SASD School Board Meeting 9/18/23

001Stoughton Area School District Board of Education the service will you take the role sure Mr timbukwan is Excuse miss Neil broil here Mr Joe Frye here Mr Zach Musa Myers here Ms Lisa Pew here Ms Alison sorg here Mr Vance Sullivan here miss Helen kellandair here our student rep Simon here and president Jill Patterson here hopefully okay the first item on the agenda is public comment we have one electronic public comment are there any infers in public comments no okay so read this one it is from Deja kretchman 525 Kingsland Road Stoughton Wisconsin 53589 I have put in nine full years with the Stoughton Area School District as an educational assistant did you know that my four plus weeks of sick time that I have accrued I don't get that time paid out to me

002we have a sick bank that you can donate hours to at the end of the school year and I have asked if my hours could go into the sick bank I am told no so my 140 Plus hours can't even benefit someone who could use them freshman address as presented earlier next on the agenda is item to be the legislative update I just have a few items uh federal budget wise if you haven't heard where there's a looming shutdown um if the if Congress hasn't reached agreement on federal Appropriations um the government shuts down um as of October first um they are working to find a continuing resolution which may or may not happen so I don't understand it generally shutdowns don't have an immediate impact on public schools they might impact for instance a

003head start because they receive federal funding and if it lasts long enough there could be an impact on school lunches but we shouldn't expect an impact from that at least initially State legislatively uh the legislature was in session last week the Senate voted to override Governor evos ever's budget veto which had extended Revenue limits uh for 400 years increasing them by 325 dollars per year um the in order for that over veto override to be complete the assembly has to take the same actions so and it's not known if they would have the votes to do that so it remains to be seen legislature that the Wisconsin Association of school boards is watching is a one bill that's proposed to change the school start date the school boards Association approves and supports this bill it's

004been promoted before but generally due to tourism it often gets caught up and doesn't move through this new bill would allow schools to start the Monday before Labor Day and require them to close on the Friday before Labor Day weekend it is getting some bipartisan support and support in the Senate remains to be seen what will happen in the assembly no votes yet on that bill um there is a bill moving around UW Admissions and class rankings that we require every High School to implement a class ranking of their top five percent as currently the way the bill is written it requires high schools to establish the ranking either using GPA ACT scores or some other like mechanism of coursework school boards would be required to establish that ranking system the bill had a hearing

005there were some concerns about lack of uniformity across districts because of that ability to use different types of ranking this is getting a little bit of traction against something that the school boards Association is watching there is a sexual misconduct bill that's also would also impact schools it closes a loophole trying to codify teacher to student sexual misconduct uh police currently have difficulty charging when it's um staffed as student they're creating a definition around with this sexual misconduct means I admit I'm not entirely clear I don't this Bell is trying to fix um it would require the revoking of teachers license if they are found guilty of sexual misconduct this is also getting some reworking of this bill something that the Squidward's Association is watching um the last thing in the legislature that's moving is

006increase in penalties for people who failure who fail to stop for a school bus um this is expected to pass this increases the the penalties and the felony severity of that um the you may see or hear from our other legislators that Democrats have introduced a package of Education bills that include a lot of things that the school boards Association wants but it's not expected to go anywhere because it doesn't have any bipartisan support or traction that when I was listening to the school boards Association update they're a little disappointed that the Democrats aren't necessarily working to find more bipartisan agreement on issues that there's agreement that need to be fixed for instance like Staffing shortages so that's one thing that if you wanted to communicate to your legislators about it would be about something

007like that to work on Staffing shortages Solutions one last thing speakers task forces have been announced these task forces often turn into legislation that's bipartisan and orientation and that move through the legislature too that impact schools are they'll be working on truancy in K-12 education and also childhood obesity and that's all I have thank you are there any questions for Lisa seems like an awful lot of work from where I've been a very short period of time they're busy okay next up is a report from culture and climate um sorry yes oh sure did that work okay sorry um I thought it was muted until I spoke um so we met um last week-ish last week um and worked through a definition to use as sort of a working definition of belonging um the school

008has the district is really referencing belonging frequently um I also wanted to share because I missed a meeting um so I don't think formally that our goals for the year have been shared so um we had um finalized our goals for the year as a committee um so I'll just read them to you to establish and nurture a culture of diversity equity and inclusion through educating supporting and working with all members of The Learning Community goal number one review data from students including School perceptions the youth risk behavior survey the Dane County Youth assessment um goal two conduct focus groups uh and or listening sessions that's still sort of up in the air um to a explore student voice around belonging in order to identify the barriers to belonging as well as what currently facilitates

009belonging in our system uh to sub B is exploring family voice and a family sense of belonging in order to identify again the barriers and facilitators of families feeling like they belong within our system and then subsea identify students who are most vulnerable um and we're going to as a committee do some learning about how to gather and facilitate feedback among those students who are hardest to reach uh uh goal three is identify a list of topics that the board could address through policy development and goal four is to establish a data quote-unquote protocol um just sort of some standard expectations when data is shared with the board if possible what we'd like to see and how we'd like to see it sort of disaggregated when that when that's possible so those are our goals

010we started with sort of zeroing in on belonging what it means um we have a working definition I only have it up in front of me um in our notes um no it's not tell me it looks for that are there any questions about culture and climate committee's goals for the year okay I have it so this is sort of where we landed I see myself I am seen and cared about here I contribute to the classroom and school people notice when I'm here I'm offered the support I need and people have high expectations for me all right very good any other questions very good well thank you for that word next is the report out from finance and Facilities yeah um so we uh just met we reviewed the financial statements July and August

011um and then kind of a preliminary assessment um or review of the annual meeting which will be next month on the 23rd so a lot of those numbers are not perfectly finalized yet because we just got for the third Friday count and still waiting on final numbers and then that will be together and ready to go for annual meeting um and then talks a little bit about attendance at those what that means or doesn't mean um you know sometimes we get a lot of people that come and last year we had one and you know the public is always welcome to be there and and come and vote and review financials and see where the money's being spent and so on um and then we had a nice update on the summer facility projects that

012took place uh window replacements at a couple of schools sheds that have been moved around and replaced um in just kind of planning for when we the buildings um building and grounds building is no longer by uh over here it's over at the old Yahara site the training room update in the high school um gosh there's all kinds of stuff what did I miss here's that the automobile shop the auto shop a lot of safety updates um yeah it was a really I would love to have asked a million questions that we have another meeting so um yeah and then just kind of a general update on the planning for the referendum so the planning is finished the design work is done and now things will be going out with the kids so moving on

013item 2D student representative reports hello Simon all right so this week is homecoming if you guys were not aware on a Friday we will be playing I think the song Prairie I believe um at seven icons field so hope to see you guys there students are participating in plenty of different activities there's theme days and then there will be a pep rally and the afternoon on Friday for students and faculty and then following that there will be the parade followed by the tailgate then the game and the dance on Saturday so this is you know the student Senate's major fundraiser for the year so they put a lot of time and work into preparing a week with fun activities for the students um that's what student Center's been up to and then I said one

014question I that came to mind during a legislative report I'm not sure if this would be a question for Lisa or possibly uh Dr algren I know there is here it's assembly bill I think it's 332 possibly I have a 232. it relates to teaching history about Asian American and among American history and it's received some bipartisan support I was just wondering is that something that we currently have in our curriculum standards uh the teaching of Asian American and among American history I know that by law I believe Hispanic um African-American and American Indian history is required to be taught but I wasn't sure if that's something that we have already as the district level or that bill would change if perhapsed and sign into law I'll definitely take a look into it all right

015work with Dr Oliver and on on that sorry thank you yeah she's giving a thumbs up she's giving a thumbs up yeah there she is yeah okay and I don't know the status oh you're on mute okay oh sure oh hi everyone I can speak briefly to that yes we do have several spots within our K-12 really 4K through 12 curriculum um where that particular history is addressed um I would like to have a few moments to kind of put that together to show or identify where that would be at what grade levels and when that would come up it's really integrated in lots of different content areas um but I appreciate your attention to the bill and and of course um to to that endeavor so thank you thank you any other questions for

016Simon nobody wants to know our odds with reading um [Laughter] I think I think we feel pretty good hopefully Vikings are doing pretty good this year yes they are yeah thank you Simon all right moving on to item 3A Dr kaser's report okay I Simon mentioned it is um homecoming week and so for my report I started off to remind everyone if you do not have your stolen gear here's an opportunity to get some Stoughton gear um our Stone swag online store is open um there's a link here you can also find it on our on districts page and um a note that 10 of all of our purchases go to um Stone Area School District based fundraisers so we've um each quarter we identify organizations to to make the donations to um if uh

017anyone has any problems uh accessing it just send an email out to us at the district and we can help you get located to the to the right spot on our website um for the my report today just in terms of laying groundwork throughout the beginning of the school year even though we are towards the end of the first month of school it seems like it's been a whirlwind um there's so much to unpack when it when we talk about the work that we do within a school district or an organization and so when we talk about change management or School Improvement we oftentimes try to talk about things in a linear sense and try to make being make the change seem like it follows a very rational uh methodology what you see on the

018right hand side of the screen starting with analyzing our our organization leadership developing teams and then kind of going through a cyclical cycle makes things very understandable and where that where you would put your little circle kind of helps you Orient yourself where are we in that change process but when you are working in an organization such as the school district it is not the same thing as if you were trying to do a process Improvement if we're sitting here talking about you know we purchase equipment um and there is a lag time between when we want new equipment being a purchased and having it arrived we can put that into a very straightforward linear um process and that type of leadership and that type of change management has a structure to it and oftentimes

019we think of that as a linear structure so on the left hand side we think of traditional leadership and you talk about process improvements for things that seem very straightforward there is a start and an end but when you're talking about education and learning there is a very imbalance to the start and to the end we definitely have outcomes that we want to accomplish but the work is complex and with that complexity comes a whole lot of messiness and so we need to have a different way of addressing it so as much as we talk about change management in a linear process for all the individuals that that are in the work they can explain to you that it is not a linear function we move forward we take steps back we have to pause

020sometimes we accelerate ahead and to say that it follows a linear fashion is doesn't do the work justice so when we think of the leadership needed for an organization such as ours you have to reorient yourself in a new way and so this idea of equity leadership really talks about what what it means to say if we want student outcomes to change we're going to have to look and do things differently as adults and so there are times when we will be at the center of a circle and radiating outward and then also have to shrink back to the center of the circle to re-evaluate we have put a stake in the sand as a district through our work at UH in the sale process to say that for our work to be impactful for

021our students we want to make sure that they can read and be literate that they have a good sense of numeracy and they have a sense of belonging those are our three pillars and those are the three things that for the next several years moving forward as we go through this messy process of change is our Equity statement because we feel that if we can do these three three things well our students stand the best chance at being the types of graduates that we are looking to produce here in Stoughton how do we get to those three pillars is a long process that we've been looking at over several years so this is publicly available data and data that we look forward to updating and presenting to our EOC or EOC uh yeah educational opportunities

022committee and uh tracking this both at the building district and at the board level moving forward so when we say we're putting a steak in the sand we are committing to looking at data like this at all levels of our organization now and moving forward so that we can track how we are actually doing and as you can see over the last three years we've had a dip and in some cases we are starting to bend around the corner and start to move in the direction that we want we still have gaps and we own that and we recognize that but we can also recognize that 41 of our students performing at proficient or Advanced is not where we want to be for our literacy we want to have that continue to grow and how

023we go about doing that is the messy work for our mathematics it's slightly better we are bending the corner not in all areas but we are starting to move in the direction that we want but again 40 of our all of our students being proficient in advance across our system is not where we want to say we've arrived in fact we will probably never arrive we will continuously strive to get better each and every year and for a sense of belonging as you heard from the culture and climate we are looking eager to look into some of our data that our students and our staff take um at different levels so this is the Dane County Youth assessment and teasing out um those questions that most closely align to a sense of belonging such as

024I feel safe at school the bar shows what our district average is and you can see at different or different sub populations they are at that bar above that bar or below that bar so looking at this data and asking ourselves questions of why or how will help us tease out what can we do as a system and organization to improve also from our youth risk behavior survey they ask the very same question and you can see how that is assessed as compared to the Dane County a couple of other questions that um lead towards belonging is again do I have an adult at school that I can talk to this is from the Dane County Youth assessment and then last but not least the um youth risk behavior survey asking um uh similar type

025of questions to give reference to these two assessments and I actually put a link to the latest report that some of these this data was drawn from I put on this slide so the users Behavior survey is a survey that was last given in January of talk about um how often it is given which is every two years in the spring semester and again this is topically available data at DPI for the entire state and they are getting some youth assessment again our last time that we've taken this was the spring of 2021 and it's given every three years foreign belonging because belonging we feel brings about the best uh or the closest tied to having that culture of feedback in a culture of feedback which right now working is being able to give and

026receive feedback to one another in an effort to improve our situation or our organization so at the individual level it is like me getting an assessment people giving me feedback me providing feedback in in the hopes that through that dialogue we grow as individuals and become stronger um both individually and as an organization and cascading it up academically I shared this out um these last two slides I shared out with all of our staff that are welcome back and so for the board you can see where we put this our stake in in the sand and saying that not by next year but several years out we hope that we will do this work over the course of several months and several years so that this becomes a reality these are audacious goals and by

027putting out a audacious goals to win a framework that recognizes that this is a complex organization that we have the capacity within our district to find solutions that move us closer to these goals if we hit these goals sooner then what we've stated great we continue to move forward if we get to 2025 and we haven't reached those goals we should do an internal assessment to ask ourselves are we asking the right questions and if not why what do we need to change with with those goals so only by putting something down on paper and holding ourselves accountable to it will we ever get ourselves to a point in which we are going to make those changes that we all want as a community and as an organization so to kind of close this out

028all of this work because it's complex is going to elicit a motion and so our job as Leaders within the organization both at the building and at the district level is to acknowledge how complex this work is and try to ex do our best to explain it in a way that brings order out of Chaos and by to do that you have to acknowledge where people are in the system so there are a range of emotions across the organization around any sort of conversation that we have that includes change so when we think about that we recognize that when we change we may be sunsetting certain um things that we do or certain projects that we've done or certain processes that we own in favor of doing something that is going to be better for

029us moving forward and so with that we have to recognize that each one of us will follow along the Spectrum we might not hit all of these emotions but these emotions do exist and only by acknowledging that in a complex system will we ever get to a point where we can move ourselves individually and collectively forward as an organization so I wanted to share that with the board and know that as I present this year and in future Years Around things that we need to do to move ourselves closer to our goals that we know recognize and expect that these types of questions these types of emotions are going to rise up in all of us and that only through conversation will we ever begin to address that and move ourselves past where we are

030into in some cases the unknown um in service of doing things better and we will fail at times and when we do we take a step back we move back to the center of the circle we ask ourselves what went wrong find another way of approaching it and then we radiate out and try something different and through that we will test and reiterate or iterate until we find what works for us and moves us closer to those to those goals of making sure that our students and our staff feel like they belong and they can show up and that our students are graduating with higher levels of literacy and numeracy than what we currently have right now questions comments Lisa um I noticed in the student group uh disaggregation of data and also in academic

031goals you don't reference students with disabilities is that still under consideration I mean I know that's one group that we have some some proficiency problems with historically and it would be great to see them included in that really ambitious goal of reducing um that Gap by 50 can you talk about why those students are called out either in the goal or in your desegregation material the the slides I took from a prior slide deck so we I did not go through and update any slide decks and to segregate to segregate that working with both Kate and Kelly we can't we definitely want to adhere to the believed bar Collective belief around the data protocols in looking at not only racial and ethnic subgroups but students with IEPs and so forth so moving forward as we

032start to dig into that we will bring those pieces in I just simply pulled the data from the required slidex so there will be an ambitious goal specifically to reducing gap for students with disabilities as well we want to look at all students yes so students with this disabilities are and other subgroups as we've kind of talked about at the board level in looking at all of those it wasn't intentional it was looking pulling the old data to talk about this at this reward level and I think you know yeah can we go back in the slides to the um where you have the desegregated educational reading and math course sorry no that's okay make everybody busy uh yeah so I just want to make sure that I'm reading this right so our is this

033day is this chart saying that at the time of assessment uh all of our stiff we take all of our students your 41.3 of them are considered proficient or Advanced so we have a hundred kids 40 of them would be considered persistent or advanced in Reading correct we have a hundred black kids and nine of them are proficient or advanced in Reading correct okay that makes me want to vomit I've seen this data before but this is and I know we're talking about changing it but I like I'm I don't I was looking at that chart of the feelings of where we are and I couldn't even like there isn't even a word on a Feeling word on there that accurately describes this and we've talked about this and talked about this and talked about

034this and it makes me sick I mean we are failing these kids and we talked about it previously before you were here and one uh a board member who's no longer on the board wondered aloud why we couldn't act as if the way we acted around covid when covet came it was a full-on emergency it was all hands on deck it was this is the thing we have to do we have to figure out how to transition to Virtual and everybody threw everything they had at that and I appreciate that you have these big audacious goals and and that they're not going to happen tomorrow but when but the other thing that that says to me is that between now and then 9.1 of our black kids are going to leave our schools being able

035to read I mean that makes me want to like get up and walk out of the room and you know like I can't I can't believe how a system can fail these kids so atrociously and that we just sit here and Shuffle our papers year after year I I don't I I let someone else comment because I have to like figure myself out for a minute no Mia I I I and part of the reason of if we're going to do this work in Earnest we can't dance around the work that needs to get done if we want to if we truly want to get better as an organization this data has to be talked about at all levels this all of this data is not this is coming straight from our district report card

036all of this data has been out there for years and this data has been data that we have systematically been looking at and saying why are we getting the outcomes that we are which has led to four years ago switching our our resources to written wisdom that is more culture responsive and investing in the professional development across those past four years and making sure that we're implementing it with Fidelity recognizing that even with that some of our foundational literacy skills uh we're not preparing our students as well as we felt could be which led a small Cadre of Elementary Educators to look at those foundational um resources and why we adopted i-Ready magnetics this year and so yes this is highlighting some data that isn't pretty for us to acknowledge it would be very different

037organization if we were not to present this and simply say we are doing that we are trying to strive better we are trying to make ourselves acknowledge that as unpleasant as this data is this lays of a baseline from which we can measure our progress moving forward and as a district administrator you as much as I would want to be a person who is measured by things that I do out in the community and and visiting classrooms and stuff like that you hired me to do a job which is to make sure that this is the best organization that we can if we cannot do this you should be at you have one employee and that is me and if I can't make a change in this then we have different conversations that we need

038to be having at this table so I'm putting myself on a fault line here and making sure that we say we're not going to hide from this I'm not going to hide from this and we need to make a change in this can we make the make those gains I believe that the answer is in this district with the staff that we have to to make a huge impact in that we just need to put it out on the table and say this is no longer under the table we have to talk about this and so if this is the dominant conversation at the board table so be it we'll be talking about student data at the board table for the next four years and hopefully four years from now these lines are not only

039closer together but those numbers aren't saying four they're saying five six or something like that right um so I have some questions about what the goal actually means but I wanted to make one point before that I mean we've been talking about this issue for years and while I appreciate the data coming forward and the you know the fact that's being presented here for us to look and see the community to look at the same that's that doesn't hide that doesn't obscure the fact that the data and we've taught I mean I struggle looking at the reading data for example that or all of our students 41 are reading are reading profession or Advanced that feels terribly well repented than to look at the numbers for the other population groups with the disaggregate population groups

040um I have vocabulary for it where I'm not going to use it in this setting we talk about things like Whitney wisdom and things about you know we talk about revising our approach and Fidelity into curriculum but I look at these numbers and from 2019 to 22 remember for our African-American students has not moved at all stayed in single digits the number for our Hispanic students has gone down by 10 points the number for our biracial students or multiracial students has gone down by almost eight percent and I know covet is in there and I know the effect of covid and learning was catastrophic but Jesus I feel like we've done a lot of things in four years but we really haven't accomplished very much and with that I'm off my chest I want to

041ask exactly what that goal means and so the goal is to reduce the achievement Gap by 50 by Falling 2026 about the English and math do I have that right correct so first of all what's the achievement Gap is that's the difference between a the score for specific population and everybody or white students no everybody we want we want to we want so we want to take all of these lines and make them as close to one single line as possible so that when we talk about the opportunity that a student walking into our system is going to grow that that opportunity is realized for anyone walking into it shouldn't matter if it's a student with the disability whether it's a student who identifies as Black Or Hispanic Latino or whatnot they are going we

042know that they are going to get the resources they need so that they can grow as an individual and I appreciate that I'm just trying to do math at the moment you know that's hard for me so as if if I'm doing this right thing the uh the achievement Gap in literacy for our African-American students is currently 41 minus nine percent which is 32 percent do I have that right yes so our goal is to cut that achievement Gap in half so to raise the African-American student percentage by 16. or drop the overall I mean that's the other thing well yeah so and this this is the com complexity because at the same time we're not we don't want our our Baseline of 41 to stay at 41 we wanted to continue to go along

043but I I understand that so assuming just for the moment that the line for all students stays at 41 percent the goal by 2026 is to raise the number for African-American students to from nine percent to 25 percent that doesn't feel like very much I think it's hard but it doesn't that still feels horrible I I understand uh and appreciate the perspective that you are articulating in terms of going from nine percent to 25 percent there's that that's still saying that 75 percent of our students identify as black are not proficient or Advanced for efficient or advanced and we have to put a stake in this sand somewhere and to for us to start with this as a goal is getting us off of zero and saying if we can achieve this sooner than 2026

044that means we we we're on to something and we need to expand upon that but to put put this out there and for us to focus our efforts around these three p these three goals is saying something instead of working on a hundred things we're working on three things and doing that with the concerted effort around as I mentioned before the sale process of saying there's a whirlwind of things that need to happen to run a district each and every day for an entire year and we're saying that these three things are the three most important things that we feel are will move our district forward and so that this is where where we're at and I run I recognize that it's we would love to be able to say a hundred percent no I

045know I'm just saying no I know you're not asking but I know that that would that would be the ideal but this is the start of where where we're where we're at if we can make it this way then we can make them we can we'll get it even closer can we do this by 2026. I feel I've I feel we have the best chance we have with the team that we have in the district right now yes I believe we can do this before I call on Mia who has another question is anyone else have a commented question Allison um say that you believe that we can do this and what what do you need from us as a board is there something we can do that we are not doing I know that's

046a big question that is a big question though it would say that's the the magic wand question think about it and bring it back in another report unless you have an idea right now I'll say this at the onset and I appreciate the opportunity to be to be more specific later on because this is by saying this now this is going to be a direct relation to lots of future conversations that we're going to have and I just want the board to be prepared that when when we when I bring recommendations or in front of the board I'm you should expect and should ask about how is this being tied back to the this data because what what we're saying is this is our this is our you know we still have to approve a

047budget we still have to do a whole bunch of things annual notices and and so on and so forth but we should be driving ourselves to making improvements in this is as big a way as we possibly can so um I mean because I agree with what others have said we keep talking about this and clearly what we're doing is not working but it doesn't seem like we haven't found the red solution yet okay so I have a question in context follow-up dude do students see this data this data yeah this data this data is pretty this is print printed this is probably one of the big things that happens every November when the school report cards go out how many people actually take a look at all of it that that's a different question

048I guess in terms of the like the schools so context wise um schools I've been to sometimes would post this data you know very publicly painting it on Windows and things and I recall and this is from my time as a student you know not too long ago in a middle school and remembering the comments that were said and I had quite you know our school district was pretty diverse and I just remember the collective psyche of what that did and how that felt and that's why I'm wondering how it's presented here because I don't know what if it's just here's a report card here's some papers or is this a specifically if we're specifically tardy in this way what that looks like so I mean just just personal experience of what that you know

049remembering what that was like you know I think there are some districts depending on how this data is reported reported out because while these percentages are percentages that we're not we're not wanting to continue to expect we want to improve upon them that there is a night and day difference between how these percentages are turned into a report card that risks you know one star to five stars there's that there's that whole you know mechanism in black box that happens at the state level that turns these percentages into a resemblance of a score with ratings attached to it we wanted to pass that and we want to get to the to the raw data and say we've had I've been here for one year and a few months and I can remember all the conversations

050that I've had during that time around this data and it's been exactly that now is the time to put this data up front and in the spotlight and say there's a this is making a statement and so we don't we want to do so all right context wise I I want to shift through all of all of the noise and get down to what we really are going to be about which is making this this data look better than what it is right now so that we have we can be happy with the progress that we're making here and not have the reaction that we have today but we're not going to get there if we don't have the reaction that we have to if that makes sense Holly well I guess I want to

051zoom out a little bit and ask a somewhat hypothetical question and then make a comment but I don't know off the top of my head what the state and national average is for students meeting or exceeding meeting you know being proficient or advanced but I do wonder I mean I think one thing that has been lost since covid is one thing that I hoped would come out of covid was a broader conversation around some of the systemic Universal aspects of public education that possibly aren't working for students by and large particularly students of color um because some of those negative aspects are magnified for those populations so I just you know I think it's great that as a district we are asking ourselves questions we are committed to extrapolating the data we are setting ambitious

052goals but one of the reasons I joined the school board was to have broader conversations around how Public School in general is not serving students and I feel like those conversations are largely missing from all of our of our conversations and I'm talking things like the calendar the daily schedule whether we have virtual days uh availability of tutoring um grade list school I'm talking really out there ideas that are not you know packaged nicely in the eurocentric model that we currently exist in and run kind of across the board so I know that those questions really can be answered right now but I think they have a place and I want to highlight that that there are a lot of things that could potentially change and make a huge impact on students that we don't

053even talk about because they are so far out of the realm of what we know about public education that we aren't even talking about though so yeah there are things we can do at the district level but there are also things that need to fundamentally change about the system conceptable so for me it would be interesting just to see you know how other regions of this country are doing it how um other other states are doing what kinds of things they're implementing that might be outside of the box what kinds of Innovations are happening and what um how those things are impacting students and achievement and yeah I guess I don't really have a general question and you all know that I'm a bit of a Firebrand when it comes to education but I don't

054think that these questions can fully be answered in one District I think there are lots of bigger things to be talking about and some of them were talking about on long-range planning so that's great so come to a long-range planning yeah oh you're you're not wrong that that there are a myriad of things that we we could be talking about and those things are going to have impacts um some directly some indirectly to things like literacy and Mathematics and belonging but all but also around climate um other aspects of our culture and so forth and can I dovetailing back to Allison's question what do we what do we need from the board or what do I need from the board is if the the board represent represents like yes Dan we hear you and we

055support that literacy as it stands right now is not where we want to be and with all deliberate speed and haste improve this same with with mathematics the same with belonging then you're charging me with coming up with strategies and approaches that may include things that you talk about but also maybe very very much more targeted and say in order to close this we really need to do a deep dive into x y z and I bring forward recommendations around how do we need to change as a structure to do this right because you know with finite resources and client uh both human and fiscal how do we direct that to make a change in this I don't have the answer for that tonight but we do need to know we I am telling the

056board that we are going to be focusing on conversations around this across the district at the district level at the building level and this is going to be a type of conversation for a long time and this in order for us to impact this and that may mean that we're going to be making some tough decisions so fast forward to winter break when we when I sit down and I promise the board some priorities around critical Staffing very darn well believe that this is going to be a part of that critical Staffing piece so between now and then what are the things that we need to do that are that we feel are going to have the best leverage to impact this data that should show up in in that and if you don't see

057it you should be asking questions about it I'm telling you up front if you don't see it you should be asking questions about it and I'm specifically saying that I'm hoping that we're looking even further outside of the box than we have right like even we're beginning we said at our last board retreat or one of our board Retreats and we wanted to be an Innovative District we wanted to be known for Innovation I just really want to keep centering that as well because I think there are there are not there are infinite ways we could impact this data and I don't want to I want to have open minds all right I'm not I'm I've said when I was interviewing for this and I and I've set it to to in people out in

058the community and in the district I'm quick to say through the conversation and slowly say yes or no to an idea until we pressure test them but pressure tested against what here's the what foreign okay any other questions or comments for daily I just I have another question if we can look at um the goals the 50 reduction in the proficiency Gap at slide 14. um and I'm just trying to wrap my head around and I understand this is you know sort of probably a huge oversimplification right of what's going to happen but what it seems like what we're saying is we're gonna hope to achieve this reduction in the gap and then it's the second sentence that's tripping me up we will accomplish this through the acceleration of proficiency for all students and when

059I look at our disaggregated data it seems like what we're doing right now isn't hitting all of our students equally you know whether they whether students are showing up at a different state you know with different resources at a different state of Readiness whether our educational approach is better tailored to student students than others I don't know I don't know what the root cause of our Gap is but it seems like what we're saying is we're going to keep trying to serve everybody and everybody is of course we have to serve everybody but it seems like there are some subgroups within that everybody that might need something a little different and so I don't know if that's contained in that second sentence this idea of I mean why do we not have a black kids

060math club you know at elementary school and why aren't we recruiting our black kids into that as hard as the youth football is recruiting them you know why are we not having you know um black girls read Club in middle school where they get together and read a book and discuss it you know why are we not targeting the groups that that it's obvious we're not meeting their needs to a very disproportionate level um and maybe that is contain I just like the way that second sentence is written basically to me sounds like we're just gonna keep doing what we're doing and we're going to do more of it and better and it's like no like we can't keep trying to serve everybody the same no and that and I can I can see where

061reading reading this absent kind of the background context of it but when you take a look at the second sentence the second sentence is saying that the line that represents all of our students together yep needs to be moving up into the right and your openings your opening um comment is exactly on point the rate at which we go up and to the right for each of our subgroup populations is going to be a different slope for our black students it's got to be a much steeper slope than for students who are very close to where all of us all the students together are but this is not about pitting one sub subgroup population against another but it is about moving moving the the whole the whole and making sure that we address each student

062with what they need so that they can have that opportunity to be at the same point where all the students are together so it is really when we think about it is taking that Circle where everyone is all over the place and bringing them closer together we might bring them all closer together and they might be off off Target and then we can move the whole the hole to the Target but right now it's kind of scatter shot it's all over the place and what we need to do is we need to say we've got to bring it together so you're absolutely right we have to be looking at each each group with what is working and what is not working for that subgroup population and to the point like this Kate has done annually

063prior to the school report card at EOC um it data dies into all of that data where we look at subgroup populations including students with disabilities and and so forth so that we can see where we are relative to the state in some cases we are doing better better than the state average but that if what we want to do is accomplish these goals we are worried less about that state average we're worried about making sure that if you come here no matter how you show up we've got mechanisms to help grow you as a learner and there well this is a very complex topic which we'll be spending a lot of time unpacking over several months and years we gotta start somewhere so if this is the preamble it's not a pleasant Preamble but

064hopefully that only foreshadows a much better last chapter whenever we get there respectfully damn it's not the pre-handle it's the status quo it's where we've been for years I want to say a couple things and be very clear about where I'm coming from I'm just speaking only for myself here none of these numbers looking at the letters at the reading levels none of these numbers are okay 44 for the white kids it's not okay 41 percent or all our kids is not okay 31 for biracial kids it's not a good day 26 are Hispanic kids is not okay nine percent per black kids is so not okay I can't even I still don't have vocabulary that I can use this one I do not know how kids learn to read and I do not know

065what to do about this I do know speaking to myself that if a proposal were to come that required additional resources that would move these numbers or everyone but especially for our kids of color I would be inclined not only to support that proposal but go to the community and ask for more money to support it or do whatever else possible to move it forward if it's a resource issue let's figure out what the resources are that we need uh and and figure out how to go and get them I I'm so tired of looking at these numbers I'll be very blunt here I've been on the sport since 2018 and I look at this graph and I wonder what I've been doing for five years I don't know the answer Mr Frye yeah I

066just wanted to say a couple of things first um I really appreciate all of this data and I appreciate the audacious gold and I agree with a lot of the assessments that the data sucks it has sucked for a long time I've been on board the longest and been watching it the longest and all of us have sat here and run our hands and gnashed our teeth and have been Furious about the data and now we have a new District administrator that's just come to us a year in with a plan and some confidence that he thinks he can move this by 2026 and I say go for it tell us what you made and I'm looking forward to seeing this graph accelerate rather steeply because that's what it's going to have to do and

067we'll have another conversation 25 to 26 but I at least feel hopeful that we've got it administrated wasn't hiding some data and it's coming to this border and saying yes it sucks I know it sucks I think I have a plan that can fix it so go for it amen the risk of sounding like I'm causing discussion I think that's a good place to end anybody else have anything else to add all right thank you for your transparency and the first step is acknowledging the problem and making a plan for change we are on to item four the consent agenda I move the consent agenda as presented sure is there any discussion all in favor of the motion any opposed any abstentions the consent agenda has been approved we are on to item five a

068summer Excel review all right so I have a pleasure of introducing Jeff Elvis um and he is justification you know and just you can either stand or you can have a seat your your choice okay um Jeff's just coming off of his first year as being summer Excel principal he's been uh working alongside Aaron Conrad the last year and um has some ideas and in his report um you know what we've done in the past in terms of a summary but then I know that not as a foreshadow but I know that you have some neat ideas for moving forward into future summer excels so I'm sure if you're dead I'll turn it over to you John sure thank you Dr Keith uh so yes hello my name uh is Jeff Elvis I'm the current

069dean of students over at Sand Hill Elementary I also was lucky enough to serve as the summer Excel principal this past year uh it was my first opportunity to lead in an administrative role and I'm very proud of the hard work on the part of so many in the district that resulted uh and what I think is a wonderful experience that we're able to offer the families of Stoughton uh here is the summer Excel Vision that I inherited um last year from Aaron Conrad so it says summer excel's vision is to provide an Innovative immersive three-week summer experience that extends students learning throughout the month of June with four unique streams of learning stem Arts Sports and games and academics there's a place for everyone to connect with their interests build academic skills and make

070new friends from across the district learning and belonging or what we strive for each and every day when um we were starting summer Excel and we were going through the hiring a lot of people asked me you know what was summer Excel all about and the goals that I have for summer Excel were twofold one I wanted summer Excel to be a fun and engaging experience for all those who intended and two I wanted the students to enhance their own Knowledge and Skills by building on the learning they had done the previous year or perhaps even engaging in new learning around topics and skills they may not have encountered before from the feedback we received from families and from staff I believe that we were able to achieve both of these goals in looking at

071our enrollment numbers you can see that we were able to maintain our level of participation from the previous year there has been a decrease in summer Excel attendance over the past seven years and this is something our staff and the administrative being talked about we also talked about ideas to increase enrollment going forward such as increasing our amount of Outreach during the school year to make sure that we're reaching as many families as possible and giving them information that they need to make the best decisions for themselves as well as expanding some of our more popular classes there were definitely some classes that we had filled that had wait lists for students and we would love to be able to offer to those families basically we want to bring in as many students from the

072stone area as we can looking at the enrollment breakdown by grade I mean you can see pretty easily that our arcade our pre-k up through fifth grade are the biggest draw we saw a lot of Engagement with these with families and with kids in these grades from enrollment uh all the way through attendance during summer Excel you can also see that the numbers dip quite quickly once we reach the middle school grades I think this year we had it I think it's nine or six eighth graders so definitely a drop once we get to that middle school age here we can see the breakdown of our enrollment numbers by a race race and ethnicity uh well we would like to see the numbers for our Black and Hispanic and students of two or more races

073more closely reflect the overall numbers from our district uh excuse me we have been able to increase the participation of those students in summer Excel over the past few years this slide shows that as a percentage of ell students in the district has increased we've also seen an increase in the number of ell students who have attended summer Excel while there are many people who helped make this past year success Merit Hawkins deserves a special recognition in this area for helping families access summer Excel this year Miss Hawkins is one of our District's ell teachers and she helped families uh with everything from providing initial information about summer Excel helping them with enrollment meeting families at the high school the first few days and providing support for our ell students during summer Excel this final

074graph shows that our percentage of students with disabilities ticked up a bit this year which correlates to the uptick in our students with disability numbers during the school year throughout the district here you can see some of our logistical and administrative pieces of Summer Excel that I was most proud of we were able to fully staff all the licensed positions uh educational assistant positions and administrative positions for a total of 41 staff for summer Excel we were also able to successfully transition to a new administrator with few hiccups in the overall experience for students Aaron Conrad deserves a lot of the credit for the systems and routines she put in place during her time as principal of Summer Excel I was also fortunate to have a wonderful administrative team including Katie sanus Jill Schmidt Beth

075Anderson Rebecca Russell and Caitlin Canaveral our budget up there we were able to offer essentially the same experience of the previous year's Excel minus one German class which had to do with the high school students taking a trip to Germany and still coming in about seven thousand dollars under budget this is my first time working with a budget so I I was proud of that but I would obviously like to see that money be utilized for more opportunities for the kids in the summer Excel programs um in terms of location uh we were able to successfully transition from this uh the end of the school year to holding summer excel at the high school all in one weekend so we ended school with a half day on Friday um we were at the high school

076that day we had our PD a half PD and prep day Saturday morning from 8 to noon and we welcomed the kids at 7 45 uh on Monday morning that was quite a task especially considering all the furniture that had to be moved from elementary schools to the high school in a very short order so that we had furniture that would fit the the youngest Learners that we were teaching that summer we also continued our Partnerships with Madison ballet to offer our creative movement class and with the national inventors Hall of Fame to offer project invention which is a stem course for our K-5 students and these two classes were by far our most popular classes and finally our high school interns we were fortunate enough to be able to hire 34 passionate caring and

077hard-working High School interns these interns were a huge help not only in the classroom but also just in the day-to-day operations of the school involving drop-off pickup recess duty all those kinds of things the next two slides um move into feedback that we got from both families uh from families who participated in the summer Excel you can see on the first slide just some of the things that families some of the positive things that families had to say about summer Excel including loving Camp invention which was renamed project invention uh the opportunities to meet new friends the content and the academic blocks and so on and the second slide has bullet bullet pointed uh some of the things that families felt that we might be able to do better um next year and these are

078ones that came up from multiple families so you can see moving summer Excel back to Sandhill a lot of parents were concerned about especially the Young Learners in the high school and being able to navigate the high school and even things as simple as using the bathroom and washing hands and getting to the drinking fountain for the the youngest Learners um a more inclusive and Equitable Equitable way to sign up for summer Excel it's basically just done on a first come first serve basis with a dual sheet or a Google form that opened up at four o'clock on a Friday one idea that we had uh was or when I did the one of the families was had was have something more like a lottery where there's an open enrollment period and then a lottery

079is used to choose uh people who are able to attend another thing that we heard a lot from families was that they really missed in years past before I was in the district a lot of the enrichment classes or what they deemed as the more fun classes to kind of get kids engaged in summer Excel and the last one was just a better better system for drop off and pick up including when students were only attending one block that would be picked up during our during our recess time the next slide we see some of the positives that staff shared about summer excel in our end of the year survey uh having time to collaborate working with wonderful people being able to access curriculums early were just a few of the things that the staff

080appreciated along with the positives there were also some thoughts that staff had about ways we can improve moving forward uh some of them mirror some of the things that we heard from the families being at the high school was hard to struggle to find classes and bathrooms recess was difficult to keep kids engaged despite having recess equipment and high school interns to interact with them there wasn't a typical playground for the kids to play on during recess having K2 and three five students at the same time was difficult missing the number of students associated with those extra fun classes and then again back to just being at the high school in general okay um here are just some of the pictures of our high school interns again I can't really say enough about them uh

081Kirsten and I worked together to we wanted to make the the process for them as much like have interviewing for a job as possible so they had to submit an application they had to go through an interview process they they were selected based on their their interview and their um and uh Beth's knowledge about of them working at the school and they just did an amazing job there was nothing but rave reviews from families uh from staff and from the kids in general the challenges uh just like any other Endeavor we definitely um we definitely encountered a number of challenges what we were working through this the high school again did provide several challenges uh that I kind of mentioned before one of the big things that was a change recently in summer Excel was

082the grade level bands for classes uh this made instruction difficult especially for academics when we were asking families of students who were struggling in classes to sign up and offering this as a kind of like a remedial uh course to try to get them caught up somewhat but then you cluster kindergarten first grade and second grade kids and someone who's behind in kindergarten needs a lot different skills than someone who's behind in second grade so that was definitely something that we're looking at ways that we can address um address in the future we had Canadian while help buyers this year uh and that blew a lot of smoke down for a couple days so we had to kind of think on the fly but what we could do for our classes that were held outside

083as well as the the recess time and where we could where we could have kids go instead during those periods um and then the last one was just planning for the hour one hour and 50 minutes blocks was a challenge when you just have a singular subject or a singular class and what uh what you're going to be doing with the kids for that long uh like Dr Peter said some ideas we have for next year uh were moving summer Excel back to Sand Hill where it had been the previous year we just felt that this would be better at accommodating for all the Learners we realized that obviously Things Are there's other factors that come into play last year it was the window replacement at Sand Hill was the big reason why we weren't

084able to have it there uh kiganza had um I.T wiring that was going on during the summer but we do think that Sandhill offers the best opportunity to meet the needs of all the Learners it's got the the biggest space it has the furniture that's the right size it has the two outdoor play areas for kids a very large drop off and pickup area to make that easier for families um those are just some of the reasons we think that Sandhill would be a better fit than the high school or the other two elementary schools um increase the capacity for getting ready for 5K course to ensure that all families who want to attend can enroll uh this was something that was really difficult uh there were two um two courses for getting ready for

0855K and we were able to add a third course at the last in the last couple weeks that took our numbers up to 60 kids but we still did have families on the wait list um being someone who has uh two students in elementary school one who's a kindergarten this year I know that he really loved his opportunity to have Camp kindergarten and I I felt really bad that we had to we had we weren't able to admit all the families that wanted a place there um hopefully that's something we can remedy next year and I think the biggest the biggest obstacle to it would just be the Staffing of it and finding enough teachers to people to teach those courses um and then the last idea for next year is like I said moving

086from a K2 and three grade level bands at least for the academics uh to something a little bit more manageable um so that the kids are somewhat in the same level as far as abilities and having a K1 band a 2-3 band and a four five band just to meet the new the needs of all the students um the successes that we had during summer Excel far outweighed any of the challenges we've faced I'm excited to take what we've built so far and continue to improve on it for next year my goal is always to continue to have summer Excel be an opportunity that families and students are excited to participate in now there any questions or comments thank you of course right yeah it's been a long time since I had a kid in

087some work so but my daughter was one of the interns the first year we had internals oh great and I think it's great that you all are doing that she had such a good experience doing that yeah I think it really shaped a lot of what she's doing since then good so I just wanted to commend you all for keeping that program and from making it available to as many high school students as we can yeah yeah well I definitely appreciate that I can't take all the credit I know Aaron was instrumental in upping the numbers of high school interns um we're the school board we'll take all the questions you can take all the credit as long as you take all the criticism too um no but seriously they they did an amazing job

088and also you know you're thinking about uh Staffing especially in a smaller District I mean those those connections that kids make at a young age to the district and for those kids that want to pursue a career in education these are the kind of things that draw those uh kid those adults back after they you know have gone to college or completed their their degrees anything else thank you all right thank you very much okay we're gonna move on then to items five B all right so this one is uh I was going to do an introduction but talk about to go do the introduction so I'll turn it over to Kelly to talk a little bit about another aspect of the department that she reads in the transition program and introducer and it was

089athletic day or character day and this is the only real Jersey I had so um I want to introduce Jenny Collins she is our transition coordinator for our 18 to 21 year old program um that's a portion of the program we didn't talk about when we too much about special ed and um she has a lot of great things that she's doing and I'm going to open it up for her to share and she can tell you more about herself and her background as well thank you very much Kelly so welcome to transition 18 and Beyond it's posted at the Stoughton youth center and out in the community at various places there we go okay so this is our transition mission statement that we came up with we believe that anybody can share Talent and

090gifts with proper support in place everyone can be involved in their community and have Community participation foreign not about me but you're probably wondering who is this person so I'll tell you a little bit about me um I graduated in 2005 with a bachelor's degree in Psychology from Carroll University I then moved to working for family business from 2005 to 2018 I worked as a sales manager finance manager and had a background in accounting and marketing so I'm a second career teacher I earned my Master's Degree at Edgewood in 2018 in special like education my husband was born and raised in stone Vikings varsity football number number 52 so I bleed purple I love this community and the families here when I moved here 12 years ago I thought to myself I never want to

091leave here and this is why I wanted to work for sasd I wanted to be able to impact the families in my own community so with my special education background and my business background transition is a really good fit for me I'm very passionate about helping students with disabilities find employment skills or find jobs that are really good fit for them and behind me I have my EA since I'm not going to age her but she's been here since 2006 and in transition that works with us she does some job coaching as well in transition so this next slide is kind of the nitty-gritty about DPI and the requirements for transition babe and what Wisconsin defines as maximum age which in the state of Wisconsin is 21. in most cases students will graduate in the

092four-year cohort just like their peers without disabilities but in some cases that doesn't happen in these cases we need to look at post-secondary goals and making sure that we meet faith so I'll just pause for a second to let everybody read through this slide so all parents when for student graduates thanks gosh what is my student going to do but I think especially parents of students with disabilities think gosh what's next and it can be really overwhelming so when I first meet with parents who have seniors who are eligible for transition these are some of the most asked questions that I get um so I'll give you a minute to read through this slide and the last question is definitely the most frequently Asked question that causes a lot of anxiety and more emotion and

093that is what if something happens to me so these are some of the things that we're doing to address those questions these are examples of the goals that we have in transition and really if you look at these These are goals for all people that will impact the quality of one's life especially building a daily healthy routine and supporting the students in building that routine as well as supporting the student and family after 21. connecting them with DVR or adrc to support continued employment and lifestyle after they leave us at sasd well these are some just general transition timelines and things that we do in each year we have the students however just know that this will vary a lot from student to student some will take the full three years to work on these

094goals and others will reach the goals faster finding suitable employment and are ready to transcend transition out before the three years are over programming is always focused on disability related needs in IEP goals so here are some examples of things that we work on in transition so most students have not ever held a job when they come to transition so just working on some of those very basic vocational skills soft skills and what it looks like to be a good employee how to maintain employment all of those things are very important skills that we teach in transition people with disabilities brings so much to the workplace mostly positive attitude they are so happy and they want to be at that job it's a huge part of their day when they go so diversity to the

095workplace productivity levels they're very productive when they go to work insights on how to serve customers with disabilities because they have a disability some of these fun facts that a lot of people don't know people with disabilities tend to seek stable and reliable work when searching for a job they like things to stay the same so if you look into different studies people with disabilities had an 80 percent lower turnover rate than people without disabilities and also studies show that the average attendance rate for a person with a disability is higher than a person without a disability and some of these are just businesses that we've worked with either in the past in transition or currently we have business Partnerships with a lot of these places the community has been very welcome and open to

096us coming and a lot of times when we go to meetings we just discuss what their needs are as a business and also what our needs are as a transition program so I'm grateful for those connections so here are some sample schedules um students have different levels of supports in place depending on their disability related needs privacy is always very important here so we've removed all like student identifiers out of these schedules just so you can see what their day looks like this student has a paid job in volunteering they enjoy in addition to some life skills and independent living skills that we work on so this is student B this student also has a job placement and a volunteer placement this student loves to have lunch in the community two times per week they

097take some of the money that they earn at their job and spend it on lunch in the community and that's motivating to them this student also has fitness goals and some safety goals and some speech in language and OT services that they receive this is student C student C is a more independent maybe a second to third year student in the transition program this student does not like mornings and they don't like to wake up in the morning so they have a job in a volunteer position in the afternoons then we go grocery shopping and we make lunches for the week that they prepare in the kitchen at the youth center with the food they bought at the grocery store so we hosted a transition fair in March of last year this was a resource

098for transition age families I would say the target for was Middle School to high school and Beyond was the target population it was super well attended families had really good feedback for us they made connections with different Community agencies and we are planning another for March in 2024 so please attend it's a great thing we had a lot of really great people so here's just a few more pictures from the transition pair you invited other districts as well we did yeah so we had people I think the furthest was water who somebody came from water well the things you can do to support transition at sasd everybody asked me Natasha what can I do to help you a lot please help me spread the word about the program students are always in need of vocational

099or training placements tell business owners that you know or hiring managers about our program Community connections and collaboration is essential for successful transition programming I connect with the Chamber of Commerce on a monthly basis they have been very supportive and helpful in helping me find students placements any opportunities that you hear of that it could be a good fit for us maybe you're out for dinner with a friend and they hear about a job at a different business that's local that would be a good fit for us please call me or give them my contact I left contact cards and brochures in front of you so you have my contacts sorry so this is just a resource page for families and students this was some of the agencies that attended the transition fair with us

100and thank you so much for the opportunity this was a privilege to come here and speak to you guys want my transition program so thank you very much do you guys have any questions I have a question but I have a comment I'm a teacher at the deaf and hard of hearing and I have students in transition so if you've not in other districts I don't have any students in this District but if you've not had any experience with transition before it's always my favorite place to go we're always happy when I get students in transition since it's just a wonderful program and it sounds like you've got a wonderful program here so thank you so much I'm gonna go with Mia and then I also just have a comment um I attended the fair

101transition fair with my middle school age daughter and it was great I mean I think this idea of starting the conversation early with them is amazing and for her to see all the resources and she was particularly interested in looking at all the college resources that would be available and that was that was great because I've heard her reference some of the things that some of the college people snapping the tables told her on that night and so it clearly made a big impression and I'm just thrilled to see that you're doing it again that's a nice comment thank you I just want to say I appreciate your energy I think you're doing great things the trans transition fair was spectacular and I think that how successful it was was demonstrated and then other parents

102from other districts that came so I think it was very badly needed so thank you for having that idea and doing that my daughter is a product of student transition program she has had the job that was developed for her during transition now for five years and I know the research and transition is of kids leave school with a job there five times more likely to keep that job into or to be employed in adulthood if kids leave school and transition without a job a lot oftentimes they remain unemployed so the focus on getting that job for kids before they exited 21 is so important the other thing I just appreciate about appreciate about the Stone's transition program is its focus on community I think maybe it would be easy to not know that in

103other districts transition programs can be be really segregated and they happen back in the high school in some back classroom where kids are 18 and they still have to go back to high school and they're in a transition program in a place that's not really about community so the fact that this and I know it takes a lot of resources and coordination to have it out in the community but for kids to eat lunch in the community and be kind of learning in adult life is so important to this experience so I just thank you for always keeping that focus on community and learning real life adult skills out in the community and then just hoping that every kid that leaves that program has a paid job when they exit because it's so important and

104I know your book all focusing on that so thank you um sure thank you so much for presenting today and I know that you've been looking forward to doing this and so I'm so happy to that the Gloria's got a chance to hear uh how much your and your bowling scratches this board should note like when you see around the community I don't think there's a time that I don't see you talking to an employer or a business owner or following up on a lead or whatnot so I just thank you for all all the help and actually something I learned tonight in listening to speak was do you have a geographic footprint for this because I was thinking about how broad our district is and so we theoretically could have students in the transition

105program that are all the way in College Grove or close to Edgerton do you try to keep a lot of the resources and and job placements close to Stoughton property how far yeah usually I do try to keep them close to Stoughton but yes we've gone outside of Stoughton for different various reasons as well um but we have a lot of local resources just here yes so I think that it's important to support the community you live in Mia um one question that I have is I I recall from our um business honor roll nomination that some of the nominees were um employers who support the um transition program and I guess I'm wondering if there's something that we as the board could be doing ancillary to that um Honor Roll But sort of as

106a recognition of those businesses that oh yeah I very I think it's super important to recognize the businesses that welcome us so I if he saw I put on the Fly deck I put different you know business because that's so important without those business relationships you just don't have as much programming so um can you I mean more people just talking about it I think is just huge you know to tell people about it grow for dinner with friends or you know any of that so just tell people about the program because we have so many different things that we can bring into businesses that are so positive so yeah and I guess it thinking forward if you Leah or another way that the board could recognize those businesses you know we could do a

107certificate or something you know if you whatever your idea of that because you're the ones in closest contact with them that's something that might be meaningful for those businesses yeah I'm sure I at least would be happy to hear that and discuss it with my board I'm sure that we've between we have a lot of collaboration here between um coordinators though I think between you could talk about and definitely come up with something that would be meaningful for those businesses because that's just really important there could be some kind of award ceremony or something at the transition there for that yeah that's good some of them to think about yeah thank you Jenny and I would publicly like to thank all of the businesses that are participating in the transition program locally I think that

108that is a marker of this community and something we should all be proud of you're welcome thank you thanks so much I mean she worked very hard on the communication so thank you so much thank you okay um so we are on to meeting closing 6A is a recap of action items and the one item I wrote down is that Dan and Dr albrin will follow love around the Asian American and among American history and where that plays into our regular curriculum so if you can follow up with the board on that and thank you Simon for bringing that up I think that was really good to point that out are there any other action items that I'm missing I don't know if it was an excited but we talked about disaggregating the data to

109include special ed going for experience with disabilities yes data segregation is very good okay anything else all right uh future meetings I can read them off we have regular board meetings on October 2nd and 16th committee meetings governance is meeting on the 25th the ERC on the 27th educational opportunities on the second culture and climate on the ninth long-range planning on the 10th legislative on the 11. uh what is CRST community relations on the 16th and then governance again on the 23rd an ERC on the 25th there is a annual meeting in there somewhere on the 26th of October that I hope to see many community members attending sorry 23rd 23rd sorry October 23rd thank you Erica don't listen to me if there are no further uh that German has been moved and seconded all

110in favor any opposed any abstentions