Okay. Welcome this evening. Uh we will call the meeting to order. Joan, roll call. Director Gershovitz? Here. Director Hawker? Here. Director Kelsenberg? Here. Director Lawler? Here. Director Parker? Here. Director Thelander? Here. Chair Sherman? Here. You have a quorum. Great. Let's stand for the Pledge of Allegiance. I pledge allegiance to the flag of the United States of America and to the republic for which it stands, one nation under God, indivisible, with liberty and justice for all. All right. I will go ahead and make a motion to approve tonight's agenda. Can I get a second? I'll second. Great. Director Thelander with the second. All those in favor of approving the agenda, raise your hand and say I. I. >> I. Opposed? Agenda passes unanimously. Our next agenda item is a the payment of invoices for March 21st through April 3rd on the consent agenda. I will go ahead and make a motion to approve consent. Can I get a second? I'll second. Great. Director Hawker with the second. All those in favor of approving the consent agenda, raise your hand and say I. I. I. Opposed? Consent agenda passes unanimously. Tonight we have a few different items. We have first up a um the results from the Minnesota State Survey, Minnesota Student Survey, uh two 2,200 2025 results and we have Elsa here, so. Hi Elsa. Thanks for coming in today. Thank you, Directors. Thank you for having me. I get to talk through the Minnesota Student Survey 2025 results. So, this was taken last winter by our students. Uh it's a 3-year survey and is one of the longest-running youth surveys in the nation. Um I believe I don't I want to say 89, but I'll have to verify the correct date. Um but it is the primary source of comprehensive data at the state, county, and district level. It asks a really broad range of questions. Mostly focused on those public health and education outcomes. So, that's why it's administered in partnership um between the Minnesota Departments of Education, Health, Human Services, and Public Safety. Um and this year it's an online survey using Qualtrics, which allowed them to do some branching logic and make it a little faster for students to take. All told, got it down to probably 45 minutes um for the oldest students with the longest survey. Uh this survey asks students about their activities, opinions, behaviors, and experiences, including um school climate, bullying, out-of-school activities, health behaviors, emotional and mental health, substance use, and connections with school and family. Um it covers sensitive topics, including domestic violence, self-harm, and suicide, which we will also cover in this presentation. Because of these sensitive topics, there are some questions that are not asked to our youngest students, so 5th and 8th grade don't get the same questions as 9th and 11th grade. All participation is optional. Parents have the right to have their child not participate entirely and each question is optional as well. A student could go through and answer only one question. That's enough. Um they can go through and answer every other. Additionally, all responses are anonymous and the data is really tightly locked down so that we are not able to see individual student responses. Um because of that, there are some limitations to what we can do with this data. We do not get school-level data by default um except by special request and even then it's limited by the size of the school and the student subgroups. Um for example, I requested data for the ALC, but because that program was so small, they weren't able to give me any data for the ALC. Um And that again preserves the student anonymity and the validity of the survey because you're able to answer more honestly. All the survey data is provided in percentages. Since all questions are optional, not all students are not all Not every question has the same number of students who respond. Um the older grades in general have lower ends. Um more sensitive questions tend to have lower ends, so fewer students responding to the most sensitive questions. Um we'll get into the exact numbers on the next slide, but I would say we had probably about 70% minimum of students who took the survey that responded to a given question. Occasionally, new survey questions are added or questions are revised, so we can't always compare to years past. They do make great efforts to keep it comparable from year to year. That's kind of the point of a survey like this. Um but our world is changing, so the survey changes, too. Across the state, 61% of districts chose to participate and within that, 45% of eligible students statewide took the survey. And the survey window was open from January to June of last school year. We took the survey in February of last school year and all elementary, middle, and high schools participated. At every grade level, we had probably about 90% of the grade level participate and within that, 11th grade was the lowest as we talked about. Um Of the total participants for those sensitive questions, you could probably knock off about 50 students who didn't answer a more sensitive question. For a regular question, maybe 20, just because well, we don't know why a student might choose not to answer a question. Before I jump into the survey results, I should just say this is a long presentation. Please feel free to stop me at any time and ask questions. I won't um we don't need to save questions till the end. >> Okay. Thank you. >> Good question. >> Yeah, please. Um what was the scenario of them taking this survey? Was it handed out in class and then somebody could just say I'm I'm out or is it more of an opt-in? How does How does that look? So, it's done in class. It's opt-out. Um so parents had the ability to opt students out in advance. There were about 20 students who were opted out in advance across the grade levels. Um in elementary schools, they did it with their elementary classroom teacher. Um I believe for middle schools, it was in advisory and in high schools, it was with social studies. So, in the course of your regular regular school day, about one class period set aside. Okay. Mhm. And this is a statewide, right? >> It is statewide. >> Okay, thanks. Keep going on my screen and not in here. So, some of the first questions that students are asked are their demographics. Um as you can see, broadly the demographics of the students taking the survey correspond to what we know about the demographics of the students in our district. There's some variation because this is self-reported and by the students, whereas their enrollment demographic data is self-reported by the parents. Um this is one of the rare cases where students are asked about their sexual orientation and gender identity. We see that over the past 3 years, about 90% of male students are identifying as straight and about 83% of female students are identifying as straight. This is just 11th grade. Um Interestingly, that pattern matches statewide, that dip in 2022. I don't know why, but it is similar at the state level. And then our students identifying as cisgender are also quite stable, sitting at the high 90s. 11th graders, well, 9th and 11th graders are asked, "What is the main thing you plan to do right after high school?" When we look at our 11th grade students, we do see some variation by gender, um but a large proportion of our students, the vast majority of our students are planning to go to a 4-year college, followed by a 2-year program, um and then a pretty even distribution between working at the military, working a job, going to a apprenticeship certification program. Is the gap there significant? Statewide, you see about 84% of females versus 67% of males going to 4-year. I would have to check and verify. Okay. We do see that this is fairly stable over time um with a slight drop for our female students and our male students holding really, really steady at the rate of students planning to attend a 4-year college. And there's not one particular other option that students are choosing. So, if we look at all the other options, go to a 2-year program, work at a job, go to the military, it's just a little bit here, a little bit there. There's not one thing that is drawing students in a different direction. Um this really highlights the strength of our counseling program. Students are asked, "Has an adult in your school helped you think about education options for after high school?" Um and we would expect to see that difference between our 9th graders and our 11th graders, but there's a huge increase in students um positively answering that they've talked to an adult about their post-secondary plans between 2019 and 2025. Um similarly, we ask or the survey asks whether an adult at your school has helped you find a career-focused field experience, so a job experience, an internship, work-based learning, and that's shown a large increase since 2019 as well, which really speaks to the work done in our Pathways program. This is an interesting one. This is one that unfortunately has changed um in how it had was asked between last year or 2022 and this year. But students are asked, "How do you get to and from school?" Um so you'll notice that these add up to more than 100%. That's because the way you get to school might be different from the way you get from school or it might be different on Monday at than it is from Wednesday than it is from Friday. We have slightly higher school bus usage than statewide. Um and similar family vehicle usage and higher carpool. We have a lot lower walking and biking rates. Students are asked, "How often did you miss school in the past 30 days?" So this is the rate of students who say they missed at least one day of school in the past 30 days. Um this is higher than it is in 2019 for almost everyone except eighth grade males. And overall, we see that female students, that's in the dash lines, are missing more or reporting missing more school than their male counterparts. Can I ask a question on the attendance one? Yeah. So this is student reported, but attendance is something we would have actual data. Do we compare well with that? That's a great question. I don't know by grade level. I believe overall our attendance is more positive Okay. >> statewide but or than um 2022 certainly, but let me check and make sure. Okay. Oh, I I apologize. This is going to be hard to read um without the animations. >> [snorts] >> Can we come back to this slide at the end? Is that okay, John? Yeah. Um All right. Oh. It's a PDF, so that's why it's >> Oh, it's a PDF. I see. That's okay. We won't come back to it. Okay. >> Um overall um Hang on. The most common reasons are certainly feeling sick. Um quite high rates of medical, dental, or other appointments. Um what I did want to highlight is we have 17% of 11th grade female students who say that they missed school because they're behind in their school work or didn't study for a test or class assignment. Um which is higher than our state average. Um and similarly, we have a higher rate of students saying they were absent because they were out of town. When we look at classroom discipline, um this again reflects kind of the student perception of classroom discipline as well. Um And the highest rate is for our fifth grade boys, and then we see a decrease at every um grade level thereafter. Um similar pattern for female students, but much lower. That's similar statewide. Um our rates are lower um with the exception of fifth grade boys um and eighth grade males are higher statewide than us. I like to highlight this because we know that we have really great kids. Um we have 94% of students say that they care about doing well in school all or most of the time. We're also very fortunate. We have students who feel safe at school. Again, in those high 90s. Um kind of complicating that picture uh is students' responses to bullying rates. This is a composite measure based off of five questions. So students are asked, "During the last 30 days, how often have other students at school pushed, shoved, slapped, hit, or kicked you when they weren't kidding around, threatened to beat you up, spread mean rumors or lies about you, made sexual jokes, comments, or gestures toward you?" That one wasn't asked to fifth graders. And excluded you from friends, other students, or activities. So based on how often they said that happened for each of those sub indicators, we get this composite rate of students who were bullied once or more in the last 30 days. It This looks I would say very high. To me, it's shocking. It's lower than the state, but it's still quite high, right? So we see fifth grade at the highest levels at around 65% I believe. Um and it's increased particularly for male students since 2019. It would be interesting in those numbers too because you know, when you're talking to a you know, a younger student, we'd think that there's a differences in definitions of what bullying is. Mhm. Um do you know or could you know, I know about reports of reported instances of bullying in our schools versus the difference between what's self-reported here? I would say based off of like our DERS reporting, it's far lower than once or more in the last 30 days, but things that get reported through DERS have to be associated with a suspension. Okay. So it's both the discipline and the behavior. Okay. Thank you. Mhm. It's a great question. Yeah. Students who were bullied in the past um 30 days were then asked why. So here's where the small ends come into play. Um this is 212 fifth graders who answered versus 56 11th graders who answered because the rates were so much higher for fifth grade than for 11th grade. Um that being said, the highest rates um are really those bottom two category well, bottom three categories. Your size or weight, your physical appearance, or reason not listed. You might not know why you're experiencing bullying. Um overall, again, consistent with um statewide trends. And while the categories that students are asked about has changed a little bit from year to year, um those size and weight, physical appearance are often top of the list as well as followed by race, gender, and gender expression for our older students. When we look at cyberbullying, this is overall lower than regular bullying, but we see that same grade level pattern where fifth grade is showing the highest incidence. Um we're down slightly from 2022, which is similar to the state. I'll pause here just in case there's questions, and then we'll keep going. So this is another composite measure of adverse childhood experiences. An adverse childhood experience um it's describing a traumatic experience in a person's life that occurs before the age of 18. It's used kind of in social work as a measure of risk. Um and it the measure here specifically combines responses to questions about um living with anyone who drinks too much alcohol, uses illegal drugs, or abuses prescription drugs, living with anyone who has a mental health issue, parental incarceration, physical or physical verbal or physical abuse, domestic violence, or sexual abuse. Um the good news is those rates are down quite a bit since 2019. Um the most common individual indicators for those ACEs scores would be the um living with anyone who is depressed or has a mental health issue, followed by parental incarceration. This is a new question for 2025, so we're not able to compare it over time. But students were asked, "Have you ever experienced people using guns to threat or hurt threaten or hurt others in person?" These are low numbers, which is great to see. Um statewide, this is similar to what we see at the state. Um and interestingly, fifth grade is also the highest um of the grade levels at the state. Students are also asked about relationship violence. Um these rates have remained relatively consistent over time and are similar to statewide levels with um the second indicator around verbal abuse being slightly lower. Um I would also highlight the last two questions go together. You're asked, "Have you ever been in a relationship where you or your partner ever pressured, tricked, or forced you to do something sexual or did something sexual to you against your wishes?" And then they're asked, "Have you ever done this?" Um so we see that those don't quite add up with each other. >> [clears throat] >> Um when we look at physical health, this is all again self-reported. Students for this question are asked, "Has a doctor ever told you that you have such and such condition?" Fairly stable over time um with asthma being the highest category followed by allergies that require an EpiPen. And this is pretty similar to the state as well. Students self-report their weight and their height, and from that, the survey calculates the BMI and categorizes overweight, obese, underweight, um and standard weight. Um and this is lower than the statewide rates, which hover at around 30% for male students and 20% for female students of overweight and obesity. We have overall very active students. The most frequent response to how many days were you physically active for a total of at least 60 minutes per day was 7 days a week, followed by 5 days a week, which kind of makes sense with a weekday schedule. During a typical school night, students report mostly getting 7 to 8 hours of sleep. We see our fifth graders are far more off far more likely to have 9 or 10 hours of sleep. And our 11th graders are more likely to have 5 or 6 or 7 hours of sleep, which is consistent with what we know of our students. And this was before the start time change. >> the start time change. >> Yes. Mhm. If we compare over time, students aren't getting more sleep. Um, just using 8 hours of sleep as a cutoff, um, we see increasing levels of sleep, um, for everyone except fifth graders, which is ticking down a little bit. Um, but that 11th grade indicator is really positive. We're going to turn down from physical health to mental health. So, these next set of four questions kind of mirror screener questions that you might see in clinical use for depression and anxiety. Um, it's obviously a much broader screener in clinical use, whereas this is a small subset of questions. Um, the exact wording is, um, "In the last 2 weeks, how often have you been bothered by each indicator?" Um, so, this is how often have you been bothered by little interest or pleasure in doing things more than half the days or nearly every day. And this is starting to decline, um, from 2019 levels down to 2025. Um, a gender divide is definitely pervasive, um, through these four questions with female students reporting more frequent, um, levels of these emotional distress. And these numbers are slightly lower than the state average, but not significantly different. This is the percentage of students reporting being bothered by feeling down, depressed, or hopeless more than half the days or nearly every day in the last 2 weeks. Which is showing more significant decline, um, particularly for our female students. Male students are holding more or less steady. The percent reporting being bothered by feeling nervous, anxious, or on edge, um, spiked quite spiked a little bit in 2022 and then it's returning to 2019 levels. There's definitely more stratification by grade, um, in addition to gender with our older students reporting more of those feelings of anxiety. And then the percentage reporting being bothered by not being able to stop or control worrying more than half of the days or nearly every day. Um, we've seen a significant decline for 11th grade female students, but everyone else is holding kind of steady here. So, this is the percentage of students who self-report having a long-term mental health behavioral or emotional problem, with long-term being defined as 6 months or more. These rates look fairly similar to the 2019 rates, though there's some variation by grade level. And then the percent ever treated for mental health, emotional, or behavioral problem. Um, students are asked whether they were treated during the last year, more than a year ago, or not at all. So, this combines in the last year and more than a year ago. Again, holding fairly steady and again again, holding fairly steady and again showing that, um, gender stratification. This is the percentage of students who purposely hurt or injured themselves in the past 12 months. We saw a spike in 2022 and are now seeing a return to 2019 levels. And this is pretty consistent with state statewide trends and statewide levels. This is, uh, in the blue is the percent of students who have ever considered suicide and in the red is the percent of students who have ever attempted suicide. We see higher rates of students considering suicide than attempting suicide. Um, there has been a downward trend since 2019 for suicidal thoughts, but the suicidal behavior has held pretty consistent. Yeah. Is this, uh, a filtered response or is this everyone getting this question? This is everyone. So, it's >> We're saying that one out of 10 of our 11th grade girls are have attempted suicide. Of the respondents. That That had responded. There were 420 11th graders who responded out of 450 who took the survey. That's something. Yeah. Comparison to statewide? A little lower than statewide. We're going to keep going through our health behaviors. Um, and starting with vehicle safety. Students were asked, "When driving a car, truck, or SUV, how often do you handle your phone to do things like send or read text messages, take pictures, use social media, stream videos, or video chat?" Um, the wording of this question changed quite a bit between 2019 and today, so we're not able to compare accurately over time. Um, this is overall higher than statewide. In part, you could argue because more students drive in Stillwater than statewide, so it's a bigger pool. Um, but I would love to see that sometimes bar be a little smaller for our students. Uh, this is the percent of students who always wear seatbelt when driving or riding in a car, truck, or SUV. In red is the state and blue is Stillwater. So, our levels at each grade level are slightly higher than statewide. This is a new question in 2025. And students are asked, "During the average week, how many school nights are you using technology between the hours of midnight and 5:00 a.m.?" We know that students aren't getting good sleep, so there's a lot who say zero school nights. Um, however, there are quite a few students who also say five school nights. And interestingly, fifth graders were the most likely to use technology five nights a week out of all their peers. That trend of all or nothing is consistent statewide, um, but it's too soon to because it's a new question this year, we don't know how that compares historically. And there wasn't really a consistent variation by gender, either. That was one thing I was looking for. When we look at social media, again, this one's broadly consistent with state trends. Students are using social media usually several times a day or about once an hour or more. Um, this precedes our cell phone policy, certainly. Um, so, it'll be interesting to see how this changes. Students were also asked to evaluate the healthiness of their social media use for our older students. So, do you feel that you might have a problem with spending too much time on social media? Do you skip important events? And do you have trouble getting your homework, chores, or other major responsibilities? I Overall, students seem to be really reflective and honest, which is always appreciated. These are slightly lower levels than the state. Um, and we do see kind of a gender divide in that reporting of problematic usage. Students are asked about their gambling behavior. So, "In the last 12 months, how often have you gambled, made bets, bought lottery tickets or scratch-offs, or made purchases in an online game, specifically purchases where you don't know what you're paying for in advance, like a blind box type of purchase?" Um, most students said not at all. We do have some students reporting less than once a month and very, very rare cases up to daily. There's a gender divide between our students, where our male students are reporting more frequent gambling. And there's also a difference between what the gambling behaviors are. Um, both male and female students, um, reported betting on informal games of personal skill. Um, male students were more likely to bet on formal sports events. And female students were more likely to report buying lottery tickets or scratch-offs. Ninth and 11th grade students are asked about their sexual behavior. The percent of students who have ever had sex is trending downwards, which follows state trends. Um, this is one where 11th grade students were more hesitant to answer. There were 391 students who answered compared to the 450 who took the survey. Of those students, so this is only 88 students in 2025 who were asked these questions, uh, about 75% report having talked about protection from STIs and protection from pregnancy with at least once with every partner. Which mirrors, um, the usage rates of a condom or a dental dam the last time they had sex. And this one is just 11th grade in the blue. This slide may look a little bit deceiving because we have a a double negative here. This is the percent of students who did not use alcohol, marijuana, or any other drug in the past year. So, increasing levels of students not using any substance. Um, this is great news, um, mirroring statewide trends as well. Um, with particular growth for the 11th grade students. If we look at individual substances, the percent of students who report using alcohol at least monthly is down significantly, um, especially for 11th grade and especially for 11th grade female students. This also mirrors statewide trends. And this was another sensitive one, only 386 11th graders responded to this question. Tobacco usage has been low, um, since 2019 and continues to be low. Marijuana usage has declined significantly, very similar to the trend we saw with alcohol. Um, also similar to the statewide trends. In 2022, they started separating out e-cigarettes for nicotine and e-cigarettes for marijuana. Um fairly low, but a decline particularly for 11th grade females since 2022. And e-cigarettes for marijuana THC THC remaining relatively steady since 2022. This is the slide I get kind of the most kick out of even though it's difficult to read. >> [laughter] >> So, students were asked two sets of questions. First, they were asked how often do you think that your peers are using the following substances? So, on a scale of never, tried once or twice, once or twice a month, once once a week, or daily. And then they were asked, well, how often are you using these substances? So, our 11th grade males, for example, um reported that they thought 52% of their peers had ever smoked tobacco. And in reality, 7% of 11th grade males said that they had ever smoked tobacco. I think it's fascinating. Wait, is the percentage like is the percentage like a percentage of time? Like how often or is it >> I condensed it into anyone who had ever. So, this is a combination of I I think my friends have tried it once or twice. I think they've tried it they once or twice a month, once a week, or daily. Okay. But within there there is the gradation where we're saying like, okay, I think 20% of them are Okay. have tried it once or twice. I think 10% of Mhm. So, this is one that in my dream world I would love to get to like health teachers cuz I think that'd be super relevant in a health class. Um Yeah, cuz I remember being a high schooler and you you think the world is one way and it isn't always. Um in terms of next steps, um would be sharing information with school principals and built teams. School principals have received this already. Um sharing it with counselors, social workers, and school psychologists, and of course our health teachers. Um over the summer I plan on requesting school level data for the two middle schools um just cuz they're quite different from each other. And then reviewing some of the key indicators by race and ethnicity where possible. Thank you. Any questions? Mine um you actually answered it in the fact that we do share these with teachers. So, I just want to kind of confirm that. So, this does go to health teachers, this does go to counselors cuz really that's where this information becomes so valuable. It will go to health teachers and counselors. I'm still trying to figure out the best way to get it in front of them. Okay. It also um just for context, this same report is done by the county. So, Washington County has a county level report and has access to district level reports and they use it when they develop their countywide health plans. For example. Do you remember one more question then I'll turn it over, but do you remember what the statewide opt-out result levels were? I I'm sure I can find out, but I know that uh I don't think I can go back to the beginning. 45% of students ended up participating statewide. Okay. Um I don't know within their schools how many of them, you know, had the opportunity to it. It was 61% of schools who participated, but that's not representative of their populations. Okay. Questions? I have a question. Probably more of a comment. You know, I think one of the more interesting ones is that the very end there, there's what I do versus what I think the others do. And if you walk into the bathroom there's one kid vaping. If 10 people see that, that's 10 people thinking that everybody else is vaping. And I just the um separation between reality and perception, I think. Uh it'd be fun to study that a little bit more. I'm not suggesting it, but yeah. >> No, it's so interesting. I mean, what a difference. Is there anything we do at a at a district level? I mean, I know you're saying we can we're going to get this out to the to the individual buildings. Is there a you know, the way we communicate with parents this information or we don't? I mean, I I don't know. Is it Is it that useful to that we that it can be used more broadly by us in in messaging and that? I think there's some pretty significant trend data in different directions going on there that uh we can certainly uh communicate to the uh to the public. You know, at the district level, we all looked at this uh last week with the directors, you know, just analyzing it and and asking questions of Elsa. Um I I think our next step is to share it with the principals um so that they can see uh some of the trend data that uh um that's occurring within their buildings. And then I think we just have to sit down and talk about um you know, what what are some important things to share in here? I mean, you know, just a couple takeaways from just listening to the conversation tonight, you know, I think the slides that we showed on um uh drugs and alcohol, I mean, significant trending in the in the in the proper direction there, which is a great news story to promote for our community. Um so that, you know, kids are really um you know, taking this seriously and and families are. You know, of concern for us, I think and this is kind of why you're going to have uh um Eric come up here and Jessica in in a few minutes is, okay, what's going on with fifth graders and technology when 20% of them are up between midnight and 5:00 a.m. I mean, that is a huge flag um that we can certainly get out to families as well. So, there're different pieces in here that I think are are real important for us to share. We just haven't, you know, had a chance to sit down and and uh devise a a communication strategy. But it's a great question. I think when um actually we had MDE come in and present these results statewide um to uh AMSD. And one thing that was noted and I don't know if there's a this great answer is maybe how can we share some of this data with our legislators? And when they're prioritizing what is important, for example, like I think Director Parker mentioned the suicide um it it with older girls, which is incredibly sad below statewide trends. So, it's clearly a statewide issue. Um and so, how do we get that to people who are maybe looking at funding for student support services? How are we able to meet those when funding goes down? So, I think sharing that and I know MDE was looking for ways to get that out to legislators to make those decisions. So. I'm going to take my last comment a little further um think, you know, at the high school we want to keep the kids there, but there's kids that go other places and we've talked about that. And I've been told by other people that's because they want to leave the school. And maybe they're having this perception, you know, they're if only seven kids are I'm just looking at the top line there are smoke cigarettes um but they think 52. They're going to go home and see it everybody at the high school smoking, which isn't true. And now we have a message or an image problem that could be fixable, I would think, right? I say rhetorically, so I'm not asking you to give me the answer, but um anyway, that's a thought that I'm having and I'm sharing it. Or which story is the truth? Right? I mean, It's possible that students could underreport their usage. I I think we don't have reason to think that. Um at least based off of school behavior. Um we don't know what students are doing on their personal time, but no one's making you tell the truth on the survey. We set up the conditions for students to tell the truth. It's anonymous, it's private, it's all completely optional. Um but within that, you know, there's always a grain of salt with self-reporting just like there's a grain of salt with your perception. Um I just had one question for Zach. And I don't mean to put you on the spot, but does this does this survey ring a bell to you or is it one of you do take Do students have any it um thoughts that you maybe would want to share? And again, if you don't, but I mean, I mean, going along with P, I think this last slide is super >> Yeah. and surprising to me, too, when I saw the results of what they actually were cuz I definitely I remember doing the survey and like thinking of what other people think and I definitely the vaping one thinking that people are always vaping in the bathroom [laughter] kind of and all of that stuff. But I definitely think it's eye-opening to realize that it's not as high as you kind of think they are and it's like significantly lower than what you're thinking in your head. So, I think that's working with like health teachers and overall counselors and stuff getting everyone to realize what actually is happening in our school, I think is very beneficial for our students and families at home. Yeah, I agree. Any other questions? Mhm. I just have more of a comment. Um I really appreciate this comprehensive look at our students' lives right now um and how it's been done over couple decades now. So, it's got a lot of longitudinal data as well. Um I guess my takeaway from this is opportunities for following data moving forward. We made some significant changes in our district with cell phone policy and um with our uh start times as well. And I feel like there's opportunities here to uh we have a before snapshot from 2025 and then hopefully we can follow up and see if um if these changes have made significant um improvements hopefully for our students. And going back back to Dr. Funk's comment about those fifth graders up at midnight, that that I started that slide cuz I was shocked that that was the highest one at five nights a week. They had the highest numbers of being up in the middle of night on social media. So, um hopefully we will see a better snapshot moving forward as we kind of change the culture of cell phone use in our schools. Maybe that'll carry over into home life as well. Mhm. Um just to piggyback off of that cuz I was having the same thought um cuz the next like this survey won't happen again for 3 years. Is are there things that we could do at a district level like on some of those key areas like sleep to kind of mimic this and get the interim data? Yeah, we could definitely prioritize a few key indicators. I do think it's a balancing act because if you do it too often, then you might erode some of the honesty that students feel by not having it be a routine piece. But that's not to say that there's not limited ways we can try to get some of that. >> Yeah. Well, thank you so much. We appreciate this information. >> Okay, our next item is an educational technology update and we have Eric here. Good evening, Chairwoman, members of the board, Dr. Funk. We I'm here tonight with somebody who's not been at the board with me before and I'd like to introduce Jessica Schmidt. I am Jessica Schmidt. I'm the technology operations manager, so I help our building techs kind of get their jobs done. I also help with procurement and purchasing and contracting and project management. Thank you for having me. Yeah. So, we wanted to kind of following the Minnesota student survey data, we wanted to bring to you a little bit of an educational technology update around screen time in general. So, we're going to give you a little bit of background about kind of why we're here right now. Um talk a little bit about what is screen time and how we use technology at school as well as our devices at home. And then give you some resources. So, I have a colleague right now who's who's really coined this the screen time paradox or the dilemma. So, like technology is essential for learning and now more than ever. I mean every day we are finding new ways where technology connects us with like solving problems. And also at the same time with technology in general, there are concerns around screen time, especially when it comes to social media. Also, if you watch like media at all this spring, there's been a lot of legislation not just Minnesota, but we are here in our first year of not allowing cell phones in our schools K-12. As of this fall, like 2/3 of all states across the country have had legislation put in place around personal devices specifically focused at cell phones or social media in the classroom to reduce that. And also there's legislation right now that's been proposed to outright ban screen time in pre-K and K classrooms kind of as a reaction to you know, there are concerns around screen time. And so with with all that to say, I want to break down a little bit of what is screen time cuz not all minutes on screens are the same thing. And so, we've used a Flashlight report that we were working with an organization called CoSN. It's a professional organization for instructional tech technology leader roles. Um They've broken this down into three buckets and we've really aligned our work to that. So, cell phones and social media is one of those buckets, so that's really you know, where we spend a lot of the time kind of doom scrolling, wasting time. That's really been the focus of a lot of that legislation recently. We also have traditional entertainment which is mostly all I had growing up like TV, video games. I didn't have a lot of those, but TV. Platforms that are not accessed on a cell phone. And then in the middle we have edtech. And so, edtech really is used to support student learning. It's really designed to support our both teaching and learning across the board as well as 21st century skills. And so, when we talk edtech, the structure and the intention is really the difference. And so, you know, we use screens in a lot of different ways. What students do in the classroom is really chosen with care. It's pedagogically sound and we put some clear guardrails in place to prevent over-reliance on technology in our classrooms as well. So, when I talk structured and intentional use, we use it for a clear purpose. We use it alongside those in-person face-to-face experiences for a specific skill. It's not that we're kind of just dropping kids in front of screens for hours on end as a replacement cuz a lot of times that face-to-face discussion is the best format for us to introduce a new topic or develop some of those opinions in class. And there are times when screens and technology can help. So, briefly just to go over screens in our schools, we use edtech as well for kind of three different reasons. The first one is that differentiation. So, we we can personalize lessons in a lot of different ways with technology. We also do a lot of skill building around 21st century skills. Like for example, our English language arts standards include digital literacy standards like being able to explain new ideas online using things like Google Sites. And then access and inclusion. Like technology really does level that playing field so that we can reach the needs of all learners whether that's special ed, whether that's ELL. Access issues, all of that. Technology really is the the tool that we use to to level that. And so, this might be an overview for some of you, but as a reminder for you all in our community, student access in Stillwater and this is in thanks to our community supported technology levy that was put in place in 2021. We have a universal access device program or one-to-one program in place. So, what that looks like here in Stillwater is that in grades pre-K and K and 1, we have some iPads in the classroom that they can use for a specific purpose. So, you might see that as like a station or a group or a group of kids working on an iPad where they get it out, they use it for that specific task and it gets put away. In grades 2 through 5, we do have one-to-one Chromebooks and carts in the classroom. But again, those don't often go home with students. So, they're available in the classroom. We can use them for certain activities. They're stored in the classroom. And then grades 6-12 is where we start to issue a Chromebook to students where they like then keep it, they bring it home, they're responsible for it. So, like like when Dr. Funk mentioned a lot of those fifth graders, 20% of our fifth graders on devices from midnight to 5:00 a.m. That's definitely not on a Stillwater school device. But I want to give you a just a brief overview of what we have in our schools here. And then throughout our work over the last about a month and a half when we started planning out putting together some slides for to bring to the board here, we started gathering a few few of those examples that crossed grade levels or across content areas. So, I already mentioned edtech in Stillwater can look like one-to-one devices. We use those for a variety of different things. We also have things like our reading program or benchmark assessments that allow us to like assess where students are at within their reading. And another thing that stuck out across kind of all grade levels was we use edtech for feedback. Whether that's like an exit ticket, whether that's providing students voice feedback or text feedback in ways that we could never do before. Like educational researcher John Hattie would tell you that feedback is a really high impact instructional strategy. Edtech really supports providing that feedback to students and that's one thing that we could see here consistently clear when we were talking to staff internally around how does this support what you do on a day-to-day basis. We also have I mentioned a couple of kind of our really fun creative projects like our user-centered design project that we have in grade eight where you can have students bring an idea from concept in their head to paper and draft it on the computer in 2D to actually print it out in 3D. So, bringing an idea from like concept to physical proof of concept in real life. And just problem solving across the board. And so again, that that structure and intention has really helped edtech has been proven to be a great supplement to high quality teaching, but really that focus on teaching not that we like technology would ever replace that. We do in this context want to mention some of the guardrails we have in place for technology use across the board. And so, we have a variety of internet filters in place. A number of those redundant as well, but those are in place to help protect students who might get a little lost in the weeds on the internet help them keep focused. We also run what we call like walled gardens. For example, our some of our lower grade levels that have email turned on, they're only able to email like their teacher and another student. They're not able to email anybody with a personal email address or anybody out on the World Wide Web. So, we can kind of control how we help students learn how to use those tools. And then we also have a tool and Jessica's going to talk a little bit more about that as well. We have a tool called Hapara that teachers can use to support students and view kind of all screens in real time to help them focus if they're again getting lost in the weeds or off off task a little bit. Um And so that's a tool that has grown in use over the last 2 years here as well. And we've heard a lot of positive feedback from teachers about uh recently. And we also have kind of the >> Did Can I ask a question on that? Um on the second bullet point, do we know what how like the adoption with our teachers on that tool? Like do you have any I don't have that with me. I know we got an opportunity to like share with uh at least 6-12. Um we've shared with all buildings, helped them get started. So our elementary teachers have started using it as well this year, so that's been um you know, for those running Chromebooks who want to use it. I don't know if you have any of that off the top of your head, but yeah, we could get started. >> Okay. Yeah, if you could just maybe follow up, that'd be great. Yeah, no problem. Yeah. Uh what's I mentioned digital citizenship and just providing clear expectations for student new use and non-use is something that we do on a pretty regular basis. And we're just always there to redirect kids and help them learn how to how to use the internet because it is really ubiquitous and part of our everyday and more and more everyday. Uh and then I included a couple of review slides. Uh more to talk through. I mean we have it's been March 4th uh since March 4th of last year that you approved the cell phone policy um across the board. And so this also plays into supporting screen time in our schools as well. Yeah, these are all review slides as well. So I will turn it over to Jessica. Uh thank you again for having me. I am also very nervous, so I'm sorry if [laughter] I speak fast. And if I do speak fast, please just ask questions. I'm I'm not afraid to stop um Like I'll speak to Hapara for a second. Uh we do meet with our vendor for renewals and they can give us usage, so we can see that adoption too for numbers if if that's um so we can supply that at a at a later >> That's right. Thank you. Thank you. >> You're welcome. So everybody knows screens are everywhere. You've been to the gas station. We have screens at the gas station now. Uh the the point of having them is not removing them, it's just using them more intentionally. Um the the point is to build healthy habits for our students uh so that that technology can be used more appropriately throughout their lives cuz that's important for longevity, too. Uh our teachers use technology with uh intention and the same should carry home as well. Uh it's less about how much, it's more about what is being used with that time on those screens. Uh we're not aiming for perfect screen time at home. Uh what tends to work best is consistency, simple expectations that families can stick to. Things like uh having um no technology at dinner. Uh my own son even caught me. I I was off work on Monday and he's like, "Are you working?" I said, [laughter] "Yes." And he's like, "You have off today. What are you doing?" And I think that just becomes so prevalent in all of our lives. We pick up those screens. We have to make connection. No, my kid's sitting right there in front of me like eating, talking to me about college. So I um I think it's a good reminder that we bring that home. And showing that and modeling that really helps our students as well. Uh we know that families are navigating this and this is kind of new. It's not like, you know, you have a grandfather that set you up to understand how not to use um doom scrolling as a activity. So uh I actually really love this commonsensemedia.org. It is a great website for families. They have these wonderful um guides for how to speak to your children about using social media or setting up a family online plan. Uh Google also has a great family link. If you've never checked it out, you can actually use it on uh personal devices that can set like screen time limits, which is kind of powerful. Not a lot of people know that your internet service provider can actually provide tools to limit how much screen time your students have or actually even shut the internet down at a certain time. I just got a new app for my home internet that literally I can take my child's device and say, "Nope, not after 8:00 p.m." Uh and our teachers are wonderful at explaining recommendations for technology use at home. They see your kid your student every day. Uh and they're also expert teachers in education and child development. So please reach out to them or um we're also happy to help as much as we can. Uh really schools and families work we're a partnership. Um schools provide structure during the day. Families bring their own expectations and values at home. And when those are aligned, we can see our students prosper in that technology realm and screen time use. I we just wanted to kind of uh make sure that transparency is important in all aspects of technology as much as we can for obviously data privacy reasons. But our tools that we use in the classroom are actually listed out on our uh district website. So can help drive conversation at home. Ask a question about a tool. Ask them how they used it today. It might help facilitate those kind of questions like how are using technology um intentionally. At the very end of the day, it's about helping our students build healthy relationships with technology. What they learn now will shape how they use it for the rest of their lives. That's really good. We love any questions you have. >> Yep. Did you have questions or comments? >> Just two letters. AI. Yeah. >> [laughter] >> It's It's a good question. So AI in general, I mean it it's changing every day. Uh I think of last Friday we just had a chance to get middle school staff together uh during the professional development day that um talked through both some AI tools that we have as well as how they're seeing it used in the classroom. And so um we've committed to setting aside time both with our staff to work on building their own AI skills as well as trying to unpack in a clear way um expectations and guidelines for our students as well. And so I mean it's we see we hear we see and hear of new AI uses uh all the time. I think you you maybe do as well in your own professional settings or personal settings, so. Is there anything more you were No, it's just yeah, I mean yeah. It is a topic. Yeah. Um it's more of a philosophical musing maybe, but I I think about um like at home, you know, not even so much just like limiting the screen time or making that the focus, but like um like modeling reading a physical book or making sure we've got paper magazines, you know, subscriptions coming in and sort of like kind of balancing things out that way. Do we have we thought or I don't even know if [clears throat] this would be your department, but I mean about ways to do that like in the in the school setting? Like maybe like bring textbooks back or do other things where it's not even so much about like limiting the screens, but it's balancing it kind of with like other paper writing, [snorts] textbooks, or just other things, too. Yes, and I I mean I can speak generally to uh I know I've feeling well as behind me. Uh but I'm thinking of our new reading curriculum that was brought in. I mean big key component of that is there's a lot of paperwork that involves with that like like handwriting. Um so it there's a lot of intentionality that goes into like let's let's have some resources online, also look at the level. And so maybe more at the secondary level it might make sense for us to have some more of the interactive content online that we it does a lot more than a textbook might do or a paper text might do. Um but for sure the the elementary level with that reading curriculum there's a lot of those components that are kind of paper pencil. Um we we look as we vet that content as it comes in as and as we vet those tools, we look at like how can this actually help us versus just replace what we're already doing? Mhm. Like is functionally is it better? Like does it provide more for us? I think of like science content like especially at the secondary level that that has moved primarily online because you're working with like models or able to interact with diagrams. Like most of that content has moved online um because you can you can get a lot more out of it than six pages of images. Yeah, sure. Yeah, definitely kind of use case specific. Great. Cool. We'll go Pete and then All right. Uh Paul, I was thinking of my own question, so I might have just missed what you said, but I had a teacher share a link with me about non-technology and uh some studies in some other states where there's classrooms where there's nothing, not even this TV screen here, no computers, don't have everything is non- technology and that those classes or those places are excelling. Do we have any moments in the day or classes where there is nothing and um just for a period of time, any teachers that have that philosophy or So I would say our our general approach to it has really been that intentional use. So let's use technology when it like intentionally it will help us. Um but let's not use it when it won't help us. So uh as far as like building wider district wide, we don't have like you're talking about special time set aside, but there is I mean the right now there are uh you know, I think of like a couple of European countries, there's districts that are trying out no no technology to see how that works. Uh I think part of what we're hoping to do is just to help to differentiate the difference between like, gosh, we we really have a lot of concerns about round screen time and around social media use, and technology can still help us with learning in a lot of different ways. And so, intentional use is really what we're focusing on. Thanks. Yeah, first of all, thank you all for the work you're doing in the technology sector. Obviously, it's highly important and a lot of confidence in the work you're doing and appreciate you keeping everything running as well as it does. So, um I know this you know, it definitely seems Let me back up. I mean, I'm thrilled with the fact that we implemented that no um personal communication devices um policy. I think that's a really important uh step that we implemented. But, we also tend to see, I think in society, a lot of the pendulum swinging backs back and forth. And right now, I think we're going more towards like, let's eliminate it. And uh Jessica, you kind of mentioned something about finding that healthy balance, and I think that's, you know, how can we as a district help to educate parents because it takes a village to help make that happen. We we can maybe control what all comes in the school, but uh providing those resources uh to families and caregivers of figure out how can that [clears throat] be done all the other times they're outside of school. So, you know, like the Common Sense um .org and that's a really great website, but I just would be would interested in knowing what's that level of engagement as we send out communications on this. How many you know, what's the click rate on that, you know, from families? Um you know, how can we better engage that because I know that was one of the big takeaways from the the policies. How can we best educate families now to um best model that and and demonstrate what's happening uh within the policy, but helping to create, you know, good digital citizenship for our students. So, I don't know if that's more a question for Dr. Funk or just a takeaway, but just, you know, that's something I would really think is a continued opportunity for us to further engage families. >> Well, absolutely. And we you know, we heard tonight Jessica mentioned, okay, internet providers can shut off the internet at certain times throughout the evening. Okay, do our families know that? And are we being intentional about sharing that information? You know, with our families. And again, I I think we are seeing uh a pendulum swing back and forth on this. And I think part of what our responsibility is as a school system is, we are preparing our students for a future after high school. And that future is going to have a technology component to it. But, it's also going to have, you know, we want them to be able to think independently. So, I I think it's a real balance uh between the two. And you know, I think hearing the the tech team here tonight talk about, you know, being purposeful with how we're utilizing these tools, rather than I can remember, this is probably 10 15 years ago when districts were starting to we're going to adopt these computers and everything's going to we're not going to need libraries anymore. I mean, I went to a district up north and visited. We took the library out cuz we can do everything online now. We can and so, um that's just not reality. Um and it's not it's not what's what's best for the for the kids. And so, that's where the balance really has to come in. Um but I think being intentional and purposeful and and working with our community and and sharing some of the challenges we're facing, um I think we'll we'll be more likely to be successful. Thank you. I'd also I'd like to add Director Theander, we have a small group of people. It's gotten bigger. We have been working over the last 2 months to brainstorm how we could provide more resources and outreach to our our PTA groups, our parents, kind of what events might work. And we're kind of it's at the brainstorm stages right now. We have a lot of different ideas out there, but we're working to come up with like some online options for people to talk about screen time, which I I I do catch the irony in there, but also some face-to-face activities as well, whether that's through PTAs, through some of those family nights that we have at school, just to help connect people with those resources as well. So, we um intend to provide some of those towards the end of this spring as well as into next fall, too. Awesome. Thank you. Yeah, I mean, that had to surprise maybe even you guys to hear the student survey results that midnight to 5:00 a.m. and, you know, so I think there is some marrying of some knowledge and some tips and um that we can provide for our students and our families cuz our students clearly also from this student survey are very self-aware on their social media usage and um so, I think that and they were very supportive of the personal device policy that we implemented um at the board table here. So, I think there is an acknowledgement that there needs to be a healthy balance, and I appreciate what you're doing to make sure that we kind of ride that right space of how to properly prepare kids for technology that is growing in society, but then also doing it responsibly, as well. So. Yes. Thanks. Um I kind of wanted to circle back to the AI issue. And uh I'm just curious if your department has done any research or talked to any other districts about how they are approaching AI in education. Um I know that we have recently adopted a tool for educators um to use AI, and I'm curious of that how well that's going. Um but then also, how can we better educate our students in how to use it, what's appropriate use versus inappropriate use? >> I feel like there's there's so much fear around it. Um and honestly, I hear it from my own kids that they are very skeptical of AI um and and scared of it. So, um kind of what work is going on um and potentially, is there a policy or a way that the board can support this work um in helping figure this out for our district? Good. That's a that's a good question. So, the right now, we are engaged a couple of groups that stand out to me like we are engaged in like members of an informal organization that just started called it's AI for MN.org. It's Minnesota's gender generative AI alliance. So, it's a number of instructional tech uh not just technology, but instructional tech people, a lot of T&L people, district leaders. Um they've hosted It's kind of what's become of a conference that started 2 years ago um in St. Cloud, Minnesota back in June. And so, this will be the third year, but a spin-off of that has been a lot of work around uh the generative AI in general and how we support that in schools. And so, it's uh we're dialed into that. They've been meeting informally as well, and so we're definitely part of those conversations and working with We also just joined a pilot as well with eight other districts around the state. Just this week, we were accepted into a pilot to get some extra professional development around how we could better implement Gemini as one of the tools that we are formally using. Um and so, we're working directly with Google on that as well. So, what PD what what's our staff being exposed to? Uh so, right now, our just last Friday, we had a workshop around how we could use AI to differentiate using Brisk, uh the tool that we bought this last year. So, looking at how we can level resources, how we can think about concepts differently that might connect with students. Um well as that feedback keeps coming back, keeps seeping through even in AI because AI can allow teachers to um some of it's called batch feedback, which uh I was initially concerned teachers would kind of react to like, "Whoa, this is taking over my like, you know, kind of the art of teaching." Uh the few teachers that we have that are into it >> [cough and clears throat] >> from last Friday, they feel like it's like they can kind of queue up, "Here's the standard feedback that we might give um as we write maybe a paper was the example. Um it doesn't give it directly to the students like they're able to proof it, but they felt like they were able to give a lot more authentic and deep feedback to students like more rich, deep feedback in new ways that they would never have been able to do before. And that was uh encouraging to hear. And I said and I think at the same time, we still uh recognizing where where people come from because the AI topic um people's people still, you know, people are all different levels, right? There's a lot of people who are still concerned about um like environmental impact of AI. Um there's a lot of different pieces to it that we're we're all working through professionally, and it's like moving faster than we can do all of that. So, we're focused on um providing consistent professional development where we can um use AI for good in our schools. Okay, thank you. Other questions? Yes. Oh, this isn't about AI, but more about technology use in the classroom coming from like a student perspective. Um I mean, I personally haven't dealt with anyone that like any teachers that I just like no computers or anything, but it's more of I mean, at least in my first hour now, I we take notes on paper, and then our labs have been all on paper, and it's all written out. And kind of well, it is kind of practicing for like a written exam for the AP um for the AP exam test, but it's also we've only really had we like it's not computers aren't like banned, but we kind of like it's more student involved, and it's like you open it up if you need it, and like if you want to follow the slideshow along, but it's not, "Oh, shut your computer down while we're doing notes." And it's kind of more I would say on to each their own and kind of building that responsibility of how to use technology responsibly in the classroom and also outside of school. Like, let's say I graduate, go to college. No one's going to be There's no teacher going to be over my shoulder saying, "Oh, put your phone away. Phones are banned in the classroom. You can't have that out or not." It's kind of then phone policy, I would say, is kind of building that responsibility in how to be responsible when especially you're doing homework or trying to study for a test exam or whatever. And I mean, I'm only at school for 2 hours this semester in school, but I would say I'm a lot more focused when I'm not on my phone and I'm in the classroom doing homework. And sometimes I'll go to just stay longer in the school just so I know like I won't have that ability. Like, if I go to study at the library, like I'll have my phone on me, but it's like I know it's on me or it's I'll go Sometimes I've even put it in my car and just left it in the car cuz I know myself better. I'm going to pull it out. I'm going to get distracted. But I think it's all circling back to what Dr. Funk said about the balance and trying to figure out when you should use it and how responsible you should be in the classroom. But I would say in this year and even last year when I was a junior, the teachers are a lot more flexible with using a computer and aren't really as more of, "Oh, shut your computer down." It's more of um seeing like maybe walking over and seeing what it's used for if it's being used responsibly at that moment in time. And how do you be responsible in the classroom? Oh, that's That's actually really good to hear. >> [laughter] >> From a parent's perspective as well. Great. Any other questions or comments? Well, thank you very much. Um I always want to say uh thanks. And I know I love when you put that up there. Thanks to the community for what they've done to support technology in our school district cuz it goes way beyond the the Chromebooks that we have, but in phone systems and copying machines, and I don't and um I don't know I'll give you an opportunity to talk about how important that's been for the work that you've done for students and families, but I appreciate you always kind of making that front and center for us here. So, thank you. Thank you. All right. Seeing that, we're done on that. Um so, now we are going to do something we haven't done before. We are going to go into recess. We're as a uh board room going to go over to Bayport Elementary, the new site, and take a tour of the progress that's being done there. And we will adjourn the meeting from that location. So, We're not going to come all the way back here. >> not going to come all the way back here. I know. >> [laughter] >> We can if you want, but All right. So, we're we're in recess and until we hit Bayport. So, Oh, yes. Do we Okay. Come on. Thank you. She has to.