good evening I'd like to call to order tonight's meeting of the ISD 191 Burnsville Egan Savage School Board the date is May 28 2020 and the time is 6 30 P.M I'd like to welcome our audience who are joining us uh remotely this is a special time of year for us with a year-end celebrations um and it's also a year uh year ending like none other so thank you all for joining us uh with that uh director career would you please leave us in the pledge I pledge allegiance to the flag of the United States of America and to the Republic for which it stands one nation under God indivisible with liberty and justice for all we'll start by approving tonight's agenda do I have a motion to it so moved moved by director shot second second seconded by director halliger any discussion hearing none all those in favor of approving the agenda please Abigail I need to take yep Miss Kenny sorry will you please call the roll Judy Courier hi Scott Hume Scott Hume okay Eric Miller hi Abigail hi Dan haulbreger hi Leslie Chester aye thirsty shots aye can you hear me now yes okay I said I but I don't think something is wrong with my audio for a minute there and the agenda is approved thank you [Music] thank you um is Yoda is Yoda heat with us yes yeah awesome yes great welcome thank you feliposa's last word meeting on behalf of the board we want to thank you for representing our students on the board during the 2019-2020 school year you have done a great job and have helped us enrich the role of the student representative by including more student voices which we look forward to implementing next year thanks to your help normally I would be presenting you with a card in person from board members and superintendent battle however due to covid-19 and our virtual meeting Arrangements we mailed the card to yoga Heath earlier this week I would like to open it up to Dr battle and board numbers to share your good wishes yes thank you chair alt um Yoda heat I want to thank you for your service on behalf of yourself and your fellow students um I appreciate the perspective and the time that you have given to this role and I want to extend my congratulations to you on your graduation and I know uh your post-secondary plans uh will be successful and I just want to applaud all the activism you have displayed your involvement as one of our students so thank you very much and I wish you all the best thank you I'll open it up for board members oh sorry uh director shots thank you so much for all your work on the board we are really grateful for the work that you're putting into um our the student reposition and what it looks like and what it means and how that role could contribute to the school board and and even be on that for everything you've done for um the high school for the community for your fellow students you'll be missed and we are very excited to see what you will do in the future thank you direct your Courier I was impressed with your confidence your wisdom at your age I'm I I still am just amazed at your um ability to um have that much confidence and reflect uh the views of the students at Burnsville High School I know you will go on and do great things um congratulations on your graduation and best wishes on your future thank you so much thank you yeah hi hopefully you can hear me I just want to say thank you for all you've completely this year especially thank you for the proposal you've been working on to improve the this role in the in future years I think that's really gonna have a big impact next year and Beyond so thank you so much for all you've done congratulations yodaghi on your graduation from uh Burnsville High School and thank you so much for being a part of our um Team here at on the board of directors with your leadership but also especially your your leadership and service that you have given to the students within Burnsville High School and and I'm sure it didn't start just there I'm sure it was started in when you first entered in kindergarten so um I'm very excited to see um your how you grow in the future and how you achieve your goals and dreams so wish you all the best thank you director holiger um yes I obviously um agree with all the other sentiments given I just want to let you know that I really appreciated all of your um reports that you gave us and kind of little insights into what's going on at the schools and um just all the time that you've put into this role and I know you have so many other things going on and the fact that you made this a priority for yourself this year we all really appreciate it and um we can't wait to see what you do in the future so congratulations thank you thank you everyone uh yodahi would you like to say anything yes um I just really wanted to say thank you for an amazing year um I was able to learn so much about our district and just education in general and for that I'm very grateful and I wish you all well in the years to come and I hope that you can carry on the work that we've started this year um with the new school board rep and I actually wanted to take the time to introduce the new school board rep who will be mccomey adisu unfortunately she couldn't be on the call today but I hope to soon get you all in contact with her she's a great girl you're gonna love her and I just want to thank you all so much again for an amazing year thank you so much Yodi it really has been a pleasure having you on board with us um and I just want to let you know you are welcome to stay um but it is a lovely evening outside um please feel free um not to stay and go enjoy the evening it's entirely up to you okay thank you guys uh next um I'd like to welcome Jen board our qcom coordinator and Katie Ness we're going to receive a report on propane also known as qcom welcome thank you great chair alt superintendent battle and board members I'm here tonight to present our 2021 qcomp review report to you I'm Jennifer Bora the qcom coordinator and a continuous Improvement coach at Eagle Ridge Middle School uh the purpose of the report tonight is twofold one to share the results of our annual annual review with you um and two to share the updates that or share an update on the adaptations we made to our cue comp plan when we moved to distance learning in March and just as a reminder to ground Us in kind of our Q comp um Q comp really in our district is meant to put structures in place that create Equitable classroom practices and environments for students we use the mde best practices around the four core components of qcomp as guidelines in doing so so to give you an overview of the review process that we went through this year I'll First share the purpose of the review the real the review really is meant to identify what's working well with our Q comp plan and what are some growth opportunities the sites we reviewed this year were all Sites a district R size is required to review five sites we every three to four years opt to review all sites to get a broader perspective of how things are going as far as qcom so we did and the data we collected this year was we serve d should I keep going sorry I'll keep going um so this year we surveyed all administrators all continuous Improvement coaches all BLT members and all teachers and we did this a separate survey for a probationary and our 10-year teachers because we wanted to differentiate that data and then we also reviewed CT mid-year Reflections which is a form that all collaborative teams fill out in January um reflecting on the work that they've done so far and then finally the distance learning implications specifically for the review um mde gave an option to districts to not do a report this year and just combine it with next year's report we had already begun our review process and felt we had collected enough data at the point we moved to distance learning to move forward with a report this year so we chose to do a our annual report the same as always so I'll start with the overall impact and these are our celebrations this is when we review the data these are things that really stood out as being positive um the first celebration was around collaborative teamwork and I would say that we found similar findings in this broader view of interviewing all Sites as we have the last couple years when we've done small sites which to me is good it shows that our samples are working when we do a sample population um and the findings were that most Staff feel that CT work or collaborative team work has a moderate to high impact on their classroom instruction and they feel that that does in turn impact student achievement examples that were cited this year of work that has been done in collaborative teams were is work around Avid developmental designs the use of fast data to design interventions discussions around engagement strategies and culturally proficient practices and the development of common expectations another celebration was the results around the observation and evaluation process again 80 percent plus of our staff respondents feel that the observation and evaluation process has a moderate to high impact on their instruction and again Insurance student achievement the biggest thing that we pulled out of it is that people feel that the opportunity for self-reflection really helps them fine-tune their craft and the pre and post-conference discussions along with the written feedback they receive Aid in that self-reflection um the third celebration was Mentor training and supports this has been a growth area for several years um for us and this past year we put in place um a training module based on the book supporting beginning teachers and trained our BLT members with um that best practice research on the BLT members in general felt that that training that was done in August helped them better understand what their role was as a mentor and support their mentees um I would say this is still a continuing growth area for us um but we did feel that we made some progress this year and then the final success or celebration was a collaborative team reboot professional development modules that we put in place coaches last spring worked really hard to put together um some I'll just call them modules that with the intent of really impacting the core component of job embedded PD and our goal was to create um practices or structures that helped teams really focus on student achievement and so with the help of mde and the use of adaptive schools training we put together modules that principles and BLT members could use based on the needs at their site and then they could have teams go through these modules and it was all professional development meant to support high functioning teams and there was um extremely positive feedback from coaches administrators BLT members and staff around these modules so then our growth opportunities are the recommendations that we came up with this year that first one is directly tied into what I was just referring to we want to continue to build on and strengthen the collaborative team reboot modules that we have made the coaches this year read a book called The Art of coaching teams um building resilient communities that transform schools and we're using some tools from that to continue to add into those reboot reboot modules and put more supports in place for our administrators and building leadership teams um and the next two bullets for recommendations I would say that really what our hope is is that we focus on building and creating consistent um best practices across all Sites so that middle bullet is really about making sure that we are continuing to do calibration around the Danielson framework for evaluation that's the rubric that teachers are scored on and we just want to make sure that we have administrators teachers building leadership team members very familiar with the rubrics and speaking the same language and then that third bullet ties directly into that we have building leadership team Retreat days three to four days a year and our recommendation is that some form of calibration around the Sip and and or Danielson is directly built into that and that that happens at also so the distance learning modifications a March um we were all thrown for a loop and I just thought I'd share with you that I am part of a qcom Metro coordinators group and there's about 17 districts represented in that group um we started communicating immediately to start seeing what people were doing around distance learning we developed a plan within our own district and then mde gave us some recommendations once we had started to roll out our plan which changed a little bit of what we had in place but not a whole lot and I'm I'm very proud of what we did in our district a lot of districts stopped and put everything on hold and didn't go further we finished off the year so I'll talk to those pieces um the first one was virtual indicators we took our Danielson domains two and three and when I say we ain't talking about the coaches and we created virtual indicators to align to all of the indicators for domain 2 is around the environment of a classroom and domain three is around instruction and those are the observable components and so we created virtual indicators as to what it might look like in a virtual setting and then we calibrated with all coaches and administrators in small groups around those virtual indicators we shared these indicators with any building leadership team members who had pure observations left to complete the observations were all completed so we went through and per the requirements of the state those had to be coaching observations so all observations were completed with a coaching lens and then the collaborative teams continued to meet we had about a one week or two week Break um in there but we had collaborative teams continue to meet throughout the year and the only ask was well one it was via zoom and then two of the ask was that they just changed some of their action steps in their goal to meet the distance learning needs that they had and then finally building goals this is probably the biggest change with no State Testing we will not be measuring building goals this year and through my contact with our mde rep we're not sure what that's going to look like for next year because even setting goals will be different so um we're waiting for guidance um as far as what that will look like in the future and now I am going to introduce Katie Ness she is currently the continuous Improvement coach at Ron and Nicollet middle school and she's just going to share with you some of her experiences around distance learning good evening chair alt superintendent battle and members of the board like Jen said my name is Katie Ness this is my first year as a continuous Improvement coach and I will be the cute comp coordinator next year so I am happy tonight to share with you um my personal reflection on distance learning coaching uh and on this slide you will see a kind of Reflection from a second I went through uh the distance learning observation with me this year along with a classroom observation so you can kind of take a look at that um as I reflect specifically on distance learning the frequent Trend in my coaching conversations with teachers was their urgency in wanting to connect with students they had a need to make sure they were okay academically emotionally and physically we spent time discussing curriculum resources and digital platforms to ensure Student Success and access in both my elementary and middle school buildings teachers reflected on and shared the all Hands-On deck approach that was happening amongst staff and administrators to support the individual learning needs of each and every student I had the opportunity to sit in on Zoom sessions with small groups and whole classes and provide feedback to teachers on their virtual teaching that they were doing from teachers shared stories of phone calls their Zoom classes and the house calls that they made for the past few months I have coached teachers through a variety of in a variety of roles through tears stress joy and of course sorrow and not being able to close the year seeing their students and I think all of these examples demonstrate their compassionate actions yeah thank you Katie thank you board again for the opportunity to share our review results with you that concludes my report thank you both very much and uh Katie we will look forward to hearing from you again next year um one of the members I will open it up for questions and comments uh director shouts thank you both for that report that was um very helpful I always like to know how things are how things are going and how we're continually supporting our teachers so I do have a question about um the mentoring and training um you said that was a continues to be a growth area and I guess I have my questions probably twofold is why is it a growth area and then what is um what are the actions being done to um improve that growth area so either way our plan is written mentoring is a a job responsibility of building leadership team members in the ideal world it would not live with another position that has so many responsibilities um just to give you a little bit of a con contextual picture building leadership team members our full-time teachers psychologists social workers whatever their role is they have a full-time job and it's a stipended position um and the main role is to support the the work of the school Improvement plan by doing professional development supporting collaborative teams conducting peer observations it the added piece of mentoring is it's a lot so it's a growth area I think because there's um too much on the plate um I I would love to see us be able to come up with another plan and and there we're talking through this and when I say we Katie and I and um Wendy drewgee have have started to just talk through what else could it look like um in our model to be more effective for our probationary teachers and I guess I would just share with you as well that we're not alone this is when I talk with that group of 17 districts um the ones that feel they have the most successful Mentor programs have um mentors that that is their sole position that is their job so I just it's not ideal the way it's set up and and I have ideas we have ideas and and we'll hopefully continue to build those um as we do our mou negotiations in the future thank you board members any other questions or comments director Hill that was our presentation thank you very much um I question I guess is um around distance learning and I thank you for the update on that that's obviously something that's on everybody's mind these days and um my question is just what would you say from your observations or your conversations are some of the biggest lessons that have been learned or thought thoughts on what could perhaps be done differently if distance learning were something that needed to happen again at some point in the in the future or even if there's just a snow day for a week and we have three or four days we're prepared for a snow day that was through like such a vacation after this year yeah I was gonna say I think people were worried about if they had to do this for a snow day um I think a snow day would be a breeze at this point um big lessons I guess takeaways and I if I don't answer what you asked me let me know but I I think that the first thing I would say is um as coaches we went right away we're reaching out for technology at um resources this is this needs to be in collaboration because um technology is not all of our our strength and so working with the technology department and sisa we were able to come up with some of the things that have been shared with the tech cohorts so we had um a a model that had like standard better best practices um we had What's called the five E's but it's basically and Katie you might need to step in and tell me but it's but it's basically uh kind of a lesson plan template for putting really good distance learning practices into place um and so we use those in our coaching conversations with teachers and I was so um pleasantly surprised when I started my coaching conversations with people as to how many teachers naturally navigated towards the best practices even if this wasn't their area of expertise they want to do what's best for kids and they were navigated they were they were excited to see and and relieved that they were doing something that was that was good and considered you know best practice so I think what would be needed is professional development for all teachers specifically tied to that and again I can't say enough about how impressed I am that the work of our sisa team coaches everybody put into place in this model and um really tried to support teachers um in this I guess concerns would be it's that it's equity for me it's Equity pieces it's what we do for kids that we can't reach in a in the distance learning model and I think what Katie spoke to too I mean that's what I'll start crying that's what hurts teachers Hearts is when they can't reach all their kids so um so concerns I have if we look at moving forward with this which I'm assuming we will be doing some sort of this is how do you start relationships in this way and um just today Katie and director after all and I had a conversation about what is it that we need to start looking at so that we can be supporting teachers did I somewhat answer what you asked me yep thank you um I will wrap this up um just first off Jen I'd like to thank you for your years in this um in this coordinator role um it's particularly in the last couple of years it's been really rewarding to see how much more complex the work is becoming and it's really in alignment with our goals and um particularly cpss and really enriching the the relationships between our students and and I think that's a credit to you and the rest of your team um so thank you for that and as I said Katie we will look forward to seeing you uh next year and hearing about new developments and with that lovely report thank you both thank you uh next uh we will be receiving a branding and marketing plan update from Aaron tinklinburg director of communications welcome Aaron thank you thank you chair alts superintendent battle and members of the board I'm actually going to pretty much just introduce uh Communications coordinator Wes Dre and have him present this report this is the work that he's been especially directing and I want to give you an update on what we've been doing this spring Wes you want to start the report hello everybody can everyone hear me okay it's all all good okay great yeah um yeah I'm just here to uh give a brief update on the marketing work that we've conducted so far this spring as well as our plans for the upcoming months and uh years really um to start uh I just want to say that the goals that we've outlined in the past are still uh the goals that we have today which are to foster a sense of Pride among students staff families and community members to maintain or increase the district capture rate or resident enrollment focusing on Resident students uh like I said um to improve the reputation of the district and its schools as we were looking at pursuing this work we uh we determined that there was some foundational work that needed to happen first um specifically around our brand uh we observed and uh noticed through some research that we kind of had a hard time talking about ourselves and about who we are and what makes us great it was hard for us to pin that down into something specific that we could say to people um you know like that elevator speech almost um for why we why you should choose us basically that's where that branding background work came into play Wes can I pause you for just a second yep your presentation right now is in presenter view for some reason can you uh pull that down oh it's not working the way I want it yeah if you could just minimize or close that is that correct that looks right thank you okay um where was I okay the uh so that branding background work was really the foundational work that we we needed to conduct before we can really move on with some marketing campaigns and uh more integrated marketing strategy um what that can what that included was uh District leaders uh participating in either online service surveys or in-person um brand review meetings with the consultant that we worked with CSO who we work with for transportation services as well and um just sort of discovering Who We Are The Branding background work was really just uncovering things that we sort of already knew about ourselves and shaping it into uh something that we can say and use as a lens or as a as almost a springboard for any marketing work that we want to do um what we intend to do is use that branding background work to create brand driven campaigns um it's really meant to prevent random acts of marketing um to prevent just in the past you know we've we've had Communications work and then we've tried to do some marketing stuff here and there this is really the intention of this is really to integrate those two things and make marketing a key focus of the department um and that uh the plan for the next month or two is to um create and launch a strategy that would last for several years um I'm anticipating that any results that we could see from from this work will will really start to show up uh won't be immediate basically especially with reputation work um the I'll go into some depth on The Branding background the one of the bigger things that was created was what's called a brand architecture and think of this as sort of the the layer below you know the the under the part of the iceberg under the water um we had our logo and we had our tagline each student Future Ready Community strong and we had strategic plan values but this sort of sits below all of that and it's really how we position ourselves as a brand and as acting as that Foundation I won't go through all of these in depth but um one I really wanted to touch on is the brand archetype um this is taking uh the why of what we do the how and the what um and personifying it almost in uh in an identity um it's a lens that we can use to look through when we create campaigns or when we write about our district or um and it's it's pretty internal uh language but you know it's it's that lens that we can use to create all of these brand driven campaigns um I'll go through the rest of these in a little bit later in the presentation as well but we'll start here so through those uh brand review meetings it was determined that our archetype was the Trailblazer um I shouldn't say determined it was sort of uncovered a lot of long conversations about this specifically um talking about people like Jordan peel and sorry I have to move all of the faces on my screen um Ava dubernet uh our two filmmakers who are are known as Trailblazers in their field but also um companies like uh gosh I'm blanking on some of these Levi's NASA North Face Subaru um are all companies that align with that Trailblazer archetype um and the most important part of it really is that the Trailblazer is focused on goals that uh they're not focused on they're not waiting for other people to take that step for them they are moving forward on their path overcoming obstacles in their own way and not waiting for others they're really leading other people um when we heard all of this and when we had these conversations it was it just all sort of clicked in our head it was just like this absolutely makes sense um and there wasn't after we heard it there wasn't a whole lot of questioning whether it was true it was just more of who else can we who else do we want to mention is a trailblazer that we align with um anything you wanted to add on this on this Aaron yeah I just I think echoing that comment exactly I was really uh it was really amazing I think how um everything sort of came together the synthesis of the conversations that we had uh people had big deep discussions about sort of who we are um as a district as a community what it means to be 191 and uh um how that all came together into this Trailblazer architect uh really I thought was beautiful in a lot of ways uh everybody did feel comfortable with it confident with it again it wasn't a matter of like determining who we are it was really uncovering a way of expressing who we are and understanding who we are as a district and and that was really exciting to be a part of so the way this feat this um part of our brand architecture is used is when we think of doing brand driven campaigns or when we think of um pursuing some curriculum review uh basically anything that we have in our district hiring practices um you know recruitment retention of students of Staff our enrollment process we have to think what would a Trailblazer how would a Trailblazer approach these problems um and think creatively and be bold and move forward on a path that might not have been done been done before this is the next layer of the brand architecture so there's the the why and how and what and the brand archetype are sort of that the strategy piece that that really sit internally and sort of below the surface this part is sort of uh it's a little more on how we express that brand strategy um the three values here are certainly not all-encompassing of what we value but there were three uh major themes that can't that came through based on all those conversations um and as we look at this sort of this table here I just want to point out that it kind of moves left to right um so the value of ambition is expressed through an enterprising personality with a passionate tone um so think of it moving left to right in that way um I won't read all of these but the one that I really want to point out because it comes up again later and it was one that we talked uh in pretty great depth about was the individuality value which um on its face sounded a little counterintuitive to the idea of building community but the value of individuality for us expresses that we believe people thrive when they can bring their true self to the table we Champion individual authenticity and uniqueness we welcome everyone without bias alienation is the enemy of community um the purpose there being really that uh we we can't create a thriving coming community in 191 without everyone's true self being present um I'll move on because that one comes up again later but as you can see all of these values are expressed through different personalities and with different tones so when we're talking about when we're writing something for example that's expressing a curious the Curious uh nature of our district um we'll use an open-minded tone in that message all of that brand architecture those the archetype the values the um uh personality and the tone are all distilled down into a brand positioning statement and now this is where we're getting into the marketing side of our brand um if you're looking for a short elevator speech that you could tell people about our district this would be it one second excuse me I didn't I didn't mute myself there did I um we are a future forward District serving everyone in our community without bias creating barrier-free Pathways for learning We Believe learning is a lifelong Pursuit and create programs and services and opportunities inspired by this belief this is this is where we start moving into that external language um when we are writing you know like about pages on our website this this language that's in here might show up on there when we're writing you know job descriptions this might pop up in there here uh in there um and this is really just that single statement that sort of distills all of that brand strategy into something we can tell people this is what how we talk talk about ourselves now um it's designed it's identifying the desired audience being served by the district and sort of proposing to them our value uh it's describing how we're different possibly than our neighbors or any other competitors that we would have that positioning statement is distilled even further into a simple idea as simple as possible and that for us is Fanning the flame it uh each of us carries an internal Flame and that sort of gets back to that individuality value about being your true self bringing your whole self to the table we want that in every student and every teacher and every staff member we want everyone to feel like they in their whole self is welcome and valued and vital to our work um and our goal is that that flame just explodes into uh Ablaze that's what we're that's our goal and that's where we distill down even further this brand idea I do just want to point out that uh we identify specific age groups with both with all three of these that's certainly not to say that this brand idea of Fanning the flame and all of this strategy behind it applies to everyone who ever could come into in contact with us from Earth through all of our adult education through all of our community education courses it's all encompassing but uh for us to sort of describe this to people we felt like we needed to distill it further into our elementary schools middle schools and high schools I will read these because they're fun so for pre-k through grade five at the elementary schools we light a spark for learning in each child and instill a sense of excitement and creativity as their Learning Journey continues we spark Wonder we spark curiosity we Spark creativity we Spark all of it that's Elementary School is the place for spark in the middle school we ignite the interests and passions in each child to explore the world around them this is really Middle School is a place where students can sort of figure out who they are what kind of person they are a little bit and we want to be there to help them ignite those passions to create some awareness of what of the world around them and get them ready to blaze a path to their future and that brings us to blaze at the high school level we fan the flame to create a blaze in each student and help them discover all that's possible these three brand ideas are again just a further distillation it's not even a I'll stop saying distillation at this point it was distilled down to Fanning the flame this is just like another way of describing Fanning the flame at each of these three levels um it's our ultimate goal and our ultimate purpose as a school district um just uh gosh I almost said distilled again sort of explained in a simplest terms the simplest terms possible I think uh West before you move on I just want to add that this I think really uh one of the things that came up in the discussions and and I think you see it here it really uh coalesces with the pathways model of our schools that the idea is for a student who for each student individually to find their pathway and to go along their pathway of learning as they move through our schools and and this progression spark ignite Blaze really just fit and emphasize that uh to a great extent we love the way this turned out again in terms of visualizing what it means to go to District 191 schools um on an individual student level that these are their experiences this is the pathway that they'll find as they go through here it's not about us determining their pathway it's not about them getting in a in a pathway and and then being on there like a track uh at a at a college or a major or something like that it's about them uh finding themselves discovering for themselves and then finding their own pathway and this progression really I think described that well yeah thanks Aaron these these sort of came these ideas came out of our conversations about K-12 pre-k12 Pathways but they almost supersede that from a brand idea perspective they they're they're what they're explaining the purpose of why we're pursuing pre-k-12 Pathways in the first place um during our state of the district address last week we uh sort of launched this language um along with some new visual identity for some of this work um created almost a visual identity for pre-k-12 Pathways um that we're really excited on building on uh in the future so those plans are they're already underway um okay I'll just flip back to here the this sort of wraps up the the brand review process part of the work we've done this spring um we we knew that we needed to do this work again as a foundation for any marketing work going forward um I also mentioned that we one of the goals of the department is to sort of integrate that marketing work into our everyday uh approach to our department and our position and our purpose in the district um and the brand review process was really essential for that the um the strategy here is to CR over the next few weeks and and months we're going to be creating an integrated marketing communication strategy the what we've what we already do is in terms of our um Communications plan their strategic Communications plan is sort of in that upper left hand box which is the goal and the strategy would be to strengthen reputation through strategic Communications and that's our daily storytelling it's our crisis management it's our co uh coronavirus response it's our media relations work all of that day-to-day stuff is is a small part of this overall integrated strategy the other strategy is that we are planning to employ are to ignite internal and external brand ambassadors um one of the things that we Aaron and I talked about recently was the idea that uh in most districts people talk about our current families as external audiences but there really are internal they're an internal group of people to us uh people enrolled in our district are are important they're they deserve to be treated as internal group um so that's part of the when we talk about some audience work that we're planning on doing that's that's part of it as well um one of the other strategies is to strengthen our brand identity and Implement brand driven marketing campaigns um this is I also will mention that all of the pieces outlined in yellow are things that uh we've never done before and are or we may have done it before but these are the new things that we're pursuing I also want to mention that this is by no means all-encompassing um uh this Strat this strategy I'm anticipating is going to be ridiculously long there's a lot of things a lot of ideas that we have there's a lot of needs that we see and there's a lot of things that we're going to pursue um that's why earlier I mentioned that it was uh I threw out a three-year plan so far for pursuing all of this work um the brand driven marketing campaigns strategy is this is the part that school districts don't do this is um this is the idea that a campaign quote-unquote campaign doesn't last for five years it's not our each student Future Ready Community strong isn't a campaign necessarily campaigns can roll up and roll back down throughout the year depending on audience depending on the time of year depending on what needs we see are are not being met um and they might have different taglines or they might have different messaging but it'll all be determined by the audience um and targeted depending on that audience need at whatever point in time um you also won't notice a lot of any or many tactics listed in here like videos and social media and all of that stuff that's all included in that would all be a possibility in any of these brand driven campaigns that that we might pursue um one of the other important brand identity pieces and something that we're pursuing to enable us to pursue some more advanced campaigns is a website redesign um we're pursuing that right now uh we're talking to several vendors and in addition to creating a new look for the for the website and sort of modernizing it and making it even more mobile friendly and giving us some Advanced features that websites have now it's really about changing the purpose of our website making it a storytelling tool instead of just a like the website itself is a storytelling tool not just a place to post news and post files and other information and policies and it's the The Experience on the website should be its own story and should help us Advance some of these goals that we have and some of these campaigns that we'll create um the other the last strategy that we have here is to support and enhance strategic enrollment efforts um we already saw we already tried to uh on an ongoing basis look into the enrollment process and how we can assist that department and improve improving it and creating trying new things and the enrollment process such as like webinars and redoing forms and things like that that will all continue uh I want to point out specifically the idea of nurturing enrollment funnels because um I actually learned this spring or earlier this year that through the Pre-K 3 work that our Community Education and CC Department Arts departments are working on we've identified pretty much every uh Avenue that students take when they enter our district in kindergarten specifically every Avenue they might take through in connection to the counties to the cities private day cares preschools all of those things are are identified I think there's like a dozen of them that are still broad but so the purpose of nurturing these enrollment funnels would be to identify all of those things and create campaigns that address each one specifically depending on what they are so when we think of 12 different funnels just going into kindergarten that might mean 12 different messages it uh it might not but it might mean 12 different messages it might mean the timing is totally different um and it can get pretty complex but um the enrollment funnel piece also sort of addresses the transition points um so how is how is what is the experience like for our fifth graders as they go into sixth grade how can we improve that how can we help address some of their concerns which I'll touch on in a second same for eighth grade to ninth grade even though even if things are going well at a transition point we want to nurture it because just when you think things are going well if something could happen and you really need to be addressing these things in a proactive way um that's a really uh high level overview of the four strategies that we're going to take like I mentioned the these are going to be flushed out entirely there's going to be some goals within each of them we're going to identify all of our audiences uh create messaging based on that brand strategy for each audience so when we think of talking to a strategic District partners here's the message about our district that we want to really push forward as an example the we have started to pursue a staff recruitment campaign just as sort of a as the first campaign as an example of how we could create a brand driven campaign um this campaign was really created from the brand value of individuality so when we think about recruiting staff that who are who will be capable and uh to to achieve that brand positioning statement and our goals as a district we want to bring out we want to show people that they can be their true selves here we really value individuality in our staff and our students and this campaign really hinges on that idea um the the we we already have a sort of a dry not a dry like a soft lunch uh ready to to go um we're trying to work on photo shoots right now getting them scheduled and pursuing that this uh image right here on the slide was just an example that we we had to demonstrate what the purpose or what the what the photos would be like so those are stock images not our current staff members but those are the kinds of images that we want to to include in a campaign like this I think actually Wes can you just go back I want to elaborate on that just a little bit Yeah I think in what's mentioned the fact that this really Builds on our individuality and this is really something different than again any other school district does anything that we've done in the past but what we want to do is with all of these campaigns focus on telling our story through telling about who we are through everything that we do every component of it so you can see again the images aren't group shots they're focused on individuals and talking about so that we can focus on that individuality the design is colorful and bright it's layered it's uh the the typography is a little bit different than anything or not a little bit quite a bit different than anything we've used before and it's just a lot more um like I said bright and vibrant and it really matches again that brand brand value of individuality and the idea is that it we show who we are and we show who we're looking for in employees who come here we want people who match this brand who can be Trailblazers with us and um this this campaign the idea is is it it tells that story and it attracts those people and uh it is exciting to think about and as we move forward I think it'll be exciting to see out there this is also a campaign that could expand if it right now it's focused on specifically um staff Recruitment and Retention we have language for very specific job areas there's specific language for Food Service staff and for elementary teachers and for special education teachers but it could easily expand into a campaign for current staff or um so people for people to Rally around and um there's a lot of exciting things that could come even from this you know rough starting point the uh the other things that are sort of spurring off from this from this campaign are I'm working with HR to evaluate our use of Apple track to um work on some new templates for job postings to work on some new language templates for job descriptions incorporating some brand language into all of that to create a really uh robust picture of who we are for anyone looking uh the other important piece of this is that recruitment doesn't only happen in the in the spring I'll I'll expand that too you know that's the whole idea of all of this work anyways is that you know Recruitment and Retention of Staff or students doesn't only exist in the spring which is usually how school districts have treated around specific events like kindergarten enrollment nights um it really needs to take a year-round approach um and it just so happens that taking a year-on approach to these things is just what would improve a reputation as well uh I mentioned a few things that I would promise I would touch back on and I think they're listed on this uh slide one of the other foundational pieces of work that we that we pursued was some some additional research related to our Middle School reputation the we conducted several focus groups as well as a an online voluntary survey of parents from 4th through eighth grade asking their perceptions on middle schools on their specific middle school and middle school as in general and there was some a lot of really valuable insights on from all of that that I know Aaron and Brian versich are and our two principals are looking into um one of the main things that I just wanted to mention um was I mean it was a surprise to me I don't know if it's a surprise to everybody but the the idea that people are arriving at their perception of our middle schools before pre-kindergarten so the and they're deciding that's why we see such a drop in enrollment in first second third grade um so that there's things that we can do specifically to address that and we're we're looking into that as a specific example of a campaign within that whole integrated marketing strategy so I already mentioned the website redesigned for marketing Focus we're going to look at taking the the brand ideas of spark and ignite and actually creating some branding campaigns for our elementary and middle schools possibly looking at what you know students experience when they enter a building if we can uh use some of that brand language to create an environment that sort of inspires that desire to spark and ignite um I already mentioned we're going to work on developing that complete integrated marketing and communication strategy the years 2020 2023 are kind of that's just a an initial step mainly because I think it's going to take some time to implement some of these pieces for example example the website redesign where have a just a very tentative goal of launching next summer um obviously a lot can change and that but that's our tentative goal um and there will be other pieces to that as well such as uh creating uh like getting some tracking and stuff on our website to be able to do some social media work campaigns and other things like that um we're going to be looking at or we're going to be focusing a lot for our 20 for our next school year on retention marketing um on keeping kids that we already have I know that we were planning on doing a lot of that work this spring or we were planning on doing a version of that work this spring to try to just try to um prevent a significant loss of students following closing schools but a lot of that was sort of superseded by our response to the coronavirus but we're really looking forward to launching some of this Pathways marketing work this this later this summer um and some of these other brand driven campaigns like the staff recruitment campaign and that's all I have unless Aaron did you want to add anything else no I think that covers it all right thank you um raised Dr Miller yes thank you Leslie and Aaron um you know I I appreciated uh first of all really a big thank you this is this is um what I've been waiting a long time to see and you know being in the the weeds and seeing the regular declining enrollment and receiving notifications and supermarket and neighborhood comments about rumors and such in the in the district I suppose I've been as guilty as anybody in in that marketing for the sake of marketing or what was that term I love that you use that uh random acts of Random Acts of marketing though that's excellent I love it um I've probably been very as good as anybody else in promoting that um so I want to be the first to say that this is exactly what we needed um I uh I don't make a point of this very often I believe I'm Pro I think I'm the only one on the board with an MBA and having sat through a couple of pretty high level branding classes and I recognized everything and what you're doing here and this is fantastic this is textbook stuff this is foundational this is the kind of stuff it needs to get done it builds you know organizations this is the kind of stuff that gets done in the back rooms and places like Nike and and Coke and and you know Apple etc for long five ten year plans and and stuff so um you know I I appreciate what you're doing and I I'm as much as it hurts me to say I'm happy to see that some of this stuff's further out in the future because that's it's going to take some time to get there and build these things out and get to those points so um you know having said that uh following your uh metaphors uh or uh uh word play I you know I still think we need to light a fire and get moving here uh and have some reactionary stuff but um no this is excellent this is this is so much more than I anticipated uh and and since we hadn't seen something for a little while to be honest I was getting a little worried um so I'm really happy to see this this is this is excellent thank you guys well I just to uh ease your worry there I think with all out with this work behind us um any reactionary stuff that we need to do we'll be able to do aligning with our brand now one other thing I thought of um I think I heard you say you're going to do some what will you essentially call customer segmentation and then alignment to the brand architecture with that right uh I'm planning on that excellent good okay good good stuff thank you board members any other questions or comments seeing none um yeah this is really awesome um exactly what uh what we need is as director Miller said and I particularly appreciate that it's um it is multifaceted that it's it's inward looking and it's outward looking in terms of um our families our students our staff I really like the HR Focus because I think that is going to be key in terms of making sure that that we have the the staff in our schools that understand our brand and and are completely embracing that so um thank you both very much and we will look forward to an update sometime in the next year or two thank you very much Cheryl thank you uh next committee reports um we will start with director Chester who is the chair of the policy Review Committee thank you Gerald um we I the policy committee met earlier in May our next meeting is um the second week of June we'll be bringing forward and reviewing a couple additional policies that will be on an upcoming agenda so other than that nothing else to report thank you committee with director shocks there is no report from the negotiations committee director howiger and the legislative committee um what the legislative committee met on May 18th briefly and our next meeting is scheduled to be on June 15th that's all I have for a report wonderful thank you student performance and achievement committee we received a report in our last meeting and we will be planning future reports in officers meetings with that I'll open it up to other board assignments do we have any other reports from these other assignments yes um I have a report for me MSD and 917. um amsd it virtually uh twice this month May 1st and May 22nd at the May 1st meeting the guest speaker was Deputy education commissioner Dr Heather Mueller her talk focused on mde's four major areas technology and internet access School Age Care graduation and summer programming quoting from the minutes Dr Mueller noted that while many aspects of distance learning have gone well there are many inequities and disparities that must be addressed especially related to access to the to the technology necessary to engage in distant learning unquote Dr battle and I felt proud of our District's commitment to its technology Levy and its ability to assist students during this unique historical time there was also a reimagined Minnesota discussion Zoom breakout rooms and preparation for a virtual conference to be held on June 17th and if you're interested in participating in that check with um Jamie there were several presenters at the May 22nd meeting occurring after the close of the legislature one of the main presentations was by Andre prall agency Finance director entitled c-a-r-e-s or cares funding to Minnesota Department of Education a second presentation was by Arash uni in the government relations department and Dr Tom Melcher and the school finance department on giving a legislative update both of these very detailed presentations are located on the amsd website and I encourage you to check them out um there's more information as well on the amsd if you haven't checked out their website it really is full of information and the 917 board is uh holding its meetings virtually and it's May meeting was on Tuesday May 5th besides consent and regular business departments agenda items new business items included a resolution relating to the termination and non-renewal of a teaching contract of a teacher review and approval of blood-borne pathogens exposure control plan a resolution for Teachers Appreciation Week review and approval of a safe schools levy lease levies and long-term facilities maintenance review and approval of the 2020-2021 budget review and approval of the 2020-2021 special education lead teachers review and approval of the 2020-2021 decals teachers lead teachers and review and approval of miscellaneous contracts of area Southern licensed staff and that concludes my report Dr Currier any other assignment reports nope all right uh we will move to the business portion of our meeting um starting with the 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 uh is there anything that board members would like to separate seeing none I will take a motion the love moved moved by director Miller second seconded by director Hume and Ms Kenny will you call the role please ask him hi Eric Miller hi Abigail alt hi Jen holweger hi Leslie Chester hi Darcy Schatz aye DD career I thank you and the motion carries um moving on to new business we will be asked to we're being asked to award a contract for our purchases of technology equipment um and I'd like to welcome Lisa Ryder Executive Director of Business Services good evening Cheryl superintendent battle and board directors uh tonight it is this time of year in which we need to consider the purchases necessary for Chromebook replacements for the coming school year we are on a cycle for many of our different grade levels of replacing what has now been established as our one-to-one devices for Chromebooks we have two different models that we are continuing to pursue and so what you see included in the in the request for quotes that we asked for we asked for options from three different vendors for two different models and of those then we needed some for the sixth grade and that particular model then came in with the lowest quote being at 39 300 for 150 devices and then we needed and we do need excuse me replacement models for the 9th grade fourth grade fifth grade our high school both VHS and our students of high school teacher Replacements so that's two thousand devices that we're looking for there of a different model and the lowest quote came in at the 598 thousand or the sum of that aside from the Chromebook purchases it would also include a white glove and asset tagging ability for us to be able to more easily create the distribution and tracking of all of our devices which uh technology has established uh CD okay the process for doing this is we put out the request and we asked for for responses from three different vendors two of which responded both of which have a an existing Cooperative purchasing agreement so given that it's a matter of taking a look at the comparison attached to the board book is the summary of the two responses that we did receive in looking at the prices and the quality of what is being asked for it is recommended that the cdwg proposed pricing and the use of the source well Cooperative purchasing agreement which is number zero eight one four one nine Dash CDW so the recommendation before the board tonight by me is that the Board of Education approved the contract for Chromebook purchase and related license and service to cdwg Thank you Lisa we have a recommendation I will take a motion so moved moved by director Courier second second Ed by director Chester I see director Miller has his hand raised yes director Miller uh yeah just a quick question on the if I remember well first of all uh if I understand you correctly this is mostly just cyclical uh and update stuff is that correct Lisa that we still obviously we're collecting the ones on the field that it's of now so you don't have an answer for this but for the immediate but in the past we retain a fairly high level of um uh field wear and tear low level I should say but feel wear and tear attrition is that correct that is correct um we are experiencing a unique circumstance this year and the fact that we are collecting devices that were basically never intended to be in the homes um but rather you know that was necessary for our distance learning so we are not sure until we receive them all and take a look at what the um repairs may be to those that um the impact that this may have on us overall but we are in a cycle to regularly and routinely replace a certain number of devices and given our closure of some of the schools and just some of the reorganization we are still maintaining two different models as they they're used for different reasons you know some of our High School courses obviously utilize features in one of the models far more than our elementary schools would so we believe there's still a need for us to maintain two different models but the idea is to continue that process of bringing in the additional devices that are needed in order to round us out and we are looking to engage in a one-to-one for as we needed to for the distance learning for our grades K through three we want to maintain that as well so that's also part of the of the planning process and so at this point what you're seeing is a very routine it was planned for budgeted out of the tech Levy it's um it's just that now is the time for us to get these orders in play the urgency for us right now is really about Supply the supply chain has been impacted and we are wanting to make sure we get this order made tomorrow um so I know when we first initiated some of these technology changes we had a pretty close relationship with the other bidder on this Best Buy I believe Through The Geek Squad and such um as most of that sort of dissipated uh was there any reason was there any um Shadows of that involved in this consideration um maintaining that relationship or anything like that or was that it was just very primarily on price well when we are at a point now we've learned a lot in our in the years that we've been doing this so far and um we know that you know sometimes the relationships that are built with vendors also has to do with the representatives that are on you know both sides of that relationship and so that's shifted over the years as well and we believe though that in looking at the devices we've requested and the white glove service and the tagging process that we have in play that um we're well equipped to be able to manage this without relying upon another vendor maybe as have as we have in the past although we we continually look to those relationships I think at this stage it's really about how can we make sure we utilize our resources and spread that as far as we can okay that'll do it for my questions thank you any other questions or comments board members seeing none um I Just Want to Thank you Lisa um with everything that we've been through um since March 13th I really appreciate um the team's proactivity being proactive about really making sure that we do continue to have the devices that our students need not knowing what we're going to face in fall but but knowing that regardless we'll be able to put them into good use so um really appreciate this I will extend that to our tech department I have to say Rachel Gorton's benefit phenomenal job since March in helping us to keep everything on board thank you yes so if there are no other comments um Liz Kenny will you call the rule please Eric Miller hi Abigail Alt hi Jen hellwigger hi Leslie Chester hi Darcy Schatz hi DD Courier I Scott Hume hi and the motion carries thank you everybody uh next uh we will be asked to adopt a resolution terminating classified staff I'd like to welcome Stacey Silvan Executive Director of Business Services Executive Director of Human Resources good evening Cheryl Dr battle members of the board a little over a month ago we started our process for Staffing for next year um as far as implementing the the reductions the right sizing of our staff reflecting the closing of our buildings um just a number of different uh pieces that were kind of uh moving us towards the need to reduce staff we started with our certified staff our teachers and then since then we have been working with each of the other units and following their contract language and for reductions the bumping process um each contract has a different negotiated process on how they reduce their staff from what that looks like um with our cert with our classified staff it it actually is a little bit more difficult than with our our certified staff because they have the option to bump somebody that's less senior typically we have multiple levels from like a level four level three level two in the different units um they have language as it talks about staying at their location or they possibly can just take a reduction and stay at their location in the hours if there's another position in that way and so each person receives a notification a letter with their options on what they would like to choose as far as what's available to them under their language your unit language and we have to wait for that person to respond to assign initial the option that they're selecting before we can move on to the next person being bumped within that unit it's time consuming I appreciate the support of the directors and the principals and the everybody that's involved in helping moving this forward as quickly as we can but that is one of the reasons why it took a little over a month to get through this um the the reductions reflect four different units that are being impacted unaffiliated educational assistance clerical and Food Services we were looking at reductions in the custodial unit as well but through attrition and open positions we were able to not have to actually bring anybody forward while they were meeting their reductions so we had the right amount of folks the other thing I will point out is some of the names that are on this reduction list you may have seen on the consent agenda so while they may have had I'll say a seven and a half hour position at one building they may have choose as a part of the reduction to go to seven hours but they'll be located at a different building now so there's reassignments that are occurring as well as the reductions so there's a little bit of both going on here as far as the movement and again it's it's reflective of the contract language um in the same way that I I wanted to acknowledge the service um of all of our teachers our our teachers are effective in the classroom with all of the supports that are surrounding them from the front desk with our clerical staff from the custodians who keep our environment clean and safe and healthy who the educational assistants who are providing support both within the classrooms during lunch and also our food service folks who are providing all the meals again as we go through reductions it's never easy everybody's lives are being impacted even if it's no more than a half an hour in which they're reduced that's a half an hour a day of income that they will have to now come up with another way of providing so it isn't easy but it is essential for our for for for us moving forward to right size and with our budget constraints with that it is my recommendation that we adopt this resolution and if you like I can read that for you yes please be it resolved by the Board of Education of Independent School District 191 at the following classified Personnel are hereby laid off from their positions effective June 5th 2020. written notice shall be provided to each employee each employee retains recall rights as as per their Master agreement thank you Steve we have a recommendation I will take a motion to approve d moved by director Hume second Ed by director Miller any discussion [Music] hearing none Miss Kenny will you please call the roll yep Abigail aye Jen holweger aye Leslie Chester aye Darcy Schatz aye Dede Courier I Scott Hume hi Eric Miller hi and the motion carries thank you very much um finally um I would like to um and welcome Dr battle um we'll be making a statement upon current events thank you chair alt and board directors tonight I want to take a moment to share my thoughts about events that occurred this week in Minneapolis that have impacted us all the killing of George Floyd is horrific and tragic I extend my deepest condolences to his family and friends Mr Floyd's killing has impacted me both personally and professionally as a black woman I feel the generational and historical trauma of racism genocide and bias that I and my ancestors have experienced this week due to this event I needed to take some time to reflect especially on the life of my great-grandmother who was born in 1882 in Louisa County Virginia which is 30 minutes outside of Charlottesville as you may recall in 2017 Neo-Nazi and white supremacists held a rally and one of them killed Heather heyer who was protesting their actions so still today with the killing of George Floyd I am still experiencing the same racial Injustice and Horrors that my great-grandmother experienced throughout her life from 1882 to 1984. this must stop and we all must act to make it stop I shared with District 191 staff members before the start of this school year that it is not enough just to be racist to not be racist excuse me and for not to be cool we must be anti-racists we must be kind culturally responsive and inclusive of all I also took some time to reflect on the desires and expectations that our 191 students have shared with us because we are here in service of our students our students want to attend a school and live in a city and I would say in a nation and in a world where the people are culturally competent meaning that they are self-aware comfortable respectful knowledgeable and that they are advocates for equity our students deserve this everyone in our community deserves this but this week's tragic events are a sad reminder that we have a long way to go to deliver on those expectations our students have given to us I exhort all district 191 staff and all members of this community to reflect on your individual roles to be anti-racist kind exclusive and to act accordingly I urge you to remember that everyone you encounter each child teenager and adult is somebody someone George Floyd was somebody someone lastly I'm reminded of the last few lines of a spoken word performance shared by are 191 Burnsville High School theater students at this year's all staff Welcome Back event in closing I like to read the students words I cannot change the world alone I can make a difference that will have a ripple effect further that I may ever know if we help the life of one of our peers we help the whole community neighbor to neighbor hand in hand no one can break us we cannot achieve alone we cannot heal alone today is the day rise up together we are unstoppable Unbreakable thank you thank you Dr battle um Wellness board may not have the same lived experience as you I know that we honor and respect what you have shared with us today and um I know that we all want each of our students and each of our families and staff members to feel safe and welcome when they are here in 191 and so thank you very much for for sharing your truth and um yeah thank you uh now um we will close and adjourn to a closed session as permitted by Minnesota State Statute 13d.05 subdivision 3 for the superintendent's evaluation just making note that this is in keeping with our policy 202 which empowers the vice chair to plan and coordinate the school board's annual evaluation of the superintendent um so with that I declare us adjourned and we will now move to closed session