001Good evening. I've called the meeting back to order. We were previously convened in the close session and we are now into open session. And for all of those that are able, I ask you to please stand and join me in the Ice 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. Thank you. I guess we'll get started tonight with Spotlight on Education. All right. That would be Mr. Kelly, come on up. Mr. Johnson, she does not have to do as well. Mr. Johnson, come on up. Kelly, you got to stand up here. I'm going to flex at the camera. I don't know if you guys saw her article in the uh Amry Free Press, but it
002was pretty cool article that I think told her story with pole vaulting. So, as you guys are all aware, we have a state champion next to us right now. We're in good hands. Um Kelly's a humble kid. um even when we did our national signing days and whatnot, she doesn't necessarily want to be in the spotlight. So, um this is just an opportunity for us to kind of recognize her. Um came in as a freshman and uh placed six at the state tournament. Um sophomore year was a third place finisher, junior second place, and she had a lot of pressure. Uh faced a lot of adversity this last year with some injuries in her training. And um I can't even imagine what was going through her head because the target was on her back. She
003wanted to be a a state champion. And I don't know if you guys are familiar with how pole vaulting works, but they get three opportunities at at heights. And there was a couple times where Kelly missed the first two and now it comes down to the final vault. And her parents could probably attest to the pressure that they were experiencing, let alone Kelly. And I don't know all the thought process with the different poles and mechanics, but I know that there's a lot that can go wrong and a vault. And Kelly was able to figure it out, we'll say, and muscle her way over. She wasn't too pleased with her mechanics behind it and her form. Um, but she was a state champing 12t 6 in, which is a new school record. So, congratulations to
004her with that. She held the previous school record with what was 119. 119. Wow. So, uh, super impressive. Uh, had a heck of a career. Great kid. She's our FCCLA president. She was in Queens. Never had a behavioral referral in her high school career. It's a good thing. I think she could take you. Yeah. Yes. So, congratulations, Kelly. Next year she's going to Western Illinois. She's going to pull ball for the Leathernecks. We're just talking. She just had practice and she's got USA track this summer and the competition never stops. So, super proud of Kelly. Um, I think her career really is just getting started. She's going to go there. She's going to focus on her form and her mechanics and it'll be interesting to see where these next four years bring her. So, congratulations,
005Kelly. [Applause] That's it. You guys can actually leave now. That's it. You guys don't have to seriously not be awesome. We'll be following along. Thanks. Thanks again. Tough girl there. Thanks. All right. Consent agenda items. Steve, is that you, Larry? So, Larry and I reviewed stuff tonight. I didn't see anything out of the ordinary. Larry, look good. All good. So with that, we would like to make a motion to approve all the consent agenda items. Is there a second? Second. One. 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 accepting and approving the consent agenda items, please signify by saying I. I. All those opposed, please signify by saying no. Motion pass. consent agenda items
006are approved. Next up, administrative and uh committee department reports. All right. Well, as you can imagine, it's pretty quiet at the high schools right now. Um we in addition to the recognition for Kelly, um FFA had some state championship teams there with the Carly Pro and Quiz Bowl teams and junior quiz bowl teams. So, exciting stuff for FFA keeping the long-standing traditions going there. It's parade season. We've got sports camps going on like crazy wherever you look. kids all over the building there. And then we're just kind of closing up some loose ends on the remodel at the high school and trying to do some beautifification projects. I want to say good. It is summer. I guess it's there's not a whole lot to record. Jack, um intermediate school. So before the end of the
007school year, we actually had transition meetings. So, it's important to us that our students that are coming over to this building um as well as just transitioning from third to fourth, fourth to fifth is that they get to meet their new teacher and get to know them, you know, before they start hopefully easing a little bit of anxiety as they go into summer. They don't know who their classroom teachers are. Um but we did spend some time before the end of the year where they got to meet and greet the their next teacher that they move on to. Um as well as second grade um came over here and visited their third grade teachers. That's a that's a big week for them. from the new buildings. They did get a tour of the building as
008well. They got a snack. They got to meet me. They had to read aloud. So hopefully that eases a little bit of worries as well. Um and then also our Monasuri students came over and visited. So third grade um coming over next year as well as fourth graders incoming. Um we did have them visit and that seems to be great support for all of our kids. Um we've already had some grade level work, some summer department work that's been happening. So um we will be um vetting new resources for a K5 math curriculum in two years. And so we have already started that work. So our math chairs at the elementary and the intermediate have already spent a lot of time together this summer um looking at the scope and sequence and the DPI standards
009alignment just making sure that we are not missing any essential standards that we need to identify. So that's been work that's been going on already. Um we had a UFly training that stands for the University of Florida Literacy Institute. Um that is a program that is greatly supported by ACT 20. Um and so in the past we've actually sent several teachers to CISA to get trained in UFly and we were very fortunate enough to actually bring their literacy specialist here. And so with that rather than sending one, two or three people to get trained, we actually were able to train 22 teachers in UFly. Um our hope is that this will continue to be a resource at a tier one level. So meaning in general instruction at our K2 building, but then also here um
010it's an RTI resource. So, if a student has some gaps in foundational reading skills, this is a program we would use to close that. So, um the 22 people that came um we had great feedback. They all got the resource. Next, um the incoming principal at the elementary will sit down and we'll talk about how we're going to use that resource, but to have that knowledge and that training is is really big. Educators are very fortunate to have that. Um summer school is in full swing. Uh week two, this is at the elementary school and swim lessons started today as well. at least that's what my Harper tells me. Um and then finally the solution tree PLC at work institute. So we have gone to that several years. Um that's in Minneapolis. Abby and myself
011uh took six educators, a couple from each building um to the PLC institute in Minneapolis and they're it's run by Solution Tree and it is your top of the top when it comes to educational leadership um and response to intervention and professional learning communities. So we were fortunate to go for three days and take a group of educators there. It's fun to come back and see how excited they are to implement the things that they learned and um just the conversations on the way home and and what we do next. Um so that was a great experience. So thank you to the district for supporting that. And that's it here at the benefits everybody for sure. So happy to support that. Okay. Well, the epicenter of summer school stuff happens at the elementary school and
012we are in full swing there as well in week two as well. Uh we have five total sessions. So we meet through the end of the month for summer school on up to the 4th of July and then we have two sessions in uh summer in the month of August. Uh really tricky at the elementary to get the building clean to have clubhouse and to do summer school at the same time. So we've had many meetings about how to artfully schedule that. so everyone can be out of the way of each other, so to speak. Uh Laura Shog does an excellent job, George Sigworth does an excellent job and the elementary staff do an excellent job of making it happen. At the top of that list, um are the elementary custodians because they bear much
013of the the the burden of how to make this work because they're the ones having to work behind the scenes to get classrooms cleaned and get classrooms booked and they've done an excellent job. We did something very new this year. The second item on my list here is the elementary school hot dog cook. And the reason we haven't done it before is because we didn't have the building we have now. So we broke up the building into two parts. If you remember in the past, for those who attended this event, uh we had in the parking lot behind school, which was not the front entrance at that point in time, we had that's where our picnic was. And we had a really hard time keeping track of our kids cuz some of them went to
014the playground. Some of them went home with their parents, some of them were still eating, and some of them were heading back in the building. So, we split them into two bunches. We had a batch in the front and there's no vehicular traffic out there other than buses. And it was middle of the day, so there weren't any buses. And then the other half went to the 4K playground. And it was a huge success. You could navigate the building better with kids cuz he separated them out developmentally and separated the parents out. It was just a much smoother process. Everyone reported it was a much better event than it's ever been. And it's we just didn't have a chance to do it this way until now. We had 600 parents total. So 600 total people,
015parents and family, other family members. So huge success. It was a very very good day. Uh classroom movement. We have about 12 people changing uh classrooms uh based on simply the needs of the building, moving folks around, making sure we have the right number of people for grade level and the other things that we offer kids beyond the classroom experience. So that that's already been done. They all boxed up on that last day in in service and and before and the custodians literally the week after moved all of that stuff to where it needs to be. So there isn't any other movement that needs to occur. So once the classroom is clean and it's not being used by summer school, they're moving in and hopefully will be a much more settled picture of moves in
016the future. But the elementary custodial staff did a fantastic job. In the last, this is my last official board report from the elementary, and I hope for the district's sake that it is my last official board report. As the elementary principal, I I am very excited to begin working with Megan Challenger, our new elementary school principal. And I know that the staff is and the administrative and district team are as well. Uh so this is as my board report says, this is Sean Derler signing off as lean elementary school principal. So there it is. Well, thanks for stepping into that role. It's been a it's been a quite an adjustment for everyone. Me too. You're you're everyone. I got quite an education. And there are many things that elementary school kids say to you that
017you have to take a bit to process cuz I'm not really sure what they're talking about. We're really excited to have Megan start and I'm sure she'll be here in July um with us already been and uh giving the next board report. So we're very excited to welcome her on and I I hope the parents are very excited to see her as well. So it'll be it'll be fun. Yeah. Um Okay. Okay. So, indicator 14, that's one of our special education ind indicators through DPI. And this is um one of my favorite ones to participate in. So, it includes us as a district calling um all students who are spring who graduated a year ago now. And we have to do a survey on what they've been doing um for work, are going to school,
018um are they taking over their financial situation, are they taking over their healthcare? So, we get to talk with the graduates or their family members and ask questions. So, I'm actually doing those surveys this summer. um and we get a reimbursement for that. But um started today and had some fun conversations. So it's always just fun to hear what they're they're up to. Um we also are kind of um improving our adaptive FIAD services that we have in the district. Um we need to kind of make them a little bit more robust. So I met with the FIAD team um that last day of school staff inservice kind of talk about what it could look like, what it should look like. We got some assessment documents put together. So, I was super excited after I
019left that meeting because I wasn't sure and they were hitting the ground running already without me. So, um I'm excited to see some services kind of put back in place for some students. Um and Jess kind of talked about our edge climber um training that we've been doing as an admin team getting that ready and then the PLC institute and a big thank you for letting us go to that learn. It was my first time actually I've never been as a teacher or a director and so um wow it was incredible. It was so good. Yeah. So good benefits. All right, thanks you guys. See, even in summer still busy. All right, off to um the achievement gap reduction report with Mrs. Droio and Dr. D. Sure, I can start. Um so each year we
020we look at the achievement gap reduction report. So, the AGI report is a program um that allows participating schools to um have some have some funding to be able to allocate to be able to support um readers. And so, v via this program, we are to have implement one of three rationale and strategies of of of what are we going to do to commit to closing gaps within our K through um three students. And so, our commitment has been three. We only have to do one of these, but we do do three. And so our commitment as a district has been to smaller class sizes, um professional development, rigorous curriculum, and then also finally small group instruction. So that would be your RTI time. Um so we use FastBridge as our assessment system. You'll notice
021the K1 students have a different assessment. They have early reading, English, and early math. And then uh second grade, we have fast bridge. It should say a reading and a math. Those are the screeners that we use. Um so we did talk about the fall data. I believe we talked about that in January or February. Um and then we come to you after spring benchmark. And so here we are at spring benchmark time talking about the growth that was made. Um so as you can see when we look at kindergarten that's your first row um starting at 89% going to 64% 84% in math and going to 81. So our goal as a district is 80% of our students will be at or above the 30th percentile. uh many districts, many screeners do the 20th
022percentile. So from 0 to 19.99 would be considered a student that is very high risk. High risk in terms of reading and math. We take it upon ourselves to include that 20% to that 30%. That drives what we do. That drives our response to intervention. Um that is our goal as a district is that the the 30th percentile is is what we go for. So it's it's a it's a high benchmark, but it's something that we've historically done as as long as Cheryl was here reporting too and and then when she mentored me as well, we continue with that percentile. Um so you can see the the gains uh that were made or or not main made. Um looking at this, you know, we we had some reduction in students that achieved that percentile. Um
023I spent time with Krie Shu, which is our reading specialist, as well as Mr. Derk just talking about um some strategies that we can implement but then also understanding that in a fastbridge assessment you are not assessed in the fall with with the goal of being the spring assessment it's computer adaptive curriculum based measure. So that means that as a student learns um computers adapting to what the end goal would be. So some some students that take these assessments will end much sooner than another student that will be pushed further on and then the program will actually do um a rate an ROI is called which is a rate of improvement. So what is their personalized goal when they're done so we look at that a lot um we use fast bridge three times a
024year you will see two two times a year reported here. Um so I shared with you kindergarten first grade when you look at reading in the fall we had 74% of our students at or above the 30th percentile. When we finished the year, we had 52% of our students at or above that 30th. In mathematics, we started the year at 79%, we ended the year with 71% at or above. Second grade reading, we started at 61% at or above the 30th, ended with 71% at or above the 30th. Mathematics, uh, 74% in the fall, 83% at or above the 30th percentile. And then looking at third grade which does include monastery as well in the fall we had 59% at or above the 30th in reading and finished with 69% and then in math 80%
025at or above the 30th and end of the year uh with 72% at or above the 30th percentile. So this data drives what we do. I'm looking forward to collaborating with Megan um and with Pure isue to talk about instructional practices, response to intervention times and and groupings um just in terms of small group instruction during RTI. So I I look forward to collaborating with them. I I see a sliver of here at third grade. Um but it's important to me that we're looking at the K2 instructional practices, too. This is also us finishing up year three of HMH. Um and so that's been a good support to us as well. Do the do the percentage drops surprise you or does the curriculum change enough that you you would see a drop? Is it getting
026harder? I mean it does, right? The concepts they they they do get harder as they go. Um I will say when I look in particular at kindergarten, those are skill-based assessments. So that means when you come in the fall, you know, there's a benchmark of how many letters you should know in the fall. Obviously that's going to increase in the spring. the letter letter identification in the spring for a kindergartener should be much higher. Um the words they know in the fall versus the spring should be much higher. And I would say the same for first grade. I always acknowledge that in first grade in particular, you know, students can come in 74% of our kids can come in in the fall right where we need them to be. But but the but the intense
027first grade is a tough grade. That's where you learn to read. So the intensity from coming in and you need to know eight site words to the end of the year, you're reading a chapter book. That's a huge gap, right? I mean, we're that's a lot that's that's a lot that we're asking our kids to learn to read and and not that they can't, but there's a lot of skill that goes into that. This um to me was surprising to to see where we ended in the spring. Um I think Megan and I are looking forward to collaborating and talking a lot about using the resource. We now have three years under our belt. Um acknowledging that we have new new staff that we need to circle back with and and do some training on
028as well. Um but not to say that a lot of learning didn't happen. A lot of great things did happen in the year as well. My estimation having spent the last six months sort of at ground zero for what's taking place at the elementary as as building principal in the two years prior to this year. I think the elementary staff up to and including the building principal spent a lot of time chasing behaviors. And when you're chasing behaviors, you're going to have a very difficult time instructing your kids because it's learning loss. They're not in classroom or they're off task while in classroom when others are too. And teachers are as well, chasing behaviors. And that I think is playing out here in a poor way. We made a tremendous amount of progress in the
029last six months in regards to behaviors. Abby and I sit on what's referred to as SST, which is a student success team. And we had whittleled that list down to really just 10, 12 or so kids. And you're always going to have some kids that are going to have struggles behaviorally. And we are back at where we need to be in regards to onpoint work with uh literacy of kids. And Megan Challenger is going to take us places in a real big hurry. And it's going to be done not because of Megan, it's going to be done because of her leadership of an excellent staff. An elementary staff knows how to teach. they just didn't have the ability to do it as much as they should have in those two years. That's my estimation. I
030could be wrong, but I don't think I am. My my absolute initial reaction, you know, wasn't a secret that when third grade started with us two years ago, I shared with you just how uh impactful that was, right? That we were teaching kids how to go to school, that we were really trying to manage behaviors as incoming third graders. That that that was something um that was a challenge for us. and and and so I I would absolutely agree that behaviors have to come before academics, right? If kids can't stay in class and teachers can't focus on what they do and their expertise, that that greatly impacts that. And Jessica are not saying that as an excuse. It is not. No, I'm saying that as an explanation. And I could interrupt, but again, I don't
031think that I am. There's work to be done. Certainly, I I will I'll agree to all of that. And I'll say that the third grade though has made great gains even though we knew that that was a tough class coming into this school. And then of course that transition from one building to another um is always hard for kids just in general. But then new expectations and um even though we didn't hit that 80th uh that 80% of the 30th uh percentile, we still saw great gains in that class in reading math. um actually not so much of a decline if you're looking at just number of students. So um that I would say is you know a win in and of itself to say that you know things are doing well here um at
032the intermediate school. Obviously there's been a lot of things going on at the at the elementary school, a lot of um roles and things that have changed and I think we've made interventions for that to happen there um for things to get by. How does this um how do you feel about I'm never one to lower the bar at the end. Has the um end goals always stayed has they stayed the same or have we gotten has the bar gotten higher at the end goal in the spring over the last several years? This has generally been what's been in place for the better part of two decades? Like I know the parameters have been, but what I'm asking is like what we're asking to do. So if you you have if they're coming in and
033add just learning how to know eight site words to a chapter book has it always been the end goal a chapter book? Yes. Okay. So the end goals haven't changed. Correct. And I do think you know I I do think students are arriving in our district to our buildings with different skill sets than what we have seen. And so when we talk about new curriculum and pieces that are embedded in it, a lot of times we're going back because it is it's it's a rigorous curriculum, which is great, but we are having to play a lot of catch-up with kids. And so what we notice as well is that gap gets gets bigger. You've got some kids that come in with a lot of skill. You got a group of really high skill kids and
034then you've got, you know, a group of kids that really have really minimal skills. So that that gap is getting bigger. And so, um, I know Abby and I have talked a lot about too just that that small group response to intervention. So, using our data to say, you know, Jess needs help on decoding. We're going to make a small group of kids over here that are going to decode and we need to carve out time for that. And and I'm thankful that we as a district have prioritized that. And so, there are RTI times within that, but we need to build our toolbox, too, because kids are coming with different skills. So that UFly training that I talked about earlier, training 22 people is a lot, but that program is generally intended for a
035K2 program. But what we're seeing is that we use it here in third grade to support our our readers. We're using it in fourth and fifth. We're talking about middle school teachers having it because, you know, kids just have gaps in their learning. And that's that that does present a challenge. I think most teachers would tell you that's one of the most challenging parts about their job is that you have, you know, a kid really high and you've got a kid that needs a lot of languages. How do you how do you bring those together and still teach a whole group of 18 kids at the same time? Um, and the social emotional needs we have kids coming with different needs than we used to have to. And so I think that's impact on what's
036happening in classrooms and teachers having to navigate those needs while trying to continue to raise academic and we're not alone. No, right. This is this is spot on for education at this moment with the the ability of having several first grade teachers, several second grade teachers. Is there an option or maybe that just helped me kind of know what that day looks like? Is there options to grouping those K like similar ability kids with similar ability kids even if it's not their classroom teacher if they have to swap? Is there ability to do that rather than just like having to pull out group of I mean I know it's kind of the same but we did that at the beginning of last year in math in second grade. Lynette Wentz took all of the kids
037that were struggling in math and she pulled them out and they were four different maths four different classrooms. Lynette had all of them and she was remediating that group of kids in the area of mathematics. So it does happen. Okay. You got to be smart about it. That's not that's a tough thing to make work well. And actually um when I was teaching at the elementary e um the schedule that was built there in Cheryl's time it was called wind times. That stands for what I need now. So that was actually built in twice a day. And so for 30 minutes two times a day kids were going to groups based on skill level. Um which which was fantastic. I mean that that was hugely impactful here. Um I I give a ton of credit
038to my third grade teachers here. when I arrived here four years ago, um we weren't doing RTI, didn't look like that. And so that actually this is year two of a full implementation of RTI here. So meaning all of our third grade teachers sit down with title and they say this group of kids needs this, this needs this, this needs this. And so from 2:30 every day, Monday through Friday, um each group, each teacher gets a different group of kids, you know, maybe one of theirs or maybe five of someone else's and they're all working on just that skill. So the grouping viability um is is something huge. I I I do believe we got away from that doing it twice at the elementary and I will absolutely actually meet with Megan tomorrow. absolutely talk
039to her about are we using the RTI time as effectively as we could um and looking at looking at the master schedule to say is there time that we can embed that back in because it it it does make it easier for teachers if I just have to focus on these five kids kids with these five skills versus trying to you know have have a whole 18 that are in different learning curve it's so hard for the kids and frustrating for the kids and for I think our teachers so yeah it'll be great to see what Megan and gatherings to the table. Obviously, you can't make decisions without her input at this point. But that'll be the good thing about having to start very soon. You don't you just talk, Larry. Just talk. Just talk.
040Just talk over me. If you wait for me to see your hand up, you'll be waiting on that. I know who the person was in class back. when you have behavioral issues that are affecting the learning process and and it's probably changes from classroom to classroom group of kids. Are are you able to utilize aids to assist those teachers in addressing those behavioral issues or I can speak to the elementary they're fantastic. Yes, absolutely they are. They are they are worth their weight and gold with a kid. Absolutely. because they have relationships with kids that a classroom instruct instructor may not have and they will do all of that work and get them right back plugged in. Yes, absolutely. But do we have an adequate supply of those? We have there's never an adequate supply
041based on the the rising need of kids, but I believe we're well staffed in the area of AIDS, whether it be in a general ed class or a special ed class. I can't speak to the intermediate, but I know there's they're worth their weight goal, too. I would absolutely agree. Um, I would absolutely agree. We have really great systems of of behavior. Aby's been nothing but a huge asset and her team as well. Um, and so we do we do have our systems in place when a student is disregulated or needs support that we we absolutely have that system in place. I would imagine a small number of students causing problems could affect the whole classroom. I've always I've always said it's not how many you've got, it's who you've got. and you could have
042the wrong two or three and you're going to be in trouble. But just what the theme is with the academic art and other behavior systems put in place to help respond. Our counselors are fantastic in responding to students um who have some needs. So those pieces are put in place too to help respond to that. And so here at VIS um 276 kids we in title one. So that means mostly reading students that that needed additional supports we were servicing in the year in in in one day we were servicing 89 kids a day in title. So onethird of our students were getting title one services with a really highly qualified instructor move here in this building two at the elementary. Um but you know kids are just they're they're presenting differently and so how
043do you build those supports in and um realizing that they bring a lot from home as well that's on their plate and how do we love them and teach them um and then close the gaps that we need to data wise as well. It's a big challenge. It is. I'm going to ask an unpopular question but I don't mean anything negative by it but is there any reflection of the teachers in this? There has not been yet. Um I I look forward to meeting with Megan. I do think um having her well aware of our of our data. Again, you know, my role director of curriculum instruction is to look at this as a whole and say, how are our instructional practices? What are our resources? So, that's going to be really important to me
044to sit down with Megan and say, you know, this is what we have. This is what we need to do. But I do think it's important to have a conversation um with the K through3 teachers to say, why why do you think what did you see? Right? how are we functioning? Um, and and knowing that we're in year three of of HMH, I feel very lucky that there's generally something called a curriculum dip. So, they say the first three years of a new curriculum, you will see a dip in your scores. We did not see that year 1 and two. Um, the program was familiar to us. We have a lot of professional development. Um, so this is the first time that I've seen I've seen a dip. Um, and and you know, I do
045think it requires us to go back to the drawing board just and reflect, right? just reflect on what our practice is and Megan will be a big part of that. But then also have teachers be a big part of that. And I'm not suggest suggesting there that there's bad teachers here. I'm suggesting that are is there can the data lead you to identifying a teacher that just might need some additional training or or services to help move that number forward. some something that's a big piece of PLC that that we went to was really finding your um so we should be looking at data and we should be able to look at a class and say you know this class really performed well on this assessment and rather than going and saying what are the
046kids doing you actually go back and you say how did this teacher teach it because man they rocked it right so this teacher did really well now we need to use this teacher to model for the other teachers what they did and so we always the answers in the rules we have in-house experts. Now, it's just finding that time and creating that environment where we can put staff together to say, you know, Steve's really good at teaching this and Jess is really good at teaching this, so let's go in and let's watch each other. And um you know, that hasn't been happening. Uh I will say at the elementary that hasn't been happening. And so we do need to get back to that that that point of finding our experts inside and and letting them
047model what's working. And that's that's the whole idea of those PLC's that are those part of that big agree that we talk about and that has to happen at every building all the time. It has to it just has to happen and um we'll be actually be meeting um as a board and discussing more about that u in July as well and you'll be hearing obviously more about that as an administrative team and we look forward to keep building those things too. So, the best thing is another is another educator by far. Right. When I when I get to collaborate with another leader, I'm just I'm so excited because they bring things that you just don't see. So, so yeah, I think that's a great idea. I have another question how that how this would
048translate to um act 20, but I'll I'll hold off on that until we get to act 20. There are other people in the room that would like to leave tonight. Speaking to that, is it possible to move up these two gentlemen over here, Jeff and Dylan? I have I have no problem for these two as much last long. We already covered this last year. I feel I feel bad for him. In your presentation, Logan will likely meet these two. Okay. Is there I don't know if that's okay with you guys. Yeah. Is there any objection to moving uh leave home up tonight for that liability? These guys Jeff and Dylan. Oh, I'm sorry. Oh, if we don't, please get it. We'll sit in the corner for a while. Any any objections to the agenda that
049tonight? A little off schedule. Any objectives? Okay. We will we will carry on with that. Is there any more um discussion on the achievement gap report for Jessica or Sean? All right. And then we'll move along to where are you? The WIAA membership renewal. I have to look. It's a long division. Oh, I do have to make a little side note as you make your way to the podium is that there Okay, maybe Becky and John are tag teaming this camera operator tonight, but we are missing our regular camera operator. So, for those that are going to be watching this online later or on cable TV later, and I know people do, you don't gener you you generally get to see what's on the screen and I don't know that that's coming through tonight. Is
050that right, Becky? That's correct. It's not. So, it's um it's just because we're missing our normal camera operator. Um and so all of these documents can be found in board book or be given upon request um if anybody wants to see these documents, but that's that's the only difference tonight in the broadcast if you're watching this later. So, okay, WIAA membership renewal. So, we'll try to articulate well here. So, we have 20 different sports on the screen right now that we are looking to compete next year per the WIA. Dylan wants a job next year, too. Be nice. So, this is just an annual blessing that we need from the board. Um, there's nothing new in terms of what we're adding. The last sport we added was girls wrestling and we had three girls wrestlers
051last year and we had a female head coach. So, promising. I would say in the world of athletics, some schools do not have girls wrestling. Some schools are pushing a full roster. We're kind of in between there as we look to grow that program. I will say with our enrollment, we do offer as many sports as we can in the middle border conference. Um we do have some areas we're always looking to increase our numbers. It's kind of like an ongoing battle. Um there's roughly 70 coaches that take up those 20 programs along with middle school. And I think we're in a really good spot with our coaching vacancies at this point. So just remember Dylan will still have a job. There's other duties that you have other True. Yes. you have other things to
052do. So, um obviously every year um every school district has has to make a motion and decide whether they are going to be participants um and members of the WIAA. That um per our policy then tells us that we are subject to all of the WIAA regulations and rules um going forward in sports. So whatever their rulings are of who participates, how it's participated in, and what their rulings are versus on um I want to say uh admission, enrollment, eligibility, uh tournament play, all of those things. The school district relinquishes that control to the WIAA. So they have the final word. Um, and I just wanted to make obviously Larry and April hasn't participated in this conversation before, so wanted to make you too aware of how that works. Um, obviously there are um issues
053across the board of sports and athletics. And if that if anybody wanted to address that at this point, that would be the time. But this would be your time to think about that we do relinquish that control to the WIAA. I would just add if we don't participate in the WIA, there's nobody to play. That's correct. I just want to make sure that I don't see a a legitimate alternative. A lot of scrimmaging. Yeah. Yeah. And and it would be like and when you talk about scrimmaging, it's it's literally you're just your own school playing your own school because I believe you can help me out with this if I'm wrong, but if you are a member of the WIAA as a school district, you can't you participate outside of the WIAA in scrimmages? there's
054certain there's certain rules and regulations I can track they can go to two events that are non WIA sanctioned but there's a lot of restrictions eligibility u nuances uh there's situations every year that you guys will probably hear of as school board members that we literally have no control over and the WI is making overarching decisions so we do defer to them but it's part of being a part of their membership they'll admit it's not perfect um But it gives us an opportunity to play and compete. My recommendation would be to vote yes. That's a safe recommendation. It is. I just want to I just want to be completely transparent and that if anybody wanted to have that conversation, this is the time to have it because we only vote on this once and I
055don't know that you can pull your membership to the WIAA mid season. I don't know that that's ever been done. Um, so I just want to I just want to have that. I guess a better question would be is as as an athletic director um do all the athletic directors get together and meet and have conversations about I mean do you have any driving information that you share with WIAA leadership? Yeah. So we we have like we have middle order conference meetings six times out of the school year. Uh we also attend like conferences throughout the year and then we also have a WI membership meeting that we travel to Stevens Point and hot topics will be presented and then we vote on as a membership. Um might be uh coaching contact days is a
056recent change in the WIA. A lot of times people will give the WI flack on their stance on something. I can tell you that they just facilitate conversations and the membership folds. So NIL is another one. Um, so yes, we do have conversations throughout the year and there are avenues to relay information. So, so to the point of, you know, some of the conversations that we had about some things that went on last year with WIA WIAA, it's not that it's not that we're completely excluded from having a potential um voice in changing the direction of the WA. The membership has a vote. Yeah. Yep. The membership district that represents it, right? Right. So, I just hope those conversations are are happening and that the leadership is really taking those conversations under and there's a
057board of control in in in my world and there are representatives from this C7 are on the board of control in Madison is the superintendent and prior to that Eric Russell is Ellsworth super y yeah there's coaches committees there's there's a lot very extensive network yeah so that's good right Because I think that there might be a thought out there that WIA just does its thing and you're completely complicit. You have to be complicit to it. Otherwise, sorry, you can figure something else out, right? But um knowing that there's a an opportunity for a voice out there, I would make a motion that we move forward with it again. I'll second that. Okay. It's been properly moved and seconded to um accept WIAA membership renewal. Um, I'm going to ask for any further discussion and
058that discussion is going to be led quickly by me. Uh, Jeff, can you speak to NIL uh concerns at the high school level, what those rulings have looked like? Um, now with WIAA, do you have any information on that? So, in April, the WI uh approved the NIL and the membership voted for it. And two years ago, we voted for it, but it was very new information. Um, it was sprung on us, I would say, a month before we actually voted and people were really uncomfortable. If we didn't vote this through, the state was going to come through with their ruling and it would been really vague. Currently, there's a ton of restrictions on NIL. So, you can't be a graduate of Amry and give a NIL deal. You can't have ever donated money to
059the school district. Um, you can't wear your Amry uniform. I'm I'm trying to think of ways where you could receive money and be an athlete and be eligible to play WA athletics. One thing I thought of is if you um play for like a club team and somebody purchases your uniform that has no connection to the school district, has never graduated from here, has never donated, that would potentially be a possibility, but it can't be any Avery gear. Um, we will not have people driving Chevy Silverados from Avery Chev school because they're a premier athlete. But there just a ton of restrictions and there was there was a lot of urgency to pass it because they wanted to make it super restrictive. If they felt like if the state came out with their NIL recommendation
060and passed it, it would be very open and it would be a little bit of a circus like you kind of see in the collegiate world. No way. You're going to tell me that the state would be vague. No way. Yeah, I have a hard time believing that. Uh, do we see an impact moving forward on athlet on athletes moving school districts? Anything for their name image like this? I mean, it doesn't I I think it's really new to everybody right now. I think we're trying to see how this is going to fit in I'll say rural Wisconsin, small town Wisconsin. Um, we will update our athletic code with some verbiage in there recommended from the WA. Uh, the middlewater conference. Uh we do have a consultant that if we do run into an NIL
061situation with a student athlete, we can work with the consultant to make sure we're in compliance. I think the thing is to broker out the issues happening at the college level before they do the high school level. Well, that's why the college level is a circus beyond belief right now. Well, and that that's why I asked because there just the whole that whole circus that extends around that. And then obviously we pumped out some pretty good athletes lately. I mean, we just, you know, had Kelly here tonight. You know, we look at Luchi, we look at, we've got an Olympic wrestler. I mean, we've pumped out some pretty good athletes. So, I'm just wondering what that impact would look like to the district. So, I think it's still I think it's still really new. Um,
062and you know, the athletic directors continue to bounce ideas off of each other, but I don't believe we actually have a single athlete that is that we've shared information with that has signed the NIL. I think the hardest thing is is to get kids to communicate with us that they may or may not be involved in an NIL situation, you know, so you can't just kind of like go and do your own thing, you know, we got to make sure that you're in compliance and following the not that there's not an option for it. There there is, but it's super restrictive. Okay. And if they don't report that, does that make them ineligible for if they're in violation? Yep. Okay. because we'd hate to enter into that situation that all of a sudden something happened
063and yeah, you know, but I I would assume even there's like there's there was a parent meeting, okay? So, we had to consult and facilitate a parent meeting. So, we can of course no parents attended the meeting, but we can send that video out. I don't know how many people watch the video, but maybe having like an NIL resource on our web page could be beneficial. The big thing is to just come to us and have a conversation and then we because we're going to need some professional development on that as well. Yeah. So, okay. Well, lots of changes, lots of things are still up in the air. Yep. Okay. Any other discussion on the WIAA membership approval? Okay. Hearing none, we'll proceed to vote. All those in favor of uh renewing our WIAA membership,
064please signify by saying I. I. I. All those opposed, please signify by saying no. Motion passed. Dylan, you got part of your job. Sweet. Thank you guys. And Mr. F, thank you for your service and we wish you well. Your your contract is over on June 30th and you're leaving us for bigger and better things. Well, I guess I will say Andrew's been really good to me and I would say the last six years working with this group and Pam Robarge and Joe Jackson and Mr. Gold, everyone's treated me really well. here and so I couldn't ask for a better experience and I will continue to say high things about the school district of memory moving forward here and I'll still have lawn awards with Dylan. Nice. My lawn looks better than Dylan's lawn. I
065got photos approved. Look forward to my uh working with Mr. Gold on the officiating side of things. Um you know continuing those relationships and I joke that I hope I get to sell everybody's real home now. So I wasn't going to give you the plug. I thought better of it to give you the plug, but I Okay, I guess we don't self self plug. I guess that's all right. Well, we wish you we wish you best and I'm sure your pads will cross Amry again. So, you guys are good. Top down after it's coming out. Thank you. All right. Thank you. Thanks, guys. Okay, back on track. Sorry guys, I'm going to have to sit there a little little bit longer, but we'll get you. We're good. Okay. Like, stop asking questions. Like, you can
066just move on. Okay, building and grounds update with Dr. D. Okay, building and grounds. We have our committee back in formation. Uh Ryan Peas, our grounds director, George Sigworth, our buildings supervisor, will join uh Steve Oone and Larry White check for building and grounds. The dates of our meetings over the course of the next uh year are noted there. Please note on the times in July and August, we're able to meet from 4 to 5. Starting in September, Ryan drives bus and he is not available until 4:30. This will be from 5 to 6:00 September through May. We meet for an hour and uh we go on campus where the high need is. Uh we spent a lot of time on our athletics on our referendum work and uh we'll set new priorities moving here
067into uh building the grounds work in the month of July. You know, you could have told me that when I was an intern I know. Sorry. Sorry. You don't strike me as a paper kind of guy. I guess I said you're digital. I did. I've got all my candles candled already, but I got to shift it in. Oh, that that hit the button. Tough button's going to be tough. Don't Don't hurt your fingers. I'll get through it. I believe in you. Early literacy remediation plan. You're just, you're done tonight. I am. That's all right. Um, so per Act 20, each school district in the state of Wisconsin has to have an early literacy remediation plan. So this, um, I am just bringing to you. I want you to be well informed about act 20 um
068how we are in compliance but also um I guess the uh well how big act 20 has been uh for our title one team our administrative team on myself um so we have to have an early literacy remediation plan um we we were fortunate to work with CISA to have a have a pretty good framework to be able to lay out so what sits in front of you um is our remediation plan it is linked on our district website as it has to um within here, this is a a guiding document for us, but also a great resource um for parents as well. And so it talks about uh different sections. So you'll see the first section, I'll just walk you through each section and tell you a little bit about what's in there. So
069within section one um is local systems and structures. And so um we talked about our district mission, but then also what is our processes here? What are we committing to do? Um, this is tied to our PRPs, which is a first language reading plan. Um, you'll see there's a lot of different embedded links. So, we have to embed the ELA standards. This is on on page two. Um, also the WEIMO, so Wisconsin model early learning standards. Um, and then the WIDA as well. Um, there are certain components within act 20 of our curriculum. So, that's our curriculum requirements. um our instructional framework. So what do we do during our day and then how are we using our curriculum. So um within that bottom page two talks about what are the programs that we use um
070in terms of core curriculum. Um and then we also within here do have uh tier 2 resources which for those kids that are making those gains we talk about what are the programs that we use. Um section two is our strategic assessment systems and communication plans. So it talks about um our reading readiness screener as web plus which is the act 20 screener as well as fast bridge and and when our students are screened. So that's in section two. Um on the back um so on page four we do have a beautiful flowchart um which hopefully is a good resource uh for anyone on the district website. So it just walks through um what do we do when so some of the AGR reports that we just talked about if you have school students that
071are falling below the 30th percentile what are we going to do so you can see on that left side and I'll walk you through per 20 um what do we what do we have to do there are tight timelines so you can see that's described on there as well so um we do have to screen our students within 45 days of the first day of school and um 45 days before the last day of school. So, we have we have that window on both sides of the start and the end of the school year. Um, that's laid out here as well. And it also talks about our communication with parents. So, not only do we give assessments if a student doesn't do well on an assessment, we then have more diagnostic screeners, we create a
072plan and we will send that home to parents to let them know as well. So, that's all within section two. Um, when we look at section three, so this is the meat of what are we doing? So, if a student is not making the gains um that they should be or with their grade level peers, what are we going to do? Um we have a really robust menu of tools that we use. And so, those are described here. Um you'll see that there's different ones for different grade levels. So, depending on what is the skill that a kid is missing, we'll talk about what intervention program are we going to use. So, you can see those laid out on the bottom of page five. Uh and then that goes uh through all of page six
073actually. So, we have a huge commitment to knowing their kids and what do we need to do if they don't know it. We're we're very good at that. We also have great data to support them as well. Um, talks about progress monitoring. So, that's our commitment um that at least once a week we are progress monitoring a student to make sure that they're getting what they need and that they're making forward progress. Um, page seven talks about our personalized reading plan. So, again, that's for a student that's at risk. we will develop a personalized plan for them of what are we going to do. Um and then you can see in red the promotional policy which will be next step on the agenda with me. Um and then page eight is section four. So we
074do have to have a commitment to family community engagement and so that is tied to our title one parent and family engagement policy but then we also have different strategies of how we're going to engage with families at home. So, um, having, you know, home and school connections, we have community involvement and literacy nights as well as mathematic nights. Um, and then continuous feedback. That's on page eight. And then finally on page nine, um, we talk about how are we using our data and so making sure that we're doing the annual reports for 20, but then also making sure that we are reflecting on our instructional practices and our core resources as well. So again, this was I just I want you to be well informed um of what act 20 is required for us.
075Um and this was a huge piece of work that that was completed. It is on the website. Um Tracy, I greatly appreciated it. She's taken many emails from me. We do have a curriculum instruction um page within our website now. So if you click on that, that'll have all the act 20 documentation as well as our title one documentation. Do you get audited? There are. So I have been told that there are no act 20 police but but this was this was big. This was well it is it reminds me of what we do in business with you know ISO certification and talking about what we're going to do but then there has to be the followup of actually proving to somebody that you're doing what you're talking about you're going to do right so
076is it all internal audits or is there something from the outside? Well I can assure you nobody internally audits us more than this one does. No, I'm I'm very well and I say that as a compliment. Yeah. Yeah. You must see someone that takes it seriously right here. This is us. I think what Act 20 has done it to benefit to us is it's made us put it down and be sure we're doing what we've said all along we're doing. We're this is this is not just verbage. We're this is what we're doing and we've been doing for a long time. We continue to add the list. Jessica is just the one that organized it and put it on spot by mandate and we didn't have time laying around to do this. This was our
077mandate. So I think that's been a very big benefit. The other big benefit I believe is having to assess our kids and making sure they are above that 25th percentile. It's made us double and triple and quadruple down on the kids that we thought were having struggles. Now we really, really, really, really don't at every level that they are assessed. So there's been benefit in that. The benefit hasn't been you're not doing your job, but I want to get going. We were, but now we we know, we've articulated that we've laid it out. So I think there's been a benefit in that. You know, I do have to say as somebody who's sat on board for a lot of years, had kids go through this. I mean, this isn't really anything new that's foreign to
078this district and um obviously set up by some pretty good predecessors and you've followed suit and and learned and and went and expanded above and beyond. Um obviously it's just just what I was going to say that that Sean said just a matter of compiling it things that we've already been doing. The the the bigger component that I see that's the new part is the fourth grade promotion piece of this morning. Um but this isn't this isn't new. this is all things that that you've done, but it's laid out very very well and um I thank you for continuing uh dedication to doing what we've said and that's that's where our mission I it's it I love that you started that with our mission because it's always it's been the mission this has been our
079mission statement for the district for probably a good 20 years now. So, and I think it's been lived. Any question? Any more questions for Jess or comments on what is morphology? Um, morphine is um the meaning of morphine. Morphology, phonetics and morphology. Morphology is how a word is used. Is that right, Abby? Like in ination? Morphe is is a taking pieces of the word and and making a complete word. I'm not sure. So that's why it's the structure of words and and how they derive from and how they can go into structure single mean single use of meaning. Yeah. It's a smaller piece of meaning that works. Yeah. We're used to the big this is the best class right here. Yeah. ask questions. I love it. I hate people that answer their own questions. No,
080and Charlie, you're exactly right. When we talk about, you know, all the processes of learning, these are some some are foundational, some are more of your higher level thinking and reading skills, but we've we've been doing this. And so, um, now just to have a plan and a commitment to it, um, that we can share out with people in a beautiful color document on our website. Um, to me it it it's worth doing it. It really is because we were doing the good work and now we just have the evidence to say we are so much good about it. All good things. Anything else for us there? I'm I'm only as going back to the whole audit thing. I'm assuming then obviously you've been doing it forever. That's what has been said. But yeah, by
081X20, do you have to circle back around and and audit yourself to say that we are doing those things? You know, there's been some old personal checks. CISA has been great with working with us, checking in on us. What do you need? Where are you at? Every district was in such a different spot. I told Sean right away in the fall. I just said, I'm I'm super confident. Like I we are we are in such a good spot. A lot of districts right now are scrambling to find a curriculum. We have great curriculum that we bought three years ago and now they're talking about what are you doing for interventions? We have a menu of inter interventions that we've been committed to. So we were we've just been in a really great spot. So there
082was no there were districts that didn't have screeners that we've been doing that didn't do fast and and we've had them right. So we we really are innovative when we say that we're we're committed to growing students. This wasn't this wasn't a response from us. This was not let's just put it all together. Um so I would say CISA has been great in guiding us. I I greatly appreciated that there's been a lot of collaboration with other curriculum instruction directors. Um, you know, we we have been fortunate to submit to the DPI for some reimbursement of fast brid fast bridge screeners. So, we do have to have that piece um because one of the approved diagnostic screeners is fast bridge which we have which we use. So, we were able to claim some of that
083money back because we were using it. So, there's little checks and balances like that to make sure that we're doing it. by and to Jess's point too, one of the things that was great because of the speed that we were able to actually act on stuff that we had already been doing such as utilizing top 10 tools, we were able to take advantage of the really very very tail end of Esser to basically pay for that bulk upfront cost of sending some roughly 30 educators through that top 10 tools um type situation, which has been great. And I know there's a lot of districts that weren't able to do that and they're having to put the 20, 30, $50,000 bill, however much it is, just to be in compliance on that one area of act
08420. So looks like we're well ahead of the curve. I applaud you for what you're doing. Yeah. And that, you know, that was Larry, you obviously I don't think none of you were here um when we voted through the HMH curriculum. That makes me feel really old and I've only been sitting in this chair for seven years. But um when that curriculum was voted through, that was um because of such a strong u voice from all of our educators really. I mean there was there was a little bit of polarization there but most the bulk of our educators at that time spent two years on that. Yeah. Really wanted one year two years. It it was a it was a huge undertaking to research both of those curriculums and which direction we started with 12.
085They had 12 options and they paired it down all the way to the one they chose. That was a monster decision led by Cheryl Jessica uh at that time that was really big. Yeah. Yeah. So yeah, that was I mean all of the all of the work goes to our educators who spent volumes of time going through those curriculums and trials and implementation there. That was and then it was just kind of the final say that here was our recommendation, but that was a a total team approach. So it was it was fantastic. So we commend the whole team for that. It's been good. All right, John. So I I guess how do you get this dirty work of actually going through the audit anymore? Does the guy not come anymore? Well, did we change
086him away? What happened? No, the the issue has just been timing. So just to to kind of just recap here, just a a couple of changes for fiscal year 2425 and on. The first one has always been um we we primarily have always selected for whatever reason to be audited the the last week in August which makes us one of the later districts to be audited. So the the audit process is a very long and convoluted process. You know everybody always thinks well they're on site for a day. I mean you're talking months and months and months of work and bouncing documents back and forth with each other. Um and so we we've come a long way. One of those things is this week it's August 4th, so it's the first week in August, so
087we're one of the the beginning districts, not the tail end districts. Um, so that'll be huge. So the next year, the intention is to have Jonathan here in front of you guys kind of presenting. Um, and I I won't ever do nearly as good of a job as as he does. Um, they've been wonderful to work for, but work through. Um the issue this year is there was a lot going on in the co-mingling of fund 38, fund 39, fund 49. There was reconciliation between those accounts. Um there was whisk investments. There was just as complicated as school finance can get for a fiscal year. That was 2324. Um where you had some accounts that were intentionally going up that were reported going down, but you had some in the opposite direction. Um, and really
088it's just back to kind of how all this stuff is accounted for. Like I told Larry in in April, uh, at the little educator that we did last Friday, part of the issue is you live in liability accounts and equity accounts. And liability and equity accounts are just rife with just kind of confusing transactions. So, um, essentially what I've kind of prepared here today, um, Tracy's out for the rest of the week. The whole audit will be available on the website here within the next couple of weeks. So, we'll get that all uploaded. Um, I've just kind of cherrypicked just a couple. Um, really the focus on the audit is really on twofold. General fund is the vast majority of it. Uh, and then the second thing of it is what's called the single audit.
089Um, the single audit is as it relates to um, GAP accounting. Um, it's really making sure that we are in compliance with all federal regulations for federally awarding grants. Um, so that comes down to making sure that what I'm claiming is what is actually recorded in our books and then making sure that those are actually allowable expenses. Um, they also go through and make sure that we are in compliance with what's called supplement, not supplant, which is making sure that we are using federal dollars to supplement what we're already doing and not just paying for with those. Um, so the first three pages that I've provided here, and I I'm I'm going to spare you guys the boring boring boring task of going line by line by line, are essentially the first three pages are
090essentially the same information just presented in three kind of different ways with three different snapshots. Um, and they're basically the expense or at the top of the page is always revenues, in the middle of the page is always expenditures, and at the bottom is balances. Um, and so it's just kind of three different ways of looking wholesale at the information. Now, I will call out, um, and you know, this is always a hard one, but I will call out that there is a reduction in fund balance in 2324 that was not budgeted for. The reason for that is because when you look at it, you're going to see that the reduction that we went from 2 almost $2.4 4 million to $1.7 million, which is that number on the far far right side of the
091page. So, you're going to say, why is there $1.1 million fund balance difference? Uh, and there's two reasons for that. The first one, um, because of the way that accounting works in school finance in Wisconsin, we do not have a mechanism in which to warehouse things on the books. So, we made the decision to replace scoreboards. So we replace those scoreboards and we are paying for those via sponsorships from community partners like Lead Home Insurance. That process takes approximately 5 years to be made whole. The only place to warehouse that on the books is in fund balance. And so as a result of that roughly $700,000 purchase, what you'll see is that fund balance will continue to go up just every year as we start to pay off that fund balance, if that makes sense.
092So that's a portion of it. Um the other portion of it was that we made a double contribution to fund 73 via OPED. Um it was just a accidental mistake. Uh happy mistake, not a bad mistake, but a happy mistake. So we essentially overfunded a trust fund for the year. Uh and so next year you will not see that transaction happen. So, it's about $417,000 that you won't see next year coming off of the books because it's already been forecasted and paid for. Um, so, but I do also want to call out that at seven at $1.7 million in available unassigned fund balance, that still puts us well in compliance of our 5% rule that we have as a board policy here in the school district of Amry. Uh, in fact, it puts us closer
093to 10% and what you really want to see is about 10%. Um, so I guess the the big thing is just what what questions do you guys have? Um, you know, the the audit report and the audit findings really do not go into super indepth line by line detail as far as what makes up those expenses. Their job is obviously just to make sure that what I'm saying is an expense is an expense and what I'm saying is a revenue is a revenue. um the last few pages of what I have presented here and what I have prepared for you here. Um the first one is just their statement of finding uh and their statement of finding is that there was no material deficiencies or material issues that were found during the course of our
094audit. Uh and the last two pages are always a fun one. Those are our dings. Um and the dings are the same every single year no matter what we do. The first one is limited segregation of duties. Uh, and the second one is that we pay somebody to do our final entries for us, which is what you're supposed to do, but we all still get dinged on it. Um, so there was no massive um, material adjustments that needed to be made. There was just a lot of kind of figuring out of how these funds all operate together. Um, the good news is is that this year should be a little bit more straightforward now that everything is squared away. Um, but I'm welcome I'm happy to answer any questions that you have. Um, if you
095need more time with this and you want to bring it up at another board meeting, I'm happy to do that as well. Um, it's uh there's a lot of information in there, but might not be the information you're necessarily looking for, if that makes sense. So, the mess that you talked about or the the the weeds you had to trudge through that's related to the referendum dollars and Yeah. And and really kind of what what screwed it up. Um, what really kind of threw a monkey wrench in it is when we did the $5 million borrow. Um, and then if you remember the way that that operated to take advantage of the interest rates is we did a note anticipation note and then we refinanced the note anticipation note to pay off the general obligation
096bonds. And so there's a very complex series of entries that need to get made through this DPI kind of they they kind of walk you through what that needs to be made. And essentially what was missed on there was a very small amount of interest that we actually acrewed between April and June when we refinanced and when we closed on the sale of remote general obligation bonds and that was throwing everything off but there was nothing that was telling us what that amount actually was. Um and then the second one is the is how fund 49 which is how we spend the fund 39 monies. It's they they have to co-mingle, but they didn't necessarily have to co-mingle in a way. As it turns out, the process that was put in place prior to my
097tenure when we did this was a using PMA as our intermediary. So when George would rep would request payment to a contractor, there was this process that we went through, but basically PMA and WHISK were the ones who directly paid our contractors for that. um that is not necessarily the cleanest way of doing it. Appropriate absolutely legal 100%. The cleanest way of actually doing it is actually to use fund 10. So we're cutting the checks for those expenses and we're getting reimbursement from PMA for it because that would that makes the actual entries that need to be made an entry between fund 10 and fund 39 and it completely leaves out fund 49. Once you bring fun 49 into it, your expenses are all there, but there's no revenue. And when you have all expenses
098and no revenue, stuff starts getting a little kind of funky. And so what you'll see is not in this next fiscal year, but the fiscal year after fund 49 will be at zero. It was at $43.5 million two years ago and now it's at zero. And so the it's just all of that co-mingling just makes it really kind of complicated. Um and the auditors just didn't really have a kind of any idea of how to do it. So they had to research it and then um DPI and all their glory and wisdom kind of pointed them in a wrong direction at times and then they were button heads for a little while. So it was an interesting winter to say the least. That's for sure. Um so yeah, does that answer your question? Yeah. Yeah.
099But for the for the general public when you talk about all those funds and all that stuff, it's so different than your personal finance. is so different than business finances. It's a bear on of itself. Correct. And you know, and part of the the problem with fund balance in general is that people don't understand really what the term fund balance means necessarily because you look at that and saying, well, so you you must have misplaced $1.1 million in cash, right? But that's not how fund balance works. It's not like a million $1.1 million got up in the lap. It also doesn't mean that that's $2.7 million of actual cash money that's sitting on the books somewhere or sitting on anything. So, it's really just kind of a number. And the best way of putting it
100is it's the number that you're allowed to go in the whole the next year and still be technically in net zero balance or net zero budget. And I that's not the goal. That's never the goal. Um but at the same point, um you want to keep it as healthy as possible. But that's always a huge one. So yeah, I think Jonathan always says that about 15% is your goal in that fund balance. Correct. Um and generally the district runs between six and 7%. So 10% is actually a step up. Yeah. And and you know the other the other the other questionable variable factors is like fund 27 or special education has to be money to hold at the end of the year. So you can use what you when we go through the budgetary process.
101We know roughly what we're going to get in federal help. We know roughly what we're going to get in state categorical aid. But that number depends on so many different things that you're could you could budget for $1.5 million as your fund 27 transfer. But at the end of the year, we had a kiddo pop up who was extremely high needs, who doesn't fit the window where maybe we had to buy a van and we weren't able to actually get that in in time. And so that $1.6 million becomes 2.1 and fund 10 has to make it whole. And so what happens is if it's not budgeted or if it goes over your expense, which is what it technically is, now you're going to see it impact your fund balance. So, you know, you try
102to safeguard it as much as you humanly possibly can. Um, but at the same time, you know, it is a bit of a moving target. There's many school districts that have fun, which is not even close to where we are. I just like to make sure I feel that. Yeah, we're not there. We're not there. We're not there. We're not there. But I'd be happy to answer any questions now, later, anytime. Those books, the big books are fun for Yeah, I love these things. I I crack them open every June when we get these and just uh sit there and read heavy at night and go to sleep. Great prints on you. I mean, if you're a numbers nerd, I guess they're fantastic. I do I do like the consolidated report. All right, any questions
103for John on the audit? Okay, I think that's enough. Thanks, John. And I think you summarized that and now because you did the audit, you can now talk about the district budget too. Yeah. I just uh I just wanted to prepare a couple of things and and kind of start a conversation and really the the conversation is a little bit less in regards to what In's budget is and more in line with what's happening with the state, what we're hearing, what we're seeing. So I do want I do want to quickly just remind everybody of a couple things that we've all probably talked about a little bit um over the course of the last year or two years. Um the first one is we're in a banial process banial budget process. In the last banial
104budget um there was a lot asked for but at the end of the day there was only really two things that were achieved um off of the governor's list of wants. The first one was a per pupil increase to our revenue limit authority of $325. And the second one was an increase in the minimum uh uh revenue limit ceiling minimum um of from nothing to essentially $10,000. In this bianial process, the DPI and the governor's office were asking for a couple of things um in hoping to take advantage of the $7 billion reported budget surplus. Um the first one would be increasing our special educational categorical reimbursement rate from 30% or roughly 30% to 60% or higher. Um the reason for that is most school districts about a third of our special education budget comes
105straight from the federal government and that leaves fund 10 to pick up the tab for the other two/3. The hope was having the state with increased needs for our students especially our ID and EBD kids and the increasing expenses that are on districts to pick up the little bit that gap of that. What that would have meant to the school district of Amry is essentially about a million million2 on the high side back into our general operating fund if they would have increased that up to 60%. Um that was kind of the first one and arguably that was probably the biggest budgetary impact um that we could have seen. Uh the second one would be increasing their uh per pupil in an additional $334 in fiscal year 26 and $345 in fiscal year 27. Um
106which and then additionally uh raising the low revenue ceiling to $12,400 by fiscal year 27. How that impacts us is, you know, really you look at that and you're like, well, nine bucks and 26 and and ultimately 20 bucks and 27. How does that really impact? Well, 20 times,300 roughly students is not a small amount of money. Uh the bigger one that would have impacted us in that ask would have been actually the low low revenue ceiling because currently we sit at about 11,840ish and so we would have automatically been bumped up to $12,400 just by that going through. Um and then the the the other one that really would have affected us would have been restoring inflation index revenue limits. And as I like I said, this is one that always kind of blows
107people mind, but we divorced from index by inflation index as a state in 2009 and we haven't returned since. So as of 2425, if we just look at inflationary rates and what our increases have been, we're $3,380 per pupil behind where we should be if we were indexed by inflationary spending. So when we start talking about these big picture things, that's really I think the one that's the most shocking to people is that if we would have just stayed married to inflation, as most states are, um we would be $33,800 more per people um better off than than what we are right now. So, unfortunately, we did hear uh last week, Sean and I did hear um that the only thing the state is going to be doing after the meeting of the joint finance
108committee is an increase from roughly 30% to 35% for special education. And that's it. and the $325 that's not money that comes from the state budget. A $325 people and Chris will straight from property tax. So that's being put on the taxpayer. Now that hasn't gone to vote yet. That's a joint finance committee omnibus bill that's specific to education. the budget as a whole has stalled and it's uh the product of a breakdown in communications between the in essence the Senate Republicans and the governor's office and dissension within the the Senate Republicans in regards to what the priorities for budget will be. So there isn't a budget at this point in time for any of the departments, not just education or any of them. July 1st is the start of the next fiscal year. That's
109next Tuesday. So if there's nothing by next Tuesday, the state's simply going to operate on the 2325 framework and continue to proceed forward. But at this point in time, the increase from 30 to 35 is a pittance. And there isn't any of that $7 billion budget surplus in the state of Wisconsin that's being devoted to education. That again is a increase in property taxes of $325 per pupil for every pupil in the state of Wisconsin that property taxpayers are going to be paying. And I think that's where the stall has occurred is people are faulking at that. That would be my estimation, but I don't know that for certain. And and just to to be fair, I I I guess I I said that's the only thing the that's the only thing that directly impacts
110us here in the school district of the only other one that could potentially is a increase in highcost special education claims from 50 to 90%. The problem with that is that the threshold for a high co cost is extremely high. So Abby and I sat down and we sat down and did a whole lot of mathing for two pupils that we have that are technically high needs and it's still it it doesn't even come close to scratching the surface of what what these kiddos needs actually cost us. Um and we are not in the business of denying them those needs. That's for sure. Um so long story short, we're in a holding pattern. We're waiting for a budget. We don't have a budget. We don't know our numbers and nor does anybody else. So, we're
111not unlike anybody else in any work that depends on finance in the state of Wisconsin. So, when they have a budget, then we'll know where we sit and we'll be back here and we'll tell you what that number is. Is it 325? Is there something different? But right now, we just don't know. So what I what I've gone ahead and just prepared just for you guys that's in your board packets is just roughly as it stands today. Where's John at as far as the budgetary process is concerned and what does that look like? Um in the first page you'll see in the top right corner is the rev cap. You know that's where ultimately when I plug in the numbers you can kind of see where it's at. Um, and you know, as you're kind
112of parceling your way through this, again, the reason we don't set our budget in June every year is because we don't get our actual information until August at the very earliest to actually be able to make these types of decisions. We don't know right now what the uh equalized property value increases is going to be event. We don't know right now what our aid calculation is going to be. So that process is going on right now and I think their goal is always a July 1st equalization aid estimate release. Um I just got a call today and was kind of working through a couple of different things with DPI so I know that they're working on it. Um, so that that's the first one and you can kind of just look and see kind of
113more or less revenue-wise what that looks like for us if we just kind of roll forward last year into this year which is essentially what it would be in front 10. Um, as far as pupils are concerned and everything like that. And what you see is really just a a fairly small reduction in what our base allowable revenue would be from 16.264 million to 16.263 263 million. So, we're talking about just a matter of a couple hundred dollar difference there. Um, the hard part here is the fact that our costs are continuing to increase, right? That's the thing that's hard to lose sight of to not to make sure that we're not losing sight of is yeah, our budget isn't getting slashed. We're not losing a ton of money, but our costs are increasing. I
114mean, they just are with inflation and everything. Everything is getting more expensive. Hopefully there is is some remedies for that in this next year. We don't know. That remains to be seen. Um, so that's kind of that first page, the front and the back of that page. It's it's kind of a hard one to print. If I was to actually print this in a way you could do it and make sense of it, it would probably take, you know, four pages of 11 by 17 paper to actually do that. So, if you have any questions with that one, then the other one is just simply the expenses and revenues or I'm sorry, just expenditures. um as it relates to kind of what I'm thinking for this year and what I'm thinking for this year is
115again essentially it is just a uh natural progression like Sean has been talking about as far as salaries are concerned. Um if you look through that first s first part of that first page in the 100s there that's all of our salaries and you'll notice and you might be kind of poke your ears up a little bit to the fact that there is a -2.28 eight when we're when we're suggesting move forward. That's simply because we did save about a half a million dollars. Yeah, there were six budgetary cuts via staff whether that be non-renewal or retirement with a new person hired at less wage because a retiree goes out at the top and a new person may come in at the bottom in wage scale. And all of those six together um you're looking
116at about a $500,000 difference in budget in depositive if you will. And the only in order and you know the big number that you know everybody wants to know is on that very last page where it says surplus or deficit and it of course it does say negative $50,000 there. Um and and I I just as a matter of perspective I just want to make sure people understand you know that's $22 million in a $50,000 budget surplus. So you're talking about hundth of a percent of your total budget. And that number can go in either way, right? So, um the biggest cut that I had to make in order to get to that number is in capital expenses and ultimately in um in buildings and grounds. And we're not talking about massive slashing of of
117anything but $100,000 here, $100,000 there. So, again, the the big thing that this is not going to allow us to do is give anything more than natural progression. And that's really what unless the state comes forward with a different proposal than the 325 then we would be able to do more and that is our hope but again we don't know. We we've talked about those increases you know like a 325 is that 325 increase over what it was last year or is it off of a off so it's off of our base low revenue ceiling. So whatever our base low revenue ceiling was when he did the 325 it's 325 plus whatever that number is. And that number is based off of the 1990. No, that number is based off of 2010. That was an
118act 10. So that's when they locked in where it was. And you know, I I can't say it enough. Thank Thank the Lord that we were where we were when that happened because there was a lot of districts in rural Wisconsin that were well below where we were. I think we were right around $11,000 when that occurred. There was tons of districts that were 7500 $80,000. And so in the last Budget, they got a huge move forward because we pushed that to $10,000. Um but for us that didn't have really any seismic impact for us. Um so you know, again, my goal, my hope was always that maybe they'd look at this and say, "Okay, even half of what is being asked for." Any number of those things would have had great impact on our
119students and our staff and and the school district in general. Um, doing really none of those things is, you know, not really the end of the world for us, but it certainly is for neighboring districts. Certainly. Is there anything that the public can do to talk to their legisl legislator? Contact them and advocate for greater funding for public education if they believe in what we do. Um, because as it stands right now, that's an expense that's being put on them as taxpayer. when you've got a $7 billion surplus in Madison. If you believe in public education, now is the time to let your elected officials know you need to make an investment in these schools. And that in combination with the battery of legislation that's being introduced about your inability to go to referendum, if
120you are not going to fully fund schools and you're going to tell them you cannot go to referendum, how can schools possibly stay afloat? We're in a position not to have to go to referendum very likely for quite a long time, 10, 15 years. But there are many of our neighbors that are going to referendum and this might be their last chance to do so. So if you believe in public education, I would let your elected officials know this is not sufficient. You're asking more of me when you've got $7 billion there. That's not okay. And I know they won't see it quite that simply, but really it is quite that simple. I I think the thing that you know bringing it back to a home level because it's easy to get wrapped up in
121Madison politics and and stuff like that. You know the thing that I always think of a lot and I and I wish we kind of everybody had a better handle on is you know we've got plus or minus300 students but we also have plus or minus 300 payroll staff. So there's 1,600 human beings that are being impacted by this place. 184 student contact days a year. Then when you start talking about each one of those kids likely as a mother and a father, they have grandparents. They have this. When you're talking about a community the size of Amory, it would not I don't feel that it would be hyperbole to say that at least 60% of this population is touched by the school district of Amory one way or the other most of the days
122of the year. And so if you want to see us continue to grow and thrive, those tough conversations need to happen with state legislators to say, "We want our kids to be able to go and and learn how they learn and and be supported by great teachers and great staff and and in a positive environment. Unfortunately, we've tried we did we tried um at the state level the WASPO WA was ASA all of the four-letter and fiveletter groups tried during the last joint committee on finance and instead of increasing the amount of meetings they had and last I checked they decreased. So, we went from many meetings to a lot less. I think they had five this year. It was 14 down to five. 14 down to five. And it was because of an overwhelming
123amount of people that were up there testifying in front of them. I I personally just don't think that's right. I think that that is skirting your your responsibilities as a duly elected, as duly elected representative. Um, but at the end of the day, it's so where's the $7 billion going to go? And I think that's where really people need to start getting a little bit more vocally angry as far as education. We should we should be getting our portion. The kids need it. The teachers need it. The world needs it, frankly. So anyways, is there any lobbying groups besides those? Yeah, I mean I there there's there's absolutely some fantastic organizations out there and we're all members of one or mobile does that does that. um Wisconsin Association of School District Administrators do that. I
124received contacts all the time from them up to an including where the information that I shared came from about they've just canceled their vote because they didn't have consensus and they're not going to vote without a known consensus. So that information literally came in at 2:30 this afternoon. So they're lobbying groups. They're the eyes are upon them. It would seem illogical to me to ask taxpayers to pay $325 per pupil. And this is everywhere, not just a name rate. And then use $7 billion as fill in for property taxpayers. Why would you make them pay now and they give them more later? I don't I don't know how that that seems backwards to me, but I don't know their rhyme nor their reason in regards to what they're doing. So, we're going to have to
125wait and see. But yes, there are advocacy groups right now. They simply need to make a decision and whether they are going to invest or not going to invest in public education. And I would say that the the last thing and then I'll I'll hop off my soap box if that's what I'm standing on right now. The fact that there is not been a sizable change for how school is funded in the state of Wisconsin since 1993 should be shocking to everybody because that's that's a very long time without any major considerations. No matter what key performance indicator you're looking at, whether it's how we teach our kids, the cost of teaching our kids, it's completely and totally different 32 years on. So, I think it is 100% appropriate to tell your state legislator, your
126local elected officials at down in Madison, maybe 32 years is too long to go without reooking at a single piece of legislation. lot's changed in 32 years. Lots should change in 32 years. I know that there's a lobbying group um when we go down to that Madison Y where they talk about the school school finances and trying to get something that's uniform across the district because the district, you're right, they're they're all over the board on what what their base rate is. And I don't know if we're a member of that group or if we're not, should we consider we probably are. We are. I'm not sure who you're referring to, but all of us I get emails from them. I could I could send something to you about absolutely and and they're likely referring
127to the Wisconsin Association of School District Administrators or ASA or ASA because those are the two groups that are lobbying hardest and then there's the SAA which is certainly an advocacy group just the Superintendent Alliance or whatever it's called. Yeah, there's all sorts of groups that are doing just that work. But I don't know that they're being heard. I think they know the facts, but it's politics. and you have politics at play. The facts sometimes get crowded out. Right now, your state senate is an 18, 15, 18 Republicans and 15 Democrats. The trick there is your consensus is tougher to build when you have an 1815. You lose one, you're at 1716. You lose two, you flip. And right now, there are two Senate Republicans that have outwardly stated, I will not vote for this
128omnibus bill in its present form. And that's when the vote got cancelled. when those two came forward. So consensus is harder to build when it's political. So hopefully they'll be able to broker out their differences and support public education because it needs to happen. Yeah. And regardless I think of politics, I think what we obviously like John said, we can get wrapped up in Madison politics or federal politics and all we really have control of here is as school district of Amory is is that what is our goal in public education here? And I think it's been long said and I don't care if you stand on one side of the aisle or in the middle or on the other side is that public education's responsibility and I think that what we all want as
129community members is to see your community thrive and what is success for the kids that come out of this district is to be uh productive members of your community and in society whether that's you staying in Amory or going somewhere else and unfortunately just the cost of getting kids to that end has just gone up exponentially. And and I know the easy thing to say is we all operate within a budget and so the school district has to as well. It's just that we don't have the choices that you do in your own personal life of how to cut. We are subject to our insurance premiums going up. We're subject to our electric bill going up. Just choose our clients. We don't get to choose. Having spent the last 6 months at the elementary, there
130are students that were not there in September that all of a sudden showed up and they were students with high need which regard just high cost. We don't we don't even know what our clientele is going to be from day to day. And and I and you know and it's easy to say like well if you I I don't want that to get lost that we keep talking about high needs kids here because that's what we do and you're talking to a parent. I'm talking as a parent of somebody who was high needs um who needed extra help and now is a very member a productive member of society and has this self-sustaining job and can live on his own and that was only done through public education even though it costs us more. we
131embrace those kids regardless of the cost and know that that we we totally accept that challenge here. And I I don't want anybody to think like, oh gosh, you know, we kids that that have higher needs, they cost the most. And so we are not going to shuttle those kids off. It's just it's just the the hand that we're dealt and it's it's happening everywhere. It's not just happening here. It's happening everywhere. Kids are just changing and I'm sure there's a a mountain of factors why that is. Society is changing. One of the one of there was a somebody recently said, you know, that that we hear education is broken all the time. Well, when you haven't really taken a look at how you funded it in 32 years, just look at your car. Does
132a 32-y old car need to be fixed and maintained over the course of time? Absolutely. So, yeah, it's it's broken. The problem is the with the state and I do understand the argument. If the state is saying that we're in decline as far as enrollment is concerned, then why are you guys asking for more money? And it comes down to exactly what you're saying. You're not taking into account the needs of our students have never been higher. And so that's that's just something that that we have to deal with. So it's just the cost of doing business is is higher. And if you want to um retain those good quality educators, yes, we have to pay them, but they're still probably grossly underpaid for what they should be for what I mean because you're going
133to lose those people who are very smart, very bright. I feel very fortunate that we have so many people that are here that are bright and wonderful and driven that haven't left and went to a private sector job that could be making $70,000 more out the gate. So, um, obviously that's that's part of it, but there's there's lots to decide here and obviously that's a good snapshot of the budget and things that people can do. And again, still work in progress and it's this is not a collateral decision made by me for a year, you know, just me and Sean. This is definitely a working document and it will be um I do if I I did I missed one part of our audit report that I wanted to just plug if you're okay with
134me going back in time at all and that was just simply we were audited a second time this year was our membership audit. So we were randomly selected out of the the however many school districts to get our membership audit. Um and I didn't prepare anything for this one but our membership audit went great. Um we were actually plus two kids. Um, and it wasn't actually our mistake. It was an actual it was an OE out calculation mistake that was on another district's part. Um, so our our we had a crystal clean and outstanding membership audit saying that we are exactly where we've said we were we are every year on our PI505. So that was another good one. So an OE meaning open open. Sorry. Yeah. So how you calculate going ins and outs
135and if you if you say somebody came in but nobody said that person went out then that's a ding and none of that happened. So we're good. Um, in addition to I was going to tag team this this district budget item uh with you, John, a little bit here and uh I wanted to talk a little bit with the board here um in a completely transparent and open forum that um prior to Larry and April you guys coming uh onto the board, there was a request made by a community member um asking for uh what we call vouchers to be published online. Larry, you just went through that tonight. Uh, I want to commend John for putting on a apparently a two and a half hour clinic for Larry and April on on Friday. Well,
136I'm not sure how accurate that it was. I'm just kidding. For um school finance and I don't know, April, did you So, you guys all have your sample Yes. Okay. Sheets in your packets there. Um, did you did you guys cover these sample sheets when you went through like kind of the Okay. So maybe for Larry, you kind of got a crash course in that tonight when you went through the vouchers with Steve and April if you're looking at that tonight. So um the vouchers what we talk about, we talk about that every meeting at the beginning are reams of paper, stacks of paper that the board uh members we we put those every month so that it's always somebody different looking at those vouchers and approving how what those bills are that are to
137be paid. Um, so we don't the vouchers are the actual um expense um ask, right? So that's it's something different. What you're looking at is what I would call um like a cover sheet of each of those folders that we get. So we can see that there's it's it's a ledger is what I would call this. So we can see that there's a check number here. Um, and this is what we get in a synopsis that like you would be looking at your bank statement or your own personal checking account of of coming of expenses going out. So, if I wanted I'm looking down these expenses and I go, "Oh, I don't understand what why was this I'm just going to say this check number 140093 written to Mississippi Welder Supply for 44.86. I can
138go to that 140093 check in the in the supplemental pieces of paper and I can see who's requested that reimbursement or where that bill needs to be paid to and for what. So I'm assuming this is probably for our tech class for welding supplies for our welding class. That's all signed off on administrators. Um that would probably be at the high school level and so Josh would have signed off on that and we can look at that. We can see the bill that goes with it. The finance office is meticulous in getting those things ready for us to look at every month. Obviously, Larry, you've seen those tonight. What this community member asked is there are other school districts that do this and they publish this kind of ledger um online every month for the
139community to see. Um and so that we don't currently do that here. um in this district and it's been asked if that was something that we were interested in. The community member has had a little bit of exchange back and forth with a couple of board members. Um I promised that we would talk about this on the agenda as two new board members were coming into I wanted to get you guys' opinions to weigh in and what you felt if that was something that we could do. I wanted to include John in this conversation of how we are set up to currently do that. I um I don't have a strong I just want to know what everybody's opinions are. I'd like people to weigh in on this if that's something that we're interested in
140as a board to move forward with that we could design a not a policy but a procedure how that would happen along with Sean and John to do that. If that's something that we say it's good the way it is and and we're elected to do this job um then it kind of just it kind of ends here at this point. And so I just want to see what the board's feeling is moving forward with this and and what kind of concerns there are. I have I don't have a strong opinion either way, but I do have obviously concerns. So I want to open it up for discussion of do we what do you guys think if that's something that we want to move forward with uh and pursue or not? And if go ahead.
141I I would just add a couple of things. There are districts that do I every the 421 school districts in in the state of Wisconsin. I bet there's not two that are that are even close to how they do their vouchers. Um there are some districts I know Durand Arkansas as recently as two years ago physically had three board members coming in twice a week every week to sign each individual check prior to remitting it. There's some districts that only do check runs once a month which is directly after a board member so that you can look at everything beforehand. Now, the the there there's a lot of things that you can say that would be a pro and con to doing that. The biggest one is we issue some 3,000 plus just paper checks
142every single year. And so, if you just kind of do the math on that, you're talking about needing a board member or multiple board members for hours every single week or every single month in order to do that. The other part with doing that is if you if you're only doing it once a month, um you could potentially be making late payments chronically because you're waiting for a board member to come and do it. So, it it's just I I think the process that we have here is a great process. I really do. Um and I mentioned it to both Larry and April uh a couple weeks ago. You know, the the other part is although we only have one board member that's signing off on the voucher reports, they are open and accessible to
143board members at any time. You are welcome to come and inspect it. Um, and if you have questions, I am always available to to answer those questions. Um, but to Shar's point, um, Stacy, who who's responsible for 90% of getting that stuff all all set up, is very meticulous with how she does it. um she doesn't miss much and she's our first level of kind of catch. Um and she she absolutely catches expenses quite frequently that kind of raise an eyebrow or why are we doing this? Um she's also the one that's chasing down and making sure every single Menard's rebate we do not miss a receipt. Even though it might be for $17, it doesn't matter. We're we're capitalizing on that. Um, so the the the voucher detail report that I have in your
144guys's board books here, um, I think this is a really happy medium. I really do. Um, this is a very quick report to run. Um, the biggest thing is when it comes to paper checks, paper checks are not actually cleared through the bank, being our system, until the last day of the month. And I don't actually get that information from the bank until I get our monthly statement a day or two later. and it could be a few days after that that I actually get to it. So, if what you're looking for is a is on February 28th that you can see every expense that was incurred in the month of February, it's just not going to happen. It won't happen until well into into March. Um, so this is just kind of an example
145of what that would look like. What the actual dates would look like would be more what you saw today. So you would see it in form of a batch or a board run. Um, which would be what we're doing every single Thursday when we're this is just kind of the general layout of how we would see it if that makes sense. And so I guess that so what we're talking about is if we were to put this information out to the public on our website that's readilibly accessible um to the general public, this is what that would look like. it wouldn't include all of the supporting documentation that we see as a board member. And so obviously you can see on here like check number is written to a private person. And now if I
146want now obviously that's going to as a board member that would trigger me to go okay why are we writing a check to a private person? So, I can go specifically to that check number and go, "Oh, okay. That's probably that was a lunch account reimbursement because they graduated and that was they had this balance in their lunch account." The general public would never get to see that. They would only get to see that, oh, we're writing this out to so and so. Where's that money going? Um, and that happens with athletics when we're doing um uh roughing, right? So, my favorite refs for the school district and so he's written out checks. Now, of course, this is taxpayers money and everybody should have access in my opinion to see where their tax dollars are
147going. I have concerns when we're readily spoon feeding it out there to people and somebody's like, "Oh, I want to see what Char's neighbor, I'm not going to say his name, but Char's neighbor makes." and it's like, "Oh, well, you just, you know, you took $6,000 of my tax money to go rough, you know, for the school district this year. You're buying coffee." Or what what kind of um, you know, relationships does that look like in a very small community? Like, is there impacts of in a small community on relationships? Does it create um undercutting of businesses, but then overcharging for something else when we can see what other businesses are charging? Not that I'm arguing that competition is a bad thing. Um, but does that then um does that then preclude those businesses when
148when taxpayers say, "Well, you got x number of dollars from the school district this year and so I'm not going to give them any more business." And then would they not bid jobs for the school district because they're potentially losing local business from taxpayers? Um, and then would they have to charge the school district more to make up for that business? Char, here's my opinion on this. And this is exactly, you know, as a as a new board member, I'm impressed with the amount of transparency that I've seen so far. I mean, I've seen nothing but the utmost transparency on on everything that goes on here within the district. I think if you were to to publish this, I think it would create a lot of unnecessary speculation and and without having the supporting documents
149and I don't know how you could begin to to provide all the supporting documents to this summary, I I think it would just be um speculative, unnecessary, and create a lot of angst. And and I I I agree with um John that I think we have hit a happy medium here. I very comfortable with the checks and balances in the system the way it works now. So um I'm relatively new, but that's my outside perspective. Well, and I I mean that was kind of the idea of we were going to have two new board members and I thought that this discussion would be better served with two new perspectives coming in to say um what this should look like moving forward. So that's kind of why I've tabled this um but I promise to have
150this conversation and I will hold to that promise. So that's what you haven't done vouchers yet, right? I have not done vouchers yet. So you you'll get an eye opening. I will. Um, I sat through a handful of hours of just enlightening information with John and I appreciate his time two Fridays ago, but I would agree with with Larry's sentiments. Um, I think everything is very transparent that I've seen up to this point. And I do agree that posting something like this without explanation for each line, which wouldn't even be possible online, would just create a firestorm. I mean, I think that people would definitely speculate on probably every single check that's written out. Well, because we we we experienced that tonight. So, Larry and I when we did vouchers, there was a question, well,
151why are we doing this? Well, why are we doing that? And so we asked John and there's a there's an absolute reason why we're doing it, right? And things like paying another school district, right? Why are we transporting kids from a different city? Well, there's reasons for it, right? And there's reasons that we can't you can't get into the details with with the general public, but it's all either mandated by law or just part of the process of whatever, you know, drove that check to be cut. Yeah. A great example, Larry asked, they asked tonight, "Why are we buying refrigerant from the from the hospital?" Well, it's because George is saving you guys money. That's that's the reality is they have an excess surplus. They're selling it to us, and it's exactly what we need.
152I I the the concern that I've always had is that you know if everybody understood fund accounting if everybody understood woofer if everybody understood woofer and could speak it well and then also understood that there is differences between the funds and how they co-mingled I think it's a different set of circumstances because again if you can't identify the difference between a 10 fun 10 and a fun 21. You you're going to all the it's very easy to draw some very short-sighted conclusions that are completely not rootbased in fact. And so I I I I've always been impressed by our system here. Frankly, I really have. I think it's a a very good happy medium as far as when we can issue payments and what our guidelines are and what our board policies are as far
153as spending thresholds are concerned. Um you know you those that $5,000 plus mark I think is a really good indicator. So I, you know, again, I I'm at your guys's pleasure and I'm happy to do whatever, but I just think there is you, you have to have context, and I think it's also impossible to spoon feed that context to every single person. It just is. I'm happy to educate people anytime as much as I can. So the other thing is that's what we are elected to do. We are elected to oversee this stuff on behalf of the public, right? And um I guess if if it were to be made available online, you can't limit it to who sees it. The world sees it when when it only affects or should only affect your local
154population, right? So if something like this were to be made available, which I think would probably be okay, I wouldn't want it online. It would have to be where somebody could come into the office, review it. That way, if there's questions, the people are there to ask them. Well, and that is the the big thing that we that we have as the board that we have John at our disposal. I mean, we set these appointments up when we come in. And generally, it's done before board meetings, but you could do it if John's not going to be here and it doesn't work to come in prior to a board meeting at 4:30 or whatever, 4:00 that is. uh we could set that up ahead of time and say, you know, John, when are you going
155to be here so that we can ask John those questions? You're readily available. Um I fear that putting something like this out to the public that would cause speculation, but then I go above and beyond, not just the speculation, but then I applaud those people to be like, well, I have lots of questions. I'm going to pick up the phone and call John or email. I fear that John would do nothing more than for a while answer questions regarding what's why was this check issued to so- and so and that is a fear that we don't pay John enough to do that because John's job is difficult and there's just you know there there's some of the expenses that are in here that can absolutely be can be presented to the general public in generality
156such as what our health insurance premium is or our 403b total contributions to Horus man are um but no matter what happens I you will not get any more detail because it's private protected information um based on our payroll information. So it's no matter what there's going to be line items on here where just legally we cannot provide you with the supporting documentation. And so I I I would agree with Steve. I mean that's what we're here for. I mean, we're here to answer questions and and do our jobs and and, you know, answer, you know, if if Becky Schmidt gets a check tomorrow for 10 grand, you know, and why did she get a check for 10 grand? And again, if you didn't know that maybe Becky is the the president of the girls
157volleyball boosters club and she's getting payment for whatever the enrollment was so that she could put it into her booster account. Yeah, it's very easy to draw that conclusion. It does h Yeah, and it does happen. It sure does. Yeah. Um, do we need a motion? No, I This was strictly for information. I just wanted to discuss this with the board in a very open forum. I'm I'm not in favor of ever publishing that. This is um uh this is obviously we're elected officials and we can't have these conversations in private to say like I want, you know, this is to be on the agenda. There's certainly no reason to draft a policy or procedure to just throw it out the door. That takes a lot of time and energy. So, I just want it's
158a lot easier to have these conversations here now as as elected officials together. That's what our meetings are for. Um, and say that this was something that I had promised um uh an individual of the community, a taxpayer, and I I'm following through on that promise, and that's that's what this was. And then if you know if the if we wanted to move forward then we would work and and move forward with that. It doesn't seem like that's the consensus to bring forward to another agenda. So I will just let this kind of drop that this is kind of the board's position on this right now that we leave this as is. And if people have uh questions in the greater community, John's always open. I know that people have come in and viewed certain
159documents that they can um this and it's not that's nothing new that's been happening for decades. Yes. So community members have come in, you've compiled information for them. Your predecessors have compiled information for them to come in and look at that. So um I think we're all in agreement that we leave it as is that this is what our job is. financial oversight and that that hopefully the community has put their trust in us that we are overseeing the finances. But I I do have to hats off to our finance department. You guys do a great job. Stacy doesn't miss much. No, you guys are you guys are hawking. It might be a different story if Stacy ever leaves us. All right, moving. I promise I promise I'm getting to you. Okay. First reading of
160policy 343.3 early college credit program and start college now. Okay. Oh, you going to do it? I was just going to say go ahead. I'll let you do it. You live this every year. Dr. D did most of the work on this. But this basically this is just what we have to do to follow the law which is what we've done for years. It's that simple. It's a policy of the chart. If you look at the go to the next the chart that we have brought up many times the policy is that but we've seen that in policy. So now we have a policy that is the chart 100% follows what the law says. Okay. So really not a debate. I mean this is this is the first Yeah. It's just a policy that reflects
161the chart used for a decade. Well if I if I ever know that there's something that we got to get through quick Josh my few words. That's it. Okay. Okay, so that's the first reading. Obviously, this will be brought back next month. We'll see the second reading for approval from the board. It's law, so that's just the way it is. You guys are all I told you I was getting to you. Liability insurance renewal. They have a short commute. It's all good. I know. You don't I don't I'm sure they just come here and like Oh, it's always good. For the one or maybe two of you who don't know who I am, I am Jim Lee Home Insurance here in Amory. Son Ben is here for my backup in case you stump me. Apparently
162way back cuz he's like way back there. He's like, I ain't telling these people nothing. Um, we've enjoyed a very long-standing relationship with the school district of Amry. So, we thank you for that. Sean and John asked if I would be willing to come to the board meeting tonight to discuss the insurance. And I said this year absolutely. Last year I was here in May and we had a very long conversation. We had a difficult message to deliver. The board was very understanding with the state of the insurance marketplace. I'm standing before you now that the insurance marketplace hasn't moved a whole lot. It's still very hard. It's still very difficult. I think John was anxious to get some indication from me for his budget to know what we're looking at and it took a
163little while. But besides his angst, I think I had more cuz I said I don't want to do this two years in a row. So last year, if you remember, we were dealing with about a 23% rate increase tied with very large property deductibles for wind and hail on a per building basis. The latter statement I just made, that has not changed. We still have our large deductibles, but the good news this year is that no coverage changes. Actually, a little bit of a coverage increase on the property market. Instead of a 23% increase, we're looking at a 4% increase. Now, granted, it's still 4% more on a very big number. I get that. But 4% in the current property market is a fabulous bid. And I will have to commend not only Trior Insurance,
164John Gibson, who Sean and John and I and Ben work closely with to get our insurance through the company, which is EMC. The reason I wasn't here in May is that for some reason EMC changed their strategy and pricing their school renewals. The bulk of schools renew July 1st. And I'm not sure where the change of strategy came from, but they revisited July 1 renewals. And my suspicion is that weight allowed us to deliver a 4% increase rather than a larger increase. So that's my story tonight. Short and sweet. Like I said, no other coverage changes, good or bad. 4% is kind of an inflationary increase. Um, what's the market going to do between now and next year? One meeting at a time, Jim. Yeah, let's let's do one year at a time. Exactly. Correct.
165Uh so I take it as very positive news at least for school districts right now. We still have our hands full with lots of other things but for the Amry school district it's a very positive message this year. I I do want to add just a couple little just kind of snippets. Um first one EMC Tririccore and lead home all continues to be incredibly easy to deal with. um not deal with. That's a terrible word to work to work with. Um our response times are absolutely insane. I've I've never experienced anything like it. So I appreciate you guys and Katie and everybody. Um workers compensation continues to be a a stick in my my side. Um you know, every year Jim and I have had multiple conversations now about ways that we can mitigate that
166uh and kind of help some of that. Um, and the the the the office team knows, the district office team knows that John's always fighting against workers compensation. Not because I don't want to protect our employees, just because I think we we have a an obligation and a and a a responsibility to make sure that our staff are being safe. Um, and yes, that comes with budgetary savings in the long run. Um, but other than that, you know, I was like Jim said, I mean, I was the whole month of May, I'm like, ah, this is not going to be good news. They keep asking for more stuff. They keep asking for this and that and the other thing. So 4% increase I think is is about as best as we possibly could have counted
167for. Do we still have that workman's comp for one more year that's adding to our We still have a fairly large experience mod. That's what we touched on last year. And our mod is still high. Uh it's a three-year calculation. we have one large claim that's still in the calculation. So the moment that one large claim does fall out of that calculation period, then we'll see I think a significant drop in the mod which then will relate to a significant premium savings. Do we just have one year left on that out of the three or do we still have two years left? Just what I thought. kind of thinking it's one but see the way this threeyear calculation it doesn't necessarily mean current year one year back to we could be 2021 2223 even though
16824 has passed and we're only 25 so I I apologize I don't know what the threeear span is where that current mod I can get that for you very easily get it to John and Sean so you know but it's still there it's still there it's still What's it running? What's What's the What's it The uh experience mod actually inched up a little bit from last year. Again, it's a very complicated formula, but last year we were at 1.51, which simply means for every dollar of work comp premium you pay, you're paying $151. It went up 10 points, it's 1.61. So, a little bit of claims factor into the formula as well. Yes, it's the number of claims. It's the dollar amount. Uh, is it medical only? Is there a lost wage involved? I mean,
169the summary sheet is three pages. John gets it before I do. Um, but there's a lot of numbers involved and how they uh arrive at that number. Um, have we done an audit of the classification of the workers? Well, so what what one of the things that we had discussed is EMC will come in and do a work comp audit and check to see uh how many years was it? Five years of claims that they run through and we give you uh a 5year monthly and we can get a 10 year. Yeah. So that we can kind of drive some of our training and stuff to to those specific categories. And in conjunction, Becky has actually been working with a um to make a very long story short, EMC used to provide a service called
170vector training, which is where we did a lot of our districtwide staff focused bloodborne pathogens, that sort of stuff. They stopped covering that. Um they're they're going to come back and cover some of it. Well, in that process, it was well $3,000 is a better spent on this or something else. And Becky and I took a demo from this other company called Public Works where they've got a insane library of different training resources for us and a lot of them are specific to workers compensation, Tripid Falls, Slick Falls, um, all that sort of stuff. So, we're we're we're always looking to continue to kind of do some workplace. The thing that I it still kind of just amazes me is, you know, does anybody know how many staircases we have in the school district of
171Bay? just one. That's it. And most people don't even know where it is. Um, so I know where it is. Uhhuh. Yeah. So because of that, we're all on one level. So if we have trip and falls, we should be able to train our staff how to walk properly so that they don't trip and fall over single bump curbs and that sort of stuff. And so I think that's something that we're going to continue to proceed with here at the end of the summer once life calms down. I think Well, I don't know that you and I are on the same page. I'm asking, have we done an audit of how our staff members are classified? Because that's what drives your rating, right? So, somebody who's working, somebody who's a teacher obviously has a different
172rating rating than somebody who's a mechanic. There's basically three classes, Steve, for the entire school district. It's professional staff, it's non-professional staff, and it's drivers. Okay. So, it's pretty easy to decipher who goes where. But then when the work comp audit occurs, which these guys do, and it's certainly not as complicated as the financial audit you just described, but it it it's very detailed and rarely is an employee this classif. Okay. Thank you. Yeah, I was just going to piggyback what John was saying. EMC is always willing to send one, two, three people here at no cost to do a walk through. Do we have trends for certain kinds of injuries? Can we do some safety training? So, we've chatted about is that something that the the school would like? And as John said, when
173the dust settles and you close out last school year, get the new school year started, maybe this fall sometime. Um, if we want some EMC representatives, loss control folks to come up at no cost, we will certainly make those arrangements. Jim, what is a linebacker premium? What? That's a good question. What is linebacker? I wish they would change football. You would would think so, wouldn't you? Uh, I don't know where the name has come from, but that's probably near and dear to this board. That is the schoolboard professional liability insurance. We don't want to eliminate that. No, I think that's a pretty important one to keep. Name doesn't describe what it's covering, but maybe it's cuz we're tough and we'll take care of everybody. And we were we were able to shave off one policy
174this year, which was our forgive me, it's basically our our asbestous and molded milk elementary school. Yeah. And that was just simply because George George was like, "Nope, it's all gone. We're good." So that was which came with the old renovation down there. There was a lot there was a lot of that going on down there. A lot of lot of that. So a lot of testing. So good things that happened out there. Aside from the EMC policy, which is the very large policy for the district, Sean and John and I, Ben, we just there's three other very small ancillary policies that we didn't present any information for. I'm meeting with Ryan tomorrow. The state of Wisconsin says that the school must have a fuel tank pollution policy at the bus garage. It's a two-year
175policy. This year, it's up for renewal. So Ryan has already provided us all the information. We just need to get a signature on an application. Um we have I see what's on the agenda. We have a cyber security policy that's for all the technology things. Uh that's the second policy. And I didn't realize the the volunteer policy was so near and dear to your heart, John. It's like $400. But that's another policy that if we don't have if if someone is volunteering is technically not considered an employee of the district. So the work comp doesn't kick in. If someone gets hurt, we have another place to go for some recovery. So the three of us work through those three minor policies. Um change coverage changes have not taken place. the premiums there are very very
176stable so we're not looking at the massive increases on there so uh we've always done those somewhat after the fact the general liability increases that non staff related injuries that drove that or what is that the the general liability the general liability increase yeah that was the one that was the largest percentage increase truthfully Steve I don't have an exact answer. I don't think it was due to anything specific to Amy's results because we haven't had any large general liability claims. I think what we're seeing is that in the state of Wisconsin and in EMC ensures like 280 schools within the state that line of coverage for all schools is experiencing some difficulty. So insurance is based on not of large numbers. So unfortunately we're doing well, but we're going to help the other districts
177that maybe aren't doing so well. So I think the the rate increase there is due to public schools in general versus angry results. Yeah, I've seen that on my own. Uh farm insurance, just general liability going up on all of our land. um just in case somebody's there and gets hurt. That's irresponsible and that's that's a big big increase because just because lawsuits happen lawsuits. So there's a lot of litigation expense and there's uh you know when someone gets hurt the medical expenses are very large even though we've never even had a claim, you know, on our own personal farm. It's just part of that that goes up because insurance No, thank you. All just because insurance just uh that's the name of the game, right? You cover the other people that they're not there
178to lose money. Yes. And then you do our student asurances. No, that's correct. That's through John. That's through different organizations. Yeah. Yeah. So, this would just be for the policy right here, the cyber security and everything. I mean, if you want me to talk the cyber security really quick, I I certainly can. and the student assurances. And if you guys just want to vote on one action item, it's up to you. We'll take the um we'll do them separately. Okay. Yeah. Any more questions for John on his uh what he's offering in this package for Jim? Jim. Sorry, Jim. Did I say John? Thinking about my dad. Sorry. And Miss John, I guess got me off tonight. Sorry. All right. Any other questions on the cyber insurance package? Obviously something that is important these days.
179I think we've been doing this now for a number of years and and we did have to activate it this year for the first time because of the power school uh data breach. So we did have to activate it and it did uh did help us um simply because power school did not make do good on the promise that they made. Uh and frankly we just every we just got word a couple weeks ago that the people were holding the power school ransom came back for more money. Shocker. So um yeah. So this is I think now more than anything I think this is absolutely critical. Um the the rate increase this year was less than uh less than 500 bucks. So really by the time it all shakes out this is one that can
180save us a ton of money. I mean it it saved us about $5,700 in legal fees this year. just with notifications and tracking people down. All right. And his name is Cow Bell, so it's fun. Yeah, I like that. It's fitting for the area. Yeah, all right. Um, is there a motion to accept the um liability insurance renewal as presented by Jim? I'll make that motion. Second. See one. It's been properly moved and seconded to accept the insurance uh liability renewal as presented. Is there any further discussion? Hearing none, we'll proceed to vote. All those in favor of accepting this, please signify by saying I. I. All those opposed, please signify by saying no. All right. Motion passed. Congratulations. You've got our business another year. And no rocks got thrown at you tonight. Well, I
181didn't have any rocks storm me last year. I do appreciate I much rather have nice conversations. I remember holding char. Yeah, I'm pretty wellheaded guy. I do I I do have to tell Dale that our buildings did not blow away and they did not burn down and we suffered no roof damage. So that was 14,000. Truthfully, from a claim standpoint, aside from work, we had a really really good year. So if we get another year or two like that behind us, That will help. You can then you can bring us options again. I would love to bring some options. I really truly would. Thank you everybody. Thank you. Thanks for severing it out with us today. Not a problem. We need to we need to do this. I I I thought we were going to
182take that as all together. But the liability insurance and the cyber security, but that's okay. Anyone vote on that? Is that Yep. That's okay. Um, is there a motion to uh go ahead and renew the cyber insurance as well? Steve, is there a second? Second, Larry. It's been properly moved and seconded to also approve the cyber security insurance renewal as presented by Jim. Is there any further discussion? Hearing none, we'll proceed to vote. All those in favor, please signify by saying I. I. All those in fa All those opposed, please signify by saying no. Motion passed. Get the cyber security tool. Thank you, sir. Take care of that one also. Okay. Thanks. Thanks again. Good night. I was in a hurry to get you guys out of here. I was working for Hey, we're good.
183You might as well stay to the end now. As much as I would like to, my stomach is rumbling. Thank you. All right, I'll make this last one quick. Um, so student insurance. Um, I student assurance services. Um this is again this is a separate policy aside from everything else and this is essentially to cover medical incidents and medical expenses for all kids who are injured or participating in school athletics you name it. Um and it's more or less kind of the way I always tell the parents when I talk to them about it. It's more or less an out-ofpocket insurance policy. They still want you to submit it through your insurance and they still are going to segregate it through there. Um but it can really help. So, if you look at this this
184spreadsheet that's on the screen behind you, um again, a super healthy year for us. Um we only had two total claims that actually had to be paid out this past year. I think we had about 27 total reported incidents to them. Um but there was only two that ended up actually needing to get some bit of of medical assistance for it. Um, so I mean if you're looking at if you're kind of looking at it, I mean, yeah, if if you're looking at the the last snapshot in the last 5 years, you're like, okay, well that's less than a 50% loss run. But then you look at 20 2019 2020, and then you go all the way back to 2015, 2016, and it doesn't take more than three blown ACLs a year because of a
185gopher hole to all of a sudden eat through every bit of that. Um, and I can tell you number one, they're very easy to work with. parents really just need to follow through on their end. Um, but uh the biggest thing is their rates have not actually gone up. Um, the variance in price there is based actually on enrollment. So it's a simple calculation of $5 per student per year and it's based off of what last year's enrollment numbers were. Um, so overall fantastic policy that you guys have chosen to to do and I I would highly recommend doing it again because it is incredibly beneficial. It's way beneficial to our parents uh in the district. It's I had a kid that ended up uh being severely injured in football and it it covered every
186bit of anything that I had to pay out of pocket and I have catastrophic insurance and so it it was extremely important. It's beneficial and again you think of like parents that don't have uh any insurance or very limited insurance. Um it's it's super super good. It's It's well worth the $20,000 in my opinion. Make a motion to enact that policy again. Is there a second? I'll second it. Steve and April, it's been properly moved and seconded to accept the student assurance services uh insurance for supplemental insurance for students. Is there any further discussion? Hearing none, we'll proceed to vote. All those in favor, please signify by saying I. I. I. All of those opposed, please signify by saying no. Motion passed. Will accept the student assurance services again this year. We've already covered the
187WIAA membership renewal. And now we're moving on to the second reading of policy 345.45, the fourth grade promotion. Again, Jess, you're up. So, this is per act 20. we have to have a promotional policy in place by July 1st. Um it will go into effect September 1st of 2027. The reason why that is so far out is it allows us as a district um to really focus on what we're saying we're going to do for a student that has not exited their personalized reading plan at the end of third grade. So this lays out how are we promoting them um and what that process looks like to moving on to fourth grade. One of the things I'm talking about getting in place um is per 20. we have to offer um robust reading services next
188summer and so that would have to look like our teachers being trained in the science of reading um using discussed specific curriculum that aligns with the science of reading. Um so again this is the second reading. My understanding is nothing has changed. I brought you a draft last month and it looks as it did at that point as well. How do we see the um AGR data that we talked about earlier with the third grade reading results of the 69% at that 30th percentile or above? How do you see that translating into moving on to fourth grade as it results into act 20? So for act 20 we have to use the state um prescribed screener which is web plus. So Ames web plus will actually drive this. we have to use that data to
189drive this. For any student that is not falling um above the 25th percentile, we then use FastBridge to to to look at specific skills that are lacking to be able to determine what do we need to build into a PRP. So the FastBridge data that we get um is extremely useful. We're able to use that as a diagnostic tool, which is actually like a second level of the screener. Um part of the process is making the determination if we're going to promote a student or retain them um or hold them back is we will be looking at that data. Best practices historically show that there is a large amount of research that says retaining a student actually is more detrimental than having a student go forward. So what we're saying is a student is done
190here in third grade um they have not exited that personalized reading plan to meet that criteria academically. we will sit down as a as a group of professionals and involve parents in that conversation and we'll look at that data. We'll look at the Ames web but we'll also look at the fast bridge um to ensure that they're making progress. if they're not making progress. Um, our student services team, school school psychologist, Kelsey Cisco, as well as Abby, we would sit down and look at that data and we would say, is tier one or general education and and all the services we're providing because there's a lot. Are they closing the gaps like they need to? And if they are, then then we continue with title, we continue with response to intervention time. If they're not,
191then that will lead to a bigger conversation of what are our next steps and do h have we done enough to support possibly moving forward with a special education referral. Um, have you looked at what that would if if this was implemented this year and you had this number of third graders, do you know what that number of third graders that would have been referred back to be held back not to move forward or what that what that would have looked like that would have hit that threshold? We just reported that to to the DPI. We did have to report that. So when they say there is no act 20, please, we do still have to report. We have to report the number of students that had a personal reading plan, how many exited out
192of it. Um I can find that actually right here. You know, again, there'd be a large conversation on every single kid because if they're making progress, even if it's slow progress, we have um through FastBridge and any progress monitoring tool we have, we actually can project when are they going to close the gap with their peers. Is that by the end of this year? Great. Let's continue to put the resources or there are some projections. There's some graphs that will show that they're not going to close those gaps for several years. That's when then we're having another conversation to say how long is too long, right? And and what more do we need to do for this kid and make sure that they can get what they need? I I can look that up if
193you want me to. I'm just kind of wondering like where we at. Obviously that number is going to change next year. It's a different class. It's in third grade. The strategies are different another year and all of those things. So, you know, and and there's a lot of research behind um again is that early intervention is key. So really we are a schoolwide title one program which means we can provide title services by push in or full out. Um but really ourselves as as well as districts around us really focus on those interventions those title one key interventions with experts in K through three. um really if you're not making those that that growth by the end of third grade um then then we need to be looking at this because it's not fair to
194have a kid have to be entitled for for four years, right? The title one support is is our tier 2. It's a really robust system again. Um if that's not enough, then we have to come back to the table to say we need to do more. a kid doesn't stay entitled for four years. It's supposed to be a boost, an in-n-out boost where kids are flowing in and out, not a sentence for four years where you have to stay in there. Um, when I look at third grade and what was reported, um, so 25 personaliz personalized reading plans were started in the winter. So, if you remember, we didn't have to screen as Web in the fall. We had to screen as Web in January. So, based on that data, we had 25 PRPS that
195were started in the winter. five students exited their PRPs in the spring and one started a new one. So, we would have 21 students um that were not meeting the data to exit their personalized reading plan. And again, that doesn't show that they're not making great progress. Um, one of the barriers to Act 20 and and the progress monitoring is is while we're looking at a lot of data, there's actually one screener and two in some other grade level cases that put you on on a personalized reading plan. So, you can be really strong in one skill, but there we're looking at one score that would keep you in a personalized reading plan. And we know reading is not one avenue. It's a really complex process of a lot of things that come together like
196more um to make to make you a good reader, right? So, this just lays out for us this promotional policy lays out if a student has not exited their personalized reading plan. What are we going to do? What does that process look like for making that determination of either retaining or promoting them? What I appreciate about our policy is a lot of it engages with with with parents but also with professionals to make the best decision for the child. And honestly the onus still just lays on the parents at the end of the day what they want to do you know in regards to guidance as well though with you guys but the the parents have the final say here right um I have not encountered that um when I look through our policy on
197the very last pages you know we are saying that it's in the best interest to move to move a child on um if we met a parent that was really adamant that their child was going to be retained it would be it'd be a really big conversation uh and I have no doubt it would include Abby, it would include our school psychologist um to try to guide them to what would be the best decision for so the the holding them back if they don't re meet that criteria that's driven by act 20s driven we have to have this this policy to say what if a kid doesn't exit it right they haven't met the academic IC data to exit the PRP. They need more um going into fourth grade. So yeah, I guess your original
198question was that Act 20 is driving us to create this. But is Act 20's is act 20's text stating if they don't meet that criteria, Act 20 wants them held back whoever designed Acts 20? No. No, it's not. It is saying as a district you need to come up with a the criteria to move them on and if not what are you going to what are you going to do about it right so it's our commitment to the services we're going to provide um act 20 you know or I should say the DPI had some examples of promotional policy so we we pulled from that I actually to build this myself and our title one team did go to a CISA um full day seminar which other districts were there so there was guidance to
199us on on what the DPI wanted us to to say and and do. So, ours really mirrors what they're asking us. So, they're not saying the act 20 DPI is not saying you need to hold a kid back. Instead, it's saying what are you going to do and make what commitment are you going to make to families that don't? Okay. So, going back to Char's comment, so approximately 25 students did not complete their personalized reading plan. 21 21 students did not complete their personalized reading plan. Does this go to what we talked about last month with us offering the summer enhancement for those students and having teachers that are trained in the top 10 tools and the science of reading to teach them? Okay. And so is that for every grade K through three? Yes.
200Okay. And so going back again to that question, do we feel as a district that we have the certified staff to meet the needs of 20 students, that's one grade, and assuming these summer classes will be small. Do we feel do we have the certified staff to accomplish this? So I don't think the question isn't isn't whether we do the it's a statement. We have to we have to period and summer school starting next summer will look a thousand% different than it looks right now. When I look at our numbers we are averaging about 25 students per grade. So right now I know we have our academic classes and working with Laura Shren. We try to keep those around to 10 10 to 12 kids. So right now we're running one section of academic classes.
201We will have to double that. We will have to run at least two if not three in subgrades. Um again 8 to 10 students research shows is really your best small group instruction. Um I have had conversation with Sean as the director of curriculum instruction to say we're going to this fall we're going to have to evaluate our summer school. We're going to have to incentivize our experts right now and and I'm so thankful we have a great summer school program but a lot of our academic classes are run by either retired teachers or teachers from different districts. I want our experts, our trained staff. I want them in front of our kids. Those are our best, you know, resources, best relationships. When we talk about being trained in UFI, when we talk about all
202the tools we have in each building, I would love nothing more than to have our teachers sit in front of our kids. And and so what does that take to get them here? here. I mean, they're the most qualified, best relationships, but we're going to have to uh incentivize it. And we're going to have to build a summer school program that really focuses on academics and and growing that and and finding that balance along with the summer fun classes and the math classes, but we we have to provide these classes for our kids. So, I'm looking forward to, you know, how are we going to look at summer school and and do do things with it? You know, obviously that investment that the district made for 20 staff to go to the the Youth um
203conference is exactly that, an investment of hopefully that we do good enough through the school year that we don't have so many kids needing the summer school so that we can save money in the summer school. But um if not then, you know, hopefully those are the people that go to those conferences are also hopefully wanting to be the ones that are going to be intervening in the summer to make sure that these kids are continuing on. So it's an investment in them and it's also an investment in our kids and the in for the district. So I hope that conversation is passed along to our staff. Great. Because those those conferences aren't necessarily cheap and right and we you know we're hoping that we get results out of those dollars back. So Jess, can
204we require students to attend this or it's really the parents discretion, right? It is the parents discretion. Um we will have to look at how we communicate with parents but also highly encourage them to attend. Um and that is that will be built into their PRPs. The personalized reading plans is those summer opportunities will be built in there. Um, right now our process and how we recommend a student for academic school um look is look looks different than how we will have to do it moving forward. We're going to have to have really specific conversations early on. That way we can um prioritize those students getting academic reading that they need. Well, to get this on the table, I believe we need a policy and it seems like this is well thought out. So, I
205will move to for approval. Second. Uh, it's been properly moved and seconded to accept the policy 345.45, fourth grade promotion policy per act 20. Is there any further discussion? Hearing none, we'll proceed to vote. All those in favor of approving the policy, please signify by saying I. I. All those opposed, please signify by saying no. Motion passes. We've approved the policy 345.45 fourth grade promotion. Thank you. Okay, moving on to our second reading of our clubhouse child care compensation and benefits guide. Okay, after many meetings, uh, John here sitting beside me, Gretchen Wahberg in payroll, Becky Schmidt also here meeting with House, I think there's four, maybe five times that we've met looking at began last month and here we are again. Uh, nothing's changed from last month to this month. Um, we simply need
206to get this done so we can start uh implementing the change needed in regards to work schedules and other compensation related items cuz clubos just looks different from certified staff and support just I think it we it did do the the trading shifts was was actually added on page three on page language. That is correct. Yeah. So, and that was something that that was um kind of a compromise from what from all of the meetings that we've had. So that was we talked about the last time and so I feel I feel good about that that we've honored that request from our clubhouse people. We have engaged with Rachel and she the process it's her process and everything and we're still you know tweaking that and we will you know obviously it's a it's a
207new process so it'll take some time and everything like that but it's not a unil it's not just us driving this policy. Rachel's in. She's definitely brought some good points to the very end. I do appreciate I know that this is kind of a nightmare accounting wise that we you know that we've talked about that. I appreciate the give of having the two um two shifts. I hear that was a good compromise between uh what the employees wanted and and what you guys were um I know it's a headache. So, thank you. Is there any further discussion? That was really the only change I believe that was made at this time through. Yeah. Okay. I make a motion we approve the clubhouse childcare compensation benefits guide. Okay. Second, April. It's been properly moved and seconded
208to accept the school district of Amry staff compensation and benefits guide for clubhouse child care for 2526. Is there any further discussion? Hearing none, we will proceed to vote. All of those in favor of accepting the uh compensation and benefits guide for clubhouse, please signify by saying I. I. All those opposed, please signify by saying no. Motion passed. Compensation and benefits guide is accepted. Donations to the district. Uh we have a donation to the district. Eileen and Leslie Marquee, thank you for your donation of 100 each to the each to the high school choir and band programs. Very cool. Motion to accept that. Is there a motion to accept uh Eileen and Leslie Marquees donation to our music program at the high school? I will make that motion. Thank you, April. Is there a second?
209Second. Gwen, it's been properly moved, seconded with many thanks to accept those that donation to our um great music program. Is there any further discussion? Hearing none, we'll proceed to vote. All those in favor of accepting the donation, please signify by saying I. I. I. All those opposed, please signify by saying no. Motion passed. The donation to the district of $100 from Eileen and Leslie Marquee for the high school choir and band programs is accepted and passed. Thank you very very much. That's very generous and thoughtful. Next, moving on to personnel action. Personnel, we have new unemployment contracts for Teresa Prize, library media parah. Kimberly Helpne, fifth grade teacher, long-term sub. Aaron Hoskin, high school English, long-term sub. Joshua Moore, high school football head, middle school, middle school football head coach. If I could read
210here, it's fine. Isabella Astrabower, high school art teacher. Eric Shankenberg, middle school football assistant coach. Michelle Sigworth, seventh grade math teacher, long-term self. Amanda Warner, director of communications and community ed. Reassignments. Jennifer Clemish from SPE school nutrition food server to special ed. Perhaping uh high school art to intermediate middle school art. resignations from Emily Amenson and softball assistant coach, Brenda Crows from middle school track, Danielle Erdrich for forensics and school play director, Lizzie Raobick, clubhouse childc care, Janet Estanic, middle school track, Bill Miller, bus driver, Matt Patterson, softball head coach and determination of Maria Livingston, clubhouse assistant teacher. Is there a motion to accept the personnel action as presented? I'll make that motion. Steve, is there a second? Second. When she just beat you, Larry. Obviously, we've had discussion about that in close session where
211that was appropriate. All those in favor of accepting personnel action as presented, please signify by saying I. I. All those opposed, please signify by saying no. Personnel action is approved. I don't see anybody here for community comments. So, I'm pretty sure that's a it's a nil. And um we do need to just have some housekeeping items in close session for considering employment, promotion, compensation, and performance evaluation data or any public employee over which the governmental body has jurisdiction or exercises responsibility in order to take personnel action pursuant to Wisconsin statute 19.851 subsection C. Is there a motion to uh convene into close session? I would move to convene into close session. Steve. All those in favor of convening into close session, please signify by saying I. I. I. All those opposed, please signify by saying
212no. Roll call vote is all unanimous going into close session. We are in closed session. Thank you.