001Will you call the role? >> Mr. Tambboan is excused. Miss Mia Croyle is excused. Mr. Jim Moser >> here. >> Miss Don Garcia >> here. >> Mr. Zach Masa Myers >> here. Miss Lisa Pew here. >> Miss Allison Sorg is excused. Dr. Sharon Milin Bartlett >> here. Uh student rep. Michaela Becker here. >> President Joe Patterson >> here. Um the next item on the agenda is public comment. Is are there any previously submitted public comments? And seeing no one approaching the podium at this time, we will move on to item 2B, legislative update. Uh just a reminder that tomorrow is the spring primary. Uh so uh everybody should be voting tomorrow. I'm just looking at my sample ballot. There's a Dane County Circuit Court judge branch one on the ballot, but I'm not sure if
002anybody else has other items on the ballot for tomorrow. But that's what's on mine in Stoton. So I'm assuming that's what most Stoenites would have. Correct me if I'm wrong. Uh in the legislature, the assembly is on the floor tomorrow for the second to last floor session of this legislative session. So that means they're kind of tidying things up. They will be back in very likely until fall elections because you'll remember all assembly members are up for election in November, all 99. So they like to wrap up their work. Anyway, there's a group of K12 education bills on the floor uh tomorrow. Um I'll just briefly go through them. Bills on teacher licensing for an American Indian language, open enrollment for in military families. Some of these we've talked about before. Um allowing photo video
003recording on school bus school buses. Uh, also, um, a bill that would require school boards to adopt policies on appropriate communication between staff and students. A bill to mandate more information to be posted on DPI's licensing, teacher licensing portal, a bill to ease regulations for transporting students in a vehicle that is not a school bus, and a bill to mandate schools serve butter as opposed to margarine. So, those are just some things to maybe watch for tomorrow. Also, you might have seen in the news, it's certainly being discussed. We talked about this last time. Uh the potential uses for the state surplus funds. There's a significant state surplus. Currently, the governor is negotiating with rep Republican leadership in the legislature about how to divert some of those funds toward um property tax relief and towards
004special education funding. Specifically, the governor has proposed a $1.3 billion package that would pair uh new aids for schools with property tax relief. Um it would be 200 million and also include $200 million in special education aid that will get that u percentage of reimbursement for special education up to the promised amounts in the school budget. you remember that the legislature didn't put enough money into the budget to actually get us to the 42 and 45% reimbursement rates um that were estimated in the state budget. Uh still a lot of disagreement. We don't know where that's going to end up. Speaker Voss has who has been working closely with the governor said in quote the governor's request for special education funding was reasonable. That's all good news. and that it's a legitimate point for inclusion
005in um whatever package they come up with. The problem though is that there's not agreement on the Senate side and the Senate leader u majority leader uh Devon Lemahu has been kind of left out of those negotiations. So, um the school boards association is strongly asking schoolboard members, members of the public to please contact um your state senator and or leadership in the state senate to say please please include special education funding um as a use for surplus funding. So, our state senator who is in support of this is Melissa Radcliffe, but there's nothing that prevents you from contacting uh leadership in the state senate. And that's all I have. Thank you. Are there any questions for Lisa? Seeing none, we will move on. Uh item 2 C is workg groupoup reports. None of our
006work groups have met since our last board meeting. So that puts us at item 2D, the student representative report. >> Okay, I have a lot to talk about actually tonight. >> Um so first up for activities on February 6th, um Fox Prairie welcomed special guest readers to all of their classrooms. I was actually there TAing that day, so Officer Orin was in my classroom. Um and then on February 13th, the forensics team competed at a bad the Badger Conference meet. Um this year they actually had 18 students participating and out of those seven um placed and Greg Graphin um received a silver award and Gwen Olsen received a gold award. Um Interact Club had a game night at Scolin on February 2nd and they're hoping to have another one soon. They will also be having
007a book drive in February for the high school with a goal of um 1,000 books um which will be redistributed to elementary schoolers in the district. Um and then four middle schoolers won the Greater Dayne anthology contest. Um Amelia Mabe and Ashlin Witford will have cartoons featured and Talon Heightman and Suzanne Verbaden will have artwork featured. And then student council at the high school will be hosting their annual blood drive um on February 25th. And then for athletics, um the boys swim team competed in the Badger Small Conference meet on February 7th. Notable events included Gavin Riser winning the 100 meter breaststroke and breaking the school record and taking second in the 100 meter butterfly. Um the team also took third in the 200 medley relay. And so out of that competition um wait eight
008eight members of the team will be competing at state um coming up here. And then girls hockey won against Madison 1 to zero on um on February 5th and goalie Anukica Mueller was honored as key player of the game with 38 out of 38 saves. Um, the boys hockey team had back-to-back wins last week against Monroe with 6-2 and Cedarberg 5 to1. At the regional wrestling meet on uh meets on February 13th and February 14th, Michelle Mets and Kylie Soderling advanced to sectionals and the girls team placed third overall. For the boys team, Gatlin MP and Kate Splinter um advanced and the team will be going on to team sectionals. And then for arts, the pops concert took place on February 9th. If you weren't able to attend the event, videos are available on the
009choir booster social media. And then this winter season, the rock band has been playing at several high school sporting events such as the basketball game on February 3rd. Okay, that is all I have. >> Thank you. Does anyone have any questions for Michaela? Lisa, >> the blood drive, is that just for students? >> No, it's for all community members. Um, so there is a QR code there, but um, basically we've done it every year and I can't remember what our goal is this year, but we're trying to get more student participation because a lot of students don't realize they even have the opportunity to donate blood. So yeah, any other questions for Michaela? All right, seeing none, thank you again. And we can now move on to item three, Dr. teaser's report. >> All right.
010So, couple of items to share. um since our last uh last time we came together, I had an opportunity to meet with um hats and they wanted me to um forward which I have to the to the board prior to today's meeting um information from hats and start around some of their their um annual work. And just a reminder to board members and community members who are listening in that um the step forward program and um hats and and start work with our community to help support our families and within that families with school age children. So you can kind of see a little bit of the difference how these two programs work in tandem but also in in separate um entities in regards to supporting our families with school age children. both work um
011around housing which housing insecurity for families who are um experiencing financial distress um becomes extremely um hard on everyone in the family and that transfers to students when they come in into our schools. um not only finding homes but then hats helps to support with um rental agreements and then also education and some financial assistance to get families up on onto their feet over the long term. I want to say that um these are two of many um organizations that work well with each other and with the school district through our counselors or social workers um to provide support and assistance. When you take a look at DPI and you take a look at economically disadvantaged and then you take a look at homelessness, those have different definitions and they're nested within one another. So
012DPI because of reporting and validation is lagging compared to actual data. So if you go to DPI, you go to two years ago, we had, you know, roughly 300 or so students who who qualified under the label of economically disadvantaged, but 55 of those qualified um under McKini Vento as homeless. So, organizations like this are lifeblood to families and to students who are um experiencing um housing insecurities. And um just thankful that our counselors, our school sex, and our social workers are connected to these organizations um to help support um as much of a day as possible and certainly dur during the school day. The day after our last board meeting, we had our legislative day. And just a little wrap up on that, we had elected officials up at the high school. It's the
013first time that we've had um a start and an end all in one building. Um so that was new. What was also new was we had students with us throughout the entire day. Um we highlighted the high school experience, so we got to spend some time in high school classrooms. Um, we got to learn a little bit about our transition program. For those of you who may not remember, um, transition program is, um, high school students who, um, extend their experience from ages 18 to 21 where they work on life and job skills and they work um, in our community. And that was the third focus of our legislative day, which was highlighting our business partnerships. um whether a student with disabilities or or a student without disabilities, our business businesses in our community help
014support our kids um not only outside of the school day but as part of internships and um apprenticeship programs. So those are my uh those are my updates. Uh any questions? >> Questions for Dan? Let's check this side. So seeing none, we will move on to the consent agenda. And who is? >> I move approval of the consent agenda as presented. >> Second. >> Moved by Masa Meyer, seconded by Pew. Is there any discussion? Sharon. >> Um, could we get these a little earlier in the day? I checked today at like 1 or 2 o'clock and most of the stuff on the consent agenda was not visible then. on a typical day like I would have no and over my lunch hour to read but it wasn't until we were like live in this meeting
015that I glanced at some of it and I know that's not nearly enough time to give it the attention it deserves so if it's possible to shift it a bit earlier that would be super helpful I would second that I think it would be nice to actually have it by on Friday so people have time over the weekend if possible Very good. Any other comments, questions? No. All right. Um, the consent agenda has been moved and seconded. I'll call the question. All in favor? >> I. >> Any opposed? >> Any abstensions? Consent agenda is approved. All right. Uh we are on to item five discussion of interim measures. >> All right. So following our board development where board members had an opportunity to hear um from our building leaders and staff um Kate is here
016to give us an update on our interim measures. So, okay, >> thanks once again for participating in our roundts and board development session and thanks also to our principles and colleagues who were able to join uh for each school to describe uh their responses to the question that we used to guide our board development for today um which was really around how our data analysis routines support and advance our students ambitious growth. So we wanted to take a look behind the numbers uh which we always do that we take a look at uh every every time we have benchmarking testing uh but we also wanted to understand not only what types of interventions which we've talked about before we would offer to our students who are not achieving proficiency um and also to talk about
017uh the successes we're experiencing and why we're experiencing those successes uh but really to get at the routines and the practices that live behind the uh benchmarking testing. So, I'll go through a review an overview of what the data do say here and then would like to offer the opportunity to answer some questions that perhaps you didn't have an opportunity to have answered earlier or questions you'd like to answer in this forum. Um so just wanting to start with the context for these data and I generally share this um that our proficiency definition is for fastbridge and that is looks at a reading and a math is for students scoring at or above the 50th percentile on fastbridge screeners and we decided on that as our sort of cut or what we would count as
018proficiency um because it represents sort of the most conservative view when we take a look at for our forward exams which is really uh when we take a look at uh second through 8th grade data what we're trying to forecast toward. So we try to choose um a data point that we think will help us predict how our students will do on forward. Um early literacy measures represent students at or above the 50th percentile on the Ames web plus early literacy screener as well. Uh, and I would also want to just reshare a norming update that we've talked about before, but it bears repeating that our fall 2025 early literacy scores reflect updated Ames web plus norms and shouldn't be compared directly to fall 2024 data. Just important, I think, to put that out for
019our community. Uh, once again, our earlier conversations and leading conversation tonight was how do our data analysis routine support our students ambitious growth? Um and and I think the the refrain that um that I kept thinking about as our colleagues and as our principles walked us through their data routines and when I think that's really important for board to consider is um that we know why we are when we are experiencing leading data or data that looks proficient or even above proficient we know why. Uh and when our students are not achieving proficiency that we also know why. uh in many instances we're able to um ask our data teams to reflect on the why behind our data and we can look at um reasons why we really believe that uh most of our students
020for example are achieving proficiency and we can point to for example um I think of our early literacy data uh that has uh ex and our students experienced some a slight bump in their achievement uh this this fall and we really do take a look at u not only our strong curriculum that we have in place for uh for 5K through 2 grade for foundational skills for that group of students. Uh but we also of course think about our teachers at all every grade level who bring that curriculum to life. Um, and it's one of the things I think about when I think about why we've experienced the data or or the routines or the reasons we have those data routines in place are to really exemplify the fact that we have multidisciplinary teams and
021that's probably what you heard earlier when we were listening to our school teams share out. U so uh representatives um from our colleagues from across every ed weighing in on particular interventions. uh those teams who make decisions about our students whether it's a success analysis of something that's going really well or an instance where we really need to improve. We would take a look at for example the strength of the intervention. Does it have evidence-based strength in the area that the student actually needs to improve in or the small group of students? We would take a look at dosage. So, for example, is the student meeting having enough opportunities to practice to demonstrate proficiency in a particular curriculum or with a particular evidence-based routine? Um, we might also take a look at comprehensiveness. Are we
022really u using every element of explicit instruction that we think will benefit the student? Um, and what's our behavioral support looking like? So, once again, we make those decisions um really thoughtfully and we we are learning. We want to know why when in in either case whether our students perform proficiently or whether or not we need to look to realize more growth for them. Um when we take a look at our data what we actually see um are dips from our fall 25 2025 data which of course we don't like to see. We like to see students consistently improving but they're similar to the dips that we experienced from fall 2024 to winter 2025. So some some similarities there as you take a look. Um, and while both years do show a dip both last
023year and this year from fall to winter, um, I would point out that our 2025 26 cohort started as significantly higher baseline. So 60% proficiency versus 53% last year. Um, and and by that um, I just share that with you as an observation. But our teachers are very committed and we all want to see our students doing better regardless of what they showed last year. Uh, we all want to see increased proficiency. Um and the other kind of highlights the data I would point out as I have before that there's been um some growth in the percentage of students showing showing average and above average growth in literacy at the K1 level. We're encouraged by that. We do believe it has a lot to do with the type of resources that our teachers have access
024to and of course everything to do with our students, families and our teachers as well uh and the instruction that we provide for them. uh reading proficiency and once again our reading proficiency right now is standing at 56%. We want to see that improve. Uh again when we see a dip we want to make sure that we understand why we're seeing the dip. Uh we had some time to go through the why earlier and we can talk about that a little bit more if our members are inclined. Um, I would also point out a notable trend upward that many of you also notice, which is that our black students experienced success. Um, some significant improvement from fall to winter data that I want to make sure that we highlight. Um, our math proficiency remained steady
025and relatively high at 68%. Everybody wants to see more proficiency than 68%. Our teachers, our students, and families want to see that, too. And we are committed to that continued growth. Um and once again our students uh who are identifying uh as black are also experiencing u proficiency increases in math too. So I think that's a really important noticing um and other points that I would share about our students when we are getting to those higher proficiency levels especially in math um is that it does become a bit higher to show to a bit more challenging to show or or those significant gains. But I want to uh really build confidence around the fact among our teachers and among all of us that that's still our aim. We still continue to want to build and
026show proficiency in all of those areas. Um so I think we have some some promising areas um and also some areas that we're continuing to learn about on behalf of our students so that we make those decisions that will benefit their future growth. Um, and with that, that's sort of the here's what in the landscape largely what you can see by taking a look at the data. And I'm curious about what other questions we might want to entertain at this time. >> Questions? Jim, >> just say more about the the dip uh, you know, fall to winter and say sort of common. What what is behind that in general? And has that been true >> for years? Well, so uh so a couple things I would say. So FastBridge, which is the data set that
027we're talking about, would um and really any interim measure you choose, we we happen to use FastBridge. We think it's a a solid measure to look at. Would caution against using any single data point. So in the same way we don't look at a single data point for a student scores, um we when we're looking at district health, we do want to start to see a trend. We want to see start to see an upward trend. So the first thing I would note is that when you take a look at fall 2023 data which is when we started and once again fastbridge no change in cut scores. Um there's no change in the actual test that we've been made aware of. Uh we do tend to see an upward trajectory. So if you take a
028look at fall 2023 scores and our scores now that's about eight data points. It's about what we look at when we're making a change for individual students intervention. So it's like a good amount of data. So we do tend to see that upward trajectory, but your point more about the fall to winter dips. This is the second year really the third year in a row in some categories that we've seen that. Um there are several you different reasons for that. A lot of those reasons are what we may have gone into before. Perhaps the strength of our intervention isn't strong enough, the dosage, the comprehensiveness in the first half of the year. We are learning about our students. Um I think another so when our data team gets together we talk about this you know
029we want to speculate we want to hypothesize and as I think I heard at at one of the tables like we dig deeper because we want to know why you know we don't just want to speculate our hypothesis we really want to know why. Um so we do believe that it has to do with us starting our interventions often in October. Our benchmarking testing ends the end of September. So we have a little bit less time for a semester to get to know our students and to get to see the results of those seven or eight data points um before for most students we would make a change. So that's one thing I think has a lot to do with getting to know our students who they are. Um we believe when students are seen
030and known for their whole selves that we we make better decisions on their behalf. Um, but I also think we're still very much getting it trying to get it right in the first half of the year and our data generally bear that out that we tend to see that upswing for the spring data and for forward data. But it's a good question and it's one we won't stop asking. Lisa, >> I just want to congratulate the whole team on that progress for black students. It's really very significant and amazing and I think um it's a testament to all the really hard work that I'm sure you're doing and so I think that's great. I mean of course I'm always thinking about how we can improve. I do see, you know, I think if you look
031at that fall 2023 and you're just looking at fall 2023 to where we are now, >> almost all groups of students are on a really great trajectory. And it really that also I think in a bigger picture shows kind of the investment that we've all made in focusing on this, which again, thank you um to Dr. Kezer and to the whole team for for um being with us on this journey. I'm very proud of the fact that we've made that progress. I would say though um when I look at the groups of students the ones that I feel like and I'm sure these are on your radar too but I mean students with disabilities we're still we're making progress but we're you know we're not really we're where we should be or they're they're not
032progressing I think at the rate of the other groups of students and the same particularly in reading for our Hispanic students which I know are not all English language learners. I think I did ask that of our school buildings tonight about that group of students and there was a lot of discussion about the multilingual sort of challenges or barriers that that group of students might have but since >> I and I so I don't know if there's something more going on there because those are our two biggest subgroups of students are students with disabilities and Hispanic um students. So, I don't know if there's any uh future kind of special attention to the potential barriers or challenges for either of those groups of students. I think I heard from the buildings, well, we we're looking
033at all students and we're doing individual intervention with students, but I don't know. I mean, we separate these kids out into groups for a reason. So, are there any changes being made for either of those groups in the way that we are providing instruction or looking at intervention so that we can see the same amazing progress that we've seen with our black students for these other two groups? >> Yes, all of our teams are looking at the same kind of subgroup subgroups of students that our board is looking at. And we know that we are looking at interventions for all, some and few. But of course, as you say, we do tease them out for a reason because we do believe that there is something useful for us all to learn. Um, and so I
034would say when you think about the school, the our individual schools, they are looking at those categories for all some infused students and even within those subgroups and making those decisions. Um, and I think it has a lot to do with not only all the more specific kind of intervention focused decisions like we've talked about strength, intensity, dosage, comprehensiveness um but also some of the other indicators that board is looking at around feelings of belonging which are about not only students feeling um seen and valued in communities um but in our school-based communities but also um making sure that they're called into um routines um as well and that there's a >> say those are potentially barriers for maybe those two groups of students that we need to focus some energy on in order to
035get that trajectory in the right angle. >> Yeah, I I think we have to look at all all of those things for those students. I think we have to be really scrupulous about asking those questions and again not giving up until we know why until we see much more um predictable upward trajectory up and to the right is what we want to see. Yeah. >> Thank you. Any other questions about interim measures? >> Okay, thank you. >> Thanks, Kate. >> All right, we are moving now to item six, discussion action. And I believe I need a motion for this. This is actually one where you might want to have um the conversation because the motion does um have a choice in terms of >> where the board ultimately wants to. >> Okay. So um for
036this portion of the meeting uh we are allowed to deliberate in public to discuss the petition. Um, the Department of Public Instruction recommends that we weigh all the following factors as they affect the educational welfare of the children of all the school districts affected by the proposed reorganization. So uh geographical and topographical characteristics of the affected school districts including estimated travel time to and from school for pupils in the school districts, educational needs of all children residing in our school district and educational programs currently offered. If territory is proposed to be detached from one school district and attached to an adjoining district, whether the proposed detachment will have any adverse effect on the program currently offered by our district. um test. We're supposed to evaluate the testimony and written statements filed by the residents, the
037estimated fiscal effect of the proposed reorganization and whether the proposed reorganization will make any part of the school district's territory non-ontiguous. So whether it will create an island like we talked about the last time. Um, so I would open discussion if anybody has uh further questions about anything we've heard earlier this evening. Jim, >> let me just ask a question and then see where that goes. But this obviously it's the first one I've seen. I mean, we don't get these very often. Is that correct? Partly because of the open enrollment process. >> Correct. The last time we had um petitions were two years ago. Good. >> Additional questions. >> All right. Would someone like to make a motion? Oh, >> I just to comment that I I understand the sort of general sense that we
038want to be careful what we do with property uh and how it might have effect, but it seems that this is not something that comes up very often and would have an infotimal impact on the district. >> I in terms of um can you provide a little bit more context in terms of infantessimal? >> Well, we're talking about two students at this point. I mean, that's certainly not going to affect our enrollment significantly. Uh, it doesn't sound like the and and you know, going back that these lines are, you know, God knows how these lines came up with to start with. Um, so it's not like there's some magic >> to them, right, wrong to these, they just happen to be in existence. So other than, you know, if somewhere down there, if we started
039giving away or or detaching significant portions of the district, that would seem to be a concern, but that doesn't sound like a that doesn't happen. And uh so that just doesn't seem like it's a much of a impact, fiscal impact or or other or terms of our practice of programs. I would, >> but I'm I'm open to sort of learning more about why that would why that would be the concern. >> I I would say in my um short tenure here, we we've had this conversation two years ago. At that time, there were two petitions um both making very similar um u cases in terms of uh challenges um with open enrollment. um and andor district policies around early early admittance. The I I would not classify as uh infantessimal because one district or one
040property two properties when you think about the permanent permanency of of transferring it um we don't know what what the future holds for any any given property. Um it was in the testimony that was given um the Mr. Gallagher went through the process of gaining it zoned in a particular way for or his foreseeable and family's foreseeable future. That isn't to say that state statute state law would allow for a person later on to turn it into a different zoning for different purposes. I think the um what has happened in the past has happened in the past. I I view this as an absolute last possible resort for resolution to to enrollment. Um, but you shrink the district. You you we do so and we aren't guaranteed to get get it back because as a
041school board or as a as a school official, we can't um petition to get back get back property. So I view it I view it um differently in that this has a this has a um unknown sizable impact to the district whether it be enrollment or whether it be property value. Um as Erica said those are just two of a variety of factors that go that weigh into our overall budget and given that we are 20 plus years in decline enrollment. um property value we can hold on we can hold on to. We have we have a say in that and that would be something um our recommendation would be to not approve this petition um for those reasons is keeping keeping our district as whole from a from a property value standpoint as we
042can um serves us best long term. um un understanding understanding that it's negatively impacting our enrollment um by two if the Mr. Gallagher open enrolls his children to Deerfield which he has stated he intends to do but after that we don't know. So >> Lisa, >> I would just say I think you know as a board member, you know, we have I feel a responsibility to the students, but also to the taxpayers. And I think um uh I I understand open enrollment is an extremely inconvenient process, but it does exist for a reason to allow families to have school choice. Um and it's doable. I know many families that do that. But I think just our conversation we just had about how our district is on this trajectory toward improvement that we're seeing some really
043great things happening. We want to attract and keep students in our district. I think like um seating property to another district I think sends the wrong message and also I think is not fair to our property taxpayers if we're sending the message that we're letting go of some of our tax base. Does anyone else have any questions or comments? >> Just do we know has Deerfield acted on this one way or the other? Do you know? >> They're having a public hearing and discussion tonight as well. >> Okay. >> And and my understanding that if one says yes, one says no, then there's some appeal process >> that they could go through. >> Correct. Any further questions, comments? All right. Is anyone interested in making a motion? I'll do it. Move to adopt a resolution
044denying the petition for detachment of the land described in the petition filed by Joseph and Chelsea Gallagher from the Stoen Area School District and attaching it to the Deerfield Community School District. >> Second. Seconded by Masa Meyers. Any further discussion? Would like this to be a roll call vote, please. >> All right. Mr. Masa Myers. >> Yes. >> Miss Garcia. >> Yes. >> Miss Pew. >> Yes. >> Mr. Moser? >> Yes. >> Dr. Milin Bartlett? >> Yes. >> President Patterson? >> Yes. Uh motion carries. We are on to item seven, meeting closing uh recap of action items. I have a note about um request for board members to post the consent agenda earlier. I would remind board members that um some of the content may not be visible unless you're logged in and authenticated. So,
045just make sure that you check on that. Okay. Um any other action items that I have? Um call your state senator, Senate leadership about um using um surplus funding for special ed reimbursement. Uh tomorrow vote. We have that. That's future That's future engagements. >> Okay. Any anything else that's not a future engagement? >> No. >> Okay. Uh future engagements, regular board meetings, March 2nd and March 16th at 6:30. We have our community conversation at the high school this Saturday. Uh and spring primary is tomorrow. >> Blood drive 25th, right? >> I think so. Yes, it is. It is. >> All right. Is there anything else? Otherwise, I'd entertain a motion for adjournment. >> Family Sarped for Saturday >> 17. Anything else? Otherwise, I'll take a motion. One other quick question about Saturday. Is it here
046>> High school. at the high school. Back entrance or front door >> back entrance >> next to the pool. >> Well, next. >> All right. Any other questions? Right. Now, does anyone want to make a motion? >> I would make a motion to adjurnn. >> Second. >> Moved by Masa Meyer, seconded by Pew. Any discussion? All in favor? I. >> Any opposed? Obstensions.