this the December 12th 2023 regular meeting of the istd 623 Roseville area school board is called to order Burk Anderson call R director baseski here director gogins here director Clark here chair Johnson here Treasurer Chu here Clerk Anderson is here are there any agenda adjustments There Are No Agenda adjustments okay um then manx you're own sure I'd like to read Our Land acknowledgement Roseville area school acknowledges that we reside on traditional ancestrial contemporary and unseated territory of the Dakota people from Bal a confluent of the Mississippi and Minnesota Rivers a place the Dakota people poetically claim as the center of the earth directly beneath the center of Heaven to Indian mountains Park a sacred place of burial built by ancestors of living people and home to the only known remaining burial mounds within the Minneapolis St Paul Urban core indigenous people have cared for this land through Warfare genocide relocation and removal perpetrated by colonizers the state of Minnesota and the federal government injustices that reduced over 150 million indigenous people to around 300,000 indigenous people have given their blood tears heart resilience and love to this land uring boarding schools that were op in operation from 1879 through the 1930s where assimilation through humiliation was the curriculum and unspeakable atrocities occurred daily to Foster Care Systems where more kids were removed from indigenous homes than any other group in Minnesota OTA indigenous people have not lost their culture or identity and still reside on this land Roseville area schools is committed to ensuring the culture of our indigenous relatives the original and rightful caretakers of this land is studied preserved and celebrated we are committed to understanding and honoring the sovereignty that has been denied to nearly 600 Indonesia Nations including 11 federally recognized tribes in Minnesota through the breaking of over 400 treaties and we are committed to the truth of history of our indigenous relatives the success of our indigenous students and to the healing we hope to create through this commitment thank you very much okay um f us to summary of community input received for Action items okay um then that moves us to um consent agenda and I would entertain minus minus retirements second okay it's been moved seconded all those in favor say I I I those oppos say nay okay retirements thank you I move with great appreciation the following uh retirements Darlene joyer uh par professional at Falcon Heights Elementary uh Miss joyer has worked for the district for 14 years uh John Martelli uh nutrition services department at Parkview Center School Mr Martelli has worked for the district for 13 years um nette onstead an English language learner teacher has been at Falcon Heights Elementary um Miss onstead has worked for the district for 32 years if my math is correct it's 59 total years and um we appreciate other service to our school district and I move their retirement okay it's been moved um a second with great appreciation move and seconded all those in favor say I I I oppose n okay moving right along um reports and non-action oh sorry thank you gifts cor sorry treasure to you get you have gifts right well it's with great appreciation that we do this right because we really appreciate our community support so um we have Thomas bisan with a monetary gift to Central Park Elementary School your C black bar for 50 uh for monetary gift to Falcon Heights Elementary School uh you CA Blackboard on behalf of sah Rich a monetary gift uh to little Canada Elementary School um we have a monetary gift to the Roser high school for additional coaching staff by uh the Ross Raider rights kick and jazz dance team we have a monetary gift by St Paul cake Incorporated for the dance team also we have uh monitory gift for the football program by Roseville gymnastic Association to to the Roseville area high school we have a monary gift for the volleyball program at the Roseville High School by Brock and Marine linstead we have a monetary gift for girls tennis program by f fmtc r a custodian Keith Masson for Rosary area high school we have a monetary gift for H subscription by the Ross girls hockey booster club to the Roseville area high school we have a monitary gift for streaming services uh by the Roseville boys back court club for the Roseville area high school we have a monary gift for Avid programming by Bruce saber to the rosille area high school we have a monetary gift uh for jerseys and her subscription by the Ross boy lacrosse to the Roseway area high school we have a monetary gift for maintenance supplies for baseball field by the Ross Bullpen baseball booster club to the Rose R hary high school and finally we have a monetary gift for the Middle School robotics by Ahmed Sal Salam and S el el uh for the Rosal Area Middle school so so appreciative all of all these gifts I have thank you yes um it it goes without saying um but we get to say it every time it it's we we can't do this work um without um all the generous um people that uh give things their their time and the treasure um to Ros schools so so again thank you okay now we're going to go to reports and onaction items and we're going to start off with our safety and security update assistant superintendent Melissa Sonic s principal Le and officer wami welcome to the board table all right good evening uh we appreciate the opportunity to be here this evening to share an update on Safety and Security in Roseville area schools as well as our collaboration with the Roseville Police Department and school resource officers we'll start with some introductions um I'm a familiar face I'm Mista Sonic I get to be the assistant superintendent for Roseville area school I have two colleagues with me and I'll let them both introduce themselves good morning chair uh Johnson and board members and Dr Lake my name is Lee I'm one of the associate principal at Ros Area High School good evening everybody I'm officer Rami with the Roseville Police Department I'm the school resource officer this year at Roseville area high school all right so uh I want to start us off by just grounding Us in how our this evening's board report connects to our strateg IC plan um most specifically it connects to goal one which states deliver a challenging joyful and keyword safe learning environment uh there's been a significant focus and safety this fall due to some critical incidents that took place at Raz involving guns and I just thought I would ground us all um the board and the community uh in around like reviewing a timeline of of what took place uh so back in September 25th there were two separate incidents involving guns there was another on October 24th uh we took uh a significant amount of time in October to review these critical incidents with different stakeholders across our district on November 14th there was a safety update for the school board and then on November 15th we hosted a community safety meeting um this work is ongoing uh in in January or February there'll also be another Community safety conversation that we'll be hosting as well uh last week we also met with principls and administrators uh we shared out building level critical incident review discussion that took place at each of our schools the way that I've kind of phrased this is we need everybody's heads and hearts around this problem we took a look at some stakeholder feedback and really synthesized recommendations that we'll be bringing to the district Safety and Security team on January 3rd so I want to be very transparent that we continue to prioritize safety uh with that I'll turn it over to Lee to talk a little bit more about our district Safety and Security Team all right so an important work uh an important group in this work is our district Safety and Security team or also so often referred to as dsst um officer wami and I we serve on the dsst with assistant super uh superintendent Sonic so what is the purpose of the district Safety and Security team purpose of the district Safety and Security team is to keep our schools safe and secure and to create alignment and support for site based school safety so who is on the district Safety and Security team so the district Safety and Security team meets regularly four times uh a year and serves as an advisory committee it is made up a diverse group of stakeholders as you see here including parents teachers counselors nurses administrators community members and local agencies in addition to the district security and Safety and Security team each building has an emergency response team on er uh that meets regularly to discuss and review safety protocols uh I oversee the ER at Ros uh and I will hand it back to assistant superintendent onic all right thank you Lee as many of you have heard we've have two pronged approach uh to how we approach safety um one is traditional Safety and Security and the other is around violence prevention so I'll share like a a brief overview of each of those two categories so traditional Safety and Security really starts with our district Safety and Security team uh the dsst really serves as an umbrella uh for school building emergency response teams we also have a district crisis consultation and support team um the primary function of that team is a little bit different uh the primary function is to provide consultation and support districtwide in the event of a crisis using the day of Crisis checklist uh traditional Safety and Security also focuses on some of the things that you see listed here for example each school has safety plans that are updated each fall uh the standard response protocols that were introduced this year include new practices for lockdowns you may they see them on people's um badges around the district like this uh they include different protocols including hold secure lock down evacuate and shelter uh the purpose of a hold can be for a medical emergency or a fight but it can also be for a need to for privacy um as well uh a secure is used when there is a threat outside the building and a lockdown is used when there is an active threat inside the building a traditional Safety and Security also includes some things like secure entrances Partnerships with law enforcement and lock down buttons in each office and more we'll transition to talking about violence prevention uh the premise of the violence prevention project is the road to violence is long so let's build more off-ramps the violence prevention project um to just Briefly summarize is a it's a research center that is a nonpartisan nonprofit dedicated to reducing violence through research that is both accessible and really geared towards action so they are interested in partnering with schools which we have um previously and will continue to do so U violence prevention focuses on things like you see here like social and emotional learning and that is teaching students about things like self-awareness self-management um social awareness relationship skills and responsible decision making so it's really intervening um not to the point where something has happened but five steps ahead of that right uh it also includes screening for social emotional behaviors it includes Anonymous reporting systems like the see it here at report it form at r and the stop it app which um both my colleagues here with me are both familiar with uh violence prevention also really starts with trusting relationships with students and staff and administrators violence prevention uh for us also included a six-part training for principles and administrators on violence prevention and includes things like Crisis Prevention response and deescalate situations uh another focus in this area that is um new this year is Project hope uh project hope is an alternative for alternate 45-day placement um that can serve as an intervention to support students to getting back on track um project hope is an alternative to expulsion um it serves individual students um and there's a lot of adult support that ranges from counselors to social workers um uh student support supervisors cultural Leons teachers and more so it's really wrapping our arms around a student to help them return to their school Community um with that I also want to touch on what is new um with Safety and Security there's some additional things that we're exploring so we can take action um I'll highlight just a few of them this evening we are investigating emerging Ai and start of state-of-the-art technologies that detect guns this is being done in partnership with the Roseville Police Department and as we learn more I'll share more um we're continuing to work with Community Partnerships like North Northeast Youth and Family Services who provide counseling to students we're also partnering with an organization called be smart that focuses on safe gun storage um our school resource officer contracts have been approved and as of December 4th we have school resource officers in buildings daily at both Raz and Rams uh we also recently hired an evening um facility and security manager at Raz and Raz also implemented color-coded passes to ensure that students are in the area of the school building that they are supposed to be uh We've also added flashing blue right lights at Raz to note when an announcement is happening so that students and staff know them when to listen this will be happening across the district for my understanding um as I mentioned earlier we implemented our standard response protocols um we're communicating now with families around safety bi-weekly so that goes out two times a month and all of this information is on our district Safety and Security web page that is live um and that houses all of this information for folks to go back to um before I turn it over to officer wami I just also want to note like there are no quick fixes to um system social problems and so the analogy that I continue to go back to is think of these kind of like layers of the layers of security and Safety and Security and violence prevention and these new areas of focus think of it like swiss cheese right if you layer them on top of each other the holes start to get covered up and layering imperfect Solutions holistically is really the best way to prevent violence so with that context I will turn it over to officer work want me to talk more about school resource officers thank you yeah uh assistant superintendent Sonic mentioned uh I'm over at the high school at Roseville area high school my partner officer hren who's not here tonight is over at Roseville area Middle School and between us two we also provide coverage for the elementary schools in our district uh tonight I'm going to talk about our role and how we what our role is inside the schools and how we spend our time in the schools uh so I'll share an overview of uh of the resources that we provide and how we connect and with families students and staff uh some of the resources uh we connect uh we have is mental health services uh mental health support uh in collaboration with the school we provide social worker school psychologist uh with resources that the city provides and the county provides so we have uh in County resources that housed in the City of Roseville that we can help provide uh to uh psychologist and counselors and social workers uh we also focus on building positive and trusting relationship with students families uh and based on that we receive information sometimes before incidents arise that requires our involvement uh SRO also serve as Educators and liaz on families we assist and share resources with uh families on issues and that they might be facing interacting with Child Protection Services uh or outside issues issues outside the school uh we continue that support all year long uh whether it's holidays whether it's during the summer we're able to connect with families and provide them their resources that we have with within our city and with the entire County uh we also coordinate response and collaborate with administrative uh about safety concerns uh we work as a team with the district with school administrators uh and provide that when we do have safety issues we connect and we figure out a plan uh how to deal with that issue uh I will go over some of our day-to-day what what I like to do uh I like during passing times I like to connect with students and we do that by being out in the the hallways as much as possible uh being visible uh during passing times during lunches during a rifle and dismissal we try to be out there try to build that positive relationship and connect with the kids uh throughout the years we have also did some Avid mentoring uh which I'll be continuing that this year the relation that we built in school's transfers and over to cost for service outside of school so let's say we have a run or we respond to a family uh Mental Health crisis that a student or a family member might be dealing with we're able to connect with the kid from our previous relationship we're also able to share information with Patrol officers that are not Sr and help deescalate situations uh so that relationship is very crucial we as superintendent tonic said and we also serve on the district uh Emer respond team we help and support the school and the food shelves we provide whether it's clothing whether supplies or whatever the uh uh School shelf needs we provide that to them uh one thing we do we collect through the entire city so whether it's uh City's providing food and we're collecting that then we're providing that to the school uh shelves we lead school activities like Raiders against destructive decisions we host breaking down barriers at Rams and at the police department so not just getting to know uh rules uh SRO getting to know our entire department so one even if we're not there at a call you get to see our partners you get to interact with them that way we you know the entire uh Department we do guest speakers in classes such as uh career day we talk about law enforce different uh opportunities in law enforcement we step into health class uh give uh the risk of vaping underage drinking and just educate students on that uh one thing is we also provide welfare checks so if a counselor or school psychologist is concerned about a student a family member uh somebody that they don't have to live in our city if they're outside of our city we're able to contact another agency uh to provide uh that support and Connecticut and make make sure we check on them we have not only do we have uh children crisis we also have resources for adults so whether it's a parent whether it's a staff member we're a we're able to provide that resources and provide that help outside of school so that's just one way we're able to make that connection go smoothly we also collaborate with staff uh provide professional advice whether it's the staff is not sure whether to call 911 on an incident or uh what to do next we provide that professional opinion we coordinate with other law enforcement and First Responders to minimize interruptions in the uh of the learning environment when response is necessary so if we have to call 911 for a health or a safety concern we all know First Responders police fire Medics if you call an i911 everybody wants to come and help uh throughout the city throughout the county sometimes that might create a scene in distraction for distraction for all the kids uh so one way is we collaborate with the school administrators we collaborate with uh uh safety our safety team at the district and figure out what we need and where we need them that way we can I can relay that information and connect with other agencies to provide uh exactly what we need and where we need them uh when First Responders show up they need a task we're able to provide that and make that go very smooth uh we participate in providing educational conversation to parents to uh students to prevent further criminal conduct so let's say a student's involved in something we understand that students make mistakes sometimes providing parent sitting down with the parent and providing that uh educational advice to them of where uh certain Behavior might lead to in the future uh that's something that we do uh we also provide constant and necessary updates in criminal investigation if we're able to that's going on if it's involving maybe uh staff a parent a student uh we're able to sit down with School administration provide that uh we're also able to provide information on resources uh that the police department has that the county has uh at the Roseville Police Department we has we have housing Navigators we have uh children and adult Mental Health crisis teams uh so we have somebody that's able to work with adults and uh children we also provide security at events at prom at football games at any school event officers are we provide one-on-one whether uh advice to students throughout the day if students that are interested in law enforcement or any other career we provide that one-on-one advice to those that are interested we also make uh assessments uh and reports to Child Protection we conduct threat assessment we consult in making decisions about the best avenues for students that are under the influence of drugs or alcohol at school sometimes most of these are like they show up to an event they show up to uh a football game uh with alcohol and their system were able to provide that and connect with uh parent and figure out a solution uh from there uh we're on scene to provide uh to respond immediately to emergencies whether it's uh health issue whether it's the safety concern we they at the scene and able to uh coordinate a response uh we're also able to share necessary information about anything that happens in our community uh uh big calls that come out were able to share that information with school staff and any information that might involve a student outside of school were able to share that with a staff member with Administration with that thank you we open it up for um questions and comments thank you Mike a bunch of them um I think the first one just on the well thank you for the presentation first of all I think it's good and thank you officer Rami for coming I know you know it's just another part of your day that you're devoting to the school district for so thank you for that the uh the the dsst the district Safety and Security team the the parents the family members the community members that are part of that how how are they chosen or selected or is there a limit to the number because I know there may be a lot of people who'd love to be on that but maybe not I don't know so just talk about that a little bit right I can speak to that what I'm hearing your ask is as around how do we build up that team one thing that's nice is once um people become a part of the district Safety and Security time team often there's interest in continuing to serve so we have some returning members um if we go back to the slide that has the different stakeholders we try to make sure that we have lots of different perspectives um so if we for example with many students that were on the committee the team last year that then graduated so when that happens then we have to actively recruit and so that's a partnership with Raz we will reach out to different um students in the school to try to like recruit more students we also send out communication each fall um Carrie supports with that to all of our families around District Safety and Security and we invite anyone who's interested in being a part of the committee to reach out to me um and then if we find like oh okay we've got lots of representation of like students and um staff but we're really missing some maybe um teacher perspective or our counselor our nurse them will recruit people who might be missing from the team um we also want our district safety and security team to um reflect our um demographics and so we recruit in that way too so some of it's By Invitation some of it's by recruitment but if anyone is interested in serving on the district Safety and Security team I encourage them to reach out to me I also thank um Todd Anderson for his role um he is an active member of that group as well thank you um second question was about the one of the violence prevention issues or uh Endeavors the social and emotional learning and the screening for social and emotional behaviors you know I assume you're not screening like every kid but how how does it work like are individual students identified or or or kind of seen to be at risk for doing something then you kind of invite them to participate in maybe a conversation like how does it work because it's so nuanced I can see there could be resistance to or denial if a kid might need help they might not want to admit it right how do how do you do that so this is new this year right and the last chapter of uh the the book the violence project is really is called hope and one of the strategies they talk about specifically is social and emotional learning and they talk about how you know we screen kids for vision and hearing what why aren't we screening for risk and one way they they suggest to screen for it is actually um through um Physicians like in doctor's offices right so like there's another like societal lens to this as well and this was something that was taken up with um our district our some of our um School psychologists have played an important role in this I know director Thomas and director vindy have been a part of this um we decided not to roll it out k6 because of the heavy lift at Elementary this year so I believe it's being piloted in 36 this year some schools some schools um and it's they're using a system called my Sabers um and so that is a screening but then what it does is that information from my understanding it kicks to our like a school team and they're doing an an analysis around like what supports might need so it might not be like a conversation with a sixth grader of like hey we noticed that you like on this assessment right this came up it may be a more like I'm just conversation of like hey we just wanted to check in what's going on how are things going for you um so that's one way to do it and then at the high school it is brand new I believe it started in November do you want to talk a little bit about that screening RIS yeah so last year um we've got a collaborative team that started u piloting last year called a program called son to grow uh which this year we're doing it for the whole entire School uh and um our teachers um implemented the qu the question the survey to our students um late middle to late November and that what that does is then it helps us also identify students in the type of level or support that they need uh the collaborative team um that is involved this is our nurse our social worker our both our school psychologists um and um you know one of our media um Specialists uh and they they kind of handled this and you know um introduce it to her staff and tell her direct our staff on on on how to administer this and what to look for and things like that just two more questions that kind of seges maybe the next one it's maybe even for officer orami um well comment first uh as you may know uh a couple years ago this was a big discussion the whole SRO concept and I think that what the board on record believed is that we do see it as a way to like you were saying earlier to intervene and help prevent escalation to to a further state of of risk or or behaviors that that then could get a kid in big trouble so I think it's a great program here I'm just curious how how does that come out just in terms of numbers do do you often talk with a student about certain things is it like one a day three a day one a week two a month I'm just curious as to how often you in your role are kind of called in to just say hey can you have a chat with this kid we think something's going on here not often some of the stuff that we talk to students or we talk to parents about and we sit down with them are usually very like minor issues nothing that would uh constitute at that level to be severe so we're not sitting down with parents very often uh maybe once in a week or once in uh month I'm sitting down with a parents or I'm sitting down I just cannot put a number to it cuz it's not always that we're sitting down with a parent or there's issues that arise so just whenever it does come up depending on what the issue is depending on uh Who's involved we go on from there and making a decision on where to move on from thank you and then that's obviously done in conjunction with school leadership correct yeah so everybody knows what's going on and all that kind of stuff um my final question actually got a quick other question I'm just curious as about you and how how you're doing this role like did you how were you assigned this from the from the local department is this something you really wanted to do or did they tap you on the shoulder and say you're stuck you got to go over there it's something that I wanted to do uh I knew I wanted to one of the reasons that became a officer was we had a I went I attended Southwest High School in Southwest Minneapolis and we had an SRO in the building and just seeing that connection he had with students uh every day being in the hallway talking was uh and just building that relationship with us and talking to us about careers and law enforcement is the reason why I wanted to be a police officer uh after college I had an officer from the Roseville Police Department come talk to our college class which got me interested in Roseville uh when I started working as a police officer that's when I learned about our school resource officer position here within the city uh I wanted to do the position a year and a half ago uh when it first opened up but I wanted a little bit more experience on the street that's why I didn't put in for it but when the position became available again I couldn't miss the opportunity so I put my hat in and really wanted to do it well thank you very much appreciate that I think it's key that you want to do that my my final question the right to have more occur to me later on um it's it's actually probably for assistant director Sonic um um the the emerging St art stuff that you're exploring so thank you I app that and I know a number of community folks have expressed interest in that but what you're talking about to just be obvious because I don't know I don't know you know some of these words are vague to me it's it's like the next generation of like metal detectors and stuff like that like actual hard technology or we looking at different I'm just curious that's a good question uh so this was new learning for me this to this year too um it really it's emerging it is state of the art I do think it's the way of the future um but it's so new that it's still kind of um glitchy and like in development so for example one of the systems that we looked at um actually works with your camera system um and then it would scan using artificial intelligence um to detect a weapon but there are strengths and weaknesses to it so for example is it brandished is it not so um I explored that one with um Sergeant detective Lopez um and we were kind of looking at like what would be a what what is a good fit based on what we're learning um and then another one that is a um like more of like it hooks on top it's a a perimeter scanner um using like Radars um but again that one is really new and the price point is um I would say not attainable for any school district um and so we're looking at like what our funding streams what our grants we can explore so looking at different Technologies and then pros and cons of each um it's moving away from metal detectors um because of some of the research of how metal detectors can be circumvented um also what I was more drawn to about some of these that is that they're more discreet than you're passing through something that you know feels like a metal detector but we just haven't found anything that is quite the right fit and I attended the last session last week so yeah it you know grants and funding may be necessary it might even be where a beta testing site or something for a company maybe not Alpha you don't want to be bleeding edge but you know maybe leeding Edge so any thoughts on timeline on how quickly that assessment will proceed are we looking like through the rest of the school year I'm just curious as to what we might expect back a you know what maybe report's too strong of a word but some thinking or opinions on some updates uh I would say I spent uh I've attended two different sessions maybe three in the last month um and then next week we'll be exploring grants a little bit more so hopefully this year and then we we may be at the mercy of some of the grant timelines but I would say it's going to take some time I also want to be incredibly thoughtful about where we put our time and energy like time is a limited resource and so I'll be meeting with the district Safety and Security team to get some more guidance there we have some recommendations that were um collected from administrators last week so that is kind of the next step and then also our community meeting in January thank you thanks Todd okay um I want to say thank you for this report um you know every single committee have been on I mean they're all great they're all comprehensive there's wealth of experience but this this I I I can attest to my Schoolboard colleagues that I I genuinely think this is arguably one of the most comprehensive and collaborative groups to be on the dsst I I am the wealth of experience um of and and and the partners and the Partnerships that are at the table me and the student voice is you know directly asking students about Anonymous reporting systems are they working the apps are they working I mean we're getting direct feedback and they're not shy about sharing I just you know it's it's a fantastic uh group to be with and um and I want to thank officer Rami too even though we had a period where we we know we didn't have SRO in the schools I want to thank the Roseville Police Department and you know you for being there you were there for these critical gun incidents you I want to make sure the committee understands that that they didn't leave they at table they're there helping us out through these incidents so I I really want to thank you for that uh I like this idea this this evening facility and security manager at Ross it sounds really cool I like that I guess I just wanted maybe to flesh it out a bit more you know I guess you know who who do they report to is it principal Wilson um what do they have like the authority to do is it going to be a cell phone or like a walkie-talkie they can call the police department or just maybe flesh it out just to Tad more but I think it's a really great idea um but you know we're still fleshing it out but I'm just curious you could expand on it a little bit more my understanding is that it was a partnership with um director arnson and Dr Wilson around hiring the evening um security facility manager I believe they report to Dr Wilson y all right like I said up with a question mark and looked ATM Dr Wilson and the admin team so okay y um the position was built to carry through right from the school day into the evening create a welcoming environment for all but then know that safeties always are concern too so just that continuation anything you want to add no I I think this evening um man security manager um we've hired a pretty good one one that knows our students already um that was a former um in a former security role um so it it's great that you know she's there already running knowing the kids kids loved her and you know they all her first day was yesterday and so they all came back and like they're so surprised to see her so it's great to already have that established relationship thank you thank you as Echo by my colleagues here really appreciate you being here so I have a question from the safety forum and just kind of explain the process I know we have another Community forum maybe in January February and there were some um concerns that were raised at the when was that oh my goodness November November 15 November thank you November so um are there anything from that meeting where some of that input have been taken into account in terms of um some of the new new things that we're doing so if you can explain more about that yeah I know there's been a lot of conversation at r with the administrative team I have um I can picture in my head kind of my laundry list of things that I've been checking in with Dr Wilson as one around like bathrooms um bathroom sweeps the changing in um the hall passes was one element vaping lots of conversations around vaping and meetings with different parents different organizations um to really look at what can we do like both proactively and reactively um to address both bathrooms and vaping I also want to say too like that's not a problem that's unique to um Roseville um I think that's a Statewide and a nationwide I have a high school senior who goes to a different school and asked him I'm like get Vape at school he like every day I was like okay so it's not just us um like and like we have to collectively work together to solve the problems I don't know if you want to add any more thing about about how Raz admin team has been processing around that yeah I think as a admin team and even as a student support team I think we've worked around some of the common themes that we heard uh during that Community forum and we worked real and we're working um really hard to try to um uh tackle some of those issues and I think one of the biggest thing was the bathroom and The Vaping the bathroom and being very just very intentional about um um you know going around it checking make sure that students where they need to be and then also the new passes that we implemented this trimester really helps the not just us but the other staff to know that hey this student is coloring carrying around a red uh a red pass which is you know an awing but they're in e-wing which is totally different and so you know we always ask them of like hey like what's your business over here and often times you know like sometimes it could be that they're over there because that's the only place where the Single Cell bathrooms are and so that's a legitimate question uh uh response but other times then we would help the students Point them where hey youve passed a couple bathrooms here and and then again just always doing the our normal um sweeps of our area so every ad administrator and student support team we always have our area of that we um ensure that students are you know we're we're we're really gently pushing students to cl to the classroom and everything and I think the overall feedback that we've got from staff this year is that um the the hallways are a lot better kids are in in the um in the class a little bit more and as evidenced by our uh tribe Mr one data with our absences and our Charities have gone down dramatically the last thing I'll say about Vapes 2o is I think it's about getting to the root cause right like if we're if we're at the point where we've got a vape at school like there are five steps that we've like missed for intervention before that so I think it's about education um it's about communicating with families I'm also working with um our police department and working with we collaborated with another city where there was a vape shop selling Vapes to miners right so like this is like a problem that's going to take everybody to be um a part of the solution no thank you for that because I wanted to make sure that we are responsive to the community and I can see the some of the S I just wanted you to like really expand on that so really appreciate that respon um because I I think um I mean and and you hear about the data right we want to continue to collect data and say because of this new things what what happened uh how the data uh kind of proves to be that this is working right some of this intervention new ways of doing things are actually working so really appreciate the the Innovative way of thinking about this and really skiing keeping keep in all those all those concerns in mind so really really appreciate the work yeah thank you go ahead um once again as my colleague said I appreciate that you all been here appreciate what you and your colleagues do many of my colleagues have asked many of my questions one I know communication was a big issue with the community meeting maybe um assistant superintendent Sonic maybe to communicate with the public again about our requirements with furpa the Minnesota data privacy what we cannot share I know that often comes up a lot that people want more information than sometime we can share maybe if you can right so actually that is something that um uh Carrie is working on and Dr Lake um and myself about and the whole cabinet has actually been a part of sharing communication with families around um the family educational rights Privacy Act and what we can and cannot share I would also direct people to policy 584 which is our data collection and maintenance policy the actual policy outward facing is just a couple of paragraphs um but if you look at the regulations it's a 20page doc docment around what we can and cannot release and so we are really Bound by federal and state privacy acts around what we can and cannot share and really like the to to summarize it best is um we can share information with a student's family um but outside of that like the only people that we can communicate directly about a student about is their own family we cannot communicate that with other other um families or widely to the district um to our um District Community as well what was different about the situation at Raz is there were um public charges that were pressed and so a lot of that private data became public so that was what was unique um and why we were able to communicate a little bit more freely but we do have a communication that will be going out to families around what to expect um in our communication and then we'll also like add that a a portion of that to the district Safety and Security web page so we can refer back to it as well good thank you Kitty thank you appreciate you being here and appreciate all the work that's being done I mean I know this has been a focus for a long time and you've been working on it very diligently but appreciate also that you're taking the response and trying to figure out um take the ideas and the issues brought up and really looking to what we can do differently uh one of the questions I was having uh was around the violence prevention work how much of that is really defined at this point or how much is still kind of in development that we're trying to keep in touch with as they become more knowledgeable that's a good question I think the things that are currently part of where this came from as the district Safety and Security team so some folks may remember Dr James densley from the violence project came out and spoke to us our like three years ago um we did a book study around the violence project and then we created a subcommittee and that subcommittee is where we really got traction for some of the work around the violence project so the things that you saw listed there tonight those are things that are in action um but I also uh they've been very generous with their time um and so I've taken them up on that on a yearly basis I meet with Dr James Denley and I basically share here's everything that we're doing what are we missing what is emerging what are you learning like where can we do better in terms of Safety and Security so it's that ongoing partnership um he was very generous last time we met he's like it doesn't just have to be once a year it can be every once in a while so um we're just doing a good job of keeping that relationship going and staying in touch and continuing to share like here's what we're doing and if there's something we're missing we want to know like want to do right by our kids uh I've said many times like every child that walks into our school is somebody's somebody um and that's the same for staff too so we have to do our due diligence in when it comes to Safety and Security and what's fascinating is when there's you know um things on a national level I'll see these same folks on like the different news channels like CNN and NBC and I'm like well I'm glad we're talking to the people that you know other folks go to as experts as well you've been in partnership with the violence project from one of the early school districts was that not the case yep for not three years this is my third year in this third year in this role and I started with as I as I started into this role that partnership began as well thank you for all that work okay um I only have two things um one you know I'm a a big fan of the violence project and I I want to thank you for your continued work um with that I think it's a a a great um group I think we're I think we're I know we're better for it um so also I would like to thank all of you for for coming today um lots of great information officer Rami I want to specifically thank you um for for taking the time to to talk about all the things that you do at at at RW and um as a board member a lot of that information we already have okay but but to be honest most people don't know that uh all the things you literally the laundry list of things that um you do and can be doing at RW every day so so so thank you for taking the time to do that and and express that um and for doing that work so thank you thank you thank you okay um next up um early childhood program report welcome welcome to the table good evening we're excited to be here tonight talk about early learning programs our collabor op ations our alignment and our successes we'll start with introductions I'm Cindy arnison the director of Community Education I'm Tammy Reese Early Childhood Program supervisor I'm Heidi Stone I'm the Early Childhood special education supervisor hi Jen Krueger assistant director of student services good evening I see to Thomas director of student services for roselt area schools this evening the presentation that you're about to um c will um connect with Goal one of the Strategic plan which is around you know ensuring students are College and Career ready and we start that at the youngest of Ages and we will um talk about how we deliver a challenging joyful and safe environment for our Young Learners so the first thing we'll see is a video we're really excited to share this video with you it really highlights the variety of programming we have in early childhood special education um in ECFE prek screening our early childhood umbrella and it really shows some of the ways we collaborate and how we align with the K12 Ela curriculum um you've also received an infographic and um just shows a picture in numbers kind of of our programs um so we'll watch the video and then we'll take a look at the infographic and then we will have time for questions as well for [Music] [Music] off a c s [Music] give [Music] fore [Music] 1 [Music] T [Music] [Music] tiger [Music] down and [Music] I [Music] write [Music] [Music] what's next match about this [Music] the video now it brings to life your programming all right so now we're going to look at the infographic um we're just going to go through this we're going to start at the top left and then we'll go through this um the infographic yep yep so I'll go first um so birth to two Early Childhood special education or ecse provides an early literacy checklist during home visits and did you know the ecsc team has school psychologists speech language Pathologists occupational therapists a physical therapist a social worker and a school nurse uh last year we had 28 prek and EC staff trained in letters and um we have three ECFE drop in and play events are offered each week and currently our enrollment numbers as of about December 1st we had 118 children ages 3 to five enrolled in early childhood special ed and 38 in birth to two seven of our prek classes are co-taught classes seven of the 19 total or cotat and we have a total of 156 children right now with ifsps or individualized family service plans or iep's individualized education plans this past summer we served 71 families in our ECFE summer program um one of our most popular programs is the drop in and play and typically we have over 3,000 participants um each year and I was to interrupt have you named the difference between EC and EC just for the community if they're watching sure okay ECF is Early Childhood family education which is our um parent child education program birth to kindergarten entry and EC is Early Childhood special education serving um Children and Families from birth to age five um that qualify for services under having a disability thank you both all right did you know um 50% of our prek staff speak more than one language um and this includes parz our admin team and clerical and teachers all right we started Hagerty this year it's a celebration um we typically screen between 550 and 60000 students each year and so we're right about that um again and 553 and birth to two um you'll hear me mention that ECS e birth to two that team supports families of infants and toddlers in their homes across the district that's where their services are provided new this past summer the summer of 2023 um we had a nine-week ECF summer program with 11 different class classes offered uh we had uh some every day of the week Monday through Friday for families to participate in and we have three um Early Childhood sites I'm at harambe Parkview and I'ma all right did you know we use Ela curriculum that align with the K12 curriculum like haer Sande and star and it also aligns with letters and um we have two ecsc and prek collaborative family events in in January and April and then our final fun fact is ecsc responded to 346 referrals last year okay I will open it up for questions comments actually we're GNA go with with with Kitty this time all right um it was very exciting that that many teachers have um attended the letters program out of how many teachers are we even talking that would use that kind of material eventually okay um is it most yeah I would say we have 13 in early childhood and probably that many probably eight I think we close to the 28 M yeah okay yes along with our speech pathologists that are using it in their speech classes as well nice and is it as big a change for preschool or or early childhood as it is at the elementary school or is it larger I mean how much does it impact what you do using the curriculum curriculum I would say it's really provided a some guidance around what to do I think our staff have been used to kind of inventing the wheel and figuring out how to Target different things but um having the letters knowledge and then given the hegr curriculum has really helped guide them and provide them with even little SC scripts to use during different times of day so that's been helpful um and the one other question is out do when you talk about the um numbers with IEPs or ifsps um I'm not sure what I know if I know what an ifsp is but um 1567 how many is that out of like the 553 you screen each year and then that adds up or how does that connect with your other um um it's it's hard to say so we in early childhood it's different than let's say the K12 world where if you're in an elementary building you know the total number of students whereas we're in we're talking about the whole Roseville community so we don't really know we have the census you know we can go on but we don't quite know how many are out there but these are just based on um how many uh referrals we received we went through 346 so I guess about 156 out of those almost 350 are now getting Services if that helps yeah well this is just amazing we're so exciting the breath that you're able to offer how much more you're able to do than even a few years ago you just keep building on it it's so exciting and such an important age so thank you very much I'm just Keen in on those referrals just curious is that up from last year or down or just oh it keeps the it Trends up um I been tracking our enrollment numbers are up um last year total enrollment we had around 175 um and we're already going to be um as I look ahead to January end of January um will'll be around 130 140 students um and then those referrals um I think we're on track maybe a little low this year but I think we'll meet by the end of the year around what we were at last year so I think there's just a lot of need and a lot of families out there um looking for help and they're finding us Mike well I would say every family could use this help you know we did our kids were big we did acfa our son's 32 our daughter's 26 now so they're way past it every time we've met year year since been on the board I've talked about them because it was such a great program um in fact when it links to reading it was really it's really weird every one of those weird moments a memory unlocked in my brain that I don't think I've ever thought of in my life and it was me when I was a little kid like that age and my mother when I went grocery shopping with her would ask me to read the packages as they as she put them in the cart it was just something to practice the reading the letter recognition anyway it's really cool all right so first I'm going to ask a horrible question do we do is this is do we charge fees for this is this free for everybody is it a sliding scale what do we do um I can answer for uh first for ECFE um it is a sliding scale and we would we never turn anyone away if they they aren't able to pay um we also feel that it's really important to offer some things that are free so our drop it Inplay classes um that we mentioned are free and there's no regist um I think it's part of the reason why we see the numbers that we do because it's it just we're just trying to re you know reduce barriers as much as we can um for prek we also I mean it's fee based but we have um six different funding sources so there are um over probably about 60% are on um have a scholarship 100% scholarship and then we also have a sliding fee for prek as well so so given all of that this may be more of a business director question for you but if you take all this stuff together is it are we are we actually gaining or is it really a service we providing that's more of investment in the community and investment in our kids it's a service we're providing an investment in our community and then say as well given that are we getting you think what the demand is for this in our district or are we having to turn people away yet because of lack of Staff lack of resources anything like that um um our uh ECFE program um we we can always um have more people attend so um that works really well um for prek right now um we have a few spots and we keep filling them as they open and really um briefly I just looked before um I came here and because it's ever changing you know the numbers there's probably about 40 on the weight list so we keep trying to move students into classes as quickly as we can well because I think it's one it builds uh trust in the rosille school district if we can allow a family to have their kids come through this program I think in certain areas even to link it specifically with certain schools like I know harambe is having the enrollment issue you know if we break it out by where their their neighborhood or the chice school might be that could help if we could make sure we can offer this to every child out there so I get you know again it's all budget it's all everything you know but at some point I think it's key the early reading is is key and and social interaction is key so it's really good um my last question is and I may have missed this somewhere who is or was hegr hegerty is a curriculum yeah like that somebody's name that like invented it somewhere like some we're going to have to look I've been curious cuz I just heard that everybody seems to know what it means but I just you don't either so I guess that's both good and bad but you know our other curriculums are wi and wisdom like I yeah that one is either I can Google it later because we have the source of all all human knowledge is available to us okay it is a named after Dr Hager got it okay I I'll I'll dig into it but otherwise I'll just again no other question I'm just gonna say again you guys I love you guys this is this is one you know there's so many important things we do this is obviously one of the most important things we do so thank you for making this happen for all of our families and kids hi thank you for this work um so back to the curriculum the hagy curc or the L Curriculum by hagy is it's not for special s students right it's general for Early Childhood all students are generaliz students so it's for all students yeah okay so um that's what I thought I just want to clarify that the other thing is what is the demographics of our student body for Early Childhood um I don't have the specific numbers but I would say it very much reflects like the K12 student body um that's important to us as well that our early childhood classroom should look like all the classrooms in our district that is information we can get you too yes we can get it yeah just just curious right for sure and then how how do I think you mentioned it's great to hear that the staff have a lot of you know languages represented um I just always interested you really the staff makeup too kind of like you know as we know in Minnesota there's such a gap right between what our families and students look like versus what our teacher body look like yes and doing great work I don't you know just kind of like as we think of the future what does recruitment look like you know how do we make sure that we have teachers that look like our student body too y thank you for your thanks thanks thank you again I I know before when you talked to us can you just highlight kind of the benefits of the partnership of the ECFE and the ecse the come to Heaven together MH yeah I can start yeah um I think it's just really important that it is seamless for families like we have an early childhood program and we meet a lot of different needs and we are all working together to provide that like from a a family standpoint I don't it shouldn't be like siloed in my opinion so we really working to say if early childhood program we have lots of different things happening to meet your needs and we'll help you we'll help you figure out you know what you need and and walk with you in the journey um not like you have to go some to different people or um different programs we're really trying to present it as one Early Childhood Program yeah and to add to that too I think what we're we've been trying to do this year is um and as we planned for this year is to ensure that we're building in like professional development time that's overlapping so that our teams can really get to know what each other do so for example you know Tammy's team has um parent Educators and ECFE teachers whereas my team has the home visiting um Special Education team and so those groups of people can really work together to collaborate to support families um and so just having them giving them then more built-in time to collaborate and get to know each other and get to know what each team kind of specializes in I think does help us better support the students and families that we work with thank you okay well manx actually took the question so well done um first of all thank you for um Coming Out um today I love these programs um and I it's it's really it's really so cool to see how well they wave together um and to to the point that I sometimes had to be reminded no there actually are two separate programs um and the video was absolutely amazing so let's just also give a shout out to Megan web for like putting that video together and highlighting all of our programs we're so lucky to have her she's the she's a community ed um marketing manager so okay well shout out to her that that was Fel I felt like I was back in a classroom so with my own kids so a quick question so is that video going to be on on on the website yeah we are going again we wanted to highlight it to yall first and then we will be able to share it yeah thank you for uh letting us see it from us yes thank you thank and thank you for for being here thank you yes thank you shout out to miss Mor in the back all right thanks everyone thank you okay that takes us to our audit update by Chief bean counter Sherry Thompson good evening again so I just want to give you a quick update um as far as our audit goes um all of the testing is done we are in the process of um drafting our statements so there's a lot of back and forth um right now uh we anticipate we're going to be very close to the de December 31st as far as getting our reporting to the Department of Education I've had conversations with the Department of Education um we will know for sure in the next couple days because also in order to before we can submit to the Department of Education um it has to go through an internal review process as especially our finance committee is where typically we have to allow up to a twoe process it doesn't doesn't typically take two weeks but with the holidays coming um but I just want to ensure you uh the testing is done I feel good about the audit uh we will give you an update by the end of the week I would guess and we will we will know I feel good about um where we're at as far as like our fund balance um our unassigned fund balance I think we had projected about $5.7 million I shared some information during the truth and Taxation hearing that I put together last week I believe um uh uh and again in looking at um our strategic plan um and our strategy number five as far as resources goes I believe that we're going to June 30th at about $7.7 million which kind of like feeds into the discussion about fund balance and Target and the importance of fund balance and we look at um building that again next year and like I say there aren't any major issues I know La it's not like last year um the audit with our federal dollars is taking more and more time that's these blury eyes and they're not just mine um we we have a great office or staff in the build business office that works hard at this and it just takes like takes more time so um again I we will let you know but uh you will be receiving that and taking action on it in January I just don't know yet depending on when we get it because of the first meeting being earlier but we'll give you an update on that I'm sure is it correct that the district finance committee will be meeting in January and looking at enrollment trends and getting to take a deep dive into a fund balance recommendation for the board yes thank you for bringing that up so yes that is we're U part of the work of the finance advisory committee um and again as we've talked in uh the Strategic um planning process not only the importance of those fund balance reserves um as far as the the future goes but also our credit rating so um yes we will be working on that okay thank you yeah thank you any questions okay well thank you for that um stay right there like I think I'm up next yes ex up to um uh our action items uh finally final Levy certification so again um and this also aligns um uh with their strategic plan um and and uh our resources um the administration is recommending uh that the board approve the final Levy in the amount of 48,8 448252 and this aligns with the um what was presented at the uh hearing prior to the regular meeting this this evening okay um I'd entertain that motion so moved second okay has been moved and seconded any discussion I was wondering what you have heard from the community have we had any input um any calls emails other feedback yeah thank you um we have not had any feedback um uh on the presentation and I'll say this now for community members that may be viewing the board meeting um on the presentation is my contact information uh also um individuals sometimes have questions and I have visited with many community members over the years um I have access to even pull property tax statements so sometimes I people have either come in if there's questions or concerns people have either come into the office or we've done it over the phone um because it can be confusing even on on the property tax statements but I am definitely willing um available for questions and again even it's if it pertains to their particular parcel I'm happy to walk through that um with them thank you mhm yeah I want to say thank you for the way you explained it was just very clear right and understanding I feel I've heard it several times but this time I think the visuals help to understand kind of you how how how this is all impacting at the individual level right whether it's the value of the house versus just plain increase so it just was really well done so thank you yeah it can be confusing you're welcome thank you so thank you is is that on the website already do you know yes oh that's right you're not here that's right it's good any uh further discussion okay and in that case um it's been moved it's been seconded all those in favor say I I I those oppos say n thank you thank you your okay that takes us to board reports so go had an opportunity had an opportunity um uh I think it was last week to attend uh brim Hall's November schoolwide meeting and recognition program with director Clark and superintendent Lake and what an uplifting positive event I think I'm going to try to go to every single meeting every month now but it was just I was our marking to superintendent Lake just the positivity and just the way principal Vach ran it and gets the kids involved and parents attended in just every single um I think every single grade there are some students who are recognized for some recognition or honor um just just fantastic and there's there's always a certain word or behavior every month there's a certain theme just um I found it it was fantastic I mean it really set my day standing room only yeah standing room only great trajectory even participated in one of the little dances and do a very good job but um I I was thrilled to attend that and then I had an opportunity to um uh in in roses uh in director Chu's Place attended the Ramsey County League of local governments their last board meeting of the year um you know they discussed some budgets for the upcoming year they passed their 2024 strategic plan that was important discussing their purpose statement their mission their Vision their values um they work on one-year strategic plans that was interesting so they can stay Nimble but that passed and they had new officer elections and then they did and I know it has it has already come gone but they did discuss the annual dinner and program which I think you're going to remark on but I was um happy to attend and also yeah January 12th they are going to have an important program with state legislators to go over the the the upcoming legis legislation session legislative session so that's it okay uh Kitty um had a chance to attend the finance committee meeting um just a couple of highlights that I wanted to mention one was around Co funds um we do have 45 full-time equivalents who are being still paid out of that funds um such as nurses um Etc and um we'll need to look at you know shifting them back to the general fund or or how we're going to uh review each area basically um and even substitute teacher costs we've had a million dollars contributed from that fund so there's going to be some real bumps up in our our costs as we no longer have those resources we will uh meet our deadline of spending all the dollars by June that did not appear to be an issue the other thing that I particularly want to mention is the group talked about enrollment and there was one piece of information that I uh they provided us a a spreadsheet and I know any member of the board who would like to get it certainly can where you can input different um uh District numbers and you can look at our neighbors districts for example and where people are coming from Etc but the one factoid I thought it was worth making sure you guys knew was that if you look at all um districts where at least 10 of our students go to so all receiving districts um we always receive more students from those districts coming here than go from our district to their District which was surprising to me when you hear a lot of the uh common thoughts around Mounds View and how we have students going to Mound you the fact that we have um 64 students who are going to m from here but there are 105 students from mountains view that come to our district um and in some cases it's it's like in St Paul we have three times as many students come to our district um than go to St Paul but with open enrollment um uh the um going to other districts is is a smaller portion predominantly it's from um going to um charter schools that offer something different or unique that that family is looking for so that was that was um really valuable to understand um are you going to be talking about the amsd at all you you can oh okay all right um I was uh I know that oh oh oh oh I'm sorry no yes you will be talking I am perfect I had a chance to watch the video after you recommended it and it was excellent I will look forward to hearing your comments on um Rose okay so I was at that um finance committee or Finance advisory committee it was great uh such engagement from our community member so very grateful to be to have that committee uh I was also at the community Advisory Group that was a zoom meeting this time um and it was was very engaging and and one of the the one of the effort that was happening is to understand who are the different businesses and nonprofit churches or other other groups that actually have connection to to Roseville and the more you think about it it's like wow that's that's a lot so when you start talking about having that all documented you get a sense of how involved are our community is so it really is a great kind of activity right as to kind of think about where we are at and then where maybe where are the places that we could do more and we are the places where we don't know that is happening and we want to document that so I thought that's such a that's such a great action item as a advisory Community to say yeah let's figure out who are all the partners for our district and it's amazing to me it's just absolutely amazing so it's a great Endeavor that is going on so I think people are JZ about that people are really JZ about that because it really shows right wow and then and of we also talk about how do we acknowledge all the donors all the people who donate money and so now there's a sense that oh we do actually acknowledge that in our you know Schoolboard meeting but how do we collect them all so that we can see the comprehensive list and maybe consider events to acknowledge that acknowledge partnership ship ackn knowledge donors like just ways to really thank our community and continue to have that engagement so I thought that was a great meeting so thank you our our superintendent too for hosting that meeting um the other thing I um went to was the um Ramsey County League of local governments annual dinner and what I would say is that uh the programing was great it was it was great to see many people and they were really uh happy about like like acknowledging the election so ABC was mentioned so thank you and um the speaker was someone who is a um Maplewood Maplewood administrator City administrator and she did a did a talk around how strength based culture changed how the Maplewood City worked and the strength based platform that she's talking about actually I'm very familiar with so it's something to think about is the Clifton the Gallup strand finder so it's the gallop they call it Clifton now because Don Clifton was the was the father of and I actually met him I did a Gallup program for a week in Nebraska they from Nebraska so I thought about you good this so gallab is huge in polling but they also huge in talent management so the idea of using the strength finder that is used ac across the globe across all cultures I have forgotten that it actually impacted how I view my own career how I view how I bring my strength to the table so that might be something to think about thank you yeah so it's called clipon strength finder and often time you have uh people who uh coaches who help you with that but I I can help a little bit with that too so you don't have to pay for the yeah yeah this is about analyzing what what what does that mean what does all those strength mean and what does that mean to work together it's never about labeling but it's about what is the strength that we bring to the work that we do so it's it's fascinating that they are one of the few cities and she's one of the few um public kind of a employee that actually have that background um so it was fascinating for talked about and how everyone in the in the Maplewood office uh have their strengths actually highlighted and so as a group they actually have a collective sense of what their strengths are it was it was fascinating they learning more yeah yeah we can talk definitely talk more it's fascinating was fascinating so I wanted to mention that yeah so V this like thank you thanks and Melinda is also retiring so she may have some time at the end um I think I attended the Community Education advisory committee and Tad Hagen came and talked about Adult Learning Center um things for that group so it was a nice presentation also had the opportunity to meet with principal Wade and a couple of the edw staff just to check in and there and keep continuing to learn about the C program and things that are happening there um 16 this week it was mostly policy review I haven't had a chance to check in yet with um director Thomas but they also indicated they had a new dashboard for member districts directors that talks about the weight list and one of the things there which is one of the things we've been asking about so I'm excited to hear if that's there and will be helpful for us um the last thing I will say is I had the pleasure last Friday um to go to Junior Achievement BizTown our Central Park fifth and sixth graders were there and I got some time with there there and I would like to although I know all of our teachers do wonderful jobs and getting things but Carly Harris one of our fifth and sixth grade combination teachers there were able to secure many free and reduced price fill trips this year and that's one of the things there because some of our students had asked to go again and it was a really fun time some of the parents volunteered got to interact a lot with the fifth and sixth graders it was a great time great opportunity for our students so good very cool uh than uh I had the pleasure to attend on December 2nd this year's msba delegate assembly which to remind everyone this is where delegates representing all the school districts across the state gather to vote on and decide what we're going to Lobby the legislature to do this year and uh it was interesting it was one animated um there were 23 total resolutions that we voted on 16 passed um some of the animation was there were uh several resolutions that were aimed at uh charter schools and things like eliminating new Charter Schools uh forcing charter schools to be at higher standards blah blah blah blah blah a lot of things that particular uh the St Cloud District and other some of outstate districts apparently they're facing a lot of uh competition from charter schools and so they propos these resolutions to get the legislature to basically kind of limit what Charter Schools can do but a lot of them you know they were like two-edged swords and if if you know one was you know if they're not performing to certain standards and they should be shut down and defunded well what if one of the public schools isn't performing the standards you know it's so plus many those charter schools are uh in the urban area are designed to help kids who are having trouble with certain things and so is it fair or not so those were all pretty much defeated by by a big large majority uh another area that was pretty contentious there were a number of resolutions from some smaller rural schools around things like legislature mandating that schools adopt uh FCC Federal Communication um uh or similar uh standards regarding obscenity and profanity and it was a way to kind of backend to allow or Force Banning of books or not having books because you know the theory being well if you can't say it on TV or the radio it shouldn't be in a book well there's a little unreality there because I'm not sure you can't say anything on the TV or the radio today um and that was kind of soundly beat down but there's a voice out there with some of the schools and some of the school districts that have new members that had delegates there that were interested in that kind of Direction uh another one was um a proposition to for the legislature to classify students experiencing uh gender transition or transgender or gender disphoria as um a disability that was that there was some shouting around that one so it was very interesting again that the the vast majority of delegates uh were against how could you even bring that to this body uh which was interesting to me a couple of ones that are worth noting that are pretty good uh again for those listening this does not mean it's going to happen it just means the School Board Association goes to the legislature and says hey we all think you should do this uh one was lifting the cap on ltfm funding which would allow for you know more spending um one was uh fully funed funding the uh uh reading training programs so mandated by the read act but not only doing it but making it retroactive to January of 2022 I believe so that districts like ours who were ahead of the game can get retroactively reimbursed for putting these programs in place like our letters program so we're not like penalized for being first out of the gate on this kind of thing um the last one I'll bring up that again I think we've talked about it in various forums is the uh the testing MCA testing and as we've noted you know it's an opt out opt in right so not all kids take it but not only that the way that the scores are calculated is that if you have a number of kids that are eligible those kids who opt out are scored as a zero right and so it brings down the entire the entire number so it's stupid in two ways well I didn't say stupid I'll say it is um mathematically inaccurate yeah uh to to be able to use as a real indicator of of student or School progress in two Dimensions one just it's an optin opt out so there's going to be bias in who takes the test and who doesn't and then secondly if you don't take the test your score is zero so the resolution is urges legislature to at least allow schools and to not count the nontakers as zeros just just don't include them in the denominator why would you do that so at least it'll be a fair representation of the scores of who actually took the test so it was an interesting you know half day uh gathering with different people from around the state and um you know there were a lot you could tell there were a lot of urban rural stuff you know one was like you know urge the legislature to immediately classify 15 passenger buses as class three vehicles okay fine sure I don't you know in the rural areas that means something I didn't even know what it meant so I just voted for it cuz they so but it it was a fun day and uh I think I I think I'm next year too I think it was a two it's a two-year term and we just up right so I'll look forward to that a year from now but related to that as we all know there's a day at the capital in after the first year April May March I forget what whatever it is yeah so that's when many school districts will go to the Capitol these resolutions in hand and start you know lobbying our our representatives to kind of take action on them and do something with them so again just part of what we do in terms of advocacy you know at the state level to try and get stuff changed for the better so that's it thank you thank you okay well thank you for representing us yeah thank you and and just just for the record yes we there there's that day of the capital um Association of met BR school districts will also have a day of the capital and they always seem to do it within a week of each other so you know there's that um but it is um definitely worth worth going to and uh we'll see how that works all right so um for me personally um I was I was out at at the the previous meeting and uh so just want to take an opportunity to to thank you for uh keeping things going um the point of personal privilege I was um in uh Lincoln Nebraska um watching uh my kids senior recital so uh Charlie graduated from Roseville area high school um 2020 and um this is their senior year and wants to be a teacher and uh we'll be spending their spring semester um uh student teaching so um looking forward to that um the I I went to a number of um oddly enough different musical um uh events here this is kind of the season for like every every other day there is something going on at rosw high school so I'm just going to put that aside for a second because um I could be here for the next um 20 minutes talking about those so um I'll stick to two things number one um going back to Minnesota Schoolboard Association um we do uh as Schoolboard members we have to we we don't have to but we really should and we do um believe that continued learning is is a good thing and so um uh most of all or all of us are signed up um for leadership conf conference in uh January and then there's a number of like all through the year there just different things that MN Schoolboard Association um provides for uh school board members should they choose so um this January um uh director Kitty gin will again receive another award from the Mota School Board Association um and just rightfully so um is the president's award and it is for those who have earned 300 points or more from msba training programs and I must tell you that is not an easy thing to do that is you have to be very um deliberate in the number of classes that you're taking um to be able to do that so I'd like to use my my my my time to thank Kitty gaggin for consistently showing um this school board and school boards across the state and what it means to be a great director so thank you thank you very [Applause] much now the thing I will say is that another thing I'm going to say is is is that um when you talk to us in person um for the most part we are very we are very um humble people we do not like talking about ourselves okay that's just a thing I don't know what it is it just you I know it's like everyone we don't mind talking about ourselves okay I don't mind talking about other people though so um the last thing I like to bring up is that Dr CH oh no okay what did I do I know and on the of the day it's like okay well what what new thing what okay but the the new thing that I know about today okay the association for supervision and curriculum development has announced a new class of exceptional Educators into his 2023 champions in education program and I think they made some made a really good decision um the ASC is committed to supporting mid to late career Educators um and through this program uh they're building community of Education influencers who are crafting their own legacies for the impact they have on education and Dr Rose Chu for in case you haven't heard okay Elevate teaching look it up it's a really cool thing and the brainchild is Dr Rose Chu so congratulations Rose once again okay Melle the one who found it like this is what you get for not sharing all right in that case I am going to kick it back to you thank you good evening as we approach the final weeks remaining in the year 2023 have been reflecting upon what it means in the world of Education to do your best I think for students it can be quite clear to truly keep your hearts and Minds open to being curious Learners and to also treat others as you would want to be treated and how they would want to be treated I think for educators it's always not just that clear I know we always aim to also keep our hearts and Minds open and keep the best interest of all Learners in the Forefront of our work we aim to continually balance the need for individual and group instruction required curriculum and standards the safety within our schools the needed social and emotional engagement of all students language access the monitoring of necessary individualized student education plans and that's just the start amidst the demands of a role of an educator most certainly in the classroom we also aim to remain positive in challenging situations while sharing a sense of humor along with being great storytellers Above All We aim to honor and develop highquality relationships with all students and Families I share this reflection tonight as this as a reminder for our community that all Educators deserve an abundance of gratitude as we head into this well-deserved winter break beginning next Friday finally in return I'd also like to share my thanks for the wonderful support of our beautiful Roseville area schools Community thank you thank you well there's nothing left on our agenda so you stand adjourned