SASD School Board Meeting 4/7/25

001Oh, you know that's psychology. So we had one Otherwise, in the fall with your new person, you probably I need to be like Yeah, I am going to University of Missouri No. Oh, cool. Yeah. Hello. Seventh meeting of the Stone Area School District Board to order. We start with the roll call, please. Mr. Tim Buban here. Miss Mia Croyle here. Mr. Joe Fry here. Miss Don Garcia here. Mr. Zach Masamayers here. Miss Lisa Pew here. Miss Allison Sorg here. Dr. Sharon Milin Bartlett here. Lily here. And President Joe Patterson is excused. Moving on to item 2 A, public comment. Do we have any public comment? No public comment tonight. Item 2B, the legislative update. All right. So, state budget uh committee announced their public hearings that were held across the state. Um there was two

002on a on April 2nd and April 4th in Kakana and West Alice. There will also be um the next hearings on the 28th and 29th in Hayward and Wasau. Uh those will occur from 10:00 a.m. to 5:00 p.m. which will be streamed by Wisconsin Eye. No. Um of note um from some of those uh that were held in Kakana and West Alice just to mention some of the comments from the Green Bay school superintendent Vicky Bayer and Hortonville school district administrator both gave testimony mentioning that 25% reimbursement rate for special education is simply not enough to meet the needs of students and that was public comment made by them at the joint finance committee meetings. Um, the governor vetoed the bill to undo recent changes to state assessment and report card scores. Governor Ivers vetoed

003AB1SB18, a bill to undo recent changes to state quote cut scores and restrict the ability of DPI to change cut scores on state assessments and school district report cards. Moving forward, he ultimately vetoed the bill over concerns that it was infringing on the independency of the DPI as a state agency. The bill had previously passed the state assembly and senate on party line votes with all Republicans v present voting in favor and all Democrats opposed. Uh the joint finance committee co-chairs were discussing the state budget process and possible delays. As of April 3rd, um the finance co-chairs, Representative Mark Bourne and Representative Howard and Markline said that any number of factors could impact the committee and when it will wrap it up its work for the 2527 state budget prior to 30 June. Marklin said

004the committee will wait until the legislative fiscal bureau delivers its updated revenue numbers, which typically occurs in miday before making any big decisions. They als he he also said Republicans want to see a ruling from state supreme court on Governor Iber's 400year veto and 2325 budget ahead of tackling big topics. Two years ago, the committee took its first vote May 2nd, stripping 545 policy items from the governor's budget. Borne and Markline noted the committee starts with smaller agency requests before midmay, but there's no target date. Quote, "Right now, we're on schedule." Borne said, "Are there things that could delay the budget? sure there always are. End quote. Uh the April one elections, the Supreme Court state superintendent school referenda. Um obviously it was a very high-profile election this year. Susan Crawford defeated Brad Shiml to

005maintain the 4-3 majority for liberal justices. The incumbent state superintendent of public instruction Jill Dr. Jill Underly defeated challenger uh candidate Britney Kzer. She'll return to that role for another four-year term that ends in 2029. Locally, 81 school districts went to referendum with 89 total questions. Of those, 52 passed, while 37 failed, translating to overall passage of 58.4%. This represents significant decline from the November elections that saw a passage rate of over 77%. Uh, similar to November, capital referenda continued to pass at higher rate than operational referenda with passage rates of 64.5% and 55.2% respectively. The education department is halting payouts of pandemic relief. Um, under Biden administration, local officials could request more time to use nearly 130 billion allocated for pandemic related education aid. Uh, education secretary Linda McMahon reversed course, citing that further

006extensions were unjustified since pandemic ended and deadlines had long passed. Governments can still apply for limited extensions on individual projects. Um and this sparked a lot of concern among education leaders who say the funds were already committed to student recovery efforts. Department argued that continued extensions enabled misuse of funds and contradicted responsible fiscal practices. A report from the 74 which is uh nonpartisan educational reporting estimated the national loss of funding at nearly $3 billion. The Wisconsin DPI did not have immediate details on which Wisconsin programs would be impacted. Um, looking further at the federal budget appropriations, uh, the Trump administration won't release their FY26 budget request until May, although a budget proposal could come earlier. Uh, congressional Republicans are continuing to work on this reconciliation package, and they actually passed um, this passed in the

007Senate 5148 in the early morning hours of Saturday. And that brings a closer step to uh passing um the reconciliation and the budget that is multi- trillion dollar plan to address defense energy immigration tax policy. Um although Congress approved the funding through um FY25 with the CR. Uh there are still questions about the um programmatic level funding for certain education programs. Typically under continuing resolution, Congress expects the administration to fund the programs exactly the way they were the previous year. However, concern is that the administration will make its own decisions about whether to fund programs despite Congress expectation. uh President Trump's budget requests regardless of when it's released will have made cuts to the Department of Education uh particularly with quote to dismantle end quote the agency and and Republican appropriators have indicated they're open

008to moving the education department functions out of the labor health and human services and education spending bill if that is what the White House wants. So they've suggested the federal student aid programs be managed by small business association so on so forth and then moving financial services funding bill um any proposed funding for the office of uh federal student aid including PEL grants for work study student aid administration. So a lot going on in the state a lot going on at the fed in regard to budget. It's going to be interesting to see how this plays out. So questions for Zach Allison. Is do we know is there a timeline for when this 400year funding bill is or the case is going before the Supreme Court? I haven't seen a timeline. I just know it's

009under review from what I've seen. I don't know if any if you see anything, Lisa, but it's probably one of those court lingering things. We'll see what happens as the year progresses because I imagine they have to come to some type of resolution before they can pass the state budget. That I guess that's what I was wondering. I mean, they don't they don't have to wait for that to pass the budget. It's the Republican co-chairs that are saying that they want to see that ruling before they will pass the budget. It's not necessarily required, but uh I think the court has a couple other key cases that they'll decide before this one. Okay. Thank you. Anybody else for Zach? Two more joint finance committee hearings left. Two more. Two more. Um 28th and 29th in

010Hayward and Wasau. And those will be livereamed. Or you could go. Or you could go there. Yes. Anything else? Uh next on the agenda, uh 2C workg groupoup reports, climate and culture. Think you were going to do it, Joe? Yeah, I I can do that. Um, we met in response to the roll backs to the Title N policy with the intention of looking at our bullying and anti-harassment policies very thoroughly, which we did um with an eye toward making sure that the equivalent protections were placed just in different policies. And we talked it over for quite a while and came to the conclusion that we feel like those marginalized groups are robustly protected in those other two policies. That sum it up well enough. That does sum it up well. Are those policies up for

011they would Yeah, those policies are not those policies did not need to be changed. We just needed to make sure that Am I correct about that? Title Nit Title N is bullying and harassment policies aren't because we're not making changes to those. We just brought that one back that we had sent to climate and culture. Okay. Yeah. We just wanted to be sure that in light of the fact that those protections were rolled back in the title N policy that they were robust in a different location than they are. Good. You know, I know the public was wondering about that. I have a request for something that um I'd like the board to consider sending to culture and climate um which is uh I would like us to um task the Culture and Climate Committee

012with a resolution um in support, you know, basically fullthroatedly expressing the boards and the district's support of all students, but you know, specifying our LGBT Q plus uh kids and our immigrant students. So, um I know a resolution doesn't have teeth and but we've already gone through the policies. So, the other thing we can do is be very vocal about or be vocal and clear and upfront about our values. And I think in this time when students in those populations are hearing a lot of bodies making legislation against them, it would be useful to just have another voice on the other side. Yeah, I strongly agree with that. I mean, I think anything we can do to communicate the fact that we intend to protect all of these groups as fully as we can is

013is positive. So, I did I did talk to Jill about this and she suggested that I propose it to the full board and then the full board could task the culture and climate committee with drafting that and then bring it back to the full board. Do we have resolutions on the books currently or boards do regularly write resolutions? Is that correct? Boards can write resolutions. Um they can do it as a as a board or as a subset of the board. So in with our work groups this that uh when we get to recap of action items, it could be something that if the board is in agreement on, they can they can do as um Mia suggests and test the culture and climate work group to come draft a resolution to for the board

014to consider and then um put it up for uh action for adoption. We need to take a vote on that tonight. Um, it just a procedure thing. I think that would need to be noticed on here and that's the only thing I'm saying to task. I don't know that we would need to vote on asking a committee to take something up. If we were to take a vote, it would just I think it would need to be noticed. I I'm not saying I disagree. I'm just saying just if we've and I don't know how that would go because it's just not I don't other committee assignments haven't you know in terms of like work on these metrics or look into this hasn't we haven't voted on that so I don't think we need a vote

015if it's worked for the work group that would be then noticed on a workg group agenda correct what Mia's ask what Mia is asking is that the work group take take this up and as as part of the report and asking informing the board and asking the board if that is something that they could do. So if the board it doesn't have to take a vote because but it if the board is has any objection to it now is the time to to talk about and then if there is something for to discuss then we can put on an item for a discussion. If everyone's fine with it, then the next time it'll come back is after Simon and Culture. The amendment board will have to vote to approve the whatever the climate and culture.

016We have passed other resolutions. We passed one a couple years ago that was a pretty strong anti-racist resolution. Yeah. Yeah. It's not Yeah. unusual, right? So, I guess can I ask the question if the board is generally supportive of climate and culture working on a resolution? Is that appropriate to ask? I think you could say is there anyone opposed to anyone the climate and culture working on this and further developing it to bring it back to the full board. Seeing no opposition go forth okay and I will say if anyone is interested in working on that who isn't in culture and climate just let me know and I'll make sure you get meeting invite. Uh next workg group uh governance. Oh, you're looking at me. Um we talked about the workg groupoup structure. We we

017talked about the workg groupoup structure and um within the context of one of the policies that'll be coming up later tonight. Um changing from committees to work groups. that should have been in your board docs as well as the two um title nines because we reviewed re um we we also looked at that didn't we did not look at that was the other one sorry I'm in both committees and I'm mixing them up it was just it was the work groups mostly was what we were discussing um and consolidating work um in the new outreach there's right yeah so there are new work groups groups and we just talked about kind of what that would look like and some of the major um rather than being goal oriented being task oriented um talked about some

018of the major tasks that each of the work groups will be um doing and then kind of combined some groups. So that should have all been in our um Yep. That's all in our talk for tonight. So that's coming up. Questions for Allison? Uh the next committee is community relations. Uh yeah, we talked about um that we we uh went through the different uh nominees for business on a role. We'll be discussing that uh later in this meeting, so I won't go through that right now. Uh and then we can we finished up our planning for Saturday's um community conversation at the high school at 8:00 to 1:00. Is that correct? Yeah. Um and so we are asking every board member to be there and to take notes um to kind of lead a group

019or be part of a group to take notes and obviously participate but take notes and and then listen to that. I won't go through I don't think we need to go through the entire agenda today. Um you will get that but um we have a quite a few people coming right. We're up to about 40. Yeah. About 40 people that are going to be there. More than 40. Um, so we have a great facilitator who I think will do a wonderful job. Um, and I'm I'm looking forward to it. Uh, any questions? You need to be there a little early or is 8:00? 8:00. 8:00 should be fine. I'm sure there'll be some and things like that. We'll actually kick off at 9. So if board members show up at 8, committee members will start

020showing up about 8:30. So Okay. Y where we will be at the high school in the Commons. If you haven't seen the Commons yet, it's pretty impressive. So, if you haven't seen that yet, it's a good opportunity to also do that. Any other questions for Tim? All right. Item 2D, the student representative reports. Yay. All right. Despite the fact that it's breathing outside, um I have a fun little screen presentation. So, um you using Wait, did you no did that or I did that? You did it. Wow. You don't understand how big of a friend this is. Years. This never works. Who is your friend? You'll you'll see. Okay. Don't be jumping ahead. Hold on. So, as far as academics, um the VFW announced that um Miss Riser, I believe is how you say her

021name, is the teacher of the year. Wisconsin Teacher of the Year. So, congratulations to her. We had the annual resource fair and we've had a ton of involvement and great groups there. Um, so very educational and very nice to see um both families and uh a good amount of resources from the community wanting to be there. It's been a long day, guys. Um, we also have the preac next week, Tuesday, and then the freshmen are taking the citizenship test on that same day. So, it'll be an asynchronous day for our upper classmen. And it is officially fourth quarter. So, we are ramping up and heading towards the end of the year here. Um, as far as athletics, um, track finished at the freshman sophomore meet at Ripen. I was not there because I'm not a

022freshman or a sophomore, but I had friends go and they enjoyed it. We had Cheyenne Burroughs named Badger Small Swimmer of the Year. So, I know that technically the swim season's over, but now that they're handing out all of those awards. I thought that was pretty cool. And baseball and softball are either starting their season or have just started their season with their first games here. and um we they are eager to get some wins under their belt. And we also had the youth wrestling send 11 kids to state and we had two kids come back with state titles. So I thought that was pretty cool. Um because that was a separate thing from the high school level. I was at a field trip all day. You're doing great. Yeah. Speaking of which, Fox Fairy

023had a beach day, which I thought was super fun because I wish we could dress up in beach days and pretend like it was warm outside even though it's super gross outside tonight. And uh student senate attended the WC, which is the Wisconsin Association of Student Councils state conference yesterday into today. So, we quite literally got back this afternoon. I went to track practice and then I came here. cell. Um, that was really fun. We got to talk with a bunch of different schools from all over the state about what they do for homecoming, how they uh generate like student involvement and try to get their staff members more involved in, you know, various activities. One of our full high school activities was to talk about like issues that we were seeing in our school

024compared to other schools. And they actually ended up surprisingly being almost exactly the same. I don't even know. Shocker. And a lot of that boiling down to just the feeling of apathy postco that people haven't really been able to kind of like get over the hump of now that we're back fully. So Senate is kind of working on some ideas to try and bring some school spirit back. But in other news, we've had a very successful performance weekend. We had four performances in one weekend, which is twice as many as normal, with two different casts, and we had a ton of community support. So, that was awesome. We had the senior center bringing a bus with um some of the senior citizens on the Saturday matinea afternoon show. So, that was pretty cool. And we

025also had band and orchestra had their spring break tour in Nashville. They all had a really good time there. I couldn't find any pictures that weren't like not posted on people's individual Instagram accounts and stuff like that and I didn't think that I should pull those off. So, I will work on finding teachers. Prom tickets also just went on sale, but I do not currently have a QR code. Not that any of you were planning on going to prom, I assume. I could be wrong. chaperones. I don't know, but it is at the logger this year in Stoton. So, um, and finally, we welcome Michaela Becker as the 2025 2026 school board representative. She will be taking over for me in the next couple of meetings. She'll shadow me this meeting. we'll kind of start

026working together and eventually I think after the board reorganization like the meeting after that will be my last meeting with you guys and then Michaela will be all yours. Would you want to share a little bit about yourself or you? Um, I can. Sure. Um, hi, my name is Michaela. I'm I'm a current junior. Do you want to just hit the button there and it'll turn green? Yeah. Okay. Oh, okay. You don't need to like if you're I'm here. This is fine. Okay. So, hi. I'm Michaela. I'm a current junior at Stone High School. Um, I'll list off some of the thing extracurriculars I do. It's a lot. Um, I do student senate. So, I was on also on the field trip with Lily today. Um, and I've done that for three years. I do

027choir. Um, that picture up there is from me at the pops concert this year. Um, I am a member of the magical head table which in the winter. Um, I also do theater. So, I did all four shows of Clue like cuz we had some She was a champ. Yeah. I was originally only supposed to do two, but then I ended up doing all four. So, it was a long weekend. But, um and then shoot, what else do I do? Oh, I do forensics. I'm going to state this Friday for forensics for pros. So, that'll be fun. I forgot to put that in. Oh, pro. Okay. If you didn't know, the forensics team is going to state this Friday. And Lily's also going Yep. And I still forgot to put it in there, guys. I

028try. Um, I think that's everything. Oh, yeah. I do link crew and she's on prom committee. Oh, yep. And I'm planning prom. The theme is this year is night on the bayou. So, think like princess and the frog theme for decorations. We're doing like water lilies like on tables and lanterns and fairy lights. It should be very cool. Yeah, I think that's Oh yeah. And I did the legislative panel this year for um like when we had the legislative day and we went to Sand Hill and there was Yeah. Okay. So familiar face to all of you both in the community and from previous things, but Oh, we're glad you needed another thing to do. Yeah. Oh, I sorry I keep forgetting things I do. I also manage football in the fall. Um, and I'm

029usually up in the press box doing film, which is actually really fun. But running around with water. I do have to do that at home games though. But um, what was I going to say? Something about At least I don't get cold because in the fall if once it starts to get cold and snowy, I'm protected. So, questions for Lily or Michaela? Welcome. Welcome. Welcome to have you here. Is it a fancy? Yes, it is fancy. Fancy. All right. All right. Moving on to item 3A, Dr. Keyser's report. I got I have two items um to talk about. Um at our last board meeting, we approved um the early college credit and start college now um requests. These are again high school students who are requesting to take courses at either tech colleges or four-year

030institutions. And there was a question in terms of of the students, what are some of the some of the um requests that they're taking? So following up with the high school and thank you to Cassie and Emily for getting the information right away um to me of the students we've had um 16 students make requests through start college now which is the technical college track. So these are going to mass college. There were a total of 62 total credits requested in the areas of education, fire academy, um, emergency medical responders, calc 3, real estate law, and broker management, as well as 16 students who have requested to take CNA courses, which through our dual dual enrollment um certifications, we can offer uh many of those courses here at the high school. So in total this

031is where um their requests are landing this year. They can they can um take C request courses. So the this list of courses may change from year to year. This is what it's current. Uh following up on what um Zach shared in in the legislative update um last week um towards the end of the week and really it's been kind of a buzz within the education um community in terms of um title six and for those who um are unfamiliar with um title six it really is um a prohibition against discrimination based on race, color, national origin in programs and activities. This has been really um litigated at the collegiate level around admissions. Um this is where a lot of the the nexus for this conversation at this point. Um it is so new for

032um states and districts to be looking at. What I really want to skip to is the very bottom. Um, and I'll end with this statement again. A lot's unknown. We are monitoring um, and not letting this distract us from the good work that we're doing in the district. But, uh, school law officials, DPI, uh, have all been working on this. And what we can decipher at this point is the things that this is not impacting is the good work around universal design for learning. Um looking at our data around academic performances, our gaps or EL stats um free and reduced lunch um direct things of that nature and our work around belonging. So culturally responsive teaching inclusive curriculums and the strategies. So these things are at this point have the everyone um with what we

033know at this point is moving forward. The things that um school law officials and DPR are really looking at are things like um programs and services or staff positions to um being based solely on race, set aides and programming and scholarships or hiring based solely on race and requiring racial identity disclosures benefiting or excluding individuals based on race. That's very broad. um lot to decipher and again the bottom line is because this is um been a statement without a lot of details or facts behind it. There's a lot that we don't know. Reached out to um our legal um law firm that we we use um Boardman and Clark and they have said that they are um they and others are looking at it. They are not aware of any districts who have received any

034sort of document to sign or certify. they believe that the state may have received it and that there is going to be an update later on this week with more information. So, I'll have another update um that I can send out once I have more information. itself. At this point, it's out there, but again, it's there's not a whole lot behind behind the statement that we can't we can act on because we don't know where where what they mean by their statement at this point. I guess I'm a little unclear, Dan, what statement by whom. So department of p or department department department of education sent out a statement late Thursday. Was it picked up by the newspapers on Friday and then more newspapers over over the weekend that have asked every state and every

035school district to certify that they are going to be in compliance with this title, title six, um as an additional certification for any federal funding that school districts receive. And what the the nexa or what the statement is is that this is to certify that DEI programs are not going to be implemented in schools across the US. Otherwise, you're sacrificing your federal dollars based on the language under title six right there that prohibits. So, they're misreading title six or am I misreading title six because I don't feel like I'm misreading title six. Are they just twisting this? That's that I don't mean to be honest. No, no, that that's why I say there's the statement is to be to be read in a couple couple of different ways. The way that Department of Education is

036is conveying it is that to asssure that you are using your to sorry to asssure that you continue to re receive your title funding moving forward, you must make sure that you are not providing any sort of programming that would discriminate based on anything in title six. And the that is such a open statement that there's concern [Music] that our district's in compliance with it or not. And right now what we know at this point is the statement a statement is out there and we don't know what that really means at this point. Where can I find the statement? There's an article um NPR had an article on April 3rd that's kind of summarizes what's happening here. The title is education department warns schools colon eliminate DEI programs or lose funding. It's a nice summary

037and then they link to the letter that was received by states. Can you share that? I can share. I just know. Thank you. Well, it feels like we live in an upside down sending it. I mean, a DEI program, strictly speaking, would be in compliance with Title Six. So, okay. I guess this is just where we're living. Does anyone else have questions for Dan about this? Sharon, I I don't know if it's so much a question as sort of something that I'm mindful of. Um, even if we stripped out references to race, we're seeing some ways that language and geographic origin can become sort of a proxy for that. And I was just thinking about like data that we've already are collecting and who are we sharing it with because we're required to and could

038that eventually be weaponized against our students and I'm sure a fair amount of that is beyond our control. But you know if we're able to be mindful of having a choice in the matter moving forward are there any ways that we can try to protect them? I would say I I would say to that the statement that's been that was put out out is trying to create a narrative. What that narrative in um in relation to the actual facts of what we do, we don't we don't know. and and part of it is reacting to the narrative and knowing what we currently are doing in relation to law that's on the books are two different things and that's why we why we need to let um get some clarification and that's that's what every school

039district in the in the well I shouldn't say every I know we are getting the clarifications um to say what are we doing, what we're not uh what are we doing and what do we have to consider in order to ensure that we maintain the resources and the good work that we're doing for our students. Because our goals are are our three goals around literacy, math, and belonging and ensuring that we have the resources to educate all of our students walking in the door. and we don't want to do something that's going to jeopardize the resources that we have in place. So to your point, it is about protecting the resources that we have for our students and not and not um allowing an outside narrative dictate what what our good work is. So that's

040why I say we're monitoring it and and trying not to let it distract us from the work that we're doing, but making people aware of what we what we know to be true at this point. So this is tied to title one federal funding. Is that how the communication was? Well, the broad the broadstroke is federal funding. All federal funding. Our federal funding. We have title title one, title two, title three, but we also have uh federal funding as and part of food service and others. It's potentially puts all of that federal funding at risk. Okay. They just they talk about it globally as federal funding. No. Yeah. Joe. Yeah. Is there nobody out there that's pushing back on any of this and saying that there literally is no K through 12 system in the

041country that's teaching DEI? I mean, this is like a master level sort of postsecondary philosophy to begin with. I mean, it couldn't be more clear that this isn't something that's in K12 schools. You mean CRT? Yeah. CRT, right? Yes. I mean that at this point I we I think we could talk a lot about this and I'm happy to stay after the board meeting and and talk to anyone who wants to continue the conversation. But that's at this point I think I think that's entirely the point of the statement is to get us distracted and and trying to focus on what's up, what's down. And at this point, it's like it's out there and we'll let we'll let the we'll let the people who understand understand the legal side of this say we think this

042is what they mean and this is what and this is what they absolutely don't mean. Um, as far as what I've gotten back and I reached out, um, and just got the response that I read um, this afternoon is Wednesday or yeah, Wednesday of this week, we should have more information coming out that we can give you a little bit more guidance as to what's going on. But I don't want I don't want to make a statement that then is going to be something that someone's going to push back on us. That's why I want to inform. Fair enough. Bottom line, for our purposes, we have not received a letter. We have not received. We have reached out to legal counsel. There are other school districts getting legal support. Maybe at our next meeting, they'll

043have an update. Yep. On how it impacts us. Yep. 100%. or chair. One other point that I want to urge us to think about is there are lots of reports about things that are being done right now. Um laws that are being broken as best as we understand them. So our legal counsel might interpret things and make their best recommendation, but I think we need to be prepared for that being completely thrown out the window. And just because they advise us in a certain way doesn't mean that that's how it's going to be applied. So to your point Joe, you know, is nobody pushing back. I don't know that we necessarily want to be the ones pushing back, but I think we should at least ask the questions and not just automatically assume. You know,

044we'll know more, of course, when we get the information, but that's something I'd like to see us consider. Our legislative committee in the past has uh developed letters and had the board president and Dan sign on in a message that could go to our um US delegation if we decided that that was a course of action we wanted to take to message how we educate students and how we feel this this particular action may or may not apply to us or affect us. So that's something we could consider. So, we'll just ask get more information at the end next meeting. Yep. Anything else for your N? All right. Moving on to item number uh 4A, approval of the consent agenda. May I have a motion? I move approval of the consent agenda as presented. Second.

045Moved by Croy, second by Bubon. discussion. Seeing no discussion, um we roll call or do roll call. No, this one can just be Oh, okay. All in favor? I I Any opposed? Consent agenda is approved. Moving Okay. Uh item number five, a insurance benefit update. Looks like Erica is joining. Well, good evening. All right. So, at the last board meeting, um, Dad did Dan did foreshadow in his update that we would be bringing forward a recommendation for some potential insurance changes for next year. Um, over the last two years, we have experienced a pretty significant loss in our medical loss uh, ratio, which basically means our claims have exceeded the total amount of premiums collected by the insurance company. Um, it's not uncommon. It's been kind of a thing for a lot of schools and

046employers. Um, for the current school year, we had a rate cap increase in place where Dean had agreed to not increase our premiums beyond a certain threshold. Um, because we put an incentive in place for employees to have them complete an annual physical with their primary care physician or with our wellness clinic. And because we put that in place that they did agree to um not increase us above a certain threshold for this year, but that is not in place for next year. So that put us in a position where our premium increases came back quite a bit more than we were expecting. Um so we do have a recommendation for the board to consider um for our insurance for next year. Um before I get to that, I do want to talk a little

047bit about where we've been for the last really more than 20 years probably at this point. Um back in the mid 2000s, we had experienced a lot of rapidly escalating pre escalated premium costs. Man, I can't talk tonight. Sorry. Um and we also found that we were falling behind in terms of our salaries. So we were in that position of trying to figure out how to pay for our benefits as well as our salaries for our employer our employees. So in 200910 we made a pretty significant shift. We were um up until 089 we were a self-funded plan which was like maximum choice but high cost and we moved away from that and moved to a dual choice provider operated point of service option. So, we had two different plans, point of service, which was

048still a pretty wide range of choice, but a little bit more restrictive at a pretty significant cost savings. We saved about a million dollars when we made that shift, and we were able to put that money back into salaries at that point in time. Um, in in between 2019 and 20145, we had an insurance committee that would make some pretty um small plan design changes on an annual basis, and then we eventually switched from a point of service to an HMO option. um during that time period as well. Um we found that when we still maintained a dual choice option that one of the costs for one plan was a little bit more than the other. So our um lower cost members were choosing the cheaper plan. So then our higher cost members were on

049the more expensive plan and it kind of exacerbated the problem. So we just continue to get this pretty significant ch uh gap between those premiums. So we did end up switching to the single option HMO in the 2015-16 school year and again throughout this whole time we continued to work with an annual insurance committee to make changes to keep our costs as low as we could. Um, in 2018, we made another uh significant change and we moved to a high deductible plan and we coupled that with an HRA account and we put a significant amount of money into that HR account so employees could use that to help pay for their deduct deductible costs. Um the goal in doing this was it was a pretty big change for our employees, but the goal was to

050really to try to avoid those annual minor plan design changes that we had experienced for so long. And um hoping that we could kind of stick to what we had for a while without making those changes. And it really did work. We have been able to um minimize our premium increases, keep it within our budget, and we haven't had any plan design changes since 2018. So right now our employees pay 10% of the premium and the district pays 90%. And in addition employees are responsible for their deductible and they can use those HR funds that I referenced to pay for the majority of that deductible. We also have a flex spending account that employees can use that sets aside money pre-tax out of their paychecks. Um and they can use that to address that gap

051between the HRA money and their deductible if they do reach their deductible. Um, our current model does put a little bit more emphasis on consumerism when possible and it's allowed us to operate within our budget um, since again for about the last seven years for our H design. If employees have not met their deductible and they still have money in that account as of June 30th, they're able to keep that money. So it is it can roll forward and accumulate and if they stay with us through the end of the school year and then they leave through retirement or to or they resign they can take that money with them. And again some employees have been pretty crafty and maximize their flex spending account to try to keep money in their HR so that it

052rolls over and is available for them in the future. We are also a member of a nearsight wellness clinic. We're in a consortium of other districts. Um that clinic is located in Edertton and it is a benefit that offers a very lowcost option for employees for a variety of both virtual and in-person services. Employee um surveys for us as well as the other districts that participate in that clinic have a really really high satisfaction rate. Um people really they like the staff that are there. They like the services that are available. And I will say it is much easier to get an appointment at that clinic than it is um through most other facilities. Those visits to that clinic um we pay for that separately. So those visits are not build through our insurance company.

053So those claims don't hit our hit our um plan which you know has an impact on our premium costs. And again it is a very low cost for employees. So it's kind of a win-win um for everybody involved. So, our plan design changes over the years have again resulted in us outperforming Medical Trend since 2008. Medical trend is somewhere between 8 to 10% annually. Um, and when you look at this slide, there's a lot on there, but it just kind of shows that some employees are actually paying less this year in their 10% premium share than they were 10 years ago. The pink row um shows where our premiums, the years that our premiums had risen to a level where we needed to implement a change the following year. And so then the green row

054shows the amounts of those premiums after we implemented a change. The bottom row shows our current premium amounts and then the last two rows represent um the current highdeductible plan design, but I will say it does not include the amount that the district contributes to those HR accounts. So this is just the premium costs in the years where we have like multiple plans because when we go back to when we were self-funded in certain times through there we had multiple plan designs with multiple premiums. I just use the highest cost premium just to use for um comparison purposes. So from an employee perspective, um this shows that same timeline that we just showed on the last slide and this shows the financial impact to an employee on a single health plan. So the column on

055the far right shows the cost to the employee um for their 10% premium contribution plus the amount that they would pay to hit their deductible. In the traditional plan designs that we had in place prior to 2018, we had co-pays for a lot of different things. Office visits, prescriptions, um, emergency room visits, that kind of stuff. So, if you were a person who had some of those co-pays, which most people have some at some point in time, that would be in addition to the amount that you see in that far right column. So, you can see someone on a single plan um, had the same out-of- pocket cost this year as they did 10 years ago. And that's before adding in any of those co-pays for office visits and prescriptions. And then this slide shows

056the same information for a family plan. And again, you can see someone on a family plan um they have about $200 more in out-of- pocket costs this year compared to 10 years ago. But again, that doesn't include any of those co-pays, which likely would exist for for most employees on a family plan. So, for employees who have not needed to use their HA funds to pay for the their deductible, they've been able to accumulate balances that they can keep after June 30th, like I said earlier. And again, we offer that flex spending account where employees can opt to have up to $3,200 deducted out of their checks on a pre-tax basis to help pay for qualifying expenses. Um, it can be used for that gap between what we provide in the H and their deductible.

057and they can also use it for things like braces or glasses um if they choose to. Balances in individual H accounts range from zero dollars to just over $37,000 for current active employees. 205 of our active employees have a prior year balance in excess of $500 in their account and 170 of them have over $2,000. So, when we designed this plan back in 2018, we kind of embraced the idea of paying our employees instead of the insurance company. Some people do max out their deductible and and many of them don't. So, for those that don't, the money actually just goes to them. Again, since 20078, the total employer cost has increased approximately 30% for a single plan and 39% for a family plan. And again, when you look at that medical trend of 8 to

05810% a year, we're we're pretty significantly ahead of that when you look at this being a span of 17 years. So, like I said earlier, we aren't alone. Many other districts and other employers are experiencing costs that exceed premiums collected. Um, which means next year's premium rates do tend to go up. And without that rate inc rate increase cap that I mentioned earlier, the result is that our uh our renewals are more than what we had planned for for next year. Our preliminary increase for 202526 was 16.9% but our agent um kind of worked with Dean quite a bit and they were willing to adjust that to an 11.9% increase. And we typically um forecast about an 8% increase in our budgetary model, but even with that adjustment, we're over our projected budget. And so

059given our experience over the past two years, I'm a little bit concerned about, you know, future increases and sustainability as well. So, you know, thinking about what we were functioning in the past where we were constantly making little tweaks to plan design, these are some of the types of things that we would do to address premium costs that exceeded our budget. But again, in in the idea and interest of looking at long-term strategies for in sustainability, um, we felt like it would make sense to avoid massive changes for this year and think about putting a committee together again for next year. And then, you know, some districts are going to fully bid out their insurance. And when you think about going through that process, you may find a an alternative plan or a different vendor

060that is less expensive. But that's pretty um impactful for employees because you may be in a position where you have to change all your doctors and and go through quite a process to do that. So again, we didn't want to have to we didn't want to have to do that here in April when our our new planning starts July 1st. So with that in mind, um we're making the following recommendation for the 2526 school year. And again, to keep our premium costs lower, we would look at raising our deductible. And then we would also increase the HRA contribution, but the gap between that HA funding and the deductible will grow, which increases the possible cost to an employee. The total employer cost of this recommendation will still be the 11.9% that the renewal proposed. Um,

061but this recommendation really aligns with that philosophy that we did embrace previously where we're putting the money into the hands of our employees instead of the insurance company. And again, we have a lot of people who aren't hitting their deductibles. So this money instead of being paid into premium would really go into those HA funds. The proposed change would increase the single deductible from 3,000 to 3500. The family deductible would go from 6,000 to 7,000. And then those HR amounts would increase from 2,750 to 375 for a single plan and from 5,500 to 6,150 for a family plan. And again, we would really look to um to start up our insurance committee again in the 2526 school year. We could have a group of people look at ways that we can think about long-term cost

062containment. So what does that mean for employees? This just kind of shows right now that gap between the HR money and the single deductible is is $250. That would grow to $425 and the family amount would grow from $500 to $850. I'm just going to kind of walk through this because I know there's a lot of information on this one. Um, again, we never want to impact employees, but we're pretty proud of the fact that we've been able to not impact cost for the most part since 2018, or at least and and not having to do plan design changes has been kind of nice for our employees. And again, we don't want to increase cost exposure, but we do think that this recommendation aligns with the idea of trying to put money into our employee

063HAs instead of premiums. it'll buy us a little bit of time to create that committee at the start of next year to look at options um without making dramatic changes here in April. So the blue section at the top here shows our current year costs for our employees. The premium column shows the total amount for both a single and a family plan. The EE share demonstrates the 10% cost for employees that's coming out of their paychecks. Um, the next column shows the deductible followed by the employer provided HR amounts. OOP max stands for out-ofpocket maximum or the total cost that the employee would experience if they hit their deductible. So really, it's their share of the premium plus that gap between their HA funds and the deductible. The pink section shows what those numbers would

064be if we maintain the status quo deductible amount. So, if we just did the premium increase but didn't make any changes to the deductible and again it shows the total cost increase for the employee and the maximum exposure out of their pocket. The yellow section demonstrates what is being recommended. Again, this option results in a lower premium increase but a higher exposure and out-of- pocket cost due to the higher deductible. And again, for those who aren't meeting their deductible every year, those additional HR funds um would be available to them to accumulate for future use. And then that final column just kind of shows the increase um potential for those that hit their deductible compared to the status quo option. All right, my last is just the question. So, I'll just leave this on the

065screen and and um certainly be I know it's a lot of information, but happy to answer any questions that you might have. I know I think Dan sent that video that I did for the employees out in advance, so if you had a chance to watch that, you may have had a little chance to digest some of this information. Questions for Erica, Alison? Um I when you were talking about the insurance committees, I remember those from a while back. Um I could you refresh my memory on like who was on those committees? Are there staff members? We had um we would just put an email out to anyone that was interested and we had I think we had employees from almost every employee group. We know we had teachers, custodians in the past. Um admin

066assistants were part of it, our special services group. Um, we had a principal and we wouldn't have a lot of all, but um, usually once we put out that that it was literally just an email and said, "Hey, let us know if you're interested." We were able to to grab people from just about every employee group. And I think actually when we made this change to um the high deductible plan, we had a board member on there, too, with Steve Jackson. Oh, yeah. That's right. Um, all right. Yeah, and that's, you know, these increased costs with everything going up. And I I understand that it's a challenge. Um, I also think I agree with you that it would be really disruptive to make this kind of a change right now. So, I applaud that we're

067looking at a more long-term solution um that would have some input from our staff to come up with something that maybe is better for next year. No guarantees. I mean, there isn't, but you know, there definitely isn't if you don't look. Yeah, for sure. Mia, um, so I know you shared some information with staff about this. What kind of response have you gotten? I had two responses. One said, "This was really helpful. Thank you." And then the other one asked why we didn't offer a cash in lie of insurance benefit. Um, and my I can share my response to that too. I I think many school districts that have or still have a cash and loo meaning if you don't take our insurance we give you a sum of money to not take our insurance.

068Most of the districts that have that really predate Act 10 because prior to then many collective bargaining agreements um had a 0% premium share for employees. So many people would just take the insurance because there was no cost to them. And so oftentimes they would put that cash and lube benefit to kind of create an incentive to not be on the plan if you didn't need to be. As long as I've been here, we've always had that 10% premium share. So we've always had sort of that that thought process like I'm not going to just get on if I don't if I have they people look and see if they have other insurance options. They determine which makes the best sense for their family. So, anytime we've done an analysis to look at whether or

069not that would help us, the number of people we would need to get off of our plan to help pay for all the people that are already not on the plan that we would be giving that cash benefit to is pretty significant. So, it's just never made sense from a from a cost perspective to put something like that in place. Sharon kind of related to what Mia asked. You had mentioned that with the low class cost clinic in Edertton generally employees are really satisfied and then um you said that generally employees are satisfied by the current plan and the associated providers. I'm curious like how big is the sample size roughly of people who shared that feedback. So, um, we work with USI, it used to be associated benefits or associated financial group and we've

070worked Al Jagger is our insurance broker that's worked with the district for about 20 years now and they work with many many districts across the state. So, they are the ones that actually facilitate um the survey for us on an annual basis. And I don't recall what our response rate was, but it was I want to say at least 100 people. I mean, it was pretty significant. We had a pretty good response rate. Do you remember, Jessa? We don't. We could look and see if you want to know. And they also do the survey for all of the districts that participate in the wellness clinic. Um, so I would say that it was it was definitely more than just a few people that respond. It was sent to all groups though. No need for followup.

071It was just like anecdotally if you had a sense like did it seem to be a sizable representation? Yeah. And I will say um satisfaction, you know, they look at it as a whole and then they ask a lot of different questions like um access to your primary care physician, access to specialties. Um the areas this year that actually went down a little bit, not as much as I actually might have expected was some of the um time like access in terms of how long it takes to see even your primary care physician and specialist. Um but what they would also say is that that's kind of across the board in whether you have Dean or or ORTS or GHC. Um I think that's been a challenge in a lot of I think it's just

072a challenge in the medical field like trying to be able to get into C and certain specialists too um are just hard to get into. So that would be the one area where our satisfaction responses probably dipped a little bit. But yeah, Don, did you Don, um, how many paychecks is that employee share divided by 24? Wow, that's low. I mean, that's a So they're So they're not getting much taken out of their paycheck for healthy speaking. Yeah. I mean, compared to other other districts and other private employers, we've been able to manage our costs pretty well for time. Mia, do you make the HR deposit for individuals who aren't on the health insurance plan? No, it's it's not an and I don't know there's differences between HAS and HSAs. Um, but that's the kind

073of the same sort of the same like philosophy around the cash and new benefit. I mean, it'd be kind of the same same thing. So, no, we do not do that. Do you know how many what percentage of employees are meeting the deductible? I don't um I do know, like I said, I was able to run a report to see how much people have in their accounts. I can I do have access to that information. Um, but even that doesn't necessarily tell you if they're hitting their deductible because like I'll I'll use myself for example. Like if I um have a family plan with a $6,000 deductible, we put $5,500 in their HRA. If I choose to take $3,200 and put it in my flex plan, I and I hit my deductible, I'm still going

074to have money in my HRA because I'll use my 3,200 for my flex plan first. And then do some quick math, but $2,800 to meet my deductible might come out of my HRA. Um, we do have some people that choose to do that because then you can save money in your HRA. One example I like to use, I did it when my kids had braces. So you can, you know, use your flex money one year, save your HRA, you know, to help pay for some of those costs because we structured our HRA to align with the rules around flex plans where you can use it for your deductible or you can use it for other FSA eligible expenses. So, um, glasses are a good example. They don't if you go buy a pair of glasses,

075it's not going to count towards your deductible. You can use your money for it. Um, but then I but people have to be careful too because sometimes they'll do that and then when something happens and they get a medical bill, they don't understand why they might not have money left to pay for their their doctor's bills. So So the HR account isn't necessarily um telling us that they haven't hit their deductible or they have. It just tells us how much money they have left. Joe. Yeah, I don't I don't have a question, but in the interest of having something positive to say this evening, um this was really thoughtfully done. You're facing not easy decisions and you can tell just looking at all the information that you've gone through this as carefully as you can

076and I think done very well. So, thank you. Wanted to sort of temper my earlier rant if I could. Yeah, it looks like we're looking for a motion here or it can be voted on. I mean, if you because I know you guys normally do a two-step process, we can So, this is part of the two-step. Um, if someone wanted to, the motion would be to make this an action item for tonight. If the board have to make that motion first if if someone on the board wants to consider it tonight otherwise you will come back on the 21st at um just to um share impact we are in the middle of hiring season and just in the spirit of transparency to those candidates that were making offers and who are comparing what the district

077cost may be next year versus other districts they're shopping um If that is something that the board wants to take action on tonight, that's something that I'm able to share with candidates this week. Obviously, it's fine if we wait two weeks as well and I can share it with candidates at that time as well. Alison, and that was my question was if there was a time sensitivity um and I can certainly appreciate that. I also um am hoping that this would give community and staff an option, an opportunity to reach out to us if there are concerns is I I'm not the one that's getting impacted by this. They are that's my only concern, but I can see what you're saying. Does seem like this has been pretty clearly communicated to staff at this point.

078Is that correct? This was communicated up before spring break. Okay. They did have it was it was a couple of days before they went on spring break, wasn't it? I don't know. I felt like I did this three years ago at this point. I I can't remember exactly when, but And you said there were only two responses to I I only had two responses to my email and I haven't I haven't heard anything. It doesn't mean that have you gotten anything? I I don't know if people have email board members, but I haven't heard anything. Don't reach out to me either. I mean, I'm sure they all watched that amazing video. I I was the one view I watched. Thanks. I appreciate that. You may not want to look at the click rate statist. Do

079folks want to give it two weeks or should we make a motion? But we could always make a motion and then vote on it. I would move to move it to discussion action. Second. Move by Fry, second by Zach Massy. Is that a clear enough motion? Yep. All in favor? I I opposed. No. Abstain. We got opposed. Two. Two opposed. That passes. So passes. Moving to action. So it it will be moved to discussion action which we go to to the action items. Yep. Okay. All right. Moving on uh to item 5B, interim indicators. Thank you, Erica. Hi everyone. Welcome to Kayla. Um, I think if we could just start by, well, if you don't mind just pulling up the board report from there if that's okay. Good to see everyone. To begin, we regularly

080take the temperature of our system regarding academic data. Uh this year our administration and board have established a communication and dialogue process to engage with these data. As we are tonight, we'll share these data with the board as an entry point for more detailed conversations with principles and staff members with connections to each school's or andor levels improvement plans. Uh next week uh tonight we'll reflect on three questions really suggested or inspired by the work um of Crabill in great on their behalf which we've previously discussed this year. So we'll begin by the questions that are in the board packet. I'll probably add some detail as we go through but really wanting to provide everyone with an opportunity to just sort of review what we put out knowing that those were the really the most

081germanine points we wanted to focus everyone's attention on. Um, as you likely noticed in the data that we placed in the board pack packet, uh, our K1 measured outcomes have improved from fall. So, that was good to see and our in our winter data. Um, however, you also notice that in grades 2 through eight, our ELA performance dropped by right around 3 percentage points um, and some similar or larger drops for students and students groups measured. And then there was the increase for students to identify in that additional um, recognized category of two or more races. So, obviously some points to celebrate there, but also some some points of attention that we'll focus on tonight. Um, in grades 2 through 8, our math performance, according to the AATH assessment that they once again take three

082times a year, um, has remained steady with similar consistency or more significant drops for student groups measured. We also placed within the board packet our notes from our November presentation, which has a little more u clarity. it provides a little bit more clarity on why we selected the measures that we selected. So, and I'm happy to refer back uh to the extent it's helpful to those notes. Um so, our really our first question is um how are we responding to the needs that we see? So, we we take this temperature and um it's an overall system measure. We're looking at large numbers of students and then the question is what what will impact the outcomes for those students. Um firstly we want to talk about the very first thing we do um is that we

083look at those data with respect to how we can enhance tier one instruction and that's really the universal instruction instruction that all of our students get. Um so some of the things that we have looked to do with this data set is to retach previously taught skills. So, um, one of the kind of first strategies is just to go back, um, and take a look at areas where we've had some discrepancies, teach into them. Um, again, however, in many instances, we we want we want to try another way. So, we don't simply want to just sort of, you know, go slower and louder with the same content. We want to, for example, try a a multiensory approach for students who are learning how to read. We have that embedded in our tier one um, instruction

084already. So students are actually um in order to learn how to read, they're actually touching letters, thinking about um and feeling the way um that the letters are formed. Um that is a part that particular method is a part of our general instruction. Uh but it might be true that a data team would look at a data set and realize that we we need to go back and redouble those ex those um that particular strategy and perhaps um emphasize it. Um I think with student groups in a way that the general curriculum does not. Um you know then the next thing that we might think about doing is increasing the volume of reading with explicit teacher feedback especially of course when we're thinking about ELA. So we want to expose students to more and more

085texts. um across genres. Even with our youngest students, looking at decodable text has been one key strategy that our um elementary students have engaged in. Uh when we when we notice that we need to do more for our students when they're not meeting those those targets in the ways that we had wanted them to and expected them to. Uh we another strategy that we will use also is morphology instruction. So just looking at the way words are formed and how their parts come together to create meaning. again part of our general instruction already, but we also know that it may not be enough for some of our students. Um, particularly some of our students who may not have been exposed to principles of science or reading um if they're in the middle school at their

086K12 experiences, may not have had those opportunities to work with foundational skills. Um, so that's the first thing we think of is we want to look at general how we can enhance general education, the teaching that all students get. um knowing that that that's the sort of the the most responsive we can be is to is to um to look first towards our our classroom teaching. Um and then the the second thing we do at the same time, so it isn't necessarily it's not sequential but really right alongside um we want to ensure that we are matching interventions to need for students who do need core and they need support beyond core. So, at all of our um K8 buildings, there are structures in place to provide students with opportunities um to deepen into an

087intervention that is matched directly to their needs. Um we have some of those interventions listed um some examples of the types of interventions that we might engage in um in our board packet. They might range from FMIC awareness, which is really just about recognizing and manipulating individual sounds. um might look at oral vocabulary which is just increasing and broadening deepening the range of words that our students come across um across curricular areas. Um and yet there might be a particular intervention or particular group of students who might need need that more um than perhaps their peers might. Um alphabet knowledge that's exactly what it sounds like. So recognizing and naming letters there are students who just need that intensification. One way we can do that um is just by reducing the size of the groups

088and we've talked about that at the table before um that that can it's not the only way but it can be very effective um and increasing sort of the dosage so to speak. So the amount of frequency with which a student might be engaged in practicing their letters. So rather than doing it once a once a day for a longer stretch of time, we might think of trying to come to them a few times a day um interspersed throughout the day uh taking a and thinking about making more immediate connections to generalization and transfer which is really the gold standard of learning. Um we also look at decoding skills. Once again that's just exactly what you think it is. So really practicing and helping students to learn strategies for breaking apart words and reading fluently.

089Um for our older readers, we really want to think about um and practice with them. Do more than think about actually practice decoding words with multiple syllables. Um that is one of our biggest challenges beyond third grade. uh when students are are able to decode words with one syllable and then it becomes really challenging when uh with with longer words and yet there are predictable reliable strategies we can teach to students to help break apart those different word parts. Um we know that from the science of reading um and fluency of course which is just getting those opportunities to read with expression um for a purpose for an audience for themselves. So we have uh opportunities when we think about interventions for students to engage in fluency practice all the time. Um and our our

090third question is really what what I think most of us would would like to know and spend some time thinking about is is how are we monitoring progress towards these goals? So if we set goals for students perhaps whether it's an intervention um or it's a whole class goal our our screening is in in effect essentially a goal um we but part of what we do is as part of our program as you well know and as we've discussed is conduct this universal system this temperature taking three times a year. Um and then we do diagnostic screening. Um, sometimes that's called, you might heard that just kind of referred to as drill down screeners where we're really looking at a particular intervention and we want to find where to start. Um, to do that we

091really look at the last stable skill of the students. So when when is the last skill in reading that they were really confident and then we build from there. Um, confident I should say and comp competent with that skill. Um and then once we figure out where to start them with an intervention, we conduct progress monitoring for our students who are in intervention weekly. Uh when it comes to academic data for for um reading um when we're engaged in intervention, that that type of learning is sensitive enough to be able to see growth in a week's time. Um that's not so for some other areas we'll be talking about at this table, I am sure, very soon. Um especially when we think about like internalizing behaviors. So not about at the academic side, we might

092not see those um those types of behaviors improve in a week. Um but with our ELA data and with our reading data, we really want to see those go up every week. Um part of what we also know is that we do have slidebacks um due to all the things that happen for us in our work lives as adults. Those same kind of impacts occur for students. Um, which is why another good question that was asked, when we think about changing an intervention, we always want to think about eight data points. Um, so that we can allow for a slide back. We can allow for a student to have an off week or an off day. Um, for there to be a week um where perhaps um there are energies where you they're elsewhere with

093um all the things that happen in a student's day or a student's week. Um and then we take a look once we have those eight data points, we do think about um what our next steps are. The team comes together as a data team um consisting of a variety of individuals. I think I listed them in the board packet who will come together to really help make these decisions for our students. Um and the things that we we really think about or the ways that we look about look to um inform our decision-m when it comes to intervention um are the strength. So do we have an intervention that is strong enough? Does it have a proven effectiveness rate? Um and we have the interventions that we're using now have really passed through our data

094team and have that proven effectiveness rate but we want to ensure um that that's a part of our decision-m again we look at dosage which I've already um sp talked about um we look at that at alignment so it might not be if we get eight data points and student is still really struggling we're not seeing um our our average rate of growth increase to where it needs to be not just to maintain but to actually be accelerative. Then we're going to take a look at whether or not we have the right intervention. Is it well matched? Um our our teams will then take a look at attention to transfer. Um so it's really wonderful to have a student who is performing and expressing the skills in an intervention environment which is often smaller uh

095and and may not be always representative of when we actually need the students to express the skill. So again, they can perform it in a small setting with a few kids and a teacher. And we're not seeing those same skills being expressed when they actually need it um in a larger classroom setting. Um for some of our students when they're accessing other environments, we're not able to see that transfer, which once again is really the gold standard of teaching anybody anything is can can we teach it and express it in a novel context. um comprehensiveness. So, how well the intervention um is going to incorporate a comprehensive array of explicit instruction uh principles. So, if it's again, if it's the intervention is too narrow, we might think about changing it. Um we'll also take a

096look for many of our students at the way in which an academic intervention complements or doesn't behavioral supports that we're providing. Many of our students need both um behavioral and academic support. So, our teams will take a look at how those two interact. Um, and of course, by the time we're looking at students, um, certainly our students who need us the very most, um, we are individualizing those interventions. Um, we want to make sure that we are, uh, providing everything we know. Um, we are devoting towards finding the right fit for students. Um, we do have a new data system this year that does help us track um and and graph which is a really important part. The data visualization piece of of interventions is really key for teams when they're making decisions to be

097able to see it. Um, you know, they're they're right in front of us and they're with us um every day. And yet it can be really helpful to step back for those teams and take a look at where has student been the last four weeks, the last eight weeks. Um, and once again, we talked about having, you know, eight data points so we can really start to see a trend line, knowing that we're going to have fluctuations, um, and that we don't change an intervention too soon when an intervention is just starting to prove to be effective, that we don't immediately switch for something else. So um it's it's a um an informed decision making is is one of the most important um processes and functions our teams serve. Um so those are the things

098I think that are important for us you know kind of all to keep in mind. There are many others but that's the gist. Um so with that I'm curious about what what questions board members may have where we are. Sure. I think Mia had up. Okay, go ahead. That's fine. Can you scroll back to the top of the first page? Um, I'm sorry for such a remedial question, but I need you to define for me what you mean when you say student groups measured. Oh, sure. Like gibberish. Oh, sure. Sure. Just the student groups that the board has asked us to measure. The subgroups. Okay. So, the different subgroups. Yep. That's all. Yep. That's all I mean. Sorry. I can just say that same question. That works. Yeah, the student groups that we measured. Thank

099you. Did you have a question, Sharon? I did. I was curious. Um, I think it's also on that first page. You mentioned doing universal screening three times a year and then conducting additional screening to pinpoint area of need. And I was just curious like what do the tools for those two things look like? Oh, well, so for the the universal screening, sometimes it's individual with our youngest learners at K1. um it's individual and then for um as our students get older, we assess them usually using computerized assessment systems for that as they get as they're older. But it's a sort of a a need to knee assessment when for our our youngest students. I'm wondering if you could put up on the screen the chart that's the SASD key performance indicators, the box that was

100it linked So, thank you, Kate, for asking the questions, answering the questions that I sent to you ahead of time. I guess of course, you know, I I guess I'm a little I'm a little disappointed in this and I'm not an educator, so I don't know if I should be disappointed or not, but particularly when I look at um Hispanic students for ELA and the loss in those numbers between fall and and and winter, you know, with all the investment we made with our reading interventionists and the move to ACT 20 and our science-based Yes. reading like I'm confused as to why. I wasn't expecting magic, but I guess I'm just confused why this doesn't look better than what it does here. I don't know if you have an answer for that. You know, I

101I can appreciate that. I think, you know, what what I always look to is, you know, have we acknowledged this as a group? Are we identifying the trends and themes? Are are all of us all of our colleagues who are involved um have we have we taken note at the temperature that we're taking? And I think that answer is yes. And are we responding? And I do feel confident about the way that we are responding to what it is that we see. Um, but I think, you know, you're right in that this is an attention focus area. And it's it's one of the reasons why we again look at broadscale data like this and then our teams are able to get much more sensitive um and focus in on particular students. So I think it's

102really helpful to have both. One more question. tonight. Um, and you shared with me the end sizes for these groups of students. Is there overlap? So, are some of, for instance, some some of our black students also students with disabilities, are they showing up in both of these groups? Yes, they could. Okay. They certainly could. I would also add in in this and it uh just to um reiterate that when we're looking at these error measures while there is a linkage and we picked that um best bridge because it gives us the best predictability towards our forward exam these are not the same scores. So the numbers that you see up here when you see a number of 50 doesn't necessarily mean that that's what they scored on the Ford exam score. But the trends

103that we look at and the skills that they assess there is enough um correlation between the two that when we when we start to take a look and we've only got two columns. And this is something, as you can see, we're going to continue to move forward. As we start to get more and more columns, we can start to see where those trend lines are are leading us towards. And again because of our our um size and our um end size once the reason we look at as a as a district level is because those end sizes get so small so quickly and once we hit below a threshold of 20 those those that data is not v visible anymore because then it gets too predictive in who this individual may be even when we

104look at it from the public. So, I just wanted to remind because it's been a while since we've had that conversation at the board table. So, um when we take a look at when we take a look at this data, we're making sure that we're comparing what we're putting on our website as um a dashboard and bringing the interim measures in the same manner that we're going to be reporting them on our website. Mia, um I think this is a game question. I'm not sure. Um I'm I'm just wondering how much churn there is in our students. And my purpose for asking that are like are we measuring roughly the same students at each interval? I mean, I know there are always students in and out, but do we see higher levels of that in

105different subgroups or, you know, what's our overall sense of how many students are coming in and out of our district at any, you know, on any given quarter, month, whatever? Um, and would that impact our numbers because we're not really measuring the same students and they're not able to benefit from some of the longitudinal It's a good question. I don't know that off the top of my head, but like from a state testing standpoint, what you really talked about is our full academic year students. So, the students who came with us and they were here for that full 12 months. I I'll have to take a look at that. Kate, I'm not sure if you know. out to uh a ballpark, but I will take a look at that and get that information. I don't

106have a ballpark figure, but Okay, I will look that up. Mia, thank you. Yeah, I had one other question. In your notes, you said you you conduct universal screening three times a year. Yes. I'm not sure if that's the sort of screening information that you would share with us. I know that Dan's working on a calendar for next year for when we will have these types of check-ins because I the more the more practice we have with looking at this, talking about this, seeing where there's progress, maybe where we're stalling out, I think we'll get better at understanding and talking about this data and feeling more comfortable with the general direction we're going. This is a nice step because we already talked about how when we see it once a year in the spring, it's

107like, ah, what what happened? and then we come back to it 12 months later. So, this is nice that we're kind of stepping in in an incremental way, but I So, when I saw that you do in a universal screening three times a year, is that both for reading and math or is that just for reading and is that something that could be built into your reports to us? Yes. So, the measures that you see in front of you, the Ames Web Plus, that is our universal screening and A reading and a math is our universal screening. So we are we're showing you our universal screening data and it's the same data that we're actually using. So it's it's the same it's multi-purpose. So you could come back to us potentially three times a year

108with this sort of information then. Yes. Yes. Any other questions? I think Oh yeah sure. Do you have a sense from some of the the teachers and the staff you know who are working with the kids every day like have they seen this and do they have um hypotheses about what's explaining some of the downward trends? Well, I would first say so thank you for the question. most of our our teachers are primarily concerned as as you know with the students who well they're concerned about students in our district of course and in their schools um and and are are really very close with the students who are in their classrooms like with those data um which of course just I think makes sense um but I would say that we have we do have

109a tw a K12 data team who does take a look at these data and provides feedback and you know and really questions and and really engages in some really thoughtful and substantive um conversations and decision-m relative to the data that we see here. Uh and then schools take a look at their data, the health of their overall schools and and I would say classroom grade level um teams also look at the data. So um we have you know multiple teams with different multiple teams representing different entry points within the system. Um and then your second part was do they have thoughts kind of about about this? Uh so I did we did share out these data with our K12 data team and that's a small set of of our um made up of of coaches

110and our school sites and interventionists and uh leader school leaders in other way in other areas and most of the suggestions or so most of the hypotheses or the explanation u that came from them you see as represented by themes in the data report. So we really use that conversation to make the the board I should say the board report of the data. Yeah. And so those are the sort of the conclusions that they are coming to is the focus on sort of what we're doing how we're responding. Other questions Joe? Yeah, I guess one thing I'm wondering is how clearly the priorities of of the board and of y'all are being communicated to the sort of grade level teams because you know one of the main things that we chose to focus on was

111closing gaps and when I look at reading proficiency for black students it's gone from 24 to 20 the target fall of 2026 is 39. N you're going to literally have to double in a couple of years. So, I guess I'm trying to understand, do those grade level teachers understand the urgency? Is that making it down there? And if it is, I guess why is the number not moving? And what are the changes going to be to move the number on on those sorts of metrics? Because that goal rather than getting closer is starting to feel more lofty. It was an ambitious goal to begin with, but you know, four points is not dramatic, I suppose, but the fact that it's going in the wrong direction is is concerning. So, I'm just wondering, you know, whether

112that urgency is being felt where it needs to be felt. Yeah, I think there is a very much a felt sense of of of immediiacy of acting in response to our students. I do. Uh and I think you know when I mentioned this being an attention area for all of us, it it is uh and the responses that you see outlined in the board report are happening as a response and as a way to respond to the sense of immediiacy. And do these teachers feel like they have a plan to follow to move the needle? Yeah, I mean I think there our our teams and our teachers are are very skillful and I I do think when they meet regularly I think they find um their colleiality and their collaborative problem solving bring about really

113great results for our students. So I know that they are very committed and I know they they feel it very seriously. So they are certainly aware that this is this is an area of attention points. I would oversimplify the you know yeah the sort of equation here but it would seem to me that if you say to teachers you know our black students are not reading at a sufficient level. The sort of natural response to that is to focus more on helping the black students who are not reading well. And is that happening? and it's not reflected in the scores because it's just needs some more time to play out. I'm just trying to understand learning learning to read learning anything is a complex task. The the process of learning is is complex. The school

114improvement plans that we talked about at the beginning of the year and that we'll be sharing again at our next board meeting will demonstrate how what strategies we're using and part of the the um and I don't want to I want to foreshadow without giving giving away giving away all of the um things that the teachers are playing. But one of the things that you'll the board will be able to see is okay now in the spring after we've had 6 months 8 months of learning to see what's what are some of the products that are being produced that are a demonstration of the strategies that we feel have the greatest lever at moving moving the needle with two data points. I understand. I understand their reaction, but there's not I agree with your statement

115that there isn't enough data at this point to say and so we need to let this play play out. It is audacious and it isn't um uncommon to see that as we try different strategies, different populations and different students will react differently to that. It is about staying close to the students and staying close to the strategies and helping to support the educators in the classroom to say here are a variety of different strategies and being being uh noticing which strategies are sticking so that we can stick with those strategies with those with the individual students that it's helping the most. and then trying different strategies with different students so that all students can internalize what works best for them so that they become more independent learners when they come in as kindergarteners being completely

116dependent upon us as um nurturers to grow their young minds and gain them to seniors who are very independent learners and know themselves well enough to say these are the strategies that are going to help me the most learn this new information that's coming to me in the class. So, I I want to say it is too soon to make a definitive statement, but next time the next board meeting when we actually have our buildings share out what they've been doing the this school year, you're going to see some of those strategies demonstrated because that's what they're going to be reporting out on. So they're reporting on the strategies but not the data, right? So I guess I struggle with what is the board's role when it comes to all this like is it so

117we just oh okay you're the experts and we just have to trust what you say and um and if the data doesn't move then we hear more strategies that you're going to try or I just I struggle with what the board role and that might be for a bigger discussion. um when these numbers aren't moving, what is our role? Because we're the ones that are ultimately going to be accountable. So, that that's probably for a larger discussion. But, right, and we we hired learning strategists, right, year this year and reading strategists and I understand where you're coming from, Tim, and that was recommended. Some of us agreed with that and some of us didn't. And so I agree we have to let it play out. It's not been a year yet and so but that

118time's coming and so I think it's great to hear strategies but I want to hear I want to see results I guess. Yeah. Well and this is where the results are going to come. So this is we've had um the fall as as kind of the baseline for interim and then winter and then ultimately what we're what we're measuring our board our board goals on are the state state assessments. So this this gives us a little bit of insight and again this is something new that we're trying and to to the point you you ask a really good question Tim and part of the reason we did our board governance work is of all the things that the board could be talking about there there is a lot and we've we've settled our conversation around

119my my tenure here in the district is really tied to can we move the needle in these three areas around literacy, math, and belonging. And the and the feeling and the senses is that of all the things that we could be talking about, we outside of statutory required things, these are the most important conversations that we need need to be need to be having. And um if we're not if we're not move moving the needle on that, then the the board really has one employee that they can hold accountable to it. Who's who's that? I guess my last question to you, Kate, would be like what do you need from us? Like how can we best be supportive? I mean, maybe this is this is our first time looking at this interim data and maybe

120you'll come back and we'll see some improvement in that next reporting or maybe it will be, you know, similar or not as good. So, it would be good to understand what you need from us. I think you just said, you know, we're holding we're holding Dan accountable as part of his performance review is like we're moving toward these goals, but I think we are also people that can provide resources or support to to to make some change as well. So, I mean it would be good if there is something that you recommend or that isn't available or how we can be supportive. Yeah. Well, first of all, thank you. I mean, I I find these um conversations to be really supportive. I think it's it's you're asking questions that I think are are really important

121to to our students that we get that we are skillfully approaching our current challenges and that we're making them really clear um in terms of like what what I think has been really helpful is is I think um and I mentioned this to you in an email Lisa and didn't with the whole group. Um, so I do want to say that our our one of the things our teams also do is they take a look at where that they've been able to be really successful. Um, and they think about that. So, you know, for example, I would point to our early reading composite grades. I mean, I think that's that's t that's gone in the right direction for two of our grade levels for whom when you think about one of the most important entry

122points for intervention is early early. Um, and those two grade levels, we're we're doing a good job. That isn't to say we won't ever see a change, but for right now, we are really taking a look at where how those improvements are happening. I think in other grade levels, that's just one example that we can see right here. Um, there are certainly many other examples across the system. Um, I think previously, you asked specifically about the board. Um I know in in recent years we've made really significant jumps um particularly with our elementary math. Um and the board has has noticed that has asked questions about the successes too. So I think part of one of the structures or the new process that we want to build into next week is learning from yes the

123things that are not going well and this is precisely a a very I think in useful and generative forum for us to have those conversations um and also to talk about like how can we you know we do spend a lot of time analyzing things that don't go very well but also when they do go well you know how how can we acknowledge and reinforce that so I think the board has been really tremendously supportive in in that way also. Both things are really important. Thank you. Thank you. Thanks. Thanks, Kate. Moving on to um discussion action item 6A, policy updates. Can I have a motion? We don't have one written out. I move approval of the policies as presented. Second move by Buban, second by Sorg. Uh discussion. Just thank you for your work

124on policies and the nitty-gritty of it. It's not always that fun, especially with some of the stuff. Seeing no questions. Do we need to walk through them in any way? Oh, if people have questions, this has to be a roll call vote. Sure. Are we doing all of the policies together? Yes. Yeah. Could I ask for a clarification on the work group? Sure. The verbiage in that. Absolutely. Maybe I'm missing something, but it seems like throughout where the word committee had been there before, now we've put in the word workg groupoup. Correct. And I'm not sure I follow the rationale why the word workg groupoup is better. Is there like a cliffnote answer to that question? I'll do my best. Um all right. So from our readings um around right on their behalf, the idea

125of a workg group different from a committee is a work group is task focused where a committee was a standing committee that met on a regular basis and had goals. And um it was more more along the lines of autonomous subgroups of the full board that would do do work. As we've as we've evolved, some committees did uh did that work on a regular basis. Others did that work and would have es and flows where they would um where they would have a lot of work and then it would flow off. And some committees just struggled to find a goal and keep a regular cadence of meetings. When we did this book study, the idea of the work group and the idea of tasks really resonated with with the group. And so the committee started

126to move in that general direction and it and the governance committee felt that we had gotten to a point where it really made sense that if we're going to commit to this new course of action around um task oriented that we should change the policy not to reflect committees but to reflect the work groups. In that conversation, a lot lot of the tasks from um community relations and legislative really amounted to tasks that happen at discreet times during the year, which prompted the bottom part of that policy to say we would eliminate um three of the the committees and recombine into a outreach workg group that would be tasked with um the elect legislative day or elected officials day which usually happens um in the middle of the year. um the WASBY resolutions which happens

127at the beginning of the year and the um business honor roll and com and now newly um to be done this Saturday um community conversations which happens at the end of the year and then to be determined how many times during the year moving forward. So, it would seem to be more uh aligned that way. And then the other work groups really are focusing on either one or more of our board goals and policies. Thank you. Yeah. And just for the benefit of some of the newer members, the committee structure as we've had it hasn't been in place that long. It was brand new when I joined the board. So, previous to that, there were a few committees, right? Some of you can correct me if I'm wrong. And there was one committee that did

128all the policy work and that was a bear, right? Yeah. Tim did the lion's share of that work. And um so this was an expansion of the committees and divvying up the policies. Um, and so I think this is sort of a natural realignment now that we've been in this committee structure for a little while. We know what's working really well about it and what isn't. And so shifting a little bit um both from committee to work group and the makeup of the committees from my point of view makes sense. work groups still need to be publicly noticed and people the public can participate and um as I don't know if we have any particular public members that are members of any of the work groups as designated members there there was one was committee

129structure fell off but we left the language in there for that be an option to be the options any more questions discussion all All right. Um, could you take those vapor? Okay. Mr. Masa Myers. Yes. Mr. Buban. Yes. Miss Sorg. Yes. Miss Croy. Yes. Mr. Fry. Yes. Dr. Milin Bartlett. Yes. Miss Garcia. Yes. Miss Pew. Yes. Motion passes. Uh moving on to discussion action item 6B business honor role. Move to approve the recommendation the businesses present for the business honor role. Second. Second move by Masa. Second by buban. Any discussion? I just want to thank the community for pro um providing um the nominations. I know we had a robust conversations in the workg group and um the the recommend the recommended business represents both um those who help the community as a whole as

130well as um helping our transition program which provides um employment for our students in our 18 to 21 year old programming. So, it's it we've been very honored as a district to have such a supportive community. Um, it makes it hard sometimes for us to narrow down that list. I think this is our third year for the business honor role and our our community relations committee was just really impressed with all the nominations this year and and just thought that they all were such tremendous contributors to the district. So these these uh five will I think five Yep. Y will be forwarded on to um for recognition statewide, but all the nominees are listed on our website. And I would just echo what Will said and if if you nominated uh a business and they

131didn't get on this list this year, I'd highly recommend you continue to nominate them. Uh a lot of very welldeserving uh nominees Right. Take the role. Right. It can be a full vote. Doesn't have to be. All in favor? Opposed? Abstain. Motion carries. And then we have the insurance. Yeah. We added our um action item for this evening uh which is uh insurance update updating the uh insurance policy. May I have um a motion for that? Yes, there is actual motion language in 5A. Y somebody want to make that motion? Move to change the current health insurance plan design effective July 1st, 2025 by increasing the single plan deductible to $3,500 and the family plan deductible to $7,000. Additionally, the district will increase the single plan HRA contribution to $3,75 and family plan HRA contribution

132to $6,150. Second. Moved by Serg, second by Fry. Discussion. Call the roll. Right. Sure. We can do a roll call. Miss, yes. Mr. Fry, yes. Mr. Buban, yes. Miss Q, yes. Mal, yes. Mr. Mer, yes. Dr. Milin Bartlett, yes. Garcia, yes. Motion passes. Thank you all for supporting me as I'm learning this president role. Um, all right. recap of action items. I have that there are still our uh joint finance committee budget hearings next week on the 28th and 29th in Hayward and in Wasau. And I think they're still taking email input. There is an email address if you would like to share your opinion with the joint finance committee. You can find that on the legislaturator's website. Um the uh we've we have tasked the climate and culture committee with looking into a resolution

133regarding the district's values related to LGBTQ plus students and um student immigrants. Is that correct? Um see what else? Prom is 25th of April. The 26th of April. It's a Bayou theme. Yeah. Okay. and and and school board members are welcome to attend. Did you get a life? Yeah, there's Oh, changing your story. I have my old prom dress. Lovely. However, there's uh our community conversation this Saturday. Uh board members should be there at 8 a.m. Dan will be bringing back more information on title six communications. Yep. And um looking at our full academic year that came up in our Okay. Yes. Yep. Anything else? Did I miss anything? All right. So now we are future meetings. Um, regular board meeting, April 21st at 6:30 p.m. Board reorganization is on April 28th at 6:30 p.m.

134I don't think we have any other committee meetings that I'm aware of. We'll schedule the climate culture. And how do we do the next item? Okay. So when um we will um contemplate a close session. So you'll need a motion and then we'll have to have a roll. Somebody like to move uh as a proposal to close session. Sure. Move to convene to an executive session pursuant to with 19.82 sub1 19.85 85 sub1 sub C sub F subG and 118.125 to discuss staff compensation performance and contracts. Second. Second. Um moved by Fry, second by Buban. All in favor? Roll call. Roll call. Tim Buban? Yes. Mia Croy? Yes. Joe Fry? Yes. Don Garcia? Yes. Zach Mosaers, yes. Lisa Peio, yes. Allison Sorg, yes. Sharon Milin Bartlett, yes. Motion carries. We are moved into close session

135and we will say we don't we are not planning to probably come back just to come back. We will come back to adjourn, but we are just continuing the feed to the public, right?