001All right, let's do the pledge. I pledge allegiance to the flag of the United States of America, and to the republic for which it stands, one nation under God, indivisible, with liberty and justice for all. This meeting is a meeting of the Board of Education in public for the purpose of conducting the school district's business and is not to be considered a public viewing meeting. There is time for public participation during the meeting as indicated in the agenda policy 0160 meeting. With that being said, item three, public hearing snow days and waiver instructional minutes. I would open that 6:01 for any input from the public. Which we don't really have any public participation in attendance, um so I would move to close that input or public hearing, being that we don't have any. I'll make
002a motion to close public hearing. Second. All in favor? Aye. Um next action item is resolution to request waiver instructional minutes. So, um as presented to you, I am seeking your approval to request a waiver if we would need one in the future. Um as I've shared with you, we are able to make up the three days that we missed. And so, I will talk to you about the calendar to be able to make that up on the next agenda item. Right now, I'm just seeking that waiver if we would have that snowstorm in April, then I'm approved, you're giving me the authority to reach out to to DPI to make the changes that we would need. So, just a precautionary in case we would need it. I would move to approve the request for
003waiver of instructional minutes if needed. Second. All in favor say aye. Aye. Opposed? Motion carried. Um and then we have action approval of revised 2025-2026 school calendar. So, um in front of you you have the proposed recommendation from the administrative team to make up the three days. Um as our calendar for the 25-26 school year had two instructional days in it. Double-check, triple-check, we did have student contact days built in. So, we missed three days We missed four days with Blizzard Elsa, but we've missed five total snow days for this school year. We had one in January and then the four with Elsa. So, we need to make up three instructional days. As an administrative team, we would like to use Well, we don't want to lose our professional development day. Um those are really
004important for us, but we need the instructional priority comes first. So, we're asking to give up um the April 27th professional development day and then June 5th was a no student contact day. We're proposing that that would be a student contact day until 2:00. That's what we need for the instructional minutes, so we can still do an early release at 2:00. Our students can go home, give our teachers the opportunities to get their rooms cleaned out and get everything set so that it's not extending their school year. And And then the way we can do that is by adding 5 minutes to the instructional day starting after spring break. Instead of being dismissed at 3:10, we're recommending a 3:15 dismissal, which would don't won't disrupt our um athletics or really the time that students get
005out of here and the bus drivers start rolling. So This is This is in in the event you don't get the waiver. No snow days. So, we are not going to seek a waiver. We are going to strive to make up the three days. The waiver is only if We have We do live in Door County. We do live in the Midwest. We could have snows additional snow days and at that point in time, I would be out of a calendar and I wouldn't have I wouldn't have the flexibility. I might be able to make up a little bit. There's still I can take 5 minutes from but my days of school would be gone but I would not be able to make up the full day. So, the waiver is precautionary. We have the
006ability to make up the three days we missed. The calendar has to be done to make up the I think that's more of a What what constitutes a student day? So Tell me a little bit more about what you're asking. What you know, is a certain number of hours or It's minutes. Minutes. And so, um at the end of the day when you boil it all down, our students start at 7:55 and they go until 3:10 depending upon if you're talking elementary, middle school, or high school. We have a 435 minute day, but instructionally we only have 401 minutes because your lunch gets taken out of there and additional recess at the elementary level. So, depending on which calendar I'm calculating, it's either 401 minutes to minutes. Um and every grade level, so pre-K 5,
007pre-K 6 has one set of minutes that's needed and then 7 12 has another set of minutes that's needed. Actually, I take that back. 4K has their set of minutes, case six has a set of minutes, and 7 12 has a set of minutes. The only place that we're short on our instructional minutes is our 7 12. But because we're one physical plant, um we did talk about not extending the elementary day, leaving the elementary day at 3:10, which would let them get out to the buses early. But where I run into concern is that I would have my high school students trap crossing traffic as my elementary parents are leaving. And so we thought it was best to just have everybody dismiss at 3:15. Yeah, I would imagine the high school um you have
008offered those instructional minutes, but neither of the students is going to be utilizing those, I think. I'm not following. Well, I mean, you know, they take a heavier credit load. I mean, as a as a high school student. Study hall is counted as instructional minutes. Okay. Whatever the class they have underneath hour will just be fine. So it's just the class period is not there. Okay. For another year, I'm thinking um we might want to do what some districts are doing and going with virtual days. I don't know if that's realistic or not, but it's uh something others are doing. I will absolutely engage in the conversation with our instructional staff as we continue to to work through this and understand kind of where we are with it. Um when we talked about it a
009year ago, when the first year that I got here, it was not something that they wanted to to look at. And part of it is it's difficult. We do have a population that doesn't have Wi-Fi access at home. So, it does make it difficult. Um but absolutely would like to revisit that. >> Yeah. Some school districts do it where the first 2 days are gifted snow days in the traditional sense, but anything beyond that becomes a day that needs to be virtual. And so, I thought maybe that would be a way that you could kind of ease into those virtual instructional days. Yeah, I would just like as a parent um and and a who lives in a place with terrible Wi-Fi access, I would have three children plus my husband all working from home
010um on limited band I mean and we we have you know, the like satellite whatever, but like that's you know, it's one kid using Wi-Fi bandwidth is like one thing, but like three kids plus a parent um all using Wi-Fi bandwidth it and then at our house, too, potentially on generator backup power um and that is is not conducive to learning. Um and it you know, there's often times parents are gone, the kids are by themselves and like Yeah, it's not with all the complication. >> Yeah, yeah, it's just like I'm Yeah, but it is being done in metropolitan areas which have much more access to in the world of Wi-Fi and cable and whatever it I don't even know how you could do that physically with you have three kids in school having three
011different classes coming in on your cable system or Wi-Fi. It's Wi-Fi and they all do They all have their tablets or smart phones and Cuz my do they start getting this all fifth grade? Sixth grade. Or is it sixth grade or fifth? I was like, Well, I mean, they'd have their other Wi-Fi things anyway, if even if they weren't at school. Right? In our house, it gets really tough. Uh and we have like >> we were living in in seventh. Well, I don't know. I mean, in 2 years, we should Everybody should have Not everybody. Till it really goes down on this cuz they put the stupid fiber on a power line instead of burying it. So, the problem of power and internet still doesn't get solved in a storm. No, you're absolutely right. Oh,
012I understand. I live north of the quarry and south of Egg Harbor in a like Starlink. Starlink. That's what we will not ever leave it because it is so bad by our house. And we have backup generators. We have every like, I get it. I live in the like a telecom black hole. So, but I just like as somebody who has like a lot of resources and we're trying the best we can. Three kids on plus a work-from-home parent on the same Starlink bandwidth and God forbid it's snowing and the heater on the Starlink isn't keeping up. This is not ideal. Yes, there used to be There was a time north of the quarry where we we would get Wi-Fi across I think it still is. Well, now the the cell phone service is actually
013from We used to get actually our computer stuff across Yeah. And and they they got bought out and then they dropped it. Well, that cuz the the towers the cell phone towers don't point down. Like the angle isn't down enough. So, our cell phone access at my house is from Verizon. For your cell phone? Yeah. So, it doesn't work well. The joys of Do we have a motion to approve the Motion to approve the schedule as revised. Second. All in favor? Aye. That's okay. Before you adjourn, I have a clarifying question on the last motion, if you don't mind. Yes. So, did your motion to approve the request for a waiver also include the language of the resolution, or should that be a separate motion? To approve the the resolution itself that would get included
014with the waiver application, or Yes. Okay. I had it separate, so I just wanted to make sure. And you're you're okay with Yeah. Your second applying to both? Okay. Thank you. Thank you for that clarification, Heidi. Thank you, Heidi. So, all in favor Anyone opposed to the school calendar? Okay, so that motion has been approved of the school calendar this year. Is there anything else? Um then I will make a motion for adjournment. So moved. All in favor? Aye. Aye.