001We want to make sure we're um jump right in. >> Thank you. Uh my name is Betsy Schultz. I'm the families and transition coordinator for the school district. So I support um and I'm a social worker by training and I'm also the social worker at core, but tonight here is the fit coordinator. Um I support families that are experiencing housing instability and I support social workers supporting families um families that are um experiencing housing instability. Um so I just it November is homelessness awareness month. Um, so in that spirit, I'm here um just to build some um acknowledgement and awareness the um the realities that many of our families are facing on a daily basis. Um I think you know homelessness is very real in our district in our community. Um and it's oftentimes invisible.
002Um so kind of bringing some visibility to something that feels invisible. Um there's a lot of shame in being labeled homeless. Um and so thinking about you know it's very complex and multiaceted and so bringing um again just building that awareness um one to not only validate the experiences that our families and kids are having but two to really um increase empathy across our community for our families. Um so I just want to start by um developing some shared understanding around you know what the Mckin Vento act is. Um, you might have heard of Mckin Vento, MKV. There are a lot of um, acronyms as there are in education. Um, and I'll use them interchangeably. Um, but just what the Mckin Vento act is. Um, even, you know, within our community, different systems that serve
003families experiencing homelessness like the shelters, they have different definitions about homelessness from what um, the McKini Vento Act is and in the realm of education. So, just building some trade understanding. Um, so the benchmark was created in 1987. It was updated in 2015. Um, and it was created to provide legal protections for students and families experiencing homelessness. Um, and the intent of it is to reduce barriers um for student engagement. So that's from enrollment to um student achievement including extracurriculars, full participation um and so that more equitable access for those those kids and families. Um, and the law does provide us a definition. Um, and so that I'll just read from the slide that a child can be considered homeless when they lack a fixed, regular, and adequate nighttime residence. And so, while the law
004gives us that definition, it doesn't define each of those words. Um, but generally, when we're thinking about identifying um and determining homelessness, we can ask the question, can the student go to the same place? So fixed every night regular um and go to sleep in a safe um and sufficient space. That's the adequacy piece. Um and so you know the inadequacy the the not being fixed um and the irregularness of nighttime residents looks very different for many families. Um and some of you know the nighttime residents that might you know be surprising that they would qualify as homeless. Um but again it's very multifaceted and complex for our families. Um and so there's a lot of gray area but generally um we most of our families and we'll see that in the data a little
005bit later on um is that most families are doubled up. So they're sharing the housing of others, friends or family um because of economic hardship. Um, other categories would include living in a motel or hotel even if they're self-paying. Um, living in a trailer park or camping grounds just due to lack of um there's no adequate alternative accommodations. Um, living in a shelter. So that could be like the emergency family shelter, the Salvation Army here, um, a domestic violence shelter. It could be a Red Cross shelter. Um, and they or they might be living in a public or private space that's not designed for humans to sleep in. So like a car, a park, a bus station, um places of business, um abandoned buildings or substandard housing. And that could even be like renting out
006a basement space, but they don't have access to like a bathroom or a kitchen. Um also children um that are part of migratory families who meet the lack of fixed regular bed. Um and that unaccompanied youth. So that's youth um and that can be 0 to 18 um there's no really age limit not living with their parent or guardian and in the meet the lack of fixed regular and adequate. Um so once we identify a student they are entitled to um certain rights under the law. And so the left side is you know kind of what the law says very generally and then the right side is how we implement that. Um, so for our new families, that means that they're entitled to immediate enrollment. We don't require documentation. Obviously, they don't have um stable
007residents. So, we're not asking for a lease, but we're also not asking for the lease of the person they're staying with. Um, we're not asking for proof of occupancy. We're not requiring immunization records or birth certificate. We work on getting those things, but the most important thing is to enroll students right away. Um and then the second piece which is probably the biggest piece for our current families is something called school of origin. So that is the school that the student last attended when they became homeless or when they were last permanently housed. And so under the law um students have a right to and it's often in their best interest for consistency sake to attend their school of origin. Um, and that means even if they're in a shelter out of district, even if
008they are at a hotel on the far east side of Madison, um, even if they're in a a neighboring county, they have the right to attend the school of origin for the duration of the school year. Um, and so, and that also extends to if they were to become permanently housed outside of the district, they still are able to attend for the rest of the school year. Um, and so with that comes the right to transportation to the school of origin. Oh, sorry. back up. They also can choose to attend their um school of residence. So let's say um we as an example like the family is at was at Sugar Creek. They were evicted. Um they are staying in Sun Prairie and they're they're like I want to stay at my school residence for
009consistency. My kid has community there. I know the the teachers and staff there. I trust them. And then after four months they're like you know I think this situation we're in is is going to be more permanent. they have the right to attend their school of residence in Sun Prairie. So that they have that power of choice as well. Um families also have the right to transportation to their school of origin. They provide the school district and that also includes once they're permanently housed even if they're outside of the district. Um and then also this the piece about removal of barriers. And so some examples of that are students automatically qualify for free lunch. Um and that also means that they any fees associated are waved. Um, and we also want to make sure kids
010have the opportunity, like their house peers, to be able to participate in a club. So that means we're taking care of fees. If they need a late cab after school, we're arranging that. Um, being able to play sports, we make that happen. Um, so you know, the the law and the way we implement it is really um it's a way to provide consistency and we know that's a protective factor for kids experiencing trauma and homelessness um is an adverse childhood experience. It is traumatic and so that consistency is super important in building resiliency. Um and then also for the the family to know that they have choice um in this really tough situation that they're in. So, what does that look like in our district? Um, so far this year, we've identified 82 students as
011homeless. Um, so there's the breakdown by level with the most being at elementary. Um, and just for some comparison, for some context, last year in total for the entire school year, we identified 123 students. So, we're already over halfway there. Um that increase is very consistent with nation and statewide and surrounding communities numbers. Um it's you know we had a little dip during COVID in terms of being able to connect and identify families. Um but it's been steadily increasing since then. Um so even you know we likely are still underidentifying because we know that there's a lot of stigma with with being homeless. Um, and even my title, I don't we don't refer to it as like a homeless families in transition trying to reduce some of that stigma. Um, so we're likely underidentifying families.
012Um, you know, we can use our economically disadvantage rate, which from our report card is around 25% and so it would be around 10% of that, which I think is like 150 or 160. So, I think we're on track to better identifying and we still probably um are not identifying all families. Um and just in terms of causes and and why we're seeing an increase, I would say for our families, everything else is getting more expensive and families just aren't able to keep up with, you know, um when it's time to renew their lease, they're like, we can't we can't make that work. Um, and also substandard housing to a lot of families that do have permanent housing or just finding that there's certain things that are impacting their health like mold or um, insect
013that to to make a decision to their and health of their family. Um, and also just findamilies are just one hardship away from, you know, being able to afford their rent. um their car breaks down, they can't get to work, they lose their job, unexpected illness or a medical bill. Um and so that just kind of starts the domino effect. Again, those are making hard decisions about food, housing, basic needs. Um and sometimes that means lots of lots of housing. So, we talked kind of before about nighttime residents. Um, so for us, and this is true across the board everywhere, um, most families are doubled up. Some families are tripled up or quadrupled up. So there are four families, three families, two families living in like a two or threebedroom apartment. Um, and so that
014sort of speaks to the inadequacy of of a housing situation. Um and also many families are staying with multiple friends or um stable because shelters are full. Families aren't getting into shelter. Um hotel or motel around four and unsheltered around two. Um and these numbers change even since I made the slides last Thursday. um because many families are also bouncing around between an aunt's house and sleeping in their car and staying at a hotel for one night. Um and also a kind of brightness, some families, about 12 students have found permanent housing um since the beginning of the year since being identified. Um so part of our obligation under the law is to provide transportation to the school of origin. Um we use four primary modes of transportation. Um if families are doubled up in
015district, then they can take the the nearest bus. And even if they're doubled up a little bit outside of district boundaries, but close enough to a bus stop, we're able to get them on the bus. Um many families self- transport, so reimburse mileage through gas cards. Um most of our students are taking or aside from in district busing are coming to and from school via Madison taxi daily. And then about 10 of our students are using Everdriven, which is like a vetted car service d um for students. So it's sort of like a blooper for students. Um and just to give kind of context how far kids are coming. Um the gas cards are averaging about families are driving about 50 miles per day. Um and for ever driven those I usually use those for
016rides that are over 30 minutes one way. Um so in just calculating gas cards every two weeks I do it. We had a family that was traveling almost a thousand miles every two weeks in their car to get their kids to and from school. So, I think that really speaks to the importance of the con, you know, the consistency that the law can provide and also how important um being part of this district is to our is to our families. Um, so there's also, you know, nowhere in the law does it talk about that there's a time timeline on homelessness. And many families experience chronic home chronic homelessness. Um, and many families, you know, whether they're homeless for several years ongoing or whether they are homeless, find housing, lose housing, and are kind of in
017a cycle. Um just in the two years I've been in this position um we have had 35 students who were identified both last year and this year. Um so there's that speaks to the the chronic homelessness piece. Um and just as some other points of um you know that families going through experiencing instability and housing there um there are many intersections with other parts of their lives that can kind of compound and make you know their housing stability. it just is compounding. Um so they're involved in many systems and facing many challenges and so many of our um families are multilingual. We have seen um you know a pretty steady increase in newcomer families who are coming from a different country. Um and so that that number is around 40 right now. Um and then
018in terms of special ed identification it's about 12. And I say known because again we don't require any paperwork and so sometimes kids are coming in and um you know we don't know what their their needs might be right away. Um but that's kind of known right now. Um so that takes me to my last slide. We talked about kind of the what which was the law, the so what which is what it looks like in our district and the now what. Um, you know, I think our district really has like a village mentality and that we take care of each other. And so, um, being able to just bring awareness that social workers are doing and student services are doing is, you know, super important. Again, making the invisible a little bit more visible.
019Um, and, you know, I think we'd all agree every student deserves to lay their heads down at night, you know, where they feel safe in mind and body. Um, and so some questions that we're constantly asking ourselves are, you know, what can we do as a community? um to really support families that are making some tough decisions and how are we being smart about creating meaningful partnerships that target the needs of our some of our most vulnerable families. Um and so I think community awareness is a huge first step. um starting small and building bridges out to community partners to identify where some of those gaps are and then continuing to refine some of our internal practices around like enrollment um summer school training attendance so that we are not creating additional barriers for our
020students. Um so just to end with to kind of paraphrase my Angelou do the best you can until you know better then when you know better do better. Thank you for bringing this up. I think this might be the first time we've ever talked about this at a board meeting. So, there may be people who are hearing this for the first time, but I want to be very clear like this has been around for almost 40 years. So, this is not this is not a new a new federal act. This is in our political climate. I feel like it's important to like homelessness for children has been a concern for decades and we are doing a a great job of doing whatever we can to help kids. um that this is not this may be
021new to listeners, but it is solid work that school districts are federally required to be doing and I think I just appreciate the work that our district is doing um for such a great uh need. >> Also, thank you. Um this is a recently had to shift to my work and now focusing on homeless populations and particularly around youth homelessness. Um but just for like another statistic for Dayton County there's 74 790 people experiencing homelessness in Day County about 40% of of those experiencing homelessness in that population. Um 40% are from the black community. you think about other disparities like the Latino community, LGBTQ folks. I know that we have a higher uh number of uh uh percentage of youth who are LGBTQ experiencing homelessness because it's not safe to go home or they've been
022stigmatized or it's just unsafe. So, there's all these other things that we need to think about as well when we think about homelessness as a systemic issue, but the disproportionality definitely exists, especially in King County. Um the one question I was going to ask was um making sure that we're thinking about culturally relevant organizations that can help out um with that discussion with those as well um to increase that awareness. But um I'll be speaking tomorrow about youth homelessness and the homelessness summit. So you can be there. >> I will not be there. >> Okay. >> Um I was there last year but I won't be there this year. We should probably talk more. >> Yes, we should. But thank you for highlighting this and um I think uh coming I talked about Seattle a
023lot but coming from Seattle as well um 790 folks for me is a that is a solvable problem if we could collectively put the effort politically and economically to make um those investments into solving um that problem coming from King County in Seattle. It's 56,000 people in industry that are in housing insecure. And then also um HUD and this the Trump administration will be looking at taking away permanent housing funding to other areas and and and that that will likely increase the number of folks that see that we see our community are experiencing homelessness. >> Yep. Yep. Exactly. Exactly. Yeah. >> Thank you, Betsy. This is really, yeah, as Meredith said, really important information for us to be aware. I know staff on the ground level with your support are helping students every day to
024ensure that that connectivity and that support is happening in our buildings. We're so grateful for your work and for all of the teachers and staff that are supporting students every day. >> Thank you for having me. So to close with a gratitude for your flexibility today and also the great work that you do with our families in transition that I just felt for this presentation they need they need to see the face of of the district that's really out there uh every single day. We're all in support. It's not a single person's job and I hope you don't ever feel that way. Um but we you know you do so much on behalf of our families and people know you you know by name. You put your information out there. So, we just wanted to
025also take the time to thank you for the continuous work that you do for our population and the families that need you the most. >> Thank you. >> Absolutely. >> Thank you. >> All right. Revisit our agenda. Are you okay if we go backwards a few slides? >> Good catch. Just in time to make you uncomfortable, perhaps. Um, so we're going to go back a few slides. We do have a few staff recognitions. including Yeah, someone needs to do the clicker. Joe, you good going backwards >> to I don't know what slide is it? >> Uh, we do have on slide seven. You're okay. >> Currently going backwards or forward. >> Ah, the small button. >> Wait for it to be I know we could all do a drum roll. >> There we go. So,
026in case folks listening have not heard. We are among the presence of our Wisconsin Association of School District Administrators. I got that right? Yeah. Was superintendent of the year for 2026. CONGRATULATIONS. I know for those of you that don't know, Dr. Clarity does not like to center attention. And in true Dr. Clarity fashion, if I may share just an anecdotal story, um I and our leadership team of the board got to be on the call when you found out that you had earned the award. And I think it was within 5 seconds of saying, "I'm getting this award." that it was immediately and all of my team and all of my and yes, >> you have an amazing team and this is your award for your leadership of this district and the leadership of the
027team that is with us this evening and beyond. So just want to elevate that you are so gracious in acknowledging the folks behind you as we all do as well but to let you take credit for this. Um especially if I can just share that the um criteria include successfully meeting the needs of students, personal and organizational communication, professionalism, participation in local community activities, and an understanding of regional, national, and international issues. Those are things that you have shown and demonstrated to be a recipient of this award. And Sharon, congratulations and gratitude >> for your service. >> Any other board members want to just pour any other accolades while we have this uncomfortable >> Dr. Clarity moment here? Yeah, >> I do. Um, I've been a resident of Verona since uh 2004 and watching what
028this district has turned into because of your leadership and your amazing team has has been nothing short of amazing. And um I hear it from the parents, I hear it from the kids. It's it's just incredible. And just congratulations. You know, it it is just it's such an honor to work alongside you and and continue this this journey of uh equity and education. >> Thank you. I appreciate it. Thank you so much. >> I'm just happy that everyone across the state now is get gets to know what we at this table have known for years. >> Welld deserved. >> Thank you. I remember the first time we went to on a school visit. You hadn't even been in the district that long, but you knew kids' names. Kids knew your name. I mean, you were
029you have made such a um a priority of getting to know like it has been students first from day one, which is how it should always be, but you you live that leadership style. And we're just grateful that we get to be part of this uh journey with you. So, >> thank you so much. I I've uh I'm gonna interrupt you before you say something. All right. Uh so I I've talked about, you know, coming here to the Midwest from Seattle many times and and many of the anxieties that we carried with us that we would landed a place that would support us as a family, queer family, multi-racial, uh we have disabilities in our family as well. We weren't sure where we were going to land and we had a lot of ideas of
030where we where we were coming to, but um what you have uh led and what the administration and what this district has has given us as a family. >> We can't go back to Seattle because we found a home here >> because of this administration and this school and because of your leadership. So, I want to thank you because I so my baby's here every day to the school district and it is because of that what you all bring. So, thank you and that's reflected in this recognition. So, thank you. >> Thank you. I appreciate that. >> Not I don't we love staff recognitions. These are the best. >> So, I if I'll just briefly first Yes. It's it's an uncomfortable in a different way, you know, just because I our goal and mission is
031to serve and then when it comes back to you, sometimes we're the worst at taking it taking accolades back. And I just acknowledge that. Um, and yes, I I talk about I probably said the team in five seconds, but I can't tell you how how much I care so deeply from a human side and professional side of these people that you see in in front of us and across our district in every single day. Uh, just been able to walk in the spaces. It doesn't matter how you wake up and how day how what's going on in your day. If you walk into a Bron Air School District building and walk into a classroom, your day will get better. And that's that's just a fact. Your day will get better if you walk into the
032into the spaces. Uh because you see the genuine care and and love and interaction between adults and adults and and adults and students that is genuine, authentic, and is from from the heart while putting high expectations for academic excellence in front of our students. And that's just very hard to do. It's complex work. Uh, and the Ronary School District has dynamic educators that do it at the highest level every single day. And so I am just proud to be able to serve and to help create the conditions for that magic to happen. And that's what I what I what I really strive to do is to do do that piece of the work. I also want to uh thank a a a group that I am forever grateful for that uh most are not here
033today u and one one is still with us and that's the original board of education that that that hired that hired me here uh and that was led by Meredith Steen who's right here. Thank you so much, Meredith, Noah Roberts, Amy Almond, Carolyn Yonke, Yanni Williams, Christina Nabar Hefner, and Tom Durst. That was the original seven in this room um in mask uh >> doing doing this. And I can remember everyone exactly was was seated and and my only thing when I love to do here is just don't mess this up because this is the spot, you know, and that's and that's five years ago now. It's It's crazy. >> Almost five years to the day, I think was the first interview. >> Absolutely. Like >> the 16th of November. That's crazy. >> Yeah, it's
034five years. It went by so fast. So, thank you. And then also I definitely want to thank this board uh for um continuing to hold me accountable to high expectations, continuing to as we'll do today uh look at our data to ensure that our students are performing performing at a high a high level but also just being so supportive of the work of the of me and this and this team giving great feedback and and uh creating the space for me to give my best every single day. So thank you to this board as well as well for all all that we have accomplished. So, I'm going to stop. We got a lot to cover today. Um, but what this means for the Bron area school district uh to in in totality, that's what matters
035to me. Um, and also just for anyone I I wonder if I'm not doing a good enough job expressing people how much I love a Bron School District because you no one should ask me if this means I'm doing something else in my future. Like, I'll just put it on for recording. No. Until the board, until someone tells me that this is not the space for me anymore or values get misaligned, this is this is the space that for for for me for my family and there is no grass greener on the other side. >> This is the greenest of grass. >> Absolutely. So, thank you. Thank you. Continue to watch your local news and news outlets for more exciting >> interview more interviews. >> We have one more celebration. >> Absolutely. So now I
036get to do the honor. Uh we have and part of the reason I was able to be awarded this is because of the dynamic communication team that we have in the Bron Air School District. um uh with Marc Marcen Karn. And just this Friday uh the team was uh once again recognized for their tremendous work in three different categories uh at the WSP fall conference. Uh this year they were they walked away with three awards. They're going to have to build a trophy case now for just for the communications team in the category and they won the uh upper level from award of merit to award of excellence. Um now uh so in the category of annual report the 2425 BSD annual report in the in the newsletter category the back to schools newsletter and
037a and a special purpose project campaign every wild cat counts be here be great tense campaign uh Verona area school district walked away with the with the plaques. CONGRATULATIONS TO this board extending gratitude to you both as well. Your communication support um really supports all of us. Thank you for all you do to support our work, the work of the district. Um yeah, we're just so grateful to have you here. Thank you. Now we get to talk money and budgets. trip. >> We're going to keep the positive energy and the joy and the celebration. >> Just thinking, boy, we haven't had the good. >> I know. It's been like two meetings. >> I don't know. >> Just in time. >> Welcome, Chad. Welcome, Pete. Great to have you back. >> Forward to it. It does
038seem like it's been a long time been up here talking about the budget. You've grown you've grown a whole beard, >> Right. >> So, uh it's never too early to start taking out look ahead to next year. Um especially if uh if some of the things we're going to share tonight hold true as we work our way through the 26 27 budget. So, a brief presentation, but I think uh certainly some news that we've been previewing with the school board quite honestly since our last pass operating referendum. We knew this day was likely coming. We're going to talk through why we're here uh and potentially start to talk through uh some of the solutions or some of the next steps related to where we think uh the budget's headed for 2627. Uh so, we want
039to walk the board really quickly through where we're at with the calendar. uh again uh review where we're at with current assumptions and again that is our best guess on where these numbers will land in October basically a year from now uh in terms of where we believe we'll be at now we're in the second part of the new estate budget. So a lot of these assumptions will stick. Uh so we have a very good idea what our budget will look like a year from now. We got a little enrollment update and then the five-year forecast uh that the board is very familiar with and then a little bit of discussion. Lastly, then uh we'll hear from Pete on the line of credit vote that happens this time of year uh every year. So, um
040I'm not going to spend a lot of time belaboring uh the uh the updated budget calendar. We do have lots of pieces on the way here. Really the biggest next step for us is we're going to start to dip uh into allocation season. uh our team is planning on and I think it is our job on an annual basis uh to make sure our staffing aligns to uh the mission related to the results policy uh you'll hear from Amy and the team later on tonight but also if there's places we can get more efficient uh it's our duty to do so and our in particular elementary schools are smaller than they were a few years ago and we likely see us continuing to uh shrink staffing sizes in elementary schools just because it's the right
041to do um instead of we we don't need class sizes of 10 or 11 just to hold on uh to the allocation we've had in the past and quite honestly worse than the budget scenario I'm going to walk you through uh this evening and again lots of steps on the way to a year from now us passing another budget a few of the the assumptions that uh and this is literally a screenshot off of Pete's master spreadsheet that has 97 tabs for us to calculate the five-year forecast all of you are going to see at the end of this presentation. A few things we wanted to highlight here this evening. Uh one, we are projecting we're going to be down from 100 FTE and that's the conversion related to 4K summer school hours and our
042headcount and then in the end open enrollment and an element factors into that as well. And primarily you're going to see, we're going to walk you through this, graduate potentially the record class of this school district uh this upcoming uh June in 2026. Uh and then we're predicting another small kindergarten class. So that rinse and repeat for a few years here. Uh we're going to see a dip in enrollment before it goes back up. Uh but again, you drive around this community and there there are new rooftops uh popping up all over the place. We do have the birth data that we are leaning on in terms of uh what happened in 2021, a record uh um year of new babies in the city of Verona. So, we are holding out hope and hope is
043not a strategy that more kindergarteners will get here uh than we are predicting, but for the time being, Pete and I did build in a dip of 100 FTE for next year. the $325 student, we know it sticks because that's related to the second half of that two-year state budget. Uh special ed categorical aid, uh we've got it 42%. There's a blurb that just popped today. Uh that at least as of right now, the first round of reimbursement related to uh special ed aid is actually going to be around 35% uh even though the state promised a lot more. Uh but again, that is a bucket of money set aside. Um, and Pete and I built that in. I think Pete said, uh, this year's budget, he predicted about 38% in terms of special ed
044reimbursement. Pete still thinks we'll get there. Uh, but at least the early signs are, uh, the state will not hit the mark they promised in the last year, the last two-year state budget. They haven't done so uh, in in recent history. A few other things on there. quite frankly probably conservative 5% increase on property value but that doesn't really impact uh where we're going to be headed with a budget deficit and then cost of living is trending to about 3% other fixed costs that are very hard for us to move uh we likely will see a 7% increase in health care that is below the nation average but that continues to kind of be a snowball that rolls out of control that we have a hard time wrangling in and And really all other expenses
045we expect to go up at 3%. A lot of those are harder to keep in check as well. Uh DC costs like transportation and utilities uh likely exceeding that uh in the coming years. Um wanted to spend a little bit of time on this slide in terms of how we get to a budget deficit that Pete and I are going to present tonight. Uh in essence to try to keep it very simple, uh let's let's talk big round numbers. Let's we have a $ 109 million operating budget. Let's pretend that's a hundred million. The cost of living is at a minimum right now 3%. The way we build our budget on an annual basis, if we believe staff are entitled to cost of living raise and credit for a year of service, our ongoing expenses
046any given year, if everything else is flat, is about four and a half to 5%. that we really need $5 million every year to balance our budget. This last year, that $325 a student equated to $1.3 million. That exists in perpetuity. Unless something changes with the way the state does their budget to align our annual costs to what they're giving us permission to, we are rinse and repeat. If we went to operating referendum again and nothing changed with the state funding formula, it is not if, it's when we would have to return to do another operating referendum because they are that far below the rate of inflation and the rate of ongoing costs that our district has to absorb on an annual basis. That is the fact of the matter. That is how we went
047from $19 million of operating permission to Chad and Pete being up here in 2526 forecasting 2627 that we're going to be short money in terms of operating permission. Questions on that at all? I think the math's relatively simple. We need about 5%. We're getting about 1.7% uh with that $325 a student. There's a quick snapshot of where and why we think we're going to be at where we're um where we're headed with enrollment. But again, that 2627 column, we're predicting for the time being a very small kindergarten class related to this year's very small 4K class. that can change when we start to get our way through uh enrollment season. But when you graduate uh you know 485 students this year uh and bring in a really small kindergarten class, you end up with a
048smaller head count and that's where we'd likely see ourselves heading in 2627. That does relate to our operating permission in terms of what we get per pupil from the state of Wisconsin. Wanted to bring this back. Um, we still we still do have hope uh that there weren't a ton of families that elected to get into 4K uh and that they're out there and they will register kindergarten. Uh in both 2020 and 2021 we had what I would consider bigger than average birth class classes and in particular the city of Burough. So um we're we're hoping they're still with us uh were still residents and will be uh with us when they register for school this upcoming year. Here is the five-year forecast uh that the the board's super familiar with. We highlighted a a
049couple of columns or a couple of rows here. Uh the top one there again uh this board has strategized uh managing the mill rate to the point that uh we weren't just set it and forget it at 13 where it was five years ago. uh meaning then your taxes would your property taxes would go up in step with the value of your home. And we've seen what's happened with the the value of home prices in particular uh in Dayne County. Uh and the board has elected to check down the mill rate to historic lows uh over the last five years, but also has set money aside with fund 39 uh to the point that this upcoming year we're predicting $19 million of fund 39 levy and our minimum debt payment is $10 million. As a
050reminder to everyone watching and to the school board, that extra $9 million the last time we went to operating referendum was about $11 million. that we predicted to flip to about $14 million the following year and built in a strategy where we could go to our taxpayers and say we know we can set the mill rate in this case to 1066 the following year and do an operating referendum where instead of prepaying debt for the next few years we're asking permission to use it to operate the school district. Um, and that uh is a scenario that we've and we've done this strategically uh the last three or four years because we knew this day was coming. So, in the meantime, while we've prepaid all that debt, we've saved 11 or 12 million dollars on interest
051for taxpayers, but we've also opened up a gap here where we've got I think a very strong narrative in terms of if the board elected to send us in the direction of a referendum. Uh we've kind of set the table to do that again if we decided that was the right move and it's the board's uh decision to do so. uh at the bottom there, uh the four columns we've highlighted is where we see ourselves heading in the next four years if all of those assumptions hold true. This upcoming year, we're predicting about a $3 million um operating deficit. Uh that was the case last year, but we had one big rabbit to pull out of the hat and that was healthcare. We sent it to RFP. We worked with the providers to get a
052number that we were happy with. We put our staff through the headaches of changing a health care provider and we were able to present a balanced budget to the board in the end. Uh that wild card is no longer with us anymore. Uh we've done that. Now we've signed a contract with Dean SSM Health uh and really have very few um I guess palatable options uh to balance this budget for 2627. I did share a few of the big bucket uh items mainly related to what we would do with people uh that would be tools we could use uh in the event that we decided we wanted to balance this budget without going to operating referendum. I will tell you uh when we go through these numbers uh and that is this sixline chart uh
053these are all one-year solutions I just shared with you four years down the road if these assumptions stick we're in a spot we're $15 million in the hole again. Uh so these would be potential solutions if the board said operating referendum is not on the table. you guys balance this budget with the tools you have. Uh the tools we would take a look at but where we have big buckets of money that we have control over. Um so um number one and I actually do see us heading in this direction. Um we believe the right move with us having fewer pupils, fewer students will likely be shrink our staff size a little bit and that will come out of the staffing and allocation process. Um we are not a layoff school district at this point
054and do not see us do not see us heading in the direction of doing so. Uh so we if and when we reduce staff size through the allocation process, it would be through retirements and resignations. Um and could mean uh if we had a third grade uh resignation at a school, but we knew we had a um small class sizes in second grade, we would have the ability to slide a second grade teacher to third grade to make sure we balanced things out. but likely see ourselves in the heading in the direction of of reducing our staff size. That one's not very painful and it's actually the right thing to do. The other ones on this list quite frankly would be painful. Uh so one way to do this would just be freeze salaries. Um,
055and it has been uh a priority of the school board uh and this administration uh to compensate our staff fairly and in line with what's happening uh around the county and quite frankly has worked. Um we've had better staff retention than we've had historically this last year. Um and I think superintendent of the year uh but people also feel like they're compensated for the work they're doing in the school district. Uh so that's one that saves us $1.3 billion if we froze everybody out of step. Uh another one would be no CPI increase and that's a sliding scale from zero to 3%. We went all in and froze everybody. We've closed the budget gap, but it's a one-year solution. It is a one-year solution. We can't do it every year. Uh other things that are
056on the table, we made the decision and the board made the decision when we passed the $19 million operating referendum uh to give John Bremer and his team a million dollars a year to maintain our facilities. And I think that shows uh part of the pride this community has uh is not only the staff and the students, people are proud of going into our clean and well-maintained schools. Uh and that is in my mind is money well worth uh um its weight every year putting a new roof on a school before it leaks into all the technology and investment and we've set those roofing uh for the last three years because John has had the tools the board would have the option levy zero and fund for dial back anything we're doing it's like break
057it fix it mode and then do a capital referendum five years from now and breaks. I wouldn't recommend that to all of you. Uh but that is a tool we would have dial back what we've got with one 141. Uh there could be savings in healthcare. That could mean high deductibles, changes to prescription plans. Uh um beating up Dean SSM Health on renewal time. Uh but that again is going to have an impact on our employees related to the health care uh package that we just sent through. Um, and lastly, this is a budget saving measure, uh, but we wanted to put that this out there with our declining enrollment, we do believe uh that we can be a little more aggressive on open enrollment seats uh this coming uh spring and and winter. Um,
058and again, what is required by law, what we do on an annual basis would be project to the school board uh once you guys sign off on it the seats we believe have available around the district. If students should come into us, we get an extra $11 million in oper $11,000 11 million $11,000 with uh with each student that open roads to a district. Uh but I'm more than anything previewing that conversation that we'll have uh in the coming months. But again, that's related to open seats and it's not really a budget strategy. Uh but it is something that the board should be aware of as you >> a thousand students. >> Yeah. that we might need some of those FTE of staff back. Um, as you take a a breath, I pause between slides.
059It has been brought to my attention there'll be an announcement at 7:30 in the building just to end um family conferences. So, just so no one is kind of alarmed. >> That was Yes, thank you. I should have said thank you on this slide, but thank you. Um what I do want to put into this uh and I think it is rightfully so when we have a ability to come forward an idea >> do it but it's a really bad idea. Correct. Um, and so I just wanted to also just publicly state put that into the space that, you know, I that the fix or a short-term fix of this I was we just mark the calendar for this conversation happening the prior the next year after the back end of the year after. Um,
060as long as we continue to stay as Chad has put into the state funding model of the 325 relative to what we actually get, uh, it just seems like a per perpetuity of having these type of discussions and I don't want to while it is is serious and we do have to have some serious conversations of how to address this, >> I don't want to put our staff in a space where if they're listening thinking that they see these are suggestions of how we feel administratively to the board that we do uh in essence on the backs of of st of staff members. That's just not where our heads are at. >> Yeah. I want I want to kind of reemphasize something Chad said earlier, which is the I want to make sure everyone understands
061the cause of this problem is the fact that we live in a high inflation environment. Costs have gone up by 3% or more this year and our revenue authority has not gone up by a corresponding amount. Mhm. >> And that's been true since like the '9s. I mean, right, you've shown the graph before of that gap. So, this isn't the past. This is decades of that constant behind. >> And until the state government reindexes revenue authority to inflation, this is going to be a recurring problem over and over and over again. >> And so, like, I just don't want anyone to take away from this a narrative that we're in uh we're facing a potential budget gap because somehow we've mismanaged our budget. That's not it at all. >> Um uh and you can see
062that in every other district in the state is in the same problem. Every district either has or will be going to operating referendum at some point very soon. >> And I think we're just in that position now. I think we need to talk about and consider looking at an operating referendum um to be able to address this because of how like because of how we've managed our long-term debt. We're probably going to be in a position similar to what we were last time, which is we can talk about an operating referendum that has a minimal or zero impact on the miller. >> It's just getting that revenue authority. >> And to the point of what we've kind of been talking about and the commitment this board has had that by trying to compensate staff, I'll
063say fairly very loosely. Um Joe, to use your words, I think you've reiterated that staff have not been getting raises. they've been compensated as much in accordance to CPAD as possible. So, we've also committed um fairly confidently as a board and leadership that that is important to us. So, um you know, just to review that slide that these are conversation pieces, places to see dollar amounts, but we've stayed really committed on trying to compensate staff as best we can given all the parameters and scenarios that were based. Thanks to the state with sarcasm. >> Good evening, Wildcat families. This is principal GC. Thank you for coming out tonight to support our scholars in our family caregiver conferences. At this time, if you could conclude your conversations with our teachers, they have a short turnaround time
064to be ready and prep tomorrow for your scholars to return. Thank you again for all of your support and for being with us this evening. >> Appreciate that verbiage. >> Yep, >> Principal Cox, that was lovely. Okay. >> While I hate the discussion of the referendum, that doesn't always mean as we proved last time that it's a additional expense on taxpayers and I just want to reiterate uh my appreciation board for the um the way that you have a balanced all priorities the board has set out ensuring that our staff is compensated well. healthcare moves, tough moves. In retrospect, that was excellent timing when we're seeing, you know, premiums come out across the board um right now. So, that was really fantastic um timing. I appreciate seeing all of the different ways, the different line
065items, you know, what other steps we could take. I agree. I don't want to take one of those. Um but I appreciate the balancing all of the different priorities. I mean even just the you know capital budget just there's a lot of really great work that's been going on. Um and I think our fiscal management has been we've made it challenging with competing priorities and you have um met the challenge continuously and I have every confidence that we will be in a good position in a great position because everyone else in this state is going to be this too. >> Thank you. You're welcome. Other thoughts or questions before we turn it over to Pete for a quick two slides on our open. All right. Um I'm hearing at least some interest uh in the
066possibility of further discussion related to an operating round. So um I I talked to Dr. Clarity. you will see us back here again uh for OE6 in December 15th. Uh so I guess I'll I'll wait to hear from Jen and Dr. Clarity, but I I think a few slides on potential scenarios related to uh what a what a fall 2026 operating referendum to me seems like at least the board would be interested in seeing what this might look like. Uh if we headed in that direction, uh we would be in a similar scenario to the last time we did this where we would likely uh pass two budgets in the fall waiting on what would happen in a in a fall election following the board passing two if we headed in that direction. >> Okay,
067perfect. >> All right, thank you guys. Pete, a quick uh summary of why we need an open line of credit. >> Okay, thank you Chad. Um, and good evening school board. It's nice to actually say something along >> being referenced by your spreadsheets. >> So, um, yeah, Chad and I were up here a couple months ago. We were talking about a long-term note or sorry, short-term note where we were um, able to tell you some of the reasons why we have to do short-term borrowing every year. And I'm just going to repeat some of them right now. or the main reason is the fact that our expenses kind of they come in flat like it's mostly payroll that we have and we're paid on a normal schedule whereas revenues yeah we're paid on a normal
068schedule then too but it's always coming in later in fact I have a bullet point up there that we say we receive our last tax payment a month and a half after the year ends and that's to $20 million is how large that is. So, we're always having to borrow money uh to to make our ends meet. And we're not the only school district that does that, too. Uh there's several school districts throughout the state that that also do this. Um so, we were here, like I said, we were here a couple months ago to talk about a $7.5 million short-term note, which we have received. Um and we are also here tonight though to talk about establishing a line of credit with Lorage Bank here in town. Um what we're going to have that
069um what we're going to do with that is we're going to have the ability to draw upon that if we ever need it. Um I was just telling Chad today I was looking at our projections of when we're going to get to uh running out of cash and we are going to get very low in the middle of January there. Uh so it's we're going to end up having to have some sort of insurance here just in case we're not able to to meet payroll. And like I had said that happens with a number of school districts throughout throughout the state. Um, so the nice thing about a line of credit is we can draw upon it when it's needed and we're only paying interest on it when we're drawing upon it. Now, the last
070two years, uh, we have had a line of credit through the bank and I've never drawn on it. So, we haven't had to pay any interest on that at all. And, uh, and hopefully we'll get the same thing this year, but like I said, I know that our projections make it look like it's going to be going to be pretty um pretty close to uh to to need it. So, um, that's about the extent of it that I have. He wants to make sure we make payroll, >> right? And then when does the next sort of chunk, so you said like into January, so when does that next sort of influx of money come in to then >> Well, um, our low point is right before our first tax payment that we receive in January.
071By state law, we're supposed to receive that on January 20th. And I believe January 18th is a payroll day for us and that puts us down to a very low amount. However, sometimes a municipality may pay early, but I don't know if I can necessarily count. >> Y >> on that. So, we are going to be like I said, going to be pretty pretty close. >> And then the any borrowing gets paid back, >> correct? >> Immediately upon. So, we're not talking about months and months of interest. We're talking about this. Yeah. >> Yeah. In this case, it could be a matter of days of interest on there. And it doesn't look like based off of any projections that we're doing now if we'd have to borrow again during the summer because this line of
072credit would actually be good until probably next October time time frame. But it doesn't look like we would have to be borrowing on it over the summer based off of our cash flow projections that we are seeing right now. >> And I know we've had this conversation before. It's just nice to have those I think dates and numbers for again folks to understand what we're talking about about you know just how you described getting close. >> Can you quantify at all maybe like based on last year what like the total amount of interest we pay on the short-term borrow? >> Um okay. Yeah. Yes. I I I can um for like the note that we just received, the interest rate was I believe it was a close to 4% on there, but since we receive
073all of that money at the same time, we're investing it. So, we're also investing it at about 4%. It might be a little bit less than that. So, it's it it basically offsets for the for the most part. Just depends on what happens with the interest rates. interest rates continue to go down, that's actually going to hurt us because our our borrowing rate is is set for a year. But if the interest rate comes back up, then we can actually make a little bit of money off of that. Um, so yeah, this this rate here is significantly higher because it is whatever the prime rate is, minus.75%. But we're only all, like I said, we're only borrowing for a few days, a few weeks, depending on how long we need it. And we won't need
074all seven million. >> And we did not need all $7 million. >> Did we take out O line of credit last year? >> We've got it every time we've been here. >> Yeah. >> How much of it did we use last year? >> We didn't use any last year. >> And that's Yeah. >> Was it a higher interest rate last year? >> It was. It was a half a point higher. A half a percent higher. >> We'll be taking a vote shortly. So, any further questions for Chad or Pete? I have several documents for four of the board members to sign tonight. John only has to sign one time and Joe gets to sign three or four times. But sorry, >> that is if we approve this, right? >> That's if we approve it. >>
075That's if you >> So you're you're laying that out as a >> Hey, if you say yes. >> I know. Now I'm reconsidering. >> Yes. And if we bounce to payroll, we know where to send, >> right? I just didn't want to sign my name. I'm sorry. >> All right. Well, we'll turn it over. Thank you so much. Um, let's take a brief then following our agenda for any public comment that I am not aware of. Lori checking with you. Okay. >> So, then we will move on to board action. First of which now being this resolution author authorization. Um, I would accept a motion to approve the resolution we just heard of authorizing a taxable tax and revenue anticipation promisary note for cash flow purposes in an amount not to exceed $7 million. Is
076there a motion? >> Motion. >> Thank you, Joe. Is there a second? >> Second. >> Thank you, Christopher. >> Any further discussion? >> All those in favor of approving the promisary note in an amount not to exceed $7 million, please signify with I. >> I. Any opposed? Any abstensions? All right, the vote has been approved. Onward, Pete, and those of us signing things shortly. Continuing in board action, as alluded to a bit ago, we get to do some results policy discussions. Um, reminders to the board and community. This is a bit of a reframe then given the rework that we've done on our results policies and the presentation we had a few weeks ago about different frames then on how we want to analyze the data that's coming from administration. You do have um board
077members the printed copy and the checklist that I hope you used in reading through and preparing for this evening. We're excited to go through this monitoring report with our new frames and all the data you have for us. Welcome Amy and Teresa. >> Well, I the opener for that uh you just did so. >> Oh, okay. Great. >> It was just a reframing that from the old monitoring reports and the new monitoring courts. So, but thank you for >> Sure. >> We didn't plan that. >> Yeah. >> Okay. Perfect. All right. See, awesome. Well, thank you for the opportunity to be here tonight. We have a lot fewer or a lot less dollar signs and many more percent signs um as you'll see in our results monitoring report tonight. So, as you mentioned, Jen, this
078is our first results policy with the new language. So, instead of indicators or uh color codes where it says increase and decrease throughout the report, um we instead are providing you with a body of evidence, right? rather than a recommendation of whether we've met reasonable progress or not. We provide you a body of evidence from 2425 with different data points aligned to that checklist. Everything from our own internal data for all students, focus group students, cohort data, as well as some comparative data and then some we call street data or staff and students voice um data as well. So that'll be the body of evidence to refer to tonight. We did use one of our AI tools to give you a one-page summary on the front using brisk AI to try to synthesize it all
079as well. And we'll try to keep our presentation pretty concise um as a result of that. So as we jump in tonight, we shifted from indicators to the questions. So the question we were seeking to answer throughout our monitoring report is to what extent are students demonstrating literacy at grade level? We think of literacy, reading, writing, speaking and listening. So the expectation that all students are engaging in that and the ability to think critically as a result. So our key findings as we organize the report there's a lot of different assessments and as we found over the years sometimes the assessments are changing sometimes the norms are changing and it's difficult to keep track of those. So instead we went to looking at different grade bands and what were the key findings within that grade
080band regardless of what the assessment was or is. Um so here we'll have kind of four buckets within each grade band of the key findings that we see for this idea of literacy and to what extent are students um able to engage and perform at grade level. So we look at K3 last year the 2425 school year was the first year in which we implemented act 20. With act 20 came a new state required assessment for early literacy. Prior to that time we used star early literacy. Last year we switched to Ames web. We didn't have comparative data year to year and so the data that you see included in the report is actually winter which was the first time that that was required by the state draft 20 compared to spring. It was also
081the first year we put reading plans into place. Some of the data we included, we had 434 students K3 who were performing below the 25th percentile um and put on a reading plan which was just an an intensive way of providing support for those students to build their foundational literacy skills to get them where we want them to be knowing how critical that is. Um we did see a reduction from winter to spring. This year we did include 2526 data. This fall we're currently at 232 reading plans. So we recognized that of course the norms changed on the assessment as well and it was an opportunity for us to look at some of our practices and think about what are we noticing from this data. We noticed some students were struggling with lowercase letters when
082are we introducing lowercase letters? Can we do that sooner? What are some of the practices that may have be coming in later units of the year but we wanted our students to have earlier and have more repetitions of and we were able to make some of those instructional adjustments. We're seeing fewer students on reading plans um as a result this year. So exciting data for us to learn from the experience last year and be able to apply it for our students moving forward. When we get to four five, we use two assessments. The forward assessment, which of course is our state exam, and then star reading in both English and Spanish, recognizing that building bilingualism and literacy across languages is important to our district and our mission. We did see um within our STAR data
083for all students four or five, we did see a 12% increase in proficiency. So pretty significant jumps um that we're really excited about given our first year of our new curricular implementation with the new status curriculum. We saw 63% of students showing typical or high growth there and our African-American students doubled in proficiency moving from 19 to 43%. So 19% at the end of 23 24, 43% at the end of 24 25. And then we get to middle school. Similar um similar data sets there. A 15% increase in star proficiency. 71% of our middle school students making typical or high growth. Significant increases across our focus groups. 15% increase for our African-American students. Um 13% increase for Hispanic students. another 13% for our students with IEP. So really excited about the growth that we were
084seeing at middle school. We'll name it in our leadership moves, but in part of the implementation of the new curricular resource, then a change of class schedules. We went from class periods that were about 45 47 minutes to 60 minutes of core instruction and about 20 22 minutes of um targeted skills. Really working on what students needed with that. these longer classes with the targeted skills block has been really critical to accelerated growth that we're seeing for all students. And then our focus groups as well. And then at the high school level, we use preac for 9th and 10th grade and ACT for 11th. We did see an increase in the number of students meeting the ACT college readiness benchmark and our overall ACT score in the area of reading specifically increased from 20.0 to
08520.7. Um, we clearly identified a need here in supporting our multilingual students in preac and ACT and we're looking at some strategies to support that through co-eing. We also had the opportunity here to look at cohort data. So, we could look at our current 11th graders, what did they score as ninth graders on the pret, what do they score as 10th graders on the pre ACT? And we saw some growth there. We're also able to look at our current 12th graders and say, here's where they scored in preac as 10th graders. Here's where they scored as 11th graders. also saw um growth there. So many of our internal metrics are showing a lot of a lot of significant growth year overyear for our students across many of these different data sets. Also some exciting percent
086increases for our focus groups at the high school. While we know we need to focus on multilingual students, we did see a 20% increase um for our students with with disabilities. We did also note that with preac typically that the state assessment is given in the spring of 9th and 10th grade. We did opt this year to do preac at the beginning of freshman year, nth grade as well as another opportunity for students to practice that. We see our fall data last year was around 42% of students meeting the college readiness benchmark for reading. We're already at 49.5% with that ninth grade data this fall, which is really promising and exciting knowing that those ninth graders were eighth graders last year who are getting to experience our new curriculum that we adopted in last year.
087So overall, these are the key findings that we have included throughout the report. You'll see lots of other breakdowns by focus group etc. But if we tried to dis distill it a bit, this is what you would see really lots of increases when we compare ourselves yeartoear. When we look at our comparative data with other districts, that's an area that's the checklist in this conversation with the board has allowed us to really dig into and think through number one, who are our peer districts and how do we determine what our who our peer districts are and then what can we learn from um that collaboration and understanding more about those experiences. So, we continue to wrestle with who are our peer districts. We we've outlined several within this monitoring report, but know that as we
088dug in a little bit further, we recognize that some of those districts don't represent the same level of diversity that we pride ourselves in in the grown area school district. And so, that's something that we are continuing to re-evaluate, but appreciate the opportunity to to learn from others and to see where can we continue to accelerate our growth. As as we know, we are seeing growth internally year-over-year. how can we accelerate that growth um even faster as as a part of that we still continue to outpace the state in all of the various metrics. So the leadership moves that we believe contributed to this work include professional learning communities. We continue to see professional learning communities as a unit of change and continue to invest heavily in that staff collaboration and working through a cycle
089of inquiry of understanding student needs and then responding accordingly. So the example I shared earlier, we saw a gap in lowercase letters and students understanding and being able to quickly rapidly identify lowercase letters. What can we do instructionally to support our students with those things? We also named role like professional learning. So prior to last year, role like professional learning existed, but it was often for isolated groups. Last year was the first year we have all staff engaged in roll like learn on the first Monday of the month. So all grade one teachers first Monday of the month go to Glacier Edge and they're all together regardless of what elementary school they teach at and they're practicing or they're um engaged in backwards mapping the curriculum to understand what is the assessment and where am
090I planning for my students so that I really am teaching to grade level standards. They're able to problem solve and work through that. So role like professional learning has been an important layer to this. You'll see staff always state a lot of report about their experience with that. And finally, as I alluded to earlier as well, the middle school schedule adjustments and really having the longer core instructional block as well as a targeted skills block really allowed our teachers to understand what are the student needs and how do we respond intentionally with instruction. And then how do we monitor student data to make sure that they are continuing to grow as a result and the middle school data is definitely a testament to what we see there. So those are some of the leadership moves.
091I'm going to hand it over to Teresa to share a bit more about another data set, a few less percentages and on quotation marks, but what we're hearing from our staff and students. >> Yes. So, the street data is um to us some of the most important data. This tells us the experience that our adults and our children are having. And so, the leadership moves that Amy indicated um are coming out strong in the the voices of our staff and students. So, you'll notice um really the theme there is collaboration. She mentioned the roll alike. She mentioned PLC's. The the staff are really finding value in in that collaboration. They're learning from each other. They're sharing best resources which is creating scaffolds. And the most important thing is it's helping access evidence for all children
092um in our curriculum and in our resources. And so that's really powerful that they're finding the value of having to travel to another school or having to be with others that aren't doing that same work that they are in the building. um but recognizing that that's how we're all learning and growing. You'll notice with the children that that is also um the theme for them. Nobody wants students work in isolation including the little. So they love um to turn and talk. Turn and talk means you're learning from someone else. You're sharing your voice. You're sharing your experience. Um and then they also are really finding value in the project. So the inquiry based projects are a way for them to bring all of the learning and then showing what this means for them in their
093own lives and being able to share that with others. That all again is collaboration. The most important one I think is the bottom and that's just the confidence. So we have a child that now believes that they are a reader and didn't know that they were prior to this. um we have teachers who are believing that they are the best education um instructor for that child and know exactly what they need to make sure that they're making growth in reading. So all of that coming together is showing us that the right work is happening and if we stay true to the collaboration and the confidence that we're building um our scores will just continue to increase and we'll have happy and educated children which is our goal. And the projects you alluded to here with
094these comments, those are within the SAS curriculum, >> correct? >> Yes. So we do they do five weeks of a unit and then the sixth week is the employ. >> So I think the public service announcement was a fifth grade um project. We're learning about systems and what can affect systems and then he needs to learn about a weather event and make a public service announcement about that. Get to be in the classroom and see students get really excited about that that part of the project but definitely a highlight for students as well. So, as far as our next steps, um, one of our leadership moves is is to stay the course. We see some initial data already this fall with regard to our decrease in reading plans necessary. Our initial ninth grade preacct data
095that continues to show promise and tell us that we're headed in the right direction in terms of increasing results for students. We want to continue our investment in RO like and PLC. As Teresa called out, these structures for collaboration are really integral to our strategy and supporting continued growth for our our staff and for our students. Um, another next step is we're leaning into our data culture. We continue to try to last year was our first year of implementation with the new curriculum. Now, we're looking at unit assessments and saying where are we with every single standard and which standards are students not meeting and how can we adjust accordingly? And so continuing to build a data culture as well as thinking about what do all students need, what do some students need, and what
096do a few students need based on what we're seeing in that data will help us get more targeted in our supports. Um, and finally, curricular resource implementation. We are in year two of our new curricular resources. We didn't name status adoption as one of our leadership moves because we don't believe that the curriculum itself is magic, right? It's the ways in which our staff are collaborating around it, using the data um and empowering our students. That really is um that was really the leadership move. But we know in year two of implementation, there are new things that we're learning. We actually have just reached out to another district that's implementing the same curriculum and we're going to go visit their site and they're going to come to our site so we can continue to learn
097from each other and refine our practices specifically around how we're supporting multilingual learners through the use of that that curriculum. So these are some of our next steps to to make sure that we can continue on this on this path with regard to literacy. So we may pause there for any questions any >> just a reminder to the community especially that you know this was kind of a 30,000 foot view of the of the document that is linked in board docs that is rich with data and examples and numbers which I know I appreciated being able to take that deep dive and reading into but encouraging folks to do that same thing um that we had the opportunity to look at these materials um well in advance so thank you again for all of that
098um questions comments from board members is what we have our team here. >> Yeah, I have a couple questions. Um, just kind of looking at the report itself starting with the all student data for kindergarten and third grade. Uh, is there a reason I'm sure there is, but why the K3 Ames data is for all students is presented as raw numbers, but kind of everywhere else in the report it's percentages. >> Oh, yep. It's because we the way that our system calculates it, we calculated the number of reading plans, which is the number of students below the 25th percentile. We certainly have we could recalculate those for you, Joe, if that's >> No, it's okay. So, this is just the number of students on reading. >> Correct. >> Okay. Um, no, I I I I
099think it I think it makes sense. It's okay to have that as a raw number as long as that's it's always presented as a raw number and then we're comparing apples to apples going forward in the future. >> For sure. >> Uh my other question is on the star data. I saw somewhere a reference that the norms were updated. Could you just speak a little bit about what that means? >> Yep. So the norms in terms of which what bands are considered um proficient, advanced, etc. have changed over the past the summer of 2024. Those changed right right before this along with forward norms. So what we found is that many of the assessments since COVID um have renormed. So they're recognizing where where students are performing nationally and then they've adjusted the norms and
100the cut scores accordingly. So, one grade band or one um score band may have been proficient before and now they've looked at where students are scoring and they've adjusted that accordingly. I think what we've found over the years is that there's been constantly a reorming or or continually a new assessment and so we've we look at multiple data sets to make sure that we can actually get a true picture of is this a result of norms changing or is this a result of a direct impact of our results. And so while not included here, but we're also looking at unit over unit assessment data. So what percent of our students are meeting the 80% benchmark at each of our units from beginning of the year to the end of the year. We're looking at student
101formative assessment as well. All of which is indicating that we're seeing a positive increase. So then when we see it on these assessments as well, even though we know the norms changed, we believe that the triangulation of that data helps us to to think through that because there just has been a a reorming of all of these assessments over the last few years. >> Good. And I I think that anticipates kind of my next question, which is like in some of these areas, we're seeing some pretty significant jumps in the proficiency >> uh percentages. How much of that do we think is attributable to the reorming or you know I don't you probably can't quantify but is the reorming does that affect the proficiency data >> it can right so it could be a contributing
102factor I think the other piece that we're seeing is we really have focused on grade level standards and we do believe that that focus on grade level standards with an an aligned curricular resource that we're using across all sites um has been really really pivotal. So I think it it's difficult to quantify you know do we think it's one or two% of this and this much of this but that's where we look to multiple data sets like we noted just even the unit assessments what we're seeing in classrooms students feeling like they're a reader or naming now I get the new routine and I can do these things I think those are all data points that indicate we're headed in the right direction. Um, I think it's actually a perfect time that we shifted to
103this sort of monitoring report. So, we're not trying to decide what's statistically significant and whether 0.1 is an increase or a decrease because it is kind of that totality and the holistic nature knowing that each of these um data points has their own caveats about >> reorming or what that could look like. But we do believe that the the increases we're seeing aren't just attributed to the reorming, but a direct impact of the instructional decisions we've been making and and the amazing work our staff do in classrooms with kids. >> That makes a lot of sense. My last question and then I'll I'll I'll be quiet and I think this is because I don't understand how these where the numbers come from. Can you explain why we would see such big jumps in proficiency, but
104the growth percentage doesn't go up? Um I I think I'm just not understanding how growth is calculated. >> Yeah. So So um growth is a standard growth percentile and it's comparing students to each other. So if it's a student who is scoring at the proficient level, I'm going to be comparing to other students who are also scoring proficient. And then within that band of students who are proficient, they're going to compare my growth from the previous assessment to those other students. So, if I'm already proficient, but I didn't actually grow that much, I'm actually going to have a low growth percentile compared to my peers versus if I was at that percent, but last year I was scoring. I wasn't yet proficient and I moved up to that band. Then there's the comparison there is
105is trying to help see for a student based on the band that they're in and comparing the students to each other what is their growth low or typical or high growth. So, it's it's meant to help us think through a student might not yet be proficient, right? >> Um, but are they demonstrating growth, typical or high growth, that we think will lead to them eventually being proficient, um, or continuing to advance if they're proficient and continuing to move forward. Okay. >> Is that >> it's like an added I see it as like an added individualized measurement of we're not just looking to have students land in particular proficiency bands, but regardless of where you are, are you still making growth from wherever you are to something, right? That so you're not stagnating that just just
106because you're advanced, we actually still want you to grow, >> right? We don't just want you to reach that benchmark. We want you to continue growing. And so it's measuring you against peers because we also recognize if you're against the opportunity for growth might be less than if you were um at a in a lower school area. I think by elevating that as a valued data point in the district I think just reminds people that we're not spending resources and energy to only support students who struggle. I think there's that that um zero someum perception that if we're supporting students with reading plans that somehow we're not able to support students that are maybe already at proficient or above but we are recognizing and owning that as a data point because it's valuable to have
107all students achieve and grow. So just yeah that's how I feel about it. >> Thanks question. I have a question about >> No, no, no. You go first because I >> My question was more about just like the the report itself. So, >> No, go ahead. Yeah. >> I loved reading this. I felt it was very very user friendly for somebody who like just sees a lot of numbers sometimes and like I don't know what I'm reading. I love that you spell it out so I actually understood it. Um, and I was curious though the amount of time that it took to compile this because again it was really it was really fantastic. >> So this was our first report. So I think we we did spend a lot of time really thinking about what
108were some of the key components that we wanted to intentionally include and how did we want to organize it. So I do think this report probably took us longer. If this is a template that works for the board when we present math, it will be a bit more formulaic for us. We'll know what data we're looking for. We'll know working in grade bands and putting key findings for each grade band works really well. Those sorts of things. And I think that we will become more efficient in that process. But I do appreciate it was really good conversation for our team to also struggle with who are our peer districts and what does that look like? This is the first time we've been asked to do that and to think about that in a different way
109has been um really enriching conversation for our team to grapple with what does that what does that mean for us so I do think we've learned a lot in the process and we'll become more efficient with the report part as we go but I've appreciated the questions for us to to dive in and reflect as well I feel like we had a big ask um but again what I feel like I got out of it was a lot more valuable for me personally and I feel like it's something that if our community was looking at, you know, this is a great summary and here's all of this information underneath it. Here are the leadership. I just really felt like it was a very um very valuable information all contained. That is why I wondered how
110long she doing this, but it was um I thought it was and I love seeing the strategic plan and the journey of a lifelong runner. Yeah. But I think the key parts for me just really this is just a lot of great information in a very digestible. >> I'm sure it was just a piece of cake. >> Thank you. Yeah. Thank you both. >> Building off of that. This is the first for me I think report but partially because I feel like I've had a lot of points of input over the year or so in talking about like what do we want our results policy to say? How do we want these reports to look? How do we want our monitoring of these reports to look? And this is the first one that feels like
111it's all come together. you know, it's like putting on I was gonna say like that nice pair of sweatpants and it's maybe more probably like a wellfitit and cut suit, you know, where you're like this is just how it's supposed to look. Um, and it just felt really good that way, you know, from the cover page here all the way through the data, like this makes sense. it checks off the boxes in order so I can kind of like drone through it and make sure everything's there. So even if I'm not an educator, I'm not a statistician, I know what I'm looking at, know why I'm looking at it and it makes sense. And I would encourage everybody in our community that's watching this to like go look at the report. >> You can see
112how our students are learning literacy. It's literally right there as transparent as can be, >> you know, by the grade bands, by the testing we get. Um, and then the the little summaries about what, you know, how you're interpreting the data, super important to us. This cover page is fantastic. I think you said this was helped along with AI a little bit. I mean, that's just an absolutely excellent implementation of AI to summarize that. Um I think my questions well I would say one more thing. It is very hard to come up with a system like this that ties values to practice in a way that communicates broadly like that is a very rare thing and at times I think when we go through these reports and we don't know what questions to ask or
113what we're struggling with that something's not there it's because there's some connectivity that's missing there. And I feel this across all sorts of different organizations that I get to be a part of. And this feels like that rare instance where we absolutely nailed it. You go back to the back of it and look at the journey of a lifelong learner. You look at um, you know, the the outline of our strategic framework that the community articulated to us. Those values are then expressed, you know, in the back. It'll be hopefully compiled later rather easily. Yeah. >> Into a report on that. But then through the data and then back to this cover page that clearly articulates this is what's going on with the leadership who's in there. This just felt so good to go through
114and just um but I you know I'm wondering how much of that is because like I feel like as this is what I would want to do. Um so I'm curious to get input on that. I think my building off of Meredith's questions is I understand this probably took a lot of time especially being the first one especially being like a consolidated results thing. My question would be like an honest accounting of is the time worth it? Not only in the sense of you're creating this tool that communicates very well with the public which I think it does but as a tool for you guys like you said. So, it's not just time spent doing bureaucracy is what I would want to avoid because I understand there's going to be time invested. I don't want
115it to be spent just doing bureaucracy. >> Does that make sense? >> It does. I think that we when we work with schools on continuous improvement, we've been talking about leading data and lagging data. This is lagging data for the most part. This was the spring of last year, if not earlier. Um, so these are not the data points that are helping to decide what to teach in class tomorrow. That's our leading data and that's the data that schools are looking at on a daily basis. But I do think this data helps us to understand trends and themes. I think the comparison um to other districts is helpful for us to understand um while we're making decisions about leading data. What are the overall you know what's the 30,000 foot view that we need to
116also understand when we're going to move into curricular resource adoption cycles or think about large systemic changes and what has been the impact of that over time. So I do think that that is um that's helpful in that way. done. I think the only change I would make and some of it is a little bit more we're on specific timelines of when data can be shared. >> Yeah. >> I know we waited we waited for this one. We've had this data since May June. We waited because of um state reporting and when that data was available but I think that throughout the rest of the year we've tried to align the reporting calendar to be pretty timely to when we're getting those data sets and I think that will make it even more valuable for
117our team um the closer we get to them. So, I also want to point out like when we're going through this kind of checklist of like are we doing our jobs as board members asking the right questions, the one that I think falls through the crack the most is this kind of reflective how are our leadership moves working. And so this couple pages you guys have here towards the that speak to the value of the PLC's and the the roll alike time that that people are spending on their Mondays and that like that to me is just a hugely valuable thing to see that yes, we're evaluating our leadership moves in this case. There's some pretty positive feedback there. And like as someone who's taught before, there's no better feeling than when your expectations and
118your values and your daily practice are aligned and you can feel that happening. It's just kind of calming for the soul. And to kind of see that reflected in this report with all these data points that that was really really valuable to me. I would like to reiterate that I think especially I mean I look at this more as a outward facing you know document rather than something that we used necessarily internally but this is communicating to the whole you know all the families to the district this is who we are this is what you know work is has taken place I love the fact for like middle school families who maybe have wondered about a change in in timing you know here this is this is what the outcome of that is that's really
119valuable I think that's something that you know as a family, maybe you knew there was a change, but you really didn't know what the benefit was or you didn't see circled back. You know, here this is what it did. Oh, perfect. Fantastic. That's like I I love that. I think this just really communicates so well. >> So, we'll just hand it to Marcy and she'll make it into a beautiful academic report. Be a lot prettier than it is right now. >> Yeah. I just wanted to thank you guys for gathering and using cohort related data >> to tell the story and comparing apples to apples. I I think that that's as accurate as we're going to get >> to really seeing the uh the student experience. So, I just wanted to to put that out
120there and thank you. >> Absolutely. >> I also really liked the comparative data. It it it gave me the thing that I've kind of been asking for, which is context for data. >> And I understand it's never going to be perfect because there is no peer district that's exactly a onetoone comparison with us. But it still it's going to give us if we do this year over year, we're going to get that longitudinal comparison data that at least puts what we're seeing in context um to what others are saying. And I I that was very useful to me in addition to what everybody else said is this great. I loved having data without having a check box next to it. Uh and it allows us to assign our own value to what it says. >>
121And there was narrative, right? We talk about data having story. You provided some story and context, but it also gives us place to just kind of chew and grapple. I thought that peer district data was also just such a way to be really transparent with our community. Um and also a bit of a point that I think I heard you say, Amy, of also recognizing we don't really have a full peer. um and still elevating that we value the diversity of our district that by comparative data it is not to then see that our diversity is not an asset. Um so just that cautionary piece that that is something that our learners get beyond showing that I can read all of the things that I get by showing up in classrooms with students from different
122lived experiences and backgrounds that that is immeasurable. Um but something as just the piece that I want to hold at least for myself of comparing um that that isn't a place that we allow our community to. >> I I so appreciate you lifting that that up uh Jen because there's there's not many things that get me fired up. But when I hear dialogue that equates increased diversity to lower performance, it just drives drives me crazy. I cannot I mean because that's >> what are you saying about >> diversity? What are you saying about this the students that you're that you're speaking of? And >> while we we do look at um and trust we've had some deep conversations now that we dig into uh peer data around or not be beyond D County because >>
123rightfully so we keep asking each other >> why not this benchmark like and we know that and also forces us to look at >> you know if there are barriers that are not allowing us to hit a higher higher benchmark then it's our responsibility as we truly embrace our equity framework to dismantle the barrier as it says and it makes us dig into it in those ways. Dismantle the barrier, move it, and then >> continue to put the high expectation uh out there. So, it's just so important for uh uh our community and anyone that loves public education the way it's designed to be to understand that diversity is not a is something that takes away from the expectation of academic excellence. It's it's such a misnomer. So I just >> let me Oh, thanks
124for letting me get on my so I appreciate you lifting it up as well. >> Yeah, >> I sort of agree with John. I think that it's very user friendly for community members, which I mean is so important because I felt that reports, you know, a year or two ago. I don't think anybody could just come up, let's see what's going on in the district on, you know, results 2.4 and they'd be like, I have no idea what I'm looking at. This tells that story. And I love seeing things put in a simple way. There's no true way to demonstrate a master than explaining something complex in a way that somebody anybody can pick up and really understand. I know where we are. I know where we're going. Um I think that does a lot
125to just inform the community and dispel some of these misnomers, right? Um if you're not really putting out there in the space in a simple way for people to understand, they're not going to understand. go back to what they think is right which might not be right. Right. So I think this is all part of the top of the story and properly informing the community. Hopefully people are tuning more people actually access these reports and documents. >> I know I'm going to start pointing people. >> Yeah. >> Thank you for asking the question. Let me show you that. >> Yeah. >> Take a look involved. >> So thank you. >> My thoughts. >> Thank you. Like I said, I think it's been um John, you asked the question about has this actually been helpful for
126our team? And I think if I think back to a year ago when we were having these conversations, our conversations were well, five of the seven focus groups showed an increase. Is that yellow or is that green? >> Right? And so we were we were talking about those things and now we're having the rich dialogue that Dr. Clary is talking about um and helping us to lean into that. And so I think it is while it's sometimes timeconuming I think we're it's shifted the narrative and the questions that we're able to ask as a result and really appreciate the board's willingness to allow us to try something different. I said two other quick pieces. The bottom of page 11 of the report into page 12 has the SABA's endofear implementation survey. Can you help me
127understand maybe so the 2425 school year I just maybe I need to say it out loud because I'm in my own head because I'm seeing beginning of year I'm thinking the beginning of 2425 I was at 85% yeah I agree and then at the end of the year I felt worse >> so >> or is that end of 2425 and then beginning of this >> so the first data was taken we asked the same questions all year and the first data was taken after staff went through the summer professional learning. So, people left summer professional learning. How are you feeling about this at this point? And we were looking at throughout the whole year, can we sustain there was really high levels of engagement and um agreement and throughout the year, can we sustain those
128sort of levels of um staff enthusiasm around what the curricular resources look like? So I am reading it correctly that there has been a drop in confidence but that is likely attributed to now I'm doing the work and implementing but I just want to make sure I was reading that right that there like staff are in it now and seeking out those supports that the numbers are not as aspirational as they were at the start of the year and yeah the first one John for example understanding materials educators able to navigate the curriculum resources unpack the phys physical and digital lessons sometimes it's an it's a you don't know what you don't know exactly at the of the year, we're like, "Oh, yep. We got that." And as we've gotten, oh, there's a whole lot
129more here that we're not yet getting to. Um, so I don't we want to be transparent with the data and not only provide data that shows increases, but also these are the things that we're learning along the way. And that was kind of wanted to lift that up is ensuring that alongside what's happening in the PLC time that that time is reinforcing the things that we're seeing staff need. Um, you know, right, working through the curriculum and making sure that the time matches. where where staff are feeling uncertain >> and I think the last one there about understanding coherent expectations that was an area where we do see growth from the beginning of the year to the end of the year which is certainly what we would um want to be able to continue to
130do. So with the caveat that I just sort of said be responsive I do want to just elevate what happens to still be on the slide there. The stay the course piece I worked in this district for a really long time and stay the course was not always a theme. It was next thing. Jump to the next thing. And >> terrible word. Yeah. >> Right. >> But just like let it land and continue to do the work. And I just want to elevate how much I hear that and hope that that means maybe a little softening for staff as well that we're not looking to then change something else. Let's keep elevating, supporting teachers and staff for what they need, but this is this is where we're going to live and put the energy forward.
131>> Thank you again. And that's at our last cabinet meeting we were discussing. We needed to put that as part of it because sometimes the strongest leadership move is doing >> absolutely the same thing >> that you did the year before. And it's okay. >> The general question, what's new this year? Nothing. And that's perfect. >> Which still means everything. I mean, right? It's nothing and everything. >> And to that end, I think I can speak from what I've heard from the comments. This is an excellent template moving forward >> like do all the things that are expected of a results report. So yeah, >> I will be curious as we go through like more of these, does the time shrink for you? But also the value I think I just want to reiterate the
132value is very high at least from my perspective and it sounds like from the rest of the board's perspective. So, >> we were intentional to try to keep the slide deck pretty slim because we know we have one results policy tonight on our board calendar. There are some nights we have four um later on in the spring and so we wanted to not set a precedent of having 20 slides as a result. So, it's good to know that the the snapshot high level view was helpful for the board via the slides but that having the report could be there as well. So that will be helpful for our team. >> So board members though our role is not just to be excited about a report. It's to talk about do we think there's achieve a
133achieving reasonable progress happening in the data that we're seeing. So if we're feeling ready to move to that discussion I know we're all the shiny and exciting things but how is the data actually do we think we're hitting um reasonable progress. So uh we've had the report of results policy 2.1 language arts. I would accept um a motion to approve the report as presented so we can then begin our discussion on reasonable progress. Is there a motion? >> Thank you, Meredith. Is there a second? >> Second. >> Thank you. One Carlos. Um so again, if you look at our report, we are looking to determine as I'm scrolling and scrolling achieving reasonable progress or not yet achieving reasonable progress. I would argue even though SAP is a new curriculum that we're not in capacity building
134thoughts around achieving reasonable progress or not >> feel like you're absolutely achieving reason >> I was going to say the report we like simplified all these suggestions in this one report it's like a lot of these data points suggest that you're achieving excellent progress >> so but we're not doing Back.