001Check, check, check, check, check. Um, Check. Check. Check. They're all >> Everybody wanted to hear Test test. I'd like to call this meeting to order. Meeting has been noticed by the Evans Print Media Group, WCW Radio, Magnum Radio, Lacrosse Tribune, Sparta City Hall, Sparta Free Library, and the Maplewood Administrative Building. Are there any changes to the agenda? >> Uh, no, there are not. >> Could I get a motion to adopt the agenda as stated? >> A motion and a second. All in favor to adopt the agenda say I. I. >> Opposed. Motion carries 50. Will you please stand for the pledge of >> allegiance? I pledge algiance to the flag of the United States of America and to the republic for which it stands. One nation under God, indivisible, with liberty and justice for all.
002>> And Sam, could you please remind us of the SASD mission statement? >> Yes. to educate all students academically, emotionally, and socially to inspire curiosity and resilience. >> It looks like we have one public input for this meeting. Uh Mr. Aaron Williams, if you'd like, please press the button till the little light turns green and then you've got three minutes. Uh Mr. Russ will keep time and let you know when you're getting close. Okay. >> Thanks for letting me speak. My name is Aaron Williams. I have a son who goes to the school district. His name is Sebastian Williams. And I don't have long so I guess I'll make this uh quick. Um I believe what I believe in fits in with your school agenda that you just said and that is providing food for
003the kids in the same way we provide everything else like buses, uh teachers, buildings, anything else, right? Um I want to the stats are with me on this. I I can't I couldn't find any stats that make like universal food for kids a negative. All of it's for the positive. Uh including uh improved academic performance and participation in school. This is a CA a study from Cambridge and Tus University. We really don't need a study to show that food helps kids get through school, but participation increases up to 30%. There's a reduced stigma on on on uh low-income kids. That's from a Harvard School of Health study that showed less stigma with universal food for the kids. Um there's better health outcomes. The Journal of the American Medical Association and University of Washington studies saw
004reduced obesity rates when university meals are provided for kids. Um there's even a reduced administrative burden for the school districts. Um, schools save time and money by eliminating paperwork and overhead required to track the income eligibility and collect the unpaid lunch debt. Uh, there's the food research and action center showed universal meals cut administrative cost by up to 30% for many school districts. There's economic benefits for families. Free meals are equivalent to $1,200 to $1,500 in annual savings per child. Every dollar spent on a school meal generates an estimated $2.50 on average in local economic activity. So, food is not wasted money when you when you spend that on kids. This is all some kids have. if they're not able to get access to a school lunch. Imagine what they're eating at home sometimes. Uh
005school lunch can be healthier and more nutritious than family meals in in some instances. It reduces the overall school food debt, which was over $200 million before COVID and was wiped away during CO because we had nationwide waiverss for free meals at that time. It ended in June of 2022, and now we're back to a $20 million debt burden. I've received the emails from my kid. I I know it's a lot that you guys have to keep getting a hold of of parents about it. Um but it's something I believe we can do. I mean, we we we we build uh giant facilities for for sports complexes. And if we can get the the G to do that, I think we can do the same thing for food if we really cared about providing food
006and making sure the kids actually have food and no one goes without. And this is something I think is that we're responsible for, you guys are responsible for it, community is responsible for it. Um it's already passed in four uh in multiple countries. Over a dozen countries have done it. Um four states have done it now. Uh this includes California, Minnesota, Colorado, and New Mexico. um four school districts in Wisconsin have done it. Uh Kenosha, Superior, Milwaukee, and Wacaaw. And all of this has all of them have noticed a rise in participation uh w with the food programs and and and um and no negatives. No negatives. Um you know, I know there's been cuts federal, there's cuts state, and it's and it's hard. Um but but it is in your hands, unfortunately. And and
007if you come to make an agenda for budget-wise, and food isn't the top of that agenda, I I would call that a failure for the kids. I don't understand how it's not the top thing you would think about when providing a safe, healthy environment for the children. That's all I got. Thanks a lot. Oh, I guess one more thing cuz I didn't get to speak last week because uh because uh you know you guys were done in like five minutes. I got here a little late so I had to stay at work for something. But but you know, I know the breakfast thing, if you could reconsider it, think of a way. I mean, if you put it on the ballot, I I I would be hardressed to think that people would vote against providing
008extra tax money. I don't know what it takes, but I I would I would think people would vote for providing food for kids. Um and and with breakfast specifically, there's just all the stats show that if there's a missed breakfast, it affects the child. So, that's it's something I care about and and I and I I I hope the school board does, too. So, thanks. >> Thank you very much, Mr. Williams. Moving on to reports, academic and career planning report, Mr. Ford and Mr. >> Good evening. Thank you uh for having us here tonight to talk about our academic and career planning. Um our counselors are very involved at Meadow View Middle School with our academic and career planning. So, with that being said, I'm going to turn it over to those that are much
009smarter than I when it comes to this, and I'm going to turn over to Miss Frost, one of our counselors. >> All right. So, academic and career planning at the middle school. So, we really focus on the first two stages of ACP. So, we do a lot with the students on the no, so really helping them to get to know themselves and on the explore. So exploring their options. So and making a good connection between the two. And we also do a little bit with the plan especially with the eighth graders. So as far as the no and having students get to know themselves better, um I'm going to talk about Zello. So if you're not familiar with that, that is our college and career readiness platform that we use. So that all the students
010um use. And so I'll be talking about Zello. But one of the big things that the kids do in sixth, seventh, and eighth grade is they take a matchmaker assessment. And what that is is students answer questions like, "I would like to teach a class or I would like to fix a car." And they say whether they would like that, dislike that in the middle. Um, so they answer a bunch of these questions saying whether they would like or dislike it. And then at the end um a bunch of careers about 300 or so come up and it'll tell the students which careers are an excellent, good, fair or poor match based on their likes. Um students also take a personality assessment so they can find out more information about their personality and then um
011when they look at different careers they can see if that career is a fit for their personality or not. They also do a learning style assessment to see which learning style or learning styles um are strongest for them and it will give them advice on how to capitalize on that learning style. They also do a kind of a vision board for their future. So they think about things like um do I want to go to a college or university? Do I want to get married? Do I want to have kids? Where do I want to live? the country, the city, what do I want my working conditions to look like? So, just kind of thinking about their future so they can um start making plans for that now. And so, that's a lot of get
012getting to know themselves. And we also do a lot of exploring in middle school. So, like I said with that matchmaker assessment, um the Zello program comes up with 300 and some occupations and the kids get to explore those occupations that they are interested in and they explore the um the job tasks. Uh so basically what they're going to do in that career. They can watch videos. They can see interviews from people that are in that career. Um they can learn about what the expected earnings would be, the education or training requirements, uh what the demand or outlook looks like in the future, working conditions, things like that. So they do research on that and they do a research project on a career that they're interested in. And some other things, uh they can explore
013career clusters that they're interested in. So they could explore the human services career cluster and maybe they would find some other occupations that spark their interest um that they want to uh further look at. They also explore career pathways. So they explore um maybe apprenticeships or on the job training or college, universities, certificate programs, military, all of that. um to see, you know, what they believe their options um a good option for them might be. And of course, all this stuff might change as they get older, but it's good for them to start thinking about it and planning and having that knowledge. Okay. And um so connecting career curriculum to careers. So, um, I as one of the school counselors, our department kind of takes the lead with targeted academic and career planning lessons. Um,
014but ACP is the responsibility of all educators. Um, so all of the teachers are responsible for connecting their curriculum to careers. And so I just have some examples from the um math department because that's kind of a big one where sometimes kids are like, why do I have to learn this? I'm never going to use this in the future. Um so the math teachers especially kind of have that on their mind a lot. Okay, I need to really connect this to the students futures so they know how they're going to use this, why this is important for them to know. Um so they do a good job with that as the other um teachers as well do. And so just with eighth grade, we do a lot of additional work with them just because they're
015moving up to the high school and a lot of eighth graders are nervous about that. So we try to give them a lot of um education about what to expect. and the high school counselors and administrators come down and they talk to our kids and kind of prepare them um for going up to the high school. They get to go up to the high school a couple of times and get familiar with it and find out more information about it. Um they also a lot of eighth graders are turning 14, so a lot of them are thinking about jobs themselves. So, uh, this year we had the, um, Culver's general manager come and she talked to our kids about getting their first job and job skills and work skills. And it was great. The teachers
016loved it because they reinforced a lot of the things that we say every day like, "You've got to be on time, you've got to be respectful, you've got to be friendly, got put your cell phone away, stuff like that." Um, we also had someone come and talk about soft skills and um, in demand jobs and uh, different things like that. And so we have a lot of things that we want to continue to work on um with academic and career planning. So one thing we'd really like to do is to um meet as a school team on a regular basis with our ACP team as well as the district team to just kind of um further our ACP efforts. Um so fifth grade, we want to keep working on expanding the fifth grade program. um
017increase collaboration with community partners. So, we'd love to get more speakers in to talk about relevant topics in the curriculum um to connect that academic and work again. And we'd love to get kids out more too to different businesses or educational institutions. Um provide more staff training on integrating careers. So, some staff are really comfortable with it and um really know how to do that well. some aren't as comfortable or knowledgeable about it. So, we'd like to really help them and increased collaboration with families. So, letting families know more about what we're doing here so they can expand upon that at home, have more conversations with their kids, and to um provide more enrichment activities with their kids, to provide ideas to parents on more things that they can do. Um so, those are kind
018of our next steps with middle school academic and career planning. All right. Thank you very much. Um, like to thank the middle school for all the effort that they put into helping us out because a lot of our kids come to the high school about these topics and conversations. So, uh, at the high school, I'd like to recognize Lori Hagen. She can't be with us tonight, but she leads our ACP team um uh of uh of staff or faculty, excuse me, that meets once a month, and they are our ACP team and they work on some of our lessons and activities and things that we do universally with all of our students. Jess Trip is here tonight. She's going to take part of the presentation from the high school level also. And just like at
019the middle school, our school counselors are instrumental in this process and very passionate about it since this is so much about the conversations that they're having with students and families about the next steps after high school. So the middle school, excuse me, the high school uh recap uh has to do a little bit. I'll start out with how we do this and from a universal lens or level. We do this through our smart and strong slides. So smart and strong slides slides that we put out through our our room uh grad group time four times a week and then 10 different topics depending on the day and ACP is one of those lessons that we have but it's not the only skill or activity that we're having our students work on uh and learn about
020uh during this time and uh exploring others citizenship um all these question in class. All those soft skills every once in a while. times that >> lessons activities. Please very happy taking that career assessment. People change their mind looking at a career cluster type of conversation. Sometimes it's challenging with our students to re-engage. We already did this. Try it again. Hold her hand conversation. [Music] How can you help? Get us talking about um fields and And this is our uh ACT uh prep time, the vocabulary building, those types of skills because really the ACT is the that we're using at the high school to really measure those college and career readiness skills beyond just did you get a good score on the ACT. What does that mean? And those are the conversations we're really starting
021to to dig into at the high school level. So, not just making sure a solid curriculum for our students to understand uh and have the skills and be ready for the next level, but also the soft skills and things like that. And then using that ACT as a measurement tool, setting benchmarks and goals. Hey, can I move my score up? What does that look like? What do I need to do? The uh methodized platform is fantastic because you can work on this outside of school. And we have a lot of students, I don't have the exact number for you, but we have students that do uh practice these skills outside of just that designated time during credit. Jess is going to jump in here and talk for a few minutes and we'll wrap up. All
022right. I'm Jess Trip. I'm one of the counselors at the high school. So, like Melissa had mentioned earlier, um ACP is not just um it doesn't live in the counseling office or um you know in grad group. It's part of our academics and curriculum. It's it's what we're doing the four years that we're preparing our students. So, um in our classrooms, our regular classrooms um students are resume writing. Um they're doing mock interviews in our business classes. Um there's career research as part of their economics class, which is now personal finance, but that's a requirement in that class as well. Um so all of our juniors are are um participating in that. Um I think our teachers do a fantastic job speakers from different um career fields. Um and so they're just getting perspective of
023what that subject area looks like in a particular um field. or maybe there's a field of study they didn't know existed or even connected to math or or science or health for for instance. Um and then we have some of the more obvious um we have our welding program and CNC. Um those are transcribed programs that are in our building. Students are leaving with certifications. Um so we're really lucky that way. And then we also have um uh college level courses that are dual credit. So they're earning at the high school and at the college level. um and those are through Western Technical College and then we also partner with W Oshkosh at the high school. We also talk a lot about the four-year plan and really that gets started already as eighth graders when
024students are starting to register for their coursework as they're coming up um as our incoming freshmen. So, as they're filling out those um course requests, they're already talk they're talking about, you know, what am I interested in? what kind of electives do I want to try out? Um those kinds of things. So, but when they get to freshman year, they are actually um filling out and creating a four-year plan. So, they're they're considering um maybe what some of their goals are, their interest areas, and then they're they're planning all four years, and then we revisit that every year. Um and they make adjustments um make some reflections based on on what they've done and where they where they think they might be going. Um we also our um counseling team meets with all of our
025juniors. We do junior conferencing. Um so we meet with every single one of our junior students um and families. Um we've had very good turnout um the last three years that I've been here. Um I think families and students really value these these conversations. um we're getting to junior year where they're, you know, they have a year and a half left and they really need to start thinking about what those next steps are. Not necessarily like just pinpointing exactly what they want to do, but we need to start make we need we're in that plan and go phase like Melissa um referenced earlier. Um again, um when we're in those meetings, we're talking about those potential transcripted classes, um early college credit and start college now. I've been here talking about that in in the
026past with you. Um just talking a lot about those post high school plans and those paths and really it's I always talk to students about moving forward. Where are we going next? We don't necessarily have to have a specific decision made, but we need to know the direction that we're heading. So that can be two-year, four-year college. Um we're looking at youth apprenticeships or apprenticeships. Um and a lot of our students are going into military or straight into work. So, we're having conversations on all of those possibilities. So, I kind of mentioned youth apprenticeships. I am really excited about this uh our YA program at the high school. Um Jamie Adams has done a really fantastic job growing this program. um her along with our department, we've been a lot more intentional about um when
027our students are leaving the building to go to work. Um that it actually is tying to an interest area and course work that they're doing at the high school. So those conversations are running a little bit deeper. Um and Miss Adams is doing a great job creating those partnerships out in the community um for our students to go out and and get work and those valuable skills. U Megan Minky does the same thing um with the special education program with her transition program. Um so there are a lot of those community partnerships happening um which is really really exciting. Um we are also having a lot of our students go into youth apprenticeships through our welding and CNC program which then eventually may turn into permanent job in further training. And then a lot of
028our students are going out um they're planning their own job shadows. And then in our special environment, a lot of their students are going out and and participating in in job shadows with local businesses. Another big event that we get excited for every year is our um career and education fair. Um we just we get a lot of local and regional businesses. um universities come. Um we have all the branches of of the military represented represented. Um and Jamie Adams and Lori Hagen, our ACP coordinator, do a fantastic job coordinating this every year. Um and then it's open to the community after school hours. So it's that community piece again um bridging that which is phenomenal. One really exciting piece that we had this year is we um had had an alumni panel um come
029and speak in the auditorium and that was one of the stations that students went to. Um all of our students filtered through all of the stations that day. Um but this one was my favorite. But we had seven graduates from Sparta um that came back to share their experience. they were helping to make connections between things that they learned specifically at Sparta High School and how those prepared them for where they are um now. Um they just they had a lot of great energy and insight. Um the students were very engaged in this portion. So we're really looking forward to kind of beefing up that portion of the education fair and um career day in the future. Um, and then we talk about college and military connections. Um, it's a it's difficult for a lot
030of our students to um get out and go on um college tours. It's it's not something that every family can do. Um, so in the past couple of years, our department has um really worked hard to bring those representatives into the school. Um, so students have the opportunity to speak with college reps. Um, and we they are so well attended. The college reps come into our school and they comment all the time like there are students coming to see me and you know we'll have you know anywhere from like five to 10 sometimes 15 students coming to these presentations um where other schools may not even have any students show up. Um so that's really exciting for students are using this opportunity. Um, I talk to students all the time that, you know, representative and
031they come back and I they're like, I never considered that school and oh my gosh, did you know they have this program? And um, so it's it's it's allowing access to this opportunity for a lot more of our students. Um, then again, we also have all of our the military branches are in every single month. Um, and they're engaging with our students um, usually during the lunch period. Um, the students especially love doing the pull-up challenge. Um, and then so offer the ASVAB um twice a year and that's as it's a >> it's a career readiness u test for use for the military. >> So uh and we've offered it one time in the past and somebody asked us uh this year and said uh some other schools offer it twice and we thought well
032let's try it and we had a good turnout this year. Um the military comes in and they administer the test to our students. They come back in later and they go through the results with their students. Students get a nice print out gives them an idea of occupations and things and opportunities within the the the fields related to u different military roles. >> Oh my sorry. All right. We also try to bring in uh and provide some other experiences for our students. This year we had Excel Energy and a couple businesses come onto uh onto campus at the beginning of the year and showed us what it is to be aligned and what it is to um uh uh to test a home for efficiency and all these different types of things uh that that
033students got some firsthand knowledge on. Um Build My Future, if you haven't heard about this, it's fantastic. I'm sorry I can't say exactly who puts it on, but it's out of lacrosse area. It's at the Omni Center and uh the couple years ago we just opened it up to our our uh our uh teched students and the last couple years Steve Scha's done a great job and he said nope this is this is big we need to let anybody in. So we we promoted within the school we've taken couple buses of kids they literally are laying blocks building walls and hitting things and all that kind of stuff all over inside and outside of the Omni Center. It's attended by a number of different schools in the area. they give us give away some tools
034and things like that and it's really an opportunity for kids who may not have had any uh hand uh experience like that or opportunity to take a teched class. So that's very positive and we want to continue with that and I'm sure that the uh region will our inclusion education students uh run a Jazzy uh uh Java coffee cart every other Friday uh hot chocolate coffee etc. uh they distribute, they take orders, they make change, all those different types of things. Just wanted to point out that they do job, but also that we're talking about college and career readiness for all students. Uh and then our Spartan stop, I'm sure everybody's visited the school store at some point or online and that is staffed by and much of that work is done by our students
035through our marketing classes. We're almost done, I promise. So staff development, we don't want to leave the staff out of this and we want to support them also and that's part of the the board's plan and our plan. So please know that through seven mindsets our planning we have training for all of our teachers and we work through how not only for them to understand the platforms but for them to be supported by these are not only just for student for the adults also. We work on our ongoing uh viable curriculum or guaranteed viable curriculum. So, we're trying to provide the best academic uh opportunities for our students by improving what we're doing in the classroom and making those connections to skills and standards that are meaningful our kids so that they have those skills
036when they uh graduate. Our PLC time, that's the time that we use on Wednesdays. It's very valuable. Thank you very much for supporting that time for collaboration and working together in our PLC teams. And we encourage all of our teachers to make those connections in the classroom. Uh when it comes to just like it the middle school said it very nicely, why are we doing what we're doing? When we look at our survey data, one of the biggest disconnects is why are we doing this? Our kids do a great job of following our lead, but they don't always know why they're doing what we're asking them to do. So this is a big push for us to make sure that we're making that connection as uh deeply as possible. And we have some goals and
037next steps also to hopefully improve upon what we've been doing so far. Um, we want to increase the guest speaker opportunities. We really want to get our staff out touring some of these businesses and hearing from employers more than we have and we haven't done that for a long time. So, that's something we're looking to do this year because like uh also stated earlier, uh sometimes when you're in the thick of it and you're in the trenches or you've been teaching social studies for 17 years, you forget that not everybody wants to be a social studies teacher. So, you got to make those connections and you got to understand the world and what's out there and important. Um increase occupational employability skills conversations like I was talking about in all of our academic areas. This
038is easy in health, in science, in teched, etc. There's a lot more opportunities. There seem to be a clear uh connection. We need to make sure we do a better job in all of our academic areas. And then uh the last bullet that I'm going to talk about here is is just that that uh making sure that we're doing this universally for all students, but yet um giving individualized opportunities uh to the best of our ability. So, with that being said, we're very excited about something that we're going to uh be working with our students on this year, which we think wraps a lot of this stuff together and gives them an important tool moving forward. And Jess has been uh very instrumental in um conversations over the last couple years with me and a
039small team that we put together to put to to build what we uh four-year portfolio for our students. So, she's going to talk a little bit about what that looks like and the why. So, um, like Mr. Ford mentioned, um, we're looking at implementing a four-year portfolio that students, um, will work on through, um, their freshman, sophomore, and junior and senior years. And, you know, as we're talking about this, we're talking the why and and helping students really make that connection. And they're not always always doing that. and um we are as a staff um hitting on all of these things and helping students become academically um and career ready. Um but sometimes students leave and they're like they look back and they they can't connect all of the pieces. So the the the goal
040for the portfolio and the hope is that that helps to start connecting those dots for students. So they're able to to look at their freshman year and look back and look forward and and be able to make some goals and look back and say, "Hey, yeah, I I did learn some interview skills or um I did prep for my ACT. I do know how to plan a large project. I know how to I'm great at public speaking or I at least gave it a try." Um, so these are all these there's like soft skills and some of those hard skills that we um really want to give students the opportunity to um track and look back on and um be proud of at the end of their four years and and see like hey I
041I am ready um to leave here with all of these skills. Um Mr. Ford, do you have anything else you'd like to add? Yeah, just to clarify, so this is electronic template that we're asking our kids to fill in over time over the next four years. Some of it will be directed on our end uh to fill in certain things at certain times, but we're really hoping that it grows into something where and we've had conversations with our teachers frontloading this over this last year uh where we're we want the teachers to be making connections also. So if you're speech and speech class and uh you know, you want to uh you want to note that in your portfolio. So, we want the teacher to say and make those natural connections. Hey, this is something
042to record for the future. Open up your portfolio, put the time and date, put the topic that you you reported on, but more importantly, answer a couple questions. How'd you feel about this? What did you learn about this? Etc. That reflection piece, which we feel is very important to have that all of us a skill for all of us to work on. And once again, answering why we're doing what we're doing, trying to make those connections as easy as possible for the student to make and connect on their own. And then on top of it, we want to make sure that they have something available to them when they walk out the door after their four years. You put all this time and effort into building a resume and you stored it in Google somewhere
043in the world and you made this over here in this class and that class, etc. We talk to our seniors and we say, "Hey, you know what? please make sure you transfer your drive over and do this and all that kind of stuff. Hopefully, this will become more important or will become important enough for a student to say, "Yeah, this is something I want to keep because this is something I can u use in the future. Bits and pieces of it I can show to an employer, etc." And they can walk out the door with it, which is everything in one spot. We think it's a good idea. We're going to see what happens this year. Um, but we're excited about it. So, thank you very much. And if you have any questions, please let
044us know. >> Questions or comments from board members. >> If no one else, I I do have a comment. Um I I absolutely love this. You know, um >> having great reading and math scores is important, but as far as I'm concerned, this is the nuts and bolts of a school district. preparing kids, helping them find a career path that they love and then teaching them the skills to actually do that career successfully is what defines a successful school district. Um, if we could get all staff, not just middle school, not just high school, to teach these kids that it's our job to help them be successful when they leave, when they walk across the stage, whatever they choose as a career, give them the skills they need to be successful, we all win. So,
045thank you very much for your work on this, gentlemen. Ladies, I I appreciate it wholeheartedly. Thank you. Uh, moving on. Wisconsin framework for multi-level systems of support reports. Miss Mansky, >> nice job on that. That was tricky. All right. So, I have been wanting to give you a Google overview and I want to give you a couple of tapes of paper because small. Sorry, this is kind of cutting in and out, but the images will be small. So, I want you to have one in front of you so you can see all of it. So, this first image, um, the circle image is the Wimmels picture icon. Um, this is what we use across the whole state of Wisconsin. Um, and all of these little pieces are a big part of what what WHMLS is.
046And so, um, when we talk about Wimmels, we're talking about all of these parts of this big system. And you can see what all of those parts are, and we'll dive into it a little bit more, but I just want you to know that that's what Wimmels is. Um, and so we've this has been a process and and I've had things in the weekly notes. Um, but I wanted to bring things to you. So why did we engage in looking at Wimbles and and why did we engage in the work? And really it's because of our mission and our vision is that we want to educate all students academically, emotionally and socially to inspire curiosity and resilience. And that all is a really important part of of our of our vision. And so and and
047we always to to do that all we're constantly looking at how do we improve. So we had to evaluate our systems and looking at that image of that circle with all of those little pieces. Those are the systems that we we took a look at um and what's working and what's not. And another part of our goal is we have guiding coalitions at all of our buildings and we really wanted to make sure that all of our guiding coalitions are kind of moving in the same direction. Um we wanted to make sure that every guiding coalition needs to have autonomy to do what they're building needs. But we also need to make sure that we're all moving in the same direction. We like we don't want this group going this way and this group going
048this way. So yes, we want our guiding coalitions to be able to make the decisions that are right for their building, but we also need to make sure that we're heading in the same direction. So that's why we started WIMLS. So our committee was made up of a broad representation of members. We had principles, classroom teachers, counselors, we had an EL teacher. I shouldn't say had, have this is an ongoing committee. Um, we have instructional coaches, our superintendent, we have directors and we have CISA 4 directors as well. So, broad representation. And as we're engaging in this work, our driving question, what we're focusing on is what changes do we need to make to Sparta Area School District's EMLS system to ensure that all students will learn at high levels? And there's that all again.
049So, where have we been? Our team has met for the last year and a half. We've taken a look at all of our systems in Sparta. We've analyzed data from a variety of sources and we've really said, okay, there's all these areas that we could focus on and that's too much. So, how do we narrow down what we focus on? And we chose to focus on three. We call them big rocks. Um, and you'll see that on the next slide. And then we've created a theory of action. And from that theory of action, we then brainstormed what are we already doing in those three big rocks. What hurdles do we have to overcome in those three big rocks? And we started to action plan. So here again is that EMLSS system and our three big
050rocks that we landed on were positive culture a strong universal level and then you can see that equity changed to each and every child so that all were focusing not so much on equity but focusing on each and every child. Again this is that other paper I gave you because you can't really read much on the screen. Um, but our framework we spent a lot of time on. We wanted to get this right because this is guiding all of the work that we're doing. So, we wanted, yes, it's words on a page, but we wanted the the words on the page to capture what we're trying to do because all of the the work that we do comes back to this. Um, does this meet the the framework that we've set? Is this action right
051for what we're trying to accomplish? Does this goal match what we're trying to accomplish? So everything that we do, this is what we're measuring this against. So feel free to look at that piece of paper because that's much clearer to read than what's on the screen. Um, and again, you'll see that vision is at the bottom. That's really what we're trying to accomplish with all of these steps. So we we took a lot of pieces into place. What we didn't want is for there to be all of these silos because a lot of times what happens is in education is there's a lot of silos and we're doing this and we're doing this and we're doing this and we're doing all of these different things and people don't see how they connect. So we've been
052working on mental health framework. You've heard of mental health framework too. And you know what it also aligns to our that we've been working on as a district. That's part of our Wimmels. Um, for the last two years, we've been working with Jenny Regel and Abby Fernin from CISA 4 um to work with our mental health framework. Um, in year three, we're kind of switching that focus because mental health framework is a really hard um it doesn't feel accessible for classroom teachers. I'm not trained to provide mental health support for kids. I'm trained to be a classroom teacher. Um, and so when we talk about that from an engagement perspective, oh well, yeah, that's part of my job. It is my job to engage kids in what I'm trying to teach. So when we talk
053about mental health from that perspective, that gives me an entry point into talking about mental health because it's my job to engage kids. Um, so that way that's kind of what how they're they're getting to mental health is through engagement this year. We've also been working with Michelle and um staff from CISA who are the Wimmels um directors. So they go to a lot of the training through the state of Wisconsin. They've been working with all of the people at CISA 4 that are working on EMLSS or Wisconsin MLSS or WHIMLS as we call it. Um and they brought up engagement as well and shared this continuum. Um, so this is one way that we could think about the progression of conti of engagement going from disrupting behavior to avoiding to withdrawing to participating to
054investing and to driving. So we like to think, oh, they're participating. That's great. But that might not be full engagement. So we think about all of those areas and when we we we had discussions with our building principles about their goals for their buildings. We brought our guiding coalition teams along with our WIMLS team committee for our May meeting and we reviewed our journey that we've been on and we determined that our district would be focusing on engagement for this upcoming year. We reviewed our plan for the work and we provided time for them to give us feedback and to give us questions on the work and what it would look like moving forward. So, our tenative plan as we move into the school year is that we will provide some PD at the August
05518th um PD day. We'll have some whole group time that will be the work of Wimmels and the overview. And then we'll get into small group. We'll have an elementary group and a middle high school group. That's really important because what happens when you try to do things whole group is people say, "Oh, well that doesn't work at my level." Um if you say something that's a great high school strategy, then you have elementary people say that doesn't work for me. So by breaking them up, they can see, oh, yep, that does work for me. That does work for my grade level of kids. Um so we'll give them the rationale. We'll give them some beginning strategies and we're working with cabinet so that principles have um input on what we'll focus on for those
056specific strategies on those days. And then at during the October PD day, we will revisit again by grade level with some of those we're focusing in August for some really great beginning of the year strategies. Um and then in August we'll focus on some more some good engagement strategies for a little bit later in the year. So this isn't meant to be a oneanddone. We we want to focus on engagement throughout the year. Um we'll also be f focusing throughout the school year during our um staff meetings to not do a lot but here's another engagement strategy and then we want them to teachers to try that strategy um within their classrooms. Our building guiding coalition teams and the Wimmels team will meet periodically throughout the the school year. That will help us to to
057stay on track. It'll keep our our buildings accountable for the work and making sure that we're all moving again together in that same direction. So, our goal is that by the end of the year, teachers will understand the value and importance of intentionally planning for engagement that they'll know and intentionally implement engagement strategies to create an inclusive and safe learning environment. that's get that gets to that again and use the continuum of engagement as a formative assessment tool and make instructional decisions based on the data. So that is a little bit about RIMLS where we've been and where we're questions or comments from board members. Lopez much. Um, so this is a lot of work I can tell. Um, this is something I think that is a statewide initiative. Is that correct? Or is this
058something that Sparta Area School District is doing on its own? >> So, Wimles is a statewide. Okay. >> And even emlss is national. >> Okay. Um, and then you talked about um accountability. How I guess I'm I'm still questioning how is it that you know that the work that you're doing is effective in building student engagement? I I know you'll get back and talk to one another, but what is like what is the test I guess? So we've talked about some different ways of doing that um through so one of the ways that one of the pieces of data that we've looked at is the school perceptions data. Um so we've talked about perceptive school perceptions data again or looking at similar questions to the ones that we've used that were used in that and
059using that again at those same grade levels that that could be a piece. the accountability piece that we can do with it um is kind of a walk through like the observation and walking through classrooms. So, for example, if we're saying um in October or in the September or in the August PD, we're we're doing these two or these three strategies, then when building principles go into classrooms, they're looking for those three things. And so then bringing that together, um so when we come together for our our next EMLSS meeting, um we should have data about what principles have seen in the classrooms they've been in with those three strategies that have been um implemented. Um so we should see it from both both perceptions the what principles are seeing in observations and through um
060the survey that we can give the kids as far as are they are they engaging more. >> Okay. Thank you. So that survey for school perceptions type survey at least would be for the kids. So they can you can have their voice. And then um with the um other part to that, it kind of reminds me of the holistic way with which the new grading system is being implemented like the the teachers getting to know the kids and then um having their kind of that relationship with them and to see their improvement and their growth through that lens. So I mean it's not like anything you can jump from A to B and say it's absolutely effective but you can see >> it's not a clearcut and dry like oh yep I can see from
061today to tomorrow a difference. >> Right. Right. I just um I'm hoping great things because I know it's such an investment of time and teachers time is so valuable and all of our resources are stretched and so I'm I'm looking forward to this being a positive investment of time. your comments from board members. >> I'm extremely excited to have another acronym, a PBIS and an ACP and a guiding coalition and a Wimles. Um, in in truth, I I I really think this is the the next natural evolution to what we've been doing with what we've called, which is essentially just mental health training to try to reduce the amount of discipline referrals we have. But the the point isn't just to not have discipline referrals. is to build an educational setting where everyone can excel
062in and everybody can engage in. So the choice of engagement for this for the first year I think is very wise. Um I thank you for your work and look forward to seeing what we can do. >> Thank you. >> Uh where we at facility project report, Mr. Russ? Yeah, just a b brief report on uh our facility update. Uh the first thing I want to mention is is that we are looking to have a workshop uh before the board meeting on the 28th. Uh we had our facility meeting on Wednesday and uh the the drawings are due the design and development drawings. The next milestone is this Friday. So that comes along with that is walls are pretty much set. The things inside the walls are still changeable, but uh when we start talking
063to market and Johnson, our construction manager, once those walls are set now, we can start giving some pretty good um estimates on uh on budgets. How much is this going to cost based on square footage and that sort of thing. So, um, but we're going to be having what is called in the in the, um, in the profession a page turn. So, basically, we're going to look at Meadow View's overall uh, secure entrance as a whole. And then we're going to turn the page and then we're going to look at a little bit deeper. This is what the main entry is going to look like. We think a rendering, this is what inside of that secure vestibule is going to look like. This is what the office area is going to look like. This is
064what it's going to look like when you walk in. Some renderings. and that sort of thing. Nothing official, but to really gain uh and get some feedback knowing that um we're still moving, but these milestones have to take place because we still get questions. Why aren't we building yet? Why aren't we building yet? It takes a long time and we're going to explain why we're don't have a shovel in the ground yet except that Southside, which is coming along very nicely uh with that. So, we're going to have a page turn and then once Meadow View is done, we're going to go to SHS, the big project there. And then we're going to go into the new the Northwest edi northeast edition. Then we're going to look at the cafeteria, fine arts and auditorium. Then
065we're going to look at Techad. Then we're going to look at the cafeteria main office. Then we're going to look at the gym uh or locker rooms and fitness center. So really to get an understanding about what this big picture is going to look like, probably put some timelines on there. Um but we're going to have a page turn. I like a page turner because it sounds more engaging, but nope, it's a page turn in this business. Like, okay. So, I do that. So, and Mark and Johnson and Bray are going to be present. Um, but this will be right before our um our board meeting on the 28th. Uh, and we're going to be promoting it. We're going to be hoping that we have a pretty uh a large turnout uh with that. And
066based on those um that information after that, we may not have updated budget. That'll come in the middle of August, but in August is going to be relatively busy because we're going to have some uh engagement sessions as well. We're going to be having that. So, uh talked a little bit about uh the engagement sessions and the July 18th meeting. Um um just as a reminder, the the bids are going out in the beginning of December, bid mid to beginning of December. The 22nd is our um and uh we'll continue to meet with stakeholders and uh go through that process. And here's some brief. Again, these are just high level. This is the the first take that we had. Um but it's going to look sharp. It's going to look very sharp and it's going
067to be very functional as well. Just going to put something up there that's looks pretty and inside it doesn't work very well. That's what all sorts of time. Um, one thing that we have at all of our buildings is that so care if somebody's waiting outside because you won't be able to get buzzed in to the school from the inside. Everything is from the outside. So, you may have to wait a moment, but you're going to be out of the elements. Um, so that's one rendering as well. And then the last drawing that I wanted to share is uh a potential rendering and that we just saw this uh very recently of what it would look like along Black River Street. So the top one is is you're going north. So those um the the
068the dark areas and once again we're still working through uh brick versus all or is it all going to be brick? Um so match um we're not going to match 100%. So um just some ideas with the designs um and and then you can the bottom one you're looking to the just a highlevel uh renderings. These are some of the examples that we'll be showing but we're continuing to look inside the school inside the building draw sort of thing. Um just a lot of excitement but it's a lot of work. You can spend a lot of time just on a door handle for example just on what color this is what is this? can you switch that out? But Bray and Mark and Johnson have been very nice to work with uh with me specifically.
069So, and then uh Nick from building solution is guiding us as well and uh uh giving us a lot of insight as along with that. So, so that's a brief um facility update. um about baseball in the outdoor facilities. Um we continue to meet with uh it seems like every week u we met with a um I'd say a professional from the Watertown area that came over and gave us some good ideas about our baseball field. He said this is a he has seen a lot worse than I've seen a lot. He goes, "You're well above average." But he admitted our our pitcher mound at home plate need some work. The water is still ponding behind first base. We need work. But just the things but you said the foundation seems to be very good.
070Continue to do that on it's going to look like because we can still fix that field area without changing a lot but we still look at accessibility. We still look at parking press box uh restrooms. So we'll continue look at that uh and gain more information. And the same thing with the track. Uh still continuing with that. That's going to be all part of the design and development stage and uh continue to do that. We have another meeting with point of beginning uh after our facility meeting uh tomorrow. No, Wednesday. Getting my days mixed up. So, but that's still there. Uh Southside uh uh bus drop off and pickup project that's coming along very nicely. Um that's moving along. Um we looked at the sign, the old sign's out. We're in the process of getting
071the new sign uh coming in. Um and we continue to look at Monasuri and Southside for their capital improvements on the inside and continuing that as well from board members. Might as well keep the mic Sam and just do announcements and information. Then >> speaking of microphone, before I forget, by the uh next board meeting, we should have better mics. So that will be helpful. So um so that's there. So um uh we continue with summer school. Summer school started uh last Monday um with uh 4K through 8. Uh that's going very well. It's nice to run around the you know see the kids being excited and being glad to be back at school. Um I know the gentleman talked about uh the the nutrition service program. We have universal summer feeding program. Uh it's
072down at the park. We have a large contingent that we do up in Cataract uh when they pick up their meals for the week. So, uh kudos to Rob and his team about uh getting that. Um we have our uh board meetings there that are coming up. The first day of school is the 21st of August. A month from today, we welcome our certified staff back. And then on the 18th, we have our all staff kickoff as Miss M uh um Mansky mentioned about the uh Wimmels uh part of our inservice um act 12 reporting. There's a link there. Uh by statute, we need to report to uh the board and have made public uh certain criteria. If there is some criminal activity that happens on our property uh at the high school level only
073and uh that information is there. We work very closely with um uh officer Ericson and the police department and making sure that we have all that data the best to our ability and I do submit that data to the DPI and if I'm memory serves me that will be on a report card as well. Not a measurable part but just as an FYI. And finally the state and federal budget information. Um real briefly uh we'll talk about the federal because we're going to talk about that uh down the road in this agenda item. Um about $400,000 have been withheld uh from uh the Spartier School District specifically, $100,000 in the community learning center or our win program. Um so that leaves us with a $100,000 deficit uh in that program which we'll be talking about
074down the road. Um, and the other 300,000 is in title two, uh, which goes to, uh, teacher training, title three, which supports our EL population, and title four, which is at risk and gifted and talented. Nope. >> Wellrounded child on title four. So, when you add that together, it's about 300,000. Um, so we're looking at their hope when you start looking through what we spend our money on that it's all very valuable. Um, so we'll continue to work through that uh process. When it comes to the state, um, the state was not budget friendly for the Sparta School District and I only speak for the Spartary School on what I believe is affected the Spartary School District. Um, we didn't we are still 421 out of 421. Um, we got a $325 increase, which is
075all in the local taxpayer. Um, we got very little increase to the special education reimbursement. We're going for 60. That was in the governor's budget and we got 40 42, but that is some uh it's a lump sum and uh like this year we were told it'd be 32% and now it's down to 29%. Um, so that fell short. Uh, the low revenue ceiling did not increase. So, um, we will be looking at, uh, ways to, we haven't dove into it yet. We're still learning more about house specifics and, uh, running through models and that sort of thing. So, um, that will be revisited once we know more. It'll probably be a report uh, or might be a workshop by itself, but most likely we'll start with a report because it's going to have us
076make some decisions. uh and it just doesn't affect this upcoming year 25 26. It has ramifications on 26 27 and beyond. So uh Miss uh Hower is going to talk about our current budget and uh probably give you a preface on the next budget as well especially when we start talking about uh fund stabilization and fund 46 and fund 10. So um any questions questions or comments from board members? So, um, Mr. S, this is a $400,000 reduction in federal benefits for this year, and you said it has ramifications for years beyond. >> So, um, we're it's a $400 reduction, but our costs have are increasing for these, correct? So, how does that actually translate to um our budget future? Do you do you understand what I'm saying? like >> Yeah. Well, so it's it's
077funds being withheld. Um so we had going into this we we budgeted having these funds. So we took into account that it was going to cost us more depending on uh what the resource was. So a lot of this is resources we've already paid for. When we talk about the staff development training, we've already approved the CISA contract. Uh I do have an email and ceases aware that we're not the only school that if this is withheld what h how is that going to work? Um but it's so beneficial. You know we want we need to support our our e students. We need to support the whole child. We need to support you know technology. We need to support our staff. So it's really about how do we going to make this work and what
078are some maybe some levers that we can pull as we move forward. um still learning a little bit more. Um but we're still in the learn mode rather than this is what it is. We need to run the scenarios. Uh open enrollment. Um you know, we we never know until they uh until they enter or they leave that um that increased. So instead of paying a school, I'm going to say $9,000 like we did last year for every open enrolled out, we now have to pay over 10,000. So that's different. But we also get an extra 10,000. you know that extra thousand for coming in. Um we have a decline in enrollment. So it's all about how do we start putting the pieces together and understanding that this is just not a one-year issue. This
079is a two-year issue and beyond. Um because the legislator spoke the we have a $400 we have a 400 year 325 per pupil and that's all on the local taxpayer until they change. And that's what they said and they signed it and it just wasn't friendly for our district and I'll speak for public education as a whole. Quest other questions or comments from board members? If not, we'll move on to business discussion and possible recommendation to approve the 2526 student academic standards. Miss Mansky. >> All right. So, on this slide, you can see the links to all of the standards that we have currently um in place for the academic standards that we use, which are the Wisconsin academic standards. Um they're all linked on that first link. Um, I've specifically called out ELA, math,
080science, social studies, and English language development. All of the other specials, music, world language. All of those are called out in that first one. So, no change to what we have currently. So, I'd be looking for a recommendation to approve these standards. Again, >> that's a very unk slide. It's simple to the point. >> Questions or comments from board members? If not, I would accept a motion. Move to approve the uh Wisconsin academic standards or student academic standards that are in effect for on consent. Second for Mr. Wells. All in favor? I >> opposed. Motion carries 6. Discussion and possible recommendation to approve buzzer revisions to the 2425 school year. Miss Hower. All right. Um the last time you saw the budget was in May and at that time we had predicted a budget deficit
081of about $600,000 which was over half of what we had started the year with. Um so I'm going to take a little while here to go through where we're at now compared to where we were in May. And I'm also going to show you where we're at now compared to where we were for the original budget. And the reason why is there was quite a swing this year to the good. So this is all good news. Um but it was a big enough change I really wanted to take time to go through what all changed so that you could understand it. Um so this will be the final budget for this year. Um and we are definitely in the thick of preparing for the audit and that'll be starting uh in a week. So, looking
082at our budget calendar, we're starting out fresh. There's no red X's on here yet. Um, so July and August, we're actually working in two years. We're wrapping up everything from last year. Um, and definitely already starting the tax for this coming year. So, general fund revenue um in comparing to this is comparing to May, you can see that our revenue went up uh over $400,000 and um it went up $1.1 million over the original budget. So, I'm going to break that down in more detail for you in the next slides. That $400,000 change was due to some unforeseen revenues coming in from things like Medicaid where we get settlements that are sometimes from years ago and we don't really have a lot of knowledge that they're coming in. So that's one of the big ones,
083but I'll go through all of them here. Um so looking at the first three areas of revenue our local sources which is local money in our district payments and intermediate sources changes from these are changes from our original budget open enrollment our revenue was a little bit less than we anticipated. uh interest income was less than budgeted. Our AP testing did increase. We had a track meet that we hadn't originally planned for. Um a lot of surplus property sales with us upgrading our IT equipment with those big expenditures this year. Um we get to charge a well charge a facility to win. >> Yeah. guidelines for them using our building because they're not a taxpayer through the levy funded um through the local operating levy. So that is something new because we offered summer one
084as a new service last year. Um and then our mobile home taxes were higher than anticipated for state sources. Here's where we saw some big swings. our special education aid went down. Um, but you'll see at the bottom, state tuition payments increased pretty drastically and this was one that was unforeseen. Um, DPI changed some of the reporting methods and process and through that we ended up getting about 300,000 more than what we've had the past um, several years. So, that worked out in our favor. Um, you can also see common school fund. We ended up getting more than originally anticipated. And you'll see that with a lot of our grants because we start the budget without having all of our final award letters. So, we basically roll forward the amount we received the prior year
085plus any known changes. And then we get the final amounts usually um around October 1st. So, you'll see that carry through here with all of our different federal grants. Um, but the ones at the bottom are really the ones that were unforeseen. Uh, again to our positive, which was our Medicaid reimbursement and Medicaid settlement. These are ones that will continue to be a wild card into the future, not knowing what changes may come to the Medicaid program and how that'll filter down through Medicaid revenues in the schools. Um, and then also ISA qualified for that additional expansion grant which brought in some additional revenue. Uh then our remaining financing sources and other revenue. 403b forfeitures are when we've deposited a 403b employees not fully vested. They leave the district. That money reverts back to us
086until they become fully vested. Um we just base that budget off of prior years and it was less this year which is a good thing because that means we had less turnover. So um dental insurance. So, this was our first year of our self-insured dental and you can see he made $7,000 on the proposition. So, uh that's good. That goes into basically a holding account to help control having to increase those insurance prices in the future. Um and then the other one that was unanticipated, we did not receive one last year, but it's good news is a work comp dividend, which basically means that we performed better than what they had anticipated. And so that was um so when you add all of those up, it's about $1.1 million in additional revenue over where we
087started the year. So, going on into expenses, uh the salaries budget increased about $85,000 from where we were in May. Um, a lot of that the changes here are just moving between categories, but also our substitute costs um, were high at the end of the year, which these are the substitutes that we pay through payroll, meaning a lot of them are for medical leaves of absence and things like that. Um, so our substitute costs did end up being higher through payroll, but as you'll see in a little bit, we were actually right on budget with our substitutes through teachers on call. um which in previous years that budget always seems to grow. So we did a good job managing our subs more um the budget ended up coming in 130,000 less than where we were
088at in May. just basically as everything settles out, we're able to adjust some of those percentages like WRS and FICA. Um getting those adjusted back down to actual based on the actual salaries for school budgets. Um just some minor changes. instructional budget. Again, some the budget um to reflect actual the only one that needed additional funds was at the bottom the ECCP and start college now, which those are the applications you approve for our high school kids. And again, I would say that's a good thing because that's our high school students taking advantage of those opportunities um for post college or post high school. In student services, again, no additional expenses, all reductions. in business services. Um there was a slight increase to buildings and grounds due to um some equipment breakdowns that just when
089they happen we have to fund them. Um but we did save on capital projects. So we had planned to do a 100,000 in capital projects this year and we had decided uh to hold on year You can see the open enrollment expense ended up being less than was budgeted. So although the revenue was a little less, the expense was even more so less. Uh so we worked out good when you put those two together. So that worked well. Uh the technology budget, we are not doing that project at Southside this summer due that budget. And then our utilities budget. Uh this is another celebration. We came about $28,000 under budget. Uh which is terrific news. We did implement the electricity um monitoring and revisions to our program. I don't know that we can take credit
090for the full 28,000 through that. Um but most of the savings were on our electric bills. And then lastly, the governance budget. Um again, just reducing those budget figures to reflect. That takes our original budget from the annual meeting compared to where we ended. And you can see overall our expenses were about a half million less than where we planned. And again going a little deeper into that. Um a big change was in salaries. So we did have some positions we let go vacant throughout the year. We some of our grants had salary pieces. Uh but then also we had about $400,000 in the salary budget. Uh that was that um Sam and I reserved for unknown future expenditures and salaries and benefits. Uh as position needs come up throughout the year. Um, special education
091is one where needs might change. We did not need to touch that money at all this year. So, that all uh ended up being expenses we didn't need. Um, our special education spending on things other than salaries was also down significantly this year compared to the year before. Um, our FICA taxes and HR ended up coming in under budget. Open enrollment out was under budget. Again, technology, electricity. Um, our governance budget was $60,000 under budget. We stopped the translating service. We did a lot less advertising, less conferences, um, buildings and grounds. We saved with that capital project budget. We had a few additions that were over like 10 grand from our original budget, um, but not many. So we only increased the ECCP and start college now and we did a little bit of increases
092to the building budgets and co-curricular transportation and the grant expense increased along with the revenue so those wash out. So overall um this is where we land. So our original budget we projected a 1.5 million shortfall. In May we said probably about 600,000. This settles out to be 170,000 to the good, which means that all of our revenue stabilization of the 1.5 million we can then use for next year, which is needed with what we have learned recently with our state budget and our federal budget. um kind of ballparking the state budget right now. It looks like we will actually lose revenue next year once you implement all the pieces of the new state budget. Um so that loss of revenue paired with the federal grants um it is good that we will have this
093revenue stabilization into next year. Are there any Yeah. and then I'll go through the other funds too, but I let's take fund 10 and 27 first. >> I have a couple quick ones. Um the the special ed, the 176 grand, I'm assuming that that's referring to Sam had mentioned going from 32% to 29% as the the payback for some reason. Do we know why that was why we didn't get the 32% that was budgeted? >> Yeah. So in the state budget they say we're setting aside this pot of money to fund special education and so then all the districts dip into that pot of money and they say none of your expenses will be reimbursed above 32%. But once all the districts dipped in the pot was gone so everybody's um request got deducted and
094not just us all districts it settled out to be about 29%. Um second thing the two hard expenses that that we I guess deferred were building and grounds and tech for like 125k. >> So yep those were just rolling forward in the next year. So that >> really this budget is pretty close to balance with that 125 rolling over. Correct. >> You got it. Yep. >> Thank you very much. >> Yep. All right. Um and then we'll just go quickly through the other funds since it is the end of the year. So debt service fund. Um you can see here the changes. Obviously we got a referendum approved um throughout the year and got our financing locked in and so that changes the projection for fund 39. This will continue to change next year. um
095even more so as we fully step into our new amortization schedule for that 66 million fund 46. Um you can see the only activity there was um interest income and so this is our basically our capital project savings plan. Um we didn't make any deposits at the end of the year last year. We haven't uh made any expenses. Any expenses out of this fund do require board action. Um so I'll cover fund balance in a little bit here, but we're just basically letting that interest income continue to add to the fund balance. 149 is the spendown of the debt. So you can see it increased by about 66 million uh due to the new borrowing. And you can also see that we've already started spending down a lot of that is our architectural um cost,
096our owner's rep cost, things like that. We haven't really started paying many um market and Johnson invoices yet. Um but there's some surveying and other things that we've been paying already. Going to fund 50. Um it is looking like we're going to end with a deficit of about 155,000. Um and again I'll recap the fund balance shortly. And then fund 80. Um the biggest part of this is our win after school program. um our expenses did come in under budget and so that is something that we'll kind of loop back to a couple of times as we talk about the end potentially of that grant. Um and then also fund balance coming up. Any questions on the other funds? I will need a motion to recommend approval. Could I get a motion to approve budget
097revisions as shown by administration? Motion for Mr. Well, second from Dr. Bernett. Uh, roll call, please. >> Mr. McKenna, >> yes. >> Dr. Bernett, >> yes. >> Miss Barren, >> yes. >> Mr. Gonkey, >> yes. >> Mrs. Lopez, >> yes. >> Mr. Wells, >> yes. >> Motion passes 60. What's that? >> 3C. Okay. Discussion and possible recommendation to design designate classifications of fund balance as of June 30th, 2025. Miss Hower we've been using. So, non-spendable, restricted, we really don't have a choice that's governed. Um, committed, assigned, and unassigned are board decision points. And you'll see what I'm recommending in just a second here. Uh and again just keeping in mind board policy requires 18% of our operating expenses be maintained in unassigned fund balance. Um we just went over we have about 170,000 excess this
098year. You have one of three choices. You could add it to fund balance. You could make a contribution to fund 46 or you could do some combination of the two. Our recommendation is that that 170,000 we put all into fund balance. Um and so the recommendation for fund balance for fund 10 is we have prepaid expenses at year end of about 650,000. So we have to designate part of our fund balance as non-spendable to cover um those. We also again are governed that we have to restrict for any unspent common school funds which is $3,500. Um I am recommending the board continue to assign fund balance for our property insurance deductible. That's a new one that you did last year for 150,000 and I would recommend continuing that. Um for unassigned revenue stabilization is currently
099at 1,496 and change. I'm recommending let's just round it up to a even 15. Um but that we continue that designation of 1.5 million for revenue stabilization and then any remainder would just be for cash flow purposes. Are there any questions on fund 10 fund balance? >> I have one small one. It's not a not a huge deal, but um why not put the the money that we're saving this year from building and grounds into fund 46 to get the state aid and then take it back out when we do the project. >> We definitely could. Um we just have more flexibility and fund balance, but it wouldn't be wrong to do that. >> Okay. >> Other questions or comments? I'll go on to the other funds then. Uh fund 39 all of the fund
100balance there is has to be due before we get our next round of tax collections. Um fund 46. So that's our current balance in fund 46 344,000. Um again the only addition to that this year was some interest income fund 49 that's the spendown of our current borrowing the 66 million. Um fund 50 any balance of inventory we have to code as non-spendable and then the rest is restricted because it can only be used for the nutrition program. And then finally, fund 80. Um, after how we ended this year, this will be the new fund balance is 191,000. That is getting pretty large. So, um, we I don't have it tonight, but I'll be coming to you with a recommendation for how that plays into what our fund levy is for next year. It's nice
101we have that lever because, as Sam mentioned, the 325 additional per pupil is all locally funded. There's no um state. So, uh the recommendation is you can leave the signed as it currently stands at the 150,000 for insurance. Um that'll stay that way until there's board action changing it. So the only recommendation would be to designate 1.5 million that's total not additional um of the fund 10 unassigned fund balance to be used for revenue stabilization and then all other funds as presented unless uh you would like to reduce that number slightly to put something in fun. >> Questions or comments from board members? I like the flexibility of having the um funds in revenue stabilization. Um I think it's confusing when we put funds from fund 10 into fund 46 and then take down again.
102I think that kind of causes Oh, I know. I know. I appreciate it. I just had a comment. Thank you. Um, so that is one number I did not have a chance to get for tonight as far as how much of would that 25,000 land in the secondary tier or the tertiary tier, but I'll get that for you before it's an analysis I wanted to look at anyways. I just ran out of time. Um, but I'll get that for you before the next meeting because anything tonight's just a recommendation to the full board. So, Other questions or comments from board members or I would take a motion. I move to recommend to the full board the administration recommendation for revenue stabilization and all other funds as presented. That can be on consent. No, cannot be
103on. >> Motion from Miss Lopez, second from Mr. Wells. Roll call, please. Miss Barren, >> yes. >> Mrs. Lopez, >> Mr. Wells, >> Dr. Bernett, >> Mr. Gonkey, >> Mr. McKenna, >> 6 discussion and possible recommendation to make a contribution to fund 46. >> All right. Um, I'm going to race through this slide. uh benefits of fund 46 as Todd mentioned we receive state aid um whereas in if we let it go into fund balance we don't get state aid on that amount um fund 46 acres interest rate because I invest it differently um because we know we won't be touching the money so we try to use CDs and other investment vehicles for that um fibility. Um current balance 344,000 and based on the conversations we've already had, I would recommend not making a
104contribution. Um pending, I will look up the secondary tier, tertiary tier, and bring that information to the next meeting. Yeah, you don't have to take action, but um I requested that it still be on the agenda just so we have the conversation and if you'd like to take action, you're welcome to. >> Questions or comments from board members? Absolutely. Yep. Yep. >> Other questions or comments? >> Does it in any way help you to have a recommendation or no? Okay. I'm good. Yeah, I'm good. >> To determine next steps of the federal funds being withheld for the wind program. Mr. Russ, Miss Mansky, and Miss Church. when uh Miss Mansky and Miss Church go to the uh podium. Um as we stated earlier, we just lost uh we uh the not lost $100,000 have been
105withheld from the community learning uh grant. Um and we did um Miss Mansky and Miss Church uh worked very diligently on uh getting us some information um and uh when this information was put together um that we didn't know specifically we could could or couldn't we we thought we could charge families as an idea. However, since then we've learned that um since we're still awarded the grant, we really can't do much. But we could petition to but it'd be a difficult and a in a tall ask. But um but we also know that we have some fund balance available in fund 80 if needed as well. So Miss Mansky and Miss Church take it from there. >> I hope these slides meet your approval. [Laughter] Um so I'm going to take the lead on this
106but I'll be asking Miss Church to jump in and correct me if I have anything wrong. Uh so our funding sources for for WIN um only Herman Wyn receives grant funding. All of the remaining funding for Southside and Monasuri. So Southside and Monasuri are completely funded through fund 80. Herman is funded $100,000 thou dollars from Herman is grant. The remaining funding at Herman is through fund 80. So Herman is a combination of the two sources. The other two are solely fund 80. So again, this is just a reiteration that the um the federal government is withholding. So it's not ending. It's just withholding those fundings that those funding sources at this time. So title two, title three, and title four, part B is the community learning centers, and then um 4A is technology and the
107well-rounded child. Um, we have no information at this time on whether or if these funds will be released and we need to make a plan. And one of the reasons we need to make a plan is because we need to inform families what we're going to do um because it can affect our staffing levels, the number of students we can um take or if we are going to charge them. So, we just need to make a decision and know what what to inform families. Before the next slide, I did um uh we had a WASDA um monthly meeting and uh the DPI uh Dr. McCarthy, the assistant or the deputy superintendent said, "Don't plan on these funds coming. Do not plan. It's uh Wisconsin just joined the uh several states of litigation against the federal
108government for withholding uh the funds. Um but it's going to be six to eight months they figure before this litigation even starts to get going. So um they said at the district level for all the funding is to plan accordingly at at the district level. >> And take a deep breath because the good news is that title one funding is not being withheld. So title one is out of all the funding out of all of our um federal grants, title one is the one that we received the most funding in. And so that we will um I have Friday as my in my calendar. Friday is my day to work on that. Um so that should be open according to my calculations and my my sources. It should be open on Friday. So we will
109still receive our title one funds. Um so um like Mr. for us that Holly and I met last week um and really looked through kind of what our options were and what would it look like if we did some different things. So, one of our options is that we could say if if we need to run win without that extra $100,000, what would that look like? How many staffing are in the budget right now in the How many staff do we have in the budget in the grant? And right now we have 15 staff members in the grant. And so if we take out 15 staff across all three of our sites, we would need to reduce our students by about 15 or by about a hundred. Um we would also need to some of
110our staff are one-on-one um because we provide that support for students with IEPs and we also provide support for students um reading. So, we would we have some students working one-on-one with staff um to provide interventions um during that win time. Um so, some of that would have to some of those supports, additional supports that we offer in wind, we would no longer be able to offer. Um, another option that we have, well, maybe have, we hoped we we would have, um, we might have, we'll go with that one, um, is to charge families districtwide to make up the difference. Um, so according to the grant, we can't charge at Herman. So what we've said as a as a district is we're not we've we've never charged anywhere because we didn't feel it was fair
111to charge at one building. So we've we would never say well let's charge at Southside and Monastery but let's not charge at Herman because they get a grant. So we've never felt okay with doing that. Um so we've we've never charged anywhere because they're withholding our federal funds. Our plan was to charge everywhere um the same level and then say if the grants funding came through we would want to have a plan for reimbursing the families. That's what our original thinking was. Um and then our other option would be to bring this back to the annual meeting and looking at re re at increasing the funding um to win through the levy. I don't know if Leah wants to add anything here or if we want to do that later. M just pause. Okay. So
112then that brought up a lot of questions for Holly and I and we said okay well what were our actual expenses this year and where did those expenses come and what came from the year school year expenses and what came from summer expenses. So then we worked with Michelle, our district accountant, and she pulled a lot of reports and then we looked at things closely and ran things again and looked at things again and our heads were starting to spin. Um, so we looked at just this current the 2425 school year and we knew that we had 610,000 through fund 80 budgeted for win. We also looked at our expenses from fund 80 for this school year which was $487,000. So we didn't spend that full amount. We then knew that we had $100,000 through
113the grant at Herman that we spent. And then we looked at summer. So summer we charged which cost covered some of the expenses for summer but it's also supplemented by fund 80. So the costs that are the the part of the of summer wind that's covered by fund 80 is $30,000. So when we added up those expenses, the 487 the grant 100,000 and the fund 80 portion of summer we got 617,000 of expenses. So then we said, okay, well this isn't as bad as we initially thought. We're not that far off based on last school year's expenses, but we also know that going into the 2526 school year, everything's costs are going up. So we we know we need to make up more than $17,000 going into next year. So then we said, okay, so
114really what are our options? So, one one option is that we could charge families $20 per month for all win students. There's roughly 300 students at all three sites right now this last school year times $20 times 9 months is roughly $54,000. Currently, we charge zero. So, that's one option. Maybe Another option is during that summer win, which is paid, we could charge $100 per week for full day win to break even and remove completely out of fund 80, which would free up that $30,000. Currently, we charged $200 for three and a half weeks. And then option three is when we looked at the funding sources of fund 80, we budgeted $50,000 for open gym. Our expenses for open gym were 16,000. So the difference there is 34. So, can we move that over to
115cover that difference, that shortage that we have in win? And what we didn't know is do we need approval at annual meeting? Can we just do that at the board meeting? We didn't really know where that needed to happen. So, when when we looked at this and when we brought Mr. Russ into it, um what we really would like is we would really like to move that balance from open gym. So, we'd still have open gym. We just don't need $50,000 to offer open gym. And based on the numbers, the numbers in May were abysmal. And so what we'd like to do is instead of running it through May, make it match what our walking hour um take over here, have it match with our hallway walkers at the high school, which is November 1st
116through May 1st. >> So that would reduce the cost just by one more month of Open Gym. Um, I think overall there was maybe 10 people for the whole month of May that used Open Gym this current year. Um, so that would be our our recommendation. Um, and if we need to get to option two, we would want to do the to charge the $20 a month. there is an application that we would need to complete um to even be able to charge um and that application is due the 21st. And I'll let you talk a little bit about what that application looks like. >> So, I looked into it a little when we got the email. Um we send the application to the state and they send it on to the federal government. Um
117they said very rarely they approve it for charging fees um because it's an income application we're doing. It's more for if the students make something and sell it um that kind of income. >> So Leah, is this a time that you'd like to talk? >> Yep. Um, so we just went over the fund balance and fund 80 and looking at the recommendations here. Um, Open Gym we've had for 2 years now. We've levied 50,000 each year. Um, the first year we used about 12,000 but it was the first year so we thought we'll leave it the same for year two. This year we used about 16,000. So, we have a fund balance just for open gym of about $70,000. So, that may be one of the easiest areas is we just don't levy for open
118gym. We would still provide open gym, but we'd run it off of its fund balance and we could ship that levy authority over to win then. That would give us $50,000 for no new impact on the tax levy. Um, that could be one recommendation. Also, we levied for the school resource officer this year $100,000. Um, but due to some staffing things that the police department was working through, we didn't get to fully use that amount. So we have about $40,000 sitting in fund balance for SRO also which we could also use to reduce the levy for SRO next year still provide the service and shift that levy authority. So I think those are the two options after learning more just earlier today about the likelihood of being able to charge our families. Not saying that's
119the best idea but even the likelihood of it getting approved probably isn't real great. um we know it's a need in our community. Um that's probably where I would look is at how we shift around the levy authority that we already have. >> Board members, >> um maybe I misunderstood. We were $7,000 over our budget this year or over our levy, the amount we had levied. >> I have those numbers, Kyla. >> Yes. >> So, we levied $610,000. Um, we collected $30,000 for the summer wind program. So, our total revenue for win was 640,000. We spent 490,000 on school year win and we spent about 83,000 on summer win. So summer win um needed about 50,000 of the 610,000. So basically how that all shook out is when you add both pieces of wind together,
120the levy plus the amount we collected from the families plus all of the expenses, we still had about $60,000 remaining this year. Oh, okay. So we weren't in the deficit this year. Do we have any idea what our increased expenses will be for next year? I mean, if we already have 60,000 to be used for when? >> Yeah. I mean, wages are going up about 3%. Um, >> I mean, I guess roughly you could say 3%. is most >> am I missing an oh I apologize and then the 100,000 of the grant so actually 40,000 in the hole that's our difference okay so we are 60,000 to the positive in fund 80 which we could roll into next year but now we're going to have to add another 100,000 of expense which would actually put
121us 40,000 behind plus the 3% on the wages >> for next year. >> Yep. >> And then anything that we don't levy or have in fund 80, fund 10 has to provide. Is that correct? If we if if we >> offer those services, it has to come from fun >> that we could still do is even though as is stated I I don't think we'll be able to get the funding for the school year win, I think we can do the summer win which is outside of the grant. And one of the slides were to increase that. That will bring us in a little bit more revenue as well because currently we are charging um $100 per week. >> No, currently we're charging $200 for the three and a half weeks. >> Three and a
122half weeks. Sorry. So if we increase that to $350, that's an additional revenue per uh per student as well. And going back to the total levy picture, we know our levy will be increasing in fund 10 and in fund 39. So if we have the ability to decrease fund, there may be some merit there. Another option would be we could say, "Let's fill out this form to apply for the $20 or to to apply to be able to charge the families and see if we're approved. >> Would that be for year round and summer win or just summer win?" >> That would be just year round win. >> Just year school school year win. >> I I knew what you meant. I'm sorry. >> So, while that's an option, I I'm not sure it's an
123option I'm in love with. Um I'm really not in love with cutting 100 kids. I mean, you're talking about a third of the program goes away, and it's a program that my opinion has been very successful. Um I'm wrong. So, we've got a $70,000 problem withund and how much do we have in that that fund that this may not be a problem 6 to8 months from now? So, we have $190,000 in that fund. >> Correct. Yeah, I follow you. um we just have different designations for that 190,000. So part of that is for community ad, parts open gym, parts SRO. So we track all of those buckets separately. >> It'd be my opinion that we found a creative way to find that money and move it for one year. and and if that needed support
124at the annual meeting. I mean, as long as we're not raising the levy, I really don't want to raise the the fund 80 tax levy this year with the other I'm assuming we're going to raise fund 10 by somewhere in the neighborhood of a million bucks. Um, but if we have that money there, changing the designation I think would be very wise. >> Okay. Yeah, I can look into how we change that designation. Other questions or comments from board members? >> Do we need a motion to do that? >> I say, do we need a motion to direct you or what do you what do you guys need going into the end of the month meeting? So, we'll start to formulate a plan uh that does not involve fees >> or cutting kits. >> What's
125that? >> Or cutting kits. or cutting kits. Yeah, keeping the same level of programs and being creative with uh and we'll learn a little bit more. >> Can I ask a clarifying question? Do you also mean cutting services, for example, the one-on-one supports >> like the reading and the special ed support? >> I'd like to leave that if if possible. I'd like to leave that. I I really I could be nuts, but but I think that after school one-on-one has really helped um that at risk asked need when we're looking at at school report cards and thing. I I really think that that moving the last couple years hasn't just been a fluke. >> And with Act 20, I hate to pull away a support that will help us with Act 20 and the the
126movement that we need to make there as well. >> Yeah. So, if if we can, let's let's try to not remove any of the touch points that we have. um and find dollars just reallocating dollars we already have. >> Thank you for the direction. >> I know it's super early and that we probably don't know that information, but if everything were to stay the same, what would our mill rate be today? like that's what >> number memorized because it will change with the facility referendum that was just approved. So I I couldn't tell you off the top of my head, but I'll bring that or I'll put it in the weekly note >> because I don't think it's as much as increasing the community service levy as making sure kind of stay. Yeah. My thought
127is now that we have direction to do it through the levy, we'll come back with analysis of the complete levy so you can make a full picture decision. >> Other questions or comments from board members? >> Yeah, please. >> Um kind of echoing what what um Pat said here. Um, I would hate to have to increase the summer one along with charging the families anything. Um, you know, see where everything flakes up or shakes out, but I'd like to be able to say we could do that. Um, especially not increasing the summer one and keeping the one one um how he's met Sammy. One to one has made a huge difference for him. um and special needs. And the summer one, I would be worried how that might affect with the uh the low-income families
128that are free and reduced um and any hardship that could put on them and if we'd be able to they'd be able to to find any other ways to finance it through grants or through state programs or community or county programs. So, any other comments? Moving on. Discussion of possible recommendation to approve a new district-wide VIP phone system. Miss Hower. >> All right. Well, first I'm gonna introduce you to Matt. If you don't know him, Matt's our new director of technology. Um, he moved up into the role from our network and systems manager. So, he has a really great knowledge of our district and our technology. Um, and he's doing a wonderful job in the director role. So, um, I'll be here to support, but Matt's done a lot of research on the phone system.
129Um, this is the phones that are on every desk throughout the district. And yeah, take it away. >> So, our current phone system is now owned by Mel, who filed for bankruptcy this year. Um, we've been having a terrible time getting bids and uh, support from them. Uh, no idea really what's going on futurewise with how that's going to shake out with their reorganization, whatever they got going on. Um, I haven't really been able to get any information out of them as to what that is going to look like in the future. So, we started looking at other options of what we can do to place the MEL system. >> I think that's >> Yeah. And this is something we've been aware of for several months though. This is work that started under Chris and
130Matt was working on it then too. Um so this is something that we've been having a pulse on I would say throughout the whole winter. Um and the further we go the more uncertainty we get. And so um Matt felt comfortable that we're now at the point that he could make a recommendation for a replacement. and we we know that that's what what needs to happen and so we're ready to make that recommendation. >> So we did look at three different options. Um ring one the first being ring central the second one for voice and the third one nextia. Um we analyzed the hardware costs of all of them which is basically just the phones and hardware stuff. Um and you see the numbers here. Ring Central and NextTV are similar and Ford Voice was
131quite a bit higher on the hardware side. And then we looked at the annual operating cost for the software and the back end of all these systems. And these are the numbers that came back. And >> um so the hardware can come out of our facility referendum. And so that is a line item we already have in that budget. Uh the annual operating cost would come out of the technology budget in the general fund. And in the end we came up with the recommendation of Ring Central being what we recommend uh based on cost and the features are higher with it than the other options. Uh we talked to other districts. Um get for example is doing the same thing we're doing right now. They are I think today actually they are implementing Ring Central.
132Um Lacrosse, West Salem are all doing the same exact thing we're doing right now, trying to figure out what to do with their phone system. I don't think they've made any decisions yet, but they're doing the same thing we're looking at right now. Um, when we looked at the features, we took into account safety and security and the best practices there. And in talking with principles and the safety committee on what features they're looking at for when we're in um, a classroom hold or a lockdown, things like that. Um, and changing from lots of parents liking text messages and things like that. That was a feature that we looked for and Ring Central checked all the boxes on all of our priorities. >> Questions or comments from board members? a phone option. So, you can
133use your computer or personal cell phone to make calls and make it look like you're calling from your desk phone rather than your personal cell phone. >> All staff will have a desk. >> Yes. Yes. >> We don't, I think, currently know what the number with renovations will be, but we're based it off of the current number of phones we have. What we do know is at the high school there won't be additional rooms from what we currently have. Um,00 basically we rounded up to 500 when we did the pricing analysis. Um, but that should more than cover what we'll need. So it I misspoke when I said every staff. It's every occupied space. So if it's a space that somebody's working in, it gets a phone and then business or is that >> I
134mean they don't have to. They also have the desk phone so they don't have to. It's it's an option that we didn't have before that is an option now. >> No, it's included in the Yeah. >> So, an example might be um a principal needs a parent to call them. They don't want to give them their personal cell phone number. They can give them their office number and through the magic they can have their cell phone ring when the parent calls the office phone number. Something like that. So do you know how the annual cost compared to what we're playing for shortel myel now >> that is consistent so we don't have an apples to apples comparison Um, it is definitely more so, but not because this is overpriced. It's because what we currently have
135is questionable. >> Okay. Thank you. >> Yeah. >> Other questions or comments from board members? >> If not, I would accept a motion. Yep. Uh to approve the purchase of a new phone system through Ring Central. no under consent. Uh however, in August when we go to the policy uh update, I believe we can because we went out for bids and you can put bids uh on consent. So, >> do you want a dollar amount or no? No. >> A motion for Mr. Wells. We have a second. >> Second for Mr. Gonkey. All in favor? >> Motion carries. 60. I think we're at the end. Move on to the next one. >> Can I get a motion to adjurnn? >> Second. >> All in favor? >> Found it. Like to call this meeting to order.
136A meeting has been noticed by Evans Sprint Media Group. WCW radio magnum radio lacrosse tribute in Sparta City Hall and Spartfield library. Are there any changes to the agenda? >> No. >> Could I get a motion to adopt the agenda as stated? >> Motion from Mr. Wells. >> Second from Miss Barren. All in favor? >> Do we have any public input? >> Business. A discussion and possible action to approve a new resource for me social studies classes. Miss Mansky, >> get to hear a lot from me tonight. I love it. >> Do these slides meet your expectations? [Laughter] >> The safari hat did it. >> It's a discovery hat. All right. So, um, social studies and the middle school, um, adopted the discovery edbook in 2020. Um, and their main consideration was that they wanted
137to have something that had a digital cons um, component, which was very important that year with CO. Um, however, it's not working super great right now. The videos are laggy. The student experience is cumbersome, so they're having to click in multiple places. um to be able to engage in the content the way that the teachers want the students to engage in it. Um and it's kids um don't want to just have a digital experience. Kids sometimes just want a book to look at. Um and I think we've all kind of heard that like just let me not use my iPad sometimes. Um and so so that's why we needed to look at a new resource. So, our review team was Nate, Nate, and Gabe. So, um Nate Paulnau, Gabe Miller, and Nate Mitchell all looked
138at several different resources. Um and so we reviewed texts from H Hotton, Mifflin, Savis, HMH, Herort. I I had this is two times, Mr. Russ. I had it in my head and by the time I got to the slide to write down what HMH stands for, it's gone again. HMH is three different companies and I cannot remember it. Um and then National Geographic was was the other company that we we um considered. Um some of the res some of the criteria that we looked at not just online resources this time um but we wanted there to be a print resource. We looked a lot at the readability of the text. um that was a really important um feature that that the teachers looked at um that they wanted there to be accessibility features for EL
139students and they wanted it there it to be easy for the kids to use. They didn't want kids to have to click eight times to find what they were looking for. Um and so ultimately the resources that they liked the best were National Geographic. Um, so grade six looking at world culture and geography survey version. Um, grade seven, world history, great civilizations and grade 8 American stories. Um, some of the really cool features with the online version, they can actually take the passages and they can actually change the reading level um to different text um, different Lexile levels. So they can, you know, for an EL student that's at a level two language level, they can actually adjust the text um readability level so that a student that has an IEP questions or comments from
140board members. You did say they could have access at like at home. >> Okay. >> Any other questions or comments or would accept a motion? motion from Dr. Bernett, second from Mr. Wells. All in favor? I opposed. Motion carries 6. Discussion of possible action to approve employment recommendations. Mr. Russ. >> Yes. and board docs. We do have some uh employment for you to approve um and pending. Any questions? We'll take a motion with a second. >> Questions or comments from board members? >> It's posted. Um, it's even we even promoted the extra, you know, the high demand stipend on there and I know Mr. Ford's working very hard to fill that position. So, if you know any teched, anyone interested in teched, art, special ed, without going into it. U Mr. Shaw um decided to
141um move out of the area. >> Yep. Yep. We wish him nothing but the best. >> Yep. >> I don't think it was an easy decision for him. >> Other questions or comments from board members? Not. I would accept a motion. >> Motion from Miss Lopez, second for Mr. Gonkey. Roll call, please. >> Yes. >> Mrs. Lopez, >> yes. >> Miss Barren, yes. Mr. Wells, >> Mr. Gonkey, >> yes. >> Mr. McKenna, >> yes. Motion carries 60. Could I get a motion to adjurnn? >> All in favor? >> Go home.