001All right, it's six o'clock. I'll call the meeting to order with roll call. Uh myself here, Melinda >> here. >> Tiffany >> here. >> John as a no. Uh Nikki >> here. >> Jason >> here. Kelly >> here. >> All right, let's start our pledge of allegiance. >> Pledge allegiance to the flag of United States of America and to the republic for which it stands. One nation under God, indivisible with liberty and justice. And then um we'd like to take a moment of silence for our previous board member um Roundy. She is on the board for 20 2006 to 2015. We'll get out for a minute. >> All right. Um, first on the agenda is letters of recognition. Um, so we had >> I'm hoping I'm not going to butcher any of these names or
002do more. >> You can. Yes. Go through them and if you butcher them, uh, we'll give you forgiveness right away. >> All right. Um, Sarah Picha, senior, so Wisconsin State Honors Band for flute. Um Ellis Swanson Jr. for girls um golfer of the year first team all conference and then qualified for WIAA girls golf individual sectionals Matias Scrock Jr. First team all conference Truman Marshall sir. >> Thank you. Um defensive player of the year first team all conference position defense. Um Levi Mirren senior first team all conference position midfield forward. Jose Navaris senior second team all conference position midfield. Mario Manzan, senior, honor, honorable mention position defender. Uh Parker Hus, sophomore, honorable mention position defender. Claire Thomas, junior, first team all conference position. Olivia Olivia Pek, uh, senior, honorable mention, position middle hitter. Jackson Irvin,
003junior, first team all conference, unanimous selection, position offensive line. Daniel Button, senior, second team all conference position kicker. Ryan Ley, second team all conference position utility player. Sawyer Vander, junior, second team all conference position offensive line. Brody Wilson, senior honorable mention position running back. Michael Bessel, senior, honorable mention position offensive line. Sawyer Vanderhave, Junior, first team all conference position defensive end. Daniel Button, senior, first team all conference unanimous selection position outside linebacker. Ryan Ley, senior, first team all conference position defensive back. Jackson Irvin, junior, second team all conference position defensive tackle. Isaac Hendricks, Junior, second team all conference position inside linebacker. Brody Wilson, senior second team all conference position utility player. Michael Bessel, senior honorable mention position defensive end. And Nolan Watska, senior honorable mention, position punter. Quite a nice list. So, congratulations to all
004of those gentlemen. And the board is finishing up uh signing the certificates um which they will also get from each one of the board members congratulating them on their achievement. >> Thanks Greg for putting that together for us. >> All right, next up is a school report card presentation from Sarah. >> All right, good evening. Um, this is uh always a good time for us to be able to share our district uh and individual school report cards with the board and the public. These were just released in early November. And so we're going to kind of go through a very high level part of the report card. Uh if you ask me really technical questions, I don't understand the math behind all of it. I just know what we need to know and what that
005means for us as a district and how we need to continue to move forward. I also want to call out that this year you probably have heard that 94% of the schools in the state of Wisconsin had improved. I am very happy to say that we were among the 94% of the schools in the the state who did improve. So um we have a lot to celebrate as we go through our school programs. Um so the purpose of the report cards there are really um are just five specific reasons why we have the school report card. So the first one is performing. We really want to measure how are our students doing in achievement. So you'll see we'll talk about achievement. How our students are achieving in ELA and math. The next one is progressing.
006We want to measure the growth. How are they growing from one year to the next when they take the uh the different assessments. Participation. This is going to be the test participation and then you'll also see there's going to be course participation at the high school level and then complete uh completing obviously completing high school is our number one goal of public education. So what do we look um when we talk about graduation rates in writing how much are students in the seats? What's our attendance um and absenteeism? So, as we go through, you'll see all of these highlighted on our school and district report card. In the past, we've always compared the report card from year to year. Unfortunately, today um we're not going to be able to compare them to what we actually
007did last year uh because they have changed in the past couple of years. So, over the last two years, DPI has changed um first of all, what they said is the benchmarks last year. So that data cannot necessarily be compared to what was done in the past. And then this year they um also had to go and do some altercations to it um at the DPI level. It's very technical or at the end of the day we're not really comparing apples to apples in all aspects. Um the only aspect that we're comparing um similarities to is both. So when you see the school and district report cards, they all have the same layout. So the first part is always about the district details. So this is going to tell you how many students there are,
008how many open enrollment and then we get an opportunity to write our own uh narrative. So each of our report cards have something that we as a district wrote about the school or the district. Then the orange is going to be the student groups that tells you basically our demographics. How many are uh e, how many have disability? How many are economically disadvantaged? And then it goes to um it breaks it down into the uh racism. When you look at the the yellow, that's our score summary. That's kind of like the the big shiny like for us. That's where you see overall as a school, as a district, how did we do? That tells you if you met expectation, exceeded expectation, or significantly exceed expectation. And then when you get to blue, the priority areas,
009the report card is weighted in four different areas. It's weighted in achievement. It's weighted in growth, target group outcomes, and on track for graduation. And we'll talk about that in just just a minute. And then in the purple, it breaks those priority areas out so you can see how they are broken out into each one of those specific categories. So, the weighted category that I just talked about, if your school has a huge um population of economically disadvantaged, you're going to be weighted in growth. How it's going to be more heavily weighted in growth. For Reichtown Community School District, all schools in the district is weighted heavily in achievement because of our economic uh disadvantaged like number. We focus on achievement. And then you'll also see the on track for graduation. Each one of our
010schools has that a little bit different. The elementary would have the third grade um ELA scores. Um but then the middle school and high school would not have that. The middle school will have the eighth grade score, but elementary and high school will not. And so that's where it gets to be a little bit different on each of our report cards on what is going to be present for that area. And then the target group that is you need to have a sufficient amount of students in each of those target groups to count. You have to have 20 students per group in order to count in a target group. So that's where it gets weighted a little bit differently depending on the school and the size of the district. There was also an update to
011the rating categories. So if you look at the top one, the top one was the rating scores uh for the past I don't know how many years. Uh this year they changed it. So they made it harder um to get to significantly succeeds or exceeds um and meets and things like that. So in the past if you had a combined score of minimum 83 you were significantly six seeds and this year they bumped it up to 84. So every category went up in order to meet that that threshold. So, and you'll see in a minute that the poor middle school judgments. So, here's just a quick glimpse, an overview of all of the report cards broken down by the schools and then by the district. So, when we look at the high school, the high
012school is going to be the one on the left. They have an overall ranking of 69.2, which puts them solidly in the uh meets expectations. And then if you look to just the right of that, you can see the tie where we are definitely weighted more in the achievement category than any of the others. So the achievement and the on track for or the target groups is he is weighted heavier than the other ones. And so that's how they're doing overall. Uh which this is an increase for them for the district. >> So the high school's been working hard. Then the middle school um is the one on the right. You can see there they have an 83.5. If they hadn't moved the accountability, they would have been at uh succeeding expectations, but because they
013moved it to 84, they're uh half a half a point away from that. So, but that is huge improvement for them. Um I know we can't compare, but really like that that's a celebration for the middle school. They've done really well. Their hard work is paying off. uh you can see there their achievement is also weighed heavier and so that is some really good numbers for them uh regarding their ELA and math in that achievement spot and then we'll go through each of these categories as a descript and then the elementary school report card is an 87.8 eight that is in the significantly exceeds expectations as well. Um and then you can see there that again more um weighted on the achievement and the achievement is incredibly high for the elementary school there. Um and
014then the rest of them are um performing well in the other growth and target groups as well. And then lastly uh how are we as a district? Uh this is also up from last year. So we have a 79.2 two, which puts us in the exceeds expectations. So, that is a huge uh round of applause to the district on all four of these report cards. The districts have done really well in our student achievement. So, we should be really proud of the report cards that um that we've had this school year. So, um as we go and dive a little bit deeper into them, um test participation is a huge part of the report card. Um, if you are not meeting the expectation, it's on the front page of the report card. Ours was not
015because this is our test participation. So, the elementary school had 100% participation. Again, this is just third and fourth graders who whose scores count towards this because this is off of the And then middle school had 99.7, high school at 99, and then districtwide, they gave us a 99.5 uh% participation rate, which is incredibly high for um our participation student achievement. This is only regarding ELA and math is what you're going to see on this report card. So when we look at our achievement, it's based on proficiency points. So when the students take the forward exam, what they are given is that if they have advanced, they get 1.5. If they're meeting, they get one point. If they're developing uh or if they're approaching, excuse me, they get.5 and if they're developing, they don't receive
016any points. So all of that goes into the calculation for the achievement and then the score that we ultimately get. Normally, it's a three-year uh comparison that we have, but again, because like I said earlier, they changed the cut scores and things like that and all the work that they're doing and revamping it. It's hard to compare multiple years, but we can go back to last year. So, overall, and this is all just districtwide. So, overall, as a district, this is this is amazing data. We scored in the top 10% of school districts in the state of Wisconsin. We scored the same or higher than 91.1% of the districts. That means only 8.9% of the districts scored higher than a Ging. So that is definitely something to celebrate. Our students are performing really well when
017it comes to achievement. This is going to be our achievement broken down again into the last two years that I can talk about. So if you look when we talk about uh advanced or meeting in ELA 23 24 we had 64.5% of our students again this is districtwide uh who were advanced or meeting and then this year we jumped up to 62 point or 66.2% 2% of our students being advanced or meeting. And then in math, we had uh 23 24 74.5% of our students were advanced in meeting. And for this last school year, we had 75.9. So we're going we're trending in the right direction for our students and their achievement. Student growth. This is this gets super complicated. This is all about value added and things like that. How they calculate this out,
018I don't know. People more higher math level than I am to figure this out. But the biggest thing to know here about growth is that it it's comparing the same um student demographically to someone in another district. So it is going to be comparing an eighth grade girl who is similar to someone in Luxembourg Casco for that eighth grade girl. How did she do in seventh grade compared to how did she do in eighth grade? what is that growth that they have? So, we are comparing in this aspect somewhat apples to apples. How they do all of that I just trust. So, um but again they have to have been um they had to have taken the forward test last year. So, when you look at the elementary the only grade level that counts to
019growth is fourth grade because our third graders didn't take it the previous year. So, it's based on the third grade to fourth grade growth. But then it does count from fourth grade to fifth grade. it can jump schools. So when we look um at our growth, we uh scored the same or higher than 52.1% of districts in the state. You can see we're falling pretty close to where uh right there in the middle where all the other um 50% 50% falls. This is going to be an area that we we know and you were here last year and heard our talk about the school report card. This is always an area that we focus on our goals for all students. Target group outcomes. This is the students who performed in the lowest 25th percentile. But
020when you think about it, it has to be the lowest 25th percentile. And you have to have at least 20 students make up that group. So it has to have a couple of factors. And then it it focuses on different areas. It focuses on achievement, growth, chronic absenteeism, attendance or graduation rate. And so it the target groups are in each one of those categories. So there are basically four different categories that we look at. So if we look at our target groups, we are performing uh 70 the same or higher than 702% of the district. So roughly we're in the top 30% for our target groups. And again, you have to have at least 20 students in the in the group in order for that to count. So when we break this down into different
021schools, that's where it gets a little bit harder. So, um, if we're going to be looking at the lower students with special education, we might not have 20 students in the elementary school who have special education or fall into that lower point. So, it can still be a little tricky sometimes when we look at that. On track to graduation, this takes current absenteeism, graduation rates, third grade ELA scores, and eighth grade math. So that's what they look at to to kind of project that on track to graduate. So what is what comprises of all those those three things and then in all schools chronic absenteeism that's if you miss more than 10% in a 90day window 90 days of school if you that chronic absenteeism is if you miss 10% of those days. You will
022see that there's a lag in this data though because what we the chronic absenteeism isn't necessarily going to be registered for last year. It's going to be sometimes it's projected out to like the 23 24 school year when our report card is the 24 25. So there's a lag. So sometimes we're not necessarily always counting all the same students. So when we look at our on track to graduate, we are the top 5% of the state of Wisconsin for our school on track to to graduate, which is awesome. So again, this is taking into consideration all of those different um those different components. eighth grade, MS, ELA for third grade, and then um our attendance. Then we have a part of the report card that does not count towards our score and this is the
023post-secary preparation. This is something that Eric and I are working hard on. So this is advanced courses, dual enrollment, industry recognized credentials, and work-based learning. And then also the arts. Again, this is not scored. It's just for our information. And this is really as you see in my next presentation something that we're focusing on in the teaching and learning. And then also the arts which is art design, dance, music and theater. So this is what we have. It's a little small story. So when we look at our post secondary um when we look at our advanced classes so these would be like those AP classes and different things like that. We have um 72 students who are participating in um at least one of the advanced courses. Dual enrollment that is where they get credit
024from another uh NWTC or UWGB in some of the courses that we offer here at school that are taught by our teachers. And so we have 120 students who have successfully completed those um classes. That's about 30 uh 30% of our students. And then industry recognized credentials. That's classes where students get a certificate when they're done. So our Microsoft Office kids, both those students get a industry recognized credentials. So we have 6% of our students or 24 of them who have earned at least one of those. And then work-based learning. This is our uh youth apprentichip students. So we had 10% of our students do that or roughly 42 students do that. So, this is uh some data that Eric and I are working really hard to to make sure is is exactly how we
025want it to look and to make sure that we're offering things that students are interested in. And then the last one is the arts courses. So, what are we offering for art and design? Uh we have 20 almost 22% of our students taking art classes. Dance, uh we do not offer dance, but it also looks like most of the state of Wisconsin does not offer dance. So, we're right along to most of them. Uh music, that is an area that we're also focusing on right now. Uh we have 48 students who have successfully completed at least one of the music. Of course, that's band choir. And then theater, uh which we also do not offer, but looks like most of the state of Wisconsin doesn't do that either. So those are postcary. Again, those do
026not count. Those are just for our information. And then what three things that we have to celebrate off of our report card overall ratings. Um I think this is definitely something to be um celebrating is that Ricetown Elementary School significantly exceeds the middle school exceeds the high school needs and uh overall as a district we exceed the expectations for the school program. We do have high achievement our ELA uh 62 uh 66.2% of our students are meeting their advanced in math. 75.9% of our students are meeting in advance. And as a district, we are we are higher than 91.1 uh% of the other districts. And then another celebration is on track to graduate. Uh that we have that we are scoring higher than 95% of the other districts um in the state for third grade
027math, eighth grade or third grade math for eighth graders. and then absentee and attendance and then always areas of growth. Um and this is growth. All three of these are growth related for us. So we obviously need to be continuing to focus on closing the gaps for all students, not just the students in the elementary school, but also the gaps for the students in the high school as well. Um ELA is a focal point for us. So we're going to continue to um invest in ELA as that's that's hard. ELA is hard for kids. So, um, continuing to really focus on all of the components for ELA and then our target groups, making sure that we are hitting the right students that our targeted intervention, our small group, things like that are for those students
028who follow those targeted groups. >> Any questions? >> I think it's great that we are eyes reading and our very well positioned in the state as far as areas of growth. Like what kind of plans do you have in mind at least initially for like ELA and helping our target group students to kind of to continue to achieve, right? I mean, like you said, it it's it's hard for kids, it's hard for adults, to be honest with you. You know, grammar is is a is a hard thing to do. Um and and so like what what areas is this like different classes we're looking at like what what is the what is the plan to to move that needle even further? >> Wait till my next presentation. >> Good question. >> Any other >> or
029thoughts or comments? thanks for your first presentation and um you know it does say a lot on our district as far as where we're placing. So you know it it tremendously reflects the staff's commitment and dedication to our students as a whole. So um appreciate you all very much. Um so continue the good work and um let's see what we're going to build on. So, next on the agenda is um the district uh director of teaching and learning presentation by Sarah. So, it's Sarah short. >> I'll um so this is just going to be a short little overview. It's going to be the 30,000 foot view of what is teaching and learning look like in the red community. So, um there's really three year-long goals that we're we're trying to accomplish this year. Uh the
030first one is going to be the re resource audit. That is our current reality. Where are we at right now from 4K to high school? And we'll look at like what does that resource audit look like? And then our programming. What are we offering our students? Are we offering them the right things? do we need to do some things differently um in order to meet the needs of other students who are changing and are we changing with them and then processes and procedures that is more about setting um and establishing routines for how do we operate as a district what are those things that we need to make sure we have a well thoughtable process as we move forward in different areas. So those are the three year-long goals that we have uh for teaching
031and learning. The first one is the resource audit. This is a year-long process. We did a kickoff for this at our August inservice. You've heard me talk about it just a little bit, but to answer Jason's question, this is this is where we're going to start digging in to what are our next steps. So, what I keep telling the staff is this is really like where are we at right now? I don't want you to create anything. I don't want you to make anything up. I want you to use what you have. And we're really looking at six different areas when we're looking at the resource audit. The first one is the standards. What standards are you teaching? Do you have your essential standards? Do you have the standards are big? Right? We talked about
032that when we approve the standards that we um that we teach. What are those 20 that we really need to be focusing on in order for them to be su successful in the next grade level? So, do you have those all laid out on what are your essential standards? Curriculum maps. That is really like your scope and sequence for the unit, for the year, for what are you teaching? And again, this is to math, to computers, to arts, to tech ed. Everybody's doing this so that we have a really good idea of what's happening in all of our areas and all of our programs. And and again, this the curriculum apps are are really like what's where is your start point to where's your end point and what what are our students going to be
033meeting your your class? knowing instructional materials. This is all of those things that they use. What are those resources that you're using to educate? So, if you're in third grade math, you should be using bridges. If you're in sixth grade math, you know, you should be using CPM, but also knowing that, yep, that's one resource, but what's what's more in there than just like, oh, I'm just following it lesson by lesson, right? So there's more material that go into that than just bridges or CPM or whatever it might be that we're needing for the curriculum resource assessments. This is our unit assessments. This isn't what we're doing as a district. This isn't like as what you know you have to do this forward and you have to do aims. This is what are our assessments
034for units? What are we assessing our students on? Is it standardsbased? Is it, you know, just this is what is coming out from um the what I taught. Are we consistent when we get to the high school? You know, anybody who's taking biology, is this biology class getting the same experience as this biology class? And so, this is really just giving our current reality so that we can start making some of those decisions on how are we going to move forward? What does that look like? And then technology. What are those technology pieces that we're using in the classroom? Um, and that can be anything from, you know, they're using Epic or we're using Zello. What are those different things that we're using in our class? Um, as different technology options for students. Um, this
035is also where AI is coming in. Uh, that we're starting to integrate some of that AI and so how are they using some of that into their classrooms and things like that. And then lastly, again to go to that goal that we have are intervention and enrichment. So intervention those are helping the students who are on the lower end how do we help close the gap for them so that they're making a year or more growth but then on the enrichment end is how are we continuing to accelerate those students who are already high performing because we are just as responsible to push those students as we are to get the other ones up to the achieving um and meeting level. So this has really been a year-long process that we have designated quite a
036bit of time to. So teachers have had inservice time to work on it. They've had time during their monthly meetings to work on it. And then the curriculum council will take a deep dive into it and kind of dissect it and figure out like all right, what's a prior priority area for us? We know ELA is going to be a priority area, but then also how can we get content literacy involved in the sciences and the social studies and different areas like that. So that's our first big huge goal as a district is the resource audit. The next one is our programs. And so the first thing that we're doing is we just have to seek to understand. So and a lot of this starts with data. We have to start with data. When we
037look at um what do we use to collect data to see how our programs are doing? So there's the district level assessments that are ESGI for kindergarten and 4K. Then there's STAR that we use for scrapes and chessboard coding. And then there's the unit assessments. And then there's core phonics that we use in elementary school. So this is just really all of the different data that we can use to assess like are our students learning and is what we're teaching them working. Um so then a lot of it is how do we use this data? uh this is where we have data meetings and we figure out who needs to be in those small groups who needs to have more of that intervention, who needs to be pushed higher, um different things like that. And
038then lastly, is our data consistent? Is what we're seeing in the STAR data consistent to what we're seeing in the forward data? And if there's a discrepancy, what is that? And so we're really using data to help make sure that the programs that we're offering and the the classes that we're teaching and the content is meeting the needs. Um, one of the cool things with data is we uh just jumped on board with NextPath. So we will be moving forward with Next Path. Uh, Corey and I are heading it up, getting it um, all set up behind the scenes so that for the 2627 school year we can move forward. It's a data warehouse, so it's a one-stop shop for every student and what we what we can know about them. So it will show
039us what is their aims data, what is their unit assessment data, what is their attendance data, what is their behavior data. And so it's going to be a really awesome opportunity for us to be able to look at our students um in a whole another level. So we're excited about that piece. Um and then schedule and offerings. Uh what are classes that students are interested in? So you will hear in just a couple of minutes an offering for different classes at the high school looking to see how are we meeting the needs? Are we going to have some of those be higher level AP classes, uh, dual credit classes, and then what are those other paths that some of our students are interested in so that we can provide opportunities for them. And then also
040looking to see, we saw that our music was a little bit low. Our um our students who are in music was low. So, we're also looking at ways to how can we boost that in the middle school because we have to start at the middle school in order to have that come through to the high school. So, we're looking at some ways to uh be able to incorporate band inquire maybe a little bit more in the school. And then lastly, uh my goal is to get into as many classrooms as possible, especially at the middle school and high school. I have a pretty good understanding of what's happening here at the elementary school, but really to be able to see firsthand what are all the amazing things that are happening in the classroom um with
041our teachers and our students. And then also what do our teachers mean? And when you can see what they're doing and how they're doing it and like oh wow okay I see what you mean when you say you need this. Uh so just being present in the classrooms uh to be able to understand. And then lastly uh process and procedures. So we know that professional development is an area that our teachers are they're screaming for. They want more professional development. So really coming up with a solid procedure on how do they request professional development and then how do we make sure that they're able to attend that professional development that best meets their needs. Uh rather than a blanket one sizefits all uh purchasing resources we don't have a really good rotation like we don't
042have a fiveyear rotation on looking at like all right we're going to look at the LA this year we're going to look at social. really starting to create the process and procedures for reviewing uh resources and that's again where that resource audit is coming from. And then lastly, educator effectiveness. This is what we do to evaluate um and to rank the success of our teachers as they do amazing things. Um this is an opportunity for them to be provided feedback. Uh we noticed that it wasn't consistent throughout the months. So really kind of taking on that educator effectiveness so that we're best meeting the needs of our teachers and giving them the best feedback um and coaching that they can uh get so that they can constantly be improving their practice. So those are the
043three uh big focus areas for um procedures. I just want to thank you. I know it was a big leap uh for the district to invest into the the department of teaching and learning. Uh but I truly believe that investing in students and staff is the best thing we can do. So thank you. >> Questions. >> So I have another question. >> Okay. >> So um first of all, thank you very much for the two presentations. They were great. Obviously what we're doing is working, but there is a need to do things differently and better to improve. And I gl I'm glad to see that we're recognizing that we're working towards that. I think the plan that you laid out is is awesome. My question is around the curriculum maps. So, what's the plan? And
044maybe you don't have an answer to this and that's totally fine. Um what's the plan to activate that curriculum map? Taking something that's on paper and activating that to be like, okay, well, our freshmen at the end of the curriculum map are supposed to have this, but as we see them going to sophomores, we're really not seeing that. And more importantly, how are we going to what's the plan to like go meet the students where they are and how they learn and and focus our teaching more on how students are learning versus just historical teaching. Right. And and and that so is there a plan for that? And maybe maybe this assessment has to get done. Um and I know you're doing a great job and I think our teachers are doing a great job.
045I'm just wondering that aspect of it. >> That's a great question. And I think until we can dive in to each of the categories. So there's we have a curriculum council um that is has grade level representation for science and social studies and ELA and math and things like that. And that's really going to be the work that that team is going to start doing in February and March is let's look at what are what are those gaps? What are we missing? And I think something that we're going to find out on P professional development on how do we change our teaching to best meet the needs of students. Are we sure that what we're teaching isn't I just really love to teach about penguins, so I'm gonna teach about penguins, but not teaching the
046standards that actually are going to help them with that. It's like, I'm not teaching penguins. I may be teaching about non-fiction, you know, text features. And so, that's something that we're hoping that we pick out in the grade 12 apps is that there's going to be some of those gaps that we're going to see and we're going to have to start addressing those. So, what's the exact plan? I can't answer that, but know that we're we're assuming that there's going to have to be something that we're going to have to do when we can start diving into that. >> Awesome. >> Great question. Other questions, comments? >> You're speaking my language. Um, and I think, wow, this is a lot of work that you're undertaking in the course of the school year. Um, do does
047our staff have enough time to do this? >> So, I guess we were very intentional how we were going to do that. And when I've been looking at that, I would say yes that they have because they have been really willing to use their time wisely. So in August, they had a good like three chunk three hours of time and then every month um they have used at least one hour of time has been set aside for them to work on it. And so when we start breaking it apart, there's a team of individuals who are doing it. So it makes it a little bit easier because it's not all falling on one individual to do it. And so they have had time yet um and there'll be more time again in February. And I'm
048thinking by the way it looks that by February they'll have all of the resource audit completed again because I'm not asking them to create anything that's not there. I'm like we are okay with it any if it's not existent let's not create it right now. We're okay with that because we need to know where are we at right now. So yes I would say unless believe that's good. No, >> I think I think that's accurate. I think one of the challenges really has been kind of having them pump the brakes because they'll see something missing and we want to make that like no, let's just capture where we're at right now. That's all we're doing this year. Let's see where we're at. Let's just have a a good sense of where then we can decide
049where we need to go. And I think that's where we're trying to be very intentional about the pacing. So, it's because it is overwhelming. It is a lot to take up. So, I think Sarah's done a really nice job of kind of mapping that out over the next three to five years. Um, but again, we've had to have have staff kind of pump the brakes sometimes. They they really want to get into it, which is fantastic. >> Thank you. >> All right. Thank you for presentation number two. We're done with the Sarah show. But no, thank you for >> looking forward to the third. >> Somebody else diagnostic. Let's go. >> All right. Next on the agenda is discussion of first students first view bus app. >> Yeah. As we get into this, I I
050always find it interesting when Sarah looks at the principles and asks for their opinion and left sitting there two weeks in going, "Oh, yeah, of course. after two weeks. I mean, really, come on. Give her a little bit of a break. No, thank you. >> You know, I just want to take a moment and say it's it's very refreshing to be able to have this conversation about what we should be talking about in a school district and and having you guys ask such great questions and and be involved in that. So, thank you for that. And a a little bit of a side note because I live with a curriculum director. Um and she is in her eighth year and it took seven years for that to turn. It doesn't happen overnight. It's going to
051take they say to change a culture takes five to seven years and that's absolutely true. So, this is just the first step in finding out where we're at, trying to build a map to where we're going to go. And that's exactly what she outlined today. And that that's great news for everybody. And yes, it's not going to happen overnight. And teachers, it's not going to happen in one year. It you've got to give them times to do this. So, all great stuff. Um, just an update on the first uh view bus app. We hope to roll it out on December one when we come back from Thanksgiving. Uh we are in the process of finalizing the things that need to be finalized so we get the correct communication out there not only with our kids
052but with anybody that rides one of our school buses which means the parochial schools as well as the schools out in Zion Morris and Wayside. They they need to know what's going on too. So, anybody that rides a bus has the opportunity to do this. And just then to reiterate that this is the school bus routes at the beginning of the day and the end of the day. If the eighth grade volleyball team goes to some place that that isn't part of this, it's just the bus routes to and from school at the beginning and the end of the days that they'll be able to access this. And this is going to be something really nice for parents. we hope um to have a more real time understanding of where their their children are. I
053guess the only other thing is is that there will be a separate website because they're hosting this. So the questions about the app and or if it's not functioning correctly, they're going to have to go to first student and their helpline, not ours. Um, the only time they would come to us for help would be like, "Hey, did my daughter or son get on the bus?" I mean, that would be us. Other than that, they would have to go to this app. So, we just want to make sure that people understand that. And we're really excited and try to get all the case out and make sure that we roll this out correctly. Um, and hopefully on December one, because obviously it's not going to snow before that. All right. Any questions on that? All
054right. Next on the agenda is the Thanksgiving meals and Christmas giving tree. >> Yep. We're all set. We're going to be delivering on Friday. Uh tree is up and running. 39 >> 38 families that people can uh look to host and uh thank you to the district office and all the administrators for helping out with this. This is quite a a big task to do but very one that I think they find very worthwhile to do as well. And then Thanksgiving break is coming up week after next or next week. Next week is week. Next week. >> I mean, we're having so much fun. I hate to see it go by so quick. Uh, there's Christmas and New Year's break. Christmas concerts are on the website. Um, so you know when all the Christmas concerts
055are, we'd love to have you come. and the 76 trombones with 110 clarinets right behind is December 6th at 4:30 here in Righttown, the big Christmas parade. All right. Next on the agenda is um forum for public comment. This is the public's opportunity to bring concerns to the board. Board discussion and action on public forum items is prohibited per the open meeting law agenda. Posting requirements items may be taken under advisement referred to proper channels or basic general information be may be provided. Hearsay, personal tax and anonymous concerns will not be considered. Those wishing to speak will be given five minutes to speak. Board minutes uh will reflect only open form general comments. So on open for fun. So we have Ron on. >> Good evening. First of all, commendations to Superintendent Snazzle for taking
056the time to walk across the street and attend a village board meeting. I think that is a good move. It's good for the district and good for the communities. Thank you. Now, I intended uh to talk this evening about student achievement, not knowing that you would be receiving an extensive complete report on student achievement in the state report card. So my intent is not to challenge any of the numbers or disagree with them, but what I say will give a different perspective on those numbers. According to US News and World Report, this school district ranks in the top 11% nationally. This morning's voice spirit contained an article using DBI statistics further demonstrating what we often hear in this room that we are a low spending high achieving district. But we must be careful when we
057are compared to other schools across the nation and other schools across the state because those schools are utterly failing to educate children. We are near the top of a pile of mediocrity and failure. And this is why I say that. Secretary of Education uh nationally said, "Today's national assessment of educational progress results confirm a devastating trend. American students are testing at historic lows across all of K12. America's high school seniors are testing at below basic levels in math and reading. NPR reports a new nation's report card, that's the NA test, shows drops in science, math, and reading scores. And those drops have been going on for decades. We used to be as a country near the top n internationally. We're nowhere near the top at all. So what about here in Wisconsin? Wisconsin manufacturers in
058commerce interested in students being ready for the workplace says this about the recent report. Wisconsin students are wholly unprepared for the workforce despite what the state department of public instructions school report cards indicate. DPI and report card metrics are almost laughable. But the state of Wisconsin's education system is not a joke. Nearly 70% of Wisconsin students aren't reading at grade level. That's more than a crisis. It's a catastrophe. Will Flanders from the Wisconsin Institute for Law and Liberty testifying before the legislature said, "Dpi's approach to public education continues a pattern of gaslighting families on the state of education in Wisconsin. Last year, DPI lowered proficiency standards on the forward exam. The effect was an 8 to 10% increase in reported proficiency despite no actual gains in student achievement. The Institute for Reforming Government, another Wisconsin
059think tank looking at the same report says that DPI sets low standards and they inaccurately assess school quality across the state. Now, one might say that, yeah, we're not going to get the results we used to because students come to school less prepared to learn than they did decades ago. I've been in education for 64 years and I would agree with that assessment. Over that period of time, there is a clear and distinct difference in student readiness when they walk into the school. And yet there are schools in Wisconsin that take the same from the same pool of Wisconsin kids. Often kids that were in public education and because their parents were not satisfied with it uh progress in results moved to another school. And school choice Wisconsin reports that this body of schools students
060scored higher on average on state test than comparable groups of public school students. Furthermore, choice students outscored all public students on college readiness ACT exam. So, as I said earlier, we are being comparing ourselves to a a group of schools that are clearly failing and we have to watch then what the numbers mean. in reading here in Wrightstown. The current report card shows 34% are not coicient or English language arts is the current term for that. Um that number would have been around 47% had DPI not tinkered with the benchmarks or cut scores. In math in this district 24% are not proficient or meeting standards. That number would have been around 36% had DPI not tinkered. And so I would have you hear what the director of the Institute of Education Sciences and Armed Research
061Arm of the USD Department of Education. >> We've hit time. >> I have 30 seconds. >> You've actually had >> 40 seconds more than >> Pardon. >> You're already over. I would just say then that uh I hope and it looks like it is going to be and I'm happy about that that these numbers and the context become the focus of this school board in the next years. Thank you. >> Thank you. >> All right. Next on the agenda is discussion and possible approval of um October 22nd uh meeting minutes. They all had a chance to review. Um, any questions on it? >> We're looking for a motion to approve. >> I'll make a motion to approve the October 22nd meeting. >> I'll second the motion. >> All those in favor? >> Anyone opposed? All
062right. Next on the agenda is meeting minutes from October 27th. Um, you've all had a chance to review. Any questions on roles? You looking for a motion to approve? >> I'll make a motion. I'll second the motion. >> All right. Next on the agenda is Oh, sorry. All those in favor? >> Anybody opposed? All right. Next on the agenda is meeting minutes from uh November 5th, the workshop minutes. You've all had a chance to review. Any questions, concerns, right? Looking for a motion to approve? >> Make a motion. >> I'll second. >> All right. All those in favor? >> I opposed. All right. Next is our consideration to approve the monthly bills, listings, and receipts. Um, they're attached in your board docs. Any questions on walls? Right. We looking to get a motion to approve
063um bills, listings, and receipts as presented. I'll make a motion to approve seats. >> I'll second. >> All those in favor. >> Anyone opposed? All right. Um discussion and possible approval of the long range plan. >> So, mind if I jump in here? >> Go for it. >> Thank you. Um little history. 2018 fund 146 for the state of Wisconsin in Ricetown Community School District became uh a realistic opportunity to put forth money for uh projects it and buildings and grounds type projects. It was a ste a special designation that you could put money at the end of the year into this um balance called fund 46 instead of your fund 10 balance. The district chose to use this opportunity to do so because there is some financial benefits for doing this over the long
064haul. So over the last the next five years, you couldn't use the money for five years, but you could put money into it, but you had to wait five years before you could use any of those monies. So until 2023, um you could put money in but you couldn't take money out. So to have a fund 46, you had to have a 10-year long range plan. And so the district developed one and had one approved by the board in 2018. To uh fast forward to 102023, uh you're in the middle of some changes going on with leadership. you just had finished a uh referendum project, so on and so forth. So, so there wasn't any appetite to use any of the fund 46 monies. So, it kind of sat there um until such time as
065you want to start accessing those funds. At the board workshop a couple of weeks ago, we talked about uh using some of those funds to update things that are in dire need with it and buildings and grounds, which why we identified at the workshop. um you thought that that was a great idea and wanted us to bring those forward for tonight for actual approval. Before we did that, we thought it was prudent then to revisit the 10-year plan and update it to make it more realistic adding the parts that you saw on the spreadsheet in blue were the things that we talked about the other night and we are looking for approval here in a little bit. Um, also in that 10-year P plan is a whole bunch of things that um are placeholders because
066a 10-year plan um is only as good as the next year because the next year you're going to probably update your 10-year plan again. So, you always have an updated 10-year plan. um because of the circumstances that surrounded fund 46 um that hasn't been something that you have done on an annual basis, but we are now suggesting and recommending in fact we we are going to do this for you as a board every year about this time of year to update the the 46 plan based on what we're taking care of. So those numbers as you look out 5, 8, 10 years from now, th those are placeholders. Those are things that we know need to get fixed, but they can be moved around and juggled. We just don't want to forget about them because
067they do need to get fixed. So, as we move forward with uh monies at the end of the year, if we are fortunate to have a good year and we have some monies available, um we will recommend that you put some money back into fund 46 to take care of these things so we can do things within our normal operating budget instead of having to look at other methods, i.e. referendum to take care of your year-to-year needs. So, as you look at that, the good news is it's pretty doable. It's some really, you know, things that are, you're in pretty good shape. You really are. Um, the only thing that you want to keep or be mindful of is you have some roofs you're going to have to change out in the next two to
06810 years. And that's going to happen in any school district, in any building, things when they get 20 to 30 years old, you have to have, you know, a replacement plan. So we duly noted those on there those and we put them in certain years just as placeholders so we wouldn't forget about them. So every year Chris will go up on the roast and take a look at them and say yeah they're 20 they're supposed to last somewhere between 20 and 30 so we better keep this on the radar. Um so that's why those things are there. It things are in there you know uh replacing Chromebooks and and switches and things like that. We already talked about trying to stay on top of those things. building a little bit more in the year-to-year operational
069budget for Corey and the IT department as well as keeping the things in buildings and grounds that we already have. So, we think this is a really good plan. Just want to uh say that this don't read too much into what's happening three, five, seven, 10 years out because this is going to be juggled every year. So, what we would ask is that you look at what's happening this year. the things and blue in blue and the other things that aren't in blue are things that we are going to take care of this year and we feel very comfortable that we can do that um with the financing plan that we outlined at the workshop with using fund balances for the blue things and the things that aren't in blue for this year we're going
070to do in our normal operating budget and then we'll come to you next year and and do the same thing and the next year and do the same thing and keep on shuffling the deck with the things that come up as a more dire need as they come to us. So with that, I would entertain any questions, but we are looking for you to recommend the plan that we have up here. >> I just appreciate the thought put into this, especially going into the next thing that we're going to end up going on and stuff that we talked about in the workshop. I mean, I think that was great. And I mean, you look locally, right? Oshkosh is going in, they're borrowing $6 million um to to just cover expenses and stuff like that. And
071I'm super happy to say that we're not in that position. Um, and I think we've been good stewards of that. And so when we have the opportunity to make the improvements that we're going to make, um, and just do it out of fund balance, I think it's great. So, thank you. I'll make the motion to approve it. We're >> second. All those in favor? I >> I >> Anyone opposed? >> Curious 6. >> Again, thank you for putting it together and I think we're we're set for success as a district. So, >> Corine Dan, thank you. >> Thank you. >> All right. Next on the agenda is discussion and possible approval to add new classes at the high school uh for 2026 2027 school year. >> Eric, take it away. >> Here we go. Um
072so it's an exciting time of the year. I always um it's a lot of work. Our departments have met Sarah and I many of them multiple times. Um, we definitely implemented a continuous improvement model very similar to what you guys learned with Ted earlier. Um, kind of looking at how things have gone in the past, what changes we need to make. And I just think it's exciting this time of the year because every year it's it's another chance to continue building on on the successes we've had. And so, we're super excited um to offer some new classes to students. Um I really we really tasked um teachers with looking for opportunities lowhanging fruit for dual credit uh looking for opportunities for different career pathways and when we had the opportunity to do both of the
073class even better. Um and so that's what you have in front of you right now. Uh the other piece that we're very aware of, cognizant of is that we want to move quickly through our scheduling process more quickly than maybe it's been done in the past so that uh kids had ample time to have discussions. I know our counselors are meeting with sophomores, meeting with juniors and families um to go through those classes now. Uh we've talked a lot about communicating things better uh to students and families so they know what their um opportunities and options are. We'll talk later about the the career scheduling showcase. Um, we want to move that through uh more quickly uh so that when we get into spring, we have schedules pretty well set. By the time we get
074to April, we're fine-tuning some things because April and May, as you know, get really, really busy. And so, we want to go into summer with kids having schedules in their hands. Um, and so that's what you see in front of you now is kind of the the start of that with some new courses. So, with that, I'll open it up for questions or comments. >> Um, Eric, I had a few questions and maybe >> it would be best to talk about them course by course. Sure. >> The first one in the presentation was the a business course. >> Y >> um just I guess looking for a little more background with this one. So, would this be taught by the a teacher only, Mr. Pinchart? >> Yes. And I guess when we start adding electives,
075I'm just curious how this impacts the rest of the courses he teaches and the schedule. Yeah. >> When it it I didn't come across any I'm assuming it's a semester course. >> Question. >> Well, that's a good question. >> Like how many credits would it end up being? >> I think it's a semester. So that's always the question with electives because and we had a lot of conversations with with our um with our encore department um because we want to offer as many opportunities as possible but we know that if we spread things too thin right now we're in a position where the courses don't run, the numbers aren't big enough or we run into situation where um a staff member might have to teach and overload to teach you know every hour. We certainly
076we certainly don't want that. we have to find some balance. Um I think our approach has been we want to put those opportunities and and offer those things out to kids and see where where things fall. I think we're all aware that um that there are courses that might not run that we are going to have to adjust as we go based on the numbers of of interested kids. Um but we don't know that if we don't offer that to kids and give them that opportunity to sign up for that on the front end. Um, some districts will have classes that run every other year. Um, some will run um, some some have teachers that teach overload and are happy to do that. Um, so there's different ways to to address that. Our plan is
077to meet with departments at least a couple more times as we work through this process. Um to share those numbers and to say okay we might have to make some hard decisions about what we're doing wrong because we talked about not I mean not just with a but with others like okay then what comes off the plate then if it's not going to be it's going to be this class then it might not be this one over here. So there are there may be some tough decisions. >> I don't know if you have more questions about the egg. Well, it just the prerequisite. It lists one A course or one business course. So, are we opening this course up to sophomores and above? I'm guessing if we have that prerequisite in place. >> Yeah. Yeah.
078>> Okay. Yep. And I think the the the thought here was that being Wisconsin and being an agri business state um have having something that was a little bit more specialized in in egg, um in a previous life, but that was a huge part of the community. And so, um I've seen in different places in the state where um something specialized that is really important because that's a path that that kids are they're all going to go down. And so we want to do everything we can to help them down that path where um could they take just a regular standard business class? Sure, they could they could take accounting, right? Um but there's going to be something specialized here in that field um that I think is going to help them go down a
079path that they're probably already going. >> So are you asking for this course to be approved and then they'll make the decision whether it runs or if it's going to run in place of something else? >> Yeah. So that's a decision with every course even the ones that are already in there, right? is that we have to see what how many sections we have of this class. How many kids are in there? >> And so that's that's true of every class, not just classes. That's just part of that process. >> I know these are um given to by the teachers. I guess just just feedback. I after reading the first one, the Ara business one, I was actually looking for more information. about like the new English 12 courses and maybe some of it's just
080the format reads more like the booklet that comes home with the students. Um I would just like a little bit more description on that one. It's some it's like ideas are brought up but I don't know. I just feel like a little bit more developing would be nice. >> Would be helpful to have it kind of broken down by like like sections or by topics or by units or something. >> I think so. Yes. Yes. >> Have we explored the idea of looking like I know we had a tech college math right where you get an NWTC credit. Have we explored an aggra business class where you'll get a credit at a technical school and in in that way because I know a lot of kids are actually going to aggra business will actually go
081to a technical school to to at least get a two-year degree if not further, right? at least a college credit to there would be awesome if that was something that we could look into or something like that to to not have them have them go to school for that and then repeat that or if they choose not to go to school but they choose at a later time to do that right they still have to have a credit there right so >> that's the two birds in one stone I'm not sure why my my guess is that people might not have somebody that can teach them for that credit right now with the the changing landscape sometime under our feet from some of our technical college uh colleges that that could be challenging for our
082high school teachers because that's something we can definitely pursue. Um we might want to walk before we run to but I would agree with you if they can involve even even better right >> it's a semester long class semester Any other questions? >> Um, I keep going. Sorry. >> Um, in the English course that sounded fantastic. I was excited to read about that change. >> Yes. >> Um, just there was a toward the end of the description that says students also have flexibility to enroll in one or both courses. >> Yep. But then I think I also read the first year or the research and rhetoric prerequisite is the first year writing course. So do you take one and then >> I get to take one and then the other. I think >> you don't
083have to take both but essentially you have to take the first year writing to take the research and writing. I >> think so. And then the other piece of it we try to put and maybe we need to add this is having the that teacher recommendation piece is really key that gives us a little bit more flexibility if we have. So let's say transfer student >> second semester. It might be helpful to have that for both because that just gives us a little flexibility there. >> Okay. >> Do you see which statement I thought was a little confusing where it said they could take >> flexibility to enroll in one or both? But then it's making it prerequisite further down. >> I just read that as you could pick one. You didn't have to take
084one or the other. >> One doesn't have to. You can take one or the other. Right. >> But then we're saying you can't just take research and rhetoric. You have to take the >> prinification. Thank you. >> I think my only other question really came around the than the science the medical terminology. Like it sounds like a great course. I just had those same questions of >> what is that doing for the other courses in the science. Um >> I feel like the science courses have changed. with my recent high school high schoolers. I guess I feel like there's been a lot of change going on in that >> department specifically. So I'm just >> so I what's what you won't see in the packet is some conver some I think very good conversations and
085reflection with that department of Sarah and I >> okay >> about kind of getting back to what I would say are basics and having things structured in a way that's um consistent not just here but consistent in area schools right um I think they were attempting to solve a problem that they saw that existed and they were very upfront and vulnerable I would say in saying that maybe the solution we offered wasn't the best solution. Let's here's here's our solution moving forward. So getting back to more of a physical science frame and having some of those base some of those building blocks to start um was a large part of our conversation. Um, this was one of this is this this class was actually a smaller conversation in that there was some lowhanging fruit and
086it's something that's offered in a lot of area places and it's really kind of the precursor to go into the medical field for a lot of whether you're EMS or EMT or nursing or something like that. And so we see schools that offer classes in house for EMT like the dual credit. >> And so we have kind of an eye on okay, we want to offer some of those courses. This is kind of the the base course you need to have. All that okay. So um so this conversation was very separate, but I I understand and share your concern with maybe how things were scaffolded in the past and I think that department's done a nice job to to rectify that. >> Can I bring that back? I can we call those kind of like
087those intro courses? >> Yes. >> And those are >> so now there's more traditional pathway which is going to be biology and then physical science and then you can take two other science elected or if you want to do like the STEM route which is going to be more of your biology, your chemistry, conceptual physics kind of route which will be more of a that medical >> um field. And so the traditional way is going to take out like the intro to physics, the intro to chemistry, physical science, and one course will touch on both those. >> So it gives them another opportunity to take two different electives. >> Okay, that makes sense. >> Thank you. Yeah, I actually thought the medm was great because not only does it can can it be precursor I
088have a I have a I have a child going to school for for EMT and paramedic and stuff and you got to take a medure course. So I think that that's great but even just the conversations and you highlight it right conversations with providers conversations with insurance companies and stuff like that to understand that that language and what people are talking about is super important these days. So, I think it's great. >> I have a question about the youth apprenticeship credits. >> So, how does that figure into GPA? Because they don't actually get a grade, correct? Or do they automatically get 4.0 for their credits? >> They end up they have to like they go through an evaluation system and so like the child will receive feedback on from the employer on how they did.
089Um, so they do end up getting a a grade entered in for it >> at the semester, but they don't get it at the quarter. >> Yes, it's Yeah. So if you at your if you have a child who's using apprentip right now, their quarter won't show anything, but that semester there'll be a grade for it. And so it only gets reported on that semester. And so right now it's three credits. So it'll go to four. >> So does it affect the waiting of their GPA or any does it affect any of that? No, it just it just goes in as a normal grade. >> Okay. >> If you waited more in the sense that there's more credit, right? >> Yeah. Yeah. But it goes >> not in Okay. >> And the the validation for
090that as I understand in reading this is that a lot of lo local schools treat it differently and we just weren't doing the same. So this kind of levels the blame. Yeah, I think that's levels the playing field for our our students. It also makes it a little bit easier for them to put a full schedule together. Opposite that I think right now piecing it together is challenge the way it's currently. >> Well, and and that because next year they'll have to have 27 credits in order to graduate. And so by keeping it at three credits, it was being for students to be able to have time in their schedule to be out for youth apprentichip because of the amount of time they had to be in school to gain those other credits. So by
091making this another credit, we've freed up more time for them actually to do youth apprenticeship. So it's going to be easier for them to be able to accomplish the experience that they want for their youth apprentichip, but still be able to come to school for the other um potentially three credits that they need or two and a half depending on how many credits they have. Other questions? >> All right. So, with that, um, be looking for a motion to approve the classes as presented for 2026 2027. We want to do that or do we want to get clarifications first before we make that motion to approve them? What's the impact and risk if we ask the clarifications that we ask for? What's the what's the impact and risk >> on these courses? >> So before
092you answer that, you can break this up. You can say that uh approve all the courses except for the agra business which you would like them to bring back for next year. I mean excuse me next month. And that would be helpful for them to not just not approve all of them. So, if you were to make a motion um to approve all the courses listed except Agra business, that would be the motion that you could make and then with the idea that they're going to go back and tweak some things and get a few more questions answered for you. >> I would like to see a little bit more work done with that a business. So, I would make a motion to approve all the other courses except a business. >> I would second
093it. >> All those in favor? >> I. Anyone opposed? >> Right. >> Thank you. >> Yep. Thank you. >> Um consideration to approve the IT and grounds improvements per November 5th board workshop. >> I'll make a motion to approve the IT and grounds improvements for the November 5th workshop. I'll >> second the motion. All those in favor? >> Anyone opposed? All right. Next on the agenda is consideration to approve the senior trip to New York in Washington DC spring of 2026 for the November 5th meeting workshop meeting. >> I'll make a motion to approve. >> I'll second that motion. >> All those in favor? >> Anyone oppose? Motion carries. Um, consideration to approve the interim middle school principal. >> I make the motion. >> All right. All those in favor? >> Anybody opposed? >> Motion
094carries. >> Um, discussion and possible approval to reschedule the next board workshop originally set for December 3rd. uh moving up to December 1st for scheduling conflict. >> Just a reminder. >> So just for those of you keeping score at home, the December 1st is the workshop with CISA 7 to go over the survey results and put forth the questions that they want to put forward in the interviews and the structure of the interview. all those things um would be at that December 1st. So that's a closed session. Um so we wouldn't have a regular board workshop on the 3rd. We would use that as our meeting for that workshop month. >> So I'll make a motion to approve the change. >> I'll second the motion. All right. All those in favor. >> Anybody opposed? >>
095Motion carries. All right. Discussion and possible approval to reschedule um board meeting set for January 21st to either January 14th or 28th. So, >> so a little background. I I did mention that the your conference your uh your state convention is the 21st. Um, so obviously we have to move the board meeting for that night. You have the seventh as a workshop. Um, that has to stay put because that's another night that Aaron's going to be meeting with you on that workshop night. Um, so I just threw out the 14th and the 28th. There's nothing sacred about the 14th or the 28th. It's the two Wednesdays, the one before or after the 21st. Um, you could potentially do it on a different night as well. Um, but you don't have to make that decision tonight.
096I put it out here. If you think you want to do the 14th or the 28th and make a decision tonight, that'd be great. If you don't, we'll put it back on the agenda for December. Give you guys a few weeks to think about it and come back with what you think would be the better of the two nights. without pulling Aaron's schedule that he had laid out. I thought there was reason that we wanted to do it after. I thought he was we were targeting more of the 28th. >> Um >> or am I mixing that up with another month? >> I think you're mixing that up with the February. >> That was February. We talked a lot about, >> but what we could do is we could if we come back next month
097and set it next month, we would already have had that December 1st meeting to then make sure that nothing interferes with that schedule. >> Yeah. Just the big idea was to get it out in front of you so you can think about it to make sure >> if there was a date you wanted to do tonight, but if not, just get it out in front of you and we'll put it back on the agenda for next month. >> So, we'll need a motion to table, right? >> Um, it's discussion and possible approval. So, if you can just make a discussion and not have a motion. >> Okay. So I pulled up Aaron's schedule phone that he gave us on the workshop. I don't see anything >> in January because that would be the the application
098time. >> So I don't think there's anything that either date. >> Okay. >> Thank you, Dan. >> Well, all right. I say discussion. We have additional discussion at the next meeting and sub. Okay. >> Okay. All right. Next up, so we have um policy and discussion or action. So volume 34, number two, no update. >> So we are meeting tomorrow, Amber and I are meeting with Tim tomorrow morning to go over the technical changes as well as the policy changes. So, we will have that all set ready for you to do the first reading in December and then the second reading would be in um January. Um, the question is, I guess if you wanted to use that December 1st, we could go into open session and talk about the um policy changes, the technical
099changes um you put on the superintendent and administrative assistant to take care of those and we'll do that tomorrow. We're also going over the policies. So there's I guess I'm suggesting that in this particular case because of the uniqueness of the workshop being negated to go with the superintendent search that I think we can handle it within the board meeting that night to talk about the changes that are being presented and still do the first reading that night because there's not a lot of them in this 342. So, I think we can handle it at the board meeting um without having to discuss it in the workshop first. And as soon as we have those updates after tomorrow, we should be able to get that out to you in plenty of time to look them
100over and ask questions if you have them before the board meeting in on December 17th, I believe it is. >> Yeah. >> Is that okay with you guys? >> I'm okay with it. Well, I just like the idea of then not having to have people come here to sit for an open session if they choose when we're going to look at that quick immediately then go to close session. I I think that's just a better use of time. I agree. Okay, great. So, we'll get that to you when we can um in the next week or two and then you can look it over and we'll talk about whatever questions you have on uh that that night of the first reading. >> Thank you. >> All right. Next on the agenda is administrative updates and
101board report. >> Uh Danny wants to talk. Danny, get going. We'll start on that end of the table. uh we held employee meetings where in health insurance open enrollment uh overall staff was positive. Uh we did have a two and a half% increase and we all know that no one library wants to pay more but given that industry uh trend is between 8 and 12%. We ended up in a pretty good spot. So I think staff was receptive to that. Um the tax level has been submitted and uh the appropriate reports have been submitted to be distributed to the municipalities. Uh and finally and most most importantly had the opportunity to go to the high school uh last week and uh attend a public speaking class. Um that was an awesome opportunity and kids did
102really a really great job. Uh they had some really good ideas that were I thought really practical. you know, in the past sometimes it's been kind of a grandiose thing like we should we should go to referendum for this little thing, you know, you know, that kind of thing. They were all pretty reasonable and I and I think uh I think Mr. Warden might be uh uh implementing some of those things because really great to hear, you know, kind of feedback on what they think and what they'd like to see. So, um that's all I have. >> Okay. Okay. So, Rice Middle School celebrated their first quarter of the school year with an all school assembly. That was my first introduction to on Halloween 2:30 to 3:00. But it was great. So, they had tiger
103trade prizes. They announced winners pumpkin decorating contest. Uh students also competed in an alively game of human hungry hungry hippo and everyone survived. It was great. uh fifth grade uh claim the title. All right. Uh I just want to speak to my first two weeks. It has been fast and furious. I am very thankful for the warm welcome by students, staff, parents, uh and the school board. So, thank you. Each day I continue to be impressed. Um even, you know, listening to some of this data. It's wonderful. There's a positive energy. The staff that I work with is I mean, it's it's been wonderful and really helpful as I'm trying to navigate. Even the students are so sensitive to making sure that I feel comfortable and I know how things work, especially in a young
104that's okay. Uh and then also just one thing that I noticed when I first started all these uh donations were coming in to the middle school for the tiger traits for those respect tickets. I just couldn't believe the amount of community members that were bringing in consistently all of this um all of these donations. Uh so the tiger trades are be kind, be respectful, and be productive. Um so just thanks to the community for all those donations. That was really wonderful to see. >> Our elementary family engagement night was an amazing success. More than 30 staff members volunteered to make the evening possible. We welcomed 131 families and served dinner to over 300 attendees. Uh students and their families enjoyed a cozy PJ themed night filled with math games, reading activities, and many other engaging
105learning opportunities. It's great to see those families um working with their students. Um it was really a warm uh night for all of us. Um, we also honored our local veterans with a special program recognizing their service and sacrifice under the direction of Mr. G, our music teacher. Our students performed two musical selections and our Redtown High School choir led by Mrs. McCauley also shared their talents with beautiful performances. Following the program, the um, elementary student council hosted a social for our veterans, providing an opportunity for conversation and connection. Our Trump retreat on October 28th was a huge success. Um, thank you to our amazing pair network for organizing that first ever trunk retreat. And thank you to our families and local businesses, our school clubs and emergency personnel that participated participated. It was a
106fantastic evening filled with fun laughter and community spirit. And last night at the parent network meeting, they said that there were over 300 kids and um that attended that as well. So, some great community involvement. So, thank you. >> All right, I'm up again. Um, so Dana for the month of November. That's really what we've been focusing on. Uh there's a November 9th snapshot that we are responsible for which we have to have all of our uh data accurate that goes to the state. Um and so we want to really make sure that we're honoring all the hard work of the students um and all that they've accomplished. This is including like CTE, our special ed students, all of those things. Um so our team has been working really diligently to make sure that we
107have everything complete and once we have it right, we're turning off the system so nothing else can be sent. So, we're looking forward to that. Um, there have been a ton of opportunities this month to highlight our students with parent teacher conferences at the elementary school, the veteran state concert at the elementary school and at the high school. It's wonderful to see all the hard work of both the students and the staff um pay off in performances. The concerts and programs, but also the academic su success of our students. um at the high school and the middle school. Um we've been talking about course updates and finding new ways to meet student needs. Um that's been the major focus and so we have been taking a deep dive into the courses which Eric kind of
108talked a little bit about um making some adjustments and uh making some good enhancements at the middle school that we're working on um just to pro make sure we're providing for all students. The new class proposals are an excellent example of how we need to align with student needs and um the things that our students are now interested in. I just have to give a shout out to the teachers um for advocating for what they need to be discussed with all students. >> Awesome. >> Over at the high school, we continue to plan the scheduling showcase and career fair uh for December's parent teacher conferences uh as of last week at seven colleges and businesses local 400 that are confirmed to attend. Um we will have regular conferences with teachers uh and a display for
109each department and staff available to talk about the course offering. So just another layer to communicate with our our families and with their students. Uh we'll have a youth apprenticeship um sessions that are running in the auditorium. And I met with Mrs. Wagner's marketing uh students. They are planning some promotional events. They are very excited and I am very nervous about some of their ideas. Um, the word don't take came up and that's a terrible idea. So, I'm not going to say that officially, but there's some they have some very interesting ideas of how to promote it. I don't I tried to tell them, but they got some great veterans today ceremony was outstanding. Um, it it was a great um a great day. Mr. Ericson did make some adjustments to to increase student engagement.
110I thought that went well. Uh FFA students also don't like breakfast and our NHS students welcomed many guests. Um and the band choir just was knocked out of the park. Um we had a lot of different people involved in in something that big. Custodial staff, FFA, NHS students, band and choir kids, um music teacher and again our student speakers and Mr. Ericen did an outstanding job. So it was a a great way to celebrate our veterans. Uh and then finally our building leadership team met and discussed expanding dual credit opportunities, improving student achievement. Uh we talked about early college credit programs to our college now in the rising Phoenix program at WGB. Uh counselors and myself have a meeting with GB about rising Phoenix pretty soon. Uh definitely interest in ensuring our students and families
111are more aware of the opportunities that are out there. Um and we'll also we also talked about ACT preparation and oddly enough shortly after that we did go to um the public speaking class and one of the ideas that we're going to push forward uh was one that I think was here a couple years ago um having some teachers do some ACT preparation with the with the students and I was I told the kids like super impressed that the students were really pushing for it and not just five or 10 kids like dozens of kids want this that's a testament to to them wanting to to to achieve at a high level and to push for that. So, we're going to definitely move forward with that. Um, we definitely have great partnerships with NWTC. Um,
112we have been in contact with Fox Valley Tech uh to see what kind of programming options they might be able to offer our kids in the future. And that's the update from high school in the activities department. Just a couple things about playoffs. Uh, just kind of summarize what happened. Our cross country team went to sectionals in Waka. We didn't have anybody qualified for state. Matias was close. He was about three places out. Uh hopefully next year. That's kind of a go for his move toward that. Uh I traveled with the boys soccer team as we went to Al. It was a great match. Uh two to one came down to the end but we came up short and then on that same night uh the volleyball team traveled to Keel and it just wasn't
113our night and we end up losing there. Um the football team went up to Okcono Falls and upset them in the first round of the playoffs which was pretty exciting. And then we traveled on Halloween night to that green team to the west of us. Um, we lost a very highly competitive game. Huge shout out goes to Sarah Pichy who she was mentioned before, but uh, she participated in the fall Wisconsin State Honors Band. Sarah was one of 1,500 Wisconsin music students to audition and her acceptance identified her as one of the top 13 high school flu players in the entire state and uh one of the first from our high school in a long long long time. Uh she traveled to Madison October 29th. We had a send off for her uh that afternoon
114and then she actually performed at the Overture Center in Madison the next night and it was broadcasted on PBS. It was pretty cool. Awesome bird. Uh big shout out goes to our one act too. They're actually doing a public performance right now over in the auditorium. Uh but they will compete at state. All right. Is the WISD state one act conference on Friday morning at W Stevens Point. We have 18 students, two adviserss, very talented group and uh Miss Luki does a great job with them. So we're excited. We're going to do a send out for them tomorrow. That's it. Go Tigers. uh technology services will begin a help desk um on October 23rd to just track requests over time. I hope to expand this to facilities. It actually already started, but this was written
115last week. Um uh so since uh the 23rd, the team has received 92 submitted tickets. We've resolved 86 tickets as of Friday 14. So it puts us at about an average of 4.5, sorry, 5.4 per day uh that we receive and then uh resolving about 5.06 06 per workday as well. Uh in the end, we hope this tool will help us track the collected knowledge that we've not been able to have and it's without it and it will allow us to analyze over time resources that are most labor intensive in our department. Um 11 staff members attended the Skyward conference in October. Feedback from members was generally positive and this is helping us improve our implicitation of cumulative which is essentially the heart of all of our student information in the district. Um, with some
116of the changes in staffing, this was particularly beneficial to bring our staff together. And one participant stated, "It's kind of a long quote, but here it is." This conference provided hands-on learning that allowed me to expand on my existing knowledge, gain confidence, and better understand how to make my role more efficient and impactful for the students I served. There were great breakout sessions and also I was able to bring in some questions I had to roundts with Skyward specialists that were present in these sessions. I could collaborate with their districts, what works and what not work, what doesn't work for them and uh what and what they used for Q and attending alongside my coworker was especially beneficial as it allowed us to collaborate, reflect on what we learned and plan how to implement new
117strategies together in our daily work, especially without distractions. And finally, we continue uh are working on getting the new website updated. We contracted with a local videographer has some really nice video currently up on the website. Um, we also contracted with Jill Bailey for photography and her pictures are plastered all over it. They're really, really nice at this point. Um, and I've also had an opportunity to meet with every administrative assistant, administrator, and every director to get items updated. So, we still have a little ways to go. Um, but really the next steps are about finishing all the content by December 15th and then uh moving over some of our search engine optimization and DNS over the course of the Christmas break so that we can get it ready for publication on the 2nd of
118June. >> Awesome. >> Thank you, Corey. um from the DA position. Wanted to just actually had a shout out to the website and that's going to become live here in a very short period of time and Corey's put a lot of effort into that to make it a a just a really highly functioning great website for us and and we're very excited about that and thank him for doing that. Uh board members, before you leave tonight, letters of recommend recognition for those kids that were already named. If you didn't sign them yet, um, pass them down or or don't leave before you sign them. All right. >> Please, please do not leave before you sign them. >> Um, and if anybody wants to force John, so no, I'm just kidding. That's a joke. All right.
119Um, I want to also touch on scheduling. uh you know one of the things in that 5 to seven year period of time of change of culture is you have scheduling in and of itself does not improve student learning. There's data that that backs that up but it can make it a lot more comfortable and accessible for kids if they can have a great scheduling opportunity. So within that you have your encores and your and your quarter subjects at the the middle school. You need to start with that and then you work your way up through the high school. So that is what um Sarah was saying and we've been spending some time on that and trying to make sure that we have a really great well-rounded opportunity for kids. um starting obviously in the
120middle school scheduling and then re reooking at some of the things not necessarily changing the the 4x4 block and AB scheduling. We're not looking at that at this point in time, but we want to have a good course description booklet that really does outline the pathways that they talked about because they're really cool things. We just got to we got to organize it better. Um, so wanted to touch on that. Also on that website and something that Dan and Corey and I are working on is uh tax bills are coming out next month and obviously that's not going to be great news um because of the things that we've already talked about and we don't need to go over them again. But we're going to put something on our website to kind of give an
121a explanation of how tax bills work and our part of it. Um so just you know a little FYI help on that. Um as far as the surveys are concerned with the um C7 right now it closes on Monday. Um, so far we have 209 community members and 86 staff members that have completed the surveys. So, there's a few days left. Um, the good news is is obviously there'll be well over 300 people that have given input and so whatever data you get is going to be very valid. So, that that's good news. Um, the December 1st is at 6 PM. We will keep it at that regular time. Um and then finally um something was brought to us earlier this week and uh you know um it just needs clarification and it is something
122that um had transpired with people that aren't involved in the school district anymore to a certain extent. Um but I wanted to just clarify it for the board in case they start hearing things out in the community. Um, back in March on March 26th, uh, Mr. Sari met with, uh, Tim Ratitz, the administrator for St. John's School. At that time, or about that time, obviously, I wasn't there, so I'm trying to put this all together the best I can for you. Um, at that same time, um, the administrator from St. Claire's was involved in discussion about how to provide a hot lunch program and that we would try to partner with them. Um something that we would do as more or less a community service because we're not making any money off of it. Um
123but to have them have the ability for the kids there because they're all our kids, right? So we just wanted to see if we could help out and uh it was it was a good idea. And um as a side note, it's worked very well with St. Clair thus far. Uh St. John's, we've we've run into a few problems. And so we want to make sure we get the the information out there for you in case you get uh caught up in this, but uh Katie wrote me an email um about her interaction that she recalls from um in the spring uh and starts off by saying they met with Mr. Radits on March 26 to discuss meals for the 2526 school year. During that conversations with the DPI um which subsidized the meal programs
124if you decide to sign up with it and Mr. Radits uh we worked on determining the appropriate agreement between us without my knowledge Katie's knowledge. Mr. had submitted an alternate authority agreement to the DPI versus the agreement that um they had originally decided to go with which is the joint agreement template versus the alternate authority agreement to the DPI. This agreement would have made Writestown Community School District fully responsible for operating the children the child nutrition program at St. John's for this school year, which was not obviously our original intent. The DPI informed Katie and she promptly told the DPI that we were not proceeding with that agreement. It is our understanding at that time then that Mr. Ratitz was contacted or contacted the DPI. Obviously, we don't know for sure, but uh opted not
125to become part of the school food authority using the joint agreement template that was originally agreed on, leaving us with only one option of operate operate uh offering, excuse me, offering catered meals. Um, if you're not going to fill out the appropriate paperwork, you can't use the subsidized things through the DPI. So, the only thing we can do then is we have to cater. And if you cater, now the DPI says we have these rules for catering. So, we had to do the catering instead of the the joint agreement template, which again is what we did with St. Clair's and it's been working really well. Um so with that DPI um the the price for the subsidized is $3. the side the the price for the catering is higher and they recommend charging a certain
126amount or a range of uh the DPI that is uh recommends a range of pricing somewhere between 425 to 475 a meal. Uh we chose to go with the 425 the lowest which again we're not trying to make money. just trying to help out all the kids that lived in this area. Um, so that's kind of where it sat and um, without pointing fingers and laying blame, September 2nd rolls around and it's now in a catering situation and because of this that and the other thing, um, we started supplying food to both schools which has been going well as far as the delivery is concerned, they're taking about 40 to 50 meals per day at each one of the two buildings. So, that's great. Um, and delivered them and there was no agreement and there
127was no contract um with St. John's. There wasn't with St. Claire's of course with the agreement template, but not with St. John's. So, went on for a month delivering the meals. We sent the bill for the first month of meals at four and a quarter and Mr. Radit said, "Well, no, that's not what I told my parents." You know, um, obviously thinking he told them that was going to be $3 a meal because that's what that subsidized price was. So when I became aware of it in the end of October, what are we going to do? Okay. So instead of trying to look backward, looking forward, we said and and Mr. Ratis asked us for grace to keep it at the current $3 a meal price that we were that he wanted us to charge
128instead of the four and a quarter um through the end of November. and then December 1st would be the four and a quarter um price that we would pay. So I made the decision to say yes, we're not we're not going to we're not going to squabble over this. So we agreed that we weren't going to look backwards, we were going to look forwards. So with that, um we received a copy of a letter that was sent home by Mr. Ratitz in the last I don't know exactly what day. doesn't have a date on it, but it must have been within the last week. Dear parents, I'm writing you to give you an update in regards to the hot lunch program. We were informed by the Rightstown School District that our our hot lunch caterer
129that the cost per meal is being adjusted. They have communicated to us that the overhead and material costs have increased. So, per meal prices are being increased. I understand that this isn't the best news on behalf of the school. We understand that cost per meal can factor heavily on whether a family makes the decision to take hot lunch or bring lunch from home. Unfortunately, in our current circumstance of having hot lunch catered by the district, the school district, we are at the mercy of offering hot lunch at the prices they determine. I will continue to work with the school district to find any possible alternatives to lessen the per meal cost or find other potential situations that may prove better for our students and our and their families. Lunches ordered for the month of December
130and beyond will be $5 per meal versus the price of $4 per meal. Paper menus will be sent home tomorrow with meal options for December. Please note the difference when making a payment that the quantity of lunches order should now be multiplied by $5. I'm happy to field any input feedback you may have as parents. I know it is a joy I know it was a joyous day when I was able to inform everyone that we would in fact have a lot hot lunch program this year. But I also know that we should be mindful, observant, and evaluatory in regards to making sure that we are offering the best options for students and their families. So that precipitated my conversation with you tonight because there's obviously some discrepancies in that letter versus what we consider
131to be um the facts that we have with us. Um, so to reiterate, St. Claire's filled out the joint agreement template. They are we are charging them $3 per meal based on the subsidy offered by the PI6301 form that they filled out. Um, St. John's had the same opportunity, chose to try to fill out a different form um that we were unaware of until the DPI asked us, "Are you sure you want to do this and pay for the whole price of the meals?" And we Katie said, "No, we don't want to do that. That's not what we agreed to." Um and then nothing was filled out. And I don't know why. Um that's not in our purview. Um, but now we're left with as he puts being a catering service and the lowest we
132can charge is $4.25. So that's been the same since the beginning of the year. That never changed. We never said anything about increasing costs. Uh because they didn't. Um and um he puts in his letter that they were paying $4 when $3 was what was discussed and now we're saying four and a quarter and just charging five. So that's that's between them, not us. And saying that just want to make sure that if you feel phone calls from somebody saying why you charging $5, we're not. We're only charging four and a quarter. Um, and to look forward and not backward, I put together a food service contract, which we probably should have done um, and not gone by good faith um, back in September or August. Um, put it in place that we are going
133to charge 425 starting December 1st for the rest of the year. I'd like to send this out tomorrow. I didn't want to do it before I let you know about it. and uh give it to them tomorrow um with the due date of December 1. And if it is not signed and returned by December 1, then I don't know what other options we'd have than to not provide the service anymore. Um, I feel very uncomfortable having to share that with you. Um, and it seems to be rather unfortunate, but I want to make sure that you guys know what's going on because obviously this is not a not a good situation. Any questions? Thank you for taking care of that. >> Yeah, thank you. I think everything you did was appropriate. >> Thank you. Getting
134kids to eat meals at reasonable prices is what's most important. >> Um that's all I have for tonight except it was till that last thing. It was really great the conversation and what we talked about. >> Something else that we can hand I know. Well, if you're not doing anything on December 13th from 11 to 1 downtown Apple, I'm playing Santa Claus. So, I'll be incognito, so you might not recognize me. >> You might have to post a special in between kids. >> Hopefully. >> I think you need a buddy outside. >> Oh, great. >> Oh, yeah. Perfect buddy deal. >> All right. I know. Can I get a motion to >> make a motion? I'll second it. >> All those in favor? I >> post