00:00:07,570	I’m Josh Hager, vice president of the Bismarck School Board. It’s 5:15 on Monday, June 23rd. I call this meeting to order. Uh, Mr. Eastgate was not able to make it tonight. He had a, had a scheduling conflict.

00:00:25,300	Welcome to those of you who are joining us both here and on, and also online, you can find our agenda and follow along online on the school board tab at Bismarckschools.org. Uh, Mr. Sher, would you call the roll, please, Mr. Hager? Here, Mr. Lee, here, Mrs. Peterson. Here. Miss Presky. Here. Dr Frost now, would you lead us in the pledge? to fly the United States of America.

00:00:54,630	And to the republic for which it stands, one nation under God. Indivisible liberty and justice for all. Item 1 C BPS mission vision and value the BPS mission. It is to empower every learner to thrive, the BPS vision states together are strong relationships build inclusive, collaborative and innovative environments that create agency and inspire a passion for learning, excellence, and discovery.

00:01:29,900	BPS values are inclusion, excellence, innovation, leadership. You’ll also find a link to the agenda to link to in the agenda to the BPS strategic plan. Uh, item 2 is to adopt the agenda. What are the wishes of the board? And we adopt the agenda. Second. We have a motion in a second, Mr. Chair. Lee. Yes.

00:01:50,170	Peterson Presky. Yes, yes. That brings us to item 3, focus on success, Dr Faustna. Good afternoon board members. Nice to be with you this afternoon. Um, yeah, for, uh, today’s focus on success.

00:02:11,430	We want to give you a report on our accreditation report from Cognia and to do that, I’d like to introduce and bring the podium, uh, Dr Tara Olson from Berks in our LDI department is really the primary lead on our cognia uh review this year. So, good afternoon, Dr Olson. Hello.

00:02:32,900	Thank you, Dr F Fassatt and members of the board, um, over the course of the last year and a half, BPS has been engaging in The accreditation engagement process, um, tonight, Mrs. Meyer, um, the director of learning, Design and innovation and I would like to share a little bit about the process and resulting celebrations.

00:02:56,300	Um, the engagement review is part of the accreditation process that is required by North Dakota Century Code, um, it also includes a yearly student engagement survey, um, strategy maps that each of our buildings fill out and turned in on June 1st, and then this occurs every 5 years. The purpose is to look at the current reality and then look into the future to see where we need to make improvements and also celebrate the good things that have been happening.

00:03:14,070	Oh Yeah, um, the engagement review consists of 4 characteristics and 30 standards, um, culture of learning, leadership of learning, engagement and growth. Um, it is pretty comprehensive, including a data review over the course and in our case, 6 years because there was a pause during COVID, and analysis of those students, um, engagement executive summary performance of the stakeholder feedback and

00:03:40,800	then learning environment observation. Um, in addition, we self-assessed ourselves, each of the buildings did in the standards and curated a portfolio of evidence to submit along with the assurances of continued commitment to best practices, which culminated in a 90 minute presentation to a team of 9 cognia members on March 3rd.

00:04:03,100	This process was um definitely a team effort, um, E building started last spring by identifying their own cognia leadership team to engage in their internal reviews and self-assess themselves. In turn, findings were shared each month with administrators in our district leadership academy meetings when all data was gathered, administrators collectively worked to um find commonalities and action steps

00:04:27,700	identify our next action steps. With that, the BPS score was 313, which was, um, above the network average, so we’re very proud of that. Our next steps start today.

00:04:47,430	Um, you can link to the full report within this when you’re have your free time and like to look it over, um, but our next steps are sharing those findings, celebrating success, and addressing the areas of improvement. Progress monitoring of these actions will occur in 3 years. Um, the accreditation team called out 7 specific areas of celebration, as well as 3 opportunities. for growth. In the celebrations they um were looking very extensively at, um, how we use data to leverage decisions.

00:05:13,570	They mentioned that numerous times in the report and to us in person. Um, they also talked extensively about collaboration and collaboration rated very high and amongst all of our buildings and teacher and student feedback, um, combined, this has led to academic growth that is consistently above the state average.

00:05:32,930	Strong leadership and governance was also noted, which without we could not make the game. that we have as a district. Looking more closely at the student experience, BPS was commended for a diverse range of extracurricular activities and programs in the schools themselves, tiered systems of support effectively provide interventions and extensions for learning based on needs of the students, um, the BPS culture of acceptance and

00:05:56,400	appreciation of others, specifically naming peer to peer programming, inclusive sports, and the hiring of an indigenous education director and expansion of EL services are all examples of how We live our value of inclusion, um, with the, uh, opportunities. I’m going to turn it over to Mrs. Meyer, and she’s going to share those.

00:06:18,700	Thank you, Dr Olson. So we’re incredibly proud of these results, but at the same time, we have some opportunities to improve. So the first area is in student engagement. It’s important that we expand student voice and choice, and these are the two areas in our strategic plan that we will continue to, um, support those efforts.

00:06:36,900	The next area was in digital resources and making sure that not only our students but also our educators are equipped with the knowledge that they need to ensure that we are ready for our 21st century learning and specifically in the strategic plan, safety is a part of this.

00:06:53,630	So not only enhancing their skills, but making sure that we’re doing it in a safe manner. And finally, we talked about improving our use of data. So many of you may already know this, but we will already see the impacts of this next year when we bring in panorama, and we have the opportunity to put that data right in our teacher’s hands so that they

00:07:10,530	can, um, more effectively make decisions about our students. And before I hand it back over to Dr Olson, I just want to commend her, um, being new to GPS this year, it would have been incredibly challenging to do an accreditation review on my own, and so I just appreciate her institutional knowledge and the collaboration

00:07:27,200	that her and I were able to have to have a successful review, and I’ll turn it over to her to finish off. OK. So in closing, I think it’s important just to remember that our last accreditation was in 2018.

00:07:49,170	So our community at large, as well as our school community, have gone through some significant changes, including demographics, specifically an increase in our EL population, new buildings, physical structures we have built over the last 5 years has been incredible, which have led to support growth and innovation in programs and then we continue to maintain a steady attendance rate, despite some of the reports that say that students are decreasing. ing engagement.

00:08:09,400	So I think district administration, current and past, as well as the school board building administrators are incredible teachers in the community at large should be commended for the commitment to quality public education and specifically to EPS. With that, we’ll stand for questions. member’s questions, comments, Mr. Lee. Uh, thank you, Mr. Vice President, and thank you, Dr Olson and Mrs.

00:08:30,700	Meyer, uh, I know this is a heavy lift and it’s a, it’s a big deal. Maybe more for the public, but could you explain, um, why we use cognia? Um, cognit is what is chosen by the Department of Public Instruction as the current. Yeah, we have, we have used other agencies. Yes. In the past. Yes, it has changed.

00:08:54,070	We’ve had, I can’t think of any right now. Advanced E was the one prior to this. Yeah, I couldn’t think of it. Thank you. Um, but, uh, so Cogne comes in and this is a a year and a half process approximately when we start building those teams, start digging into the data, the review, because we’re

00:09:14,870	looking at, we go into classrooms, we have specific big things were searching for, are we seeing this teacher moves, student moves, resulting things. We have, um, community surveys, um, the benefit to this, this recent one is with our operational expectations.

00:09:35,700	A lot of this data already existed in the past we’ve had to go in and create and multiple folders. Here, it was just a matter of curating, pulling out and having all the administrators look and see for patterns, so, um, the attendance was easy to find those observations happen. multiple times, um, the OE results were easy for us to go back and historically review so.

00:09:57,070	Yeah, and it’s a great report, um, obviously 313 is a great score. It doesn’t really surprise me when I look at the opportunities, um, um, those are great things. Anything we can do to increase student engagement is, is huge, right? But we, we do those things already.

00:10:14,930	It’s not that we’re not doing them well even but um there’s always opportunity for improvement. So thank you both for the report. Dr, um, yeah, I guess board members, I’ll finalize that. It is a year and a half to do the formal work that, uh, Dr Olson, Ms. Meyer are involved in. I will say as they kinda let in, it’s an annual kind of check-in.

00:10:35,230	Cogni has his annual check-in for school leaders and school teams, uh, this really is the culmination of that. I will say really proud of their work, um, she knocked it out of the park and I’m saying that to Dr Olson, she knocked it out of the park and how she organized our school leaders on this and got prepared for the team.

00:10:52,370	when the team came in, it was actually as much stress you can have getting ready, and I’m sure she was more stressed than I was, but actually a joyful day. They really came to us and, and really were, um.

00:11:14,570	Proud of and uh appreciative of what BPS is doing for our students and our community, and it was very affirming to hear that from outside stakeholders you get to look at you from a distance, uh, that’s a really good thing and I really again just wanna applaud, uh, Dr Olson on the work and our, on our teams for doing the work. It turned out really well, so thank you. Dr Olson aspired.

00:11:31,130	Appreciate all the work that you guys have put into this is, is Dr F Fasson has mentioned, it seems like a heavy lift, um, a couple of the things that I, I took note of is talk about uh data driven decisions, so using that information to help us make decisions to make us more effective and in a better

00:11:47,700	district overall and the other small little thing that I noticed actually in Dr F Fastnott’s office on your report, how you, um, tied it back to our strategic plan with some of those symbols. I I I appreciated that as well, so. Thank you both for, for the report. This was good.

00:12:03,670	With that, that brings us to item 4, which is public comment. The board recognizes the central role. Parents play in the education of their children and supports active parent involvement in the education process. The board’s practice of public comment reflects and aligns with policy BCBA, the Spirit and the spirit of its intent.

00:12:25,170	For classroom issues, it’s best to follow the chain of command. Teacher, principal, assistant superintendent and superintendent. For district issues, please reach out to Dr F Fassnott. If you do wish to 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.

00:12:46,300	Groups are urged to select one spokesperson, individuals will be limited to no more than 4 minutes and will be notified with 30 seconds remaining to conclude the remarks. The board will not debate issues as presented, but we’ll take such matters under advisement.

00:13:03,500	With that, please stand and approach the podium if you wish to speak tonight. Seeing no one, public comment is now closed. Item 5, monitoring district operations OE 11 and structural programs. Dr Fossnott, and on this night we have, uh, we’re gonna ask to come back to the podium, Mrs. Meyer, who will be presenting our report on OE11. You thought you were done with us.

00:13:32,530	Good evening, Vice President Hanger and members of the board. Dr Olson is also going to help with this one. And we have the privilege tonight of providing an overview of the OE 11 report and highlighting some of the key successes achieved during the 2324 school year.

00:13:49,830	The intent of this report is to ensure that a program of instruction is established and maintained so that all Bismarck public school learners receive challenging and relevant opportunities to reach their full potential and achieve excellence. So as you know, Bismarck Public Schools has established a well-defined and systematic approach to curriculum development, ensuring that we are aligned with standards and monitor outcomes as outlined in OE 11.1 and 11.2.

00:14:15,000	This alignment is central to our guaranteed and viable curriculum, ensuring that we offer our students not only rigorous instruction, but that it’s rooted in best practice. We follow up 3 phased approach, which you will see here on the screen.

00:14:33,030	This approach provides our guiding coalition teams with clear priorities and allows for differentiated and responsive work across subjects, courses, and grade levels. And as we continue to focus on the implementation and success of our curricular process is essential that we take a moment this evening to recognize the incredible teacher leaders that drive these efforts. Our guiding coalitions are made up of educators who are connected to the work and closest to our students.

00:14:51,230	The guiding coalitions ensure that every educator in BPS has the tools, resources and supports that they need. So what I have highlighted here for you is a digital workspace. This is organized to allow any BPS educator, whether experienced or new to easily access and engage with the work of our guiding coalition teams.

00:15:13,770	Indicator 117 emphasizes the importance of regularly evaluating and modifying all of our instructional programs to assure their continued effectiveness through the guiding coalition. This structure is instrumental in our district in ensuring that our programs remain responsive and effective, always adapting to and meeting the evolving needs of both of our students and our educators.

00:15:35,030	And speaking of our students, I also get to highlight indicator 11.4 ensuring our instructional programs give students the chance to develop their talents and interests. Personalized learning is a priority in our strategic plan. Every learner should have access to a path that matches who they are, how they learn, and what they aspire to achieve.

00:15:52,630	So you will see here, we are committed to programs like CTE, dual credit, advanced placement, as well as newer programs like Empowered Dead. Empowered Ed allows students to earn the same credits but in different ways by engaging in real world experiences, and I hope that you know this, but for the public, I just want to remind that it’s the same credits just being provided in different

00:16:12,370	ways, and we’re very proud of that. You will see in the picture here, we have two empowered E students completing a community project for gold robbers Hockey School. The owner Nate requested a collapsible reaction board, and these boys delivered the product and a reproducible blueprint.

00:16:30,870	I did hear you talking about hockey on the way in, so maybe you want to engage with these two young men. On the next slide you will see uh extracurricular and co-curricular activities are highlighted. All students have access to meaningful activities that enrich their experience, whether it’s sports, clubs, fine arts, or leadership programs.

00:16:50,830	These opportunities help build life skills and connect students to their community. Before I turn it over to Dr Olson, I just want to thank the board for their continued support and the community for their engagement in this work. It would not be possible to have strong programs like extracurriculars or some of our pathways without your commitment to personalization.

00:17:10,570	And one more thing before I turn it over is we do need to highlight that we have one area that’s in compliance with exception. This was also true last year, and this is indicator 11.9, and this is on policy ACDA. So how, although we have a 100% compliance with our students, we are still having challenges in getting a 100% compliance with our staff.

00:17:32,500	So you will see here on the screen some of the things that we are going to do to hopefully rectify that, one of them being a new way of delivering it through canvas, and so I’m excited to come back next June and hopefully, um, share a different number with you.

00:17:48,000	So just wanted to call that out before I turn it over, and Dr Olson is going to highlight some of the innovations and inputs that we have had throughout the 23, 24 school year since I wasn’t here. With that. You In 2023, 24 school year, we made significant strides in ensuring that our instructional efforts were aligned with best practice and supported every student’s learning journey.

00:18:10,430	One of our main uh focuses was the adoption oops of a new K 5 ELA curriculum, which included wit and wisdom, you fly, and the 95% group, all aligned with the science of reading legislation. This alignment ensures that we’re meeting the needs of students, especially in foundational literacy, um, and you did hear a focus.

00:18:31,100	success on where we’re going with that earlier this year. We also prioritize ELA and math standards to ensure that instruction and assessment were focused and effective across grade levels are targeted support and differentiation efforts included reviewing intervention courses and resources while also implementing Choice boards for, um, enrichment opportunities.

00:18:54,630	Finally, we focus on digital resource use by conducting an audit of our learning man image system and instructional platforms, ensuring that the supported blended learning. And we’ve also finally working with math, um, have been working on an audit of the K-12 math resources and um systems I referenced there to guar to be better within our guaranteed and viable coli. And coherent across the district.

00:19:20,800	Um, capacity highlights, we celebrated several, um, that helped shape our learning community. We explored new ways to optimize learning by launching the teacher Leader Academy cohort 4, while exploring partnerships for Cohort 5. This has been a key strategy to develop teacher leadership within our schools, many going on to become instructional coaches, assistant principals, principals.

00:19:43,730	We completed high reliability school training with Dr Phil Warwick, which provided valuable strategies for ensuring reliability and consistency. in our educational practices, our classroom observation rounds were focused on important areas like the guaranteed and viable curriculum, student engagement, and the implementation of instructional frameworks.

00:20:09,930	We also implemented an external credit review process to ensure that educators were receiving, uh, compensation for credits that were consistent and transparent um along that journey. Throughout the year we embedded intentional data-driven protocols into stakeholder meetings, keeping our focus on data-driven decision making. Additionally, we communicated updated standards-based education guidance documents to all staff and rolled out disciplinary literacy at the secondary level.

00:20:35,600	Alongside the Science of Reading initiatives like letters aspire, and Reading Le to deepen our literacy instruction from the pre-K12 perspective. We would like to close tonight’s presentation by highlighting several innovations that were prioritized to further enhance our curricular programs and expand opportunities for students and staff alike.

00:20:54,870	As you heard earlier in the presentation, one of the initiatives for this year was the continued expansion of Epowered, allowing students to earn credits through real world experiences. The expansion of the career and technical Education Center will continue at at the Silver Ranch, uh, location with a focus on providing even more hands-on opportunities that prepare students for future careers.

00:21:17,230	We also committed to further growing the renewedd program, offering additional support and resources for both students and teachers. Another key priority was the refinement of instructural frameworks and walk walkthroughs to ensure greater alignment with district goals and to provide more actional feedback to teachers, um, which helps improve instructional practice to meet the needs of every learner.

00:21:39,770	We continue to prioritize dual credit partnerships with local colleges, allowing even more students to earn college. while still in high school, which supports our college and career readiness for students. And finally, we continue to work on the audit of our teacher evaluation model, moving toward the adoption of a growth model that emphasizes ongoing professional development, continuous feedback and improvement for all educators.

00:22:00,970	With that, we will stand for questions. Board members, questions, comments? Ms. Peterson, I Uh, thanks Vice President Hagger, and thank you, um, ladies for presenting on both of the accreditation and OE 11, I think, um, it’s fitting obviously that they are together because um I, I think we’ve all talked to about how vast OE 11 is and um it really

00:22:23,970	is what what we do in the school system. And so to put all of it in this, in this one operational excellence, um, piece sometimes does feel a little hefty, um, going all the way from a Policy review to actually what we do in all of our classrooms.

00:22:42,130	So, um, hopefully those of you at home and the, the, the families can see that this is like where we are looking at the academics, the teaching and learning, everything is all kind of um um put put within this, um, and I, but I really want to touch on one of the last things that you talked about with the, um, the

00:22:57,170	comment that you talked about with the teacher evaluation model. I know that that is something that I ask kind of some questions too, cause obviously if we’re talking about accountability here.

00:23:13,870	Um, with our results policies and other things, that is, that’s our purview, but then also making sure that you’re, you know, working with teachers so that it, it does allow them to learn and grow and then hopefully be something that is aligned with everything else that you’re doing, so I do, um, commend you guys for looking into that and then, uh, uh, I believe, you know, those of the families and stuff that are looking at home and teachers.

00:23:30,730	I’m hoping that there’s they’re gonna feel some coherence with the, um, RS model that you guys are doing in terms of your guaranteed and viable curriculum and standards-based education with the teacher evaluation, the professional learning, it’s all I hopefully gonna gonna make sense. So there’s no question in that.

00:23:50,000	It’s just a commendation for all the work that you two ladies and your entire teams do, and all of the teachers that are in our buildings every single day wondering, OK, why do I have to go to this meeting or what am I doing here? But it’s all, it’s all for kids and clearly it’s showing in that data where we’re, we’re seeing

00:24:04,500	results, our grad rates going up. Eepidemics are going up that and while you so importantly noted that while we are, we still have challenges with our demographics, new buildings. We’ve done it all. So just, uh, just thank you for all the work that you do and, um, for this report. Thank you, Ms. Peterson. Mr. Lee.

00:24:24,200	Uh, thank you, Mr. Vice President. Uh, this may be a question for either one of you or both of you, so we’ve talked about, um, uh, I think a lot of us are, are really excited about the dual credits and, and we’re always talking about equitability.

00:24:40,900	Is there a um a process in place or are you working with the school administrators to try to make sure that the dual credits are offered. are fairly similar across the board. We know Legacy had a head start being the pilot, but um, are, are the other two high schools, um, getting closing the gap, I would ask.

00:24:58,300	Yes, I don’t have exact data, but I would say that our 3 high school principals are committed to ensuring that the experiences for students are, um, similar across all three of our buildings. And I think, uh, Mr. Phillips over at the Career Academy also is working hard on partnerships with the colleges, so that anything that we’re doing here easily aligns.

00:25:16,900	Dr Johnson, do you want to add anything? Like Miss Meyer, um, Dr Fast, I think is shared too in the past that we continue to just work towards that alignment again, sometimes it’s based upon the degree credentials that are necessary, so some of that has been an AP versus a dual credit or sometimes we offer both, but if someone doesn’t have the

00:25:37,830	advanced degree, um, that’s been an impediment to being able to offer a dual credit, uh, likewise some endorsements and some other areas, but really we continue to look to expand and, and see where we can ensure that. equitable opportunity for the most part.

00:25:56,970	Just to jump on top, um, we also are making sure that that professional learning is available so that if they do want to get credentialed, whether it’s AP or dual credit that they have access to that professional learning so that our educators are certified to offer that. OK. Well, I think with BSE wasn’t there, um.

00:26:15,300	Oh, the, kind of how this all started with kind of where the dual credits exploded was they have a, a, a proctor, um, where the, where the, the classroom teacher doesn’t necessarily need the credentials or is. Right. Is that not completely right? That, that can exist in some situations.

00:26:33,400	Usually they’re put on a multiple year, like a 2 to 3 year process and that’s what Miss Meyer was also talking about then, um, we’d have to have that individual be willing to be enrolled in a program and be seeking if they have a master’s degree, but it’s in English literature, then they’d have to be enrolling in like an A8 credit or a second master’s program, so that’s part of that, but yeah, that’s how we’ve been

00:26:49,270	able to get that jump started by having some of those relationships, again, that’s an ongoing conversation there and, and um we continue to, again, find opportunities where it’s uh appropriate and where that’s uh. Wanted and needed OK, thank you. Thanks, Mr. Lee, Dr Fasnot.

00:27:13,330	I was just gonna comment the next two months for, uh, Actually, it’s on the docket for tomorrow at our leadership meeting to look for a date, a future board meeting work and provide that report on that because, as you’re well aware, I mean, we had kids, 9 students, I think this year, graduating with their, um, two-year degree before they actually graduate for the high school degree, so

00:27:31,270	I think that AP dual credit is a great opportunity for our kids and our families. Um, so we wanted to showcase that. We just got to find a date we can do that in partnership with our, our college partners, so. We’ll bring it back to you. Thanks, Dr Fast. Dr Olson, Ms.

00:27:46,530	Meyer, thank you both again for, for your work on this and putting this report together. It’s, it’s fun watching that presentation and just seeing you guys highlight all the kind of the wonderful things that are going on within, within BPS, you know, when you talk about extracurricular activities to the things that are going on in

00:28:02,630	the classrooms to. Like Mr. Lee had had pointed out dual credits in PowerEd CTE stuff, so, so thank you both, um. With that I would entertain emotion. Yeah, I move to that. We find OE 11 instructional program taken as a whole in compliance. Second We have a motion in a second, Mr. Chair.

00:28:29,130	Lee Yes, Peterson? Yes. Presky? Yes. Hager? Yes. Uh Item 6, board member school visits, I believe we have one tonight, Miss Peterson. Yeah, thank you.

00:28:58,000	Um, I was able to attend, um, I was able to go to Wilmore’s Camp Ed Adventure program, um, that is offered for our PK students all the way through 5th grade, I was able to go last Friday, so I’m glad, uh, to be able to talk a little bit about that school visit.

00:29:14,000	Obviously, I think several of us were able to go to Wilmore throughout the school year, um, but right now we have summer school happening in all of our, well, many of our buildings, whether it is elementary, which is called Camp Ed, or whether it is, I think they do kind of some middle school programming and some even some athletic training and things like that, and then of course summer school at the high school looks, looks very different depending on on where they’re at, but I was able to attend, um, our P K

00:29:31,030	through 5 camp Adventure program that was really um started with, especially with that PK version by Jill Vallejo and Dr Amy Peterson a couple of years ago where they really wanted to bring.

00:29:51,430	forth an opportunity to, um, you know, the way that Camp Ed Go for those of us that have had children in Camp Ed, they, they go in between there, the year that they are done with one school year and go to the next, so they often call them, you know, rising 4th graders, rising 5th graders, and so on.

00:30:09,500	And so there was some questions about how can we do rising kindergartners and make sure, um, and I think this was really key for um Mrs Vallejo and Dr Peterson is that it wasn’t really just like a drill and kill, get ready for kindergarten, like, you know, get him to read. before they even walk through the doors.

00:30:29,230	It really is a, a, a unique outdoor camp experience that’s intentionally designed to develop our youngest of learners through speech development, sensory play, unique learning outings, and then some students never even get to experience these and obviously, um, we got, we got to highlight Wilmore and Wilmore is in a really unique position being in the middle of town, um, so that they really go walk to a lot of these, these experiences and even with

00:30:49,500	our smallest of learners, our 4 and, you know, I, you know, just turning 5 are walking all the way to go see the larks or go up to the Capitol to um go to a fire station that’s nearby.

00:31:06,500	And so I was just really impressed with that and they wanted to call it um friends finding language because there’s obviously that speech um component, um, and I think that what I, I was impressed with is, is really how those students were able to socialize, um, and really engage in kind of research-based development activities.

00:31:26,530	Obviously, as I was there, they’re sharing pictures of the brain, pictures of how like kind of all the things that go into the background, but when you’re just watching those children, it looks like they are playing, they’re engaging with each other.

00:31:46,700	They are, um, having experiences and, and too often, you know, especially like, obviously there’s been a lot uh this last year talking about um technoference in the social anxiety that I’ll, uh, you know, that we’re all learning about with the anxious. generation and and screens and some of that developmental delay that’s coming from those students, but this is really I hope and, and they have some evidence to back this up, that it is taking some of those, those 4 year olds, and really when they walk through those school those

00:32:03,170	doors as kindergartners, they’re, they’re prepared to learn, they’re prepared to have that executive functioning that needs to exist to kind of be in the school setting, but they’re doing it through a really positive experience in this camp experience.

00:32:19,830	Um, As of right now, they, I, I thought that it’s been a really great job that our, our leaders, uh, Brad and, um, Dr F Fassnott is a really uh brainstorming ways that they could have, they could blend funding that comes from the state for summer school.

00:32:38,430	Also, um, and, and really target it to our most needy of students in schools where, um, kind of like some of our Title One buildings, um, so it’s in 8 of our 9 buildings, Wilmore, Grims Road, Miller, Moses, Mary, Northridge, Pioneer, and Roosev.

00:32:54,530	And so these experiences that they were showing, in fact, they showed pictures, um, thought that maybe we should get it up as a focus of success at one point because the pictures and the videos are pretty amazing, um, but they showed pictures of, of the both the way that it’s programmed so that there really is that evidence base in all, all of the programming, but what I really appreciated was that it’s uniquely tailored to wherever they are, whether you’re out in Jill had done it

00:33:11,200	back when she was out in Lincoln, and obviously they can’t walk to the Capitol when they’re out in Lincoln. But she’s like that, they really engage in just the walking path around town, really looking at some of the local businesses so I was, I was super impressed just with the ingenuity of, of

00:33:28,200	our leaders and in, in these two fantastic, uh, women, but also just the excitement of all the teachers who are getting to teach like this and really think through uh um about these experiences and the, the preparation on not only the coaching that’s being given with kind of some of the speech language development.

00:33:46,970	through the all the educators that are embarking upon this, but also just the, the fact that they’re, they’re helping kind of like give kits and binders so that this could be replicated, but it’s not just, OK, give a, give a student a a worksheet and go to the zoo.

00:34:03,830	It’s really engaging in that kind of intentional small smaller class sizes so that you can really do the, the teaching and learning that needs to happen with some, some of our kids and, and really focusing on some of that family engagement they’re having families come in.

00:34:18,830	Um, go on some of the experiences with them, we would call them field trips, but I, I hesitate to say it because I didn’t, what I was hearing these ladies talk about was not just like what I would do if I was going to the bowling alley with my, with my high school students that we’re going on a field trip.

00:34:36,970	This, these were intentional learning experiences, designed for the kind of the utmost learning while also looking kind of like, you know, play and coaching, and so I, I think that I hope to see this continue, um, really appreciate. the intentionality, as I’ve said, and that fidelity towards the programming, um, with all schools.

00:34:55,100	I know they were looking to expand it not only to all of the schools in the district, but these ladies wanted to expand it statewide. They invited some of our state leadership. So I, I’m excited to see, again, it’s Bismarck leading the way, inspiring these opportunities, and then just showing how it can be done, um, really well.

00:35:12,330	So, um, they are collecting that data again, that focus on success, they’ll probably have more, more data to share. with this team about how they’re both optimizing dollars so that they can do it really well, but then also how can, how can they get in more, more hands, so I, um, kudos to those educators, um, and, and to all of the presentation

00:35:31,430	today. So thanks everybody. Thanks, Ms. Peterson. Miss Presky, I have a quick report I can give on, um, I visited the facilities and transportation building and met with Jason Middlestead and, um, it was the last day of school, so a lot of buses out and about, um, doing special field trips and celebrating the end of the

00:35:55,430	school year, um, and that’s kind of what I expected to see what I didn’t expect to see is everything else that goes on in that building, and I don’t, I don’t, I doubt that our public and our Our citizens have any idea that, um, I would describe it as like the cert central nervous system for our

00:36:15,170	facilities, um, for instance, in our tour, we saw the like the food that’s brought there and stored there, and then it’s distributed to our schools, um, supplies, um, the paint for fields in our in our community, at our schools, um, electricians, carpenters, those that are working on our HVAC systems, so I was like, wow,

00:36:42,470	you guys do it all. I, I was just really shocked, um, so it was really cool to see very organized. I’m, I think it was the most, it was the cleanest maintenance room, um, that I’ve ever been in, um.

00:37:03,270	Yeah, very organized, coordinated, uh, and really all the nuts and bolts, um, to build like our school, the school facilities up and keep them, keep them running, so really appreciate the visit and um we also talked a lot about the transportation change coming in the fall and they’re all getting ready for it and looking forward to um.

00:37:24,800	Looking forward to it, and I think he emphasized that really there was no choice that we really needed to make this change for BPS, um, and so just again another little maybe reminder to our parents out there, it might be a little difficult at first, but we’ll all get through it and, um, changes sometimes hard, but, um, Looking forward to what that will lead to down the road, so. Thank you. Thanks, Ms. Presky.

00:37:46,530	I, I do enjoy some. Summertime school visits not often that we get those, but that facilities is an impressive building to, to see what those guys do out of that building. Jason Middlestead does a, does a great job with that group.

00:38:03,270	Um, with that item 7, consent agenda, what are the wishes of the board? A move that we adopt the consent agenda. Second We have a motion in a second, Mr. Chair. Peterson Presky. Lee? Yes. Yes, uh, I mate superintendent’s report. That’s full superintendent’s report tonight, Dr F Fassnot.

00:38:30,830	Yeah, usually I don’t bombard you with this many topics, so thank you for letting me, uh, take some more of your time this afternoon, this evening. Uh, first one I have on here for you board members is talk a little bit about, um, tidal budgets and pers uh specifically Title One, I know I mentioned this to you last time we were together that we were foreseeing or being informed that our Title I

00:38:48,970	budgets we’re going to see a large decrease as a state. I think it was just a little over 8% for um Bismarck Public Schools that materialized about 16%, um, reduction in Title One funding, um, for those who don’t know, Title One funding goes to your highest poverty schools and Bismarck Public, that’s our highest poverty

00:39:07,870	elementary schools and is really there to provide academic intervention for our most academically needy children, um, so what I, I just provided you and the public watching tonight is kind of the impact. What 16% look like, um, and kind of broke that down by Um, budgetary code that you can see, and if I can ask Mr.

00:39:30,070	Barnard to hit the link at the top, we’ll go to kind of the budget, um, what I did to provide to you and to, um. The public out there so you can see last year’s budget to this year’s proposed budget. There’s still some finalization happening at DPI on that, Ms.

00:39:47,630	Peterson knows that better than anybody else. She’s in the, she’s in the business every day, uh, but we’re really close to that. And the blue column, kind of where we spent our money last year, not only by school, that’s at the top, but by, um, Activity kind of by object code of the budget and where those monies went, so like last year

00:40:06,470	you can see we spent a little over $1.6 million just in professional salaries, OK? Um, non-professional salaries, 650,000 and change almost 900,000 just in benefits for those two employee groups, and it goes on to a total spend last year, 4.4 million. Now going into this year, we know that we’re seeing a reduction, uh, that’s 3.6 million.

00:40:31,500	In total, and I guess I just showing for people at the top what that impacts each little schools. Now you say, well, why are some schools different than others? There’s a targeting formula that’s provided to us by um by the state, so there’s really not a lot we can do there.

00:40:49,230	The targeting format tells us what each school is gonna receive, and you can see there’s some schools, uh, particularly, uh, Myyy Elementary, who’s going to see $137,000 reduction in their funds that they can use for this. a group and when that’s all done, you can see that that’s quite an impact on all of our schools.

00:41:07,700	What I wanted to share with you, and I guess, um, kind of get your, uh, affirmation on tonight is if we just apply the money we have and try to keep intact as we talked last time, some of our human capital because some of that’s already contracted and some of it we have choices on, some we don’t.

00:41:26,370	When we just plug in the human capital costs, and those are, um, in in, in black in the, in the green column you can see we spend, we just do our human capital and we’re already kind of underwater on the budget.

00:41:47,230	There’s not much money left, um, actually we’re probably still short, a little over 100,000 just to keep our support staff, which would be instructional parents, instructional aids within the Tidal program intact, um, so when you add those together, um, it does become quite an impact, like how we’re gonna make it float.

00:42:07,500	What I would tell you and the listening public is, I’ve asked all those elementary schools to go to and use any or 75% of their carryover from this year. So if you had unspent dollars in your budget this year, I want you to make sure you’re spending them for the most part, this coming year. Um, that’s reflected in the green box at the bottom, that’s uh $358,000.

00:42:29,030	When we do that, We’re still underwater a little bit as far as keeping our human capital in in order, so I guess what I’m looking for the board and what I’d like to offer to you is we’re going to continue to work on the budget.

00:42:43,300	We’re going to continue to move it forward as we finalize the budget, we get into August and we have to put in a you just approved our consolidated application, but we have some time to do budget revisions as we get through the budgeting process, not only for federal funds but for our general fund, um, I’m thinking, unlike what I scared you with.

00:43:03,830	last month, which was $700,000 of red spending, which could have been shifted over to general fund. I think Mr. Barnhardt and his teams probably got that whittled down to 250,000, I think for a one year commitment up up to 250,000, we’d keep our human capital intact and we have some work to do with that. I think Mr.

00:43:20,170	Lee brought that up last time, but we still have some. Hm We still have some position choices we have to make through the summer as we fill some vacancies and also deal with some of our, our peer support or aid support, but I would use it that 250,000 to backfill human capital costs and then use a portion of it for

00:43:38,930	supplies cause We’re just starting that conversation with the elementary principals like some of those are needs not there. They’re not just wants, they’re not just stickers and bulletin boards and paper. Some of those are curriculum materials that we use with kids. They’re instructional materials that we buy into or pay into.

00:43:56,970	So we just have to go through there really intentionally and say, OK, what’s a need? What’s a want? OK, let’s address the needs. Let’s make sure we can gap them for a year until we get to the next year we can make, actually have time to make budgetary adjustments before next year.

00:44:12,430	year and what I would ask you is if you are kind of in agreement with that, I would bring that back to you for your approval in the budget later in the, in the budget cycle back into August, September when we do the approval of the general, uh, fund budget. And I’d stand for any questions you have for that.

00:44:30,330	member’s questions on that comments. Not seen any, I would assume that that means we’re good with you. Working the process forward. All right. Well, we’ll roll that process forward, um, and again, uh, Mr.

00:44:51,000	Barnard and his team have been working really hard on that to get that tightened up, um, but, um, again, just kind of finalize the numbers here in the last couple of weeks and we’ll continue to share those with you as we tighten those up and what our needs and wants are and where we finalize. But again, um, from last time I talked to you. And now it has gotten a better direction.

00:45:07,500	We’ve kind of refined that request a little tighter, but still, still a challenge. We’re still gonna have a challenge with federal budgets not only this year but into the future and as you, um, kind of already approved in the consolidated app, we’re still waiting on a few other title funds waiting for the finals to be done.

00:45:22,500	So hopefully we’re not shocked again by one of those as we move forward. Um, if it’s all right, then the next thing I’d like to talk about is I had a wonderful meeting with the uh producers, you might say that the, the, um, creative inspiration of the uh uh Sleepy Hollow Theater Company and add the uh coffee and enjoyed it an

00:45:42,200	afternoon or in the morning, um, learning about the Sleepy Hollow production, uh, theater production, and uh how we could be really good partners and what I was, um, really pleased to, to say is I think we came to a really good partnership agreement that how we can support really It’s supporting Bismarck kids, right? I was out

00:45:58,270	at Medora this weekend, took in a performance on Saturday. You know what, there was a young man performing there that performed in this company years ago, so it has great impact not only in our community but in our state and uh obviously even outside of our state.

00:46:16,030	So had a wonderful night and what I’d like to say is we came to a good arrangement to share some um facilities back and forth, particularly with the smoke again today. You saw it coming in.

00:46:31,530	Here it comes again, uh, to be able to get kids, uh, inside while they practice for this production, uh, but I was really pleased to see that they’re gonna do a night where they can honor, uh, BPS educators, educators around our community. So Mark your calendar, August 1st, I think it’s a Grease night, a grease production, and they’re going to honor uh educators in our communities so really happy about that, that they’re going to do that, so I think it’s a positive working relationship

00:46:49,970	we have between them and us, BPS. Um, any questions on that? Really excited about it. I think it’s great, so. Um, the other thing is I just gave you and, and more for the listening public.

00:47:11,300	You’ve seen this before, but for listening public, since it’s our last meeting and this, this year leading into July 14th meaning I just put the uh meeting schedule in our my report again so people can see it. Um, and then if there’s no questions about that, I would jump into cell phones, um, personal electronic communication devices, as we talked about that was in the legislature, uh, we, um, had a couple.

00:47:30,570	Partnering bills that became one bill, you remember the governor signing the bill and, and uh um centennial Elementary School. So, um, we finally hear about two weeks ago received a draft policy from School Board Association, I guess I would tell the listening public we’re internally we’re working on that, trying to get the policy in a revision, kind of take our

00:47:49,770	first look at it, make revisions, um, my intent, uh, if you are in agreement board members, as we’ll continue to get that into kind of a, a, a draft format. We’ll share that out with our stakeholders, our public, our parents, um, and allow them to comment on that, to give us some feedback.

00:48:09,500	Uh, I will say I, I appreciate the feedback, but I will caution parents that there’s so much of it is just codified, it’s law. There’s not a lot of choice and there, there’s voice, but there’s not a lot of choice because a lot of decisions been made about how we have to implement this, uh, but it

00:48:24,200	gives you an opportunity to look at it. You can see what we’re doing as far as a policy to roll that out. And then once I have that feedback, I’ll bring that back to board members to you, um, at our July 14th meeting, so you can see the feedback.

00:48:38,230	We’ll give you a draft policy, and even though I know you don’t reprove administrative policies regularly. I do think this is one by statute, they asked for it, and I think it’s good affirmation for you to weigh in on that, that you’re OK with that cell phone policy. So I’ll bring that back to you.

00:48:53,700	And um, I guess that’s all I have. If not, I’ll, if you don’t have any other questions, I’ll kick it over to Mr. Cher. OK. Thank you, Dr Faust not, uh, Vice President Hager, members of the board, um. This is the, not the last financial report for this fiscal year, but it’s really close and you can see that um.

00:49:16,170	Our analytics, um, we probably have a little work to do with the. Um, what happened with the, um, Um, the credit, the tax credit were received it a lot, a lot later than we anticipated, so we’ll adjust that and hopefully that’ll get better.

00:49:37,000	You can see we’re trending, um, I would say more positive in the revenue than we have typically and then on the expenditure side we’re tracking really well. One a couple of things I’ll just point out is we continue to have challenges with Keeping all of our maintenance done just with the, the inflation, the price of stuff we do, we we’re to the point now where we make choices

00:49:54,270	and we do kind of the minimum just because we can’t afford to do the same things we even did 6 years ago. Um, I do appreciate the board offering. We did do some adjustments last year. That was huge, um, so it’s a lot better, but it’s still continues to be a challenge for uh that team.

00:50:11,200	The other thing is you can see we’re tracking really high, almost 100% on all of our revenue. Sources like local and state. And the, the uh 60% I think roughly in the federal, that’s pretty common because it remember it’s a, it’s a um.

00:50:34,170	Reimbursement type, so you have to essentially expand it and then reimburse it so that, that we have no we’re not anticipating that falling short of where we’re saying, um, and other than that I, um, it’s gonna be got about 2 more weeks of normalcy and then it’s gonna be crazy, so we’ll be trying to get ah the year closed out and a new budget started, uh, for

00:50:53,570	you to look at that, at that workshop and um I. Hopefully won’t give Jeff a heart attack before we meet, but uh um looking forward to another. Close of year and start of year. I’d answer any questions the board would have. Thanks, Mr. Cher. Board members. OK, I’m not seeing any.

00:51:18,530	Uh, with that all agenda items have been