America and to the for it stands one nation under God indivisible with liberty and justice for all. >> The uh next item on the agenda is public comment. School patrons are given the opportunity to address the school board regarding items that are not on the agenda. All patrons will be asked to state their name for the record. While the board appreciates feedback for the public in this form, board members will not comment on or discuss topics brought up by speakers. Uh professional decorum is expected at all times. If at any time there are violations of the rules of decorum, the chair reserves right to call recess and or end the session. Is there anyone here for public comment? Anyone here for public comment? Anyone here for public comment? All right. Next item on the agenda is our program review with uh Brian Nutter from Wright Tech Center. Welcome, Brian. >> Good evening, board members and community members. I'm Brian Nutter. I'm the new executive director at Wright Technical Center. I've been on the job since July 1st. uh and absolutely loving it so far. Uh just a quick introduction to me. Uh my background is everything career and technical education as far as my professional career goes. I I started as a construction careers teacher in Minneapolis public schools and uh was a teacher in the classroom for 13 years before moving into administration. Uh when I moved into administration, I started programs in career and technical education. Um did that as an assistant principal at Southwest High School. Um and then I became a principal in St. Cloud. Uh and then I ran a program very similar to Write Tech in um Prior Lake Savage and Farmington school districts known as Minaps. Um it's just a little bit smaller scale than Right Tech. And so when this opportunity presented itself, uh it was one that I knew uh was a good fit for me and my passion for uh putting kids in careers um and and being able to train them at the high school level to do that. So, uh, without further ado, I'll kind of just tell you a little bit about, uh, Right Technical Center. Maybe some Okay, there we go. >> All right. Not sure, um, which of you may be new board members or don't know a whole lot about Right Technical Center, but we are a vocational cooperative. Um, one of, if not the only one that is um, still thriving in the state of Minnesota. Um, and we've been around since 1972. Um and so we have eight member districts, seven in Wright County and then Big Lake in um Sherburn County that are member districts for our cooperative. Right technical center is made up of two schools within our school district. And so Wright Tech is our technical programs and we have 12 technical programs for our students. Um I believe there are 88 Delano students currently participating in our tech programs. And then we have Wright Academy, which is the alternative learning center. Um, I believe all eight of our member districts have students attending the ALC. And then we also have students from some other surrounding school districts that are not uh members. So here you can see our 12 technical programs along the left side of the the slide. Um, you'll notice that we hit just about every sector and segment of the career wheel with our technical programming a and those that may not be hit um as indepth as others um will be covered in on the job training and youth apprenticeship. So, we have students that are participating in both of those programs that represent all sectors of the the career will. and in a follow- on slide or maybe a few slides on, I'll I'll highlight some of our our programs um that uh have some maybe just some key highlights, but uh those are the 12 technical programs that 88 Delano students are participating in. I'm sorry, 68. Okay, got my numbers wrong. So, you can uh kind of see where the uh participation is this year. This is this year's current enrollment. Um, as of um, January 20th, I I pulled these numbers um, last week. And so there are 68 Delano students participating in the different programs you see listed there. On the right side of the the slide, I've kind of highlighted in uh, green, amber, and red kind of the stoplight of, you know, where we're at with our enrollment targets for each of the programs. And so you can see about half of the programs we're hitting our targets or maybe in some of them we're even a little over our our targeted enrollment. And then we have several others where um our enrollment hasn't met the target. And then the yellow those are typically within 10 to 15% of our enrollment target. So um would really like to see some of the numbers grow next year in uh those programs where enrollment is down a little bit this year. Um, and the two notable ones, uh, three notable ones where numbers are down is, um, auto tech, um, law enforcement, and then our early childhood and elementary careers. For our alternative learning center, Wright Academy, uh, we currently have 85 students enrolled, 82 of which are high school students between the grades of 9 and 12. And then we have three middle schoolers. They all happen to be seventh grade um students um for a total of 85. Our enrollment at the ALC typically flu fluctuates a lot. Um there's a lot of transition uh for students in our alternative programs. Um we would like to see our average um throughout the entire school year be around 85 to 90. We started the school year pretty low. Took a small dip. A few kids graduated right after school started. They didn't have very many hours that they had left and so we graduated a few out. numbers were low into um November and uh enrollment is now on the rise. We will probably be at 90 um either by the end of this week uh end of next week um in our ALC. And that's that's kind of typical of the ALC is we start low, we get more students as we hit the middle of the year and then towards the end of the year we graduate more students and the numbers will tail off again. goal for that would be 90 um for an enrollment um and 10 in the middle level program for a total of 100 seats. Few highlights just to share about some of our different programs. So our heavy equipment operations and maintenance program started its third year this year. I highlight this one because it's a uh a program that demonstrates a successful partnership with um community and business organizations. Um this is a program that we would not be able to offer at Rightech if we didn't have the support of our community and our businesses. So this is a partnership between uh Minnesota Virtual Academy, the Department of Transportation uh and the 49ers heavy equipment operators and engineers um union. um they fully fund this program for us. Uh we have five pieces of construction equipment that altogether are probably somewhere in the neighborhood of 500,000 to a million dollars worth of equipment that our students get to use when it when the ground isn't frozen. Um and those are those are donated lent to us um by um RDO and CAT. Uh, so we have John Deere that are provided by RDO and we have CAT that's provided by Ziggler Cat. Um, and so our students are are able to use that equipment um in the spring and um in the fall when school starts. And right now they're going through kind of the maintainers portion of the program. Um students that complete that program will get advanced standing if they choose to apply to the 49ers union for an apprenticeship program. So we're super excited about a successful partnership uh with multiple different partners. Um, if you haven't been to Right Tech, um, I would encourage you to come probably when the weather's a little bit nicer, um, and you can maybe see some of the heavy equipment in operation and the sandbox that we have on our property, which was built by, um, some of the contractors who helped contribute, um, to running this program. Um and we've got a beautiful sign put up right outside the sandbox that highlights some of the um contractors and the 49ers union Minnesota virtual all the partners that play a role in making that a successful program. The next one is our uh right technical center entrepreneurship opportunities program. That one is in its 11th year. 10 of the 22 students in that program are Delano students. Um so super high use from Delano which is amazing. um that program is actually capped at 20 and uh this year we took 23. One dropped at the um uh the end of their trimester. Um but it's a great group of students this year. And I highlight this one again for the aspect of partnership with our community. Um each of these students is paired up with mentors. Um so they get to learn firsthand from somebody that's working in business or industry. Ideally, it's something that um each of the students are interested in, but they also get u mentorship and guidance for the uh the businesses that each of the students um are proposing that they create um by the end of the school year. Um they meet in our school building on average one day a week. The rest of the time they are meeting in local businesses um throughout our kind of membership area. So, it's it's quite likely there's a number of businesses in the Delano area that uh help contri contribute to that. The other thing I will point out like the uh heavy equipment operations maintainer program, this program, the um CEO program is also a program that is fully funded through our partners. So, there are about 40 businesses that each sponsor um $1,000 per year um to the right tech CEO. Um and so again, it's it's one of those things that we really probably wouldn't be able to do or do as well if we didn't have the partnership of our community. Um construction technology is back this year after a one-year hiatus. Um we were unable to fill a construction teacher position last year. Um and so I know that was um something that all of our member districts um were sad about because it's a program that's been high demand and it's full. Um so we have um 49 students currently in the program and seven of those are from Delano uh building a house um as they have done every year for about the last 25 years. Um the house was sold even before school started and before they even uh drove the first nail. So uh super excited about that. Law enforcement. We have a new law enforcement instructor this year. His background is in investigations. He's a retired FBI investigator. Uh and um so we are moving away. have moved away from the EMR training that was paired with law enforcement and have now um incorporated an investigations aspect in the law enforcement program. And that's a program that we're uh hoping to grow numbers in um for next year. That that that program took a hit in enrollment um from last year to this year and I'm really hoping that next year we'll see those numbers increase. And then I want to highlight lastly our early childhood and elementary careers program. We were just awarded a um MBE grant to implement concurrent enrollment um in our early childhood program which is going to be fantastic. So we got $43,000 that we'll be able to use for the rest of this school year and next school year and we'll be implementing two college classes within our ECE program uh for students that qualify. Most will um qualify for the college credit and uh it will be of no cost to the students. It'll be transcript transcripted credit um through Henipin Technical College. Um one class will be introduction to early childhood education and the other one will be child development. So in the the course of the year they'll get six college credits and that'll be transcripted credit that they can take with them to any college or university that will accept transfer credit. Um most of our programs have what we call articulated credit and those are individual agreements with specific institutions where let's say um maybe uh a no tech will make an articulated agreement with right technical center and say for every student that completes your welding program we will um allow them three credits in introduction to welding but it's only good at an okate. So, uh, we do have articulated, um, uh, credit agreements in all 12 of our, um, technical programs. This, uh, opportunity will be our first to kind of dabble into the realm of concurrent enrollment. So, I'm really looking forward to providing that opportunity to the students in our member districts. >> I don't know if Mr. Voit and his administrative team is concerned about future students and current students knowing how investigative procedures go from an FBI agent, but uh hopefully they'll they they won't be able to be called into the office and then know exactly how they're going to go through an investigation. So, I thought that was interesting, a shifted focus there. >> Some other programming notes as far as uh other things that are going on in our building. Uh we lease space to Wright County Community Action. They run a two classroom head start program out of our building. Um and then our ECE students are able to partner and kind of get some uh practical experience working with the kiddos in those two Head Start uh classrooms. Uh we also house um the cornerstones program for uh MSO, the Miker and Wright um special education collaborative. Um they have about eight classrooms in our building that they use. And then um we also have a transitional program um two of them automotive career skills and then pays which is practical access assessment exploration system and it's basically a work readiness program uh where students are run through a number of stations that um will prepare them for entry- level jobs um doing any number of uh different things. Some of it could be assembly, some of it could be sorting and filing uh different things like that. That's that's what the pays program is. The auto career skills, it's basic consumer auto maintenance. It's things like um putting on tires, oil changes, um fluid changes, um that basic auto maintenance where um students could enter an entry level automotive uh career field right out of high school. Uh talking about some of the budget finance stuff for uh Bright Technical Center. People always want to know uh well, how is it funded? Uh we are not a traditional school district. Again, we're a vocational collaborative uh cooperative and so our member districts are what pay specifically for this is the uh technical programming, right tech. Um and so um we are funded through what we refer to as the access usage fee and each district is u all or assigned a percentage based on this formula that you see here kind of. So uh for this year um Delano is paying 11.22% of Wright text costs and that is based on how many 10th and 11th graders in the 23 24 school year were enrolled at Delano High School. That's half of the percentage. The other half is based off of last year, how many 11th and 12th grade students actually took classes at Right Tech. That comes up with the other number. We average both of those across all eight member districts. And then you get two percentages, one for access, one for usage, and then we average those two. And the average of those two is the assessment for this year. And so that's how we arrived at the 11.22% 22%. That access usage fee changes every year for every district. And again, it's because it's based on how many students have access to it, how many students are actually taking advantage of it each year. Delano is actually doing really good, too. When we look at 11.22%, I think you had 68 students. So, you're probably getting a little bit more bang for your buck this year cuz that might be somewhere around like 13 or 14% of the students. Um, another highlight is uh we do get funding that comes through each of our member school districts for student support aid. It doesn't cost your districts anything. It is um specifically for um cooperatives to be able to tap into student support aid. So, it comes right through your district, right to us, and we're able to purchase a social worker for our students. And that social worker serves all of our students at uh Wright Academy as well as students who have needs at Wright Tech. Um this slide here just kind of um highlights uh that we are moving in a more positive direction um with our budget. So each of the the last three fiscal years, um we've ended in a deficit and had to have the member districts kind of give us a a fund stabilization fee in order to just make sure that we are at net zero um at the end of the fiscal year. And so um back 3 years ago um we were 133,000 and some change um short. Last year it was 27,000 and um this year when we closed out um it was 22,000. And so like I said, we're moving in the right direction. We paid off a large bond last year um as a uh as a district. And so um our our finances are are are starting to look up. Lastly, um I just want to highlight that we are going to be back before the legislature when their session opens again and we are going to be asking for the fourth year um for $10.5 million u to improve our facility. Um there are several things that we are specifically asking for. Um we are in desperate need of a a new roof. Um we're in desperate need of renovations to our HVAC system. And more importantly, um, we have to we have to do some movement of programs. Um, our cosmetology program is currently housed out of what used to be a garage at Wright Technical Center. It was remodeled from a garage into a beauty school, a cosmetology school. It's a licensed cosmetology school in Minnesota, uh, that operates out of what used to be a garage. Um we want to be able to move that program into our um building, remodel some space where um the uh Head Start program currently is and the early childhood elementary uh careers program is shift them down to another part of the building that is kind of some unused space and also um Head Start. So there's some significant remodeling that we want done on the inside of our building to make it more usable for our programming for our students. Um and so we're really hoping for the support of our community in this uh but more importantly hoping for the support of our legislators legislators that they will uh um see that this is a um of absolute critical need in that um we know that the the funds are are finite but uh something that we just we can't do without uh at Right Tech because we are not able to um levy the way um traditional school districts. So without things like this uh we can't make significant improvements um to our facility. So, I would ask any any assistance that the the Delano community um can can have in reaching out to your your local electeds and state uh representatives to throw some support our way because uh it will help us and it will help your students um if we're able to be successful in uh getting a bond to to accomplish this project. With that, that concludes my my presentation and I I'm open for any questions you might have. >> Representative McDonald is very aware of that. >> Are they do they just respectfully decline it or is there like what are the hang-ups? >> So, I think it's just that there's so many requests for capital bonding funds that there's just not enough to go around. So the day we did host a capital bonding tour at Wright Tech in October and so we did have six representatives from the uh um gosh what's the name of the committee I want to capital is a capital investment capital investment committee um and so they came and tour but that same day and over the course of multiple days I think they had 18 sites set up that they were going to for and that's just a small portion of the the total number of requests that they received. Most of those other requests were um municipality requests for things like water, sewer projects, things like that. Also, um most of those were significantly more um higher requests. Um so, it's just I think it comes down in the end to what they feel is the the most critical need from a state's perspective and how much more they actually can allocate. So, so yeah, the last three years, um, we feel like we've made a a a great pitch to the legislators and letting them know like this is critical. We need this. Like our our roof has been springing leaks left and right. Um, and everybody else has, you know, dire needs, too. So, I'm hoping that the fourth times a charm for for Right Tech. >> Thank you. When you look at like the decrease in the law enforcement EMR program, do you think that's because it went more law enforcement? I know we've traditionally had five, six, seven students in that program. >> Um, all right. Um, do I think that the declining enrollment is because of the >> because of the EMR being? >> I don't think so because the uh I would say no. The uh um we the we lost a significant number of students from um St. Michael Uberville. Last year they had about 210 students attending Right Tech. This year they only have 105. Um so it that was a significant hit. They're our largest school district enrollment wise. So that that was u a pretty big hit. A large number of the law enforcement thing. The other thing is we weren't able to hire a law enforcement teacher until the week of the teacher workshop. Um so that position was vacant. And so I think there was just some uncertainty at the end of the year of is the program going to run? Uh and so I I think that may have contributed to it. Again, I started in July. So uh >> I say it's a great program. My son went through the EMR and >> yeah, >> he said it was better training there at the college. >> Yeah. And I part of the emphasis too is so our our current instructor no training EMR um and but lots of training and investigations. >> Thank you very much. >> Pleasure to be here. Thank you. >> Next item on the agenda is the consent agenda. This is the area of the agenda that has a variety of uh minutes from previous school board meetings and also Um, financial reports. Do I have a motion to approve the consent agenda? >> I'll second. >> Second by Corey. Any discussion? All those in favor? >> Any opposed? Motion carries. Next item on the agenda is the resolution for the acceptance of gifts. The following organizations have graciously given their money for the items designated below. American Online Giving, $48.55 for Delano Public Schools. Charities Aid Foundation, $22 for America uh Delano Elementary School. Blackbod Giving Fund, $200 for Delano Elementary School. American online giving, $50 for Delano Elementary School fund run. Friends for a Cause $4,000 Pedelmo Elementary School kindness funds disp $1,500 for school author. DHS PI $250 for conference meal core trust bank $1,500 for scoreboard sponsorship. Um Delano boosters $3,58512 for a booster paid boys hockey coach. Gymnastics booster club, $939.28 for supplies reimbursement, friends for a cause, $4,000 for compass. And the following are for the community education archery program. $2,500 from the Lorettto Alliance Club, $1,000 for True Green, $800 from the Del Fourth of July committee, and $750 from the Delo Fourth of July committee. All of All these have generously given for the items noted above. Um this I have a motion to approve >> resolution. So move by Ryan, second by Jess. And this is a roll call vote. >> Board member Gerky. >> Hi. >> Board member Baker. >> Hi. >> Board member Roser. >> Hi. >> Board member Dea. >> Hi. >> Board member Strauss. >> Hi. >> Board member Mora. >> Hi. >> And board member Black. >> I. >> Motion carries. Next item on the agenda is personnel matters and we have um quite a few people to recognize on the personnel matters uh report this time around. There are three individuals who have worked for the district that are retiring and they have um over 20 years of experience within the district. Um Miss Monica Kungla Sturi and then Miss Rose Nichols. All of which have dedicated large portions of their careers to the district and for that we're very grateful. Um, with that, is there any um other questions on the personnel agenda? If not, I'll entertain a motion to approve. >> What's a TOSA? >> Teacher on special assignment. So, Paul Ledwig is the dean of students at the elementary. He's technically still within the teacher unit. So, Atossa is we just put him as a it's coded in for state reasons as a teacher on special assignment performing those duties. Got it. Any other questions? I have a motion to approve the personnel agenda. >> So moved. I am first. >> Second. Jim. >> Second by Jim. Any discussion? All those in favor? >> Any opposed? Motion carries to approve the personnel matters. Next item on the agenda are the administrative reports. First up, Superintendent Sh. >> Thank you, ladies and gentlemen of the board. I have about four things that I would like to share with you just as updates. As you know, during the work session, we spent a considerable amount of time discussing the future of the community ed building. We know that we're probably going to need to look at alternative sites to have a new building uh in the near future. So, we're going to go through and provide next steps and move forward in that process. Um board already knows this. I just want to make sure that the public is fully informed that the district is investigating in earnest to look at solutions because our current building is not meeting the needs of our students and our staff with its current location and obvious age of the building. Uh two very important leadership positions. Just to update you on where we're at, the posting for the high school principal position ends this Friday, the 30th. The selection committee will be uh reviewing those applications on Monday of next week. We'll be giving them a sending those applicants chosen a screener to further get information with regards to their leadership attributes and qualities and then uh we'll move forward into interviewing process towards the middle of next month as well. The director position Mary's retirement is uh posting ends February 9th. Um so we're still working on making sure that we get a good pool of candidates. It's been a little slow start to it, but again, it's uh reasonable. So, we're but we are engaging with a few folks to see if they're interested in being a part of that. So, more to come down the road there. I think I just did send an invite to the uh the committee uh the administrative committee for a March I believe 11th date for administrative interviews there. So, and then also the academic leadership team last week decided and came to a consensus on moving forward. This is phase 2 teachers under the requirement of the Minnesota State Read Act. So, we are currently training our phase one teachers. They will finish up this school year with letters training. uh we uh the team has now made a decision starting actually the training will start in March and will continue on and end in uh I believe June of 27 and phase 2 training it's about 22 additional teachers that are required under that readact and the district has decided to go with the training called strive um so it'll be about a a 10th month process a little bit longer than that um to go through and we're going to utilize a combination of early releases to other PD opportunities that the district happens. And then we're going to have probably about 15 hours where these folks have to train, not quite as much as phase one teachers, but out of contract time. So, we're budgeting for that. We have the funds for that that are given by the state for the requirement, the read act. So, that's exciting to get things started. We moved forward pretty quickly um last week. They made that decision and came to a consensus. So, it was very good to see that. And then two, you're going to see some future reports. I I think I'm going to include in my monthly report to you just what's coming down so we can share information uh with you. Future reports. For example, I had mentioned several months ago, the district has worked now in its uh I believe it's second year with Educ. Um so or excuse me, we're just finishing or in the middle of our first year with Educ. This is the whole data system where we look at tracking student data, student information, academic achievements, all of it housed into one area. So, we'll give some future more to come down the road here in the next couple of um next couple of um months in uh in schoolboard meetings. And then also, I'm just going to give you a standing kind of line to a report of the leadership team. So, what is the executive leadership team working on? Obviously, they're they're hip deep into the strategic planning process, but there's other things that we've been working on. The academic leadership team, I gave you an update on that uh this evening. So, coming forward, we're going to bring a little bit more of some of the leadership team management teams just to give the board a little bit of a taste from a district level. You obviously get the site uh information, but this is these are district leadership teams that are doing good work in the districts. That concludes my report for this evening. Next up, principles, Miss Thompson. Evening, ladies and gentlemen of the board. Thank you for having me this evening to present to you on behalf of the intermediate school. Uh we have reached the halfway point of our school year. It's always exciting. So, I'll share a few updates um from the month of January. Um, first of all, from our leadership team, from our sitebased team, um, we've had two meetings. We've had one meeting, we have one coming up this month. Um, last week you, um, some board members met with our team. Um, and then coming up next week, um, at our leadership team, we'll be looking at one of our action cards. So, as you know, we have four action cards. They're kind of our four goal areas for the year. Um, so we'll be looking at our fourth action card at our next meeting, um, which has a focus on just continued understanding, um, of our safety protocols, our SRPs. So, um, that's just a goal we had for the year. So, we'll just check in on that and see how we're doing just with our understanding and implementation of those. Um, if there's any case study or things that have happened over the course of the last few months that the team wants to talk about, we'll talk about those. Um, but we'll just kind of check in on that goal. Uh, for professional development, we've recently had two professional development opportunities. Um Martin Luther King Jr. Day was um a day that our staff spent um doing letters training. Most of that time was dedicated for staff to do letters training if they're in phase one. Um also curriculum work and then staff have time on that day to work on their CEUs. So they're continuing education credits so they have time for that. So it's a lot of independent work on that day for staff to take care of some things they need to do. And then we had some smaller team meetings that we scheduled throughout that day as well. Uh and then last week we also had our early release um again letters time and curricul um curriculum time but also um teachers looked at our winter fast data. So we had our um midyear screening window. We did our reading screening and math screening. So they looked at some of that data. Um and then we have new K12 health standards um for the state of Minnesota. And so um for the first time we just kind of started looking at those as a team a K12 team looking at those standards trying to look at um what we're already covering what gaps there might be. So we just did some initial work on that. Actually Barry led that with our team. So um for MTSS just um our levels of intervention that we have. I am excited to share that finally um we have our math core position filled. So we've had our math core posting out there for a while. So we have a part-time uh math core tutor. Her name is Paige. And so she'll be able to start serving our fourth and fifth grade students. We're really excited about that because that's been a need that we've had for all of the school year. Um, and then like I said, we did recently complete our fast screening, and I'll just I'm going to read through our results really quickly, but I do want to highlight one specific score. Um, um, so in reading, all of our scores kind of stayed really within 5% of where they were in the fall, which is good. They've gone up, they've gone down, but just really minimally. Um, so in reading, fourth grade, uh, overall, um, the grade was 75% proficient in reading. That was probably our biggest area of decrease. They went down by 5%. That's a lot for us. So, we'll take a closer look um at that grade and maybe what areas we need to focus on there. Um fifth grade was 80% proficient. Sixth grade was 89% proficient. That grade always does really well in reading. Those teachers do a great job with those kids. Um in math, fourth grade was 77% proficient. Um fifth grade was 79% proficient. And then our sixth grade math um was 87% proficient. And I want to focus on that because I just really want to draw your attention to um our sixth grade math team. So, they're implementing a new math curriculum this year and it has been really heavy lifting, really, really heavy lifting for a few reasons. The curriculum itself is really different and challenging for kids. Um, and we always anticipate when you implement a new curriculum a little bit of a dip in that implementation. So, in the fall when we did our screening, our sixth graders were 90% proficient, which is really fantastic. Um, and then in the winter we saw 87% which honestly like we weren't expecting. I was expecting a little bit more of a dip. So to say it's to see only a 3% decrease I guess is my point um in an implementation year is actually pretty impressive. And I do want to just give a lot of credit to Katie Culvin um and Danielle HooL because on top of this um Natalie Palmer who's like our math guru if you know Natalie is also out on a medical leave. So they're also doing this with a long-term sub. And I just think um it just really speaks to their really really hard work and trying to make this curriculum work for our kids and they're spending a lot of time on it. So, um, so I just I thought that was really impressive all things considered. Um, so overall, we're doing really well in our, um, academic goals and we'll just take some time. Our MTSS team always meets after we get those scores, um, and goes through each individual kid, each individual score. Um, we always adjust intervention placements and things like that to make sure that, um, kids are placed where they need to be. Um, just some quick upcoming events. Um, then also in February, we've got all our fun cold winter things that I don't understand happening. Um, fourth grade is going ice fishing. Not this week, which is good cuz it's really cold, but next week they're going to head out ice fishing and I think the weather's going to warm up. So, hopefully that will work out for them. Um, sixth grade is taking their team roller skating. Um, our PI has a family bingo night planned. So, we haven't done that before. That'll be exciting. So, that's um a family night that um parents and kids can come and play bingo. That's on the 5th. And then we also have conferences coming up on the 10th and the 12th. So, some fun things happening um the first couple weeks in February. And then the last thing I want to share is just that last week was PAR professional appreciation week and I just want to recognize our paras. If you haven't had a chance to see a par thank I hope you were able to. Um we have a fantastic team of paras. We hired some new paras this year that have just been outstanding and we're really really fortunate. So um I do just want to take a moment to recognize our paras. That concludes my report. I will take any comments or questions. Okay. Thank you. Good evening, ladies and gentlemen of the board. It's a pleasure to speak with you on behalf of the high school uh tonight. I know that Megan Chatterton, our AD, mentioned this during the work session, but I wanted to make sure to highlight it again, and that is a congratulations to Kaia Georgees and Luke Gilland for their recognition as AAA award winners. And um awesome news, Luke was actually recognized as the region 2A winner. So the AAA award uh recognizes those students who excel in academics, arts, and athletics. And um to our knowledge, Luke is the first ever ever male winner from Delano to represent the region. So um significant congratulations to them. He will go on to the state competition, if you will, or that he'll be nominated for the state award uh in the coming weeks. I also want to congratulate our high school kick team who have won their first conference conference championship in 15 years. Um so they took second at their showcase this past um Saturday as well, but they are having a tremendous season. Uh the entire dance team is but specifically the kick team. If you haven't had a chance, I highly encourage you check it out. It is a highly energetic and entertaining routine. So congratulations to the kick team. As far as sitebased and high school updates go, we have started registration season, uh, believe it or not. So, all of our students and families have received theformational videos. Um, coming up on Thursday, our students will actually be given their registration worksheets. And tonight, we had a registration question and answer session following conferences as well as a PSO informational meeting for parents. Um, we also heard obviously from Mr. Nutter from Right Tech Center. Um I myself am a staunch advocate of right tech center and I will say that right tech center roster allocations are the very first thing that we do when it comes to registration. Um we always um shouldn't say always the vast majority of times we have an abundance of students that are trying to claim those limited slots for Delano. Um I know that Mr. Nutter kind of explained you know the ratio of our population to the share of what we have access to. So we are only at the first um allocation given a certain number of spots by program. Um by and large we fill every single one of those spots. Um occasionally we'll have leftover spots but we also have a number of kids on the wait list. So I always want to make sure that Delano kids are the first ones on the wait list. So uh Mr. Tulle and the other counselors and myself, we work to identify who gets those spots, make sure they still want those spots, and then if we do have spots remaining in other programs, the students who are maybe on a wait list for auto tech or welding, we'll see if they want to go into one of the other programs where spaces remain. So, we do our very best um to fill those spots. You might have been wondering on the slides that he was presenting to while why our uh participation rate in the ALC is so small and that really comes down to busing. That's our biggest obstacle. We certainly have a way to get students to the ALC because of our right tech bus that we send on a daily basis, but students would then be required to transport themselves home and that is obviously a limiting factor for some. So, while we have a couple here and there, we don't have more students that certainly could benefit should we were to provide um transportation, but that has obviously been a cost prohibitive um option in the past. As I mentioned briefly, we did have conferences tonight. So, I want to thank all the parents that have come. Um we will have conferences again obviously in April. And as always, parents are encouraged and welcome to reach out to teachers at any time regarding questions that they might have about their students performance. And um as Miss Thompson mentioned, we are halfway through the school year. So our sitebased team is going to start looking at our instructional budgets for next year and believe it or not start discussing our handbook changes. Um I suspect that our most substantive change for handbook changes is likely going to be related to that artificial intelligence action card that we've discussed previously. Um, I've hinted at the fact that we're likely going to move to some sort of a stoplight system in terms of appropriate use of AI. Uh, green, yellow, red. So, green means have at it. Use AI as much as you want. Um, yellow is sort of like use it as an idea generator. Um, you know, but you still have to use your own evaluative tools and skills. And then red would be a prohibition on the use of artificial intelligence. So, that's the direction we're trending. Um, and that was the last of my prepared remarks, but I'd be happy to answer any questions that you have about Delano High School. On the AI front, do you see curriculum getting developed on how to use it effectively, not just in current curriculum, but like future like getting people engaged with using it the the right way to advance themselves? >> Tricky question. >> Yes and no. Um, I mean there's obviously a lot of um nonprofit groups that have developed some curriculum resources related to artificial intelligence. Um, I wouldn't say that I've seen any specific artificial intelligence curriculum that's specifically geared toward like high school students, but I know that we definitely have some teachers that are integrating some of those resources and skills related to artificial intelligence within our classrooms. I know that we've talked before about our career life prep class and that's going to be shifting to 8th grade um sort of as a replacement for communication arts but not entirely. We're actually going to be blending those classes together. And as part of our communication arts class, there is um units on digital citizenship and how to appropriately use technology tools. So artificial intelligence is blended into that. Um, but it definitely is going to be, you know, on the forefront for the next several years, probably forever to be honest. But, um, yeah, but I I have not seen at least any real official curriculum that's geared toward middle school or high school students. >> Got it. Thank resources. You you literally can ask AI to create the curriculum, but the problem is is that it's changing so fast to have set curriculum. You got to be nimble enough. So the idea and the discussion of having it in that digital citizenship and incorporating in that because you could, you know, the traditional curriculum that you would write for math, science, social studies just doesn't work in AI because it's just evolving so fast. So that's where we're just trying to figure out what that committee is doing at the high school is truly h how do we really utilize that because we want our students to be able to graduate, go on to college and universities, eventually work, but they're going to be competing for jobs of kids that know how to use AI and how to use benefit. >> Exactly. >> Exactly. >> Well, and it's like the new version on Google. It's like how do you prompt and prompt engineering, right? from an AI perspective is how do you research using research to get to it? I mean, there's a skill to that. >> Yep. >> Be able to use it effectively. >> Right. Exactly. Companies are looking for it, right? And I realize high school's a little bit maybe low on expectations of that age group to use it. But, you know, companies are pushing use of it hard and education is still trying to kind of feel their way through the darkness out of a little bit. >> Yep. It is so fastm moving and education systems don't traditionally move fast. So we just got to make sure that I I you know I feel that we've got to expose our kids to the use of AI. First of all they're using it. Second of all we want to make sure that they use it. chime in student school board representatives to make a meaningful impact in their learning but eventually be able to compete at because companies are requiring the skill set to be there. >> Yeah, we we obviously last year um brought artificial intelligence uh consultants to the high school to participate in some training. Um we did four um four hours of that plus we have access to an AR portal um that Groovy Education has put together. So that's been continuously accessed by our teachers. Um the message there and my one of my the themes of my work is really to build relevance into our lessons. Regardless of what subject area, grade level, it needs to be relevant for students. And so while the initial kind of gut reaction for educators is like how do I protect my students from AI and how do we catch students using AI, it's really got to be how can we leverage AI? because uh the theme of that training last year was not so much that like our students jobs will be replaced by a AI but the you will be replaced by somebody who knows how to use AI right so we're we're trying to leverage that um applicability and the relevance of AI as a skill set rather than just sort of the fear and unknown of artificial intelligence >> maybe it's not just for you Mr. Void, but we recently had a e-learning day, right? And I was asked what what are the requirements that give someone that's at home a full day? What counts as a full day? Because it feels like maybe it's a really short day. Kids just don't have enough to do like who I It's really short notice. You don't have much time, but like what qualifies a day? instead of obviously we don't have snow days anymore but you still get the day. We have a uh we have a memorandum of agreement with our teachers group and from the state's perspective they have deferred to the district to decide what is to be accomplished on an e-learning day and then it differs in each building and it even differs I think in the high school a little bit between 7th and 12th grade but basically it articulates in the memorandum of agreement it articulates that the teacher has a couple couple of hours or an hour and a half in the morning to prepare for a different way of delivering of curriculum and then they are to be engaged online. Now, that's different in kindergarten and it's different in fifth grade and it's different in as a junior in high school. But then they get on and then they're there and they work through the remainder of the school day either digitally and some of the time it's Barry, you can give an example of schools in the high school, but that's from a district's perspective. We have an agreement in place that gives the guidelines of what the day should look like. >> Yeah. And it's really up to teacher discretion for how they want to utilize that day. when we first developed the parameters for an e-learning day. Um this was sort of like just before COVID and kind of like right after COVID. Um we said that it was going to be a 2-hour late schedule. Um and then that teachers would just post things on Google Classroom. So for all intents and purposes, it would be asynchronous learning. It would be akin to a teachers uh you know having students show up to their classroom and say, "Well, today's going to be a review day. Do what you need to do to get caught up on this or that or whatever." Um so that was predominantly asynchronous and at that time when that was originally created we had you know a lot of students that didn't have devices that was prior to us being a onetoone um you know we were sort of uncertain of what our techn technological capabilities were going to be so since co and it was probably changed maybe 3 years before we ever used it. Our teachers are allowed to do required synchronous learning on an e-learning day. I don't know how many of them choose to do that. I would venture to guess that most of them probably don't, but they make themselves available at the specific class time for their teachers and they usually just would post a a Google Meet link so teach our students can pop on. Um, so it's kind of evolved and it's been up to, you know, the individual teacher to make that decision in terms of what sort of curriculum is required because there also used to be like a two-day requirement or a two-day lag time for when assignments could be turned in. Um, but now, um, any assignment that's assigned on an e-learning day is due the next day, just like anything else. But it's like everything up to teacher discretion. Um, and I, to be honest, I don't, um, go through and check what each teacher's plan is on any given day, just like I don't walk around the classrooms and see what every teacher is doing on any given day during a regular school day. So for all intents and purposes though, if the teacher wants it to be a real class period, for lack of a better term, it absolutely can be at the high school level that you know, obviously the elementary and the intermediate are different. They could speak more to that, but it doesn't replicate in-person learning. As much as students advocate to have an e-learning day from time to time, it's not the same. That's why I'm hesitant and very thoughtful before I decide to declare an e-learning day. >> Any other questions? >> Multz tonight. I will say this on and I did share this with Mr. Voit. There were a number I'm not sure if uh our student representatives, but I received about five emails, the most I've ever received before I made the decision for last Friday to be an e- learning day. This was on Thursday. Uh Thursday morning, I received uh four or five emails for some students that were on behalf of the student population advocating and sharing their grievances because they didn't want to go to school when it was that cold on Friday. But I made and I responded to each and every one of those students and I says, "I have taken your grievances into consideration." And then I I announced it at 1:00 on Thursday afternoon and some of the responses back to me were just comical, which I just love. I think it's great. They one response came back and said that you have uh you have done an excellent extremely great job. Please keep up the good work. You're doing great. And I'm it's awesome. So pretty good. Anyways, transitioning to the elementary school, I am speaking on behalf of Miss Schultz who's not here this evening. And really, uh, just a couple of areas that she wanted to highlight and, uh, at the sightbased level, even at the PD level, as I stated before, uh, most of the staff that haven't been trained already in letters are are seeing the the direct imple implications and implementation into their classroom with the science of reading, which is really exciting to see. and they only have two units left to complete. So, this is a two-year training program that we've done over the course of two school years. So, this has been a culmination of a lot of work, a lot of time. Um, it's been really really uh great to see. Now, my point is always what's the impact going to be? How is this really going to increase our literacy scores in the areas? So, that's good to see. They're already beginning planning for summer school and extended school year planning. So that's underway. Master scheduling review to work on the building uh which is to implement wind time what I need at the elementary school next year. So that's going to be interesting to see the work that they fill out there. And then the last thing that they've been working on which leads into what uh Miss Thompson had shared is their winter fast data from fall to winter. Overall progress is being made in grades K through three. Uh there's some dips in certain areas. uh third grade in the area of reading has uh dipped a little bit. So that's where they look at um the analysis to action plans and that's where they start to look at where some interventions are needed based on this. And that that this is the whole idea of looking at data and making datadriven decisions in the course of the year, not at the end of the year when it's after the fact. It's in the middle of the year where we're going to pivot and take a look at some things. But overall from kindergarten to first third grade they range from the 90s to the uh lower uh 80 percentiles. So tracking good progress and making good progress in that area. And last but not least is to highlight some successes. As Miss Thompson mentioned, the elementary did uh celebrate their pair of professionals last week. So they're amazing people and they support our students and staff in the very best ways. So kudos to the elementary school giving a shout out to their pair of professionals. And then already next month is I love to read month. So they're preparing for all of the great things that go under uh go on during the month of February for I love to read month. And that concludes the elementary school report on behalf of Miss Schulz. >> Thank you. Next up, Miss Mary Reer. So, our the schoolboard financial report is linked on there. Um, we're still projecting to be right on track as we've been going along um when you compare to prior years. Here we are. So, yep, still 64 65% spent in the classroom. Um, you can click forward and one more. And one more. And so, yep, we're on track. When you look at our revenue and expenditures when you were compared to other years and those would have been the four. I am working on the building and department budgets for FY27. I did get it set on there. I was going to hopefully get it done by late May January. I actually had it done on Friday. I have not done community ed yet, but we still have some work to do before we get some of that stuff sent over to her to look at. But they will get the information back to me by the end of March. So, by the end of March, I'll have a pretty good idea of what our budget is going to look like for FY27. And I did get the five-year projection budget projection model sent to me last week. So, um, as we're moving forward, we're starting to work on that as well. So, >> well, that's good news. I hadn't heard that yet. Oh, >> yeah. Yeah. It just got to me last Wednesday. So, we're moving forward. Any questions? You're my last one. So >> does good. >> This isn't your last >> what? My last question. >> Last report. >> Oh, what? >> Will you stay another year if we don't get enough candidates? Probably. Or >> you don't want me to stay another year. Trust me, >> you need a fresh face. >> Or I've tried. >> Just protecting the district is all I'm trying to do. >> Don't be happy. We're excited for you at all. That's very bitter to me. Okay. >> All right. Thank you. >> Hi. >> Hi again. Um I apologize. I forgot to print this out. So I'm going to use my laptop as a little supplemental information. Um I feel like it's a wellplaced conversation to talk a little bit more about preschool as we're talking about our our community building. And what I want to share tonight is just a little bit of a a dive into preschool. Um I'll keep it relatively short but I think it's applicable because when you hear the word preschool which is widely used right preschool generally involves um you know public schools depending on the curriculum private schools um sometimes some daycarees what we do here at Delano public schools our preschool is that it's called school readiness right so it has a state funding component there's also um requirements that go along with it and usually when I talk about school readiness I say you know it's It's researchbased in developmentally appropriate because it's play-based. We always have a hard time talking about what playbased really means. And so I thought tonight would be a good opportunity as we're at the uh doorstep or the porch of registration to talk a little bit about what play-based learning means. And so um school readiness with that curricul curriculum component also has um state guidelines for early childhood that we adhere to. And then we're also aligning and and working towards our kindergarten standards. So that's something that separates school readiness from preschool is that we're really that bridge into our elementarymentaries. Um projectbased exploration for preschool means that we are helping students learn based on their interests. So teachers have a curriculum, they have assessments, they have standards that they're teaching to, but they have a framework when they come into school in September, as all teachers do. Preschool teachers then are additionally tasked with getting to know their students really quickly so that they can then tailor those lesson plans to the interests of of the group that they have. That's going to vary yearbyear depending on the classroom that they have. So maybe one year um there's a huge interest in animals. And so you're going to start tailoring your lesson plans um your math, your science, your dramatic play to deal with animals because that's where you can contextualize it and capture their interest for for an amount of time. So what that looks like is, you know, we work on literacy through storytelling, um through labeling, through dictation. We look at math in the areas of sorting and building um categorizing, measuring dramatic play. You would have no idea how exciting a target checkout station um dramatic play area is with all the kids and they always order their Starbucks to go with it. Um we look at science through experimentation and observation. you know, setting up a a microscope with different samples underneath is is great for three and four year olds. Um, with this really cold weather, Anelise Johnson, one of our behavioral specialists, was outside the classroom window with bubbles, showing the students how the bubbles would crystallize and freeze as part of their science experiment. So, it's really about tailoring what they're going to learn in subsequent years, but bringing it down to that um that unique preschool level. Social and emotional growth is one of the uh huge component of a school readiness program. How to be a friend, how to show empathy, um how to conflict resolve and relationship build. It's about getting these children ready for school. Um executive function, you know, self-directed play, being able to make those choices and start planning. Um, I always use the the the analogy of, you know, students that come in the first day of school and the ability to put all their gear in their locker, put their backpacks away, bring their folders in, and then do the reverse on the opposite side night and day from the first day of school to the last day of school. That seems small, but those are the things that bring them, you know, forward in that kindergarten kindergarten world. Um we use uh teaching strategies gold for our assessments and we also use our core curriculum is creative curriculum. We do have some additional ones like second step for social and emotional um but all of all of what we do has to align with the EIP. So that's the early childhood progress um indicators for early childhood indicators of progress that is created by the state and their early childhood um departments. I wanted to talk to you about this because when you say play-based again sometimes that gets lost on people that there's really complex learning that's you know happening while they're playing math, science, relationships, literacy. Um tomorrow night we have for the first time a a in a number of years we have a preschool information night. So, uh, Becca Serlick, who oversees our preschool program, e mailed, sorry, mailed, uh, 300 families this information in Delano. We know that we have multiple, um, organizations providing preschool opportunities for students, and families have to make the decision that's best for them. We want to show families why we are unique and what sets us at DPS apart. So that's opening up our doors, bringing them in, getting them to, you know, meet the meet our teachers, meet our staff, explore what a classroom looks like, be in the gym, and that many kids in a gym, it is a thing. Um, experience what opportunities they will have come fall, but be able to have that that opportunity to participate now so they can make the best decision for their family. So, tomorrow night from 4:30 to 6:00, if anybody is interested, please stop by. Um, I think it's a great opportunity just in general to see what we do. Uh, kind of, you know, open up the doors, but also they'll receive information on TKC. They'll receive information on extended child care. They'll receive information on screening, which aligns with one of our action cards and trying to to switch the narrative from this is something you do going into kindergarten to this is something you do coming into preschool. Um, we're excited about the opportunity. Registration for current families for next school year opens on February 3rd along with TKC for both summer and next school year. For the greater community, then it opens on February 10th. Any questions? That's exciting to have an open house. I think that's it. >> Will be it'll be great. It'll be >> all that happens in that building. give parents comparisons. >> Yeah. And that and that's just it. If we don't give them the opportunity to come and explore, how are they truly going to know? There's social media, there's the website, there's a newsletter. It's not the same as a one-in-one. Come in and see what it could be like for you. >> Thank you. >> All right. school board representatives. >> All right, starting off with the elementary school. They just finished up their fast testing, which is pretty exciting. They're looking forward to a very busy February with the I Love to Read Month, Black History Month, 100th Day, Valentine's Day, President's Day, conferences, and the book fair. There are a lot of opportunities for us high schoolers to get down there, especially I love to read month, and we already have a bunch of high schoolers signing up to go down there. And for the intermediate school, you have a little slideshow. So, we went to hot cocoa handout. And here are just a few pictures from our time there. >> That was my child. >> Well played actually. So, hot cocoa is a great tradition that we have with the intermediate school. It's a great opportunity to get us high schoolers down there interacting with the intermediate schoolers. That's all I have. >> And at the high school level, uh Brady and I thought we'd touch on how well our winter sports and activities are doing. I know Mr. Boy mentioned a few of them, but it feels like in this month of January, students, we kind of get to a lull. you know, winter break has passed. The only break we have, big break we have is spring break. So, it really is just like morale boosting, I think, to like talk about these activities for students to have like a reason to show up to school when it feels kind of harder to show up to school. I think our activities and our clubs and like all the sports are just really a great way that Delano kids like you have a little bit more than school, you know? So, our science olympiad finished fourth in their competition over the weekend. Girls hockey is heading into sections next week. Uh boys Tiger hockey has had a very successful season. They're ranking sixth, so we're all hoping that we can make a state appearance. Uh boys basketball has had some recent close wins, but one um that stands out is against Jordan. I want to say they won by four, so really close and fun game. Girls basketball has a really busy week up ahead with three games and I'm pretty sure their sections will start rolling in after that. Uh, wrestling has been doing great. They just beat Gleno Silver Lake in a meet. Boy, Swim and Die finished seventh in True Team over the weekend. It's a round of applause there. The One Act got second place in their I I'm not really exactly sure what their competition entails of, but they got second place in their competition. Uh, Delano Gymnastics just beat Ann and Delano competition. So, just to highlight some of like the great things that our Delano students are doing. Again, I know that activities, sports kind of really push some of our Delano students and it's just cool to give them some props. Um, another upcoming thing, we have the blood drive being held by Delano NHS students that is set to happen on February 4th. So, that's another great way that students in Delano can give back and help our community. That's all we have for you tonight. Any questions? >> Thank you. >> All right. Next on the agenda are our board reports. First up is Mosiko. >> Okay. Uh Mosiko had our um December meeting back on December 16th. Um couple highlights. I want to just pull out the wings program which was is one of the care and treatment programs where Masiko provides the education. That has changed um owners. So our leadership in Masiko will be working to understand how um the new owners vision that program. Um our executive director Melissa Hansen has been doing some advocacy at the state level. So there is a working group at the state level that is looking to re make recommendations on the use of seclusion um in schools. So, this has um some pretty wide ranging impact if the state were to decide to ban seclusion um and really impact setting for programs where often times that removal of stimuli is really important to reeregulating students and providing um safety for both students and staff. So, um, she provided our executive director provided some written testimony on the the issue of seclusion and the ways it's utilized to keep students states students and staff safe. Um, she's also seeking some clarification on who can provide special education um, consent for students when they are under the care of county social services. So unless a parent's rights have been terminated, students can still be under the care of a of county child welfare and who gets to decide about special education consent to evaluate or consent for services is a real questionable area and has some real um different differences in application. So, she's trying to get some clarity on that. Um because at the end of the day, that is really about protecting the rights of students under IDA. Um otherwise, we're having our organizational meeting tomorrow. So, we'll elect our officers and do all the same things that we do um at our regular schoolboard meeting. Any questions? >> Next up is Right Tech. >> Yeah. So, Mr. Nutter stole most of my thunder of what's going on, right? Tech. Uh, the one thing Oh, we talked a lot about some of the things going on. They're doing their 10th grade tours getting ready for for next year already. Talked about the two grants. The one that will allow them to offer some concurrent early childhood classes. They also got a small grant which is just helping them with some of their HVAC issues that he alluded to. Um, and then the only thing he didn't mention that I thought was pretty cool is they're exploring an opportunity with the Department of Defense called uh Return to Homeport, which is a manufacturing and welding program. Um, if they were to be able to form that partnership, it would be another fully funded opportunity that historically has been funded by member district. So, it would be a a big relief, if you will, for some of their budgetary constraints, knowing that's one of their popular programs. Um, otherwise, it was pretty much business as usual. We talked about their finances, how they're still needing some work, but they're heading in the right direction. Um and then as you saw the ALC growth was a positive sign because it was an area that they were a bit under their targeted projections that is now at targeted projections or maybe even going to exceed in February. So that will also help a bit with the budget. But I think financially from you know and I was there on the ground floor when they were staring at $130 some thousand deficit Houston we got a problem. So, we put a committee together and really did some really good moves and and districts had to come in with that um that fee structure that's changed a little bit obviously with the balance of it and they've made great progress. So, that's that's been a good really good move, positive move in the right direction. >> Yep. Otherwise, that's it and pretty straightforward quick meeting as well. So, >> thanks Ryan. Um there is no old business so we're moving on to new business. The item on new business is to approve the new Tiger Activity Center fees. Uh item we talked about not only tonight in work session briefly but also um in prior work sessions um presented. Uh, do we have a motion to approve the Tiger Activity Center fees increasing the fees over it period focus on expanding hours and placing? So move >> second. Second by Sarah. Any discussion? All those in favor? >> I opposed. >> Motion carries. >> Uh, the next uh item is to adjurnn. Do I have a motion for to move? >> Motion by Ryan. >> Second. >> Second by Jess. All those in favor? >> I Good evening everyone. Thank you. >> Thank you. >> All these people >> I don't know. Well, the one guy when he worked on his last name last name