We will move on to the call to order. Next is our pledge of allegiance. And Gavin, would you please lead us, please? Consideration of the agenda. Are there any changes anybody would like to make? Okay. Next is the consent agenda. Approve the minutes from the regular board meeting held on October 27th, 2025. Approve personnel recommendations. Accept donations totaling $11,765.93. Approve vouchers and and payments including bill vouchers and items. Do I hear a motion to approve? >> So moved. >> Do I have a second? >> Second. >> Any discussion? Okay. Hearing none. All those I do not need the caval. All those in favor say I. >> I. Any opposed? Any abstaining? Great. Next up is the superintendent's report on excellence. >> Thank you, Madam Chair. Um, first we have just come from our annual recognition program for our advanced placement scholars of distinction, our national merit scholars and our AP capstone diploma recipients and candidates and also staff who have earned tenure in Orno schools. Um, we honored 50 students tonight for outstanding academic achievement and honored 18 educators for faculty tenure. It was just an amazing ceremony. I wanted to thank you, thank all the families of students and staff who celebrated with us. It was a great turnout. Um, these achievements demonstrate focus and dedication to excellence. We look forward to watching this graduating class, our amazing staff members uh lead the way in the coming months and years. And congratulations to all who were recognized for their exemplary efforts tonight. for upcoming events. Um, the community is invited to attend the annual Veterans Day program tomorrow morning beginning at 8:45 in the Orno High School gym. Guest speaker is Army Veteran and Orno School Board Vice Chair Todd Madson. And we believe it's important in Orno schools for our children and entire community to take time to honor our veterans. Their service has protected our freedoms, ensured our safety, and upheld the values that define our nation. We want to express our collective gratitude and strengthen the bond of respect and unity within our communities. So, please join us tomorrow. Tuck Everlasting also opens this week. Opening night is Friday, November 14th at 700 p.m. with performances throughout this weekend and next. I've got my tickets. Please get yours. Um, wanted to give you an update on We Scare Hunger. We had an overwhelming response of more than 3,100 pounds of food donated through the Whisker Hunger Food Drive that ended last week. Um, this is more than double than the amount we collected last year. Thanks to our community and to Orno High School Youth and Action Club for organizing the drive. The food was donated to Interfaith Outreach and Community Partners, We Can and the Spartan Closets. A special shout shout out to Owen Patrick who is a student at Orno Intermediate School. collected donations from his grandmother's condo and purchased more than 200 food items for the drive. Owen, thank you for your efforts as well as all of our other Spartans. On to our activities update. Um, specifically to athletics, congratulations to the Orno girls swim and dive team on claiming their third consecutive 3A championship over the weekend. Incredible results in another amazing season. And the following Spartans have earned a spot on the 2025 girls class A state swim and dive championships this week at the U of M Aquatic Center November 13 through the 15th. And this is a long list. We have for the 200 medley relay Audrey Crawford, Celia Howard, Sophie Berg, and Sophie Dyik for 200 free. Grayson Andrin, Lola Shatler and Anley Francis for 200. I am Sophie Berg for 100 fly. Grayson Andrin, Sophie Berg, and Alana Berg for 100 free. Audrey Crawford 500 free. Lola Shhatler 200 free. Relay, Sophie Dyik, Sil Celia Howard, Lola Shhatler, and Grayson Andreine. There's more. 100 back, Anley Francis. And 400 free relay, Audrey Crawford, Aninsley Francis, Lola Shhatler, and Grayson Andrin. It's just amazing. Uh Kristen and I were looking at the events and I think we were competing in almost every event at the state tournament for girls swim and dive. So congratulations to that team. Um and good luck uh this week. Also congratulations and good luck to Orno Spartan football. The Spartans defeated Fergus Falls last Thursday night 3614 um in Alexandria for the first round of the state tournament. football is now headed back to US Bank Stadium for the class um 4A state semifinals. Spartans play Marshall on Thursday at 10:30 a.m. Um and all best wishes to our Spartan football team. Boys cross country since our last bo board meeting. Congratulations to boys cross country on an outstanding third place finish at the 2025 class doubleA state championship on November 1st. um all state performances by Gabe Howland for second place and Cooper Munch for 13th place. And also congratulations to the girls cross country team who earned fifth place at state on November 1st. Um all of our girls congratulation on an impressive finish at the state championship meet and other amazing fall season for the Spartans. And um our winter sports season is now begun too. So, congratulations to girls hockey who defeated that's our first winter sports event was last um Friday night. Girls hockey defeated Clo Esco Carlton 8-1 in their season opener at Morrison Ice Arena. And that concludes my report for this evening. >> Thank you very much, Superintendent. Next are the [clears throat] board members questions and comments. Um Tim, would you mind giving us a policy update, please? >> Yes, thank you. Good evening, everyone. uh policy committee remains uh the most fun uh committee uh to be on. Uh no, largely going through a number of for those that don't know, we we go through policies some every year, some on a more rotating basis. It's a great example uh of how we're using AI. Thank you, Kristen. But we're looking at we have recommended policy language from MSBA. We have our current language and we go through and see where where we're going to match MSBA where we might need something to be a little different. Uh we have obviously 509 and 510 coming up tonight. Uh but it's again a fun thoughtful and deliberate process. >> Thank you. I'm going to switch to finance and then come back to you. >> Todd, would you mind doing the finance? >> Absolutely. All right. I'll keep it high level because we do have our presenters tonight. Um but two things to talk about. The first is we're going to hear tonight on uh the final issued report for our audit. Uh the short of it is that it was clean, unmodified opinion with no findings. So congratulations to the the finance team, the business management uh management team. The other is uh just along the fiscal stewardship of the district and the position that they've put us in. So we are in a very good position. I should have led with that. That sounded like like a negative foreshadow. [laughter] Uh we're in a very strong position in the in the near future. A lot of our uh debt servicing falls off. um which is good because we have some really large projects that we have to pick up as well. An example would be roofs and we've been talking about this for a number of years. Um but the point is we're in a good position. We have a lot of ability to pick up these projects without um being um encumbered by other fiscal response uh u material items that we'd have to deal with. So those are the two things I wanted to cover. Not very succinct, but there you go. >> You're good. You're good. Thank you. Uh Tim, back to you for any other updates. >> Uh simply to say that negotiations are ongoing and we continue to work collaboratively uh with our with our teachers on that. >> Wonderful. Thank you for doing that. And Todd, back to you. >> Anything else? >> Anything else? Yes. Uh I do I and uh forgive me uh but these are important and I wanted to uh speak on three things that for the Orno Foundation. I wanted to talk uh about the character counts week for October 19th through the 25th was celebrated by that team. Uh the character education is 100% funded by private donations in our community. OF and the district are grateful for the community's commitment and the contributions that help foster connectedness and character for our students and our teachers. The other is the new school year sponsorship program is off to a great start. Our community has already surpassed the foundation sponsorship goal for this year with many sponsors being local families and family businesses. There uh will be a banner going on uh going up in the corner of Old Crystal Bay and Wesa Boulevard in the next few weeks to thank the platinum and gold sponsors and all sponsors and more information can be found on the OF website. And the last is that there are big changes coming up for the OF annual fundraiser. The Spartan Suare aka the red and blue bash uh will be held on Friday, May 1st at the Weisetta Country Club. This more casual and social event promises to be a night participants will walk away from feeling good about their connection and commitment to our owner schools community which is a bit of a departure from the uh the longstanding that we've done at the Lafayette Club. So those are the three announcements. >> Thank you so much. Um Wendy, um the only thing I have to report on is I went to AMSD on Friday and heard from um a few of our a few local legislators um and government relations advocates from AMSD talking about priorities, money or lack thereof, but um also tips on how to talk to legislators and advocate for our districts. Um, so I look forward to bringing that to or no action at our next meeting. That concludes my report. Wonderful. Thank you, Wendy. Gavin, >> I have nothing. >> I don't either. So, now we'll move on. Um, next is old business. Any old business? Perfect. Next is new business. The first is the foreshadowed audit report. Dr. Dr. Superintendent. >> Thank you, Madam Chair. I invite um Mr. Bill Lowour and Mr. Nick Tainter. Nick is our director of business services and Bill Lauer principal from LB Carlson previously MMKR our financial auditor to the board table for presentation. I thank this all the staff at LB Carlson an independent audit firm for their diligence and compliance issues government reporting and accountability of public dollars. We are grateful for your partnership um with all of the constant change in um the regulations. I know that this is always an intense undertaking. I also want to thank Mr. Tainter and and also especially Miss Rachel McQuiston, our controller. Um she does a ton of heavy lifting when it comes to the audit and controlling um for financial regulations all throughout the year. [snorts] Um they have worked very hard with LB Carlson's staff on the audit. Um with both exemplary and ethical work, our community can have high confidence in Orno school's financial staff and in our financial position. I turn it over to Mr. Tainter and Mr. hour. Thank you. >> All right. Good evening, esteemed board and uh I'm sorry. I will start with um board chair borchers and the esteemed board members and Dr. Flesher. Thank you for having us tonight. We are here to present the issued financial and audit reports um to you all. There be there should be three reports in front of you and you'll notice one is a very thicker book that is the audit the actual audit report. Then we have a special purpose report and then a management report. The management report will give you a highle review and I'm sure Mr. Lowour here will also kind of explain to you what the reports are. So with further ado I will um let uh Mr. Lowour uh present the audit to to you all. Um I just real quick I do want to thank um Rachel McQuiston our controller and all and and the support staff that we have in our office to ensure that we have a complete and accurate audit um each year. Um it's very well taken care of. Um it's a lot of work. Um more and more Gazsby pronouncements, Mr. Law and I were just talking about this earlier. More and more Gazsby pronouncements um continue to to increase the workload of all everyone um that's in in uh in in consideration of of preparing the audit uh and uh with no small feats we were able to get it done um with our goal of of tonight. So with further without further ado I'll pass it over to Mr. Lowour. >> Thank you very much. Good evening board chair, superintendent, members of the board. Thank you for your time this evening. Um as Nick mentioned, what I'm going to do is kind of go through our management report, which is kind of our executive summary and give you the results of the audit. Um, the first thing I always have to do is make sure that you as a board that oversees the district's financial reporting understand what our role is as the auditor and what our what responsibility your uh management takes as far as the annual comprehensive financial report that we're reporting on this evening. All of the data, the disclosures, numbers that go into making this up uh is the responsibility of district management. um we come out and audit that provide an opinion as to whether the financial statements fairly present the district's financial position at the end of the year the results for the year under audit. Um in addition to that um because you're uh reporting under government accounting standards uh you'll find a separately issued report on internal controls and compliance over that financial reporting process and you are also subject to an audit of your compliance with Minnesota state laws and regulations. There's a audit guide. The state auditor's office puts out updates every year that we have to audit to for all school districts and charter schools. And you'll find a separate report for that. Um, normally at this time, part of what I'm talking about is your single audit. Um, you earned over $750,000 in federal awards. Uh, again this year, when you reach that threshold, you're subject to a single audit of those federal awards expenditures. Um there's a separate uh schedule of those expenditures that gets issued opinion on that and an internal control and compliance letter on that as well. Unfortunately because of some uh government uh delays here we are unable to issue that at this time. Um part of the guidance for what we have to do for this audit um is referred to as the compliance supplement. uh uniform guidance is is kind of the broad overview of the rules that uh we have to audit by. Um but the compliance supplement is something that all of the federal grantors kind of have their uh say as far as what they consider to be crucial for their program in a given year. Um that gets updated annually and that's part of the guidance that has to uh go into what we do for our audit. That compliance supplement was issued in draft form back in August and still has not been issued in final form. Um there's a lot of kind a lot of chaos at the at the federal level as far as what's holding that up. I'm not entirely sure if there is um agency approval yet on some of it or if it was just a logistical thing that they weren't able to get it out before the shutdown, but we're not allowed to issue that single audit until that is out in final format because it's part of our audit rules. So um that will be issued separately uh at a later date. The department of education was aware of this. They have extended the deadline. Uh usually that has to be in by December 31st along with your audit report. Um but they have extended the deadline to coincide with the federal deadline of March 31st. So hopefully everything should be issued and and out by then for everybody. Uh as far as the audit results, um there was some foreshadowing here. Uh things went very well. It was a very uh it was a good audit. Your records were in excellent condition. Things went efficiently. Um once again, we were able to give the district an unmodified opinion on your basic financial statements. Uh we had no uh nothing to report as far as any internal control or compliance issues um with your financial reporting process. Uh and again, a little more foreshadowing. Once again, this year there was a change. Um I think probably four or five of the last six years. Um the governmental accounting standards board has um come out with changes to your financial statements. Uh the last couple years it's had to do with accounting for capital assets. This year it's kind of the other side of the balance sheet. Um they came out with new guidance on reporting compensated absences. Um kind of the big change here is um the different types of compensated absences. you you have vacation, PTO, sick leave, all those things. Um most of them are pretty uniformly accounted for and reported other than sick leave under the old guidance. There was kind of a difference in how you acrewed that. It was um only acrewed if it was going to be paid out as a termination benefit and not if it was going to be used as sick leave. And now this new guidance requires you to consider a potential liability for either use. um that implementation of that new guidance um changed your beginning net position by about $1.3 million for reporting that liability. Should clarify that's not touching your fund statements at all. It's only being reported in your entitywide financial statements is a long-term liability. Um but it is on the very first presentation in your statement, the entity wide statements. You will see that change in accounting principle and that larger liability this year. Uh, as far as your Minnesota legal compliance audit, uh, also very clean, no findings to report this year. Um, part of what we do is follow up on any findings or recommendations from the prior year. You did have, uh, one finding in 2024 for Minnesota legal compliance. Um, and this had to do, um, with contracts and bidding. Uh the district had released final payment on one contract we tested in 2024 prior to obtaining the withholding affidavit from the primary contractor. Basically their promise that they had complied with all the um withholdings for them and their subcontractors. Uh we tested that again in 2025 and had no findings. Uh from a report standpoint, that's the opinions and uh report letters we issued. Before I move along to some of the financial informations, questions on anything that I've covered so far. Okay, seeing none, then I'll move along to just a few of the highle financial results uh for the year. I'm sure you've already seen these numbers, but um just to briefly touch on the district's general fund, your primary operating fund. This graph shows a 10-year history of your financial position in terms of your year-end cash cash and investment balance and your year-end unrestricted fund balance levels. Uh the green bar on there is your annual expenditures just to give you some size or understanding of the size of your operation. So you can see for 2025 you spent almost $50 million in your general fund. Uh at the end of the year, you had just over $10 million in cash and investments and a total fund balance of about $4.9 million. Uh your fund balance went up $33,000, very close to your budget. You'd projected an increase of $64,000. Um that fund balance is reported in various components. Um this kind of shows a breakout of those different components over the last five years. Um the first component you see there is non-spendable fund balances. This is mainly prepaid expenditures and inventory. Um it's no longer cash. You can't spend it for something else, but it's still of use and will be of benefit to you in the next year. Um restricted fund balances are primarily your state fun statemandated uh fund balance reserves. um you have a lot of um pieces of your funding that are required to be spent in certain ways and you have to report any uh remainder of those in a restricted fund balance. Of that $ 1.5 million about $880,000 of that um is in restricted for student activities and scholarships. Um these are your student clubs and things that are fundraised and you also have a small scholarship fund. Uh really you can't use those for general uh general fund general expenditures. They're pretty uh pretty restricted. Um you do have about another 515,000 roughly that's restricted for capital purposes either operating capital, long-term financial uh sorry um long-term maintenance. Uh and also you do have uh a deficit of about 260,000 in your capital project levy account. you can spend that uh ahead as long as you have levy authority to make that up. So that we've moved that up to that line for this purpose. Uh assigned fund balances are things that you have internally earmarked for various purposes. You've got about $450,000 in uh those fund balances. Uh the biggest piece of that is about $175,000 for retirement benefits. You've also got $120,000 roughly for curriculum. uh 120,000 for your wellness program and about $40,000 for athletic program carryovers. Then that last piece, unassigned fund balance, uh you can spend for any purpose. There's no internal or external earmarks on that. It's about $2.35 million at the end of the year. Um those last two buckets of fund balance, the assigned and unassigned are things that you control locally. So, we take a look at that in terms of what that represents as a percentage of your annual expenditures. Um, that was about 5.7% pretty close to last year went down from 6% to 5.7%. Um, your district has a policy that that last line, the unassigned fund balance, um, is uh is supposed to be 5% of your annual expenditures. Um the $2.35 million at the end of the year represented about 4.7% of your 2026 uh budgeted expenditures. So you're just under that 5% level. One of the main things that drives the amount of funding you receive each year is the number of students that you serve. Uh for the 2025 fiscal year, um you served 2,924 average daily membership. That's kind of the the raw number of students that you had. Uh when all the waitings are applied for the different grade levels, that converted to about uh 3,205 pupil units. That's what goes into your general education aid formula and several other formulas. Um your student population was pretty flat. In 2025, you were about six pupil units above the year before. Um, compared to the last few years, you had increases of about 1% in 2023, about one and a half percent in 2024, and then this was just a fraction of a percent of an increase in 2025. General fund revenues for the year were about 48.7 million. That was $766,000 over your final budget. Um your property taxes were about 270,000 higher than budget mainly in uh some of the uh operating uh operating capital levies. Uh there's some adjustments there that came through. Um your state aids were about 235,000 higher than budget. That was mainly in state special state special education aid. And then there were some new uh literary uh or sorry literacy grants uh that came through in 2025. and you hadn't budgeted for those and you didn't amend for them. Um the other local revenues which include investment income, donations, fees, admissions, um you were about $440,000 over budget there. And that's pretty common for you. You budget very conservatively for those very hard to project revenues. And the one area where you were under budget was in federal sources. You're about 180,000 below budget there. Uh that's mainly due to the sun setting of some of these pandemic grants that you've been spending for several years. You were kind of down to the last pieces of those. Um revenue was up about 1.2 million uh from the year before and almost all of that increase was in the state aids. On the expenditure side, you spent uh right around $49 million for the year. You were about $1.2 million over budget. Um that's a little misleading of that 1.2 million almost 400,000 had to do with leasing. Uh anytime you acquire an asset through a lease you gross up your expenditures but you also report an equal and offsetting other financing source. So uh roughly a third of that variance is due to that the way that gets um recorded. uh your um other areas where you spent over budget, salaries and benefits uh mostly related to those new liter literacy grants uh and training for the literacy grants. Uh the revenue from the new grants and the uh resulting expenditures weren't budgeted on either side. So you were a little over budget there. Um kind of one of the big ones was uh timing of projects. You had some indoor air quality improvements. Uh so you see some overspending in the capital area. That was one of the big things there. uh utility costs were over budget as well. Um your expenditures did go up by about 2.7 million. Uh the bulk of that, as you would expect from from the graph there, uh is salaries and benefits. That's kind of where most of your money gets spent. About 87% of that increase uh was in those two categories. Briefly, I'll just um touch on some of the other uh funds that the district maintains. Um, these two graphs show your two other operating funds, your food service special revenue fund and your community service special revenue fund. Uh, the food service fund ended the year with a fund balance of about 1.1 million. Uh, you've still got a very large fund balance in that compared to the size of your program. You've got about 47% of your annual expenditures in your ending fund balance. Um, that was basically the same as last year. You're up about 13,000 from the previous year. uh about 126,000 better than projected in your budget. Just to give you some idea of the size, uh your general fund was just under $50 million. In this fund, you take in and spend about $2.4 million for your child nutrition program. Um the community service program uh fund, excuse me, uh ended the year with fund balance of about $1.4 million. Uh that was down about 90,000 from the year before, about 244,000 lower than budget. Still very healthy. You've got about 32% of your annual expenditures uh in your ending fund balance in this fund. Um this fund took in and spent just over $4 million uh in 2025. Um most of the reason that your uh your fund balance went down more than budget was because you're over budget personnel costs and purchase services. Uh that's a trend we're seeing of a lot of our districts keeping these programs uh running, especially when you're seeing increased participation uh keeping the people that you need to run those programs. We're seeing a lot of of higher personnel costs and purchase services to fill in when you don't have aren't able to hire enough people for the program expansions. Um couple other funds I'll mention briefly that kind of um run themselves a little more. You have a a capital project fund which you use to account for your larger uh capital improvement projects. You spent about um $3.6 million on projects during the year. Uh you issued just under $5 million in new facilities maintenance bonds. Um so you've got uh about 5.1 million in fund balance at the end of the year uh to finish those projects. Um, you also have a debt service fund. Uh, this kind of collects the tax levies and pays off your bonded debt. Uh, you've got about 1.45 million in fund balance in that fund. In the current year, you paid just under $8 million of outstanding debt down. Um, couple other things that uh are somewhat unique. You've got two internal service funds um where you self-insure for medical and dental insurance. You basically pay premiums over from your governmental funds and finance the claims yourself. At the end of the year, you had about $ three and a half million dollars in that position in these funds. Um, pretty flat compared to last year. You were down about $60,000. Um, you did see an increase in your medical claims though. Those were up about $870,000 compared to the year before. Um, and then you also have an OPED trust uh for your other post-employment benefits. issued bonds uh quite some time ago uh to help finance that long-term benefit liability for your employees. Uh you still have just under $3 million in assets in that trust fund. You were able to draw about 370,000 in 2025 to help finance uh some of those retirement benefits. Um your OPED liability that relates to this is uh estimated at just over $7 million in your most recent actuarial study. And then the final table that I'll draw your attention to. Um, so this is a very very condensed version of your district-wide statement and position. As I mentioned before, uh, this your entity wide statements are the very first presentation in your total financial statement uh, package here. This is where we take all the fund information we just discussed and put it into a single presentation, convert it to full acrruel. So, we're bringing in all the long-term capital assets, outstanding bonds, um long-term employee benefits that aren't reported in those funds. So, it gives you more of a long-term perspective as far as your financial position and how that changed from year to year. Uh at the end of the year, you had about $6.6 million in total net position. That improved uh about $3.8 8 million uh compared to last year, but you should remember that actually does include a $1.3 million decrease to the beginning balance because of the uh implementation of of Gatsby statement 101. So during the year, you actually improved by $5.2 million. It's just netted because of that change in accounting. Uh most of that change uh was in your net investment in capital assets. um your debt repayment has been ahead of um the depreciation on some of those assets and also some of them you're buying capital assets with a tax levy or something where you don't have to issue debt for it then that drives that relationship up. So that was everything I typically cover. Threw a lot of numbers at you questions on anything. I just want to note for anybody who's watching the you did a great job talking about the various um ser those various funds the community service food service etc. and that we as a board and any board of a public school can't use those funds willy-nilly towards say the general fund. And so they're very you you talked about them separately which is appropriate because they are separate and they are um restricted uh for those usage. Uh so thank you for for being so clear in that segmentation. >> I I actually just had one question that I couldn't quite capture. Uh, did you say we had an increase in medical expenses of 870,000 year-over-year? Is that I hear that correctly or? >> Uh, yes. That was the the claims. So, when you're when you're self-insuring, you're not paying premiums, you're paying actual claims. So, there's a lot more variance when you're self-insuring than there would be if you were just insuring. Um, so your medical claims can fluctuate quite a bit depending on if you have, you know, several catastrophic claims. >> Yeah. Um you still your your total for the dental and medical um you I think it went down $60,000 remembering. Yeah. So your your fund really didn't suffer too much. You had the premiums you were putting over there um were enough to cover that. >> Okay. >> Thank you. Any other questions or >> um not being a finance wiz, I appreciate the summary and um and just the clarity of I was looking through the 100 plus pages that we were emailed on Friday. I looked through it all and um it's very clear. So I feel like anybody can kind of pick up and understand if you read it um what it's saying. So, thank you. >> Good to know somebody's reading it. >> How long How long have you been >> just >> Bill? How long have you been working with Orno schools? Because it's I mean you have a long history with us. >> Um yes, I've probably I'm trying to think when Kim Malloy retired. This was actually when we were Moy Monu. Um, this was one of Ken's clients and I took it over when he retired and that had to be 15 years ago. >> Okay. Because I've only ever known you. >> So, um, really great job and I I don't Any other questions? I don't mean to cut people off, but thank you because it's very well done and great job to Nick and his his team. And um I'm just looking at our agenda item and I understand um that we need to this does have an action where we need to say the recommendation and then we need to vote on it. >> Is that the appropriate next step? >> Yeah. But you want to accept >> accept. >> Um I don't mean to jump the gun. Is there anything else prior? Okay. Um so the recommendation on page 10 of our of our um agenda is to accept the 202425 audit and annual comp comprehensive financial report and related reports as presented by LB Carlson. Um do I have a motion to accept? >> So moved. >> Uh do I have a second? >> Second. >> Any discussion? Okay. All those in favor say I. >> Any opposed? Any abstaining? Great. Thank you so much. >> Thank you >> for your continued work with us. We really appreciate it. >> Thank you. >> Next on the agenda is the policy review. Dr. Flesher, I'll hand it back to you. >> Oh, I'm sorry. Maybe I'm Oh, you're right. I skipped over. I apologize. Elementary literacy. I apparently need some training. Um, elementary literacy curriculum implementation. Still back to Dr. Fleshman. >> Okay. Thank you, Madam Chair. Um, I welcome to the board table Miss Beth Pearson, our district literacy coordinator. Cindy Verville, second grade Schuman, elementary teacher, and Lindseay Nelson, third grade elementary teacher from Orno Intermediate School for a presentation on our new elementary curriculum implementation. We're very excited that they are here to share their experiences and learnings with our new K5 arts and letters curriculum and a little bit on our K2 UFly that's been implemented at kindergarten. We are fresh off of a professional day last Friday focused on deepening understanding of the routines and structures of arts and letters. Frankly, it was a moment to breathe and reflect on the first fall module and uh do a little planning for the second. As we get started, I want to just several mention several important messages of gratitude. Um, first to the Orno Foundation who assisted in the purchase purchase of these incredible texts and all of the geodess. Thank you. Thank you to the PTO also for supporting classroom magnet and whiteboards for kindergarten. Also, thank you. Um, your generosity and support mean the world to our staff and we are better for our children because of you. Second to Beth to Beth and our literacy leadership team and our teachers here. We are very grateful for your incredible work. Uh we get to see the effort every day it's taking to learn the new methods of teaching, writing and speaking to our children and it's a heavy lift. Um but it's also really critical. So thank you for your lead leadership, your enthusiasm and your efforts. It's been very good to hear the early wins um the teacher reports of enhanced learning while we work through the implementation. And la last thank you to Cindy, to Lindsay, and to Beth for being here tonight to share your reflections. You are exemp exemplary teachers and leaders in this work and and all you do. So I turn it over to Beth Pearson to start. >> Good evening, chair, board chairs, Dr. Flesher, and members of the board. We're very excited to be here tonight to share some the overview of um the implementation update and how excited we are about the things that we're seeing happen in our elementary classrooms. Last we were here, we were making these decisions and talking about our implementation plan. So now we're living that plan and we're happy to be here to share that with you. So um I'm starting gratitude as well. So, thank you to the board, to the foundation, to the PTO, as Christie, sorry, Dr. Flesher said, um that we wouldn't be here without all of that support. We're grateful that we were able to, as we talked about, we wanted to get all of the supplemental things that that we hoped for for our students, and here we are to share the exciting things that are happening. So, um, you see here on this slide photos that I've taken around the school of the learning that's happening in just the first couple of months of school. So, you see things here that these teachers will be talking about in a few moments, but you see art, you see reflections of um things from texts that students have read, and um we're really really excited to see things like this in both of our schools. I also want to share gratitude to our leaders for prioritizing this implementation and making it the highest priority in both of our schools right now. It's really important that we're doing that and also the prioritizing the professional development that Friday was a really good day. It was a welltimed day and we're grateful for that time to reflect. And then finally the teachers because this has not been without challenge. Every day is a new day for them and that doesn't always feel great because you don't feel real competent always but they are digging in doing the hard work and we are reaping the benefits. So grateful to all the teachers and their willingness to dig in, to collaborate, and to do the things that are important. So we'll start with um very briefly an update about Youth Life Foundations, but we'll spend the bulk of our time sharing with you what's happening with arts and letters. This, I will refresh your memory, um, is our foundational skills program that we are implementing in kindergarten only this year and will follow with first and second grade next year. So, um, again, we're going to we're going to bring you into these classrooms because there's no better way for you to experience what is happening than to see it yourselves. So, you may remember that one of the things that we were excited about when we talked with you about this program in the spring was the active engagement that we knew would be happening for students. And here you see it playing out. Those magnet letters and boards were funded by our elementary PTO and they're using those consistently in the classroom. um all the multiensory activities that we know are good for students as they're building their foundational skills are present in this program. So, it's very exciting to see um the kindergarten team engaged in, you know, this is speaking of heavy lifts, they're implementing both of these things. So um it it's a lot but in addition to the um professional development we've had with arts and letters they have also engaged in professional development on this resource as well. So we did spend time during workshop week. Um we're using training videos from the University of Florida. We didn't have enough people with only one team to get them here. So their recommended approach was the videos that they supply which has been fine. Um we have done two of those so far. We have ongoing collaboration in PLC's. We focused on the just getting them started in August and then layered on the progress monitoring piece in September. And then some next steps we have the next step for professional development for that team will be differentiation and small groupoup instruction utilizing that progress monitoring information. We'll continue to collaborate um in PLC's and then we'll plan to gather some more um formal feedback and review student data as we enter the winter. And we'll spend most of our talking about arts and letters and geodess. Arts and letters is the core curriculum component that is as a reminder the knowledge building curricular resource that integrates reading, writing, speaking and listening. And the geodess are the supplemental small group texts that are decodable texts that were funded by the oro foundation. So we'll talk a little bit about both of those pieces. So, um, this happened, um, in August. We showed up and there were 12 or so 12ish highly stacked pallets of the most phenomenal books. super exciting to see the books and you'll get to hear more about them. But box after box was just the teacher. We had some teacher leaders, our ILT team members come and help. Um along with Aaron and I were there and Christy was chipping in when she could. The principles were there and every box that we took book books out of we just oh look at this one and look at this one and look at the award that this one has. They have a well curated collection of texts that we are reaping the benefits of super exciting. So we spent the summer in strategic planning. So after we were last together, we started to dig in um as a leadership team and then as a partner with Great Minds, the company that publishes this curriculum. And we had no idea what we were in for there, all in positive ways. We were selected, we were told over the summer that we were selected as one of a few districts to be in their customer success program at no cost because they're piloting this new packaged program. Um, and I'll sprinkle throughout the things that we've benefited because of that which have been really helpful for all of us along the way. Can't say enough good things. Um we did a lot of strategic planning with our leadership team um the partnership with great minds and then we were able to bring in the ILTS from both buildings to do a PD session titled lead that kind of set us up for what we were moving into. Again layered professional development that you don't always get with companies like this. And then on the 15th of August is when we started opening those boxes because we wanted everything to be in classrooms for teachers as they arrived for workshop week. So our our fall professional development workshop week it was titled launch for the K5 teachers and leaders were involved in that as well. This um October 23rd implementation health walkth through for leaders was one of the things that we were gifted because we were chosen to be in this customer success program. It was a phenomenal day. Our success lead from great minds was here. We spent 15 minutes in eight different classrooms all across K5. And the intention was to gather data about how implementation is going. That then informed what happened last Friday. Again, this doesn't happen with these companies that they tailor the professional development to the needs that they observed when they walked through classrooms in these schools. So there was a direct correlation between those findings um during the walkthroughs and what they planned for us for the professional development day on Friday. That day was phenomenal. It was just what we needed at the exact right time. Our facilitator was topnotch. Can't say enough good things. Um every teacher that I've talked to said that is just what I needed. So, we feel really grateful about our partnership with Great Minds. It is a little bit unexpected to be honest because it's just not the typical experience with a company that publishes curricular resources. And then I would just add that through all of this, of course, we're connecting the learning from last year with OLA and the science of reading. And those connections are just really logical because they're embedded in the resources. So we can easily apply it and see it play out in the lessons. With that, we'll get to what's really important, which is what's happening in the classroom. So um oh, one more thing. Just kidding. Um this is really important as well because um we we're working on implementation and learning about implementation science in the district. So we're we're being really thoughtful and intentional about feedback loops that we have in place and how we are filtering feedback through leadership teams to ILTS PLC's and then back so that we we're knowing how people are feeling about how it's going and we're responding in the moment. We have things like feedback forms that we're using for just ease of access to information. Um, this this structure has been incredibly helpful as we have progressed through a really challenging couple of months and implementation. Um, this large literacy as the bulk of what we do in the elementary grades is a lot for everybody in the organization to take on. I'm gonna quickly talk about next steps because I don't want to follow them [laughter] because no one will be able to. So, um truly it we've got coming up um some more great opportunities with great minds. They're coming back to do what's called guided observations for leaders which that will be a more indepth visit into the classrooms where we'll be observing an entire lesson and they'll help a small group of leaders with coaching and how to engage in conversation with teachers which I'm really excited about. Our um January professional development for teachers will be meeting student needs which is again you can see launch to teach to meeting student needs is a very deliberate progression. Just giving teachers the information that they can absorb at that point in time as they gain more experience with the curriculum. It's really well designed. Um, and we will also um gather more formal feedback as we move into the winter. Now, with that said, I'm gonna turn it over to Cindy Verville, second grade teacher, to talk a little bit about the exciting things happening in her classroom. >> Yes. Thank you. Thank you, Dr. Flesher and board for having us tonight. Um, I've been around a long time. Um, and I have never experienced a curriculum like this and I have never experienced a training like this. Um, I've been through several of their trainers uh through this program and it has been phenomenal. Um, what I'm seeing my students do has kind of blown my mind. Um, [laughter] yeah, [snorts] that's um, and to be honest, this summer when we were able to get the And I started looking through them and those long car rides up north, reading through them, I'm just going, I don't know about this. It looks really hard and I don't know if these kids can do this. Um, and I have had my fears just melt away. It's been such a really good experience. And the reason that is um is because of the structure of this program. It is scaffolded so well for the students to be successful. Um, there are so many high levels of support for them that they can feel successful to go do the task that they're being asked to do. Um each module starts with a piece of art and at first that was not a connection to me but they have these beautiful works of art and for especially second graders sitting and looking at a piece of art. Anybody can talk about a piece of art. What do you see and what do you notice? And that is how they start each module. So every student, struggling reader, non-struggling reader, can be engaged in that conversation and everybody feels welcome and like they belong. Um and then after thinking about and talking about the art, we move into these amazing texts which um it's the same process as with the art. And they're not doing the heavy lifting of having to read all of this text on their own. um parts of it is drawn out for them to read and um the kids love these texts. They talk about this company choosing beautiful texts. It's um it's just been wonderful to see how engaged the kids are and for the kids to be able to get their hands on the books and be putting post-it notes in the books and finding their proof from the books. Um they that automatically gets them engaged in what we're asking them to do. There is so much opportunity for them to discuss with each other. Um what are you seeing? What are you noticing? Can you find the part? Um what do you think the main idea is? All of these elements from the standards that we have grappled with for so long. This company has embedded so well into it. Um and at the end of each lesson, students are asked, "Well, what did you learn today?" And they get so excited to post what they've learned and about what they've learned and they were so excited I had to increase the size of my knowledge chart because of all the things they were learning. Um, and we do start out with a book for about a week. And again, first when I started thinking about, okay, the same book all week long, I don't know how this is going to go. What they're asking the kids to do with that book, the task is different every single time. So they're familiar with the book, but today when you go into this same book, you're going to look for main idea. Today when you go into this same book, you're going to look for key details. So again, all those components of the standards are just embedded right in there. Um, and our last book that we did was poetry. And my students know more about haiku than all of my students in the past years. And that wasn't even the big process or the big function of the lessons with that. Um, but they're noticing it. They can name the components of it. Um, just really fantastic with what they're able to do as readers. Um, and I I can't wait to start our next unit. I pulled all the books out today and they were just like drooling to get at them. >> And the cruel teacher, I said, "Nope, you need to wait." Um, and also the responding to writing. Um it's we've had them respond to writing in the past, but this is very meaningful and um it's more targeted as to what we're trying to get them to get at um and just really great with all of that. Uh the writing component of this really focuses on the knowledge building of the students and through the texts through the readings through the articles through the videos stu we're just filling up their buckets with knowledge knowledge knowledge and they don't even start writing about what they're going to be writing about until later in the module. So, we spend the first part of the module filling up their little heads with all this great information. And then tucked in there sneakily are did you know that writing has some parts to it like there's a character in a setting and the students are recognizing that and they're applying it in their writing and they are so excited to go and write. Um I do not have students saying I don't know what to write about anymore. Um that was a big frustration in years past but of all that they're gaining through their knowledge building. They know what a planner is. They know how to use a planner. And this curriculum takes them through in such baby steps that when it's time to release them and let them go, they're producing just marvelous things. Um that, as I mentioned, the end of each lesson synthesizes what we've been talking about that day. And then at the end of the unit, it synthesizes everything we've been talking about in the unit. And I thought it might be like pulling teeth to, well, what did you learn from this unit? [laughter] I had to shut it down. They just kept coming at me with we learned this and then we learned this and oh yeah, we learned this. And the excitement that you can see on their faces and what they're producing is just really it fills my heart every day to see how engaged they are with this. Um I do have um one slide I had to show you and this is not to to my own horn horn by any means but one of my little guys um on the right hand side where it says joy. I feel like the knowledge building is through creativity and through joy in this. Um, and he at the beginning of the year I was doing a words per minute read with him and he was crying because it was too hard and it was a second grade passage. And the other day he came up to me and he handed me this letter and I like how you Excuse me. I don't have my um vision on but [laughter] he uh some of the words he used we talk a lot about fluency and my students have never understood what fluency is but at the end of his he said you teach us to read with um expression and phrasing um and rate and this little boy did not see himself as a reader at the beginning of the year. He did not see himself as a writer at the beginning of the year and he is one of my most excited students to get going. His phrase every day is when do we start? >> Um and then the creativity that's allowed with this. It's you know what they've been learning about the seasons and change and being able to show that in a creative way. It just reaches all readers. So it has been a joy to teach this very huge challenge. Um it's going to be a lot of reading this year, which is good for me and a lot of figuring out, but um thank you for everything that you have done to get this into our hands. Really appreciate it. >> Hi everybody. I'm Lindsay. I'm a third grade teacher. Um really excited to be here tonight and talk about all the really cool things that my students are doing. I'm also going to try to pronounce the artist name of The Great Wave. And it's 800 PM, which is usually the time I go to bed. So, [laughter] So, you'll have to bear with me. Um, so in third grade, one of the things that I'll start with is, um, Beth mentioned this and so did Cindy, but one of the things that's most impressive about this program is the intentionality of the design. So, students in a module always start with an essential question. Um, in third grade, we started with the sea, and our essential question was, how do people explore the sea? And so, um, in every arc, which an arc is built off of a book, so you can see all the texts up there, students start really wide and then we go deeper and deeper. So, we start with, um, a text like the giant squid or Jacqu Kustoau or Shark Attack or Amos and Boris and we just read and enjoy the text and we think about it together. Um, and we notice and wonder and we talk about our questions. And as the week goes on, as Cindy said, we start to go dive a little bit deeper and deeper into that text to build our knowledge both about the topic but also about reading and writing. Um, alongside of that are pieces of art that students get to discuss, which is so cool. Um, like Cindy said, it allows access for all kids to enter those discussions in really high levels. and kids, some of our kids who struggle most are able to notice and really lead those discussions on the art. Um, our main piece of art was The Great Wave by Katsu Shika Hukasai. Got it. Um, and to hear third graders saying that name very proudly like in just like a normal discussion is a really cool thing. Um, I even had a student buy a pair of socks with the Great Wave on them. [laughter] Um and students also those conversations about art and the discussions that they have translate into the conversations and the discussions that they have about um the text and also just continues to build their knowledge about how people explore at the sea. Um again building off what Cindy said and you can go to the next slide. Um one of the things that was a little bit overwhelming to start was how rigorous the curriculum is. um it is extremely extremely rigorous and there's um because this is our first year doing it as well, there's kind of a little bit of expectation that maybe students have had some things in years past that we haven't because we haven't been teaching this curriculum. Um I always like to think that teaching is a lot about reminders. You kind of like are reminded over and over again about things that you already know and are best for kids. They just kind of come back around all the time. And the reminder for me this year has been every time we rise raise raise the bar for kids, they will rise to meet it. Um, so you'll see right there our end of module task or kind of their big writing piece that they had to do at the end of this was write a literary essay which for third graders at the very beginning of the year that is a big ask. Um, and they were actually really really nervous about it. They were like is this the day that we write the essay? [laughter] Um, but as Cindy shared, so much is done throughout the unit to support kids in those experiences. Their scaffolds, they, you know, they start out by writing maybe one proof paragraph and then they get to write another. Um, and they're writing multiple pieces. They they probably by this point had written two essays about different books that they had read and different explorers of the sea. Um, their final piece was about Jacusto and how Jacqu Kustoau explored the sea as an inventor. That's a little picture of Jacusto as well, in case you didn't know. And that invention is the aqualong, [laughter] which was the first way that um people could explore the sea without being tethered to a boat. Um so, as students wrote those essays, I have never had students so proud of the work that they did. Um we had our fall party last week and a lot of the kids were taking out their learn books to show their parents like, "Do you want to see my essay?" Typically, you don't have kids at the fall party thinking about some of the work that they've done. So, they were really excited and really proud. Um, I have a student who um she's new to Orino this year and um didn't really see herself as a reader or a writer and this essay was a really heavy lift for her. She just did not think that this could be something that she could do and she did it. Um and then that night went home and on her own wrote three more essays um based on the books that we read. That is profoundly impactful for a kid like that. That story is one that can sometimes make me tear up a little bit. So, she really saw herself and now she like cannot wait to write an essay. So, I'm going to I'm going to hold her to that [laughter] for this next one. Um the other thing that you'll see on the slides, um the students really dive deep into the text right in this these pictures right here. They're preparing for a Socratic seminar. um this was kind of our end of unit way of recapturing all of our learning and thinking about all the things that we learned about the sea and about people who explored the sea. So the question they're grappling with is which um which explorer taught me the most about the sea and they were looking at a poet to see if the poet explore taught them the most. Jacqu Kustoau, Marie Tharp, all of these different explorers that they read about and then they had this really wonderful rich discussion all about which explorer taught them the most and had to use text evidence to support their thinking. So that's what they're doing there is preparing for that discussion. Um that discussion was really surpris to hear kids talk in the way that they were talking in October of third grade. the vocabulary that they were using um that also is richly embedded into the units um and just their ability to really know something very deep about the topic was really impressive and just made me super excited to see what they'll do by the end of the year. And then finally, um we're just really excited for module two. So module two is coming up. Um we have four modules in a year. So third grade's first module was exploring the sea. Okay, our next is outer space, which is going to be really cool. Um, so the students will start by learning about how the Lakota um used constellations to help them understand the world around them to Galileo to the first the first moon landing. So, they get to learn about all these really cool historical things. Um, they get to read and write. Um, it's really active. You can see in the pictures right there, they are doing what's called chalk talk. So, they're writing what they already know all about space on those charts. um and they were very very excited about it. Um so I'm really grateful um that I get to experience this as a teacher and it's renewed and given me more energy as well. Um and also just so grateful because I know not all places get the resources and the support that we do and it matters for our kids and um it also matters for us and we're so lucky to have all of that. So thank you and thank you for letting us share all the great things. I did tell my third graders I was going to brag about them today at the school board. So, they're feeling >> very proud. >> They said to tell you that they slay and I said, "Okay, [laughter] so that's >> hopefully the their stories and the photos have given you a little glimpse into the really exciting things that are happening in classrooms. can't say enough. Um, it's really fun to visit an arts and letters classroom. You can see how active it is and how engaging it is for the students. So, with that does any questions? >> Yeah. So, I don't have well I have one question I'll save but um I am so thankful I know just to the district, to the leaders, to the teachers, to the the community. Um I know what a heavy lift this has been and I am I just it warms my heart so much. Um to hear you. It's this is how I taught and I am so and I saw I taught in a district very similar similar to Orno and I just love what the kids are getting and I am so um appreciative to all of you for the work. um you know you've been teaching for a long time and to now take up a whole new um and I'm thrilled that you are seeing growth that you are enjoying it as well. Um so thank you to everybody for this. Um, and thank you to the district for the priority and the professional development. And um, yeah. Um, I do have one question. Does, and you may not know this yet, so it's okay. Does the program have any um and this would not be something that there would be any expectation even if it did have this component that it would be taken on this year or even next. But is there an inquiry component to it where students are working on inquiry based um you know project based um investigations within these units? >> Yeah. Yes. Each grade level has there's a module that >> there's kind of inquiry embedded throughout because that is a component of each of the modules but >> there is specific inquiry in the last module in every grade level. >> Thank you. >> I'll also just commend you all for the amount of effort that that goes into this level of change for for lack of a better I think in healthcare how something might even if we know it's better might take 17 years to widely adopted and this is just a no we're going to do this now and to everyone involved. Uh there is a butt though unfortunately and I this is from reviews of a fourth and a second grader in my house. they are they are mourning the loss of creative writing and writing their own stories and I wonder if that will come out more in modules because I really I see the benefit of structure and how this is great but that those are real-time reviews in my household at least that I' that I've been hearing about that they they love just writing their own books and they're noticing that's not something that one more than the other but the other two would agree that they haven't had time to do anymore and I don't know that there's anything truly to be done about that but That's something I wonder about. >> Yeah, I think we're trying to figure out ways to like hold on to things. >> Yeah, >> that we've done. Um I know a lot of teachers are doing some creative things with that. Like we have other times in our day like our wind time or sometimes quiet time where we're trying to build in more of that choice. >> Yeah. >> Um I will say this, >> I think the structure of the writing allows them to do that better. Um, so when you had like in years past I've had third graders make, you know, and create book upon book upon book that didn't really make a lot of sense. And so like they are getting a sense of like oh this is what you know the writing should look like or this is what it should this is like what a story arc feels like that kind of thing. So even my kids who are creating I have a lot of kids that still create books. I'm noticing that writing is better >> because they're understanding some things about writing. >> That makes sense. >> So, I think there's like kind of that freedom within structure, you know, like >> once we can give them that that really solid base, >> they are able then to take that and that, you know, and then the creativity in arts and letters comes out in lots of different ways. It comes out in a lot more like art and um response and thinking about things in different ways. But I think just like for us, it's an adjustment. It is for them. Yeah, that makes sense >> for them as well. >> Yeah. >> Thank you. >> I had one quick question. You mentioned for the UFly that the University of Florida um that I I wasn't I didn't take sufficient notes. Essentially, we didn't have enough um for them to come to you for training. Is there anything we could do to change that, incentivize that? If the videos are okay and then you talk about great minds and you're like, "Wow, this is fantastic." like and maybe that's not in their wheelhouse but if and and I'm not putting you on the spot now. Think about it and let through Dr. Flesher to let us know if there's anything we can do. >> Thank you for that. The the good news is they are they meaning the University of Florida are starting to offer other kinds of PD that just because this is just spreading across the country >> at a rapid rate. So they are responding to that with so I believe that by the time that the rest of the building implements there will be better options for us >> which I'm excited about. UFI really is written by professors. >> Um so different than a publisher but um and you just watching the difference of videos it is pretty significant. I mean it is a professor teaching on phonics compared to the publishers. I mean that's not meant to be a disc but it's just >> yes >> it's a it's they're different. >> Yes. >> I just have two questions. >> Oh I saw you writing a lot. Uh, two questions. Um, where do you still see your challenges for implementation and what resources or what can we do to support you guys? >> Challenges are time. >> Um, it's a very um well-ritten curriculum, but there's a lot of writing to it. So, uh, every night is pages and pages of reading. That will hopefully go away a little bit next year. Um, time as teams to collaborate. Um, what are your struggles? How can we fix those struggles? Um, post-it notes. This curriculum has kids writing a lot on post-it notes to post their thinking. I'm running tragically low and >> that's an easy [laughter] >> that was my main priority coming here today. [laughter] you should have said something a lot higher than >> um and just this support um from you all has been amazing and being able to have all of these books at our fingertips has just been so great. But yeah, time time for teachers to be able to read it, absorb it, and like Beth said, we have a hard time struggling because you have little ones looking at you. Um but given the that were given this year to read through it. Um, and the training has been so great. So, post-it notes in time. >> A new bookshelf to hold all books. >> Yeah. [laughter] Didn't you see like I saw on Friday it seemed like I mean we're all teachers are constructing their understanding while you're >> while you're learning while the kids are learning. And then you could see the connections being made like and I'm like seeing why we're doing that. Yes. and then how I think that will just be exponential >> because now it's just been you're trying to keep your head above water >> because there's a new lesson every day. But even the next module it will be a lot of the same routines because you're teaching the routines and all the other things too. >> Yeah. >> And then we talked on Friday that by next year kids will be really familiar with the routines too that um that will just help. Um there's so much that you're teaching all at the same time, but while you're trying to understand why and I thought I felt like on Friday a lot of the wise were coming together and maybe at least for me, maybe you already had the wise down, but um it was just makes sense and you see how that works. >> Yeah. And teaching the second module already, I'm noticing, oh, okay, I'm seeing some sort of similarity and pattern here and next year it's going to be exciting to have the that have had a year. I mean, I'm excited about what they're able to do this year. >> So, next year, yeah, it's going to be even >> Yeah, it's it's so good for students to ask them to do or asking to do. It is so good for them. >> I think it was also helpful when we did the lead training, they gave us like a three-year like year one is learn like the pressure is off to be perfect at this, but just to just to like to learn it and but and that's hard as teachers because we do they're in front of you, you know, and they come to you no matter what. Um so it there's been but the leadership has been extremely supportive of that. There has not been a the only thing has been just all you have permission to learn this and make mistakes. >> And the students are so forgiving. I guess they literally I'll say you know what m just needs a minute. >> Just let me read through this a second. [laughter] >> And they're very great. >> I have a second question and forgive me if I didn't pick it up uh during the presentation. Um but I was trying to kind of understand how do we officially designate the implementation a win, right? Like where is that? And I look for hard metrics and very specific, you know, what's a what's the win? And what I picked up on is there's a lot indicators for adoption and excitement right now, but what are the lagging indicators that you guys are looking for after this year is over or as we continue on? >> Well, student achievement data eventually, but it will take time before we can Yeah. >> Referrals to special education, um referrals to reading intervention, all of those should be decreased. Um when you look at the kind of scaffolding that's going on in classrooms I mean there I could everything from engagement I you know you see we hear anecdotally of that but um student engagement is something that's easy to measure um and uh and I also think student report teacher report you know what you hope at the end of the year that we'll have teachers say that um because I I've always heard I I heard that on different tables on right out. I couldn't believe what the kids were doing in my classroom. Um, that in and of itself is pretty profound. Uh, because we're only in November. Um, so I think there's lots of hard data ways and then there's lots of what I would both quantitative and qualitative measures. Um, I suspect the um the company will be helpful to us and and and that I I just wanted to just as long as my mic is on thank Dr. Ruland as well. um because had a lot of leadership in this and he was not only lifting the boxes and unpacking but you know the partnership what you hear with great minds has been something that I think we as Beth said didn't expect would be as quality that's not what we usually have but they're the fact that they chose us is about Aaron and Beth um and all the other teachers they wanted to work with us if you remember we they reduced the c price by multiple hundred 000. Now, we we sold them on the fact that they should work with us um and that we would be great to work with. Uh but the fact that what they have committed to us and professional development is worth tens and tens of thousands of dollars. Um and I think is also for us um as educators really important learning. I I think Aaron and I and Beth reflect all the time on boy, you know, when you think about implementation in the past in comparison, the amount of support that we've been given um is profound and then that in turn how that's playing out for teachers. That that's just really important learning for us as we do all the other kinds of changes when you're changing systems. Um all of that's really important learning for us in terms of expectations and requests that we need um for other companies and other other adoption and implementation efforts. This has been really new for us um to have this much support and and I see why the benefit um you know I mean I have been a part of many many supports where you got one day before school started and best luck to you. Um, and I think it's I mean it was more supportive and we tried really hard to support teachers but the level and the strategy the thinking behind this is something that I think we'll learn from them continually about what what else we can measure. >> I can speak to that too kind of melding Timothy and Todd what you were saying about your students or your children wanting to have creative writing. Every writing piece has a rubric that goes with it. And the rubric is based off standards. Does it have a beginning? Does it have an end? Does it have a character? Does it have a setting? And when I go through each piece of writing, I can check for those things. And when I was looking at their writing in the past, they were very creative, but it did not have a setting. It did not have a character. And now I am seeing that with all of their writing that I can the rubrics that they provide are clearcut and um based on standards and I'm just seeing more positive checks than negative checks. [laughter] I also think Bnee Brown's quote like clear is kind for all of us teachers to all be doing the same. Like I think we were all doing the same thing, but we were all doing it in kind of a different way, you know? And so I think for um us to all be like we we hear kids like I think you heard a kid walk down the third grade hallway and say, "Are you learning about Jacusto, too?" [laughter] >> Um that there's this all of us are in this together. So that has felt really supportive as well. Really good. >> Is is it changing the conversation in your PLC's in terms of focus? >> Oh yeah. >> And at lunch and in the hallway. It's just >> Any other questions? I just have to say again, thank you. [laughter] >> Thank you. >> Very great. >> I think >> it's a pleasure. >> Well said. >> Um the heavy lift uh we can only imagine. And so thank you not only for all that you've already done, but everything that you're going to continue to do for coming here and helping us understand it better. >> Loving those books um and and and the photos of the class. So thank you for taking so much time. Um, I wish I could give you more, but post-it notes I've got. [laughter] >> Thank you again. >> All right. Nicely done. >> Thank you. Thank you. Thank you. I do need my books back, too. [laughter] >> Keep looking out, but >> Okay. And you were right. Nothing following this is going to be anywhere as exciting. Even though policy is really fun. So, I'm now I'm going to say policy review. Dr. Flesher. >> Thank you, Madam Chair. I'm sorry to invite Dr. Aaron Ruland. [laughter] >> Sorry. Um the only color you have. [laughter] >> Thank you. >> Last on our agenda, um invite Dr. Aaron Ruland, executive director of learning accountability to the board table for discussion and brief remarks regarding the two board policies in the 500 series um that are up for first reading review tonight. These include policy 509, enrollment of non-resident students, and policy 510, school activities. Again, my gratitude to our board policy committee for their work and review. And I turn it over to Dr. Rulan for comments. Tough act to follow. Um, but um, Mr. USD previously had talked about this being the funnest subcommittee in the district, so I'm going to make the best of this. So, uh, thank you, Dr. Flesher, Madam Chair, and members of the board. As Dr. Flesher alluded to, the board policy committee is continuing its review of the 500 series. Um the 500 series is focused on students and includes a range of topics impacted by a complex array of laws and statute at the federal and state level that shape our work. So the two policies that are up for review tonight, policy 509, enrollment of non-resident students, and policy 510, school activities, are representative of those principles. They reflect our obligation to follow state statute. um particular particularly in the area of open enrollment um and our commitment to providing school activities that provide a comprehensive array of alternatives to meet all students academic, athletic, and belonging needs. The board policy committee is recommending that both of these policies are adopted with minor changes uh to language and format in alignment with MSBA policy u models. These recommendations are consistent with the board policy committee's efforts to align language across policies and to support the board's role in effective governance. Uh as always, the board policy committee welcomes any feedback from board members and these policies will be advanced for a second reading at the next board meeting. >> Thank you. >> You're welcome. >> Nicely done. Um any other new business? All right. Then I would like to just call out theformational item. The November enrollment is in our packet at the last page. And the next regular meeting will be held on Monday, December 8th, 2025 at 6 PM here in the 6 PM, which is a change. Um, in the district office assembly room. Do I have a motion to dismiss? >> So moved. >> That's not the word. >> Ajurnn. Thank you. Thank you. >> Also so moved. >> Thank you. Do I have a second? Second. >> Uh, all those in favor say I. >> I. I