001Tonight's meeting to order, please. Mr. Peterson. Mrs. Brandt here. Mr. Clinkner here. Mrs. Hendrickson here. Mr. Shab here. Mr. Williams here. Mrs. Zim here. Notice the news media on Friday, April 25th. Please stand for the flag of the United States of America and justice for all. All right. I look for a motion to approve tonight's agenda. All right. So, under newb's agenda with that change, I'll make a motion to approve the agenda with the 7B revision. I'll second. All in favoring tonight's agenda with the one minor change, say I. Any opposed? motion carries. So tonight is the organizational meeting for the board of education. So we'll go ahead and step through selection of officers, newspapers, committees, depositories, things of that nature. So we'll start out. I'm going to look for a nomination for president and
002I'd like to nominate Tim Clintner. I'll second that nomination. Are there any other nominous ballot for Tim as school board president? I'll make the motion to select Tim as school board president. Second that. Second. All those in favor say I. I. Any opposed? Motion carries. Next up, I'm looking for a nomination for vice president. I'll nominate Jen Henderson for vice president. Second. Are there any other nominations? Seeing none, we have a motion and a second. Do I have a motion to cast a unanimous ballot for Henderson as vice president. I'll make a motion to cast ballot for Jen Henderson as vice president. Second. All in favor say I. I. Any opposed? Motion carries. Next up, I'm looking for a nomination for clerk. I'd like to nominate Randy Williams. Second. Any other nominations? Looking for a
003motion then to cast a unanimous ballot for Randy Williams as board clerk. I'll make that motion. I'll second. All those in favor say I. I. motion carries. And finally, I'm looking for a nomination for treasurer. I'd like to nominate Gary Shabick. He's been treasurer before and he's doing a great job. So, nominate him. Second. Any other nominations? Do I have a motion to cast a unanimous ballot for Gary as treasur? I'll make that motion. Second. All right. All in favor say I. I. Any opposed? Motion carries. Next position here is the representative to the um our CIS representative. That is someone who will attend the May convention. And I'm looking for a nomination. I'll go ahead and nominate Gary to serve as our C7 representative this year. I'll second that. All in favor of Gary
004being our seven rep say I. I. Any opposed? Motion carries. Official newspaper. I look for a motion to approve the Herald Times reporter as our official newspaper. I'll make a motion to approve the Herald Times as our official newspaper. I'll second. Any discussion? All in favor say I. I. Any opposed? official depositories. So we would look for a motion to approve Bank First National Local Government Investment Pool LG, the American Deposit Management Company, and Huntington Bank as our official deposiitories. Motion to approve those four. Second. All those in favor say I. I. Any opposed? Motion carries. Next up, we'll review our committee standing committee structure. So, we've got the three. We've got facility and technology. We have the finance committee and then the policy committee. Currently with facility technology, Zack, Gary, and Randy. Finance Lorie,
005Tim, Zack, Randy. And policy is myself, Gary, Lorie, and Wendy. Are there any requests to make any changes to committee structures? We want to hang tight with our current committees and I'd look for a motion to maintain the committee structure as is. I'll make the motion to maintain the committee structure as read. Second. All those in favor say I. I. Any opposed? Motion carries. And one more item here is the meeting. So we'll look for a motion to approve the start time at 5:45 p.m. with meetings to continue on the second fourth Monday unless otherwise. I'll make a motion to stick with the current days and times. I'll second. All those in favor say I. I. I. Any opposed? Motion carries. That should conclude our organizational we'll welcome up Melanie Kloki tonight to talk about
006the Wisconsin Global Education Achievement Certificate. Welcome Melanie. Thank you. Okay. So, this is something new that we're offering. So, the students know about it if they're in a Spanish class or if they attended the um eighth grade um rising freshman night in January. I talked a little bit about it. So, this is just something extra we're offering for students next year to stand them apart from other graduates within the state. So, we'll go through a little bit about it. I'll answer some questions. There might be things I have to look up. So, um, I might not have all of your answers today, but I'll get them. Okay. So, what is it? It's this is a program designed to improve global learning across the curriculum. This is not a Spanish department thing. This is a True
007Rivers public schools, True Rivers High, specifically True Rivers High School thing. Um, it's an effort to prepare all students to be workforce, world, and life ready. So, college, career, and community readiness um with global competence. We're we're not just citizens of True Rivers anymore or of even just Wisconsin. You're a global citizen. We live in a global world. So, a few more particulars. Um, our school this year, so we have to submit materials and it was heavy to do. So, they came back a few times and said, "Well, what about this? What about this? What about that?" So, we submitted a whole bunch of materials to DPI, what we're going to do with it, how we're going to do with it, what courses. And if you're like, "What do you mean what courses? Wouldn't it
008be Spanish?" I'm gonna totally get there. I promise. So, we went back and forth with DPI a few times. They're like, "What about this?" Or, "We need more information here." So, um, we were approved this year from the DPI to be able to offer students who are graduating through Trevers High School, um, the Global Education Achievement Certificate. Um, it's going to make students stand out on job, bless you, in college applications and on their resumes because not everywhere offers this as you know, because we didn't until this year. So, we want to give students more opportunities that are already or more opportunities to leverage the things that are already available to them here and that we want to be able to be compatible and um competitive with other schools around us. So, there are, I
009believe, 421 districts, high school districts in the state of Wisconsin and only about a quarter of them offer it and we're one. So, yay. Um why do we want to do this? Well, um because it's awesome, but also it really fits us. It fits our mission. It empowers every individual student to learn and thrive in a dynamic world. And there's more to our mission statement there, but I've pulled out in purple because purple um why that pertains to us. If it's our vision, we innovate and we impact, right? And under our values, it really touches in on own. So, embracing responsibility and accountability for learning u meaningful learning and growth as well as engaging students in modeling and encouraging active involvement, curiosity, and voice to strengthen our communities. And you're like, how does that fit?
010I'm going to get there. Promise. So more why we exist in a global economy. Like I said, we we are a global world. We're not just True Rivers anymore. Most people are interacting with people outside of our realm. Even my kiddo is seven. She's interacting with people outside of this realm here, like further beyond where we've ever been before. And our communities and employers require individuals with those global competencies. They don't want kids who aren't coming with skills. These are going to help build some of those skills. And there's a growing demand for little uh um global learning opportunities as well, right? Like what can we get beyond the brick and mortar right here? What we're having with me in front of you or with Miss Johnson teaching you underwater basket weaving. Kids are already
011engaged through the internet and various other means and interacting with kids, other kids and other people. I mean, think about when they're playing Fortnite, right? They're talking to who knows who. They're they're making connections across the world. And very interesting piece here. Kids are often referred to as first globals. Um, that was a new word for me, so I dug a little bit deeper into that. So, the specific definition of Wisconsin's first globals are kids or students who are aware of, curious about, and interested in the world beyond what's right in front of them. They can see the world from multiple perspectives. They can communicate effectively in multiple languages and they can change the world and improve current conditions which is really always a goal right. So how can we do this? Great question. So
012a lot of this was already happening. We added just a few pieces. So students need um four credits of sustained learning in a world language or evidence of language proficiency at or above intermediate high on the actual scale. So they would have to take a different test. So really four credits in the in the language one through four or two through depending upon what they're taking here. Um, they would need four credits of coursework designed to facilitate global learning. So, you might be thinking, well, isn't that Spanish Kazowski? And no, and I have it hyperl here. I won't pull it up from here, but I'll just tell you some of the other things that fit into it. Excuse me. So, obviously, um, we have the four credits of foreign language, but other things that we've
013had approved by the DPI are things like graphic arts one, business concepts, economics, Sports, entertainment and marketing, AP language, critical explorations, English 9 and English 10, film and lit psychology of fear, ecological science, European history, sociology, today's topics in world geography. Those are the ones we offer here. And then some students have also brought forth a few things that they're taking through the rising phoenix, which does count because it's part of the big global program. And um first nations and the sacred. Now, that is a multiredit course through the Phoenix Rising Phoenix program. It counts as like one credit at the high school component level, although they can't knock out three out of their four credits with um that class. That's okay. Um another thing that they have to do is create eight reflections on
014global learning and cultural literacy um developments. So, we have a ton of different things that I have listed in Google Classroom and I can certainly provide a list to you um of things that have been already approved by the DPI. There are some that we will read together. So, like I have one of the books on the list is Roll of Thunder, Hear My Cry. And I have a class set of that that I bought when I worked in Green Bay. So, it came with me when I left that position. Like, I bought it myself. So, I will read that with my students. They're reading things in other classes. They're reading the Who is the who is the Trevor Noah, right? Yep. So, they're reading um a book that is about his life and that's
015on the list. Um um other books that they're reading in critical explorations or English 9 or 10 are even on the list. So, like there's a lot of things and it's not Spanish. I want to be very clear. It's global studies. So, I can If you're interested in the list, I can totally do that. But I'm thinking we'd probably run some of those during ACP, like over the course of the year, we'll read Underwater Basket Weaping 101 in Germany or whatever the, you know, book is that we're going to read. And we'll just have like four times, five times that we'd meet during the year. They'd have to have a component to it. I have I have rubrics in Google Classroom. Again, if you'd like to see them, absolutely. They don't have to write something
016about it. They could put on some sort of dramatic something else. They could give a speech, different ways that they could represent what's necessary based on what we've pulled out here. Four of their reflections have to be books. The other four can be other things. They can be movies. There's again a list of that that's been approved by DPI. Um they can be music experiences. They can be going to different art events, things different of a different nature, but four of them have to be books. We actually have a lot of the books in our Destiny um system, the online, like I was in the online cart and I want to say we have probably I think there's close to 400 books on the list. I bet you we have like 85 of them. So
017we already have a lot of these and again I own a class set well a reading group set. So maybe like six or eight texts of another one that I can bring in to use. Another component that students will have to go through would be to participate um actively and or hold a leadership role in four or more school um based extracurricular or special events with a global focus. So you're like well what might that be could be hosting an exchange student. So we're going to have students from coming for homecoming week this year. Very exciting. Very early also. um if they host one of those students like that would be an activity that they could count on. Um international day of peace, they could go in on their own exchange program. They can go
018on a language immersion camp mission trips. We're doing um a virtual meet with students from Colia right now who are in an English class and that's that's a wild ride of fun, right? Like that is super cool that they're that counts as it um they can go to the program at WGB which is a free event in September. So there's a ton of things that they could do. I have a list again I don't need to list all of them but these are hyperlinks that you have access to. And then also 20 hours or more of course of service learning projects related to a global issue. Like a lot of them are doing that. They have to have 25 hours for graduation anyways. Like why wouldn't we like consolidate all of these pieces and make
019it happen? So, an example of a project that students just did is they ran a food drive for truck. One of my students said, "Well, you know, Boy Scouts or Scouts usually runs the food drive, the door to door, one of the bags that has a name that I don't remember in spring, but we're not doing that till fall, and that's going to leave a gap in what is expecting and being able to use. We should run one here." And they like just did it. I mean, minimal guidance from the adults, right? No, we can't do that or yes, we can do that or let's coordinate getting boxes for you. But like they did the stuff like it was awesome. So the last piece here is what's the catch, right? Like this sounds way too
020good to be true. How is why why have we not done? There really isn't one, right? So this is voluntary. Kids don't have to do it, but they're doing a lot of the pieces anyway. So why not, right? Um especially because a lot of kids want to make it to Spanish 4 because they can get all those college credits, right? They can earn up to 14 college credits just by taking Spanish four or five here in my room. So like they're already a lot of them are already geared up towards doing that. So they're getting their their credits for college, they're getting their high school credits, they're going to get this cool thing on their diploma. It's going to be amazing. Um so it's not required and we control it locally. This so I had
021to get DPI approval, right? Because how the process goes, but we control the things here. So um Miss Bik is going to offer a new class and we think boy this would for global scholars. I just submit that to DPI. They mark it off and then she does her thing in her own classroom. Nobody's coming in and being like, "Well, excuse me, ma'am, but you're not doing it right." That's that's not how it is, right? Like, she will help me write up the passage. We'll send it to them. They'll go, "Sounds great. Have at her." Um, it doesn't require any money, right? Like, we're already doing the things. Um, so, okay, that I guess I kind of jumped ahead to the point. We had to approval to start and if we want to add classes,
022but otherwise like let's say we don't offer world geography next year. I know some classes are on a rotation. We don't have to reapply for world geography to go back in because we've already been approved for it. I'm not saying that that one's on a rotation. I'm just saying that that's an example. And if you want to know more, the DPI website is like very very informative. So there's the the click on that one is just to the regular flatout DPI site for global scholars. There are two subtabs under it when you get to the DPI website. One is about expectations and requirements and the other one is which schools offer this. So there are schools in the area that offer this of course right like manit does but there are a lot of schools
023in the area that don't. So that is setting us above and beyond other schools locally which is quite fabulous. What questions do you have? Again I might not have all of the answers immediately but I can certainly find them and respond back to you. Have you run this um by kids? And if you have um what are what are you hearing back from our kids? I am not ignoring her. Please make a note. I am pulling up how many kids have already expressed interest and are in my Google classroom. Um I think that this may end up not being housed in Google Classroom, but this is where it's starting for right now. And as far as kids who have said so far that they want in, I have 16 and I know that there are
024other ones working on like doing some of the things and gathering their materials. Now, I'm not saying all 16 are going to want to do this, but maybe they will. And this doesn't include any upcoming eighth graders. Um, and I have I'm not sure how many eighth graders, but I'm sure some of them will be taking Spanish next year. And one one other question, um, with kids taking Spanish one in eighth grade, does that become part of their four or now they would have to do two through five at high school. Four credits is what it says specifically. It does not say specifically at the high school level and that is a high school transcripted course. So I think it would count anyways. So that would make sense that kids who took freshman year Spanish
025in eighth grade, it would they would be grandfathered and they need to take it through Spanish 4. Um there is like a carve out like if let's say if your kiddo did not take it and tell a sophomore it didn't fit in their schedule, they can take this test um and they have to score at an intermediate high which is hard. I took this test so that I could be able to offer it as a college credit class. I mean I scored higher than that but Some of those questions they were difficult. I'm thinking this is going to be more of an academic awards night rather than a scholarship night because um there's no money that goes along with it. Sorry. Uh and it will be on their diplomas from my understanding. This is like
026a credential like an actual like certificate of achievement sort of like where you go back and maybe get your certificate servant leadership turbo which highly recommend absolutely not the more the marrier and just because maybe this year we're going to read like I said I have a bunch of roll of thunder here my cry right it's an easy ease in book right um maybe they're like yeah I'm not feeling that Sorry, don't want to read that one. Or I read it when I was in seventh grade and I don't want to read it again. They don't have to participate in all the pieces. They can they can do all their four readings on their own. They can do their eight readings on their own. Any any of that absolutely can customize it to what they
027want. But I've had I mean I'm not saying every kid that I've talked to about this is leaping for joy, right? Like some some kids is just not their jam. Like language studies is like I'm getting my two credits, I'm getting out. This movie isn't for me. I get it. But the people been like, yeah, they're really looking towards like, how is that going to look on my transcripts? How is that going to look when I'm applying for jobs, when I'm applying for college, when I'm doing my seniorit my senior exit interviews, when I'm applying for YA components that I'm a candidate for this? They're they've really been asking me like, well, how would you put it on there on a resume and how do I, you know, document these things? They're very happy and
028very positive. Um, again, not sure that all 16 who are currently expressing interest are going to finish it, but 16 very like, yeah, kids have already said, I'm I'm sign me up. I'm down for this. I am. Yep. And when we um when kids are ready to be like done, when they're ready to graduate, right, they have their credits, um which generally speaking will end up being the end of senior year, um although maybe some will make it through in the end of their junior year, we'll have to convene a small committee of people who are interested to have them present their their body of work to them, their evidence the expectations. I'm anticipating probably the multicultural club um coordinators would be interested in sitting in on that too, but anybody probably could do that
029if they expressed interest in it. Somebody Good evening, Katherine 3727. So, I appreciate the opportunity to ask two questions and I'll try to do this in two minutes. The first there's some chatter going around on social media about a potential budget deficit which could lead to a potential referendum. So we're just curious to not if it is a possibility how quickly we can get information out to the public question. today. Great. The second was a follow on it coming up at home business and it is policy number 2260 the non-discrimination access to equal educational opportunity. Uh this was a policy that back in July of last year based on title then there were revisions made in January based on overturn of title. There's been a lot of and I had the opportunity to sit during
030session at policy review time and I see it's coming up again questions about protected classes and it protected classes identity etc and a question had come up to me from around the design configuration of facilities to be appropriate for all. The question that has come back very simply will individuals who are genetic males be allowed in women's lockers. That's the question according to your guidelines. I do recognize that potential approval business. I just wanted to raise that question Yeah, we have a nice um a nice check that came to us. Um on April 16th, Adam and I were able to meet with Tom from WPI. They asked if we could besides handing the check over, they asked if they could just come and tour So we spent about an hour with them and they were
031interested of course in the energy savings but also just building itself very at the end of that tour they did provide us with a $4,1008 check at the beginning of the projectition Congratulations to the team for being thoughtful about our energy consumption. High school that we'll bring that We're going to put it back into projects. So, we're putting it back into the future. No. Couple last. And another thing that's you. Yes. Okay. Um, we did get a final pay application. However, there is one item that we need to do a change order on. And once that is done, we're actually going to ask for a a rework of that pay application so that the numbers line up with reflecting that change order. Um, I anticipate getting that in the next week or so and then
032having the final payout being uh ready for your approval at the May 12th 14. Yes, we have it. We're We're almost there. motion. Second We did have the first meeting. What do you get those question? Any question everyone? Do you have any questions? All in. No. exciting uh to welcome Tara back. Um Tara was with us a couple years um left to go to another district and has stayed in contact with the LB Clark team. Um she was when she was with us, she was with the fifth grade team and it was always so neat to watch that group particularly at like professional growth days. They would come early. They'd be walking the hallways together, laughing together. She's missed that connection. And so we are lucky and excited to welcome Terra back into Make a
033motion to approve Mr. Mr. Next meeting we should have a few more for you. Um our teams have been interviewing um very heavily the last couple weeks even on uh Friday before Easter on Good Friday. We have people here uh doing interviews. So those will be coming forward. Um we always have to have a little bit of time to get reference checks done and background checks. More to come. Okay. So, this item has to do with um one of our two debt service funds. We have debt service fund that we use for referendum debt. In other words, referendum approved debt such as the debt that we currently have right now that's associated with our building project. The other one is called a non-referendum debt and what that was used for um two different things over
034the past 20ome years. Um it was back in the early 2000s where we worked with a financial advisor to refinance our prior prior service liability through the Wisconsin retirement system. And in order to to do that, um, we borrowed bonds and paid off that that with WRS. Those bonds were just paid off now in March of 2025. They were refinanced along the way. Um, so they they were paid off. But in between there, we also use that same fund for an energy efficiency project and that was done about 10 years ago where we did some boiler upgrades at McGee as well as at Clark. At this point, we have no debt in that fund anymore. However, we have $35,4264 worth of accumulated interest that has accumulated over the years. And what that is is when
035we would have um property tax levies that would go in there and be held until they were the debt payments were made. We would earn interest and then we were to earn interest on the interest. So what um the recommendation is and this is done at um the approval of the board. I did talk with Allison Buchanan from Corals and Brady and it is at the discretion of the board as far as what the funds could be used for. But what we are looking at administratively is to transfer those funds to our longterm capital improvement trust fund. So those funds would be used for future building project needs throughout the district. Right now our long-term capital improvement trust fund is actually designated for the replacement of high school book. However, our referendum funds have taken
036care of that. So, we will be coming back for a different focus and writing up a new resolution that that's further down the road. But at this point, what I'm requesting is $35,000 get transferred to that long-term capital improvement fund and that way we can future building. I would recommend that we transfer It is in 38 which has its own check. It's completely separate and segregated from our regular operations just like our other debt is segregated from our operations. that check. And then if something would happen down the road where an account 46 is only for longterm capital improvement capital improvement trust fund and it purpose is designated by the board. So essentially you're going to be putting that money into another account but you're going to need at some point down the road we're
037going to have to revisit what is that new designation for those funds because like I said the high school has been taken care of. could use it for reducing debt service on our referendum project. In other words, to offset like the tax levy for next year. Um, we talked about other projects, you know, just in our regular operations. That would be another option as well. We would be able to earn interest on that and then use that again towards future building project needs when the referendum funds are completely used up. If there is some future designation that's needed. No, there's just no would earn interest in this fund as well, but there really isn't any purpose and there's no future debt payments at this time. Everything's been paid off. It's just a suggested to to
038move it someplace where the funds could be used for something else. And it's something if you wanted to wait on it, that's fine as well. There's no rush to do this. You can, you know, give it some thought. Sure. You know, one option that might be an option from one to another. But again, eventually our referendum funds will be used and It's really No. Evening everybody. Over the next couple of weeks, I'm going to talking quite a bit about literacy as we are now near the end of the first year of implementations. So a lot of our data to be able to present there are also some of them being verifying our early literacy remediation plan which will be public forward. We will also have to review that final data packet that I present will
039then be sent to the Wisconin state of Wisconsin all literacy data from all schools and we'll eventually report that public right now interested in ACT scores from bank five years ago find out so that'll be the same thing for our literacy data as well so couple of moves that'll be coming up here in the next few weeks today just wanted to keep you a breast as to where we are in our current Start up quick 114K students at both and the lighthouse. Out of those 114 students, only six of them flagged as we've got 18k students that are above grade level. So if you see a 4K teacher, they're doing a really really great job. They've embraced very challenging curriculum a wonderful job of implementing it into the work that they already don't necessarily have
040to be a class teacher. But these other folks are really say one of the biggest reasons as to why we're seeing this growth outside of extraordinary teachers is due to the fact that they have implemented a phonics program that is research based based on the science of reading and they're doing it at the level which is the version of great teachers is the first component, the first time that students see instruction. They're doing that at the level. So the exciting thing here is if we're setting the stage well and I would say that only six out of 14 setting the stage well then the subsequent years are only going to get better. Give you an assessment recap. All students in grades 4K through four have now been assessed using the as web screener. Remember that's
041the state required screener that we have utilize 4K. This is the first time by law they've had to give that assessment and again as we saw the data they are doing phenomenal job. Grade five is currently in the process of doing spring testing as well. Now remember the law only requires 4K through third grade but we're not satisfied with the minimum. We shoot for excellence in Rivers and so we've already moved that up through into fourth grade and fifth grade. Fifth grade's got 37 students completed right now in their screening process. By the end of next week, they'll likely have all of those done. And to take it even a step further, sixth through 8th grade said, "Hey, if they can do it, why can't we?" So they actually started today. I have emails from
042bunch of great teachers, Rachel Sher and Patrick Cranford to give them data so that they can start students. What's really cool about this assessment, and we've talked about this before, is that it's not only just the students in front of the computer, it is a one-on-one assessment, teacher and student, right? That is the oral reading fluency portion. So, seventh grade student, my son is going to be sitting down at a table with his seventh grade teacher. And that teacher will be able to hear a subject will be able to make real time decisions as to what he needs in order to become better. So the fact that the sixth or eighth grade has taken that on great. I do want to make a note that this is going to replace the star assessment which you
043may have become pretty familiar with over the last couple of years. One thing we have noticed is that as act matures, that means as these students in the third grade get older and older and older, if they remain on a personalized reading plan and they remain uh undergoing progress monitoring, their teachers will have to use web. So in three to four years, we'd be facing a situation in which teachers would not only have to star ass those two programs don't further we've used star for a long time while it does give us some nice graphical longitudinal data it does not does not give us easy actionable data that we can work on immediately as web so we made the decision at the grade six through level to say we're not star testing this We are
044going to go full force uh with that as web assessment. Finally, uh the lighthouse is working hard. They have an extraordinary situation of trying to screen students uh virtually for the most part. And so they're still sticking with 4K through. That's what the law requires us to do. Think about our capacity be able to assess right now in order for us to do the job. We're sticking little personal reading plan information. I don't have any comparison data because as I said before, the comparisons will not be out until next fall at the earliest. Our lighthouse right now has 51% of its students, grades K through a personalized reading plan. McGee has 107 students. That's 45% and Kan has 84 students again. 45% note students in 4K do not receive personalized reading. What about those six
045students that were at risk? They don't receive personalized reading plans. Just make note of that to give some extra love throughout the summer and the next year. As I noted, there's going to be more literacy information coming. We will provide total students that have exited a personalized reading plan after our forward data arrival reading plan in the third grade exit that plan if two conditions are met. The first condition, they have to exceed the 40th percentile on the oral reading fluency assessment. The second condition is they must be proficient in the reading portion of the board exam. Both of those things must be in place. So a student could theoretically score 87% or read assessment. That's great. Let's go below proficiency on the foram. In that case, they will still remain on a personalized reading.
046We have things that we're going to do to support that student that's scoring lower. That is what the law says. So not going to be able to bring the data to you after that. All right, let's get down to grade level. I'm going to show you uh graphs from each one of our grades so you can see what the performance looks like right now. Each one of the graphs that I show you is based upon the assessment information that we use to determine whether or not a student gets a personalized reading. Also, each one of the graphs that I show you is going to be based on students grow. So, in this case, we've got our kindergarten group. This is at all schools. You can see from fall to winter that top bar the red,
047yellow, green and blue bar shows us that we had somewhere about 51.9% students exhibiting high growth. That high growth number changed 19.1% this last. So that means kids are growing faster and uh more kids are growing faster. what we had saw that fall. So you want that bottom bar to be bigger than the top. There's a second assency. They have to look at an A and say A. They have to look at a W and say W. You'll see again we've had a grow. Now let's get to that oral reading fluency assessment. Currently, you're going to see data grades K, sorry, first through fourth grade and our fifth through 8th graders. That data will be coming later on. Overall, with all first through fourth graders in the school district, we've got an overall positive change
048of 4 and a half%. And then you can see the grade levels below. We max with fourth grade increasing by 20% in their overall performance. You'll see that we've got a negative performance in first grade. Now, initially that was a bit shocking. I know our first grade team, they're absolute rock stars. They bust their butt. They've got a great special education support. So, I kind of wondered what why this is happening. So, I reached out to some other school districts, reached out to Southern Dor, reached out to Denmark, and I asked them, "Have you similar results in your first grade? They both said yes, we certainly have first grade. We did a little bit of brainstorming as to why that might be. And one of the biggest reasons is because frankly this is the first
049time in the first grade that students are asked to read at length more than just the C spot books that we may read longer passage. So they've not been introduced to this particular material before. This is the first time spring that they've ever seen that. So the first grade dip is not just a river dip. It seems to be like a local other school districts are seeing the same thing. And again, it's just a need for us to look at our data, maybe change around a few instructional practices and make sure that those students have a little bit more practice on some of that repeated reading. A recap of the great work being done in 4K through five. We've implemented the great uh phonics program, Really Great Reading. We've established title and multilanguage learner data
050rules allowing students to receive intensive services. All leaders have been trained in the science of reading with CISA 6. We had a robust intervention menu that's been built for grades 4K through four that answers the question, so what? Now what? You don't just give an assessment, get a whole bunch of numbers back. We are able to tell teachers and with their support, here's what to do next with this student who is struggling. It's catching fire. Process was in fourth and fifth grade this year and will be moved up to nth grade next year. Our tier 2 tier three process in place uh to discuss and plan for student needs that are struggling with their growth. And we have unified teamwork. Our task forces, elementary, ELA, middle school, ELA, our guiding coalitions at the buildings, and
051our district leadership team are all looking at this data planning for McGee has used this data to identify their high leverage practice of repeated reading as their building goal. Kig has done the same and they've identified appropriate scaffolding and supports along with feedback practices as their instructional practice goal. So, We often talk about arrows pointing in the right direction and it seems as though like we're getting those arrows pointing in the right direction this summer. Uh we got more work to go. Our teachers are going to begin their science of reading training. Just like I said, the leaders have completed our training. Uh their teachers are going to start that. We're going to begin that actually this last service hour learning science then we'll have overall I believe it's 41 hours start to finish between
052now and next year curriculum work we have backwards planning to ensure we are rigorous rigorously addressing our standards throughout the summer we have uh summer school we have two facets we have the lit boot camp which is uh students that are outgoing second out going going forth students that are on personalized reading plans, they will be getting some summer help and we have our jump start so that students going into kind of the things we've done this year is that each one of those grade levels has a literacy specialist for us literacy specialist identifying students And then finally in July if you're not busy and you want to come grind your data with us uh we are going to have our second annual data boot camp. We'll be bringing a lot of this data back
053to the table talking about building goals that we can set for both our students and that's all I got. Yes. Um, my crystal ball would tell me they will not be ready to put this data on the traditional annual report card this fall. They have they state of Wisconsin has said that they will collect the data and they will report out on it in the fall. We'll be able to dig through wise dash be able to see some comparisons. I would suspect though in the fall of the fall of that it'll be separate from now. Yes. Yes. prom this last weekend. So, I'm feeling awesome this morning. Today, drinking coffee at um went off very well. We had over 220 guests come to Chapel awesome host for us. They asked us to come back and
054know at the end of the night what's the date for next year to come back. So that says something about our students and staff. We have big group of people who puts together all of that student council but mainly it's Amy Jessica who organize everything such as she does a great job our door making sure everybody is safe. Jeremy Audi was our DJ this year. Um who else? Justice was there was there helped and then Amy also really postprodes we had 81 students attend that don't get to attend. It's a good mix of students. Usually prom is dominated by juniors and seniors, sophomor. It was it was excellent. We had no issues all night. Usually our police department will show up and just hang out with us for a little bit. Um that's never really
055been needed ever. This time they were called off for something else going on. So we didn't have them there. So it was a great night. It was a beautiful night. It was a beautiful day for pictures and all that. So it all worked out. It was awesome. So all right, moving on. What do I have for you tonight? It's been a little bit. So there's a couple things that I actually presented at Rotary last week. Um Dian was in attendance there. Um Diane said, "Hey, you should bring this back to the board." Uh, just with Rotary, I wanted to show everybody this is how we start all our values. We usually try to pick a couple words out there that we want to focus on, but something that practice I think all of us at
056time Um, so today I'm gonna kind of go over our some task force task forces that we put together through our guiding coalition. In case you don't know, our guiding coalition is basically our building leadership team. It's comes through the PLC family of having this team that drives you forward. We look at lots of things really. Our guiding coalition is designed focus on our building goals and data. But if there is a need, we break off of there and form another group by a guiding coalition member. I have broken offsition has broken off and started herself MLSS. But uh part of the data that came out of some discussions was our freshman GPA. As you can see, we're on a downward trend. It's funny. You see this and you're like, "Oh man, your scores must
057be following the same trend." But it isn't. are actually going the opposite direction for ACT scores. But what's happening behind the scenes is we're doing a lot more work trying to uh rebuild and support our students to get there. So this is happening creating more work for us. So we wanted to what can we do to better address this so that we're not digging kids out of a hole throughout that three years to get our scores where they are now. So this was this was the data that drove us to creates. What is MLSS? We throw lots lots of letters around in education. MLSS stands for multi-layered systems of support. Um Kyle was kind of talking about that. He didn't mention this term, but that's kind of what what that is. Um, we give everybody
058kind of an overall screener of where kids are and then based off where they fall data determines kind of what we want to do, what kind of level of support is everybody gets. Tier two is not super intense support, but it's some support and level three is high level. label attached to the high school level. I have never seen this done successfully. Um it's kind of that something every school's chasing at the high school level. However, in January, Diane brought a model through Nication conference. She brought that to us and our team said, "Hey, take a look at this and see what you can do with this. jump start honestly I've never seen success successfully implemented at high school whatever reason it's just a different animal so our task force we definitely want to develop
059some outcomes or some shooting for based off our data we really need to develop a system to ensure all students are successful Part of that is allocating resources based on student needs and then also part of that is contin of teachers teacher who is up here is our school psychotere English that guy there. I thought you would like that. Um, but it's a it's a very nice collection of people. They all have a different kind of background, different level of experience. They all have aren't afraid to share it in a productive way. It's a really good team. They aren The biggest part of this team that I like is this is a challenging topic. So you need people who are willing to say what they think because it's going to change what we do. And
060change is hard. Doesn't matter if you're only here two years. Anytime you change anything, it's hard. So we need people who are strong, who are going to ask the tough questions, who are willing to advocate for change, who are willing to answer the tough questions. So this is a great team. Um Kyle helped put together this timeline for us and then we reviewed it and we agreed this is a great timeline or at least something to shoot for. Um so this planning started uh in March and we've been meeting every Wednesday since then. So on Wednesdays we have that early release where they uh teachers work in their departments and focus on uh student outcomes, they focus on standards, they focus on assessments uh departmentwide. So they work basically a full day then they go
061into this PLC time PC time they work on those things and then this team has volunteered to come and sit with us for another hour. So, it's it's a big ask and and they've been willing to do it and they come and we grind during that hour. But the hope is that for the fall we have a plan. Uh what it kind of looks like here's everything that we some do. So the very far background is the list of tough questions that we have to answer. Um That's just ahead of that is our just a sample of our agenda every week. And then in the purple and yellow is our first kind of draft of what this could look like with some options. Talk about some of this, but I just want to give you
062kind of what happened. So on the left is what we determine what needs to be involved. What does the plan have to have? So, you can read through those. Obviously, focus on all freshmen. It'd be a daily occurrence. Uh, ideally, three teachers per period working with those freshmen. We want to hit not only academic skills, but skills, transition skills, soft skills, communication skills, all of those things. So, incoming, and the reason that was part of it, so our freshman do some of those things monthly. ACP in those Monday meetings, but it's not an everyday thing and that could be part of the reason we're seeing some of those GPA drop. We want a small group structure utilized with regular rotations. So, um, if we break down our incoming freshman class, we probably have 10 to
06314 kids per class. That want to break those into three groups and have specific things very organized, but make sure we have students very defining, making sure we're giving students what they But also we want to have some enrichment opportunities as well. So a couple years ago we developed an ACT prep program which was awesome for our 9th through 11th grade. And then the question was what is 12th grade. So we built in some ween seminars but they were really enrichment opportunities. So things like Ryan Hans did a great job of teaching the history of two rivers to our kids. One of the things that came up with How do kids when they leave here, how are they going to talk about? Do they actually know where they're coming from? So that was like one
064of those things we had um Shannon Melbrook in our choir. She took on mental health. How do you maintain good strong mental health as a young adult? So things like that would be talk about um obviously we need a universal screener. We need a diagnostic progress monitoring tool. Um Kyle mentioned it didn't use these words but said this will nine diagnostic tool progress monitor tool kind of use we want to we have to develop a coordination team so what does that mean we don't want to give we want teachers to walk in with knowing exactly what's going on who's who needs what they don't need to prep and plan for. We would need a coordination team to not only plan out what is happening in there, but also monitor the progress of what's going on
065there, communicating that out to teachers, parents and students. So, we need a team and then obviously regularation teachers. So, we want all of those things. We think those are all essential in this plan to address things which is number one A identified the block was just stigma of getting support. Um, and they did three years of research that we're stealing from them. So, we're skipping that because they did a really good job and they met with us and walked through their whole process and shared all of their information. They've been awesome to work with, but their number one goal is just to eliminate stigma in college or anytime you venture out, doesn't matter where you are, usually they require freshmen to attend So as a freshman, wherever you go, usually there's some sort of support
066or study table and you're required to go there multiple times a week. For instance, college does three times a week. Then year two as a sophomore in college, it's optional depending on your performance. So if you did really well, then it's only once a week. If you're still struggling or you're where they want you to be. But eliminating the stigma was very clearly what was focused on and what they attributed their success to eliminating that kids were more than happy to come and get help. More students were willing to come support that it wasn't wasn't penalty. It was just obviously we want to address any learning gaps in nth grade students coming in. We want to definitely encompass any transition um just do a better job of transitioning students to high school about how you
067function as a high school student in the end that we eliminate failures at nth grade which provides more access to the higher level courses. One of the questions that came up by elected teachers in our group was well if we have them do this during the day and not during our ACP or academic career planning period. They might not have as much room in their schedule to take my electives. But through conversation, we learned that there's a lot of students who uh would benefit from taking those electives, but later on they did fail math, you fail English. Now you have to repeat that course or add it in. You're taking now sophomore year, you're not able to take those courses and in the end we have less taking the highest levels in those electives such
068as construction or woods or business because they take up periods during their sophomore year catching up. If we could have got them off on a better path at the beginning that's the end of the MLSS part. Do you have any questions about multi systems of support? Sure. question. Welcome. I don't know if I have any theories. I just think high school is a different different animal. Come up through elementary and I think middle school bridges elementary to middle school kind of what they do, their systems, how they work a little more similar. You get to high school and there's building how you pick your schedule in upper classmen who seem like adults. I don't know if you remember when you were 15, you saw someone with a driver's license. We take that for high school.
069We're adults. But I just think there's there's a learning curve and there's a lot more going on at high school as far as sports, electives, bands, the levels that they compete, the time that's being put into that. there's just a different level of dedication things away from students how to stay organized and on topic. I just I just think it's a little different grading wise there's conversations that happen all the time. We talk about assessments what student success looks like. That's a continued conversation but it's just a little bit different. Does it have to be Maybe that's something we strive for in the future, but right now that's that's what it is. But our data is showing us what our data is showing us. So we have them in nth grade. We have them um
070and their GPA level is not going with what Jen said as well to the high school. point. I did 21 exit performance recently and one of the questions was your goals high school and I would say probably 20 out of 21 of the interviews that we did expectations high school about they were just trying to get in under the radar they were concerned about had no idea, but they would just do whatever they could just to get by. I heard that a lot. And so, of course, perked up and I took note of that because I had kids that were in middle school. And I just I think that we can do a better job that I'm not sure how that works. But I do think that I went back and I looked at my
071kids that don't know why I'm saying it but I know through 2015 they were still doing that not knowing specifically what it is in middle school but then what does that equate high school in that area questions. Thank you for those consideration. Um, our next, this is the hot topic, cell phone policy. So our current we're looking at middle school has done upgraded their policy specific where those things high school I'd say we've every year we wrestle with the cell phone policy and up until this year it was always comes down to50 policy Um this year it seems like we've hit that point where the majority or all of our teachers are like we need to get a better handle on what we're doing. I mean, we're handling it okay, but it's becoming an issue.
072Students are just very focused and very attached to their cell phone. We've tried in the past to work into classroom instruction using it for education and it just it's just a daily struggle. So, it was very evident just through conversations with staff that we need to do something a little different. Our current polic students can have their cell phones with them all day. Um, technically they're not allowed to use them in the classrooms, but it is teacher discretion using the hallways, all common spaces. The issues that were identified through staff are just a regular distraction throughout students messaging each other, texting, social media, all the different apps that they use to communicate with each other in our building. Not a whole lot of significant things, but it is a distraction. I'll give you a couple
073examples. Create a chat about kids will say class things like that happens very important throughout the day to maintain it's just a distraction so we want to create a new policy to eliminate access throughout the just to kind of take that anxiety, that thought out of how to play while they're here at school. Teachers have experimented in class where it's most feedback from students. appreciate that they need our help. So that's focus. That's picture of Jessie. So she uh she's very passionate. She's one of the teachers that has piloted a couple different versions and she says she teaches multiple grade levels out of their hands. Students just feel better about focus and get more done. So, here's kind of our process. We're uh creating a guiding coalition task force. So, Mrs. Audi has recruited three
074or four teachers. She's also identified a couple of students who will be in that conversation. So, she's also looking for some parent representatives. She has conducted and reviewed a couple of current models. The biggest thing she brought to the guiding coalition a couple months ago is she reached out to she's part of like a science group on Facebook science teachers from all over the country and out of the country. She said just what is your policy good or bad tell me what you got and it was about I don't know 15 page document of all the stories and the reoccurring theme was less they have access to them the reasons both mentally and we also need to determine the needs at two high school we want to create feedback from students teachers and parents through
075a survey probably the best way to do I know that she started to survey teachers. She created that feedback that policy staff at the beginning of the year and parents create a feedback. Right now, there's two schools of thought that are being debated in our building about what this could look like. One is following a similar model of middle school where phones be in the locker at all times between classes at lunch at lunch. So that kind of the other one would be they turn them in somewhere at the beginning of the day and not have access to it until that has been hammered out. draft. Um, so anyway, that's where we are with cell phone policy, but we're definitely going to have a new policy fall. I know the state there's lots of talk
076to have every district that they have to have a policy very broad as long as you have a policy meet the requirement. Same thing happens with academic career planning. It's a state requirement. What it looks like is really policy in place. We have that already. I was going to say the transition if I'm not mistaken and it's not just cell phones, right? It's your smart watches and all of that. So there's a there's a district policy on it. So I think what Tim is saying is more is what is what is our procedure practices at the high school. We have the practices and the procedures at the middle school where kids put them in their locker beginning of the day, they get them out at the end of the day. So, they're deciding on what
077their procedures are at the high school. We still have a policy for for any kind of device that that kids may have or or adults as well. I just thought it was important for Tim uh to bring this forward because as the you know, as they're working on this, it's kind of a big thing, right? I mean, you you hear about it all the time in the news of districts going to more stricter um procedures and um I thought it was important for him to share that we do have a team of people working on that um as we speak. I've been working on that for months already and we'll have some decisions made for our next school year. first couple weeks of school and then um and then it's as long as everyone is
078following the same procedure and expecting the same thing after two or three weeks it was fine. Thank you. So a year ago at this time it was actually at the first board meeting in May last year when you approved a cash flow borrowing and that cash flow borrowing last year was in the amount of $750,000 and the purpose of it was to get us over the hump of um paying out the teacher contracts which are done at the um right at the end of the school year And it there's a a period of time where as projected our cash was going to dip somewhat and the $750,000 was going to cover that until we got our final aid payment which is about the third week in June. Well, I'm here tonight to tell you that
079in projecting now that same time period again and um also having a discussion again with Allison Buchanan, our bond attorney who we worked with for the borrowing last year and who I had um the distinct honor of actually presenting with her a couple years ago at a WBO seminar on cash flow borrowing. As a matter of fact, uh for the first time, we don't have to borrow this year. We ended up getting some Medicaid payments last year after we had the borrowing all finalized and so we honestly we didn't even need all the cash that we borrowed. Now please understand when I talk about cash flow that is different than when we talk about deficit. So deficit is you know our projection for next year based on looking at our revenue and our expenditures and
080that is there's a shortfall in the revenue compared to the expenditures. That's how we got the deficit that we're looking at. Cash flow in this instance is a reflection of our fund balance. It's a reflection of our savings. So, we can bridge gaps in in deficits by dipping into our fund balance. However, that's not a a very wise practice because so much of our budget is based on salaries and those salaries will return the following year. So, you still have that deficit issue that still going to be booming out there. So, but anyway, getting back to cash flow. So, what this is is we're just looking at our fund balance and because right now we have a a very healthy fund balance doesn't mean we are a very district by any means, but you know,
081we've been able to build it up over the years and been very frugal about how it is spent and how we manage it. We actually don't have to do any cash flow borrowing this year. We are going to be still monitoring it as we go, but it looks like based on our projections, that's where we are. And as you know, as I've been talking about each year at the budget hearings when we talk about get to the slide towards the end where I talk about our our fund balance and you know what is it good for? This is one of the reasons why it is good. You want to have a healthy fund balance because doing this also saves the district the interest. So last year we spent 12 in interest to borrow the 750,000.
082We don't have that. So I just this is the first time ever money to cover that bridge of I think that's financially. Yeah, it's been going down over the years. Just a couple updates. If you remember last year, Travis spoke to the board talked about the education foundation which um the foundation is part of not the goal of the found. So, um, we just wanted you to know that they met on April 16th and this year they are giving out $62,500 28 students in scholarships, which I think is completely amazing. Um, a couple years ago they decided that they were also going to do $1,000 and I believe this year they had for students who graduated. So the word is getting out there and they continue to do a wonderful job in the past. They've
083also done charter grants. So those are the grants that you matched last August foundation also match. So that's the kind of question that Tim was on that question. staff exit interviews. Uh so I started setting up exit interviews. We have six retirees at this point. So I'm meeting with them as well as anybody else that's leaving our district. So we have four people and just asking questions. So what do you appreciate about the district? What could we do to improve the district? if there weren't any barriers. And uh so those meetings are starting this week with people about 10 15 minutes each. I usually go to wherever they want me to go. I go to the area and we meet and it's just nice to I just find that people who are leaving the district
084and retiring are very and listening. I will be sharing that information and I will be going to IL last meetings for city council highlight students that we had at city hall and we just want to so many business department. So if you want to see when I would like to add staff apps booked to take over to them. So on May 5th we'll be going to May 66. Um if the board if anybody on the board is interested in handing out and providing some treats to our staff about 7:45 at each of those schools not going to tell you what the snacks Second, Mr. Mendley, Mr. Williams, Mrs.