OK. So, what do we do? I mean, I don't think we need to do anything. Like, if, if I want to stream from home, I still, I wouldn't notice it, you wouldn't notice it, uh, just the internal? OK. Right. But if anyone wants to try to get to that link up a 5th floor they want to get to that. They can't. OK. Yeah, I'm getting out. So, testing, testing, sound check, check I'm getting out OK. So OK. All right. I mean, that would be my concern. Right. Right. Um, so, Good afternoon and welcome to the August 18th, 2026 meeting of the Board of Education. The time is 5:30 p.m. and I am looking at the wrong script. Hold on. Here we go. As a reminder, public comment will follow the approval of the main agenda, and there will be a 45 minute total time allotted for public comment. Members wishing to speak may visit the public comment section of the Board of Education website for more information or call or call our board secretary at 651-767-8149. Public comment sign-in for this meeting ended at 5:30 p.m. We'll begin with the roll call provided by our board secretary. Director Carrillo will be absent. Director Franco here. Director Valiant here. Director Henderson here. Director Ward here. Director Lowe here, and Director Allen here. Next, I move to approve the order of the main agenda. Is there a second? Seconded by director Alan Thomascussion. Vote please. Director Franco. Yes. Director Valiant. Yes, Director Henderson yep, Director Ward, yes, Director Lowe, yes, and Director Allen, yes, that motion passes unanimously. Next item on the agenda is public comment, and I'll turn it over to Vice Chair Valiant. Thank you. Good evening everybody, and thank you for joining us. Public comment is one way community members can bring issues to the attention of the Board of Education. All speakers are asked to sign in on the sign-in log and complete a blue sign-in form on the table. You can sign in ahead of time by calling the board secretary or online at the Board of Education website. Public comment sign-in will end at 5:30 and it has ended as it is past 5:30. Individuals will be allotted 3 minutes tonight during our 45 minute public comment session this evening. Speakers will be called in the following order students, speakers referencing an agenda-related item, and then others in the order of names received with preference given to those who have not spoken in the last 3 months. Those who have signed up prior to the meeting but did not check in at the table at or before 5:30 will be called at the end of the list of speakers who signed in, time permitting. Each presentation will be timed, and the black box at the podium will beep and show an amber light when one minute is left and a red light will show when time is up. When time is up, speakers are asked to complete their statement After that time, the microphone will be muted. Written remarks may be left with Ms. Payne and will be shared with board members. Speakers are advised that any complaint or issue related to personnel must be made in writing. For your own legal protection and the legal protection and rights of staff, please do not include identifiers of Saint Paul Public school employees such as names, job titles, grace talk, or work location The board values this time to listen to members of our community and encourages respectful engagement from speakers and audience members. In the absence of respectful engagement from a speaker, their speaking time may be forfeited. In the absence of respectful engagement from an audience member, individuals may be asked to leave the room or the chair may call a recess. To make it easier for all to hear, we ask all gather here to remain quiet during the speaker's remarks. When it is your turn to speak, please begin by stating your name, no additional information is necessary. The time is now 5:34. And we have 45 minutes allocated for public comment. I will be calling speaker 5 speakers at a time or up to 5 speakers at a time When your name is called, please begin to make your way to the podium. And with that, we would like to welcome Sarah Barker and Susan. El Eli. Think Belly Mhm. OK. Did Oh Hi, good evening. My name is Sarah Barker. Good enough, uh, enough schools have already signed in support of returning to biology-based eligibility for girls sports that the Minnesota State High School League will direct all school boards to gather community input, discuss, and decide before December 15th whether they support this change. I'm here tonight to ask you to support the Make It Fair Minnesota amendment to the Minnesota State High School league bylaws which you will, uh, have, uh, on paper. Boys are not girls Girls are not boys. That's the biological reality on which sex-separated sports and girls' rights have always been based. Girls' sports exist because sex matters in athletics. Being male produces physical advantages in strength, speed, size, and endurance that don't disappear because we decide not to recognize them. The only thing that goes away when we don't recognize sex is girls' rights. Girls' sports are an inclusion strategy for all girls, including girls with trans identities. All girls depend on a female-only category for fairness, safety, opportunity, dignity and privacy. Categories both include those who are eligible and exclude those who are not. No boy is eligible for girls' sports. He's eligible for boys' sports regardless of his identity. Separated sports are and always have been 100% inclusive of all kids Girls and boys deserve sports, locker rooms, and bathrooms based on their sex. For more than a decade, Minnesota has allowed males to compete in girls' sports. For more than a decade, Minnesota has knowingly been violating girls' Title IX rights and the federal funding contract associated with it. There is no reason to keep doing this. It was wrong in 2014 and it's wrong now. That 2014 decision was made by the MSHSL board. It was not voted on by the member schools as their rules require. MSHS rules give member schools you the authority to propose and vote on bylaw amendments. That means the school themselves, you can lead this change. Attorney General Keith Ellison, Democratic lawmakers, and gender activists would have you believe that female sports for females only is against state and federal law It is not. The Supreme Court has determined that biology-based eligibility is enforceable under Title IX, protected under the Constitution, and definitely not gender discrimination. Refusing to support this proposed amendment is purely. It is not rooted in facts nor in protecting the legal or financial interests of your district. I am angry that after 12 years of state facilitated violation, girls are having to beg for their own rights back. You can act now. Support the Make It Fair Minnesota amendment to the MSHSL bylaws Thank you. The next person. The next person. Hello my name is Sue Illig. I'm a community member, a parent of former Saint Paul Public school students, a member of Democrats for an Informed Approach to Gender, and I'm also a supporter of Make It Fair Minnesota. Make It Fair Minnesota is an organization working to restore biology-based eligibility for sports in Minnesota They proposed to do so by amending Minnesota State High School league bylaws. I'm here to ask you to instruct your high state high school league member school representatives to support Make It Fair's bylaw amendment. In 2014, 18 Minnesota High School league board members decided to discard biological sex as the basis for participation in girls' high school sports in favor of gender identity. This change was not presented to the state high school league member schools for action, so most schools did not have a say in this decision. The decision to base participation on gender rather than sex. In both Minnesota and 20 other states has denied fair competition to girls The website he cheated.org has documented 96 girls' state championships stolen by males at the middle and high school levels in the US as well as close to 1500 first-place finishes. On average, 1 male athlete in the league impacts 100 female athletes. Last June's Supreme Court decision, West Virginia versus BPJ affirmed the constitutionality of biology-based sports eligibility The decision provides an opportunity for the state high school league to, one, make sports fair again for girls. 2, alleviate the threat of losing federal funds. 3, give all league member schools a say in policy regarding eligibility for girls' sports. And 4, align policy with the 79% of Americans who say that trans-identified males should not compete in women's sports. Each person has a sex and each person has a gender. The question is not whether transgender people should have rights. The question is whether their rights should be based on sex or gender for any given activity or in any given space. Sports are activities where sex really matters, so rights and participation must be sex-based. Male teams should welcome trans-identified males. Female teams should and often already do welcome trans-identified females Please help make sports fair for girls again by instructing your designated school representatives to accept the Make It Fair bylaw Amendment to the Minnesota State High School League Constitution. Thank you. Thank you. That concludes public comment. Thank you to all who spoke this evening. Community members can reach out to the board by email at sb.members@sPPS.org. Contact information for individual board members can be found on the Board of Education website and that I'll turn it back over to Chair Ward. Thank you, Vice Chair Valiant. Next is the approval of the order of the consent agenda. I move to approve the order of the consent agenda with no items pulled for separate consideration Is there a second? 2nd, seconded by Vice Chair Valiant Comments or discussion. Vote please. Director Franco yes, Director Valiantt, yes, Director Henderson, yes Director Ward, yes, Director Lowe, yes, and Director Allen, yes, that motion passes unanimously. Next, I move to approve the meetings of the, the minutes of these meetings. Minutes of the special meeting of the Board of Education, July 14, 2026. Minutes of the regular meeting of the Board of Education July 14, 2026. Is there a second? Second, seconded by Director Henderson. Comments or discussion vote please. Director Franco. Yes. Director Valiant. Yes, Director Henderson Yes, Director Ward, Director Lowe, yes, and Director Allen. Yes, motion passes unanimously. Next on the agenda is the committee report from the August 5th 2026 Committee of the board meeting. Topics of the August 5, 2026 Committee, the board meeting included SPPS 2033 strategic plan, facilities portfolio analysis update, approval of the GC4 Washington Tech firemen repair, Meg Project PD plan year one. Career pathways update, financial literacy, police policy update. Full minutes of the committee of the board meeting can be found in the board book on the Board of Education website or the full audio can be found online. I move to accept the report of the, on the August 5th, 2026 Committee of the board meeting and approve the recommended motions and minutes of that meeting is published. Is there a second? Second, seconded by Director Alan comments or discussion. Vote please. Director Franco yes, Director Valiant, yes, Director Henderson, yes Director Ward, Director Lowe, and Director Alan, yes motion passes unanimously. Next on the agenda is the future meeting schedule. The future meeting schedule can be found on the Board of Education website or by calling our board secretary at 651-767-8149. Our next committee of the board meeting will be held on Tuesday, September 1st, 2026 beginning at 4:30 p.m. The next regular meeting will be held on Tuesday, September 22, 2026 beginning at 5:30 p.m. Next, we'll move on to the superintendent's announcements and I'll turn it over to you, Doctor Stanley. Thank you, chair. Well I'm going to start out with something that is incredibly exciting. I received an email bright and early this morning that notified us that Jim Ming. Has been named as a bright spot and received the Bright Spot Award that recognizes schools across the country that are beating the odds in literacy education. So we are really excited about that. I don't know if Principal Johnson knows yet, but we're going to make sure that she knows about that. And that was certainly a bright spot in my email. Uh, also, the district is just buzzing in preparation for the 26, 27 school year. So many things are happening. It's been great to be able to see teachers back in the building, staff members back in the building here going through training. Last week, I was invited to attend the restorative practices training. There were over 100 people that attended each day last week, so that was really thrilling. Um the staff are just excited and motivated to learn and be able to work with students. And then tomorrow I'll be attending a session at Hamlin University where we have almost 200. Over 200 teachers who are going through some additional training in the University of Florida Literacy Institute or the UFL training and so really excited about that. Again, that is an additional offering that wasn't required for teachers to be there, and they are choosing to be there. I believe, yeah, they're choosing to be there. Well I know that they're choosing to be there, but um, so just really excited for all that is happening as we get Um, prepared for this next school year. OK. Any questions or comments from board members? My mic was off. Any board questions, comments? Say none. Next we'll move on to the agenda items that require board action beginning with the approval of the consent agenda. I move to approve all items within the consent agenda with no items pulled for separate consideration Is there a second? 2nd, seconded by Director Allen Comments for discussion. Vote please. Director Franco Director Valiant, Director Henderson, yes, Director Ward, Director Lowe, and Director Allen, yes, motion passes unanimously. Next, we'll move on to the SPPS 2033 strategic plan, and I'll turn it back over to Superintendent Stanley. All right, thank you very much, Chair. So, Uh, since November actually of, of last year, we started talking about the strategic plan and it just feels really good to be able to come this evening. Um, we have brought an update to the board for several months, um, uh. Senior executive officer, Dr. Stacyriachea and Dr. Landreau led an incredibly community-focused, community-led process for ensuring that our community actually developed our strategic plan. We were able to bring that to the board just for an initial look and to get feedback in July. We brought that back to the board again in August earlier this month for COB. And, um, now as was stated in the initial plan, we are bringing that before the board. To take action this evening, and I will turn it over to Doctor Gray Jay. Thank you um, Chair Ward, members of the board, Superintendent Stanley. I'm pleased to bring forward, um, for approval SPPS 2033 strategic plan, um, and I would like to Invite Doctor Landreau to join us here if you would like. No pressure. You're certainly welcome to the shirt. She has the shirt on, so. I think it's Dr. Landau has been an incredibly important part of the development And um. The design of the work. And so I think it's very appropriate to have her present as we present for approval. I'm also joined with Director Wacker of communications. We'll talk a little bit about our plans for communication moving forward. So um I'll begin with background before reviewing the process uh, the components of the plan, and ending with some monitoring reporting and implementation. This is a presentation that you've heard and are familiar with so I won't belabor the plan. I'll highlight some relevant points and touch on some really important pieces. So SPPS 2033 began with Doctor Stanley's 100 day report Um, Doctor Stanley started with us um in May of 2025 and immediately began a listening and learning tour to understand our district, um, and. Uh, provided a 100 day report in October. In that 100 day report um, she identified 10 key areas that were highlighted for further study and goal setting, and we were able to Immediately use those 10 areas um and they became the basis of SPPS 2033 um they turned into our key topic areas for the plan very early on those areas were organized into three priority uh categories and you see them, um, presented here, excellence and instruction which includes achievement gap reduction and academic acceleration. Continuous improvement, literacy, consistency and coherence. The second area of deliberate inclusion which includes discipline and belonging, family communication language access standards, special education, staff retention and recruitment, and the third area of sustainable infrastructure, which includes our analysis of our current resource allocation models, our facilities portfolio analysis, and marketing and enrollment recovery Um, with this, uh, structure in place, we had the beginnings of our plan, and that was, um, in November 2025. So, um, engagement is and was and still remains very crucial to our plan. It was our intention to make sure that our plan is grounded in the experiences perspectives and voices of our community. And so we employed a A substantial community engagement model the accordion model in which we expanded across our community to listen widely, and then we compressed to learn, to analyze and to revise, to craft and create and then we expanded again. And we did it a couple of times, so we call these expansions. Um, in all we were able to engage with a little over 3000 community members virtually and in person. We Gathered multiple perspectives all around our community, students, family staff, and community. Um, and we anchored this with a community group advisory task force, which I'll speak about a little bit later. Um, this community engagement model was, it was a big heavy lift, and I have to shout out and really give thanks to our family engagement office and department and staff um. They were instrumental in the many cycles that we were engaged in, particularly at the beginning of our expansion which we were going through, um, an ICE siege in our communities. And so they were just relentless with being able to support our families and also help us move the plan forward. And so thank you very much to them. Our first expansion was our largest expansion in 1973. Total community members engaged in this phase. This phase went through February into March, um, and we had community leaders. It was facilitated by school and district leaders. Um, what we heard in this stage was that we'd worked as a district on all of the key topics, so they were not necessarily new and um. New issues for us as a district, but the results and the impact of our work was not widely visible or understood, and there were many, many different perspectives on what had been done, um, how much it had been done, and um what the actual challenges were the strategic challenges. Our second expansion was an online survey, um, 879 responses. So we surveyed across our community, families, um, staff, and students in grades 9 through 12. Um, and what we heard in this expansion was that um Everyone agreed that education was most effective when students and children feel seen, heard, and valued, and that um that that was necessary and needed to permeate throughout our organization And that um The environment that respects student dignity, intelligence, and individual needs was paramount critical. Our third expansion was a community engagement meeting by language groups. The picture that you're looking at was one of the rooms, I think it's our Korean language room. We had 115 total community members engaged in this phase, and this was an engagement in which we by May. Had our draft strategies produced from our formation action teams and we were actually able to share those draft strategies and receive some very specific feedback. And so overall our feedback was positive. They were very interested in strategies focusing on discipline and belonging and very much on the family and language access. And so we had identified the right strategic challenges and Most of our proposed strategies were well received, um, but there were serious questions about how practical, how quickly we could implement and accountability, um, which was a pattern throughout, um, how quickly we could get things implemented and who would be held accountable and what accountability would look like. We heard often in all of our expansions. Um, we did have a student convening as not necessarily part of an expansion but it was very important. We heard from Doctor Stanley we heard from our community that student voice was incredibly important and we should um Definitely not missed the opportunity to speak with students about decisions that were directly impacting their lives their everyday lives, where they spent most of their time. Um, and so we had a student convening where we brought 51 high school students, 9 through 12, all of our traditional high schools and some of our alternative schools as well. Um, and we spent half a day with students, the Um, pictures that you're looking at are, um, sessions in which we had facilitated protocol um, and we were able to dig pretty deeply with students and get their feedback. They were able to speak directly with members of the strategy formation action teams um, and discuss their work in pretty pointed ways Um, the students generally like the strategies, particularly they're very interested in discipline and belonging Um, they had substantial concerns about consistency coherence. They noticed, um, that ideas related to the strategies that were currently being, um. Currently in their schools and in their spaces weren't being applied the same way from school to school or even by different staff within the same school building So there was a lot of conversation about that on that day. Um, the other, I think, really important part of the development of SPPS 2033 was the collaborative teams that um just really promoted, um, Perspective and pushed the work toward the work. Core work happen through these collaborative teams. The first is the core project team, um. Three of us are here. Um, the other one is over there. So this is um and then the other one is like there are 55 leaders um and we came together to actually create the project plan, to push the project forward um to monitor the overall progress um we coordinated the activities, um, logistics, reached out across the district, um, created and shared internal and external communications, um, pretty much the the work. Of making it all happen flowed through um this this project team we continue to meet and the project team will continue to exist throughout implementation probably into full implementation before we phase out. The second, um. Uh, collaborative team is our advisory task force. This is a 32 member, um, task force, um, built of community members, students, parents board members, members of SPFE leadership, um, staff members, central. Staff members, principals, teachers um, just community partners. It was a very diverse group of people and brought together through a process which um Had criteria for who and what the group should look like, but really went through the selection process without knowing identity. So um we were certain of who we had and then certain of what this team, um who this team would be comprised of, um, but we were not prepared for um just how much this team would really Um, function, how well they would function together and how much of an asset they would be to our process and our plan. Um, this team provided guidance for planning and revising strategies. They, they started meeting in February. We facilitated the team, Dr. Lander and myself, um, Doctor Stanley was at every meeting Um, we started meeting in February and did not end until May. Um, the team met throughout the design process and they were able to provide feedback with every step of the process. Um, they functioned as a mirror sometimes they gave feedback. We did facilitated protocol consultancies with our. formation action teams. They also did some parallel work as our formation action teams in which they developed strategic challenges Um, they developed visions for what success would look like and criteria, um, and identified criteria for reporting. Our last group is our strategy formation action teams. There were 9 of these teams. Um, you'll recall that there are 10 key topic areas, 9 formation action teams. One of those is our facility's portfolio analysis, which is a parallel process. It's, it's an expanded, um. Formation action team, um, sort of functioning alongside but still part of SPPS 2033 so we did not develop a strategy formation action team because that work started in April and it will continue past the development phase of our strategic plan. So nine teams ranging from 4 to 10 members, 61 participants altogether. Um, they did so much work The visual that you're looking at is very, very condensed summary of so much work that they did. They started reviewing, researched, um, all of the literature that we put together, um. Uh, Director Arza India completed a SOR analysis of the 100 day report and interviews and she put all of that together. That was one of the anchor pieces that the information action team started with. And then they had two days of orientation Part of that with a day of training on the tools of cultural proficiency. Um, and then they drafted proposals in which we were asking for strategies, um, connected to their key topic area. They got feedback and revised continued to revise, and then developed a slate of strategies that we asked for, um, all within the span of 6 weeks. It was a pretty intense time. I would also say that that was um. Intense budget time as well. So they were working overtime. Many of them met 2 to 3 times a week, and they were co-led by many leaders in this room. Uh, I mentioned this. This is our May 7th task force action team consultancy. This was a time where our, um, task force members, um, 32 of them, most of them attended that night, um, met in protocol to give consultancy guidance, feedback and do a consistency check with the strategies that we were, um. Developing with our strategy formation action teams and the pictures that you're looking at are um different sessions that evening. It was a pretty exciting evening. I think all of us came into the evening wondering how this was going to go Everyone left really um Excited about what happened I think satisfied and very pleased. Um, our advisory task force members, we asked afterwards, did you did you see your work? Did you feel like your voice was valued? Did you hear your perspectives and what was shared with you? Um, we received affirmation to all of that. And then we also asked our formation action team members, did you feel respected? Did you learn more? Did you get solid feedback? Many of them immediately started revising to then give us their final proposals So it was a very effective evening. Um, with that I just wanted to review the process, um, before we jump into the components, starting at the bottom, um with our 100 day report, um, this was the entire process to the development of the plan, um, with our advisory task force and then starting our engagement. Our strategy formation action teams were then convened with more engagement with our draft strategies. We got our final engagement that was. Uh, early May and then we finalized the strategies. I don't have a slide here, but the finalization of the strategies from, um, we, we started with 46 and um they went to our senior executive leadership team. We spent two days with Doctor Makari Traynham from the Minnesota Department of Education finalizing and prioritizing strategies and then another day together um. Finalizing our strategies to get down to the 26 that are included in our plan. I will say that as we go into the plan and I talk about the plan components what were strategies that were in our proposals from our formation action teams, you're going to see them named as benchmarks moving forward. So our plan components um, here's our key topic and our priority areas, 3 priority areas, and each one of them with the 10 key topic areas from the 100 day plan embedded within Um, excellence and instruction, deliberate inclusion and sustainable infrastructure. Um, excellence and instruction, you see our, our, our strategy statement that every student receives high quality data informed and culturally responsive instruction that accelerates their growth, eliminates predictable achievement gaps Um, this is our approach and our strategy to achieve that vision of excellence and instruction. And as we look at achievement gap and continuous improvement And literacy, consistency and coherence. We'll talk about those benchmarks. Those are the things that we'll implement that will align to our strategy. Starting with achievement gap reduction and academic acceleration um, we are looking to what you see now is benchmarks here in the in the table, clarifying our district-wide approach to our tier one, which happens, which is most of our time in our in our classrooms, core instruction It's also called grounded in a shared understanding of effective teaching and shared by all across the district um and documented. Uh, the 2nd benchmark is to transform evaluation and accountability structures and the 3rd is to align professional learning for all educational staff, um. And embedded in this, which we heard a couple of times, which um in the aligned Professional learning for all educational staff is for support staff, parents, um, all educational staff That is incredibly important. Continuous improvement The benchmarks here are establishing a shared understanding of goals for improvement throughout our entire system um, building and communicating and organizing, um organizing structure that identifies, connects the district and school-based teams in line with MNMTSS Um, and then district and school leaders facilitating continuous system improvement. So we go past school improvement to district improvement and it embeds um, performance evaluation, um, and other systems of evaluation so that we are aligned and we are, um sharing our goals for improvement throughout our entire system and this is cyclical, um, there's cycles with feedback loops. Literacy, consistency, um, and coherence The benchmarks are that we are establishing a coherent and district-wide system. We're using consistent walkthrough and accountability structures. The second one is that we are designing personalized And equitable professional learning pathways, um, that are grounded in our pre-K-12 literacy framework. And our third is that we are aligning all instructional and programmatic decisions across our grade levels. Um, I would say that a huge theme substantial theme, significant theme of our first priority area is consistency, it's alignment. Our entire organization and bringing all of our instructional pieces into alignment, leveraging all of our capacity to create change in our classrooms. Um, our second area is deliberate inclusion, our, um, strategy statement of all schools and departments creating an environment where every student, staff, and family member experiences dignity, connection, and comprehensive support. Um in our, um, area of discipline and belonging, we are wanting to standardize effective systems, eliminate disproportionate exclusionary practices for students um, in classrooms and in school buildings, um, developing upper elementary and secondary students as leaders And using their perspectives to foster civic agency So that um pattern in that theme again of bringing in student voice, but not relying on that student voice to be the adult, um, but bringing in the student voice and making sure that we are adhering and um making um just checking in when we're making decisions around um. Things that impact our students every day Um, establishing authentic experiences that develop individual and group, um, parent and guardian leadership with a shared commitment to SPPS. So, um, here we're really looking at two-way, two-way, um, communication two-way exchange, and I think this is also moving into family communication and language access standards uh, another theme that, um, runs throughout. Um, our benchmarks here, establishing a culture of clear written and oral communication grounded in families and schools working together for student success. Again, a two-way um, exchange, um, ensuring equitable access to information and services for families regardless of language proficiency or disability, and, um. This is for. Native English speakers and non-native English speakers, equitable access to information is something that we heard loud and clear in perspectives from our communities and our families, and even being native English speakers and some of us working in the district as parents did not always have experiences that were equitable or coherent in terms of receiving information and for families. And so this one is. Um, very relevant for all of our families. Um, implementing consistent family communication standards and practices across all schools and departments, that is, um, We're looking forward to that being a very large lift, but one that we will have an enormous amount of impact that will go a very long way to strengthen connection and trust and build relationships with communities and families Special education programming and enhancement, um incorporating universal design for learning in tier one. So again, in core, um, where most of our time is spent, um. Incorporating a design for learning that is embedded automatically um accessible for everyone in design, um, aligning schedules with students, specialized service needs that support inclusion um rather than Other types of schedules that support um other needs um, and creating a consistent district-wide holistic review process to strengthen our identification, our referral, our evaluation placement, our IEP development and our service delivery and discipline practices Um, the last one is to build and retain a diverse thriving workforce that mirrors our student population Um. And that cultivates an equitable and culturally proficient district. Um. Benchmarks here are to create a shared understanding and expectation of belonging and dignity. Um, that includes our tools of cultural proficiency, um. And then to provide onboarding for all staff that ensures that the tenets of our policy 419, which is our professional and respectful workplace policy, that are active and they're present at every level of our organization for all staff, um, streamlining our hiring practices, integrating core equity standards into every stage of our talent life cycle. And to develop and expand career pathways and growth opportunities for students, staff, and community members. Um, we need to directly address our high need areas, um, and the goal of increasing our culturally competent staff from diverse backgrounds. Our third area is sustainable infrastructure with a strategy of committing to purposeful allocation of resources to ensure our programs and our facilities are positioned to meet the needs of current and future students, families, and staff. Um the key area of marketing, enrollment and recovery we are, um, looking for benchmarks to establish a strong district brand identity that clearly articulates why we are the district of choice for Saint Paul families um, bringing our other, um, benchmarks to light, implementing them. Um, with strong fidelity, with at least 50% of implementation will go a very long way towards um articulating why we are the district of choice um, and developing a district-wide marketing plan that outlines and distinguishes us, incorporates the voices of our students, our families, our staff, and our community members. Our facility's portfolio analysis which I spoke about is our parallel process of creating a sustainable district footprint, um, that invest our resources directly into our students' futures and maximizes the use of all of our district facilities This, um, this key topic area will have a, a separate approval plan, um, from SPPS 2033. Um, with criteria being developed now with an advisory task force and regular updates. And then our last key topic area is our analysis of current resource allocation models um, conducting an internal audit to improve our current financial policies, our procedures, and our responsibilities and to provide financial training for staff who manage budgets and or allocate um district resources. So monitoring and reporting um for some of us and um In innovation, strategy, research, evaluation, assessment it is extremely important. Um, it is just as important a three-legged stool as planning. Um, so Um, we will have a robust monitoring and reporting plan. Um, we're starting with, um, developing metrics across three areas, implementation metrics, which really will give us indications on whether our planned activities are happening. Um, impact, and then we'll move into impact and that's whether the actions, once we know that they're happening, and they're happening at percentages and proportions that we are planning for, we'd want to know, um, are those changes having any impact? Are the actions being taken, um, changing practice? Is it changing experiences or behaviors? And then once we know that we're seeing some impact. Um, and we're seeing some change. We're going to be looking for overall outcomes, our long term student outcomes. Um We are developing tools, internal and public facing dashboards to report to our community and to also use as tools for internal reporting. And we will be establishing an external monitoring committee, something like our advisory task force, but larger. Um, and that monitoring committee, um, will probably have a selection process similar to our advisory task force will meet and give us feedback on the work. So implementation um, There is a lot left to do with that. Um, if we receive board approval, we begin immediately into the first part of implementation, which is um like an installation. Where we are doing a lot of organizing ourselves for implementation, we're looking at resources that sort of thing. It's on the next slide, um, but we do think a staggered implementation would be best for capacity in which we would stagger the implementation of the 26 benchmarks across 1 to 2 school years, um Perhaps a little bit more, but not much more. We want to make sure that we could have enough time to see that impact and that the implementation will be supported by infrastructure of project management um out of our innovation office and program evaluation. Out of our research evaluation and assessment department Here are some possibilities on what implementation might look like from August 2026 to April of 2027 we take August and September to do some final planning Um, this is what we would call sort of the installation Um, beginning, so we get terminology finalized, where it's like benchmark and monitoring and implementation and um you know terms around who's doing what. Um we finalize our metrics, our evaluation design. And we'd begin training of implementation and make sure we had implementation teams, identify folks, and we'd do that soft launch with leaders. And then September November, um, we're looking at a public launch with all sites and departments and you know going earnestly into our communications and our project plans and You know, just going full steam ahead with making sure that our implementation teams are developing implementation plans, bless you, that are rigorous as well as attainable. Um, and that we will be providing the support that our teams are needing to um get the work done. Uh, this is also the beginning of budget season, um, and so the dovetail will be very important as we think about how to repurpose, how to identify resources, how to repurpose resources, and get ready for the FY 28 budget cycle because, um. We are very clear that there are not additional resources, unlike previous years to implement SPPS 2033, so there will need to be a fair amount of um moving things around um, revisions in our organizations. So um then moving into January and April, uh, finalizing our implementation plans and. Um, I didn't mention this in September but beginning to explicitly state, um, in particular with regard to resources, what is being replaced, what is being sustained, how things are being reorganized and repurposed, um, and then collecting input, um and identifying our quick wins. And I will pass it over to Rebecca. Thank you. Um, in terms of communications just as this plan took many, many months to create it's also going to take time to communicate. This is a lot of information to absorb, and those of us in this room who have been living this and creating this all year, it is now ingrained for us. And we have to also understand that for many folks this is gonna be brand new information coming at a very busy time of year with school starting so we have that deliberately worked into the communication strategy which is a marathon not a sprint, um so we have started to share this information with our district leaders our principals, our department heads have all. Now had some time to sit with this and have had professional development the past several weeks that is incorporating this. They're starting to to learn and think about how is this gonna look at my school, what is going to need to change, what is my role in it. Um, the next layer will then be those leaders bringing this to their staff, and those will be the people that are crucial to implementing this. So we want to also make sure that those staff members have time to absorb and ask questions and think. about what this could look like as well, um, and then continuing from there then our families, how will this impact them and we know that it needs to be very practical and actionable for the families to start thinking about it. They might not Need to know the terminology, what the key topics are. They need to see that things are different and hopefully when we go back to them in a year or two and ask them the same questions that Doctor Stanley had during her 100 day report that we'll get different answers and that's how we will know that it is working Um, so this just highlights a few of the things coming up over the next couple weeks and months to get people to start to see the brand, know what it is, know the know the language, and so as we continue to share information, it will start to feel familiar and they'll recognize it as SPPS 2033. And thank you, and we're happy to take questions. Are there any questions or comments from board members, Director Henderson, I just have a question on the implementation piece. Um one, I think the, the implement implementation possibilities um. Are really helpful, but I think particularly if I am a community member and I'm looking through all of the different benchmarks, how will I be able to see which one is being maybe prioritized first, which one's already in use, and when are they coming up um, and then why? How do we decide? How do we, what's our, and maybe we already talked about this in here and I just missed it, but how do we come to that, that decision making? Through the chair, Director Henderson thank you for the question. Uh, so I think a community member would be able to um access how things are progressing as part of um. Our plans for public reporting. Um Once prioritize the benchmarks, you know what's in place, that's part of the installation, finding out where we are and what's in place with regard to the benchmarks. Um. And then Uh, being transparent about what we found and where we are, um, in terms of implementation as part of our regular communications. Um, and then as to your second question around how will the prioritization be made. Well, we've started, um, Looking at a couple of different scenarios and actually um tomorrow our senior executive leadership team has some workshop time um determined where we have some data, um. Some feedback from a leaders meeting and from our leadership advance, um. To go through a decision making process to begin to prioritize. And there's, excuse me, um honestly several criteria that we would have available to us in terms of how we would prioritize or what is already Um, there are some things that have been started to various degrees. There are some things that have taken hold. There are some things that need some time. Um, we have to consider our capacity to hold all 26 of these. In addition, um, where we are in terms of not only our organizational capacity, but our leader capacity to be able to hold, um, To sponsor the work and then to provide oversight and leadership for the work, the expertise. So there are several factors that will combine together to develop a recommendation for how we will prioritize and move forward, the benchmarks But I would add to that. So for instance, an example is our big goals. Our big goals are a priority. And so we have to use those big goals as we start to look at Um, which benchmarks are going to go first. So we have a big goal about student reading, about student you know, math performance. Well, if that's the case then we're going to have to start looking at those benchmarks around literacy. And we have, we have a big goal about restorative practices, which really is not necessarily about just restorative practices It really is about creating. That environment of belonging through dignity. And so knowing that we have that big goal, we'd have to look at those benchmarks related to that, so that those are um You know, being lifted up as priorities, because there are goals that are set for 2029, for instance. That's helpful. I think again, I know we've talked, um, both in these spaces and other spaces about layering, right? And how do we layer effectively and even looking at the benchmarks They often can't be Tackled as a single issue, they overlap and connect with other benchmarks. Um, I do and I know that we've historically done this and I think done a really good job of being able to tie our work back to our decision-making models and, and I imagine that's a lot of the work that comms will be doing as we talk about budgets, as we talk about different strategies, and, um, I think it's already on here, right? What is being replaced, what are we maintaining, where are we seeing opportunity to do more of something. Um, to look forward to tracking all of this, and I think it, it makes sense, and I think as transparent as we can be about the why and about Uh, the fact that this is not something that gets implemented overnight, it's a multi-year plan and we'll, we're gonna get to 2033, and there will still be work that's likely to need to be done. Um so I think that it makes it easier for all of us to go out and to talk about it if we all have that clarity Are there any other questions or comments from board members? George Franco. Well, nobody else is jumping up and I'm just gonna, um, well, You know, being a part of the strategic plan task force, I've had an opportunity to engage with this since the inception of, of the plan, and I know I've said this before but I really do appreciate and have, um, a ton of thanks to, to Doctor Graachea, Doctor Landro, and the folks that really pushed forward this work, um from an idea, really seeing it to where it is now I think, um. It is not easy work and as you all have mentioned and quantify the amount of time that staff have put into this, um, committee members have put into this, and our young people have put into this work, um, through student convenings and being a part of the panel, or not panel, the task force. I, I just really do mean it when I say, um, thank you for pushing this forward. When I came on the board, I was somebody who was like. Yeah, what's, what is our current strategic plan looking like? How are we implementing this and how are we, uh, moving forward even past, um, the strategic plan and remember having conversations with Doctor Stanley early on about like a refresh strategic plan and, um, and Doctor Stanley really just jumped right in and, and, and knows that our work as a district really needs to live within. Um, a document that guides us, um, in that, and I think for us to be able to transparently communicate our decisions to the community to Director Henderson's point, having this document um, is a step in that direction and so, um, deep gratitude to you all and task force members and everyone who's gotten us to this point. What I know is that this is also systems change work and um being in public sector and working in intersections with nonprofit work and and so many other things change management um systems change work particularly in a system of our impact and our um inception, um, not being designed as we know, um, to teach black and brown and indigenous young people those um. Things still reign true in our system, and for us to really be able to transform how young people experience learning in our district um, these are Like, Our ability to execute this plan Is going to be contingent on our ability to maintain and establish strong relationships, be able to work closely and acknowledge the truth of where we're at um, and be willing to be nimble and flexible in how we move the needle for our students being at the center Of of this work and I know that folks across our district are always working tirelessly to ensure that and I think this plan will really get us to a point of committing to that as a system and as Director Henderson also mentioned that none of these things can happen in a silo because what we know. About where this work typically breaks down is when folks have ownership independently and it's really not um a collaborative effort and as Director Henderson also mentioned that these strategies are really dependent on one another right? We know students are not gonna learn and be reaching their their full fullest potential if they don't have a sense of safety and belonging and that is always going to be true. And so, um, So with all of that said, I'm really grateful um for the team um, Doctor Stanley is, uh, will lead to ensure that this work um moves forward in a non-siloed way that is, um, uplifting all the things that we know, um to be, to be good for our kids and the, um, one other thing I wanted to mention, um, because this is something that I often think about and. Can be overly critical in some sense as well, um, but I have to keep remem reminding myself of something, and that is that this is a very high level plan, right? This isn't the granular plan that we will, we will see this show up in our work in different ways, but we also know that there's other strategies. That are supportive of student learning that we're not seeing directly in this plan right now, right? We know extracurriculars are critical to our ability to have a sense of belonging too, right That's not a benchmark named in this plan, but I also know that it's critical to our students' sense of belonging, right? Same with college and career readiness and the way that we move forward with some of those strategic initiatives. I know those will continue right? And for folks that may be tuning in for the first time tonight, I think it's important to just acknowledge, um, that as well. And then, um, lastly lastly, it's just like I think as a board member, um feel a lot of responsibility with this as well, right Like we are essentially the body that's approving this plan to say this is our strategy. For the next 7 years and um we've asked questions we've dug into this work we've heard from community members and I think like ultimately we will be the monitoring body of this work. I know that the day to day will live with the administration and we will as board members be expected to be engaged with that work, um, resource allocation and, um. And to continue being good stewards and partners in this work with the administration with the frontline workers, with the community members who we consistently hear from and um. And that's the work ahead of us and so again thank you all um for bringing this forward. I look forward to approving this today and um having uh a start off our 26, 27 school year with a new strategic plan. Right. Other questions or comments from board members? Cool. I'll just um say, and I'm not gonna be as um I'm losing the word, but like the word I was looking for was like good at speaking. Um, articulate. I'm not gonna be as articulate right now as I would normally be Oh my gosh, that's embarrassing, because like I am exhausted. I have a 5 month old at home, uh, and I'm I'm sleep deprived, but I just wanna say like, generally thank you all so much to everyone who, who worked on this. This is so exciting. Um, uh, Doctor Stanley fellow board members that that served on, on the committee everyone in the community that was involved, everyone on staff who was involved, um, it's, it's really exciting that we're about to approve a new strategic plan tonight uh, and I'm looking forward to, to seeing where this goes. And I would like one of those shirts. I keep seeing those shirts, and I don't know how to get one So at some point, I want one of those shirts. All right, any other uh questions or comments from board members? OK. Oh yeah, OK. All right. With that, I move the Board of Education to approve the SEPS 2033 strategic plan as presented. Is there a second? Second So Do you, do you really want to have it for the record Oh, OK, OK. All right, seconded by Vice Chair Valiant Comments or discussion? All right, vote please. Director Franco, yes, Director Valiant, Director Henderson yes, Director Ward, yes, Director Lowe, yes, and Director Alan, yes, motion passes unanimously. We have a strategic plan. All right. Um, would you all like a 5 or 10-minute break? I see, yes. Sure. Yeah, go ahead. OK, this is for all the parents out there watching just like me. I did get a call letting me know, reminding me to fill out my back to school paperwork online. Um so if you have not done that and you did get the call and you're like me and you might forget, here's another reminder, please do that. Thank you. All right, cool I'm gonna say let's take a 10. Y'all OK with that OK, 10-minute break, we'll reconvene at 6:50. Everyone is back on time. Next is. Next is informational agenda items beginning with the board initiated goals governance report and I'll turn it back over to Superintendent Stanley. Thank you very much, chair. OK. Um, As you know, we began the, uh, big reports, uh, last year and, um, we have a schedule of reports, and the first report that we begin, or the second report we begin to provide is about graduation rates. And so tonight um, senior executive officer Doctor Stacy Graachea um, and. Uh, Toya Pryor, senior executive officer of School Leadership and Operation, are here to provide that report. Chair ward, members of the board, Superintendent Stanley. We're starting our 26, 27. A big reporting calendar with the graduation results. Uh, and the purpose we'll be reporting on the progress of the big programmatic goal. The percentage of SPPS students who graduate in 4 years will increase from 68% in 2023 to 80% in 2029, returning to pre-pandemic levels for all student groups. The reporting parameters that we're using this evening are, um, the four-year graduation results for the measure. And the specific metric that we are using is the percentage of students in the graduating class of 2025 who graduated in 4 years A little more about the data. Before we look at the results, uh, the source of the data is the Minnesota Department of Education. Um, graduation rates that are released are based on the ninth grade cohorts so the class of 2025, which are the results that we're looking at this evening, started ninth grade in the fall of 2021. Uh, summer graduation is combined with previous spring results. We usually have a number of students who graduate in the summer, and the asterisk is, um, indicating one year, which was, um, the class of 2023 results. The summer graduation was not combined with the previous spring's results due to an error with the Minnesota Department of Education, but other than that, our summer graduations combined with our previous spring results, our care and treatment programs we have 5 of them, um, their results are excluded from results, um, they're not reported in, um, this data. And then, um, along with the metric that we're using, which is our 4 year graduation rate, um, MDE does also include other data related to graduation such as the percentage of students continuing, the percentage of students that have dropped out of that cohort, um, the percentage of enrollments that are unknown of 5 year graduation, 6 year, and 7 year graduation And I will now pass to my colleague. Thank you. So moving into the results section, this graph shows the trend line from 2019 to 2025, and as you can see there was a dip to 68.5% during the pandemic years with the class of 2023, but we started trending. Upwards with 76.5% of the with the class of 2024 graduating in 4 years, and now at 78% with the class of 2025 which puts us at just 2% shy, 2% points shy of the 80% goal. Moving on to the next slide. As you can see, every student group increased the four-year graduation rate from the class of 2024. Notable percentages were with American Indian students. They jumped 14 points Asian students were up 3 points. Black students as well as white students were each up 2 points. English language learners, students receiving special education services, as well as students qualifying for free and reduced price meals, were each up 1 point. A few more data points worth highlighting. Compared to 2020 American Indian, Asian, special education, or two or more races have made gains in four-year graduation 11% of students continued their education past the traditional four years, which is down 2% points compared to 2024, and those students may graduate in 56, or seven years. Also, the percentage of students dropping out is 6%. That is the same as 2024. The percentage of students whose enrollment is unknown is 6%. And students with unknown status ticked up 11 point. The next slide, what's behind the gains? Fair and equitable grading practice that improve passing rates while maintaining academic standards. Continued investment in the 9th grade academic support courses at our high school, and daily advisory, which is designed to increase student engagement, build positive relationships with and among students through social-emotional learning college and career readiness, and academic support And finally, Credit credit recovery options, which include after school, online, as well as summer learning So students have multiple pathways to catch up. Additional interest in graduation rates, um, we point you to our dashboard. Uh, which is the link and the visual that you see here, um, this is our public facing dashboard in which you're able to explore graduation, um, data from the class of 2019 to the class of 2025, including um, continuation rates, dropout rates, um, 456, and seven year graduation rates. You're also able to disaggregate by school and student group. And with that, we're happy to take questions. All right. Questions or comments from board members. Hi, Director Low, this is a comment So I'd just like to thank you for the presentation This is so hopeful and also helpful to see this. Um you know, we are never OK with any student not graduating our system, but to see this, you know, jump up to 78% is, is very powerful. I look forward to when the 2026 graduates come out, um, to see maybe that 80% goal met already. I appreciate your listing of the impacts and what you believe have um have led to this significant jump in grad rates, and I'd just like to point out that at the root of all of these is a relationship with students. You know, when we look at fair and equitable grading practices, you're building in positive relationships between staff and students 9th grade, um, academic support. Support advisories credit recoveries, all of these things are based and founded in positive relationships with students. So my comment is to say that um we are so proud and so thankful of the work of our secondary sites and just encourage them to keep, keep building those relationships keep investing in students in the same way so that we can see these rates continue to improve. Thank you. Right. Other questions or comments from board members? Yeah, Director Franco, uh, thank you for providing this big update. I did, you know, I was just jumping in on the data dashboard as we, as we sit here. I noticed, um, in the presentation that we didn't acknowledge. Uh, Latino or Hispanic students and I was like making assumptions up here, um, around why I went back to the slide and I was like these are the groups that made improvements right so I was like because that is. What the slide says, I automatically assumed that Latino students. didn't make any improvements right? Like that was the assumption that I made. And so then I went to the data dashboard and was like Where are we at? So one thing that I am curious about as we continue to kind of dissect this data and make action plans moving forward to really support one thing that I wanted to call attention to was a 7% decline in graduation rates for state identified Hispanic students going from 66.4% to 59.8%. In 2025. And so um, Highly concerning, right, of the large categories this is a group that have made the. Biggest regression in that sense and um knowing environmental factors that continue to impact that like our metro surge operation of ICE uh agents on our streets really terrorizing everyone right including our Latino community. I just wanted to acknowledge it just because it wasn't in the in the slides and I'm curious like what. Do we do with this data now and um how do we take this data um and actualize it into improvements across each board, each of these other categories because we are making improvements in the other demographic groups and so I guess like what do we do with this data? How do we pull all groups up and plan for environmental factors that we know will continue to per uh persist One of the um. One of the areas that I want to talk about, and I, I don't believe that our Latino students are, are just not graduating because of a sense of belonging, and I want to be clear about that. It takes a lot more than the sense of belonging to. To prevent a child or for a child not to graduate. And I want to talk about a process that we're learning. Um, through the belonging through dignity model. And it speaks to what. Somewhat what you're saying, Director Franco How do we take the successes that we're seeing? And ensure that we can start to apply them across all student groups. So for instance, you know the end for our indigenous students may not be tremendous but it's great that it went up 14%. But if we're seeing that for our Asian and Arab black students, right maybe close to a similar end. How do we find out what's happening? Within those groups. This is training that we went through on July 29th and 30th. Um, how do we find out what's happening? By interviewing students by talking with teachers, by working with administrators um, to get down. To the fine point of how we're increasing graduation rates for other students and then apply those same things with our Latino community and so um that is the work that we're doing that is we're starting that with our um continuous school improvement plans, um, things like that so that we can have successes across all student groups and I just want to say, um I apologize that I missed that because that should have been reported publicly as well. We need to make sure that the community sees all data regardless of it, and that won't happen again. Other questions or comments for board members? All. Could we go back to that slide that we were that that showed all the data? Right there, that's the one. So I really appreciate the American Indian students um going up 14% and then what I noticed is that uh the black students and the white students both went up too, right? Um, We have English language learners that are separated out, but one of the things that I can say and I think in attacking a lot of disparities in systems is that often when you can have a targeted approach on a particular group of folks, you can find the um the methods that work and um we've had some consent decrees for our Native American students for quite a time. And I know that we've tried a lot of different targeted approaches and we continue to try and I'm not saying that this approach, it definitely made things better, but we're probably not where we wanna be overall, right? But we're seeing some increase with this targeted approach and I guess this is the conversation that I keep trying to bring forward around um our African descendants of slavery students, our ADO students specifically that have been um impacted by Um, the system of Uh the systems of public schools and the lack of, uh targeted approaches for their learning and so I guess I just, when I look at like, I'm think we keep talking about this but um I really think that it is really necessary if we wanna look at Um, real, real achievement for our African descendants, um, students, we're gonna have to do a targeted approach on That particular group of folks and so, um, this looks like it was a blanket approach, so everybody rose, right? But we know that if we look at the disparities in those two groups that they're tremendously different and we need to be equitable so that we can make sure that uh that all of our students are achieving at a high level. And so I'm kind of tiptoeing around black and African descendants of slavery and all of these different terms because we kind of got stuck on that in our committee of the board conversation. Um, but I do in kind of having conversations with other educators and community, know that there's one thing that is consistent and it's the fact that um people that have been from African descent in this country for over 100 years have been subjected to ongoing Um, trauma connected to literacy, right? When we go all the way back to the way that they treated folks 200 years ago that were black and brown around literacy and that trauma and how it was connected and then over time Um, even when we go back to Brown versus the Board of Education and we lost thousands of black teachers and what was happening before that point when we were getting lesser than education, right And so there's been generation after generation of generation of oppression within a certain group and we have to be able to um target that particular issue That particular psychological oppression that has happened over all of those years so that we can undo that. and get to a point where we're ready to um move our move our population forward. And so, I just I wanted to point that out because I feel like this is something I've kind of been trying to juggle with since I've been on the board is how do we start to target in on this particular group of students um when the state is grouping everybody underneath, African American. Which, you know, everybody is struggling but they're struggling for different reasons and we need targeted approaches for every individual group and so this data really shows that when you do that it works. Other questions or comments from board members Director Franco. Yeah, only because I love this data dashboard so much. I started looking at, I, I mean that for real. Like I actually really appreciate this data dashboard, um, and use it often. Um, so shout out to the folks that maintain it and I encourage everyone else to use it too. Um, but one of the things that I'm also now noticing based on graduation rates and trends from our, uh, so our American Indian students went from 47% to 61.1% last year, right? And that was after no kind of like pandemic era growth that we've seen across a lot of other student groups from like the 23 to 24 graduating class and so. So seeing this level and what I will also say is like the kind of pandemic era growth from 23 to 24 for Latino students was a plus uh 13%, right? And we know that there's a lot of factors that play in environmental factors that play into that I guess African American students going back up to pre-pandemic kind of graduation rates um, and making improvements again I guess my question And it maybe just re-emphasizing maybe what was already brought up, but that like looking at what really contributed that growth and then trying to mitigate, uh, like I know sometimes it's easy for us to then. Um, maybe reallocate resources or pivot our strategy, looking at this kind of global strategy of how we implement this. But like, I, this has made me really curious about how to like maintain that upward trajectory for our American Indian students, which we like are like that's a huge um improvement and Um, so, but maintaining it so that we don't necessarily see it drop 7 points in the next year knowing and planning for possible environmental factors and how important those things are anyway, maybe that was more of just like a, a noticing from the data that I wanted to make, um, kind of in conjunction with my last point but um. I don't know, it's interesting, and I guess anytime I can shout this data dashboard out, I will So thank you. Other questions or comments from board members? I, you wanna go ahead? OK, I, OK, Busterbellion Um, thank you. I just wanted to remind my. Colleague here that we do have a big goal specifically geared at addressing exactly what she was talking about and we have every intention for all of our community members out there of um being very intentional about um increasing success for our black African American. Um, African American descendants of slaves, FBI, whatever you prefer out of our children, we have every intention of making sure that um we do what we need to do to get our children where they need to be. I just wanted to Bring that back up because we definitely do have a big goal specifically around that. And that is where we are started. a lot of time. Yeah, so That's it Other questions or comments from board members? Um I had a, uh, a question. One thing I'm, I'm a little curious about is, one, very exciting whenever we see the uh the graduation going, uh, going up. I'm really glad to see that we're making progress there. How closely does our trend match what we're seeing in other districts statewide? Are we following along sort of like a broader trend? Are we cutting against it? Um, what are we seeing? Uh, in terms of like our our graduation rate trend compared to other districts Through Chair Ward, I, I cannot answer that right now, but I can look and give you a response. Cool That'd be great. No rush on that. OK. Cool. Any other oh yeah, um, director, uh, Alan. I'm interested in that too, and can you, can you, um, like look at like just districts and then also districts that were hit by Operation Metro surge too, like Chicago, Portland DC, those districts too, LA so we can see the impacts of those compared to ones that weren't. Oh, yeah, Director Low, because I think that will show up when we look at next year's grad rates when they are released, since this is a lagging indicator, I believe if I remember correctly, that the state average ticked up by 1% point and so we are making, you know, quicker growth than the state average, um, you know, over for this particular graduate. Actually, that brings up another question for me. Like, we know that the graduation rate is a, is a lagging indicator and We know that Federal operations have uh have taken people from our community. How does that affect our graduation rate shows up? So, like, for example, if, if someone is an SPPF student. For uh in high school for 3 years they decide it's not safe here anymore and they leave Does that change the graduation rate that appears whenever we're, we're measuring it in that year? Chair ward. Yes, in short, yes. What happens is they take the 9th grade class of the fall. So, um, and then they Count how many of them are graduating 4 years later. So depending on what happens with the student if they leave the state and they are enrolled in another district somewhere else or they graduate somewhere else, then they are taken out of the 9th grade cohort But if they are They just leave And we don't know um. In our system, there's an enrollment um note that is attached to the record. So if if Stacy is enrolled and I am I am in 12th grade, I enroll at the beginning of the year in St. Paul Public schools, and sometime during that year I disappear and I don't show up anywhere else in the state. My enrollment record. Does not get changed. If I don't graduate anywhere in Minnesota my enrollment record is not changed. And if I don't say I'm dropping out or there's no indication, then my enrollment my record is marked as unknown, um, and that would impact our graduation rate in high numbers So the extent to which Um, you know, who the students are that might be shifting around, um, it could impact our 78%, um, it could not impact our 78%, it could um, impact our 5 year graduation rate. Um, it's If if the students that were impacted were 12th graders then it could impact our graduation rate. If the students that were impacted um are in middle school or in elementary school, we wouldn't necessarily see it in our graduation rate. I think we just have to stay tuned and um when we get the results, which would be in late fall, early Um, winter, do some digging to determine what's underneath those numbers. Right. And, and for students that let's say were in, in 9th grade during Operation Metro Surge Uh, and then. Disappeared, were taken, moved away didn't enroll anywhere else, that then would be counted against graduation rates several years out. So I guess what I'm, what I'm trying to get at, is that right Yes, through the chair, yeah, so just, uh, I guess what I'm trying to get at is this is something I think that we need to, that we, we'll need to be clear eyed about. There's a, you know, a very real chance that we are making progress for students while also not seeing the graduation rate number go up, um, because of this. Um, and I think what we're really trying to discover here is how are we serving our students um, so I don't have an answer there, just saying like that's something that we're gonna have to probably keep talking about for the next several years as we continue to evaluate this goal. Any other questions or comments from board members? Did you. I was pointing at Doctor Steve. Oh yeah. Oh, I didn't see your, yeah go ahead. It's OK. Uh, to, to Dr. Greece's point, um that may be something. Well, will be something that we need to analyze more deeply and perhaps bring you some additional information that we typically would not have included in BI to provide the greater understanding for the board and for the greater community for our graduating class of 2026. Thank you. Uh, any other questions or comments? All right, um. Seeing none thank you so much and we're gonna move on to our next agenda item. Uh, and next is the 2026, 20207 school readiness report, and I'll turn it right back over to Doctor Stanley. Thank you, Chair. So as I mentioned a lot has been going on behind the scenes to get ready for the 2026, 2027 school year. Uh, there are many people who are involved in providing an update, and uh senior executive officer Jackie Turner is our point person. She's going to come up and take lead. Um, and you will hear from several of our senior executive officers and members of their team related to the report this evening. Good evening, um, Doctor Stanley Chair ward members of the board, as Doctor Stanley stated, um, this is a collaborative presentation, um from all of us that shows our, our, um, work together and so joining us this evening, we, um, will, um, start off with. Schools and academics, uh, will report and that's going to be a shared report among um senior Officer Pryor and Yanowski to talk about what's happening in those areas and then we're going to lead on to move on to human resources where. Director Brenda Nielsen and director of talent acquisition Don Ransom will also I'm sorry, um, Brenda is the director of talent acquisition and Don, um, Ransom is also joining us from, um, Human Resources Department in educational Programming. And uh we also have Doctor Sarah Smith Deer Carranza that's going to help, uh, have some discussion around ELL and the work there and around enrollment. We know that that was a concern of the board, a question of the board, so we're prepared to share some of that information this evening. And I believe um we will go ahead and start with the academics Discussion. Thank you. So, some of the updates from schools and academics is the professional learning that started about 3 weeks ago. It was, it has been very engaging. The energy is palpable. It's nothing like seeing adults just sitting in pure joy and excited to open doors for students on day one. We started with Leadership Advance, which was hosted by Doctor Stanley, where she set the tone and grounded us in our work for the 26, 27 school year. We leaned into the pre-launch of the strategic plan, and you heard a lot about that earlier as you voted to pass. We had very lengthy, in-depth conversations of collective efficacy, and what that means, and the fact that it takes all of us to lift the strategic plan over an extended period of time, to really see that growth for each and every student that we support within the system. And so, that catapulted Leadership Academy and Leadership Academy was for principals and for APs. And part of Leadership Academy was in-person learning, and then also virtual learning, which we leaned on various departments within the organization and the beauty of that was, everything was aligned to what's in the strategic plan. Everything was aligned to belonging through dignity. So regardless if you heard from EEO, if you heard from Human Resources if you heard from health and wellness, there was a deliberate and very intentional connections to the work of the strategic plan and belonging through dignity not just for our students, but for adults as well and how we interact with each other. And so, A lot of what we talked about is how we're doing our best work for students. A big part of that at the building level is what's called the SCIP, that's the school continuous Improvement Plan. There are 3 components of that, that is reading, math, climate, and culture So we Talked about how do we really dig down and get to the crux of some of the issues that some of our student groups are experiencing. And that's where we really get into desegregating data. That's how they create those goals within the SCP that we monitor throughout the entire school year. And so that is It is ongoing work. That is, when you see things working you continue. If they're not working, then you pivot and you talk about what's going well, and you talk about what's not going well, we don't wait till the end of the school year to make changes when something is not going well, we make those changes quickly and immediately so that we are able to be proactive in supporting the needs of students. Another thing from schools and academics is our opening week. There were 71 opportunities for teachers and staff to engage either in person or virtually in professional development which is 71 is an amazing amount of opportunities to grow, to learn, and to work together. Can you switch to the next one. OK, perfect. Some of our new and expanded programming that we're very excited about is 3DE, that is continued to expand to 10th grade at Harding, and 11th grade at Como and Washington Bruce Vento, they have a new playground. Obama Middle School is adding 7th grade. East African Magnet is expanding to 8th grade. Wellstone Elementary is adding 2nd grade to their Korean Culture and Language program and then Benjamin Emei's Afrocentric magnet is launching a new pre-K through 5th grade program. Good evening I want to share a few students and staff facing updates around technology. Uh, they fit into those three buckets there around digital content, AI and Google, and cybersecurity Um, one of the things that we have done for this fall is we have, um, blocked on all elementary iPads, um access to YouTube. Uh, that was something that we tried this summer with our summer school, and we decided that, um, in consultation with elementary principals and assistant superintendents that that's something that we wanted to go ahead and do for the fall. Teachers can still. Show um approved videos that are on YouTube to students. They still have access. They're also still able to embed that into school, uh, but students will not have access on their iPads. Um, we will be reviewing access for secondary in consultation with the middle school and high school principals and leaders at. Um, through Leadership Academy this fall, so we'll have more to share, um, in relation to the big goal um, on iPads later with you on that. The other thing one of the other things we've done around, um, the digital content is we have been reviewing all apps that are in self-service and making sure that they are aligned to curriculum, and if they are not, we have removed them. Uh, the second bucket, um, centers around AI and Google, our Google suite. One of the things that we have done is disabled email, um, for grades pre-K through 3 completely and then in grades 4 through 12, we've limited the uh the recipients to 35. So email blasts are contained to class size Um, some popular, the, all the popular AI websites have been blocked, um, for the past year anyway, so students have not been able to go to those, uh, typical AI websites. Um, however, uh, AI, um, Google Gemini um, is, has been blocked for pre-K through 8 students Our 9th through 12th graders do have access and are being taught how to use AI safely, um, in their classes and around cybersecurity, which we'll get to in a minute. The other, um, something recently that we've um, been adding to, um, some of the work we've been doing this summer is, um, those Google search AI results who that come up automatically. Um, our tech department has been working diligently, um, with our internet um, with Safari, I believe, to, um, figure out how to actually disable those as well. So that's something that at the beginning of the summer, I don't know that we would have been able to say that we were trying to do and, um, now it looks like we are, um, having some success with that. So that's, um, that's exciting and more to come on that. And then finally, our cybersecurity focus, uh, we do have additional iPad security and restrictions enabled on student iPads. We have, um digital citizenship and cybersecurity mini lessons for all grades that all students will receive. Uh we are putting together, um, lists of objective and content for that so that, um, we can share that with with everyone. And then, um, we do have our securely app for managing student iPads at home. In addition um, we have been creating some, um, additional family tech resources that, uh, buildings will be sharing with families and, um, families will be receiving all of the information about, um, the things I've just shared with you, but also, um, tips for how to monitor student, um. Like looking at securely and how to monitor their student access and their student um content um at home as well and making sure that families feel that we are partnering with them in ensuring that um we are responding to any staff um and family feedback about concerns about screen time Or socio-emotional effects of technology. So, um, more to come on this. Um, it's been something that has been evolving all summer and um we're excited to roll out. Uh, principals actually heard, um, a lot of the updates today. Teachers will receive them in opening week and then, um, early September communications to families, um, will go out. And I am going to pitch it over to HR. Uh, thank you. Good evening. Um, I'd like to, um, share with you an update on our hiring efforts and our current staffing status for the upcoming school year. Um, human resources in partnership with our school leadership remains committed to minimizing vacancies and ensuring our schools are fully staffed as we begin the school year. As you can see here, we started the 25, 26 hiring season with 111 licensed educator vacancies. Um, to date, we have filled 83 of those positions with the remaining 28 yet to be filled. Um, there's also a comparison there. Last year at this exact date, we were at 81 vacancies. So very excited about the progress that we're making within our licensed educators. Um, our next piece there. Is our educational assistants. You'll see we started, um, our hiring season with 39 vacancies. We have filled 23 of them with the remaining 16 to date to be filled in comparison to 24 from last year at this time. Our teaching assistant vacancies currently stands at 34, um, a significant improvement from the 1, 18 vacancies that we had to date, um, last year at this point. And with our ASM group, um, at our school site specifically, we have 5 remaining vacancies within those, um, positions. Um, we have made, um these results are really encouraging to us and we've made tremendous, um, strides, but we recognize that there is still important work to be done around hiring And our team will continue to focus on our efforts um, in the upcoming weeks to, uh, meet our goal of fulfilling all of our vacancies for the 25 or 26, 27 school year. And with that, I'll turn it over to my colleague. All right, thank you, um, coming from a teaching background at the beginning of the school year is always really exciting and it still is, um only now, um, I only, I not only think about welcoming students back, I think about welcoming educators back so I get to share a little bit of information, um About how we are ready to do that this school year so our new educator week, uh, will be happening next week already, um, August 24th through the 27th through the 27th, and we're preparing to welcome, um, about 150 new licensed educators to the district, and that includes about 20, if you're doing the math, about 20 new educators that we hired and uh later in the um, second half of the year last year. Um, and so as Brenda was sharing, that number is down from recent years when we have typically welcomed about 200 to 250 new licensed educators during new Educator Week Um, so we're looking forward to that next week here already and then during opening week we, um, partner with the, um, Saint Paul Federation of Educators to welcome EAs and offer uh differentiated professional development for them, and that's coming up September 1st. The Tuesday of opening week and we're really excited to have Doctor Stanley and Director Franco welcome EAS um on that date September 1st and then also our Office of Specialized Services is facilitating professional development for new TAs and EAs and doing some on boarding with them, uh, that's coming up during opening week August 31st through the 3rd. Um, also very, very excited to think about school starting and our SPPS urban teacher residency programs with an S, our tutor programs, um, so we have our undergraduate program with 8 residents that started their coursework in June and they'll be coming back to the school year We have 5. PAs and 3 EAs that will continue working in Saint Paul Public schools while they're doing their coursework um to earn their undergraduate degree and teaching license in special education and then we have um our pseudor graduate program we have 15 residents there um who are set to begin their yearlong residency and matched up with mentors and. Um, it's always a very exciting time when they get into the classroom with their students, and then finally, uh, we have our mentor mentee program that is a district-wide mentoring program again for licensed educators and so we're already in the process, um, of connecting with principals and supervisors to make sure that we have all of our new licensed educators, um, that aren't participating in par year one that we have them matched up with a mentor for the year. Um, and I will turn it over to to talk about EL staffing. Thank you. So before we go into the staffing numbers, we wanted to take the opportunity to um give you some relevant information around the data that you're going to see, um, and you're going to see some data that um displays enrollment for um EL students as well as average daily membership. And so we wanted to take the opportunity because we have not. Um Traditionally um, provided average daily membership, um, results but because this is related to staffing, we thought that it would be quite relevant to provide average daily membership because that is closer to the resources that we receive from enrollment that directly relates to staffing. So you're going to see enrollment enrollment um is. Very familiar to us, it's the number of students who are enrolled in our district in a given day and and we generally will provide October 1 enrollment which is our um official enrollment, um, and so you'll see enrollment October 1 enrollment, you'll also see projected enrollment. Than the average daily membership which is the average of the number of students enrolled each day throughout the entire school year, which is roughly 175 instructional days. A daily membership is calculated at the end of the year, the school year while our, um, October when enrollment is calculated at the beginning. And in general, our official October 1 count is typically higher than the year-end ADM and that is the average daily membership. Um, Uh, we usually are around 98% average daily membership, but there is some data that we're going to show you that um, will probably be a little bit lower than that but it directly will relate to our staffing information So the first chart you're looking at here is the enrollment October 1st enrollment of our students learning English as a second language, our EL learners. From 1920, um and then to the projected number for 26, 27, these numbers are produced by our research evaluation and assessment office, and you can just see that gradual decline, um. From 1920 to 1926, 1927, I think um over the seven years, um, roughly 1700 English language learners. Now when we look at the same information but we look at it through the lens of average daily membership, which is um calculated at the end of the year, it's usually lower than our October 1, you see um pretty much the same trend, but you'll notice that while um the 1920 number we started with um 10,275 when we get to the average daily membership. Um, we are at, um, 8,8,672 for, um, 2019, and so the numbers are lower, um, they are generally lower. Than the October 1 enrollment, and as we look at this chart what I'd like to point out to you is the um sort of you can see two patterns in this data. The first one is from 2019 to 2022, and that those bars are roughly in the mid to low 80s, um, percentage wise of the October 1 enrollment, so. What that means is that our EL average daily membership is around 80% of our October 1 enrollment for the years from 2019 to 2022 and with the exception of 2021, which is our pandemic year, but um, even that is 79%, so we're looking at low 80s, um, in terms of percentage wise of our October 1 enrollment. If you look at 2023 to 2026. What you're gonna see is that the the numbers are lower and the percentages are lower. So when, when we look at the right, if we're looking at this, the right side, um we're looking at numbers that are in the 70s. So with the exception of 2025, which is 81% of the October 1, these numbers are in the high seventies, um, so what we're seeing is we're going from 80% of our October 1 enrollment. Which has declined over the past years from 2019 to 70% of our October 1 enrollment for our English language learners, um, ending with, um, approximately 78% average daily membership of EL learners and again the reason that we're providing this, um, to you is that this is directly related to, um, staffing, and I will, um, turn it over to Doctor. The Carranza. Thank you. Um, the reason that, uh, we wanted to, um, set the stage with the picture of how enrollment has been looking in Saint Paul schools is because we use a weighted ratio for staffing EL teachers at the sites So, um, the weighted ratio comes into play. Students at WA level 1, Level 1 would be the, um, newest to learning English. Level 4 would be advanced. So, a a student who scores at a level 1 proficiency, their weight, um, when we calculate the, um, like weighted ratio would count as double. A student scoring at level 2 would, um, be weighted at 1.5. And students at levels 3 and 4 would each be weighted at level 1, and the rationale behind that is that students who are newer to English require more English language development support than students who are advanced They all require support, but more, you know, and then giving them that just right level of support Um, now, the information that Doctor Gray Achea had had, uh, Discussed just now, um, this is going to show up here. Not only in the decline in enrollment but um starting in January 2025, um, The president halted US refugee admission. Um, Minnesota receives a much higher proportion of its newcomer refugee, uh newcomer immigrants as refugees than most other places Um, so, Not only are we not seeing many new arrivals come, then that also has a double impact on how buildings are staffed because they count as twice um the weight for uh staffing purposes. Um, you know, another, uh number I can share with you to help illustrate this is, um, there is a designation called recently arrived English learner Real, um, and a Real is a student who has been in US schools one year or less. In the 2324 school year, we had 452 Reels enrolled in Saint Paul schools, 2425, 352, 25, 26, 13. OK, so, um, the amount of newcomers we're getting is, uh, I don't even know the right word. It has been um. Significantly impacted by um very restrictive policies around immigration Um, and, and that's kind of the nature of our English learner enrollment is, uh, our English learner enrollment will be impacted by things in political climate that may not necessarily impact other groups of people um, that enroll in our schools. Um, so, thinking at how a weighted ratio might look at your school and how does that come into, um, into play, um, looking here, we just have an example school here. I made up these numbers. This is not anything from a real school, so don't feel like you have to try to figure out who it could be. Um, so, uh, a school who has 16 level one students, 12 level two students, 22 level three, Uh, 8 level 4 and 1 student with no level. So a student with no level could be a student that did not complete the WEA access test the prior year, you know, maybe they completed part of it, but then got the stomach flu and were not able to complete the rest of it before the, uh, window concluded. Um, so that would be counted as a student, how we, you know have worked with our, uh, partners at SPFE with that is that students with no level, we just count them as the, the one. So, you know, uh, incorporating the multiplier, adding up all of the column for weighted count, that gives me a total of 115. I divide that by 52, which gives me 2.2. So, the school for this example would then, um, for this fall have been allocated uh, an, an EL teacher allocation of 2.2. Um So I think here it's also important to um Uh, keep in mind that our English learner services are meant to supplement not supplant, um, our general education, uh, tier one services that are offered through, uh, classroom and content area classes. So, the EL teacher definitely provides critically important services, but the, there is no student in Saint Paul schools who is with an EL teacher all day long every day. Um, that's, you know, the services are meant to provide additional support, not to take the place of what would be happening for, um, a native English speaking peer, um, who is also in that same grade. Um, as we look to actions we've taken so far for staffing for this upcoming school year, um, during the interview and select period uh, 15 teachers were hired into full-time positions that were only at one school. We filled 19 split positions There are no teachers that are split between more than 2 schools. Everyone who is split has only 2 schools And there was one position at one of our sites that we did split 3 ways to accommodate the FTE needs for current teachers who needed, um, different proportions of that FTE to be full-time. Um, looking at historically how we have done EL teacher splits, um, we started using splits more often starting in the 2021 school year. That was the first school year after we, um entered into the agreement regarding the weighted ratio of 52 to 1 for staffing purposes. Um, so, you can see that there over time, um, starting in 2021 we had 18. Um, you know, and each year it ebbs and flows a little bit in accordance with enrollment and where students are coming and if you have, you know maybe a larger concentration of newcomers coming and they need additional supports there. Um, in 2025, 20206 there were 19 splits, and in 206-2027, there will be 26. Um, and these matches were driven by the teacher preference during the interview and select process and placement. So, um, let's say a teacher had a 0.4 that they knew they were going to have for next year They had the ability during interview and select to apply for any of the 0.6 positions that they wanted um, to combine those for a full-time position. And where we are today, um, as of August 11th, and that was the day that I prepared the presentation because it's the due date, uh, for the, you know, pre preceding the board meeting. So as of August 11th, we had one remaining split position to fill. Um, it's a combination of a 0.4 and 0.6 at Benjamin E. May's Afrocentric Program and Farnsworth Lower. Um, and we have one Latino consent decree position remaining also at Farnsworth Lower. Um, I am working with uh some local universities like the University of Minnesota for, um, you know reaching out to potentially interested candidates who may be interested in these positions, and we do have interviews scheduled for later this week. Um another topic that we discussed at a committee of the board meeting was, um, meetings that I have been having with, uh, the school teams in order to make sure that everyone is set up for success to the extent possible, um, with these new, um, proportions of allocation So again, as of August 11th, I had completed 17 meetings with the EL teacher and their two principals, um, for upcoming, I mean, as of right now, we can change that to 18 and 3. I just had another one yesterday. Um and we did one asynchronously via email because that was the preference of the teacher. Um, I also made sure that each teacher had the opportunity to submit for 30 minutes of supplemental pay for those teachers that met, um, off their contract time. There were a few that were able to meet the last teacher duty day, so that was counted as part of their duty days but for teachers that met outside of that, they did receive supplemental pay and discussions, um, That occurred in these meetings included scheduling considerations including some of the contractual pieces regarding um co-teaching partnership maximums and um the different maximums of different kinds of subjects that could be taught at the secondary level, logistics such as times of day, uh, that teachers may have their lunch or their PLC or their, uh, prep time. Um, expectations for meetings such as PLCs and conferences and contact person for emergencies. So if they are, um, have a sick child, you know, who would be the best person to contact at each site, uh, to ensure that both sites are aware that the teacher will be absent that day Um You know, we also did discuss, you know, different um, configurations of what those, uh, schedules could look like. I have not directed any school, uh, to say that you must schedule people in this manner. I have provided examples of what, um, buildings have chosen to do with their, uh, allocated FTE time, um and, you know, encourage buildings to look at what are the needs of the students. And what are ways to meet those needs in ways that are doable for the teacher that also honor and adhere to contractual obligations Um, and finally, uh, looking to this fall, um, every fall, based on the October 1st counts, we do engage in, um, what's called fall adjustments. If there are buildings that are, um, out of, out of whack, essentially with, uh, where they need to be with the, um, the weighted ratios. So, you know, the goal here with the fall adjustments is to, um, maintain those ratios of 52 to 1. Um, and if adjustments were to be necessary if there is a building that is, um, has a higher ratio than was anticipated, um, I would work with buildings to reallocate someone at a building that was maybe lower than, than anticipated. Um, and if those adjustments uh, are necessary, I would work with building leaders and teachers, um, you know, being informed shortly after the October 1st counts, and any changes would then happen, um, to coincide with the beginning of quarter two. from my perspective, that is really the only way to make, um, this process the least disruptive possible is that it would coincide with a marking period. Um, thank you. At this time, I would like to turn it over to SEO Turner, uh, regarding operations Thank you. And, um, directors, thank you for your patience as we, this is the last area of section and and so, um. We will take questions after the operational errors of the presentation. Just to um highlight, um some of the other departments and supports that help um prepare and get schools ready for the fall, I'd like to acknowledge some of the things going on in the community education department. That, um, one of the notable things is that we are starting a new program at, um, Johnston High School, Farnsworth Upper and Lower. We received a 21st century learning grant and we're happy that we're able to start a new program in there. This will be the first time that we'll be using, uh, 21st Century Learning grant at high school So we're looking forward to what that might, um, help with the ads. In addition, I'd like to, um, continue to know that we are continuing to enroll and accept students in the Nature Pre-K program. As you know that is a fee-based, uh, pre-K program that we started a couple of years ago and it's continuing to enrollment in our AM classes is doing really well, holding strong and we have a few openings in the afternoon program but we have increased that capacity, so we anticipate that we will fill that over the year. And then, um Also excited to note that Discovery Club, as you might remember, they took quite a bit of a dip around the COVID time and it took us a while to kind of catch up. However, we are up, while just a few, it's 32 students. Um, Discovery Club continues to be a program of choice for parents for after school childcare. And I'll ask um Senior Officer Wacker to share what's happening in communications and in outreach. Hello um, as vice chair, Valiant Shared back to school communications have begun, um, robocalls, emails, everybody is receiving back to school newsletters from their schools which might come in the form of an email, in some cases a physical letter in the mail. Um, reminders about back to school forms, about the application for educational benefits, about back to school nights, school supply lists, all of that, now is the time, um, to get excited for coming back to school. Um, the communications office is also conducting trainings with our principals and with our support staff around the different communication tools and best practices that we've. Um, provide and follow as a district and a couple of highlights this year that will be very important for everybody is our new language access plan which this board approved um over the summer and is a statewide requirement for ensuring that families all have access to. Information in the language that they speak and or if they have any other accommodation needs, as well as digital accessibility, which is a new federal mandate coming in the spring around any content that will be online needs to be accessible for all users. Um, the back to school forms, there was a soft deadline of last Friday for transportation, so transportation can start doing their routing. Um, as of that date, over 13,500 students had their forms completed. And again perhaps to our family engagement office who um stood up for help sessions for families to help them fill out those forms which are available in all of our primary languages um to come in person and get support filling out those forms and we had almost 1500 people come to one of those four dates so um there's still time to fill them out if you have not already. As you may recall directors that um that we've created a school readiness tracker. This actually will go live on Monday. What this is, is a picture of an actual spreadsheet that um Facilities uses to communicate with all schools and the purpose of this school readiness tracker is really to determine what individual schools need regarding um facilities, regarding custodial services, enrollment um, if anything is needed in support of transportation um, human resources, so they. Basically report every day what's happening in their schools. So red means that that is a critical item that needs attention right away. So the various departments will respond to that, take that request and respond to it immediately If something's agreeing, that means that we're good to go, um, as far as that school is concerned, and there's no need or follow up with that. And so this is a tracker that is. Input regularly, um, and checked daily. And we do this starting on Monday all the way up until throughout the first week of school. We have been busy, um, in the facilities department, even though there's no school that's taken place. There are, uh, we use that time to really continue on with projects. So this summer, there were about over 50 projects that were taking place, um, both large scale projects as well as some of the smaller projects that are happening. Um, and you'll see also that we're wrapping up some of the athletic projects that you um, see in some of the other. Um, capital projects that have been wrapping up this year. For instance at, um, Cherokee, uh, Farnsworth Upper, we're working on some programs. We anticipate that all projects will be completed, substantial completion by the first day of school, and then we will take a pause during um, that first week of school to make sure we get a good transition, students get in and then we'll restart that work, the 2nd and 3rd week of classes Um, the, the custodial team, I want to give a shout out for them. We are trying a new model this year and looking at piloting our restorative teams, meaning that, um, the non-summer school sites, um, that work was continuing with the cleaning and restorative cleaning And then those sites have um pretty much completed their restoration cleaning. And now teams of custodial supports are going to the summer school sites so that we may have 15 to 2025 custodial all at one site really working on some of those schools that had students in them all year. As you know, we have over 13,000 students in summer school. So a number of our schools are um. Busy up until August and through August. Actually Freedom School just finished a week ago. Distribution is also busy moving things around. We have a number of furniture requests removed from schools as well as department staff. It's always a treat to know and receive that uh about nutrition services. I'd just like to start out with some data and facts that 64% of our students this year have actually directly certified That's up, um, almost 10% from last year. We're looking into the data to um To see as to why, but regardless we are excited to see that. That means that's just less students and families that have to fill out the forms. And this year we have about a little over 11,000 applications already that have been distributed. Newsletters have been mailed to families just letting them know Students get excited about what's potentially coming up for lunch and new lunch items, and here's a few things that they will see. Um, we're always excited to try, um, our new lunch items, and this year we are featuring, while this isn't all of them, some of the ones that we like to feature are there and we notably like to, um, make note of the noodle bowl That is something that, um, our, um, Asian community has been asking for for a number of years that um we wanted to be able to eat um a noodle bowl at breakfast as well as maybe have that as an option for later on in the lunch. So we've been um Director Coppton and her team, along with Chef Bono have been able to create something that um is tasteful and also meets nutritional standards. The um other things that we like to um Uh, note is our potato breakfast bowl. That is something that we tested with the Como High School students this summer, and they received a number of different trial options of things that we like to test for the upcoming school year, and the potato breakfast bowl was won out by those high school students And then I don't Necessarily want to get so excited about the potato breakfast bowl. What I want you to hear from us is that we're using our end user, our students, um, to give us feedback, and they are actually choosing what they would like to try and, and distribute for the next school year. So, um, that's exciting to see. So what they chose, they'll see on the menu And as we continue on, um, you'll see the number of new lunch items that are coming up, um. That, um, and you'll recognize some of those, um, Uh, names that you might see, um, part of our putting together a program is also putting together attractive foods that are attractive to the eye as well as appealing to the ear. Um, and the, uh, director Carpenter and team really does a phenomenal job with that to making their foods exciting. So, um, the, the pad Thai stir fry, as well as the, um, Uh, sweet plantains, and plantains. We, um, work with the LCD as well as the Hmong, um, Parent Advisory Council to actually create those meals and get those recipes. So those are exciting things. We're also, um, new this year for, um, elementary is that every elementary school will have a code line open at all elementary schools and that a code line is, um, some, um, advanced sandwiches, um, I'll call them, um. That's uh more uh. A high level, um, sandwiches not your basic sandwich, but more of a gourmet sandwich Uh, we often find our elementary students, um, want to have something that they can pick up with their hand, something that, um, is different than just a hot lunch. And so they have been asking for a cold lunch entree option, and we are delivering that this year. Also, they, um, enjoy the lunchables, so we have created our own lunchable, and we are calling that, um, Any time of meals and that's something that our um elementary students will also have access to this year. We'll continue with the good to go, um at the secondary schools that'll be on day one. We piloted it last year, you might recall, and that, um is, um, good to go and at the grill are foods that they can grab, high school students can grab and just go. They don't necessarily, um, stay in the lunchroom necessarily and eat those. And then finally, um, we are piloting our, um, Um, a la carte at our middle schools and the a la carte are picking, pick up items that they can choose to make up a full meal. So, um if you haven't noticed it in our nutritional services we're really doing a lot of independence and giving students autonomy to pick and choose, but all stay within the nutritious, healthy meals. As we move into enrollment, um, this is where we'll see current picture um, is where we are, about 90% of our kindergarten seats are, um, filled, um, and we have about close to 90% of pre-K. Uh, we are down, um. A little bit in our Head Start partnership from last year, it was 75%, this year it's 65%, although we anticipate that will continue to fill over the year. And then I talked about um Nature Pre-K. That um is down from last year Last year we're at 80% completed at this time. However we have added more capacity. So, um, I don't believe that to be such a negative thing, um, that we are increased capacity, but we're still almost at 60% of the seats filled. We are continuously see families every day. Right now we're checking about 100 families are being either served physically in person and or via phone or email with new registrants. Um, this year we are rolling out a new enrollment system, um in our for our families, and, uh, what's excellent about this, it's really, um, a real-time communication with families. So as families enroll or request a school, we have the, um, ability to text and or email with them so they understand, um, if they receive their placement, if they're on a waiting list. Um we are also saving in resources as that we're not necessarily mailing things out. Um, and it's also um, families receive their own secure login. So they go on similar to what they might see in other places where you apply, you can save your information, use your login and go back in. You can save schools that you're interested in and read up on them at a later date. So we're really um Building some new features so um it's a lot more friendly for the um family member um, to be able to request a school and then actually enroll as a team for a student placement. Uh, we are continuing to learn this new management tool. We had been with our previous management tool enrollment for over 10 years. And so we are slowly transitioning providing training to our staff and actually beginning to learn through some of the hurdles and bumps. But we plan to have, um, continue to have a smooth transition with the new enrollment system. Then as we move over into technology, um, Doctor Yowsky shared a little bit on the, on the student side. I'll just share a couple of things on the, um, staff side as well is that we started last spring issuing, um, the MacBooks and we're finishing out this fall. You all might remember you signed that agreement, um, for a new, um, transition changeover of Apple computers, um, last year. And so that close out of distribution will end this fall We are also excited to know that um we have heard in the past from new staff that it takes them a long time to get their devices and then get um ID numbers and we are happy to say that is now with a collaboration between HR, IT, uh, we have a timeline of 3 days or less. So when a staff member signs up or starts, they have their device within that amount of time that they can start work. And then on the student side uh, one of the things I like to really, um, uh, show some excitement about, um, and, uh, Georgia Franco um, I, I'm sure you will be excited to know, uh, about this, as we've heard from our families that we wish we had the opportunity to be able to see our students Um, we don't always physically can make the game, but we like to be able to watch them. And so we are, um received some resources and we're installing new, um internet connectivity, connectivity, sorry. Um, and fiber network so that we are able to stream the games right now, um, at Central, Harding and Humboldt. And so that'll be extremely exciting, um, for those parents um, as we move into additional receive additional resources and as our schools are remodeled, we hope to add that feature to all of our high schools at this time. It is Central, Harden and Humboldt. We'll be able to stream and watch your children, um, play Um, also, a new feature, um, for parents are able to sign into parent portal and report their absences So this will allow parents to be able to do that more efficiently as well as school staff, not have to go on and listen to all of the. Recordings, um, so that will significantly save with clerk time and school support time that um the uh parent absences will automatically be computed. As we move into transportation, um, We talked earlier about the uh school bus or the school forms being filled out that does help with getting us, um, a number of students routed on time and so that they have their accurate bus stop. Um, and since we've, um, prepared this report till today, we actually have over 2500 students, um, currently, um, registered and fill out their forms, so they will be riding to school. We'll continue to work with our live bus tracker We introduced that last year and just so you know and understand, it was working really well, um, so we'll continue to use that this year. And we stand ready at this time to take your questions, um, and just like to close out with that this team is ready for the 26th, 27th school year to start and we'll entertain questions at this time. All right, questions or comments from board members, Vice Cher Valiant Oh yeah. I just want to say that I have used the absence request in the parent portal and it's amazing. I mean I've used it a lot because I got a lot of kids and it's just so much easier to be able to go and put it in and not get 20,000 calls for every period that one of your kids might have missed or been late to because they get a notification and we need to pick them up for an appointment. They already have them at the front waiting for you to come out. It is great So. Um, the counselor showed me how to use it one day and I was like, oh my God, I didn't know this existed. It's amazing. So for all of my parents out there, you, you should use it. It's really, really helpful. That's it. Other questions or comments from board members? Yeah, Director Lowe. Thank you. There is an amazing amount of work that this team has put in and it's very obvious this is the busiest time and so just thank you so much for being on top of everything. I'd like to say that uh our family has submitted the back to school paperwork, so this is a shout out to all you, all you families, get that stuff done. It helps, it helps a lot in planning. Um on a serious note, I will say that I, I feel like it was either last, uh, Board of Education meeting or the one before that when, um, we had public comment on screen time and that being, you know, an important thing that we want to, um, continue to look at. I appreciate the fact that, um, you know, that that was brought up again tonight and I just, I just wanna plug that I think it would be helpful for this board to receive, uh, more data, more information on. Um on screen time, not, not necessarily for, for me, it's not as important to get kind of, uh, quantity of screen time, uh, numbers, but really more quality and how um, how class time is being used, what students are doing on their devices, uh, to, to really make sure that. The time that they are using devices in in their classes and even at home, um, that it is, that it is of a value because if it's not of value, then I want my kids to be doing something else, you know and I think that probably most parents are there with me. So that's all I have, uh, just to plug that I think that data is, is valuable and I would like to see a report on that at some point soon. Um Uh, thank you, Director Lowe, and just to the full board, um as a reminder, we will be bringing as much information as we can, you know, we may have some limitations in statute, but we're trying to work with that in October. It's October that that user information will be brought to the board. Other questions or comments from board members? All right, by Cher Valiant. I'm excited about the new menu because I do eat lunch at schools. Uh, when I go visit them or when I go visit my kids, I, I like to go and eat lunch with them and sometimes just harass the teenagers because they don't, he doesn't necessarily love it, but I I don't care. But I also want to see like what they're you know, what our lunch is like so I can be like yeah, it was good or yeah, this, this wasn't good Well, I'm, I'm excited, especially for the noodle bowl and the galro and the planton. I want to taste it. And there was something else in there that I want to taste. Oh, the, um, yeah, hot honey pepperoni. I like, I like food. I'm from Chicago. We like to eat So I'm going to try everything and I'll let y'all know how it is. Hilarious. Y'all got the whole bodega on that list though. I said Chicago is really putting an influence on these Twin Cities, boy, them lemon pepper wings and everything. Anyways, um, can we go back to the cyber or where we talked about the securely app for um I just wanna know some more information about that there securely app. It monitors um Managing students' iPads at home. How is it doing that and um how much information are are we retaining from home? Nick, do you want to come up and talk about that? I don't see Mario back there, so, oh, he is back there. Mario Mario. I was looking for you, Mario Mario and Nick Mario even here to answer this question Hi, uh, yeah, so the securely app, uh, is a tool that all parents can use and sign up there. Um, some of the information that was presented. To administrators and families at the start of this year, families can sign up for, for, um, their account, uh, through the school-provided email, um, and securely as a tool that allows you as a parent to take, um, if you want to put a, a, a limit on the iPad, um, when it should should turn off or go to bed or block YouTube or all those different things that you can do as a, as a parent. Um, it's an intuitive interface that allows our families to do that. And that's one of the additional tools that we're looking at providing um information for families um through this fall. So the families have to sign up in order to have this particular service monitoring their whatever it is they're monitoring in their home. It's a connected service that's through our our internet provider. So all families have access to this tool and using the the email that is in our student information system, Infinite Campus, you automatically have an account, you just have to like activate it and sign it up. Can we make sure that we have really clear communication with our families about the fact that this app exists and what it all does and that they're signing up for it so that they can monitor what information is going into the app that's from their home. I think that that's really important, just really clear communication um with what we're doing Through the chair, uh, Director Alan, I just wanted to pop in and say that, um, there's been a joint, uh collaboration between tech Services and, um, the Office of Teaching and Learning around a really great parent resource, um, one pager, um, actually it's two sides but it's a one pager, and it's going to be shared um, with everybody, um, with all families, um, during that back to school time, um, it is being translated so it's actually also a partnership with communications because it's being. Translated into 5 languages. It'll be made, um, digitally, um, to families, but it'll also be available in flyer form. And, um, there are a lot of QR codes on there, so families should be able to access via their language and pull up using the QR code. Um, and I, I, I, I hear, you know, the it's funny, I mean, a lot of our conversation tonight like, you hear the technology in our responses. And in the um like uh Director Mallant like the technology involved in doing the online absence reporting, right like we have to use it, but we're we're trying to be really smart about it. So, um, uh, they'll be able to access it in their language and that is something that we're talking about and we're talking about it with principals, we're talking about it with teachers we're talking about it with staff. So we are really trying to get this word out. OK, thank you. Um, one more thing that I had that had to do with that menu Um, I have a handful of nieces and nephews coming into Saint Paul Public schools. They all call me GT because that stands for great auntie, not because I'm a like a great auntie because I'm that old, it's just because I'm genuinely a great auntie for these moments like this. Because I have a nice uh ball of energy that will be coming to you guys at Adams Elementary this year. And she really loves beef roni. It's like the only thing she likes to eat, so I have to bring that up here because if I don't, then I won't be able to tell her that I did ask you guys. To bring beefroni into the menu, but, you know, noodles, red sauce, some kind of thing that looks like it, we could probably squeeze it in. I just had to put that out there though because she's gonna give you problems at lunchtime and I just want to be ahead of the game for y'all right? Everybody? OK, alright. Duly noted. Any other questions or comments on the menu from board members You know, as, uh, So you're saying we can't, no, I'm just kidding, um, I don't, but I very well could, um it's a clearly a favorite topic of us, um, on this board. I actually was bringing it way, way, way, way way back to human resources, um, and, um, I know that there's been several hiring events and that the team has been very busy trying to fill open positions and I think being down to 28 licensed educators is a huge um. A huge deal for us knowing how, um, tough it is to start a year with, uh, uh, a guest teacher, um Who may only be there for one day and then there's the next and the next and the next and how disruptive that is to student learning and so, uh, thank you uh, to administrators, of course, and, um, our HR team for working to fill those. Those are really, um that's a really exciting number to see, especially compared to 81 from last year. So just wanted to acknowledge that in a, in midst of all the excitement around. Um Big Daddy's pepperoni pizza, um, additions to the menu. Hot honey, um, let me not forget that part. Um I'm just wondering if it's still going to be like a rectangle or if it's like looking different, but um, we'll figure that out, um, when, when Director Valian tells us. But, um, so there was one other question that I had, um, Regarding EL staffing and one that I just genuinely, like I really just don't understand Um, so I know, um. I can get clarity here. So, um The question that I have is it says one FTE position was split 3 ways to accommodate FTE needs for current teachers needing to round out their FTE. Does that mean that they're split between two schools and then they have an additional assignment because the, the bullet above that says that no teachers are split between more than 2 schools. Uh, through the chair um, I see where you're going, but no, um, I mean, well but you know, you, you're seeking clarity, and I am here to provide it. Um, you are most welcome. Um, basically what happened is there was a position at one of our sites that it was a 1.0 opening, but we had three different teachers who were from different sites whose um, needs added up to 1.0. So rather than hire one person into that position, we hired three people into chunks of that position so that they were able to um, Maintain their full-time status. OK, that took me down a path that I didn't know we were going. Um so I guess that opened up one more question as a follow up if, if I could, um. What does that look like? Like and I, and I ask that thinking about like, are students going to be receiving a different teacher almost every day when they show up? Are they, is this position going to be looking more like, um, kind of academic support and small group learning? Um, I guess I, I I just remember back to kind of our initial conversations I just wanna make sure we're avoiding kind of the disruption of having a new or different teacher every day because I know that that makes things complicated with grading and then who's responsible for that. Uh if you could just maybe provide some clarity on that I'd appreciate it. Sure. Um, so that position has been divided into a 0.6, a 0.2, and a 0.2. Um, and how that is looking is that person who's there 0.6 um, will have, you know, someone that they co-teach with each day, um, for the chunk of the day that they are there, um, and the folks that are 0.2, um, what I have had conversations with, uh, the principal and the teachers about is looking at ways to provide additional scoops of support to students who are already getting services in other ways. So, um. You know, oftentimes students do get like the bulk of their EL services through an elementary, the readers and writers block Um, but EL services can happen in many other places in addition to that. So they may have like co-teaching um, in the readers and writers block with a different teacher, and then maybe once or twice a week they get an additional, uh, scoop of support through, um maybe small group support or additional co-teaching happening through, um, their science specialist or their social studies block. Thank you for that clarity I just assumed that there would be some additional questions on that, and I think the clarity that you're providing now helps kind of round out my understanding of that. I may have some other questions, but I know how to get a hold of y'all. So, thank you. Thank you Other questions or comments from board members? Last year microphone. OK. I remember one question. So For anybody who knows the answer. When parents join their kids for lunch, as they tend to do, especially in kindergarten, how do parents pay for lunch if they don't have money in their lunch account? Through the chair, um. Judge, are you asking um. So if you go to lunch, I just want to see if I clarified the question If you go to have lunch with your student and the parent does have money. Is that what you're asking The parent doesn't have money or the student doesn't have? No, not the student, because the student is paid for his free lunch, right? But the parent typically isn't. Um, so our lunches that we receive USDA resources for, um, those lunches are paid for and prepared for students. All adults in the building, including parents are supposed to pay. Um, so if parents don't have money, um, hopefully that that on that day to be able to pay for that lunch, that somebody else may, um borrow some money to pay for their lunch that is not in our, um, the school is not supposed to serve adults uh, without actual payment, um, on there and it's not supposed to be linked to a student's account. I guess I wasn't really saying if they didn't have money but I was just. Just kind of in general, you know like, how does it work? Um, so it works similar to you're at a retail point of sale. Um, you walk up and, um, and you may recall that the board did, uh approve the, the, um, Increase in the prices for lunch and I'm now trying to remember what the price is for an adult lunch. Um, Director Copman, can you, OK, so thank you. So it's $5. Um, so you walk up to the point of sale and you give the, um, the nutrition services staff person $5 and then they will proceed to give you a meal of your choice, um, of the meals that we're having for that particular day. What if you do happen to have a balance from way back when in your lunch account? A lunch account, um, because I do from way back. I don't know why I do, but I do. It's transferred from like a different, I don't know, but I'm just saying. Somebody else might be in my shoes. I'm just wondering. So the, so, uh, lunch accounts typically are, uh, cleared out, um, from the previous year. Um oh. So we typically don't carry those over from one For adults, you mean for adults? How did they get cleared out? OK, you know what? I don't need to answer all these questions right here. Yeah. Um Yeah, OK I had another question, but I can't remember it, so I'm gonna get off the microphone. Other questions or comments from board members? Cool. Uh, I'll say another thank you, um, to everyone for the information and for, um, for the work on this incredibly thorough presentation. The questions that I had following the presentation have been asked by my, my fellow board members. Um, so I guess I'll just also talk about the food. Um, growing up. Uh, whenever I was in high school, I am, I am in awe of like how great our menus are for our kids. Whenever I was in high school, I every day, I was given that rectangle pizza with, with those cubes of pepperoni and And cheese that had the consistency of plastic and with a side of soggy french fries and I had that literally every day for 4 years in high school and uh I've, I'm hearing like board members say like it was good. That's not my recollection I mean, I ate it. But like, I don't remember thinking it was great or whatever. But anyway, I am just really excited by all the work that um that goes into serving our students in this district. This is really a special place. So anyway, thank you all so much. All right uh, next is our policy update, and I'll turn it back over to Doctor Stanley. OK, thank you, Chair. We have three policies that are coming for second reading and I will invite up Becky Schmidt, director of health and wellness, who will go over policy 518, Stacy Coppin director of nutrition services, who will go over 719 and Jonathan Pettigrew, manager of facility planning who will go over 802.02. Good evening, Chair Ward members of the board, Superintendent Stanley. Uh, am I on the right slides here, or do I just? OK. I am here for the 2nd reading of proposed policy 518, do not resuscitate, do not intubate. And I have no changes since the first reading that COB. So I will open it up to questions. Questions or comments from board members. I feel like we made this a practice last time. Do you mind just running through very briefly what's within the policy? Absolutely. So, uh, this is a policy that has not existed in SPPS previously There are a number of surrounding districts that have the exact same policy. But this is stemming from the need to address requests from families if there is a do not resuscitate, do not intubate order that they are bringing to school. And, um, because we have not had a policy in place before, we're looking to implement this new policy and provide that guidance to families Uh, so, the basic premise is that school districts are an educational institution. We are not a medical institution. And as such, we would not be providing that emergency. Um, we would provide emergency care in the event a student was, um, undergoing a medical emergency that would potentially be life-threatening And so, school district staff would be expected to activate 911 and emergency medical services during the school day or any school activities. Parents would be notified of that event as soon as possible. Um we would continue to follow individual health plans IEPs, 504 plans, um, in accordance with state and federal law to provide those emergency services. And then parents, if they had made a request for um a DNR or DNI order to be kept at school, we would advise them of our policy instead and provide them with a copy of our policy. Thank you. That's the premise of the. proposed policy. All right. Any further questions or comments from board members? Right, they'll move forward to the 3rd reading next month. Thank you so much. Thank you. OK, uh, Chadboard, supporting family members of the board. I am presenting on the food service policy. Great timing. Um, this is our 2nd reading. There have been some adjustments, so. Is that better? Oh, OK. Let me start over chair board Superintendent Stanley, members of the board. Our food service policy is up for its second reading with some minor adjustments, um, since our COB discussion So, this policy was last revised in 2008, and a lot of the changes are really just to meet the new format In addition to um providing a policy purpose, we have um changed the statement. I've just used an underline with the red text to show anything that's new since COB so we are identifying that we have healthy and nutritious meals that are, of course, um designed to support our students' health or learn their learning and to ensure compliance with all of our alcohol laws and regulations. The uh general statement has not changed since the COB meeting, but it does recognize that proper nutrition is essential to everyone's learning and development uh in our buildings and so we're striving to ensure that all of our meals meet those standards they are accessible and that we are also providing services that are inclusive and administered with dignity. Um, the district will operate a food nutrition program designed to support well-being, academic success as well as a program that has equitable access to those healthy, nutritious meals. And, uh, we are adding that the, um, School lunch program is designated uh within the federal programs that are available to us. Sometimes those change and whether or not our school district qualifies is usually our starting point, but we do look at whether or not we're eligible and we try to find the most advantageous program that we can for our students. Um, The superintendent or her designee will implement uh administrative regulations as well as procedures and operational guidelines to ensure that we are adhering to all of our regulatory standards. And we did make a pretty significant revision on the uh last statement, which previously really hinted that uh the NNTR children was first and foremost We have expanded that to really to ensure that we're talking about equity, as well as ensuring that no one is discriminated against for any reason, um, and that we have privacy, dignity and the rights of every student at mind. And with that last change, we did also extend the legal references to include the Minnesota statute around the Minnesota Human Resource or Human Rights Act. Are there any questions with that? Questions or comments from board members? Oh sure. I have a question. I don't know if it will be in this policy or if it's a procedure, but I am wondering what the policy and or I guess procedure is around when a school runs out of food before all the students have been served. Uh, through the chair, Director Valiant. So if a school runs out of food, it is our obligation to identify why that happened. In order for a school meal to be reimbursed, which is what we're talking about in part here, there has to be a certain number of foods offered and a certain quantity of foods offered and then the student also has to take a certain number of foods and quantity of foods. So if by any reason we're going through a meal period and that doesn't happen for every student, we are obligated to find out why and to correct that. That cannot be a persistent problem. Yeah, um, I guess my question is more like how do we make sure that student has something to eat? There should always be something available for our students. I mean, when I think about our school cafeterias and our kitchens, we have a lot of food that's on hand. So it may not just be what's on the tray line, you know, the hot option that's available but we have food in our coolers, in our freezers, in our dry storage. I can't think of a situation where there would not be a way to put a meal together. And we want our students to get their first choice for certain, you know, between food waste and just kind of getting the swing of production needs, there might be a situation here or there where that doesn't happen and that's really unfortunate, but that should be something that we should be able to correct. It shouldn't be an ongoing problem. And under no circumstance can I see that there would not be food available. OK, but there is like a policy or procedure. We have procedures and we also do provide training. And if there is a school that's struggling, we will provide on-site support to help that supervisor and that staff understand what got perhaps like what tool did not get used appropriately or maybe what got um. Forgotten so that they can correct that. Yeah. Other questions or comments? All right everyone, good moving forward. Good to move forward to the 3rd reading next month. Gotcha. Uh, Chair of award, directors. I'm here presenting, uh, for a second reading, uh, policy 80202 regarding petitions for consent to rezoning. Um. And this policy uh relates to SPPS's review of petitions to the city of St. Paul for zoning changes that are near our schools. Um, it's uh, pretty thoroughly rewritten, but I believe it is, uh, the same as you saw it at the COB meeting um, a general reformatting, um, and, uh, rewriting to explain SPPS's responsibilities and what we consider when, uh, the rezoning petition comes to the district and then how we respond. So, um, This, uh, slide here shows, uh, the purpose and areas of impact. And this page, uh, more about the process and the review, um and assessment of impacts of a potential rezoning Um, further, um, process on those uh. Um, those Assessments of impacts and uh an added responsibility that if the district is uh going to decline consent to a rezoning um, we will provide a written, um, written explanation of that. In the past, that explanation had occurred uh, via a phone call to the city. And then, uh, addition here, uh, is describing the actions the district might take outside of the petition for consent, namely, uh providing written or oral testimony, as well as, uh adding uh the definitions uh to this policy. Close with uh legal references. With the the titles added more formatting. Questions. Questions or comments All right, I think we're good to move on to the 3rd reading. Great, thank you. Thank you. Next on the agenda is information requests and responses, as well as any items for future agendas, and I'll open it up to board members. All right. Then next on the agenda is the Board of Education Committee and work group reports and are open up to board members to provide any reports on their committees. A written report is also provided in the board book. Cheerward question Yes, um, are you, are you looking for us to Give any additional context on the written reports we've already made, or is that sufficient for? U now. Yeah, so, um our procedure just has us submitting the written reports I think, uh, this is in here for any additional context anyone wants to offer. I'm gonna look over here. Sarah what was the, the, why is this in here? Um, it was just a call out that they're in the board book and as well as to offer. The chance to provide any additional context or any additional committees. OK, great. For anyone watching at home, this is a relatively new procedure that we've adopted. Um, we are trying to do some more reporting on what's happening on our committees so that people are more aware, including each other, aware of like what's happening on the board and on in the the various committees, but no nothing else needs to be shared beyond what's been submitted to the written report that is already in the board board book that is available publicly, unless anyone wants to share anything. OK, great. Um, next is the Board of Education reports and communications and I'll open it up to board members. All right. Saying none. Next is adjournment, and I motion to adjourn Do I have a second? 2nd, seconded by who wants it All right, I Director Franco. That motion was seconded by Director Franco. All right, comments or discussion Vote please. Director Franco. Yes, Director Valiant Director Henderson, yes. Director Ward, yes. Director Lowe, and Director Alan, yes, that motion passes unanimously The time is 8:41 and we are adjourned. Um