001All right, I'm gonna call us to order at 5 o'clock, please. Miss Emily. [Music] All right, I am here. Renee, yes. Emily, April, here. Chris, yes. All right, Kyle. Marcus, yes. All right, we are good to go. All right. Um, as you may remember from last meeting, we're still praying around playing around with taping the meetings. We're moving moving tables and doing different configurations to try to get something that we like. Welcome back, Sarah. Um, we are now taping the meetings and posting those the morning after. Um, so we're this is only our second time doing it. We're trying to get the right something that works. So, we'll play with it till we get something we think works. All right. So, hopefully board members have had a chance to review tonight's agenda. If there are
002no changes, if I can get a motion to approve, please. I'll second. All in favor? I. Any opposed? All right. Motion carried. Agenda is approved. Do we have anyone requesting an audience with the board tonight? Going once. Going twice. All right. No audience with the board. We are on to our consent agenda. Um board members will notice there are some minutes from previous meetings for review. We have our invoices and receipts. Kyla, is there anything you want to call our attention to from invoices and receipts this time? Uh we had a property insurance bill from EOMC for 13,591 and then we had two character strong bills. One's for 15609 and that's for upcoming training and then there's another one for 22,500 for curriculum materials but that's all for a grant. Also there's uh money spent
003which is for the security cameras and uh files we're ordering for 20,829 is the first portion of that. So those are pretty much the larger bills. Uh, as far as receipts, we depending how the payroll goes here, the last one because the last payroll that we run in June covers the teachers for July and August because they earn their pay during the 24 25 school year. So, we have to have it on the books by June 30th. But, we haven't received all of our property taxes because people pay it in January and then they pay it by in by June and we get the checks in July. We may, depending on how that runs, we may have to do short-term borrowing for the first time this year. Um, Libby doesn't have it done. Michelle done
004by the 30th. So, that's what we have going on there. That's pretty normal. Okay. Thank you. Any questions regard budget statements and um the cash flow and energy statements are available for review as well in personnel. Kyle, do you want to talk about the contracts in Mary? Yeah. Um the recommendation is join me. She's from the Philippines. Um, we're working with a company called International Teacher Exchange U Schools. I've wor I've met with Flambo and Cornell at our Lakeland conference meeting and they've been successful having teachers from overseas come over here. And Northwood actually has a teacher that's friends with our candidate. And then Baron, turns out they have five or six at their school. And so we've done the we've done our search. We've come up empty. So, we're going overseas and we're gonna
005give it a try. Um, there's a lot of coordination with she now needs housing, all that kind of stuff and make like we start April or April August 20th for new teachers. She may or may not be here in America by then, but we're going to try going with her for that. The choir teacher, the recommendation is Dana Pollson. She taught at Unity for 24 and three/4ers of a year and she student taught there as well. She then moved to Florida and she's a Luck native and she's moving back to the area. Um, in all transparency, she's in a seminary program pastor and her goal is to someday be a pastor, which would be like 2 or 3 years from now. So, she's uh long-term not going to be here, but again, we've offered the
006position to two other people. they both turned us down. She's a viable candidate. She's got 20 plus years experience and so we'll take two years if that's what we get. So that's the recommendation on that. And then uh Brenda Martin has held a different position. So she's resigning as a special ed teacher. And then our softball coach is a quitter for the second time. We do appreciate her taking the team this year and stuff, but yeah, her plate was full. So, yeah. So, that's the personel in this portion of All right. Any questions for Kyle about the contract Mary? All right, we have a recognition of donations this month from Youth Sports Unlimited um providing us with a tackle dummy for football. So, I'm sure the football team is thrilled to have that. We certainly
007thank you Sports Unlimited for all of their support always. Um, if there are no questions or further discussion, can I get a motion to approve the consent agenda? I'll make a motion to consent agenda. Can I get a second? I'll second that. All right. All in favor? Any opposed? All right. Consent agenda is approved. We are on to the administrative reports. Kyle, you want to talk first? Sure. Well, I went over and attended L's community listening session on athletics and academics. Their focus was mainly on athletics. The overall vibe I got from them is that they would like to stay as is with the sports we have. They're not looking at expanding anything which would only be volleyball, boys and girls basketball or football. They're the majority were that way. A few would like to
008be separate but exciting the fact that they'd like to have just lucky be represented and they like more opportunities for their kids. But overall, I felt the room want to continue as is. I did tell them I was there to observe and listen because their decisions they make in the future would affect us. But it was a pretty good meeting. only one person spoke on academics and he requested that we see four opportunities for kids and so uh Cory Engle did mention the egg teacher and the gentleman said that's a step in the right direction he said I love math and science so it was was good so it was a good meeting and then our joint finance committee at the state level on the 12th did a omnibus motion which is when you lump
009a whole bunch together and it's not too favorable for public education you're hoping for 60% in the special ed world and we're at about 33% this year. They're looking to bump it to 35 for next year and 37 12% the following year. Not even close to the 60%. They did increase the high cost special education, but we don't have any students of that nature right now and most districts don't have students in that realm. They also have in their recommendation to reduce DPI's budget by 10% which is $1.3 million. Um, so it wasn't very favorable. They're increasing the charter school program in the Milwaukee County area. It'll be 4 million the first year and 8.1 million the second year. And then the same thing with Rine. It's going to be like 4.1 to and Rine
010covers also Kenosha and some of that area. It's going to go from like 4.1 to 8 million there too. So they're getting more and the rest of us will get not as much which puts the burden on the local taxpayer. We don't get state aid. You have your total amount you can collect minus your state aid and the rest comes from local. And so yeah, so legislators aren't doing us any favors right now. But it's still a long way from being decided because both parties got to pull on it. The governor's got to accept it too. So, all right. Any questions for Kyle? All right. Um, you'll see that Megan did submit a report for this month. She is on vacation right now, even though she's knew we knew she wasn't going to be present
011at tonight's meeting. Um, so you can see her updates there. And then Miss Yeah. So, I've kind of transitioned myself early into the elementary school. So, we got summer school going and that's been from what I'm told from the staff working down there very smooth. So, I'm happy to hear that. Um, we just have kindergarten to second graders down there. So, it's very early childhood. That's nice. And the third through sixth graders are in this building. Um, and I've heard that that's going smoothly as well. So, that's wonderful. Um, I wanted to give you a little update on Reading Corps, how we ended the year. So, through Americanore, we get a reading core tutor that helps us do tier 2 reading interventions, mostly one-on-one, um, some pairs. So, we have, um, 21 students that were
012in a reading core tutoring program. So, it's 20 minutes of intervention daily. Um, we had 21 kids go through that program. 65% of them exceeded their targeted growth and eight of them exited the program altogether. So it really does make a big impact to have that extra hand on that. Um highly trained um using fastbridge progress monitoring. So it fits very well into our system. So that is a program that is you know at risk of budget cut you know but for now I'm doing everything we can. We will have our tutor next year. I've signed us up the last two years to try to get math core at the middle school level. So hopefully someday we'll get to pilot that, but um it makes a big impact for the system that we've got going
013on school. So I just want to kind of highlight how the year shook out for reading core. Um I just got that so it wasn't in my report. Um, the other thing I I said I was going to bring to your attention is um, FastBridge is the company that we use for our universal screener. Um, and then you have to have progress monitoring tools for intervention. Um, we had a 5-year contract with Renaissance. That's the company that provides FastBridge. And that contract is up at the end of June. The timing was good because last year the state mandated that we use Ames web plus a different company u for the act 20 law reading screener from 4K to third grade. So the state pays for that. So I've been looking at quotes. If we were
014to just use as web plus for reading and math all the way to 8th grade, what would the cost difference be? Um right now, uh FastBridge would run us about $3,500 a year. Um Ames Web Plus because the state pays for the reading portion would only cost us about 2,000. So there's a significant cost difference. Um so my recommendation would be um to move everything to Ames Plus. It gets really messy when you go from third grade to fourth grade and now you have two different tools. Um, from what I've gathered working with the company, most Wisconsin schools are leaving Casbridge to do this. So, that's unfortunate for the Renaissance company, but um, far more costefficient for us. The other piece that Renaissance gives us is a tool called Edge Climber, and it's a data
015warehouse. Um, I've spent a lot of time looking through that. But I think the tool is amazing, but our school district is so small that we function manually just fine without it, and it would save us $10,000 a year. So, I think that's a good cut. So, u removing us from Renaissance altogether, um would be a big savings of $14,000 savings annually. Um, but I don't know if the board wants to discuss this or not, but if we go um with Ames web plus for everything, there's certainly going to be options to just pay annually or to do sometimes get a discount if you use five years later on. So, I don't know if the board wants to weigh in that or not or if um Mr. L just have that conversation, but yeah, I've
016been looking at this since about December and definitely the staff is aware, especially the elementary staff. Um they the tool has everything. Ames web provides everything that that Fastbridge does. So it's just a different look. Um but that's that's what I would like to do is shift us over to Fastbridge. What we would have to do is invest about $2,000 into the training. We'd have to train everybody the first year how to use it. So So that's that. Are you seeing that as something the state's mandating the switch? It's not something we can approve. No, there's not many. I mean, no, you really approve what the state says. You can't go against the state. So, yeah. So, the question is either continuing to exist with two different tools or just moving everything to one tool,
017which is what I'd like to mix more sense to something consistent. And the onboarding of Ames Web last fall went very smoothly. Um, Kelly Fischer helped me and and you know, you know how that can be, right? like here we go one more new thing but it really was nice so I feel confident with the tool one of the early elementary ed teachers already have the experience for that they can help so we'd be onboarding middle school for reading and math yeah and as math at the elementary level as well and all of our our interventions get progress monitored weekly so those tools are all included you know there's a dyslexia screener there's all of the required diagnostics that the state requires players are a part of as web. So it it's it's nice to
018just have a one package deal. Yeah. So another shift in education, but I think we got to move that way and it's saved money. So all good things. Yeah. Thank you. Yeah. Can't can't argue with any of that. All right. Um and you can see notes there from Jada as well. Um, so we can check in with her next month if there are questions. Any questions for Aaron or Proud? And then we'll we'll we'll add Marcus to the to the roster of administrative reports soon enough. Yes. Next coming soon to an administrative report. We won't rush July. I'll let you sit by me. Is there for the Ames? Is it an acronym or is it No, it's called it's the company is Ames Web Plus. Okay. It's not an acronym. I I didn't know. I
019was just asking. And it's been around as web has been around forever. When I was first teaching 4K 20 years ago at that company. So, okay. I'm just curious cuz sometimes it's back when it was online. It might have been after years ago. Okay. I don't know. You're you're really your district is required to have an overall math and reading screener, right? And then you have tools for kind of that the diagnostic intervention portion. So you know it's Does that tie into like the tiers? Yep. Okay. The intervention that we provide for tier 2, tier three. Yeah. Okay. Yep. I'm trying to understand it all. They're dumb questions. No, it's not. It's I mean there's a lot of vocabulary, but it really it's a system that we already have in place. We're just using a
020different tool. Right. Okay. It sounds like a better tool. Well, it's a it's a one-stop shop so that we don't have to live in two companies. Okay? You know, when when you're looking at data from kids moving from third grade with fastbridge reports and then fourth grade or vice versa, as web reports and then fourth grade fast bridge reports, you're kind of comparing apples and oranges to see. So, it'd be it'd be nice to unify the system, right? And we're trying to do that even with elementary and high school anyway. Yeah. in fact gave us that but F20 threw a wrench in it when the state required us to use AI one for four to third grade. Okay. So now we we just have to adjust. Yeah. And then a happy bonus of saving some
021money. Take it. Yeah. Take it could have been could have been the other way, right? Yeah. All right. on to um the board member governance. I know the facility committee met. Do you want to fill us in on I know we're going to be talking later about um solar. Yes. So I so I don't know if there's other stuff. Um yeah, I can just give you a quick rundown. Um it was a good meeting. It was just me, Carl, and um Kyle. April wasn't able to make it, which is just fine. Carl gave us a good rundown of all the projects that are going on. He has such a good um handle on um the projects that need to be done, the projects that need to be done in 5 years from now and the
022things that are happening right now. So, he gave us a good um solid rundown of that. I asked um uh some questions based on kind of the previous punch list that was there and he gave me good updates on that. So nothing um really uh outstanding outside of talking about solar which was exciting. So we will look at that um at that time. So I won't get into that. Um yeah, I told him that I was going to update that he has such a good handle on things. I don't worry about it one little bit and it's good always to have um a good gauge on things. He's replacing windows down in the daycare because of the storm damaged one. Um there was um there's choir risers for the elementary are coming in um due
023to them being old and um need to be replaced. Um let's see. And then it looks like they have a good lineup for employees over the summer. So not much else to report outside of course. Oh yes, yes. Oh, that's not on the list, is it? Okay. Um, yes. So, then there were um quotes and Kyle and Carl and um have been looking at the displays to display the blue ribbon. Um and they it's through the leader, right? That's the latest mockup and probably the one going Yeah, that's so other schools do have it. It's the It's the stickers or the um the shield that goes on that you can see through, but you can't see into the building necessarily, but you can see out of the building doors as you walk in. Yeah. So,
024it'll be a big promotion of what the school has achieved. Um and it will just be in the entrance doors rather than the wraparound. So that sounded like it went through a number of different renditions of of style and they settled on this which is beautiful and that will be going to their timeline on that going on it. We're hoping they set that before school. Yeah. Yeah. So it's good. Yeah. Thank you for bringing that up. Can we do that? Yeah. Oh, really? And then in July we're having a rumage sale cuz we have some stuff lots of good stuff over there. Carl did give me a walk through a walk through. So the things to be in July we'll get we'll get word out. There's like several hundred chairs in there and all the
025team desk and I told the teachers if they buy something they can take it home. They can't bring it for a reason. Yeah. There's nothing else you need to decide to build. Yeah. might be interested in that. So, yeah, absolutely. All right. And policy committee. I know. I mean, we we're charging a lot. I think we we got through what folks the last time and so we just have two to go. So, I'm thinking we hammered it away. I think that's another meeting. Yeah. [Music] I'd like to I'd like to meet in early July so we could have it on the July board. Yeah. Yeah. And I know Jessica did send to everyone the the login for to start reviewing. So, it'd be great for the rest of us to get caught up and start
026reviewing. Um, we don't typically accept, you know, typically we don't accept the policy manual all at once. This is a special circumstance with switching over to from our old version to our new platform with Miola. So, we'll it won't it won't be as much as this moving forward and um we'll get we'll get caught up. So people can start reading up and prep for hoping that we have that on the July agenda to approve and then that will give everyone everything they need moving forward into the next school year. So thank you. All right. So speaking of policies, we do have one policy we do need to look at tonight ahead of that. Um this is the the reason that we're looking at this now is that we um in accordance with act 20 we
027have to have a policy around this topic on the books before July 1. Um so that's why this one specific policy needs to be approved ahead of time. There is a copy of this policy in your extras board members. Um so you have a copy of this as well. So um April just so you know in terms of how policies get approved. They policies go through what are called two readings. The first reading happens at the committee level. So the policy committee looks at it and says what do we need this policy to have or contain and are we okay with it? That's the first reading. Then the second reading is bringing it up to the full board where we all read it and approve or bring up changes or questions. And then that's how
028a policy gets into our policy bin. Um so I in looking at the policy I had a couple of questions. I noticed um and I just don't I don't know this process very well yet. And so I was noticing that there are three different is it three four different recommendations after the evaluation about whether to promote a student. There's there's four different recommendations that can be made right here. Yep. In there's promoting with applicable supports and services and that that is deemed to be more appropriate than retention. there's promoting the student um because they because the non-comp completion of their personal reading plan wasn't due to the students lack of reading proficiency. And then the third one is that the district recommends retention with applicable supports, but the student's parent does not agree with the
029district's recommendation. And I just was curious for a little more information about what that looks like. If a parent, if the district recommends that not to promote the student, does the parent just get to say, "Nope, promote them anyway is how does and what's the process for a parent engaging in that since that's one of the options in the policy?" I'm just curious about that. Yeah, ultimately it's the school's decision where to place them. Parent might not be happy with it, but ultimately if we're that strong that this child needs to repeat, they need to repeat at that point. But we'll have a discussion with the parent and it shouldn't be a surprise that parent will do our job along the way. That was my other question is how how the process goes and what
030the timeline for this discussion is. Well, and I think that that's part of so like we have to approve the policy now, but it won't totally take effect until 2027 and so all districts are required to so now there's time for like the districts to build there. So it's got it's kind of one of these things, you know, where I feel like here's the mandate, but you know, knowing that it's kind of coming fast and that districts need to figure out all the pieces with it, too. But I would agree. I think that was one of the things we talked about too and obviously Erin play inalical role in that. Yeah. Um and we but we kind of implemented and have been practicing that the last couple years which is the bulk of what I
031was doing in my curriculum director role. But there's an 8 to 10 week cycle of intervention. You know then this then you screen and then students that fall within that below that 25th percentile they have a reading plan and then you similar to an IEP. The parents are a part of that team. They create that reading plan. There's all kinds of questions in there about the support services at school, support services at home, you know, and that's when those conversations would happen. So, um, there'd be at least two of two of those meetings during the school year, one prior to the school year starting. So, um, and title one plays into that, right? There's so there's lots of at the end of the screening, I would mail home, um, how students had performed what intervention
032they're going to be in. So all parents got a letter of where their kids were at and then every 8 to 10 weeks we adjust, right? We screen and readjust. So the parents are getting used to a lot of communication around intervention. However, it's a double-edged sword because the more communication then sometimes less people pay attention to it, right? So you got to the reading plan's a little redundant. Um especially redundant for students with IEPs because it feels like the same thing. Sure. um and the you know special ed world is kind of bumbling through that but um we've had this in place so trying to practice that early I think we were way ahead of other school districts because we're small right so we could get it done quicker we you know might have
03340 reading plans where another school district has 200 reading plans so it's a little more manageable for us So I just I don't know if given that the that the parent can't provoke promotion without the district's permission. I don't know if the way this is written indicates that. Does that make sense to anyone else? No, I I get what you're saying on it, too. because it says would it be the result is promotion because the parent disagreed with the recommendation for retention. The result is promotion. So that makes it sound like the parent is overriding the maybe part of that plan. The only I mean I guess the only thing I was like thinking too is like Aaron was talking because it's a very valid it's a very valid question. Um, I was thinking maybe
034it more of a like the district has this plan and if you're not agreeing that your child, you know what I mean, should stay where they're at due to their reading level and that they that now we're going to they're, you know, maybe kind of like was saying like with an IEP, um, you have now your child will be, oh, the gened signing in a little bit more because they'll be getting they're getting more interventions or something. So, like, okay, we'll move them from second to third grade, but just know that here's the other things that are going to have to come into place. Well, that's and that's sort of what I wasn't sure about. Is it just that the student moves anyway, but there's I mean, obviously there's the student moves and there's So,
035I just didn't know or does the policy need to direct the parent to a corresponding policy or a different policy that governs attention and how that's handled. I just didn't know. I guess I don't think it has to policy because they had to be able to hear the meeting saying referencing to another one. Right. Okay. And I don't know if it was one of the ones that we even had an option on. I feel like a was required that we had to have. So it might be one of those things too that in the next two