001Denise wasn't going to be here. She's going to have friends all the just the two with the pink. Perfect. The other one. Thank you. No, thank you. Yes. Such an amazing Where am I? Oh, that's I think she said over there when they were doing lost cause. just give up on you and look over there. Thank you. I wonder what that was like. Like did they have very low in my household? Good. I have to say if I would not if I was Jenny, do we have the screen tonight? And not like I said that day. Um, they have Nicole's. No. Yeah. All right. I would like to call the board of education meeting to order. Please stand with me for the pledge of allegiance. I pledge allegiance to the flag of the United States
002of America and to the republic for which it stands. One nation under God, indivisible, with liberty and justice for all. Thank you. Roll call finds us all present with the exception of Denise um who will not make it tonight. Madame vice president will be here a little later as well as Miss Ally. All right. Is there a motion to approve the agenda? Second. Second. All in favor say I. I. Motion carries. Next on the agenda, we have the National Speech and Debate Association 100th National Tournament Field Trip. Uh Rachel. Yes. So, we have an A2 student who's part of the South Debate team that qualified for national. So, he'll be going forward to compete at that next level. He um with your approval will be headed to De Mo, Iowa June the 14th through the
00321st for that national debate tournament competition. So, we're seeking approval from administration. Is there a motion to approve? So, move. All right. I'm not sure which one to capture there. Second. I'll second. All right. Any discussion? All in favor say I. I. Motion carries. Thank you. Next we have the 2025 2026 administrative and support staff salaries increase. Mark Dr. Kra Jane. Yeah. So I'll kick this off really um pretty straightforward. CPIO is 2.95 this year. Um, so that's what we're looking to do with our administrative uh and support staff. And doing this now just um puts Mark's department in a place where they're not having to do retroactive pay. Um, you know, as Mark's budget showed, I think there's about a million dollar hole if we don't get any additional funding to education. um initial
004discussions during uh negotiations at the state level were pretty positive for education and that took a pretty hard shift um late last week earlier this week. So I think we are concerned there. Um, the phone calls I received, the discussions I had today were around funding students of high need for special ed rather than special ed as a whole. Uh, so we were asking for that 60% special ed reimbursement. Marks the budget on a 40% reimbursement. uh they said, "We're not interested in talking about that anymore, but we'll talk about high need students, meaning students that cost more than 30,000." Um I had Jason pull those numbers. That's 12 students. Uh that is a drop in the bucket compared to the $14 million that we need to cover the cost of all of our special
005ed students. It's less than 1% of our special ed students that are uh that fall into that category. So, that's disappointing to hear. Um, I wanted to make you aware of that. That said, I still think 2.95 uh is something that we should be doing for our employees, but um it could mean next year at this time, we're having to plug some some holes and have some difficult conversations if we don't get what we need out of the state budget. Anything to add to that, Mark? No, it's just uh yeah, we're just coming this two weeks earlier than when we pass the budget because like Jake said, the first payroll is actually on July 3rd this year. So the calendar falls, we wouldn't be able to get that done. Um if it's passed on the
00624th along with the preliminary budget. um and they they exchanged proposals with the teachers group last night and um we'll let them work through that process. But I would say I'm very very pleased um with the work that meet and confered last night and at the path they're on. Is there any um questions we want to propose to the MT? All right. We're seeking a motion to approve the administration's recommendation of a 2.95 salary increase for administrative and supportive staff effective July 1st, 2025. This cost includes the draft 2025 2026 preliminary budget that was presented by the board in April and in May. So move. All right. Any further discussions? All in favor say I. I. Motion carries. Thank you. Next we have the 2024 2025 strategic loan plan long range plan quarterly review. Dr.
007Conra. Yeah thank you. So again, all the credit here goes to EMT and to their respective departments. Um, this is far from my work. Um, and really the work of those next to me and and to the right of me here. So, uh, great things this year. And, and I think what you'll start to to see is we're really trying to get to a place where it's not just a do this for a year, check it off, and then do something different next year. There's continuation year over year. So, um, they're going to highlight a couple things that were important to him and then I think you'll see continuation as well, um, to next year's goals. So, I'll let Rachel kick it off, who has been nothing short of amazing in her first year as
008assistant superintendent in our district. Thank you. I appreciate that. So, I'll just start by sharing that most of these goals I provided a board report on over the course of this year. So, um, what you'll notice is kind of in the evidence column, I'm just adding a bullet or two to kind of bring some closure and cap off the goal. So, for goal one, objective one, this is really around our continuous improvement cycle. And as Jake said, this is something that we do every year within every school. So this work will continue on but for the sake of this year we will officially close out this goal at our upcoming all principal meeting where our principles will be reviewing how they did this year as far as accomplishing their goals um as a summitive checkpoint
009and then they will use that as a launching pad to create their goals for next year. Um, moving ahead to goal one, objective two, that was really around our grip work or graduation rate improvement planning work. Um, and we provided that update to the board around our grip work, graduation rate improvement plan work in April of 2025. And the takeaway here, and I know that Jake will hit on this kind of in the next agenda item, is just one of our points of five, but we are proud of the fact that our graduation rate did increase by three percentage points from 84.3 to 87.3. Um, moving ahead, objective three under this goal was really about um enhancing our college and career career readiness knowing that one of those indicators is advanced algebra. Um, so Eric
010Spielman led some of that work with the math teachers at the high school level. Adam, um, continued that work on this year. And where we are with that goal is we've set up a structure now and a framework for just kind of assessing our students career paths and how they're making their choices for advanced algebra. So we have that framework that'll continue on this year, but you see it's marked for next year. you see that it's marked as completed. Objective number four, um we updated the board on this over the course of the year, kind of starting with the policy update. And then what I feel like the takeaway is for you all as a board is that each one of our high schools has a plan to ensure that our students um so it's
011this year's freshman class would be able to obtain that personal financial literacy credit by the end of their years in high school and graduation. And then objective number five was really about our professional development work over the course of this year. We shared with you all the two strands that we kind of had going for that elementary uh grade level. It was really about early literacy which also was a requirement under act 20 as well as focusing on PLC's at that middle school and high school level. And then the last objective here is objective six. and we just um came before you all in March with an update around act 20 letting you know that we are we have met the majority of the requirements and we remain on track and um you all thankfully
012approved our universal curriculum benchmark advance for ELA K5. So that was goal number one. Um goal number two, again I've provided updates over the course of this year, but those two goals were um from our instructional technology department. One was related to the standardized classroom that is marked green because you'll see that carried forward to the for the goals for this upcoming school year and that work will continue. And then for AI, that's marked as complete. um and that Mike and his team really looked at two things. So one different AI tools for our students and staff and then number two setting guidelines around the use of AI and at this point um we've we are investing as a district in magic school AI and that's a pretty awesome tool. is really a toolkit of
013AI tools and it can allow teachers to do a number of things like generate lesson plans, um design assignments, create rubrics. It really lessens their workflow as um teachers. And then for the AI guidelines, th those are all established um and they'll be rolled out next year in schools with some common language and follow up on guidelines. So that was goal number three. if we could just for fun uh related to AI saw a presentation the other day and I think this is just to wrap your head around where it's going from an organizational standpoint was a tool that essentially ties into every single database we have right so it can tie into our testing database tie into Skyward financial and Skyward student side every database we have testingformational etc ties into the AI platform.
014You sat sit down and you can ask it whatever you want. I could say, "What teachers in our district make over $60,000 and have a student that scored over a 28 on the ACT?" Why you'd ask it that, I have no idea, but it'll give it to you in a flash. Um so things that you know we would data mine or questions that the board has had in the past where you know we okay yeah we can get that but it's going to take hours of can now be done in in in 20 seconds. It's just amazing to see what that looks like from an organizational structure. So um it's fun to look at all this but I think we can't even begin to wrap our heads around what what it's going to do in
015the next next couple years for us. So Mike's got his work that out for him. Yeah, agreed. And I just think like us landing on Magic School, that's a tool that will just really allow teachers to use it in order to lessen their work their workload, but then also refine it and differentiate for students is just going to be a powerhouse tool for our staff. So, we do appreciate all the work that Mike Jabber has done to lead that along with his instructional technology team and all the work they'll do next year around rolling that out. Um, the one thing I do want to point out under this goal or I think I'm on to my next goal. Maybe papers are a little I got you. I don't want Okay, objective one. Okay, so yeah.
016So, objective one, um, I shared with you all when we did the graduation rate improvement plan update that one of the root causes when it comes to our graduation rate is chronic absenteeism and that we will be um, building a mega community around that. So, bringing in some community partners to really solution find. So, that did happen and that work will continue on next year with quarterly meetings. Um, we launched our hope program under objective two. Objective three, I just want to share an update with you all. Um, so we had lots of discussion I feel like over the course of this year related to the intensive outpatient program that we were hoping to launch at South High School. Um maybe a couple of weeks ago, we received information from Rogers Memorial just indicating um
017that due to the current economic climate, they're wanting to postpone the launch of that program. So, we're committed to uh following through on launching this program, but we're looking at a start of August of 2026. So, I do want to point that out because we did have discussion here at the board table and we shared that update through our mental health framework um presentation to you all. Any questions about any of these? The progress that you've made under all the requirements act 20 and so forth is pretty amazing. How much money kind of twofold. How much money is being held back or haven't we gotten because of legislative stuff? And if we had gotten the full and I don't think we didn't, did we? We've not received any funding to date related to that. No
018funding at all. Okay. Yes, we did receive um something from DPI asking for school districts to put in a request for funding, but again, we all I think are aware of what's happening uh with the budget at this point in time. So, at this point, we've simply put in our name for a request for um a reimbursement of some funding and they do have select areas that they will provide funding around. Okay. Um, so is it fair to say that the majority of what we've done as far as uh training, some of the training was free, but some of the training as far as coaching, we've contracted through CISA um for and then with the curriculum adoption, we were already on that path that was work, you know, two years ahead of act 20. Um,
019and we made that investment as a district into our universal ELA curriculum. Okay. All right. And then the screener was free as well. Yeah. So, you have any hope for getting funds? Uh, no. The the training, the PD training was the latest one that came through, but because we chose one that was free was it's high quality, but it was no cost, we're only allowed reimbursement for the enrollment. And since there wasn't a cost, would be reimbured for that. So, any stipens or or material costs are not covered under that. And it's also we have till the end of June and then if it's not released then money's losing hope pretty quickly on that. Thank you. All right Jamie you are up then with pillar two one. All right. And I will start with objective
020one. Uh we launched targeted communication campaigns to promote awareness of the positive aspects of working in our district. Um I I'm bulleted that um we have worked with marketing and communications to contribute to the um community report that you will all take a look at later. Just some things to highlight. I'm very happy and pleased. I I believe that our efforts are are helping us. Um, as far as our applicants this uh summer so far or this hiring season, regular ed elementary applications uh that are coming in for those openings were 20 to 30 people that were applying. In some high school roles, um we had over 40 applicants. Um, of course we always struggle with special ed, but as far as regular ed, it does seem like we're getting some traction and we're starting
021to gain more and more interest there. And then as far as our teacher turnover rate right now, we're sitting at about 7%. We typically get to about 10 or 11 and um for the state of Wisconsin um that the teacher turnover rate is roughly around 12% that's average and nationally 15. So as far as being a urban high poverty district, we do do relatively well. Um so moving on to pillar two, goal two, objective one, promote our district as one of choice opportunity and diversity uh to attract candidates for all available positions. Something that I'm I'm very happy about is uh we're embarking upon a partnership with both North and uh South High School with the youth apprenticeship program and really diving into that deeper with CISA 6 uh giving us guidance and leading the
022way. And then we've already placed two of the uh high school students in positions next year. uh one in a multilingual EA role and then we've got um a young man in a nutritional services role and I'll continue meeting with them. Actually on Thursday I'm meeting with the two high school um folks and CISA 6 to determine how can we continue moving this forward and getting our high school students engaged paid paid and in our open our open roles. Okay. Any questions for Jamie? No questions but a comment. Just thinking about what is done to retain staff and what what has been done with um getting rid of the grayscale um uh PTO. It's been incredible. So, thank you so much Jamie for your work on that. Our our educators are lucky um to have
023some of these great benefits. Agreed. Um I'll take pillar three, goal one and goal two and really um to summarize where we we are here was this year we really looked at options um as far as ways to better communicate and and connect with families. So the first uh one of the first steps we did was create start conferences across all of our elementary schools. So what that means is parents have the opportunity at the beginning of the year to come in and have meaningful time with their child's teacher before the school year starts. So rather than just doing a supply drop off and leave, you sit down, you talk with the teacher, you hear about what the year is um going to mean things uh ways in which the the family can support the
024school and ways in which the school can support the family. So um that was really positive. I know um as a parent of young kids myself, supply drop off is just crazy and you get nothing out of it. The opportunity to sit down and have time with the teacher um is really beneficial and obviously it's extra time for our teachers, but we did, I think, a nice job of clearing out time in their schedule for them um and making that work. So, that was a great addition and something that we uh plan to continue moving forward. And then um the other pieces are really around that website and communication home. So we're looking at uh a brand new website for next year, hoping to launch uh at the start of the school year. We're Nicole
025is working feverishly with Lisa on that. Um then a two-way communication tool. So right now graduation was the perfect example of that, right? We were pushing out text messages to parents, emails to parents, and robocalls to parents through uh outdated um software that is is literally no longer being updated. Um so we have a new one coming on board um that's the same company as our website, really well supported. Uh and I think they have that up in online. Wayne was all excited the other day because he had gotten everything to to go through and work. So that will be an onboarding process um next year as well as we work with the schools to make sure they know how to use that effectively and efficiently. Um that is always most important in the time
026of crisis at a school, right? So if there's a lockdown at a school, that's how we're immediately notifying parents. Um so that's a really important one for us. Um and then the third piece is an app that allows um teachers and schools to communicate um back and forth with parents. So that'll be a really nice opportunity when I've seen kind of the demo on the app is you can you can pull up the app, you can subscribe to whatever schools you have your kids in and the calendar for that school kind of pop up the social media feed for those schools. All the important events will be there. Um, and then you can communicate back and forth with your children's teacher as well. Um, and that's just nice for our teachers to have one place
027where they can go to communicate back and forth and know that there's a record of that communication um, from an open record standpoint from a, you know, obviously a couple different areas. So, that's just a nice nice piece as well. So, we're really excited about those tools. Um, the development looking at them, choosing them is always fun. implementation is always a challenge. So that's what next year brings and that's what our focus is on. And Nicole uh and team have done a great job of meeting with key staff members at the building level that oversee that and and beginning to get those process processes in place. So that's where we are for those goals for this year. Any questions related to that? No questions but another comment of everything um like completing my my first
028year of my first term on the school board, the one thing that I'm most blown away by is the communication. Whether it's um whether it's like within the board, whether it's communicating with community members about what is going well, um communicating about the referendum, about communicating with parents about those times like where there are crises. Our district does a great job. So again, thank you all for doing what you do to ensure that. Yeah, I will tell you that um was pretty early on in the year. I sat with some superintendents and a just in a discussion setting about uh we have a large district caucus, right? So it's the large districts that sit and and have discussions about what what it looks like in our districts. and we were talking about some of the
029um naysayers and some of the critics to the school and how we appreciate constructive criticism, how we don't appreciate things that maybe aren't honest um and aren't valid and how you deal with that. And we had some professionals in the room and they said, "Yeah, that's just the way social media is. You have to flood it with positive news. You have to own that every single day." And I came back and we talked with Nicole and Lisa. That's a big ask. uh and they did it and they worked with the schools to do it too. And we just have got so much good stuff being published. And when you're in a district our size, there's so many cool things happening on a daily basis. Uh it's just hard hard to communicate it when you have
030two people um that do everything. Uh and obviously the schools are relying on librarians or secretaries or whoever is taking the lead. So um just a huge thanks to all the people in our district that do that and spread all the good information that our district does because it takes time but it's it's well worth it. Pillar four, goal one, Mark, that looks like it goes to you. Yeah. So, goal goal one is around uh capital needs of the district and uh objective one uh just working through the the plan to rebuild Farnsworth and Urban Middle School. So, uh, the latest thing there, uh, was, um, you know, in May, Bray came and presented an update for you and we got to see some of the exterior, uh, renditions of the building. So, that was
031rather exciting. And then we took that presentation uh, to Farnsworth and to Urban for community meetings on June 3. And I know some of you were there, too. So, uh, that was exciting. It was nice to see we got uh not a large turnout, but people came out to listen and they were engaged and asked great questions and I think we got overwhelmingly positive feedback from them. I think the community is excited. So that was good to see. Um and then objective two u around some of our energy saving opportunities. Uh we did sign a contract now with HGA engineering firm that um designs um geothermal systems and they this contract allows them to move forward and do some uh ground testing at the two sites and do a feasibility study to see if that
032would work for either one of those locations. They'll do also an anal uh money analysis to see what the payback would be on there. We do know that the farms work is especially challenging because um there's the what's going to be the open area of that site will have the Farnsworth building on it. So there's not a lot of uh space there to bore the geothermal pumps and all that. So, but they'll take a look at it. we do want to make sure we um look into it at least to see if it's possible or not. So, they've started that process and uh we should know pretty early on if that's going to be feasible for us or not. ARC is doing the solar as well. Yes, they're doing a solar analysis and payback for
033us too. So, we'll know on that. Just to remind the board the so the geothermal and solar were not part of the original referendum budget, but we do have designated funds for building projects that if either one of these looks like they're going to save us money that we would have monies available to do to do those. So, uh goal two is on our uh security infrastructure for data storage fiber optic. Um just one thing to note on objective one establishing a secondary data center um the rate application for that hardware was approved. So now in May uh they did have an implementation meeting with the vendors to start the kind of the configuration of that system and installation plan. So they're moving forward with that. And then goal three is around transportation challenges and
034uh we have marked that uh yellow both of those. Um so we did uh go a little slower this year. We had a employee change so we kind of had to back up a little bit and get get our new employee Tanner up to speed on these things. And he's just done a tremendous job. Quick learner. Uh he's got a good tech background too. So that makes it easy because a lot of this stuff is very technical. Um so we'll be back um on track and again we'd like to start uh putting out the the wayfinder which is the student kind of tracking attendance for the buses but we're still planning to be ready to implement that in the fall. We'll probably do it uh school by school just to make sure as bugs come
035along we can get those fixed before we try to take on the whole district. Any questions? Um, so Mark Mark, do we have a sense of in new construction schools that are newly constructed? How many are using geothermal or is that just so cutting edge that um uh not it's not widely in use? Same with solar, I guess. Yeah, I mean there are several newer projects I think that are starting to use that more often than what you Fondelac was kind of the first one in the state when they built the high school there in Fondelac that but now I think we've seen it in Nina Nina's doing it at Sun Prayer is doing it um think McFarland one of the Madison area districts just did it I think it absolutely makes sense if you
036have space and so you know the difficult piece urban would have been at the old site we would have had plenty or at the proposed site out on Milanak we would a lot of room for um borings and geothermal. It's it's going to be tight on Urban's new site and then especially with the phasing and keeping kids in the building. Um so that's my my concern there. The Farnsworth one they say is even worse. Um and CD Smith started talking about could we do the borings underneath the school and Um the the engineer said, "Well, we could look into that. We've never done it before, but conceivably it's possible." And you're getting into a world there where it's like that's never been done before. Um but it is evolving so quickly. So if you think
037of if you've been around Fondelac, theirs is in their they have a big retention pond and they have coils in that pond, right? And now they're drilling how many? 400 some feet, I think. people per boring and then I forget how many borings they said they need a couple I think it was a couple hundred. Um so that's where we are with that one. Um we've invested the funds to have do the testing where we're hopeful because if it works if we can do it the schools that have done it really like it. Um, the payback is decent, but the control of the climate and the temperatures uh on individual floors and whatnot is really nice, too. I just have have really enjoyed it. And obviously, there's sustainability um things that play there as well
038where it's it's much nicer to mother earth. So, we're hopeful, but uh we can't promise at this point. Thank you. Are there any other questions, follow-ups? All right. Thank you all for that. Next, we have the review of Yeah. So, this was something last year, if you remember, it was just a memo that I uh did for the board. And I guess it was kind of reflecting as I went from assistant superintendent to superintendent of just the amazing things that we do in this district and making sure that once a year we we talk about that and and celebrate that. So, Rachel picked that document up this year and um made it her own. And then we got Nicole and Lisa involved and said, "Can you make this look better than a memo?" and they
039made it look way better than a memo. Um, so that's what you have in front of you. Uh, it'll continue to evolve over the next couple weeks as end of year data comes in. And then really what what Nicole and I have talked about is we map out our communication plan for a year. There's obviously certain times of the year we want to communicate about certain things. So, we'll be highlighting um aspects of this throughout the year, but um really if we just go through this quickly um page by page, obviously we started out speaking to the diversity of our district as a strength and comparing our academic um performance to our peer group. When we do that, we always like to use third party uh analysis so that it doesn't come across as bias
040or or cherrypicking on our behalf. And as you can see, um, our, uh, academic performance, our proficiency, and achievement scores were very competitive, um, and higher than the peer group average, um, for every measure. So, we're very proud of that. Um, that's where I get concerned with report cards. Uh, that data doesn't always match up with report card data, right? So, um, we're showing a different narrative here and we always want to make sure that we do that um because our teachers deserve that and our kids deserve that. So, very proud of our our academic performance uh and the diversity in our school which we show there. Then we move on um to talk about our elementary schools a little bit. We're really highlighting our growth targets of our students. So 68% hitting their growth
041target on star reading, 66% on star math, 94% daily attendance rate in their elementary schools. Um James Madison with the national ESA ESA uh distinguished school award, I think the only school in the state um that was honored with that award. And then uh speaking a little bit to Jim's work uh with Act 20 and just with the new curriculum adoption, really letting the community know uh the amount of time and the amount of money that we're putting into uh literacy, especially at the the early grade level. So proud of that work. Um and then we talk a little bit about all the other things that we do for kids, right? all the other options that our elementary students have uh as far as 350 kids uh getting into the coding with Mike in grades
042three through five. So just that experience for kids at that age is so beneficial um and so much fun for those kids. Um and then we have the arts, the band, strings, all that amazing opportunities for our students and um that culminated with the presidential awards at the end of the year. 104 kids receiving that award. That was a great night for our students and our families. So, just impressive work being done at the elementary schools. As we transition to the middle school, you're going to see similar data points as far as 65 and 62% hitting growth targets. Um, a 93% average attendance rate um daily attendance rate in our schools. So, just to put that into context, when we're talking about attendance, a teacher can count on 93% of their students being in class
043any single day. When we talk about attendance rates, and Rachel talks about what she's trying to improve. We're looking at students who miss more than 10% of the school year. Um, those are the kids where research tells us internal and national research that they fall behind pretty quickly. So, two different ways to measure that. Um we definitely want to improve uh the students attending 90% or more but our daily attendance rate is is pretty impressive. Um number of students 700 participating band and orchestra uh 148 in choir our middle school sports since we brought those back it's about 10 years ago now I think have just been very successful and very much appreciated by parents and students. Um, and even got 82 middle schoolers out to the Lakeland Math Meet this year, which is a
044a neat thing for them to do. Um, and we had a social worker at Urban take the lead with the Red Gen Project for uh, mental health. We went over and celebrated that with her. She's off to a great start and that will continue to expand. Um, and then that Panorama survey just showing 73% of our kids um, talking about their kind of their self-management skills and and feeling like they're prepared for school. So, feeling great about what we're doing at our middle schools as well and really um, Rachel has taken on the I think the goal or the challenge to say how do we take our middle schools to the next level as we prepare to open new buildings. So, let's not just build new buildings, let's have that mesh with uh some some
045new and creative ways to educate kids at the middle school level. So, we're really excited to see what what comes of that planning in the future as well. At the high school level, we we continue to I think just excel. We we talk a lot about what you can do to make an elementary school or middle school look different. They look pretty similar across all districts. Um, we want opport extra opportunities for kids is I think an area where we feel we can we can excel at elementary and middle school. At high school, it's a high schools look very different depending on what community you're in. And our high schools are unreal. Uh, and a lot of that is just because of our size. Um, but there's a lot of high schools our size that
046don't do what we're doing as far as providing opportunities um, for kids. So 50 dual credit pathway courses for kids. It's 3,000 enrollments and it's going to be over $4 million I would imagine in free college credit for kids this year. Um when we look at the cost of college and whether it's attainable for some students or not, we have kids walking out with associates degrees. That's we're saving them hundreds of thousands of dollars. It's just so so great for our students. Um, and I think four or five years ago, before we really started on this goal, we had about 30% of the kids in the college classes even taking it for credit because they couldn't afford the $300 cap fee or whatever it was. And now once we remove those barriers, you can see
047the results. So, um, we continue to work on that and be so grateful to our teaching staff who did the extra work that they needed to do to get qualified to teach the courses. Um, ACT part of what we do. Um I don't think it defines any of our students, but for some of them it's very important and uh if it is, I think our prep programs, our CAP classes, um access to preACT work, etc. has been extremely helpful for them. Uh so you can see the number of students scoring above the state average, number of students above a 25, above a 30, and then we had two students score a perfect 36, which is uh unreal. So that's something that we'll continue to highlight in our community as well. Two two 36s in in
048one year is pretty impressive. So we're proud of that. And uh then we talk about our college and career readiness report card a little bit. 56% of students participated in two plus co-curricular activities. I give Dan and Chris so much credit. I just got an email from Dan the other day saying, "What do you think of this?" And it was a student proposing that they'd like to start a water polo team. Um, and to have that culture and climate in your building where kids think of something that they want to do, that would be cool. And to see how she emailed and interacted with Dan really showed that kids know if they want to start a club, if they want to start an organization. Uh, the guy or the the athletic director is up for
049it. Uh, approach him, see where you go. And, uh, we look forward to to seeing if we can make that happen for him. So, um, our response is and our push from central office and the athletic directors up great is that the kids want to do it. Let's make it happen. Let's find a way to make it happen. Um, so great numbers there at 56% 34% uh engaging in workplace learning experience and 70% uh earning college credit. Again, I expect those numbers to go up a little bit as we we finish up and we uh we tally up the numbers for our seniors, but just great numbers to think of 70% of our kids earning college credit is amazing. And then our counselors put on a great show every single year for senior signing day
050where uh all the seniors that are either entering the workforce are going to college sign either their contracts or their um acceptance letters to their universities and get um signaled for that in front of all their peers and parents. And then those students joining the military actually get sworn in at that uh time as well, which is a pretty impressive moment. Um, so that's just been a great thing um, not only to honor our seniors, but for our freshman, sophomores, and juniors to see that that that breeds the culture that we want. So, that's been a great deal. And then we talk about kind of our our results there with a graduation rate increase of 3% over four million in scholarships this year. That's just an amazing number. uh communities our size when I talk
051with other superintendents aren't doing four million in scholarships. Um so we're extremely appreciative of the community support there. Um we had about 728 students at the bowl on Sunday. Um and then I believe it was South High National Merit finalists. We had 27 AP scholars. um student at North was a WIA scholar athlete. That's one of 16 in the state. That's an amazing accomplishment. Um Mike works with the esports team. So, we had a couple state champs there. Um and the North High dance team won state as well. North High uh golf team is at state right now. I don't think they're going to win it, but they they've got an amazing run going there as well. Um, Red Raider Robotics, we're hosting the state competition. We are a week. No, it is on Friday
052is where where they set up and then the actual competition is on this week Saturday at North High School and I believe it starts at 9:00 a.m. if you want to come check it out. Yeah, really cool thing just to walk through. You can stay for five minutes or stay for five hours, but just cool to see. um students in model UN DECA uh students traveling abroad and then the gear up rising Phoenix program where we had 21 seniors earned the associates of arts. Uh just again amazing opportunities for our kids. The house is built. I think I saw Peter over there. Look pretty good, right? Um, so that was another accomplishment for those students. As I got to know the students that built the house this year, it was amazing to me to see
053the diversity in that group. Not only from socioeconomic, but from what they wanted to do in their futures. There were kids there who were going off to Iowa for business analyst or um business finance but wanted to build a house and there were kids that were going to go right into the trades and wanted to work in construction their whole life. So just it's it's just such great stuff that we do there. So um a lot of fun for our kids. And then South High was recognized with multiple awards for their volunteer day and uh everything that they do to give back to the community. So we wanted to highlight that as well. Then we highlighted all that we do for students from a wraparound support service. So we wanted to highlight our special ed
054programming, our uh ML staff in the 35 languages that we support in our district, our PATH program um for for providing nearly 6,300 mental health therapy sessions. Um we serve nearly 300 homeless students and uh a lot of students are finding a good place to be this summer because we have a great and robust summer school program uh kids program before and after school and we're serving up a lot of breakfast lunches and um suppers for our students at at over 1.3 million. So, great supports for our kids. Um, and amazing access to resources. We highlighted the STC. Um, I think I spoke to that at the last board meeting with Legally Blonde and and the compliments that I've gotten in the community about their work. Rec department continues to expand their programming and see
055increases not only with the student programs, but also with the adult fitness programs. So, we wanted to make sure we highlighted that. And then, um, really all the work that Jamie does in HR was highlighted through our professional staff. Um, years of experience, our comp uh, compensation being in the top half of our comparables, experience, top half of our comparables, teacher retention, um, some of the best in the state for our comparables, obviously named by Forbes as one of the best employers in the state. Um, the retirees really appreciated the mugs and that process. I think we'll we'll make it even a little better next year, but we really enjoyed that and that's something that that we want to continue doing. Um, and then Nicole just threw in the billboard piece because we thought it
056was important to highlight how we bring professionals into this community. So, we run campaigns in most college towns advertising for the SASD and we certainly hire students from those universities um and love bringing new professionals to Shabboan. And then last but not least, we get to highlight all the wonderful things that Mark does. Uh and no one can say that better than Moody's. And they did so uh when they upped us to a double A1. So, um, we continue to to have finances in order, be extremely good stewards to taxpayer dollar. Our Miller rate is extremely low even with the referendum uh with our comparables and even with our county schools. And as a result of that, we got the to do the last page, which was our referendum, the $121 million with the 65%
057support from voters. and we threw in the renderings of both Farnsworth and Urban. So, we were really excited to share that with the community as well. So, went through a lot there. Um, but I just think it's important that once a year we take a little time to do that and celebrate everything that that we do in this district. So, thanks for letting me do that. Thank you, Dr. Conrath. I think this is beautifully done and encapsulates everything that um we mentality of putting this excuse this document together and making it readable for families and community. So, thank you guys for this. I just wanted to say I thought the photos were just so fabulous. I mean, just page after page of these really terrific photos. So, pretty hard for me. I thought they were
058stock photos at first. Yeah, just kidding. We are. We got it. And they're so current. I mean, they have legally bond in there rendering. So, people don't let the grass come under their feet. Nope. No, they're doing good work. So, is there any other followup? Thank you all. Excuse me. Next, we have the review of the updated and recommended objectives. goes for the strategic long range plan for 2025 2026. Dr. comment. Yeah, we're going to jump right into it. I think you're going to see a lot of carryover from what you just heard us report out on. Um so that's it. I'm going to pass it right over to Rachel for pillar one, uh goals one through three. Yeah. So goal one, objective one, um that is just really us continuing on, working towards getting
059incrementally better through our continuous improvement process that all of our schools engage in and we've progress monitored over the course of the year. Um objective two is really around just ensuring that we are implementing this new curriculum. It's been a huge investment. We believe that it is going to have a positive impact on our students and our staff. Um it provides high quality. It's engaging for staff. We know that it's going to be knowledge building. It's aligned to the the science of reading um and the standards. So we're excited about that and that goal is really just around monitoring the implementation of that curriculum. Objective three is really about um using a walkth through tool and learning walks for us to learn as administrative staff, as those that support instruction um and our teachers. And
060just know that this is not an evaluative tool. It really is a tool to kind of assess how we're doing on a specific instructional practice. So we'll be using that K5, but we'll also once we get our middle school principles on boarded, we'll identify what instructional strategy we'll use at that middle school level and the framework of um a walk through and uh having a tool to guide that that for objective four. we shared this year about our professional development plan and how we have been providing professional development around professional learning communities. We are going to build on that work continuing to enhance our professional learning communities. However, we're really going to narrow our scope around datadriven instruction um as well as data driven decision making. So again PC's but then how are we using
061data to make decisions for students in instruction. Moving ahead to goal number two. This objective one is um a carryover and just indicating that we'll continue that work around the standardized classroom option. We know that there's still work to do as far as providing some demos for staff, giving them an opportunity to share additional feedback and then our goal is to make that final decision um and bring it to you all by fall. Um so I'll say like the October, November range, we'll be making that final recommendation on that. Objective two is probably one of the ones that I'm most excited about because if you haven't heard, I am a huge fan of um the use of data and building out our multi-level systems of support. So, GMA actually brought a tool to us. It's
062called Next Path. Um it was originally adopted in our district to help us develop our reading plans as part of Act 20. But what we know with that system is it has tons of additional um capabilities when it comes to using data and streamlining that process of taking data, putting it in the visual almost instantaneously and then arming principles, data analysis teams to be able to use that to drive instruction. Um so it's really connected to the professional development that we're doing but then giving us this really powerful tool um to use data more effectively. And then our last one is goal three objective three and that's really around looking at our um pupil services teams. We have a couple of things that we intend on doing here but the big one is really looking
063at our social emotional learning. So right now for K5 that is developed by our school counselors at that middle school level we're using second step. So our goal um here or what we plan to do related to this goal is really assess our use of our universal curriculum potentially look at other options and then um if we land on another option we would pilot that and um work to adopt that. So that's what goal number three objective one is about. I just so the next path thing seems really interesting. Can you now or just maybe at some point in the future just give us one example of how you identify you know a principal identified a particular task or area or learning and just how that played out. Yes. So I'll give you an example.
064So for example star um data right? So the proficiency data, how our students are doing as well as the growth data. Now you can like click on it and you get a visual of that. So you can see who which students are in the bottom 25th percentile. Where are the students from the 26th to the uh 50th percentile by individual student? Um well it kind of it's like a graphic that's colorcoded broken down into those four areas. Okay. If you click on that you see the students. So what our schools are doing now because they don't have a tool like that is they're going into the Star Renaissance system. They're putting a report. They're then pushing that into a Google sheet and they're using a Google sheet to create some of these visuals and the
065data analyze so that they can use it. Now if you think about like all those steps that they previously had to do now with this system is already pushed in. the uh visuals just allow you to kind of visually and and and analyze the data in a more easier way, but then if you click there are your kids that you know need intervention. Okay. So like it just really cuts down the number of steps and it just arms staff where maybe they're spending I don't know five hours for a team to prep data. They don't have to do that anymore. It's hard to keep up. So, so the sources of data are testing assessment. What else is there besides that? Everything you can imagine. So, our star data, our forward data, attendance data, behavioral data.
066Um, if we're working to get credits in there, that's not in there yet, but grades are in there. So, like I'll just give an example of kind of our grip work, right? like we're trying to figure out and get ahead of and predict students um whether they're on track to graduate or not. So, we went through this year creating like levels and color coding a spreadsheet and that was probably hours of Kelly's time doing that work. when we get credits in there, we can set a threshold and say for freshmen, if they have this number of credits to this number of credits, give us those kids because maybe those are the kids that we want to intervene with or we want to progress monitor. Is any of it anecdotal teacher based or is it all
067number crunched? I mean, grades are teacher based, right? I think that's where that's where it comes from. They're they're putting the grades in. they're analyzing student learning. Um, when they're doing running records on reading assessments, they're the ones rating with the kids. So, I think from that standpoint, it's there. Um, I I think we talk a lot about qualitative and quantitative, right? So, it's it's one thing to look at a kid and say, "Hey, quantitatively, we don't like the narrative on this student." If a teacher, then they're going to talk about the students, right? And if qualitatively they're seeing the same thing, now we have a problem. If they're seeing different than what the data shows and we have something differently to talk about. So you're looking at you're looking at kids from both sides.
068I don't think we're just treating kids like numbers. Um I think we're using the data and we're using numbers to give us a place to start about having conversations with kids. But we never get to those. It's really hard to get to those conversations when it takes hours and hours to pull the data. Then you just spend all your time as a team pulling data. Now the data is already there. So we sit down, we have our monthly meetings at the middle schools about struggling students and this gives us the list. We set up the parameters, gives us the list. Now we sit down with a group of professionals, our social workers, our sites, our teachers, admin and say here's a list of students. What are we doing for each one of these students? And
069and start working through it. And I think as Jake already said, right, like we're just arming our teams to be able to do their work more effectively to have that discussion about what a student actually needs versus spending lots of time on prepping the data, analyzing the data. It's there for it. We're giving them that and then if they need to go get maybe more qualitative data sources, they can. And it arms the discussions that they need to have to get students what they need when they need it. So, those are my uh goals for the upcoming year. Jamie, I believe you're up. I'm up. Pillar two, goal one, objective one. A lot of these again are a continuation or just a building on what we have been doing over the last few years. Objective
070one, uh, being more intentional in, uh, transparent communication with all staff. Um, we've been feeling this and and, uh, we've also been receiving feedback from staff saying that, um, a we trust you, which I think that we're so happy about hearing that. We want to hear from you directly as administrators. Um, so we will start engaging in that more often. Uh objective two, uh we will always keep a watch on our compensation and benefit packages, making sure that they're comparable to or better than similar districts. So that is something that we I think will always be one of my objectives um for this area. Objective three, promote employee engagement and recognition. Um so you saw with the um with the uh student created mugs and the retiree gifts. We're just going to continue building on
071those types of of things. Objective four, address staff absenteeism proactively through improved tracking, support, and accountability measures. Um, similar to the students, um, absenteeism is is something that we do want to take a look at and address. Objective five, equip principles and supervisors with tools and knowledge to promote positive work environments. Um, that is again that um we'll just continue building on. Uh goal two, objective one, uh continue to promote our district as an ideal destination uh with diverse schools, innovative programs, and an ideal place to grow your career. Uh we have always said, you know, tell us what you want to do. We probably have a job for you to uh fill your passion uh with what you want to do within this district. Objective two, improve hiring and retention strategies, especially for high
072need areas, particularly in special education by examining targeted uh compensation pipeline development and support systems tailored to the demand of these roles. So again, this is this is something that is a need um more than simply a want and it's definitely an area that we need to take a look at and focus on. Thanks, Jamie. Um, I'll take pillar three, goals one and two. And again, we're really talking about that mass communication, two-way communication in the website. So, we're going to get those uh three things implemented next year. And um then the only other piece to to those goals really is um I guess I would say the the ability to turn a document that we just went through this this piece into an annual communication plan. So, we want to get really strategic about
073when we're communicating what things. Um, so we know there's certain times of the year when maybe a school report card is coming out and we don't feel that tells our story as well as it should. We have a lot of information here that we're going to be sharing out during school report card time. Uh, to say all the great things that we do as a district and make sure that we're getting credit for those uh when a report card might not be doing that. I think you're going to continue to see that play out in public education. Right. So, we just got briefed today from our attorneys on the requirement to report the number of arrest arrests at each school property throughout the year. So, if someone gets arrested uh outside of North High School,
074we have to put that down as a arrest and it's going to go on our report card as a number, not a not a percentage based on size of school or anything like that. Right now, it's going to go on as a number. So, I think it's pretty obvious um the intention of why we would why some people would want that on a report card. Uh, and we're going to continue to fight that that narrative and that type of um push by showing all the wonderful things that our schools do as well. So, I think those goals are going to be pretty important. I'm really happy that we're taking all four of them. Pillar four, Mark. Yeah. So you'll see in filler 4 that um we're continuing with the the three goals that we uh
075had this past year. So work continues uh to be done in these areas. one around the capital needs. Uh we changed the objective slightly uh since last year we spent you know first part of the year really working on the referendum uh communication and then this second half of the year starting to get design and that will design and the bidding out management of the referendum funds and possibly our second borrowing will all take place in 2526. So that will continue uh and we're continuing with uh that secondary data center uh too like I had mentioned we're just starting the configuration and planning for that so that that will continue throughout this next year and then uh transportation continuing to try to get some of those supports for students for attendance to help help us
076uh verify attendance on the school buses and increase safety for those kids. Uh so we'll be working on getting all that um implemented over the summer and throughout next school year also. So this might be a stupid question, at least in the old days, if you did a secondary data site um center, it was an offsite building. You know, we went to Grafton and built a building and put all your stuff We don't do that, right? Or do we or No, we don't have anything offsite. Um, so I mean this is 20 years ago, so you know, but we did explore with the county and city having a a combined site. Didn't work out. They were going to have it a county owned site. But I think what this will do is right now um
077although we do some backups through a server at North High, our main data center is at is at central and if something catastrophic happened to that that we would just be shut down. So having that secondary uh center that you can run everything through but is also storing the same data. So if it's lost at one site you have redundancy. with our our fiber optic network. Um, makes it a little easier because we're in a ring now. Um, so again, if there's a a cut to service within the ring, uh, we have redundancy that it's not going to shut us down to. So, check and that ring is connected to the building here. We also were fortunate that Wilson Insurance had a server room with fire suppression and everything was set up for their Imagine
078the safety and protocols they had for their insurance company. So that was all kind of built in here. So this just made the perfect site for it. And it is quite a distance from most of our other schools. So if there was something uh a physical catastrophe, some part of the town, we're a little bit dist. Any other questions or followups? Are we good with this plan? All righty. I'm seeking a motion to approve the updated long range student strategic long range plan for 2025 2026 school year. So move second. Second. Any discussion? All in favor say I. I. Motion carries. Thank you. Next item on the list um we have um cell phone usage. No, no. Oh, no. No. Jake said, "I can't believe you want that on the agenda." And Mary Lynn said,
079"No, he didn't. He didn't." Not quite. You said, "Take it off. I don't want to be a pain." And I said, "No, I think it's time we talk about this." But you'll notice my name is So, yeah, it's a fair can of worms to open. Um, and this is a good place to start that that discussion. It really is because we wouldn't want to start doing this work without informing you of it first. So, um, I would say and and Rachel, jump in wherever you want here. I would say we definitely have staff, especially at the high school level, especially at North High Schools where I've heard it the most, uh, interested in a cell phone policy. Um, right now I would say our middle schools u for the most part say keep it in
080your locker and our high schools say please don't use it in class and it's up to every teacher to kind of enforce that as they see um fit within their classrooms which is um the most normal approach across the state. Um there's a number of bills that have been put forward and considered and there's one being considered right now. um that would require us to have a policy. We're probably fine there already um with our uh device usage policy, but um we could certainly take it one step further by defining exactly what we want by level. Um, so if you didn't if you haven't looked, uh, if you don't follow the Wisconsin policy forum, they just put a report out about this. Bless you. Um, and they did a nice job of summarizing where different
081districts are throughout the state and what it looks like. They're just really good and really timely with their with their uh kind of hot topics. So, that's worth looking at. Um, I always caution people on on research on this stuff. There is no if if you could get rid of cell phones and student achievement was going to go through the roof, everyone would do it. If there was a curriculum adoption that you could adopt and it would mean a bunch of kids are going to score advanced and proficient tomorrow, everyone would buy that textbook. Like there if any of that, right? Like it it takes a really clear path, a long range plan, consistency at a board level, consistency at a leadership level to get results in education. Um, but this can help, right? It
082can be part of it. So, um, just a few, I think, points to to speak to here. Pew Research, uh, surveyed nationwide on this. 68% of adults said they would support a ban on middle and high school students using cell phones during class. Um, a full ban on cell phone use was much less popular. Um, 53% oppose such a measure. so to say like you just don't get to use your cell phone at all during the day. Uh that lacks support generally um as we think about how our parents might feel about this. Um I have a colleague that just went through this in their district and I think they did a really nice job of how they kind of rolled it out, framed it and talked about it with their parents, students, uh and
083staff and I think it might be a nice format for us to follow. They surveyed everyone. Um they found that 85% of students felt that they should be able to use their phones during the day. 95 felt they should be able to use them at lunch, but a majority students agreed that cell phones probably were problematic in the classroom. Um there was strong uh staff support for banning the cell phones in the classroom. I forget the percentage that he told me. Um, but it was you're talking 80 90% uh support from staff and then 58% of parents wanted bands during class. Uh 84% of parents wanted access at lunch. So 58% I was surprised. I would have thought that would have been a little higher from our parents. So, I think just doing a policy
084without asking parents, without understanding their concerns, and without being able to address those concerns or have an answer is probably not wise. Um, but I think we've seen a good process in this district as far as reaching out to parents, saying what you what do you think, what would you like? Um, and then implementing in a way that also addressed any parents concerns. And what you're going to hear from parents is if you don't want your kid to have a cell phone at school, don't give your kid a cell phone. I want my child to have a cell phone and I want to be able to get in touch with them anytime because I'm mortified about school safety. Um, and the last thing I want is something happening at school and my kid doesn't have
085access to their cell phone to communicate with me. Um, so that's the one that's hard to get past, I think. um for parents. So ultimately where this district landed was what they call a cell phone uh hotel approach. And I know teachers at North High that do this already. One of them's a good friend said it's absolutely changed his classroom and he loves it. And in our day it was like the cell phone holders that or the calculator holders that are up on the wall. They just have those on the wall. Kids walk in, they put their cell phone in there, they can see it the entire time. if something were to happen, they could run over and grab the phone. Um, but long story short, the cell phone's there for the class period. They
086can get it uh walk to their next class, put it in the next folder, and then it's not a problem during class time. And they didn't report, and the teachers at North do this don't report a lot of issues with kids refusing to put it in, which I would have thought was going to be a major hurdle. Um, so that was nice to hear. So that kind of maybe suggests an approach that we could take to move forward. Um, do you have any other thoughts you want to speak to? I think you really hit the issue from all angles. Um, I think the c a couple things that I'll make a point around is just that we do have some policy in place already between our rights and responsibilities and policy 5136. We have something
087that we can build on. Um, also Jake's already talked to some of the practices that we have in place. There is commonality within those practices, right? So, at that middle school level, um, there's a concept of you're putting the phones in the lockers. We you're not using them during the school day. We don't hear them. We don't see them. Um, adult responses to get students to meet that expectation if there's a need. and just having a range of responses, right? From a friendly reminder to um if we have to coach a student through meeting that expectation multiple times, possibly having the cell phone go to the office for the day. Then the next level would be the office is going to the or the phone is going to the office for the day and we
088need a parent to come pick it up all the way up to um in the most restrictive response um banning if you will possession of the cell phone um at the school through conversation with a family in a plan if it came down to that. So what we have right now is some consistency but a range of approaches and responses. So perhaps this work will look like what Jake described. Um serving students, getting teacher perspect perception, parent perception, and then maybe fine-tuning some of those guidelines um so that it's just more mapped out, right? So we kind of have that general statement around cell phones within our rights and responsibilities and maybe we're providing more detail around that if we wanted to take on this work. um in preparation for what legislation could look like
089for not given um if it'll pass. All right, open up or is there is there any data that shows that having access to your phone during the day improves your achievement? Yeah, I think Jake spoke to that. I think there's not a lot of research that we came across related to that. I think the research is really um sharing out perception of students, staff and families. And I think the other piece is just around maybe students self-reporting around distraction or what teachers are observing related to that. But that tight link between if a student has does not have their cell phone, will achievement be higher? I can't point to any Well, that was kind of sarcastic. Okay. Yeah. But I mean, you know, I don't I don't Go ahead. I would tell you as a
090former principal, uh, and that was, you know, 10 12 years ago, a cell phone is a sense of an identity and almost a safety blanket for kids. Not that that's a good thing, but I think you could probably argue in some cases that kids are much better off uh with it at times if if you wanted to to make that counter argument. So, I don't here nor there on that. I think ultimately what this district found and what I think we're finding is there's bullying that goes on on social media during the day that doesn't need to be happening during the school day. And that's what probably bothers me the most. And whether I can look at someone and say, "Yeah, okay, then let your kid have a cell phone at school." And you solve
091the problem yourself as a parent. But if it's creating that culture where there is bullying going on where the kids are messing around on social media and they may be talking about a kid who doesn't have a phone and it gets real personal real quick in school as you know like that's not great. Um so I think when we look at the research and then we just kind of take a step back and say let's talk common sense. It's not it's not necessary. They don't need it in the classes. They don't need to be using it. They have their uh Chromebooks things of that nature. we can lock those down a little bit and monitor. We feel like um having a cell phone hotel is probably a pretty comfortable way of implementing a policy that
092cuts down on some of the the bullying and the messing around during class. Um I would say there is a body of research around the negative impact of um extensive cell phone use, right? So to what Jake is talking about, if students are distracted by what's happening on social media and potential cyber bullying and those things, there is a mental health negative mental health impact there, right? And I think the other piece is if you're being distracted by that or you're using that potentially as a security blanket, it um prevents your ability to build social connections. So I think those are the other pieces, right? Is there a tight link between cell phone use and academic achievement? probably not. But are is there potentially a tight link between um negative impact socially and cell phone
093use? I think that link has been made and we could definitely uh pull research to support that. I mean, I think it's just tremendously isolating. I've had my children are in two two bunches. I got kids in my 40s and kids are in their 40s and kids who are in their 20s and the difference is amazing to me. When I took the older group around and I had them in the car, I'd have to actually say, "Can you please sh I'm trying to drive." Because the conversation was quiet from the front to the back and all around. When I took the younger ones around, they were on their phones. Sometimes not a word was spoken between the soccer practice and getting them home. I just think it's I think it's really isolating and I've seen
094it anecdotally in my own household pretty clearly. My other question is this idea that the cell phone creates an issue is about an issue with safety. So if something god forbid terrible happens, you're not even supposed to make noise in the classroom. So if everybody's on their phone, are we texting? Is that what's happening? But what are the parents going to do? Are they going to come up to school and intervene? I don't I mean I don't understand where that creates safety if there's an incident with school violence. I don't I don't know if it creates safety. I think it creates a sense of safety or connection. Right. If my kid has to run out of uh his or her high school during an evacuation because something happened and I'm hearing on the news that
095there's an active shooter at my child's school and my child's able to text me that, hey dad, I'm out and I ran to the gas station and I'm okay. That makes me feel really good. Like I can understand where parents are coming from there. Now, if my child doesn't have their phone and they run to the gas station, I'm probably going to have an hour or two of of heartache. But they're not any safer. I mean, I don't think it necessarily creates safety. It just creates comfort because the kids in middle school, it's in their locker. So, they're not going to their locker to get the phone to make that connection. And they're the kids who are the least mature compared to the high school kids and being able to handle the situation. Middle schoolers
096are going to handle it worse than high school kids. and yet we put their phones in the locker when we let the high school kids have them. That doesn't make sense to me. Just an idea. Yeah. No, I agree. Um I would say that the two other points I've heard on this uh policy form touched on in their summary um was Wisconsin students must move into adulthood with the skills needed to communicate or command both their attention spans and their use of digital technology. So they're speaking toward and we did this as a principle like let's not ban them. teach kids how to use them appropriately. Um, we're asking our teachers a lot. We're asking to teach kids how to read. We're asking how to make sure that uh the kids are on track and
097then cell phones. Not sure if that's our job or not. Um, so I understand teachers asking us for help there. Um, and then I'll echo what Rachel said, and that was John Michael's classroom where he put up the the calculator holder and he just said, "The most amazing thing, Jake, is if I end class five minutes early." Kids in here talk to each other. Now, prior that they never talk to each other. They just sit there like this and now they talk to each other. He said, "So sometimes I end class five minutes early just because I think it's really good for them to talk to each other." That's pretty cool, right? And that's a teacher uh who I have a lot of respect for using their brain and seeing that and creating that atmosphere
098for his kids. So um I think what we're saying is if you're comfortable we'd like to kind of move forward similar to the district I explained do some surveys um hear from our parents hear from our students and staff and then see if we can address it moving forward with a with a solid conference. I think we're in agreement with that. Thank you. Yes. Thank you. What? Thanks. I didn't come out too bad. All right. And I'm seeking a motion to adjourn to code session pursuant to Wisconsin state statute sections 1985 section 1 section C to discuss the annual performance evaluation of the superintendent in accordance with policy 1 240 to discuss the employment contract of the superintendent of schools. So move a second. Second. All right. do a roll call vote starting down by
099I I chair votes I thank you we are journ I was reading