September 14th, 2020 Regular School Board Meeting

001you're otherwise we're gonna get feedback from you that would be great that's me okay i don't think i'm gonna be able to do this okay we will call okay yeah wait we got a little echo here we're going to try to figure it out oh there we go thank you okay okay okay everything will be fine we will call the students one area regular school board meeting for monday september 14 2020 to order and i first want to note with respect to public access to meetings due to the public health emergency the need to limit gatherings we are strongly encouraging members of the public to attend school board meetings remotely we are regularly assessing prior to each meeting how many individuals will be present and ensuring that we are creating social distancing according to all

002public health recommendations and any orders out there with respect to that we will move into the roll call and verification of quorum and we'll have carlin do so okay ms erler here mr wade here ms scott here ms rano here ms portson here ms vang here mr eagle here mr pope here ms baker here okay we have a quorum excellent thank you we will stand for the pledge of allegiance and to the republic for which it stands one nation under god indivisible with liberty and justice for all i want to note at the beginning of the meeting as we've been noting all of us who are present here this evening are wearing masks per the guidelines with respect to the state under the governor's order in the event we are speaking on school matters educational

003matters we do have the option to remove our mask during the time we were speaking so if some of us are doing that throughout the meeting we just want the public to be aware that that is still within the guidelines that the governor has set out we will move into item 4 public comments at the march 19 2020 special school board meeting the stevens point area public school district passed a motion to suspend school board policy 016.7 7.3 public participation at board meetings for the duration of the public health crisis members of the public may provide public comment pertaining only to specific items on the agenda via email um the uh by sunday before a 6 pm of the sunday evening immediately prior to the school board meeting did we receive any email comments carlin

004we did not receive anything we so we received no public comments we will move into item five um well first um let's welcome carlin um carl and carl kramer welcome back she has been a long time employee with the school district she left us for a very short period of time and we are so excited and grateful to have her back helping us move forward together with the district so welcome and we really look forward to working with you colin thank you it's good to be back i'm very happy excellent you like riding the bicycle [Laughter] all right we'll move into presentations a the communication report sarah o'donnell hi thank you how is everybody good um included in your packet is the august communication dashboard which details um engagement across our traditional and digital channels

005for the month of august much of the traditional coverage that we received obviously focused around reopening of schools for the 2021 school year um across owned and earned media channels we continue to see the highest levels of engagement on facebook this last month we saw a 600 increase in incoming messages to the channel um so certainly glad that folks feel that's a way that they can connect and get some questions answered for them um specifically during months where maybe we don't have as many folks in schools available to answer those questions we turned to video quite a bit during august to try to create some face-to-face engagements even though we couldn't be in person we did that through the reopening of schools series um those have been used total of 36 000 times across our

006digital channels including youtube and social media and our own website um also worth noting we did the six live q and a sessions three for staff and three four uh families trying to walk through uh just the various options that are available to families between the flexible e-learning the online learning center and then what in-person classes would look like um there is obviously some significant changes with that cohort eight cohort b when students are attending um we saw really quite high engagement across each of those both for staff and for families um combined we had over 1100 live participants and then those videos have been shared i think the last time i looked we were around another 2 000 views for those and then as we transition into the beginning of the school year we'll

007move from talking about how we're going to reopen to actually being reopened the biggest piece of that for communication will obviously be working to provide transparent information to all of our stakeholder groups um to that end we worked over the last month but really launched last week friday district dashboard that's updated in real time that is located on our website containing information on both active cases and then recovered cases that had been present in buildings and then also including updates on protocols within schools so what happens if a person should get sick what that might look like for staff what that might look like for a student cleaning protocols and then communication expectations thank you does anybody have any questions of sarah just a comment sarah excellent job you really you covered so many things

008and you did it clearly i've had people say they just couldn't believe how much information they needed and got so thank you very much thank you can i kind of make a comment too sarah i will remove this thing um i want to kind of say the same thing i think that august was a particularly difficult month and um i had numerous parents tell me those videos that you put out and the live and then recorded webinars on how school was going to be conducted was really really helpful and so i just want to say kudos one more time um to getting the communication out that you really did a nice job with that and uh it and unfortunately we'll need to continue we have high expectations but uh yeah really really nice job can

009you tell us where on the dashboard or where on our website we see the dashboard also one more time there's a link so if one were to go to our home page right now it is the first link right under kind of that main image um it says i can pull it up sorry i don't have it right in front of me i totally should it's not the in this together tab it's not we're moving away from the in this together tab um so right now that houses all of our reopening information and i love the sentiment for the in this together piece however i'm starting to feel as though we've moved on from that sentiment a little bit as a community um also we used that a lot to kind of differentiate our e-learning

010from our so when we made that transition to being fully online last march we really worked to brand kind of pushing people to that in this together tab to receive information we didn't want folks to be confused with the multiple types of e-learning that's happening right now you've got e-learning if you're an in-person student you learn flexibly learning if you're not ready to come back to the classroom but might be ready you know next semester or maybe come excuse me next quarter or it's semester and then we've also got the online learning so we wanted to to kind of don't want to say totally wipe the slate but create kind of a new space so right now it's just information on coronavirus i'll have the the tab updated um early tomorrow morning i just have

011not had a chance to do that but it is linked under spa psd covid19 dashboard and response information and everything that's there was also sent to all staff and all families last friday um so as soon as we had that up and live and felt like that was was where we needed it to be we did get that out um i have had some folks asking you know we wish it had this information why aren't we sharing this information what i've been telling folks is this is where we're starting i don't know that it's where we'll be ending for communication but we really wanted to just at least start with some of that basic information right now when we communicate positive cases we're communicating it to a building level so really trying to get it

012to the folks who need that information versus district wide but we we know there's folks who want that district snapchat and i think that's an appropriate ask so the dashboard functions for that and then also under that same section we have the communication all archived there so you could go back and see kind of when that was communicated who has been communicated to um it's a very standard letter and then i do think it's important to note that should a someone be a close contact that's identified those folks are are being communicated with in a different way either by the district themselves or through the county so really the communication that folks are getting kind of that general communication um like an extra added safety measure to let folks know that you know there was

013an individual in the building we've now learned has tested positive um so that they they're able to have the information that we have and make decisions you know where they feel comfortable yeah i found it thank you it's great really comprehensive sarah i just have a quick question could you just provide a little bit of an update about um our newest member of the spash family that now has been installed outside of the main entranceway i know there was some press out there and could you just talk give us a little snapshot about um yes the artist and the installation i i can share what i know which is um last week the artist who is a 2003 graduate from spash um august kokonowski i believe it's his name and i think i said that

014correctly um was was available to come and dispatch and to they they've got this very cool metal um panther sculpture that has is being installed as part of the new courtyard um within the referendum project so yep we did see some press come out on that they had a very small kind of little installation i guess i don't want to call it a ceremony because i don't think it was really bad and then we are looking forward to being able to kind of unveil um both the the interior referendum work which looks really great we're excited to share that with the community and then the exterior courtyard work as well which would include that new art sculpture um so you know one more it's a little further along we don't quite have all that buttoned

015up yet at splash but looking forward to sharing that um and we know like under normal circumstances right we'd have like a big fun grand opening and cut the ribbon um we'll still probably do a smaller ceremony like that but then also wrap in some videos since folks you know frankly so aren't necessarily going to feel comfortable and we can't have a large gathering so looking forward to that uh in the coming months i would say all right thank you anything else for sarah at all okay we move into item b the superintendent's report i like i thank you sarah i likely will echo much of what sarah just went over well we're um we're open and things are going i would say quite well not necessarily knowing what what what uh tomorrow brings um

016we had a gradual start to the school year for staff or for uh for staff as well as students our staff had an extended learning or professional development opportunity and our our students came in um gradually over the course of last week that really did work out well received a lot of positive feedback we all did as we went through the district um from staff for the extra time that they had to include our bus drivers and our transportation department uh you know for for years well forever and a day we would have the first day of school we put you know all the kids on the bus and drop them off same day and just the gradual start really helped us out something we may even look at you know it's going to be

017lessons learned as we move forward bringing students in gradually i think is going to pay off over the next couple weeks regardless of a pandemic or not so we will be um throughout the course of the year documenting uh uh documenting uh what we've learned uh uh not uh in the event that this continues well that's part of it the other is you know what might we look at from a different lens um again i attended uh the majority of the schools uh cabinet members did as well lots of positive feedback um and some concern yet with with staff and in terms of what all this looks like and of course uh we all understand that uh the contact tracing um has just begun and uh corey hirschbrunner is responsible um in partnership with the

018county for contact tracing in the event that we have positive covert issues or exposure with students and beth bokonovich is responsible in partnership with the county as it relates to any staff the usda um you're probably aware of extended free meals through december 23rd uh that includes uh in-house meals our hot lunch programs as well as the grab-and-go and of course grab and go throughout for those that will be involved with e-learning so that's that's was a positive uh positive news and well-received um again that's through december 23rd unless funding uh disappears prior to that any questions for me can you tell us about how many students we have um completing e-learning we have approximately 15 corey about 15 about 15 of our student body uh would be e-learning [Music] it started off probably about

019eight percent in july that's fairly consistent with um districts that i talk to my colleagues in districts that are similar size i shouldn't say similar size i think that's fairly consistent throughout the state and that changes daily we have we have additional students wanting to return um and of course there may be some that they'll want to go back and do e-learning and we expect that to about 2 of that fifteen percent have indicated they want e-learning for the entire year and the thirteen percent is making a decision based on a quarter craig can you uh uh tell me where because i get a lot of questions like everybody is like how many covet cases do we have like where can people go to find this that is the dashboard that sarah referred to trish

020asked a question if you go to the opening page it's going to say a reopening plan hit learn more and on the right hand side i believe it's like three bullets down um it's really good because they can get current information there it's going to be real time it'll be updated daily as we get information right now you're going to see you know a bunch of zeros the majority of them but that's where that will occur yeah it's it's got a tremendous amount of information on it i mean it's just terrific um can i ask a question uh we were hoping to get um the the the 20 and correct me if i'm wrong i believe there was 23 teachers that had indicated that they had um some kind of health issue and that they

021wanted to do e-learning they wanted to teach e-learning how has that worked out that our in that our teachers are are all of our teachers teaching e-learning and in class at the same time or how how is that working have we managed to find places for those 23 in the virtual learning you know can you just give us another quick answer is yes um beth are you on beth bakanovic did you pick up on that question i did so uh we've anyone who indicated a need excuse me a need to stay home due to a medical condition and provided the appropriate medical documentation is working remotely at this time and i know corey could probably speak to the online learning center we made some assignments uh for that as well so as far as i

022know so far so good it's working out well we've assigned two teaching staff to deal with our elementary students that have expressed an interest in e-learning for the entire year and then we had a support staff member um that was not able to return and she is providing some clerical support so that's working well and then the other elementary teachers are are helping with the flexible corey you want to slide up here so there's a microphone yeah yeah um so the i guess the question i have is are any are any of our teachers teaching both online and in person in the classroom yes the majority of our elementary teachers and secondary teachers are actually doing both so they're responsible for the the students that are in person and then they're also providing that flexible

023e-learning and we've got students that are transitioning daily they have to be quarantined for a certain amount of time if they're a close contact or if they've come down with symptoms and family just you know needs for them to be home for a period of time um so our teachers are are doing that the majority and so i guess my next question is and i'm i'm probably going to phrase this kind of ineloquently are are we are we keeping track of the extra work that we're asking of our teachers i mean i got to think it's really difficult to be teaching online and then have a group of students that are in your classroom and then doing exactly the opposite on the you know thursday and friday or wednesday thursday and friday i guess um

024i just are we keeping track of that we are and and we're monitoring um teachers were were concerned about that because you know we just don't know exactly how many students are going to remain in that e-learning and how many are going to be transitioning throughout the year so they've expressed concern with that we know that that's a concern but we're going to continue to monitor and make a decision is this doable or is it not doable and how how many how many students will remain in that environment and how long can we remain in this phase that we're in yeah i guess my question would be how long can we keep asking our t this of our teachers and i i'm just gonna have to you know wait and see what what you i

025mean i haven't gotten any requests i haven't gotten any notifications from you know emails from from staff concerned about that i'm just that just seems to me like like a lot and i was hoping that we might have enough people that want to do virtual learning that we might be able to put those you know we might be able to come up with one entire um uh you know what i'm trying to say set of grades you know that that we would be able to do move that but it doesn't sound like that's what happened if we were gonna do that we thought it at the elementary level it may take probably 14 additional staff oh boy okay which is significant yeah um and again i think we're just going to have to monitor our

026staff has been amazing um they know it's going to be a lot of extra work we've given them the wednesdays which is going to help so they had a lot of additional time four additional days at the beginning of the year and we have the full wednesday to do a lot of that planning we've also in our buildings determined who some of those e-learning contacts can be so all of the the work doesn't fall on the teacher there might be a social worker or school psych or some educational assistants that might be able to make contacts with families to make sure that they've got what they need um and we're keeping those families engaged so we're monitoring right now it's working but it's still really early i guess i'd feel more confident giving additional information

027maybe in a month yep thank you thank you great question and that's that's a concern um that was brought to our attention uh as well as last week when we were going through and of course you know there's a fair argument it doesn't necessarily matter if it's one student that's e-learning or if it's 10 there's still there's a lot of work additional work we get that yet there's some complications as it relates to staffing if we were to do and we thought through that that would require a substantial amount of additional teachers with that comes a decision do we put those teachers on contract or do we hire substitutes and if we're gonna to what extent do we have a pool for this type of stuff because there's a shortage of teachers and if we

028hire 14 new teachers if that's the number um it would be close to that and in two weeks we're all e-learning because covet hits us hard we're purchasing teachers that that won't have work to do i shouldn't say that but that's part of the whole issue there is once we offer a contract we just offered a contract for the entire school year sure so we're going to monitor that whole issue and that kind of this conversation will occur probably at each board meeting good thank you craig i had a question have we had teachers not able to begin the year with their classes i in person due to covet 19 yeah yes have we had what we anticipated was a problem getting subs even though we're just in the first we have not had a

029problem getting subs now keep in mind if a teacher is not uh in their building because of covet 19 and and they're not sick we don't hire a sub they're teaching virtually from home they're a level and then we're hiring a teaching assistant just to be in the classroom for for the attendance and discipline and in the management thereof if if if someone's sick they're sick then they'll be on sick leave elementary's a little bit more challenging because uh you've got to have a teacher in the classroom so the whole class is not sent home because say a teacher is we haven't had that yet the the starting the the year without a teacher in the building occurred with some prior to school starting and it was uh on their own personal time unrelated but

030it was before students came to school okay but it's going to happen we're going to continue to have cases we you know we don't have many um districts you know if you take a look at what's happening right now at the wausau school board they're they're deciding whether or not they're going to open up their doors in october and and i think corey said there's a a large school district south of us south of madison that just went all virtual and so it really depends on the community and i know there there's some frustration regarding what metrics are we using um that's there's therein lies a challenge um we're we're hoping to get guidance uh we haven't received guidance from the county as they haven't recite received it from the state and so we really

031are out there right now day by day taking a look at moving forward knowing that everyone really is doing something a little bit different other than the models the models of of elementary school in session maybe a day off and the blended learning the the two cohorts very consistent throughout the state of wisconsin yet the metrics out there in terms of when would we consider closing uh we're going to continue to to work with that and on that um but we felt very comfortable we feel very comfortable where we're at right now with our numbers managing it um and and the substitute teachers uh that we need for that now all that could change we don't know that burb says yes barb um i have a question about cleaning supplies do we have adequate cleaning

032supplies and will the teachers and eas continue to have adequate supplies yes or are they limited no we are not limited and somebody told me i don't know if it was corey or s beth that just the amount of money we just used in terms of purchasing um cleaning supplies we've mark croots ordered enough for the year and if we can't get a supply barb um mark is finding us an alternative he's he's been great with that awesome thanks any other questions so so i guess my question is with respect to what's happening at the elementary level those students well elementary and high school junior high although it's a little bit different students are being served at their regular school building but they're being served online so if we have a student that has chosen

033to e-learn and they were attending roosevelt they are receiving e-learning instruction from their teacher that they've been assigned to as though they were present right and so right now i'm thinking because our metrics are that 8515 we have the majority of the students within the buildings with face-to-face instruction at this point and then we have it might be interesting for the board if it isn't too difficult to just provide us with some information about kind of what kind of what are what our class breakdowns are looking at i mean what's maybe an average of students that are in the classroom face to face and then students the teachers are being asked to serve to provide on online learning for i think that that might be helpful for me to get a sense of and again

034as you noted right now we only have about two percent did you say that have indicated they're doing all year and then the other 13 have indicated they're gonna assess and maybe make a change at quarter correct okay we can do that it'd be a little apprehensive to throw out numbers right now because as of last week maybe like changing by next month maybe by next month that might be helpful changing daily several times in terms of people calling up and saying nope i want to do this instead i want to do that instead but yes we'll allow all of that ready for next month okay perfect i have a question off of meg's statement um if at the elementary the teachers are teaching online students the same stuff as they are in classroom is

035there any way that the teachers are able to record what they're doing um especially like in math class so they're learning you know multiplication or division and they're using the whiteboard or anything is there any way that they can record it and have that on the schoology so that students are able to watch it in because most students at that age are going to be learning from watching so if they can record it or if there's lessons if they can record that so they can also listen to it and watch it at the same time yes we're in the process of that anne um right now we have webcams ordered for every teacher unfortunately those have been back ordered so we're supposed to get them by september once we get those we're going to provide

036our staff some pd and then start to integrate more synchronous and asynchronous sessions so that students can log on maybe during a morning meeting or during reading you know class or we might be able to tape and then the students can watch it at a later time any other questions of craig okay we will move into let me find out where i am we will move into item c culturally responsive committee update um and we will be having lindsey bernhagen and caleb fight providing a presentation to the board good evening give me one moment to set up and hopefully we'll be going while we're trying to set up i want to thank you for giving us an opportunity to be here tonight i want to introduce lindsey bernhagen uh university professor and head of i'm

037going to mess this up i know the c-i-t-l but you can explain this okay wow all right um i'm gonna let her introduce herself we are collaborating um in a lot of different ways with lindsay this year um really excited to share all of all of that with you this has kind of been a an ongoing process in conjunction um over the last two years that i've been here one of the the kind of key stones to this is our identification under essa and idea which is our federal oversight um we're identi we're over identifying students of color in special ed that kind of spearheaded the work which you would think we have to tackle it in special ed but we actually have to tackle it in the regular ed version area of it so

038that we don't place students and so we are doing a lot of proactive work and so we're taking some steps in that and one of the steps that we're taking is this year partnering with lindsay and her expertise and we're going to go through some of the training we're going to do um some other key highlights we also have also before i forget because i'm really horrible introductions um i have jen melville and amanda mayo joining us virtually they are co-facilitating a professional learning community as well so they'll speak to that in a little bit we've also applied um to our a national network called msan or minority support achievement network we are in the final stages of the application process we're meeting with them this week to finalize their their selection committee um and

039hoping to hear back from them the next week that as a student voice activist uh group rations activist but a an advocacy group that will come in and help us with professional resources in conjunction with this to provide us student the students and the aces group you've heard about over the course of the last few years an opportunity to learn how to speak and get their voices heard in a more professional way as well as providing our leadership in our district an opportunity for training and professional development under the areas and lenses of diversity and inclusiveness we're working with our social emotional learning practices to make sure that they're engaged in culturally responsive practices so our road maps are are also looking at this we're looking at the school-wide resources that we have to be

040more inclusive with culturally responsive practices we are enhancing our ace group which is that advocates for change in equity group which is our student groups at the high school they're looking to expand on into our junior highs to give our junior high students a voice lindsay's going to be a part of that group as well to help them advocate for that as well and then we're also reframing our approach and our student problem solving teams which is our student assistant teams when students are where teachers and staff are working with students and their unique challenges that we're looking at how to reframe that in a more global lens so that it's not it's not a deficit approach that it's more of a proactive approach and we're looking at the whole the whole child and not

041just the specific area so that we can problem solve more accordingly so we have a lot of things going on right now in the midst of the reopening of everything but it's it's a high priority for us amongst all the other stuff so i'm going to let lindsay speak a little bit and hopefully we can if we can share the screen and then we'll go over what the pd looks like for all staff in our district he's going to help go ahead all right sure so i'm lindsay bernhagen and i'm the director of the center for inclusive teaching and learning at uwsp and also the diversity officer for academic affairs um i'm a stevens point native well a junction city native more accurately so i came up through point public schools and i came back

042to central wisconsin a few years ago because i love this place and i believe in it and i believe it's in the goodness that it has to offer um at the university a big part of my job is professional development for our faculty and our staff and by faculty and staff i mean like professors to those who work in our university centers to facilities to police officers etc on campus and my my role for professional development is really around diversity equity and inclusion in the ways that we interact with our students and the ways that we interact with our colleagues and there i developed a multi-part training that's been really successful it's been received really well even by people that were kind of resentful about having to go through it they've sort of changed their

043their perspective on it and it's really fostered some great conversation on our campus and i think helped us move things forward and i'm really excited to be partnering here with the school district because we're all in the same community right and we all recognize that some of the issues that we see i know some of the issues that we see at uwsp and i'm sure some of the issues that you see in your schools are not you know our walls are porous right we don't have like a barricade up around our schools this is all about the community so the more we can sort of get those conversations moving across organizations i think the better the better off we're going to be so i'm just really really excited about this chance to get it all

044all using the same language and whatnot yes and so i wanted to overview what training we're going to be asking all staff and when we talk all staff we're talking support staff food service transportation leadership teachers it's going to encompass our district because the focal point is the entire district moving forward my computer's acting a little don't share my screen yeah do you have the the link up try it to re re present it sorry about that duplicate showing up online all right try that again we'll see if it work i just duplicated my screen so let's see if it works now oh you want me to restart my computer okay i really apologize about this caleb it's not the first time things like this happen i even had to try i had to work

045in an hour earlier is this is this what was in our package it is yes so you're trying to yeah so in your package you actually have a uh the powerpoint presentation so if you want to look at that i'll go over now that i'm restarting my computer and it'll take me forever to do it it'll be on your background it's under the background it should be the it's the file attachment underneath section c of the board agenda caleb is this the presentation that i would have seen last year thursday okay do you want me to try to share it oh that'd be wonderful thank you sir okay hold on you start talking i'll see you um so the training that we're gonna look at is a four-part training um that is really intended to

046be a two-year process to not overwhelm our staff in the midst of all of this we wanted to do it in a slow progression and also making sure that we do it an adequate job with it so it's a our hour and a half part training that that each faculty member will be going through over the course of the next two years over the summer months we do plan to have a refresher course to ensure that any new staff members or staff that have missed it or those that want to go through the two classes this um that happened this year we'll be able to get that so that all staff that are in our district will have this training oh perfect you got it thank you sarah and it is really in collaboration where

047where lindsay gets to speak on this and lindsay's going to speak on this this is really a it's adapted from her training that she's she's currently doing with the university we really felt like it was a value for our staff to to go through it as well it's really hard not having that control go ahead and move forward sarah this is just an overview of the background which what we've done this summer we did an equity audit or we started to do an equity audit what that means is we've had leadership uh take a look at district data and dive into it looking at the different areas of culture looking at percentages of the school district and then as well as each other individual schools to start to get a background of that to see

048where our gaps are as well as where where we can fill in those gaps so that staff and leadership have an understanding of what work they have to do because every building is so unique in their culture and their own kind of demographics that they have that we didn't want to just use our district data to have that we wanted to take a deep dive look into individual schools and then create and the ultimate goal at the end of this is to create like a sense of equity amongst all of our schools to make sure we have access for students and that's really the key is all students have the same access regardless of where they're at and in order to do that we need to take a dive to see where those pieces are

049missing so that we can then build from there so our staff in june and july started to take a deep dive look into that and we're going to continue that work with lindsay and some of our other um partners that we're going to start looking deeper into that with msand and lindsey and and dive into that access point for students and it and it is really a matter of all the rings of culture not just race it's it's regarding all socioeconomics where my goodness my brain is on fire right now so looking at gender identity um disability thank you i should know that one off so it is really a deep dive look at that go ahead and we didn't want to do this without having the goals and outcomes and so the purpose of

050this is to really build a positive climate of our district as well as having a reflective process for staff to consider where their own where they start and where they can grow yeah i just want to add a little bit to that um with all these trainings that i've built they're really interactive and there's a lot of space for the groups that are in having the conversations to talk about what these things look like for them it's not me coming in saying here's you know the universal solution for everything ever um that doesn't exist and if it did somebody would have sold it for a million dollars and i would not be here right now um and i also develop all my trainings with the philosophy that i believe everybody wants to do good and

051be good and that everybody has positive intent that's really at the core of of how i organize things that's my that's my core philosophy um i i really don't believe in shaming people i don't think most people are trying to be hurtful or exclusive or that any of these things are even things that we do intentionally most of the time so that's where i start and so we'll go over a couple of the goals of the training um obviously we just talked a little bit about this knowing the current state of diversity and inclusive and that's where the equity audit really dove into play um finding value and diversity and really i want to highlight the one like feeling empowered to make change that enhances inclusivity on our campus and we talk campus we talk

052our district campus so not just our schools but wherever they are within our school districts as well including our building and grounds and our sporting events as well so it really tries to outreach to that that's what we're trying to build and then obviously with goals we have outcomes and and we're really hoping that through these trainings and each one of these outcomes i want i want to just highlight that they are tied to specific or at least geared so that you can see that it's scaffold but they're all encompassing so the numbers that each of these outcomes correspond to the the courses or the sessions that staff will go over in the next two years so that there is some correspondence back and forth so you can see where some of the highlighted outcomes

053will may come from as they're starting to dive into this but it really is that commitment to making our stevens point area public school district more inclusive examining biases and privileges are being able being able to articulate the advantages of having diverse students and colleagues and so it's really trying to take a deep dive look overall on this you want to move forward one more time for me sarah as you can see we are really eager to have that that broad range of outcomes here being able to identify ways of the formation of reflection of the courses design and interactions again like she said they're very inclusive courses they're designed to be interactive so it's not a sit and get it is really designed for for staff to really embrace this this movement going forward

054the next slide is really our our hope for training session our timeline that we're looking at um we're starting yet this fall um working with leadership and principals to set up one wednesday this semester to do session one next semester we'll do session two over the summer months we're looking at to do a refresher for one and two because we really want to hit those new teachers um as we start to hire in the in the fall and then fall 2021 thinking that far ahead we're doing session three and session four is really for instructors as it is a pedagogy focus um that we we encompass at the end of that however just to highlight and amanda and jen will speak a little bit of this coming up that there's already a group of individuals

055from each of our buildings starting to take a look at the pedagogy into their into their schools and climates now because they're ready and they're eager we didn't want to stop that so just so you so that the board is aware the community is aware that we are doing some of that work currently but there is a specific session dedicated to that and again it's not exclusive to just teachers so if eas or somebody else wants to jump into that for pedagogy practices they're welcome to but it is designed for instructors and or just those that are student-facing the next slides are really starting to talk about session descriptions and this is where i'm going to let lindsay speak to this because she's the expert on this but the next four we'll dive into the

056four sessions that we're having all staff go through so session one is the building awareness and value yeah so the building awareness and the value of diversity that session is really just about getting our heads around what is sort of the current state of things if we look at you know what are the demographics where are we seeing equity gaps and just making sure everybody's really familiar with what those things are um because we want to know like what's what's where are we starting from and then uh i i do a lot of research-based stuff too so talking about what does the research tell us about diverse groups and decision-making and problem solving and like aside from it saying us saying like diversity and equity and inclusion is a value that we have maybe like

057a moral or ethical commitment we have research also tells us it's like really good for thinking and ideas and student development and those kinds of things so i like to share that that research that's really the focus of the first part kind of why are we even having this conversation it's a silhouette session session two uh the session second session is really about what the research says about implicit bias and how that shows up in human life in all sorts of ways so um in education in the in our experiences with with medicine and our experiences with the law and our experiences in the workplace i'm just talking about the research behind implicit bias what it is what it isn't um really focusing on the fact that everybody has implicit biases it's not just something

058that like people who have you know racist views or something have implicit bias everybody has implicit bias it's just a natural psychological function so talking about the research around that and then what we can do to try and mitigate some of those implicit biases completely eradicating them is uh challenging perhaps impossible but we can slow ourselves down on reacting to them or reacting leading with our implicit biases so some act some real concrete steps um what you can do to sort of slow down that process the next one part three is about how to it's kind of intervention training really so if someone says something either a colleague a student whatever and you're like oh gosh i i know that wasn't okay uh i need to step in i don't know what exactly to say

059i'm getting that nervous panic response like all i know is that i'm uncomfortable this session really focuses using some case studies on how do you step in how do you say something how do you turn that into a teachable moment how do you have that conversation with another person again recognizing that there's no one solution for every person every situation every relationship but there are a variety of general strategies that we can use so i use case studies to sort of talk through what a couple of those things could look like then the last one yep and the last one is really focused on inclusive pedagogy using the framework of universal design which i understand is already uh well known in the district so that's great so just thinking about universal design and what we

060know about that as a philosophy for for teaching and learning and how we can use that same principle to make sure that our classes are as inclusive as possible and that we can serve all of our students equitably so the next piece that we're doing too is we didn't want to just wait on this training we wanted to give those staff members who are ready and willing an opportunity to to start this and so amanda male and jennifer melville have been pretty instrumental since i've been here on i'm doing this work kind of behind the scenes but now we're moving forward so amanda or jen if you want to speak to the plc and the work you guys are doing and also maybe talk about the newsletter a little bit to share with that as

061well that is linked in the board agenda that's a monthly newsletter that's going to go out again as a monthly for topic so i'm going to take let you guys take it over can we get rid of that can we get rid of that feedback yeah could everyone that is not speaking turn off their mics please thank you okay go ahead jen let's try it hi the plc group that is meeting is really a continuation and a more formalized structure around a group of teachers and individuals in the district who have been meeting for about the last four plus years um just very informally sometimes students from ace would be there and so now with the plc structure what we've been able to do is really get um some representation from all levels and now

062we're looking to try to also incorporate an increased representation from different employee groups to be able to come and meet monthly and talk about kind of where we're at what we kind of need to work on and the the focus this year has been hopefully to get out a monthly newsletter and this year was focused with how do we meet our students where they're at how do we help our teachers and our staff be ready to welcome them back and so we kind of talked about that relationship building and then we plan to meet every month and really kind of talk about what are those practices and tips and tricks that we can share with our colleagues to help more students feel that the school is an inclusive environment for them so in the last

063newsletter we really sent out a video about relationship making and then our e students had put together a handout about two years ago that they had shared with some staff members and we were able to share that district-wide and then we invited people to be part of this group and we've had a lot of interest and we've had a lot of people say please put me on the committee i'd like to do more i'd like to do more in my classroom and then there's some other branches off when i look at like our master's program in the district courses are incorporated in that and so there's just a lot of opportunities for staff to continue to grow and use this plc to improve their practices there's also a reading list included into your board packet

064that's split up into three different levels so kind of depending where your comfort zone is these are optional readings for staff to to start as they're exploring and we're diving into this a little bit more we wanted to give them a place to start and some some readings to do as we dive into this a little bit further and some of the work that we're doing with lindsay we'll obviously do some more book studies on this with the whole district and and really get ready to dive deeper into this and work through getting our district into a more inclusive district and to so that students can walk in and the nice thing about this plc when you talk relationships that tied right into our sel work that we focused on and so we're not doing

065things in in this silo approach we're really trying to encompass all the work in that universal approach and and this that way teachers aren't having to do multiple things they're just they're looking at their classrooms they're looking at their environments and they're taking an approach of how do we engage our students in an inclusive environment in an educational environment and a safe environment and so that is really the focal point of the district and so we're highlighting the culturally responsive by what's also encompassing the udl work that we're working on for k-12 our social-emotional work that we're tying all together in our task force as well as this and then we do have the secondary staff looking at literacy and diving into some some english texts as well to make sure that we're doing more

066inclusive readings and so we're adding more inclusive literature in the secondary schools and their english courses and so really trying to encompass all of this this work together amanda mayo if you're there do you have anything else to add i don't want to miss out on your opportunity to no i think jen did a great job of covering it i think the emphasis just that for something that's been ongoing for several years is really starting to take shape and gain a lot of steam and the feedback so far from our first newsletter has been overwhelmingly positive absolutely do board members have any questions of caleb lindsay jen or amanda or all of them i have some some questions okay more than one first of all i i see that you have a student advocate committees

067listed in here i my feeling is that for this to be really successful there's one group that's being left out that's the people perpetrating the marginalizing okay we have groups of kids that are feel marginalized in our school and we're asking them to raise their voices and be on the committees and work with us i don't think anything will happen to you get the people that are doing the marginalizing to them as an example a teacher told me oh a year or two ago she was standing in the hallway during a passing time at spash and this was after the 2016 election the day after and she heard a student say to a hispanic student now you can go home i want that kid involved i when i was an adjunct at the university i

068would talk to students of color in my classes and ask them how it's going here and i would get stories of kids riding by say they're walking down the street kids riding by and harassing them with racial slurs and that was tracked back to spanish students i want them involved i don't want them sticking out there being excluded from our inclusivity project they need to be there too because it's their behavior that we want to change of their own will and it has to be specific students and i think our faculty our administrators know those students well enough that maybe those kids get in trouble all the time for doing this but maybe this is a kid i can reach maybe this kid has influence in their community and if they can sit down at

069the table with the kids they were just harassing and talk about it that then we can get some progress but until they're included you're it's like talking to the choir they're still out there they're still feeling excluded and their feelings are going to manifest themselves in doing further marginalization so i would encourage the people who are working with these kids with and getting the student advocate committees together that they really think about the makeup of those committees it has to include people from all sides agreed can i give i wanted to give you a quick update on that so the other portion that we didn't really talk about yet too much is we have a component in our schedule in particular 712 um an advisory where students are doing a bunch of different advisory lessons

070and once we get them acclimated to the new way of school with coven 19 procedures and things like that part of the work in that advisory group and that's led by brigitte austin and kinder vasquez and they're doing a great job is to incorporate some of those culturally responsive lessons into that and so they are working with our committee they're actually part of the plc you forgita serves on that and so those will be lessons that are part of that advisory and then absolutely as someone who gets to deal with the discipline aspect of some of those things definitely a lot of coaching and other things that go into that but really providing students with different opportunities to learn more be more empathetic and to be more understanding but we are working at getting those

071lessons in so all students have that face understanding in our advisory lesson 7 12 and then k-6 is working on different aspects of sel and other things like that to really make it more of an inclusive environment and so those students understand that thanks for your answer john i just want to make sure that the people at the table yeah i taught at spash for 20 years there were some kids that you just didn't know what to do with them when they were way out there things like that i want to see them come now you can't drag them there but i do think there are certain students that you that teachers know that administrators know because they're in their offices is maybe this kid could do it maybe this kid has influence in that

072particular portion of our society and even though it's you may have to swallow hard but you might say i would rather have this kid here than out perpetrating whatever they've been doing to cause trouble and that maybe you can reach that side and it won't be easy it'll make it a lot harder i think that as we develop those teams or those groups we want to make sure that we are getting all the voices heard so well the people i asked would be the teachers they'll know they'll know who you can reach even though they might be in trouble all the time they'll tell you and they'll give you their personalities and you get to pick the right ones but they have to be there yeah so i've got oh go ahead nope go ahead

073um i as you all can expect i do have lots of questions and comments here um so i notice that this the subject is culturally responsive committee and it's an update when did this culturally responsive committee form it's kind of been it's been working since i've been since i've been hired it's kind of come to fruition over the summer months we wanted to give an update there's been a group of staff members that have been working together um and again kind of like amanda and jennifer they've they've been working out with it even before i arrived here started it in caleb's position so sarah was the one that originated the committee so it's been as jen noted jen and amanda it's been in existence for about four years the focus has been really an internal

074curricular focus and then of course this past year with with the many many challenges that we as a district face both in the fall and in the spring and again caleb was new last year so it's as noted it's all coming together now and forming with much greater definition in terms of direction and um frankly support and um and the board as a board over the last several months really signaling this is a as a priority for our district um i also noticed that there is a list of plc members is the is that open to anyone in the district or is that strictly for educators no it's open to anyone in the district and when we sent out the culturally responsive newsletter we actually invited anyone who wants to be part of that to

075join us for that group and then as we started to look at who were now our job is to look at who are we missing who do we not have on that group so really looking for members from transportation from food service one of our food service members who was on it who often took a different job so really trying to find people from different parts of the district so that we have representation from various groups as well as different people from all over okay so my question here though is this also open to community members and students because i recall the conversation that craig and i had with young adults and a current student within our school districts and the suggestion was to have students to be on this type of committee as the

076students are the one in school so they are the best to listen to to see what they need and what they want i noticed here there are it consists of district staff which is great another question from that is how many of these folks are assigned up identify as black indigenous or person of color i ask because it's a culturally responsive team i will not call anyone out but i will call everyone in who is watching who may watch this it was brought to my attention not too long ago that a member from this list had a student had medical issues it was suggested to the parents to take them to the doctor's office their parents stated we have already taken them there's not anything that they have found parents next step was to do

077something culturally to see if it's his spirit because every culture is different and they were denied that and they had to jump through hoops so this is a culturally responsive group and committee which marginalized groups are being represented i know when we talk to a marginalized group we're talking about lgbtq plus community we're talking about poverty we're talking about race we're talking about all of that i don't see that in this group so if we're building that within our curriculum what's our next step because i feel like this is a fail already because we're looking at this and there's not there's not an array of folks who can identify with our students within our district so right now right now there are members of the lgbtq um group on there there are also about i

078believe five i'd have to i'm sorry i don't have a list in front of me i'm at my house i believe there are five people who identify as people of color on that list we know that we still have a long way to go and i absolutely agree in regards to figuring out who we need to get on that committee in regards to students students are typically invited they've been invited at various different times to come and be a part of that we've had a number of students from our uh ace group show up at different opportunities when we've invited them so we're still definitely working out the parameters around that but yes those are definitely things we need to continue to work on it and continue to fine-tune along the way so do students

079have to be part of an organization in order to be invited to these meetings no they do not and how are these meetings communicated to students and other folks within the community um as to when they are and where they're held so right now our first big official so what we did is we did have one meeting with lindsay so far to kind of give a background as to kind of where things have been where the committee has been kind of getting our traction back down and then our next meeting will be coming up and we're going to be working with saradana others our ace group you name it to try to get that publicized and out there so people know uh where those meetings are and what they can do to be a part

080of them okay i just had a meeting i actually have a meeting uh next no wednesday with our student group and they're the ones that are working on trying to get those student groups at the junior highs and others and really trying to get those established and hopefully continue to do some work even at the elementary if we're able to all right and then i'm looking at the newsletter here and it's this september first steps for building an inclusive environment get to know your students names and pronunciations before they arrive i challenge you all in this room how do you correctly pronounce my last name considering the home folks have been in this community for at least the last 35 years so i believe and i'm going to call you on this a bit all

081right i believe what the district has been attempting to work on over the course of this summer is to move forward in a positive way and i strongly encourage board members just like we will be encouraging members of our faculty and students that if you're aware of concerns or issues that are happening within the district it is and we've we've talked about this as a board forever it is essential that we are providing that information to our superintendent to our assistant superintendent to caleb to connie that we are working through them so that they are aware of issues and concerns that we as board members have the board meeting itself is not the only avenue that we as board members have to work together to try to move forward these initiatives that we are creating

082together and um there has been an awful lot of work that has begun there are a lot of people who are very dedicated to really trying to move things forward and um i strongly encourage all of our board to look to see how we best can support this effort so if you have specific issues that come from your background as each of us board members do it's essential that we as board members provide that information throughout the course of our time on the board not just when we're showing up at a board meeting okay i i i would be happy okay let me get my no i i guess i would ask you in how do you pronounce your last name my my the correct way to pronounce my last names are very simple va

083is vein as what you all know as vang yeah as what you all know as yang small things and we've had these conversations before small things matter they do pronouns matter and it's important in a sense let me let me reply to your statement provide education okay meg please let me have a word in let what you had stated okay that it's an ongoing thing and it has to be brought up when if i recall during my campaign it was brought up that in 2017 there was an email to everyone on the board about issues at spash there was no response to that email it is now 2020. i appreciate everyone's effort and i love that we are finally working on this and i know it's a long time coming we need to stop saying

084it's a long time coming we don't we want to make sure we get it right this is the first step that we're taking but i'm i'm answering your question in 2017 an email was sent out to the entire board about incidents at spash many incidents happen at smash that i am aware of and i don't know if you all are aware of but there are so i'm asking because i love what's going on here i want to make sure it is what the group is saying inclusive so my questions tonight are really just getting what do you see what it was your lens and what members do we have as part of this committee so that we can get all the voices heard we're talking about school districts here i love that everyone is willing

085to take that step and be yes i'm ready for this but we need to include our students we need to include community members who have been doing this we need to con include folks from all of the marginalized groups that we're talking about and so i suggest that you all be very transparent about who is invited to these meetings and who is able to come and where it's going to be located not every time you all say ace that's great i've heard of ace before and they do wonderful things but when we start mentioning separate groups like that and when we have students who aren't able to participate in groups because of whatever they have they're going to immediately say oh i'm not part of ace i can't go so keep this group very transparent

086so that anyone who wants to be involved can be involved and we honestly i want to see this committee not just checking boxes i don't want them to just start or just see the finish i want folks to be committed from the beginning and continue i hope there's no end to this no and i agree and and it's a starting spot and the list of staff that are on there we are staff that are that are interested in starting this and i agree with you man we need to get the commute we need to figure out a safe way for those voices to be heard a place for them to be heard aces group is a single group that's out there that has has formed under under jen's um leadership and and it's one of

087the groups so i agree with everything you're saying and it is it's the start but it's not the end and i didn't put an end spot on this because i don't think that there's it has to continue so even as we go through this we say two years that's just that's the right that's that's a timeline for us just to get through it so i agree with you and the transparency that you're referring to we're going to work with there to make sure that those voices are heard and it's transparent so i agree we have i also want to note we have been meeting we've now had three meetings with uh sarah kim and um well it's actually the three meetings have had different members of the group that created the petition and presented it

088to us um depending on their schedules but we have had three meetings with them since the uh submission of the petition to work item by item through that petition um connie nicard was at the first meeting and she's on tonight and may be able to provide some additional information if you would like that um the second meeting or the the third meeting uh caleb was there amanda connie myself and again we've been working through the questions the concerns and the requests that were raised through that petition and moving forward to to have administration as well as the district look to take action with respect to a number of those items those meetings are planned to continue we've been trying to meet every couple of weeks with the start of the school year we may meet

089maybe about a three week gap but we are continuing also to work with that group and we have invited anyone to the table that um that they would like to have at the table at those meetings we've been doing them as webcasts here at the district because some of those students are living outside of our community most of them are students who are not our current students um and we are again continuing to move forward on that angle as well so you stated that um you all haven't invited anyone to those meetings that you've been you all have been having with um the uh sarah kim has reached out to me and i have asked her to invite whoever would like to be at those meetings to to be at those meetings yes and so

090she has been communicating with us with um various students and again depending on their schedules um uh that depends on who's showing up at those meetings yes could uh meg could is there a way that we could uh know say what's you know how you're expanding uh the ideas that are being put forth by the sarah and other students and the things that are that you're discussing i mean connie are you on can you hear me yes can you provide um just respond to g with respect to the the initiatives you've been working through uh as a result of those conversations um well several you know kind of different things um i think first and foremost is um the board accepted the policy change for anti-harassment to include some hate speech and symbols um that

091were part of conversation that people saw and felt during their experiences um in our schools at various times that was one step that we took that the board took and accepted recently the other conversation was really about um a lot about curriculum and instruction and students wanting to see more diversity in all courses not just english courses and reading things by authors that may have the same cultural similarities as some of our students but also in all content areas and students really quite frankly feeling strongly that they just weren't exposed to curriculum that was um as diverse as our student population has become and so that is something that we are starting to look at by right now with our english department diversifying some of the authors that are in their curriculum but certainly should

092flow through to all our curriculum areas so that was a big part of our conversation about curriculum and then was had some conversations about climate and students you know talking about their experiences and their stories that we needed to pay attention to students asking for some more symbols in our schools that reflect our anti-tolerance that reflect that that we respect diversity we asked for our the members of this group to give us those kinds of symbols meaning posters that they would put around the school that really were meaningful so we had a lot of dialogue about about that and those students actually sent me those kinds of symbols that they felt need to be more prevalent and then we had a lot of conversation about um that where where the conversations need to start and

093that it this isn't just a secondary issue and that that the kids in when they were in elementary school would have really liked to see a little bit more diversity in their curriculum as well um so we've had good conversations and and they've kind of kept us accountable to moving along with some of these things that we can look at and take steps forward we have a lot of work to do understandably but this is a this is a group of spanish students stash alumni who are giving us really frank conversations about their experiences and giving us some really well articulated suggestions on how to take steps forward it was nice to now you can see where some of these changes started from these conversations would it be all right for future meetings to have

094just a little catch up like this couple minutes that we could uh you know it's nice to see the genesis of these ideas and where they came from halo um just a question or you know one of the things when we over the years if we as we've had initiatives i've always asked how are we giving parents information because when you talk about culture one of the things you want to talk about is especially in elementary younger children what culture at home are they coming from i think it's really important and i'm not asking you to add this right now and that but i'm just planting the seed that it's really important i came from a family that was you know one parents from europe and you know there was a lot of diversity in

095my you know the schools i went to it was normal to me but i don't know that everyone has that experience the younger you start to to show children that diversity and and let their parents they can teach their parents actually and they have over the years so i think at some point i hope you'll put that in you know some part of this how do we how do we include parents educating parents in the culture that they're living in here for our kids because the staff you know they're professional a lot of professional educators they're looking at those things parents aren't looking at that yeah they're looking at the lives of their their children every day for sure and kids you know the experiences you have come from the culture that your family has

096so i think it's really important at some point to include them yeah so i do have one last question about um this um will you be doing anything about the intersectionalities of yeah say that again the different intersectionalities of marginalized groups so you could be um part of the social economic group marginalized group and then you are um you know black indigenous person of color so like how does how is that different from someone who is from upper class but if they're identified as a black indigenous or person of color because the more intersectionalities that you have there's a lot more that yeah that's pretty foundational to my understanding and and sort of philosophy of diversity and i have a master's degree in gender studies intersectionality was foundational to everything that i learned there and

097it's foundational what i teach in my classes too but yeah that's a great point and it's conflict it's complicated it's not just additive it's not like you get two points for being a woman and two points for being a person of color it's like no that's like a totally different yeah so i definitely definitely talk about that building on what chris said about parents being notified and being kept the rest of the activities and what i said earlier about the students that you i would say be how do i say this um like i said we have to reach out to students that that are doing the marginalizing be one way to say it but also with the plc to reach out to parents of those particular students i can just relate one thing as

098uh i i thought we were going to come up to a big big meeting i went to the health department meeting about wearing masks in portage county and it was a mess just an absolute mess chaos uh and i thought we might be coming up to that meeting to that kind of a meeting and uh so i i reached out to one of the speakers at that meeting i happened to know him we were acquaintances and if you can just reach across that chasm to bring people into the meetings that wouldn't normally come that they will take information back to people of their associates and that that way they're not getting rumors they're getting information first hand and that they're feeling that their ideas are being included you got to have people there that maybe

099don't want to be there you know i don't know how you do that i'm just saying they they have to be included also for any uh progress to be made the other i had another thing how are you gonna know if this works or not i always think if we start something we do something we have to know we have to have some way to gauge whether it's working or why should we keep doing it i think that some of the outcomes that we talked about earlier um i think i think you're gonna hear you're gonna see the differences i'm gonna let you speak a little bit more to that i know you've done this before but yeah i think over time some of those equity gaps should ideally shrink um i think that if

100you do climate surveys of your students do sort of before and after and see if things have changed in a couple of years because this is not going to be an instant change because we're talking about really complex issues we're talking about a thousand micro interactions you know a day and some of those need to change and some of them are fine so to sort of see that it's gonna have to be over time and also we can do um basically uh like empowerment or efficacy assessments at the end to ask people who have participated in the trainings do you feel more comfortable confronting this stuff do you feel more comfortable having conversations about structural oppression um informally with your colleagues with students do you feel more comfortable you know doing your curriculum through an

101equity lens and making changes to adjust for that so some confidence i would imagine that we do keep records of discipline and things like that and could be separated out into disciplines that are our disciplinary actions that are concerned with these types of activities and that would be another way to see if they're decreasing because of what we're doing right so i would encourage i feel like we're getting to eight o'clock and i know with with our board meetings the later it gets the sometimes attention wanders i guess i'm gonna ask if there are any board members who haven't asked questions this evening if they have any questions otherwise i would encourage board members between now and the next meeting if you you know you're going to go home and you're going to be thinking

102about this and you're going to maybe come up with some questions you wish you had asked i strongly encourage you to get in touch with um with caleb um i'm assuming lindsay's going to provide us all with her phone number and i'm hoping she'll be a resource to us as um as well as corey and connie amanda and jen um if you have any questions based on this presentation trish yeah i want to say a couple things but i also want to say both amanda and jen melville have both raised their hands at one point or another and i i'm wondering if they have comments that they want to make i mean no okay all right yeah amanda yeah good okay um so i think we're happy to get the input from board members and

103honestly we would appreciate if there are things that we need to be aware of that we're being made aware of those things the sooner the more we're able to work those not only into agendas for something like the plc but also take that into account when we're thinking about how we want to address our own building culture and what it is that we're trying to accomplish thank you so so i just i would just want to make one comment um building on on i guess two experiences that um i've spoken about in the past is that when we talked about this um i think it was two meetings ago um i said that i felt as a board when we have needed education and when we have nee when we've identified something that was really

104important to us we've taken it upon ourselves to have some education for ourselves i think this is really important this is culture culture change and and i i first of all i want to commend you for um reigniting this committee getting this committee going again and and taking this up and moving it forward i mean i think that this is the kind of thing that can keep a kenosha experience from happening if if you will i mean i think that this is really proactive and i think this is great that that the administration has moved this forward um and i and i look at this and i see that you're doing you have this four-part professional development plan and that's great and i see that as like a first step and and i can see

105other things coming from this i i can see the wheels in your brain going and and you're thinking about you know can we do a workshop for parents can we do this can we do that and and i think that all those things can come together but i just want to step back and say two things first of all this woman came and spoke to my rotary club um about two months ago three months ago and in her little whatever it was 20 minutes 30 minute presentation because we cut her off i learned more about microaggressions and about kind of the thought process i learned so much just from her little short presentation to our rotary club i i really feel strongly that two things need to be added to this and and those are

106that the board should have if we really want to if we really want to live what we're espousing here and if we if we really want to demonstrate this we need we need to participate in some education us these people around this table and on the screen up there that's important that we do this and and i think the other piece of this is that i really think like so many of our other committees there should be a board member on this committee now i don't know i mean like i've i've been a member of the um tech committee for i don't know four years or something too long probably and the meetings are hard for me to make because they're during the day but i i really think that this is when i look

107at the list of people that are here and from all the different schools i think that there should be a board member and and that board member you know kind of like me on the tech committee might not offer much i mean i just can't because it's curriculum they're talking about um but i think that every now and then there's like this little bright spot that i might bring to the group and more importantly that every now and then there's a bright spot that i might bring to this board and that's that's what that's why we do that um this is really important this is a culture change it's going to take a long time but let's let's keep moving it forward and i applaud this i applaud what you're doing i like it i

108just i just want to see it be a little bit bigger and and that means bringing the board on on board with it you know sorry to say that expression that was a poorly worded expression wasn't it all right we can definitely do that thanks also i want to say if there's a time that works i'm happy to like demo or like do the trainings with all of you so you can have the conversations yourselves and see what see what it's like i have no issue don't we have a retreat or something i heard about that we have not had one this year just because of the practical reality with the reopening of our schools but we have years past every august i believe yeah at some point i mean i'm not gonna do be

109kind that okay perfect absolutely all right thank you all right thank you if i if i may add to this and i know i don't want to move the conversation along because we've got other things um or continuing the conversation this is not just a school district issue this is a community issue i have a informal um uh bi-monthly meeting with todd kuchan from the business council uh uh sue wilcox al thompson from from uw and and right now we're singing to the choir and we thought well where do we go from this and it was well let's have a this fall a cultural um community cultural event um around equity and inclusion well what does that look like covet 19 and at the end of the day it's about education first and and how

110do we get educated so as a small group we are carrying these conversations to the boards because several people on that particular uh informal meeting if i may um work with boards and then the next issue which i brought up what is the county doing where are they at they haven't had their first meeting we need to attend as as a group that i'm working with we need to attend to get an idea of of where the county is going with this because this is a community issue when we talk about the racial slurs for example they likely learn them from home and it's probably supported from home and until we address that that that's really the root cause but how do we get to that how do we get to the uncomfortable conversation with

111the people that are making the comments that the people that may feel this way how do we get them at the table i've been this business long long time and when we start years ago when we wanted to get a group of parents to talk about our drug and alcohol problem at a high school lots of times their parents are sitting in the bars all night long they're not coming to that meeting so there's so much work that has to get done from a grass roots level and i know and people are tired of waiting you know we want social and justin we want it now we want social justice now we don't want to wait next year the year after i was going to say earlier and we do have a strategic plan we're

112in the third year next year we begin conversation and i'm not saying we're putting this off until next year but we have to incorporate this this into a major pillar within our within our school district because this isn't going away i will disagree with you when that you're saying i'm glad to see there's not an end i want an end let's have an end it's not going to happen tomorrow but eventually if we could if we can get to an end where we have social justice within our country hallelujah we found the end but until then there's a lot of work to do i'll get off my soapbox thank you all right thank you very much we will move into item six which is our consent agenda we have the minutes of our uh august

11324th 2020 school board meeting approval of the schedule of monthly bills and employment recommendations as presented do i have a motion to approve the consent agenda move to approve second judy okay judy moved and trish seconded um i will have uh carolyn you call the roll because of the bills can we ask a question before we start that um if you would like one of the items moved off the consent agenda g then we would move that off and address that one separately i i haven't been able to i think i talked to carlin about this i haven't been able to bring up one of the file attachments under the rec re of the and you said you had a copy of that employment recommendations it's in your printed packet so i don't have to

114read through the hundred pages any idea where probably under the consent agenda it's right after the schedule of monthly bills i believe in order still should be all these things okay thank you and i'll just note g as a as a the newest board member um what um what can and has happened frequently in the past is there are recommendations that actually are coming in on monday and so what we've been doing with the packet is again providing the most up-to-date and then in the event there are additions to that then those are being provided those will be provided to the board at the day of the meeting thank you okay gee could i just ask did you were you unable to get this before tonight yeah did you let them know i just let

115carlyn know when i came in here but not before tonight could you call the role please mr pope yes ms vang yes ms scott yes ms baker yes miss portson yes ms rano yes mr evo yes mr wade yes ms erler yes okay motion passes thank you we will move into item seven business services a is resolution awarding the sale of fifteen million nine hundred thousand general obligation school improvement bonds series twenty twenty and tom i believe you're on to present that hi tom good evening um i do have uh michelle weiberg here our financial consultant you should be online as well and uh we went out this morning and uh issued bids for the 15.9 million which is the balance of the referendum authority uh this turned out to be an excellent time to

116do that the rates were low and michelle are you on i am i am good evening let me turn it over to you right now great tom did you want me to share the presentation that we sent that i sent earlier today please please do uh or i can do it either one well i think i have it right here can everyone see that yes looks like you can perfect great well good evening everyone um as tom mentioned we took bids this morning on the final phase of the referendum financing for the successful 2018 referendum so uh this first page is just giving us a summary of the bids received this is incredibly exciting for people like tom and i um a very exciting five minutes of our day but bids were due at 10

117am the time we see here is um uh eastern time so when we see 11 a.m it's because that's that's stated as eastern time but bids were due at 10 a.m and we take them on an electronic bidding platform called muni auction and with muni auction the bidders which were there were six different bidders today can submit um various bids they can keep improving their bid up until the bid expiration time and if a new bidder enters first place in the final couple minutes the auction is extended and that happened this morning five different times so we had new bidders coming into first place in the final minutes which kept extending the auction on five different occasions which is super exciting so we had a total of again six bidders submitting 31 bids so northland

118securities came in with the lowest bid today but they submitted 14 total hits in order to achieve and maintain first place their winning bid came in at a true interest cost and the bidder pays all cost of issuance so the true interest cost really is an all-inclusive rate for the district of a 1.87 percent um on 20-year financing which is really really tremendous so of all of the challenges presented in the current environment with living in um maybe there's one bright spot and that is you were able to complete your referendum financing at really historically low interest rates so this issue before you for approval this evening is 15.9 million of general obligation school improvement bond series 2020. again the purpose is the final phase of the two 2018 referendum financing this issue will close

119on october 13th you'll make principal payments in 2023 through 2040 so again a final majority of 20 years the first interest payment will be april 1 of 2021 you will have some prepayment flexibility on these bonds so the final 10 years will be callable or eligible for prepayment in 2029 your standard and poor's rating was affirmed at the double minus so this is an exemplary long-term credit rating and i think has a lot to do with the level of interest we saw this morning from those prospective bidders and as we saw on the previous page the winning bid was northland securities at a rate of a 1.87 percent we saw this table when we completed the first uh phase of the referendum financing which happened in march of 2019 when we did 60 million of

120the 75.9 million that was approved at referendum but we now have a final summary of the estimated total interest cost pre-referendum and the final total interest cost now that we have all phases of the financing plan complete the total interest cost projected pre-referendum was over 43 million the final is about 26.8 million for a difference of about 16.3 million less of interest costs now that we have final interest rates lacked and as a point of reference the pre-referendum estimates for interest rates i believe were 4 and 475 and 4.75 for the two phases of the referendum bar the final came in as that first phase was at 3.09 back in march of 2019 and then again this final phase at 1.87 percent here in the second phase as was um stated in your book of

121summary was not supposed to take place for two more years so to hit what we thought we needed to um or the phasing of it was such that we needed to spread it out to hit the referendum targets in this incredibly low interest rate environment we were able to accelerate the issuance of the debt significantly and get it all done and still keep within those mill rate targets discussed pre-referendum in fact coming in lower than any of those pre-referendum estimates the facilities portion of the referendum the projected tax impact of that question was 69 cents the final is 54 cents for a difference of 15 cents and then the two questions combined which would of course be the debt and the operating questions on that 2018 ballot the pre-referendum estimate was a dollar 46 for

122the maximum impact the final is a dollar 26 for a difference of 20 cents so um a great story you know in terms of lower uh interest cost obviously the lower tax impact all of the debt being issued two years quicker than was originally planned and therefore being paid off two years faster than what was originally planned the next page which is going to be incredibly difficult to see on your screen just really lays out the detail behind everything i just said so we had uh this is really the long-range financing plan for the 75.9 million that was approved at referendum where we had existing debt on the left-hand side and then the new referendum debt here inside the box the first phase of 60 million that was done in 2019 at a rate of

1233.09 percent and then the final phase before you for approval this evening in the amount of 15.9 million at a rate of 1.87 percent the rest of this gives you total debt service um lager's gonna be operating override that was also approved coming to a final mill rate impact as i mentioned before that is under the estimates that were discussed pre-referendum i'm happy to answer any questions that the board may have you know can i ask one yep so um this is almost made in jest but i'm going to ask anyway any chance we can refinance that first 60 million for a lower interest rate um well we live under uh some interesting regulations as it relates to that unfortunately so unlike your mortgage that is pre-payable in its entirety at any time a bond

124issue has some call protection for those investors so just like this bond issue as i mentioned is not prepayable the final 10 years are prepayable in year nine there's a similar prepayment provision on the 2019 debt issuance so it's not pre-payable at this time um and to refund it under current tax law we'd have to do so with taxable interest rates versus tax exempt so to the extent that we even um are approaching the call date is when it becomes much more advantageous to actually do a refinancing at this point in time i think that issue is probably better left alone uh for now but but know that that's something we certainly look at all the you know on a continual basis for the district good thank you any other questions just a comment thank

125you for a really great explanation you covered so many yeah and it was good news besides that but thank you very much my pleasure could i have a motion i'll move to approve the resolution awarding the sale of 15.9 million general obligation school improvement bond series 22 2020. and would you would you like us to include northland securities in that motion tom uh would you repeat that please would you like us to include northland securities specified in that motion no if you just read the motion as it's written okay because you uh are accepting the resolution the uh a table that you saw yes uh showing them that's included is one of the exhibits so you automatically uh approve northland when you approve the resolution excellent okay all right so we have a motion and

126a second um i'm going to ask you to call the roll on this one please ms erler yes mr wade yes ms scott yes ms rano yes ms portson yes mr pope yes mr evo yes ms baker yes ms vang yes okay unanimous vote passes thank you moving michelle thanks michelle thanks very much thanks tom all right we'll move into the which is the financial summary referendum progress report i guess back to you tom okay uh if you'll look on the report that's provided in your background you're familiar with this report we've provided each month and the changes that occur within it so the paid to date is 32.4 million we have contracts to date issued of 58.6 million and uh we have the contract balance of 26.1 million and total balance remaining balance uh

127this date is uh uh 23.8 million and when you include nexus contract it's 19.65 million so if you look at table a in the far right you can see what's paid today to be paid out 32.4 million and and you can see in table t then that contracts today issued 58.6 and the contracts to date um excuse me the uh contract balance 26.1 million so things are moving along we're staying pretty active and we process quite a few uh invoices and payments subject to your questions that's to report any questions of tom from board members all right thanks tom moving into review of financial statements mike are you with us mike kurtz hi everybody can you uh all hear me yes we the financial statements that you have included in the packet are through july

12831st we're always looking back a month um so there are only three likely first it drives an interesting one because it's kind of a transitional month passing from one fiscal year to another so for example you won't see a whole lot um in revenue uh at that point uh during the the year um so for that reason there's two reports included instead of my usual three um the two reports that i did included are a balance sheet report um and then the comparative expense report um but just again be aware that that's just where we are at this point within the fiscal year um our cash flow is good and and i think we're we're progressing fairly well are there any questions for me regarding these reports any questions of mike all right thank you

129mike thank you so i would like to beg the board's indulgence if you would mind we have a um one other outsider here with us tonight that's going to be providing um some information with us with respect to an item that's a little further on the agenda with respect to the green circle and so with the board's indulgence i would like to call that item at this point um and then we can go back into the others so are there any objections from any board members with respect to to calling that item at this point okay all right thank you so i'm going to go ahead and call 12a green circle and plover river crossing trail and it's an item submitted by craig gerlock but we have steve menzel here who is the chair of

130the green circle committee that would like to provide a presentation to the board and answer any questions board members might have i'm meg and uh board members so thanks for having me and also thanks for everything you guys do i got four four grandkids uh starting school this week uh one's a eighth grader at pj's and the other one's a kindergartner or excuse me yeah kindergarten so exciting time for them um i wanted to talk about a project that has been kind of brewing for some time and if you don't mind could i uh could i share my screens that possible sorry everybody see that no nope you can't yet okay see okay now we can good sorry oh what what happened uh there's been the ideas floating for years on ways that um we

131could we could connect the green circle trail and the west side of the city west of i-39 with the east side and and we've been talking for years about the green circle people and also people in the city city government the parks people looking for ways that uh we could get across i-39 and the plover river safely and and connecting uh the two sides of the community without having to a car across i-39 and so we had a group in january start working together this was folks from the city uh staff members uh older person uh tori jennings and uh several green circle people we got together and met several times to talk about this because it's been talked about for some time now and it's actually in the long range planning uh documents for

132the county and the city so we got together chatted about a few things made a site visit out uh an area you can think if you can imagine where the end of gala road is near where the old fleet farm was there's uh at the end of gala road there is a uh apostle there's a possible path that would be pretty efficient and get across the floor river over to hofmeister drive which off meister drive if you aren't familiar with the green circle trail the george rogers forest uh is there and that's where um panic circle comes around meets hoffmeister drive and then you start on the plover river trail uh right near the highway there so looking at a crossing there we identified this spot and we thought boy if we could figure out

133a way to get across here how how wonderful so we looked started looking more seriously at it and looked at the routes and uh who would impact and you know turns out donald hall has a fair number of uh residential areas in this area in the city as well and so we just thought what a great way to connect uh our community the stevens point community and hall and the east side and west side of i-39 um so we found a route uh off of ben's lane that would have been it would be ideal to do this it already had an excavated um i guess he called a roadway leading down the ridge toward the blover river almost perfectly set up for a trail and we thought why would it be nice if we could

134make this work and it turns out we uh we got we have a really unique opportunity we identified uh this route we walked it we canoed across the river to see where a bridge might go across had the environmental people from the dnr folks from the d.o.t come over i escorted them across the river in my own canoe that's my green canoe there and uh we had archaeologists ray reeser uh look at the whole area to see if there's any issues with uh archaeological uh uh sites and uh and there wasn't but uh we had a lot of experts review this and uh this this route would really be wonderful also had engineers from the d.o.t and also people from the private sector that were involved in bridge building and bring in uh trails and

135boardwalks and um we had several engineers come through visit the site and look at this and thought yeah this is this is definitely possible and uh and one of the the things we were shooting for that was a real opportunity was um the state grant program with the department of transportation called the transportation alternatives program tap and um and they uh the dot is very interested in funding projects that take pedestrians and basically off of main thoroughfares like highway 10 going across i-39 and uh and we found out that the grants for these kind of projects can be as much as 900 000 which kind of changes the whole ballgame when you're when you're talking about a project like this because it would might be hard for for any one entity to fund a project

136like this but with a dot grant with this tap grant it changes the it changes the picture quite a bit well we we we just feel that this project uh it's going to be a bridge uh bridging bridging the plover river from hofmeister drive onto this island that you see in this picture here there's actually two small islands uh across on the east side of the river here this is one of the islands and uh we we envisioned this bridge that would cross over provide a really safe and easy alternative transportation it would connect people on the east side of the river the east side i-39 with the green circle trail at the over river trail area and it just uh sets up our community for for a more uh livable uh uh possibilities as

137far as travel i'm my kids are in soccer out in the soccer fields at pcys and i can imagine kids and families being able to get from the west side by janet circle green avenue washington school area they could bicycle out the the uh soccer fields into the ice hocks arena so it would really make a difference uh also uh somebody we talked to mentioned uh oh this would be a nice path to target well if you're on the around the west side uh because it'd be a really easy way of of either hiking or bicycling over to patronize the businesses on the east side as well um we were talking a lot about the transportation you know on the benefits to the community and connecting both sides of the community uh and the fact

138that this has been talked about for some time uh what really surprised me when we started looking at this route is how beautiful it is um if anybody familiar with the blower river in this in this area uh especially uh between stevens point and jordan park you know what i mean it's the plove river is a real gem and this trail even though it's fairly close to the highway it's probably about a football field away it is just gorgeous there's a prairie there's wetland and and then of course the bridge that would arch across the river uh it would just be spectacular actually be pretty spectacular having passed on i-39 uh but just just this uh hiking these these uh this area and this route uh i was just struck by how beautiful it was

139um these pictures were taken of the right at the area where the trail would be the the upper left photo is the excavated um road actually we don't know if it maybe it was a a farm at the top of the hill here that coming down toward the river where the prairie areas we're not sure quite the history behind this excavated trail but it's perfectly set up for for a trail for the uh for this flow river crossing and all these other pictures uh are taken right in that area the water picture was taken uh the springtime when the water is pretty high and so we were looking at everything uh worst case scenario as far as the water level goes and still found that it was doable what's what's next what are we up

140to this the city is ready to uh to explore committing to this project what they would need to commit is some funding for acquiring two land parcels um we were really really lucky to have two adjacent landowners right where this trail would go that are that like the green circle and are agreeable to selling either selling their property or at least an easement across their property um the city uh the next step the city would need to acquire those parcels and then probably uh put in some money for some engineering costs to the designs together for the for this plan and then once that happens um we would have a really good chance of getting a grant through the d.o.t grant program what we're looking for now i'm hoping that you might consider this as

141an endorsement letter we've gotten several from area businesses we think the schools the school district is a very important going into uh supporting this project because it does affect uh families and children it uh connects bannock school with the west with the west side of town uh mexibanic with washington school to some degree makes it a lot easier for people to go back and forth without having to walk or mexico on uh i-39 and highway oh that's i guess that's what we were asking for today and uh wondering if you had any questions at all but i kind of covered it pretty quick if anybody have any questions about the project there any questions the board members about the project what it is what is it exactly that he wants from us he's looking for

142us to endorse and support the proposed clover river crossing the school district available assist in the uh application to the d.o.t correct correct and with the end with um persuading the city that the community is behind this because they you know the mayor and the elder the alderman um they need to know what the community community thinks of the projects that that would be uh uh immediately the most valuable uh thing about an endorsement but then down the line with the grant application and if we do end up doing some private fundraising which we probably will it will help with that so to keep the party moving i'll make a motion i'll move to support and endorse the proposed plover river crossing extension of the green circle trail into the bannock elementary school neighborhood second

143all right is that judy yep yeah all right so i have a motion by trish a second by judy any questions or discussion with respect to the motion steve can i just ask your timing this you're thinking this will be built in 2022 do i have that right well the d.o.t grant uh is 2022 we get the grant which i think we have a good chance if the city commits a project probably would go under construction in 2026. oh my okay thank you i'll still be young enough to bike and hike this thing more importantly we're building this for your buried me next kindergartener the trail steve question for you is it just is the path just going to be gravel or is it going to be cemented great question no d.o.t when they do

144these grants they require that it be i believe it's 12 feet wide and that it be paved and that it be that they have snow removal year round so the city would be committing to that this actually is not a part of the green circle trail this would be a spur what we call a spur which is uh not technically green circle but it's a it's a aft that connects to the green circle trail so it actually would be usable in the winter time as well cool all right we have a motion a second on the floor all those in favor with i say aye aye aye any opposed say nay all right motion is approved steve thanks thanks steve good luck with the project yep all right we will move back into item nine

145a which is to convene a public hearing pursuant so we need a motion to convene a public hearing pursuant to wisconsin statutes 118.38 per n1 parent b regarding submission of a request to the wisconsin department of public instruction to waive the requirements to complete an educator effectiveness cycle for educators in their summer year in 2020-21 including waivers of the requirements to meet pi 8.01 in wisconsin statutes 115.415 and 121.02 per n1 parent queue and regarding submission of a request to dpi to waive the minimum number of hours of instruction set forth in wisconsin statutes 121.02 per n1 parent f for the 2020-21 school year due to the covid 19 public health emergency so move do i have a second and that's a motion to go into public hearing i'll second it okay so a motion

146by scott and a second by baker to go into public hearing any questions or discussion by board with respect to the motion all those in favor with eye captioning posed available is there any member of the public here this evening who would like to speak on behalf of this item there is no one present could i have a motion to close the public hearing motion by scott second by baker to close the public hearing all those in favor with i say aye aye hi all those opposed with nay so the public hearing is closed so we will move into item c which is the motion with respect to the waiver of the requirements to complete an educator effective effectiveness cycle for educators in 2020-21 and i'm not sure is it connie or corey or connie

147are you going to be presenting on this yes i'm happy to present go ahead similar to last spring the wisconsin department of public construction offered school districts waivers due to the covet 19 emergencies they offered waivers for the instructional hours for the school year waivers for educator effectiveness due to the closure of schools as well as waivers for things like the civics exam similarly this fall the wisconsin department of public instruction sent applications to every school district in the state of wisconsin understanding that school is looking very different from many different school districts and understanding that these emergencies might require some of the school districts to ask for a waiver we went through that lengthy list at cabinet there are two waivers that we thought were very appropriate for our district at this time and

148the first was due to a gradual start which as was talked about earlier proved to be really really beneficial for our staff and for our kids because we had that gradual start we did lose instructional days we can only count an instructional day if all of our students are present and when we had that gradual start we lost some instructional days so even though losing those days we are very close to the benchmark and i mean very very close to the benchmark connie can i connie can i stop you um actually the uh item that we're looking at right now is the educator effectiveness okay so you want to go back to educator perfecting this first yes okay so the educator effectiveness was a waiver that the board passed last spring um that simply says

149that our educators that are in their summative year can be waived from the educator effectiveness mandates we would still continue to evaluate per board policy all of our new new staff members we would continue to use that using our ee model but it gives a waiver from the educator effectiveness and similar to what we did last spring the rationale behind that is that during this time we really want the time and the energy and the focus of our teachers to be on relationships with kids and building these instructional models that are so very new so the cabinet felt that we can waive that appropriately and have our educators really looking at these new instructional models and engaging our kids whether it's face to face or virtual so that was the request for educator effectiveness make

150sure i stop at that point or go on yeah why don't we because they're two separate agenda items connie so why don't we open it up to questions from board members with respect to the waiver of educator effectiveness cycle for 20 20 21 are there any questions or comments hearing none could i have a motion to approve submission of a request to the wisconsin department of public instruction to waive the requirements to complete an educator effectiveness cycle for educators in 2020 21 including waivers of the requirements to meet pi 8.01 and with stats 115.415 and 121.02 per n1 parent q for the 20 20 21 school year due to the covid19 public health emergency looking for a motion so move motion by scott second by portson any further discussion or questions all those in favor

151with i say aye aye any opposed say nay that motion is approved moving into item d waiver of required instructional hours go ahead connie well i won't repeat everything that i just said i'll summarize that the gradual start with a loss of in some instructional days and even with the loss of those instructional days we meet the benchmarks but barely so cabinet felt that while we think think we will be fine if there would be an emergency where we would have an outage and some schools didn't have internet access we couldn't do our virtual learning and we couldn't count those for instructional days so cabinet felt that just to be safe in case of an emergency rather than extending the days or extending the calendar year and making even more changes to an already changing

152year we thought we would just request a waiver from the instructional hours requirement from the dpi this year keep in mind it'll be highly unlikely that we lose hours due to inclement weather because we have our virtual models in place and that typically is the reason why we have a short we're short on instructional hours do do we haven't do any board members have any questions of connie with respect to this request do you anticipate that this will have any effect on pay i'm sorry do you do you anticipate if this will have any effect on pay for the for any of our employees she can't hear me absolutely no we do we do a calendar each year that we report our instructional hours so this all this waiver is is saying yep we missed

153five days of instruction with this gradual start and we're still meeting the benchmarks but very very close we're just giving ourselves a cushion that we wouldn't have to add days on at the end of june thank you any additional questions could i have a motion to approve the submission of a waiver request to the wisconsin department of public instruction to waive the minimum number of hours of instruction set forth in the west stat 121.02 paren one per nf for the 2020 21. school year due to the ongoing coveted 19 public health emergency and adopt the resolution for the waiver of certain school border district requirements a move motion by mike wade looking for a second second second by jeff ebal any discussion or questions all those in favor with i opposed with nay the motion

154carries moving into item 10 student services a wisconsin act 125 dash seclusion and restraint report and caleb will be reporting on that to us hello again every year i get to come in front of you and share out the number of instances that we have in our district the numbers that you see in your packet um are from this last this past school year the nate 1920 to 2020. this is including the the quarter or almost four months of students that are that were not in school um so just note that some of the numbers are lower due to that as well as um after uh being here last school year we did a big deep dive into um seclusion and restraint as part of just kind of attack just a initiative that i've done

155and did some really intensified and interventions for some of the the highest incident students that we had out there and were able to drop them down incredibly and so um previously last year we presented to you a pretty high number in my in my book i mean any number is high but this these are incidents that occur just for the safety and well-being of students and staff but through intensive interventions and then again you know almost four months out of school our numbers decreased to what you see here as well as the number of students that were engaged in seclusion and or restraint uh also dropped over the course of this past year so through the hard work of staff and and teams in our schools we were able to drop numbers down and provide

156positive intervention and supports for our highest needs students that we have in our district so i'm really excited about these numbers and about what we're doing in our district and and happy to present to you this year which is a a month later but the new laws that's out there gives us an extra month we still submit to dpi by december 1st and that's pulled directly from our system so um bear in mind that any time seclusion interest rate is used it's as as a last resort in an emergency only we use non-violent crisis intervention prevention prior to doing that and staff are trained and refreshed every 18 to two years that we have and then if we do deem necessary we will retrain staff as well that's what we see here this item is

157for information only this evening are there any board members who have questions of caleb i do caleb for the physical restraints um if a fight breaks out and the student has to be restrained is that counted under the physical physical restraint in a fight situation uh depends it's case by case most times it's not because it's breaking up a fight due to immediate safety but if it proceeds past the breakup of a fight and it's held for a greater period of time than necessary then it would be deemed as restrained are there any additional questions of caleb with respect to the report all right thank you caleb all right so we are now looking at item 12 b which is our meeting dates times and locations our next regular school board meeting is set for

158october 12 and then just for board members to note in october we always have that second meeting we will have a budget hearing and then a school board meeting on october 26th the budget meeting will hearing would start at 6 00 pm and then the school board meeting would be at 6 30 p.m moving into item 13 which is i'm looking for a motion to enter into closed session under 1985 paren one parent e for deliberating or negotiating the purchasing of public properties the invested investing of public funds or conducting other specified business public business specifically to consider the purchase of properties could i have a motion to go into closed session move to go into closed motion by evil do i have a second a second second by baker any discussion or questions with

159respect to that motion i will have uh carlyn call the role ms vang yes ms baker yes mr evo yes mr pope yeah ms portson yes ms rano yes ms scott yes mr wade yes ms ehrler yes and that was a unanimous pass all right so we will we are now in closed session give us about 10 minutes to set up the room all of you did receive a second invitation um to come back into a meeting you would have gotten that from carlin we're doing what we did again last month which is we're closing this web x meeting out and then asking board members and tom owens to dial back in for the closed session portion