Calling the meeting to order at 6 o'clock p.m. This is the board of directors regular school board meeting for Monday, October 27, 2025. Uh welcome to all of our visitors, guests, and media. Uh going to start tonight out with the board administration roll calls. Mr. Felt here. Mr. Burns >> here. >> Miss Danielson >> here. >> Miss Schultz >> here. >> Miss Gatsco >> here. Miss Nathan here. >> Mr. O'Neal >> here. >> Mr. Hennon >> here. >> Mr. Girtton >> here. >> Miss Okonnell >> here. >> Miss Payeyton >> here. >> Mr. Dalton >> here. >> Mr. View >> here. >> Mr. Samansky >> here. >> Please stand for the pledge of allegiance. >> I pledge allegiance to the flag of the United States of America and to the republic for which it stands, one nation under God, indivisible, with liberty and justice for all. There have been no public comments prior to the start of the meeting. So, moving right along to uh the first discussion and action item. A motion to approve the attached agenda and addendums. >> So, move second. >> Motion made by Miss Danielson, second by Miss Nton. Any further discussion? Hearing none. All those in favor say I. >> I. All oppose. Nay. Motion carries. Next up, item three, the consent agenda, which includes the schoolboard minutes for the regular school board meeting on September 27th, 2025, the personnel consent agenda, and the business consent agenda. >> Mr. Chair, I'd just like to point out on the personnel consent agenda that it has three contracts in it for the custodians, pair professionals, and food service. So, thank you to all the unions and negotiation process and and we we're able to get through all of those. With that, I would move approval. >> I'll second. >> Motion made by Mr. Burns, seconded by Miss Gets. Any further discussion? >> Um, I just want to echo what Mr. Burns said and and thank you to the personnel committee as well for putting in the time to get all these done earlier. I know there's still a lot of school districts that haven't even started them yet. And we're >> done. >> We're done. >> Well, almost done once we vote on it. >> Great. Um, so thank you guys for all the hard work and time and energy you guys have put into that. So it's greatly appreciated. And with that, all those in favor say I. >> All oppose, nay. Motion carries. Uh, we have not had or we do not have any recognitions uh this month. Uh, there'll be more to come next month for sure. So, moving on to section five action items. The first item is uh the acknowledgement of donations, contributions, and fundraising. And with that, we've got uh five different um donors this month. Uh the first one is the Willie Han Corporation USA to robotics for robotics tools. Trinity Lutheran Church donated to the middle school general activity fund for $100 for royal room school supplies. Hexil machine uh to NHS for $50 for the Homecoming Tackle Cancer Fund. Select Driving School also donated to NHS for $100 for the Homecoming Tackle Cancer Fund. And last and certainly not least, Watertown Pharmacy for NHS for $100 for the Homecoming Tackle Cancer Fund. >> Move for approval. >> I'll second. Who was the second? Kidding. Motion made by Mr. O'Neal, seconded by Miss Danielson. All those in favor say I. >> I. >> I. All oppose, nay. >> Motion carries. And thank you again um to those who have donated. Moving right along. Um item B, the second read of district policies requiring review. Um, this is the second read for the early entrance into kindergarten, uh, policy 607.1. Um, my understanding is there were no changes from the first read. I can bring that up. Is that a correct statement, Miss Yuan? Okay. So, there have been no changes since last month. >> How often do these requests come in as far as >> for early entrance? We've had one in the now going into four years that I've been principal. Yeah. >> I was just curious on how often that happens. >> The um larger districts that I met with, I spoke to six different districts as we worked on rewriting this policy, mostly because they get more requests because of their size. They were seeing a large influx of them. >> Um their suspicion was that it was due to the rising cost of daycare. So if there's a child who was missing the cuto off by one or two days, they were getting a lot of parents trying to push their child through, not necessarily understanding by by the state's definition, the child, even if they've missed by one day for that birthday, is forever more looked at as having skipped a whole grade level. So they are considered advanced, which is what we're trying to call out in the policy. that it's not that you missed it by one day, it's that you, if we put you in when you've missed that day, are considered like skipping a grade level. So, we're trying to make sure that you truly are a grade level ahead and we're trying to clarify that better in this policy. >> Y Thank you. >> I make a motion to approve the second read of 607.1. >> I'll second. >> Motion made by Miss Danielson, seconded by Miss Schultz. Any further discussion on the policy hearing? None. All those in favor say I. >> I. All oppose. Nay. Motion carries. Moving along to item C, the 2025 2026 district teaching and learning goals. Come on up, Mr. Review. Thank you, Mr. Chair. Uh just wanted to go through a couple of the goals that I have had and you know try to coach everything within our um strategic plan and letting you know that you know all the things that we talk about here are in alignment with the strategic plan. Particularly in my case if go to the next page uh learner outcomes obviously all means all. We want to make sure that we're inclusive and in uh uh getting to each and every child. Uh that's one of our goals. that's has been here since even before I came as well as uh employee satisfaction and every student achieving at or above grade level in math and reading every single year. So those are the types of uh focuses that um I bring to the table. Uh next page. So my professional go development uh goal is to provide opportunities for our staff um that's going to enhance instruction and improve the learning experiences for all of our students. So that's my overarching goal. um in working towards that uh this year will be next page please. Um a couple of things that we've already done as well as a couple of things that are going to still be on the docket. Uh the readact training uh is there's still a focus on that. We have uh eight staff members in phase one who need to get that completed this year. They're already enrolled. We will have our first uh in-person training in about two weeks. Um for those eight they should be done sometime in March. Um our elementary, middle school and high school paras are also part of training. So we have to provide them with eight hours of training. Um uh Becky Kanzi and I worked together and we've taken and done some surveys. So, we've included them in that process. And we're looking at January 19th and March 6th for two 4-hour sessions for the um uh the elementary, middle school, and high school. And then we're going to look at February um President's Day and then June 5th for the CLC paras that are working with kids um in literacy as well. Uh, CAPTY, if you're unaware, CAPI is another dyslexia screener that's approved by the state for grades 4 through 12. So, we'll be providing training for those who will be proctoring that uh on January 26th with probably some followup on uh data interpretation uh on January 19th for the staff who will be involved with um that process. and we're still developing what the criteria will look like and what our plan is going to be for all those fourth through uh 12th graders. And then continuing on, we are going to be looking at uh arts and letters and the support that goes along with that. I just confirmed with arts and letters to have uh an hour and a half follow-up training and some question and answer time on January 19th when we have our professional development day there. Uh functional morphology is for grades 3 through five. That's our new vocabulary and morphology um curriculum. Uh we will have some follow-up training there on uh the 26th. And then uh in August we offered a couple relicensure u options for teachers to uh follow up and make sure that they are in good standing to get their license renewed every 5 years. So particularly those two were a little bit more difficult. Uh thank you. And then uh curriculum instruction. So those that are on the TLAC or newly named DAC uh that's our role there is to bring our teams together and review curriculum. So uh we want to make sure that our staff has the most current and researchbased uh resources available to them and um we want again we want to meet the needs of all the students across the district for that. So this year, um, we'll be looking at our long-term curriculum, uh, cycle. I've got about a 10-year cycle that we, um, continually look at. Uh, the budget that I had worked out with Lisa and now that I'm training our new accountants in with is to be right about um $150,000 on average over that 10ear span. So, if we, you know, go to 200,000 one year, then we're going to go, you know, about $100,000 the next year. we're just going to average that out because obviously more um you know right reading is a much more expensive than maybe a health or a fied or uh fax or something like that. So uh we'll keep that in mind as we go through our budgeting process. Uh this year we'll be working on implementing the uh new 2020 ELA standards. So we're doing some assessment alignment here uh with our uh with every grade to make sure that our assessments are aligned to the new standards. So hopefully we're not hopefully, but we want to align our the rigor of our questions and our assessments to the standards so that when we get to uh assessment time here in the spring that our students are best prepared as possible. Uh uh social studies, we're going to be working with some of the elementary staff on social studies implementation which will begin next year. Um math, I'm looking at a two-year plan. Uh the Department of Education has been putting out a series of trainings and webinars that are um online and now they're videos. So, we'll be working with our K12 uh math staff this year to get them that training and then next year we'll start that curriculum review process. And we'll also be looking at um uh 512 health standards and reviewing some of those. Uh there's several changes that have come across the line. I haven't met with our health team yet. that's on the docket here for sometime in uh November. Um but uh particularly middle school has about 240 benchmarks and we have one quarter of health currently assigned in our uh middle school. So we've got some work to do to figure out how we're going to either eliminate some of those barriers or bundle a bunch of things together so that we can uh make sure that we're in compliance with those standards. And then um so going back to uh our arts and letters um I've been working with uh Miss Okonnell and Mr. Girtton and Miss Colanzi about fidelity checks to make sure that we're implementing that curriculum with fidelity. So we'll be getting into classrooms for that. And I'm also going to uh continue uh a similar goal that I had last year to get into 50% of all of our classrooms just to take a look and see how and where we're doing and make my presence known for for all of our staff across the district. Uh I also wanted to give you a little bit of a data update. Um uh we had our science results come in. Um they right last year was the first implementation of that year. So our overall percentage was about 10 or 12 points below where we had been. But obviously that was all the way across the state because we were above the state average in two of the three grades. Uh and you can see we our trend line is going up from our differential from from the state because uh that's the yellow line there. So that's 6.2 points higher than the state average. So uh that's our science update. So and we're working on it. We've got um a middle school staff who's going to be taking some things into consideration and figuring out how we can do a better review. Um they're asking for some resources. So, we're uh working with resource training and solutions to see if we can't, you know, continue to move that uh needle forward as well. Uh next page, please. Um I did a little deeper dive uh because uh of our data last week. Uh Heather uh showed me one of our uh competing districts here in Carver County and how they were marketing themselves. So, I thought, well, I'll take it a little bit deeper dive also. So, I found some place for us to look at and compare ourselves across the state at a relatively easy uh spot. Um, math rates were at 63% as you may well remember. That's in the top 7% of the state. So, again, kudos to all of our staff and students for doing that. I also checked our our highest rate was in fifth grade math. Um, and they were number eight in the state. >> Wow. >> Number eight in the state. That's like amazing. Out of I think it was like 533 districts and charters. Um and here I thought we were going to be competing with you know the Delanos and the West Tonkas and and Orinos of the world. No, not even close. It was the other Edinas suburbs of metropolitan areas. Zumbroda, Byron down by Rochester and Hermantown up by Duth were um the schools that were ahead of us. Um and then three charter schools as well. So sort of sort of interesting. Exactly. And then uh this morning I thought well I don't want to leave reading out of it. So I did some research and found reading we were in the top 10% across the state for reading and that's certainly worthy of celebrating. And our grade four which was the in the uh which was our highest proficiency rate uh was in the top 20 or top 4% across the state. So, um, again, continued reason to celebrate. Um, Heather and I are going to work be working on how we can, um, market this and put it together so that it looks nice, um, and and is going to be sellable. Um, >> so, but we'll be working on that uh, as well. So, that was a little bit deeper dive. I think that was last time. Any questions on goals or um teaching and learning plan? >> No, >> we do need a a motion and a second and approval of of Mr. V's goals here for 2526. >> I'll second. >> Motion made by Mr. Bird, seconded by Miss Gatsk. Any further discussions for Mr. V? >> No, looks good. Thank you for allation and >> and all those in favor say I. >> I. >> I. >> All opposed. Name. Motion carries. >> Thank you. >> Thank you. >> Thank you. >> All right. Next up, the MSHSL Foundation application for grant for student participation. Mr. Samansky. >> Yes. Thank you. Uh each year we have the opportunity to apply for a grant of with the Minnesota State High School League to um offset some of the cost and some of the costs that we choose to offset are any of the students that we've done free or reduced fees with. So we submit that. So we're right in the middle of the process and part of that process is a resolution from our board saying that you are in support of that and we would love to have that from you so we can proceed with our grant. Do you know off the top of your head typically how much we get? >> It really depends. >> It varies. >> Um, you know, it would be great. In the perfect world, no one else applies for it except for us and we would get a lot. Um, but unfortunately other schools apply as well. So, it's been um as high as I think 4,500. It's been as low as about 1,500, maybe a little bit less than that, 1300 or so. So, it there is really kind of a wide range >> and it all helps. >> It all helps. Yep. Yep. >> Well, I'll make a motion to approve the um form A for the MSHSL. >> Second. >> It's not a contest. >> Sure. >> Motion made by Mr. Felt, seconded by Mr. Burns. Uh any further questions? >> All those in favor say I. >> I. All oppose? N motion carries. Thank you, Mr. Samsky. Next up, item E, the 2627 school year calendar first read. Mr. Hennon, >> I >> What would you like to know? >> Exactly. >> Um, I guess in general, I mean, the process was similar to years past. I mean myself, Darren, I know Miss Okcono was involved, some staff, Ed Randell, you know, and basically they seek information from the teachers. Um, and obviously we as an admin group look through it. Next year is a little bit of a unique year because we are allowed to start before Labor Day because it starts in the seventh. So that was the, you know, kind of the vested interest in why we wanted to start on the first um with high school, middle school, and then elementary do the royal connections the first two days and they started on the third. Um again I think the big push there is because if we waited till the 8th we'd potentially be going to the second week of June of you know you know it's just traditionally we haven't done that and it conflicts with camps different activities in the summer. So we just felt like it was worthwhile to to start before Labor Day and that was wellreceived from the people we talked to. Um biggest change was there's no traditional spring break and that was it's kind of picked up the last few years among different groups and and really came down to timing. Um after second try it would have been just potentially really early and the year after be really early. Um which was had some push back cuz it involves when there's still some high school activities going on yet. And then to put it at the traditional time at the end of March again you're looking at two three weeks into a trimester and just not a great time academically for that as well. So we took some of those days and kind of spread them out to have some longer weekends. Um and again just to avoid sometimes having you know long periods of eight nine weeks at a time without having many breaks. So that is the probably the biggest change um on there. Otherwise um not a ton of substantial other changes to other months. So, >> um I know the not having the traditional spring break or doing a multiple like 4 day weekends was a concern with a lot of the elementary school teachers last year when we were looking at a calendar. How has this been received this year? >> Yeah, I mean we met multiple times. I mean again it's it's you know they're never going to have the a perfect consensus but what we tried to do is we put some of the 4 day weekends like in February around President's Day for example so we used to tie around a holiday and not you know too random in terms of where they are. I mean really that I mean so we tried to do that other than that the other one is in March but that's the um that's the Easter weekend >> one. So >> um and then the the one in early March that's the end of the trimester. So that's where we kind of tried to at least have some purposeful times. Again, one of the challenges we're seeing more and more and again this is a a positive about our schools. We have so many kids involved in everything. So you that's another challenge of you know depending where that spring break may fall. It's not even just the sports. It's BPA mock trial things like that and it's it's we just want to make kids make a choice and even the advisers make a choice sometimes because kids are missing and so on. So again, it's one of those things where I mean I think a lot of the feedback was mixed. I mean when we surveyed, you know, two years ago, I mean it was it was mixed, you know, and get 50% here, 50% and the other way. And um so we thought this might be a good time to do it given that we're starting before Labor Day to and there was no just natural timing that made spring break a great fit. >> Is this aligning elementary school to the trimester system then too or will they >> not yet? I think that's we I think Katie talked about I don't want to speak for her but using the next year to kind of evaluate what other schools are doing. Correct. >> Yeah. >> And what that transition would look like given their curriculum and grading everything. >> And then I know the elementary uh teachers also, you know, this year had requested kind of a workshop day to prep for their conferences. So are you going to be able to work conferences in? >> It's not on here. >> No. um because we were trying to keep days consistent for staff. So we would have needed to figure out another day. >> Okay. >> Um and so it kind of came down to a discussion about if we were keeping Royal Connections or adding in a conference day >> and in the end we'd rather keep Royal Connections. >> Okay. And the other concern with that that we brought up is I mean more and more like like Nick and I this year for example I think we have 13 shared staff and I'm not sure if that's ever going to extend the elementary but it's hard when you you know if we have let's say we have four or five that are shared and then what do you do on those days when some of them have school you know what I mean and and it's just it's harder. I mean I think we're heading down a path where more and more are going to be shared staff potentially. So we just felt like more consistency among our days would just be better for staffing wise and even for potentially families too. Yeah. And I'm sure you know Easter being at the end of March isn't helpful because I wonder when did Easter fall like if it was to fall in April you probably would have considered a week long >> or or we even talked about potentially could that look like a Thursday, Friday, Saturday, Sunday, Monday for example. If it was a little bit later and we are looking at the 27 28 calendar already too. So >> yeah, cuz you'll be in the same >> and that's the thing every, you know, and you know, the next year is a little bit unique, too. And that's why you just kind of have to take a look at every year's a little bit different where things fall and >> um where things work. >> I I would agree with beginning before Labor Day. >> So >> definitely. >> I mean, I think the hard part would be if you would flip-flop back and forth between having a spring break and not having a lot of >> Yeah. >> noise. Yeah. And and I and I you know on one hand I again I don't really have a preference I guess in terms of either way. I guess the hardest part is I mean and I just not a criticism but people take vacations when they want to take vacations. And so sometimes it's hard just again as we become more involved and with the timing it's just it's hard to find a spot where you're potentially just not impacting a fair amount of our kids >> not being able to even celebrate spring break because they are committed to um you know an activity or sport. I'm not speaking more from a high school perspective, but I mean we have a lot of kids who are involved. So, >> um I'm just curious if like band choir or like the Spanish teacher had any qualms because I know they've typically taken their trips over the >> a little um but I know I mean they talked about even looking at potentially different times even again doing a longer weekend. I mean if you know sometimes kids have to miss because even like when they went on spring break they had the other concern of kids aren't going to want to give up their spring break to go on the band required trip or the span trip. you know what I mean? And that's why some of our trips, you know, like German goes in the summer, for example, because of that. So, I mean, they were talked to and, you know, they had concerns, but they also said it might be a good time for them to even reevaluate on potential timing or what that looks like for them, too. >> Um, because they were seeing kids not go on them because they said, "We don't want to give up our spring break or we're going with our family, too." So, again, it's that >> it's no perfect scenario on some of these things. and and Heidi, I think too by doing the 26 27 and working on the 2728, it gives parents that two-year window and if that's something that we could keep up. >> Yeah. 278. So parents know in advance at least a year or two. >> Oh, for sure. >> And I think the 2720 will follow. It won't be the exact same, but it'll follow a similar structure as this because it's very similar in terms of a Labor Day start. And >> and then after that, we kind of just got to wait and see if the state will allow us to keep doing this >> or not. So, >> yeah, because I'm sure there will be lots of families and staff, I'm sure, that appreciate being done before Labor Day week or Memorial Day weekend. >> Yes. >> And again, this is also the first read >> like ending on a Friday, not like coming back to school for >> 3 days or four days. >> Yeah. >> So, this will come back next month as well. >> Yes. >> So, thank you for all your time. Thank you >> on this. >> Is there a motion? >> I'll make a motion to approve the 2026 2027 school year calendar. >> And I'll second. So we have a motion made by Miss Schultz, seconded by Mr. Felt. Um any further discussion on the 26 27 first read of the calendar? All right. Hearing none. All those in favor say I. >> I. All oppose. Nay. Motion carries. And that ends the action items of the evening. Um we're just going to move right into the administrative reports. So you didn't need to sit down. >> Just kind of let me know. I'm driving. Just let me know where we need to be on this. So >> So again, I'll take you through. We had goals in in different categories last year. The first one was just about student being connected to staff um and to each other and again so we we use a survey data to get this result and asked two questions and both we scored I mean you know close to 100% which is great and asked really if they had one adult that wants them to to succeed we had 98.5% and then the one that they had a a classmate and that was 99%. So again, we and we kind of put it in tears cuz I mean I don't really ever I always want to get 100% obviously I don't want to like leave a kid or two out but that's you know what we want to do. So again both very well there. Second one about staff culture was positive again did this with survey results. Um first one was I am currently satisfied 96% agreed and second one was my building culture was positive was 91%. It went down a little bit. I'm gonna be completely honest going the fact that we were going from a four block to a six period day. I'm actually pretty pleased it stayed relatively I'm honest I am because it was a big switch and it's been going all over K. But I mean we spent a lot of time making sure people felt pretty good about that switch and I think that was a driving factor obviously in that response. So um next one's about students and postsecary plans. Um graduation percent of students who start their senior year at Watertown Mary and graduating time. We get 100% of kids that started with us, their senior year and graduate on time. That's always a big deal because I know our graduation rate won't show that in the public, but we can't control some of the kids that leave us and they're a little bit out of our control, but if they spend most of their time with us, we get hit if they don't graduate. So, um, and we get some kids that come quite behind, just to be honest. So, it's pretty impressive that we get them all caught up. Postsecondary readiness readiness again um kids who graduated with either college credit or some sort of careerbased class or experience was 98% that was of last year's seniors so almost everybody did um senior exit survey 94% of seniors said that they felt either strongly agreed or agreed that they felt strongly to take the next step in their life after graduation was that was good it's been pretty consistent around that mid90s MCR scores we we decreased um I mean it's unfortunate I wish I had a better answer why I I mean, I I felt like our kids tried. We had very few opt outs, which is a good thing. At least they did take it. We had a lot of kids within, you know, the two three% or two three points of passing. Unfortunately, they just didn't. But I I mean, I didn't feel like we didn't have a lot of kids just stay in the three-minute thing and walk out of there either. I mean, they they tried and unfortunately we didn't do as well. I mean, the year before we saw a significant increase. So, hopefully we can rebound this year, but we did see a decrease there. Um, next one was parents. These were out the district survey. the one about um so the teacher staff and administration demonstrated genuine concern. We had 96% of the high school parents that responded said agreed or strongly agreed. So again, we're happy with that. And then last one, we we track the tier 1 and tier 2 and then the MTSS. We look at quarterly passing rates. Um so you can see between 95 and 97% of kids every quarter last year at, you know, passed all their courses. And again, we want better than just passing, but at the end of the day, they need to get credits. So, I mean, we did see a significant amount. Um, so again, it was an average of about there was 14 up to about 25 kids in a quarter that had at least one F, which again, you never want any, but I mean, I hate to say it, but sometimes there's only so much you can do when a kid doesn't either come to school or you're just going to have some, unfortunately. And then chronically absent, we wanted to get down from 24 to 15, but we got to 18%. I mean, we did make at least a dent in the number. Um, again, that's kind of a unique problem because not every situation is the exact same. So, you know, an intervention for Jeff maybe not work for Lisa for, you know, so you can't just do a one-sizefits-all. Wish we could, but it doesn't work. But I know like Mr. Barren and it comes do a really good job of tracking that. So, and then for this year, just to kind of give a quick summary, um, I mean, my main focus is, you know, some of the same things you saw up there. Obviously, graduation graduation rate is still a big deal. Want to get our MCA scores back up, um, and see some increases there. And then I mean I'll be on one of the biggest focus this year is making sure our transition to a sixth period day is a successful one because I mean obviously one for staff to make sure that they are that doing okay in the transition but for students really is is the main thing just to making sure that their transition is going well with not only their grades but the classes they're getting and just making sure that we're using this year to make next year even better. Um, and overall it's been a pretty good start, but I mean, weirdly enough, we start talking about next year already. So, I mean, we have to kind of start talking about what's working, what's not, and just making sure that transition cuz it was a it's a big lift, bigger than probably people realize. Um, because it's just you are changing habits, you are changing pacing for everybody, both students and adults. So, but overall, good start. So, those are the focuses for the high school this year. Any questions? All right. Thank you. >> Thank you, >> Mr. Girtton. >> Good evening, everybody. Uh going through goals, the first one uh was an 85% of our students demonstrating positive behavior and not requiring tier 2 and three interventions. So, those are those universal things that we do all day long. uh we gladly sailed past that 85% and ended up with 95% of our kids uh self-regulating is maybe the easiest way to describe that. So uh very successful in that area and we've been working on that for a handful of years. So finally got there and then we're able to say trendwise we've stayed there. Uh the second one uh was a focus goal around academics which will continue on into the 2526 school year saying that we want 85% of our kids scoring at or above that 65th percentile on a fast bridge uh or on an MCA uh being proficient. We adjusted the criteria a little bit for 25 26. Uh we're not there yet. However, uh there is a link to MCAs over time and uh if the trend is our friend, we're trending upward. We're moving forward in the right direction uh in both reading and math. So again, we're not where we uh want to be uh but we're going to keep that goal high. If you scroll down just a little bit, a little bit farther and we're moving in the right direction with those trend data points. So very promising. Um, moving on to the next next goal. Uh, we looked at kids establishing a connection with at least one staff member. Uh, at the beginning of the year when we surveyed kids in the fall, we were at over 90% uh, in that connection piece. We dropped to about 85%. And we are working with kids to try to figure out um, why there was that decrease. We've looked through a lot of data, but we're actually meeting with focus groups. Uh we met with a group this today uh group last week. We'll meet with one more group of kids and we've pulled in to help us understand their perspective on the survey, the questions um and just more collaboration to try to figure out how to get to ultimately having everybody there. But uh we did not meet the goal of of everybody. Um the 93% is safety. uh we surveyed twice uh again this last year and and we stayed at 93% terms of kids feeling safe. And then that last school or that last piece there asking kids if they're treated kindly. 58% of students felt like they were treated kindly by peers. 38% sometimes we're again working with focus groups to try to figure out what are some of the factors there. Uh kids have interesting perspective. We the kids we've talked to so far uh it varies a lot. Um, some might say, you know, I I'm trying to think of good examples. Um, some might say kids just don't care when they take it. You know, they just say no for no reason. Um, some of the feedback we had students saying, you know, um, keeping kids out of hallways, you know, kids not working in hallways, kids staying in classrooms, uh, when I'm walking by to go get a drink of water, something like that. Um, we're less prone to have kids giving kids a hard time. You know, some might say more supervision. So, uh, we're working on that one. Uh, but we have not met that goal yet. The last one was an academic success goal. Kind of connected with the 85% around reading and math achievement, but we looked at grades specifically partially met. We did not meet. The goal there was to try to make sure that at least 85% of our kids throughout the year uh quarterly uh were in core classes getting A's, B's, and C's. We weren't successful with that. um we didn't have as many kids with Fs, but our expectation was, you know, a D or an F student isn't successful. So, um that would be a partial as well. So, kind of moving on to goals for this school year. Uh like Mr. Hennon had said, uh we too are connecting some of what we did this past year. These are stretch goals. uh we'll continue to focus on the 85% of our kids uh making adequate progress on an MCA uh or being in that lowrisk or ontarget category on FastBridge. And again, we're trending in the right direction. Uh as far as building culture, we'll continue to maintain that goal of all of our kids being connected. And then the last one, we changed a little bit. Uh we want 80% of our kids that are receiving tier 2, tier three target intervention. So this isn't the universal. It it's honing in on kids that are getting very specific intervention around behavior. At least 80% of those kids, those interventions are showing adequate progress. So a little bit different, but kind of staying the course in terms of stretch goals. Any questions? >> Thank you. >> Thank you. >> Thank you, >> Miss Okonnell. So last year for reading, we had a goal of increasing our MCA scores by 4% from 2024 to 2025. We did meet that goal. Our third grade students increased from 51 50.1% to 59.4 exceeding the goal, which was 54.1. And then our fourth grade students increased from 52.1 to 68%. So they far exceeded the goal which was 56.1. Listed below there you see just the localized goals. So because only third and fourth graders have goals, we set fastbridge goals. Every PLC team does at all of our grades including third and fourth. Um because they can measure those throughout the course of the year since we take that screening three times during the year. Um some of those goals they set were a little too rigorous. So you can see that a lot of those goals they did not meet. But all of those fast bridge goals keep them on pace all year and kind of help inform what comes then when they get to MCAs as they get older. So they're kind of just sub goals there that help. Then if you scroll down, we've got our math then. So for math last year, we also were looking to increase by 4% from spring of 24 to spring of 25. And we partially met those goals. So third grade students increased from 67.6 6 to 72.3 exceeding the goal of 71.6. And fourth grade students went from 70.8 to 70.1. So they missed their goal that they were looking for of 74.8. It is hard when our scores are already in the 70s though to kind of keep ticking them up a little bit. Um so that was a partially met goal there. And then the last goal that we had as a school last year was reducing our um percentage of chronically absent students in the school year by 4%. So we are looking to move from 18.8% to 14.4. We did not meet that goal. We ended the year at 15.18%. So we're very close but just missed it. As we move into next school year, we are looking to um focus solely on our reading and math again, but we're looking to increase by 2%. Um just because the math ones are so high, it gets harder and harder to keep increasing them by four each time. And then with reading, we have new benchmarks that we're working on and a new curriculum. So lifting a new curriculum while implementing new benchmarks, 4% seemed like a little high of a stretch. So, we're just kind of giving ourselves some grace this year to aim it for the 2% level. Any questions? >> Okay, good work. >> Thank you. >> Thank you, >> Mr. Dalton. Uh, thank you for the opportunity and to update on the community learning center and community education programs this evening. You know, I began director in July, and tonight I'm going to offer a brief reflection on on where we've been and and and spent some time providing a a uh preview of key priorities and initiatives that we they're going to help us shape our measurable goals for 2526. So, um our focus continues to be in growth through connections and opportunities, strengthening relationships and families, staff, and our broader community. So our goal number one there um this past year community education expanded enrichment opportunities and strengthened outreach across programs marketing newsletters social media and marketing newsletters and social media helped increase participation and visibility for 2526. Um, we look to have to explore new ways to connect with families, learners, uh, including a community educa community kickoff and ECF uh, open house kind of reimagining that. That's an event that's been going on. U, we're looking at some family connection nights, a community education speaker series, and we're also reviewing our advisory council structure and see if there's a way that we can get garner additional community engagement through our advisory council. Uh for the second goal which was basically at staff culture and collaboration um the team uh they continued to build positive collaboration in workplace supported by communication and recognition. Staff events and surveys reflected progress in in morale and connection. As we move forward um we're expanding in doing things like a coordinator collaboration series. Um, we're strengthening our leadership development, enhancing our internal communication systems, and to support staff growth and engagement. One of the things we're really going to focus on is staff development. We I want people to do to do a great job, but I want them to expand. I want them I want them to learn about what the other people in the building are in the building are doing. A lot of times we were kind of siloed and and the facility use person did facility use. Well, I want the facility use person to understand what the what the youth programs are about and what the early early learning programs and about. So, the little bit of cross trainining there. Um, goal number three, early learning programs continued strong instructional practices through the MTSS framework and and in to ensure um preschoolers are well prepared for kindergarten. For 2526, we're looking at focusing on completing licensing for room 25 and 105. so we can expand um operations there. And we were looking to expand the pathway scholarships. We we we get some money. They're called pathway scholarships. We this past year we didn't get enough applicants to give out all the money for the pathway scholarships. So we we're going to look to expand that. We we know there's people out there that that could use those. They're we're just not engaging them. So we're going to look for that. Um and one of our real key goals and and one of Schuler Mr. The Schuler's goals is to establish and work to get a better connection from preschool to kindergarten. Right now, it's there, but but we we've just started this process and it's been it's been really successful so far, just getting those the preschool teachers in the same room with the with the kindergarten teachers and the the interaction there has been fabulous. And we've only had one meeting and and it it they're buzzing. So, it it's good to see. Um, goal four, family engagement and satisfaction. Community education maintained a strong commitment to safety, accessibility, and communication for families. Feedback uh from the strategic vision survey reinforced um the importance of connection and service. For 2526, we're developing plans to host a re-imagined community kickoff. Talked about that a little bit before. continue family connection nights, expand uh parent feedback through ECF early learning and child care. And again, that that we look to expand the outreach of our community education advisory council. And then our marketing, we look to pump up our newsletters, look to pump up our social media, and one of the things we really want to do, we want to get our catalog in more places. I I just walked in into the building today. There's not any community education cataloges at the city hall. We need to have community education cataloges at the city hall. So we're building towards that. So in closing, uh 2425 provided a strong foundation for the continued growth our team is building on success by strengthening programs, partnerships, community engagement as we prepare for 2526. Uh the staff our staff continues to grow, show creativity, dedication, and a shared commitment to connection and opportunity. Thank you for the opportunity. Is there any questions I can answer? >> Okay. Thank you. Thank you. >> And that ends the improvement plan. >> Miss Payton, >> I >> But she doesn't have an improvement plan. >> So, Miss Payeyton, floor is yours. >> Okay. >> You're saying she has nothing to improve on? She's just amazing. >> Well, yeah. That must be it. >> All right. Good evening. Happy fall. Um, this fall has been really busy and productive for our special education team and students. We held our first special education um advisory council meeting October 9th and we had a good attendance and um it was inspiring. We had a had ideas to make more engagement with other families. Um in early childhood um referrals and evaluations continued to grow through help me grow. At the elementary and middle school level staff submitted their professional growth plans and each aligned with the goals for our 2028 strategic plan. Um, at the high school, we welcomed a new pair professional that started October 20th, and she brings valuable CNA, certified nursing assistant experience with her to our team, and that's especially great because it's in our DCD, um, ASD program. So, that'll be really helpful. Um, in additionally, um, Joe, um, bio, um, told everyone about the redact and the paras needing to be trained for eight hours. Um, so that I just wanted to add on to what he said. So that has to be continuous. So if we have a new parah that starts in the fall, they will need to be trained in for those eight hours of literacy. Um and again I just continue to be impressed with our special education team, their creativity and their dedication to helping all these students with such diverse needs. A lot of problem solving, a lot of busyiness. So any questions? >> Awesome. >> Okay. Thank you. >> Thank you. Uh, next up is the uh, board member report. So, if anybody has anything to bring up since last um, board meeting, feel free. Southwest Met uh, we had our first uh, annual meeting, I guess, to go over pretty much our strategic plan or goals. Uh, really well received. We've never had one before. And uh I'd say the feedback was wonderful. Hopefully uh I get that report and I might uh to share that with all of you so you can see what we've uh we've been up to. I'd say the one thing that we were concerned with is okay, you know, the data or the numbers don't look great for us. when you see that we'll say here 100% graduate but over there the program's different and and the numbers appear low. So it's more how do we communicate that no this is we are doing well but those numbers really don't uh show really what we're trying to achieve here. So I think that was one of the concerns we had. But I mean overall amazing meeting um again and um in the next couple months also uh I'll we'll probably bring up the uh Morristown uh purchase um a building purchase. I'll have more about that, but that's something that's also in the books that we're purchasing a meeting or a meeting a building. So, I'll have more on that. Yeah, new superintendent. He's been in everything and including a new purchase. So, didn't think that would happen, but yeah, adding that on. But yeah, overall great meeting. >> Anything else? Anybody else? >> Not at this time. >> Um, we had a facilities meeting which was good. We haven't met for a long time. It was a long meeting. Um >> had a lot had a lot to catch up on. Um but really kind of what we talked about was sort of our our geothermal system at the middle school, high school, >> middle school and high school, right? >> Um as well as we took a a look at the our LTFM plan and just trying to first pass on prioritizing certain projects and different ways to maybe creatively fund certain projects and such like that. um had a community education meeting as well. There was a lot of uh new faces to meet there or a few new faces. It was good to kind of get to know anybody. We have never had one yet. So, it was the first one that Mr. Dalton led. Um a lot of good discussion. Um kind of went over a lot of the updates kind of changed to how do we build enrollment, right? How do we build more more families using community ed from from the youngest learners all the way up to, you know, the seniors as well as from the ECF program, you know, young royals, they're the feeder program for the elementary school. How are we going to try to capture more of those kids? So, it was a lot of a good discussion about that. Um what from the facility side um Miss Taylor said it was probably probably been the busiest year so far for like renting spaces from the pack and and and such like that. So that's really good news. >> Um you know a lot of the I think there's three or four different dance groups that are now renting it out whether it's one day or a whole weekend even. >> Um >> and and I guess my my tie back to to Mr. Dalton was how are we tying back our strategic plan and profile of a graduate for at at even at that level of the you know community learning center. So obviously the the profile of a graduate is a little bit different when you're the youngest learners but to kind of keep that at the core of their mind. Um one of the cool things I did at the beginning of last month was uh Mr. Jetma, the seventh grade civics teacher, brought me in. Um, and and thank you to to to Mr. Girtton as well for allowing me to come into the school. Uh, I think this is the third year I I've done this. And it's it's it's what do we do at the schoolboard level for the kids? It's kind of they're learning about government and now this focuses on the local government. One of the really cool things that that we decided on that we do at the end of the the class session is we break out the kids into groups. say, "Okay, we have a million dollars to spend now. How should we spend it?" And and all ideas are good ideas. Come up with your come up with your top three or four ideas. And really the the the thought of that one is they're all focused on the uh the middle school, the here and now. Well, you didn't mention anything at the elementary school. Well, what about the high school? What about the community learning center? you know, so it's it's trying to get them to think that, you know, we're not building specific. We have to think holistically. But I some of the really cool ideas from past years, they all wanted McDonald's. Uh last year, the big one was they wanted a water more water filling stations, water bottle filling stations in the middle school. This year, there was hardly any repeats. It was really there wasn't a common theme. Someone said to spend the million dollars to determine what is a royal on a mascot. >> Um that's come up so many >> better air conditioning in the middle school. >> That's the >> you know so that kind of ties back into our facilities and you know it was a very good discussion we had on that >> turf practice field in a fieldhouse. >> Oh boy. >> You know that's >> that's a lot of Okay. It's more than a million dollars. >> You need more. But it's a but to get these kids thinking more, you know, creatively. >> One of them said more interactive learning. >> That's a good donation. >> So they wanted more >> Yeah. >> teaching these kids, you know, having them learn at their level. Some are more visual thinkers, some are more book heavy, >> you know, how do you do that? And probably the one that got the most was cheerleading. >> Oh, interesting. >> So Mr. Schuler happened to be in in >> he visited the class at that point. Um, so I got to ask him when did they get rid of cheerleading. So >> I don't remember what he said, but I believe >> it was in the 90s. Yeah. >> Really? >> I'm pretty sure. >> Oh, that would have been late 90s. >> I was going to say my wife >> 989. >> It's not really that long. >> Lost. >> Yeah. Wasn't really that. It's not as long ago as what you think. >> Huh. >> But for for kids that are in seventh grade to realize that that's missing. >> Yeah. >> Yeah. They know it's not here. >> Yeah. That it's not the school spirit. Ex. >> Exactly. But no, it was it was a great time and I always kind of learn more when I'm sitting in there with the kids and stuff. and, you know, had a couple kids even stop me after class and and talk to me one-on-one about other aspects of of of their learning. And that's kind of a really cool cool thing. Um, from MSBA side, I'll be quick and and that'll be it. Um, we had a board retreat at the end of September. Um, went through all the legislative uh requests kind of like what we put in last year. The themes this year that I noticed were PSO and CIS. >> There was a lot of a lot of resolutions based on that as well as uh career tech. >> Wow. >> So those are the common themes that the districts across Minnesota are now seeing and wanting to champion at the state level. >> It's because they saw our presentation last year at the MLA. >> That's what I'm saying. >> He's not even listening. >> Is not even listening. >> No. >> Exactly. just gave you a really nice compliment and that doesn't >> she's asking me questions back. Sorry again. >> Um >> and and so with with with kind of those resolutions being said probably within the next month or so I'll send out a survey for you guys again uh sort of where we want to go and maybe buttoning it up in January. Sort of the same process we did last year. Um, so kind of get your head on, you know, we can be the same, it can be completely different. I mean, a lot of the same challenges we had last year are still there, but there's other ones that have probably crept up. Um, we also kind of went over the strategic plan from an MSBA side and my focus was engagement. That that's kind of been a big buzzword. You know, that the MSBA had the the one voice initiative and Mr. Scheler mentioned that they were out last week or two weeks ago actually filming a segment uh for that initiative with our teachers out here. Um it was the ceilings in the Russo cuz there's six of them teachers. So kind of I'm curious to see kind of how that video will turn out. But for me, it's engagement. Whether it's it's how do we get our communities more engaged from from an education perspective, but also too, how do we get our boards more engaged? Um there's a lot of boards across the state that don't go to leadership conference that are local, you know, that are Twin Cities based, you know. So, one of those things it's how do we >> what can MSBA do to try to capture more more folks, you know, from a schoolboard side, too. So, if you have any other ideas of what would make you guys more engaged, please email me. Um, all ideas are good ideas. And that is what I have. >> Was there any discussion on how again we we got the notice that basically talks about federal funding, right? and the impact to our district and that went out to I think all different districts. >> Um, >> and that might be from MDE versus >> Yeah, that was from an MDA side and and I believe that came after our our retreat, but >> I was just curious if there's any more chatter about how how if there's going to be any legislation to try to fill those gaps. >> I haven't heard anything. I'm I'm assuming there there will be. If if I was if I put on my my fortune teller hat, I would say there's probably going to be some resol or some some monies at least coming back from school safety. >> I think that's going to be the hot one of the hot button items this year at the legislator legislative >> um St. Paul just because of what happened a few months ago. So I think that's still fresh in people's minds. So I what that looks like I have no idea but I would that would be a >> guess for me but I from the from the federal funding side >> I haven't heard anything else. >> Um I don't think we can close without saying the girls are going to state so girls soccer are headed to semi-finals on Wednesday. So >> fantastic >> kind of exciting for them. First time in school history. Woohoo. >> There we go. And that's Wednesday. >> Wednesday. >> Yep. Wednesday is semifinals. When they win, they'll play f finals on Friday. If for some reason they don't win, they would play for third on Thursday. >> And volleyball plays tomorrow, right? >> Yes. >> Where soccer world is at? >> US. >> US Bank. >> The bank. Yeah. >> Check your social media. $14. >> All right. >> All right. With that, is there a motion to adjourn the meeting? >> I make a motion. >> Second. >> Caught me. Mr. >> Motion made by Miss Danielson, seconded by Mr. O'Neal. All those in favor say I. >> I. >> I. All oppose. Nate. Motion carries. Meeting is adjourned at 6:59 p.m.