[clears throat] The only thing I couldn't find was That's amazing. >> All right. >> Dad was quite >> quite Oh, yeah. Yeah, it is. There's some interest. >> [clears throat] >> If he comes in, he comes in with you. Good. crisis between 80 and maybe between those entrances. >> Always trying to get one more thing done. This regular meeting of the Independent School District 5:35 School Board is called to order at 5:30 p.m. on Tuesday, September 15, 2026 in room 137 of the Edison Building. Present at this meeting are school board members, Superintendent Kent Pal, a non- voting exeicio member, and assistant school board clerk, Miss Anne Kramer. Miss Kramer, will you please call the role? >> Director >> here. here. >> Director >> here. >> Nathan >> here >> the board acknowledges this site and all RPS sites are situated on the ancestral land of the Dakota people and we honor the Dakota nations and the sacred land of all indigenous peoples. At this time we offer the opportunity to say the pledge of allegiance. I pledge allegiance to the flag of the United States of America and to the republic for which it stands. One nation under God, indivisible, with liberty and justice for all. >> Item 2.1 is approval of the agenda. Are there any changes to the agenda? >> Move approval. >> Second. >> It has been moved and seconded to approve the agenda. All those in favor say I. I. Any opposed. The agenda has been approved. The agenda and documents for this meeting are available online at rochesterchools.org backsembly. Our next item are comments to the board. The school board welcomes communication from our stakeholders via email, phone call, and hear it comments to the board. The purpose of comments to the board is to give community members an opportunity to provide input directly to the school board about issues that fall within our authority. The board and superintendent do not respond directly to the speaker's comments during the meeting, but may follow up with the speaker if requested and appropriate. Persons who want to make comments to the board must fill out the online form by 5:00 pm on the Monday before the board meeting and sign up for a time slot. The form is available on the RPS website and on the assembly main page. Members of the audience are reminded that clapping, cheering, booing, vocalizing approval or vocalizing disapproval for a speaker is prohibited during the board meeting, including during comments to the board. Speakers, when your name is called, please come to the table. If you have written materials for the board, please provide them to the assistant school board clerk prior to your remarks, and she will distribute them to the board. Choose a microphone to speak into and be seated. Please direct your remarks to the school board. You will have three minutes to speak and the timer will be displayed here in front of me. Please begin your remarks by stating your name. Our speaker tonight is Hannah Schaefer. Our next agenda item is information and outreach. Our recognitions are National Information Technology Professionals Day and Community Schools Facilitators Week. Director Mccclaclin. The district recognizes today, September 15th, as National Information Technology Professionals Day. Rochester Public Schools IT Professionals are responsible for the everyday management and maintenance of the essential networks, systems, and applications that power the technologies we use in teaching, learning, and communicating. Our IT staff is still engaged in the mammoth task of getting our technology systems up and running at the beginning of the school year and we are grateful for their skill and patience in assisting our staff and troubleshooting each issue that arises. We will not be able to achieve the goals of the RPS long-term technology plan without these valued members of our RPS community. And we appreciate what they do to resolve daily technology challenges while working to implement investments in our technology infrastructure, security, and instructional tools that will directly benefit staff and students. >> Dr. We recognize our community school site facilitators doing during September 13th through 19th. Our community school site facilitators provide pathways to student success and create space and opportunities for family engagement. They are the leaders who work collaboratively to gather and [clears throat] align assets, resources, and relationships and are essential to maintaining partnerships between community schools and our community partners. They are a reliable and trusted presence for every student or family member who needs a listening ear, who has a problem that needs solving, or needs to find a school or community resource. We thank our community school site facilitators, Lauren Ruggerberg at Franklin, Lisa Becker at Riverside, Julie McLaren at Gage, Sueda Patel at Rochester ALC, and Erin Vasquez at John Marshall for all the work they do. Thank you. The next item on our agenda is a recognition um which always feels a little awkward every year of Minnesota School Board Recognition Month. Um but I want to thank my colleagues here um for all of your thoughtful and committed service um here on the board. Um I don't know uh if the community can see it, but I think we feel it. It's a pleasure to work with all of you. Um, I'm really honored to have you all as colleagues and I believe the superintendent has some remarks. >> Yes, it's not awkward for me to uh thank uh our board members and by extension schoolboard members everywhere. Um, I think it is almost unchallengeable to say that we are living during truly extraordinary times. Um, we are living at a time of increasing student needs, whether that's because of the pandemic or the impact of screen time or widening socioeconomic inequality that has large percentages of our families living very close to the edge. Um, and we're living through that period of increased student needs at a time of decreasing investment and public resources. Um it was a report that came out last week that the chair shared with me that in adjusted for inflation, Minnesota spends less today than we did uh 20 years ago on education and that has huge implications. We're now in the middle of the pack nationally for the investment in our kids. So increasing needs, decreasing resources. Um and a society that uh in many quarters I think significantly driven by social media but not just that um uh presumes ill intent um before uh listening for dialogue. And then finally I think we're living through a period of really profound distrust in institutions and leaders. Uh now we could um I debate those four points um but I think broadly stated we we see them every day and it's in that context that you all serve as schoolboard members and I think it's really important for the public to have a sense of the extraordinary burden that you all bear. I make recommendations to you but ultimately you own those votes and I know people around town talk to you about um those votes. Um, one of the points that I have made uh over the last five years in my work with our student school board and Dr. Marvin has has been there for this is that every once in a while as superintendent I get a decision that's a clear right and wrong. Um, and those are not necessarily easy because even if it's a clear right and wrong as this board knows well there may be stakeholders who will be impacted. But more often what I get and ultimately you get are decisions between right and right. It's making those decisions about student needs at a time of uh inadequate public investment. Um and I talked to the student school board members about the fact that I believe they are all going to be leaders. Uh, and in fact, we're in this room usually, and I say some of you may be sitting up here as Rochester Public School Board members at some point. And, um, making those decisions between right versus right, ultimately comes down to your ethics and your values. And I am proud to work for a board. Uh, all of you have very different perspectives and motivations, but all of you are very deeply committed to kids. And I think you'd seek to make those decisions based on your individual assertions and uh conclusions about what is right. So, um you're not in it for the money. Um you're not in it, uh for the glory. Um we are going to give you uh a Rochester Public Schools um truck this year in the homecoming parades. So, uh that's not uh >> it's not a Cadillac. >> We don't get to keep the truck. you don't get to keep the truck, >> but we don't have to walk this year because you also all talked to too many people along the line and then they're like, we're the parade is getting held up. So, we'll be enjoying that on uh starting this Friday. So, but I just want to um uh thank you all for the service that you um provide for our community um and the opportunity to work with you on behalf of Rochester Kids. >> Well, it brings us to our next agenda item, which are board member updates. Does any board member have updates from your committees or any other information to share? >> Director Marvin. >> Um, a few of [clears throat] us were able to under um to attend the mayor's screening of a new film at RCTC on uh September 10th and it was about how New York City came together to figure out what to do with the area where the Twin Towers had stood. It was an exercise in bringing people with very different ideas, very different experiences together, thousands of them to decide how best to honor those who had fallen, those who had uh given the service, those who had helped the deconstruction and the and the long long years um after the Twin Towers had been attacked. It was a complicated, often contentious process. But at the end, that city came together and agreed to create the memorial that stands at the sites of the Twin Towers today. It took a long time and it took facilitators who went in thinking they had the answer and then the community convinced them, no, you don't. But at the end it was about people wanting to do the right thing and being willing to really listen to each other to really work together to create something that would be lasting that would be meaningful um and that ended up creating more more of a community. So um a number of us were able to attend that screening and it was really um inspiring. >> Any else have an update? Well, I attended the um September um family engagement meeting um which is the first uh monthly meeting of the year. Um it's done uh most of them are done online and some of them are done in person, but it just gives a great overview of what is happening on in family engagement across the district, but the highlight topic was our volunteers. Um we have uh Josh Halverson who's in uh community um education department and partnerships and has revamped the uh sign up system online for volunteers, the background checks and is really working to identify those opportunities for volunteers to connect to so that we can continue to have that robust relationship with members of our community who want to come in and and give us all some help. Uh we always talk about how we can't do it ourselves, but I think it's really important that they're working to facilitate um getting those people into our schools to serve um some really important roles. Um I also know that they announced that our cape, our uh parent um workshops are going to be starting up again and um the information on those um I believe have been sent out to all of our families by a peach jar. Um, so that's starting uh for the year and it was just a really good meeting and presentation to see that already, you know, just a few weeks into the school year, our family engagement work um is robust. Moving on to our consent agenda, items 5.1 through 5.5. Would any board member like any item removed for separate consideration? >> Move approval. >> Second. It has been moved and seconded. Um, all those in favor of the consent agenda say I. I. Opposed. The consent agenda has been approved. Madam Chair, >> please. >> Uh, thank you, Madam Chair. I just want to acknowledge Amy Ike and Brian Falloon for we have uh yet again received a very um important uh investment in our students beyond the school day through the 21st century learning center grant program. I have been stunned at uh their track record at bringing in these resources. Um we considered doing an update uh tonight, but given other things on the agenda, decided to defer that. But I wanted to not let this uh go by because this was a highly competitive grant and it's going to do really innovative things for our students and look forward to um having Amy and Brian come and brief the board uh at some point uh during the year ahead. So, thank you. Huge work. >> Dr. Cut. Well, as long as we're going to talk about it. I uh I was also very pleased to see that and and just wanted to highlight that um I I was particularly excited by continuing to leverage community partners in this grant. I remember three years ago um when that was sort of a new thing and now it's become routine in this next three-ear cycle. So um yeah, hats off to the team and and I also noted that it the initiatives that are going to be funded by this grant really tie in well with some of the priorities of the strategic plan. So very well thought through there. But yeah, thanks. >> All right, our next item is a focus topic. Um the RPS 2030 strategic plan recommendation. Superintendent Pel. So board members, we are in the home stretch of bringing to you a proposal for the uh strategic plan that will guide the work of our school system for the next four years. My objective tonight is really primarily three-fold. One, to briefly summarize some of the feedback that we've received from stakeholders um over the last three weeks about the priorities that I have uh recently shared. Number two, to give you a sense of what's going to happen to the high level priorities that you authorized us to examine last spring that I am not recommending including in the plan. And number three, give you a very very high level overview of the proposal that I'll be outlining in detail at your next October meeting. So with that, in terms of the feedback that we received, we had um 202 uh people provide responses. Um, as you know, this is just the final round of what has been more than a year of feedback from very diverse stakeholder groups. Um, and we wanted to have one more opportunity for people to provide open-ended comments on the recommendations that I am planning to make to you. We were um a bit heavier on the parent and caregiver um feedback this time, which I actually thought was good because we've been quite heavy on staff uh feedback throughout the process. But we did have a good um 72 members of the staff. We had some district residents um and we had five current students and one interested community member and district resident who didn't have any other connection to um RPS. And so um to boil all of that feedback down into uh some succinct conclusions is an inexact science, but um here's my crack at it. And uh if board members are interested in more of the detailed information, we'd be glad to share that with you as we get into your consideration of the plan in October. Um broadly stated, people value the goals, the big picture objectives around instruction, adult relationships, and opening opportunities for students. Um there was some important feedback though about the fact that many people looked at the priorities and saw mostly an emphasis on struggling students and they said um where were advanced learners in the priority um and a number a smaller number noted kids with disabilities and kids who are more near grade level what you might what somebody called the middle of the pack kids um and so that's something that I'll be thinking about as I prepare the recommendation for you in October there was a lot of feedback about implementation um that uh staff time, training, funding, clearing space for doing the work um by taking other things off people's plates was a major theme. Uh people thought the language that we shared in our feedback forum was pretty wonky and so try not to use acronyms or education next month. Um we all have lived through strategic plans that sit on the shelf and so there was a lot of uh priority to actually moving forward with implementation and of course measuring progress um and showing how we get feedback while the plan is being implemented. So those were some overarching priorities. Um in terms of the most frequently mentioned priorities, um when we looked across the 200 plus comments, there was a real emphasis on safety and accountability, which is interesting. We've talked a lot about instruction and curriculum. Uh but the folks in particular, parents talked about um bullying, disruption, setting high expect academic expectations. There was a lot of interest in the transitions theme and a strong support for sustained relationships um in kids' lives. And um I was pleased to see that the priority about transitions across levels from early childhood to elementary to middle to high school had a lot of parent comments, some with some very tangible things that didn't go well in their trans transitions that we can build into that uh effort. Um there was a strong request from parents and caregivers for useful information about their child's progress and ways that we are responsive to to those family concerns. um quite a bit of positive energy around expanding electives and college and career options with some concern about the CEK changes that you have already um proposed and some desire to be really sure that we are offering students at the high school level who are taking advantage of those uh college and career oriented options highquality options. uh a number of folks wondering about the totally online asynchronous classes that many students are taking through the post-secary enrollment options classes in which they are not getting onto a college campus or interacting directly uh over screens with a faculty member. Um so a theme for us to think about AI was very split. People were saying this is the transformative technology of the day. RPS should be leveraging it integrating integrating it into everything we can. Um and then some people saying keep it out. Um we are ve very concerned. And so that was one where it would be very hard to generalize about what we said. And then some questions about the school identity and story priority which is about helping every one of our schools define what makes it uh great and communicate that strength. Um there were some uh questions about what exactly is this initiative about and how do we do this without having one RPS school trying to take the students of another RPS school? How do you have strong school brands but one school district? So that's a concise summary of some of the feedback. I will be uh working with Denise Moody and others to further incorporate that feedback into the proposal that I'll bring you in October. But I wanted to give you a quick sense of it. Back in May, you approved uh that we would look at over the summer at a set of high level priorities that emerged through our planning work last year. And as board members know, we summarized that in a handy dandy booklet that you um voted to authorize us to dig into. I thought that was an important point because if the board wasn't potentially interested in a priority, I didn't want want to spend time looking at it. And so you did and we had um working groups meeting over the summer that dug into each of these potential priorities and I have used their recommendations to shape the uh recommendation that I will make to you in October and more immediately my report on what would happen with some of the priorities that you authorized us to examine that I am not going to recommend be included in the next strategic plan. the logic of not including everything in the next strategic plan. As I and many others say all the time, if everything's important, nothing's important. And so we know that the constraints of time and money and um uh human capacity are large. And so we have to make some tough choices. One of the biggest changes that you will see from the proposal that I shared with all staff at John Marshall High School last month is that we're going to do away with the difference between systems and change projects that was fundamental to the first draft of the plan. As board members will recall, the logic of that was that there are certain systems in schools that we want in place in perpetuity. They're not something you build for three years in a strategic plan and then you declare victory and you're done. But that's distinct from what we called change projects which were focused timelmited work to uh for instance uh launch a new math curriculum. Um so one example of the system work would be creating a a system of professional growth and evaluation for all employees. um a change project would be implementing the Charlotte Danielson framework for teaching which is a new framework that we're going to use in our professional growth and evaluation system. The feedback I got was that the dis and and others got was that the distinction between systems and change projects was too complex. It was making the plan confusing. It was tripping us up. And so in a nutshell, we've tried to take the system improvement work and bake it into a single series of what we're calling change projects. We're sticking with that term and there are 13 of them that you'll see at the end of this proposal. But what about the other things that you authorized us to look at that I'm not recommending be in the strategic plan? It doesn't mean they're dead by any means. Uh in a school district of our size and complexity, there's a lot of things that can and do happen that are not in a strategic plan. And the goal with the strategic plan was to have a limited number of compelling priorities that we can work on for the next four years. So what I am going to do briefly is tick through each of the priorities that we discussed and you voted for last May but that will not show up in my recommendation in uh an explicit way next month. One of them was establishing professional learning communities systems. That is absolutely going to be a key part of our work going forward, but it's a part of the multi-tered systems of support work that is fun foundational to our work in reading, math, and positive behavior and well-being. Calling out PLC's as a separate goal really added complexity but no value. And so, professional learning communities will be part of our work on MTSS. CEK integration was similarly a separate standalone priority in the plan. It will be integrated into the strategy for career pathways and college credits didn't go away. It's being integrated into a larger uh initiative. the curriculum review and revision process that we talked about last spring to ensure that we do not end up in the position that RPS has been in and that other school districts sometimes find themselves in without a current and viable highquality curriculum in any subject um is something that ultimately I concluded through dialogue with chief academic officer Mona Perkins and her team is the regular work of our office of academic services. Uh and as board members have seen, we now have a 10-year plan for uh updating and enhancing curriculum in every major subject area. That's our daily work. And so it didn't need to be a separate priority in the strategic plan. A term that you're going to see several times now is department project. And that term means it will be an annual priority for one of our central office departments, the office of learning environment, the office of academic services, the office of school leadership and support. So those will be initiatives that take place largely within those departments because of the scale of those initiatives. We'll certainly report to the board and the community as appropriate on those priorities, but I ultimately concluded that they weren't a multi-year strategic plan priority. So, one of those, uh, as you may recall, was taking a look at the rigor of our honors courses to be sure that they truly merit the designation of honors and taking a look at a structure that's pretty unique to Rochester, which is called honors option, in which a student can do somewhat more work or maybe a lot more work in a class that is not an honors class and earn the honors option. Um, as you'll recall from our high school working group last year, we received pretty strong feedback that it's time to take a look at both of those and be sure that our honors offerings are truly challenging and engaging. Um, and then to really think through is honors option truly an honors option or are you doing just a bit more work at the level of a non-honors class? I'm oversimplifying that, but that's the core issue. So, that will be a project for our office of academic services this year. Um and we certainly will be coming back to the board because um our our course offerings are very much something that you approve as as part of our schedules. High dosage tutoring. We have a pilot in mathematics at Willow Creek and John Adams. Um the data from that pilot was not sufficient yet for me to recommend expanding it. Um especially at Willow Creek. Uh teachers and students felt very good about the pilot. It's being funded with federal title one funding. But it was premature to say that the outcomes in terms of students math skills suggested we ought to be expanding it. The second reason I'm not recommending it is it's expensive. Um and so when we have to make hard choices and prioritize, this is a reluctant uh omission for me. We are going to continue the pilot this year at Willow Creek and JA. Um and then we'll have some decisions to make about whether that continues and potentially expands. Um but it certainly was not rising to the level of the strategic plan at this point. Whoops. and I have turned off the lights. Um, looking at the rigor of our credit recovery, the processes that we use at the high school level to help students who are behind on credits earn the credits that they need to graduate, uh, is a major issue. And I concluded that I didn't want anything in the strategic plan that merely restated the problem. We want to make sure everything in our strategic plan is a strategy and a solution. And we need to dig in more to the credit recovery process. We largely do it using a software package called egenuity. Um it's mostly kids working uh independently. It's uh Rochester Public Schools is not unique at all in that approach. Um this has been a uh a a a an approach to helping kids graduate that has rapidly expanded across Minnesota and the country. Um we need to make sure that the process kids are going through to earn those credits represents authentic learning that is happening. And so we will continue to um study what's going on and look at best practices in the field. But we were not at a point where I could envision standing or sitting here in October and recommending a strategy in that area yet. But we will certainly um continue examining it. Um you'll recall that I recommended uh well we studied creating two foundational classes at key points in our secondary students educations. sixth grade as they enter middle school, ninth grade as they enter high school. I am going to recommend the creation of that sixth grade seminar as part of a middle school strategy. I'm not going to recommend the nth grade seminar. And the logic is it contradicts with another priority that we are going to recommend which is giving kids more choice in nth and tth grades. If we add a new requirement, we're actually going to make it harder to do that. We have our nth grade on track work is um happening already. A ton is going on in nth grade. And I just concluded to add the creation and requirement of a new required seminar course to the strategic plan was uh premature but you will see the sixth grade seminar. Now if one of our high schools decided they wanted to experiment and we all in some ways we do have some precursors to this we certainly would support them in that effort but um ultimately concluded it wasn't ready for prime time in the strategic plan. I think the single biggest failure of the proposals that I shared with you was requiring all kids to apply to a post-secondary institution, an internship, the military or employment to get their high school diploma. Um, our students identified both practical and conceptual problems with requiring that. Um, that was seconded by counselors uh strongly. And so even though uh Chicago public schools did that and they saw a lot of improvement in their uh high school graduation and kids going on to post-secary for for ultimately compelling reasons I'm not recommending that we are going to build upon the work we've already done using our Zello platform to uh make sure every kid has a plan for life after high school. So there's no requirement, which was the proposal, that you have to show your counselor that you applied to RCTC or the U of M, but we are going to have a a deep discussion about what type of plan for life after high school do we want all of our students to be developing? How is that uh reviewed and discussed with adults? That will be part of uh one of the priorities that you'll see in the strategic plan. Um okay, one more slide of these points. As you'll recall, there was a point uh in the recommendations where I said it was time to both update the focus areas of our districtwide option schools, formerly choice schools, and see if it is possible to expand the transportation service that they receive. As you know very well because it was a hard decision that this board made, they don't get citywide transportation anymore. And so, even though we call them districtwide option schools, they're not. And um we took a deep look this summer at the prospects of significantly expanding their transportation service areas without raising costs or having to change our start times again. And to make a long story short, we were not able to find a significant way to do that under our current financial constraints and without adjusting start times. And so that was one factor in why I'm not going to recommend the DWO issue be in the plan. Um we are however going to do a study this year of self-transport which we made available for all elementary and middle schools when we had to cut that transportation in uh uh 2023. um that has uh expanded greatly across RPS and um the initial thought was it might be taken advantage of by families in the district-wide option schools who no longer got transportation to them. Somewhat of that has happened, but we've seen a lot of self-transport from people sending their student to another neighborhood school rather than the neighborhood school that they live near. And we don't know the rationale for all of those things. Um, we know that in some cases it has been very popular and worked well for families. It has also created some attendance problems for some students for whom getting uh a ride from their parent or caregiver across town and getting to school on time has been challenged. So, uh, Brandon McCaff is going to be leading a detailed study of self-transport and I anticipate bringing some recommendations to you uh, about that this year. Uh, we did not uh, include it at the high school level and I don't plan to recommend that though it comes up often. We do have the exception to attendance process that allows a student to attend a different high school than their high school they're assigned to based on where they live, but it has to meet uh legitimate criteria. But we will be doing a study of self-transport at the K8 levels and bringing that forward. And then finally, we will also be working with each of our six DWOs to make sure that the unique focus that they're offering core knowledge at Washington, the 4515 calendar at Longfellow and uh Monasuri, all of the unique focus areas, we want to make sure that they can continue to offer that at a high level of quality given the resources that they have and the funding levels. So all of those things will go forward, but I ultimately concluded that this was not a major strategic plan level initiative. It's a process of us studying self-transport and working with those six schools to be sure that the programs that make them unique continue to resonate with families and that we can offer them at a high level of quality with the level of funding that we have available. There was another proposal to look at expanding middle school electives. Um, I'm ultimately not recommending that priority. Um, largely because our middle schools have already made some important changes in recent years in our offerings and there's just frankly relatively limited bandwidth to expand electives at middle school um, and do so without impacting the core courses that kids need to take. Now, that doesn't mean that middle schools can't consider doing things like Dakota has done and finding very unique efficient ways to offer choice in skinny classes or or smaller doses. But, um the the the constraints on the schedule and the cost uh caused me reluctantly to pull the electives expansion at the middle school level. We also talked last spring uh and it came out of all three of our working groups that we had facilitated by Education First last year that we really want to make nearpeer relationships a hallmark of student life in Rochester public schools. Nearer meaning where you have a fifth grader with a kindergartener or an eighth grader with a sixth grader or a 12th grader with a 10th grader um in a structured or informal um relationship. We had um uh several of our middle schools adopt the uh web program which does that [clears throat] as a first experience for sixth graders coming into the school and I recently met with some of our school counselors to talk about that and they said it was just transformative. It was an extraordinary way to begin school. So that's going to be a prominent theme but it doesn't need to be a standalone initiative. It needs to be a part of our larger system of multi-tered system of supports for student behavior and well-being. So you'll see it there. It's not a separate effort. Um the middle school extracurricular expansion is very much something that uh we'll be moving forward with uh leadership from Amy Ike and community ed. Um we know our middle schools uh our students are hungry for opportunities to uh grow and learn beyond the school day and engage with each other. So that'll be a department project. Um once again we'll have to do that within constrained resources, constraints of time, staffing, and money. But we do believe there are um some increased offerings that we can make happen through community education. Um staff support systems enhancing our employee assistance program in particular through which we provide employees with assistance in a range of areas um is absolutely critical. But similar to the curriculum review process I talked about on the academic side, that's the breadandbut work of a human resource department. And so that will be a department project for Carl and the HR team. Uh we've already begun taking a look at uh some possible shifts in our employee assistance program provider. If a staff person is struggling with uh mental health, we want them to be able to get the services they need um sooner than is usually possible now and to have more sessions that are covered. Of course, once again, there's a cost piece to that, but that will absolutely be moving forward as part of our work this year. Mental health support is just one form of employee assistance. It happens to be on my mind based on a conversation I had today. Um but um we will absolutely be moving that one forward. Time for professional learning. This is a huge issue. Um whether it is about individual planning for individual educators or collaboration uh among educators, this is critical. This is something that in the end we need to pursue through our contract negotiations with our um unions and through the calendar committee. And so uh trying to find ways as we did several years ago with the curriculum and development days or as they're now called CAD days um which was an investment in this kind of learning will be something that I anticipate pursuing both through that. Um we had that as a hoped for priority in our negotiations this past time with REA and we just were unable to come up with solutions but we all agreed on the problem. Um we did a lot we did a lot of other good stuff through the contract. Um, so that's something that, um, I would envision pursuing through those, uh, those two channels. And then finally, um, as board members saw, was it the last meeting we had, the kids in the red coats from JM for the, uh, FFHLM? I better get their name, but >> CCLA. >> That's amazing. FA >> CCLA. >> Well, they talked about going to the national conference, and I thought it was so compelling. And one of you asked, "What's your biggest barrier?" And they said, "Money." that you can't use general fund dollars to send kids to an enrichment trip. I continue to believe that we're leaving money on the table in Rochester, whether it's helping buy instruments for kids, uh letting them do summer camps at Quarry Hill or the University of Minnesota Rochester, um providing support for students to do those kinds of enrichment opportunities, supporting learning and enrichment beyond the classroom. So, we plan to work with the Rochester Area Foundation to create a donor advised fund that would let people write a check to pick up the cost, especially for low-income kids of participating in those kinds of programs. So, that'll be something that'll be on Denise Moody's uh to-do list this year in her uh in her role. So, that is a very fast walkthrough of the priorities that I don't plan to recommend. And before I show you in a single graphic the priorities that I do plan to recommend, I want to uh remind you and myself that ultimately the board approved this plan. And so if you are concerned about any of those shifts that I just described, uh whether it's in the discussion tonight or in the deliberations that you have in October, we can look at bringing some of them back and integrating them into the plan. Um, I hope the quick overview I gave suggests that a lot of thought went into where those are going to uh exist. But if you are concerned about some of those priorities that you approved us examining um would be on the cutting room floor. Um we can uh work to address that because um you don't vote until October 20th. So with all of that, this in a single graphic is what I plan to recommend as the core of RPS 2030, our strategic plan for the next four years. I anticipate there will be some shifts in this based on feedback we continue to get between now and the formal proposal in October, but I don't think they will be highly substantive. There'll be more terminology. As you can see, there'll be four categories in our strategic plan. challenging learning, purposeful pathways, supportive communities, and organizational excellence. The first three really capture core aspects of what we know not just from research, but from the life of schools make great schools that kids are in experiencing ambitious instruction where they're stretched beyond their comfort zone, but they're not uh unable to sit in the classroom and understand uh what the teacher saying, what the task is. The second, they have a pathway. there is a a coherent through line from early childhood all the way to the end of high schools and they're in schools where they can be their best selves with supporting communities and then as the graphic tries to capture at the bottom we have some work to do on our organization to support all three of those priorities. So very briefly board members have heard about all of these even though some of them have been renamed. Um, in the challenging learning category, we would work on creating a multi-tered system of support for our students in literacy, which we are uh quite a ways down the road to uh implementing in all of our schools. But we will begin the exciting but also uh really substantive uh and significant heavy work of creating MTSS in mathematics. That will include selecting new mathematics curricula, making sure we have frequent assessments that identify kids uh and where they are and professional development. Um, one of the points of feedback that we got in the uh feed from the feedback form that I just walked you through a moment ago was that some people looked at the plan and said it seems to only be about kids who struggle. I actually uh am really grateful that they flagged that. MTSS in literacy and mathematics also includes advanced learning. It includes our students who are what we used to call gifted and talented um and making sure that they get challenging instruction in the classroom and that when they are ready for more whether it's in a small group or individually we have those accelerated options for them. And so we'll be working to make very clear in the plan that um MTSS for literacy and MTSS for math are about all kids experiencing challenging instruction and that kids who are um really uh academically successful getting the level of challenge that they need as well. I've uh proposed renaming what we were calling middle school on track as middle school academic accountability because provide identifying middle school students who are not on track for success in nth grade and providing them with additional supports similar to the nth grade on track work we're doing is critical but it's only part of the equation. The work we got from our middle school task force last year said kids and parents and to some extent educators do not have a clear enough definition of what middle school success looks like, how we measure it, and how it adds up to readiness for success in nth grade and how we create developmentally appropriate mechanisms to hold students accountable for learning. um developmentally appropriate, meaning not retaining kids in sixth grade and having them repeat sixth grade again, but making very clear that what you do in sixth grade not only will influence your uh success in high school, but actually in life. So, we don't fail kids in middle school courses. We need to take a look at awarding credit for middle school courses. Um, we need to take a look at a GPA for middle school and we need to take a look at ways that we can convey to those students and staff that this is serious business. You're not in an elementary school classroom anymore with a single teacher who really creates your whole environment. You're now in a secondary school and we need to help you uh still be a young adolescent with a very developing brain and a very developing body, but understand the seriousness of effort um and uh learning in middle school. So, middle school on track is still there. It will be an explicit strand, but as we really looked at it, that's not the whole uh picture. And so we'll we'll have some detailed description of this in the proposal that you will get in October. Second category is purposeful pathways. That's a phrase that grew out of our high school uh working group. Um the first there will be career pathways. We've also added the phrase phrase college credits there because career pathways uh summarize pathways that lead students uh help students dig deep into areas of their interest uh fields whether it's the trades or going to a four-year liberal arts college that they may be interested in. Um there are two key ideas though that are not really directly captured in career pathways. One is expanding the dual credit offerings that we have in RPS. the courses that our teachers teach that are offer that offer college credit always in partnership with a higher ed institution. We're underperforming in that area. Not the quality of the classes. The quality of classes is great. We just don't offer that many. And as a result, most of our kids take PSO at post-secondary institutions. Um, I would like to see us uh investing in more college in the schools, more partnerships so the kid does not need need to leave our high school in order to earn college credit and our teachers have the opportunity to be teaching really rich and exciting college curricula. Um, we were able to include in our uh contract with Rochester Education Association a commitment to help some of our teachers get the graduate credit that they need to teach those post-secary um classes. And that is a part of the college credits piece. The second piece is enhancing our advising about PSO that we want our kids to take post-secary enrollment options classes at post-secondary institutions but we want to make sure they're taking ones that fit their level of academic readiness, their passions and their future career aspirations so that they aren't taking a bunch of PCO credits for instance that then don't transfer to the post-secary institution that they go to after high school. Second category in that uh area will be student advising. Um, we notably are not recommending advisory periods. We got a lot of feedback that that's a structure that often doesn't achieve its objectives. But, um, we want to provide students with enhanced advising, not just about their academic choices and courses they take, but about their development of of identity, their development of critical life skills like perseverance, like problem solving, like help seeeking. That's where our uh uh part of our mindsets and behaviors and steps for success will live. And then finally, there's the initiative on transitions across levels. Are we uh providing teachers with data on how the student was doing in their previous school? Are we providing students with an understanding of what life is going to be like at their next school? Are we engaging parents to help them understand that transition? Third category is supportive communities. That's where building out a multi-tered system of supports for positive behavior and well-being will live. Uh Brandon McCraic gave the board an early overview of that work in his update uh at the recent board meeting where he talked about creating the office of learning environments. It's making sure that at that tier one level, every kid is known well and connected to an adult in the building and has solid peer relationships and that we teach the learning behaviors that are important for academic success and also the behaviors that are important for safe and orderly schools. and then that we put in place tier two and three supports for those students uh who are not quite mastering uh school in the way that uh we need that behavior to work. But it goes beyond behavior to include well-being. How are we making sure our students get the mental health support that they need? Um how are we working with our social workers to address other barriers to learning that exist um for many of our students? And then the final uh priority in support of communities would be the school identity and story strategy. making sure each one of our schools can articulate and knows uh what makes them special, what what their the nature of their school is, and then helping them tell that story at a time of declining birth rates. That's critical to the bread and butter of our financial well-being because we need to make sure that we are the provider of choice in Rochester. And then the final category there is our organizational excellence work that would support all three of the other priorities. The first is continuing the work, the really big work which Eric Johnson led last year to uh build out a new school improvement process, but to make that school improvement process an effective way to improve student outcomes. We want to make sure the skip process leads to improved graduation rates, literacy rates, five essential scores, so that these plans are meaningful vehicles for getting better at getting better. um uh and not just an a compliance exercise that we ask our schools to go through every year. Second priority there is creating standard operating procedures. Um as uh I've shared with the board, in some ways RPS has been kind of an oral culture where we say things and we don't write them down. And that's confusing for staff, for families, sometimes for kids. And so making sure that we have a clear uh repository for everything from how an office manager does their complex job to how a teacher gets their tech concerns uh or classroom heating and cooling issues addressed and how we do things like process enrollments rapidly so that we are responsive to family needs. Jackie Peterson will be leading that effort in her role as chief operating officer. The next category is building out a professional growth and evaluation system that defines excellence for each of the job categories in our system and supports staff in continually enhancing their practice ultimately including evaluation but much more than evaluation professional development uh collaboration among peers uh coaching support where it's needed. We're starting this year with uh teachers and the Danielson framework for teaching, but we will also be addressing it for social workers, counselors, maintenance, clerical. That will be a multi-year initiative that will be uh certainly uh initially very much in our office of academic services, but that the human resource department will have a lead on working with those non-academic job categories that also have the similar need. And then finally, effective and responsible use of AI. Um uh even since we had our last meeting about the strategic plan, the news of AI has uh exploded uh as we see um uh swarms of AIs able to actually go rogue. Um our students are thinking about it, our staff are thinking about it and so we need to develop a uh a comprehensive strategy. Um uh one component of that strategy will need to be AI literacy. What do kids need to know about writing a great prompt? what do they need to know about how to tell when something's real or not. Um and so that's an exciting effort that we have still got a lot of definitional work to do. So board members, that is in a graphic um the 13 priorities that I'm planning to recommend to you. There will be significant detail under each of those priorities. It will describe why we think it's important. It will describe the priorities for each of the four years of the strategic plan starting with our current year. Um, and it will include information on the resources um that we think are required to begin working on all those strategies. I wish I could say we knew our future budget picture, whether it's state funding or enrollment, so well that we could map out the investments for every year of the plan. As you know, that's not our reality, but we will certainly have um some information for you on what it's going to take to get each of those priorities underway. Um, I've already uh highlighted that point, but I wanted to amplify it since um I thought it was such useful feedback. MTSS is certainly about our students who are struggling, but those tier 2 and tier three um interventions are also for our kids who are academically uh ready for more challenge than maybe happens uh in a classroom with a lot of other diverse needs. So, Madam Chair, that is I know a lot of me talking and a big overview of where we are. There's no action uh requested tonight. Um but the next time you see this, it will be in the prep for action category with um a document that you and the community can uh read before we begin that discussion. >> Not to hear more from you. Did you skip school family partnerships? >> I did skip school family partnerships which was entirely inadvertent. Um the big idea under school family partnerships that um I mentioned emerged through the feedback that we did last year was giving parents actionable information about what they can do to support their students academic success and ensuring that parents feel that we are responsive to the issues that they are raising whether it's the classroom school or district level. I think there's some chance we'll rename that two-way communication rather than school family partnership because partnership is a wonderful idea but very very general. I think if I had to summarize the core of it, it's a two-way communication. Uh we made a lot of progress in that area whether it's been talking points or the family engagement leaison that are now in um some of our schools but uh it's clear that there's a lot more we can do in that. So thank you for adding that. All right, board members, any questions, comments, feedback? Who wants to start? Director Marvin. >> Well, there's a lot to say. Uh, but one thing that I'm especially appreciative of is the um priorities that will not make the cut into the strategic plan. I I I I I think it's really important that it's more streamlined and yet so many of those priorities are being addressed in other ways and by departments for instance. Um two things in particular though that I'm glad and I know you've gotten feedback on this that have been um removed from the strategic plan. One um that you already mentioned was the um application requirement for high school students. Um, it was an interesting conversation with high school kids about that. But I I'm really appreciative that all these great ideas, you and others were able to say, "Okay, we're really behind this. We think it's a good idea, but a lot of people are not agreeing with us. So, let's just put that aside." And the other one is the ninth grade seminar. And I know we've read a lot about the importance of having a ninth grade seminar where kids come together and we've seen films about that too. I kept thinking if kids get a sixth grade seminar I think that's going to start them on a better trajectory towards high school. And it's just been my personal experience that when students do something in high school that looks kind of like something they did in middle school, there tends to be a lot of eye rolling. I think the kind of skills that we're talking about um mindsets that we're talking about that kids really need as ninth graders. I think those can be emphasized through their regular classes and maybe to a a better effect because their academic teachers will be able to point out, so this is what we're doing. You know, we we're going to talk about when this assignment is going to be due and how you're going to figure out your time frame to get it done on time. better done in context of the actual real world world assignment or challenge that they're facing in high school. So I I applaud both of those changes. Now if I may I the the other thing I don't think I said it when in my long monologue, but part of that was just the the lift for our high schools of doing career pathways and the college credits is already going to be significant, right? And so to add another thing was just there's only so much bandwidth that uh people have. And so that was a reluctant one for me because I think that it it could be a very cool thing to add. Maybe that's the next strategic plan. And if some of our high schools wanted to get out in front and pilot that we would certainly support that just didn't didn't raise to the level of okay everybody needs to do this. >> Well and you were talking too about ensuring that that kids have more opportunities for electives in >> especially in nth grade. Um, and this would kind of contradict that idea. But I I do think that the kind of skills that they were talking about, the kind of advising they were talking about in the uh video we saw, for instance, is still possible, but it doesn't need to be in a standalone course. Anyway, we'll see. Dr. director. >> So, I will say I appreciate this much simpler graphic here uh with the less amount of words. That was such a breath of fresh air and I I just want to say that was a wonderful thing you done there. And I I say that because um well, one, if you go back through the the 15 listed priorities that we had, most of them were not eliminated. Looks like only um four [clears throat] of them were really eliminated. Two really just needed more research. So, it wasn't a true elimination, but uh when looking at how this was laid out, and I will say that, you know, there was a piece of me that was like, "What, you know, why you just didn't put all the department groups together?" So, I was over here regrouping stuff so my brain could work uh together. Uh because there's a chunk of things that are just going to be department projects and a chunk of things that needed more research and a chunk of things that um will be eliminated. Uh so, it was a little easier for me to get through. But what I will say is I I think this may be a better way to go um because we're not eliminating anything, but I think it's important that we have room to pivot. So I think with us lessening the the the uh you know having less categories per se allows us to place things and pivot as necessary. I think that um that was one of my concerns with the original plan which I think was robust and very detailed but sometimes you can detail things so much that it it kind of puts you into a box where you can't pivot or move. So, you know, I'm really on board with a, you know, a less I don't want to say less organized, but you know, less categories so that we are able to make necessary adjustments, right? Because some of this is based off researches and things that we assume will work well. But I think this gives us a little bit of room to move if we need to move or something is working really well and maybe inadvertently helps another area that we, you know, thought we were going to have to look at specifically if I'm making sense here. So, I do appreciate this look and I also appreciate that we're not really um to director Marvin's point that we're not eliminating a lot of things. Um almost nothing. um think there's only two items that we're definitely not looking at, but everything else will be further researching. And I think that's important for people to understand. So, it's a little misleading um if you're not paying attention that we're not not prioritizing those things. We're just pivoting them to more to other to other areas that they'll they will get that same level of of um in attention that those those topics may need, but they'll just be in different areas. Yep. >> Thank you. Directors, >> I [clears throat] just wanted to speak briefly to the uh public input opportunity that closed uh on the 10th of last uh week. um how important that was and um I don't need to know now but um because I I tend to always want to uh see where public input is actually incorporated or considered in the discussion met metric or matrix rather. Um, and I did see the various categories, parents, students, u community members. Uh, can you, not necessarily tonight, but at some point, uh, maybe show and an instance of where that, uh, community input was actually potentially incorporated into the plan that we currently have before us. >> Uh, absolutely. I can do that with uh we'll have a section in the plan itself that summarizes the input, but I can uh try and be attentive in October to show a through line between that. We also have I mean I plead guilty to have used chat GPT. I read all 200 responses and so did Denise Moody, but I have a a a pretty detailed summary uh that chatbt prepared that I could share with the board like tomorrow if that would be of interest. Um because it would let you look at those comments with specificity. Um and and the only thing is this was just the last round of our feedback. As you know, we did earlier surveys, earlier focus groups, earlier interviews, and we had our three working groups. [cough] But this is kind of like the over the finish line feedback. But um yeah, we will take a look. I know for sure the emphasis on advanced learners is a direct outcome of that feedback. I I'm really grateful for the people who pointed that out because I and of course having um advanced learners from all of our different student backgrounds be engaged in that program. And I should say it it's less for me more so for uh the community who at different times may feel that their voice isn't really valued or heard or uh incorporated into the decision making or planning process. So thank you >> Director McLaclin. >> Um excuse [clears throat] me. I particularly um appreciate the presentation tonight and specifically the organizational excellence category. >> [clears throat] >> I like the idea that two of these seem to be things that we've been working on for a while and two are more newer topics, but I like the idea, particularly for the skip process, that it's been something we've been working on and improving and I think it's very effective, but I like the way of talking about it in terms of an effective way to improve outcomes. I think that that's a nice way to tie it into kind of like the next level of that work. So, I'm looking forward to seeing more about that. Director Whitehorn, >> just following up on something that director Barlo said that I just thought of. Um, at the beginning of the presentation, you did say that we well, we can see that we got more parent feedback on this particular um, survey in comparison to some of the previous surveys. Um, is there something that we did differently that encouraged more parent feedback? Did we try a different um, was there a different avenue that we went about? because I know that's been something that we've discussed many times about community feedback and for this particular survey we got more. So was there something that we did that we should be duplicating um in future outreaches to the community so that we can continue to get uh more feedback from our parents and community members or stakeholders. >> That's a really interesting question. I will talk to moms Kudson uh who coordinated the outreach about exactly what she and the team did um to get that. Um part of it is I think that a lot of staff have provided feedback previous to this round. So I think some of them felt like yeah I've told you what I would think but I think for parents you're right we did we did get a higher response rate and that has been something we've been talking about for the last couple of years. So, I'll talk with Moms Sue about what what she thinks might have actually led to that. >> And if it was just less teachers responded, that would be nice to [clears throat] know, too. But it' be nice to know. >> Yeah. >> Dr. Cook. >> Um, yeah. Well, I mostly am uh excited to to see the the full strategies and um that would uh underlly each of these initiatives um when once those are developed. But overall, and kind of reflecting back on the development of the strategic plan and the presentations from the focus groups over the last uh sixish months here, um I I I'm I'm especially excited about the the the three instances of of building out our MTSS, our multi-tered system of supports, infrastructure for literacy, um mathematics, and positive student behavior. And then also the I think an important correlary to that is the Danielson framework for teaching and making sure that our teachers are supported and able and effectively um evaluated and and supported in their growth to be able to implement those kind of structures with fidelity. And when I when I think about some of the [clears throat] some of the initiatives that were discussed early on and um there was uh some discussion about the strategic plan could be a way of defining Rochester public schools and what is sort of the the the differentiator of RPS versus some other public school district. Um, and I think that this version of the strategic plan largely reflects a choice to um, emphasize the importance of making sure that there is a um, as best we can a high floor for student outcome and performance in Rochester public schools. And not to say that this won't be about meeting the needs of advanced learners, but I I think that there are there are choices reflected here in really prioritizing the needs of students that are struggling. And um I I think that's absolutely the right direction to be headed in. Um and I'm excited to see the details. I also um am glad to see that the standard operating procedures and the effective and responsible AI use are are part of this package. Um to me those have always gone together and it's hard to get excited about articulating standard operating procedures. There's almost nothing more dull. Uh but uh it is really important. It's a um part of what I think th those kind of institutional um resources and building that institutional memory is part of what we gift to the next set of of people that will um have the responsibility for for governing or administering this school district. Um and the age of AI is upon us. It's not really for us to decide whether or not um that's not we have to respond to the to the times that we're in and make sure that we have structures in place to um uh ensure that students and our and our staff are able to make use of AI in a way that is sensible and um uh reflective of you know privacy regimes and data security needs and all those other things. So, um I'm glad that we're um that those are our priorities here. But, uh yeah, I'm looking forward to seeing the additional details and um thanks for putting it in this structure. It's a nice way to digest it. >> Dr. Workman, >> um I think it would be interesting to see the correlation between improved academic performance and student behavior. Um, that would have to be something probably a more longitudinal study over several years, but I think we know that a kid in ninth grade who can't read is probably not going to behave terribly well in class or won't be there at all. But I don't think we have any real specific data. I mean, that's just sort of my my idea impression of what may happen. Um, so I think that connection would would be interesting. Um I director Cook I find um standard operating procedures to be nothing uh but dull or but exciting. Um maybe it's my relationship to the policies, but you all know how I feel about those. Um but I also think um that they're essential to improving our customer service. um because until we write it down to see how to do it, we don't have something to evaluate against to see how well we're doing it. And I think it'll uncover um sort of ways that we're serving our families and our students and our staff and it it will automatically, I think, lead to improvement in that piece. Um I also agree with um um the importance of having AI visible in this plan. Um, one of the things that I've always tried to keep in mind when we um have talked about innovating in Rochester public schools, changing what we do to improve outcomes for students is to make it about Rochester and what works for us. And we've heard a lot about what other districts are already doing. Some are, you know, taking the lead, doing things first. But I appreciate that we're going to look at it from the perspective of what our Rochester kids need in the wider world, but also working with the staff who know them the best and and working with the parents and their concerns and what we're hearing from the students. I think some of our um more most reflective feedback so far you've gotten has been from um students about AI. Um we heard it at that um codeesign um youth codeesign group where one of the concerns when they were looking at career pathways was wanting to know which careers were going to be eliminated because of AI and they wanted to know that as part of their career pathways planning. So I'm I'm really glad that's in there. The other thing that I always think about um when I [clears throat] think about the community watching this conversation or watching this agenda item, you know, it'll probably get some some news in the media. um and and they look at this list of things that we're doing and wonder, well, aren't we doing this already? >> I mean, and I so I don't want to take away from, you know, the great work and instruction we're already doing in literacy and in mathematics and what our schools do every day to make, you know, them a welcoming place where where kids can grow. And, you know, we we send a high percentage of our kids on to college or careers or technical um schools already. Um, so what can you say about um what can you say about that piece about how these priorities uh restructure or rethink or redesign as opposed to starting from scratch >> and you're exactly right in almost every case except AI where we really are starting out as a system not from a blank page. because individual teachers and students are using iPad as a strategy. But you're right, in every other area, um we have uh foundational components of these strategies and if we didn't, going back to what I was saying earlier tonight in the schoolboard recognition, we are at a time of increased student need and decreasing financial resources. We'd have no chance of success if we were launching all kinds of new things that weren't already happening. So at its core, this plan is about putting in place comprehensive strategies that build on what's working or draw from uh what we know from research. Um the goal is to do it in a way that is very tied to the performance measures that the board has. So it's tied to outcomes, not just doing stuff. It's tied to improving graduation rates and posting enrollment rates. Um uh and to do it in a way that um is ordered and coherent and Um, if somebody had to ask, what's the single guiding characteristic of the work you're doing in RPS? It'd be terrible to have to choose one word, but I would say coherence. We're trying to create a system where the arrows are pointing in the same direction. Not because there's one superintendent mandate and everybody's told shut up and do what you have to because we know that doesn't work, but because people are choosing to move in the shared direction. That's why we spent more than a year of developing this. So, um, yes, a lot of these things are happening, but are all the arrows pointing in the same direction? No. Um, and that's what the purpose of the plan. It's to really channel the energy that is out there, but to do it and to do it in a way that is um systematic and and planned. I think you'll see um in the in the each one of these will have a year one, year two, year three, year four, uh I think to director Whitehorn's point earlier, of course we'll have to pivot over the course of those four years. Who saw COVID coming? You know, who saw uh Operation Metro Surge coming? who you know who saw Mayo Clinic putting5 billion dollars into Rochester necessarily all all those things have happened in recent so stuff will happen um but I think this is going to give us a directional clarity for a system of our size that is uh sadly kind of rare in school districts that you'll be able to look and say okay MTSS in math in the 2829 school year has this goal like you'll be able to see that in October of like next month. Um like how often does that happen where you can literally say um three years from now this is what we are planning to be doing in positive student behavior and well-being. Um not just a general articulation of we're going to care about it three years from now but like this is the goal for year three. Um so I think that's the difference. That's the are we doing all this stuff in different ways? Yes. in as coherent a way as we need to approve student outcomes. No. And not in the kind of multi-year plan that this will attempt to put in place. >> Anything else? Board members, director. >> Um Dr. Dr. Pel, something you said just kind of triggered a question for me that um I've been digging a little bit deeper into my involvement with the APAC group and also thinking about students with disabilities. I'm trying to think about how those groups will fit into what you plan to present in October. Will that be the level next level of detail? I'm thinking things like the school family partnership or the communication. Will you be giving us a framework for that level of detail when we're looking at some of the diverse groups in our school communities? >> I think we're appropriate. You'll call out specific diverse groups where there where the priorities, you know, require particular differentiation. the the the challenge of that, Director McGluffin, is that of course we have a lot of diverse groups in our district and if we list all of them um in the strategic plan, it uh becomes uh one of those 45 page memos I've committed to try and stop sending you. >> Right. Um >> I'm trying to think of like if there's language that we can use to highlight for us that those are the things that we're thinking about. >> Yes. So, for instance, um I think the way we might do it rather than um only calling out APAC, which is the committee that works with our Native American students, we might say in the career pathways and college credits category, for instance, adopt culturally responsive strategies for helping students prepare for and go on to post education. Because we also, as you know, had a compelling presentation last year on the um historically black college that some students from JM took. >> So that's another culturally responsive pathway college credit strategy. Um I think similarly uh you know the gains we've seen in our Native American graduation rates. Small number of kids but some nice gains underscore the cultural responsiveness of that work with that particular community. So I'll keep that in mind. Um, I think it might use more of a general term like culturally responsive than listing every community just because then someone says, "Well, where's my, you know, >> right?" >> That's kind of what it seems like this is a little bit on the generic side and I'm hoping that the next presentation can have more of that detail. >> Yes, it will. It will definitely have more of that detail and also that will be a really we I anticipate between your first review of the full proposal in early October and your receipt of the revised proposal we'll get feedback from you like that and then we will incorporate that into the final revision. >> Thank you. >> Hearing none we look forward to October 6th. And our next item on the agenda is a prep for action item and we are scheduled to take action on this item at the October 6th meeting. Uh proposed school district property tax payable 2027. Superintendent Kak. >> Thank you. And you can see our director of finance Andy Croxstead is coming up and getting the clicker which he definitely needs. So want to thank Andy in advance for this important uh part of the school district's annual process. Thank you, Superintendent Mccuel and members of the board. Uh you've all been through this process, many of you several times. Uh others not so often. This is a this is a process. There's a very defined process for how you approve the property tax levy. And ultimately, the final approval, as you all know, doesn't come until December. But what we have to do technically supposed to be by the end of September, but we can apply for an extension for seven days, which we've done this year, and that's a result of how the meeting schedule is laid out this year. Um, we have to certify the preliminary levy uh with MDE such that counties can then print the truth and taxation statements and send them out to uh property tax owners. So, that's why we have to do this. Now, um there can be some adjustments not by us but by MDE to the uh levy between uh your your proposed levy certification and the final in December. Uh typically there's very little that occurs then. Um okay, there we go. Uh that that occurs um between uh this time and December. Uh but it it's possible. Let's first of all talk about uh the property tax levy. Of course, it funds three particular operating funds of the uh of the district. The largest, of course, being in our general fund. And so, um our local optional revenue, uh our referendum revenue, uh um building bond revenue, that all is part of the um well, not the building bonds, but those others are general fund. Uh the building bonds go into the debt service fund. And then, of course, community education. And there's a portion of a levy that is uh tied to uh community education for early childhood and adult programming. As I've stated before, uh, this board has a few decisions they can make in terms of the levy, but for the most part, the levy is determined by MDE based on state statutes or based on debt um, payments that we've had that we've um, one had MD's approval to issue, but number two that this board has approved us actually going out and issuing uh, that debt. Um, beyond that, unlike city and county, you don't have the authority to just establish a particular percentage increase, for example. And so, we are held to a little bit different standard. Uh, you do, as you know, have that authority to seek the voter referendum, however, and you did that obviously um in the past for building bonds. And so, of the operating ref of the referendum uh that you have available to you, of course, we have the first two. Uh we do not have the third we do not have a capital project referendum uh which we could use for technology as you know that uh was something that was put up a few years ago and uh was not passed. Uh the property tax is paid by all four of these components within the community. So homeowners obviously are assessed a value on their property as are the apartment owners, farmers and and businesses. The taxing rates vary uh but all four of these components pay portions of the levy and uh some of the uh portions of the levy are based on um what's called referendum market value some b some are based on net tax capacity and so there's various formulas that go into the uh final levy if you want to study all of that I would highlight the 39page report that's attached uh if you can um easily recite that back to me. I would um I would be very uh excited to hear that. Um it's a it's a report that uh even I've been doing this for four years. I find it very uh difficult to maneuver and frankly there are portions of the report that are not necessary for our determination of the levy. But they they bring a whole bunch of other things together into that report. Where do we stand as of today? Well, frankly, this was as of September 10th. So, um in order to prepare for the board, we had to make a cut off in time [clears throat] and the the levy report that we had from the uh state from MD as of September 10th is what's included in the the board packet today for this prep for action item. And as you can see, we have some declines in both the general and community ed um um levies. Um I I'll just indicate that for the general some of that has to do with declining enrollment that has been projected as I've indicated and I'll touch base later. Uh we are going to revise our enrollment estimates that are used for the levy calculations. We're in the process of revising those. And so when you see this final number in October on October 6th, I'm not sure that it will make up all of that 1 million. I suspect it probably will, but the general fund levy will be larger in October based on our anticipated enrollment adjustments. So, let me just explain that for just a well I actually I'll get to that when we get to the next slide because there's a little bit more detail around that. And obviously our debt service, we've taken on additional debt. This board has approved debt for uh major IAQ projects and that debt is now needing to be paid. And so that is uh some of the increase that you'll see in the debt service of approximately 2.1 million. Again, that is all determined based on a very um very detailed debt service schedule um that is [clears throat] locked in whenever the district uh issues bonds. That debt service schedule is locked in at that particular time. it's given to MDE for processing and each of those years they pick up the appropriate principal and interest payments off those debt schedules and put into the levy. So they take care of that. We just validate that the numbers are accurate based on uh information that we have available to us as well. Uh general fund revenue just very quickly this is our fund bal or our general fund uh revenue for this particular year. And I just wanted to point out you can see where property taxes make up about 21%. So it's a very much a measurable component of how we fund the general fund. And so uh it's important that we are accurate in our projections and it's important that we validate the information that MDE provides to us because it is a very um very much a needed source of revenue. Now I want to get into something that is new this year. I decided to add this component because we know that through the month of September and let me just explain very quickly the process. MDE by statute has to provide the first run of the levy certification report by September 8th. That's by state statute and that's actually the first day we got it. They could do it sooner, but of course September 8th is when we received our first report. They then allow us really 22 days. So through September 30th, we have the opportunity to review that report. They have the opportunity to make modifications to that report and so that when September 30th arrives, we all are in agreement uh as to the data that's included in those reports. This is not unusual that things are missing. It's not unusual that things maybe don't calculate accurately. They are bringing together multiple systems into a single report and single data points or multiple data points into a single report. And so this is a system of back and forth checks and balances so that ultimately the board is approving a correct uh levy certification. So I want to just make sure to to just underline and emphasize this is the process that we go through. There's nothing wrong yet. Um there are no mistakes that have been made. Um but because there's this need to validate everything, things do shift and move around. These three identified issues since September 10th have all now been re re uh rectified. The report that I just looked at before coming up here today that was run as of today. Uh all three of these items have been addressed. So yes, our LTFM plan is now in an approved status and the numbers in the um uh report are accurate. Um the uh population data has been updated that and that is used for calculation of community education levy and then um there was a miscalculation and so if you were really really looking at the report closely on one page which is the page that we look at closely when we're just summarizing we recognized um there was a calculation error that ultimately has been corrected as well. Now let me just touch uh base on the enrollment for just a moment. We have the we are required I should say to estimate our enrollment in what MDE refers to as the ADME. So the uh average daily membership web I think it's just web actually I don't even know what the E stands for to be honest with you. Web estimate that's what it is. So average daily membership web estimate. It's a portal that we go into and we have the ability to forecast up to five years in advance and you'll see those numbers on your levy report if you're looking at those numbers. We then go in periodically and update those numbers based on historical trends and actual uh counts and such. the number uh that it is in the system for 2728 was based on a our enrollment study when we anticipated our enrollment to take a a more severe decline than what we're actually seeing. And so on October 20th, you'll receive an enrollment report based on the October one actual enrollment numbers. But I will tell you on September 1st, the the numbers were very promising. We were just a little bit under what we anticipated for our budget and uh I'm not prepared to give you those exact numbers because I don't have them off the top of my head and I want to make sure that you understand those are not the numbers by which we live by. But it's it was encouraging to see that those numbers were very close to what we had anticipated for budget and therefore we believe it's prudent to make a modest adjustment upward for the 2728 levy enrollment. Now to be clear, the levy enrollment can be and will likely be different than what we use in our budgeting enrollment, but we have to calculate what we think is most likely to occur for that enrollment. And if it's off either high or low based on actual what MDE does over after two years after the conclusion of the fiscal year, MDE actually uses our real uh enrollment data to true up. So, we want to make sure that our general fund levy is as close to what we believe to be accurate as possible to avoid any real big increases or decrease adjustments, any big ups or downs in our levy. And so, that's why we're going to make those steps. And by the time you see this report again in the next board um packet, it will be updated with uh what we believe to be closer projections for our enrollment. I did it again. And so just finalizing the timeline and I'll be done here in just a minute. An um u again uh [cough] this is the first prep for action. October 6th will be the approval. Uh you'll have this item in the board packet. I think probably when it's uh originally presented to you that Thursday before because I it appears that and at a quick glance the report and the numbers are are are accurate as they exist today. Once we get the enrollment updated, the next time the report runs, it will pick up that new enrollment. It will adjust the numbers and we should be locked. So, I see no problem with that timeline. Uh then on October 7th, it has to be certified to MDE and to the counties. And then on December 15th, we'll have to the truth and taxation hearing um where you will approve the final actual levy for next year. And there's the information. Happy to take any questions. They want to start Dr. Barl. >> Andy, you used the term true up and I was just curious um two years um what's been our experience, historical experience regarding uh that uh term MDE actually trying to do a true accounting assessment of >> good bad about where it should have been. >> It's close. I I will tell it goes both ways. So I've seen some uh modest uh adjustments downward and some modest adjustment upward, but they haven't been significant to actually be measurable as a whole across the uh you know the levy which is now exceeding $und00 million. So we're talking maybe $100,000 $120,000. So they're not not huge numbers, but yet we want to get them close because if it happens to be a million one way or the other. Now now that's a huge impact one year where we would see a decline perhaps, but then the following year we'd see what appears to be a 7 8 9% increase because of a really large decrease the year before. So we want to keep those numbers really as close to actual as we can, but it does go both ways modestly. >> Thank you. Mhm. >> So when you say the um LTFM plan in this report that we see was not yet approved and now you said that it's been resolved. >> Does that change any of the numbers in the letter? >> Uh I believe the numbers in the report were still accurate. Okay. >> But the LTFM plan was just not marked as approved. We were going to verify them one more time now that it's been approved. Um but the first glance was the numbers appeared to be accurate both in the general fund and in the debt service fund. So the majority of the changes that we would see are related to the uh community ed levy and then the general uh fund levy related to our enrollment. >> That is correct. Chair >> any other questions? Nobody wants to start going through the 37. No, please. >> Well, I you had already caught the thing on page 30, so I I don't need to spend any time on that, but um No. Um >> feel free recite it, please. [clears throat] >> But uh no, actually, I just wanted to clarify. So at this stage and I I I know it's it's outlined here but at this stage um with the what the board needs to certify is that uh we are authorizing levy at the maximum amount >> I should authorized by the Minnesota Department of Education and then it won't be until December >> that after there's been some further back and forth and dialed in those uh average daily membership numbers a bit more >> um [clears throat] what the actual ual levy amount would be set at. I mean is that >> you you approve maximum such that in December you could have you do have the authority then to decrease what MDE provides as the maximum. You can never go beyond that. That's why we ask you to certify the maximum because you then have that flexibility in December. >> I will tell you because there is no referendum for us in November this year. what you certify or what what you're preliminarily certifying on October 6 will be if not to the penny really close to what you see in December because the process does attempt to lock all of this in September such that only referendum that are uh approved in November for school districts change ultimately the um the uh levy that they approve in December. >> Okay. And I I can appreciate there. I I wouldn't expect there to be much movement. I think you already said this in the the debt service fund because, you know, we we know what those bonds are and we know what the interest is and so forth. >> Um but for the community service fund and the general fund where those amounts are dependent on actual enrollment, >> um is is there still some movement after September based on the Okay. Nope. And and for example, the the the the population number is now on that report. So what when I go back in and look at that report at a more granular level, I will likely see now all the levy amounts that calculate off that to have increased to the to where they should be based on that. It's just it wasn't available when we produced this for September on September 10th for this meeting. But that report should include those data points now, those dollar amounts that tie to that um population now that that's been updated. So, uh but I have not had a chance to review that. That just came through this evening. But to your point, no, there will not be we do not have the authority to adjust anything on the lever report after September 30th or after October 6, whenever you provide that number. However, because you have you certify maximum, it does still sort of leave open what is that final amount going to be because you have the authority to go lower. If for some reason you feel necessary um in December, I would I would be willing to suggest that won't occur, but it does allow you that flexibility. >> Okay. And then Oh, sorry. Go >> ahead. The the only other thing I I just wanted to note that uh the the overall amount is a a modest increase here of on the order of a million dollars on a hund00 million levy uh certification. Um but at the same time, one of the things in that 39page report that's clear is that the the net tax capacity of our district um is increasing by low single digits each year. Um and so the you know it's reasonable I think for us to foresee that a typical household would not see an increase in their property taxes um at least this year due to the school district I should say. I would I would not go on a limb and say that because we don't we don't control individual valuations and so someone's valuation could have increased to a point where yes they would now be at a point where the percentage value would actually increase their taxes but presuming modest uh valuation increase like most of us uh receive each year I think it's fair to say any increase would be very very minor because of the overall tax base To director Cook's point, I think it's a good point to make and we'll we'll have the those charts in December from is it Ellers's or >> Yes. Uh actually PTMA helps us >> pres who gives it to us who shows the impact on the certain uh levels of value of the homes and what the percentage changes. But I think the point that Director Cook makes is that the choice we make as a board on this levy is not it potentially could not result in an increase in the amount of taxes. It's the valuation of the uh property increasing that would cause the taxes because we had a 5% increase in our levy last year, but net it was a negative 2% increase in the in what we were taxing. But people saw their property taxes go up because their property values went up more than that 2% and that's what led to the property tax increase. But we won't know that >> until we see that in December. That is correct. And obviously we don't control valuations. And so um I I think it is fair to say uh that right now that 9% increase or about a million dollars would be fully absorbed by market value increases. To what extent that would result in a decrease for someone's taxes, I think it would be premature to estimate that because we don't know anyone's market value. But um we know that there will be an increase in the general fund for the enrollment and we know that not what you've seen the increase for the community education. So we do know there will be some. My hunch is again we're still going to be at that mark where perhaps the market value absorbs all of that increase for any one property owner. And in addition in December as part of the truth and taxation information you um I as I remember we also get a uh a look at our budget and we look at we also get a look at what our budget projections are as part of what you've already presented to us when we approve the budget in June. >> We we are required to present this year's budget. So fiscal year 27. So we I think we've provided in the past our budget and sort of a snapshot of forecast where we think we're going to end, right? We haven't at that point though had the data to say what do we think our budget's going to be for the next fiscal year. Um but we will talk about this fiscal year's budget as part of the truth and taxation. >> Anything else? All right. [clears throat] Thank you. >> Thank you. >> Thank you. Our next agenda item is other business. Uh the current version of the ABCD is available in this agenda item um for the community to see for every school board meeting. Our upcoming agenda items for for October 6th include the performance measure update on MCA reading, math, and science. our RPS 2030 strategic plan recommendation under prep for action and action on this proposed school district property tax payable 2027. Then at the October 20th meeting, we have monitoring item on the enrollment update, the action item on the RPS 2030 strategic plan recommendation and a close session on the 202526 superintendent evaluation goals component. Would any board [clears throat] member like to add any item on a future agenda? Hearing none. Um, our upcoming board meetings are all regular meetings at 5:30 October 6th, October 20th, November 10th, and November 17th. And hearing no additional business, this meeting is adjourned at 7:15 p.m. [cough and clears throat]