from a community perspective. This is a representation of who has to be part of the committee. Our committee involves more community members, so we might have more parents than just one representative from each school. As we look ahead, ESAC will continue operating through a formal standing membership structure designed to create a sustainable process for consistent, representative, and ongoing stakeholder engagement as district programs and curricular areas move through cycles of review and continuous improvement. This helps us to ensure that we are aligned to district goals, student needs, and our community's expectations. I'm going to turn it over to my colleague, Toni Schwartz, who is one of the leads of the program review process, to talk a little bit about how that works. Thanks. So as Ann said, I'm Toni Schwartz, a member of the Innovation, Design and Learning team. This work sits within a larger continuous improvement framework that's connected to, but not solely driven by state standards and the adoption cycles of those standards. Our goal is to develop coherent systems that allow us to regularly reflect, evaluate, improve, and respond to our learner needs. Program review is one of the primary structures we use to operationalize that commitment. It allows us to move beyond individual opinions or isolated experiences and engage in a disciplined process grounded in evidence, stakeholder voice, instructional expertise, and student outcomes.This work is deeply connected to our Hopkins values around belonging, consistency, coherence, and high-quality learning experiences for every student. The purpose of program review is to provide a systematic, calibrated, and teacher-driven process for evaluating current beliefs, practices, resources, and student outcomes in order to make aligned, research-based recommendations for continuous improvement. This process intentionally centers the expertise of educators while also incorporating multiple forms of evidence: student data, implementation experiences, research, and stakeholder feedback. As part of that work, ESAC provides an important community lens. The role of ESAC is to help us better understand how district systems, learning experiences, and proposed changes are experienced by students, caregivers, and the broader community. That partnership is especially important as we continue engaging in transformational work across the district focused on strong Tier 1 instruction, greater coherence across schools, and more equitable access to high-quality learning experiences for all of our students. We've invited some of our program review facilitators to share the work they've done this year with their teams. We'll first hear from Crystal Polsky. She's been working with the secondary social studies teachers this year. Good evening. My name is Crystal Polsky, and I'm a technology integration specialist in grades six through 12, and also have a social studies teaching background, so that's where I get to jump into this work. At the beginning of the year in August, we started by bundling standards and looking at-- So the state decides that there are a certain number of standards that are to be offered, and then districts get to decide how those standards are placed into courses. And because there's standards across all of the social studies content areas, economics, geography, history, and civics and government, teachers make decisions about where those are going to be. So we looked at what are the big things that we are wanting students to walk away from in grades six through 12 by the time they get to their end of their Hopkins career, and then look at where is our curriculum currently meeting those needs, and where are there gaps. One of the big shifts that's happening with the 2021 social studies standards is a shift to a greater focus on student inquiry and disciplinary literacy. So getting students to really think like geographers and historians. Inquiry used to just be placed within the history strand, and now they're looking at inquiry across that. And so, meaning students are asking questions, they're analyzing sources, working to construct evidence-based arguments, and not just memorizing content. So that's the big goals around the 2021 standards. And there was a question on the ESAC process of these are 2021 standards. Are we behind? Why are we just doing these now? But with the way that sometimes the social studies standards work, they come out in 2021. They are not meant to be fully implemented until the '26, '27 school year. So we're not behind. We're right on track with that. And so through this work, what we learned is that there were some key areas for growth, one of them being incorporating the economic standards across the history classes and trying to figure out where to incorporate those, and then also making sure that content connects meaningfully across disciplines. An addition to the social studies standards was some inclusion of ethnic studies standards, which were already a part of many of the courses that were being taught at the high school, but just being really intentional about where those standards were placed. So all of those things allowed us to have a greater framework. We started developing some competency rubrics of what would it look like at the end of sixth through eighth grade. How do we know that a student has met all of these standards? And built from the K five rubrics that were developed, or not rubrics, but the big ideas of what they wanted learners to be able to do, so that there's coherence between K five, six, eight, and nine, 12. And so the continued work will be looking at where's our curriculum resources currently supporting these standards, and where might there be gaps? That will be the work that will continue into next year, continuing to develop what does competency look like in those different areas, and then working with a smaller team to develop shared curriculum resources. So this has, again, created a strong-- We're excited to continue the work so that every student six, 12 is experiencing a really rigorous, engaging learning experience that's going to help them think critically about what it means to be a citizen in the world. Chair Andreassen, do you want to stop after each content area for questions or save them till the end? Do you have a preference? I don't. Does the board have a preference? Do you want to ask specific questions to each content area? How many slides are there? 1,200. 1,200. They're mostly mine. Many of them are around math. That's why I was wondering if anybody has any questions for Crystal before we move on. Yeah, why don't we do that for each subject area. I think that's good. Perfect. Yeah. Okay. Are there any comments or questions? I have a question. Yes. Chair Andreassen. Thank you for the social studies background. It's very interesting. I am curious about the competency rubrics for learner outcomes and how those are utilized and how they inform our grading practices, if there's any type of overlap at all in that. Yeah. In grades six through eight, they came up with three big learner outcomes. It was around using multiple perspectives to understand systems and draw conclusions, evaluating sources, and using evidence to explain ideas and apply their learning to real-world situations. So within any of the given projects or assessments that are being done, teachers can tie those big learner outcomes to it. Mm-hmm. The rubrics that we will be creating will be sort of like, where would be the sort of the top level of are they getting this? More so we can have coherence. So it will inform the way teachers are planning, and it will inform the way that students are being assessed. I'm not sure if I'm answering your question, but they're very broad learner outcomes. Okay. More granular would be at the unit level or something that a teacher would be doing. Mm-hmm. But they're wanting to make sure that anything they're doing in class is tied to those big outcomes. I can help a little bit too. Yeah. We start with a competency rubric, and then in later phases of program review, because it is a continuous improvement process, our teachers then, once they've installed the rubrics and then perhaps associated assessments, then they do calibration as teams around their grading practices- Okay ... to make sure that what's an A for Crystal is an A for Ann is an A for Tony. Yeah. So that is part of the process. Mm-hmm. It's just a little bit later. Yeah. And that happens more regularly right now at the middle school level because of the IB framework, and they're using common rubrics and things. But yeah, we want to make sure that if a student is attending a class that you're teaching, or that I'm teaching, that they're going to be getting the same, a similar outcome for similar work. That makes sense. Mm-hmm. Thank you. Chair Andreassen, I have a question. Yes. So, and forgive me if you may have answered this in a different way, but the curriculums that we choose for the district, are they in alignment with the MCA standards or assessments at all? I know that we have different assessments that we look at and analyze, but is the MCA assessment, I don't know what the word is. Is the MCA, does it relate to all curriculums that we are looking- I love that you're thinking. I'm trying to... I don't know how to answer this, ask this question. No, I think I understand your question. So- Yeah, like is it the standard? Yeah. Yeah. Absolutely. So typically, social studies doesn't have an associated MCA. However- Mm-hmm ... all of the state assessments are based on Minnesota State standards. So when we adopt, and Ilse's actually going to touch on this a little bit with math. When we implement new standards within the district, those directly relate to the MCA assessment. Typically, the new standards come out first, and then the updated MCA in math follows in a couple of years to give districts time for implementation. And then what our work typically is when a new MCA comes out is to do a deep dive and to see sometimes certain standards are privileged above other standards in MCAs, and so it's our job to look at the assessment, and then we also get really good data back about which strands within the MCA did students do well on, which don't, and that's also part of our continuous review process. So if we are seeing some trends that a lot of students didn't do well in this particular area, that helps us know we have to look back at our curriculum or the way that it's being taught so that we can improve that. But I think the short answer is yes, we do definitely consider MCAs because they're just driven by state standards. And I will say that even though social studies doesn't have a direct test, the literacy practices that we're working to implement are really going to help support the literacy and the nonfiction texts and understanding how to compare and contrast things. So, we don't have the state test, but we are supporting the work that's happening in the other parts of the MCAs. Mm-hmm. Thank you so much. All right. If there's no further questions, we're going to move to K5 Phy Ed. Mariel Oram will be talking about the work she's done with that team over the last little over a year. Hi, I'm Mariel Oram, the PE teacher at Alice Smith. Some things that we did this year, I came in a year or so when they were in their program review, so I'm going to just jump into where when I got there. So we completed phase two of our program, making the scope and sequence for the grade levels of what our elementaries expect at kindergarten all the way up to fifth grade. We made the three consistent grading rubrics for our grading statements, understanding the value of PE, personal, responsible, and social, and the motor skills part. And then we shared ideas and resources. As a new teacher, I'm a sponge when it comes to veteran teachers and what they have to share. So we did a lot about that, or I learned a lot about that. Our focus in the fall is to continue to implement phase two, now that we have finished it, not just forget about it. We still need to use it. We'll continue to discuss and implement our phase three, still sharing ideas and resources, and then sharing or using our grading rubrics consistently through all of the elementary schools. SoThanks. Thanks, Mariel. I do want to connect the question you just had about grading to the work that I know K five PE has done. Because they're a phase ahead of social studies. They have done that next step with K five to look at, do we all agree what proficient is? What do our assessments do? Are we all going in the same direction? And so, I think the work you've done is sort of that next step that you were describing. And I know you talked about next year even doing more calibration around- Yeah ... is everyone's three the same three? Is everyone... Things like that. So- And we had really good conversations about what a three really looks like as a teacher who has 20 years of experience to a teacher who has one year of experience. What does a three look like in Tanglin to Alice Smith to Eisenhower, and we had really good conversations, and it honestly shifted my perspective of what a three could look like in different spaces for different reasons. Mm-hmm. So we had some really good, deep conversations about consistent gradings. Right. So. Any questions for Mariel? I did have just quick one question- Okay ... and it might not be applicable to K five, but wondering, I know one of the things that I feel like makes our PE program really exciting i- in Hopkins is that we have some sites that are doing unified PE- Mm-hmm ... as part of their curriculum, and that creates lots of opportunities for integrating social emotional learning and all that kind of stuff, and just wondering if that i- is a consideration or part of this plan. Possibly at some locations. I... For Alice Smith, we have our DAPE teacher come in with the class, so those students who are receiving those services are already in the class, not really pulled out, so. Oh, that's great. Yeah. It's unified already. Right. So. Yeah. So. That's great. Yeah. So that's part of then, DAPE is then part of the curriculum adaptation, at least at Alice Smith. Yeah. And our Rise program at Alice Smith, those students who are in the Rise program are integrated through, a first grade class, so they come, like they sometimes will spend time in their Rise classroom or in the classroom that they're s- technically in on the rosters, so then they'll come to specials or PE, I guess, with their class, so they don't miss out on that part of it, so unified in that sense. That's great. What I can add, Chair Andreassen, is that, part of our review process is inclusive of all of our different special ed programs, and I know that Director Contreras and I have been working very closely for years to make sure that, all students have access to specials and that they're able to participate as much as they possibly can in that inclusive model that Mariel described. Thank you. And I do know that that has been an intentional shift in the district. Yes, it has. So very appreciative. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you. Any other questions or comments on PE? No? Thanks. Thanks. Is this the time for the 40 slides? I'm good. Sorry. Carl, we were going to have Mr. Schroeder come and describe what has been happening with 6-12 PE- ... but he's one of the world's busiest guys, and so he wasn't able to be here this evening. Mm-hmm. Did you have some... I've got a few things. I am going to connect with him around your question, around- Great ... how that has been part of their conversation. So I did make a note to connect with him. So Carl Schroeder is the program review facilitator for secondary, for the 6-12 group. So he did share the work that his group had done at ESAC. He had a screencast that was shared at our last ESAC meeting, and some of the feedback from ESAC was around the collaboration and alignment work they've done. Multiple ESAC members noted the excitement about the collaboration across all grades and appreciated the intentional alignment of their work K12. So they did look at the work that came from K five so that they are building a cohesive K12 system. They integrated not only the state standards, they looked at how that aligned with the IB work done at the middle school, as well as with the K five grading statements that were done. Another theme that came from ESAC were on outcomes. There was strong support for the holistic approach to student outcomes and fostering lifelong active individuals, having that really be a goal of their program. Next year, their focus will be around alignment and consistency. That will include a gap analysis to ensure that secondary buildings are all on the same page, which will pave the way for a smooth rollout of the rubrics that they developed this year. They will also work to strengthen their daily assessment practices by actively incorporating student feedback, increasing vertical collaboration time to blend state standards with their Hopkins department goals, and to create a community-facing one-pager to share their shared beliefs and practices with caregivers. So that's kind of described on this slide. So I'm sorry I don't have a screencast. But any questions about 6-12 phy ed that I might be able to address? Quick. Yes, Chair Andreassen? Very quick question. Curious how student feedback is gathered, I guess- Mm-hmm ... with respect to this and other areas. Right. I can... Well, I can- Okay, go ahead. Well, specifically, one of the cool things that I can share with you about phy ed at the high school in particular, they have a pretty robust system of gathering student feedback, both on cur-student experience in current courses, but also projecting out what students might like to see. And that's actually a requirement when teachers propose a new class to be added to the course catalog. We ask, "What was the student voice in the idea for this class?" So one of the really neat new classes to emerge for the fall is a class called Basketball for All. And so when I first saw that, I was like, "Basketball for all?" But it's a really cool class because the intent is to take kids who already like the sport and kids who maybe are just dipping their toes in, but give them some tangible skills that they might actually be able to go out and get jobs as referees and things like that. And so it's sort of not just about the game, but about helping kids who love the game find ways that they can leverage their passion in ways that can benefit them for a job. Mm-hmm. So, I know that our high school in particular, where they have a little bit more flexibility with new courses, seek student feedback a lot, especially when they're employing new courses. Thank you. Okay, thank you. Well, so we're going to shift. As part of the multi-phase process, middle school mathematics has now reached a point in the review cycle where there's some emerging cohesion around a common set of instructional materials and instructional design. So Ilsa and Jacques are here to speak more specifically about that work, the feedback processes that were used, and potential next steps. Good evening, board. I'm Ilsa Gall, math specialist here, and with me is a middle school teacher, Jacques. Jacques Joachim, currently at North Middle School and the high school. So it's nice to have a teacher beside me since I'm speaking in representation of so many teachers. It's always nice to have a representative of the teaching pool with us. So, yes, there are many slides. I wanted them for you to be able to reference. I'm not going to read every slide, so sorry to disappoint you. But I'm going to keep a peppy pace, Ann. Okay. All right. So phase two is when we get to the end of coming up with our gap analysis of current state to ideal state and recognizing we may need to make some shifts with materials. And so we are at that point, and right away I'm putting on the first slide that the middle school team is requesting an adoption of Imagine IM curriculum for grades six through eight, and this is the same publisher and curriculum that was adopted for K five. Imagine IM is a bridge of two things. We have Imagine Learning, which is the publisher. There are only three certified publishers for the Illustrative Math curriculum, which is a free and open source curriculum. So Imagine IM is the publisher version of that Illustrative Math program. So when I began working here at Hopkins in 2023, there was already work done with the vision statement to give kind of a North Star to that work as I was coming in and really trying to assess how I could help facilitate this work with this team. And so I convened a very large group of K12 educators and coaches and support staff across the district. And so a lot of the work that I'm going to share with you is representative of this very large team of K12 educators. Though, the more specific six-eight decisions was a smaller group on the next slide. Here, I'll pivot so you can see where I'm at, Ann. The next slide is all of the middle school teachers and high school teachers. So we discovered pretty quickly K five had a lot of urgency for building consistency and coherence in our programming, and they were ready to move. So we activated pretty quickly with K five. Six-eight and nine-12, we need to do a little deeper study. The standards look a little different, particularly at the high school. So we really had to slow down and follow some guidance from state leadership around how to address the high school standards because they are just so different from previous years. So even though we have a six-12 team, we kind of got smaller again and just looked at six-eight. Six-eight felt like they were ready to go. So those are the teachers that are bolded on that list. So the work we did was to begin with what is our current state of math at Hopkins and then shifted to ideal state. So I've shared this slide with you before with the NAEP data. That's our national math data. It just is showing that there's a gap widening between students above and below the 50th percentile, and we want to see, obviously, that gap closing. So this is a trend happening across our nation. A little closer to home, we have the MCA results for math over the last several years with a gap in 2020 from COVID. But again, this just presents to me an opportunity for us to be making some big shifts and seeing these trends change course. I'll just point out, one of the things that we discovered in elementary and middle is it's harder to get closer to the classroom for data because of the variability in our system. So one of the things we're really leaning on is this coherence and consistency so that we aren't just looking at math data from the state MCA level, but we can look at the classroom level and be more agile in our responses to our programming. So one of the big guideposts of our work is also just how can we align ourselves more closely. So prior to now, we've been using Connected Math Project. Did I say that right? I always forget. And Illustrative Math was also being dabbled in because it was a free open source. So we've seen Illustrative Math in K five, six-eight, and nine-12 because when teachers don't find the resources in front of them serving them and their students, they go looking for things. And a lot of teachers in Hopkins have just naturally gravitated towards Illustrative Math. So the Kendall Hunt Publishing Company is one of the other certified publishers for Illustrative Math, and they produce the free open source curriculum, which is pretty bare bones, but the teachers can play and adapt itAs needed. So this has already been piloted for many years in most 6-8 math classrooms. And in our ESAC conversation, one of the questions that came up was: What about the other teachers? Are they resistant to Illustrative? And the honest answer is those teachers were waiting for a more formal process before making a decision. They didn't want to make multiple changes. They were waiting for us to do a more formal process. I haven't experienced any resistance, more just curiosity and looking for a better structured process. And then finally, our 6-12 math pathways was another question that came up in ESAC. So though we're not talking about pathways tonight, that will be coming next year when we go into a deeper dive with high school. The pathways show how a student can go between sixth grade and 12th grade while they're here at Hopkins. And you'll notice that currently we have four different pathways that students can experience at the middle level, and that is due to the little square Post-its of compacted courses. So our teachers and I fully support not skipping math, because anything before Algebra 1 is so essentially foundational to everything that comes after. So we really firmly believe, rather than passing over or testing out of classes, to really give students opportunities to still attend to those concepts so that they don't have gaps in their learning because they chose an accelerated pathway. So this means students can complete two years of math in one year at two different points in their middle school career, should they choose to. So then they have three different ways that they would enter ninth grade. Those courses that we're planning to run for next year and also evaluate and hopefully improve for the future years. So we don't have any plans to change those courses. All right. So now we go to ideal state. We've done loads of research, lots of reading and studying of different studies and books. I've shared these with you before. One of the biggest and most impactful thing that we read was the "Opportunity Makers" paper from the New Teacher Project, which has now become a big component in our Hopkins instructional leadership team. And what the "Opportunity Makers" essentially says is they studied 28,000 schools K-8 and discovered that 5% of those schools had students gaining one and a third years of progress in one school year. And what was interesting about that is that if you have a student that's one grade level behind, in three years, they could be caught up if they're in this school. So these are schools that are not only doing that, but sustaining that year over year. And so they studied what those schools had in common, and the three themes that arose were belonging, consistency, and coherence. And so you'll see those words, if you haven't already, showing up in a lot of our presentations from IDL. So another important factor to consider is that the middle school is IB, and so we have to also be attentive to the MYP components. And this is a summarized version of some of those values, but that there's an enjoyment of learning mathematics, that there's creativity and logic behind it, communicating clearly, applying it, and even reflecting and growing as learners. Also in our research, we did a deeper evaluation of what does it mean to be good at mathematics. And mathematical proficiency is not just about knowing your math facts and solving equations. It's about, do I understand the how and the why behind the mathematics? Can I apply fluency with procedures and efficiency, but knowing the how and the why behind them? Can I also set up and solve with some strategies, adapt, and then also feel like math is worthwhile? It's a tool we use to make sense of the world around us. So all of these things are important. And then we also have the standards. And the standards are broken into three strands. The data science strand is probably the biggest shift from the 2007 standards. And just like Crystal was saying about the standards, these are the 2022 standards, which was when that process of writing the standards began. They will be fully implemented and MC tested in 2028. So the years are kind of misleading. I'm setting this all up because I think it's really important to recognize the shifts that are happening in our standards work, that it's not just a list of benchmarks anymore. It is so much deeper than that. So we not only need students to have deep conceptual understanding, we need to then build from that procedural skill and fluency, all while applying in real-life contexts. And so that's written into our standards, all about rigor. Also in our standards, and this is again just for math, to be career, college, and community ready. So again, it's not just having skill sets and knowing facts and equations. It is, can I be persistent and flexible, make connections, communicate, collaborate? So we're not just picking math books, right? We need to really shift our practices to address this. The dimensions of our standards also name eight specific mathematical practices. And then we also have benchmark context. So when we're doing math, we're thinking about how we can apply it to different contexts in life. And then finally, the language of our standards uses phrases like these, which again shows, and these are K-3 benchmarks. These are big lifts. We're not asking for small shifts in the way we teach. We are really looking for teachers to go much deeper. All right. So the resource adoption process that we walked through with K-5, we did the establishing our process of what our program review would look like and developing our lens by creating rubrics. And we did a lot of this work as a K-12 team. Moving into the study phase, we did a little bit more together, but then started to diverge as a K-5 and a 6-8 team. What is also unique about a 6-8 team is they got to take the learning from the K-5 experience and then grow from there. So the two different grade bands kind of experienced this process a little differently. We discovered thatFinding that coherence from K-8 was a really compelling idea, knowing that the story of math being contiguous, rolling into middle school, having those routines and vocabulary, really just be permeated throughout all those grade levels would not be such a shift when sixth grade is already such a tough transition. So it became a really compelling idea for us to say, "Could we possibly do a K-8 adoption? Would this make sense?" So we ended up doing a quite deep study on Imagine IM for the middle level, and attended to the standards, our local pacing constraints. We talked with local districts who are ahead of us in the 6-8 IM adoption, and then we also shared our ideas with ESAC and then asked for feedback in that space as well. And then we have, obviously, the national proof points around Ed Reports with its highest rating. Its ESSA is a Tier 2 rating, which means it has data that supports that it does have significant gains in student achievement, and we were particularly interested in its promotion of equity. And then we also have proof points from Imagine IM in other districts, and I have just received some new data of more local districts who are a bit ahead of us that I can share later. So our key considerations in requesting the adoption of Imagine IM is that it's aligned well with our standards, especially all of the front matter of our standards. It's really fantastic in that you can have 100% digital or 100% print. And so it doesn't matter, it's the same content either way. So even at the teacher level, if one teacher is more interested in having it fully integrated to Canvas and another would prefer to do more paper pencil, we can go either way with it. So it's very flexible for our needs. Has multilingual family supports, that consistent lesson structure of warm-up activities, synthesis, and cool down. Daily formative assessments, we can get more of that close to the classroom level data, and teachers can collaborate and make data-informed decisions. There's embedded teacher training, which has a different lift at the middle level because we have content experts already at the middle level, which is a little different than a K-5 generalist. However, I do think what's really helpful about the teacher training is what comes before. What came in fifth grade, what's coming in seventh grade, where you can know more accurately with the program how it's laid out with those progressions. Again, we talked about that vertical alignment with K-5, and then the fact that middle school is a block schedule with 75 minutes presents some constraints with how we format the class, and we find that this is a good program for being able to fit into that. And then finally, we have the resource rubric that shows a score of 41 out of 44 when we evaluated it in our own terms. So tonight, I am sharing on behalf of the middle school program review crew for math that we would recommend Imagine IM for adoption. And I will unfortunately not be here on June 2nd, but Anne will be here with adding it to the consent agenda for you to decide at that time. So just a reminder, board members, this is sort of the pattern that we followed last spring when we did the K-5 adoption. So we brought the recommendation to the board. There were some questions, and then we added the, I guess it's the quote or the contract or the purchase order, whatever, to the consent agenda for approval at the following meeting. So we are thinking that we would follow the same process unless there's a desire for something different. Thank you. Is this the spot where we can ask questions if we have them? Yeah. It was a peppy pace, Elsa. Yeah. Well done. Thank you. Yeah. I could barely even keep up with scrolling. Same. Any questions? Chair Anderson? Yes, Treasurer Hartland. Thank you so much for coming here today. Could you talk a little bit about how... I know you touched on it, but can the compacted courses and these pathways that you said we'll get into more, are those still compatible fully with IM, or does that require additional tweaking of those? At this time, it would not require any changes because they were using IM materials already in the creation of the compacted courses, but the free version. So we'll adapt it, but it would not be a big lift to adjust. Okay. Thank you. Mm-hmm. And just to clarify for me, the question was about the compacted courses are at what level? The middle school level? Yes. There is a compacted course for seventh grade math, and there's a compacted course for intermediate algebra, which is currently a ninth grade course. So they look a little different, but both are illustrative math as their foundation. Okay. Thanks. Chair Anderson? Yes. Thank you. I'm hesitating here, and that is because... Well, let me back up. Have we done full elementary math review? Have we gone through a full elementary math review cycle, is that what it's called? Mm-hmm. Math review cycle to have our own proof points that this curriculum works? The coherence makes sense, right? That then the transition from grade five to six into the middle school would be more coherent. But if we're not fullyIf we don't know that IM is working in K five, why put the cart before the horse and change the curriculum in middle school? And I know you said they're already using IM materials, but there has been no formal pilot of IM at the middle schools. Is that right? Not anything that's been in a structure from the district level, but internally amongst teachers, I would say an informal pilot in that they're using it every day. Okay. And discussing it quite a lot. So I would say it's happening, but I don't have the rubrics to go along with it from that process. So is the question, have we done an assessment of the grade school implementation? Is that what you're asking? Yeah. My question is, have we done an assessment of the grade school implementation? And if we haven't, which I don't think we fully have, because it's only been around for a year or so, why not wait to see how it goes, before changing K eight- It's a good question ... or K 12, or six 12. Middle school. One of those. Six-12. Yeah. That's a really good question, and I think what's really hard is how slow implementation goes, and I want so badly to be digging into all of our student data right now. But we know from implementation science that this will take us three to five years to fully see the impact of this decision. So where we stand today, I can't look at student data and say that's a wonderful assessment of how we did or did not succeed because we are, like I was showing with the standards, those are wildly different from an educator standpoint than when I started teaching 20 years ago, which was, "Here's your checklist of skills to go through." So we are shifting teacher practices, which is a big lift. So we've been, like I shared at our last meeting, it was a lot of adult data. How are we doing with fidelity practices and shifting in how we approach math with students? So the hard part of this work is, it would take us some years to really fully understand how well this went, and we have new standards upon us and new MCAs upon us, and we also need to act. So like every other district in the state of Minnesota in this moment, we're under this pressure point of needing to make decisions. And we haven't seen MCAs yet, so we won't even see them until our first year of implementation, and those are going to look different. So we're also assessing right now with MCAs that are from the 2007 standards and aren't aligned with what we're trying to do right now. So even using MCA as a gauge of our success is a misalignment. So this is a really challenging spot to be in, and I hear your hesitancy, and I feel it too. These are very big decisions, and we want to be really mindful about it, and we also can't wait too long because we have students in front of us that need us to adjust to this moment and prepare them for those next MCAs. So I want to validate you and say I have those same hesitations, and these are the circumstances we're in. So what I hear you saying is that the why now answer is because the standards have changed, and we need a curriculum that prepares our students to meet the statewide standards. And yes, and also to be formal about what we're doing so that our teachers can come together with a coherent plan of how we're going to address math at the middle level as a team. As it is right now, it's quite varied. So in doing this adoption, we're formalizing, "This is our plan. This is our scope and sequence. This is what families can expect in the middle school math class." And right now, it can look a little different space to space. Can I answer? Please do. So, having been around for a few years, I've gone through a few of these implementations, and one of the things that's very challenging is that Minnesota kind of does its own thing. We have our standards. California has theirs, Colorado has theirs, New York has theirs, and the vast majority of curriculum that's designed is not really designed for Minnesota. It's just put out there usually by the big buck people in bigger states. And so we have to cross-reference everything, and it takes a lot of energy. So no matter what curriculum we pick, there's going to be a lot of investment in time and energy. One of the really nice things that IM has already done for us is already laid it all out with the new standards and put into each section of IM, recently, of what's going to happen, and that's in their paid version of what's going on. And our team at the middle schools have been doing that ourselves for the free version. And so that's one of the things that's a benefit of this group of people who are putting out this paid version, if we adopt it. They have really looked at Minnesota and said, "We're going to tailor it to you." And there hasn't really been a curriculum in the past that's done that for us, in any way, shape, or form. So that's something new that's kind of a little bit exciting about IM. I'll say as somebody who's gone through a few years of teaching the different math curriculum that's gone through review here, it's one of the things that's really nice. Mm-hmm. Thank you. Please. Chair Teresa? Yes. Yes. Hi. Hello. Hi. So I remember our K through six journey, and there was very strong consensus among educators that IM was the way to go. I'm curious, what about six through eight? I see some of these names that I know and respect all these teachers and staff. Is it a similar consensus for this particular module? Yes, I would say pretty confidently all teachers at the middle level are on board. It's a pretty strong team, and North has beenI'd say organically piloting for a few years now. Just in the last couple of years, we've kind of honed, especially the seventh grade, and this year, the eighth grade. But all three grade levels have dove into the IM stuff, and I would say both schools are definitely on board. Some people have done more with IM at this point than others. I haven't done as much as, for example, Janine Salzer, because I've only been at the middle level for a couple of years, and so she started a little bit earlier than I did with that. But I would say all the people in the middle school are on board. And we just did a meeting, was that just a week or two ago? Yeah. A couple of weeks. And everybody was in a cross-site team by grade level, and the energy was really positive, and there seems to be a lot of excitement around the potential for this as we were doing standards alignment work. Thank you. Mm-hmm. Could I ask a follow-up to that? I know the slide close to where we ended was that the Hopkins program review for the math resource rubric, right? Mm-hmm. So, I like that the score was 41 out of 45, and I'm sure in the very small print here- ... there is an explanation about what goes into that score of 41. Could you just give us kind of high level of how did we reach that score, and what was that review process like? Sure. So the K12 team designed this rubric in the, was it '23, '24? '24. Couple of years ago, and used this as a tool to evaluate anything we are looking at. Oh, okay. So the content or the core areas were the instructional practices being in alignment with not only our values, but also those mathematical practices that are just so integrated into all of our benchmarks assessments. The area that this particular resource, I think, was lacking was the just built-in peer assessment and self-assessment. However, that is something we can certainly adapt for. But I think with IB, that's the big component of self-reflection. Technology, it scores quite high. The standards, like Jacques said, there is not a single curriculum out there. We're not a big enough market. Nobody is just building for Minnesota. So they're building for this national audience, and then we're lucky enough to have Imagine investing and putting dollars toward doing that alignment work for us. So there are some gaps, but they are working to address that. And that's also in the K-5 space. So even though we adopted and have already implemented first year of K-5, they are currently now going back and reworking the K-5 to even more tightly align to Minnesota state. And so we'll be making some adjustments to be more strongly aligned, particularly in fifth grade next year. But we were letting them do the lift of that before putting our teachers through that exercise, only to have the work done for us a few months later. And then finally, equity and inclusivity, and just the representations in this program are pretty fantastic. And I would say from our K-5 space, the teachers are saying there's a lot of being seen for their students in all the problems, and context, and storytelling in the curriculum. So it scores quite high. Thank you for that. Sure. I appreciate that context. Any other? Yeah. Chair Andreassen. Yeah. Thank you, all of you for being here, and the representative presence you have of all the other educators who, thanks to all of you. A couple of comments. The one is just, it's making me reflect very fondly on my own teachers, and these moments and hearing and seeing that in what you're sharing of the stories and thinking about the impact for our students is really heartening. It makes me really excited that I have a four-year-old who is going to start kindergarten in two years, and to hear the intentionality with which you all are thinking collaboratively about even these things, belonging, having consistency and coherence, thinking about my human having an experience in PE that is going to have... It's not just about does the teacher think you're athletic or not. These sorts of things that weren't always my experience as a kid. One of the things, last comment I wanted to say, is one of the things that came up a lot this fall as I was campaigning, was parents expressing a desire to see more coherence in our math curriculum K through 12. And hearing what you're presenting, I also feel hopeful about that, and just the ways in which we can intentionally structure that in as part of this overall work. So just thank you for it, and I know these labors take a lot of effort. So thank you for that, and appreciate it. Thank you. I'd like to follow up on that one thing I would say from my first year starting here and observing all the variability and seeing the teachers starting to really gel in this work of program review has been just what you're saying. It's very intentional in how this work is being designed, but it's also truly being lived out in how teachers are coming together from cross-sites that were not happening when I started here three years ago. So I'm glad that that's starting to be recognized. Okay. Chair Andreassen, can I ask a question? Yes. Could you talk about the closer proof points? I know that you mentioned about other districts who are further ahead with IM. Mm-hmm. Can you explain a little bit there? Mm-hmm. Do you want me to find that slide, Ilse? Oh, here. Well, I don't have the current. I can send those to you. The publisher I just asked is, they're working with other local districts who are a little ahead of us to start to share some more localized data. And what I have right now is incomplete, so I'll wait to get the completion of that data and then be able to share with you. But we have Shakopee that's ahead of us. Eden Prairie is ahead of us, meaning that they've already implemented, so we would be able to learn from them. And so I'm lucky too to be having... conversations with leaders in other districts who we can learn from each other. I was in a meeting with me in Owatonna just this morning, and we were discussing how I can share my experience with her as she's following behind me with her implementation. So, I do have more that I can share, but I don't have it at hand ready today, unfortunately. So I just have national today. Okay. What we can do, board members, I know if you maybe think of a question on your drive home or something like that, you can certainly share those with me, and then we can make sure that prior to the consent agenda, if there needs to be some follow-up information shared, we can certainly provide that as well on June 2nd. Or send it to Rhoda first. Send it to, yeah. Okay, that's right. Correct. Yes. Send it to Rhoda first. Thank you. I did just want to follow up with a question about is there anything built into this curriculum so that it can be adapted for different learning levels, different, I'm thinking of course, of special ed students- Mm-hmm ... or kids who might be struggling a little bit with math. Can you speak to that? Yeah. Or do we have a different curriculum that we use for our special ed kids? Well, I'm glad you brought that up. And this, we've been learning a lot in K five. This was the first year that I'm aware of, Anne, and you have a longer history than I do, but the first time that we have fully purchased and adopted for both special ed and gen ed spaces simultaneously with one program. And the TNTP report that just came out in March calls that out specifically as the move. So coherence in your programming is extremely important because what we find is that if students, the data that they just shared in March was that if students are receiving tier two and tier three supports from a different program, a misaligned program, it actually results in lesser student outcomes than a student who got no supports and still needed it. So it's actually better to have nothing than to have something disjointed. So we are really leaning into that. The big lift that we have is to really align with the needs of special educators, which are just so different than a gen ed classroom teacher. So I'm working in collaboration with the special ed team, and we're actually in a training again tomorrow to try to find more of those bridges so we can make that a simpler lift for those teachers to pull from that same core curriculum. Because what we're seeing is when teachers have the same curriculum in front of them and they can see this work is the prerequisite learning of what's happening at the general ed classroom, then those students who then go to their support class and they say, "Wait, so couldn't I just do this in my regular class?" They're making connections of like, I'm doing repeated addition here. Wait, that would work for multiplication in my other math class. And the names are the same and the contexts are the same. And so I think there's this real sense of this just feels like more math rather than I'm going to a special class or doing something different. And so, we have more to share about that. But it's actually been a big celebration. So no, we're not going to, at this time, be looking for a separate program. We're just going to learn how to use this more effectively in those spaces. And then in the gen ed space, I would say what's also really interesting about this problem-based program is there's something for everyone, and the quote that I've heard in a training before, and it really, I think, rings true with this is, "Nobody knows everything, but everybody knows something." And the lessons are really designed that way. So I can ask a question, which one doesn't belong of these four? And there's a reason you could support any one of those things. And it could be a color, it could be a number, it could be the shape. So whatever you bring to the table is a valid response, so everyone gets a chance to contribute. I can go on and on about it, and also enrichment is embedded because you can't possibly fit it all in, so students can also go further in the time that they have. And it's all about how the teacher structures the hour to ensure the fluidity of using their time most effectively. And that's the big lift for teachers. So this year was kind of learning. Next year, I'm really excited because we're going to get to refine now and really see that differentiation start to take shape next year. Great. Thank you. I just quickly, what is TNTP report? The New Teacher Project, that's the Opportunity Makers. Oh. Yeah. So Opportunity Makers is one of their papers of many. Yeah. Thank you. Mm-hmm. I would love to share that in case anybody wants- Oh, yes. I would love to read that ... reading. I'll be back with 40 slides to share with you. Is that a promise? So, board members, thank you, Ilsa and Jacques, for sharing about math. I just wanted to tie a bow around the topic of program review in general with a look ahead. So whoever is on ESAC next year, this is what you can look forward to participating in. This slide just provides a look at our long-range program review cycle and where different content areas and services sit within that process. So as you can see, next year, we'll begin or continue review work in several key areas, including K five English Language Arts and Social Studies. That's going to be a big one. Multilingual learner programmingAnother big one. Immersion, big one. Health, a big one. Early childhood special education and special education case management, evaluation, and 504 implementation. Okay, so they're all kind of big ones. Yeah. As I had mentioned earlier, Director Contreras and I work really closely together to make sure that all of our programs are reviewed for continuous improvement. That doesn't just live within the core. So these phase one areas represent the beginning stages of deep review work focused on beliefs, practices, systems, and student experience and current outcomes. At the same time, we will still have content areas in later phases of the review cycle, which are moving towards stronger levels of refinement and coherence in those areas. In some cases, that work may result in next spring recommendations related to instructional resources or materials. So then depending on the outcomes of the continued reviews, including our stakeholder feedback, implementation learning, and board direction, some areas we could be sitting here a year from now making a request for materials in one of these other content areas. So just as a reminder, the larger goal really of this process is to move away from isolated or reactive curricular decisions, but instead ensure that our curriculum, our instruction, and our resource recommendations emerge from a transparent system, and community-involved cycle of continuous improvement. Thank you. Thank you. Any questions or comments? Anything that's already been asked and such? Okay. All right. Thank you very much. Thank you so much. Thank you. We appreciate it. And we have now given ourselves a nice long break. So thank you all. We will be back here at 7:00 p.m. for our board meeting. To your point, though. Hello, everybody. Hi. Thank you for being here with us this evening at the May 19th, 2026 school board meeting. We are thrilled to see a packed house because we get to do one of our favorite things this evening, which is recognize amazing students in our district for doing incredible things. So I would invite my board colleagues to come with me down to the end of the table, so we can recognize our students who are in the room with us this evening. Thank you. So we are incredibly proud to recognize a wide range of talent across our district, from technology innovation to inclusive leadership. First, we celebrate our Hopkins robotics team. These scholars have demonstrated exceptional critical thinking and mastery of the engineering process. From our youngest learners in Lego League to our high school competitors, these teams represent the future of Royal innovation. This year, a high school team competed at Duluth's Northern Lights in the Minneapolis 10,000 Lakes competitions, advancing to the playoffs at each event.They earned the Excellence in Engineering award for their innovative design and technical problem-solving, and the Engineering Inspiration award for their outstanding impact in inspiring students and the broader community. The Tech Decrats, the high school team, also qualified for the state tournament for the first time since 2022. Congratulations. And they finished an impressive 18th out of 36 teams. We also recognize two of our middle school teams, the Techno-Nots, that's a clever name, and the Midnight Snackers, for their championship performances. And we celebrate the elementary school Lego League team, the Sunkittens, which has the cutest name ever, for their success at the regional level. Thank you. And before we ask all of our students to come forward, I want to take one second to thank the adults in the room that made this possible. We have tens of volunteers and mentors who have given hundreds of hours this year. So there's a few of them in the room. John O'Neal, Kate Devries Smith, Tate Welty, Tyler Hartland. Paul is here, Jeff. I hope I'm not missing anybody, except for our head coach, Jason Herzog. And we have... We're taking an extra minute on him tonight because he is actually retiring as head of our robotics program. Retiring, after 10 years with us, though. And his impact goes far beyond building robots. As a 2011 graduate of this district, and a former member of the Hopkins robotics team himself, he returned in 2016 to find our program struggling, and alongside our own Ms. Purdy, stepped up to build it into the thriving program that it is today. Under his leadership, the team has strengthened its financial foundation, expanded opportunities for students to compete and gain hands-on experience, and created a safe and welcoming environment where all are welcome to learn. Hundreds of Hopkins students have benefited not only from the technical skills and scholarships that FIRST Robotics provides, but also from Jason's mentorship, encouragement, and continued support long after graduation, through his letters of recommendation and his advice and friendship. Our students are much better prepared for their futures because you chose to invest your time, talent, and care into this team, and we are so appreciative. And fear not, because of your legacy and because of the team of mentors and adults that you've helped build, the team is in good hands, and Tate Welty is going to take over as head of our program. So thank you so much. Okay. So now, robotics team, you get to go to the end of the carpet, the end of the blue carpet. You're going to be down by the pillar. And then I'm going to call your names, and I'm going to do my very best to say them correctly. So everyone can stand up and go back there. And then you'll walk up the runner, and we have a certificate for you and a pin. And when you... They can come down when they hear it. Yeah, you can come down when you hear your name. So first is Alex Litzow. Come on down. Not here. Amber Bressan. Amber, come down. Amber's here. Amelia Caribou. Andre Nasus. Ari Dax. Artemis Amelci. Asher Fix. Ox Conway Lavada. Blair Dykstra. Blake Hill. Carson Scholl. Charlie Dutcher. Darren McLean. Ethan Sachs. Evelyn McGock Tan. Jill Forrest. Harper Bressan. Sorry, I'm rushing you. I apologize. Harper DeVries. Jacita Juarez. Jesse Rosas. Caitlin Ditzler. Liam Grice. Lucian Peer. Lucas Dirker. Marilyn Mulbrotton. Matthew Kittleson. Max Walls. Mia Toet. Michael Bartow. Seth Lovitch. Sophie Styre. Tabitha Barnes. Toy Lou. Tyler Taves. Xander Corey. And one more mentor, Helen Rose, I'm sorry. I didn't see you. Hi. She's here too. Thank you, guys. I think we're going to take a picture now. Yes, we do. I want to know if they're able to- In the middle. Do a photo op. We need you in the middle too there. Yeah. Seth, you got to move. You have to find a window, brother. Find a window. I know. I'll look. That's a tall order. John, we'll do one with the kids, and then we'll invite the coaches up after. Yeah. Perfect. It's more important up there. No. I don't know. Go ahead, honey. All right, everybody. Make sure you can see my phone. Say when. Everybody have your... Yep, with your certificates. Perfect. Okay. One, two, three. All right. Nice. Then coaches. Coaches. Chris. Oh, we're going to have all the- Coaches now. And the kids. Oh, okay. All the humans in the room. Too many humans. That would be true. That'd be our group picture. All right. Again, make sure that you can see the phone lens right here. Ready? One, two, three. All right. Thank you, John. I would like to make some very basic comments if I could. Do you want to get in? I see robot team in here. Yeah, robotics team. Thank you, Trey. You were here. Where did you get out of here? Oh, me? You came from somewhere. It's really good. I am actually very jealous. Oh, no. Well, I know. Uh-huh. Okay. Hopkins Royals, we are also going to celebrate another group this evening. So we are also proud to recognize our Play for All students. And this group is dedicated to ensuring that every student in Hopkins has access to inclusive and accessible playgrounds. And that means that our students who are in wheelchairs or are differently abled can have access to playgrounds where they too can play with their peers and have a great time. So through their WIN, or What I Need sessions, these playground enthusiasts explored the importance of creating a district policy, identifying key elements to include in policy and design, and developed a formal presentation to advance their work. Their thoughtful advocacy reflects a commitment to making sure that Hopkins is one of the first districts in the state to establish a policy specifically focused on inclusive and accessible playgrounds. Thank you to Betsy Julian, our Play for All teacher advocate and cheerleader behind all of these amazing students. Is Ms. Julian here? Oh, there you are. So thank you, Betsy, for all of your work. And are most of these students, did they also help raise funds for the Glen Lake playground? Two, four of them. Four of them. Okay. So this is round two for them. So we're very grateful for these students' work. So at this time, Play for All student leaders, what we'd like you to do is please, if you are able, go back to the end of the royal blue runner, and we are going to call your name. Then hang out up here after you receive your certificate. Okay, here we go. Madison Dash. John Butner. I always have to check, John, did I say your name correctly, your last name? Oh, yeah. Yeah. Okay, perfect. Trevor Horn. Not here? Okay. David Martin. Callie Brace. Kaylee. Oh my goodness. I can't believe I did that. Maddie's friend, Kaylee. Goodness. Alice Caravu. Is it Gemini Puckett? Gemini. Oh my goodness. Gemini Puckett. My apologies. Okay, so students come and stand in front of us here or move so you can be seen for the photograph and Director Wetter is going to take the photo. Forget it. They can do whatever they want. Yeah. Oh, a short fellow. Yeah. Yeah. Perfect. There we go. All right, everybody. And one, two, three. All right. Thanks everybody. Congratulations. No? We got one more. Oh. One more. Oh. Oh, we got one more? We got one more. Okay. So finally tonight, we wish to extend a special recognition to one of our own leaders, Vice Chair Brooke Roper. Oh, wow. Woo. What other- What other- Well, yeah, you get to go down there. Surprise. Brooke's dedication to our scholars and her leadership on the board is impressive. This includes her work with the Policy Monitoring Committee, District Safety and Security Team, and the Mayors and City Managers quarterly convening with the superintendent. All of these commitments exemplify the service-oriented spirit of our Hopkins community. Please join us in thanking Vice Chair Roper for her continued commitment to excellence and equity in the Hopkins School District. Woo. She is also... Oh, wait, there's one more. Oh, I'm sorry. It's all right. She is also being recognized by an organization that she has been working with, School Board Partners, and they are here to talk about Vice Chair Roper. Wow. She knows nothing. Let me acknowledge this. This is a surprise. Thank you so much, Madam President, board members, thank you all for the opportunity to do this. I'm so excited. My name is Ethan Ashley. I have the honor of serving as the CEO and founder of an organization called School Board Partners. We're a national organization that supports and trains elected school board members around the country to lead with courage, confidence, and impact. And there's a lot there. It's very personal to me. I was an elected school board member for eight years. Served in a district where I was a parent, family member, all the things. I'm an attorney by trade, and my mother and grandmother were educators. They told me to go be a lawyer, and then ultimately I found my way back to education like many of us do. Now, there is nothing, nothing, nothing that brings me greater joy than acknowledging for the first time ever as an organization, we are going out and identifying school board members of the year nominees, and Brooke Roper has been nominated as a school board of the year nominee representing this district, and we're very proud of her. Brooke, don't... I don't need you to start crying because then I'm going to start crying and we're not going to get out of here. I just want to... It is an absolute honor to be able to acknowledge... I had a whole speech, but I don't know what to do with that. So I want to just say, Brooke, from your family at School Board Partners, we make up, just for a way of context, we're across 41 states, impacting about eight million young people around the country in terms of the leaderships and leaders that we work with. We're across 200-plus districts. And so to be recognized as a handful of leaders around the country for this honor, it is such an honor and a joy to be able to do that. Brooke, there's nobody, when we talk about what you're described as, you were described as someone who cares deeply about community. And in fact, y'all don't know this, I've been trying to hide out in the back because she knows who I am. And I was trying to come in, but she was saying hi to everybody. And I was trying to hide all the way in the back, and I was sitting next to a young man, and I agree with your dad, don't slouch like I was, but I was hiding. I was hiding. That's what I was trying to do. And so I just want to acknowledge that she is all about communityShe's always trying to figure out how to get from issue to impact, and she is recognized by her colleagues, not just here, but across the nation, for the work that she's been doing to better herself as an elected school board member, to show up here for this district as well as she can. And so I just want to say, we love you, we see you. We're very grateful. Now, let me acknowledge, she's a nominee, right? And all of you all are, in fact, invited to when we make the determination of whether or not she will get the actual big award. So I'm going to be flying around the country. I have a couple of more nominees we're going to acknowledge, but she is the first. Let me say that. She is the first. Aw. She is the first. So if a plane's just-- I'm not able to get on a plane, you will be the only, but you're the first right now. We're very proud of you, and please know that we're going to make the announcement November 13th through the 15th in Atlanta, Georgia, at our national conference called Our Collective Power, where we bring school board members around the country together. And so you all are invited as her colleagues. We'd love for you all to be there. And everybody in this room is invited, quite frankly. So, with that said- ... we're so grateful. I think you can now do your sashaying down the- ... blue carpet. We're very proud of you. Thank you. Oh my gosh. I don't know what to say. Picture? We need a picture of it. That's the protocol. That's the protocol. Oh my gosh. Thank you so much. Move closer. Yeah. I'll go behind you. There we go. All right. We're going to do two. You're going to start here. One, two, and three. Yep. Then you're going to look at me. Ready? One, two, and three. And then if I can get you on three to just say, "Go Brooke-" Okay. ... for the rest of the nation. Ready? One, two, three. Go, Brooke! Go, Brooke! There we go. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you so much. Thank you. Thank you. Oh, nice. Listen. Thank you. Thank you. Okay, Royals, we welcome you to stay for the rest of the meeting if you would like. And if you have some other commitments this evening, then we also wish you farewell and thank you for being here tonight. Good to see you all. This is my school. I know. I need this. We need a win, okay? Well, everybody got to vote for me. Whatever you need to do, just do it, okay? I don't know what to do. I need a win. After Teacher of the Year, I just need a win. I've got to give them another hug. No, they're not. I give another hug. They couldn't agree less. Thank you so much. You're welcome. We have to fly out- Think about me ... tomorrow. Yeah. Yeah. Appreciate that. You know those other schools? Mm-hmm. Sometimes Oh, okay. When is the big ceremony? November 13th through the 15th. Oh, so it's all day? It'll be a whole conference. Going to invite my board colleagues back to the table. It's the 15th. Are they going to be live streaming it? Got it. And I will go ahead and call this meeting to order of the Hopkins School Board. And our first item of business is open agenda. And we have public comment. So the Hopkins School Board believes that hearing from our community members is crucial for implementing Vision 2031. If you wish to contact the board via email instead of publicly commenting at a meeting, please use school-board@hopkinsschools.org. Public comment will be received both in person and through voicemail. The way to comment in person is to come before the meeting and submit some public comment cards. We do have four public comment cards for this evening. We also have two voicemails that we will have as part of this. So we host two public comment periods per meeting. The first period will be during open agenda at the beginning of the meeting, and the second period will be at the end of the meeting if it is needed. Each is for 30 minutes long, and each speaker can speak for three minutes. So with that, I will go ahead and read our guidelines for making public comment. First, I will need to find it. Sorry, bear with me. So please keep your comments to three minutes or less. There is a timer here that will be counting down for you. I will also remind you when your time is up. Public comment is for input only. Members of the school board will not respond publicly to public comments that are made at this meeting. No specific action will be taken at this meeting in response to comments that are made or issues that are raised during the public comment period related to items not on the agenda. If the board determines that action is appropriate, the action will occur at a future board meeting. If you 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 remarks will end the individual's opportunity to address the board and may result in the individual being directed to leave. I will rule out of order any statement that would violate state or federal law, 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 an 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 thank you for listening to all those guidelines. We will go ahead and listen to the voicemails first, if that works. And if they're not ready, just let me know, Natalia. We can do... No, I just said If you can start- Okay ... figuring out which one I would like to invite Danika Leonard up to the table, and please correct your name. Yes, anyone is good. Thank you for being here this evening. Thank you. Hi, it's Danika. Okay, thank you. All right. Should I get started? Yes, please do. Okay. Thank you. Good evening. My name is Danika Leonard. I am a mother to two brilliant Hopkins scholars, one in 10th grade and one in fifth. Today I am here because my son was racially targeted by a group of white scholars at Hopkins High School. My son did not know these students. He was not in conflict with them. He did nothing to him, and yet he was in a photo that they used of Black scholars titled, in one image, "Slaves for sale." They used the N word, they used racist, sexually degrading, and dehumanizing language, and they created an image with a white student's knee on a Black student's neck to mock the murder of George Floyd. This is no accident. This is not a joke. Nobody accidentally turns Black classmates into content for racial humiliation. They knew enough racism to make the joke, they knew slavery was degrading, they knew the N word was violent, they knew George Floyd's murder meant something. They knew a white student's knee on a Black student's neck meant something. They knew Black children would be humiliated. That was the point. This was not ignorance or confusion. It wasn't just kids being kids. It was racism used for bonding, Black suffering used as currency, and white students practicing dehumanization with each other, and my child, who did not even know them, was used simply because he is Black. This is bigger than school discipline. This is what happens when white parents send children into the community without teaching them how to be safe people and be allies around Black people. When white children are taught manners, grades, sports achievement, and image, but this piece is missing. Why? When racism is treated as something that children pick up somewhere instead of something adults are responsible for confronting at home, because it shows up in peer groups, teams, locker rooms, group chats, and online in social media, because it's not interrupted, Black children become the target, and they're forced to pay for the lack of proper intention needed to make sure that all scholars can go to school and have their full humanity respected and honored. Hopkins should not be the first place a white child learns that Black children are human. It should not be the first place that they learn that slavery isn't funny or that George Floyd's murder is not contentAnd Hopkins should not be forced to manage racial violence in a way where parents also have a responsibility with Hopkins. Excuse me, this is kind of hard to read. Black parents already have to prepare our children before they leave the house. We teach them how racism works. We teach them how white supremacy works. We teach them how to protect their bodies, their brains, and their nervous systems. We teach them how to survive being harmed, and then we teach them to still try to remain calm. White parents have work to do before their children leave the house, too. We ask that all parents can teach their children to not become the danger that Black children are being prepared to manage and survive. If they know enough to make jokes about slave auctions, use the N word, degrade Black children, then it is a reflection of how much more education and learning is needed both at home and at school. And if they do not actively address racism and white supremacy at home, they are not neutral. They are leaving their children available to become agents of racism and white supremacy. Hopkins also has a responsibility to have clear and accessible protocols and proper processes in place. Thank you. It needs a racialized harm protocol. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you, Ms. Leonard. Thank you. I would like to invite Alex Leonard up to the table. Thank you for being with us this evening. Thank you. Good evening, everyone. My name is Alex Leonard. I'm the parent of a 10th grader and a fifth grader in Hopkins Public Schools. In addition to being a proud parent of those two students, I am a high school educator, a licensed school counselor, a former behavior dean, a restorative practices and equity lead, and a national facilitator with the National SEED Project. I have worked directly with schools and districts, including Hopkins staff, around educator wellness, racial trauma, restorative practices, and school culture. Two weeks ago, my son and other Black Hopkins scholars learned they were racially targeted in an image shared among scholars in a group chat. The image read, "Slave auction, two n*****s for sale." This was purposeful dehumanization of Black scholars. It's racial harassment. It's hate speech. I've already met with Principal Farley. I am writing to you now because my concern goes beyond this one incident. This is a safety issue, a school climate issue, and a district culture issue. My concern is whether Hopkins Public Schools has a clear, consistent, and meaningful protocol for responding when severe racial harassment occurs. District Policy 413 on harassment and violence and Policy 514 on bullying prohibitions spell out expectations around safety, accountability, and non-discriminatory learning environments. Black scholars should not have to endure racial targeting, slave auction imagery, and racial slurs to access public education in Hopkins. If restorative processes are being considered in this case, they must not be used as a shield to avoid consequences or to downplay racial harm. It will require truth-telling, accountability, repair, safety, and real intervention. It must occur within a structured process that centers the safety, accountability, and stated needs of the scholars and families who are harmed. I'm asking the district not only to respond to this incident, but to demonstrate that it has the willingness, the structure, and the courage to confront the broader culture that allows it to happen. To that end, I'm also formally requesting that the board commit to a clear and public timeline for reviewing Policies 413 and 514, and for creating and sharing a district-wide protocol for responding to racial harassment. Some of the examples for this model can be found in Eastern Carver County Schools. I've sent that email to all of you, and I strongly encourage you to move in that direction. Thank you. Thank you, Mr. Leonard. I want to remind our public commenters to please not mention any employees of the district by name. And I would invite our next speaker, Wisdom Mawusi, to the table. And please introduce yourself if I got your name wrong. Thank you. You got it right. Thanks. Good evening. I'm Wisdom Mawusi. I'm a educator for over 22 years, and I'm a parent of two Hopkins graduates and a current fifth-grade student in the Hopkins School District. I've learned, again, about egregious racist incident happening at Hopkins schools, and I'm curious as to what are the consequences. I'm going to say the word because certain actions deserve and require consequences that are part of the education process, that teach that dangerous behavior, images, the dehumanization of Black people, the disrespect of the Black community, the African American community, is intolerable. To know that our friend's young person was targeted in this way in 2026 when we hear so much talk, and we know what the national temperature of this country is, what is happening right now. There is an attack on the African American community as well as other communities. The African American community, I feel, is too often overlooked and disrespected and not given the proper reverence of some of the other communities. I wonder, what would be the response to this had this been an anti-Semitic comment? What would be the response? I ask for that same type of response in this regard and to this incident I'm also asking that that information be shared, as far as what is the policy and how do we do this going forward, and make parents aware of what is happening. All parents are aware. We all have the responsibility of educating our scholars and creating a safe environment for all scholars. Also, I'm wondering what staff support is in place for our students in this district. I know that there's been a lot of changes in the recent years of the leadership of Hopkins High School. I'm wondering what staff do they have in place to support the scholars there, especially during an incident like this. And this is not just an isolated incident. Over the years, my son graduated in 2016, my daughter in 2023, we're still having incidents like this happening, and this is egregious. And I'm going to support the actions that the parents requested to happen as well. And Danica and Alex Leonard. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you. And I would like to invite Shay Chambers to the table. Or is it Chambers? Thank you for being with us this evening. Greetings, everyone. Thank you for having me here today. I just want to just reiterate basically what they've said, and I believe that the voicemail and email will reflect more of my statement than what I'm going to sit here and speak today. But I am the nana to a couple of the children and their friends. They all know me as nana at the schools. And I'm just appalled that we're here today for this situation, and I don't think any of you have seen the text messages that these kids did. You're going to be appalled. It's going to bring you to tears that our children are still reacting this way against the minority children at your school district. Because I've had a chance to read all your policies, and I do see that you do have things that are in place that are to prevent this, but you have practice, procedure, and policy. And it's obvious that the practice needs a little more work in teaching the parents, the children, and the school district, that there's a lot of work to do, and we need to do better. And I just want to say thank you for having me, and when you play my message, it will be more in detail. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you for being here this evening. Thank you. You ready with the voicemails? Thank you, Natalia. Rachel. I will be commenting on-- Hello, my name is Rachel. I will be commenting on a recent situation that took place at Hopkins High School. I'm writing to express my deep concern, disappointment, and disapproval regarding the school district's response to the recent racist, sexually inappropriate, bullying-related incidents involving Hopkins students that surfaced through social media and shared screenshots from a student group chat. The contents reported included racist language, discriminatory imagery, sexual explicit comments, harassment directed toward other students, and deeply disturbing material involving current Hopkins students. That included, but was not limited to, a poster board with images of current students under the title "Slaves for Sale," accompanied by very racist, harmful, and explicit language. Students and family brought screenshots, names, and relative evidence to the attention of the school administration with the expectation that the behavior would be taken seriously and addressed appropriately. While initial communication was sent stating that this behavior would not be tolerated, many students and family feel that response since that time has lacked transparency, accountability, and meaningful follow-up. To date, there has been little communication regarding how the situation is being handled, whether appropriate disciplinary action has occurred, whether authorities were contacted, or what steps are being taken to assure the safety of the students moving forward. Unfortunately, the message many students are receiving is not that this behavior is unacceptable, but rather that they are expected to tolerate it and move on without resolution. This has created significant frustration and disappointment within the student community and among families. There is also a growing concern that the district appears more focused on protecting the students accused of creating and participating in the harmful content than supporting the students who were targeted and affected by it. When students involved in such serious incidents continue participating in athletics and school activities without visible accountability or communication, it undermines the school's trust, the school's commitment to providing a safe and respectful learning environment for all students. This situation has negatively impacted students' sense of safety, belonging, and confidence in school leadership. Students and families deserve reassurance that racism, harassment, bullying, and sexually inappropriate behavior will be addressed seriously, consistently, and transparently. I respectfully urge the school board to review how this matter has been handled, improve communication with families, and ensure that appropriate action, accountability, and support for affected students are prioritized moving forward. Thank you for your time. Yes, hi. I go by Nana Chambers, and my call is regarding the four minority students that were racially targeted in a Snapchat thread by some white students that they don't personally know. My questions are: Are the parents aware of this attack? Are the parents going to be present at this meeting? Is there a meeting set up with these parents to discuss their children and their behavior? And who's accountable for these kids' behaviors and actions? What are the consequences going to be for their actions? What are the steps that are going to be taken to hold them accountable and responsible for their actions? Should they be suspended from school or even expelled for their actions? Is the school principal aware of what's going on and supporting these students? And how long have these students been allowed to display this type of behavior without being checked for it against these other students? Those are my questions and concerns that I would like answered and followed up on. Thank you so much for your time. Thank you. That concludes our public comment section. Chair. I will say that this is a difficult topic to move on from, and my deepest apologies to the families and the students that are living in this at the moment. We are not supposed to comment, so I simply, as a human, want to convey that and send that out to you. And wonder, Director Xiao. Yeah. Sorry, Chair Andreassen. I'm wondering if an executive session may be in order. I have a lot of serious concerns. I think that as everybody may be, I think it may be appropriate, but if not, that's fine too. Chair Andreassen? Yes. First of all, to Mr. and Mrs. Leonard and families here, I, as your superintendent, I want to apologize to you for this completely unacceptable, racist, dehumanizing behavior. I did respond to you in writing. However, I want to verbally acknowledge that this did occur and that we have beautiful and intelligent young people who were targeted in a way that no parent wants their child to be targeted. So completely unacceptable. I do also want to just share with our board and community that all of the principals at our Hopkins High School are fully aware of the behavior. They have seen all of the images. The situation is under full investigation, and I appreciate your specific asks around policy review, a thorough review of how the situation was investigated, and what the outcomes are. We will be privy to those outcomes. Unfortunately, we're not able to share that kind of information with families if it doesn't involve your own children. But we did hear your every word, and we will be following up. Thank you for being here. Thank you. Do our student board members feel like you're able to give your reports after that? If- Yeah. Feeling good? Okay, great. Well, thank you. We will now go to our student board representative's report. Hello, everyone. I'm Sukian Osman. Sukian. I'm a sophomore board rep. And to start off my report, everyone in the senior class is having a senior sunset that's hosted by student council, and it's where they all gather up in the field and just watch the sunset one last time as a class. Last week, on May 14th, we had a choir concert, and then tomorrow, on May 20th, there's an orchestra concert, and then next week, on May 26th, there's a band concert. Our Envirothon team, two teams made state. One of them made it to nationals, so they'll be able to compete there. And then finally, for my spotlight, it's my outdoor adventures teacher, Mr. Schroeder. It's my favorite class. It's a really fun class, and the most recent thing we did was go on the obstacle course outside the high school and just have fun. Thank you. My name's Alice I want to express my respect for showing up for- Do you mind waiting a moment? She wants to say something to you all, the parents. Eloise wants to talk with you. Hi. Yeah. Hi, my name is Eloise Bowen. I'm a junior board rep. I can't address anything you said, but I want to express my respect for you guys for showing up for your family and supporting each other like this. As a person of color, I understand and I see you guys, and this is exactly how you show up for your community. So I appreciate you guys. Mm. I also wanted to express my gratefulness for you guys coming here and standing up for your kids and the entire community. It really shows a lot, and I really appreciate it. Mm. This is the reason I joined the board, so thank you, guys. Mm-hmm. On that note, on a different note, I guess. So prom was last weekend. It was on Saturday at the Fillmore. It was open to juniors and seniors from 7:00 to 11:00 PM. There was lots of dancing and music and fun, and the theme was masquerade, and masks were provided for everyone. Synchro sections were last weekend, and every single participant qualified for state, all 15. State will be held this Thursday and Friday, so congratulations to all our synchro athletes. That's also Iris, our board rep. A new trip is in the works for the end of next school year to Ecuador. It's open to all students, and they'll be immersed in the language, culture, and foods of Ecuador for 10 days. Information about the trip was shown across Royals Connects today. The powder puff game was set for last Wednesday, but was rescheduled. However, we may still see a powder puff game. There's potential for it to be used as a fundraiser for some clubs or groups at the high school. And then today, I'd like to highlight Mr. Coker. He teaches AP Language and Composition. Our test, our AP exam, was last Wednesday, but since then, we've been working on a research project. The topics of the groups are of your own choosing, and they range from things like civil rights to globalization to environmentalism. My group is civil rights, and we each get to specialize in our own group. Mr. Coker always comes to class with the utmost enthusiasm and animation. You can truly, truly tell that he loves his job and he loves teaching. AP Lang has also taught me crucial essay writing and comprehension skills that will be really helpful for me in college, and I just wanted to say congratulations. I think I see how often you show up for us and everyone around us, and I would love to come watch you. Even if you don't receive an award, which I think you will but I would love to come watch you if you'll allow it, because you always show up for us. Oh, thank you. Of course. Hi, I'm Adena, and I'm a freshman representative on the student board. I also wanted to say congratulations to Director Roper. They weren't wrong when they said you were someone who shows up for your community. This board is incredibly lucky to have you on it, and you truly deserve this nomination, and we're rooting for you on award day. Thank you. I want to start off with my teacher spotlight, which is Ms. Nina, who's my geometry teacher. She just recently came back from having her baby, so that's super exciting. She's amazing, kind, and caring teacher. She makes sure everyone understands what we're learning throughout every unit and gives plenty of time in class to ask clarifying questions about the packet or the homework. Next, I want to talk about Spirit Week and Pep Fest, which was just this past week. Each day was a new theme or opportunity for students to dress up. Monday was tropical, Tuesday was Nike Tech versus quarter zip, Wednesday was anything but a backpack, Thursday was Hopkins gear, and Friday was class colors. Friday was also the Pep Fest, where students got to participate in fun games, watch the dance team perform, listen to senior superlatives, and watch the amazing DJ, who was one of the students at Hopkins, so that's super awesome. Next, I want to talk about Teacher Appreciation Week, which was the first week of May. Right now, the Hopkins Education Foundation has gifts available for purchase to give to the teachers in celebration of Teacher Appreciation Week. And then along with that, all of the money received will go to HEF grants, which will support classroom projects. So if you want to purchase a gift, make sure to do it by May 26th. Next, I want to talk about the lookout for Link Crew leaders. Link Crew is an opportunity for juniors and seniors to build leadership skills. Link Crew leaders work on guiding freshmen through their first-day orientation to show them around the school. Right now, they're looking for 2026, 2027 Link Crew leaders, so if you know anyone who might be interested, they can apply from the link in the newsletter. Lastly, I want to talk about the 9 through 12 Panorama Survey or the social emotional learning screener, which took place during today's Royals Connect classes. This survey allowed students the chance to talk about their experience so far and how they're being supported by the school. This gives the high school the bet-- a bet-- whoa. The ability to better help the well-being of their students, and it also allows the school to see where students are struggling and how they can provide more support. That's it. Thank you. Appreciate those reports. Any comments or questions from my colleagues? Well, I just want to say I'm so thrilled that you are here with us this evening, that you've taken the time. I know May is super busy. Like you were saying, I feel like there's a concert every night, and there's state competitions, and people are preparing for all of that. I know the musical went back into rehearsals because they're doing spotlight competitions, so things just come up in May. So thank you so much for being here and being part of us tonight, and for supporting us by bringing us really critical information that we need in order to do our jobs. So, thanks. And I hope you're able to have a lot of fun in these last couple weeks of school. Mm-hmm. And that takes us to our superintendent report. Dr. Mary Perry Reid. Thank you, Chair Andreassen. Well, like you said, it's a really busy time of the year. Earlier this evening, 60 of our seniors were recognized with college scholarships from 42 local donors, and those scholarships collectively represented more than $63,000 in student aid for tuition. So, I know our seniors are really enjoying that experience right now. Eisenhower held a heritage parade last week. Harley Hopkins, Glen Lake, and Gatewood all had family festivals last Friday. Our students mentioned prom, and that was a very fun event, I'm sure. Technocrats, as you heard earlier, went to state. More than 1,200 students took advanced placement exams in the last three weeks. So it's a very busy time, and we're just very grateful to all of our staff for facilitating these learning experiences for students. I'm excited to share that Hopkins High School was recently awarded a two-year, $65,000 Youth Skills Training Healthcare Pathway Grant through the Minnesota Department of Labor and Industry, and this grant will strengthen our district's healthcare pathway by funding transportation for clinical and work-based experiences. It will fund RN-supervised CNA skills testing, or registered nurse-supervised CNA skills testing, instructional materials, and curriculum refinement. And we're really excited because a major focus of this work is expanding equitable access so that students who are in the CNA program have no transportation or income financial barriers to the experiences. And this work is being led by Kara Lavonne, who is our CTE coordinator at the high school. As part of our high school's digital learning day and their collaborative team time, you might hear teachers talking about CTT time, collaborative team time. High school staff leverage their time and a structure on DLD day to pursue professional learning topics this entire year, and then they present their research at their professional learning fair, which happened last week. So, there were a lot of really interesting and, I would say, well-thought-out topics because the goal is to have immediate application into the classroom to improve instruction and learning experiences for students. So, some of the topics were embedding the teaching of Chinese culture into language instruction, demystifying the academy model, understanding the cognitive impact of reading paper text versus listening to audio text, and then our AP teachers used national and state exam trends to inform their instruction. So they looked at all of the trends after last spring's students taking the exams and found out that students need more evaluation and analysis skills, and they were able to embed those skills into their instruction this year. I also wanted to share that our exceptional math specialists, Elsa Gull, Maggie O'Malley, and Tracy Beaverson, presented our district story of this year's Imagine IM curriculum implementation at the Minnesota Council of Teachers of Mathematics in Duluth just this last month, and their presentation was very popular with other districts who are hoping to learn more about our implementation journey and what we did well, and what are the key lessons learned. It was truly a pleasure to meet a few days ago with students at Glen Lake. Every month, they hold a high-interest lunch. So these students wanted to learn about leadership, and it was very delightful. They had really interesting questions like, "How come you're a doctor, but you don't know anything about medicine?" And, "What are the most important skills for a leader to have?" And things like that. So it was very fun. And on that wall in the middle picture are photos of all of the different luncheons that have been held over time. And so, at this time, I am very excited to share this board meeting superintendent spotlight with Laura Hetzel. So Laura Hetzel is our business development and grants officer. So we've been sharing examples of these amazing grant awards that have been coming through for our system, and Laura has been very busy since July 1st? When did you start? End of August. Oh, end of August. So, Laura's been really busy building us a grantLike procurement and support framework with all kinds of structures and protocols, working with Dr. Lightfoot on policy, and working with our community education leaders and principals on all things getting resources for Hopkins Public Schools. So thank you, Laura, for being here this evening, and we invite you to share more information about the work that you're doing. Thank you. Thank you. I appreciate the opportunity to speak with you all today. Yeah, so over the last nine months, we've been building a coordinated and sustainable approach to grant funding across the district. I've sought guidance from some of our neighboring districts that have much more established grant programs, gotten a lot of really good information and guidance on tools from them, as well as worked with leaders across the district to develop and pilot and put into place an initial, I'm going to say initial, because we're going to work on continuous improvement framework for our grants processes. The grants work can become very complex very quickly, and it requires a lot of coordination all across the district from many different departments. Many of our grants involve multi-year funding commitments, ongoing reporting obligations, reimbursement requirements, and long-term stewardship responsibilities to ensure that we maintain and are in compliance, maintain relationships and are in compliance on all of our grants. Most grants involve coordination across multiple district functions and not just one department or program area. So we're working with finance, working with leadership, working with operations, we're working with IT, community partners, as well as our external funders. And as we were building and working on this, one of the more important things that developed was that a lot of our grants had been functioning in more of an unknown. Some of these areas, the right hand didn't know what the left hand was doing kind of a situation. And so it was important that we built something that was very transparent, and improved that coordination and communication so that everybody knew what was going on, and we could move forward in a coordinated manner. Next slide. If you go back one slide. This is what our district framework looks like. And this is for competitive grants. And so I want to say that, just make clear, that out of scope for this particular framework is our HEF grants. They have their own very robust process. I don't want to touch it, so they're doing great. And then formula grants are also out of scope for this, as well as PTO and any booster club funds. This is purely competitive grants. I don't want to go through every single step in the process because it's extensive, but I do want to highlight a couple of areas. The first one is funding opportunity identification. So we have three different ways that we look at how we find funding opportunities. The first one is we've developed an opportunity update email that goes out monthly. Currently, it goes out to leaders. Starting in the fall, it will go out to the entire district, that select opportunities for funding that we know are coming up, that people may be interested in applying for. We also have, in addition to that, a website on ClassLink internally for the district leaders that also has those opportunities on it, as well as information about the process and how to start it. The second way we can do it is that some people, including yourselves, may have access to information about grants from their networks that they could let us know about, and that might be a good opportunity that we could pursue or that they want to pursue. And then the third way is that somebody may just have an idea for a project that they want to do, but they don't know how to find grant funding for that. And so in those cases, I would meet with them, and then we would come up with a plan and identify some potential funding opportunities. The second part I want to highlight is the capacity and planning stage of this framework. This has been really, really key in us being able to understand what we are ready for and being able to build some of that collaboration across the district to make sure that we know that when we get the grant, that we are going to be able to execute it effectively, and know what we're facing when we're executing that and what we're going to need. This has been really helpful because we have had grants that we've been really interested in, but then when we went through the capacity planning process, have said, "Oh, wait, we're not quite ready for that." Or it has also brought to light things that helped make our applications more competitive because we were able to be more transparent and honest about where we were and what we needed to be able to execute on the grants. And then the third thing I want to highlight in this is number seven, which is implementation, reporting, and stewardship. While this is just one step on the road, this particular step can be years, because many of our grants are multi-year. So this step can actually involve years of coordination and collaboration across the district, making sure that we're reporting, that we're putting in our reimbursements, and that we're meeting the needs of the funder. So next slide. Yeah. So just want to highlight some of the things that we've developed for this. So we now have a district intent to apply process. So this helps somebody get started on the road that I will then help guide them down, let us know what they want. They can fill out this form, and then we can get started on the grant process. We also have a structured grant development and review process that utilizes outline worksheets and coordinated input and review cycles that require multiple levels of leadership review to be able to move forward. In addition to that, we have our grants web page, as well as our monthly newsletter on grants. And then we also have standardized grant workbooks that include budgets, budget codes, timelines, all of the things that we need to be able to successfully implement a grant once we get it. And that is what people get. As soon as we get a grant, we're able to set that upAnd get them going on it. And then again, the continuous improvement. We currently have a survey out to everybody we've worked with over the last year to find out what they'd like to see improved about the process. The next slide. So these are just some examples of the stuff we developed. So there's the opportunity and a mini sample of what the opportunity update looks like and what a selected opportunity might look like for that. As well as a snippet of the grants resources webpage and our intent to apply form. Next slide. So this is just a snapshot of where we currently are with competitive grants. And again, this is constantly changing because we always have applications in process that we're working on, and then we're always waiting for decisions on things. So this can change at any time. But for this one, we currently have, since September, we've done 25 grant applications. Total funding requests in those 25 grant applications was $2,260,000. We've secured, which means we were awarded of those, a $1,290,000. We have pending decisions, we're waiting to hear on $873,000. And we were not awarded about $97,000 of those grants. And this has supported more than 10 different departments across the district. Next grant. Next one. So if we look at knowing that many of these are multi-year grants, this is what that looks like over time. So if it were to stack up perfectly the way the grants were written, which it usually doesn't, because for example, we may have a grant where we've got funding that's supposed to be in fiscal year '26, so we don't spend all the money, so some of that money will move over to '27. So this shifts. But if we were to look at it perfectly right now, this is what that would stack up and look like over time with the money coming, which is we have almost $500,000 that will be coming in fiscal year '27. A little less than that in fiscal year '28. And again, these are going to grow, hopefully. Ideally, that's what's going to happen over time. And then these are just some examples of the grants. Not all of them, because we're grateful to have a lot of them, but this is just examples of some of the ones that we've won. So two of the biggest ones that we've won so far is the SPED Pathways Grant, which will help with develop licensure pathways and workforce development for special education teachers. And then we've also got the Native Language Revitalization Grant, which will bring Ojibwe language instruction across the district. Then we also have an AP STEM grant, which expands AP STEM computer science, business, and future cybersecurity coursework at the high school. The Youth Skills Training Grant, which Rhoda spoke about this evening. And then I also wanted to highlight, some of these smaller grants that we get can be really special. So this Snapdragon Book Foundation Grant was a $5,000 grant we got that's going to help bring literacy resources for developing readers at Tanglen Elementary. So. Thank you. Thank you. Any questions? No? Okay. No. Thank you. Yes, yeah. Yeah. We all have- Looks like there are questions. Oh, okay. Chair Andresen. Well, first of all, I just wanted to thank you. I'm grateful to have you here and for the clear body of work in building and cultivating infrastructure supports and all of the things that go into helping any organization, let alone our school district, to be successful in going after and securing grant funding. Congratulations on the grants and the awards that you've received to date. And just as a former fundraising professional who does that as a part of my day job and has worked in higher ed on securing grants, just want to say thank you, and it's not easy work. This takes a lot of effort, and even knowing what you're doing to put in place things that can help others in our district also to apply, so people aren't like, "Oh, how do I find this budget and do this thing?" To have those templates can help it so it's not all on your shoulders as well. And so just was so supportive when I saw that the position was being hired and then hearing you come and report. Really, really grateful for it, and especially as our education funding does not keep up with our needs. This is a vital pathway for securing funding, and thank you so much. Thank you. Thank you. Yeah. I also am grateful. I think that doing work in this space, you have a very impressive ratio of- Yeah. It's actually- ... application to awards. Wow. Mm-hmm. And one of the things I'm wondering about, and I don't know if it was on your slide and I just missed it, is something that I've seen happen in the education space is a grant is gotten and there's this really great program, and then the grant goes away and there's no more great program. So wondering if there is an eye toward, as part of your structure that you've built, sustainability. Mm-hmm. Because- It's great ... grant money is great, but it's not consistent funding necessarily. So just wondering about that. That sustainability planning is a key part of the capacity conversation that we have at the beginning of the grant is that if we go for this money, what is it going to mean when the grant ends, and how are we going to be able to keep that up? So that is a very key part of how we do capacity planning and some of the reasons why sometimes we say, "No, we can't do this because we're not going to be able to maintain it." Great. Thank you. Yeah. Appreciate that. Chair Andreassen? Yes. Can I ask a question? Thank you again. I want to echo what they said about your work, and this is so needed, this position, for sure. If there's a process, is it like a selection process for departments who's going for the same grant- Mm-hmm ... in terms of support from the school? I'm trying to ask this question as clearly as possible, but I just know, like in the past, for example, there was a parent group who was going for funds from a foundation, but there was another department also going for the same funds. And so how do you decide, or how does the school district decide which group they're going to support, or do you support both? So I don't have any... Again, the PTO groups are out of scope for me, so I don't have view into what they're going to apply for. But if we've got two schools or two departments within the district that want to go for the same funding, that's a key part of the intent to apply process, and why that's part of it was so that we're aware that there are two of them that are wanting to apply for it. And at that point, it would be a conversation with leadership to determine which program has priority based on a strategic need in the district. And that's what that process is meant to help with. Mm-hmm. Thank you. Chair Andreassen? Yes, Director Jocham. Yes, hi. I have a question about the growth in grants that the district had. I think I can infer from your graph, but it looked like a substantial increase from '25. Do you know, we went from X to 2.5 this year? I wish I could answer that question, but I think one of the challenges was when I started was that we didn't have a clear understanding of what grants we had across the district because there was no central collection or understanding of that. And so this is sort of our baseline at this point. For the '26, it's the baseline for what was supported by this process. And so that, yeah. Thank you. So you're building the infrastructure to help us track that over time. To be able to track that work very clearly, yeah. Much more transparently. And I know we're doing some grant audit work, so we can probably provide some historical data, but we're still gathering all of that information. Yeah. Yeah. Skyward. Skyward, yeah. Great. Thank you. Okay. Thank you. Well, thank you so much for being here with us. Thank you for all your work, Laura. You're doing amazing. And with that, I would look for a motion to approve tonight's agenda. 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 aye. Aye. Aye. Aye. Any nays? The chair votes aye, and tonight's agenda is approved. And that takes us to our consent calendar. The purpose of the consent calendar 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. I would look for a motion that the board approves the consent calendar. So moved. I have a motion. Is there a second? Second. I have a motion and a second. Any discussion? Seeing none- Chair Andreassen? Oh, yes? Oh. Yeah. Just to note, there were a couple edits that were made on the minutes. They're not substantive, but there were a couple edits that were made that then I signed off on. And so it was just regarding the consent item that had been on... Director Thompson had taken off the two items, and so those were reflected below, but it didn't reflect that accurately. And then also it was added, related to the school board policy for weighted grades, just how the vote shook out was named there, as it was for other areas. Okay. So just wanted to note that. So they've been corrected? They've been corrected, and I've now signed onto the corrected version that was printed off and will be recorded. So we are approving the corrected version? That is correct. Okay, great. Thank you. So that is our discussion. Seeing no further discussion, all those in favor, please say aye. Aye. Aye. Aye. Aye. Any opposed? The chair votes aye, and the consent calendar is approved. And that takes us to the treasurer's report. Treasurer Hartland. Thank you. Good evening, everyone. I have a couple things to go over in tonight's report, and one is a brief legislative recap, mostly focusing on those items which have some kind of financial impact to either public schools or Hopkins specifically, and a very modest supplemental spending bill. This was a policy year, so in our Minnesota legislature, typically they discuss the budget one year and then policy in the following. So the session that just ended was a policy year. But a very modest supplemental spending bill was passed in the 11th hour of this session, and it gave an additional $10 million in compensatory revenue, $5 million for funding an anonymous threat reporting systemThe constitutional amendment bill, HF 3900 passed, which means that the movement to modernize the permanent school fund distribution formula that I talked about a couple of board reports ago, that will now appear on the November 2026 ballot for voters to decide. AMSD, or the Association of Metropolitan School Districts, has some solid information on what that will mean for voters and school districts if that amendment passes on AMSD's website. A bill was passed that would allow districts to slightly reduce the amount of professional development teachers need under the READ Act. An interesting bill that passed is one that school districts must issue high school diplomas to their former students who left to serve in the Korean or Vietnam Wars if requested. So, if you know a vet that would like to receive their diploma and didn't because they shipped out and went overseas, then soon there will be a process by which they can request one. So, I thought that was kind of cool. $3.8 million was approved to provide grants for mobile crisis units for schools. And hearing $10 million or $3.8 million might not sound like modest dollar amounts, but do remember that there are over 300 public school districts in Minnesota, and then something like 169, I think, charter school districts, plus intermediate districts and tribal schools. And so these funds are both greatly appreciated to our legislators, and they don't necessarily go very far. And so what's left for the district to do now is to see which of these bills impact us and kind of adjust accordingly. And so that is always a big job that is borne by the staff of our school districts after a legislative session. One major thing that was left undone was the possible repeal of this looming $250 million cut to special education funding. That cut comes from a bill that was passed in 2025 that created a blue ribbon task force tasked with finding $250 million in savings from special ed funding by this October. And an automatic reduction is supposed to happen beginning in the '28, '29 school year. So, the commission has asked for more time, and then a bill was introduced this session to repeal that automatic trigger. And despite receiving bipartisan support, that bill did not advance, so we will likely hear more during the 2027 session, which I believe starts in January. That is probably the most impactful legislative change looming, at least that we know of for now. And it is especially important to us here in Hopkins, as we have both the substantial fiscal and moral responsibility to take care of all of our students, including those who receive special services. And for example, in fiscal year '25, this is fiscal year '26 that we're in right now, and when we hear about our budget, we'll be looking at fiscal year '27. But in fiscal year '25, our special education cost in Hopkins was $23.55 million. We received $13.86 million in special education aid from the state. And then because our legislators fortunately recognized how big that gap is, or the subsidy is between our special ed expenses and the special ed revenue, we received an additional $5.4 million in subsidy aid. So, that meant we had a total special education subsidy left of $4.2 million in fiscal year '25, and that's the amount that we paid from our general fund to cover those special education expenses. And that is actually better. That's down from fiscal year '24, when our subsidy was $5.39 million. And so it's hard to say exactly how this blue ribbon commission could kind of hand down or recommend making the cuts, but it is fair to say that we are at risk of a significant reduction in funding in fiscal year '29 if something is not done to amend or repeal that cut. So, we will be watching that in the next session. And again, that would take place in the '28, '29 school year. So, we're not quite there in our budgeting discussions yet. Regarding our expenses, you'll see a lot of invoices from Advanced Imaging Specialists. That's the source of our printing and copying machines and the actual printing services. We paid them $24,286.31. We paid Amazon $11,057.87 for all kinds of supplies across all departments. And again, I do have the transparency, the ability to pull any one of those invoices. We paid Weaving Cultures, the company that does the majority of our interpreting work, $15,558.92. We paid $55,822 to Blake School and $48,874 to BREC to reimburse them for mandated services. CBiz Investment Advisors provides guidance and investment strategy for our 403 retirement plans for staff. We paid them $5,750 for contracted advisory services. We paid the city of Golden Valley $7,875 for water and sewer, $546 to Hopkins for water and sewer, and $14,649 to the city of Minnetonka. We paid $160,474 to Connect Energy Group for February's natural gas bills across various sites. McDowell Agency does all our background checks, includingFor all these contracted community ed teachers and volunteers that are about to lead thousands of Hopkins students and citizens in various classes and events this summer. So we paid McDowell Agency $2,466.30. Superior Vision Services is our employee vision plan. We paid them $5,694. You'll see our monthly cost for the district's phone service reflected a couple times here. We pay RingCentral $29,370 every month for that. And then finally, we paid $10,030 to USS Hancock Solar and $50,072 to SSI Tranche 1 and 2. We heard about these three solar partners and a couple others when Assistant Director Mazzoli and then Dr. Lightfoot presented to us in the fall about the partnerships between our solar gardens and our utility providers. So these amounts that we pay the solar partners are more than offset by credit we then receive on our Xcel Energy bills. With that, I move that we approve total disbursements in the amount of $2,827,058.13 for the period of April 1st through April 15th, 2026. I have a motion. Is there a second? Second. I have a motion and a second. Any discussion? Chair Andresen. Director Thompson. Thanks for the report, Treasurer Hartland. I just had one question. Seeing more charges, CliftonLarsonAllen, so that was our former auditor who was helping us pull statements for the current audit. Do you know, are we getting close to being done paying those types of bills? Thank you for the question. So what I can share is that CLA is helping us prepare for our FY25 audit, and the board audit committee is actually meeting next week to get a report. It's a delayed audit, but we are on track for presenting that at the June 23 board meeting. And then after that, what we're going to do is internally use our skill set within the business office and the expertise of our controller, Emily Westrum, to manage prepping the audit work for FY26 before handing it over to KDV. So you should soon see those charges coming to, I think, zero. Dr. Lightfoot? Yeah. By June 30. By June 30, yeah. So we're preparing to sunset their partnership on June 30. Okay. Thank you for that update. I appreciate it. That was my only question. Andresen? Yes. Director Hyman. I also have just one question. I see a large sum was paid to Imagine I Am, Imagine Learning, the same curriculum company, curriculum developer that we were talking about during workshop, for Imagine I Am Spanish K through 5, 313 and some thousand dollars. I'm wondering if we're already doing Imagine I Am Spanish K to 5, or if this is a new curriculum that's being purchased, or what exactly that sum is for. If we know. So Dr. Ertel, these are materials for our Juntos teachers to teach Imagine I Am math to K five students in Spanish immersion. And are they being used this year? Yes. This year and moving forward. Yeah. This year is the second year of two years of adoption cost for K five. We split the total contract over two years. Okay. Thank you. Yes, that's helpful. Thank you. Okay. Do we need to repeat that into the record, or? No, I- Our director of innovation- I think that was- ... design and learning said that we're going to split the adoption cost into two years. Yeah, I think that was part of what the board approved, correct? Correct. It is a big cost. Yeah. Yeah. Thank you. And you can walk down the hallway here and see some of the deliveries. Big boxes. Any further discussion? Seeing none, all those in favor, please say aye. Aye. Aye. Aye. Any opposed? The chair votes aye, and the treasurer's report is accepted. As always, thank you, Treasurer Hartland, for an excellent report. Certainly. And that takes us to our first order of new business, an easement agreement. I would like to invite our presenters up to the table and turn it over to Dr. Miri Perry Reed. Thank you, Chair Andresen. So, the City of Hopkins is making improvements to the property next to Katherine Curran Elementary, which is a district-owned building. So I welcome our city partner and Mr. Wetter and Dr. Lightfoot to help the board understand the details of this agreement. The updates will clarify expectations around playground useAnd there are some adjustments to the agreement timeline as well. And sir, I have not met you yet. What is your name? Dustin Pavik, public works director for City of Hopkins. Welcome. Thank you. Thank you for being here. So I'll turn it over to you. Great. Good to be with you all this evening. I'm grateful for the partnership with the City of Hopkins as we continue to partner with them with the easement agreement. In a minute, I'll let Dustin speak more to the city improvements and their strategic structuring. As we looked at the partnership that we had with the original easement agreement in 2008, when that was established, as work was being done, part of the update that we were looking toward really was the request around the playground equipment, the updating of that as part of the work with Central Park, correct? And as such, we worked through the mechanics and the memorandum of the language that is there to come to the agreement that's here in front of you this evening for you to look at and approve as part of the modification. In giving you some context to that, I think what I'll do is give Dustin a little bit of opportunity to give some broad explanation around what's happening with the city and how we're part of that. Good evening. Thank you again for having me tonight. So the premise of this is, about three years ago, the City of Hopkins put together a master park plan for all parks in the City of Hopkins. When that plan was done, it was identified as Central Park being the first park that we need to go and redo. What started as a small project quickly morphed into a $14 million park project. We've had a lot of partners that have come in, and Central Park is now going to be a big stormwater resilience park. There's a lot of things being put into it, a lot of infrastructure changes throughout it. It will be able to help the surrounding properties from the schools, apartments, the church to the north of us, to help with any flooding in the future. A lot of those changes are going to be directly related to Nine Mile Creek, which if you don't know, the south side of the park is where the headwaters for Nine Mile Creek start. So there's going to be a lot of changes throughout the park topographically. The soccer field to the north side is going to be a sunken soccer field that'll be dug down about eight feet, with the stormwater being able to pool there for up to 12 hours before it gets kicked out. In between the two ball fields that will remain, there'll be a dry creek bed that'll connect to Nine Mile Creek. There'll be a lot of signage and education pieces throughout the entire park. The north side of the park will also have a permanent restroom now, as opposed to porta potties, along with a science garden in the north side as well. We did remove the very old play structure that was on the east side of the park, and a new playground will be placed just north of the pavilion, which is in part of the easement property. It's going to be a giant three-story tower from Flagship with slides and all sorts of amenities. There was a lot of community outreach for the park itself, and especially with the playground. I know we went to a bunch of schools to talk with students on what they wanted, and they are getting a zip line. That was the most requested thing, so there'll be a zip line put there as well. The flooring is going to be a pour in place rubberized flooring there. So the timeline, we started two weeks ago on the project, so it's underway right now. Substantial completion will be next year sometime, but we should be done mostly here in October, at least all the dirt work is. There's been a lot of partnerships with outside funding. We were given a $5 million grant from the MPCA, which has strict timelines on when we have to get stuff done, so we're really pushing hard to get through with what we need to. The purpose of the easement was to basically allow that playground that is at Katherine Curran to remain. Otherwise, it was up to debate if we would remove it because we have another playground going in to replace it, but it was thought that it was an amenity that the school would maybe want to keep. So that's why we decided to try and relocate those lines for the current easement, and then we just extended the date just to coincide. Central Park's never going to go anywhere, so as long as we can keep the easement going, we're grateful to be good partners. I would add that we also did have an earlier easement for some of the fiber work that was necessary. I don't know if you want to speak to any of that, John, as well. Yeah, and part of the work around easements and why the conversation kind of came to be is also Hopkins Public Schools serves basically as a utility owner in this area as well because their fiber optics lines move through that area right along Katherine Curran building on their way over to Glen Lake, and then the other way over to Harley Hopkins Early Childhood Center. So we're a utility owner bounded in those areas as well, as well as our connectivity that actually moves through Central Park and around it where we have an interconnection with the city of Hopkins as well, where we can serve the performing arts center, as well as some needs with our partners both at Minnetonka and Hopkins for emergency management capabilities as well. So with that, we wanted to bring it forward to you so that you would, number one, raise your awareness, number two, full knowledge of those changes as we look forward to the partnership and the ongoing improvements. So with that, we're open for any additional questions or information that would be helpful Chair Andresen? Yes. Clerk, do you- Question ... have G. Thank you. Thank you. Thanks for being here and for presenting. I just have a clarifying question, which is, so the current structure of the play equipment that is at, well, the swings, and then the playground area, that will remain, and then the City of Hopkins will be adding, as part of the Central Park renovation project, an additional play structure that you referenced? Correct. Okay. Thank you. Well, this feels like an easy- Yeah ... vote. Mm-hmm. So I would look for a motion that the board approve the easement modification as presented. So moved. I have a motion. Is there a second? Second. I have a motion and a second. Any further discussion? Seeing none, all those in favor, please say aye. Aye. Any opposed? The chair votes aye, and the easement agreement is approved. Thank you so much for being here with us this evening. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you. And Assistant Superintendent Lightfoot, you get to stay, and I will turn it over to Dr. Mary Perry Reid for our 27-28 District 287 LTFM resolution. Thank you, Chair Andresen. And joining Dr. Lightfoot will be Jessica Olsen, our interim CFO. And Chair Andresen, you sit on the 287 board, so you are well aware that the amount and distribution of District 287's LTFM was approved by their board, and now there is a resolution in front of our board members this evening to approve 287's long-term facility maintenance program budget, which also authorizes the inclusion of our proportionate share. And I turn it over to our presenters if there's additional detail to add. The one additional detail I wanted to add is what is the proportionate share for Hopkins. So the total is $160,757. So it's a portion of everything, and there's a calculation that goes along with that regarding the one-third of APUs and two-thirds of the three-year weighted program. So there is that backing that goes behind that. If you have any questions, just please let us know. Otherwise, 287 does not have the levy authority, so that's why they go through their member districts to levy for those funds to support their long-term facility maintenance plans. And it has been planned for, as we look at the fiscal impact, knowing that we do work with Ehlers and Associate as we think through all of our LTFM internally as well. So it has been built into those models. And just for further context, this is something we do regularly here at Hopkins. All other member districts are having the same conversation at their board tables. But also, one of the things that I've always appreciated about how District 287 does this is that the amount that member districts are contributing is proportional to their use of services. So, it isn't just a one, you get a 1/13th of it put on your district. So if anyone has any questions around those lines, if I don't have the answer, I'm certainly able to connect you with someone who can speak more to how this works. Okay. Great. So it says that it's a roll call. Do we have our own resolution, or are we just doing a roll call vote on the resolution that was passed? It should be part of the board agenda. Mm-hmm. There should be a resolution in there. At the bottom, it says resolution. Yeah, I looked at that, but it looked like it was the one that 287... Oh, no. Here we go. Thank you. So I would first look for a motion to waive the reading of the resolution. 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 aye. Aye. Any opposed? Chair votes aye, and the reading of the resolution has been waived. So I would look for a motion to approve the resolution as presented in the packet. So moved. I have a motion. Is there a second? Second. I have a motion and a second. Any further discussion? Seeing none, clerk, please call the roll. Shannon Andresen? Aye. Rachel Hartland? Aye. Johanna Heiman? Aye. Brooke Roper? Aye. Kai Thompson? Aye. Sarah Wilhelm-Garbers? Aye. Zhiming Zhao? Aye. All have voted aye. Thank you, clerk, for that. And thank you for being here, and you get to stay again for our next item, which is the fiscal year '27 preliminary budget update. I will turn it over to Dr. Mary Perry Reid. Thank you, Chair Andresen. Well, for community members who might be tuning in for the first time, this is our second update to the board around our district budget for fiscal year '27. Two weeks ago, we presented a higher-level update, and in board members' packets and also available toviewers and those interested in learning more detail, there is a budget document that is linked in the board materials. We are working toward a structurally balanced budget for fiscal year '27, working our very best to align resources with our most important priorities, which do include student achievement, of course. And similar to many districts in the metropolitan area and across Minnesota, schools and districts are finding it harder to balance revenue with expenditures. And so in the metropolitan area, there's a shared budget shortfall of almost 250 million. Here in Hopkins, we're making an adjustment for next year of, our adjustment is a reduction of about two and a half million. And then also sent to board members was a summary of some of the detailed reductions. And we have explained a couple of times to our community that we are prioritizing funding class size so that our students and teachers can be in classrooms with adult-to-student ratios that feel manageable and allow students to learn, and these class sizes are spelled out in the teachers' contract. And so to be able to operationalize that, we did absorb reductions mostly at the district office. And so some of those examples that were included in the board member communications, for example, a reduction of all district department budgets by about 10%, if not more in a couple of cases. There is a reduction of at least four positions in operational budgets for business services, human resources, innovation design and learning, and specialized services. We are looking for a pretty sizable reduction regarding the professional audit services that have been provided by Clifton Larson Allen over the past couple of years. Director Thompson asked about that earlier. Buildings and grounds, our assistant supervisor there has creatively identified nearly $900,000 in efficiencies or reductions within buildings and grounds department. And some of the efficiencies also include coding positions or operational supplies to restricted budgets, such as capital projects levy or school safety and security dollars, things like that, referendum dollars. And obviously, we are paying attention to the expenditure criteria so that we stay within statute. So those are just a few examples, and I really appreciate the work that Jessica Olsen and Dr. Lightfoot, and really the whole team, has been doing, not only to stabilize our budget, but also to figure out exactly how we need to move forward for next year. So I'll turn it over to you, Jessica, and to you, Nick, to provide more detail. Perfect. So I just have a couple slides for tonight, and then we'll go through some of the more detail at the end. Just what the priorities are is really around that classroom size that we've talked about and making sure that the students get what they need when they come to school, and that we're able to serve those students when they're here. Also maintaining any kind of student support systems, and then the structural balance of the budget, so making sure that Hopkins can also sustain these programs over the years and continue to have a healthy fund balance where that comes in too. And then just maximizing some efficiencies and transparency and communication with the school board and also the community. One of the things that we've been working on over the past couple months is the Ehlers projection model. So this really looks at what we do today, how it impacts the next three to four years. It takes the actuals from the preliminary audits from '24, and then also the... I'm sorry. The actuals from '24, the preliminary audit from '25, where that's coming in at, where the revised budget is, and then also where we're looking at for that preliminary budget for '27. And then what does that do for looking out? So in this model, it does include the 2.5 million in reductions. You will see an increase in fund balance going into FY27, or at the end of FY27, due to the decreases, and the reason for that is really for future years. So the district's policy is a 6% fund balance. Anything above is to help stabilize in cases if there's reductions in revenue. So we know that there's a potential $250 million special ed reduction coming, or if there's unexpected expenses, it helps cope with that. So by doing this reduction, looking out to 2030, it keeps a healthy fund balance at above 7%. So it really allows the district to have some flexibility in the next few years and to stabilize the environment. And the next one is just a basic breakout of how the general fund is funded. So you have your basic allowance, you have restricted funds, you have federal funds, everything that goes into it. So it's a bucket that has many different funding sources that go along with it. And then as mentioned already within the reductions, this goes through high level what we're looking at for reductions for FY27. So again, the 10% inAll the district office, central office locations, all of that. Reduction in some professional services. Buildings and ground is looking at nearly a $900,000 reduction, and then just some shifts that we can do that will better stabilize the district and not impact the classrooms. It's more of that central office look. And then just from a programming standpoint, the other thing I wanted to call out is there was a contingency fund built in. We have removed that for FY27. That contingency is just around enrollment, so it built in a little buffer if you had additional students enroll. We did take that out. There is still a signed fund balance that has contingency built into it, so it's not where the district has $0 built, but we're just not allocating additional funds to that. And then we just also reduced some of the targeted staffing. So that was a slight reduction of 30,000 overall. So nothing significant there, but just helps balance the budget. And then I just wanted to call out, overall, it's around 3.6 million that was reduced from the central office. A million of that was reinvested within the buildings and classrooms to help stabilize the classroom size. So I just wanted to call out, there is more work that was done to the central office to help support those class sizes and building that. So just to re-emphasize, the priority of the district is really the classroom size at this point. So overall revenue, I just wanted to compare how this goes from FY26 to FY27. So looking at the general fund, we're seeing an increase of 4.5 million. The majority of that is coming from our state aid increase of the 2.69%. There was a levy increase around 3%, and then some cross-subsidy for special ed that included in there. For food and nutrition, we're looking at around $95,000 increase. Now, this budget is still being worked on a little bit, so when you see the final one in June, just know this one may change a little bit. We're looking at à la carte increases for the prices with that, and then we're also reviewing the funding for reimbursements. That has not come in yet from the state. So once we get a little bit more information there, that one might adjust a little bit. The next one is community ed. We're looking at a $321,000 increase for community ed for revenue. Construction fund, you will see a big decrease of 13 million. So we did bond in FY26. We are looking at potentially bonding in '27. Those numbers are still being finalized. That should be finalized within the next week or two, what the projected bond would need for LTFM to continue that 10-year plan in the cycle. You will notice it's year after year for bonding, which is typically not normal. You guys usually go every two years, but because of the delay in the last bond, it's just going to be at an increased or faster pace for this next bond, and then it'll go back to that two-year cycle. Debt service did go up a little bit. We did issue bonds, so that's just to help cover any payments for FY27. The internal service fund, that is going to be the health insurance and then severance. So there's the $797,000 increase that's based on where the projections are for additional withholdings for the health insurance deductibles. Not deductibles, premiums, sorry. And then any interest earnings on the fund balances there. And the next one is the OPEB trust. So that's going to be tentatively right now what is estimated for the interest earnings on the OPEB trust. So overall, you will see a decrease in revenue of 4.9 million. The majority of that is all going to be within the bond related decrease in revenue that's projected right now. Next, we'll just look at expenditures. So for the general fund, we have an increase of 3.1 million. So you'll see it as 147 million. That's mainly due with the staffing contract increases. Anything else that we saw throughout that we've had in budget discussions. So, the 5% utility is that piece of it is built in there. That does include the $2.5 million reduction, so just so I wanted to call that out on that piece. Food and nutrition, we're looking at a $300,000 reduction. Couple of reasons for that. The last two years, we've had deficit spending in food and nutrition. So that fund balance is decreasing, and we need to start stabilizing that. We're looking at some cost and food savings, so looking at what we're spending, making sure that we're spending to what we need, and then also, we do get some, I forget the word at the moment, but we get additional food through the state. We're going to try to use some more of that. The other piece of that is looking at FY28. The state aid reimbursement rate is going to decrease. So right now it's at 0.125. In FY28, it's looking at 0.0625, so about half of the reimbursement rate. So we're looking at what we can do today to make sure that our fund balance is healthy to help support what that will look like in FY28. Next, we're looking at community service fund. So right now, I projected a $661,000 increase. This is lower than what the update budget I got from community service today. There are some additional expenditures that are going to come, so that will be updated in the final one. Just going to quick pull out my notes so that I can tell you exactly what that is. It'll be about a million dollars more. And what that all includes within there is going to be the school readiness and preschool teachers went on the teacher contract, so there's additional cost for staffing there, along with wages. I'm sorry, benefits. They are also taking on some of the rack expenses to help alleviate some of the general fund. And then they're also adding a preschool Chinese immersion... class as well, so there's some costs that are going to be added with adding that additional programming there. And then there's some business developments for grants. So overall, they do have a little over probably 1.5 million in expenditures that they're going to spend in a deficit, but the fund balance is currently healthy. That's projected to be a little over six million after the end of FY25. So there are funds available to support those programming within there. So this is the first read of the budget, so you guys got more detail of what is all being made up in it. The budget document goes a little bit more in depth with it. The final budget will be brought to you guys at the last board meeting in June, the 23rd, for final approval. And I'll open it up to any questions that you may have. Thank you. Any questions? Chair Andresen? Yes, Clerk Thompson. Thank you for this. Thank you for this update. Looking forward to the final one. Let's see. I think my first question is around OPEB. So that stands for something employee benefit trust fund? Other Post-Employee Benefits. Other Post-Employee Benefits. And so that's a trust fund we have that then pays out retirees. Yes. So, it's a sunsetted program now, but there was a point where retirees, once they retired, they could stay on the district's health insurance plan until they turned 65. With the introduction of the 403 plan, they sunsetted that. The district still has a liability on there because there's still teachers that qualified for it. So as they qualify, the district has to pay for their health insurance after they retire. Eventually, that liability is going to continue to reduce and reduce until you have no teachers remaining that qualified for that. That is still probably 15, 20 years out before you'll see it completely go away. Okay. Thanks for that detail. And I had read in the supporting document that CFAC had recommended pausing our contribution into it because the balance that's in there is paying for itself right now. Correct. And it's funded to the full liability at this point. So instead of continuing to grow that, the thought was to keep it within the general fund and just let it be self-sustaining at this point. And so are we going to pause the contribution or- Yes. Okay. Yeah. So is that amount reflected on slide five or six at all? So it is a reduction in expenditures, and it was also paused in FY26. Okay. So what's the total amount of saving in the general fund by pausing it? By pausing it, it's around 1.5, 1.8 million. Substantial. Okay. Mm-hmm. Thank you. So that was my first question. And then second question, when we say on slide five, reduction of approximately $500,000 in external professional audit support services, so that was the payments to CliftonLarson to prepare our documents for the audit, and that was for two audits years, right? '24 and '25. Okay. They were both completed. If you're just paying an audit firm, what does that cost? "Hey, do our audit." So just to do the audit is around 80,000, if I remember correctly. Mm-hmm. This is the preparation work of it. So this is all the putting the work papers together, going through and making sure all the coding is correct, and that there's documentation to support the work papers and the financial draft statement- Right ... that goes to the auditors, and then they review that piece of it. Okay, thank you. And then final question, we had heard earlier that we will be asked for new curriculum for this IM Math for the middle schools. Have we, in this budget, baked even a ballpark ask of that money into this? Do you know? Yes. So There's a lot of nodding- Yeah ... in the ca- Yeah. It's built in within the operating capital budget. Yeah. Mm-hmm. And that's part of the general fund. Okay. Thank you. Any other questions? I had a question, two questions, actually. I am wondering if we have an idea of how this budget is impacted by compensatory aid from the state, because it's my understanding that we are not being held harmless any longer, and the legislature has not seen fit to do anything about compensatory aid. So we are still seeing a reduction for FY27. So the $10 million did not go to every single district. Right. It was based on a formula that they created, so the 10 million was split out amongst districts, but not everybody saw an increase. So we are still seeing the decrease that we projected on the original. Could you give us a dollar amount? So the district's receiving 6 million this year compared to 6.2 million last year. Okay. Or this current year, I should say. Sorry. And thenI'm also wondering about, you said that the reimbursement rate from the state for our nutrition program is going down. I'm just thinking, okay, some advocacy needs to be done on this. Is there an explanation as to why that's happening? I have not heard all of the details of why it's coming. I have just heard that it's coming, so I just wanted to make sure that you guys were aware. I can find out more and- That'd be great. Yeah. If you could let the- Yep ... LAC know, we'd appreciate being able to show actual numbers- Absolutely ... of how it's impacting our district. Thank you. I did just want to say that I appreciate this, and just being able to look at the numbers and how they come together, and all the work that you all have put into providing these presentations are appreciated. I know it's strange to say, and it's a strange place to be in, but I feel like 2.5 million, it feels a little bit like a relief, even though it's odd. But, yeah, I just am grateful for all the work that was done on this. So, thank you. And, oh, yes. Chair Andrecen? Yes. Yeah. I echo the thanks, and just recognize there's so much that goes into this, and then that the impact is real for our community as well, with needing to make cuts. And one thing I wanted to highlight and come to in the budget document that we had is the section related to enrollment and program viability, and just how it names there that enrollment remains a key driver of our long-term financial stability and program sustainability, and CFAC's recommendation that we formalize a comprehensive multi-year enrollment strategy. And so, just I know that there's been ongoing conversations, I just wanted to highlight that, and just second that as a vital thing, and anything that we can do to support that work. And also, would just look forward to hearing more about the strategies and where we're at as a district in the midst of the transition and the communications and other areas. But continuing to just hear how we're doing and how we think we're doing, and get feedback from our community of both if there's exit interviews or just where we're at. And so, just wanted to highlight that, and thank CFAC for their work as well. Thank you. Chair Andrecen? Yes, Treasurer Hartland. Thank you. To continue your comments about the impact is real, like $2.5 million is better, but the impact is real. We talked about at the previous board meeting, there was staffing resolutions, and some of those were due to the cuts and some were not. But we also have some unlicensed staff, right? That's kind of mentioned, and some positions being eliminated in the district staff. I know you can't share names or specific timelines, but when might those people who possibly are hearing this news and anxious about their position, when will they know? Yeah. Excellent question. Thank you. We're completing the building tie outs mostly through this week. And as part of those building tie outs, part of what we track are any individuals, because of any of the shifting funding, that would be impacted. And then we go through the analysis at the end of May and the beginning of June to look at any vacancies that we have, because some buildings have some vacancies, and through retirement or resignation, opportunities that are there. And in other buildings, if there is an impact, we look at any vacancies, open opportunities where individuals would be able to be placed within the district. And so, we start that work at the end of May, beginning of June, and then look for any impacts that would be occurring. Hopefully to be completed before the end of the school year would be our target date. Okay. Thank you. Chair Andrecen, I think, Dr. Lightfoot, thank you for that response. And then just to add to that, the vast majority of any individuals who may experience a position impact for this year have already been talked to. And then these budget tie outs, building by building, give us an opportunity to clarify. And as Dr. Lightfoot said, if there's an additional conversation or opportunity that an individual has, then we're having those conversations, but the vast majority of them have taken place. Well, I do appreciate that kind of perspective of looking internally for opportunities to try to see if we can keep the people who have dedicated themselves to our district. Mm-hmm. And so, I kind of wonder if there is that opportunity for someone to work in another building or sometimes even split their time. What does that look like? Because I know some of our staff split their time, or some staff suddenly are looking at having a commute. I'm trying to think of what I'm exactly asking. Is there building-to-building coordination? Are we trying to help people have an actual doable schedule and- Yeah. We look at two things, the building-to-building coordination. We also look at what I'm-Trying to describe as intra-building opportunities. So for example, if someone may be losing some hours in a specific position, are there other positions that may have openings as well so that they can be treated by the district as a full-time employee? So oftentimes, whether in partnership with school nutrition or community education with Kids in Company, sometimes with a combination of clerical and para hours, we can get individuals through multiple opportunities to have a full-time experience in the district. So we try to work on both when we look at the collective picture of what the impacts are. Okay. So then there's an expectation, like if you're talking about they have clerical hours, they have paraprofessional hours, there's the expectation from our district that their various supervisors in each places know about these schedules and accommodate their start times- Yep ... and their- Yep. And then on our end centrally, we look at the overall hours in district so that for benefit purposes and benefit eligibility, they're treated as a full-time employee, even if their assignment is between multiple bargaining units. Okay. All right, thank you. Chair Andreassen, I have a question. Yes. Thank you all so much for presenting the budget tonight. I have a question. With our deficit, are we on the lower side of deficits out of school districts? And so two questions. One, are we on the lower side of deficit with school districts? And then two, are there any districts who are facing a lesser deficit than us that we can model our budget after? I know it's kind of hard to do that because school districts vary in size and students, but just wondering if that's ever an instance where we model our budget after a district that's not facing budget deficits. I'm pretty sure that all districts are, but are we on the lower side? And if that's possible. Are you saying with a $2.5 million reduction? Yeah. So are there other school districts that maybe have a lower one than us where we can look at maybe their budget to see how did they model their budget so they're able to keep their deficit lower? Yes, there are some that are lower. There's ones that are higher. And it kind of varies on the school size too. So what does their enrollment look like? Are they declining? Are they increasing? It's sometimes hard to model off another district because not every district is exactly the same. Yeah. The enrollment, the demographics, each one is just a little bit different, but you can definitely take pieces of budgets of how they are operating and say, "Can we make that work in Hopkins? Can we remodel basically what they're doing? Will it work with everything we need?" So yes, you can use bits and pieces. I don't know if you would take somebody's full budget because, again, every district looks a little bit different. Yeah. Overall, from the metro, I think Hopkins is in a really good spot with only a $2.5 million reduction. Mm-hmm. And part of it is really that reduction is to help sustain future years so you don't continuously have those reductions. Thank you so much for that. Mm-hmm. Chair Andreassen? Yes. I can send the board a survey from AMSD with district-by-district budget shortfall projections for next year, and that they said that we could publish, not publish, but share that, so I can send that to board members. Just so you can see the comparison district to district. But as Ms. Olsen described, these are also vastly different in terms of total enrollment. I think, too, I know that you've shared at the board table, Dr. Mary Perry Reed, that you do talk with neighboring districts about how they're handling certain types of budget constraints. I know when we had the discussion about our media center personnel, that was something that you talked with other districts about how they provided that funding, and we came to find out that Hopkins was unique in that we had full-time staffing. Most districts did not. So, I think that that does happen- Mm-hmm ... more on a line item by line item basis. Mm-hmm. So, I think that is part of the process. Chair Andreassen. Yes, Director Jia. Yes. Just as a comment, and to answer Vice Chair Roper, and to reference, I think Clerk WG is, I think that growth in enrollment, the ADM, is how we avoid this situation. Mm-hmm. So, that's something as we retool and so many new is coming in and we have opportunities, it's really retaining those people that open enroll or that's really the only way to grow revenue outside of grants. So- Mm-hmm ... that's just unfortunately the math as it works. And so, I think if we want to avoid these conversations, which suck, to be honest, we need to grow. So- Mm-hmm ... that's my take on it. Thank you. So more of us need to do balloon animals at Main Street Days. I'm only one man. Exactly. I'll throw ice cream next time. Okay. Sounds good. Yeah. Thank you. With that, I would look for a motion to approve the fiscal year '27 preliminary budget. So moved. I have a motion. Is there a second? Second. I have a motion and a second. Any further discussion?Seeing none, all those in favor, please say aye. Aye. Any opposed? The chair votes aye, and the fiscal year '27 preliminary budget is approved. Thank you so much- Thank you ... for being here this evening and for all your preparation. We now- Thank you, Jessica. Thank you, Nick. Mm-hmm. We now go to the policies in first read. I will turn it over to Vice Chair Roper. Good evening, community. So we are going to be doing our policies in first read, in which we will be reviewing three different policies tonight, in which our first policy is District Code 705.1, which is the depository of funds and investment other post-employment benefits, OPEB Trust. And I will turn it over to Dr. Lightfoot to elaborate. Absolutely. Thank you, all. 705.1, the depository of funds and investment, really came forward in the conversations with CFAC, that were referenced earlier, regarding the OPEB Trust, which you will see here, that other post-employment benefit trust component. What was discussed at CFAC, and led to the work that you see here, is the relation to looking at taking advantage of being able to, through the investment vehicles we identified, looking for a little greater return in the management of the return and the risk with the fund level that we were seeing. And that recommendation from CFAC came forward as, could we look at a more risk-tolerant kind of approach? And in conversations with our interim CFO, the work went forward in looking at other policies in other places that could be better suited, and not be as conservative and give us an additional opportunity. So with that, this is crafted to be specific to the OPEB Trust, and modified accordingly to take advantage of the opportunity that we have to maximize interest opportunity and return. Jessica, anything else you'd add there? All of the investment options that were added are all within state statute, so it's everything that we can do from a school district. It just opens up the investment opportunities that we can do within the OPEB fund. And it was very restricted before, where we did not see the returns that we wanted to see, that we could potentially see. So by opening these up and giving more investment options, we should see a higher rate of return coming forward with the funds. So with that, if there are any additional questions on 705.1, we'll do our best to address those. And my understanding from when we discussed this in the monitoring committee is that this change is what would allow us to have the savings that we're seeing in the budget that Director Thompson mentioned. The idea is we no longer need to contribute funds from our general fund to this because it will be self-sustaining- Correct ... if we're allowed to diversify our investment strategy. Correct. It will help with the return so that it continues to help fund that fund balance. Yeah. Thank you. Chair Andresen? Yes. So you made the comment that this is making it less restrictive where we can put stuff, and it's still within state statute that we can put the money in these different things, and then the goal is to put it in these different vehicles, we get a better rate of return. Had this previously been dictated by Policy 705? It did. And so now the idea is add 705.1, talk about OPEB specifically, increase where it can go. Mm-hmm. Are we missing out on growth opportunities for other funds that are dictated purely by 705? So I'm going to step back. So there was a separate OPEB investment policy compared to... So there's 705 and then there's the OPEB that's kind of a subsection of 705. So it was very restrictive. So you could do fixed assets or money market, were the two options for investment options within OPEB prior. What this is doing is it's allowing up to 10 different investment options within the fund. Okay, so I had pulled up 705. I guess I didn't see an OPEB specific section, but... So it's 705.1, so it's a separate investment policy that is for OPEB. Okay. I thought 705.1 is the new policy we're talking about tonight. So I guess I'm a little confused, but not the first time. Okay. Regarding reporting, monitoring, seeing how the money is doing in the fund, is it basically the same as 705 dictates for our other funds? Yes. Okay. And have we ever had trouble with that in audits previously? No. Okay. Great. All right. Thank you. Those are my questions. No, the only thing I would add is that there is a requirement, correct me if I'm wrong, by October that we do have to report to the state the interest earnings that are part of that. Yes. That was a call-out. That wasn't done in FY24, and that was a call-out in the audit. So we have moved forward with that and making sure that we meet that reporting deadline. Okay. Thank you. So I did just want to, Director Thompson, direct you to the part in Policy 705 that speaks directly to OPEB. Oh, thank you. It is in Section 9, Investment of District Funds, Item F, and it's the assets of an other post-employment benefits trust or trust account established pursuant to statute. So that's the section in 705, if you wanted to reference that. Yep. All right. Thanks so much. Yeah. So I can see that we're obviously beefing that section up here. Yes. And putting in a lot of, while expanding options, putting in a lot more additional controls around it as well- Correct. Mm-hmm. Which I think is great. Mm-hmm. Chair Andreassen? Yes. Yes. Hi, Dr. Lightfoot, hi, Jessica. So I'm wondering if there was a consideration or discussion around Section 7A around the trust administrator. And maybe this isn't a thing that you can do with it, but was there talk about making or defining them as a fiduciary? Right. I'm just kind of thinking, I want our retirees to get their money and not a bank, per se. And so is that something that we could require, or is that a consideration we could put in there? In that the bank needs to not take advantage of us and move our money in a certain way that's good for them and not for us, right? I think that's my point. I think we did discuss this. Okay. And it is the idea, there are only certain vehicles that can be invested in. Okay. I remember specifically asking these questions because I was like, "Hey, I don't want them investing in Bitcoin." So to that specific question, I think that the guidelines are within the policy itself. But I don't know what would be the benefit of a fiduciary as opposed to the trust administrator. Is there a difference? I haven't looked into it, so I wouldn't have an answer right now for that. I could see a world where MegaBank A says, "Okay, you have a Treasury that you're buying. We're going to float it for a week, and we're going to sweep that into our profits." I'm just thinking, I don't know. Maybe if you guys consider it and tell me, "No, it's not really applicable," that's totally fine. But I just want to make sure that we watch out for our folks first and foremost. Yeah, I do think it's... Go ahead. Chair Andreassen. Yes. Just from my experience, my understanding, with respect to Director Zhao's question about fiduciaries, a trust administrator would be a fiduciary. Okay. By definition. By definition. Okay. An investment advisor would not be. So those are two separate things. So it's the law that when we say you're the trust administrator, that means you're a fiduciary. Yeah. If you're the administrator of a trust, you have a duty to the trust. Okay. To the benefit of the trust. Okay. Mm-hmm. That's just my understanding. But an investment advisor is a different- Yeah ... piece of that. Yeah. Those are often different people or different businesses. So if we were going to do a insurance agency qualified to do business, blah, blah, blah, blah, blah, in the contract, they're going to be a fiduciary. If they're administering the trust. They're administering it. And they do also have to report to the Minnesota State Auditor. Yeah. So there are a lot of controls around them- Okay. All right, great. Thanks ... already. Chair Andreassen. Yes. Can I just ask one more question just on this same topic? Who does administer our OPEB? A company called CBIZ. Okay. Thank you. And they've been doing it for a while, correct? Mm-hmm. Yeah. They also do the 403 administration, too. And we just checked in with them this afternoon at 2:00. Any other questions? Great. I think we can go on to the next one. All right. Thank you. Time out. Okay. So now we are going to be reviewing Policy... Excuse me. We're going to be going to Policy 952 with community use of facility leases. And I'll go to Dr. Lightfoot. Thank you. 952, Community Use of Facilities, the leases policy that we have, the specific information that guides the work that we do as we have available space within the districtWe did the review. There is no recommended change at the present time. We certainly would entertain questions or additional information requests for 952. I don't see any. Uh-uh. Can go on to the next one. All right. Then the last one this evening is 953. 953 is the policy that we have on the administration, supervision, and maintenance of swimming pools. Again, in the review of this, just a standard practice as we look at the way in which we operate through buildings and grounds, community education, and of course, any educational program that we have with the use of the pool, that is structured through 953. So questions there or additional information? I did have a question. Mm-hmm. I think in section four, we need to do a little bit of wordsmithing. Oh, we do have junior highs. Since we no longer have junior highs. Yeah. And I don't know... Oh yeah, we do reference the community center pool. So I would just say that we need to say middle schools. Will do. Do we have a pool at North? I was going to say, what do we have pools? We do. I think just West. Oh, we do at North? Northwest Eisenhower. Yeah, just at West. And North. And North. Oh, both. Northwest Eisenhower. Wow, that's impressive. Pretty, yeah. Okay. I did not know we were that fancy. All right. Middle schools. That would be my only edit. Right. Mm-hmm. Mm-hmm. There's more. Oh, no. Then it's in section 5-2. Yep. We'll go through those edits. Okay. And that is it. Wonderful. Well, I would look for a motion to... Somehow I need to get back to my regular... Okay, here we go. Too many tabs open. I would look for a motion that the board approves the above policies in first read, and further, the board directs the administration to prepare the policy with suggested revisions for approval in second reading at the next meeting as part of consent. So moved. I have a motion. Is there a second? Second. I have a motion and a second. Any further discussion? Seeing none, all those in favor, please say aye. Aye. Aye. Aye. Aye. Any opposed? The chair votes aye, and policies in first read are approved. Thank you so much- Thank you all ... Assistant Superintendent Lightfoot. And that takes us to our board member reports. We can go around the table. It is before 10:00 p.m. I feel like we should all just have a ton of things to say. And I will start off with Director Hyman, if you want to go first. I was not ready to go first, but I'll just- Do you want to pass? ... go for it. No, it's fine. So, my name's Johanna Hyman. This is my first year on the board. I have two children in the district, a kindergartner and a third-grader, both at Meadowbrook Elementary. A highlight of the past couple of weeks was seeing our first ever elementary school basketball tournament- Mm-hmm ... conclude on Saturday at the RAC. Brooke was there. I was there. Our sons played basketball against each other. And this is a really unique opportunity for our school district to grow the elementary school athletic programs. There aren't a lot of other districts that do this. Mm-hmm. And so this is really an opportunity for us to provide access to, and opportunities to more students in our district that have a desire to engage in team sports and athletics. And it was great to see the sportsmanship of our littlest athletes. Mm-hmm. And congratulations to the Tanglin Tigers. Tanglin Tigers. They took it home. Mm-hmm. And the other thing I wanted to recognize is, so May is Jewish American Heritage Month. And in the United States, we have many heritage months that celebrate various communities that form the mosaic of our country, including Black History Month, Women's History Month, Hispanic Heritage Month, and more. And by celebrating heritage months, it provides an opportunity to learn more about the fabric of our society and the country we live in, and really honor the diversity and richness of our community here and in our country. And so I just wanted to recognize that before the end of the month of May, and just hope you will join us in celebrating the many contributions of Jewish Americans. And we celebrate the contributions of Jewish Americans in the last 371 years since they have come to the United States of America. And I encourage you to learn more about the history, culture, accomplishments, and diversity of the American Jewish community. Thanks. Thank you. Clerk Wilhelm-Garbers, would you like to go next? Sure. Thank you. I'm Sarah Wilhelm-Garbers. It's my first year on the board, and I have one four-year-old who I'm a parent of, who will soon, in just over a year, be enrolled in kindergarten in the district. A couple notes. I think I'll start here, by naming a few things that I've been able to be a part of in the last couple weeks. The one is, I was so grateful I was able to visit Harley Hopkins and got to go into a bunch of classrooms, see parents who were gathered there for ECFE. Oh my goodness, I just totally spaced. I got nervous all of a sudden. Early Child and Family Education. And then also just all of the profound work that is being done with our youngest learners in the district. And I do want to just name how much I appreciate, during your leadership tenure here, Dr. Mary Peery Reed, the focus that you've reminded us of, that we aren't just K-12, that our education is actually E-12, and then also community ed just more broadly. And what a profound gift it is to have a district that centers our values with our youngest learners and with families as well, and getting to see the inclusion and the supports in place for kids when preschool expulsion is a nationwide problem, and our district is intentional in providing supports for families and kids with all sorts of needs. And it was just a delight and a joy. What a beautiful place there at Harley Hopkins. So shout out to everyone who let me visit there. And we also go to age 22, so we have Transition Plus for our 18 to 22-year-olds. Thank you. So E to 22. I have more things I need to learn about and visit, so thank you for that very much. Yeah, and then was able to spend some time at the capital as the spring session wound down, and do some advocacy with Minnesota Families for Public Schools, who are doing deep advocacy work, including what Treasurer Hartland named related to the looming cuts to special education funding and are asking our state representatives to both repeal that and to ask for other funding. At one point, we were number one in the nation related to school funding, and we're now 23rd in the nation. And so we would like to see us be in the top 10. I'm rooting for number one still, and so I'm grateful I got to meet with a couple of our representatives, Cheryl Yoakum and Patty Acom, while we were there as well. And was able to join with the first Main Street Days as facilitated and led and championed by Hopkins Education Foundation, and you might hear more about-- You heard a reference to balloon making. Shout out to Director Zhao and his spouse, Ellie, for their long loving work of making balloon friends for all of the folks who came by, and to the special Royal Family Fun Zone that we got to have there at Main Street Days and promote all the good things in hopefully encouraging enrollment. I did talk to 10 different families who maybe lived in the borderlands and encouraged them they should be in Hopkins schools. I did not make it to prom. I'm very sorry about that, and I'm really sad about it. I'd forgotten I was supposed to have a date with my spouse that night, so that didn't happen. And then was able to participate in a just celebration of Dr. Mary Peery Reed, your service here, which happened just earlier today. And just thank you for your tenure, your love, and care for this community and the leadership that brought my family to this district, actually. And the last thing I just want to name is thank you, Director Hyman, for what you named about just the rich diversity, in particular of our Jewish American community and this is a month where there are other diverse communities that we get to celebrate, including, and this was noted in a recent email with one of our district leaders, Asian American Pacific Islander Heritage Month, Haitian Heritage Month, a particular month I like to champion of the Mental Health Awareness Month, and just how beautiful it is to be able to say, "Hey, human dignity and the support and care and love for one another, this isn't pie. There's not limited resources. How do we be people who celebrate the rich diversity that makes us as a district beautiful and strong?" And to that end then, I just want to name two final comments, which is to the community members who came and commented here at the board tonight to name that racism has no place in our district, and hate speech against any community is not welcome. Our value is grounded in love. And as Cornel West says, "Justice is what love looks like in public." Mm-hmm. And I think that's an ongoing value, and especially in view of the shooting at the Islamic Center in San Diego, just want to repudiate any of the actions of any ism or Islamophobia or anything that would seek to harm or to erase the dignity and beauty of every single human. And we just remain deeply committed to doing the work. And so I'm honored to be here in the district doing the work with all of you. Thank you. Thank you. Hello, I'm Kai Thompson. I am in my third year on the board. I have three kids in the district, from fifth grade to tenth gradeA couple of quick things for an update. I got word that Hopkins 10 and under baseball team beat Wayzata tonight. So my kid is on that with former Vice Chair Ross's kids, so That's great. Yeah. So that's a fun thing. They had been nine and under last year, they're 10 and under this year. Last week, I went to the National Honor Society induction ceremony at the little theater in the high school. I think it was the first year 10th graders are invited to that. Co-principal Ward from the high school made some keynote comments. It was a very nice ceremony, just really inspired by the core principles of that organization, character, scholarship. That was really impressive. But then maybe the highlight of the night, they got to walk across the hall to the big theater for the choir concert, where Chair Andreassen's son was one of the absolute stars of the evening. Just that concert just blew me away. And I think one of the graduating seniors, and I loved how they made space for them throughout the performance, had said that that choir director's been there four years and has grown the program from 20-ish kids to over 150. I mean, that's impressive, but the whole night was amazing. I saw a mom at a baseball field this weekend, and I knew she had been there. I was like, "Wasn't that show great?" She's like, "I cried three times." And I was like, "Yeah, it was so moving." So, was very impressed by that, and that'll conclude my report this evening. Good evening. I am Rachel Heartland, currently serving as the treasurer. This is my fifth year on the board. I have three students in our lovely district, including one who is winding down their time at North Middle School, so I'm about to have two high schoolers, which seems sort of zany to me. Because I've been sitting here for a long time saying what schools my kids are at, and now I'm going to have two-thirds of them in high school. And I just told someone today, like, "Do you know that I'm on the board? And that means when my kid graduates, I could give them their diploma." And so I'm very much looking forward to that time. But we're not there yet. We are prepping for graduation a little bit on the board and a ton on the admin level, and so we're excited about that. I was thinking back over the last couple of weeks, and it feels like I had a lot more things that I did than I actually did, but because the thing that I did was go with 75 eighth graders to an overnight trip that was at first the University of Minnesota, where the director of bands at the U of M is a Hopkins parent and resident. It's Dr. Betsy McCann who led our students in this amazing opportunity to play at the U of M and talk to them about their musical future and all of the scholarships that are available to them, even if they are not music majors. And she encouraged them to stay. She listened to them play and gave them all kinds of tips. And then she got to let them run through the tunnel and go out onto the field at Huntington Bank Stadium. I think that's what it's called. I don't know. But many of the kids were very excited about that. We went from there to Mall of America to lunch and shop, then from there to Great Wolf Lodge, where they attended a water park, and then they asked for permission to extend their curfew to attend the Bubble nighttime dance party, which was, I think, supposed to be for seven-year-olds, but the 14-year-olds were awesome and very funny there. Then they stayed all night. I had the 1:00 a.m. patrol shift. Oh. Then we got up at 7:00 to go to Valley Fair all day long, and then leave at 5:00. So I'm still tired. Yeah. I also went to the jazz band. That's my final kid's at eighth grade, their middle school jazz band concert, and so that was lovely, and they invited the West Wind Jazz Band to play with the kids, so that was a cool opportunity. I don't know. I think that's enough. That was enough time in the school. But I am very grateful to all of our music instructors, but especially right now, sitting here thinking about all of the things that Ms. Kelly Heckman has done for the middle school band program and how many hours she did between concerts last week, putting the trip together, coordinating all of the students and the parent volunteers to chaperone, and then she has more concerts coming up this week. So I'm pretty grateful for that. She's very devoted. Hello, everyone. My name's Shannon Andreassen. This is my seventh year on the school board, and I have a senior at the high school, so my two weeks has been filled with lots of lasts. So there were conferences at the high school, which will be my last parent-teacher conferences. And then an exciting presentation that the Royal Productions puts on was the Crown Awards, and at that place, they announce which of their productions throughout the year are going to be part of the Hennepin Arts Spotlight Showcase, and the most recent production that was put on by Royal Productions, "Urinetown," they made the spotlight. So they will be performing with high school theater programs across the state on June 8th. So we are very honored to be a part of that. There were a lot of performers in that production that got outstanding, which is the highest ranking that you can get from the Spotlight Showcase. So The entire cast has gone back into rehearsals when they thought they were done. But that's kind of nice because I think a lot of those seniors weren't ready to be done. I also got to attend, before the choir concert that Director Thompson mentioned, I got to attend the Intermediate District 287 retirement, where there were a number of amazing people that have served a very long time at that district, and they are now retiring and moving on to other things. The Gatewood Family Fun Night was, was it Friday? Mm-hmm. And I got to volunteer at that, which was so much fun. We had so many of our kiddos that have moved on to middle school, and even some that are now in high school, come back to Gatewood to have fun with other families. And the weather was perfect. It was a beautiful evening. And of course, there was prom, which was really nice and beautiful. Lots of people having fun there. And got to go to Main Street Days where our, what do we call him, our hired new superintendent- Incoming ... to be. Super-to-be. Yes. The future superintendent was also there getting to know our community a little bit more. It was wonderful being able to take him around and introduce him to, in particular, our wonderful HEF board and volunteers and Emily Wallace Jackson, who's the ED there, so that he can see firsthand the way this community shows up for Hopkins schools. It's, I think, really unique and a powerful thing about Hopkins. And I was thrilled to be part of Dr. Mary Pirrie Reid's celebration today. Mm-hmm. It was lovely to see all the people that showed up, and I just wanted to give a shout-out. The board purchased a royal blue crystal heart for Dr. Mary Pirrie Reid, and one of our students, I wanted to name him from the board table, Phineas Wolford, did the etching and engraving on it. And Director Zhao connected us to the students through Cara at the high school, and I think it turned out beautifully. Beautiful. Thank you. And he did an amazing job, and just really grateful for the care that he took and the expertise that he showed- Mm ... in producing that for us. So once again, thank you for everything you've done. Truly, this is the district it is today because of you and all the love and care- Mm ... you gave our families. Well, thank you. And I still have two board meetings. I know. So maybe at the last one, I'll say more. But thank you very much. The celebration this evening was very special, and my heart was full, which I shared with our audience at that time. So thank you. And the choir also got, the Royal Blues got to perform. So they did a lot of their songs from the concert, which was nice. Vice Chair Roper. Hello, everyone. My name is Brooke Roper. I am serving my third year on the board. I have two incredible children who I'm sure are watching still tonight. So hi Brooklyn and CJ. I told them I'll say hi to them all the time. And first, I don't even know what to say. Tonight I was so surprised by School Board Partners coming and presenting the national nomination, and providing these flowers. I was just blown away. So, I'm kind of speechless tonight. Aw. But very grateful. I was their national fellow and just learned so much in their organization. Ethan is an incredible leader. And if you all have not heard of School Board Partners, I really encourage you to engage in their work because they really do teach school board members a lot. But they also have a conference coming up in Atlanta that you all should consider- We have to go to. Yes. So thank you so much to all the partners at School Board Partners for the surprise tonight. I'm really speechless, but I'm also very grateful. My heart is super full. Also, I will say, this weekend was very busy. First and foremost, happy belated Mother's Day to all the mothers on the board. And this weekend was super full for me as well. Again, I did go to the championship game between all the elementary schools, which was so cool to see the boys. All the kids were balling. Yeah. I'm so used to saying boys because my son, just like every weekend I'm at a basketball game. But all the kids were balling. They gave their best, and so congratulations to all of them. They did an incredible job. And then right after that, I went to the Children's Defense Fund training that was here, for Freedom School, which is going to be happening, which it happens all over the city, but we do host Freedom School here in Hopkins. So thank you, Paris, so much for your hard work that you are doing to bring Freedom School and to expand the program. So I was able to connect with some of the Freedom School leaders and a lot of the Freedom School staff. Dr. Mary Pirrie Reid was there, and we had some folks from the community come and just talk about their involvement in Freedom School. It's such an incredible and integral program, especially for African American kids who are learning a lot of literacy and academic skills in these programs. And also, they're just famously for their harambee and their songs, and just the way that their cultural curriculum is just so enriching for our students. And so they do have read aloud guests. I really encourage all of you to become one. I've done it two, three years in a row, two years in a row. So the sign-up should be coming out soon, so please get involved in it.I will also say that right after that, I did go to Main Street Days, which was so fun. I got a chance to take a picture with the raspberry and the lion at the same time. At the same time. They were walking around, and it was just such an incredible event. The weather was perfect on Saturday for that, and so the Hef did an incredible job hosting that event. I also seen Shannon and our early childhood team, and it was just really fun to be in community that day. And then also, as we are speaking about policy, Clerk WG, I forgot to mention, last month, I was able to testify with the Minnesota Youth Council to ban the selling of flavored nicotine products to youth. And so it was an incredible experience to just listen to the work that they're doing around that, just because we all know that they are selling watermelon, and blueberry, and all these different flavors to attract our youth. And so being able to talk to folks, our legislator about that was really powerful. So, thank you to all the members of the board who are just doing policy work outside of the board. It's really important. And, I also went to Dr. Mary Perry Reed's farewell party today, and I always tell her how much of an incredible leader I believe that she is, and she has done so much to move our district forward. So thank you so much. And then I do want to just take a note to the parents who did come tonight to talk about what happened. I am still processing that, especially because this is the month where George Floyd was murdered in front of our nation. And so to make comments like that, especially during a time that's so sensitive, is very inappropriate. And so, I don't have the words, I just have the action. Like Audre Lorde says, "The revolution is not a one-time event." So hopefully we are able to address that accordingly. And just thank you to the parents who showed up tonight. And I think that's all that I have for right now. Thank you, everyone, for all the work that you're doing. Hi, everybody. This is Jiming Zhao. This is my third year on the school board. I've got two kids in the Xing Xing program, in fifth grade and second grade. And so I think other board members talked about Main Street Days. So, I think it was definitely a very good community event, and I really think that is something that we need to lean into as a district. We are somewhat unique in that there's a very concentrated downtown in Hopkins, and so if we can lean into that and build community, even with our folks that are outside of the Hopkins area, so I'm thinking Minnetonka, Golden Valley, I think there's a little bit of Edina, some of Plymouth. And so, how do we build that community? And, I think that is one thing that really draws people to our district. And, so it's just a thought that, how do we do that? And one of the ways is balloon animals- ... as people kept referring to. I went through three and a half packs of 100 count balloons. So, my hands are tired, but it's something that I like to do, and actually- And bubbles. And, oh- There were bubbles ... well, yeah. There was bubbles. That's a side business. But why I do it actually is interesting. I do it to attract a crowd of kids. I feel like the Pied Piper. But while the kids are there waiting in line, Ellie goes up and down and plugs Xing Xing and Hopkins, the district. So the parents are stuck there. They're a captive audience. And then so she chats with them. And so that's the method behind the madness, so I try to do things for a reason, and- Brilliant ... and that's one of them. So anyways, one other thing that I wanted to mention is I did get a chance to go to the high school learning fair on Thursday. And I was invited, as was the board. And so there was a lot of different exhibits that run the gamut as you'd expect, and I just wanted to highlight a few of them. I chatted with some of our science teachers, who talked a little bit about our MCA scores and some, I think, very innovative strategies that we can nudge our kids to express their skill. Right? So, their perspective wasn't necessarily that our kids aren't learning or that skills are missing in a lot of ways. It's that there's certain incentives that don't exist to encourage the kids who have learned the most to express their skill in a certain way. And so, they had a lot of ideas on that, and I just thought I wanted to highlight that some of the teachers are thinking about it, and I really want to just encourage them to bring those forward to administrators, especially as new folks are coming in. We have an opportunity, I think, to really put on the accelerator. You know me, I love math, and so I cornered one of the math teachers- ... and I talked with them about our stats and calculus. And so, I've talked about it in the past, but my vision or what I really want from the district's math program is to have, I'm going to use quotes, "The average student to be able to take AP calc and AP stats."During their time here at Hopkins. And so, I've been told that that's an aggressive goal, but I think it's a worthy one, and it's something that we can achieve, right? I think you do not need to be a genius to achieve those in high school. And so, anyways, I'd had a chat with the math teacher, and he told me that we had three sections of calculus and four sections of stats. And we were just chatting, like, "Hey, how does the pipeline look?" And so a lot of the conversations we had with IM Math and things like that, I'm very interested, hyper-interested in that. And so, overall, it was a good conversation. I think it's a healthy pipeline. It can always get better. But I did want to leave that tidbit for my fellow board members and community as well. And then finally, I did chat with the Chinese immersion program, and bringing some of the classical Chinese poetry into our curriculum and into the world languages. And I had a little flashback to when I was young. It was the same poems that I memorized with encouragement from my father. And so, that's just saying I really appreciated that. It's the real deal. You will get an education with Chinese immersion, and I think Spanish as well. That really is world-class and leading. And so, I had to run to another training, so I couldn't see all the booths, and so I regretted that. But I think for next year, I think my board colleagues, I think it'll be really good if people showed up. Because there's a ton of effort that our teachers do. I really appreciate their work. It's Teacher Appreciation Month, but that means not just a platitude, but it's really like, let's listen, and let's figure out what they're talking to about, what they care about. And that can be a data point for us, so. Yeah. Thanks. I went to that last year. Oh, yeah. Yeah. It was great. It was great. And I do want to say I was at Main Street Days for most of the time, and I think I only saw two children without balloon animals, so well done. And they were probably on their way there. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. So with that, I would look for a motion for us to adjourn. So moved. I have a motion. Is there a second? Second. I have a motion and a second. Any discussions? Seeing none. All those in favor, please say aye. Aye. Aye. Aye. Any opposed? The chair votes aye. And we are adjourned at 10:03 PM. Thank you everybody. Is there something unique to