001okay we'll call our special session to order we'll call that's all present you need a motion to approve the agenda second was in favor are you opposed all right the purpose of this meeting is to interview candidates to fill the position that resulted from the resignation of kyle walton we have four candidates for the position that we'll be interviewing tonight we had a random draw and the candidates will be interviewed in this order kate calvano will be first brian smith will be second sarah ruiz harrison will be third jamie hawk will be fourth the appointment of the candidate is until april of 2023 which is when uh kyle's term was scheduled uh to be done um so we'll start uh with questions we have 12 questions from the board we'll go around the room uh
002sue will ask question 1 k 2 go around the room and then after rebecca's done with 8 we'll go back to sue who will pick it up with number nine we're finishing out with number 12 at mark please stick to the questions that are on the sheet so that we can make an apples to apples comparison a couple have asked about follow-up questions are okay if you're asking for clarification i didn't quite catch what you said about that can you repeat it um you mentioned this and i just want to make sure i understand what you said can you clarify what you said those are fine but if uh you want to explore a different topic you mentioned your thoughts about this i'd like to know what you think about this we're sticking to the
00312 questions that we agreed to so we can make again a fair comparison we're all asking them the same questions everybody clear on on that you've got sheets in your blue folder in a pen if you'd like to take notes once the fourth interview is completed we'll take a vote jenny has paper ballots with each of the four candidates names on them you'll mark which of the four candidates that you're selecting you'll sign your ballot the ballots will get turned into sep we have eight board members so we need a simple majority [Music] one person needs a simple majority to be selected so the first person who gets five votes will win the seat if after the first round of voting someone does not have five votes we will have a second round of voting
004for the second round of voting all of those candidates who received a vote in round one will advance to round two so for example let's say [Music] one candidate received four four votes and another candidate received four votes meaning the other two candidates got no votes only those two candidates that received votes will move to the second round if all four candidates got a vote in round one [Music] four three two one everybody would advance so that's the process that we'll use and we'll keep voting and i will keep doing rounds of voting until we get one person who has five books any questions about that process anything i'm forgetting very good david well i try i'm sure after this a lot of time i would hope so um once we have someone who receives
005five votes we will do the oath of office at this meeting because we have two more meetings tonight so they will be able and then they will participate in those two meetings tonight and the oath will be done by mark mansell who is our clerk that person will be seated we will adjourn this meeting and then we roll roll into a call to order our annual reorganization meeting and they will participate in that meeting and then the full board meeting that we'll have after that reorganization yes oh did you give any thought to time limits on the answers or is that open uh we didn't talk about it and i think to try to do that how would be angry challenging so it's open any other questions hopefully none of them are attorneys okay with
006that uh i'll ask kate to come forward hi i want to apologize for the phone i got the questions from jenny and i wrote some notes down in advance excellent thank you okay thanks um for applying and thanks for your interest in serving we uh we appreciate it the community appreciates it so we will start off uh sue with question number one hi hi um tell us about yourself and whether you have ever served on a board what do you know about the chevoy mary school district and what do you feel our strengths and weaknesses of the district of course um so i wouldn't say i haven't served on a board per se as in uh explicit position but i do serve in leadership at the theater company at which i'm employed um i my
007what i know about the school district is i am a parent or a step parent of two children in the district and i have also worked in the district i was a special education aide for a year i believe the strengths of the district are in my experience as both a parent and working with them skilled and engaged teachers a real connection to community between the district and the and the city and that the district listens to parents which i really personally appreciate the weaknesses i believe um i looked at the budget and i found that um there was more investment in the private voucher program than in the high poverty areas or more than i expected uh that balance to be so personally i would i would believe that it should be the opposite
008of that so was there anything i missed there oh all right my about myself um so i've worked with elementary students middle school students and college students i missed the high school step in education including disadvantaged students students in high poverty areas ell students special education so i have experience on the ground level of working with children at various stages of development from 3 to 14 and then 18 and up so that's about all i have to say there thank you thank you what are your priorities and goals that you would like to accomplish of course i have a personal stake in both having worked in the that the department as well as having received special education so i believe that there should be robust investment in special education to bring the best people in
009and to give them the resources they need to bring equity into high poverty areas by giving teachers the room to be able to do more than what i consider triage their students many factors might uh be present that impact the specific students learning and the school district may be the only link between a family and social supports so empowering staff at all levels to help needy families from from teacher from aids to teachers to administration i believe um we should be encouraging celebration of diversity district-wide um diverse classrooms and diverse schools have uh it's they have better um it's the the social and emotional learning is much higher in those areas i would say make the district welcoming to all families no matter their status forge connection with them engaged parents mean engaged students mean
010successful students i firmly believe that we need the parents to be engaged i personally support the arts uh showing a theater company i have been in their shows i know i know that's either like the back of my hand i really appreciate that the board is working with them and i would work happily on anything there and the basic stuff of infrastructure making sure that we're up to date and that every everything is up to par for what the students deserve so that's all i've got what role do you think parents should have within the sheboygan area school district of course i can speak as a parent i love the ability to communicate with the schools and with the teachers i feel like they're i've got all the access i could need i do believe
011parents should trust the teachers when it comes to the content of what their what the education is personally like i don't want to dictate to teachers what they should be teaching because i don't have a degree in child development so i think what's important is that we know that as a parent we know the child is safe and we know that they're and we know that they're learning so i believe the rule is effectively to the role of parents is to just be there to just as any the role of parenting at all is to make sure our children are safe why do you believe it is important you would be selected as a board member to represent the community of course so as i mentioned i have experience with education and the development of
012children from 3 to 14 and i know what they what children need to or what high school students need to get to the collegiate level i've experienced working with diverse populations disabled children ell socioeconomically disadvantaged children i'm personally disabled i've accessed and worked in special education i feel like i could be a voice of representation at that level and i personally believe this is just uh that a strong school district leads to a stronger and safer community so it's not just kids education it's quality of life that's what i've got thank you what role do you think the federal and state government should play with education so i believe that education it should be determined by the professionals the teachers who have put in so much work to study child development state the state the
013state and the federal can do funding but administrates administrators behind schools at all levels should be there to should be there to support the teachers who are there to support the children's social emotional intellectual learning i personally don't think politics should come into any of this at all this is all about the children's development at those three levels social emotional and intellectual so i oppose that i pose any question of intervention at any level when it comes to anything beyond or when it comes to any political issues thank you thank you uh what role do you see the board playing with the school district administration and the superintendent got a short one for you to hear uh we're all here to determine the best usage of funding to support all the students so we've got
014to work in tandem we gotta work all work together what would your co-workers or past or present say about you list one strength that they would say and one thing you could improve on sure so as a strength i'm a relentless worker i'm always looking for something to do to support the team i can't sit still when it comes to a work position when it comes to improving i occasionally need people to be patient with me while i catch up i'm autistic sometimes i don't immediately catch on to stuff so okay number eight upon what basis should you be held accountable for your effectiveness as a board member sure um i think it comes down to whether or not what any of us contributes betters the experience for students and empowers teachers in the district
015to make the schools a safe and educational place for the for the for everybody so what basic qualities do you believe most excellent teachers and administrators possess sure so i think compassion is a huge one patience uh organization at any level is huge um the willingness to work hard creativity interest in just remaining interested in at at all levels what is going on with all the individuals involved and just be just thoroughly managing the every situation yeah that's what i've got if you disagree with the consensus of the board how will you handle this conflict i think it's a question of just being a professional if it's something that i something that i brought and the board has disagreed with me then i'll just rework what my concern bring it to the board again when
016time is and there's time for it and if it's a vote and i my vote didn't uh it might what it didn't pass then and there's not another way to bring it up then it is what it is and we move on thank you how do you feel this the district excuse me where i responded to covenant 19. okay so covet was we all know very hard on the kids with the virtual learning i appreciate that we kept the kids safe with you using virtual learning i'm glad we brought them back to school as soon as possible because because we're definitely losing patience with everything um and i support uh i support masking in schools so what does diversity equity and inclusion mean to you so diversity to me means it's like a vast array
017of factors that for our purposes impact the way a child grows up and learns to engage with the world and with the resources they'll possess so be race gender religion socioeconomic status disability ell equity is a real important thing to me um so you don't treat all people the same you meet them where they're at individually to support them there this is important not only for the educational success of the student but of the socio emotional development of that student and the children around them these are healthier classrooms when we support and are we support diversity and and use equity i personally worked with all kinds of children so i just wanted to note that again so let's see i just wanted to go back to this so teachers sometimes like i mentioned had to
018triage i think that we should unburden teachers of lesser responsibilities if at all possible so they can focus on a longer form assessment of each student's needs my experience as a special education aide and you know in various other positions with children is there's some there's sometimes not even time to deal with children who are in crisis and i've never had the full responsibility of a teacher so we need to give teachers the ability to engage with children and give them the attention they need to give them an equitable experience and inclusion not only having a diverse population but recognizing their unique experiences and celebrating them so we're not cookie cuttering everybody into the standard mold but making it clear to students and parents they're welcome as they are all right can you clarify for
019that last question you said you want to remove lesser duties or um for teachers can you clarify what a lesser duty would be sure i feel like there are some there are some things that some resources that we could be giving to teachers that could make their make their jobs easier and some some responsibilities such as like i like being able to communicate with teachers as a parent but i also feel as though we need to make sure that the teachers are not the own they're not constantly worrying about parental contact as well so what i mean by that is just less stress on the teachers if at all possible thank you maybe i didn't hear at the beginning did you say that you're employed by the theater company not sheboygan theater company no a
020different theater company yeah and i kind of wanted to clarify too when you described equity i guess clarifying this for me you don't treat everyone the same you don't treat every you don't treat everybody the same as in um you don't give you you wouldn't give uh you wouldn't give in and equity you wouldn't give a person with you wouldn't give a person you would you would bring a wheelchair to somebody who needs it but you wouldn't bring a wheelchair to everybody if that makes sense so you you give everybody the resources that they need instead of giving everybody the same treatment thank you okay all right thank you okay i really appreciate it thank you [Music] ryan thank you for your interest thanks for being willing to serve we appreciate it community appreciates it
021thank you and we will get ready we'll open up soon with question number one okay hi um number one tell us about yourself and whether you have ever served on a board what do you know about the spoiling airy school district and what do you feel our strength strength and with weaknesses of the district my name is brian smith i've been in the sheboygan area for almost 13 years now i grew up in the milwaukee area my brother my mom and i down in the milwaukee area went to school down down there where my mom was a special education teacher for the middle school we all went to um i have two kids of my own uh one's a 20 22 year old stepson who's graduating from madison in a few weeks here and then
022i have a daughter in first grade as well in the district as far as actual board experience i'm on the county board of supervisors i'm starting my second term i was recently re-elected to serve my second term as the sporting county board of supervisors for district one um that's a 25 person board um we manage you know i you know part of that is we manage about 160 million dollars in annual budgets and oversee and give guidance to the department heads and we're about 850 employees for the county so we've um it's been a really a great experience i'll say as a whole it's been a good experience um obviously as i'm sure everyone's aware too i mean the last couple years were hard on any any local elected official and i don't think anyone
023really really uh could have foreseen foreseen that happening but beside the point um the north shore organic school district it was you know got almost 10 000 enrollments it has 156 million budget i think that given that size it's i think it's like the top one of the top 10 districts in the in the state so i think that's one of the strengths that it shows it has it's got the enrollment it's got people here it's it's it attracts the attention of the state and federal level for for grants and for funding um so i think that's one of the you know one of one of the great strengths of the of the the district is its size and it's it's enrollment um i also think um you know given my experience with with my
024stepson when he was going through high school and middle school teachers were great i knew all this i knew all of his teachers i knew his coaches and everything and great rapport um so i i couldn't say enough about how great north's uh teaching staff was at that time and then i echo the same thing for my daughter who's at pigeon river great open communication with her teacher the principal there is fantastic she's responsive and i feel like that's reflective on the district as a whole what i'm experiencing in two different schools as a parent of kids in the district i feel like is representative of of uh of a larger district that has has its uh that has its uh ability to attract and maintain a good a good report good teachers and good
025administrations good administrative staff so i think what are your priorities and goals you would like to accomplish well since it's only a uh you're just serving out the one-year term i'm uh i'm pretty cognizant of how how deliberate uh sometimes painfully develop boards can be uh as far as things that go that way so i think my goal would be to gain as much experience and knowledge of how this board functions what what all it encompasses what are its roles what are what what is what are always the goals is to to ensure the kids are safe but i want to i want to gain that experience over the year and when it comes time for re-election next year i want to be able to position myself as the candidate who has that experience who
026has that knowledge of how the board functions and it can really bring something to the table into the community to help this board and the school district as a whole uh continue to to um provide a safe and and great place for our kids to go to school meet me brian what role do you think parents should have with the schmoyer school district well i think you know speaking from my my personal role i think they should have an open line of communication with with teachers with administrative staff at the at the schools which in my experience has been great i think they do a good job of of making everything public you know these you know meetings like this everyone's welcome people can say they're peace people have have the ability to to see
027what's going on to see the curriculum see the budget see all the stuff that's all available to people if they want it and if they want to engage with the board i know everyone returned my call um so i think that's pretty representative as well um that that that open line of communication is there and i think parents should take advantage of that um and because it's there and i i haven't had an experience that would dictate otherwise that that's that's the case why do you believe brian that it is important to you to be selected as a board member to represent the community um i think it's important because i come with an understanding of board experience of how local government works how what's important to the local community i have a good a
028good feel for the community and especially people in my district and i understand that you know there's there's expectations and there there's um you have to do your due diligence as well too so i feel like i would come in i would understand i would take all the available information i would make decisions before voting i would i would listen to everyone's uh response i think it's it's important just to hear everyone from all sides and then make the best informed decision um from that information that you get so i think i'd be able to do that very well and i think in the past and given my given how i know i've acted on the board uh the county board i think that i do that very well and i think i can i
029can take in any information and make an educated decision what role do you think the federal and state government should play with education um i think there's there's definitely standards that should be met uh for school districts and i think that's typically said at the state and federal level where districts need to meet certain bare minimum standards but other than that i think that you know i think i think local community i think that's where we really need to to really find what is needed if there's state and federal funding i think we should do everything in our ability to meet the criteria whatever that criteria may be to get that funding from the state and the federal level so we can just enhance the amount of resources we have for our district right because
030they're not just going to give us funding if we don't if we don't fit the criteria that they want you know but being cognizant of that i'd also we'd also need to make sure that that we're have the best interest of the community in the district in mind when we're going for that for that funding i think we should take advantage as much as we can when state and federal funding is available there's no reason not to get those resources for our district when able to um you see the board playing with the school district administration and superintendent i think trust is key uh you know the superintendent and the administrative staff makes the day-to-day operation decisions uh they they are the ones that are that are truly seeing the make ensuring that the operations
031and schools are functioning there they have full responsibility and i think we put the people in place that the board trusts as a whole so we're not constantly arguing we're not constantly disagreeing on things i think there's there's a mutual trust in place there and the board would serve as guidance um and just you know just oversight when needed but i think guidance is is more than anything just because it's we can't part-time board members cannot be responsible for for the the operations of the entire school district that's why we have superintendents as well we have administrative staff and so they can make those decisions and they can come forward to the board and we can uh just ensure that it's it's in the best interest of the district and the and uh and go
032from there so i think trust is key i think trust in understanding that they're doing their job and they have our students and our the community's best interest in mind when they're putting together their their their ideas and what they should be doing i'm good sorry now i'm not all right so what would your co-workers pastor president say about you this one strength they would say and one thing you can improve on okay um you know throughout you know i've been i've been right out of college i've been at the same company for uh almost 12 years now um it's been a great place to work a lot of my co-workers would i have a very a willingness to take on new roles and responsibilities new tasks if it's something out of my comfort zone
033i'm willing to kind of jump into it and figure it out as i go you know and get gain gain as much knowledge from people who know uh to help me kind of grow along that way and kind of figure things out as i go um you know something i could probably work on is kind of saying no a lot of times i'll i'll um you know i'll just take it i'll just take the ball because then that way i know it's at least i'm handling it i know what's going on but then that kind of can lead to a lot of balls in one court so it's one of those things that's you know it's kind of in my my professional development is just prioritizing um the best use of my time at my
034at my career so um but yeah that's okay number eight upon what phases would you be held accountable for your effectiveness as a board member um i think growing enrollment i think having having parents uh engage um and hopefully with positive feedback but if it's negative feedback taking that in and assessing you know is this a trend is this you know what's what's going on is this negative feedback uh an issue of a larger problem or is it just something that we can deal with with this with this one individual this one family um but i think you know getting the just feedback from from parents and from the community um and driving change that way and then just you know the amount of programs um you know just ensure that the extracurriculars are available
035to everyone that we just extend that reach as far as we can to make sure everyone in the district has the ability or at least the opportunity to access some programs that that may go beyond just the traditional school hours what basic qualities do you believe most excellent teachers and administrators you know i think back to a lot of teachers when i was in school you know in elementary middle school high school the teachers that had the biggest impact on me were the ones that were really compassionate they were they showed up they were smiling they were they were enthusiastic they were happy to be there they they were communicable they they had a lot of there was always a rapport there and it wasn't like it was and they were they were just so
036able to talk to every single student and give some of themselves to each one of their students right so they could relate to each student differently and i thought that was you know i felt like that was a pretty impact uh i i had uh i had a lot of good teachers growing up too and i think that helped out a lot um and a lot of decisions i made and uh just kind of getting to where i am now i kind of look back it informs you a lot more than you think it does when you look back it's but the teachers energy the positivity of their compassion they they they they wanted to know everything was okay they wanted you to learn they wanted you to be safe they wanted all these things
037and again you know not to not to believe that point but i think uh that's the that's the vibe i've gotten for a lot of the school teachers that i've talked to in the district um just they care you know they just care and they're happy to be their work you know if you disagree with the consensus of the board how would you handle this conflict um time to move on you know it's uh it's one of those things a lot of different people have a lot of different ideas a lot of different perspectives um i would assume that when you get to a consensus when you get to a vote every single board member had their opportunity to say how they felt about it to give their information to give their data to give
038their rationale for why they arrived at the decision which would ultimately mean i had my opportunity to say that um you know maybe i changed someone's minds maybe maybe my mind got changed you know it doesn't but in the end the process needs to move forward the vote needs to stand and we need to have respect for for whatever the consensus of the board is you know everyone gets their opportunity to to sway the mines and and then chips fall within a so brian how did you feel that this responding it's taxi it's tax season um wow you know that's that's a tough one right i mean that talk about a polarizing issue um you know it was one of those things where no one really saw coming obviously and no one was really prepared
039for it from the outside looking in i feel like the the district and the board itself they did everything they can to get the kids back in school in a safe responsible manner there was no pleasing everyone there was there was there was not going to be a solution or an answer or something that everyone raises their hands today i'm 100 happy with that right but that's one of the difficult parts of being on the board making those types of decisions is where you have to weigh in all that information and you know the in the end the board and the district moved in in a way that safely and responsibly got all the kids back into school and i i appreciate that and i think that you know you'll never you know again not
040to rely on my my board experience you'll never get the credit that that is kind of due just because you know going through that type of type of pandemic too uh on my level you know you hear from people all sides just that and no one it was just a tough situation i think the board did the best they could to get the kids back in the school um and then dealing with the virtual option as well offering that to families who felt that that was the safest and best way to to have their child go to attend school but i think the key was and i heard it during your meetings as well is the goal was always to get the kids back into school and i thought the board did what they could
041to do to make that happen so i was like i said i was overall as pleased with with how the board handled it and how they they came to a compromise and they came to a solution so what does diversity equity and inclusion mean to i i just think it means ensuring that everyone um regardless of any of your immutable characteristics no matter who you are where you come from what your background is that those opportunities are that they have access to all the same opportunities the same resources that it's everything is made available to everyone um and not to you know just i think that's that's the key is to have everything available all the resources all the everything available to uh anyone who who uh wants it thank you um just going back
042brian on to question one um where do we talk about strengths and weaknesses in the district i heard you mentioned some of the strengths i don't know if i missed it yeah um but did you say anything that you felt the school district could do better um you know i think given the size and i guess i don't have any anecdotal or data for that but i would have a feeling that the district decides with an enrollment that much with you know 25 different schools there's got to be some kids falling through the cracks and i think anything we can do to help um recognize who those kids are uh what we can do as a district as a board to shine light on that and then provide any type of resources we could have
043again i don't have any you know any direct information but i can only imagine with the school this size that there are there's kids that are suffering or not except for maybe a dramatic word but that need more help than that they're getting and i think as a district we can we can take um time and take resources to help address that when we talk about effectiveness and what basis should you be able to fundamentally say one of the things you'd like to put in that category growing enrollment can you clarify how you would grow enrollment i just think making um you know some of that so that's a tough thing too because some of that's a demographic issue in chilean county in general right with the declining population with declining all this stuff too
044and um we see that as a problem not just on the school board level or just on the school district level but also as a community as a whole right what can we do to make make people want to come to school and what can we do to make them want to enroll like an extraordinary school district and i think the county as a whole is there in the city of sheboygan too you see this with affordable housing you see this with job opportunities you see this all these things getting people to come here and i think what we can do as a school district is make that another feather in a cab make that hey great schools jobs affordable housing we can we can try to build ourselves up as a as a top
045tier district and we can help i think that would help attract families or to help attract individuals or help people starting families to come to the area knowing that they have this great resource here in their backyards where they can choose whatever school they want to go to in the area right they have 25 options right so i think that would probably help grow enrollment uh but i think it's probably a lot of that is probably a larger issue of just a demographic shift you know population hasn't grown here in the last 10 years right so that's tough too so it's hard to understand how much of that is is on the school board to fix and how much of that is just what can what we do as an area as the community to
046attract people here as well yeah um i just i don't know if this is appropriate so if it's not uh but under question number seven which is the one about co-workers past and present we talked about uh 12 years in your employer and all of that sort of thing i'm wondering can you share with us where you work or what type of work you do not the name well i mean it's not tough right have to have the county work for it right that's one of the largest manufacturers in the in the area um i work on a corporate side of things now in real estate i do stuff on the per on the individual side as well i have personal investment properties and you know flip a house or two a year i just
047always kind of like to know what yeah experience people sure definitely a corporate uh financial background um you know as far as that goes anything else ryan thank you thank you appreciate it thank you everyone sarah hello thank you for having me thank you for uh taking the time to be here and for your interest in serving on the board we appreciate it but if i made a suggestion because we're starting to start a costume soon we maybe start with somebody different just so we each get to ask different questions i think we should just keep it consistent a good suggestion but on the interest of fairness i think we need to keep it consistent [Music] uh tell us about yourself and whether you have ever served on a board what do you know about
048the sheboygan area school district and what do you feel are strengths and weaknesses of the district sure so let me just start off by introducing myself my name is sarah reese harrison born and raised in sheboygan i am a daughter of my father who is an immigrant my mother who is a might was a migrant worker came to sheboygan about 50 years ago and decided to call sheboygan their home i have two older brothers and a younger sister all four of us have gone through sheboygan area school district elementary middle and high school lieutenant james madison horseman middle school graduated 99 sheboygan south high so i'd want to age myself but um proud sheboyganite um community involvement volunteer and i love my community after high school i went on to two years at uw sheboygan
049after that went out to school and lacrosse had to come back because of some family issues decided to go back and finish my degree in business administration i have my associates in human resources business administration and my bachelor's in business administration um i met my husband when i lived in milwaukee and my parents were getting older and they needed help so i needed to come back home and um i love sheboygan i'd come home for weekends bro brought uh broad days and um greek fest and all those fun activities that we have here on the lakeshore um so it wasn't hard for me to come back husband decided that he wanted to follow and said yep we're gonna make our home in sheboygan and we came back we've been here for about 10 years i
050started in the financial world i currently work at fox communities credit union as a branch manager i manage two locations and 18 employees we generate over 50 million dollars in just those two locations um on products and services that we offer our community and um so i'm very passionate about sheboygan i love sheboygan um i think it's important that we give back to our community that we came from and um i'm proud to be from here and i'm proud to give back and what do i know about sheboygan area school district i'm proud of sheboygan area school district you have some of my fondest memories at james madison elementary school some of you might not know we raised funds to make back then was called the monster we had the triathlon middle school you know
051i can just name on all the teachers that i continuously see throughout throughout sheboygan and i just loved my time in sheboygan and i continuously do and um what are our strengths and our weakness i love the diversity that you buying area school district gives my niece graduated from south two years ago and going to that bowl at graduation time and just seeing the diversity that we have there um it made me fall in love with sheboygan all over again um and you get all those feels back you know you're at that bowl and there's 500 students there and um you're proud of that and i think what chabois school district does is they do a really good job of including the diversity within their students but that also can pose a challenge do we
052do enough can we do more and i think those kind of go both hand in hand and i don't think that it's a weakness i don't like calling things weakness or an issue it's an opportunity for us it's opportunity to do better um what have we learned how can we make it better for you know for our students because that's what we're here for what are your priorities and goals that you would like to accomplish as a board member um i i want to start off with saying that as a board member it's a collaborative group right so you're bringing your ideas together you're listening to your constituents what are we doing on behalf of the students to make their lives better their what are we doing to make their education the best how are
053we setting them up for the future we bring all of that collaboration together um and we have to know that not one individual runs at all it's a collaboration between all of us of our ideas and how are we effective with that how do we communicate with each other how do we make sure the team that we come together for the good of those over 10 000 students that we have in our school district and then also to fulfill the sheboy school district vision um i think you know the last time i looked at the vision of the sheboygan area school district was so that all students be productive and responsible citizens in a competitive world right we want to set them up so that they're successful after graduation that they're um great citizens of
054sheboygan that's what our goal is here that we set them up so that they can be great in the future good evening sarah thank you for coming tonight uh what role do you think parents should have with the schmorgan area school district um i think you know for foremost um the parents are the first teachers of their kids right um so they're the first ones that teach them how to walk and talk and um once they get to that age where they go to school they sort of hand that baton off to that teacher and they're entrusting that that teacher teaches their kids but at the same time that there's a collaboration between the teacher and the students that you have that engagement with the students are with the parents and the teachers um whether
055it's you know the pto um whether it's teachers showing up to conferences whether it's teach parents showing up to volunteer all of that engagement is needed on superintendent side the board side the teacher side the parents all of those kind of have to go hand in hand sarah why do you believe it is important you would be selected as a board member to represent the community um i'm a product of schweiner school district um i've gone through you know elementary middle school high school um again i'm very proud um i've served on other boards um currently i am the president of the eastern shores credit union chapter it's an advocacy group for credit unions we do financial literacy we do volunteerism um and then also i am on the board of the salvation army of
056manchester county um and then also i was just recently appointed by the mayor of sheboygan to the capital investment committee um so um why is it important or why do why do you believe it's important that you are selected i bring a lot of that knowledge with boards and um examples on how boards operate um i bring the willingness to listen to understand to communicate effectively and really to be an advocacy for the students of sheboygan area school district what role do you think the federal and state government should play with education um i think we have a really good blueprint from the federal government and the state um on the skills and knowledge that we need to have for our students and our kids um and there are policies and procedures in place that
057we have to abide by and as a board we have to make sure that we abide by those and we you know they provide the funding for the school districts however um we have first had knowledge of of the educational needs that we have in the school so it's our responsibility to make sure that we are tuning into those those families and those students to really give them the education that's going to make them better for tomorrow um what role do you see the board playing with the school district administration and superintendent um it's definitely hand in hand it's definitely you can't have one without the other right and the board is there to hold the superintendent accountable for things that happen in the school district um but then the superintendent is also there so
058that they can give feedback to the to the board again it's hand in hand the policies they're clear and effective and in line with what sheboygan area school district's vision is so working with the superintendent is definitely a hand-in-hand job and we are here put in place by the citizens to do just that what were your co-workers pass the president say about you there's one strength they would say and one thing you could improve sure um i think if you were to ask my co-workers um they would say that i am all hands-on hands-on loyal and dedicated um i know you asked for one but um they all kind of go together i'm i'm all in um and i think one of my opportunities is sometimes i say yes to a lot of things and
059if i do get appointed to this i do understand that i will have to take some things off of my plate to be dedicated to this position um but they would definitely say that that i was kind of a go-getter and and we got to get things done um so that's what i would bring to the board okay number eight upon what basis should you be held accountable for your effectiveness as a board member um and past and current board member seatings that i've had is i'm accountable for everything that i say and that i do they put me in that position and it's important that i execute what that expectation is i make sure that i ask questions that i clarify things sometimes people are not going to see eye to eye on on
060certain things but as a board if we vote going forward we all have to be able to be um what's the word i'm looking for um we have to back that up even if we're not against it the greater good we have to make sure that we we follow through with that okay now we're done what basic qualities do you believe most excellent teachers and administrators possess oh um i oh you know i think about i'm sitting back there and i was like oh i think about all the teachers that i've had throughout the years in detroit area school district and the one thing that comes to mind is they care about the kids um i look in this room and you're not you wouldn't be here if you guys didn't care about the kids
061um and our students and i think that's the most important thing about teachers is they care about their students they wouldn't be in the profession that they are if they didn't um you know i can name you know off the cuff how many teachers that i still know and you know the fond memories that they bring so it's compassion and understanding and you know the charismatic way that they talk to you and all of those different qualities are what really bring bring out if you disagree with the consensus of the board how will you handle this conflict yeah in the perfect world it'd be great that if we all just you know kumbaya together but in reality that's not how it is um and you just have to be professional um we are not all
062gonna agree on the same thing we do have to respect each other um and again if we don't all agree on this on the same thing but we all you know the majority wins we still have to go with what the majority says and back that up um because that's what you sign up for when when you're on the board um you know you look at the grand scheme of things two years ago and you know kova 19 really you know did a catastrophe on the world um you bring that into you know what did it do for the state you look at what it did for sheboygan and um you look at the different things that other school districts did and i was pretty proud to see what troy area school district did with
063their with their students it wasn't easy it was definitely a challenge i think they did the best that they could with what they had and what we knew um you know information was changing daily um sometimes hourly um and we kind of had to pivot and move and change and um you had to be okay with that change so fast um but i think um i don't know of any other school maybe i just didn't do that much research but for each school to have a testing site simply amazing and today i went on the website and i looked and clearly states english and hmong in spanish um what time testing sites are completely great clarification on how you can get tested um if if you had any concerns about that but i honestly think
064that strawing our school district did so great and with what they had thank you what does diversity equity inclusion mean to you so equity to me means that um that all the students can come here and learn um no matter what obstacles that means um for me i always envision um this picture in my mind a six foot fence and three students standing on that fence one student who's six two can clearly see over the fence um another student who's five foot and is looking through the creeks and of the fence and trying to look at what's on the other side and then you have another student who's in a wheelchair um you know equity what would that equity mean equity means okay let's bring a stool for that student who can't see over over
065the fence so that he can have the same view as the one that sticks to or the the student is in a wheelchair knock the fence down so that they can see what everyone else is seeing so giving them that ability to all learn and give them the tools to learn so that they're successful okay follow up for clarification sarah thank you thank you so she may have seen the 6 45 time literally and decided to shut 6 45 so right if someone wants to do you know to bring something bring from my god [Music] chair i always put it as low as they can soon [Music] okay we're back hi jimmy hi how are you thank you for um for your interest in the position and for being willing to throw your name in
066the hat of course um uh we've got 12 questions we'll go around the room uh starting with sue each board member will rotate and then from pete we'll go back to sue to finish up kind of this way for follow-up questions um just so we've got a fair comparison there may be some follow-up questions for clarity but we aren't going to be asking any follow-up questions that'll take us down uh new rabbit holes if you will do i have time limits no okay no so okay that's why actually we're we're running ahead of schedule a little bit this this didn't take us quite as long as we projected it out to but that's fine so with that we'll go to sue for question one okay uh tell us about yourself and whether you have ever
067served on a board what do you know about the schboy and mary school district and what do you feel are strengths and weaknesses of the district sure um i'm jamie huck she her hers and i was raised in the sheboygan area i went to horace mann middle school for um a bit and i have a 18 year old son who will be graduating from north high school this year in june hopefully um we're working towards it i currently serve on the board of the harbor center business improvement district and i'm on the steering commit steering committee member for the sheboygan dib initiative in the community and i'll also soon be joining the board of the sheboygan county historical society and museum in the coming months a little bit more about sort of professionally i've worked
068at the john michael kohler arts center as the director of marketing for nine years and just recently um in last october have been appointed as a director of diversity equity and inclusion there at the art center my passion for communicating effectively and fostering an equitable environment inclusive and welcoming space for folks to thrive and reach their maximum potential is really what drives me and excites me from my perspective uh as both a former student and a parent of a student in the district is that it provides a really solid learning environment for learners to be engaged in a variety of academic and extracurricular offerings that engage and inspire their interests the diversity of the student population that exists in sheboygan school district is something i valued as a student and is the reason i enrolled
069my son in the district two years ago um i grew up in howard's grove and so diversity was not very much of a thing there and so that's something i really valued when i was in middle school as well as why um what my son is really enjoying over the last two years that he's been in the district um i do feel a continuous improvement uh remains in gathering and hearing and truly acknowledging feedback and concerns and suggestions from school families on ways the student school district can better serve their needs the diversity of social identities and backgrounds that exist within the school district families call for diverse and unique solutions obviously and when families and students feel heard and a part of developing and adapting those solutions i do think that everybody can be
070equipped to truly thrive so um i also think there's great things that the district is doing and um just being a former communicator and still still one it's still in my blood constantly um in understanding how the the district can really communicate the great things that it is doing um even the board and the and the policies and procedures that they make what are the good things that we can share and communicate to families more regularly um and how can that be done in an accessible way that most families can um kind of see and receive it i think i think is a another maybe area of improvement or opportunity so um yeah what are your priorities and goals that you would like to accomplish as a board member um in any board i serve
071i really do like to understand um sort of the mission and fulfilling that and best work with other board members with input from the constituents and the other other intended audiences and really maximizing the effectiveness of of the things that um and the goals and the mission that it prepared prepares um my goal is also to bring my background and lived experience um i'm a single parent a woman of color that perspective to the school board diversity of thought and experience is important and when making decisions and policies that affect a broad population which exists in this district so i pride myself in um being open to taking into account the various aspects so like financial structural behavioral social environmental educational all those things um when being on a border important and the impact the
072decisions this board has to make at any given time and evaluating those topics whatever they may be with a non-biased perspective and framing my decisions based on what can support and serve the most people with the best impact is really what i strive for on any board that i sit on thank you good evening jamie welcome what role do you think parents should have when should we hear school yeah um well i'd say myself as a parent i'm a pretty involved one sometimes my son would like to think i wouldn't be so much but um i do feel like um parents should be represented within the staff um and uh on the board um of this district so i feel really strongly about that and i also believe that parents should have ample opportunity to
073offer their voices and feedback and it's important that the district provide various ways for the parents to do so focus groups conferences surveys open meetings parent input planning sessions perhaps and with that being said i feel strongly that the district also needs to communicate these opportunities via many platforms for accessibility um i often find in and this is often happens but you know people stick to certain forms of communication and information sharing and a lot of times there's not always um accessibility sometimes for a broad group of people and um people miss things via email or so the more various platforms that those opportunities can be shared through is great and i often feel that times parents will like to be more involved and connected but the options to do so can be static and
074not meet the various lifestyle needs of folks so you know open meetings and such what times of day they are can people make it all those kind of things really being um conscious of those kind of things i feel are important um and i do think you know i always think be the change you want to see and i stand by that fully and think that parents need to voice the change they want to see in the district and when possible and often be active part of forming the solution as well so um the district should make it easier and accessible as possible for that to occur so jamie why do you believe it is important you would be selected as a board member to represent the community um i feel like the community from
075many aspects and um certainly from a diverse perspective uh i'm a single parent i'm of mixed heritage um white black and asian i was born and raised and have worked in sheboygan community for many many years i'm also very glad our community has diversified in backgrounds since i was born and i'm growing up and i see and have regular regular experience both the challenges and triumphs this community has had with embracing and welcoming the change in demographics and so i understand that the population of the stool griff district is now a minority majority and i believe that my background and life experience has regularly been a minority within the majority and so um i will bring and um wish to bring that needed perspective to the board and serve as a valuable representation to the
076current sheboygan community as well what role do you think the federal and state government should play with education sure i feel that the federal and state government uh of course play a role in education um by providing consistency and structured um obviously through the funding and um general structures of the educational systems within communities and to me they provide a sort of check and balance system and also provide accountability for educational institutions to provide a standard level of education um perhaps even through a more equitable standpoint right and um i do feel that there are ways in which citizens and educational administration can also influence and adjust the structures and guidelines that are put by the federal and state governments through legislative processes and if possible for voices to be heard and change to be
077made at that level so i think it's possible to change and influence those structures but i also feel that they're very valuable in providing a standard level in checks and balances and such for for communities and educational institutions um what role do you see the board playing with the school district administration and superintendent sure um in any board that i've sat on and my understanding of the sport as well is that it's from a kind of fiduciary financial standpoint to manage the finances also to support and oversee the role of the superintendent and provide accountability there and set and decide on policies and ensure that those policies um are implemented and carried out i understand that sometimes as a board that there may be mixed decisions on those policies and i do feel that you
078know as a board when when something is decided it's everybody's role on the board then to carry that out and stand by and support that um through those decisions uh so and and with any you know when it comes to the superintendent with any kind of supervisor employee relationship i do feel it should be one of mutual respect and collaboration and um where each party is working to support the other when and where needed and and i assume the board also works closely and collaboratively with the administration um to support and see through the policy and decisions initiated as well and when appropriate sure um i feel like many of my co-workers would say that um and i'm an ambitious leader um i often had a have a strategic mindset and um i use my
079ability to collaborate engage for team buy-in and to meet goals and efficiently effectively implement them towards successful outcomes i'm very tactic driven i'm timeline driven i like to move things forward but i do try to think of the big picture and um meet the needs uh by looking at all the facts um and be really efficient and effective with resources time dollars so on and so forth um i would say a strength is that i can think big picture and sort of sympathize lots of details into um something that makes sense and um that can meet lots of needs like i said though i'm also i just took a personalises test and um i'm very focused on driving things forward so a lot of times i have to be told like okay jamie slow down
080hold on um let's think about things a little bit more i know you want to get to the end goal um but considering all those things sometimes we have to slow down on the process so that is something that um i try to think about often when i'm working in teams and individually okay so upon what basis should you be held accountable for your effectiveness um you know i think uh being timely um showing up for meetings i know having a caucus is really important and doing kind of the preparation needed for research and understanding what kind of decisions might need to be made really talking and understanding the community and the kind of needs of the district are important before coming and making board decisions and really just um having an open mind and
081um listening to the board counterparts um and their thoughts and considerations to reach a ultimately good decision-making policy and and also being patient with those who may not um agree um and uh taking that into account listening to grievances things like that i think are really important um when thinking through and being an accountable board member what basic qualities do you believe most excellent teachers and administrators possess oh man i have such respect for teachers um the patients that they have um and really they're they're educating and um rearing a lot of the children um of the next generation i do think that it's important that uh teachers and administrators um understand sort of and meet children where they're at so that they can truly kind of grow and learn in the in the best
082setting they can whether that's through obstacles they might be have or really successes and strengths that they have i think it's um important to maximize that either way for um students as they grow and learn i think how you manage your resources time energy um is also really important i'm sure for teachers and administrators and um also uh being able to have effective communication skills um with students um and with adults uh because the parent connection is also quite important so uh yeah that's that's you know ultimately a board is set up to um have different matters of opinion and by um by the numbers whatever the the consensus is um you have to support that um i think that i i have always um when i've just agreed with with things um that were
083decided by the board um i always try to find sort of the silver lining or the way in which um i can support in the ways that i feel are important um but ultimately you have to support as a board and stand as a solid unit when consensus is reached through the diplomatic process so how do you feel the district responded well uh first and foremost i think it's the pandemic was just terribly hard on um lots of people administrations families individuals and um it was always changing the the marker was um in a lot of different areas and there was lots of um divide and certain and certain things and i do think that the board did or that the district did a really great job of finding options and continually thinking about um
084ways in which to address all the different decisions that needed to be made regarding the pandemic i found um the the testing kiosks were like phenomenal and i think that was a really um wonderful thing that the district provided um to be flexible and responsive to to testing and so on and so forth and i think the facts um that were presented and how they were handled by the board um and the district were were um really in the effort to get students to be able to be in school um and not virtual and ultimately that was that seemed like the primary goal which to me was the most important and um and ultimately we want the kids to thrive in the best environment they can and those were the thoughts that i believe the
085district um kept in mind through the whole process and so um in in a um time where things were very divisive and um uncertain i think that the district provided the best options and choices and resources it could to to really maintain um in-person schooling for for everyone which is important what does diversity equity and inclusion mean to sure um so really diversity to me i'll go i'll go to diversity equity and inclusion and speak to all three um diversity is really of um voice of background of experience and um appreciating and understanding where people come from meeting them where they are and really trying to be empathetic of lots of the situations and places that people's uh thoughts and perceptions come from from from diverse mindsets whatever that might be um within your social
086identity and background um equity i i really think it's the the um it's important that it's not just equal but equitable and that we're continuing to think about how do we provide um everyone with the the needs that they or the resources that they need for themselves not that everybody has the same thing because when you have diverse backgrounds and um experiences that may look different to people and the the more we can um provide people um with what they need to feel successful and welcome and included and like they belong um the more people can thrive and be successful um and then inclusion is really to me about being part of a process being part of a group and how does that how do you have buy-in in some way shape or form and
087i think when we talk about dei can be applied internally to an organization and to their staff and really have that kind of culture of belonging and where your voice is heard and you're appreciated to even the community where are we providing equitable resources and are we um thinking about all the different backgrounds and uh life perspectives that that um those need and i think with um the sheboygan area school district it is so diverse that um really i think the diversity the diversity is certainly there um and continually thinking about a framework and a lens to look through for the inclusiveness and the equitableness is important and um should we should uh anybody do that and continually kind of think through those things and when making decisions it can really lead to great collective
088impact for the school district and for the community at large honestly so thank you thank you thank you for enabling for clarity yeah you mentioned one board that you're serving on currently but you just said the letters i have no clue what that was yeah yeah um so the harbor center business improvement district or are you talking about the sheboygan deib initiative oh i think that must have been it that one the ladder yeah um i am currently a part of initiative where it's a group of community um citizens who feel strongly about making sure that uh diversity equity and inclusion and that lens is looked at through many things through health through housing through policing through the city government and how can we really form a community of belonging and inclusiveness in sheboygan here
089um i work and talk a lot about like many people it's staffing even and getting young professionals into the area and having people from largest urban cities come here they sometimes bulk or may not feel included when they come here and if we still want that young that young population to continually come and fill our workforce i think it's really important um and for the ones that are already here that our community continually to continue to evolve and really accept and embrace um diversity in all its forms and um become kind of a social fabric that feels welcoming and inclusive to all and i just feel really strongly about that and really the initiative is meant to kind of collect connect and network lots of different institutions and entities to really start thinking about that
090um from health and human services to um other organizations to also preventing educational kind of talks and conversations to talk about um the areas in which we can um collaborate and connect and really start to think about how to continually make this inclusive and um welcoming place to live and work and thrive and raise your family for clarity all right jimmy thank you so much thank you thank you jenny [Music] mark one sign it and then we'll get them to uh [Music] there we go [Music] uh um [Music] foreign uh sarah received four votes ryan received three votes jamie received one vote kate did not receive a vote so we will move to a second round of voting ryan sarah and jamie will advance to that second round can you tell us that sarah had
091four brian had three and jimmy we'll do a second round so for this one since we don't have okay so yeah you all know what you're doing right now right you sweet okay um after our second round of voting uh sarah received five votes brian received three so congratulations to sarah you are the new member of the billionaire school district board of education congratulations so sarah you can come forward and take the code please oh all right you're going to sit here for now yeah before you sit down yeah before you sit down you gotta take the oath oh okay we're gonna we're gonna throw a whole lot to you area school district of sheboygan who have been duly appointed to the board of education of the schwarzenegger school district of sheboygan in sheboygan county
092into oregon county but have not yet entered upon the duties thereof but have not yet entered upon the duty zero affirm that i will support the constitution of the united states affirm that i will support the constitution of the united states and the constitution of the state of wisconsin and the constitution of the state of wisconsin and will faithfully discharge the duties of said office and will faithfully discharge the duties of said office to the best of my abilities to the best of my ability so help me god congratulations hi let's just take a little short break i wanna i will call to order the annual reorganization need a motion to approve the agenda [Music] uh i need to jenny is going to do the hope of office for sue mark sarah and mary lynn
093so should we just have people stand at their places okay do you mark mansell susan hein marilyn donahue and sarah ruiz harrison who have been duly elected to the board of education of the sheboygan area school district affirm that you will support the constitution of the united states and the constitution of the state of wisconsin and will faithfully discharge the duties of said office to the best of your ability i will i will i will i will great thank you okay we will move on to item five in our election of our annual officers um we need calling for nominations for president please we need a promotion and then a second right for somebody yes i nominate mary lynn is there a second second okay are there any other nominations for president i have to
094ask this three times are there any other nominations for president are there any other nominations for president hearing none uh i will declare that the nominations are closed um all those in favor of promotion the maryland donahue president say hi hi hi anyone opposed motion is carried congratulations very well thank you uh i need uh now i'm calling for a nominee this is item number six calling for nominations for vice president need a motion i'd like to nominate santino mr are there any other nominations for vice president are there any other nominations for vice president are there any other nominations hearing none i will close nominations for vice president all those in favor of santino laster is vice president signify by saying hi hi anyone opposed question carrie centino congratulations i need uh i'm calling
095for nominations please for treasurer very glamorous job any motions for people to be i nominate k robbins second are there any other nominations for treasurer any other nominations any other nominations for treasure hearing none i will close nominations for treasurer uh all those in favor of k robbins being our treasurer say aye right right any opposed motion carried congratulations okay item eight eight nominations uh in the form of a motion please for clerk i nominate doctors tonight is there a second second are there any other nominations for clerk are there any other nominations hearing none i'll declare that the nominations for clerk are closed all those in favor of aiming sue heinrich clerk please say aye anyone opposed i think congratulations sue all right item nine this is the annual review of our board member
096behavior and code of conduct for bylaw zero one four four point five um oddly enough this is um we just approved um some revisions to this on a first read and we'll be adopting those revisions on a second read a little bit later tonight at our meeting so um perhaps what we could do is the major issues we could just talk about them when we discuss it at the regular board meeting in a little bit but we've already approved these the first read last month so this is a document that's actually really current for us because we just put some changes which were largely cosmetic but that said i don't want to if anyone would like to bring up anything tonight regarding this document we certainly can talk about it we don't have to take
097action at this meeting it's just for discussion and for information okay seeing nothing then i'm going to move on to item 10. uh this is um an annual action that we do to um set our public depositories where our dollars are located and the administration is recommending that we adopt the list that is attached on our agenda i would need a motion to do that please second any questions on the list any questions about this for the administration hearing none all those in favor say aye okay any opposed motion item 11 is facsimile signatures i need a motion that would authorize facsimile signatures of the folks who've been elected as president treasurer and the clerk physician to be used on various documents please it's provided in our bylaws need any questions on this yeah i'm
098just an annual thing that we do hearing on all those in favor say aye right any opposed motion carry item 12 is designation of the sheboygan press as the publisher of our board of education proceedings by statute we have to select the largest paid circulation newspaper in the area and the sheboygan press is the largest paid circulation newspaper in the area that's why we're selecting them versus some of the other options that are out there so i need a motion to do this second any questions all those in favor say aye aye opposed all right miscellaneous uh a is just another housekeeping item i need a motion um to authorize the administration to pay salaries and have the same confirmed by the board at the next regular meeting some second questions hearing down all those
099in favor say aye okay the opposed question miscellaneous d is just informational it's a report on our post-employment benefit trust fund fund mark will be giving us our annual report out of where we're so we have the balance sheet and the revenue expense uh balance sheet as of the end of last fiscal year june 30th 2021 and then the revenue expense statement for the year ended june 30th 2021. so as you uh no if our fund 73 is where we uh fund our hras our health reimbursement uh accounts that we have for our employees uh they have to be vested they have to be able to retire early with the district and qualify for that and then they get vested in these individual accounts this is in lieu of the past benefit where they were
100allowed to stay on the district uh health insurance until age 65. so we still have a few um old retirees that are still under the old plan so we pay for those benefits uh through the trust but most of the the assets in the trust are now in those hra benefits so you can see that our net position um with uh end of 2020 was 24.3 million at the end of june 30 2021. it's 27 million that just reflects the contributions uh that were made for the employees for another year of service so do you have any questions on the either the balance or revenue statement for that yes please have a question does it reach a certain point is there any of potentially wasting what we're giving people yeah i mean the benefit amount
101yeah we we have talked about that um it's been difficult with the the uh increases we've gotten from the state you know we've struggled with trying to um do steps for teachers and give the other other groups there you know something close to uh inflation we'll talk a little about with that with the budget coming up but um i think that's something we need to discuss because obviously the cost of health insurance over time is is going up considerably that we'll have to take a look at those contribution amounts and make sure they're they're doing what they're supposed to do and really what what they're meant to do is give someone a bridge that they they can retire early and and use these monies to get to medicare eligibility so um so yeah i think
102that's something the board will have to look at at some point but like i said with the funding we've got it makes it very difficult um in this environment to to put money towards that yeah i'm just looking at that liability is 5 million and balance is 27 million yeah the the liability mostly is those are retirees who are vested in their hra account so once they become vested that turns into a payable for us meaning that they've earned those monies so even though there's uh 32 million in cash 5 million of that is really vested by the by the retirees and they're using those funds uh to get reimbursed for insurance thank you mark okay miscellaneous c we need to appoint a representative to the cisa annual convention that annual convention this year is
103coming up on wednesday may 11th at 6 30 at the seesaws in green bay is anybody interested is anybody else interested would someone like to make a motion to appoint ryan as the sisa rep is there a second thank you all those in favor say aye anyone thank you ryan and then uh we need to appoint at least a delegate and perhaps an alternate to the wisconsin association of school boards you know convention uh which is in january into january in milwaukee you've been doing this ryan do you want to continue or you're done if no one else wants one thing i think okay would someone care to make a motion um to that effect amy ryan our delegate and rebecca on alternate please miscellaneous item he is approving the board of ed's salaries we
104currently are at the president uh makes four thousand three hundred dollars for the year the vice president makes two thousand six hundred and fifty dollars for the year and each board member makes three thousand dollars you would need to take action to either adopt those or make any changes in terms of where we're at in the marketplace um we're pretty much in the middle there are some school boards that give their board members nothing her philosophy has always been you should do something you don't get something for nothing um you should get something but the idea kind of always has been that for someone it would maybe cover the cost of child care for the night or some other costs related to being out of the house and that's what it's been there are other
105boards that pay and i also think if you look at county board common council and um school board we are the the smallest of the three when you look at local so what's the board's prerogative on this i would move approval of the current salary structure for the board members second questions thoughts hearing none all those in favor say aye all right i need a motion to return this video please i was in favor all right all right the organizational meeting is adjourned thank you in your blue packet you've got committee assignments and gym planning sheet we need those back by friday please because agenda setting meaning for our first may meeting will be next week and um the president is going to have to make committee selections quickly so please fill in the second
106page is the current committee structure and then the third page is just mark what you're interested in serving in and um then the fourth page is a blank calendar um we do um our june planning session typically on that third tuesday and as jenny noted on that cover sheet looking at doing it on the 14th which is that third tuesday but please if you could first check that if you're not available just mark that you're not available and if you're not please mark other dates that you're not available is that most helpful yeah that you are available mark the june dates that you're not available please and we have an item on the agenda the next agenda timeline should be planned a little bit but just one of the one of the things this year
107looking at the june 14th today would be that uh board in lieu of having committees that night we would have june planning and then we would combine the committee meetings and the full board meeting on the 20th to keep it at two meetings in the month of june one is the annual goal retreat board planning and then june 28th would be um so that's one of the options that we're looking at and that's why we'll make sure about 14. but again we can talk about that very good well um i'm going to call this meeting to order with my thanks for your vote i know this is uh a bit of a jump and i will certainly have a very large learning curve that i will couple with um just having been around for a
108long time i read a newspaper column today the columnist asked people to send in you know what they wanted written on their epitaph or on their tombstone and it was quite humorous um and mine would be she ran a good meeting and so i hope to bring that to the to the board and i appreciate i appreciate your support so if you will now join me in the pledge of allegiance of america and to the republic for which it stands one nation indivisible with liberty and justice uh if i could have a motion to hearing none all in favor state aye any opposed chair vote sign motion passes our roll call is informal but we are at full force so that's great news um item five approval of the minutes of our regular board meeting
109of march 22nd close session meeting minutes of april 12th and the special session meeting minutes of april 19th but i have a motion to that effect any discussion hearing none all in favor state aye any opposed chair bonsai motion passes uh community input do we have anyone here for community input tonight all right uh moving along to item seven our student representatives i understand one is present stella come on up this is stella yeah oh well welcome please oh well there it is right there in front of me right here you i'm stella revless i'm the north representative i'm a senior at north high this year and i'm one of the co-presidents with sylvia greene who i think has given some of the updates at past board meetings um at the last update i think
110sylvia kind of gave an update about the culture of the building at north kind of post pandemic some of the anxieties some of the you know hiccups transitioning back into full force full in person school and kind of a lack of social and social emotional connection and she also provided some possible solutions so today i just kind of wanted to give a little bit of an update on how we're doing at that at north um first off on some positive notes um since the end of the first semester minus the quarantine's attendance has been better and we have been seeing less on excuse unexcused absences and then since the end of the first semester bathroom graffiti was a really big issue in the first semester so since the end of first semester we've seen a
111big decrease in that which is super exciting and we hope that it kind of sticks to the end of the year and then as well since the end of december our behavior referrals are down and we had an amazing north-south assembly on january 28th it was really nice to get the whole school together we had a really good attendance and afterwards a lot of smiling faces from students and teachers which is always a good sign um a lot of this was due to at the first day of the second semester we had what we call the raider refresh day so that was monday january 24th and that was kind of because of a lot of the bad the attendance issues the graffiti issues all that we brought into what we called the refresh day and
112it was just kind of a chance for all the students to take a step back and reflect on you know where we were at at school and kind of how we could improve and become better together so we had freshman and sophomore home rooms paired up and then um our freshman and senior homerooms paired up and sophomore and juniors and the homeroom teachers kind of prompted students and we all talked about really what has been going on around north and the whole idea was that upperclassmen paired with these lower classmen who i mean both freshmen and sophomores we kind of had two freshman classes this year with kind of a crazy year last year so the idea was that upper upper students could share kind of the north way and maybe help some younger students
113who are struggling to adapt and some of the activities we did besides um just communicating we had a cell phone challenge as well so all students who were able to give up their phones for four hours of the day we just gave it to our homeroom classes got to make up some of their hours that they've missed from on excuse absences or things like that and i think it was a really good turnout and it was also kind of crazy to see how many students weren't able to part with their phone just for four hours which is i don't know crazy but that also led to then a discussion later in the i think a few homerooms later about maybe why they couldn't part with their phones and there were some great reasonings of communication
114with parents whether it be with their work even and scheduling or coaches and practices so there definitely are good reasons but it was a good conversation to have definitely and then we also brought up points of how to get more students involved at north and this refresh day gave a chance for everyone's voices to kind of be heard because we discussed with homerooms and then the homeroom teacher also like submitted a google form to admin and who were able to read through it so from this we have a boys volleyball club budding so and good good participation in the club could lead to possibly becoming a wia sport at north which would be amazing and something really cool to have and as well as a black student union so north is currently working with lakeland
115and the black student union at lakeland to kind of see how they have structured theirs and see ideas we can take from there but we are starting one at north which is very exciting um and then finally the end of the raider refresh day we did have a pep rally um it was actually our second pep rally that week because it was our spirit week so it was kind of a pre-pep rally for our friday one and it ended up working out really nice because the cheerleaders all taught the students cheers and it was a really nice way to get everyone involved and everyone together and i think that helped a good turnout at our friday's pep rally which was more for north-south and more to build spirit rather than our conversations about what's going
116on at school and that was kind of our reader raider refresh day and then just some final notes we've had some big things to celebrate at north with state championships and other big events so first off our dance team won state which was super exciting and then wilhelm won state for the 200 fly swimming and i believe he might have set a state record i'm not for sure on that and we also had a north student on the bowling team win state it's all very exciting things and then i think it's been a while since the last meeting so our holiday breakfast with student council was a huge success after not having it last year we had a really nice turnout which was really good to see both volunteers and from the community so that's
117always good and the christmas fun drive we were able to support six families this christmas and now with it being spring we have all spring sports in full swing completely normal full schedules and we had our we had a blood drive in february we were able to collect 42 pints of blood and then we actually ran another blood drive today i think we're right around the same number of pints of blood which is about 120 130 live saved which kind of puts it into perspective and super exciting and then may is student recognition month with a lot lots of different fun events coming up so i know we're in the works of planning senior banquet baccalaureate we've got awards nights tomorrow night so definitely a busy month but should be exciting for students i'm excited
118we'll see how it goes and looking forward to a graduation ceremony with all the schools i know i'm super excited i think all a lot of seniors are excited to see all the colors in the bowl this year so i think that's kind of my update for tonight questions for stella comments you folks are busy oh for sure thank you so much yeah of course thank you yeah all right um we move on to uh the superintendent yeah there's a couple things going on first congratulations go up to frank juarez from north carolina department chair you might have saw the article in the press uh but he's recipient of the wisconsin visual earth achievement k12 art education award here's a mouthful that he will be receiving at the museum of wisconsin art in west bend
119so congratulations to frank also one of our long time pe teachers who's retired but continues to give back to the sheboygan area school district chris fritz has been selected by shape america which is the national health and pe organization for a lifetime achievement award um and to receive the hall of fame award for 2022 at the national convention that takes place uh took place here in april it honors outstanding individuals who make significant contributions to maintaining physical education and health education programs physical activity dance and sport as important parts of a plural education program so congratulations to chris and she's just been was an outstanding teacher and educator and then also has given back so much to the district so congratulations to chris um recently i've been made aware of four students and three staff
120members that have uh been selected for the hercule education foundation awards awards of six thousand dollars are given to teachers and their schools and ten thousand dollar scholarship to given to be given to graduating high school students in terms of the excellence scholar north high students madeleine bashaw sylvia green and our own stella rebelus who was here demonstrate excellence in academic arena and high motivation to achieve have displayed a broad range of activities and leadership outside the academic setting and have also shown strong promise in succeeding in college and beyond we also have what's called an innovative scholar in central high student benjamin tao recipients are chosen by their schools and have overcome significant obstacles or adversity have demonstrated excellence exceptional initiative in the classroom and have shown strong promise for succeeding in college and
121beyond uh but yet have not received any other academic-based scholarship and then finally we had teachers um abby degenhart from e2 high school language arts teacher lindsey olis who's a district lead multilingual lead teacher and ruth stense a high school teacher at north in the family consumer sciences area there were three of 100 teachers across the state of wisconsin to be selected for this award and recipients are educators who have been chosen for their superior ability to inspire a love of learning and their students and to motivate others and obviously their leadership and service within and outside the classroom so congratulations to those three staff members something that took place last week was forest man does an annual middle school food truck showcase where teams of students develop a menu that could be served at
122a food out of a food truck they develop a miniature food truck and then develop the menu and then they put on an annual showcase and outside individuals um unfortunately i wasn't able to attend but many of our school administrators and then community members are able to attend um and they really helps the students learn about that entrepreneurship how to market um how they're going to plan their menus how they're going to showcase um you know their their initiative and developing a food truck and then also obviously having to create the food and serve the food um and so that's always a great event so again congratulations north high i'm sorry horseman middle school students um also horse man in the beginning of april uh was their return to putting on a play on cinderella
123and it was a great performance and seeing all the kids come back together hundreds of kids that participate both in the acting the singing the stage crew and all the behind the scenes work so congratulations to the horse man students on putting together something wrong and then one of the things that as we talked about with my own personal goals was continue to grow and develop and find ways to develop relationships both internal and externally and good fortunately after two years of not holding in-person conferences there's a superintendent spring conference and it was held fortunately this year right here in at oscar and about 250 of the 400 school superintendents uh came together and a variety of workshops and conferences that really helped us as superintendents to bring great ideas back to our school um
124sessions about that in particular about achieving i'm sorry sessions about recruiting and retaining employees sessions about how to meet in needs of educators as we've gone through a lot of stressful period with covet issues and ideas around succession planning how do we grow our own of not only teachers but also administrators were just a few of the things that i attended so again it was a great opportunity to thank the board for allowing me to go to that so that's all i have for my report tonight questions comments all right thank you seth um we will move on to uh section nine we're definitely going to need to brush up on roman numerals um and this is our miscellaneous section uh a is the consideration of the final resolution improving the sale of district owned
125property between salem and gilley avenue and north taylor drive in schweigen and seth and mark this belongs to you yeah so included in your packet um is the purchase and sale agreement that you and the community saw uh during the input session last week on tuesday and then also in your packet as miscellaneous ta is also the resolution so tonight we come forward uh mark and i to address any questions you might have concerns you might have as a board in administration we're recommending that the board approved the resolution which would grant us the ability to sign the purchase and sale agreement and execute all of the ability to close on that property once all of the due diligence periods are met by crater and we would then provide you as a board updates as
126this could progress over the next months if you recall and mark certainly can talk very specific to any question you might have but freighter the medical college of wisconsin has a series of time that they would need to be able to do their environmental work they're testing their uh assessment of the land et cetera look for zoning from the city all those pieces which could take anywhere from 90 days to 210 10 days and so that's what the resolution's there for to give us the authority to as the board to proceed um but we're also here to address any questions you might have or any comments that you heard from community input move approval um i i attended a good share of the um of the meeting at north high and um it seemed to
127be and i'm just interested in public a sense of the community's response to to the proposal it seemed quite positive with some actual concrete suggestions for good construction practices but to name it anyone anything special jump out or cause concern or applause or whatever the thing that jumped out to me was the last prevail project and the way it was handled a number of the speakers mentioned who were neighbors um just mentioned that the um they hoped that if this moves forward the relationship between freighter and how the construction is handled is just handled differently than than that project was so i and i my sense was that crater was listening to that and and jotting down down things and then so i think it's going to be important for them moving forward if we
128approve this tonight and then if they they have to do doing all their studies they come back the way they want them to and they get all of the hoops jump through on the city side that really listening to that input for them is going to be important as they build a relationship with that neighborhood with their new facility that was a clear sense that i got and i think um asking those contractors to be just a suggestion to be in close contact with contractors and and check in with neighbors from time to time to see how it's going i think we could create a lot of goodwill and it was just quite quite a change from the field of dreams and so that was that was pretty happy news as well those are just
129some observations that i had anyone else or any questions on the uh on the offer to purchase or the agreement i should say hearing none let's vote on it all in favor of approving the and sale agreement uh state eye any opposed chair both side motion passes nicely done folks we'll keep you updated as that progresses to kind of know where we're at and if there's any things that would throw us curveballs or um we'll make sure to come back and get it on the next agenda for the board i appreciate mark has done a ton of work to line us all up and be in constant communication creator and that team so thank you mark for all your local behind the scenes to get to this point let's the best so um let's move
130on to b which is a presentation on the proposed preliminary budget mark okay so you should have an executive summary and then a separate attachment which is uh kind of looks just like a financial page but kind of uh i kind of want to walk through that page first uh with you so this is the first time we're presenting a proposed preliminary budget for be july july 1st and we typically come back to the board in june for potential approval of the preliminary budget and as school districts are a little unique in that we set a preliminary budget and then we don't really set the the real original budget until october because we have to wait for our certification of state aid and we wait for our pupil count too which drives our revenue limit
131so the the sheet that's um looks like a financial page uh what is this is showing is if you go about halfway down you'll see that the cost to go forward from this current fiscal year to next year is projected to be a deficit of 522 000 and then what you'll see after that is the number of items both expense reductions and expense editions uh that bring us to a balanced budget so each of those items is there's a short synopsis in the executive summary so i'll just run through the exact summary i'll go through those items that balance the budget and feel free to ask questions along along the way there's a lot of unique things happening for us this year um again we're getting zero dollars uh in this in the state budget
132per pupil so there's no really revenue increase for the district and in fact because we've been in declining enrollment for the last couple of years our revenue limit is enrollment for the last couple of years our revenue limit is actually going going down so it's not even even we're getting less revenue uh next year than we have gotten this year and we're just coming off a zero dollar a year too so that in combination with uh the high inflation rate really creates uh some problems in our budget fortunately we have some unique situations for the district uh that are going to help us get through this year and i'll try to explain those as we go through the items so item number one there is an expense reduction we see this every year and this
133is just um the savings we see from retirees and those uh moving on from the district and then we're hiring those teacher positions and other positions and usually they come in with lower on the salary schedule so we see that every year and it's a major expense reduction for us each year so you can see that amount this year is a little over five hundred thousand dollars then items two through seven are enrollment driven uh teacher reductions so um each year jake and andrea go through the estimated enrollment at each school they look at how many sections they'll need and uh because our enrollment has dropped these are reductions that just naturally occur through less enrollment there are no layoffs involved with these reductions uh we're doing all of these through attrition so there's no
134layoffs here but um and the other thing to note is that last year we decided to maintain 11 uh teacher fte above and above back beyond our normal staffing levels so we did this with esther money because we felt that there needed to be a better teacher student ratio coming off of cohen so we're keeping those 11 uh positions above and beyond our normal staffing levels moving forward um item eight um so we talked about um that cpi this year is 4.7 so um that's that's very high much higher than we've seen it uh since since i've been been in this business so um given 4.7 and trying to to get the teachers steps uh pay increases um to reflect that if inflation is quite significantly higher what we're proposing is to use s or
135grant money to fund 1.4 million in teacher salaries now typically we would never use one-time money for ongoing expenses right it creates a fiscal cliff after the money's gone uh but we do have the fortunate um situation where we have three million dollars in non-referendum debt service falling off falling off the the next year so that is the debt service that was uh the district borrowed money to fund opeb and we're finally coming to the end of those principal interest payments so that those debt service payments fall under the revenue cap unlike when we go out for referendum uh for building maintenance or anything like that referendum debt is outside of the revenue cap but in this particular case um because it was non-referendum debt service it's within the salary or the revenue limits so
136that 3 million is falling off in 2324. so the plan is to use some ester money within this budget to for a one year gap until we get to that three million dollar drop in expense and then we would fill that in with that money in 23 24. we're doing the same thing in number nine except with existing um educational assistant positions and this was a result of during this year when we had so many vacancies especially in special ed eas the board had approved adjusting the salary schedule for those eas and because there were so many open positions the budget kind of absorbed that increase for the rest of the year but now for next year we have to have that in the budget for next year and what again what we'd like to
137do is use sr3 monies to bridge the gap until 23 24 and that that service will fill that amount in item 10 um is a reduction to the opposition in my office um so we had a full-time executive assistant position that works directly with me in the business office this past year she had requested because of some personal reasons to reduce down to uh 20 hours a week and we had agreed to do that on a temporary basis to see how that would work for our office and how that would work for her after getting almost through the year here we've both decided that it's working well meaning work is still getting done we found other way other people to pitch in and help do some of that work and uh that's working for her
138too also the 20 hours so we'd like to make that a permanent reduction and take that 20 hours out of the budget item 11 is a reduction to student transportation budget so as you know we are running a lot less routes in transportation and not always by choice you know this is driven by the shortage of bus drivers that is kind of a nationwide uh problem that schools are are dealing with but because of uh only having so many bus drivers we've combined a lot of routes unfortunately that makes the buses more crowded it makes the routes longer but we're trying to attack that in many different ways but um the fact is that because of the route reductions um we're just not using all of what's in our transportation budget this reduction will in
139no way keep us from from trying to increase driver salaries and things we're working with priggies and we'll come back with a contract recommendation at the next board meeting so we have in that new contract again a pay raise for school bus drivers um and you know we're doing uh bonuses sign-on bonuses we're doing all sorts of things to try to attract drivers but still when we analyze that budget it can easily be reduced and it's not going to hinder us in the future so and we've also anticipated that you know fuel prices are obviously high too so that's built into there too so i'm very confident that this this budget reduction transportation is not going to affect any of the things we're trying to accomplish there 12 uh ending the garten apartments lease so
140our aspire program which is our uh adult uh 18 to 21 special ed program um one of the domino effects of us moving into this building was that we could free up space at the central building for both warner schools and for the aspire program they have outgrown the garten toy factory apartment that they're in they also do some classes at north high so they're going to combine all that into the area that was previously the wreck department at central so so they're moving in and we can we'll be able to terminate the lease for the garden apartments they won't need that anymore 13 is another lease with the completion of the new maintenance storage facility and our horseman campus we will no longer need to rent the warehouse lease from the woodson uh warehouse
141so that'll be a savings for us too in the budget um so those are the reductions are there any questions on anything we've covered so far okay and then uh we'll move on to some of the expense editions and as you'll see um most of these are related to uh salaries for our staff so is salary step movement for teachers so this is the cost of simply every teacher that was here last year that's continuing what with us and moving up the stuff in the salary schedule so that's always a cost for us and you know that's different the way our salary schedule is set up we have higher steps increase steps uh in the bottom of the schedule and then they're reduced a little and they're a little lower on the top so um
142again this is we really uh are trying to get our teachers moving up uh quicker so they can feel they can uh have roots in the community and they have a livable wage a little bit quicker by advancing quicker so those are two thousand dollar steps and then they go to fifteen hundred and eventually a thousand so that's what that cost is in addition every year we try to increase the actual sell amounts on that salary step so this year what we're proposing is that we would add 616 dollars to each cell and then we have a contingent of teachers that are at the top of the salary schedule so there's no more step for them to move they're just they're just in that cell every year and those increases for those teachers over the
143past uh four or five years have been very minimal they literally have been two hundred dollars uh you know maybe three hundred dollars on a better year so uh with inflation running uh four point seven percent we're proposing that we add um a thousand dollars to those cells that's still a very low percentage amount for those teachers but we think that they should have a little bit better than the 669. traditionally we've just added the same dollar amount to each cell so the step movement with these sell increases brings the total teacher package uh to a three percent total pay increase we um and you may have heard in the news that a lot of districts are going to a 4.7 this year so we've had discussions with uh the sca on that understanding what's
144the what's the cost of going to 4.7 why aren't we doing that and i think we had some really good discussions and i think that when i i we talked to other districts that are doing that a lot of them when we ask well how are you doing that or how how you know we're using esther money well what are you going to do when that runs out the the most answers i get we don't know but we got to do it i don't think that's appropriate i don't think it's good planning i think and as we talk through with the teachers is yes we could do a 4.7 that's not hard to do but it's at the cost of something right it's at the cost of teacher-student ratio it's at the cost of changing
145our health plan and those are all things that have uh great value too as a teacher and as an employee so we would rather uh give what we can afford we want to keep our benefits the same we don't want to reduce them we don't think it's a good idea to have higher student teacher ratios and it and i think they were in agreement with that we also want to know that moving forward we can still do steps every year and do those sort of things we don't know what the next two years will bring with the by next biennial budget you know it's kind of a mystery for us are we gonna get another zero again that would be very difficult are we gonna have some sort of student increase um so um i
146uh i guess i complement the sca in recognizing that because it would be real easy um to do the 4-7 because their colleagues are hearing that from other districts so why aren't we doing it i think they're doing a good job of understanding uh that there's a cost down the line for doing that and we want to set ourselves up better for future years so just to just want to give you some context to why why our packages are around three instead of the four seven cpi 16 is a salary strip step movement for support staff so like the teachers the sports staff have a step system too it's very short it's just a six step and again it's just to get uh people up to a little bit better wage more quickly so moving
147those support staff uh through the steps there's a cost to that and then for those that do not get a step increase so they're either at the last step or their their past last step they would all get a three percent salary increase so those steps in the three percent that results in the sports staff group having a 3.18 total package and then 18 is each of those steps or 3 increase then for the support staff the the steps are more than three percent yeah they're they're they've each step is a little different but they're they're higher so it's kind of like the same for the teachers the lower you are in the scale the larger percentage increase you get but you know dollar wise because it's a percent so um 18 is administrative staff
148again we're uh recommending three percent for administrative staff we have one uh school that with a teacher edition so again based on enrollment um south high would add uh two fte teacher teachers there and then the last item is just an expense one of the board goals that i've talked about was moving our skyward finance and student data off site and there's a small cost to doing that right now that that is stored on our own district servers and we want to move that off site there's a company that skyward works with to do that and it's just a good practice especially around the risk of some of the cyber security that's going on so that's really the only addition we have on here that isn't related to uh salaries and and then the last
149thing we want to talk about so because our three percent increase uh does not keep up with inflation um what we'd like to propose is a a one-time bonus using the one-time ester money so a lot of districts are doing this too um that are maybe unable to get the the salary increases with their budget that they would like so we don't have the details in here we've been working on that i think what we're going to propose though i'll just say that what we're looking at is a two thousand dollar uh bonus for uh all employees all groups um and uh for under like seven hours they would it would be prorated you know so if someone's a a 0.5 they would get a thousand dollar bonus so we're working through those details and
150next board meeting we'll come back with what uh the details of that would look like i think that helps us um to do a bonus with one-time money rather than trying to stretch our regular budget to move that three up i think that's just gonna cause uh some financial problems down the road this is one time money in our sr3 plan we put aside money for retention bonuses for them in anticipation that there's no way we could match inflation this year the money we're getting from the state so um tonight is just for discussion uh we'll bring this back each board meeting with updates and and then like i said penny i'm not sure how the board meetings are going to work out now in june but i'm anticipating this would come to the board
151on june 24th then uh for possible action very good okay question yeah just to make sure i understand this so looking at the salary problem the aids are all getting to three percent at least plus some of the cells are more correct the administrators are all getting three percent am i correct that the only group that an individual employee is not getting three percent would be the teachers who have been with us longer yes okay and the reason for that that i get told as comparables but is there any talk of potentially doing something i mean what you're talking about percentage-wise you know if you're if you're looking at people at the top of the pay scale who've been getting a 200 200 raise for the year that's really demoralizing now i would think it
152would be to me you know i'm just wondering if there's anything we can do [Music] even within this one time bonus money something to try to recognize that our longest term teachers who have really dedicated a lot of time and effort into this district have been very patient and have been [Music] yeah so with the bonus we've had those talks with them too um we had proposed maybe a combination of a dollar amount plus a percent of salary so basically what that would do the the teachers at the top would get a higher uh bonus than those at at the bottom and uh so they did not want to do that in discussions with them they felt it was more equitable for the bonus to be the same no matter where you are in the
153schedule how many people do we have in that situation they're just not moving i know that answer i'm sure that's why [Music] um [Music] just gonna find it here but um 44.2 people thank no i'm sorry yeah 44.2 at the top of the salary schedule but but when we instituted the new salary schedule there is uh 98 that were above the top and they've stayed in their own cells too so so that's you know about 140 and so effectively for the majority of their career for the next however many years how they retire are just so stagnant it's partly due to comparables and i guess how i've how we've talked about it with them is it's not as important what your raise is it's more important what you're making that makes sense well doesn't that
154go hand in hand no it doesn't well i understand that but to a point i mean if you're if you're if you're if you're if you have created a life in an environment based on your salary and everybody around you is getting a raise and you're not right i don't think you can undo i mean that's that's a tough thing yeah mark just to put this into perspective what is the top salary currently and then i got a couple of follow-up questions okay so when we instituted the the new schedule uh the top right now is 77 785 but we had those 100 some people we talked about that were above the top so their top salary the bulk of them are at 79 941 and there's uh five of them that are at 89.41
155because they took the pdi class so 80 and then nine not eighty nine eighty thousand nine forty one yeah yeah so we've looked at uh we do look at comparables we wanna make sure our teachers are paid um towards the top of our comparables and and they have been and i think that it's easy to look at um districts that maybe don't quite pay as well and then they give a little bit bigger raise but that's where i go back to it's it's not the raise that's important to me as employee it's what i make every year so if i'm making more every year compared to my comparables then that's what's important to me i'd rather be in that boat than i'm making less than my comparables but i'm getting a bigger raise than everyone
156else because that that doesn't help me just to refresh my my memory when we talk comparables are we talking pony or are we talking districts of similar size yeah we do similar size okay so let's just have a second okay i'm just asking yeah so we do 17 school districts um and so it's we do a few above us because once we get too large then we're comparing to milwaukee and green bay which is uh right too big um but and then we do um the 10 districts below us so it's um off the top of my head it's waukesha janesville um appleton um oshkosh eau claire lacrosse 17 districts that are very comparable or as close to us as possible size-wise across the whole state and we're in the middle of that is that
157we're saying right then the other question i have because i've heard this from several people i don't know if this is true or not um are some teachers who are being hired from other districts into our district let's say with a master's degree or whatever are they getting more money than our existing employees who complete that level of education because we're not paying for that no so we're not paying when someone comes in we're not taking into account whether they have a master's degree or not okay so because our salary schedule doesn't reward for that so i don't take that into account when i'm setting salaries okay so just for example i hired two teachers from outside of the district last week and um one had 21 years of experience and i brought them in
158i want to say step 16 on our so i really try to look at internal equity because i don't want people to be able to come in from the outside and leapfrog our current staff members that have and i and i totally agree with you and i really hope that's being explained to people because there are definitely existing teachers who do not believe that yeah i get that and i just wish that they would you know and we've talked about that as part of negotiations um as well and um and so you know i made that point of there was two people that have recently left sasd or other districts random lake and fond du lac now they're heading back to our district they're not the two that i just gave the example of they
159don't have as many years of experience and the comment was made that well the reason why they did that is so they could come back for more money and nope that's not the way that it works what i looked at is what they would have been on our salary schedule had they been to those years of experience because i don't want to reward people to leave right and then come back so and in fact those people when they left they got those hra dollars so they're starting over uh with their hra dollars and but they're coming back because they found out that the grass wasn't greener and they really want to be part of sasd again so we'll go to mark and then so you have a question okay were you done i'm done thank
160you very much a little more perspective what is our entry level salary for teaching um so this year it's 785 and then we would propose adding increasing that 669 dollars so it would be for 454. appreciate that perspective and i i think that it's reasonable to go forward with a less than three percent increase for those people that are making seventy seven thousand to eighty thousand dollars compared to our people that are walking in the door at forty thousand and giving them three percent there's a big difference there so i guess i just i support the proposal as it is currently but opened uh and that is future tweaks a big philosophical discussion that has lived for many years in the district and tonight i probably don't have time to get into it but i
161mean these are very you know kind of core questions that we have and so let's think about many other ways that we can find a little time to to look into it in more detail sue i'm just a follow-up for our new board members so we base our salaries only on years of experience not education anymore is that correct yeah so our current staff members can move one step on the salary schedule if they take our teacher development institute classes it's a set of five classes run through lakeland taught mostly by our internal people and so once they complete those five classes they can move a step on the salary schedule but otherwise there's not a recognition of those teachers that are now licensed to teach college level courses at the high school did they
162receive additional pay for that they received a stipend a one-time stipend once they complete their 18 credits that's necessary in their particular area whether that's science or math or whatever their area is that they're teaching at the college level they receive a one-time stipend they do not move on this hour schedule so the one time stephen does they pay for their credits that they're talking about we're actually off we pay for their tuition to take those classes and in addition to that they receive a one-time question okay thank you okay did you have one more follow-up i just i just wondered why we when that change was made what was the reason to not value getting a master's and you are not getting i mean this schedule was created i wasn't here when those changes
163were made thank you all right so future interesting topics for us to uh for us to explore because these have been perpetual issues you know all the time so um all right other questions yeah mark can you just kind of outline some like next steps in terms of this sure so just several people understand what we'll be doing at future meetings yeah so uh next week i anticipate we'll have some more details of the proposed uh bonus that we we'd like to have and we kind of want to tie that into the budget year here um and again it's really kind of recognizing that um given our revenue circumstances um it's it's not probably uh fiscally responsible to do the four seven um and take other items away that are valued for us and hopefully
164use some of this s or one time money to offset that so we'll come back with those details um we'll come back with any other uh changes we might see if there's any anything that comes up that between now and the end of june and then june 24th i think is that last board meeting then then we would put this on the agenda for possible action and uh we do that because july 1 is the next week and we have to have a budget in place there is a process where we put a spending resolution on the agenda right after just in case uh the board does not approve a preliminary budget then we ask them to approve a spending resolution which just allows us to spend money i don't like that scenario because we
165like to have a budget in place just with our purchase order system our payroll system it all works better if we have checks and balances already in in a budget rather than having a spending resolution but that's kind of the the plan b if for some reason the board uh does not approve the preliminary budget and then there's that final uh news from the state with respect yeah right so there's still positions being filled so we'll have a number of positions we don't know when what they're coming in we we don't know what they're gonna elect for insurance when they get here are they electing family so there's a lot of moving pieces between now and october but what we do is in september towards the end of september when we pretty much have all
166the positions filled we reboot the budget with everything that's in our skyward employee management system we take what was in the budget and we replace it which what with the newest information and make adjustments from there we wait for the state to uh tell us what our general state aid is that does not affect the bottom line of the budget it only tells us how much we have to levy for so state aid won't give us less or more money in the budget but it's something we need before we set the levy and then of course the other thing is the third friday count in september for our people count because those numbers get put into the revenue limit and those could adjust revenue up or down any more questions i'm sorry was there i
167always lose track was there a motion to like take actions i'm going to make a motion um that we adopt a second reading of these policies uh miscellaneous c through letter k all right so these are second readings are there any questions additional concerns hearing none all in favor state eye any opposed share both side passes uh that takes us down to the annual planning session seth yeah so as we talked before in between meetings um each june we do an annual planning session where we review the goals and objectives and our outcome measures for this current school year and then the administration the emt um and that's a more casual um we call laid back a little bit board meeting where we have a lot of great dialogue about where do we see the
168district going what are the needs and what goals do we have to move forward um it's a time to do two things tonight one is uh on that agenda as well if there's any broader topics that people would like to discuss and we currently have one which was brought up about what is our uh process for community input and our guidelines for community input was asked to be put on the june planning session but we also have an opportunity now again as the board members to be able to either tonight or by emailing uh jenny or myself to be able to or maryland to be able to say i would like to talk about this topic as a broader discussion at june typically those have been more immediate topics where they don't fit neat into
169a traditional board meeting but it's one where we want to talk and kind of brainstorm and set some direction around that topic for potential action that night or future action um so that's the purpose of that annual planning session um historically we we've run three meetings in the month of june as we talked david talked about earlier um the second tuesday the third tuesday and the fourth tuesday just due to some of the structures and processes a couple options that were thrown at the table one was to come is to have june 14th via that planning meeting and then put together committee meetings and then a full board meeting like we do in the month of december um and in the month of july to do that in the month of june so that the
170planning session is june 14th the other option is we could offer it on a june 7 or another date that the board would like to do just the planning meeting and then keep our traditional committee meetings that committed the whole of that second and the traditional board meeting on the on the last or the fourth tuesday our recommendation from emt was to combine the committees and the full board meeting on the 24th and run the planning meeting on the 14th since that was already a date that hopefully is either on your calendar or will be on your calendar um in terms of that meeting time of the second tuesday so i just wanted to make sure where people are at with that just any initial ideas or yeah so i would support that especially when
171you're throwing graduation a lot of the events there that we've already have some significant time commitments for that month i would agree so depending on the that's around the table so what i do what we will do then is we'll plan on that you planning on the 14th um and again if there's items that in addition to the goal setting and that discussion there's other items that you'd like again in the first the other one we've gotten as far as the community input guidelines but there's other items please reach out to jenny myself or maryland would we plan on doing what would be the start time then on the 14th um weekends we've traditionally done a five a little bit earlier and we've additionally served sandwiches and soda you're here and potato chips yes we
172don't get potato chips in my house very often so we got you covered so 5 30 start then yes that sounds thank you madam president um i move approval of item number one the deca international career development conference road trip to atlanta is there a second second any discussion [Music] discussion there yeah just um that um you know in general um you do see this in the minutes but the numbers for summer school have rebounded quite handsomely um compared to um compared to last year and the year before um and that um that they've actually hired our hiring staff um before summer school especially for reading and math specialists and really trying to um to help keep um help keep uh grades and help keep learning from slipping between in between uh spring and fall
173um the one thing cool thing that i thought was that they're offering a long language class at grant which is that that to me i'm surprised that that happened before but it's seeing that it's happening now i think is a good thing all right this was a good discussion with uh jake jason and uh um where we're talking about you know how can we help serve some of the the more some of the more challenging students especially those students that are in the kidship program the teacher program any other questions for ryan all right moving on to human resources um i'd like to have a motion to approve number one appointment number three retirements and number four renewal of contracts for professional instructional staff members i will take that as a motion to combine those
174threes our second any discussion and then as to number two separations is for information and then also i would like to um just look at number five which is internal administrative transfer for information and that is um joseph bulmer from the supervisor of maintenance to coordinator of our facilities and i'd like to congratulate him on that very good facilities recreation ryan thank you madam president i move approval of items number one and two the tabulation of vince world south high school pool exterior brick replacement and the north high school restroom plumbing replacement and is there a second second just want to say that joe for the first time that you had to present this you did a nice job i did not have a chance to congratulate you before i know it's a little different
175a little different for you sitting in that sitting in dave's chair um but yeah these are things that um the south type pool it they both really needed to be done and we do have the funds to do that through uh facilities and through facilities upgrades um for pe and for just a straight up facility great any other discussion comments hearing none all in favor state eye any opposed outside all right and item number three is just talking about um the marketing insert um we have moved away for those who are new to the board we have moved away from the uh semi-annual catalogs that were sent to every uh every house in the district um to an ad in the uh sheboygan beacon and so far the numbers have been positive as far as
176getting getting new people who may not have been involved in rec department programs getting those signed up item item four and five i move approval about the stc and the crd financial reports second discussion we're and number six is is as always for your leading pleasure all right going on to finance and budget who will be reporting for us i wasn't there but i'm the vice chair i did review the minutes i remove approval of item number one 141 capital projects item number two statement of task cash flow item three the revenues and expenditures report and item four the budget revisions and transfers of appropriations second all right any discussion hearing none all in favor state i have number five rental of garden plots i would i don't recall that there was any action that
177needed to be taken for that yeah okay all right we would take action [Music] her outside and then just were informational david how do you handle committee as a whole we don't report out unless we have something and tonight we don't have anything to report we'll hit the parade board assignments committees assignments public education foundation um stuff uh board map to the minutes i think are in your packet um what i would do is plug the um annual run at the lake take the lake which is scheduled for june the 6th that's saturday the saturday before the saturday before graduation june 6th um whatever that whatever that saturday is um you know if you're a runner or a walker they're looking for entrance but they're also looking for volunteers to help out uh do various
178jobs so um any board help either as a participant or a volunteer with that group is also is always very welcome um so if we have any folks who'd be willing to to help out just contact uh terry or roxanne with the public education publisher that would be awesome other than that yeah my apologies it's june the 4th june 4th thank you saturday june 4th i apologize so saturday june 4th in the morning that's it for so much human growth and development um the minutes are in your packet regarding the work that eric spielman and his team are working so thank you eric for uh having ongoing uh discussions um there they've been working to review the curriculum uh look at again at our materials that have been previously approved by the board and um
179trying to get up to full speed again after uh was kovac uh with membership so um that's been a big a big part i know in speaking with eric he talked about the students who are there i've been a huge addition to the group and hearing uh the members hearing from the students voice in terms of what is engaging what is working and what's not has been very um helpful so they're there for your information nothing that you're asked to approve it for this meeting and i saw in the committee assignments that there's a board rep to human growth and development do we have one now or is this we do not have one now oh now we do i'm volunteering k is on it all right eric okay and the citizens anything else on
180human growth okay uh citizens facility advisory committee um so we met on april 4th and we actually finished waiting and grading all of the different possibilities for our middle schools so the plan now is that we are going to have uh one more meeting to look at those who talk through those results and hopefully uh that group will come up with a motion for a recommendation that they can bring back to the board may 16th is that meeting date so as long as we have a quorum they can come out of that meeting hopefully with the recommendation and then we could possibly have that on the board agenda may 24th very good any questions right david what do we do with communications just no all right communications that we've received all right and they're all
181on the board packet uh and future meetings may 10th may 24th anything else for the good of the organization all right it's only it's not even nine o'clock so it's a piece of cake i know oh sorry i'm just being huge just you know give me that little um so uh 8 59 do we have a motion to adjourn please second all right all in favor state eye oh we are adjourned thank you all you