Dan Schmidt, principal of North Star Elementary, presented the school’s four focus areas and described the campus design, supports for students with IEPs, and instructional and social-emotional approaches.

Schmidt said North Star enrolls just under 500 students, with 26% students of color and 24% of students with IEPs. He explained the studio model (six studios with theme-based home classrooms and breakout rooms) and described sensory rooms embedded in each studio for short, supervised breaks. The school uses Conscious Discipline and STAR commitments (safe, truthful, assertive, responsible) to promote a consistent culture and shared language. “We embrace the district’s curriculum of Second Step,” Schmidt said, and staff have tightened tiered interventions to improve consistency.

On academics, Schmidt said the school piloted I-Ready in math and reported cohort reading improvements: one early cohort rose from approximately 38% meeting standards in Grade 3 to about 70% by later grades after tiered interventions and progress monitoring. For kindergarten and first grade literacy, Schmidt said the midyear goal is 70% (currently about 67% low risk) and the end-of-year goal is 80%.

Schmidt shared brief examples of student-led learning and agency, including an outdoor “trading post” project in which students designed a simple currency and small businesses. Board members asked about survey validity and administration for the student-experience question used to measure belonging (Grades 3–5); Schmidt said North Star administers the survey consistently across home bases and trains staff to avoid prompting answers.

The board praised the sensory-room model and Conscious Discipline training; members asked for breakdowns by specific IEP categories and cohort-tracking details. Schmidt said those breakdowns are being compiled and that the school will continue monitoring cohort progress.

The board thanked Schmidt for the report and moved to the next agenda item.