Three Lakes Board of Education Meeting September 2025

001All right, I will call the meeting to order. Hello everyone. Welcome to the September meeting of the Three Lakes Board of Education. If everyone could please rise for the pledge of allegiance. [Music] >> I pledge allegiance to the flag of the United States of America and to the republic for which it stands, one nation under God, indivisible, with liberty and justice for all. All right. Next, we'll move into administrator report on the agenda posting and notification of the meeting to the media. The agenda was posted at Three Lakes School and Sugar Camp School via email. The town of Three Lakes, Town of Monaco, and Town of Sugar Camp, and the Denver Library. Media notified via email included the Bis County News, the Northwoods River News, WRJ News, and WXPR Radio. The media notified by mail

002was WAC, WATK radio. Thank you. Next, are there any amendments to the agenda? >> There are not. >> Hearing none, I would take a motion for the agenda. >> I'll make a motion to accept the agenda as posted. >> Second. Motion by Stacy, second by Josh. All those in favor of the motion signify by stating I. >> I. Opposed. And heard. Motion carries. Next we move into approvals. Approve the minutes of the August 20th, 2025 regular meeting. Any additions or changes to the minutes? And thank you Nikki for posting the minutes. If there are no changes, I'll take a motion on the minutes. >> I'll make a motion to approve the minutes as presented. >> I'll second. >> Motion by Mitch, second by Brian. All those in favor of the motion signify by stating I

003>> I opposed. Motion carries. Next, we move to the treasurer's report. Make a motion to approve the checks dated August 14th, 2025 through September 11th, 2025 for accounts payable regular checks number 131458 through number 131544. Manual checks number 5932 through number 5952 and wire transfers number 2025 000022 through number 20250069 in the amount of 532,328 and a payroll checks number 90000004 6371 through number 9000046521 and manual payroll checks number 1 1989 through number 2022 and manual payroll checks avoided reversed number 1 1989 through number 2022 in the amount of $275,626.34 or a total amount of $88,762. >> Second motion for the treasures report by Mitch, second by Josh. All those in favor of the motion signify by stating I >> I opposed. Motion carries. Next we move to public comments. Do we have any comments

004from visitors regarding specific genda items? You have a space in the agenda to talk. Okay. Hearing none, we'll move on to the administrator's report with a start of 2025 2026 school year update. >> Yes, I just wanted to give you a brief update on the start of the school year. Um, I think it's a good thing we're just into week three, but it feels like we've been here for a while. It feels like routines are in place. Everybody is adjusted. Kids are doing great. Um, we did have a little bit of a hiccup the first day or two with our Monaco bus route going out that way. Um, a lot of our moveins were there and it made some extended bus times that got a little bit longer. So, we did some rerouting and some

005sharing and we were able to take off a good 12 minutes or so. The nice thing is we have a lot of kids moving into that area and they're joining us. So, that seems to be a good thing. We have plenty of room on the bus. The bus is not over capacity. Um, we just had to make sure we wanted to shorten up the routes a little bit. Our Friday is our first Friday count. So, we don't have anything official yet, but I just wanted to give you a brief update where we're standing today. These numbers are still fluctuating. Last year at the uh third Friday count, we had 507 students. This year, we're already at 533. So, we've had a significant increase in enrollment. Um the difference in there is we have some kids

006that were open and rolling out who are open and rolling in or staying in, I should say. and um so there's less going out. Currently, our numbers are outgoing 64 and incoming 89. So that's a brief update there. Um I've been real pleased. The principles seem like things are going well. Maybe I shouldn't speak for them, but they're still smiling, so I'm taking that as a positive. It's been a good start. It feels great to have the kids back in school as well as the staff. >> Great. Thank you. Okay, next we move into new business starting uh with the introduction of our new staff. Very good. Well, this is one of my favorite things that we do at the start of the year. Um Mr. Zeus is not here tonight, so I'm going to

007speak for him. I think we'll start off with Paula Hayes. Paula, would you like to introduce yourself? >> I guess I don't know if I stand, so >> Yeah, sure. Um, my name is Paula Hayes and I come to you from Wasa, Wisconsin. Um, I was a teacher there for 32 years and so now I'm working part-time here in Three Lakes. Um, I'm enjoying your small school after having a school of 1100. It feels very intimate and I'm enjoying it. Um, these girls here, Paige and Aya and Libby. Um, among the many. And every time I say, "Hi, my name is Mrs. Hayes." The kids respond with, "It's a pleasure to meet you." And I'm just it's it should be shocking, but it's just shocking. So, um, everything from, um, them growing micro greens in

008the cafeteria to having chickpeas for lunch. Um, it's been a great start and it's been very welcoming from staff like Jen to help me navigate as well as many others. So, um, what I've been working on in your library, um, libraries are like gardens. They need to be tended and yours hasn't been tended in a little while, so it needs a little bit of upkeep. Um, I've been working on some directional for the kids. Here's what you did have these little dots and it's really hard to see and I'm old and so what I'm changing the labeling to is something that's a little bit brighter. So I'm they had pink for fantasy. I'm making pink for romance so it kind of matches. And then also they had these really small book one book two. I'm

009making it so it's really easy for the kids to see. Um I don't know if you have any we're adding we added some subscriptions this year. So, um, from my last school, one of our most popular was Gale Opposing Viewpoints. And what it does is it offers opportunities for kids to research pros and cons, just tons of information that's accessible to them. Um, you can also take digital notes in there. Um, at the elementary level, we added Pebble Go and Pebble Go Next. You can think of it as a encyclopedia on steroids, but it takes the chatter away so that they just see the information that's in front of them. Um, something else that we are implementing is Newella. And what it does is it takes articles and rewrites them at five different levels so

010that teachers can differentiate for kids so they can all read about the same thing, talk about the same thing at their level. Um, one subscription that we're waiting for is Swink and it is a streaming digital service that allows teachers to bridge that copyright. Like when we buy a DVD and we bring it into school right now, it's for personal use. So even when teachers show it, it's really not intended for that. Sway encourages that copyright to make it legal. And there's over 200 movies available, plus teachers have a 24-hour notice for thousands of movies that kind of go through me that they can get into their classrooms right away. So moving us forward, um we're also looking at digitizing um with Flet so that books will come processed. So, it's not going to be

011as much time on my part as well as Kesha who's now covering both Sugar Camp and um Three Legs. So, moving everything forward and it's been a lot of fun. Um it's been interesting to see how other people do it because I was in the same district for 30 years. So, you're trying to figure out and navigate what was done and then trying to make it so that it's moving into the 21st century. So, I appreciate being here and it's been fun. Everything except the drive. living up here. But it's Yeah, I miss my home a little bit, so I got to figure that out. So, thank you. >> Thanks, Paula. Very happy you're here, Adam. >> Oh, that's me. >> That's you. >> I'm really excited to be here. I come from Rashholt, Wisconsin,

012and prior to that, Rhinelander. So excited to be another Rhinelander transplant. There's a few of them that are at Three Lakes. Um, I know I've got some big shoes to fill with Mr. busco, but I hope that I'm up to the challenge, but just excited to be here and the first two and a half weeks have been fantastic. Can't tell you how much I've enjoyed being here so far. >> Well, we are really glad to have you. Thank you for joining us. >> Yep. Thanks so much. >> Thank you. Um Carrie, you want to talk about Maddie? I don't see Maddie tonight, but >> Maddie is not here, but Maddie is um a new speech and language pathologist um servicing Three Lakes and then she's also serving in the DHH, deaf and heart of hearing

013role in early childhood. So, she's been a great addition for our staff and we're happy to have her here. >> Let's have you talk about Courtney for us for a moment. >> Sure. Um Courtney Howser is um she's serving as a special education parah and she's actually an educational interpreter for one of our littlest learners. Um so she's been great to have here too and she's she's from Cranon but likes wearing blue. >> She made that very clear to us. So yep, it's nice to have her here as well. >> And you might as well round out with Shannon. Shannon. Yes, Shannon is um serving as a special education pair professional in Sugar Camp. She is also doing some driving for us um for some of our students who are are doing some other type

014of programming. So, it's great to have her on board, too. >> And Steve, would you like to just say a few words about Sue Schmidt? >> Yep. Uh Mrs. Sue Schmidt has taken over the second grade in Sher Camp. So, she's got a 20 plus class there and she's moved right in and is enthusiastic and happy to be in Sugar Camp and Three Lake School District for sure. >> Very good. We were very fortunate again that we had such a a wonderful group of people willing to join us. I'm just thrilled. I think we're all very pleased with the new additions to the Blue Jay family. So, thank you everybody >> and thank you for coming. uh especially your library update. That's amazing. So, keep up the great work. >> Okay, next new business. We'll

015move to October meeting date. Okay, we have couple of meetings in October. Our budget hearing and annual meeting will be October 22nd at 6 p.m. here in the boardroom. And what we would like to do, which will require an action, is move our um regularly scheduled board meeting to October 22nd to follow the annual um meeting and budget hearing. So that is a week out from what we normally do it, but it's important for Caleb's purposes that we can go ahead and approve that budget right after we have that meeting. [Music] And did you want to add in about the retreat? >> Sure. Um just the a couple of things about the um fall retreat. Northern Lakes Conference is is having a school board fall retreat and that's scheduled for October 15th. That does open

016us up since we are going to move the regularly scheduled meeting from then until the 22nd. However, I wanted to point out too that our regional meeting is October 16th at Monqua and I do realize as a board you have parenting commitments and sports commitments and it's a really tight month but I just wanted to bring that forward so you all were aware of what's on the calendar. >> Okay. Can we get a motion when ready for the October meeting date? I'll make a motion to set the regular school board meeting date to October 22nd, 2025 immediately following the annual budget meeting at 6 PM in the board. We'll >> second. >> We have a motion by Stacy, second by Mitch. All those in favor of the motion signify by stating I >> I opposed.

017None heard. Motion carries. Next, we move to set the 2026 graduation date. And I >> Are you sure you girls want this? >> We could skip this item. We're probably looking forward to that. Um I will speak on Mr. Zeus's behalf again. Uh we do this every year. Our regular um plan has been for years that graduation is set for the Friday before uh Memorial Day. So this year that will be Friday on May 22nd at 700 p.m. in the Three Lakes High School gym. Any questions, concerns? If there are none, is someone ready to make a motion on this? >> I'll make a motion to hold graduation for the 2025 2026 school year on 5226. >> I don't really want to do that. >> I'll second. >> We have a motion by Stacy, second

018by Mitch. All those in favor of the motion signify by stating I. I. I >> opposed. >> Motion carries. It's okay, Stacy. >> I know. I've already got goosebumps and tears. Stop it. >> We still have a few months. >> Um can Next, we move to consider approval of the personnel report. >> This month we have a couple of um changes in hirings. We have Cara Miller hired as the assistant junior high volleyball coach. And as resignations, we have Amy Shanki from Sugar Camp Parrofessional. Can somebody make a motion on this as well? >> I'll make a motion to approve the personnel report as presented. >> Second. >> Motion by Brian, second by Josh. All those in favor of the motion signify by stating I. >> I. Opposed. None heard. Motion carries. I think you're

019up, girls. Next, we move to consider request for an off-campus location for the October 4th, 2025 homecoming dance. >> Um, we wanted to ask permission. >> What's your name? >> I'm Paige Bradford. >> Okay. >> And I'm Haya Connor. I'm Libby. Um, we wanted to ask permission to hold the 2025 homecoming at the writer center and we already got permission from the writer center >> and the cl the student council voted on it. >> Some of like our reasons why we are interested in this because we think that it's a nice change of scenery just because I think a lot of times in three lakes things can kind of just be like here's how you do it, let's just keep doing it that way which is tradition is totally amazing but I think that it

020It's a good thing sometimes just to get a new area. It's um really nice and airy and open and I think it will give some more space and um it's also free too which is really nice. So we don't have to pay anything for it. It's a $200 down deposit and then we get it back after. So yeah, >> that's nice. >> Which is handled by student council? >> Yes. >> Okay. >> Any other details? I can provide one. Uh I do have a total of four people lined up to chaperon the event which I believe was the same number we used at prom last year which was also offsite. >> Okay. Has three lakes been made aware also the PD >> I'm sorry. >> Has Three Lakes been made aware all as well? Three

021Lakes PD >> not yet. >> Okay. >> Wanted to know where it was going to be held first. Okay. Okay. Any other questions for the ladies? Is anyone willing to make a motion? >> I'll make a motion to approve the homecoming bands on October 4th, 2025 at the writer center as presented. >> Second. >> Motion by Mitch, second by Stacy. All those in favor of the motion signify by stating I. >> I. >> Opposed. Unheard. Motion carries. Thank you girls for coming in. Great idea. >> You can stick around. if you want to. >> Have fun, ladies. >> Thank you. >> All right. Next, we move to consider approval of the spring 2026 music and band program trip. >> Mr. Lingren, our guest. >> My name is Justin Lingren. I'm your band director uh here

022for the Sugar Camp and the Three Lakes campuses. Um the high school uh has been looking last year and this year our music department was looking at doing a trip for the kids. It's been a while since they were allowed to do something outside of Three Lakes besides like the parades, things like that. So we had been looking into something. Nothing worked out. Uh but the during the u inservice this year uh we discovered that Hamilton was going to be playing in Chicago. And uh that's it's an extremely popular musical uh if you know anything about it. is also very much based in uh US history and uh again being theater uh we thought it might be interesting if we actually expanded our our our network and invited the social studies and the English departments

023with as well. So we're actually looking for is a a school high school trip not just the music department. Uh and the the the teachers are all on board uh with that. We we've had a couple meetings just to talk about it. Uh, it came up fast, so we had to do a lot of movement. Um, my co-orker Jesse contacted a travel group, but I've done a number of trips with other schools that I worked with over the years, and so I did some side digging on my own. Uh, so we came up with a proposal from the tour company that looked exactly like the one that I put together. Um, so what we're here doing today is, uh, requesting permission to take students out of the state because we would have to go to

024Chicago. We're looking for a 3-day trip. We would leave after school on April 7th. It's a Tuesday. It's the first Tuesday. It's the first day of the fourth quarter. So, we'd stay for the first day of the fourth quarter. We'd leave after school. We would spend Wednesday in Chicago. Uh that would be the day of the the production for the musical. We would then also go see the shed aquarium and possibly the Museum of Illusions. Right now, we can't get tickets this far out to any of those other places, but we've we've been looking at price, things like that. Um, the musical is at 7:00 p.m. Uh, so we'd spend one more night then after the musical was done in Chicago, get up in the morning. We're looking at the Museum of Science and Industry

025to hit in the morning and and drive back Thursday evening to Three Lakes. Uh, the approximate return time would be 8:00 p.m. uh on on that Thursday. So, that's what we're looking at. The tour company came in with a price of $522 per student if we uh brought in approximately 40 45 students. Uh the numbers that I crunched, I think I can get about $200 a student cheaper if we just do it ourselves. Uh so I'm looking at three about 350 right now with I didn't I didn't put a meal in there, but that's easy to add on. I think I can get closer to 300 depending what we get. If we can fill a bus, it's going to be cheaper. That's 50 kids, but we're looking between 40 to 50 students. We've had 40

026students that said they were interested and that wasn't a poll of the entire high school yet at this point, but that's what we're looking at. So, we're basically looking at permission to to finalize and start. I've already bought tickets for Hamilton because they would those those are for sale and are already selling out. Um, but if you say no, that's fine. I'm only up 400 bucks. Um, $1,600 for the tickets, but that actually came in at a screaming deal. They gave they gave us student pricing. was $30 a ticket to go see uh a production at the uh CIBC theater in uh Chicago. Uh one of the top grossing musicals of all time. Very popular. Just had a movie come out um for $30. Yeah, we're up against the back row, but it's okay. You

027can still see. Uh it's worth it's worth the trip. And I was just I was floored by the price cuz they said our student price would be 53. So for them to come in another 23 less per ticket was I was like I I hope I hope we can do this. So here to ask permission of the board if we could take the kids out of state for three days. >> Any feedback from administration? >> Yes. Um I talked with Mr. Zeus. He's very much in favor of this. Um we always bring anything that is overnight, you know, before you. I think it's really a unique experience where they actually are combining not just the music program. I was really tickled when I heard that because what a cultural experience and get out of our

028own Northwoods to to see a city, let alone, you know, this opportunity. So, I think it's very supportive. This gives Mr. Lingren and Miss Westfall and everybody else time to get their ducks in a row and get things ready. And um I feel very comfortable with this. >> Thank you for coming and presenting and giving the kids another opportunity. Appreciate it. My pleasure. >> Anyone willing to make a motion? >> I'll make a motion to approve this. >> Sorry. Any questions? >> Are you guys going to be doing some fundraising to help with this or is this going to be >> So, the music department has done fundraising for years. I actually told the kids we've got enough money in our in our account for the band students that we have. We could go three

029times and they would never have to pay. >> Uh so there's been fundraising done. I think the choir has the same. Uh kids on the other side, I think we have opportunities that we can do that with. I know they're still looking for groups to do concessions and things like that. We could get on the board uh to to do some of that and Aaron and Miss Hermanson and the other teachers are all in there, too. So, uh I we want to make it as accessible for as many students as possible. That's part of the reason why I said listen, let's try to forego the the tour guide because if we can save 200 bucks a kid, that's good. So, but it we're looking at having fundraising opportunities. >> And those other teachers would be

030going at chaprons. We need to have five. If we take 50 students, we need to have five chaprons just for the the museums that we're going to require one for every 10 students. So, the there'd be one from the English department, one from the um social studies department, and um Scott actually volunteered to go along with as well, which would give us five. And Mr. Zoo said that he was okay with that when I spoke to him about that earlier. >> If for some reason you guys have more than 50 interested, I mean, is it first come, first serve? It would have to be we can take the bus can take 56. We'd have room for 51 students because of the chaperoning issue. So, um that that would at that point in time we'd have

031to be who gets the money in first. >> Sure. >> Um and because that's your two man your two biggest expenses are are room board and then transportation. And our bus quote came in at 50 5250 which I thought was actually very good. Uh taking a charter bus with l uh lamers I don't know how to pronounce it. Uh but we would charge. There's no way I'm taking a school bus to Chicago. Um, and then the hotel right now that I have tent to typically booked is Hilton Garden out of Neighborville. They gave it gave us a rate of $129 a night. Uh, based on quad occupancy, 18 rooms. >> Uh, it's pretty good deal. I got five quotes. That was the lowest one. About half hour, 30 mi out of Chicago. It's about an

032hour drive. So, we can get up, kids can sleep in. We don't have to be on the road till 8. So to get to the places we were going to go during the day. >> Great. >> Any other questions? >> Sounds awesome. >> Yeah, >> great opportunity. >> All right. Can we get a motion? >> I'll approve the spring 2026 music band program trip as presented. >> Second. >> We have a motion by Stacy, second by Josh. All those in favor of the motion signify by stating I >> I opposed. None heard. Thank you for coming in. >> There you go. >> I got to get to my music meeting now. >> Okay. Next we move to consider approval of agreements with Nexus Solutions for the design and construction of April referendum work. We have

033Rob Brown. Yes. Let's see there. Rob, can you hear me? >> Gotcha. >> Hi, Rob. >> Perfect. Hi. >> Very good. >> I hope everybody's doing well. There's, uh, been a lot that has been going on since, uh, the April election. First off, uh, Brian, welcome to the board. We haven't talked since, uh, your election. >> So, uh, congratulations. >> Um, with regards to, uh, just all the work underway. We've made substantial progress with sugar camp design as well as three lakes. Um, and I' I'd love to have Terry just, you know, make any mention she thinks appropriate, but uh, we're we're making a lot of great progress and as well as being on budget, uh, from a design perspective. So, things are going very well there, I think. Uh, Terry, would you agree? >>

034Yes. I think that I could update the board and let you know that after our next meeting in two weeks, we'll have the design phase at 75% complete for sugar camp. We're getting close to 50% in Three Lakes. There's not as much to be done in Three Lakes as in Sugar Camp, but there's been a lot of hours of work and the um team that Nexus has put together has worked really well with our team. They've been very receptive to our feedback. you know, our things that we are concerned about with keeping our own personal feel and our Northwoods vibe as well as being the most costefficient and get the best bang for our buck. So, communication has very been very very good with the people at the table and it's a big team that

035Nexus is working. I think there's like 22 to 25 people on our meetings when we get the full group together. Then we break down sometimes into some subgroups, but it's going very well. I think we're right on target for our early November goal to be done with design phase. Would you agree, Rob? >> Absolutely. And the nice thing about that is that uh contractors are most hungry right about that time. So if we go to bid in December, January, uh we're looking at best results, best competitive results for the school districts and your taxpayers. So I think we're in a very good position in the moment. And so with that, unless there's any questions, uh what you have before you are the agreements and uh I' I'd love to just recognize Josh or Caleb, I'm

036sorry, Caleb for all of his work, um with your attorney. Um it's been a long road, but uh ultimately I think we've gotten to a good spot. Um and again what we have before you is the B101 which is the agreement between the owner and the architect. The A133 which is the agreement between the owner and the construction manager and then the A201 which is general conditions uh which supports the uh A133 document. Um the first 21 pages are the B101. The second 21 pages uh would be the A133 and uh ultimately uh what we're hoping for tonight is approval um so that we can uh sign the agreements and um you know continue uh continue on our process and I'm certainly happy to answer any questions that you all might have. >> Caleb, any

037comments? No, I like uh like he said, it was a long process. We we worked with Boman Clark as our representation and it's kind of just been being batted back and forth between between the two parties, making sure that the language is as clear as we want it and the terms are how we want them and at the end of the day late today, we we got the terms where we wanted them and we feel comfortable moving forward. Great. Any other information or feedback, Rob? >> No. From a Nexus's perspective, things are going very, very smoothly. Um, and we're excited to continue on our journey together. And by the way, um, thanks to the board, Terry and her team, uh, frankly, the entire community for your trust so far. Um, trust is earned. it's not

038given and we hope to continue to earn that trust through this process. If uh there are any comments, you guys hear anything at all um both good and perhaps not good, please let Terry know. And I know Terry will reach out to me. We talk as often as we need to. Um but we do want to make sure that uh not not only do we deliver what was promised, but on time, on budget, and we continue to make the Three Lake School District look fantastic. you know, build on the legacy that you guys have had for so long. >> Appreciate that. >> Any questions or comments from the board to Rob >> at this time? Do you just to go as is. >> Okay. Um is anyone ready to make a motion regarding the agreements

039um as is? I'll make a motion to approve the approval of agreements with Nexus Solutions for the design and construction of April refund work as presented. >> Second. The packets are here for the five of us. Does anyone want to go through look at any of those before we vote on the agreements? >> Are we comfortable? >> I mean, I think Caleb is the >> is the one that July >> just making sure >> I trust >> the district's interests are protected. Just making sure. Right now we have a motion by Mitch, second by Stacy. All those in favor of the motion signify by stating I. >> I. Opposed. >> None heard. Motion carries. Thank you, Rob, for being on with us. >> Thank you. Have a good night. >> You, too. >> Bye. >>

040Thank you, Caleb, obviously, for all your hard work. and we're going into budget cycle as well. Um, so for you and Terry and the team, um, thank you for continuing to run this to the ground. Okay. Next, we move to consider approval for the boys soccer co-op renewal between Three Lake School District and Phelps School District for the 2026, 2027, and 2027, 2028 school years. >> Good evening, Miss Ellis. Do you want to step forward? >> I don't remember here. >> Hi. >> Here I am. Newly uh loving the dream of athletic director first order of business co-ops. So um talking with Brad, coach uh Wman is in favor of continuing um and supporting um the co-op with self school district for the soccer team. Boys soccer team is our fall sport. [Music] Do we

041do we know uh like the number situation? How many? >> There are currently three Phelps players. >> Okay. >> On the soccer team. >> And they're real happy to be here. It's really nice and and it is neat to see the relationship that the the boys make among amongst the years and stuff. I mean it is it's it's nice. It works well for them. >> So are these numbers right where it's seven 17 of ours and three of theirs? That's >> total. >> Mhm. Is there enough there where we need to start looking into I mean if the numbers are going to be >> numbers are a concern the quote end quote from Brad. >> Yeah. >> Numbers are a concern with boy soccer and he says we need Phelps. >> I'm not saying bad

042in this case saying you know is does there need to be some JV or you know other games that need to be added when numbers are that level. I realize it might just be a one-year thing, but even if we do have 16 next year rather than 20, that still might be enough. >> Fair question. I would love to find out. >> I can answer I can actually answer it. It's a clear parent clear. Um, please. >> So, there are there has been already talks of trying to get some like JV games with teams that have a JV team. Um, so I know Brad is actively trying to do that and he's doing a really good job of when it is appropriate kind of having like an A and a B team and like switching

043the whole team out and like only leaving a few starters in. I mean it it's been kind of fun to see that and it's very cool because the team gets really excited and it it I mean I Yeah, it's cool. So it's Brad's doing a very good job of trying to get all all the kids involved. So that's wonderful. Yeah, it's a very good question. So, >> question answered. >> Love it. Love it. [Music] >> Unless you have other questions. >> Is anyone willing to I just want you to stand up there awkwardly for a while. >> I'll be here all day. >> Is anyone ready to make a motion? I'll make a motion to approve the boys soccer co-op renewal between three lake school district and 12 school district for the 2026 2027 and

0442027 2028 school years. >> Second motion by Stacy, second by Brian. All those in favor of the motion signify by stating I >> I opposed. None heard. Motion carries. >> Girls cross country. >> Booyah. On to cross country. H girls it would be the same situation. talking with coach Lewendowski is the head coach for both boys and girls but this bullet is specifically to girls which we currently have well two high school girls and two middle school the middle school program is growing so there's a lot lot coming up um in the way of cross country so the girls is the portion of this that has more involved with the Phelps program but Lori likes including them is is also in favor of supporting the co-op with the Phelps School District >> and and the

045numbers here are that much more minute as far as like qualification in some of these events, right? So, I think last year they were one girl short in every event until the last one in the junior high level to qualify as a team. So, they could run individually, but they couldn't get medals as as a team because they were one one short. So, like two is a big difference. >> Yeah. >> Okay. Any questions on this one? Anyone ready for a motion? >> A motion to approve the girls cross country co-op renewal between three legs school district and felt school district for 2026, 2027, and 2027 2028 school years. >> I'll second. >> Motion by Brian, second by Mitch. All those in favor of the motion signify by stating I >> I opposed. None heard.

046Motion carries. Next we move to consider approval of the boys cross country co-op between Three Lake school district and Phelps School District. Two out of three. There are currently so this is the obvious call out. There are no boys currently part of the Phelps or part of cross country that are from Phelps. But as cross country is ran as the group and it is separated by boys and girls just due to running times, it would be wonderful to also include the boys as the opportunity to continue on for the next two years as part of our co-op with Phelps. >> We only have two for boys. >> Mhm. >> In high school. That is true. >> Okay. Any questions or concerns on this one? If there are none, can we get a motion on this

047co-op? I'll motion to approve the boys cross country co-op renewal between Three Lake School District and Hill School District for 2026 to 2027 and 2027 to 2028 school years. >> Second. >> Motion by Brian, second by Mitch. All those in favor of the motion signify by stating I. >> I. I opposed. None heard. Motion carries. Thank you, Mrs. Ellis. >> Thank you. >> Okay, next we move to discussion on community eligibility provision, free school meals for all students. >> Okay, Caleb is going to lead this conversation. Um a few months ago, maybe a little bit longer ago now, um we had talked about looking at what that would mean to be able to offer free school lunch for all students within the district. And we have to have a very fiscally responsible and sound program.

048We always do run at a deficit. That is just the way uh lunch programs tend to go. But Caleb went ahead and he did some number crunching for you and is able to share with you some of the information and budgetary factors that he could help enlighten us. >> Sure. So, um, this discussion can kind of be whatever you guys want it to be. Um, as it's just a discussion item here and I'm free to answer any questions, but I'll give you just a little bit background into how this would look if we were to uh go to free lunch for all of our students. The most cost-effective way of doing that would be um enrolling in the community eligibility provision. We qualify uh for that provision by having a free and reduced lunch uh

049percentage higher than 25%. We're right around 29% right now. That will that threshold was lowered from 30 uh a couple years ago. So we qualified. Uh the way that program works is that ratio that 29% um gets multiplied by 1.6 and that's how many of our meals would be reimbursed at the full um reimbursement rate for like free lunches like in how it would be in the national school lunch program. The rest of them would be reimbursed at the paid rate. So the full rate uh is much higher than the paid rate. So, let me just pull these up so I've got the actual numbers here just so you understand how big of a difference that is. Um, so the full shoot here, the full rate is $4.69 coming back and then the paid is

05053. So, with our last year's numbers, when we qualified, uh, cuz it's taken on April 1st, we would have 47% of our meals reimbured at the full free and 53% at the 53 cents paid. Once you get to about 39 to 40%, you hit the threshold where it no longer matters what your percentage is. All of them are just um, reimbured at that full rate. So, we're about 10% away from that. And honestly, I I don't see us getting there anytime soon. In fact, I think our number is probably going to go down a little bit this year based on our increasing enrollment and then just the number of students we're seeing so far with free reduced lunch. So what I did um is calculate then how much we would get if we just claimed

051our normal national school lunch reimbursement versus if we were enrolled in this C program. And the C program comes out ahead. Um for lunch we're about $10,000 more a year in revenue and breakfast we're about a thousand more. So, we definitely would receive more money coming back from the federal government from that pro um program. However, the student revenue would plummet because we're no longer requiring students to have to pay uh for their lunches. So, that's kind of the balancing act you're playing is does the federal reimbursement outweigh what would be lost in the student? And the long and the short of it is uh right now it's about an $83,000 difference that um we would have to make up in order to kind of break even with where we are right now. Um, as

052Terry had said, um, we're we're running a deficit in food service and I I just don't see how we're not going to with how it's currently set up. So, um, this year our budget for fund 50 is about $103,000 deficit. And if we were enrolled hypothetically this year in the C, I would project it to be about 186,000 deficit. So, I'm I'm open to any questions you have or want to facilitate any discussion. Um, but that that's the information I can present right now. I thought it was important that Caleb give you some more um in-depth information because I think sometimes there's a misconception when a community hears that it's a a free school lunch program. That means all the money is going to be coming from the federal government or the federal and the

053state government. There's no money from the state government. They've talked about it for years and that has never come to be in the budget. But to actually go to the C program, it would be even a more substantial loss to the district. However, if the district wants to think about something like that, that's the kind of consideration we have before an annual meeting where you know that's something that the district commits to. we are going to provide that as one of the services that for our students in our district. So really wanted you to have the full background information >> and then if this is something that we think that maybe um we're a little bit more interested in pursuing uh as we get into the spring and we get closer to that April 1st

054um uh certification of the free and reduced lunch. I could certainly rerun this again and using this year's actual numbers of meals because of course there's a whole bunch of estimates baked into this with how many meals we're going to serve and you know that that always kind of feels like a crapshoot when you're looking at past meal numbers are kind of up and down and just depends on the clientele. Any questions for Caleb? Thanks for putting that together. >> Yeah, thanks again for doing a lot of work. >> Gil, comparatively um within like local school districts, how do we just compare to our peers as far as >> in maybe average loss per student? Are we kind of right in line there? Are we about the same a little bit more? Do you know?

055>> I don't I wish I did. Something that I definitely should >> just curious actually. Yeah, I I know I know it's a common a common theme at our regional business managers meetings of man, how do we turn around this 150 deficit? And you know, there's not a lot of answers. It's it's you know, you you serve the meals you serve and the kids pay the price that they pay and you know, food prices aren't going down. But Jill's done a great job when I look at our food prices and costs over the last few years. She's really kept those in line and it's it's not the food prices going up that's causing this deficit. It's just kind of things that are >> so if it's something you guys are talking about as a group

056it must be it's it's just everybody. So we're not really out of line then the case. >> Definitely not. I mean there there's ways that other districts can get creative to try to try and do that and I'm I'm open you know with a cart or different things like that to try to make up some of it. But when we're looking at such a number that we're looking at, I mean, I don't know how much of a dent you'd be able to realistically put into it. And it feels just like from like observational point like the students that would qualify for full lunch aren't taking the hot lunch, you know, and then so that there's going to be a deficit right there. >> Yeah. And and our high school utilization is is pretty low. Jill

057Jill's planning for 60 meals a day for our lunch, high school lunch. And obviously it's much higher at the elementary, but as they get older, you know, we got off campus or they bring in bring in their own meals, so they can track macros and all sorts of stuff that I'm hearing. So there's a lot of variables at play here. >> Wow. >> Okay, >> thank you. Anything else from you? No one. Okay. Um, next we move in to consider approval of new WSB meal policies for adoption into the school district of Three Lakes policy book. Normally we wouldn't have a discussion item interjecting right there in the consideration for approvals, but I wanted Caleb to lead this conversation before we go into the meal policies. We talked about meal policies last week. um last

058week, I'm sorry, last month, but we did not do a formal approval of them. We have also added the accommodations um in 760 rule, the accommodations and modifications. We had discussion at the board table as to if we have something that's not related to an IEP or if there's a request from a parent, what could we do? And it seemed to me that the overall um belief of the board was if we can accommodate in a in a a cost-effective manner, we will want to try to do that. The board um or the board doc language, the legal language kind of falls in, we will try to do what we can or no, we live within the letter of the law, there is no accommodations made. So the policies that um Caleb went ahead and

059we landed on just to make sure that we were very clear is we are going to try to meet the needs. There are forms that are also included that parents would have to fill out. Uh it has to be something that's considered reasonable that we can get and be within our cost effectiveness which we believe in general we can do that and we want to be able to do that. And then again they just kind of delineate who the contact is. Um, Caleb is in charge and overseeing food service, but Jill also, you know, she is our food service director. And if there would be any kind of complaint that would potentially come, would it would it be like a uh civil rights complaint, then it would be going through Caleb and Carrie because Carrie

060does that for us as well. So, I know you've had a chance to read them and I didn't write any notes for you on these because they're kind of the boilerplate legal language that we worked on with Scott Mikish and where we want to go with that. Um, but I open it up to any questions that you may have for Caleb or I that we can further clarify. [Music] They all seem pretty, like you say, pretty straightforward, pretty just legally what we need to put. So, >> yeah, they really are. >> If there are no questions on this, is anyone willing to make a motion? >> Make a motion to approve the Bal policies for adoption of the school district. Second, >> we have a motion by Mitch, second by Josh. All those in favor

061of the motion signify by stating I. >> I. Opposed. None heard. Motion carries. Okay. Next, we move to consider approval of new WSB policies for adoption into the school district of three lakes policy book. >> Well, there is a whole pel of them here for you to look at. And um I thought this would be a good opportunity for us to talk a few minutes, talk through the process. What I'd like to do, um, what I did today was just add some of my own notes in the bottom so you can see which each of the policies are, um, why they're coming to you. Most of this is not new or or recreated. It's what we have had in our current policies and it's now merging our old policy book with our board docs uh,

062through the pro policy resource guide. Um, again, our attorney Scott Mkish has been very active working with Nikki and myself to get the policies up and recommending them based on knowing our legal status as a board, as a district, what we need to do. So, with that, tonight, I thought we could just kind of run through each of them quickly, and I'll just highlight the the change or the reason for it. um in the future as we all get trained up and comfortable with it, I'll put the note in there to please do your homework and read it ahead and I'll try to provide notes for you, but we can get to the point where we do a consent agenda. So, if we have several policies in the 100 like board operations, we can go

063ahead and make a a motion and um just call out if there's something you want to talk about a little bit more. So, that's why I wanted to talk it through. How does that sound for a plan? Okay. All right. So then starting with the list, um the 110 school district mission, that is our school district mission. There is no change. It's just that it's now been put into the correct format with the PRG guide 112.1 strategic planning recommendation. Um this is what we have in the past return referred to as our annual board admin staff community retreat. It's truly and technically known as strategic planning. So the language has been updated there, but it's still the process of exactly what we do and that is the change now again being put into the PRG

064language. Any questions on that one? >> All right. Then the next one is the 12.1 long range plan. It's a new exhibit. We currently have policy 1,200 which shows our long range plan but we will each year or every five years actually for the long range plan insert this document into that that format that area in our policy. So um anybody from the public can see what that plan is whenever they want to without having to try to search it out in other places. Then our that's it for the for the 112s. Any questions on those? >> Okay. Then 113. I'm not going to spend a lot of time on that because we've talked a lot about it. The 113s are our non-discrimination um policies. And if you recall, we worked through those and they

065were actually put in place in 2024. And then with the change in administration and the retraction of some of the language, we have to get legally up to speed with the most current of the revisions that were I think just most recently updated in July of 2025. So we've talked about this and listed here are not only what the policy is in 113, but then we have included three rules. Rule one is a district response to the alleged sexual harassment under title nine. This is very procedural. When there is a situation like this, you have to really follow the protocol and make sure that everything is met to the letter of the law. We want to make sure for the sake of legality, for the sake of the potential victim, for all people involved. Um,

066so that outlines that. And then in 13 uh rule two that's getting into um the expectations for employees to report discrimination and harassment. That is also pre procedural and very clear. Uh districts have to be aware of liability and not doing anything is not an acceptable alternative. This gives guidance as to what to do, who to seek out, who to talk to, and that's on top of the training that we do as a staff every year. So, that's out there. And then rule number three, this is the initial district screening of reports or complaints of sexual harassment. Again, it's procedural. It defines the district's responsibilities. It goes into more so that our um person that would be reported to is Mr. Zeus. if there be a conflict of interest with him being in that role

067because he could potentially be somebody who's involved or a witness, whatever the case may be, what the next steps are. So, this just really nails it down in their long policies. They're very legally written, but they are out of federal law and approved by our attorneys that we needed to just bring it up to speed and and update everything. Any questions on 113? Okay. Then 120 the school district legal status. Um it's a new policy as we did not have a published in our board policy. The official name of three lakes school district is the school district of three lakes. That is the official name. We had a lot of investigation on that not too long ago. It was a while ago. But that is how we are listed. We did not have that written

068anywhere in our policy that it was clearly stated and that is really a requirement. So that is why this is now showing in our board docs. Questions about that one. 130 schoolboard legal status. This also replaces the shortened version of the policies 130 and 1600 which are currently in place. This is just updating what already exists and again putting it into the correct formatting. 131 schoolboard elections. This replaces the current version of 131. Uh we had updated that just a couple of years ago, actually 2023. There was a few tweaks with the legal um jargon advice. So that was just wording a couple of words. Scott said it didn't change the the policy really at all, but we want the most updated version within the policy book. questions on that one? Okay. 131, school board

069elections. It replaces the current version of 131. We have this in place as well. It's just the most updated version. And if I hadn't made that clear before, twice a year we get massive updates from policy resource guide in our legal department that have it listed as high priority, medium or low priority in as far as how fast to get things done. So that's where that guidance comes from as well. Then 131 or 133 exhibit 1 is the notification of schoolboard vacancy. This was recommended by our legal um council. It's the official document that we have been using, but there's many choices out there. This just puts it within our policy. Easy access to find. And then exhibit uh did I miss one? >> No, we're all good. Am I on exhibit two or three?

070>> Two. Okay. So the declaration of the eligibility to hold office. This is the official version of the sheet we've been using. You can have it as um technical as it has to be a notorized signature to as informal as an email or a letter that I would like to seek office. Um we fell on what we have been doing. There is a standard form that is recognized. It officially uh lists the name of the person seeking schoolboard office. They have to um be witnessed that that's who they are, but we don't require extra outside um notary notary services and things of that nature. Okay. And then 133 exhibit E, that's the um official document that when that appointment is made to a school board, then we submit that into DPI, WAS, W was all

071those entities that need to know questions on those. Isn't this fun? >> So fun. And then 141, board officers. This just again delineates exactly what the duties are. It's exactly what we do. It just updates us with our most recent um version of policy. And I stopped there because I thought that, you know, the first half of the 100 policies would probably be a real good place for you guys to get your feet wet, get used to reading through those because they do take a while, especially when some of them are 16 pages long. And um we try to make sure it looks kind of pretty and easy for on your eyes when you're looking at it. But I do think it's really important to read through it and um if there's anything that stands

072out that you're not comfortable with, then we have a discussion at the table here or of course when you see what's coming your way, you can always reach out to me in advance and we can talk it through if I can help explain, you know, before we get here. But that's why I'm here and this has been a lot of our course this last summer, hasn't it? Any other questions from you all regarding these policies? No. >> Okay. Anyone willing to make a motion? >> I'll make a motion to approve the WSB policies as presented for adoption into the school district of three lakes policy. >> I'll second. >> Have a motion by Brian, second by Mitch. All those in favor of the motion signify by stating I. I I >> opposed. None heard. Motion

073carries. I know that was a lot to talk about and we have more to go. Thank you. >> By the time we get done, I'll have to start all over. >> It never ends, right? >> Okay. Next, we move to consider approval of the 2025 2026 district annual goals. >> Okay. Thank you, Jen, for getting the finalized pretty document out for us and Nikki for getting to upload it. We do have hard copies for anybody who would like to have um just hand those out. The the district goals for as the result of our strategic planning meeting that we held on September 5th and what I thought we would do is run through the goals. Um this is really the outline. Of course, it doesn't capture the four hours of conversation and really rich discussion.

074I thought it was a really excellent um session that we had. We had great perspective. Brian, thank you. It was really nice having your new perspective as a parent and as a coach. Um and as a community member, that was really helpful for me. Mitch, as well, you brought some new ideas that I thought really helped me see things from a different perspective, too. Um, and I just want to go on record in saying what a fantastic job our student representatives did. They really brought a lot of information and insight to how they see the business of school and that was quite rewarding I think for all of us. So with that I'd just like to get into um our first pillar teaching and learning. This really honestly I think give the people there our

075members a lot of opportunity to talk about it because this is what we do. This is how we do business. The principles and Carrie um uh is are very instrumental in how we do professional development, how we do teaching and learning, how we do assessment and how we are striving to become better educators. better as educators so we can help our students become the best that they can be. So this year we landed on two that are really our focus areas. It's going to be provide professional development learning opportunities for educational staff. And here I have it bulleted out broke it down by what we're doing more of a district-wide level and then some specifics to a couple of the um the different grade levels. So with that, I don't know if you want me

076to read each of them to you, but we are continuing our process with our professional learning. We work really closely with CISA um on our PD planning, and that's what kicked us off a few years ago. We've moved now into the informal and formal assessment process which is really helping us become better assessors, better testers, and get away from, as Steve so nicely and and realistically put it. We don't test just the test. We shouldn't be doing that. We want to know what they know, what they've learned, what they've gotten. Do they have it? If they didn't get it, why didn't they get it? And that's the process that keeps us going. Justin always does his little spiel very nicely and it's true it's always going on in your mind. Well, what what's the next

077part of the story? So, that is moving a along very nicely. We feel like it's humming very well. Our um leadership, Edmond leadership is leading our afterchool sessions. Those are set up and ready to go. We already looked at we already have one next week, next Wednesday evening. So, that's exciting. That's coming up. And um then we are talking about our October 17th full PD day as well. So we're continuing the work on those days. Um we are now at the point where districtwide we're moving to holding data analysis meetings. Data analysis that's your that's what drives your decisions. And it's been happening very regularly at the elementary schools with all the reading data and what we've done. it's expanded into the high school and um but more you know it was more by departments

078and then the junior high has started to look at their data too. We are now committed and have a setup process that we're going to look at it at these levels, but districtwide as well. So, we can really see what's strong in this area, what's maybe a challenge or a concern that we need to shore up. How is that alignment looking with the curriculum? And I know this is the geeky stuff that like I myself really love because this is what we do. Our principles really get it. Um, but you know, on the surface maybe it's like, oh, I always spending so much time in it. Well, this is what helps our students become the best that they can be. So, I feel like we're in a really good place. We've shifted some of our

079our priorities now, especially at the 4K through three to math priorities. We have been heavily immersed in literacy. We are doing well with that. That doesn't change. That just kind of takes a little bit of a back seat now. So, we can bring up our math. Um, as I when I say bring up, I mean bring it to more attention. Our math is doing very well. We're doing solid. I think with more concerted effort, we will even see that grow. Um, at the junior high and high school, they're continuing to build the common writing rubrics across all of the grade levels. This is exciting as it prepares them with what Mrs. Hayes was talking about. she was getting into some of the research skills, some of the needs, so when they leave us for whatever

080their career or or collegebound plan is, they're ready to go. And writing means a lot. And it doesn't have to be just in English. You can write in Viet and make it meaningful. Um, and then looking at our high school and what we're calling our K12 specials because that kind of encompasses our counselors, our art, our music. They're continuing to use their plans to document the priorities of their courses. So, some of them have like seven or eight or maybe more different courses that they're working through and identifying. Um, and and there are various places and that's going very well. I would ask if if Mr. Busco or Mr. Brzinski have anything you want to add to these points. >> Feel feel good. board members who are there. Did you want to share anything else?

081Like I said, we're kind of just giving it to you. This is what we're doing. >> You're allowed to ask, but but this is what we're doing. Okay. And then the second part of that is we're really committed to developing what we've now moved to multiple methods um of assessment, authentic assessment, but what we're really wanting students to be able to do is demonstrate their learning beyond paper pencil. you know, whether it's a conversation, whether it's different choices that they may be working on. We are focused this year heavily on informal, like those are your quick tickets, your quick checks, so you get a real good vibe for where kids are at, what they've learned or what they haven't learned. And it helps the teacher in a very timely manner inform the process and be

082ready to go the next day. And then, um, at our high school level, we're continuing. We were um given um they asked us, I applied and we were accepted into the assessment grant program. So we have a really nice setup working with CISA. We have two coaches, facilitators, and we have about nine days of support that they're going to help working with us within the district to become better at assessments, writing assessments, authentically bringing it to kids. So I'm really excited about that because we don't even have to go to them. They're coming to us. So that's a fantastic opportunity and I a little bragging note which I wasn't aware of until doing the last pre-me with them but they said um Casey Schulz is one of our main facilitators and she said three legs

083right now is being used as you know that's where they're shining their light on what it can be with assessment. They're just really tickled with what's been happening with the staff involvement in the natural teacher leadership that has developed. So really proud of the staff for taking this on. And that's teaching and learning. Now we can move to the other things that are probably more pertinent. Um positive school culture. Um we decided that we're going to continue focusing on embracing our common school uh three lakes school district blue J culture. We're continuing to work on what is a blue jay by finalizing the description of the blue j values that continues. Um, it just seems like that continues to evolve and I give Jen a lot of credit and even our student council and who

084are looking to evolve in our culture as a full district. We're highlighting the community staff and students who already captured what it means to be a Blue Jay. We found with doing the referendum capital videos, it was just so exciting to see, you know, Mr. Kirby who is a former student and a parent and a grandparent and an employee talk about their pride or the students having that same you know or a retired member and we want to continue to highlight all the many people who make up the Blue Jay family the Blue Jay culture and we've decided that we're going to support creating a student leadership team that focuses on the positive school culture. It was very clear that our student reps, um, Melanie Staer and Libby Eper and Sawyer Zeus were all there

085and they really felt it fell within the vision of the student council and what they're doing to help lead this charge as well and we kind of circle back to that again, but just found that really exciting. Did you guys want to add anything from that? Okay. Then we got into acknowledging and value the individuality individuality of each community school. And we do we do value that uniqueness of each school. And right now I'm talking elementary. It's great. We also identified that we wanted to spend more time helping develop the elementary culture at Three Lakes as a separate entity from the district, which is easy to make that mistake. We think of it under one building, but they're different levels. So, as you know, a lot of rich discussion went into that and I thought

086some really great ideas came out of that. Mr. Busco, thank you for leading some of that conversation and and some of those ideas and Mr. G for everything that's been done in the past. It's just like we're continuing to build upon what's good and solid and we're going to be growing with that as well. And not coming new this year is going to be a Three Lakes Elementary and Junior High Blue J award which is recognizing the good acts and positive student behavior. There's been program like this in place but now it's even a step beyond. It's being able to call out not necessarily the once a month citizen of the month, but you know, it's like, "Hey, I saw you doing what a blue jay would do." And giving some recognition to that. All

087right. And then finally, increase school spirit and pride throughout uh through student and staff involvement. And this is where Alicia really took charge, too. We need that fight song. But I think we all agreed that we really wanted to come back to some of that old tradition and learn that song and perform that song and be able to do our song with pride. And with homecoming coming up, it sounded like it would be a really great time to even bring some activities, some some opportunities to have competition. And our music folks are on board. And I just think it's really going to be fun and go over well to have that pride and be able to share that with the community that our little ones and all of us are growing up with that. So

088it brings spirit. That's so important. And we also talked a lot about our staff participation and supporting of school events and that we wanted to highlight our staff more. Our staff are wonderful educators and many of them go out and and they are seeing extra events. But what was so powerful was in the meeting our students again said what it meant to them to see the staff the students having them there to watch their events. And instead of it becoming, in their words, they didn't want it to be like a have to thing, but they really wanted to celebrate that and they wanted um us to recognize how much they realize that the staff is going above and beyond when they go out and and do more and how much they appreciated it. And we

089discussed how we want our community to know our teachers better. So, um, Jen, um, brought up how we can do some more highlighting, bringing that personal feel as well as what they do in the classroom and their extracurricular activities so we all know them better and the community and the staff feel more connected. So, I thought that was a really powerful accomplishment and very exciting. I can't wait to start seeing some of those highlights going out and and sharing their stories. Questions or comments or additions to that? Okay. And then we went into the um it still is listed as established districtwide co-curricular communication procedures. We have some in there, but we really got into some really great discussion about this is an area that is a it's hard. It's an area of struggle sports

090specific especially. You want to get the information out there in a timely manner, but you don't necessarily need it to go to all of this. the district members, who's interested, what's your audience? Is it for coaches? Is it for parents or or the athletes? So there was some great ideas and um what we came up with thanks to the conversation and and Brian thank you for sharing some of your insights there too is we're going to look at investigate options for sports specific sports specific social media accounts and then we're also going to review some of the sports communication platforms to create consistent communication between coaches athletes and parents and I think the overall goal was it would really be nice to have an app or a system that was common to the district that

091people got real comfortable with and you know knew that as a go-to. So that's going to be worked on this year. Did any of the board members want to share more to that or felt like a good conversation that was a a good time? We were ready for it. Um develop a wide-reaching marketing campaign to inform, invite, and recruit potential new families to our district. Um, we're looking at our website and we're talking about reorganiza the organization. Um, and we want to emphasize enrollment opportunities and district branding. You know, it's hard to believe it's only been about four years, but as we know, technology four years can be on the old side. So, Jen and I will be working at that. And when I say that lightly, Jen will be working. I'll be giving feedback

092and saying, "Oh, pretty. I like that." And, "Oh, I think we could be a little more clear with the the menu buttons and and that kind of stuff." So, we're going to be taking that on as well. And then we're also up for reviewing our partnership with um NICH. And we are trying to figure out I think we're going to dig a little bit more into that how much is actually tied to the views that are being seen. We have a lot of views from the Illinois, Milwaukee, you know, southern part of the state, um Illinois area. We do have some probably a significant number of surrounding schools that are checking us out when they're looking to see where they want to send their students. So, I do think there is an in um there

093is a positive there. I just don't know how much niche is totally responsible for it because it is a more limited resource. I still feel a lot of telling our story and our posts and our being out there and and making ourselves known has a lot to do with it. Jen, did you want to add anything to that? >> Um, no. Other than Terry's correct the data showing that we're about like on our our niche.com partnership, it's about 50% of out ofstate people viewing us of our reach that we're getting, which is they've told us is a little unusual. It's a little high. So, I think that that is an interesting fact to look at. We kind of talked about like can we survey our parents that came in new this year and see like

094what was the deciding factor that pushed them in here or if we do have any out of state people coming in kind of trying to get a handle on what this enrollment burst that we have >> actually looks like um might it would be helpful. So >> it would be good for our future planning to know what what is attracting them. And like I've said many times to you, it's public education, but it's a consumer market now. And people are shopping for the education that they feel is best for their student. And rightly so, a parent should get with it that the best the best opportunities for their um children. And we truly believe that we can offer that. But okay. And then we talked a lot about continuing to advance the partnership opportunities by

095growing connections with local businesses. and we added professional services and nonprofit organizations. It became clear again in our meeting that we need to include um the professional services and nonprofits because they are our partners. We really rely on them to come into the um school and share about them. Our kids go out and and learn about them as well. We're pretty involved with uh Mr. um back doing some of the community in the spring where they you know at the end of the year where they go ahead and they they talk about volunteering and they connect with the nonprofits and it really is good for for all of the organizations. Um so we're going to go ahead and establish regular meetings. Um we were thinking a few times a year um possibly quarterly but we

096want to expand that. when it was happening in the beginning of the Fab Lab days, it was very much business driven. Um, and it was the, you know, the that hands-on school to work technical, you know, the the trades and and such. And we really want to expand that more. And then we're going to continue to develop our career readiness community of practice program and our ACP or our academic and career plan district team. That is really humming along nicely. Um, we keep looking at that. I know that Mr. Busco has a real interest in that as well, continuing to grow. So does Mr. Bach. It's his it's his passion project and we want to continue to grow that, you know, both in the the um academic portion and the experiences for our students. And

097then we're expanding on our career-based learning through tours, job shadowing, school to work, and youth apprenticeships. and we didn't leave it separately, but Carrie Vulk was able to write a grant for us. Um, and we were awarded about $56,000 for our students with disabilities to have further opportunities in all of these that we just mentioned with the school to work and the job shadowing. So, that's really exciting. That's a nice chunk of money to support us being able to even expand our horizons a little bit further. That was a lot. Catch my breath. Um, questions, uh, revisions, concerns. This is the first time that we've had such a quick turnaround to be able to actually have it before you for approval. I mean, normally we would go another month out, but we were kind of

098hoping that if things looked in order and the board felt supportive of what we're doing, we could approve it this evening because our staff is already working on their personal um what are called their SLOs's and um trying to get their own goals in order and set up their plan for the year and the principles can continue working from that as well. Not that the process will stop if we don't approve it tonight, but it's just another piece of the puzzle to keep it all moving. >> Two things. Um, once approved, will this be posted in the school? >> Yep. It go um it goes on there's a section on the website with all of our long range and short range and goals and stuff. So, it goes on there >> like poster inside like

099hard copy in the school. >> Just checking. We can I haven't but it >> we make this pretty poster, right? Yeah, the the district is engaged. These are all of our goals >> in the offices or something could do something. >> I would say >> public, >> right? >> Yeah. >> Somewhere public areas where people can see it. >> I think it would be a good investment. >> I think one of the great things that we do is bring the students in. We've asked them to come to board meetings as well, but they're a big portion of this and maybe just like talking about the song and in getting more engaged in the school climate, right? if they have some ownership to these goals that they see in the bathroom or working to the moving

100to their next class, right? It just continues to promote that this is their buy in. They're part of this process. >> You know, one thing as you're saying, I'm pulling my newsletters right now and kind of typing them, but I haven't ever pushed it out even in a newsletter before. So I could start there on this Friday and just push out as like our the goals were adopted after this meeting and kind of explain it there for starters >> because I think that it's important for parents to see that in the school and know too we spend a lot of work getting together in the staff retreat right it feels like the foot is on the gas pedal despite our report cards being great right we >> the staff and even the students want to

101continuously improve well how do we then get to the next step Right. And I think part of that ownership in our community and our students so that we're not just doing the retreat, making goals, posting on the site, and then we come back next year. But how do we engage this all the way through the year in the simplest way? >> Yeah. >> Now, I think that visual is excellent. I have seen in other districts where they do have big posters of it posted when you walk in. I mean, that that's kind of common. So, >> I have one somewhere. It's similar to this where they did like tabletop or things that were, you know, at events or whatever and they do a QR code or something like that too. There's a lot of things

102we could do now that you're saying that like I will think upon it, see what I can come up with. >> I agree. It's I agree with the idea. I think a poster as as it sits right here is too much to digest and not >> as if my brain was like break it down into the section. >> There's three things. See you later. I'm going to go get popcorn. You know what I mean? But >> breaking it down maybe into the sections and making it so I'll I'll let me see what I can come up with and we'll see. >> That being said, I I feel and I'm sorry. >> No, you're fine. You're fine. >> Um but this this document really captures a lot of detail and robust conversation and very like digestible

103portions. This is this is very nice and and I can kind of like vividly recall our conversations and I think this this touches on those very well. I'm I was thinking like the piece I saw that was the table toppers they might have taken like they had this kind of a document sitting behind it and then done like a real quick hit kind of a thing so there we can make it digestible for a >> along with you know >> or even doing the one two three and take the guts out of it right like the the teaching and learning with the goal >> you can leave the bold but take the bullets out maybe >> something that even at a a smaller age like what are our priorities and for the public to understand

104that teaching like our staff and our students are the the highest priority, but what comes along with that? >> Yeah, I understand the thought process you're on, the train you're on here. So, >> the other thing happen >> the other thing that's going to do is if somebody sees this out there and they've got an idea, whether it be kids, community, whoever, business owners, nonprofits, whatever. If they've got if they see that we're this is what we're working on, and if they have an idea, maybe they'll come to us, you know, in something that we never even thought of. Mhm. Great idea. I also thought on that same vein like the the involvement of the the students was excellent. I think we should better prepare the students with questions ahead of time that they could

105field with answers. Uh I I I bet you we'd be surprised about their answers or maybe I'm not surprised but their answers would be much more articulate and and wellformed rather than put you on the spot what you think about it. >> Yeah. So bottom line, just making it more public is what we want to do instead of hiding it on the website, >> right? >> And maybe leading up to next year, right, we we do something where we put it in in elementary like language level, like what what does a fourth grader think would make the school better, >> right? What that's different than a a senior that's different than a seventh grader, right? like maybe some things that could go out to the students just to see if they if they want to

106see some improvements and where cuz they might come up with some things that we haven't considered either from a different viewpoint might be interesting we're >> might be a bounce house in the back but whatever >> I just think that that buyin not only from the community level but from the students is hyper important and can come in very very simple psychological connections with the the mission. Any items feedback? Okay. Is anyone ready for a motion on this one? >> I'll make a motion to approve the 2526 district annual goals as presented. >> Second. We have a motion by Mitch, second by Josh. All those in favor of the motion signify by stating I. >> I. I. Opposed. None heard. Motion carries. Uh, Jen, just amongst other things, right, appreciate the forward facing uh the

107work when it comes to doing these things and the details that go in by making it visually appealing. Um, great job on that. >> Thanks. >> Okay, next we move to school forest camp 3 update. Well, I actually have an update from you. I spoke with our um attorneys and the petitioners did file a notice of appeal. Um they are challenging the court's ruling from May. So, their brief is due in court on September 24th and then um we will go ahead and file a brief response. They will then have the opportunity to give a brief response to our response. So, um, both Ron Stadler and, uh, Don Clacklouse said to make sure I share with you at the board level that the, um, Court of Appeals tends to take a very long time sometimes

108in making their decisions and once they actually have any briefs in hand, they will share them with us. So, they're continuing at this moment in the appeals process. >> Any feedback from Mr. Sadler on the confidence level, concern level. >> No, actually um I didn't talk to him about that specifically. More so it was I feel like they expected it. >> Okay. >> That's just what they expected at this point. >> Any questions or feedback on this one? Okay. Next we move to district related positive happenings. Not everyone at once. >> Is this where I can just ask questions not related to anything? >> So what would you like? >> I'm sorry. Okay. My name is Katie. I'm sorry. I'm a I'm a cheer camp resident. I have a three-year-old son um looking to start

1094K next year. Um, I know previous um, individuals have done like half days for their kids. Um, and talking to co-workers and other friends. Um, somebody had mentioned that that was going to go away next year. I was just curious. Um, >> you want me to answer that? >> I was wondering if that was true. >> We have not had half day 4K as a option for the last four years. Okay. >> When that has happened, it's been because of a special education need or a child need. Our programming is full day 4K and our curriculum is built that even though it's a full day that allows for all of the the play, the exploratory, the rest time, all of the socialization that goes with it. And our curriculum is built on a full day.

110>> So, and that's really and truly the most um common programming. Now, when you try to look at what you want to do for some of the academic readiness, which is important, but I mean, you've got to keep they're four, you got to keep it within there. Trying to fit that into like a 2 and 1 half or three-hour day is very intensive. And sometimes what ends up happening is you lose some of the social and emotional parts of that. >> Okay. So, to get him approved, he would have to be special like special needs kind of. >> Well, >> not to put that. >> Yeah. And Carrie, do you want to comment on it or >> I I think we do it case by case and it's if a student has an individual education

111plan, it's a team decision based on their needs and programming. >> Okay. >> Um certain kids who do attend part of the day also attend alternative programming for the other part of the day. So they are in a full day per se, but they're just doing part of the 4K program. >> Okay, >> if that makes sense. But that's also, you know, we figure that out as a team through their IEP. >> Okay, cool. Thank you. That's all I got. >> Jake, I would leave either call the office or leave your information with Carrie maybe >> so you guys can touch. No, actually I think >> other district related positive happenings. >> Go ahead, Jen. You're ready. >> Oh my Wait, I got to think. Hold on. >> Um I'm not ready. Um >> Mr.

112Busco's ready. >> You go first and then I'll get it. I'll grab on after you. >> I just wanted to highlight two of our elementary staff uh this evening. They in July started participating in a uh WMadison Center for Healthy Minds with a within a collaboration of PBS Kids Education. Uh it's called the PBS Kids guidance cohort. So Mrs. Dioro and Mrs. Tots are going to Madison doing uh some virtual work and integrating a healthy minds curriculum into their classrooms with their students. Um this is in addition to everything else that they're doing. So they're doing this um kind of as a as a passion project. They're both really interested in this work. Um, but they kicked it off over the summer and then they've been integrating this into their classrooms with their students. Um,

113and it's been going really, really smooth. The focus is social emotional health for our 4Kers and for our first graders. So, really cool partnership um, highlighted between WMadison Center for Healthy Minds and Wisconsin PBS Kids. It's called the kindness cohort. >> Okay, I got it now. Good. Brain got it. Um, my favorite one from the last couple weeks was actually out of sugar camp. I didn't even post this. It was in the newsletter though. Um, but I thought it was really cool that after the fires in Sugar Camp that, um, it was Katie Bachnik's class. They went over and helped clean up the fire trucks after like a full day of stuff happening in the community. And she kind of typed in just how great it was that to live in a small community where

114all of that just comes together and I thought that was a really cool one. Other than that, there's been a lot of stuff flooding in already. There's a couple field trips today over at um Dix Elementary. They were at the pumpkin patch doing the community garden and getting some pumpkins out. Um Jill's got tons of stuff going. She's got harvest coming in from community garden. She's growing micro greens out here. And she had some random cantaloupe that grew out of the compost pile. Our trees are making fruit. So I thought that was cool because it was 40 pounds of apples that were harvested off of this line of apple trees on the side here. So, lots of stuff happening already and people working on all of their neat little projects. >> Good start to the

115school year. Um, just to piggyback on Jenner, Upper Elementary have weeded and tilled and revitalized or are starting to revitalize that that um garden outside of the school in front there. >> Um, Mark and Katie have done a lot of that work. So, that's that's going really well. Um, otherwise just great start to the school year from from our end. I got my first mile walk in yesterday with some of the kids. So that was fun. >> Been warm over there the last two days. >> Yes. I just want to add if you ever need to have a smile in your day, have a conversation with a 4Ker or several at recess in the line. I had some wonderful conversations in my visit. I got to meet a little guy who um saw that I

116had two rings on and he asked me if I got married twice and I said no that my husband loved me so much he gave me two rings and he informed me that he will never get married because his papa was married and his papa had a wedding ring and he cut his finger very badly on on his wedding ring and I said well you don't have to get married and then the other little kid was grabbing on my my shirt and saying to me I know you sure I'm sure I know you and I said yes you do I know your mom and dad. It was just so fun to hear them, the the way they see the world and all the kids. But I mean, these are little bitty creatures and they're already

117falling into the This is a good place to be. So, thank you, Steve. I was to be over there at the time, but I'll be visiting. I got to see the teachers and a couple of the um groups down here this past week, too. And really super great energy all the way through, I would say, right from our littlest right through the high school. So, it's just a really good start to the year. >> I was over here last week and a little 4K kid that I didn't know stopped in the hall. Whoa, you're big. >> It's fun. >> They also hug you randomly. [Music] >> Oh, and by the way, illness is already starting. >> There's already an uptick in the stomach. >> It is. Yes, that's staff, I think, is getting hit first.

118So, >> Kids first. Yeah, we've had a few out already. So, >> and that's what we've got. >> Mrs. Ellis, >> the fitness center is awesome. >> Yes, >> there's some really great new equipment in the fitness center. Mrs. Ellis is doing a great job in updating. >> Okay. Thank you, Kayla, for continuing to approve. >> No fights to get on the new equipment. >> And no fights yet. I mean, maybe I'll get another one. >> No one's fighting to get down that stair master. It's been empty. >> Big football game on Friday. I'll be on the mic. >> Oh, nothing. >> You did awesome first go around. It was great. >> Do it again. >> Let's go. >> That's great. >> Let's go. >> Who knew what a bargain we were getting? >> That's

119right. >> I would just say overall the positive energy has been uh incredible. So, keep it up. Anything else? Okay. Next we move to WB correspondents and updates. >> Just a couple of reminders. We've talked about them already, but regional meeting is October 16th at Norwood Pines. If you are interested in going and haven't let Nikki know for registration, please do so. I haven't asked her where we're at, so I mean you you do what you need to do. I am going to attend, so we will have representation there. Um the other thing I wanted to share is I don't know if you saw this but um there will be a fall legislative conference um Saturday November 8th that's going to be held in Stevens Point. It is a Saturday day session and they'll be

120going through the federal updates um regarding funding. Um they're going to talk about the 2527 state budget on how it how to actually communicate locally with how it impacts um the taxpayer. And then there's going to be a board panel to talk about some of the legislative issues that are circulating right now. And um then a legal discussion at the end to kind of tell you what the hot topics are. So, if anybody's interested, um, we can get this to you. And I think, oh, we just learned now that the room blocks for the state convention are going to be released fairly soon. Um, I asked Shannon to reach out to you. So, when you do know your dates or if you're attending or not attending, we can start getting some of that in the

121work. We've got plenty of time. I don't think it actually opens until the 1st of November or the first week of November, but trying to get things organized. And that's what I have. Perfect. Uh, next up, um, someone make a motion to adjurnn. I'll make a motion to adjourn the meeting tonight. Second. Oh, I was like, >> we never have a problem getting a second for this one. >> Josh is much faster. >> Okay. >> Was it Josh? >> Yeah. >> We have a motion to adjurnn by Stacy. >> Second by Josh. All those in favor of the motion signify by stating I I opposed. Motion carries. Thank you everyone.