[0:01] I'd like to call to order the um let me figure out what today's date is November 19th 2024 business meeting of ISD 622 [0:10] I'd like to call our meeting to order first um up is uh the Pledge of [0:20] Allegiance flag of the United States of America and to the Republic which it [0:27] stands one nation under God indivisible with liy [0:37] andice all right first up we just have to get um an approval of the agenda [0:42] could I get a motion and a second to approve the agenda so move moved by [0:47] Livingston second second by Martins um so that is approved do I have [0:54] to do we have to discuss I always forget okay any discussion [1:00] okay um all in favor say I and all opposed say nay all right um the agenda [1:07] is approved um next up is our public comment so this is an opportunity for [1:13] the public to comment on items speaker shall register by completing the public [1:18] comment signup sheet they'll State their name they and they'll have between um [1:23] two and four minutes depending on the number of speakers to speak on a topic the public comment section of the [1:29] meeting meeting shall last no longer than 30 minutes um we do have some speakers tonight so um and I will call [1:37] it based on how it's listed here um and each um speaker will have may you said [1:44] three minutes okay all right so uh first up is Jenny [1:52] Cook okay yeah um and just a reminder um so [1:59] we don't follow up we don't respond right away but we'll follow up after the meeting so okay um so I'm Jenny Cook but [2:07] I'm actually reading a statement from Deborah Toronto who is a par educator in [2:13] the prek program at Richardson I'm a parah uh but I'm at Justice alen page so [2:19] Deborah says I have been a par professional in the district for 18 years this year it [2:26] saddens me that after all the years of service through covid and Staffing shortages that the district would change [2:32] how we get our time off my sick time is crucial to me as I have two small children I don't get to use my time for [2:40] me I use it for my family the district making us acrw time each pay period is [2:46] making it so that I have to choose between work or my kids being paid or going unpaid and wondering if I can [2:52] truly afford it I ask for you to please give us our time upfront so that we can [2:58] afford to be home with sick kids if we need to and for us to not have to come to work sick and for your staff to know [3:04] that you do care about us and the work that we do thank [3:11] you thank you um next up I have Cindy [3:26] Swain Schoolboard superintendent and cabinet good [3:33] evening so remembering back to when Christine first came on as [3:39] superintendent one of the very first things that she did was take time off to [3:45] go to her daughter's 15th birthday celebration her motto was family [3:53] first after more than 23 years of frontloading our sick time suddenly HR [4:00] decided not to frontload Our Sick time now Paras cannot take care of their [4:06] families or themselves they cannot and if they [4:14] decide to they cannot pay their bills they have children who need surgery [4:20] parents who have passed away parents who need care all the illnesses that go [4:27] around schools including about of Co and new babies being [4:33] born all these things come out of our sick time that is not there and at one [4:41] day per month will not be there until [4:46] June a good Recruitment and retainment Tool I think [4:52] not Families First only for [4:58] some as a district you should be ashamed of yourselves and as a board if you know [5:05] about this and approve of it you should be ashamed of yourselves too we are not valued or cared for as a [5:13] district you cannot recruit and retain us so you hire our workout to a staffing [5:20] agency Sun Belt and their contract states that you pay their employees sick [5:27] time you should be ashamed that you pay for non-district [5:33] employees sick time but are not paying for your own [5:39] employees and leaving them in the Lurch having to choose between care for [5:45] themselves and family or being able to pay their bills stop diminishing us and [5:50] our contract we deserve to have dignity in our [5:57] work thank you for your time oh I'm [6:04] sorry I like to present this to the board okay thank [6:13] you all right so next up we have Adam is it [6:25] Horwath um hello my name is Adam I am 23 years old and I'm a resource perah at [6:31] North I'm also a proud North graduate in 2020 and was um a student in 622 um [6:38] kindergarten through 12th grade um I'm here to briefly talk about how my experience last spring would have been [6:43] different if I was not granted sick time and the hardship ahead if we don't get any moving forward on Saturday June 1st [6:51] of this year I spent a night out with my partner in Downtown Minneapolis as we were walking back to my car from the bar [6:58] we were randomly attacked by four men I ended up with four fractures underneath both eyes swelling on my face back pain [7:07] and the entire right side of my face was numb a lot of this numbness was still [7:12] there up until last month needless to say I could not return for the last three days of school for finals week um [7:19] I was thinking a lot about the students and my colleagues because I very much enjoy and take pride in my job like a [7:25] lot of the people here hence the reason we are here tonight um I also thought a lot about money and I had no idea what I [7:32] was going to do um because I an the average person can not afford to miss 3 days of work and go unpaid so I'm pretty [7:39] lucky that I had the sick time available but I think about how I would not have it [7:45] today I think it's important to acknowledge two our Import in the schools as peras I sometimes catch [7:51] myself saying to people when I describe my job that I'm just aah in which I get a response of just aah you're an [7:57] essential piece of the school running properly however things like this taking [8:03] away our sick time and having to even be here tonight makes us feel like just [8:09] Paras turnover for peras as high as it is already taking the way the sick time [8:15] does not help hire new ones or keep the ones we already have when we just keep [8:21] going down the hierarchy of importance we have lives and things to pay for like [8:26] everyone else and we need sick days off getting sick which is a universal Human [8:32] Experience should not Define anyone being behind on bills because of their job I work two jobs and a lot of other [8:39] Paras and Educators alike work two jobs we should be worrying about recovering [8:44] not whether we can put food on the table gas in our car or we can pay medical bills if we're sick enough for [8:50] hospitalization or office visits like I was in June so I am asking on behalf of myself and others for you all to step up [8:56] for us and fight alongside us and not against us we expect to be treated fairly by the school and district and [9:03] with the respect that we put into our jobs um so thank you guys for being here tonight and for listening to us [9:13] speak um and then up last is it Al [9:18] alela alela Pierre Lou [9:25] Louie I'm just grateful I get the opportunity to speak tonight and I wanted to say that I know everybody is [9:30] coming from a lot of different backgrounds but I just want to share my story um I've come out of a very [9:37] difficult um family situation and dealing with Abus of parents and I'm on my own for context I'm just 18 years old [9:44] so um I have currently don't have their support right now and um my plan is that [9:50] I'm going to be saving up money so that I can go study abroad and um I'm going [9:55] to be studying in Italy and pursuing my dreams and moving there permanently but um not having that sick time front [10:01] loaded has made it really difficult because it keeps me trapped in this situation where I still have to deal [10:08] with the kind of aftermath of escaping the abuse of my parents and then also [10:13] kind of still dealing with well I have enough money to support myself when I do go abroad being in a new environment and [10:20] just survival is just something that's been on my mind and has caused me a lot of panic and I would really just [10:30] appreciate if you would just humbly consider a request and the stories of everybody here and not just me but our [10:36] all of our voices and how we all have our unique struggles and that everybody here is a person thank [10:50] you thank you everybody um and just like I said before if you requested a [10:56] response we'll um get back to you so thank you [11:01] all right um next up is the consent agenda this consists of routine items that are acted on in a single [11:08] Consolidated motion without board discussion board members have the option of pulling items off the consent agenda [11:15] if they wish to discuss them or consider them individually um on the consent agenda is [11:22] the minutes of October 22nd business meeting the minutes of the November 12th [11:28] special meeting minutes of the November 12th work study session routine [11:33] Personnel bid award bid calendar change orders and dispersements um can I get a [11:41] well does anybody want to pull anything off okay um can I get a motion and um a [11:51] second to approve this I moved okay moved by y yanner good [11:59] seconded by Nardi um any discussion all right all in favor say I [12:07] I um and I'll oppose say nay all right um the consent agenda is approved um and [12:13] then we have now our reports uh first up is our uh student School Board [12:21] Representatives all right I don't have too much today um some of the same stuff [12:27] as last time so our winter sports have officially kicked off so I know they've [12:32] all been hard at work um I'm excited to see the basketball games this year and [12:37] all that stuff um our play Anastasia just finished its two weekends uh I just [12:44] saw it last weekend it was very good I was very impressed with all the talent I [12:50] am every year uh coming up we have a salt conference I think I mentioned this [12:57] last time I still don't have too much information but it is this Thursday so next board meeting I'll have lots of [13:03] information but I'm really excited there's a lot of uh Juniors and seniors from North attending this [13:11] so and then if this sweatshirt is actually from a fall Forum that I went [13:18] to at craigin which is um I was part of student council and I had so much fun I [13:24] met so many new people and I got so many new ideas for our school and I'm super [13:29] excited about that uh upcoming this Friday we have Coco and cram because it's finals week next [13:35] week and we also have cozy for cause which NHS is promoting right now which [13:41] will be us uh collecting money to make thae blankets that we can then give to [13:47] people so yeah and then my personal update is I [13:52] was accepted into the U ofm [14:05] all right first off hi it's been a while um so for Tartan I [14:11] mean she touched on it nor started it uh Coco and cram Coco and cram is a is a [14:18] space where students are able to get help after school um we used to have a [14:23] thing called Titan Academy that got taken away this year because of the absence of the library so a lot of [14:28] students teachers have been talking about an abil or the ability to reach with students after school and they have [14:35] the ability to retake tests and get any extra help like I touched on um other [14:41] otherwise we got fall fall Sports completely wrapped up uh swimming season uh wrapped up last week no qualifiers [14:48] unfortunately uh girl soccer suffered a defeat and um quarterfinals to Woodbury [14:53] boy soccer same same thing football ended in the section finals was defeat to Craton durm Hall [14:59] uh and guys and girls tennis both wrapped up their Seasons uh winter sports also just [15:05] officially kicked off we had girls basketball uh trouts last week teams are completely made uh boys basketball triy [15:13] outs ended today which is where I was I was late um uh guys wrestling started up today and girls hockey has played their [15:20] first three games one and two and uh they they host EAS Ridge tonight I'm pretty sure after the merderer with [15:26] Gentry uh guys hockey trials lapped up last week and they held their annual scrimmage Fest this this weekend that's [15:33] all I [15:42] got congratulation on being uh accepted at the U ofm thank you yeah um what's [15:49] going to be your major um well the major I want is engineering so I was acceped to the [15:56] engineering program there but um I'm not sure that's where I'm going to go yet but yeah [16:03] okay yeah what you said what's your goal school oh uh Purdue okay yeah that was [16:13] her question you already wrestled with the [16:19] microphone well that's [16:26] good thank you so much um we're going to move on to the superintendent all [16:32] right thank you and good evening um this evening we have two items to [16:40] share with you and the first is and I've got some members of our team ready to present to you the first is actually [16:48] hang on one second here our achievement report followed by our achievement in integration report um achievement report [16:55] is as as Amy is getting set up is basically a follow-up W up from last year's world's best Workforce [17:02] um goals and how we did on those thank you guys and um [17:09] also um the achievement and integration report is the program by which we get extra funding um related to basically [17:17] integration desegregation and so you'll get an update um from director lyf about [17:24] that one as soon as we finish up with uh Dr luckner and her re report and again [17:30] you had a long version of this last week so it's going to be a little bit shorter than that but um as a reminder all the [17:36] slides from last week and this week are both in boardbook and online for anyone to read as [17:44] well excellent well good evening chair Yang and members of the board and [17:49] superintendent Chio Soro and cabinet members um my name is Amy luckner I'm [17:55] the director for research evaluation and assessment and I am here to tonight to give a review of our achievement report [18:01] um as superintendent tuio Soro mentioned we did the full kind of detailed report [18:07] last week at the studies session and so our purpose tonight is really to focus on um highlighting kind of the world's [18:13] best Workforce goals and progress that we made and of course both presentations are available uh for further review as [18:21] well so our agenda tonight is to look a little bit at our enrollment data who we [18:27] are as 622 as well as our student attendance and then we'll go into our goal areas for ready for kindergarten [18:34] our academic goals as well as graduation and College and Career [18:40] Readiness the work that we're going to talk about tonight or the progress we're going to talk about um really aligns [18:46] with kind of two key areas of our strategic plan and that is the academic achievement and graduation and [18:52] post-secondary um work as well so you'll hear a little bit more about [18:57] those so I do want to give you a little bit of preface here uh this report is primarily a world's best Workforce [19:04] report which is the plan we have for last year but there was a change in the [19:09] legislation uh this past spring so you'll you'll probably hear me mentioned especially towards the end um also that [19:16] world's best Workforce is now becoming the comprehensive achievement and Civic Readiness Plan so you hear about both of [19:23] those um but the process we have for both plans is we first kind of review our progress and and create our goals [19:29] with our 622 advisory committee and then we have our full discussion with the study session last week and our review [19:37] tonight and fer reference there is the committee list from our 622 advisory [19:44] team in addition to this achievement report we will be having um additional [19:49] presentations throughout the year from each kind of level uh so Middle School [19:54] would be coming in December High School adult basic get adult programming um Elementary and early learning and [20:00] there's the calendar for you and with each of those presentations they will get into more depth about the strategies [20:06] they're using at that level to work on the goals that we have um for within our strategic plan and for each [20:14] building so we're going to start with our some of our enrollment data who we are as 622 and as we get started I wanted to um [20:23] share some highlights a quick video highlights of our students uh because [20:28] this is really who we are and who we are here for [21:21] [Music] [21:37] all [21:43] right so we as you saw in those pictures have a a diverse student body that we're very proud of um this show is kind of [21:50] our enrollment again we're primarily reporting on last year this is for last school year I mean you can you can see [21:57] the diversity of our student there on for comparison we have on the right hand side the state as an as an [22:05] average I think what's kind of interesting to see though is also see our student enrollment across time and [22:11] so you'll see in on this um graph kind of almost the past 10 years of our [22:17] student enrollment and broken down by different student groups and so for example the it starts in 2014 2015 and [22:25] it goes all the way through last year and this is the % of our total enrollment that fall within each of [22:30] these groups um so you can see that there has been a change in terms of percent of that identify as white as [22:38] well as a change in the the percent that identify as other racial and ethnic groups there as [22:45] well we also have students who participate in different programming in our district on the programming is that [22:52] we often look at um our our English learner or multilingual programming our special education programming [22:59] uh students who are eligible for educational benefits like free and reduced lunch and students who um are [23:05] receiving services for homelessness the dark blue bar in each of these graphs is [23:10] the our percent average the percent of our our students who um received these programs last year the light blue bar is [23:18] the state average for comparison and we can see how this has changed across time as well um in this [23:25] graph so again uh these show this graph shows um the past about 10 years and you [23:31] can see the change across time I'll highlight two of them so the blue bar at the top is the percent of students who [23:38] are El eligible for free or reduced lunch and you can see that um in 145 we [23:44] had 51.8% there was a dip during uh 2020 2021 because of covid and and how that [23:51] was reported um but most recently in 23 24 we had um 66% of students who had [23:58] identify for educational benefits like free and reduced lunch um and so that is [24:03] um a change there across time you'll also see um that there's a change in or [24:10] a noticeable change meaningful change in the percent of our students who are receiving English learner Services um [24:17] and so we went up about seven percentage points there over the cross that that's the gry line over the cross the last um [24:24] 10 years as well oh we also have a ver number of [24:30] Home languages that our students and their families speak uh last year uh we had officially anyway 68 languages um [24:37] the top languages are shown there and so that's uh really exciting um and a great [24:42] source of talent in our district so the next little section [24:49] we're going to talk about is student attendance and the reason that we focus on this is that um attendance is really [24:55] a foundation for student learning and graduation and so that's kind of a key um a key indicator for whether students [25:02] will be able to benefit from schooling and um be College be have Civic [25:07] Readiness and a comprehensive achievement the uh there's a lot of ways [25:13] that you can look at attendance one of the things that we've been really highlighting in our district for the past couple years is chronic absenteeism [25:21] and so this is showing the percent of students who are absent 10% or more of school days and the reason that we look [25:28] at that that particular indicator is that's been shown to be kind of Highly predictive of um decreasing the [25:34] likelihood of graduation decreasing the learning that students um are able to benefit from so that's kind of one way [25:41] that we've been looking at it so what the this graph shows for us is the percent of our students who meet that [25:47] criteria of missing 10% or more school days the darker orange bars are from the [25:54] 2223 that was kind of the first year was that it was a primary focus for us and then the lighter orange bar was the past [26:00] year 2324 um and so you can see overall that the percent of students who were absent [26:09] 10% or more school days decreased for us between those two years by about 2% [26:14] points so from 30% to 28% um and so that is also showed here [26:21] just in terms of the raw numbers so we saw about a 100 fewer students who were absent for that um signicant period of [26:29] time for us it's about 17 or more school days that would uh fall on that 10% of [26:34] school days range um but we still have still have a [26:40] number of students who are missing a lot of schooling we have broken it down here by grade level and so you can see in [26:47] these next slides the the graph on the left is the actual number of students um [26:54] the dark blue the blue bar was the 2223 the green bar is 23 24 so you can [27:00] see the change across here and then the graph on the right is the same numbers but represented as [27:05] percentages and so this is our elementary graph and you can see some of the some of what we highlighted before [27:11] is that in elementary school a kindergarten was a grade we were very focused on because they had a pretty uh [27:17] relatively high percentage of students who were chronically absent and we saw some great Improvement there um and and [27:24] every grade we saw some some decreases in the number and percent of students who were chronically [27:33] absent this next slide shows Middle School grades um again comparing 2223 to [27:40] 23 24 and in this case we saw an increase in the number of students who [27:45] were chronically absent between 20223 and 203 [27:52] 24 and then on this slide we have a high school by grade level um and then you [27:58] can see for high school we did see an imp uh decrease across the two years [28:04] although the overall level is still the highest of our of our um three breakdowns if that makes sense so [28:10] there's Improvement but we still see kind of the a high level for example in 11th and 12th grade of the number of [28:17] students who are chronically absent so these are things that our buildings are working very intensely on um and every [28:23] school and program have specific goals related to uh attendance [28:28] um and absenteeism as part of their school Improvement plans and those plans are linked at the end of the [28:38] presentation all right I'm going to go into now our um goal areas uh the first [28:43] area is that all students are ready for kindergarten the way that we have been [28:49] looking at that is we have a district screener that we give all kids um at [28:55] every Elementary grade level but including kindergarten in the fall um it's part of the fastbridge assessments [29:02] that you may have heard of the ones we're going to talk about here are early reading and early math and so what we're [29:07] looking for is to see what percent of our students are showing that they're meeting a bench The Benchmark for in [29:13] this case early reading to say that they're on track for entering kindergarten so those are the kind of [29:20] Gold Line the gold uh bars here for the past couple years of what percent of our students entering kindergarten were [29:27] ready to learn reading um at at quote unquote grade level and we saw from 2022 [29:33] 2023 2024 we had 55% of students entering kindergarten on track um and [29:41] then in this fall we had 47% uh so we had a decrease there I [29:46] should note here that you do also see the winter and spring data for prior years but with this with this assessment [29:53] as you might know the Benchmark gets harder across the year um and so to be on track um you have to continue to grow [29:59] in the skills across the Year this is a breakdown for early math [30:06] so that includes things like uh for fall kindergarten like counting numeral identification and some really basic [30:13] number sense um indicators and here we saw for fall last year 23 24 we had 68% [30:22] of students on track in early math or early numeracy and this year we had 66% [30:28] on track so our goal coming into into La [30:33] this last year um was that we would have 60% of students on track for reading and [30:39] 73% of students on track for math I mean we did not we have not yet met that goal [30:44] um as you saw and so at the end of the presentation I'll be showing sharing you our goals going forward here as [30:54] well um some strategies that we're working on to to ensure that we continue to support our students in being ready [31:00] for kindergarten it our strategies from our early learning Department uh so just a couple key things is that they are [31:07] really focused on aligning their work their curricular work with kindergarten in our district um both in terms of the [31:15] academic work but also in terms of preparing students to be ready for kindergarten uh in terms of their social [31:21] emotional Readiness and behavioral Readiness as well we have a i we have [31:28] about 59% of our current kindergarteners who've come through some form of our pre- programming so of course we also [31:34] have welcome kindergarteners who are may or may not have gone through um Early Learning programming other places so [31:41] there's kind of a variety of experiences that students have coming into [31:48] kindergarten we're now going to focus on our academic goals uh specifically reading and math [31:54] goals that we have I want to start talking um in terms of reading with kind of an [31:59] overview of our MCA uh results uh the this is kind of showing some trends of [32:07] the percent of students who are proficient on the MCA reading assessment over the past several years the dark [32:14] blue bar is us as a district the dashed orange line is um the state average so [32:20] you can see in both cases there was a drop between 2019 and 2021 um due to most likely to covid [32:28] although we uh tended to drop a little bit more than the state and then we've kind of seen um now kind of a a plateau [32:36] here uh both the state average as well as in our district for reading um [32:43] between 23 and 24 we went down by about 7 percentage points um in terms of of [32:49] percent proficient so it's pretty flat um so that's just the overview of all grades that have tested in Reading one [32:56] grade that we focus specifically on on is third grade and I'll get to that in two slides um we also like to look at [33:02] our reading our our data in terms of student groups so again this is overall reading um this is the breakdown based [33:10] by student graay and eth ethnicity groups and so you can see the trends [33:16] across time uh for all of our student [33:25] groups we also have a breakdown um for students who are participating in [33:30] different programming that we have um this breakdown is a little bit different so I'll talk you through it the solid [33:37] lines there's a comparison here between students who are participating in the program and there are students who are not so the green lines for example are [33:45] uh the solid green line are students who are who are eligible for free and reduced price meals or educational [33:51] benefits the dashed Gren line are the students who are not eligible so we [33:56] often look at the differences is to see how we're supporting our students who are in these programs so for one example [34:02] in that example you can see the solid green line it's pretty flat over the past couple years um whereas the dash [34:09] Green Line students who are not eligible for free and reduced price meals we've seen a little bit of an increase and so [34:15] that's something that we pay attention to and work on [34:22] addressing one area that we focus on specifically for reading is third grade reading that's often the transition time [34:28] from learning to read to reading to learn you've probably heard that phrase before and so it's really important that [34:34] our students are proficient in Reading at that point so that they continue to benefit from learning moving [34:40] forward in this case we also look at our district data which is uh fastbridge [34:46] this is a reading which is kind of a general screener for reading skills [34:51] we're looking now at the end of third grade so this the purple bar as the spring data what percent of our students [34:57] are on track um a meeting Benchmark AC according to this assessment and this past year 53% [35:03] of our students were on track so that was um lower than we [35:10] expected and so uh we're continuing to work in that area and I'm going to invite Heidi Lee the director for [35:17] teaching and learning to talk a little bit about some of the work we have going on focusing on [35:23] reading thanks well good evening chair yang members of the board superintendent [35:29] toio zorio and fellow cabinet members um I've been here before to share this [35:34] exciting shift that we have made in literacy and so we've done a lot of things the last couple years so to [35:40] highlight last year we implemented a structured literacy framework we shifted from a balanced literacy framework to a [35:45] structured and implemented a new K5 literacy curriculum amplify uh core knowledge language arts the acronym is [35:52] ckla and 120 Minutes of explicit literacy instruction K5 [35:58] we continue the implementation of mtss which is multi-tiered systems of support which allows for daily uh what I need [36:05] time when time is often what it's referred to and what this allows is that students receive what they need it could [36:11] be intensive intervention remediation continue practice or even enrichment [36:16] we've last year all of our teachers also engaged in um the science of reading PD [36:23] on a smaller scale and also learning around how to implement that ccla [36:28] resource and most importantly is that our grade level teachers are talking across teams with Advanced academics [36:36] intervention teachers MLS special Educators to make sure that they're making those um data- driven [36:41] instructional decisions so that work continued into this year a bigger lift is that all of our prek through fifth [36:48] grade teachers are participating in the read act professional development so all prek uh teachers are engaging in letters [36:55] for early childhood Educators it's very specific to them and then K5 classroom [37:01] teachers ml uh special Educators Advanced academics intervention are [37:06] working on the core online language and literacy Academy core olola for short [37:11] it's an intensive training but the feedback has been actually really well received it's just been a heavy lift for [37:18] our Educators who are working every day with implementing a really robust literacy and then again year two of [37:25] amplify ccla our mtss framework and our data discussion so I look forward to [37:31] coming back next year with great outcomes thanks thank [37:40] you okay we're gonna move on to a couple highlights for math um this is a kind of just the [37:46] overall big picture uh this is our scores from MCA U math assessment [37:53] the percent of students who are proficient over the past several years again the Blue Line Is Us the the the [37:59] orange dash line is um the state as an average and you can see kind of again [38:04] that that Co dip and then kind of a a plateau um we did see a very slight improvement in our overall math scores [38:11] um where we moved from 29.3% proficient in 2023 to 30.2% proficient um in 2024 [38:19] so that's a gain of about 0.9 percentage points which is um basically flat but [38:25] but um something that we continue to look on what's important to know also know about these overall pictures is [38:30] that as we've dug deeper we do find um areas where we have seen some growth uh [38:36] at specific buildings specific grade levels and so we do dig deeper to really see where growth is occurring and how we [38:42] can leverage that as well so here is the breakdown by student [38:49] race and ethnicity group you can see the trends across time [39:01] and then here is the breakdown by a student program groups um I'll just highlight one thing again the green [39:07] lines again are uh students who are the solid green line students who are eligible for free and reduced lunch and [39:14] educational benefits and the dash screen line are students who are not eligible for um educational benefits and you can [39:21] see that the solid green line we saw um a slight Improvement um but that the [39:27] dashed Green Line the students we see a little bit difference where there's a little bit more um Improvement across [39:33] the past couple years there as well so again we continue to focus on how we can support all of our [39:41] students for math one key area that we focus on is eth grade math um and to see [39:46] how our students are progressing and getting ready for more of the content specific math that they engage in in [39:51] high school we again look at our district assessments um we did have a [39:57] change at Middle School in what how we monitor our students progress with our [40:02] district assessment and so the data you see on the left is from [40:08] 2223 and that's when we were using nwaa map growth assessments and then on the [40:14] right um in order to align with with Elementary School we last year um switched to fastbridge a maath there're [40:21] similar assessments um but I just wanted to acknowledge that difference and that change and we see um that again we're [40:29] looking here to see how what percent of our students are on track in math at the end of 8th grade so we're comparing [40:36] Springs across years and last year we had 40% of our students on track and [40:41] math according to the fast Bridge assessment our goal going into last year [40:49] was to hit the 50% U Mark of students on track so we're continuing to work towards that and I'm going to invite [40:55] Courtney McCormick up to dor of post-secondary writing to talk a little bit about strategies in this [41:03] area Sher y members of the board superintendent tuoro fellow cabinet [41:09] members um as you look at this slide you can see our progression from our strategies for 2324 and how they moved [41:16] into the 2425 school year so we have our aligned middle school math curriculum [41:21] which is illustrative math and that's actually aligned to our high school math as well we are 611 is the best way to [41:27] think about aligned math curriculum in for our core resource in addition to the [41:33] aligned math curriculum last year we focused on common assessments this year that that continues into content [41:39] specialist L PLC work focused on student data and the intended level of rigor of our Minnesota State Standards so you see [41:46] the progression of the work that we do to continue to support also we're looking ahead to new math standards at [41:52] this time we have a commissioner approved draft of the 2022 math standards so we don't have a final [41:58] implementation timeline but it's projected to be the year 2728 thank you thank [42:06] you excellent so for um the those academic [42:12] goals um we were highlighting the goal areas related to world's best Workforce um but for more information I do refer [42:19] you to the full report that we gave at the study session so if you're looking for more academic uh information we're [42:27] moving on now to some of our um graduation and kind of post-graduation Readiness goals so for [42:35] graduation which is kind of our ultimate goal here we want our students to graduate and be successful in life [42:41] postgraduation um we look at kind of two different things the the primary one that you probably anticipate is the [42:48] four-year graduation rate what percent of our students are graduating on time [42:53] the uh those are the two bottom lines is the foure gradu uation rate the dark [42:59] solid blue line is our district and then the dashed Gray Line is the state average and so you'll see that in [43:06] 2022 we kind of had a we matched the state at 83.6% and then 2023 which is the most [43:13] recent data that we have for graduation uh we um dropped a little bit to [43:20] 81.5% uh so that's our fouryear graduation rate graduation rates don't [43:25] come out the official ones in until the following spring so we're looking ahead to our 2024 data coming out um in end of [43:32] March or April and we'll be able to share that then the other thing that we look forward though is that when we look [43:38] into four-year graduation rate and who maybe did not graduate in four years [43:44] there's a lot of reasons why students may not graduate but some of those are because um they're continuing on for [43:49] programming so that would include our transition programming um ml students often continue on for additional [43:55] entitled programming uh also students who are receiving special education and so we also look at our seven-year [44:01] graduation rate which is what percent of students continue on and within seven [44:07] years then graduate have with a diploma and so still having that kind of [44:12] Readiness for the world uh it is a so this the top two lines are the [44:18] seven-year graduation rate but that does capture students who would started in [44:24] 2017 you know and then we have the group that grad uated in four years which would have been 2020 but it also then [44:30] includes the students who then graduated in 5 years 6 years or seven years um [44:35] going forward so within seven years then we had 90.6% of our students graduate um so [44:44] that is higher than the state average of seven-year graduation rate which is 89.1% so we're seeing a lot of our [44:51] students continue on and gr still end up with a diploma um and skills for uh [44:58] postsecondary life we do look at this broken down by [45:03] student groups so you can see here a comparison of our graduation rate again this is [45:08] 2023 um and then next to that you'll see the state uh graduation rate for the same student [45:22] group uh this is kind of the similar information but across time for us as the district so this is the graduation [45:29] we for students broken down by uh race ethnicity um two things I'll highlight [45:34] for you because there's a lot of lines on this graph um but if you look at this um dark like the kind of middle blue bar [45:41] that's our students who identify as having two or more racer ethnicities so our multi-racial students you'll see [45:47] that we really see continue to see that increase across time where that now they actually have the highest um percent of [45:54] of students graduating with within this group of stud students so that's something that we're that I think is [45:59] exciting um we also see the kind of maybe purplish looks like purple U [46:05] darker purple bar here line here and that's our students who identify as black or African-American and there we [46:12] can still we also see a great trend line where it continues to increase every every [46:20] year this is our graduation uh data broken down by program group [46:31] um the other important information as I kind of highlighted here is there's a lot of reasons why students may not graduate in four years some of those [46:37] reasons are they're continuing on and then some of those reasons are they they might drop out and so you have to flip [46:44] your your view here a little bit and think about now we want to be lower this is our percent of students who drop out [46:50] so we want to be as low as possible there and here we can see that we are um [46:55] in a good way lower than the St average of the percent of our students who drop who officially drop out so last year [47:02] 3.9% of our I'm sorry 2023 3.9% of our students dropped out um versus the state [47:09] average which is 4.5% so fewer of our students were dropping out of of high [47:14] school those who didn't graduate more of them were continuing on for additional programming and [47:21] learning and this is the breakdown of the dropout rate for 2023 [47:31] um so our progress in terms of students graduating again is that um 81.5% of our [47:36] seniors graduated in 2023 and we'll talk about our goal moving forward in a few [47:43] slides so our last area is in addition to graduation we want to make sure our students are College and Career ready um [47:51] ready for the world and so we look at that this is criteria that was developed [47:56] to get together um several years ago with 62 advisory that we continue to monitor what we're looking at is [48:02] students who graduate in four years because that's a key indicator of being College and Career ready is graduation [48:08] and that also have demonstrated skills for post-secondary life um by doing one [48:14] of these things either they've earned a college credit or an industry credential while they're here um they've scored [48:20] three or higher on an AP exam which um often entitles them to some possible college credit um they've earned a [48:26] bilingual seal which is another way that demonstrates that they may earn a college credit um that they have a GPA [48:33] of 3.0 or higher that demonstrates kind of learning of the Minnesota state standards and is a criteria that a lot [48:40] of post-secondary Institutions look at to indicate that a student is ready uh for their learning um and then or they [48:47] may have an act composite score of 21 or higher and again that score is chosen because it's a score that a lot of um [48:54] post-secondary institutions May look at to say you're ready for the next [49:00] step uh because this includes graduation as a criteria again we're looking at the [49:05] seniors in 2023 what percent of them who graduated also showed skills in these [49:13] areas and in 2023 we saw an increase in the percent of our students who have [49:19] participated and successfully in these um additional areas of showing College and Career readiness [49:29] and this is the breakdown by race ethnicity student groups and so you can see here um the prior year which would [49:36] have been 2022 is in blue and then 2023 is in Orange and you can see the percent [49:41] of students who have um demonstrated College and Career writing this according to our [49:51] indicators and I will invite Courtney McCormack up again uh to talk a little bit about our work in this area [50:00] so to address this goal area we focus on strategies to enhance opportunities for students to meet one of those [50:06] established criteria that Amy talked about and how we help our students see themselves as career and college ready [50:13] so you can see that we have see a lot of the bullet points are continuations of our audit of early [50:18] college credit opportunities our career Pathways opportunities which Lynn will also touch on later in the Ani uh update [50:26] the Ence aptitude invent inventory the thing that's new for 2425 [50:31] that we've added is a reflection on our second year of participation and direct admissions Minnesota a part our students [50:37] at all three of our high schools participate and the goal of that program is that all students that are on track [50:42] to graduate see themselves as College material and then looking ahead a bit we [50:48] are continue to se seek out opportunities to guarantee or guarantee career connected learning for all [50:54] students through required courses so we guarantee that all students will have those opportunities we'll also be [51:00] looking to use our strategic plan to Define our ISD 622 portrait of a graduate and post-secondary Readiness [51:06] will surely show up there as well thank you [51:13] thanks all right so we did see some progress in our area here as well um although we continue some of the great [51:20] work um to support all of our students in attaining College and Career [51:25] Readiness so as we move forward um there has been a slight change in the goals that are required with the move from [51:31] world's best Workforce to the comprehensive achievement in Civic Readiness um plan and so these are our [51:38] goals kind of for this current year that we've developed um again we have specific goals for all children being [51:43] ready for school looking at kindergarten um we have a a goal specifically for looking at our achievement Gap our goal [51:50] for that area is that we are um decreasing our achievement gap between [51:56] the high highest achieving student group and any other student Group by five percentage points or more and so we're [52:02] working hard on that um we also have a a graduation goal that the percent of students who graduate in four years will [52:09] increase from 81.5% to 84% to continue to move the needle on that uh we have a [52:15] College and Career goal that continues that 97% of our seniors will meet one or more of the College and Career Readiness [52:22] criteria with all student groups reaching 95% or higher and then we have a new goal area uh that is preparing [52:29] students to be lifelong Learners and in this area our goal is that we as a district will provide students [52:35] opportunities to engage in learning experiences outside of required learning in order to develop a lifelong learning [52:41] mindset so you'll be continuing to hear about that across the year um especially as we report out about high school um [52:49] coming up in a couple months so this last little piece is just [52:55] um for your ref so all of these goals are realized through our school Improvement plans so our uh School [53:04] leadership teams take our strategic plan and the analysis of our district and their school data to develop goals for [53:11] their for their schools that they've been already working on obviously uh throughout the year um so those plans [53:17] are linked here for your reference um and we will be excited to share back more about their progress as we move [53:24] forward any questions I know that was a lot of information some of that you you have [53:30] heard before um any questions that I can [53:40] address um yeah thank you for the information uh like you say it was a lot [53:46] to process but can you remind me again how we um calculate H how we come up with [53:54] the um dropout about rates is it how H how do we distinguish it [54:03] from from transferring to a different um high school or a different school yeah [54:10] that's a great question so a student would be um kind of considered as [54:16] dropping out if they had no other additional enrollment after our district [54:23] um and also if they have officially kind of indicated that they're dropping out of [54:30] school so so we find that information if they have not enrolled we find out [54:36] through mde then yes okay and if I could add to a request for records if a [54:43] student like leaves us and moves to another school district we would get a request for their records because obviously they need to know which [54:48] courses they've already completed and where their credits are um and so they either enroll somewhere else or they [54:55] move on to our next step program for adults and so those that have [55:00] dropped out are the ones we have either have no idea where they landed or they [55:05] told us they're dropping out but if we don't have other indications on where they might have gone after leaving us we [55:11] assume them to be dropouts if we did not get any requests for records at their other sites [55:17] so and I think it does get at that point we've talked a lot about the fact that you know fouryear graduation rates are [55:23] always in the news but we know that there are students with special education and um English language [55:29] Learners have a right to stay in school longer if if that meets their needs and so um I think it's important to that's [55:37] where we kind of started looking at the dropout rate is a little different than just how well our four-year graduation [55:42] rate is because our four-year graduation rate combines with our five and our six and our seven-year graduation rates to [55:47] show us who's still in school and so the dropout rate is a cleaner way in some ways to look at who is not being served [55:54] well by our system [55:59] am mean can you tell me the when you look at Minnesota is it public schools in [56:06] Minnesota or is it all of Minnesota well that's a great question so it is public schools because they're they're the ones [56:13] who are required to um for example participate in MCA testing um but they [56:19] it would include Charter Schools as well I I think that the line around [56:26] free and reduced price lunch is similar you know I think of it as poverty yep [56:34] and it's interesting that I'll wait for you to find it if you [56:40] can sorry hope I'm not making you dizzy hang on here we [56:47] go yeah do you have the one with the oh that has the state as well oh no that's [56:52] sorry that's just our longitudinal there's the state yeah average so the [56:57] increase in the I think of it as poverty rate you know the ISD 622 is at [57:04] 65.9 kids in poverty we know that our um city or I know that our city does not [57:11] have that level of poverty and so it does seem that people are selecting out [57:18] of the public school system and that we're having a greater concentration of [57:24] poverty within the Public School System then really is reflected in our city or [57:30] in our district or in our state and I just wonder about for the [57:36] future of Education because this trend has been going on for you know all of [57:41] the years that I have been involved in public education and I just wonder how [57:46] that ends I know that's a philosophical question you can't really answer but I think it's like an important piece of [57:53] the conversation about this data could I make a comment to I think what [57:59] you're bringing up Michelle is a really important point and I know um there's very clear research out there [58:07] one of the greatest predictors of getting out of poverty is your direct contact hours with people who are not in [58:13] poverty there's a real uh cohort effect for that and that's one of the reasons [58:18] why we have been really working hard to make sure we stay competitive and keep [58:26] middle class families in our school district for a couple of reasons it's good for our middle- class families to [58:32] be in in more diverse environments and we know that the poverty line generally [58:37] follows a color line by race because of all the systemic racist reasons that exist in society and we know that by [58:45] keeping the middle class here it's good for all of our kids and so that's part of why we're constantly looking at how [58:50] are we being competitive with what we offer in our middle and high school programs versus versus neighboring [58:57] districts because the goal is to try to never have anyone leave us in search of [59:02] better programs if they can find those better programs right here and it it's it really stems from [59:09] that same understanding that um our kids will do better our kids do best in [59:16] racially diverse environments and socioeconomically diverse environments those are very important and I would add [59:23] too um as our number of English Lang Learners is increasing as well another [59:28] thing that's really important is direct exposure to native English speaking peers because that also helps when [59:34] you're developing language when it's not just coming from teachers but from your own peers out on the playground and [59:40] whatnot so um all of that all of those layers of diversity are so important for [59:45] the education of all of our students and so I think it's it it Bears the reminder [59:52] that we really need to keep focusing on that too [1:00:00] um I was just curious if we know what percent of our prechool students or if we know what percentage of our [1:00:06] kindergarten students um were from our 622 preschool programs versus outside [1:00:14] preschools or maybe no preschool at all no great question so about 59% of our [1:00:20] current kindergarteners received some sort of programming through us the last year um and so little over half um and [1:00:29] we do we have kind of looked at that difference then to see um it's about the [1:00:34] same for reading we see a slight a slight Improvement in their math scores [1:00:39] um coming in but it's a little bit hard to compare because many students have um other Early Learning experiences outside [1:00:46] of our district coming in um but we do we do see a slight difference there I'm chuckling Caleb because I literally told [1:00:53] Amy last week that you were going to ask that question oh it's a great question asking one that did not disappoint but I [1:00:59] know because you are because you yourself are a preschool teacher I knew you were going to ask that question and I told Amy I said let's make sure we [1:01:04] have that information for him when he asks it well it's something that our Early Learning Program is also very interested in in tracking us they [1:01:11] continue to Lo at their alignment with kindergarten for [1:01:23] sure well I just want to say that that [1:01:28] um you know my grandchildren are in our school system right now our district [1:01:34] schools and they're having a great experience um my uh uh fourth grader had [1:01:42] uh 99% on the MCAS in math um [1:01:48] so you know we have the full range of of uh skill sets and experiences I hope [1:01:55] that these really dismal scores are um motivating [1:02:03] you know uh and not discouraging um because we are doing so many good things that we need to [1:02:11] continue and grow on and uh and uh to [1:02:17] your point Christine about the value of being in a diverse environment um uh I I [1:02:26] totally believe that that's preparing them for the world much better than if they were in some [1:02:32] homogeneous um environment where everybody was the same so um so it's [1:02:39] good that we're measuring I mean we have to measure and we uh and we have a um a [1:02:45] long way to go you know um but anyway thank you for the information I appreciate all your uh it's really [1:02:52] excellent data so well and I really appreciate your point Nancy because I think one of the things that we think about we're talking about being prepared [1:02:58] for be lifelong Learners and College and Career Readiness and it's it's these things that are harder to capture in the [1:03:04] data how you get along with other people how you interact with people from different backgrounds that are so vital [1:03:09] for those pieces and that's what I think our district can provide um but maybe it's not captured as much in the [1:03:16] data as well thank you Amy I just had a quick [1:03:23] question so what were our um chronic absenteeism rates before the pandemic [1:03:28] like what was it prepandemic that's a great question I will look into that and get back to you okay that they were [1:03:34] certainly a lot lower so they weren't monitored as closely yeah so we we'll take a look at that yeah I was just [1:03:40] wondering too like I mean obviously our goal is to be at zero but like is is [1:03:46] ultimately our goal to be kind of prepandemic uh or is it sort of like [1:03:51] we're going to wait to see what our new normal is as we as our societ shifts [1:03:56] post pandemic or well I think it's it's um you know part of there's different ways that we look at it you know part of [1:04:02] it is we as you see these data one thing that we look at for context is the state [1:04:07] overall and our chronic absenteeism actually is actually pretty similar to the state average um but that but then I [1:04:15] also think we think about um the buildings have been able to break it down for their building because there [1:04:21] are some it's just in some cases very Val of reasons that students are absent and so [1:04:27] they know that and so they're focusing their efforts on on students that maybe um they can that maybe have other [1:04:35] reasons that they can work through or other barriers to attending um so it's it's a very kind of almost heterogeneous [1:04:42] group of students that that may have different reasons for attending or not attending so there's kind of a variety [1:04:48] of of entry points to do that work um but I ultimately I don't think that we [1:04:53] because there are reasons that some students aren't able to attend I don't think that zero would ever be a a [1:04:59] reality um but certainly we want to make it as low as possible so those students can benefit and um succeed sure and just [1:05:07] to remind everybody um watching that this doesn't mean the number of kids who just miss school this is the number of [1:05:12] kids who are missing 10% or more of their whole school year which if we have 172 days of school that means these are [1:05:19] kids who these are the percentage kids who are missing more than 7 days in a [1:05:26] school year so if you are missing 14 or 15 you're not on our chronically absent list probably should still be having [1:05:33] conversations about attendance but they're not the 10% Mark is a pretty [1:05:38] high threshold and and those that are being counted as chronically absent are [1:05:44] more than 10% of their school year absent so it's a pretty high number and you'll see there's a lot of stories in [1:05:50] the news about that right now still because it's happening everywhere so is um chronic Tardes also in that cap Amy [1:06:00] answer that I think they're it adds up yeah so this is um the way the data are calculated is it it is it does add up so [1:06:07] if you miss half a day one day and half a day another day for example it will continue to add up across time to be a [1:06:13] certain number of days and the same with missing a specific period or being late as [1:06:19] well and it goes back to like the main goal that we're looking at is loss of instructional time so missing out for [1:06:26] whatever reason mhm thank you thank you for the great [1:06:31] questions appreciate it next up we're going to be hearing [1:06:37] from director Lynn fam our who's our director of equity and Communications um and while she's [1:06:44] getting set up I just want to remind you that in the the weeks and months ahead [1:06:49] you'll be hearing from different um principal groups so you'll be hearing from Middle School principles in [1:06:54] December and we'll make sure they're talking specifically about what they are doing related to attendance and [1:07:00] achievement goals so it's going to be very much looking at their data and talking through some of the things they're working on and then in January [1:07:06] you'll hear from our our High School principles and the whole chart was on there but every month you're going to hear from them and every group is going [1:07:12] to be speaking directly to these exact data sets as well [1:07:26] um turn on your microphone I'll grab it unless you don't want it on no yeah it's [1:07:31] okay Does it include um students who uh have excused absences it does so [1:07:40] there are lots of students who have excused absences and for very valid reasons but this this is anyone who's [1:07:46] missing that 10% or more of their school year whether they be excused or unexcused absences because they're [1:07:51] literally just not missing they're just missing a lot of school now when we look into referring students to um you know [1:07:59] truancy court or something like that which is a a pretty extreme response we don't want to just start with that we [1:08:04] always have our internal things we work on first there's always a consideration because there are some students for [1:08:10] example who are um out sick for a lengthy period of time and and or who [1:08:15] have chemotherapy treatments or who have some injuries or whatever in those environments though we do set up [1:08:22] Homebound instruction so that an instructor goes to their house so they would be counted as present so it's [1:08:28] really when people are missing a lot of school and we don't have a a clear reason that [1:08:35] justified them getting homebound instruction the numbers still add up and they are still [1:08:46] counted all right ready to go good evening uh Cher Yang members of [1:08:53] the cabinet and superintendent tooo and and fellow cabinet members I am super excited this is my favorite part of the [1:08:59] job to celebrate uh the programs under achievement and integration and I'm going to start off with a little video [1:09:21] here welcome to the achievement and integration program highlights video Ani is focused on promoting racial and [1:09:27] economic integration increasing student achievement and creating Equitable Educational [1:09:33] Opportunity sorry Tut's mission is to inspire lifelong Learners who thrive in [1:09:39] diverse communities our values are the foundation of our community and guide our actions we value inclusion [1:09:47] Innovation Excellence growth collaboration and curiosity to achieve these goals we've got several impactful [1:09:53] programs in place let's explore how each one helps support our [1:09:59] students first we have Avid Avid stands for advanced via individual determination and it's all about setting [1:10:05] students up for college and careers we focus on building key skills like [1:10:10] organization critical thinking and teamwork it's like giving students a toolkit for Success Beyond high [1:10:18] school next Freedom School Freedom School is more than just a summer program it's an experience that builds a [1:10:25] love for Learning and a strong sense of community each day starts with harambe a [1:10:30] high energy Gathering filled with songs cheers and affirmations that get everyone pumped up and ready to learn [1:10:38] the program focuses on literacy and cultural Pride our cross District collaboration [1:10:44] with mamidi school district is an exciting partnership where students from both districts get to learn from each [1:10:50] other's unique backgrounds and experiences the district collaboration Focus on creating Synergy among students [1:10:57] that will allow them to share their experiences through digital storytelling and identity work then we have our [1:11:03] culture leasons these dedicated staff members work with students families and teachers to bridge cultural differences [1:11:10] making sure everyone feels supported and understood culture lasons are integral [1:11:16] to the success of our district because they are the conduit between students staff and family and caregivers middle [1:11:24] and high school Pathways offers students the chance to explore career and college options early on we offer robust High [1:11:30] School course offerings for students to engage in experiences connected to interest career and early college [1:11:36] credits while meeting graduation requirements our teachers work hard to engage in data to create action plans to [1:11:42] increase academic achievement finally our Advanced academics program focuses on providing [1:11:48] opportunities for students to stretch their skills and dive deeper into subjects like reading and math it's all [1:11:54] about unlocking their full potential potential and keeping learning exciting we also provide enrichment opportunities [1:11:59] such as creative thinking groups strategy labs and writing clubs at District 622 we are committed to [1:12:05] supporting students as lifelong [1:12:16] Learners all right and I'll take questions from here no just [1:12:21] kidding so um unlike Miss lner who is extremely thorough I have just under a [1:12:29] hundred slides here uh but I really wanted to share with you the progress that we have made [1:12:35] since excuse me since last [1:12:42] year so as highlighted on the slide the purpose of AI funds is to pursue racial [1:12:47] and economic integration increase student achievement and create Equitable outcomes for our students [1:12:56] and based on our district 622 strategic plan we are focusing mainly on graduation and [1:13:02] postsecondary academic achievement and equity and [1:13:08] inclusion so as you can see the Ani funding stream operates in cycles of three years so these are the goals for [1:13:13] the end of 2026 that we want to attain and I will give you the progress update for each of the uh goals that are listed [1:13:20] here so goal number one is to reduce the proficiency gap between students of color and white students students um by [1:13:26] the end of 2026 will go from 22% race based to 11% and so the progress for last year is [1:13:34] that the proficiency rate rate excuse me before between white students and students of color improved 1% so the Gap [1:13:41] closed by 1% from 22 to 23 and it maintained the G um at 21% from 23 to [1:13:50] 24 moving on to our second goal the percent of racially diverse staff will increase from 18% to um [1:14:00] 203% in 2026 to better reflect our demographics of our students so we are [1:14:06] happy to announce that we increased from to 18% to 21% in 2023 to 2024 so so far after one [1:14:16] year we've increased our um I our diverse staff within our [1:14:22] district and then lastly part of the integration and um achievement goals are [1:14:27] to uh provide secondary students the a sense of belonging with the partnership with M Media School Districts and we are [1:14:33] hoping that at least 85% of our students build a sense of belonging and we spent [1:14:38] last year working to collaborate on student Affinity groups with sense of identity and also um digital [1:14:45] storytelling and amplifying student [1:14:52] voices so now let's talk about the programs and servic that are provided under AI so strategy number one is [1:14:58] middle and high school Pathways we provide the Avid system within four different uh secondary schools within [1:15:03] our district and we focus in on group tutorials um organizational supports [1:15:09] engagement nights and college tours we serviced 208 middle school students and [1:15:17] 349 high school students last year as director McCormack spoke about [1:15:23] the career Pathways we're really working hard to create experiential learning for our students and such as Career Connect [1:15:29] day financial literacy and the day um in the o with the lake view and region [1:15:38] hospitals so the AI funds also cover strategic reading in intervention and that includes Freedom schools and [1:15:43] advanced academics so Freedom schools again is a culturally um based program to focus in on the reducing the literacy [1:15:52] learning loss for summer and we provided services for 150 scholars in grades K [1:15:57] through 8 and I just wanted to celebrate that assessments from the sample of Scholars show that 90% of our Scholars [1:16:04] experienced zero summer loss and 50% tested um increased by at least one [1:16:09] grade level or higher Advanced academics teachers also use data to provide services to students [1:16:16] who need additional enrichment support so what's new last year was our Advanced academics teachers pushed into the [1:16:22] classroom and supported the core because we can see that based on our test scores that we really need help in [1:16:28] strengthening our tier one supports in the classroom we also provided um uh curriculum and enrichment opportunities [1:16:34] outside of the school day and during the school day as well during lunch bunches and and math [1:16:43] Masters so now moving on to the goal of recruiting and retaining um black indigenous and people of color um one [1:16:50] strategy is to provide professional development that focuses on best needing meeting the needs of our bipo families [1:16:56] and that includes how we can better support and understand the lived experiences of our families in our district so we offered PD last year that [1:17:04] included Circle training facilitating restorative chats um defining punitive [1:17:09] versus restorative practices repairing harm and ways to amplify student [1:17:16] Voice last year we also planned for the arrival of our International teachers from the Philippines we partnered with [1:17:22] Student Services Grants and special projects HR and finance and in the [1:17:28] spring we worked on posting for the positions and interviewing in our [1:17:34] district and lastly part of the um strategies to retain and recruit uh [1:17:41] byoac staff is to administer um surveys satisfaction surveys such as state [1:17:46] interviews um eometric orgam metrics we have a grow your own grant that [1:17:51] currently we support six peras um and six tier one or tier 2 teachers and one [1:17:56] bis staff member to obtain a teaching license in our district and we pay for their [1:18:02] education we also have a come teach in Minnesota stipend um only for um bipac [1:18:08] and the recruitment if if they come to Minnesota and teach it's $5,000 and in order to retain them on [1:18:15] year four they also get a retention stipend of another $5,000 [1:18:25] so a large component of retaining and recruiting bipac staff is our cultural L Leons within our district and we have 10 [1:18:31] and they support our schools and departments districtwide and that includes interpreting and translation [1:18:36] services cultural events classroom support Affinity groups conferences and [1:18:42] the list could go on all over the screen [1:18:51] here our collaboration with the moname school district as I book before um we really wanted to talk about digital [1:18:57] storytelling and amplifying student voice so um here you see identity maps [1:19:02] that the students have created and to really um show their uh their authentic [1:19:08] selves and be able to show up at school um being their genuine selves and and providing us the perspectives that they [1:19:15] have at lived experiences at in our school system along with their family so we really sought to um take the time to [1:19:22] listen more than talk as Educators and to really hear their [1:19:28] stories so now that I've covered the updates for this year I just wanted to share with you what I'm energized about [1:19:34] for um this coming year and under the goal number one of reducing the proficiency gap between white students [1:19:40] and students of color we want to use data to support the district strategic plan by aligning our resources and our [1:19:46] programs accordingly um like Dr luckner said that we've had data digs throughout the year and this is the first time that [1:19:51] we've brought in principles and multiple people from all departments to come in and to take a look at each individual [1:19:57] School data and and align them with their plans and action plans we also um [1:20:03] like director McCormack mentioned that we're going to collaborate with all of our departments and we're going to um [1:20:09] create a portrait of a graduate and we're super excited about that we have some planning meetings ready to go and [1:20:15] under goal number two for rec recruiting and retaining our bipo staff um it's really important that we're on boarding [1:20:21] and collaborating with our International teachers so something super exciting is we have a partnership with intermediate [1:20:26] district 9917 and they are um partnering with the Minnesota um Humanities Center and metro [1:20:33] state to provide free graduate courses for um our teachers of color and our [1:20:39] peer Professionals of color and so they also have professional development sessions where we pay them um up to $200 [1:20:45] per session to attend we have um just our um welcomed [1:20:51] our last our 11th teacher into the district on November 3rd so we have everyone here now and we're super [1:20:57] excited and so we've done um our our welcome wagan team has done a really good job of of orienting our new [1:21:03] teachers to Minnesota although they say it's freezing here when it was like 65 [1:21:08] degrees so we're going to have to work on that we're working on getting them some winter gear um the other piece that [1:21:14] I really want to focus in on is the support from cultur lisons trying to get families engaged um and show up at the [1:21:20] schools and feel welcomed including um creating goal setting templates with the families together and and the [1:21:28] scholars another thing that's new this year is networking space from our leadership development that includes [1:21:33] secondary and Elementary assistant principles associate administrators and Deans so for the first time we're [1:21:39] meeting together to talk about at the secondary level um consistent Behavior codes of conduct and responses to [1:21:46] behaviors and sometimes you know we can um be reactive and go punitive and instead we really want to take the steps [1:21:53] to get to know the student students and go through a restorative chat process to understand and and to hear um their [1:21:59] lived experiences and then lastly with the monic collaboration this year we are [1:22:04] really excited to continue the um increasing student engagement and we're [1:22:09] going to connect the two uh choir uh high schools together so North High [1:22:14] School and the Mia High School will come together um for opportunities for self-identity and and sharing [1:22:25] all right that about sums up what I have to share um and the AI funding stream is about $2.9 million and so I will see you [1:22:33] again next year to give you another update and hopefully um we have um more to celebrate and we continue to um [1:22:40] amplify um all voices here in our district so thank [1:22:50] you your your very last Point Lynn um resonated with me I think when when [1:22:56] students um of whatever racial or economic background get together and [1:23:02] they can sing together or play football together or be in a play together they [1:23:07] just find so much common ground and I and uh I think that's really great that [1:23:12] we're um um giving them that opport those opportunities so yeah yes thank [1:23:18] you we always talk about we have gifts in different areas right and so if choir is their gift then it's something they [1:23:24] should share with the world and and it's all the talent development and and and we encourage that so thank [1:23:32] you um thanks Lynn and I loved the video and the narrator had a great [1:23:40] voice I was forced to do it okay but I did it anyway Thank You by [1:23:46] [Laughter] herself when you talk about um react [1:23:51] with punitive versus restorative could you just give me I mean I understand [1:23:57] like broadly what you're saying but can you give me like an example sure sure I can speak specifically to what we talked [1:24:02] about at the last professional development session with the secondary administrators we were talking about um [1:24:07] reactive uh responses when a fight happens for example right and so typically we go directly to all right is [1:24:14] it three to five days how many times um has has this child fought and then [1:24:20] they'll be like okay second time all right let's go to five days a that's punitive that's giving a consequence and [1:24:26] restorative is asking the child tell me more about what happened what what do [1:24:32] you want us to know what didn't we know about what are some other um factors that led to to this this argument and [1:24:41] there's different ways that we can address what a fight looks like so it could be a push from behind it could [1:24:47] also be like punches thrown to the face with the intent to harm right and so we [1:24:52] we need to make sure that we are all on the same page with the um the Continuum of what a fight could look like and what [1:24:59] the consequences are and a lot of times they'll talk about um restorative not having consequences so that's very [1:25:05] that's a myth right so yes we need to restore um the situation and the harm [1:25:11] that has been created and how do we fix it and and really we're just teaching them how how can you make a different Choice next time right we understand [1:25:18] that in the developmental model of a high schooler sometimes they will be aggressive and what tools can we provide [1:25:26] for them to regulate themselves when they're feeling like they can feel their blood start boiling what are some coping [1:25:33] mechanisms that we can provide as adult to add to their toolbox so that's more of the restorative pieces and really um [1:25:41] and about healing with the other um parties involved and and giving them [1:25:47] that Circle space to to listen to their perspectives and to honor it instead of trying to respond and [1:25:55] react thanks for asking could I make one quick comment I just want to do a quick shout out here [1:26:02] to the work that Lynn has been doing and working with am Le yangang our HR [1:26:07] director because what I really love and I always remind everybody that our Equity department is more than just our [1:26:14] a&i budget right A lot of people in other places think of your Equity work is just what falls into that budget well [1:26:20] that budget has some very specific rules around it but the work of equity is [1:26:26] something we all do every day and one really cool thing that's been happening [1:26:31] um we keep joking that Lynn is sort of everywhere wherever there's an issue popping up I'm like oh Lynn's already [1:26:36] there she's already there and um I think it also really helps that we have an equity director who has been a principal [1:26:43] because she also sees how those schools operate and how things flow and what schedules look like but Lynn and Amy Lee [1:26:51] have been doing um instead of just exit interviews stay interviews with staff of color to find out well why do you stay [1:26:57] here what what is keeping you here how how is that how is our system working [1:27:02] for you how is it not but they've been really Innovative in the way they've been approaching this work together and [1:27:07] I love I love whenever silos are broken down between departments and we collaborate around topics together and [1:27:14] it's just been a joy to work with you guys on that so so so impressed with the work they've been doing [1:27:25] thank you Lyn how did we pick Mame as a partner a school partner that was before [1:27:30] my time okay and um based on the districts that adjoin North St Paul we [1:27:37] need to choose um a district that is 20% over 20% uh racially isolated so the [1:27:44] choices were um so the choices that um I had somewh we had were I think Still [1:27:51] Water um White Bear Lake [1:27:57] South Washington so those are all the joining districts okay and we chose M I think I want to say and before my time [1:28:03] too and I'll just add that racially identifiable is is old desegregation terms for schools and districts so if [1:28:11] you have more than a 20% higher concentration of students of color than any neighboring District in order to [1:28:18] receive these funds you have to partner with a district that's not racially identifiable and again it was before all [1:28:24] of our time I think that that choice was made it was not before my oh right I not [1:28:32] before your time because you've been on the board a long time I remember all of that [1:28:41] y thank you Lynn thank you so much [1:28:54] okay we're going to move on to our action items first up is for finance our acknowledgement of [1:29:00] contributions um Nancy [1:29:12] Livingston Minnesota statute 123b do2 permits school boards to [1:29:18] receive for the benefit of the district requests donations or gifts or any [1:29:23] proper for purpose and apply the same to the purpose designated in that behalf [1:29:29] the board may act as Trustee of any trust created for the benefit of the [1:29:34] district and for the benefit of pups thereof therefore the Director of Finance recommends the following [1:29:41] resolution be it resolved by the school board of Independent School District number 622 that the school board accept [1:29:48] with appreciation the following contributions and permit their use as designated [1:29:54] by the donors um the donor Keller Women's Golf Club uh donated [1:30:02] $223 for senior enrichment programming uh Keller Women's Golf Club [1:30:09] again donated dry food items for senior enrichment programming Curtis [1:30:16] hargadine donated $100 for hom delivered meals Michael Testa $50 for hom [1:30:25] delivered meals Oakdale Athletic Association $8,000 for ball field [1:30:32] repairs Curtis Dale hargadine Creations Incorporated $100 for hom delivered [1:30:38] meals and finally Holy Cross Lutheran coats hats mittens and [1:30:45] gloves uh for warm clothes for students this winter total fiscal year 2024 25 [1:30:53] Monet contributions uh comes to$ 26,8 [1:30:59] And1 so I would move um acceptance of the [1:31:12] contributions all right so that's moved by Livingston seconded by um Anderson um [1:31:19] any discussion okay um all in favor say I I [1:31:26] and then all oppose say nay all right um that moves [1:31:32] forward um next up is the appointment of the interim School [1:31:39] Board member um so School Board member Daniel Petman peltzman resigned um from [1:31:47] our school district effective September 19th 2024 um the min [1:31:55] statute 123b 09 subdivision 5 states that the board must be filled by board [1:32:01] appointment for the remainder of the unexpired term um the school board has discussed and considered residents of [1:32:08] the North St Paul Maplewood Oakdale School District to fulfill this position [1:32:15] um now therefore be it resolved that the North St Paul Maplewood Oakdale School [1:32:21] District 622 school board will hereby appoint Julia Martins to fill out the [1:32:27] remaining unexpired term until November 18th 2025 um could I get a motion in a [1:32:37] second all right uh moved by Nardi seconded by Anderson um any [1:32:46] discussion um well I I just want to say that uh Dan um um [1:32:54] would I think he would fully support us um choosing Julia to replace him um and [1:33:01] uh I I'm just grateful that that we have a really involved dedicated capable [1:33:07] person um that's willing to step up so thank you Julia for being willing to to [1:33:13] be with us uh up until next [1:33:21] November I also want to thank you Julia because I know you didn't run this time [1:33:26] because you decided to step back from being a school board member but for [1:33:32] the you know kind of the good of the consistency of the board you were willing to stay on for another year um [1:33:39] we were unable to fill the seat by election because when Dan moved out of [1:33:45] the district it was too late for us to do that so thank you Julia [1:33:54] I I just want to say that um again we're really uh fortunate that uh Julia is [1:34:01] able to stay with us for uh uh this year and uh [1:34:09] certainly well qualified in the onboarding won't be um there's no [1:34:17] onboarding um and uh just uh really grateful that you're willing to do that [1:34:22] for another year thank you all right so all in favor say [1:34:31] I and then all oppose say day all right um that resolution moves [1:34:39] forward welcome Julia um all right so next up we just [1:34:46] have to set the January um 14th special meeting um so this is 2025 [1:34:54] um let's see here the special meeting is required for two specific purposes this is the election of um officers and [1:35:02] acting on organizational resolution um could I get a do I have to [1:35:09] move okay um could I get a motion in a second move second all right move by [1:35:17] lingon second and by Martins um any discussion on the state and the items [1:35:26] all right all in favor say I I and then all oppose say [1:35:32] nay all right um that also moves forward um and then we're just setting the [1:35:37] agenda and location for um the January 14th 2025 work study [1:35:44] session um I recommend that the let's see [1:35:50] here our study session well we said set we have the study session we just need to set the time location agenda um so [1:35:58] I'm proposing that the work study session begin immediately following the January 14th special meeting um which is [1:36:06] that one's at 5:30 um so the approximate start time would be 5:45 in the [1:36:12] conference room um 202 of District of this building District 622 education [1:36:17] center and it will consider and contain the following items Indian Indian education presentation superintendent [1:36:25] check-in and board checkin um could I get a motion in a [1:36:33] second second all right moving by Marin second by Livingston um any [1:36:40] discussion all right um all in favor say I I and all oppos say [1:36:47] nay all right um that passes uh board communication Julia [1:36:56] um just wanted to share I was approved to be a chaperone for the second grade [1:37:02] field trip on Friday um I'm a little nervous but a fellow mom that we just [1:37:10] connected texted and said are you going and I said I am and I'm like so glad you're going so this will be really fun [1:37:17] and we're going to the I believe Minneapolis Institute of Arts to look uh [1:37:23] walk through their Chinese exhibit that they have and so to our directors in the [1:37:29] audience thank you so much for the work that you and your teams do because I was [1:37:35] schooled on the things I forgot in second grade by my kiddo on the way home [1:37:41] so he's like Mom you don't remember that so thank you very much and he's retaining it I'm like you can't remember [1:37:47] this stuff but you remember this stuff so I I said I hope that makes you feel proud that you can remember what you do [1:37:54] so um I'm excited to do that with his class on Friday and excited to get to [1:38:00] stay with you guys for another [1:38:06] year uh well Michelle and I and my husband Tim uh toured uh Webster and [1:38:14] Trisha with Trisha and her and her folks and um Webster is just sparkling it's [1:38:22] just unbelievable and uh you know unlike other projects that we have there was no [1:38:28] ribbon cutting or anything but uh for two years they've been working to transform Webster into this um [1:38:36] K12 program for our most challenged students would you say [1:38:42] Trisha yeah and um so it it was a really good tour and we um uh taught [1:38:52] Tim all about about special education which you know he yeah he wasn't he [1:38:58] wasn't uh but he appreciated it he's been talking about it a lot um and then [1:39:04] he was uh gratified to know that the mural that he took three months to paint in the in the lunchroom is still there [1:39:11] and still looks great so um so anyway thanks Trisha I appreciate that and and [1:39:17] we were there at 7 a.m. for the tour so we get special points for that yeah [1:39:27] yeah um so I already uh brought this up at our study session um but just for um [1:39:34] the purposes of of letting the public know um I had the honor of going to the [1:39:41] um annual um Oakdale and Woodberry the [1:39:47] Woodberry area prayer breakfast I think it's called and still water and Still Water Area um and uh that was uh just a [1:39:55] little just a few days before Veterans Day um but uh 622 um we had a a a good [1:40:02] representation there um but um I I was [1:40:07] very very proud of how well our Tartan students and North s Paul high school [1:40:14] students did um as the the choir students um they sounded excellent uh [1:40:21] they sang together really well um you couldn't tell that it was two different schools um and Mr borski the choir [1:40:29] director um as always he just did a fabulous job leading those kids um but [1:40:35] it was a great time there was a lot of veterans there and um I'm I'm just proud [1:40:41] to live in the community that we [1:40:47] do I'll just say that I went to the Anastasia play at North and it was really really [1:40:53] really good and whenever I go to events like this I think of how exceptional [1:40:59] some of our students are and the you know the newsletters that come [1:41:04] out they show us students signing for sports you know they're going to go to college and play sports at NDSU or [1:41:10] wherever they're going and I just wish there was a way to kind of bottle all of these exceptional students so that we [1:41:16] could you know show our pride in these students I mean not that all of our students aren't exceptional but some of [1:41:23] them like the lead in this play was just amazing so I was really um grateful for [1:41:30] that production of Anastasia and the other thing I was going to say oh just [1:41:36] basketball starting so my son is trying out this week so we see how it goes good [1:41:41] luck [1:41:47] kle um I just had I just had one thing my my son was a student of the month at JN Glenn um in eth [1:41:55] grade he uh we went after school it it was the first time I think in well they [1:42:01] didn't do it last year in person or they did it with just the students um and so it was kind of fun to to go and see all [1:42:08] the you know students and the and the um families and everybody was very excited and students um I love middle schoolers [1:42:16] and so to see them like be up there on the pedestal and talked about in nice ways they were very embarrassed but it [1:42:23] was it was pretty amazing so um and I just want to also thank um [1:42:28] um our Paris who are still here to thank you for staying um and also for coming to to talk to us so um but [1:42:37] yeah all right um so future board meeting dates um December 3rd 2024 is [1:42:44] our work study session um and then December 17th 2024 is our business [1:42:49] meeting 6 pm here in the boardroom um could I get a motion in a second to [1:42:55] adjourn the meeting so all right um motioned by [1:43:01] yenner secondary by Livingston um any discussion all right all in favor say I [1:43:09] I and all oppose all right meeting adjourned thank you