001going live. So hopefully the live All right, greetings everyone. Welcome to June. Wow. Uh, I'm going to call this meeting to order. Let's establish that we have a quorum beginning with a roll call vote. Joe here, John here. Christopher here. Juan Carlos here. I am here as well. We do have a quorum. Well, and Carlos, I get to come right back to you again. Has this meeting been properly noticed? Yes. Thank you. 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 your agenda. Uh, Juan Carlos, back to you again. Could you please be our reader this evening? Stop choking on
002my walk. Thank you. Uh, 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 Rona Area School District will ensure that every individual has access to the educational, social, and emotional support they need to feel valued and affirmed 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, sorry, the Verona area school district is committed to disrupting these systems of integity. Um, I will follow that up with the Ho Chunk land
003acknowledgement. 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're on this ancestral land of a tribal nation. As we begin our meeting, we honor the land of honor. Thank you. Um and with the beginning of June, I'd like to just elevate and honor the fact that we begun pride month for the month of June. Um Christopher, I know you've already been celebrating and honoring the day today. if you want to add new voice to the celebrations. Yeah. You know, I think um you know um folks have heard me speak and and um I we are a queer family and and I'm really um speaking of being being pride month, we're very proud to
004be members of this community and um couldn't have landed in a better location. I know one of our peers coming to Wisconsin from a very urban space was would we be accepted and feel included and we completely have. And so I uh that is a testament to this community and this school district and I just want to show that appreciation and recognize all the leadership and that we are definitely a diverse global society within our own right and the unique identities that we all bring I I believe strengthen us as a community. So I just wanted to share that and also acknowledge that June 19th is also um Junth. So make sure that we're recognizing that as an important holiday as well. Thank you. Yeah. Thank you. Um board members, just drawing your attention to
005the rest of the agenda for this evening. Um there will be just a little bit of a shift under board action. Uh the AGR reports are actually typically in consent. We've just asked to have them elevated as a board. So we actually won't be taking a vote because that isn't the necessary step. Um but other than that, any adjustments, feel free to share those. Otherwise, I would accept a motion to approve the agenda as presented. Motion to approve. Thank you, Christopher. Is there a second? Second. Thank you, Carlos. All those in favor of approving tonight's agenda signify with I. I. Any oppose? All right, the agenda has been approved. So, moving on to student recognition. I believe we have an organization with us this evening. Raise your voice. Super excited to hear from all of
006you. If you want to come forward, I think that's an option up to the table up front. Yeah. So thank you uh and get excuse me good evening everyone and thank you for joining us today as we bring our first student recognition and raise your voice VHS club in the space. I want to take an opportunity to do uh introductions to our full board here in attendance. Uh to uh personally will be our incoming uh director of special education who joined us here from the Twin City area and welcome Aaron Davenport to the Bonary School District family. So, welcome to our board meeting today. Welcome. All right. And we're going to we're happy to open up and we love hearing from our students and uh first and foremost. And these are exciting moments that are
007hard to follow often in our in our board meeting. So, we're going to turn it over to Dr. Hawkins to do formal introductions to begin our process. Well, good evening. So, tonight I'm proud to introduce this club um raise your voice. It is led by Teresa Nichols. Nichols Nicholas Nicholas and just by way of conversation and how she was so proud of the work and advocacy that they have done and so it kind of came on the heels Dr. Clarity and Chad spent some time at the state house and I was talking to her about it and she said well we can do one better. our students have been in have also done some advocacy. And so this club is um in direct alignment to our strategic um framework priorities of student agency wellness and
008wellness and mental health and um their goal is to raise awareness about well their goal is to raise awareness about mental health um at the high school. So, I'm going to turn it over to them and they can talk to you about all the wonderful things that they're doing at the high school and beyond. Thank you. Thank you. Yes. So, um I'm Teresa Nicholas. I'm a school social worker here at the high school and very proud adviser of the Raise Your Voice Club. Um and I'll let my two co-presidents introduce themselves. Okay. Yeah, sure. Okay. I'm Micah Bartles. I'm a senior at Ron High School and I've been a part of uh Raising Voice for all four years, I think. Yeah. And I'll be going into elementary education at WMadison next year. Yes. And hi,
009I'm Ruby Bellon. Um I is also co-president and have been here for four years. Um and I'll be going to UD or Minnesota Twin Cities for nursing next year. Awesome. So um Raise Your Voice was created by NAMI Wisconsin. NAMI is National Alliance for Mental um mental illness and NAMI actually was created here in Madison, Wisconsin. is a nationwide organization, but it was birthed here in uh Madison like 50 years ago. And they created these raise your voice clubs to come into high schools and middle schools to help elevate um the importance of student voice um and create opportunities for advocacy and um education regarding the importance of mental health. Oh, we just you went our team. We thought that was kind of fun, so we wanted to have that in there. Um, so we're
010going to talk a little bit about some highlights of this year. Perfect. We'll start with the NAMI walk. So, in um this past fall, us as a club, we took a few members um downtown and we um raised awareness and to help like reduce the stigma of mental illness, we did participated in the NAMI walk and um we didn't raise while we didn't raise a huge amount of money, our impact um went a lot further and we were able to build community um within our club and like it was really cool to see how everyone else came together for this um amazing um walk and to raise awareness um And yeah, and well, we took we learned that um taking small steps literally and figuratively um can lead to a lasting and like meaningful impact.
011Uh another project that we addressed or worked on this year was um resetting our reset rooms. When this uh building was built, there were um some spaces that were identified as reset rooms. And these were private spaces for students to use if they were feeling a little emotionally disregulated and needed um some privacy um so that they would go to a bathroom to cry. Um and while we're really grateful that these spaces were created, they were kind of cold and clinical and just not very welcoming. So, we decided to um have a design challenge in our room to redesign them. And thanks to the support of Mr. Cox um who emotionally and and financially supported this endeavor um we did a couple of redos. So, we changed the name from reset to recharge room. We
012decided that was maybe a little more positive and we wanted to incorporate a nature name. And so, um, there's the mountain recharge room and the forest recharge room. And so, these are spaces that our students can access when they just need some privacy. And um, and they can check in before, during, or after with any of us on student services. And um, the response to the rooms has been really positive. Um, students feel real um, grateful that they have a prettier, calming space. We put in little twinkle lights and there's some um softcape sounds that they can turn on and um just made the rooms feel a lot more welcoming and happy. Oh, some more pictures. We spent um about a week in the end of February painting at night and we were fueled by
013a lot of Girl Scout cookies. Yes. So, that was a really great community event for our club. Another um amazing opportunity was the day of advocacy with mommy on the square. So we actually got to go to the capitol with a bunch of other razor voice clubs um from around Wisconsin. Um and we got to speak with state representatives. Um they we started the morning off by like building kind of our like learn how to do a pitch kind of and kind of how to like tell your story in an impactful way to um stay leaders which was very cool and sort of helped us all like get a voice and um feel like we were doing something powerful and do something that Yeah, it was really it was really um impactful for me and
014I for the students as to see um uh democracy in action. Yes. You know, we learned a lot about the importance of meeting with people and letting them know what we're doing and what's important to us, which we're doing right now with you as well. So, continuing. Yeah. And we advocated for um more um school-based funding for school based mental health. Yeah. So, yeah. So, that's really impactful. Yeah. Yes. I think Yeah. So that's kind of a little summary of of what we do here in our club and yes. Yeah. Um yeah and like in summary um raise a voice club has help students to better understand mental health and the resources that are available and continue to become available as our club um expands and stuff. Um, and we've also been having like real
015conversations within our club, building community with our members, um, doing outside events, having speakers come in. Um, and yeah, we've learned how to talk about our mental health and how we're feeling in a way that, um, we know that we're not going to be judged within our club and we're heard in our club. And also in Raise our Voice, we've um learned to expand like where we can get help, whether that be our like resources here at school or the hotline, national hotline. Um and we know that this can make a big difference for students who are struggling. And so then you also wanted to tell the board, thank the board for making these kind of Yeah. like club possible. These clubs have really impacted my high school career and I'm really grateful that these
016are an opportunity for me to grow as a leader and as someone just like learning to have more of a voice in mental health and just like advocating for things. So, thank you. Yes, we are grateful that um the Verona Area School District um really does prioritize the importance of student mental health. Um, and so thank you for any anything that you can do to highlight and uplift that. We really appreciate it. Dr. I appreciate the gratitude coming this way, but I would like to first share it back at you. So my husband calls this like a thank you circle. Thank you. Thank you. Um, but really as as you talked about, we talked about this at the board table, but it only has meaning, right, if you experience it as students. So, I just
017have a couple of curious questions about like how this continues to be a part of the greater school experience. Um, I'm first curious with the recharge rooms, what kind of utilization are you seeing from students with those spaces? Um, regular daily. I'm in they're embedded in our two spaces um with within student services. So, student services counselors, psychologist, and social workers are in two different spaces. So, there's one in my space and one in the other space. So I regularly daily um is what I can say. That's great. Yeah. I mean and right well and I will say that we what I've kind of learned um on that day of um advocacy there was just a lot of natural conversation that happened with the club that um opened my eyes to how we as a
018student services group can do a better job at explaining how we can support students more and differently. And um so we have some plans to advertise it a little bit more for students so that more students know that they're available. That was kind of my next question. Within beyond the scope of the club, which sounds like such a rich space to kind of get some of this organic energy started um and supporting one another, what you kind of see as visions forward about, you know, ways to grow, involve more students, create more awareness, and you know, if you don't have an answer now, that's certainly okay, too. But that sounds really exciting to think about ways that this can expand. Okay. Yes, we've done a lot or we've done a couple of like outreach meetings
019where it's like invite your friends in to come join because we like want it to be a space where like everyone feels like they can join. Um I think also next year we maybe have plans to or not but there's we've done a big sale. Yes. And we want to have another big sale there. Maybe even two. Yeah. And we've done like club collaborations with like best buddies and letters of love which is right. Yeah. So yeah. Yeah. Yeah. We have a next year our plan is to have a different theme each month to kind of focus on. So each year we're just getting a little bit better. Yeah. Yeah. And thanks Mr. Cox for supporting this too so it can continue to spread kind of as schoolwide which is really amazing. Sorry, I didn't
020mean to dominate the conversation. I captured it mean that the banks should be centered that way who are taking initiative and work to have these conversations and to stigmatize and support and uplift and that also spreads upward to your old folks here who maybe didn't grow up with that type of you know easy discussion and those types of things I mean make a huge difference. Um, and I'm just really I hope that you are heading off to college knowing that you have made an impact on the Vona area school district community that will last beyond your time here and that's a huge thing. Thank you. Thank you. Do you want me to talk about the TPI with you? Oh, sure, please. So, I realized um maybe I can I should brag more about some of
021the stuff that we do. So last year through a connection that I had at DPI, I was contacted um by folks there to see if I knew of any students that would be available to be in a promotional video that they put out. And so I did and as along with Olivia Burch at the middle school. So she uh offered three students from the middle school. I um offered two of my raise your voice members, not these two, although you two would have been great too. Um and DPI came with a professional videographer and makeup artist and the whole nine. And um we they had a whole day of filming in our library. It's such a beautiful setting. And um so they created what they were doing. DPR over did their website and um wanted
022to talk about the importance of school-based mental health. And so they got it from superintendent and school boards and staff and parents. They realized that they needed student voice. So that's why they contacted us to see if we had any students to offer. So our students were interviewed on camera and spoke really eloquently about the need for um school-based mental health services. And there were they were speaking and then there's that be footage um of us talking um I um anyway it's now on the DPI web page and the students are identified as being Rona Area High School students and you'll recognize our beautiful building. There's some shots that are from a different building I think in some prairie. So if you know this building you're like those aren't quite our colors. So you might
023recognize it. But they try to make it seem like it was all the same building. The trick of the I guess. But um you should know that that our our space here is is being used by DPI to talk about the importance of school business. And that just speaks to um the work that is happening and how we are becoming known for our advocacy and just our forward thinking and promoting wellness and mental health amongst our students and our students um are seeing and our family and our communities are recognizing the difference. Yeah. Thank you. Thank you all. Continue to share ideas this direction and ways that we continue to support you. So, thank you. Thank you. Thanks. So, next on our agenda, um just a standalone announcement and update. After all of our prior
024conversations and input from the community, we are proud to announce that we do have a school resource officer that has been hired. Um so, Dr. clarity. Perhaps Chad, anyone that wants to share a little bit on who will be joining our team. Thank you. Uh we're very proud and first I want to say congratulations to our seniors before they walk out of the door. Don't me say that. See you next graduation. All right. Again, as President Murphy stated, we're excited to uh uh to recognize officer Bradley Stole uh who was selected out of three uh uh finalist candidates that came that were all interviewed in conjunction in partnership with the Verona Police Department and the administrative team here at Veronary High School. Uh it was a very uh thorough uh collaboration in that for the
025last two months of the year, the three candidates all were able to spend direct time here in the building working with families, working with students uh to be able to kind of showcase their relationship skills and then did a thorough interview in conjunction with the with the two departments. Ultimately, the Vona Police Department is the uh final hiring authority. uh yet the gave the uh district a key voice in making the final uh in making the final selection uh or selection for that for that bus and of the three very qualified uh candidates. Officer Stole uh rose rose to the top and we're proud to begin that contract work with him uh in the fall of next year. Wonderful. Thank you. Thanks for all the time input. Um and just want to thank to the
026city police department just all the collaboration has been really powerful to get us to this point. So yeah and we'll continue on into our superintendence report. Welcome to a number of other esteemed guests tonight. All right, for superintendent report, we like to open up uh and be led by Deputy Superintendent Weezy as we begin to do a presentation of sustain Verona. We're excited to have our guests here here today uh to talk about what this could look like. Hey everybody, we're excited for this presentation. about six months ago, maybe a little longer, I I I I get the dreaded red light blinking on my phone, and 99% of the time it's a salesperson wanting to sell Liveron Area School District something, and I can usually delete it uh on the halfway through and I got
027a blinking red light and it wasn't a salesperson. and it was the guy to my left uh who was uh interested in starting um some conversations around the possibility of partnering on a solar panel project with the school district. Um and I think Dave quite frankly was surprised that the door was open and we sat down and figured out how we might do this. Um and after meeting every 3 to four weeks for the last uh six months or so, um we're ready to bring a proposal to the school board tonight. Um, so before I get into the agenda, I'm actually going to have Dave and Audrey introduce themselves. I'm hoping Dave will give us a little history lesson on how long he goes back with the Verona Area School District, and we can hear
028a little bit what Audrey's got planned. Well, my name is David Lonsdorf. Uh, I had three kids go through the Verona School District. The first one was a fifth grader in 1984 when I moved here and is now 51 years old. Um, he still has the triple jump record on the uh athletic hall of fame. Uh then I had two other children uh about 10 years after me, Richard Lansorf and Katherine Lonsorf. Um so I love the Verona School District. We've lived here 40 years and uh it's my home at this point. So um I'm Audrey Holm Key. I'm a senior here at Verona and I'm going to WMadison next year and majoring in microbiology and global health. So David's here to represent and they both are sustain Verona and Audrey's student voice. She's we've
029already told her she's going to need to pass the baton when she's no longer senior status here on Sunday and we will continue to make sure we've got student voice in the mix regarding this promising project. So what we're hoping to go through tonight with the board certainly stop us if you have questions along the way. We're going to give a little bit of a a background on sustain Verona and that will certainly be David. Audrey's going to get into a little bit about the green clubs. You guys get double dip uh on student clubs at the high school tonight. Uh then we're going to um step into the potential role uh the Verona Area Education Foundation has and I know John's a member of their board and potentially could add a little bit there.
030Then we want to tip off a project to the board to see what our interest might be in a shared funding endeavor uh for this project. I've got a couple ideas on ways we might fund it. We'll do a little summary of grant opportunities that usually go along with projects just like this and then we're interested in board feedback along the way. So I'm going to turn this slide over to sustain Verona and K's going to give us a little history lesson there and kind of where they're at and where they plan on going. So, um I started to save St. Veron about a year and a half ago, uh just with an idea that we ought to do something in our community to try to uh make a more sustainable future for the community.
031I just felt like other communities, Middleton, Fitsburg, Sun Prairie were doing a lot more than Verona was. And I thought maybe if I formed a public advocacy group and got friends and neighbors from both the town and the city uh that we could spark some action. Um the first thing we did actually I met with the mayor of the city uh Luke Diaz and said I noticed you had a sustainability committee that met until 2019 and then stopped meeting because of the pandemic but somehow you never started meeting again. and he said, 'Yeah, you know, I meant to get to that. And uh almost as quickly as Chad agreed to meet with me, Luke just said, "Yeah, we're going to we'll restart the committee." And uh at this point, they've uh had six or seven
032meetings already. They're putting solar panels on two city buildings and have hired a sustainability coordinator and moved forward very quickly. And I thought, "Wow, that's that's pretty good." Uh a little while later, I read a newspaper article about this uh Sock Prairie School District where citizens got together and convinced the school district to put solar panels on their high school. Uh they raised about $200,000 in about six months and partnered with the school and I think they've already put the panels on the building at this point. Uh, and I thought if they can do it, uh, we ought to be able to do that here. And that was that resulted in the call to Chad basically, uh, who I was happy did pick up the phone and talk. Um, the slide shows what we're interested
033in. It's climate action, uh, on renewable energy, reduced emissions, land restoration, native habitat restoration. Uh, and we're willing to sort of talk to anybody who wants to do those kind of things. And, uh, if Um, part of the idea of partnering with the school district is to uh get our name out there too to in order to raise money for this project. We're going to have to get out in the community, talk to a lot of people, hold a lot of meetings, you know, create a splash and try to collect as much money as we can. That's going to also get the message out. So, even if we're not successful in raising the amount of money I think we can raise, we'll at least have helped to educate people on a lot of stuff. So,
034thank you, sir. Audrey, you want to give us a little summary of the green club here? Um, yeah. So, I'm one of the co-presidents of club green and we have about 30 members, sometimes more, sometimes less, you know, average. Um, and we have bi-weekly meetings where we have different activities planned every at those meetings. And then some of the examples of the things are like what we do are in the pictures. So we had like a chalk day at one of our meetings where we like chocked out environmental messages outside the school where everyone walks in every day so they could see those. And then we did a community trash pickup um out by the baseball fields kind of downtown. And then we also brought in the owner of Alice Good Coffee Shop to talk
035about how they implement sustainable initiatives within their business which was really interesting. So, some of the things we do is aluminum can collection in the school. Um, there's a lot of like aluminum can drink consumption at the school. So, like all those cans are just going in the garbage. And so, we make something called bubbler boxes where we take recycled boxes and put liners in them and then they're in a lot of teachers rooms and then people know to just put like their bubblers in those boxes. And then um bi-weekly we have a team of students from our club go and pick them up and then we get money for them. So that's kind of how we prevent are preventing some more waste from going in the landfill and that's kind of how we're able
036to like fund some of our activities is through that money from our can collections. And then like I said trash pickups. We weren't able to do it in the fall because the weather was a little bit gross, but we did one this spring and we even had a lot of people like with on the trail say like, "Oh my goodness, like we're so happy you're doing this. It's so dirty." So that was really like affirming to know that like we're making a difference in the community. And then we also brought in guest speakers, like I said, Ralph from Alice Good Coffee Shop. And then we've done a lot of fundraisers this year both in the school. We recently just did a dirt cup sale which was super successful. And then we also did a flower
037bouquet sale for the new winter dance which also went over well because we didn't have anything like that before. And then we also did a north and south fundraiser which was very successful. And then yeah we've done a few other things as well but we're doing fundraisers both internally at the school and externally um with other businesses. And our goal for like this year was to implement indoor electric composting. And we worked with Mr. Cox. It didn't quite happen this year, but we have all the composters to implement next year. We had to do a lot of fundraising, planning, talking with different teachers to kind of get everybody on board. Meet in the middle because Yeah. So, there's just, you know, everyone has different perspective on things. So, we just kind of have to meet
038in the middle and come up with a plan for how this is going to work. And then we had to do a lot of fundraising because they're very expensive. So, yeah. So, that's going to be happening next year. But yeah, and we do think there's lots of opportunity for students voice this project. Oh yeah, I was gonna say, yeah, we are hoping to work with the state of Verona and the Verona area school district to help the solar panel project like happen and just get youth and student voice out of the community and show that students really are caring what's going on and being involved. You also want to have I know an unnamed superintendent would use a bubbler box in his office. I consume one or two. You might have to hook up for
039that road. All right. Uh next I am uh Marcy's out uh and would would have been kind of the district staff uh liaison to the Verona Area Education Foundation. I know the board's familiar with them. They come on an annual basis and you're familiar with I think many of their annual uh projects that include the teacher grant program and the student banner contest. Uh we've had David and I think probably Brad uh they've met a few times with the Verona Education Foundation um and here tonight to let you know that we have uh preliminary approval through them and this will be a big step for our foundation to actually be be the organization that uh the tax-free entity that accepts eventually accepts donations uh through sustained Verona and then passes on uh to the school
040district and would endorse which is a which is a big deal for us to be able to keep this all in house. There are other third party 501c3s uh that will do this that would charge probably much more than they will end up um kind of paying our foundation to do it. And it also is I think they're viewing it as a potential growth opportunity for some of the work they've done. John, I don't know if you anything else to add. I think you've been kind of you kind of dipped in and out of this idea with the foundation. Yes. I have nothing to add. That was a great summary. All right. Perfect. All right. And now for the drum roll on kind of what we're thinking here and then we'll get into a few
041things and we would bring this back to the board um if we get some positive feedback this evening. Uh so with some positive feedback and Q&A from all of you um down the road, we envision a time probably in the not too distant future potentially paired uh with us kind of going through summer budget season here. Uh we would potentially ask the board for $250,000 of money. We would likely set aside um potentially even as dedicated fund balance that we could only spend it on a project related to facilities maintenance uh that we would kind of earmark for this purpose. Uh with the idea that the district would be a onetoone match with what sustained Verona uh would have a goal to fund raise for. Um, and I think that has been something that David
042and the sustained Verona team brought to the district a number of times. Uh, there's a little piece of this that we've got some skin in this game. And, uh, on the fundraising side, um, I think it's it's exciting for donors to hear that not only are we just kind of a grassroots effort related to this fundraising project, but really dollar for-doll match from the district if we head this direction. So the proposal would be we're in for 250. Sustain Verona would be in for 250. Um and we would continue to work through the education foundation to accept these donations as a certified 501c3. Um I have a few ideas on the potential funding source. one uh we presented to the board and got kind of some um affirmations around the idea of selling a small
043chunk uh north of Country View on a land sale. Um and we have been talking anywhere from 250 to $275,000 on the price for that sale. Those meetings are still happening on a weekly basis with the city uh and I think progressing nicely. Uh, so that has the possibility of being one-time funds that school districts do not typically spend. Well, we like to hire people that are not one-time funds. This would be a great spot to potentially use onetime funding uh to set that aside for this effort. Uh, we have the potential of burying it or building it uh into the 2526 budget, but we don't know what the state budget looks like quite yet. And there's always fund balance that we would have available uh if the board thought that was a better state
044a better spot to find that money. Um but we can have those discussions a little bit more down the road. I wanted to at least give you a few initial ideas I had if we got positive word that feedback tonight regarding this project. So um we've had John Rummer meet with Westfall Electric. Westfall was the company that actually put that wired the high school and actually did the Sock Prairie solar project and they are I would kind of consider them a southern Wisconsin leader in this sector. Um and did a structural analysis of our high school and kind of our south um our south roof membranes there that are highlighted with a little bit darker or brighter however you look at it. uh blue there on the end would would be likely where we would
045end up starting to put the solar array. This is a bigger system than we would uh put uh to start on for for $500,000. U but I also think it's it's it shows that the this building was built to handle a solar array on a relatively new roof membrane. Uh the electrical connections into our building um are in a perfect spot to have solar panels there. Um, I also think there's a nice piece of being able to see solar panels from Verona Road, uh, when you're heading out to Mount Horum, uh, that I, in some regards, I think, um, we've we've heard from folks that were a little surprised that solar panels didn't go on the original high school. Um, so this is already an ultraefficient uh, building is the size it is. Um, and
046I think there's there's massive opportunity here and this would be really just a foot in the door to get this work started. So, um, these are just initial estimates. I didn't know if we had any kind of kilowatt geeks in the audience, uh, that were interested in this stuff. Uh, but the the system right now for about a $500,000 system once we sprinkle in some grants would be roughly three uh 300,000 kilowatts. Um, an interesting tidbit, uh, we spend $600,000 a year just to keep the lights on and keep the electricity on in this school. Uh, so this would actually just be a small portion of our over our overall electrical need for the school district. Uh, the return on investment for this would be seven years. Uh, which um I I would I guess
047pitch to all of you that there's an almost immediate return on investment. uh if some of our students can watch this be built, potentially even have student interns help with some of this uh seeing the data and analytics in terms of what the system uh can produce. And in some regards, I've said this to to David as a former science teacher, um we we're not going to save the planet at the high school here uh by with a $500,000 solar array. It's work like the work David's doing and Audrey's doing to educate folks on being environmentally conscious uh that actually can turn the tide when it comes to excess carbon emissions. Uh it isn't the the solar array by itself. I think it's the act and the fact that we're churning out 500 graduates a
048year uh that we want to be green and wise citizens. Um, so in the end, the system is uh has a 30-year lifespan. Uh, which would mean after seven years, it is paying for itself as long as all of those all the hardware works on the on the road. There are a few grant opportunities. We just peeled this in just to let the board know that in the event that we take off with this, we would be chasing uh any federal or local funds available to help offset some of the cost of the system. Some of these are rather easy. Some of them may be a little more time consuming. So, next steps, we're interested in hearing from the board. If you say yes, Chad, David, Audrey, keep looking into this. We would be excited
049to pursue a potential board vote to endorse this. Um, once we got a project together, we bring it back to you for a vote. Uh, and that would include a finalized funding source that I'd recommend to all of you. Questions or feedback? Christopher someone who's in the energy sector uh that um the sector is growing and I would love to see especially you mentioned internships or types of STEM programming um as we're thinking about the industry within the fusion sector. We're 10 years out from fusion being reality and how do we build those STEM pathways for students into those careers. So I think this this is an excellent opportunity for us to think about potential programming. We own solar on our house. So we're big supporters of solar. We had solar on our house in
050Seattle as well. So understand the benefit of that as well. So I think we may not solve our energy uh problem or greenhouse gas problems at just one local school. the potential for um really encouraging and um getting our students involved into this because it is already I think it's something that we need to be conscious of and the math in my mind works out. It's just how do we we get there but very supportive. Thank you. Yeah, that that's the comment I want to make too which is that we talk a lot rightly that this is we're trying to create good environmental citizens. this is the right thing to do for the climate, you know, for the planet. But the thing I don't want to get lost because we're elected to be stewards of
051our taxpayers dollars. This is also the right financial route for the district. Uh, and I I I'm very supportive of this and I'd like to see this not just as a a sole project, but as the first step towards moving towards our entire district being, you know, uh, on renewable energy sources. Agreed. I think this is a great start for us to get our people. Chad, I have a quick question just kind of along those lines. Is the um the return on investment after approximately seven years is that based on the initial phase plan that we have to put up with a larger scale the return on investment would be. Yeah. So, and this is influx and for a while my guy David I think was getting cold feet uh because our the federal government
052uh is doing something different every day regarding uh these types of I think rebates and grants uh and uh tariffs quite frankly might be at play if some of these solar panels are made overseas. Uh so the the data we got on the return on investment would be the return on investment for the district's uh fund portion of uh the solar uh and that can be in flux. The arrays get slightly more efficient. The prices have been kind of going like this and steadily going down. Um, and I do think uh down the road there would be the the the possibility of even putting together a more comprehensive sustainability plan uh where maybe we are just pitching some money into that idea on an annual basis that's just built into our budget. Uh so um
053yeah the the return on investment would be seven years for our portion but subject to change we would once we got the half a million dollars pulled together we would go through a formal RFP with specs on the system and have contractors come and kind of pitch uh their system to us and the one that we would want one of the specs would be that this is expandable um and that we could kind of latch on to it into the future consideration question as well. Um I know that um in Seattle for Seattle statewide we were putting together a social responsibility portfolio of who produces solar arrays based on social uh criteria. So one example of that would be we're we're looking at um producers that aren't using uh prison labor for production. So I
054just consider that once we start moving down the line of of looking at things if this goes through that that's a consideration of looking at the social impact as well not just the environmental and it's good feedback I'll take a note on that one other thoughts or questions. I love that we have student voice and we also have community voice but we're not sitting here for any other reason. It is for our students and represent our community. So if you um two are here spearheading this project, I love what you're doing with the green club, club green. Um I also use box. So there's work to be done at this table, but we uh really appreciate the students, you know, voice in this and I think this is something where um it is marrying the
055community's interests and the students interest in this building that ultimately belongs to our community. So I appreciate that this was something you came to us. Yeah. Fully supportive, excited. I think just as a note again to the student aspect of this that you know to the points of why this is a great symbolic move you know in terms of um bringing our equity framework to life and having students become stewards of the environment moving forward. I think it's a really good reminder that I realized just going to Chicago this past weekend that we really are in a very special place in something as simple as recycling. I mean, so really right to take that energy to start it here and to give students the the perspective that how we think about things here maybe isn't
056the way that everyone thinks about the power of even the small steps. So I appreciate all that you're doing. Um and again the support of Mr. Cox too to have these just all of these grassroots things happening and it just kind of feels like the merging right of the big project, the smaller places and how we can keep elevating everything in between. Great to have you both here. Yeah, I appreciate this the sustain the advocacy muscles that you guys are building the students. when you see saw just with the mental health side never seen environmental science. So I love that work. I see Dave all the time out on the trail where I walk my dog. So he he actually lives this every day. So I appreciate being here Dave for all that you're doing.
057This is awesome stuff for our community. Thank you. Y next time you see us this will be a fully baked idea. We may have trifolds with QR codes for all of but we'll be excited. We'll get the group back together then debrief this board meeting and we'll bring it back um hopefully even for a board vote. So super exciting. Great. Thanks for your time everybody. Nice to see you Dave. Thank you Audrey. Congratulations Audrey again. See you Sunday. pay it forward. Continuing superintendence report. Yeah. All right. Next on our uh superintendent report, we're proud to bring the team uh together to do this um more of an update as we promised to the board of education in previous at a previous meeting on the uh progress of the student learning pathways foundations first through 8th
058grade. And I would like to thank Dr. Halbert and Dr. Hawkins for and you already have the you do. Go ahead. Yeah. All right. Thank you. So this evening we're going to hear as Dr. Clarity said from Dr. Hellberg and Carly Adams along with other amazing staff members that are here tonight to support and uplift the work of Kate Foundations the program that is just a small piece of extended learning pathways. This also serves as um to foreshadow in a few weeks we're going to present OE1 and one of the indicators is new and innovative programs and so this is one of the new innovative programs that will be highlighted in that OE report. One year ago foundations was still an idea. Last year a team of dedicated educators met frequently to learn explore and
059create. Today we have a space where students are thriving with clear results and you're going to hear success stories. The work that you are going to hear about tonight directly aligns with the strategic framework priorities of student agency, wellness and mental health and inclusive teaching and learning. This program was created because students needed something more. not just to reduce seclusion and restraint, but to provide meaningful student centered support that expanded our continuum of services here in Verona. So, I'm going to turn it over to Dr. Halberg and Carly, and they're going to talk to you all more about the amazing work that is happening at foundations. Thanks. So, first of all, I'm going to introduce two of our staff members. The one taking a picture is Patty Petri and she is our current um special
060education teacher at foundations. And we have Rebecca Ryan who I stole from another district agency and she was originally our foundation's teacher and then she transitioned into our behavior support coach and so she works very closely um between Patty, Rebecca and Carly that is our team that really supports our most complex students um on a day-to-day basis. And so what I'm going to do is I'm going to talk a little bit about the results and then um car I'm going to turn it over to Carly and she's going to talk about how did we get there? What were the strategies that we used um to have such an impact in such a short time? And so, um, just to kind of go back in time, the goal of foundations when we set this up is
061to really to teach the students the skills they need to be successful, but knowing that it had to be in a smaller environment and using that smaller environment to help them then transfer the skills into a classroom setting. During the entire process, we really develop a collaborative partnership um between the school, the family, and many of our students have a lot of outside agencies. So, we work really closely with our outside agencies as well. Um in our program, we meet at least once a month with that whole team and say, "How are things going? What do we need to do differently?" And sometimes we need more often than that. When we were looking at foundations, we really thought it as a tier three intervention. So it's intended to be shortterm for students so that they
062can acquire the skills and then carry that back over into the neighborhood school. So, one of the data sources that we really focused on um when we were developing our foundations is the seclusion and the restraint network. And that's what you see up here on the chart. So, the first two columns when you look at the restraints, the top chart, the first two columns includes the data related to all students. And we looked at last year and then this year and we went month by month to just kind of say how are we doing? Are we meeting our intended outcomes? What do we need to do differently? As you see with our restraint data, we are down 53% um in our restraints from the whole school compared to last year at this time. And um
063when you look at our foundations data, which is the last two columns, it's the foundations is all the students that have been in foundations and it's their data both at foundations and the neighborhood school. So it's their entire school day. And again, we are down um significantly in the use of restraints for our students who were here last year. Um as well when we look at just clarify that one more time so I heard what you were saying correctly. So the third column foundations for 2324. Y so those are students who are currently in foundations but that would been their data from only being in their home school all of last year because foundations didn't exist. Correct. So now we're looking at their comparison data which is still a blend of foundation space and home
064and home site space. Yep. Okay. I just want to make sure I said that back. So I'm Yep. You have that. And then the thing that is different is there were a couple students um who were not in our district last year who transferred in. And some of our students are new to the district this year in our numbers in 2425 and they were not included in our numbers last year just because they weren't in our district. And so when you look at that, when you look at chart two, we're also looking at the number of seclusions within our district. And so again, all students, the number of seclusions has significantly reduced. We were a little bit higher in the use of seclusions at foundations back this year compared to last year. But again, we
065don't have all of our students in last year's staff. Just want to clarify that too for students um who attend foundations, not that all of the seclusions took place at right. Thank you. Um, so what I'm going to do now is I'm going to turn it over to Carly and we met our outcome, one of them, which was to really help our students be safer so that they could engage in the learning and really access that grade level standards. And so I'm going to turn it over to Carly and she can she's going to talk a little bit more about the strategies that we used um to help make all of this come to life. Um so really four key strategies when we um go back and look at the year of like how do
066we get to this point um and a lot primarily right it's the work of our like dedicated educators um across both foundations and the neighborhood school right it's the people doing the work um and some of the strategies that those people use um we continue to use are the environment right that was our primary driver when we designed this program last spring if we change the environment what's the impact for our students so that includes the physical space, who is in that space, right? Other adults, other students, um what things are in that space, right? Everything in the environment serves a specific purpose. If it doesn't serve a purpose, it doesn't need to be in there. Um secondly, our work break routines. That's really the bread and butter of what we're explicitly teaching students to
067do in order to participate in academic routines in the neighborhood school. So that um looks like students engaging in work at the table, whatever work means for that particular student and then taking a structured break. Um this is repeated throughout their time at foundations. And we've seen a lot of success of teaching this routine and having students use this same routine at their neighborhood school for the remainder of their day. regulation support. Um, so includes visual support, practicing regulation tools and strategies, engaging in sensory exploration activities, access to structured movement choices, um, all with the intention of proactively teaching regulation in order to get students bodies ready to return to learning. Um, so a lot of that introsception of how is my body feeling? What do I need in order to be able to participate
068in academics? And then deescalation strategies. So fine-tuning of our highest leverage um staff reactive approaches when challenging behavior does surface. Um so these are purposeful strategies used to deescalate a student in order to avoid risk behavior. um risk behavior if it does present. We also have against physical skills training that is different from neighborhood school um which is one additional level of our nonviolent crisis intervention training um just to again help mitigate some safety risk for both the students and for the staff. Um our other indicator throughout the year has been um feedback serving data. So we formally asked for feedback three times this year. end of September um end of January and end of April. I believe last time we were here we were sharing the feedback from end of September. Um so this
069is our feedback from end of April and that's how well are we meeting our intended program goals. So staff here includes integrity of the students team at the neighborhood school. So case manager, CAS, our administrators, our assistant principles, student services, related services, really anyone who we interface with who supports that team um asking them to participate. Caregivers here is the family and those community support providers that Dr. Halper can mention before. So really everyone who um cares about the student when they leave the school building as well. Um this feedback was used to help drive our next steps. um some of the open-ended commentary you can see on the handout here. Um some really just anecdotes from both our caregivers and from our teams reporting feelings of belonging and support um as we think about
070programming for students with comp complex learning profiles. How many when you when you shared with us the size of how many about how many folks were given that survey? Um we sent I sent the staff survey to roughly 55. Our end size here is 18. Our end size for caregiver feedback is five which is three more than last time I sent that. very exciting to have check. Um, and right like the 100% agree or strongly agree does not mean we are doing everything right and that families and caregivers don't have really constructive feedback to give us. Um, but it is letting us know that these families feel a place of belonging in our district. Again, um, what we've learned, the best way to understand all that we're doing is to see it. Um, we used
071the strategy with our other educators if they were in schools like let's take videos and show you what we're doing. Um, so Lori wouldn't mind queuing us up. Our incredible student R. Well, he's back and this time he's moving us with a different type of challenge. How can we provide academic rigor for all students? reading, dude. Touch telephone. Touch ice cream. Clear it up and read. And Mr. R is not our only student to move into academic progress this year. Let's watch our other readers. What does it say? Look. C. Let's read it. Ready? C. A yellow car. [Music] Remember the end. What is this story about? You're right. Memorial Day. Memorial Day. The dog sits on a rug. The dog sits on a rug. The man has a map. Good. Okay. But the sun
072is hot. Which one? Good job. As we better meet student needs related to safety, belonging, and consistency. Students are then able to access academic learning. and our students taught us there are important other skills they were able to practice when presented with a structured opportunity to do so. We practiced problem solving. We practiced friendship skills and sharing. We learned to get our bodies ready for learning through both calm activities and movement choices. We learned how to participate in morning meeting and the daily calendar [Music] routine. And we had some fun, lots of fun. And while there were difficult moments and some difficult days, we learned that school feels safe, school is a place where my needs can be met, and adults care about me. And truly, kids do well when they can. Remember our incredible
073over. Well, the video says it all. And so, thank you, Carly. Um, she does such a great job. That's why I wanted unity. So, thank you for capturing that and for remember our incredible students. Sorry. So, thank you for capturing that and for just um showcasing how our students can learn when the environment is right. And so, we have learned a lot this year and the team is really committed to continue to scale up the extended learning pathway program. Now, some might say, you know, foundations was great. Let's make it more. Let's make it bigger. Let's make it all day. And um really foundations is grounded in the belief that students should have access to their grade level peers as well as having access to the neighborhood school. And we are really committed to those
074two beliefs. And as much as people say, well, let's just have it um make our foundations a full day program, it really is a a pillar of our design and it sets our program apart from many others throughout the state and throughout the country. And I think um we should feel really proud about that commitment and um people are noticing the difference that our program is in our district. Um Kylie will be presenting at a national conference um on the work that she's doing in the fall. We have had every Dayne County district come and visit our program. There have been central office staff from other districts visiting our program. There are districts that are going to be implementing this program next year and are using the work that was committed and done by this
075team. They've had researchers from the UW reach out and they are doing they want to do collaboration with the work that we're doing. So when we say that we're a district of excellence, this is a really strong example of meeting the needs of our students. And even though it's hard, it's really important to allow our students that access. And so some of our next steps are to expand it to the high school because our high school students also need this opportunity. And so really looking at the data and scaling it up um and continuing to do that scale and spread. We are also we view foundations as um kind of our test site and so we will continue to use that as a place where we will try new things based on the research and
076then test it and scale it out with great opportunities for learning with our staff that are present. We have learned a lot about how we rotate our staff so that it's a variety of people are learning and the ripple effect is huge in that it it um carries over into the school and the staff feel really valued with that piece and they get the direct training that um is really hard to come by and a really unique aspect. of the program. So, we'll continue to do that. We'll continue to work on the communication. Um, we know being in the first year, it's not perfect yet. Um, so continuing to work on that. We um will continue to work on a really successful piece is we used ukarero blocking pads and it's another way for our
077staff to feel safe when our students have low access and we will expand that throughout the schools. And we also um just with these guys looking at the research they um worked on pathological demand avoidance and it's there are some great strategies that help our students um especially some of our students with autism to just different approaches on how to work with our students and interact with them. and our staff have found it to be very beneficial and we'll continue with that next year and so um it's been a great year and we'll see where it goes. So what else do you all have for us? I just wanted to say I had a chance to see the space earlier this year. It's a beautiful space and um wanted to thank you for your phenomenal
078report and um heartfelt report. I know that the video brought me tears to to to tears and I appreciate that a lot and I know that it's it's phenomenal work that you're doing and the impact you're having on so many uh lives is uh is immeasurable. So thank you for your work. So last year when we were talking about this I have to say I have a a really outdated special education teacher. I was nervous about in the history of programming where this where this would be, where this lands. It sounded familiar, but you were really clear in what you wanted this program to look like and how it differed from maybe my initial, you know, preconceptions about it. And I'm just first of all grateful for the walking through this with the board and
079helped us kind of see this is truly a different program than anything that's been really contemplated in the past and the commitment to ensuring that there's integration with you know homeschool. That's such a key piece and I'm so grateful that that was true to the whole environment of it. Um, and I think reading the feedback from the caregivers when it's um, he can fully be himself. I mean, he can return to self-confidence. I mean, those things are the exact things that we were concerned we would lose and instead that's the place where it was found. So, as a doubter, I I am so thrilled to say I was absolutely wrong about my preconceptions. And that's first of all, thank you to the patience that you've had in the past year and in keeping us informed
080and and bringing us along. Um and thank you so much for the work that you have done to truly bring um to life something that um clearly is meeting the needs of our students, which is absolutely critical, but you're also meeting the needs of our other staff members. Um it's pretty remarkable. So I'm just grateful and it's quite a quite a turnaround in a year from my opinion, but you had the vision um the whole time. So thank thank you all for thank you for doing this. I'm going to second all of that. I don't think I was any I don't think I hid my skepticism last year either as much. You're a tough crowd last as we like to have, right? Um, and I also had a chance to come out and visit it.
081Um, when Chris was talking about last fall when you guys set it up. Um, and I just everything that Marin said it's I feel the same way. I'm happy to have had my skepticism proven wrong and uh, you could see it last fall and the space you guys created and this is just a reaffirmation of that and it's been great. So, thank you. Thank you. Thank you. Go ahead, John. We've talked at the board table a lot of times about how we can be more innovative in how we address challenges that we have. And I think just the fact just how you all did like this is exactly what we're talking about. And now that like this program and all the staff who help build it and who make it work every day are leaders
082in our county and the state and the country for how we address these challenges that that other people face. And this is exactly what I think we want to see in the board. So be very proud of that. I think I just also want to elevate, you know, over the past number of years with serving on the board, I've talked to a lot of families whose students are not being served by foundations, but whose students have struggled in our schools. And so this impact, this was something I know I was most optimistic of and wondering just pragmatically how does this play out to help staff at the home sites to be able to have that through bear just from an energy and capacity standpoint for all of you and then the energy standpoint for all
083the classroom teachers as well and the the the hope I have of the impact that more students will feel as all of our staff right gain more tools in their toolbox on how to navigate challenges that it it isn't just this small group that happens to be at foundations at least That's the the general statement I'm going to grab from some of the data and the sentiment I'm hearing. But that's my overall optimism is how we all as a district, all of our staff show up in ways that can support any learner that may be having struggles on any given day beyond foundations within foundations. I think a good example of that would be Sher Creek. So with the PDA, you all did it at foundations and then the principal saw it and then immediately
084you all were able to do that training with the entire staff. Can you say the I know it was under report. Can you say the full Yeah. title pathological or pervasive drive for autonomy depends. So it was a training that was done at foundations early on. some of the staff at Sugar Creek were able to take advantage of it. Um they found it so incredibly helpful. Um there were there was monies available and then the principal bought that training back to the entire staff. So that's exactly the hope and the goal of this program that the training and the professional development that happens there the ripple effect then cascades to the building so that the entire staff can also use it with other students. And that's like the data I start to create, right? Is
085families that have historically felt like, you know, I have a student that um comes from a trauma background and just really struggling at school. What are what are the outcomes that are noticing for some of the students that are not in foundations but are experiencing the benefit of all of the staff training and the experiences here? It's really amazing. Yeah, I'll second all this again. As someone who's worked in the space for a while, I think when I came on the board, one of the first things I told Dr. clarity was that special educators are some of the most innovative educators out there like that should be leveraged and uh this is just an excellent example of that and change spreading far and wide. So thank you. Well, thank you all. This is also Dr.
086Halberg's last presentation. Yes. [Applause] Thank you again for your service, Dr. Hbert. All right, board. We have one more piece of our superintendence report. Again, this is the AGR reports that Ken and have in the past didn't consent, but we've elevated and thanks to the team for giving some voice to these just because there's a lot of data with this and I think it helps us as a board and community to understand kind of what these reports are all about. So, thank you for the opportunity to be here. always fun to follow inspirational student voice videos with reports to DPI but excited that we can provide some context because we know how our state funding helps to support the important work that we're doing um with students. So as we jump in just a note
087and we have titled this achievement gap reduction because that is the program as it's titled by the state and DPI. We also know that when I illustrate our equity framework as we began this meeting and we in the Ron Area School District don't refer to achievement gaps, but instead talk about barriers to access and barriers for opportunities for our students. Um, so we typically refer to this as AGR. That's how you'll see it. That's how you'll see it listed. But as Jen noted, part of our contract with DPI in being an AGR site is that we provide updates to the board twice a year at semester and at the end of the year. And typically these would be in consent but when we presented back in September or was in consent the board wanted further
088discussion and wanted us to pull that out to have more context for what is AGR what's the impact on our sites what's the history of it um and what are the strategies that we're using. So that is what we are hoping to provide a bit more context for this evening. So AGR is a program that replaced SAGE. Um SAGE stood for student achievement guarantee and education. Um, beginning in the 27 or the 2017 2018 school year, it shifted to be called AGR. Um, AGR is a funding program from the state that is meant to target K3 sites. So, our four neighborhood elementary schools, our AGR sites, and the contract is contingent upon us receiving funding. We're using one of the three strategies that's listed there or a combination of them. Um you'll notice in our
089individual school reports which are attached um you'll see that most of our sites are really leaning into instructional coaching and class size reduction. Instructional coaches are working really intentionally at our K3 sites to make sure that we are aligning our our student outcomes with specific strategies and providing the professional learning to support that. Our instructional coaches have also provided really instrumental support this year when we built our late start Mondays and our rollike training to really implement our core our new core literacy resources. Um and then of course just supporting and maintaining lower class sizes at K3 knowing how critical foundational skills are and being able to have those touch points with students to really build that up. Um, so with that, I'm going to turn it over to Teresa, our director of elementary ed,
090just to talk through what this is looking like, um, and link us to the reports and give you a little bit of background on on the funding itself. Yeah. I'm just going to um draw attention to one of the main changes when we switched from Sage um as a building principal who was a Sage school for many many years. Um there was a lot of angst because the minute you um had 19 students in that section, you had to hire that whole new teacher in the section and that could happen anywhere within that school year. And that happened to us often which really wasn't the best planning. Um and so when we spoke with the state and we were um some that really talked to them about what how this was helping our students and
091how this was hindering some of our best planning um is when they made some of these changes. So now it's not specific to class size. It's intended to keep class sizes lower at the at the um K through three. It's really recognizing that there are other strategies that we could do as schools to plan differently instead of relying just on that number. Um and then really changing the planning that we had for the year. So as um Amy mentioned, this is uh state funded and how it works is um every fall as a building principal, you get a spreadsheet from the state and you indicate the number of free and reduced students per classroom in all of those grades. Um so for K through three every classroom and the number of free and the number
092reduced that gets submitted to the state and once those are determined statewide is how they determine the allocation per individual student then um ours doesn't fluctuate too much. Um, again, as a as a building principal who had this, it was typically about three staff members at Glacier Edge that would be able to be funded through AGR funds that would allow us to add uh that many more sections to keep our class sizes lower. Um, I was a probably one on the higher end. Um now that Sugar Creek is a little bit enrollment has increased theirs would also um as well but it was really um dependent upon the number of students statewide as to how much allocation we would receive. And then of course it comes the following year which is the bookkeeping that Chad
093and his team can figure out. Um so one of the other parts of this is the AGR report. This is a state report, but as a district, we get to determine the measure. So, you do report out on reading and on math. And um what we've always done since I've been here is to choose the measures that we typically look at in our data protocols. So, for early literacy um for quite a long time, it was star and then um star for math. We made that change this year. And so when we're looking at our five-year contract, um we have written in that we will be looking at our AIS web data K3 which is what we look at um for our early literacy as well for our state. And then um for math um
094right now we're using number corner and star and we are also hoping to make the change to as web math so we have one protocol and one platform for all of our K through three teachers um and for our teams who are looking at data. So we have a fall baseline um that you will see and then there is um we report out in the winter and then we report out at the end of the year. So that's the the report that we refer to. Um we have a dropbox that we that we put it in and then as a board you were able to see the data at all times. We also u review it as a um as a principal team as well. Again, this isn't any new data that we are not
095already looking at on a weekly and monthly basis in our business. So, in this um in your each of those are links, you can go in and look at the specific schools to see um the growth that they have had throughout the year in both reading and math. And then the last part of this is the actual contract. So, um AGR is on a five-year contract. Back in 2007, um there were not uh very many schools in the state that were state qualified. And so um they changed the qualifications because one of our sites which was GE was um at a large percentage of free and reduce all of our sites that were 30% or higher could apply and now it's just continued to be able to be we can access those funds. Um but
096we apply every five years. So, the contract is coming up now. Um, they're due June 16th. And in that is exactly what the report shares. It it lets you, the state, and you as a board know this is the data we'll be collecting and this is the work that we'll do to make sure that um these funds are used to have smaller class sizes and to coach into good instruction. Um, so those are also that's a snapshot of what that would look like. Um I couldn't uh put an entire link to that because it's not a linkable form um for you to see, but that's exactly what it looks like. Um and so we have filled those out and in that um contract the a board member as well as Amy would sign off on
097those to indicate that these measures are ones that we will collect and then we'll continue to report out um twice a year for you. Just to note on that, we're working to streamline the metrics that are here, the metrics that are in our continuous improvement plan and eventually as we look to revise indicators eventually aligning those metrics as well. So, are we looking at Ames web data and students reading performance in each of those um each of those areas? So, this isn't necessarily a different way of working. It's a different form and template to capture what that looks like, but doesn't necessarily change the way that we're doing. we did look at um this last five year and so just on average it's about a million dollars per year that we are able to put
098back into that. So then with this application being every five years, if the application is approved for the next five years, that funding will come every year and it would only be if for some reason we would be denied when you apply. What would that be? What would that possibly there haven't been denial? Okay. They're not uh they're not excluding any schools who have access to it. Okay. Can't add new schools any longer. Okay. So we're able to kind of perpetually ongoing but yet there is this application piece. Correct. Got it. Okay. Yeah. Which is actually a good practice because our measures do change. Um and so it allows us to align back with the sites and then with for you and the board. Um so you're not seeing different pockets of data that we're
099not measuring in the same way. Thank you for pulling this from consent. Yeah. I just appreciate just as a touch point. I mean, I don't have any questions or anything just other than people putting the information in front of us to help us remember this this is happening um even if we're you know and I know we're seeing this data in other forms through our monitoring reports but this is um just helpful for me to see how it goes to the state and just some of our friends there. So, thank you. Agreed. Thank you. Yeah. So, as you said, no board correct. Yeah. There'll be no action. Exactly. acknowledge we have received and yes so agenda item seven will be okay thank you um but we are to agenda item number six public comment Lori
100have I missed any public comment okay thank you for validating that so then we will move on to um agenda eight because again there is no board action to be taken on the HR reports but thank you again for the time and space of our team so just wanted to take a few moments to debrief the end of the year site visits you know, just from a standpoint of like the benefit, right, as board members in terms of feeling results in an organic way. And then I know you kind of elevated too and I've talked to a few of you about just the scheduling complexities that we feel as board members having full-time jobs outside of board work and how to just mitigate the fact that end of year visits clearly land at the end
101of the year and wanting to have as much board presence as possible. Um, so any thoughts about um any of those? Um if it's all right, I'd like to just start by sharing gratitude to all the sites, the leadership for just making the space to invite board members in central office leadership to just hear the classroom teachers that welcomed us all to just show up and be able to observe and be a part of um the classroom day. It really it really is impactful even as someone who is a former classroom teacher to now have the frame of board member and just be back in classrooms and at the schools to hear the data at just that little extra granular level than how we sometimes, you know, have to hear it at the board table.
102Um so I just find those opportunities to be really rich and I wish I could also attend all of them because they're just so incredibly beneficial. Um I see lots of nods, but anything that anyone else just wants to share about their experience related to the site visits? Yeah, I mean I went to a number of them um this year um and every year I'm like I'm going to go to all of them and then I I can't obviously but um it you know it's it's such a powerful way to be able to think about the policy and then you know the opera operational and the results policy reports that we see you know once a year in action in the classroom and also it's just a great way um not just as a board
103member but as like a community member to like go in and regground myself in the work that's actually happening. Mhm. Um, you know, and I, you know, you go into a classroom, you actually see everybody like learning math and learning in different ways and at different speeds and and uh and it's just mind-blowing like, you know, I can't teach math to my own kids. Um, so it's just amazing to see all that happening and the complexity that goes into that. Um, that's pretty awesome. this year in particular to see it all happening in such a calm, quiet setting. Um I think in the four schools and eight classrooms I went to I saw a a phone one and um yeah and I mean my phone went off in this meeting. obviously have no clue what
104I'm talking about, but um but like it's just it's just a powerful reminder that like the real work is happening like in small and big ways in the classrooms. I would chair. Um, absolutely. I wish I had more time to attend and go to other other sites, but I did do want to say thank you to the staff for the amount of time that they put in to preparation for our arrival to be there. I know that that takes a lot of effort and um so thank you for for being present and much effort and place to welcome us. And uh it's great like you're seeing John just seeing uh kids in action and learning in action um because we can talk theory and talk budgets and detail and reports but it really it's it's
105the everyday interactions with students and what they're doing in the classroom with the teachers and all the support staff that that's what we're here for. So thank you. So having this is the year that I couldn't think any of them and this is one where having been to these in the past they are so valuable and I would have been the one who was calling me up saying you need to do whatever you possibly can to get there and I know just sometimes you just simply can't. So what I want to make sure is that the the value of being in schools is undeniable. Um I do recognize like the amount of work that staff have to put into our visits is also not insubstantial. Um I would love to the end of the year
106visits are fantastic. Is that something that we can maybe talk with administration too to figure out how do we is that is that an annual thing? Is that maybe a once every three years are the big end of the year visits? Is it something? But being in the schools annually is critical and maybe is there a way that that can work throughout the year. [Music] Um because missing that takes away our touch point here at the table. Um, and that it's it is hard scheduling sometimes when it's all condensed, which there is definitely a value to the end of the year, but if that means that it doesn't happen at all, then we're missing what we need as board members. And I think you know how I don't want to, you know, uh unduly burden
107our staff to like have to put on a such polish presentations every year in the midst of everything else that's going on because May is traditionally pretty slow around school, right? That's just, you know, what my understanding is. So maybe we could figure out what works with different administrators and do maybe some of them to do quarterly just I've been trying to mow over like other ways. I second that. I my my calendar got blown up in the end of April and terrible. But um if we if it end of year does make the most sense then perhaps just doing like a Google sheet here's where we're thinking for end of year visits this is the time of year let's see what every board member can make given their schedule so that we can pick
108the slots who are absolutely available all of us whatever days it is maybe it's a three or four week window whatever you need Dr. and the the teachers, administrators for heads up and then work around that. Keep it end of year. But now you see the availability of all board members to ensure we all can make one or two because for me this year I was only available Wednesdays. There's no end of year visits for midday availability any Wednesday. Literally happened every other day Wednesday. And I was even just brainstorming, you know, the the power of hearing some of the data points, right, and getting kind of that summitative aspect in terms of just data collection. What were the goals of the site and hearing those reflections and the classroom visits elevate that. But there
109I also wonder about board members getting a chance to be in classrooms whenever and how do we take kind of summitive data and wait right because there so yeah just trying to brainstorm are there ways to disentangle aspects of it are there ways that maybe you know we get to see I know I know we get a lot of invitations from staff members to attend things which I appreciate and I would love to have that continue because anytime we can see things in action that our staff is excited about is great but I appreciate the mulling over of some of these things because again I hope our inability to be a group of seven at every single end of your visit was not out of the desire and clearly the value we all hold of
110those spaces. So any thoughts from any administrators with what's been currently offered? Yeah, I do appreciate that. Yeah, I'm just curious what you all think, right? And the things that we're mulling over as central office leaders. You know, we don't have any site leaders here. I was going to say I think I appreciate that administrators thought that we were like able to track all of the data and like Oh, thank you for thinking so highly of me. I'm just happy to see the kids. You're really doing fantastic work. But like really, we did get to see data that came into our monitoring reports. Um yeah, but just there's there's so much richness with those um visits even bigger than some of the um the work that we're monitoring regularly too. So what was that? I
111just want to add like one of the things that I kind of ruminated on this year. Um I have a fairly nasty habit of like we'll start talking about something and I'll just absolutely like zone out thinking about whatever I want related to that thing. Sometimes it's productive and I come up with a good idea, sometimes not so much. This is I think one of the better ideas. So one of the things I was uh ruminating on with um one of the I forgot which school was it but we were talking about you know the improvement of uh data around reading and you know celebrating the like 3% or whatever it was improvement in the number of uh readers that were like proficient or uh better and um and I think you know at the
112board table we've talked a lot about like well what's significant and what isn't and you can see like the end values Well, 3%. That's like, you know, five or six kids at this school, you know, at this grade level. Um, but then you go into the classrooms and you see like, you know, I mean, I I've been in education. I know like how it works, especially teaching reading, but like you still tend to start thinking like, you know, like, man, you can read now and you can read now. like you just like, you know, little dizzy button sort of thing, but then you go in there and you're like, "Oh my gosh, I forgot that you even have to explain like what a silent E is, you know, or like, you know, all these things
113that we just kind of take for granted and like how long that must take to move even one kid from, you know, um, learning up to proficient or whatever. Um, let alone 3% like five kids and so it's really helpful to kind of ground that way. So, I'm wondering as we kind of talk forward, I think we're talking about a couple different things. There's obviously logistics around scheduling, but there's also a question of like, you know, yes, it's important for board members to go into the school, but it's important to go into the school with a sense of like this is what I'm doing. Um, and this is why I'm here. Um, so it's not just like again like I'll walk through the school and be like, what do the bathrooms look like today? This
114could be fascinating. you know, like um how did we put that wood wall there? Why is it at an angle like that? It's not even a 45 degree angle. Like this is our stuff. If I don't have purpose for like walking through a school, like I'm going to sit here and wonder about the adhesive holding it up. So, um I think that's a good thing. It is a good thing, but it's also like important, like I said, let's go down the rabbit hole, but it's also important to like have that sense of purpose for all of us, I think. No, absolutely. Well, this is what we're doing. One thing I think with the end of the year visits that's been so fantastic is to see just the culmination of the year's work. I mean that's
115so impressive. Um but I think there's also I'm also impressed to see the start of the work. I mean that this is like what's identified as you know valuable and just seeing even the process of how that goes. So I I'm not married to the end of the year unless that's what is best for our administrators. And again I still you know many makes me a little nervous for everyone out there who's but um I find value in any phase of it. It's not just the end result that oh up until this I I don't care but now I care. I I'm fascinated by how are you even identifying where this is going to go and how are you getting people on board with everything? How are you introducing students to any phase of it
116is is valuable. So agreed. Yeah. Yeah. I mean the end of the year there's some unique, you know, culmination of of the process, but maybe that can be something we don't have to put every school through every year. Maybe that could be a three-year cycle. We do a couple each year where it's an end of the year visit, but the other schools are being we have touch points during the year. Feels very formative and summitative, doesn't it? Do some formatives at some sites and some summitives with a few. Yeah, that would I don't know just there's, you know, these are just my speculative I would be curious to hear what, you know, our site administrators would actually find valuable for us to see. So, Yeah, I think for um what was interesting I actually asked
117Dr. query about this at our last visit was, you know, because the end of the year visits kind of tie into like a a continuous improvement process, right? The schools that are going to do that, you know, on their own. That's just part of how they operate. So, it's really I'm wondering for the board like, you know, there's an obvious function for the board to kind of come in and see that continuous improvement process happening. Um, and in that sense, we're very much just an observer. Um, I think there are other questions that board members can ask and are appropriately asked about like, you know, what's going on in the classrooms that that you're talking about, like, you know, how does how does this classroom come together in the fall? Um, I know that when
118I was like doing um researchy things at the university, I was like really I like hated imposing on a teacher right away in the school year to like be there, even if it's just someone like a fly on the wall because it's it's crazy. like it's it's everybody's loading their face for the first time. Um, but I I think you ask a good question like are there other spaces where it's appropriate to kind of set up a like this is the the function of a board member coming in and looking at this space and seeing what's going on these end of the year visits. I think it's an important process particularly because it's the end of the year of that like continuous improvement where there have been goals set and we're just kind of popping
119in like to see like what are the goals? how did you do at those goals? Um, and then each site was a little different. So, I don't know if that helped. I mean, it made me think about like observing a PLC on a late start Monday and see right seeing the actions that we talk about these moving parts at the board table, you know, to get a glimpse into what that looks like in real time. I think just helps us it helps me feel grounded when I sit at this table. Right? It's just the observer not to be observing and judging. It just is a reminder to me about what we're actually talking about when we're sitting here. I think there's so much that we can celebrate throughout the year celebrations their celebrations like you
120made it through October. Thank you. You made it through February. That's Yeah. I mean, is it okay to ask for like homework to kind of have you all get some insights from site leaders about just perspectives kind of knowing what you just heard us talk about um about sentiments about just I think in general board presence or you know board connection at the site level. Yeah. So thanks for the dialogue. So the Joel did you want to go? I'm good. All right. Uh when we think about the visits regardless of the time of year that they're are that they happen, we are really trying to focus on really two main things. Uh how does a visit help inform a decision that is through the lens of the board at at the board table and what
121did you see in those spaces that that would um allow better decision- making in that process. The second component of a visit is to affirm previous decisions that have already been made and the kind of the validity of the of those decisions. Especially we think about a scenario like this year where there's a significant investment both financially and in resource of time uh from our staff around the implementation of of of the curriculum. So you saw a lot of intentionality of seeing our teaching and learning framework play out in those spaces. the results of our of our PLC's and I'm trying to report saying like start funding because that's the space but the collaboration is our is what's happening in in those in those spaces and there was million dollar investment or millions investment in
122in resources. So, how does that all come to uh come to light in what you see in terms of a importantly our staff being able to successfully deliver and our students being able to perform under the guidance of of our staff in in those in those spaces. So, um again that can happen at multiple u spaces throughout the years. I think sometimes we get caught in the world of tradition where traditionally it has happened in specific times and places. So we're not as concerned about the time of year, but really want to make sure that it's valuable in the sense of those two things come to life that we are positioning the board to be to continue to be great decision makers and when there are significant investments, you want to see the fruits of
123that labor coming come to life. Yeah, sounds like alignment philosophically. So how pragmatically we play that out. My final thoughts on our discussion I just always appreciate the willingness to, you know, have to say for sites to open the doors to us. I just want to make a comment because um um it wasn't an end of year visit but it was a conference after it was at a student conference right as a parent. But the my initial conference wasn't amazing. But I got a chance to provide feedback and everything's always connected with the board. I had to involve sus the the way that we evaluate students and let it kind of run the show what they're learning. And the followup though that I had the second one after the follow blew me away. And it
124was like an end of year visit in and of itself because I learned what the students were doing, how they're using the curriculum, but also the the how the teachers were innovating or were trying to innovate within their just their classroom and sharing that innovation with other teachers that were looking to implement this very same thing. And it wasn't only your visit, but and you just made me think about it because we didn't invest a lot of money in the curriculum. And uh I just thinking out loud if we for any of us that have kids still in the school, each of those touch points, those experiences that we have and sit down with the teachers or the classrooms is really a great opportunity to ground ourselves as a board member and also as a
125parent to really get to see that all come to life. So even though I don't I'm just saying that even though I didn't get the formal experience I did as a parent, you know, and as a result of a board member, I got a great experience that did connect those dots. So I feel like I need to be more mindful and intentional when I'm going into these meetings to really notice these things. And it's just making me think I should come back and share that. I should have shared that experience a few board meetings ago right after I had so this is all really good stuff. Um I was thinking just as an idea and I know it's just like more documentation to create but would it be helpful if we had a one pager
126that and we talked about this like one pager that grounded us before every meeting but a one pager that grounded us before these end of year visits so that we really kind of are all thinking on the same page as we go into them. almost almost like a standardized approach to these are the main things you want to be doing as a board member when present at these end of year sites just the hope because in some ways that's given to us because the sites right we when we went into the classrooms there were things like suggested by leadership of these are the key looks we'd love for you to do um yeah I don't know is there something more higher level that's just like a guiding document I don't know John made me think
127about it that might be helpful just So that we're we're all kind of at least what's the word? environment just like just in the right headsp space for that visit to get the most out of it and then report something really just very helpful that when we do these subways back at the board meetings just thought maybe it's just something that will help me just to make sure I'm getting as possible. Thanks Joe. I did have my back too for a really long time because there was so much folks over just listening. Okay. All right. You guys all got it. All right. Well, thanks admin team. I'll be curious to just hear kind of sentiments back from leadership too from site leadership. All right. Moving on to general board updates. Anyone have anything generally or
128anything related to O8 communications in particular? I know it's listed with future dates, but graduation is this Sunday. So, thanks to those of you that are able to make it. Again, totally understand for those of you that can't. Um, we'll have so the four of us, I believe, that will be there. We have quorum. So, we'll have that earlier start to do the um can't think of the word conferring of the diplomas and then onward to graduation and the end of the end of the week um email that we got from you, Dr. clarity that really awesome document I want to call it we had a document when I worked at W that we called the document of wonder and power and I feel like that was the graduation document of wonder and power um
129that had everything about the graduation ceremony which I found helpful so if you haven't looked at that folks that are going to be there that will be helpful all right if nothing else we'll move on to superintendent consent agenda um again related to that email from Dr. clarity. There was extra extra information from Amy about the act 20 promotion. So, make sure you take any like public just a because that seems like it's policy. I just a real quick overview. I think having read it, I know that it makes sense. This is a requirement from the state. It's fairly, you know, all nailed down work. But I just want to like I think if I was reading this from the public, I might not understand. Sure. So the um act 20 promotion policy, one of
130the parts of act 20 in the state statute is that students are a reading plan if they're scoring below the 25th percentile on our statewide screener which is aimed at students continue on that reading plan which provides them really specific supports intervention small group etc. Um but at the end of their third grade year if they haven't exited their reading plan then the promotion policy goes into effect. And so at that point, the promotion policy, which we built this off of the DPI adult promotion policy, really um states kind of our steps that we would take. A student at the end of their third grade year is still not scoring above the 25th percentile or has not met the conditions of their reading plan. What are the steps that we would take as a district
131to make sure that we are making sound decisions for in the best interest of that student? And so the promotion policy that is linked really goes through the work that we would do in terms of collecting data, assembling a team with representatives from administration, teachers, interventionists, and family representation as well to discuss what has been student progress, what might be some barriers, and what additional supports can we provide. One of those supports would be intensive summer school and intensive intervention. Um, we've actually shifted part of our summer school model this year. As a result of this, we are making sure that not just our third grade students, but all students have access to literacy through summer school. So, there's a literacy component for for all learners as a result, but for for the purposes of
132this promotion policy, those third grade students that may not have met the conditions of their reading plan would then be entitled to that intensive intervention um as well. and then really the team would come together to make decisions about what is in the best interest of the students. Um, as DPI names there are some definite um there's a lot of research base about the risks of retention for students. So recognizing the importance of taking all of those things into consideration and making the decision for students to move to fourth grade and then what supports would be in place for students as they continue on in their monitoring. But this this document really details what are all the different steps. What if a family is asking for something different from the district? What are the data
133points that we would look at for the decision makers in that and what supports can can families expect from us as we make sure that we are continuing to support students to build those literacy skills that are that are so critical. Thanks Amy. I appreciate that. just since it is a requirement for our you know that is impossible it's a state requirement that we have this policy in place and I think just highlighting that there's a obviously we want to ensure that all of our students are reading um and meeting their their goals from reading there's also the you know the risk of of not uh advancing on time and I I appreciate that there's a policy that kind of helps balance those things and this is again something that we have to do as
134you know for the state um Nate with this being a polic Do we need to have two readings at this? Um, yes. Okay. So, this would be our first reading and then formal. Thank you for that clarification. I appreciate those putting out there that this is um state mandate. Yeah, just doing our best to be student centered and um forward thinking. And also to reiterate, we had access to links, there's video explanations like the things that you've done for outreach to potential impacted families in the community that there's plenty of places to learn more about what all of this entails other than through board docs. So just want to elevate that again for community members, families that there's lots of access points that you all are doing which is greatly appreciated. We recognized that for
135families to because this was the first year to get a letter that says your student requires a personalized reading plan can create all sorts of anxiety and unknowns. And so we've created a video that was linked in board updates. And we'll be adding to our early literacy website as well to walk families through what are the what are the very specific steps that you can expect for your student and what are the ways that we can begin to partner with families to continue to support um early literacy. because yes, there's state standards that govern much of the timeline for what's happening here, but really this comes back to our VAS commitment to early literacy in general. So, we'll continue to work to educate families in the community as we work with them around these processes.
136Thank you for your just your communication and um student centeredness about this. Um and I I just wanted to pull this from consent just so we could if I was looking at this in a policy as a outside you know outside viewer that this is just this is what it is. This is not anything unusual or new. It is just it is new. It is a state requirement. Thank you. Any other questions about anything in the superintendent's consent agenda? Any hearing? None. Superintendent's consent agenda is approved. Uh please also look over the board consent agenda. Are there any questions? Board consent agenda is also approved. So future dates are listed regular board meetings. We spoke about graduation. We do continue in the summer. Get the good work done. Um and then we'll shift into board
137workshop. So we've got just a couple of things to touch on in terms of um policies related to public comment. So, thanks to Joe for giving a a run at a draft of an actual GC board policy that really specifically outlines um board comment. Are we in workshop mode? We are in workshop mode. Thank you. Thank you team. Bye. Thank you. Um I I refreshed um board docs and I I don't know that I saw Joe's link in there, but I did just forward it all to via email again. So we have a hard copy in front of us, but it doesn't have I can also walk through all that. Okay. So if you all have access in front of you there's a hard copy, but Joe also had some kind of commentary with alongside.
138So yeah, if you want to put voice to that, Joe, that would be great. Thanks team. Uh so this came up because we realized uh that we didn't have a formal policy on board comment that laid out kind of what our practices are. And we also talked about uh the history on this specifically surrounding written comments that are submitted in advance of the meeting which isn't historically been something that has been read aloud at every board meeting. you know, for years, as I understand it, that was kind of started during COVID as a way to still encourage public comment at meetings without uh having personal attendance, but it it started a conversation about whether we wanted to continue that and then realized we didn't actually have any of this written down in comment. And I
139volunteered to put a draft together because in my opinion, it's always easier to work off of something than just speak generally about things. So, uh not married at all to any of the wording or terminology. A lot of this is taken from ex other examples I found guidance from WASBY uh and then just general thoughts about how it can go. Uh the first thing uh is in under paragraph number one I put down an overall limit for the time open for public comment as 30 minutes. That's something I sound I found in every other policy I saw. It seems a little funny because I think we've never had more than five minutes worth of public comment except maybe a few times. But um please not when you say but it it could be a problem
140and so meetings can get hijacked unless you have it down in policy that we're limited in the amount of time. Now I did put in that it can be extended because you know we could we should have that discretion and and um so it says by majority of the of the board that can be extended past the 30 minutes. Uh elsewhere in the policy it talks about let's individual comments are limited to three minutes a piece. So let's say theoretically you have 15 people who all want to give public comment. what's written down in policy. It doesn't have to be this way, but what's in the draft is it's first come, first serve. People who turn in their comments first uh get to go. Um and that's how the 30 minute thing is handled. Do
141you want me to Jenny? You want me to walk through all of these or do we want to talk about them individually as we go? Yes. Okay. Board members, anyone else have thoughts? Yeah, there's things that are coming up for you right away. I mean, as the judges, I it's very makes common sense. It's like it lays out things in a a very, you know, reasonable way. Um I really like how you um take out the if you are not here in the written comments. The written comments are problematic. I think um not so much that we don't want to have people communicate with us via written comment, but the reading of written comments I think is and I I think is handled well. And that was what originally prompted this is there is a
142little bit of confusion that you can send the board a whole email and that's one way to get information to us but if you submit it through the online portal suddenly that gets read aloud at a board meeting and it's a little bit inongruous and that's one of the things we have an option for how we want to handle it. We can just say that stuff is not public comment. I did find a few policies that handle it the way I put it in here, which is that's still considered part of the official record of the board meeting and is like in board docs, but it doesn't get read aloud. We can do it either way. I only put it in as this way so that it was something to remind me to discuss it.
143Um I don't particularly have strong views, but I don't know if anybody else does. Not reading them is my strong view. Um, I think especially when we when we we originally did our board agenda, um, gosh, 2021 when we originally put all that together and we put the public comments after kind of all of the the me of the meeting, it was with the intention that community members would hear what's being presented before commenting. We've moved some things when there's been a vote coming um so that we can get voice before a vote. Um but a written submit you know a written comment that's submitted kind of circumvents the whole intent that we had with placement of publication. Mhm. So I I think this is fantastic. So I love um a couple other things to
144mention. In paragraph three, I just put in the the three minute limitation is enforced at the discretion of the presiding officer just because we when we have one commenter, it's not like we start a stopwatch. Um so I I I thought we'd just be a little bit flexible on that. Um, what else? Oh, the contentbased restrictions are something. Oh, before that, limiting who can make comments, but I think we articulated in a way that it's pretty much inclusive of everyone we want to be inclusive of. Um, so I don't think that's a thing. did put some contentbased restrictions and I think this is the main reason why it's useful to have a policy is if you're putting contentbased restrictions on what a public comment can say the guidance from WASBY says as that you're good
145as long as you direct the right avenues for those comments to go to. So when we say things like you don't get to comment on personnel matters the policy needs to say but here's where you bring personnel matters to. And so that's the kind of the main value of this and it's also ensuring that we don't get those comments about individual personnel matters but instead we keep it to board business. Um let's see what was the last one. Joe is this document for website? Um that's well this that's like next layers of conversation. So good question. Yeah. Um, the last thing I have in here is Oh. Um, responding. Yeah. Responding to public comments. Um, uh, I I've never felt entirely comfortable with the idea that the board can't respond in any way, shape, or
146form to a public comment because someone might say something that I don't feel comfortable letting lie in the space without, you know, responding to it. Uh, and the guidance from WASBY is that it's okay to make comments on public comment, but you can't take action on something that hasn't been noticed on the agenda. So, that's essentially how I have it in here. I think historically, and I also have at the very bottom on the footer, it's obvious she took a different policy and adapted it and forgot to change the footer and that's why it says board. Oops. I appreciate the 30 minute time limit because I when I looked at city of Madison Parks found it to public comment for hours like this is insane. Well, and the redundancy piece that the other point I
147forgot to point out is one of the content based restrictions is the president or presiding officer has the authority to say no to public comments that are repetitive. So the same person can't come meeting after meeting after meeting and say the same thing. And in certain situations, multiple people can't come in and say the exact same thing. And the and the presiding officer has the discretion to say, "Okay, okay, we got it." Yeah. And we've had that before. appreciate is also um the respect piece in that threatening because I know that especially after this election feeling like oh my god now I'm in a public setting and the the pieces that I bring to the table I'm on high alert just in case anything gets to me directly and then what will be my response
148or etc. So yeah and that was something I had a little bit of a hard time with is how to phrase that because that's inherently subjective but in a way that's actually workable and usable. So if anybody has ideas for different or better wording, I'm certainly open to it. Yeah. Like how to describe that specific piece of the content restrictions. I think I say may not include threatening, abuse of harassing or obscene language at the discretion of a board president or presiding officer. So do we have the space, Joe? I'm just asking this, you know, like do we have the space the way that these are written? I'm just imagining a scenario where say somebody says something and I feel compelled to say I don't like that thereby interrupting their comments because I might find
149it obscene or threatening as the vice president and I might or any board member. Yeah. Before Jen gets an opportunity to do I have the space to do that as they're written now. I think as it's written now. Um, but we can we could change it to at the like I'd have to think about how to word it, but something like at the discretion. But do we want any one board member to be able to stop a public comment? Because we could also say or by majority vote. I think the board president's job is to run the meetings on behalf of the board. So you're not acting in a individual capacity. you're acting in that's my only only com that is and and I love No, please I think we're probably thinking the same thing.
150So our live experience may only limit us to catch something in a moment and that may not allow us to have it. So there that's my fear of being in that role is I might I just might not catch something. So yeah, that's what I was getting at. Is there a mechanism for me to like not shut anybody down? I get that that's her job, but like put up a red flag and say, "Hey, I you know, I'm gonna stop you right there and ask if this is objectionable." Oh, that's interesting. Oh, yeah. Like kind of I would I guess I would say that's always allowed. I would agree with that. But that's I was thinking the stopping a comment is the president, but I could like interrupt to say yeah, you know, follow can
151I get a review on that? Under Robert's rules. I think that's a point of order. Yeah. Joe, wouldn't that fall under six permitted to give a brief response? I mean, that would be kind of brief response to Yeah. Yeah. That that would be kind of the response after the comment is finished. I think John's saying, you know, hold on. In the middle of the comment, timeout, presiding officer, I'm going to suggest that this might be obscene, could be objectionable. Yeah. Is there a way for me to like say I object? your honor. That's you. And I think I I'm of the opinion that's always that's always your any of our authority as board members to be able to make up a point of order. Yeah. And how explicitly does that have to be written? I
152don't think it has to be, but if the board wants it to be, it can be. I don't think it's harmful. Do we certify our first amendment rights? Uh, I don't think so because it's not what we're talking about now is just a pause on the comment to allow the presiding officer in accordance with the policy to decide whether the comment is okay. Um, and if this can even if this whole letter V5B Yeah. can even exist, I mean, right? If that's an allowable thing to have in our policy, that to me feels like first amendment e, you know, it's Yeah. It's it's viewpoint neutral. It's not like one thing that is what I think would be beneficial just historically this has happened and it's been awkward. We want to make sure uh we're specifically
153saying that um names we aren't naming staff members directly. We are not naming we are never naming students um because uh people have come to have a concern about somebody who is not their own child and we are not putting that name into a public space. So I would say that is a uh something we absolutely need to spell out. So, I think yeah, that raises a couple questions. I think for sure we need to add a thing about naming students. Yeah, I was just going to say an a there. Yeah. Concerns about individual staff members or students. You know, I and I want to be careful in how you word it because like parent can come in and mention their own child. Yeah. If they want. And we allow people to name staff members
154when they're doing it positively. But we say concerns here. Yeah. And it's already said that comp you can't address complaints or grievances involving individual staff members. Individual students or staff members then yeah. Um I think that's something there needs to be something having it's happened. Yeah. Um, we want to ensure that it is spelled out. That is that is a no go. That is a common ender. And there's a formal process that again like the public space is that's not where that happens. So the change I have is for 5A to add students as well. Yep. And Joe just I saw it live on our Yeah. I saying students other than their own or we just saying since we're saying complaints or grievances, I don't think a parent's going to come in with a complaint
155about their own child. I save those for Thanks again, Joe. This is hugely wonderful to work from. And this is like an thing, but when we have like the public comment form, we have these are the things that they're supposed to do. Can we have them initial the end of it? That's okay. So that was kind of ever reads it and I want to know that they have like to get that's a great idea. So there's a couple follow-ups. So we'll Joe, if you want to just rework and kind of be finalized, we can consider this potentially a first read or would we still need a first read of what we've agreed as a first read? I mean, if we're agreeing that we're just going to make that one or you're just going to make
156that one change to 5A or if not in 5A to limit speaking on students, then this could be the first. Did we also want something to put in to address John's point about any individual board member can? I think so what I would say to that is if it's not spelled out in the policy then we do need to put effort into like a board handbook that spells out general practice of like when a publicist comment is happening and you find something objectionable this is how you raise it. Yeah. with the presiding officer like and so that that's like not maybe in policy but in practice then for future board members like this is the appropriate way to do this. Yeah. And I'm totally fine either way. It it actually is like a part of
157Robert's rules that like that's part of how you're supposed to, you know, function in board meetings is at any point if anything is procedurally objectionable, any one of us can point that out. But I I think it's valuable to have it spelled out. And I do think it's also valuable, like John said, to have a board handbook. Yeah. That we all follow that shows us how to be board members. I saw Robert's rules on a bookshelf once. That's like thick. I was like, "Yeah, no." Robert was not someone I would have been friends with. I mean, I'm leaning just because one, we don't have a handbook right now. Yeah. And two, the sooner this is live and you know really put into practice, I do kind of like the idea of then adjusting the language
158to just make it known to people that you can object or you can object and president would be the one to officially you know whatever but could be modified to say at the discretion of the board president or presiding officer or by notification um of I don't know I I think we still want to leave it that one person decid like the person who's running the meeting like you said decides. Uh I'll just add a sentence. I'll think about how how I and I'll circulate it probably tomorrow and everyone. Yes. What if that sentence was just to add under number six just to add like under the will not respond to questions or otherwise engage a dialogue with commenters during the public comment period except for to raise an objection with the presiding officer if
159they find a comment objectionable or whatever it is. However you want to phrase that. If you just slip that sentence right in there. Yeah, I think we're done. That's a good I I agree with John. That's probably where it should be. So, can we just do a first read that includes those two changes? Yes. Change to six and then change. Yep. First read and then the form I'm doing it right now in real time and make sure that the students part transfers to that. Thank you. Where did I where was that? Um I can Are we going to suggest some changes here? please and you I don't did I give you commenting rights? I don't remember where where you access this is like rough rough draft but I just tried to take initial thoughts from
160Joe and just rework what the form would look like in person. Um one big one that I wanted to see is the check box at the top of like why do you have the right to speak at our meeting? Yeah, except I would change parent or guardian to align with the district language that we use caregiver or careholderally use. And I'm not sure what the first guideline. Yeah, I would say I would take that one out and just have the Yeah, that was old or that was in the original draft that I got from Lori. So, I left it there because I didn't really know what it meant. This is a public record. Does that say that the meeting belongs to the board? You know, it doesn't belong to the public. I don't know. But
161I don't I don't think it's necessary. I would take out one and just keep the they keep this these are the guidelines for the comments like this is how you comment. These are more like how-tos as opposed to theoreticals. So I need some guidance on my uh my thought here in regards to political ideology. Can we limit that? No. No, we can't political ideology like extreme political ideology or right anything racist or you know isms or anything against frameworks or foundations. I think to the extent that some of that might be like abusive or that it's incumbent on us to kind of like your your ideology might entirely be threatening like we can raise that it's appropriate to do that but not on the grounds of being political political beliefs that are offensive. Sure. I'm
162sure we all do. Uh yeah, I think everything, you know, just we have the students. Yep. I just did that and get rid of the first and then Yeah, I think it's great. I think you did a great job. Thank you for doing this. I'll still leave this to linger, right? Just as Joe will do some working so we can revisit both of these one more time. Um I think one more logistical thing then that I wanted to then surface because of how we've just discussed the public comment piece. So on our website, the board of education website, there's a place that talks about public comments. So then obviously we'll get all of this updated and married together of what changes we're talking about with policy so it reflects on the website, but there is
163a place to submit a written comment. So, I want to make sure that we have our website reflect the fact that this portal can send a message the board will receive and read as it would if you emailed VASD board. But this is not a platform to have a public comment read at a board meeting. So, it won't be read won't be read. But that's adjusted once once the final policy is put in place. like to adjust it to be a communication of how to use the DSD or email email. Oh, that would maybe so we just avoid this kind of policy. The new policy is created in this space here. I mean, well, the new policy splits out like three separate things. There's oral public comments. There's written public comments that are not read
164but get printed out into the board. posted on board docs. And then there's more emails um that get handled as they get handled now, sent to the whole board that are not a matter of the public meeting unless they're requested as a open records request or something. Um so I don't have strong feelings about what you're saying, but I can see a purpose for each of the three things. If there's the portal Could the portal just pull up the electronic version of this? So people are are very aware that they are submitting a written public comment that it'll sometimes people think they're submitting an email and it's not intended to be broadcast to the entire district. So this would be like something that would make it very clear this is being put into the record
165because I think people Yeah. Well, I think I think both on the paper copy here and the electric copy that we're talking about being based on that that number one should be rewritten to say this will be entered into the public record. Please be aware that whatever you write on this or whatever you plan on saying is going to be recorded or kept and open to the public. Like as your warning, this is not just an email. This is the public record. Um and it's both like, you know, at the top of that thing and at the top of the online form. Yeah. What an email address on this. Thank you. I So I guess that was kind of the question I had for all of you like what do we want on that website
166that says public comment? I I think it should be something like what John if we're keeping the policy how I have it in here which is that there is this category of things called written public comment that don't get read aloud but do get included in the board packet then I think we should make sure that portal clearly says you are submitting a written public comment. This is going to be this will not be read aloud at board meeting but it will be included in in publicly noticed board materials and you know I think there also can be a way to communicate you know with the board you know I can't think of any words like the alternative is the board email if you don't want to do this if you do not want this
167to be part of I would hate to be in a position I don't know if this even applies Nate of like if somebody goes to submit a written comment and then gets all angry that it's not necessarily anonymous. Um, so we just have to highlight that this year. This is probably then it's on you can only share so much information. Can I ask a clarifying question on something that was mentioned while I was trying to do something else? Um, where parent and guardian I think someone suggested using careholder instead but doesn't isn't careholder doesn't that mean something else? Isn't that broader? Um, and that's what I don't know what are the because I was even debating like do we have to have city, state, and zip code? I mean maybe city but like who are
168we talking about that can come and speak even on behalf of a student? Are they going to live out of state? I think we should have the form match what's in the policy in terms of who's allowed to make comments. So if we change it one place, we should change. Right. And that's why I use the language I had origin on the form because that was what you had in the policy because I just copied and pasted and I thought that I thought that when we used careholder it's it basically encompasses all of the categories, but we want to be specific because we're like legal guardianship is really what we're talking about or is there the person in power still like it could be the legal the legal guardian. I mean, can someone who are
169we trying to capture that wouldn't be considered the parental guardian? Uh, I think there's plenty of situations where people live informally with a relative as their guardian. That's why it's lowerase Gian maybe. Maybe maybe not. So, culturally, I mean, my parents could be who live on the east side guardians for whatever reason. And you could have a we could have an open enrolled student who doesn't live with a parent but lives with an aunt um and that aunt doesn't have legal guardianship um but has been signed over like authority and powers school. Yeah. So, I guess that's who we would be trying to get with Guardian. Or on the flip side, who might be who are we restricting or wanting to limit to be able to speak if they're only if they don't if they're
170not any of the other things. Yeah. I don't know because I guess that's the question I have, right? If they're any of the other things, I I think who I would want to restrict is that same aunt if the kid doesn't live with them. You know what I mean, right? Like I someone's grandparent shouldn't get to come if they don't live in the district. Is there anything we need to vote on before these guys note this? Oh, no. We still Oh, yeah. We still And there are no We have close session. There's no other boat. Okay. I just want to make sure. Thank you. See you guys. Okay. I think we're are we good? I think so. So, what did we decide about the parent, guardian, caregiver, legal power school representative? wealthy. I think we
171I I think in this category, parent or guardian, lowercase G, guardian is sufficient because it sounds like someone could be a power school authority without getting a court order giving them guardianship. Okay. Okay. What if we said legal representative and power school is like a form of legal representation? Is it math? I don't know. I don't know. Yeah. Do we want students to be able to hire an attorney? What was that? Then you could have an attorney speak on behalf if we do it that way. We don't need attorneys. The attorneys are the second ones we don't need speaking anymore. Fair. This is super helpful. Okay. So, we'll take a pass at it all of it one more time and then make sure that our website under public comment reflects what it is that we
172want it to reflect really clearly. Great. Thank you. Yeah. Thank you, Joe. I think of Jen's face on this form on the internet. Can we vote on it now? You will send it to me. Okay. All right. So then, as we prepare to adjourn the close session, um just want to offer a little bit more preface as we shift into that space. Um, before we consider a motion to enter close session, I want to provide a brief explanation as required by Wisconsin's open meetings law for this type of close session. The board will be reviewing the district's current position under an existing real estate purchase option agreement. Aspects of this discussion relate to the district's future land use planning and contract positioning. Public discussion could affect how counterparties or others respond to our actions. So,
173we believe confidently that this close session is warranted under Wisconsin statute 19.85 sub1 sub. Um, before proceeding, are there any other general comments from any other board members related to long-term land planning conversations? Okay. So, then uh no further discussion. I'll entertain a motion to enter close session um pursuant to Wisconsin statute 19.85 sub1 sube to deliberate the district's position under an option to purchase agreement involving the potential acquisition of real estate where competitive or bargaining reasons require a close session and will remain in close session pursuant to Wisconsin statute 19.85 85 sub1 subg to confer with legal counsel for the government body who is rendering advice concerning a strategy to be adopted by the board in which litigation is likely to be involved specifically litigation regarding an alleged breach of contract. And finally, we'll
174remain in close session pursuant to Wisconsin statute 19.851 subc to consider the employment performance of a public employee, specifically to consider the employment of an hourly staff member. Um is there a motion to adjourn to close session? Is there a second? Second. Uh, we'll go through roll call vote. Joe, I John. Hi. Meredith. Hi. I am I as well. We are journed to close session.