001board to order we will note with respect to public access to meetings during the public health emergency we are encouraging members of the public to attend school board members remotely however members of the public are allowed to attend in person we are continuing to comply at our meetings with all protocols in place at our schools including social distancing and any other safety requirements we will move into item two the uh roll call and verification forum mr manske here ms va here mr mrs portson here mr wade here miss scott here mr evil here miss rano here miss irland here all present of the united states of america and to the republic for which it stands one nation of under god indivisible with liberty and justice for all we will move into item four which are
002public comments um i would note to the board and to the public that we reinstating in-person public comment at meetings at our march 8 2021 meeting and are also continuing to accept comments submitted by email did we receive any comments by email number email okay all right uh we have um uh i've got a list here of members of the public who have signed up i've also noted if there are other members of the public who are not able to sign the list we will be calling anyone interested in speaking you will be able to speak for three minutes um we asked you if the person ahead of you basically said exactly what you were going to say feel free to just say you would read totally with the previous speaker in order to allow
003us to have everyone have the time to speak um i do want to note um because i'm seeing right here there was some again we asked for an agenda item with respect to what you're speaking to i've got a number on here with respect to masks i do want to note that the superintendent's report uh actually notes a back to school status update 2021 2022 including copen 19 protocols which allows any member of the public to speak with respect to any protocol that the district may be looking at adopting including that during the upcoming school year so with that being said i will call the first member of the public to the podium we ask you to state your name and your address please and then you can go ahead and make some comments uh
004yellow will be at 30 seconds left of your three minutes and red will mean stop all right so uh jennifer is it uh nade or grenade kanadi okay and you can speak at the podium please reminder to all when you're speaking speak into the microphone um it's um if you're speaking of the mic microphone right into it you can hear just fine but if you don't uh my name is jennifer kenati and i live at 1932 church street i'm here to simply encourage you as i as a teacher as my students as i encourage them to do listen to the experts in the field listen to the cdc listen to the american pediatric association listen to the data that our own portage county health and human services is giving you pelvic cases are once again
005on the rise here in portage county we were once again at a state of high spread last year we kept our students in school all year long using simple common sense protocols i was a librarian up in wausau last year i saw 500 kids in my school ninety percent of those elementary school kids came to school every day and wore their mask without issue for those that have a reason that they can't wear a mask absolutely we should look at exceptions our kids do not have a problem with the masking our experts say masking is what we need to do to keep kids in school please do what the experts say please do what is best for our kids please do what will keep kids in school all year long again reinstate masking requirements for
006the stevens point school district thank you very much i am going to leave the meeting at this point but i will be tuning in online to watch thank you very much for your service and leadership hello my name is mike zarimba and i live at 7006 fold highway 18 road in custer this is my first time attending the school board meeting and thank you for the opportunity to address you directly i'm here for four reasons the first is i would like your assurance and guarantee that we will not see anything from critical race theory by that name or any other talk to my daughter as she enters the first grade i would like your assurance and guarantee that there will be no inappropriate sexual education um i'm sorry that is not on the agenda tonight
007you're not able to speak to that okay we are not discussing that this evening but you are able to speak with respect to any items that we do have on our agenda okay let's record it i would like to ask for live stream classroom cameras so that i can listen into the lessons of the day and have more meaningful discussions with my daughter after school regarding the masking i would like you to know that i insisted on my daughter going to kindergarten in person because i believe that it was necessary for her to learn how to be a good student how to participate in a classroom environment and this was not something that could possibly be done as a remote student watching a computer screen after sending her a few weeks into this she developed
008a problem with her throat clearing we had to take her to three different general practitioners two internal specialists and a gastrointestinal specialist and in the end it was discovered that she had an infection in her left sinus that took 30 days of amoxicillin therapy to clean up as some of you may know a group of parents in florida sent the masks of their children to the university of florida lab for analysis and found multiple species of very dangerous bacteria on those masks after a single day of use while i have no proof to give you that this caused or made worse her condition i have the firm belief that it did no good to help her and i have grave concerns about asking her to wear masks again for days at a time regarding the
009trust in the cdc leadership recent events and freedom of information request into the emails of dr fauci have revealed serious credibility issues with the politicization of this issue and with the decrees coming from the leadership of that agency and i ask you leave it to the parents of this community to decide for themselves to decide what to do thank you for your attention this is not a public forum this is a board meeting we don't allow that at our board meetings um we also want to ensure that every one of the speakers is receiving the same level of attention and respect as well they should have been here then so i will move into uh three is aprilia good evening i'm here with ava ellenger and i have four sons in the stevens point school
010district my oldest is going to be a senior in high school this year could you speak could you state your address for the record please 24 31 okay bluff circle in pulver wisconsin thank you i'm looking at a report here from john hopkins university they did a study calling for getting doing an analysis on deaths of colvin the article states that the death before the pandemic and after the pandemic was relatively the same in fact i'm looking at it right here on my phone in fact for each age group the number of deaths were relatively the same so i would like to ask the school board where is the data and the science that this virus is so lethal that we need to mask up our kids for 18 months and social distance and keep
011them away from each other all the while having anxiety and um anxiety and um relationships not being able to be continued with their friends at school um trouble with learning and all kinds of other things so if you can present any data that supports the deadliness of this virus um we can talk but until then i have not seen any numbers change thank you thank you i ask you to refrain from applause i do want to note that board members because it's public comment by state law we are not we are not allowed to respond our board members are not allowed to respond to you substantively if there's an issue that needs clarification a board member can ask a simple question but um otherwise we're not allowed to engage in any dialogue with speaker strength
012the pattern thomas k blaze good evening my name is thomas k blaze i live at 2351 jalinski circle in plover mr zarimba basically and eloquently covered what i had planned on talking about this evening but i have a couple of things that i'd like to address very quickly number one is we're asked to follow the science that's my personal opinion that the science has been so polluted and contaminated with political agenda that it's difficult to know what is the science and what isn't the science i would like to know if there's anything that can possibly be done to digest everything that's thrown at you and into a cauldron and mixed around and see if you could come up with a science that gives you stone cold hard facts so that a parent that has a
013child going to school can look at these facts and make an intelligent decision instead of being forced into an emotional state everybody here is relatively intelligent and you can make a good decision if you have the facts presented in front of you but if you don't you're flipping a coin and we know that there's a lot of money that's tied up in the vaccines in the virus business-wise personal wise there's a lot of money that's being made out there not by us but by politicians by the medical people etc that's basically all i have to say and thank you very much for your time and for your service i greatly appreciate it i am lyle and i just want to say i do agree with the first speakers completely totally thank you we have madeline
014asanga i'm madeline wazinga and i just want to say that i agree with mr blaze and i really feel that parents need to have this option for their children on masks and could you state your address please 2441 jalenski circle and plover thank you all right uh ria and katowski hello thanks for the opportunity to speak my name is ria katowski i live at 2224 county road hh in junction city first of all i'd like to say that i have a son that goes to staff he is a senior and um he is autistic and i it's been kind of a fight um because he has a mask exemption and it has never been honored at this school um from day one and he has a hard time communicating um he needs to be able
015to see faces and they need to be able to see his face too so this has been very emotionally you know wrecking for me he recently had sorry he recently had a tooth out and um the oral surgeon had said to me that he would write oliver a mask exemption because when you put a mask over the face while your teeth are trying to heal that breeds bacteria inside the mouth so he had said to me sorry could is there i just want us all to be able to hear you and we're either getting feedback from that other yeah i hear my voice too did that just occur i think it's because the door opened so if we can just keep doors shut think there is a little bit bleeding through the door yeah but
016that did that just start now because yeah it's a delay like a 20 second it's delayed right let's just i don't know if we can turn the sound down just a little bit in there and still allow people to hear i just don't want the speakers fighting with the echo that's happening in that other room you can hear yourself and that's distracting okay um let me go on um so i talked to principal john ballendorf about my situation and i told him that i really didn't want my son's mouth to be breeding a bacterial infection and that um on the advice of the oral surgeon i would like a mask exemption for my son and his response to me was that he could not do that because he was told that everybody had to have
017something on their face in order for everybody to be in in attendance and i said well this can't be that there is absolutely no way to exempt yourself or your child from wearing a mask i said there has to be some some stipulations and he could not list one thing i said well what if somebody had cerebral palsy and they were drooling in it and it was just everywhere like is there not any reason that you wouldn't you know exempt a child and he said you know i there there is there's no reason so i i'm kind of disgusted with that because why hasn't there been any evaluation as to which children it's safe for and which is not which actually brings me to my point with um the um the osha standards so when
018when osha people 30 seconds oh only three seconds anyway osha standard says that you need to test for mask safety you need to test the oxygen levels um when people have the mask on to determine if they're high enough not that's not being done the work environment's not being evaluated with anybody with or school environment there's no environment being evaluated for their safety of having a mask all day also there was a study done okay thank you thank you and again if you could refrain from applause please this is a business meeting of the board that the public is invited to attend and to provide public comment um i would appreciate if you respect the rules that we govern our meetings by uh linda is it w what whata owanta i'm sorry hi i'm linda
019wontra i live at 323 wood lane in stevens point i have grandchildren i have nieces and nephews in the school system and i have a great granddaughter coming up through the ranks that will be there soon and i want i agree with everything and read all the studies that everybody has has stated and i agree with them a hundred percent and the gal that was just up here and with the bacterial and i do have personal with breathing here especially with kids what i want to take a chance is to talk about the fear okay when they get to high school level okay at that level i think it should be the kids can decide and they need to interface more so at the elementary level and on the all way all the way through
020and i'm going to tell you this story my great granddaughter goes with me quite a bit we go shopping we go wherever well now it's opened up and she's totally a different little girl when i have taken her shopping with me and people are all in the mask and stuff this is a child that just stares in fear kids need to look at expressions they need to look at it when they're young they need to look at it in school they need to be able to smile at each other they need to be able to express scrinch their nose these are all part of expressing not just your voice and the teachers if they have the choice and want to be vaccinated fine if they and i believe everybody should have a choice there are
021people that want their kids masks fine but there are many that don't just for that sole reason and if the teachers don't want to be masked allow them to express to the children they learn from facial expressions not just what they hear they have to have the whole volume of learning and right up into high school some of the best teachers that my kids have had was through those facial expressions not just with the hands not just with the voice the best teachers were the ones that got loud that smile that you betcha you have um you have 30 more seconds ma'am i get 30 more you do well there's my 30 because i limp a little but thank you very much i hope you really consider we're not saying no mask we are saying
022please let the parents choose let the kids have the options because the parents that really do believe in it will send their kids with it but when the parents that don't want it allow them that option thank you thank you so i am um i believe the next person who signed up is becky cressen thank you for allowing us to speak today um first i want to comment on somebody had said the american pediatric association we should listen to their advice as soon as they made that recommendation people started getting nosy looking on their website and i just want to point out um one of their main sponsors is pfizer pfizer who has made a 19 million dollar profit in only three months in this year so when they're being sponsored by the vaccine companies
023of course they're going to promote what they want to promote so it's you have to follow the money trail when you're looking for advice on things um second obviously i'm in support of of no mass um they haven't done many surveys around the state um the one i did see only 18 percent of parents wanted the choice you know wanted mass to be mandated so i'm assuming that's probably fairly common at this point in this process people have a lot different standings this year than last year and they'd like the choice for mass to be optional the other agenda item is under 13 recommendation for superintendent gerlach's authority to implement operational academic processes to continue i would like to see that stopped one person having sole decision making without the board be able to have
024input without the board be able to vote sometimes without the board knowing what's coming up in advance or us knowing what's coming up in advance so we can't give input as taxpayers and parents either i i just don't think it's okay i watched it happen in spring all the time when i you know he'd just be like well here's the plan and everybody you know board included would be like oh okay you know so i think it needs to be where the board can vote and the citizens know what's you know on the agenda and that it needs to go back to the people who are elected to representing us having say in things too um yeah so like i said um maths need to be optional this quarantining we were just at rapids they
025had more cases than point does they have about five thousand we have about 7 500 students staff they had more cases and their close contacts positives were they think it was between 8 to 12 out of almost 500 cases so the amount of kids and teachers and staff that were quarantined for weeks and some of them multiple times during that school year for a handful of cases is is is a lot it's it's kind of ridiculous if somebody's not showing symptoms if they haven't tested positive we don't need to be quarantining them for weeks on the time so thank you thank you again i'd ask for the audience to respect the requests to not applaud this is not a public hearing this is a business meeting of the board and i would appreciate that respect
026for our board members and for our superintendent and our administration i will uh move to the next speaker who is aline kozlowski i apologize if i'm not speaking your names correctly my name is elaine kozlowski i reside at 545 franklin street stevens point tax paying citizen i have two children in the school district one is 10 my daughter is 13. i have spoken to them both about this issue the vaccine the mask everything my daughter does choose to wear the mask when she goes places i have given her the right to decide for herself she is a young lady i obviously don't agree with her but she has the right to choose for herself as we all should have the right to choose for ourselves my son is different he doesn't want to wear the
027mask it gives him a little bit of a claustrophobic feeling and i don't want to compel him to so i'm speaking to you today to encourage you to make this mask issue a voluntary basis thing masks collect bacteria when you force folks to wear masks you are taking away our ability and freedom to choose for ourselves our country is based on freedom i have an idea let's let us decide what we want to do and if people are scared and they don't want to be around other people who want to ex who want to express themselves and not wear a mask they can stay home the first lady that talked mentioned that we should listen to the experts there are just as many doctors that say masks don't work but those folks are silenced and
028discredited because they have a differing opinion i'm here today because i would like for you to listen to us we are parents we live in the community we are tax paying citizens i know that sometimes in the past in the past you have listened to us and then done what you wanted to do please do the right thing listen to us thank you thank you it is essential that you comply with the rules or we're going to have to close public comment meg i don't know if this group is i'm going to they need to understand it excuse me this is um yes uh ben corwick hold on hi thanks for your service and appreciate you guys my name is ben couric i live on 2631 springville drive plover wisconsin um i'd like to kind
029of echo what a lot of those people have said you know about facial expressions how important those are and how how important is we as parents we as americans have freedom of choice and i think that should be respected um it it's very important as we know from the constitution of the united states that freedom is important the first amendment second amendment third amendment all those are important i'd like to quote a study also this is from liberty council is about data supplied by israel one of the most vaccinated nations in the in the world it shows that 64.5 of those hospitalized and 67 percent of seriously ill people with kovid were fully immunized with both shots that's according to a report released by israeli ministry of health july 20 2021 it has been reported
030via israel hayam and other international news sources but not the american media the uk the british health ministry reports that 87.2 percent of active covid cases are among fully vaccinated people so that that's something that we need to consider i know there's contrary news reports in american media but a lot a lot of those are being suppressed a lot of important studies are being suppressed and so i'd also like to mention that we are made in the image of god god created us he didn't create us to wear masks all the time and i have a question how long will this go on is there an end date to all this you know how long will this continue and you look if you study if you study the bible as well which we learned a
031long time they knew about hand washing in leviticus long before there was mentioned samuel emil weiss was a guy that talked about hand washing how important it was many women were dying in childbirth and the bible talked about that thousand years before he discovered that so and the god of the bible says that we should we shouldn't quarantine those that are healthy but you can quarantine the sick and so that's another thing to consider so that's all i have to say and i thank thank you for your service thank you for listening to us and that's all thanks thank you thank you thank you uh keith in kodrowski he's controlled good evening keith kadrowski 1536 water street apartment d yeah pretty much everything i want to say has been said but a couple items the
032best the bacteria in the mask it's it's absolutely disgusting for you people not to realize this put these kids through this shame on you it's like you're killing these kids you particularly but anyhow treating of the disease and i vector men hydroxycorp and how many people could have been saved if the cdc's wouldn't have suppressed the use of these drugs if they're 50 percent effective sounds like a quarter million if you're saying a 500 000 got killed follow signs co-parenting i'm not a parent a lot of my friends are they don't need help they do a great job get out of their business get out of their lives they'll take care of their kids as for the power of the superintendent absolutely needs to be on you guys in the board need roll call votes
033public need to know how you voted so when you come up for election they know which one you people need to be removed so thank you for your time good job thank you well-spoken uh david iden stephen david ayden david good evening i appreciate the ability for myself and the public to speak in front of the board here this evening the first thing i would like to touch upon is chris i'm sorry could you state your name in address yes that would be david iden and my address is 1008 matilda street stevens point thank you first thing i would like to touch on is a crt critical race theory and how it's based on lies is not on the agenda for this evening so this is not a public communist not allowed on that this
034evening very good um when it comes to masking and we talk about following the science we don't we're tired of following the junk science there is actually true science we've heard some of this tonight about the masks we are all aware of the masks keeping oxygen from people and the bacteria that masks are ineffective also masks do not filter that fine micron virus that is the contaminant and is spreading it's also an invasion of privacy for our students so uh schools are the original social network that's where you learn to develop that's why we go to 4k nowadays because we want our children learning how to network socially at that age and throughout the the entire school year my son was a senior last year and prior to that when school ended and all of
035his sports activities in the spring which he was involved in and interested in doing were cut off and then you had to sit home and attempt to learn online which doesn't work for many and it was it was handled poorly masks should be optional at best don't oppose anybody who is interested in wearing a mask parents need to have more involvement also in in their children um it's just it becomes we want to control this we're not going to let a crisis go to waste this will last forever if this is the case real problematic you know there there are other ways to go about these things they say the vaccine will save you you won't need a mask now it comes back vaccine or not you're going to have to wear a mask we
036don't care even though the masks are ineffective so this becomes problematic our children are in school to learn and they are in school to network with their peers some of the stories of the heavy-handedness of the teachers are problematic the children can't even communicate in the schools and that needs to stop they need to look each other in the face facial expressions are important it's part of the networking so i i do appreciate your time i would really hope that you seriously consider where we're going this coming year because we don't want to see another year like last year children are not subject to uh the the disease which is a serious disease as has been noted in consider what science it is there's a lot of science out there that has been neglected we
037need to look at all the science and especially the science that's real not the politically motivated science thank you for your time thank you and brock maddox brock maddox 5421 clover monroe avenue plover wisconsin the first thing i want to discuss is that we i'm the president of freedom fighters central wisconsin with over 400 800 members first agenda is number 13 gerlach's totalitarian agenda must stop i do want to note that our public comments do not allow aspersions or negative comments with respect okay well we believe that the vote should be within the board members and all taken from gerlack okay so we teamed up with 38 groups in wisconsin we the parents issued this letter to governor evers and uh president biden i'm here to bring you this message from 3800 groups or 38
038other groups and it says president biden and governor evers we represent over 20 000 families across 38 parent advocacy groups and we are here to inform you your uninvited reign of destruction over the children of wisconsin is finished we have watched the last week unfolding object horror observing our government institutions and leaders failing our children at every turn again your renewed calls for lockdowns and force mandates and masking in schools are not rooted in science and is objectively cruel to the most vulnerable in our society our children we believe that you are in fact aware of this and continue to play political games with our children despite our efforts to work with you over the last 12 months we are here to inform you that this ends today effective immediately we will not one mask
039our children in schools two allow you to use private sector counterparts to enforce invasive mass mandates on our children in various stores or community activities three subject our children to any further local regional or national lockdowns or movement restrictions simply put these are not your children they are ours and they too are americans with rights they are our responsibility and our most beloved they are not yours we applaud and support the school boards businesses and localities that have respected our personal choice we anticipate and appreciate their continued support of our rights to choose right to choose what is best for our children and individual families if you are a parent reading this hear us clearly you are not alone we urge you to connect with other parents and make your voice heard we are strong
040we are united we are in control we have never and will never co-parent with the government thank you for your time thank you sir thank you good job again i would ask that people refrain from comment with respect to the speakers um those are all who signed up at this point is there anyone here this evening that did not wasn't able to sign up and would like to speak and we will take you one at a time so we do have someone in the back if you'd like to come up to the podium and state your name and address please hi everyone i'm sandy ellis 467 martha's lane junction city my background it for 30 years has been in the field of early childhood particularly paying attention to all the brain research infant and early
041childhood development that occurs that's science that we know that's been studied for years we understand that i'm a trainer and consultant with uw school of social work with the wisconsin infant mental health alliance and a past board member there and our sisa systems i've trained head start teachers in our own stevens point school district to understand the importance of the social and emotional development with our young kids and that they will not be school ready unless they have that foundation of social and emotional development an earlier speaker talked about the facial expressions and how important they are and that that's crucial and so we know there are windows of opportunity for that development to occur and if we miss those windows those children don't ever get that back so that science is clear the zero
042to three organization and many other national organizations have recognized that along with the american pediatric association and as a matter of fact earlier in this pandemic the pediatric association did not support mask wearing for young children my own granddaughters i earlier in the year when i said are you making new friends she started to cry and say grandma i can't see anybody's face i don't know who they are and she doesn't know her teacher it broke my heart and so i say we will not study this for many years we will not know the impact of this on our children for many years so why would we take a chance and not follow the science that we know for sure many of you may remember i mean i'm old but many of you may remember
043that some years ago there was a huge push around emotional intelligence that businesses want people who have emotional intelligence and know how to self-regulate those emotions right we can't do that if we miss those windows of opportunity and so classroom behavior i'm guessing we can expect to see much of that escalate make it more difficult for parents and if we even look beyond our young our young kids in classes the whole high school population can't be ignored either it's just as difficult and maybe longer for them or harder for them as their anxiety rises and we watch what's happening with the mental health involvement that's happening in our school system as a result kids that are happy to stay in their basements with their laptops and have a lot of anxiety about returning to school
044and being masked so i appreciate the opportunity to speak hope that you consider our comments and i also support the current structure allowing board members to be the decision makers of issues here with input from our superintendent thank you thank you is there anyone in this room who was not able to speak who would like to speak yeah i just have harper felt who she just wanted to say something so our address is 502 south street military wisconsin and the floor is yours love well in school when we are wearing masks we are in gym time say if it's raining outside or it's in the winter time when we're running back and forth or around laps it gets very very hot but when we're wearing our masks it doesn't help because when we have them
045up it's we have we can't really breathe so when we take them down we have fresh air and it's kind of cooler um and when we are in school and we are trying to learn something or say we're doing like a specific activity um and we're like using a lot of our energy it gets super hot um when we are trying to work and do different stuff so i think that's all i wanted to say craig do you want to check and see if there's anyone in the adjacent room that would like to speak it looks like two there's a gentleman after hi my name is crystal gruber i live at 2520 clary court in plover wisconsin thank you everybody i have had a student in the stevens point i have had a stephen student
046in the stevens point public school district for the last 28 years my last my youngest daughter is a junior left her freshman year as an honor student ended horrid last year i also have two granddaughters that are in the system so i just want to make sure that they get the education that my older kids did which quite frankly i don't believe is happening right now i want to follow the science and so there was a study done back in january of 2020 happened to be a young woman who came in and tested positive for covid19 because of a heart problem that she was having they studied her and all of the people that were around her and she got no one infected hundreds of people that she had been exposed to no one was
047infected people that are non that don't have symptoms that are asymptomatic are not passing cobit that goes for our children who actually are supposed to be very low risk for passing covet so let's follow that science if you can find me a study after covid started that shows that masks do any benefit in fact even dr fauci has a study out there that shows that mass don't do anything for the flu virus and in fact cause more harm than they do good and they certainly shouldn't be on our children last year we had those kids wearing them all the time even when they were outside there's no reason we don't pass kovid outside this is something we know we're not following the science we're following the science we want to follow and as far as
048the apa they absolutely flip-flopped their original position because of they were told to i mean it was pressure from outside sources so when we look at the apa look back to their original recommendations our kids won't be in mass our kids will be in schools all the teachers have had a chance to get the vaccine if they want it the kid should be allowed to enjoy and have a normal school year so that's all i'm saying oh and please the board needs to vote this doesn't come down to one person we voted for the school board for a reason we need you to stand and do your job and make sure that one person is not dictating what happens to our children thank you very much you again i'd ask you to please refrain from
049clapping or speaking i believe we have is there another speaker craig one last i believe hi all right my name is uh colin ko bishop i reside at 3341 cleveland avenue florida wisconsin five four four six seven here to talk about let's talk about the mass you're all wearing dr fauci uses a study i believe is from india it's the only study he uses that study has been gone through peer review it has failed every single time he's gone through peer review you cannot buy one mask on the market anywhere in the world that's certified to prevent covet not one in fact i will give everybody in this room five thousand dollars that they can prove that their mask is certified for covet because you even look at the box that says that certify for
050covet so mass don't work second of all let's talk about the testing for covid do you know how they developed the test for covid they used cold because they didn't have coved so everybody who tested for covet is testing for a cold now the cdc is telling us in december we're going to have a brand new test because it can't find covid and that's true look at the cdc website that's where it's been posted let's talk about the state of maryland maryland has about six thousand residents in the month of july 81 people supposedly tested positive for covet with a test they're supposed to test for a cold because that's the basis it was made up now let's do some simple math here now just let you know i know how to use the calculator
051i have my bachelor's degree in electrical engineering and power controls and i have a master's degree in finance and the county of finance so i'm going to take the magic number of 81 divided by 6 million the population of maryland in the month of june july in the state of maryland the percentage is zero zero zero zero zero one three five of the population supposedly had clovid from a test that was made up from the cold so now we have the delta variant now we're to have a brand new test for the delta variant that's coming out in december that's wonderful so now why are we masking up why are we doing this and i believe it's control i truly do and i think a psychological control and that is a shame that we're punishing
052our children with this let them be free until one of you can prove to me that the mask you're wearing is certified and again i will give you five thousand dollars cash you want hundreds twenties tens whatever you want again my name is colin cole bishop 3341 cleveland avenue come to my house and prove to me that your mask is certified thank you thank you is there any other member of the public here this evening who would like to speak and has not yet spoken hearing none we will move on in our agenda to presentations and we have communication report sarah o'donnell hi the communication dashboard for the month of july is included in your packet we saw a significant percentage of engagement across all social channels really coming from stories and shares around athletics
053specifically for the month we had athletes received some national recognition which put us in more outlets and increased that engagement we began to see media coverage ramp up as we approach back to school communications season many of the media inquiries i'm receiving are related directly to kovid however i am happy to share that we're seeing some of those typical back-to-school story requests come in and be able to push some of those typical back-to-school story requests as well one came in for busing and then we did a bigger story last week on the child care facility opening at kennedy elementary school back to school communications have begun on a school and district level and will continue to increase in frequency and substance as we get closer to the school year the most current information we have
054will continue to be housed on the district website under both the back to school section and the covid procedures and protocols as those change and or update as we get closer to the year i'm also excited to share we're in the process of finalizing details for open houses at five of our buildings in conjunction with back to school nights those will be kennedy plover whiting washington and roosevelt elementary schools that'll take place in conjunction with their back to school nights we'll have kind of give families a chance to come through meet the teacher and then we'll go ahead and invite community in as well to see what those updates look like at the schools and then spash will take place on september 30th want to give them some breathing room get their school year started
055so keep an eye out we'll be sharing invitations with the public through a number of places so for those who are interested please keep an eye out and we will look forward to seeing you there that's it for me unless there's questions board members have any questions of sarah with respect to the communication report thanks sarah we will move into item b which is a superintendent's report uh the first issue i want to talk about is uh the status of our staffing we currently have 39 new certified staff members hired we still have seven pending we feel comfortable that we'll get those positions feel filled we we are continuing to have problems hiring school psychologists and special education teachers we also have 32 open positions that we are currently interviewing for as it relates to
056non-certified support staff this is very consistent with with years in the past our preliminary budget performance was and again it's preliminary um tom owens will be bringing uh forward a formal uh presentation this fall um but if you'll recall we went into this year with close to a million dollar deficit um and in reality we were actually in the back by seven hundred thousand dollars which is a considerable swing and it's uh it's tied directly into covet there was a lack of spending for example significant lack in terms of travel because there were no conferences there was there wasn't any staff travel and there was a considerable uptick in our revenue related to esser one and s or two going into the school year like this year with us or three we prior to the
057year beginning um that wasn't embedded in the uh into the budget so um it's positive that we're in the black however it's it's short-lived it's because of the uh quite frankly the esser funds and lack of spending um as it relates to covid um and that steps into sr3 funding we received i believe today got an email from dr owens that we'll be receiving six million one hundred thirty seven thousand four hundred and eleven dollars again that's sr3 between esther one and two we had about three million dollars um so that's a substantial amount of money that we'll be able to util utilize over the the next uh a couple years um and we will inform you as we move forward in terms of how those dollars will be applied obviously there are strict restrictions
058as relates to what we can use those funds for and the lack of the back to school status update uh including coven 19 protocols um corey is going to walk through a presentation this is similar to what we did last year um and then if there's questions afterwards of the board uh we'll take those uh again as it was mentioned tonight craig could we before we get into that do board members have any questions for craig about the staff staffing that preliminary budget performance or the esser funds can i ask a question yep on the yeser funds um how does that work do you actually just are you just notified that you have six million available to you and you seek reimbursement after you spend money we have to apply for it okay very specific
059requirements in terms of um and sr3 we're still interpreting exactly what that means it's more complicated than esther one and two but we would take the requirements make sure our expenditures are appropriate um and then we make application and then it gets reviewed before the reimbursement yeah and that's over a two-year period i believe esther three is three okay but just how that ties it how it ties into the state budget itself those dollars won't last three years because the state is giving us fewer dollars tied into the the windfall that is believed to come from the federal government yeah okay thank you any other board members have questions craig i just have one question um my understanding is that there is a uh sort of a public information components to the esser three dollars
060right we got uh um actually feedback from our legal counsel just today in terms of what that looks like and so we'll be um we'll take a closer look at it at cabinet and then bring forward um information to the board in terms of getting feedback from the public as well as staff those are two requirements how that looks has yet to be determined i think we have some options in terms of getting that feedback anything to add to that okay all right thank you and again um i'm gonna have core i'll go through our protocol or our cover 19 protocol or back to school update uh and then look at uh questions at the end there will this is this is a report it is not for uh um for any action so as
061craig indicated this just includes basically a status update on where we are currently if you recall from of course last year we had three commitments that we we stayed focused on that was student safety instruction and then flexibility um health and safety of our staff health and safety of our students will be a driving consideration as we move throughout this next school year with multiple layers of mitigation strategies several different sources that we've been in contact with portage county health department of health services department of public instruction the cdc really encourages getting kids back to school for in-person learning while also integrating many of the prevention strategies that they've that they've put forth um instruction we know uh that we're going to have a lot of kids coming back to us that have lost instructionally
062and and it's our job and we're excited about them coming back to our buildings and we're going to do everything we can to figure out where they're at and how we can help intervene and help all students continue to grow personally as well as academically we're also going to continue to follow um the natural progression of reopening whatever that may mean in the coming weeks and then keeping flexible throughout the year we learned that last year we need to make sure that we continue to do that this coming year so i talked a little bit about the learning loss we we have some tools and resources that we plan to put in place to to figure out exactly where our students are academically and how we can best intervene to help them it also includes
063a screener so if there might be students that are struggling for one reason or another it will help us to provide some interventions that we can utilize within the district within the community to help those students feel better about who they are and and what's happened over the last 16 months we know that we're now establishing a new baseline where we were pre-coveted is likely nowhere in the near future so we're creating a new baseline and we'll continue to evaluate those assessment and grading practices as we go about the next few years we have lots of standards to cover so we're going to be determining across the district with our staff what are those essential learning targets that students must know and be able to to understand and perform and we'll individualize that instruction and
064we'll provide credit recovery for those students that we know are coming back this year that are severely credit deficient and then we'll give our teachers and we'll give our our students the resources and the supports that they need to be successful there are inequities what we feel like is that there was a gap pre-covered that gap has just gotten wider so we'll try to identify where those gaps are we know that that we're disproportionate in some areas and that we need to address that we've hired a new diversity equity and inclusion coordinator where we're going to be helping those people to be successful and making sure that they have the resources and the tools also to figure out where are we as a district and where do we need to go to help everyone succeed
065and then again just identifying problem areas and problem solving those as as we transition into in-person learning for the next next year we also learned last year when we had to shift to a lot of e-learning that there was a real digital inequity there was lots of families that did not have internet access lots of families that did not have access to you know hardware so we'll do everything that we can to make sure that our students and families have the tools that they need throughout the year social emotional health i had indicated a little bit earlier that we will do a screener for students to figure out where they are at and will intervene as necessary and then we also know that because we've got a lot of students that may be struggling we're
066going to have to review our staffing and reallocate staff where appropriate and also add new staff if we if we see a need there could could include counselors could include social workers behavior interventionists or even program support specialists we intend to continue our collaboration with mental health providers within our communities we'll we'll enhance that as we need we also will do a lot of individual and group counseling with students and now more than ever we need to be engaging with our families students need all of us working together in collaboration to help students community connections and resources we have a lot of those in the community that are very supportive and helpful of our district and our schools and our students we're going to continue to to enhance those connections and make sure that again
067kids have what they need i mean that's our job and then we're going to do everything we can to make sure that we do that professional development is always on our you know our list of priorities within the district but now more than ever once we find out what it is teachers feel like they need to help students be successful we'll do everything we can to provide them the professional development to do that which some of which has already started this this year so our learning model for for this coming year a focus on traditional classroom learning pre-k through 12. we will have targeted e-learning where necessary so if there's a classroom if there's a grade level or a school that has to be shut down for you know a capacity issue or you know
068a lot of coveted cases within one area we'll make sure that you know we're able to provide e-learning in those in those targeted cases we do have an online learning option for those families in grades six through twelve they have students in sixth grade through twelfth grade that just don't feel comfortable coming back to school they have the opportunity to do full-time e-learning if they so choose we also are in collaboration with rural virtual academy and that's a program offered online full-time for students in grades kindergarten through grades 12. special ed of course is always present within our district but we also have some specialized programming that will make sure that we continue throughout this year such as project search yes our juvenile detention center and bridges so here are a few of the operational
069highlights that we implemented last year that will plan to to continue this year um as of right now so there are physical barriers there's the plexi glass so if you know buildings need additional plexiglas or you know that plexiglas that was used last year we'll make sure that those are all in place and ready to go drinking water fountains will only allow those to be used as bottle filling stations at this point we will have cups available for students that may not have access to a water bottle ventilation our buildings thankfully with the support of the community and the referendum dollars our buildings have an increased outside air ventilation that happens in our buildings and we feel that that's something that of course will definitely continue into next school year cleaning and disinfecting will continue
070on a daily and weekly basis um hand washing and respiratory etiquette just teaching kids wash your hands sanitize um again stay home when sick staff aren't feeling well if kids aren't feeling well we're going to encoura encourage them just to stay home and then the coveted point of contacts beth bakanovich will be our staff point of contact and i will continue to be our student point of contact school operations so we'll continue to make sure that we're creating space for distancing to the greatest extent possible we will continue to have some of our work spaces rearranged we have things still out of our classrooms that were taken and put into storage last year we'll plan to continue to keep those things out of our room so that we can we can distance students more if
071someone is to become really ill and have multiple symptoms of covid we would continue to keep them in that isolation room until their family is able to come and get them shared objects and supplies within the classroom we encourage of course individual supplies and we will have additional sanitation things in the classroom for those to be cleaned on a regular basis the district dashboard that we had last year that shows our active number of cases within the district's district for both students and staff will will continue so that will be available on our district website we plan to allow visitors back in our building we ended the year with visitors in our building will plan to continue visitors in our building at this point we really see a value in a lot of our volunteers
072our foster grandparents and we really feel that if if students are struggling some of those individuals make the best contact and relationships with those with those students so we want to continue that field trips and gatherings we ended the year that way last year also we want to continue that but we're asking that when people plan a field trip or a large event that they check in with educational services before a final decision is made just because we feel like we've got the most up-to-date information and can provide some guidance in into that final decision extracurricular activities uh we'll continue we've had some of our sports already actually start so we're in the process of that already clubs and activities will take place with social distancing and safety measures in place these are a list
073of prevention strategies that were recommended from the american academy of pediatrics cdc you know all of those different places that i had mentioned earlier these are the prevention strategies that we will continue to implement so a recommendation of consistent and correct mask use that is right now i mean a final decision as craig indicated has not been made but that's where we're at right now physical distancing to the greatest extent possible ventilation hand washing encouraging students and staff to monitor their symptoms and stay home and when sick and get tested continue contact tracing and enforcement of quarantine return dates cleaning and disinfecting and encourage vaccinations as people feel comfortable so right now per the cdc guidance it is recommended that there is universal indoor masking for all teachers staff students and visitors to k-12 schools
074regardless of vaccination status and per cdc order at this time they are requiring all passengers and drivers on the school buses to wear masks regardless of vaccination status so that's the most recent information from the cdc regarding face coverings last um here we have excuse me could you go back a screen sure the last sentence in the second paragraph could you there are certain exemptions for the from the mask requirement individuals with disabilities under the ada or individuals for whom wearing a mask would create a risk workplace health safety and we have been following that correct yes okay thank you okay last is a slide that contains data if you remember last year at the board meetings we provided information on where the district was where the portage county was and where the state was
075we didn't start that until september but right now and that's a two-week rolling average so and that is of new confirmed positive cases so right now the district is at one per 100 000 residents portage county 10 at 100 000 residents and the state at 12 per 100 000 residents and again that's over a two week period of time of new confirmed cases right now portage county has 79 active cases which is 1.1 percent of our population we have 97.8 percent recovered 49 are have received one dose of the vaccine and 46.5 have completed the entire series in wisconsin 10 479 active cases which is 1.7 percent of the population 98 recovered 52.5 have received one dose and 49.6 have completed this series just a couple other pieces of information as of today excuse me
076august 6th there was 14 new confirmed cases in in portage county um this gets updated daily so we're continuing to monitor that on a daily basis and then also looking at the trends over time as you know the trends in the in the portage county as well as the state are on an upward trajectory which is why we're seeing a lot more conversation about masks which is why we're seeing you know advisories and additional information coming out so it's fluid and it's really important that we continue to to keep that flexibility as we transition into the coming weeks and the coming months and year can i ask a question yep um on the district count because it's summer is that only employees that are here during the summer and working down their summer so it
077makes sense that that number is going to be pretty low absolutely when we had summer school in session mike we did count students that were enrolled in summer school and staff but right now since summer school has ended it would only include staff yeah okay i will leave this comment i'm sorry you are not you are not allowed you are not allowed to make comments you are not allowed to make comment at this point i'm sorry point of order you are i know but you are not allowed to make comment public comment was you are not a you are not allowed to make comment ma'am please no i would like explain it you are not you are not allowed to make comments but you can't so i want to hear you you are not allowed
078to make comments i want to hear your comment you are not you are not allowed to be i'm going to have to ask you to either stop speaking or leave because you are not allowed to make comments this is the time when the board is deliberating in their business meeting and i ask you to follow the rules so do any board members have any questions related to the presentation can i ask you another question go ahead mike on the scl screener um how does that no without going into a lot of detail how does that work do you screen all children or does somebody also feel like they need to be screened all children will be screened k-12 okay yep and we're we're actually getting training on it right now mike um so i will
079maybe give you some more information at a later date yeah yeah okay i just was seemed like a large task to screen all the children it is online yeah which so who's going to be doing that the individual teacher so you have to train all the teachers no the teacher yes we do have to train teachers but um it's it's not that we did a pilot last year and the teacher said it didn't take that much to learn how to do it it's pretty simple corey are we keeping any kind of um are asking our staff if they've been vaccinated not at this point unless there has been a positive case and and people are considered close contacts okay do any other board members have any questions of either corey or craig with respect to
080the presentation barb one question i did get asked by a teacher and i can't remember what school doesn't matter are the little plastic dividers going to be required on the students desks or just the ones in the offices they'll be available in the classrooms and in the offices both yep and cafeterias not required but they weren't required last year okay they were just used in us in places where we didn't feel distancing was appropriate okay thank you so could you talk a little bit about the um the requirement with respect to masks on buses because you indicated that that's mandatory and and where does that mandate come out of and how is it i mean that comes out of the cdc guidelines it's very specific uh that they have an order to require masking of
081all people on public transit and it's interpreted through council legal council or to include buses school buses as public transit it probably wouldn't be there probably wouldn't be consensus on whether a school bus is considered public transit um in the legal world however it is very uh clear with the with the cdc guidelines um that it is an order so we will continue wearing masks on the bus because there's an order um very similar to what we did last year and really you know you've got an issue of somebody for getting a mask and whatnot we have plenty of masks that we'll have on buses in in the event some student forgets so the the the buses are in order the buildings are a recommendation for all k-12 staff students vaccinated or not but that's
082not an option on buses so with respect to uh the close contact you know clearly we did that all of last year and we'll be continuing to do that this year my understanding when i'm wearing a mask today because i was possibly exposed to covid at the end of last week with someone who was staying with me in my home and my understanding is if you're vaccinated you and you are potentially exposed you are required to wear a mask for i believe it's 10 or 14 days i can't remember which and or get a get a negative covid test i think it's within seven days with respect to those who are unvaccinated my understanding is the recommendation is is that they will be required quarantine is that yes it's 14 days it's a 14 days
083so is that what we're currently i guess i'm just trying to get a sense of if we wind up with you know a positive case in close contact what we're going to be asking both of our staff and of other students within that building within that classroom or whatever location and that contact tracing goes through the county they're responsible for that they reached a point last year to an emergency status where they couldn't keep up with it we then took over the contact tracing in our buildings as did most schools as it related to staff and students we're starting this year with portage county being solely responsible for that and hopefully it'll stay that way change that go ahead we are going to continue bethany we are going to continue contact tracing within the district
084we are yes portage county will and we will okay so that both they have the capacity to do that right now the last we had talked to them they're concerned that they're not going to be able to continue that long term so we just felt as a district that it makes sense for us to just do it as well because we're going to have to shift to it anyway so we'll start that way and that's how we ended last year are are asymptomatic going to be eligible for early release remember last year they went the full 14. if they are asymptomatic and if they get tested on day six or seven they can return back on day eight eight yep yep um and had a question oh and do you have a question yes i
085do it's about the busing um will will the students on the bus will we be following guidelines as we did last year where families can sit next to each other otherwise we'll be skipping every other role we will social distance to the extent possible we were able to do that last year knowing that again as you stated family members or those living within the same residence share seats are there any other questions of board members with respect to the superintendent's presentation thank you craig we'll move into item six which is the consent agenda our consent agenda this evening includes minutes of the prior school board meeting of july 12 2021 the approval of the schedule of monthly bills and employment recommendations and you should have that updated list of employment recommendations at your place so
086i'm looking for a motion to approve the consent agenda so move second motion by scott second by wade uh i'm going to have uh carlin call the rule because of the monthly bills mr wade yes ms scott yeah mr evil yes mr pope yes ms portson yes ms rano yes mrs vang yes mr manske yes ms erler yes motion passes all right we are moving into item seven business services and i'm turning it over to mike is the chair of that committee uh thank you our first item is uh bid award 7a bid award transportation building bid package 19 and hopefully dr owens is here to talk about the bidding good evening tonight we're looking at the transportation building bid package 19 you have in front of you and we'll shortly have it on the
087screen here you'll see in green this is the summary of low bidders only you have in your packet also and of course everything that we showed tonight is on the website for anybody to look at the presentations you saw plus this and uh this shows you a summary of the uh picking up the low bidders all bidders are on an attached sheet if you choose to look at that that's provided as well but the summary of the bids uh the bids came in at 615 839 dollars it's uh over budget but we have enough in total to cover for that so this would allow us then to begin uh the work that's needed for that as the people were told about that we would be doing in the referendum we're at the far end of
088the envelope in terms of our wind window to approve this so that the bidders are still holding the prices for us yet but your action tonight of course it's very important to move this forward so we would recommend approval subject to your questions um any idea why we're so far over what we expected yes one of the main reasons had to do with the the water system that when they originally looked at this they thought they'd be able to tie into the existing system but the demands of the water and the changes that required they have to move go out into the street and they have to tie into the main and that's going to require a short period of time when that intersection over here is going to be blocked they'll have to dig
089down tunnel in connect up to the main and the road and then put the road back into the same condition that they found it in so that intersections on hh at least that portion of it's going to be temporarily blocked for a couple of days while they get that done and that uh that cost was 000 and that originally was and then there's it's a chunk but sometimes these things surprise you they come up i don't of nowhere rob the bid package came through in june for a june meeting just days before and we didn't feel comfortable because of the the overage and tom and i corey met with the nexus two three times to go over um the package you know with a fine-tooth comb um the overage in terms of dollar amount isn't
090significant but the percentage certainly is um not uh under my you know 300 000 then we went back to the scope of the project in the first place because it's over such a high percentage should we even do it well we told the public when we went to referendum we were going to do this we were going to do these projects unfortunately i i would call it economy of scale because it's such a small project it was very difficult for them to uh there were there were a lot of surprises um and then the question is why are we doing it in the first place well the bells garage was built before 72 passenger buses were created and so when you put the bus in you can shut the door but you really can't get
091behind it safely um and so yeah we need to do this and so we decided we can wait next till next year they're holding them now knowing the price of steel is going to go up it may go up things have relaxed a little bit we could it's a coin flip we could go back to bed throw this out go back next spring could cost more could cost the same could cost less but i don't know when building projects uh when they've gone up if when things flatten out do they ever go down or they just kind of stay where they're at so we thought long and hard over this and decided it's just best to bring it forward knowing that um we still have a contingency to get our other projects done as it
092relates to bannock and mcdill a little bit on this hvac system a little bit at point of discovery and we still are on target in terms of budget and craig um if i may a number of our projects have come under budget correct since we've been doing it's like you know 75 million dollars with 15 different projects some are over some are some are under you'll recall roosevelt was significantly over scope creep um and to say that we're we're at budget you know it's it's averages well i will move to approve the bids for the transportation building bid package 19 as shown above totaling 615 839 dollars second so there is a motion and a second uh motion by weight in a second by portson is there any further discussion or questions by board members
093so tom if this is approved when will this work begin and when will it be estimated to be completed um they'll be able to work on this starting in the fall and they'll continue so it'll be a few months into the they'll get the footings in and everything before the frost they'll keep working it's uh going to be a small addition that goes north of the building it'll connect on it and push to the north a little bit uh so they'll be able to work on that at the same time that the building's occupied all right thank you all right and did you have a question and bang at her hand you know what i've got the report uh that's on the screen so i can't see the questions ann did you have a question
094thanks jeff for letting me know that i do not put my hand down [Laughter] all right any further discussion or questions on that item all those in favor with eye any opposed with nay motion carries all right the next item 7b revision of 2020 2021 budget um tom are you going to cover that or mr doctor dr kurtz is going to take this hi everybody hi hi mike so um the board approved the original budget back in october of 2020 and since then we've had a few revisions so to comply with state statute any changes to the adopted budget must be approved by a two-thirds majority vote of the school board attached to this agenda item you'll see a notice of change the notice of change displays all the different budget revisions that occurred the
095majority of the revisions are typical revisions that happen every year due to grants and carryover however this past year we also had sr2 funding that caused us to create additional changes to the budget and that again is displayed on that table of change and you you can see some pretty big changes to fund 10 and fund 27 as a result of those esser funds are there any questions on that i will move to approve the revised 20 20 21 budget is there a second so motion people here oh now i got uh judy beat us so i got a motion by mike and a second by uh judy is there any further discussion or questions on those uh budget changes they clearly are more substantive than we see most years because our finance department does
096a pretty good job of of keeping us on target with with our budget so hearing none all those in favor with eye any opposed with nay motion carries the next item is 7c financial summary referendum progress report i'm going to go ahead and take that one as well so the financial summary is we see that every month it's a summary of our referendum progress there's two tables table a and table b we use those tables to reconcile fund 49. both tables contain the same information just in a little bit different way so um as of uh what was it july 27th on there i can't see it 29th 29th as of july 29th um the total referendum uh paid to date was 54 million 949 000 contracts to date issued 71 million 762 000 leaving
097us with a contract balance of sixteen million eight hundred thirteen thousand any questions on the table they were right pretty much where we're supposed to be right now huh pretty much yes do any board members who are remote i've got a table in front of me so again i can't see if if anybody's got a hand up so i guess speak up if you have a question oh now i've got you no hands all right any questions with respect to that referendum progress report no okay and our last item is 7d review financial statements dr kurtz yep that's me again um the financial statements are through june 30th of 2021 so they're through the end of the fiscal year um they're going to show actual activity for 2021 so as you're looking at them you'll
098be able to see how our actual activity compared to what we predicted in terms of our budget i would just want to let you know that at the time the report was created we weren't quite finished closing out the fiscal year we're still in progress of of doing that kind of i think craig mentioned some things earlier about tom giving a little bit more progress on how we did with our budget this year at a later time but i just wanted to give you that just let you know that as you look at that some of those numbers are they're really close they're very very close but there'll be some adjustments that will probably be made due to the audit and things like that any questions on the financial statements so so craig craig noted
099um at the beginning in his report uh just with respect to what we see what we saw in terms of budget performance and clearly some under under expenditures basically due to covid this year um so my assumption is that those dollars will then assuming whatever those dollars are they'll move into fund balance is that or am i incorrect oh you're not incorrect i mean that if we don't spend all of our budget then we have money left over that goes into fund balance so that's exactly what could happen that won't be determined until our auditor is completely right yeah correct give us a final budget okay all right any other questions of mike all right thank you mike you're here mike it's my first time i know the board since uh since i took this
100piece on the wall but that's it all right thank you thank you thanks mike all right we are moving into human resources and i'm going to turn that over to rob manske as the chair of that committee we have one item on the agenda 8a which is a request to approve a 2.0 fte academic interventionalist and 1.0 fte student support specialist job descriptions are attached beth is in the back if she if she can answer questions if you have questions or she can refer them to someone else who could answer well beth's here connie's here i'll let beth speak and then add to that go ahead bet yes so as rob indicated we're presenting two new temporary support positions uh to hopefully assist in addressing some of the learning loss that we experienced over the
101the pandemic looking at one at the elementary level which will be located at roosevelt and then two at the secondary level we're hoping that you'll approve those this evening the job descriptions are there i can probably answer general questions for you but more specific questions i would defer to either kanye or corey and we are looking at funding these positions with the ester funds in one of the job descriptions that under qualifications it talks about secondary licensure and then the other one is certified as a teacher and i i just i don't know enough about those things to know what's the difference what well both positions have to be licensed licensed teacher and one is preferably at the secondary level for those that will be in the junior highs and at spash so if you're
102certified as a teacher it could be at any level but a secondary licensure is certification only at the secondary level but it could be a teacher at that level yes yes so for example if you have an elementary license that maybe is just kindergarten through third grade you wouldn't be qualified to take a secondary teaching job so that's why we have to be pretty specific on some of those postings because it requires a certain licensure yeah okay all right thank you and beth will they be working with the principals or with the teachers or with both i would say both all of the above all of them and will that be part of the screening will they be they'll be part of that they'll be part of the screening too okay they'll be they'll they'll
103know you know how our students do both academically and with the behavior screener and they'll be in the know okay i had i had a question beth about uh academic interventionist position uh could you characterize how would that be different than a guidance counselor position because it looked to me to be very similar but how do you how do you see that happening so that it's a different position so what we did last spring is our student services and ad services staff did an amazing job literally going through all students transcripts to see what was the learning law specifically in how many of our students our credit deficit um for this upcoming school year and we saw um an increase of course as we expected as students throughout the nation did um so gee these
104these particular positions will have if you will a caseload of students at a particular grade level who are in danger at the 9th grade level of being credit deficient because of performance in 8th grade so they will have a caseload of students they will be doing some direct tutoring with those students provide direct support for students looking at their academic progress in each of the classes working with teachers on what specific needs is with the sole purpose of our goal will be then our current next year's ninth this year's ninth graders will leave our junior highs our vision is that we won't have any kids that are credit deficient even despite the learning loss in eighth grade we're going to make sure that they get on track for graduation at spash it's the same vision
105but we will be taking kids and we have identified them already the kids that are credit deficient those teachers will be working with teachers in other classes on how can students demonstrate proficiency to earn credit in the past creative ways for our kids to get back on track with graduation is the sole goal for these positions uh okay thank you the other question is why the one position at roosevelt is was there a special need identified there um yep gee our ell numbers our special ed numbers have increased significantly at that building they're without a school psychologist right now and they have a total enrollment of about 525 kids which is significantly higher than any of our element other elementary buildings thank you did you indicate that that at this point these are positions and
106we're looking at a one year temporary so it's a temporary one year and so that's you're requesting approval from the board for that temporary one-year position or at least three positions correct to be funded out of s or funds funded out of best friends okay if there are no other questions i move to approve to fte academic interventionist and a one fte student support specialist with the job descriptions for the 2021-2022 school year go ahead i have a second bye uh so i have a mansky made the motion and uh judy seconded any further discussion or questions on the motion hearing none all those in favor with i i i i i posed with nay that passes so we are now going to move into educational services and again i'm turning it over to rob
107is the chair of the committee uh we are convening a public hearing uh pursuant to wisconsin statute 118.381 b request to dpi to wave educator effectiveness cycle for the 2021-22 school year so we are looking for a motion to convene the public hearing um pursuant to wisconsin stat 118 0.38 per n1 parent b regarding the submission of a request to the wisconsin department of public instruction dpi to waive the requirements to complete an educator effectiveness cycle for educators in their summary year in 22 including waivers of the requirements to meet pi 8.01 and wisconsin stats 115.415 and 121.02 paren one parent q for the 2021 22 school year [Applause] so we are now in our public hearing no we need a motion i'm sorry motion by scott do i have second second second by wade
108any discussion or questions by board members i have a question uh will this affect salaries oh this is we're just going into public hearing now yep so all word the motion right now is just for us to go into public hearing on this any questions with respect to that all those in favor with eye any opposed with nay we are now in the public hearing segment um is there any member of the public that wishes to speak with respect to this waiver of educator effectiveness request hearing none i will take a motion to adjourn the public hearing or close the public hearing so moved motion by manske do i have a second second second by wade any discussion on the motion all those in favor with i any opposed with nay so the public hearing
109is closed and rob can you can move on with the general before you have a motion to approve the submission of a waiver for educator effectiveness requirements to the wisconsin department of public instruction for the 2021-2022 school year uh if there are questions about that i don't know if that's uh corey or yep okay so i'm gonna answer geez question gee the answer to that question is um we are still requiring new staff um to go through the educator effectiveness cycle um and there may be staff that would have been on a performance improvement plan last year or would be put on one this year that we might be concerned about that could potentially impact salary but i the majority of majority of our staff will not be impacted by salary because it will be
110waived but really yep thank you [Music] so corey did my my recollection is the board did so as well this past year that the state is allowing this again due to cobin because it's not anything that we normally in back in what was normal that we would be doing as a district but exactly since we're still in the pandemic they offered districts across the state to apply for this waiver throughout the state the educator effectiveness evaluation tool has been very positive that said it is very very involved and our staff are under a tremendous amount of pressure right now with govid this is just an added requirement that we can wave take off the plate so we can concentrate on on teaching children [Music] i move to approve submission of a waiver of educational effectiveness
111requirement to the wisconsin department of public instruction for the 2021-2022 school year motion by manske do i have a second second second by wade any discussion or question on the motion hearing none all those in favor with i i i any uh opposed with nay the motion carries item 9 d as a motion to approve the recommended academic standards for the 2021-2022 school year you see the list in front of you questions can be addressed to corey this is a an annual action that the board has to take it has to take place the first board meeting after july 1. so this is it so we're requesting for you to approve the standards that are listed and there are no changes from the standards that you approved last year so so the sta the standards
112i'm looking at um are the wisconsin academic standards the common core state standards the next generation science standards college and career readiness standards national core arts standards and the national physical education standards correct we have a motion i will make a motion right now i move to approve the recommended academic standards for the 2021-2022 school year i'll second that i have a motion by mansky and a second by scott any discussion or question on the motion all those in favor with eye any opposed with nay motion carries student services item 10 a is the annual resolution regarding expulsions and ihos this is a request to approve the use of an independent hearing officer to determine student expulsion cases as presented caleb is here i believe to answer your questions [Music] this is just an annual
113resolution we do we i've done every year since i've been here um in the event that a student does commit an expellable offense and we choose to pursue an expulsion um i'm asking the board to approve the use of an independent hearing officer in those cases rather than the board here in those cases at that time it's worked well yeah mike would it be the same um administrative officer that has seen these cases in the past yes so we have um secured christine hamill or hamel from the milwaukee area yep i'm bison to do our independent hearing officer and if board members recall the independent hearing officer actually hears the case they hear the case from the perspective of the student and family they hear the perspective from the district they then compile a report
114that report then does come to the board um and we as a board then conduct a closed session meeting with respect to that um at that meeting the board has the ability to approve the recommendations to say we're not in favor of them or to actually amend recommendations and ultimately the board does final approval of um of whatever action intended to take um in and then again that action is in open session so i'd like to make a motion to approve the use of an independent hearing officer to determine student expulsion cases as presented second so i have a motion by scott in a second by uh random do we have adreno sorry do we have any questions with respect to that motion hearing none all those in favor with i i i i all
115those opposed with nay the motion carries thank you we're moving into item 13 a which is the covet 19 operational and academic processes and procedures authority so this item is on for tonight um last year the board in june of 2020 uh authorized recognized and authorized superintendent gerlack's authority to implement operational academic processes and procedures in response to coba 19 and its effect on our district that's the system that we've been operating on this entire year in speaking with council they have recommended again we authorized for the particular school year the 2021 school year and that the board should be able to again make a decision as a board as to whether we would like to continue that system for the 2021 2022 school year so that matter is in front of us now i
116guess i'd open it up first for any questions that board members might have of superintendent gerlock and then we'll be looking to a motion and of course then the board will have the ability for discussion on any motion brought forward so do any board members have any questions uh of uh superintendent gerlach i have a question so on a practical basis i know you guys were meeting on covet issues daily and you know in some cases making changes on a weekly or bi-weekly basis and for you to have to wait until this once a month board meeting in order to make decisions that to me that seems like like a problem um so what did what's your perspective on that obviously you heard from some of the public today i'm concerned that one person's making
117this decision when decisions get made they're based on guidelines by the guidelines that we receive from the from the cdc from the department of health services from the portage county health health department from the department of public instruction from wazda my state organization i talk to my colleagues i talk to my neighboring school districts i talk with board president meg erler i talk with board vice president uh jeff ebel and our cabinet meets regularly to discuss this and then decisions get made after i receive feedback from all of these this isn't anything i i i'm jumping up and down to want to do it's truly the board's prerogative the real issue is masks are we going to wear mask or not last year i closed classrooms made decisions to close classrooms for e-learning we closed
118buildings for e-learning those are those are just we'd have to have emergency board meetings or you'd have to give specific parameters on what are we going to do when we find out on sunday night we don't have enough substitutes on monday morning for roosevelt elementary school i don't have the authority to close school because of that we we made adjustments to our athletic program we made adjustments to concerts and plays typically decisions boards would get involved with we we make we made decisions on calling us or going to e-learning from thanksgiving to christmas was not popular we had to make that decision because we couldn't sustain it we didn't have the staff to sustain we made decisions to modify our schedule at the beginning of the school year we made decisions uh when i say
119myself based on feedback from from the the areas of the people in and organizations that i've talked about um we made a decision on graduation um all decisions at boards around the state of wisconsin i'm looking at my texts because there's a lot of board meetings right now split votes are coming all all out tonight unmasked nobody's talking about anything i'm talking about except for masks and masks if if you take a look at who i hear from in terms of my correspondence with emails you know it's both sides it's right down the middle for each person that says this i got a person that says that that's what boards make decisions on i'm sorry they make decisions on on what their constituents think and so we'll have a split boat um what the vote
120would be i don't know but that's your decision um if you want to have mass be a board vote you can do that we can't do it tonight it's not on the agenda if you want me to make decisions um or if you want to limit decisions or if you want to give me the authority as you did last year last year went i think okay you know okay is about it as good as it really got for anybody um towards the end you know probably got more difficult because people were just tired people were frustrated we're starting this year tired and frustrated so we got a long year ahead of us truly uh it's um you know your prerogative is aboard what you'd like to do um and it's if you guys choose to
121to meet and have and make these decisions so there's a record a vote on record i understand that um we'll do that if you want to pass the authority on to me i'll make the very best decisions i can based on the people that i'll be talking to the best i can explain that do any other board members have any questions for craig then i am looking for emotion i move to continue superintendent gerlock's authority to implement operational and academic processes and procedures in response to coven 19 and its effect on education in the learning environment i'll second that motion i have a motion by wade i have a second by scott opening up for discussion and questions by board members uh in in my opinion in the last year i think craig you followed
122the best advice possible you've talked to far more people than any of us have and you've shown to me the propensity to follow the best advice out there from the cdc department of health and sought on i mean i think it's as you said it was probably as good as it could be last year in a awful year and i think that the process also it allowed you to make decisions quickly as you said which we wouldn't be able to do if you didn't have that authority so just a comment so the majority of the emails i received were positive about the last year in a struggle that was so difficult for everyone and requests to please keep our schools safe for seven thousand kids and their families for a thousand employees and this board
123hires a superintendent to run the operations of the district they put their their trust they ask questions and you may not always hear all of the questions or requests that we we share with the administration we're a part of this community we have kids grandkids we totally understand both sides of the story i have a granddaughter who had to wear a mask i mean i understand it but we have to make sure that the whole district comes together and that means every every department we have from teachers and educational assistants and bus drivers and the food service people and custodians all of them that is a huge full-time job that we hire a superintendent to hire professionals and in the midst of covet who has training for that no one so i'm i i just
124have to say it's not an easy thing but i absolutely support the person who's been doing this since kovitz started to keep everyone as safe as possible in our schools i have a comment too if i may i just want to make it known to everybody uh to the board and those that are coming in tonight i i don't want to wear a mask i don't want a social distance i don't want to do any of that stuff unfortunately it's not about what i want i mean there are other people that uh i have to think about i have to consider and i think uh based on the situation and how quickly things change and with the track record that uh craig showed us last year i think that we should continue to give him
125the authority to make those decisions based on what is good for the majority of the students and the the employees of the district and everyone that's involved in this are there any other comments from board members i want to know just in the position that i've been in um the just the practical reality i mean it's not just that superintendent gerlock assistant superintendent hershberner connie negard john ballendorf i mean you name them they're not only making those day-to-day decisions about what's happening in a particular classroom what's happening with respect to staffing what's happening or what needs to happen three weeks down the road because i think we all recognize last year our administration really attempted in any major changes impacting students and families to to be proactive in both providing a heads up that was
126happening and then creating the systems to support it oftentimes in partnership with the boys and girls club with the ymca with our child care partners with todd kuchan in the business council i mean just constant con conversations um there were meetings that were happening weekly initially then bi-weekly for most of the year with many of the our community leaders including the mayor and the chair of the county dan mahoney the university mstc many of our nonprofits i mean just ongoing input that that that no one of us as a board member and not us even collectively as a board would have i believe the ability to have that information because we're all very part-time i mean we're part-time board members and i think it's so important that those decisions are made with that broad level
127of input both from our staff and from the community um i also want to note that the superintendent gerlock and administration provided the board with updates at every one of our meetings and we actually had more special meetings last year than i can remember in a long time and there was a lot of discussion among our board and there was not uniformity of opinion among our board and there were numerous times that based on the input of the board and conversations that happened there were substantive revisions made to what the superintendent and cabinet were planning to do and how they were planning to move forward and that is something that will that is also essential on both for our board to have a broad understanding of what's happening as well as as the community so
128i'm in support of continuing this i believe it's essential that we allow the professionals that we hire in this district to make the very best decisions that they can make for the day-to-day operations of our schools especially in a time of constant ongoing change which none of us wanted to see it this year i think all of us were thinking june and july was going real smooth i think what we've recognized is we don't know what we don't know anymore this year than we knew last year at this time and and we've got to be prepared to be proactive flexible and problem-solving moving forward judy i agree with that as well and agree with how fast things change and we need to put our support and trust in the school district and the staff here
129to make those decisions i also don't love wearing a mask and working in healthcare i wear a mask all day and so i would encourage as soon as possible when we are able to to really look at how soon can we make that a choice to wear masks so i know you'll take that under consideration and trying to get back to normal when and as possible which i know you will do are there any further discussions comments questions of board members meg when you take a vote could we have a roll call please yes thank you hearing no other comments or discussion uh board member scott has requested a roll call and so i will ask carlin to call the roll ms rano yes mr evil yes ms partson yes ms scott yes mr wade
130yes mr pope yes ms va yes mr manske yes ms erler yes motion passes unanimously thank you to that point um first of all i want to say thank you but i don't really know what i meant thank you for um the real issue here is mass i get it people want to know for a lot of different reasons and they need to i also know that we've got a little bit of time and a little bit of time is better than um we don't need to make a decision right now and so i'm not going to have a decision tomorrow i'm going to con this is a significant issue i get it we'll make it when i feel as if we can make the right decision and not have to change i know boards
131that we're going to last week that we're going to do something tonight and they've already changed what they were going to do so we don't want to make a decision and change it by the time school starts i can tell you this all of what we're talking about the data issues it's not going to be the same in three weeks now that said we don't want to wait till the weekend before i get that um but we certainly will we'll take another week maybe two um but we we want to get the word out to parents and i know parents are asking you know what will that decision be so uh we are moving into 13b and that is school board goals of 2021 22 and operating protocols uh this was something that we had
132uh on a retreat um you know as happens sometimes in the summertime um we did have a small group who were planning on meeting to work through those protocols um that meeting has not yet occurred um so i guess we're asking uh and we also of course are going to uh be in closed session this evening discussing the superintendent's goals um and so i guess we're asking the board to postpone this until our september meeting and then that group can get together work on the protocols and then we'll have the superint superintendent's goals to help the board form its schools um so i guess i'm looking for a motion to move that to the september meeting so moved motioned by ra rana do i have a second she got a problem with your name okay
133second bye was that evil or jeff yeah okay second by evil all right so the motion is to move the school board goals 20 21 22 and operating protocols to our september meeting all those in favor with eye any opposed with nay okay thank you so moving into future meetings dates and times um our next meeting will be our september 13 2021 regular board meeting absent the need to call a special meeting i also want to note that we did move to continue or to start our school board committee meetings back up in september of 2021 of course as happens every year the first monday is labor day so we will be looking to have those committee meetings on tuesday september 7 2021 and just a reminder and carlin will be sending out a reminder
134of course closer those meetings start at six pm and seven pm um so that first committee meeting starts a half hour before our regular school board start time so just so board members recall that we did make that change i think i don't know a year and a half ago or two years ago so with that i am looking for a motion to go into closed session under 1985 paran1 parent c considering employment promotion compensation or performance evaluation data of any public employee over which the governmental body has jurisdiction or exercises responsibility specifically evaluation of the superintendent position but i have a motion to go into closed session motion by way do i have a second second second by porzin uh any discussion on that motion i will have carlin call a roll mr manske
135yes ms va yes mr pope yes ms portson yes mr wade yes ms scott yes mr evil ms rano yes ms ehrler yes motion all right so we are in closed session give us about 10 minutes to set