001Okay. Can I have your attention? I'd like to call the meeting to order. Uh please uh stand with with me and do the pledge of allegiance. I pledge allegiance to the United States of America for it stands one nation when I state your name please say here here Jeff here Melinda here Mike here Tony here rain here and myself here. The next thing on the agenda is to uh take a look at the common commitments. So, we'll go around the room and each of us will read uh two of the common commitments. I'll start off. Participate with humility over pride and forgiveness. We are all here to make decisions that are best for all of our students. We like to uh Jeff, no enemies at the table, just differences. Prioritize productive discussion. Adhere to Robert's
002rules of order. Start on time. Respect others time. Stay in your lane. Board responsibilities should not flow over to administration. Dedication to researching issues and agenda items. Educating ourselves about topics. Be prepared for meetings. Recognize and celebrate successes. Be complimentary. Show appreciation. Follow policies and procedures. Uphold policies and procedures. Also, don't take offense to questions. Don't assume or be judgmental. Seek clarification and common understanding of policies. Commit to being our best, working together with a growth mindset to refrain from interruptions and gotcha moments and commit to our community. Own it. Ask for forgiveness. Ask questions politely and respectfully. Refrain from accusations. Code training and assistance to understand policy and board library. Where were we at on ADR? ADR. Okay. Kind, direct, respectful, address others in conflicts professionally. Address issues at the appropriate time when the
003impact is most beneficial and engaging engages in some constructive retreat idea. How do you prefer to be addressed? How does accountability work best for you? Okay, thank you for reading this. Uh the next thing we have on the agenda is school board members take and file oath of office. Uh so I'd like to congratulate Melinda and John Curtis. So if you'd like to come up here, Tony will swear you in. Please raise your right hand and repeat after me. Do it at the same time. Do I do it at the same time for both of them? Okay. Yeah, sure. We can go over. Okay. Please raise your right hand and repeat after me. I state your name. I, Jonathan Curtis. Have been elected or appointed to the office of Have been elected or appointed to
004the office of school board of the Writestown Community School District. school board of the Righttown Community School District, but have not yet entered upon the duties thereof, or not yet entered upon the duties thereof, swear or affirm that I will support the Constitution of the United States, swear or affirm that I will support the Constitution of the United States and the Constitution of the State of Wisconsin. and the Constitution of the State of Wisconsin. And I will faithfully discharge the duties And I will faithfully discharge the duties of said office to the best of my ability of said office to the best of my ability. Congratulations. Uh, next that I have on the agenda is recognition of board service for Jeff Nelson. So, Jeff, you like to stand up? Uh, Jeff has been with us
005for what, three years? Okay. And your last role is serving as PP. So, I want to congratulate you and thank you for the wonderful job you've done for the district. There you go. Awesome. [Music] if I could interrupt. Y um I'd like to introduce uh Eric is is on the uh agenda for his contract for consideration for approval to the board. But our new high school principal, Eric Ward, is here. And uh I just wanted Eric to stand up so everybody can see him. Thanks for coming here. All right, that's great. All right, most exciting I think right here would be student achievement. Um, and that would be taking a look at the April student achievement showcase which includes Mr. Craig Cause and students Natalie McDonald and Isaac Hendrickx. So if you guys want to
006come on here. All right. Well, thank you for having uh my name is Craig Hayes, high school activities director. People don't know me. All right. Uh happy to come up here. We're very fortunate. uh the first Wednesday of April. Um it was kind of an idea that uh was generated by myself and some other NECADs. Uh what happened the WIA every other year puts on a sportsmanship summit in Stevens Point and it's pretty cool. We get to bring a group of students to all right but that's every other year and this is one of those off years. Uh so myself the AD from Denmark little shootute and Marinette. uh we decided uh we asked the other ads and our council can we kind of form a committee and kind of perform our own little NEC
007summit. All right. And we got the blessings for that and from the principles as well too. Uh and we did that and luckily five of our 10 schools partners with Bell & Health. Uh and Bellon has been an awesome partner for us. Uh and they let us use uh Title Town for free. All right. And they also got us a good speaker as well too. So, uh, what each school did in the NC is we're able to bring four students. We're lucky enough to have three of these great peggers with us today. Uh, but we brought four students to this, uh, each school did two sophomores, two juniors. Uh, we what the main purpose was is, uh, we wanted our schools to see us ads and how well we work together. All right. And uh
008the one thing that we're noticing too is when we have our our students, our student athletes and our teams, all right, when they're in Writtown competing, all right, they hold up to that standard of writ. Uh but it's also when we're going out to Marinette or we're going to Little Shooter Clintville, that same standard. And you know what? That standard is the same for all of our schools. All right? So, we wanted to kind of go with that uh with that standard. I think we accomplished that. It was a great it was a great time. It was sportsmanship, but also sportsmanship is leadership. All right? You can't have sportsmanship without leadership. So did that. Um what we had planned our conference commissioner is Pete KD uh former coach principal at Brilliant mentor of mine. Awesome
009speaker. He spoke for an hour. Uh then we worked in groups. We uh put all the uh uh students. We had four groups, four different ones. And we did we will statements that we're going to post at each school. All right. So we come up with expectations for coaches. All right. That we're going to share with them the student athletes. All right. Student sections. All right. uh the main thing to get across. We cheer for our teams, not against the other team. All right. And then obviously parents and guardians as well too. So some of the expectations and then we catered in Fudova which is pretty good. All right. And then at the end of the day, Bell & brought in their sports uh site to come and talk to us how the the how
010mental health plays into athletic performance. So it was kind of cool. So uh uh we're happy to come here to share. and these three student athletes with us today. Just wanted to share one thing that they learned like they're brought back to right down here. Uh we have Isaac Hendricks. He's a sophomore at C. Oh, it was great to learn. It was great to learn how other schools uh are leaders in sportsmanship and like model good sportsmanship at their schools. It was also great to learn that us as athletes can show how to be good sportsmanship to people in the crowds like parents and that as well. Do we have Daniel Button, Junior? It was kind of kind of cool to see that um every school's got similar expectations that we can kind of branch
011out to meet new people and that we're not that far different. They can become, you know, friends and family around the conference. Thank you. And then Natalie McDonald, sophomore. Um I thought it was really cool how we got to bond with people that we usually see as competitors on the court and the field. So and even Isaac told me at the first track meet a guy from Marinette came up here. I just saw you. That small it seems like we're so far away but yet we're so close. All right. A lot of those things. So thank you to these athletes and thank you for the time for coming up and let us share. Thank you. Okay. The next thing we have on our agenda is a board of education uh minutes. So, do I have
012a motion to bring the meeting minutes to the floor? I'll make a motion to bring the meeting minutes to the floor. Thank you, Todd. Uh thank you, Mike. All those in favor? Anybody opposed? Okay. The floor is open for discussion. going to take a look at the discussion and possible approval for the March 5th, 2025 workshop meeting minutes. Anybody have any questions or discussion on on those meeting minutes? You want to do them all at once? I'll I'll go through. Okay. Uh, anybody have any discussion in um on the March 5th, 2025 workshop close session meeting minutes? Any discussion on the March 19th, 2025 minutes? Any discussion and questions on the March 19th, 2025 close session meeting minutes? And any discussion on the April 9th, 2025 workshop meeting minutes? So, if there's no questions or
013discussion, do I have a motion to approve all of the education minutes for March 5th workshop and workshop close session, March 19th regular meeting minutes, and close session for March 19th, and April 9th for workshop meeting minutes. I'll make a motion to approve the March 5th, 2025 workshop close session meeting minutes. The March 19th, uh close session meeting minutes, the April 9th workshop meeting minutes. Um I missed one. March 19th March 19th meeting minutes as well and April 9th AP and the April 9th meeting minutes. Okay. Do I have a second? Second. Okay. Thank you, Tony. All those in favor? All right. Anybody oppose? Okay. Motion carried. Thank you. Uh the next thing we have are action items. Uh do I have a motion to grant consideration uh to approve the staffing update for April
01416th to the floor? I'll make a motion bring staff update to the floor. Thanks, Mike. Do I have a second? Second. Thanks, Jeff. All those in favor? Anybody oppose? Okay, we do uh have that available for us to bring to the floor for discussion. So, yeah, this is the monthly report we've been bringing to you and we'll continue as as long as we continue having some changes. Uh resignations, we have Tanya, Hillary, and Bob, our middle school principal is taking a superintendent position. Uh new hires, we've got a 4K second grade high school principal, Mr. Eric Ward, who's here, and the boys soccer coach. The main one here that that needs approval are the uh certified staff, the 4K, the second grade, and and uh the high school principal, new hire. So, can I ask
015Bob, is he here? Yeah. How long have you been with Right Stone? This is my ninth year. Okay. So, thanks a lot for uh your service. I'm not sure if Tanya is here. Is she here? Yes. And how long have you been here, Tanya? Three years. Three years. Okay. Thank you for your And is Hillary here? Does anyone know how long Hillary's been here? Three years. Three years. Okay. So, we'll give her a ring. And I also like to congratulate the new hires as well. So that's great. Uh do I have a motion to approve the staffing update that was presented by Ron? A motion. Thanks, Tiffany. And do I have a second? Second. Thank you, Jeff. All those in favor? I. Anybody opposed? All right. Motion carried. Thank you. Next. Do I have a
016motion to bring consideration to approve admin contracts for the 2527 to the floor? I'll make a motion to bring the floor. Thanks, Mike. Do I have a second? I'll second. Thank you, Antonio. Those in favor? Anybody oppose? Okay. So, we have uh the admin contracts. Yeah, we have the admin contracts and there's a little change. I I don't want the specific language of the contracts um approved tonight. There's some language in there that uh we want to change. We want to make some adjustments to uh but we do want you to approve the list uh because we want to make sure that they have that guarantee that they're going to be have that two years in front of them. So we want to approve the list as presented. Mr. Storch, Mr. Hayes, uh Mrs. uh
017Maholski, Mrs. Sanderfoot McNab, and uh Mrs. Hwy, and Mr. Nap. and we'll get we'll get that language straightened out down the road. Uh I'll make a motion to the list. I have one question, Jeff. So, some of these contracts indicate um not the dollar amount for salary. They have negotiations. Can you help us understand that, Ron? Yeah, we we're still working with the board and we've met twice in close session uh trying to come up with the salary or what the raises will be. We've been talking about the CPI, the consumer price index, and and a variety of other topics. I didn't want to prematurely put any kind of number. Uh, and I think typically when this is done in Writtown is January and typically we don't have a number at that point of the
018year either. So that's why it says uh to be negotiated in the future. So, I'm hoping that after tonight's close session and if not a future meeting, uh the board will be able to give administration some direction in regards to where you want to be with with uh compensation increases. So, that negotiation's taking place in the close session tonight. Well, it's not a negotiation. You guys are going to decide on uh what kind of a salary increase you want to give. Okay. Uh to the staff. Okay. I guess I'm just confused because some contracts have salary indicated and some have negotiations and I just want Yeah, good question. Uh the ones that already have a salary were already negotiated. Okay. So we had some people like uh Mr. Ward, his is is set, mine is
019set, Corey, Sarah's is set. Um yeah, so those those are already set and those contracts uh we're not worried about they're not going to get a raise. Um they were already negotiated if that makes sense. Okay. So does any board members have any issues with that or are we all good? Okay. Uh so do I have a motion to approve the admin contracts for 2527? I'll make a motion to approve the list that Ron is asking for for the admin contracts for 2527. And do I have a second? A second. Okay. Thank you, Tony. All those in favor? Anybody opposed? All right. Motion cleared. Thank you. Uh next, I have a motion to bring to the floor to approve individual summer lawn mowing agreements for building and grounds. Do I have a motion? I'll make
020a motion for the consideration of approval for individual sub lawnmowing agreements for building grounds. Uh to bring it to the floor. Do I have a second? I'll second it. All right. Thank you, Rain. All those in favor? I. Anybody opposed? All right. Motion carry. So, open for discussion. Yeah. This is something uh that I'm bringing to you uh just uh I kind of want the board to put their your seal of approval on this. I don't know if I necessarily ne necessarily have to, but I just want to be transparent about it. Uh, historically, we have hired people to come in on on individual agreements to assist our crew, our building and grounds crew taking care of the lawn. And it starts as soon as April once the grass starts to grow and the thatching
021needs to take place and runs through the summer. You can see in the memo that it kind of slows down after as time goes on in the summer. Um, But we have three individuals that have been doing it. They're retired. They enjoy coming in and helping out and they do a great job. Uh so our recommendation is to again uh continue to do this and allow these individuals to do our summer lawn maintenance. Okay. Anybody have any questions? So do I have a motion to approve the individual summer lawn mowing agreements for building and grounds as presented? Motion. Melinda. Okay. Do I have a second? I have a second. I'll second. All right. Thank you, Mike. All those in favor? Anybody opposed? All right. Motion carried. Thank you. Do I have a motion to bring
022consideration to approve last month's future agenda request wanting the full board to receive copies of open records to the floor? I'll make a motion to bring it to the floor. Thank you, Rain. Do I have a second? A second. Thank you, Tony. All those in favor? Anyone opposed? Okay. So, this was an agenda item that Rain proposed. So, Rain, would you like to discuss what you're looking for here? Um, not necessarily the details of the request coming in, but at least the information that's going out to public. So, um, if you were in public and somebody asked some questions, we know at least what information they've been provided, um, and help us answer any clarifying questions that they might have. Okay. So, anybody else want to add to that? I know a couple things is
023we cannot ask any individual why they're requesting an open records request uh for WSAB. Uh also this has been considered more of an operational task in the past uh where we have never had this requested before. It's usually handled by the superintendent. Is there any way where we're just asking for just what the information consists of or just a little bit more clarity on that ring? I guess whatever they're going to get in response is attachments or files information that's being forwarded to them. Okay. Uh Jeff, you have a Yeah, I understand re what is looking for and I think that's really important that the board knows what's going on, but I think a lot of uh information requests might pertain to someone getting like I want my transcripts or I want uh information on
024ABC or D. It might involve uh staff or it might involve uh students. Um and that would all need to be redacted. And I think a lot of this stuff is on a need to- know basis, but I think the general concept that you're looking for, those records will be requested in a different avenue for transcripts. So, so okay. So, what if someone is saying, you know, that graduates, you know, five years from now and says, I want to get my um transcripts or I want to get all my records. Um there could be personal information is what I'm saying. We don't see those now, right? And I'm saying that that that needs to remain private. So I'm saying is there's got to be some sort of caveat if we do this right. You have
025to have some sort of uh guard rails beyond to protect staff's privacy and to protect the privacy of our students. So typically student records aren't open requests. That's through Scott can probably clarify that, but I think it's through guidance. Okay. Well, I'm not I'm not saying I'm against it. What I'm just saying is whatever we do, if there's any sort of open records request, we have to make sure that there's guard rails up that staff information doesn't leak out or student information doesn't get open. So, if someone is asking for an open records request and it has personal information from a student or from um a staff member, I think that we have to put guard rails up. There's an operational side and there's a board side. I mean, does it need to be redacted?
026Does it whatever? So, I think it just needs to be explored. But the concept of what you're looking for, I I think it's great. You know, the board should know what's what's going on. So, I agree. But the the only comment I got is I've had a couple com community members reach out saying that um if they request an open records, are they going to be considered a target for what they requested for? Uh and then would it get to be more of a political issue uh in terms of what they're requesting? and do they, you know, would it would cause them to be in fear of requesting open records if we have to run this by the board. I'm just bringing that feedback forward. Um, I would like to know, Ron, what your input
027is on on this and what your experience was in the past with this. Well, with this request, I put together a memo and I'm sure you you have taken the time to read it. I'll just kind of give a higher level here. Um Dan, before I came on, Dan had created a spreadsheet with the uh record requests that started coming in. At that point, it looked like when I created this memo, there were 75. There's into the 80s now of record requests. But uh the board has access to that. Dan had given access. So everybody who makes a record request right now and what the request is, everybody in the board can see that. Um so then what I did is I tried to uh put it together into four chunks. The governance versus administration.
028You know we're doing a book study and our book study talks about governance with the board and the big picture with policy work tactical with the administrative work and then operational what the staff does in the trenches working with students. uh reviewing individual record requests and responses could blur the line. I don't think it's illegal at all for us to do this. It's just it kind of starts to get blurring that line uh between the roles. Um and be there under governance just mentions that uh the board is already tracking that spreadsheet and what what what is open, what is closed and what was requested. The second area is workload and efficiency. Fulfilling the request could add additional administrative uh uh work and that time could be better spent elsewhere. Uh relevance to board duties.
029Most open respon open records responses pertain to specific in inquiries, personnel matters, staff email, operational details, uh not directly involving things that inform policy or budgeting or strategy, strategic oversight. And if a particular request has governance implications, I can flag that for the board's attention as well, make the board aware of it. And the last section is just about precedent and policy implications. Approving this uh could set a precedent where the board expects copies of administration communications, further stretching, you know, district resources. If the board wishes greater transparency, there may be a better reproach such as a summary quarterly or annually where we can highlight trends or significant requests. And then I'm just recommending three different options for the board to consider. The first would be maintain our current practice access to tracking the log
030uh unless a specific request warrants board review or or for the board to be made aware. The second option for the board to consider would be uh if the board desires more visibility, direct the superintendent to provide a high level summary kind of like what I just mentioned earlier of the requests into categories, notable issues without sharing every single response because like I said, we're encroaching on 100. We're in the 80s right now. And the third option would be if the board insists on receiving the full responses for the board to formalize a process in policy uh acknowledging what this all entails. Anybody else have any questions? Okay, Melinda, I'm just thinking um and I don't know if this is what R's talking about, but if we're sending information to a community member just to
031CC the board, I don't know if that's what you're looking for or not. I think for me, I would just like to know what's out there. I can go and check the spreadsheet, but they're not done in order. So, I don't know who's getting what when they're getting it. So, I think it's just good to know like what is going out to a community member with whatever is redacted like just a copy of that because most of it I would assume is just digitally signed and then just CC the board on it. That's think would be helpful. Ron, you're saying 80 requests open. Those we don't have 80 open right now. Oh, I'm sorry if I said open received. I should have said in total since January since the spreadsheet was started. Correct. Okay. And
032we were down last week to a pretty small number and then I had four or five come in this week that I haven't been able to get to, but uh hopefully we'll be able to get to those soon. Anybody else? I think it's a recipe for disaster. I think there's enough political things going on on the agenda in the community. the last thing you need is is things being left out from the board that you know people are just trying to find information about or use or possibly just keep for themselves and then the next thing you know the board's there already knowing about what they got whether it wanted to be released or not. Um so personally I I don't agree with that. I think it's just a recipe for disaster and it's more
033work for administration. Okay. We need to focus on what we need to do for the school instead of what everybody else is doing. Okay. I I didn't Go ahead, Tony. I didn't understand Rain's point of view. Um, but I do have concerns about whenever you start increasing an audience that you're sending things out to, the chances of of that leaking out to people that probably shouldn't see it increases. And so, um, I I really like although I I do believe that there's an opportunity where the board then board members should be able to see something so that they have a flavor of what's been asked and what the flavor of a response is. Um, and so I I kind of like the option number two that Ron laid out. And and I think if if
034there's a board member who really hey I want to know because you know I heard this and this and this they can approach Ron and set up you know quick phone call with Ron and Ron can go over everything with that with that individual. Okay. So I think this is a good topic for discussion. So how about if I just go around and ask each board member what option they prefer first before making a motion. Uh Tiffany, do you mind starting us off? Um, I'm going to go with option two. Okay. And Ray, right? Myself, I would pick option two. Jeff, two. Uh Tony, Melinda, I would go between two and three because if it's an email is no more extra work. Okay. Um yeah, otherwise two I mean if there's something we see on
035the list or something. So what would be your preference? Two or three? I guess probably two. Okay. And Mike? Option one. Option one. Uh so the majority is picking two. So, I'm going to ask for a motion for that. Um, do I have a motion for what's that? Put it on the agenda for next meeting. You You can act on it. It's actually So, you can Okay. Yep. Do I have a motion uh to have uh an approval for the bo board to desire more visibility direct with the superintendent to provide a highle summary of requests, categories, volumes, noble issues without sharing every response. I'll make a motion. Thanks, Tiffany. Do I have a second? Second. Uh, Tony. Okay. All those in favor? Anybody opposed? Motion carried. All right. Thanks, Rain, for bringing that up.
036That's good discussion. All right. The next thing that we have here is uh it's getting busy. Give me a second here. Bills. Bills. Okay. Uh, do I have a a motion to bring consideration to approve the monthly bills, listings, and receipts to the floor? I'll make a motion for consider consideration to approve the monthly bill listings and receipts to And do I have a second? Second. All right. Thank you, Tony. All those in favor? I Anybody oppose? All right. Motion carried. So, the floor is now open for discussion on the bills listing. Does anyone have any questions on the bills listing? I have a couple questions, but I will wait unless somebody else wants to go first. Uh, okay. So, a couple things I just want to give an update on. Uh, I received a
037call from um Green Leaf Bank Desiree uh who told me that there was a roll of pennies and she converted them over to $4 into a deposit and a 3325 as a receipt. So, I just want to make that known to the board. The other thing is I've been receiving questions from the community on legal bills and I'm have a suggestion for this. I think it needs to be published to the community that the legal bills that we've incurred from January 2024 up until now would be something I would like to see uh categorized. So, if we take a look at uh some of these bills listings, what I'm hearing out in the public is a lot of different numbers, 40,000, 30,000, 100,000, 80,000. and it the community members shouldn't be out there trying to
038look at this and dissect this information. It is our job as a board and a district to put this together for the community no matter what the legal bills are or not and to stay away from pointing fingers whether it's a recall whether it's the investigation. But I do have some numbers and this is how I would like to see this done as a proposal asking for Tiffany since she's the treasurer and Dan for their help in doing this. Um but what I have for this month is that there's approximately $19,000 in recall petition matter. That's all we know at this time. We do have itemized statements, but we can look into that further. The other thing is we have $10,000 approximately in open records request. So a lot of the open records requests that
039people are requesting from the public that is incurring us fees for us to look at and for us to process and that's okay. But I'm just letting you know where these are coming from. There's also another 9,000 approximately in general labor and there's about 3,800 that's in school law. That's for March. I did receive a email from Jim Carroll to give me what are the costs strictly to the investigation from September to January of this year through um Jim Carroll which is viewer and better and his approximation was 17,800 and some dollars. I do have that in an email. I'll share that with the board and that can be as an open record request as well. There are also legal fees that we incurred in May, June and July. May there's a boundary appeal. June
040there's title nine. In July there's fund 80 along with board governance manners matters. The board govern manners at that time was strictly looking at what we can we do to be training the board to get a more unified board and to try to identify some issues which led into a personal investigation. I don't have the exact figures on that. I know I stated them a couple months ago, but I'd be happy to share that. Uh Bon Bon has a little bit more difficulty with uh sharing out their um legal fees and so we would need to have some time to be able to itemize that into these buckets. And I think it would be beneficial for the community to see uh what he means when he refers to uh general labor, school law, recall petition,
041open records, and I think that would be helpful. Uh and so from January and February would be something I don't have now, but that's something that I'm proposing. And I'm and I sent a message to Dan today. This is something that he is working on. And I would ask that this Excel spreadsheet uh lists the legal fees from January 2024 to now and it's made public and it's made ongoing for transparency. Uh and so I just wanted to share that. The other thing I wanted to let you know is Tony the clerk has spent 135 hours of volunteer unpaid time to initiate this recall to work with Wack Wisconsin's election committee as well as legal to make sure that we're following the law with with regard to the recall and then also responding to any
042challenges uh from the recall uh complaint. So, I just wanted to share that with everybody as well. Are there any questions on any other things that you have for the bills listing that you see or any other discussion? Jack, so a point of question for Dan. Is the um wellness center online payments and wellness dues is that part of the um fund 80? Correct. So on the um last page of the the list it says community service fund fund 80 balance sheet zero revenue zero expense and total um it says $1,7801 for expense but on the front page for on the receipts part we have looks like we have incoming a little bit over $2,700. Yes. So, so the uh you have one report that talks about uh revenue and the other report talks about
043expenditure. So, on the bills, it does not consider revenue. We have the column in there. So, I guess I'm just That's all right. Okay. I I have a pointed question to Dan. I can't see you. Sorry. Okay. So, uh, the Mock Village program, I know there's $9,000 there, and I know we had done some stuff with the Mach Village. Can you just help me understand what that would be for? So, students that are offite. Okay. So, we still have students attending offsite that still come here. Okay. All right. Thank you. Uh, and then I had one more question. Is there any way that we could have credit card payments um as an addendum that lists the itemized for the credit card statements? This is something our board's been asking for over a year and a
044half. There's $7,300 worth of credit card payments, and I would like to see if we could have that itemized listed out as the last part of the bill's listing to show the public for being transparent on what those credit card purchases are for. Again, that's something I don't need an answer now, but if you could look into that, that would be good. And then I think I had one more question. Okay, that's all I have for questions. Does anyone else have any questions? I have a couple questions. Sure. Um, one just a general statement. And I think it was back in November or October, I had asked to look at the our legal policy to change some wording and I'd like to bring that back up again to possibly talk about for the next workshop.
045Sure. Just my suggested language because now we do have quite a bit in billings and not the whole board can't be calling legal. So, there's only a few people that actually incur these charges and I think that would cause us to get the detailed bills ahead of time instead of there being so many questions. Yeah, I think uh what we could do is we could put that legal policy now. It's uh okay to put that on the uh future agenda items and I think that'd be a good idea for the board to review that process and see how he would like to handle that going forward. So, that's something that we could add. Yeah. Melinda, do do you remember off hand what the policy number was or the topic? It was called legal counsel policy
046legal. I want to say 51605162, but I don't know off the top of my head. Okay. Any other questions with the bills listing or receipts? All right. Do I have a motion to approve the monthly bills listing and receipts as presented? I'll make a motion. Thank you, Tony. Do I have a second? Second. Thank you, Jeff. All those in favor? Anybody opposed? All right. Motion carried. Thank you. It's probably say 0172. Could you repeat? 0172. Thank you. Okay. The next thing on the agenda is uh we have more information items here. Uh, do I have a motion to bring the resignation of the school board member, Mr. Tony Decker, to the floor? I'll make a motion to bring the resignation of school board member Tony Decker to the floor. I'll second it. Thank you, Mike.
047All those in favor? I. Anybody oppose? Okay. So, uh, Tony, I don't know if you want to share anything, but I know Tony has, uh, submitted a resignation as of, uh, April 9th, um, to the board. And if you look, we do have policies on what the next steps are for that so that the board knows what to do. I don't know if you want to, Ron, give me to that. I'm looking for that policy. Sure. The policy is I'll pull it up. 0142.5 vacancies. Yes. And we can go through it. I kind of summarized it uh in the public content part here for the in the agenda. Um it's in accordance with state statutes. Uh the board shall seek a qualified or interested candidate from the community and all applicants are to submit the
048notice of interest. Uh the appointee shall hold the office until a successor is elected and takes office under the statutes when a vacancy occurs in the office of a board member who is in the last year of his or her term or when a vacancy occurs after the spring election but on or before the last Tuesday in November in the office of a board member who is not in the last year of his or her term which I believe is where Tony is. the successor shall be elected at the next spring election. So, whoever we appoint, whoever the board appoints has to run again in uh for the April election in 2026. Um let's see. So, the recommendation is to post the opening uh in the spirit for one or two weeks, however long the
049board wants. The district can collect the applications. The board should then the recommendation is schedule a meeting to review the applicants possibly interview candidates and then make a decision probably best at that meeting and then I shared a tenative timeline tonight. Uh at this board meeting you're discussing Tony's resignation. Uh an example would be April 23rd and the 30th. The board vacancy could be posted where you solicit interest from applicants. uh possibly at the May 14th uh you could have a special meeting. You could interview candidates and decide who will fill that seat and then at the May 21st meeting, the regular board meeting in May, you could potentially swear them in and they could take the seat at that meeting if if you wanted to follow a timeline similar to that. Okay. Anybody have
050any questions on that? Anybody have any comments? Tony or Melinda? Sorry. Go ahead. Um, I would just like to say, um, it's been an honor to serve on this board and thank all my constituents who voted for me and supported me. And, um, I had a wonderful opportunity to meet so many cool people when when I was running for the board and knocking on doors and I just met tons of really, really kind, really cool people. And it's been, you know, it's the year has shot by. Um, and I want to thank each of the board members for letting me be on their team and and and helping me where I need help. And I've needed a lot of help. Um, but uh, yeah, it's it's not a snap decision. It's something that I've thought
051about for a while and so I think it's best for me and my family that and that yeah, that I step away from my position as a board member. But just wanted to say thank you all so very much. Thank you very much. So, I know that that decision wasn't made lightly. So, we appreciate all you have done and you've done a great job. So, thank you. Thank you. Anybody else have any comments? I was just going to comment about um if there's a reason for two weeks of spirit. I feel like with what's going on, like if people have a need to be on the board, I don't think we probably need to run an ad two weeks. I think one week is probably going to be enough. Then we can kind of like
052speed things along. Is that what the policy says? I don't think that clearly is defined in the policy. Okay. I It was a suggestion. Whatever you guys Okay. feel is appropriate. I only put two weeks. I wanted to make sure that you guys advertised it well enough, but you could do one week, you could do two, whatever you want. Okay. So, I think that's something that could be made by Do we have to make that decision now? Well, I I guess if it were just me, that's what I would do. Okay. I'm looking This isn't an action item. I'm just kind of looking for where where do you guys want us to do you want us with Melinda's input if you guys are okay I will just do it for one week probably yeah I
053say we keep it Yep. So, we'll follow this, but it'll be uh a little sooner. Um, it'll be one week, you know. Do you want a special meeting to swear them in, or do you want to swear them in on the 21st? Do they have to answer that now? We just have to do within 60 days. Within 60 days. Okay. There's my last day. Yeah, they could be swarming on the 21st, I suppose. Do you want to set a goal for the 21st? Like it would be like we did tonight. Yeah. The other the other thing is um do you do you want to keep accepting the applications until uh what did I say here the special meeting or do you want a deadline? Because if we're only going to advertise for one week, you
054want to say we're going to accept them until Friday, May, what would that be? The 11th, what your pleasure? I guess I would my suggestion would be that we go with a deadline of 25th um of April and then possibly within us. Yeah, that would you want to give them a week? Week and a half. We would get it out there on the 23rd would be the first posting in the spirit. So that would give them a couple days, right? You want to give them more than that, don't you? Uh or do the 30th, right? Yeah. Or the Friday would be the 2nd of April. I give them a couple weeks. May second. Thank you. May you okay with that deadline on May 2nd and then um will those applicant papers be submitted get them
055ahead of time and to review them? Yeah, what we would do they they come to the district office. We would scan them uh and then once we get them all after the deadline, we'd send them to the board. You could review them ahead of time. I I do recommend that you call people in and interview people. I think I think that's a good practice for you to do and then make a decision who you want. Um Tiffany, do you remember the process last time? Is it similar to what we're doing? Um I think we had gotten the applications to review and then you just made phone calls um to references I believe. And then is it the same timeline that um don't remember the timeline exactly? We did get the opportunity to reach out. We
056did not do interviews but we did reach out um to references. So, we have a workshop coming up. Is this something you can talk a little bit more or is that going to be too late? Workshop, if I remember right, is the 7th. Um, yeah. Yeah, you you could talk about it. Um, right now what I'm hearing is we'll post it for the 23rd. We have a deadline for Friday, the 2nd of May. um that probably that Monday we'll scan it and send it to you if you guys want references to to call you. You guys can do that. I won't call. You guys call and um do you want to do interviews or no? I didn't realize you guys didn't do interviews. Yeah, the last one. It's up to you. You're not required to.
057Could we see the paperwork and then see like if we talk about it at a workshop if we need interviews and can we do that because the timeline is still followed. We just a little bit. Okay. All right. Good. Any other questions, comments? So, uh you will receive these uh applications that that are received hopefully no later than May 5th, maybe sooner. And um that'll give you a couple days before we have the May 7th workshop and you can reather and decide if at least you want to call references or if you want to have a special meeting because we'd still have time to post it because you know this tenative timeline I suggested the 14th special meeting if you want to go that route. Yeah, I think that's good. Okay, I'm good. Okay. All
058right. Do I have a motion to bring report one of four regarding results from the recent technology audit to the floor? I'll make Thank you, Melinda. Do I have a second? I'll second. Thank you, Tiffany. All those in favor? Anybody opposed? All right. Motion carries. That would be Corey. Yeah. Okay. The opportunity want to say something. Oh, I was just going to say he he's going to put his uh presentation up on the screen. He had animation and it'll be a lot better than my PDF. First of all, thank you very much for allowing me the opportunity to do this. I feel as a previous educator part of the job is also to provide education and these types of situations. It is often done very much in the dark and nobody really knows anything about
059it. So it's the opportunity to be able to provide some u information about what we're doing a few months ago. You provided um voted to allow us to go into a an audit, a couple of audits. So the idea here is to try to provide you some updates as the audit continues because in this particular audit, it's not one where you are able to get like a nice one-page sheet of paper back that says, "Okay, here's four things you need to do and you can move on." Uh it's really a system of of meeting with different people walking through our systems and picking a lot a massive amount of data in in and then being able to try to change things as well. At the same time, you'll see in here that there are some
060some situations that we had to respond to very quickly in which we didn't have a whole lot of time to audit. Uh so we just had to act. So here's kind of the the synergy road map, kind of the idea of what we're going through, identifying the organization's missions and initiatives. Um and then looking to try to document our current state and where we are as far as our infrastructure, how it tries to meet those particular initiatives. then looking at uh defining where are we going to try to take the systems that we have and support the rest of our organizing organization with it. part of what we gather is gaps and we are not supporting that very well and we need to support that better and then uh in the end in the long
061run the last update my intent kind of through some kind of alignment uh where we're intending to go and actually have a pretty solid uh three to five year plan mapped out for how we can spend money uh responsibly but also do so in a way that makes sense for what Right versus what other organizations need. This is about where we are. Uh so we're not very far uh being this is the first part but we have spent a considerable amount of time in it. So we're in the process of really taking that documentation but at the same time we spent some time uh making some action too. I thought it was appropriate to just kind of say like what do we do? So there's a lot of stuff that we do that we don't
062think about. It's not just stuff on screen starts back where nobody is recognized which is the power manager. Nobody goes in these closets except for it and maintenance but if they go down all of you know parents know and everybody really and so it starts with where the people aren't and it goes to where the people are and it goes in a nice circle and so we can design kind of backwards and decide okay what do these people need and let's go the other direction and figure out what do we have at the back end that's actually going to support what we are able to talk about and work with on a regular basis. Uh so that's kind of where we are. Power management is is honestly anything from electrical panels to UPS's network infrastructure
063to anything that runs cables and connects to the internet. Our physical security is largely depend more on it than on older systems that were that have been around longer. Um cyber security is a pretty significant thing that happens. There are breaches that are consistent across all kinds of different uh organizations out there. We want to prevent those as much as we can. Protect people's data. Uh we want to protect their paychecks. We want to protect all kinds of things that we have to do. And so there's some background that we have to be able to do as we move forward. Then the endpoint management, I'm using endpoints right now. The screen is an endpoint. This screen is an endpoint. Everything that's up here that people touch are endpoints. Their accounts are endpoints. And so all
064of those have to be designed in some way that matches what we're trying to do as an organization. And then lastly, trying to be able to support all this stuff and deliver it in a way that people make sense to people and and people are actually able to do their jobs more effectively and more efficiently as a result of having this stuff rather than it getting in the way of them doing their jobs effectively essentially. So that's kind of the the roundabout. This is what Matt and I deal with. Matt being the other person in our department analogy that we try to use to say we're going to take a home that's really a house that's really nice. Uh we're going to try to turn it into a home and then eventually we're going to
065turn it turn it into a smart home. And so we have what we have and so we have lots of existing infrastructure that's there and we want to try to get to that cozy place that helps us also alert us when things are going you know problematic enough to have somebody tell us you know this was down before I'm going to know before them so that I can fix it before it troubles them if that makes sense. So that's kind of the idea analogy what we're trying to get to some highlights from this one. Four different things I'll go through quickly and I'll try to be within my time period. Um basically that uh power supplies and climate control are just some things we've dealt with. identity management and authentication is a big part of
066cyber security and we're going to talk about that in a second. Emergency notification systems, keeping our physical systems safe in here, making sure that we can act quickly and and that our tech actually works for us in those situations, not against us, and then improving some of our communication systems. So, that's kind of where we've been so far. So, organizing power, we had an interesting opportunity at Excel is to meet Matt right here. This is our core UPS that was five years out of date and exploded and leaked battery acid all over the place. Uh so we had a very quick uh opportunity for us to excel and decided that we shut all of the internet down in the entire district because there was not a redundant one. It doesn't go back to a redundant
067panel. We don't have all the power strips go back into this u this UPS. So we had absolutely nothing to be able to plug into even if we have redundancy in all of our individual systems. You couldn't reach another place that wasn't going back in this one. Uh so that was problematic. So uh Matt and I, Chris, Caroline was there. We had all hands on deck right there and we only lost for three minutes. So, I was pretty proud of the response to the people that helped us out. So, thank you all very much. This is from their chemistry room and making sure we neutralize the battery acid. And they were 70 pounds a piece by the time it took them out of there because they were so swollen. So, that's bad. And uh and
068usually if you replace the batteries each time, you can keep the UPS because there was so much acid in it and problems with it. We had to use crowbars to dent it and get it out of there, put it into a different mode so that it wouldn't disrupt people. And so, I can't use that anymore. So, we had to do an emergency purchase. Thank you, Dan, for helping bring up some funds for that. And now we're in the process of trying to build some redundancy in there. So, it's better to plan these things. And it's less expensive to plan with two if but if literally all of our phones, everything would have been out for everyone if this if this was this went down for any longer, right? So, it's pretty important. That's going all
069the way back to number one in there. What people don't see until it fails, then everyone sees it, right? Uh, one of the other things we're going through is just kind of looking at this. A lot of our back-end power supplies are I mean we have thousands and thousands of dollars of really nice equipment that has been the district has spent a great amount of time uh investing and it's wonderful. And so the the community's been supportive of it and all that and we're backing it all up with power strips from Walmart. And so in truth it doesn't it's not a this is not a slight. It's just it's details, right? So trying to make sure that we have some redundancy in some of those power distribution units so that when we have a failure,
070we have an issue. We can know about the issue. You just teach, you just do your things, do the things you need to do to make the organization work. We'll go in there calmly and quietly and then be able to make sure we switch over to other power systems. You you don't have to get an emergency versus email and wonder if you're going to be able to finish your testing or not. Right? That's what we want to try to avoid. And thank you very much for Matt for uh getting his hands dirty on that one, too. They both work. Identity management is a big deal. We want to try we want to king here. Uh lots of passwords all over the place. People have different ones for different things, different usernames, all kinds of stuff.
071Very confusing. I'm sure anyone in this room can identify with that, right? Uh so the idea for us is to try to make sure that we have a single point of entry for some of these things with ways in which we can get around that single point of entry if there's one that fails. So we want to make it easier on people. What this means is that we have to have better identity management for our staff and for our students. So we can know where their information is going. We can also make sure that when they're onboarding or offboarding, it's much easier for them to get to things. Single signers will be time to go to to say, "Hey, you're going to go into one little house right now." And once you're in that house,
072you have keys to everything in there. But the one thing we're going to protect is the outside of the house and make sure it's going to be really difficult to get into. And as long as you just have that one key, you can get in all the other stuff after that, right? And that makes it easier for people. And then when they change their names, they get married, anything happens in the back end, it's so much easier for us to change every single system around it, right? Uh the other part of that is that can be really dangerous if you don't have strong multiffactor authentication. And so that's another part that we're moving to. So the staff already knows in this case that we are in a position where we really need to change this
073quickly. So on the 1 of of May, I want to thank staff as well. They're really gracious for this. We move all of our students to a totally different uh it's going to be a big deal. Hopefully it goes well and you don't notice. And that's kind of the idea. uh but but as they move over to a centralized identity management system, it's going to be far easier to protect them and it will be easier for them because when they log in and log in once and they'll be able to get to everything. The dual part is coming, but we also want to do a risk evaluated design. So it's very frustrating when staff members have to log into something and try to find their phone to be able to factor. So we're going to
074do that based upon the risk of our network here. So you'll be automatically authenticated if you're on a secure network. So design it for security first and then you won't have to deal with that. If you're offsite, yeah, you're going to have to do some authentication because I don't know where you are over there. I don't know who's logging this stuff off site. So, that needs to be secure over there. If you're in this building, I'm going to trust that you are keeping your stuff secure and we're we're in good shape. Um, part of this as as well as we've gone through, there was a a small anecdote of a situation where a student got curious about a red button and uh and so we learned a little bit about how our systems were were
075designed. And so uh and in large part a lot of the major infrastructure for the design is is in place and in very good shape. Uh what's not necessarily in great shape is the unity between these emergency notification systems. Different at the elementary, different at the middle and high school and how it goes out to the responders and that kind of thing, right? And what those buttons do at each of those places. So part of that we felt was like we need to get on this like sooner than later. So once we learned about that, the admin team came together. We started building some maps that you see below to kind of figure out what it is we want for each building, how we want it to look, what do we want to have happen
076for staff. And so we're on we're in the process. POS have been written and luckily uh we've already been paying for a lot of the licensing and so on and so forth to make this possible. Really small details that can come together. So very small investment to make it all work really well. So that those are uh the phone systems will get notified very quickly from it. The PA systems will get notified. people at other buildings can get notified if one is pushed at a different building. So, you can kind of understand the SRO gets a little, you know, bead on her cell phone and kind of says like, "Oh, something's going on over there. I wonder if I should respond." Right? And then the people that are responding to that situation can just simply
077push the red button and then move up because the system is behind and that will take care of it. So, we're in the process of that, hoping to have pretty much all that buttoned up by the end of summer. And then the last part for this particular one is just looking at some of our communication systems. Bring you over to uh parent square in this case. This uh graph right here is hard to see. This is the number of people who are registered for emails, the number of people who register their text messages and then the app. We were hitting about 9% of families on December 1st or December 2nd. That was my first day. By the time that we have moved now to align some of our better communication with this by changing our
078data and updating our data. So, thank you to all the administrative assistants and everybody who works in those offices to make sure that the data gets corrected. We are now up 88% for our reach as far as the pro product we're already using. So, the results are significantly better and the investment was just time was that just correcting a little bit of of data entry in each of those places. Uh, and now we are in a better situation to be able to do that. and we can review our analytics to see how the data on the system is here and probably over time but basically here's what we're looking at as far as the updates that another one would be quick in June August and then hopefully my intent is to have through by the
079August and the October one an actual formal document that we can see that sort of thumbs up most of these and actually has a longer range plan so we will be working it's not that we're just auditing and doing nothing we are working hard at the same time we are trying to do some of these things more strategically so they don't drive out cost too much. So any questions, Phil. Thank you, Corey. Thank you very much. The next thing we have on the agenda is uh do I have a motion to bring to discussion of the location of spring break in the school calendar to the floor? I'll make a motion. Thank you, Tiffany. And do I have a second? Second. Thank you. So, I just want to give some background. I had a community
080member reach out ask if we could uh push the uh spring break week either out a little bit later for the third or fourth week. Uh Ron, can you just want to talk about that with what you've discussed with your administration team? Yeah. Um, so the background is that uh Writtown Community School District has set spring break as a week-long vacation for students and families these last several years either the first or the second week of March beginning in 22 23 school calendar and then we did a little historical review to look at how I how the many years this is. I went back, you know, in in 2017 18, we had uh the fifth Friday in April and the Easter Monday and Tuesday plus a Friday, another Friday that was off uh the first
081week of March. You can I'm not going to read through this all, but bottom line is the last several years here we've been pretty consistent. Um as illustrated and then any discussion around changing the dates of spring break involves a variety of different factors that you have to take into consideration in the impact. And so I highlighted a few of them here. um testing and academic disruptions. You know, the ACT assessment window, it varies from year to year. It's not always the same time, and we can choose one of three test windows going from mid-Marchch to midappril. Uh the forward assessment, it has a window as well. Currently, the middle school uses all six weeks allowed for the four grade levels that are assessed. So, these begin during the third week of March and go
082into April. feedback from the middle school of moving spring break into the third or the fourth weeks of March would it would have a negative impact. It would reduce the testing window by five days making it more difficult to ensure that all the the students are assessed in the core subject areas. Extracurricular and athletic conflicts uh is a is another is another concern that you have to consider. Moving spring b break to the third or fourth week of March would overlap with our our spring sports, baseball, softball, soccer, track, golf, it would impact more students than the current conflict with the boys basketball sectionals. We're kind of in between seasons. It's just if we make it uh to the playoffs, which we happen to this year, um it would have an impact, but otherwise the
083regular season is not impacted uh by where we are currently placing our spring break. Staff and family preferences is something that we've taken into consideration as well over the years. Our principles annually check with staff every year. Again, they they did this year. uh the feedback that was given to the principles to the admin team was that the majority are comfortable with the break where it currently falls which is either the first or the second week of March. Uh what's been shared with us is that families value consistency in where these are are placed mainly for planning. They're planning vacations. They're planning for child care. They're planning their work schedules. It's my understanding that a family survey uh some years ago was conducted and the district landed on the current spring break time frame where
084we're at now based on that feedback at that time with the families and then the calendar logistics as you know Easter is different every year uh and then there's short weeks as well. So coming up later in this agenda, you're going to have a first look at a proposed 2627 calendar and Good Friday falls on the last Friday of March that year. And if we move spring break to the third week of March, it would mean that there'd be a short week of four days between spring break and the Easter holiday long weekend. If you were to do that like we have been where you have the Good Friday and that Easter Monday or if you just did the the the Good Friday, you'd be creating a short week there. Um there there had been
085previous survey feedback showing concern regarding the timing of spring break with when the Easter holiday is and wanting to keep them separated further apart. So kind of sharing all that information a lot of factors at you. The recommendation from administration is to keep the spring break where it currently is located. At the same time, as you know, if the board would like, we can make a change. Uh we we if you want to make a change, we recommend conducting another family survey and come back to you with data so that you can make a better uh decision based on that feedback. But if you look here uh the proposal that you'll be looking at for the first time uh with no action uh later in the agenda is uh very similar to the last several
086years where the second full week in March plus Friday Easter Monday at the end of March for the 26 27 year. Does anybody have any questions, comments, feedback, anything on that? Melinda, I would I think we should maybe think about doing the survey again because um especially at the high school when that survey was done, those parents may have been in school or I just think we might be just dealing with it would be good to do a survey again because it's been a little bit of time, but maybe allow the teachers and the staff to do the survey as well so it's figured in all together. I agree with Melinda on that. I think the survey should be done for those same reasons. And I don't know if we could add some questions. Maybe
087I don't know the dates. If we have all the dates ahead of time for like that prep testing, the AC like the different dates that the high school needs off certain grade levels, then with the act 20 dates, maybe we could look at asking them about some ways that they if they have any ideas on that, too, because I've heard a lot of conversations about March having a lot of days off. Okay. Thank you, Jeff. Yeah, I I agree with Melinda too, but the one thing is we we've got them um middle school uses all six weeks, right? What about the elementary school and then of course if we um survey the school or the parents, we should be surveying the teachers as well and you know get it across the board. But if we
088know in advance, you know, when these windows are and the sports calendar, you know, what the sports calendar roughly looks like and send that out with the survey, I think that would be beneficial so that parents can understand what the best thing is and teachers and staff. So, let me just ask a point of clarification. Make sure I'm hearing this right, Jeff and Melinda. Um, what we're really talking about are so the 2526 calendar you guys already approved, right? Are we safe to say that that's in the history books? We're not going to alter that and that you're really talking about the one that we're propos because people have already very likely made made plans around what we published is what I'm what the reason I'm asking why I'm fearful of making a change there
089because I I have a feeling I'd get feedback of frustration possibly. It's usually the year out is when you should be planning for something like this. So it would it wouldn't be 25 26, right? We're looking at 2627. Yeah, that's I just want to verify that that's what you guys are talking about doing the survey for 2627. Um we're going to know some things and I'd have to check with the team, but uh I don't know. Uh Craig is the athletic schedule for the 26 27 do we have any idea how that would impact that calendar? Yes. Okay. Have the season start times for 26 27 not 25 26 WIA is always three years up. Good. Good. And then folks in regards to ACT and Forward and all of those would we have that window
090those testing windows the testing window for forward um and BLM and all of those always starts the third week in March and it goes to the last week. So like this time it start ends uh April 25th. So it's always within that same for forward conraint. And then what about ACT? ACT moves around just a little bit. It's out there adj but 26 27 are those dates out there? So we wouldn't have those dates in making that decision but we could probably make a assumption of approximately you can get close. Yeah. So we'll put something together and we'll get that sent out and um bring that to you as soon as we can. Okay. Thank you. One other comment. I feel like in the past we've done like we've looked at two schedules at a
091time. So we've looked at both the following year and the year after so that parents are better able to schedule. So that's just something to think about too. I don't know if there's that many pe I mean we'd almost have to do the survey to see if there's that many people that would like next year's changed and how it impacts I guess is what I'm saying. looking at all of that. Just a suggestion. Okay. Anybody else? Yeah. Good. Thank you. Okay. Thank you. Uh so do I have a motion to bring the proposal for a new part-time temporary position for the website contact organizer to the floor? I'd like to make a motion for proposal for a new part-time temporary position for website content organizer. And do I have a second? Second. Thank you, Rain.
092All those in favor? I. Anybody opposed? Okay, the floor is open for temporary position of a website content organizer. Yeah. Uh I'm sure uh you're aware that the laws have changed and um for the ADA there there's going to be some changes in requirements for websites. Our website is not up to par with that. Uh I know talking with Corey and several others, myself, we're not satisfied with our current website. And so we've Corey has been leading the charge and investigating new routes and as far as how to deal with this. And as we sat down as an admin team and we looked at what this would entail, it really needs somebody to uh be able to give attention, full undivided attention of approximately 60 to 80 hours uh to help map and organize how
093we're going to put this this new website together. Um, it'll be a redesign. Uh, our goal is to make it efficient, uh, easy to easy for parent use, easy for community member use. Um, so yeah, we're we're looking at a one-time uh paying somebody for this work. Uh, Katie Hayes has already uh agreed to help us. She she's our librarian. She's very skilled with with this type of thing. She is running our social media right now. Um, she will do an excellent job working with the admin team in Corey and uh for a stipen of $1,500 uh to have her do this work I I think would uh be tremendous. So that's what we're looking for. There's no action. Want to get this at you and then in May we would ask you to consider
094approving what we're doing. So if you have questions, we'd be more than happy to take them. So the 1500 is for the range of hours. So 60 to 80 range um based on total hours and not well if it takes you know if there's some things that are unexpected that we don't want to take advantage of any of we come back to you or we would we would make adjustments. That's you know our best guess of what we think in that range right now. And if it if it takes more, we would we would look at that. I just say in my professional experience, that's a screaming deal. That's um that's a deal. So, usually when you look at the content and the amount of pages that we have, historic, you know, historic pages are
095still nested on that website. It's a tremendous overhaul and over undertaking. And you know, 50 to 60 hours, um, I think that's pretty conservative, but for $1,500 that you're not going to find a much better rate than that from, you know, a web developer, that's um, that's excellent. Good to know. Some feedback feeding. Cory wanted to Can I just I just want to clarify something, too, just because it's important, you know, as we do this, Katie wouldn't be developing the websites or doing the parts that, but it was important to us. Um I think as we were talking about this to make sure that the person in the community who also has children in the community that can basically her position would be essentially organizing feedback from various stakeholders to figure out what do we
096need to do and how do we need to organize and that kind of thing. So because if I'm helping build it I can build things but I don't know I'm new in the community. I don't really know what's the thing that parents want the first thing they want when they first get in there. we look at analytics a little bit to answer that question. But I think that I just want to make sure we're clear on that is that it's not like she's writing code and like I don't I also don't want her to be like want to listen to this right now. It's not what I agree to. It's it's more just like the a helper in this case helping organize and making sure that we can get it off the ground the right
097way and that we're getting lots of good stakeholder feedback and she's very committed. So thank you Corey. Can I can I ask a question Corey? Are you keeping the same platform or changing to a different one? So, we've been we'd be changing to a different platform. Um, and I'll just in full disclosure, I went through this with a school different school district with a lot of different uh vendors in the last 18 months. Basically, this vendor, although it's nice that they're local from Oshkosh and that kind of thing or semi-local, right? Um, the cost of of theirs was greater and the cost of almost all the other ones in the CMS market, they call it content management system, which is what a lot of school districts use, right? A lot of them are are quite
098a bit more expensive. We have a pretty good relationship with parent square right now which we utilize for a lot of different things um in that this uh they have acquired a website company that has been starting to pop up all over the place and it's very integrated with that current system. So part of it is that it's a it's ADA compliant and it follows the federal guidelines for that. Uh and b what it can do is that it's very mobile flexible and uh it also platform agnostic and c it integrates quite well with our existing system. So, as we talked about earlier, how we were getting like text messaging from 9% of people getting them to, you know, to to 97 getting them, they can pull from that same set of data to be
099able to populate the website, for example, who works here and we have their pictures associated rather than having to rebuild another database with all these people completely separately and then, oh, I'm not on the I'm not on the like this teacher isn't on there. Yeah, that's right. Sorry, we haven't got a chance to update this one. It's all synchronized in that way. In addition, when administrative assistant gets an opportunity to put out a message to families and the choice to decide, I'm actually going to post that to the website directly from where I'm at right now. So, it'll send a text message, an email, a notification this way, and it's going to pop up on the first part of the website. And so, it's all integrated in that way. And so, largely the cost was
100good. It was compliant. It's uh it's easy to manage that site and it's also integrated with existing data that we're already approving. So, it made a lot of sense to kind of look in that regard. It's actually going to save us money after the first year as far as our our costs. Awesome. Thank you. Thank you. All right. Any other questions or comments? All right. Do I have a motion to bring the first review of the proposed school calendar for the 2627 school year to the floor? I'll make a motion. Thanks, Tiffany. Do I have a second? I'll second. Thanks, Tony. All those in favor? Anyone opposed? All right, floor is open for the school calendar. Yeah, we've talked a little bit about it already. Uh we're this would be two years in advance, right?
101Um and the reason you do this is so that parents have an opportunity to plan their vacations. So the summary, this is similar to the last couple of calendars. I listed in here some key dates. The first day of school, September 1st. Last day would be in this proposal June 4th. There'd be a Christmas break. Uh in there a spring break and a Thanksgiving break as well. This is your first look at it. Uh no recommendations. I'm going to pull up for you what it looks like. And what we'll do is try to get that survey completed with data review to get it back to you for that May 21st meeting. I hope I'm able to do that for you. All right. Anybody have any questions on the calendar? I do. Are we still going
102the elementary school still has those four and a half days off? I know that was initially put on there for the act 20. Are we still going with that? Going forward with that? Yeah, we still have these in here. Sarah, do you want to talk about that? Yes, I can address that. So, those dates still are in the calendar um for multiple reasons. So, Act 20 is still going to be around um we believe in 2026 27 and so there's a lot of different requirements that we have to meet regarding that legislation and so we need to get parent plans and all the data looked at and things like that. So those days that are built in for that um take into consideration those timelines. There's different timelines that you have to meet and we
103can't do all of that within just our normal school day as it takes the entire staff to get some of those things ready. So that would be um an explanation on why those days will stay and there's going to be continual training that we know we're going to have to do at some point in time. Um so we just want to be prepared for when that comes over. All right. Thank you. Anything else? If we have some of the high school dates, isn't there any way to overlap them so some of the high school kids could maybe watch the elementary kids for parents? So these are in addition to the high school dates. Oh, so the Okay. Yes. So we did like so if you look on the calendar, so uh October 2nd and October
1045th. October 2nd is the whole district and then October 5th would just be the elementary school. It's because we have to do assessments prior to 45 days from the start of the school year. So then what we would use is those two days to do data meetings with teachers and then we have to write plans for every student that falls below the 24th percentile. They have to have an individual meeting plan. Those take a significant amount of time to write um to make sure that the teachers are involved and then also taking them into the hands of parents and all of those have timeline that we need to meet. So, we have bumped them with those, but then there's additional. Would that help answer that? Well, I was actually thinking of like just recently the
105sophomores hit off. So, it might be helpful if like the sophomores are off on the same day that elementary and things like that. So, then like potentially their babysitters, parents need that. That's what I was thinking. I think that happens two or three times at the high school. So it would happen for ACT where the juniors are the only ones that go, but then when you have to do uh pre-ACCT secure, that's only a half day. So the students are only missing a half day school and just Yeah. Yeah. I I hear what you're saying. I don't And we don't have those dates for ACT because we get to pick that within a window. Um and so we thought also for families it would be easier if we bumped it on a Monday or a
106Friday. Sometimes in the middle of the week that gets harder for parents to plan, right? I'm thinking that parents would want more three to four day weekends than oh you have Wednesday in the middle of the week off. We typically choose Wednesday for ACT because there's less excuse me other conflicts less. Okay. All right. Any other questions? All right. So that's really good discussion. Awesome. All right. Next thing is to make a motion to bring the first review of the Edgar special policy updates from Neiola to the floor. Do I have a motion for that? I'll make a motion to bring the first review of the Edgar special policy updates from the to the floor. And do I have a second? I'll second. Thanks, Tiffany. All those in favor? I. Anyone opposed? All right. So,
107the floor is open for the Edgar special policies. Yeah, this is uh the background here. Niola put this out in October in response to the April 24 release of the revisions to the uniform grant guidance regulations the office of management and budget OM revised several parts of their grants and agreement guidance and uh located in title two of the code of the federal regulations. So basically what we have here are nine policies. They incorporate statutory requirements, administrative priorities, reducing agency and recipient burden. Um a lot of these are we need to adopt them. We don't have a lot of federal grants. Uh but I don't I don't know how else to explain it. These are some things that are required and uh Dan is very well aware of them. Um but they pertain to federal
108grants and funds only for the main main part. This is not an action item. So I have a question because there's several policies here. Uh, I would recommend bringing these to the workshop for either Tim from Niola to explain a little bit more of what these policies are to the board so that we have a better understanding and then just taking a look at, you know, or even Dan and try to help us understand that this I went through these and there's a lot of information here and I guess I would I speak for myself on this, but I would like to have a little bit more time to be able to look at this and really understand, you know, what what these are and what's the board's role uh with these policies. Is that
109possible, Ron? Yeah, I I think so. Your role is is oversight. So, administration is using these policies to ensure that we're compliant with how we record and spend and inventory the federal what we purchase with federal funds. That's a big part of what this is all about. You know, it gets into property inventory, disposal of property. You know, with federal dollars, when we purchase things, they you just don't dispose of them like you do typical property. We'll follow these guidelines. Um spending requirements, cash management of it, the internal controls that we have to have in place. Uh yeah. Okay. Each of these nine that's that's what they pertain to. Okay. Jeff, do any of these affect the administrative guidelines? Um I am sure there will be administrative guidelines for these exactly. Yeah. Any other questions
110or comments? Okay. Okay. Thank you. All right. Next thing is, do I have a motion to bring the first review of the proposed high school and middle school start and end time change for the 2526 school year to the floor? I'd like to make a motion for the first review proposed high school middle school start and end times change for the 2526 school year to the floor. Do I have a second? I'll second. Thanks, Stephanie. All those in favor? I. Anybody opposed? Okay, the floor is open for proposal of the start and end times for middle school and high school. So, if you've been around at the end of the school day, you'll know that the elementary students sit on the buses for approximately 20 minutes before the buses leave. And that's based on the
111dismissal the different dismissal times that we have. uh it's the policy is student first our our vendor that they don't have the buses running during that waiting period and all the districts that they they they work with they just don't do that. That's uh that's their policy. Uh the current start and end times for all three of our schools are listed. We all start right now at 8 and then our dismissal times vary between 3 with the elementary, 309 with the high school, 3:10 with the middle school. So that's why you have that a period of time where uh the elementary kids are on the bus first and they are waiting a little bit longer. Um in summary, what we'd like to do is to get the buses out of the elementary school parking lot
11210 minutes earlier. So this change really uh wouldn't have a big impact on first student except for in a positive way. uh you only be waiting in the elementary parking lot from 3 to about 3:10, maybe a few minutes before 3 to 3:10 instead of all the way to 3:20. The high school and the middle school principles have communicated to staff and received some feedback regarding this proposal. They believe that this can work. After school activities could start earlier, they could finish earlier then. If they start earlier, there would be a little bit of an impact on the middle school band and choir, the zero hour that we have before school starts. There would be a little impact there. It's currently at 45 minutes. Uh this means that it would start at about 7:40, knowing
113that there'd be some flexibility on when the buses show up, etc. Right now, the last bus drops off atro approximately 7:35 or 7:36, depending on how the roads are. Our elementary students would, if you approved this change, they would still get on the bus first at the end of the day. Our middle and high school would come out and get on the bus as they currently do. It just would be at an earlier time. The high school students cross the road on the crosswalk. They can either walk the sidewalk to the buses. They can pass through the building, but I know for my own observation, they like to walk through the the snowbank and through the mud. They enjoy that, I guess. But anyway, so our proposal would be for the elementary to start at
1148, the middle a little bit or sooner and the and the high school a little sooner at 7:55. Then at the end of the day, uh the elementary would end at three. So this is not impacting the elementary starter end time at all. It's it's really the middle and the high school, but I shared with the elementary because the impact is for those students. So they're not sitting on the bus any longer than they need to. Uh, middle school would end at uh 305, high school at 304. Again, no action, just questions. I want to get this to you and we'll bring it back next month uh for your consideration to approve. But if you have questions, be happy to take them. Anybody have any questions, concerns, or maybe what parents might think about this?
115I actually have um besides reducing the the kids sitting on the bus, I do have a high schooler that picks up an elementary school. So, he won't be sitting in the corridor as long waiting for him. So, I think that's a benefit that way. Good boy. Okay. Is there I'm just curious. Is there um a reason why the middle school and high school get out at 304 and 305? Is it just to vary the time and put the kids on the bus or I guess the high school is walking over but like the middle school now where the buses are I mean could potentially could they get out at 3:00 as well? Well, they have to get so many minutes in. So, you know, we're trying to keep the same instructional minutes. That's why we
116backed it up five minutes for the start and then backed it up five minutes for the dismissal. So, that 10 minutes is kind of cut between the two. Um, but if I'd have to go back, Melinda, and and check the instructional minutes. I I really don't think we can shorten it any more than we are. We used to be ahead. The middle school, I know the high school is different because they have different um content requirements. A couple years ago, we went from we were actually getting at the middle school at 3:15. We bumped it back to 310 because we have banked a lot of minutes each year. But that five minutes over the course of you know how many ever days 70 78 days um that that makes up a lot of time that
117that cost your constructional minutes by a lot. So I don't think we would have the leeway to look at another five. Um okay I was just curious even if mother nature was really All right. Any other questions or comments? It's not a big impact. What would that be for like start time for kids that get on the bus? How long are they going to how early? What's our first pickups? Yes, good question. I don't know if you heard, but the question is um will that have an impact on kids in the morning? Will they have to get up earlier to get on the bus earlier? And the answer is no. The morning pickup will be exactly the same. They'll be dropped off at the same time. It's just uh there's less playground time, I guess,
118with the time they get dropped off until the the time to school. Well, for the elementary, it wouldn't have an impact at the beginning of the day because they're still starting at 8. Yeah. Yeah. For middle school, it's less supervision. It's less supervision. Um kids get into the building at we open the building up at 7:30. Um our last first student gets them, they're probably at 7:30. They're waiting. Yeah, they're waiting to let kids off. So, it really is just a matter of um 7:55 rather than 8:00. So, it's less supervision in the morning. Kids can still plenty time breakfast though in my opinion. I don't see thought about it. I don't see a lot of adverse effects, but of course until it happened everything, but we thought about it. Okay, thank you. My only
119other question would be if um an inquire were 45 minutes that having it at 7:40, would that mean it takes 10 minutes off the 45m minute class or I think that's what it means. Melinda Bob, is that what you're hearing too? Instead of starting at 7:40 and going until 8:30, um it'll be 7:40 to 8:25. So it's the same amount of minutes. It'll be 20 45 minutes just literally bumping at five minutes ahead. So the buses get there and I go up there and watch them several times. Um they get there in time that kids will not be able to down as much before they head, you know, off the bus to be under fire. Um but Mr. Baker and Mrs. McCull have done a really good job this year holding kids accountable. Like it's
120band day. It's player day to make sure you get here on time. It's already me following up and helping support with that, but we haven't had too many issues this year with kids being average. I think we'll be able to keep it going. Okay. Thank you. Great. Any other questions or comments? All right. The last thing here we have uh uh do I have a motion to bring future agenda items to the floor? I make a motion to bring future agenda items to the floor. And is there a second? I'll second. Thank you, Melinda. All those in favor? I. Anybody oppose? So, I have a couple things that I would like um to bring as future agenda items. Uh, a couple I've already said the Edgar policies, if you could bring that to a workshop
121and uh, be able to uh, have Tim or yourself or Dan spend a little bit more time with the board explaining what those are. I would also like to see uh legal bills from January 2024 till now. Uh that is categorized by the different categories so that it's transparent for the public to see and they don't have to do this themselves. Um the other thing is I would like to have a separate agenda item that says investigation update. Uh I would like to make sure that we don't lose sight of that. I am going to share that I did receive an investigation update from Mr. Macy. I will read that to you, but I think that should be a separate item that is on the agenda until this investigation is resolved uh for a couple
122of reasons. There's a community members that are concerned and there's rumors and we need to be transparent a little bit more about this criminal investigation. So if it's on the agenda, I think that will help uh alleviate any anxieties uh with regard to that. So I'm going to read his statement here that he sent me today and this can be an open record. Uh referral was made to the Brown County Sheriff's Office regarding the manner. The Brown County Sheriff's Office requested that the Manitto County Sheriff's Office do the investigation to avoid a conflict of interest. The Manito County Sheriff's Office accepted the matter and has been signed in an investigator. He would ask that people do not contact those involved so that it does not interfere with the investigation. One for the protection of those
123that uh maybe have done their just due diligence and there is no uh issue there. But the investigators will contact persons for information as they believe appropriate. If there are any other questions, I would ask that all questions be directed to attorney Patrick Legal in our office as he's coordinating this. As you know, attorney legal is a past assistant district attorney having working in that capacity at several counties and is familiar with these types of matters. Uh, and so that is all he has given to me. That's all he knows. But I think it's really important that we stay on top of this and that um you know that uh we are transparent and I know one of the things uh that he did mention that's not on this is that they are going to
124be doing interviews uh with people uh coming up shortly. So whether it's employees, past employees, uh staff, admin or board members uh the interviews uh will be taking place. Uh with that, that is all I know, but I think it should be a separate item and that we should continue to follow up with uh legal counsel Patrick uh to make sure that uh we are giving as many updates so we can resolve this as soon as possible so that people can can move forward and get back to uh where we were before. Um another agenda item is I would like to uh see the legal council policy added in that Melinda requested. uh that was from today and then also posting of a new board member to replace Tony. So those would be items that
125I would be requesting and then just open it up to the any board members if you have any items that you would want as well at this time. Uh can I get some clarification? Sure. Angela, um hosting uh to replace Tony, we had talked about the spirit. Yep. Um for the 23rd. Yep. Okay. You still want to add it to an agenda? Uh is that okay? The way you you do your thing. Okay. So, I'm just putting it there that um we just don't lose sight of it, I guess, is what I'm saying. I apologize for that. Okay. So, getting excited of where all So, I'll be in touch with uh Brian to get get that posted. Okay. Anybody else have any future agenda items that they would like to be put on here? Okay.
126The next thing that we have is a motion to bring administrative reports to the floor. Do I have a motion to bring the administrative reports to the floor? Make a motion to bring the administrative reports to the floor. Thank you, Jeff. Do I have a second? I'll second. Thank you, Tony. All those in favor? I. Anybody opposed? Okay. So, um, Ron, would you like to start or should I just go around? Yeah, I can start if I got to log in. It looks like if you don't mind, uh, nature's calling. I got to use the rest of my apologies, but I will be right. Okay. Isn't anybody need a recess for one or is it just me? Let's go. Let's go. Okay. All right. Thanks. Okay. Let's see here. There we go. So today is
127day 65. I'm not going to go through the 100 day plan. You've seen that uh the list people to meet. I've hit 30 and 46 keeps growing. I keep meeting with some people. Uh very very good feedback for Ricetown. Uh we hosted they call it five partners in education. It's part of the Green Bay Area Chamber of Commerce on the 9th in this room. We have a board of director meeting and Amanda Pradell uh and Betsy were here with several students and they presented to the board about their youth experience, apprenticeship experience. Um and it was it was excellent. Uh a lot of positive feedback from the board members uh include superintendent from the area along with uh business owners and business representatives. Um, and for the 2425 fiscal year, and it's not over yet,
128um, but whenever they track this data, I forget what month it was, if it was January, February, or March, uh, our students involved in youth apprenticeship have earned over $316,000 and that's pretty impressive for high school kids. Uh, some of them are making very good, very good change. Uh, wanted to share that. Uh there's a potential community partnership we're looking at. Um been working with uh Katie Stanzic and Tim Radits from those two proial schools that we have in town here and uh started a conversation about the possibility of providing hot meals to schools from both of those schools. I believe the district has had those type of partnerships in the past and on and off. Uh it appears uh they're making this request. It would be at no cost to our district. Uh they
129would pay for whatever that cost is. Um it would be a sum even. Uh talking to Katie Huey, our food service coordinator, um we would she's recommending that if we move forward with this partnership, uh we would create the the food meals at the middle school, those schools would come with their containers, pick everything up. Uh they they deal with it at their buildings, and then they'd bring uh the containers back uh to us. So that that's an interesting uh good positive situation. Uh I wanted to welcome and introduce you to Shosana. Shosana Smeiser is our district office substitute administrative assistant. Um she started on March 31st and she'll be done at the end of the month. Uh but with the resignation of Hillary, she's filled in. We're very appreciative of the the work she's
130doing and able to help us here as we transition. Um uh an update on that administrative assistant position. Uh it was posted uh we had it posted for four weeks. We had six applicants. We interviewed today. Um and we're hoping to get that that position filled with a possible start date probably early May at some point. Uh right now CISA 5 uh as you know at the resignation of Tanya uh CISA 5 has an excellent business support group of people and uh they're helping us covering the payroll accounts receivable and payable for the time being. Uh once we're able to fill that position, there will be a period of transition and training that will go in place with that new new individual uh and some monitoring and and consulting until that individual is comfortable. Is
131there a reason we want a CIA7? Yeah, there is. Um CISA 7 could help um but based on our Dan's experience and my experience as well, the business Every season has specialties and this is where they're the most robust. They they have have a a good batch of very talented seasoned business people that have they go into school districts and do this all over the state. Um and they're only a couple hours away and most of this work is done remotely. Um so they're not traveling all the time. Uh just a couple times. Good question. Thank you. So then it does it come in with the same cost that it would to go through CS7? I would assume it would be very similar. If there's a difference, it wouldn't be much. The rates are are
132pretty comparable. Okay. Yeah. Good question. Uh recall election process update. Uh as you are aware, there were tight statutory timelines. We've invested a lot of time recently uh trying to coordinate this, you know, uh not having Hillary here. Uh she has been the one in charge of elections and and that type of thing. Working closely with Tony and thankful for Tony to put in all these extra hours to help uh assist uh with this, working with three counties, 10 different municipalities, ensuring that that recall posting language was accurate. on April 9th, the final language was finally established. I think I don't know how many how many versions, but finally at one point I said, "Here's our final version." And five versions later, five final versions later, we got a final final final final version that
133everybody was happy with. So, that was a great uh great moment. But anyway, I want to give you a heads up on that. Uh, one of the municipal clerks reached out, asked if they could bill for all the time they spent doing their own research, sitting on the meeting, video meeting we had talking to WEC, the election commission. I said, I don't think so. Um, you can't bill us for that. Well, uh, the Brown County, uh, clerk, Patrick Moahan, overruled and said they can. So, I don't know how this is all going to go with 10 municipalities uh and how much that'll cost, but we will find out once the process ends. Uh record request update. I talked a little bit about this. This is already out of date. Uh whenever I put this together
134last week, um since January, at that point, there were 57 separate requests. We're into the 60s now. Uh wanting 95 different records. At that point, we had eight requests open with 12 different records. Uh we're probably around 156 o records open. Uh I w I wish that I had itemized from the beginning of what I had involved in this and Corey I know said the same thing because he's the one going in and and pulling a lot of this. But I know for sure I have over 40 hours spent on on working on this. Um the reasons for the remaining open records are one of three categories here. The cost to search and and and sort the records. Uh we share that when there is a cost. Sometimes people want to pay it. Some a
135lot of times they don't. Some couple are still hanging. Uh with that we're processing the requests. We're still processing with three of them. We It's probably more like seven now. And uh we need more parameters. Sometimes they're very vague and we need to get more specific. What are the search terms that you're looking for? Who exactly what are these email domains that you're looking for uh for us to search and what are the timeline parameters? And sometimes it comes to thousands and thousands and we want more specifics so we can narrow it down to what the the requesters looking for. Uh technology investigation. I don't have to hit that. Uh Angela had more information than I I was aware of. Uh so I'm not going to hit that. Federal funding update. I This is the
136talk of the country. Everybody's talking about the federal funding update with what's going on. Um, I just wanted to let you know where we're at, what we know. Uh, the programs that would be impacted would be the food service meal reimbursements, the title one. Typically, we get around 40 grand, title two around 18, title three around seven grand, title four about 10. Um, and we share the title one, two, and four with our profial schools. Those dollars, the big one is the idea, the special ed. Uh that's almost 300 grand that we get from the feds to help us uh with those costs and IDA as well with preschool. Um about 4% of our funding is federal uh around 625,000 uh out of the total 12 13 million uh of our total budget. Uh state
137budget update. Dan and I are watching this very closely. We got our ears to the ground and to the legislators and he's talking with his business official colleagues. I'm talking to the district administrator colleagues. Uh just had a report at the last pack meeting at CISA. Uh they're they're telling us Benjamin Franklin, there's a guy out there named Benjamin Franklin who's one of the legislators. He stated they're on time to pass it. I don't think that's their opinion. However, there is a lot of confidence that it'll be passed in time on time. Uh, Representative Kitchens was there and he reported that he is confident that Governor Iver's 325 per pupil increase that he wrote in for the next 400 years will remain and he anticipates will be possibly an increase in special ed reimbursement. It
138depends on I mean they can say they're going to re reimburse it to whatever percent but they then take a a finite amount of money and add it. So if they say they're going to reimburse you to 60% and they only put a certain amount that's not going to reimburse us to 60% we're not going to get that. Right now they're they say we get reimbured at like 33%. We're getting reimbured really at 29%. So, what that means is if we have a special ed program, which we do, and it costs 1.2 million, which it does, we're only getting reimbursed for 29% of that. The rest of that funding then comes from our our regular general fund programming. That's why it's a win-win for everybody if we are able to get an increase in our
139reimbursement for speced. Uh, you met Eric. Uh we reported out previously about the high school uh process. Uh the elementary process uh we're coming to the end. We had 37 applicants. We narrowed that down to 15. Narrowed it again to six. Uh we interviewed this week. One dropped out. We had four. We interviewed three. Um on April 14th, just this week, the stakeholder and the admin team interviewed those final candidates and we will be coming to you uh hopefully at the May 7th workshop to uh with a recommendation for you to approve uh middle school. That's up next on the docket. So the posting ended on yesterday the 15th. If I'm remembering correctly, we're in the 30s. Uh the admin team currently is going through and and doing their analysis of these this pool. Um
140and we're going to go through the same thing we did with the high school and the elementary and I keep learning. I get feedback with each uh of these processes and we keep improving the process and taking that that feedback to make it better. So hopefully it's even better for uh everybody with uh as we go through the middle school hiring process. And as you know uh May 7th we're going to go through uh chapter four of our book the field book uh schoolboard fieldbook manual and chapter five. So, we're going to hit 10 signals that your board is in trouble and we're also going to hit the chapter data critical tool for your school board. That's all I have in case you have a question. Thank you, Ron. Uh, how about in the back?
141Uh, Dan. Uh, sure. A little bit of overlap on what Ron talked about. Um, as we talked earlier, we did have a designation in the Memphis office. I'd like to thank Tanya off for her service to the district. Uh, as Ron said, we're working with C5 temporarily to uh complete some of those tasks until we have appropriate placement. We'll also bring that into training. That's perfect uh to make sure that we're um up to snuff. We're also looking at it as a opportunity for improvement. Prior to Tanya, Chris was in our office for over 30 years and she trained Tanya how to do that job. nothing nothing is uh incorrect or improper, but we're using as an opportunity to learn and maybe iron out some more processes and find ways that we can be more
142efficient. Um, as Ron talked a little bit about the state budget, uh, not a lot of concrete coming on Madison yet, but internally uh, we'll look to have the board uh, approve preliminary budget in June. And, um, my plan is to present uh, some of that information at the May 21st meeting to kind of let build that crown. Um and we as always anticipate a balance budget. That's all. All right. Thanks, Dan. Uh Bob, um our fifth grade students will be completing uh their dear graduation tomorrow. It's a program that takes place with our Brace County School resource officer, Jessica Smith. Here's a 10-week program that officer Jessica teaches focusing on holy internet safety, the effects of drugs on the body, and making smart and healthy choices for their future. The graduation ceremony is fun.
143Officer Jessica puts on a uh she makes a slideshow and stuff. The only downfall of it is that I will have the dare song stuck in my head several weeks that their kids perform. It's a really cool song. Yeah, it's just it's on a constant. Uh we've completed all portions of our forward testing. Um now we have the next week to finish up makeups. We actually are doing really well on makeup this season. Normally the last week um we have a lot of kids because of you know absences and and different things that come up. Uh the last week is a lot of kids going down to the library in order to uh finish up um that testing. But we're doing pretty good this year. Um we're hopeful that our scores reflect all the hard
144work that our staff um and students have put in this year. A lot goes into educating kids. We do a pretty darn good job of it. Forward test is kind of that big scoreboard. Um we're hoping that the uh we put up some big points. Um scores are made available over the summer. We're looking forward to getting those scores. you tell us more than data retreats setting goals for the the next year. Um and finally, our sources of strength students have been conducting our most recent campaign. It's the spring duck hunt. Sources members have been hiding paper duck cutouts um for students to find each morning when students find a duck. They're able to write a short statement about the strength represented by the color of their duck and then they receive a small prize.
145This campaign's been uh awesome because it's brought a it's brought a lot of excitement to the building in the mornings. Um it's also another reminder to our students about um all the strengths that they can call on in times of need. So we thank all of our sources of strength um advisors for helping with these campaigns that they've done throughout the year. It's really it's a source of a good culture builder, but it's also then a reminder for kids that they do have when times are tough, they do have things that they can fall back on in order to be resilient. Thanks, Bob. Sarah. All right. So, uh, the kids heart challenge was in February and March, and it was a complete success for us. Uh, elementary school raised $6,885 for the American Heart Association.
146um record was an incredible amount and a huge shout out goes out to our two teachers Amy Collins and Brad Dickinson for all of their hard work. They completely transitioned the gym. Um and they got kids being really active and um thank you to the parents and families who donated to that great cause. Testing, like Bob has said, feels like that's kind of all we're doing right now. So we for uh finished forward testing with our third graders today and our fourth graders last week. We will also be doing all makeup tests. Um and that all has to be done by April 25th. Um not just forward testing here, we are also um moving right into web testing which is the requirement for act 20. So that all had to be done um prior to
14745 days of school being out. So we are at the end of that window on Monday and starting diagnostic testing. So at some point we will get back to doing what we love and that is educating our students and teaching them. um when we get all this testing done. Uh we have started a coin war uh on Monday that will help support our local food pantries through the Deier area VFW. Uh this is a great way just for our students and families to support our veterans. The winning grade will get a pajama party. And so I have to give a thank you to our fourth grade student council for organizing all of the work and also to um Hannah Keer and Ellie Bundor who are student council supervisors. So, thank you to all of that.
148We finished our case of literacy training on March 31st. Um, this was a great training that our teachers learned for early literacy uh foundational skills and so it was a great opportunity for them to learn strategies right away and they are already implementing them into their uh teaching. So, it's been great to see that. We hosted our first annual parent network bingo night. Uh, we had a great turnout. We have over 200 students and families that came to play bingo. I do have to give a huge shout out to our parent network moms for all their organization. They said, "Hey, this is the event that we want." I said, "What do you mean?" I was like, "I can get you speakers and I can get you the stacks." And they literally took it and they
149did a phenomenal job. So, um, thank you to our parent networks for providing that fun event for our families. And lastly, I want to welcome Sydney Ferrell to our second grade team and Kelly Rodriguez to our 4K team. Uh we're excited to have those ladies join us for the 2526 school year. Thank you Sarah Scott. Um last Saturday night junior prom took place at the high school. I'd like to say dance is one of my favorite events but may not be completely accurate. Our students had a great time as as always they're super well behaved and super polit organized things. Um they also organized a a dress up for our chaperons. We were had security so we all wore black and white and we had thick earpieces look like security personnel but that one really
150that didn't the next day that was followed by our senior citizens prom thank you to student council advis council kids um our student council advisor Amy Reco and and her students for putting that on Sunday and then doing all the clean up. Um we are not immune from the the testing wave that's going on. Um ACT is now completely done. We had a couple of makeups that got taken care of earlier this week. PreACT was administered last week. On Tuesday we have freshman sophomores come in the morning and junior seniors we have no. Um I've got about half a dozen of those to make up by April 25th. And then we are almost completed with our 10th grade forward for social studies at the high school. After that, I move on to starting to prepare
151for AP exams which started on May 5th. Um, we administered 13 different AP exams and this year they changed the format completely. They are either completely online or a hybrid form. So, I bet between now and then that they exactly how that works. Um, so I'll be starting on that next. Uh, today our sophomores this morning attended Fox City's career fair. This is something we've been doing. I think it's our third year doing this. We use some of our Perkins dollars. uh great opportunity for our sophomores to get in front of a lot of people and then start thinking about careers and other opportunities that are out there post postsecary. Um shout out to Lisa Brown, Jenny Barnes, and Jessica Cluster for our sources of strength. Um as they wind down the year and start
152looking at next year, um the campaigns they did this year just like they've done in the past with the the color blade rum um the bean bag tournament um and all the things they do. they put in a ton of time with our kids to to get some value out of that organization. Um, and then the last thing I have a couple of upcoming dates. Academic awards are coming up in May on the 21st. That's actually the same night as your board meeting. And then graduation is that Friday night of the 23rd. Awesome. We're already at graduation. That's always exciting. I know. Especially for teachers, I bet too, right? And parents. Okay. I can't uh on March 31st and April 1st, the Ritstown FBA's club participate in the 69th Wisconsin FBA student leadership conference in
153Green Bay in the Chaos Convention Center. Our chapter sent 39 members to compete at state, which is one of the largest from any school in the state of Wisconsin. The following five individuals advanced to the FBA Nationals in Anaheim, California. So you get a trip up to California and from June 29th to July 2nd. They are Reagan Jutman, state champion, first place in spreadsheet applications. Lily Girtz, first place, world word processing. Seth Mullman, second place, computer applications. Scarlett Evans, second place, introduction to business communications. And Clarissa Shadaria, fourth place, network design. Uh Colton uh Bullards also made the stage of the awards by placing fifth in introduction to information technology but unfortunately only a top four go to national. Um very great job to uh coach Dell and and all our students there. Uh some
154more state champions with our FFA the rightstone FA FFA agricultural state sales CDE team placed first at the Wisconsin FFA state CDE contest held in Madison last Friday. 20 teams and 70 individuals qualified to compete on day one of the state contest. Day two is actually this Friday. State champions right down FFA will represent uh the Wisconsin FFA at the national AG sales contest held at the national FFA convention this fall usually in Indianapolis. Uh team members include Gracie Fernandez, Bennett Vanderol, Sienna Stelts, and Logan Collard. Uh, individual highlights included Stokes placing second overall, Vanderbil fifth, Collard eighth, and Fernandez ninth. All right. Out of those 70 individuals, uh, day two, the Wisconsin FFA state CD contest will be this Friday. We have four teams going on day two to compete. Uh, they are dairy
155cattle team, Jazelle, Mada Ortiz, Lydia Mullaminus, Olivia, and Madison Weezy. Our dairy products milk quality team, Aubrey Vulker, Victoria Watka, Elizabeth, and Molly Rubble. Our AR business team, Ella Swanson, Leia Carter, Nick Keel, Ethan Hassamer. Our wildlife team, Will Zmple, Lucas Hansen, Justice Brent, and Ezra Lapin. Hopefully, we can get some more of these teams on the nationals. Um, our forensics group did awesome the last two f uh two Saturdays, I should say. On April 5th, the Wisconsin High School transfer team earned its sixth division three WFCA state championship and senior Natalyia Garcia wonformational speaking. She was a state champion. The team's 220 team sweepstake points dominated the field in division three and was good for sixth overall among all divisions of 60 teams. The point total was the team's best showing ever at the
156WFTA state tournament. Garcia is the team's second individual state champion that we've had in school school history after Autumn Smith and Anna Fosters's dual interpretation in 2021. She was one of four finalists and eight semi-finalists for the team including were her sister freshman Sophia Garcia second in pros, junior Sienna Speltz fourth in impromptu speaking, junior Jame Le Fever sixth in radio speaking. Semi-finalists included Gracie Fernandez in proud new speaking, Morgan Cuso informative speaking, Brooks Vin Raz oral interpretation of literature and raving judge solo series acting last Saturday. Then a forensics team because we're part of two different uh uh leads competition. Um they captured they went down to the wins state competition in Madison. Official results are not posted yet because there's still some virtual entries that are still being judged, but coach Winkler told
157me we earned 29 golds, five silvers, and three bronze awards from in-person critiques. This should be the best, he said, in state among the 300 schools who competed in the event. So, it just shows how strong our forensics and FBA, FFA, and FBL. Give them a hand. that that you know talking around that all schools they might be strong in one of them but not strong in all three of them. All right. You can see that there's uh some students that cross over that are part of each different organization. That's what makes right great. All right. That you're able to do these activities via musical playing sports and everything else. Um so that's for there. Um as you can see the weather has been very cold and w windy, but all the spring sports have
158started. Uh yesterday was actually pretty cool because all five sports were in play at the same time. Um they're all competing at a high level and and hopefully the weather gets nicer and then they have long runs and playoffs. I'll update you next. Thank you. Thank you, Craig. Carolyn, um the special education staff has done a great job with doing forward exam testing over the last few months. We are due for our procedural compliance self assessment for special education um with DPI. And so we just started the first step of that with sending out parent surveys that'll be delivered we'll be working on all of next year today. Um just a big thank you to Mrs. Pel and Mrs. Quinn our new guidance secretary. They brought um sophomore students to the facities career expo. It's
159just one part of the many things that the district does for academic and career planning with kids. Um the career expo links regional employers to students. Students get to explore different careers and career opportunities within the surrounding area. They get to hear about career-based learning opportunities available at the different organizations such as job shadowing, interviewing, classroom visits, company tours, internships, summer employment, part-time employment, school to work pathways, and youth apprenticeships. And then lastly, I just want to share that our high school special education department just started a Tiger Brew coffee and our middle school um teachers and students already do this already where they need coffee for teachers. So the teachers um pay for the coffee and then our students are working on life skills such as um working with money, following directions, customer service,
160equipment maintenance, maintaining a clean work environment, and maintaining inventory. The slogan for the high school coffee cart is my favorite. It's caffeinate and agitate. That's okay. I'm sorry. There you go. Corey, did you want to add anything? I think I think Okay. So, I think we got everybody right. Okay. So, last thing is on meeting summary. Just a couple things. Uh, our workshop meeting is May 7th. Our board meeting is May 21st. Uh, I do want to thank Jeff and Tony for their service. Also want to congratulate Melinda and John for uh, getting on the board and then also thanking Jeff and Amber for running uh, against them as well. I think we have a lot of great things here that we need to focus on. If you think about all the things that have
161been said from our administration, a lot of stuff in the in the playbook right now with sports and uh, the new hires, the teachers, the principles. We have a lot of testing going on right now. Uh graduation awards. This is always a favorite time for me as well since I'm an instructor as well. So, it's a really busy time for teachers and administration. Probably the busiest time but most exciting time. Um and then also just knowing that we have federal grants and things that are put in place to take a look at from a grant perspective as Ron mentioned uh is really good as well. So I think uh this was a really good meeting to discuss and we had some good discussions and I want to thank everybody for coming. We do have a
162public uh open forum at this time. So I will go ahead and initiate that next. Uh just a couple things here that I have to read before we start that. And one last thing, don't forget about the special election on April 22nd. Yes. All right. Uh so this is a public's opportunity to bring concerns to the board. Board discussion and action on public forum items is prohibited for the open meetings. Law and agenda posting requirements. Items may be taken under advisement referred to proper channels or basic general information may be provided. Hearsay personal tax. Any anonymous concerns will not be considered. Those wishing to speak will be given five minutes to speak and the board minutes will reflect only the open forum general comments. There also is a policy attached that was out to board
163docs. I just want to talk a little bit about that as far as the role of the presiding officer shall be guided on following rules that public comment shall be permitted as indicated in the order of business at the discretion of the presiding officer. Attendees must register their intention to comment in a public portion. So if you've signed I've got that here. So that's good. Uh participants must be recognized by the presiding officer and will be requested to face their comments. So I will call you uh by your name to come forward. Uh in addition each minute made by the participant shall be five minutes. I've already said that no participant may speak more than once on the same topic unless all others wish to speak on that topic have been heard. Participants shall direct
164all comments to the board and not to staff and other participants. And participants shall address only comments or topics with legitimate jurisdiction to the board. Preciding officer may interrupt, warn, terminate a participant statement. If a statement is too lengthy, personally directive, abusive, obscene, or irrelevant, requesting the individual to leave the meeting, request for additional assistance, such as law enforcement, or call for a recess. uh but I am more uh inclined to uh listen to what the uh community has to say but those are just general guidelines that I have to read as a presiding officer but I welcome everybody for coming and uh being able to speak what you would have to say in public forum. Uh so we will time that and uh we'll go ahead and get started. Uh the first person I
165have on the list is Ron Zan. I wrote no sorry you wrote okay you wrote it's okay getting a new pair of glasses uh Amber Cox yes okay thank you all right so tonight marks many changes for our redstone community school board and better or worse Our community is about to get the change they voted for. Before the curtain falls on an honorable board majority, I'd like to impart a few thoughts. Number one, senior board members are chosen by an election process for a very important reason. Your primary purpose is to be the voice of the community. At board members, your voice your vote votes ensure that local values are reflected in the board policies and high level governance for our school district. Her voice was never intended to unilaterally agree with the will of
166the teachers union. When interacting with special interest groups like WAVA or WEA, I would urge you to remember that you are acting as a on the be on the community's behalf as a whole. Maintaining overly close ties to these groups can easily create a conflict of interest and compromise your judgment, especially when it comes to negotiations and referendants related to these groups. It's great to volunteer, but when the lines blur and you're inclined to make youth sporting events a little more boozy, advocate for $18 million referendums or bend the knee to union demands. You can be sure our community will be watching and holding you accountable. Let's chat for a moment about board minorities disgraceful treatment of our current board president, Miss Hansing Winker. Here's the long and short of it, folks. The reason for
167the petition changed so many times during the collection of signatures that most people in our community can't even list the official reasons for the recall. I suppose the board minority and former administration would say it's primarily related to the investigation and termination of the former superintendent. The former superintendent was not fired though. He resigned voluntarily amid an investigation. An investigation that is eerily similar to allegations that can be found in a simple Google search related to his time in Cranon. Allegations of demeaning women, a mysterious retirement amidst a backdrop of an investigation, threats to sue the Cranon school district, mobilization of teachers, events culminating in the in the targeting of a superintendent of that district. Sound familiar? to chalk Angela's account up to he said she said and add further insult to injury is simply
168disgusting. You're persecuting a victim. On behalf of many of us here in Ritstown, I apologize, Angela. You deserve better. Regardless of how you feel about our hiring superintendent, if you truly have a vested and trust in moving forward, you'll make efforts to foster a relationship and provide your encouragement and support to our current superintendent, Mr. Sari. When board members of the When the members of our board make passive aggressive public social media statements that Mr. Sari is not well-liked, they are not only being unnecessarily cruel, they are actively undermining his success and the success of our district. Mr. Sari understands his role in carrying out the operational tasks related to board governance. He's maintained a professional, friendly demeanor despite a community that has ruthlessly attacked him for no reason other than being someone other than
169his predecessor. In three short months, I witnessed Mr. Sari encouraging collaboration with the board, meeting and greeting community members as they walk through our doors, and taking ownership of processes and procedures that were broken long before he joined the district. He's been tasked with replacing principles across all three schools. This is no small task for any superintendent, let alone one as new to the district as Mr. Sari is. I would encourage you to adhere to your tiger values and start leading with kindness. Rather than asking, how can we get rid of Mr. Sorry. Ask yourself, how can we help Mr. Sorry? My five minutes would not be complete without a shout out to the current board majority. You courageously fought to respect Brightstone community taxpayers against double taxation. You restored safety to our locker rooms
170and restrooms. You stood up for maintaining integrity in girls sports. You ensured that our SRO officer was properly allocated. Our community is indebted to you for all that you've done. Well, I'm doubtful that our new board will share our ethics and drive. I can hope for the best and grateful for all that you've accomplished. Thank you. Okay, the next one that I have here is a yes, John Curtis. Hi, good evening everybody. Uh, coming as soon school board member. Uh I just wanted to thank everyone uh for giving me the opportunity to serve on the board for 2526. Looking forward to it. I just wanted to thank Tony as well for his time. Was definitely saddened to see the resation coming in. I was excited to work with you and bond over the shared love
171of aerospace that we have a connection on. I know it wasn't easy task really fast. So I just wanted to thank you for your your time there. One other item I want to address. Um, there was something published in the paper today. I felt it was pretty misleading um and a little bit disrespectful. There was an advertisement for a candidate who's running for a recall election. Um, there's a quote for me that was taken completely out of context and uh I think people should just realize that what was from a news article citing the recall reasons for it. Uh, and key words were was and the following of things turned um with the school year started. So, I think that's off my chest and out there. Um, thank you. All right. Thank you. Uh, next
172one is Andy Lent. Andy went. Oh, okay. In the back row. Sorry. That's actually in my first topic. I know I've talked about this before when coming here, but the school district has many beautiful facilities that could certainly handle a huge crowd that comes here and I don't understand why we have to continually pack or try packing to the small area here. It would be great. We know a lot of people are coming to these meetings. Let's find a spot we can accommodate it where it's comfortable for everyone. Even tonight, it was very hard sometimes to hear people over talking in this area when we're sitting way back there. Second time our second topic I have is a sincere a sincere thank you to Tony Decker for your service on this board. It's disappointing that
173you're leaving the award especially if partly due to the publicized pressures you received for not certifying the recall or for not wanting to certify the recall. Uh just like the other issues you handled as your position and support clerk, you always handle them with integrity. You will be missed and we certainly appreciate your service. Finally, I'd like to give my observations. A few years ago with the previous board um apologize, but few few years ago with the previous board, the public showed up in droves to dis discuss displeasure with various topics such as tax defement as well as a human growth education. A majority of that board dismissed that public opinion and the subjects uh that were coming before the board. And what happened was we had a sweeping change at the next election. We
174then had a new board and a new majority. And shortly after this change in board, there were new hot topics. Again, the public showed up at droves to express their uh concerns about serious uh certain topics such as the investigation into Andy Space, process for hiring the new administrator, the further extension of the new administrator's contract, the hiring of a new legal team, where we're at with the current budget on legal budget, and lots of people came in to discuss that with the board. And once again, the board didn't seem to listen to the public. and we again saw sweeping changes in how the boards made up and those changes might not be over um pending the results of the the recall election next week. If anything that past boards and future boards can learn
175as public feedback is very important and should be treated as such by the court. I beg you to listen to public input. Don't look at it as a necessary thing but rather an opportunity to hear your constituents. Also, please evaluate moving the public input session to the frontier meeting versus the end, so you're able to hear public input prior to potentially taking action on anything that the public may want to inform you about. The community is counting on the realigned board to end the recent us versus them mentality and start working together, including with other board members, admins, staff, teachers, and the community to make our district tiger strong. Thank you. All right, next one is Andy Space. Well, it's been some time since I've been here. This is a different look for me over
176here. I did start my remarks first. Thank you to the staff and community members for all the cars well wishing and support. It's been very humbling. Um, administration, you've been faced with a lot and I kudos to you guys for what you've done to get through this semester. But staff, keep doing the great things you do for kids every day. They deserve it. And listen to the great things in Ricetown. It's the kids. It's the kids. We have adult problems here. And damn it, those kids deserve our best every day. And teachers and staff here give it to them. So, thank you for that. Um, Andy, what I want to give you a shout out. Great. Um, I'm here because I retired January 17th from this war and I didn't bring all my records because,
177well, quite frankly, everybody's got them. We all know everything. So, disappointed in our retirement agreement worked out with the board. My resignation agreement number nine says non-disparagement. Non-disparagement if you look in Webster means not to criticize or damage somebody's um integrity, honor and name and reputation. And quite honestly, four of you board members have. You've done it through podcasts. You've done it through text and Facebook posts. And thank you to Mr. Repy who prints one side of this issue. It's in the paper. So, thank you for that. I have kept my mouth shut. I have honored that agreement because when I sign my name to a piece of paper, I honor that. And what this board has done to me, four of you is unacceptable. To disparage me openly, thank you for podcast. I have
178Thank you for all the Facebook posts that you've disparaged me on. Where's your honor and integrity in your names? I don't see it. I would expect you guys as board members that you would have honor and integrity and not disparage somebody to the likes of what you've done to me. And I heard it before from two of you when I was the superintendent not so long ago. Elections have consequences. And by God, this community stood up and took this board back. And thank you guys for that. Taking this school back in this community. Well, that was done. Lastly, I'd like to end with a records request again of me. I'm the superintendent, the former one, by the was Nikki rule in the state of Wisconsin. I'm to be informed every time there's a records request
179of my personnel files and the chance to rebut anything in there. But I was not informed of this request. I found out about it from a reporter in Madison that called me and thank the Lord he called me. Mr. Sorry. Gave out my social security number and personal financial information to a reporter on a financial request. My personal and financial well-being. Unbelievable. That's gross negligence and incompetence. And when I wrote you a letter dated March 18th, when I found out about it asking for you guys to go through a series of steps, I did see you have some written down a log. So that's good news. You have 30 seconds. But for the most part, you've done nothing. You ignored it. Too bad for Mr. Space. So sad. You gave out my social security number.
180That's unacceptable. unacceptable. So I guess Jeff, you always threaten lawsuits when I was a superintendent. You guys will be seeing one from me. Uh Aaron Winker. Good. Uh, Sue Buyers. All right. I'm Sue Buyers and I am a resident and taxpayer in the village of Rextown. Speaker, 21 years ago, my husband and I built a home in Wrighttown. Our children were grown and we basically did not get involved in politics or what was happening at the school. We paid our taxes on time, kept to ourselves, and just appreciated the quiet area and the people. We supported some of the updates needed to the school during the referendum process, but felt more explanation was needed, but the measure passed and we started to see a huge increase in our school taxes. That's when we got involved
181in questioning why this was happening. We were told on numerous occasions by Carllets and board members senated here today that the school had and I quote a needsbased budget nothing extra. 40 years later we knew that that was not the truth and we set about to find board members who would listen to us. We were fortunate to have excellent candidates in Tony Decker and Mike who ran an amazing campaign talking to community members knocking on doors with tons of red, white and blue signs. They ran a nice, clean, upbeat, joyful campaign. No smears, no nasty tactics were used. No campaign violations occurred, and both won their election quite handily. And then they got to work immediately expanding talking time in the open forum, bringing back the streaming of meetings, updating board policies, saying no to
182selling beer on school grounds so we didn't lose funding, voting to not approve Title 9 gender identity as the courts were still weighing in on the matter, and finally eliminating the extra debt payment on a 20-year bond. In other words, they listened to people who felt abused by the previous four years. Initially, I wanted to compare Mike and Tony's joyous camping along with that of Amber Cox and Jeff Nelson with the unnecessary and dishonest recall we are living through. But I would rather focus on thanking people who stood up for what they believed in and set an example for the young people who always we say always deserve the very best things. If we really believe that, we should demand honesty and transparency in all communications with our elected officials. Young and old alike need
183to ask questions about issues. Stick for information. Do not rely on others to provide you with the facts. You have a choice in how to live your life every day. I choose to live my life standing up for people, trying to be a decent person, telling the truth when someone claims otherwise, standing up for people who were wrongly attacked. Sadly, those traits were lacking by some in this election cycle, and I hope we can get them back. But it will be up to all of us to look at what has occurred here, how adults on both sides conducted themselves, and what lessons young people learn. Did they learn they could deceive a community by taxing people and not telling the truth? Did they learn it's okay to violate school policies as long as you get
184what you want? Did they learn hard drives and records can be deleted to keep their rostering from being found out? Hopefully not. Instead, we need to we need to celebrate people who bothered to inform themselves about the issues and speak out in behalf of others. So, I ask you to consider Jeff, Angela, Mike, and Tony. These people gave of their time, their energy, their heart, and they acted in the best interest of us all, young and old alike. One person was removed from office with a vote. One is still waiting to hear the final vote verdict. And one just felt that sacrifice was too great for the part he wanted to play on the board. Consider these people and the value that they brought to this room and our community and be extremely grateful that
185we had such role models who acted with dignity, transparency, and class willing to give it their all to try to make the community a better, more honest place. I really don't know how we move forward from this, but we have no choice. What you will do with this information is up to you. I know I wake up every day and I can look in the mirror and know not everyone likes what I have to say or what I do, but I am honest in what I am saying and what I am doing. In the end, your reputation is really all you have. It's how people will remember you long after you move on to other things. Did you do the right thing when it mattered? Angela, Jeff, Mike, and Tony did exactly that. And that
186is why I'm here. I celebrate you. All right. Uh, the next one is Brian Denner Dinner. I apologize. Is there a Brian? Oh, there you go. Okay. Good evening everyone. I've got one huge pain point to talk about and that is money. Money is my background. I have a finance degree so I feel well versed in this area and I've noticed that it's a painoint for literally everyone in this community. Uh, a few things that I've come to understand is that historically the school board budget for legal expenses has ranged between 15,000 and $25,000. In the fall of 24, that budget number was increased to $40,000. Fortunately, we're nowhere near that. Not even close. My understanding is that we spent well over $100,000 already on legal counsel under the current president's tenure. Professionally speaking, that's
187absurd. A few specific items and legal bills from February 2025 are what really grabbed my attention. Build at $325 per hour. Monies were spent on items such as analyzing emails regarding recall process on-site review and analysis of recall petition preliminary review of challenge to the recall petition review recall petition challenge review recall challenge rebuttals review recall challenge rebuttals you get the How much money was spent on these items? I did a rough tally over 20.2 hours and $6,500. My question is, who undertook this? Specifically, the challenge and the rebuttals. Was the entire school board asking for these expenditures? And did the entire school board ask for free counsel on that? who seconded and thirded this spending. What I don't understand is why is the school board researching these and not a person's individual lawyer? Is
188the entire schoolboard panel disputing the recall or it's just one individual. It's just my personal belief that it's one individual who was disputing the recall, not the entire school board. And so it would be my opinion that that one person should share those expenses, not the entire school board and community. As elected officials of the school board, I'd like you to ask yourself the following questions moving forward when spending money. Will those monies directly benefit the students of Rightstone? Will those monies directly benefit the staff and educators of Rightstone? If the answer isn't clearly yes, get help. Don't don't spend it. Ask someone. The board has spent over $100,000 in legal counsel this term. And I urge you guys to pause and reflect before just approving expenses. I know that's been done already. Um we
189just approved a lot of money over the last two months, 30 to $40,000 I believe. And I'm concerned that without we've approved these without understanding the ramifications. Sometimes it's easy to just approve those expenses because after all, it's not your money. What if it was though? What if that money actually came from your pocket? Would you ask questions? For example, let's just say we all have $1,000 mortgage payment. I know a lot of us wish we did. Um, but the bank says, "Hey, we're going to pull 3,000 now." And not just this month, every month. Would you do anything? I bet we would ask some questions. I bet we'd question everything till it got fixed. That's where we are. We're 3x of our of our budget and it's we've got time left. We got months
190left. I think the problem here is that the money being spent, it's not ours. So sometimes it's easy to just a lot of line items in here. Let's just approve it and be done with a vote. The issue is that that money has to come from somewhere. the monies that were approving the expenses, they could have gone elsewhere. Those monies could have gone into the pockets of some hardworking educators that are in this room tonight and that work in this building day in day out and the buildings in our community. And with that in mind, I ask and implore you to stand up and ask questions. 30 seconds. Don't approve expenses that aren't the responsibility of the school board. Don't approve unnecessary spending that can be indirectly taking money out of the pockets of our
191hardworking educators in this district. Thank you. Lindsay went um first off um I would like to thank the Um, while this has been a key accomplishment, not all of you voted for this to have a lot these meetings live streamed. Um, but at the end of the day, it has really been beneficial to the entire community. You've opened a lot of people's eyes to u what exactly has been going on for the last 10 minutes. And so, between the crowd in this room and those watching virtually, you have the audience. I'm not sure it's the audience wanted though. Another success that the board likes to um talk about and and um Andy actually talked about this earlier. So um is that you moved out the public speaking time from three minutes to five minutes. This
192has been sold as evidence that the entire board really wants to listen to what the community has to say. Yet at last month's meeting and tonight's meeting, the open forum was moved to the end of the meeting. in emails and in comments made by board members. The decision was made so that there would be better flow of the meeting so board members did not have to deal with the negativity coming from the public. You've now moved to the public forum to after the votes have been taken. You're forcing the community to email you with all and any of our concerns prior to the meetings. These emails now seem to be going unanswered. Are the concerns being heard? Are you even listening to what the community is trying to tell you? By forcing community members to
193email you, the public does not have the opportunity to hear the growing concern. To me, this is no different than cutting a public speaker off after three minutes. It is a way to not hear your critics who have serious questions about your decisions you're making over the last few months. As elected officials, it's your job to hear from all of your community members, even if you don't like this. What what is being said, the public forum got tough, so now you will get to the end. Emails are now getting tough, so you aren't responding. How can you say you're connecting with the community in these situations? Mike, you want I'm not passing this. I'm just gonna send an email out. You sure, Mike? Yep. Okay. Yep. Actually, you know what? I'll go a little bit.
194I'm gonna answer right here. I'm sorry. What, Mike? I'm I'm gonna speak a little bit, but I'm gonna stay right here. Okay. It's been a long year for me. Been a very long year for me. Um, hasn't been fun. And to be honest, it's uh it's affected me in a lot of ways. And um I've learned a lot. I've had some some good times here, but it's been very difficult. Um, you know, Andy had spoke of disparagement tonight and I look at what this recall has done to this community. I don't wish that upon anybody. That was never my intention coming onto this board was to have something like this happen and I don't wish it any for it to happen. But the amount of hate that I have seen in this community towards each
195other is ridiculous. My family has been gone after my dirty laundry been aired along with other bar members and I'm not even on recal or election. So I don't understand what I have to do with this. You ask anybody, I beat my own job. I vote who I want to vote. Just because I vote for majority doesn't make me a bad person. I listen to the teachers. I listen to the staff. And you know what? I don't know what arog is. I work my butt off for what I have. And it should never be a downfall to go and somebody air launch for that matter. You don't know me. Um I don't know what I'm moving forward here. I I really don't. You know, I appreciate all the feedback and and the support I've gotten,
196but you know, I'm not so sure I want to stay here and and I'll decide that over the next month or two and go from there. Um I have a pretty lengthy letter of concern. um from all my meetings that I document um I'm going to go through that and kind of make my decisions. But to my constituents that have voted for me last year by a 220% majority um over the incumbent, thank you guys. I I appreciate that. Um it means the world to me. I've got a great community. I've got a great great family and I've got some great staff to work with. Um and we'll we'll just take it from here, but we'll see what happens. So, thank you guys for for your support and we'll see what happens. Great. Thank you,
197Mike. I think that's everybody. Uh, just to summarize for the board, I will be contacting legal counsel for a lawsuit that has been threatened to our board to notify Andy Space. uh public hearing uh was offered and he was not um uh he was advised that he could do that public hearing and he decided not to. Uh the other few things I'm going to take feedback and I think our board will too as far as the open forum. Uh I would like the board to take a look at that to see whether that's placed in the beginning or at the end uh for the future as well. I thank for the comments uh that have been made by those that support myself in this room call. I can sit here and talk about all of
198the issues that I've been faced and the things that I've been done and until you're in my shoes and the things that I've been faced, I'm not going to air out anything and try to uh further, you know, uh add any more than I have to. I think you've you've heard enough and there's things that I've done and I'm a very strong leader and I am not going to go down without a fight and I'm here to fight for people that can't fight for themselves as silent majority and if some of you have issues with that I apologize for that but I will tell you right now this has all been about students. It's all been holding people accountability. This isn't a popularity contest and I'm willing to stand up and do what's right for
199this district whether people like it or not. And if he thinks it's easy to be in the shoes this past weekend and being, you know, verbally attacked at dinner with my husband to have family because of decisions that were made or not being able to respond to a disrespectful email. I could sit here for about an hour and tell you the things that I've went through while I was under the past superintendent, the previous superintendent and the past board. And all I have done is research and did whatever I could to work my butt off to try to figure out how to bring this board together. And I needed help and I needed to seek legal counsel for that. And legal counsel is there for training and development. And they had advised me on what
200to do. And up to this point, you can sit there and talk and say whatever you want, but I'm proud to stand strong for everything that I have done for this community and for everything I try to do to fight for you guys and for the students and for my family and the sacrifices that I have made night and day with my family to make sure that things are done well. And that's all I have to say at this point. At this point, I would ask that everyone moves forward, respect everybody, and continue to support the Superintendent Ron Starry as the decisions have been made. And at at this point, I'm going to go into making a motion to go into an executive session. And that executive session is the board of education may upon
201mostly, duly made, and carried out convene a close session under one or more of the exemptions provided in section 19.851 851 Wisconsin statute for the following purpose. Considering the employment, promotion, compensation or performance evaluation data of any public employee over which the governmental body and jurisdiction are exercise responsibility pursu pursuant Wisconsin state statute 19.851C staff compensation models and benefits uh for the 2526. Do I have a second? I'll second it. Thank you, Michael. All those in favor? Yes. Anybody opposed? I will do a roll call to go into close session. Please say yes or no. Tiffany, yes. Jeffrey, yes. Mike, yes. Tony, yes. Rain, no. Angela, yes. All right, we will go into uh a closed session. Veron, would you like that to be in the in the conference room? In the conference room. The
202board may reconvene into an open session to take action on matters discussed after close session. Is that correct? Correct. Okay. I do want to thank everybody for coming and voicing your concerns and continuing to support the district. Thank you very much.