2025.11.24 School Board Meeting

001All right, it is 6:30. Like the verify compliance with open meetings law. Do we have a motion to adopt the agenda? >> So moved. >> Second. >> Any discussion? Hearing none. All in favor? >> I oppose. Agenda is adopted. Uh attendance. Everyone is here except for Rachel. She is ill this evening, so she will not be with us. Uh if you're able, please stand for the pledge of allegiance. >> I aliance to the flag of the United States of America and to the republic for which it stands, one nation under God, indivisible, with liberty and justice for all. [clears throat] >> We'll move on to public comment. Are there any public comments? >> No comments. Okay, we'll move on to consent agenda three. A, gifts and donations. B, approval of the October 27th, 2025 meeting

002minutes. Approval of November 10th, 2025 meeting minutes. D, school safety drills. E, personnel recommendations. F, vouchers panel. Anybody like to remove an item? >> Can I pull A, please? >> Okay, >> give me one second. having [clears throat] a double authentication issue right now. So, sorry, just don't come to me right away is what I mean. Sorry. >> Perfectly fine. Uh, any others that would like to be pulled? If not, do I have a motion to approve items 3B through F? >> So, move. >> I'll second. >> All in favor? >> Oppose? See none. 3B through F have been uh approved. And then we'll move on to Cassie for 3A when she's ready. >> I think I'm in. Thank you for bearing with me. >> All right. >> For gifts $1,000 and up. We would

003like to recognize and thank the Greater Milwaukee Foundation for a $1,000 donation which went towards the Whitell Middle School Veterans Day program. So, thank you to that for the wonderful program. We'd also like to recognize and thank the Hills Corners Elementary PTO for a donation of $6,000 which will be put towards field trips for the students. And that is it for tonight. Thank you. >> Sounds good. Do I have a motion to approve 3A? >> So I'll second. >> All in favor? >> Oppos? Seeing none, 3A is approved. We'll move on to four reports and presentations. a referendum progress support with representatives from Bray and CG Smith. >> As the team gets set, I just, you know, we're getting to a really pivotal part or really awesome part where we're ready to start and they're

004going to talk about it, you know, going out to the kids for some things and shovels in the ground uh right around spring break. So, um they're going to they're going to talk about the whole um timeline and things like that, but it's we're getting to this really exciting point of essentially just having a bunch of meetings for a little to see stuff um out there. So, excited to have them share with everybody work they're doing. >> Yeah, we're excited to be here tonight for another update. Uh our last update was July. So, we do have some additional information on the website um and have been working through with the district on communication piece. Um [clears throat] so other um pieces of information but um big piece of the update is that we're almost done

005with design. So that is um Oops. >> Yes. >> Okay. I won't touch it. >> Um we are almost done with the design phase. So we've shared this graphic at each of our updates in the past. So we are wrapping up construction documents. So that is the end of December 2025. So you can see the kind of the arrow of it. Um so we have been meeting um regularly with the district um as well as our internal team on um creating the documents that will be issued to Schmidt for ultimate bidding and then the construction of that. So some of those um details that go into that construction documents or all of the um design and engineering being finalized um the materials that um you see um here in the boardroom for those in person

006um all the materiality that's going to be on the exterior is here as well um specifications all the engineering coordination. So that is a really exciting you know piece that we are wrapping up the design. Um just to expand on that a little bit of what we've been doing is our regular every other week meeting with the district. We also meet on those off weeks with Todd Iverson a lot of important coordination for that. Um we've been working with our engineers and consultants um civil structural mechanical electrical and plumbing as well as pool audiovisisual theater and food service. Um and then we've also started um those municipal review processes. So we have both uh the village of house corners and greenfield. And so we had um a greenfield plan commission. So the high school project

007was approved. We have village of pale corners coming up. We've met with um fire chiefs and the fire marshall. Just a lot of people to keep up to date on what is happening. It's really good to review the process ahead of time ahead of construction. So I've been having a lot of those meetings. Um and as I said kind of some of the updates. So the image on the screen was from the Whitner window this summer. There will be additional renderings in the um fall window that um goes out soon. With that, I'm going to turn it over to Sage. >> All right. Well, thank you. As Kate said, you know, we're basically less than a month away from officially being in the construction phase. So, we're um moving these along and starting to get

008the front end documents and and what we call our work categories kind of developed. So, that's all part of the bidding process that's going to start here pretty soon. But today, we have just a couple of items we want to go over, kind of update you on the bid schedule, um provide a a budget update, um and then Dan's going to go through some of the phasing plans for each of the schools. Um, we put that up as kind of our baseline knowing that as we bring people on board and bring mechanical contractors and electricians, there may be some efficiencies in doing work in a little different order. Um, but that's what we want to kind of establish now is, you know, we'll be working in these parts of the building and then they'll tweak

009those um a little bit as we go um depending on where their scope lines up. At the end, we'll open it up to any questions. for bid schedule. This is the same slide you've seen a couple times before. We have uh the schematic design and design development. Those budgets have all been done. Um and we're moving into that construction document phase. So in the next two to three weeks, we're going to be finalizing our biders list. So we're working with Todd and the district uh to put together a list of all the biders that will be assigned to each word category um and who's going to receive them. So, we send it out on a program called uh building connected is where we do all of our bidding. And we'll send them a notice that

010this is going to be coming out uh for the high school um sometime towards the end of December. We're trying to get this out before the holidays, so it's on people's radar. Um so, when they come back after the new year, we're first in line um to look at the plans and do the takeoff. And then we want to give them a decent enough window. So, there's going to be probably into the third or fourth week of January before those bids are due for the high school. And the way we have this kind of structure is is that they're going to be sequenced a little bit with um a couple weeks between uh Whittle [snorts] being issued um and then Edertton coming out in the middle of January and then Hills Corners and the middle

011school the first week in February. So, we'll then issue it to the same biders list um and give them the same amount of time to put their bids together um and then review those against the documents that are provided and scope everybody out to make sure that the bids are are apples to apples. So, the entire process will probably take till early March to get all three of these packages um completely bought out. Um, and I would say starting in February, we're probably going to start bringing some packages to the board, show you where the numbers came in, and give you an idea overall of how we're tracking. Then anticipating a start in March, as soon as um the weather cooperates, um, we want to be in the ground um, and starting to look at

012some of the renovation space inside the building that that Dan will expand on a little bit. So, as far as budget, uh last time we met and talked about the design development budget, uh we reported out that we were within about $40,000 of the $79.1 million referendum. So, this is that same number. The design development was our our last price check. Um there's been a lot of conversations we've had working closely with Bray every two weeks. Um, you know, as as mechanical systems are being tweaked here and there, we're going back to this design development budget and verifying that as the engineers are modifying things that we have made assumptions or have that covered in the budget. So Dan's going to walk us through the phasing plan at each school phasing. So, we're touching lots

013of different parts of and pieces in the high school as well as the other building. So, I'm kind of put a little road map together just to show everybody how we get there for the end project. So, I start up top left corner. So, this is the lower level of the high school. We're looking to to mobilize and start the pool edition uh in March of 26. The the goal there is to use the spring break as an opportunity to demo the little wait room so that there's no way around when when that part of the building comes down. Um I guess moving counterclockwise. So going to the the blue area, that's currently your your pool right now. We're not going to touch that until uh spring of 27. Uh, so the pool can still

014be used until March of 27 and then the pool operations will kind of have to be done until a new pool is is over or is is turned over. So that pool renovation that becomes uh kind of the the weight and fitness area that'll wrap up August the 27th. Uh, and then continuing to move toward, I guess, the the small gym, kind of we call it the the older gym and the the locker rooms that flank that. Uh, we have that scheduled for remodel this coming summer, uh, June of 26 to August the 26. And then as you kind of rotate up, um, we get into the [cough and clears throat] gym. We call that the big gym. Um, that one we have slated for the summer of 27. So, we're not going to take

015both gyms at the same time. We're going to take the the small one first, get that one done, and then we'll take the larger gym the following summer. So, you always have, you know, place to be. Uh, and then over on the right, um, we got two other kind of clouded areas. We got an orange area. That's your kitchen. That, uh, kitchen is going to get totally renovated. It's a big project. It's going to take some time. Um, so we're we're saying we're looking to take the kitchen around uh spring break of 26 and then it'll be up and running for you for fall of 26. >> What are we doing in the meantime? >> We've been working with with Todd to come up with a a plan to utilize the middle school and some

016other locations. >> Okay, I'll tr over >> and then top right corner of the sheet. um in that kind of whitish cream color that is the science area and that science renovation will be the second summer so summer of 27. Okay, the next area we have the the upper level of the high school and this kind of just expands on the upper levels of what will be the pool edition, what will be the um fitness edition and the multi-purpose space around it. We kind of talked on dates there already. And then top right corner is the the science renovation which will be summer 27. There's a little bathroom renovation pod in that bottom right corner. Um, there's three of those renovations throughout the building and we're going to take one at a time uh in

017like three-month increments and just work our way around the building during the school year. So, that bottom right corner is the one of those bathroom renovations from August of 26 to December of 26. All right. And then the last slide related to the high school is basically the auditorium. Um the auditorium renovation is slated for April of 27 through August of 27. So we'll basically take that after spring break and complete that uh through the summer. Then we can move on to Edertton. Um Edertton Elementary is kind of broken up into two parts. We got the red addition area and that is going to start during the summer of 26. We're probably going to utilize the entire summer on just relocating all the utilities that are underground within the footprint of that building. Um between

018electrical, gas, water, and some other gas other utilities will all have to get moved out of the way before we can start the foundation. So that that'll start right away on June the 26th with the addition wrapping up August the 27th. And then all of the interior renovations and window replacements related to the existing building will all happen the summer of 27. So June 20 June 2027 through August of 2027. So Dan and Todd have spent many hours just walking [clears throat] through this building because it's it's a lot of jumping around and um sequencing the work to make sure [clears throat] that all those utilities that service remains during the school year. So we've done a lot of work on the front end um to know when different things can be disconnected and transferred

019over to the new um permanent utilities. Um so Todd's been very helpful with that and uh working through that with Dan. Next up is with no middle school. So there's some gym refresh that happens as well as some remodels within some of the plankton locker room. So all of that work at the middle school is going to be scheduled for our second summer. So summer of 27. And then last but not least is Hails Corners Elementary. Uh the majority of that project is a kind of HAC upgrade to provide the air conditioning through the areas of the building that doesn't have it right now. And based on the lead time of the chiller that's going to be required for that work, we're not going to be able to get that in time for the first

020summer, summer 26. So we had to punt a little bit and and make the Hails Corners Elementary renovation for summer 27th. So that'll start in June and end in in August. >> The way we've kind of structured our team is Dan is our senior project manager. Um he's going to be overseeing the entire referendum project. Um so it'll be Dan and his superintendent um at the high school and focus [clears throat] on that project. And then we have another project manager named Tyler Helker um who's going to be joining the team this spring as soon as we start doing some of that buyout and we start getting some bids in. Um and Tyler and a second superintendent will be stationed at Edertton. Um and then the Hills Corners and um middle school work will be

021supplemented with one of those teams as well. So two dedicated teams. I think both of these projects are um complex enough that they need the full attention of of full teams. So um that's our plan going forward. And one of the things we mentioned to Brady at our in our last meeting is we want to start talking about ways that we can get the students involved in these projects. Obviously it's it's a little challenging when you start in the spring kind of towards [clears throat] the end of the school year with everything else that's going on. Um but if you have some time just see YouTube um and search in YouTube ask the builder CG Schmidt. We have a number of videos of ways that we get students engaged in construction projects. Most of this

022is kind of at that elementary school level. Um, but we have a whole matrix that we'll be bringing to the board and to the core team um to make sure that students at at every level um of their schooling are able to participate and experience what the construction is, whether that's tours or beam signings or or classroom presentations. Um, I want to find every opportunity to get them excited about their new space as well. So, with that, any questions? I have a question. Um, talking about our last meeting with the some of the ideas for the change with the building trades classes. I was just curious if it's an opportunity for anybody in those programs to like shadow or even work with any of the pro projects. >> Yeah, definitely. I think so. I mean,

023there's some possibilities. You know, we've talked about >> Yeah. Dave, do you want to talk about what you did at Mosqu? Yeah, we had a carpenter apprentice program um where was a a senior, he was about to graduate, knew he wanted to go in the trades and we actually hired him on um through the through the union's program and he worked >> at school in the morning. >> Yeah. >> And his classes were done at noon and he was on the job site in the afternoon. So he was able to get that u hands-on experience right out of the gate. >> Yeah. Yeah, we've had some where it's people that are more interested in the project management track maybe and they've been in our office in our job trailer spending a couple hours kind of

024shadowing our teams. >> Um, you know, it's kind of an internship. >> Both of those are are on the table opportunity. So, um, it seemed like the high school there was a lot of work that's going to be happening the whole time and then at Edertton you talked about moving utilities this summer and then next summer doing the bulk of the other work. Is how much work that there's still going to be work going on during the school year there or how much do we anticipate? >> The addition will will continue throughout the school year. Okay. So the summer we'll be moving utilities out of the way and probably the fall. We're going to start with foundations during during the school year and so we can turn it over the following summer. >> Okay. >>

025And then all the renovations within the high school that kind of tie into the addition will all get wrapped up that second summer. >> I really appreciate, by the way, this breaking it down with the sections and the dates. That was really helpful. The spreadsheet is one thing, but seeing it this way was also nice. The bar charts are are great, but the visual representation helps. >> Yeah. Wherever we're shutting off and exit are having a temporary partition, you know, we'll have full separation between the space the students are using and where we are in construction. I mean, all the sites will have fence all the way around um to make sure they're safe and um kids tend to get curious and wander places they shouldn't. So, we want to make sure that the the

026site is secure and that when they are experiencing it, they're with um supervision. >> And in our conversations with the fire marshall and the fire chief for both municipalities, we've talked about that preliminarily, too. And then we'll meet with them again once we have more detail on some of those temporary conditions from an egress standpoint and eventually potentially occupancy as well. I don't know if this was necessarily for you guys or for free, but maybe we could think about doing like a time capsule or something. >> Yeah, sure. >> A lot of projects incorporate >> that. Yeah. >> Incorporate it behind a date stone. I mean, they make special um stainless steel that are sealed tight to put together a time cap. So, it's kind of something neat to get the kids excited about the

027project, >> especially ed elementary school. That seems to be a >> good one. So, maybe Edin with the addition opportunity. >> Uh, [clears throat] excuse me. All workers, whether they're yours or uh subcontractors, are all background checked? >> Yeah, we'll be running all the workers through Raptor as if they were uh working inside the school. Um, so they'll, you know, we have background checks for the employees that we hire, but anyone that we bring into a school goes through, um, the same raptor background check process. >> And then when we had the final budget up there, you said we're within 40,000. Did you mean 400,000? >> Uh, [clears throat] this one here. It's 40,000. There was 709.6 >> right there. >> That's [clears throat] with contingencies in that DD% >> contingency. The DD. Yeah, >>

028that was the DD budget. So, if you want to kind of tell them what contingencies were in with with that budget. >> Yeah, I don't have the breakdown in front of me, but we had >> I just wanted that was what you said. >> Yeah, there was those risk reserves. um built in uh for design contingency and the escalation were still all in there. Um so I think where we were sitting at that point, we felt that we had enough risk reserves built in. I think going forward um you know, we feel like we're in a good spot as we've seen the plans develop and have had those conversations with some of the uh consultants. Um you know, we feel like we're going to be in a pretty good spot here. >> So none of

029those contingencies have been used. They're still full. >> Yep. Okay, thank you. >> Yeah, just the other thing too on that uh for Quinn and and the rest of the board, uh if you remember, we've done two draws already and some of taking advantage of the um credit or the uh the climate right now for investing and whatnot. So, we're going to we'll make a pretty substantial amount of money on those as well because we haven't paid anything yet. we just we take it out start paying soon just as >> you know and really by the by February we'll have a significant amount of the bids already kind of in hand and can report out exactly where they're at but I I think with the timing of this sounds like there's a lot of projects

030that start for a summer that um won't be coming out till after the new year so we're hoping to get a little bit of a jump on that >> and you you talked about your subs that you are putting these out to. >> Is it a pool of subs that you that you work with or uh people have asked? >> We have a a pre-qualified list of people um that have um been checked out with their financials and everything that we keep. And then we sit down with Todd um and add any contractors that he's familiar with or who have worked in the building to expand on that list. Um, we're doing searches just locally trying to get as many, you know, potential smaller local companies involved as well. Um, so it becomes a pretty

031expansive list at the end of the day. >> Thank you. >> Can you walk us through our next steps on what you're going to need from the board in terms of signoffs on on bids and things like that? We do you have us involved in the big ones or is it just how does that work? I know there's processes where you need to receive multiple bids and and all. Can you just tell us what we should expect next next? >> Yeah, I So the way we kind of structure it is that we break all the work up into work categories. So like concrete is a work category, masonry is a work category, drywall is a work category. We take all those that's those are what make up a bid package. Um, so when we end

032up getting bids, we typically will get multiple bids for each category and then our process would be in February would be to bring those and show you where those bids came in [cough] and give you a [clears throat] snapshot of where we're sitting with the budget. So, I don't know if the board needs to vote on any of that or approve it. Um, [clears throat] >> we do approve it. Yeah. I >> mean, if we're spending over a certain amount, then I think we are required to. So, I just want to make sure we understand. >> That would [clears throat] be that would be at that February board meeting where we bring those to you to approve then um for the if we have seven or eight packages. Um we're going to end up having

033to kind of batch them just based on when the bids come in and when we fully vet all of the contracts. But um we'll be able to give you kind of a snapshot of where we're tracking overall with budget. Um but then we can bring those uh to you to approve. >> And I'm wondering if there's any history of how we did this the last time around with HCV and how that was set up for how did those board approvals work that we can refer to? Now do they need to go to committee for or like >> no no they want them right here and they they laid them right out as to just what he said the categories and he actually had the contractors who bid on it in the price. It's a blind

034bid, right? >> And they there was there was one or two instances where a person where company was real low and we did they did not feel comfortable going with that individual because they thought maybe they forgot something and the low it was way low. So they make suggestion to us and um we pretty much approve each section just like you said and it came in a nice file that that we had all the numbers for and names of the companies. >> We'll all packets and it'll probably be every two weeks every time there's a board meeting starting in February until we work through the process and there will be some more categories that are a higher priority that we got to release right away like food service equipment like for the kitchen. So, one

035like one of those will be one of the first ones that we're probably going to be looking at just so we can get that equipment ordered so it's arrived here for summer. So, we can mimic the process from previous job that all worked and we'll just be out categories every two weeks until we're done. It >> was very straightforward and we saw exactly what what it was. Yeah, we can have that shared with you, you know, the week before with the board packet. So, you can come with any questions on what's going to be presented that night and we can go through it. >> Okay. If there are no other questions. Thank you very much. >> Thank you. Okay, we'll move on to 4B fall 2025 universal screening in preac with Dr. Hello. Good evening.

036I am happy to be up here for the first two presentations tonight. Um the first one is to discuss our fall universal screening results including our practice preCT and ACT tests. Um sorry this is a little bit late. I was out of town at the last meeting. Um so I got to push back a little bit but still data that we're using before we complete our winter screen in January. So just as a refresher that we do universal screening for three main purposes. Number one look at the health of the system. We look at everything overall. We see how our students are doing. Think about our change to our universal level instruction. We also use this data to identify students for follow-up assessment if they need intervention or extension um based on series of results

037over time. Students that are meeting grade level benchmarks scoring below or above. Um and then we also have started to do more and more diagnostic assessments to really dig into our students results to see what specific further intervention or extension would benefit students most. And then we also look at growth over time. This is what's most beneficial to our teachers. Many of our teachers um have their student learning goals based around student growth over the course of the year as we want to make sure that all of our students are making a full year's growth or more in one year. Um we have a lot of different assessments that we conducted this fall. We'll do the same again in winter and spring. It's really a beautiful symphony of scheduling by our principles and assistant principles.

038Um and lots of credit goes to all of our classroom teachers, pair professionals, and substitutes for allowing this all to happen as many of these assessments for our younger learners are done onetoone. Um so we have um it's really a team effort to make sure that all of our assessments get administered. Um so we do use Ames Web Plus for our K4 through third grade students in reading and this is the first year that we administered that test in the fall. If you remember last year, this was a new assessment for the state of Wisconsin. Um DPI didn't have it quite ready yet for everybody to take. So we don't have any comparative data for fall for our young learners in reading. Um but we will have data that we can compare in winter. We

039also do a variety of assessments in math including fastbridge early math um a math for our second grade students and then we use math for math in third through 8th grade and in reading in fourth through 8th grade. Then our ninth and tth graders do the preac and our 11th graders did the practice ACT. um in high school they only will do their fall testing as practice testing and then they take those actual tests in the spring. So they don't do any more universal screening um beyond the assessments that we give in the fall. If you have questions at any time, please feel free to jump in um or you can save them till the end if you'd like. When we look at our math results for our youngest learners in K4 through 2 grade,

040um when we are looking at these results, you'll see that we use median percentiles. We can't average percentile because a percentile isn't a linear unit of measurement. It's really based on the data set um and its relative position within the data. So we have to use medians instead of averages. Um so everywhere that you see median percentile, that's how our kid who fell right in the middle was performing on these assessments. Um all of our K4 through first grade students as a whole performed rather well um with really high median percentiles. If we were expecting, you know, like you see your bell curve, you anticipate that your median child would be around the 50th percentile. So, anything above the 15th means our students are performing above the national average as a group, which is excellent.

041We also look at our students who are scoring at an at risk level that's set by FastBridge, the test publisher. Um, we would hope to see anywhere below that percentile that they set at their risk level. Um, so we would hope for our K4 through first grade learners that there would be less than 15% of students scoring below the 15th percentile. Um, we did hit that mark. And then in second grade, we would hope to see less than 10% of kids below the 10th percentile. And we're right around that 10% mark. Um, we do notice a higher percentage of students in K4 um who are scoring at that at risk level and that's kind of anticipated because we don't know what kind of math exposure that kids have received at home before they come to

042K4. So, this is really our baseline data that we use in fall to see where our students are at. Um, for our students who are returning to us, we can compare how they did in spring to how they did in fall and see some areas that they might need to kind of beef up at the start of the year. But really, this is what we use as our baseline for these young students. >> Is that number parentheses the number of students that >> correct? Okay. Yeah. So since we have a smaller district, it really isn't that many students necessarily that makes our percentile go up or down. >> Correct. Exactly. So you could have any two students would move it um like one to two%. And any grade level. Okay. Then when we look at

043our math screening results for our third through 8th grade group, those numbers [clears throat] that are kind of in the bubbles to the left side of the rainbow chart, those are our median percentiles for those grade levels. So again, every single grade shows the median percentile above the 50th. Um, sixth grade is the lowest, but even that has a median percentile at the 59th. Um, the colors are just based on the percentile ranges. So you'll see that red is anywhere from the 1st to 20th percentile. Orange is 21st to 40th, 41st to 60th, and so on. Um, based on how norms work, I think some of you might remember the chart that I used to show that had 20% in each different color. Um, if our students were falling along the national norms, that's what

044we would expect to see is a perfect 20% breakdown with each color. Um what we really look for is big numbers of blue and green, small numbers of red and orange. And that's what we see um with all of our math screening results from this fall. Um where we had significantly below 20% of our students falling below the 20th percentile. Um we use those cuto offs when we're determining whether students um would benefit from some additional intervention um again diagnostic assessment and some supplemental instruction to help them achieve their grade level standards. Um but overall our students were performing exceptionally well in math this fall. Um and that's even with um what NWA has a new math algorithm where they are really testing students on math questions that are based on grade level standards. Previously

045since it's a computer adaptive test, students who were doing particularly well or not doing so well would be seeing questions based on standards from other grade levels. since they changed their algorithm last year. Now they're seeing questions mostly for their specific grade level. So as the year goes on, students tend to perform better and better because they're now achieving standards at their grade level, but this is the fall, so we would expect them to not do as well. The fact that they did is very heartening and really I think bodess well as we move into winter and spring screening. >> Questions now or later? >> Go ahead. [clears throat] >> Go ahead. Um so if we look on slide the one that we have up if is this like in years past where like um

046the periwinkle I guess or light blue >> that is the 76 is the eighth grade class now >> and if you go diagonal that was them that are we looking at this is pretty significant growth >> from last year to this year. >> We did see our seventh graders last year we had over 80% of them score meaning or advanced [clears throat] on the forward exam. Um, so they really made a ton of math growth last year and that a lot of that has carried over into this year also. The 76 is our median percentile like our kid in the middle. >> But that means like the whole group theoretically maybe it's not perfect but all shifted to >> correct. Yes, we have a lot of students in eighth grade now who are taking advanced

047math classes. >> So that's I mean that's a very big jump. So kudos to And are we was it a curriculum change? Was it an instructional change? Was it chemistry of the students. >> Yeah, we'll do that. >> A little bit of all of the above. >> Okay. >> So, we do have a curriculum that teachers are now very familiar with um in the third year. Uh we also have um we're taking students and differentiating based on levels. So, some kids are taking advanced courses. So, um we're meeting kids where they're at and then um developing the plan for them as the [clears throat] year goes on. It >> looks like it's paying off. So, >> but then we also see like sixth grade was a significant drop. Is that just the middle school or

048elementary middle school jump? >> Some of that we're we still continue to look at that and really trying to dig in. Um for this I really do think on math they take a two through five test and then a six up test. There's a significant shift in standards between fifth and sixth grade. >> That makes sense. >> Yeah. And we're going to keep an eye on that number and hopefully that number will have a big jump in winter as they become more used to sixth grade standards. >> Okay, so moving on. This is our first year of fall data for AS Webb Plus for our young learners in reading. Um again, I showed the median percentiles for each of our different grade levels. But one of the beautiful things about as web plus is that

049we can actually kind of convert those median percentiles into what does that actually mean that kids know how to do. So for our K4 students um our median percentile this fall was the 74th percentile and that means that they're able to successfully identify four out of 12 sounds. In K5 our median percentile was the 83rd. That's not wrong. I triple checked it because I was just blown away um by our little kindergarten learners. That means that they're currently able to identify 53 letters and or sounds in 2 minutes. And then in first grade, our median percentile is the 73rd. In first grade, there was a significant change in our ASW Webb Plus test compared to last year. Last year, they just looked at oral reading fluency for first grade. This year they have a new

050composite score and again this is rolled out across the state where they're looking at oral reading fluency, nonsense word fluency, and word reading fluency all together as a composite score. So those are those little um acronyms that you see over to the side. Those three scores together [clears throat] make up the composite score. So for first grade for fall, that counts as 89 words or sounds in three minutes. um is the 73rd percentile. For second and third grade, they take three different assessments. The oral reading fluency assessment is the one that our personal reading plans are based on. Students scoring below the 25th percentile. An oral reading fluency alone receive a personal reading plan. Um, in second grade we had a median percentile at the 59th percentile and in third grade it was the 72nd

051percentile which are 66 and 103 words read correctly per minute respectively. Um, this is better than our students have been performing historically. Um, third grade and fall did almost as well as our last year's third grade did in winter. Um, so I think that our new with our new curriculum and with an increased focus um on the science of reading that we're really helping to improve some of those scores. Um, our also our reading comprehension and vocabulary assessments. Our students also had um pretty high median percentiles. Particularly our second graders considering that this is the first time they're taking a test like this. In first grade um all of their tests were onetoone [clears throat] administration and now in second grade they start taking computer-based tests um and tests that are computer adaptive. So this

052is a shift for them [clears throat] and they did very well for fall. >> How long is the test taking? >> The reading comprehension is anywhere from like 15 to 30 minutes. It's also computer adaptive. It has 24 questions. Um so depending on how they answer the first set of questions, they receive a slightly more challenging or slightly easier passage. Vocabulary is about 5 to 10. Um it's really just a series of questions that says the word hat means and then it has four choices and they have to pick. That's a bad example, but understand. Um, an oral reading is two passages that are one minute time each. >> They're all done at one time at the same one after another. >> They usually do them on some different days to split up the testing.

053>> Okay. Thank you. >> Yeah. >> Um, so we also have our list of total students who need personal reading plans. This is our two elementary buildings combined. Um, if you remember from last winter, we had some significantly higher numbers. And one of the big changes this year is that Ames Webb Plus updated their national norms over the summer. Um, so what that means is we now have new numbers associated with the different percentiles that were required by law to use to identify students who were in need of personal reading plans. Um, because those numbers got a little bit lower, it meant that our numbers were probably going to get a little bit lower. And we were correct. Um, we have a total of 48 students in K5 through third grade needing personal reading plans

054this fall. However, that does not mean that we said, "Oh, you're above the 24th percentile. You're doing fine." Um, that means that we used all of our data to look at our students performing above the 24th percentile who we still thought might benefit from some additional support and we have them receiving instruct additional instruction in class as well. So, in the future, are we going to like find out in one of our future presentations like how many kids are still on reading plans? How many are coming off of their reading plans and becoming um you know, no longer at risk in those types of things? Will we get that granular with the data that we're getting here? >> Yes, we'll compare that in subsequent presentations. So, in the fall um we start fresh in the

055fall new year. um our students who were on reading plans, I think the vast majority of students who are on reading plans now are students who were either on plans in the spring and we anticipated that they were going to continue to need support um or students who are new to us this year. Um and so the students who are new to us are the ones that we needed to really dig in um with some additional diagnostics. But with all 48 of these students, they received additional diagnostic assessment so they could receive a specific intervention that worked for them. >> Yeah. And what I'm specifically interested in is are our interventions supporting, you know, so that would be great to know. >> Yep, definitely. We have to collect that data for DPI anyway. So, it's

056good. >> Moving on to our older readers in fourth through 8th grade. They used the MAP growth reading screening assessment. Um, this is very similar to our math. We're looking at our median percentiles in the little colored bubbles to the left. We can see again that we had less than 10% of our students in all grade levels who were scoring below the 20th percentile. We want to see lots of green and blue, not a lot of red and orange. Um, and our students have achieved that this fall. And then down below, Cassie, like you said before, we can see our cohort data over time. Our third grade students stopped taking the MAP screener in fall 24 as now they take the ASB plus assessment. So that's why those scores are included there. Uh, and I

057don't remember and I'm thinking maybe it is this eighth grade cohort that has always been >> it has been >> pretty strong. Um, but which is great, but I mean the growth in addition to them already being strong is just really worth calling out. So, I mean kudos to whatever [clears throat] you guys are doing at the middle school that's meeting them where they are and challenging them to grow. Um cuz I'm looking I got to I was going to double check my So the seventh grade group's growing too which I like to see that. So and I was confirming things Jesse cuz I was one I was like seventh or eighth. One of them's always been like high percentage of kids all along but we're not just letting them rest on their laurels. We're

058pushing them to grow. So that's great. >> Okay. Okay, now we're moving into high school and our practice preac tests. So, in 9th and 10th grade, they take the actual preac assessment. Um, 9th grade takes a different version called the preac 89 in the fall. And then everybody takes the preac secure in both 9th and 10th grade in the spring. So, we're really looking at three different assessments for two grade levels between fall and spring. We are able to compare them. They're all done by ACT. um and they have warmed them all so they're able to be compared. Um we have our average scores in the lefth hand column compared to the fall preac benchmarks that are in that second column or I guess the middle column. And then the fourth column has our percentage

059of students who are meeting a preac benchmark this fall. I also included um of our eighth grade students, our percentage of students who scored meeting or advanced in each of those different subject areas on the far right column so that you can kind of compare um to how our students are doing this fall. Something I really want to call out and applaud our English teachers for is that last year about halfway through the year we started implementing a fluency routine with all of our nth grade students in English class. um they started that in February and we saw a pretty decent growth between fall and spring um for our students and um our students in 8th grade also were doing some fluency work and I think that is really shown in some of these reading

060scores. We'll see that in 10th grade as well. Um, when we look at our students reading scores and how they've improved over time, we'll go into 10th grade where we can really see that growth in fluency. Um, when we look at [clears throat] reading scores in the spring compared to our reading scores in the fall, these students had a significant amount of fluency work done after that spring pretest um, and prior to fall. And that was the area where they that group of students had the highest amount of growth. Um, they also had some pretty significant growth in English between spring and fall. When we think about this, this is really looking at like two and a half months worth of instruction at the end of the school year and then three months of summer.

061And then they take the preac quickly as soon as they come back um into the school year. I think this was September 23rd. So, a lot of the growth that students would make, they would be doing at the end of the previous year. Um, we saw a little bit of growth in math and science, but really most significant in reading and English. And this is another group of students where we had 72% of our ninth graders last year scoring um meeting or advanced in math. So even though this percentage of students who are meeting the preac benchmark in math looks kind of small, the DPI benchmark is a little bit different. >> And remind me Dana, this composite score or whatever these numbers are aren't equivalent to what the ACT score is. Correct. >> No,

062this is on a slightly different scale. >> Okay. because like 15 like seems scary but it's on a different scale. >> Yeah. So if you compare the actual the average score to the benchmark um we don't have very many students scoring 36 in English um because the benchmark is only 14. So >> it extrapolates it a certain way or >> yeah they anticipate the score will be a little bit lower. Yeah. And then just so I look at this line on that DPI says 72% of the kids meet the benchmark but for the preac 27.4% are meeting the preac benchmark. >> Yes. So last spring 72% of our students met the DPI benchmark. 35% met the pret benchmark. The pre-CT benchmark is that college readiness benchmark whereas the DPI benchmark is more what's expected at

063grade level whether or not you are collegebound. >> So, so there's a big difference between what is meant for college bound versus what DPI says is acceptable. >> Correct. >> And we'll when we get to report cards in a minute, then we'll see how the meeting in advance percentages for DPI plays into report card scores. They don't use PRAT benchmarks anymore. Okay, so grade 11 um looks a little bit different than our grades 9 and 10. This year we did a practice ACT in 11th grade, which is the first time that we've done something like this. This was done using the methodized test prep platform that has a fulllength practice ACT test. um they did teachers and our coaches did a really nice job in trying to structure this so that it mirrored the same

064structure that the ACT will actually have on test day. So same amount of times, same amount of breaks, um things like that. However, we did see that we had a significant number of students who either stopped halfway through um and chose not to complete the test or had somewhat like middling scores in some areas and then um very low scores in other areas that indicated maybe they didn't make a lot of effort. Um so, we're going to use this as a point to look at and compare to spring. Um I'm not using it as this is exactly where our students are at this fall. again because probably a good 20% of students had scores that were inconsistent with what we would anticipate if they really put forth their full amount of effort. Um, but it's

065still information that we're using. We're looking at the specific individual student scores um and then using that to help determine which students might need additional support in some areas. >> Can you just zero in and ask those students why you finish? >> It's exactly what we were doing. >> You want to speak to that? >> Yeah. So um the day it was administered was a half day. So students who had extended time for their IEP or 504 were asked to finish on their own time or those would be part of the percentage that just for whatever reason didn't take it super seriously even though they were it was mocking a real ACT they were in a smaller group setting all the things. If we look at those kids, we are targeting them for real ACT

066to have a conversation with them and maybe even think about smaller group settings with that group of kids as well. So, >> thank you. >> Another thing that I didn't include on here, but I think is good to note is that in addition to the practice ACT, we also did a practice ACT writing session. um where in their English English classes students responded to an ACT style prompt in the same amount of time that they will have on the actual ACT. Um those were all 200 of [clears throat] them were scored by our English and social studies teachers which was a lot of reading. Um they did a really nice job doing that. And then students did receive those writing scores um as they would for the actual ACT and they also received some tips

067on how they can improve their writing as we work towards the ACT. Um, those results were very promising. They were at a really good place. Um, I did mention last spring that our writing score was very high for our 11th graders. Um, and our literacy coach was very pleased to see our writing scores this fall because she said that there's a reasonable amount of growth that students can make over the course of the year and we're excited to see those results in spring. >> Wait, here. Can you speak a little bit more about the preac benchmark? Um, I guess I'm a little It just seems like obviously DPI has their standards, preac has their standard. I want to know what we really should be targeting for our students because if you're looking at 27.4% meeting

068the benchmark, that seems concerning, but is it one benchmark no matter when you take it? >> They have different benchmarks for fall and spring. >> Okay. um we really are using those benchmark scores when we're looking at students who might benefit from some additional support and we try to look down maybe about two points. Um there is always some wiggle room like if you tested one day and then tested the next day would you get the exact same score? Probably not. It would probably be within two points of the score that you got. Um so we look about two points below the benchmark and then use that information to identify some students who may be in need of additional support. I just I guess my my concern is it just seems like we don't have

069a very like in math in particular at like looking at grade 10 it doesn't look like we have a lot of kids students meeting the benchmarks. So I'm just wondering if it if we're looking at the preac is that what we should be really is that what we should be judging them on like what does it really mean like in terms of are they being successful in these areas? We are using the preac benchmarks for all of the internal work that we do in terms of looking at student growth and looking at those percentages. Um the DPI benchmarks are the ones that then get reported out for our state assessment data and on the report card. But when we're doing all of our planning, >> we are using those pretct benchmarks. Does that answer your

070question? >> So I guess I just I if that's the case 27.4 4 seems concerning that that's a like at if you're looking at 3AT for grade 10 it said percentage meaning preACT was only 27.4 four. So that would mean that 726% are not meeting benchmark. So that's a lot of students who need additional support. >> That's correct. It's also fall benchmark in a level of math that a lot of students haven't taken yet because they >> haven't Okay, >> it's fall of the school year. So as students continue on through the school year, we would hope to see growth because now they're according to >> Right. It just it just seems like a significant especially if there's a fall benchmark and a spring benchmark. You would think that was accounted for in the fall

071benchmark. So just as concerning that 72% would need support. You wouldn't want to see over half need support. But it's also 10th grade and it's not the year they're taking the exam. So they really have like a year and a half before they take the ACT from those 10th grade numbers. Right. So you're saying does that mean like they're still getting me? >> No. Sarah's correct. This is the 10th grade pre. >> So there's another there's a different benchmark for 11th. You wouldn't want a question. >> Um >> yeah, I'm done. >> So I had two and a half questions, but I'm going to build on Sarah's. Um and then you [clears throat] want me to go like one at a time and a half question [laughter] >> because the first question was going to

072be about what are I don't remember what our goal for composite was. I don't remember if it was a goal number or goal growth for like as a district. Do we have a number for that? >> We have a goal for our five-year plan. So, our goal is to build up to that over time. >> Okay. Um, >> composite score. >> So, to build on Sarah's, but if I remember correctly, this 10th grade cohort as a group had a different math experience in middle school. they were part of that group that was like doing algebra in eighth grade and then they were not ready for geometry in 10th grade or something, right? So, this might be evidence that whatever we are the kids coming up are getting math the right way and that there might

073be intervention needed or extra stuff to get them um to where they need to go because the 10th graders also take the forward. Correct. They take the forward in social studies, >> Not for math. They only take >> ACT. Okay. Um, so building on what Sarah said, does this say that they're the practice ACT? What does it tell you what our average composite is anticipated to be >> based on these results? Doesn't >> just what they scored right now for practice. Okay. Um, okay. I think that's good. I'm good for now. Thanks. >> What was the F question? >> It was one now I've like lost my train of thought, but it was something related to like our composite goal and um I don't remember now. I should have written it down. >> And I

074don't remember our composite goal off the top of my head, but it was our five-year goal that we'll achieve at that strategic plan. >> Yeah. And I guess there is a significant difference between I'm trying to like scroll between the two between 9th and 10th grade like we have a significantly more [clears throat] students meet meeting the benchmark for 9th. So it would make sense if there was a big curriculum shift but it just it's a little alarming. One of the big things that Cindy and I have been discussing over the course of the year is really how much how motivated are students to do well on the test and do they understand the importance of doing well on the test. Um >> I mean yes, they're high schoolers. >> Yes. I mean as you

075get forward in high school eventually if you decide that you don't want to go to college, if you want to go to tech school or trade school or military, this might not be something that's as important to you. Um but we still want everyone to put forth their best effort even if you don't think now it's something that will benefit you. You don't know where your life is going to be in four or five years. >> Absolutely. >> When the scores are still valid. >> Well, now are there other than it in that then if you're thinking that way then what other tools do we have to like measure success and accountability? because are we does everything line up that saying that there really is 70% that need support or are other benchmarks? Okay, >>

076love that you mentioned that. That's what we've been working on with Cindy um Cali Witz, our school psychologist and then our two instructional coaches is what are some of those other points that we can also look at especially when we're making um and encouraging course decisions for a second semester. I just want to make it clear that those math skills are important no matter what field a kid is going to go into. So, like whether you're going into engineering school or whether you're going into the construction trades or, you know, um something else, you it's still good to have your your math skills. And I think that when the district asks a student to take a test here, you're going to do this test and we're it's going to help us understand how you're doing

077that, you know, we should have an expectation that the kid is going to participate and perform um just as they would with anything else. So, that's a culture thing in our school. Um, I don't want to change our system of how we're looking at things just because, you know, we're struggling with motivation right now. Um, yeah, and a lot of schools are going to test optional. You know, I have a junior and I was just looking at a bunch of college information and a lot of schools are going test optional, but when you're looking at aid awards and merit, you know, those test scores that, you know, still make a a significant monetary difference. So, >> absolutely. And for our community, a lot of kids are going to be looking, you know, a lot of

078kids would benefit from eight awards. So, >> yeah. And that's a tricky thing to figure with optional thing, right? universities are going to it. But I mean the state of Wisconsin and federal government actually would tell us that you need to have 90 was it 90 or 95% of your kids >> taking the test or else your what happens is and I don't remember if it's 90 or 95. >> So if it's you have to have 95% of your kids taking it. So then any anything below 95% they still use a denominator of what your 95% number would be. So you just get a bunch of zeros if you don't. So it's it's that's that that can be a difficult thing when we have that's why we're trying to rechange that attitude >> uh throughout

079our high school like this is an important measure that that we're using even though your colleges might not be requiring you we still are held accountable. I wanted to add to that to say that like I agree with what you're saying and I also my biggest concern is making sure we're supporting students in the way they they need to be supporting and seeing the growth we need to. So aside from even one test on one day in any one given score, I want to know do we actually need support 72% of our students because that means there's something going on wrong in tier one instruction if 72% need support. >> Yes. Um, another I don't want to change the subject away from that because I think that's a very important point. Um, but one of

080the things that we did at the beginning of the school year, I say we, I mean the high school. Um, is a presentation for all of our students on how these scores are used, who looks at them, what do we use them for in school, and then what do they mean for them for their future? um and they had all the grade levels together in the auditorium and talked through the whole presentation um as kind of a first step into why these tests are important to take seriously. >> Well, and I know at elementary schools we do a lot of things like incentives for this. I don't know how well that works at high school level. I haven't worked with high school kids and I know that it's not as novel once you're 17 and

08118, but just what we can look at to help motivate beyond just the like we're going to look at the score because we might need something else too. >> Yeah. And one of the things, you know, I know speaking with Cindy, one of the things that they're working on as we get started, you know, she gets started in her kind of tenure here, um, is they're going to be looking at how do we expose kids to the questions? >> Yeah. >> Uh, that are important, right? You know, one of the interesting really interesting things is like you can go chat GPT and say create >> ACT style questions and ELA or math or whatever and it'll do it. >> Um, and so we've talked about the concept of like the bell ringer said where kids

082come in, everybody sees the question, everybody works on a question for a couple minutes. You talk through the question with the teacher and the way everybody sees that level of question all the time. So, I know they have some really great plans as they go forward. >> I was going to say, you know, how you mentioned the writing prompt and how um because I'm a high schooler and so we were just at conferences and um the way that they score it isn't even necessarily as much on the content as it's on how it's written. And so helping them learn how to take the test, which you know, it's that's a skill in itself. And the ACT is a stressful test for a lot of kids and it's a very long test versus like 20 minutes

083in some of the elementary school testing, right? And so I think just knowing I've had two high schoolers, I have one right now and um it's a stressful test to take once, let alone these practices and multiple. And so I can see why I've heard from students myself how maybe that fall one is not as seriously taken and it's it's not a simple test. It's not I mean not that the other ones are but it's also not a short test. It's not a fun test. It's you know it's the preac. So >> and it's one of the first time tests yeah you know of a four >> it's a hard test few years ago for exams few years ago stopped being timed. >> Right. which students don't have a concept >> necessarily of that. So

084that's all stuff we're looking at. How do we, you know, grade it was great when we were in a nth grade classroom the other day. The teacher said you have 15 minutes to do this quiz. And she said because when you take the ACT, >> you're only going to have so much time to be able to finish it. >> Yeah, it was great. >> I think I'll just add that, you know, one of the things that we could do culture-wise is look at how we're training kids to be deep thinkers. You know what I mean? So if you say it's a hard test, then you know kids gradually get used to doing hard things where they don't seem like they're so hard anymore, right? Because they've got that ongoing exposure to it. And so and

085then the whole, you know, thinking about your thinking, reviewing mistakes and all of that and not looking at the mistake as a just as feedback, you know, it's feedback. It's not judgment. It's just, you know, okay, what what's a different strategy I can use and those types of things. So there's a lot of um opportunity here to look at how we might do things and do some fine tuning. >> Most definitely. And that work is already starting a lot of it. [laughter] >> Um I have one more question. This is I think my half a question. Um because it's not related to us. >> Aren't they like not scoring? Isn't science not going to count for something? >> That's exactly what I was going to segue into is changes to the ACT. So not written

086in the presentation. Um, and we'll share more about this with you once we are firmer on how we're adjusting to these new changes. But ACT is making some changes that will be enacted this spring. This is nationwide. This isn't just the state of Wisconsin. Um, they are some of the changes include the science test is going to be made optional for the national ACT. Our students will still need to take the science section. Any students who are watching out there, the state of Wisconsin requires that you complete a science assessment that's in federal law um for state assessment. So, they will still take the science part. However, that will no longer be part of the composite score. The composite score will now just be English, reading, and math. They're also changing the structure of some

087of the questions in both the science and the math components. They're changing the number of questions and some in the timing a little bit. So, there are some structural changes that are coming in the spring for the ACT. >> Did the PRA did the practice one represent those changes? >> They represented the old one, which is, to be fair, a little more challenging. So, the new one will be a little bit shorter, lighter for the students when they take it in spring. And [clears throat] we'll share more clear information about that once we have a a firm grip on it ourselves. They kind of threw it at us at the beginning of this school year. Um, Adam is not with us today, but if he were, this is what he would be speaking to. Our

088current and future steps based on all of our universal screening data. Um, we are doing a lot of work with tier 2 instruction this year. um not just looking at how do our how do our screening data inform our tier one instruction, but how do we help those students who may just need a little bit of catching up or really targeted support in a specific skill area. Um so we're using our data to drive some of those decisions. We're also looking at our math and reading intervention systems. Um making we're doing some retraining with our interventionists, with our classroom teachers. Um we have our new district literacy specialist who's been doing some fidelity checks on our interventions in reading. So really ensuring that those intervention systems are as tight as they can be. Um we've

089been doing some more professional development on data literacy. Um we had great professional development day in October where we worked with groups of teachers um on how to understand their universal screening data and then use it to help plan their instruction. Um we're doing some additional progress monitoring. We are seeing some really interesting things um and hearing great feedback from teachers who are progress monitoring. Now, it's a lot more work, but it gives some really useful information for them when they're looking at student growth and the next steps for students. Um, and then again, we're looking at our focus on ACT readiness. Um, looking at specific strategies, like Brady said, introducing some ACT style questions um into more of our classes and really making sure that students are prepared not just with the content, but

090also for the test itself. Can >> I just add >> any final questions? Um, I just wanted to say I really appreciate everybody doing all this work. Like this is the like part that is really important moving forward. And this isn't easy work. Like we're not a factory popping out little cubes that equally are the same every time. It'd be a lot easier to teach if that was the case. Um, so even though like I we need to make sure we're holding ourselves accountable, like I do appreciate and see that everybody's trying really hard to make those improvements and change the curriculum and change how they look at it. >> All right. Well, if there are no other questions, since you're already still up here, we'll move on to 4C 2024 2025 district and school

091report cards. Well, she's getting set up. Just uh you know, the school report cards came out and Dana will talk a little bit more about this recently. We had this on the agenda to share with you all on in December, but since the um the uh planning commission meeting for Hail's Corners is also on the 15th of December. Uh we're hoping to make that a little bit quicker meeting. Uh so Dan was able to put the presentation together to share with you all uh this time. So, we apologize uh for adding another presentation in, but um when Jesse and I talked about it, we felt that it was important to be able to hopefully get me down to the plan commission meeting um on the 15th. So, we wanted to kind of condense that meeting

092a little bit. So, we'll work on making that one really short for you guys. It is a, you know, free holiday gift as well. >> Plus, everyone likes more data. So, >> um okay. So, like Brady mentioned, state report cards were um recently publicly released a couple of weeks ago. Um I am going to go over some of the initial information a little bit quickly. Alicia, I know you're the one who hasn't heard this before on the board, so if you have questions, feel free to interrupt and I'm happy to jump in. Um but we this is mandated by state law. We have four specific priority areas that we'll look at in the presentation. Um there's [clears throat] five different accountability ratings and then this report card data supports all of our work in pillar

093one which is the engaging student experience because it looks not only at achievement but also growth target group and then attendance and on track to graduation. We have some changes in report cards this year. I feel like someone at some point will make a remix of me saying that in board meetings lately. There's been some changes. Um this year we are using two years of achievement data in our achievement scores because our forward exam changed last year. Um so that was a standalone year. This year we are using two years and then next year we will be back up to all three years um of data in our multi-year weighted average. DPI also enacted a standard setting process over the summer. This was in the news so um this may not be new information for

094you. They had a statewide advisory group that used um they used to determine and update score thresholds that define their performance levels. So this chart that's on the right hand side shows you the different accountability ratings. The names for those have remained the same. Um but it also shows the previous score range, the new score range and then the changes that were made by the standard setting panel. The reasons why those scores have gone higher is because of the changes to the state assessment system where we had our forward cut scores change, our preacct and ACT cut scores change and as a result we saw our state achievement scores kind of slide towards the higher end. So they wanted to make it more challenging to achieve some of those higher level scores, hence the increase

095um in points required to achieve those higher levels. Another big change this year as a result of those score cut score changes is that we are now norming achievement and target group outcomes areas to growth because growth as a state is based on a state norm. They are now norming those other scores to that growth score so that all of those areas are more of a nice bell curve rather than skewed to the right. Again, if they used the same calculation that they've been using previously and norming those other scores to the achievement area, everything would be skewed toward the higher end. They wanted to ensure a more stable distribution. Um, and then additionally, and everyone will love this, because we've changed the calculation of the achievement scores, we cannot directly compare our achievements priority

096area and component and overall scores. So we cannot look at this year's um overall score and say we've made so many point growth from the previous year because they're using different calculations. The second year, [clears throat] right? >> Yes. And we will we'll look at all the report card changes over the years in a couple of units. Um on the next slide, this just shows how our different component score areas are calculated. This is not a percentage. It's not 0% to 100%. It's a multi-year weighted average where everything is done via fancy mathematical formulas and then they are normed to a comparable scale scale score of 0 to 100. Um it is in some areas almost impossible to achieve in 100. In some areas it's a little bit easier but you can see on the

097chart below that we are using data all the way back to when we look at chronic absenteeism. So there's a lot of different years of data included in the 2425 report card. It's not just our 24-25 data. There's also some areas that include only students who are at the school or a district for the full academic year. And that's defined as third Friday of September up to the date of testing. Um any students who are not here for a full academic year are included in those right-hand column areas. um but not areas like achievement and growth because they weren't at the school long enough presumably for the school to make as much of a difference in their growth over time. So the overall score is a weighted average of the multi-year weighted averages in the

098component areas. All that being said, this year Whit School District achieved a score of 78.6 which is a performance level of exceeds expectations. We were at the 86th percentile for all K12 districts in Wisconsin with that score of 78.6. Um, so doing better than 86% of districts in the state, which is excellent to hear. If you take a look at the top part, there's all of our different district demographic information that can be compared across years because that's information about our students and there's no scoring involved in that. And then if you look at the little pie chart in the bottom right that says priority priority area weights that is based on our percentage of economically disadvantaged students in the district and that changes every year. Um this is in state law that the greater

099your percentage of students considered economically disadvantaged the more weight the area of growth has um to kind of balance off that achievement those achievement and growth areas. So, if you look at our last year's report card, you'll see that that pie chart is going to look a little bit different. And that's because we have a different percentage of economically disadvantaged students as we did compared to last year. I believe it went down like 1.1% into something pretty small. >> It's also why it's it's difficult to compare districts. Like, if you're going to look at this total score, it's hard to compare two districts because the scores are based on different priority areas. That's what we do though. >> That's what we we don't Well, yeah. I mean, >> we don't look into that. People look

100at the number, right? [clears throat] >> Yep. Yeah. That's >> okay. So, looking at our school scores, um we have some additional successes to celebrate. Both Edertton and Hell's Corners Elementary achieved um a rating of significantly exceeds expectations this year. And both Whitnell Mill and High School achieved a performance level of exceeds expectations. Um, Whitnell Middle School had some of the highest growth of any surrounding middle schools in the area from last year's report card score. So, even though we can't compare our growth in score, we can compare how much we grew to how much everybody else changed. Um, and we had some pretty significant growth. So, that was a very big celebration. >> And that that that needs to be honored because we've fallen short there for many many many many years. and uh

101things are changing and that's really good. >> Yes, Chris and I met today to discuss how we're going to be sharing and celebrating with the staff. Also, >> um on the next slide, we can see kind of a distribution of our overall scores over time. And Cassie, this is what I was just talking about when we look at how things have changed. Um, in the last 10 years, we've had five different changes to the state report card model or contents of the state report card or calculations of the state report card. It is very difficult to compare things when things keep changing. Um, we can again compare our growth to how much everybody else grew or our change to how much everybody else changed and see did we change more than other people. But that's

102really comparing how we did to everybody else. And if everybody else did really, really well, it might look like we did exceptionally well or exceptionally poorly in comparison. So, while we can use this as an accountability tool, we also keep in mind that it's a lot of complicated math behind the scenes and even small tweaks can change things in a pretty significant [clears throat] way. However, we can still celebrate the achievements that we've made this year. Um, and we are doing that with our staff for sure. Um the next few slides will go over some of our district level information for each of the four component areas of the report card. So for achievement, our priority area score this year was 76.5. You can see down there that we did a little bit better in

103math as a district than we did in English language arts. Um however, our achievement score was in the 81st percentile for the state. So our achievement score was higher than 81% of other districts in the state. Um again this is using two years of data. Um they weight the recent year more heavily. So if you have had a better year for achievement in the most recent year your score will be a little bit higher but then that effect will continue to carry on now for the next three years as this year will continue to be counted in the next um two subsequent report cards. And then our achievement score was about it was almost 30% of our district overall score in terms of weight. So these priority scores are all out of a hundred, but

104they're not percentiles. Percentiles are different because these are weighted based on our weighted categories and their math. >> Yes. >> And multiple years in multiple categories that varies depending on what you're talking about. >> Yes. So our score of 76.5 is the multi-year weighted average of 2425 and 2324's forward DM preac and ACT with writing scores. Each score is assigned a point value and then it's calculated as a multi-year weight average. >> Do we we don't look at do we look at every grade within that or I know like grade three is a heavy hitter for their scores >> as third through 11th grade until >> third, fourth, fifth, sixth, seventh and so anything below third isn't counted on this achievement. >> Correct. >> So for ele for elementary it's K through 2 doesn't count

105for the elementary either. >> It doesn't go onto the report card. Correct. >> Okay. It [snorts] does for in terms of absenteeism like attendance rate chronic absenteeism [clears throat] but not >> okay >> currently but you never know right because now we feel like that's the >> who knows >> next year it'll be different again we know >> um so you'll notice over on this side so our priority area score is the one in the circle and then over on this side you'll see this is the distribution of achievement scores across the state so this is where we scored in the 81st percentile for the state and you can See how it kind of makes that nice little bell curve with a little bit of a skew to the right. Um that's a result of

106that norming process when the state norms these scores to grow. Um the next slide is a little bit small so please take a minute to peruse this kind of at your leisure. Um but what we want to look at is blue and purple. Um blue is our percentage of students who scored advanced on state tests. Purple is our percentage of students who scored meeting. Um so that will show our growth over the past year. We want to grow the blue and purple. We want to shrink especially the orange, but we want to shrink the yellow and orange. Um, as we can see when we look across our different buildings. Um, we achieve that in a lot of areas. Um, most of our blues and purples grew or stayed the same from the prior year. Um,

107and then especially our blue area, our student scoring advanced. Um, if you look in the area of math in almost all of our buildings, it grew or stayed the same as the prior year. I think what's really noticeable here though is the high school um that you're seeing less blue in high school. You know, again, this is something also that I think will be really interesting to look at both this year and next year because we currently have that group of eighth graders that has been historically high achieving. um will we see a drop in high school and is that a result of the type of test that students are taking, the standards that they're being tested on or the instruction that we're providing? Because there's a lot of different factors in the segment. >>

108Um and then for the elementary is for the achievement, is this one of the areas that's hard to get up to like 100? like if it's almost impossible to get to 100, at some point you're going to reach almost like the top of where like they're just because of how they norm. >> Um, no, this is just straight up percentages of students with those scores on the test. Um, our goal is to get to 80% of our students proficient or meeting or advanced in both ELA and math at the end of our current strategic plan. with the tools that the other tools that we have >> that we can drill drill down and find you know these you really can't right >> this is all in aggregate correct >> yeah exactly >> they want to

109avoid any personally identifiable information so on report cards any group smaller than 20 is not included >> yeah so you really just review this and take it for what it is >> correct this is our accountability data for ourselves and our community but it's not really useful for us in terms of instruction because we have more details that help us Okay. Um when we move on to our priority area of growth, um this is the one that is exceptionally complex to the point where DPI gets a third-party person to calculate growth scores for the year. Um it uses a value added model and this is to take some of those outofcontrol factors into account such as um economic disadvantage, English language learning. Um and it's intended to show how much of the growth that students

110make can be attributed to the school um and to the district as opposed to some of those out of control things um that we clearly do not have any control over. Um, this is reported for all of our students and our subgroups and it's on a scale of 0 to six and it's normed for the state. So, this is where we would see that really nice bell curve again. Um, because a score of three is considered average for the state. Um, a score of six would be exceptionally high growth. A score of zero would be um far less growth than other districts. Um, then again, they take those scores and they put them on the scale of 0 to 100. We had a math growth score of 81.2. Um, so we had much higher growth

111in math. Um, and we had an ELA growth score of 69.8. An average score for the state and average growth score is 66. So we were above state average growth for both ELA and math, but much more significantly in math. Um our goal for one of our key performance indicators for our strategic plan on the dashboard is we want to be at or above um the 90th percentile for growth for every year. And this year we hit the 90th percentile right on the nose. So we meant that um the next group is or the next um area is target group outcomes. And this is like a mini report card for our students who are scoring um in the bottom 25% of the district. Um so we do have students in that bottom 25% who are

112scoring in that um meeting range. Um but it also includes mostly our students who are scoring developing or approaching in our different content areas. Um so this is a mini report card that includes achievement growth um and then our on track to graduation looks at attendance um and chronic absenteeism. So this is 25% of our overall component score. Um and we were at the 72nd percentile for the state in target group outcomes. Um something that when we share this information with the principal, something that we discussed is that this is really our biggest area of opportunity in terms of we have a list of students who are in this group. We're able to really see where these students need improvement in. Is it reading? Is it math? Is it both? Is it attendance? is attendance

113causing a significant issue where you can't learn if you're not in school. Um, and then we can really use that information to specifically determine students that need that assistance and what they need to do. >> Just go ahead. >> If they're meeting, why are they in a target group? >> Because they're still in the bottom 25% of students in the district when you look at their scores. That just means our scores are so high that we have two we have more than 75% of our students meeting. So then it's the bottom ones. >> So it's compared against our own kids. >> Yes. This is just for our kids. Okay. >> So if every single kid in our district was meeting or advanced, we would still have a target group. It would just be the kids

114are performing the bottom 25%. >> And that's where we would use our own tools to identify those children. >> Yes. So DPI has some really great tools that can anticipate based on last year's test scores and attendance which kids might be in the upcoming year's target group. Um and we've started taking a look at that tool so that we can use that to see which stu have we correctly identified the students that we're currently helping as students who may be in need of. [clears throat] Does the state take into effect like excused absences versus not? Because like for medically complex kids who miss a lot of days, >> those are exempt absences. So those are not reported to the correct. >> Um and then the next um component area which is on track to graduation.

115This is the one that looks at both attendance rate and chronic absenteeism. Um so that's something that we have been working on very hard as a district over the last couple of years, especially postco. I'm sure you've read the news and you've seen that chronic absentee absenteeism is an issue across the nation. It's not just us. It's not just in Wisconsin. Um we want to make sure that kids are coming to school because you can't learn if you're not in school. Um so this looks at schools and districts on how we are progressing students towards completing their K12 education. So, in addition to chronic absenteeism, it looks at attendance. It looks at graduation rates, and then it looks at those two big um achievement indicators, which is third grade reading and eighth grade math. Um

116to give props to our eighth grade math math teachers from last year, that score really carried us in this area as a district. Um because our eighth graders really excelled um in math last year on the forward exam. They do weight the components differently based on district versus school and elementary school versus high school because high school doesn't have eighth grade math for example. Middle school doesn't have third grade reading. So if you look at the different school report cards you'll see that they have a little bit of different waiting in this area. Um but overall from on track to graduation we were in the 85th percentile for the state. Um so our on track to graduation score was the same or better than 85% of other districts. Um and then to kind of tee

117up our um schoolboard gallery walk which is coming up in January with our building leadership committees. Um our report card data is part of what supports and guides our work in pillar one. And this summer Brady put a challenge to our buildings as they were developing their annual building action plans. and that was to think about the one problem or challenge that if you solved it would have the biggest impact on your ability to achieve your vision for students. And our building leadership committees got together over the summer. They looked at copious amounts of data including a lot of data that was um included in the report card and then also our staff survey and our student survey and they really dug into that question and used a lot of that to set their building

118goals. Um, so they established five goals for each building on these five areas listed here. And then we found interestingly even though the building leadership teams did not work together, a lot of their goals were very similar. And I was my position was so pleased to see that because that shows that they are really digging into the data and seeing some of the same patterns come up across the buildings. So we're having this year across all buildings an emphasis on using common assessments so that you can do shared analysis across teams like I mentioned before more progress monitoring um curriculum consistency and fidelity so making sure that everyone is implementing the curriculum to fidelity in the same way um and then for students and staff our area of student respect which we know is an

119area that we want to continue to improve and then our staff professional growth. Um, so I've been really really proud of our building leadership committees this year because having this question from Brady really helped them drill down their data to think about this one specific thing that you can make action steps for in the year and they're really taking and running with it. Any questions on state report cards? >> I have a comment. >> Good. >> I'm um really encouraged. So kudos to the team and let's keep let's keep growing that growth score in particular. So well done everyone. >> So yeah, congratulations to to everyone who worked very hard to get us to where we're at. We appreciate everything that you do. >> Thank you for our late vote. That was a lot of

120talking for you. [laughter] >> Thank you. We'll move on to 4 D school board liaison reports. Just going to kick it off with the middle school PTO. Wasn't a whole lot um in the meeting in terms of planning. They are starting to plan for the eighth grade promotion celebration. Um I know that there is a lot of work that goes into that. So, if you are an eighth grade parent, please reach out to them and they will instruct you on what they need help with. Um, or show up to the next meeting and you can find out too. Uh, I know that there is an eaten earn in December. I just can't remember. >> 17th. >> The 17th. >> Yeah. Noodles. >> Noodles. And then it starts at 4, right? And that's Hail's Corners. That's

121right. >> Yep. Noodle sales corners December 17th starting at 4 pm and that's all I got. Move on to Ederson. >> Um we have our PTO meeting coming up on it's always the first Thursday of the month. So I want to say that's next week. Thursday. Yeah. I was like it's December next week. Um so that's at 6 PM in the library. That is a new time from last year. You also can do it join virtually that gets sent out in our inouch. Um the book fair did come in. We ended up profit we we don't consider a profit but we got a little over $5,000 in scholastic dollars which go right back to our students and teachers in books. Um we consider it a book buying event and not a profitm event. But that

122means we sent um sold over $10,000 in books and trinkets and things because the book fair has lots of other things. Um we also have pancake breakfast coming up with Santa coming and you can come and get photos with Santa for a small donation. Um that is on the 13th of December. Do you know >> looking at me? >> I you usually got you usually know about it. 13, 8:30, and 10:30. >> And there also is a shop that kids can come in and shop for their families. Um, you can even come and stand in the hall and some volunteers will help your students shop for you if they would like to buy you a little gift. All of those items are um reasonably priced, like under $10. Um, and so it's a really fun

123time for students. I really, really love that. We usually have some middle school volunteers who come and wrap presents for us. Um, and then we have lots of volunteers from high school and middle school help make that possible as well as parents. So, pre thanks to that. Um, you do need to pre-order pancakes if you are coming for breakfast. You can come to the holiday shop in Santa without pre-signing up, but if you want pancakes and sausages, pre-sign up. They need to know how much to make. Um, and yeah, it's just a really fun time. that is not necess the shop is not a profit making event. It's just a fun thing for kids to be able to do. >> We move on to the squares. >> All right. Our next meeting is January 20th

124of 2026, so into the next year. I always get the calendar year wrong for a while. Um couple it's we're moving into concert season is starting and one of our fundraisers is you can enter a raffle for front row and second row seats. So, if you have a kid coming through a concert at HCE, consider that. Uh, the big push for the holiday season fundraiser is the raise fundraiser. So, you use the HCE code in the Raise Write app, which used to be the Scripts app where you buy gift cards. So, if you buy a $50 gift card, you get a $50 gift card, but the school gets a percent the PTO gets a percentage of the sales. So, it's easy peasy. You're not paying up for anything like you do for some of the

125other fundraisers. And I think that's everything major. >> All right, we move on to music music boosters. >> All right, so um we had our last meeting last just this past Tuesday. Um Mama Mia was a huge success at the high school. So thank you to everybody who attended and everybody who participated and um just in any way who was a part of it. That was a just really really fun event. Um thank you to the music staff for the recent um fall concerts and um there are several more coming up with one in December on the 11th and that one has an event afterwards. So uh it's a fun event where they're selling tickets for $5. You get um stuff to do like cookie um decorating. There's going to be apple cider hot cocoa

126[snorts] um and other family activities in the cafeteria at the high school after that concert. Um they just finished up um they just ended the poinsettia uh fundraiser and so those will actually be at that December 11th concert. So I'm going to decorate the stage with the poinsettia. So um really pretty. Um they really need more volunteers for music boosters. So, if you're a music family parent, um they would love for you to come to the meetings. Uh and they have two of the members of their leadership board who are going to be graduating this year. So, looking for more parents to be involved. The next meeting is Tuesday, December 16th at 6 p.m. in the high school choir room. >> Move on to Greenfield Park and ride. So, our meeting was planned for this

127Thursday and because of Thanksgiving, they moved [clears throat] it up to last Thursday and I was out of town. But what we did vote on were um price increases to uh fall for a lot of our events and some of our rentals. So, definitely took place. >> Great. Uh Rachel's not here for Hail Corners Parker. I'll move on to SWSA. >> So, yeah, I was on the last call. A couple things of note that were talked about was the proposal for school consolidation doesn't really affect us, but there was some talk amongst the members about that and there was also some talk about was being called the act 20 for math. Um, which right now there's not a whole lot of details about it. Um, SWSA isn't taking any formal position on these. They're just

128kind of keeping an eye on things as they go along. um as you saw and as Brady just has let us know, the cell phone um bill was signed and so that will be probably our most significant thing to take a look at. But there's several things um going through the legislature. A couple things that are heading to the governor's desk include um teacher prep allowing summer school to count for student teaching, um parental notification of sexual misconduct by staff member, um something that they're calling the Boy Scout bill, which is access um to provide information to pupils on school property and military recruiter access. >> Great. Thank you very much. We'll move on to 4E superintendence report. >> Okay. A few things have gone on since last time we got together. First of all

129was our um we hosted the uh the semianual senior dinner uh in conjunction with a performance in Mamia. We had 260 we fed 260 seniors uh that night which was pretty unbelievable and impressive. And then we had >> [clears throat] >> uh we had a great show that night and then we had uh nearly sold out shows uh every single night, Friday, Saturday, and Sunday. So uh my family and I was able to were able to get to the show on Saturday night and it was it was a great show. So the the kids did a spectacular job. Uh the other thing that I'm really excited to share about uh I don't know that she's going to put it on Facebook. I I've made her I've told her she has to, but she controls Facebook

130and the Facebook and I don't know how to I don't have the password. Uh we we received a uh spectrum award from the school um communications organization uh for the Whitel window uh which was uh pretty pretty great. Uh there were several different um people in that category that received that award. We got the best in category as well. So, uh you know, the work that Brenda has done has been terrific. Um I think the the window is is great. By the way, it's the next one is coming out uh in December. So, that'll be very great. But uh I just wanted to make sure that Brenda got uh a shout out uh on that. It's fantastic. We we went to OT and received [clears throat] the award. So, it was great. Um both the

131middle school and the high school had parent teacher conferences uh in the last couple of weeks. We had two, we've had two walk of champions the last few weeks. The first one was for girls swim Maya Miles. Uh she went to state. She took sixth place in the 100 freestyle and then eighth place eighth place in the 50 freestyle. So congratulations to her. We'll have her come in and we'll recognize her um soon. We also had we're we're getting that season of holiday concerts or uh so we had both the high school and middle school band concerts this uh last week and then we had our our other walk of champions was for our drama club. Uh so Winnow earned all an all state award for qualifying for the state festival where the students enjoyed

132workshops, performances and college production of Ride the Cyclone. And we celebrated Mila Pepic uh receiving an acting award for her portrayal of Juliet. Uh so that was fantastic. We hosted the uh a business partner launch where we invited a bunch of business partners and we just talked about the different opportunities that we can provide and we talked about those mutually beneficial partnerships of how how can we um essentially provide students uh to you to to learn your various crafts. So that was a a successful thing. um middle school had their week or monthly lunch with a veteran last week and they had five local veterans uh including Harold and it was his birthday. So if Harold happens to be watching, happy birthday Harold. And then uh Miss Tenton held her first school Japan enrichment field

133trip uh where students rotated different st rotated to a different different stations where they participated in different interactive experiences to learn more about Japanese culture. And if you remember the students be going to uh a group of students will be going to Japan uh this summer. And then finally, you know, it's it's just crazy to think it feels like we were just starting up the school year. like not long ago going. We're already kind of on the precipice here of the Thanksgiving break. So, I just want to make sure I wish the board a very happy Thanksgiving. Uh anybody who's watching a happy Thanksgiving um and our staff a happy Thanksgiving. I hope that everybody has a a great um few days off and is able to rest and relax a little bit. So, uh

134thank you for everything. We're we're very thankful for everything that you all do as well as, you know, our staff and our our students and families. That's what I have. All right. Thank you. Move on to five action items. 5A, consider new course proposals. Do I have a motion to approve 5A? So move. >> I'll second. >> Any discussion? >> Anything change, Brady? >> Nope. Nothing changed. >> All right. All in favor? >> I >> opposed. See none. 5 A carries. Moving on to 5B. Safe Pro Technologies Otteria system proposal. Do I have a motion to approve 5B as presented? >> So moved. I'll second. >> Anything change, Brie? >> Uh just I sent you the detailed contract with the full proposal in it that we worked with uh the legal council our legal council

135on u making sure um you know I know Jesse asked a question about the the technology. Tony's worked uh with them and Greenfield uh who's has part of the system in um and and that will um that will work uh uh just fine. Um overall I think it's a it's a neat opportunity for us uh to be on the kind of the cutting edge of some of the safety stuff. So um yeah, but nothing nothing. >> So has legal okay? Yeah, they've added that that contract I put in the board packet [snorts] and they're they're they're good with all of that as is um safe. [clears throat] >> Just to confirm it is at no cost to us and we have the ability to terminate the agreement with them. >> Yep. And they'll take everything

136out. >> 15. >> Yep. >> Days. Yeah. Okay. >> All right. Any other questions? If not, all in favor? >> Opposed? Seeing none, 5B carries. We'll move on to six announcements. Does anybody have anything for announcements? >> The craft fair is coming up, I think, December 6th. Um, I forgot to mention Enderp will be there. They have a table this year and they'll be selling spirit wear, but also it's just a really cool event. People come from all over the state. It's actually quite amazing how far people travel for this craft fair and it's quite a large one. So, if you're free, it is familyfriendly. Um, it's large and it's on December 6th. >> I will add, unrelated to us living here, it's my mother-in-law's favorite craft fair and she goes all around the craft

137fair. So, >> yeah, they've sold out. >> She loves it. So, >> they've like they get their max of [clears throat] crafters, you know, displaying their stuff and there's a wait list every single year >> and our like concessions benefit some of our student groups as well. So, there's definitely and obviously our booths benefit our students. All right. If there are no other announcements, >> we'll move on to seven. Meeting debrief. Does anyone have anything for meeting debrief? >> Hearing none. Do I have a motion to adjourn the meeting? >> I'll second. >> All in favor? >> I oppose. Say none. Meeting is a journ. Thank you everyone. >> Happy Thanksgiving everyone. >> Happy Thanksgiving.