001It is 6 o'clock. I will call the meeting to order with roll call. Um Rain here. Uh Belinda >> here. >> Tiffany >> here. >> Jonathan >> here. >> Nikki >> here. >> Jason >> here. >> Kelly >> here. If you join for the pledge of allegiance to the flag of the United States of America stands one nation with liberty and justice for all. >> Thank you. >> All right. Uh, first on the agenda is district highlights. >> Jennifer, >> good evening everyone. accepted the year. >> I just wanted to share with you um the Rentown Elementary readathon for 2025 that we just recently concluded. Um so this slideshow just shares with you some of the information from that in hopes of um letting you know what we do and how we do it with
002regards to the readathon. So um at the elementary we ran that readathon between September 24th and October 8th. Students logged minutes and invited family and friends friends to pledge u money for their reading minutes. The readathon was a huge success. The total amount of money raised was $15,797. students read a total of 184,74 minutes. So that was a huge huge huge celebration. We had um our our top reader read an amazing 2,115 minutes and that was Aubrey Wema. Aubrey will have breakfast with a member of the police department and get a ride to school in the police car. So exciting for her. >> In addition, the top readers of each grade level received this certificate, which was a $25 certificate for our upcoming book fair that they will be able to use toward purchasing books
003um to take home for them for their own use at home. So, that was um a a huge um plus to this as well, continuing that reading. The top reader by grade also received 20 a $25 gift certificate to the the vote fair as I stated. And these are our winners. Uh we our top winner um in prek 4K was Zay and Miss Ruben's class with 806 minutes. Paisley in kindergarten with 840 minutes. Ryder in first grade in Mrs. Reed's class with over a,000 minutes. Um Thea in second grade with 1844 minutes. Henry in third grade with 155 minutes and Aubrey with the 2015 as our top reader. So obviously you can see that they really took this seriously and are excited about reading. We had opportunities where high school students came over and read
004to students. Um staff read to students. Um the free books that student earned students earned along the way. They were able to use the coins and the bulk machine um through um our um wonderful donated our wonderful people who have donated that to the community through um oh gosh the name is >> Thank you. redefining futures. Um this has been something that kids just absolutely love. getting that point to put in the machine and punching in the numbers and getting their book and choosing the book that they want um has been something that like is really a highlight of my day whenever we get to do that. Um the Miss Penny does an amazing job of getting a great book selection for various readers at various levels. So um just always highlighting reading because it's
005such an important thing um for kids and everyone. Um in addition we have guest readers as many of you may have seen on Facebook. Um, so, um, just to give you a snippet of that, um, this was our last night in reading and our lovely Miss Penny was doing the reading that night. So, if you haven't had an opportunity to check out the Facebook page, please do so and go back and catch those uh, f now famous Facebook famous anyway, readers um that uh, read to students each night. So, that was really truly exciting and and very grateful and thankful that um, staff were willing to do that and even community members. So thank you. Um these are the top readers for each class. I thought it was important to share with you that you
006know um even 4K students who are getting 595 minutes and um you know just really some outstanding minutes that you see across the board here. This is our our kindergarten and first grade as well. And these students received a certificate and a book and a bookmark. Um this is our second, third, and fourth grade uh leaders in each class as well. Um, it's truly amazing. I I couldn't believe just how many minutes that kids uh were really reading and excited about books and to share that with their their class in school. Um, we also had top classrooms and the top classrooms earned either a popcorn or popsicle party. That was their choice. Um, so these are our winners. Miss Rubin's class was our 4K winner. Miss Frank was our kindergarten winner. Mrs. Reed the first
007grade winner. Miss Vanderbeld second grade. Melman's third grade. and fourth grade Miss Vander Hiden. Although there are classes that had that top um how do we use these funds? That may be a question that you're wondering. So the funds raised through our readathon are divided equally between the parent network and the elementary activity fund. Together these resources help enhance student learning and experiences throughout the year. One example is an exciting event that um we have coming up and that is made through the generosity by you and community members is a a man by the name of Brandy Peterson who you may know that name. He's a well-known um children's performer and he will join us in January. Randy will work with each classroom to create original songs and celebrate our school and our students. So
008that is one opportunity that these funds help to to bring forth for our kiddos. In addition, these funds also offset the cost for field trips and other enrichment opportunities, ensuring that also students can participate and um in these engaging and hands-on learning beyond the classroom. So trying to keep um you know trying not to close doors, trying to open doors for opportunities and these funds um help that for the elementary side of things. Why is reading so important? Of course um you you probably have heard a lot that 20 minutes of reading is so important because there are so many benefits to that obviously. um it improves not only their their um you know their their worldly views and knowing things that happen in all sorts of things. It it increases creativity and their imagination,
009empathy and um it is really a good way to wind down at the end of the night. It it helps to also relax. So reading is super important and um we like to make sure that we continue to stay focused on that at the elementary. So, just a huge thank you to the parent network and all of our Redstone um elementary families for your incredible dedication and making this readathon a tremendous success. So, thank you. >> Thank you. >> WB recognition. I'm going to take this one for you because you're one of the people getting recognized. Um, so Rain is getting his three-year uh certificate. So congratulations to Rain for three years. And Tiffany is getting her nine years. She's the elder skates person, but young at hard and looks and everything else. Um, so
010it's uh it's great that we can go over to Nina tomorrow night and get that celebration. It's also in conjunction with a meeting, so Melinda will be joining us as well. And uh WSB has a program designed specifically for board members and I think they're emphasizing legislative updates and the role of the board I think are are the two topics that they're going to be concentrating on. So, it'll be interesting to have that as well as uh our next uh Monday night special board meeting uh with Ted Nitski coming in reinforcing more than likely some of the things that have been hurt. So, congratulations to you too. >> Thank you. Um, next on the agenda is CISA 7 with Aaron concerning superintendent search. >> Well, good to see you guys again. Thanks for having me.
011And again, it's great to see you folks again. Um, so at your spots tonight, I love the folder. It's got many of the resources or I should say all the resources that we'll take a look at tonight as you guys um consider utilizing our services again for your upcoming important search on your superintendent. Just to run through the folders real quick that service agreements on the first one on the on the lefth hand side behind that is timeline which I'll talk to a little bit today which really kind of outlines many of the activities. There's also a timeline at a glance. So, really just kind of narrow it down to get important dates. And on the right hand side, what I included in there is uh something I might recommend and I'll talk to tonight
012a little bit um would be walking through a community survey, going in through that search to really inform yourselves in terms of the feedback from both staff and community so that some of the u potential questions that might be part of that survey are on the right hand side. All right. So, if I could start um just to run you through, we'll take a look at first at the timeline. That's what I have up on the screen here tonight. The timeline is a tentative timeline. Um there might be a planning meeting or two we would have to insert there yet, but it really walks through the important events that happens throughout. It'll include us meeting that initial time to really refine and set that timeline. Um identifying what we want that job posting to look
013to. It's going to walk through what we want the survey to look like to the community. Consider what that timeline looks like to put out there for the community as well. Um, we'll talk through some elements of what do we do with that data after we do that survey if you want to do that. And I'll show you a couple examples of that this evening as well. It'll walk through um how we do our candidate selection and how you um receive that information, how you review it, what I bring forward to you for consideration, what you see, and then all the way through your selection of who you want to see through the interview process. So, all that will be covered through our various planning meetings that we'll do um throughout that process. We'll get
014into the approval window, when we want to post it, where we want to post it, how long we'll post it for. We'll be part of that um process. We'll talk about as well. We'll talk about how um we as an agency will help and support the screening process so we can bring to you some recommendations based on our background work that we have done. Obviously, you as a board make those final determinations as far as who gets brought forward for the interviews and ultimately who the selected person is. But we do our best to help um identify some of the strengths that you would like to see in this candidate come through. Um and as well as if you do the community survey work, some of the strengths we saw related to the survey that
015we see coming through those candidates. So we'll work all that through those meetings as well. We'll walk through um creating the interview evenings and the interview events um in terms of how many candidates you're interested in seeing, what those events look like. Um are you as a board doing it? Are we including like an advisory committee similar to what we did this summer a little bit? Um I think we had a good process for there. So we'll talk about what that looks like and then all the way through that second round what you want that second round of interviews to look like. So that um inclusive timeline walks through all those different processes with that. The one behind that like I said is an at a glance. So if you don't want all the noise
016of everything that's listed there, it gives you an at a glance of just the specific dates and uh summit of of those various activities that might come into play. Um, I do have dates in here right now completely drafted. Um, it might be closeish, but they're drafted. I think what would be, um, if you guys are interested in utilizing our services for this to help streamline that process, I could probably work with Mr. Small a great deal to kind of outline that plan and really get a good draft back in front of you at your um, probably your November meeting. We could get a good outline back to you guys for uh, for you guys to consider. So, we can help streamline everything, bring that forward. we line up various meeting dates with current meeting
017dates that you guys already have in the books so we don't have to um create a bunch of more a bunch more meetings for you. Um and I think one thing that we recognized this summer when we walk through our process as you go through this there'll be some additional commitments that we'll have to make and consider as we get through the two different inter um at least the two different interview rounds. So, we'll do our best to work with you folks on on dates that work for you um so we can utilize those commitments there. Before I go forward any uh further on that, I just wanted to stop and check to see if anyone had questions as far as the timelines or some of the activities I really briefly went over here with
018you. >> I guess my only question so we worked together this summer and I thought the summer one was great. So, no issues there. Um, is this the timeline that you recommend for a lot of districts in this position? >> Yeah, you're hitting a really great timeline for us to be having this conversation right now is fantastic. Right. So, you know, as doing my plotting and mapping, we could have this thing posted as early as December and depending on your interest on how long you want it posted for. Um, you know, there could be arguments both ways before or after the holidays to be honest with you. And then really is once we have that end in mind of where we want to have a contract signed and all that, we can walk backwards and
019start buying those venet. But the short answer is yes. You're in a great position right now, but a prime window, so to speak, going into this season. >> Awesome. Thank you. >> Great question. >> Other questions? >> And will you go into a little bit more detail on the survey and >> Absolutely. It's like we uh talked beforehand and I turned you transitioned right into it for me here. Um so on the right hand pocket there um what I refer to as an aggregate survey and not so within that document on the right hand side what it's really and truly representing is potential um survey questions for both community and staff. So it's an aggregate it's bringing all together. So on the on the right hand side you'll see indicated in blue who the intended
020audience is for that particular question. Some say all some say community some say staff. So there might be some targeted questions that you are interested in focusing on each group. So this is a um a set of questions that we've utilized in premier surveys that have worked well. It's a great place for us to start the conversation for you to consider. Obviously you have some targeted questions that you'd like to include. you can absolutely put that in there. So, some of the things we commonly include in the survey is getting a sense of what uh both your staff and the community might be interested in in terms of expertise, in terms of experience, what's important to them in terms of personality traits. So, through the survey, we look to see and oftentimes we line the
021question up of tell me your top three priorities for um characteristics or traits. Tell me your top three experience things that you're looking for. tell me your top three things of area of expertise. So that's how the feedback that we that we um take in through that survey work seek out all that information through the survey. We also collect like the the the users demographics. So are you a staff member? Are you a student? Are you a parent? Um are you a parent of a student currently in the district, former student, future student or just a community member that wants to weigh in. So we collect all that information. The reason we do that is after we run that survey, um, one of the things that we like to do is put it back into
022a a what we call a looker studio. It's a database that really allows you to see the information I call you can consume the information in here within that database. Then I have an example drafted up here on the board. Um, you can start running through the survey and the intention of this would be to be public facing so you can have that good clear communication with your community. you guys took the survey, here's what your results came in to be. The really neat part about this tool is it allows us to go through um and anybody can do this once we have a public facing. You can select the various demographics here and it's going to say, hey, we just want to see maybe how our teacher group responded on these particular questions as
023far as previous experience. It's going to adjust just to see what our teacher group said. Maybe we want to put our students in there as well or our support staff, whatever that might be. And you're going to see that data kind of ebing and flowing and changing with these. So we you as a board the community can really get a good sense of okay here's what we said here's what we said we wanted to see in this next superintendent we can take that information then utilize it in terms of when we're doing our screening process what are we seeing and hearing through the reference um their letters of recommendation what are we seeing in their experiences we can start utilizing that to really fine-tune who we're looking for in that candidate we can even include
024that information in our interview questions um as your community and your staff and everybody tells you what they're looking for as importance we can try to glean that through those interview questions as well. So that feedback of doing the survey um because I don't believe you you guys have done survey for your last search or I don't think so. So that be something new that we could certainly I I would enjoy including for this one to get a great um voice of your community in there. It's really going to be insightful for you folks to consider. So let me stop again and see if you guys have questions in terms of the survey what we do with that information after the survey. >> I get the survey out through the community. >> Yeah, great question.
025So that survey again it's like we spoke beforehand um I have drafted up here um a sample of the survey and so this happens to be what the public would would see it's a um the community survey I have up on the board here it this would be we'd work with you as a district in terms of that communication one of the most functional things is to use your student management system your messaging tool through the district we would work to get communication out to your public and would be out on your website so we look to push this out fast and furious as much as we can during that before, after, and during that SER uh survey window to make sure we can spread the word. Like I said, we could place um a
026link out on your website and show you another thing here, another place that it could be as well if you're interested in that. So, we would work on that communication. Same thing for staff. Um the staff will have a very similar experience. Survey will look very similar. Um again, just grabbing some demographics from that staff member as we get into that. Again, we can utilize your email communication inside the district to push that out and get that staff feedback. Does that answer your question, Jonathan? >> Great. >> It looks like you have two weeks set aside roughly for the survey. >> Say that again. I'm sorry. >> It looks like you have about two weeks. >> Just a recommendation, right? >> I think it's good. Right. >> And oftent times if people aren't doing it
027the first five days, they're probably not going to come back to do it. But we do leave it open for that two weeks and do multiple different communication questions. We'll work through with you on that. Uh just to make sure we spread the word as much as we can. So, the last part I I just wanted to introduce and just as a potential opportunity for you guys to do because I know I know you didn't have it last time because it's really kind of a fresh out the gate idea um that I've added. It's kind of been coming together for a little bit of time here as we do these searches is putting together a website that we would help manage for you that has everything for the superintendent search contained. So, it would be
028everything for your community members to see and learn about. It would be information for our candidates to consider. So on this page, it could just be basic welcome information about the Righttown community. We would certainly want to include something in there that would tell candidates, potential candidates about the district. So here we're saying all the cool and neat things that are happening in Righttown. Um the community itself, here's some cool things about the districts. Um, if people are interested in understanding the hiring process, what we've do here is we put that at a glance schedule in so your community members can see where we're at as you're going through this process and understand step by step what's all happening. We even have opportunities in here. If somebody's um comes across this page and finds this
029page for them to apply, it gives them all the information of what they might look for. They can click apply now. It's going to walk them through that process. Um, as we get through the survey, um, Jonathan, to your point too, this is another space where we could link the survey right in here for both staff and community. So, community members could access it from here. If we have updates throughout the process, so say, let's say we've narrowed down to two candidates, we're going to do an announcement on that. Boom. We could put it in our search updates or whatever whatever uh additional information you guys want might want in that search update section there. So really, it's made to be a one-stop shop for for applicants, for you as a board, for community members
030to kind of get a sense of what's going on through the search. Um, there's even an element in here um for board access. As we start sharing information, confidential information back and forth, we could link to a folder structure right off this website that's secured and only that you folks would be able to get access to. So it'd be a great tool for you as well to stay updated on our calendar, our events and then access the applicant information and and perhaps interview by whatever else that we share together. So just an idea I had in making in terms of uh clear communication uh so the process is crystal clear for both you and community members and for us included. Um and again all that would get populated after we we agree upon the timeline
031and you know spell out all the all the details there. >> So that is essentially some of the the new stuff. I don't think you guys have had it previous searches um that I wanted to share with you tonight. A little bit about the service itself, some of the things that we can include in that. Um understanding that a lot of these things we will certainly do and customize to the approach you want to take to it because ultimately like I mentioned before, we will facilitate the process, but it's ultimately the board's decision who you view. We bring an interview and the final selection. I just help do my best to get the very best people in front of you and do a process in which you guys feel competent going forward. as far as
032um forming a separate committee. >> Yeah. >> Um how where would that what would that look like or I mean I'm assuming that's going to be up to the board to decide okay we want x amount of staff members. You want x amount of community members. >> Yeah. So the process we ran this summer we did uh we had eight days we put it together for us. So it came together quickly but I think it came together pretty well for you. What I typically find and might recommend in these cases is through that first round of interview process, including what I might call an advisory committee. The advisory committee is just that they're there to advise the board on their impressions, their input based on the candidates that they see during the interview process. Through
033that, I would highly recommend and I would gauge for you to do a nice cross-section of the district. So, it might be staff and support staff from elementary, middle, high school. Maybe you have an administrator or two on that. Um, if you're interested in including community members, we can talk through who might be the important community members that you want to include on that on that panel as well on that advisory committee. Oftentimes, what we do in that we might have like a two or a three-way cycle in that evening during that first round of interviews. So, the candidate might come in and maybe they're interviewing with the board, maybe then with the advisory committee. And if you're just doing one, maybe that's it. Maybe it's a two-way rotation that night. You have a second
034um committee. Maybe you have one community, one staff, one board. So maybe it's a three-way bounce that night, but then all three groups get to see the candidates that come through with. So the advisory committee, it's a commitment just as it is for you and the board. We would ask for those advisory committee members after they're either invited or um um volunteer to be part of that to commit to all of the interview dates to make sure we can uh have validity and consistency through that process. other questions you folks might have. >> Thank you. >> Certainly, you certainly know how to get a if you guys have any questions as you go throughout your decision making process. And again, I appreciate the opportunity to come in and uh possibly work with you folks again.
035>> Thank Thank you. >> Just a couple of follow-up comments. Uh Erin and I have spent some planning sessions together already and continue to plan on it and hopefully that you guys are uh okay with him and I doing the leg work for you guys to get it up to a point where you can take a look at things. Um, and so that that is something that I um would look forward to doing with Aaron and uh try to keep things moving for everybody and then also helping out with uh some of the other things along the way as you guys see fit, but helping out where I can. >> And where that would be really helpful is we schedule those planning dates. So once we kind of have those locked in and understand the
036process you want to see. I can do my best to really be efficient and effective. So we're not meeting six or eight different times that we can do so really effectively and dates you're probably already meeting and some of those who just have to get into close session questions or review candidates. But it'd be uh being able to work with Jim would allow us to do that nice process for you guys. So awesome. Thank you. >> Thanks folks. Appreciate it. >> Thank you. All right. Next on our agenda is school resource officer Jessica Smith. >> I'm so this is Beth. She's a school community therapy dog. Um and kids call me Officer Jessica and I'm your school resource officer. I've been a school resource officer. Uh, I've been a school resource officer here in Rice
037for 11 years, one of 12. I'm a deputy with the Brown County Sheriff's Office. I've worked there now for 22 years. Uh, I do cover the elementary, the middle, and the high school. My office is located at the high school. Um, one of my roles as a school resource officer is I uh participate in community events. Uh, this year I'm going to be in the Raytown Christmas parade. We have Betsy on the golf cart. Looking forward to that. Could be a little cold. Uh I always do the before before school uh shop at the cop. There's a before school one and then there's one also during uh Christmas time we can shop at the cop and I do many different other community events. Um one of the things I like to do is uh in
038the middle school I teach a few classes with our elementary or middle school counselor Miss Prodell. I get into the seventh and eighth grade classes and we teach stuff such as we co-e like a bullying incident or class and then um I teach online safety for both seventh and eighth grade. I also bring in an investigator for our IATC division which is internet crimes against children and two investigators come in and speak to the eighth graders about online safety and phone usage which is really awesome. Uh also the middle school I go into I teach the fifth grade DARE program and the fifth graders get me once a week for 10 weeks. Uh some of the topics in there we talk we talk about bullying uh have to stand up for yourself. We talk about
039vaping uh which about one in four students unfortunately are vaping at the high school level. Uh it is going down slightly. Um we talk about how we can stand up to peer pressure and and voucher and driving the dangers of that. Those are just a few of the things that I teach in DARE. Uh Betsy has been amazing addition to me. Uh I use her a lot at elementary school. will go into the classes and we will read to to students. She's also used as a deescalation for students that can't control their anger or emotions. Uh what could possibly in the past take 40 minutes to calm the student down sometimes with Bessie we walk in and within a few seconds they can calm down. So she's been an amazing tool and also high school
040some kids that uh with anxiety they'll come and visit with her uh and then maybe five minute visit and then they can go back onto their day and have a successful day. Um, I assist principles. One of my jobs is to assist principles in their investigations of school incidents. Uh, I'm usually just solely use helping them to backline. Um, and it's the role of the principles to give school consequences and not myself. Um, I can enforce laws such as uh truency citations. Uh, if there's a fight, I can write citations. Uh, right's a really good school district. So, I don't have to write many citations like my cohorts in Green Bay. Uh, so we really do have an awesome school district. Um, so I do meet with our uh school resource off officers once a
041month from all over Brown County and the story is they have they have everything. So, ours is like maybe every three years. Um, it also assists with the emergency response uh preparedness and create safe and supportive environment to school. to staff and to students and I like to be a mentor towards kids and I really think getting my foot in when they're 10 and 11 with the DARE for program having me for 10 weeks helps them uh feel safe around me. A lot of times they'll come to me uh when they have problems or issues or stuff at home and it's not just school stuff. Uh so that's basically my role all wrapped up. I wear a lot of hats and I really enjoy my job here. Cool. Thank you. >> Thank you. Thank you.
042Any questions for officer Jessica? She get your coat and walk out the door. >> Thank you. >> Yeah, thanks for coming tonight. Appreciate it. >> All right, next on the agenda is upcoming events. Yeah, we've got three there that uh um every month we try to highlight some things that maybe you wouldn't necessarily see. So, we've got bus safety week this week and school psych week in the early November and then substitute educators day November 21st which we should all be very thankful for those people that do that. So just a couple of little things here and there that we would like to make mention to honor those people. So awesome. Nothing more. >> Um at this time uh we'll go to open forum. So this is the public's opportunity to bring concerns to the
043board. Board discussion and action on public forum items is prohibited for the open meeting law agenda posting requirement. Items may be taken under advisement, referred to proper channels or basic general information may be provided. Hearay, personal tax and anonymous concern will not be considered. Those wishing to speak will be given five minutes to speak. Board minutes will reflect only open form general comments. And it looks like we have one person, Ron Zan. Miss Ramzan, a village resident, I do realize that it's not good to live one's life with an eye always in the rear view mirror. Being stuck on the past uh can easily lead to constant carping or other ills. However, before moving ahead, it is also good to learn lessons. Whatever lessons that pass can teach, there well may be lessons from the
044past not yet learned by this board. It seems to me during the recent shameful recall election, the claim was made to me personally and possibly also on the recall's website was the duty of the V board president to promptly correspond in some way with all citizens who brave speaking at this podium. During the rather short presidency of Angela Hansen Winker, I spoke to the ward on several occasions and following one or two of those, I did receive from her kind of appreciation. During the tenure of the current president, I have likewise spoken several times, but have received no communication. What's good for the goose, it seems to me, ought also to be good for the gander. If the former president should be recalled in part because she did not fulfill this responsibility, should not the
045current president also face a recall or some kind of comment? Seems to me an obvious lesson has not been learned. But then again, maybe that requirement on the office of president was no more than a figment in the imagination of those who conducted the recall. Does anybody on this board know how many board members, citizens, speakers from this platform brought up the subject of wasted district dollars of unnecessary and extravagant legal fees of the likely high cost of the severance package? Probably not because the the number would be large. male practice on the part of the former border president regarding district dollars became a constant recall theme. Well, now just last month, this board approved legal fees in excess of $15,000 and just a bit earlier had approved a severance package for the excellent administrator,
046Mr. Sorry. And more recently, a pricey salary and benefits package for the current interim superintendent for about 10 and a half months work. And earlier, there was the cost of nearly $39,000 for the recall election. A cost, by the way, that sits squarely in the lap of the current president. I won't at this time comment on where all this lies on the Goldilock scale, but I will say this. It's a lot of money authorized by the same people who screamed in opposition to the expenses of the former board. That that sink in for a minute, if indeed it can, after the criticism of the former president for extra budgetary expenditures. Apparently, a lesson was learned, but a weird one. If you don't like what the former board did, just do the same thing in spades.
047Like so much in life, apparently lessons learned or not learned come threes is also the matter of property taxes. Citizens had to work overtime over a period of time to convince the board to stop defeases. Only after the voters installed more members within ear to the citizen was there relief at the taxpayer. Now it appears that there could be a noticeable increase in the mill rate. When that increased mill rate is applied to sharply increasing property values, the property owner gets a double whammy. The lesson not yet learned is that citizens have budgets too. However, we can't increase our household income simply by taking a vote on Billy. Regarding the rear wheel mirror, perhaps we can better work together to the benefit of the district when there's evidence that lessons have been learned. At this
048point, I don't see it. Thank you. >> All right. Um, agenda item number six, discussion and possible approval of the August 8th, 2025 special meeting minutes. You're looking for a motion to approve. >> I'll make a motion to approve. >> I'll second. >> All those in favor? >> Anyone opposed? discussion and possible approval of the September 17th meeting minutes. >> I'll make a motion to approve the September 17th meeting. >> I'll second that motion. >> Any questions on it? >> All those in favor? >> Anyone opposed? Uh discussion and possible approval of the October 8th workshop minutes. I'll make a motion to approve the October 8th workshop minutes. One second. >> Any questions on it? >> All those in favor? >> Anyone opposed? >> Uh, next on the agenda is consideration to approve the monthly
049bills, listings, and receipts. >> I'll make a motion. All right. Any questions on the listings and receipts? >> All those in favor? >> I. >> Anyone opposed? >> Uh, approve and set the 2025 26 school year tax and final budget adjustments as required per state. I make a motion to approve the 2025 2026 budget as presented and adopt the 2025 20226 tax levy of 5,712,5454 in the general fund 2,91,578 in the debt service fund and $40,000 in the community service fund for a total tax levy of 7,844,32. I'll second >> discussion. >> Yeah, I'd like to, uh, offer some thoughts and then let Dan go through a PowerPoint for folks, uh, before you may take the final vote. Um, so, thank you for that. Uh you know I would uh interestingly enough I was thinking
050about double whammies earlier today but uh unfortunately we have to talk about triple whamies. Um we have a triple whammy this year. Uh the triple whammy is state funding vouchers as well as uh the increase per student aid um offered to us by the state of Wisconsin. And unfortunately, um, this triple whammy is for the negative. First of all, the state funding went down 5.23%. Which correlates to $550,000 here locally. Uh, 34 of the school districts in this state received less state aid this year than they did last year. Might I mention that we do know that they have a record amount of uh rainy day funding in their fund balance at the state level that they choose not to allow uh us to access that money to educate kids. Secondly, we have a voucher
051system that started a few years ago. We have no control over that except $647,000 this year. it went up $140,000. We had no idea about that at the annual meeting. So, when we make our predictions at the annual meeting, there are certain factors that we don't know about. Thus, the reason why we're here tonight, um that's one of the factors. So, that's $140,000 uh extra that goes on property taxes. Um maybe something that could be considered is why is it put on property taxes and not some other form? Why do we have to bear the brunt of people being upset by their property taxes going up that we have no control over but yet we get blamed for it. And thirdly, the $325 per student, $325 times uh 1311 kids, which is our enrollment this
052year, comes up to $426,000. They didn't fund that. They didn't give us the money for that. They said if you want it, you know, you have to go plead in front of your local taxpayers in meetings like tonight. So, you put all that together, the 550, the 140, and the 426, it comes out to $1,116,000 that we were left on the hook for locally. So, now what do we do? Well, we have 3% increase in inflation. We took that down to.33. Now, you're going to see on the sheets that it says an overall increase of 1.26. That's because we're taking money out of a Fund80 fund balance to help out the taxpayers because we appreciate the pain that they're going through. We empathize with that and we're trying to do our darnest here at the
053local level to meet that need, but we can only do so much. Two out of the three factors are out of our control. So that 1,116,000, we're not going to put that on the levy. In fact, it's going to be a little under 900,000. In fact, it's $134,000 less than what we predicted at the annual meeting because we wanted to be empathetic to people at the local level. And I'm pretty darn confident, not I don't have any inside information. Um, but I think the village is probably going through a lot of the same things. So, we need to be empathetic for them as well. All in all, um, we tried to keep it at 33%. Really, if you take a look at the, uh, taking the money out of fund balance, it's back to that
05433% which we told you at the annual meeting and we were trying to keep our increases down. So, instead of the 3% inflation, we went to.33. Some people might be upset by that because we actually lost 2.67% of our buying power again. We lost 2.67% of our ability to help children. Yet, it's the right thing to do because we should be sympathetic. We should learn lessons. We should try to work together. And that is lessons that are we're trying to move forward and not look backwards. So with that, I'm going to turn it over to to Dan and he's going to make it come to life in a in the final budget update. >> How do you follow that? Right. Um um so you you've heard us talk about the revenue before and um you
055know the institute in 1993 limits the amount of money a school district can raise between uh state aid and local property taxes. So the effective equation is we figure out the revenue limit we back out the amount that the state is going to give us and the remainder is local property taxes. Uh there's three main variables in in that calculation. Enrollment, the amount that state is going to kick in and then equalize property values for the final calculation of your building. So let's take a look at each um of those variables. Enrollment, we typically plan for flat enrollment um because we like to be conservative in that calculation and understand what that, you know, worst case scenario kind of could be. Um it's based on a three-year rolling average. Uh so we this year we
056had an increase of 11 students from a funding standpoint. You know we don't we have more than 131 students that that come to our building every every day but from a funding standpoint it's 131 students uh for for funding this year. When we look at state aid as Jim talked about a 5.23% reduction in state aid. Um so our number this year is $9.95 million. Um and that reduction is because the state legislators and the governor when they created the the state budget for this year, they chose not to fund schools um school increases at um an appropriate level. Um when we look at local property values, uh at the annual meeting, we talked about a 9.25% 25% increase. That was based on our 7-year average of Florida community. Actually, we came in at 6%,
057so a little less than what we thought. Um, you know, that's there's pros and cons to that. Um, but when we look at our property values overall, $1.3 billion in in our community, uh, a $74 million increase, you know, and the district does have no control over those property values. So, um, it's it's a number that we get on October beginning of October to plug it into the formula and that's how you can calculate the mill rate and compare yourselves to you know other districts and um in the past. Um, so when we look at the tax level, put it all together at annual meeting, we projected $7.9 million, uh, 5 $5.92 on the bill rate. As Jim talked about, we are reducing the fund, the community service lov, uh, to push that down to
058about $7.8 million. Now, because the property value increase was only 6% versus that 9.25 25 that we talked about that means the mill rate actually is going to go up but we are levvening less than what we expected. So when we look at a summary here um you know our enrollment increased you know property values didn't increase as much as what we talked what we thought state budget cut um allowed a $325 per student increase that was not funded by the state is $422,000. We talked about state aid reduction 5.23% that's $550,000 there. Private school vouchers increased 20 27% this year $140,000 um to a total of about $650,000 there. As we talked about, we're going to use some fund balance and funding that'll be used to reduce that impact on the local taxpayers. So
059when we look at the mill rate uh $5.99 um a total so for operating at the general fund $327 private school vouchers 51 the debt service levy $159 that's the only required payment and then we reduce that community service levy to 2 cents for $40,000 there. So that's how we get to $5.99. So, as Jim talked about, you know, much of these increases are out of our control. You know, we recognize the impact that the state has put on our community. You know, as Jim said, we empathize that, you know, in an effort to be a good partner in all this. You know, we've had to reduce that levy and community service fund to, you know, try to minimize the impact on our on our pack. So, that's all I had. J, if you have
060anything else to add or questions from the board. >> I just have a question. So, we're taking money from the community service fund. And I think that's I think that's awesome that that decision was made to do that to be fiscally as responsible as we can, right? To to help out uh community. I I live here, so it helps me, right, as a taxpayer, right? Um my concern is are we reducing any services by taking money out of that community service fund? >> We are not reducing any services from fund 80. So, um, we've, um, created, um, a rather healthy fund balance in fund 80 over the years, uh, due in order to create equipment rotations in the wellness center. Um, so we made a decision this year to use some of those dollars, um,
061to help, you know, help out the taxpayers. So, uh, not not sure we'll be able to continue to do that so far in the future because it's usually not a great idea to, you know, pay for ongoing expenses with one-time money, but, uh, you know, in this year, you know, we we we thought that was the best decision on what we could do. So, hopefully our next state budget comes out, you know, a little bit better on our end and we'll be able to, you know, not have to do some of those things. >> Okay. A residual of that is uh I stopped over at the fitness center one morning this week. Saw some people working out. Um not me. Uh but the uh met with uh >> Jordan and um he is going to
062come and do a little presentation for you guys here in the next month or two so you can learn more about the uh the fitness center because it's pretty cool and it looks great. And uh the great news is is enrollment's up. You know, they're breaking records left and right there. So that's probably an outstand one of the more outstanding partnerships between a village and a school district. And so you guys should uh all of you should take credit for that and that's a a great thing that you did. But more on that next month or in December, one of the two. >> Yeah. Yeah. We keep the mill rate below six. How many other districts in Brown County that have no right below six? >> I would say probably none, you know, so we'll
063be um probably the lowest in our in our area for sure. Um I think Waka had a lower mill rates. I don't know what's what their reasoning for is out there, but uh you know, you'll see no bates and whatever problem, you know, that $6 range to upwards of $101, you know, depending on you know, if there's a referendum that was passed and you know, it's a result of the school funding formula, those revenue limits. So, as J talked about a couple months back, you know, if when you're locked in, if you were higher spending, you're able to to continue to do that. And if you're limited, you're you're not able to do that limited, you know, obviously. >> And do you have a feeler? Um do you have a guess of how other districts
064how much they're raising of how their millies are changing this year with the other >> Well, I think you know, every district is in the same situation that Jim said 75% lost aid. So, you know, vouchers are increasing to we're not unique in those in those realms. So um in order to fund things appropriately you know you'll see you know news articles about budget deficits in districts like Green Bay and you know things like that districts going to operational referendum to you know to in order to pay for things and you know we're not having to do some of those things. So I think those are wins for you know us financially um that we're able to balance our budget you know with the tools that we have for us. So, um, you know, we're
065not always able to do everything we want, but you know, um, we're able to make it work. So, um, I think that's a testament to our, you know, high achieving, low spending, like we talked about our community. >> Anything else for the board? >> Thanks, D. Um, with that we have a motion on the table for the approval. Um, all those in favor? >> Anyone opposed? Motion carries. >> Um, and then next on the agenda is approve contract for CISA 7 superintendent search. >> I'll make a motion to approve the contract for the CISA 7 superintendent search. >> I'll second it. Any questions on that? All those in favor? >> Anyone opposed? Motion carried. Um policy for discussion. So discussion and possible approval of volume 34 number one of the update. >> Looking for a
066motion to approve. Any [Music] questions on it? >> We got to approve minutes. >> I will. All right. And then the only difference between the current one and what we looked at at the workshop last time is we updated the wording around um >> inappropriate >> the Yes. Yes. inappropriate. And then what was that 3281? >> Yeah. >> So yeah, that's the only change within the >> Any other questions on it? All right. All those in favor? I. >> Anyone oppose? >> Motion carries. Okay. Administrative updates and board reports. >> Oh, look at where the finger's going. Who wants to go first? Oh, Jen wants to go first. We're going right down the line. In addition to the readathon that we had that was a huge success, I wanted to share that our first grade
067students had the opportunity to participate in the Packer outreach program which ensures 60 minutes of physical activity per day. Um the students loved the event. It was fantastic. A huge thank you to Amy Collins for setting this up for our students and a wonderful thank you to all our parent volunteers. That was a really neat activity that our kids got to do. Thank you to Weather Cooperated. It was wonderful. Also, our kindergarteners wrapped up their first reading unit with a we are readers parade. Staff and students line the halls to cheer on our youngest readers as they proudly carried their star stories. It was a wonderful celebration of their hard work, growth, and wealth of reading. >> Well, I'm back here for me again. Uh you know we did just talk about the budget but
068uh you know one of the highlights you know obviously is the 25206 budget has been finalized and we're proud to report that. Um outside of that business office has dedicated significant time and resources to meeting state reporting requirements related to finalizing 2425 fiscal year and as well keeping the 25 26 fiscal year. So a lot of reporting right now a lot of reporting to DPI and things like that. So um We're hoping to get through that cycle pretty quick and focus on other things. So, >> in student services, um we have continued our partnership this year with Big Brothers, Big Sisters. Um so, we have volunteers from the community coming in um who are interested in men mentoring children. Um the volunteers are screened and then they're matched with a student. Um and bigs and
069littles meet each week. they play games, do crafts, or just talk. Um, this is an awesome opportunity for students to form a positive connection with someone in the community. So, we're always looking for more volunteers. Um, last week I was able to visit um for a student and um did some bus driver training um specific to transporting our special education students. So, um we just talked about strategies for students with disabilities to keep them safe on the bus. Um and I just thank for student they were very welcoming um and provided that time and space for the training. Um October 3rd inservice specialist staff received Medicaid training. Um and that basically focuses on um cleaning procedures and how they document um health services that we provide eligible students in their IEPs. So, our school district
070receives um dollars back for that and we're reimbursed for any services that we pay. >> All right. And the director of teaching and learning world um we had our first quarterly mentee meeting uh that focused on student engagement and classroom management uh techniques. We have a really strong team of new teachers this year. So, it was fun to get to know them a little bit better. Um, and then to see them interact together and offering um ideas and support for the individuals that were coming with different questions. It was cool to see all of them working together uh to be the best teachers they possibly could be. Uh, all content areas from 4K to uh 12th grade have been working on our year-long resource audit uh that we'll be completing just to get a real
071picture of what is our current reality and what's happening in our classrooms. Uh this project will take us until late February, early March. So they're working on that every month. And then lastly, our inservice on Friday, October 3rd, had a focus on educator effectiveness. All of the staff met in the auditorium at the high school to go over expectations when we're teach uh creating our student learning goals, our professional practice goals, and then to create look for administrators when we go in to do classy. Do they want us to be focusing on uh to help them grow? So then it ultimately will help our students grow. So that's what's uh staff focus on the 256 exposure. >> Over at the high school, October is manufacturing month. Uh we at the high school with the See
072if I can say this without tripping up. Northeast Wisconsin Manufacturing Alliance or NEMA, NEUA, there local businesses to provide um our students with some great field trips. They help to offset the cost of some of our transportation for the month of October field trips. Our students are going to attend the build my future day at NWTC manufacturing first expo at the rush and business students will be touring uh Belmar next week. We do have some teachers and myself attending and and Mrs. Nelson attending the ACP round table at the Rush Expo uh near the end of the month. That gives us a chance as educators to meet directly with business leaders and plan more opportunities for our students. Um, I know we're just starting the school year, but we're already thinking about next school year
073when it comes to high school schedule. And so that's right around the corner. Sarah and I have been meeting with departments uh in those meetings and review and discuss our scope and sequence course offerings. We've had some great conversations uh with our staff members uh and looking at new opportunities for dual credit, AP and advanced courses. We're also planning for a scheduling showcase. I mentioned this before um during the December parent teacher conferences. Um and then our registar, our counselors, and leadership team. We received some scheduling training last week um in a in a webinar with with Skyler. And then many of us also attended a conference the last couple days to learn more about scheduling and I think that was um really good. My brain is still burning. Um people that are smarter than
074me hopefully took more out of it. Um so I'm trying to keep up. And then finally, I wanted to recognize outstanding efforts of our students um really who serve our community and our school. Um again a couple months in our students have promoted the senior citizen dance after homecoming. Uh there was they organized through sources of strength a very successful color blaze run and of course uh not too far back we had the community craft fair and there's a lot of work behind the scenes by many many students to get that work done. We also have a number of students that donate blood drive. Mr. Ericson reported that we had a record I don't know what the number was but we had a record number of student donors this time around. That's really really exciting.
075NHS works with adoptive family and many other things kind of again behind the scenes. Uh not really asking for any special recognition but just doing all that work uh to help make our community a great place. Uh it really does say something special about our kids. Uh that they do serve our community in many ways. Some of those things unseen which very great kids. But that's the report from the high school. Tiger Nation shout out goes to a girls golf team. Uh they qualified for sectionals as a team uh two week two weeks ago. Uh they placed third in the regionals at Mid Valley Golf Course. Unfortunately, sectionals did not go as planned. Uh we did not qualify for state as a team and one of our our lead golfers who played placed first many
076many times just missed out on going to state by one show. >> Most of our we had a great season. Uh most our girls are back next year. So, and I know they're already excited for next year. We'll be back. They did really, really well. All right. Thank you, coach blow to our players. Uh, one act was added again last week and they qualified through districts at Ashwin. All right. They will advance to the sectionals at Okcono Falls at the in the first week of November. And, uh, with that hopefully to get a chance to go to state, state is held this year at W Stevens Point. So hopefully next um board meeting will a little bit more of that. It's playoff time for the WWIA again. All right, so uh playoff seats come up
077tomorrow. Uh is a big day. Boys soccer is going to play at 4 o'clock in Oklahoma. And then at 7 o'clock, our girls volleyball is going to Keel. And by the way, it's an hour and a half from Ke. I'll be making that trip. Uh on Friday, our cross country runners are going to be running in section. All right. And our football team made the playoffs for the 31st year in a row back in 1995. They are going to Okonnell Falls. We are the six seed. They are the three seed. And so the Tigers are going out to invade. So hopefully do well for all four of our sports this weekend. That's why I have >> All right. the technology services team back at the July 2025 uh board workshop we discussed implementing wireless network
078access controls to improve wireless security though through some careful budgeting decisions we've been able to secure fund and move toward with this project uh that means that we'll we'll be experiencing some incoming changes uh to wireless networks changes and procedures for accessing them that'll make our wireless network security a little stronger and bring us much closer to the standard industry practices organization of our eyes. So, pretty excited about that. Texas's team has also confirmed access of upwards of $260,000 rate reimbursement money for category 2 network purchases. That's over the course of the next five years. So, we'll be including that as part of our five-year budgeting plan. Uh team is already already have plans to begin utilizing this funding to replace seven edge switches that will regen light before the beginning of next school year.
079And we're also planning to use some of the initial fonts this uh this this coming year to improve wireless access in larger spaces across the district like gymnasiums, cafeterias and uh any outdoor areas that share instructional uh purpose uh because our density is lacking in a lot of those places. Lastly then um tech services spent some time analyzing wireless performance at the middle school. A few weeks ago we were able to modify the radio power settings and channel distribution across the whole building. Um, middle school teacher summarized the impact of these changes best by saying this quote, "Internet has improved in my room. Students are no longer getting booted out of programs and are able to fully participate, especially during their diagnostic testing, which would cause an anxiety and impact their test scores. I'm also
080able to show videos now without constant buffering and reloading was often having to problem solve and pivot on the spot with 25 sets of eyeballs on alleviated the anxiety of wondering whether the technology I plan for my room will work or not." So we were pretty happy to see that they basically when they set it up it was just kind of your radios on the same channel which causes incredible interference. Although the right materials were there, they were all communicating with each other the wrong way to be very very confused and thus really well. So, color runs, blood drives, homecoming, craft fair, readathons, fall sports, a lot of things going on and a lot of great opportunities for children and uh for great uh sportsmanship, showmanship, uh participation, uh civic pride, I guess, is the
081best way to put it. A lot of civic pride in in what's happening around here. So, congratulations to all of you that uh reported. Congratulations to our community for supporting and doing these things. Tens of thousands of dollars were raised this month to help this area and this community. It's pretty special. Uh so that kind of segus into my first report. Brian might need some help. WABCA Wabka is that >> WABKA had their meeting uh on Thursday and and I went and a lot of great uh community members and businesses from the area coming together to try to do some some more cool things for kids. So partnering with them is just another um scenario where we are doing some great things and that was really kind of Thank you Brian for mentioning that I
082should go to that. Um uh kind of piggybacking off of what Corey said, we're going to start bringing some things and he's going to uh do a report in in November kind of keep on going on with the reports he's giving. Um, but the that -ate money is there and we're going to put together a um a timeline to get some of these things done because we're we're we're uh at the end of life with some of these things and we have one point of failure and makes me a little nervous. Should make everybody a little nervous at one point of failure. So, we're going to be looking at those things uh very in the very near future. Nola, we will start with the Niola 342 for those keeping score at home and we'll do
083that in November. And uh you know, if everything goes according to plan, uh January would be where you'd have your second reading of new 342. And yes, folks, you are caught up then. So that's great. uh CISA7 I just wanted to make mention and I didn't want to do it while Earl was here but Aaron gave us a discounted rate on doing the search and so it it's a really good price for all the things the surveying and everything else that they plan on doing. So give him a shout out and appreciation for C7 wanting to work with us. The last thing I have is Oh, no. I have two more things because I'm looking forward to uh uh Sarah sharing more about uh the school report cards, but they're embargoed right now. So, that's
084all I can say, but we're really looking forward to that, right Sarah? >> Yes. >> I thought you'd treat it that way. Um and then one final thing is we are going to be looking at and hopefully rolling out next month or very soon thereafter. Um Caring for Students, our our bus company now has software that parents can download on their phone, an app that uh you can follow where your bus is, you know, before school and after school. not for uh events out to Al and Herzland, but we're not there yet. Um, and by the way, there's no good way to get the deal from there. Uh, good luck with that. Um, but, uh, hopefully by, I don't know, Thanksgiving, Christmas for sure. Um, they'll be able to track it on their phone if
085it late, if it's early, you know, so they don't have to worry about those things. So, so they'll be able to track it on their phone, their app. So, that's a really, really cool thing. I think parents are really going to like that. Maybe put the kids on the bus instead of having to drive them here. Huh? >> What do you think? >> All in favor say no. Anyway, >> that's all I have. >> All right. Awesome. >> Uh, next on the agenda is executive sessions. So the board of education may upon motion be made carried convene in close session under one or more the exemptions provided in section 19.851 stancing statute for the following purposes. Um pursuant to Wisconsin statute 19.851C 851C considering employment, promotion, compensation or performance evaluation data of any public employee
086over which governmental body has jurisdiction or ex exercises responsibilities specifically administrator evaluations. And then um B is pursuant to Wisconsin state statute 19.851F considering financial, medical, social or personal histories or disciplinary data of specific persons. Preliminary consideration of specific personnel problems or the investigation of charges against specific persons which if discussed in public would be likely to have substantial adverse effect upon the reputation of any person referred to in such histories or data or involved in such problems or investigations specifically to review student disciplinary information. Uh update the board on pending investigation. be looking for a motion to go into close session. >> Before we go into close session, are we going to be taking action or are we going to be expecting to adjourn in close session? >> It's part of evidence to come
087out of close session back into open session. >> Yeah. >> So, you're expecting >> Yeah. >> I'll make a motion. >> I'll second. >> All those in favor? Um, I'll >> I'll link your back.