good evening I'd like to call to order tonight's meeting of the ISD 191 Burnsville Egon Savage school board the date is October 24th 2019 and the time is 6:30 p.m. I'd like to start by welcoming folks who joined us in our audience both in person and at home we always appreciate people taking time out of what we all know are very busy schedules to learn about the the work of our district so thank you with that director courier would you please lead us in the Pledge One Nation thank you we will start by approving tonight's agenda I will take a motion to approve the agenda moved by director Schatz second second seconded by director Chester any discussion hearing none all those in favor of approving the agenda please signify by saying aye opposed nay and the motion carries starting our innovation section of tonight's meeting I would like to introduce invite Jason sellers coordinator of ALC and a B E and Jessica Anderson to the podium we will receive a report on summer school elementary and middle school and welcome hi everyone nice to see you again we're gonna be as brief as possible so we're going to the show on the road the first slide just indicates kind of the purpose of the presentation which is to review the programming as brief as possible for what happened in summer for the kv-4 program in the five-seven program as well as an al pilot program that we implemented this slide shares with you of course that there are parameters around ALC targeted services and that we have to follow all the parameters that are on this slide and should you have any questions we can answer later board members so I'm gonna give you a brief synopsis of the locations our k4 program was held at Hidden Valley and adjacent to that was our five-seven and al program at Eagle Ridge as you can see in the slides we ran for six weeks June 17th through August first and we were 7:30 a.m. to 3:00 p.m. Monday through Thursday the next slide is a brief overview of the attendance per grade and we had seven sorry 675 students enrolled with an average daily attendance of 530 next slide as we're clipping through shows the demographics this shows the demographics of the students and the next slide talks about some of our partnerships Burnsville YMCA U of M extension Minnesota Valley National Wildlife Refuge McColl pond Environmental Learning Center and the Jeffers foundation outdoor classroom and so the program at the k4 site really focused on trying to follow best practice as you saw in the previous slide Minnesota partner of Education suggests quality standards for summer programming they suggest that it's four days a week they suggest that it's a full day they suggest that it's six weeks if you can do it and so we followed all those standards to be clear this was a brand new model for summer programming in the district this has never occurred before in our district and so I didn't put a slide this time unlike the STEM program thanking all the folks that made this happen but there were a lot of people in this district teachers students families parents and all departments that came together to make this happen 120 minute literacy blocks 90 minute math blocks the focus was really on experience you're learning which is what MDE suggests we focus on the summer and that was through science so we partnered with the outdoor classroom and tried to and also had it spent added specialist classes to give the students not only learning but fun and engaging learning through a particular theme the next slide outlines those themes so if you were to walk through kindergarten classrooms you would see them growing upon the lifecycle of ladybugs that they actually grow and watch and observe butterflies the whole sort of kit and caboodle we had students that would visit different places around the campus but then also take field trips to get water samples we had students who grew plants actually seeded them and then we got emails from parents who were so excited about it when the plant actually grew on their balcony and their apartment or in their home and they sent those videos to us so it was really about learning themes the enrichment opportunities we've already reviewed some of these just note that in terms of specialists we had recreations for its movement motion we had a cooking class which by far now is our most popular specialist class in two art classes okay the next three slides are going to be the growth and averages in math reading writing and social and emotional so I just wanted to show that it was localized and embedded assessments that we did at the beginning of the season so pre assessments and post assessments and we do have it broken down by grade and percentages I will share that on the first grade it shows kind of one of the smaller average growth and we've discussed it as a staff that likely may be the students coming in we're at a higher level when they came into our summer program or we're considering reviewing the curriculum for that grade so something that we're discussing for next year but these are the average growths per grade in math and then the second slide is for reading and writing we believe we have good growth in all those areas as you can see the percentages are all about 13% is growth and then social-emotional assessment again we have two areas that were two grades that were May or lower in the growth area and we're thinking then it might be again some curriculum that we should look at or talking to the teachers and the students for the kindergarten what's interesting is that it was really cute and simple so the kids were part of the assessment as simple as raising their hand and how did they progress throughout the summer were they better at raising their hand in waiting at the end of summer school and a lot of the teachers that have the kids in the school year said that they were so they did notice growth in some of our little people another area sorry third grade is another area that was kind of low in a growth 3.56 and we're considering again looking at the curriculum and maybe students at that grade were coming in at a high growth rate let me see we also implemented PBIS to be aligned with the school year so students received tickets and every Thursday Jason would get on the microphone and we would call the kids up to the office and they would get to turn in those tickets to get prizes and I think Jason enjoyed purchasing all those gifts more so he felt like a Santa every Thursday but it was great to see that it was aligned with the school year and kids were really excited to get those PBIS tickets and at the end of the year Jason also dressed up as the mascot so the kids got to see that and had a good time so we feel like that we did a very good job with helping our students grow emotionally and socially this summer and the kief rail see as I've said before is our job is to support the core so what can we do in summer what can we do after school hours to support what's happening in the core so that those students have every opportunity even more opportunity to succeed and achieve at their grade level and so following programmatic pieces like PBIS in the summer or after school is important to us making sure that we're looking reviewing at student data to see what their needs are so we can target some of that instruction is something that we try to do as much as possible to keep in mind it's ten elementary schools going into one you know as three middle schools going into one so you have students from everywhere we had teachers that were in district and teachers that are out of the district so it's you're really building you know three schools in the summer when we're doing this in terms of staffing that's the staffing summer I really won't go into it all the pictures by the way I will point out are from students actually in the summer and they weren't posed you can tell they are all just live action in terms of the five-seven program which is how's it he at Eagle Ridge and I will say this the reason why we chose the biggest reason why we chose Hidden Valley and Eagle Ridge because there was some question around that there was construction front of Eagle Ridge and Hidden Valley biggest reason why we chose it is it had the most capacity to house the most students so we didn't have to wait list students we didn't have to turn them away and that was the reason why and that's why we're choosing to do it again this next summer because we don't want to turn anybody away in terms of enrollment the numbers are there we had 441 students enrolled average daily attendance of 220 these are the demographics partnerships some of the very same partnerships I would like to point out that the last two summers and also after school and byc we put on with the garage students are bussed over to the garage and they have music performance 101 they have music production 101 and there are lots of great videos with that but they also end up taking a wilderness inquiry camping trip at the end of summer for those students that want to sign up and they actually have a blast in terms of the the course is I'm particularly proud of this work the team of people we added a virtual reality class we added a film animation class so there are actually films of kids getting chased down by dinosaurs they actually did all that work we had to build your own skateboard class and in these classes we integrated and embedded the reading writing and or math standards a lot of math in building a skateboard a lot of reading and writing to build a film animation project that then you have to actually complete the writing and reading development is listed below for those classes so we try to make them as cool as possible so kids enjoy them even though it's still summer school enrichment opportunities there's a long list there that they participated in in terms of alignment Division one nine one these are our goals our goals are to get them interested in college in career pathways that we have at the high school we want to get them at to have that very first taste and get interested in programming computers interested in virtual reality and the careers that are in the tech field and that's the program staffing for Eagle Ridge the last the second or last slide talks about program sustainability this is a important we really care about being great fiscal stewards I can tell you this that the revenues generated from the KFOR program the five-seven program and the EO pilot program more than covered the costs for each of those programs so there was no negative fiscal balance for any of these programs the last slide is we we work with the with the multilingual department here in Moorea our ago and sisa to identify students in buildings who really were new to country level one or very low level two we targeted them to register for this program it was housed at Eagle Ridge in one of the pods and the goal is really to work on their academic content language so they can access the math and do it work on their academic content language so they can meet some of those grade level standards because we know they need a little extra more a little extra little extra than what the core is going to provide them even in a tier 3 intervention which summer school is and so the goal was to try something we've done that I believe it was reasonably successful and then this next summer the goal would be to have its own set aside program at perhaps a different elementary school where we'd have multiple sections at each grade level and it would be its own site thank you great thank you very much I will open this open it up for questions director shots thank you that servers are great so many students so was that comparable to the key so the kata for program was the new piece this year but five to seven is that it was yes and no the k4 program at Hidden Valley was brand new were all ten Elementary's went into one the five seven program in fact was new we're all three middle schools went into one the previous summer we ran a byc summer program where there was still the other middle school model that was happening for 14 or 14 1/2 days and it was at one of the other middle schools we bust those students that wanted to be at our byc summer program a year ago because ours was an all day Monday through Friday program now it's just one program and so all students had act to these classes from all three middle schools instead of the students that just applied or just registered for our program last summer okay and so are the students the students are all from this district though they're correct well I should say we had a handful of students that are always that live in our district or in another district but that do attend our summer programming so I believe about 20 ok and the numbers that you had for the there was a high daily average attendance for the k24 program and a lower half of the 5 to 7 great is that consistent with previous even yeah but newer model is that consistent with previous years yeah that's what we experienced last summer and so typically we see that at the middle school level we'll have students what we'll have parents that register students for it whether other students want to come is and that gets worked out before summer school starts at home and so we typically have a higher enrollment and a little bit relative to the k4 program lower daily attendance rate but then there were other things you know we fielded a number of questions around you know family logistics hey I really want my kid to be a part of this can they be a part of it for three weeks and not all six because we're gonna go on a family vacation and we said yes can they be a part of it for the first week but we're going to Grandma's and Chicago the second week can be back the last four weeks and so there's some of that that is also in there and then there are some students who had family members and they registered and for whatever reason they never showed up okay so but that's consistent with previous years and just as maybe a legitimate here and then also what I've seen when I've been in other districts and run this type of programming okay excellent then and how our students selected for the program so there is they self register for both levels of the program yeah it's kind of a process we we send out registration forms to each of our school sites we send them out with our graduation requirements and so that teachers are registering students who they feel or would be a good fit for the summer program based on what they're seeing in their classroom and they have to qualify via one of the graduations on them so if you are behind grade level relative to your peers if you speak English is a second language if you are referred by a teacher because maybe they feel like you need some help in certain specific sort of like math content standards in our grade level all those pieces would qualify you does that happen so a teacher could also register not just that not just the family well the teacher would send ya would recommend to the family of that the students would yeah and so and then so as as we've seen that the southern ice growth in many of the areas math reading social-emotional across grade levels you know of course with anomalies that you that you pointed out so is there is there any way that we then assess how that carries over into the school year is there any way to get asked that question a lot and the answer is it's really difficult to be able to do that I can tell you we can share anecdotally examples where teachers have contact us and said hey this child was in summer school you know I talked to their teacher from last year they are kind of a different student in math they actually like math now or you know they're really excited about reading and in particular about you know nature that sort of thing so there's no quantitative data that we were able to collect on that and I would add to that too that we had such a great staff I know every other year was - but we had great staff that really engaging with the kids so I would add that there's even like a community engagement piece that there were 80 staff at that k4 site there were other adults or mentors in the lives of these children that made a positive impact and I think if you were at home under supervision of an older sibling you weren't getting that same engagement because so they were having essentially 80 mentors around them for six weeks and so there was a larger scale of community engagement that these kids benefited from that I think matured them as little human beings and so then they showed up for school year with maybe a little mature of an attitude excellent thank you very much jack yeah great great questions thank you any other questions comments dr. Miller on the improvement or the assessment besides you've had we're those assessments that are versatile given for the whole grade level for the whole course this question put that any other questions are coming those are averages understand I just want to make sure the the end population was the entire Goya so the same Prius every first grader received the same pre assessment and the same post assessment wrapping it up I have just a couple comments and questions kind of dovetailing on director shots as questions just a comment probably for a director battle and assistant superintendent grew such that this kind of information looking at our students that have the students that have been in summer school and paying attention to their trajectory would really be interesting to see and I think would be rewarding for any of our staff members and parents to really be able to recognize that yes our summer school has the academic and the enrichment components necessary to make that change [Music] and next time we receive this in front this report and perhaps as a follow-up to tonight I think it would be helpful for us to have that comparison of demographics lots going on I get it it would be nice to know the demographics of the students in the program versus the overall demographics for that particular grade grouping and then finally really just a comment about I'm just loving what I see in the enrichment and the core programming that we have for our kids because we know that the academics are so very important and the enrichment that the kids are getting really are helping to to round them out as as people and you want them to be engaged and and so while they're getting the academics they're also getting that enrichment to just kind of push them along so kudos to the team really for for making it a really vibrant summer school program for our kids thank you and thank you very much for your report yeah thank you alright next I would like to invite Erin tinkling bird director of communications to the podium we will receive a levy referendum information campaign update welcome Erin Thank You Gerald members of the board and superintendent battle thank you for having me here tonight I'm just my plan is just to give you a little bit of an update on where we are in terms of communicating about the levy referendum and provide some information about the referendum itself won't be new information for all of you but it will be maybe for some of the people who are watching so here's what I'm going to go over tonight just some key facts about the referendum and talk a little bit about how we've been informing the community and encouraging people to vote ongoing and as Election Day approaches so some key facts about the levy of course election day is November 5th coming up just a couple of weeks away and voters will be asked whether to approve an increase of about 1.7 million dollars for Burnsville schools that the levy of course is operating referendum which means it provides funding for day to day expenses that help maintain our support services our programs and everything else we do want to on a day to day basis we are sharing of course that these would minimize but not necessarily eliminate budget cuts budget reductions that might be necessary the district will still have to right-size to respond to lagging state aid is that special education cross subsidy and potential changes in enrollment some additional information about what the referendum actually will be what voters will be asked whether or not to approve is revoking the two existing voter approved levies that we have right now and replacing that or replacing those with one referendum one levy that would provide up to $1,900 per pupil or the state maximum whichever is less and right now the state maximum is quite a bit below that about 1780 dollars per student so the idea is that this would keep us at the state maximum for the next ten years the tax impact the estimated tax impact is less than seven dollars per month on a two hundred fifty thousand dollar home which is about average in our district and I did want to mention that there are some opportunities out there for Minnesota tax credits and deferrals that may affect certain property owners I'm a couple that I found in particular if a homeowner suggested gross income is less than about a hundred and thirteen thousand dollars they may qualify for the homestead credit refund in addition cedar senior citizens whose income is sixty thousand dollars or less may be able to defer a portion of their property taxes basically that program limits the total amount of property taxes that they pay based on their income and helps provide predictability for somebody who might be on a fixed income so those programs are out there and people need more information they can contact us we can help them find it a little bit more about how to contact us of course we have all of the information about the referendum on our website is T 191 org slash referendum people can contact us by email or by phone and it's not too late for people to request a presentation so a little bit about how we've been communicating and and what our communication goals are as we go through this basically from very broad perspective we take it as our responsibility to provide clear accurate accurate consistent information about what's going on and there are laws there administrative rulings that really guide us as we go forward with this so for instance as you all know very well we can't advocate for or against the referendum we just provide factual information and encourage people to vote and let them know how they can to cast a vote so that clear consistent accurate information is really what we're trying to do in terms of how we do it one of our main strategies is creating materials that include that consistent clear and accurate information and that those materials can be copied or used by different audiences we also really focus on small groups and localized communications because we know that putting something just on the website is passive we know that having a video out there might be useful but it's not as good as personal in one-to-one interaction especially at a small group meeting where people can ask questions and then share that information with their friends and their neighbors as well as an example so here are some of the activities we've done so far as an example of how we do that localized communication back in the beginning of September we held a site team training this is basically a training for little communication departments at each of our schools or departments and so people all come together we go through the information and then as small groups like at any of our schools that site team develops communication plan for their audiences for their communications they know what events might they might be able to attend they know where and when their parents might need to get information so that happened in early September and they've been working on those plans since then we've done a handful of news releases announcing the referendum announcing the times when we had meetings and presentations as well we've had about 17 let's see if I can get that number right 17 sort of district led small group meetings added to that then are all of the presentations for staff at the buildings all of the presentations that building principals just took upon themselves to give to their audiences as well so quite a few I wouldn't doubt if it was you know 40 or 50 meetings that have been done let's see here also on social media we've had posts of course consistently on Facebook and Twitter especially I just looked at the analytics and just on the district's Facebook page we've had more than 8,000 impressions and I think it was about 400 likes or other interactions on our posts so people are seeing them which is good and then I was hoping to we'll see if this pulls up just show you the full communications plan as well there we go so I'm not going to go through all of this by any means but just wanted to give you an idea of all of the activities that are going on around communicating on this if we can get it to scroll down there we go so this is the start of that list and it goes to about number 60 before we actually get to the referendum votes quite a bit of activity going on which is which has been good and certainly keeping us busy so I mentioned the materials that we created among those materials are a single-page fact sheet just with all of the information sample ballot which I'll show in just a second that helps break down some of that confusing language we also created bookmarks and stickers of course we got the website we've got a presentation that we standardized so that principals and other community leaders could present if they wanted to to their to their audiences and then of course the graphics just to give it a theme here's that sample ballot it's maybe a little small in terms of being able to see but you get a sense of how dense the languages on the ballot we just try to call out pieces of the information and break it down and make it a little bit simpler to understand for people so they can see and better understand what's actually gonna be out there and there's more than just the ballot that's confusing I mean just the idea of revoking and replacing can be a confusing concept so we try to create graphics that help explain that so this is one of the graphics that we use to talk about the two levies going away and new levy being put in place with that additional funding so we do have a little less than two weeks left before Election Day so site teams will continue their work sent out a update to site team leaders this week just reminding them and asking them to double check with their plans and make sure that they're following up on everything we do have a handful of social media posts and we'll be sending out phone messages as well just to remind people that election day is Tuesday November 5th and speaking of polls will be open that day from 7 a.m. to 8 p.m. in person and early voting has already started here at the district office that's available from 8 a.m. to 4:30 p.m. on weekdays but all the way until 5:00 p.m. on the Monday before election and people can also vote by mail and get all that information on our website and that is a quick overview of everything that's going on around the levy I'll be happy to try to answer any questions you have great thank you very much members questions their comments director shots I don't have a question we do have a comment Aaron Abel of the the sample ballots graphic that had that called out the little pieces of that that's been a really helpful graphic well for me to understand what's going on but also um as a really helpful tool to be able to to refer people to so they really understood kind of what the highlights were and what they'd really be seeing on Election Day so that's that's been a really helpful piece of information so thank you for that yeah thank you that's great to hear thank you questions or any other questions or comments I was gonna say the same thing about the graph because it's confusing with provoking or placing and actually having the visual to kind of lay it out has been really great too so thank you wonderful great thank you dr. Miller a couple or a quick point clarification so early voting they can oh they can visit the offices here he gave the hours on that and by mail you say so they would have to send in requests for a ballot which is sent back to them then they fill out the ballot and they send it back correct yep and then on the Tuesday election day we'll all normal polling stations be open or zero limited amounts as this isn't off it's my understanding and I may ask Amy to correct me here if I'm wrong but my understanding is that in Dakota County all of them normal polling locations are the same in know am I wrong I'm just saying for well I'm basically saying people that are traditionally used to voting every four years would they be going to the same polling place that they traditionally use experience they thought they should probably check to where they were going yes that's a good point they they may have the same as they may have voted in a previous school district election but it may be different than where they voted in the last presidential election for instance they can check that information either on the Secretary of State's website or on our website at again ISD 191 org slash from voting and then do we have any numbers around the amount of early voting that is occurred to date I don't have those at this point we don't know what counting on her to get her have a rough number okay good all right thank you okay thank you any other comments or questions well Aaron you and your team of three have really done a great job of making sure that we're getting as much information out to our community as possible and I concur with director shots and horror that I've received a lot of really positive feedback from people both on the the literature that you've created as well as the the mailer that went out just people really appreciated the thoughtfulness and the amount of information that you were able to squeeze into a small space so thank you for that and thank you for this update all right thank you very much all right we will now go to committee reports and we will start with Director courier with the policy review committee you wanna okay so we'll start with director Miller and the legislative committee while director courier will serve a board up quickly the legislative committee did not meet since our last committee report meeting but will meet on Tuesday the 19th of November where we will be entertaining Senator Clawson Thank You director curry yes the policy review committee met on October 8th as a quick review as a district we review all policies every three to five years some policies by law require annual review our board subcommittee currently is reviewing the numerical 200 policies which relayed to the school board later in the board's work this evening under the consent agenda we will likely approve the following policies as there were no changes made to them to a-1 legal status of the school board 203 operations of the school board governing rules 203 point 1 school board procedures Rules of Order - Oh three point five school board meeting agenda - oh three point six consent agenda and tool for school board meeting minutes during the business portion of our meeting we will review possibly discuss and approve - other 200 policies which are - or - school board officers and two or three point two or of the regular school board meeting the committee did did make some suggestions and you'll see them in the agenda we will continue to have our monthly meetings however we may only put policies with no changes on the agenda for our November and December meetings given the complexity of a regular school board agendas for those two months that concludes my report unless there are some questions oh great thank you very much you're welcome now we will turn to director Schatz and the negotiations committee and negotiations are proceeding apace with we've had four meetings now with the teachers union and have thinks five more scheduled so we continue to work towards a a result for all parties great thank you and finally student performance and achievement committee of the whole we are essentially suspending those committee of the whole meetings as we continue to work through the facilities process I think it would be a bit much to have staff pull together yet more information for us so we will likely resume those sometime early in 2020 do board members have any other reports for any other appointments or assignments director courier the association of metropolitan school districts there were two very interesting presentations at the October 4th a MSD meeting the first was by Reach daaamn the tooth 2020 census project manager of the minnesota department of administration two big takeaways from her presentation were one the hazards of an undercount and to curriculum resources available to schools the under the biggest hazard of the undercount our preschoolers especially and how that affects schools the other presentation entitled overview of VAS database report was by nick green property tax research director for the Minnesota Department of Revenue it was very technical but interesting very technical both reports are on the AMS d dot org website I encourage both my fellow board members and the public to check them out so that was that report ok I have an intermediate district 917 report the regular meeting was held Tuesday October 1st district 917 is converting to MSB A's policy numbering system so there were first readings of the following policies under the new system for 18 drug-free workplace drug-free schools 502 searched of student lockers desk personal possessions and students person policy 520 student surveys and policy 531 Pledge of Allegiance at 917 you can imagine how complex it is to have MSBA there their policy is so they don't have a committee like ours basically it's administration trying to sift through their various programs and trying to make sure that the policies are general enough to fit their very specific programs and make sure that the policies fit their programming new business items at that meeting included renewals for employee medical dental Ltd in life insurances the other two business items were reviews of enrollment counts for the special education and decals programs this morning 917 held a superintendent board workshop we heard from Valerie dazzling from eat wall Consulting who does advocacy work for intermediate school districts at the legislature other items discussed included Career and Technical Education and how difficult it is to get instructors with appropriate licensure in order to use Perkins funding also discussed was the challenge of school district and illegal notices given that Lily newspapers have folded several of the 917 districts had them as their official paper of record there was an overview of negotiations progress especially in 917 last superintendent Susak superintendent battle and I gave a report to the group about is d-19 ones possible changes due to enrollment declines ISD 191 houses several 917 programs for example at Gideon pond for at least the past 30 years that at the 917 elementary deaf and hard of hearing program has resided there currently 917 leases space for some of its programs there are current discussions between the two administration's about space needs of 917 in our district currently there are approximately 25 students from 917 districts that need placements so they have a need for space I know in the next couple weeks due to our timeline they will be working closely with us that concludes my report but don't be surprised if 917 appears in some of our upcoming discussions so that concludes my report on 917 great report thank you very much director courier any other reports director shots I have a report from the Burnsville Chamber Public Policy Committee is d1 anyone has received a statement of support for the upcoming levy from the Burnsville Chamber of Commerce we were grateful for the continued community support for our district especially from our partners such as the chamber okay thank you any other reports yes do you want school reports if we if you have a school report yeah please yeah this week I was able to connect with one of my schools I met with principal basta at Edward Neal school as you know Edward Neal has a new assignment for him it was a new assignment for him this school year he has quickly settled into his new venue we went through the site's 2019-20 plan I continue to be amazed how thorough and technically solid each schools plans are I thoroughly enjoyed my time there and next week I will be meeting with principal Ness fig of the Eagle Ridge Middle School so I'm getting out there you're busy yes that's great all right any other reports no all right thank you all with that I will invite Brian Griffith assistant superintendent and Lisa rider executive director of business services to the podium we will receive a facilities realignment update welcome both thank you and thank you again to charile to pretend a battle and board of directors for this opportunity once again to address you talking about our facilities realignment process and provide you with some updates this evening certainly you know some of the things that we're coming from a topic perspective because of the discussion we had in our previous board meeting with this evening we are thank you I'm gonna talk about some summaries from our focus groups and a lot of the participation and the themes that we've gathered over the last few weeks as a part of our process to gather feedback from our community take a little time to review the multiple timelines that we have going here and as we'll talk we've got timelines that are kind of you know interwoven as we have multiple timelines for the different phases of this project that we are embarking on including some discussion about the potential for a boundaries process in the event that we continue to move in the direction of the consultants recommendation of potentially closing sites and then talk also about the reconfiguration of grades update that was a part of the consultants recommendation as well okay sorry confusion I want to make sure I didn't have something wrong so just as it openly you had a chance as board members do to see some of the posters that were created as a part of our focus group for those members that are potentially watching from home all of those are also in board books so people can look through those those are all documents that were created as a part of our process we're going to talk about what those questions were and some of the themes from that process that was a part of our focus groups just talking a little bit about the stakeholder feedback that we had an opportunity to get as you can see from that chart we did have a significant amount of opportunities from our community both with our focus group community stakeholder investment our multiple meetings with our staff members at our buildings throughout the district student groups members of our administrative team and again just a real concerted effort to have a great engagement as a part of this process and it was something that our consultant remarked about that it's not typical in these process to have this kind of involvement as he goes through community service is something he would be able to address as he speaks to us in in a few weeks but as we know that's by design and that was certainly something that was a part of this boards expectation as well as that was the concurrence of our administrative team to make sure that our community had a voice in this process and multiple opportunities to do that and and hopefully this slide gives you an opportunity to see that that was a successful endeavor to engage in number of different people I will say the attendance numbers I tried to be conservative I do think in a lot of situations they were probably higher but obviously with with that kind of environment it's difficult sometimes to get an exact headcount the focus-group themes the one thing I would say is especially at the time of the creation of this presentation some of that information was still being compiled if you'll notice we have over 250 actually acclaimed 275 nearly 300 feedback surveys just from our online forum alone so taking the time and the diligence to go through all of the comments and the remarks that are in there still is gonna take some additional time but what I'll show you this evening are some of the themes from those questions that came out as a part of the discussions and as we go into that I just to remind everyone that maybe didn't come to our focus groups you know especially again people that might be watching that those focus groups really had three major components to it the first component was the consultant dr. Roger Werner trying to help people understand the why behind his recommendation to close to Elementary's in one middle school as he presented the data and the findings from the study the second component of that was to gather some initial feedback from the attendees and again also from our internal stakeholder groups like our building meetings where people were essentially asked two questions one based on the information feedback is there probable cause that the district should be considering closing to Elementary's in one middle school and then the second question was if the district chose to embark what would be the person who is filling out that form their opinion as to what are the most critical factors that should go into that decision so again that was the second part is getting that individualized feedback the third component which is what we're going to go in now is the feedback from different groups where we engaged in World Cafe tabletop discussions where teams of roughly seven were asked a series of questions to give us their feelings about the process if the district goes into this essentially what are their fears hopes and desires coming out of this so that those can be utilized by our administrative team if we go down this road and implement what are some things we need to weave into that implementation plan so again running through some of those themes and again hopefully people have an opportunity to read through those certainly people might develop their own themes and how these things may be clustered might be somewhat unique but as we go through this process these are some of the themes that we saw so the first question was what are feelings or thoughts that you have about the information learned today and that was specific to the information from dr. Werner's study and certainly you see some of the themes and their class I certainly came up quite a bit even there are sketches that evening that we addressed some of those questions right there on the spot certainly people have varied opinions feelings of scared anxiousness and uncertainty about this process concerns about the perception of district 191 and I'll mention that again when we get to some of the responses from our student groups about the perception of their schools and district 191 this certainly desire for transparency matches what our commitments were as a part of our guiding change document and what we're really looking for as a part of this process is ultimate transparency which is again why again and again we would encourage people to go to our website for a lot of information or to board book for seeing some of these slides as well and again there were some that would really indicate that people you know again the survey itself the feedback that people were received that I'm assuming dr. Werner will have as a part of his presentation will quantify people's feedback on was there compelling evidence that the district should be doing this but the comments on the paper slides themselves generally did say people seem to understand why we're having this discussion the second question what additional thoughts and perspectives do you have about this decision or process themes were a little harder to come by with this one and that they were a bit more singleton there were certainly some comments about the shortened time line and a lot of discussion about what can be done to increase enrollment and why we're losing students to be in this position and certainly again you'll see a theme that comes through a couple of times will programs be cut or in some cases people were asking if we're going to be more efficient are there ways we could revisit programs that were previously cut and potentially add those back in so again not saying anything about the possibility of that but really saying that comes through as this the theme for some of the feedback the third question that was Ford discussion if the district does too to close schools what concerns or fears would you have about that process and again you'll see some of the themes about will this encourage more students to leave our district to open enrollment loss of neighborhood schools transportation and class impact size of classes again comes up again in this particular area and then worried about possible loss of friends and relationships and one of the things we discussed and I'll come back to us a little bit but yesterday with our leadership team in these themes from our tabletop discussions it became apparent that people were talking about the loss the concern of possible loss of friendships or relationships related to our students but also pointing out we have to be cognizant that that comes to families as well as staff members as well and people who might be be concerned about those loss of friendships and I think you know many who have been parents and I myself in my own experiences the friendships are our children sometimes become the friendships of our families and we may be doing things as families as opposed to just our kids happen to be sitting next to each other in class and that fear of losing friendships can go to the PTO s that we currently have that might have a suddenly different mix when sites are closed or boundary lines or potentially change the net fourth question was what would you or your child need for support or what support would you need in the event that this goes down and is implemented you know transparency regular access to information again another theme finding ways to highlight the positive opportunities it's obviously something that we talked about with our guiding change document what are the opportunities that exist how is this as opposed to deficit language however how is this really going to benefit district and our students and families and celebrations and open houses and again look for that as we get down to the next step of talking about some of the things or administrators going to be doing about really bringing people together and then the fifth question last question what do you believe to be are the greatest benefits and opportunities that could come from right sizing our district again there's that programs talking point again where people are encouraging us to revisit programs that were previously reduced pleasing to see that third bullet point that talks about the opportunities that come from redrawing boundaries with an equity lens in mind and again that really again matches some of the commitments from the administrative team and things that I know that the board agrees with of what is that opportunity to make sure our schools are balanced and of course you know efficient use of funds always exciting to hear from our students and again thanks for the suggestion as I know that that came up as a part of the discussion with the board to make sure that there was a concerted effort to get feedback from our students our middle school groupings were asked some focus group type questions so you'll see their responses their fears of concerns they might have about school transportation times again the next couple things about relationships want to know about their teachers and the relationships they have with their teachers as well as friendships what would make the transition easier you'll look at tours of schools or being able to schedule classes with their with their old friends transportation and teachers come up once again the third question of what potential benefits could you see from your schools you know certainly again another advocacy for programming middle school sports you'll see came up in two spaces question one as well as question three and then a cute opportunity there for that next bullet point which was the opportunity to build and ease that transition into high school by meeting more people and having more friends and I should have put that more kids equal more fun in quotes because that was taken right off of one of the forms I thought that was pretty that's pretty cool just the fact that our students are looking at the opportunity of having additional friendships and more kids around our high school responses and again I mentioned this earlier it's it's interesting to highlight item 2 wanting to make sure that the school district has a good reputation and the concern that this will have an impact on it it really matches I was in a avid 12 classroom miss Waller one of our high school teachers invited me in to talk to her avid class and during kind of a Q&A portion one of the students asked my opinion of what I hear what two students outside of Burnsville think of Burnsville high school so the perception of this school district and their school is important to our students and so I think it's important to note that so kind of what the next steps and I'll talk about this from a timeline perspective and a little bit but certainly this is something that the expectation is that we continue to serve them back to we look at those themes we've heard from our community we've heard from our students we've heard from our families as to what's important to them if as we go down this road if we're implementing so how might we use those things with our principles and certainly we are currently working with our principals to develop multiple ways to communicate and support families based specifically on this feedback and shortly here we'll talk a little more about some of the specifics that go with them before going into just some of those timeline things just kind of one tie out of those focus groups are just some general reflections of that process and what we've done to date and certainly this is an ongoing process so there'll be an opportunity I'm sure to look at it in its totality once this has has completed but we did learn quickly after the first night when we had the Eagle Ridge focus group that people were needing to see maps they want to see visuals of our districts as some of the questions even on the feedback form one of the items four criteria were the geographic location of sites be that on our boundaries or close to one another and so the need for the visuals we came obviously to the Future focus groups with maps that evening we were able to project an image of the district boundaries for those who were there but it was certainly much easier for people to see printed copies in front of them certainly we've got to be cognizant of our projectors we had great attendance it kind of ties in with the second bullet point you know the attendance in the space we've got to be prepared to adapt but we did run into the second night with with Metcalf that we just had a projector that wasn't large enough for people to see and so it did create I think a little bit of confusion and seeing the slides and the data I think our consultant did a nice job trying to read off everything and had to slow it down but I do think that there's a little lost in the numbers in the translation again for those people who might watch and it would have been here that night they were certainly reminded too of all that information came directly from the full study which is on our website and then certainly child care we just got to continue to review that child care became very popular and I think that's a great opportunity I mean families were coming out but we've just I think have to have a little more detail plan to that I really appreciate the work of our principals and those who came to volunteer nothing against them I just think they needed more support and I think we have to realize that kids like to move and we've got to have an opportunity maybe to do some of that too so again from a timeline perspective what you're going to see here are timelines there's like I said it's kind of the beginning there's multiple timelines here you're going see them kind of pulled apart but as we've been working we've continued to develop timelines that have these things layered maybe you know multicolored layered timelines so we can see things as they go also in a sequential way as opposed to right now I'm going to show you things that are kind of pulled apart where you've got a timeline for decision making some timeline for implementation items timeline for boundaries and then a timeline for some of the communication pieces so just realize this is I mean it's an incredibly organized process but there are things that are just kind of separated out for the simplicity of being able to work with various groups or communicate in various ways and so this next timeline is really again what you've already seen what's coming up over the next month from a decision-making perspective the week of November 4th preparing those recommendations and again that's work still with the consultant November 14th that consultant will be here to address the board and present their findings specifically identifying the sites that the process would recommend be the closing of two Elementary's in one middle school the potential for a public hearing on December 4th again that's it's on the schedule certainly tentative and pending the board approving to add that to the schedule and then December 12th the potential actual date when the board would take action on the recommendation by the consultant to close the identified schools this next set of timelines is again at the time of this kind of extreme draft form this was actually just shared for the first time with our principals on Wednesday want to send a special note of thanks to Eric and essa fig Wade assuming is still here and Kristine black Kristine and Erica as well as Dave Halki our three principal representatives that work with myself Stephanie white and Amina opted all our CSUN directors as a part of a team that comes together on a monthly sometimes twice a month basis to discuss issues of leadership things that relate to our principles to make sure that we're engaging our principals is a part of our decision-making practices coming out of that they help support the development of some key messages that I'm going to explain here so it really is the vision and the perspectives of our practicing principals that goes into this communication plan to really appreciate we have some talented principals and as a part of this process so what we're looking at here is November 6th what we're looking at there is principals meeting with their teams their staff in their buildings knowing that there are also some of our employee groups that might not be working that day that is a kind of a professional day that'd be working there may be other meetings during that week to ensure that it's not just given to teachers but it is teachers and cooks and custodians and secretaries and days all of whom again are stakeholders in our buildings and right now what we're looking for is leadership within our principals and with that all of our state our staff members knowing that what we're going into here is a challenging decision we've really got to be prepared for how we're going to support our students and our families how we're gonna see the opportunities and keep us looking forward to what this does for our ability to offer the best services and programs for our students and so what they're going to do on November 6 is really talk about the timeline as well as talk about the important role that we're going to play in supporting those stakeholders in our community so again Erica Christine helped work developed a draft for the principal share that with him yesterday for what that presentation would look like to share those messages November 15th so again remember from the timeline before November 14th is when the consultant is here to share with the board the identified sites November 15th our building principals will be meeting with their sites again certainly with a couple of different messages some of our sites will have been potentially identified for closure others would not I know the slide says here that principals of sites being closed would meet with respective staff but as we discussed with our team yesterday all of our principals will be meeting with their staff there's a message for those that have been identified for closure because they know that there's a lot of changes coming but they're still also that message for everyone else that the impact can still be faced by everyone whether they're inviting new students in or those boundary changes that could happen that could end up moving students across sites even that weren't closed it's an important message that we prepare ourselves for there's more information coming there would also be an all district message sent out by dr. battle to all of our families to help communicate what's been going on at what was presented to the board on November 14th as well and then the week of November 18th that's our principles would hold meetings for the families of those sites that have been identified foreclosure to again help people understand processes timelines what things are coming forward and what to expect in that in the future ahead one other note when I look up at the numbers November sixth timing it's just it's it's of note that that is also the week of conferences and so again those messages and those key things are strategic as a part of that week not just because it's the week before the decision is made but also that is an opportunity to prepare our teachers and our staff for those conversations individually with families that are coming in for conferences and so again knowing that those families are coming in and you've got those contact points giving people the opportunity in the talking points is timely in that regard as well then as we look into January February in April we'll chill notice here are just a lot of activities and again this is like many of our timelines gonna need to be fluid as we get more information as we'd have better planning this is really about relationships when you look at January after sites have been identified potentially action taken to close sites how do we start to bring together families like PTO s to educate as well as talk about what support can PT o--'s have as we plan additional opportunities to come together into the spring February certainly we would hope at that point principles have been identified as to what sites they would be at in the event that there is the need to move some of our principles around which certainly we anticipate can they go in and start working and interacting with students can they start having principal nights at school sites to start inviting families in and provide information certainly working into April when we would know that we would have staff potentially identified who would be moving around to different sites starting to lead pre-landing planning with families and students hosting open houses you notice that from our students about talking about tours of the school you notice that from families that talked about open houses and the feedback what are those opportunities look like in April or again in spring as the timing fits and then the next slide is again some of the things you've seen before from the implementation and refinement strategy I won't go through all of them but you'll see themes in there like how that fits into our budget adjustment process how that fits into the boundary adjustments that Lisa Ryder's gonna talk about here momentarily staffing decisions that need to be made and what those look like within those timelines and then just one other item of note on the slide I realize it says in April in May that we talk about what are we gonna do with buildings closures but again as this is fluid I know that that's also something that will be moved up much sooner that's discussion will be initiated likely in January so again it's a very organized but we also have to realize that need to adapt we'll make the decision and develop the timelines with the information we have in the best information we have and we will absolutely adapt and change things as priorities or other information tells us we should do things in a slightly different order and then I know Lisa is going to talk this point about some boundary items thank you Brian as we work through the process of the facility decision being disclosed and then that is contemplated by the board we will then begin to turn our attention more towards boundary adjustments and once that decision that is made regarding the facility closer closures the addressing of those boundaries will likely need to be at both levels of middle schools as well as elementary schools so as we take a look at this the first thing we're gonna want to do is review the recommendation recommendations and decision on the school closures and we would look towards our guiding change document for some guidance with regard to what is the unacceptable means as well as what is the results we're looking for and so as we as we do take a look at that I just want to pull this up and just for the benefit of those that are viewing that's the guiding changed document is unchanged with regard to the final the middle and the last column which is the unacceptable means and to the results so I'll pull that up in a little bit then when we get as Brian's doing his presentation we'll see about that with regard to the guiding change document the one thing that has been changed on it is the the first column is identifying the fact that we have some known current realities for us our boundaries haven't been changed in 20 years we have non-contiguous boundaries for attendance related to the area of attendance for a particular school particularly at the elementary level so do we address those things at this point in time not to mention the fact that we must keep the equity and the balance in mind with regard to our population and demographics across our schools as a whole so all of that which we have been working through with regard to the facility closing and the expectations around those results and the unacceptable means is unchanged moving forward we are continuing with everything about that being the same what we're just doing is focusing the current reality is based on just that which is boundaries as we look at that guiding change document it is the timeline in the process that we would be using is also very similar as far as the approach and so I'd like to speak a little bit about that we believe that we will follow that similar approach and in the process of developing the timeline we will be sure to include this strong community engagement as we have seen done with the closing of the facilities process the timeline that has been is being brought forward will have three phases the boundary design team and stakeholder voice will take place in the months of December and January the choice making which is the board decision discussion and decision would take place in January in February with the implementation or environment much of which Brian's already alluded to will continue then from February through August we've seen this diagram before and we're using this because it is the framework of what our decision-making will be around the boundary changes as well there is a need for stakeholder voice and input at the same time we need a design team that's going to do the legwork and the details of creating and identifying scenarios that might work at the various levels whether it's middle school or elementary that's going to take a little bit of time and a little bit of back and forth with regard to that so we want to make sure that we're hearing the voice from our our families as we take a look at the middle part of that slide you see that the choice making is the governance and a little bit of that management as well but mostly the governance therefore the choice making happening at the board level once we reach the implementation there's always going to be a need for refinement to that process and so there will be always that continuous review and improvement upon that as we work through I do want to point out that this this diagram and the guiding change framework that you see here where you take a look at your current reality and what is the unacceptable means and then what is the results all of that is a is something that we use in these large decisions because it does help for people to really understand where are they in that whole process and how does this all fit together so with that then I'll turn that back over to Brian yep so the as you've said a few times before there were multiple recommendations that the consultant gave as a part of their study it as it relates to facilities there was the recommendation to close to Elementary's in one middle school that we've been talking about quite a bit and we talked about over to this evening there was a recommendation to close and sell the diamond Education Center that was discussed at the last board meeting with some updates and is still a process coming down the road and then there was a recommendation that we reconfigure our grade levels from the pre-k five sites to the pre-k two and the three five buildings and so what this next series of slides really is is to share with you the review of the administrative team related to this particular piece or recommendation and give you an idea of the response from that admin team towards the recommendation I just want to note as we go through these slides I appreciate the work of amina oft at all and the CSUN department they really led and facilitated the research of this process as well as facilitating the conversation with the leadership team she would have liked to have been here to give this presentation but she is traveling back from cps s training so again i feel comfortable and presenting this having been a part of those conversations but certainly she is the expert behind this and will really be the one who would be able to speak to a lot of the research that i'm gonna summarize for you from the great configuration recommendation again as I mentioned this ISA team did help support the conversation and the research behind this certainly as we go into it there's an acknowledgement off the top that this as a proposal would certainly have some financial efficiencies as a part of it but as was discussed many times through a guiding change document what we really wanted to do as an administrative team is make sure that we're focused on the educational impact that it move like this would have and make sure that we're always driving towards due to achievement as our highest priority and so that's the lens really by which you'll see the research engages and so again if you click on that link you'll see an actual summary document of both the next few slides of summary as well as the research studies that were utilized as a part of this process but as a quick summary the research would suggest that the grade spans that have a higher academic achievement impact our larger wider grade spans so again as an example pre-k 8 would be a larger grade span comparatively to pre-k 2 3 5 6 8 or something like that larger grade spans have a higher academic achievement but also noting that pre-k to grade spans recommend in benefits from a social-emotional learning perspective a little more detail as it comes in to that though as to why why do they find within the research that those larger grade spans are academically more beneficial it really comes down to transitions and the regression that happens during times and points of transition so the first couple of bullet points graduate greater magnitude of change results in overall negative impacts and academic proportion performance often dips the you're following a transition to comments in that one is the proposed transitions suggest putting a transition in grade 3 we obviously right now have one in grade six and in grade 9 and based on the research you would expect and overall performance dip at those points in transition interestingly difficult times sometimes for transition as we think about middle level in high school and the critical importance of investing in those transitions but adding that additional transition in 3rd grade which we also know from a research perspective that suggests as an example the critical importance of third grade when it comes down to reading and statistically that students who are not on track for grade level reading at the end of third grade are unlikely to ever be on track at great reading at grade level so again having a potential academic regression in a critical year is a bit difficult to understand and Hallett just a quick note there when you talk about magnitude greater magnitude definition of that is the scope or number of factors in change so examples of those would be changing buildings new teacher principals changes and behavioral expectations of the number of transitions during the school day different schedules the more of those things or items thrown in the greater the magnitude of the change and again some additional things into the talk very similarly about that that impact the next slide really puts those kind of into a side-by-side you know wider grade spans like that pre-k 8 vs. smaller grade spans again you'll see some things about cost-effectiveness and the ability to focus on developmental needs on the smaller grade spans but again you talk about reducing transitions and thereby having lacet of lasting positive academic impact on the wider grade spans component so again kind of in summary the process really was a literary review which really did focus on elementary here because that is the focus of the recommendation was taking that for our elementary sites literature review as well as sharing that with our principals and and leadership them engaging and answering some questions and really synthesizing some of that feedback having looked through that summary and then also review of other school districts it was also of note to know that was brought up by Vice Chair Miller last time oh saying what do other districts do ms off doll and her team did a review of the MDC sites for other districts that would have configurations like this the thing to note is many of those are unlike district 191 and some of the findings particularly the negative academic impacts are amplified for populations with larger students of color as well as populations of low socioeconomic status amplify the negative impacts of transitions but in looking through those a lot of the sites that have this also have that configuration in either the same building or adjacent sites which again starts to limit the magnitude of some of those transitions when those sites are right next door to each other we are also talking about many districts that are unlike district 191 I'm looking at a series of districts that have populations of about two to three thousand students significantly different demographic background than those of 191 and again something we could certainly make available if that's of interest to board members as to what those districts are so again just in summary with that the recommendation of the administrative team considering that magnitude and the change related to facilities that our current configuration would best serve the students in the district and thereby would recommend against accepting that particular piece of the consultants recommendations the last piece we have as far as for our presentation is to remind the board in the public that certainly pending board action which would come after hearing the proposal next next board meeting from the consultant of a potential public hearing December 4th for the public to weigh in on what those recommendations would be and that concludes our presentation excuse me wonderful thank you very much assistant superintendent Garza it certainly is important for both the board and our community to absorb the information that you and your team are looking at and gathering and I've said it once and I'll say it again on behalf of the school board it is our responsibility to be transparent as a district and that's what this process is all about and that's what all of us seek in making sure that we are sharing as much information as we can so basically recapping briefly the timeline between now and December school closures will be our focus starting in January we'll be talking about the board will turn its discussions to boundary discussions as well as facilities usage including what our wishes might be in terms of using repurposing the two empty elementary schools and the one empty middle school in addition to leveraging other facilities as well with that I will open it up for comments and questions director shots I have a couple questions about that so just what the great reconfiguration piece of this the first question be is do you know what the consultants what their recommendation was based on to recommend the pre-k two to three to five and why was that on what did they base that recommendation finances that you would find staffing efficiencies by doing that similar to closing sites and consolidating we would be able to not have some of those potential imbalances and class sizes so it really is staffing efficiencies that would result from that configuration okay that's something that was my guess but I appreciate that so if K through eight is the least disruptive ideal models were for students you know and that's if that I'm understanding what your explanation of this highest positive long-term impact on academic achievement for all students so are there schools with the districts with the PK to eight model you said there were a few with the PK to two and the three to five great model are there districts with this PK to eight model I mean I know that there are districts with peak a bottle for sure it's just whether or not those districts are the size of district 191 or the same I don't know the answer to that I do believe that Miss often all did have some look at that but the focus really here was on responding to the consultants recommendation which is why some of the other ideas that have come up through the process even were not vetted through this particular research but I don't have the names of districts well we could certainly look at that and didn't find that out I mean it may because I do believe she did have some of that but okay so then but so then okay sorry Lisa go back one just where you were there um so that yes so then but does also say here that the PK did to grade span as many benefits in social-emotional which seems to contract a little bit the findings that the K to 8 is the is the ideal you know model for a large grade span or for grade span this sounds like peak attitude does have some benefits social emotional benefits for sure but again if you notice the first one talks about academic benefits versus the social emotional benefits and I well I think having good social emotional will lend itself again statistically to academics I think that's the delineation between the two straight academic because again it might have benefits to social-emotional during that grades bad but it's the transitions that happen afterwards that I believe resulted in the regression from an academic perspective okay so this just this piece here the PK d u PK to is just in social emotional learning NACA demmick and but the transitions piece results in the academic regression and there's not a comment on the social emotional impact of the transition I don't have that no I don't know if that existed within the research because again I think of Mina and her team are the experts within that but I don't have that as far as from the pka perspective okay and can you you know summarize all the research in this area Ryan and just tell so you know nice you know executive summary of all the research in this area I'd be grateful so I that's where the question brief synopsis so I think what we will do in the interest of focus conversation and time is um since director shot started us off with the grade span conversation why don't we stick with that and board members that have questions about grade span we can focus on those now and then we can go to the two questions on the other elements after that once once we've exhausted those questions does that sound fair to everybody yep okay so any other questions on grades band or comments dr. Miller all right so I'm gonna I think expand a little bit on what director Schatz was asking there so going back so the comparison was set to the PK 8 but we don't were not a PG 8 we're you know BK 5 are we to make the assumption that because as it said here long term impact is highest positive long-term impact PK 8 that therefore BK 5 also has higher than say suggested than the PK 2 of alternative correct I think PK 8 is the kind of widest grade spend that exists I guess there could theoretically be be K 12 in a really small district we're assuming it's a scale and it gets less is the further you go down the stretch okay I guess some of the questions I had around this first of all later on then you state that there were very few districts that have tried this model and I'm going to make an assumption I can be corrected on this if necessary later but I want to make an assumption that the districts that did try these ma this model or our are trying this model did it out of some sort of necessities such as we found ourselves in rather than just creativity so they may have already had some challenges in their district is what I'm suggesting versus a more stable chugging along just fine in a PK 5 or PK 8 environment so and and again I'm fine to be challenged on that if that's possible but nevertheless it is directly stated there's a limited amount of districts that are at the in this doing this model and so I'm a little concern that we're making apples to apples comparison if we have a limited set on one side of the comparison and basically the rest of the state on the other side of the comparison and then the if I understood right the largest driver of the concern Ron academic achievement is the this issue around transition and change I and I understand that I hear that but you know it will point out that students go through change grade by grade they go to different classrooms they go to different teachers I understand they're not as dramatic as going to a different building but there is change that occurs along the way so I guess that's it I just clarify a couple of those things okay thank you any other comments or questions on grade spans director Hill sorry it's more of a comment I guess but I was i appreciated getting this report tonight so thank yous I have been wondering a lot about myself about the K 2 3 5 and what that transition would mean academically for the students so I appreciate the work that has gone into this and it makes a it's helpful to understand a little bit more about the academic transitions and how difficult that can be if they're changing schools every 2 or 3 years as opposed to maybe you go to the same school for six years and then you start going to those transitions so I appreciate that and I just wanna say thank you okay thank you any other comments okay I I'm sorry dude no okay so I just had a comment really in terms of thinking about how best to serve all of our students and you know thinking about your comments on on the magnitude of change and understanding the the the great variety of needs that our students bring to us so we know that you know about 17% of our students are English language learners we know that slightly over half of our students are free and reduced lunch we have we have really true responsibility to our special education students and when I think about the impact on learning that having with that the the the recommendation would would introduce into the system I just wonder if it's you know penny wise pound foolish you know that that there are times when yes we do have some difficult you know we have some challenges financially and at the end of the day we're here to serve our students and you know I guess that the question is really understanding that the magnitude of the changes and the transitions what is going to be best for our students and we haven't seen you know any financial impact really a statement on financial impact as far as what the difference between the two grade spans might be so that's just kind of what I've been thinking about all right turning to the other elements of the presentation would anyone else yes director how occur I had a question about the facilities the means community meetings and the feedback that you got from that going around and reading the posters that are on the wall here if there are like you said a lot of common themes but there are a lot of questions on those papers that we have answers to and we kind of know what's going on with that how is that going to be provided to the parents of the students affected how are they going to get all their information when those questions that we kind of already have answers to yes so a couple things one would be obviously we've mentioned the fact that principals would be inviting families in and potentially doing some Q&A and I think when that becomes more and more real those messages will become you know I think more and more obvious that people are going to be looking for those answers and going to their principals another piece is again thanks to Aaron and his team have created and are starting to put out some Q&A FAQ is frequently asked questions for our website so those can be up as well as push out communications and newsletters coming out press release with with frequently asked questions so already in development and you know appreciate the drafts that he's been putting out over the last few days just in preparation for this as well as some of those common questions like what's going to happen to class size getting those answers out there because we do have some suggestions and ideas and comments about what that should do to class size because I think there was kind of a common misunderstanding that we would close sites and just jam students into existing classrooms taking class sizes from you know 25 to 40 well that's simply not the case we that the average class size formula utilized would be the same and what with this go is give us an opportunity to better balance without having those those areas worse we have discrepancies in higher class I said for as low lower we should be able to balance them better by concentrating our student populations so I think those are a few of the means from our principles to frequently asked questions to the to push out email communications and the press releases that are being created a lot based on those frequently asked questions okay thank you great question thank you any other questions director Miller um actually only have one question more than a bunch of comments first of all I I did attend a number of these community discussions and I think you guys did an excellent job I not only attended him I moved around and listened to what most of the tables and get an excellent job and I'm really want to stress how thorald this board has attempted to be in and dr. battles team on this but in involving our community I mean obviously at the end of the day we're not going to be able to hear every every voice out there but we've done as much I think is possible given the the time frame in the environment I think you've done a great job summarizing many of the themes I wanted to you just mentioned it took one of the things I was gonna mention about the class size I heard that quite often and at first it kind of surprised me but so I think it's adamantly important that we restored has a directive on the so-called average classroom size number and it's a complicated process I understand there's outliers and people see classroom sizes that are slightly bigger and slightly smaller throughout their experience in the district that is not changing with this process one bit and at first I was really confused how why are we even talking about classroom size and then I realized as you said people thought well you just got the jam more into one into an existent classroom and it's simply just not the case so I wanted me very very clear about that our directive on the classrooms that the per pupil teacher to pupil ratio has not changed at all and will remain the same after this process I have a one I guess I do have a question about and luckily Stacey's here so he can possibly swing this on the teachers as they came up if we if we're closing school a and moving most those kids to be per se the teacher alignment does that become with our contractual obligations and such how does that work I mean does that classroom just assume that we're going to take that whole classroom and the teacher with it or is that become an open sort of discussion than with moving teachers around and such well part of it is it goes back to the conversation around the boundaries yeah it's not just going to be moving I understand one place to the other yeah so once we have the boundaries decision made and I know what the the the enrollment of a building is going to be that's when we'll use our parameters that you'd mentioned prior to then say this is how many FTEs that building will need and how many of they'll need per grade at that point we'll follow our contract language as far as we may have some reductions based upon enrollment as far as our teaching staff and and then we'll have to follow our contract what that might look like with either our probationary teachers or even some of our continuing contract teachers and then from there then we backfill what's with the teachers at the buildings that are being just displaced would then fill in those gaps where our needs are thank you and I think what's important to be said here is that as much as we want to I think the public needs to understand that just you know if even though the majority of their class might have been moved to another building they may not end up with the same teacher that they had anticipated having and that there are many factors that go into this consideration set so I mean that we just have to be very clear about that and actually that bleeds into one of my other points I want to make I believe some point Brian you said impact may be felt by everyone I want to say impact will be felt by everyone in this district and we talked a little bit about boundaries that possibly will be where more impact comes into play and I just I want to really clear and communicating that to the public impact is going to be felt by everybody there is a very real scenario where a school is closed it is not your neighborhood school and your child might be going to a different school than they were just simply because of the realignment of boundaries so in one way or another whether it's kids coming in kids going out whatever impact will be felt they remember this community so I think it's important everybody since that and just last just this is more the January April down the road thing and just offhand throw out there as we start absorbing all this impact and people new people are coming together new families are meeting each other and stuff I'm just suggesting a consideration we maybe look at new identities for some of our schools and I'm not talking about changing the names on the outside of the schools but I know all the schools have Tigers Hornets things like that and identities that go with that and stuff and as an example my personal experience the Apple Valley Eagles and the Burnsville blaze youth hockey programs recently co-opted a couple years ago and they're now called the fire Hawks a clever combination of burn blaze and eagles so just keep that in a bag that's been very successful so just keep that in the back your mind so I guess that's it okay any other questions I guess we're on the focus-group process at this point what was presented today was more or less a compilation of all the different focus groups but there is all these feedback forms and that is what is going to be presented at the next board meeting in terms of the results and themes from the feedback forms yes so at the next board meeting the consultant would be here presenting their recommendation I did have an opportunity to meet with him earlier this week just to talk through a little bit about what that would look like and it would be my understanding that there would be maybe not in its totality but results from that feedback that he would be expressing including what was the feedback on the question related to is there probable cause for the district do this as well as what was learned and utilized as a part of the community feedback on what they believed would be the criteria that should go into the decision if the district does that so I have the understanding and expectation that those components would have some data to them to quantify what the results were but that wasn't part of what was provided in terms of the synopsis of tonight's meeting it is the the comments from the focus groups of the pickets correct yep as far as that piece and how the can be utilized I saw that it really has the consultants role to incorporate that into the recommendation and that is why that was omitted from this presentation because I'm leaving that for him to explain as a part of the results okay thank you any other comments or questions all right I have a couple when you were talking about principles connecting with families and there was a side that mentioned Oh in fact we're on it PTO boards getting together I imagined that we're not going to be that prescriptive and specific because we know that each of our schools have a variety of ways of engaging our parents and they have different parent groups whether it's in the school or actually going out into the community do you expect that both in school and getting out in the community is going to be part of this process as far as connecting with families could you just clarify that question I'm not sure if I follow that as far as in school and out of school so there's a matter of the PT goes well so in terms of educating families about the process there are meetings that we have in our schools with families when they happen to be there I know that there are there are schools that go out to where the you know the community the neighborhoods where our families live to connect with the families where they are I would absolutely see our our sites doing both coming into the schools as well as going out to the sites I said many of them do right now naturally as a part of what they do so I would say absolutely many of those successful ways that our principals have engaged families would absolutely be a part of this process and I think when you look at January with PTO as part of that is bringing in some parents as a part of finding out what can we do and what can this look like it also addresses something where I know Lisa would be engaged in this part of the process as well one of the immediate questions that came up from some people is what happens to PTO funds and how do those things get delineated and I think that's going to be of concern to people what happens to items that pto s gave two sites so i think engaging pto s because we know that it's gonna be some specific things that they're going engage in like that but also just as a reflection of maybe not the formality of the pto by name but how can we engage parents as a part of the process of developing some of these things much like we engage our principals in the process of developing the key messages that will go out to families okay and i imagine there will still be there will be another type of forum for the next phase of the process online for families to complete I would assume that all of those things that have been successful as a part of this process in generating feedback would be cycled through the various timelines and processes that are going to be coming forward okay let me just look to see what other questions I have so I guess there were two more questions in the feedback forms I really appreciated having the the feedback forms that we have posted here both posted physically but also available in board books so that folks can go out and look at them in their own in their own spare time and see what it is there our families have been saying and there's a concern one of the themes of course was you know what are we doing with our empty schools and I feel compelled to say that I don't recall any you know the consultant or any of staff or a board member mentioned selling off either of the two elementary schools or the middle school now that's up to this point who knows what might happen after today but I think generally there's a recognition that enrollment absent flows and we need to be forward-thinking as a board in terms of where we are right now and what our needs might be 20 30 40 years out so I wanted to make that comment and taking to heart comments about rumors and gossip and transparency I kind of see gossip and transparency as the opposites opposite sides of the same coin where you know if you have a question and you're a community member you're a family member please ask it because we have all this information doctor how eager you had pointed out that there are things that we know because we've been in the process that our families might not know but simply people need to connect with their principal they need to email assistant superintendent Gorsuch dr. battle please ask the questions because simply because you don't have an answer to your question probably means that it hasn't been asked of us yet and it could very well be a very valuable question for us to think about interim in this in this process so let's really everybody connecting you know communication is a two-way street we need to hear from our community in terms of you know what are you hearing what concerns do you have and then we can help share out the information so that was really important to me as well are there any other popcorn topics that board members have questions on that haven't been covered already no you know heat did you you have been quiet this evening can I put you on the spot and and do you have knots that you would like to share I'm actually did have a question about the middle school focus groups how did you pick which students participated in those groups so that was something that I left to our principals that may have looked differently I don't know one of our middle school principals happened to be here tonight maybe they'd like to hear their thoughts and perspectives [Music] okay thank you okay thank you very much yes dr. Miller I just want to reiterate reinforced with the point you were just making sure all we we do not have all the answers in this process so and you were specifically speaking to the community but I want to speak to all of the stakeholders our teachers our staff members anybody these decisions had not been made and we need the input in the and any questions that because questions often generate interesting thoughts about what well we hadn't thought about that this literally came up last evening meeting with a group of teachers and talking about things other issues and then brought the point of transition and the time involved and I said you know what that is fantastic information we need that feedback we're listening we want to hear it because you know in the mix of everything as they're moving quickly forward sometimes some of these things get overlooked PTO dollars those kind of things so we need all that feedback please please everybody don't hesitate to bring up a question that we need to hear it all right we are all in this together and we need to come together and and make ourselves stronger coming out of this process thank you both very much Brian thanks again you've put a lot of time and effort in and this has been a really great report thank you all right turning to the business portion of our meeting and our consent agenda although board action is required it is generally 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 are there items that any board members would like to remove for separate consideration I have one I would like to remove number eight approved scheduling a special board workshop on October 30th 2019 just for a little discussion around that so that will I will take a motion to approve the consent agenda are there any other questions discussion okay I'll take a motion to approve the consent agenda as amended moved by director Miller second seconded by director courier all those in favor please signify by saying aye aye opposed nay and the motion carries new business turning to our first new business item of approving scheduling a special board workshop on October 30th 2019 I just wanted to bring bring this up specifically because as director Currier alluded to in her report earlier tonight we are having conversations about how best to serve our special ed students and in our partnership with 9:17 and staff continues to work to pull information together so that we can receive information on both of those topics next week in a workshop and I wanted to make that make our community aware that we are receiving more information hopefully folks who are interested will join us and the recommendation is that the Board of Education approves scheduling a special board workshop on Wednesday October 30th at 6:00 p.m. at Diamond Head Education Center 200 West Burnsville Parkway Burnsville for a special report for a report on special education I will take a motion moved by director courier second second seconded by director Chester any discussion hearing none all those in favor of approving the recommendation please signify by saying aye aye opposed nay and the motion carries thank you next we'll invite Guillaume Peck our athletic director to the podium we are being asked to approve the cooperative sponsorship in Nordic Ski between Burnsville high school and Shakopee high school welcome and thank you for waiting thank you so if I could potentially clump the first the the Nordic and Alpine together which is number two as well in a new business those are we'll keep them separate okay sorry so there's a long-standing there's been a long-standing cooperative sponsorship between Shakopee and burnsville with some changes in Minnesota State High School League by law with coopera sponsorships continuing on into the postseason unknowingly by myself and the new activities director of Shakopee those coopera sponsorships have been dissolved and so we're just sort of trying to correct the paperwork with the high school League to make sure that we're in compliance with our cooperative oncer ship awesome all right let's pull up make sure we've got the recommendation all right the recommendation has been read I will take a motion to approve move by director shot second seconded by director Miller questions our discussion I have a question yes director courier word the recommendation is that we approve the cooperative sponsorship now if they've been dissolved what does this do can you say more just so I can make sure I'm understanding what you're asking we had this relationship before correct but the Minnesota State High School League dissolved them yep so the what does this do so what essentially riri Institute's the cooperative sponsorship prior to the rule change cooperative sponsorships were regular season only and so once you got two sections then you had to essentially participate at your own school and so what that did essentially with cooperative sponsorships on swim teams was it split up relay teams and forced one child to swim by themselves as their own high school and so they changed the rule to allow cooperative sponsorships continuing on to sections so I get it thank you any other questions all right those in favor of approving the recommendation please signify by saying aye aye opposed nay motion carries next I'll read the recommendation that the Board of Education approves the cooperative sponsorship in alpine ski between Burnsville high school in Shakopee high school do you have any other comments you want to make it's essentially the same as the prior okay so I'll take a motion to approve move by director Hume second second seconded by director courier questions hearing none all those in favor of approving this recommendation please signify by saying aye aye opposed nay and the motion carries and third we are being asked to approve the non-exclusive cooperative sponsorship in wrestling between Burnsville high school and blue sky online charter school so this one is a little bit unique in the fact that there are accredited public online schools and there are online charter schools the way that the Minnesota State High School League operates with online public schools so say for instance we have a student that ends up at the online school through Houston public schools there's no documentation needed if they're transferring from their home attendant school so if a Burnsville student left our high school enrolled in online at Houston they will be eligible to participate in their home attendance school with online charters it's a little bit different you have to do these non-exclusive cooperative sponsorships so this essentially is first student who found that online would be a better option and enrolled in an online charter and so the online online schools are allowed to to hold multiple coopera on starships by sport because you'll have kids as far north as International Falls and as far south as Worthington and how do you find one school so the rule essentially is students can participate in their home attendance schools so very interesting thank you I will take a motion to approve the recommendation moved by director shot second second second did by director Hall worker questions our discussion hearing none all those in favor of approving this recommendation please signify by saying aye aye opposed nay and the motion carries thank you thank you next I will invite stacy silva an executive director of human resources to the podium we are being asked to approve the proposed revisions andreadd opt the unchanged language in the 2019 to 2021 master agreement with the Burnsville principles Association welcome Stacy good evening thank you bringing before you tonight again the the tentative agreement with principles of our district we have 23 principles throughout the district we met about four different times beginning on August 23rd all the way through September and really really address seven different language heightens one of the main language items that we needed to address was around you LA which is unrequested leave of absence similar to the teachers the principal's were also required under state statute to negotiate for the at the end of the FY 19 contract a process for layoffs that was an agreement between the district and the the unit it's pretty straightforward they already had some of the language in place that was just kind of flushing it out a little bit more and clarifying that process the other item that we worked on was adjusting our long term disability language this is a priority for the district it allows us flexibility with our benefits committee to review the best use of our resources as far as paying for premiums and then those folks who are actually using our Ltd we're finding that where we are it is a most efficient use of resources at this time so we have to change contract language to allow that flexibility on the salary schedule we're looking at a $2,000 increase on the on the cells in the first year with a $1,500 increase in the second a two-year cost to the district of $157,000 the MSB a two-year package increases a 2.90 percent increase and as you can see that compares to a four point six seven percent increase the last time we negotiated with them the the package as a whole is within our board parameters and making the recommendation as read great I will take a motion to approve the REC Foundation moved by director Miller second seconded by director Hume questions or a discussion I just had one comment I just so folks are aware in the part of the changes to the to the contract is that principals cannot bump for a promotion for a promotional move that that if you're an assistant principal you bump another assistant principal if you're a principal you bump another principal but never the two shall meet in that also goes as far as grades it's with elementary in secondary so an elementary building principal wouldn't necessarily bump a middle school or high school principal because those are on different palings as well so there's four different tiers in a sense great thank you for that clarification any other nope all those in favor of approving the recommendation please signify by saying aye aye opposed nay and the motion carries thank you next I will invite dr. battle we are being asked to approve on a first reading basis changes to policies 202 school board officers and 203 point to order of the regular school board meeting dr. battle Thank You chair alt and members of the board tonight I bring you the recommendation to approve on a first reading basis changes to policies to zero to school board officers and to zero three point two order of the regular school board meeting these policies were reviewed by the policy review committee on October 8th 2019 the School Board reviews all policies at least once every five years and these policies were scheduled to be reviewed as part of the review rotation there were minor changes to these policies policy 202 section 3 Part A updated to bring clarification to the role of the clerk and treasurer and policy 2-0 3.2 was updated to reflect our current board agenda format for in Section three part a four two zero three point two you will see strike throughs of the previous language okay thank you very much I'll take a motion to approve the recommendation so move moved by director Chester second sang it in by director shots any questions seeing none all those in favor of approving the recommendation please signify by saying aye aye opposed nay and the motion carries our next action will be to adjourn to a closed session as permitted by Minnesota statute thirteen d03 to discuss is d1 any one's labor negotiation strategy I'll take a motion to adjourn so moved moved by director courier second second seconded by director how eager all those in favor of a journey please signify by saying aye aye and we are adjourned let's take you