SASD Board Meeting Tuesday, January 27th 2026 Part 1

001jumped out because I did jump out of here. >> That's when it's winter and they've all been there. Nobody living there, right? >> Yeah. I don't know. >> The people the people are always the best part. >> So, there was that number. There's a tool box coming out of CNO to approve and then we'll call you know >> the house is like >> they're just a fireplace. summer. That's for >> you. >> And then he got really fancy. That's it. >> All right. Good evening everyone and welcome to the Redwood Board of Education meeting. Please stand with me for the pledge of allegiance. I pledge allegiance to the flag of the United States of America and to the republic for which it stands, one nation under God, indivisible, with liberty and justice for all. >>

002Thank you. Is there a motion to approve the agenda? >> So move. >> Second. >> All in favor say I. >> I. Motion carries. Roll call qualifies us all present with the exception of um Sarah and Mary Lynn. Um next is there a motion to approval of the minutes um of the board of education meeting minutes on December 9th, 2025 and close session meeting minutes December 9th, 2025. >> Second. >> Any discussion? All in favor say I. >> I. >> Motion carries. Next on the agenda is a great time. Um we're going to talk about some diplomas. >> Absolutely. Uh I would like to move forward for approval diplomas for early graduation from Central North South Aer. >> Is there a second? >> Second. >> Any discussion? All in favor say I. >> I. >>

003Any opposed? Motion carries. All right. I have a stack of um diplomas here. Um if you have a diploma or if you're here for a diploma, just come on and just stand up over here by the uh partition there and I will call your name and then just come on up and grab it. Parents, please take pictures. Um you don't have to get me in it, please, but if you want, I guess that's your choice. >> Autumn Taylor >> Turner, sorry. I said sorry. >> Oh, you Oh, there they are. >> You got smile. >> You can do whatever you like. BLANCA OLIVAS picture come Come on up. >> Put the flowers in there. >> A PICTURE. NO, because we want you there. All right. >> Ariana Lewis. Ariana Lewis. >> Good. >> I think

004we're good, but I'm just going to call off the rest of the names. Aaliyah Liios Austin Erdman, Victoria Pearl, Logan Dovich, and Jonathan Wagner. Congratulations to you all. No. >> All right, graduates. You're more than welcome to stay. Mean don't have to. I'm not going to force you, but you're more than welcome to stay for the remainder of this meeting. Congratulations again. All right. Next, we have the student representatives. A2 we have Eric Riley. Central we have Adriana Johnson and Warner. We have Derek Dabona. >> Who's going first? >> I can go first. >> Or do we have someone raise? >> Come on. >> You first. Want to speak? >> You're good, Derek. >> Okay. Uh, hi. I'm Derek Deona and I am a junior from George Eward High School. As most of you know,

005this is the first time I'm doing this. So, and I'm delivering the report for today. Again, um I'm going to tell you about some of the things fun things that we have been doing at our school. Um some of the activities we have coming up and I will also give you some academic statistics. Um the the Warner High School's group of students going to Maywood on Tuesdays and Thursdays are getting involved in birding. and we'll have a member of the Lake Michigan Bird Observatory, which is a local organization come to Maywood on a date in May to deliver essentially a birding 101 class. Um, on February 7th, six students from our high school, including myself, will be going on a day trip to Milwaukee to participate in the annual Lake Sturgeon Bowl, uh, which is

006a regional competition part of the National Ocean Sciences Bowl, a national trivia competition based on all things related to ocean. I hadn't heard of this beforehand, but I really enjoyed it when I did it and I had a lot of fun. It was kind of a very unique experience. Um, the Warner freshman and sophomores are going to Lakeshore College on Friday, February 20th for a career exploration day. And then also on March 17th, Warner will be having will be taking students to Lakeland University for a youth apprentichip hiring event. um a statistic about impressive or I mean it's not surprising for our school but was I just is a just a good um us to represent us is that the percentages of uh students who either made honor roll or high honor roll for the

007first semester was 47% which was good. Um the spring semester has just started has also just started for our University of Wisconsin Green Bay Gear Up Rising Phoenix students. Currently we have nine juniors on track to earn an associates degree. Um the collective grade point average for the Rising the Gear Up Rising Phoenix program right now 3.52. >> This week the application window for Rising Phoenix just opened up for our current sophomores. So, they will um begin writing their essays if they haven't already. Um and I also have a update for the senior class of 26. It's the time of year that collegebound seniors are applying for scholarships, but also inversely um Warner High School is partnering with Inspire Wisconsin on a program known as Workwise. This is a program where seniors going directly into

008the workforce receive mentorship from local professionals with volunteers from FEMA and Johnsonville. Um, currently 13 of our seniors are involved in this program. Uh right now we also have two seniors or I don't know if they're seniors but two students doing youth apprenticeships and currently nine out of our seniors are sorry nine of our seniors are taking some kind of college class and we also had six out of our 29 seniors graduate early this year. Um that's it for my report. Does anyone have any Thank you for letting me uh or giving me the opportunity to represent our school today. Does anyone have any questions? >> No questions, Derek. But I really appreciate your presence at these meetings. Thank you for sharing everything you do. >> Thank you. >> Anyone else? >> All right. Thank

009you, Derek. >> Yeah. >> Adriana, you want to go next? >> Okay. Hi, my name is Adriana Johnson. I'm a senior at Central High School and I'm here Caitlyn Marver who can't make it today. I would like to start by telling you all a little bit about myself. I'm 17 and I'm involved in the dual enrollment program with Lakesure College and through this enrollment. I am interested in the medical field. So I plan on pursuing my education after I graduate. And then since our last report back in November, we've had a number of holiday activities that led into winter break, which included door decorating, cookie decorating, and a brief round of reindeer games that student and staff enjoyed before heading off to break. We've had 10 students complete lakes college classes during the first trimester,

010I mean semester, including myself, and now have 14 enrolled this semester. As of January 1st, we've implemented our new cell phone policy at Central High. Phones will be out of sight in the morning with a break during lunch and put back away at the end of lunch till the end of the school day. And for classroom activities, they consist of Mr. Lennon's 3D art class, 3D art and design class made ornaments um out of ceramics uh for the Christmas trees for all the staff and students. This year, Miss Annalan had a classroom visit from Marsh Haven Nature Center for zoologology class. Students were able to interact with various reptiles, including turtles and snakes. We have two classes that have been participating in some community service projects this year, including Mr. E's class, who donated time

011to helping Shabboan, helping at the Shabboan food pantry, and Miss Boy students have been helping out at the Revolution resale store on 8th Street. I'll be closing with some upcoming events at Central on February 5th, career days, guest speakers, career exploration, and various experiences for students to learn about. We postponed our schoolwide service day from December to the spring and are actively planning activities for March 19th before spring break. And we are also getting started with some esports teams that will be rolling around the spring for all students at Central High School. And that concludes my my report for Central Pie. You have any questions? >> You guys take my question with any questions? >> Thank you. Thank you. >> I do. How's the cell phone thing going? >> Um, I feel like we've been

012having a couple students been have that been having problems, but other than that, we're progressing well and it should be a better time. >> Okay. So, the legislature right now is talking about banning cell phones. bell to bell meaning no cell phones at lunch either. How would you feel about that? >> Um, I personally feel like it it makes sense the reasons that they want to be on the cell phones for all day, but I also feel like it gives the students a break from constantly being in school. So, I feel like the lunch should stay the same. >> I understand that. >> Thanks. >> It was funny. I was going to say something that says maybe not. We talked about that in a breakout session. Um, a lot this week or last week. So,

013but it would be nice if you guys can come back later and let us know how it's going throughout the course of the year or the ending of the year. Thank you. >> All right. I am Eric Riley. I am a junior at Etude. Uh this is still my first year presenting, second time going. Um a lot of things that have happened this year. For starters, um, a esports team has been formed, of which I'm actually the captain of, as alongside sophomore Sheila Kester. Um, we are currently have we currently have eight members in the team. However, only five of them are active as the others have um, other school activities for now. We've been participating in the Marvel Rivals uh, 6v6 tournament. And as far as that goes, we've been doing pretty well. Uh,

014with certain sex backs being players not showing up and having to use uh, a bot in one of our teams, we've managed to play very well and are currently in one of the higher runnings. Uh, this year for our exhibitions of learning that took place after winter break. Uh, we had three projects that were outstanding uh, in the eyes of the students and teachers alike. Uh, they were done by a junior Hayden Diaz. um a group project with London Helgerson and Leosto and then a a threeperson project with Ka uh Kayn Sonaman, Anastasia Kester, and Jake Perez. Um, a little bit about each project was, uh, starting with Lenin, Lennon, Higgersonen, and Leosto is they did a music- based project where, uh, Lennon brought in his band, The Door Knobs, that contains students from outside

015our school to perform some songs he produced because, uh, he has he's currently on set to have a plan for next year. He will be presenting a movie for a PE presentation that is set to take up a 90minute time slot. Um uh the details about the movie are a little unclear, but he is currently working on the script for it. We'll film over the summer and by junior year he will have a full movie for us to watch. Um Kaylin Sonamez, Sa Cester, and Jake Perez did a project where they recreated scenes from movies to demonstrate the emotional value that they showed. This was a very collaborative project with them g having most a lot of students in the school participate. Uh and the way that they recreated the scenes was very realistic and

016they did a good job at choosing scenes that gave good intel into what the emotional attachment was to it. Uh Haiti did a project about certain Halloween themed monsters where she took a bunch of students and had them choose a monster and then donate a piece of their clothing that she then transformed to turn into a specific um monster of their choosing. Uh these were things like witches, zombies, the likes, mummies. Alongside her fashion show, she created a dance that went along showcasing the Halloween theme where she danced to multiple songs with uh other dancers as well. Uh in the end and at the end she produced a slideshow where she talked about uh the tradition of Halloween and how different monsters are each portrayed in different cultures and how that represents how that relates

017to Halloween as its whole. Uh we've had a pen pal series with our A2 middle schools lately and for the first time in a while forever I'm not quite sure on that we did a day where we did a bunch of activ activities with our middle school pen pals. Uh this involved eating lunch with them in designated areas and then a hourlong session where we went from multiple different rooms playing a bunch of different games that were based to help us get to know our pen pals better as well as connect more with our middle school counterparts. Uh going on to student achievements. Um Charlie Ham was one of 11 high school students in the state of Wisconsin selected to participate in the Wisconsin state senate scholars program at which he learned about how drafting

018legislation from various senators at the capital. And the conclusion of this program was that he then participated in a state debate tournament in which he won for a small school for a small for small school. Um, a bunch of uh our content interns have continued to interview and highlight a lot of our students via social media. Um, some highlights are our student Lola who has completed a film studies at UWG. Uh, Lennon Helerson for his collaborative work with his band, The Door Knobs, and him being willing to talk about that on the Instagram. And then again, Haiti uh Hades multimedia project blog production. Uh some things we have planned for the future is a lockin uh during next month, which of course is where the students will stay Friday night until from 700 p.m. till

0197 a.m. the next morning. Um it is going to I hope it'll be a fun experience as we didn't have one last year due to lack of students wanting to do it. So this will be my first year participating in one. uh and it is the first uh large-scale school event I've participated in where we actually spend this much time at our school doing a bunch of activities and it is a completely new experience for me and I'm looking forward to hopefully enjoying a lot of it. Uh and this year for our project block production, we are moving away from the traditional individual student projects and instead we are hoping to have an entire the entire school collaborate to produce a play that we will then showcase uh at on May 21st at the John

020John Michael Coler Art Center. This is a completely student, this will be a completely student created and student led project uh throughout which we have divided into our four um seminar projects via drama, music, art and dance. We intend to incorporate all forms of these art forms into it and we have we will be treating this as a somewhat normal class until uh spring break when we begin uh steam steaming the production on the play. Uh and that concludes what has been happening at 82 during the second quarter. >> Thank you Eric. Are there any questions? >> No questions. Just well wishes for the lock in and for all the adventurers to come. >> Oh, there's a lot coming. >> Thank you. >> All right. Thank you three for coming and speaking. Know that it's

021not always easy to speak in front of a grown a bunch of grown people, but you guys did a great job. So, thank you for coming out. >> Yeah. >> Thank you. >> Next on the agenda, we have community input. Is there anyone here for community input? Anyone here for community input? >> All right, Dr. Conrath, you're up. >> Got it. So, uh, I'll be brief tonight, but a couple of kind of announcements. First, school choice round one, uh, closes on February 8th. So, if parents are looking to do introd school choice, please remember to get that in by February 8th. That, uh, allows us to best staff our schools and and try to honor as many of those as we possibly can. uh excellence in education awards. We will participate again. That's um Channel

0225 News hosts that for us. It's about 20 districts in the kind of the Green Bay, the Shabboan um region. Did it the last two years. It's been a really nice thing uh just to honor our our staff members and those nominations are due February 9th. Uh congratulations to our North and South High art departments. Um we have some students whose work has been selected as part of the Wisconsin Art Education Association uh Northeast Region exhibition at the Neville Public Museum in Green Bay. So uh our North and South Art Departments just continue to impress in so many different ways. And our SASD mobile app uh is up and running. So please download that if you have not already. um just nice functions on there as far as being able to see calendars, news, etc.

023at a touch of touch of an app and has been appreciated by the parents that I have spoken with about it so far. So, we hope that uh popularity continues. And then really just it's a season of um a lot of arts, extracurricular sports, and I am continuously amazed at the number of coaches, leaders, advisors, volunteers showing up to support those events for our students. Um, and even just the amount of staff and teachers showing up just to support kids just because they have a kid in the class. Let's make sure we get to that game or get to that um presentation or or show um takes so much time for them, right? But they do it. It makes a big difference. Our kids our kids see it. You've seen kids come off of the

024the court or off of the stage and ask for pictures with their teachers. It means so much to them. So, just a big thank you to our staff for showing up and continuing to support our students uh outside of the classroom as we know it takes a lot of time. That's all I have for tonight. >> All right. Thank you, Dr. Next, we have the 2024 2025 audit report. Um Mark, Eric, Mr. Greenwald, Clifton, Clifton, Larson, Allen, Make sure I get this clicker working. >> First off, thanks for having me here this evening. Certainly uh appreciate uh the relationship working with the district. Um, and I do want to say from our perspective, certainly want to thank uh Mark and Eric and your team, from my perspective, the audit continues to go very smoothly. The

025district is well prepared. Our audit team functions and communicates very well with your team. Uh, and again, appreciate the responsiveness and communication throughout the process. Uh, for purposes of tonight's discussion, I just put together a brief PowerPoint, very similar to the format in terms of what you've seen in the past. just want to walk through the audit report and audit results uh at a pretty high level. If anyone has any questions on any of the reports, certainly feel free to uh to ask because it's very high level. Um in terms of responsibilities, I just wanted to start out as a reminder. Uh the district is responsible for the financial statements and the financial statement preparation presentation. Um they're also responsible for your internal control structure, how things are done on a daily, monthly, annual basis.

026Our role as auditors is really to express an opinion on your financial statements. In order to do that, we consider accounting policies. We consider management estimates. We consider the organization's internal control structure. And then we perform audit tests to gain evidence and support uh to allow us to issue that opinion. In terms of the audit reports, there's actually three different reports included in the documents that you have. The first being the auditor's report on the basic financial statements that is considered to be an unmodified opinion. Essentially means that I believe that your financial statements are complete and accurate and in accordance with our professional standards. The uh the second uh comment there relates to internal control. Again, we do not issue an opinion on internal control. We do gain an understanding of how things are

027done. We use that for planning and risk assessment purposes. When we do become aware of conditions, we refer to those as findings. We are required to disclose those. So you see the the reference to finding 2025-1, preparation of the financial statements. That is a a repeat finding. Uh you've seen that in the past. Also very common uh in terms of working with our school district clients for us to prepare the district's audited financial statements. Because of the fact that we as your auditors are preparing the financial statement, we simply disclose that uh as a finding and part of the audit process. And then the last comment there relates to compliance. That's really focused on federal and state aid. As a reminder, uh from a from an audit standpoint, we do select and rotate different federal

028and state aid programs based on a risk assessment process. Again, when we become aware of um findings there, we are required to disclose those. You'll see the reference to two findings, pupil transportation finding and then also a suspension department finding. Um those have been discussed in detail with management. uh management has addressed those. We do expect that those will um not be recurring in terms of next year's audit. Um and if you'd like to talk more about those, I'd certainly be happy to get into the details on that further. Uh if does anyone have any questions or want me to talk further about those? I I can just mention the transportation one because uh that was uh this particular finding was one we did not have in the past, but we did uh there were

029mistakenly some students that ride a bus to Lake Country Academy uh included in our report to DPI and Lake Country Academy pays us just reimburses us for transportation for those kids because as a state we're not uh public school district we're not required to provide busing for uh non-instrumentality uh charter schools. So because the kids driving there were include the report uh that we don't get, you know, reimbursement for that because we're being fully paid by the the charter school for that. So that's that's what that one was. And I think if I'm right, Brian, suspension department was actually found in the last audit, but the audit already in the audit's going on in the next fiscal year. So, because it wasn't caught till they were here, last year's audit, it's a repeat finding, but

030we have changed some policies and not policies, but guidelines on the way we do things just to make sure that doesn't happen again. >> Yeah, that's accurate. And just to comment on the timeline on that, I believe the procedures and suspension department were evaluated and revised in August of 2024. And again to Mark's point, our audit starts uh at the beginning of the year. So there were a few contracts that were signed prior to that. Um as a followup to that, um we did review all of those vendors and did verify that none of them were on the suspended and debarred list, which is a a list for tracking purposes. Uh so again no concerns with regards to the vendors that you're using just disclosing that condition and again there are procedures in place so

031that shouldn't happen going forward. Thoughts or questions on that before I move on >> this next slide um with included within the executive audit summary there is a multi-page letter that includes information that we are required to communicate as part of the audit process. Uh the topics on this slide are topics discussed in that letter. Um it is very standardized a lot of accounting specific terminology uh and actually and actually the titles that are on here are similar with what you've seen in the past. I just wanted to emphasize that because again it is required communication in terms of what's new or different within that that letter. There is discussion about um accounting practices and accounting policies. uh each year in the last several years we've implemented new governmental accounting standards. So there is references

032to that new standard. Uh it's Gazby statement number 101. It deals with compensated absences. We did implement that uh because you were required to based on professional standards. So you will see language with regards to that in that letter as well as the auditing financial statements. Uh other than that again standard communication. Nothing that I would consider to be a red flag. Just wanted to mention that uh because it is required communication. Just a >> what in the world is qualitative aspects of accounting? how you feel about something or >> it honestly honestly it is so it's not just the numbers it's uh in the financial statements themselves we look at numbers verify the numbers when we get into the footnotes and we have decisions about what do we disclose how do we disclose that

033that's where we get in some of those qualitative factors that's a great question by the way I think I've had that one before see we are interesting accountants >> so many jokes right >> okay these next few slides just move into some of the key financial information. Um, in terms of financial condition, I always like to look at your your general fund and focus on your fund balance levels. So, this this graph just gives you some a summary of your overall fund balance levels. Uh, the first thing that I always like to do is look at how much fluctuation you have from year to year. So, overall, you can see you've been fairly consistent with a slight usage of fund balance uh the last couple years. Um, I know there's not a total on here.

034The total for all of those categories at the end of 2025 is approximately 52.6 million. And again, you did use approximately 2.3 million of fund balance reserves during 2025. Um, in terms of the categories there, I'll talk more about the unassigned. We like to benchmark that. Uh, so I'll talk more about that in terms of the next slide. And again, as a reminder, the assigned and committed categories, the red categories on there, those are really categories from the district's perspective. If there's purposes that you want to set aside funding for, uh you can go and evaluate and and go through that process and do that. Uh there is disclosure of the detail of what's included in there on pages 64 and 65. And then the restricted category, that's really due to uh grant funding. you

035have to follow the terms of the grant uh in order to recognize and spend that money. So, it's being tracked and again disclosed is funds on that. >> Oh, yeah. >> I noticed restricted only shows up in 2025. Was that a different program or something we hadn't dealt with before? >> Yeah, that relates to a specific grant program and I believe that was a mental that's the mental health grant, right? >> Yeah. So it's mental health funding and again you're required to um track and spend that in accordance with the complian requirements. So >> uh state >> state >> thank you. >> DPI requirement. >> Okay. This next slide just wanted to take a little bit deeper look at the unassigned fund bount. So just looking at that C category and comparing it to the

036actual expenditures that are flowing through your financial statements. Um again expressing that in percentage. You can see the fluctuation here as that unassigned category has come down a little bit. You can see that percentage dropping a little bit at the end of 2025 ending at 16.2%. Um, and just if I just step back big picture, I know the district goes through a lot of effort with regards to budgeting, monitoring your budget and your financial results. Um, planning for fund balance reserves, assigning and committing funds as we just talked about on the previous slide. uh certainly would encourage you to continue those efforts and from an overall fund balance percentage standpoint uh being at 16% is still considered to be strong. Uh 15 to 20% is generally considered to be strong in terms of overall fund

037balance levels. And I always take a note on this slide so that we just understand too that I think Brian when you look at actual expenditures you're looking at at percentage of the expenditures in that year for 25. So our board policies uh which states that um unassigned fund balance should be 15 to 20% of the next year's budgeted expenditures. So when you see 16.2 uh although it's they're both very close you'll see a different number when we come to the board and have you designate funds and we say well we're at 16.5% fund balance. Um, so that's the slight difference from what you see in the audit report and what you see uh when we do a fund balance report for designation purposes. So not a big difference, but just a slight difference if

038you're wondering why those numbers don't match up. And again, our board policy is that we're within that 15 to 20% basically for cash flow uh purposes. And um so um but that's always based on the next year's budgeted numbers. So that's why the numbers might be off a little bit. Good point, Mark. We're always looking backwards for the audit. Uh then in addition here, just wanted to give you a snapshot of your other governmental funds and the fund balance levels uh at the end of the last two fiscal years. You can see those on the slide here in front of you. Um couple points that I just wanted to make. The debt service funds again that is uh required and restricted for future principal interest payments. That's 2.3 million at the end of 2025. And

039then in terms of the capital projects funds, you can see the fluctuation there. Obviously, the excitement of going through the referendum process. You can see the 93.6 million um at the end of 2025. Really just due to timing of when the debt proceeds were issued versus when you were going to spend those. Uh, and then last but not least, the um the long-term capital projects fund your fund 46 uh coming in at 12.6 million. And in addition to fund balance, I also like to look at long-term liabilities. So, I just wanted to take a minute to look at long-term debt. So, there is a lot of financial information within the financial statements on pages 41 to 43. This is just giving you a snapshot of your outstanding principal balance at the end of each of

040those years. Uh again, at the end of 2025, you can see the increase there due to that referendum process and the issuance of that debt. Um again, as a reminder, you did issue 93 million of debt. You did repay approximately 5.7 million. Uh and the sum of those is leaving you with approximately 108 million uh of outstanding long-term debt at the end of the year. And then I also just wanted to take a minute included within the financial statement footnotes. There is a footnote disclosure related to the statutory debt limit. Uh that's based on the equalized value of the properties within the community. Um it just wanted to look at the history on that and really just give some perspective. That statutory debt limit is a very large number. This is showing you what percentage

041of that limit you are actually using. Just emphasizing as you come down and look at 5.3% and six at 3.6% very low percentages in terms of the use of that statutory debt limit and then obviously increasing a little bit for 2025 uh up to 16.8 and again clearly you go through the referendum process that's all being tracked as part of the budget process. U so just wanted to put some perspective on that. Anyone have any thoughts or questions on that? And then again, as we look at other long-term liabilities, just wanted to talk about post-employment benefits. Again, the district has been very proactive over the years in terms of how they've dealt with these types of benefits. Uh back in 2006, they did establish a fund 73 to help fund those benefits or set aside

042resources for those benefits. Again, really two different um benefits that we tend to focus on for audit purposes. Um the first being your traditional insurance benefits. Again, as a reminder, you are required to have an actuary uh estimate that liability. That comes in at 1.7 million and you do have approximately 2.2 million in funding set aside to help pay for that. And then also the HA benefits. Again, you have approximately 32 million both in assets and net position, meaning fund balance reserves to help you uh future benefits. So, very well funded. And then I also just wanted to take a brief minute to talk about the regulatory environment. Feel like every year I come here I've been talking about new governmental accounting standards. I previously mentioned statement number 101. We did implement number 101 and

043102 uh during the current fiscal year. Uh looking forward there are a few standards that already have been approved and we will work closely with the district to make sure that they are implemented as they as required when they are required to be implemented. And that is all I had prepared. Certainly if anyone has any questions, I'd be more than happy to just like to uh thank Ryan and his his team. So, you know, they've we've had them on board for a number of years and I think their expertise on school audits in particular is really an advantage for us and makes it very efficient and always very professional to work with. Um, I want to thank Eric and his finance team for all the preparation that goes into this. And uh even though she's

044not here, I want to just want to thank Chris Dirks who uh retired in December. Uh Chris uh literally stayed on a little longer before retirement so she could uh go through this last audit process with Eric. And uh so I really appreciate that from her and she uh was a big part of the preparation this year. So thank you Eric and and uh >> thank you Brian too. >> Thank you. >> If there's any questions we'd be glad to >> just have Eric answer >> the the statutory debt limit. What is it? >> I mean how how large is there a I assume there's a fixed sum. It's a It's a formula. >> Um, and it looks at the equalized value of the property within the district boundaries. Um, and I'm just going to

045try to find my page here for you real quick. It's actually on page 42. The statutory limit is 643 million. So again, that's why you're at that low percentage uh of that. and certainly not suggesting or implying that anyone should be at or near them. I mean because again it's all part of what are you willing to take on and go through as part of the budget process. The referendum process really drives it. Um to put some more context to that percentage as we go out and we've seen a lot of referendums lately. We will see smaller districts tend to be a little bit higher when they go through that referendum process. I've seen districts as high as 50 60 70% of that statuto debt limit for I would say I'm going to call them

046midsize and larger districts. I mean we do see percentages much higher than yours. Um you know we do see them in the 20 30 35% range. Um so again just pointing to the fact that yes you went through the referendum process but from a statutory debt limit perspective um still rather low. >> Yeah I mean 3.6% 6% is >> Yeah, that's uh >> pretty low. >> That's extremely low. Extremely low. >> Thank you. >> All right. Any other questions? >> All right. Thank you, Brian, Mark, and Eric. We appreciate this information. >> Uh, next we have the charter school reauthorization. Rachel, Adam, >> and Jason. visually. >> Yeah, >> mix ups. As Jean gets the slideshow up, I'm actually going to turn it over right away to Adam um and Jason Duff, principal of Middle

047School, um to share some updates around goals that they've accomplished over the past five years under the current charter and then ultimately we'll be seeking approval for reauthorization of the charter. So, I'll turn it over to the team and I know we're waiting for both sides. >> Awesome. Thanks, Rachel. And just kind of prep the board. Um we have uh three of our charter schools that have expiring contracts at um June of this school year. So at the end of the year. So this month, next month, and the month after in March, we'll have a similar uh uh setup here. And we'll bring um that school and that new charter for the next five years uh to you all for approval. So um yeah, tonight we are fortunate to have Warner Middle School. Um, and

048kind of how these will uh be set up will give you a little info on just in general about that charter school to either reinforce what you already know or build on your knowledge and then uh have them speak to any uh work from the past five years that old charter contract and then kind of looking ahead for the future five years and then allow you to have a chance to ask any questions. So, um so tonight, yeah, super excited to have um Jason and Jody here. It's been great for me as a new person to kind of get to know them too and work with them on a few different things. So, yeah, excited for them to kind of share about the school and um dig in. So, all right, go for it. Thanks,

049Adam. Um I haven't decided if it's good or bad thing to follow an audit business. >> We'll see. >> The audit was clean. You're good. >> Yeah. Right. >> Your pictures are a good Yeah. So, good. Um All right. So yeah, thank you Adam. Uh thanks Rachel. Thank you members of the board uh for the opportunity tonight to um share some information about Warner Middle School. We uh we love talking about our school. We're going to try to be really concise tonight um respectful of your time. So um you know, but please there'll be opportunities for questions at the end and we welcome that. Um our team in the the packet that you received and and up here on the screen, uh small but mighty crew. Um Jod's here with us tonight. She's our our

050lead teacher, teaches social studies and language arts. Becky Severson, long uh long long-standing experienced math teacher, also teaches language arts. Emma Joser, our outstanding science and language arts teacher. Laura Schiffer, really lucky to have her part of our team, uh, leading our special education work. Carrie Smith, she's much more than a technology educational assistant, but that's the title she carries. And then, uh, Carrie Schaefer, our uh, school secretary. and then myself as the principal. Um so, oops, come back. Um so our our philosophy at Warner Middle School, the these are um foundational pillars of our school really since the beginning in 2010 2011, that was our first year. Uh project based learning, personalized learning plans, online course offerings, and then flexible scheduling offerings for families. and we kind of summarize that through the terms personal,

051flexible, and immersive. So, Jod, if you want to add a little color to each of those things, please. >> Sure. Um, I actually started at Warner High School and one of the things George Warner really cared about was what finding what students love to do and giving them the opportunity to do it. So, our PBL students can research any topic they're interested in. I always talk about like my nephew went through that dinosaur phase where he was fully wanted to know everything about dinosaurs. Kids can pick anything they want to research. We over the course of a quarter they will write a six paragraph research essay. They will create an oral presentation to give in front of the class. They will have a slideshow and they will have an artifact, something they make to go

052with it. Actually, in fact, today Jason and I presented this to our middle schoolers and got their feedback on um our presentation. It was mostly positive. >> They liked it. >> They said we needed we had to be bold was one of the biggest ones. >> Words. >> Yeah. be bold and to drink coffee ahead of time. I think those are the two the two takeaways. Um for our personalized learning, our online courses, those really go together. We thanks to Adam have really put some interventions in place this year and we have STAR data, we have EXL data, we have Blexia data and we use that to look at our language arts curriculum partially online and our math curriculum partially online and we designed those courses about around where the students are. We just looked

053at our STAR data from January and we found that 41% of our students are reading above grade level, not at grade level, above grade level. So with that online personalization, we can feel free to put them if you're in sixth grade, but you're reading at an eighth grade level, we can give you eighth grade curriculum. Um we can even offer high school curriculum and that credit will transfer if they go to Warner High School. Um and our flexible scheduling, most of our students are here all day every day. We do have a half day option where kiddos can come from like 8 am to 12:35. They get the four core classes. They get their advisory and they get um any intervention time they may need. We do have an allon online option where you still

054have an adviser from Warner Middle School that helps you and meets with you regularly to keep you on track and answer any questions you might have. >> Okay. Jody talked about our project based learning uh experience. So, uh, over this last 5-year period, that was part of our, uh, goals within that contract, um, that students would reach proficiency or advanced. Um, so we kind of hovered in that 80% range. Um, what that really means is, uh, B minus or better on each of those quarter PBLs. Um we do use a common assessment uh rubric um which without going into the details it's just the the same rubric that all of our teachers use for all of our students consistently throughout the year um kind of build those uh expectations and skills around those u those

055qualities. Next we move to our uh star growth percentiles. Um, so in the areas of reading and math over the last five years, what we really want is students to be at that 35 or higher SGP level. So as you can see over the last five years, we're in that range of uh kind of the upper 50s to the low 70s percents of students reaching that number. Um, kind of keep in mind those numbers. uh we have a similar goal, but um we're going to try to achieve at a higher level, and we'll talk about how we're going to do that in a minute or two. A big part of being a choice school like Warner is parent and student satisfaction. Um you know, obviously we don't have a neighborhood to draw from, so all

056of our families have to actively choose to want to enroll their children at our school. So, it's really important that our parents um are satisfied with that experience. um when we've surveyed them, these are some of the the highest rated areas that they've given us feedback on. Um so kind of on a on a liker scale there, one to five rating. Um you can see some of the the things that are really important to them and that they feel that their ch their children are receiving at Warner Middle School. some of the qualitative data from our parents. This was uh a recent survey uh the feedback from parents um which I won't read that to you but um you know just summarizing you know that a lot of times students they find their way to

057a school like Warner and it and it's a complete game changer for them. um they haven't really found their place in a traditional school. And so given a change in their environment, more uh personalization, better relationships, deeper relationships with their classmates and their teachers, and we see the arc of their their education really change. So, and I think our our parents speak to that. So, what do our students say? um each spring through a social emotional learning survey uh that we give to our students. Uh this is a a standardized survey that's given across our district and across the nation. Um you know, our students are saying that they feel safe, they feel connected, they feel like they belong at a school like Warner. So, five years ago when um I came to this board

058to give this presentation, I was about a month into the job. Um I was learning about Warner Middle School at the same time. So, the question was, you know, what kinds of goals do we want to develop for these next five years? I said, well, I am the ACP coordinator. Let's make a goal around that. Um, so I try to take an active role in implementing our academic and career planning curriculum with our students in grades six through eight. Um, and so we do that for all of our students. So obviously we're going to hit that 100% mark. things like their own personality and learning style inventories, career matchmakers, six-year plans, and then as you can see there, some of the uh the interests and um profiles of our students, which I think would be

059fairly common among students of their ages. All right. So, uh, additional and unfinished work, uh, over the the last five years. Um, and Jody had mentioned some of the work that Adam's been helping us with our equitable multi-level systems of support. um really just those those interventions for students when we when we have data on their learning and gaps that may exist, what are we doing about that? You know, with targeted timely interventions specific to the knowledge and skills that they don't have yet. Um so, yeah, the early returns on that um are really encouraging. I don't know, Adam, you might have had some of that handy, but when we were looking at that, we're like, you know, when you try something new, >> it it's nice when it's you get off to a good

060start, right? You get a little momentum off of that and that's that's what we've been experiencing. >> No, just to speak a little bit on that. super energizing for me and and hopefully the team as well. But just um being able to talk with them early on and them asking the question, hey, what do we do for some of these students maybe aren't uh where we want them to be? And for myself, knowing the wisdom is in the room just helping them kind of uh facilitate that. And um I had my scratch notes when they kind of brought me back into the building and said, "Hey, look at what results we saw." and um they had just probably an average of about one year's worth of gains on STAR assessments um in eight weeks. So

061they were like, "Yeah, we'll take that. We'll take a year's worth of growth in eight weeks." And um had about 71% of students had um just significant gains from that start test when they started to the star test they took after the work that the team did. So again, just super um exciting and things that then we start to say, "Hey, could you show that to other buildings in the district?" And that's the the great power of charter schools, right? >> Yeah, thanks, Adam. Um yeah, it's been really fun to watch. I know the we because we're small, you know, we think how we communicate this stuff, um it really matters and we've really been very transparent with our students about what we're doing, why we're doing it, how we're doing it. Um, so I

062they feel very invested in their learning. Um, they're not just it's not being done to them. They're they're in the driver's seat and we're supporting them along the way. Um, so additionally, the the work that we're uh continue to to try to build on are those community partnerships. You know, being a small school as we are, uh, being centrally located in downtown Shboan, I think it's conducive to those partnerships in that area. Um, we don't have traditional physical education in our building, but we have had over the last five years a partnership with the YMCA. We go there five uh, excuse me, one day a week uh, on Wednesdays, and we work with their staff. Their staff leads us through physical education, game play, fitness center usage, learning how to lift weights and use the

063equipment um, so that they can be lifelong learners of uh, their physical health. John Michael Kler Art Center. Uh we continue to make monthly visits there for uh expanded art education um and to grow our creativity and our students. And then uh Jody, you want to talk a little bit about that last? >> Yeah. To the visual aid. Um twice a year we stop class as normal and do a group project. Um we have done Shark Tank and we were lucky enough to have Mr. blaster as our uh judge with our Shark Tank unit. And actually Derek Deon, our high school rep, was a winner of the Shark Tank unit back in the day. This is a brand new one we just wrote. We just finished uh tiny home project. Kids were tasked with finding

064a group in need in the community and designing a tiny home community, a tiny home model, and what supports you would put in that community. Um, our finalists were um homeless vets, um, active people who are actively in recovery from drug or alcohol, students who had aged out of foster care, and I've checked my notes on the last one. Um, unhoused families. So, we brought in judges, and this is the model Annabelle made. She was very proud of it. She said there are half popsicle sticks and hot glue all over her room. Her mother's furious. But um this was part of of the requirement was you also had to build what you'd like your tiny home to look like. It was adorable. I thought she even put little planters in the side with little flowers.

065So they really get into it. In fact, we never know when we write them if this is going to be a great one or maybe not so great one. This was a really really good tiny home unit. The kids were really into it. The end of this year uh we're doing ancient history this year. So it's the Olympics. So at the end of the year we'll have a two-eek Olympic unit. If anybody wants to judge, we'll uh let me know. We'll take you >> your names at the end of the presentation. >> Yeah, the shingle work on there. I think even our house construction program would be proud of that. So, it's really well done. Um so, that's kind of a a look back. Now, we begin our look forward. Um so, in the contract

066that that you have, um I think before you, uh there's no I guess Adam, do you want to speak to that on what that contract's laid >> out? Yeah. maybe save you all unless you've dug it dug into the new contract in front of you. But there's no significant changes. So really the the changes you'll see are going to involve names and dates, some of that educational word wording that we use in our district that may be um need to be updated and then most importantly which uh the team will go through here in a second just what those new goals and new focuses are for this next contract. >> All right. So goal one, uh we mentioned the the STAR assessment which we give three times a year, fall, winter, and spring. Um our

067first goal is to reach 80 to 100% of our students having a growth percentile of 35 or higher um in both reading and math. And you know, we hadn't hit that number in the last five years, but we also weren't doing the things that we're doing now. Um, and as we talked about with some of those early growth numbers, we think that 80% is realistic and aspirationally, I mean, 100% is, I think, within, you know, within reach. Um, so that's what we're going to do, how we're going to do it. Um we have built into our weekly schedule um collaborative meeting time on Wednesdays so that our teachers on a weekly basis can meet part of that uh professional learning community to problem solve, build plans, uh revise plans for students so that when we

068meet when we have that intervention time uh during our flex time daily um we've got plans that go along with it. Um so yeah, just those intervention pieces we think are going to be the key uh drivers of that goal. Goal number two uh comes back to those satisfaction rates of our families and students. So uh 90% of our families and students we want to be uh feeling satisfied with their experience. Um and we will be doing uh mentioned that spring survey for students. Um h we haven't in the past been as consistent as we should be. We get a lot of feedback from families and have those close relationships. Um, so we know when they're happy or if they have a concern about something. Um, we don't always need a survey for it, but

069it's certainly nice to have when we have that that data point. So, um, in the next five years, that will be our plan is for those spring family surveys to provide that. And then goal three is around enrollment. Um so we are typically in that range of about 50 to 60. Um we have as many schools as this district as this state um has experienced declining enrollment. Our middle school is down. We are in that 40 range. Um so you know we've done some discussion and some work um at the staff level and at our governing board level about how to address that um when overall numbers are decreasing. How can we um how can we reverse that trend for us? Um we believe that that uh market opportunity is in online learning. Um being

070that that's something that we do that not everyone does. Um, we've often prided ourselves on that in-person learning experience for students and we don't want to short change that. Um, but we know if we want to make a change to our enrollment numbers, this is probably where we're going to see that growth. Um, so we're going to look at ways that we can um more target students who and families who are interested in that and um and just a little bit more of that shift back. We in the last five years quite honestly we've tried to shift away from being the the online school. Um but we feel now that um we might have to come back to it. So So those are our three goals. Um Jody, Adam, feel free to jump in if

071we've missed anything and not open the floor to questions please. Yes ma'am. Um, how many of your middle school students transfer into your high school typically? >> Yeah, typically estimate. Um, I would say it's probably in the 80 to 90% range. >> Yeah. Yeah. We, uh, commonly when we lose students from that 8th to 9th grade year, it's due to u extracurricular opportunities that North and South have uh, that we don't. So I look at that as more of a positive pull rather than a push factor coming out of our school. >> Thanks. >> So initially it was primarily an online school and then it shifted to more and more FaceTime. Am I correct? >> Jody, you want to speak to that? >> Um the high school was primarily an online school. Um Jake was

072my principal at the time when I was at the high school and we talked about starting a middle school knowing that middle schoolers aren't necessarily super motivated to work online when they're home. So we started from the beginning as an in-person middle school with an online component. >> Okay. And so when you say you're considering shifting back to a more online or trying to get more people online, are you looking at those people being students being 100% of the time online or a hybrid or what's your where your 100% online middle schoolers successful? >> That is a really interesting question. Right now I would say 50% are really successful. I would say there's a lot of students who struggle with scheduling. Um, we do have the ability to, and Jason is wonderful at this, if

073students are struggling online, we bring them into school and they're working on their online classes, but they have us there to support them until they get back on track. >> And is that only if the parents agree with you or do you have the opportunity to say you must? if if they're not engaging uh in the online program. Um basically after three periods of time, we kind of treat it the same way we would uh high school students or just kind of the state policy on online uh attendance, you know, how to measure attendance is through engagement. Um so basically it's a three strikes and it's not you're out, it's three strikes and you're in. Uh so uh that's kind of how that works. We we work with them. We try to problem solve, try

074to provide supports. Um but if all else fails then and it's a student that lives in Chbbo, then we're saying, "Okay, we need to come in because you need a little more structure and support here at school." But we haven't had historically at Warner Middle School a high percentage of students who have been fully online. I mean, it's it's probably like >> 5% >> uh of our enrollment is online. It's almost entirely in person. And then we've had a few here and there that will want um kind of that hybrid piece. >> So, when you spoke about wanting to raise having to go to more of an online promotion to build your enrollment, >> Yeah. Is that because of educational outcome or is that an economic thing that we want more kids in school? >>

075Uh >> I mean you're competing against a an a whole series of online opportunities that are bigger than a school district that are statewide for example. >> Yeah. I but I think you know the virtual charter schools that we would be competing with we would be offering a very similar model. >> So I think we would be competitive in that um and we would be in just as good position to achieve the outcomes educational outcomes that any online school could provide. >> And that's part of our exploration phase, right? That's really where we're at. How do we reach out to some families who are opting for that virtual option to better understand what they're looking for? Do we have a comparable option within our district being Warner Middle School? Are they looking for something else?

076Do we want to tailor something if we see a majority of the families looking for that? So, it's really about the choice having additional choice within the Warner Middle School um option. So, we're not there as far as knowing exactly what those families want. We really need to reach out to them and survey them and have more conversations about what they're looking for. >> And we and we don't particularly like the thought of Shbboan families uh choosing online options and leaving the district. >> Oh, 100%. I would vastly prefer they stay, but they're not doing >> not all. Not all. And we do have that list. And you know, that's something that we've been talking about as our uh strategy here in the next few weeks of reaching out to those families. So, I have

077all those names and contact information. And so, I'm going to be kind of reaching out kind of collecting the information, coding that, you know, what is their what has been their reason for leaving? What are they looking for? Are you aware of those kinds of conversations? >> I'm going to speak to that. I am really really excited that you're looking to expand online opportunities. We selected that for two of our kids earlier in their education and it was really really good for my kids and we kept wishing it were here. It was an elementary student and a middle middle school student and it was another public school that was using online and we were sending our kids to public school three hours away online and so we got to meet them twice. only twice did

078they get to meet up with their classmates other than online. And we kept wishing there was something that say I could meet these kids every week or we could meet them at the museum field trip. And so I I think it's thrilling. I think options for students and families for individual learners is where we are. This is where what families want is um where they see their kids most engaged. And I I'm just really excited about it. And I I put engagement several times in my I think um engagement and belonging are the two things that students are looking for and that parents are looking to see their students have. And um I'm excited about the options and expanding it. Also that I get to see you almost every morning when it's decent weather, greeting

079your students when they come to the building and I really special. >> Yeah, I miss not being out there lately and it's not because of the cold. I can handle the cold. >> I've been directing traffic inside the building. So, we've been getting some log jams near the office area and I got to keep kids, get their breakfast, get the class stuff. >> So, I say hi to them inside just not outside. >> So, I don't see you. >> So, piggyback off of what Heidi said, but the data the the YB or not not YBRS. My question I think is like the panorama data >> that shows phenomenal like data does not look like middle school data in our country. uh is that you know measured against YBRS and or is that a big part

080of it because when you think of online schools the it's not just an online curriculum you're still doing personalized learning private online but to have that level of I have connection here and I belong here like that feels huge during a mental health crisis in this country. I'll just speak to that generally. Maybe you can add color to it, Jason. But so what he's sharing is the panorama survey which is nationally normed which we have in your slides and then the Y RBS is kind of that it's that federal survey but we have it at the state level and then our schools would have taken it. So that is possibly something that we will want to look at to see if there's a correlation at all um between the YRBS and Panorama. But the Panorama

081is national in order >> so we can compare a school like Georgia Warner to other schools. >> Love what I wrote down. >> I've got my cynical hat on. So I'm asking questions about all of the other things that inperson classroom learning brings >> Yeah. >> that you we're not talking about. So the social emotional development, the interpersonal relationships, the communication skills, like those types of things. So, but I also don't have any point of reference for the demographic of your students and kind of the makeup of of the students that you are serving. So, I like that. I like the choice option. And I like if families are able to support and nurture those other pieces that there are options for those families. I would um as a parent of students that are going

082to middle school soon, I would just I would encourage you to think about something else that would set you apart from other online schools that can answer that engagement piece and ensure that you're also playing an active role in ensuring they have some of that peer interaction and the development that comes along with that. Um Middle school is such a challenging time for all of us. I mean, I remember Jason's hair then. It was challenging for all of us to see it, but >> you have no idea. No idea. >> Um, but but I think about, you know, there's just that that push and pull because as we're serving young people in middle school and high school at Big Brothers Big Sisters, we're seeing the the lack the the gaps in traditional education, the traditional

083scores. And I'm curious if there's magic sauce that you haven't found that's a combination that could kind of close some of those and become more appealing >> to families. >> One of the things we do offer just sorry >> no we offer Wednesdays as an option to our online families. On Wednesdays we um walk to the library and then we walk to the YMCA and we do have classes. So families are online, they want to send their students on Wednesdays to get that library, get that peer time, get that face toface time with their students and their teachers. It's always an option for families to come on Wednesdays. >> Well, you know, hearing you talk about that, Denise, I mean, it takes me back to uh kind of the COVID time period when >> when

084a larger percentage of our students at Warner Middle School were online. And so we were really forced to think about um how could we be more active in making those building those connections with our students and then our studentto student connections and so we had live sessions I don't remember if it was daily how that went I think it was daily we had a ton built into that so yeah all the kids are on the screen cameras on you know kind of getting to know each other so that when they do come in they have at least some semblance of a relationship with their students and you So, I think there's opportunities there. Um, if we do, if we are successful in growing that online component of our student population to build those connections, >>

085it could be really interesting for students that are not successful at the traditional large high schools. And if there is a if there's a push on safety and belonging, families that wouldn't ever traditionally consider that because they don't have access to technology, they don't have it's not safe for them to show where they are, those types of things. But it could allow students that avoid that become truent to still embrace their education because it's in a safe place. So that also could also before they get to central, before they get to some of the other places. >> Right. >> So, >> and just to add that one thing I've appreciated kind of going through this with Jason and the team is just some of those thoughts you've had with the online learning. Those are things

086that yeah, we've kind of talked about too internally. And I think to that word online learning, I don't know what that means. Probably each different thing, but I would, you know, talking to the team, I would encourage you to think about, okay, there's in person, there's online, and all those things in between. I mean I think a school like Warner that flexibility in that piece is hey we can make that look any way um where for every student it might be different too right what is success or what is belonging within that spectrum it's probably different for every student there's a maybe an avenue there at Warner to accommodate those differences so >> so Jody when you teach your social studies class >> in person >> how many kids are in a class >> uh

08718ish >> and then are there like a couple of kids who zoom in or >> we we have tried that before in the past. Um it has been with certain families that worked great with certain families it did not work great. We right now we only have two students online right now and one is from Plymouth and one is local here. And uh my Plymouth is a night owl. So usually I have an online time. We were scheduling to meet at 10:00. He wasn't making it. Wasn't making it. Mom emails me. He's like, "He's just up so late." Now we meet at 3:30 every Tuesday and we go over his classes. He knows if he needs help that he can email me at any time. Um, and that's what his family wants. They want the

088the curriculum. They want to meet with me. They want to contact me if they need help. We have another student right now who is going to be coming back in. She needs more help from the team. She needs more support. She's not being terribly successful right now. Um, and some of that has to do with some some issues that she's having outside of school. So, when she comes to school, we will give her a totally different package than what the other student needs. So like Adam said, we can meet parents wherever they wherever they want, whatever their family needs, whatever their student needs to be successful. >> Yeah. I you know, the smaller class sizes is really advantageous. I wish we had 18 for all that would be great, >> you know, and I think

089if we could afford it, which we can't, they would have even more connection and more engagement and feel they have more of a relation. I mean, it's just positive to have smaller numbers. I don't care who runs what study where that says class size has nothing to do with kids success. I think that's uh have you at any level considered reaching out and I know this is kind of a hot topic but I never shy away from um we have students in this community who don't feel safe coming to school because of recent events and I think that's a population that could be well served by Warner. Have we done anything where we see patterns of kids who are were attending and aren't attending now because of that for you to reach out and say

090this might be a way for your kid to continue a positive short period. Have we done anything like that? >> Yeah, I think that's what Jason's talking about doing. So, we have that list. We look at students who uh stop attending for homeschooling purposes for online. they're looking at other schools online and we reach out to those families and say we just want you to know we have this option here. In the past at the middle school level, right, it's been a little tricky. Are we promoting it as an online school or not? I think that's the discussion that we're having and we're saying yes. I have uh every bit of confidence that we can provide the best online learning opportunity for any student in this county. Uh and as good as anything in the

091state, right? Success online is uh Jody said 5050. That's about it. When you look at report cards for online schools, it's a really good option for some families and it's an option for other families who want to run away from having their student attend for It's not for the reasons you're talking about safety wise. So, there's challenges with that. I think the board needs to understand that if you throw a 100 online middle school kids in there, I don't think you stand a chance of hitting 80 to 100% SGP. And I think we know that. Uh that is that's what it is. But we're willing to accept that um understanding that within Shabboan County at least we have the opportunity of saying, "Come in, see us face to face, get help, uh engage with us."

092That feels really good to me. Throughout the state, that's it's just really hard. They're going to do everything they can for engagement. Uh with online kids, sometimes you have to cut them loose. That's not always the best thing either, but they're tricky. It's just a tricky platform. >> I mean, what I was thinking of isn't so much kids who were going to a different I heard what you said about, you know, kids going to a different online school. Why are they doing that? Or kids who are homeschooled. Why are they doing that? I was thinking about the kids who were attending their neighborhood schools or whatever and then because of recent events, they have chosen not to send their child to school. >> Oh, >> this would be an opportunity for >> I don't think

093so, Kate. >> I mean, I don't think that you can snatch a kid from Urban and say, you know, the next three weeks we're going to put you at this school. you figure it out and then when it's safe, you can come back. I mean, I Well, I don't I I mean, I think maybe we're just spinning our wheels here, but I I just um I would just comment on that a little bit, K. What I would say is based on the information we've received, that's not a high percentage of students that we're seeing. Um number one, and then number two, that work would really start at the school level, right? So, their homeschool level. So, if they're saying that a student is not attending for some reason, they're going to be reaching out to

094that family to try to understand the why, as we would with any other attendance issue, trying to help that family overcome barriers to attend school. And we saw that that was a long-term, you know, situation, it might come into this exploration phase. If families are looking for something different, but at this point in time, I feel pretty comfortable in saying that at a school level, our staff are responsive. They know the families. They know any barriers that they might be o might be experiencing and they're working to help them overcome it. So, thinking about our principles, the classroom teacher, social workers, counselors within the building, all those resources within all of our home schools to be able to support families. It really would for the issue that you're referring to. It's going to start at

095that school level right now at this point in time. and we're in the first window of school choice right now for next year. So, let's get the word out. >> You know, we've got families who are have concerns about that in person component. Um it it is kind of hard to do that sort of just automatically. Let's switch switch schools and then maybe we switch back. But, um you know, for next year, like right now, like this is a great time to take a look at Warner Schools and put in that school choice application. And I'll just piggyback on that too, right? Like if we've had situations where families are looking for another school option for a number of reasons, we want to keep them in our district and we have 25 schools, right? So

096we believe that we have an option um to meet the needs of our families within our school. if it's Warner or somewhere else, our goal is typically to have them at their home school. But if they're choosing Warner, we're going to support them with that choice and share information and get them in contact with the team over Warner. >> I was just bringing that up because there are some school districts who have not been doing a lot of online who are now offering it in light of the current situation. >> And I I would be really thrilled if it was a three week. If this was a three-week thing, I'd be really happy. >> And we'll continue to monitor that. Um, I just want to say thank you to the team, the Warner team here

097for presenting. I hope that the presentation was insightful, them sharing about what makes Warner schools stand out and make them a unique choice in our district as well as their continued work. So, ultimately, u, we're we're recommending reauthorization of the charter for Warner schools uh for the next five years. and we realize that the board has to make that final uh vote and decision here tonight. >> Thank you, Rachel. Are there any other comments before we move for a vote? >> One thing I want to say before we vote, um the word game changer was used. Um, so I'm a day treatment therapist and when I have kids that are in my program that go to Warner, whether it be the middle school or the high school, um, I feel really good about sending them

098back to school. I know that, uh, the flexibility, the support that you guys have at your schools are bar none. Um, it's an easier transition for the kids that really need it. So, keep up the great work. I mean, I see it even here. the way you presented, the way you brought your artifact and you practice what you preach and your kids see that and I think that's a great reason for your success. Keep up the great work. >> Thank you. >> And your longitudinal data, our young man who was smiling in the first photo who had shared I think that middle school's like long-term outcomes when I think about lack of social, you know, everybody who's won the sturgeon competitions and all those things. So, I think that that is a a really important

099part of that story. >> Well, and Derek's brother Joe was a finalist in our tiny home unit, too. The judging was controversial. Jason was a judge, but uh for some unhappy students. >> That's why we want other people to come in and be the judges. >> I move approval of reauthorization. >> Thank you. Is there a second? >> Second. >> Any further discussion? All in favor, vote I. >> I. >> Any opposed? Motion carries. Thank you. >> Thank you very much. >> Thank you. >> Maybe you can get together with some of the individuals and kind of talk about that offline >> about what was discussed tonight. >> Yes. >> Yep. Thank you. >> All right. Next, we got the state budget and enrollment updates. Dr. Conra, I'm going to be um really quick with

100these. I think we extended our time tonight, but um I included two of them in the packet, which now between tonight and last board meeting, you have all three presentations. It's a lot of information, but it's I think really important for board members to have that uh at their hands to peruse it when time allows. um and really just kind of keeps you updated on the state of of kind of where we are with things from a financial standpoint budget-wise and from a declining enrollment standpoint. Um so just going to hit on a few things. If you want to follow my screen, it's probably easiest. We're talking 82% of school districts in the state have called for referendum since 94. Uh I just spent uh time right in Milwaukee with my colleagues of which any

101of them who had operational referendums are absolutely mortified right now about what they're going to do moving forward because um obviously with less increase in or no increase in state aid. Um they're seeing taxes go up in their communities. They're feeling like they're not going to get support on operational referendums. uh and they're hemorrhaging because they don't have uh funding. So really an interesting time for a lot of districts. We are fortunate not to be in that situation where we're relying on not to to make budget. Um you know our demographics as a state. This is an interesting one just from a standpoint of um where we stand at private voucher schools. we get I think we can get a feel for uh where this state is going right now if you look at Florida

102and Arizona and I don't think it's pretty picture. Um but I think when you look at these numbers and you try to understand where we're headed um that's kind of where our laws are are pushing us as far as choice and things of that nature. So, that's probably the best indicator of what these numbers could look like um into the future. And uh they're not I wouldn't say that they're great for education as a whole. There certainly isn't research to support that. So, that's what they're showing. This just an easy slide for people um to see. We've done a lot of communication about the tax increases in our community. We've communicated to staff, to parents. Uh we've talked about it online. We have it on our website. It'll be going out in our all district

103or um yeah, all district mailer to every mailbox uh in the next week or so. But again, just reminding people it's that loss of state aid um that we faced. So, we're not seeing revenue increases that are even keeping up with inflation, especially when you look at uh inflation related to health insurance. Uh but you're seeing property taxes go up because that state aid um isn't being increased. So, probably the biggest thing I'm seeing as I talk with people in the community isn't community members coming up saying, "My taxes went up 15 to 20%. That's insane. We've gotten two or three of those and I fully understand that. Um, and it is insane. But I'm hearing people say, "Well, I'm glad you guys are at least getting more money." We're not getting more money. Uh,

104and that's a concern is that people think, "Okay, I can deal with higher taxes. It's for the kids at schools." No, it's not. It's sitting in state surplus at the state level. It's not making its way to schools. Uh so we just want to be clear on that and continue to make sure that that message gets across. We're not hitting inflation. That's just the reality of it. I'm going to skip through many of these. Again, good slides for you to look at, but um nothing that we need to spend a ton of time on tonight. A lot of this is probably review for you um as we work through this process what we see here uh increase I think again just below inflation and that's just what I was hitting on right increase in revenue

105limit per means below inflation for 17th and 18th year in a row represents 2.72% increase on average across all districts 17 and 18 years in a row of being below inflation uh and we're trying to give raises that meet CPI so when we're doing that uh you we're just we're just cutting any and everywhere that we can to get there. So, that's been extremely difficult. It's not sustainable. Uh you've seen some of my colleagues speak up uh for large urban districts this week. You've seen rural districts speak up in the past. Continue to to see schools hemorrhage and and and go out for referendum. You're seeing what's going on in Oshkosh, Appleton, FondeLac. um just really difficult times for districts. We're I think we're fortunate to have a $ 1.6 million budget deficit and that

106probably shows how um awful the situation is, but that's nothing that we should be feeling good about. Uh but that's where we are right now. So, uh CPI moving forward, I think this year it's going to it's in at 2.63. We're going to have a hard time hitting that. Um, and that's as a result of of this slide right here. Had a conversation with our legislators the other day about this and I mentioned being $3,571 uh below and they said, "Well, that was after that was before act 10 and you got a bunch of savings off of that." So, we made sure we got this uh extra piece in here of $2573 um after act 10. So, when you figure we have you know, 91, 92, 9,300 kids in our district. Um, that's 2030 million

107dollars that we're we're behind inflation on. So, that number continues to be really challenging for public education. Um, and here you just really see the number of districts that were affected um when they didn't increase state aid and and what we're looking at from a budgetary standpoint there. So again, good slides here for you to look at this. We continue to hear as well that they're funding special ed at historically high levels. That just isn't true. Um so if we look back to 8081, you can see special ed was funded, you know, right around 70% in the 60s and 70s. Um, looks like about 68% 80 81 66.1 U. And it's nice to see it at 42 and 45. It would be nice to actually see it at 42 and 45. >> I think we're

108going to see that closer to 38 39 and then 42 43 if we're lucky. >> Uh, as a reminder, that's about $200,000 per percent um that we're going to fall short. So the math on that is pretty ugly. And again, you know, we asked about making this some sufficient and the response was we can't do that because we don't know what the expense is going to be. We don't know what we have for revenue. We can't use the surplus because that's onetime money. And then additional revenue rolls in because tax revenue at the state level was better than expected. And then we heard, oh, we got like a billion dollar uh projected deficit for transportation, so that's why we can't. So, we continue to hear excuses as to why we can't fund special education in

109this state uh at a level that we used to. We can't fund public education uh at a level that's equal to CPI. And at some point in time, the excuses just run. They just run dry, right? It's just, well, it's onetime money and then then it's not onetime money. but then it's because we have deficits moving forward. So, um it's it's getting tiring and I think that's why you're seeing people speak up is it's just every single time there's a little bit of good news where they could do something for public education, they're choosing not to and and we just need to say that it's a choice not to. Don't don't give excuses. You're just choosing not to. Um, so this is where we are um on a special ed standpoint. Again, just that high

110cost versus primary uh with primary being, you know, such a high percentage of of what the costs are. Um, this slide, I appreciate WBO putting this out. Um especially that last question on the bottom, it's just showing that voucher schools are getting increases, right, of 640 and then $428. And that's tied to any increase that public schools get, but the reverse definitely is not true. So when vouchers get a bump, we're not tied to that at all. Um so while they can get more uh without being tied to public education, we're not seeing more when they get more. So it's uh just a one-way street there. And again, it's about choices. Um and this slide I thought was interesting that they put into uh when we say it's a choice, this is the choice. We

111have chosen voucher schools over funding our special ed kids. voucher schools uh accounting for the the total revenue that you're seeing up there compared to special ed. Uh we're funding those systems. If we would have put that that money or at least a portion of that money into our special ed kids to support them at a level that's I think appropriate, respectful, uh and shows that we care about kids, we'd be in a in a different boat here. So here's our virtual school payments or per pupil payments uh at each level. And then we look here and you can see this is the one that probably shocks me more than anything is that voucher 9 through 12 at $13,371. And the the the bar just to the left of our average RL, that's average revenue

112limit in the state. uh and then median revenue limit in the state. I never thought I would have seen voucher schools getting funded at a higher level uh than public schools. That that just that one blows my mind. And I think when you do the math on that and we start talking about the special ed reimbursements for voucher schools versus public schools, you know, we're making a $14 million transfer last year that's taking uh our true per pupil allocation from about 117 down to about 102 and that's about 13.8 million less uh than what the archers are. So you just really a slide that kind of blows my mind from a standpoint of it's not even equal it's not even close to being equal especially to 12 level where they can charge tuition where they're

113getting reimbursed uh for every special ed student around $15,000 and then where they're being uh reimbursed above that $15,000 uh at over 90. So we continue to look at uh all of this and ultimately it results in these five uh I think takeaways which is a revenue limit increase are still below inflation 18 years and running. Um we appreciated the special education increases um but they're falling short obviously of where they said they would and well short of the 60% that I think was a fair truly was a fair ask. Um and we saw a lot of rep we talked with a lot of Republicans and a lot of Democrats prior to the banual budget that were all on board with 60%. Um so that's pretty interesting. uh districts that lose kids to open enrollment.

114Um obviously that change to the the bianual budget was completely unexpected. It wasn't something that we could plan for, budget for. Um so that hurt our district quite a bit. I think there's people that will absolutely say, "Well, if kids are leaving your district, uh do something about it, fix it." We're uh net positive with a lot of districts with um lower free and reduced lunch than we we have in our district. I think we are pretty competitive. I think we see a lot of people choosing us. Um but I think in the world of of open enrollment, we're fighting an uphill battle there and that policy was targeted at urban districts. Um districts that gained through open enrollment obviously gains um could be used for high cost special ed, right? And then districts forced

115away hard choices, declining enrollment, and you know, those are some conversations that are going to be coming to us and they're coming to every district in the state. Most have already uh had to have them regarding um cutting programs, consolidation, things of that nature. So, uh, like I said, this isn't isn't a fun presentation to give, but, um, kind of shows the the status of of the budget in our state. We continue to push and continue to push and continue to push, uh, for use of that state surplus and that increased tax revenue. Uh, we know that you'll continue to support SASD and and push for that as well. and we thank you uh for that, but we just wanted to get in front of you tonight uh and make sure that you're aware of

116that information. >> All right. Thank you, Dr. Are there any questions for Dr. >> I'm pretty mad. >> Sure. >> Well, you don't know. >> Oh, no. >> That would not be a good thing. >> I think I do have one question. I realize this is just the budget implications, but recognizing that there's also data transparency, you know, discrepancies between the public and voucher schools and that special education research at the federal level has been completely disrupted. Are there data pieces that we need to be tracking internally that used to be done externally or it's more than just the budget allocations, right? like there's the the data that would demonstrate the impact that we need isn't being collected at the same level. So, are there things that we need to be doing as far as

117storytelling and ensuring that the folks that continue to benefit from our our schools understand the the need to see this through. Yeah, I think I got you there. Right. Uh, so I I think a couple things there. We >> we talk about this a lot. We talk about it with colleagues in other urban districts is how do we continue to tell our story and make sure that our families understand uh what we do for them, that we're there for them, and that we are serving the families that want to be in our in our schools and make sure that we're not maybe chasing something that they don't want us to chase, right? Um, so I think that's a a piece of it and we continue to to talk and dialogue around that. Um we're not

118you don't see families leave the SASD in high numbers once they've attended the SASD, right? Um so that's a a piece we'll continue to look at. Could all day 4K help? Could things like that help to get kids in the door? Um, absolutely good online schools help things of that nature. But really, we continue to tell our story pretty loudly. Uh, and I think pretty successfully with with pretty good parent satisfaction, right? We see that in our in our narratives as far as collecting data. I think there's so much data out there to show that there's no benefit to voucher schools, right? And I was a a charter school guy through and through and still appreciate charter schools. Love seeing what Warner is doing tonight, but we used to look at charter schools and it's

119it's where I get a little I feel like I'm a little pessimistic in education, but there were great charter school networks out there and they started doing amazing things and we started watching them and yeah, we're going to do what they're going to do. In the end, they they couldn't take over districts, right? None of them would take over a district. They would look at the KIP schools. They would look at all those schools and you want to take over a district and the answer was no. And then Katrina happened in New Orleans and charter schools decided they were going to take over New Orleans and special ed kids disappeared like literally disappeared. >> Uh and they quickly decided they didn't want to take over a district anymore. So that's where I really struggle with

120this um is just that it's not It's not apples to apples. There's nothing we can do to compare that. So you see the research from the Wisconsin policy form that's funded by Northwestern Mutual that's got Rob there from um Milwaukee College Prep Charter Schools who's a huge advocate of school choice leading that research which says there's no positive effect in it. It hasn't it hasn't made a positive uh difference in MPS versus public schools, but it's sure costing a lot of money. Uh, so we're just spending a lot of money to get the same results. And quite honestly, it's used to talk about going private because that was a cheaper way to do it. Their per pupil is higher than ours. This isn't it's not cheaper either. Um, we're we're the better value to the

121taxpayer. That's insane. Um, so you're seeing a lot there. I think the other thing we continue to see, and I can speak to this within a district, you got to be a little careful, but you see choice schools, and I heard a district say it in our county the other day, and he said, you know, the families that choice into our school are higher for reduced lunch on average than what we already have in our school, but they outperform our students. He said, "I think that's because the parents are so into and looking for education and prioritizing it." And you even I think you see that it's impossible to prove, but I think you see that in our district when you look at at our neighborhood schools. There are certain schools that parents choice to

122a lot. Um, I don't believe that they're doing anything. They're great schools. I don't believe they're doing anything different or necessarily better than many of our other neighborhood schools, but you're just seeing a difference there uh based upon that choice. So, it it really becomes tricky to to have that narrative with parents in the community. Um that's what we're seeing and that's what keeps me up at night. I think people are are making choices off of bad information, not fully understanding the the full spectrum of of the data, and then in the end, uh, you know, everyone's going to suffer as a whole. Uh, so that's what we're worried about. We're going to fight and work with everything we have uh to continue to tell our story, collect the data that we need to collect

123to explain why we do amazing things for amazing students and amazing families. But we got an uphill uphill battle here and that's just that's just the reality. Anyone else? All right. Thank you, Dr. Con, for the report. It's always good to hear that there's always some type of positive, but that we're also working to keep our kids um in school and making sure that our builders are fully staffed and taken care of. So, thank you. Next we have the report of the committee's curriculum and instruction. >> We have taken care of the first two diplomas. Uh I would move for approval of the international model UN conference field trip North High School would like to attend February 5 through 8 in Chicago. >> Do you want to just >> No, they're really different. a field

124trip in one's >> information or enrollment. >> I second that. >> Any discussion? All in favor say I. >> Motion carries. >> And then the last item is our enrollment caps. If you look this over, um we we just can't accept more special ed students in, but we have regular open. So I would recommend that we go along with what has been recommended to us. Enrollment caps 42627. I move for approval. >> Second. >> Any discussion? All in favor say I. >> Motion carries. Thank you. K. U. Next we have human resources committee. Leo. >> Yes. I'd like to um move approval for items number one uh one, two, and four. >> Second. >> Any discussion? All in favor say I. >> I. >> Motion carries. Thank you. >> Next we have the facility recreation

125theater committee. Peter, >> I would like to move for action on items one and two the financial reports for the theater company and the direct department. >> Second. >> Any discussion? All in favor say I. >> I. >> Motion carries. Thank you, Peter. Next we have the finance and budget committee. Madame vice president. >> Um I move for approval for items one through four which are all um financial reports. >> Second. >> Any discussion? All in favor say I. >> I. Motion carries. >> And for items 5 through 7 they are all introduction first readings. I move for approval. >> Is any discussion? All in favor say I. >> I. >> Motion carries. And number eight, move to approve gifts. And I will mention that for these two months, it was $65,000 from individuals, organizations,

126and companies who see value in our programs and our activities. And we want to thank all of those people that see the value. >> Nice. Very good. Is there a second? >> Second. >> Any discussion? All in favor say I. >> I. Motion carries. Um, we don't need to do the committee as a whole. Next we have the special board committees assignments on legislative round table. Dr. Kat. >> Yeah, you touched on this a little bit. We continue to talk about funding uh and hoping for ways that use additional revenue at the state level to support public education uh especially around making that special education funding hole. Um we're going to continue having those discussions. Obviously there are a lot of things the state can spend the money on. We think our kids are at

127the top of that list. So, we hope they agree. >> Yeah, I hope so, too. Thank you, Dr. Kra. >> All right, next we have the Shabboan Public Education Foundation. >> Two main points from uh from the annual meeting. One, they're all in for education uh event was a great success. It was it continues to grow and so they will keep that as their main fundraiser for the year. And second, we are they are full force in scholarship season. Um the first year of the digital application process is going very well. It's been very well received. Um the scholarship deadline is Tuesday, February 17th at 9:00 p.m. for all students. >> Thank you. Next, we have the human growth and development citizens advisory committee. Alex, >> the committee is continuing to work through the middle

128school content and also focusing on content accessibility, student engagement. Um and will a later focus on some of the delivery aspects. Um because of the level of depth of some of the conversations related to this content across sixth, seventh and eighth grade, um the committee has decided to add additional meetings to the calendar. Um so there was a meeting in December um and two in January and you'll see some additional meetings moving forward. >> Thank you, Ally. Um next we have the future meeting dates of February 10th for the committee meeting at 6 and February 24th regular board of education meeting at six. Next, I seek a motion to adjourn to close session per Wisconsin state statute section 1985 section 1 section C to consider employment promotion compensation or performance evaluation data of any public

129employee over which the board of education has jurisdiction or exercise responsibility to consider possible modifications to the employment contract of the Supreme Schools. >> So much. >> Is there a second? >> Second. All right, we are going to start with the roll call. Do you have it? >> I close session. Have a good night everyone.