Okay, let's get started. Um, we didn't have any community members sign up for any questions or comments, so we'll call the meeting to order. Um, next is uh the pledge of allegiance. Todd, would you mind leading it for us tonight? Thank you. Next is consideration of the agenda. Is there anybody that would want to change anything for tonight? Okay. Hearing none, uh, our next item is the consent consent agenda. The consent agenda contains routine matters that typically do not require board discussion. Individual board members may remove an item from the consent agenda for discussion or separate action. Tonight, those items are as follows. Approving the minutes from the regular board meeting held on August 18th, 2025. Approving personnel recommendations and fall coaching contracts. Approve donations totaling 43,835.78. Approving vouchers and bill payments, including bill vouchers, EP register items, EFT vouchers, and Capital One items. Do I have a motion to approve? >> Madam Chair, may I make a quick comment, please? You bet. Um, I'm going to abstain from item B, which is fall coaching contracts, because I am coaching the B squad high school team. Although I am doing it in a volunteer capacity, I feel that it would be appropriate to abstain from that vote. Thank you. >> Anything else? Do I have a motion to approve? >> So moved. >> Have a second. Second. >> All those in favor say I. >> I. >> Any opposed? Any abstaining? >> Yeah. Perfect. Thank you so much. Now we move on to the superintendent's report on excellence. Dr. Flesher. >> Thank you, Madam Chair. Loud. Um, today begins the second week of school on our main campus and our first day of preschool at the Discovery Center. So, it was a it's been a great few days and a great day today. It's been wonderful to see our students returning across the district with so much enthusiasm and and and happiness. Uh, we began this school year with a new transportation management company. um first services and I just want to thank Nick Tainter and for the our first student drivers and team at our bus garage for helping with this month's long transition. There were a lot of people that were a part of this. Our students um are traveling safely back and forth from school. But what what's um I think a real value ad is that parents, students, caregivers are um encouraged to download the First View bus tracking app. Um I have it on my phone. Um, as a parent, um, it is great to get push notifications that share accurate bus arrival times and you can even see the map right on your phone and and real time. It's it's, um, can make a big difference. You don't have to stand in the rain. Um, pretty nice. So, um, huge value ad. Um, want to just talk for a minute about homecoming. It's really early this year. Um, we'll be celebrating the week of September 15th through the 20th with a Friday night football game versus Mount West Tanka. Um, please be sure to visit our one-stop homecoming page for more information. We have dress up days, a parade again, pregame tailgate party sponsored by the student co-sponsored student senate and the orno foundation for education. Um, it should just be incredible. Now, we just need great weather. We invite everyone to attend and to celebrate with our students. I want to thank Mr. Joe Huber and all of our DECA student leaders for managing the homecoming t-shirt design and sales. um proceeds will go to our vibrant DECA club and cover uh fees and transportation costs for DECA this year. So, please check that out. Um around campus, last week the high school held its annual activities fair in the media center. Um really well attended. Uh stu they invite students to explore the many clubs and activities available at Orno High School. Uh we're pleased that so many students get involved and are uh obviously are key to our strategic goal of connectedness. Um, just an announcement. Cast and crew have been named for the fall musical Tuck Everlasting with rehearsals started today already. Um, tickets go on sale later this fall with performances beginning November 14th. U, mark your date, mark your calendars. It's great to hear um that we have actually a lot of ninth graders expressing interest in our high school theater program and drama club. So, please um put that on your calendar and attend one of our fall performances. Our middle school fall uh drama production is is a comedy titled Too Many Ghosts. And our middle school drama program is uh presented in partnership with four community theater. Performances for middle school begin October 9th. So should be a lot of fun. Um for fall activities update. Um further for sports, our teams continue to have great seasons are starting. Um congratulations to our student athletes and coaches for their hard work, dedication, commitment to excellence. It's always fun to see the kids return in August on campus. Um and exciting to see their efforts recognized um and on a competitive level as well. We'll start with congratulations to girls swim and dive. Um the 200 freestyle relay of Laura Lola Shotler, Grayson Andreana Berg, and Sophie Berg on setting a new pool record at St. Louis Park duel last week. Um congratulations to them. Girls swim and dive is already ranked second um in the state. Um they're just having a wonderful year again. Um excited to share that girls volleyball on going three and one and now finishing second place last week at the me West Tanka Invitational on Saturday. Um so that's exciting for them. Um after an amazing win at home to start the season against the defending state champions from Becker High School, our football team lost to Byron on Friday night. A very tough opponent though. Um the team is ranked third in the state already and um will take on the Big Lake Hornets this Friday night in another away game. Um girls and boys cross country teams each placed first in the Rockford Rocket Run Invitational at the Shamrock Golf Course. Um both teams are ranked in the top five um in the state. And wonderful news also from tennis and soccer. Our girls tennis um five match win streak um also ranked fifth in the state really impressively. Um girls and boys soccer um both threeame win streaks and both ranked in the top 10. So um it's been an incredible start to the school year for activities. We have a full slate of home athletic events lined up for homecoming week. So please get out and cheer on students. We hope to see you out there supporting our Spartans. come be a part of the energy, enjoy the game, celebrate homecoming with us all week long. Um, and then one last thing, um, about activities. Um, we're excited to continue expanding our student activity offerings this fall with the addition of mock trial. Um, very excited to bring mock trial back. And mock trial students receive a case problem written by the Minnesota Bar Association. They work within the case to portray both attorneys and witnesses. They present arguments and testimony before a panel of judges. Each team prepares both sides of the case and is scored on a quality of the presentation. Mocktraal provides a unique opportunity for students to strengthen their public speaking, critical thinking, and confidence all while engaging in a collaborative and competitive environment. We invite all students who are interested to reach out to Mr. Bruner. And we have a new coach, Miss Kelly Rogers. And attend ourformational meeting at 6 PM on September 25th, so start of mock trial. And last, um, student passes are now for sale. Um, the yearly athletic student pass returns this year after an extremely popular offering last year. The cost is only $50 and it allows entry into every um, regular season home activity for the entire year. So, we hope the pass encourages our students to attend more games, check out new events, support teams they haven't in the past, and be connected to the larger group. So, that includes my report for tonight. >> Thank you, Dr. Flesher. Next are board members questions and comments. Tim, would you like to start kick us off tonight? >> Sure. And in this case, updates is of what we've been doing. Okay. Yeah. So, a lot of fun things in the last few weeks we've all been at. So I will just simply say the board retreat was wonderful particularly hearing from leadership and we had another wonderful uh presentation on AI and how the the district is really diving into that that we also got that here but we talked about that already. So new teacher orientation workshop week negotiations just a lot of things going on and I will say I got the pledge of allegiance and twice this evening we did it at 4 prior to coming here. So with that I will pass >> Laura. Uh sure. So, I was able to attend a meeting at the Discovery Center for their new parent learning group uh on the 28th. Uh they are kicking off, they are doing a new drop off situation. They are grabbing breakfast before heading to their classrooms for the morning, which is very exciting, and then eating lunch on campus. Uh they're getting their parent group off the ground, but we also got some fantastic updates. And I don't want to take away because I know Tiffany is going to be telling some of the best stuff. So, I'm I'm holding back just a little bit on our updates. Um but ready set kindergarten. Super exciting. We're going to hear more about that. Um we also heard um a little bit more about Character Strong which is very popular obviously on all the campus but is coming to the discovery center as well. They were able to send four of their staff members to a training in Tacoma thanks to the foundation's educator excellence fund. Always grateful for that. Um so we've got people bringing that back to that building as well. So we have a lot of continuity from prek all up to 12 on that. Uh Kayla, the lead over there, was able to attend the PLC Institute, the professional learning community, so that we are able to continue that as well and and make it a really cohesive transition from the discovery center right onto the main campus. Um, and I'm going to leave it at that because there's some good stuff coming our way. So, spoiler. Thank you. That was great. Todd, >> I have no updates. Wendy, >> I was able to attend an OMSA meeting. Um, and they are really kicking off a great fall for the kids. Um, so more to come. The only thing that was set is September 18th for the sixth grade ice cream social right after school. Um, so that'll be really fun. And they are going to have a spiritware table at the um, OF tailgate for homecoming. Um, along with many activities to come. Um, additionally on Friday I attended the um, AMSD meeting with Peter Leatherman um, which is always quite exciting. He had really great um, results from about the community meaning the Minnesota community's um, thoughts about schools and the direction of public schools. So um, I think we're in a great great spot. I kept comparing us and our community to the broader in my mind and I think um I'm really appreciative of our community and the support we have here. So thank you. That concludes my report. >> Thank you Wendy Gavin. >> Um I think the excuse me the first one about the the workshop uh was fantastic and really fun to see the uh updates at the high school to actually be able to see it. I know we've visualized them and and looked at a lot of pictures but actually getting to see them and then uh some of the other updates of uh rooms being adjusted and brought back some memories of teachers that used to be in said rooms. So fun. And then um the the teacher kickoff the the amount of energy of all the teachers and my gosh um I think it's the speakers were just unreal. Um and then there's some green shirts that I'm very excited that I think we'll hear more about later that I think huge fan of. So we're doing >> excellent. And I just Wendy to piggyback on yours, the Morris Leatherman um presentation is in on the AMSD website or in the emails that we get. So um it's worth just looking at. You don't have to if you don't have time to listen to his whole uh presentation. Just looking at the slides is very illuminating. So I would recommend you do that and I don't have any other updates. So now we move on to old business. Is there any other old business tonight? Okay, terrific. Next is new business. presentation of the check from the Orno Foundation for Education. >> Thank you, Madam Chair. I welcome Miss Katie Hollerman and Miss Molly Hollerman. Um Katie is the chair of Orno Foundation and Molly is an 11th grade student at Orno High School. They're coming to the board table for presentation of an incredible gift um for the annual fund and an couple of other um special gifts and they're going to speak about that. I say this every year and I'm going to say I think this is the largest gift that we've ever received. Um and I also say this every year. We are incredibly grateful to the Orno Foundation. Um, Miss Hollererman is here to present a gift across a number of areas and she'll get into the details, but there's I'll speak a little bit about there's $200,000 and general fund that generally supports our class size K6, our team model at the middle school, and our highest level AP courses at the high school. We just simply wouldn't be able to offer the wide array of rigorous courses without the foundation's annual support. The foundation's tireless fundraising efforts help the Orno schools and their parents and students not to have to choose between program options for our students, but rather we get to enhance our students experiences um with all the additional monies. And I see Laura Clauss in the back, too. I just want to call out and say thank you to her. Um, tonight the foundation is giving an additional $50,000 annual gift for literacy in honor of Kitty Crosby, a $45,000 gift um Aberg Roast for the character education. a $250,000 gift from the Gells family for our new college and career center, a $100,000 gift for our auditorium high school auditorium lighting and $125,000 gift for our new elementary reading curriculum as well as the funds for staff development through the excellence fund um in honor of Dr. Orcut. These foundation dollars support staff learning and we know that investing in staff invests in our children's daily experiences. These funds allow ORno staff to engage with content area experts across this country and bring the very best teaching practices to our children as well as they get to present at national conferences. In summary, um we sincerely thank the foundation for the exceptional work on behalf of the children of Orno schools and your incredible generosity. I can't wait to hear what you have to say. And I turn it over to both of Miss Hollerman's for remarks and presentation to the board of the check. Thank you. Well, thank thank you, Dr. Flesher, and good evening, um, Madame Chair Borchers, members of the board, um, and guests. Um, as Dr. Flesher said, I'm Katie Hollererman. I am the board chair for the Orno Foundation for Education. Um, on behalf of OF, it is my honor to present the 2024 2025 grant to the district. Um, we think that Orno schools are absolutely amazing and so it is actually an honor and uh amazing work for us to be able to work alongside you and we couldn't do anything without your partnership and so we're very grateful for all that you guys do for our kids and for the community. Um, thank thanks to the generosity of our donors and the dedication of our community, we are proud to gift the $839,000 in support of the schools for the 2024 2025 year. And as Dr. Flesher said, this is our biggest um single annual gift that we have given. And so we feel very thankful uh that we're able to do that this year. Um the grant will directly impact students, teachers, and families in these meaningful ways. Um, we have $250,000 for the college and career center, um, which will help our students prepare for their futures. Uh, $200,000 through the annual fund grant, which supports the critical needs identified by the district. Um, $110,000 uh, from the educator excellence fund, which ensures we offer additional teacher training to help support the continuing education of our teaching staff. uh $100,000 for the auditorium lighting enhancing the experiences of our performing arts students and guests. $125,000 dedicated to literacy including a grant to support the cost of the new K through5 literacy curriculum. $45,000 for character education uh helping to support the whole student. uh $6,000 in scholarships for our graduating seniors and $3,000 for the annual retirement breakfast honoring those who have given so much to our schools. Each of these investments reflects our community's belief in excellence and in the bright future of every Oro student. We are deeply grateful to everyone who made this possible and proud to continue partnering with you all and the district to advance the opportunities for every student. Um, before I close, I'd like to introduce my daughter, Molly. She's a high school jun junior and one of the foundation's most dedicated student volunteers. Um, she helped raise the money alongside with us, and she would like to share a quick thank you um for the foundation support and the district's building of the college and career center. Okay. Um, hi, my name is Molly Hollererman and I'm a junior at Orno High School. It has been an absolute honor to work alongside OAF and my mom this year to raise money for the school's grant. Um, so thank you for letting me speak today. Um, I would like to thank the Gals family and our school district for building the college and career center. For the class of 2026, my class of 2027 and all the classes that will come after us. Having a dedicated space for college and career planning is such an absolute gift. It gives us a space to learn about our um opportunities to get guidance and to really start preparing for our futures in a very focused way. It's something that will continue to benefit student for years to come. And we are also grateful to know our community is behind us every step of the way as we plan our futures. Thank you again for letting me speak. >> That's all. >> I just have to do a round of applause. >> Oh, thank you. I feel like we should be giving you guys a standing ovation. Yes. Thank you guys. >> Yeah. >> Amazing on the first day to watch as the students walked in. They were like, "Look at that." >> Is that for us? >> I just have to say um as a past volunteer of the OF um I my kids, my family has benefited from everything that you've done. Um and everything that anybody who volunteered with the OF has done. Um, I've never known an orno without the foundation and I I know how um how many ways it has benefited my kids and their friends and their peers. And so um sorry I'm getting a little over clumped because this is an incredible gift and the the um the change it makes and the positive um investment that it is is um it it's hard to put into words. It's just amazing. So thank you. Thank you both. Thank you all. Please extend our thanks to the board and all the volunteers. I'm rambling. If anybody else wants to say anything, I'm just so amazed. >> I'll just say one more thing that um just for the community to to know that we had as we approached the literacy adoption um we were looking at really high quality materials and there was something called the geode package that would allow some incredible differentiated materials for all students in kindergarten through grade 5. we really wanted to purchase it, but it was frankly outside of the budget. Um, and the foundation stepped forward and said, um, you know, we think it's important. We'd like to purchase that. And I didn't even know what to say. Um, so we the teachers are so excited. They arrived in August and we've been busy. Um, sometime I would love for you to just come take pictures of the books. Um, at one point when we were handing them out, they were just covering the cafeterias. Um, and then I understood why it cost so much. I was like, "Wow, this is amazing. All kids are going to get to read these." Thank you. >> Thank you. >> I just want to give one uh comment of appreciation. Having the opportunity to work with the OF for the last several years, uh, the caliber of work that you guys do and the amount of energy that you put into it, they really are you you do way more than I think you guys give yourselves credit for at times. Um, you are a cornerstone to what makes us so excellent. So, thank you. >> Thank you. I feel like we couldn't do any of it without you guys. You are so impressive and the way that you've built the school and all the thought and energy and effort that you've put into it makes us raising the funds actually the easy part because we we know that you guys are going to do it. You know, that the experts and um such have know where to spend it and so we just do it. And I do want to say that we couldn't do any of this without Laura. I know that she's being shy back there, but she is the absolute backbone behind the foundation. And one of the reasons that the check is so big this year is definitely from all of the um work and diligence and just she's amazing. So, we're very lucky to have her. >> Could we take a picture? Would that be? Take take a pause. wonderful. All right, good luck to you. You're next. Um the 2025 2026 superintendent goals. Dr. >> There's no way to top that. So, uh thank you, Madam Chair. I will keep my comments brief. Um, but I'm happy to answer any questions. In your packets are the first reading of the 2526 superintendent goals for the school year. Um, I would appreciate and welcome any feedback prior to the next reading. Um there these f goals are focused on health and safety always first and foremost community engagement um and our connectedness work, curriculum and instruction particularly our new literacy implementation um K5 uh continuous improvement our MTSS work and mental health support always our policy revision um and then some guidelines and strategic thinking about artificial intelligence that we've talked about and then continuing our work on maintaining and enhancing our facilities and finance through LTFM and our board committee planning. Um, so please reach out in the coming weeks for any input and revision. >> Thank you. >> I would say if I hadn't seen these before that I would say these are really robust and possibly impossible goals, but every single year you've managed to deliver on these. These are very, very impressive. So, thank you. Well said. >> What I appreciate about them just having taken a brief look initially is that it's not year after year just a whole new set of goals. It's continuing deeper dives, things that went really well and seeing this went really well. Can we do even better? It's not just check, did it? Moving on. Um, so I really appreciate that to see some continuity of okay, we can continue to do better in some of these areas. Um, and then seeing AI on there just is I think um, it's really exciting. I mean, my guess is this probably the first superintendent report in Oro schools that has ever had AI on it possibly. So yeah. So thank you for these >> and comments can just go directly to you >> please. >> Okay, perfect. >> Yeah. >> Oh, sorry. >> Oh, no. I I just wanted to say I I did not have a moment of oh it's too much because I think I've just accepted that this is who you are. Um but I what I had was oh your team is amazing and you guys are going to tackle this and I can already see how you guys are going to accomplish these things. So just a kudos to you and the team that you've assembled and the culture that you have. >> Nice. And let us know how we can help. Um next is our community education update. >> Okay. Thank you, Madam Chair. Um another really positive um event. We're pleased to share the work of community education and all the summer experiences for our students as well as our school year. So, I invite Miss Tiffany Clifton, director of Barno Community Education, to update the board on all of this work. Um, we had, as you know, and for the community to know, another record year of enrollments. Um, I I feel like this happens every year. Um, another record year, but it's true. So, um, it's interesting to watch Tiffany process and the team, okay, well, what do we do for after another record year, what should we do? And so they actually dug into strategic planning um to say what should we do? What does our what is the data? What do best practices? What does our community need? So uh you'll get to hear a little bit about that tonight. She and her team have been engaged in a strategic planning year this year. Um they have studied process surveys, best practices. They have dug deep to create enhancements for an already stellar program. and you're going to hear about the highlights of the summer uh school year and strategic planning work. I also before I turn it over to Tiffany just want to recognize Miss Deb Lamowski is in the audience. Yay. Um she's also being shy. Um and she has also been an incredible um value high value ad to Orno schools. And we all had green t-shirts on today. Um, and Tiffany's going to talk a little bit about that work and that we had green t-shirts across the entire campus. It was pretty amazing. Thank you. >> My All right. Good evening. Um, thank you, Madame Chair, Dr. Flesher, and the board for allowing me to come and speak again. Um, it's one of my favorite times to be able to come and share about what is happening in community education and the directions that we're going to go. So, I'm just going to go ahead and get started. Maybe if we can the arrows aren't working. Oh, there they are. Okay. Um, so as many of you have seen before in um, Oro, we like to start our presentations with this image of the open door because in Oro um, we thrive on opening doors for students and families. And so what does that mean for community education is it's really about how we can support that and what opportunities we can provide for not only students but the whole community and the whole village. As we know children are stronger when they have a strong community um behind them and that includes all the important adults in their lives as well. So that is kind of what community education can do to help support um the whole district as as we move forward. That little arrow, that little light button helps. Okay. Um, so we would love to start with a moment of gratitude. Um, all the work that we do is not possible without the partnerships and collaboration across the district. So, especially speaking of summer, um there's a lot that happens here in the summer and there is uh a lot of prep that goes into to getting there. So, huge appreciation to the school staff, the flexibility. We're in many, many classrooms. We're in many different buildings. We're um partnering with staff. We're getting school staff to come back and continue to see um students throughout the throughout the summer um with opportunities of teaching. So, appreciate the school staff that continue to work with us. Our custodial staff are amazing. I don't know if you guys have noticed how incredibly clean the hallways are. Someone mentioned that walking in. Um, and they're doing all of that while we still have on average 5 to 600 kids here a day, keeping it clean and working through projects that we have to do in the summer when school is not in session. So, it's a kind of a puzzle, a Tetris of um, making everything come together. And so, it wouldn't happen without that close collaboration. So, appreciation there. Our district office staff and leadership is just bar none. Um so appreciative for the support that we get from our district leadership as well as um just the business office providing um human resource support to hire. We hire a lot of new people and so getting them everybody in and ready to go for summer um is is no easy feat. Um our special services department is amazing as they collaborate to support students and then our um local community partners weekend Trinity Church relate counseling um all the partnerships that we have really allow us to wrap our arms around students and it wouldn't happen without this amazing team. Dev is here in person um but this is the the leadership team of community ed. So, if you happen to see them, make sure to share your appreciation for all the amazing work that they do. Um, it it's a it's a very robust program with a very lean team behind it. So, just appreciation for everyone on our leadership team. Um, would love to just kind of start with celebrating the wins of the school year um last school year. So, um we have been really taking some time to try to pause and reflect and and celebrate some wins. So I would love to do that with you here today. Um we did as um Dr. Flesher mentioned we conducted a community needs assessment survey with Peter Morris Leatherman. Peter Leman um did that survey which I'll get into a little bit later in the presentation of really amazing results. So very um proud of those um of of that survey and and the findings that we had from that. We um were fortunate to have a marketing intern who is in their senior year at St. Thomas to really look at that survey and analyze some of that data and help us um get some direction on where we could go with communication and outreach. Uh we received um a top preschool rating in the Lake Minnetonka magazine um which was really exciting for our um discovery center as well as a successful implementation of our um school readiness plus program which was a new um state funded program allowing additional um preschool enrollments. Um we participated in a lot of staff development as um was mentioned. I will talk about our home run leadership but we also had character strong the PLC at work. The Montana Institute impact leadership and playworks were some of the um organizations that was brought into community ed in a variety of ways. We had our first youth day on the hill providing um civic engagement opportunities for students which was really successful. um brought in a coordinator to support our oral healthy youth and the coalition development. Um our circle of friends, which is our adults with disabilities program, has had its highest um consistent enrollment for all of our um events throughout the year. And so we're really excited about the sustained growth and and involvement that we're having there. Um our coalition, so the the green shirts that everyone is hearing about is we launched the 988 campaign. And so um today being 98 and being that um September is suicide awareness month, we were wanting to show our support for the 988 crisis line. So on the back of the shirts um it has the the information about the 988 crisis line and just really trying to get that awareness out in the community. Additionally, there are green signs that you'll see around the community in the parking lots and on buildings to provide that information um letting people know of how they can access support and help in a crisis situation. Um, additionally, we had our first ever senior retreat put on by the coalition last spring um providing um life skills breakout sessions as well as um some really amazing keynote speakers for seniors as they ended their their um high school career. And then overall the progress that we saw in the summer, we just have had so many um amazing stories and success stories from from students that that was when I asked the team what was some of their highlights, there was so many that came in about individual students. just overall seeing the the progress that they're making. So, if we pivot into our summer success, um you know, Dr. Flesher had mentioned some of our enrollments. So, we did we exceeded last year's um enrollments. So, we had over 7,600 enrollments. We offered 569 courses, 519 went, which meant we had an average of 47 camps a week or 11 11 weeks with an average of 47 camps a week. Um we offer targeted services again and we had 143 students participate in targeted services programming this summer. Um across those 7,600 enrollments it was about 2 um 59 actual individual students. So students were taking it multiple multiple times. Um we had 34 students in Camp Emoji. We offered four um four camps. We had a regular Camp Emoji, a Camp Emoji 2.0 know, which is kind of like the next step if you already took Camp Emoji, a road to kindergarten for incoming kindergarteners, and a road to middle school for um those going into middle. Uh we had 17 students in our Pathways program, 172 and Spartan Kids, PreK5, which was our highest number yet to date in summer, and 44 um children at the Discovery Center, including our new infants. And this wouldn't be possible without amazing staff. It takes a lot of staff to provide support for all of that. So, um, you can kind of see here the breakdown of of how our staff were, um, how how they were the makeup of our staff. I would like to just call out that we had three staff dedicated to on student support. Um, especially around providing behavior support for students and just being that extra person for them. Um, which is really amazing. And then additional three, you focus on wraparound. Um, so helping with transportation, helping with lunches, different things like that, which really helped our program run smoothly and seamless for the students and uh most mostly I also would love to call out the 27 high school and college age um assistance and just something that we continue to pride ourselves on in Orno Community Education is being a first place of work for um for students. We get to be that first step and have it in a safe place where they are comfortable. we can provide um feedback in a safe way and really get them on that um right path for a good positive work ethic. >> So, oh, it's really hard to see on here. I >> you being willing to share the deck with us after >> 100%. I was trying to go through and and weed out some um notes from participants and testimonials and then I thought I'll just throw them all on here and you guys can read them. Um, so happy to happy to share share them out, but just a lot of love from the community. Um, really really fortunate and and it's just wonderful to hear. We always love to hear from the community on um what what's working for you and and opportunities that we can better support you. But there was a lot of just extremely positive feedback this summer. So, if we pivot over to early learning, we um offered quite a variety of early learning camps at the discovery center. We also did ECF in the backyard and ECF on location, which our ECF on location is um in the local parks. So, we try to have remove any barriers of transportation and just be out in the community more. So we have our parent educator and our ECF year learning specialist go out and teacher go out into the community and just take ECF into the park and you can kind of do it anywhere. Um so we had four events. Um two of them were out in the park, two of them had to be in the DC gym because we had rain or air quality issues this summer. I'm not sure if you guys remember those fun days. Um so that you know we wanted to of course keep everyone safe. But the positive thing is a lot of people still came to the discovery center and got the got the memo and we heard a lot from parents of it's just great to be able to get out and do something and connect with people. So um really fun to do that and already said kindergarten u I know Miss Wanderer gave the gave the the precursor but we are super excited to say that we had 120 current kindergarteners in our Ready Set K program which is 62% of our currently enrolled kindergarteners. Um so this program just continues to grow. But we're so incredibly proud of it. It really provides an amazing opportunity to have our incoming kindergarten class be comfortable. Um, get to be in the classrooms that they're going to be in. Get to walk the hallways, see the lockers that they might potentially have, go on a bus ride. They all, you can see them. That's a picture of them getting out on the bus. That was my favorite day. I was watching them from my window like seeing them all line up and go get on and off the bus. Um, and you know, practice their lunch numbers and just really feel ready for when they come on that first day. And so we got extremely positive feedback from parents there too. I think it made it a little bit easier on parents too. You know, kind of take took away some of that concern of what it's going to look like. So we were able to help support that as well. So our academic learning um as I mentioned we offered our targeted services. Um again this this summer we had 143 students attend and we had 99 classes offered and an average of 88% of um average attendance. So, they not only were signed up to come, but most most of the time they came, which was great. Um, I think, you know, one of the um comments that on the testimonial was that they they they appreciated it not feeling like so much like school and that it was fun and they wanted to come and they're learning in a way that's different and not and not as traditional as a school day, which is really what targeted services is supposed to be. It's not only about academic, but we're going to focus on social emotional skills and organizational skills and really help them be successful so when they do come back into the classroom, um they're feeling more confident. We also really focus on exper um experiential learning and really bringing either on-site or going off-site on field trips. Um especially for students that maybe don't have those opportunities. We know um you know the research shows that being able to experience some of those things really helps your learning if you can say that you've been to the zoo or you can say that you've seen some of these things. So we try to provide a variety of those opportunities as you can see here. Um so had a lot of fun fun with that this summer and our high school. So we um were happy to continue our tech buddies program. We've done this the last couple summers in partnership with the tech department. We had five students participate and they provide project and staff support. So they do project work for the tech department as they're transitioning different things throughout the summer. Um and then there are tech support when we have different teachers here every week that are trying to log in and get everything figured out and we know that that can really be a hold up. So having someone on call to be able to come down and get things plugged in appropriately and it's a really wonderful learning opportunity for high school students as well to help navigate that. um our pathways to success um program. We had 17 high school students participate and this is um really designed to help students explore education and options beyond high school. Um so you can see here the list of different activities that they did. One of the um favorites I would I would say was they went to Paisley Park and for and got to explore those that were interested in music. And so you can see the piano there and it was just a really amazing opportunity for for our students. And then we continued our Spartan Strong um program which is our strength training program at the activity center. Um we had 75 students participate and um had really great feedback from that program as well and adult learning. So as we were kind of growing, we're just continuing to to go up and up. Um you can see some of our new classes here. The picture is from our most popular class which was the Detroit style pizza um class. So a lot of fun with that one. And you can see the enrollments have definitely increased. Um so that graph shows that we had um our primary areas of increase are fitness, recreation, cooking and special interest. And our fitness and recreation um we like over double. We had 34 people enrolled and 100 and in last summer and 127 this summer. Cooking um we had six enrollments and doubled that to 13. Special interest we had 13 enrollments and then that moved up to um 16. But overall in total we had 111 enrollments the summer before and 208 enrollments this past summer. So we were really starting to reach um our adults which is definitely been a focus for us. So it was great to see that happen. Our community outreach um we did our um Spartan Express and pop in and read at for four separate events at the Discovery Center. brought in different activities um from soccer stars to the arboritum's plant mobile creature feature and then we had our um retired our marine callahan our naturalist come and do a a presentation on nature-based um learning and then additionally you can see in the corner we are very proud to say that we were able to provide over 550 free lunches and snacks to students that needed the support throughout the summer we had quite the the uh assembly line going down um the those were our support staff that were helping make sure that happened and appreciation to um nutrition services to help make sure that we had the food ordered and we provide it in a way that gives options but still nutritional value so students can kind of pick what resonates with them and then we have bags that they just put it in they just can take it to lunch so it's a really great opportunity we had our first ever family color dash it was it was an amazing success so this was a new event for us. Um, we had over a 100 participant 100 participants come and you can see them all lined up there excited to to get going. We had different color stations that staff um kind of squeeze the powder and it would um go all over and it was of course um aligned to songs that had the color in the song. So, you know, we would be doing yellow and there was a song about yellow and blue and pink. So, it was it was a wonderful opportunity for connection. and we had high school um students there helping to support it and getting some volunteer hours there. We had local vendors and um yard games and sprinklers and it was just a really fun event in the summer. So, we're absolutely planning to do that again next year. So, as um Dr. Thresher had mentioned, we have spent a lot of time looking at um the direction that we want to go and really guiding our work. So we did this in the three kind of main areas helped f helped focus our direction. So one of them was the community needs assessment survey that was done by Morris Leatherman. Um I have a little bit of information happy to share more. We may um see if we can have a workshop on that um more specifically another at another point in time but happy to have any additional conversations with that. We had external consultation with Dr. David Webb um who is the author of home run leadership and the IRD training. Um, IROD is a framework in a decision-making process that can be applied to problem solving, innovation, conflict resolution. Um, we did a two-part training that kind of grounded the team in that framework and then we u used that framework to help apply our strategic plan which we will show I will show you here shortly. Um, and then we um, as I mentioned before, we had our summer marketing intern who really took all of this information and um, helped give us some direction that I will start to share now. So these are actually some suggestions from our amazing marketing intern. Um when looking at some of the data from the um community needs assessment survey. Uh the wonderful thing is that we have really exceptional program ratings. Um you can see that those those who possess enough program knowledge, meaning that they're aware of what community is, um gave a mean a uniquely high mean of 93.1% um of our overall. And in general, not only are the program evaluations consistently impressive, but the negative ratings negative ratings remained low from like a 2 to 13% range. So overall very positive. And this one is one of my favorites because our goal when we think of the um purpose of how we can support the district strategic direction is under that guise of connectedness and sense of community. And so one of the things that was asked about is um the value of sense of community for community members and the impact that community ed has on that sense of community. And if you look together 85% of the community and 87% of parents feel that community ed has a strong impact on that sense of community. Um so very very proud of that and of the work that we're doing to help bring that to to our community members. Um, so this is one of my favorite quotes of the summary that we received from the Morris Leatherman is that uh the Orno school district community education program remains one of the most effective programs in the metropolitan area. So um with that we know that there's always opportunities right when we were looking into this our district household reach is currently at 39% um which is down from when we did this survey back in 2019. However, the parent reach remains robust at 52%. And so, one of the things to call out with this is in two 2019, we didn't divide out household and parent. We did them all together. So, when we now that we're able to really look a little bit closer, we can see that our parent reach is still very strong, but those that aren't parents, we have an opportunity here. So, that's where we're going to be definitely um targeting a little bit and and trying to focus on that. Satisfaction is still high across um all which is wonderful. And so really it's just about that awareness especially as um our community might demographics might age or parents are aging or our community members are aging. So how are we ensuring that we're still connecting and and reaching um and getting information to community members at those different different demographic ages. The other suggestions from the survey was that we should experiment more with short-term programming requiring less multi-week commitment. people are busy and they don't necessarily have the time to do um longer things. So, that's one area that we'll be exploring. Um they also really emphasize the importance and the imperative that marketing be focused on um former or current users or people that use us love us. And so, we really should make sure that we're continuing to connect with them and share stories so we can um spread word of mouth. It's definitely a very common um way for people to get their information now. So the more that we can really support that um and then um the overall um support is just really really positive there. So one of the areas that we are looking at doing this is our engagement boost in digital and print. So our focus on reaching our community across multiple platforms. So, we want to we know that socials um reach some of our incoming families more so, but we don't have a big social presence and we don't really guide them to our socials as much as we should. So, that's an area that our marketing intern really said that we should be um putting that out there, making that a little bit more easy for our community to reach us that way. And then we know um one of the things that we heard is it's not just one way and not just one time. um you know to really reach people we have to do it multiple ways and multiple times. It's send an email and send a text message that you sent an email so everyone knows the different ways of um that that you're trying to reach out to them. So um the other positive um comment that we heard is that they aren't going other places. So if they aren't using us, the survey showed that they aren't going to other communities to get this, they just aren't doing it. So, it's more about how do we make sure they know that this is an option and the programs that we provide are opportunities for them to connect and we really need to focus on our website. So, we are looking at website optimization. Um, one of the biggest callouts that we realized is we have a registration website that is where you go strictly to register and then we have our website with all of our information on the district website. And so if you're going to our registration website, you're not getting any of the information about who we are and what we stand for. So that's a big area of opportunity and a kind of an aha for us of how do we connect the two so that people are getting the information and not just going to a registration site and only seeing programs. Um so that's going to be a major focus for us. >> And to be fair, um that is what most metro areas schools uh community eds do, right? Like it's the same system. >> Yes. >> Right. um very robust other ones. Um and so it's not because um it was uh bad planning that was the options that were most readily used around us and that's what was available. >> Correct. Yeah. >> Yep. And I think you know it it's a matter of getting connecting the dots for the information. You know I think one of the phrases that has come out of this from me is almost an information deficit of how are we getting the right information. There's a lot of information in community education and so how do we get the right information to the right people in the right way at the right time and so that's what we're going to be studying more this year and that leads us to our community education strategic plan. So this is based on the amazing strategic plan. I was so um grateful to be involved in it when we went through that as a district and this is really supporting the work of the district strategic plan. Um so it's not in place of it's just we know what the district's strategic plan is and how does community ed now support what is our strategic plan to ensure that we are meeting the goals that the district has. Um so you can see here our tagline is foster learning create connection inspire all. Um our mission is to support strengthen and connect our community by enriching lives through engaging inclusive lifelong learning opportunities that inspire and empower all community members. Um so we're really really proud of this. Um, we want to get this information out there. It's almost really helpful for our staff to be able to kind of give that 30 secondond elevator speech, too, of like, well, who are we? What do we do? What do we stand for? Um, we know we're a part of the district. We know what the district stands for, but what does this mean for community ed? So, now we have this that we can really share out there. And then we also developed our some team norms that our team is going to be using on how you're going to interact with us and what are our standards for when you're interacting with anyone from our team. So, looking ahead, these are the bags, by the way, that staff made when students would come and they would make their lunches. I just thought they were so cute. Um, so as as always, connectedness and community engagement is always going to be one of our top priorities. Sorry, this is a little small, too. Um, Art in the Park is our next one coming up on September 30th. So, I'm going to plug that right now. It's at Veterans Memorial Park in Maple Plane. Please come and check it out. It's always a good time. There's going to be baby goats this year. You know, we always have to have animals. We always have to bring people in with animals. Um so that should be a really a really fun time. There'll be music. There'll be food trucks, art projects. Um we always are grateful for the partnership with our art teachers here. Um they come out and do some really amazing art projects with students as well. Um our information sharing and awareness campaign as I excuse me had mentioned. So, we're going to do our website optimization, focus on our social media and print um increases, focus on storytelling, really celebrating the wins of what it is that we do. Um I'll get into that a little bit with our perception shift. Um and then really share out what our vision, mission, and values are. Excited about our work that we're doing at MTSS and Character Strong for Early Learning this year. Uh we're going to be looking at office space. We're kind of all over in community ed, and so just trying to find the best way that we can collaborate as a team is a is a priority for us. looking at some um alignment with branding, especially with early learning. We don't have as much of an alignment there as we would like to. So, that's going to be a focus area. Um our customer engagement, um really doubling down on those existing customers and making sure we're connecting with them. Our perception shift. So, we're very happy that we are still in a positive realm. We heard from Peter Leatherman when he was doing this is that common in the service industry and across multiple industries that the shift just kind of shifted back ever since co like everything that was excellent went to great, great went to good, good went to fair, fair went to poor. Um, we're still positive. People are still thinking we're really good. He said you have, you know, quite a few that still think you're great, but we have an opportunity to be able to get more from good to great. And one of the ways that they suggested doing that was really about storytelling and celebrating some of the wins. So, we're going to be focusing on that this year. Uh we have new u equipment at the activity center for activity center members that is already there. So, we're very excited. We listened to our members and got some additional equipment that they've been looking for. Additionally, we will be rolling out a new member management system. Um, so look for information that should be coming by the end of the month and that will allow for an app and just easy access for members and really um make it smooth for for membership. So that is exciting and um we are always looking for mentors and volunteers. So I'm just since I'm talking to the community, if you are interested in any of this amazing work, just reach out and we'd love to work with you. And then with that, I have to always share pictures. So, here's here's a little look of our summer. And any questions? >> Thank you. You're welcome. >> Yeah, I'll say I thank you. And I'm I'm curious. What is the new equipment? I I have a membership, but I I haven't been there. So, >> as I was saying it out loud, I was like, they're going to ask about the new um Okay, so there's another stairstepper. There's a um there is a I don't know if we got the row machine. I will get that information for you. I don't want to >> heard stairstepper. That's good. >> There's a new stairstepper trying to >> I know. Come on, Dub. >> A recumbent bike. >> That's what it's called. >> Yes, that's very important. >> It's something that I can never remember. >> Well, I I'll just say thank you both as a board member and as a parent in the community. I know that our kids enjoyed a lot of programming this summer. I don't Did your kids get into Camp Emoji this year, Todd? I didn't. >> I didn't push. >> Okay. A couple years ago, I beat him out on registration. He forgot. So, that was a Yeah, very important. >> Thank you. Any questions or you'll send us the deck? >> I will send you the deck. >> Perfect. >> Absolutely. >> I just had a comment the um the 27 high school and college age uh teachers in Had you said promoting being one of the first place people worked. My first uh job was being a a water safety uh aid uh at the the link back in the day when I was 14. So babies and jumps for that, but the first one I actually had to pay taxes on. So thank you for my first job. >> Absolutely. Yeah, it's important. >> Thank you. >> And I hope that you'll be promoting that in the new college and career center this spring when kids are starting to look >> absolutely >> for jobs. >> Yeah. >> So it' be great. >> Great idea. >> Yeah. It's a whole new resource I hadn't even thought about yet. >> So, thank you. I see 47 programs a week average. >> I just can't >> imagine very busy. Thank you very much. two quick uh the first I see a lot of the parents um as my kids are in the camps and I have never seen anybody or talked to anybody who doesn't just rave about what you guys do. So the the feel in the community from what I see is nothing but positive. Um and the kids too, they love coming here. So thank you. Um and then the other is you know we talk every year it keeps getting higher and higher and you have a plan to continue to figure out how to grow and capture more audience. So, I I just applaud you for the work that you and your team do. >> Yeah, the strategic work um is really remarkable and um I hope a lot of people in your team were involved with that because um I think that that is value val incredibly valuable and kudos on being willing to take that dive as a group. >> Thank you. >> Yeah. >> Yeah. Thank you for pointing that out. It was uh two full days of the whole team and lots of brain power. And so that was really exciting that we could come up with that collectively together and agree on a direction to go. So we're excited. >> Congratulations and thank you. >> Thank you. Did you have anything you wanted to add or you get? Okay. Um okay. Um next is any other new businesses necessary? Hearing none. Uh, I just want to point out the next regular meeting will be held on Monday, September 22nd, 2025 at 7 PM here in the district office assembly room. And with that, I would ask for a motion to adjurnn. >> So moved. >> Do I have a second? Second. All those in favor say I. >> I. Okay.