00:00:01,000	to You guys ready? Let’s do this. Good evening. I’m Dan Eastgate, president of the Bismarck School Board. It’s 5:15 on Monday, April 14th, I call this meeting to order. Welcome and thank you for joining us both here and also online. You can find our agenda and follow along under the school board tab at Bismarckschools.org. Mr.

00:00:22,400	Sher, will you call the roll, please? Eastgate Mr Hager, Mr. Lee. Here, Mrs. Peterson. Here. Miss Presky. Dr Fastnacht, could you please lead us in the Pledge of Allegiance? I pledge allegiance to the flag of the United States of America and to the Republic for which it stands one nation under God liberty

00:00:49,770	and justice for all. The BPS mission vision and values, the BPS mission is to empower every learner to thrive. The BPS vision states together our strong relationships build inclusive, collaborative and innovative environments that create agency and inspire a passion for learning, excellence, and discovery. The BPS values are inclusion, excellence, innovation, and leadership.

00:01:19,500	You can also find a link in the agenda to the BPS strategic plan. Item 2 is to adopt the agenda of what are the wishes of the board. Mr. Lee, Mr. President, I would move that we adopt the agenda. I’ll second. We have a motion is second. Mr. Scherr, we call the roll. Hager Lee Peterson Presky. He’s motion passes.

00:01:42,000	Item 3 is the the focus on success, 3A is math attributes and thinking strategies. Dr Fastnacht, um, good afternoon, board members. It’s nice to be with you again.

00:02:00,300	Um, tonight we have, uh, to talk to us about our focus of success on math, um, The AP from Wachter Middle School will lead us out, Miss Angie Ettinger. Good evening, Angie. Welcome. I’m Angie Ettinger, um, the assistant principal at Wachter Middle School, and I’m also um one of the secondary math portfolio holders along with Ryan Reel from Legacy, Mark Lady from Bismarck High, Summer Cheswick from Wachter, and then Daphne Hyde, who is our LDI rep.

00:02:22,130	Um, our focus this year has been on thinking strategies. And what that means is, um, maybe a little more or less direct instruction and a more facilitator on the side approach. Um, our goal as a math group has been to get kids thinking. And not only to think but to talk with one another about their thinking.

00:02:38,030	Tonight we have Kate Fox, who is a Century High teacher. She currently teaches geometry and avid, and she also assists with both cross country and track. She wears many hats. She’s a university Mary grad, and I heard she does run a mean 400 m dash if anybody wants to raise her.

00:02:57,470	We also have Jessica Verano, who is a specialist at Wachter Middle School. She coaches our mathletes program at Wachter as well, and also is a U Mary grad. She has been with Bismarck Public Schools for 16 years. And she also is spearheading our eighth grade formal in a few weeks.

00:03:15,930	So if any of you want to chaperone, she also is taking recommendations and would be willing to have your help. So tonight we have Kate and Jessica. Good evening.

00:03:31,000	Good evening, President Eastgate, down? Yeah, it’s a little bit of foot difference at least for sure, um, as she said, my name is Kate Fox, and I just wanted to share about a learning opportunity that myself as well as about 20 BPS employees got to go explore um in the district.

00:03:51,730	We in December went down to Denver and did a mines on math conference as, as you can see here, we focused on thinking strategies. So these were 7 ideas that we touched on over the 3 days, among many other things, but we got to do activities and really be in the learner’s spot rather than the teachers spot looking through these things, um, one of the

00:04:08,770	activities that we did was visualize and represent, and once it comes up on this next slide here, you’ll be able to see those different examples. We were able to, oh, I’ll talk about this. I switched that, but that’s OK.

00:04:27,800	Um, we really have noticed at Century High School that These 7 strategies have linked to our math attributes that we have in the district. It’s problem solving, it’s connections, it’s reasoning and proof, and all of these three umbrellas really encompass those seven learning strategies and it was really, really cool to see those go hand in hand and just see different strategies and different ways that we could

00:04:45,100	work with this stuff. So now looking at that next slide, we will see one of the strategies that we worked through. This is visualizing and representing, again, we were in the learner.

00:05:03,230	But I was paired with 3 or 4 other people from the United States, um, other teachers, whether it was a secondary teacher or primary teacher, or just a specialist, and this was really cool to see because this is an example of every learner learns in a different way, and they see math differently.

00:05:19,730	So our assignment for this is we were given a task and we had to represent it in 3 different ways, and it was just really cool to see how all those different minds thought, and this was a cool opportunity to see how students think and how students are acting in our classroom. The next slide you will see, this is something that I’ve actually been implementing in my classroom at Century.

00:05:35,930	I have really been focusing on how to ask questions of my students and how they should talk to each other. So in the bigger picture we see two students leading their peers in a classroom discussion.

00:05:50,770	They had learned the lesson the day before and then the next day they were teaching their peers and they weren’t just giving answers. They were actually using really good questioning strategies to get their peers to think about the learning, and then in the other picture.

00:06:05,730	This was during some individual work time and it was just peers helping peers, the gentleman standing up, he’s not just telling the kids sitting down how to do the problem. He’s saying, what do you know here? What notes do you have? What things can we look at to help you through this problem. And that’s something that doesn’t get learned overnight.

00:06:19,030	This is a behavior that we have been working on since August, but it has been really cool to actually see it and play with these students. OK, and then we can go ahead and go to the next one.

00:06:34,270	These were just my main points of emphasis that I took away from the whole experience, um, the people who were leading the conference down there started every day with this quote, they said, Take responsibility for your own learning and for supporting the learning of others. And I just thought that was a really good thing to also implement in our own classrooms, because at the end of the day, that’s what students should be doing.

00:06:48,470	They should really want to take the initiative on their own to learn about everything and process through it. And the way we do that is with the student discussions and that’s what allows for the multiple avenues of learning. And now Jessica is gonna go ahead and share a couple of things she’s been doing in her classroom.

00:07:03,370	As a specialist, uh, my learners always or learn much different, um, many of them have struggled in math over and over again, and so I have found that um, Just being able to determine the importance.

00:07:23,230	Some of these strategies I was able to just bring back right away and tie into the curriculum I use, um, I teach core replacement classes and so we’re talking maybe. 3 to 4 grade levels below their um middle school peers, um, for example, we just determine what we actually need to know in the, um, In the word problem and just kind of push those problems solving strategies, um, and as they

00:07:44,000	solve it and go through the process. I mean, the biggest thing at the end is, does your answer make sense? Some are so quick to just do those basic math problems, and yep, this is my answer, this is what I got, but don’t ever make that deeper

00:07:55,830	connection to it, um. to go to the next slide. Um, another strategy is that visualize and represent, um, again, this is just an activity I added when we were working on denominators or fractions and understanding denominators and sizes.

00:08:14,100	Again, the kids just, they laid out fractions in order thinking they knew what to do, and then they had to prove their reasoning with the fraction models, and I gave them very little like direction to it, but they were quick to kind of look deeper into it and be like, oh yeah, that doesn’t really

00:08:27,500	make sense. Um, so that was fun to see it and my um position as a teacher was just to ask the questions. I wasn’t, you were, were quick to um correct, but this is kind of taught me to kind of back off and let them do the thinking and the solving

00:08:42,030	and how to correct that piece. Um And then some of my main takeaways from the overall experience and the conference we attended, um, these are strategies that can be implemented in any curriculum, um, any activity you’re doing in your classroom, um, the students need to be the ones doing the math. Again, we’re quick to, nope, that’s wrong.

00:09:04,530	This is the answer, but oh. Can you show me how you got that answer. It’s a better way to kind of guide that learning, um, unless I do and you do, but Um, having them solve it, um, and then just trying to find that balance, um, I guess the word

00:09:21,030	would be, what was it? Um, productive struggle, letting them struggle a bit, but no one to pop in and guide their their understanding and their reasoning, but also let them discover if they’re right or wrong, so.

00:09:41,400	And as we just shared some of our personal takeaways, we just kind of want to touch on what we’re doing schoolwide and districtwide. So within the district, we’ve had a couple different demonstrations. So a few of the teachers that went down in December, they were observed and we had teachers within the buildings and teachers within the district that came and watched those lessons so that they could take notes, so they

00:09:59,630	could see what are we working on with these thinking strategies, and that’s been a very cool opportunity to um spread all of our knowledge that We have, but then we also are talking about that trial and error process where just because one of these strategies works well for me or works well

00:10:15,500	for Jessica, it’s not a one size fits all approach. We have to consider the learners that are in front of us, the age range that’s in front of us and then just our own teaching characteristics of what works and what, what is best suited for our classroom.

00:10:32,730	So that was something that was really um unique about this opportunity is we learned about so many different things, and there was no way that we can try to implement. all of these things in our classroom, but if you look at the background knowledge or the questioning or the inferring.

00:10:44,900	If we just pick one of those things to introduce into our classrooms, it’s gonna make a huge difference for our learners. The way we can do that is through our different discourse, through different thinking strategies, and then there was also a common theme of the conference. It was called Rich Tasks, and that just means give students something harder than just a yes or no question.

00:11:02,000	Give them a question that maybe they’ll never even know if they arrived at a final answer or not, but the idea is that they did that productive struggle through the process, they were able to think, they were able to have student-led discussions with everyone.

00:11:17,470	And our last thing that we have with this, we really would love for all of our educators in the district to, um, be able to attend this conference. There is a group going down this spring and then we are also getting some more introductions to it within the district this fall. So we’re very excited to share that with everyone.

00:11:32,470	So thank you for your time, and we stand for any questions you may have. Awesome, thanks very much. Board members, any questions? Look pretty green lights. Well, thank you both for coming up and sharing tonight.

00:11:49,030	Productive struggle, I think everybody probably wrote that down, um, that’s good for, for workplace as well as the classroom, so thanks very much for all you guys do.

00:11:56,400	Yes, I have to put you on the spot. You’re an avid teacher. I am an avid teacher. All right. So, Kate, you’re talking about how to ask questions, respond to questions, that’s very avid like, right? You want to make the connection for people who may not know the connection between being a tutor in that

00:12:11,900	situation, helping others get to the right question to get the right answer. Oh, absolutely. Um, so as you said, I’m an avid teacher. I teach freshmen and sophomores rotating through, um, the years at Century and a lot of those skills that we focus on in that classroom, those are mimicked within these thinking strategies, and that’s what’s

00:12:29,730	really cool is just because a kid isn’t an Avid, if we start introducing these into the math classroom or any classroom, they’re gonna, they’re gonna learn through these things, which is great. So it’s not just, it’s not just avid kids who would benefit from this stuff.

00:12:43,100	Now we’re reaching a larger audience, which is really awesome. Yeah. Thank you again. Great question, great answer. Well, that’s getting out there. Moving onto the agenda, we go to item 4 which is public comment.

00:13:03,130	The board recognizes the central role that parents play in the education of their children and support active parent involvement in the educational process. The board’s practice of public comment reflects and aligns with policy BCBA in the spirit of its intent for classroom issues, it’s best to follow the chain of command from the teacher to the principal to the assistant superintendent and ultimately to the superintendent.

00:13:19,200	For district-wide issues, please reach out to Dr Fastnacht’s office. If anyone does speak tonight, we simply ask that you be responsible, be helpful and be respectful. Our BPS students deserve to have adults model the expectations that we have for them. Groups are urged to select one spokesperson.

00:13:35,770	Individuals will be limited to no more than 4 minutes we’ll be notified with 30 seconds remaining. The board does not debate issues as presented, but we’ll take such matters under advisement. With that please stand and approach podium if you’d like to speak tonight. See nobody coming to the podium, uh, public comment will now be closed.

00:13:57,830	Item 5 is the monitor district operations, Dr F Fasnot, I believe we have 58 or 2.1 academic achievement mathematics, right? And tonight I, but, uh, Dr Johnson present that to the board. Thank you, Dr Johnson. Evening, Dr Johnson. Good evening. Um, playing a little bit of double duty for, uh, Mr. Barnhart here, so apologize if I fumbled through.

00:14:24,900	Thank you, uh, President Eastgate members of the board, um, stand here happy to talk about uh results 1 2.0, Mathematics. Uh, Bismarck Public Schools, uh, has made reasonable progress on all 6 indicators.

00:14:45,100	Uh, I believe that we continue to demonstrate through our great teachers and our students and working with their families to be able to show that consistent and measurable growth for mathematics across. Multiple grade levels and varying assessments, the district outperforms the state average. In nearly all categories and is focused on refining our instruction, our assessments, our alignment, those teaching practices as well as making sure that we’re addressing subgroups growth.

00:15:07,000	The systems and structures like our guiding coalitions, our curricular audits and the professional development that you’re seeing and we addressed here this evening. are showing positive impacts that strategic work is underway and supports our sustainable progress towards the upcoming state standards that we’ve now transitioned to and the new assessments that are coming here, uh, this spring.

00:15:25,870	Uh, briefly, I will say, um, That is we take a look at our North Dakota State assessments, we’ve outperformed the district on those areas. We also have outperformed as we take a look at the ACT and a little bit of broken record for you. I’ve talked about the ACT as well and that.

00:15:48,170	With the data that you’re looking at, that it’s all of our students having taken the ACT 1 in 9 students approximately goes to Bismarck, so we have all, not everyone has all, so when we’re outperforming, we’re really doing well.

00:16:03,100	If you did have a quick question, I’m just highlighting this on the subgroup because it was a question that I had when we first were developing their port, usually you get one answer, and there’s these bands such as in the growth subgroups, you can see the Asian is 50 to 58 or Pacific Islander 10 to 16.

00:16:21,930	Why does does that exist? The state report that comes forward lists a band when the subgroup is so small that they don’t want to provide enough information that you could start making predictions on An individual student that might fit that category. So that’s why those bands are listed, and that’s just the reporting to try to help keep that privacy in the data.

00:16:38,000	So those are not errors in those three areas, but I just wanted to highlight that because again, that was one of my questions when our team was reviewing.

00:16:53,370	And again, thanks to many of the people here as well as Anders Seibel, Daphne there, Karen Arnold and some others who have helped prepare this work and obviously the portfolio holders taking the time and ultimately our teachers who are in the trenches doing this work, uh, day in day out with our students.

00:17:10,370	We continue to see areas of growth not only in the ACT and NDSA, but we use uh the map of NWA, our map results, and that’s really consistent long term data against shooting for having 50% of students or more, that’s the target where we’re at. We continue to hover right around that area at 49.3, we increased a couple of percentages from last year. So we take a look at the growth categories.

00:17:30,300	So again, we mark making reasonable progress as many of those categories are showing strong growth, and again, the test is designed to basically norm and not have, just have about 50% of people making progress or not.

00:17:48,800	So when we are above that even in our subgroups, that’s something I think to just be lifted up and I believe we had 8 of our 9 that really made large improvements and even some of those was just down 0.1, for example, on a Pacific Islander. So again, a small Uh Ares not large losses there.

00:18:07,030	Our systems of improvement again as we talked about, um, have allowed for our standards that we have reported out here as well as the letter grades where we’re targeting a 2.5 or a B letter grade at 6 through 8 and 9 through 12, and you can just see some of that.

00:18:23,000	What’s great out there is just because we didn’t have that reporting in the years past, and so we’re just trying to be consistent with that as we move forward, um, but it’s a great opportunity to realize that we are making great levels and gains at the elementary, middle school, and the high school. School. And uh I think that’s through a lot of intentional work, and I know this anger and Mr.

00:18:38,500	Real and hide along with Miss Arnold and others have really been talking too with the teachers about the vocabulary and being really key on aligning that vocabulary, that’s that academic knowledge being clear when we say, um, you know, a circle, is really a circle mean maybe that’s a, a, an easier but estimate, do we mean estimate, meaning the same

00:18:54,400	thing from teacher to teacher. So getting that clarity on that, I think has really helped start to align some of that work as. progressed through our system. And again, we’ve shared in past years when students progressed through our system they have really good outcomes when they’re here long term.

00:19:08,230	That being said, as we look forward with the new assessments, we’ll get some new data and we, and we’ll have to take a look into what that means and how we can interpret that, but we do know that the guiding coalitions and these maths PK 12 alignment steering committees have been really crucial to making sure

00:19:24,230	that we have a comprehensive and as flawless as we can to help students and parents navigate as their students go through. That work is really based in our standards reference and we use those policies or sorry or proficiency skills. To really inform the professional development that’s needed.

00:19:43,630	So we’ll continue to look at the data as that goes forward. I’d stand it for any questions at this time, President Eastgate, and members of the board. Board members, any questions at all for Dr Johnson? I know I have one if they’re thinking about them, so I’m just looking at that last page of the report underneath indicator 6, and I

00:19:58,570	do see an asterisk bite, so I’m just looking to see if I missed it here or not, Dr Johnson, but I was impressed that our middle school, it’s more of an observation than a question, but maybe you can just confirm.

00:20:14,000	But our middle school jumped up 8% on that, um, indicator 6 is the asterisk just because we went from the uh standards to the letter. Is that what that’s representing? Correct, we had some letter grades before, but it was based upon a standards conversion where now it’s a, a total point.

00:20:29,300	Still, again, our standards are driving our instruction and assessment, but it’s just calculated in a different way. So the jump would still be indicate that we had that much improvement though either way that’s great. For Ms. Peterson, I can have just a comment too just with the crowd and everything else.

00:20:46,030	I just always really appreciate when the focus on success aligns to the report, and this is a really positive report, so hopefully the, the team is, is seeing that the the data is following all of the work that you guys are doing. So appreciate that and um hope to continue to see growth in an area that has been kind of a struggle nationwide and statewide. So thank you.

00:21:03,200	Board members, any other questions or comments? Thank you, Dr Johnson. Board members, how do you find uh R 2.1 academic achievement mathematics. Presky. Yeah, I would move that we um find our two academic achievements, um, mathematics as making reasonable progress. I would second Motion is second. Any further discussion? Seeing none, Mr. Sher. Lee, yes. Peterson.

00:21:35,200	Yes. Presky. Yes. Hager, yes, Eastgate, yes. Motion passes. Thank you again to all the educators in the, in the room tonight. On the agenda item underneath 5B BSR1 single point of connection, we have a public reading of that tonight.

00:21:58,630	And then the board can decide if they’d like to retain or amend and if we’re in compliance or not. Here is that public reading. Single point of connection, the superintendent is the board’s sole point of connection to the operational organization. The board will direct the operational organization only through the superintendent functioning as the chief executive officer.

00:22:23,170	Sighting authority The superintendent or their designee is authorized by the board to sign agreements, contracts, and other official documents on behalf of the board. This delegation of signing authority does not extend to matters explicitly reserved by the board. This brings the end of the reading BSR1 single point of connection. Board members any comments or motions, Mr. Hager. I would move to retain.

00:22:44,800	BSR1 single point of connection. I would second. We have a motion in a second. Any further? Conversation, seeing none, Mr. Cher. Peterson. Yes. Presky. Yes. Hager? Yes. Lee, Eastgate. Yes. Motion passes. Also board members, uh, just determining if we’re in compliance or out of compliance or in compliance with the exception. Mr.

00:23:09,400	Hager, I’d moved to find us in compliance. 2. Motion is 2nd or any further discussion? Seeing none, Mr. Chair. Presky Hager. Yes. Lee? Yes. Peterson? Yes. Eastgate. Yes. Motion passes. Item 6 in the agenda matters reserved for board action 6A board member school visitit updates.

00:23:34,770	I know we have at least one so I’m gonna start with Mr. Hager and if anybody else is up after that, you can turn on your light and we’ll go to you, Mr. Hager. Thanks President Eastgate. So I got a school visit here for Grimsrud um, first off, I like to thank Dr Upton for all her time.

00:23:48,770	I was there. What was supposed to be scheduled for an hour and was there for almost 2, so I appreciate her, uh. Her being so available with with her time.

00:24:03,570	Um Just a couple comments I would make on, on the walk up to the building, so it is one of those days where it was supposed to get a lot of snow and we, we didn’t, so we got mostly kind of rain and kind of sleet coming down and as you look at the design of Grimsrud route in terms of moving water off of that roof with all the

00:24:18,500	various pitch lines and just not, not the best design for, for down spouts like we’ve we’ve seen with our, our designs these days, so. Nothing structural with the building, just struck me as odd that there’s water falling off all of these different spots and, and as I was walking up, Um One

00:24:35,730	other thing too, kind of about the building, and I, I know this is something that was brought to us at a at a board meeting in the past, kind of the idea of Some rework that maybe could be done at Grimsrud as, as you look at the bathrooms there, it’s the original green tile, heard a

00:24:50,770	story of a brother and a, a brother and a sister within the school there that, um, one of the siblings can’t attend Grimrud because she has accessible issues and the bathrooms aren’t set up for her, so she, she has to go to a different school, so those kind of stories always kind of tug

00:25:05,030	at the heartstrings a little bit to have, have. One sibling have to be at a different school just because that. Particular building isn’t set up for, for her needs.

00:25:25,300	Um So beyond that, it’s always fun to walk into elementary schools, you know, they’re always a hive of activity, uh, as you walk in, um, one of the things that struck me too is the, the season was March Madness basketball season, so this is right up Mr. Eastgate’s alley, um, on the wall. They had a March Madness bracket. Uh, specific to their favorite book characters.

00:25:44,130	So the, the winner to me was a little bit of a surprise. I’ve read these books to to my son in the past was, uh, the pigeon from Mo Williams’ books. SpongeBob took, took 2nd, 1 of the kids I was visiting in the halls was, was disappointed in the result was not his, not his pick.

00:26:01,570	Um So Like I said, I spent a lot of time with Dr Upton, um, we talked about, you know, the different challenges that, that she has to deal with there at at Grimsrud and, um, I was, I was really impressed with how, how she took Chad what I would perceive as challenges and, and turn those around and said,

00:26:19,530	well, you know, here’s, here’s how we’re gonna. Address those. I mean, she had a, uh, a solution or a thought for anything that was in my mind, deemed deemed a challenge.

00:26:33,630	Um, she talked about her staff and she couldn’t say enough good things about her staff at Grimsrud and getting to see a few of them in action too. It’s. It, it, I can see where she’s coming from with some of them. Um, you know, some of the challenges that we talked about, things that we’ve heard here at the board, you know.

00:26:48,670	Bell time challenges and adjustments that they’ll have to, to work through next year, uh, some challenges. I know Dr Fastnacht, you’ve, you’ve addressed some of, some of that already, um. Another one that was. I guess I would deem a challenge is the.

00:27:10,530	Yale population at Grimsrud So they have, um, 29% of the kids are EL kids at Grimsrud She said she has 3 times the number of EL students that she’s had just a handful of years ago. But, so with that, the challenges is having your smartphone, being able to translate, you know, to, to parents in particular when You want to talk to them about, about the student. But with that, it also provides an opportunity.

00:27:27,630	So another thing that’s on the wall when you first walk in is a is a map. And on that map, there are pins showing where some of the kids are originally from. So there was pins in Central America, South America, Africa, Eastern Europe. I mean, it, it covered the entire globe.

00:27:46,830	So with that provides the opportunity for them to learn about each other’s culture. So one of the neat things that that that particular month was more around topography, so they were learning about, OK, where I came from was, um, deserts or mountains and or flowers or different things that they had back where they came from and,

00:28:01,730	and sharing those experiences and those things with, with the other students. Um One of the highlights, it’s, it’s always fun to watch students in action, so this, this was a highlight for me. Um, I, I asked him if I could use his name. He said I could. So a gentleman named Emilio.

00:28:23,670	He was a In the hallway helping uh. An EL student, so Emilio is fluent in Spanish. What, what struck me when he first walked up was his agent. I looked at him and I thought, boy, he He looks young.

00:28:44,030	For an aid Um So Dr Upton said, tell him your student, so, so tell them where you’re a student at, so I expected BSC or U Mary. No, he’s a Century High School student. So Emilio. Who’s fluent in Spanish. During his two off hours, he comes down to Grimsrud to help work with EL students down at Grimm’s Street.

00:29:05,370	Um I was very impressed that he would take his 2 hour 2 off periods to come down there and do that. Further, Emilio is a former. Grims student. I mean, he’s very well spoken, very confident. He was asking me questions about my role and why I was there.

00:29:23,300	I was, I was very impressed with this young, young man, and I even told him at one point, I said, if we do not run into each other in this community. When you graduate next year, I, I will see you on that stage. So I was very, very impressed with him. Um, so Dr Upton and I walked away.

00:29:38,370	Had some other questions pop up in my mind, so we have me coming back down the hallway, um. So Emilio and I was working with a different student and you, you could tell How those those boys that he was working with really look up to him.

00:29:52,770	I don’t know if he fully appreciates how much of a role model he is for those kids, but they do, they, they look up to him. You know, he translated a little bit and say, OK, now, now in English, answer the question in English, um, So in our walk back, ask him a question, you know, how many

00:30:06,170	students you work with? And he said, you know, I’ve been working with 6 recently, um. The other day I was in 2nd grade classroom and I was helping, helping a kid, um, With some Russian And I stopped and I said, Wait. I thought you were fluent in Spanish.

00:30:24,900	What do you, what do you mean? Russian, he goes. I speak, speak and understand a little bit of Russian. And a little bit of Mandarin Chinese. And for for the languages, those three, Spanish, Russian, Mandarin Chinese was was absolutely blown away. By him, um. It was an amazing visit talking a little bit with Dr Upton.

00:30:46,030	I know. Dr Johnson too about that program having the high school kids come down and help those elementary school kids was, was

00:30:56,870	if you have a little bit more on that, but I thought that was really cool. Um, thank you, President Eastgate and uh. member Hager, um. Again, if Mr. Barnhardt was here, I hope that I can honor his perspective too, but um, my understanding is uh the school psychologist, Mrs.

00:31:17,630	Bridget Johnson and the social worker Liz Schmidt Kuntz, um, talked about developing a program and they saw a need around our students and how we might be able to connect some of our multilingual EL newcomers, and so they went to uh Director of Student Support Services, Danica Nelson, uh Lisa Simmons, the EL coordinator, uh, Dr Upton, obviously the principal at

00:31:36,630	Grimsrud and Mr. Matherhat CHS and really rallied around this idea of could we have some high school students and we currently have about 16 to 17 high school students from century who are um who were pitched this idea of, they’re level 3 or 4 students, so junior seniors or have advanced

00:31:54,000	to that level, and they work around, as you said, they, their times multiple times throughout the day, some of them throughout the week, and they went through a presentation and was and thank you to the, the foreign language department too to be willing to allow for some time

00:32:06,870	to pitch the. idea. And then they applied and they went through an interview process and, and a paper as well as a structured interview, and we’re hired particularly the, my understanding and speaking to.

00:32:26,470	These individuals is that Richard Jo Lee was just about social and emotional supports and needs with especially transitioning to a new country and just the learning, the shock, some of our students, says Dr Fastnacht had shared, have not had formal education in any form. And so the target was originally the about 20 to 30 of the upper elementary students at Grims Street and I know there’s some.

00:32:45,370	Younger students that are uh having some their needs met as well. But it’s really looking to support through that intentional membership, or mentorship and really learning English is kind of on the side now, of course, our students are wanting to practice their language skills as well, but we really do believe that it’s an opportunity, um, even if they’re not able to make all

00:33:05,630	the great gains. There’s just that initially ease and finding another caring younger, but older adults that they can look to right now, there is work that.

00:33:19,800	It’s going beyond the social, emotional and they’re beginning to try to develop what does it mean to help assist in those academic skills such as reading and mathematics, um, but a great opportunity for our older students, um, to ease our younger students and transitioning to a new home that may be very different from where they were, um, and not only come to the United States, but feeling welcomed and finding a niche and a caring

00:33:36,570	environment, and I love that story of, you know, kind of paying it forward, at least to someone else that walked those same hallways and what a great opportunity for.

00:33:52,670	leadership and um I’m just very impressed with all the leadership of our Personnel that mentioned above, um, and being able to say yes and make it happen, how can we make it happen versus where the barriers, so. Dan, uh, you kind of mentioned Mr. Hager, the, the technology they’re using, I mean, we, we talk about cell phones, but we’re, I want to compliment, uh, you already kind of picked up on it, Mr.

00:34:12,770	Mule or IT team, because we rotate cell phones, it just, we have staff with them. They, they age out, you know, instead of just throwing them in a, in a bin somewhere. He’s been repurposing those to use as translation devices. That was a good temporary fix when she wasn’t at 34 times the number of EL kids that she has now.

00:34:29,830	Uh, Dr Upton said, but, uh, it was a great program. All the credit goes to the members, uh, Dr Johnson mentioned, now it’s like we have to replicate that.

00:34:46,470	We can do that in more schools, and really we have so many young people who could really help us because we can’t find enough people to speak these languages to help these kids. Let’s use some of the, the talent we already have in our schools and then give them a job, let them make a little extra money or get an experience that they, you know, just helps make them a better person. So, I’m glad you noticed. it. It’s awesome.

00:34:59,800	Yeah, it was it was really neat to see. So I just want to thank Dr Upton again for, for all her time and being so gracious, uh, with, with her time and showing me around the school. That’s awesome. Thanks a lot, Mr.

00:35:11,530	Hager, Dr Johnson, thanks for adding in on that as well and um I think we can all, we’re all kind of, you know, smiling and nodding your heads because there’s just a lot of wins in that story, um, you know, we talk about a win for the.

00:35:27,000	The student himself that the Grimsard student, the mentor, the school, BPS, I, I sure hope we’re pursuing Emilio to enter, uh, teaching. We’d like to bring him back, uh, Dr Fastnacht write his name down and make sure we greet him at the graduation this year, but that, that’s exactly the kind of things that I love to see at BPS to say we’re going to solve a lot of problems, you know, we

00:35:41,500	not only do we solve the problem, we made it a great success for everybody, so I just really appreciate it coming out in that story, Josh, thanks a lot for sharing.

00:35:55,400	Um Not a lot of, a little bit of productive struggle in there, but not a lot of, you know, more productive than struggle, that’s for sure, so I’m gonna keep using that word. Um, any other school visits from board members tonight? Signal lights on, we’ll move on on our agenda. Uh, item 6B is R 2.1 academic achievements, social studies indicators, Dr Fastnacht.

00:36:18,730	Well, um, the team has looked through a little looking a little ahead, you know, we’ve been trying to bring recommendations you to improve and streamline indicators within, um, um, Those results, uh, policies that you have set forth for us. So, um, inside of our 2.1 academic achievement social studies, the team came forward and said, we have some recommendations for you, uh, Jeff.

00:36:40,200	Here’s what we think are indicators that are probably not in the not really appropriate anymore and, and if I recall our conversation is let’s streamline these if we’re reporting them somewhere else. Let’s move them to where they are, and we had some reading literacy type indicators in this. So their recommendation.

00:37:00,000	was to, to leave those in literacy, let them be reflected there, but then we also had a few that I’ve put in here that just were difficult to measure anymore. We just don’t use the same tests.

00:37:17,370	We have a different testing period, different testing, um, process because the NDSA that we’ve made some shifts and uh so I provided those to you, but before I get into them, I did give you two considerations because really the recommendation is to remove all but 2 indicators that we really thought would clean it up, um. Completely, but, um, challenged by Mr.

00:37:36,170	Eastgate as we went over it, like, Um, indicator 9 and 10 are really foundational, the social sciences and what we want as a citizen, so I gave you two alternative recommendations tonight. Either take the root recommendation that we are just cleaning the whole thing up, including indicator 9 or 10, or if you think 9 and 10 are still worthy, I would say kick it back to my team and I because

00:37:53,830	really, that’s something we haven’t, I haven’t worked on a lot in my tenure here is to say, how could we provide some evidence for indicators 9 and 10.

00:38:08,730	Which didn’t have any evidence last year, and I don’t think we’ll have evidence this year and plan for it, but again, I’ll be honest, we haven’t put a lot of, I haven’t put a lot of intentionality to say, OK, how could we document that? So I’m, I’m open to either recommendation. I just want to get that from the onset, but, um, as you go through I’ll, I’ll make one quick, uh, correction in the document, the redline document.

00:38:25,930	I see we made a mistake in 2.1, we hacked out ELA and literacy that’s coming from an old, old, uh, correction, but Inside a 2.1, um, the definitions, we just removed definitions that were no longer needed due to the recommended changes inside the indicators, um, as Uh, sorry, wrong piece of paper.

00:38:48,170	Um, as we noted, indicator one is now reflected in our 2.1 literacy indicator 2 and 3 are also reflected in literacy, um, indicator for, um, This is the same rationale as above. Again, that math breathing test is in literacy. The pre-ACT on indicator 5, we no longer administer because that assessment has changed.

00:39:13,270	We’d retain indicators 6 and 7, change the, the grade scope and how we’re reporting aligning with the standards and the letter grade, which you just saw in the math, um, report and then keep the civics test, and that, that, uh, indicator because we still do that.

00:39:36,370	It’s part of graduation requirement, and um, indicator 8, Where this indicator 8, remember, that’s the one we have in almost every area mass so studies science, we asked for, um, 65% of kids that take those advanced courses, and we kind of talked about that becomes challenging in all areas.

00:39:52,100	We are taking all those and bringing them into a different report for you to kind of put it all in one place, um, and then 9 and 10 again, um, my team recommended to remove them because we’ve had trouble providing evidence for those, but again, if you were wanting to kick that back to myself and my team, we can, Take one more

00:40:05,870	crack at it to see if we could find, um, reasonable and easily, um, garnered evidence for you for those two, because I do think they’re really foundational to social science and what we expect our kids to have when they graduate.

00:40:25,470	So, um, appreciate you taking Uh, the opportunity following our discussion on those two indicators to come back with some alternative options and that the, the district could look at it longer.

00:40:37,770	You already kind of said it, I think it to me when I read those two, they’re just two that I think are very, you know, paramount to what a social studies background would be whether that needs to be reflected in an indicator or at least putting it in the document somewhere so that we know that our educators are expected to, to get kids to there, um, we were all at the staff

00:40:53,100	recognition this last week, and I’ll just citing one of my, my favorite throw, uh, tri. Mr. Steve Madler, who everybody knows did a great job at that. Um, but he comments on, on our, our, you know, retiring our other favorite Mr. Lee, Mr.

00:41:08,570	Perry Lee, we’re just talking about how he’s always done a great job educating above and beyond the classroom and he’s a social studies teacher and I had the benefit of learning from him. And when I look at 9 and 10, those are the kind of things that we hope. That students are taking out into the real world.

00:41:22,470	So that’s why I questioned him, um, again, if there’s any reason why we say hey, we just can’t. Test for it or reflect it, I guess I’m, I’m, I’m asking, I don’t know if that is possible or maybe it’s just something you need more time on.

00:41:35,300	I do believe we could retain them as long as you are in agreement that our evidence we may just keep them as their aspiration. We know they’re kind of built into the standards. That’s why in the documents that provided you, that core knowledge, that core experience is still built in the standards.

00:41:50,230	It’s how do we measure it, um, for an indicator if you’re willing to keep it in there and we can continue to discuss how that’s reflected, I’m OK with that. Mr. Lee, oh, sorry, oh. Thank you, President. The only thing I would say, and I completely agree, uh, with both of you. These, these are very important things.

00:42:09,470	If you look at indicator 9 demonstrate global awareness, and you go. You know, back up to uh the superintendent’s interpretation on that second paragraph. Somewhat addresses that, and I feel probably, um, does a good job of guiding, uh, uh. Teachers to to what’s important.

00:42:33,500	I think the first paragraph could probably be tweaked to encompass um uh indicator 10, uh, You know, at least knowing, uh, the duties, responsibilities and rights of citizenship. I wish we could, uh, get everybody adults included to practice that, um, but I think that’s a tough one to, to say we’re, you know, going to force people to practice their their citizenship, right, or their civic duty, um, but knowledge

00:42:54,000	is, is the key thing there. So I would, I would, I could go either way on this. Um, I, I think it’s going to continue to be tough to, to prove those indicators which. leads me to think, well, maybe we could make the superintendent interpretations is a little more robust and encompass that.

00:43:12,470	Ms. Presky. Yeah, that’s exactly the, the, the point that I was going to bring up to is maybe we can put those points in the narrative. Um That is up in that superintendent interpretation and just remove the measurement. OK. Mr. Hager.

00:43:33,470	Thanks President Ike, I would kind of echo some of the comments that have already been made here. I think if you look at him as strictly indicators, 9 and 10. I would struggle to see how you would specifically measure those, but I do like the idea of, of You know, adding him up top.

00:43:48,870	Um, under the superintendent’s interpretation, just making that a little bit more robust to include those those indicators. Any other, uh, Ms. Peterson. No, so just wondering on the, on our Recommendation, um, in the two different examples.

00:44:11,800	Obviously it was either keep kind of 9 and 10 or or do, you know, kind of further edits, so just wondering if we If when we make that motion, we say kind of. Do we indicate that and, and maybe editing 9 and 10 to incorporate into the Standards so that you’re able, does that kind of make sense? We’ll just try to craft it for Mr. Scherr and see.

00:44:32,100	I didn’t give you that option. I trust that you always, you always make good motions. I don’t know if you ever don’t make good motions, so I’ll trust you to do that, plus your intent and I can take what I hear you saying is take 9 and 10 and get it into the narrative, get it into the

00:44:46,030	explanation, bring that back to you. I’ll bring it back to you in a second reading. If you don’t think it’s right, then you can always say, hey, kick it back, we don’t like it, just.

00:44:59,470	We’ll take it back for another crack at it, or if you want, we’ll bring it back to you as first reading with revisions, either one. However you’d prefer President Eastgate, if I may, I have a question.

00:45:17,900	When is the, I know you guys, we said it today during the math one that the focus on success oftentimes ties to that, and I think that maybe this might be an opportunity for that focus on on success because I do believe, um, you know, working with a lot of social tudies teachers in, in my tenure that they’re doing a lot of those different pieces, especially the civic engagement and a lot of the activities that they do and in the way that they engage in in just the the work products, um, whether it’s

00:45:34,370	whether it’s avid, I mean we just we’re uh Josh and I were talking about two emails, one avid invitation, one from um Erikawley from, you know, talking about her as her time as a Milin educator.

00:45:49,370	I mean, they’re doing this civic engagement all the time, so that’d be a nice thing to highlight within that focus as well, so. I, I would, again, I’d be OK with retaining indicator 6 and 7 with adhering to your recommendations to incorporate 9 and 10 into the narrative and bring it back at second reading. Mr. Lee, um, yeah, I, I, I completely agree.

00:46:09,170	We, we know that it’s being done. I kind of look at the document as a, as a living document that continues to guide, right, and uh um they’ve always done a fantastic job with that, and I think this is more saying we want that to continue, you know.

00:46:25,230	So, with that, I would move to approve the first reading of the revised coherent governance results indicators are 21 Academic achievement, social studies as presented, noting that 9 and 1710 we would like um to be put up in the indicators. Second We have motion in a second. Any other discussion? Mr. Lee? Yeah. This is for Mr.

00:46:49,630	Scherr, not in the indicators in the superintendent’s interpretations. Yes. Thank you. Good correction. Mr. Hager, your second reflect that? Yeah, it does now. 2nd. Get that wording down. Any other discussion? Seeing none, Mr. Sheer Hager. Lee? Yes. Peterson? Yes. Presky, Eastgate, yes. Motion passes.

00:47:13,370	Thanks for working through that with us, are the wishes of the board? move that we adopt the consent

00:47:26,570	yes. Presky Hager, Eastgate. Yes, motion passes.

00:47:38,830	And item 8 my apologies. I was writing a note. I was a little checked out there for a second, uh, major projects I’d invite Mr. Scherr to the podium to share where we’re at. Evening, Mr.

00:47:54,930	Scherr Good evening, uh, Dr Fastnacht, President Eastgate members of the board, um, Major projects right now, the, the one we really are focusing a lot on is our CTE center in the Silver Ranch development. Uh, we will pour our last chunk of concrete that’s on the south side, which is the, the part we’re finishing. We already have portions of the north side port, so that continues.

00:48:11,570	They were going to put roof on this week, um, I think they’ll probably wait till the, the wind dies down, um. And if you’ve been by and you can kind of see in the pictures, the panels on the south side or wall panels are up, and they have wall partitions going up. So that’s pretty exciting.

00:48:28,470	You can start to see like, like storage rooms and tool room layouts and all that, so, um. So that’s happening, uh, that’s that project, the, the other one I’ll just point out on the other ones is Lincoln is officially finished, you know, we all know that we finished the project, um, in the summer,

00:48:45,630	but it just takes that long to get over and on on them manuals of our punchless items done, all the billing, so that one will show up on there. It does show up on there it’s finished, um, that’s just more for your information. Uh, I would answer any questions that the board would have on major projects.

00:49:03,170	remembers any questions for Mr. Scherr.

00:49:13,470	Don’t see any questions, see anything else in any superintendent’s sports unless you have anything else to add. All agenda items have been