001area public school board meeting for Monday, November 10th to order. Um, I will note that we allow public access to our meetings. Members of the public can attend meetings in person. We also live stream meetings. Um, and we also record meetings. So, if someone isn't able to watch our meeting this evening in particular because the Packers are playing, um, you're able to, uh, take a look at it tomorrow. Anyhow, we will move into the meeting uh roll call and verification of for quum. >> Miss Bushman is excused. Miss Mercer >> here. >> Mr. Pope >> here. >> Mr. Libre >> here. >> Miss Potter Nelson >> here. >> Mr. Lee >> here. >> Mr. Kowalsski >> here. >> Mr. Summers >> here. >> We have a quorum. >> Oh, Miss Earler. I'm sorry. I just
002took it for granted. >> Uh, could we stand for the pledge of allegiance, please? I pledge allegiance to the flag of the United States of America and to the republic for which it stands, one nation under God, indivisible, with liberty and justice for all. We will move into our Mandana Bliss Award presentation. The Mandana Bliss Award is a symbol of our deep appreciation for the unwavering commitment and outstanding efforts demonstrated by our staff members for educational excellence in the Stevens Point Area Public School District. It is named in honor of Mandana Hail Bliss, Stevens Point's first school teacher and trailblazer whose exceptional service and dedication continue to inspire us all. And I will turn it over to Corey. >> Sure. Thank you, Meg. So, tonight we get to honor one of our bus drivers at
003the transportation department. Her name is Lisa Flugrat and I would describe her as our number one cheerleader at the transportation department. She's always willing to do whatever is asked of her and she's been an outstanding and consistent bus driver for many, many years. So with that, I'm going to ask Lisa to come forward and I'm going to ask Lee Noiki, the transportation manager, to say a few words about her. Congratulations, Lisa. >> Well, good evening everyone. It is with great respect and appreciation that I nominate Lisa for the Mandela Bliss Award. With 26 years of dedicated service as school bus driver, Lisa has consistently demonstrated unwavering commitment to the students, staff, and our broader school community. Every morning and afternoon, she ensures our students travel safely, greeting each children with a smile and treating them
004with the same care and respect she would her own family. Her calm presence, positive attitude, and genuine compassion make a lasting impression on her students and the parents alike. Beyond her daily route, Lisa goes above and beyond in many ways. She has taken on an important role of a service coordinator for our summer bus washing program, ensuring that our fleet is clean, well-maintained, and ready for each school year. She coordinates this with efficiency, pride, modeling responsibility, and teamwork for others. Lisa is the definition of a team player. Whether it's stepping in to assist a fellow driver, helping with logistics, or offering support wherever it's needed, Lisa is always willing to lend a hand. Her kindness, her reliability, and her work ethic set a high standard and is truly an invaluable part of our transportation department.
005Through her quiet leadership and years of devoted service, Lisa truly embodies the spirit of the end of this award. She exemplifies excellence in our work and compassion and her interactions enriching the culture of our district every single day. Her dedication not only keeps our students safe and supportive, but also strengthens the community that makes our schools thrive. Congratulations. >> Thank Congratulations. >> I just love my job and my students. So, >> thank you very much for all you've done, Lisa. We're going to have you uh take a picture with me and I in the front and then we'll have you go around the table and each will never like congratulate. >> All right. All right. >> Thank you for all you do. >> I remember being at Piper with you. You know we were >>
006all right. Perfect. >> Thank you. >> Start right here. >> Everything you do for the kids. >> Thank you. Congratulations. >> Congratulations. Welld deserved. >> For many years you served us. >> Thanks so much. How many years have you been? >> Uh 26 driving in a couple years of being made. >> So >> yeah. >> Thank you so much. Thank you so much. >> Thank you. >> I have three kids who ride the bus. So, thank you. >> Thank you. >> Congratulations once again to Lisa. >> Our next item will be public comments. Um did we have anybody sign up for public comments? Do we receive any emails for public comments? All right. So we will then move on to the next portion of the agenda um which is our presentations and um we will
007be calling on Lily Meeks to give us the student spash student senate representative report. >> All right, good evening folks. I hope everyone's Halloween weekend went well. I would like to start us off with that specific weekend and how big it was for Spash. The Thursday before Halloween, our Spash Girl swim team took first place at conference and just competed at sectionals in Hudson this past weekend, taking second place. Five swimmers, Claire Pilgar, Kono, sorry if I mispronounced that. Claire Lumpky, Bella Hoff, and Jenna Barber will compete in the 200 medley relay, 400 freestyle relay, 500 just 50, 50 freestyle, 100 free, 100 backstroke, and 200 IM at the state meet Saturday in Waka. Claire Pilgar actually broke two records at sectionals and is now a school record holder as well. And I believe um
008the state sendoff is Thursday at 11. and lower Commons at Spash. I'm pretty sure that's right. Um, the Spash Boys cross country team had their state meet on Thursday, Saturday the 1st as well, and for the fourth time in a row, they took first place. This is their program's 15th state championships. They definitely have a lot more to go. They're really good. Another great victory we had over the weekend, the holiday weekend, was um our girls volleyball team. They won sectionals on November 1st, qualifying them for the state tournament. They put up an amazing fight against Divine Savior Holy Angels, but unfortunately did not take the win. The drama department had a wonderful performance and great attendance for their musical, The Adams Family at shows last Thursday, Friday, and Saturday. Congratulations to the cast, crew,
009and live student orchestra for great performances. Spash's winter sports are kicking it into gear. Believe it or not, today the season opens for girls basketball, girls and boys hockey, and gymnastics with boys basketball, boys swimming, and girls and boys wrestling starting next week. As always, the music department is going to be very busy coming up, especially with the holidays right around the corner. The jazz classes are having a concert this Thursday at 7:30 in the Spash Auditorium and our band is performing in the parade on November 20th downtown. Speaking of music, congratulations to SPASH students who performed in state honors programs this past month. Also, sorry if I pronounced anybody's names wrong here. Congratulations to Ian Kame and Alexander Christian for performing in the state honors band and to Conan Oops, Keegan Oops, and Kiki
010Lays for performing in the state honors orchestra. And that will end the Spash update for tonight. Thank you all for listening and have a wonderful November and Thanksgiving break. >> Thank you, Lily. >> All right, we will move into our communication report with Sarah. Oh, I don't need that anymore. Thank you. >> What if I just do that? >> Oh, thanks, Chris. I thought I fixed it. All right, jumping into our communications report um for coverage in October. We have here just the litany of wonderful events that we were able to cover and participate in and um starting with homecoming up at Spash, which feels like it was a really long time ago. Um through uh Banic Bulldog Dash, Susicle Jr. uh presented by the Playhouse Theater Group. Uh we got to see local apples
011in our lunchroom, celebrate our national school lunch week. Um see some really adorable mini palms cheerleaders with a bright future. Uh celebrating our Mandana Bliss Awards. Um all the way down to dance party Thursdays for 4K with t-shirts made by the teacher. They wear them every Thursday and have a dance party. So I mean it was just a really great month. looking at our website and digital engagement. Um, as we've been talking about for that website, what we have seen since launching is a significant decrease in total views when we look year-over-year. So, remember, we're not looking month over month. I really want to compare year-over-year. And I was pretty sure that that was going to maintain kind of that downward lower trend throughout the year. And October surprised me. We were up 10% in
012views year-over-year. So, we're just going to keep monitoring and see what that does. Always glad to see those numbers go up. Um, but kind of shoots my theory right in the foot. So, um, engagement was also continuing to be up. We're up to that 7 minute mark, which doesn't seem like a lot, but is quite high. You can see that's a pretty big jump over what we were measuring um on the previous website last year and our key event count continues to be really high. So folks are finding and downloading and engaging with content that we um want them to and hope for them to. Our top three most visited pages, no surprises there, district homepage, res resources for staff, the spash homepage, and then I threw in four and five just because I'm really
013proud of that boys cross country team um was both boys cross country and their schedule. website audits are complete. We are a little bit ahead of schedule for that. Very excited to see that. Um we'll continue to work with schools as we work on our um title 2 digital engagement um work making sure that we're compliant by April. That was really the purpose of those audits. So we're ahead of schedule looking good there. Media coverage for October was very good. We saw um coverage from hosting digital safety, our digital safety and engagement, some school bus safety pieces, um certainly sports coverage, and then some really nice coverage for that brand new playground over at McDell. Looking at our social media engagement, we were up overall throughout the month, uh which is good to see. Um,
014impressions were up 12 and a half% month overmonth and engagement was up 9.8% month overmonth. Um, and we expect to see good impressions and engagement for November as well. Our most engaged post of the month was Mr. Ben Troyer being named Mr. Spash, community favorite. And then looking ahead, um, this continues to be what we're looking at uh, covering for this first semester. We're working on that midyear update which again will go out um in January. Uh continuing to tell stories along that engagement and recognition of that believe belong theme, our points of pride, Mandana Bliss. Um continuing to build that internal capacity and support around the digital accessibility work that needs to get done as well as just building capacity overall for communications and our clerical and administrative communication. and then continuing to work
015on those campaigns. Um, our enrollment with segmentation, which we'll get to talk more about tonight. Uh, budget awareness and communication, implementation of our new messaging system, which went very well, as did our test this last month. So, we know that that system is up and working um, should we need it with some snow. Um, and then state report card information will be released tomorrow. With that, I'll take any questions. Any questions for Sarah? >> Thank you, Sarah. >> All right, we'll move into Corey's superintendent report. Thank you, Meg. Next week is American Education Week, so I'd like to take just a few minutes to recognize our wonderful staff for their dedication and hard work. Um, I appreciate all that they do every single day on behalf of students. Um, I believe we have an outstanding
016staff. We really, really do. and they they work very very hard every day and are committed to our students and I I appreciate each and every one of them very much. Next, I just wanted to publicly say congratulations to the boys cross country team um for winning their fourth state championship along with coach Beny and Kevin Hop. Congratulations to the state vol girls volleyball team who made it to state as well as coach Mack. We had a spash debate team that has done well recently. Uh they were at the Westbend challenge and Akiva Lion and Mila Seni went three and 0 in their very first challenge. William Krusky took second as an individual speaker and Ben Shower took first place as an individual speaker. So thank you to those students and their coach Scott Ahern.
017We recently learned that we were the recipient of a $200,000 grant from the United States Tennis Association um for their venue services grant. That is to enhance our lighting at the Spash Tennis Courts. So, great job to the tennis coach and um Dave Hower for their work in submitting that grant. Polar Pond Plunge is December 13th from 10:00 until noon. I know Carla is looking for jumpers. So any board members that are interested in jumping Jim Lee Peek. Um >> is that a clause in my contract doing dangerous activities? >> Just let Carla know if you're interested in participating in that. Uh recently we we received some donations from individuals for the money for meals program which has been very beneficial to families. We received a $500 donation from Rosalie Simone. We received a $1,000
018donation from Justin Asqu. And the Peace United unit United Church of Christ donated $717.50. Additionally, the James and Martha Shoe Fund donated $3,824.61 for general use at Kennedy Elementary School. So once again, we've got a lot of community support for our schools and for programs that help to support students. So thank you very much. Board members, just an update, as well as anyone in the community who might be interested in having their name on the ballot for the April election. If you are interested, you must submit paperwork by December 1 through January 6th. Any board members that are up for election that might not be interested in running, there is non-candid candidacy paperwork that must be filled out by December 26th. If we need a primary, that will happen on February 17th and then the
019spring election is on April 7th. Then I just wanted to to mention SPASH families. Soon you will be getting a message from SPASH regarding an enhanced safety practice called securely pass. This is going to be implemented with students to improve building security and to streamline school services and will also accelerate some cafeteria checkout. Next, parent teacher conferences start tomorrow. So, we have evening conferences at our high school tomorrow from 4 to 8. We have conferences in the evening. On the 13th at our junior highs, on the 17th, there is no school. There's conferences from 11 o'clock until 7:00. And then on the 20th, we have the elementary evening conferences from 4 to 8. And lastly, just a reminder that Thanksgiving is soon going to be here and that break happens from November 26th to November
02028th. >> Board members have any questions for Corey? Cory, remind me for um board candidacy next year, will we run will there be eight candidates allowed on the >> So there will be four open seats. So if we get one more than half of the open seats, so nine will need a primary and then the one who gets the lowest number of votes will have a one-year term and will be on the ballot the following year. So, the person who gets the fourth lowest votes. >> What did I say? You said the lowest vote. Oh, it's the fourth. Yeah. >> The lowest out of the four. >> Lowest out of the four. Yeah. >> Can we get the dates for parent teacher conferences sent to us or something? You said them, but I didn't get
021a chance to write it down. >> Yeah, I'll do that. >> 17th and the 20th for elementary. >> You said tomorrow >> for elementary or the 17th and the 20th. >> Yeah. If we could just get >> I'll send them all to you, G. >> Thank you, Corey. >> Yep. Thanks. >> All right, we will move into item D, which is community change and projections report, MD Roers Consulting. Sure. So, I'm going to welcome Nick Johnson. Nick works for MD Roers. If you recall, the board uh supported our decision to have MD Roers do some extensive work regarding enrollment and projections um for now going up to year 2040. So Nick is here tonight. Unfortunately, Mark was not able to be here. He is vacationing with his family tonight. >> He might be in the
022air currently. >> In the air. Okay. Hopefully he's in the air. >> I hope so. Right. Yeah. So, with that, I'm going to turn it over to Nick to share um his findings. >> Oh, great. Well, well, thank you for that introduction, Corey. Again, I'm Nick Johnson, a planner and project manager with uh MD Rogers Consulting. >> Oh, this just worked. There we go. Okay. So, about MD Rogers Consulting. Uh so, we are an urban planning firm. Uh we're based in Madison, but we work with clients all over the state of Wisconsin. Uh about half of the work that we do is your typical urban planning work. Uh so we're the planners for about half a dozen municipalities across the state. We help them with zoning uh code updates, uh subdivision plat review, development review,
023uh long range comprehensive planning for the municipality. Uh that's half of the work that we do. The other half of the work that we do is working with school districts uh and helping them with enrollment projections and also with long range facility planning. Uh we have projected enrollment for almost 50 Wisconsin school districts uh including the nearby Wasau school district. We had a very long project with them uh last year and I think even a little bit the year before uh but other similar school districts like Lacrosse as well as River Falls. Uh our methodology uh isn't just about growing existing kids up. Uh we do that, but we also look at uh housing and neighborhood trends, housing characteristics, housing age, home sales, um demographic change, births, all sorts of other data that we'll get
024into today. Uh an outline of my presentation. First, I'll go over recent trends in your district. This will include enrollment trends, but also housing trends and demographic trends. I'll do a brief overview of our methodology. Uh then I'll get into our projections. I'll start with our housing projections, then get into our enrollment projections, compare those projections to the current school uh capacities of your your school buildings, uh and then wrap this up uh what this all means for you all. You know, you're presented with these enrollment projections. Uh so what do they exactly mean? Uh this is a summary of our significantly more detailed report that I think you all have in front of you. So recent trends in the Stevens Point area public school district uh enrollment decreased by about 320 students or about
0254% over the past decade. Uh with that decrease mainly concentrated in your lower grade groups, your 4K as well as your elementary grade groups. Uh that's mainly attributed to fewer babies being born particularly over the last decade. Uh as well as slight increases in open enrollment out as well as private school enrollment. Uh drilling down further, uh open enrollment out increased uh but has stabilized over the past few years. Uh open enrollment in that's that green line that you see on that graph that has also slightly increased at a lower magnitude and also has remained pretty stable over the last three or four academic years. Private school enrollment in the district also increased uh but similar to open enrollment has remained very stable over the last few years. Enrollment at the eight private schools operating
026in the district increased by about a 100 students over the last decade. That increase was mostly concentrated at the beginning of this decade really pretty much due to the pandemic uh and most public schools having either hybrid or learning uh online learning environments and most uh private schools have in-person learning environments. Uh since the 2022 academic year, the last three years, private school enrollment has remained stable. Uh this graph shows births in the Stevens Point Area Public School District over the last 24 years. Uh so 2000 is in the leftmost part of the graph. 2024 is in the rightmost part of the graph. Uh the first half of that graph uh in the 2000's decade, there were generally stable births in the district. Uh births then decreased from about 618 in 2010 to about 451
027in 2023. uh that has directly translated to your recent 4K and elementary enrollment decreases. The district is not alone. Uh almost every school district in the state is experiencing decreasing births. We have seen a slight increase uh from 2023 to 2024 uh in births uh which we attribute to a slight increase in the reproductive age population that we've seen over the last decade. This is one of the many uh specific age cohorts that we look at in every school district project we work in. Uh we look at the population age 25 to 44. So this age cohort is the main generator of of of babies and future children in your schools. Uh the median age in the district did increase from about 33 years old in 2010 to about 35 years old in 2020. Mainly
028due to a very large increase in your senior age population. Still that reproductive age population increased slightly by about 380 students. That might help stabilize births. Uh and we think it will over the next few years with declining births after more to come. There has also been a recent increase in housing development uh really in response to a regional housing shortage. Over the past decade, we saw about 2400 new housing units built in the district. uh that increased from about an average of 210 in the late 2010s uh to an average of about 270 new housing units per year at the beginning half of this decade. Uh and the type of housing that's being built really matters for student generation. Typically, uh what we see in school districts as well as here in the Stevens
029Point school district is brand new single family homes generate the most students for a school district. uh brand new apartments generate the fewest students for a school district. Looking at uh student generation from brand new single family homes, we looked at two methods to determine how this type of housing was generating students in the district. Uh one was a survey that we sent out uh two addresses that of of newly built homes that were built over the past 5 years. Uh and then the second was an in-house analysis where we did a analysis looking at all of the student addresses uh in the Stevens Point area school district comparing that to the average uh to the addresses of homes that were sold in the district over the last 5 years. I'm sorry, addresses of homes
030that were built in the district over the last 5 years. Uh those two analyses provided very similar results uh showing that each new single family home generates about 0.5 students for a school district. So you need about two new single family homes to generate one student for your school district. A lot lower than what the public perception is. Um and I would say that this average of about 0.5 per unit is on the higher end for some of our more urban school districts like the Stevens Point School District. Looking at other types of housing, denser types of housing. Uh we have duplexes, they generate about an average of 0.25 students per unit for each new duplex. Uh new town home style multiple family. Uh apartments generate about 08 students per unit. Uh this is in
031the second image uh in the far right side of the screen that you see there. Uh this type of housing is often larger, often has more bedrooms, uh often has a private entrance, a private garage, uh tends to produce students at higher higher rates than do new apartments that are shown in the bottom image there. Uh that have smaller units, often fewer bedrooms, shared entrances and parking. That's uh Lake Park apartments in Clover. Uh that type of housing generates students at about 002 rate. So you need about 50 of those to generate one student compared to about two single family homes to generate one student. Uh looking at existing single family homes, we also did an analysis looking at uh how home sales of existing homes. So not new homes but homes that are 10
03220 30 40 50s 50 years old. How the home sales of that type of housing are generating students. Uh the results range from about 3 to.5 student per home sale. So again, about every two to three existing home sales are generating a student for the district. Uh so the end takeaway here, the end lesson is that strong home building as well as strong home sales uh really help with student generation. Uh we also looked at multiple demographic and housing factors across your entire district. More to come in uh the methodology section that's next. Uh but which of those specific demographic and housing factors uh were the most positively impactful on student enrollment on student generation? Uh the three that most stuck out of about the dozen or so that we analyzed uh were higher household
033incomes. So median household incomes greater than $80,000 per year. Uh going off that home sales data that I just talked about, neighborhoods that had significant percentages of their homes sold uh over the past 5 years generated greater numbers of students. And then also newer homes, homes that were built in the 1990s and later. Uh these tend to be larger, tend to have more bedrooms, tend to also have more modern amenities like uh on suite bathrooms, walk-in closets versus homes that were built before the 1990s. Uh this is I think map 6B from our report showing our existing single family home sales across the district. Uh where we where we mapped the concentrations of home sales that have been occurring uh from 2020 to 2024. Uh and over the past five years in the county, uh
034the number of home sales has has decreased. Uh a lot of that is due to rising interest rates, uh and folks kind of feeling stuck within the housing market. Uh that trend did not actually hold place here in the Stevens Point area school district where we saw home sales increase over the last year from 2023 uh to 2024. Uh geographically, home sales are are particularly focused uh near a few of your schools, particularly Roosevelt, uh Jefferson, Washington, McKinley, and Madison elementary schools. Looking at student generation from existing denser housings types, so existing apartments, existing duplexes that are greater than 10 years old, uh they tend to generate students at a bit greater rates than new apartments or new duplexes. they often tend to be cheaper and they often tend to be larger uh than the
035new product coming online. Uh older existing duplexes generate about.33 students per unit and existing and older apartments uh generate students at about.16 uh students per unit in the district. So getting into our methodology uh it's appendix A in our report. Uh it's probably several pages long, although significantly less detail than in the report. Uh but we divided the district into 90 specific neighborhoods. Uh you have quite an expansive district. So we have a lot uh more neighborhoods than what we typically do in some of our projects. Uh these were based on uh attendance areas for your elementary schools, for your junior high schools, major roads, other major geographic factors. Uh for each of those 90 neighborhoods, we then determined the number of housing units that are in each neighborhood as of June when we began
036this project. In step three, using student address data that was supplied by the district, we were able to geocode, which is basically placing all of the students within your school district in one of those 90 neighborhoods. Uh then with the housing units and the number of students, we calculate what we call a student perhousing unit ratio. If there's 50 students in a neighborhood and 100 housing units, that neighborhood's generating students at a 0.5 ratio. Uh, step four is looking at demographics, existing housing characteristics, as well as future housing expectations within each of the 90 neighborhoods. Uh, step five, we projected our housing units for our four projection periods, 2027, 2030, 2035, and 2040. Uh step six is then looking at those major factors that have an impact on uh enrollment here in the Stevens Point
037school district. So those major demographic as well as housing factors. Uh then we projected our student per housing unit ratio. So how we anticipate the housing in that neighborhood generating students based on its characteristic characteristics and based on its uh existing housing and demographics as well as any new housing we project in that neighborhood. Step eight uh is multiplying our projected units by our projected student per housing unit ratios. That gives us our resident enrollment projections. Uh step nine is just shifting some of those resident students around. Uh we know that there are students that live in some neighborhoods but attend Point of Discovery or Charles Fernandez. They might attend the online learning center. Uh they might introduce a transfer. Perhaps they live in the Roosevelt attendance area but they attend Clover Whiting. Um and
038then the last step is uh including your open enrollment in students keeping that number constant uh from the figure as of the last academic year when we began this project. Getting into our actual projections starting with our housing projections. Uh we project just over 3,800 new housing units in your district by 2040. An average of about 250 or so new housing units per year. uh greater than what we saw over the past decade, but generally tracks with what we've been seeing over the last few years since 2020. Uh the vast majority of new housing, unsurprisingly, we project will be located in two of your most populous municipalities. Uh the city of Seven Point uh and the village of Clover, we project two out of every three new units will be a duplex or a multiple
039family unit of some type. Uh which as we know generates students at quite quite lower rates than do new single family homes. Looking at the city of Stevens Point specifically, we project 1,700 new housing units in the city by 2040. An average of about 116 new units per year. Again, greater than what we saw in the city over the past decade, but does reflect what we've been seeing over the last few years. Uh we project one out of every five of those new units in the city will be a single family home and then four out of five will be a duplex or a multiple family unit. And while that percentage of single family is very low, uh there were very few new single family homes built in the city over the last decade. Uh
040almost all of your recent single family development has occurred in the village of Clover. Uh we project single family uh new single family homes to really be concentrated in eastern growth areas of the city of Stevens Point. Multiple family there as well. uh but also projected in and near downtown where you've already recently had quite a bit of new apartments and new multiple family being built. The Highway 66 corridor as well as along Maria Drive. Looking at the village of Clover, we project 1,500 new units in the village by 240, about a 100 per year, very similar to what we've seen over the past decade. We project quite a bit more uh single family development in Plover uh with just under half of that total new housing units coming in the form of a single
041family home uh and then the remainder being duplex and multiple family units. Uh the vast majority of new housing in Clover uh geographically we expect will be east of Interstate 39 uh where a lot of recent development has occurred uh over the past few years in Plover. Uh looking at some of your other communities, uh we only really project, you know, more significant housing development to occur in the towns of Hull and Stockton. Uh each projected to have about 100 to 125 new single family homes uh through 2040. Uh these two towns are located east and north of uh Stevens Point and Clover. Uh they're close to the existing development, the existing urban area, jobs, highways. uh they generally have plans that are supportive of new housing development as well. Many of your other communities
042uh in your district, we do not project as many new housing units there. Uh most of those are either smaller towns, smaller communities in uh western or northern parts of your district. Um or there are towns that have generally farmer preservation uh policies where uh it's very difficult to build new housing in those communities. uh looking at the total housing units uh projected by your nine current elementary school attendance areas. So these are housing unit projections, not enrollment projections, but they do kind of set the stage for what you're going to see for enrollment projections. Uh about one out of every three new housing units we project in your district uh will occur in the current Clover Whitening attendance area. Not surprising. That's where the village of Clover is anticipating its major growth area for
043for the next decade or two. uh 20% we expect will be in the current Madison area and 17% in the current Banic attendance area. Looking at single family homes, uh we know single family homes are the greatest generator of students. Uh that type that housing type uh in the Stevens Point Area School District, uh we project uh just under half of every new single family home in the district through 20 240 will be in the current Clover Whiting attendance area. about a third in the Bic attendance area. So about 75% of all of your new single family homes will be in those two attendance areas. Not surprising, they are the eastern two attendance areas in your district. Now actually getting into our enrollment projections. I know that was a lot of information beforehand, but it
044certainly sets the stage uh and is all of the information that we analyzed and calculated as part of our enrollment projections. Uh by 2040, uh we do project a decrease of about 470 students uh in the Stevens Point area public school district, about 30 fewer or so students per year on average. Uh the average over the past couple years has actually been about 50 to 60 students decrease uh over the last two or three academic years. So more of a moderate decrease that we project through 20 240. Uh but still continuing decreasing household sizes. Uh a large percentage of the housing we expect will be multiple family housing. Uh as well as somewhat declining birth rates especially in the 2030s that we'll get into in a couple slides. Uh that projected enrollment decrease is moderated.
045uh it is less of a percentage and a number than what we projected in sever several of our other more urban school districts and larger school districts uh because there are a few things that are unique to Stephen's point that we haven't seen in those other areas uh like that recent increase in the reproductive age population um we project the stabilization of births through the rest of this decade uh the healthy job growth uh particularly in Stevens Point also being home to W Stevens Point certainly helps and then the significant housing construction that we project through 2040. Uh our model has many inputs including the demographic inputs, home sales, housing characteristics, but also students generated from new housing. Uh so we're able to in our model just take uh all the new housing out of
046our model and therefore all of the students that are generated from new housing in our model. So under that no new housing scenario, our model would project an enrollment decrease of about 1,200 students in the district. uh by 2040. Uh our birth projections are shown here on the screen. Uh we expect births to stabilize at around that 500 mark level uh due to that increase in reproductive age population. Uh which is currently the very large millennial generation. There's about 75 million millennials in the United States. Uh we expect them to continue having children through the rest of this decade. Uh then they will begin to exit their reproductive years. They will begin to enter their late 40s. Uh and then the main generator of births through the 2030s will be the generation Z uh generation
047uh which is quite a bit smaller. Uh they have I think 68 million um members in the United States. So there will just be fewer people of reproductive age uh in the 2030s than than currently. Looking at the elementary projections, we project a decrease of about 200 elementary school students by 2040 with decreasing enrollment projected at most of the elementary schools, the greatest at Madison, uh, McKinley, and Roosevelt. We do project generally generally stable enrollment at Washington and Banic. And then we do project uh a pretty significant enrollment increase at Clover Whiting Elementary School. Uh you will remember we project about 1,200 new housing units in that current attendance area of which about 600 will be new single family homes. There will be a significant greater number amount of housing uh in that attendance area
048in 20 240 than there currently is today. For the junior high schools, we project a decrease of about 126 students uh through 2040 and then at Spash a decrease of about 160 students uh there through 2040. A lot of that a good portion of that decrease at spash is because the senior high school class sizes are just significantly larger uh than your lower grade levels, especially your elementary class sizes. Uh the the three spash class sizes are about 72 students larger each uh than your current elementary class sizes. So quite a bit larger. So comparing the projections to the current building capacities of your school building. So wrapping things up here. Uh in the moment projections I could just give you the data. Uh but they really provide the most significance uh when they're compared
049to the building capacities of the school buildings. So uh over the last couple months uh administrative staff underwent a a pretty significant task to uh get the most upto-date and most recent capacity ranges for the school buildings. Uh that was done by looking at class size guidelines for each grade in each school. uh as looking as well as looking at the number of core classrooms that were available in each school building. Uh that's the maximum capacity. There's a certain ratio that's done to provide a working capacity. Uh that just accommodates class size variations, classroom scheduling, and student movement. So looking at your elementary schools, uh we project by 2040 your elementary enrollment will be about 900 students fewer uh than the combined working capacity of all nine elementary schools. Uh so we project about 3,100
050elementary school students with a working capacity just under 4,000. Uh we do project there to be the greatest excess capacity. Uh so excess seats at McKinley, Madison, Kennedy, and Jefferson. Uh but we do project that capacity issue at PL Whiting. uh with that elementary school exceeding its working capacity uh within the next decade and then exceeding its maximum capacity uh in about 12 to 13 14 15 years or so by 2040. Looking at your junior high schools as well as your senior high school, we project grades seven and nine enrollment uh around 700 students fewer than the combined working capacity of your two junior high school buildings. And then at SPASH, we projected moment will be about 400 students, fewer than the working capacity of that building. Couple more slides and then I'm done. I
051know you've been hearing me talk for a while. Um, key findings, enrollment decreases over the past decade were really driven by those fewer births, especially over the last decade in the 2010s with that corresponding decrease in 4K and elementary school enrollment that we saw. modest single family home construction, especially in the city of Stevens Point. Uh, as well as the increases that we saw in open enrollment out as well as private school enrollment. Looking over the next 10 to 15 years, we project continued enrollment decreases due to those largecale demographic shifts, uh, housing shifts as well as decreasing household sizes, large percentage of housing we project will be multiple family, especially those declining birth rates uh, in the next decade. By 2040, we project significant access building capacity across all three of your grade groups
052and at many district school buildings with that one exception of clover whiting. Uh so what this all means uh so we recommend that the district uh start a long range facilities plan uh to help answer a lot of these questions that are shown here on the screen. Uh what are the implications of the enrollment projections that you just saw? uh the implications of significant excess building capacities. Uh how should we address differential enrollment capacities among elementary schools with some of your elementary schools operating at or above capacity, some operating at 50% capacity? How do your building uh locations uh building ages, building conditions, uh operating costs, uh learning suitability of some of your schools, especially some of your older schools? How do how does that factor in? Uh your current grade groupings are a little
053unusual than a lot of other school districts. How should current grade groupings be reconsidered if at all? Um are there different programming opportunities uh including the potential for future expansions to 4K? How should the district address reversing open Roman out? Um as well as engaging the community, um in this long-range facility planning process in the next steps for how the district should look. Um, one of the options is a boardappointed citizen task force. Uh, we've worked with several school districts on a board-appointed citizen task force. Um, that task force will be could be comprised of anywhere from 30 to 50 members of the public uh of differing demographics and differing backgrounds. Uh, the board often provides that task force with a charge. Um, the task force over a long period of anywhere from 6 to
05412 months. uh first gains foundational knowledge including these enrollment projections but also on many of those other aspects that I just uh talked about in those questions like current building conditions uh the district's financial conditions school programming needs and opportunities uh among many other uh pieces of knowledge and and information uh the board can establish parameters for the task force to use. Uh these are two of of many that we've worked with several school districts on like minimizing impacts on students, providing modern learning environments um among many others. Um so at the end of the long range facility planning process um often it's been phased. So there could be you know a phase that happens within the next few years, one that happens five years, one that happens in 10 years. Uh but there's often
055different options that are recommended to the board to consider from uh such a task force. Okay, I'd be more than happy to take any comments, any questions that you all have? >> Thank you. >> Do board members have any questions? >> I think I have some homework. >> So, that's a lot of information in a short amount of time in front of you. You've got the full document. Our intention is to both have the cabinet level, the administrative team, as well as the board just really digest this information and we're recommending coming back to the board in probably January with some sort of a recommendation on next steps. Nick and Mark have been very responsive to any questions that we have as we are digging in this information. So, if you have questions, reach out.
056We'll get answers to those questions and then we'll be coming forward again likely in in January. But general questions, Nick is more than willing to answer those tonight. >> I have one. How how long do we retain your services for at this point? Blake, >> our first um contract with them is is final tonight. Um this was the last part of that contract. So if we decide that we would like their services going forward, that would be part of the recommendation that I would bring forward in January. >> Is this generally consistent with what you've seen in other communities? Were there any like from your perspective, were there any surprises in what you saw here or? >> Yeah, I I mean I would say the biggest um maybe not surprise, but something that's the most
057unique to the Stevens Point area school district is um especially in some of the other larger urban districts that we've recently worked with is you capture your suburban growth. It it occurs in your district unlike the Wasau school district that has DC Everest that it competes with. uh that captures its new housing development or lacrosse that has an Alaska and homeman. Um Clover is part of their school district. They do not have their own district. Um so I think that was probably one of the things that differentiates this district more than others and I think plays out in the projections why we project less of a decrease here than we frankly did in some of those other communities. Any other questions? Um, or Ted or Alex? Any questions that you guys have? >> Really detailed
058report. It's excellent. And we have our homework cut out for us. >> I'm also looking Oh, sorry, Chad. I was also going to say I'm looking forward to uh reading the full board like the full um report once I get it. >> And Alex, um we will have that mailed to you. Nicole will put that in the mail to you tomorrow. >> Thanks. >> And I just point out that it's lack of questions isn't for lack of interest that the public may not know. Most of the time when we discuss something at a meeting, we've already seen it and discussed it previous. >> This is the first time any of us have seen this. So we're yeah just like you guys digesting what we're seeing. So that's it. >> Thanks Jim. >> 122 pages. It's
059some good at that time reading. >> I think it's our longest report to date. >> Is it? >> Yeah. Shows you how detailed, right? Also the the maps uh since we had two sets of maps for each map basically because we did an urban zoom just given how geographically expansive your district was. But should be some great data there. >> Well, thank you very much. >> Thank you very much, Nick. >> Yeah. Nice job. We appreciate your help >> because I think I'm going to get to my four-year-old bed, which is >> safe travels. Safe travels. >> Thank you, Nick. >> No deer. No deer. >> I said hopefully there's no deer. >> Yes, hopefully. So, generally speaking, board members comfortable with with the administration coming back to us in January and um you know,
060beginning to help us create what process, what structure, what timeline um for really beginning to dive into this um as a board and as well if we make the decision to go with that community task force um vision. Um, and then really be begin to be able to let the community know what that's going to look like and what what we're thinking in terms of that decision making. I mean, um, Corey Corey made the comment to me and I think Chris made the comment to me. I have also not seen any of this information until tonight. So, none of us have other than administration. Um, but there's a lot of information in here and um and it's information that that will need action. I mean, you know, assuming that these projections hold and assuming um
061which I don't see how they wouldn't, you know, we really need to take a look at this and we need to make decisions that are in the best interest of the district, our our kids, um our taxpayers, our schools. Will the public have access to this full report? >> At some point they will. Um we haven't really made a decision when we'll do that, but we'll likely create a web page that will, you know, put a lot of information on so people can can go there and reference that. >> At the at the conference Saturday, uh there are school districts that hold working sessions for the board members, like a single topic working sessions. And I wonder if anybody, it might be premature to suggest that, but in the next couple months, because I would
062read through this and I'd have tons of questions, but it might be helpful to have everybody in this setting to bounce things off of. >> Good point. >> Any other initial thoughts? Think there's going to be a lot of A lot of >> a lot of reading. >> Thank you, Nick. Much appreciated. >> Thank you, Nick. >> All right, we will move into our uh consent agenda. Um we have the minutes of the prior school board meeting of 1013, 2025. The minutes of the public hearing 202526 budget for uh October 27th, 2025. the minutes of the special school board meeting of October 27th, 2025. Um just a little change uh with the next item. Um it's noted on our agenda that it's the minutes of the special schoolboard meeting of November 3rd, 2025. That actually
063is the meeting of the special the four board members doing the interviews and making the recommendation um for our ED services committee meeting um for tonight. And so we wanted those minutes approved because we will be acting on that. Um Nicole will be changing that title to reflect that it was not a special board meeting. It was a um committee meeting for the ED services interviews. Um and then we have the approval of the schedule of monthly bills and um then we have the employment recommendations. So I am looking for a motion to approve the consent agenda. >> So moved. >> Second. >> All right. I have a motion and a second. Any discussion? >> I had a question. I looked for the employment recommendations. I couldn't find them. >> There weren't any this month.
064>> Okay. So, um, we will have Nicole call the role, please. >> Mr. Kowolski. >> Yes. >> Mr. Summers. >> Yes. >> Miss Mercer. >> Yes. >> Mr. Pope. >> Yes. >> Mr. Librich. >> Yes. >> Miss Earler. >> Yes. Miss Potter Nelson, >> yes. >> Mr. Lee, >> yes. >> Motion carries. Great. Thank you. We will move into the business services human resources committee report and I'll turn that over to my portion of this is pretty limited tonight because we had three actions at the business services committee and they are all in front of us at the board. So Mike will present on the 2627 budget calendar guideline on the per pupil department allocation and the approval of student fees. >> Okay. >> Well, it's November and that's when we begin the process of
065building our 2627 budget. I mean, can you believe that we just are finishing up 2425? We're in the process of the audit. um 2526. We just had the budget hearing and now we're starting 2627. And the first step um is for the board to adopt the budget calendar. So what you have in your packet is the calendar. It's the same. It's not the presentation up there. It's the same as what it's been in the past. The dates are changed, but it just goes monthto month with everything that we're going to be doing over the course of from November all the way to October. Board members have any questions on Mike about that um budget calendar guideline? >> We're not limited to this. >> If we if we vote yes, we're not limited to what's on
066here, right? >> You're not I mean we could there might be other things that happen procedure that we follow every year. >> So if you look at a certain month in that calendar, you'll see the things that we're focusing on. So really our next step is to get the um budget guidelines out to all the schools and departments and they'll start building their budgets. It'll come back to us. We'll start assembling that. Those are kind of the next steps. >> All right. So I'm looking for a motion to approve the budget calendar guideline for the 2026 27 school year. >> So move second. >> All right. I have a motion and a second. Any discussion? All those in favor with I >> I. >> Any opposed with nay. >> All right. Then we move to
067the approval of per pupil and department allocations for the 2026 27 budget. >> So as I was saying to G, the next step is then getting the allocations out to the buildings and departments. So that's this process here. Um what we focused on this year is I set a goal to just keep the allocations at the 25 26 level for 26 27 even though we know prices are going up. We're going to try to hang in at the current rate. Um we'll have to re-evaluate you know once after a year and kind of see where we're at. But for 26 27, we really felt we could keep those levels flat. Um, for the school allocations, it's a little trickier on how that works. So, I put together a little slideshow to show you how we
068did that. Um, so just uh if you want to go on to the next slide, Chris, >> you should be able to just click through the clickers there. Yeah. >> Nope. >> It worked for Nick. >> I'm pushing all the buttons now. Wrong button. Oh, there we go. >> Your eyes. Um, so for school allocations, it's based on a per pupil amount. that per pupil amount is um based on the fall 2025 third Friday count and we know that those numbers went down this year. So that in a sense then reduces everyone's budget. In fact, there are 10 out of 14 schools that see a decline if we just hold that constant. Um, so our goal was or my goal was to keep the alo total allocation at zero. And so if we just keep
069the per pupil rate unchanged, we do see a a $24,962 less going out to schools. So I felt we had that those dollars to work with to kind of soften the blow of the decline in enrollment. So let's see if I can get the next slide to pop up. I think I got it figured out, Chris. So, the first thing I did is um I when I looked at Banic and uh Ben Franklin, I noticed that the per pupil allocations were different than the other elementary schools for Banic. Um Banick was a little higher. And so I tried to research that and find out why that is. And what I came up with, the only thing I could find is that the field trip distances were longer. And so, for some reason, that got put
070in a little higher, but I didn't feel like that that was an issue anymore. So, we decided to even that out with all the other elementary schools. And then for Ben Franklin and PJs, there was a discrepancy there because a few years back, the athletic budget was moved into the school budgets. And when that happened, PJ's was a lot smaller than Ben Franklin. So we increased PJ's per pupil allocation more than Ben Franklin's. And so evening I wanted to even those out as well. And when we did that, it resulted in um it was still a decrease in total allocation, but now it's at $13,184 or 7%. So the next step then was to eliminate that 7%. So I took 7% and spread it out to all the schools bringing the total allocation for all
071school buildings to zero which was the goal when I started. Um and then I think that that actually softened the bowl a little bit from some of the declining and go. All right, the next thing that we looked at was common school funds. So, common school funds, they're embedded in the school budgets. Um, and then every year we or at least in the last I I don't know, as long as I've been in the business office, I've seen common school fund allocations from the state rising. And um they're rising, but they're embedded in the school budget. So, it's hard to increase them in the school budgets without decreasing everything else. Um, so, uh, we're going to do that this year, but in order to do that, we also have to increase the per pupil rate
072to match that common school fund rate. And so, I'll just kind of explain how we did it. So, um, I took the common school fund allocation that was $63, raise that by $7 to 70. um and then um then that's going to get offset with a matching revenue. So even though we're increasing that per pupil amount, which you'll see on the next slide, um it's really going to amount to a zero increase. So if we go on the next slide, you'll actually see this. I kind of got ahead of myself, started talking about this Um, okay. So, the so you'll see the per pupil allocation rate did go up because of the common school funds. So, it actually ended up increasing the allocation to schools by $44,448 or 2.3%. But remember, that's going to have
073a matching revenue. So, the actual impact on the budget would remain at zero. So, that was the goal. Keep the allocation flat for 2627 um but adjust the per pupil so that the total dollar amount going out to the schools remains flat rather than the per pupil allocation rate and that is the end of the slides um for >> department up there though. >> Oh yeah if I knew how okay there we go. So, um, for department budgets, we kept those flat. Those aren't based on any kind of per pupil. It just was a 0% increase for 2627. Questions? >> Can you go back a few slides to that $24,000 savings figure? >> Yeah, that's the first one. >> One of the first. >> What's that little black? Oh, there. There. Uh if this is
074if the savings is because of fewer students, but we get money from the state based on number of students. So that money we wouldn't get anyway, would we? So you're projecting to use that to uh give a small increase to each school, but we we're not going to get that money, are we? >> Right. So, so you're right. With our enrollment going down, we have fewer students in which to collect revenue from. Um, and so that's why I'm keeping that rate constant at zero because our prices are still going up. Even though enrollment's declining, that doesn't mean our costs are declining with it. Um, so for me it's actually hard knowing that our projections on price increases were four to 6%. And then still telling our schools, we're going to try to keep this at
075zero. And that's our total allocation again. So the other way I could have did it, G, is I could have just held the per pupil rate flat. We've done that in the past, but I really felt like that was going to be a big goal with the amount of decline that we had um in 2000 in fall 25. Well, that my my and you know, I'm just asking for clarification because I know you're right, but that uh 20 approximately 25,000 is a result of fewer students. So, what I got from what you said before is you're taking that 25,000 to even things out >> to soften the blow. Yep. >> Soften the blow. But we don't have that. >> Well, remember this isn't this isn't we don't get this isn't based on the revenue that
076we get up here. This is just how we budget. >> So, we've been budgeting school rates based on the number of pupils for years. But when we do our department budgets and things like that, that's just a flatout >> rate. So, uh, but but you're right because we tie in a certain dollar amount of revenue, 13,000 something, right? >> Per every student that we get in the district. So, when our students go down, we do lose revenue for sure. But you will most definitely, if approved tonight, budget this as part of your budget for 2627. >> Yes, I think we have I I'm not concerned about I I do feel like we have the the money to do this, >> right? >> It's just that I'd like to do more to be honest with prices
077going up, but I just don't feel comfortable doing that. We we we are doing what we can to make the money that we got in our referendum last. Yeah, I don't understand your explanation, but I'm sure you're right. So, I will put my trust in you, Mike. >> School finance is difficult. >> Do any other board members have questions? Mike. >> Okay. Um, we are looking for two recommendations. Um, the first would be moved to recommend I'm looking for a motion to recommend the school board approve the adoption of the building per pupil allocation as proposed at a total of 1,987,558. >> Second. >> I have a motion and a second. Any discussion? All those in favor with I >> I. >> Um, any opposed? Motion carries. Um I am now looking for a motion
078to recommend the school board approve the adoption of the department allocation as proposed at a total of $8,353,444. >> So move. >> Second. >> I have a motion and a second. Any discussion? All those in favor with I >> I. >> Any oppose with nay? Motion carries. And then the final um is the approval of 2627 student B schedule. Do we have a copy? >> Good evening everyone. My name is Jack Shriber. I'm the finance manager here at the district. I am presenting the 2627 fees um that is up for this next school year. So what we've done is we've given you last year's fees along with the 2627 fee increases. Any changes were in highlights. So the main changes you will see will be the instrumental fees. We're trying to keep that across the
079board so it's the same for all schools. The next biggest change you will see is in the summer school fees on page 10. So those were board adopted in March. So we're just trying to update our fee schedule to make it aligned with what was board approved. Um we do have a fee waiver form for the parents. So if they're struggling financially or unable to pay the fees, they are able to complete the fee waiver and then it goes through the approval pro process through those buildings. Um, I can tell you that 53% of our students as of t or as of a couple weeks ago were fully paid. So that's pretty good numbers. >> Any questions? >> Go ahead. I know this is your first year here, but I was wondering in past years,
080do we have any idea at the end of the year if we're caught up on the on the amount or is there an amount owed that we chuck in money for? >> We are not um paid up in full, which is pretty common in most schools. It's hard to get all the parents to pay. Uh so right now we're looking at 49% of our kiddos that still pay or still owe. Um, and we are constantly sending, you know, emails and statements and post those families. >> In dollars, what what does that turn out? >> Um, I can tell you right now of our active students, we have about 290,000 unpaid. >> And Jackie, you were able to provide like a three-year average at the committee meeting. Can you share that? >> The three-year average was
081actually based on our fee wavers. So of our fee waivers in 2223 we waved 20 almost 6 61,000 and 2324 we waved almost 50,000 and in 2425 we waved about 20 or 57,000. So that's an average about 56,000 a year. And this year we have waved or was the number. This year we w,000 so far. So um about 67% of our fees that are waved prior years we paid already this year. So quite a few fee waivers. Um and we know families are struggling. So it's definitely needed. So waivers are different from people just not paying. >> Correct. Waivers are when they request financial assistance and then it's granted by the building principles. >> Uh I'm just concerned like parents I mean there are ways to tell parents there are waiverss and things like that.
082Uh how easy is that information out there for parents? >> It's out on our website. It's also given by the principles and I know our staff does a great job communicating that with staff. >> So in those instances when there are fees that are unpaid, our principal, school social workers, guidance counselors, school psychologists work with those families individually to be sure that they have access to the waiverss if it's in need. >> I know it's it's and probably other board members have heard too is some families get feed to death >> beginning of school backpacks to this and that. they're gonna, you know, spend easily into the hundreds just to get your kid to school. And uh it's it's it's tough. And I know we do everything we can to to try to mitigate that,
083but uh when I first saw this, how many pages is this? I think fees, >> it's like it's like they're all so little. Most of them are so little, >> but it's just >> they add up. >> It's staggering. to look at it and say this is what we did. >> So I'm saying if it was 290,000 that we were short last year and you say that's about half. So if we were to say we're paying all the fees, it'd be about uh 580,000 that we well we pay 290 anyway. So we'd have to pay like 290 more to say no fees >> approximately. I mean that's a >> it'd be hundreds of thousands. >> It depends on how many it would be. It depends on how many students um take advantage of the courses
084or the programs that have fees associated with them and that varies from year to year. >> Right. And I don't think this um is the advanced placement classes. >> Sure. >> Separately. I know Dave Hower will if a if a family has like three kids out for sports, they'll try to give some kind of a break or if a kid comes out and decides they don't want to do it, then uh they'll give them the money back. And I'm sure we do that in all these other classes, too. >> Absolutely. >> Uh it's it's one of the complaints I hear is is it cost me $500 to get my kid to school this year. And that's free in public school. You know, >> we do allow people uh payment plan options as well. So, if
085they can't pay it all at once, um they can pay it throughout the year or when it's convenient for them. >> If if if I were I mean, I'm sure we're doing what every all the other schools do, too. >> Yep. But, you know, if I'm looking at say 300,000 to pay more to pay all these fees and I look at some of the other things we pay for, we balance that off against it. Is it something that anybody here on the board would want to consider? I know it has to come from somewhere. if you take it and pay this, somebody else isn't going to get what they want. But, uh, I just look back at, you know, when I was in high school and carried our shovels to school and rode on the
086shovels, wanted to go out for a sport and just went out, went to class. You don't have to pay a dime because it's free in public education. This makes me feel sad that we have to charge these. And I know we do. >> I I do think we need to recognize that if a family cannot afford to pay y >> they have the ability to receive a waiver. Um and fees these fees aren't charged for kids to attend regular classes etc. They are related to materials. they're related to cons they're related to consumables and and so >> um so there is that balance and you know we are t we're talking a half a million dollars here I guess for me um from what you're saying you know if a family has run up you
087know is not paying their fees and they have a balance at any time during the year they can sit down with their school with their principal with the athletic department and work to fill out this waiver. Um that that then then those fees are waved. We do as a district we wind up covering that cost. And so I would really really strongly encourage any families who are seeing a balance and who truly can't afford to pay that amount um please reach out to your building principal um or or reach out to your classroom teacher um or give a call to Corey or Chris um or Mike and have a conversation about getting that waiver filled out so that we can help. >> Well, it it may be just me pining for the old days, but
088I think of the kid walking through our schools whose parents really don't care what they're doing. And they say, and and sports do a good job of this because they have people who will pay for other kids, you know, donate money. And Dave, you know, they push that a lot because, you know, Johnny wants to take art class and his parents really don't care what he's doing. and he's got to, you know, come up with 20 bucks. And I know he doesn't really have to. He can get a waiver, but he doesn't know that because he's a 16- year old kid and doesn't know anything. And uh uh it makes me sad that this is where public school is that we nickel and dime people and we have to. And uh I just think of
089that kid in the hallway that's got no resources, no parents supporting them, saying, "Hey, I'd like to go out for wrestling, but it cost 30 bucks and I don't have the money." >> Do the students are the students aware of these waivers? >> Because I know that's a horrible feeling. Like when I was young, there were things I couldn't do in high school as well because I know my family didn't have any money, >> right? >> Um and that's a horrible feeling to have as a student. So as long as if they know that they have this option relieves some stress and they know that there are things that they can do that they want to do. >> Will sports do this? Can we allow an art department to say we'll have a fundraiser for
090to pay our kids art fees? you know, bake sale or what this I wish we could pay it, but uh to them for them to uh push pay, you know, if you're if you're going to if your kid's going to take art and it cost 20 bucks, give us 40 and you'll be sponsoring other kids. >> We have small um departments that do things like that for >> for consumable type items in their class. Back to Jeremy's question. Yeah, I would say students are aware, families are aware, but when we encourage kids to take classes of, you know, interest, elective classes, if they want to take it, we find a way to make it happen, whether there's a fee attached to it or not. And and we'll we'll make it happen and wave that fee
091if they absolutely are interested in a sport or in a class. >> Yeah. And and I know intellectually you're doing everything you can, but I still think of that kid walking through the hallways doesn't know that. Doesn't even know to ask. All we know is my friend said I have to pay 40 bucks to take music and I don't have it and they don't have the intellectual capacity to say, "Well, there are waiverss and there are ways I can get it." >> I hear you, Jim. >> We We need to grab those guys. >> Is there any possibility? So, like, you know, I go on Skyward every month and I go and I pay my lunch fees there and there's a list of all of the fees and at the bottom there are optional fees.
092>> Is there any way that we could add an optional fee that is a donation? Like if I want to pay an extra $10 a month, I can do that and choose it and it just shows up every month in my optional fees and >> similar to what we do for money for meals. >> We can look into that. That's a that's a really good idea. >> One other thing I'd say to you that I actually because I know where you're coming from. I I kind of feel the same way. One of the things that I like about that I do like about the feed is if you're in a class where I remember back when I was in school and and I don't know maybe you're buying goggles for science and you have to
093you have to buy these goggles and some kids don't have the money to do that and and at times it when I what I remember from what I was a kid as a teacher actually collecting money to do that and having to go up and some some kid might have to go up and say I don't have the money with these fees we can get the goggles, it's waved. Nobody knows about it. It keeps things confidential that way. So, that is kind of a I think a positive with these um that it does those supplies that we used to buy where we didn't go through the fees process keeps things a little more confidential >> and we are not unique. Most school district districts collect fees from families for consumable type items, >> but I
094hear what you're saying. >> I would like to be unique >> in this way, right? >> What? >> In this way. Yeah. >> In this district. >> And I think G to your point to go back to the 16-year-old, you know, who might And I think, you know, our staff make really great efforts to build relationships with kids. And I know we can't guarantee that there won't ever be that one 16-year-old who feels like they want to participate in something and knows they can't because their family doesn't have the money, but I think our our staff really does an incredible job building relationships and trusting relationships that would allow them to be able to connect with a kid and say, "I know you've got an interest. I know you've got a talent. Um, there's an
095option here and let me help." Um, and then we can work with those families directly. And I know you want a guarantee to say it'll never happen and I wish I could too. Uh but yeah, >> I know it's a fact of life. It's one that I lament that uh we're at this place where we lose kids and and we know we do some they soon as they see a money fee so they just don't don't participate. >> I think along on your lines I think it's not just the teachers that are making the difference. That's also the secretaries and the, >> you know, the athletic directors and everybody involved that's identifying those kids as social workers. They're identifying them already and already offering that to them. So, I think they do do a great
096job communicating. >> Takes a train right. >> Okay. I'm going to ask for a motion to approve the 2026 27 student fee schedule. >> So, move. I have a motion and a second. All those in favor with I >> I >> opposed. Motion carries. >> We'll move into the services committee report. Thank you, Jackie. >> Thanks, Jackie. G >> I heard the mag. I'm on it to turn to the right page. There are so many pages here. We have three things uh that uh are here that we discussed at the ed services meeting and we're going to start the first one with the national and international field trips they think Jeff is going to do and I heard the news with >> new citizen committee member. >> You do that first. >> Yeah, it's on
097the agenda first. >> We put it at the bottom of the page. That's what I want to >> just trying to trip you up. >> Yeah, they are. Okay. All right. Let's do the Sorry, Jeff. The new citizen uh uh committee member for the ED services committee. Uh >> do you want me to read this open? >> Yes. >> On October 22nd, I reviewed the applications of community members interested in serving as a member of our ed services committee. The applications were scored and the three candidates were interviewed by the full committee on Monday, November 3rd. The next step in the process allowed committee members to individually score each candidate to identify our top candidate. The Ed Services Committee recommends the approval of Miguel Campos to serve as a citizen member of the Educational Services
098Committee. >> And we need to vote on that. Correct. So, I'm looking for a motion to approve Miguel Campos as the member of the citizen citizen member of the educational services committee. >> So, moved. >> And do I have a second? >> Yeah. Second. >> Second. >> Okay. Second. Any other questions? So, everybody in favor say yes. >> Yes. >> And anybody approve? Uh against. >> Okay. So, that would be se six to two. Right. >> Did you catch that? Who was who voted how? >> Uh Mercer Liebreick and Potter Nelson voted no. >> Okay. >> Is that accurate? >> Yes. >> All right. So that come brings us to uh the international and national field trips which I heard that uh board members were going to be chaperoning to Florence. >> He's not letting
099it go. >> To the Bordeaux region of France and uh uh to uh some a Taylor Swift concert in >> that's the one Mr. Mandor chap runs. Okay. >> Um, so this is a annual item that we bring forward before the board every year and these are our national international field trips that we have at our secondary level. Um, just a little bit of background for everybody. The way these processes always start is with our teachers in the classroom. Our teachers are always looking for ways that they can engage students um, and get them excited about learning. Um, and for multiple content areas, one of the really cool ways we do this is for through international and national field trips. that authenticity it provides our students and the connection it provides the curriculum is just
100absolutely phenomenal. Um I can speak to it because I chaperon some of these and it's a really cool opportunity to see kids engage. Um I did the Washington Washington DC field trip with our students um and engage in that type of experience is just awesome that we're able to do it for our kids. Um we partner with several vendors as part of our field trips throughout the school year. Um what I want to do is provide kind of an outline of what we're offering uh in the upcoming school year. So for the uh 2526 school year, PAS is going to have one field trip. Uh their seniors are going to be going to Italy this year. Our junior highs have three field trips that they have. Our French class. Uh so this is for ninth
101graders. They are able to go with high school to France. Um our Spanish students are able to go this year to Costa Rica. I'm very excited about that one because my daughter's going to be one of those students going. Um, and then at both schools, they do a field trip to the Washington DC area. Now, the field trips are slightly different. Uh, the Ben Franklin group goes to Washington DC and to New York City. PJ Jacobs students go to Washington DC and then historic Virginia uh as part of their field trips. Um, and then at SPASH, we have three field trips. Uh, social studies is going to Italy this year. uh our band and choir are going to be doing a national field trip. They're going to be going to New Orleans this year. And
102then our uh French students are going to be able to join those ninth graders as well and go to France. So those are our national and international trips. Uh I do want board members to know that as part of this process, I actually work with Mike uh and we review with our insurance carrier uh to ensure two things. One, we want to make sure that our staff and students are safe. Uh so we review contracts to ensure student safety. Uh and then we also want to make sure that our parents and students have a secure payment method. Um all of our vendors um pass this with flying colors. One item that was brought up during our ED services meeting was related to how they handle any cancellations related to the pandemic. Um I was able
103to review each of the contracts. Each of the contracts does address either pandemic and they specifically call it out or they print it under what's called active god and they do have provisions for our students to be able to get money back. Um they do identify that there are some fees that are non-refundable. Um and they identify in the case of each one of those vendors the opportunity for parents to be able to secure additional travel insurance if they choose to cover that difference if they would like to. Are there any questions? Okay, we uh um Ted, Alex, do you guys have any questions? >> Um, you answered my question already, so thank you. >> Okay, thank you. >> No, it's that straightforward. Thank you. >> All right, so I'm looking for a motion to
104approve the list of district sponsored field trips as presented. >> So move. >> Second. Okay, we have a motion and a second. >> I'll second. >> Any discussion? I think >> um I just want to say thank you to the teachers and chaperones that go on those trips. That's a huge responsibility. It's a huge amount of planning and time. So, thank you very very much to all of those people that travel with our students. >> Yes. And they do the planning. I mean the the people are chaperoning it. It's like they're doing the planning and the hard work, the heavy lifting and then going there. It it's amazing opportunities. Just amazing. >> Agreed. >> All right, we have a motion on the floor. All those in favor with I >> I >> Any opposed with
105nay? Motion carries. The second thing is the secondary course proposals and Jeff is going to take care of that right now. Well, >> I've got some uh people who have joined me tonight uh for this one with me. So, I have uh our principal from PJ or Ben Franklin Junior High School, uh Joel Berner, who's here to help answer questions if we have any. Um Brad Gustavsky who is the assistant principal at SPASH and our CTE coordinator. And then Mr. Vondorf uh from SPASH. He is going to be taking care of our high school courses. Um so one of the things I am going to ask everybody is we could save all the questions until the end so we can go through all of our different course proposals. I'm going to provide an overview and
106like I mentioned I'll be doing the junior high one. Uh then I'll be turning it over to Mr. Volandorf uh for the high school one. >> All right. Uh first just a little bit of background. This is something we do every single year. Um it is one of my favorite things to be able to do as a teacher. I was sitting in the chairs behind you uh proposing a new course. Um but we have a great process in this district that we work through and it starts with our classroom teachers. Our classroom teachers work within their departments to collaborate and look at what our students may be looking for or any program they adjustments they feel need to be made. After they do that, they bring those course proposals to our principles. Our principles review
107that with the department. They review that with the programming at the building level. And if the building principles approve it, then it's brought to me. Um I review it with building principles, then we bring it to ED services and then the school board. So that's our annual process that we go through every single year. Um this year we've broken it down. We're going to do the junior highs first. So I have two or three courses that I'm going to be talking to you about that deal with uh two different departments. Um and then I'll turn it over to Mr. Lindor. So for the junior highs, the first one is a very straightforward one. This is a simple course rename. Um so previously the course was called uh this is art department visual design in digital
108media. Um the teachers have asked to have that course renamed to digital art. Um and I think it's pretty self-explanatory. Parents and students they were finding didn't really understand what they were signing up for and they feel like the shorter name will make it easier for parents and students to understand uh the class that they're signing up for. Uh content in the course will remain the same. So that's our first one, just a straight course rename. The second one, the second two courses are together and that is within our a science and natural resources department. Uh this is for the previous name of the class classes were introduction to egg science 1 and introduction to egg science 2. Uh they want to rename these courses to egg science 8 and egg science 9. And with
109that rename, there's also a course revision that goes along with that. So that course revision has two pieces. one is targeted enrollment which means the A science 8 would be targeted obviously to our eighth grade students. A science 9 would be targeted to our 9th grade students and within that they've done a review of the core sequence that they have. Um one of the things their why for doing this was um students would go through a repetition of learning experiences because of the way those courses were broken down. They're semester long courses. Um students may take both of them in eighth grade. They might take one in eighth grade, one in ninth grade. They might only take one in ninth grade. And because of that rolling enrollment between two grade levels, students were seeing an
110overlap of learning experience that was frustrating them and frustrating the teachers. So what the teachers want to do is with egg science 8, if you look at the egg science standards, they're broken down within each standard to performance indicators. So the performance indicator for a standard are beginner or beginning, intermediate, and advanced. the A science 8 will target those beginning and intermediate level performance indicators and then at ninth grade we'll focus in on the intermediate and advanced level. This will prevent us from having that learning overlap between the two courses and the teachers identify that as being developmentally appropriate at the two grade levels for the uh 9th grade and the eighth grade. The other thing I wanted to share after we talked to the ed services committee was we wanted to be able to
111provide a little bit of history. So, why did we get here? Um, this course area has gone through a lot of changes over the years to try to respond to our student needs. So, pre2022, we only had one year-long elective in a at all, and that was open to 8th and 9th graders. Um, and that was the only course we had. Starting in 2223, the department wanted to see a change. So, that's where we started the introduction to a science one and introduction to a science 2. That was only offered to our eighth and 9th graders. Um, starting in the 23 24 school year, um, we actually introduced a brand new course and that was our introduction to career and technical education. This is a seventh grade elective course. Um, it is highly recommended for
112all of our students to take it because what happens in this year-long course, they get one quarter of a science, they get one quarter of teched, one quarter of family and consumer science, and one quarter of business. So, they get an exposure across the board. So the new addition that they want is looking forward they have that entry point now at seventh grade. At eighth grade we would have that entry point for a science 8 and then at 9th grade we'd have eight science 9. There would be no prerequisites for any of these courses to allow students to have that entry point at any one of those grade levels and it's developmentally appropriate um based on the standards at each one of the three grade levels. So those are our three courses at the junior
113high. I'll turn it over now to Mr. Vindor. >> Hi, good evening everyone. Um, this evening for your consideration at SPASH, we've got five things that we'd like to ask you to consider uh moving forward for our students. The first two are specifically related to an opportunity, a new opportunity that we're going to be offering our students in the very near future uh with Midstate Technical College, and that is to complete an associates degree in business as part of their high school graduation. To make that happen, we need your permission to offer intro to business and Microsoft Office, two classes that have existed at SPASH before to the ninth grade as well. Those are transcripted courses and again they would be a part of this program with Midstate. The third one is an educational psychology
114class. This is a class that would be offered as a concurrent enrollment class with UWSP. So students who complete that class would have the opportunity if they chose to enroll in a UWSP credits, excuse me, plural. uh as well. Many of you are familiar with our education 101 class which is designed as kind of an intro to education survey class for students who may be considering a career in education. Offering educational psychology would give those students another opportunity to further their career pathway and that that exploration uh right at Spash. And then our last one, which is actually two, uh, as many of you have noticed, we are growing in music. And I I I hesitate to say growing because I als I I also want you to consider it more of as a as
115a retention uh issue. We currently offer three orchestras at PJ Jacobs, two orchestras at Ben Franklin, and now we have enough students enrolled to offer two orchestras at Spash. those approvals which is offering one as a new course simply because we want to distinguish the orchestras from each other in the same manner that they do at the junior high. So, one would be called string orchestra, the other is chamber orchestra. And based on enrollments, um this is something that we'll need to watch because as I mentioned, um we have a significant bubble of orchestra students specifically in that sixth through 8th grade levels right now. Um and and we'll see what that looks like in another two years, but right at this time, uh we do have the students there for two orchestras. Thank you,
116John. >> So, now I'm gonna open up for questions on motion or questions. >> Um well, first questions if anybody has questions for um the experts and then then once once we get the information then I'll be looking for a motion. >> Uh I have a question. Todd the uh the educational site class you said is dual credit with UWSP >> concurrent so it's a little different than dual >> but yes >> do they get credit >> they would get credit >> they get university credit >> correct >> because I don't know what the difference between concurrent and dual >> concurrent means that there is an additional fee that the student would have to pay >> for to the university >> yeah correct dual enrollment is covered by uh either the school or the district
117>> and we don't have to hire somebody to teach that. We have people on staff. >> We have people on staff that >> and they have the availability to teach it. >> Correct. >> They're not currently full-time or but >> Well, it all depends on enrollment. >> We talked about that. Yeah. >> Uh >> I I still on that subject, just to clarify on that fee, did you not say at at services there was a >> there was a decrease in the overall fee from WSP per credit or was I wrong? >> The fee >> like it's like a two credit class and it was not that the usual WSP credit level. Is that correct? >> It's an enrollment fee. So, right now it's $115 per grant per >> and that's set by WSP. That's
118>> and also and Liz probably knows better answers too given what she does. Um, that also is something that's sort of an internal requirement for education once you get to UWSP. >> Yes. >> It's also what why I will be abstaining my vote on this one. >> Any other questions? Jim, >> first I say um on this issue obviously we spirited uh at the at services and afterwards I would say thank very much so thanks to Corey, Chris and Jeff for taking the time to explain in more far more detail afterwards. Um I appreciate the presentation better tonight. I think you it was far more clear tonight and it was far more clear when we talked and I will say I apologize maybe a little unfair to how my perception of what you were saying
119before. Um I that said I still would say a little bit of history on that topic. I my feeling on that is was that those were classes that were inviting eighth graders in and we should have allowed our kids to participate in that as eighth graders but then also give them high school credit. I worry that this is going to mean that you'll never think about doing that for those other classes that are available where we're inviting the kids in that good enough to fill a seat to offer the class but not good enough to actually offer them credit. Um, I worry too that this separation means we are now separating out the total pool of available students per class on that. So now instead of two grades worth of students being able to take
120to choose those that coursework, now it's only eighth graders and then only ninth graders. And I worry that you will now now you've got half the t the student pool for both of those. And I worry what that will do to enrollment. We shall see, I guess. Um, and so, and I guess I disagree with the change we're making because of that, that we never are going to now open up that idea to actually offer the high school credit. And I disagree with that doing this for the same reason. I think that the education psychology class addition is a fantastic idea. I think that's the same principle of thinking that I wish we would have for that, but apparently I'm in the significant minority. I'm thinking we should push those kids through and give them
121credit where that they deserve that because they're doing high school work. But I also realize that once it gets to this level, this kind of stuff never gets turned away. So, >> well, and we will, Jim, just like we do every year as we have conversations with um with our teachers, we will continue to reinforce that ability to make sure what we're providing is providing opportunity for all of our students. And you know, no ear know you saw you guys you guys sent me home with some homework from med services and that was okay. Um, so we work together. I know Brett and I spent a lot of time talking to the teachers, making sure we understood exactly their why, uh, when they do this. Um, and you know, I always want to be able
122to respect board members and we did. We brought those conversations back and we will continue to do that and continue to challenge our teachers to look for new opportunities to expand things for our students. I didn't see and then I didn't check my email today and I should do a better job doing it on board meeting day but I didn't see an answer to one of the qu because you said that there wasn't really a good way to know whether those eighth grade kids were we can say hey they are even capable of doing this work and I said well isn't it that the grades they achieve in that class pretty much proof of whether they're able to do the work or not >> and so I didn't see any answer back on that at
123some point >> and we hadn't pulled that yet Jim >> okay no >> because I was just if those eighth grade kids are doing terribly. >> Right. Right. That is a pretty And I think to your point, Jim, I you know, there's we like, as with every course and certainly these because they're recent changes, we'll continue to monitor enrollment and your point is not lost on me. Um I don't think it's lost on Jeff either. So, we'll continue to keep a pulse on that and if we feel the need to revisit this conversation, we'll certainly do that if it's warranted. >> Um I just had one more thing kind of to Jim's point. I also concur with him that we really should push kids as much as we can to get them uh high school
124credits and then college credits. Um and also pushing them so that way I love that we're doing that with business. I love I love that. The more we can do to push our students the better. But I also want to make sure that if the and the comment was brought up about um how they were getting the same experience as a eighth grader and a ninth grader and then they were um copying some of that. My problem is always our rigor and I've always been consistent in that when we had the English problem when we had the English proposals and such I want to make sure that we're also pushing all teachers to be as rigorous as possible the more rigor students can live up to that rigor but we have to provide that to
125them and I just want to make sure that that rigor is also there and if the rigor is the expectation of a high schooler in eighth grade, then they should be receiving credit as a high schooler in eighth grade. >> Thank you for that, Alex. >> Thanks, Alex. >> So, I I just want to note I really really appreciate this um opportunity for kids business um in conjunction with MSTC. I mean, that ability to um to be able to earn that business associate um certificate or however you call it during high school, I think is going to be a real opportunity for a lot of kids. Um um the same with Ed Psych. I I just really appreciate every every year I mean the majority the majority of what we're passing is offering kids dual
126enrollment offering kids now concurrent enrollment and I know we've kind of pushed you know you to kind of explore that and I appreciate it's coming back to us that way and then also just that it's such exciting news about the orchestra um and that that again, the ability, the opportunity that we're providing these kids, the fact that we're providing it to them at a relatively young age um that they can then continue to grow on. Um I just I think there's some great there's some great um stuff in here. >> Again, it's not so much an enrollment issue as as it is a retention issue. you're running five orchestras at the junior highs and as as you get up to the high school there's a lot more opportunities and there's a buffet there but this
127is certainly a sign that those that our music teachers um like all of our teachers are are really doing some some positive things and engaging students >> and I I just want to do a big shout out to uh Brent uh a lot of the work um he was working really closely with me to coordinate with UWSP for our ads our ed site course also the work with um Midsate. I don't know how many meetings he has had over the course of the past two months getting this up and ready. Um they're going to be at our junior highs um informing parents about this tomorrow or on Thursday night. So, we got some great people all around us. >> I just wanted to ask about uh when we usually get new courses or we're expanding
128like this in the past, haven't we got like a like a monetary estimate uh of or a example of uh materials needed and stuff because I remember getting a more detailed list and I think that's important because if we have proposed a new course we want it to be thought out by the person proposing it that they go through a certain protocol but this is all I see here >> there's the the courses are included G >> uh with an outline with the board update >> oh in the back >> there's a lot of attachments >> sorry I didn't look there >> um uh the ed services oneG just to your point so this this group is aware there is a text that is purchased with that and we're going to be working within ed
129services what we're going to be doing is purchasing a set of 30 for students to be able to keep in the classroom >> means psych edsych excuse me thank you um and we'll have that available to students so there really there will not be a course fee um associated with that unless the student elects to take it for UWSP credit >> you know I had a conversation and this was last year with person in the music department in our district and they were concerned because we were expanding, you know, good. But they were worried about uh having enough people to fill the positions because if we add, you know, another orchestra or something like that, uh we got to have somebody there. And this this person had told me that it worked with you, Jeff,
130in getting another person half time to uh to uh uh fill that position if I my memory is correct. So when I see new expanding or new courses, I'm always wondering who's going to teach it. And if we're going to hire new people, we have to approve it. But I know I talked to uh I think you or Jeff and you said, "Well, it depends on what's offered." And it's it seems to me like if we approve it, we better have somebody ready to teach it instead of like, "Well, if they have one less tenth, they might have a less one less tenth on their schedule. We'll fill it with this or something." And it just seems kind of kind of random or hit or miss like I mean, I want to know that we've
131got a person there. Yeah. And and we were gee, we have two orchestras we ended up having to run at spash because of enrollment um right now and we're able to do that with our existing enrollment. So I'm confident for next year that we will be able to sustain that. >> So what you're approving tonight is giving us the ability to put this in our course guide so that students know that it is available. Then they'll do they'll sign up and do enrollments. And if we can't staff it with our current staff, then we'll be back at the board asking for your approval to increase staff. >> Well, that's what this person was saying that it was wonderful that you found somebody, but they were leaving that semester or there wasn't they didn't have a
132contract for the next semester and the person I was talking to was worried about that. And I don't know what ever happened. it was a temporary position G that we had for a semester, right? Um with the idea that we would have the ability and the flexibility within our FTE at the conclusion of that semester to not need that temporary position the following year, which is the year we're currently in. >> Yeah. Any other questions? All right. I am looking for a motion to approve the proposed 26 2026 27 secondary course updates and revisions as presented. >> So second >> All right, I have a motion and a second. Any discussion? I just I just want to add thank you for all of the work um that is involved in this. Um because I am
133one of three faculty who teach edsych over at WSP, I will be stepping back from voting on this just just because. But I do appreciate the work that's gone into all of the other proposals. >> Thank you, John and Jeeoff. >> Thanks, guys. >> So, all those in favor with I >> I >> Any opposed with nay and one abstension. All right, we will move into >> Oh, we have one more. >> Yeah, the uh uh spash safety and security update. That's not for action. Um, but that was discussed. >> But it's right here on the agenda. >> Number C, letter C. SP security. >> No. >> Yeah, it's right here. >> Oh, no. That's just Is that from Ed service? >> I think you might be on the committee agenda. >> I think you're
134on the committee agenda. >> Yeah, cuz you're right. That was letter C on the committee agenda. >> Yeah, that was letter C on the committee agenda. >> Y. So, we're not going to discuss that tonight. >> No, no, not beyond what Corey shared at the start in her comments regarding communication from staff. >> My fault. We're done. >> No worries. >> Well, we're not quite done. Now, we have to move into open enrollment campaign presentation with Sarah. >> Hello again. All right, let's talk about enrollment strategies on the heels of the offers report. >> No goal. >> It's usually >> okay that way. I'm okay with that. >> All right. So, let's chat a little bit about why enrollment matters. Now, I think coming off of what we all just heard, um, relative to, uh,
135the fewer young families kind of in our community and those declining birth rates, not just here, but statewide, um, we certainly know that every student that we're able to have enrolled in our system matters more than ever. Um we're also seeing that boundary outflow to neighboring districts uh specifically to Tomorrow River School District and to um Alman Bankraftoft and I know that's been a a concern of the board. So wanted to address that as well when we take a look at um some of our research that we'll go over. The biggest thing I wanted to point out too is just that budget impact that that has and the our ability to maintain sort of what we are currently offering to students. Oh, I think I did that by myself. >> Excellent. All right. >> I
136make a motion we get a better clicker. >> So, taking a look at the research, um, I went over our group went over our open enrollment data from the last three to five years. is really looking for those trends and what we have seen and I know what the board has seen as well is really looking at what we have coming in for students and what we have going out for students and we have a significantly higher amount of students going out than we have coming in. So, we continue to see that imbalance there grow. And what we really wanted to look at was seeing if we could identify some reasons that families are making those decisions to leave um and if there are things that we can address through some enrollment strategies to reverse
137um what's happening there to really stabilize um enrollment specifically in those boundary areas. We also used uh the information that came in from the MD Rockers community change and projection report. So that report that um you received this evening um to really see if there are patterns there that can help us when we look at those enrollment open enrollment in and out um as well as just enrollment projections overall. And then when we think of um those perceptions that we see as well, right, we're doing those annual surveys, but we also did some really targeted surveys at folks for folks who have left the district in the last three years who have decided to open enroll their students and for those who have decided to open enroll in. So we got some good feedback from
138folks um on why they're making those choices. We had pretty good response. I higher than I thought. We had 50 people complete the open enrollment out um information and about 25 complete the open enrollment in. So not a lot but like enough that I feel really confident in the information that we were able to get from those. So looking at what we saw when we look specifically at sort of what we're seeing and coupling that with information from those surveys, the biggest thing we're seeing is an awareness gap of families not engaging early enough to see themselves as part of our district. So what I was expecting to see specifically from those surveys were families telling us this program didn't work for me. I was really interested in something that you just didn't offer or
139I had a really bad experience and wanted to leave. And what we actually heard back was that folks never enrolled in our district to begin with mostly because of this perception of district and schools being too big. So when we think about that, they don't even have an opportunity to come in and experience programming or experience what school is like here based on really that what I think is a large awareness gap. So that was, I think, a really important key finding for us. And then our retention strength, we noticed that once folks were enrolled, they're likely to stay through graduation. So we aren't seeing people kind of coming in and out. They're making a decision and they're staying with that decision. We see those fewer young families and declining birth rates, aging population, and
140slow housing growth, which means growth is really coming from engagement and retention, not new housing. So there is no specific housing that's going to bring in a lot of new growth. It's really making sure that we're doing a good job of engaging and talking to the folks that are here. And then that leads us to early learning really being our best target demographic or best place for us to do a I think a more intentional job of engaging with those families. our strategic advantages. We are able to offer more opportunities because of our size. So when we think about what some folks may perceive to be something that is a negative, it really does offer us a lot of opportunity for students that schools that are smaller just aren't able to scale in that way.
141So we do have a lot of opportunities. We're committed to creating exceptional student experiences. We hear that every month when we're here, right, from our staff and our teachers and you know, we really are dedicated here, I think, to how students are learning and growing. And then we're strengthened by the support of our community. I don't think anyone could deny how much our community supports us. They feel so grateful. Just every time it's just fantastic. Um, and then we do it all in a student- centered way that feels like home. So, thinking of those kind of key insights and then our strategic advantages, I'm recommending that we move forward with a big opportunities hometown connections campaign that really focuses on those big opportunities that we offer, but highlighting the fact that we are still a
142very connected school district. Um, you do not get lost here. Kids don't get swallowed up at spash, right? It's opportunities and I really want to be able to highlight that starting with brand awareness. So that's when we think brand awareness that's that general storytelling, right? So attacking kind of that awareness gap of what it's really like to be at school in the Stevens Point Area Public School District, focusing really specifically um at that Cubs Club launch and that 4K recruitment. You may remember about a year ago, maybe a year and a half ago, we launched something called Cubs Club where we were really trying to target that birth to four, we had not a lot of signups. We had an intern leave and that kind of just fell by the wayside. So, we're proposing like
143a proper launch of Cubs Club also making sure that we're bringing in those experts in that birth to four um developmental area, right? So, I can do all the communication for it. We can talk about how great it is, but we want to do events and people don't want to come talk to the communications people at events, right? They want the experts in development. So, making sure we're offering that to parents as well. 4K recruitment will be a big piece of that boundary family engagement and then making sure we're continuing to include some of those specialty programs we have like pods that offers that hands-on, you know, smaller based learning and project search as well. tactics that we would uh be looking at implementing. We'd really be looking at those foundational pieces. So, campaign toolkits,
144that Cub Club proper launch, materials for that, targeting those campaign messages around some of those key insights that we found, making sure schools know what's happening. Um, and then press and partner with outreach plans. And then making sure that we are measuring our success, right? So, keeping track of that campaign performance, listening to that feedback we're getting, seeing what kind of traction we're getting online, and then updating our content kind of in that continual cycle. More specifically, looking at those phases, we'd look December to really set that foundation, do our creative build, Cubs club refresh, figure out how that gets relaunched. Um phase two is really that launch um and then phase three moving into engagement retention and we align that to our DPI open enrollment window as well. looking at what success we'd be
145looking for overall awareness and engagement. We'd be able to measure that through um web visits, web visits to landing pages really specific for 4K clubs club um pods general um open enrollment information. Uh looking at enrollment outcomes. So do we see an increase in uh applications? Do we see an increase in 4K uh enrollment? And then looking at our retention indicators, so are we retaining students specifically from that 4K into kindergarten, our boundary area enrollment stability, we'd like to see that at least stabilize, if not reverse. And then um making sure we have sustainable enrollment in pods and project search programming. What I really want to highlight is this is not a marketing campaign. This is about connection and really focusing on awareness, belonging, and engagement. So, not just that one-way kind of push of
146information about all of the great things we offer because we do offer a lot of great things, but really helping people to connect and feel like part of the district so that they are able to access that information and those programs that we have. So, really focusing on trust, building relationships, and making sure that families know what is here and what we offer. I'm happy to take questions if there are any. >> Yeah. >> But like in the consultant meeting we had earlier, they had obviously projections. >> Yep. >> Do you have any projections of what you expect to possibly gain? >> Yeah. My goal would be two to 3% lift in 4K enrollment this year and then I'd like to see at least two recaptures for open enrollment out. So bringing back two of
147those families at least. Um we don't anticipate this being a very expensive endeavor because we have capa we have internal capacity so we don't have to hire a firm like we've done all the research so we're able to just kind of roll it out. um without a lot of expense to the district. >> Yeah. >> You said that you had an intern to do that part at first and then they just went away. So, we dropped that. But we'll have to hire somebody to do that. >> We will not have to hire someone to do that. So, communications right now has myself and the communication specialist. So, between the two of us, we're able to handle the communications piece. What we may need to consider is who and how that expert piece of it. So
148somebody who has that child development experience, but that's not anywhere near like full-time, halftime. It's not a full-time job. So that's something that we would likely be looking to have somebody pick up either within their regular duties or I could see asking like a temporary because really all I need is somebody who can help facilitate like what the information is that should be pushed, right? So making sure that that research is accurate, that the resources are accurate and then assistance running some of those events. And we already do some of those events. We just haven't branded them in this way. >> Like child find would be a good example, right? >> It's a good example. >> I can appreciate that you attempted to at least get input then get the surveys out there. Maybe that's
149just me. I see that there's what just shy of 500 kids or families >> kids. No, that have left open rolled out and we got 50 responses. That's maybe 10%. >> Yeah. >> I don't know. Do I see that as Okay, that's that's 400 plus that we have no idea other than you're extrapolating just off that little data set. >> I say that too is um I know I know we our two biggest ones are Auburndale and and Amherst. Um, and I just happened to I asked a a c-orker who's intimately involved in that district and said, "Do you have any inclination of one, why, or two, what are the kids doing that come from our district to you?" And he goes, and I he didn't have the data exact numbers, but he said, "The
150overwhelm majority of them are going to that charter school out at Sunset Lake, >> and we don't have anything that really compares to that style." >> Correct. And so I guess if do we have any sort of inkling in this enrollment campaign to consider because if you're if that's where the bulk of the kids are going um how do you how do you address that issue at all? Um and how do you convince someone that this is the place they should be when we don't offer that style? Probably the closest we have to some of the things we do at maybe at >> pods. Yeah. So I'm just >> some of the River Academy experiences at the high school. >> High school. >> Yeah. But that's different grades. The thing out at sunset at sunset
151is K through. >> Yeah. >> Only have one teacher per grade that follows all the kids starting at the beginning all the way through. >> That's a very unique program. >> Yes, it is. And I guess it's but if that's the reason we're losing them, >> if that's the primary reason, how do we address that? I'm just >> I think we've got to do a better job of telling the story of what Pods is. Um because I think that's the school that probably most closely aligns with Tomorrow River, but also some of those unique one-off programs in our junior highs and our high school. Um we can just share more information about that to hopefully get them engaged. And like Sarah had indicated, it's really getting those four-year-olds to step foot in our building right
152from the start because they they don't choose to come here right right away. And why is that? And how do we how do we get them in our buildings before they even are ready to start 4K to see exactly what the experience may or may not be like? >> Pods doesn't do that. elementary schools. >> I know, but we said pods is one of our recruiting tools, but pods doesn't do >> pods align most closely with tomorrow river. >> Their charter school was what? >> Right. >> Yeah. That charter school concept that kind of Waldorf approach. >> Have you ever been there? >> I have not. I have. >> It's very different. And I say it's nothing like pods. >> But Pods is our most closely aligned school. So, it it will be interesting. You
153know, we are going to be piloting. Well, we already have a 4K >> um that is out in the area of Auburnale >> and providing child care. It'll be interesting to see >> how that ability to have younger kids be able to come into our building and meet us and get to know us. Um how that will help. And then again, as we bring those others on, the same thing. Um, it's been a long time since I had little kids, but I do have very vivid memories of those times. They're very busy times. And so, um, you know, I think it's the issue that we have with everything, which is we can communicate and communicate and communicate, but but we can't make people read and we can't make people hear or see unless they're they're
154actively trying to access that. I mean, I know for me, um, it it was all about talking to people, other young families in the community. And I think that that probably still happens. And so, you know, I don't know if we have opportunities to um to have like a parent ambassador program with some of our young families who know that new new people are coming into their um neighborhoods and maybe that ability to um reach out to some of the book groups or maybe have book book groups in our schools during the summer, you know, for two year olds, three year olds or little music presentations. I mean, for me, part of it is are there are there things that we could be doing as a district, as you say, you know, if you're a
155family, you're just coming into this your family are coming into the community, you've never lived here. Um, you're probably not going to go into a school building, you know, until your first child's whatever, four years old. And then and then once you make that choice for your first child, then that's where the second one's going and the third one's going. So, I guess I I encourage us to to ponder if there's some things that we can do beyond the the direct communication kind of from us and see if there's a way that we can um really encourage our parents who who tell us survey after survey how excited they are about especially our grade schools, >> you know, how we might be able to with the PTO's maybe offer some creative fun stuff for young
156families to to introduce them to us. >> Absolutely. >> I think the charter school in Tomorrow River is very grounded in in environmental education. So, you know, I mean, we do have the Boston School Force. So, as this enrollment campaign or as this enrollment campaign kind of evolves, we can certainly be creative about how we capitalize on that more as we think about expanding 4K opportunities. you know, that curriculum is much more flexible at that grade level because we're not bound to all of the required state standards um for ELA, for math. So, can we think about how we incorporate some environmental ed opportunities for our earliest learners? Um, and might that mirror more closely what they offer in Tomorrow River? So, I think those are all conversations that we can have in terms of
157how we capture that audience that we're kind of trying to draw in particularly in that early childhood arena. Yeah, I think there's some good opportunity there. And I think I don't know if it I don't think it's going to be focus of this, but I've said before and it kind of came up tangentially earlier with the fee schedules, but our and we but we celebrated quite a bit at the beginning and you even mentioned it in our in our uh communication report that how important the extracurriculars and particularly some of the athletics are to it's not legal to recruit. But that said, there are kids who come here early in order to get around the WA rule. Um, and I don't know the data on what happened with our newest high school team, but I
158would imagine at least some of those kids from the other schools transferred in. I know that there were some kids that have transferred in for multiple sports here. And it happens. >> Absolutely. because they're at a school that maybe that team is tanking >> and they realize, hey, there's an opportunity to here to have success. So, they come here >> and I mean it's some of the opposite happens. I know kids that have gone to Ammerst just to play football, >> right? >> It's because they don't get, you know, big school, they don't get that they get cut for whatever and think we some of those programs we don't cut. But I think just keeping that eye on making sure we >> talk about that too. >> Yeah, that's good. Those are good questions. So,
159I don't usually word smith, but >> Yes, you do. Okay, I guess I do. So, so I'm going to hear if what we're hearing is people are afraid to come to us because we're big, I don't know if we should be using big as the lead word in our for big opportunities, hometown. I I mean maybe there's some way because I think we're really trying to en encourage people to realize that that that we're we have small classrooms. We have, you know, small units. We have, you know, we we may be a big district, but we're a lot of buildings. Um and each of them are their own little community. um and really special in all their own ways. So, I guess I just would throw that out. So, >> the other thing I talked
160to Crystal Armstrong at uh >> oh, sorry at uh at uh Kennedy. >> She's so ready to do this. I mean, she's all over it. So, I'm sure you thought about this that there are people at the sites that are going to be our first ambassadors and they know that they tend to know the area and uh I mean they really want to tackle this. >> Absolutely. >> I just said when you say the word smith and you said that it didn't occur to me until I looked at it again I went that's pretty similar to my works uh model. >> Yeah. where we say world class treatment, hometown care, the big opportunity hometown, >> right? >> Connection, >> right? >> I'm not accusing >> not on the camera. >> I really like I really
161like and I'm not I'm not I just >> I really like somewhat familiar. >> Sarah talked about it's not a marketing campaign. It's really about strategies and >> and engaging families. So, it's it's going to be different and it's going to be making those connections early. >> Good work. Nice job, Sarah. Thank you, sir. Thank you, Sarah. >> Thank you, sir. >> We've got our budget evaluation process last. I'll try to make this as exciting as I can. Um, wanted to provide an update on budget and program eval for this month. Um, I want to give an update on cumulative positions review. At this point, we have reviewed a total of 530 positions. um 498 of those we have filled as is. We currently have four um positions that are frozen. You'll notice that's up
162two from last month when I reported or in September when I reported and positions eliminated as a total of 28. I want to remind everyone here in this room and those who might be tuning in that that 28 is cumulative since we started the budget and program review process. So sometimes I think even I look at that number and I think we have not got 28 position positions since September. So that is since we started the process about two years ago now. Um the programs that we've identified for additional analysis. Again we're working through athletics. That work continues to be ongoing. Um world language is one that I'll provide you with an update on as well as co-curriculars tonight. There's been some additional work that's happened in those two areas. and then ELA and math
163um strategically placed at the end of this short list because we realize that those will take an incredible amount of time because those are just large disciplines to review. Um in addition to these that we've identified, um we're also looking at beginning the review process for reading and our reading teaching staff as well as our atrisisk programming. So those would be the next two that we would add to the short list as we make our way through um the ongoing athletic program review. As you'll recall, we have um completed the market analysis of stipens and positions. Um that was done collaboratively with um Bakanovich and our human resources department. Um that did result in the addition of approximately $64,000 in athletic stipens that the board approved. um and that was for both this year and
164that extends beyond this year as well. So not all program review results in a reduction. So I want to be sure that we point that out. We look we're looking for efficiencies but we also sometimes find places where we need to enhance programming and that certainly is some of the update that I'll share with you tonight as well. Um, we're examining opportunities for reducing transportation costs, um, through combined scheduling potentially, um, shared busing, and adjusting where we engage in regional play. Those are all conversations that we haven't necessarily had to have before, but with increasing costs and a budget that continues to um, grow, we know that this is something that these are conversations we need to have. And we're currently also benchmarking the number of JV teams that we're running for sports with high
165levels of participation. That's currently boys basketball and girls volleyball. So we have at the junior high in particular had a philosophy in our district of give all kids the opportunity to play. Sometimes we establish multiple JB teams, one, two, three of them. That does require an additional coach. It requires busing to those those um competitions. It also requires staffing those competitions with um referees um with event workers. So all of those are costs that add. What we have noticed also is that sometimes that third JV team that gets added doesn't necessarily have the level of participation at the end of the season that it did at the start of the season. So this is a bit of a philosophical discussion uh but we continue to have those in an effort to find those efficiencies where
166possible. Um I wanted to give an update on world language. Um we have met with the group of instructional leaders from this department recently back on October 24th. Um Jeff and John met with this team. Um what we talked about with that group was the current retention rates across years. So what we see in our world language courses that Spanish, French and German is we see high high rates of participation in Spanish one, in French one, in Spanish 2, in French 2 and then by the time we get to the higher levels of those courses, we see really small numbers. So that's prompted us to look at some of our peer districts in terms of what number of courses they have in their course sequence for world language. So the world language department, we currently
167have six courses in both Spanish and French. Um so we're looking at reducing that to five. Um in other words, the the numbers that we currently have in Spanish and French, they might exceed the student demand um and instructional need compared to other peer districts. So rather than having a six course sequence, we would be looking at having a five course sequence in those two world languages. Um it already exists that way in German, so that would not require an adjustment there. And this team would also like to consider implementing the global scholars program in the spirit of program enhancement. That was a bit new for us. Um and I had to make myself a little bit smarter about the global scholars program, but we're kind of um mirroring this to what currently exists in
168the DC Everest school district as well as the Wisconsin Rapid School District. So employees and universities are currently looking for students who are globally literate. Um and in response, the DPI um has created a new opportunity for students called the global education achievement certificate that can be earned as part of participation in world language courses. To earn this distinction, um students have to complete the following four requirements during their four years of high school. So that's in grades 9 through 12. So, in an effort to incentivize retention, in an effort to interrupt some of that pattern that we see with high enrollment early on and then kind of declining as you advance through the levels, um, this is one enhancement that our world language instructional leaders would like to explore. Um, and we're hopeful that
169we could even have the opportunity to stand this up within our world language program as soon as next fall for the academic year. But we certainly see this as a a positive in terms of co-curricular programming. Um Beth and I have had some initial conversations about what's coming in this particular arena. If I look at co-curricular programming that we reviewed, we've got more than 40 active clubs across our junior high and our high school levels. Um there's a wide variation of stipens and enrollment and activity in all of those clubs. Um several of the clubs that we gathered initial data on were not active. In other words, they didn't have student participation for the last several years. So part of what we'll do in this review will be to clean that up. Um clearly we're
170not paying stipens if there's no enrollment in those clubs. Uh but we do want to make decisions about whether or not we continue to make a club available. Um if indeed we haven't had any enrollment or interest over the last several years. Um some clubs also are duplicated across schools. So example would be the the fax FCCLA um FFA forensics and those have varying degrees of coordination across both the junior high and high school level. So rather than paying a stipen to a junior high adviser to lead those course or those co-curriculars, could we combine that so there could be combined learning between high school and junior high and might that be an efficiency that we find? So, those are all opportunities that we're going to explore um as we review the the co-curricular programming.
171In terms of next steps and deliverables, um we're going to do a participation audit, so verify current activity levels, membership, and meeting frequency for those co-curricular clubs. We're going to look at funding alignment and identify inactive or low enrollment clubs um that are currently receiving a stipen and consider reallocation to higher impact programs. Um and then also a collaboration plan. So develop opportunities for district-wide co-curricular alignment across levels rather than having those separate or siloed clubs at different levels. Um and then one of the intended outcomes is to ensure that there's equitable access for students and advisor support across co-curricular programs while streamlining our resources. That is an update on the work that's currently happening in budget and program review. Um, again, this is something that we certainly are building as we've gone through and
172we continue to learn a lot about where certain efficiencies lie. But, um, all good work and I appreciate all of the collaboration that happens from all of the people in this room when I come asking for more data because I'm asking for a lot. Um, and I appreciate everyone's cooperation and getting those numbers when I reach out. So, I'm looking at both and right now, but I'm happy to entertain questions based on that update if there are any. >> I have two thing. One, um I share your concern a little bit on the the third level of JV in particular. I I my kid participated in that. I'm like, well, I'm happy you had that opportunity. On the other hand, I got the idea of the cost there. It almost felt like sometimes those kids,
173not from a school perspective, but from a team perspective, were created um as a third team just to help fund raise for the varsity. >> Um yeah, I said that out loud. >> Um but um the other thing was I I did notice that it made more sense when they went to say, >> you know, DC Everest and five other teams were there and they played a bunch of games in one day. It didn't make much sense when they made a two plus hour trip all the way to Oaklair Memorial and played two games that lasted a total of 30 minutes >> and you know a totally separate bus and it's like wow that was an awful lot of expense for the I was thinking at the time like that's a lot of expense for
174the district for long drive for a short run as they say and I guess that would be one thing I would look at is yeah if you're going to have it encourage the multi-team events more than the long drive for on games. Um and then when you say the foreign language um issue, is there opportunity to still offer advanced classwork via OLC? >> Yes. >> As a substance like Okay, I get it. We don't have the if we don't have enough kids to offer the class to, you know, if we only got three kids that want to take that extra level, but is it still available for advancement for them? Okay, >> it will be. Well, those are those are 10. Yeah. And potentially. >> Any other questions, >> Ted or Alex? >> Thank you,
175Chris. >> Thanks, Chris. >> You're welcome. >> Okay, so we're moving into our future meeting dates and times, and our next meeting will be the December 8th regular board meeting. So, I am >> Yeah. And and I we just based on that idea a year ago we met again in either November or December we had an extra retreat touch style event where we met again to discuss particularly the the stuff that's going to be released tomorrow. >> Yep. So what we decided to do this year was just include that in our December board meeting. So we'll just do that in a public setting. Okay. >> Yep. And then the jury's out as you know G raised you know maybe we wind up with a work session >> a work session with respect to this study
176that we're seeing the only >> but that would be sometime until like you know February >> work session right >> uh the numbers that we'll be looking at next December I would I wanted the chance to really look at those in separate session, but I guess we're not done. >> But what >> our scores and things like that? >> No, that's going to happen in a public open meeting in December. >> Yeah, we'll have it at the meeting. >> They they get released >> tomorrow. Tomorrow. >> Tomorrow. >> Yep. The public release of the report card is tomorrow. >> Yep. >> All right. I guess I'm looking for a motion to adjurnn. >> All right. >> Second. All right. All those in favor with I >> I. >> Okay, we're journed. >> Thanks everyone.