001And you can turn it off. Good evening everyone. Like to welcome you to this evening's board meeting. I'll call this meeting to order and we'll first establish that we have a quorum beginning with a roll call vote. Joe >> here. >> Corby >> here. >> John >> here. >> Christopher >> here. >> Ron Carlos >> here. >> I am here as well. We do have a quorum. Corby, has this meeting been properly noticed? >> It has. >> Wonderful. To help ensure that we're centering our board work around our shared values and serving our students, we begin each of our board meetings by reading our district's equity framework and the Ho Chunk land acknowledgement, which can be found at the top of tonight's agenda. Um, and I am up in our rotation, so I will uh
002take the honor of reading this evening. Our equity um educational equity framework reads, "In the Verona area school district, our mission is that each student will acquire the knowledge and skills necessary to achieve their personal goals, thrive in a diverse global society, and lead a healthy, self-fulfilling life. To meet this mission, the Verona Area School District will ensure that every individual has access to the educational, social, and emotional support they need to feel valued and affirmed in their unique identities and experiences. We acknowledge that inequities and power dynamics exist in our system such that some individuals on the basis of their identities, face barriers to accessing the opportunities they need to experience success. In acknowledgement of such, the Verona Area School District is committed to disrupting these systems of inequity. And our Ho Chunk land
003acknowledgement reads, "There are currently 12 tribal nations who call Wisconsin home, with the Ho Chunk Nation being the primary group living around Madison. No matter where you are in the state, you are on the ancestral land of a tribal nation. As we begin our meeting, we honor the land upon which we stand." Uh board members, I invite you to take a look at the remainder of tonight's agenda. There are no questions or amendments. I would accept a motion to approve the agenda as printed. >> Motion to approve. >> Thank you, Christopher. Is there a second? >> Second. >> All those in favor of approving tonight's agenda signify with I. >> I. Any opposed? >> The agenda is approved. So, we get to move into some recognitions. Always a great way to start our meetings. Um,
004some student recognitions to start with. Dr. Clarity, I'll turn it over to you. >> Awesome. Thank you so much. And good evening, everyone. Uh we'll begin with our student recognitions. And I just want to take an opportunity uh to really thoroughly congratulate um the students, the staff, and the multiple volunteers that helped bring uh the Hades Town edition to life last Thursday, Friday, and Saturday. Uh, I can honestly say when I I've been in education over a quarter century, been to dozens of of musicals and this was, you know, just the most phenomenal performance I' I've just I've seen. I'm not sure if anyone in our crowd or anyone here was able to see it. It was uh one of the stories, not spoiler, but it's kind of like you know the you know the
005story, you know the end. You kind of hope it doesn't go that way, but and it does. Uh but the when you saw the crowd react so emotionally to each of the um performances and uh the individual songs and uh and just leaving the space with you know probably feeling emotionally drained because of the performance of our of our students. Uh that's really shows how much work is put into bringing this to life. Um, behind the scenes, we know there were hundreds of people that support building the stage, uh, lighting, casting, uh, hours and hours and hours of practice, music on stage, music behind the scenes. So, everything that you could want in a high school performance came to life. And so, um, on behalf of our district, we just like to thank so many
006people that were involved in bringing this, uh, great performance to life. and uh just want to say thank you to hopefully listening or just the acknowledgement such. >> Yeah, thank you. >> Also, last week we had the opportunity to celebrate our national our new national honor society inductees. Uh at that time we had a so we had 171 students who were inducted into the national society for the Ron area. Um, your B students are demonstrates strong academic performance and commitment to the four national honor society's pillars of scholarship, service, leadership, and character. So, I just want to extend an additional congratulations to our inductees and their families who we know are so instrumental in guiding them along the way on their journey. Uh, this was the induction of our juniors who we know will carry
007that out uh throughout the year and into their senior year as well. And also thank you to our uh current seniors who are continuing to lead lead the way. >> Wonderful. >> Just want to quickly do a little name recognition issues. Scroll there. >> And it's always good not to be able to do this on one screen. Let's do it. >> All right. Next, we would like to move into staff recognition. And here today, we would like to honor uh Angie Mun Henson, who has joined us here today. Uh, also I know I got the honor of meeting with her earlier today around 2:00 and she brought two of our scholars over to practice their FFA presentation. So, uh, performed double duty, but also just shows the deep attention to detail and her commitment to
008servicing and supporting our students and is able to listen to the presentations uh, to give some feedback before they go to the national competition in Indianapolis in one week or two weeks. One week. >> Next week. Next week. Wednesday. Uh so really excited for those students there. I don't want to spoil what they're going to talk about, but uh if you a chance to hear their presentation or maybe we'll have them come in and do one at a later time uh and listen to it. It really speaks to the heart and it speaks uh about the continued work uh to alleviate school violence across our country and and locally. And uh uh it they just just mastered the content, but also was a heartfelt presentation. So thank you for that. That's actually not the work.
009award that we're doing today. We'd like to congratulate the dynamic duo of agriculture teachers at BHS who won the Voya unsung hero award. We recognized Jamie Morris earlier when she when a war was first of nights. And tonight we're recognizing Angie who is also a recipient. They are the only winners in the entire state of Wisconsin and are only one of only 50 winning submissions to receive the award to help fund and bring their program to life. The project incorporates sheep into gardening to promote agricultural literacy at VHS and in the surrounding community. Students will learn the science of plant production and the benefits of adding wool to soil as well as career skills in animal care, gardening, and marketing. We like to say congratulations to the team who is now in the competition for
010one of the top three national awards. So, congratulations to you and the continued work beyond FFA and and beyond, but your amazing work around the agricultural department all together. Thank you for everything that you do. >> Thank you, Angie. It's exciting to be able to honor just a moment in time to really honor the legacy that you've brought to this district for a I I say a long time in a really polite way. I hope that will sound that way. Um, but truly the reputation of the FFA program here has been long-standing as long as I've been a part of a district. And I am so grateful for all the work that you do that that can stay something so vibrant in our district when there's so many things that might potentially take away or
011sway from a program like yours. Um, thank you for all that you do. There's anything else you want to add? As long as you're here, we'll certainly open it up to you, but no pressure to share. We're excited to have you here. >> Well, thank you for acknowledging the work that Jamie and I do. Definitely team effort. Thank you for watching the presentations today. I'm very proud. It's kind of a once in a career to get to have kids be top 10 in the nation for a project that they were passionate about. And I wanted to share that I brought some of the arrangements that the kids made today just to give you guys a little taste of what um we sent over to our neighboring school after that unfortunate incident. So, thank you for
012your continued support. Appreciate it. >> Thank you. Congratulations again. >> Thank you. >> And we will we have one more recognition [Music] >> century >> couple more. >> Okay. Just making sure. >> So next I would like to my slide go. >> I think it's one. Yeah. >> Back one. Thanks. Uh I'd like to take an opportunity to recognize and this is our first time doing it in this matter. Uh we can legitimately say it's a viral moment that occurred uh in New Century uh school uh on your at your own pace and probably after meeting please go ahead and watch the video. If you play it here it throws off the rest of the technology and we want to make sure that uh we want to uh continue the most but but please watch
013the clip. if I can just give a description of what you're going to um uh witness and then I'll I'll I'll go through the uh uh the numbers that uh in terms of views. So, so what's happening in the clip is uh is Dr. Holland's fourth grade music class at New Century. Students were practicing keeping the beat in their bodies while having fun. Dr. Dr. Hullingberry believes it is important for music students to learn concepts through a variety of methods including kinesesthetic movement. Uh lessons such as hoop jumping on the on the beat or stepped are steeped in the I practiced this doll crows. I got it. There you go. Dark crows your rhythmics and only reason I knew your because of the group sweet sweet dreams. >> Yeah. method of music presentation that believes
014strongly in in connecting bodily movement to the understanding of the intellectual concepts. By having the students understand and feel the beats within a sign a time signature, it ultimately improves their instrumental and vocal ensemble as a whole. Dr. Holland Barry has witnessed this improvement already this year as NCS students listen and work with each other in their percussion playing. We often say that the magic happens in the classroom and this explanation opens the curtain to what is behind the magic and and the expertise, knowledge and skills of educators to translate theoretical knowledge into engaging lessons and learning activities. So once this uh clip was submitted as of as of was posting or printing uh the numbers is 3,173,888 views over a,000 comments, 5,581 shares and 13,58 saves. So it's truly a viral moment of representation
015from uh New Century. And we're very proud of of Dr. Holland Berry and the work that she continues to do in her fourth grade class. So, congratulations to NCS and Dr. Alen Fair's fourth grade class. >> So fun. >> Thank you. >> Absolutely. Let's >> continue into the superintendent report. And just note board members, we have a lot that lives in the superintendent report that then um feeds into votes later, but as we typically do, leaving space for public comment in between um feels right for a lot of the topics that we carry. But we'll just kind of keep things as is with that. So, welcoming our What? Oh, and we're celebrating something else. It's right in front of me and I'm all talking about the agenda. >> That's right. Um, and the final Well,
016everything we do tonight's celebration in some sense or or another, but our next celebration will be our just our overall ratings which is by niche and niche is the statewide or nationwide, excuse me, reporting system of performance for district for districts across the nation. Uh and so in the Bron school district, we recently learned that we rated in the top three in Den County in the following areas. Best places to teach, most diverse school district, best school district, and best school district for athletes. Uh the rankings were released by nation niche, a company that provides an educational institution information, ranks and reviews. Ratings are based on federal data, state data, and user generated reviews. uh Verona school district continues to be at the top number 14 spot of all districts across the state of Wisconsin
017and we look forward to continuing to to grow. So congratulations to our amazing staff, our students and our families that and our board that comprise Ron Air School District and it's always a great day to be able to celebrate the accomplishments as we continue to be a desirable district for for families and students. >> That's awesome way to almost skip that slide. President John Murphy. Thank you. Shifting over to Welcome Chad Weezy. >> Hey guys. >> The next round of presentations. >> I brought my friend Dave back. >> Welcome Dave. Good to see you again. >> We skipped right by because we so excited to talk about doing our part to save save the planet. Uh so we're we're back tonight for a really brief uh um update on the solar project that I think
018we brought to you probably two months ago now. Uh and got uh I think for the most part 100% thumbs up and endorsement from the school board about being excited uh about this possibility. Uh, as promised, we've continued to work and plan behind the scenes uh with our friends from Sustain Verona. And I'm really back here tonight just to do a brief update in terms of where we're at uh some of the work that we've done and more than anything uh Dave here uh and his group, the the rubber's kind of hitting the road on the fundraising trail. Uh you may have seen some letters to the editor. Um they've start to put together some polished materials to to get after this. And in general, uh, we're looking for an official endorsement from the school
019board tonight that, um, if and when those funds are raised, uh, that we've publicly said we're in and we're going to match those funds. And I think that's an important, uh, key component to, uh, to sustain Verona going out and looking for private donations, knowing that there's a one one for one match from our school district. Um, so we're just going to do a a real brief update, see if the board had any closing questions and then Jen, a little bit later you guys have a vote to endorse it. Up to you if you want to pull it out of the agenda while we've got Dave here or we can just wait till board action. >> Sounds great. Thank you. >> So, um, again, our our partners in this and certainly going to turn things
020over to Dave. Uh, Sustain Verona and Upstart Group. Uh, I think that was in some regards your brainchild. um um mirroring a project that took place in Sock Prairie School District uh where a similar community-based organization who cared about public schools and cared about the environment uh decided to take this on and we're certainly grateful for that. Uh Dave, I don't know if you wanted to even mention I think some of the great progress we've made uh with the education foundation and um the ways we're helping they're assisting uh you guys take taking donations. >> Sure. Uh we want to just thank the Verona Area Education Foundation for their cooperation and help with this. Uh Sustain Verona is not a 501c3 charitable organization. And since we're relatively new, we did not want to try to
021raise the money for people to give to us to then give to the school. We just thought there might be a a bit of a you know, who are these guys? But the Veron Area Education Foundation has been around for decades, I think. Um the only problem is they've never raised this kind of money that we're talking about. We're talking about $250,000 and they're more used to maybe $2,000. Uh so this they had to up their game and we've worked a lot with it with Marcy and John Borleski and Nick Gray. Uh we appreciate the help that they've got in terms of I think they got a new bank account. They're hiring an accountant. That kind of stuff that we had to do as baseline. Um, we've also started fundraising and I'm happy to say
022we've already got $32,000 of the 250,000 raised and that's without really even having much of a public campaign yet. Uh, we expect that between now and the first of the year or Christmas time, we're really going to get much more vocal. We hope you'll see yard signs and a brochure and maybe you get emails about it and read stuff in the paper, all of that kind of stuff. Uh so that we're asking people to donate money individually. That includes everybody up here in front of us. Uh if you $500, we'll get your name or your kids' name or your mother's name or whoever's name you want on on a panel. Um if you give us $50,000, you're a platinum donor and you get a big uh plaque down in somewhere in the school hallway. We're
023going to have a donor wall. Uh we hope that we'll uh commemorate all the people that have given money. Um the other thing we're looking for, and Chad has has uh been gracious about this too, is that if we can get up to about $100,000, which we're hoping to do by Christmas time, um they'll go ahead and issue a an RFP and get a signed contract, which really makes the project real. At that point, we've got a contractor, we've got a specific plan that will make us eligible for a couple of grants. uh people do grant you the money until you actually have a project in hand. Um and the grants could bring us as much as another $40,000. And the faster we get this done, the federal government may still give us a rebate.
024Um Chad has hired a consultant who tells us if we can get it started by July 4th or July 1st of this coming year, um we're likely to be eligible for about a 30% rebate, which would be $150,000 of the $500,000 program. So we may get as much as $200,000 back in terms of grants and rebates. Um so that makes the, you know, fundraising a lot easier, too. So, and if we have too much money, maybe he'll do what Sock Curry did, which is put solar panels on a second school. They had so much money left over, they decided to do it on an elementary school in addition. So, it' be a good problem to have. >> Yeah, that would be nice. >> Uh, so, um, Dave did a great job, I think, kind of
025summarizing the remaining slides. Again, uh there's long-term savings here that um the the school district portion of this investment would pay itself back in five years. Um and over the life of the solar array, we'd end up saving on $1.4 million uh in uh in total costs to the district. We'd reduce our environmental impact by 200 tons of carbon a year. And certainly there's educational value. One of the things we'll actually write into the RFP was kind of the analytic side where our science classrooms in particular, maybe some math, maybe some engineering classes, we'll have access to real life data in terms of what those solar arrays are are producing and what they're offsetting, which will be great. Uh again, that we did want to show you the footprint on kind of where it would
026go. We just had Angie here. It would go right over the top of the the egg and the auto department kind of in our tech wing in the high school. That would be phase one that we've kind of got marked out and done a little initial uh analyzation of making sure that that works and it does. Um again, our um our agreement uh per the board vote tonight would be $250,000. There's a there's a couple of moving pieces here that if uh sustained Verona is really good with raising funds, let's say by the first of the year, we can put an RFP out uh and they continue to raise funds, but all of a sudden uh the solar consultant we're working with is like you guys are in. You've checked all the boxes for a
02730% rebate uh from the federal government. then there's the possibility of actually uh their group and the district not having to get go all in at $250,000 a piece. Um and we'll just kind of feel our way out I'm feeling in the spring in terms of where they're at uh with benchmarks and the fundraising efforts and if they're churning ahead and have a couple major donors and get all the way to $250,000. It's a wonderful problem to have. We can still apply for the federal rebate. we can either put a bigger array on the high school or to Dave's point potentially even explore another site. Uh we know we've got new roast on a couple of schools that uh we can maybe kind of go into it in a in a second direction. So that's
028kind of where we're at. Uh Dave mentioned that there's a a marketing team from Sustain Verona uh that um started to produce materials, yard signs um and is contacting local community organizations to come speak to um and really um I think following tonight it's full steam ahead for us to do this project if we continue to have uh the school board's endorsement. Uh Dave did mention uh the tax credit and a couple of the grants. So, there's the possibility of nearly $200,000 of savings. The clock's ticking a little bit on that federal rebate. That's part of the reason I talked to Dr. Clarity and Jen about getting on the agenda tonight just so we can get pushed off to see and get fundraising going uh because we kind of need to get that money accumulated
029to get an RFP and meet the deadline for the the federal. So, with that said, our next steps on this, we're hoping tonight uh the board would endorse up to a $250,000 commitment out of this year's budget that would come from our facilities maintenance budget. So, we not we don't need to do um a budget amendment to do so. Um we would be working on an RFP and update the school board. that would likely be sometime after the first of the year. Uh that we would potentially put that on the street and give you timely updates either through uh periodic emails or even after the first of the year. Um a brief fivem minute update like you're getting tonight. Fundraising will continue and grant writing will start uh once we have the goat. We're here
030to answer questions if you guys have any. >> When's the deadline? The federal deadline? Well, Juan Carlos, it's it's wonderful that this still exists and I think Dave can pick up my cynical frustration in some of our meetings. Uh there is uh with every kind of uh gate the federal government's making these rebates harder and harder. Uh so there was the possibility of I think up to a 40% rebate as of the first of the year if we had cash in hand. Um, as of as of July 4th, there's a 30% rebate, but it comes with more red tape. And the red tape literally is where are the parts of the inverter coming from? And if they're coming from the wrong country in a in a proportion, you may not qualify for the bigger portion
031of the rebates. uh we'll actually turn that over to industry experts and in the RFP say we expect you to be qualified to help us tease apart all of the ins and outs of that grant to tell us uh if it came from Malaysia, Vietnam or the United States in terms of where the inverter is being produced. Um so uh that's really what's going on. And I think if we missed the July 4th deadline, there's still opportunities for for some federal dollars. It might shrink and it might come with more red tape. Um, and that's kind of what we're hearing from our our >> I mean it's in line and I think they're doing that with the auto interest deduction that they're offering >> 100%. >> It's trending. Got it. >> Yep. >> Other questions
032or comments? >> Uh, I understand it's not guaranteed and that there's a lot of red tape that comes with it, but a 30% rebate seems great. Is there any consideration of increasing the scope of the project if we're getting that kind of rebate back? >> And that would likely be we would um we'd come back to the school board if if uh if this is going gang busters and sustained Verona's had let's say an an easy time of getting to that benchmark of $250,000. Certainly. Um I think once you get the infrastructure on the roof uh the actual adding of extra solar panels, we have we have the rough space to uh to make our array bigger. Um and this is just a a very small portion of the electricity it takes to run this
033giant plant every day. Um so even if we filled up every square foot of our roof space here, uh this this high school would still not be uh carbon neutral by any means. So I think it would be a good problem to add if we get there. >> Other questions? >> And just a reminder to the community that the reason we're even at this point in the conversation is the last time you presented there was strong interest for board members knowing the potential investment that we were going to make as a district. So this number that we're talking about this presentation is a revisit because we certainly had the excitement going into the last presentation about where the direction could go. Um, so appreciating the chance that this is our formal vote then as board
034members to really give that blessing for our contribution um, budgetarily, but this was something that we kind of gave the the nod to to get to this point even. >> Perfect. We're particularly interested. We're we're mostly a Verona organization and you know half of the school district, part of the school district is in Fitsburg. Um, those of you I don't know who represents Fitch Fitchburg, if you could talk to constituents there and get us some contacts of people we can talk to. You know, that's another whole avenue of places to raise money and stuff. So, we're excited and obviously very grateful and I want to thank the sustained Verona bunch for for doing this really out of the kindness of their heart because they care about the school district and care about the planet. That's
035pretty cool. The Great Lakes were just announced to be the warmest ever. They're five degrees over their highest their normal temperature right now. >> Wow. >> And uh I think we've been, you know, every year we're just getting reports about the planet is heating up and in many ways more and more and more. So >> I don't think it's frozen yet here in Wisconsin. Maybe unless you had a little bit of freeze last night. It's just very unusual not to have a frost by Halloween, >> right? Mhm. >> That's another sign of >> I I think it's important to stress too that in addition to the environmental benefits of doing this, which are great and wonderful and that would be reason enough to do it, but the return on investment here. I mean, Chad mentioned
036this where this will save over the life of these, you know, next 25 years $1.4 million. That's a degree of savings that for a $250,000 investment, I think it would be financially irresponsible of us to not do it. >> With data centers, electricity costs are going up and up and up. So, the savings could actually be more than that if the electricity rates continue to rise. >> Just the point I was going to make is this stabilizes um the cost that you're paying for electricity. We're we have solar in our house as well. side and we do we live in Seattle so we're big proponent family I'm happy to help make connections in in Pittsburgh and then just to once this is all set up the perfect system is that charging facility for cars and
037vehicles but we'll get cross that road let's get these on the road first >> I'm excited about the student impact I think it's amazing that students will get to be in this space and actually have some relevant hands-on content to grasp what it is that we're talking about what does it mean to create a sustainable I think in the end that will pay the biggest dividends if you can completely agree if we do a better job graduating earth friendly carbon conscious graduates >> data analytical those are the ones that are going to make the big biggest difference >> the amount of carbon we'll save is great but turn out to 500 kids who care about the environment every year that's that's the most important thing >> well I know I preface this entire superintendent report
038by saying we want to get all the information and then provide space for public comment. We also have Dave and others here that maybe don't need to listen to all of our board meeting, though more than the whole, >> but I do want to make sure if there is any public comment specific to this project. I I'm not aware of any public comment yet this evening, but I do want to make sure that we preserve that space. Um, board members on the fly, are we okay then moving toward our vote so we can be respectful of time and guests this evening? >> Yeah. >> Okay. Any further questions or discussion? All right. All right. So, then I will open it up for um uh a motion, there's the word, to provide up to $250,000 in
039matching funds as presented to support the sustained Verona solar panel project. >> Motion to approve. >> Thank you, Christopher. Is there a second? >> Second. >> Thank you, Joe. That was close. All those in favor of approving the $250,000 match in funds as presented for the solar panel project, please signify with I. I. >> I. Any opposed? All right, motion is approved. Onward to grants and fundraising and do let us know how we can be of support. Yes, sir. >> Thank you, Dave. >> Thank you, Chad. >> And we will bring up Pete. >> Yes. >> I know we've got a full agenda tonight and I know some review. We do have some uh some big pieces that finally fell into place here late uh late last week. uh Pete in particular along with myself.
040It is a busy time on Wednesday when all the the final numbers get posted and all this has to fall into place so we can bring it to you tonight. It's like Christmas day. >> It is a year of talking about it and speculating estimates. It all comes together and we finally get the real numbers. Uh so here we are tonight. So, we're going to we're going to put the finishing pieces on this budget and ask for the board to approve it and officially endorse it so we can be on November. We'll likely be back already talking about 2627. Uh so, we'll review what guided this budget. We are going to do an enrollment update and we have a little more detail than we've had for the board in the past. Fully expect some questions
041there. We've got our finalized state aid. Uh we do have equalized fair market values uh that did impact where we ended up with mill rate. Uh we're going to review what we're going to do with capital debt, but that for the most part stayed the same from the annual meeting. And we brought to you tonight a little bit of new learning for the board uh because this is becoming a bigger and bigger issue statewide and even locally uh and that's voucher schools. And then finally, we've got a recommendation for all of you regarding where we believe that levy and the mill rate should end up. But that's not official till all of you vote on it. So, um, again, we're here tonight to continue to play that balancing act impact on taxpayers, uh, but make
042sure that we're we have the resources to run our school district, uh, pay our hardworking staff, uh, and keep the lights on. Uh, and that is a constant balancing act and it gets diff more and more difficult every year. Um, and we see this in terms of uh our budget really working in uh, you know, cogs in a in a big machine that eventually will kick out that levy tonight. So, we did want to prioritize what's going on with tax impact. We still have long range purposeful capital planning and that happens again. Uh, we continue to adjust the mill rate this year. We had a goal of keeping that under the rate of inflation and we did so and the tools we use are net new construction really and equalized property value. I'm going to
043pause here on the bottom. Uh we didn't do a a specific slide relative to state aid, but uh we informed the board at the annual meeting. Uh there's no new money in the state aid. It's the exact same money was the year before. Uh WBO just published today that 71% of the school districts in the state of Wisconsin are receiving less aid than they did the year before. Uh and uh we are one of those school districts. Um and really it comes down to how many students you have, how much uh your property value is worth, and the fact that the APOT didn't increase. um uh Milwaukee schools in particular with that past referendum took a bigger chunk of that aid pot and a lot of people felt that uh in terms of managing that
044on the back end. So that that is a big deal. Um, and we didn't get into a ton of detail on state aid, but in our school district, the fallout from that is because we levy extra in fund 39. Every penny we do not get in state aid is money we can't put towards paying down capital debt, saving money in interest down the road and providing a cushion or soft landing uh if we ever did need to go back to operating referendum in the future. Uh so aid is a big deal in our school district and we we took a we took a hit this year just like everybody else. So our goal is again uh manage taxes, take care of the people that are serving our students, manage debt, and align our staffing with
045what's going on with enrollment uh and in the end pass a balanced budget. And that's what we're presenting to the board tonight. uh the pieces that we were waiting for. Property value. We're going to give you an update on what happened with aid, what happened with enrollment, and what we wanted to do with fund 39. Um and we're going to uh spend a little bit more time on enrollment, which is incredibly complicated. We're here to answer questions uh if you have them. Uh there are really three main pieces uh that all have interplay here in terms of where we end up with what we hand into the state for re revenue authority. Um and they go in kind of this order. Headcount is actually how many students we have in seats in our schools. Uh
046but that is not it's not that exact headcount we end up hand handing into the state of Wisconsin for revenue authority. Headcount in the end helps inform membership and membership would be any eligible student uh that lives within the boundaries of our school district that the state really has uh uses that number to help us calculate uh what we end up getting for revenue permission. And that membership is then turned into something called FTE which really is a full-time enrolly uh in our school district. Those terms can be interchangeable with an employee. Sometimes they'll say FTE for a full-time adult. Here we're talking about students and the equivalent of a full-time student. Um, and there is a ratio we use uh in terms of that membership. Uh, and here is kind of the leading story
047on where we're at with enrollment. Um, and I I know Dr. Clary, you might have a thing or two to say about this as well. In the end, after we got done with third Friday count, I think the board can see in particular, our elementary schools are much smaller than they've been uh at least in the short history, um let's say the last five or six years. Um and we ended up with 51 fewer students in 4K and 45 fewer students in kindergarten. So that's almost 100 students uh right there in the end. In terms of pupils in seats, um our school district's down 150 students. Uh and uh we are not alone. We've got a few other things to show you. In terms of birth rate around the state is very common, more way
048more common than not uh for school districts to encounter declining enrollment. It's been uncommon for us. Um and there are some things we can do on the back end as far as filling seats with open enrollment and and uh and so forth. I think, you know, we just had a meeting with city planners this morning. Uh growth is still continuing in our school district. I do not expect us to become a permanently declining uh enrollment school district, but uh we do have a bubble of people having fewer students that they're sending to our schools at the lower grade levels. Um I'm going to pause on that slide and just see if anyone has questions on the third Friday count or anything else going on. And then Dr. clear. I don't know if this would be
049a good spot if you've got other thoughts in terms of things you've heard from your colleagues. >> So, we put more questions for us. I'll jump >> more so than questions. There's just a lot that we'll grapple with then hear as we get to open enrollment discussions in January. And I mean, right, there's just so many ramifications of this information. Um, so you know, I appreciate the sentiments you shared as to maybe some backstory with the numbers, but I think I'm finding myself just okay, so we mold this over and when we have kind of domino decisions that will start to come forward, this is information that helps with all of that. >> So I think that's going to be the biggest piece of it. Thanks for se perfect segue, Jen. U working with our
050colleagues across Dayton County. Um this is an area where uh as recently as a Friday's superintendent meeting all of us really found ourselves in the same or similar circumstances and especially the it's the it's the ability to appropriately uh calculate projected 4K and K numbers uh is a uh has been an issue across our state and was particularly noticeable in Dayne County and I think we tried to get to root cause some of the factors contributing it. We we do understand that um you know we have basically competing uh uh districts with some that have open enrollment some that don't. Uh I think that leads to a better conversation as you stated before in January when the board makes a decision around um uh especially at the yard grades uh maybe possibly all the way
051K through rate of what does open enrollment look like for Broner School District and it's just having the very conversation that uh whether it's the combination of lower birth rates overall and lower birth rates would very um uh I would say higher property to to purchase the mentality of just not having as many students per rooftops as was previously calculated. I think one thing that has been consistent that number has been drastically low when you're trying to in essence take a calculated guess of how many families are going to bring children of school age into a new roof rooftop in in in Dayne County. uh and making making those decisions. And I think what we can all have learned from uh the last 12 months is that the number that was used to project that
052in the past is drastically lower than it is than it actually is. and uh learning from that. But also opens up a great opportunity for us to expand uh and look at at open enrollment differently because the fear was at that time uh overcrowding classrooms and increasing more needs for uh full-time full-time employees and I I think our our numbers are showing that's not would not be as significant of a factor. So >> and historically that has been the concern. I mean, I think this really is like this first glaring year where this is not the previous pattern. We've had hesitation about opening enorm kindergarten for as long as I can remember. So, I mean, I I think this is >> to just appreciate back to the reflection we had last January and the cautious
053nature that we approached having open seats >> at kindergarten. Um, I think it just elevates that this is somewhat new >> and I I would that Dr. See, there are what we would kind of consider sister school districts in Indian County who have bumped into the same thing that that they had the same conservative approach with in regards to open enrollment that have started to open up more slots uh because they are also having more open seats because they're having lower numbers of students enrolling. Yep. So, we're um we are certainly, you know, amongst friends in Dane County that are all family. >> And also one I we showed the niche report every year because we are very proud of the gains that we've made in the burner footage and it's all to do with
054our staff. Our staff were early those gains happen. I never want to lose lose sight of that. And um while you don't want to be in the mindset of being competitive for for kids and spaces, we are. And that's just a fact that we are. So, we do demonstrate that, show, you know, the value of a Broner School District uh education and put that information out there because families have choices and families as each Dane County school opens their doors to open enrollment, there is in essence competition of where families can make a choice to to go. We want to continue to show and prioritize the value of what it means to get an education here and what they'll what our students will experience if they have the opportunity to engage with our staff. >>
055And so so continue to >> celebrate that, uplift that and make sure that it's accurate with data is is important. We we celebrate we celebrate that. Mhm. >> And ju just to be clear, >> enrollment is down for virtually all the schools in Dayne County. >> Correct. Right. >> And statewide. >> So like I just want to caution against any narrative that it might look like our enrollment is declining because people are choosing to leave here to go elsewhere. That doesn't hold up because everywhere else is declining too. People are either not having kids at the rate we thought they were or people are leaving the state at a rate different than what people expected because this is happening across the whole state. >> We've got some interesting birth data that we'll share with the
056board here coming up accurate. And this, you know, I hate to bring this back into the conversation because I think we don't want to forget what we experienced, but we tried to move away, but this is that that force cohort uh with children that would have been born during the uh co era and and the pandemic and we are just that is a calculated piece that I think as you'll see in the birth data people just weren't having kids with the uncertainties of you know where everything where our world was or society was >> we have to look at that for the first time because that age group is is the group that is no longer showing up. >> Yeah, >> we have a a few summary slides. I'm not going to belabor this point.
057Um, in the end, the FTE calculation, the one Pete enters into the revenue limit worksheet that we submit to DPI. In the end, with the headcount and the membership in terms of counting some students as whole students and others as 50 or 60%, we're down 60 FTE. Reminder to the board, that is calculated into a three-year average. So that minus 60 doesn't hurt as much this year uh because you need to average it in to the other two school years, but it's going to be a little friend that lives with us uh for the next three years that we don't get get to kick off uh the other end of that three-year average until we have two more uh budget years. So it it will be with us. Um and it it does have an
058impact in terms of what we get for revenue. >> Jack, can you put in the space say again what FTE mean? There's a different way that staff look at that. >> So, it is not it is not staff. It's it's essentially a full-time student. It's an the equivalent of a full-time student uh being handed into DPI. Yep. And they're interchangeable. >> And the reason we use that is because 4K are calculated at what 40% >> 60% >> 4K in there summer school hours are in there schools at 40%. >> That's they don't all count as one. So given that because when we talk FTE is staffing, we also attach like an average dollar amount for all 1.0. I don't know Pete if this is a far grab in your ability to pull numbers, but a
059a negative 60 FTE. What does that mean from a state aidish perspective monetarily? Do you have any sort of just ballpark number of what that >> Well, we do get um on our limit formula, we are allowed about $16,000 per FT. Okay. >> That's broken up between state aid and tax money. >> Okay. >> Out there. So depending on how EA formula works and where we're at for that. >> Okay. >> So we $16,000 a student. >> Yep. the main two sources of income related to that $16,000 property taxes and state. >> Yep. >> Got it. That's helpful to just put some context to what that might mean for us budgetarily. Thank you. >> Uh we did do a few summary just so the board had access to some longitudinal data related to headcount uh
060and FTE. Um and you can see we're still on a general uh increase related to both those things, but it's certainly not a straight line. There's some ups and some downs. Uh this is certainly a down year. Um transfer ins and outs. This is kind of a segue um comment from President Murphy. I think we will have some more in-depth conversations around what we're doing with open enrollment uh near the first of the year because that is it is a thing we we recommended to the board to be cautious on kindergarten uh and did not see this small kindergarten class coming. Um and again it's a little bit of a lottery. we did want to share with the board and I do think this is interesting uh one of the main pieces of data uh
061that uh are used both by Mark Roers who put together uh that that enrollment study um and anyone else who's trying to calculate how many students we're going to have uh in our school district in the coming years. They use Dayne County birth rate data. So I had Pete pull this. a little bit of an ugly uh ugly chart, but I did try to box in kind of the three years we're looking at for what we've gotten kindergarten, 4K, and first grade. Um, and you can see in general, uh, you wouldn't make the A to B assumption that we're going to be down a bunch of kids. Uh, that in the city of Verona in 2019, uh, there were 256 births. if they all stayed here, we'd get everyone most of those students uh would
062come to our school district. And you can see that's virtually average or above average in terms of uh babies being had in the city of Verona. And you can see next year uh 2021 was a record year for babies uh in the city of Verona. Do we have any way of knowing if all 291 are enrolling in kindergarten? Absolutely not. They could have moved out of the county the day after they were born, but it is a data point that we have that we kind of watch. Um, the other thing that we I I wanted to just kind of highlight and this was to Joe's point. Uh, it is interesting if you take a look at that top row there. Take a look at what's happening with birth rates just in the state of Wisconsin.
063Uh, so 10 years ago you had 108,000 births. Uh, in 2023 you had 96,000 births. So that's down 12 13%. Uh and that has a direct impact on um students heading into kindergarten kind of on a 5year rolling average. So it it is going down statewide. I think we're a little more immune to it here because we have so much housing. Um but if we were in a kind of a landlock school district, uh you're you're feeling that declining enrollment on a yearly basis. Any other questions on enrollment? But we wanted to give you a little bit more detail tonight because it was an anomaly of a year with us having having our enrollment shrink. >> We'll also lead to some interesting discussions when we get to staffing time because we got to make sure
064we right size our staff related to how many students we've got and we're being fiscally responsible. All right, a few more odds and ends from the budget. The board's very familiar with this slide. Uh in the end, our debt diffuses amount that we're recommending to all of you is just short of $6 million for this year. you'll have a vote sometime likely this spring uh to carry through that defeasence. Um and again, we've saved $11 million in interest by doing this work and have continued to use it as a tool uh to manage mill rate. I wanted to make sure we called that out. Um we did put this together what changed in terms of where we were at with the annual meeting in terms of real numbers. did want to give a big shout
065out to our guy Pete who is a leader in the state of Wisconsin in terms of aid calculations and estimated aid calculations. Uh Pete was off by a fraction of a percent uh um months ago in terms of uh where we would end up for aid. So I think he's proud of that and we're certainly proud of of having him here uh to assist us with budget planning items in general. Uh, and for the most part, uh, minus that FTE number, a lot of this held. Um, and our recommended levy is very close. Mill rates a little lower, um, in terms of where we ended up. Um, but that's that is a result of where equalized property values ended up in terms of us in terms of us growing. So, for the most part, I'm
066proud of the budget book we put together. Would have loved to be able to hit that enrollment number on the head. Um, and we'll continue to do our best work on that on an annual basis. Uh, the uh the another way to kind of tease this out, we won't spend a bunch of detail on this, but we did want to give uh the board real numbers in terms of where we ended up with levy and mill rate. Just a few slides on ways we're going to calculate tax impact. So, we did end up getting a finalized number with net new construction. So, our school districts at 3.49% net new construction. Reminder to the board of the community, this is an important number for us. These are taxpayers that did not exist last year, property owners
067that did not exist last year, or property that was not taxed uh last year. And it's an important number uh because if we raised our levy by exactly 3.49%, the average taxpayer would have zero increase in taxes. We're recommending a slightly higher increase uh in terms of our levy, mainly to continue your prepaid debt. Um and in the end, uh our fair market property value districtwide went up 9.23%. That is well above the state average because we are growing and there's still construction and our properties continue to hold their value and increase value on an annual basis. So that's a big number. Another increase of property value uh at 9.23% 23% but we are at almost $8 billion of property value in this school district which is pretty amazing. Uh in the end tonight we're
068here to recommend a mill rate to the board of 10.66 and an estimated uh tax increase for the average property owner of about 2 and a.5% which is below that rate of inflation. We met with our friends from the city of Pittsburgh and the city of Verona this morning that they're putting together their city budgets in a very similar way trying to keep taxes in check and not be way above the rate of inflation. Um, and we've certainly done our part this year if the board endorses this budget tonight. And we only have a couple more slides to go. Um, but I did want to kind of tease this out. So, we built this one. Um, and I want there's a lot here. Uh but the levy by municipality I'm hoping is uh is at
069least recognizable and okay for the board to follow here. Uh really the way we uh we put this together the as a reminder you have local assessors. Those are townships. Those are those are the city and you might have a local assessor say your house is worth $250,000. That's the number that's taxed to apply local taxes like city services. Then the department of revenue steps in and they say, "Whoa, whoa, whoa, whoa, whoa. We can't have municipalities cooking the books on how they assess to keep taxes down for everybody. We're going to apply something called a fair market rate." So they analyze what your property is assessed for by your municipality, how much it's going for on the open market when it sells, and if there is a difference, the municipality uh assessed it at
070250, but on average those houses were selling at 350. That's a a signal to uh all of the uh folks at the Department of Revenue. They apply essentially an equation or a ratio to those property values and say you're underassed. You have to pay your fair share to the state of Wisconsin for education and we're going to increase your fair market value if you're following me. That's a big deal. It's a really big deal in the town of Verona. Over the last three years, including this year, the town of Verona has seen a giant increase in fair market value. So, I want the board to be aware of that. I believe we've got a town member or two uh on our board as well. Uh Mr. Porco, please no angry letters to uh the superintendent's
071office when it comes to your taxes. >> Everybody's got to get angry. >> It was out of our control. I'll help you with it when it comes to addressing it to the Department of Revenue, not the Verona Area School District. Um, but what what is happening in the town is that you have assessed value and there are um properties in particular empty lot properties and I'll let you do the math on that that are selling way over what they're assessed for and in comes a giant fair market adjustment. So, uh, in general, all of our municipalities minus the town is going to see anywhere between a minus.5% tax increase, so a reduced tax bill, up to about a 3% tax bill. Um, so if everyone we're hitting the mark, um, we don't have any control
072on what's going on with the Department of Revenue, but we wanted to be 100% transparent with this. We're getting ahead of this. Pete and I went out and met with um um the the town staff and are actually likely going to hold a town meeting that we'll participate in to explain tax bills, but there's only so much of that we can control. We can control the overall levy. Nothing you guys can do or what happens with the department forever. >> So, but wanted to be 100% transparent with that in terms of what that looks like. Uh we put together summary documents that um so you're essentially endorsing the budget by fund number uh tonight. So that all rolls up when you eventually uh when when you eventually go ahead and endorse the the final levy
073and there is a more detailed budget document within board docs that that he put together last week. >> Yep. That I think gives more detail on the budget plans. >> And lastly, and then we're going to finish this up. We did want to do a little bit on voter schools. I'm not going to read these slides to you verbatim uh to uh to give you all an idea. We haven't spent a ton of time on voucher schools in our district. Uh this is becoming a bigger and bigger thing statewide and we ran the numbers. We doubled the number of voucher school students our district has had in the last five years. So it is a thing uh in Day County as well. The way voucher schools work if you guys can follow me. uh or
074in this year, every student that lives in our school district heads to a voucher school in essence is taking with them uh if they're a high schooler $13,000 of funding. Uh and the way that happens is the state pays those vouchers for those voucher students out of the state aid pot, the big pot of money that's divvied up. There's the next slide. That now is $350 million a year of state aid that does not go to public schools. The state sends it to voucher schools. And then they send Pete a number. This year it's like 78 students. And we're allowed to tax for those 78 students in terms of what we lose for in state aid. So, um I know it's a little difficult to follow, but the aid goes to pay for voucher schools.
075We get permission from the state to increase our levy by the amount that they're paying for in voucher schools. So, in some regards, our local taxpayers are kind of paying for it twice. They're paying to fund their public school. If students go to a voucher school, they take our aid with them, and then we increase the levy to pay for the voucher school. So, it's a it's a little bit of a double whammy and we wanted to make sure we gave the board a little bit more detail than we had in the past just because it's a thing. Um, I know President Murphy even mentioned there's some statewide movement around we pass a law that details how much money is heading to voucher schools um that isn't heading to support your local public schools and
076even putting it as a a line on our tax bill. Um, we did run some summary numbers for you. So from 2022 to this upcoming year, we've gone from 36 to 74 students. Uh I had Pete do the math on it and did work on this. Uh we're just short of $900,000 in state aid loss this year that we will tax for because we're going to take that revenue limit to the max just like most school districts. But on your mill rate, it's 11 cents on every thousand of property you own in this school district goes to your schools. Um, I did want to make sure the board was aware of that that that is all built into the budget we're asking for pass. I I think that's really important to emphasize as these numbers
077grow. That's over 1% of all money that we tax our residents on gets sent directly to schools that have no public accountability. Correct. It don't doesn't help the district at all. And that's where over 1% of your school district line item on your taxes go. And people don't really know it because they don't advertise that this is how they fund this voucher program that by the way people are looking to expand. So this number could get way bigger if people don't realize what's happening. No question. >> Yep. >> All right. As we wrap up, I do think this is a good news story coming out of the budget we just passed. We've continued to take care of our taxpayers and balance a budget on an annual basis. Um so we've got historically low rate. We're
078asking for all of you to approve tonight at 1066 uh down from 1288 only four or five years ago. Um so we do feel good about that with the with kind of the balancing act that we've continued to do. So this did fall into place for all of us. We've got a budget that now we presented to you. Um, and again, those are just kind of kind of some of the key points that we uh work with you tonight for this presentation. So, next steps, we're gonna likely in the uh the board portion uh approve the budget. Um we're hoping that happens. Uh Pete will submit that finalized budget and levy to the municipalities uh to start working on tax bills. Uh and then before you know it, we'll be back talking about 2627. We
079did not want to do that tonight. questions on anything at all. Okay. A big thank you to you guys for sticking with us. This is a this is a this is a a full year to get this thing done. Uh and like I said, we'll likely be back in November to to make it a fresh pot of chili for the 26 27 budget. That's the way it goes. And I will bring up one point too is our records go back to 1984 and mill rate has never been this low. All of those 41 years >> we've never seen it that >> lowest mill rate in 41 years. >> Right. I've just I mean as you >> as far back as my records go for at least 41 years. This whole presentation I think just summarizes
080that point of all the moving parts and all the things that fall into our budget and the things we can control and the things we can't control that trying to have that mill rate reflect as much as possible respect for the taxpayers that are feeling impacts beyond us. Um and so I appreciate that that stays a goal of our team and this board to try to not yo-yo and to try to really respect the fact that um there's a lot of things that are increasing and we're going to do our best to decrease. Well, thank you all. Looks like we're on to results policy. Lots of signage tonight members again. Do you have any sentiment about taking the vote right now >> before we sh I mean, you know, just yeah, feeling that energy. And
081again, I have not made >> um any changes to the fact that we don't have any public comment. >> You can transition. >> So, let me just get to where I am. Okay. So uh we'll be taking two votes. So the first would be please a motion to uh approve the 2526 budget as presented. So >> thank you on Carlos. Is there a second? >> Second. >> Thank you Corby. All those in favor of approving the 2526 budget as presented signify with I. >> I. Any opposed? Okay, the budget has been approved and then um voting to certify the 2526 tax levy at the dollar amount listed which I will read shortly as I would accept a motion to um certify that the 2526 tax levy will be 83,225,538 as proposed. >> So moved. >>
082Thank you Joe. Is there a second? >> Second. >> Thank you Christopher. All those in favor of certifying the 2526 tax levy as printed as proposed signify with I. I. Any opposed? All right. Thanks again, Chad, Pete, all the team. Now, we're ready for results. We're just kind of clearing the intellectual slate as we go. And thank you, Amy, for joining us. >> Well, I don't have nearly as many numbers as Chad and Pete has for you tonight. Just a whole lot of interpretations and definitions. So, if you'll remember back in July, our board adopted new results policies. We went from four results policies to six results policies after much discussion about how to better communicate the progress that we're making and our and our specific goals. Um, with that then we needed to make
083some adjustments to our monitoring reports and how we approach the interpretations and the definitions specifically for our team to come back and be able to communicate about those results to the board and the larger community. And so we're coming tonight with those updates. >> Yep. >> We need to redo that budget. Not redo it. There was a I think >> Did I erroneously say something? >> Yeah, there was one in the state. >> Yeah. >> Oh, there was. >> Yes. >> Oh, I'm sorry. >> Yeah, I think we forgot to voice their attention. >> We did. >> Um, we can circle back to it when there's a couple more members. They keep the votes. It just changes on the record his to >> that Joe will be an abstension. >> No, Corby. Thank you. >>
084You're looking right at me and I'm looking at Joe for some reason. >> Okay. Thank you. But because he seconded it, let's we'll circle that. >> We'll just re Okay. >> And that was the vote for the budget. >> Okay. Okay. Thank you. >> No problem. >> Sorry. >> All good. >> Thank you, Amy. >> Got to get the numbers right. Totally understand. Okay. So, just a reminder, we had results policies two and three, which are our core academics and exploration academics. we actually already had language and our previous results policies already had definitions and interpretations. So really with those two policies, we utilized that language previously and we just did um updated the formatting to better reflect that checklist that we worked through with the board last spring for results policies four through six.
085So special academics that include special education, advanced learning, charters of special programming um and student discipline as well as journey of a lifelong learner and the strategic framework. We did not have language in policy for that. And so the team, the student academic services team has worked to draft that language, specifically the language around the board expects and the board values and then presented new interpretations of terms and definitions. Our goals in doing so were to mirror the language that already existed in other documents. So in the strategic framework, we defined collaboration. So we're using that definition for collaboration through each of these results policies um as well. So, that was kind of how we approached this work of building those new monitoring reports. As a reminder, each monitoring report has um a statement about
086the board's what the board values and then what the board expects as a result of um that policy. There's a section for interpretation of terms and the interpretation of terms is really an explanation of those terms as it relates to the language of the content of the policy. So, for example, growth might be defined differently in special education versus in advanced learning. And so we've included that in terms of interpretation of terms. We also have a section each for the education terms or definitions. These might be acronyms or commonly used terms in education. They're not defined relative to that specific policy, but might be pertinent to the content. So just as an example, a sample monitoring report here, this is 4.2, which would be about special education. You can see at the very top is
087the question that the board approved and passed with the results policy back in July. To what extent are we meeting the needs of students with identified means to ensure access, growth, and belonging? And you see the two statements for um the board of education is committed to equity. That's the value statement. The board is valuing equity, collaboration, student centered decision-making, etc. And then the board's expectation that all students with disabilities have access to comprehensive continuum of services, etc. Below that then you see the interpretation of terms. So some of the terms that are used above and how those relate to that context. And then finally at the bottom the definition of terms. So just some educational terms here like least restrictive environment and inclusive practices. So each of the monitoring reports that you have um
088tonight are laid out in this very specific way with your question at the top. This the value and expectation statements interpretation and definitions. So that's what the team's been working on. We wanted to bring that forward tonight knowing that you'll have a vote to approve the monitoring reports with this language and then our team will begin. We have a our first monitoring report is November 17th. So I'll pause there for any any questions. >> So I just have a procedural question. I'm sorry. We don't have to do like a first or a second read for these. No >> just Yep. Because this is just approving for reasonleness. the new interpretations that have been listed here. >> I would say in reading through them this makes sense uh for me that it seems measurable that it
089seems like we are evaluating appropriately the questions being asked versus this amorphous kind of idea. So this feels much more tangible. >> Great. >> So good work on the drafts. Yeah, >> for sure. >> It's been really good for the team to really digest and think through what are we actually what does this actually mean? And the questions that the board has provided allowed us to think more deeply about that as well as make connections to build coherence across different ideas and back to some of our key documents with our teaching learning framework, strategic framework, etc. So thank you for that opportunity >> and I also appreciate just if you know board members if you've noticed like the structure of the summary has also shifted to incorporate um journey of a lifelong learner and our
090strategic framework and so then you know we kind of dialogue a little bit about then what it means to actually monitor R5 and R six if they are sort of embedded across all the other results policies. So I think that integration is really useful. Um I know tonight we're focused on being able to approve the interpretations but I do think as we move forward then to potentially monitor at an upcoming meeting with this way. Um I think we shared in our leadership discussion that filling in all the boxes need not be necessary. So this integration of trying to overlay journey of a lifelong learner strategic framework. I don't think that means there has to be something robust in every single results policy for every single thing. Um but having that crosswalk I think really just
091elevates that those things that we are using to really drive the work of the district are thoroughly embedded and then everything we do and discuss at the board table as well with our results. So just you know that overall right structure of these documents has shifted to reflect that too which I I really think is great. soup. >> So, I don't know if board members have, as you're mulling over, any specific feedback areas that did surface as you read through any interpretations? Obviously, there were quite a handful of them. Um, you know, we've kind of shared general sentiments, but is there any specific feedback on any interpretation that is worth elevating? I know I had one that I grabbed out of a curiosity. So, okay. Um, >> R3, >> creative and performing arts 3.1. Um,
092and I was going to caution board members to to avoid the obsessive word smithing. That really isn't the intention of this. However, it says what the board of education expects expects all students will access creative and performing arts. >> And I don't know if that's really right. That's an impossible thing. We've talked about that when we've weighed all of these results policies where we have students interested in various factors, you know, different components of what we can do at the high school. So I feel like we want to ensure everyone has access >> but then those that opt in are engaging to the depth that they desire within that pathway. So I think my yeah my caution was that the expectation of all students to do that pathway I don't think is what we're looking
093for. So that would be one piece of feedback I have. >> Thanks John. We can certainly make that that change in language. Okay. >> Because we certainly have gotten rid of as I said with R2 and R3. We took most of those interpretations from the previous results policies and so this language existed there. We got rid of the indicators, but I see what you're saying. This is >> Yeah, and I think that was the only one because once I noticed that, I kind of looked at the others to just see if that kind of carried over anywhere else. I don't think it did. >> So, if we change the language to has access, it says all students will have access. >> Yes, that would work. And I just had one general comment about um personalized
094goals carrying through. >> I think we've talked kind of multiple times about just if that's an antiquated way of talking about what we're doing in the district, if that's kind of a definition that we still want or a term. Um I'm still in the creative and performing arts, but the personalized goal as a term that's being used is still in there. But I don't know that we I mean if it lives there, great. I just I don't know how much we use that kind of terminology or am I just missing something that really does live within the work of staff and instructional leaders? >> We could perhaps take that out because it is not named as a as a specific piece to an indicator anymore, >> right? I mean, because we even talked about that
095way back when we first did our policies originally that we had hesitation around that. So, I don't know if that just kind of muddies and I think that lives in quite a few of them. So, maybe that is my >> Yeah. suggestion is to just take that term out. >> Yeah. It doesn't live in the interpretation, >> right? Like >> Yeah. And it's not in the policy. So I think wherever that may be listed could just be removed. >> Yep. Most definitely. I think those are the only things I had noticed. Any other board members? I know again thank you all for your time. I'm kind of looking through the general sentiment. >> I had a question because this is going to come up in like an update session in a couple meetings under 4.3
096advanced learning. Uh the definition of domains of giftedness because I know members of the community are going to have questions about this. Um are so I guess my question is this is what DPI has identified as domains of giftedness and I just want to understand if the school district has any um I guess has the ability to go beyond these domains of giftedness or do we have to stick to what you guys set as the domains of giftedness and maybe this is part of the greater update in a couple weeks. Yeah. So, um, really those domains of gift from Yeah. They come from NGC, which is the National Association for Gifted Children. And then that's kind of baked within the the state statute. Certainly, we can um build upon that, right, within us meeting our
097requirements by the state, but then thinking more more broadly about what does programming for gifted and talented or for advanced learners look like, >> right? >> Those domains become the buckets that are pretty nationally recognized. Um, but we certainly can think more broadly about that based on the needs of our students in our community. >> Right. Because my understanding was that you guys were kind of thinking more broadly around I guess gifted talented or domains of gifts. >> I think I just understand I just wanted to understand how that was going to be reflected. >> Well, our priority of you know we want to make sure that first and foremost we're within the compliance of state law and for and for national standards. So that is our starting point as we continue to now we're
098we we know they're in state of compliance there is their ability to continue to enhance our programming. >> Yes. But I think just in terms of the core what does it mean on a national level and based on state law we want to put this because this is what would be codified attached to the board policy itself to make sure we had that that basic set. But it doesn't mean doesn't limit you from thinking beyond that. But you wanted that those base parameters. >> Check the box on compliance, but I just wanted to make sure kind of understand does this go greater for conversation purposes. >> Yeah. >> Right. Because it's great to have it, you know, whatever's required by DPI and we're good there, but more thinking about um the public or any questions
099from anybody around the program, how it works. It'll be important to have context around that. >> Thanks for that one, Carlos. because not everybody tuning in is going to be kind of in tune with oh this is being done because of DPI correct check these boxes why they want >> just concerned they want to know what does this actually mean to me and this student my students >> most definitely I think that's where the questions that the board's also posed to what extent are students accessing opportunities for accelerated learning is a place that we can continue to lean into that and make some of those broader connections back to the strategic framework and journey of a lifelong learner >> because the journey of a lifelong learner also supports towards personal growth, collaboration, some of those
100other skills that really overlap well with some of the domains that are identified. >> Okay. >> So, >> thank you. >> So, I've captured two ideas. One about changing the language of will have access and then getting rid of personalized goals in the interpretations. Any other notes? >> We own the questions, right? I guess the results policy itself to for example to what extent students access >> Yes. Those are the results policies we voted on however many months ago now. Yes. >> Um as a rewrite of our results policies. Yep. >> Okay. So if you have any questions about those questions that wouldn't be here to discuss >> right because those are ours. >> Need to re workshop those are ours. >> I had some questions about that. >> Okay. Any final thoughts or comments
101from any of the board members? Get to put one into living practice then in a couple of weeks. >> Thank you. >> Yeah. Thank you for the team to work on these. I think this will be really just an exciting way of >> we will be voting on this. Yes. So, do we want to close that out too? We'll just keep doing our little dance into board action. Okay. Um so, we've received our um interpretations from the team. based on our reworking of our results policies. So then the motion would be to approve the results policies interpretations and definitions as reasonable as presented. Is there a motion? >> I'll make the motion. >> Is there a second? >> Second. >> Juan Carlos. All those in favor of approving the results, policies, interpretations, and definitions as
102presented signify with I. >> I. Any opposed? Any abstensions? I realize I ought to just be asking all the time, but most of our votes do not require that level of detail. So, thank you. All right. So, policies, interpretations, definitions have been approved. >> Take it back to 7B. >> Yeah. Do we want to go right back to 7B then since we just did a vote? Okay. So let's do a revote on the budget >> is yeah go ahead please Nate >> a motion to resend the vote on item 7B and immediately revote and then also have the minutes reflect only is this now revote because of well let's say >> so we're doing a full motion and second and vote to resend >> yeah let's do a motion to resend the vote on item
1037B and immediately vote again to allow a board member who to abstain who originally intended to abstain and have a minute to reflect just a second. >> Okay. So, I'm going to do this in the order I think I heard. Is there a motion to resend the first vote that was taken on the 2526 budget? >> So, move. >> Thank you, Joe. Is there a second? >> Second. >> Thank you, John. All those in favor of voting to approve to resend the initial vote on the 2526 budget signify with I. >> I. Any opposed? I don't have to extend. No extensions are needed for that. Okay. Um then we're going to vote to do we have to vote about the minutes or I'm just making that declaration. >> So I would now do the revote
104on the budget item and then vote for the minutes. >> Okay. All right. >> So >> is there a motion to approve the 2526 budget as was previously presented? >> Motion to approve. >> Thank you, Christopher. Is there a second? >> Second. >> Thank you, Joe. All those in favor of approving the 2526 budget as previously presented signify with I. >> I. Any opposed? Any abstensions? Thank you, Corby. Corby will be abstaining from the vote. So, the motion is passed and I would like to make a motion that the minutes be amended to simply reflect the second vote that was taken this evening for the accurate um vote on the 2526 budget. Is there a motion to approve that proposal? Yes. >> Thank you, John. Is there a second? Second. >> Thank you, Christopher. All
105those in favor of approving that the minutes be adjusted to reflect the second vote only for the minutes of the meeting, signify with I. >> I. Any opposed? All right. Hey, thanks. That was really fun. Robert's rules 101 for your your year-long. Okay, great. So I think we've wrapped up tidied up nice things to now serve it over to Marcy it looks like to discuss calendars 2627 and 2728. >> That's right. >> Welcome everybody >> and thank you Nate. >> The calendar development process. So every two years we engage in a process to come up with our calendars for the ensuing two years. And we do that by gathering input from families and staff and principles. Uh and we want to take that input into consideration as we're developing our calendars along with all of
106the fact other factors that come into play. There are many um we shared them with you here and it's designing a school calendar is like solving a very large puzzle. We have to meet our state instructional minute requirements, maintain but not exceed contractual work days and transportation and all the things we talk about all year long. And as we think about our calendar supports um and how we look to support student outcomes and staff growth, we want to again thank the community for the professional learning um communities that we have available to our staff on our late start Mondays. And we are seeing what we intended and hoped to see as a result of those professional learning communities and other systems that have been put into place. our state assessment data, which we'll be getting
107into much more deeply in other presentations, not the purpose of this presentation, but just a teaser that we're showing great year-to-year achievement gains in math and language arts. We're showing um growth gains in math and strong positive change over the four years for achievement in our focus groups. Stay tuned for more on that. H >> as usual, one of the things we like to do to try to get input from our groups that are most important to us, our families and our staff are um give an opportunity for them to complete a survey. We had great response this year. We had 1,161 families respond and 457 staff respond. And then to just quickly go over um our calendars, we asked them about October break. We have two days coming up at the end of this
108week. Asked about that for the future. Um families and staff both really value those two days off in October. Um when we talk about looking for more professional development days, some districts have gone to having one of those days as a professional development day and then one day off for staff. Um, our survey feedback is telling us that is not a preference that our staff have. And then we asked about spring break timing. This was interesting. Um, in the past we we've asked about, you know, you would you prefer this week or that week? And this year we also asked about aligning with other school districts and universities. And for both staff and families, um, we got quite a bit of feedback that that's important to them to the extent that we can do that.
109Um, especially mentioned were MMSD, Oregon, and Mount Horb and WMadison. Um, which of course presents a little bit of a challenge because we're not necessarily on the same calendaring cycles as other districts. Um, but we know that WMadison does their calendar for five years. So perhaps there's some potential there. But was interesting to learn um how important this is for our families. I'd be curious as I'm thinking about this again, you know, with that particular framing of that question because I think people at least just living in both worlds a lot, you know, the university also ends miday. >> So their spring break is often much earlier in March because they're done a month, you know, three to four weeks before we are. And so I think that also I've had that dialogue with staff
110and families. Do you want like an earlier spring break or a later spring break? just sort of the emotional piece behind that about how much school lives after spring break I think is also so I don't know if that type of question or if you get feedback kind of in that sort of vein because aligning with W has always given me caution especially when I was teaching that that felt so early right I think in some ways >> that's a good point yeah people there there were comments sort of around those three weeks like we want to go earlier we want to go later and then also comments around well don't align us with others because then there's fewer people traveling, right? So, right, you always get to show a little bit of everything, but
111um it was predominantly, you know, the value in aligning with other districts because people may work here, but they live in another district, so their children are in school in other districts. >> I think this question also could use the preface that the calendar we will never make everyone happy. >> Exactly. Yes. So, that ought to be kind of the general leadin is that it's an impossible task to >> a big puzzle that we put together. We're Yes. So, we have lots of constraints. And then we asked folks about coming back to school in 2028. Um, a couple years ago, or maybe it was last year, January 1 fell on a weekend. So, then some people were surprised that we came back right away on January 2nd. So, we wanted to um get feedback from
112people about when they would prefer their kids to come back. And um it's kind of funny because you see the families say, "Yep, they can go back." and the staff say they can stay home. So, was interesting, but like you said, it's can't necessarily make meet everyone's desires with our calendar, but we we try to do our best. And then I'll just quickly go over some of the open-ended responses. Um the 27 28 calendar, sorry. Um we um had got the most feedback from families about late start Mondays um the length of winter break and when the school year starts and ends and we did have people mention support for late start Mondays but we also had people raise concerns about scheduling child care and things like that. And we um also had people um
113speak up about school year start and end times um alignment with other districts. Again came up in the open-ended comments and then really valuing that October break, the two-day break and having a February day off, February wellness day. And then for our staff, um they appreciate short and wellspaced breaks. um the wanting to be us to be aware of those really long stretches where we might not have days off and um then again appreciating the professional learning opportunities that they have. We did have some staff questioning the effectiveness of late start Mondays. And then again among staff, the importance of aligning breaks with other districts came up as well. So what we really noticed and preserved in our calendars, our draft calendars and calendars that we've developed are those two days in October and a
114wellness day in February so that people can have those breaks um that they have come to value late start Mondays which we're very appreciative appreciative of are still in in the plans. Uh but we we do recognize that people have different thoughts and questions about late start Mondays. We did try to work with with principles to try to find another professional development day, but um when we have all these tensions kind of coming against each other and getting that clear message from our families and our staff about those days off um with no school for staff or students, we went to preserving that for our foreseeable future for our calendars. So, our next steps will be just continuing to um tie up the calendar plans, get them finalized, communicate them out to families and staff
115before winter break. And we have a couple of different ways that we do that. We put it in our newsletter, couple of different places on our website, make sure that principles have the information in a couple of different ways so that folks can start planning for those two days off in the coming year's October. So, happy to take any questions that you might have. >> I missed that part. I didn't I don't think it kept up. Um, what piece are you going to continue including >> late start Mondays? >> Oh, got it. >> Yes. >> And the two days off in October and a February while the same. >> So, those are locked in, but then everything else you're still kind of mulling over. >> Yeah. ish >> once you do that there is no
116really not a lot of mulling >> there's not a lot of mulling once that takes place and so we really just transparenc we have to think about what do we value and prioritize in the Bronier school district and the the board and the community expect two major things and it is our honor to be able to be committed to that that is taking care of the the wellness and wellbeing of our staff that do such an amazing job with for Susan and I often means making sure that we have incremental times in our calendar that allows for staff to become be refreshed to be able to do their best work. There's also a high priority from our board and our community on accelerated and high level of academic performance and that and the reason we
117are committed to there is a clear um uh if you think about from us implementing and putting uh late start monies in place for deep collaborative time for professional learning communities and our acceleration of student outcomes. That's not coincidence. That's deep planning, incremental steps of putting in uh new curriculum, allowing our our phenomenal teachers to be able to work collaboratively together and learn best practices from one another and and elevate student work in in those in those spaces. And so we and I frame the question. So when you think about why we prioritize those areas and things that we should look at as non-negotiable those those two key factors are really lead to it which only leaves if you think about the structural minutes that are must for for DPI standards usually about a day
118and a half to work with and so now what do you do with those that other day or or or two plus calculating snow days and hoping for the best you know that you know we don't end up with a snow apocalypse one day that throws everything off. >> If that did happen, do we just extend the school year deeper? >> No, we are we have learned the value of virtual learning. >> Yeah. >> And we are already overly maxed in elementary minutes anyway, right? So >> So middle school. >> Yeah. Yeah. Secondary secondary virtual learning. >> Thank you. >> Absolutely. >> Yeah, that's great. Uh, I I saw in the open-ended comments that there were a few references to people wanting school to start earlier in August, and I just right, it's my understanding
119that we're prohibited by law >> from starting before September 1st. And so those comments just made me think maybe that's something we need to just in settings like this do a better job of communicating that that's one of those brick walls that we're up against. We can't start earlier. and we have a certain number of minutes we have to meet and you know all those other factors that we've been talking about is why there's not a ton of wiggle room to write with >> and a lot of these I mean there's such a even split for a lot of these questions >> it's impossible to make everybody happy so >> thank you for putting this together because >> yeah and for asking the questions I mean just being able to see the data to have
120something tangible and to really show that it's being contemplated and utilized and refcted upon um I think is really important. >> Thank you. >> Yeah, thanks for the updates. >> Thanks Marc. >> All right, so it's completing officially the superintendent report. Just ensuring one more time. I don't believe there's any public comment that has landed that I was unaware of. So just >> 95 minute superintendent report, >> but we don't we went into board action. We had like Robert's rules disasters that I got to I mean so it's been a thorough evening beyond just >> lots of discussion. So just revisiting again just to follow the agenda we did go in and out of board action so I believe we've accomplished all of the four board action items that are on the agenda. So then
121we'll move on to board updates. Any updates from any one of you all this evening? >> I'm still awesome. I mean, right square of badge. >> Um, we had the consortium gathering. Was that just last week? >> Yeah, >> that was a week ago. >> Feels like a long time ago. >> Yeah. So, we gathered in MMSD with fellow um colleagues from the greater Dane County area talking about plans, goals for the group, um, continued advocacy at the state level regarding finances. Um, yeah, it was a great time to share some space and collaborate. You want to add anything about the evening? >> Uh, I thought we made some progress. We actually have plenty meeting tomorrow or next day we do. >> Okay, great. >> I got I got a couple. Um, in terms of
122what our our priority areas for advocacy will be uh this year, I think what we've learned collectively is that when we're all focused in uh one or two items and not scattered uh across Dane County or across the state that our our impact is far more significant and you know doing that again this year I saw that while we didn't hit the exact number that we were shooting for we did see increase in special education funding and and two So that's because there was a mutual voice no matter where you went in in the space. So doing that again um you're looking at again uh investing in education in line with CPI as a as a as a minimum uh continuing to have deep discussions around like this board just did today around transparency and
123tax bills and where where money is is is going and then where's our space at the at the capital in terms of appropriate lobbying for funding for public educ uh education. as we know that is continues to be uh the greatest resource that um allows for equity across across our nation. >> And just a side note, the organization the consortium is the Greater Dane County and I think that is expanding. So we do have districts from around the state that are interested in having just reflecting especially when it comes to state finance that that really impacts all districts equally that this isn't kind of a Dane County versus this is really looking collectively how what focus areas really benefit all districts in the state >> updates >> just quickly I was honored to be able
124to uh go to the uh celebration for our fellow board member um brother Corby Wright who received the aspiring presidential aspiring leader presidential award from the Urban League of of Day County, a monument, just a phenomenal event. Uh, but one of four award winners on on the night and uh it was just great to see representation from the Broner School District on the stage, but it took them probably seven minutes to think talk about all the stuff that he's done just to get him on onto the stage. But, you know, it's great great kudos and thank you for continuing to be a part of this board and you're continuing to work across the across the state and that was a well welldeserved honor that that you really received. >> Thank you. Thank you again. >>
125Thank you for coming and I do give a shout out as you know to the best school district >> absolutely >> in Wisconsin. So, >> thank you for sharing your talents with the board. All the things that you do that all the members of this board do beyond this table just elevate so much the work that we can do here. So, thank you. Congratulations. >> Um, one other update board members about convention, the WASY convention in January. Um, if you know for sure you're going and you know for sure you need lodging, please let Rory know by October 30th because lodging will fill up, registration will open. So, if you can let her know soon. If you're unsure, reservations can still be made obviously. Um, I know you just might not be as close by
126potentially. You might have to hoof it a few blocks in who knows what weather we'll have in January. Um, but if you know for sure, if you could please let Moren know so she can take care of getting those reservations started as soon as that registration window opens October 30th. >> Okay. >> If you're able to attend, uh, we did receive um, the superintendent advisory that um, I'm was accepted as a presentation at the state convention uh, to be able to elevate the work of ADI u communication through advisories. uh if you were able to attend be part of that session, you know, it's called listening as leadership and it's at 1:30 on Wednesday, January 21st. Uh and that'll be in room 102. It'll be part of the program, but if you're thinking about traveling,
127being there being there at a certain time, Wednesday the 21st, 1:30. and fellow board members. So, you know, last year we did a collective workshop about governance with Sun Prairie and Middleton and there was such positive feedback and interest from other districts that um I'm now going to be collaborating with a leader from Oaklair, Dr. Clarity and hopefully against some folks from Sun Prairie to do a full pre-conference session which is 1:30 to 5 on the Tuesday before everything kicks off Wednesday. So, I will be there doing that. Um, so I would love any thoughts. If you're interested in just being a part of the planning or conversations or any of it, let me know. All right. Any other updates, any board members? Okay, moving on to superintendent's consent agenda. Please make sure you've looked
128over the consent agenda. Are there any questions? my favorite rhetorical part of the evening. Hearing none, the superintendent's consent agenda is approved as presented and board consent agenda. Any questions? Hearing none, the board's consent agenda is also approved. Moving on, the future dates are listed here before I jump ahead. um right now just listed as all regular board meetings with the reminder that the two meetings in November. We're going to start at 5:30 with workshop where we're going to have Shaya Lewis here to support us where November 3rd will be talking about expulsion hearings and November 17th will be kind of legal board 101 type things revisiting kind of just the legal um obligations that we have as serving as board members. And we'll start our regular board meeting immediately following that workshop time. Okay.
129All right. And then, oh, moving on to a board workshop. And this one hopefully ought to be fairly straightforward and short. Um, Joe, I might turn it over to you just because you were um so kind as to give us the draft language, but we just Anything you want to add before I jump in? >> Yeah. So, uh this right this is about just having a policy that sets what happens if there's a vacancy. We have a policy about vacancy and