Board of Ed Regular meeting 4-13-26

001Good evening. I'd like to welcome everybody here tonight. I'll call the meeting back to order. The board previously was uh convened into close session to discuss personnel items. I welcome everybody back here tonight. We are now into the open session portion of the meeting and I would ask everybody who is able to please stand and join me. I pledge algiance 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. >> You guys didn't do as great as the second graders did last time, but that's pretty bad. All right, we'll move on to the consent agenda items this evening. Uh I reviewed the vouchers and everything was in order. Uh we also have a presentation from the Aera

002group tonight which we would like to move up right after the approval of the consent agenda items if there's no uh if there's no debate about um amending the agenda. If we're all okay with uh moving the group up, then I would ask and entertain a motion to approve the consent agenda items as presented with the amendment to the agenda to move group up. >> I'll make that motion, >> Steve. Is there a second? >> Second. >> It's been properly moved and seconded to accept the consent agenda items as presented. Is there any discussion? Hearing none, we'll proceed to vote. All those in favor of approving the consent agenda items, please signify by saying I. >> I. All those opposed, please signify by saying no. Motion passed. The consent agenda items are approved. And with

003that, we would ask then for the presentation for a lar group to get started. All right. Thank you. Thank you for allowing me to come and present this year. Um the hope is to just kind of walk through some of the things that have happened since we met last. We came out um here in the winter, kind of went through some things and uh proceeded through the renewal process and so we're here to deliver some of those results. Um I think a really good just quick refresh before we dig in if you want to go to the first slide is just really a quick um couple of minutes on the state of the market. So, we're in a really um interesting um market in terms of health care and that really is that the the

004costs are rising and that's not news. Um but I think that we're starting to evaluate whether or not this is a sustainable um trajectory and there are things that a lot of employers are doing to kind of address this really fast um increase in health care premiums and just the cost of care in general. Um this next slide really just talks a little bit about why are the increases happening? Why are we seeing such an increase in the healthcare market? Um and there's a lot of things that are happening in terms of medical advancements. Um many of you have probably seen the commercials for GLP1s or we'll go those types of things talking about um specialty pharmacy medications that are really changing and transforming the lives of many. In some cases, they're saving their lives

005and really um improving the the life and quality, but it comes at a cost. And there's a lot of medical advancements and studies and things like that that do increase the cost of insurance. Um we are also one of the most unhealthy populations when you compare us to the rest of the world, but we have the highest cost in health care, which seems a little offkilter um and is something that we find to be quite a struggle. Um so just in the last year you know with the most recent um largest group of renewals usually happen in January. Um and in 2025 forecasting was a 6 to 8% or 6 to 10% rather increase in premiums. Um so employers were bracing for closer to 10 to 12 just to be a little bit conservative and

006what we found was closer to 20 to 30. Um and that again just in the context of sustainability is just not something that we can continue to do. So with that, we kind of talked a little bit about that uh when we came out here um previously. And so one of the things that we decided to do this year was market the health plan and really focusing on some key priorities for the district which was really to find some cost sustainable solutions but still uh maintain similar networks so that employees didn't have a lot of disruption when it came to providers and also to the pharmacy coverage. And then also on top of that, finding areas and/or programs, resources, and tools that employees would have access to to really find highv value providers. To me,

007a highv value provider just means that we're getting the best care possible at fair prices. Um, and so finding ways to do that. So, what we did during this marketing evaluation is we did a lot of looking at self-funding. And so funding is a really great method to put you in the driver's seat of cost and claim activity in a different way that really allows you to kind of find better highquality care and focus on cost continuous solutions like sourcing medications at the best value possible. So within that evaluation, we did self-funding um an actuarial analysis, a claims review and um evaluated several administrators and at the end we kind of decided that this probably wasn't the best year to move with the with the staffing changes. We've seen some new high-cost claimants come onto

008the plan that that caused us a little bit of a pause. Um and so we continued on that marketing to look at some fully insured options. We had five curious participate. two of them declined to quote entirely based on some of those high-cost claimments mentioned. Um, and it turns out that the most competitive offer was from group health trust and we'll talk a little bit more about that. So before we kick that off, just a word on the health partners renewal. So you've been with health partners for many years. Um, a lot of times when fully insured carriers are evaluating your renewal, they're looking at your loss ratio. Loss ratio is just a a transition of dollars, right? So for every dollar you pay in revenue, they're paying out $134 in claims. So they're very

009upside down. Um the claims are running pretty high right now. So your initial renewal was 20% over current. That increase annually uh was about $850,000 in the year. um with the marketing exercise we did that created some pressure on the carrier incumbent to adjust their offer, but they were only able to come down to 16% over current. So that final total increase is about 690,000. In the past, we were able to get a rate cap from health partners and they were not willing to do that this year because of some of those high cost limits I got a little worried about in terms of long-term costs. I'm going to pause there. Any questions on health partners removal? >> Was level funded ever an option or did it just fall too close to the self-insured side?

010>> Um it it really would have resulted in the same. Level funded is basically a hybrid between self-funding and fully insured. And so kind of that same risk factor would apply is that with the high cost claimments on the plan, you would likely not have gotten an offer or would have been too high to do. Yeah, good question. So let's talk a little bit about >> one one question. Is this loss ratio abnormal abnormally high or have we been >> historically running high? >> That's a really good question. And at the end of the I and I I have a slide that will show you some of your trending loss ratios if you want to just put a pin in that. It's a good question. But I would say just the short answer is yes.

011It is running pretty high compared to what you're typically seeing. Okay. And our uh health partners book of business, their target loss ratio is 80% to get a flat renewal. So you're well over that. Okay. Uh let's talk about group health trust. So uh group health trust is um a self-funded plan created and managed by the Wisconsin counties association. And I'll talk a little bit more about that, but initially their offer is 2.8% over current. That is a very very great offer when you compare that to the 16%. Your total premium increase is only 120 and when you look at your the district cost share based on employer contributions that's only an $105,000 increase total in the year. They also offered us a rate cap at 9 and a half%. Just knowing that there's some

012concerns about highc cost claimments from your incumbent. and you were a little worried that they would give you a really good offer and then really put you in a bad situation in year two. So that rate cap is really really critical to that long-term strategy. Um in comparing the two plans, uh we asked them to mirror the same plan designs. You won't see any changes in deductibles outside of what the uh HSA compatibility requires us to adjust to. We'll talk about that in a second. um from a pharmacy perspective there were more um generic drugs covered under their formulary as we compared it to health partners. So hopefully will not see any disruption in a negative way. Um and then the network in terms of provider utilization um UHC or United Healthcare is the network

013they're using and that is one of the broadest networks in the nation. Um Health Partners uses and rents Sigma and so they're very very comparable. Um we did a disruption and found that to be really a great fit. Um all carriers offer what we would call value ads or just additional benefits you get for being part of the the plan. And some of the bigger ones we thought were really great where it was better health. Better health is a wellness program that focuses in on weight loss and healthy eating nutrition. Lots of great success within that program. I'm sure to do management for school district. lots of babies, lots of use, gonna we're hopeful we'll get our mouths out of that one for sure um at a school. And then the last one is one

014pass select which is just um a a program that reimbures gym memberships for for select gyms in the area. So that's big differentiators. Um let's jump to the next one and talk again about who is group health trust. So again, group health trust is uh created and managed by the Wisconsin counties association. It is very uh unique in the state of Wisconsin and only available to public sector. So it started with counties and municipalities and several years ago opened up to school districts. Locally you have um Bernett uh county that uses the plan. Unity school district also uses that plan. Um, but there's they're they're not new to the industry at all. Um, and a really great provider. Um, let's take the next one. So, because they are a self-funded plan, they have to create

015their own program using third party administrator and pharmacy benefit manager. And so, this is the makeup of that. Again, the network is United Healthcare. The administrator of the plan is UMR and the pharmacy benefit manager is CVSARK. Um, so big names in the industry. These are large providers. Um they do a great job in terms of managing claims and pharmacy and those types of things. >> Questions on group health trust offer? >> Do they operate like a captive then? >> No, they do not offer a captive. No, they're u I would call it more of um >> it's a it's and it's it's an exclusive plan, more like an association plan, but it's not called an association plan because there's a lot of like legal jargon around some of that. But it is uh you

016know, you're combining your risk with other public sector entities in the state, which can help. Um, so you're not self-funded, meaning it's not your you are not responsible for the claims. The trust is. So it alleviates that risk factor, but also gives them the ability to pivot and do other things in terms of cost containment solutions as the trust chooses to do so. Makes sense. >> Uh there's a lot of talk at the state level with PBMs um and all of the things that happen there. Uh, does this lock um our employees into only using CVS and Caremark for their medications or localarmacies or so? CVS has a is a common name we see often um as a pharmacy like a standalone brickandmortar pharmacy, but they also are a pharmacy benefit manager. So, they do

017both. And so, this is just the pharmacy benefit management side. It does not impact um where you get your prescriptions. So yeah, you still have access to Jet or Walgreens or whatever. Yeah, good question. Any other questions? So from an employee impact and district, we kind of talked about the adjustment to the the um total budget for the district about 105,000. Um this just kind of shows the comparison in premiums um that you have currently for each tiered employee just depending on what tier category you fall into. And you can see here that just kind of a a summary is between $350 and $11 depending on if you're family and what tier you're in. So minimal increase for employee premium wise um which is it's a really good option. And then in terms of plan

018design again we asked them to mirror the plan. The only change that you're going to see you would have seen with health partners too and that is an increase to the to the deductible max out of pocket as required by uh HSA rules within the IRS. there's a minimum threshold that you have to meet in order to qualify to make and receive HSA contributions. So, you'll see that go up $100 per individual and $200 per family. Um, the other change that's being proposed is the district to reduce their HSA contributions by 200 single 400 family to just help uh, you know, take on that increase and uh, just kind of a budgetary Any questions on plan design? Um I just wanted to talk a little bit about um back at the slide with the United

019Healthcare that be the choice plus um PO provider network. >> Um we had that option a couple of years ago. Um and of course United was in kind of a strangle hold at the time. when they'd been hacked and that was when they were delaying claim payments and uh people couldn't were having a hard time getting their prescriptions. Um what kind of interruption to coverage or interruption to benefits um could we potentially expect or do we expect that from if we went with this that the transition from health partners to this group health trust would would there be any delays in coverage or gaps in coverage? Super good question. Um, anytime you have a changing carrier, you're going to probably see a little bit of disruption, but we've moved uh groups from other plans into

020group health and haven't seen anything egregious or overly concerning. Um, we typically will say during open enrollment, uh, we'll have the group health trust team here to meet with employees and to do open enrollment and education. And during that time, they'll say, "If you are in the middle of a treatment plan and you are really worried about that continuity of care, please come find me." Um, and they will hook them up with a UMR case management nurse navigator to make sure that they're, you know, where are you getting treated? Who's your doctor? Let's make sure that we get those notes so that you're not having to change providers mid, you know, chemotherapy. That would be terrible. So, >> yes. And and you know, I just I think of we talked about um you're dealing with

021teachers and lots of pregnancies. We know that the high climate um people that are it's pretty demanding care. Um I would hate to see the process that gets set back or we have to regroup or they have to go into their provider for an additional treatment plan or something else and an an amendment to that treatment plan. just want to make sure that that continuity of care would be yeah that's always the priority when we're looking at changing carriers and so like I said we can't guarantee that 100% of people would never have any change but the intent is and and especially because the networks are so similar they're not going to have to change providers or anything the treatment plan so >> good question um so let's see uh the last couple of um

022re renewal options from the TR in terms of like decisions for tonight is just evaluating health partners over group health trust. Um and maybe the next slide would be a good um reminder just kind of where we've been. Again, you asked uh you know, Mr. Roy about the loss ratios and you can kind of see over the last several years. The highest one in comparison was 2024 to 2025 and that was 110,000 loss ratio. So this is by far the worst you guys have seen in many years. Um and so to have this offer from from Wisconsin um counties association and your group health trust plan u this is an outstanding opportunity um to avoid that big increase. Don't they usually look at a three-year rolling loss average or >> That's a good question. Yes.

023So, they usually do. So, when an underwriter is underwriting your plan, um they look back 24 months, but the two years are weighted a little bit differently. So, the most prior 12 months, let's say, would be about 60% weighted and then 40% would be the prior year. So, it's not only just your current year, it's total. And then there's also a little bit of a community evaluation like what is happening in the market locally in terms of health population. And so all of that goes into that underwriting process. Yep. Yeah. And unfortunately for us those last three years have been our highest >> ratios. So, >> so Becky, you want to go to that last slide? And this would be just kind of the decisions that um Oh, uh the last slide I would just

024mention is your renewal summary just outside of the health plan. Um the the renewals that came in for what we would call your ancillary lines like dental, disability, vision, those types of things. your dental short-term and long-term all renewed at zero increase flat rate. Great year for that. We've have enough to deal with of this health plan. Um and then your vision and supplementary benefits are in a red block until next year. So that you won't see any shifts or changing those. Okay. So final decisions to be made would be health partners versus health. Discussion um from the board regarding changing those benefits or leaving the same being fully insured. you don't get access to all the data and we know that with the changes in employment, you never know if the high claimant ones

025are the ones that have left and that in the future if if it were the case that in the future would affect those rates too. Um, can anything be done? I know we're at, you know, zero for co insurance. Um, but just thinking out loud, is there anything that could be done there that isn't a huge impact that affects the $120,000? >> Yeah, always. I mean, in increasing your deductibles in any capacity. Do you want to go back to the plan design changes, Vicki? Um, is certainly going to impact your renewal? Um, I think when you're offered an opportunity to save half a million. It's like 560 between the two. Um my recommendation wouldn't be stay with Health Partners and increase the out of pocket. That's a huge impact and to employees. >> And this

026is kind of what you're left with when you're fully insured and you have big increases. You have really two cho well three choices. One is increase the plan design. Two is shift all of the cost increase to employees and premium. 43 market to see if you can find a carrier that will give you a better offer. So that that's what I would say about the plan design. Um I like to see us saving that when you don't have another option, meaning like you're only faced with 16% and everyone declined to quote. That's a time where you really start to have to pull the trigger on some of those plan design adjustments. >> Yeah, fair enough. I just know and >> I'm only asking the question because >> I'll just tell you for those that are

027only school district, only public, this is rich. This is a rich plan. When you look at this on the business side of things, I would give anything to have what you're presenting here. >> And to only have, you know, a 2.8% increase, that's that's been unheard of on on the private sector in a decade. Totally agree. >> Uh you mentioned data and I think that's a really important thing to think about is when you're in fully insured market, you are only allowed to see what they're willing to share. >> Um and a lot of times in the health partners data we see that's probably one of the more robust data points that we get in terms of like other fully insured carriers. Group Health Trust isn't quite as um forthcoming with their data. They don't

028have quite as many reportings. Um but we can make some assumptions and and kind of infer pretty good amount of information on things like high cost claimments and working with the team about like medical leaves and things like that to kind of figure out where things are at which is critical and that's that's it's critical for us to know that from my end because it allows me to negotiate with the carriers in terms of um you know we know this person is off the plan they're no longer at risk or you know this person was on COBRA it ends in six months those types of things and I think we know as a board or at least some of us know as a board in a community this size and in um who you employ

029in your district and um people are very, you know, somewhat forthcoming with their health ailments or um things that they have going on that we can surmise that um we know that those are ongoing concerns and that we we should be concerned about um those kinds of things here. And um so personally, we know that that some of that data is correct and and what that looks like for us. So I think that we should remember that when we take this into account of um coverage for the employees. I'm quite familiar with partially self-funded plans and and this is a little different, isn't it, with the trust involved >> because we used to have a cap and if if you had two or three claims that exceeded the cap, then you had a uh insurance

030to cover that. But here, that rolls into the trust, doesn't it? >> Yeah. The trust has their own uh what you're referencing in a self-funded role is stop loss insurance. Yeah. So it just says anything over this threshold um your insurance plan would cover. Anything under that your self-funded plan would would cover. And group health trust still has that coverage within their own health plan. But if you think about you know that that slide it's like they have like 10,000 employers or 44,000 members total group. they they have a really large group. So their stop loss is a little higher because they can they can harbor that which is a benefit to you because it means that >> the premium for stop loss is lower. >> Y >> so >> I'm a fan of uh

031self-funding. Um >> there's significant savings. Um, but if you ever go back to a fully insured plan, you got to remember there's a tail there for claims that will continue to roll in for a period of time. >> Yep. Depends on how you set up your contract. >> Depending on the contract, right? But it could be as much as nine months or, you know, whatever the contract says. But just something to be aware of. But >> yeah, we we are big fans of self-unding. And I think the biggest questions when we look at self-unding is the right time. Um, and I would say with the high cost pay commitments on your plan, is not the right time on top of the the um staffing adjustments that you guys are kind of in flux with. Um,

032but I wouldn't want you to go into that at this point. I think it's not a great time. So when uh when you're self-funding and the plan does well if you have an experience rate that is you know under that 100%. Um the organization keeps that money or gets that money back typically. So what happens in this case when you're part of a trust if the overall collective organization is doing well? >> Great question. So the the trust really is managing their own self-funded plan. And so from the district's perspective it's going to feel just like fully insured. Right. >> Yeah. So if if the trust does better than expected, they'll either adjust their rates, give you decreases, they're reinvesting in programs like better health and one pass select, those types of things. >> So

033are they are they rating the trust the members of the trust as a collective or are they rating the individual employer? >> Yep. Good question. I do have to say I'm a fan of the lock for next year not to exceed the 9.5 um as we're looking down the road at long range um planning and long range budgeting that makes our planning for budget uh for the upcoming year after um more palatable and more predictable. um especially when you're in a market that's volatile like this that if we're looking at plans that won't even quote us prices um I think by next year we may be in a you know you know could potentially be in an even worse spot not only just from claims that are made and having those high claimments but just

034in the volatile market of the uh insurance and where we're at on federal and state levels with those I'm a real fan of having that that rate lock and it's probably one of the lowest rate locks I think I've seen since I've been on the board in seven years for for next year to lock that right in. >> I would agree. >> I'm delighted with the proposal. Um >> nothing like getting an increase and being delayed, huh, Larry? >> Well, it's almost not an incre I mean >> No, but that's the state of healthcare. I mean, I I totally agree with Larry. >> Yeah. Yeah. I mean in a market when we're seeing 20 to 30 increet increases. This is I mean like take it and run like a stole something kind of material >>

035and the industry has seen doubledigit increases for >> almost decades. I mean it's just been horrendous. >> I think that's even that I I think that's why you know that that lock for next year as a single rate and not to exceed that. I mean we could actually come in lower than that just depending on what that is. So it's really palatable for me in long range planning. >> So so I agree with everything everyone has said. However, to play devil's advocate here, if it's this good, it's been going since 91. So if my math is correct, that's about 35 years. curious as to why so far they've only partnered with 110 schools, counties, and municipalities. They're serving 15,000 employees and 40,000 members. So to me, that's if you just take the 110 schools, that's

036about 400 employees per school. So I'm curious, if it's this good, why are not more people jumping on the bandwagon? Oh, that's a good question. I would say in the in the market, I work primarily in public sector. So, I have a lot of schools, municipalities, um, and I think, uh, group health trust has been in the mix, in the fold for years. I' I've placed groups with them, um, as much with health partners and medicica and and as as group health. So, I would say they are they are in the mix and in the fold, I think. Um, it's just it's just a rake game. at what point are they most competitive? And every every insurance carrier is in a state of their business model where they're either in a growth mode or in

037a not growth mode. And right now, Group Health is in a growth mode, which is why they're making such an attractive offer because they're trying to grow the market over here. >> A low loss ratio, you wouldn't have an incentive to >> Yes. >> to make a change. I was going to say that I think if you are coming in with your your lower loss ratios and you're um you know a a public entity then and because we talk about those factors of not wanting that continuity to change I think people get very comfortable in leaving things the way they are if that rate is acceptable that rate increase is acceptable over time it's not your own money necessarily. neessarily out of your own pocket, but you're paying your own health insurance. You're you're using

038municipal money and and um tax dollars. And so I think that there's a a hesitance sometimes. And then I think also u there wasn't the stability there that we think of in a traditional, you know, more of a a traditional self uh health insurance group. So I'm assuming that's it. And they're in looking in this growth model right now. No better time to do it than when rates are skyhigh and insurance is tenuous at best. So >> employees are currently contributing 12% of the premium. Isn't that required by law? >> Heather, I think Sean, maybe you know that, but I think most >> it's all over the map in in the in CESA it ranges anywhere between 80 and 90. I would say nearly every district is somewhere between 80 and 90 that the employer

039pays. and do the math. That's how much the employee pays. But everyone's between 80 and 90, I would say, in CISA 11. >> I thought one of the ads that were passed by the state required a a minimum employee contribution of 12%, but I don't I think I heard that one time, but I might be wrong. >> I'm not aware of that. >> No. Okay. Is there any more questions? Any more discussion? I mean, I think it's kind of clear here. Probably >> kind of what I call a no brand. >> I would I would think that this is kind of clear. Um, you know, I think the biggest things that we we're going to look at is rates and then, you know, the care for employees and if that's, you know, that we can

040get that same kind of continuity of care. Um, I think that there's no reason not to do this. Again, I like it from the long range planning point of view. I like it from our planning this coming year point of view. So, I would entertain a motion to to do something with this. >> I would move that uh we move to group health trust. >> Second. It's been properly moved and seconded to uh gain coverage from group health trust um with the information as presented by our LAR group. Is there any further discussion? Hearing none, we'll proceed to vote. All those in favor of u moving our insurance to group health trust, please signify by saying I. >> I. All those opposed, please signify by saying no. Motion passed. got the business. Thank you. >>

041Thank you so much. >> Thank you. I'm just more impressed that you looked at Larry's name tag and got his last name right. It was a good rare occurrence. >> Thanks for coming tonight. We appreciate that. >> All right. Um, since we did that, we're back on track now and we're off to the administrative reports. And Mr. Gold, that means we start. >> I have I have something I would like to say priority to Josh. Okay, hold that thought. >> I was gonna put you at the end, but you just go right ahead. >> Okay. >> Rain all over your parade, Josh. >> All right. Good evening, members of the board, administrative team, staff, and community here this evening and community who are watching. My hope is to provide you with a timeline that represents

042the budgetary challenges of the district. But more importantly, I would like to take an opportunity to summarize the actions the district has taken to foster a strong financial foundation for the future of education in Ary. In January, the district began reconciling revenues and expenditures from the fall of 2025. It soon became clear that significant cash flow challenges would arise in the coming months. Simply stated the district's revenues and expenses had not been accounted for accurately. It also became clear that aid and other revenue streams from the state of Wisconsin would not allow the district to keep pace with operational expenses. At that point, the district made the determination that it must reduce expenditures. In February, the district engaged in a thorough process to determine which expenditure reductions would occur. These decisions were made with input

043from a wide array of stakeholders. Throughout this process, the goal remained clear to reduce expenditures while maintaining the highest quality of instruction for our students. In March, the district communicated staff reductions with certified staff and in April, we will communicate reductions with our support staff. Difficult but necessary decisions were made to ensure the present and future financial stability of the district. This evening, the board will make decisions or has made a decision in regards to health insurance renewal and staff salary increases. As you will hear, the district has made the necessary reductions in expenditures to ensure that staff salary increases can occur. An increase in staff salary, which did not occur in the present school year. In total, the district has reduced 25 positions, representing approximately 1.2 million in savings. An additional 500,000 to 750,000

044will be reduced in the budget for 2026 202027 in the way of things, resources, programs, not people. Later this month, our audit firm will present the 2024 2025 audit to the members of the financial oversight committee and the audit for the 2526 school year will begin this summer. In August 2000, the 2026 2027 budget will be presented to the board. At our annual meeting in September, the budget will be up for adoption. The district has applied for and received a $5 million operational loan through the state trust fund to refinance existing short-term debt. It is important to emphasize that this loan is not a referendum and does not increase property taxes. This loan was secured to help mitigate existing cash flow challenges. It does not mean the district has taken on new debt. Rather, it

045has restructured existing obligations to make the budget more manageable. Yet, the truth of the matter is this. Until Wisconsin public schools are funded more fully, the school district of Amry will need to short-term borrow. This is unfortunately the new norm for Wisconsin school districts. Please note that the state trust fund, our financial consultants at Baron Financial Services and legal counsel at Quarl's law firm have all advised the district has no that the district has no petition has all advised the district that no petition is required for this operational loan as it is a debt refinancing not a new borrowing as is stated on the loan application, and I quote, "Debt refunding available to all districts for loan terms up to 20 years. Additional electoral approval not required." In closing, we must be clear. The budget

046challenges we face are not unique to our district. Across Wisconsin, school funding is failing to meet the needs of our students and staff. Just last Tuesday, 73 districts went to referendum and 62 of those referendum questions were driven by the need to address operational expenses and debt. This is simply not sustainable. On behalf of our district, we make this plea to our elected officials. Invest in our district. Invest in our staff. Invest in our kids. We are operating under a funding formula that is more than 30 years old. We have not seen a meaningful cost of living increase in nearly 20 years. The current system is not working and our students cannot afford to wait any longer. We need help now. Thank you. >> Thanks. It's very seldom that uh the board weighs in on

047a statement like that. Um but I seem to weigh in on a lot of things. So um for me I'll say that I hope um you know I can speak for confidently I think for the board that we stand behind Sean's statement. we stand um with this district and we sit here before all of you um here tonight watching what we're going to do tonight um for this district for our employees and I hope this gives everybody Sean's statement gives everybody a little bit more of a clearer picture of what has been happening and a little bit more peace of mind and there will be uh future information and a future presentation from uh Dr. Derkler, bustling myself with that to come and and I hope that gives everybody a little bit more of uh

048some some hope tonight and know that those are the things that we're committed to as we discuss the rest of the business here tonight. >> And now, Mr. Gold, >> TOUGH ACT TO FOLLOW. I know. >> I tell you what, how about I just talk about kids for the next great >> um ACT uh results are in for the juniors. Um they're complete. We got the results back in. Some kids are happy, some kids are sad. We won't really know the full impact because of the new scoring on the ACT on how this is all going to pay out, but I I I was I was okay with the results. I was I was happy. Um, you know, we had a bunch of kids that just came back from their trip to Europe. Wonderful experience

049as always. We had our Blood Mobile two weeks ago, solo ensemble, lots of fun events for kids and future things. We've got state competitions coming up for FFA, FCCLA, visual arts club, and I'm probably missing somebody as well. Wednesday is our preac day for 9th and 10th grade and the board test. We're ready to roll. We've had all of our class meetings. Next Monday night, I highly encourage you all to go to the high school fine arts night. It's a great night, great event. We've got prom the following Saturday. Come on down to the auditorium, 7:00 p.m. for the grand march. And before I see you guys again, we also have senior awards night, senior picnic, and May 17th graduation. So, we're at the top of the hill on a big roller coaster, and it

050is about to start going down with all sorts of crazy exciting things the next month. >> Yeah. >> All you Tommy boy, >> you got a lot going on there. >> Yeah. >> And everybody made it back this time from the foreign the foreign the the uh the trip. We had some travel delays and some experiences, but everybody's got to go through that. >> Everybody made it back. It's a right of passage. People need to bag. Luggage not so much. >> Oh, luggage. That's That's all right. People luggage can be replaced. People were >> very good. At the middle school, we're right in the middle of boys and girls track and um they're often having a great time. It's pretty fun. For a lot of them, that's the first time in a real track meet

051experience. Uh and uh they learn a lot and exposed to a lot of different types of events. And it's fun until they see their niche and and can take off into high school track. Um like um Josh said, we're in the middle of state assessments. Uh we just completed last week five days of the forward exam and se sixth, seventh, and eighth grade. They did English, language arts, and math. And that's now complete except for some makeup tests. And now we're testing eighth grade social studies, which we just did today, and science tomorrow. And if all goes well, we'll be done with the middle school by the end of the week. But you never know, the makeup test can be brutal. Um but um and then we'll see how the results come in. And of

052course that's not important to me. No, I JUST I really end up breaking them all down. >> The most data driven guy there is. >> I know the results and I get 18 bar graph charts from >> we bar graph them all by skill by skill. Look for improvement. Um >> um fine arts concert and art show is this Thursday for the middle school. So, we're really excited to see all the different bands and and choirs and art and all the different fun things the kids have been working on. So, come on down to the middle school on Thursday. >> Time does that start? >> Uh 6:30, I believe. And um I can't remember because they rotate. One starts before the other and then they swap with it. Yeah. Um and this one's at the

053at the middle school auditorium or the middle school gym. Sorry, not the high school, the middle school gym. Uh we have Genius Hour Expo coming up on May 8th and that is where our students have been given some time to kind of research their passion project and then they will present to it to the community. So we're excited for that. Invites have gone out to the the parents and we'll be sending out to the general community through Facebook and other ways soon. Um 8th grade youth jam then follows up and that's kind of like an eighth grade graduation party. They get to do some fun things and activities and um so we're excited for that. That's also on on on that date. uh tornado drill on April 15th. We have our tornado drill. We've been

054working with our students on discussions on the importance of first of all following directions um and discussion on how to handle the drill and what it is and then we'll be continuing to practice that uh for severe weather awareness week which is this week. We had to move ours up to Wednesday because we have a field trip with sixth grade so we decided to keep them all together on Wednesday. >> We were aware of the severe weather today. Yeah, we were we talked about it like I hope we don't have to go to it today though. Um we the sixth grade then is going on a field trip on Thursday to the Minneapolis orchestra. It's kind of a fun trip. It's it's actually a visual with like Disney visuals to orchestra. Think of like that

055Fantasia movie maybe. But um we haven't ever done it before. So I'm kind of excited to see what it's like. But I don't get to go. So, um um we start our our uh our term six on April 23rd, which is the last six weeks of school. That's the big transition time, believe it or not. Um we have an inservice day on the 27th where we're going to be working on building goals and um some PLC time where the teachers can really break into that day that we're talking about. We're also doing a lot of curriculum alignment where they're taking a look at their pacing and making sure that they're meeting all the state standards and how they're doing it and how they're assessing it, making sure that there's fidelity there. And then um our

056spring fling week, it's our 28th year of spring fling um which is uh April 20th through May 1st and that's kind of like a contest where they enjoy the spring and they have dress up things on Halloween decorating and all these different sporting events and different things against each other and they go for the trophy. It's pretty fun. >> It I I like to see the historical timeline in the And you still have the little wheel. >> We have the wheel and all every year's on there. Yeah. >> I love it. And the staff takes the students on the basketball. I get to watch now since I'd had knee surgery. I actually broke a student's nose by accident doing that a couple years ago. And your health insurance playing basketball her nose. >> All right,

057that's enough of that. >> Okay. Not a bump in there. Well, good evening. Um, earlier this month, our fifth grade leadership team visit visited Feed My Starving Children. Uh, Mr. M and Miss Haynes, our two school counselors, organized that event with Repar volunteers. So, our students go and pack pack a significant amount of meals that stay local to um the region. So, that was a great experience. This has been an annual event for the last couple years. So, it's really important that we keep up and we give back to the region in ways that we can. Fourth grade concert. So, earlier this month, our fourth grade held their concert. It was fantastic. As always, Mrs. Moscow does a phenomenal job. Um, I do want to thank teachers. There's a lot of extra work that goes

058into a concert that big. It, you know, specialists give up their time for a week supporting Mrs. Moscow in the music department. So, really takes a team effort. And our teachers are really a big part of that success of those concerts as well. Fourth grade math enrichment. Um, 20 fourth graders participated in a weekly enrichment math program that was led by our classroom teachers. Um, they explore advanced concepts over several weeks. They then compete in a fourth grade math contest and top performers are then recognized at our end of the year awards banquet. They're recognized with um a certificate and a t-shirt. They go and they have a lot of success and it's really fun to challenge the talk to your math kids. And and I love that 20 is is a big number of

059kids, right? We're really supporting a lot of kids in extending their learning in math. Um the forward exam. So both Josh and Tom talked a little bit about state assessments. We started our Ford exam last week. So our fourth grade has to take all four subject areas. So last week they did science and social studies. Today was day one for third, fourth, and fifth graders. We'll start with three um ELA assessments and then we do two math assessments. Um we run a different schedule for two weeks. So it is a huge undertaking in our building. Um I really want to thank the teachers and the parents and everyone that supports that. It is a completely different schedule. It is really all hands- on deck. We've spent significant amount of time getting our students prepared um

060all the way down from special education teachers to title teachers to our classroom teachers getting our kids prepared and then when it actually come to um assessing our students the the schedule is a lot right we are meeting the individual needs of kids. Last board meeting we talked about making sure kids feel comfortable, prepared and ready to take this exam. So, a lot of the work we do for the past six or eight weeks actually sets the tone for these next two weeks. And and we want kids to feel really confident and comfortable in what they're doing. And we also send home a lot of encouragement um from parents asking parents just to support their kids and and let them know we just we want them to do their best, but they're also capable. We've

061given them all the knowledge and tools. So, really taking it as a holistic supportive approach for our kids. So, so far it's going very well. Um director of picking instruction. So um last month we actually participated in two professional development opportunities with educ one of the big motivators behind purchasing educ was to ensure that when it came to act 20 we had a lot of the requirements that were being met. Educ I shared is a program that helps us meet those marks. So um what we learned in these last two professional development sessions were how to create personalized reading plans within educ um and then how to communicate those plans to parents and then also how to progress monitor within the program. So, um, we're really starting to utilize the program. Our plan, um, after

062we do spring assessment is to select one class and we're going to communicate with parents via Edge Climber. We're not ready to roll out roll it out 100%. We want to roll it out with a small population so we know if we have any big barriers going into the fall, we can address them. Um, we feel really confident with Edgie Climber right now that it's giving us what we need. Uh, mentor mentee program. So, this past month, just a couple weeks ago, we participated in our last mentor mentee class. This one was on community building. Um we had a fun activity planned and then actually all the mentors um awarded their mentees with an award a certificate that kind of summarized what their year was like at their first year here in the school district

063of Amory. So just as a reminder it's not new to education teachers but it's actually new to the school district of Amory educators. And so it was a it was a great year. Um next steps with the mentor mentor program I will be sending out a survey. So, we sent them out a survey to ask them multiple questions. Did the classes meet your timeline needs? Did the classes that we offer in the sessions that were led by us. Um, did they meet your needs? Were they timely? Were they supportive? How could we do better? Did we miss anything? So, that'll be the next steps as I'll email that out. The feedback that we get from that Google survey, we then sit down as an administrative team and we look at how can we adjust the

064classes to make sure that we're meeting the needs of new to education and also new to toy educators. Um, and then finally, I've been asked to do a DPI peer review and mentoring grant. So, I'm looking forward to that. Um, I will be reading peerreview mentoring grants for this local area. Um, this is something that DPI offers to school districts that can help um kind of launch the first couple years of educators. And so, I look forward to that and how I can partner with the DPI to to provide some good feedback to some grants that were written. Upcoming events, um, we have the forward exam. We're in week two of that. We have fourth grade sign up with Mrs. Sunderland. That'll happen April 21st. April 24th, our fifth graders will compete in Math Masters

065in Hammond. April 27th, Tom gave a rundown of what that staff inservice looks like. And then finally, April 28th, we have a uh fifth grade band trip to Unity where they'll play with different bands um and and host a concert and just have a really great day learning about band and participating as a whole group. >> Awesome. Thanks for all your work with the DPI and um welcome getting getting this plan with Educ Climber off the ground. That'll I look forward to seeing more about that. Thank you. >> Guess who's not state testing. >> Just kidding. We're state testing. Started today. Uh not the board, but we are doing as web testing. But what I really wanted to focus on is giving you guys a circling back to a conversation that I started with you

066when the school year started and following up on what I need now. Just an update and really giving a shout out to Carrie Shu and Lynette Wentz on what that programming and that structure has looked like. It has really kind of uh hit all of the marks and expectations and far more than what I could even be begin to believe what it could achieve and I'm really excited to see what those results will turn out to be. Our progress monitoring has really hit the mark with our students when it comes to the hands-on learning. Uh getting all of the kids, we've stayed consistent. We haven't pulled them from any of those key instructional times. They've looked at the data. They've met the students with what they've needed. They found the right curriculums. And we're getting

067kids growing with their reading and their math daily. We've been able to hit those nine groups. We've been make we've been able to do those fluidly. So, I'm really excited to see where that goes. And if our data comes back into conclusive, I'm excited to hit the drawing board again and go, "Okay, well, what's next?" Uh, but we're really excited as that testing comes up to go, okay, let let's let's celebrate our kids and and see where the successes lie. So, I just wanted to kind of follow back up with you and say we're excited for this this tail end of the school year to see see what comes of that because that team has worked incredibly hard and those two have really organized those materials for those nine others that are that are doing

068that work. Uh, library update. This is the words of Annie Braden. So, I can't uh take this by any credit, but that woman works hard. She works incredibly hard and she comes up with some fun ideas. So, I can't take any credit for any of this stuff, but uh 4K Mercy Watson uh the pig, stuffed pig, not real pig, but there are real animals later on in this story here, uh drove a jeep to classrooms to deliver books. Uh there was Mercy's favorite food delivered to the 4K kids, and they're continuing to read all the books soon to have cars driven by the kids. They don't have licenses and they're cardboard cars. Uh to have a drive-in movie at the library. She has talked me into being a popcorn vendor. Talked Mr. Grahams into dressing

069up as popcorn vendors cuz we're going to have some costumes here. He's learning that he's going to play along with the fun. Uh but we're we're excited for that. First grade readers, uh Mr. Dr. Derkley got in on this one, but they read uh to give a pig a pancake. Uh we went into the maker space and there was some wonderful pancakes being made. So all the first graders got to make pancakes along with the story with some fresh maple syrup that was made for the kids because it's it's not just about the stories, it's about the stories coming alive and just the creativity that she is able to make for the kids really build some wonderful moments. uh spring break, she created some challenges for them which involved some real uh farm animals coming

070to school with hammocks and baby goats. Uh they were on leashes. If any of you have experienced baby goats, it was quite fun. The kids got to enjoy the baby goats after reading. I don't know where exactly came from, but she had baby goats at her farm. And who doesn't love a baby goat? So, baby goats and hammocks got the kids excited. Lots of reading took place over spring break, which is what we want kids doing, especially at a young age. Excited about reading. And then our second grade readers, which is its 20 year tradition in reading, the Art Club has started. Uh they are have a goal of,300 books by May 4th. So, I hope to be able to report to you that they hit that target, but they are reading nonstop right now

071and with hopes of getting to El's Ice Cream Shop at the end >> is is the big deal. But a huge shout out to Annie and all of the wonderful programming that she creates. Getting books to really come alive for kids is truly a magical thing that she does down there. And I don't think we showcase and celebrate that programming that she provides enough. uh first grade concert, another true magical uh wonderment for kids. Shannon Hennings and Renee Anderson made Where the Wild Things Are Come Ali come alive. Uh wonderful experience last week there. Shannon had the story up for all of the kids to read through as first grade students. These are six and sevenyear-old kids. Clay acted out the entire story with instruments, with choreography, with reading. Everybody had parts. They went through

072the entire story. Renee was able to then have every kid have art at at the center of the stage. It was it was something special. And to have a theater to actually put on performances like that is a true gift to the community. I've I've worked in three different districts. We haven't had a space like that. It It's a rarity and it's such a blessing to have. So, a huge shout out to the district for being able to provide those services to families cuz I don't think they realize how many people don't have a place like that. Uh, and then one thing that we're doing for staff, uh, with the help of Abby and the school psych and my school counselors, we've been doing a behavioral supports miniseries. So, each week we send out a

0735-minute video because that's how long the platform allows us to record. I can be long-winded. Josh reminds me of that every month. Uh but I can be very long-winded but the video cuts off after 5 minutes. So we send out a five minute video each week saying here's just a support or focus. They are then asked to talk about the video and the document that we presented to them in the video for 15 minutes with an intentional kind of protocol. Either a school counselor or myself are present for that PLC. We then talk through, okay, what do restorative practices look like? What does accountability look like? And then just as we nail get ready towards the end of the school year, just making sure it's a refresher, it's a reminder. The teachers know these tools,

074our aids know these tools, but sometimes when you're at the tail end, you forget. So, it's just an intentional refresher. We're halfway through the series with the third video coming out this week and feedback has been good. There's been some questions. So then that really makes intentional followup for us to make sure, okay, what have we missed? Okay, how can we support that work moving forward so we finish up the year strong and then things coming up, we're trying something new on April 21st and 23rd. We'll see how traffic flow happens, but we're inviting the public in for breakfast. uh breakfast buddies. It's a fun tradition. We've already gotten a lot of RSVPs, but doesn't matter who your buddy is, whether it's mom, uh dad, grandma, grandpa, somebody, whoever wants to come in and have

075breakfast with you. The LPO is partnering with the nutrition team. Michelle's really excited about this. Our team's really excited about it. But come in, have a fun nutritional breakfast. We've got 4K and K one breakfast morning, then we've got first and second the next. have a fun nutritional breakfast, wish your kid a good good day, and then head on to work. So, uh, response has been really great from families so far. We'll see what it looks like for parking. Josh has said, well, if his kids aren't there in enough time for the parking spots, then that's on them. But, we'll see what happens. Our building opens up at 7:45 for them to come in. >> It should be fun. Teacher inservice. Tom already went over that. We got the Monosa Show and Share, LPO Spring

076Carnival, which is always a fun hit, 4K orientation, and the kindergarten concert coming up before we get in front of you guys again. So, a lot coming up. >> Well, I wish that I had a librarian like Annie when I was in school. >> She's pretty incredible. >> And the way that she talks you people into doing stuff, I'm thinking that she could sell a ketchup popsicle to a woman wearing white gloves in July. So, way to go, Annie. >> While kissing the baby goats. >> While kissing the baby goat. >> All right, up to uh Miss Baha. So, I'm going to stick with the theme of ending the school year. Um just wanted to do a big shout out to the special ed teachers. Right now, they're um kneedeep in the transition planning, meaning

077they're getting ready for any student that's going to be moving to a new building that's supported by IEP. They've been meeting with each other as teams, kind of talking about student supports and um you know the tips and tricks of each student to get them ready for next year. They've scheduled um trips over to the next building that they're going to go to. Um this is a huge undertaking and just a super big appreciation for the special ed teachers for the care that they put in um making this a successful um event for for our students part of NIP getting ready for next year already. Um, and then, um, nurse Rose and I visited with another school district nurse just to try and do some networking and making sure with her transitioning and retiring, getting

078ready for a new nurse, just making sure. Um, we had a really great conversation about best practices and policy and procedure and um, boy, no, nurse Rose is leaving some big shoes to fill. I got to tell you that right now. She's pretty amazing. So, um, she's doing a lot of work for us getting things ready for whoever fills those shoes. So, I appreciate her a lot. But it was a really good meeting. Hopefully, um, the first of many now with a new school nurse coming on board. Um, we're going to start networking with other district school nurses just because they need that networking as well. >> You're going to have your moment to not. >> All right. Thank you very much. Great reports. We like to see that was off to ourformational items with

079the building and grounds reports for the our building grounds committee. >> Two items. The first of which uh we did provide to the St. Croy Valley Foundation the specs on what we would like to do with the complex at Jorgensson Fields. Um we're waiting to hear back from them. we are ready to supply the labor via our high school kids and we're looking to see if they're interested in weighing in regards to the materials because there's obviously a cost there. Um so when I have an answer from them, I will pass that on to you. The other item, uh we have a building and grounds committee meeting tomorrow. Uh Larry and Steve are representatives on the building and grounds committee and we're meeting on the high school roof. As we're there, we talked about the

080high school roof. We're meeting with Anderson. Uh we're meeting with representatives from LHB. That's our construction contractor and our architect. And also we're meeting with the subcontractor who did the roof work. And we're going to see what the plan will be moving forward. Anything that Steve or Larry you wanted to share? >> Should be up on the roof tomorrow. >> Yep. >> Right. >> Take pictures cuz I ain't getting on there. If it's not storming, I don't know what's going to happen. I want to bring your rain gear. >> Don't wear any metal belt buckles. >> All right. Anything else? Looking forward to that tomorrow. All right. Uh then we will move on to the first reading of board policy 346, student assessments. Mrs. Damrosio, you're up. >> That is me. Uh so we are

081seeking to strike an old board policy and add in a new policy. um per ESSA monitoring which I shared with you, it is anticipated that we will um have ESSA monitoring next school year. Uh we need to have a student assessment policy. So I'm seeking for this policy to replace a prior policy. Um so this policy lays out the assessments that happen uh with across the district actually. Um it shares that students will be assessed upon arrival to the school district of Amry and then they will be assessed thereafter annually. Um there's different examples of of how of what assessments cover. So they're not uh limited to teacher observation techniques, student records, student performance data through standard testing, student portfolios, and then physical assessments such as physical educated physical education. Um, this provides a program

082of testing of assessments that include state required tests, um, curriculum based, written and oral examinations such as our curriculum based HMH for example or whatever math curriculum we're using, um, assessment tests, aptitude tests, achievement tests, and then vocational inventories as related to um, vocational tech programs and courses. Um, the board requires that the tests are administered by people who are qu qualified under state law and regulation. parents are informed of the testing programs. So that is actually on the website that is new as well. We um I've worked with Amanda Warner to be able to post what our annual assessments are so parents can understand at each grade level what assessment is happening when especially given act 20 and the amount of assessments that are happening at younger grades. Um, in addition, data is then

083entered into a student's cumulative record where it is subject to policy regarding student records. And then the results of each schoolwide, programwide, and districtwide test is part of our public record as a school district, which is talked about annually as well. Um, it also shares that uh any student with a disability is provided appropriate accommodation and or alternative assessments as indicated in a student's EP or section 504 plan. Um in addition the testing programs the superintendent may develop administrative guidelines where a portfolio may be developed and maintained for students as well. The last part of this policy is the parent opt out of assessments. So we shall excuse any student with a written statement by parents opting them out of state assessments. That is also a Wisconsin DPI requirement. So for the board exam any

084student that opts out of it we have to keep a record of that and confirm with parents and then they are opted out. So there's always an opt out program for a parent if they don't want their child to participate in it. You have any questions on the policy? >> Parental opt out. Is that limited to a certain number? >> Tom, you want to speak to >> No, it's not. It's not limited to certain number. Um, very few do it. However, um, we are held accountable if too many do it. So, it's kind of like then we could be held and uh we have to have, you know, certain percentage or we get flagged. I have one in in the middle school this year. >> I've had three this year. >> Those those kids that

085would be opting out or parents that would be opting out on behalf of their kids, those kids still go through everything leading up to the test, they just don't take the test. >> They just don't take the test. >> And we find an alternative site. Ours is the library. So, they they go visit Mrs. braen for an hour each day during the testing session with either, you know, a worker reading a book or helping in the library. >> Y >> and they don't have to provide a reason for that. They just have to provide that they just are opting out. >> We usually have a conversation with them though just to kind of talk a little bit about it and they don't have to just to go there. Most of them do. >> We do

086get dinged by the state though if we have too many >> parental opt outs. >> yeah. >> All right. Any other questions for uh Jessica on the first reading of that policy? Questions? Okay, we'll come back to that next month. Uh staff retirement celebration. Dr. >> Okay. Claire Hansen, Janice Jensen, Tanya Jolson, Rose Keeper, Sher Lee, Samantha Montana, Brenda Olsen, and Tammy Winell are retiring May 13th from 4 to 6. We have changed location. We're at the Amry Golf Course. Uh little bit different type of setup. It's an open house reception. Uh we have worked with our retirees and this was actually of their preference. They wanted to do it that way. So we are changing it to appetizers, a cash bar, RSVP below, and stop by can. So we're open for a big crowd.

087At 5:15, we'll have a semiformal presentation of the retirees and a little more than anything law firm. Congratulations. And that again is on May 13th. And you are certainly welcome to attend. >> Good lunch. Real good lunch. >> Look forward to sending them off in the in the manner in which they chose to do it this time. So be nice. We'll change up. >> Yes. >> All right. Off to action items. The 202 uh we already did the 2026 2027 staff renewal insurance. Um, and so then that brings us to the second reading of changes to the staff handbook documents. >> Okay. Well, you'll see in the staff handbook there are yellow changes. For instance, on that very second page, there's some yellow changes. I'm not going to focus on the yellow as much as

088the bluish. I think that's the color we want to call it. So, you're not really going to see much in the way of blue until you get all the way through this document on to the next one. There aren't anything new. There aren't any new items in this particular document. These are all things you saw last time. In the salary and benefits document, which is the second document, you'll see yellow there. We're going to come back to that cuz that's obviously salary stuff and that's the next agenda item. So, hold that thought there. And you will see some blue in this particular document. On page four, you'll see the change in HSA that you just heard about from a group here a little bit ago. So, that's reflected there. There is some blue on the

089top of page six. Um, and that simply makes clear in regards to your retirement. Uh, unless otherwise specified, employees shall be permitted to retire under this policy at the end of the school year, June 30th, following their 55th birthday. So, that's been moved into this section. And, uh, that's the clarity surrounding that subject. The other blue is simply changing the numbers underneath the headings. And that's it in this document. And I'm not sure if you wanted to take these one by one or they're listed separately. So I'm not sure how you want to do that. >> Uh I think we can just take the certified uh staff handbook compensation and benefits guide for right now. >> All right. >> And do you want to cover the compensation portion of that? >> We'll do that with

090salary increases if that's okay. Maybe you want to make a motion so that it doesn't include the compensation piece cuz that's not part of it. That would be my uh recommendation is to take the compensation out of that and just tackle that as a certified handbook um and benefits guide at this point. Are there any questions? This is the second reading. Is there any discussions um or other changes or um questions on this? I would entertain a motion to approve the certified staff handbook and benefits guide. So move. >> Is there a second? Second. >> Is there any further discussion hearing? None. We'll proceed to vote. All those in favor of approving the certified staff handbook and benefits guide, please signify by saying I. >> I. All those opposed, please signify by saying no. Motion

091approved. Um we will uh approve the certified staff handbook and benefits guide as presented. We'll come back to the U compensation portion of that after we move to the 2026 2027 support staff handbook and benefits guides. >> The support staff handbook you'll see just yellow there. This these are items that you saw last month. Nothing's been changed from last month to this month and nothing has been added. in the support staff compensation and benefits guide. Again, you see the light yellow portion on that first page. That's obviously salary. So, we'll come back to that here in a moment. There is some blue verbiage on page two. The benefit premium payroll deductions for 9-month employees. It reads or employees working a 9-month schedule, the employee portion of an annual benefit program will be deducted over 19

092payrolls during the fiscal year July 1 through June 30. The district will advance premium payments on behalf of employees for the months of July and August during which no payroll deductions occur. And lastly, if a 9-month employee terminates employment during the summer months or before completing the payroll deduction cycle in the school year, the employee is responsible for reimbursing the district for any unpaid portion of benefit premiums that were advanced on their behalf. This includes premiums per July and August and any additional unpaid amounts at the time of separation. on the bottom of page three. That HSA change occurs there as well. And I think there's one more. That's it for support staff compensation and benefits guide. >> There's the clubhouse swarm also. >> Yes. >> I'll take that one next. Becky, I we've always

093kind of done them together, but since we figured them out now, I think we'll just take that one after we do the certified one or the the um support staff. Is there a motion to approve the uh support staff handbook and benefits guide? >> I'll make that motion. >> April. Is there a second? >> Second. >> One. It's been properly moved and seconded to approve the 2026 2027 support staff handbook and benefits guide. Uh returning to the compensation at a later time for that further in the agenda. Is there any further discussion? Hearing none, we'll proceed to vote. All those in favor of approving the 2026 2027 support staff handbook and benefits guide, please signify by saying I. >> I. All those opposed, please signify by saying no. Motion passed. Those are approved. And then

094since we have uh taken clubhouse and and made them a separate entity then I will uh entertain the um discussion of this document in and of itself. >> The only change that you'll see in the clubhouse guide is the HSA change from 2 a,000 and 2000. The rest of it remains the same since last time. Um and then there's the salary portion again that you're going to discuss in a moment. Is there a motion to approve the clubhouse child care comp um benefits and handbook? >> I'll make a motion. >> See, second by Larry. >> It's been properly moved and seconded to approve the uh 2026 2027 Clubhouse Childare um handbook and benefits guide. More of a benefits guide, not not necessarily a handbook. Um, is there any discussion? Hearing none, we'll proceed to vote.

095All those in favor uh of approving the clubhouse guide, please signify by saying I. >> I. All those opposed, please signify by saying no. Motion passed. The um benefits guide for the clubhouse has been approved. and then we will move on to the staff salary increases. >> Okay. On Thursday the 2nd of April, we had an advisory committee meeting uh that's uh comprised of ultimately just a cross-section of of certified staff and myself and Becky who sits in to help us clear up that whole thing in regards to the notes. Um and then we had a listening session with members of staff who chose to attend. There was probably 25 or so people here last Wednesday evening and they met with two board members. We didn't establish a quorum. That was Sh and April and

096we had conversation and a lot of that conversation revolved around uh compensation. So what you see on the screen is the certified staff compensation model as it presently exists with red numbers there that have been stricken. That's the existing salary schedule. The letters and numbers to the left is the way that they or we organized the compensation scale. That's been unchanged. What you see is changed is the portion in yellow and that is uh a reflective of an increase in salary for certified staff. A couple of highlights. We are on beginning wage and I believe that beginning wage is 43,000 and change. Uh we are 30th out of 39 in the CEO in Cesell 11. 30th place out of 39 in regards to where we start on wage. This change to 45 would mark a

097movement from 30 to the upper teens which would put somewhere around the 17 181 19 mark. So that's one highlight. Uh we're seeking to um come up with ways to incentivize folks that are in that second tier, the B's, the C's, the D's, and the E. And that's the person that's in their career somewhere between 6 and 12 years. That's the point at which someone's going to settle into a career. That's the point someone's going to settle into a relationship, potentially a family, potentially kids. And that's when you're going to retain an employee or you're going to lose an employee. And we're seeking to do more there to get folks to be incentivized to stay because it is just like for everybody else. It's a matter of retaining and attracting employees so you have uh

098the necessary positions that have been filled. Another conversation we talked about was the eyes. Your smallest percentage of growth of anybody on the salary scale is and always will be the eyes because they've reached the top of the scale. I think there's 15 16 or so people that have reached I8. they simply don't have much growth in this model. They do. Uh there was a lot of conversation about the topic that came up in the last couple years. Whatever this percentage comes out to be, not everyone will move that same percentage every single year. Because if you'll notice, like for instance, if you could stop right there is perfect. If when you're moving from E2 or E3 to F1, you're making a forward jump of $4,000. But when you're moving from F3 to F4, you're

099moving forward $1,000. Clearly, that's going to be a different percentage just based on the numbers that I just gave. So, the rate of growth all the way through the scale, it depends on where you're located. Another item that the certified two other items that the certified staff brought up that I think are noteworthy. One, it takes a while to get from A1 to I8. I think the total number of years is in excess of 25 years. Another item that they were uh very focused on is the ability to get there based on the number of PDHs you need to achieve in order to get there. 30 6090 their hope is to do something that's more amendable to those who coach and those who simply are booked up with work doing their actual job. So that's

100a conversation that's going to continue. That's not a change we're recommending for next year, but I think that's a conversation we need to more fully engage in as we move forward. So, those are the highlights of the scale for certified staff. And if you want to take these separately, you can do that or we can talk about all all of them, however you want me to proceed. So, I'll stop and let you tell me what you want to do. Um, I think first of all, I just wanted to thank all the staff for um that showed up at that listening session last week with April and myself. I thought it was a good uh productive conversation. Um, I hope that you all felt heard. Um, that your concerns of not only the compensation, but all

101of the other things that we talked about felt um like this was a safe space in which to do that. Um, clearly we're talking about compensation at this point. Uh, I think we, um, Dr. Derler hit all of the concerns I think that were shared in the room, especially with the growth models that we have. Um, I would like to when we talk about long range planning, make a note that the board heavily considers that this may look a little bit different moving forward. um or what may be presented next year would would look a little bit differently just based on the input that we had from all of all of you. So, I appreciate the input there. Um I think that we need to get a picture of the whole staff um situation of

102what that compensation looks like before we can make any kind of decisions on just the certified. So, if we'd like to move along to all of them, I think that gives us a better picture. uh the support staff model. This is uh a couple of different groups if you will. The first group is custodial, school nutrition, parah and van and then the second group you see here is secretarial and then the third group is bus driver. Those are uh very different animals altogether one to the next. There is an increase here. And what we talked about at the meeting last Wednesday is the trick with support staff salary is you're not competing with other uh organizations that educate kids. You're competing with the whole wide world because you can do custodial in a variety of

103different places. You can be a person that works in nutrition in a variety of different places. So you're competing with everybody at that point. We are falling behind on support staff and we have to catch back up. We have got to put more money here because our turnover in support staff is dramatic at best and we need to do something to address that. So the growth that you see here in some cases marks a 50 to 75% per hour wage increase and in some cases for some people this marks a 6 8 10% pay increase depending on where they're located. Same is true of secretary. You could be a secretary in a variety of places and if you wanted a strong argument as to the vitality the usefulness of secretarial world I think you could

104ask anyone in the room and they could tell you how valuable the secretaries are. So we want to make sure we compensate there and bus driver. Our cost comparables with others have us probably in the middle of the pack maybe below the middle of the pack in regards to bus drivers. And this uh reflects an increase for them as well as well as the subay the trainings pay the extra driving pay and lastly the meal reimbursement pay. So we have come a very far way forward. I would remind folks that have been here long, not for the folks that have been here as well long as I have, they remember this, but my first year in this position that would have been 2018, 2019, moving into 1920, the certified or the support staff pay scale.

105Everyone was lumped together and the markers for years on jump was year 1, year two, year 4, year 15 and year 25. From year four to year 15, the total number of dollar increase was not dollars. It was 33 cents in 11 years. And then there was a little bit of a jump between 15 and 25. We changed that immediately. We've come a long way, but we got to come further because we've got to be able to keep our people. So that's the salary scale for the support staff groups, the proposal if you will >> and I do want to I just because my fellow board members now are we all new. So um that are when we redid these scales and moving people forward. There were people that when we redid the models, it

106looked like their years of service that they would go backwards in their pay, but the district made a commitment that nobody reverted backwards in their pay and that stayed at least current and then got more above and beyond that. So this has come a long way in the last I would say even just 5 years. Um how how we've reworked this model and um thank you for having a large part of what this looks like now and again it's probably still not even enough but that we're moving along is better movement uh because those gaps were significant um for what they were rewarded with like you said cents on the dollar. Yes, there's the um clubhouse version of this very same topic and you'll see the clubhouse wages reflected there. Uh we want to be

107able to recruit and retain our clubhouse uh staff and turnover there is not helpful for staff and it's certainly not helpful for kids and their families. So we want to move that forward as well and this pay increase would have us doing have you doing that as well in regards to proposal. Um the the question at hand that a lot of folks have asked and we've engaged in this period of reductions in regards to staff per our choice per necessity. We have made a lot of progress over the course of the last four to six weeks. So, we have had certified staff reductions, support staff reductions. Uh we have not had any reductions in clubhouse. We've had bus driver reductions and then we've had administrative staff where there haven't been any reductions either. And I'd

108like to speak to that in regards to numbers. So, I'm gonna have Becky put up on the screen all of these staff reductions, salary and benefits all added up together. And then if you take out of that any salary increase, salary and benefits, that's your bottom line total. After all the ins and all the outs, you're still at a projected total reduction of 1.259 million in change. Now, I'd like to speak to the administrative piece of that real quickly. That's a real quick narrative that's formed. Where are the administrative cuts? I will say two things. That is a net increase of $56,000 and half of that's for one position and the position we're looking to fill, which is the director of finance. We have by advertisement in years past, we have the lowest paid director

109of finance in the entire state of Wisconsin. We're not even close to second. So the second one from the bottom. So we're seeking to address that. So half of that increase about 30,000 is for that one position. The remaining is for 18 people. So you're doing 20,000 for 18 people. So I know that's a quick narrative to get branded, but it's not really telling you the whole story. We are in CISA 11. Two things. One, and these are the numbers provided to me by Barrett Financial Services. two things. One, we are the most overstaffed district in CISA 11 with certified staff. The number of teachers we have per kit, the only districts that are near us are Pepin and Birwood. We are not Pep and we are not Birwood. We are the least overstaffed with

110administration. We are third out of 39. The only two ahead of us that have more kids per administrator are River Falls and Hudson. We are not Riverfalls and we are not Hudson. So that is part of the reason why there isn't an administrative reduction there as quickly as there is a certified staff reduction. Further, I'm not sure which administrators you get rid of. I don't know how that works because everyone's doing solo duty or double or triple duty. But in regards to the total cost savings that exists here and I hate to call it cost savings because it is after all people we're talking about the certified staff support staff club office bus driver and administration give us the ability to be able to do a salary increase but I'm going to be here tonight

111and I maybe I'll ste steal somebody's thunder. I don't think you should do this tonight. I think we should wait till May. And here's why. There are two things. One, we have an audit which is going to be heard by our uh financial oversight committee. That's next Wednesday. And the second thing, we are going to have Barrack Financial come here and talk to you about what our budget forecast model is moving into 2627 2728. And they're going to do that. And at that point, you can ask the necessary questions about where we sit when you remove that from the budget. Where do we sit? What does that look like for fund balance? What does that look like for viability for the rest of 26 or 25 26 and what does that look like for 2627

112and that's what bear does for a living. I've already had that conversation there's a lot of positive news there because when you reduce that much money from the budget not just one year but an additional years thereafter that makes a big impact. There's also in addition to this some 500 to 750,000 more that are things that are not people. Like for instance, when you reduce bus routes, you don't buy a new bus. And as you well know, if you listen to Ryan's presentation, I believe that was last last month, a bus is $175,000, which seems crazy. That's the price tag. If you're reducing bus routes, you don't need to buy a new bus, and we won't be. So, that is in addition to what you see here. And Bear doesn't even have those numbers yet.

113And when they do, that makes the picture even brighter. So you do what you will, but my recommendation is to wait till May. So the timeline would be Wednesday. We're doing the audit. Bared Financial comes in the first or second week of May. This could be on the agenda for May 18th. And you can weigh in however you see fit at that time. It still allows us to do letters of appointment and contracts. We would do it from the 19th to the 29th. You still have 10 days to do it. Everyone's still here. It would simply be after the fact. Now, how do you work that logistically? What we would do is we would give folks their contract on the 19th through the 29th so it would have an accurate number. If the number changed,

114it would be accurately reflected on the contract. If we do open enrollment prior to the 18th of May, then you got to do a whole another set of contracts after that. So you do it two times and I think I safely speak on behalf of Becky. That's not do that because that's a lot of work to do twice. I would rather just do it once and hopefully we would be able to shoulder the cost of that increase. So, that's my long- winded speech and hopefully I didn't create too many questions. >> I I think it would be imprudent for the board to make this decision this evening um as it was uh presented to us this week. April and I had the privilege of seeing the the increases um when we had our listing session

115uh last week, but the the total board did not have that until this board um package was released um to everybody else. Um I think that this requires a more indepth look uh with our finance oversight committee which will be meeting uh next week. Um, I think you have a lot you two have a lot of things to discuss next week. And so I think that this would um behoove you to look at we'll have a better picture I think next week after we look at that audit um or or you will know after you look at the audit all of those things. And I think it would be um irresponsible at best to make this decision about compensation tonight. I don't think there's been enough time or a clearer picture that the board as

116a whole has been presented with at this time to to make this decision. I >> the the question of do they deserve to move? Absolutely. It's just timing and I think that we have to get our our hands around all those other moving pieces. >> Yeah, I I have a dollar amount in my mind that I would like to see um with the net savings. Obviously, the plans moving forward. Um I think we'll have a better handle on that and and then we would have a better option to weigh in um in a different forum once we have all of that information. Uh I think so I think that postponing this um decision by tableabling that until the next meeting would be prudent for this for this board. >> I would make a motion we

117table it until May. That would just be at a regular board meeting. >> May 18th. I second that. >> It's been properly moved and seconded to table the compensation portion uh for certified staff uh support staff and clubhouse staff until the May regular board meeting. Is there any discussion? Hearing none, we'll proceed to vote. All those in favor of tableabling the uh compensation portion of this uh of benefits guide, please signify by saying I. >> I. All those opposed, please signify by saying no. >> Motion passed. Uh we'll table this and we'll take it up in the May meeting after we the board has a better picture of all of the things. But um know that there'll be ongoing uh talk about this for the next month and I hope to see you all back

118here in May, the next board meeting. >> All right, then off to school board spring election results and oath of office. >> We have contract >> or do we have to do the contracts first, don't we? >> Contracts and letters of appointment. Okay. So, you'll see in your red folder the list of folks that are certified staff contracts and the list of support staff that are letters of appointment. And then there's administrative contracts that you have. Um, as well the um contracts and letters of appointment. Again, that's a time frame of the 19th through the 29th, but in order to know who to print a contract or a letter of appointment for, they have to be approved contract. And what you see there are the folks that should receive one and then Becky re-ups the

119numbers from 2526 to 26 27. And at that point we proceed forward with the new benefits potentially and new salary potentially and everyone's rolling into next year. >> Entertain a motion to approve the staff contracts. I think we could do these all together. Support staff, certified staff, and administrative staff, unless somebody has an objection to that. >> Well, no. I I move to approve all of the contracts. >> Is there a second? >> Second. >> It's been properly moved and seconded to accept the 2026 2027 contracts and letters of appointment. Is there any further discussion? Hearing none, we'll proceed to vote. All those in favor of approving the 2627 contracts and letters of appointment, please signify by saying I. >> I. All of those opposed, please signify by saying no. >> Motion passed. The 26

12027 contracts and letters of appointment are approved. And now we're off to school board spring election results in open office. >> Okay. Uh April 7th of 2026 uh school district spring spring elections. school board the election results. Uh you'll see there on the screen by municipality and by candidate we have Steve Astro with a grand total of 1,712 votes. The registered writing candidate Dell Stone at a population there about 551 and then write incattering uh 33. So those are the results from April 7th of 2026. We're going to swear them in too, right? Are you doing that? >> I I don't know that I am. >> I think Steve, you're just reading it right. >> I, Steve Oro, who have been duly elected to the board of education of the school district of Amry, swear

121that I will support the Constitution of the United States and the Constitution of the State of Wisconsin, and will faithfully and impartially discharge the duties of set office to the best of my ability. So help me God. >> All right. Good job. Sign that. And >> I have to sign it in front of >> You're watching. >> Okay. >> Thank you. All right. And then off to donations to the district. >> Okay. We have a donation from Wisconsin Credit Union for $2,000 in the form of a grant for school forest renovations. We have an anonymous donor and the Amry Police Department together for a donation of winter jackets to be given to students in need and warn again donation of $300 to the Angel Fund and many thanks for your support and your generosity. >>

122Okay, cool. Is there a motion to accept the donations? >> I would I would make that motion with many things. It's it's something to see every month. Every month there's donations. >> Is there a second? >> Second. >> It's been properly moved and seconded to accept the donations to the district with many thanks. Uh is there any further discussion? Hearing none, we'll proceed to vote. All those in favor of accepting the donations as presented, please signify by saying I. >> I. I. All those opposed, please signify by saying no. >> Motion passed. Thanks for all of the donations that come in. NOT THIS MUCH, BUT EVERYONE. IT'S NICE WHEN THERE'S a room full of people that come. >> All right. And then off to personnel action. >> Uh personnel items. Uh Maggie Peltier on new

123employment contract for seventh grade math. A reassignment of Scott Shogrin from bus mechanic to custodial and resignations of Alexa Toler special ed para and Pete Bulmer for bus driver. All right. Is there a motion to approve the personnel action as presented? >> I will make that motion. April, you've been quiet all night. April, >> finally waiting. >> I can hear her and then she's behind. >> I have to wait for the floor. >> Is there a second? >> Second. >> It's been properly moved and seconded to accept the personnel action as presented. Uh there is no discussion as it was discussed in close session tonight. All those in favor, please signify by saying I. >> I. I. All those opposed. Please signify by saying no. >> Motion passed. The personnel action is uh approved. >>

124Becky, any community comments tonight? A room full of people and not one person sign. >> No. No. We have no reason to uh have close session tonight after our meeting. So I will entertain a motion to adjurnn. >> Steve, is there a second? Second. as much. I'm tired. >> It's been properly moved and seconded to adjourn the meeting. All those in favor, please signify by saying I. >> I. All those opposed, please signify by saying no. Motion approved. Meeting journ. Thank you all.