you good evening I'd like to call to order tonight's meeting of the ISD 191 Burnsville Egon Savage school board the date is November 14th 2019 and the time is 6:30 p.m. I'd like to start by welcoming our really healthy audience tonight both both here and hopefully there are folks watching from home we're going to be receiving a lot of information this evening and it's it's really reassuring to know that all of you are here and caring to listen so thank you for being here with that director Schatz would you please lead us in the Pledge of Allegiance [Music] thank you we will start by approving tonight's agenda I will take a motion to approve the agenda so moved by director Miller seconded by director Chester no chef Oh director shots okay are there is there any discussion hearing none all those in favor of approving the agenda please signify by saying aye aye opposed nay and the motion carries we are in for a real treat this evening we will be receiving information on being future ready and community strong and receiving a report on read for the record and I'd like to start by inviting Vicki right to the podium thank you so much as you see we have the most important people in the room off to my left and so I will go as quickly as I can so that we can get to the important things we had a really exciting day in the in the district on Tuesday as we read for the record that's an annual event sponsored by jumpstart to call for an end to our country's early education achievement gap and to promote a solid foundation for all children to succeed academically we know that reading aloud with young children whether in the classroom at home or in the community builds literacy and language skills and provides positive reading experiences that instill a love of reading and we know children with strong literacy and language skills are more likely to succeed in kindergarten and a love of reading can foster a love of learning that will benefit children for years to come read for the record is an event that is part of the work the district 191 Community Education Department has been doing for the last 10 years to help assure children arrive at kindergarten ready to learn and to be proficient in reading by 3rd grade other activities we've been involved with include our summer rock and readers program where our elementary principals and administrative staff members read to children prior to city sponsored kids concerts every Thursday of Nicollet Commons Park dr. battle got to join us right after she joined the district's last summer and with the help of voluntary pre-kindergarten funding we receive we offer preschool classes that many of our elementary schools and here at Diamond Head many of them with free tuition community education also sought out a program that complements its four star parent aware ranked preschool programs to assist a child's first teacher his or her parents in assuring their child has the skills necessary to be a successful student when they begin kindergarten we found that in the ready for kindergarten program a program intended to give parents of children birth to five tools and skills needed to build their child's readiness skills in the areas of language and reading math and reasoning and social-emotional development so they arrive at kindergarten ready to learn we launched ready in the spring of 2012 it hardly seems possible and have continued to grow the program since then ready has offered free to 191 families and caregivers of children birth to five but back to this year's read for the record activities we read to over 3,100 children in the effort to set a world record of reading a selected children's book the same one to kids everywhere around the world more than 61 great guest readers from our communities gave of their time to read to our students here in our district you'll see them named on the slides displayed here oh and now it's back to thanks to our readers I think it went through all of the slides once they read in preschool kindergarten first and second grade classrooms in our elementary schools and to preschoolers here at Diamond Head we also reached out to East View Elementary in Lakeville to join us again this year we want to thank Cindy Czech community education coordinator of early childhood Family Education our wonderful readers and our photographers from community ed for their work to make this day another great success and we also want to thank all of our students who made this a very special day for those who read to them I have had so many people email me back saying can we come again can we come again just let us know now we invite you to sit back and enjoy hearing superintendent Theresa battle read thank you um oh one last time to our students but first put on your hats so we know that you're always in proper costume thank you for the support hello again children yes a cook or chef this is thank you I mu and I mu means queen so what do you think this book is going to be about [Music] okay people let's see on the corner of 1st Street and Long Street on the very top floor move was cooking a thick red stew in a big fat pot for a nice evening meal she's seasoned and started and took a small taste what a delicious stew oh Moo said tonight's dinner will be ready and it will surely be the best I have ever had with that mu put down her spoon and went to read a book before supper as the thick red stew simmered on the stub on the stove its scrumptious scent wafted out the window and out the door down the hall toward the street and around the block until mock someone was at the door when I man opened it she saw a little boy exactly good boy ammu exclaimed what brings you to my home I was playing with my race car down the hill when I smelled the most delicious smell the little boy replied what is it thick red stew mmm Stu he sighed that sure sounds yummy what do you think he's going to ask next what if let's see let's see only only thought for a moment she was saving her stew for dinner but she had made quite a bit it would not hurt to share would you like some the little boy naughty and so our moon spooned out the thick red stew from the big fat pot for her nice evening meal oh thank you a moon the little boy said and he went on his way with that I will closed the door and went back to her book as she wrote the her thick red stew scrumptious scent walked it out the window out the door down the hall toward the street and around the block until knock knock knock knock someone was at the door let's see when she opened the door this time she saw miss police officer his police officer Onew explained exclaimed what brings you to my home I was on duty on the street when I smelled the most delicious smell what is it thick reg - ah ah stews she said and her mouth watered that sounds mighty tasty a moon thought for a moment there was still enough to share would you like some the police officer nodded once again I'm ooh spooned out some thick red stew from the big fat pot for her nice evening meal thank you I knew the officer said and went on her own and for the second time moon closed the door and went back to her book sure enough as she read her thick red stew scrumptious scent wafted out the window out the door down the hall toward the street and around the block until a news door this time when she opened she saw hot dog vendor mr. hot dog vendor that brings you to my home I was selling my hot dogs down the block when I smelled the most delicious smell mr. hot dog then to reply what is it thick red stew yeah Oh stew the vendor licked his lips that sounds quite delectable so I move spooned out some thick red stew from the big fat pot for her nice evening meal oh thank you Moo said the hot dog vendor throughout the day people from all across the neighbourhood knocked on amused or she fed a shop owner a cab driver a doctor and actor a lawyer a dancer a baker and artist a singer and athlete a bus driver a construction worker even the mayor stopped by and each time they not only she shared soon the sky darkened the street lights brighten and it was finally time for dinner but when I move open there a big fat pot of thick red stew for a nice evening meal it was it was gone empty I move sniffle there goes the best dinner Oliver head sorry and blue she sat at the table with her empty pot until knock-knock knock-knock who could that be I don't know wondered when she opened the door she saw everyone the little boy the police officer the hot dog vendor the shop owner the cab driver the doctor the opped or the lawyer the dancer the Baker why everyone she fed today was at her door I'm sorry everyone my thick red stew is all gone I have nothing left to share and then the little boy he tugged at a moose leave don't worry I move we're not here to ask we're here to give the police officer carried in a fresh salad the mayor entered with a roast chicken the Baker brought a collection of sweet goodies even the little boy presented a mood with something special in a shiny red envelope everyone who had knocked on our Moo's door that day squeezed inside her tiny apartment and together they ate they dance they celebrated while Moo's big fat part of thick red stew was empty but her heart was full of happiness and love the dinner was the best that she had ever had thank you I have a red envelope just like on new flowers and love oh I love the winter polar bear we get ready like polar bears for winter aren't you thank you for sharing a story with us 191 preschool oh my heart is full just like I'm moving so you see why it's so easy to get 61 people anymore we want to come thank you [Laughter] what a lovely way to start our meeting [Laughter] alright for the report section I would like to invite Lisa Ryder executive director of business services to the podium we will receive a report on fall enrollments welcome Lisa thank you and good evening it is typically in November when we bring to the school board the fall enrollment information we will follow up at later meetings with projection data that will not be included in tonight's report after we receive and provide for you the projection data in future meetings that is when we would then begin to talk about the 2020 2021 budget most of the preparation that is required to begin that budget process lies with the revenue and that's calculated off from the enrollment so the enrollment is a key piece to that so as you go through tonight our presentation will cover these these areas of current reality for a fall population and its composition a look back and our trend data so to begin we have our fall October 1 2019 population is made up of three areas we have our early education which includes our VPK voluntary pre-kindergarten and early childhood special education programming we also have our elementary which is grades K through five and our secondary grades six through 12 when we take a look at those numbers and we break them down them by the current grade level for grades K through 12 is shown on this slide it does not include the numbers of the early learning programs you can see the accounts in October and I say counts because in October that's what we really are do is taking kind of a head count and identifying how many kids we have in each of the different grades the toll for this fall is eight thousand forty three when we talk about enrollment as I just mentioned the fall count is more of a head count where our end of year has more to do with the calculations that are necessary for us to be able to generate revenue and the formulas that are used so as you take a look at the difference between the fall and the end of year for us we as an important piece of it is the extended year programming that we do that includes our summer school that includes our before and after school programs and even our school within a school in our middle level through our ALC so talking again about this fall October one number and our population and taking a look at this graph our table we are seeing a comparison of this fall head count compared to the budgeted numbers or estimates that were used in developing our adopted budget for the current school year of FY 2015 or 20 you can see here there are differences in each of the different grade levels and at first glance when you look at the early education you might ask how come I don't know how to do the math the reason for that is explained down below in the asterisk and the fact of the matter is that our our head count of our early learners we don't serve them 100% of the day there is so many minutes out of the day and so it really ends up being more about 0.5 equivalent and so that's why you see that difference there whereas the numbers I've used in developing the budget those are going to be already have having adjusted for that make sense so with this though the concerning matter that I want to make sure we point out is the fact that we are 121 down from what I had projected for the start of this fall year and what was used in the budget calculation we're now going to move towards away from just the population but now what makes up that population and the composition so this slide here shows you in the first seven lines you can see the information that is broken down for ethnicity across the district fall count headcount numbers and percentages and then the last three lines of this table are indicating the students eligible under special education services second line being limited English proficiency eligible and that's more of a funding term for our English learners and our free reduced meal eligible okay continuing with our composition we have a slide here for the student ethnicity by a building so every column is going to be a hundred percent within that you have various colors that make up that hundred percent and you can see with the legend exactly the various make up of each of those different schools with the ethnicities listed the percentages that you see at the bottom of the table are those district-wide the next slide is talking now about the same group of students and now we're we're talking about how many of them and what percentage is served through a special education by building so you can see those numbers the black bars are indicative of our elementary schools where the two gray ones that you see are our high schools and the three gold are our middle schools the line that goes across the top happens to be all the same number as our district average our elementary average and our secondary average are all at 15% this slide tells us a little bit of a comparison now relating to our limited English proficiency students served in our English learners program and so you can see here we have again the black bars for our elementary schools the gray being our high schools and best program which is our Burnsville Egon Savage transition program for students 18 to 21 and then our gold bars our Middle School's here though you see three lines going across those graphs and so the gold line that you see is the district average at 19 percent the grey line is our elementary average at 25 percent and our secondary average is at 15 percent it's not uncommon that that is the case where the secondary is different from the elementary as the eligibility of our students does change after so many years of service next we have a similar graph for our free and reduced eligible students by building you can see again the black bars being our elementary the gray bars being our high school and best program and the gold bars being our middle schools with the three lines again across the top that do tell you our district averages our district average elementary average and secondary average I will say that at the time of developing this graph the numbers are as you see however even since then we do know that there's a number of families that have gone through that process where they were approved last year under the prior application that timeframe then ran out and they were dropped from services of the free or reduced eligibility so they have recently reapplied so our number in the last month has been increasing next we're going to shift and take a look back to the past and to start that I have a graph that has a lot of numbers and so if you're viewing from home or have the ability you might want to even just zoom in but the reality is I wanted to make sure you had a chance to see the ten years of information here that tells a story in the fact that the tote the first line is a net 191 residents so when you think about our 189 residents over a 10-year period what you see there is a difference of less than 200 in that 10-year period so our residents numbers those haven't shifted too much whereas when you take a look at the third line of numbers down at 191 residents attending elsewhere you will see that in that particular line there is a difference in the ten years of 1418 each year having been increasing taking the same information and looking just at one year our past year because this is data that we want to look back at as it's after the fact that you can have everybody accounted for and edited in the system this is a statewide system it then has these graphs produced which tell us the number breakdown so our total students served of eight thousand five hundred eighty four in the 1819 school year does break down to eight thousand ten of those students being our residents we had some non-resident students that we also served in the smaller circle you see for 574 students but making up that larger pie the difference between the eight thousand five eighty four and the eight thousand ten those are that's the non-residents sorry and so those are the total served but when you look at a larger pie you see the other three colors you see one sliver which is for the 191 residents attending charters four hundred sixty students you see a very small sliver for our tuition out eighty eight students and you see the other residents that are attending elsewhere of 2072 this is just a snapshot of that particular year taking a look back using this same information we're going to now take a look of a little closer at the numbers that make up the the 2072 number the residents attending elsewhere and so this slide then tells us the location that these students have chosen to attend for our residents but served at other public schools with this you can see that nature percent of our residents have chosen to open and roll as we take a look at the next slide these are the same information but now in number form in case you're interested I dig about five years in this case so that you have that information and so it is inclusive of that year that was just graphically shown which is on the far right column the next slide as well now it talks about our residents that are attending non-public schools and so those are listed separately these numbers are not included in any of the graphs previously okay we're now going to shift over to our trend data so as we take a look again back at our fall data for October 1 and we take a look at our early learning students or early education students they are made up of three categories we have our early childhood special education students and just to reminder that those that program is funded by our state and federal funds through the general fund whereas our voluntary pre-kindergarten program is funded by state grant through the general fund and our school readiness is a program that is funded by tuition and state pathways scholarships through our Community Education Fund as we look at these numbers for the last four years you can see then the graphs you have in each of the different categories you have four graphs the gold being for the year of 1617 the gray being 1718 the next column over is the purple of 2018-19 and then the black being the 2019 20 you will notice that for instance school readiness is quite a bit lower in the nineteen twenty year but our VPK is quite a bit higher and that is largely due to the availability of spaces than VPK program which is far more beneficial for families as it does not require an parental fee as we take a look at the next slide again we're still talking about October numbers and this time we're talking about our grades K through five elementary to year comparison the goals being our 2019 numbers by school and our black columns being our 19 I'm sorry our 2020 numbers for enrollment fall count at our elementary schools the next slide is our secondary schools and a two-year comparison in our secondary schools we had a decrease of 216 students in grades 6 through 12 from fall of 2018 to fall of 2019 and going back to the elementary number that was a difference of 87 students on the k5 slides this slide is showing a five-year trend of all fall K through 12 enrollment again each year being the fall count and then we want to now show a little bit more trend information back to the composition of our make up of our students over the last five years so we have 5-year trends here in the next few slides this one is showing us the ethnicity and so you can see our population so the bars are dependent upon the count of students in the at the time of fall and the breakdown by the colors for the ethnicities within each year with the numbers below next slide is our special education enrollment trend and here you are able to see the percentages here if you focus on those you can see the percentage of the total population and so the percentage has increased even though the total number of specialist education students have decreased so has our enrollment in total so therefore the percentage has done a little bit of an increase our limited English proficiency program and the enrollment trend for that you can see here on this slide for a five-year trend the numbers are fairly consistent from year to year growth not being as great at the secondary level as compared to the elementary is one pointed note from our Mars person who helped me to develop this Bridget McCarthy and then our this slide is our free and reduced meals and the enrollment trend for the last five years as well you can see that the percents are all within three percent of each other within the last three five years use me and as I pointed out earlier that forty nine percent is slightly popping up a little bit more with a few more applications coming through and that concludes our fall enrollment report thank you very much Lisa I'll open it up for comments director Miller thank you a so that was a extensive report you thank you going back to okay it's titled slide five the current grade level enrollment ablaze the fall count by grade interestingly I mean this aligns very closely to what dr. Warner has been talking about in his informational but interestingly I see the great K is I think if I'm not mistaken the second largest group now actually next the current graduating class and it's actually trending it's been trending up for a number of years since grade three I'm wondering if we are a little optimistic potentially and all this unfortunate Atta we're receiving is there an opportunity here are we looking at what do you have any idea do you think I know I'm asking you to put on a if you look at the kindergarten numbers for the last three years you'll see that they've all been right around that 650 mark okay okay so we capture the students in kindergarten we are the challenges we are losing them throughout the next few years okay No to try and then I just on the free reduced lunch so we're joining right around 50% standing from what was the point when we made that the change in beam were active in pursuing the application on free reduce status what was the timeframe on that well it's probably been the last three to four years or that's been an a a priority as we have students and families enrolling at the start of the year so I'd say that that's what's reflected on the slides is probably those last few years I think that it's typical that when you look at the free and reduced applications at the secondary level that that tends to wane a little bit more and then it's a little heavier at the elementary level but when you when when a family completes the application is for the entire family so if they have younger students that were capturing them and even the older students are being made available to that the benefit as well Thank You director Chester so on the previous slide that director Miller was referring to with the enrollment just a clarifying question on grade 12 does that capture both Baz and best to eat in terms of the population total yes thank you it does well okay so best isn't included in that number pauses and just to take note that that is oftentimes reflective of our students that may not have completed 12th grade last spring when they needed a couple extra credits maybe to start or finish things off in the start of this year and so that is reflected and oftentimes throughout this year that number then declines okay okay Thank You director shots so enrollment numbers fluctuate much more heavily at that particular site than they do at any other site and so well we capture as a number in October of this year might be a totally different number in November of this year simply because of how them and they're on a quarter system as well right and so it's a semester system but black hours I believe yes yes so those numbers fluctuate we have more heavily at that location and so well it's not and you know a huge chunk of the population you know for any student counts at secondary level that's a that's a factor in you know looking at these numbers yes any other questions or comments at least I know you and I had talked before the meeting about possibly having some sort of comment on free versus reduced lunch populations so at the very end I think here are the slides so what we did is it was a separate type of database we needed to go to because our we reporter free reduced meals on an annual basis but the information that is maintained within the state system doesn't necessarily retain that free we do separate on the historical data so we just needed to pull it from a different report and break it down by free/reduced and so we went back five years and pulled that here so you can see what when we talk free reduced we usually combine those numbers well what is that variance between the two of them so you can see that history here as well so there's this slide as well as the next one which shows the percent so we have the numbers and then we have the percent but the same same database or same base number thank you okay thank you very much unless anyone has any other questions director courier sure and the special education enrollment trends it I know it they've been 15% last couple years I know that's the global number it's the thirty thousand look I know do to medicine and other kinds of trends are the students in those numbers more complex cases or could they be only speech and language short those kinds of this this slide in this data is reflective of any student with any disability that is being served through our special education programming so it's a multitude of various different needs that our students may have that is reflective in these numbers in this graph okay thank you any others there was one graph in which I noticed best wasn't included in it and I don't know if it was the special ed one with the trends and yeah the current percentage of special ed students served when special education by building best was not included in that and so are they part of the 15% or not so I've let me see you just a moment here we are this don't not that one I know this slide is number 11 okay so this slide is k12 so they would not be included there but over on slide 11 this is k12 as well and they are not included here either okay okay students served at our best program I'll have IEP yeah I know but I didn't know if that was reflected in terms of how we talked about the trends within the district right knowing the the number of students served in the program yep okay thank you any of those nope alright thank you very much Lisa next I'd like to invite Erin tinkling Berg director of communications and West dray communications coordinator to the podium we are going to receive a related report on the plan to brand and market our district to increase student enrollment [Laughter] need to do it alright welcome thank you thank you Geralt superintendent battle and members of the board thanks for having us here tonight to share some of our thoughts and plans about marketing the school district and especially around enrollment I'm just gonna make a note here at the beginning that what we'll be presenting tonight will really focus on marketing only it's not going to talk about all of the other things that we might work on in communications like public relations crisis communications those things so we'll just get started so here's what we're going to talk about tonight we'll cover a little bit about what we know the data that we have from the research that we've done we will also talk about our goals in our plan the approach that we're taking the general overall approach that we're taking will also touch on the themes of the plan that we've started to outline as well as give you some tactical examples of work that we mean that we might be doing that will plan on doing and then I'll finish by talking a little bit about an opportunity that we have that because of the situation that we're in as a district so what what do we know what information do we have we basically have where we built this plan around four key pieces of data and research tools that we've used over the last few years one is a parent survey of our survey of parents who open and roll out of our district to either district 196 or prior lake savage that was conducted in the spring of 2018 we also do an annual online elementary parent survey this is just a voluntary online survey that would just review primarily by email of course this spring we did a community survey scientific by phone survey using the Morris Leatherman company yeah service get to get ready for the levy and then of course the enrollment data we also look at is we're planning I want to note that some of these some of this research has limitations the as I mentioned the elementary parent survey is just voluntary we know that the results don't reflect the demographics or the the makeup of our community as a whole and that's something we need to keep in mind it also leaves holes we don't cover everything for instance we've surveyed parents who open and roll out but we haven't surveyed parents who all can enroll in we can look at it need to look at other ways to reach families that wouldn't necessarily respond to email surveys so doing community focus groups in the future is definitely something that we're looking at and then we don't really have good data or good research involving staff perceptions and staff you know what's important to them so what we what we want to do is fill in those holes so that we can really understand what the needs are what the perceptions are in our community what the motivations and experiences are of our families and then measure that trust and that pride that's out there I also just add what the values are so here's a little bit some of our key findings in that research that we've conducted first and foremost what we've learned is that touch points and experiences that families are having that that's the key to making an impact with families maybe not too surprising that when we talk about our brand what we're really talking about is the experience the promises that we're making in the experience that we're delivering to families to give you an idea of another aspect of that is that word of mouth is an important touch point for people that's how people are getting their information in that outgoing survey the survey of outgoing parents 83% said word of mouth was an important or somewhat important factor the next closest important factor was only mentioned by 63% so far and away word of mouth and those personal interactions whether with their neighbors or our staff are definitely up there is the most important and then other touch points that that are included in that are actual visits of course to the schools and then our online presence as well the website our website as well as online rating systems like niche and great schools org those kinds of sites the second kind of key finding that we that we see in the data is that our middle school reputations are really it's just an example from our elementary parent survey this last spring 72% of elementary parents said they have a favorable impression of district 191 as a whole but for our middle schools none of our middle schools Rover rose above 61% as having a favorable impression so we see a really significant gap there and again when we look at the enrollment trends as Lisa mentioned it's it's similar we see we have a pretty good capture rate in kindergarten classes that are 650 to 700 students over the last five years but then many of those students are not here by the time they get to third grade or fourth grade and certainly before middle school so and then the other two points they're mentioned here just the fact that we need to reach parents early and we need to focus on keeping our students rather than necessarily trying to reach out to the ones that have already chosen to attend a different district and then lastly one of the things that we learned in the Morse Leatherman Community Survey this spring was that awareness of vision 191 has diminished there's still about of the respondents about a third of the community said they are aware of vision 191 and of those only about half said that they're familiar or very familiar so that's not too surprising that it would go down given how much community we communicated about about it in 2015 and after the referendum but it kind of suggests that people aren't as clear on maybe what we're doing now so that's what we're what we know and I'm gonna turn it over to Wes now to talk a little bit more about the specifics of the plan if you haven't met Wes yet this is Wes he's our communications coordinator he'll really be spearheading our work planning and executing marketing in the district all right thank you for having me so anytime we think of goals that come out of we use to create a marketing plan they always are based on all the points and research that Aaron just mentioned really looking at those key findings that we identified through the various research tools that we have the first goal is really focused on addressing that word-of-mouth piece that we learnt learned through our research and it's really trying to focus on fostering a sense of pride throughout our community our goal would be that whenever someone talks to our neighbor about sending their kid to one anyone its reacted to with positivity and with excitement our second goal is obviously as we just heard to maintain or increase our district enrollment especially looking at the capture rate so as Erin said really focusing on retention of the students that should be attending our district based on their geographic location the third is to improve the reputation of the district and its schools and the main piece of research that we have to to look at that goal is that elementary parent survey where we asked pointed questions about perception of our district in schools moving on to the approach when we think about how we would go about a marketing plan such as this it's a lot more targeted than anything we've tried in the past our goal is to really dig down into specific audiences at key moments in their decision-making timeline so we saw a dip after kindergarten so that's obviously a key point in time when parents are between 1st and 3rd grade deciding what to do for the next level so a targeted approach would look at those parents in specifically and deliver them with information to ease their fears or worries at the right time when we think about the strategies that we've created around this plan based on all of this research three themes really emerged focusing on experiences that our families and communities have on outreach to those specific audiences and on focusing and fostering that sense of pride when we think about experience yes when we think about experience the way I like to say it is anytime anyone interacts with us in physical location or on line digitally it's an opportunity to either improve our reputation or diminish our reputation doesn't matter if they're visiting our website or a school there's an opportunity there and we have to look at those tools and those locations really take advantage of it last week was it we held customer service training for our clerical staff district-wide big thanks to Bridget our enrollment specialists on on that coordinator on that we're also looking at creating alignment and consistency throughout our schools through to for our tours what parents can expect we've I've heard of parents who have attended every single elementary open enrollment night and so we really want to create consistency so they're getting one picture of what our district looks like we also want to look at optimizing our current website really changing the priority of it from just an information tool to a marketing tool looking at how its built what funnels exist how can we bring parents through our website to take action the action we want them to take and that all that also includes exploring whether our current website solution is the correct one to achieve that goal for outreach outreach is really taking a digital approach combined with I'd say it's adding a digital approach onto the personal touches that we've already been implementing so creating automated campaigns to target those specific audiences that I mentioned before at specific times when they need that information the most next week we're hosting our first ever webinar for the district focused on kindergarten information some folks from Harriet Bishop elementary are going to help me out with that and part of the outreach as well as creating new collateral for every school level so I know we've done this in the past but it's sort of waned in the last few years on having information about each level and what makes it unique and what what values we have in each of those school levels the other part is that direct mail is not dead and it's really the one of the primary ways to reach your your audience directly probably the only way except for email through social media we can hope that they see it and we can try to target them as best we can with ads but direct mail is that we know exactly where they live and we can target them that way it's fun to bright excuse me we're really looking at expanding and promoting though we are one undo one project that we've started and tried to try to start over the last few years with more materials more presence in the school offices as you can see we started selling signs this fall and that's been a huge hit according to this one person with the picture at ba's so really appreciate our doing that the idea about the we are one anyone project is telling the story of who we are one person at a time it's impossible not to tell a diverse story when we're telling the story of one ninety one so part of the way one of the ways that will play out this year is creating longer form videos focusing on specific people almost many documentaries I guess to build excitement around these people until they're amazing stories and look to expand that project in the future supporting all of those different approaches is the content that our department produces so we're in the process of trying to change our content strategy not only about journalism and reporting events that have happened in the past but also taking a strategic approach in delivering content that parents need at specific times so it's not only the good news out but it's really telling stories that are centered around people and ideas and not just events an example that I like to throw out there is our district is all about chess which I love we have amazing middle school chess team and in the past we may have just told stories about you know the chess tournament happened last weekend in the future we can tell stories about how specific kids are finding community through the chess team and focusing on those individual people I mentioned a little bit before the content marketing side which is the idea of delivering specific content that answers a specific question in a timely way to a specific audience and we've already started with that a little bit really focused around kindergarten taking topics that parents often have questions about such as what happens like in a typical day what are my kids doing how are kids making friends in kindergarten or really relying on our great kindergarten teachers to tell that information and that work will only expand right now I mentioned at the beginning I want to talk a little bit about and I want to close with just talking a little bit about the opportunity that we find ourselves in right now first even just what we've mentioned here which isn't kind of all of the ideas that we've got written down would be is going to be a lot for our team there's a tremendous amount of creative content to be developed the videos the brochures articles longer form articles and I mentioned at the beginning of course this isn't the only work that we do in the communications office so I want to be clear that we're not gonna be able to do everything that we want to do but I do think that we can do good work in that we can have a positive outcome just by changing our approach by being more targeted more strategic in how we proceed and and I'm really excited about that but I also think we have what I hope is a once-in-a-career opportunity coming up our community is probably never going to be more engaged than they are this year if this is any evidence and that's a great thing this is really a period transformation for district 191 schools and it's possible that that will be different next year in a way that we haven't been in more than 20 years and like I said that's that's kind of exciting and as if we look at what our research tell us tells us especially our enrollment I think this is an opportunity to to really change the way we work when it comes to communications and marketing it's an opportunity that we can take in and run with it and there's plenty of evidence that a concerted and significant effort in marketing can have a big impact both in terms of perceptions and enrollment and and that's the opportunity that I think is in front of us right now we're kind of in the explore what's possible phase of thinking about that opportunity and what that might look like but my intention is to bring forward those possibilities that can really make that big impact and get us started down in a new course so at least we know what's possible for us to do and that's our presentation thank you that's great thank you for both very much board members questions or comments director career as as you gather story senator on people please explore all of em I know we had a the day after we had a Hall of Fame induction one of those inductees was on the front page of the arts section of the New York Times so and please you know we we have people in our Hall of Fame that are so those make great stories and the Hall of Fame has evolved through the years I've been on that committee a long time and we now have brought it to the students at the football game where we used to have a separate event on a Saturday before school started we now have it at the football game to make it more front and center for current students to see what they can do and become so on your stories absolutely that's a great reminder the Hall of Fame ceremony if people haven't been I highly encourage it in the follows inspiring and I think inspiring for students as well like you said to see what possible yes thank you Thank You director courier director Chester I'm incredibly excited about this as a person who does marketing and fundraising professionally this really excites me because the individual stories most people are motivated by their heart first and validated by the data in their head and the more that we can drive people through stories so that they can go might I can see my kid just like this kid you know that that they can have that alignment in that affinity where where they can really be seeing their kids in the district because they see the examples of the other kids telling their stories about why they're excited the other thing that really really pleases me significantly is the we are one ninety one we're not trying to define ourselves by everybody has to kind of school pride you know I have my elementary school pride I'm a middle school pride I have my high school pride but to know that as a district we are protecting a whole district pride really sense a really nice message I really like that where that's an emphasis for us I know you are a small team and this is a lot of work and so anything that you could be sharing to encourage the community to keep doing this I know all of us are actual advocates as well and ambassadors for this district so the more tools that you can give us or ideas that you can give us so that we could be sharing our pride as well and a in a consistent manner in which you have your plan you know please keep us in the loop or encourage us like please share do this and so and then with all our caring audience here tonight know that that's something we need all of us to be doing is demonstrating that pride that we have in our community - thanks great point Thank You director shots yes so send let's imagine we send one email to a group of people based on their actions whether or not they open the email if they click on a link they'll automatically be sent another email at a period of time and basically it's you build out a drip campaign over a few months and it can just you can just let it sit there and do its work with a specific call and measure it later yes automated emails so you one of the slides you said you talked about specific audiences that you were going to that you were targeting what one of your line items was targeted audiences the next one was specific audiences and so I'm not sure are those the same things or the idea is the same yeah okay and what are those specific audiences there's third third graders right is one you know when you think about transition points we have capturing kindergarteners we have going into middle school and we have going into high school you can also look at whether we're thinking of retaining students at each of those levels or acquiring new students at each of those level levels so that's a really simple way to look at six different audience types that we can focus on and who have different needs okay and I think it may be less that there's a specific age group and more about when are people making decisions so if we can do some listening for instance and find people who are making those considerations starting to make those decisions looking for that information that we have we target those people rather than okay you're in third grade so that you get this email sure okay that makes total sense about the transition piece um but aren't we also don't we also have a pretty kind of a enrollment drop in third grade you know right and so so what we can sort of assume right now or what we can infer from looking at the data is those people may be making that decision about our middle schools but they're just deciding to act earlier in their and an elementary career but we'll really need to do more research and ask more people those specific questions to see if that's really the case and so we um so in that kind of leads into my next questioner is kind of a follow up is that when and I'm guilty of this certainly 200 what I look at enrollment numbers I followed to the habit of thinking about each of those students as one as one student which which they are if you talk about each signal level but what we but if a family is going to a student is leaving the whole family is going to leave the district you know and so there's multiple grade levels of students that would that would leave and so while transitions are certainly important you know that's gonna affect the oldest child and the family you know perhaps but it might pull out two or three other additional children as well you know out of the district and so it hopefully in the in in the the work that you're doing and the research that we're doing and you know finding out the information that we're finding about ages of all the kids you know that are that are going out and how that affects the enrollment numbers going forward because it's it's when one kid in a family almost certainly will pull out the rest you know of the family so the array of family I know a few in the district but it's a rare family who will have students in in two different districts so thank you for that I have okay I have a couple so one thing I know that we have that we've that we have we have a lot of very justifiable great PR about the work that's done in the high school and the accolades for the amazing Quiz Bowl team for example and things like that but it's I hope that we are also then in alluded to it a bit as well about talking about the stories of the elementary schools with elementary chess team and things like that but we have a lot of great stories about the elementary schools and the middle schools that don't feel like they get as much PR in the in the district and and not for it and they're not sure if they're it's that's a coordination piece if it's you know there certainly are big things that happen at the high school and it's a it's an amazing facility to tour and things like that we have a lot of amazing things that happen at the middle school in elementary school so I'm glad to hear that you're that you're gonna be focusing on those as well but those same stories are told at those lower levels as they are at the high school and so I'm glad to hear that you're thinking about that and I hope that's that continues to be a focus for you because we don't know that we have as much of a problem getting the kids into the high school as we have in those in those lower grades of you as you've talked about before and okay so I know I'm gonna say my suggestion you've enough to do with this you know I'll give you six months and I'll give you my suggestion great okay points Thank You director shots any other comments dr. Kim so one thing that was among the things that were most striking to me was the awareness of vision 191 has diminished because that's been such a big focus of the district for the last few years and there's been a lot of attention on it so I was a little surprised to see that I don't know if you have any more information about that or what then I think those numbers were I think you transpose them I think it was about two-thirds who said they were aware with half saying they were very aware okay half of those half of those two-thirds but is that less than what the awareness has been in the past that is less than it had gone down from the 2017 survey that we did okay so maybe one of the things too as I don't know if you've gotten this far in your planning but what do we need to be doing to kind of reinforce that awareness I guess raise awareness sorry yeah I think the first step would just be asking more questions because they might be aware of the programs that income that vision won't anyone encompasses but they may not be aware of the name of vision 191 sure sure very possible okay thanks so starting with more research I think is yeah any other comments director Miller thank you thank you thank you thank you this is something that I have been asking for and we have been asking for for quite a while and I really appreciate the initiative you guys are putting into this the multi-faceted approach to this this is wonderful it was especially nice to see this positive report following a very thorough report by director writer but an unfortunate report preceding it and to see that we are heading in the right direction I really appreciate this I like a lot of what I see here and you know I here stories all the time out there and they're full of misinformation and it's yeah we have our challenges in this district I that so does every other district in this state and all the districts around us and what we have here are the best teachers the best programming the best staff and the best families and students and so I'd love it you guys are gonna go out there and tell that message so thank you and I've said this before I want to keep seeing things that you're doing and do them I want you to go do things I want you to fail at things try other things some things work you guys take the risk we'll take the blame for it go do it that's my message please Thanks thank you thank you very much great point yes dr. hit as long as we have such a large audience tonight maybe you want to say how people can get the one of the we are 191 signs suggestion the we are 191 yard signs are available at any school just stop in the front office or people can send me an email certainly and then I can get one to them they are available for ten dollars great idea we have here some here right in the building so I got mine at the Burnsville family fast in it that's proudly in my front yard that's great you do another big push and spring when the snow melts so - thank you both very much clearly your department has it's quite a bit of work to do and at the same time to director Chester's point each of us has a great story to tell and what we share has an impact on where we're headed and we're all in this together so thank you and good luck thank you thank you alright next we will be receiving a report regarding the recommendation to close schools with Roger Warner and I'd like as dr. Warner um gets himself in place speaking on behalf of the board well we recognize that these conversations and and ultimately this our decision are designed to place one ninety one in a much stronger footing in terms of our finances and our programming I have to acknowledge on behalf of the board that working for the last couple of months not knowing which schools will be designated for closure has been a challenge and I appreciate everyone's patience and perseverance throughout this time week tonight we will hear the the recommendation from dr. Werner all of us together for the first time and then for the next month this board will be test with asking questions and listening and discerning a path the best possible path for our students and for stability and ultimately sustainability of our educational system so we welcome you dr. winter and we're looking forward well and anticipating your your recommendation well thank you madam chairperson members of the school board superintendent dr. battle I am delighted to be here and sharing with you as has been I think this evening as well provided in memorandum form a brief PowerPoint presentation on the community engagement process that occurred as a result of the administration and the board's desires which I think for which I think you should all be commended if I may because there is a larger viewing audience take a couple of moments to provide a little bit of backdrop to the PowerPoint presentation many of these individuals who are here parents and patrons who are here may have attended some of the community and gaygent sessions on the other hand some may not have some may not have taken the opportunity to review the organizational analysis study which basically was commissioned by the school district in April of this this year and was conducted over a four month period of time and led to the board and superintendents decision to institute the community engagement process so if I may do that perhaps very briefly can provide some information that may be a benefit to the viewing audience the study was instigated at the behest of the school board and superintendent of schools in April of this year to engage an independent third party neutral firm for the purposes of examining the status of the school district by way of presenting ultimately an organizational analysis study that study examined the five major components of the operation of the school district those being enrollment / enrollment trends finances programs and services staffing and facilities the study involved the interviewing of school board members key district office administrators Superintendent of Schools building principals and a range of other individuals in schools including a range of students informally teachers informally and other on occasion community patrons particularly ones who are coming in and out of this building I might add in addition to that all of the buildings in the school district work toward and we as independent third party neutral consultants examined a I would say almost a mountain of day and documents provided by the school district verifiable documents as well as an examination of comparative Minnesota Department of Education gathered and analyzed data as they applied to this school district and allowed for comparison of this school district within the context of other school districts of comparable size at the conclusion of that process a series of recommendations were tendered to the school board and to the superintendent of schools 12 in number and probably the most striking of those recommendations were regarding school facilities or the possibility of recommendations for the closing of school facilities now just a brief for a brief moment a backdrop of the information gathered from those multiple sources that led to those recommendations regarding facilities but also an additional set of facilities are these our findings Illustrated as the school board in administration is very much aware that the district is experienced a minimum of 10 consecutive years of student enrollment decline without exception 10 consecutive years projections prepared by the school districts administrative staff based on census data and and a wealth of other information indicates that the school district will further experience a minimum of five consecutive years of student enrollment decline leading to if those enrollment projections are accurate 15 consecutive years of student enrollment decline additionally those data coupled with finance data revealed that the school district has to its own diligent efforts in an attempt to stem the loss of revenue occurring as a result of student enrollment decline have engaged in a series of budget reductions or budget modifications and also as was recently and I congratulate the school board in the communities on their decision to affirm as unda lighted that they did your operating referendum that measure and other measures taken by the school district and the school board as well as efforts being made by the the staff to engage parents and to encourage a continuing strengthening of effort to sustain enrollment nonetheless the district is experienced the enrollment decline and the loss of revenue as we look further at the data what what was revealed in the areas of Staffing's that the school district has been forced to reduce its staff it has made adjustments through modifications or reductions or flat-out cuts and programs and services and finally our examination of data and our tours of the facilities indicated to us that as one would expect and you're verifying very well-maintained facilities that the loss of enrollment has resulted in an increasing level of cost ineffectiveness of those buildings now that doesn't mean that anybody at any stage school board central administration or Building administration is doing anything wrong simply means that the number of students per square foot in the building's has continued to decline to a point where by and large the district's elementary schools which were constructed to serve at capacity between 500 and 550 students now in many instances are serving in the 300s - low 400s in all cases nearly all of the buildings are underutilized from the standpoint of student enrollment decline that resulted in my firm and me making recommendations to the school district that you consider the possibility of closing two elementary schools in one middle school that would result in more cost-effectiveness in terms of staffing in that it would allow buildings to be able to more fully utilize staff it would also result in a significant dollar savings in the closing of buildings I say that not speculatively as the board knows and the administration knows the public may not know I've been involved in working on in excess of 415 studies perhaps have been involved in making recommendations that were affirmed in school districts in closing over a hundred and fifteen schools both my wife was a former superintendent and I have been involved in closing 12 of our own schools we know what it's like to close schools it's not something that one does with any degree of positive feeling except that it is a trade-off in the in the dollar savings area of preserving and protecting programs services and staffing as opposed to protecting partially filled buildings now at the conclusion of the study presentation to this board the board and administration made a determination for which I again applaud you to institute a public an opportunity for the public to weigh in on the the recommendations regarding the possibility of considering the closing of two elementary schools and middle schools this community engagement process is a part of the PowerPoint so I'll move to that now madam chairperson thank you the the school closing study and analysis sequence is as follows I mentioned the conduct of the organizational analysis study I do want to mention that the school board and administration posted that organizational analysis study on the district website in full disclosure at each of the subsequent public meetings that was mentioned that the full study was on the website and people were encouraged because the nature of the the community engagement process was simply focused on the school closing issue and of course the study as you well know included so much more information and so many more recommendations than just those simply related to school closing after due consideration the administration engaged me to serve no longer as the project consultant but now as the facilitator and presenter at the community engagement meetings the board and the the patrons and parents here can see these are the meetings that were conducted one with the administration one with the design team of parents and in principle representatives from each of the buildings there were three presentations at the middle schools and they're with their feeder elementary schools two cultural groups which had interpreters there and one other community group they're following or as a part of those community engagement meetings there was an opportunity intended to be an opportunity to survey the participants on two things one of them was is there probable cause for the school board to consider the possibility of closing schools and we'll look at those data in just a moment the second portion of that feedback form that was distributed to the participants in the community engagement process was to seek their advice on what they viewed as the first second and third highest priority factors that should be considered in identifying schools to be closed and then following the gathering of those data the tabulation of those data then there was a formulation of the consultants or in this case the facilitators recommendations so we'll move forward and just take a look at the the the feedback information that was provided from the participants in the community engagement meeting process the first issue on the feedback form was a request that participants provide feedback on whether or not there was probable cause for considering the closing of one or more school district schools perhaps and I know board members availed themselves of attending one or more of these meetings so you are aware that that the the the the content presentation at those meetings was fairly specifically focused on enrollment the impact on finances budgetary reductions that have been made in the past and then an examination of facility capacity square footages utility costs other program and service consideration staffing considerations were not a part of this presentation that was very specifically focused on the those issues I just mentioned the community engagement meetings the composite of all of those meetings involving the community nearly sixty eight percent indicated that they felt that there was probable cause for considering the closing one or more school district schools below that I wanted to make sure you had an opportunity to see that four of the groups rated the probability of of considering the closing at a much higher level than three of the five but but one of the groups raised or provided feedback at a forty five point three percent level and there was some speculation about the reason for that and if the board is interested later I can comment though I did not personally hear the speculation the administrative team a hundred percent of those participating in the meeting said that that in their estimation there was probable cause for closing considering closing and the school faculty meetings that were conducted by as I understand building principals with their faculties yielded that ninety three point three percent of those faculty members in the school district participating in the meetings believed that yes indeed there was probable cause for considering the closing of one or more of the school district schools and I'd note at the bottom there fourteen the school faculties had a majority yes vote one school faculty at a majority no vote so that was the first issue that the threshold issue was did participants from the schools from the community from the administration view that based on a thirty to thirty five minute presentation related to enrollment finances and and facility utilization was our probable cause and the answer in my assessment is that threshold had been met the answer is yes now the the important factors to be considered when choosing schools to close are listed for the boards and the public's examination and of course in many instances people may very well feel that there should have been other factors other factors periodically were mentioned to us these are all intended to be a highly objective they are incidentally over the course of my experience in working with school districts in school closing these are the factors that most often are considered other ones that that from time to time are mentioned a much more subjective in nature and/or provide if you will rather than a unifying force in the district a divisive force in the district one of them is achievement incidentally which is an often oftentimes mentioned it is one that is achievement by whose definition and what in fact happens when we identify a school that has high achievement or low achievement by somebody's assessment and we should close it or not close it and all of a sudden we've introduced some very significant subjective variables there I could probably come up with twenty different versions of a basis that would vary from one another and they would be divisive for sure so these were the factors that were that were put before and the opportunity for others to be suggested the ranking of the factors that should be considered when closing or choosing schools that closed the community engagement meetings the rank order smallest enrollment oldest greatest need lowest geographic risk the administrative team lowest geographic risk least flexible for future programming smallest overall capacity and there was a small group of administrators that happened to to have been in attendance at that meeting but I nonetheless cited for you and the school faculties lowest geographic risk closest to another school oldest greatest need moving on the project consultants or the facilitators in this case I'm acting as project consultants who share with the board since I am providing to you my independent third party neutral recommendations these are the priority factors that ultimately were laid out I do want to say I just I was very very pleased at the the response from the community groups and from the the administrators and from the faculties I think there was a high degree of correlation between them I think it was a valuable activity and I think it was valuable from a learning experience from for the participants and I think that they grasped the gravity of the issues I think they did an excellent job as you can see there's a high degree of correlation between what the project consultant saw and yeah and what those participants in attendance saw Geographic risk is to me an extraordinarily important issue and it supersedes all others and the reason for that is if there is a possibility that a decision can be made to close a school and in fact what that does or at least is a party to furthering the out-migration of students and revenue loss it is a bad decision to make there is one school in the school district that was mentioned in multiple occasions throughout the course of conducting the organizational analysis study or and data supported that that school has had a high out-migration through open enrollment and that had a bearing significant bearing an overwhelming berry bearing on the recommendations for not closing a specific school the most common factor in school districts in school closings in prior determining priority in school closing is the school that is oldest least modern and at least flexible third of the project consultants rating the smallest capacity that is the smallest and square-footage the fourth is the smallest enrollment in the fifth least cost effective and costly to operate by the time one gets to the fifth ranking the cost-effectiveness is has systemically involved itself in the previous four actually cost-effective has a bearing on all of them and the combination of oldest least modern least flexible smallest capacity those typically are the least cost effective of the schools so moving on then to the recommendations the project consultants candidates for school closure those considered highest priority based on two based on enrollment data based on capacity based on on square footage per student and utilities or Mary and W Savage elementary school Ron elementary school Sioux Trail Elementary School Vista View Elementary Ron elementary school is has been identified by this project consultant through interviews and through data as an at-risk school and should not be at risk in the sense that that as a school that I would not recommend be considered because of it because of its geographic vulnerability the advisory recommendations made to the school board and to the superintendent of schools I'm very and W savage Sioux Trail Elementary Schools and I have a further panel once I finished with the middle school for a little explanation on that the middle schools Nicollet middle school Eagle Ridge Middle School Metcalf middle school advisory recommendation to the superintendent and School Board is Metcalf middle school the consultants rationale for recommendations Ron elementary school eliminated from consideration due to Geographic risk variant W savage was selected for recommendation to closed due to its oldest least modern least flexible the smallest and third smallest enrollment and the other two schools that have smaller enrollment are Ron and Sioux trail so it is one of the three smallest and all three are identified at least cost-effective in talking about cost-effectiveness I'm looking at multiple variables to particularly reported in the study our square footage per student and utilities per student or utilities per square foot there are other data and other factors that go into the mix including each one of the schools in the district was toured once in some cases they were toured twice and copious notes were taken on those schools regarding classrooms Media Center's maker spaces art rooms music rooms and the like so it was not as though there was not there were a multiplicity of factors that went into a consideration of the specific schools su trail was selected for recommendation to close due to its smaller capacity tied for third small enrollment second least cost-effective middle school Metcalf middle school was selected for recommendation to close due to its the oldest it's the smallest enrollment there's the least cost effective it is the second smallest capacity and there are factors outside of Metcalf middle school in favor of retaining the two middle schools Eagle Ridge is the newest by far of the school districts middle schools and at least two factors that that came into play regarding Nicollet or the fact that sky Oaks is dependent from a utility point of view heating plant point of view on Nicollet and also that Nicollet provides district-wide food service for four other schools so they're as in the case of all three of the recommendations schools recommended I wanted this to be brief and to provide a thumbnail sketch but the amount of information that backs these up some of which as I said was glean through a single or dual examination of the facilities as well as copious notes on the quality of specific facets and other information and the interplay of other variables every one of the buildings in the school district were considered and clearly others could select other options I feel very comfortable and confident not egotistical isolde but I feel comfortable and confident with the recommendations that have made madam chairperson madam superintendent thank you very much dr. Warner board members I will open it up for comments and questions I know we have been given quite a bit of information along with dr. Warner's recommendation this evening so any initial questions or do we want to take a couple minutes just to read let's take a couple minutes director Miller I just like to thank you for the work you put into this and I also would like to thank Brian Garcia she's not here this evening and for you know understandable reasons the amount of work he and his team and dr. battle your efforts in and also gone into this so I know a lot of work and a lot of late hours it's gone in there so thank you very much thank you thank you so we'll take a couple of minutes to read maybe just want to mention that the presentation and the memo that you all have right now is available online on our facilities webpage so if people want to look through it they can do that as well thank you very much [Applause] mm-hmm let's just go step up [Music] so bored numbers any initial questions or comments that you would like to make knowing that we will likely have other opportunities to do so as well director Miller yes so this concept of geographic risk clearly played a big part so you know as he was as after Werner was talking about it I would have gone back and read this paragraph so I feel comfortable that I just want to make sure everybody at the table feels comfortable with the idea and what what's behind that we're almost like the definition of it and why that was considered okay cuz that clearly played a large part in this decision director career did you want to make a comment I just I think for the viewers and for us right now what's the next step in our process so we have a couple of agenda items later in the meeting which I'm going to reference in my closing okay any other questions or comments board members before we move on I have a feeling that when we do come together again and I'm sure that we will to discuss this there's a lot to go through we have a lot of information that you've already given to us and I know that we have we will have other questions that bubble up and conversation to be had so with that I will close out this and reiterate dr. Miller's gratitude dr. Warner this really working with us for in the intensity and for the duration that you have really has been greatly appreciated and I know that you have done your due diligence and we appreciate the the help of assistant superintendent corsage and staff and all of the participants whether their families community members or staff that provided input in this process this is exactly what we were hoping for we needed to have our community engaged and we will continue to need to have our community engaged for the next several months it's going to be a big ask and we hope that people will step up and participate in the process in closing I do want to remind families and community members and staff of a couple of things the school board may adopt modify or reject the consultants recommendation and to be clear I wish everybody hadn't left because there's some important points here for folks so to be clear the schools that are excluded from the consultants recommendation tonight may end up coming back into board conversations we just don't know at this point we are therefore proposing later on in tonight's agenda that we schedule additional meetings for community input as well as for board discussion and deliberations as a board we we want to honor the significance of this process and give it the time necessary to reach the best possible decision on behalf of our students also I would like to reiterate the fact that should the board decide to close schools all families will be impacted whether that's through the addition of new friends in your school community whether it's being assigned to a new school or perhaps through potential adjustments in attendance boundaries this is difficult and essential work and for the sustainability and viability of our educational system the school board must consider school closures to ensure that we deliver on our core mission each student future-ready community strong so I want to close just thanking everyone being here I hope you will stay for the rest of the meeting there still is important business that we will be discussing and with that let's see our next report as I take my leave I I would also like to make the most positive commentary I could possibly make about Brian Gossage and the assistance he provided me the assistance your superintendent provided me the assistance that members of your staff did it has been a true pleasure for me to work in this fine school district you have much of which to be proud and I would be delighted if I had children again to be a resident of your school district and sending my children here god bless you all thank you thank you very much all right next we will invite Lisa Ryder back to the podium we will be receiving a report on attendance boundary change process welcome back Lisa and take a moment to get yourself settled all right so now we want to talk a little bit about next steps and particularly around the attendance boundary adjustment process giving an update with regard to what that might look like so to begin we have an overview of this presentation we will have a look at the timeline we'll take a look also at the design team that we are recommending the guidance from the school board prior to we'd be us beginning the work we would like to have a little bit of a potential input from you with regard to what that might need to be for us to consider as we begin this work policy updates related to open enrollment in variances we know we'll be in the mix as well and then our discussion of our stakeholder timeline and what that might look like as far as participation this particular slide this information we've seen many times the critical dates that we have upcoming we are on November 14th clearly we've heard those recommendations and December 4th there's public hearing scheduled or public hearing that we anticipate to be scheduled there we go and December 12th is the school board action where we're hoping to understand the decision around the proposal to close identified schools so as has been alluded to there is then the conversation if we do close schools then you will want to consider what those attendance boundaries would be and so as we begin to talk about this we'll need a design team that will allow us to be able to establish various different scenarios for you to consider we're still taking names at this point in time with regard to community members who may be interested in participating we are asking that the four to five community members that we would be--look including in this process would not be parents and that they do live within the Burnsville Egon Savage and our school district okay I would look to facilitate this this team with two co-chairs one being community co-chair and one internal co-chair our executive team members and operations would would be included in this team that would include curriculum special education business human resources and then we would involve our transportation team as well the routers as well as those that facilitate those routes there would be three phases to this timeline as we recommend boundary design team and stakeholder voice would take place in December and January with a decision and a choice making by the school board with after discussion in the January February timeframe and an implementation and refinement for the February in the August time period you've seen this slide before this is our design framework in which we would be looking to utilize again so the idea behind this is the top part of this slide is talking about the consultation so this is where we would be looking to really make sure there's a shared understanding of the stakeholder voice and the design team with regard to what it is that needs to be and should be considered and then that information going towards to the school board for the choice making and that's at the middle of the page with scenarios being presented to the school board for a decision and then beginning in February would be the bottom part of the slide which is all about the implementation and refinement I want to point out the arrows that go between the two both at the top when you're trying to share this get that shared understanding as well as at implementation because there will be that need to give and take and and get that information back and forth the intent as I understand it would be for implementation by fall of 2020 this next slide talks about in the guiding change framework we've used this before in our district and so just for those who may not know and understand it you start with beginning to understand what your current reality is and you want to then define what are those unacceptable means those things that you're not going to let happen in the process and then at the end what are those desired results what are you looking for to be that answer so we do have here a guiding change document and I will just pull it up for a moment mm-hmm this is also attached within the the board book as well or the website so here you see that for our attendance boundary adjustments for fall of 2020 we do have a current reality identified here with current boundaries be non-contiguous middle school boundary adjustments are necessary if a middle school is closed we believe the third bullet should be modified just slightly to say the same as same context as the second bullet so it would read instead elementary boundary adjustments are necessary if if an elementary school is closed just so the context is similar [Music] yeah technical difficulties please give us a minute yeah I discovered that too it is important to write underneath it's not protecting the other day yeah that's okay inside yeah no it's not died it's not showing the you think of it maybe something in the control room well it is decide that it happened to switch watching this comes up yeah we may just not be able to show the guiding chain we may not be able to show the guiding change document right now just as a separate document so at least so if you just read continue you know to read the key points yeah I think that should be fine so also as part of our current reality then is a bullet for the ISD 181 has not changed the boundaries in 20 plus years so that's a part of our current reality our proximity of schools to each others some of them are very fairly close so when oftentimes when you talk at attendance boundaries the issue is around transportation and and how much of a change in cost that can mean for us that may or may not be that much of a difference because of the close proximity of our schools so having said that about our current reality we do have the list of unacceptable means and the list of desired results in talking with our admin team just the other day just to kind of bring this up again with them and make sure everyone was on clear and what we were talking about and what we were presenting to you there was a couple of comments so one was the fact that they have elementary and that middle school bullet and the first current current reality column should kind of mirror each other right the second suggestion that they have is over in the third column of the desired results and their usual as you have just heard the marketing plan there was a feeling that it didn't need to necessarily show up here as part of the attendance boundary getting changed document because that's kind of separate process and you're hearing about that already and can you read that bullet points or clarity so the bullet point at this point says increasing our student enrollment and then in parens it says by marketing our diversity strategically and intentionally this just is just to remove the words within the parens and keep the item that says increasing our student enrollment as a desired result having said that there are a couple of things that as we think about the process of what it it's going to take to determine scenarios that we can present to you there are a few things that we believe we would need some guidance on one of them is the fact that the current boundaries non-contiguous we do have about four areas when you look at the map that are not contiguous and so the wandering that we have is where exactly does that fit in the priorities because our we anticipate that in this process there's a long list of desired results some of which are going to conflict with one another when you get to certain scenarios so the wandering we have is is there a prioritization of those items and one of the things we wonder about is that non contiguous boundaries is this an absolute is it something that yes you'd prefer but it's okay if it's not entirely those are the things we're wondering about we're also curious about like transportation factors when we looked at the themes and you'll see it again in my presentation here transportation comes up around the conversation comes quite a bit from parents and students you know students don't want to be on a lot bus very long kind of thing you know I'm saying so it's like we're wondering where does that fit in the priorities - from your perspective voluntary pre-kindergarten is it essential that it's in every single school so it's just a wondering if there's a if there's an opinion by the board as to what that desired result is and what you're looking for from us as we present scenarios and then lastly would be somewhat separate but parallel is is the variance discussion and how that how that ties in to the various different things I know it's critical when developing the scenarios but there's the option of doing it multiple ways it's just which way is the basis of your process so those are the wonderings that we have as examples there might be others but it's something that if you have specific absolutes then we would really like to understand those prior to the work beginning so that we can make sure that we're we're bringing you what you're what you're really looking for okay so I'll continue then with the PowerPoint stakeholder participation these are the dates that we have tentatively set on the calendars just to be able to make room you know reserved rooms and and make time on people's calendars because they fill up fast so we do know that we have various different admin team meetings that we already had on our calendars we would utilize those as we need to and on every of those dates that you see that it says admin team when it says add attendance boundary design team those are dates that we have identified as being when we can bring the team together and get some work done to develop the scenarios and and kind of have that prepared so we can get feedback from people as we go okay so as you take a look at these dates I'm not going to read them all you can see them for yourselves the first one two three seven lines are all about the admin team and the attendance boundary design team back and forth kind of thing that takes us to December 19th and that's quite a bit of a ways into December at which point then we would anticipate picking it back up with our public and being able to provide to them scenarios to get their feedback and their input on those items so those meetings three of them have been tentatively scheduled prior to tonight just so that we would have the space reserved and they are general meetings where we would anticipate three of those community meetings one being primarily in Spanish one being primarily in Somali language and the other in English the other three meetings we have not scheduled as we were waiting for this evening to be able to know where we might be scheduling them and we would reach out to those communities in particular and hold the meetings in their location they'd be open to anyone who wants to attend but just for proximity purposes that was the thought so those six community meetings then would be held in that period of time of January 6 through January 14th and then an admin team is in the midst of that so that would also help us to kind of understand if there's anything that needs to be reconsidered or thought differently about with a final attendance boundary design team meeting says here January 14th but we know that one of the meetings might the committee meetings might be in the 14th so we would probably look to back that up we want to make sure it's after all of the community meetings are complete so we can take that information and make sure that what we are presenting and preparing for that final recommendation to the board which is tentatively thought to be maybe January 23rd that that would be as complete as it could be ok this this format had been used to track and monitor the attendance and participation that was utilized in the facilities process and we're using it again and we're gonna want to track that attendance and also any feedback we get them to so you have that data as you look at things continuing on we have learned some things so through the facilities process we know there's certain things we're gonna want to pay attention to when you're talking attendance boundaries maps are critical so we're gonna make sure we've got the right size and that that makes sense projectors space and attendance and also being very thoughtful about our childcare offerings that we have during some of those evenings we want to work with the information we've already received and build upon that so going from the focus group theme notes that have already been gathered from our community and staff during the last month or so we want to make sure that we're bringing those forward so as I read through them again these were the ones I pulled out that I thought were relevant to our attendance boundary adjustment so I'm not gonna read through these but you can see them and it's you know just restating what our community had said to us and making sure that that's fronted for foremost in our minds as we begin this process the second slide here continues to talk about those themes as well as then the input from students I'm making sure as we say in our desired results is keeping the students you know upfront and what they need at the beginning the implementation refinement this this particular slide has been shifted just a little bit for those timelines that we're talking about for related to the tenants boundary so you see a tentative date of January 23rd when we would bring that to the board for discussion you see a tentative date on February 6th for a potential board decision on boundary changes at this moment there is no board meeting scheduled at night so that would have to take something different if that were to be the case it could be a different date as as determined by by the school board what does stay the same and we'll look it looks very broad right now but will become very very detailed as we get closer will be that implementation process that will take place then after that decision is made and making sure that come August everything is in play and in the right place for welcoming our students and Families again and that concludes this report thank you very much Lisa all right so we have a couple of questions to answer that lisa has posed of us and we'll start first to see if board members have any questions of Lisa director shots yeah actually my question relates to those I mean what's the timeline for when you need some of those wonderings answers so the timeline for those wondering would be I'm going back to this slide for a moment just for a visual so we're going to our first meeting of our design team is intended to really be able to lay out our current reality data and just talk about what it is that we also need to still gather and then there's a little bit of a gap there before we have our second meeting which would be December 9th it would be very helpful if there was a an ability for us to understand those at least at least a beginning part for that information by December 9th when we want to begin the process we really need to have the conversation tonight yes yes director chest it's not necessary this could be impacted by what I'm going to ask because I know that in dr. warmer initial recommendations in addition to the recommendations for school closure you know selling Diamond Head one of the other recommendations was to the consideration of altering the elementary schools to a k2 and then a 3/5 was that and would that impact some of the changes with boundaries is that something that we need to take a recommendation first and the board action before we determine whether or not we accept that recommendation want to move forward with that recommendation I know that we've already received information from from dr. battle and her staff on that recommendation where I don't know if we took a action on that we haven't taken an action we discussed it and I would say we need to have a conversation on that as part of this possibly not necessarily tonight but yeah for sure okay mm-hmm any other questions before we go to Lisa's wonderings all right so the first question was around contiguous boundaries and prioritizing so let's talk first about the topic and then when we finish we can figure out priorities so in terms of contiguous versus non contiguous boundaries do board members have a particular feeling one way or the other in terms of preferring one over the other oh let's see if I can pull it up for us that was that was that slide okay the attendance boundary map it's not as clear because the colors are not as coordinated there it's on the website you can just google it yeah yep all right search it sorry they can't stream that got it okay so um well so the comment can be yeah so the I mean we know for example ELISA that we have islands maybe one or two islands of attendance boundary that are for one school that are surrounded by the attendance boundary for another school that's an example of a non-contiguous boundary correct yep there are four four spots on the map in which that's the case I could walk you through them if you want i I think probably just for the sake of example knowing that those exist is probably sufficient reason as to why they exist there is no known there was a reason at the time then 20 years ago there were very good reasons for twenty something years ago dr. battle so chair alton members of the board i think there were different decisions little decisions made over time that added to our current attendance boundaries so we can we've looked at the historical data there was a previous task force that convened and so we've looked at the data from that task force so we cannot point to just one decision one superintendent one board its little decisions over time so if we had our preference what thoughts do we have on contiguous versus non contiguous boundaries director he'll I think it makes sense to have contiguous boundaries whenever possible as long as we're not creating the racially identifiable schools that were already also mentioned and I suspect that could have played into what happened 20 years ago but I have no way of knowing that or it didn't and that's why we're where we are right now also a very good possibility dr. career well the other thing that played I think a big part was interstate 35 sure I mean it really did it by my first year at pond which was 1987 was the first year that there was a complex on the the west side of 35w that went to Gideon pond so 35w was a big divide of our school district so I would personally prefer to have our own contiguous area but that 35w and 13 we've got some odd highways that go through our school district that that this group will have to play around with plus if you look at Gideon Pond and Skye Oaks geographically they're very close I mean we've got those kind of odd things going on in our district that I think we should maybe give the committee license that our preference is this but they may not be able to do it given the rules of the road sort of providing general guidance provided that the unacceptable means and desired out our super what would supersede anything because for example we don't want to create a racially I you know maintain a racially isolated school or create one elsewhere dr. Holick are yeah I was just gonna say I think it would be I obviously ideal if we could have the boundaries be contiguous but I feel like some of these other questions on the list would take precedence for me you know like transportation times and things like that so as much as it is ideal I think it's not necessarily the most important part for them to be focusing on fair enough director shots yes what to what Scott said about contiguous with not with creating the keeping the equity but yes it is a lower priority for me as well the transportation things like that would come and a higher on the list for me as well okay director Chester I agree with director Hume and in that preference would be the contiguous as long as we're not excluding or isolating within the those boundaries dr. Miller yeah I'm on board at the discussion so far I think the I think we need to bear in mind look to where we have right now as an example of what we want to avoid having in the future and barriers such as 35 W or 42 or a river barriers are fairly prominent or obviously either those are things that you know more justice or in the future [Music] and I would say on for myself wrapping up the boundary part of this conversation I concur I think you know contiguous boundaries are would be preferred provided we're not doing harm elsewhere I think one of the elements that I would hope the design team would be mindful of is then at the neighborhoods and as part of that we don't want to split up a neighborhood between different schools if we can avoid it meaning for example we have some large apartment complexes and I don't believe that it would be serving our family as well or transportation costs effectively if we were to divide those necessarily I think we need to think about the cohesiveness of our families as well and yeah I think I think general flexibility around that knowing you know I mean I think we're all feeling pretty good about the unacceptable means and the desired results as a guide for the for the design team is that is that a fair statement yes okay transportation factors I heard folks saying we kind of want to keep that manageable for families as as a priority you know if it's possible to keep busting times relatively consistent so we currently mm-hmm currently at ride times that do not exceed 50 minutes is there any a time frame in which you consider unacceptable breaking ft0 okay the average or the longer longest that is the longest we don't monitored weather day this is assuming no weather [Laughter] does that mean like it says one student who's at the first end of the route to get to school so it's like yeah they first can we keep an eye on on the right times for all of our students and the we if it exceeds that 15-minute mark then we really tried to see what else we can do when those when that's the case I don't I don't have a I have no idea what the maximum time for me I mean that sounds long you know so that but I don't I trust I trust the team to put together something that's you know that makes sense for everybody I mean you're already doing that so I don't think it's but I don't I don't I don't have any better numbers then I won't be able to come up with a specific money yeah we know you'll do your best director Miller I feel obligated to be the one to point just make one point that this is potentially the spot where the largest dollar amounts could come into play I believe in in this discussion so I would like to just make sure that we keep that in mind that we just renegotiate just took out a new contract and it was a sizable change and our finances so I just put that out there you're suggesting Lisa keep keep finances in mind is that way yes okay and I think also to be mindful of areas of development within our boundaries where enrollment might change knowing that it's family housing potentially or not family housing sure does that will certainly change our reality and there was a question about VPK in all schools do folks have any opinions about that's violent ear yeah yes in stander shot and want that one so that it would be impacted but whether well we decided to do with diamond hit or not yes I mean so we don't know if we can make all that decision based on so no of our decision none of our building information we currently have voluntary pre-kindergarten in every elementary site except for Harriet Bishop because it's not VPK there it's a school readiness program with a wraparound for child care so they have something it's just different and then William burn does not have BPK either but I'm not clear on whether they have something there so I'd have to get back to you on that one there's not okay thank you all right so so that and that Diamondhead we do have a ready to learn a program here okay so that's where we are now it's so health so my understanding is that program has grown and developed over time it began sort of here because it was convenient and then it kind of grew out as we were able to afford it and adopt to it I personally would feel like it would make more sense and I agree with the statement first of all that that this is a huge question to tackle because you know it's going to drive from other things coming in like what the status of Diamond Head and whatever everything down as we move somewhere else etc but having said that I think it in general my personal opinion it would be a good guiding stance for this board to say that if we're going to have a program like the the should that it should be in every school that that is the goal to achieve and get to that's the convenience for the families involved and and it reads strike you know directly into going to school later on provided there's a need I mean because we have the three different offerings if there's I think it in addition to that it needs to be need driven right because that's that's PPK is paid for through the grant yes so we are in our fourth year and VPK has been extended through the state statute through this biennium but we will have to see it renewed again so that there is always that I mean it's been to two rounds of two years apiece that we we've seen thus far and so we would we would look for that to be the case moving ahead as it's been a very successful program for us and we had we were in the initial stages and phases of that before they expanded it governor Dayton so and so that is kind of how that that looked for us so does that make sense director how occur I was just gonna say agreed with director Miller that you see when you see the list of the sites that offer the pre-k on-site I think the parents knowing that they have it there is going to really benefit because our school didn't have it so we had to go to a different site and that might discourage other families in that area saying like oh it's not offered at our school and they might not think that you know to send them to a different location or anything so so given the need I feel like maybe it would be the need would be greater and we would find it utilized better if it is in all the locations a good point entire touch I also agree I think it's important to have it in all of the locations not only as a natural feeder into the clinic to be established to be ready to go into kindergarten as a precedent but also in terms of accessibility to the families I know that given the uniqueness of our district spreading across three cities to if somebody's living on the far end of savage or where I meant on the far end of Eagan to come to Diamond Head for voluntary pre-k I might just keep my kid in the daycare program she's in you know because I wouldn't it's not convenient or close in proximity for me to go but to be able to know that and if we want to just establish pride within the district and a connection to the district this is one of those access points that I think would really help to help us as a district - and generally having preschool - director Chester's point having preschool and in all of our elementary it's just makes sense so for all the reasons you just listed okay I think in terms of the variance question we know we're going to have a workshop on that so I think can we can all kind of agree that we're going to tackle that bear in a workshop thank you yep any other questions or comments for Lisa before she leaves nope all right thank you Lisa mm-hmm all right committees we're still on the information section so let's start with the policy review committee and director courier fellow board members Geralt the committee met this past Tuesday we've been working on policy 607 organization of grade levels and 903 visitors to school district buildings and sites both will be coming to the full board at our January 9th meeting the rest of the policies we reviewed were in the 200s which our school board policies too will be worked on internally in the next month seven will be coming to the full board at our December 12th meeting and that concludes my report terrific thank you next we turn to director Schatz and the negotiations committee the district and the BA continued to meets and have several meetings scheduled for the remainder of this month and December okay thank you legislative committee director Miller the legislative committee has not met since the last time we did committee reports but we'll be meeting next week great and for the committee of the whole student performance and achievement committee I have no reports we have not met and we don't currently have any plans to until the new year any other reports from board members on board appointments or school assignments yes Association of metropolitan school districts the November meeting was held on the first there were two presentations the first was an overview of the MSD draft legislative positions for the upcoming session these are available on their website a MSD dot-org the second was a presentation by the Commissioner of higher education Denis Olsen and that concludes my report on a MSD and then I have intermediate district 917 the regular meeting was held Tuesday November 5th election day we met at 4:30 so we could conclude before 6 p.m. as I mentioned last month district 917 is converting to an MSB A's policy numbering system we approve the final readings of the following policies for 18 drug-free workplace drug-free schools 502 search of student lockers desks personal possessions and student person 520 student surveys and 531 Pledge of Allegiance and if you think of a special needs student you can realize that policies for those students would be different than than for our schools the rest of the agenda was regular business Adams we did go into a closed session for negotiations and we were done before 6 o'clock that concludes my report thank you very much director Hume yes I attended the foundation 191 monthly meeting earlier this week on Tuesday November 12th just a couple of short updates the new part-time in admin Jennifer Gibbs is in place she seems to be up to speed and is doing good work so she had several updates that she shared of some of the things that she's doing so good things happening there I'm planning is moving forward for the February 13th 2020 gala the annual gala fundraiser that they have so that planning seems to be right on schedule for that and then donation commitments for the spring 2020 scholarships are due I think at the end of this week so they are doing a lot of follow-up on that I believe and getting those applications turned in for donation commitments that concludes my report thank you any other reports all right we will turn to dr. battle and the superintendent report Thank You board chair alts and members of the board I have two items I want to talk about tonight starting with the results of last week's referendum before I joined 191 I was told that this community cares strongly about its schools and shows it in many ways over the past few months I've seen students staff families and community members raise their voices to advocate for students and the programs they love I've seen them give their time and talents to make our schools better and provide the best for students and now residents have shown their support by voting YES at the ballot box passing this levy was an important first step in our work to put district 191 in the best position to serve students we are in a time of transformation and the work ahead is essential I know we will grow stronger and better for our students and it means everything to know that we're doing it in partnership with the community to the entire community I say thank you secondly I want to invite encourage everyone in the 191 community to attend a special event next week that is all about building a strong connected community on Tuesday November 19th district 191 and Magneto's table will be here at Diamond Head Education Center hosting a community feast and conversation from 6:00 to 9:00 p.m. this is an opportunity to meet neighbors engage in conversation share and celebrate individual uniqueness and become a more connected community and society it's free to attend and dinner will be served we do ask that you RSVP to ensure we have enough for the feast please RSVP to Lauren at Marnie to stay dot-org lau our en at ma r ni tas ta BL e dot o-r-g community members can also learn more at ISD 191 dot org slash conversation and that concludes my report for tonight thank you dr. battle having attended one of those feasts they're just incredible they really are I encourage everybody to try to attend board members individual board member reports all right let's get to business consent agenda although board action is required it generally is unnecessary to hold discussion on these items in the event a board member wishes to discuss an item that item will be moved for separate consideration board members are there items any items that you'd like to separate hearing none I will take a motion so moved moved by director shot second second second did by director courier all those in favor of approving the consent agenda signify by saying aye aye opposed nay and the motion carries in new business our first item is being asked to adopt a resolution canvassing returns of votes of school district special election and we have Lisa Ryder back at the podium this gives me great pleasure to be able to canvass these results as has been discussed the election took place on November 5th and I would like to read the resolution as much of the information that you want to know is in it okay the resolution is canvassing returns of votes for school district special election be resolved by the school board of Independent School District 191 Dakota and Scott Counties Minnesota as follows it is hereby found determined and declared that the special election of the voters of this school district held on November 5th 2019 was in all respects duly and legally called and held as specified in the attached abstract and return of votes cast a total of five thousand three hundred and eight voters of the district voted at said special election on the question of renewing the operating levy authority of the district a total of three thousand two hundred fifty two voters voting in favor of the question and a total of two thousand fifty three voters voting against the question the question was approved the clerk is hereby directed to certify the results of the election to the county auditor of each county in which the school district is located in whole or in part that concludes a resolution I'll take a motion to approve so moved moved by director Hume second second seconded by director Chester discussion or questions I have a comment I would like to second doctor battles gratitude of thanks to the community for passing this referendum it is part of our integrated payment plan to really solidify our position and our programming and our schools on behalf of our students and a special thank you to our election judges and to Lisa and her team and to Jamie both of you worked incredibly hard throughout this whole process and we are unaware of all the time and effort and and phone calls that you both had to deal with so thank you both very much I really appreciate your support of internally of the election so Jamie - awesome and with that I will take a motion to approve all those in all those in favor oh sorry motion please signify by saying aye opposed nay motion carries thank you Lisa next I'd like to invite Amina off to dial Direct er of curriculum and instruction and curriculum instruction and assessment to the podium we are being asked to approve on a first reading basis policy 613 graduation requirements policy welcome it is chair alt members of the board superintendent it's my pleasure to present to you for its reading the policy on graduation requirements I appreciate the opportunity to have it returned back to the policy review committee and to do some refinement in order to make the graduation requirements as equitable and accessible to all students that I would ask for your approval great I'll take a motion so moved moved by a director shot second second second it by director Chester questions or comments hearing none all those in favor please signify by saying aye aye opposed nay and the motion carries thank you thank you final new business is we're being asked to approve a public hearing on December 4th regarding school closings the recommendation is that the Board of Education approved scheduling a public on December 4th 2019 at 6:30 p.m. at Diamond Head Education Center 200 West Burnsville Parkway Burnsville Minnesota regarding school closings I will take a motion so moved moved by director courier second seconded by director Miller discussion ok all those in favor please signify by saying aye aye opposed nay and the motion carries I would like to in the interest of full transparency and to get the information out there about how this public hearing will be held I have a statement that I wanted to share based on board action this evening the board will hold a public hearing on Wednesday December 4th on the consultants recommendation to close M W savage zoo trail and Metcalf middle schools the meeting will start at 6:30 p.m. with a presentation reviewing school closure process when the presentation is over the hearing itself will begin those who wish to speak at the meeting will be asked to sign up to do so people will be able to sign up to speak starting at 4:30 p.m. on Wednesday December 4th through 7 o'clock that evening speakers will be given a number based on when they sign up and during the meeting they will be called up in that order to try to ensure everyone who wishes to speak has an opportunity speakers will be limited to no more than 3 minutes speakers who need an interpreter will have up to 5 minutes and they will need to bring their own interpreter we also have a new request for speakers to make sure that your thoughts and concerns are received in their entirety by the board I would like to suggest that speakers prepare written statements that summarizes your thoughts should you find that three minutes is not sufficient for all of your thoughts to be heard we will collect all written statements the statements will then be scanned and posted publicly for the school board and our community to read I want to stress that this public hearing is an opportunity for the 191 community members to share their thoughts ideas and concerns about the recommendation to close MW savage Sioux Trail and Metcalf middle school we are interested in hearing what you have to say on these closures but this is not an opportunity to speak on any school related issue if you have a different concern please come to a listening session or contact dr. battle to schedule a time to meet and discuss your concerns we will not allow personal attacks or sharing of private student or staff information including examples that give staff or student names community members who attend as part of a group are encouraged to designate a representative to speak on the group's behalf once again the public hearing on the recommendation to close MW savage Sioux Trail and Metcalf middle schools will be on Wednesday December 4th starting at 6:30 p.m. in the Burnsville Eagan savage rooms here at Diamond Head Education Center I am asking that the same information be available and pushed out to our families so that everybody is fully aware of our process and knows that regardless of time we will receive all information so please look to our website is d1 and e1 org thank you and with that we are going to adjourn to a workshop the first topic will be advanced learning with presenter Mina off to dial director of curriculum instruction and assessment the second topic will be to discuss the superintendent job description with Vice Chair Miller leading the discussion and then we will adjourn to a closed session as permitted by Minnesota statute 13 do 3 to discuss is d 191 s labor negotiation strategy with that I will take a motion to adjourn so moved moved by director Chester seconded second seconded by director Hume all those in favor please signify by saying I like posed nay and we are adjourned let's take a five-minute break you you you you you