001of the Winneconne Community School District Board of Education. It is April 20th, 2026 at 6:30. We are in the Winneconne Middle School Library. Our meeting notices were sent to members of the press, members of the school board, and were posted on the front doors and or in the vestibules of district school buildings. This is a meeting of the board in public for the purpose of conducting the school district's business and is not to be considered a public hearing. There may be a time for public comment as indicated in the agenda. The meeting will also be available to watch live at www.youtube.com/winneconne. Um, please rise and join me in the pledge. I pledge allegiance to the flag of the United States of America and to the republic for which it stands, one nation under God, indivisible,
002with liberty and justice for all. Roll call, please. Stelsner? Here. Calwert? Here. Verrett? Here. Acklin? Here. Harter? Here. Kunde? Here. Hanson? Here. Uh, recognizing our administrative team, we have Dr. Larson, Dr. Michaud, Dr. Hughes, Mr. Jerabek, Mr. Katie, Ms. Horvath, Mr. Pitch, Mr. Minear, Mr. Sippert. Getting in? See anybody? Okay. All right. And visitor recognition for all of those that are here, welcome. There is a sign-up sheet um back on the table. Um, we would appreciate you signing in so that we have a list of attendees. Um, and it is now time for open forum and we will start with uh Kimberly Zeller. And where do I go? You can go right there. You can just stay right there. Perfect. Um, good evening. I'm here to speak in support of Carly Horvath as the next
003principal of Winneconne Middle School. I want to start by saying I did not know Carly before working in this district. This isn't a recommendation based on friendship. It's based on what I've seen consistently every single day. Carly is honest. She operates with a level of integrity that built that builds trust among staff, students, and families. You always know where you stand or where she stands and more importantly, you know it comes from a place of doing what's right. What stands out most to me is how she treats students. Sorry. >> [laughter] [snorts] >> Day in and day out, I've watched her interact with kids from those who thrive who are thriving to those who are struggling and she meets every single one with love, respect, and dignity. She sees them, she values them, and she
004holds them accountable in ways that some of their parents don't. That combination, strong character and genuine commitment to students, is exactly what our school district needs in a leader. I believe Carly Horvath is not only qualified but truly the right person to lead Winneconne Middle School forward. Thank you. Uh, Melissa Tretow? Hi. Hi. I'm just here to thank everybody who came out to the Rise um art show. I saw some board members [snorts] there and it made me very happy and some past um staff members also came to support these wonderful students. I I got a lots of wonderful treasures in my car. >> [laughter] >> My mom actually drove up all the way from Milwaukee to come to the event and then went straight home after it and she said it was just it
005was wonderful. So, um thank you for having that. And also with um like what Kim said, I'm here in full support of Carly and Mr. M. Um You can't get better than that. That's I'll leave it at that. Uh, congratulations to Lisa on her retirement and Mr. Schrader. And I do want to share a story of my son Jordan who met Mr. Schrader. First time he saw him when he walked into the middle school, he says, "You need to retire." >> [laughter] >> That's Jordan. That's my son. >> [laughter] >> He will tell you how it is. So, now he's actually retiring, so congratulations to him. Uh, thank you Mrs. Stelsner and Mr. Harter. Am I saying that right? Hey, Harter. Uh, for your time on the board. Congratulations to the new ladies that are
006joining. Um I also wanted to just touch base on the early childhood position. I haven't really seen much about it if um if if we hired someone or if we didn't hire anyone. I know you can't really answer those questions, but I mean, I see about a bunch of other things about other teachers and stuff. Um, so I know our wonderful Mrs. K is retiring who is a lover. She's wonderful and it will be interesting to see who will fill her shoes. Um and I just want to say I I briefly looked over that that slideshow um that these young men made. I I got to say holy moly guacamole. Um, that was impressive and I I especially like the part where it says um like how safe is the drop-off and the pick-up for
007the elementary school and um the results I think were pretty I think it was more towards not safe or I don't you you can explain that. Um because that's something to think about. Winneconne can get a little cray-cray um drop-off and pick-up at the elementary school. So, um good job on those slides, young men, and thank you. Thank you. Cindy Adams? I'm here. Just got a couple quick little things I wanted to to touch base and say hi to everybody on. Jackie, thank you so much for all your years. Really, thank you. And Nathaniel, again, thank you for your time as well. We really do appreciate you all. Um, and I just want to ask real quick I'm going to send an email to you guys. I didn't get a chance cuz I know when
008Friday when we were talking it was kind of a rush. Storms were coming and we were just kind of trying to get everything out of the really quick at the very end. But thank you both so much for spending time with us and answering some questions and getting some things going. Um, I I what I wanted to ask and I we didn't get some chance to go over it, but um I'll email you guys if maybe next week if we could put an agenda item on to just kind of go over what we're going to do um in the next couple of weeks with getting the um like what we're going to do um with getting the what do you call it? The the election process is going to work and how we're going to
009do that whole thing, but I'll email you guys and just see where I'm coming from and what I'm trying to figure out. I just want to make sure that I know what I'm talking about. >> [laughter] >> Um, but then [clears throat] last and the main thing that I kind of wanted to just say was I know there's a lot of people in our community that are hurting right now. I live right by the firehouse and I'm seeing everybody kind of going with the sandbags and oh my god. I'm kind of scared right now. I'm seeing like water is like two blocks from the house. I'm thinking, "Oh my gosh." So, I know there's a lot of kids and probably teachers and um staff and [snorts] everybody's probably feeling it, so our prayers are with
010y'all. Okay. With that, I'll close the open forum. And moving to the open session part of the meeting and I would entertain a motion to approve the consent agenda. So moved. Second. Moved by Verrett, second by Calwert to approve the consent agenda. Um, any questions, comments from the board? Roll call, please. >> Stelsner? Aye. Calwert? Aye. Verrett? Aye. Acklin? Aye. Harter? Aye. Kunde? Aye. Hanson? Aye. Um, and next up we have some high school students who are going to be presenting um on a study that they did. Um, so welcome to you and I would like to uh recognize Mr. Arps as their leader and um to uh Andrew Sperling who um took second place in the architectural design in the State SkillsUSA Leadership and Technical Conference. SO [applause] UM, WITH THAT, I'M GOING TO
011INVITE THE BOARD to go out in here if they would like to watch, which I'm going to do because It's a little easier. >> [clears throat] >> Well, good evening, everyone. Uh, those of you who don't know me, I'm Chris Arps. I'm a tech ed teacher here and uh I teach the Project Lead the Way Civil Engineering and Architecture class. So, um I get the easy part of just introducing the first two slides, [clears throat] talking about the project, and then these guys are going to take care of all the hard stuff. So, um to begin, this is a uh this is a school project. Um, and by all means, um we are trying to make it as real as possible. So, uh these guys last year have taken the class um the civil engineering
012class. Now, within this class, we do a credit with Fox Valley Technical College, so they earned a credit in Autodesk Revit for the construction management program, which will also transfer to other universities if need be. Um so within this class, we study design, estimating, heating and cooling, water runoff, water supply and drainage calculations, zoning, building codes, and beam design. So there's a lot um that these guys have gone through. Um Uh both of these gentlemen, and one couldn't make it tonight because he's he's he's sick. Um but uh they will introduce Lincoln. And so um so both of these guys are planning on doing a some kind of career, hopefully, in this. They're going to be phenomenal architects and or engineers someday. Um but we needed something more. Uh we had to have something more
013to give them a challenge. So thanks to Dr. Mishad, we created an independent study. Um and then we needed a curriculum. Okay, where do we go from there? So we reached out to a local contractor who uh got us in touch with an architectural firm down in Milwaukee, and together we built a curriculum or they built a curriculum for us to follow um so that we could go in and see um the fruits of our labor and to see these guys actually put forth their design. So the fig- the focus in the architectural world becomes what's called as a design charrette. And to kind of give you a book definition for this, it is a an intensive workshop in which various stakeholders and experts are brought together to address particular design issue. So the project
014is an elementary school. And why did we do an elementary school? It's because it's what we know. It's what we kind of have worked in and also have have grown up in. So um it's also uh a process of being able to go in and look at what we currently have and through the students to throw their thoughts together to kind of say, "Hey, how how would we make things different?" And really push the the aspect of design and challenge kind of how we want to uh create a building. And I think you'll be pretty impressed and with the results. Um With that, we reached out to the local contractor. We actually toured uh some various schools. So we we toured uh schools uh that are one has been built uh about 13 years ago,
015another just recently here in Menasha. And so we were able to gain some input um and things like that. The students also seeked uh input from Dr. Larson, Dr. Mishad, and Mr. Katie um in how to design a building. That's part of the charrette. We got to gather all this input. And then as a result, we sent out a fictitious survey uh to the community, and thank you for those that for answering that. Just so we had data to make decisions, because that's what's driving uh the factor in how we're going to approach the design aspect. So therefore, the next slides you are about to see is uh most of the fruits of their labor. We actually present this um on May 15th to uh a bunch of real professionals. So we uh we have
016to make sure we kind of hone all this in and and uh fine-tune everything. So thank you for allowing us to uh give us a chance to kind of work out some the grease or work out the kinks. So without further ado, I will turn it over to the men of the hour here. So All right. Next slide. Uh so this is not a real project. We are not architects yet. Uh we are not professionals, so we'll leave it to the professionals. But before we start, my name is Andrew Sperling. I'm a junior at Winneconne High School. I'm on the varsity soccer team, and I would love to pursue a career in architectural engineering. Uh hey, my name is Evan Zeller. I am a senior at Winneconne High School, and I'd like to pursue a
017career in construction management. All right. So again, project clarification. This is a hypothetical school design project. This is not real, and it will not be built, but we would love to see aspects of our design in a potential future build for the school. This is create- strictly for educational purposes. We're trying to make it as realistic as possible because we want this in-field experience to be able to talk about and bring into college. Uh again, helping us through the design process, we choose this school because it's familiar. We're in the buildings every day. We're in school every day. And a lot of the schools that we got to tour recently for the civil engineering class were elementary to middle schools. And the focuses that we would like to include are our planning, the problem-solving, the
018design thinking, and our critical thinking. It is hard to build a school to specifications met or wanted by a contractor. It is hard to fit in those specifications. That's what I had to do at SkillsUSA. It is hard to do. So we're going to try and give ourselves a challenge, and it's going to be fun. All right. Oh, this is you. >> [laughter] >> All right. So when it comes to the design process, it was uh difficult when we first started because we had no idea in what direction we wanted to head with the project. But with the help of uh uh Meyer, and we were able to actually come up with a rulebook uh a course guide that would help us do that. And uh when it comes to the design process, there's something
019called project drivers. Our project [clears throat] drivers were site conditions, project timeline, purpose of the building, and cost-effective and efficient design, which is a major aspect of design is how do you get your client, the community, to put their money and funds into a project like this? That's the reason we did the uh the survey, obviously. Uh educational goals, sustainable goals, and then budget budget for the project, and then community engagement. Community engagement was one of our most important driving factors. You will see that in the presentation. So for our data summary, uh some of the big points that we want to mention are that 60% of the responders would like a new elementary school to be built with many suggesting it to be near the middle and high school where they currently exist to
020make a sort of campus. 80% of the respondents would like to include portions of Winneconne history in the new design. This is something that well, uh we stole from the other schools. Uh we really liked that a lot of these schools have part of their culture into the building. And the two most popular budgets that we received were either 50 million or 80-plus million dollars. Which is a lot, but schools are expensive. And almost every respondent believes that the elementary school needs more space. So it's something that we really wanted to focus on that this will be a larger building than the existing [clears throat] one. First question design process was uh do you think that a new elementary school is needs to be updated? With uh As you can see, 62.3 said uh yes,
021build a new school, and then 22% yes, redo our current building, which we actually found out that that is way more difficult than actually building an entirely new one. It actually end up costing us more money. We'll talk about that later on. And then I want to make it clear, Andrew did mention it. Uh you got to keep in mind, our survey was very small. It was about 107 107 people. Yeah. Um Some key aspects that we really liked uh about our current um elementary school was the art that they had right there, the mural. That was kind of cool and popped out. That was cool that we kind of wanted to do something similar to that, and we really appreciated that and how that kind of gets the students to kind of look at
022that and be like, "Oh, wow." It's that big eyeball moment where they open their eyes. So going back to the maximum budget uh that we touched on earlier, you can see this is probably the most divided of the responses we had for budget-wise. Of that, we do have a lot of people saying that they do not want this school built, but we have a much larger majority in the 50 million, and then second place was the 80-plus million dollars or more. While it is very uh divided, we really do think that these are the two budgets that we could shoot for, but uh we actually talked with Kevin Barbor, who is at the Eppstein Uhen Architect [clears throat] Firm. He worked with us, and he designed the Maplewood Intermediate School. When talking with him, we
023were sort of about the design. You can go back one. Uh where we can see here, uh which I believe is in the uh paper, actually. Um he said that a design like this, and even a scaled-back version of our design, realistically would not fit in the 50 million-dollar mold. Schools are expensive. Middle schools and elementary schools are incredibly expensive. The intermediate school that Maplewood built for Menasha was a 99 million-dollar referendum for one school with four grades. Now we have a school that is going to be fourth 4K through five. It's going to be a lot cuz it's going to have to be big to incorporate this and the growing learning environment. So respectfully, the 50 million-dollar budget that it was the most popular, we do not believe would work in the case of
024this project. >> [clears throat] >> Uh we asked a question, uh would you believe that would you like to see a specific piece of Winneconne history within the design? The overwhelming majority said yes. And then uh the next question we asked was centered around can a new school improve pride? Which when we say that, can it improve the pride in the community? Can it improve that get more kids to want to go to school and less kids to pretend that they're sick so that they can leave school? Cuz that's that's always a concern. That's something that we don't think about. So it's obvious that we needed to somehow get that included in the uh Later on, we had a conversation with Mr. Arbs earlier this semester, and he was talking about he was talking about
025the past football season and how he had seen the community come together, which I had seen as a member of the football team. I had seen people offering to bring food, that kind of stuff. And the question was is how can we somehow harness that and put that into our design and get people more invested in the community before asking for their money. >> [laughter] >> Inspiration. This is where the inspiration came in. Working with Myron we were able to tour actually Lake Mills Elementary School and also Menasha Maplewood. >> [snorts] >> Yeah, which was a which was a school that we got to visit. And we took a lot of different things away from that. But a key aspect that we really took away from that is we were walking through the school we
026get there and they have this this big fish. If you know you probably don't know the history of Lake Lake Mills but they have this fish because they're big fishing community, right? That's something that they do out there that gave us inspiration of how could we bring elements like that, elements from our community, right? And bring that into our design and get more community engagement again, right? When we walk into the school they have this mural. It's literally a mural that's like basically from the floor all the way up that kids can look at, right? That goes back to the beginning when I showed the our current elementary school it has that mural, right? A mural like gets kids to look at that and wow. So again we thought hey how can we implement elements
027like that and that kind of inspired us. Another story that I have is there was a particular member of the the former school board. He was retired, older fellow. So we're walking through the school and at first when I saw him I didn't really think much of it but he's walking around and I see all these little kids giving him touching his hand saying hi giving him fist bumps. And I uh I thought it was so cool that how how he could be engaged even though he had been gone for so long and it seemed as though he had actually been in this school a lot of times and he had gotten to engage with the kids and he comes there a lot and gets to engage with the kids. And what was the coolest
028part was him actually showing us this mural. And uh when he was showing us this they actually implemented a little heart in the mural and the kind of game that was it was to find it. Miss Larson remembers that. I don't know if you were there Miss Machado. I think you were there but yeah that was part of the game that was kind of something that the kids could do which is cool. Another element that they included is all these elements tied together and brought a sense of community. And I can I can certainly talk about that forever but I'm just going to use an example a video that they actually had that they showed us of how they got community the students and uh the [cough and clears throat] community to engage in that.
029Those walls were supposed to be painted like the sky. >> [music] >> And the tabs that are coming down from there are supposed to be clouds. The blue cushion there is supposed to be a lake and these bookshelves that wind is called a winding river. The old lunchroom was like a cardboard box. The windows is even probably like a cardboard box. This one one entire wall is covered with windows. Yeah [snorts] I played a video to get your heart strings. >> [laughter] >> Um >> [clears throat] >> So this is one of the ways that we wanted to implement some Winneconne history into our design. We really like at Myron headquarters they have this green wall where there's a bunch of living plants where they sort of can have this little lush of green and
030this little touch of outside. So we sort of wanted to incorporate was that an entryway of that we have a green wall with a frontal sort of projected uh outline of Lake Winneconne. Because one of the biggest parts I we feel of Winneconne is the waterways. Is that it's a fishing community. The Wolf River is huge. It's the wall I run right now and I'm very sad I haven't gotten out on that enough. But that was one of the pieces of history that we wanted to include. But something else about this is that we wanted to make it functional. This actually would serve as a security barrier. We want to have this in the entrance so we can have as an opening and wide open lightly lit or brightly lit entrance while still having security
031where this could serve as almost a partition wall that could provide as a barrier for active intruders. Uh the other thing that we wanted to include that's not pictured up here because it would have been really really hard to design is something that we'd like to do around the school is a sort of timeline of Winneconne. But then once we get up to the present area we would have liked the students to be able to add on to it themselves. Want to make this where you can mark it up where eventually at the end of the year they could add their own piece of history to the Winneconne timeline. Where every year your fifth grade or the fifth grade class would be able to make their mark on this on the school's history on the
032actual school. Just another way that we can sort of promote that this is your school. Enjoy it, use it and learn in it. Uh our current uh pick [clears throat] up and drop off area safe. This is just basically the general senses as you can see. >> [clears throat] [cough] >> Yeah this is not a real project. >> [laughter] >> Uh new drop off and pick up lanes. So it's actually not fully completed yet but I'm basically going to explain the general idea. So general idea is to the way the way Myron has it the way they set up their architecture design is they put in place certain aspects of the overall design to protect the kids, right? So the way they have it set up is at the front of the school they have
033these planters set up and they're just fully concrete, right? They envelop the basically landscape. They're within landscape and the idea is if there's kids out there playing if a car comes through they can't get to the kids if something happens that kind of stuff. And the way we the way we plan to do that is we plan to do we're going to design a I think what was that? Was that 5 ft? It was less than it was four. Four? It was a 4-ft concrete slab and the kids are going to be actually elevated as they're getting on their buses. And then out off of that we're going to have an area where they can directly get to their buses and we're just going to they're directly going to funnel from into the school onto
034this platform and they're going to be able to step onto their buses. That way you don't have kids running around and that way also you can have less teachers actually out there monitoring. I don't know how many how many teachers tend to monitor a lot. >> They all have to walk their classes out so every teacher is out there after school. >> Yeah the idea is if we do that we can get the uh the teachers less teachers out there, right? They can go home to their families and get more teachers into the school district and want to teach here because of that. They get more time to themselves. Uh and then so for the environmental sustainability and efficiency um we had very conflicting results on this portion of our survey. So over here you
035can see that the environmentally uh sustainable and energy efficient was not a very popular feature in our survey. But then you come over here and it says if we were to do an environmentally sustainable school that would save you money would you want it? Yes. Everyone here wants to save money. I would love some extra money. But when you phrase it as the environmental sustainable some people might think of going overboard. We don't want to go overboard. We would like to keep it efficient still. So for what we would like to do for our elementary school for the carbon reduction policy is that we want to incorporate some sustainable design features. Some things that we could look to implement are solar panels, EV chargers and energy efficient systems. We'd like to utilize the Inflation Reduction
036Act to access government funding for these features and actually our school in general. We would like to overall lower construction cost, reduce our carbon emission environmental impact and implement systems like LEED and Lean in the construction process. So LEED is basically the sustainability grading system for buildings. We worked a lot of with it for Myron and in our design process for our civil engineering and architecture class. Yeah I know. So last last year uh the class got to attend with Myron the Northeast uh Construction Alliance Council. So within the Fox Valley all of the largest uh construction companies get together and along with heating and cooling um the trades so on and so forth and implement different uh different ways of providing the most efficient way to build a building. And so we got a
037chance to spend the morning um with people from all over the Fox Valley uh and get a chance to kind of learn a little bit about how that works. So sorry guys. With the implementation of uh they just talked about LEED. With Lean it's focuses more on the construction aspect cuz well you can spend as much money as you want up front but it's those costs that you don't think about. It's those construction costs, those back orders, those things that happen within the construction process that end up actually costing you a little bit more money than you intend. But with the implementation of Lean construction is we can actually minimize that as much as we can. Reducing the costs [clears throat] and saving money and actually trying to draw more money back to us that
038we can use. And again some other additional sustainability features we would like is improved air quality systems, rainwater collection systems, a green roof for sustainability purposes and actually outdoor learning. And creating a healthier learning environment for students. And again our design will be focused on ways to reduce carbon emissions and reduce our actual environmental impact while also promoting driving more cost efficient solutions because that's what they said you guys said you wanted. This is what the community wants is that they want lower cost overall. So that's what we're going to work on through sustainable features. Importance of secure entrance. You can see almost everybody was pretty >> [cough and clears throat] >> like the idea a lot. And then there's some people that were a little bit mixed on those feelings. >> [laughter] >> Uh
039secure entrance layout. So, this is currently what it looks like. Uh impact resistant coat of glass rapture security system. I believe they have it they have that up here. They have it at the We have it there. Uh yeah. So, we'll implement that just just stay on brand with everything. And then uh lock system. The way we design the building, which we'll show in the overall, it's divided into two wings, but those wings are actually divided into smaller wings, which have doors that will actually close off. Uh and again, just to finish up our data summary, some of the focuses that we've gotten from this data is that we want safer drop-off and pick-up plans. Again, as you said, you that's something that you would like as a parent in the elementary school. Again, we
040think that's a very community-wide uh opinion. Again, secure entrance is our number one priority for this one is that we need safety. It's an elementary school. They need to be safe. In the world we live in today, as sad as it is, we need to protect the kids from active threats. We want an inviting and collaborative learning space so it doesn't feel like you're learning in a cardboard box. And we also would like it to be well-lit. That was one of the things that was said on that they would like a more well-lit environment. It feels like you're you're learning in a dungeon at the current at the current elementary school, at least in my opinion. That there are classes in the basement. No one wants to have a class in the basement. You'd love
041to see the outside. Even though when you're learning, you really don't want to see how nice it is outside cuz where that's where you could be instead. Oh, sorry. Uh and then some current issues with the building that we have right now that were presented in the survey cuz one of the questions we asked was what are some issues you see in the current the current building? Sort of hoping to address those in our building and focus on staying away from methods that would create these issues again. So, some of the issues we found was mold, a rodent infestation, an extreme lack of space, and outdated spaces and utilities. Essentially, it needs an upgrade badly. And this would suck to learn in. Blatantly, this would be horrible that if you go to the bathroom, you
042might see a rat or be breathing in mold. That sounds just horrible and our students should not have to be in that type of facility. Initial whiteboard draft. Uh this is really I'm in the design process. As uh as we went on, the design changed a lot. It began to shift. [clears throat] We got rid of some stuff, but this is just general. If you want to explain a little bit. Yeah, so uh whiteboards have been my favorite thing this entire independent study. Uh if you can't tell, this is a lot of whiteboard. So, we essentially started off with that we wanted it to be a unique shape beyond a square. Square seemed really boring and we thought we couldn't do as much with it as a more unique square or a more unique shape.
043And then the other thing is that we wanted a lot of natural light. So, if you can tell, every classroom actually has access to windows. There was not a single classroom that is on an interior part of the building other than some like different classrooms like our music suite or guidance rooms. Uh we have separate lunch rooms for classrooms. This is something we saw in Maplewood that instead of having this one central lunch room like we have here, you guys can have a smaller central lunch room along with smaller sort of uh islands that where they can all serve their own food, but it's still all cooked in one central kitchen that's distributed to others. So, you can have a more efficient lunch line and you can probably schedule it better without having to schedule,
044oh we have to have these grades in here at this time, we have to have this grade in here at this time. Now, you only have to schedule between two grades or maybe three. So, it'll be a lot easier we think for the administrative side of that, too. And again, these are all rough dimensions and we've erased that plenty of times. We have gone through it, redone it in every way you could think of. But, this is sort of what we have for our rough design before we actually hopped in the technical drafting of Revit. This is uh >> [clears throat] >> what we finally decided on. As you can see, it kind of shapes a W from when you're looking above it. But, yeah, if you can see as Andrew just explained, the lunch
045rooms are there's multiple lunch rooms. And uh the way the lunch rooms work is I like how uh when we actually toured the middle school is the lunch room isn't just a lunch room. You can use it for multi-purposes. You can use it if you want [snorts] to get an entire grade level in there to hang out. Teachers can have classrooms. So, we like that. So, that's how we designed it is they can do that. You can do that with that lunch room. You can get kids in there just to hang out. You can get classrooms. You can hold inside recesses in that. And with having it a bunch of separate little lunch rooms, you can get an entire grade level in there [snorts] instead of just a few people in there. All right. So,
046this is what our general classroom layout looks like for I think was this uh This is 4K. No, no, no. This is the upper grade level. This is first grade. First grade. So, We like the idea of what they did at Maplewood with these flex rooms on the outside, which still teachers can take students in there. And then uh if a student need one-on-one time with teachers, coaches, instructional coaches, that kind of stuff, they can take them in these rooms and they can just have one-on-one time with them. We like the idea of how they brought natural light in, so we put these big old windows on the outside. You took windows there, so it allows natural light in there. And then over here, this is just one classroom. Over here, another classroom would follow.
047Then >> [clears throat] >> for three classrooms, there's at least one flex room so you they can still bring kids in there. The idea is is out here we have functional spaces where people can work. And we're going to put I think the lockers go in there. And it's the same idea that we have here at the middle school where there lockers that aren't really really big. They're lockers that are just right above right below right where you can see them and kids can work on top of them >> [snorts] >> and do whatever. Teachers can take classrooms out there. So, we've implemented a really a lot of ideas from what we've seen and brought together. And so, one of the things that we are implementing this that is was a lot different than our
048original design is actually we would like to include a sort of miniature sports complex in this. Uh when we were actually um working on this one day, Mrs. Mishod came by and mentioned that we had a lot of gym space. And she said, "I'd love to see if you guys could do something really cool with that." So, we did. Uh so, what we would like to include So, this is our gym space currently. Again, currently in the elementary school, we have two gyms, one that's smaller than the other, which doesn't have a full court. So, you're already actually getting more standard gym space than before. With our maintenance area being closely connected to this with our food service up here, so it has a good flow between the two. Uh down here is the actual
049sort of um sports complex. Where in this area, we have all of our um Well, we have gym teachers' office, storages, a small weight room, and another small cardio room. Now, over here is something I'll touch on later, but this is another way that we are trying to include the community. The community involvement driver for us. So, this is the field that we've designed. It is a lot larger on as you can see, it sort of juts out at the bottom. But, what it would include is you would get almost a full half football field on it and a large portion of a soccer field on it for those indoor trainings. It also provides another way that we can do our indoor recesses. Indoor recess at elementary school was boring. You sat in a classroom,
050maybe you got to play with Legos, but really you were [laughter] antsy as could be. And I'm betting, as all the teachers would probably tell you, it would suck to deal with a bunch of little kids that have not gone outside for the day. >> [laughter] >> Now, there is a huge open green space for them to do that in. It also provides a space for athletes [snorts] and teams to use it in the winter. Where uh as for example, Javon's football team, if the practice was super muddy or got stormed out, they could still do small-sided drills. For my soccer team, again, summer not as big of a deal, but for the girls, the girls have been practicing on basically a swamp this year. My sister complains about it every day, so I hear
051about it plenty. But, if they could have an indoor facility to use for this, it would be a we think it would be a really good benefit for all the schools because all the schools can now use it. And so, back to the community involvement, here we actually have a locker room. You don't really need a locker room for middle schoolers. Again, this is gym class. But, what we'd like to do is we would like to be able to open this portion of the school to the public. We have an entrance here where that it would be completely blocked off by these lockable doors. And all these doors here, so they would have access only to this, the locker room, and a little bit of the weight rooms over here. So, what we'd like to
052be able to do is we'd like to be able to open this up to the community for say maybe a rec league or just people that want to get active when on a rainy day. Or people that want to have access to a facility that isn't an outside varsity field. So, that's just another way that we're trying to make this extra cool little thing functional as possible. The uh if you want to go back a second, the actual idea is to is that the it's separate from the main entrance so that building, like he said, it locks off, but it has a different entrance. So, and then it has its own separate parking space, too. Uh current second floor layout. We had uh a lot of ideas that came up last week, so we decided
053to just hold off on that. >> [laughter] >> Cuz we took we took we took a lot of we took a lot of it apart just for that. So, yeah. That's a little hint. And then uh we'll leave this for any questions you have or any ideas [clears throat] you'd like to throw out, that kind of stuff. We do have a 3D uh model of the first floor that we printed out if anybody wants to see it. It's just an 8 1/2 by 11, but uh right now the computers hate us when we start rendering these things. So, um yeah, and it's holding on for dear life. So. Less of a question, more of a comment. I love how you guys are involving the community in this, and uh the detail is amazing. Thank you.
054Very nicely done. Uh for your roof, did you think about that? Is it a flat roof? Does it have a pitch? The roof is complicated [clears throat] because uh the way we've designed it is uh actually So, the second floor the second floor we couldn't decide where to put it. Uh we don't have it right now up. But, um Go back. >> There we go. There we go. >> [cough and clears throat] >> But, the second floor actually extends from basically right here over there, and it comes off of that. So, you're basically replicating what's down here back up here. And then right in the center right here, uh I shouldn't [clears throat] be explaining all of it. But, um right in the center here is the library. But, basically where the roof comes off,
055the roof comes off there, and then it's a flat roof from this section of the building it'd be basically a flat roof. Right here it'd get a little wacky because you'd put you'd actually have another entrance right there. So, you'd have to change it, which we can get really fancy with that, which isn't cost effective, but that's all right. But, yeah. [laughter] So, So, we do that over there, and then over here is um I believe the library the library comes off >> [sighs] >> you made me explain it. So, library comes off, and Mr. Arps is going to hate this, but we take the idea back from um Midwood. No, no, no, no, no. Was it Lil' Shoot? It was Lil' Shoot. It was Lil' Shoot. And there cuz Yeah, the thing that they
056didn't that he he hates most about uh Lil' Shoot is actually the roof. Uh you would explain it so much better. It has a Yeah, it has a pitch, so it comes off a really sharp angle, and they had to pay for all this glass coming in. Which I mean, it's a fictitious project, so we can at that point we can just mess around with >> [laughter] >> Which would be some fun 3D modeling. But, yeah, so it'd come off like that, and it would basically come off like that come off like that there, and then they'd look overlook the entrance of the building. And then over there it'd be a flat roof right there. And then it would um it's actually going to change right here because the commons area and the other lunchroom
057comes off right here. But, you actually we actually want to put a lot more space right there. So, it's going to be uh it's going to it's going to come off a little bit. There's going to be a bit of an overhang there. It's going to come off the uh I should [laughter] stop explaining. You guys don't understand. A lot of understanding some angles on some of the parts that we've liked to emphasize. Yeah. >> [clears throat] >> So, that that's that's going to be fun to model up in Revit. Should be in the next few weeks here. I only know a little bit about Revit, but like in this program it's actually calculating like beam or load balances. Like you're actually having to put like beams in specific places for stuff, right? >> We
058don't have to for a lot of the Revit models, but we if we have the time, we would actually really like to put in it for at least a section of the building to sort of again a little extra detail, a little more realism because this is a more architecture we would say base project with a lot of the a little less of the math of the civil engineering part of it. But, we're still going to try and include that at least in part of the building, but it doesn't automatically put it in or require it. >> If we could just cuz Myron like it, we could just go ProjectLeadTheWay teaches the maximum design method. So, it's also used at MSOE in their structural engineering and their civil engineering courses. So, what we do is
059we're only looking at it from a static standpoint. So, everything is in should we say a static equilibrium. So, we look at picture a three-dimensional plane with a an X, Y, and a Z. So, we analyze a point at a given spot without any movement, and then statistically figure out if that beam will be able to handle all the forces that are acting on it. So. Did you start code? Have we started code? Yeah. We have a another presentation for Myron that's a little more complicated. [snorts] We'll probably do the beams. >> [laughter] >> Any other questions, comments? No, thank you for your time. THANK YOU. >> [applause] >> WE'LL LEAVE THIS IF ANYONE'S INTERESTED IN OUR curriculum or anything. >> [clears throat] >> Next, moving forward, uh elementary Spanish position to a STEM-like teacher.
060This is Larson. >> Sure. Um Dr. Houston and I are requesting that we move to a STEM-like teacher in our elementary school with some inquiry and exploratory learning. This um would replace our current Spanish position. Um that teacher is retiring, so we are looking at means of um what to do next with that position, and we felt the STEM area very appropriately so fitting with with the high school district presented as well. So, a new curriculum, if approved, would need to be created, and a teacher secured. So, we like to bring this forward to you first. I don't know if you have anything to add. I think I pretty much summarized um I think it's just another opportunity. Um you know, language development is higher-level thinking, and that's one of the things we kind of
061talk about is how to keep pushing our students. And so, this is another opportunity to keep growing kids and get more critical thinking and um learning that making mistakes is okay, that's how we learn, and just focusing on um problem-solving, real-world problems. And this um teacher would be housed in the elementary school. Right. 4K through 5. Uh any questions, comments from board members? My daughter will be very sad. She enjoys Spanish. Yeah. And we recognize that, too. Yeah. And none of the programs will be changing in middle school or high school in our Spanish department. Lisa, I had to do I had to look up a little bit um >> [snorts and clears throat] >> as far as the STEM, and it's like this is very hands-on learning, correct? Yep. Like get your hands dirty
062>> maker space kind of stuff. Okay. So, yes, we are we would have to find a space. Right. Which is interesting. >> [laughter] >> But, we have some ideas if, you know, um it happens. But, you're definite Yes, Katie, we we definitely need um space to do it. Okay. My kids were excited at the idea of it cuz I was like talk to me about this because, you know, I know the high school has STEM, I believe, but this would be brand new, and I was like, "Well, what do you guys think?" And they were like, "Yes!" A couple of different grade levels kind of dabble in maybe a unit or a project. Um our academic tutors do some like coding with some little robots and things, but this would be, you know, for everybody
063versus a little pocket of something here and there. And this would be like specials. So, like >> Yes. is it's like instead of going to Spanish once a week, they would go to Right. this once a week. Correct. Okay. Anyone else? Um is there a motion? I'll make the motion. I'll second. Motion by Kundi, second by Harder to approve the elementary Spanish position to a STEM-like [clears throat] teacher for the elementary school. Any other questions? Roll call, please. Cowards. Aye. Verch. >> Aye. Ackman. Aye. Harder. Aye. Kundi, Istellner. >> Aye. Hansen. Aye. Uh open enrollment policy uh 5113. >> [snorts] >> Mr. Kundi. Okay. Um at the last regular board meeting that we had prior, our policy committee meeting met and to review the copy of the open enrollment program interdistrict policy 5113. And as
064well, uh we did have Lauren Dodd with us. Specifically, as you read through some of this policy, it is specific to some of the areas of special ed and and allowances and so on. And as we go through the policy, we'll point out the new language and some of the areas that we definitely want to make sure we understand that had not been in the policy prior, so it's new language. And keep in mind for our district at this time, the open enrollment coordinator is Jenny Halsteder. Um she is a is the individual that takes care of our our open enrollment as far as coordinating. Um 8-1 of policy 5113 open enrollment program interdistrict. Any questions on the first page of the policy? >> [clears throat] >> 8-2. As you see, um there wasn't an
065elimination of all siblings of currently attending students that we did take out um in the language. We do have in there all currently attending students. Like, can you explain that to me cuz it it says it's for projecting availability. And my understanding of it if there's sibling coming in, we typically make room. I guess explain that and how does that work? But with Go ahead, Nanali. Sure. Um, so Julie, I actually find that clause is in a different area. But as far as projections, it was really hard for us to say, "Okay, we know we have a first grader who's open enrolled and then they have a a 2-year-old at home >> [clears throat] >> and a 1-year-old. And so if that's why we took it out of our projections. So when we do our
066projections, if you recall, in a special education, they're mainly filled. We look at current numbers and go from there. So this was It's just we moved it this topic or this part to a different area of our policy cuz we don't want it part of projections. Does that answer your question, Jen? It certainly does. Thank Okay. Any further questions on 8-2? 8-3? The one thing I always do that in I like to point out to recognize the fact that when we have notification and dates and so on and timelines, as we go 3/4 of the way down on the policy, where it indicates the district shall notify the parent of a student accepted from the waiting list of the student's eligibility to attend the district unless a student has already enrolled in a different non-resident
067school district or has since became a resident of the district, the notice shall state the following. And it does indicate the date, at least 10 days calendar days from the date of the notice by which the parent must accept the open enrollment approval. Failure Failure to timely accept shall be considered rejection and the approval shall be considered rescinded. That's always something that we want to make sure when we have dates and times and and notifications within our policies. Any other questions on 8-3? Uh, I have a couple of things, Mark. >> Yep. Uh, one's an FYI. [clears throat] As I was reading through the state statutes, um, it says DPI, well, it's Department of Public Instruction in case anybody Uh, they review all denials. And then that led me to my question. Um, do we
068have to turn away any applicants any year or every year? Every year. Yeah. We have capped. We do. We have more applicants than space available. Okay. In 4K, I'm anticipating we're doing another lottery. So, um, I believe off the top of my head, I think we have 28 spaces available and if we have 30 applicants, we do a lottery. In your other areas, they just close and people will apply to. Sorry, Nanali. And if you recall, though, that came to us in January and if we didn't have this policy, we would have to take all children that open enrolled. But by putting the caps on it, we are we're able to cap it in the grades and special education that we need to. And just for clarification, if someone was on the waitlist, didn't get
069picked, but they moved into the district, they're automatically >> Correct. And if you recall, I believe we have what, eight spots? Did we talk about eight spots or extra spots for residents? >> We always, um, leave eight, uh, spots in on hold for resident movements. And the other thing, Dean, to your point, when we have that lottery to to actually pick out of a hat or pick out the names, we have to videotape that. That has to be kept on record. The procedure of that is what we have to do. Okay, anything further on 8-3? 8-4? 8-5? As you've noticed, that's listed in there, the attendance officer shall review the matter and provide a response to the parent of the student. The attendance officer is the principal, um, at each of the campus buildings as
070far as the attendance officer. Anything else on 8-5? 8-6? Ready. I'm [clears throat] bringing it forward from the policy committee. Our recommendation is to approve the policy um, policy 5113 with the addition of the new language and the points of the questions that were asked. I move to approve the policy as presented. Second. Motion by Harder, second by Ackman to approve policy 5113, open enrollment policy as presented. Roll call, please. Verich? I. Ackman? I. Harder? I. Kunde-I Stelzner? >> I. Kalwitz? [clears throat] I. Hansen? I. Um, the, uh, intergovernmental agreement between Amherst and Winneconne for the, um, use of a therapist. Uh, we share a physical therapist with the School District of Amherst, which has uh, worked out very nicely and has saved the district, um, about $60,000. Um, we used to contract with uh,
071CESA for this service, but uh, have recently entered into agreement with Amherst. So, we need to approve this, um, interagency intergovernmental agency agreement. I just have a quick question. I We We've seen this before. I assume nothing has changed in here other than dates and maybe some dollar amounts. >> Correct. Okay. I move to approve the intergovernmental agency intergovernmental uh, between Amherst and Winneconne School District. Second. Motion by Verich, second by Kunde to approve the, um, agreement [clears throat] between the District of Amherst and Winneconne for the therapy services. Any other questions? Roll call, please. Ackman? I. Harder? I. Kunde-I Stelzner? >> I. Kalwitz? I. Verich? Hansen? I. Um, job description for the elementary assistant principal. Uh, this is in your packet to review. Few changes, um, from what was previously um, as as it
072was previously. Are there any questions or comments from the board regarding the job description? And then I would entertain a motion to approve. So moved. Second. Motion by Harder, second by Hansen to approve the job description for the elementary assistant principal. Any questions? Yes, I have one. Uh, it would be line 15, uh, establish a handbook for volunteers. What exactly does that involve? What does it involve? Establish a handbook for volunteers. Does that mean to like help reading or Uh, any volunteer. So, a handbook on how to become a volunteer, what's needed. Okay. Mr. Em, I believe already has done that once. Excellent. >> [clears throat] >> Okay, I have a motion. Uh, roll call, please. Harder? I. Kunde-I Stelzner? >> I. Kalwitz? I. Verich? I. Ackman? I. Hansen? I. Uh, the [clears throat] '26-'27
073teacher contracts. These are listed in your packet. Um, any questions or comments? I move to approve the '26-'27 teacher contracts. Second. Motion by Verich, second by Stelzner to approve the '26-'27 teacher contracts. Roll call, please. Kunde-I Stelzner? >> I. Kalwitz? I. Verich? I. Ackman? I. Harder? I. Hansen? I. Uh, board reports. Those are in your packet. Um, any additions from the administration? Questions from the board? Okay. And board reports, any communications? Uh, yes, I have one from Mary Gogo on the loss of her mother. Dear school board members, thank you for the beautiful card and generous gift. Your kindness and support during a difficult time meant so much to me and my family. I am grateful to work for such a thoughtful district. Mary Gogo. Verich? Yep. Okay. Uh, committee reports. Um, HR and finance.
074We have not met since the last board meeting. Okay. Marketing and public relations, we have not met. And policy? We presented tonight and that's what we had at this time. Okay. And with that, I would entertain a motion to move into closed session. So moved. Second. Motion by Kunde, second by Who was that? You, Kim? Yeah. Okay. Hello, Verich. To move into, um, closed session under Wisconsin Statute 19.85 sub 1 sub C for real purpose of considering employment, promotion, compensation, or performance evaluation data of any public employee over which the governmental body has jurisdiction as or exercises responsibility. Specific topics will be to review the recommendation of the HR finance committee for the internal staff promotions for the positions of the elementary and middle school principal positions and to um discuss the possible issue of
075a preliminary notice of non-renewal or accept the separation agreement of one staff member pursuant to Wisconsin statute 118.22. Um the board will reconvene into open session pursuant to Wisconsin statute 19.85 sub 1 sub C to take potential action on items discussed in closed session. Roll call, please. Stelsner. Aye. Calwarts. Aye. Varich. Aye. Ackman. Aye. Harder. Aye. Knutson.