001So these two we're going to do, you know, I I have Hey, but then I heard what you said last time. You know, I could be the [Music] All right. I would like to call to order the board of education meeting. Please stand with me for the pledge of allegiance. I pledge algiance 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. Thank you. This is one that always miss, but is there a motion to approve the agenda? So move. Is there a second? Second. All in favor say I. I. Motion carries. Roll call finds those present with the exception of K and Sarah. Next, I'm seeking a motion to approve the minutes of the regular board
002of education meeting minutes, excuse me, of July 22nd, 2025 and close session meeting minutes of July 22nd, 2025 and close session meeting minutes of August 12th, 2025. Is there a second? Second. Any discussion? All in favor say I. Motion carries. Next we have diplomas. Rachel. Yes. So we have Yeah, I know uh K's not here, but it's all good. So we do have some graduates in the audience. Um we have one early graduate from the class of 2026. And then we have five graduates from the class of 2025. And um as always, this is a huge milestone for our students and for us as a district. I count it as our mission fulfilled for the select group of group of students. Thank you. Is there you'll want to make a motion? Yes. Is there a
003motion to approve the graduation of these kids? So move second. All in favor say I. I. Motion carries. How many guys? All right. Good. We We endorse that when it's All right. So, I will call your name to come up and receive your diploma. That is Skyler. Yes. Skyler Kennedy. [Applause] Hands down. I need Wait, wait. up here and get a picture. Oh yeah, come take your mom and dad. Happy go. Oh, cool. All right. What a family. All right. Thank you. Congratulations. Do we have anyone else in the audience? Is there anyone else? Diploma. All right. Congratulations to the early grad. Man, this impressive. Yes. Next, we have community input. Is there anyone here for community input? Huh? Community input. All right, we'll move on. superintendence report. Dr. Comra. Yeah, I'll be brief tonight
004because we're going to kind of go over our presession stuff and that's a lot of uh this as well, but we had our back to school bash on Tuesday, August 19th. Um Scott maybe is a new employee to the district working um kind of in employee retention recruitment HR and I think our back to school bash had declined a little bit over the years. This was Scott's first year and on short time he did a wonderful job of putting it together. So we had um just tons of positive feedback from staff which was really nice and he deserves uh all the credit for that. So if you see him out and about, uh, thank him for his hard work and efforts on a tight turnaround with that precession took place yesterday. We're going to talk
005about that a little bit um in a few minutes, but really good event. Uh, as always, we raised food and money for um the food pantry, which is nice. North Drum Line kicked us off. They were more than impressive. Um, and the kids are just they're just fun. They came over with me. this is going to be the best show ever. Uh they were pretty pumped. So we had a good time with with presession. Uh new teacher orientation took place last week. Jamie does a great job putting that on. 60 new teachers. Um I think the future is bright in this district. We've had a lot of uh really energetic uh great hires this year. So really excited to see what they bring to the district. and first year in since probably since at 10
006that we had more um teachers graduating from college than we had retirees as a state as a whole. Um you could definitely tell that from our job postings. So um I think are we full? Um we're we're almost full. one or two special eds are always tricky at the end when we're doing some internal movement, but uh it's really good sitting in a really good place from a hiring standpoint, teachers and DAS. And then Mike did his technical conference. Uh Mike and his his IT crew were out at Lakeland for that on August 7th. Had a really good turnout. We thank Lakeland uh for that partnership. Great event for our staff. um went off really really well. Mark your calendars if you are interested. Tuesday, September 9th at 9:15. Um Stoneberg Crossing subdivision uh is
007groundbreaking for another house, which I think will be our is it our 28th? I have that in our our presession. You'll see it uh when we work through it. So, that's always a neat event if you're able to attend. Um, and then obviously first day of school, September 2nd. We're pretty excited to get kids back in the classrooms. Parents are excited as well. Says mother of twins. Yeah, father of twins knows that one, too. But, um, no, there's just so much energy right now. It's really a lot of fun to got out in the buildings a little bit yesterday and today and staff meetings and whatnot. people are in good spirits, uh, ready to come back, ready to help our kids. So, we have a incredible staff that brings it every single year, and we're
008going to do the same thing this year. So, we're excited to get them back in the classrooms. That's all I have. All right. Thank you, Dr. Conrad. Um, next we have the board review of presentation or sorry, presession materials. Yeah, you guys want to come up too? Um we so this is uh about Santino and Peter were there. It's about an hour and a half worth of stuff that we're going to condense down to um 15 minutes. But we just wanted you to see what we talked with our teachers and our staff about um our full staff about at the beginning of the school year and um just kind of make you aware and and make sure that we're all on the same page and aligned to what we're saying and what we're seeing in
009our district. So, um, it was a nice event. Uh, Ryan Sorson, Mayor Sorenson opened up with a few comments. Uh, he had reached out and asked to speak and did a nice job just talking about the the benefits of school to community, strong school district to community. Um, and then, uh, Dr. Borggan came, president of Lakeland University, and addressed the staff and had some kind words to say about everything we do, especially related to the CAP program and uh the success of that program. And then Santino gave a riveting speech uh but it was heartfelt and it was really nice and really well received from staff. So, we thank him for that. and Stacy also did a phenomenal job addressing staff just talking about um kind of the the challenges surrounding public education and and
010how we need to to push forward and and find solutions moving forward. So um that was that and then Mark and Rachel and I wrap it up and we'll we'll talk a little bit about what that looks like. So um you have all the slides. We're not going to hit all of them in here. You'll see some of them are skipped, but you can certainly see them in your handouts. Um, one highlight again from from Beth's presentation, nine 900 students enrolled uh in our dual enrollment partnership and over $4.5 million of college college credit earned last year. So, just an amazing number that we're able to put up for our kids. And the one thing we talk about there is before we started this partnership about 30% of kids taking CAP classes were taking it
011for credit. And when we went to students and teachers and said, "Why aren't you why are you in a college class that you get credit for? You're going to college next year, but you're not taking it for credit. The $290 cap fee was too much money." Uh so the plan was we want to take rigorous classes. We can't afford the 290 right now, but we're going to go to college and take loans. Um, so making this free for them is just a huge deal. And now it's 90 some percent 95% that are taking it for credit. So really a neat deal thanks to Lakeland. Uh, as I said, great speeches from from Santino and Stacy. And then I'm just going to have Mark uh, and I'll give you the clicker Mark and you can just
012kind of walk the board through what you spoke to regarding the budget. Yeah. So, we just want since all the staff was there, we just wanted to kind of give them an overview of uh what happened with the state budget and where we're at and what's you know, kind of the timeline going forward. So, a lot of this is is items you've been involved with and know, but you know, we just talked about, you know, going into the bianial budget, how that's kind of a we have to make a lot of estimates with our revenue. we really don't know uh what it's going to be and uh you know we built that preliminary budget on a 325 per pupil and 10% increase in special ed and that allowed us to get to the 2.95% uh
013salary increase over one. So, uh, as you know, the, um, governor signed the budget. We had the 325. We were pretty certain of that. And we did did see the 10% increase in special ed reimbursement. That, but that was really a disappointment for us, of course, because we thought we were being super conservative, only putting the 10% in. So those two items would put us at a balanced budget, but there was an unexpected uh item in the budget that really caused a deficit for us. So um the increase to the tuition amount for public school and open enrollment went up $1,000, which is about three four times what we would normally see in a given year. So, um, so that's the amount we pay back to districts that are taking our resident kids in open
014enrollment. So, if a child, uh, is our resident, we get to count them, we claim the $12,000 or whatever the per student amount is, but then we have to pass along a lesser amount to the district that they're they're attending. And um so I you know I really think this was a way to get you know more money to the rural schools and the urban schools uh kind of lose out on this because most urban schools have a net out uh for open enrollment. So um it was disappointing and I think it was something that really wasn't talked about prior and kind of snuck it in there and it was a big dollar amount for us. So, um, you know, created this $450,000, uh, def deficit for us that we didn't see coming. Uh, then
015we just talked about, you know, how, you know, state funding for schools, you know, we were once 11th in the country and, um, you know, we've fallen all the way to to 26. Um so just talk about you know disappointing that our public uh schools aren't being funded adequately next one and then we talked about if if uh what was the difference between inflation over these these years and the actual funding for for public schools. So had had we, you know, the the revenue been indexed with inflation, uh, we would have $3,380 more dollars per pupil than we have now. And when you multiply that by the number of pupils we have, uh, we'd be sitting with $32 million more in the budget this year. And that's just keeping up with inflation, which is really
016not an increase in purchasing power. So, so that's uh you know, I didn't try to be a doggy downer at the presession there, but I think it's important that that uh staff members understand what we're up against. That's the and that's the referendum piece, too, right? But that's uh you see a lot of districts went off referendums and what the the districts keep saying to their communities, we don't have a choice. We can't keep up with inflation. And we've probably uh almost sometimes I think we do too good of a job in this district. But that number, 32 million, that's four year. Four years, we could pay for two new middle schools. Yeah. Uh we could we could pay our employees a fair wage. Uh compared to the private sector, etc. It's that's just a
017massive amount of money. It costs about a million dollars to do a 1% raise in this district um across all employee groups. So to fall that far behind um from an inflationary manner as just stated and then we just shared kind of what's been going on with the voucher levies in our district. So uh just trying to show the discrepancy there from our uh levy going from 35 million to 27 million over the last 10 years. But what we levy for voucher program went from about a half a million to 6 and a.5 million. Um so just incredible the amount of money that's going into the voucher schools and that their increases and uh per pupil and special ed reimbursement are all greater than what what we've been getting the public schools. And then we
018tried to come up with some positives too. So, um, we did say that, you know, in spite of all the all what we've been up against, you know, the district here has really, uh, maintained a better financial position compared to its peers, especially when you consider we have not gone out for an operating referendum. And I think that's very rare with the districts our size. So, uh, we talked about the Moody's uh, bond rating upgrade. Um, we talked about um the savings to the taxpayers in interest from that borrowing because the the movie rating went up. That saved us, Baron said, $16 million over the life of the loan just by getting that rating upgrade. And then we talked about, you know, in spite again revenue falling below um, you know, CPI, we we've been
019able to maintain that CPI raise the last couple years. Um, and u, you know, there's just a lot of really good things going on in the district. Really great wellness program. Keeps our health insurance costs down. We're well below medical inflation on our premium increases over the last 10 years. and and that's with a really rich uh health benefit. So we had USI our healthc care consultants take all their business and compare what what's the monthly cost per employee for school district and you can see for individual coverage uh 167 compared to other public schools in the state at 241 and then private employers 307. And then for family coverage, uh, 522 a month compared to 583 for other public schools and private employers, 939. So, um, so the combination of low premium increases with
020a really rich plan, I think a lot of that has to do with the robust wellness program that we have. And I thanked our employees because if if we don't get the buyin from employees on that wellness program, um, it's not going to work. So we can design it, you know, bunch of different ways, but um they really do a great job and buy into that and I think that makes a big difference on our claims. All right. And then I can quickly share what we did for SNI. So this was really an opportunity for us to roll out a vision that we collectively crafted over the course of last school year with the representative team having all the staff there at one time especially our instructional staff. Our um administrators, coordinators and that representative
021team work very diligently to come up with a statement. We feel like it's a statement that really unifies us across the district regardless of our roles and it really serves as that blueprint and framework for teaching and learning across the district. Um so that was kind of that first slide. The second slide what we did was we took that previous vision statement and broke it down into six programmatic priorities to really make it easy to understand. So you can see that priorities one and two are all about that continuous growth towards the academic standards and the social emotional learning competencies. When we get to programmatic priorities three and four that really focuses on and elevates the importance of using a evidence-based curriculum, making sure that all of our schools have a multi-level systems of support.
022So essentially what that is is making sure our schools have a system of identifying students and getting them what they need when they need it. That's what that boils down to. And then we've talked um to you all as a board before about the importance of professional learning communities and we really wanted to honor that in the vision statement that um the vision statement is not only aspirational but it really is a reflection of much of the work that we're already doing, but that we're balancing it with the understanding that we have 25 schools. We have a lot going on in our district and we know that there's always an opportunity to grow. Um so we really felt like the vision statement when it shifts into the programmatic priority priorities really um honors that. And
023then the last two priorities, priorities five and six, really speaks to making sure that we have a school climate that's conducive to learning and that we stay focused on our ultimate goal and that is that every learner in our district graduates life ready and career college ready like we saw um earlier this afternoon with our graduates. The next slide was really how do we take this vision, we break it down into those programmatic priorities. How do we actually bring it to life? And with that, we talk through three steps that we're asking for every individual, every team to do within our district. So the first thing is if you're looking at a strategy, a framework, a theory, we want to make sure that we're able to link it to one of these priorities because that's
024what really grounds the work. And then once you've done that, we're asking that teams use data to make sure that we're making those data driven decisions and anything that we're doing is informed by that as well as looking at research and evidence. And then once you've done that, we're saying, okay, um you've kind of taken that pause, you've made those initial reflections, can we predict that this strategy, framework, theory, whatever we're going to implement as our approach will have a positive return on investment. And if the answer is yes, we support the work um is a messaging to the staff. And then the last part is just um keeping in um some of the frameworks and the strategies that we've been using within our district and that's really implementation science recognizing that if we're starting
025something from initial implementation, it's going to take time to build that up. Um and then the other piece is we have embedded within our systems a continuous improvement cycle. That's something that I've shared based on our long range plan that all of our schools are engaged in that. So just keeping that at the forefront that we're using that continuous improvement cycle. And then the last part as far as further operationalizing the vision, how are we going to make sure that it's taking root in the way that we intend? One of the things that the SNI coord coordinators and I um do is we have KPIs, key performance indicators. So, we come before you all as a board with some of those presented out as part of our long range plan, but just kind of know
026behind the scenes, we're monitoring everything that we're doing within student and instructional services. So, just communicating that at presession. The other thing that we're really proud about um and we feel like this structure will help to further allow the vision to take root and that is that new structure with our department leaders. So having those department leaders that can work collaboratively with their district-wide elective teams setting goals that will link back to the the overall vision for SNI. The other piece to that is our schools also having goals that are helping to drive the vision. And then the final piece is just that we connect it all through our professional development and any initiative so that our practices are standardized across the district. So that's really what we talked about for SNI. Thanks Rachel. So
027Mark did a a wonderful job of I think presenting the facts to our staff. Um, and I think from there it was obvious as to to what's going on with the budget and and where we stand, but um, really good for everyone to see. And then Rachel did a nice job as you can see with SNI and most proud of what I think what she's done, what the team has done with putting teachers uh, in leadership positions within their departments. We heard that um, loud and clear from a couple of teachers. If I'd really like our department to be led by someone someone who has experience in that subject matter, right? And we're not going to have in the old days, we used to have 15 coordinators at central office. Uh those days are long
028gone with with the budget that we're straddled with. So this was a a way to do that. I think that was um showed we're walking the walk or walking the talk per se um with the we mentality and making sure that we have our leaders at the table. So, enjoyed that. I'm going to skim over the rest of this really briefly with you, but we talk about our beliefs all the time advocating for public education. We obvious obviously felt really good about the way that went in our community um locally related to the referendum. Um, and I think it went okay at the state level, uh, but not nearly what we had hoped. Uh and then how we educate every single student that walks in our door and how important that is for our community.
029Um and then we recognize the sacrifices that our staff makes. Uh and and appreciate that. We always ask staff to reflect a little bit on um the work of Anthony Muhammad and and he just labeled employees uh in school districts in four different ways. Believer, tweener, survivor, fundamentalist. And we really need believers. uh and people that are meet those characteristics. So we talk about that a little every single year. Um and then we reference it to bringing energy to the job and what that means and that no one's attitude is really a net zero. Either you're you're adding to the culture and climate or you're taking away from the culture or climate. how important it is that our staff is adding to and how our goal is to create a district where people come to
030do their life's work. Um, and I think Jamie and and the Wii mentality in this district goes a long way with that. And the Forbes rating of 19 is really nice. Um, round of applause. [Applause] It's something we work really hard at. So, that was good to see. Uh, I reflected a little bit on the budget myself. The Wisconsin Policy Forum keeps putting out really good stuff with this. It's kind of just a nice chart to say we're not asking for more of uh Wisconsinites money. We're asking for less. Uh, it's it's not dipping into personal incomes or anything like that. We're well below the state average and well below where we were in 2001. um time to to figure this one out. Um and I thought this was interesting to summarize their work on
031the on the state budget pertaining to education. They said tracking what our state and school district collect and net spend demonstrates the public's investment in our education system and what families, educators, and taxpayers should expect in return. And I think that's kind of where we always we always straddle. It's not it's it's never going to be an excuse for us. I don't want the public thinking that we're using it as an excuse, but ultimately you get what you pay for. Um, and when you're below the national average in in what you're investing in education and your results are above the national average, it that's probably not going to be sustainable. Um, so that's a that's a concern. The policy forum is noting that. We noted it as well. Um, declining enrollment is something that uh
032people always want to talk about. Showed this in transparency that we're no different than most districts like us. In fact, we fare a little better. And we talked about West Dallas, West Milwaukee a little bit. Um, they had a a financial mishap, we'll call it, and that was probably 10 12 years ago. No, it was three superintendents ago. Um and you can see how that still is playing out for them um 10 12 years later uh with declining enrollment year over year. It's just so hard to come back from. Uh so I gave kudos to Mark for all that he's done for this district and making sure something like that doesn't happen here. Um because it's just impossible to come back from. We visited their schools. Marty Lexman was our superintendent. Um I bet that
033was five years ago now. And they had some really creative and innovative things going on. And he said, "Yeah, you can come in and look at our schools. Don't take my staff. It's just kind of a man-to-man handshake. You're not going to take my staff." I said, "No, I What's the big deal?" And he had shown off one of their programs to a neighboring district, and the district turned around, hired all three of the teachers that were doing that program because they couldn't they couldn't compete because of their financial status. So, uh, so important and I'll show you another slide that speaks to the importance of that as well. We spoke to voucher schools, uh, their enrollment increases, uh, certainly aren't staggering to to equal that $6 million. That's kids that are already going to
034those schools. And you will hear that from politicians, and I want to make sure we're all aware of that. When they say if we didn't have vouchers, those kids would all come back to public education and the cost would be the same to educate them because we'd have so many more kids. That's just not true. Those kids were not in public schools. We're paying for two separate systems. And that's fine. We can have that conversation, but understand that that's the conversation. The conversation is not like those 1362 kids are all a sudden going to come back to the Shuen area school district or Gler or Wber, wherever they came from. they were already there. Um, we've decided as a society to pay for them, but again, I'm not that's that's up for debate. Uh, but
035we got to have a clear argument and discussion about what that means. And then just continued research saying that voucher schools aren't doing any better than public schools. Uh, it's not increasing student achievement or outcomes for kids. And then it was interesting um Charles Franklin who does a Marquette Law School poll and he he does pretty well. Um he's got a couple slides and I heard him speak it's a Saturday I think over the summer about school satisfaction and you can see a little bit of a decline during COVID but he said that's when everyone thinks sediment kind of turned on public education. Uh and then he points to that 2425 and he said that was when MPS and there were just a couple other school districts that had uh large financial mishaps. Uh and
036he said it just reverberated across the entire state and um so when you look at uh West Dallas, West Milwaukee and they're having a hard time coming back from it, it it's just so devastating. uh and you'll see that in the future slides is that you know from a state standpoint people kind of forgive and forget because their local districts didn't do that but um even having MPS and a couple others go through that shook uh shook sediment across the entire state. So we're about where we are at for approval uh ratings since 2012. It's it's been a little higher, a little lower. um suburbs, large towns, urban areas. We kind of he would kind of split us into he said kind of large town for Shabboan. So we felt good about that. Um I
037asked him about our referendum. I said, "What would you say then when 65% of the people vote yes on $121 million referendum?" That's a really good number. He said that that would tell you that um you know your polling approval would be higher than that 65%. and he said we kind of get stuck in that Green Bay Apple market kind of a triangle there. Um so that shows sentiment in those areas as well. So we just use that to talk with our staff and say chin up people are really supportive of you. The referendum passed at 65%. You're seeing public approval as high as it was dating back to 2012. um we were feeling good about things and then we had surveyed parents I think just prior to co um and had great support in
038our district as well. So we always like our our staff to see that. Uh we thank them for the referendum at 65% we know community members go to them to ask uh about referendums and get information. So, we know they did a lot of the work for us. We talked about how our turnover continues to be really low in this district. I think our non-retirement turnover was about 2.5%. Last time I checked, that's insanely low. And uh we use this slide kind of to do a quick exercise and thank our most senior staff members. So, in the end, the the staff members that had more than 25 years were left standing and um we just acknowledge them. I think to do it for 25 years is pretty amazing. Um in and of itself to do
039it for 25 years and still come to work every single day with a positive attitude. Uh when you bring that energy and that experience and wisdom, that's uh what makes our district so great. So talk about that and I had to say nice things about all of you. Um and and truly you are appreciated. So um we made sure our our staff was aware of all the support uh that you give and not to take that for granted as we see in other communities. And then uh the community report you've seen, but again our academic achievement uh related to our comparables is is really strong. Our diversity is what makes us strong. Our growth is better than national average. We had a nice call out for James Madison Elementary School and then just went through
040all the things that we do as a district. Um and some of the big data points and was really nice just to celebrate that with the staff. So you've seen this before but there it is for you again. 27th. Yeah. So, it'll be the 28th house that we're building. Four million in scholarships. Um, just amazing things going on in our schools. This slide always gets me. Um, 1,700 special ed students serve, nearly 1,800 ML students served speaking 35 different languages. over 500 um students served through our PATH program for mental health. Nearly 300 students and their families served uh with homeless assistance and um over 1.3 million breakfast, lunch and supper served free of charge to our students. So beyond the classroom, we just do so much for kids too and their families. And then
041a quick call out for the theater company. all that Jod and the recck department do for both our youth and our adults and then again recognizing our staff and continuing to try to find creative ways to celebrate all that they do. So that was the community report and then we went through the referendum and just explained how great um that went off and how much we appreciate their work and we know that it's because of them. We joke that in 1942 on the left is when Mark was attending Farnsworth and now he's going to be around to see it look like this. And there oos and a's in the stands when they when they saw these pictures for the first time and um we showed Urban as well. We joked that that was Mark's car.
042Um and then showed the pictures of of Urban as well. So that was kind of a high point to end on. And then I almost missed this video. In an email, luckily Mary Lynn pointed it out to me. So, we're just going to play this real quick. This is from WBY. If you haven't seen it, they wanted us to show it to everyone and I thought it was pretty great. It's even better if you have body. Trying to come in. All need the same thing. Education. Every room starts. Ours. This is the power of universal design. I was reading. Yeah, let's not do that. It wasn't working earlier today, but we'll skip that. It's in your I'll send the link out. I don't know that it was in the PowerPoint slope. Really just a two-minute
043video uh from students across the state saying we're in this together. We need to support public education. It was well well received by staff. got some ovation and was just a nice way of um showing kids saying thank you and please support us. So, it was a good good clip. Sorry about the audio. And then we ended with um just some stories about recent graduates in the in the community. So, a student that my kids had this summer as an instructor who I think graduated from North and just graduated from MIT. um another student who graduated from South and is helping a a friend of mine with a life-threatening disease and she's a a doctor now and a specialist um supporting this community and another student who um I saw recently and came up and
044joked with me. She had just graduated from LTC and she was so proud of herself. Uh, and I had her at Central and she said, "I remember you telling me and the staff, you're going to make me graduate whether I want to or not." And she said, "I didn't want to. I didn't care, but you guys did." And as a result of that, I could go back to school when I was ready. Um, and she said, "And now I'm going to go into the healthcare field and I'm going to help people." So, uh, just really cool stuff to remember all that we do for kids and that even when they can be difficult at times, they they come around and it's really important that we get them there. So, it was a good pres. That's
045what we we shared with staff. Um, and I think we're ready to to hit the ground flying on Tuesday when we welcome kids back. Thank you, Dr. Does anybody have any followup for TNT? Yeah, I mean I really appreciate um that everybody was there to give some type of presentation, but it wasn't it was very informative and very captivating as I was sitting there not knowing that it was an hour and a half. So it was pretty good. I think it's pretty unique to be able I've sat as a new teacher and as a returning teacher through many a presession and to be able to have informed educators. We know that educators and and parents that are informed are going to be the best advocates for public ed. So to take the time to really
046help people to understand that. I know as a new teacher I was like excited about my classroom about my co- teachers and social stories and visual schedules. Budget things were not on my radar. So to connect it all um I just think that's really great that we did that and I also really appreciated the inclusion of life ready in our strategic you know mission statement. The college and career ready is wonderful and of that community ready life ready element means a lot. Thank you. Anyone else? All right, moving to dates formative performance reporting annual goals on there. Yeah, so goals are pretty straightforward just kind of taking the same process um that we have in the past and um obviously that first one being long range plan and really making sure that we hit all
047of those um I think probably most important to the district. We want to just keep the grand improvement rolling. And really that's um I think we can name Central High School in that discussion without putting unfair burden on uh Josh and staff at Central. U so we're going to try to support him and see what we can do through central if we can get creative there. Um that's kind of the the intent initially in this district on charter schools was to to use those as places for innovation. Um so I'm hopeful that um that work continues at Central and we continue to see grad rates rise um and that we're in a good place moving forward there. We saw three 3% jump last year and I think we have a little more uh we can
048get out of that area and then obviously Jim with implementation of act 20 and what I really appreciate about Jim's work is it's a it's a state mandate so you can either do it begrudgingly or you can embrace it and figure out a way to make it work for your district and for your staff so that it works for students. Um, and I think sometimes it's not a it's not a bad idea to uh pencil with uh some things that that aren't going to be beneficial to students and it's just kind of a hoop to jump through. I don't think this is one of those. Jim hasn't treated it that way. Staff haven't treated it that way. Um, so I do think we're going to do better uh by our students for reading because of
049the work that they're doing and they've kind of just made it part of what they were already working on. So, a lot of kudos to to Jim and our teacher leadership team on that and we'll continue to to push forward with that work. Um secession planning is always so important. There was a a presentation I sat at I think it was about a year ago in the value added it's essentially a value added research center at Wisconsin University of Madison and they put up a slide of um they can track EE scores right which is the the rating of a teacher uh every single year through their evaluation model and um if you hired a good teacher you had a good teacher for 30 years. If you hired a teacher that wasn't doing so well,
050they didn't necessarily close that gap as a whole group, right? And it just spoke to they just spoke to the power of like you can spend a lot of money on professional development and you're going to get a little better if you you make sure you're hiring good people that's going to have the highest uh return on investment or the highest impact on student learning. So uh that secession planning becomes really important to us making sure we have really high quality people in all of our positions uh especially our administrative positions and then uh that grow your own program became really important to us as well. So we started looking at that I think about three years ago. Uh Rachel got it off the ground last year as far as um choosing future leaders and
051they'll get their internships and their classes and all that good stuff going this year. And then uh I think we're going to work to define the Wii mentality a little bit and make sure that uh everyone's clear on on what that means and we're all swimming in the same direction. Um and making that we stay a great place to be employed and again it's that we want Shboagen to be a place where people come to do their their life's work. The next goal is uh really about the referendum planning uh building communication etc. So that continues. We meet with BA CD Smith and Goss every other Wednesday for about three four hours. It's a It's a it's quite a bit of work. Um, but it's work that we are absolutely thrilled to be doing. Um,
052and we just want to make sure that our staff and our community continues to understand that process, what it looks like. Um, and that we're I think supportive of their needs and also communicating out to the community what we're doing and always saying thanks for for their support and their investment in our buildings. And then um really looking at the budget as well. So I think I think we're doing very well budget wise. You're never you're never going to be under budget in a project like this. Um but I think with our contingencies um and we went through and and they worked with user groups of of teachers to say what do you want and you kind of build a best case scenario. We haven't had to pair back too much from that. So, we're
053feeling really good about where we are. Things can change obviously in the in the marketplace with bids and and whatnot and costs of materials. So, we'll see what comes in the future there, but right now we're feeling pretty good. I've talked with I regularly talked with other superintendents in similar positions and they're not feeling as good. So, I feel um very positive about what Bray Colossus and CD Smith have have brought to the table for us. And then the last goal is around communication. Nicole and Lisa uh continue to do amazing work and uh we work together on what that will look like. So really that annual communication plan is is what we've worked on since I became superintendent is really making sure that we understand what we're communicating out when we know what parents
054care about um from past surveys. So let's talk about that uh and let's make sure the community knows about that and and doing so I think strategic uh times in the school year. So that's a big part. Website they are working diligently on and I think that'll be ready to go in the next couple months along with a communication tool for parents that will be in an app format. Um really user friendly just allow you to see everything on that. You communicate with your teacher. You can see calendar events for your school or whatever schools you subscribe to. You can see recent news etc. So we're excited about that. always working to have a better uh communication with our parents and I think that'll that'll be a nice onboarding process once we're ready to go.
055All right. Thank you, Dr. Conrad. Are there any questions for Dr. Conrad and his um board annual goals? So, I would like to move this for action. So is there a motion to approve um the said goals for the dates excuse the formative performance report and annual goals? So second all in favor say I. I motion carries. Thank you Dr. Pame. So next we have a lot of second readings. So I would like to clump or take together item C. Okay. Clump. item C through M. Um, and Rachel, the second readings, anybody opposed to that? I just had a question about a couple of those embedded ones. Should I just ask those now or? Yes. Just a little clarification on a couple on um B and J. You said D or B? B. Boy and
056Jack. Well, B is the performer. Oh, I'm sorry. It's G and J. George. All right. So, we'll take those out for discussion now and then if there's no objection, then put them back together. That's okay. GJ. All right. So, the adoption revised for policy 5540 the schools and non-governmental agencies. Yes. All right. So what question? Okay, it's just that policy says what our what we're going to do, how we will react or interact with different agencies. Um, do we have any sense of whether law enforcement agencies uh have policies that are consistent with what we want to do? Because we say, "Well, we're going to do this and we're going to ask, you know, the police department that if you come to pick somebody up, you come and put clothes in a squad car, but
057what are their policies? I mean, is there something that we uh, you know, contact in school contacts or something that they're aware? or is there at least some notation within the agencies that we're dealing with locally at least that they will make a effort to um respect or comply with our policies? Yeah, I don't I mean we can't force their policy obviously and uh you get into it's actually a really interesting question because we have this discussion sometimes of well we are trained and we do need to respond. Um, so we have our memorandum of understanding and that's probably the best uh place to look for how both of us agree if we're going to act and our memorandum of understanding goes along with our policies. So that that's kind of how we tie those
058together and put a little teeth on it is to say, "Okay, this is our policy. Now we have to write anou that corresponds to that policy and you have to sign thatu and that's how we're going to work together and hope that someone in that organization actually reads it." Yeah. And they do. I mean, they really do. And um it's a good I would say it's a good relationship. I would say it is getting better. Um, but it's never it's it's just it's always a um I think what's always difficult there is responding in a time of need. Right. And the hotter the situation, the more they're going to say we're going to do what we do, right? So anou may say you're not supposed to intervene unless an administrator tells you to do so.
059But when you see a child that could hurt himself or someone her him or herself or someone else, sometimes you got to interview him. And I think that's recognized in our office. Okay. Yeah, that's all I want to think about about that. That's a good question. All right. Anybody else have any follow up on that one? All right. You want to go to Jay? Go ahead. Okay. In that one they talk about um there's about require staff to monitor district approved social media platform sites and then it references 7544. I thought there would be like a list of things but it's just a description of sites that the or properties that the district wishes to be reflected in the sites that are used. But does that mean somebody's monitoring those? Because this is about student
060publications or uh productions. Uh I mean, how does how does anybody in the district keep track of of that for I'd have to read the policy for student production. Yeah, it's a student sponsor school sponsored publications and production. So it's things that students are doing as a part of their work at school as work products that it's going to be monitored by their teacher. It's going to be monitored. But this talks about the sta requires the staff to monitor those platforms. And is that a realistic thing that actually happens or you just say where is the student? Where's the product that you put out? Show me where it is. and then you then they'll look at it. Yeah, I think that's what they're saying. They're going to monitor the student newspapers. They're going to monitor
061if kids are doing stuff with social media on behalf of the district. It's still the teacher that has the button to publish, right? The student has to bring it to them. If if they're not we're just not, you know, right be brothering the uh Tik Tok to look for anything that pops up from Shabbo. No, that we don't I mean it has to be a school related uh platform and has to fall under our our purview from that standpoint. So if a student wants to make their own stuff about North High School that there's nothing we can do to stop them, uh we've seen districts try to do that and legally that's uh not a place you want to go. But if it's something under our purview, if it's under our control, then yeah, we
062have a a system set up as to who's in charge of each of those and who's monitoring um to make sure that nothing inappropriate gets posted. And that's I was just going to say to echo that um Dr. Conrad, that's exactly how the policy reads, right? It says staff will monitor comments posted to social media platforms and sites that have been approved under policy 7544 use of social media for use of a school sponsored student media. So it would be something um that Dr. Conrad kind of spoke to something that we're approving and the student will be working with the teacher that's overseeing the publication to approve it. Okay. But there's not a a list of of uh of uh platforms or sites that are in or out. It's all whatever has been identified as
063being the platform that the student and the instructor is choosing. Okay. We'd be updating that list every week. I know. They can never stay. Okay. Thank you. Good questions. Good questions. And that's a yeah, that's always an interesting thing to see play out in practice because what kids want to post and what teachers are comfortable with are not always the same thing. So I give those teachers a lot of credit for working it through with students and making it work. Any follow up on um item J. All right. So, I'm seeking a motion to approve uh revised board of education policies 2413 5330 5350 5540 5610 5610.03 7540.03 3 and 7540.04. Second. Can you say that again? Well, please. Just saying. Well done. Well done. All in favor state. I carried. The last time I
064did it, I missed a couple. So, I was going slow. You did. I still missed some. There's three. I was going to say, are you doing? Yes, because those are in bar. He's going to handle Oh, okay. Got it. No, you did great. All right, we're going have to have a recess here in a second. Gavl offers. All right. Are you guys okay with taking N and P together for second readings? Does anybody want to talk about anything? All right. All right. I seek a motion to approve the the board reboard, excuse me, the revised board of education policy 6423 and 8510. Is there a second? All in favor say I. Motion carries. Thank you. Now we have the report of committees. Um so curriculum instruction we will have Miss Ellie. Uh first just another
065congratulations to our graduates for items one and two. Um for item three, we had a really wonderful presentation by our small but mighty nursing team. Um recommend looking at that for information in your packets. Uh as well as number four information in your packets about our focus on prevention and trauma informed response. Um item five is uh first reading. So, I'd like to make a motion to approve the introduction and first reading of revised board policy 5771, search and seizure. Second. Any discussion? All in favor say I. Motion carries. Thank you for being on the spot for that. All right. Next, we have the human resource committee, Miss Leo. Um, number one, I am I would like to make a motion to confirm the appointments that were made. Any discussion? All in favor say I.
066I. Motion carries. And then item number two. Um I move to approve the leaves of absence. Second. All in favor state I. I. Motion carries. And then number three is uh separation of your information in the capital. Thank you, Mr. Leah. Uh, facilities recreation theater, Mr. Peter. Okay. Um, in this case, we have uh recreation department marketing insert which was discussed and has been distributed. That's for information. Community um department uh partnership with Optivist Internationals Club is for information also in the packet of the committee packet. Horseman Middle School scoreboards plural that are operational now in Yeah. Yes. The main scoreboard is operational. We used to North and South are playing right now. First games we used it for. We relocated the old scoreboard. It is not operational yet, but our uh district electrician will
067be running electricity to that in the very near future. Okay. So, but it is already up and ready to go. Okay, good. Thank you. Um, theater company financial report that was for information because in the midst of the audit, uh, there was nothing to report on that as well as the financial report from community. Correct. Although I will say theater company is doing ahead of schedule because it's blockbusters. They they did it looks like they will turn a slight profit this year. That's great to hear. Thank you, sir. Next we have the finance and budget committee. Miss Sarah, um let's see here. Uh fund 41 capital projectformational 549 referendum projectform informationational statement of cash flowformational and revenues and expenditure reports. Those are allformational. Um but the committee is looking um to recommend approval of budget
068revisions and transfers of appropriations. Second. All in favor say I. Motion carries. The committee is also looking for recommendation or recommend approval of the revised board of education policy 8531. Can I lump them all together? Yes, you may. 8531 8540 86 08660 8680. All in favor say I. Motion carries and the committee is looking to recommend approval for the gifts. Is there a second? Second. All in favor say I. I. Motion carries. Thank you, Miss Sarah. Next we have the committee of the whole vice president. This is there for your information. Thank you. All right. Thanks. Item is future meetings date September 9th and September 23rd. All right. Is there a motion to adjurnn? So move. Is there a second? Second. All in favor? Good night. Thank you. [Applause] Just an hour.