SASD School Board Meeting 5/19/25

001meeting of the area school district board of education. Miss Dermo, will you call the role? Mr. Tim Buban is excused. Miss Mia Croyo here. Mr. Jim Moser here. Miss Don Garcia here. Mr. Zach Masa Myers is excused. Miss Lisa Pew here. Miss Allison Sorg here. Dr. Sharon Milin Bartlett here. Michaela and President Patterson here. Hey. Um that do public comment. We did not receive any written public comment through our email for this evening and I see no one signed up for public comment and no one approaching the podium. So we will move on to item 2B, the legislative update. Legislative update. Um there's a few things happening at DPI and in the legislature. Uh there is new support from DPI on a crime reporting law that school districts have to comply with. Um the DPI

002has developed guidance um and a form for school districts to Hang on one second. I'm going to turn my camera on here for folks. And now I will get back to the update. Is that right? Okay, good. Um and uh so that was act 12 uh that the legislature passed in 2023 that requires public high schools as well as other charter and choice schools that have high school grades to report data to DPI and any crimes occurring on school or district property. And the form will be going out to school districts uh sometime this week uh covering July 1st, 2024 to June 30th, 2025. Uh the fiscal bureau had it sent some estimates to the legislature last week uh like basically telling the legislature how much money the state will have over the next two

003years to be considered for the state budget process that we still have a $4.3 billion surplus. It's actually a little bit higher than it was before. That should be considered as one-time money. Um and but however tax collections are expected to be down uh by about $335 million over the next two years. So that basically means that the joint finance budget committee has a little less kind of ongoing money to consider for the various ongoing expenses in the budget including public education. So that will become a factor as the joint finance committee and the legislature try to reach agreement with the governor on what uh to prioritize in the next bianial budget. The assembly education committee had a hearing uh last week on May 16th. Um, one of the bills that kind of pertains to

004us, AB226, a bill that would ban certain ingredients from being provided by schools through the National School Lunch Program and the school breakfast program. Uh, I'm going to mispronounce these things, but specifically it would prohibit schoolbars from providing food that contains brominated vegetable oil, potassium bromate, propyl paraben, aol aodicarbonomide or red dye 3 to pupils as part of um the meal programs provided by schools. And interestingly, it says the bill does not prohibit school boards and independent charter schools from allowing private vendor vendors to serve food containing any of these ingredients on school premises or at school sponsored activities. So, that bill just had a hearing. We don't know how far it will go in the process, but it's something that's happening all across the country. On May 16th, the Senate Education Committee passed five

005bills, all on partisan vote. um Republicans voting for, Democrats voting against. These are all available now for full vote in the Senate. Um meaning that they've already passed in the Assembly. We've talked about some of these bills before. The one allowing um military recruiters access to public high schools during the school day. The one allowing um representatives of certain federally chartered youth membership organizations to proide provide information to schools on public school property. I believe that one pertained to all like Girl Scouts and Boy Scouts. Um, another one uh that passed uh both the assembly and the Senate was the school materials inspection requiring school boards to make textbooks, curricula, and instructional materials available for inspection by school district residents. um specifically that bill has already passed the full assembly um on a partisan vote

006and is waiting to be scheduled for a floor vote now in the Senate since it just passed that Senate committee. The schoolboards association sent an advocacy message out to schoolboard members that you maybe read in your update trying to make sure that uh people understand the difference between a funding line in the budget called highcost special education versus just regular special education aid. There's some thought that legislators are on both sides of the aisle are supportive of increasing special education aid, but that they might decide to only increase highcost special education aid aid, which would be less helpful to school districts because it's basically a smaller pot of money that only supports um certain types of special ed um kind of costs and needs for costs above or $30,000 per student. If you're interested in

007more information on that, I'm happy to answer questions. But basically the summary of what they said was as you continue advocating for more funding for schools because we know that special ed reimbursement is the would be the most helpful pot of money to school districts including what Erica has told us would be most helpful to um Stoen Area School District that it's important to um specifically ask for that at least 60% reimbursement of special education aid. Um there's new trainings this summer available from the Office of School Safety. They are advertising them. They're starting um in June and going through August. Specifically, behavioral threat assessment management and standard response protocol and standard reunification method training. Um so those are being advertised to school districts as uh trainings that the Office of School Safety is offering

008to districts. Um news on the federal government side. Um education stakeholders continue to be alarmed by the White House's 2026 budget proposal that calls for a 15% cut to the Department of Education and consolidation of various K12 programs into a $2 billion block grant. We're supposed to be hearing more about um what that block grant actually would mean I think sometime this week also. So that's the the president's budget which sometimes gets ignored but we don't know what's going to happen with it this year. Uh on the congressional side, you might be hearing about movement on what the president is calling and what Congress has been calling the big beautiful bill and um they are trying to reach agreement on that in a partisan way with the Republican party. there would be deep cuts to

009Medicaid and uh SNAP or what we call food share here in Wisconsin and that will have um significant impact on K12 education programs um in the way that it impacts students. We know that Medicaid supports uh speech, language, occupational physical therapy that students receive as well as many of our students um who are of low income would be uh benefiting from the SNAP program and their families. So, we don't know what's going to happen with that. A lot of that action is happening in Washington this week. And that's all I have. That's it. That's all. Okay. Yes. Does anyone have any questions for Lisa? I had a quick one near the end. You had mentioned the new trainings from the office of public of school safety. You had mentioned behavioral threat management and then a

010second thing and then standard reunification training. What was the second thing? They named three behavioral threat assessment and management standard response protocol and standard reunification method training. And I'm assuming those are all related to how do you deal with uh an emergency in a school building. Thank you. Any other questions for Lisa? Alison? Yeah. What um do we know what the thinking is for the fund proposed funding for special ed with only being um what what how did you term it? Was it so by need? Yeah. So, uh, there's two strands of funding that come through the budget to school districts. One's called highcost special education and one's just standard special education reimbursement. The way that high-cost special education works, and I'm just going to give her a summary. Uh, DPI is required to pay

011an eligible eligible applicant in the current school year an amount equal to 90% of the costs for a student above $30,000. However, similar to special ed funding, those payments are prrated. So, the legislature puts only so much money into the highcost special education pot. And then all the school districts apply for that if they have any student costs that are above $30,000. DPS says that in the 2020 242 school year, only 14.49 49 million was allocated to the high-cost program and turn there were 228 school districts that applied for that and the re there even though the reimbursement rate is supposed to be 90% turned out to be 25.9%. Okay, because of proration the same thing happens uh with the special education reimbursement pot but the reimbursement on that currently is closer to 30%. Um,

012school districts are asking in this budget for 60% reimbursement and some sufficient which would prevent the proration of funding. So, okay, we'll see what happens. But that there the WASBY was telling school districts and public education advocates keep asking for special ed reimbursement 60% some sufficient. Thank you. Okay, we have one more if nobody else has one. um with I one thing I have wondered about this um proposal to um allow members of the public or the school district to come in and look at educational materials. Isn't that already the case? What I mean I thought anybody could come in and look to see what was available. I mean, they had to make an arrangement and I think this bill provides a specific time frame by which it has to happen. It's more It's definitely

013more geared toward the requesttor than it is on the part of the school district. Is that accurate, Dan? It's accurate. And the procedure by which um each district operates it um is left up to the district itself. this they're trying to call create a call for uh uniformity across all districts. So some districts um put up a lot of barriers and roadblocks for for viewing the materials. Others um like ourselves have established policies and procedures that we work with them and find a mutual time. Um so they are what very similar to the call for cell phone um a cell phone law. Many school districts already have a policy in place and yet they're still calling for a state law to bring some uniformity for those few districts that don't have a cell phone plan

014in place. Okay, that makes sense. All right, any other questions for this? Seeing none, we will move on to item two. Uh C, the work group reports and outreach work group met last week. Yes, I can give the report. Um so the focus of our workg group meeting was followup and next steps following the community conversation. Um and what the workg group has sort of decided is that we really want to focus on parents um for some follow-up community conversations to um fold more parents into the conversation. And we are envisioning three conversations, one at the elementary level, one at the middle school level, and one at the high school level. Um, and we would be asking them the same three questions that we asked at the original um at the original community conversation. Um,

015and really thinking we also with the recruiting of this to be very intentional and ask for school staff help, school leadership help in recruiting some parents that might represent groups that weren't represented in our in our initial um, conversation to see if we can um, get any more of those groups. groups to come in a really parent focused group. We also did identify that we want um students. So there'll be some outreach to students so that we can have some student participation especially at the middle at the high school level potentially at the middle school level and we have to maybe give a little more thought to I don't know what that would look like at the elementary level. Um what we're looking at right now um is three different Saturdays throughout the year. So

016one in October, one in December and then one in like midFebruary and there would be like a invite from Rachel likely they'll come out to see where board members what Saturdays are available to board members and then other thing one other thing that we did was in your um the board notes you'll see the communication that we agreed on that went out from Jill and Dan about uh with the with the report about the original community conversation to to the participants from that original conversation. So, okay. Are there any questions for Mia? I'm going to go with John first, then Sharon. Mia, I think that that's a really great direction to go is to get the parents really really focus on those parents. I'm I'm really glad to see that's where it's it's the direction

017it's heading and I agree with you. Maybe um no on the grade schoolers. Yeah, Sharon, go ahead. I had a quick question and if this was mentioned, I missed it, but will that um follow-up email go to participants who RSVPd but didn't seem to attend just to sort of keep them in the loop? We we sent it to everyone who would to who attended. Okay. Thanks. Any other questions for our outreach work group? Seeing none, we will move on to item 2D, student representative reports. Hi Michaela. Hello. Oh, okay. Okay, so we've had some very exciting things going on recently. We had our scholarship night. um that would be two weeks ago now. And so we gave out scholarships to over a hundred students and in total that scholarship money accounted for over $300,000 which

018is really incredible. Um and then we also had this last week a really cool opportunity. We hosted Armen Schwarz and he is the um Minister of Culture, Education and Opportunities from Hess Germany. I think that's what it is. It's Wisconsin sister state and it's part of a program um like a sister state exchange program um run by Jill Underly and Tony Ivers and so that was a really cool opportunity. Our German students got to kind of give a two a tour throughout the day and give show him the building. Um last week we also had our Cami King and Queen go and visit all of our elementary schools which is always super fun for all of the kids. And then at the high school level, all of the AP tests are finally completed, so we

019get bells back for our school day. Um, and then for athletics, we've had some exciting stuff going on. Girls soccer beat Reedsburg last week for their fourth consecutive win. Boys golf placed first at the Nucusa Invitational and tied for first at the Badger Small Mini Meet. Baseball beat Belleville 14-3. Girls track took third place at the Badger Conference Triangular. And boys track placed 10th at the Stoen Invitational. And then for arts, we had the orchestra concert. And so that theme was cowboys in the Caribbean. So it was very fun. And there's a picture there. So you can see some of our pirates and then some of our cowboys. Um, and then the advanced ceramics students had a really cool opportunity this last week. They went on a field trip to Row Pottery in Cambridge and

020to Grand Inspired here in Stoton to get to see some professional artists at work and then to see what kind of different materials and things they had there. Um, coming up tomorrow is the middle and high school combined choir concert. And in other choir news, um I don't have it on here, but the middle school choir director, um Mr. Powers was elected to the National Board of Trustees for the American ORF Schoolwork Association for um 2025 to 2028. And if you don't know what that is, it's basically a group of music educators from across the country. So that's a really cool opportunity. And then um there will also be a high school arts show um this week on the 21st and 22nd and that will be held in the performing arts center lobby during the

021school day. And that's all I have. Anyone have any questions for Michaela? All right, seeing none. Very good. Things happening as the year winds down. Um, we are now on to item 3A, Dr. Keyser's report. All right. Um, just wanted to prepare everyone. You're going to hear from me quite a bit tonight. Um, as I have three three items that I'll be present presenting on or four items I'll be presenting on um, tonight. The first of which is my um, report. Um, one thing I wanted to share because um, we always start the school year right into um, third Friday count and actually um, open enrollment starts way back in February and goes um, through April. And so we have just closed up the initial window for open enrollment um, and we are now moving

022into the what we call the alternative open enrollment. So, in theory, open enrollment never shuts down. It's just primary and alternate. Currently, um my office, so Rachel and I, um oversee open enrollment. Um so, Rachel takes ownership of processing all the applications. Currently, we have 43 applications for open enrollments into our district and 40 open enrollments out. um that is new open enrollments that is not inclusive of those who have um open enrolled in or out of our district. You do not have to do that on an annual basis. So to give you an idea of where where we currently stand um because these open enrollments are pending, they have until July 1st to for families to declare whether they are open enrolling out or in. Um but for this year we had a total

023of 205 open enrollments out and 86 open enrollments in. Um that is this current school year based on um final count. So this is where we are right now. The trend is we have slightly more coming to us than leaving us. We'll see exactly where that falls after July 1 and we get into the fall of the school year. Um going into the summer season is always a great time for us to uh brush up on different areas of our um board work. And so you'll see this over the next few board meetings over the summer here. Just little tidbits. This comes from WB. Those of you who who want um to watch the five-part series, they go through different things. This one is really important in terms of um how we currently set our

024agendas. You might know that we put things under certain headers um reports, discussions, discussion actions and so forth and they actually have defined terms based on open meetings law. When we talk aboutformational items, items that are more more than likely reports, these are items that um is supposed to be uh one-way communication. It is distributing information and asking for clarifications, but substantive discussions um are usually held in reserve because these are typically not things that are going towards an action item. They might be background information. and they might be uh reports of of certain um times in certain areas. Discussion items um are items that are tending towards or um trending towards actions. And this is where there should be substantive board dialogue and discussion in terms of clarifying the board's beliefs and values around

025certain topics in um the discernment towards a future action item. And then obviously action items are those um items that are deliberating upon a given recommendation or consideration to the board. Um you'll notice that when we put board agendas together oftentimes we will put things as information and discussion because because there are times in our past where we have wanted to discuss more things than just to have it information-wise. And then certainly when we have things that are action or discussion leading to action um we'll mark them as discussion or discussion and action even if they are put in different areas under our agendas. Um this is really all in service of providing transparency to our greater public who may be watching and looking our board docs and saying hey I want to be present

026when there's going to be discussion leading towards an action on a particular topic and um while it has not um led to any um issues in this district there if you watch the WSB videos. They do point um to certain situations where districts have um found themselves in the news or even in litigation because of how they have marked their agendas and what actually took place at um um in the meeting itself. So, our policies are written that we follow Robert's rules, but that Robert's rules um if not strictly followed should not um hinder the intent of the board to do its business. Um and that policy I think applies here. We do our best to um uh try to put the agendas together in such a way that allows for maximum um dialogue on

027those topics that um we wish to have dialogue and then also provide um clarity in terms of to the public what they should be expecting in terms of um action happening either on the screen if they're watching remotely or for in person when they are um listening to us. So that's our board update 101 for this meeting. Um and then graduation is coming up. So um our next board meeting will be the day after graduation. Um, but if those of you who are um already con uh sent to uh Miss Gmlo and Rachel that you're going to be on the stage um at Collinsfield that please meet at 10:00 I believe at the high school u main office and then Miss GMO um and her staff will walk us out to the stage to start

028at 11. If you are not staying on stage but I want to be in um the stands watching it will start at 11 o'clock questions. Um me first then Don. So can you go back a slide on this? I guess I'm just the only thing the only difference I see from how we currently do our agendas is that like your report isn't flagged as anformational item. The you know like we have we already list discussion items and action well and discussion action. Mhm. Um, so is there a particular change to the way we've been laying out our agendas that you're making on the basis of this or was this just like a general FYI? It's a general FYI in So I'm trying to make a distinction between our headers for our and then the actual

029items in in our agenda. So like my report is listed as information and reports in in there. So the information is uh key to those in the public that this is information that I'm sharing out. There isn't substantive discussion or things that are going to turn into action items from that. Okay. And this is always a good opportunity, good opportunity when we have board turnover and when we get into the summer months where we have a little bit of time to to sharpen our saw. And this was one that got a garnered a lot of discussion in the WASB. So, I thought this was a a a good one for the community to hear that we are intentional that when we talk aboutformational discussion and action, action is pretty clear, but the information and discussion

030seem very similar and people might think, well, they're interchangeable, aren't they? Well, really, they're not. Information is really we're putting information out there just for general general background knowledge. discussion actually has some substance and some teeth to it. Um, and like I said, it hasn't been an issue for us in the past. Um, but if you uh were members of WASB and if you have about an hour um to watch part three, there's some really interesting what would seem very kind of um not hugely controversial things, but in the context of their community, having the wrong title or using the wrong terminology can create um some confusion on the community and that can lead to um either hurt feelings or misunderstandings or a lack of transparency. So um because you don't have your computer, I

031will just clarify that if you look at the board doc's agenda online, every item in the board docs has a type assigned to it. And so that type is where the reports and information is flagged that way. So even though on our agenda that's there's not a heading that says information it's that those items like legislative update it's a report Dr. Keys update is a report or reportinformational. So we already we're already doing this. We're already doing this. It's just more background knowledge. Okay. Y does the public see those categories? Yes. When they when they click on the individual items, they can see what types they are. Don, did you have a question? How many uh students are graduating? Good question. I do not know. I know final exams are yet to take place and

032sometimes final exams second semester are a determining factor. Did any uh students graduate at a semester? Yes, but I do not know how many. Okay. Lisa, uh open enrollment. You said to date uh there's 86 in, 205 out. Is that on trend with other years? Uh that's a good question. Will last year, right? Those are last year's numbers. Those are for this school year so far, right? No, no, this is numbers for this school year. That's just about to end. And then for next school year, there's 43 new out. Now, we don't know how many of the open and rolling out, how many of those 205 are graduating? Right. Okay. Got it. Um, so yeah, there's a lot of unknowns in those numbers, I think. Yes. Until we get the Right. I yeah I knew

033that right I knew that just putting 43 in and 40 out will leave one impression but I want to I want to anchor it in that is just new enrolles or new open enrollment applications that doesn't include all of our existing open enrollment students that are ongoing open enrolled yes no to your question Rachel and I'll dig into trends to give you an idea of how how those applications are tracking from year to year. Any other questions for Dan? Seeing none, we are now to item four, the consent agenda. Uh move approval of the consent agenda as presented. Second. Moved by Sorg, seconded by Croy. Is there any discussion? Seeing none have a question. All in favor? I. Any opposed? Any abstensions? Consent agenda is approved. We are to now item five A. And I

034believe we don't need a motion. However, would there be a reason um for the members of the public if you're not following along. Um, this discussion item is around reviewing fees for meals, facility rental, pool rental, pool program, and pool parties. This is an annual review of these fees, which we tend to make modest adjustments to each year. And I'm wondering if Dan could give us any reason why we would want to move this to discussion action tonight. So, um, our fee structure runs the school year, um, or our fiscal year, which is July 1st to June 30th. So, bringing this now gives us the opportunity for the board to consider um, our fee structure in the two-step manner that we have we have customarily used. Um in when we had committees, this would come

035through the uh finance and facilities committee as uh one of their um six means during the year and then come straight to discussion action going through that process. In discussion with Erica, um we felt that um these fees are reviewed on an annual basis and have always had a very modest um increase for our meals. It is dictated by DPI. There in the um discussion item um there is a um attachment that um is called the PLLE and that is the actual calculator that DPI puts in there. All of these fees have the same um foundational basis. School districts as nonprofit entities are not in the business of making a profit. So school fees for rentals and school fees for food service are designed to only increase to cover the costs of paying members. Um

036free and reduced lunch applications are are a whole separate process and they and DPI also um establishes the reimbursement rate for that. But for food service fees, these are um uh an a calculation. We put in our current um costs for our for our lunches. It calculate and how many um roughly how many lunches are paid for every year. We get all that from our food service management. And then we see how much um our costs are. And then it shows what our um either credit or shortfall is and then it calculates what our increases will be. Um in this case it is recommending the customary 10-cent increase which is then what we bring forward as a recommendation for the board. In our pool fees, in our facility fees by state law, we are not

037able to charge to make a profit. We are only char we only charge enough to cover our utility costs and our custodial costs for the building and so our pool fees and our facility fees are commensurate with that. The one exception in the facilities fees is if someone were to rent out the fab lab because there is specialized equipment in there. The cost um also includes the um cost for a trained educator for the Fab Lab. We only have um a limited number of educators who are trained to use that equipment and they must be on site when it's used. Um so in all of these cases, um these are customary standard. um they get updated annually. And so um if a board member felt um that we we could move forward with turning this

038into a discussion action item um the recommendation is in there for that particular purpose. Um while not discussion um yet but the pool employee wages is also an area of fees that gets reviewed annually and then again um that is commensurate with what we're what we see by other um pools in the school districts that have pools in the area and we try to stay competitive with them. So, it is um there for consideration if a board member will want to consider turning um this into a discussion action item, but it is purposely put here so that um we can have a discussion and we could bring it back as a discussion action item on the June 2nd board meeting and still meet our statutory requirement for the July 1 kickoff for these fees. So,

039okay. So, there's no need for urgency. Then, no need for urgency, just consideration for past practice. Lisa, how are the adult breakfast and lunch fees calculated? And does that do those um meals subsidize the meals of the children? No, they adult fees can't cannot subsidize student fees. Okay. In there, but I don't um the PLE is is is calculated for um the students. I we'll have to dig into the question. Some school districts opt to not provide breakfast or lunch to adults. That must be optional for school districts. Then any other questions? Any discussion on this item? None. We'll move on to item 5B, full employee wages. All right, I'm back. Um so in this agenda item, um there's one attachment in there. Um it looks at areas um school district areas and um their

040co uh costs for lifeguard, head lifeguard um if they provide water exercise, what those costs are um and so forth. You can see our costs um across the board and then um a running list of um pools in the area. Um, in the write up you can see that we have um tried to stay competitive with all of our with all of our areas. We also um have a note in here that um if we have um someone who is doing say a cash register or cashier duties but also has a lifeguard certification, we pay them at at the higher rate and take considerations for that. But again, this is um looked at on an annual basis along with all of our other fees just to make adjustments so that we can stay um close

041to our to our neighbors and not have um them siphoned off to other other communities. Any question or discussions about this employee wages information? And again, this will come back on June 2nd for consideration with the language. Um, okay. So, now we are on to 5C. All right. Promise this is the last item that I'll be presenting um tonight. Um so it's been some time since we've had the conversation around SRO which um for our purposes we've we've adopted in um the assignment um language as uh student staff resource officer which thank you for the for that suggestion from the conversation. There are three attachments in the in um the discussion item. There is the intergovernmental agreement. There is a um assignment um description which is slightly different than a job description because as we'll

042discuss um or as the chief will discuss in um a moment and then we also have for consideration as part of this um an SRO template from Nola which um talks about um if we're going to have an SRO program what are some of the key components And in the policy itself is where we linked in the annual report as a foundational um uh non-negotiable for any sort of program. So anything that's in policy become is kind of like our state laws. So these become binding agreements for any agreements, contracts or descriptions moving forward, which is why it's important that it is here um and not um necessarily as important if it's in in the agreement because if the agreement gets approved, they the position has to follow all school board policies of which if

043the board also approves the SRO policies um would mandate an minimum of an annual report. And then from the um agreement, it gives flexibility to the to the school district to um eb and flow in terms of meeting the needs of our changing conditions. be it changing conditions in the school, changing conditions in the district, changing conditions in the community. So, with that, I've invited two of our guests, uh, Mayor Tim Swatley, thank you for being a part of those conversations, and Chief Dan Jenx, who's been a part of all the conversations. Um, they were in the audience when the board first had the conversation about whether or not we wanted to go down this road and get to this point. Um, now that we're at this point, the conversations are happening in parallel both

044with the city council um and their um subcommittees and now here at the board of education. It's important to know that an agreement between both entities has to be approved by both entities before they can be signed off on um and any action can be taken. The goal of this conversation is for consideration of um these three items, the agreement and the and the assignment description kind of go hand in hand. And then the policy would be an addition to our policy um document. after the discussion for June 2nd um for consideration, the policy will be broken off and put as a separate agenda item because policy has to go through roll call. Um and I wanted to make sure that this went through roll call and then the agreement. Um, again, any action item

045can be a voice vote, but any board member can also ask for a roll call vote um at at their own um uh request of the of the board president. So, separating those two out um is intentional, but for the um discussion um tonight, I've kept them all together. So, um, with that, I will, uh, let turn it over to Mayor Swatley and Chief Jensen to say a few things and then, um, open it up for the board to ask questions. Um, we hopefully gave enough time for board members to have read through the agreement and the description um and um perhaps have some questions that they want to ask any or all three of us. I also have uh if there are questions that um are more nature of the school district, I have

046a phone friend in our buildings and grounds and safety supervisor that I can call up call up if need be. So, mayor, I'll let you say a few things and then turn it over to the chief. Sure. Uh thank you for having us here tonight and for your consideration on this position. Um, we've been kind of following uh the school district as you go through the process, trying to be careful not to get ahead of your process. Um, I can kind of tell you where we're at right now and then any specific questions about the role of responsibilities. I'll defer to the chief. Um, so the city council is aware that the school board has been having these conversations. Um, city council hasn't really had any formal agenda items on this issue as of yet.

047We're waiting to see what direction, if any, you want to go. Um, we did meet at the personnel committee on May 5th and the reason we meet at personnel is a couple reasons. Uh, one reason is anytime we do a new staffing request, which is typically at budget time, we run those through the personnel committee and they help us prioritize any budget requests we may have and then we attempt to fill those requests with whatever money we have available at the time. And the other purpose was just to get their expertise and support on what they think the position would look like. I think one of the takeaways from that was the the discussion about making it an assignment versus a job description. Um so that came out of that meeting. Other meetings that we

048would anticipate having would be uh next week on May 28th we have a public safety committee meeting. We would certainly um depending on kind of the direction we receive here tonight um have a agenda item at the public safety committee to seek their endorsement of this position uh followed by a finance committee meeting. Finance committee ultimately would be um have to be on board as far as funding the position and we could handle that in a few different ways. The finance committee meets the second Tuesday of the month before the city council meeting. So they actually meet next week as well. So they meet on May 27th, June 10th, and June 24th. And depending on the timeline, um if there is one agreed to, we can discuss if that should be on finance committee next

049week or wait until the June the first meeting in June and then we can decide whether or not we want to take it to the city council the same night or at the next meeting. We also have uh two attorneys that we are using to review the documents. One to review the the uh the agreement, theou um I'll call it, and then the other one for the actual assignment. We use a labor attorney for the assignment and our regular city attorney for any contracts that we entertain. So, that's kind of an overview of our process. I'm happy to answer any questions on that if you have any. Any questions for Mayor Swadley? So, so just clarify what your I think it makes sense, but your timeline in terms of your budget setting and you know

050trying to get this done so that you can plan your next budget. I don't what timeline you guys are on. Sure. So, our budget runs the calendar year. I know that's different than your budget. So for this year we would have to find a way um to cover our share for the remainder of the year. I think uh chief has been working on that as well. And then our understanding would be is we would have to you know fund our portion of it hopefully for next year. And that's kind of the reason why we've been having conversations with city council uh personnel committee and finance committee just to give them a heads up that if we do go forward this year is with the understanding that we would want to retain the position going forward.

051Thank you. Any other questions for Mayor Quadley? Okay. To mirror Mayor Swadley and thank everyone for having us here. Um, it's been a pleasure working with Dan and his staff as we develop these documents. What we did was look at some of the our area partners and kind of thought of how we can stolenize it. We heard of things about we wanted open communication. We wanted to be not focused on discipline and we wanted to build relationships. So, we tried to mirror that in the documents and I think we did a pretty decent job of spelling those out. Um, we really wanted not to box ourselves into the corner completely recognizing this is somewhat of a process and a that may evolve. There may have to be changes made along the way as we recognize

052if there are any issues um we have the ability to tweak the agreements and I think that was important. So, building off of building off the chief um one of the uh couple of the things that I want to highlight in the agreement um the I the idea of building flexibility within that um and being fiscally responsive. The there are applicable terms. Um we I know the board asked that we consider doing a one-year to one-year um agreement with with renewals. And in the initial discussions, that's where we started. We actually ended up in order to make this fiscally um uh responsive to both the school district and the city budgets. We actually are putting it as a three-year with opportunities that if there are issues um on either end that we work through those

053issues, but if those issues become unresolvable um that either side can um make a request within 30 days of the end of a calendar year to um end the agreement early. Additionally, it also puts a timestamp that every three years there has to be a renewal of this process. So, this process is in a oneandone, but both entities have to revisit this process a minimum of every 3 years even if everything's moving smoothly to reaffirm a commitment to this um program. the idea of um again uh the if approved along with the policy there would be a minimum of a annual report that is given to the board. If um there's a lot of language in here that um gives flexibility to the school district to increase that and eb and flow as we need

054to to create a um clear line of communication. There is a a person on the police department side who is going to be the direct supervisor of the SRO if approved. and our district point of contact will be our buildings and grounds and safety supervisor for the operations of the of the agreement. But when the uh SRO is within the building, they fall in line with whoever the building administration is in that building. um the working with Boardman and Clark who's uh been our legal reviewer, they recommended all of the language um that you see in this agreement. And um it also spells out um those things that um mirror the police department's labor agreement, if I'm using the correct terminology. So when you see specificity in there, it is specificity that needed to be

055put in there to be um coherent with the employment contract on the police department side where there's flexibility. Um you'll see language in there that allows for um us to be um uh flexible um to the point there was a question about the activity reports and having those mutually agreed upon. The the reason why it is written that way is because the the required pieces for the school district may be different than the required pieces for for the um police department. And based on what we would want in an annual report, we wanted the flexibility to be able to say if it's important to us and we're asking for it to be in there, we're not constrained by one or the other and create discontinuity in in that. So that is why when you read

056through this, you might see some um language that seems very loose, but it was intentional not to point us into the corner. Either the mayor or the chief said that. So with that being said, questions that board members have in regards to any of the three documents that were attached. I have dozens. Okay. Um I guess one of my my big questions is the current officers that you have. Thinking about their backgrounds, their Gilad's personalities, are there any who have a background in working with kids, maybe even a few classes in education? Um, is it safe to say that when they were hired, considerations about their background with kids in education wasn't necessarily a criteria? So, if someone has the background, that would be sort of a nice to have. We might be lucky in

057having someone, right? Yeah. So, during our initial employment screening, that's not such a big factor. Obviously, for this position, it will be. And yes, we do have officers with experience in childhood development and school psychology. I'm glad to report there's several that are interested in this position. We have officers that are kind of trained in like deescalation, those types of things which are going to be important as well. Okay, I'm I'm gonna do like rotated questions. Maybe somebody else will ask one of your other questions. Mia. So, one of the things that I think we talked about a good bit was [Music] um [Music] wanting whoever's selected, you know, give it given their background, but we would still want them to have some additional professional development. Um, I don't see anything in here about that

058that addresses that. Like we're like, in my mind, just a short list off the top of my head, like I'd like them to go to some trauma-informed schools, learning, some learning on, you know, working with kids with special needs, you know, some of the things that we think they're going to see. And so contractually I think that needs to be worked out in advance. How much time are they going to have to do that professional like are we going to give them professional development days? Who's paying for that professional development? All of those things. I didn't see that really hammered out to the detail that I think would make it actionable. Right. to the to no it's it was a good question one that we talked about in our initial meetings in developing the draft

059of this um under cost standards the cost share is a 5050 cost share and it's inclusive of um the salaries and benefits but also of the prof the paid professional development of um the SRO to keep and maintain the knowledge consistent with the duties and applicable laws. The reason why we um and this was feedback from legal that if you put in XYZ training, you're limited to XYZ training. Whether XYZ training is the best training, it might be the best training now, but it might not be the best training 10 years from now. But um it is it is inclusive of saying that there's an agreed upon list of trainings that have been talked about here and that we've talked about as part of our safety our um regular safety trainings throughout the year that

060we would want um an SRO to go to. There's an a statewide meeting. We just talked about the office of school safety which um puts on regular trains for school districts and SRO's. there's actually an SR SRO um professional group within the state that um they get together and have regular meetings and then there are also national trainings. So while this says that on an annual basis there are some regular trains that we want them to to go to and being mindful of how much time they're away from the district um and um being paid for being in the district. If there is specific training that say the chief um is requiring of this position then the chief will pay for that. If there is additional training on our side that we're requesting you must

061do this as part of it then we will take 100% ownership of that. So it's not exclusive of that. So, we don't there's some common trains that we've talked about um that we have kind of earmarked um and that would be like the Wisconsin schools uh uh school resource officers training which happens every year um office of school safety trainings that happen on a regular basis. Um, and I think I'm missing one in there, but if there comes along a dees, let's say a deescalation training or a seclusion restrain training specific to SRO's um and handling those u emerent um needs, we can make that request within within this agreement and then we would cover the cost of of sending the person for that. So that's where it was. I'm sorry. I'm not seeing where

062it says that in the cost standard portion. So, it just says that the city will pay all professional development training sufficient for their respective SRO to keep and maintain knowledge consistent with the SRO's duties and applicable laws. Right. And then for us within within within the um cost there there is that understanding that we discussed and if um we can go back and ask legal to to pull that out. We did have that agreement and that common understanding that in addition to this if there's any required trainings that we would want then we would cover the cost and likewise with with police department so we can we can pull out some more clarity in there. I just sort of want to carve out the space that if the district identifies additional trainings that we have

063it in the agreement to Yeah. And those would be things that we discuss as part of our our regular safe safety meet. So every on a case of every six weeks during the school year, um our buildings and ground safety supervisor brings together our building administrators and our first responders, which includes our um fire and EMS and we talk about things within the community and in the school district um as well as do tabletop exercises. this that is also an opportune time where we talk about trends and that is oftentimes where when we uh share PD trainings that are coming up. I'm I I mean to be perfectly frank I'm less concerned that any SRO will have their sort of police bonafetus like they're going to be they're going to be well brushed up on

064their safety and their policing. It's more the softer side of things that I am concerned with and want to make sure that we have enough space to get somebody really well trained up and supported in that aspect of the job because an SRO position, at least the SRO position that I think from our conversations we've been envisioning is not just a police officer in a different location. It's a different sort of role. Yes, it is a completely different sort of role. It's a it's a role about pre it's about the 95% of the job that is all preventative and not the 5% that's reactive. So yeah, and I think a lot of these trainings, you know, from the office of school safety and whatever are about that 5%. Some are I'll say like the reunification

065the deescal I mean office of school safety I think has that they came out um this spring and did a lunch and learn at the high school um and they shared a lot of different resources because um they have a national perspective on this. they have the time and the space to curate resources nationally and then um consolidate it and package it for school districts so that you school leaders and school district um leaders aren't spending um all their time trying to find these but to do that but point is absolutely valid that we want to we want to ensure that we're focusing on the preventative side Okay, next question. Somebody who has We have a couple things we can add to that. Go ahead. Yeah. Um, so one thing we did and hopefully I

066didn't put the cart before the horse, but in in anticipation of a SRL starting this year, we did save a couple spots. So there, as Dan mentioned, there's a annual conference. So at the conference, there's breakout sessions on behavioral science, on restorative justice. I didn't want us to put an officer in school in September without any training, without any like they're going to have the opportunity to talk to other SRO's. We also have a spot reserved at what we call like the SRO basic where they go through a lot of the techniques and explain things where they start building relationships with other SRO's. And even beyond that, we set up um for our candidates that may be interested a chance to go to other school districts in the area to go do like a ride

067along with an SRO and see what their day is looks like and see what you know what day in dayout stuff looks like locally. Okay. And and I would just add that, you know, our department also partners with the wellness coalition and groups like Stoton Cares and we're certainly willing if there's any other local organizations that you feel we should be working with. Um we're more than happy to to entertain you know those ideas. Okay. Next board member question. one. Um, have we thought about um I'm just wondering just without Erica here, I guess this is going to you. Yep. Um, money where where are we going to come up with the money for this? We do it. We have to build from the time that we were talking talking about this. Um this is

068something that um factors into our budget for next year. So we we are intending this to start with the July 1st. So that would start with the new new budget cycle. Um budget gets approved in end of October. So if approved, this would be uh one of those figures that we would put into into our budget. Okay. And I just I remember quite a few of the public commenters um about this issue had mentioned the possibility of grants. I understand that grants are you know it's one time money often times. So I don't know. I mean onetime money is better than no money but have we looked into anything like that? We've kept our eyes open for grant um opportunities. There's been a few that have been um coming up lately. Unfortunately, the ones that

069get emailed are um also hidden product endorsements for certain technologies and things like that. So, um we rely we really rely on um places like the Office of School Safety that have a wide angle lens on where where any um grant dollars are. Now, granted, with the conversations we've been having about the federal government and the state government, I know those are a lot of them are tentative at this point, but um if there's grants available that we can use to offset um dollars on any given year at any given time, we'll take advantage of those. Okay, cool. Thank you. Yeah. Okay, Jim, go. Yeah, let me just just clarify and make sure I understand your your selection process can be I assume sort of internal or external and you have the flexibility to post

070it or hire in a way that will allow you the greatest opportunity to find someone you think will be the right fit. The pool will be limited to our current employees. Okay. Internal. Okay. Right. Yeah. We'll have to backfill a position if we were to Yeah. do that. If if we were to hire somebody from outside, I think the timetable would be significantly different. Okay, Lisa. Um my I have a lot of questions too, but I'll try to be focused. Um my my my questions and caution around this plan moving forward as I've stated are always regarding students with disabilities and how they are often disproportionately connected to law enforcement in schools and experience seclusion restraint in in schools. And under under number 16 in the contract around handling of incidents, it talks it talks

071about how in general absent a real and immediate threat to a student, teacher, public safety that the SRO uh would not participate because it wouldn't uh warrant formal law enforcement intervention, but rather it would be considered student discipline matter. And I guess I'm that sounds good the way it's written, but I'm wondering how is an officer who hasn't been in a school going to know the difference between um that that whether it's a disciplinary matter because I know when a student with a disability is disregulated, sometimes they can be very disruptive in a classroom, you know, knock over desk and and and sometimes that's because their behavioral plan hasn't been followed. and they aren't getting the supports that they need in the classroom to participate appropriately and so their disability is causing them to be

072um in a disregulated state that might appear to be disruptive and a threat. Now I know in the in the state law when someone can step in with seclusion and restraint as a very restrictive measure it has to be under and this is the law in very limited circumstances where a student's behavior prevent presents a clear present and imminent risk to the physical safety of students or school staff and is the least restrictive intervention feasible. Under state law, police officers are excluded from having to from under the seclusion and restraint law. So, in our contract, it talks about the officer stepping in under this uh under what would be a real and immediate threat. Um, and I guess I'm just I'm I'm concerned about how this a student with a disability might be treated if

073it's, you know, if they're disregulated and having, you know, a disruptive behavior. How does the officer discern in the moment if this is discipline or if this is a threat? Yeah, I appreciate your concerns fully. Um, I know that when we went through like crisis intervention training, we also learned like, hey, what how people react and how we have to understand everybody's different. Someone may have a physical issue that we have to recognize. We see it in our environment now. Um, inside the school, I guess I would expect that training to continue or that idea. I I can understand how people react differently, how you know someone may be having having a crisis, but I think also having the the school staff and having access maybe to a management looking at these individuals like, hey,

074this is may be going on here and having that communication to recognize that this student may have something where we this is how we react. We've had safety plans in the in, you know, outside this room or outside the school district where we were notified like, hey, these are some triggers. This is how you calm someone. This is the colors and like this is how you talk. So, I would anticipate that happening. Um, I think as the SRO, which is the really kind of the driving force behind this is to have that consistent officer at the school so we don't just have, you know, him might act differently than I do. Yeah. So having that consistency and be able to recognize that there are safety plans in place and that there are special needs students,

075we have to learn how to react to that. Yeah, I kind of feel having an officer available to focus on that chances are that offer is going to that response is going to be quicker or at least more consistent. And then having a familiarity with that officer I think is helpful. Um, if if there's a relationship built or the officer knows kind of the the student and the family and the situation, I think having that background is is helpful. You know, like I said, if it was an officer coming from outside, you basically right now you're at I'm going to say luck of the draw. It's it's whatever officer is available. And I think having an SRO that's assigned to the buildings helps in that situation. Now, I would say in um in two different

076veins, um building off of what the mayor and the chief have said is if approved um I see the SRO working closely with the build building administration and um student services staff, so counselor, school psych, social workers to get to know uh exactly kind of building off what the chief has said. um if I understood you correctly that there are some individuals within our community that your officers know um have triggers and how to approach and things like that. So I would want to mirror mirror that level of knowledge and expertise within um and that was part of the I the language in the inter agency um sharing agreement is we want uh want this individual to be connected with the pupil services staff to know students and know how to address that though that

077if by chance the officer um comes across a disregulated student and recognizes that student to be a student with a disability can can address appropriately. Um, and yet for many of our students who who are in classrooms, what I would not want to see is a classroom teacher calling an SRO over a administrator. Their first call if there's something happening in a classroom is to an administrator, not the SRO. Where does it clarify that piece? Where do we clarify that piece? Um there's a couple of different areas in which in in that the um well in the in the description the assignment description it it says that the when in the buildings the SRO will work um with the principal or assistant principal and then in the agreement itself the um buildings and ground safety

078supervisor delegates the responsibility to the building principal. So when the SRO is in that building, they are working under the under that individual as a point of contact for the agreement. We want one point of contact and so that that person it would be our buildings and grounds and safety coordinator because they're already connected with the police department. Where is that under chain of command or where is that part? Chain of command would be that. So to to the point uh point well taken that um while this gives a legal definition within that that uh to your to your point Lisa is well and good in terms of written but what does it actually look like in in actuality in actuality it really is how we set it up to set it up to begin

079with and that is getting if approved getting the individual understanding what skill set they're already bringing in um get them signed up for some training. And then also working the summer to build those um connections with each of the building administrators so that come welcome back week and um students coming in. They have they're best equipped to know um how to interact and start building relationships with staff and then students moving forward. Anybody who hasn't asked a question have a question? Okay, Mia. Um, I I guess this goes I I don't know where this falls with all with the documents that you shared. I think it's something that should exist outside those documents. But one of the things that I would really like to see is how are we as the district going to train

080our or not maybe train's not the right word but to make sure that all of our district staff are on the same page around expectations for utilization of the SRO, what the SRO should and shouldn't be taking part in etc etc because I don't necessarily want to just assume that every building leadership team has the same picture in their mind of what that's going to look like and I don't know that uh you know I don't know what who else needs to be involved in some of that level setting um but I think that's going to be important work that we have that the district has to do on our end to support this because you know in the past I think the SRO has been called on by some schools to and some school

081leaders to do things that probably were a little bit out of bounds and um but you know that's not their job to necessarily reinforce that boundary that's our job Right. And you bring it you bring up precisely the point why it's important to have a single point of contact which I think is uh I have not read what the for former agreement was um but having a single point of contact in at the district level for the SRO. So if there is a conflict in directives that the SRO has a single point of contact for clarity. I think that um I'm I am as confident as I can be in the theoretical um space of like envisioning what this is going to look like to say if approved, if this is approved, we would meet

082and buildings and grounds safety supervisor Kyle and myself would meet with the all admin team and share exactly what the chain of command looks like and what and what the expectations are so that we could put out very clear communication when staff come back in the fall that this position is new. This is who it is and this is how it it works. The from the staff perspective, the staff should be not changing their protocols. if they have if they need assistance in a classroom their call is to a principal or an assistant principal or a dean and not the SRO and that is that is the way it works now and that's what I see moving forward if an SRO is being pulled into the SRO needs to know from our perspective and that

083would come from Kyle that if Jill says say says to Allison, "Hey, Alison, come in here. I need you to deal with this student." Allison knows, "No, you need to you need to call the principal." And and that's that's the way it goes. If if there is some and people are human if there's a breach in that then we coach that and then we work work through that and that's becomes the conversation between um Kyle and his counterpart on the police department side who evaluates the SRO to say hey this thing happened and then on our side Kyle with the building principal and say hey this thing happened and Let's recclarify roles and responsibilities, but it's going to take it's going to take some proximity. We'll have to stay close to this until we get

084build up the muscle and the stamina and the expectations so that we we can do that. And I think we know we're walking into this with our eyes wide open that this isn't something that we can just kind of say, okay, we've got a person. We we've communicated it once and we can step away from it. It's going to it's going to be we've communicated and we should communicate again and communicate again because if anything we know between five and nine times a person needs to hear something before it starts to sink in. My concern is how many students will be harmed in those five to seven times or nine to seven times. how many students will be traumatized or treated incorrectly because that's what's happened in the past. Well, my my hope would be

085that the five to seven communications are happening before we get to the students coming back so that we have very clear lines because it really that falls on us as administrators. That does. Karen, I have a couple of questions around some of the expectations. Um, the comments that we got from the public the last couple of months. Um, a lot of them were prompted by the tragedy that happened in Madison in the fall. And I think there's this feeling that if there's something super extreme like an active shooter that the SRO will be the first person who can aid in that situation. Is that accurate? Well, um there's certainly a chance. I know it just depends on the proximity to the emergency where the SRO is. They they obviously got one person in how many

086schools. Um I know when the incident happened in Mount Horb for instance, the SRO was one of the first to engage um at Abundant Life the same. So it just happened that they were close. Um I was just thinking of how we responded. So we did send officers to each. So it like there's also that support network built in but to address it it's like for one person to address an active threat we do train that but we rely on others as well to move in. I have two related questions if it's okay if I continue. Go ahead. Um, if there were a crisis in Stoton, let's say at Walmart, and at the same time there's a crisis at a school, there's verbiage in here about how the SRO may be pulled in order to

087support something happening elsewhere. In a case of simultaneity, which gets priority? Um, well, each would be so individualized. It would really specifically depend on the threat of what exactly it is and the timing. Um we again have uh our full staff which can range from two to eight officers. We also have our partners throughout the county. So if we were in I I guess I need more you know even like a well drawn scenario something you can illustrate but you know both are emergencies. We may respond to one. We may send Dane County to the other one. We may call McFarland to go to school because we're already at Walmart. Thank you. And third, go ahead. Final question. Hands up. Um, again, in the vein of managing expectations, I think it's important that these questions

088be public so that we're educating everyone in the community. Another comment that came up repeatedly was the concern over mental health and how important it is to harness every possible resource to support in this case students but we know like countrywide if not worldwide this is an issue. I didn't see anything in the documents that attended specifically to mental health. Can you shed any light on maybe the kind of training that officers actually do have that might um help them with mental health crises? Right. Yeah. Well, as I mentioned before, like the crisis intervention techniques were trained in that that became real apparent that that was needed. It was a national movement and we moved all our officers into that training. Um, as far as individual um, interest within the PED, there are people that

089have experienced um, or have experienced in the mental health field. I think as we go forward, as I mentioned, the SRO themselves, there's opportunities to engage in that type of education. It's more specialized than what we see in general patrol. And I do appreciate again your concern. I think it is ours as well. Um I guess just identifying those types of training and making sure that we have our staff there is important. I think then also learning the on the job type method as well as relying on the staff at the school. Yeah. And there again I I'll mention you know some of the partnerships we work pretty closely with the Stoton area resource team Stoen Health. So I think there's opportunities for collaboration and in that arena Mia and then Lisa. So there is

090this uh section in the draft in the draft SRO agreement 19 that talks about how the SRO shall not engage in it's phrased as academic guidance counseling activities. I'm assuming that's anything that the school counselors do. Mhm. Um, so that basically says that the SRO will not be providing mental health or mental healthish services. I mean, there's mentorship, there's, you know, support, general support, and there may be referrals and linkages. But it looks like her that if I'm reading that section correctly, they're basically saying the SRO is not going to be doing counseling with these students. Correct. And that was um language again uh largely influenced by legal counsel. So take taking academic guidance counseling to um we might use different terminology uh in the district but that's exactly the intent of that paragraph is

091to say that an SRO's responsibility is is not to be providing that that while they might have training in mental health and they might they might in a former life have been a counselor their role and responsibility is to direct them to to a counselor or to a school psych for support. Um because that is that is the um direction in which we want those services to be. I would I think it's helpful if if the officer can help identify that just like everybody else. If they do, I would think they would, you know, refer to the school district if it's something that's out in the community. Like I said, we do have partnerships. We don't practice mental health because, right, we're not experts in that, but we know people that are, whether it's youth

092or or even seniors. You know, we have case workers at the senior center for people in the community that need support. So, I think we would, you know, leave it to the experts, but certainly we could be another set of eyes to help identify if there's something going on there that needs to be addressed. Right. To that point, mayor, I just I also want to provide scope and context for the agreement. So, this is while SRO outside of the school day and outside of the school year, this will be an officer at the directive of the person. So in their role outside of the SRO position, we'll follow the directives of the stand operating procedures for the department which may include the the part referral to those partnerships and so forth. The added uh layer

093is also if this individual say on July 15th recognizes that this is a student who's going to be coming back to us can also make a make the school district aware of hey there was this crisis with this family or this student or a relative of the student and you know handle with care you you know, wrap let's wrap services around around the individual so that coming back in in September, the student is well supported. Okay, Lisa. Um I know we've this maybe is going to be directed toward Dan. Um we've spent a lot of time at the board table over the last year talking about belonging and our goals around, you know, academics and the achievement gap. And I know several of us at the WASBY convention attended sessions around school resource officer conversations.

094And I know I went to one where there are several districts, we're not the only one considering reinstating um school resource officers, but also kind of reimagining what that role looks like. And I talked to um Dr. for clarity from Verona School District. And I know you said that the contract language that you pulled was mostly from Boardman Clark and it reads kind of legal ease in nature, but I thought you said you were going to talk to and share examples with other superintendent. And I just looked up I didn't find the agreement with Verona, but I found the press release and they talk about how their SRO program is ensuring that their students are are that it's a safe and welcoming environment. the SRO program that the the SRO will apply the principles of

095community oriented trustbased relationships within the school community. The SRO will engage in proactive problem solving to support a positive learning environment for students, teachers, and staff. Focus on a positive school culture and and climate. The importance of having support resources and trusting relationships between students and adults is the foundation of our schools. And I know we're trying to keep the the contract clean, but even in the in the reporting, there's like there's like no detail about what we're expecting in terms of a report. And I just feel like what you what people are expected to report on matters. It will it will drive kind of what they do. And so I just don't see I guess I I'm wondering how we will be tracking how this impacts our students in terms of their sense of

096belonging or any impact on academics and what is the role of the SRO in terms of supporting those goals around belonging a trusting environment trusting relationships welcoming environment I'm not seeing that reflected so and fair try um and that is kind of the nature of agreements versus um application. So the application of having a program inc and supporting our board goals around academics and belonging still weighs heavily in terms of every individual that's in our schools is driving towards those three goals and they are doing them in in their own own unique ways. And so I would see the SRO working closely with again our building administration, our buildings um student um services staff to stay connected and provide that same welcoming environment that we expect of all of our our employees, even contracted um

097employees, which this would would be as as kind of a functional agreement. ment this is contracted services they but by by all intents of purposes if ag if this agreement is approved become a de facto staff member and subject to all of our our policies to to your point we may have to go into our policies and make some tweaks and some adjustments to call out um just the one point you made in terms of seclusion restraint um and how the state law delineates law enforcement officers versus um contracted um contracted services um staff and making sure that we have coherence across across the system. And then as we start to build into the report, being able to say, "Here are the things that we're already collecting. what in addition to all all that we're

098already collecting would we want in a in a report? So in a police report, there are certain demographic information pieces that are mandated as part of a police report. There are certain things that are already mandated as part of our um student information services when we do a a um office discipline referral. It's reconciling those two things and saying what's missing here and from this conversation both past and present. One of the things that definitely the first report's going to want to highlight is what level of training has the SRO engaged in from the time if this was approved from the time this was approved and the person was um assigned the SRO responsibility to the date of the report. What have they participated in? How many meetings at the building level have they engaged

099in? have they been asked to participate in um delivering uh you know home safety meetings at the elementary school all of those all of those things. So we put a we put our a very broad plate of options out there that the SRO could engage in and we also put some really big constraints. We don't want an SRO providing mental health support services to to a child that comes in and says, "Hey, I'm having X, Y, and Z struggles." Okay. Well, maybe we should go and find a counselor and have this conversation and and direct them in that way. So I as lofty as the the press release is in Verona, um the the verbiage within within the agreement is going to have a lot of that flexibility so that they can they can eb

100and flow as as the needs change there. And in talking with Dr. clarity and um um their their u their agreement looks similar to ours. They reference these. Yeah. Okay. So, and we and the chief um even collected a few from Wanaki to Forest and others and and they all have very similar templates. some um some have some um community specific language. We we um did much the same in terms of making sure that we um crafted it to our needs and not just the standard template in terms of an SRO. Go ahead. Um, I just have a quick question. Um, on item 17G of the draft SRO agreement, um, provide educational programming to students and staff regarding, excuse me, regarding law enforcement topics. Um, so one of the things I've noticed at some of

101our student senate meetings as we've talked about SRO's and the possibility of bringing one back is there seems to be an idea in students head of what an SRO is. and that doesn't seem to match the ideas that the board is proposing. So, I think I'm curious what if because we talked about how we want to educate staff and how their response would be to certain um like things in a school. I was just curious how we can educate students to know this is what an SRO would be responding to. this is kind of what their job consists of just so students have a better idea of what that role is or what the board's idea of that role is. Um cuz from like some of the students I've heard they think of it as

102more of like a disciplinary kind of thing. They they're seeing it more as like an administrative role which isn't really what it is. So I think if we could I'm curious like what kind of education you plan on implementing there for the students at least. Oh that's very good feedback Michaela in terms of um part of me was wondering um when you're talking topics like what things would they discuss? Um which um takes me back in my little way back machine. But you're absolutely absolutely right. It will be incumbent upon being very clear with staff but then also with students and if students some students may remember a time when they were in middle school or elementary school when we did have an SRO here and how it was used back then decisively as you've

103been hearing at the table. Um the discussion is really wanting to reimagine that in terms of a support as well as to the uh questions uh not too long ago if there's a crisis that happens what you know what is the response how's the response going to be different with an SRO versus not having an SRO so we certainly can't uh ignore the reaction part of the position, but how do we also um talk about the opportunities that this could bring from a preventative side and an information side? Um, I will I will simply say to the question that I thought you were going to when I was in the building and had in Jamesville they called them a liaison officer sexing was the thing that was just coming. Though there was a lot of

104education that was coming to the law enforcement departments and through the SR through the police leaison officers to the schools educating students around the legal ramifications of transmitting inappropriate images through cellular devices or even um computer devices back then. Now I would imagine it is cyber bullying and things of that nature. Okay, that was yesterday. So whatever the thing is tomorrow that is going to hit. But I think it's also staying connected to the students to know what students are dealing with so that it can be a feedback loop back to the department as to what they might potentially start seeing out in the community and helping to stave off issues that are in the community as well. So point well taken. I think we do need to think about a communication plan for our

105students. And I would from my position well away from the classroom, I also see a vision of how do we have a two-way dialogue so that students can help educate a potential SRO person as well. Yeah, Jim, um I want to go backwards just a little bit. Um if I can make sense of where where my head was at five minutes ago. Um something Dan said and it made me think of this this issue and that is law enforcement folks run into these run into our students everywhere. Incidents occur in the community uh sometimes at activities we sponsor but otherwise over the weekend or home situations or other kinds of things. So the question the question really is around and you mentioned talk a little bit about information sharing in terms of what we do

106now and then does this agreement or the intent offer something that enhances that. So, if an officer, let's say the SRO, I assume, interacts with others in the department over the weekend, something happens, we know that the kid's going to be upset about something or there's something occurred. They're going to come into our building on Monday. And it might be useful again for our staff to know something about that. To what extent is that stuff shared now and andor does this offer either opportunities for that or any risks associated with that for the for the department to share information to the school about a student's out of school situation. I if that makes any sense but um it could she could answer that. Yeah. So, um, those types of things have happened. So, we've had,

107um, someone that has had a, I'll say a rough time at over the weekend. Sure. And we will notify the school. We'll let an administrator know like, "Hey, just so you know, this family was had a tough weekend. We'll call it." Um, I believe having that SRO will even enhance that because our staff knows like, "Hey, our SRO's going in on Monday. Let's give him or her all that information." they can distribute within the school. We had an incident over uh yesterday that involved students. We relayed that to staff already. Um so it's going on. A lot of these things we talk about we're already investigating. We're already at the schools. So so currently it may be uh you know somebody comes in and sees the reports on Monday or was involved and says you

108know I think it'd be good for the school to know this or and whereas if you have an SRO you're kind of soluting if you have an SRO there or sort of a more logical connection. Yep. They may recognize the students uh perhaps at Riverbluff and my first stop of the day is going to be at Riverbluff. I need to get there and talk to Gotcha. Yep. Okay. So, you're not you're not otherwise inhibited from sharing that kind of information. No. Any things that restrict your you know, obviously we have a lot of restrictions on what we can share backward the other way. Uh but and this opens up some of that a little bit too probably, but um okay, it's helpful. Thank you. All right. Any other questions? Nia, go ahead. So Jim sort

109of maybe stole a little of the answer for this question, but my question to you, Chief Jensen, would just be what would this contract allow you to provide to the district that isn't happening now or that you're not able to or struggling to provide? like what does this give us in terms of service? Yeah, absolutely. So I think as we mentioned before that consistency that one person so that one person will cultivate relationships throughout the with staff with students. Right now we I mean we're very proactive as far as our visits. So we have a lot of visits to the school. We instruct our staff like go stop at the schools check in. Um again we have some people that are kind of like ah it's a school I'd much rather be running radar. and

110we have others like let me add it I want to be there. So having someone that we identified and they are very passionate about children about education having that one person in place will help us throughout the organization we have one person that is our point of contact and I think right now we don't have that. So some things get lost a little bit and having one person responsible one person here interacting within the schools in my eyes seems to make sense. Lisa, I'm just a little confused still about the activity report number 12. The department will require the SRO to record his or her daily activities in a meaningful manner on forms mutually approved by the department in the school district. And I know that folks that were on the school board when there

111was a previous SRO that I remember hearing saying that there wasn't enough information. And I think we got a summary of that and it was like the number of arrests or something. It was very very minimal. So when does the detail of what that looks like get hammered out and does any of that come back to the board? Will we have any say in that or is there any frequency by which we would be seeing an activity report of the SRO? Um the the short answer is yes. Um the much longer answer is the there will be a minimum of a annual report. If the board if this is approved the board could say direct me to say you know we would like to have four reports. The floor is going to be one cannot

112get past not having one. It is it is going to be in policy that there will be a minimum of a of a board report regardless of who's seen around the table. Spelled out in our board policy. It will be spelled out in our board policy. This provides opportunity to for the board to say, you know, this is so new. We want to stay close to it. Proximity is our ally at this point. the closer we stay to it, the more the the more we can speak to the larger community around the things that are going well and to save off anything that we might potentially see as a red flag um from our from our you know perspectives which that's why we have multiple board members. We have multiple perspectives. So we could say

113we want once a quarter a report to come in front of the board and the first one we can we can say here's our best attempt and then we can get feedback and say you know I would like more information on this I would you know less information on that more information on this and then the next quarter we can do that and then we could say hey we found that we you know the porridge is too hot the porridge is too cold it's just right and now now we can now we know what the annual report should be moving forward. Um, and we might stay in a cycle for the next couple of years where we do it on a a four times a year cadence and then we might say, you know what,

114we need midyear and end of the year and then, you know, few years down the road, we're like, you know, we're good with we've had the same person in the role for multiple years. We've been around the table hearing this, you know, a dozen or so times and, you know, we know what to expect and we've addressed the the concerns that have elevated and we've got a good good uh process and practice in place. We're comfortable with once a year, but we can't go below that. So that NEOA policy that you linked in the agenda, do you anticipate that going to like climate and culture work group then to be fleshed out in their conversation and come back to us with more detail in it? I would recommend that we approve approve this along along

115with and if we're going to approve the agreement, I would approve this to start with. This is the base template and then we can bring it to culture and climate to to flush out. So I would I would start with this base template which um um Niola provided because at the bottom it says a requirement that um law enforcement agencies provide district administrator presentation to the board with an annual report regarding the SRO program. This report will summarize activities conducted throughout the previous school year and shall include recommendations for the upcoming school year. The board may request additional update update reports. So this policy provides a base template and provides a very clear directive around what the minimum is and what opportunities the board pro provide um can provide moving forward. So I would say

116a yes and in that case and say this provides um again our policies are kind of like our state law. If we were approving this and we approved this policy, this is something that we're all governed by and we can um assign it to the climate and culture work group along with any other policy we may want to review and tweak just to be even more clear. And I would just add if there's anything on the city end that you think would be helpful, you know, we could propose that to city council members because they're also going to want to understand how the program is is going well because they're making an investment um into this position. Um, so if there's, you know, somebody or any information you want from them or if you want

117them to participate in any way, just let me know and I'll be more than happy to see if there's anybody that's willing to help out. I mean, this is a partnership. We're both stakeholders here. Um, we want to do, you know, what's right for the community as a whole. So, there's a way that we can participate in that. Just let us know. I kind of understand what you're looking for as well. More like my oversight committees too, they want more. I can just show up with stats and that doesn't really mean a whole lot. So, I just don't know what else we can, you know, form as metrics. I think that'll be important. Sharon, go ahead. In that vein, and Tim, you just used the word partnership. We've had a really constructive discussion about the

118the things that the board and you know the educators and the schools will need to attend to and things that the city and the um police officers will attend to. In that spirit, right now we're talking about a 5050 cost savings. And yet there's verbiage about you, Chief Jensen, um being the person who um shall select and assign an officer to serve as the SRO. We will have the ability to interview arrested officers and they provide feedback. I'm wondering if you can tell us about and this might also be a city and mayor question but about that verbiage and why not continue that 50/50 partnership all the way at that stage with the interviewing selecting assigning part of it well in a partnership we do want to exhibit those types of behaviors right so we

119want input and feedback from the school over the selection process. We started just talking kind of spitballing what the process would look like and suggesting that the school, you know, between the board, faculty and students would provide feedback to me. Um, and then I'd use that as a basis of selecting the SRO. We envision internal a lot of the um, you know, stuff inside already. We have officers on staff that we know have strengths and weaknesses. So, I don't really want to share that with the school's selection of the SRO. Um, but there certainly has to be weight applied to what the school recommends. Yeah, I think my hope would be that the group that comes together hopefully there'll be some sort of a consensus. you know, I mean, we we we want to understand,

120you know, the needs and and the priorities of the district and and select a person that can meet those needs. Otherwise, the program is not going to be successful. So, I I think at the end of the day, you know, the language that that's in there is assignment. Somebody has to make the call and, you know, I think that's just the way it's it's typically written. But certainly, we're open to feedback. We want to make sure that we're setting whoever that person is up for success as well as the district and most importantly the students and staff. Yeah. And I would say in our in our conversations to to that end um I think um the chief and the mayor um said in terms of the this is going to be supervised from the police

121department. So there that become the chief becomes the final um hiring authority because that's where they're going to be at. Um, but the language is very clear uh to be inclusive of the district and what that what that looks like is open open-ended. And I know that when we were discussing like who might make up the school district end of that um would it be parents, would it be staff, would it be students, would it be board members? and we intentionally said we we don't know who would all be wanting or interested in. We didn't want to exclude anyone. So that's why we wrote it as school district um to be ultimately inclusive. On the flip side, um when the board was hiring for the the district administrator, they had many um focus groups, community

122staff, um administrators and so forth. But ultimately it was the nine board members who are the hiring authority and all ultimately have to take all that information say this is this is the call. Okay. Um me this will be short. Um so when we decide whatever the metrics are going to be I think it's important that we um gather that data as a baseline for this current year. We may not have access to all of it, but I think, you know, we I think have access to like how many times the police were here and had contact with students and what the outcome might have been, those kinds of things. So, I think it's important that, you know, we have that baseline to be comparing our first year with the SRO if this becomes a

123thing. Yeah. Um I agree to compare it to. So, yeah, I agree. If we if we come up with a ba baseline of of metrics of some sort, um I would say that would um feed into what we've done in the past as as a board and as a work group though. I would not see deviating from that practice. Okay. Thank you. Okay. Are there any other questions? Let me just ask just this may get us further. Uh so the intent as I understand it will be to to keep this on a timeline uh to make sure that we at our next meeting we basically are considering this for approval. Um do you and is there an opportunity and I don't want to open the door too wide for individual for board members because to

124suggest different language in any particular area within a very short time window here so that any um discussion Dan could have with with the city could occur. I would hate to come back in June start getting into let's word smith this document. So, I just want to make sure we're on the right track to not end up next time sitting here spending a lot of time word smithing things. Um, I think that any word smithing to the contract or the memorandum of agreement would have to go through our district legal. So, and also would have to be a full transparent board public discussion, not individual board members feeding comments to Dan. Well, we Maybe. I mean I I mean I we've done that before in words where we sort of amended things right here. Yes.

125Um we have and I'm not suggesting we do that because I don't think that's the way we should do it. But um I understand that I in other words I understand the complications but I would hate to be here in June and have somebody say well I could vote for this if it said this versus this. So I want to be so that we have our expectations clear of what our role is. Um and if there's if it's not necessary that's fine with me that this is the document as it stands and there's no opportunity for changing it. Okay, that's fine with me. Um but I just don't I just want people to understand where we're at with that. Does that make any sense? I think that thank you for clarifying needs to be that

126if the memorandum comes back for discussion action and there is a request to change the memorandum language specifically that would need to get taken back to legal. So we would not be able to take action on that language back to legal which would delay right potential approval of that. Yeah. I want to try and avoid Yeah. us getting further behind here. Namely, and just to clarify, we are decoupling the policy from the other two documents. So, the policy won't be coming back for us to vote on. This will come back. It will, but as a separate action item because I thought you said that it was going to committee or to work. It will come back because if we're going to approve to contract services, we want to have a policy in place. Okay. Okay.

127Now, we may not 100% love all of the words in that policy. So, we might decide that the work group should look at it after we approve it, okay? And offer some modifications. Okay? So, we will be voting on what we were presented with and then have the opportunity for the work group to modify it after that after the fact. Okay. Yeah. Thank you. That raises another question for me because if the climate and culture work group enhances that policy in a way that diff is different than the agreement that's been signed then how does the agreement get updated to be aligned with board policy. I think the policy would need to fall within the confines of the agreement. Well, can I offer? Yeah, go ahead. So hence the reason why the the agree agreement

128is written the way it it is because it says that the SRO if this agreement is approved will follow all district policies. Okay. No. So our policy would automatically be incorporated into the agreement unless there was something that was clearly if there was position correct. If there was a clear clear uh conflict in terms of that we would have we would have to resolve that. But drafting the agreement, we were intentional in creating the flexibility that we needed to be to have the discussion here tonight and still have flexibility if approved around reports and metrics and things like that, but be very clear that what's in our policy book is is our law and that's what the SRO in this in this under this agreement would have to follow. So we could add detail on

129specifically what we want that report to look like. We can add detail around um training expectations for the SRO. That could be all in our policy. Yes, we could we could add we could add Yes, we could add a lot of things within that. Okay. Oh, it went in and out of my head too quickly. Um, oh, when you bring it back or maybe in advance, we've seen the 50% cost sharing, but could you offer like a ballpark of what that amount is, whether that's in followup to the board or next time, just so we know when we're voting to approve, chief, what it's what it looks like. We anticipated that question, so I'm glad someone asked it because I know the chief is doing mathematics. Yeah. Well, um so under our current contract, um

130the cost for a officer annually with full benefits with the most deluxe health plan, which deluxe, I don't know if that's right, but a family plan, right? The most expensive plan, um the cost is $130,000 annually. So the school's share essentially would be the 65. Okay. Any other questions? Being none, I'm gonna move to item six. Thank you for Thank you. Thank you for your time and for your thoughtful questions and for everything you guys do. We really do appreciate that. Thank you. Bill, can I just have one quick comment? I mean, I just want to thank Dan and city folks for I think did a good job. I went back and listened to the January meetings which is not that far back but I'm sure was good to refresh my memory. So let did

131a great job and bring this together. Thank you for the question. Okay. So for action items I have Dan is going to get the open enrollment trend info from past years. Mhm. I have that the combined choir concert is tomorrow night. Graduation is June 1st and if you're going to sit on stage, you need to be at the high school office at 10:00 a.m. Otherwise, it starts at 11. What else am I missing? Uh there was a question around how many graduates we Okay. And how many will have and how many will have this which we might not know until after pes I forgot as far as followup recap action items. No. Okay. Uh we have a future board meeting on June 2nd and another one on June 16th. And if there's nothing else I'd

132entertain a motion for adjournment. So moved. Second. Moved by Garcia, seconded by Cyle. All in favor? I. Any opposed? Any extensions? Meeting adjourned.