[This transcript was generated automatically from audio using AI and hasn't been reviewed by a person -- it can contain mistakes, including plausible-sounding sentences that were never actually said. Treat it as a starting point, not a verbatim record.]

[0:00] Okay, folks, we may as well be prompt here. We're a little bit five minutes after six.
[0:17] Okay, we have, we are continuing today our very important work on our comprehensive design project. We are calling it right now, district comprehensive design project. And we are also going to take a look at our school culture and climate quarter three update.
[0:40] report. We are designating about an hour and a half for the comprehensive design project work,
[0:47] and about a half hour for the climate quarter three update report. Okay? All right, so let's get going.
[0:55] I'll turn it over to the superintendent.
[0:58] Thank you, Chair, and good evening, everyone, and thanks for being here tonight.
[1:01] I know many people on the board and across the district are taking the opportunity to relax
[1:05] of these days because we are moving into summer, I guess, if you will.
[1:10] I wanted to highlight a couple of things.
[1:12] First, just acknowledge that we have had a number of community events that have been taking place and have seen a lot more presence of Minneapolis public schools out in the events.
[1:21] So thank you to staff who are participating in those different community gatherings as well as thank you to board members who are able to attend as well.
[1:30] I also wanted to address a topic that continues to be against rise up around the country and in our world and that's the one of immigration.
[1:42] We've said several times as an organization, both the administration and the school board that we are a place for all students and families, regardless of their immigration status, national origin or language, and appreciate the board's affirmation of this back in 2016.
[1:59] and then I think again, in January of 2017, most recently, or 2018.
[2:07] To be clear, it's not the role of our district to ask about the citizenship or immigration status
[2:12] of any of our students or families are to enforce the federal immigration laws.
[2:17] It has been our practice only to provide information when required by law or a valid court order.
[2:23] And so I raised this up because the action taken today by our US Supreme Court could have serious
[2:29] these consequences for students, families and even staff of Minneapolis Public Schools.
[2:33] We put our children first at MPS and we always will and proud to say that and appreciate
[2:41] the support that the board has given on that topic as well.
[2:44] But I know that is a question now that many families are, again, asking and wondering
[2:48] about.
[2:49] And so I just wanted to put that out there publicly that this is our position and appreciate
[2:54] any kind of support the board can give for that statement as well.
[3:01] So moving forward, as mentioned tonight, we have our committee of the whole presentation.
[3:07] Dennis Gisbrowis here, he's going to speak about our comprehensive design project,
[3:13] and it's really important that we also note for
[3:18] the calendar purposes that we've identified two more dates, that we're not initially
[3:23] on the calendar, but we talked about at the last meeting with the support of Jennifer coordinating
[3:28] a Google Docs, if you will. But August 8th, we're looking at having a meeting around this topic,
[3:35] and then September 8th as well. And I believe those are both mourning.
[3:40] I'm sorry. August 10th, excuse me,
[3:43] in September 8th. August 10th and September 8th. And you should have received an email invitation on
[3:49] that. But that's important that we have those conversations because of the decisions that we're
[3:54] hoping to make and the updates that we're wanting to provide in a public forum. And then as mentioned,
[3:59] our second topic will be on our third quarter data around climate and culture. Dr. Keith Brooks and
[4:05] staff be here to present some of the information. We prepared a memo which we'll be working from.
[4:10] We also have a PowerPoint that has been provided to the board as well. But we'll be focusing on
[4:17] and restorative practices, suspension, bullying,
[4:19] and student safety, as you know,
[4:21] is always a top priority for us
[4:23] at Minneapolis Public Schools.
[4:25] So with that, I will turn it over to Mr. Cheesebrow,
[4:28] and let him get started with his presentation.
[4:32] And good evening.
[4:35] Good evening.
[4:36] That's good.
[4:36] It's good to be with you.
[4:39] Again, for this evening, as we go through this,
[4:42] our hope is that there would be time for board members
[4:45] to take time like we did last time to step back and talk with each other to
[4:50] provide feedback and into some of the ideas and concepts around the comprehensive
[4:57] design. I happen to be sick.
[5:00] I'm standing here by myself this evening, and I'm going to tease the people sitting along the side that I represent. I'm here representing a lot of work by a lot of people at the administrative level. We spent all morning today with the principals forum. So there's been a lot of feedback and input into this. This isn't me. But they've asked me to help guide this conversation today into the next layer of the comprehensive
[5:29] of design project. So as we go through this, I'm going to offer that their times are the next
[5:34] hour and a half. I'm going to ask you to kind of turn to each other and talk through it and
[5:39] then kind of feed back your ideas. So also I will, when we get farther in, just earlier today,
[5:49] I noticed that in the original presentation that we sent out, there was kind of a mismatch
[5:54] between goals and slides, so what I'm showing here might be slightly different than what you saw earlier this last week, but the content did not change just the order.
[6:06] As you know, last time we met, we focused in on vision for the daily experiences for students and families and staff, and also the vision of a graduate.
[6:19] And I just put those in here as the foundation.
[6:25] So the reason for looking at those two elements of vision, is that any comprehensive design should be designed to achieve and provide for those experiences and that outcome for a graduate.
[6:38] And so, if you had a chance to take a detailed look, this is draft four, it has changed again.
[6:45] So we updated this with board feedback and notes that were taken by myself and others at our last meeting as well as the vision for the graduate.
[6:56] This also represents input.
[7:00] We had a couple of meetings with the academic leadership team.
[7:03] So your feedback, the academic leadership team feedback has continued to edit this.
[7:10] And we've even talked about being able to start going out and getting external feedback into the vision of the graduate and the daily experiences.
[7:23] I also spent time with the principal's forum this morning.
[7:28] And so the principal's forum took a look and they provided feedback from every one of the tables on all of this that you're looking at today.
[7:36] So we continue to get feedback and build as we go.
[7:40] So what we're talking about more this evening is built on top of that vision for the daily
[7:48] experiences and the vision of the graduate and some key messaging about MPS strong.
[7:56] What are some key drivers that we've begun to see that are the next layer of foundation
[8:02] about redesign?
[8:04] So to be very specific, you're not going to see ideas and concepts about specific, about
[8:11] program, specific, about schools, and specific, about policies and protocols.
[8:17] Because we're trying to say what about some foundational elements of design that run
[8:23] across all.
[8:24] So some of the key drivers that we'll be walking through this evening is number one is
[8:29] to design and deliver on the vision of the graduate and the vision of the daily experiences,
[8:34] which sound simple.
[8:35] Yes, we want to do that.
[8:38] And what we'll need to do is we'll get into some detail about how you need to deliver
[8:43] that at the school level, at the department level, to strengthen the community trust and
[8:49] the brand over time by that delivery, by accountability and improvement.
[8:55] To consider increasing market share to 70% of your students, which is a moderate increase from where you are today.
[9:04] Yet seems to put you in a nice position in terms of sustainability and use of facilities over time and a secure funding.
[9:16] And in a line, resourcing and planning with strategic and programming goals so that sustainability, predictability and consistency,
[9:25] three to five years from our language that you're able to use, your staff is able to use and your parents and families are able to use.
[9:34] So now we're going to dive in a little bit into some of the proposed detail.
[9:40] So, to deliver on the vision is to increase student achievement and you've probably heard this over the years about both academic social
[9:48] emotional skills in your career, life experiences, and so this is about incorporating social
[9:54] emotional skills, and those experiences into every school and program with
[10:00] And I'd like you to think about and reduce the variability in two ways. How can you reduce the variability between schools? How can you reduce the variability between classrooms?
[10:15] So something that I've offered for your staff and I'd offer for you from our experience? It's typically in most districts, the variability between classrooms exceeds the achievement gap.
[10:30] And you have to think about how do we reduce the variability between classrooms?
[10:33] classrooms and schools when we talk about, that's how you increase student achievement.
[10:40] And how do we incorporate, you incorporate the social, emotional skills and experiences,
[10:45] utilize individualized learning plans, and
[10:48] increase the cultural fit and relevance of the school in programming to local families and
[10:53] students or one way of saying, for the students at 10 to the school is a school in its environment,
[10:59] and how it operates, is it a cultural fit for the students that are going there?
[11:03] as well as staff's cultural competency and diversity.
[11:09] These are broad statements, and as we get farther in
[11:13] here, it's broad statements with some shifts,
[11:16] shifts in resources, shifts in strategies.
[11:21] And so our suggestion is, as deliver on that vision of graduate,
[11:24] it's going to be about these three things and more.
[11:28] In the next slide, we get into improving the students
[11:34] Children and families experience and safety, belonging, quality, and consistency.
[11:39] So one of the concepts that are looking at, and some of these are interrelated, is providing parents access to two to three local community schools to attend.
[11:52] Because in some urban districts, we find that having tight school boundaries in itself creates artificial boundaries versus.
[12:00] is you could have, if you have, if you reduce the variability between schools, you could
[12:06] have access to high quality schools that are offering, that are offering equitable
[12:13] programming and resourcing.
[12:16] And can you use a different approach to transportation, to quarter mile or less walk zones specifically
[12:25] where areas of safety are concerned?
[12:27] So right now your walk zones are half
[12:35] a mile or more,
[12:40] and I would offer you might have
[12:42] parents that when we tried to, we've had many discussions about finding that the parents
[12:50] think about safety and consistency and predictability.
[12:56] So I might choose what do I think is the safest, right, and most convenient option for
[13:04] education. So the point is why not consider quarter mile or walk zones or less for students
[13:14] because the belief that that will have a positive response for families. And again, in
[13:20] developed community schools that reflect multiple cultures, languages and traditions that's
[13:25] reflected by those who are there.
[13:29] So schools could have programming and then try to attract
[13:32] people to it. Or who comes to it and does it reflect the people that are there? And you'll
[13:41] see how this carries out as we go through the others. So the vision of the graduate,
[13:46] which is both, which is summative at the end, but we're developing, for the vision of
[13:52] the graduate, which will come to you in August and September, is actually concepts of developing
[13:59] helping social-motional skills and career and college experiences in grade bands.
[14:07] So what skills are developed in K through 2, in 3 through 5, in 6 through 8, in 9 through
[14:14] 11, so that the graduate has those skills and experiences, so that development path will
[14:24] will be coming towards you, as well as some ideas and costing out and looking at what
[14:31] does quarter mile or less walk zones look like in looking at school designs in a slightly
[14:39] different way. But our purpose tonight is does this make sense to you or not? Because what
[14:45] makes sense to you on any of these points drives designs in a different direction. If something
[14:50] doesn't make sense, then we don't want to build the design on something that doesn't
[14:55] make sense to you.
[14:57] We've also talked about in the-
[15:00] The delivery of that vision is to provide comprehensive and equitable programming and services with local school uniqueness. So, when I was with you the first time, we talked about the concept of coordinated uniqueness. I brought that language, which is, can you have uniqueness at the local school level that you can coordinate at the district level?
[15:25] Because many times when people think about standardization in school districts, there's a pushback against us.
[15:31] we can't all be the same. True. But what level of uniqueness can you still
[15:37] resource for sustainability, consistency, predictability? So one way I think
[15:45] about how could we have local uniqueness that at a district level you say we
[15:49] believe we can sustain this for five to ten years or more. Not one year but five
[15:56] to ten years or more.
[16:00] So, equitable access to all. So, if you have academic arts,
[16:04] athletics, activities, civil service learning, career and college programming in one area
[16:09] of the city, the suggestion is it will be available in all areas.
[16:16] So, when you talk about equitable
[16:17] access, it's that there's equitable access based on geography in a district versus right
[16:25] times and a bus.
[16:30] And that schools and programs operate with a feeder design across K-12.
[16:34] So one of the things we've been looking at is how schools and programs do. They have
[16:38] a feeder design that continues or where our programming start and stop it. And don't
[16:46] quite feed into an experience. So as a student, into an experience and all of a sudden, it's
[16:52] not offered or I have to go somewhere to get access to that experience again.
[16:59] And what we talked about at the leadership level and again with the principal forum this
[17:07] morning is of course staffing and resource model that there would be a baseline staffing
[17:12] across all schools at similar levels.
[17:18] And that additional staffing and resources beyond baseline would be based on the student
[17:22] it needs that are going to that school.
[17:25] And so that might change from year to year.
[17:27] You might have a change in student populations in need.
[17:30] So you have a baseline across all schools
[17:33] with flex based upon the student needs
[17:36] and the programming that's there.
[17:42] And you can judge for yourself how similar
[17:44] or different that is to how you're structured today.
[17:48] But this is part of what we are working with.
[17:51] The principal's forum this morning is getting their feedback.
[17:53] what they thought with the strengths and concerns,
[17:56] and they had specific ideas about how to improve this.
[18:01] So there's several things here about delivering on that vision
[18:05] that are structural and design based.
[18:08] So what I'm going to do is go through a couple more
[18:10] and then see if you have questions and ask you
[18:12] to kind of turn in chat.
[18:15] Key driver, too, to community trust and the MPS brand.
[18:20] And you're going to see some things that are linked here.
[18:23] Again, we're talking about operating schools with coordinated uniqueness within parameters.
[18:29] Because we believe that it will create a community trust and a brand.
[18:35] Second point is to align school and department operational decisions with resource and accountability levels.
[18:43] So, one of the things that we've been discussing at number of different levels, with a number
[18:51] of different departments, is decisions made at a level, and I'll just use as an example,
[18:57] at a school level, that then creates programming and resource requirements, that isn't coordinated
[19:05] at the district level, so then schools over here don't get it.
[19:11] And the question was, is what's the distance between this operational decision-making and
[19:18] the ability to manage it across the district in an equitable way?
[19:25] So how do you shorten the distance or create protocols so that decision-making at the local
[19:30] level always has the filter of does this make sense from the district level?
[19:36] And this has been a theme across many different areas that came up during the district assessment
[19:44] and the discussions with different departments and groups over the last number of months.
[19:50] Along with that is to operate with a clear and known decision making process.
[19:56] So what I offered for the group to think about
[20:07] So, as I did as an experiment as a little bit of a fun, this morning, I asked the principals, if you put a design together, and it's really a dumb idea.
[20:20] I said, who's accountable?
[20:25] And people looked around. I said, no, just point to the people who would be accountable, really accountable. And it was interesting because they could begin to say, we're not accountable for this, we're not accountable for this.
[20:35] the design, but we are accountable for implementation at the principal level.
[20:40] But I said, but who's accountable for the design?
[20:43] I'll give you three seconds to think about who they named.
[20:47] They said,
[20:54] the superintendent and the office of the superintendent would be right, superintendent
[20:59] graph and some of the people sitting on the side and you.
[21:04] And I said, so if they are the choice makers, then make sure, separate out what's choice
[21:09] making versus what's designed and what's consultation or input.
[21:18] And we find that it's clear to have accountability when the roles, responsibilities are clarified.
[21:26] So that's right now today we're not sitting here, here's the proposal for that.
[21:31] We're suggesting there are methodologies and protocols that we're very familiar with, and
[21:36] And we'll be bringing those to you in August and September to consider specific protocol for decision-making,
[21:44] specific protocol so that operational decisions and accountability levels are at length.
[21:49] So that you can accomplish this.
[21:51] And finally, the last one, and I know you've had this in advance, you've seen this,
[21:56] is choice making it at the board and the district levels are based on district interest over individual and group interests.
[22:03] We
[22:06] always encourage boards that when groups and individuals contact you and appear before
[22:14] you think to yourself how many people in the district are not in the room.
[22:24] And so we always encourage board and executive administrators to listen and understand the full breath of interest
[22:32] and then step back and think about district interest because if you're like most
[22:38] districts you don't hear from 80 plus percent of those affected.
[22:46] So how do you
[22:47] step back and look in district interest while you hear views from self and
[22:52] group interest. It's a real challenge for most boards these days and though
[23:00] The larger the district, the more of a challenge it is to operate with district interest over
[23:05] group or self-interest.
[23:07] As boards and administrators, I hope and I encourage you to listen to and understand
[23:12] the broad array because my guess would be, I'm not probably stretching it here, the city
[23:19] of Minneapolis doesn't agree on everything, right?
[23:24] You put any issue out, you're going to have a broad array of interest.
[23:29] And rarely will they be in agreement.
[23:33] So in the midst of differing views and disagreement, how does a board choose district interest
[23:40] over group while listening?
[23:43] Because I believe the reason for saying this is for you and administration, this is going
[23:48] to come to play yet this year when specific items and ideas and design ideas come to you
[23:56] and you look at them, because people will either like it or not, so we're trying to set
[24:05] the stage now about district interest over individual and group.
[24:14] Another key driver too is to operate with the reality of the diversity of your district
[24:20] and that the vision for the graduate calls for experiences and competencies in multiple languages.
[24:27] So what you're going to be hearing in August and September is more detail about
[24:34] having competency in multiple languages and cultural settings.
[24:39] Being able to have skill to operate in more than one culture and language.
[24:44] to realize in that that the city of Minneapolis and in most settings the
[24:51] The Democrats.
[25:00] The specifics of the city are not the demographics of the schools.
[25:05] And so when looking at that, we put some information for your consideration. As you can see up and by the city of Minneapolis, your 2018 general population is quite different than your population of your students this past year.
[25:22] And the point that we're going to make in this, which we made to the principals this morning, is two things to think about. Number one, overall, based on live birth and
[25:32] other factors, your white populations are declining, your populations of color are increasing,
[25:40] and to realize that the difference of the structure of the 2020 census will most likely
[25:47] shift this again because in past census, if you were Latino, Hispanic, what did you choose?
[25:59] there was no box to choose.
[26:04] You have to choose white, black, Asian or other.
[26:12] That is true, by the way,
[26:14] fulfilling out federal forms for Minneapolis, public schools. So what we're saying to many of
[26:22] our districts is that probably what typically what happens when we do estimations and demographics
[26:27] topics is your Latino Hispanic population is undercounted, your white population on average
[26:34] is overcounted, and we believe that the 2020 census is going to shift that.
[26:43] So what happens is that you have to think about how do you design and organize and get a
[26:48] thought process that you're two-thirds students of color.
[26:53] And if you're playing and looking out, that might be three-fourths.
[27:00] In that case, under decades-old desecrigation and
[27:06] inauguration laws,
[27:09] transportation and
[27:10] magnet school designs won't work.
[27:15] You're not the only school district that's being that
[27:18] this is coming up, this is coming up for many school districts
[27:22] when they're saying, when our population students of color begin
[27:27] to be two and three times others, we have to think about
[27:32] that the best way to provide for cultural relevancy and the graduate is actually in the local school.
[27:39] How do you make that high quality?
[27:41] How do you provide for those experiences in possibly different ways?
[27:47] And for many, that's going to cause a fundamental change in how you think about that and strategies.
[27:52] And we're bringing this up, we're not challenging law, but
[27:57] we're bringing this up to the district to think about because I believe that is going to,
[28:02] And if you look at the statement that we've articulated here, the design built on that goes one way.
[28:12] If you say no, we're going to address law in the way we do today, or the way that we've been, it's going to take the design in another direction.
[28:21] So when I said to the superintendent and cabinet, I said we see that this item is in fact quite influential for you, maybe not next year.
[28:31] but 3, 5, 7 years from now absolutely will be influential for you about how you view both federal definitions, law and diversity, and then how do you provide for the vision for the graduate with that reality?
[28:52] We assume there would be some discussion about this because we had this morning.
[28:57] Key driver three and four are a little bit simpler.
[29:02] Key driver three, quite honestly says, do driver one.
[29:07] And the reason for saying this is I would just offer you this,
[29:10] our experience with districts when they look at not incremental,
[29:16] but doing a step back for a systemic change.
[29:20] What happens is that it's easy for programming,
[29:24] timing, budgeting, and buildings to take center stage over the fundamental focus on student learning.
[29:34] So we're trying to say increasing market share is important.
[29:38] Start with number one, because I believe number one is how one of the ways you'll increase market share.
[29:45] Market share is not marketing.
[29:48] Market share is about dealing with the fundamental drivers for parents of safety, convenience,
[29:55] predictability, having equitable programings.
[30:00] Having clear pathways for access to programming and having equitable staffing so that this experience is more the same. We do believe that if you went to it, if you're not aware, a 70% market share is equivalent to about 6,000 additional students.
[30:21] Based upon general fund and other categorical aid that you get, it's not an exact but just a ballpark number was estimated to be more than $50 million a year.
[30:31] But
[30:34] if you look at your current market share maps, remember we went through I'm looking at we went through the assessment and I went through market share.
[30:43] If you look at not where students go, if you look at where students live today.
[30:50] Students today in the south and southwest portions of your district are already at 70 and 83 percent market share.
[31:01] It's in the north and the northeast that you're in the fifties and the sixties.
[31:07] So part of what we're saying is that market share growth can provide advantages for you
[31:14] and we think it's a reasonable target but also to and you should organize your programming
[31:21] and your everything that you're doing to encourage and to get that growth.
[31:26] But also offer is that it's not going to happen across the district.
[31:31] It's going to be the market share growth most likely will be in the areas where you have the lowest market share today
[31:40] Because you could get market share growth where you have high market share today
[31:43] What it's going to do is it's going to it's going to be it's going to be tough to get that because
[31:50] 80s in the 70s is a reasonable
[31:54] Place to be 50s and 60s probably isn't if you did that it would be about
[32:00] An estimation of about 85% capacity utilization of your current facilities.
[32:08] And the reason for thinking about this because I got to ask the question this morning,
[32:11] well why don't we go for 80% right, said you don't have enough facilities.
[32:20] So what we're looking for is what's a midterm, what's a 70% with 85% utilization still gives
[32:26] you room for good academic programming, for good use of facilities.
[32:30] And if you begin to go above that 70% number overall, then you're going to have different
[32:37] capital needs to begin looking at.
[32:42] So I wanted to go through and explain that.
[32:44] And finally, key driver for was securing funding, excuse me, which is guess what, lead with
[32:51] driver number one.
[32:53] So trying to keep the main thing the main thing,
[32:57] you will over the next number of years need
[32:59] Do you need to assess, plan, and secure operating lovies?
[33:04] Is that probably accurate?
[33:06] I know you just approved one.
[33:09] I was just with the district doing approving an operating lovie last night.
[33:16] And I'd offer you when I find some really interesting things to think about.
[33:20] If you look back at in Minnesota and you look at your district over the last 12 to 14 years,
[33:26] We've had some of the lowest inflation in
[33:32] the economy that people remember.
[33:37] If state funding on the general fund side had kept up with that funding,
[33:44] it would equal about $600 more per student on the general fund.
[33:52] $600 times 30,000 students is real money.
[34:01] Districts more and more are being asked to go to their voters to ask to bridge that fundamental
[34:07] low increase in inflation gap, that's appeared.
[34:12] And in this state, districts are doing that to the tune of near zero, or as much as $2,000 per student.
[34:22] Unless there's a political change,
[34:26] I believe that I'm saying is that you're probably going to,
[34:29] districts are going to continue to have to do this and communities will continue to have to address the issue.
[34:35] In addition, you can go to the last one which is under funding a special education,
[34:40] which for you, how much of your general fund today do you use
[34:45] for bridging of special education funding?
[34:48] It's not a test.
[34:51] It's about just over $50 million, as well as the ELL funding formulas.
[34:58] So, what about the 6-
[35:00] I think your funding is actually to influence legislative action, to be active in the influencing of what happens at the legislature and what happens in the funding, because some of these funding things are as big for you in terms of funding as 6,000 more kids.
[35:22] So I think it's real. To assess and secure that, to implement core staff and in services model, as we said before.
[35:31] to look at, so part of what we've been doing, is looking at transportation in the eyes
[35:38] of not an expense to be reduced, but as an investment.
[35:43] How can you get a return to think about transportation as a return on investment?
[35:51] So can you use transportation, think of this, quarter mile less walk zones
[35:57] as actual investment to increase market share and funding and safety at the same time.
[36:07] And to align and balance your assumptions and services around your homeless and highly
[36:12] mobile, as well as special ad, to make sure that you are within law but in a way that you
[36:20] can sustain with resources and practices and not extending far beyond it.
[36:26] because the cost structure of doing that is quite high.
[36:31] So there's four key drivers and the next step is,
[36:37] we've just completed the first round of principles for them.
[36:42] We're going to be designing some draft design features as it says here
[36:46] to come to you in August and September, so August and September
[36:50] will be built upon assumptions we're talking about tonight.
[36:53] But I thought it might be good.
[36:55] I know it's taken a little bit of time to go through all four drivers.
[36:59] And then to see if there's before I ask you to turn and talk with each other,
[37:03] any questions of clarification on these?
[37:09] On the slides that I went through on one driver, one driver, two, three, or four?
[37:14] Yes.
[37:16] Thank you.
[37:16] I have a clarification on the transportation and one of the earlier drivers when you talk
[37:21] about decreasing the, or, you know, one mile, quarter mile, walk zone, and perhaps increasing choice within a particular area.
[37:31] I know that many of us has done that in the past, and I'm just wondering, maybe you alluded to it, but what is the impact?
[37:37] Do we know the impact on transportation?
[37:39] Is it, would it cost, has that been considered, would it cost significantly more?
[37:44] Is this considered kind of a transportation neutral?
[37:47] So the answer to the question, the answer to the question is the team is going to be
[37:58] coming together to take a look at that in more detail for the August and September work.
[38:03] But I would also offer is that's also linked to how you, where students go and are you attending
[38:14] getting locally or is everybody going away?
[38:16] As I said last time, about 76% of your students don't attend the near school.
[38:25] And so here's where it shifts, so I'm just going to give you an example that might explain.
[38:32] If you have a very short walk zone and there's access to more than one school in a zone,
[38:40] the busses can come and actually fill and deliver to two or three schools, come back and pick up more, but they're picking up all the kids, not the experience that you have in some of your neighborhoods.
[38:53] We have many buses coming every day, taking kids to other places, not full.
[38:59] Does that make sense?
[39:01] So they kind of go together.
[39:15] So I've got director Felder, director Ali, director Gagnon, director Walser, all right.
[39:23] Go ahead, director Felder.
[39:25] Thank you, churnes.
[39:27] I was just wondering what is the deadline for the plan?
[39:31] Because this build it reminds me of the 2020 plan, like what we want out of it.
[39:36] When is the deadline for the plan to come with the next steps to begin movement to make that happen?
[39:44] As laid out here, we're coming back to you in August and September with more specific design.
[39:52] We're going to be taking that out for public engagement and feedback.
[39:56] is the plant and the hope is that I believe is the coming back to it.
[40:00] Any questions on a more consolidated or more specific design? Okay, thank you. And then also just the maintenance schools, because I did grow up in Minneapolis Public Schools. I do know them to work, and I do know them to desegregate when they have stellar programming. So are we looking at what's going on now with maintenance schools?
[40:28] because they might not be getting what they used to get, or have access to those pieces.
[40:35] Because I still think that those are a huge draw.
[40:39] Right.
[40:40] And so I just wanted to know where you came up with the idea that they wouldn't be helpful to this program.
[40:47] The statement about magnet schools is only with respect to that specific statement with, it's in the line.
[40:55] It's only with respect to the statement about desegregation.
[40:58] It's not a statement that magnet schools are not helpful, or that magnet schools don't have a good design
[41:05] benefit for public schools.
[41:09] So I
[41:10] wouldn't admit I wouldn't interpret that as saying no magnet schools
[41:14] There will be magnet schools the quote with that design. That's what we'll be bringing to you in
[41:19] August and September is ideas about how that could play out. So I guess if I could my understanding of that is that
[41:28] We're not going to desegregate through magnet schools alone, basically it's what you're saying.
[41:32] That doesn't mean that we won't have magnet schools, but we're going to have to use other methods to desegregate.
[41:38] Or to look at your definition of desegregation.
[41:43] Okay, does that help?
[41:45] Okay, go ahead.
[41:48] You had brought up, well, I want, I mean, I'm interested to know what the public engagement is going to look like and what the marketing is going to look like.
[41:57] But just the public engagement piece, I guess we could cover now.
[42:00] But then also in key driver for you talked about that, we have to be in conversation about homeless and
[42:06] how they mobile.
[42:08] And I would like to see a little bit more action on that with us as a board and as a district.
[42:14] Because if we went down there with all of the superintendents and
[42:18] employees, as well as ourselves, as elected to make movement for the homeless and
[42:23] We would actually change things, we would change policies, and we would move those better.
[42:28] So is there a way that we can get some kind of action instead of just being in conversation and making more movement on that?
[42:38] I don't know, I don't know the specifics of the policy at this point, the policy impact.
[42:43] I will say is that in terms of the, I'll just offer you this, the details of public engagement and
[42:51] Like all the details of the next step are actually based upon the design and we're not quite there.
[42:56] So if you say what do we be doing in detail, I would say I would just wait until after this meeting and we get feedback from you and then we begin to build design and we'll probably in several weeks have a bit more detail to provide to the board.
[43:11] because I was just thinking instead of just adding more services and more
[43:16] resourcing on one end advocating and actually making change on the other end
[43:21] to know that out would be awesome.
[43:25] Okay.
[43:26] Director Ali.
[43:30] Thank you, Jennings.
[43:34] I look to proofs, right?
[43:37] Choose, bro.
[43:39] I'm sorry.
[43:40] That's.
[43:41] So my question to you is that you speak about market share increase, market share increase
[43:49] and you did say that students largely will be coming from North Minneapolis, North East.
[43:58] Can you a little bit talk more about that and I see that can you also highlight the demographic
[44:06] of those students?
[44:07] So, I would call you back to and we could make that information available.
[44:15] When we went through the comprehensive assessment, we mapped out for this year your actual
[44:22] market share across different grade levels by census block across the district.
[44:29] And in that, you will see that you, in rough numbers, you have market shares in the high
[44:39] 70s as an average.
[44:41] In the lower, I'll just say, third to half of the district.
[44:46] And then as you begin to go north, it begins to move into the 60s, into the 50s, and in
[44:53] in some cases in the 40s.
[45:00] You could see that is that where that would come would come from the north and the northeast, because the likelihood of increasing degrees of market share where you already have in the 70s and low 80s in most districts find that that that typically doesn't happen. It's where you have the market share that's the lowest right now.
[45:20] Is that make sense?
[45:28] But I would, this question also opens questions for another question which maybe is that like where?
[45:36] where potentially, if we don't, in other words, attract these students where these students will go or supposedly going.
[45:50] So where they're going right now is we identified the districts where they're open and rolling out.
[45:58] It's also where you have the highest concentration and the movement over the last five to seven years in the charter schools.
[46:05] those are the two dominant places where they're going and
[46:10] there's I think we identified for board members of three, the top three districts
[46:16] where they're enrolling out into which is about 75% of the students that enroll
[46:22] out and maybe if you if you want if you have interest in looking that in and more
[46:27] detail we could sit down and I can show you in the presentation exactly because I
[46:33] I'll show you a picture that would, it would show you right away.
[46:36] Thank you, thank you.
[46:40] Director Gagnon.
[46:44] Thank you.
[46:46] So a few things, the market
[46:52] sure piece, you're also looking at where students live versus where they attend.
[46:58] So it's deceiving if a school is 75% full, but 48% of those students don't live in the attendance area.
[47:08] So we've, yes, we've looked at that.
[47:10] So you've looked at, okay, this school has only 38% of kids living in the attendance area.
[47:15] So when you're saying, some schools only have 40% attending, we have schools with less than that for
[47:22] a fact attending those schools.
[47:24] So, okay, I just want to make sure, just because the school is 75% full doesn't mean that 75% of students that live in that attendance area.
[47:34] No, it's rather than the official attendance areas, it's almost completely determined by your transportation zones.
[47:42] So if you look at it-
[47:44] No, I get that.
[47:45] I just want to make sure when we're looking at market share, that it's very clear that we have
[47:53] schools that actually have a very small market share of their attendance area.
[47:59] of their tenants areas, and just, you know, we studied every school at every grade, at every student about where they come from and where they're going.
[48:08] Yeah. Okay. And, you know, the magnet school, I'm a little confused about the allowing kids two to three choices of school, community, you put, it's as community school to choose from, we don't have two or three community schools to choose from typically in a small geographic area.
[48:28] you might have a couple of magnet schools in the community school.
[48:31] So are you referring to magnet schools in that statement?
[48:35] Are you just referring to what we currently call a community school?
[48:39] Okay, so when I made that, that's a good fine point.
[48:44] When I'm making that statement, we are just looking at the array of schools that you have today.
[48:50] And you're calling them all community schools.
[48:52] I'm just saying that they're schools.
[48:53] We're not, we're just from a design perspective.
[48:56] We're not, we're just looking at all the schools that you have today.
[49:00] And just at this point, we haven't made, there isn't any design that gets in specifically of what schools, what programming work.
[49:07] Okay, well, I mean, that's a value statement.
[49:09] So I just want to be clear, that's not how we're set up, so that's a little confusing.
[49:15] So, yes, so, you were just saying, for example, in the Winnonekeewaiden area.
[49:22] Yeah, there's Winona, Kuwaitin, Dowling, Northrop, you know, whatever.
[49:28] And so you would put Dowling right in there as just a school building.
[49:31] It doesn't matter that it's a magnet.
[49:33] For the purposes of the presentation and the work that we're at right now, that's what we're looking at.
[49:39] All right, thank you for that clarification.
[49:44] And looking at the assessment that you've done, when you're looking at pathways and
[49:49] boundaries and current busing have
[50:00] You identified things that just really currently don't make sense that are missing, pathways are missing, or there's, we're losing students because of busing, or there are boundaries that,
[50:15] say, for instance, Pillsbury has a boundary that's very small, and it's almost starving the school.
[50:23] So have you found some glaring issues like that within your current data?
[50:28] Yeah.
[50:28] I think from a programming perspective, what I call the starts and stops of programming
[50:37] into a feeder design, we didn't find anything that the district wasn't already aware of.
[50:43] I mean, you're aware of your design.
[50:47] And so what we've tried to do is raise the question about from a parent's perspective, the stability
[50:54] of that feeder system, and does it make sense to quote what I call start and stop.
[51:00] If there isn't a place, if there isn't a feeder for that, that's easy to access.
[51:07] The second is that we've done, and I've gone through the details with the administrative
[51:12] team, if you take a look at the design of your transportation zones, which is what I would
[51:18] call an accumulated design, there's a lot of story behind the transportation zones.
[51:24] I would just say that the number of students that are going to schools are heavily determined
[51:35] by the transportation zones because there's so few kids outside of the transportation zones
[51:41] that go to any school.
[51:43] So the transportation zones, which I talked to several months ago, is one of the highest
[51:49] predictors of how many students and where students go.
[51:52] And by transportation zone you are strictly referring to area A, B, and C and magnet school pathways.
[52:00] No, I'm referring to the actual transportation zones for every one of the schools.
[52:07] Right, which is based on the attendance area of the school and the area A, B, and C and where the magnet schools are located.
[52:13] Right, and some of them are district-wide, some of them are regional, there's a variety of designs.
[52:23] Is there a place that lists out, because we keep talking about equitable programming offerings?
[52:32] Is there a place that does list out programming across pathways, across our zones, that says these high schools?
[52:43] Because I know like our high school choice catalog, which is great because it's one catalog.
[52:48] log it'll show what classes are which high schools.
[52:52] Do we have that across our schools so that when we are talking about building equitable programming,
[52:58] we know what we currently have and we know what are then what we need to work towards?
[53:05] Dr. Gagan, we do have that information through the handbooks, but I don't think it is clearly identifiable.
[53:13] When I think about what that pathway would look like, you would be able to see a continuation
[53:19] of an elementary to a middle to a high school, you would see a clear articulation of the zone and how that would follow the student.
[53:28] You can figure it out by kind of connecting the dots and looking at everything.
[53:35] But I think that's part of the challenge that I feel we need to address is giving clarity around the programming that's offered.
[53:42] So how can we fix it if we don't like have, if we haven't mapped out done an audit of our current programming?
[53:49] I think we know what is out there, but it's not easily discernible.
[53:54] And I think that's part of what we have to provide clarification around.
[53:58] Okay, so maybe, I mean, I'm talking maybe just starting at a basic level of here are K5s,
[54:04] community schools, here are K5, IB schools, here are K5.
[54:08] So we have that right and these K5 I'll have an art class and a music class and
[54:18] A B and C core classes right so and then you literally list out everything that's
[54:28] everything that's available and what schools have what and then you'll just see what's missing.
[54:33] So I think that visual would be very helpful so that when we talk about equitable offerings because one thing we have done is we have looked at language pathways, we have looked at music pathways, nor side principles are doing a fantastic job of ensuring that there is more consistency in their pathways across their schools.
[54:53] And so I just want when we say it without any context, people then maybe jump to conclusions.
[54:59] Thank you.
[55:00] That we are missing, like we have huge gaps where there literally are no programs in certain areas like they always jump to arts or sports options or whatever. So is there a way to create that visual, create that opportunity so that we can understand what currently exists? I think we can put some time to that and look at it. I think the other thing I would offer is that this is where I think the board's work is really important. We can take a look at what we have.
[55:29] But I think it's also important for us to get input around what is valued.
[55:34] So you may find that we're looking at this information and going, yeah, we have gaps here, here and here.
[55:41] But the question is, do we even value what we have currently?
[55:44] Is there a value to what we're doing currently that we want to maintain?
[55:47] So another way to look at it would be to say, what do you value?
[55:51] I can tell you things that I value that I would expect to see in every one of our schools.
[55:55] And I would work towards declaring what those are.
[55:57] And then we can cross reference that with what we currently have and prioritize, you know, and so if I came up with 10 things that I expect to see in every one of our elementary schools, and then I look at the existing practice of what we have, then I'm not going to what's currently in place, but I'm actually making a strong statement around these are things that we have committed to based on values that we think should not be subject to the decision of an individual school leader or a community.
[56:29] So getting those values allows us to then cross reference that with what is occurring in every one of our schools and if we find out that in one school there's six of the ten things and another there's one of the ten things, then we will begin the conversation on okay, let's prioritize those, you know, should we see three in every one of our schools over the next year or two, you know, or is that too long of a weight, should we expect to see, you know, three in the next year in the budget process.
[56:56] So I think there are a couple of ways we can look at it, but your point to say what do we currently have is I think part of our challenge right now is that we are not able to articulate what it currently looks like on paper, and that's one of the things I want to certainly have be an outcome from this process, but going forward, I think that speaks to what parents will want when they can see that the expectation is they will get this in their school.
[57:22] And it will either lead to an outcome, or it will matriculate to a new pathway that they can plan for with some consistency.
[57:32] And it will not be left to, again, a process of an annual budgeting unless it comes through a directive from the board around what the guidance is or clear communication from the administration saying this was priority number 10 on our list.
[57:51] We're going to make sure we fund these other nine priorities of what we said should be in our schools.
[57:57] So then you get I think a level of confidence, predictability, security,
[58:04] planning, stability, all those things that Mr.
[58:09] Cheesebrow alluded to at the beginning that helped build your market share and your infrastructure.
[58:17] So we'll just have to look at what that would look like if we were to put it together.
[58:20] But I will tell you that getting a scope of those non-negotiables would be helpful.
[58:27] I mean, if we are saying we want everything, that will be a little challenging.
[58:30] But if we're saying we want to have a good understanding of what our music and
[58:34] finite arts offerings are at the elementary level, if we want to talk about what is our
[58:41] counselor or our media specialist look like.
[58:45] I mean, that would, I can come up with probably six or seven things in the elementary
[58:50] I think the reason that that is helpful is whenever we go through these processes we start
[58:57] to throw out value statements like equitable offerings.
[59:01] So when we say we need equitable offerings the assumption that is we don't have them.
[59:06] So to be able to share with people what we currently have and what that, if a school has
[59:16] a 1 to 90 councilor ratio and another has a 1 to 450 councilor ratio.
[59:21] If schools literally do have arts programming and then some have a band and some have a marching band and some have a choir, the one with the band doesn't have a choir still looks like equity.
[59:34] That school chose to have choir or a violence section.
[59:37] I just think we need to be very careful because we're using a huge value statement phrase.
[59:42] we need to ensure equitable offering, which makes people believe we don't have that currently.
[59:47] Now we may not, but I want to make sure that this process doesn't do exactly the opposite
[59:53] of what we're trying to do and destroy trust. That's what I hear is destroying trust and buy in.
[1:00:00] We're currently doing and say, if we're saying we need to increase equitable offering, we need to ensure equitable offering. We need to be able to show we have equitable offering. I think that's a very different statement than, and it makes a lot more sense when we go out to the community in September, October, with what do you think? And they want to make sure you know what the school's currently have, too. Sometimes the school doesn't even think we know what's going on in that school.
[1:00:30] because we have so many school programs and we have a lot going on.
[1:00:34] And I guess the other thing I hear from all this, I hear it once again.
[1:00:40] Davis not as a support center but as a top-down decision maker.
[1:00:44] I don't hear autonomy in schools, I don't hear self-governed, I don't see full service community schools.
[1:00:49] I don't hear community partnership schools, I don't hear slight governance anywhere in any of this.
[1:00:54] I hear Davis is going to make a decision, the board's going to make a decision.
[1:00:57] And we're going to, you know, preserve as much as possible how do you say coordinated uniqueness?
[1:01:03] But we're going to tell you what that looks like.
[1:01:06] So this really worries me because what I would prefer is that Davis is a support center that answers the call to have support academic support services, professional development, photocopying whatever it is.
[1:01:24] But the school leaders, the school site council, the communities are governing the schools, are driving that and I don't hear that in this, in any of them.
[1:01:35] I would say that that's probably intentional because what you described is what we currently have and as a superintendent, if that's the direction the board wants to continue down, where we have, you know,
[1:01:47] So, schools as the decision makers and offering up what they feel is needed and our job is to make photocopies.
[1:01:59] Then I think we need to have a serious conversation because I didn't come here to offer my guidance and support of what is needed in the schools.
[1:02:07] I'm really trying to make sure that there's a level of accountability.
[1:02:10] And as Mr. Cheesebrough mentioned at the beginning, who's accountable, what's your role, what's your responsibility?
[1:02:15] I don't think it is incumbent upon the principal to be the person who has to develop the budget who has to determine what curriculum they're going to be providing in their school, support the professional development, manage the community conversations, and then call us when they need us to make copies.
[1:02:33] I really think we have to have some level of oversight and accountability and I'm not saying take away the decisions that are going to be made on a regular basis.
[1:02:41] but I've not seen a district in my experience that has been successful providing that level of autonomy in a public educational system and still yield results that everyone can stand up and feel good about when you look at all of the students and what they're achieving or what they're given access to.
[1:03:01] So I, I hear what you're saying, but I would, I would say that's the conversation we need to have.
[1:03:07] You know, that's really, if that's the direction the board wants to go, then I think we need to take a pause and really process that because I think there are many schools that are doing just that right now, and they're doing the best they can, and they feel good about some of the things, but they also feel challenged that they're not getting the support they need.
[1:03:25] And that's just my observation in the two years that I've been here working with some of the school leaders.
[1:03:32] So I think that's part of the conversation, also, what specifically those things are.
[1:03:38] I mean, that's a long conversation.
[1:03:40] And-
[1:03:41] What does that mean that's a long conversation, though?
[1:03:43] I mean, it's longer than August, or-
[1:03:47] No, I just think it's not just about what specifically-
[1:03:52] Well, it is about what specifically is the direction of the Davis Center and what is the under the guidance of the schools and what those specific things are.
[1:04:03] So that's, it's a, it's a broad conversation, I guess I would say, rather than a long one.
[1:04:09] Anyway, what I wanted to say was that we have 25 minutes that we've budgeted so far more for this discussion.
[1:04:16] And we have two other board members that would like to speak.
[1:04:21] And I know you have some activities planned for us as well.
[1:04:25] So-
[1:04:26] Just one short comment, that is-
[1:04:30] By understand your concerns, I would not characterize this as Davis Center top down.
[1:04:42] Nor would I interpret that.
[1:04:45] And maybe it wasn't the most elegant language, but there is not an assumption of not good work going.
[1:04:53] There's not an assumption that there isn't good work going on.
[1:05:00] District? And that there isn't fine programming going on in the district. We're trying to use design language that is not going out and making those judgments. And maybe it's being interpreted as a judgment, but it's not intended to be a judgment. We're trying to say what are some of the goals? So when we say equitable, it's the goal. It's not a statement of inequity. Okay. Thank you, Mr. Shesbach. Okay. We have Director Walzer and Director Samuels would also like to ask some questions.
[1:05:29] Thank you, Gerryons.
[1:05:33] Early on, and I can't remember if it was with respect to one of the slides particular or in your sort of preamble.
[1:05:41] You referred, you spoke specifically about reducing variability and you made a statement, I didn't get it exactly, increase achievement by reducing variability.
[1:05:51] And I'd like to hear you expand on what you mean by that in two ways.
[1:05:57] First of all, achievement measured how in terms of what, what does that word mean in that context?
[1:06:05] And what kind of variability are you talking about?
[1:06:08] Could you elaborate on this, please?
[1:06:10] Yes, I can.
[1:06:11] What I'm talking about in terms of achievement is some of the standard student growth achievement that most districts employ.
[1:06:18] as well as what some districts are now doing in terms of achievement or development of social
[1:06:25] emotional skills. So I'm speaking in those areas about the formative growth and sometimes
[1:06:33] proficiency but more growth and proficiency, right?
[1:06:38] If you want to take the typical road
[1:06:40] you may have.
[1:06:40] Will it be the measures that you would use?
[1:06:43] Well, it depends what the growth districts use a wide variety of growth methodologies and
[1:06:50] an assessment, but it's in the growth assessments and the typical core subjects as well as social
[1:06:55] emotional.
[1:06:56] The point I was trying to make is that the variability in the classroom experience across
[1:07:03] engagement, instruction, differentiation, curriculum, many times the variability between classrooms
[1:07:13] terms, and between schools is one of the sources of not being able to move that growth, or one of the sources of the achievement gap, and typically we find when districts dive into, they find that there's greater variability between those classrooms, and that is the source of moving the achievement gap.
[1:07:34] Could you provide some research to support that statement?
[1:07:40] I'll do my best.
[1:07:42] I'd appreciate it.
[1:07:42] Thank you.
[1:07:45] Director Samuels.
[1:07:49] Yeah.
[1:07:50] Thank you.
[1:07:52] A couple of questions.
[1:07:53] One is the whole issue of culture and relevancy of instruction, et cetera, where the child sees
[1:08:07] here as himself, and wondering to what degree is class being included in culture.
[1:08:23] So for instance, a school that's in a predominantly low-income community where there are certain
[1:08:33] skills at home and an environment of academics which is not as strong as
[1:08:41] another community. Is that considered culture or is that different? It's part of
[1:08:48] culture. Okay and so when we when we talk about culture meaning child can see
[1:09:00] themselves to a certain degree it could be possible that a school
[1:09:14] that's then culturally
[1:09:15] relevant would be compensating for some things, the absence of some assets, not affirming
[1:09:27] with them, right? Because when you think of culture, you think of affirmation,
[1:09:34] right?
[1:09:35] And when you think of class, you might also think of compensation.
[1:09:41] So what offer is that the cultural relevance is an aspect of the student or families that
[1:09:49] they feel that they're welcomed when they're there, that this is more, this is of us, without
[1:09:56] without being a limiter of the possibilities.
[1:10:00] And then there's this other aspect where the children in one, and I'm thinking that this is part of the flight issue from schools, is that parents who have certain needs, need certain accommodations for their children might find that somewhere else other than in the public school. And that might be related to,
[1:10:31] to the parents needing, needing some things provided that they might not be able to provide
[1:10:37] themselves.
[1:10:39] I would agree with that and so that I would offer then the question is, can the schools
[1:10:46] number one, can they understand that difference or uniqueness and can you respond to it versus
[1:10:55] just recognizing it?
[1:10:59] The other question I have is this whole quarter mile deal.
[1:11:04] Is that then making sure that kids within a quarter mile of the school are inspired to
[1:11:13] under-tending that school, are you talking about adding schools?
[1:11:19] At this time, we are not looking, I mean, that discussion of adding facilities has not
[1:11:27] not come up. Okay. But what we're talking about is not just students within the quarter
[1:11:32] mile we're talking about is an overall walk zones. Right. That they or the quarter mile
[1:11:38] or less. The concept was to frame the conversation about seeing transportation as within ROI versus
[1:11:49] as an expense, and how could transportation, can transportation and the issue of safety
[1:11:56] help deserve a response to that both for families and students that achieve the goals
[1:12:03] that we were talking about.
[1:12:05] So if you're just looking at it as an expense and you look at your half mile or one mile
[1:12:11] walk zones, it'd be just fine.
[1:12:14] So the question that I raised is transportation an option for which you'd get a positive
[1:12:18] of response if you looked at it differently.
[1:12:21] And that's where the conversation came up with,
[1:12:23] why don't we just, for the Board's discussion,
[1:12:26] say a quarter mile or less,
[1:12:27] because it is a marked difference from what we're doing.
[1:12:30] Okay, I see what you mean.
[1:12:32] And the administrators could say that would change things.
[1:12:35] And the response back in a positive way,
[1:12:39] both from the experience of families and students,
[1:12:42] but also hopefully in terms of market share.
[1:12:46] Okay.
[1:12:46] So my understanding of that is that the students in the walk zones,
[1:12:53] they're more apt to attend a school if they can get transportation to it.
[1:12:57] So the way to increase the access to transportation is to shrink the walk zone sort of.
[1:13:03] That is, but that's my understanding.
[1:13:05] If safety is the issue, you address it by providing transportation.
[1:13:11] And that doesn't necessarily mean you have to go far away.
[1:13:17] So we have a district who are looking at transportation differently.
[1:13:22] I understand that where I work in St. Paul, in some cases the buses do go to more than one school.
[1:13:30] And I mean, that's already kind of happening in St. Paul.
[1:13:32] Yeah, and in some districts what they found is that you actually can run the buses more efficiently by going to more than one school in what's called looping.
[1:13:42] And you actually can manage your start and stop times, for example.
[1:13:47] It's about how do you look at your transportation differently, and we've had some great conversations with some of the team members about looking at different options.
[1:13:56] And that's what the purpose of that is.
[1:13:58] Okay, one last question.
[1:13:59] And then I'll have you-
[1:14:00] Yeah, when we think of charter schools as competition, if you want to put it that way.
[1:14:09] We tend to think, I believe, as students of color,
[1:14:17] leaving for schools that are ethnically sensitive for whatever.
[1:14:25] But the stats show that, really, the biggest flight is white kids, right?
[1:14:33] Why are they leaving?
[1:14:35] Is it charter schools?
[1:14:36] schools.
[1:14:39] I don't have off the top of my head, the difference between the students based
[1:14:45] on race going, let's say out of district to charter schools. I don't have that right
[1:14:50] on the top of my head. But that's a question.
[1:14:53] Yeah, that's a question I have.
[1:15:00] Okay. All right. I just have one question and this is to Director Dagnan's sort of question as well. Could you give me an example of a coordinated uniqueness, a specific example so that I could maybe have a better understanding of what that might mean in the case of like two to three community schools in an area and what coordinated uniqueness would look like? So, in fact, the coordinated uniqueness, in fact, I think Director Gagan actually gave an example of that, is that you could
[1:15:29] You'd say you have core programming in all schools, with core staffing.
[1:15:34] But you may have one area where if you just talk about elementary schools,
[1:15:39] one elementary school says we'd like to offer additional programming or
[1:15:42] services here, let's say in music or arts.
[1:15:46] You might have three different schools choosing three different
[1:15:51] other than core services because it fits those families,
[1:15:56] those students, and what they're looking for.
[1:15:57] On another way of thinking coordinated uniqueness, you might have languages offered in different
[1:16:03] schools because it's what the local community says we'd like to have offered.
[1:16:09] So you might have uniqueness in programming and services in schools that are above or beyond
[1:16:13] the core.
[1:16:14] And then the question is, is great idea?
[1:16:17] Can the district support that in a sustainable way over time?
[1:16:23] which is why we suggested that one of the ways of helping that is to make sure that there's a link between the local decision making and what I would call the filter of is this sustainable so that you don't make a decision one year then find out it can't be sustained and it disappears and the parents go what happened with that.
[1:16:43] So, coordinated, my mean, my coordinated is to coordinate it is not controlled, is how can you encourage uniqueness, and yet have it coordinated across the way so that you meet your district goals of sustainability and consistency?
[1:17:00] I guess, in some cases, always the tragedy is that you can't have everything, right?
[1:17:08] So when things are coordinated, right, that means for some people that feels like control
[1:17:15] specifically when maybe you can't get something that you want. Right, right. So the reality is
[1:17:22] is that very few districts can offer everything to everybody everywhere in the way they want.
[1:17:29] not. Very few but there are some.
[1:17:35] There there I can offer you the pattern. It's very
[1:17:40] very consistent. The pattern is they're moderate to small and they're very wealthy. And
[1:17:46] they are and the local taxpayers are doing things like paying an extra $2,000 per student.
[1:17:53] All right, so what I'd like to do is in our time that we have is, and it's very short, could you turn to the people around you?
[1:18:02] And very, and I'm going to ask the same questions that we asked last time, but fewer.
[1:18:07] Number one, what are the strengths that you see in the drivers and
[1:18:12] the things that were presented to you tonight, and do you have ideas to improve?
[1:18:17] So what are the strengths and what ideas do you have to improve, and
[1:18:21] And like we did last time with people turned in groups of twos and threes, and I think if we take a look at this,
[1:18:28] you have just about 10 minutes or so, and then we'll just canvass and see what your feedback is.
[1:18:36] Thank you.
[1:18:40] It's a great. Yeah, they're doing great. Yeah, they're doing community at stuff. So they've been enjoying their time at age
[1:18:49] middle school. I think they go there in the afternoon. They love it.
[1:18:58] I'm doing my best to have something just around through the engagement and what that was like
[1:19:03] because I'm marketing for a very very long time.
[1:19:06] Oh yes.
[1:19:08] Either in our community engagement is still so in some areas and so like having a better
[1:25:04] So, let's just take two more minutes, and then we'll get some feedback.
[1:25:58] So, if we can come back together based upon the time, if the different groups could just provide. If you have, if you have written feedback that you'd like to provide. So, if the groups have written feedback that would you'd like to provide, I'm going to ask maybe you provide that to Jesse. And he can get the feedback to us.
[1:26:22] But if you just like to cover some of the maybe one or two strengths and ideas to improve that you talked about just to get a sampling, if this group would like to go first?
[1:26:33] Sure. Do you want us to just do one or two?
[1:26:35] Just one or two strengths and one or two ideas to improve that you talked about.
[1:26:40] Okay. We talked about that we like that it acknowledges creating a baseline and that it's really thinking about the basics that each child should have and is being intentional about delivering that.
[1:26:50] And it has a commitment to the feeder program and kind of lining those things and equitable
[1:26:55] access.
[1:26:56] So those were kind of the theme that we had.
[1:27:00] And then we talked about how we didn't talk a lot about the area's temperature.
[1:27:07] We talked about increased consistent community engagement and the how on the market share
[1:27:12] will be important.
[1:27:13] And market share.
[1:27:16] And again, if you have some written notes that you'd like to forward, then just you can
[1:27:20] get the more complete notes that was done last time was very helpful, okay?
[1:27:26] From you, this group?
[1:27:30] Okay, we like the consistency in messaging, and also that there was a strategy for enrollment
[1:27:40] based on data around demographics rather than just like hoping that academic improve in the
[1:27:49] achievement gap improves and that will drive enrollment increases.
[1:27:53] This is actually based on things that we can see and know are happening right now.
[1:27:59] And then sort of a pro and con was that this is ongoing.
[1:28:08] So there's continuing feedback being received, which is good, but also we need to have some leadership and move forward as well.
[1:28:18] So that's sort of a flux that we're looking at.
[1:28:24] And also that there needs to be more specific.
[1:28:27] specific.
[1:28:34] So we had just two to note the strengths. I think the concept of the messaging
[1:28:38] we found to be strong. We had a message that we could communicate around what we were
[1:28:43] looking at at the vision. The idea is to improve, I think, the language and definition of some
[1:28:49] of the communication is going to be an area of challenge. I think Director Gagin's point
[1:28:55] was well taken around how we interpret what that means, the implicit or unknown.
[1:29:02] So, I think moving forward, figuring out a way to have those conversations when something comes up and what does that really mean?
[1:29:10] What does it really mean? What is it? What is the intent of it? What does it really mean?
[1:29:14] And then how do we, as a board and organization, land on that?
[1:29:20] Because we can sit in that space and find ourselves not moving forward.
[1:29:24] So, I think we have to figure out how we improve that.
[1:29:29] So coordinated and uniqueness might be a correct technical term, but lousy for communicating forward.
[1:29:35] I think that might be, yes.
[1:29:37] We need to drop that phrase.
[1:29:38] Was that my interpretation, accurate interpretation?
[1:29:41] Okay.
[1:29:42] Thank you.
[1:29:43] The other thing I'll add is that, and then there's a caution when you try to give an example of it,
[1:29:48] that that example becomes an expectation of what you're trying to do.
[1:29:52] And so, how do you find that balance of describing something without predetermining
[1:29:57] predetermining what that's going to look like.
[1:30:00] And just as you all know, that sometimes the language you do in the design is not the language you do during delivery. Because you do have to translate it for implementation and for public and for staff. And next group. So, well, and yes, and the thing with that is because of open meeting law, this is all delivery. So, you know, our language, it's very hard when we're talking about something at a design governance level and people are hearing it in their own way.
[1:30:30] way, and it's not meant to be the engagement conversation yet, so yeah, it's complicated.
[1:30:38] The positive that we talked about was the, you know, key driver number one is have great
[1:30:43] schools with that give a pathway to graduating someone who has access to the value system
[1:30:55] that we say we want of an MPS grad, and if you have that then you'll attract students.
[1:31:01] That as the core key driver and the returning key driver I think is absolutely key.
[1:31:07] I agree if you're trying to force integration, you're trying to force something without saying
[1:31:12] we fundamentally know we have a great product.
[1:31:15] So that I think was the positive that we decided and sometimes choice in the educational
[1:31:24] A national context is a national narrative that's driven by something that may not be best for students.
[1:31:31] So the best choice needs to be what is best for students.
[1:31:36] And if we have those best choices, then people will choose Minneapolis Public Schools,
[1:31:39] whether it's a Montessori or a community school.
[1:31:43] So that was a positive, I think we had two negatives, I think articulate something you said better than I can.
[1:31:51] But the one that I will say or two things to consider would be we're making an assumption that people aren't choosing us because they have found a better choice because that choice is offering that strong core academic or whatever it is.
[1:32:11] That's we know that's not true people are choosing because they don't want to go to school with black kids or they're choosing because they don't want to go they want to bus picking them up in front of their house.
[1:32:20] or they want a better sports team or they want an art center that looks like a
[1:32:25] dinosaur art center and not hours. So let's just be really honest about why
[1:32:31] people are choosing. Why are there so many all-white charter schools in
[1:32:38] the
[1:32:39] urban core? Because people are choosing that versus their community high school
[1:32:45] community middle school. Let's be honest. So I want to be very very careful when
[1:32:51] And we're making decisions that decide, we're going to create this wonderful school that has all the bells and whistles and it still has the same students there.
[1:33:01] People aren't choosing that school for what reason because it doesn't have the bells and whistles.
[1:33:05] So let's just be really, that's a hard conversation to have and let's have it because this will be for not if we do these things and
[1:33:12] make these changes and make these investments and people still don't come because that's what we have been doing for seven years.
[1:33:18] We have been making changes in investments in IB and environmental science and career paths and IBCC and so forth, are people coming to the schools.
[1:33:29] So let's be really careful about that.
[1:33:35] Yeah, it was just in our conversation, we were talking about specifics about what the great offerings that we have at a number of our high schools.
[1:33:46] And realizing that the marketing challenge to high school is kind of different than to elementary school and that
[1:33:51] That might be something that we want to incorporate in the plan
[1:33:56] All right, I try to thank you very much for both
[1:34:00] Going through the details of these four drivers as well as your feedback and again our hope is that
[1:34:07] And what we're planning on is that we'll get back to you coming back to now as you're saying, you know ongoing but not going on
[1:34:15] that we come back to you with more details and specifics
[1:34:18] that you can kind of then answer some,
[1:34:20] I think, of the detailed questions.
[1:34:22] In closing, what we're trying to do is simply this.
[1:34:26] The vision for the daily experience in the graduate
[1:34:28] is the foundation that everything is trying to make happen.
[1:34:31] We're trying to get these fundamentals drivers on top of that.
[1:34:36] If we agree that this makes sense as a way to move forward,
[1:34:40] it's going to drive the design.
[1:34:42] I would just want to make sure there was fundamentally, and it sounds like pretty much on the same page with the drivers.
[1:34:49] Now the design will be built on top of that, and that's going to be another level of feedback and consultation.
[1:34:55] So I turn it back to the board chair.
[1:34:58] Okay, go ahead, super.
[1:35:00] As I described earlier around, some of those core programming offerings. We'll take a look at that from the elementary, what we can with middle school and high school. But want to make sure we have that information for the board. Yes, I have that. All right. Thank you. All right. Just can you have one brief question. Okay. Go ahead. Just one more brief question from director Felder. Is there any way we can get like a bell curve or percentage for the schools when we look at the schools like with the
[1:35:29] most programming or with the most sports athletics, and they get a certain score.
[1:35:35] And then just kind of like rate each school all the way.
[1:35:41] I mean, that goes on quite a lot like the mobile program.
[1:35:43] Maybe we can, they can talk to you offline about your specific data request.
[1:35:50] And we can do it, is that okay?
[1:35:53] We can work on that with you.
[1:35:55] Okay, we'll work on that one.
[1:36:00] Okay, thank you very much, Mr. Cheesebrow.
[1:36:02] Now we have our school culture and climate quarter three update.
[1:36:07] Dr. Brooks, please come forward.
[1:36:38] Good evening, Superintendent Graf, Chair and Board Directors.
[1:36:41] Thank you for this opportunity to share a little bit of work that we're engaging in as a district around restorative practices,
[1:36:48] bully prevention and response and our staff development plan.
[1:36:51] We know we're limited on time, so we'll do our best to cover some high components that we thought that you might be interested in.
[1:36:57] Today, who's sharing the dialogue with me and my colleagues, Dr. Keith Brooks, Julie Young Burns, and Jason Matlock.
[1:37:03] We wanted to start off by kind of talking a little bit about the fact that we are, right now, we currently have a moratorium on K-5-9 violence suspensions.
[1:37:11] And wanted to make sure that that was clarified.
[1:37:14] And in this work, with staff to create a safe environment conducive to learning, we kind of look at all the pieces that take that to make it happen.
[1:37:21] So that would include creating a positive school culture,
[1:37:24] restorative practices, support, and training people in that work,
[1:37:28] as well as looking at the procedures we have for bully prevention and incident response.
[1:37:33] We think that that's important to make sure we're having that as the ground level for all staff.
[1:37:37] And in our current PD practices, that is a requirement for staff to do.
[1:37:42] And then we work with the schools to start the implementation of that work as well.
[1:37:45] Thank
[1:37:51] you, good evening, everyone chair, superintendent, and directors.
[1:37:57] Although student support services is the host department for this presentation,
[1:38:02] I at least wanted to acknowledge the collaborative efforts of numerous other areas and
[1:38:06] divisions, namely emergency management safety and security, special education,
[1:38:12] research, evaluation accountability, and assessment.
[1:38:16] And I'll skip a few points to get to some of the other high-level areas.
[1:38:23] First, talking about looking at data and the way that this work comes together.
[1:38:29] We've reflected on our school climate surveys, for example, to get a sense of where we are and where we need to go.
[1:38:36] A few of the areas that we focus on in terms of dynamics are student-student relationships, student-to-teacher relationships, school safety.
[1:38:44] and perceptions that students have of fairness of school consequences as well as a student
[1:38:49] sense of connectedness to school. Some of these aspects, as you know, already are difficult
[1:38:56] to quantify, but we're committed to creating and maintaining a welcoming, fun, and healthy
[1:39:03] learning environment for all students, staff, and any visitors to our schools. Notice that
[1:39:09] And I said fun, as a parent of two, 11 and five year old boys, that's my first question
[1:39:15] every day when I see them.
[1:39:17] And you know, what was fun at school today?
[1:39:20] And I understand as a parent that if they're not enjoying the space that most likely learning
[1:39:26] isn't taking place as much as it should or could.
[1:39:29] One of the partners, the district, is playworks and the executive director of playworks,
[1:39:38] Shana
[1:39:41] So recess is the largest classroom on the elementary level where students learn and practice
[1:39:47] social and emotional learning.
[1:39:49] The play is also a catalyst for pop-
[1:40:00] A positive component of the school experience, which promotes social emotional learning, development, and safety, and also engagement. So, the district has partnered with playworks for a few years now, and has seen an increase in student participation in academic activities, as well as cooperation. We've seen a decrease in bullying, and also conflict spilling over into the classroom. And also additional funders have expressed interest in helping us to
[1:40:29] to scale up our relationship with playworks as well.
[1:40:34] Something else that we can quantify is the suspension rates of students.
[1:40:38] In terms of growth and improvement, we're working on how we approach and interact with all students,
[1:40:43] but especially those who we are not collectively serving as
[1:40:47] excellently as we're capable of.
[1:40:49] More specifically, students who are Native American, African American, and students in special education.
[1:40:54] And so I, as a staff member, must foster a space of cultural humility that helps me reflect
[1:41:01] on what I bring to the workspace, addressing operating assumptions and belief systems and
[1:41:06] values, the impact how I interact with students as well as fellow staff.
[1:41:12] So for example, at one of the aspects that I observed at the most recent, social emotional
[1:41:17] emotional learning and equity conference is how Chicago Public Schools has increased student engagement through civic engagement and they've increased an elevated student voice and it's made a world of difference for school culture and climate.
[1:41:33] But to do this, I have to be real in myself about the power dynamics that are at play and how to share power to ensure that students see school as a space that they are connected to in a positive way.
[1:41:44] very briefly and then I'll pass the microphone.
[1:41:47] I want to talk a little bit about the positive school-wide engagement district program facilitators
[1:41:51] and they are also here today and they operate in three primary areas and that's coaching staff
[1:41:59] facilitation and consultation.
[1:42:01] They do coaching around the behavior standards policy as well as the level of behaviors and
[1:42:06] interventions and responses.
[1:42:08] They have done quite a bit of coaching and training with the positive school-wide engagement leads
[1:42:12] at the school site and the equity leads at the school site, as well as working on conflict resolution and mediation and in terms of consultation.
[1:42:21] They also assist with discovery usage and critical incident recovery support and collaboration with emergency management and safety response department as well.
[1:42:35] So, I'll mention lastly, I'll skip a little bit.
[1:42:43] When I think about restorative practices, it's most effective when there is a focus
[1:42:49] on maintaining a relationship and focusing on the proactive aspects.
[1:42:55] Although it may not process that way in individual's mind sometimes, many people assume that restorative
[1:43:00] practices means putting something back together or how do I put something back together?
[1:43:05] But in actuality, it's how to keep the relationship together before there is a breach.
[1:43:10] So, our goal on the public school wide engagement team is to share what effective and promising
[1:43:15] practices look like for each impacted students and staff.
[1:43:19] I'm glad to say that we have two restored or practices grants that we're working on.
[1:43:23] One is from the Minnesota Department of Education.
[1:43:25] One is from the Minnesota Department of Human Services.
[1:43:29] One grant was for three high schools, which are South, Southwest, and Edison.
[1:43:34] And the fourth high school with the other grant is a diversion approach to ensure that students do not get caught up in the law enforcement activities in terms of, you know, any violations are getting caught up in the system sort of speed.
[1:43:51] And that school is Roosevelt.
[1:43:52] So at this time, I'll ask Julie to share briefly about Bullying Prevention and Response
[1:43:59] Tools and after that, Jason will share briefly about the Climate and Safety Advisory Committee
[1:44:04] that he and I co-chaired this year as well as Safety Planning and Critical Incident Response.
[1:44:10] Good evening.
[1:44:12] Thank you for the opportunity to talk with you about what we do for Bullying Prevention
[1:44:16] and Response, how that work is linked with our social and emotional learning and restorative
[1:44:21] practices work and how the intersection of a truly response plan helps promote safety
[1:44:27] for our students and families.
[1:44:29] The plans that we use to guide the work of our fully prevention and response come from
[1:44:34] two aspects.
[1:44:36] One is the Safe and Affordable Schools Act that came to us in spring of 2014, which provides
[1:44:41] very specific guidance about what happens in a classroom, what happens in a school, the
[1:44:47] role and responsibility of the principal, the opportunities for families and students
[1:44:51] to make impact, to report, and to bring concerns forward when they don't feel like things
[1:44:57] are turning out as they had hoped.
[1:44:59] We're very lucky.
[1:45:00] I would like you to have been able to have many representatives, both students and staff that helped participate to create the language of that law. And so it's gratifying to see it in action now. We also have a very robust bullying and harassment prevention policy. And that too uses much language that refers back to the Safe and Supportive Schools Act. When we talk about the things that we do, we talk about the training requirements that are covered in that act.
[1:45:29] In fact, things specific to common language, common practices, role-specific interventions recognizing that each of us as staff have a responsibility to intervene if we see a potential bullying or harassment issue happen to reported accordingly and to sure that young people feel safe in this space until a support plan can be put in place.
[1:45:51] The rules and laws related to the regulation also talk about use of social emotional learning
[1:45:59] as a prevention strategy.
[1:46:01] We know that when young people have the opportunity to learn what to do, not just what not to
[1:46:05] do, and actually really flex those muscles of empathy, kindness, positive conflict resolution,
[1:46:12] and perspective taking, we know that there's a great reduction in the incidence of bullying.
[1:46:18] If I know what I have in common with someone else if I see that we have the same passions
[1:46:23] and joys and interests, I'm less likely to hurt you, to harm you, to take out my frustration
[1:46:28] on you.
[1:46:29] But if I'm connected to you, I'm also more likely to feel like I can support you if I see
[1:46:34] something tough happen to you.
[1:46:37] Lastly, we have specific directions for staff about what to do when they witness something
[1:46:43] as well as a robust support plan to help buildings if they see a pattern, if they have an incident that they feel like an extra pair of hands or eyes might be helpful, if they need suggestions on what a true support plan or collaborative approach might look like, we have central office staff from a number of perspectives who will sit with schools, who will sit with families, take in concerns and make an addressed plan together.
[1:47:15] Good evening, Chair and Superintendent Directors.
[1:47:19] So I was reflecting on this as we were getting ready for this, if some have been here a while,
[1:47:23] remember some of the first times we've talked about what we do around emergency management
[1:47:27] safety and security.
[1:47:28] And I think one of the first times I got to present, I put up Maslow's hierarchy of needs.
[1:47:33] So I'm excited about the fact that we continue to talk about the intersections between what
[1:47:37] happens in positive school, or engagement in SEL to make, honestly, make the job of emergency
[1:47:42] management safety and security a lot easier.
[1:47:45] So that's really one I wanted to want to touch on today is we do have emergency plans, we do have structures and systems in place, but what we continue to focus on is how do we work with adults to understand recognize signs and symptoms through our nonviolent crisis intervention training and to not get have incidents get to the point where we have to have some severe interventions.
[1:48:06] That's sort of, again, where we're going with the Climate and Safety Advisory Committee,
[1:48:10] the Dr. Brooks and I Co-chair, talking about those climate dimensions, how we can help
[1:48:16] schools understand exactly what those are and how to use them best.
[1:48:19] And then also, looking at our modeling around what we do when it comes to the security word,
[1:48:25] which is also a word that sometimes gets bandied about and is somewhat confusing to certain
[1:48:31] people.
[1:48:31] We had the opportunity just today to speak with the principals for a few hours and do some
[1:48:35] norming around how they respond to critical incidents, so that we are getting that consistent
[1:48:40] response across the district when it comes to people not feeling safe and how we can implement
[1:48:45] plans and activities in order to make folks feel safer and support that learning environment.
[1:48:54] So that's the short version of what we're talking about in our Plan New Check Act work here.
[1:49:06] And just to kind of talk about the checking process of how we implement this work.
[1:49:11] One of the things we look at, we have network models to support schools, but
[1:49:15] what we try to do with the network model, which means we have staff members that are assigned to a school to support the work that's happening within the school.
[1:49:22] So again, they're not there to take it over.
[1:49:24] They're there to help the school build and implement on site so that they have something that's more systematic and sustainable without relying on one person or one thing to make that happen.
[1:49:35] The other thing we're looking at is our MTSS work, our multi-tiered system of support.
[1:49:40] What that means is that it's about creating that ground level experience for all schools,
[1:49:45] making sure that the conversation around culture and climate is at the beginning and at the end and at the afterthought or the side note.
[1:49:52] And another piece that we look at is how we don't just admire that data that we do receive.
[1:49:58] we look at it and we actually start to...
[1:50:00] We're taking deeper to the kind of incidents. We look at site, we look at location, we look at time of day. We look at if a staff member feels they don't have enough training. What do we look, how do we support them in a different way? We also look at the PD and if we've delivered effective PD and one of the ways to know that if a person can actually implement it and not feel like they had an hourglass over and now they're done and they checked it off a list. So it has to be an ongoing piece. And then finally, one of the things we try to look at is for staff to be able
[1:50:29] to feel that they have resources to be able to readily respond to information or to incidents.
[1:50:37] And so how we look at that is the work that we're doing with toolkits.
[1:50:41] What that means is in our four priorities, when we look at social emotional learning,
[1:50:46] how does a person start that framework within their school and implement that?
[1:50:50] How does we look at the MTSS work and start doing that implementation?
[1:50:54] But how does this transfer into our academics to equity because there's an intersectionality
[1:50:59] around that, and how are adults setting up those conditions for the learning that has to happen at every school site.
[1:51:05] And finally, when we take all of this work that we're talking about around the priorities,
[1:51:10] how is this reflected in the school improvement plans?
[1:51:13] How is this literally called out and paid attention to, and our job is to support schools with that ongoing?
[1:51:19] And then what is that self-awareness, that own identity to who we are as a person when we show up every day to work?
[1:51:26] how are we recognizing our own biases, which is a very tricky thing because if it's unconscious bias, it means it's unconscious, right?
[1:51:32] So how do we help each other be critical colleagues to that work that is ongoing?
[1:51:38] So it's not about have we arrived, it's about have all been a part of that process, and
[1:51:42] then making sure that student voices are part of that work as well,
[1:51:45] and parents to feel that they can engage throughout even if they're not there the six hours of the day.
[1:51:50] Can
[1:51:54] you elaborate, there was a question about, what do we do when we have schools that are not necessarily part of a cohort that might be specifically working on some of the social emotional learning work?
[1:52:06] Just speak to some of the opportunities there for schools or for student voice to be heard in those conversations.
[1:52:12] of course.
[1:52:17] Thanks to the social emotional learning toolkit, we have base strategies that all schools
[1:52:23] will be implementing as the next school year goes on.
[1:52:26] Some are going to move quickly because they're very interested in joining the cohort process
[1:52:30] within the middle of the next school year.
[1:52:33] Others will spread it out as they merge their SCL and equity work together.
[1:52:39] When we created the tool kits, we linked that because we know that self-awareness, that piece
[1:52:44] of identity and understanding my experience, my bias, my privilege, my understanding and
[1:52:49] opportunities, shows up both in SCL and equity, so we are having some common adult work happening
[1:52:55] both ways. We also have a number of schools that are not part of the cohort process, but
[1:53:02] over time have used some of the direct instruction materials that we own as a district in processes
[1:53:06] and engagement strategies like responsive classroom developmental design or second step.
[1:53:11] And so through the learnings with the cohort schools we're able to also work with non or what we call pre cohort schools to look at their fidelity of practice to look at what is missing when it's not happening in every classroom are we using strategies in non classroom settings how does social emotional learning come through that way.
[1:53:32] Lastly, the student voice shows up in two ways.
[1:53:35] One is working through those classroom engagement plans to find spaces where young people
[1:53:41] can co-create what are the conditions and agreements we have as a community to be
[1:53:46] together.
[1:53:47] How do we talk through experiences, how do we hold each other in positive regard through
[1:53:52] community building or circle activities, and then also through the work with Chief Moore's
[1:53:57] Department looking at youth participatory evaluation as a tool and resource to bring social
[1:54:02] emotional learning and student voice social justice work to the forefront.
[1:54:07] And in regards to restorative practices, we've been consistent and will continue to be
[1:54:11] consistent in communicating that social emotional learning is the on-ramp for restorative practices.
[1:54:17] The skills that staff members will need to implement restorative practices and to have a
[1:54:24] restorative practices mindset are kind of embedded and connected to social emotional
[1:54:29] learning skills.
[1:54:31] So, this next school year we would hope that the cohort schools will have opportunities
[1:54:36] to do some cross sharing with the other schools about what they're doing, as well as we put
[1:54:44] in the memo a part about perhaps a needs assessment where I believe there's a rubric in the
[1:54:51] dependencies that talk about restorative practices where you have some schools do, few schools
[1:54:56] do, all schools will do.
[1:54:58] That way they can get a whole up.
[1:55:00] Are some that are implementing it?
[1:55:06] All right. Directors, do we have questions? Okay. Director Felner and Director Gagnon, I see.
[1:55:14] Go ahead, Director Felner. Thank you.
[1:55:19] Just learning about how we directed the budget in the very beginning. That process was very south side heavy. And when I look at the school of climate, in knowing what's going on in my district, looking at a average of three
[1:55:36] 3.25, you know, I have to think about it.
[1:55:40] So is there any way that we can get these different factors broken down by district,
[1:55:46] so I can get a vibe on how the students are feeling in my district.
[1:55:54] Director Felder, could you reference which page?
[1:55:57] Page three.
[1:56:00] Slide three, the PowerPoint is that what you're going to do.
[1:56:06] Page 33 of our packet, I think, board members.
[1:56:15] So
[1:56:18] basically if I understand your question, Director Felder, you just want to know can you receive a breakdown?
[1:56:23] Correct, that's just my district or my school, I think that's really important.
[1:56:30] Okay.
[1:56:31] And then also about the, about bullying and zero tolerance, now in the streets of North Minneapolis
[1:56:40] this and give you the same over south or northeast, I just know you can't be a punk, right?
[1:56:47] So if somebody hits you, you have to hit them back because if then if you don't, then
[1:56:51] you're a mark, which means that you invite people to come and fight with you all the time
[1:56:57] because you look like you are easily beat up.
[1:56:59] And so when we have a zero tolerance policy and we're not looking at it from that factor,
[1:57:06] then we are also persecuting the person who's been bullied because you know
[1:57:14] they have to like nip that in the butt it's a whole it's it's like a different
[1:57:18] environment and in these kids when we talk about social emotional learning like
[1:57:22] there are there are like 10 and 11 year olds who are in gangs who are just
[1:57:28] taught that they're not gonna see each other you know that way and so when we
[1:57:35] We have that type of climate going on.
[1:57:42] What then does SEL look like?
[1:57:45] Because, I mean, it's kind of serious, and that's why we have SEL is because we haven't
[1:57:50] been able to actually deal with that correctly for many years, and so what's going to be different
[1:57:57] with this?
[1:58:00] If I could ask maybe someone from the positive school wide engagement group or some representative
[1:58:06] to speak to that. I think before you guys make decision who that individual is, I will
[1:58:12] just say that one of the things we continue to try and do and I think Dr. Brooks alluded
[1:58:16] to it is to make sure that we create a climate where we can prevent that kind of situation
[1:58:24] from happening or make sure that we get to a situation like that before it leads to something
[1:58:30] physical or bullying, so there's a desire to have that practice taught in our schools
[1:58:37] in advance of something like that that might be occurring outside of the school or might
[1:58:42] come into the school, so that is part of the work that we attempt to create as well.
[1:58:48] Could you introduce yourself and then maybe respond to Director Felder's.
[1:58:50] I can't thank you.
[1:58:51] My name is Kirk Smith.
[1:58:52] I'm a member of the positive school.
[1:58:54] I engage with team.
[1:58:55] In answer to your question, Dr. Felder, what we go with restorative practices to actually
[1:59:03] with SEL is the on-ramp is to understand the student, the individual themselves, and
[1:59:09] respond accordingly to their needs.
[1:59:11] So you would get a sort of unique response to each student based on what they need.
[1:59:17] Zero tolerance would tend to label everyone the same, but that's not the goal of restorative
[1:59:22] practices as to or SEO for that matter is to meet people where they are, give them a set
[1:59:27] of skills that they can use outside of where they are while honoring who they are as an individual.
[1:59:35] And that process isn't easy, that's what has slowed this down.
[1:59:39] But it is certainly the way to go.
[1:59:41] So that's what we're working on with the cohort schools, the diversion practices.
[1:59:46] It's actually meeting each individual where they are and trying to give them what they need.
[1:59:51] within the construct of what the school district needs to be successful.
[1:59:55] So what does that look like?
[2:00:00] Does that look like smaller classes? Does it look like more ESPs in the room? Because if we have, if we're looking at true SEL, then we have children who need it, who then probably have IEPs. And so the teachers are already busy taking care of that paperwork instead of putting where there any should be with the feelings for the kids and proving that SEL, they're doing paperwork. And then there's also the testing that we do.
[2:00:29] There's more paperwork, and so we're taking away from the students.
[2:00:32] So how are we going to get these feelings, this SCL to the student?
[2:00:37] I mean, this is a long discussion, I said it's not easy, I've seen it work, and I'm working with the MTSS team.
[2:00:43] We're working with the MTSS team to develop the Tier 1 practices for this work.
[2:00:48] But the question is, the answer is, it's not necessarily more people more money.
[2:00:52] It's the mindset piece of understanding that empowers us as adults to actually do transformative work in a classroom
[2:01:01] where I can see what's most important, which is their need and what's least important than the paperwork, but also have the time to make it.
[2:01:09] The model is basically getting them so engaged in their classroom that they're running it, they're tired because they've talked all day, and I have tons of energy because I haven't spoken all day, and it is actually their classroom.
[2:01:21] And so all of their SEL needs, IP, whatever, get dealt with in the classroom and because
[2:01:28] they're aware that that's going on and we're real transparent about it, we're elevating
[2:01:32] them in ways that just are not currently done.
[2:01:36] So it's not just doing the same thing, better, it's doing a better thing, better.
[2:01:43] Okay.
[2:01:46] And then can you just, so you're saying that, for the new restorative practices, that the zero tolerance policy won't look the way that it does right now?
[2:01:57] Well, I'm not a policy person per se, I'm not in that position.
[2:02:03] I can say that policy has value to provide our framework, but where we need to be people and intentional.
[2:02:12] You know, we need to evaluate policy by individual, the total holistic experience of the student.
[2:02:19] And so that would be where I think the direction we're going is.
[2:02:23] Because part of the suspension rate is if Jane hits Molly, and Molly turns around and hits Jane.
[2:02:30] You know, she's defending herself in one aspect, but now they're fighting, so they both are suspended.
[2:02:36] Can I just, yeah, give me one second.
[2:02:38] Well, one of the things that we're looking at too, director, is it's looking at the kinds of suspensions.
[2:02:43] So not all the suspension reports that we're looking at are from that kind of incident.
[2:02:48] But on top of that, this is where we talk about culture intersecting with the work of social emotional learning, right?
[2:02:54] So how do you take that into context, not only as a district, but as the neighborhood, and
[2:02:59] then how does the school prep that?
[2:03:00] So that's why the schools have to have a voice into this work.
[2:03:03] It can't be that we're going to prescribe simply this kind of box model.
[2:03:08] We have a framework, but we have to make sure that the schools are engaging in that.
[2:03:12] Now, down to the classroom, when you talk about a student engagement plan,
[2:03:16] the teacher should be having that conversation.
[2:03:18] They have a framework of, this is what I expect my classroom to look like to be successful.
[2:03:22] But in addition, the students have to be able to engage in that protocol.
[2:03:26] Also, what we've seen when you've done that well, the students start calling out each other for
[2:03:31] those infractions to where they're assigning the consequences that are not suspendable.
[2:03:35] In other words, they're saying, let's do this instead.
[2:03:38] So that's the work that we're embarking on and we're able to highlight that for
[2:03:43] different schools, but we need to see that in just more than bright spots.
[2:03:47] And one more just clarifying point about zero tolerance, that's not the case.
[2:03:51] I mean, if you look at our behavior standards, there are quadrants of intervention.
[2:03:56] And so it's a building process of how you intervene and repair harm, not, not an automatic
[2:04:02] if you punch somebody you're going to get suspended.
[2:04:05] That, the only place that we put in, we don't even call it zero tolerance, is when we start
[2:04:09] talking about weapons, use of weapons and things of that nature.
[2:04:12] So those are the kind of things that have that, we're doing this, but to the situation you're
[2:04:17] describing, there would not be a mandate that says, you punch somebody you're going to be
[2:04:23] suspended.
[2:04:23] And that's a decision that's based on the totality of circumstances and pushed by the administrator who's managing it, so.
[2:04:30] Okay, I guess we need to explain that to some of our poor, I'm sorry.
[2:04:34] Thanks very much, that was a really comprehensive answer, appreciate it very much.
[2:04:40] Okay, Director Gagnon.
[2:04:43] Thank you, I just simply want to understand the involved head of law enforcement, disproportionality chart on 14.
[2:04:51] Are we saying that out of all of our African-American students in Minneapolis public schools, 67% of our students are in the same position.
[2:05:00] At least one involvement with law enforcement this year in Minneapolis public schools, in our schools,
[2:05:07] in the appendix. That's what that chart says. Yes, yes, yes. So, yes, I mean, our disparity in our involvement in law enforcement does mirror our disparity across our discipline model. Yes.
[2:05:29] So there's, so there's the. Yeah, no, I see there's a disparity, but I'm going very specifically to the fact
[2:05:34] that out of 100% of our African-American students, 67% have had at least one incident with long
[2:05:41] forcement.
[2:05:42] I would ask for clarification.
[2:05:43] Any Minneapolis public schools?
[2:05:45] I would ask for clarification.
[2:05:46] That's not.
[2:05:48] That's how that works.
[2:05:49] That's how that works.
[2:05:49] That's number of incidents.
[2:05:50] That's the number of incidents.
[2:05:51] So whatever the X is, whatever the N is, so out of those number of, I believe the number
[2:05:57] this year was roughly, I don't want to quote it because I can't remember off that
[2:06:01] my head but it's under 500 incidents that we're in discovery. So out of those under 500 incidents,
[2:06:07] 60% percent of those. So that's not how this reads. Okay. It says percent of all students,
[2:06:13] percent of students have had at least one involvement with law enforcement. Yes, because
[2:06:17] percent of all students means that's we have 40% of our students of our district or African
[2:06:21] American and they're saying percentage of students have had at least out of the number of who've had.
[2:06:26] I know what you're saying. I know what you're saying. I want to make sure that people don't read
[2:06:30] Can you read this and say 67% of our African-American students have, okay, so is there a better way to maybe change this chart and be clear?
[2:06:39] I would also say, I mean, it looks to me when I read it, I thought it meant not necessarily involvement of law enforcement in the schools, but just in general, because it doesn't specify within our schools.
[2:06:52] Right, while I was actually hoping if it was 67% it meant in general.
[2:06:57] Yeah, that's what I read it to.
[2:06:59] So, that was an alarming chart to me, so I appreciate the clarification, but it's still out there.
[2:07:04] So if we could maybe repost it as like a clear chart, that would be invaluable.
[2:07:12] And giving us the end, so it does say very clearly we've had less than 500 incidents in total,
[2:07:20] And of those 500 whatever that is that would that would be really helpful and maybe is that up or down well
[2:07:27] Yeah, it has 16 17 18 so thank you. Yes, that's helpful. All right. I have a question. Does anyone else and then director Felder has one more? Okay
[2:07:39] My see if I can remember my question now. Oh, we had spoken last year about
[2:07:48] but Minneapolis city investment in restorative practices or defraying some of the costs of our SRO contract in order to direct for us to direct some of those funds towards restorative practices.
[2:08:09] Just wondering the status of that, if that's gone anywhere, if we have hopes for that in the 18, 19 city budget.
[2:08:17] if folks should be calling their city council people and the mayor asking about that stuff?
[2:08:24] Yeah, Chair and thank you for the reminder that was a conversation we had leading up to.
[2:08:29] I think the budget development of our contract and I know there was a desire to take the
[2:08:39] difference and apply that and then potentially they could do something as a council with
[2:08:45] if there are ways and means, conversation with funding.
[2:08:47] I don't think that ever came to fruition,
[2:08:49] but the difference that we had, the resources we found,
[2:08:53] Mr. Matlock, maybe you can speak to how we took those dollars
[2:08:56] and how we applied them to work around restorative practices.
[2:09:01] So you guys, correct.
[2:09:03] The city, I like what you said their chair ends.
[2:09:06] I think they should make big calls and we'd be happy
[2:09:08] for them to pay more of the freight on that.
[2:09:11] But what we did do with the money is we started
[2:09:14] We started to invest, again, in what I talked about, that nonviolent crisis intervention.
[2:09:18] So we're focusing much more on how we train our staff.
[2:09:21] So it is a special education assistant-based training now, as a norm in the district.
[2:09:29] So we're trying to expand it out to our general ed staff.
[2:09:32] So it is focused on how you see signs and symptoms of individual incidents and
[2:09:38] how you then head those off positively without then getting to a point of
[2:09:43] some escalating to a point where now you've got an incident where now you've got to report it as a suspension or something else.
[2:09:49] So we took those funds and put them into doing that because that was a concrete step that again could be system-wide.
[2:09:55] That can be across the district and so we've got some school.
[2:10:05] We're talking to schools that have school wide implementation of these practices to try to help reduce the times that actually we have escalations. So that's sort of what we've been able to do with the savings we had that initial time, but you're right, but long term.
[2:10:19] Okay, Director Felder.
[2:10:23] Thank you.
[2:10:24] So regarding level three and four schools, federal setting, it's my understanding that only teachers have access to a student's IEP or plan and not the ESPs around that.
[2:10:44] And so it can make areas unsafe, can you verify that for me?
[2:10:50] Yeah, Director Felther, I'll have Rochelle Cox who's a special education director share kind of the practice.
[2:10:57] And I'll just say as a general rule as an educator, the individuals who need to know information on an individualized education plan are given and granted access for that to that information.
[2:11:11] So, if you work with a student, it is an expectation that you have an understanding and
[2:11:16] access to the information on how to support that student who has an IEP or an individualized
[2:11:22] education plan.
[2:11:23] And that is common across the board, regardless of what state you live in, what district
[2:11:28] you're in.
[2:11:29] That is a general educational expectation.
[2:11:32] But I think the Scott can speak to kind of the protocol and procedures that we have in
[2:11:38] those maybe more specific level for settings that has been an area for us to re-emphasize
[2:11:45] and re-establish in terms of practices and protocols.
[2:11:50] Thank you.
[2:11:51] Chair ends a superintendent graph, Director Felder and Rusted Directors.
[2:11:57] Great question.
[2:11:59] As superintendent graph so eloquently said, everyone who needs to know has a right to know about
[2:12:06] a special education programming and what's on student's individual education plan.
[2:12:11] Our IEP technology has something called IEP at a glance, which is a 1-3 page depending
[2:12:19] on the length of the IEP summary of what a special education assistant would need to know
[2:12:26] goals and objectives, any adaptations, a behavior plan, those pieces.
[2:12:31] So, those need to be accessible and should be reviewed by a teacher with their staff, their special education assistance on a weekly basis so that there's understanding because those teachers are directing the work of our special education assistance and they are critical members of our team.
[2:12:51] We are through the summer putting together some different templates and ways to document that.
[2:12:59] So we really are clear with teachers and that our principals as instructional leaders can ensure that our special education assistance are getting that information.
[2:13:10] And we will be providing that in the August professional development.
[2:13:17] Director Ali has a question.
[2:13:18] Yeah, thank you very much, Sharon.
[2:13:21] My question to you is that, can you please explain to me how you train staff on pulling
[2:13:32] in prevention, like you give PowerPoint presentation, the through-to-root discussion and so on?
[2:13:41] Thank you.
[2:13:42] We use a multi-layer way to do it.
[2:13:44] So there is certain training specific to what the law and policy says.
[2:13:49] We also spend a fair amount of time talking about the prevention strategies.
[2:13:53] We then go into the specifics about what you do when something is reported to you, what
[2:13:59] you do when you witness it, what your unique role is carrying out the safety plan, how we
[2:14:05] talk with young people about retaliation, how we talk to young people about how, if they have
[2:14:12] We have a concern that they not feel like they have to take matters into their own hands to be safe.
[2:14:17] As often as we can, we also try to do scenarios.
[2:14:21] So we talk through a story and make some determination, is this a bullying incident, is this not?
[2:14:26] How do you know?
[2:14:26] Where is the power differential?
[2:14:28] What are some things that the adults could be doing to intervene sooner?
[2:14:32] What are the things that we can support the other students in the classroom who may be witnessing this?
[2:14:37] to feel more supportive or to have a role in the prevention or early response.
[2:14:42] Same thing goes then when we talk with families about it.
[2:14:45] If a bullying incident has happened, and it's one where we're coming together to create that student success plan,
[2:14:52] we go through the story of what happened, what we know we can do differently in the future,
[2:14:58] what we're going to ask that young person.
[2:15:10] So, what are the things that they can do that contribute that give them a sense of not just being that kid who feels bad or sad or has hurt someone else? Well, what they can do that way. So, we go through all of that in those standard trainings. I also have specific packages that we'd use with our school council.
[2:15:29] Councillors, our school's social workers, we've done it with the school resource officers.
[2:15:34] We do annual presentation at the ESP training so that the deans who are off on our first responders get a download again on what that looks like.
[2:15:44] Can you please send me some of the materials for my own educational purposes?
[2:15:49] Absolutely.
[2:15:50] Thank you.
[2:15:53] All right.
[2:15:54] Okay, Director Samuels.
[2:15:56] pages
[2:16:02] 20 and 21. There is a disparity between what students percentage of responding almost
[2:16:16] Most always are often to, I feel safe at school, the students, for instance.
[2:16:30] The students, for instance, range in the 73 to 76 percent, while the teachers' perception
[2:16:40] The question of the student is feeling safer at school ranges 75 to 82%.
[2:16:48] And I'm wondering if there is any, if that is to statistically inconsistent enough to cause any concern.
[2:16:59] That teachers actually think students feel safer and students themselves feel.
[2:17:04] And because then are you responding to bullying, cues are complaints in an appropriate level that the student would need?
[2:17:22] Director Samuels, I think that using this information as part of a learning experience is one aspect of how we have these conversations.
[2:17:33] So, it was a building principle, if I got this climate survey information, and I saw that the students
[2:17:40] evaluated their safety lower than I as the teacher evaluated it, and those are really important conversations to begin having around.
[2:17:49] You know, why do we, why do we perceive that to be the case?
[2:17:51] What led you to think that your students would feel safe?
[2:17:55] So, I think that's a lot of where we start with this information is in those professional learning committees,
[2:18:00] at our conversations, school climate conversations,
[2:18:03] looking at the data, and sometimes you're able
[2:18:06] to pinpoint situations, exclusive to a grade level
[2:18:10] or to a year, but I think that's a big part
[2:18:14] of what we try to do with this information.
[2:18:16] This is, again, as I said, it's not just a report
[2:18:19] to the board, it's an opportunity for us
[2:18:21] to go back as leaders, either in the classroom,
[2:18:24] in the building, central office, and say,
[2:18:27] tell me why you have those differences,
[2:18:29] And some individuals would be able to say, well, that's because we had new staff, they
[2:18:34] came from a different experience background.
[2:18:37] So their idea of safe was, you know, where kids sat in rows and were quiet.
[2:18:43] You know, and now what we have is we've got more of an engaged classroom where kids are
[2:18:47] up out of the room, interacting with one another, still in a positive way, but it's different.
[2:18:53] So, and I wouldn't say that's the norm, but I'd say that's how we start these conversations
[2:18:58] as educators, when we get information like surveys,
[2:19:01] it leads us to more questions.
[2:19:04] And eventually, at some point,
[2:19:06] we're gonna need the students to kind of share this.
[2:19:08] And so I think, again, with those circles,
[2:19:10] with those morning meetings that we have
[2:19:11] through our social-emotional learning work,
[2:19:14] our routines, you begin to hear the voice of students
[2:19:17] and how they're feeling about things in the classroom.
[2:19:23] Let's go to here.
[2:19:26] Okay.
[2:19:27] Probably the last thing we do is we add that
[2:19:28] into our action planning for school improvement plans.
[2:19:31] So then we try to take that data, look at it, and then create the action steps to go with it.
[2:19:37] All right, if there aren't any other questions then, do you have any sort of final words for us?
[2:19:43] You want to summarize briefly or?
[2:19:46] Well, I'll briefly summarize for the group.
[2:19:48] I want to refer you back to the PowerPoint and you saw in there and we tried to do this in our consistently in our presentations.
[2:19:57] you know, you have the plan.
[2:20:00] Is the first part of it, and then we go to the do, and the check. And that is, again, what we're
[2:20:10] trying to create here in these practices, that it's not just a presentation to the board.
[2:20:14] We're planning around the information we have. We're doing the work, we're checking it,
[2:20:18] and we're using this as a continuous improvement model, so it's something you'll see consistently
[2:20:23] us working on and if we don't feel like we've completed that work, it'll be moved as part of our broader professional development plan or work throughout the district.
[2:20:36] Yeah, and I also appreciate the detailed narrative at the beginning as well that you guys kind of glossed over a little bit due to time constraints.
[2:20:49] but taking the time to read through it,
[2:20:52] I find it to be very valuable
[2:20:54] and also according to that sort of mode of organization
[2:20:59] which really gives a good picture of the work that's ongoing
[2:21:04] that I hope we can expand in the next year
[2:21:10] to a great deal and who knows what's going to happen
[2:21:14] with our SRO contract and some other maybe
[2:21:17] Maybe you have some other means of acquiring more revenue to invest in this really important work that is not inexpensive,
[2:21:25] but extremely valuable and worth the input.
[2:21:30] And really if you think about it in the long run,
[2:21:33] the investment is worth it and pays off when you think about as Mr.
[2:21:39] Matlock pointed out the intersection with safety.
[2:21:43] And really, you're talking about prevention, right?
[2:21:46] Preventative methods so that you don't have to worry about those more costly interventions, right?
[2:21:52] So, thank you very much.
[2:21:54] Thanks, board members.
[2:21:55] We ran a little over, but I think it was the action packed.
[2:22:00] All our time was well spent, so everybody have a good Thursday evening, and we'll see you in July.
[2:22:08] Oh well have a good Tuesday have a good Thursday evening though your Tuesday evening is shot so have a good Thursday