Yes, I did. I ate way too much. I just want to >> This regular meeting of the Independent School District 535 School Board is called to order at 5:31 p.m. on Tuesday, May 19th, 2026 in room 137 of the Edison building. Present at this meeting are school board members, Superintendent Kent Pekel, a non-voting ex-officio member, and Assistant School Board Clerk Ms. Ann Kramer. Ms. Kramer, will you please call the roll? Here. Here. Here. Here. Here. >> [clears throat] >> 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. >> Our next item are the Rochester Public Schools mission, vision, and values. Tonight we focus on our third value, ensuring excellence through evidence. Guided by research and data, we enrich student learning and well-being through intentional decisions supported by proven practices. Board members, I believe we'll have the opportunity to see this value specifically in action tonight during the Dakota block schedule agenda item, and clearly in the 2030 strategic plan outline item. And I would welcome any other comments or thoughts during those agenda items on how they connect to our mission, vision, and values. Next item 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. Opposed? The agenda has been approved. The agenda and documents for this meeting are available online at rochesterschools.org/assembly. Our next item is comments to the board. It is important for the school board to hear from our stakeholders regarding issues that impact our students, staff, families, and schools. We welcome communication by email, phone call, and here during 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 speakers' comments during the meeting, but may follow up with the speaker if requested and appropriate. Persons who want to make on the board must fill out the online form by 5:00 p.m. on the Monday before the school board meeting. And the form is available on the RPS website and on the assembly main page. Speakers, when your name is called, please come to this table. If you have written materials for the board, please provide them to our assistant school board clerk and she will distribute them to board members. Choose a microphone to speak into and be seated. Please direct your remarks to the school board. You will have 3 minutes to speak, and the timer will be displayed right in front of me. And please begin the your remarks by stating your name. Our first speakers tonight >> Mhm. >> Mhm. >> Mhm. >> Mhm. >> Our next item is information and outreach National Speech Language Pathologist Day. May 18th was National Speech Language Pathologist Day. Speech Language Pathologists help our students improve their speech fluency, sounds, and patterns to help make them more understandable. These professionals work with students to increase their social communication and complex conversation skills and build their understanding of symbolic language, gestures, and other signals of speech. Speech Language Pathologists help students to become readers by working with them on rhyming and identifying the beginning sounds in words, building vocabulary by acting out words, retelling stories with new words, or playing vocabulary games, and improving reading comprehension. As partners with teachers and other school staff, speech language pathologists develop learning and support services plans for students and educate and empower parents to help them learn how to help their children. We are grateful for all the skills that our speech language pathologists bring to serving our RPS students. Our next recognition is for Jefferson Elementary, the American School Counselor Association recognized ASCA Model Program. Superintendent McCauley. Uh thank you, Chair Nathan and board members. I would like to invite just a superb example of the valuable work of of school counselors that we just heard about, Tony Yang, to come up and join us. I believe I saw Principal Dana Duitz come on up there. Um Tony has been recognized by his national association with very important exemplary award that I want to have him tell the board and the community a bit about. It was [clears throat] a deep and rigorous process to receive this. I know he has aspirations for other Rochester schools traveling that. And then I also want to ask uh his dynamic principal to share a bit on how she, as the school leader, sees the work that Tony does fitting so tightly into the strategy that they have at Jefferson. So, congratulations. Thank you for your leadership and we are so excited to recognize you. >> [applause] [applause] >> Yes, I have the honor of introducing our wonderful school counselor, Tony Yang. He's been working at Jefferson for the past 5 years. Um and when I first met him, he said that he chose this path as kind of a calling, like he felt like he wanted to give back to a community. Um and so he he chose this career path. And um in the last 5 years, I will say that Tony, uh, continues to impress and, um, just continues to strive to make a difference in the lives of the kids at Jefferson. He, um, definitely goes above and beyond. He's our support team lead at Jefferson. We look at data regularly, weekly, and make sure that we are proactively providing supports for kids that need them as they need them. And Tony is very, very skilled at, uh, creating data, uh, dashboards and and sheets that we can look at to recall data quickly. He was our skip goal lead for our post-secondary, uh, goal this year and, uh, achieved that goal in, uh, what? January? Yeah, around there. Yeah. So, ahead of schedule. Uh, and, um, he does a lot of our tier one supports with with, uh, teachers to make sure they have what they need for our SEL curriculum delivery and any supports that they need in in, uh, pulling together lessons. So, at the tier one level, we are very, um, thankful to have him and his leadership in that capacity. And then he will support teachers individually, um, with students who have needs as well. Uh, Tony is, um, also leading, helping out on our, um, uh, specialty area teachers will meet with him. He's kind of their PLC go-to guy. So, there just so many ways that he, uh, provides help to our students and definitely families. He works with a lot of parents as well to make sure kids are feeling great, safe, happy, um, and feel like they belong at our school. So, Tony, um, works for the past worked for the past 2 years to, uh, get that award that he, uh, we get to proudly, uh, say we have, uh, only school in southeastern Minnesota to be, uh, uh given that award. And so, I'll let Tony take it from [clears throat] here. Yeah. Yeah, thanks, Dana. And uh like Dana said, I worked or I started working at Jefferson about 5 years ago. And uh part of being a school counselor, so we're we're all masters uh you know, graduates and we have master's degree holders. So, we have a lot of training in on learning or understanding students as as a whole, you know, the whole child. And whether that's academics, you know, social emotional, you you know, career, post-secondary pathways, things like that. And so, a lot of our training kind of is also very data-informed. And a lot of that stem or comes from our ASCA National Model or or from AC or ASCA. And so, um when I first started at Jefferson, I was really kind of seeing, "Okay, is Jefferson a good fit for, you know, for me to maybe even try this out?" And um I want to give Dana and uh Heather Clowater credit, too, cuz those two were my admin when I started, and those two were so supportive. Had I not had the support from my admin the way they supported me, I don't think this would have been possible. And so, this whole process of getting RAM uh recognition, um it is yeah, about a 2- to 3-year process. The first year is really data collecting. Um the second year is really implementing your goal, which was um specifically Jefferson, it was related to behaviors and working with a specific cohort of fifth grade boys. And kind of um measuring or you know, giving them uh the skills they need to succeed in the classroom. And then the third year is related to applying to at the national level and uh hopefully getting that um you know, that recognition, which uh Jefferson thankfully did the first time around, so that was great to get that. Um and what what I really appreciate about RAM is that it is not just an individual award, although I did a lot of work for it. Um but it is also a school award, right? It highlights the school, the community, the students, the staff, especially the admin, and that collaboration and kind of the processes, the systems we build there. Again, school counselors, we do so much, kind of like what Dana said, we do a lot of tier one, we do a lot of tier two. We help with families, we help with teachers, we help with students, of course. And so, we're we're kind of really embedded into just how schools can really thrive and and succeed and and reach these national standards or local standards, whatever they can be. And so, a lot of it is I want to, you know, thank the Jefferson community and staff and teachers for allowing me to be able to kind of implement this this model program for the school. I just want to reiterate again that I hope this is a good beginning, but not the end because as I was over at Jefferson the other day and we were talking about the journey that you were on that led to this point. It It It reinforced what you might have done anyway, but through the national process, there was an intentionality that you had that if there are some of your colleagues in the school counseling world that are similarly interested in, I hope and believe that their principals would be as supportive. I'm sure we should be from the central office level as well. So, we want to thank you again for your leadership and it's really in the end about the kids and they're benefiting. It's great that you're getting professionally recognized, but the kids are benefiting. So, just join me in thanking and recognizing Tony. >> [applause] >> THE [clears throat] NEXT ITEM ON OUR THE AGENDA ARE BOARD MEMBER UPDATES. Does any board member have any updates from committees or any information to share? Dr. Martin. Um two, quickly. Um Sarah Louise Henry, one of our district leaders, has been working for several months with a a group of high school students to create a student-led uh student wellness summit. It was held on May 6th, which was a staff uh work day, which we call curriculum curriculum and development day. and development day. So, the students did not have school that day, and there were a number of kids who uh who showed up for the summit. It was an amazing event. Uh there were breakout sessions, all of them were co-led uh with a district specialist and a student, and they covered um issues including resilience. Uh there was one on um digital addiction and the brain, another one on belonging connection. Uh we had a national speaker come in and talk about resilience for the students. It was incredibly well done, very well organized, and it just goes to show the kind of quality programming that our students can do, and uh their dedication to making a really good experience for other students in the district. And then also, more briefly, this morning I was invited to listen to Charlie Burkhart, uh young woman who had uh an eighth grader at Willow Creek who had done some research on um artificial intelligence and wrote a really good paper that she asked me to write. Well researched, a lot of opinions in it, and she then spent yesterday, today, and tomorrow uh for 20 minutes each day uh giving a presentation of that paper to the seventh, eighth, and ninth graders, sixth, seventh, and eighth graders at Willow Creek. Uh she's an amazing young woman. The information she had was compelling. Middle school students were riveted, and once again uh it's a great indication of the kind of quality kids we have in this district. And the potential they have to make a real difference when they're given the chance and the support. Dr. McCloughlin. I had the opportunity to attend the district graduation powwow on Saturday and it's always a great event. I'm always excited to see how many graduates we have. Some of the interesting and exciting things this year is we had graduates from other districts as as well along with recognizing the elementary students. I don't think we had done that before so that those were nice ads that I appreciate and it'll be fun to see those younger kids up there in the larger group someday and it's just a great event to honor our American Indian students. All right, I have a list. Um RPS had a booth at Pride Rochester Pride on Saturday and it was so great to see along with a number of other organizations affiliated with the district there and to see a lot of our students who stopped by the booth. I have to say we had some pretty good display of swag. I believe that the squeezable apples were the most popular selected item but it was just a great big day, great weather, good good connection with the community. Um we also had kickoff to kindergarten on the 7th. And that's the annual event where we welcome our incoming families who are coming to us this fall but we also had a number of families who are thinking a year ahead. So they weren't having kindergarteners this fall, they were having them next year and were coming to to check things out and that was a great um high energy thanks to all of the RPS and community groups who agreed to have tables cuz there are some really good opportunities for families to get information there. Um, Director Marvin and I and I don't know if Superintendent participated in judging the Project Lead the Way Toy Maker contest at Kellogg. Um, where they put together a mechanical device themed and the themes were very creative and unique. Um, that also had to work. Um, and there were some really really creative and fun some themes I needed a little explanation on. Um, but uh, thanks to Diane Flager for the work that she does with that. It's it's um, leading them through a design and development process that that in the end I know the students are really proud of what they've developed. Um, and finally Director Workman and I completed the second session of School Board Academy last week. And the slide decks and the information on the election will be available on our school board webpage under elections. So if you did not or were not able to attend School Board Academy and want to see what we talked about, those will be available on our website. Anything else board members? Um, Yes, Dr. >> Just uh, briefly and our skip visit was to Lincoln K-3 8 school. This is a very unique school kindergarten through eighth graders attend the same building. Um, it's they have amazing programs where kids work together. Uh, their biggest challenge right now is that the parking lot is really small, always has been. Um, and they're sort of bursting at the seams in terms of the number of students they have, but it's just such a pleasure to be able to get into our buildings and uh, watch the kids, see teachers teaching and talk with the administration. Yeah, it was we were right there in the middle of their day. So we got to see the elementary reading interventions happening in real time with four adults who are rotating students in on really tight time time frames with very concentrated focus on a certain set of skills. When they were done, they moved on to the next student. Uh we heard from um their counselor um who has been working um with all of the classes to get their Zello uh goals um which they have also met. Um but the partnership that she talked about between her work and the work of the classroom teachers to make sure that um you know the lessons could get could get done. And [clears throat] I I think the the other benefit of being in the school is to hear about um um the well to see the relationships between the students and the teachers. We were in one classroom before the students came in and she was explaining her schedule and explaining her day and the students were literally standing outside the window of the classroom waiting for us to be finished because they wanted to get in and this is for their intervention time. So thank you to Lincoln for for hosting us and um this is the last skip visit of the school year and we look forward to continuing them next year. All right. Our next item on the agenda is our consent agenda, items 5.1 through 5.11. Would any board member like any item removed for separate consideration? Move approval. Second. It has been moved and moved and seconded to approve the consent agenda. All those in favor say I. I. Any opposed? The consent agenda has been approved. Our next item is our monitoring item, uh the Dakota Middle School block schedule pilot. Superintendent Bickel. Thank you, Chair Nathan and board members. Um not long ago the leadership team at Dakota Middle School uh asked to make appointment to see me and they began to describe an initiative that has been implemented this year that is about changing the schedule, but as you'll hear it's about much more than that. And so, this I think is an exciting example of how our schools in RPS are beginning to innovate and adapt to meet the unique needs of their students. And so, I'm going to invite the Dakota team to come on up, take your seats at the table, and then we'll ask you to introduce yourselves. We have got our Chief of Schools helpfully carrying chairs out. Thank you, Mr. Johnson. I I guess I can take a little point of privilege. I want to thank Mr. Kowalski for inviting me to play the rubber chicken with the eighth-grade orchestra last week. It was a career highlight of my life. I did have to ask him to point at me when I was supposed to squeak the rubber chicken cuz I couldn't read the music like the kids. Thank you for all that you do. Why don't we start out with just having everybody introduce themselves so board members are aware you are, and then I'll turn it over to Principal Lanander to move us forward. Hi, my name is Britton Johnson. I'm Stacy Olson. I teach seventh-grade English at Dakota. I'm Amelia Rutzloff. I teach sixth-grade English at Dakota. I'm Troy Kowalski. I teach sixth, seventh, and eighth-grade band and then world drumming and ukulele. I hate microphones. My name's Nikki Melis. I'm the reading interventionist at Dakota. And I'm Terri Lanander, the principal. And Britton, what do you do? So, I'm a parent and I also work in the office. Wonderful. Thank you. Okay. Turn it over to >> Well, thank you for having us. Um we'll tell you I'm sure you'll have a lot of questions about our block scheduling journey. We still have a lot of questions, too. Um so, here we go. Um about a year and a half ago, some of us attended a presentation through MASSP and Edina South View Middle School in Edina presented block schedule. What really stood out to us were the chances to get more student voice, student choice into their programming based on a block schedule. We also knew some people who work at Owatonna Middle School, so we had a chance to reach out to them and talk about their block scheduling and how they incorporate that into their day without losing a lot of instruction time. When we What we took from these mainly was a structural change to our current schedule which had 7 hours in the day. What we have done is we have changed that to still leading with an advisory class. We have added a 30-minute flex time which we'll talk about later which gives teachers and students more of a chance to do things like intervention or enrichment for 30 minutes every day. We have had guest speakers come in to take that time to talk with students. We had high schools in the past couple of weeks who have taken the flex time, so it just gives that built-in time where we're not losing instruction time from our other classes. What that has done from that 7-hour day, we now have four blocks each day and we still run on an AB schedule like the other middle schools do. We have found more time the instructional pieces. Teachers can go a lot more in-depth with that 74-75 minute block time and then student engagement as well which Amelia will you can talk about learning pathways a little later. One of the things that we really stuck out to us too was that belonging and culture our panorama panorama survey on the 5e survey. We noticed that the culture and belonging were lower. So we're hoping giving students more choice in their day for a true middle school uh feel would help with the belonging and culture. We also really wanted to add those support systems with those elective courses and adding we had a good intervention plan going into place and I think it's even stronger now a year later. So what this has offered us um the deeper learning opportunities like I said with the longer periods we can get more in depth with our core content classes and our quarter classes. Um we have stronger relationships that are being built within classes whether it's the block scheduling having kids for that extended time whether it's having music every day now instead of every other day. Um improve student engagement. We are hoping that less transitions during the day would mean more students attending class being in class staying in class um giving teachers more time with those um different strategies to try in class instead of expecting a child to sit and get for 74 minutes. We are hoping to perform promote more activities um where students are getting up. Um some teachers are getting into beyond thinking classrooms within that so giving students more chances um to work with one another. And then the reduced daily workload um the intention was that we would have block schedule the longer block schedules um students would have more time at the end to really work on homework so they weren't bringing things home as much. Um more quantity or quality over quantity with that. Um and then Um, so what we did when we went to those middle schools, we really wanted staff to have the buy-in and we knew that was going to be our number one piece to building this because block scheduling in Rochester for the last 30 years has had a really bad connotation to it. Um, so what we did is we initially sent four staff members to Edina um, to Southview Middle School which is recognized for the work they do. Um, we have sent sent more staff to Southview and we just had a couple up there the other day as well to look at some unified programming. Um, we also sent 27 of our staff members last spring to Owatonna over a matter of a few days so they could go, they could meet teachers, they could sit in the block classrooms, they could ask questions, get clarifications. Um, we did some surveys with our staff and by the time we were done with all these pieces, one teacher said no to the block scheduling the rest said yes. That was one of the teachers then who attended Owatonna and when he came back he said yes. We had 100% of staff buy-in with this. Um, we then started reaching out to our different stakeholders and those are all listed there. Uh, we met with our union reps, we met with HR. Um, anyone and everyone we could get feedback with, we talked to PTSA, we talked to students and families to get all of their input to see what questions they had because if they had questions, we likely were going to have questions. So this is our survey that we had originally sent out and we had 62% of people say yes and then should we get the ball rolling, should we wait and eventually everyone that yes, let's do it turned to 100% and we had a few staff meetings about this um, so we could make sure everyone's voice was heard um, and that we all had the similar understanding of what this would look like. So, what this has allowed for, um, we have four blocks per day. So, eight blocks over a period of an A and B day schedule. Uh, we have embedded skinny classes, which we will take a block at any given time and make it into two skinny classes. So, for example, our music classes run on everyday skinnies. Our PE classes run on skinnies. Our special ed resource classes are skinny classes. And our electives that we run are also on skinnies. Um, we have added, and I'll show you in a little bit the different courses we have been able to offer besides beyond that core content area. Um, and we have still some year-long courses that are our core content. Um, we are running semester classes, and then we also still have our quarter classes that are um, in every middle school. We also, um, the equity and services, we ensure that ML and sped students are receiving targeted instruction, and it's actually helped with the least restrictive environment. Students are getting more time in their classes and less time pulled out for their resource because we have more offered during the day. So, the benefits and our intended outcomes, um, we want student achievements through deeper engagements. Um, and the learning pathways piece that we'll talk about really fits into that. Um, teacher support, we actually, one of the big pieces that we talked with HR and the union about was prep time and how this affects prep time. We've actually given um, our teachers about 100 more minutes a week in prep time. Um, this is also helping with, um, everyday subbing. So, we have we have a problem with subs getting subs into the building. And what we're asking our teachers now to do instead of subbing an entire block, they only sub half a block. So, that actually gives teachers a block 35-minute prep every day regardless, which in the traditional schedule we would not have been able to do. Um the MTSS framework and interventions Nikki you can talk a little bit. She's our reading interventionist with how that works into the schedule. But how many kids she's able to see every week. Um longer black class periods we have more in-depth learning with that. Um with the learning pathways we're able to understand which kids need more help and assist with those kids more individually, more hands-on activities, more engagements, and a hope for more focus and less discipline. So, some of the electives that we are able to offer this year, we did when it came to budgeting we had already invested extra math and English in our balanced budget. Um we actually had a science teacher who offered to give up a block of classes to teach a couple science electives. Uh we added more music so we could have co-taught band. Um we were also able to offer different fine arts choices, which was a piece of the our consideration as well. Um not making every student take a music class in 7th and 8th grade. We still require 6th grade music. Um and then in 7th and 8th grade students have a choice of other fine arts pieces. This year we offered ukulele as a non-performance music, world drumming, next well I'll I'll show you next year on the next slide. Um we and theater we offered as a fine arts as well. We have one of our English teachers is licensed in theater. Um we then also added some sixth grade teaching FTE for a middle school skills class to act as a transition from elementary to middle school because we knew that was an issue we wanted to address as well. We added an art teacher to offer a unified art class and then an advanced art class. Um we offered PE electives and then one of our Project Lead the Way teachers offered rocketry and tiny homes as well. So really through showing you this um I don't think my new slide's in here. Should throw it showing you this um we just have more choice for students and they were able to rank. [clears throat] They they couldn't choose their specific path, but they could choose like I'm interested in Spanish class. So that would be our we'd try our hardest with scheduling um to try and get that piece in there, too. And that speaking of the Spanish piece, that was one of the things when we talk about wanting to get more students back to RPS. Um that really came out through our PTSA. We have a family who lives in Oronoco and sent their kids to Pine Island because that's where they offered Spanish. Now that we're offering Spanish, that family is back with us at Dakota. Another great thing that we've been able to do through all of this is we've really amplified our unified program. This year we became a um Special Olympics Champion School. Um so we are able to offer this year we offered PE and art for our unified kids. Next year we are offering one of our math teachers is going to co-teach with one of our RISE teachers to do a sensory gardening elective class. Um and hopefully they'll they'll be making a sensory path outside which is our goal. >> Okay. Um so, I was in charge of surveying the staff and the students and really just looking at what our uh general experience was with the the block schedule, making sure that we were getting the results uh in year one that we wanted to target and then seeing how we can continue to improve on this model. Um so, just targeting with these questions, like do we have the effective planning time that we want? Um do we have the right instructional time? And this is just looking at the staff right now and overwhelmingly it's yes. Um Thanks. Um and then one of the big concerns that was brought up was getting the right amount of instruction, especially when we're looking at like English and math um since those are the most data specific that we get measurable on standardized testing. Making sure that staff feel like that they're able to really teach the content that they need to. So, I wanted to make sure that they can have the length and frequency of their classes and I've had some um conversations with staff, too. And they're like, "Yeah, the first year, next year I'm thinking about changing the way I'm going to teach um this content or that content or structure this differently." So, there our staff is already thinking about how it is, but there's enough time to really structure things the way we want to. I mean, yes, the minutes are fewer when we add them up. There is though enough time to really dive in and teach what they want. So, it's good to see the results there. And then so, we have some key positives here. Um so, the increased time for for deeper learning activities, that's a really really big piece. Um the enhanced student support um and then the the big one that we really wanted to target amongst staff morale was the reduced stress and improved well-being. Um being able to have adequate planning time to prepare lessons even if we have to sub, we do have you know, even if 35 minutes, I still have 35 minutes to plan. So, that's there. And then the other big positive that we have is our flex time. Um being able to meet and do interventions do an extension activity. Um we're going to see that in the um things as well. Um workload that's it's always a hard thing to manage. Um student engagement and behavior that's a different one when we're managing now 74 minutes compared to 50. We have to get it again more creative with how we do that. So, that's just the a learning growing piece that as we think into the future, um Amelia is doing really well with what she does. Um so we'll hear a great exemplar there. Um and then Oh, the student data didn't get in there. Okay. Well, in a the student data is in there. Again, they love the flex time. Um and a lot of them feel like they can get to um get to meet their teacher and ask questions. Um and then also, they really enjoy the flex time and the choice. Some of them feel a little bit of frustration with the system or like the A and the B class and it's like, well, you're learning a new system just like the staff are. So, that's what we're working with. Am I okay to go even though we have 20 seconds left? No, absolutely. Okay. [laughter] Um so, I'm Amelia. Um I have been a teacher in the district now for 2 years. Um but before that, I was a student since kindergarten. Um Longfellow, Kellogg, and Century. So, I'm super excited to be a part of the district as a teacher now. Um I have really been enjoying the block schedule. Um I've been doing something that I kind of call the the modified daily five. Um where in elementary school the in literacy blocks, they commonly do the daily five, but um I do the daily three. So, every day I have my students, they either um meet with the teacher, they do silent reading, and they do silent writing. And so, the way I've structured this is that I break my 75-minute class up into 15-minute chunks. So, every other chunk they do one of these three activities. Um and I'm not able to meet with every single student one-on-one each day, but I do meet with my kids of highest need. So, before I implemented this, I did a lot of um testing. So, I had a bunch of data. So, I took their FastBridge scores. Once we had the Read Basics data, I did use that. Um I did uh spelling inventory. I did um What's the other one? The reading. The CBM. And so, I used all that data to combine um about three separate groups of my highest need kids, and I like was able to target their um specific needs for with reading. And so, every day I would meet with um three groups. So, while the students were either reading or writing, um the other students would meet with me. And um I started this in October with my um co-teacher in special ed and we um, were meeting with I think about 20 22 kids every every other day. And in the fall when we did the winter testing um, 20 of those 22 kids either went up in their Fast Bridge scores or stayed the same. So we are seeing a really a really positive um, result from that. And I also did a survey with my kids at like the winter Fast Bridge testing and most of them really enjoyed it. Um, they really like being able to choose between when they read, when they write. Um, and it's been really positive. Um, we are also going to be implementing something similar next year um, called the learning pathways where every day the students will meet with the teacher. They will either and then they can choose between um, working with a partner or working independently. So it's kind of kind of similar to that um, daily three thing that I do. Um, but it's also to give the students um, more choice and agency over what they do every day. Um, and that kind of helps with one of our challenges which is helping with student engagement. Um, I found that when they're given choice of the things that they have to do, they choose when they do it and how they do it, it can really have a positive impact. I just want to touch on a couple things. Um, the first one is the flex time is not only just a place for uh, our kids to receive some of those uh, tier uh, three interventions but also to kind of give them some student choice and voice. So for example, one of the flex things that I do usually on Thursdays is I do uh, Judge Judy appreciation. It's very well attended. It does get signed up quite quickly within minutes. Um, and it's just you know, fun time for students to kind of mix their academic needs, but also have some of those let loose needs um for them. And they get the choice between lots of different activities. Some do more art type things, some do more like study hall based things, and then there's me with my love of Judge Judy. Um, another thing I will say is that with the block scheduling, it does allow me to do some of those tier two interventions that Amelia was kind of talking about. Um, so for example, one of the things I've been working on since January has been fluency. And I've worked with Nikki, our reading interventionist, um kind of targeting some students that need some of that tier two support. And um I'm really, really very excited about our FastBridge spring scores because I have seen tremendous growth in one of my classes with the A reading, I saw a growth from I think it was like 48% to 60-some percent. So, that's one thing that the block scheduling does allow me to do 10 minutes of targeted intervention um with the class, and it's paying off. So, I see wonderful things, and I was that teacher that said I'm having the best year that I've had since COVID. And a lot of that is because we have that time to build relationships with students. So, doing those interactive activities, those movement activities, and also just having those moments to do like one-on-one checks, but also small group and whole class checks. So, it's been a great year for me. Um, well, from a parent's perspective, this is my fifth year having a student at Dakota. I had a student when it opened, [clears throat] she went through, and this is my second kiddo. And I don't know if you know about second kiddos, but they definitely are they're a different breed. Um, and they they've giggled cuz they know him. But he has ADHD, he struggles with transitions. And last year was very stressful for him going hour to hour to hour to hour trying to keep up with all of his work. And I have seen such a decrease in stress because on these days I have these classes and I know that I have time if I don't get my work done in class, I have time at home before I can come back. And that has just been a game-changer for him overall. Also, the flex for a kid who is very connection-seeking, flex has been such a game-changer both at school and at home. So, he has the opportunity to build community in areas at Dakota where he may not have with teachers he may not have had teachers he may not have met if he if he got a different English teacher. Now he can meet this English teacher and build a relationship there. There's also the opportunity to build relationships across grades because this is not grade-specific. So, we're seeing opportunities for our eighth-graders to build relationships with our sixth-graders and build them up and build community in a way that we would not be able to have in any other situation. And then at home, when he comes home at the end of the day, instead of "Well, how was school today?" "Oh, it was good. It was fine. What did you learn? Nothing." We could say, "Hey, what was your flex today? What did you Where did you learn today? What is your flex tomorrow going to be? Who did you talk to today?" We're able to have these conversations about the choices that he made and he's so excited All of our students that we talked to because I also work in the office in the morning. Um and if a kid has forgotten what their flex is, I'm the one that they ask. And they're and they're able to tell me, "Oh, you know, I'm not sure what my flex is." And when I tell them, "Oh, this is what you chose." their face just lights up because they remember the choice they made and they're so excited to get to that flex. So, it really has been from all of my years as a parent in the watching things through Dakota, this has just been our favorite year overall. It has been phenomenal. We have incredible leadership who definitely take on this and this is just opportunities for great connection, which is obviously one of our core values. Hi. Sorry. So, I'm Nikki Melise. I'm the reading interventionist. Um This is just kind of my day. Um so, we noticed, what, like 2 years ago, that there's um we had a large percentage of our students who were reading at least two grade levels below, and there wasn't really like adequate time within teachers' like day to provide the kind of support and intervention that they needed. Um so, just what I do every day is um I see students who are identified as high risk or some risk. It's usually high risk. Um and what I do is there's So, we have our our FastBridge diagnostics, and then we do additional ones, obviously. I group them. My Most of my groups are not above seven students, so it's very, very small group, which I really love cuz I can build those relationships with students, and I can also um kind of target is specifically what they need, and I can um I think my students are much more uh willing to take risks and take chances and be vulnerable and fail before they succeed, because that's that's how we learn best. Um so, every day my students come to me for a 20-minute, very like highly intensive dosage of reading intervention. I have students who um are still learning letter sound correspondence, and I have students who are Primarily, it's uh like multi-syllabic phonics that we work on, decoding skills like that. I have some students who are working on fluency, but kind of our our hope, especially with Amelia and Stacy kind of piloting these um like tier two interventions, is that especially since we have the time now, they can do this, and it's not It might seem scary because you haven't done it before, but now, you know, we're we're trying things. We're um doing that and it's it's doable and we're seeing success with it. So, that's fantastic. Um So, what else? My students are progress monitored weekly. Um they choose their goals. Like they're very involved in Okay, last week I read 98 words. This week I'm going to try to get to 103. Um and then I communicate monthly with families so they know exactly like where their students are. This year I have seen 77 students, which may not seem like a lot, but it actually is. Um and the students that I've exited, it's actually 44. But seven of them don't want to leave me. So So, they chosen cuz when when a student is eligible to exit, I contact their families, I contact their teachers and I say and I talk talk to the students, too, and I say, "How do you feel?" And all seven of the students haven't wanted to leave. So it's fine. They just stay with me and they just get keep getting better and better and now they're just role models. So, that's really great. I can you tell them the story the email story. I'm sorry. >> No, I don't want to cry. Okay. So um I had a student who is an eighth grader. I had him as an English teacher his sixth grade year. And imagine the student who every day in class is just like this. And completely disassociated. I think he had a 4% for the entire year. Like that's what it was. And last year I got to know him like sixth grade, I was like, "Oh, this kid." And then seventh grade, middle of the year, when I started taking over intervention for the entire school um I got to know him on a much better level and he was reading 37 words per minute on a seventh grade passage. At that time he should have been reading 100 I think it's 182. And he was reading 37. So, I was making connections. I'm like, "Oh, duh. Like, this is why we have issues." Um this year he just took his last um progress monitoring last Wednesday. Tomorrow, he'll take another one. Uh on an eighth grade passage, he is reading he did 174 words. Which target is like 182, I think. Like, I I think Justin can probably help me a little bit more with that. But the the growth that he has made is just huge. And then on his comprehension, he right now we were at eighth grade we want them to be like in the upper 80s. His last one was 100, and I just about cried. So, we were talking because it was just him and I like at the end of our session, and um talking about next year and how he'll be in high school and and everything and how he's feeling. And he was like, "You know, I'm kind of nervous." And then he goes, "Miss Melissa, what did you think about me when I was in sixth grade?" And I said, "Well, do you want Miss Melissa's answer, or do you want Nikki's answer?" And he joked and he's like, "I want Nikki's answer." I'm like, "Nikki's answer kind of like Nikki kind of thought you were lazy and like you didn't want to do anything." He's like, "That's fair. I was pretty sure everyone thought that." I'm like, "Yeah. But I'm like, you've shown me so much more. I'm like, I am so thankful that I've been able to like get to know you and and this has been a whole new And he's like, "Miss Melissa, I have five brothers. One of them has graduated high school." And I was like, "Wow." He goes, "Yeah." He goes, "I didn't think I was going to be able to." He goes, "But I I think I can now. My goal is to graduate high school." And he said, "I couldn't do the work that I was being asked to do. That's why I didn't do anything." He goes, "I think I can do it now." And then he thanked me, and I'm going to cry Yeah, but that was cool. >> [clears throat] [laughter] >> That's really Okay. board members, Director Marvin. Best story ever. Um, and just quick question about the scheduling. So, you have uh longer blocks and then smaller skinnies. My assumption is that if kid takes one skinny, he takes two. Okay. And then, how does the 20-minute flex? Does every student have that or just the kids who need intervention? So, flex and intervention are different things. So, flex happens from what is it? 8:59 to 9:29 every day. And so, like what I do with my flexes usually is the students who have exited my program, I pull them back and I do like progress monitoring with them every 2 weeks just to make sure we don't have regression. Um, but I know like a lot of people we have Judge Judy. We've had like blackjack, which sounds weird, but it's good math skills. Um, we've had like D&D, we've had like a lot of really great things. My program it isn't super dependent on block scheduling. So, I pull students every hour I pull three groups and it's 20 minutes, 20 minutes, 20 minutes. Okay. Um, and then, so right now I currently have five groups, no, excuse me, 10 groups. And this my students range from two students, which see, but those are my students who are we're still learning our letter sounds. So, just for like their their own like self-esteem, I kept it to the two groups. But typically, I have anywhere from like five to seven students and they come every day from the same time. So, unfortunately, sometimes last year when I was doing it, um they came out of like every single class and I tried to make it like a social studies or something like that. Um I I hated that it was 20 minutes out of a 55-minute chunk. It's easier to do 20 minutes out of a 75-minute chunk because the students get have an easier time getting caught up and then the teachers use their flex time in the morning to get those students caught up a lot of times. So, every every student has flex time at the same time. Yep. >> Yep. Okay. Good. Yep. Thank you. And the other thing about flex is it's usually a time for teachers one to two times a week they will do like a re-teaching or a makeup or retake session. So, if those students they missed out, they can, you know, request students to come and see them. And students do have some free choice to go and see a teacher as well. Dr. Brothers. Uh excellent presentation. Uh Nikki, I just wanted to first of all, thank you for the story. Um it seems to me that really um speaks to the value of the block schedule, but maybe even more specifically to uh the learning that occurs both on the part of the student and on occasion the part of the teaching professional. And um I like how you were able to acknowledge that there was an effort that was required on your part to get to know the student. Uh because sometimes I think unfortunately, not that it's uh uh by design or you have the time now to get to know the student. And so, there's a backstory you were able to learn and and perhaps that further enabled you to uh assess uh the student and and so, you know, thank you for sharing that and and then thank you for for making the commitment. Uh not just settling for being frustrated or labeling the kid, well, you know, but uh and I think in every profession, every career, every field, uh we need to be able to acknowledge um not necessarily our biases, but our truths, be they what they whatever they may be for whatever reason. But uh uh the professional growth uh that you've undergone, but the educational growth uh the student you referenced. So, so thank you for having done what you have and and the rest of you as well. Uh I think it speaks volumes to uh leadership, but the commitment of staff. So, thank you. Dr. Cook. Um well, yeah, thank you uh for this presentation that um the So, what what I'm wondering about is I'm um reflecting on this and hearing about all the advantages of the block schedule and the way that it's been implemented at Dakota. Um it it happens to check a good number of boxes that uh are reflected in the um 2030 strategic plan that we're the board's going to be talking about next um for some of the things that we are considering and hoping that we'll be able to implement at the middle school level. And so, I appreciated that the that the presentation included some of the the challenges, some of the drawbacks. Um and I recognize that >> [clears throat] >> that this was done at Dakota responsive to the the data specifically at Dakota and the um the feelings of belonging and connection. And it was also kind of organically uh from the Dakota staff and the entire Dakota staff was on board um without exception by the time the um this program was implemented, but I I'm I'm wondering if if anyone could uh reflect a little bit as you think about your your colleagues across the district that Kellogg and Willow Creek and um in John Adams um and thinking about some of the reservations to bringing this um the implementing this program initially um and while those are those schools are not Dakota, but I I just would invite you to reflect for a moment and think about are there any any reasons that this wouldn't be a good fit at some of those other schools and you don't have to expound at length, but anything that especially if it isn't reflected in the presentation already, I'd just love to um have the benefit of those insights. So um I have a current fourth grader at Harriet Bishop and this has definitely been a conversation that we've had whether or not I'm going to want to open enroll my own child to Dakota Middle School or have her at her neighborhood school of John Adams. Um and that's been a very difficult conversation because moving a your own child away from their social structures and supports to go to what we believe to be a very successful learning model for my own child who has ADHD, who loves arts, who loves all of those pieces it brings us challenges. Um I believe that we have pieces here that with the how we run our advisory and flex that could have very low cost to other buildings, really go to every school pretty well. Um getting every school on board with the whole block, that was probably our biggest lift as as the staff. Um as well as the challenge of financing that. So, I think it would be a harder lift to get the whole block model district-wide, but I think there's other pieces that we could start looking at and doing and exploring to bring to the whole district on a smaller scale um relatively sooner. It does require a little bit of um strategic thinking as a teacher because for example, you know, the first year is kind of like your your learning year. And one thing I have found is I really can't do the type of curriculum planning the way I have done in the past, which is I would have a poetry unit or I would have a short story unit. And so next year, I mean, I've already got plans figured out. I'm going to do things thematically. So, each quarter is going to be a particular theme and instead of having a short story unit, I'll have an anchor text. But with that anchor text, I'm going to integrate a poem, some short stories, some, you know, graphics and non-fiction articles. And with that, that's where the learning gets much deeper and richer and I'm just so much more excited. This is my 16th or 17th year of teaching and I'm learning new things. I never had done a fluency lesson before this year, but I learned from my colleagues they've been awesome. And um so, you have to be willing to take risks and take chances and really go outside of your comfort zone to learn new things. And it was a bit of a learning curve at first. It was my second year of being a teacher and I was thrown into this new schedule. Um and the first couple weeks it was a little hard. I was like having 10 extra minutes at the end and I'm like, "What am I supposed to do with these 10 minutes? Um, but that's where I like those those learning pathways and the intervention time and I was able to add back in 15 minutes of silent reading every day and so it it is hard at first to figure out like how what am I going to do with this big chunk of time, but now that we're like at the end of the first year, it's it's been great. I've been able to dig in so much deeper than I was last year. Um, and I'm seeing it a lot a big difference with the abilities of my kids this year versus last year, especially with their writing. Being able to do silent writing time every day has been a like a big game changer for them. And I'm going to go on that. Like seeing music every day, we're at foundational literacy with music because we haven't seen and with how the elementary music is is structured, it's very oral based and we haven't gotten into notation and then we get into the secondary model and we expect them to have something in front and then we assume that they know how to read and they don't. So we are at that foundational literacy which all the research shows it should be daily practice. So we're giving them that daily practice now with our our model and it we have shown expansive growth with our our students having that daily practice and repetition. Um, I think Director Cook it's a very astute question when the Dakota team came to me and said they wanted to try this. I asked a bunch of questions. I asked them to go back. Parent engagement was something that we needed to do more of and then I was persuaded that they had um, a powerful vision and we reached out to let the other three comprehensive middle schools know about this and immediately from both administrators and teachers, there was real concern that if Dakota can do this, it's going to come to uh, Willow Creek, John Adams, or Kellogg. And um I was grateful that the Rochester Education Association was willing to work with us contractually to be sure that we could jointly agree that we're going to support Dakota in this effort without the the specter of it's going to suddenly go district-wide. >> [clears throat] >> Um slippery slope arguments are understandable cuz they're human, but they really will stifle stifle innovation. Like, well, we can't try anything here cuz you might bring it over here. And I think we we are we are capable enough to not fall prey to slippery slope arguments. We can say, "No, Dakota's done its homework. They have consensus. They're going to try it. We're all going to evaluate it and see how it works." I don't I'm not a huge fan of mandates in education in general, although none of us, myself included, can choose everything we want to do in our jobs. Block scheduling would be a very bad thing to mandate on an entire school that didn't want to do it because you have to be willing to shift instruction. I actually lived between my first and second year of teaching at the high school level to shift from traditional to block schedule, so I've experienced that. As a new teacher, it's even more brutal. Um if a teacher is not willing to shift how they teach, we are squandering the power of the block. And some of the board members heard me say this. I had a professor in graduate school who studied block scheduling, and his anecdote that he shared to illustrate this point was he would talk about, "I interviewed a teacher who said, 'Block scheduling has changed everything about how I teach. It has changed it all. Now I can show the whole movie.'" >> [laughter] >> Um clearly indicating this is not someone who really changed their, you know, instruction. And so I think it's a really good point. I think the point though that Director Cook, you're asking, is there anything inherent in Dakota because of size, student demographic, or something that would prohibit this and I think the answer is no, but we also would not mandate it on the other middle schools. We do know that we need to do a lot more sharing what's working across RPS, whether that is in the middle school, high school, elementary or early childhood levels. So, I know there's a lot of interest in the other middle schools about what's happening at Dakota and we haven't done a lot to help other schools unpack what you're doing. I one thing is I was most impressed about is that you went on the road and you took some visits. Well, we don't we should have some people within Rochester take some visits and just, you know, see what's there. So, work in progress. Director Workman. Thank you for that, Superintendent Bacal. Um, I I usually hesitate to make any references to my time in teaching because it doesn't seem like I have not been teaching that long, but in retrospect, yes, I retired in 2010. But, I had a similar experience, I think, to having block schedule at John Marshall, AB block. Um, we didn't have skinnies. But, we had music every day. 90 minutes. And I was so excited about this because it gave me the freedom and the creativity to change things, to explore things. We did a ton of school visits to see how is that working. And I I have to say it just was a shot in the arm for the entire music department that year. That we had these ideas, we could try them out, the students were excited. I was constantly digging for more music because I think as you've indicated to me, Troy, you get a lot more accomplished when you see them every day like that, even though your skinny is shorter. Um, and then the business about kids don't practice. I mean, I had to come to terms with this a long time ago that Um a long time ago I had a student. This is back in junior high before middle school who We had these monthly practice calendars and they had to fill out how many minutes they practiced every day. He was very very studious. Because not only did he practice on every single day of the calendar, he also practiced in the white spaces at the beginning and the end of the calendar. And so I threw it all out because it it just wasn't useful. Um but I'm really excited to see what's going on here. I think it's just great, but as you said and others have said, you've got to have everybody on board. Um or it's not going to work. And uh you've just done a heck of a job pulling together. I'm just wow. It's this is great. Thank you. Dr. Marvin. Quick question. You may want to get home tonight and have dinner or whatever. Um but Amelia, you were talking about how you sort of chunk the class. Did you have a lot of training about how to do block, you know, 70-some minutes with middle schoolers rather than a shorter period? Or how did you figure out how you need to teach differently when you've got that much time with middle school kids? Sure. Um And just you for sure and then anybody else who's been teaching for longer. So over the summer and at the beginning of the school year we had um a couple of professional development opportunities. I think we had two of them. And um so those were pretty helpful with um I think one of them specifically talked about like the like the chunking. It's okay. The chunking and um I remember a graphic of like a pyramid um showing like how your how your class should be structured. Um but it was honestly Nikki that helped me a lot with this in the first place cuz I was like, man, it's fall and my kids can't read and I don't know what to do. And so she was like, well, why don't you try this? So I was like, okay. Um and I tried it and I loved it. Um I did have to really prioritize what I taught every day because it's 30 minutes of direct instruction and the rest is independent or group partners or working with a teacher. So I had to pick what was most important and um I was doing this it was in October with just my two co-taught special ed classes and the rest I taught normally and their test scores for the unit that we were on were exactly the same with the 30 minutes of direct instruction versus the like 75 minutes of direct instruction. So. I think the common mistake that some people make when they go to the seven period schedule to block is they think, oh, I'll just do like two class days worth in that block. You you cannot do it that way. Um you know, you kind of think, okay, like every 15 to 20 minutes I'm going to do some type of transition. So for example, it could be the 15 minutes of independent reading and if you decide not to do like um a rotational type daily three model like Amelia does, you could do like what I've done which is like 10 minute fluency practice into like a 10 minute, you know, direct instruction, then go into like a 10 to 15 minute guided practice and then do some of that independent practice. Or it could be like you're doing station rotations. You know, kids are going to stations or question trail activity or even just um you know, around the room or small group discussions. So you kind of have to learn the different tools and um see how you can take that one idea of a lesson and make it grow into something deeper. So starting kind of at that pivotal instructional direct moment to kind of like a you know, I do, we do, you do approach, but how can I get it deeper? Cuz one thing I kind of felt stifled with the 50-minute courses, we would start to get into the analytical phase, but we had to stop cuz time was precious. And I can actually get into that analytical phase with the kids. And it does take some practice with that, but they are starting to get it, and they actually appreciate those analytical moments because that's when the learning becomes much more relatable to them. Thank you. Great question. So, what I'm hearing, I hope I'm hearing, is that you're finding students are more engaged than they were um because uh Director Marvin referred to the chunking that we learned how to do, which is like some teachers would say, "Okay, we have 90 minutes. We're going to just do 40 more minutes of the 50 minutes we've already been doing where kids have been lost all along." So, you know, it's a challenge, but I think for the teachers who really want to see their students grow, that this is a really not that other teachers don't, but um that the block is an opportunity for them to really explore those other ways of engaging students in I remember um one of my seventh graders at kind of towards the beginning of the year, they were like, "You know, when they told us block in 74 minutes, I thought we were going to be sitting down the whole time." And they said, "I I think I'd moved more than I have in like the past year in like the first 2 months." And it's like great because learning should be, you know, relational, interactive, and not just like you know, I'm talking and you're listening. So. Uh Director Cook mentioned it, and so did Principal Lenander, but I just wanted to have an explicit answer for those who are watching because sometimes when people see innovation in the district, they assume we're giving you additional resources. So, is it fair to say that this is whatever schedule uh Dakota would have, they would have the same budget then that that they have now. That's true. So, you're just like all the other middle schools. So, what did you have to do? Unfortunately, that means when we need to add teaching FTE, we have to take away something, especially this year. So, we um actually had to take away some ESP support for next year in order to maintain what we're doing this year. So, there there was a little give and take. And that was my second question is this will continue next year. For next year, which is great. Um and um you were we were talking about the motivation um and how other schools might see this. Um you're the best ambassadors for it now having been through it. But when you were considering it, what was the what was the revelation that you saw in the block schedule that said, "No, we we have to try this." What what was the moment because that might be an important piece of information to think about sharing with those people who are still on that end where you were when you were first starting? My big piece was if our teachers aren't invested in what they're teaching, if they're not interested in what they're teaching, there's no way the kids are going to be. So, when we saw that not only could we give students more of a choice in their day, but staff more choice in their day, just like they lit [clears throat] up. And just seeing that now, like even just sitting here listening to all of them, I sent out an email to the whole staff saying, "Hey, we're doing a board presentation." I did not have to coax anyone to do this. They're like, "I'll be there." Um and just just listening to this panel, the the educational speak, I have heard nothing like it in my years of education. Um not only do we have 100% staff buy-in, but we have the excitement, we have the passion, we have people working across multiple categories within school. Um we could sit here and say it's a perfect system so far. It's not by any means, but we are heavily reliant on each other of sharing ideas. Um getting into each other's classrooms or or we have to be humble and be able to ask each other for help and um I have to take the feedback of what's working and what's not and um I think it'll always be a learning process no matter how many years we get into it. So, we'll never have the most perfect system, but it's it's infectious what what what I'm seeing and how excited people are in their classrooms. So, I think for me the game changer is when I went to Owatonna and I saw some of the electives that the teachers were coming up with. So, this year I'm teaching mythology and it's great because I know basically Greek mythology, but I was really interested in learning Norse and Egyptian mythology and I got to do that the same time as kids kids did. And what was great is I had kids who were way bigger experts at this stuff than I am. So, they were teaching me. So, it was a communal collective um teaching moment. I also did a class uh on dystopian lit um and next year one of my ideas, I'm going to teach um a semester of debate. I'm going to continue with mythology cuz that's a big um hit and going to do media studies. So, just being able to kind of take what we're interested in, kind of mesh it with what the students are interested in and they can see actually kind of the passion we have for what we're teaching, too. So. I had a job offer lined up outside of education and then Terry talked and brought this up at a FR admin meeting and I stayed. So, that was one of those pieces where as a educator, I was feeling, especially as a music educator in Rochester, I was feeling very run down by the secondary middle school system because I felt like my students were learning in spite of what I was doing and nothing that I was actually in practice doing was having any impact on my students. This year, I really do feel like the work that I'm doing in my classroom is having a direct effect on the students' learning and their knowledge. So, that was one of those I was like one of the first people to volunteer to be like, oh, we're going to go and see something. So, I volunteered to go see Edina and immediately I was contacting the Edina staff like, what's this? What's that? What's that? Like, please tell me what you're doing and things and I went up and I talked with, you know, the choir teacher that was there and the the unified music like the unified teachers and things and I'm like trying to glean as much information about the system to see how it works and how they can do it that because, well, if I know one system isn't working, how would a different system work so different pieces can operate within that? Dr. McGlaughlin. I really appreciate this. It's really interesting, but it what I worry about is a lot of you are reading in English. How does it translate to things like science, math, social studies? Is it any different? What are your colleagues in those areas thinking? I can talk about I know in math classes like typically when it was a 55-minute class there's we have this objective we work on it I do we do you do and then you get maybe 15 minutes to work on a homework assignment and now what they're able to do is they take when we look at our fast bridge data the number one area of like a like a concern for most middle school schools middle school students at least in math is just math fluency like back fluency. And typically you would hope by fourth grade they would have you know their multiplication facts and division facts down and our students just don't. We have some students who are still working on addition. So this year we were really fortunate to be able to have a math interventionist as well who works under the same kind of schedule that I do where it's 20-minute blocks with certain students but what I've seen that I love is that the like the the teachers are now that they have time they're able to devote a certain chunk to like fluency like that fluency or they'll work on vocabulary or they'll work on this skill set or they'll look at their assessments identify like okay these students really struggled with this question so we're going to do a remediation of that. I think in the more general like 55-minute class time that's your intention that's not always what can happen just due to time constraints but with this kind of schedule it's a lot more engaging. That's just my thought I've seen it in math classes. The science side of things >> [clears throat] >> labs are really beneficial building those like the science teachers love having the longer time particularly for labs. I know that they'll do labs sometimes in flex, too. So, that's an additional benefit. And I think overall this also, you kind of spoke to it a little bit, was when we we have time to dig into those assessments, which is going to only improve our PLC work next year as well for any content area. Thank you. And Superintendent, I know at various times in our history and even in our current time, there's some talk about exploring block schedule pilots in high school. Do they ever use block schedule in elementary? I'm sure someone has somewhere. It's mostly a creature of secondary. Little kids and extended periods of time. It's a challenge with middle school kids and high school kids, but it is. And we do have a School of the Century High School that is planning to move forward with a ninth grade block next year. And I've had the same I actually asked them to defer a year last year because they needed more time. They came ironically at almost the same week as the Dakota folks came. And I said, "We needed some work like this effort that will be uh The term pilot has different connotations, but essentially it is and that we're all going to look and I know the Dakota team is committed to look and if we get in 3 years in and we find that the the hoped for improvements in the outcomes are not coming, um we'll consider it. I appreciate what Troy said so much that and it's teacher efficacy is the magic. And if you don't feel what you're doing is mattering for your kids, that's the five-alarm fire where you have it. You can hear the commitment in what he was saying and in this whole group to be doing good things for kids. Um it also happens to have been good for staff, which is you know, a wonderful thing. So, thank you all so much for taking the time. We're really grateful. Super helpful. Thank you. Unless we move the furniture. Our next agenda item is an action item, the RPS 2030 strategic plan outline. We discussed this in prep for action at May 5th. And before we get into the resolution, the superintendent has some updates to highlight. Uh thanks Chair Nathan. I'm going to move board members at a clip because you heard me walk through what is substantially the same information at the previous meeting and you have a uh very long document that you have had the opportunity to read through. Where we are in our process is that I'm asking you to approve a set of high-level priorities that we will spend the summer developing detailed plans for. And as I reflected on the um feedback that board members uh contributed over the last couple of weeks, one thing I realized I don't think I was sufficiently clear about. I anticipate that some of the priorities I'm going to walk you through now will not come back to you in the fall. That I'm asking you to endorse these uh as worthy of developing uh an implementation plan to the point where I can say with greater confidence than I can now, we can make this happen over a 4-year time period. This is, as I will share in a moment, actually a much shortened list from the many other possibilities that we considered. Um and yet I do think this is a very important decision on the part of the board tonight because you are directing us and empowering us to dig into these priorities over the course of the next summer. And so I think that um this is uh an important beginning of the end of our strategic planning process. Um board members uh hopefully had a chance to review the article that uh I shared by Sharon Green Greenberg and Tony Bryk. Um Sharon is a long-time teacher who actually happened to at one time be married to Tony, who is one of the most prominent researchers in American education. Um the article was about Chicago public schools, but I shared it because I believe it's applicable to many school systems, including ours. There's only two points that I briefly want to touch on as a preface to updating uh the background material that is before you in the resolution tonight. Uh a quote from the article that jumped out at me was the history of American education is replete with good ideas and a cascade of reforms that may work for some students in some places, but generally fail to deliver on initial claims. Each cycle takes time and resources. On repeat, they also breed cynicism and doubt among educators and the public that dramatic improvement is even possible. And so the reason I wanted to highlight this is I really do believe that through this strategic plan and to some extent through the strategic plan that we are now finishing we're trying to break that cycle, such that we are choosing evidence-based strategies, we're choosing a manageable number of them, and we're sticking to them over time, such that we don't have people like the team from Dakota that we just heard from feeling that they are cynical about just another thing that we waited to have its day and then go into the dust bin of history. I think the key sentence from this article is sustainable and effective change involves identifying the primary drivers of weak outcomes, targeting a small number of high-leverage processes for change, and then devoting attention to their continuous improvement over time. And I really want to pull out those three key components. Identifying the primary drivers of weak outcomes. The proposals that are before you tonight are put in the affirmative. They are stated as action steps, but almost all of them grew from identifying problems that we need to fix, sources that we need to uh things we need to re-engineer or reconsider or enhance or start doing altogether. The second being that emphasis on a small number of high-leverage processes. Obviously, the number of proposals that I'm going to briefly touch on now is not small. And so we need to think hard about how many of these we can uh implement between now and 2030 and which ones are truly high-leverage. Which ones will improve student learning in the most meaningful ways. And then finally devoting attention to continuous improvement of those processes. That the implementation of these strategies is going to be really really critical. So board members know you have already approved and we are spending time. I was in two schools today for meetings with their skip teams about their skip plans for next year and both teams were aware of their schools expected contribution to the system-wide improvements that you have voted for and so we are putting our marker down that this is the level of improvement. A number of board members and also community members have looked at those expected gains and have said gee that doesn't add up to 100% by the end of the plan. Shouldn't it be 100%? We want 100% in aspiration but if we achieve this level of improvement especially across these different subject areas and these different outcomes I believe we'll be the fastest improving school system in Minnesota for sure. Um the recommendations just to put it over simplistically this is not Kent's plan by any means. I am excited about it but it has been a collective effort over more than a year. I began the process as board members will call with an open-ended meeting with teams in every one of our schools last spring that generated a set of 10 major themes that the board discussed in a study session and and and in other occasions. Um we had every leader and team that worked on one of the 15 building blocks of our current strategic plan reflect on what worked, what didn't, what are the implications for the future. We had new teams called performance measure teams or PMTs dig deep into the data on each one of those performance measures that was on the previous slide to look for areas of strength, weakness, and progress. We have had our skip teams led by our school principals digging deep into their school outcomes on those performance measures through an intensive needs assessment process that has stretched all year long and in fact just concluded last week with our high school leaders looking at graduation rates. We have uh collected and analyzed uh information from surveys and feedback forms from hundreds of stakeholders. We conducted focus groups through the Education First Consulting organization that we were able to work with through a generous grant from Mayo Clinic. Um they also did key informant interviews of uh a diverse sample of community uh leaders and stakeholders. We worked with Latino Lead and Maneep for to do a world cafe that uh brought uh voices of certain communities uh into our process. And then we had the three design committees that the board has heard from in detail over in recent weeks. We also spent a good bit of time with the research and we looked at the strategic plans of other school districts. Very briefly and I want to thank Chair Nathan for prompting this slide and the content because she literally went back and looked at all of that stakeholder feedback to check on what stuff was on the cutting room floor and that it's not in my recommendation. This is um the major uh answer to that question. There are some other things as well and I think it's just important to be transparent with the board and the community about what's not there and I'm certainly glad to come back to this if there's a desire. Um but briefly state why state why it's not there. Class size reduction, no question I would love to be recommending a major reduction in class size. That is not in our financial realm of the possible at this time. I would love to see that changed. Doesn't mean there can't be targeted reductions. Our schools are doing that right now with the balanced budget model, but that's not something I could do. Um we heard a lot from parents in particular about reducing screen time, and I there just was no clear recommendation ready yet. But it's a need, and we need to be thinking hard about it. The research is also not conclusive that high-quality use of screen time is detrimental. There's growing evidence that screen time in the aggregate is, but we don't control what kids do uh during the 85% of their lives that they live outside of school. So the screen time theme is one I think we need to keep thinking about, but there wasn't an initiative I could propose to you. We heard from some of our elementary parents about recess time. Oh, and I was uh at Pinewood Elementary today. We talked a lot about um recess. Um at this point increasing recess time, we heard earlier today about some concerns that our special area teachers have about um our schedule, which we have changed to increase time for reading interventions. We just simply right now don't have time unless we significantly lengthen the school day to increase recess time, but I certainly want to affirm the importance of recess and let those parents know that we heard that, and I think we need to keep thinking about that issue. Um early childhood, I was meeting with the Hoover Early Learning staff earlier today. Uh I wish that we had the resources to significantly expand the number of our families, especially low-income families that are in early childhood. We have increased them uh in recent years, especially through the creation of our Mighty Oaks Early Learning Center inside the city boundaries. Um that is another thing that if somebody wrote a big check to RPS, I would immediately want to put new dollars in. Um, there's some interest in increasing students' opportunities to study their home language. Uh, Somali and Ojibwe have come up. That's another one that I think we need to absolutely keep thinking about. There are some potential innovative models that don't require us to find licensed teachers in those subject areas that we might be able to look at, but again, um, not at the point where I felt that I could recommend to you it should be a major focus of our strategic plan. Significantly expanding the offerings that we have in mental health services is another issue that simply for questions of resources I'm not able to recommend at this time. We have made progress on that over the last 3 years and I think we can continue to make incremental progress, especially through our school linked mental health providers, but they face huge challenges in funding and finding the qualified staff that mean we're going to be walking but more than we're going to be running in that, uh, area. Um, there was the idea of an assessment inventory to ensure every assessment has a clear purpose that came out of our strategic planning process. That's a great idea, we're going to do it, it doesn't need to be in the strategic plan. So, that will happen and we'll be pleased to share that with the board. K-8 schools and interest in potentially exploring that possibility. We have two now in Lincoln and Spanish immersion. Uh, again, this is where aspiration bumps up against funding and reality. Um, I think that if we see the enrollment a gain we saw last fall continuing in future years, we ought to come back to this possibility. But given that our projection is still for declining enrollment, the creation of new schools is dividing up our students among existing schools at this time. Um, but I think that we heard a lot of interest in K-8 schools from our stakeholders and so that's another thing that we certainly should continue to be attentive to. Um, providing every student with an adult mentor was another idea that came out of one of our working groups. We certainly know that that's happening and we can do more of it, but we weren't quite at the every student um creating cross-disciplinary teams, what often is called the middle school model was another theme that came up. There's a lot of powerful evidence behind it. It is also very expensive for us to staff and so it was another effort that I was not able to recommend. Final reason that came up in quite a bit of the feedback that we did was noting that more than one in five students in RPS now receive special education services and has an IEP and people saying for both financial reasons and others, shouldn't we try and get that down? We should try and make sure that every single student is being served and identified appropriately, but we don't want to characterize it as inherently trying to reduce it. It's our obligation and our our privilege to serve kids who need those services. That said, there's a lot of evidence that the effective implementation of MTSS will over time reduce the need because we're engaging with kids earlier who really have academic struggles and in fact do not have disabilities. So I think the MTSS work, which is very much in this proposal, is a is a circuitous alternative path to that, but we don't want to suggest that we're trying to reduce the number of students who have IEPs if those students in fact qualify for those IEPs. So with those, the rest of this proposal board members is substantially the same as the one we talked about last meeting. I'm recommending that we invest in ensuring that there are six systems that are present and thriving and robust in every one of our schools. An MTSS system that provides students with high-quality tier one instruction and support for the vast majority of our students in literacy, math, and behavior and then interventions for students who need additional support beyond that. An advising system, which is not necessarily advisory periods, that provides students with information on the habits and the knowledge and the skills that they need to develop in school and especially helps them develop a vision of themselves beyond school. Systems for authentic two-way engagement with parents and caregivers. Building on the tremendous progress we've made this year with our SKIP process, our school continuous improvement system, system to help our schools get better at getting better. An individual employee growth system, meaning from induction, the moment someone is hired in RPS, and we support them in learning their job through coaching, through effective feedback, and yes, including evaluation. Not just for teachers, but for all of our employee groups, especially those that work directly with students. And then finally, effective professional learning communities in a school after school that I'm in, leaders and teachers and others are saying, we need to reboot our PLCs. They know, we know they're critically important, but that we can be more and more effective in how those teams of staff working together look at data and design the interventions. And then there are change projects, which are time-certain, time-bound initiatives to improve processes and systems in RPS that are also at the heart of this plan. The first category is in academic rigor and relevance, adopting framework developed by Charlotte Danielson initially, and is is now supported by an entire organization as our vision of great teaching and our support for teachers in mastering that framework. Continue our work with multi-tiered systems of support in literacy, and now launching that work in mathematics, which we have seen on the horizon and that will involve the adoption of new curricula, which will be coming to you in the fairly near future. Implementing career pathways in our high schools that lead not only to four-year colleges and universities, but also into the workplace then trades where there is tremendous opportunity and a lot of interest on the part of our students. Bringing our CTEC programming off the RCTC campus and into our high schools, you will receive a recommendation on that next month because we need to make a decision about that along with a series of other facilities decisions. Implementing the long-term curriculum plan that Chief Economic Officer Perkins has shared with the board and critically thanks to the referendum in 2024 funding the adoption of high-quality knowledge-rich curricula in RPS. Taking a look at the honors classes that we offer to be sure that they are of increased rigor including the honors option structure that's fairly unique to Rochester. No question that we want honors and acceleration in our high schools. Want to make sure that that's there. Number of board members asked about taking a look at weighted honor points as a structure and that was a great addition and so we will take a look at that with a plan. Building on the pilot we've conducted at the middle school level with high dosage mathematics tutoring so kids in small groups getting intensive support in mathematics and finding ways to integrate that in other subject areas and taking a look at our process of credit recovery. When a student needs additional credits to graduate from high school, are we authentically ensuring that they are mastering that material rather than just sufficiently completing the process to allow us to give them a diploma. The second category increasing our supports for students as they navigate from early childhood through high school. The college and career readiness framework are the mindset steps mindsets behaviors and skills for success that we're embedding into teaching learning and our advising processes. Working to improve our transitions. We do a great job as several board members noted, in early events that kind of increase awareness. What is my uh elementary school going to be like in kindergarten? What is my middle school school going to be like? The The next wave of that work is making sure that the staff at the receiving school know what the staff at the sending school know about that student, know about the data, know about their needs. Um, and that the student knows what knowledge and skills and habits they're going to need to be ready for when they go on to that next level. Exploring the creation of seminar courses, you heard actually an exemplar of it mentioned at Dakota um today when they mentioned that they created a course at the beginning of sixth grade. That's an idea that came out of our middle school and high school working groups. Um, a course that would really introduce students to the ideas and knowledge and skills that they need at the secondary level. Beginning to help our students and parents really understand what it means to be on track in middle school um and what they're going to need to succeed in high school. Um, that effort is really intended will be intended to address the fact that we have a subset of our students in middle school who may not yet realize that what you do in sixth and seventh grade academically really really does matter um and that we need to find some uh clear ways to help them internalize that. Um, there is an idea that some board members raised, I think some some thoughtful concerns about that I still would like us to explore of requiring students to apply to a postsecondary institution or to a place of employment as part of their high school diploma um in order to really have a very intentional expression of belief in the value of that planned next step. Of course, there would need to be a waiver process that parents uh or 18-year-olds could use to exempt themselves from that, but I think it's it's an intriguing idea that grew out of our feedback process that's worth um considering. The next category is making sure that we are offering engaging uh educational experiences to our students. The first priority there would be to take a look at the educational programs that are offered by our six district-wide option schools to be sure that we are offering, uh, uh, programs that are meeting student and family, uh, interests, that we can that there's an evidence base behind them, and we can offer them at a high level of fidelity with the funding that we have. And also, that we can potentially expand the transportation service to our district-wide option schools. When we eliminated district-wide transportation service, we constrained it so much that I'm concerned two things may happen. One, they will have an insufficient number of families to fill them because they don't have attendance boundaries. Only one of our DWOs now has a waiting list, whereas historically all six did. Um, the second is there are mm, large parts of our school district where families don't have a realistic alternative to their neighborhood school that to which they can get bussing or walk. Um, and so the idea would be to bring you a proposal to not go back to city-wide transportation. We could not keep our current start times and do that. But to explore essentially providing every elementary family with two guaranteed options, their neighborhood school and an alternative in a district-wide option school to which they could either walk or get transportation based on, uh, where they live. But as a companion to that effort, working with all of our schools, especially our elementary schools, which are those first entry points into our K-12 system, to be sure that they have a clear and powerful identity that, um, not only are they aware of, as I think we heard tonight Dakota is well on its way to developing, but that the outside world knows about it, and that they have an understanding of what makes that school special. And then finally, we heard from our middle school team and even heard about tonight the the the power of giving students more choice and looking at the expansion of electives at the middle school level. And same thing at the high school level. At the high school level, as board members will recall, there's a sense that we give students quite a lot of choice in 11th and 12th grades, and very little in 9th and 10th. And that in fact, during those early years of high school, giving students more opportunity to explore their passions could have some of the same benefits for our high school students that we heard about tonight from Dakota. The next category being behavior and well-being, that would be building out that third of our three MTSS systems, that there for behavior, bringing together not just the social emotional skills that we know are critical, but also support for students in terms of creating learning environments that are inclusive and that are embracing of students of all backgrounds and life experiences. An exciting idea that came out of multiple working groups was doing more with near peer relationships. So, fifth graders working with kindergarteners and eighth graders working with sixth graders and high school students working with middle school students, and building that into the fabric of our schools. Going back to the effort that we made some progress on in our current strategic plan, but redoubling our efforts to expand extracurriculars at the middle school level. Once again, there's a financial challenge there, but with Amy Ecks' leadership and the community outside in the last three years, we've made some progress on that score. But we know that the need is is great, and if I hear many more times about when RPS cut what sometimes are called vo-tech at the middle school level and sports and the very negative consequences of those decisions, which I know were made for financial reasons. I could probably help close our deficit if I had a dollar for every time I hear about that, but we got to keep going back to that. And then finally, our operations departments, to really make sure that we are operationally excellent. We're as as we've talked about in some ways RPS has been something of an oral culture in which not everything is written down and you don't always know where to find uh everything. Um that we need to have standard operating procedures that are um uh evidence-based and continually updated and that let people know how you get stuff done um in our organization. We want to enhance our employee assistance programs. Uh we know that um staff are facing many challenges in these days. Mental health is of course something that we've heard about and that is in the news, but other incentives, as we just heard from uh Mr. Kowalski who was considering alternative employment at one point. Our staff have options and we want them to choose, as he did, to remain with Rochester Public Schools. Um creating more time for professional learning is a urgent need. We've made some progress over the last few years with our annual calendar and our curriculum and development days, but it's been insufficient. And so finding ways to be creative, of course the tension there will be not reducing instructional time or reducing it like I think we heard Dakota did in a very strategic way that actually still yields more learning time. Um because it's not about the exact number of minutes, it's about the effectiveness of the time for learning. And then finally, as we discussed in the last meeting, this really is a placeholder. We know artificial intelligence is going to transform uh uh teaching and learning like it's transforming so many endeavors um today that we need over time to develop a coherent strategy. And so I'd like to bring you an outline for what that strategy might look like um in the fall if that uh fits with your priorities. And then the final idea was to create a donor advised fund at the Rochester Area Foundation. Um board members uh wondered if that would just be for people who want to write big checks or give stock and we certainly would welcome that, but the answer is no, any modest contribution. It would allow um anyone in the community or beyond our community that wanted to contribute to Rochester kids to do so, of course, with the benefits, um, that come for their their their taxes and things. The early idea would be to support learning beyond the classroom, to support opportunities, whether it's, um, uh, funding for low-income kids to go to the summer camps that are at Quarry Hill or at University of Minnesota Rochester or expanding, um, uh, opportunities for kids to go to, um, speech and debate and a whole array of other things. So, board members, that is the substance of the proposal and I actually thought I would just end with, um, the picture that was from that article that you read cuz it it didn't catch my eye the first time I read the article, but of course it's a turtle going up the the stairs and in some ways it's not a very inspiring image, but we also know that not just our staff, but our students, um, also, uh, can only take so much change so quickly. And so that that actually is a very, I think, hopeful image that we're going up, but we're going up at a pace that is actually, um, uh, realistic. And so, if you approve these priorities, >> [clears throat] >> our task this summer will be to bring you a plan that reflects that kind of, uh, an orientation, uh, and not one of the, uh, proverbial, uh, rabbit running up those steps at a pace that we know people will not be able to maintain. So, with that, Madam Chair, that is, uh, the recommendation and some additional comments are available to board members in the memo that, uh, Dr. Denise Moody and I submitted for the board's, uh, review. Director Cook. Well, I'm I'm excited by the outline that you've put together, Superintendent. Um, there are I I mean, basically, there's there's nothing, um, in here that I would say no to. Every single one of these change projects, I think, certainly meets the the criteria of being well-intentioned and research-based. Um And and for that matter, I'd probably add the the list of things that were on the cutting room floor, as well. Um But rather than um uh wax poetic about all of those different things, I'm going to attempt to um identify what for me are the the highest priority items, because I know your your work for the next uh several months here will be trying to discern and, you know, from the board's perspective, without costs on these things, it's difficult to weigh which ones are the high-leverage opportunities relative to our resources. Um but that's that's what you will be doing over the next several months to to try to figure out what combination of these things um could be achieved. And so, um for me, the the North Star in this outline that we've put together is the the set of academically grounded um performance improvement targets. And um whatever combination of these things amount to the highest-leverage opportunities to move those indicators um as as best we can, um that is the combination that I'll be most excited to uh to endorse. And and the reason is exactly because of the the example that we heard about um today from um Nikki Muench, who was talking about uh the student that she worked with, who in uh sixth grade was reading 37 words per minute, and now in eighth grade is reading 174 words per minute at grade-level text. And it isn't just the the change in the bar graph that that represents, it's the change in the confidence of that young student. And that is exactly what I what I am uh excited to endorse. Every opportunity that that gives this district the resources, the the infrastructure to create those moments. Um but I'll I'll look forward to your recommendations on that. And uh thanks so much for putting together a comprehensive proposal. And I I one other thing in the set of change projects you've put together, it it is clear uh from my reading what problem is being addressed. Because every single one identifies a rationale in the context of, you know, what is the gap that that we are currently seeing um that this change project would address. So, um anyway, thank you very much, and I'll look forward to um the next time this comes back. But, I think the outline looks great. Dr. Marvin. I received a phone call this afternoon from a parent um who was concerned that what we have here is an outline for a strategic plan, not the plan. And I said, "Yep, that's what we're voting on is the outline." The question So, after we clear cleared that up, the question then was over the summer, who is going to be working on how we get there on on the specifics? And so, without naming names, can you just give us an idea of what people or groups of people are going to be working on this so that it becomes a specific plan for each of these areas. Uh thank you, Chair Nathan. Uh the the the core of it will be our central office leadership team. Uh so, directors, cabinet members, and me. But, thanks to a grant from the state of Minnesota, we do have some dollars to pay staff who otherwise would be off uh the clock during the summer to bring them into the process as well. And then, in the fall, before I bring you or ask you to take a final vote in October, we will have another round of public uh feedback, stakeholder feedback on the plan. So, whoever was calling you will have a chance to look at the detailed plan and give us feedback on that as well. Um you know, really uh the central office leadership team that we have here um is it really tremendously skilled and importantly they've all been involved in getting to this point. So, they all have been a part of the working groups and they've been a part of the focus groups and things. So, I think yes, it's a smaller group of people, but they're very grounded in the extensive feedback that we've gotten over the last year. So, I don't think it's going to feel like um you know, a departure from uh where we've been, but those will be the team that'll be getting the work done. Thank you. Yeah. Kathryn McGlothlin. Um I kind of approached this with the question that the chair asked in our email update about what excites me the most and the things that jumped out to me are things like expanding the MTSS to math and behavior. I think we've known that that's been coming for a while, but I really think that those are the things um like Director Cook talked about that those are the things that are going to make the difference in those targets is providing that additional support to students. I also um have always kind of followed the idea of college and career readiness, but I think adding the word navigating before it, I think it's the key to making a difference there that I think there's all kinds of things that we could try to do to improve that, but I think the navigation is what's been missing and that uh hopefully that will lead to uh again um improvement of the targets, but also improvement of our students both in probably more in the secondary area, but also in their life after RPS. Um I really like the innovative ideas about school identity. I think that that's something that I'm not sure a lot of schools necessarily think a lot about and I think that that's something that's really been missing here is how to differentiate and um explain the offerings at the various schools. And I think the example here today with Dakota was a good start with that, but doing that for all the schools and and what makes it exciting and makes it a community for the students to attend there. Um and then finally the DWO, I think that um the district-wide options, I think it's been a really long time in coming and I congratulate you on figuring out a way to dig into that because I think it's something that um has been needed for a while to to look at that and I'm excited to see the end results of that. Director Workman. So, when I was going through this and trying to figure out, oh yeah, I love this piece and I really like this piece and boy, this piece is great. I came to the conclusion that the whole is really greater than the sum of its parts. And it is so well integrated and so cohesive um that I know it's going to be effective and I know it's going to work. I like that confidence. Dr. Brown? Yeah, and I just had one comment. First of all, actually two now. Um great outline. Uh and I'm uh very encouraged about the individual employee growth system. Um not only in terms of how it relates to recruitment, but retention and then the um development of of those uh educational professionals. Um I think of a uh large um nonprofit here in in Rochester uh where from the entry-level employee to the highest level uh everyone's a part of the team and they understand that and they work toward that common goal and and I see that uh with this being identified as a system, uh will have a uh dedicated, committed um group [clears throat] of employees and a excited um thankful community that appreciates this being of course one of six systems but but that just really stood out to me and thank you that you're giving I look forward to ask other board members are the actual plan. To answer my own question that I posed about what I'm what I'm excited about um I I think sometimes we get questions from our community of why you're doing all of these things. Why aren't you just teaching reading and writing and math and science and social studies? And um one of the things I really appreciated about the outline were the links that you gave us to some of the supplemental materials and one of the links was to the MTSS literacy um framework. Which also had the rabbit hole of multiple more uh links that took us to multiple more and I and I and I I say to anybody who wants to see uh first the progress that we've made in literacy and and the work that has gone into it but also the model that literacy is going to be for the math and the behavioral MTSS work, go to that link on page 15 of this document. Because it is an impressive set of um practices and rubrics for effective instruction and how assessments and identifications are used and a massive spreadsheet of intervention resources that has been gathered for for teachers based on a student's skill need and and what the resource is that's tied to it. That's how we're teaching literacy. That's our goal for how we're going to teach math and and address behavior and and well-being. And so that's obviously one of the things I'm very excited about. But I'm also excited about the other pieces of this that are supporting that that academic work. Um I think the transitions piece um at those key points is is really going to be important not just for the students but for the parents and the caregivers. I know that that was one thing that I always felt like I benefited from. I had people who had been through it before. And I think that was the biggest key to being a successful parent in the system is that I could go to someone who had done it and they could help me understand what I could expect for my kid and what were the timelines and what were the deadlines. And I think if we do that for all of our families and and our students that that will be helpful. I think it'll helpful for teachers, too, and and and our principals for all the the questions that they have to answer. Um I'm excited about the career pathways. Um um all of the post-secondary work. Um you know, even for even when you have students that are sure they want to go to college and kind of sure what they want to do. That is a system that is like a jungle. And and we need to to help um help with that navigation. And then all the initiatives taken together for middle school. I know it's not middle school reform, but I think in a lot of the work that we've done in this district um middle school hasn't quite gotten the attention that it needs. And I think um identifying what the concerns were about middle school and the initiatives that are in here related you know, isn't a comprehensive change, but I but I I see the lessons we can learn from what we heard at Dakota and how they apply to a number of these and I I really see a lot of um potential um innovation for that part of our students' growth years that um will really launch them into being successful in high school. So, thank you for those. Anything else before I read the resolution, board members? Then I will do so. Be it resolved that the Rochester Public Schools Board of Education hereby adopts the RPS 2030 strategic plan outline as the framework for the district's next strategic plan. And be it further resolved that the Board of Education authorizes the superintendent to develop a full RPS 2030 strategic plan consistent with the adopted outline, including detailed implementation plans for each of the six systems for improving outcomes and change projects for presentation to the board at the start of the 2026-2027 school year. Move approval. Second. It has been moved and seconded. Any other discussions or comments? All those in favor say I. I. >> [clears throat] >> Opposed? The resolution has been approved. We will look forward to the next stage. Um other business, the current version of the ABCD is available in the agenda item for reference. And upcoming agenda items are uh two prep for action items at our June 2nd meeting, the 2027-2028 school calendar proposal and the 2026-2027 budget proposal. On June 9th, we have added a study session and the focus topic will be school and program relocations and changes. Are there any items board members would like to raise for consideration for a future meeting agenda? Hearing none, um our board meeting dates, um as I mentioned, June 2nd is a regular meeting, June 9th a study session, June 16th a regular meeting, July 7th a regular meeting, and July 21st, 2026. All of those meeting times begin at 5:30 p.m. The next item on the agenda is a closed session pursuant to Minnesota Statutes 13D.05, subdivision 3B, which allows the board to go into closed session pursuant to labor negotiation strategy. The closed session will be convened immediately following passage of the motion in the Edison building main floor conference room. Pursuant to the law I have cited, will someone make a motion to go into closed session? So moved. >> You need to appoint a clerk. We need to appoint a clerk. Um Okay. Can I Can we do the motion for closed session and then appoint a clerk? I don't know. Probably. Okay. Second. Okay. Who made Who made the motion? I did. Okay. Thank you. All those in favor of going to closed session, say I. I. Any opposed? The board moves into closed session at 7:47 p.m. Except before you do that, you have to appoint a clerk. We'll do it. We can do it in closed session. You can't. >> Mhm. >> Mhm. >> Mhm. >> Mhm. >> Mhm. >> Mhm. >> Mhm. >> Mhm. >> Director Barla, you ready with the list? >> All right. Board returned to the regular meeting at 8:13 p.m. Um, Director Barla, will you please read the list of people present in the closed session? Present were Kent Buckellew, superintendent. Do I need to list their positions? Uh, no. Just >> Okay, thank you. Uh, Jackie Peterson, Andy Crockstead, Carl Bauckham, Cathy Nation, Julie Workman, Justin Cook, Kieran McLaughlin, Jane Marban, and Don Barlow. Thank you. And hearing no other business, this meeting is adjourned at 8:14 p.m.