001meeting back to order we previously met in closed session um and uh we were done with that so calling back to order here and getting started and if you're able please stand with me and uh go through the pledge Al to the flag of the United States of America and to the repic for which it stands one nation under God indivisible liy and justice for all thank you and tonight we have some sharp looking FFA members here tonight to present on the school FM the school farm so floor is all yours guys take it away hello I am Derby Trent I'm one of the ffa's co-presidents my name is Suki gatika and I'm one of the FFA chapters co-vice presidents hey I'm Chase Prindle and this is my first year in FFA and we're just
002going to be talking about some of the farm projects that we have been working on as a chapter and as individual members so the Christmas tree farm is by far one of my favorite events we have planted over 500 Christmas trees in the past four years and part of the reason that it's one of my favorite events is that I have three saes in FFA which are supervised agricultural experiences so I have a dairy one one for goats that I'll talk about a little bit later and one that is about egg education and it's just a it's something that we do with our kindergarteners every year we're planning on doing it in May this year and being able to teach them about a and talking about a literacy is very important because we want to
003be able to make connections with our community that will help these kids build bonds with different programs that they will love forever and hopefully they'll want to stay with our community forever one of our next projects is raising chickens and having hazelnut tree farm so we got a chicken Coupe from Mr Gangi built it for us and is donating it to us so a huge shout out and thank you to him and so we are going to have chickens and we're going to build channels that kind of go off of the Hut so that the chickens can go around the hazelnut tree farm and they can go around the trees so that when they poop and um they can fertilize the trees and so the whole thing will just be kind of a positive feedback
004loop for for the chickens to help fertilize the trees and help the hazelnut trees grow and then when the hazelnuts eventually produce hazelnuts and they fall the chickens can then eat those so it's just a big thing for us also to hopefully have some kids be able to develop their own supervised agricultural experience with the chickens and to help produce eggs and just help kids be more involved within the FFA through this individual program uh we have been doing Quality Meats program for four years and this year we'll have roughly four kids doing sheep goat and pigs uh for reason why we do the Quality Meats program is to help get kids in the farm and learn how to do some agricultural work the reason we do this is because well so if kids don't
005have the resources to be on the farm and say money to get the animals and help we pay for the animals and we pay for all the expenses and if they make it to auction they with all the money that they get from it they can pay the F membership back and get take all the profit from their animal um this is our newest project and it's one that we've been working on since about the beginning of February I'd say um this so we recently went to humburd Wisconsin and we purchased 11 goats and our plan is to raise these goats to be able to clear out the Buckthorn in our school Forest because it is invasive um this would be a perfect thing for other members to do as saes we think it's going
006to take about 3 years to get it all organized but having members join now would really help set them up forther in the future especially for our younger members like Chase who are freshman right now um by the time it's around November and October we're going to sell these goats so that way the people who work with them now get to split the profit from these goats uh every year we do a corn maze unfortunately this year we're not able to due to uh just changing our crops around and uh because of that is for soil regrowth and it helps our soil uh gain back the fertilization and when we do the corn maze it really helps us with our educational purposes cuz we have a few houses in the corn maze to help kids
007learn how to do like Dairy things uh I think we have some beef and livestock in there too it is really fun for all the families that come and then one of our last major projects is starting an apple Orchard and it's not on here but we have also started a beef farm that has been around for a couple of years now so starting the apple orchard we're going to just plant new trees and have that Orchard in here I think some of the trees are planted now or will be planted soon and then with our beef Farm it was started a couple years ago by a senior named Emma Johnson and she was able to get it started for members now that have taken it over since she has graduated so they are able
008to harvest honey and just do their bee production and keep these bees alive and then the bees also help and give back to the community and the rest of the farm with pollination so it's a really great agricultural experience for the kids that are doing it now and the people have done it in the past and now we can keep on building with this apple orchard and be farm for kids in the future do you guys have any questions what did you do with your bees this winter um I don't really work with the bees but from what I heard from the students that do work with them we I think we store them uh someplace so that way they could hibernate uh we did get a decent amount of honey this year uh cuz
009I did help sort through that and it was a very sticky mess but it was very fun and I got to try some of it um but we are able to sell the honey and we just we may buy new bees depending on if some of them died during the hibernation but I think what we do is we just store them somewhere during the winter you all talked about your SAE projects so your supervised agriculture education experience projects and can you elaborate um for those who don't know why that is important and what that process looks like you've mentioned keeping profits from the goats or your pigs or things that you're going to have over there for the fair so can you tell us a little bit about why that's important in your in the
010FFA program um well FFA is a incur program so there's three parts of it and one of the so it's FFA classroom and laboratory and SAE the SAE is something that's supposed to help you build skills that will that you will use um in the future the agricultural industry is very big and there's a wide variety of jobs that you guys may not even know that are part of the agricultural industry so by doing these saes and helping students set them up we're hoping that we can help um we can help get them ready for their future careers do you want to add something saes are also just a big way to get people more involved in like an agricultural career so say I want to become a vet when I'm older having my SAE
011as a dairy production is a great way to help me into that step of becoming into a vet and same with other people having these saes going into a career in agriculture or something else is just a great way to do that Mr Meer always likes to do a story about how this guy said he wasn't going to do anything agriculture related and became a banker but then he ended up having to go onto a dairy farm and figure out finances for that farm so just like that doing an S within agriculture can help in ways like that can you can you expand on the financial component a little bit about that are are any of you running for getting your state degrees or running for State office so can you expand a little bit
012about that and what that looks like on your application why you would need those things there that there's a there's a a money component there yeah so we're both filling out our FFA State degrees this year um and part of that is you have to show um how your SAE has improved you so working at a job is a big part of it and you have to be able to prove to the FFA that you are working there so with the finances I work at forehand holsteins and so I take all of my bake statements and I just add it in to there um you want another big part of it is adding all your assets and liabilities so for people who are in college and filling out their state degree having the liability of
013college debt and things such as that or with us doing our beef production to having that liability to the farmer that we need to pay him back at the end of year is also a huge thing with that I think what sharmy been asking is do you know the um basic criteria to earn your state degree what the um monetary value is in order to even qualify I wasn't asking that I thought that's what you were trying to get them to say no what's the minimum requirements I think I think um other people would like to know even if sh didn't do you remember um like just with cost or all the requirements are you asking well remember you have to have a financial requirement and or ours invested yeah you have to have I
014think it's around uh$ 1,500 to maybe $2,000 invested or it's about 20 to 50 hours maybe I'm not exact um but just things like that and then they without the financial comp component they have to look at what things you have done at like the state level and National level in FFA not just at your local chapter level and they also look at your s and if you have improved like Suki was saying and they go over all of that and you find areas within your sa and you fill it out and say what you have done and how you apply your s into a real world context fantastic and the farm the farm is helping you guys do those things and fulfilling those obligations for those applications and your goals in in that endeavor
015right so um it it's such a great experience for you guys so anybody else well I was going to say I'm sitting between two FFA icons here but I want to know more about the goats you bought goats are the the program did right or yeah um we have them now or we do we have them in the agam right now because it's too cold to have them up in the shed and we don't have our electricity on oh wow so if somebody come in on weekends and feed and water them and um so we actually are feeding them about three times a day right now so I I CTE and have a farm class with Mr Meyer right now for for my first two blocks so we feed them about 8 in the morning
016is 8 to 8:30 and that's their first feeding and then their second feeding is during Warrior time so at the end of the day after all our classes so that's around like 2:40 and then their last feeding for the night is at 7:30 and even when we don't have sto like school we still have to come in and feed them because they will be hungry yeah yeah the weekend's a long time to go without eating yes but there are there are literally people that have like mobile goats like goats on the go right for Buckthorn um control for invasive species control so this is like could be a potential of somebody really like this like this could set them up for a inexperience to a really good business so I I hate to put brush
017Cutters out of business that buck Thorn is you know pretty tough there's enough of it we can share with the goats yeah with the other part of the Buckthorn we're not only planning on um having them help out the school Forest the reason why it's probably going to take about 3 years to get um all of our stuff ready is that we're planning on renting them out also and so that'd be another aspect of it that would help our students develop their SAE there's also things in FFA called proficiency awards that you can fill out and um so that's another thing where you would need that Financial component of it yes Chase is over there like wow what' I get myself into you've been doing this a long time you've been showing beef cattle a
018long time buddy are you are you GNA show another steer again this year uh this year I will not be showing for my last year I'll try to do that but this year showings okay lots of good lots of good things happening I like the chickens the new chickens and the Hazel hazelnut thing that's a that's kind of neat I like did you call them channels yeah did you that's that's kind of cool I wanted to write that word down Chunnel for the chickens and eggs are a precious commodity right now so good lie I hope you get a lot of eggs are you planning on are we planning on being able to use those at school or selling them or what are we going to do with those do we we haven't gotten that
019far yet I don't know if we've gotten that far but we don't we don't know yet okay we'll see what happens okay with them but I I just wanted to say that it's National FFA week and so um it's perfect time to do this I'm glad it worked out here just really proud of our kids and the things that they're doing um statistics show that if you get kids to learn about entrepreneurship programs and learn to make their own businesses uh that they're more likely to stay in your community uh we started this program with that thought in mind and uh I think that it's that that is actually occurring here you know kids are are taking to the next level uh and she's not lying about the goats she takes care of you know
0207:30 at night she's coming in and even on the weekends you know they're there you know Derby and and Suki have been a part of that it's really um an amazing program that uh that you know they have really taken charge of which is really exciting for me and uh I think that uh there's a lot of value in what we're doing I want to thank the school board for uh allowing us to do these kinds of things I you know it really does make a difference um building leaders for the future has always been our motto and uh and I I believe we that's what we do um hear these kids talk today I'm just so impressed we didn't we didn't even talk about what we were going to talk about today so it's
021really uh um I'm super proud of these kids so you don't have to talk about what you're going to talk about if you're walking it every day and this is literally life experience that's happening here and you guys do a great job out there and next year wean goats wean Goats No bottle feeding goats next year get wi well the vle feeding is kind of fun I know you know yeah it's kids like it a lot yes yes um fantastic job guys done and thanks for the donuts thanks for thanks for braving the cold and the donuts [Applause] all right moving along to the consent agenda items you you guys don't have to stay for the rest of the meeting if you don't want to there's so I was going to tell them but they
022like like sat down looked at me like we want to hear the rest but apparently they do I know they have to go feed the goats they have to go feed the goats go feed the goats guys H I had uh consent agenda items due to Steve being under the weather tonight I filled in for him so Steve when you get back I'm expecting a payback on that so uh everything looked great had a couple questions for John answered those uh with that I would make a motion to accept the consent agenda items as presented second it's been properly moved and seconded to accept the consent agenda items as presented is there any discussion hearing none we'll proceed to vote all those in favor please signify by saying I I I I all those oppose
023say no motion passed the consent agenda items are approved uh next moving on to the admin reports all right at the high school um we're coming off a busy couple week stretch here we had our annual snow week uh festivities a couple weeks ago it's a nice way for us to break up that long stretch between Christmas and the spring especially in Wisconsin where it's cold and gives the kids something fun to do and we incorporated a reward day that was very successful um kids had a good time staff came back rejuvenated as well um last week we had our um conferences at all the buildings um at the high school we focus on what we call academic and career planning conferences um picking out schedules but also talking about State assessments test scores and
024then potential careers and college choices so we try to make it as practical as possible and those have been very success successful over the years uh coming up we've got we're coming up on the end of our winter sports season here so playoffs are starting seatings have happened um our our boys won the inaugural middle border Conference hockey championship attorney the first time that happened uh this past Saturday triple overtime game so that was that was really exciting down in Altuna um we have our act boot camp day for 9th through 11th graders on February 27th we put a lot of we're putting a lot of effort in and hopefully it pays off March 3rd we have of a motivational speaker by the name of Terence tally he's coming to speak to all the buildings
025uh he'll use the high school gym but he'll meet with each building individually we're excited to hear his message and then March 11th we have the first of our state assessments our Juniors will be taking their act on March 11th and then nth and 10th graders will be approximately a month later okay at the middle school we are busy going through through our student individual goals we'll be going through our second round of goal setting where the students start talking about ways that they want to uh things they want to work on for self-improvement our sixth grade quiz Bowl has their finals on Wednesday so the two final teams I think there were six teams that are breaking down to the finals so that should be pretty fun they get pretty excited about that so
026I'll go in and watch and cheer them on our genius hour has kicked off a couple of weeks ago and they're busy working on setting up their individual driving questions for their research and um that will culminate on our genius hour Expo on May 9th on Thursday while we were at conferences our students were working on uh our band and choir kids are off at the middle school solo emble and they had an outstanding outstanding night I was um even though I wasn't there because where was I was at conferences but uh the results came back and they just did phenomenal I want to really shout out to Matteo as air and and Camille castanic uh there were three choir judge rooms for the choir groups and uh we took the best in show or
027best in room of all three of those rooms one was Matteo one was Camille and the third room just happened to be Matteo and Camille doing a duet so um pretty amazing um we have a Winter Dance coming up on February 20th our Middle School lockdown drill that we had initially scheduled uh at the end of January got moved to the end of February and so um I've been working with the Amry Police Department on that and we will be doing that drill Tuesday Morning U after um next week well you know communicating quickly with the parents on what we're doing and then um we have uh a presentation to go through with the kids pre and post uh Josh mentioned the youth alive presentation so we're excited to hear Terence Telly that morning on
028March 3rd March 7th is the end of the second trimester so that's pretty exciting the year is moving through and we're almost 2third done and our sixth grade uh will have a we be competing at a math Masters competition so a lot going on at the middle school all right good evening um lot going on at the intermediate school so we recently as an entire building read the book called The Wild robot a movie was newly released and so every staff member in this building read the wild robot and then we read it out loud to our students as well um after that reading incentive we actually celebrated by going to the high school and watching the movie on the big screen so thank you to Annie Brighton for arranging that all of our staff
029for reading the book and then also to the high school for letting us use the auditorium as our personal theater for that day our IPO hosted our winter ball which was very well attended I want to thank the IPO but then also thank Our Miss Amy amyy royalty they come and and spend the evening with us and we really appreciate that our students are really excited to see them um we had a career fair and so it looked bigger and better than it probably ever has we welcomed 17 community members um who came into the classrooms and so each third fourth and fifth grader got to sign up for multiple sessions that they were interested in learning a career about um the feedback from kids was a lot of excitement and a lot of exposure
030to new careers that they had never even known had existed so um I just really want to thank our community members for that cuz that was fantastic for our kids um oakair Children's Theater so the oakair children's theater does Traveling Show and so as part of one of our PBIS rewards um we use that um to reward our students for a a great term of behavior so all of our building went over there and watched um The Three Little Pigs we had our fourth annual love your library night so that's hosted by our library and AR reading committee here um very well attended um students and parents get to see the maker space um do some scavenger hunts read some different books and then do some author talks as well in the public library comes
031and so our students can sign up for library cards and they can win some books so I want to thank our committee for that and then also the public library for coming um our annual idid Rod presentation so our fourth graders do a unit or a theme right now on the idid rod in the dog sled race and so we always welcome Laura week um to come and and she brings in um one of the sleds she usually brings in a dog and then really just talks about what the experience is because she lived it firsthand and our students get really excited about that um as Josh mentioned parent teacher conferences um we also host our art fair at that time and so when our parents come to parent teacher conferences um they get to
032just appreciate the student artwork that lines our hallways as well and then in terms of what we have coming up everything that Josh and Tom have already shared outside of we also have our IPO family bingo night which is a great fundraiser for our building as well thank you okay we just celebrated the 100th day of school school last week Tuesday uh shout out to the staff for creating all sorts of fun activities for our kids involving the number 100 uh shout out especially to my favorite which was Amy Eep where the kids in her kindergarten class popped 100 balloons in about 30 seconds but the only drawback was she didn't tell any of her neighbors that it was happening so people were a little surprised by how loud it was so it was a
033very fun day at the elementary uh if you want to know when the next spell of cold weather will be all you have to do is ask us when we're going to troll hogin we're on to our third try we're supposed to go tomorrow morning and I don't think that would make for fun tubing going down the hill with that kind of temperature so now we're on to trying to reschedule again we're looking at Monday so Monday we might have a snow day apparently no I think it's going to be pretty decent parent teacher conferences we had near perfect attendance at the elementary last week Monday and Thursday lots of good conversation 4K orientation I know we're talking April now but April will be upon us rather soon so April 25th and not to steal
034any Thunder from Jessica we're going to be doing our K12 social studies curriculum or you'll hear all about that next month upcoming activities we got second grade art show inquire and first grade art show inquire this is new we are seeking to do an art show at the elementary in combination with a concert and doing that during the today because it's often hard to get folks to see the art that kids are doing unless they're going to an event where it can be seen cuz it's typically inside schooler inside of a classroom so we're creating a um art show we have no school on the 18th which is Good Friday Earth Day and then 4K orientation good evening um we have our child development day coming this Thursday um this is the second one we've
035held this year um trying to transition to a spring Child Development instead of a fall childel development just to line up with the ages um thank you to First Lutheran Church and um Amry here who have graciously offered the and are um letting us host it there so that we have um enough rooms to be able to meet our families and um visit with the children we have up to eight students or eight kiddos that will come see us so which is a higher number than I was expecting so that's very exciting um and then we also have our group um we are participating in cisa's uh PLC behavior solutions training we had a team go in oob October and for two days and now our third day is coming up here and we'll return
036to cisa um looking at how our tier support looks for behaviors for um different ages so should be a good day how many kiddos did you say were coming to Child Development eight eight eight yeah and this is the second time this year now so okay that number is higher than I thought but um that's great super excited to meet some new families so perfect yeah any questions for the administrators okay off to the achievement Gap report uh for our spring and that will be done with Dr derler and Ambrosia Jessica's going to lead us through this but this is a new um format rather than doing the consecutive slides all of the slides in the past say the exact same thing the numbers change so we put the exact same thing on the one
037slide and the numbers change when you see fall semester progress in that second to last column that's where you'll see the information that probably matters the most so I'm going to turn it over to Jessica and she's going to walk us through it sure so here we are in February talking about fall benchmark scores um we actually just got done with our winter benchmark scores so I just want to remind you that as we review this um that we actually fast Bridge that's the screener we use we fast Bridge our students the second week of school um the reason why we follow that timeline is that really sets the tone of what do we need to do for our kids follow following summer slide um it immediately helps us guide who's getting title groups what
038do our RTI groups look like um the fastb data we receive is is very very um helpful as as we help our students and so when we look at um we look at K1 2 and three so Intermediate School is just a little sliver of it um K and one they use different assessments then second and third grade so for kindergarten in first grade we use the screener early reading English and early math and then when our students transition into second and third grade we actually use fastbridge a reading in a math so they're they're very different screeners um when we look at our kindergarteners in the fall um our goal is to have 80% of our students at or above the 30th percentile 80% is a is a lofty goal I know a lot
039of districts do 75 or 70% we go with 80 um because a lot of research in in reading curriculums and reading Specialists share with us that if have a tier one resource so our our reading curriculum it should Target and meet the needs of 80% of our students so we use a lofty goal of 80% to know that we're using a curriculum um with Fidelity that's meeting the news meeting the needs of all of our Learners um so looking at kindergarten when we screened our students in the fall 89% of our students were at or above the 30th percentile um when we look at math in kindergarten 84% of our students are at or above the 30th per in first grade reading uh 74% in the fall were at or above the 30th percentile in
040mathematics uh 79% of our students were at or above the 30th percentile and then we shift to second grade so again in second grade the students are using a different test so it's actually a computer adaptive test so with students all students start at the same Baseline but as they progress through the assessment the assessment um increasingly gets harder and Concepts differ so it's a it's a new test for our students in the fall when they come to us um so in the fall uh our second grader 61% were at or above the 30th percentile in mathematics 74% were at or above um the the 30th percentile and then when we look in third grade um we had 59% at or above the 30th percentile in reading and then in mathematics we had 80% at
041or above the 30th percentile um Mr derfler and I and Carrie shu is our reading our district reading specialist spend a lot of time talking about these numbers a lot a lot of time looking at these numbers um and again we just rescreened our students um approximately 3 weeks ago and so I have access to that and I will say we're making we're making some really nice gains with our students um when we talk about what what are we doing to meet meet the needs of our students we have smaller class sizes we have really robust Title One Services we have really great uh tier one resources and a really broad menu of tier 2 resources to meet the needs of our students do you guys have any questions on this or Sean did I
042miss anything Mo no I think you did great um so the 80% never changes so we're always looking for that even in the spring right we're looking for that 80% to still test above or at the 30th percentile um how did this these numbers look a little lower than I'm used to seeing in even in the fall so how did that obviously our kindergarteners is not going to play into this but how did that look um from like what we met in the spring with like our first graders second graders do we because they don't have last year's numbers in front of me so I usually try to compare those I didn't for some reason I didn't have that but um did we see a lag because these numbers look a little lower than that
043used to from so from grade level that we like we met that and then you know like in first grade but then we didn't meet it in second grade is that accurate or not there's always different trends that play into this so right we try to follow a student cohort to see how they're trending overline but then we also follow at a grade level how are they trending so we know where we need to give our resources so for example if we have a first grade class that's really struggling we will pivot our Title One sources more to first grade we'll go heavy in first or heavy in third wherever it is to to try to make up those gaps research shows by third grade we have to be closing those gaps um so I
044will say when we we look at the scores um it's very similar to what we what we usually see um and so that's why I I have the fall to winter scores and and those are some nice Trends but I would say it's it's very similar to what we see I reflect a lot on this building when I think of third grade reading in in math and so when I see where we're at for the winter to where we were in the fall um we talk a lot about that implementation implementation dip is what it's called so we're in year three of hmh and so we've seen our our scores steadily increase forward we see our scores look really solid so I'm I'm really happy that we have a great tier one resource um that's
045meeting the needs of 80% of our our students the other thing I can are in this building when I look at third grade in particular is just I was um very transparent about the behaviors we were dealing with when they came to us is is a lot of our Focus shifted to teaching these students how to go to school uh and what the expectations were of the learning environment so we spent a lot of time focusing on that when I look at that third grade and even that second grade cohort right now I really like the trends that that I'm seeing so I'm I'm anxious for spring scores um the most growth in students happens by far January February March and April because that's when they they're they're now applying all the knowledge that they
046learned in the fall and really taking off so that to me is the most exciting time I was just wondering if there was like a a dip that we saw in these fall scores from where they were at the year prior summer leg is it you know is it something like that or was there not a dip so much at all just thinking not a huge dip but I will say the summer lag is is a big part of it we actually um as administrative team but then also teachers just put in recommendations for summer school to Laura shrin and so um this actually will be year two that we have a summer school reading curriculum so it was purchased two years ago it's called 95% um I vetted it it it is a great
047tool for our kids to to try to close that Gap so I'm I'm excited that we're really meeting the needs of our kids and and purchasing and investing in resources to help close those gaps cuz Summers slide is a real thing ask any teach what scores look like in the fall versus in the spring did we have good participation I'm sorry to cut you off there Tom but before I forget this did we have good participation in the summer school reading program last year as as the first year are we expecting maybe it to get better this year is there more going to be referred to this year than last year so I would say I looked at numbers uh K5 and and our numbers are very similar our teachers are very good about putting
048in any student they have concerns the next steps then is parent recommendation letters go home and so then all Ely it's up to a parent to sign up their child uh participation last summer um I think was good I I would absolutely ask that of Laura she could give us the numbers I do know what Laura did last year was really um the class sizes were small so the ratios were smaller versus one teacher having 18 kids at at one point I taught summer school like that our our section sizes she tries to keep them around you know 12 12 to 15 which is really helpful okay sorry thanks go ahead oh no I would just you know the summer we see the summer leg too I mean it we fast Bridge from you know
049spring even for eighth graders and and summer school helps for some kids but yeah okay are is the data the same whether or not we were using hmh or the previous curriculum you know what Jo I have not compared that just my first year was um the year that we purchased hmh so I I can go back and I could definitely look we have had fast bridge for probably about 8 years so the data would be there to be able to look back and see where we were scoring I could do that I mean I don't want to waste your time is that valuable I think there's a lot of factors that's going to factor in with that instead of just curriculum I think we the numbers have went down clearly in the last seven
050years that it's been a trend downward a little bit but I don't think that curriculum is the biggest reason why I think there was just a lot of learning loss with the covid situation and then getting kids back and I think behaviors have been a a driving Factor there too I just think that there's going to be I don't think you can point at One Singular thing um although at this point we don't really have a choice because we have to with act 20 we have 20 right uh we have to teach the science of reading and this was the curriculum that we chose to go into this and thank God we did otherwise we would have been spending money on a whole another curriculum and like you're saying there's so many variables when it
051comes to our kids right you know kids in and out what that looks like um you know special education referrals at what point in their academic mic career um the things that we've done and even the trends that we've seen across education is now it's a mandate for science of reading so we've invested a lot of money a lot of time into our K3 teachers being trained in the science of reading we use top 10 tools um it is amazing to go as a as a as a former first grade teacher it's amazing to go into a first grade or second grade classroom and see our students using words like dip thongs open syllables closed syllables they're saying them my second year my second grader Harper comes home and she's like Mom that's a closed
052syllable that's an open and those are things that you know just just the language so when you know better you do better so part of our hmh curriculum has something called structured literacy in it and it is science of reading based so it it it's a beautiful tool that we have that's embedded in in um k2's day every single day um sh when you ask about summer school I will tell you next summer part of act 20 says that our students that have personalized reading plans must have access to high quality curriculum and instruction in summer school so I've already kind of planted that seed with Laura to say this summer looks very similar but when we look to next summer um we have to make sure that we have those summer school resources for
053our students I that's what kind of where I was wondering about the participation and how that's looking yeah I guess the other the other aspect of that is you know it's what we can influence I guess but the other question for the the test that you do and we get all these numbers um that's why I was asking about about the data itself it's because I think since 2012 I think they actually kind of lowered the threshold of test scores um with the ones you use about three different times um for whatever reasons they've lowered them and raised them raised them and lowered them they have they yeah they went up they went up considerably they went up considerably than they initially like like like considerably higher um because they npe they put them onto
054the nape standard and then they came off the nape standard now they're going allegedly we're expect him to go back to the nape standard here this year again which will be hard to conduce some comp yeah it just seems confusing to collect data for me over a time period oh especially when they change the test for nth and 10th graders every three years yeah now the scores don't really change just what they're saying what percentage would be considered proficient but the scores itself so that's why we look at a scale score which is a which won't matter where standard you're using the the scale score will be consistent so we look at Trends over that so we break those scores down like 20 different ways um to take and looking for growth but you know
055and I think for like hmh T typically they're say you're need three years of consistency before you can really do a trend and so and you know we'll be able to take a look after the third-year major mcy not only with fast bridge but I think with the state test scores um what percentage of where the kids are falling on a scale score will tell us a lot so we we can get around that with that you know and we did roll that out during Co that was the first year that we implemented that this is year three for us of hmh next year will be year four thank you welcome all right thanks any any other questions on that I just had a question in regards to the Monas students and how they're tested
056if they're in a one through three classroom so they follow the same assessments that um that our our traditional third graders do so they take the same battery of Assessments the ones that we use for AGR report is a reading and a math but there are other ones automaticity um CBM reading so there's a several more of them it's about five that um our students take in fast Bridge the first grade do first grade second grade oh yeah sorry if that's what you were asking Gwen our first graders in the multi-age room take the first grade assessments with same as the traditional and then our second grade take the same in third and so on yes all right thanks J all right off to our informational items wasby State Convention update Mr McBride yeah so
057uh there was four of us that went this year uh Tracy Hendrickson George sigworth uh Gretchen Wahlberg and myself um this is arguably one of the better you know kind of state conventions of the year um lot of breakout sessions a lot of different tracks um really what I'll just speak to is kind of the four main bullet points of the tracks that I were on the first one is um a lot of conversation about the banial budget it's a banial budget year and so it's what's the superintendent's ask versus what's the state's asked versus what's the governor's ask and that sort of thing um and uh I I'm hopeful that at least some of what has been asked of the state will get passed um especially considering that the special education categorical reimbursement percentage
058for this year is estimated to only come across as 25% which is which means that 75% of special education costs are being siphoned off of our regular aded that the district then legally has to put over into special education so a big ask for the state this year is to increase that number to 66% uh which would be great especially with a little bit of question mark of what's going to happen with the Federal side of things um you know really that's going to be more of a necessity than it's going to be a luxury um for our our population and ultimately our budget um some of the other asss increasing the low Revenue limit ceiling um would also be really great as well um as a per pupil categorical across the board increase would
059be fantastic as well uh because that would have a direct impact on our uh individual tax base um another uh one was a lot on getting creative with Benefits uh for staff members uh and I'm happy to say that all the ones that I sat through and that Gretchen sat through um we are actually exceeding what they are telling us that we should be doing which is fantastic uh there was a big emphasis on eaps as we've talked about in the past and it's something that's on my focus list as well um as a model what they're calling now an enhanced employee assistance program which is actually something that's subsidized by the school district but mostly covered by our insurance companies so uh a lot of good conversation there uh lot of great conversations as
060well about declining enrollment Statewide um Statewide the per pupil or on a total total standpoint it's about 21,000 and what the both state demographer and the waspy demographers are uh relating that to is mostly uh what they call Natural uh natural declination which is just more deaths than births uh and some of it is also attributed to shifting populations around uh what states they're in uh and then finally there was also a lot of topics um from the finance perspective on how to better communicate with the public about all of the craziness that's going on with the state and all that sort of stuff so overall it was a fantastic convention um and uh you know like I said it's always a good one any questions for John okay thanks John moving on then to
061First reading of board policies 4:30 student participation in foreign study programs okay this would be sorry this would be an amended policy 4302 was first passed in 2010 so here we are 15 years later in my experience since I've been here in the 19 years no student has ever availed themselves of this opportunity which is is for a student that lives and goes to school in the school district of Amry to go to another country and attend school as a foreign exchange student there so going in the other direction so to speak the language changes are simply making it more modern as to what we do at the high school it was some of the language was simply obsolete uh having met with Josh and high school guidance uh these were the recommended changes from
062that meaning that were created by high school guidance and uh if a student want wanted to Avail themselves of this opportunity which it sounds like we have a perspective candidate for that then we would have updated language and they could do that so you'll see this here tonight and then you'll see it again in March for a second reading rather than me walk through every bit of the changes you've seen it with your own eyes if you have any questions Josh or I can help I hope just we really align the new language just to go with what we see other districts doing uh in the State and yeah like like Dr drifer said we haven't had a whole lot of requests for this over the years and there's a a family inquiring right now
063it's it's you know quite a spendy Endeavor the big thing from this is you know we just want to make sure that if a student does take the opportunity to do this that they're still staying on some sort of a track to be able to graduate and they have to have official transcripts for us it's it's it's it's kind of no different than if a student were to transfer to us from oio Falls you know we have to go through the transcripts and see how it aligns so it that's basically what this is saying any questions on policy 43.2 all right uh policy 8:30 use of District facilities Dr well there are a variety of policies that are out there that already exist this policy is as it's titled right in the top right corner
064is a new combined policy because you'll see there are four or five pages where it simply says eliminate which means these policies would would be eliminated and Consolidated into one place we are in a different spot now than we've ever been in regards to the use of our facilities for a couple of reasons one then the requests we get are more varied now than we they have ever been we have a lot of different people needing to use or wanting to use our facilities for reasons that just didn't exist 5 10 15 years ago and in addition to that we now have an upgraded Athletics facility where people are going to perhaps be interested in using that facility we've already received some inquiry on that so the time to create a new policy which addresses
065that is now uh Tracy is the one that put pen to paper in or pencil to paper at this point and uh authored new policy combining language from previous policy to create what you see here for policy 8:30 we're just trying to be prepared with the next request and the next request is right around the corner I have a question on I haven't seen but you know I know that one point there was some costs listed down what it would cost to rent it is did I miss that on the new no we didn't include the cost because the cost is is going to be quite varied for instance if someone wanted to come in to use our Auditorium and they wanted to pack the house for 600 people and $25 $35 a ticket and
066all that cost them is $200 to rent the facility that seems pretty inequitable when they're going to be taking home 10 20 $30,000 so we didn't include the cost for that very reason okay so it's going to depend on what you want to do it's a sliding scale it is and the same is true of our Athletic Facility it really comes down to the laws of supply and demand if you really want to play a baseball game there's not a lot of spots to play in April I mean most fields are underwater or just too soft to play ours will be ready to roll we hope so there's that too have we had people asking about baseball field M yep and and our soccer football field as well soccer in this case okay much of
067the information that you see on the eliminated Pages would be things that would be pulled out of policy and instead put on the website for the public to be able to see we don't necessarily need to have pricing and policy and then every time we want to change the pricing we're back at a board meeting with two readings to get it changed so that was some of the thought process behind some of the things that you see eliminated Auditorium etiquette you know rules of how to use the fields what you can and can't do those kinds of things would be on the website and available to those people that would want to use the facilities rather than in policy and having if we want to change it then it's just a lot more effort to
068do that when it's in policy when there really guidelines that could be on the website I just look back I was here in 99 and I had there was a wedding in my building and that was that initially changed some of the of the this some of this policy was put into place because um they it was a it was a staff member not from the middle school but from another building who one worked in the the kitchen and one worked as a custodian they had they were family members of this couple and then for like $25 they had a 300 person wedding using our kitchen and every PL the gym the whole place kind of left it in shambles for me and it was like the ceremony was there or the re the actual
069no the wedding everything the wedding was held at where in the middle school did mol gym the gy and then and then they add Middle School cafeteria I guess to each their own relationship okay just I know so they they were you know I didn't know that yeah were they Middle School sweethearts or something fell in love there I don't know sentimental reasons there nothing says romance like the middle school I guess that's probably true all right any questions or uh suggested changes at this point for policy 8:30 K doie moving on then action items second reading of board policy there's some questions on the next since we're talking about informational items and I was just wondering if I could bring up possibly where to bring up our next informational items are you good with
070that I guess I don't I I don't understand the question okay so I was just looking at what are we going to look at next for informational items for next policies of next month and the the month after I haven't even begun to create the agenda there but if you have a suggestion well I just wanted to I don't know if maybe you guys are all aware I received an email um I don't know if any of you also did about an executive order for president Trump about the removal of Dei related topics um in you know and we have Dei you know diversity equity and inclusion stuff in regards to I mean it almost feels like culture here but I mean within our curriculum and our policy and our testing and um and I
071think he gave the state like 14 days to comply um and I just wanted to make you aware of that and obviously I think it has to go to the state first and then to districts um obviously I hope we comply I know it's a lot if you don't it obviously the the thing is you won't get Federal funding which is why I asked John earlier about how much Federal funding we get is about a million dollar so um I just wanted to make you aware maybe that's something that we should be looking at over the next month here because I think it was on Valentine's Day when the executive order went out the timeline's a little longer than that to my knowledge I believe it's uh 90 days that you have to comply with
072though I could be wrong here's the guidance that I've rece received from the Department of Public construction up to and including today they said to hold firm on executive orders until the Department of Public Instruction via the state legislature weighs in and my hunch is there's going to be conflict between existing state law and Department of Public Instruction policy in executive order and the final summation was this is going to end up before judge or judge is to determine what you are supposed to do and then at that point you should probably seek to change policy if it's ferited out that that's what you need to do I'm getting an update daily if not more than once a day in regards to executive orders the state's done nothing with any of them because executive order
073has ultimately has no teeth it's the law that does and the state legislature is going to have to determine law or the federal government via this in the Supreme Court are going have to determ what's law and that hasn't happened yet and I believe Congressman Tiffany brought that up also yep they have to they have toh weed it all out so to speak because there are the language is simply contradictory and you can't have contradictory law some some one's going to preside and the other is going to go away at some point okay well obviously I just want it's just like informational I just want to make you're you're completely aware of it so um yeah just thank you you're welcome aware of it yet under aware of it yes understand uh I haven't gotten
074my head around it I don't think anyone has CU there's just so much conflicting language I'm not saying it's good or bad it's just contradictory so we just got to figure out where we sit and someone's going to have to tell us where we sit I think it's always been the position of this this board and this Administration to follow the law um and will do that when the law takes effect and uh other than that uh it would be a waste of time to try to go through and figure out exactly what we need to do if we don't need to do it so um I think that's it's always been kind of the position of this Administration so is there anything else you wanted to add for informational items then do we need
075to add that to an agenda I wouldn't see us putting that on until we know anything more I think we need to have some more knowledge with it obviously you know again I think it coincides with you know I I surely hope the ultimate result is truly you know equality um but we'll see okay all right action item second reading of policy 420 rule school admissions guidelines uh there's no change from last month to this month this month the only changes on the back of the sheet and then February 17th uh number six is in red that's the only thing that's been that's still there so to speak these are changes that had occurred out of the last couple of months that we've been talking about this yes and is there any discussion or changes
076that anybody wants to see that's still not right is there a motion to approve policy 420 I'll make a motion we approve policy 420 as presented second it's been properly moved and second into to approve policy uh 420 rule as presented is there any discussion hearing none we'll proceed to vote all those in favor of approving policy 420 rule is presented please signify by saying I I I all those opposed please signify by saying no motion passed policy 420 rule has been approved and donations to the district and The Song Remains the Same we've got a lot of donations to the district starting with a Anonymous donation of $2,000 for each of our four music teachers uh to purchase items on their wish lists uh we have two pump donations because as you know there's
077been a business transaction that's resulted in a change in ownership of the Amry Express downtown so the leftover from the last ownership is $385 38 new ownership 8579 what has occurred what has occurred typically is about $1,200 every quarter so it's been just shy of $5,000 a year it's simply under a new title now so I went and picked up two checks and now I'll probably just pick up one again a new ownership is continuing to they're they they are going to honor that uh pump the way they have been doing it since uh Doug Reinhardt back in the day started doing that thing so they haven't changed a thing really nice which is awesome yeah really nice bizarrely consistent it's very consistent but you know people have like their favorite gas stations their favorite
078you know like people are creatures of habit you're talking every time we get a check it's been a dollar or two it's nuts very strange uh NAPA Auto Parts thank you to Tom Miller of NAPA Auto Parts for donating brake pads calipers wheel bearings and rotors to our home and auto maintenance class uh thank you to silus Larson for making the fixtures in which these parts are mounted Elda Hansen thank you for donating 45 Valentine packs with crayons coloring books and snacks for students at lean Elementary and many thanks for your generosity and support once again I just wanted to quickly talk about the anonymous donor on page one uh just as a testament to the people around this area it's a couple who was not originally from here whose kids graduated from school in
079a different state uh who just follow our Facebook page and love the things that are going on with our music programs and wanted to bless each of the four music teachers with $500 to kind of go crazy with something fun and and exciting for their their kids and they just don't want any fam or notoriety from it but it was a very welcome email to be sending to those four teachers who I think we and I'll say definitely deserve it after the successes of our music programs yeah super cool lots of lots of cool things it just never ceases do amazing me like the variety of things that get donated to the district of like such great asset you know like Tom's back from the brink of death and opened a new auto part store
080in town and you know he obviously sees the value and uh kids learning how to do their home home and auto maintenance and just really really cool things happening here at the school district and the community just supports it and it's always it's always really cool to see do I have a motion to accept the donations I'll make that motion Joe second by one it's been properly moved and seconded to accept the donations to the school district uh with many thanks is there any discussion hearing none we'll proceed to vote all those in favor of accepting the donations to the district please signify by saying I I I all those opposed please signify by saying no I can't imagine anybody would thank you very much and uh another shout out to our community all right
081and off to Personnel action all right no employment and extracurricular contracts Emily aminet is a JV softball coach Antonio Antonia Berger in clubhouse Remy Dodge special ad perah Sandy Johnson Clubhouse worker Felicia Osborne School nutrition food server Amilia Tanner special ed perah McKinley school psychologist with the asterisk meaning she starts in the fall of 25 Misty Wishard Clubhouse worker resignations uh for Taylor cast in the area of Clubhouse and a resignation resignation that we are resending with your vote uh Hannah Robinson as a special ed perah do I have a motion to accept Personnel actions I'll make a motion we accept the Personnel Dale is there a second I'll second it Joe it's been properly moved and seconded to accept the Personnel action items is presented all those in favor please signify by saying I
082I all those opposed please signify by saying no motion passed Personnel action is accepted there's no reason to go into close session I don't believe I don't think there's any Community comments right I mean there's only the two who and two of you so okay nobody signed up uh there's no reason to go into close session okay hearing none then I will take a motion entertain a motion to adjourn I move to adjourn Gwen is there a second second it Jo all those in favor to adjourn please signify by saying I I I all those opposed please signify by saying no motion passed we're adjourned