Good afternoon the wayzata public schools Board of Education work session for Monday April 27th 2026 will please come to order. Let's go around the table for introduction. This time we will start from my left for a change. Heidi Kater Valentina Ears Paris Bende Alicia Little Dan Janstra Sheila Prior Milan Sohoni Thank you. Thank you. >> [laughter] >> Thank you everyone and welcome. Um The first item on the agenda today is a teaching and learning report executive director Dana Miller. No. Is it Abby? No, it was Will Kakukia. Okay. All right. Go ahead and have you introduce anybody. >> [laughter] >> You bet. So good evening members of the board. And when they get here superintendent Anderson and incoming superintendent Virgin I believe will be here. Tonight we have with us director Abby Brar and our math instructional coordinators as well. And Becca Ausby and Sarah Winans. And as you know our state math standards have been under review and are approved and so we are moving towards that implementation. Director Brar and our instructional coordinators did come to teaching and learning committee of the board and make a presentation about changes that are coming up a broad overview real quickly of elementary and then really specifically to secondary that has some more significant changes than we're seeing at our elementary level. And so chair prior on that recommended that we bring it to the full committee. So members of the committee of the board have had an opportunity to ask questions but thought it would be helpful to bring it forward here too in case any of the rest of you are also getting feedback or questions from the community and give the four of you who are not at Committee of the Board um an opportunity to ask questions as well. So, with that, I am going to turn it over to Director Brar from here and his team, and then again, we'll take questions at the end. Thank you, Director Brar. Thank you, Executive Director Miller. Members of the Board, thank you for having us in front of you today to talk about math. Um as some of you are the committee know that I love talking about math, so now that I have the attention of the entire board, this is a great day for us to talk about math. Um as you might be aware, we align our program review and our curriculum review with the MDE cycle of when Minnesota Department of Education updates uh content standards. So, we have aligned our cycle with MDE's review process. The math standards um were uh first the process began in the the 21-22 cycle, the school year cycle. And for that reason that the math standards are referred to as the 2022 math standards. So, you'll hear us often talk about the 2022 math standards. Um we we've been doing work on all of our content areas in alignment with the the schedule that you see on the board on the projector from the Minnesota Department of Education. The reason they're called the 2022 standards is because the committee process of writing the new standards began in the the 2022 school year. It's quite an elaborate process as you can imagine with for the entire state. The Minnesota Department of Education follows a fairly rigorous process on how the standards are developed, um open for public comment, feedback, review, and then final adoption. So, though these standards were first um the process began in the 21-22 school year, these standards were not fully what we jokingly call legit until April of the 2025 uh calendar year. So, it takes a fairly long process for the process to begin, for the review process to happen, and the final adoption. Most school including us will begin the adoption process before the state gives the final stamp of approval because we know once the standards are commissioner approved, there tend to be minimal changes that happen to the standards. So, we've begun this process um some time ago. And we've approached both our elementary and secondary adoption slightly differently. We know that our elementary teachers teach all content areas in the classroom, so we've been very thoughtful in staggering that that transition at our elementary level. Um and then the 25-26 26-27 school year um we'll have more that that we're going to share with you today. Similarly, at our secondary, um we began the process um last school year, but the the focus for our secondary program will also be this year and next year. And then my colleagues here are going to talk further about that process. Um so, Sarah and I am going to start us off with grounding work that we have done across our system K-12, and we really grounded every meeting that we had with our Wayzata Public Schools vision for student experience and vision for student learning. Multiple reasons. We want to make sure that our students are leaving our programs as well-rounded individuals that we wish for our district, but also to make it clear the work that is connected for our educators who are in the classroom every day, and so they can see how every piece of the work that we do at Teaching and Learning as coordinators is impacted in their classrooms and in the curriculums. And so, focusing on the environments we want to create for our students to be engaged and thrive and productive struggle and collaborative and responsive and all of those pieces, and we grounded all of our meetings in that. And then in addition, we also focused on our collective agreement of what we feel like is a need for curriculum because we are held to the standards that the state puts out for learning. And so, we have our collective commitment of what our essential learning is and how we are going to achieve that for our students through assessments, through intervention planning, working with the materials and resources that we provide for our teachers. We've also focused a lot at the secondary level on our portrait of Wayzata grad because again, we want to make sure all of the work is connected. And so, when our students leave our 6-12, I work with our 6-12 educators, when they leave our program, how are each of these traits showing up for the students through their daily classwork and throughout all four years of our math course sequence. And then again, we focused on the big change from the standards. There's an overarching theme through the standards that's new definitely to Minnesota. Our teachers have been doing a little bit of work on it prior to the standards as well is the focus on mathematical rigor, which is essentially the deep deep learning for our students that has three main focuses, an equal pursuit of conceptual understanding, procedural fluency, and application, real-world application. So, essentially, do the students understand the math? Can they do the math? And can they apply the math? All right, let's talk about elementary. Um as Abby mentioned, due to all of the changes that elementary teachers have had over the last few years, we really decided to do this roll out very strategically. So, in 2024-2025, we had four uh pilot teams, um three fifth grade teams and a second grade team who made the transition to our new Bridges Third Edition curriculum. And then uh this year, we added 21 teams, so we have uh about three teams at every grade level. We have at least one teacher from every building, and we're really looking at um how those changes align with our vision for student experience and student learning, and then also really looking deeply at the changes that are in the the new standards and making sure that we are aligned to those. And then next year, we'll have all of our elementary classrooms make the transition to Bridges Third Edition. Um again, it's a different it's an updated version of um our current math curriculum, and I'll talk a little bit more about that. Um some of the changes with our curriculum, um the scope and sequence are mostly the same, so teachers are very familiar with that, and that hasn't changed. Um they have the same manipulatives components, a lot of those things are the same, and then they're getting some additional pieces to upgrade um the current curriculum. And then uh the visual models and problem-solving strategies have mostly stayed the same. Um there have been a few updates regarding what we've learned um is best for early learners in particular. So, for example, in kindergarten, they used to focus mostly on um skip counting when we're thinking about developing uh like additive and multiplicative thinking, but now kindergarteners are also doing doubling and some other strategies. So, just thinking about some of those early ways we can engage students in that thinking. Um some of the other enhancements, they've um adjusted some of the context for the math problems to make them more inclusive to students' lived experiences. Uh the technology pieces stayed the same. There's a new educator site for teachers, but how students access technology using the Math Learning Center apps has stayed the same. Um and then there have also been some um shifts with the assessments so that we're really starting with what what students know and what students can do, thinking about their assets and building from there. The core components of the lesson will or uh or of the curriculum, I guess, are um very similar. So, we still have the whole group Bridges uh lessons, problems, and investigations, and then the number corner component. So, if you've ever been in an elementary classroom, you've probably seen the big calendar display. All of those routines will stay the same. Um and then there's also a Bridges intervention program that our math specialists use. And then one that we've talked about with some of you before that we're very excited about is the addition of Concept Quest, and those are an enrichment for all resource. So, they're really interesting, rigorous math problems that all students have access to. Um they're really fun for the kids. We have a lot of fun doing them. We've talked to some of you Some of you have tried them, and um we've talked about them a lot and how fun they are. So, Abby said we should bring you some, so we brought you some Concept Quest. Um they're two of our favorites. One of them um is one that Becca and I um each term we train the high school volunteers who support elementary classrooms, and we always have the high school students do one of these, and they love it. So, we brought that one for you. And then the other one is um on the back is Abby's personal favorite. So, So, we wanted you to have a chance to do some of the same kinds of deep, rigorous, and fun math problems that our elementary students get to do. So, two examples of those. Yes, so our secondary students, we always bring the crack the safe uh crack the code one, and they're like, "Fourth graders do this?" It's like, "Yes, they do." Um and then I have a lot of updates to give for our secondary program. We've done so much work for our teachers have put in a lot of time and deep thinking. And so, um we started first by sec- the middle school first identified key things that we want for our students in similar to our district mission and vision, and then grounded in the SEL pyramid um to create a mission statement for all of our 6-8 students, and then we just brought back to the forefront our high school mission statement just around the building of skills for our students from 6th grade through 11th and 12th. And so, we really see a progression from our middle school to our high school um mission statements really with the end being that we want our students to feel confident and competent when they go out into the world with not only their mathematical ability, but also the skills that they get from math class. And then again, we want to bring the highlight to the standards. There were a ton of big changes to the Minnesota state standards at our high school level. Um we are given the standards in a bundle. There's about 78 of them, and we are given as a locally controlled state the opportunity to make them what fit our high school and our students as we see fit with the guidance from MDE. And so, really the big change for the high school was in the data science and the chance and uncertainty, the data and probability anchor standard. For us, um we saw this move from the fourth standard in the benchmarks from 2007 to the first with an increase in the benchmarks that we see in it. This is new for not only our teachers, but our students. And we see and hear this when we talk to students of what do they feel like their needs are in their education. What do they feel like they would like to see more of? We often hear, "Ah, I wish I had done statistics earlier." So, [snorts] just a broad overview of the big changes that came with the benchmarks. So, we started by looking and I met with all of our teachers. There's about 50 middle school and high school math teachers in the district, and all of them have had a chance to step out of their classrooms and dig into the benchmarks in the way that it's asking us, "What are we teaching? What is the benchmark asking us to do?" But also, "How are we teaching it? How are we making sure that we're having deep mathematical rigor throughout our courses?" So, we looked at the benchmarks and we identified about 20% of our middle school benchmarks 6-8 are new to us and new to our students. And I would say that is an alignment with documents coming from MDE across what is new to the benchmarks. Then our biggest change is going to be in our high school. There's about 45 of the benchmarks that are new from 2007 to 2022. And a lot of them are falling in that data science. There's some benchmarks that are no longer being taught that we're going above and beyond, and then a lot that we need to find space for in our um course sequence for our students. So, to ground us before we start, this is our current reality. Um our current sequence is that our on-grade level 9th graders take intermediate algebra. In our block scheduling, that is 90 minutes of math every day for one semester. Then they take geometry as sophomores and algebra two as juniors. The Minnesota benchmarks are required to be um our 9th through 11th grade, and then our fourth year or fourth math class is an elective class. The majority of our students take precalculus. So, knowing that MDE and Minnesota Councils of Teachers of Mathematics saw there was a need for districts around the state. There's a huge ask of our secondary programming to meet the new benchmarks. And so, they put out It's like a 40-page document with, "Hey, we recognize that this is a big change, and here is one Here's a couple resources you could use to help adapt to that change." So, we grounded ourselves We had a group of about 25 of us with eighth grade teachers, high school teachers all the way from 9 through our AP courses, multilingual teachers, counselors, middle school and high school um administration join us, and we grounded ourselves in this 40-page document, and then many also read a new book from um the National Councils of Teachers of Mathematics for really reimagining high school mathematics. So, we took that and we met over multiple days at the beginning of this school year. >> [snorts] >> And we are moving forward with this change. We also One thing I do want to highlight that is maybe not represented is the We had our instructional coach at the high school interview about 100 students to say like, "What's working well with you with for your math journey, and what do you maybe want to see more of?" And we heard resoundingly, "We want to see more statistics. We wish we had gotten that earlier." A lot of our students don't see statistics until their third year in algebra two or sometimes their pre if they take AP stats. So, we're making a shift from three courses to six term-long courses. So, it's the same amount of math minutes. We're just breaking it up into terms instead of semesters. So, we are going to do this in phases. Next, we've started the development of our first three courses, and we are going to roll them out next year. So, year one students will take statistics one and geometry one. And then we wanted students to take non-linear algebra before they took the second half of geometry two. There are some big high-level alge- or geometry two concepts that would benefit from having some non-linear algebra skills. And then the third year, algebra two and statistics two. We also wanted to look at like, "What could we offer for our students that might be interest fields?" And so, one of the reasons we thought that this would be a good change to our course sequence is the terms allow students to take additional elective courses within our CTE and STEM programs so that they can really use that to inform their decision for an algebra two or statistics two course. And we're going to work on developing those next year so that there can be multiple pathways for students to choose. Maybe they want to go into business or more of a calculus-based class. Um and so, we're going to work on developing those next year, but we wanted to create that option for students. And then after we did this, we worked with the teachers to create kind of a flow map, and we shared this with counselors and deans at the high school and the middle school of like, "Okay, where are your students?" And this will start for students who are entering into the high school benchmarks next year. So, that is our accelerated eighth grade programming in the start in September and our ninth graders. Anyone who is already in the high school benchmarks will continue in our old course sequence. And so, we also met and delivered three presentations on open house night at the high school to share with our community members this big change, and the room was packed, standing room only. Um which was awesome to see. We know our families are really invested in making sure that their students are receiving a deep mathematical rigorous curriculum and course sequence, and they showed that on showing up to family night. So, we held three of those, and then I'm in frequent communication with the counselors at the high school to make sure that we're placing students into the pathway and the courses that are best fits for them, especially our transfer students as they come into the district. After we finished that, we started our math curriculum materials review, similar to how Bridget or how um Sarah had started with Bridges, we started that, and we did really three intensive rounds with multiple days out of the classroom. We have about again about 25 teachers who are represented, and so we started by pulling math uh math curriculum vendors and using resources from around the state and and partnerships from neighboring districts. All of us are in a very similar place. And so, we pulled a small group, and we narrowed down from all the curriculums in the world to six, and we started that in November. And then in January, we brought all six of those vendors in to do a in-depth presentation for the teachers. Then through multiple rounds of discussion, we narrowed that down to two. Knowing that not everything is going to be perfect, but what will help us meet our student experience goals for our students and provide them deep learning. And then we spent another multiple like eight, nine, 10 weeks um going through and investigating the two curriculums. We pulled teachers for multiple days out of their classrooms to dig into the materials and look for how are these materials going to allow us to reach our students best knowing that teachers are the ones who are making the instructional moves in their classrooms, and the curriculum is the tool that is going to support them. And we had multiple teachers from 6 through 11th grade pilot materials, and we did reference checks from neighboring districts before making a final recommendation for our curriculum to move forward. Before we open up for your feedback and questions, I want to touch on three things. One, I want to acknowledge the work that Sarah and Becca have led and the learning they have facilitated. It's been quite a lift, and we've not only heard positive feedback, but we I have teachers who are excited about math. Um and so, it's been a wonderful uh partnership that we've had. Um second, I want to thank the many, many teachers who have taken time outside of the classroom to join in the work. There's been some incredible learning that has happened. Um they have contributed many hours, and we all know every time you step out of the classroom, you are not only leaving your students with a different teacher, but you have to do so much work to make sure that that's the day that you're out of the classroom is still a meaningful experience for our students. So, our deepest gratitude to the many, many teachers who've been part of this process. It was our intention that throughout the process, we will have as many teacher representatives, as many voices involved in the process, so that it is a truly um a district-wide commitment to the change that we're that we're designing. And finally, in the presentation, you did not hear too much about secondary um intervention and extension. Um, we wanted to present and showcase the work that we're doing for our core programming. Um, we have still lots of work to do for our year three and year four core and elective options for courses. And we're we're we have a plan for that for this fall and into next school year. Um, and all the learning that we've been doing, all of our intentions in choosing curricular resources has also involved how does this support students who may need help to fill some gaps from that current year or previous years, and how does this resource help support extending student learning. That has been part of our work, even though it wasn't highlighted in our presentation today. So, that's something that's ongoing work for us as a team. With that, we um uh we welcome your feedback and questions. >> Thank you for the math work. Thank you for the presentation. You talked about the heavy lift. I think that will keep continuing, right? Because of the extra what, 40 plus percent change in the curriculum at the high school level, 30 plus middle school, whatever, right? So, so that I'm sure that that lift will keep keep on happening. Any comments, questions? Thank you for presenting this. Um, I know you had brought it to curriculum night, and you've been talking to parents about it, and I appreciate you bringing it here tonight. So, um you know, any parents who missed that can look back at this video and get a a little better understanding of the changes. Um I know that the students will still be taking the same number of math credits. They're just being, you know, they're they're instead of being like a semester long, they're like a quarter semester long. Is that correct? Okay. Yep, and they'll take two each year. Um, and I just wanted to say that as you know, chair of the teaching and learning committee, we have been talking about math for a while now. And so, it it has been very um it's been really interesting, and I to to see the evolution of this and the amount of effort that has gone into it and the amount of feedback and all of the work that you guys have put into this. So, um you've done your due diligence, and I feel really confident that this is going to be a great change for our students, and we're going to be in compliance with the new the new benchmarks. Um, and I my only disappointment is that my children will not get to experience it because they are in ninth and 10th grade. So, but I'm looking forward for the rest of our students to experience it. Go ahead. I'll go Okay. So, uh I've two questions, but before that, just wanted to quickly summarize. So, for elementary level, obviously we are going to a new math program, which helps in conceptualization and so on. So, that's good. I think the bigger shift is with middle school and high school, where we are trying to break the longer curriculum into smaller pieces, integrate statistics early, and it provides more flexibility. So, did I get it right? Yeah. So, the question is how much are we aligning just with MDE guidelines, and what differentiates us? I mean, why is that we already have high standards, right? So, when I look at what MDE is providing, are we really just following what MDE guidelines are, or how do I differentiate Wayzata standard? What different or different approach, or how is it different than just meeting the bare-bone minimum MDE requirement? That's a good question. MDE standards are are what provides our our baseline. Um, we are all obligated across the state to ensure that our students are not only learning the MDE, the benchmarks and the standards for content area, but they're also proficient in them. So, that's our baseline. We start with ensuring that we're teaching every single one of those benchmarks in all of our courses. Given the fact that we are a local control state, we have freedom in how we organize those benchmarks, in what courses we offer them, what our local graduation requirements are. And so, one thing that makes Wayzata unique is we require four years of mathematics for graduation. Not every school district does that. We we require students take four years of math. And we're trying to build in differentiation for students, where students have agency in selecting what's the right path for them. We have students who are interested in CTE, career and technical education. We have students who may be interested in the arts. So, our goal is that we build in that choice and agency for students, that it's truly a student choice in the third and fourth year of math that students will have access to. Our courses, in addition to that, our courses are more rigorous than what the baseline that we used to build the from the standards. So, we we ensure that we cover all the benchmarks, and then how do we go above and beyond, and what other experiences students would benefit from in our math courses at the especially at the secondary level, uh on both by the ability to accelerate if they would choose to, um and the depth of the course content that we provide. Okay. We're also unique in uh offering um term-long courses. The one the additional one additional benefit of having a block schedule at the high school is we do have the option of building in term courses. And so, we believe that switching to a term-long model allows us to really focus on content that is specific to that course. It also allows students who are transferring into our system the ability to take the right course that fits in with what they have previously completed. Okay. No, that makes sense. So, what would be our measuring criteria? So, for elementary, would we be looking at better MCA scores, or how would you define the success both at elementary and secondary level? MCA is one way of measuring success. Absolutely, that's something that we track very closely. Um, with it's hard to make a direct correlation between the exact experience students have in the classroom to what outcomes we see on MCA. We're very proud that we have one of the best scores on the MCAs in the state. That is truly a measure It's a system-wide reflection of how well we have taught to the standards that are expected on the MCAs. We will be in a transition state for the next couple years. We will have made the transition to the new benchmarks starting this next school year. However, the state is not going to measure the outcomes on those benchmarks until the the end of the '27-'28 school year. So, one of the very first slides that we looked at had the the year review. So, 2022 math standards will not be assessed on the next set of MCAs, the MCA fours, until the '27-'28 school year. So, that's one measure. At the secondary level, we also look at our the student performance on the ACT. All of our students take the ACT at the high school, so that's another measure. And what we truly um we value in addition to all of that is our students' lived experience. So, our students who take the yearly um student experience survey at the high school level, the teaching and learning team, our research and evaluation team, and the high school team has done a lot of work to align that student experience survey to each teacher classroom, each section, to the graduate the profile of a Wayzata and how students feel their experiences, both learning and their lived experience at classroom, relates to the level of rigor that they've experienced. So, those are some indicators that we use to see how well we've uh implemented the standards. Okay. Thank you. Well, I first want to hear how the conference was, cuz last I saw you guys, you were very jazzed about going to a math conference. And this is actually the third time I get to see this, cuz I was in SciTech, which you also did a different presentation. And I mean, I'm not normally excited about math, but you guys are sort of infectious. So, how was it? Was it everything you imagined? Um, there's a like I say, like gardeners love to grow other gardeners, and um MCTM is like teachers growing other teachers, because there are um experts all across the state who are teaching all across the state at all levels, um K through 12, higher education. And so, just the opportunity for our colleagues and teachers to learn from other teachers and um share what we've learned through all of the things that we just described was really exciting. So, um Ivy and I already had some some teachers who went send us examples of things that they're like, I'm going to teach this on Monday. Like, here's a shift I'm going to make on Monday, or here's something that I already shared to my colleagues about a like a small shift we can make that will make a big difference. So, I think it was exciting. And uh the weather in Duluth on at least the first day was sunny over Lake Superior, you know, so that part was The other day was a little more Duluth in April, but it was nice. Thank you for asking. We had 14 uh 14 members of our teaching staff attend the conference. Um, four from the high school, four from middle school, and three from our elementary program. And the experience I would say for all of who attended was was a fantastic experience. That's awesome. Well, I just wanted to just highlight. I mean, yeah, again, as a teaching and learning group, listening to this, I know I'm actually in the target audience in many ways as a parent of kiddos who are you know six and eight and you know high school. So I'm going to have one that doesn't really get impacted as much by this and another one that's going to be the pilot year next year and I just wanted to point out you know one thing I'm really learning and I've kind of lived through with the district changes to our math is I really appreciate how inclusive and accessible it's becoming the on-ramps of kids being able to opt in in middle school. I loved I mean the way you described inside tech those concept quests I think is a really great highlight for parents to hear that if you've got a student who's going above and beyond and needs something more you've got these kind of shorter things and also longer things that you can get them really embedded and then also being able to do some of that Bridges interventions at the elementary level I think is really creative. So and then yes you talked about and I was just wanting to highlight again that I think the AP classes and some of the specialized math options that are going to come with this is going to be really great for letting our students at Wayzata sort of choose their own path cuz I think I mentioned and I know a few others had mentioned that some of us don't hit statistics for the first time until we get to college and then it's sort of at least for me it was sort of like woah where is this coming from and I think that's probably a lot of our students are going to feel the impact of this when they go and leave our building. So thank you guys so much. I really appreciate how clear you've made everything. Thank you. Well building off of that I really am grateful for this presentation as well as the math exercises you provided. I have a guess as to what the combination of the safe is but maybe we can leave that for a little later. But thank you so much. It's you know really special to be able to tie things together. I remember when my second grade teacher at Kimberly Lane would hand out exercises for the weekend just like this one. So kind of tying those two things together is you know very special and then confronting the need for statistics in education. I took my very first statistics class just last semester as a graduate student. So they were doing it early I think it's really going to prepare kids well. So thank you for the great presentation. I look forward to talking more about the intervention work of the district going forward and great job everyone. Thank you. Okay. So first of all the quote of I wish I had taken stats earlier bar none everybody I've run into that has anything to do with mathematics in their careers says the same thing. I wish I had learned it earlier. I have a couple questions. So in our in our typical student the pathway is to do geometry in high school right in ninth grade that's the first year of geometry. Is there is there any thought around our students actually ready for geometry in ninth grade or should they be waiting a little bit later from a developmental perspective because geometry is such a different beast than algebra or calc or is there any thought around that or was there? Why don't you get started? >> Sure. Yeah we did it was a lengthy discussion around how how do we make sure that we're best fitting the like brain development needs of our students and so when we were breaking apart the benchmarks into where we thought that they would be best fit we did take those higher level like especially proving things and put them into the second course which students will take the second time like as the second math course of their sophomore year they have to take non-linear algebra first and so it was definitely a big conversation that we had. The first course of geometry is really going to be building upon the middle school geometry concepts that they started in seventh and eighth grade and deepening them at the high school level. That's great to know and I know there are going to be a lot of students and families that ask this so I'm going to ask on their behalf as well. Is there still an option to double up every year? Can somebody take a full year of math and that is not a problem? There will continue to be the opportunity for students to accelerate and the equivalency of a doubling up. So we are still going to offer the test in model that we've had at the high school and middle school process because we know learning happens everywhere not just in the classroom it can happen outside of the school as well. So students will still have the opportunity to test in. We believe that the having our courses set up as term long courses will actually allow us better our ability to provide opportunities better because then students can test into the right level of math course. They don't have to test into an entire year's worth of course but into a specific topic. So that's one option that we'll continue to have. We also want students to experience other courses in addition to math. So we instead of having a student double up on math and take four term long courses their freshman year we're going to ask students that they if they are choosing to accelerate or take more math classes that they three terms worth of math and reserve that fourth term for an exploratory course perhaps in CTE so they can see where the relevance of the math they are learning could apply to a specific area that they might be interested in. So that's the applied piece that you're also trying to get into. Okay. Absolutely. So students will still be able to take more than a year's worth of math in a year and also have the opportunity to test into a higher level math the between school years. That's great. Okay. One more question I have is can you talk a little bit so at the elementary level you talked about kind of staggering in the new curriculum? Why is it that you did that? What's the benefit of doing a staggered approach rather than like at the high school you're implementing all at once? What what's the thought process there? Again we had a lot of changes in elementary with the read act reading curriculum adding new writing curriculum new social studies curriculum all within the last few years. The big benefit I would see is that we've had some really fantastic feedback loops. So each year we've learned some things that I think will make the full implementation next year go really smoothly and really have been in checking in with teachers getting them what they need taking their suggestions and things like that and and another benefit is that they have loved the new curriculum and so the other exciting part I was just at the Birchview staff meeting last week and one of the teams was like telling their colleagues this change is going to be so exciting you're really going to love it your students are going to love it and so just also building teachers hearing from their colleagues how great it is I think has been an extra benefit as well. How how sort of complex or maybe not complex for you obviously you are math wizards. Um how knowing that there are 22 and 35 new benchmarks will be taught in middle school level and high school level how does it show up at MCA during taking MCA test or how are you making sure that our students are prepared for because I remember one time when to be honest my son came and said they never taught me. Then I realized something MCAs typically goes not just at the grade level however you can pass but at the same how do you correlate so that such way that students are prepared and they are confident when they are taking test so you don't come out of it like I don't know that much. What do you do? That's a good question. Our objective our primary goal is to ensure that each one of our students is ready to be proficient on all of the benchmarks that are assessed in the MCAs. Will this transition time will be different because we will be transitioning to the new benchmarks new standards and the MCA will still be assessing the previous benchmarks. As the state develops the MCAs there is opportunity for educators to be involved throughout the process of helping write the new MCA questions. We've had some involvement in helping develop those in the past. I'm pretty sure we'll still we'll continue to offer our our participation in that process when the state does provide that. As the MCAs are written there are guidelines that the state provides information about the MCAs sample questions on the MCAs and what we have found very helpful is once at least one round of MCAs happen the state will then provide resources on what does proficiency look like on each benchmark or the benchmarks that are assessed that have significance student results to show these types of results were were considered as meeting the expectation. These types of responses are what are indicative of exceeding the expectations. They're called the benchmark achievement level descriptors. They're going to change the name of the new MCAs but that's the the opportunity we have to really dig into how does student performance on particular benchmarks relate to proficiency. An example that we have used quite often at the elementary level is the concept of rounding. There's a there's it has been in the 2007 benchmarks a specific benchmark around the concept of rounding. And when we think of rounding I remember learning rounding as you look at the next decimal place and you see if it's five or higher then you round up. That isn't that does not constitute proficiency on the MCAs. There is there's an expectation that we teach to a higher standard of being able to estimate and how do you estimate with decimals before you even the the expectation is not to round but the ability to use estimations to find answers that have to do with rounding at some point. So we use those resources in when we review our MCA outcomes to see where do we see patterns of our students performing really well in aggregate and where do we see opportunities for us to dig deeper and learn more about why did our students not perform the way that we expected them to? Is it because our curriculum does not include the level of proficiency or the depth that is expected? Or is it that we're not teaching it to the level of proficiency that is expected? Or are we teaching it after students take the MCAs, right? The MCAs happen before the end of the school year, so there are some concepts that we may not have covered. So, we use that um the MCA outcomes to really help guide our our work of reflecting back on how well we taught the content and where opportunities for us to do better. So, I heard yes, MCA test results is one of way of measuring, but it is still the way of measuring, that's why we're doing it. So, are you expecting to have better results? Uh why I'm saying it, yes, we're doing far better than uh quite a bit of districts, but one uh motor I liked here when I moved to US that you say, you don't compare yourself to your neighbors, you compare yourself just yourself, how you used to be yesterday, how you are today, and what I looking forward tomorrow. In that kind of uh thinking process, do you expect to have better results uh and um or at least pre-COVID results? Our goal always is to do better than we did before. Absolutely, we're committed to that um providing rigorous experiences to students should lead to those outcomes. That we are teaching to the benchmarks, we're providing rigorous experiences for all students where this the content is accessible and we teach to proficiency. So, our goal of course is that our MCA scores reflect that. What we use from the MCAs to help inform our instruction is how well did students do on particular benchmarks. The overall score is absolutely important. Equally important is how are our students measuring up on the skills and comparing it to ourselves of did the students perform at the levels that we expected them to? Are we teaching to the expected outcomes at the MCAs ask us to teach the level to? So, that's where digging into not just the overall score report, how many are proficient not proficient, that is absolutely helpful and important for us to be reflective. More importantly it's at times is to inform our instruction, to inform our decision-making around curricular choices is each of those benchmark areas. And we dig into like three for example, like third grade, like third grade, fifth anchor, seventh benchmark. We did not perform as well as we expected to. Why is that? Having teachers dig into like where do we teach that? How does this benchmark build on what we taught the year before? Is it that we're not teaching it to the expect expectation the year before and that's the that's the outcome that we're noticing? Or is it that we need to dig deeper this year to do better on that specific benchmark? A lot of work happens in those reflective meetings. Sarah and Becca both have led those conversations with our colleagues and will continue to do that as the new MCAs uh roll out. As far as high school, the high school team um you really uses the ACT to help guide both the work that happens in the classroom, but also to set some goals for the school growth plan at the building. So, the high school growth plan includes the growth on the ACT exams that they want to see for students both in reading and in mathematics. So, the teams use that to guide their the work in their PLC teams to see which which area do we need to strengthen our work. Mhm. One last question, if I do we have time or Okay. One quick um in for elementary and middle school, uh would the accelerated math would there be any changes or how do you see impact to that accelerated math class? We we've made some adjustments to the the how students have access to those programming. Um uh at our elementary level, we strongly believe that horizontal enrichment is is critical. That students have a very strong foundation in the basics of mathematic concepts that they need to be successful later on. And so, we do not accelerate at that elementary level, but we provide intensive enrichment at the elementary level. Acceleration being you do more than a year's worth of math in a year's worth of time. We offer and we're excited to include um concept quests as a horizontal enrichment to any student who's ready for that. So, you don't have to be eligible based on our criteria, any every student should have access to enrichment. And then at the sixth grade level entering into middle school, we updated the process 2 years ago or about a year ago where students would be placed in a math classroom based on uh standardized test assessment data that we had. Our shift has been we provide all of that information to families. We do we send a mass communication uh during fifth fifth grade course registration for next year on, this is all the information we would have used to make that determination for your child. We want you to make the selection. >> Mhm. And so, we've seen a shift in our enrollment um not a significant shift as we perhaps were concerned about like all of a sudden if we say, oh, open enrollment, everybody will enroll. That did not happen. And research shows that that that happened. We do see an increase and there is some shifts in how we approach sixth grade acceleration that our teachers have worked really hard to make sure that every student who's opted in has an opportunity. So, we're providing access to our families earlier and giving them the option. The other change that we have made, our acceleration program at the middle school level was skip a grade level. So, if you enrolled in accelerated math as a sixth grader, you were actually doing seventh grade math. We have we have through a significant amount of collaboration with our middle school colleagues shifted away from that model to now include every benchmark for every student. So, if you're in accelerated math six starting this next school year, we will cover all sixth grade content and a certain amount of seventh grade. Accelerate seven will pick up from all seventh grade benchmarks that were not covered and all of eighth grade. So, in three in two years of time, accelerated math program at the middle school will cover all three years of required content. And the eighth grade course, the accelerated course will be the same that high school students start with, stats one geo one in one year at the eighth grade level. Okay. And is that happening now or will it happen as a part of this change? >> Some of that is already in place. Okay. >> the self-selection process where families are making that choice to enroll into accelerated math started last year. Um the compacting of uh or taking a year and a half or three years of math into two years, that process will begin next year. >> Next year. Okay. Thank you. Okay. Um >> Yeah, I have one more follow-up question. Yeah. Sorry. To piggyback off of that, is the new middle school model helping us with that because they have more time with our students? Or would it not make a difference, do you think? >> The time is not significantly different. We've our teachers when we reviewed all the benchmarks and how we would cover three years of a math is that first possible. We had teacher teams come together and really dig deeper into how does sixth grade benchmark spiral into seventh grade? So, it's it it sounds like we're covering a year and a half worth of content in a year. In reality, what we'll end up doing is we're going to spiral the same learning and when we start the concept, how do we build on that? So, we're also covering the seventh grade benchmark that's appropriate in sixth grade. So, though it is a year and a half of math that we're covering, it is in it's not the same amount of time that's needed to cover a year and a half of math. It is going in depth and going at a high at a at a higher pace. Sounds much more sophisticated as a teaching process. >> We are very excited for the change and there's excitement from our teaching staff around that we're not skipping a whole year. That foundation is critical. Because I think it does catch up with them at at a certain point, so that's great. Okay. Sorry, I'm now I'm really really done. All right, thank you. Uh I I have a few questions, not not a lot and probably not really complicated. So, for the first one is along the lines of the first question that Paris asked about us being different from MDEs, you know, curriculum. Are we advanced, you know, more more more progressive than they are they have recommended. So, if you look at slide three and four, uh MDE don't have to open it. Um MDE's implementation timeline is 27 28. Ours is 26 27. Are we faster than what they are recommending or what why is there a difference? MDE's expectation of 27 28 is that every school in the state will have implemented the standards so that students are ready to assess in the 27 28 school year. Now, it's usually not a good decision to do a a a switch all for all students at the same time. We have to build those skill sets in in the shifts that we need to make and stagger the change over multiple years. Most school districts will use some model where their their implementation is staggered. So, we're in a similar um boat as most of the school districts in the the way we're implementing the standards. Not what we're doing with them, but the the our process of us learning the standards, digging deeper into them, building our courses, and then implementing our courses. That process is fairly aligned so that you have on-ramps to build up to when the MCAs come around. The MCA is the ultimate the final expectation of full implementation. And implementation usually takes two to three years. So, they they have a timeline of where they think that the the not the slower districts, but the districts that take a little more time to adapt might take a little longer, right? MDE provides a guidance in and pacing so to speak for how to roll out the new benchmarks. Um So, we talk about AI a lot these days. Um when I was in in back in India growing up, I was not allowed to use a calculator until I was in the first year of college. No calculator. So, I'm getting to the cons- conceptual understanding of math. You You had that in one of the slides. Now, that conflicts from my understanding with with the use of AI. Many kids, they want to solve a problem, they want to compute something, they go to AI and say, "Give me the answer." Right? So, that there's I think that is a conflict. So, are we prepared to handle that? And what what are you thinking of when you're talking about conceptual understanding? Are you looking at AI conflicting with the ability to teach concept concepts? Are Are you We are. Artificial intelligence is the new frontier for all of us and especially in education as well. Um it's not solely a math-related issue. It's It impacts every content area um in how students have access. Um we believe it is our responsibility to teach ethical use of every technology including AI. And so, that's conversations that we're engaged in right now of what does that look like um anywhere from having a good AI policy of what is the appropriate use of AI. Um I I believe the board has seen the work that we've done at our secondary level around the use of AI. We believe that will help guide us and then the future upcoming AI policy that will implement will help guide our work. Um it is going to be a shift. It The world is going to be drastically different with how AI impacts our lives. And so, that's something that will show up in education both positively to make our work more streamlined perhaps or more accessible, more personalized. And also, there are going to be challenges especially around original thought, plagiarism, and depth of knowledge. And And I think our work is evolving in that arena to really engage in how do we teach the ethical use of artificial intelligence. There's a new model of it should be a H- AI-H concept. I'm going to paraphrase like a human inception partnered with AI support with human refinement. The inception and the thinking ought to be by the person who is doing the work not by some generative model. And so, that's something that we're going to dig deeper and continue our work and learning around that. The conference that you mentioned that we went to, there were several sessions that many of us attended on how can artificial intelligence help increase access to um for students including students who have maybe have multilingual uh learning or students who have IEPs. How do we make mathematics more accessible using this tool? And how can teachers educators use artificial intelligence to make the learning more meaningful and personalized. So, we're really going to leverage that end of it and and continue how do we teach students to be ethical users. Okay. Um Slide 14 talks about culturally inclusive enhancements. Can you give me one example? I'm trying to figure out what would one example be? >> That was in elementary. It's So, I can talk about that. Um The example that I often share with the teachers is that um in the previous curriculum in second grade, there is a less- there is a lesson where students predict or estimate the ages of their family members and put them on an open number line and the lesson would assume that that students had the specific family members. And so, they have adjusted it so that students can identify whomever is important in their lives. And And so, really taking out like an assumption about who is part of someone's family as an example. So, they really have just changed those contexts to ensure that they reflect students um in 2026 and and the different experiences and um cultural family pieces that they bring to math. Really emphasizing that um real-life authentic application of math is meaningful. So, for that you have to understand the student and their families pretty pretty good pretty well. Another big highlight from the conference was the inclusion of our in Minnesota Tribal Nations context which is part of our benchmarks. And so, there were multiple sessions at the conference of how can we make sure that we're bringing in those contexts authentically and not just like um they >> [clears throat] >> they called it like be real versus being a costume. And so, there were speakers at the conference. The keynote was focused on how are we incorporating our Minnesota Tribal Nations context as well as multiple breakout sessions that we attended to make sure that we're doing that authentically. Thank you. The next question may be for may be for Trevor but may be for you. So, now these new benchmarks, so many of them, right? The That That will cost money to educate teachers with the PDs. Uh is MDE going to fund all that stuff or you know or are we on our own? Is there any talk about The benefit >> funded or non-funded mandates? The benefit of being a local uh decision-making state is that we get to do how we want and then pay for it. Uh so, we're not getting any additional funding from MDE beyond what we get. Um so, we in teaching and learning, we we are very mindful of one, what are we expecting teachers to do and how do How are we using our resources most effectively and when we pull teachers out of the classroom, there's a cost associated with that. We're paying for subs, we're covering them. We do work in the summer. And so, summer work also costs money. So, anytime we're asking teachers to be out of the classroom or outside the contractual day, there's a cost associated with it. Right. Any curricular resource that we purchase has a cost associated with it. And boy, do you trust us that we negotiate and bargain the heck out of our curricular resources? Um our one of our admin pros on our team is fantastic at negotiating so much so that we've narrowed down our curriculum uh vendor that we want. And now we're going to unleash our admin pro to bargain the price to bring it down. Can we get this for free? Can we get that portion where if we make our commitment for a longer duration, what's the discount that we can expect? And so, there is a cost associated and we do our best to be mindful of that cost and to be as efficient as possible. So, speaking of curricular curriculum cost, is the Bridges curriculum for the math program is that the same as the Bridges curriculum that is I believe is free for the reading program? Or are they different? The Bridges curriculum is a math-only curriculum. We are transitioning from volume two of Bridges to volume three. Okay. And so, one benefit of doing that is one, our teachers are really um know that curriculum really well. We believe that the curriculum aligns really well with our instructional pedagogy and our vision for student learning and experience. And because we're transitioning, there's only a transition cost and it's not the cost of adopting a brand new curriculum. So, thank Director Mahoney to go back to the budget question. Finance trusts us in each of our departments to run our budgets. And so, um we do have a teaching and learning curriculum budgets. It's quite large. So, the state does provide as part of their supports to districts, right? Part of their instructional support per student. We do set aside dollars for that. And even since 2020 because we got pushed back, um we've been able to hold on and strategically plan knowing that this implementation was coming and got maybe a little interrupted with all the demands of the READ Act and some shifts there. If you recall, the state did provide some additional funding for for um our adoption of our reading materials and so forth there. And then in addition, there are other accounts that come in different funding streams for our professional learning. So, it's part of teaching and learning's overall department um to manage those budgets and to make sure that um we can land the plane with the dollars that were allotted. Um and so, we meet because again, we're purchasing things across all of our curricular areas. Um CTE also going through that review, health going through the review. It does answer the question also why we kind of staggered this a little bit is sometimes then we're also um staggering out the cost of implementation. Honestly, this implementation will start saving us some money because we've had to delay when some of our curriculum was expiring and our licenses expiring. And yet, we didn't have our new curriculum. We've been paying individual years at a very high rate. Um and so, we're actually looking forward to some some reprieve from that. But um as far as the budgeting goes, um they trust us to do that in teaching and learning. Okay. Otherwise, I'm a good little >> could an advocate, right? I apologize if I I I hope I didn't communicate that we don't get money from the state. We just The state is not looking at our plan and adjusting our resources. They They give us a set amount and it's our obligation to then use those resources efficiently and effectively. Okay. Thank you. And then one one last comment actually. So, the crack the safe You know, when we when we go to hotels, there are safes, right? Some You know, you use the safe sometimes. They're usually four-digit codes. Sometimes I forget the code. So, can I use this formula here to crack that code? If you do solve it, please send us a picture because we have a big collection of all the different ways people have solved it and it's fascinating. So, we love to see um completed work. Yes. Yes, please do share your completed work with us. >> Absolutely. Yes. Thank you. That's our homework, guys. Thank you so much. >> Thank you so much for joining us and all you know, the fantastic presentation about the new curriculum. I think we are all excited. Thank you. All right. The next item on the agenda this afternoon is school board reports. And the first item in under that is the policy committee chair Sheila prior facilitating a discussion on the school board legal status policy which was put on hold from a board on at the April 20th board meeting Sheila. Hello colleagues. Yes, at the last school board meeting we had a policy that the committee had reviewed and brought to you know, was planning to bring for approval but there were some questions from board members about it. So we're going to talk about it here today. Um So we have policy 201 is our current policy that has been approved in the past and we were going to um It looks like we're combining 200 and 201 into MSB 201. And as part of that process, you know, there were some bits of the MSBA policy that were crossed out and that seemed to be where some people were had some questions around. Um specifically, okay, so our original policy says the school board is the governing Sorry, no, that's Yeah, the school board is the governing body of the school district. MSBA has an addition to that. As such, the school board has the responsibility for the care, management and control over public schools in the school district and I think there was some concern that we were not including that. So uh any You want us to study you the who I don't know. I I did have concerns so I'll go last. If anybody else had any any comments on that if The discussion in policy was that why is that it is a very large district and we have a govern you know, we have adopted a a more governance um format for our school board. In our later on in policy 201 it talks about delegating authority for management. Um so that is why we took it out because this is what the policy had been and that is what as a board we generally agreed upon that we were governance. I think um in talking to you know, people at MSBA and Dr. Anderson, there's a lot of school districts in the state who are much smaller. Um and MSBA tries to leave their policies somewhat flexible to apply to multiple different sizes of district and those smaller districts some of the school board members probably do take on more of a management role because they don't have the administrative staff and then you know, the size of our district. So that's just an explanation of why we brought it forward with that part crossed out and yeah, we'll ask for my colleagues' comments. Alicia Um I was just going to add it's worth looking at the policy 201 school board legal status redline. We talked about um when we brought this back to our most recent meeting how we could potentially reward it a bit um because we were trying to align with statute and feel that that is what we have done in this most recent redline if Alicia, can I just um clarify you're talking about section two subpart A? Is that still the the the Is that Okay. >> Okay, and then my understanding is the approved version that we have right now 201 legal status of the school board is and that was approved in 2017 um has the wording the school board is the governing body of the school district period. Is that a correct understanding? >> Yes, we also though shifted um if you look under one purpose we cut that first line but then we added. So after the word mission, the very last word there was a period, we added pursuant to statutory and constitutional authority. Uh-huh. As sort of a catchall back to what statute says and I don't have statute in front of me. 123B.09 Yeah, I don't have that in front of me though but okay. So I guess I'm confused um what the concern is. I I will I will express that. I'm just going to make sure everybody else has a chance to speak first. Anthony I am concerned. I voiced that because I feel like we for some reason cannot even um how to better word it don't want to have a word management. Um well, in policy 200 it also says uh our which was since 1978 it says Minnesota state law provides that the care, management and control of independent district is vested in a board of directors. So it had been we didn't have a problem with that language. And another one is MSBA is covering my understanding 50% of a district and is covering quite hefty big districts. And MSBA we used their language is um helping guide. That's why I'm really concerned that we're removing certain um phrases meaningful phrases. I have one follow-up question on that. And um and I in all honesty I don't know who I'm asking this. So I'm just going to ask the question and maybe somebody has an answer. Um or maybe we need to research this. Um but in our currently approved policy 200 um which yes was adopted at first in 1978 but it looks like there have been many um reviews and amended states. Um in section two um subpart A uh it talks about the vested the care, management and control of independent districts is vested in a board of directors. And my curiosity is does that mean that as a board of directors we have the right and the authority to delegate those powers? >> Yeah. And so we delegate certain powers to our administrative team. That's my question. So let me let me express my thoughts on this. Okay, so I I am not comfortable removing language that comes directly from statute 123B.09. Okay. I think the better approach is to keep it keep that language and clarify how we interpret that. Specifically that our role is governance and oversight while day-to-day management is delegated to the superintendent. I think our responsibility is to align with the law and then clearly define roles within that framework, not edit the law out of our policy. That is not our role. And so we I I did I did not realize Sheila that there was somewhere later on that that you know, somewhere it says that we will delegate the authority to the to the administration. If that is there my recommendation is to move that immediately after that statute language. So it is clear that although we are talking about statute 123B.09 specifying care management and there is one more word control of the district lies with the school district or school board but the management part is delegated by the board to the administration and or to the superintendent. That I believe might be okay. So in So what There are several things that I wrote down here. One of the modifications we could do is after that line could say in uh we could say uh in accordance Sorry. Where is that? I wrote it down somewhere. Oh. Uh Consistent with this authority, the board governs through policy and delegates the day-to-day management of the district to the superintendent. Okay. So that is that is my recommendation and then final recommendation is I'm very worried about taking statute out of our policy. If it is by law, it better be there. And we could actually seek the advice of our legal counsel. And if the legal counsel says you can take it out I'm okay with it but I don't feel comfortable taking something out that is statute uh out of the policy. We don't want to edit that part. I think it's reasonable to state the statute and then in our policy as you say what is the Waseca School Board? What is our policy? Here's statute, our policy is as a governing board. And the management part we we delegate that to the superintendent. Uh can I ask again which um which statute are we referencing? 123B.09 subdivision one. So that is already listed in the redline in our legal references. It is listed in the references but it is taken out of the the the language across out as in the red line policy. So, that is the only reference that I think it refers to. Now I see Now I see why it was important to do to keep it as a we have an when I recommended going to first reading, now I understand why we decided not to do that. Um So, thank you for guiding that. Let me just offer one thing that comes to mind for me as I reread this again and specifically from policy 200, um the way the general statement of policy is listed here, it seems to be more of a reiteration of the wording the statutory language where in a reference to it, whereas in the draft policy 200 with the redlined edits, um it seems to be a little more directive in the way it's written in the MSBA policy. It's not really a reiteration of statute, it's specifically indicating the care management control of schools is vested by statutory and constitutional authority. I would concur we probably shouldn't change laws in our policy. It I don't certainly that's not the intent, but you know, we don't want for that to be uh what some people would interpret with it and references specifically the school board. So, And I just reflect back on years of conversation about management versus governance. What can we do with the wording of our policy just to help ensure that we maintain the appropriate uh perspective on what that delineation is between management and governance. I think that's probably what you're getting at as well. I think it's cuz I had a look at it too and and think in terms of Yeah, so it's been there since at least 2022, which was the last reviewed, but in my mind I grapple with it and I see it's a different in the context as I reference it, which I think it makes it feel differently in the suggested wording and then that that was uh redlined out. So, those would be my thoughts or comments. Yeah, I I don't think the lawmakers would have a problem with us stating verbatim what the what the statute is and then clarifying that this part this word in your statute, this is what we mean in our district. I think that might be fine. But again, we No. Maybe perhaps you could talk to Trevor. Ask ask him. Yeah. Wouldn't be okay? And let me just add one other thing maybe that um might suggest I don't know what the right wording is, usefulness of the title of ex officio school board member. So, maybe that's me in in that role. I've always kind of wrestled with and grappled, what does that really mean? As a non-voting school board member, I'm not really a school board member. I'm not really elected. Um but maybe there's a that's the connector and that's why that title exists. So, maybe worth exploring that a little bit where I never really thought about it exactly that way before, but just a random thought that came to mind for me. Should I send you what I read this the amendment? >> Yes, please. Please send me that. >> Then you can discuss that and take it from there. So, we'll do some rewording um as discussed. I also think anytime it says manage in our policy, we should definitely have you know, there there are other places in this policy that is crossed out. It should at the least say govern as well as manage or we can take out manage completely in a lot of these, but If this was not statute, I would not bring all the arguments here at the table, right? Yeah. Okay, so we will bring it The committee will bring it back for the board's review. Um so there will have to be, yeah, another reading. There was one more on the the four-year term. Oh, um well, that's not on the agenda that that policy. Okay. But yeah, you were It's not a part of this school one, no. No. Any other questions, comments? Are we done with this part then this item? Sheila, are we done? I'm done unless anybody else has another comment or question. All right, let's move on then. Thank you, Sheila, and thank you the to the policy committee for all the hard work. Um So, the final item for this afternoon is committee reports um by committee chairs. And the chairs of the committees of the board will provide updates on these committees the commit their committees' activities and meetings during the first quarter of the year. And committee chairs, please keep your reports at a high level, please. Uh And there can I mean, if there is a lot of discussion, we can probably take it up maybe at a work session as a stand-alone topic, but this is just a high-level report. And if you have a couple of questions, feel free to ask them, but we want to limit the time uh that each committee chair has and put about 5 to 6 minutes cuz there are eight committees, eight chairs, and eight eight reports. So, uh I'll I will give the order first. But maybe I'll read them out as we go. So, first will be the Community Relations Committee and Director Ginestra. That's me. All right. Well, thank you um everyone for um you know, joining us for this part of the meeting. Um it's very special to give the um uh committee report for the Community Relations and Community uh Engagement uh Committee. Um first off, just really uh giving a thank you to our Communications team for such great leadership um during the referendum campaign. It was very special when we met a few uh months back being able to preview some of the materials that went out to residents, families, parents, um and just see kind of how we're going to tell our story and message um our need for um you know, greater uh facilities, facilities um expansions, and and so on and so forth. Um that work has been very helpful um and useful. So, um our next topic um will be the uh MSBA Day on the Hill. Um board colleagues uh Sahoni, Little, um and our Superintendent Dr. Anderson uh uh joined um us for um opportunity to lobby legislators, have important conversations about education policy including um the Safe Schools Levy. We'd like to see that increased as well as the uh deficit in uh state special education uh budgets. Um that is a very high priority and concern currently. Um next off, just a little bit ago we uh went to the Association of Metropolitan School Districts Day of Advocacy on Capitol Hill. Um I was fortunate to be joined by um Directors Sahoni, Kader, and our incoming Superintendent of Schools uh Dr. Rob Bergin. It was really great um and by the end of it we talked to pretty much every legislator representing a part of Wayzata Schools. Uh hitting again on the uh Safe Schools Levy uh as well as the um ongoing uh deficit um in the special education budget. It was the great opportunity to tell our community story and um talk about our needs. So, I'll turn it over now to the next uh committee chair. Thank you, everyone. Oh, and very quickly, um and then to finally acknowledge the uh members of the uh Community Relations Committee, um Directors Sahoni and Kader, myself, our administrative liaison um Amy Parnell, uh Amy Guys, and our Superintendent of Schools Chase Anderson. So, thank you, everyone, for all your committed dedication. And Operations Director Kader. Um so, I'll acknowledge my board colleagues that sit with me on the board, Dan Ginestra, Paris Bende, and uh me as the treasurer. Uh our administrative partners are Executive Director of Finance Trevor Peterson, and um he's often joined by Superintendent Chase Anderson. Jack Sterns joins us as does Jen Welt. The purpose of the committee is to provide guidance and support to the finance department, to review the CFAC agenda, and serve as board representatives to the meetings, and provide oversight to the other post-employment benefits committee, which is always known as OPEB. Um the committee has two commitments per month. One is to meet with the admin as an internal committee, and the other to meet with the Citizens Finance Advisory Committee, which is also known as CFAC. Additionally, there is a quarterly meeting for OPEB. The work of the committee is fully aligned with the business of the district, so you all see it on a regular basis. There are no surprises in my report here. We have an opportunity to review the monthly financial reports, student enrollment updates, audit results, and any upcoming resolutions prior to them coming to the regular meeting for our approval. This year has been an incredibly positive one for the district's finances. I'm very proud to say that. As you may recall from our last meeting, um fund balances are strong, enrollment continues a positive trajectory, and we just approved a successful tender offering. Just a few short weeks ago we were happy to celebrate the overwhelmingly positive results of the referendum election with our CFAC Committee. Uh things to expect in the coming months, as usual, the finance team is working um in three years simultaneously. They just finished out last year's audit with no findings. Presented us um at our last meeting with our year of end budget adjustments and we're currently working on the preliminary budget for the 26-27 school year, which will need our approval by the end of June. Thank you, Heidi. Uh, I just want to make a quick comment. I want to thank the finance committee and the communications department, which I forgot to say earlier when Dan spoke for for the fantastic job you did on the referendum. And you know, providing it to the public. And we came out with a very very positive result. So, thank you so much for that. Okay. Next we have human resources, again Director Kader. Back to me. Um, so my my board colleagues are Alicia Little and Sheila Prior and I'm the chair of that committee and our administrative partners are Dave Lutz and Dr. Anderson. The purpose of this committee is very simple. It's to offer guidance and support to the executive director of HR. I hope we're doing that, Dave. Um, this committee meets every month the week prior to the regular board meeting. There are additional touch points that happen regularly when and if necessary. Board colleagues, the work of this committee is fully aligned with the work of the district. So, again, you will hear no surprises in my report. Um, the you see the work of our HR committee at every regular board meeting. And Director Lutz consistently prepares consent agenda items for our review and any discussion. January and February were incredibly busy with the hiring of our new superintendent. Thank you to Directors Little and Prior for stepping into the role of doing background checks to help that hiring process. While that was not a formal function of the HR committee, it was certainly an effort that came from those two colleagues. As you are aware, three of our most senior principals are retiring from their elementary schools at the end of the school year. As a reminder, those schools are Gleason Lake, Sunset Hill, and Meadow Ridge. These three positions are pivotal as we continue our CEL and PLC work that is showing such a significantly positive impact for our students and teachers. A note to district staff and families at the impacted schools read as follows. Thank you to everyone who shared feedback throughout this important process. Staff, families, and students provided valuable input through surveys and classroom activities to help identify the qualities and experience most important to our next school leaders. In addition, a representative group of teachers, parents, and staff from each of the schools, administrators, and school board members participated in interviews with 10 semifinalists on April 22 and 23. So, last week Director Little and I were two of over 30 individuals joining a hiring committee that interviewed those 10 semifinalists as part of the last round. Uh, this process allowed us to offer input to outgoing Superintendent Anderson and incoming Superintendent Virgin as they make their decisions. Thank you. >> Alicia, I know you really enjoyed that process. So, if you have anything to say, feel free to join in. Well, I just will share. I mean, I know HR is a committee that is always recommended especially to new staff and I feel like I've learned a lot. I picked quite the year to come on board to dive into both the superintendent process, but yeah, I think sitting in on the interviews last week was really inspiring and seeing the level of talent in all of these educators and passion. I just the more I sat on it all weekend, I said a couple times cuz Heidi was next to me like, give them all the things. Like, they really are passionate. The amount of research and education and just joy that they bring to their um jobs is, you know, infectious and I'm so excited to see where we move forward with our final three principals, but I think I just want to give a shout-out to all of them. I know even I walked in a little late cuz I was coming from policy meeting today one of interviews and it's literally a room of 30 plus people lined up watching and to see that, you know, these potential principals, you know, to our district were able to come in and just really confidently give a presentation and answer questions. It's just really impressive all around. So, I've enjoyed being on HR committee and thank you for being our chair this year. Thank you. Next we have policy and regulations review, Director Prior. Okay, the policy committee of the board and policy and regulations committee. The colleagues on the board are on that committee with me are Dan Genestra and Alicia Little. Uh, we meet monthly with our district administrative assistant Amy Geiss and Chase Anderson along with whichever directors head the departments governed by the policies on a particular agenda. Um, so we meet monthly and the purpose is to review policies and updates as needed. Some policies require review on a schedule. For the rest, the committee we do like we rotate through going through as many as we can in a year. We usually focus on a specific category. So, where like what does this entail? If you've been on it before, you know it. If you haven't, the Minnesota School Board Association, they, you know, have their model policies and we you know, in general, we do use that those policies as a template. Um, then we and the Minnesota School Board Association has reviewed those with their legal counsel. When we review them, we review them with the administrators who are affected by these policies along with Chase and Amy and and when needed, we also um uh you know, request our legal counsel weigh in. Um, so we talked about some policies today. So, actually today both of the committees that I chair, we've had a lot of we've seen a lot from those committees today in this specific meeting. So, earlier um you know, we were going over 201 and this is this year we're going over the 200s, which are the school board policies. So, we won't have that many administrators we won't have any administrators in our committee meetings until we're done with the 200s because the 200s just affect the board. Um that's what's going on in policy. Um, looking forward, maybe I'll get to that later. Is teaching and learning the next committee talking about? >> I'm going to go >> Hold on one second. Let me see if anybody has any questions, comments for the policy committee. Hearing none. I was just going to say the only comment is that we're also trying to renumber our policies as we can with MSBA. So, we've got some areas where we're able to just adopt those and so that'll help streamline the process especially on the back end for a certain member at our board table over there at our administrative table there. So, Well, for us too as yeah, as we review them and we're trying to look back and forth. You know, to compare it's it's easier if they have the same numbering um pattern as MSBA. So, yes, thank you for that reminder, Alicia. Okay. Bring it up. Yeah, and okay, teaching and learning committee of the board. Um Uh, Director Valentina Ears and Alicia Little are on that committee with me. We meet monthly with Director of Teaching and Learning Dana Miller and Superintendent Anderson and often with Abby Borr and Austin Tollerson with special visits by Stacy Lackner and other people who, you know, there's there's a lot of people in teaching and learning. So, depending on what's on the agenda, we have many different visitors to that committee. processes and long-term planning as it relates to instructional practices. Um, we saw today that you know, the the math curriculum and the review process that that went through and the changes. So, we've actually been talking about that for many months in teaching and learning. Um we don't always bring everything we just discuss to the full board, but when it's something that, you know, is a big change like the math curriculum, we generally bring it here. Uh, if you guys might recall last year when um directors Miller and Wade Phillips came and talked about the um technology use in schools and how they're looking to, you know, use that more intentionally in classrooms and limit technology. That was something we discussed in the teaching and learning committee and decided to bring to the full board. Other notable teaching and learning topics over the last six months include the comprehensive achievement and civic readiness requirements from the state of Minnesota, also known as CACR or CACR, formerly known as World's Best Workforce. That's an annual thing discussion that is brought before the committee and then the school board as a whole. Um, we've talked about the Wayzata High School's career and technical education program. We've talked about the READ Act progress and compliance. We had a presentation from the student ambassadors from DECA, which is the high school club. Um, looking ahead, um we we were looking at artificial intelligence and MSBA has put out a um sample policy for artificial intelligence and this is going to be something that the, you know, Director of Teaching and Learning and Teaching and Learning staff are going to review. It's going to come to the Teaching and Learning Committee first and then potentially to the Policy Committee. I don't have a time frame for that, but this is just something that's on our radar as I'm sure it is on all of yours. I just wanted everyone to know that that we will be talking about it. All right, thank you. Uh I have a I have one question uh Sheila just like C-frac and OPeb are part of the finance not of not the finance committee itself but they they come under the finance uh group. Do you have CITECH, right? Yes, CITECH is the Community and Instructional Technology >> Yeah. um Curriculum yeah curriculum instructional technology >> It was committee, yeah. Um Alicia is our board From the Teaching and Learning Committee, okay. >> member on that committee. All right, thank you so much. Uh next we have Director Benday for the Equity and and Inclusion Ad Hoc Subcommittee. All right. Thank you. So, Equity and Inclusion Ad Hoc Committee partners with uh Superintendent Dr. Anderson and Director of Equity and Inclusion uh Solveig Herrity. And really the purpose is to evaluate the need, structure, purpose of any potential board level equity committee. Um currently Dr. Kader, Dr. Little, myself, uh we represent the board on that committee. Uh we had our first meeting for this year in back in February. Uh there were two topics uh that team focused on. The first one was WIZARD I Indigenous Advisory Committee vote of concurrence. And essentially what it is is is the program making satisfactory progress in alignment with MDE guidelines. Um the good news is yes, the answer is yes, the committee confirmed that. And really they highlighted certain programs uh why they are supporting this vote. Um wanted to call out few. One is monthly student program is now in place for all middle schools and high school. Um there is a bi-weekly meeting that are more structured as community gathering. Um and again there is a continuous focus on community building experience um through either annual field trips, end of the year graduation celebration, as well as programs such as one that was conducted back in March uh called drum and dance night. The second topic was on the achievement and integration plan. So, this plan leverages the state funding to address persistent achievement uh and opportunity gaps. The plan is submitted to MDE every 3 years and then we have to report on annual progress. So, the key updates were structured around four categories. Um instructional strategy again refining the co-teaching model to better align with current student needs. How do we incorporate student voice? Uh so, there is a pilot in middle school student leadership initiative. Family connections, how do we strengthen and proactively respond to families? So, again the overall family engagement and then the resource availability. So, we are developing a centralized webpage to improve access to scholarships and community resources. So, again those are some of the topics those were discussed in our last meeting. Um the next meeting is scheduled in month of May. So, we'll be able to provide more updates post that meeting. Thank you. Any questions, comments? I have one question for you. I I believe I could be wrong about this uh Director Herrity had mentioned that there is no requirement now to present the achievement and integration data that we that was done every year on a regular basis. Is is that true or maybe I misheard or something? >> Um I can go back and check. I thought the plan we have to submit every 3 years but we are expected to send the annual progress monitoring. But we are I think we were required to present that >> Oh, present. Okay. I'll check. >> Maybe maybe that is not a requirement anymore. Confirm that. You have to Yeah, Dr. I uh Sony, I can answer that. Um the data for that is part of our achievement and integration act is included in the CACR presentation or CACR formally known as World's Best Workforce. So, we do um provide our yearly updates as far as the data is for that is concerned. We do not have to bring the plan to the board for approval. That gets I believe you signed off on it. So, it takes just one. Yeah. Correct. Okay. Yes, that's what I remember signing off on something. I don't know yeah. Thank you. Okay. Thanks. Thank you for the presentation. Um Okay, then the last two are mine. Um Uh as the Facilities Development and Long Range Planning uh chair, I will present very briefly a committee report. Uh members of that committee are Director Benday, Director Air, and myself. From the administration side, it's John Deutsch Trevor Peterson and Chase and we have uh representatives from Wold and Ehlers attending those meetings as well. The purpose of that committee is to oversee bond referendum and other capital projects develop long long range plans for facilities development. The meetings are held usually monthly but then again if if if there is no real real need for the meetings then they're canceled and then they all happen as needed. So, this year the committee has met twice in person, once in January and the second time last week after the referendum. So, I'll give you a brief overview of those two meetings. In the January meeting, John gave an update on the status of the West Middle School Music Suite. He also provided the budget for the 2026 LTFM projects and representatives from Wold and Ehlers gave an update on the April April referendum. In the April meeting after the referendum John gave an update on the West Middle School Music Suite. The project is on time and on budget and the classrooms will be ready by summer. John also gave a summer LTFM planning project scope update. Elevators and generators replacement dates in some buildings have been pushed back and I believe they were busy with the referendum and that pushed pushed the pushed the dates back a little bit. And finally Ehlers and Wold gave an update on the referendum followed by a planning presentation by Sal Bagley of Wold. In the presentation, Sal mostly discussed the bond communication structure in which the bond oversight committee will play a key role in the planning and implementation. The committee will be led by Trevor, John, and Chase until June 30th and Rob will join that committee after July 1st. And we'll coordinate with core planning groups from 14 buildings including the new buildings. Board members on the committee made two suggestions and when we met last week one was the one was to keep the community updated on the progress made at a high level via the district's website similar to how it was done for the boundary changes the superintendent search and the bond referendum. And the second suggestion was to consider involving a few community members on the core planning groups. Thanks to my fellow committee members and my board colleagues for the active participation in the process. Any questions, comments? Okay, I'll move on to the last one for the afternoon, the Superintendent Evaluation and School Board Board Development Committee. Um Members are Director Kader, Director Airs, and myself. The purpose of the committee is in addition to evaluating the superintendent, the committee is assigned the task of board development and the board handbook. This committee is also responsible for negotiating and maintaining the superintendent's contract. Um we had one meeting in person this year one virtually and there were several meeting you know meetings back and forth via email. Um First, I will address the handbook. The committee under MSBA's model handbook it used the MSBA's model handbook and customized it to fit WIZARD. Amy built the handbook with our inputs. The board approved the first version of the handbook in January and made some recommendation recommended additions with the understanding that the update will be brought to a meeting for recommended approval in June. After that, the handbook will be reviewed and updated as needed twice a year. Um And and if if changes are recommended, those will be made accordingly. The second one is the board development. The last time a board's self-evaluation {slash} board development workshop was was in May of 2024. Following this, it was decided to have a follow-up board development session. An organization was approached for that purpose but found that we found out that they could not help us with that development. As part of the ongoing discussion and in balancing other pressing board work, in January the committee decided to seek applications for board development. A total of three firms applied. After due diligence and review of the applications in the March work session this year there was consensus on the board that we should move forward with MSBA's Gail Gilman to conduct a workshop for board development and self-evaluation. That workshop is tentatively scheduled for June 8th. Although not a primary responsibility of the Superintendent Evaluation Committee, the committee members played a key role during the superintendent search interviews and negotiating the superintendent contract. Thank you to every member of the board for their help in the process and thank you again to my fellow committee members. They worked very very hard during that superintendent search process and contract negotiation. And of course, thank you to everybody else on the board and the administration for that as well. That concludes my report on the superintendent evaluation committee. Yeah, Alicia. I hope it's okay. I was going to say, um, could I give a quick update about Waconia Education Fund? It's something that I Absolutely. joined and um, so I am um, I guess I don't know. Am I just the I'm the board representative that is um, representing for the Waconia Education Fund this year and came in at a really great time because I came in in January and the gala was in February, which is one of their biggest events. So, just want to highlight the work that they are doing. Um, I actually was able to help uh, checks are being presented this week and next week for the recipients to the grants that are going out throughout the district. So, I was able to be at the transition program today. I can announce that one because they got their check this morning and it's really exciting to see the staff that have worked hard to get those grants in and are now able to use those funds to do really great programs throughout the district. So, just want to highlight that. Um, again, the Waconia Education Fund hard to keep that sixth grade outdoor experience again for next year going that they started this year and then they are also funding an author visit to every elementary school in the district next school year. Um, and we just came off of Highlighted Hero, so just want to let people know that it's a really dedicated group of volunteers who are working hard to fund a lot of the experiences in our district that go above and beyond what our students would be able to receive otherwise. So, I'm proud to be a part of their group this year. Thank you for your representation and thank you for all the work that Waconia does. Really really a great group. Thank you. All right. I just want to remind board colleagues that our next report will be This is April, right? April, May, June, July. I think July the month of July for the second quarter. So, and I'll give you send you a reminder for that as well. Um, that completes our agenda for this evening. The Waconia Public Schools Board of Education work session for Monday, April 27th, 2026 is adjourned.