Okay. >> Okay. Um my name is Virginia Mancini and uh school board chair and I'm calling the March 24th, 2026 regular business meeting to session at 6:31. Um and we're going to start with Director Baldwin reading the land acknowledgement. We are gathered on the land of the Dakota and Ojibwe peoples. I ask you to join me in acknowledging the Dakota and Ojibwe community, their elders both past and present as well as future generations. St. Louis Park Public Schools also acknowledges that it was founded upon exclusions and erasures of many indigenous peoples, including those on whose land the school district is located. This acknowledgement demonstrates a commitment to a dismantling the ongoing legacies of colonial power and the district's desire to support the ongoing work of local indigenous communities to thrive in our schools. Great. And now we'll approve the agenda. Do I um it is recommended that the school board approve the agenda for March 24th, 2026 as presented. Can I have a motion first? Oh, what am I doing? Somebody else writes that down. Great. Um thanks, Director Williams. Do I have a second? Second. Thank you, Director Anderson. You can do the next one. Um So, now we have some conversation about the agenda. Yes, sorry. I was plugging in charger. Um I would like to um remove one item from the consent agenda. Okay. Which I believe is policy 545. I'm sorry, my computer's slowly getting up to Policy 545 is at the PSI admission Yes, I'd like to remove that from the consent agenda and ask that it be um returned to the policy committee and we'll bring it back at a future date. Okay. Do we need to vote on an amend an amended Yeah. >> Yeah, I was going to say but I think we do it at the time of the consent agenda. That's what I thought but that's fine. Oh, okay. Thank you. Okay, so we have a um a motion and a second. So, all those in favor of the consent agenda say I. I. I. Those opposed say no. Yeah, what did I say? Okay, I'm an agenda. Pardon me. Uh So, the motion carries 7-0. Okay. So, tonight we'll start with public comment. Um we have one presenter and just a second I'll call you up. Um to support open communication the St. Louis Park School District provides an opportunity for the public to address the school board during the business meetings. If you wish to speak, please complete the public comment sign up form on our website before the meeting begins. Anyone indicating a desire to speak during public comment will be acknowledged by the board chair and allotted 3 minutes to present their topic. During this time the board and administration will listen to comments. Please note that disrespectful comments and those of a personal nature directed at an individual either by name or inference will not be presented. And we have Sarah and company. So, yeah, if you want to step to the podium and introduce yourselves and tell us what's on your mind. Um I'm Sara and And I'm Esther. And um this presentation is also done by uh Zoe who could not attend today, but we are presenting on the SLP middle school outdoor green space. We've had a previous um we had a previous uh presentation on this a year ago, but this is like a follow-up to that presentation. Um okay, so what is a green space? Uh the green space would be an outdoor area for teachers and students to visit and would hopefully be a place where teachers can hold their class and students can learn in the class. Of course, winter seasons wouldn't be a time for this area to be of much use. Though during fall and spring seasons, the green space would be a safe, welcoming, and important learning environment. Um some reasons want the green space is environmental impacts because if we have a green space, um students can have the opportunity to be in the environment. And if we are going to have to grow into the problem with climate change, being in our environment is going to be do more than being inside and watching from the outside. Um this would also prepare us or Also, we would have to a- If we end up having a garden in the future, this can help us multiple ecosystems um living around the school. Um we also want this because of mental health according to UC Davis Health, being outside can improve focus, thinking, and reasoning abilities. It um it also has the power to reduce stress levels and improving heart health. Being indoors can also improve sleep and if we're middle schoolers, we you really want us to have our good sleep. Um Uh we also Another reason is a better learning environment and because it is proven that uh being outside enhances abilities to retain information. Um also, we want a green space because of student and teacher satisfaction. After taking a poll, we found that all students and teachers wished that we pulled wished for a green space for various reasons. We interviewed some students and teachers around the middle school. 10 10% Oh, sorry, not 10%. 100% of the people we interviewed said that not not being outdoors makes it more difficult to learn. 100 and 100 another 100% of the 100% of the people we interviewed also said that not being that not being outdoors they believe that not being outdoors negative negatively affects their mental health. Another 100% of people we interviewed also said that overall wellness reduces No, sorry. that their over that their overall wellness is reduced by the lack of having any outdoors or green space. 90% said that they think having an outdoor green space could help build community. 100% said that having an outdoor green space could help improve their own and their peers' mental health. And another 90 and 90% said that having an outdoor green space could help them learn more. Um so, we So, we previously presented about having a green space in the middle of the school in the courtyard area, but but we were denied due to fire code. We did have two other options, but we never received much feedback on them. So, we have option one, which um Okay, so so pros for option one is that the building would provide shade, and it's not currently being used for anything. Cons would be that it is on the smaller side and it could be a possible distraction for choir and band classes. For option two, pros are that the trees can provide shade. It has been It has been used for MN Outdoors before. And it is away from most other classes. Cons is that it's kind of far from the middle school. It is It is by the road and there are no set boundaries. It could also be a possible distraction for PE, MN Outdoors, or advisory. Um So, the big question is how do we turn this space into a green space? Well, um both of us are part of Green Team and that's like a club at the school and we would kind of take it from there. We have plans for fundraising and some plans for grants that we could possibly apply to. Um but this could always also be a future project for other community project um people. And another project for Green Team. Um and thank you for listening. Awesome. I see on the form that you want us to follow up. So, we'll make sure that we'll follow up with you soon. Thank you so much for presenting. And I don't see the other person who signed up for public comment. Because I happen to know who that person is. So, I don't see him here. All right. Um then moving along, we're to the consent agenda. So, let me We got to make a motion first. What's that? Oh, superintendent report. I'm sorry. It's almost like it's spring break already. I just got excited. So, sorry. Let's do uh superintendent report. Um Park Pride Aquila Elementary. Thank you. So, at this time I am yielding my time to Aquila Elementary to present what is happening at Aquila. Yeah, I appreciate that. Thank you for your help, Thomas. Just a sneak preview. Okay. So, this uh this presentation is slightly different from the one that was submitted just because we had more time to work on it. Um and we were able to add some student voice. So, I appreciate the opportunity to speak with you all. Um just want to talk to you a little bit about leadership opportunities at Aquila, which um which we've created quite a robust leadership um system and a system of opportunities for students in 4th and 5th grade. Um so this is these are community stewards. You can see them all around. This is our student leadership group. Uh these are these are specific leadership teams. So, we're just going to talk about how that came into existence and it really began um in uh 2022-23 with um the hiring of Mr. Evan, Evan Graham, who uh is our restorative practices coordinator. So, he his charge is to ensure that um students have access to prosocial community building. Um and when Evan began with us, he said, "We talk a lot about leadership. We talk about student voice and we talk about agency, but I don't see a lot of opportunities for students to just lead um outside of informal opportunities." And so, uh this is the story of how Evan began leadership at Aquila. And as any leader knows, um have having to be the principal of Aquila, one of the smartest things you can do as a leader is when you see someone with a great idea, you either just get out of their way or do everything you can to help them. So, I tried to do both. Um so, in 22-23, Evan uh took to building community with students. So, he would do that by attending morning meetings. He was a recess supervisor, so you got to know um how kids are playing, who they're interacting with. And as you may remember, Maria Montessori says that play is the work of the child. So, we see a lot um of kid it's kids' expression during those times. So, he's building community and Evan is starting to have these ideas while he's talking with our 5th graders about what might be possible. And so, he came to us and presented this idea to myself and Assistant Principal Tozin, um he'd like to have a leadership team and wondering how we should start that. He developed an application the next year and started with a leadership in training team. Um, and at that time we only had about 16 students involved in leadership in training and those were rising fifth graders. Um, they were very, very excited. We had a very, um, rigorous application process that required, um, recommendations from teachers, several essays, and there was a panel that chose. Students were pretty excited about this opportunity. Um, so then we were able to find our first leaders in training or LIT team. The following year, um, we were able to have both our LIT team and we were able to have them graduate to become leaders. And simultaneously, we noticed a need for first graders at our school to have structured play. And again, that's Mr. Evan noticing that because he is outside during, uh, during recess at that time. Um, and so because our first and fourth grade lunches at that time were toggled, so sort of back-to-back but opposite, we were able to leverage the skills of the fourth graders to lead recess games. So, we had a handful of fourth graders that really wanted to be recess leaders. So, they chose to go to recess with first grade and eat with first grade as opposed to doing that with their peers. Um, and that was a pretty exciting thing for us just to know that, um, we had just a critical mass of students who really cared about their younger peers and wanted to to help them. Um, so that is what happened in 2024. Um, after the 2023-2024 school year, we then had the honor of having four teams. So, we had our LIT team, our leaders in training, those are rising fifth graders. So, for all the fourth grade years, our leader in training, our fifth grade leadership team, our recess leaders, and then we started to, um, see very organically an opportunity, another opportunity for leadership. And that happened because, um Aquilla enjoys just an amazing student body. And so, our middle schoolers start about an hour later than we start. And the middle schoolers who live close to Aquilla asked if they could come back and help out at breakfast, which was very welcome. Um so, we had our middle schoolers coming back and we thought to ourselves, this is great, but we would love for this to be an opportunity for fifth graders and fourth graders as well. So, then we started our breakfast club. So, now we have four leadership teams that um and it as you can see on one of the later slides, we have over 50 kids, close to 60 that are involved in leadership between fourth and fifth grade at this time. Um And that is formal leadership. So, one of our leaders that I talked with today reminded me that what she learned from being on the leadership team is that you don't have to be on a team to be a leader. And that's really kind of spreading uh throughout our student body. And the evidence for that is that students have ideas for different ways that they can lead and they're organically just trying to do that now. Um so, this year we've had every everyone in place. Um and I can just give you some examples of how we've leveraged leadership and how leaders have made themselves um completely necessary and and useful in the Aquilla community. When we have the first day of school without kindergarteners, our fifth grade leaders wear bright colored t-shirts and they are in the hallways in the morning helping kids to get to class, ensuring that everybody's feeling safe, getting to breakfast. We also have our um our recess leaders out first day to help kids feeling comfortable at recess. This year that happened um with second and fourth as opposed to first and fourth. Um we also have our leaders leading assembly. So, at Aquilla we believe strongly in SLP pride and we have a pride assembly every 6 weeks. And our leaders are leaders in training and our leadership teams lead all of those assemblies, one of which we have this Thursday. If you ever wanted to come by and see an assembly, that'll be at 8:45 this Thursday. Um and then additionally, our breakfast club has really grown. At Aquila, we are really lucky to have an incredibly linguistically complex student body. And so, sometimes we have kids that are new to the country, and it's really helpful to have breakfast club leaders who speak their their very same heritage languages. And so, um that is happening every day at Aquila. Um I did not know how to do this without having to toggle. So, um I was able to uh to talk with four of our leaders, four of the um the 17 leadership team leaders just about their thoughts on leadership. So, if you will bear with me, it's going to just go kind of back and forth. Is that okay? All right. Um so, Jackson is one of our leaders. Jackson came to us partway through last year um and really um is thriving. is all about kindness and about how other people want to be treated. Can you hear him all right? Okay. Um we also have Kosi. When you're on leadership, you don't have to be on leadership to be a leader. You can be not on leadership, and you can still be a leader. That is a sentiment that Kosi shared with um with our students at our last assembly, which was about inclusivity. Um so, we do the PRI, so it was I inclusivity as our last assembly. Being on leadership makes you helpful around the school. So, this is Kelsey. Um Kelsey's older sister um Daisy used to be a language and culture specialist at the primary years program schools. And Daisy also came back in the summer that would help serve breakfast. So that was great. And then Emma. Being on the leadership team, I have enabled to make school videos to help younger kids learn school routines. So what Emma is speaking to is that our leadership team, so our breakfast club makes videos for students to understand how to navigate the cafeteria, how to sort their trash, how to do those things so that those are available for morning meetings and then they kids also see those breakfast club people in the cafeteria, which is really a great connection. Um, we also have leadership videos just made around very simple things like after health and safety committee meetings, how to walk like a penguin, this sort of thing. Most recently our leadership video that we will show on Thursday was made and it is um, if you're ever interested, Dr. Hines, it is a remake of the Aquila Pride song which we wrote at the beginning of the year, but sung to the tune of Up to by Rosé and Bruno Mars. Um, So I I just we have one more slide which is just a picture of This is our leadership team leading at an assembly in December. So you can see our students are leading and then you can see Mr. Evan in the background. I apologize that I wasn't able to bring any students with me tonight. Um, and if you're interested in more student voice, I would I would be happy to bring them another time. So open it up if anyone has any questions. You're good? I don't think so. This is great. I always love leadership opportunities and growing them cuz it will hopefully grow into middle school and high school. That's awesome. Thank you so much for the work. >> do have like I mean I Assistant Principal Bowles here, so I don't know your experience with with Aquila folks coming to the middle school, but we definitely try to send them as leaders. So it's next year where coming to the middle school, right? So, this is an ongoing tug-of-war because Evan is pretty amazing. Um and Jason Bull would like to take have him at the middle school. So, thank you very much. I appreciate you coming. >> so much. Okay. Now, I think we are at the consent agenda officially. So, let me uh let's take a motion first. It is recommended that the school board approve the consent agenda with the following business and personnel items for March 24th, 2026 uh school board meeting as presented. Do I have a motion? Thank you, Colin. Do I have a second? Second. Thank you, Suzy. Um so, we should discuss first. Go ahead, Sarah. Thank you. Um I would make a motion to remove item 7M, policy development policy 545, Park Spanish Immersion Admission, second reading and vote. Um this policy needs more work. Um moving to remove it from the agenda will be and uh bring it back to the policy committee. We can bring it back at a future date. Great. Can I have a second? Thank you, Suzy. Um so, any other discussion other than it just needs some more work? I think we're Okay. All those in favor of removing um policy 545 from the consent agenda say I. I. Those opposed say no. Um all right. The motion passes 7 0. So, now do I should I read I'm going to reread the original motion as amended, right? Yeah. Yeah, pass the consent agenda with the amended Right. Yep. So, um the motion now is it is recommended that the school board approve the consent agenda with amendment um following uh with the following business items for March 24th, 2026. As presented. All those in favor say aye. Aye. Opposed, say no. All right, it passes. Great. This has to be the fastest meeting on record so far. All right. What's that? Don't jinx it. Yep. So, um next we have a couple action items. And the first one is the call for election to technology and levy bond issue and um Director Magnuson, I believe that you are presenting. Good evening, Chairman Cini, um Superintendent Dr. Hines, and members of the board. Um we're here tonight with the resolution. We've talked about this over the last couple of months. Um the final resolution to call for the election. The review and comment, which we will submit to the Department of Education after um um you take action tonight. If it's approved, we will send that for approval. Um and then get that posted as necessary. The resolution is included in the packet. There's one change to the resolution that did not get included in the final upload. And um I want to just point that out to you. It's just a small typo on I just want to make sure that what's it reflected in the minutes is accurate. It has nothing to do with the language. Um but item two on um the first page of the resolution, it says that the bond projects and the CPL projects will be submitted for review and comment. We are not submitting the capital projects levy for review and comment because we're we're using exclusively for technology, so it's not required to have a review and comment and it is not in our review and comment. So, I don't want to misrepresent in the board's resolution. So, what we have an updated resolution from our attorney that um only states that the bond projects will be submitted. And I that's the only item that changed and we can make sure that that's the item that gets submitted um for signature for minutes by the clerk. Okay. Does anybody have any questions? Or comments? Terrific. Okay. So, having uh no questions um it is recommended that the school board call a special election to be held on August 11th, 2026 and authorize the clerk and administration to take all actions necessary to conduct the election in accordance to Minnesota statutes. All those in favor Oh, I never made a motion, did we? Can I have a Thank you, Colin. And a second, I'll second it. Just uh I swear I am not even on spring break yet. Okay, all those All those in favor say I. I. All opposed say no. All right, motion carries 7-0. Awesome. And then >> Um Jasmine's not here tonight, but in reflection to the to make the change for the minutes. Great, thank you. All right, uh action item 8B, labor agreement. Uh the presenter is Director Louie. Um it is recommended that the school board approve the 2025-2026 EM Spark labor agreement as presented. May I have a motion? I'll move it. Thank you. You got it. Thank you, Patrick. And a second? I'll second. Thank you, Sarah. Director Louie. Good evening, members of the board. Uh Superintendent Dr. Hines, thank you for having me this evening. We're here to present the two-year agreement for our EM Spark group. Just a little quiz for y'all. Does anyone know what Spark stands for? I had to look it up, too, so don't feel bad, but it is supporting personnel assisting in reaching kids. Hey. >> So. All right. So, um our contract tonight covers the 25 and 27 school years. This contract um covers our instructional assistants, kindergarten assistants, media assistants, special ed assistants, um and health aids throughout the district ranging all the way from early learning all the way up to our transition plus program. It represents about 147 employees and about 105 FTE. So, it's a pretty it's our second largest group. Um we had a total of five negotiation sessions and held a tentative agreement on February 25th. The union voted to ratify the contract on March 9th. Um human resource worked closely with Patricia on making sure that the economic impacts of the contract aligned with the district's financial responsibilities. And we also worked with district leadership on any language provisions making sure that it helps support operations in all of our schools that would have direct impact to our students. Um in year one and year two, we increased um all steps by 2%. We also in year two, we removed steps one, two, and three to in start um to increase the starting rate of pay to make sure we're remaining competitive with other school districts in the area. We also, similar to a lot of the other contracts, and I sound like a broken record cuz we've tried to do things consistently across all of them, but we removed um what used to be the career increment and created a retention stipend which removed that career increment from the hourly rate making it easier for the employees to track and understand their current placement on their salary schedule and within the contract. Um Health insurance, we increased our contributions in both years by 6%. Um overall the negotiations conducted was collabora- collaborative, respectful, and both parties demonstrated shared commitments to problem-solving. We believe that we are presenting to you a contract that is reflective of helping support our students and their academic needs. Um Yeah, so that's about it. Great. Do we have any questions or comments? I'll just comment since the meeting's going so quick, I just want to make sure that it looks like that we're engaging on this. And I'll just say what I've said before is I appreciate, you know, so many of the things that you've done in terms of the You were saying you sound like a broken record, but what I hear from that is that it's about consistency and trying to make sure that all of our employees feel valued and that we negotiate with something like 13 What's the number? I think like 13 different >> Yeah, different groups and that's a lot to keep track of and a lot to manage. So just an appreciation to that. Yeah. Thank you. And as always, I really appreciate the summary. It was perfect for me. So um with no other discussion or questions, all those in favor say I. I. Those opposed say no. Motion carries 7-0. Thank you. Thank you. And now we are um to the policy development second reading reading of policy 602 organization of school day and school calendar. Dr. Hines will be presenting. Let's do the motion real quick. It is recommended that the school board approve policy one 602 organization of school day and school calendar as presented. Do I have a motion? Thank you, Taylor. Second? I will second. Um and so, Dr. Hines, it's all you. Thank you, Chairman Cini. Um so, I will just draw your attention to page four where we have added the language around digital learning days um so that it just really lays out and when we will use those days. Um it will be on anytime where there will be instruction given attendance will be taken and instruction can be done and it has to be done by a licensed teacher both either async- asynchronously or synchronously. So, it just spells out how we will use our digital learning days. I think we have some questions. Yeah, I um well, a couple things. Thank you for this additional language cuz I think we were conf- I mean, admittedly, embarrassingly so, confused between the difference between an e-learning day and a digital learning day. I did my own research outside of this so I was more clear on that later and I understand now MDE guidance that we should should call these things different things and you can use other terms like flex day. But, um and I happen to know, yeah, you had a digital learning day today at the high school. Yes, we did. I watched that happen, in fact. Um I have a note that I made for myself on my phone. It was a small language correction and I'm wondering if anyone is >> It is in on letter D. Uh where we say Seamless Park may schedule a full instructional day to be a digital day outside of an e-learning day and have it count as a full instructional day so long that um I'm wondering if we could say provided that. Provided that? Does that matter to anyone? No, may I think it clarifies it. There's a little There's a couple words missing in H as I think. I can wait until you're done. Patrick, did you have other comments? That No, that was my one syntactic Okay. suggestion. Um I I don't I don't Should I move that as an amendment? I don't I don't think you need to. Um cuz it's not substantive. It's the same with H. The school could choose to shorten digital days to just the actual time teachers would be available. I think you mean adjust, maybe? Adjust the actual time teachers would be available so they have the rest of the day for in-service. So, they would have the rest of the day? Um there's no I'm I'm assuming it's supposed to read there's no difference or there is This is Oh, this is no different than school days. Oh, I'm sorry. I read it wrong. Okay. Yep. Colin Um I just noticed I I had a question, but I just noticed that e-learning days is letter V. I think that's meant to be letter D, right? Um in the first part in the school day responsibility we have A B C V. Um so, that would be one other technical issue, but I do have a It's in uh sorry, this is in number four. School day responsibility goes A B C, V. Um I think it's a a settings that it should be over as it's supposed to it should be a five Okay. instead of it's cuz the you got your school day responsibility and then you talk about so it just needs to be shifted over. >> thing. formatting >> So that can be corrected but I did have one question about I was looking particularly at the Labor Day language because it's something I've been passionate about and I meant to I didn't catch this until I was just re-reading it but number three so B three it's the same St. Pete Park may begin the school year on any day before Labor Day. Agree um um if St. Pete Park schools agrees to the same schedule with the school district in an adjoining state. Does anybody know what that means? That comes from the statutory language that's related to when you can It doesn't apply to us. Yeah, okay. I was going to say it seemed very I don't know I mean we could consider just taking it out but um I I assumed that it was something to deal with if you're in North if you're bordering North Dakota or South Dakota Iowa or something like that and your district needs to be a little bit parallel for some for something else but I just I wanted to make sure that wasn't a typo or something that that wasn't something else there. >> There's actually can you point me to B3 Yeah. 3B3 Sorry. It's I mean we can take I it's fine if it's >> I mean it's it literally tracks with the language of the statute. This is one of those things where this is um an MSBA model policy that we're modifying a little bit but Okay. So it would apply to other districts that might want to start their school year before Labor Day. It doesn't apply to us. I I would be fine removing it but I didn't again I I just I just wanted to be understand what it was supposed to be saying if it was something that we needed to be thinking about. Um, and I do see the note in here that says that whatever we've put in here doesn't preclude us from starting before Labor Day for the with the stuff that passed last year, so. That was it. Any other questions or comments? I have a point of clarification. So, are we striking through the street B3 or are we keeping it as is? If it doesn't apply to us, I don't know that we needed it. If it's in statutory language, it's statute, you know, but like if we're not going to use it to influence anything here, I don't know if there's a real value to make sure that it gets included, so. Does the >> I've looked at others, the lawyers and other people. Does the word if make it Does So, like if we dropped it cuz it seems to me the way that it's reading now is that they may begin that schools may begin the school year on any day before Labor Day if it agrees to the same schedule. I mean, so is the word if is that making it conditional? That's I think we should just strike the whole thing. It's not going to happen. This is moot. Like this is It's very rare. And if it does, then let's bring it back to the board for approval in a policy. I mean, that's what I've always said is that policy can always change if you need it to change at a later date, so. But, it should be a guidance. >> we'll just strike the whole thing. Strike 3B. B3. 3B3. >> this is just like statutory language under section 120A.4.40. Um, it's just So, the folks may recall our discussions about when the when to start the school year and we all did this you all mostly did this advocacy down at the state legislature to get the ability to start before Labor Day in the upcoming years where Labor Day is so late. There's only um three reasons historically that um remodeling project valued at more than $400,000 and then a an agreement with a district under other sections or if it agrees the same schedule with the school district and then a joining state. We don't adjoin like we don't have an adjoining state next to us. So, doesn't apply to us. So, just strike it. The whole thing. Yes. There we go. So, um Unless we wanted to annex another district that was next >> Oh my lord. Let's just Yeah, okay, Taylor. I just super tiny thing. I I assume digital learning days would be its own section section six. the way it's formatted. Yes. Okay. Got it. Any other questions? Okay, great. All those in favor say I. I. All those opposed say no. Motion carries 7-0. All right, and now we are to board member updates. Who would like to start? Okay. Um I spent a lot of time in the uh performing arts sector of St. Louis Park schools recently. I attended two musical theater shows at um the middle school. I saw Legally Blonde not once but twice and um both of the shows were amazing and like all the credit to the staff at the middle school and the students who do such a good job. Mr. Bull, there you go. Shout out to the middle school always and I saw Alice in Wonderland at Susan Lindgren which was first for me and it was remarkable. I thought the sets were incredible. The kids did such a good job. So just I really want to shout out to the performing arts uh team, the students, the teachers, everything that we do in St. Louis Park. I'm always amazed and I've really enjoyed being able to watch it. Awesome. Call it. Um the uh met as part of the athletic advisory committee. >> sorry. Emma, did you want to I'm sorry. >> to go down in order? >> have any idea but You can. Um uh earlier today the juniors at the high school had the ACTs which is why um was it online? Yes, it was digital learning. Yeah, the digital learning day. So um they no longer have to study for that thing anymore. I can go back to school with the dread of that test. So um yeah, we had the ACTs. Okay, Colin. Okay. >> Um so I was was talking about the athletic advisory committee which is a newer is a new thing for this year and I I've mentioned it before but the idea again bringing students, parents, coaches all together to talk about different things related to athletics and the most recent one was a little bit of an update on the conference vote, um, talking through that a little bit. And then, um, Andy, our athletic director, spent majority of the rest of the time breaking having us break out into groups of parents, teachers and coa- well, parents and teachers. Yeah, I think and coaches, but he had some of the, um, other athletic directors help facilitate it. But there were conversations about how do we, um, provide feedback back to coaches? Um, and, you know, what is the best way to do that? What's the loop? Um, I know from time to time parents, students, whatever have concerns or thoughts or want to express that and there is just like, well, let's talk about what that looks like and, um, I participated in the one with some of the parents and it was good useful conversation to have and, um, some ideas come came out of that. Um, I will, uh, I know that, uh, Andy's been working on getting badminton set up as a club activity, I believe, and, um, that comes directly from some work that he's done, which was to reach out, I think particularly to our, um, immigrant populations or maybe our black immigrant populations, African, um, not sure exactly the the target audience there, but said, "What can we do to get you involved with sports and activities and and the interest area was badminton." And so he's he's established this as a way for to see how that goes and he's hopeful. He's excited and hopeful that maybe if we could get some enough energy that it becomes a a regular competitive activity. So, um, I'm excited, too, and I'm glad that he's trying that and we're looking at many ways to sort of involve our students. We've talked about it before at this table and elsewhere that that's one of the key ways to really, you know, to really engage with our students is to make sure that they're involved with our with us and, um, in activities like badminton, fine arts, all the different things that happen. Um if you should have read that in our consent calendar, there was some stuff there related to flag football, another area that has been brand new and has been particularly successful for um our schools. Um the only other thing that I think I want to mention right now is just to remind people obviously AMSD day at the capital is coming up April 13th. Um and I know that there's some uh that we'll have some board members going to that as well as staff and some strategy to meet with um legislators to um it's a great opportunity at the beginning to they get the four people from four from usually leaders from each of the caucuses and um to speak to education and opportunity to hear from them and even ask them questions. And um I know AMSD is just, you know, they continue to sort through everything and you probably have seen us about flag it for you again how the governor's budget looks kind of really tricky for us and if you haven't seen it about special ed. Um I I encourage you to take a look at that. That's a pretty significant change and we're ready, you know, AMSD schools have been talking about this issue and and struggling um with how do we think about it which was, you know, move this idea of how do we find $250 million worth of cuts in special ed. Um not easy and then the governor just extended I think the 350. 350. So it added another 100 million of cuts that we need to find and if those don't get found by this blue ribbon committee they happen anyways. And so we're going to see cuts to special ed and then there's even I think some stuff that says you can't pull from certain sources as well. >> they they didn't want you to It was a pure cut as opposed to a reallocation of funds. Yeah. So take a look at it, talk to people about it. We know that there's issues like this sometimes they're just brought up for the sake of discussion or they're used as leverage points, but I do think that this is something we'll want to you know that we should look at and it's one of these things that's going to impact lots of schools, not just St. Louis Park, but I think it's worthy of you just sort of reviewing and taking a closer look at it. So, thank you. Well, on a less grim note, uh I No, I wanted to thank uh so, a couple committee updates um Finance Advisory Committee met um last night and I want to thank the members of the committee and Director Magnuson for facility for having a real honest discussion. Um we got into the weeds. Uh and it was enlightening. Um so, I appreciated that. I also want to thank uh Patrice uh Director Howard for um welcoming me to the Community Education Advisory Committee and for having that meeting online. Um so, I went on a tour at Linwood. I learned a lot about um some safety updates they're doing in the building to ensure safety for visitors and for the members. I also got to witness some ballroom dancing, which I thought was nice. Um Black History Month was celebrated last month, February 25th. Uh we had a school a district-wide celebration um at the celebration we had um a section for meet the authors, uh line dancing, and some dinner. And I just wanted to remind the board that MSBA has a board workshop coming up for high-functioning boards and there's a overview for board self-evaluations. So, I plan on joining that if anybody wants to join me. Um yeah, I just wanted to I guess So, I had the opportunity to join my first D-PAC meeting last week. Talked about or reviewed and looked at um how student report cards, how we're doing those and and matching those up with standards and the elementary level and how we're uh communicating curriculum and conferences to parents and how we can make that a little bit more helpful and informative for parents. I found it extremely fascinating. Um and then I also wanted to shout out I had a chance to attend the Peter Hobart Imagination Fair and bonus this year a Makers Fair was added to it. Um and it was really incredible to see what the students came up with. Uh there was um students exploring the pathways to cures for cancer, exploring robotics. Um and then I also picked up a whole bunch of stuff for my house. I picked up a terrarium. Um there was a student who made little pig figurines that I thought were adorable. So, that has now that's that figurine is now residing in the terrarium. And also picked up a winter hat for my baby who student was making I don't know, 20 30 hats from scratch. It was pretty incredible. Um and it was just another Um well, I guess I should say I kind of kind of buried the lead. They raised over $1,600 for our community that night. Um they made all those little trinkets and and things so that they could raise funds for the community. So, I thought that was really awesome. Great night and just another example of the brilliance of our of our students. So, awesome. If and then I guess the other part for Peter Hobart is there is a community night coming up on April 3rd. Or sorry, not April 3rd, April 23rd. Did it as well? Did I get it? As well. Great. Do you have an update? Yeah. Um like not this Wednesday, but last Wednesday. I think it was when Wednesday and sore and the student school board had a meeting of talking about like the demands they sent us and the letter we sent back. And that went nice. Um I think they understood and like me being a part of sore, I think I understood it more cuz like I had clarity now. And also on Friday um we ended Ramadan and we celebrated Eid. That was nice with my family Friday, Saturday, Sunday. And yeah. I think that's all I have. And also this Friday we're ending quarter three. So, yay. Did you Did you go to the community event? Yeah, with the Nadia Muhammad and yeah. Nadia Muhammad was there and she spoke. And also there was a Imam there. There was Yeah, it was nice. We thought it was going to be like hectic, but it really wasn't. It was like it went smoothly. Yeah. It was nice. Thank you for those updates. I have a few. So, earlier this month I was able to get to the Children's First Breakfast and I saw several colleagues both board and I know Dr. Hines was there. And that was a really good opportunity to connect with other folks um, who are interested in supporting the health and well-being of young people in our community. So, that was great. Um, we also had a policy committee meeting in which we reviewed a ton of policies, which we then talked about at our, um, what do we call those? Study sessions. Um, and so, I was grateful for that. Um, I just this past weekend was able to make it to the Senate District 46, I don't know what that's called, convention. Um, and some of our SOAR students were there selling some t-shirts, which was really cool, and it was a good opportunity to connect with some legislative leaders to talk about some of the issues and funding and things like that. Um, I was able to make it to a music class, um, in one of, uh, in at PSI to share about a musical instrument that I'm able to play and to bring that and, um, share that with the students. So, that was a lot of fun. And I don't know if this has been mentioned yet, but I believe tomorrow is SLP Unity Day, where folks are wearing orange and black. And so, just wanted to encourage that. I'll try and wear my orange and black Jordans to work tomorrow just to show some support. So. Awesome. I still have forgotten to pick up my shirt, so I will get on that. Um, so, we had, uh, decided that the chair would summarize the study session of the the previous study session. So, as Sarah, Director Davis, had mentioned, at our study session, we discussed a lot of policy. And, um, policies are frequently, they're on a review cycle, and so that's why policies come up. Um, if you or sometimes because of statutory reasons and some changes after a legislator's legislation session, that's when they come up. We also um talked more about the election and the question that we'll be putting on the ballot, as well as um some strategy, which led to our passing today. Um and then we spent a great conversation on board norms and communications protocols. And so I'm we're hoping to pick that up um April 14th is our next study session. And um is it Baraj? Am I pronouncing her last name? Baraj. Baraj. Dr. um Dr. Baraj um is hopeful to meet with um Dr. Anderson and I just to talk about how we can facilitate that going forward. I too was um so that was the study session. And then um I had a very busy month. And my spring break was 2 weeks ago, so uh instead of going on vacation, I went to all of the St. Louis Park events of the week, and I hit every single one of them. So, um starting with the day at the capital, and that was a great day to not only hear from the Senate um and the House uh education policy um members of the committee, um the two chairs were there, as well as um Senator Duckworth, Duckworth, who's on the policy committee, but he's not a chair. Um and here's some of uh the issues that are coming up in the legislative cycle. Um so that was a good day. I also attended the Children's First, but the most exciting thing that I did was an equity walk at the um at the high school. And it's kind of a weird name, and I don't know if we're going to change it, but it's more of like a learning walk. Uh and I was um so I'm going to talk a little bit from both the lens of a school board member, as well as teacher. Um this is why I think uh it would be worthwhile for you for anybody, especially a board member, to participate in one of these at any of the schools that we go to because often times professional learning is not um great. So you sit down and you have somebody talk at you, but there's no like direct applica- applicable moment in it. The difference between this one is that there was um we did about 45 minutes of learning together with so there's four teachers who go on this equity walk and then principals lead it. So there's about a 45-minute period of time when we talk about what to look for and the types of engagement that we're looking for and the depth of knowledge types of activities. After that moment, we went and visited specific classrooms. And what is um what was so powerful to me about this is that colleagues were watching colleagues and learning from each other. And we had great discussions. There was great like huddles afterwards. So I really really recommend and I got so carried away and I'm sure that Principal Paddock and Principal Lashley were just like shut up, Virginia. I got so into it. I was like I forgot what I was I was just I came back so refreshed and excited for my own classroom and it made me reflect on my own practice. So if you really want to know what we're doing in this district I highly recommend that you go on on equity walks or reach out to your principal to set that out set that up. But somebody told me and I hope this is true and I don't remember who it was. But community members can also participate in the equity walk. Is this true? Great. So if especially I would recommend it for D-PAC. So anybody who's serving on D-PAC the district um instruction and curriculum advisory board. It is uh it is really powerful. It was really a powerful way. And I you know, there's probably teachers out there who are like, "Well, I'm a little confused about what this is." Because that just is the way things go. Sometimes we're just confused about what's happening. But the conversation after the observations were so rich in the huddles, I really highly recommend it. Um and then you get to see all of the cool uh things and going to the high school, you feel very you feel very small when you go to the high school with all of the tall um students. So that was that was really powerful. Um I also attended the listening session um last week with Dr. Hines. Um I really had a great time line dancing at the Black History Celebration. Um so it was like the month of February and March was like all SLP love for me. I don't So it was really great. Um But with that, is there any other uh updates? Fantastic. So we are going to adjourn this at 7:27. Oh. Almost a record for a regular board meeting.