Amery Board of Education Regular Meeting 3/13/23

001you thank you well welcome back to open session here for the Emory Board of Education regular meeting and the first item that we're going to do here is to have the Pledge of Allegiance so please join me and to the Republic for which it stands one nation under God indivisible with liberty and justice for all thank you and we see our lineup here so we have a spotlight on education tonight and it is our Amery High School parliamentary procedure team thank you for inviting us tonight we're going to talk a little bit about we have our speaking contest coming up we just uh had our district speaking contest and uh six out of the seven uh contests we took first place and so we have a wide group of kids going to uh to sectionals

002for for our speaking contest and one of them is a parliamentary procedure and so this is a great practice for us but also highlight some of the things that we that we do parliamentary procedure is the proper way to run a meeting and the FFA has a great contest with us we've had we've won this one six times since I've been here so it's been a really good thing we've uh We've even placed we got third in the nation a few years ago and this is a very good team and and they're going to demonstrate real quick about how to how to how the contest kind of works and the uh these kids have put countless hours in to getting to the point where they are today and we're just really proud of them and

003so we'll let you kind of see a little bit about how it works and go from there so this is uh Carter kurtzels he's our chairman and then we have uh Ben Larson uh you guys just wave when you say your name yeah and then Byron Dodge and Emma Johnson and Timothy Justice and we're missing Sarah Jensen tonight and then we're also missing Hannah Justice she's in Europe so um so here we go it's been moved and seconded for the chapter to sponsor donkey basketball is there any debate Mr chairman I'm in favor of this motion for several reasons one being that this is a great opportunity for us to get our community involved with our episode chapter and a great event for us to put on our national chapter award application for so for

004these several reasons please vote Yes is there any further debate Mr chairman chair recognizes Marin I move to lay on the table the motion that our chapter sponsors uh donkey basketball game second it's been moved and seconded for the chapter to lay on the table the motion for our chapter to have a donkey basketball game all those in favor of laying this motion on the table please signify by saying aye aye all opposed to say no no motion fails we will not be late in this motion on the table is there any further debate on the main motion Mr chairman chair recognizes Benjamin I know I moved that we postpone to our next regulated scheduled knitting promotion that we for our chapter to sponsor donkey basketball it's been moved and seconded to a postponed to

005her next regularly scheduled meeting the motion for a chapter to sponsor donkey basketball is there any debate Mr chairman chair recognizes Benjamin I'm strongly in favor of this motion not only because we our champion needs time to find the funds for this motion but also because we also need time to find the donkeys for it so please vote Yes is there any further debate see none will see the vote all those in favor of postponing to our next rightly scheduled meeting the most referred chapter to sponsor donkey basketball please signify by saying aye aye all opposed to say no no motion fails we will not be postponing this motion to our next weekly scheduled meeting is there any further debate on the main motion Mr chairman all right Mr parliamentary inquiry parliamentary inquiry has been

006called was your inquiry what is the difference between lay on the table and postpone to a certain time lay on the table is to um like delay emotion until you need like to do it if you have something important coming up such as a guest speaker and postpone to a certain time is if you need to send it to another meeting where the agenda is more comparable with that motion lay on the table sends motions off the agenda while postponed to a certain time keeps the Motions on the agenda is there any further debate on this main motion Mr chairman chair recognizes to me I move to amend the motion so that the motion reads for the chapter sponsor donkey basketball on September 20th second it's been moved and seconded to amend the main motion

007by adding the words on September 20th so that if past semester will read for the chapter to sponsored donkey basketball on September 20th is there any debate Mr chairman chair recognizes Timmy I am in favor of this motion given that we need given that currently our financial standings do not make it so that we can support this and we will have multiple fundraisers in between then to properly gauge our financial standings for this motion my second reason uh being that our current gymnasium is going to get re-flored over the next few months so we will not be able to host it until a later date so please vote Yes on this minute is there any for the debate see none proceed to vote all those in favor of amending the main motion by adding the

008words on September 20th so that if passed the most will read for the chapter to uh sponsor donkey basketball on September 20th please signify by saying aye aye all opposed say no no motion passes we will be amended motion by any words on September 20th is debate on the main motion Mr chairman I encourage you to vote in the positive for this motion for several reasons some of them include that this motion which our alumni agreed to support would show the community the positive impact we have within our chapter it would also impact our chapter through positive bonding experiences I also talked to secretaries within section 2 within our section and they said that this this this motion worked out really well for them so for these several reasons please vote Yes on this motion

009is there any further debate so you don't proceed to vote all those in favor for the chapter to sponsored donkey basketball on September 20th please signify by saying aye aye all opposed say no motion passes we will be sponsoring donkey basketball on September 20th is there any further business seen on this meeting stands adjourned well done we've got some work to do we just run things different I do have a question though because years ago the state parliamentary procedure was different than the national is that still the way it is uh yeah it is not anymore okay Wisconsin just changed so that it's the same as the as the national wave because I know that I know when my kids were in it it was like oh now we got to switch our brains to

010go to Nationals and do it different so it's the same now cool good good thank you yes thank you good luck good luck yeah [Music] next it will be our consent agenda items I had agenda items for this month and um everything was in order although I did have discussion um about a refund for a fraudulent charge and um had a very interesting uh enlightening experience about how often our uh credit cards are used fraudulently um and so obviously our uh our financial office looks over those uh credit card statements and thoroughly checks them and makes sure that all the charges are authorized um but uh it was very interesting to learn that they are used fraudulently very often and they have to you know submit the form and say that this was not an

011authorized charge and it's crazy she was saying that one card was even used even though I had never it had been used fraudulently even though it had never been used before like how do they get those numbers it had never even been used but if you've never had it happen to you you should consider yourself all right wow is there a second that's second sure all in favor say aye aye aye opposed no there we go uh we don't not have any Community comments so we will go on to our administrative committee reports welcome back Tom Benson you're up all right thank you you can make fun of Josh he's not here yeah um while at the middle school we just ended second trimester about a week ago and we're heading into the the final

012third of the year and um it's gone pretty quickly it's amazing we had a quiz Bowl competition that sixth grade runs every year that just finished it wasn't done when I submitted this report but I want to congratulate Ian bersic Xavier kamonic Camille gastonic and Ellie amens who were the champions this year so and they take that pretty seriously that was pretty cool and Haley de Leon our family consumer ed teacher coordinated that so I want to thank her we are starting up our getting prepared for our forward exam State Testing information went out to parents about that recently and will come out from the other buildings next week when we start with that there's um probably about a month of pre-work that needs to be done there's some required practice tests that the kids

013have to go through some sampler items they want the kids to make sure that they're familiar with all the tools they call it an online tools training so they're familiar with how to manipulate the computer to do the things that it's asking them to do it's not just a yes or no test so when they take that they may be moving blocks and stacking things they might be graphing things on charts and manipulating things off the computer so they need to go through the process and the training on that each year and that will start next week at the middle school along with those those strategies that they have to learn uh we just finished our seventh grade civics field trip today and Matt Pettersen and the seventh grade team did a really nice job

014coordinating that and I know that um they spent time up at the courthouse and they actually get to see a hearing they in the past have used to go into the um actually into the jails but they weren't allowing that I believe do you know if they I don't think they did again this year no and uh and then in addition they they come through and they they spend some time also looking at our local government and taking a look not only at um you know our city hall but the police station and uh meeting with the different ways that things are working here municipally at the government and getting to take a look at how those courts work and not just County but local so that's was pretty cool and then they also go

015up to the Polk County Museum up there at the Old Courthouse if you haven't been there it's really neat I really like it we have a pbl community meeting coming up uh on Wednesday and that's going to be um making sure that we're ready to go with our project-based learning and the genius hour program and making sure that our kids are prepared for that as we will get ready for our genius hour Expo or Community Expo in May we have a seventh and eighth grade that we're taking a field trip to the Ordway to see My Fair Lady um that's always kind of fun for them a lot of the kids have never been to something like that so they get to go into the theater in the cities and see that our Middle School

016Dance got postponed to the 23rd and uh that we had it it was one of the many snow days we've had so I was glad because I was out and now I'm able to come back and keep an eye on the dance make sure that the Ambrosio kid's not in trouble I'll admit it you just want to shake it up there with the kids yeah [Laughter] we have a large group Music Festival coming up we have a Warrior Way celebration in March at the end of March the state di competitions in Green Bay and April 1st and then our actual four tests will start on April 4th so lots of things going on any questions do we have some di teams that have qualified for State we do have one team up at the high

017school that qualified to go to the state competition so that's exciting glad to see you back thank you and I want to just mention um you know if not to go into the accident or anything but I want to just commend the First Responders police officers firefighters EMTs absolute amazing and professional to deal with what they did and as quickly as they did and I was I'm very impressed with them and I think we need to make sure that we continue to thank them for all the work they do sorry yeah um the IPO here offered a family fun Bingo night on February 28th and it was very well attended they were able to play Bingo they enjoyed ice cream sundaes won some great gifts and so I want to thank our IPO for offering

018these wonderful opportunities to our families the turnout is always very well attended and there's always a lot of excitement right before it and I also want to thank the IPO with the funds that they raise every year they are donating a set dollar amount to every student to be able to go on a field trip so they're sponsoring a portion of the field trips we have a lot of field trips that come up in the spring so all those funds will go to very good use to help our kids get to exciting and educational opportunities we had our second annual love your library event on February 21st right before a big snowstorm that was also very well attended last year was our first year this is our second year and so we kind of just

019built upon what happened last year there was a timed challenge in the Makerspace room right here next door so families came and developed different looks like a luge essentially Bob's letters and they were getting timed on that there was a book challenge activity within the class within the library so the challenge was is that you had to find a book that started with your first name you had to find a book that had the spine of your favorite color so just some different activities to finding new books within our library and then it ended in the library Mrs Brayton gave some wonderful book talk so highlighting some really popular books or authors in our library and then there was a drawing and we were able to get several series of books in kids hands that

020attended so that was wonderful the high school agriculture Horticulture class welcomed over our third graders last week so our third graders went over and planted plants with that class and the high schoolers will take hopefully good care of them until May and then there's a special event in May that those will go home with kids and they will give them to someone that they love and if you recall this is actually our first year as being a school-wide title one program versus a targeted Title One program so the elementary and Intermediate School title teachers are continuing their work with that in service day this Thursday they're going to be spending a portion of that day and actually even this Wednesday working on our plan for next year so we just we update our plan as

021we go we have to have certain community members on it parents different representatives and so we're just working on updating that title one plan we have a lot of upcoming activities as you can see we have report cards going home on Wednesday as Tom mentioned some forward information going home to our parents will go home on Wednesday in the family folders as well we have no school a few days in March we have the academic fear and art show March 23rd we have Public Library visits so each student will get the opportunity to visit our Public Library they're going to get some some tours have some book talks be able to have a craft and then they're able to check out books if they want something that I don't think a lot of people know

022is that if you were to check out a book at the public library you can return those to our schools here and our Librarians are able to Route those back to the public library which is wonderful with our library visit some kids I'll you know will say why I might not be able to get it back but kids can turn in their public library books here and then we're able to Route them back we have the forward testing April 4th through 14th no school April 7th and 10th and then we have an up camp upcoming fourth grade concert on April 13th as well hello so Elementary School we did our annual ocean dive on March 6. the students were excited coming into the school doors in their in their swimming gear in their flip-flops and

023their snorkels and it was there was a lot of fun to be had by all in that and they were really excited to share about all the animals that they had researched so that was a very fun night going along with Tom's dance we had our second grade concert get canceled numerous times due to the snow days but they were able to on March 7th finally pull off their Aloha concert and just they just did a fantastic job again so kudos to our music department Mrs henningsguard for putting together that fantastic concert our kindergartners went on the road to Shell Lake and watched a musical called dragons love tacos so they did some um some reading activities prior to that with the book dragons love Taco so they had a great time with that field

024trip so that was really fun for them to be able to do um March 3rd ended our trimester teachers are finalizing their report card information to be going home this week and just to touch on our parent-teacher conferences that we held in February we had 92 percent of our lean families involved in either phone or or in-person attendance so that was very great to see everybody involved with that to celebrate their students and all their hard work our community connections this this month we're with the Amery Women's Club they came and visited lean Elementary second graders on March 2nd read a story about batlov's night and did an activity with our second graders it went out went over very well the students really enjoyed their time with them so we just appreciate all their hard

025work in connecting with our school building are in service on the 16th we're going to do a lot of Team grade level work and work in our guest speaker Mary Schieffer who has been in our building a few different times working with her expertise on trauma sensitive schools so we'll welcome her back for a bit to speak with us and in service and then our referendum I've been sharing the video that's also out on the the website the school website that just kind of shows a nice little walk through video about what what the referendum is going to look like as it gets going so the excitement is being built over at the elementary school and and what is newly to come for us so I just want to say thank you to everybody for

026all their hard work and support that goes into these projects it's just really great to have that to support our students and our staff upcoming events we have our PBIS celebration as well the students are going to do a whole bunch of outside snow activities so that's the great thing about it snowing all weekend is they have lots of fresh snow to do that in round that off with a cup of hot cocoa at the end we have our in-service no school days and then our lean Elementary art show is going to be on March 23rd at 5 30 and then our lower elementary Montessori pbl project-based learning class they'll have their concert at 6 30 at the high school auditorium on March 30th and then round that up with seventh and tenth no school

027again thank you good evening just just an updates as you know in the past and no secret this year we're holding PK through 12 special education meetings which are you know a larger collaborative of all our building teams getting together after school and really just the purpose of which is to share information to collaborate on things build consensus around changes that we want to consider or or Implement and so um you know we were snowed out a couple of those days so it had been a couple months since we had one of these so it was it was good to see everybody and just I think those are positive um meetings not just to do those those kind of business tasks that I talked about but to really allow staff to to talk to one

028another oftentimes the challenge is that um the special ed teachers and case managers are facing are are tough and it's a it's hard work so we talk about that and we share it and I just it was a it was a nice experience to just have that meeting again and it felt like a long time after being stowed out a couple months um so a couple of those things that we did it was really nice to announce the fact that as paperwork comes through and IEP meetings are held we have removed now our official covid-19 virtual service language so that feels really good to get beyond that and turn that page and then also just really trying to become not paperless but paper light and that's by allowing parents to elect to just have their

029IEPs and paperwork emailed with their verbal consent and then we document that in the IEP determination and placement gauge so at some point in the future maybe it'll be a quick little button you push and make it a little even easier than that but um right now hopefully that'll save us on a little bit of on mailing and allow us to save a few trees in the process as far as training goes there are some nice Early Childhood trainings upcoming season 1 is presenting a series of three trainings focusing on just early childhood education especially those ages three through five strategies resources around appropriate developmental developmental instructional practices and uh so we're hoping to get you know some Select Staff there certain Early Childhood folks and we've got a professional development our application that I'm

030going to submit to our admin team tomorrow so we'll see if we can get folks some credit in the form of professional development hours for attending that learning miniseries and then finally Dynamic learning Maps it's assessment season just today is Tom and Jeff mentioned the there's a lot of accommodations that go into the testing engine um just today we're troubleshooting the difference between listening scripts human read aloud and text-to-speech for example and whether those accommodations are embedded or not embedded and whether they need special requirement from DPI in order to implement some of those so while it can seem pretty straightforward that we're just pushing buttons into into the machine and assigning them to students there really are underneath that some pretty deep conversations in terms of making sure that we're providing the allowable accommodation

031to the students so that we can get the most accurate representation of what they know when they take the test so that's all I have for this evening go ahead was there anything from Josh is there any slide or anything nope maybe we just put that up there so that you know people at home if they're looking at that they can just see what uh a Wyatt and Coy will be here next month to be recognized we did the act on the seventh and we're moving into full-on High School season of events March April May is a whirlwind on events no shoveling and we started spring Sports it's it's doesn't it seem like it I mean seriously oh wow good maybe it'll be just may yeah maybe all right all right Ryan you're up with

032the transportation report hey everyone hi thank you so I'll start with just some of the numbers um a bit different this year long to show the change in the 2021 year there was a lot less ridership with covid and less days actually in school and then you see the difference in 21 to 22. of the more miles the more fuel we use the cost repairs is partially that and just the uptick in parts cost and I'm noticing that this next year is going to be way more because some parts are three times as much I'm trying to find some cheaper things on one end but then there's certain things you have to get through the dealer and you're stuck paying their prices um we did notice that the cost repairs on Vans was down we

033got rid of those two old bands and we have two brand new ones a couple times and then we did finally get the bus from that we ordered in 21 in May of 22 so John got to drive that for about three days of the school here before summer and then um we did order the one in June of 22 and it went into production today so they say about 10 days in a Wisconsin bus will have it they'll do their upfit with the camera systems and stuff and then we'll get it so we're open early April so a little bit better a little better 10 days 10 days 10 days to build to Boston then they do their part yeah it sounds good yeah it's awesome it sounds like a stretch yeah nice to

034meet you and then he said he's noticing a lot of better quality in the builds now last year we our bosses had a ton of warranty work done on it just little things missed not tight things falling off just thanks like we fought we couldn't figure it out as long as it is they literally didn't plug hoses in underneath to the dryer yeah just pour an air out so we're hoping to get a better quality plus this one is coming and then I wanted to add in the bus purchase in this meeting and try to do it earlier this year because they are only having so many of the flat nose buses and we can't fit anything but those in our garage and if we have the longer nose we can't double stack them in

035other garages we can't park them all inside so we're kind of stuck with the flat nose which gives us better visibility anyway and most of my drivers prefer that CU pursued other bids that you only received one correct Thomas usually gives us a bed and he just said we can't bid this here we don't have the availability and we're not we're going to choosing to not bid I looked into International but the problem with International the only thing we can get in the flat nose is a rear engine but you're talking a lot more money for a rear engine bus I put that in the 160 range so that 142 how does that compare it to the previous two years of bus order a ballpark 137-ish and the year before was 107. yeah so we're

036seeing a less of a jump than last year but still a pretty significant jump okay so if you did want to take up this action you would need to treat this as an action item but I'll let you continue on and then we can Circle that I'm hoping to do as I'm trying to to get this action item through now so I can get it ordered so we can get this year's otherwise it'll push us the next model year and then we're looking at a year and a half two years before we get that bus and we have some pretty old buses so we can't keep pushing these ones out one doing it oh no bye he said in this month will be the best do we have the money we budget up new bus

037every year we didn't know the number until last week it's close enough to what we had budgeted to be able to do that I mean you can you can always skip purchasing buses but then you're really going to get stuck with having to get five of them and then it just becomes unsustainable financially yeah so my recommendation would be to approve it if that's what you choose to do it's certainly up to you yeah right now we have a boss that is just waiting to see if we get another DNR Grant and we did get that one last year and it was I think around the 27 000 we got back and usually we only get 1500 to 3 000 for a used bus so that was pretty neat so we're hoping to get that

038again on this one which will help offset that yep I'll make a motion that we approve the bus purchase you can do that right now if you want yep sure Aaron and Joe all those in favor say aye aye and opposed okay that was too easy Ryan I wanted to make you work for this I was gonna too I wanted to wait till the end of this yeah they saw a lot on the agenda between there I'm like well I'm gonna be here a long time yeah thank you for moving that up yeah um this started last year in February the entry level driving training and um we started doing in-house and to try to save the district a lot of money and we did it we were able to get two drivers through it

039and it worked pretty good had a couple snags where they had to send it back and forth with the D.O.T like hey you missed this you missed that it's a learning process for everybody and once you get everything right then they're allowed to take the road test and it worked pretty good but it's just one more step to get already hard system to get drivers and so you're the administrator of this program then correct yeah okay taking on a little more Josh bump for helping Train everybody and he does a really good job with that yeah I did get the transfinder implemented it's uh very helpful for seeing the routes and who is on each stop and turn by turn and on a map so if you're trying to figure out someone will call me

040and say hey this happened at this stop and I don't know who the kids are I can look on the map and it'll be a DOT and they'll tell me which kids get on there so it's it's helped a lot and the technology end of it um knock on wood we haven't had to try the route absorption yet but that would allow it if we were a short a driver we could absorb it to other routes we I don't know if we have the capacity our buses are the ridership's way up it's the first year where I had to actually change some routes to make it fit because there's too many kids on one bus and not enough on another so and there's just some of the other options the same for with transfinder that

041I am looking into moving on to but if they get kind of spendy because they add a lot of technology to the buses and um one thing nice and I noticed you know like if a bus is behind or something it's very hard to get a message out to the parents so they're just the one bus or it's kind of a blanket right now we have to just message everybody and this would give you the option like the stop finder would be able to you could opt into as a parent and you could have it tell you like hey it's at the stop before or then we could send a message out it's 20 minutes behind you know stuff like that so it's kind of a good option the the way finder is added into

042it so that'll be really good for sub drivers or if you have to jump onto a different route or if you had to use that route absorption these two would be very helpful because then the the app could notify the parents to the different stop times because if you absorb routes it's just going to throw the whole the whole route off but it's just something I would like to kind of keep in keep looking into and if you want us to look into it Rank and certainly bring back the literature and the price points and certainly on both I have received any career from parents it would be really nice to be able to go to one app and see where my kids bus is because I got to leave at a specific time which

043I get yeah absolutely so if you want us to we can yeah it just gets to be per boss we need a tablet and then you need to have internet access but you know in a way it'll give us other options too because our camera systems actually if we had internet we could I could link the camera systems to it so if we needed to pull something from a bus that isn't even there I could do that there's a lot of options with the technology we just we don't have a lot of it on our buses they're pretty I don't think there's any harm in exploring it and having the information to decide so we'll put some stuff together we'll go ahead is this something you're looking you know that I got the translator down

044that was quite the process to learn it there's a lot of Amery area it takes the county map and they put in their system and not everything lines up quite right so there's literally making buses go around like twice it's like no you can go this way and so we had to completely re-configure it to fix things Osceola uses and both of us have contacts over there we could ask them how they like it actually before I started with the transponder that's Steve Wesley over at Osceola I talked to him a lot about it and he he's used it many years before I have and really likes it and the cost wise of the stop player and the wayfinder is like he's looking at getting the same thing but it's just trying to get it

045all budgeted because it's just a big step it's not just adding that the service is not that bad it's like another thousand dollars a year but then you're adding tablets and the you know subscriptions to internet for each bus and GPS tracking and stuff like that yeah we'll gather it and bring it back yep yep um just kind of an update on on drivers a lot of them that have been around um and kind of shows like we have a lot of drivers like that do multiple things here uh like Travis He as a parent he started driving van for us to help out um Andrew he went through part of the new entry level driver train he already had a CDL but I ran him through the same system for a new entry driver

046and to learn our stuff and it seemed to work pretty good to give them a lot of information that he didn't even realize um and if audio was new to she's also a para and and does our handicap band in the afternoon and has been a great addition to help us out yeah that's it for that page Sheila and Darcy have been around for quite a while so and then we I also thank just all my substitute drivers you know we don't have any of the pictures on them but they they really help out um you know Liz Bowman was a route driver before and she took a different position I was pretty upset and it kind of stunned but she's been able to stop a lot more than she even expected the camps letter

047kind of flexed some stuff to work it out same with Noah Noah took a different job and um still been able to help out a little bit suicide I really appreciate that yeah any other questions for me in the ridership funding that we get that's just if one a student rides a bus once in a year correct so that is I remember thirteen hundred dollars or something like that you have to ask I think Becky was the one that yeah if you can put your student on the bus for one time at least so we can get that funding please yeah Becky and I twice a year we go through we give the drivers and they check the names off if they're written or not and they add anybody else who wasn't on the list

048and it's it's helpful and I know it's all together it's up but we do have a lot of a lot of parents in the drop-off line still there's a lot of kids getting rides to school yeah yep all right thank you everyone thank you you too thanks to our transformation you can't leave all right uh next we'll go to our information items uh referendum update okay I met with Gary zifco from Cross Anderson today they are we're on the cusp of it we'll be uh starting our actual physical work here coming in May though I didn't know this he shared with me today at the high school they're opening up the ceilings and pulling the tiles down and you literally from the ground standing right underneath it you put a device up in the ceiling

049and it tells you exactly what your space dimensions are up down left right north south east west you know exactly what the entire building looks like before you actually take anything out and you know exactly what to bring with you to go ahead and put it in he said it's almost like painting a room it takes a lot longer to tape it off than it does to paint it and that's all The Upfront work they're doing right now we continue to be uh at or under budget we are at budget at the elementary we are under budget at the high school which is exactly where we want to be we have signed the documents on the guaranteed maximum price so we can't be over budget based on those documents under contract in the eyes of

050the law so we are very close you'll start seeing a presence once the snow breaks they'll be camped behind the high school between the high school and the intermediate school that's where their setup will be and they'll be working largely intermediate or largely Elementary in high school but there is some stuff that's getting done at the Intermediate Middle as well so questions that you may have for me it's a very exciting time I can tell you that much we meet again this Friday we we meet all the time in regards to let's make sure the list is complete make sure the prices are right make sure we're not forgetting anything George has been invaluable no one knows these buildings like George it's been sort of impressive to be quite honest with you that George knows

051it that intimately he's been up on the ceilings that is for sure yeah is there an ability to see the the price that we that we had hoped for and then the bid price that we actually received I should actually document sitting on my desk for the stuff that we've already done uh for the bids I don't have that document but cross Anderson has all of that well we were hoping for and what they came in at you could actually see how many bids they were who they were how much everyone came in at and what one was selected because remember we contract that work out across Anderson they're not obligated to select the lowest bid but typically they do the problem for them is they have to play scorecard first to make sure everyone's

052bidding out similar work because someone might be significantly less but they're not actually bidding out the job but that information is available and I would happily put that together and bring it here so you can see um exactly where we came out ahead there's some stuff out there but the big tickets are in so we are are going to be under budget based on what we have the work we've done but I would be happy to put that together I think last month they were here and they were working on vetting the contractors correct oh yeah so it's nice to see the amount of bids that we got the next 12 to 18 months it'll certainly be a distraction and certainly be an inconvenience at times but at the end of the rainbow I think

053it's gonna be pretty awesome yep okay any other questions okay we'll go on to our school board election you're doing good so far it won't seem there we go uh we had a primary for our school board election uh held on February 21st we had three candidates for our one position and by law if you have more than double the field which three is more than two you have to have a primary the primary was held we had three candidates the two moving to the next round which is the regular election on April 4th our Steve ostero and delstonia to see the numbers there and if you don't have them committed to memory they're still hanging out on the Polk County and the synchrony website and also on our website so you can check them

054out there at broken down by municipality uh sometimes people I get inquiries every now and then the numbers are wrong it's not right that's because they're usually just looking at Polk County remember two of our municipalities are in St Croix County and that won't get reported on Polk County side obviously so that's what the results look like and then I believe you're probably fishing for the next side that April 4th we're from three to two we're down to two for one and those that's the actual snippet from the ballot in the order that it appears on the ballot so that's uh School Board election stuff okay with that we'll go on to our foreign exchange program we had a conversation at last meeting and we had some Community comments to this uh Point as well

055for an exchange program the participation of foreign exchange students in a graduation proceeding at here at Emory High School uh the black obviously is the existing policy 353 for foreign exchange programs the red is what I have added this is bought a draft and bought a proposal and that Edition says foreign exchange students are allowed to participate in graduation proceedings if they are a member of the senior class foreign exchange students will not receive an Emory high school diploma and well I think we could gather from this process most of them aren't in pursuit of a diploma because most of them have diplomas from their their home country so that's not really the essence of what they're pursuing but this is again but a suggestion and I turn it over to you by listing only

056a foreign exchange student are we going to be discriminated and against any other students well those who are other groups who do not participate in graduation will be those who haven't met the academic criteria that have been a student here perhaps since 4K and they haven't gotten to the finish line for whatever that reason happens to be and they wouldn't be participating hsed students of which we don't have any this year we have not had many recently they also don't participate in a graduation ceremony so those are the only two groups that I'm aware of maybe there are others that you're thinking of you could certainly ask um homeschooled a homeschool don't participate in our graduation ceremony either no okay they are enrolled in the state as separate from the school district agreement not they're

057not we don't count them as our students so that would if to me it would be illogical for a homeschool student who resides in Amery to participate in Emory graduation if they're not even our kid so they don't know okay well the question I guess is how this fits into those that aren't earning a diploma participating in the graduation ceremony how does that how do these two since they're not earning a diploma um why are they being allowed to participate in this ceremony are you asking me or are you asking are you happy I mean I guess in general that's a question that I have so if they're not earning a diploma because that's what I guess to me that's what the graduation ceremony is for is for the kids earning a diploma also this

058coincides with the conversations that we had back a few years ago um when we amended that policy so how um how does this cause I'm not a member of the high school people Services team Brad is and he can perhaps help uh in my conversations with them and specifically with Josh Gould the high school principal I believe his answer to that inquiry would be those who are listed on the program or those who are walking across the stage and getting a diploma that's why they're listed on the program is that an accurate rendition of what they would say Brad since you've sat and been a part of those conversations in recent years yeah that that's really the thrust that you are on that program and your name is there because you've met the requirements for

059graduation but yeah our foreign exchange students don't meet that criteria that is accurate though there would be an argument that some would make they've never had that opportunity to retain those credits because they haven't been here but then the counter to that argument would be therefore they shouldn't participate in that whole conversation I've that whole debate I've been a part of listening to that debate and they don't they also don't earn a diploma because it's against the state rules is that correct well you have to meet X Y and Z in order to in order to get a high school diploma and they wouldn't meet the XYZ they couldn't possibly do that in one year's worth of study here that's the product of four years so no they wouldn't and no they wouldn't get a

060diploma though no one's ever made that request of me and my time here as a district administrator or as a principal I've never had that request and are they are foreign exchange students recognized in other venues rather than just graduation uh during senior year they're recognized that senior Awards night uh presented with an American flag and a certificate for having attended school they're recognized at that event at least in my time and in recent years prior to my time I don't know if they have been but I know that they have been in the last 17 years well lots of things um we could certainly look at the graduation policy um and and maybe that should be cross-referenced in this uh in this policy but um you know maybe it comes down to what is

061the point of the graduation ceremony um you know is part of that I think is a celebration of the senior class and of these students that are moving on after they have been here um and they are I'm reading this this school and I've talked to some other districts and and other districts maybe view that ceremony as more of a celebration of a senior class um then um then you know just focusing on earning the diploma which of course you know is what we want our students to do we want them to earn a diploma we want them to um to have that but um I I spoke with uh um principal at Osceola High School and he said you know they really work hard to make sure that everyone can participate in graduation um

062even if they're credits short or have some other uh issues that have come into um yeah I guess be credit short or did not meet those requirements um so I feel like that's maybe a discussion about all of of our graduation policy which basically just states that you know a graduation policy is that they've met these were they've met this these requirements and they had these credits um because I think again part of the foreign exchange students being able to participate is that they've been welcomed into the high school they've been told they're a senior they've been asked to do um you know as participate as a senior and do these activities with a senior but then they're told that you know they have been told in the past that they are not allowed to

063participate in graduation which is kind of the culmination of being a senior being you know that's kind of the aim of the end of the year and [Music] um and that you know I think is very discouraging for them and I think that's discouraging for even a lot of their their teachers and their rest of the senior class and the student body as a whole um and and not just discouraging but really kind of just rude and um and most of the school districts around us allow foreign exchange students to participate in graduation um it could certainly be noted on the program that their foreign exchange students and they are not receiving an Emory high school diploma um that that's that would not be difficult to do but um I know that this was very

064important to the foreign exchange student that we have thing with us this year and this is something that she really felt strongly about and um and has been advocating for and does she graduated home then she has already graduated but the other two seniors she's our yeah she's already finished school they don't have a graduation ceremony um where where she came from I don't know about you worldwide but I know for her there's no graduation ceremony um they're taking their big exams that I don't remember the name of now but they take a lot of exams at the end of um at the end of their last year and then you go to school and you look you look at your scores and then you're done and that's it um so the other two seniors

065who are foreign exchange students this year um they both have a year left of school when they return to Italy um they have more like five years of high school so they still have a year left are they listed as seniors yes so they would be in the graduation ceremony also so there'd be three of them this year no a point of clarity in regards to how they're listed grade wise if you do not have a wsn number Wisconsin student number you don't exist according to the Department of Public Instruction so a student that comes from France or Italy or Germany or wherever they come from they obviously don't have a wsn number they could be 18 and you could list them whatever grade you wanted to list them as freshmen sophomore junior or senior

066because they're new to Wisconsin entirely same is true for a kid that comes from Minnesota you could list them however you want they'll typically we list them chronologically where they're at in their course of study from Minnesota but for a foreign exchange kid we've had students as young as 16 we've listed them chronologically as sophomores or Juniors so we can place them wherever we choose to place them that's just for a point of clarity so I mean if we just instead of amending the policy of a senior um for them to actually be included in the in the program we could just amend this completely that they did just we just wouldn't have one as a senior you wouldn't have one a foreign exchange student hold them again as a senior if we didn't quote

067him as a senior buy this language they wouldn't participate but again this is just draft language that's about a proposal you can write whatever you want here if or nothing but yes you can call them however you want to call it them right from talking to Josh Gould part of the reason that he tends to code them as seniors and not Juniors is because of the ACT test and he didn't want to make them take the ACT test um though we're starting to rethink some of that because some of these kids do her very well they're very very kids which that's great Sean where did you get this from that's my own right from my own head that red stuff right there okay how many other people in District are in the Cecil 11 District

068that we're in allow this to occur in of all the deceased schools my ballpark is probably upwards of 75 85 percent allow foreign exchange students participate in graduation ceremony in one shape way shape or form I can't say that with certainty but that would be my guess it's a non-starter for many districts for us it's it's it really lies in the lifelines training that we went through in regards to deceased students and memorialization and so forth and many see that as apples and oranges but we've interpreted that literature it's very much the substance of why we've decided to not have them participate and when was that Institute foreign exchange students did participate in naming years ago that's true but we just changed the policy when we talked about memorializations of students since I've been on

069the board so I believe that was in uh I remember it we went over it was over at um biologies right across Hazelton and then we ended up in Saint Croix that's got to be 8-10 years I'll go I think um well what you said Aaron is correct Debbie Holmes uh foreign exchange student foreign exchange instructor sent you an email to that effect yes absolutely yes true that's a true statement I um remember having these conversations when we talked about memorialization and graduation policy um a few years ago it was fresh when I was on the board and um I guess it's dropped it was it was a very hard conversation for me to have at the time um because I've lived in this community for 30 years now um and I get our kids

070have went to school with some of these kids who have passed away from various reasons and we're not allowed to be more memorialized in our graduation ceremony some of who were seniors at the time and um we've we've had this we've had to go through that with these people and I've heard from some of those people since this has come up um that they also feel that this is we've talked about it it's been brought up and now it's being brought up again and they feel re-traumatized that like they're walking through this all over again and for foreign exchange students that haven't been here their whole life or haven't been here and through the senior class so um I I think there's a lot of hurt feelings still in the community from a lot of

071those discussions that we've had and um choices that we've made policies that we've implemented and then to have this all brought back up again just because um foreign exchange student that's not allowed to to participate in graduation has been difficult yeah and I and I think maybe that's something that we talk more about also um I mean I would be willing to look at that again and to talk about it that that again we have you know a student that um this year who you know passed away in a car accident last year as a junior and you know we we have this policy of not allowing them to be memorialized but yet we are allowing something to happen at graduation and is that really the best you know the best way to let them

072be recognized well having supervised 13 of the last 17 years worth of graduations we it's typically not that it's been sanctioned that they do something at graduation for students who have passed typically it's a day of or it's the day before this is what we're going to do for so and so and at that moment and that time to say no is borderline impossible you'd have Mutiny on your hands so there have been kids that have walked up with pictures of senior classes have left seats back in a variety of things have occurred like that but our training has said don't put them on the program that's that's a bit Taboo in regards to memorialization because for some kids that is all right this is my way to have one big splash at the end

073I'm going to take my own life and I'm going to end up being memorialized right on that program for everyone to see for all of time that's what lifelines have said now is it again is it apples apples to oranges some folks say that that we we've perceived it as that's the guidance from the professionals and that's the guidance we followed but again this is for you all to decide how you want to pursue just that's the context of battle conversation through the timeline that was April 2019 dread at the graduation ceremony will include students who've met the requirements for an Emory high school diploma that are physically in attendance for the ceremony and that what policy is that that's the death of students yeah 459 the student or staff member and I feel if

074we're going to change this policy then we have to reevaluate that policy because that's the language in that policy 345 is also a policy that speaks to graduation so all three probably get tied in I don't think you I don't think it you can change this policy and then it be counter indicative of what that policy said well what Brad just read it would be diametrically opposed that's my concern I guess it would be yeah so we probably need to look at both policies next month well the one thing that I guess I think about this and that and I thought we haven't heard from parents of graduating students it'd be nice if you know we've got some feedback from parents in the community that are having a student graduate and how would they feel

075if someone hadn't earned the diploma maybe the it's ambiguous to them or maybe they have an opinion about it but we haven't heard that side from anyone I guess I did hear last year we did have a student who um did not meet the criteria for uh Henry high school diploma but did meet criteria for the state so they did earn a diploma but they were not allowed to participate in graduation and it was it made its way on social media last year um and they felt very wronged and very upset and um they didn't come to speak at a board meeting obviously it was just something that I saw on social media but those are I mean if we're I guess if that was my kid and that happened and I was that person

076I would feel I would think like well why are they changing this now just for a foreign exchange student or or a couple of foreign exchange students when my kid was here his whole time and they didn't get to graduate or things like that and I realized I mean it's you know you speak on your child's behalf or the child certainly could have come maybe this would have been a different story we would have looked at something different sooner but I don't see how changing a whole graduation policy I guess to me it sounds like um it's kind of the culmination of that you've earned that diploma and if you didn't earn the diploma but you're still allowed to participate in graduation it's the you know the soccer trophy if you will for everybody everybody

077gets a trophy kind of a thing participation the participation award that everybody you know that doesn't give anybody something to look forward to I mean to me The Graduate graduation ceremony would be I mean it's a celebration of achievement I would say um for completing the requirements at Emory School I I certainly you know I understand about the foreign exchange students but at the same time um I think if we change this maybe we want to look at the the wording for deceased students um I think those are some pretty pretty tough conversations for some people um if if you've been impacted by that um I think we need to be aware of their thoughts and opinions well I was the one on the other end of the phone they feel very strongly about it

078when it occurred it might be a distant memory now but it was at the time strongly felt well and then that's partly why we you know Justin my husband has and and Glenn both said you know if if it seems unfair um to allow the foreign exchange students to participate when they haven't met these requirements then maybe the policy on for exchange students is make some requirements for them so that so that it doesn't just seem like well they automatically get to participate but that they have some requirements while they're here as a senior to to meet in order to then be allowed to participate those requirements would look different because they don't have the opportunity to accumulate all of the credits again the case could be made to try to look at their transcripts

079and see if they've met those requirements because most of them probably have met a lot of those requirements um you know they've taken English granted it would have looked different than art English but they've taken English for years they're here living in a foreign country and speaking it they've taken math and sciences and you know social studies credits and things like that but anyway even if that's not what the requirement is if there is some requirements for what what what they need to do while they're here participating so that they are then allowed to participate in graduation so I can bring back 353 with the additional language based on the conversation that's just occurred a couple of different suggestions it won't flow Us in this one this one it would be three or four different

080options and bring back 459 as well because clearly that intersects with what we're talking about here if if there's another District that has it I mean again if 75-85 why reinvent the wheel yeah I'm with you like again I think like I think this is a great thing for our foreign exchange students to have this opportunity of inclusion in participating in graduation and um and I am one of those people who thinks it's apples and oranges so um I would really like to see us of course follow our own policy and that it doesn't um you know take away from another policy that we have a contract but yeah let's let's look at the 85 percent of other districts who already have it and see what they're using I'm not above grabbing it from someone

081else if someone's done it better than us that's that's great I'll see what I can find I'm sure it won't be hard to find um well sorry the other two students have made no indication that they would like to participate according to my last conversation with Josh which was Thursday or Friday no they have not to my knowledge to his knowledge and since you brought up the high school Josh where they sit on this issue their final statement to me was whatever the board directs us to do is what we'll do they're they're not going to argue that point do we need to bring up that the foreign exchange students have been told already now this year that they will be allowed to participate yes the foreign exchange students according to policy 345 it says

082in there at the end it gives the district administrator and or his designee the option the opportunity to determine who has and has not met the criteria to graduate and I simply entered into an executive decision if you will met with people Services team and said we're going to have folks graduate that are in the senior class that are foreign exchange students and the whole purpose in doing so was really twofold so they can proceed forward and we as a board can proceed forward because that issue would become a very big sticking point I'm pleased with this conversation but it hasn't gone as swimmingly in the past right so that's why I made that decision and whatever happens I would guess if we approve or deny or change or whatever in April it doesn't necessarily

083have to take effect the day that we approve it I mean you can you can tell that to take effect next school year but for the kids that are in senior that are foreign exchange students and senior class right now they will be participating that is the word that's been given to them that is correct as far as their interest I mean I've talked with them and they you know help them order their cap and gown and they would not have an interacted with them but I know Josh has well and I think you know Aaron to your point that you said I helped him order their cap and gown but um I guess I don't see a reason this is this is strictly talking about the graduation ceremony at this point but I don't

084see a reason why even if they weren't allowed to participate in a graduation ceremony that they couldn't participate in all of the events leading up to graduation just excluding the ceremony so ordering that cap and gown and things like that they would do with the rest of the senior class in my mind I think they could do the senior walk and the you know through the buildings and the senior trip they presently do all of that didn't they do the they do the senior um the senior uh the senior trip and all of those things so and then they do the senior Awards night so and they're getting recognized at the senior Awards night so um I will bring back the policies that I referenced eczema and if you would like to hear from you

085know as a board if you'd like to hear from parents or teachers or the other foreign exchange students you know we certainly can ask for that feedback and I can get that word out I know there are a lot of people that do feel uh strongly about this and have an opinion they just maybe haven't well we've heard that side and I'm just like is there somebody else out there you made a comment uh you talked to another district and they allow participants in graduation that are credit short yep yep you really see that why wouldn't they do that he sees it more of a celebration of a senior class and as as the class moving on um and and so if they're like you know half credit shorter or credit short then they have

086a plan in place for them to get that credit but they all they kind of really feel like it's a celebration senior class they're moving on whether that is you know to whatever thing but they're really not I know that's not what we're here to do but I can say for my 13 years that that would not sit incredibly well for someone to be deficient and then still participate yeah we're not talking to fishing students when we're talking foreign exchange these aren't academic issues some folks um they haven't made it and they have they're not participating for that reason but I'm not a high school principal anymore but I don't know that high school public services would be excited about that yeah but I know that's not what you're proposing to do well even at

087the University and you apply for graduation at a university when you I mean if you've completed a four-year degree you I at least I guess I did in Wisconsin so you have to apply and they have to make sure that all of your requirements have been met to be able to participate some of the very hardest phone calls I've ever made in my life are an old Mentor named Bob Larson from my years ago and I taught the take down the tent call as in I'm calling to let you know that your son or daughter didn't make graduation criteria they won't be participating those aren't always very phone calls and it's thankfully not very many because folks get there generally and that's my only comment there was are we picking and choosing now who can

088participate in this event and I just don't want to open up that can of worms where somebody's going to come to the board meeting next time and say but you left you let them participate it my student has you know half credit so is that something that we need to address here and well it's addressed in policy 345 stating that the high school principal would determine the criteria necessary and I would imagine Josh's assessment of the situation is your accredited short in English or whatever it is you didn't make it and it isn't news these kids know generally they're credit deficient pretty early on yeah usually the high school staff is working with it multiple times I mean I can vividly remember a student who failed English 12 for consecutive terms and finally passed it

089in term four I'm like wow that's pretty amazing that you did that but congratulations we made her all right any other comments well we'll see it next month with some options wow thank you you're welcome next we'll go with the agenda preparation yes you'll see a little bit more red on this page uh the black obviously is the existing policy for 171.2 agenda preparation and dissemination it is an incredibly lengthy so I'll just read it to you the district administrator shall prepare an agenda for each meeting any board member may add an item to a meeting agenda that is a cross-style portion the district administrator says send the final board meeting agenda in related documentation to all the members of the board in advance of a scheduled board meeting the agenda shall indicate the date

090time and location of the meeting and it shall be available electronically to all board members in in paper format to all board banners a special board meeting agenda preparation and dissemination shall be conducted in accordance with the Wisconsin State Statute that in essence make reference to open records law our open meetings law the board shall make decisions related to only those subject matters listed on the agenda and then lastly other business items deemed emergency or having extenuating circumstances must be provided and must be noticed in accordance with Wisconsin State statutes so in essence in short form if you have an agenda it'll be one on the agenda you simply let me know when we put it on the agenda and there it is I guess my question to this is um how many times can

091a certain item be Revisited on an agenda well by this proposal infinite and you can name your topic every agenda forever if you wanted I would assume if it was board action um it would be a it would be a motion to reconsider which you could only make that motion if you were on the prevailing side um you can't you can't then bring a an about that action again and again if the vote didn't go the way you'd hoped um by parliamentary law um but if it's just for informational items or I mean I I guess we could I guess what is the board's appetite for having the same conversation over and over again how do we how do we December how do we figure that out before we just add items to the agenda

092give me an example uh something that would be on the agenda repeatedly uh book challenges and book grading systems I could see that coming up a lot it's a hot button or any policy really I mean for that matter any any policy any you know like how many times do we need to revisit it how many times do we can we revisit it so do you have a suggestion no that's my question so by this by this policy it just says that if you're asking for it to be on the agenda it goes on the agenda well I mean I think partly it's it's due to the fact that we can only discuss things that are on the agenda and so if things don't get on the agenda we can't even make a comment about

093them or we can't even uh you know and it doesn't always necessarily need to be an action item or a long discussion but you know that's why Joe signed up for Community comments last month was so that he could make a comment but it was about something that was not on the agenda so I see the flip side of that as far as you know being able to put something on the agenda so that you can say something as a board member sign for Community comments yeah well I think that's a whole nother yeah conversation but um I guess that I'm asking that I'm asking then how how many times do we how does that look do we visit it over and over and over again I mean I mean I hear what you're saying

094I guess you know if we have a if you have a suggestion of how that could be worded um you know right now you could put a clause in there stating you know after you know repeated attempts I wouldn't want to name a number because then you got a tally in the district office like in a general sense to say something along the lines if repeated requests are made at that point it could be denied I mean if this is the seventh time we're talking about something that seems like ad nauseum that would not be beneficial but a general statement but how come people aren't coming here every every single month and talking about book requests or whatever you're saying I can't speak to that like I'm just doing that I think it's going to

095be roughly the same as up here yeah and again what I did what I did last week was wrong I I didn't feel it was the right path to have to go and ask for my five minute you know at public comment I wanted to provide some communication up here I would have loved to have had that but again it's like it just felt horrible that I had to go and sign up for public comments she put it as an elected official the community and I really do believe this is a democratic process in which I listen to people I don't know how many people came up to me and talked to me about the foreign student I mean but I'm around this community every week and and I would love to be able to

096communicate that without having to say well if it's not going to be on the agenda because Sean doesn't want it on there and Kate's not going to approve it well then I'm really silenced and there's got to be a different way for this well this draft would allow for that but this draft also allows for any item that is that is correct so you can put anything on the agenda I mean it doesn't even say it has to be school related that is correct well maybe we need to look at some other school districts policies well that's why it's first reading it's awful to have that conversation okay we need to shore something up there because I I think it I think it's an implicit that we would want it to be about something the

097board actually can weigh in on yeah if they're if they're concerned about the price I mean that's probably not going to be helpful we need to add something to the effect of school related business sure well that is that's the essence of what an agenda is I would hope that would be obvious but sure or do we create a vote on the agenda so the preliminary agenda comes out have to have at least three members approved items on the agenda but you'd have to have a meeting to have a vote yeah I know in that you'd have you'd have to be physically having a meeting yeah yeah so we're creating another meeting which some school districts do that sure they do they meet briefly just to well that's the next item on the agenda yeah

098disseminate that so Sean um I do a meeting every every month where I work for a police committee meeting and I always have uh on the agenda itself and it's under it's this is on everyone I have it's other items within the scope and powers and responsibilities exercised by the committee under law and ordinance and it gives an opportunity for people to bring up these topics which again is the next item on the agenda that's what you read There is Broad enough yet specific enough to be sufficient it isn't cut the path off but it it narrows it just as police matters or in this case School matters and then in that case something like what would have happened last month could have been totally stated in that realm instead of having to speak in

099community comments and Aaron would have had an opportunity just to speak it's probably a good change but I think you know even the the idea of being able to put something on a board I mean on an agenda you know and to be able to make that suggestion or not just a suggestion but actually get it on the agenda if a board member wants something on the agenda you know like last month maybe you just wanted to make a comment and it didn't necessarily need to have an another agenda item but um you know with the foreign exchange policy you know I wanted that to be on the agenda and you know last month I was told we'll put on the agenda in June well it doesn't help I'm not gonna be in the board

100in gym well you didn't know that at the time yeah no I didn't so the policy has written uh simply need to have a little a little bit of guardrails in regards to it being School related stuff and it gives the opportunity for a board member to put an item on the agenda and I will add a clause of some sort if it's a repeated request then we certainly need to have more conversation about that but I agree with you Joe I don't think someone's going to come and do the seven months in a row that would getting to the point of craziness I wouldn't think that would happen but good I don't think so but I like what you read I think that would be yeah could you send me that that would be

101helpful that was good language it's broad but yes specific enough anything else all right we'll go on to our listening sessions already well what you see um on the screen this is simply about a proposal in regards to the dates the dates on the right are set board meeting dates what this in essence would be it would be an opportunity for folks that have an item they wanted to bring to the board in the case of April they wouldn't need to wait till April 17th on April 5th they could show up and share whatever they wanted to share and you at that point in time can say yeah that's a good point let's get that on the agenda that the purpose of the timeline is Becky's prepares the board meeting agenda she has to get

102it into the Free Press the Friday not before the immediate Monday but the next Monday so it gets in the paper as an agenda printed in the paper because we have to by law so for the case of April 5th for instance we have to submit the agenda by April 7th and then it runs in the paper the following Tuesday and then it's on the agenda for the 17th if you move that to April 12th then you don't have enough time to get it on the April agenda so it's a listening session I wouldn't bring an agenda it would simply be you me here whoever wants to bring a topic or if you wanted me to create something to have as a presentation that would generate interest this is simply if this is the product

103of folks sharing with me we need to have another Forum by which to speak to the board other than five minutes of community comments and questions that's the notion of what you see here as a listening session what that looks like I don't know that I fully know right here now yeah so when I when I went to the um in January I attended a session on um what was it called um combating disinformation that wasn't quite exactly the term but um it was dealing with um with misinformation and um and trying to figure out how to you know get um get information to the public and listen to what they had to say so this is part of the conversation that Sean and I have yes about how some school districts have a listening

104session um and that's one thing um this school district that presented they actually have something more like a presentation where you know they're presenting on a topic and and the topic is kind of posted and this is what we're going to talk about but it's not just a I mean like here we are for example are talking about transportation and we just hear a presentation the community members don't have a chance to ask questions or to engage or to discuss and this would be more of we're going to do a presentation on Transportation but the community members get to engage and talk and you can do an amalgam too you could have a presentation you're doing you could have it as a working session on the non-voting items for the April 17th on April 5th

105you can talk about the informational stuff and you can have a forum for folks to weigh in on whatever's on their mind you don't it doesn't have to be one of those things it could be all of those things if you had an hour and a half time that I would think plenty of time to do all that yeah it's more obligation for you it's certainly more work for me to create something or someone else that's going to come in and do that I'm not shy of work and I'm sure they're not either if this is what you want to do in the April 5th starting that's completely arbitrary could be making June it could be July it could be September I just put April because that's the next available month because we're already here

106for this board meeting go back in time machine to do it for this meeting so yeah I mean I feel like you know this is just a informational item and you know we're not deciding on it tonight so I don't know that we could have things in place by April 5th um and we still I feel like need to figure out what that listening session is going to look like um you know this other school district of topics that they kind of would normally run through as far as discussion and um and sharing with the community but um Hudson does two meetings they do a working meeting in a meeting where you do all your votes in their regular meeting gets incredibly short right the voting meeting right the regular meeting becomes just your action

107items your working session is all your informational stuff granted you don't really come out ahead because you're still doing two meetings but right true it would be nice you know if we had these dates you know um and do like our committees maybe rotate to at a meeting um but I really wouldn't want to do it unless I had somebody signed up for it I mean if you come here and you're sitting here and nobody shows up it's you know I mean everybody's time has got some value so I'd be I don't know how you'd get it out there that if somebody wants to come to the May 3rd that they have a sign up on the website or something so that okay we've got some people coming so we want to be here I

108agree this was talked about before and um we had concerns of one obviously just maintaining Integrity with the meetings and then um too I've talked to pass board members that um they actually did some of these when they were building the middle school and then for a while people came because it was talking about the referendum and so those were like kind of what we did with our community meetings and the listening sessions there and then after that was all decided the referendum went through then people quit coming and then so they spent either three or four months actually just sitting and doing nothing and then they had to cancel them and then that isn't really a great look either when you have to cancel them so I'd like to see how it's gonna look

109or be guaranteed that people are wanting to come when I first started here they had these meetings there was two meetings a month similar to this they call them a working meeting where people could come in and open I believe that you had to someone if someone wanted to come in and there wasn't anything on it they would cancel them I believe but I think that they had a date ahead of time like a couple days beforehand if you weren't set up at that time then you know so then you're not like finding out the hour before that you're not going to come right right yeah well I'm entirely in favor of folks having opportunities to weigh in outside of those five minutes of community comments yeah I mean there's Logistics certainly at play here

110and this wasn't mine others have brought this to me and Aaron and I had a conversation from what she saw Donna Milwaukee it's not inherently a bad idea by any means but I wouldn't want you to have to sit here for an hour and a half in an empty room just hanging out I mean that doesn't seem very productive we all have valuable time again it kind of depends on how you set this up too because if you're going to go through for example your informational items then you have a lot of something to talk about you could say you know that there's a listening session at the beginning and if there's nobody here then you start working through informational items and if you don't get through them all because you had a longer discussion

111at the beginning then they just go to the regular agenda you'd have to have a pretty good topic for folks to sign up and show up and they're not coming for ordinary stuff and eat not even referendum would get people in the room probably and that's as big a ticket as we got going on around here maybe I'm wrong maybe folks would go that's what I'm saying if we have only two board members and they bring up things that aren't on the agenda are you know whatever you can listen to them and respond to them but if you have three then if it isn't here you really shouldn't be talking about it because now you've got a quorum yeah I think that makes a good a good um like it would be a you know

112a rotation then you could have one or two or whatever just to have a rotation and so then all five board members didn't have to commit so that's all you look at it if it's truly a listening session it's more for you to hear from them then you're right for them to hear from you right right that's what we're calling it right but they're as Aaron has said she wants to see interaction and so if we have more than two board members yep you gotta be careful about it I think Sean's point was that like instead of us preparing stuff for them like it's their the onus is on the community to come to us because if it's important to them they will be here so right again there's just a lot of ideas for

113this and I feel like you know we're talking about several different ideas and I think that's a good idea I mean I think that's good to have options so there so the other thing is is well do it on the evening of the board meeting times meet everybody here I mean it would be a meeting and it would be a working meeting and you would go through the informational items especially if you and like I said if you didn't get to them all then they would just move to what I guess what what items are we going to cover at a listening session that we the one covered at our regular meeting other than it gives people maybe a chance to talk longer than five minutes and to have a dialogue to get ask questions

114again well it would be whatever they've come up with for an item that they find as a priority but again I almost feel like it should be everyone here because if they're going to ask questions and they're going to get answers and they're going to have dialogue if only two board members are here then the other ones have missed out on that whole conversation and then you're trying to fill them in later well this is what they said and this is what we responded you know it's best if nearly all or all of you are here I I believe right president of this one I don't know about the 430 well I don't know I'm just throwing I just saying I I do after work so do I yeah that might be hard well I

115guess that's kind of the point is that we all have to work and yeah for somebody who works nights or every day who doesn't have a day off this is another whole another night yeah that was going to say too if uh and you have kids if you want to throw any of these at me if it could be pushed to 6 30 at least I could get here and not have to show up anything this is all a draft I'm surprised Aaron you're you're you want this on Wednesdays no no I created this yeah when I created this if I knew that Aaron was on the board I wouldn't have picked Wednesday yes but I guess Wednesday is obviously church and don't have sports and things like that that's why I pick wins this

116because you got a tremendous amount of conflicts on Tuesdays and Thursdays and right certain times of the year Mondays and Fridays as well in this spring every day of the week right because you know it's all going to be makeup stuff this spring and in probably well Into Summer yeah is this where staff would have an opportunity to come speak with us directly absolutely foreign so you know I guess my two cents is if you're gonna add another night and add another meeting that it would be the whole board here um and that you would have some time for listening and again the idea of even doing a presentation on a certain topic and Publishing that topic beforehand we're going to do a presentation on you know whatever it is and then then there will

117be this listening and engaging on that topic and then going through informational items if their if time allows that would be I guess my suggestion so what I hear from you the five of you in theory you're not opposed to the idea we need to figure out exactly what this would look like and if we're going to start it April 5th is probably a little early to start it and 6 30. would be a marketing time that's what I to summarize what I've heard thus far so I need to go back to the drawing board to come back up with a proposal for you that what would that evening look like so will be beneficial for you and the participant who showed up in the community and if we can't come up with how that

118would be meaningful them why would we do it right and I can you know give you a few more notes from the school district you probably remember the name because you recognized it I did when you first mentioned it yeah well Hudson again does this kind of a model and I'm sure others do as well it's a bigger District thing typically and was the thought all board members yourself uh the six of us administrative staff as well unless they're presenting I wouldn't require them to be here but if we're presenting on the new English language arts reading series I would think that Paula and Jessica would be the best people to do that if you want me to do it I'll get my way through it but not as well as you guys so they

119would have to prepare something for the information item and then come back and then do it again for the regular board meeting I would think we would have it there I don't know that we need to have it on the regular board meeting as well we certainly wouldn't if it's an action on if you would prove that as you'd have in the past but but again that's why if you've already heard it as a board then you can just vote on it and it takes like you know it takes a minute because you're right but I'm saying it's another night for them to have to do it again I think you do it at the listening session on that evening as an informational item and then they would be here again at the regular board

120meeting and then you would vote yes or no does that mean so they'd have to do it twice uh not the full presentation but the topic yeah they're still dedicating yes it takes more it takes more time it is absolutely true that is true yeah and I guess as we're going into the certified or the certified staff compensation benefits handbooks is that going to require additional language done for if if certified staff are here more there may be there may be a compensation item and we haven't had that conversation I haven't even thought about that until you decided but for administrative staff they get they're they're they're already obligated to be here as part of their contract so that wouldn't be an issue but it's part of their contract just to be at a board

121meeting correct yes night meetings is what it's called okay and it's not specified what or how many and again we wouldn't want to require them to be at every listening session or whatever we called but if it was one that shortly pertained to them if it's a hot button it's a big ticket it's a new thing sure so I will do some work and come back yes because poor Mr Meyer he could be here 20 nights to talk about the school fire and he ain't got 20 nights together you got lots of talk about yeah I will bring back some I'll do some work and come back yes yeah okay thank you next we have our April 6th season 11. this is just informational the deadline is approaching the 24th of March is the deadline

122to register any administrator or board member to attend the season Workshop it's a collaborative effort between cisa and Mike Berry from Wisconsin Association of school boards he is their Finance guy and then some so uh president Lee Shar has signed up to attend I will be in attendance and there'll be school board members from other neighboring districts as well it's uh come and have some dinner and learn about school finance and what could be more exciting than that I can't think of it the euthanization aid form Equalization if he covers think of a better way we better have good desserts if he's going to do that yeah so if you are interested simply let me know March 24th is the deadline okay all right next we'll go to the handbook readings okay there are a

123variety of documents uh please note there are two colors here there's a yellow color and a blue color yellow are the items that we're going to address here this evening the blue is uh items that we're going to address we're seeking to schedule a meeting with the board the second week of April between this meeting and the meeting in April there's another already scheduled meeting with the certified staff which is approximately 18 to 20 certified staff members from across the district and the two items on that agenda are the two items you see in blue this evening which is PTO which is paid time off in lieu of sick days emergency days and personal days and the other item is how do we come up with the best way to approach remote instruction because we

124haven't done remote instruction until now and we've done a lot of it unfortunately with the winter we've had so those two blue items we're going to talk about in April but we're going to talk about them with I'm going to talk with them with the certified staff at the end of March so let's talk about the yellow items the first two items are are just simple date push forward 23 24. the salary column that you see highlighted in yellow those are the present salary amounts for certified staff nothing has changed on this page other than some of it being yellow our hope is to move to the we had a plan that we established two years ago a three-year plan of growth which you've seen a couple of times the hope is to push forward

125move forward to that third year of growth what holds that up is as follows we don't know the state of the budget from the state of Wisconsin so we don't know our budget because we don't know what they're going to allocate towards education so we can't make any movement until we know that better the certified staff know that's not going to get done before April that might be September we don't know so if we did move forward in September we would simply have to do retroactive pay we did that many years in the days of negotiations we just don't know yet Madison's gonna have to tell us when they're ready to tell us any questions about that first page okay Becky will find the next I guess oh sorry my question is what like we

126you how do we determine how much this pay scale will move up well we have to determine it based on what the budget will allow the rate of growth from year two to year three if if you move the numbers you see which is year two to the year three numbers is actually in technicality if you just took the amounts and added them is 2.9 percent so I'll call it three percent is what the number I've been playing with you could follow the state of Wisconsin to do Consumer Price Index they're stating 8.2 percent a 2.2 percent would be well in excess of a million dollars I don't suggest we do that so basically what the budget will shoulder and again we don't know what the budget will shoulder until we know what our Equalization

127is going to be based on student people account we just don't know but the plan is to move forward in the range of two to four percent that's the hope thank you you're welcome so there are some more yellow moving on there is the director Personnel just word change gotta call the people what they are I guess payroll dates uh there is no guarantee the time of day that payroll deposit will occur at the employees Bank other than it will happen sometime on that designated payroll date if the employee encounters a banking issue as a result of the timing of their payroll Deposit they should contact the director Personnel for assistance there are folks that are waiting with baited breath at 6am in the morning to see when their money's posted it may not happen

128at six it might happen at 11 o'clock at night but it will happen that day and legally we have until midnight correct 11 59. what's up it's been a point of contention for some we don't control when that happens that's a banking issue and so by them contacting the director of personnel what kind of assistance are they going to get they're going to be told sometime before 11 59 PM you're going your money's going to be deposited I mean in essence that's the reality like I don't know why does that sentence even need to be in there because it can work with the banks in a certain situations okay yeah I think she Kayla's got connections to the banking world I guess should just be it'll happen that day at some point that's pretty much

129what it is she has magic yeah uh the next Clause is certified staff who teach summer school will be compensated at 30 per hour the most obvious example is summer school instruction of our kids there are some summer school meetings and so forth but in essence they're compensated at 30 an hour and we change the name of what's listed there health savings account we have um the last sentence reads a part-time employee will receive a prorated amount so if you're not a full-time employee you don't get the full sum of 2400 or 1200. well not a full-time employee so that's reflected all the way through this document in a variety of topics workers comp the section that you see there in that third line the employee shall notify his her immediate supervisor and the director

130of personnel work change again within 24 hours after the occurrence of an injury or as soon as practicable the Director Personnel will assist employee filling out the workers comp form if necessary it is essential that if someone is injured in the place of work they just got to let us know as simple as a sentence I slipped and fell at recess so Twilight can open a file and then she knows we'll get that call later on six months when you had a back problem because of it it's helpful if she knew oh yeah I remember that okay let's get back to that so that's what that's about uh blue section we're going to cover a later time retirement age moves from 56 to 55 in this proposal this is uh matches wrs you're able to

131start working with wrs as a retiree at age 55 so it matches that and then the same reflection you see couple two three times there in the next section from 56 to 55. and then this section is a little more substantive and I'll I'll highlight the changes and then you can weigh in employees who meet the eligibility requirements who are retiring with 100 or more of a crew days of accrued paid time off or presently sick days shall be credited with a hundred and thirty dollars is the suggested change right now it's the current rate of sub pay which is 130 dollars for this school year 23 24 it would be reflected as 130 so this year's rate is 130 next year's rate would be 130 and then a hundred dollars beginning in the school

132year 24-25 for the next set of changes it's half of the 130 if it's between 50 and 99 days then it's 65 dollars for next year it's 65 right now and then beginning in 24 25 it's 50 dollars so that's the big change now the reasoning behind this change is we are a bit disproportionate in regards to the rest of the CSUN regards to our payouts the second highest uh in the entire ceases a hundred dollars for payout and I believe their cap is like 25 days we're on the high end in regards to this and it's a financial um it's a it's a a difficult thing to shoulder in the budget to pay out that grand sum of money the other line of logic is the reason we're keeping it the same for next

133year as opposed to changing it the deadline to declare your retirement was March 1st and it seems a bit unfair to folks to change the game and them have nothing to be able to do about it so if we waited another year to change it then they can make a decision I know if I retire next year by March 1st it's going to be 130 times each of my days if I wait another year it's going to be 100 times each one of my days so then they can in full disclosure know what to be able to do so I'll turn it over to you if you have any questions or comments on that section so you said the the other schools are a hundred dollars um both Starfire less than 100 most are in

134the 50 60 70 range for Asic day in most probably two-thirds have a cap of some sort where it's 50 days or 25 days 100 days depending on the district we are what was that we don't have a cap we do not have a cab it's unlimited so if you have 275 days right now you're getting 275 times 130 whatever that equals paid out to you in retirement to your uh your HRA which is in essence what you use to pay for your health insurance well obviously I you know it's hard to change it on people when they 've been expecting it to you know be the current rate of some pay um you know but I I hear valid reasoning for changing it but you feel bad for people that have been expecting that

135there's another line of logic there's approximately 15 to 20 folks that are left retiring out on the older system that older system I don't want to call people old but it's the system that's older in date um is to just let that ride until they've all retired out in the next five six seven years they will all have retired out and then this part of the handbook just goes away because they don't exist anymore we can also do that and if that's what you wanted to do we certainly can this is about a first reading so that's another school of thought I don't know the exact numbers but about 15 18 20. somewhere around there total staff and they're on the old system because it already was changed nope they're on the older system in

1362004 folks had the opportunity to remain on the older system or choose to go to the newer system in anyone that's been hired since then has just been on the newer system so these folks are typically folks that have been here for at least 18 years in many cases 25 30 35 Tom smiling apparently he's old I think we talk about this every year it was controversial at the time in regards to making the decision because it was a big change and what do I do what do I do I mean some folks in the room are here when that all occurred and Tom's not old not old enough yet well could we see the financial implication of keeping that system in place for you know like what I'll bring to you is if you

137left it at current rate of subpay um which is 130 and I can bring to you what it would look like for a hundred dollars and I can do that by saying we've got 17 people at 130 at this many days equals versus 17 people at this rate times up would equal I can show that to you that's not a problem at all it's frankly pretty easy to do that are under the new system that's coming up next okay so when the newer system it's 15 to 56 to 55 and the change in number of years is 15 to 10. the reason that it's not changed to 10 in the older system is because those folks again have been here at minimum 18 so 15 or 10 they've met it either way the reason we

138change this or proposing to change this to 10 is because then you can perhaps grab someone from another District who's looking to make a move here for instance they're involvement and they want to come here and teach name your subject if they're 47 years old and they gotta work 15 more in order to be vested in they probably yeah I'm not planning to work till 62 but 57 I could do that's why the change to 10 years your it doesn't cost the district anything to move from 15 to 10 it perhaps could recruit someone in that's a veteran teacher that and right now we'll recruit anyone we can get based on our teacher shortage so that's the notion of 10 and you'll see 10 and 55 throughout this document and then there's a five year

139for a clause in essence for a staff member who passes while they're still employed here and after they've been here for five years they're vested in and they are able to have their retirement benefit your HR retirement benefit that's a policy that's four or five years in the making that that happened ago with the staff person I was actually contacted by somebody in the community who um was wondering why it took us so long to invest our employees in and it was right after we had our listening session and I'm like well it's on the agenda for next month so it looks like we might be changing that so well time other so community members have noticed as well they're looking at applying so I think it's a great move um um anything else that

140we're missing all the paid time offer each uh that's paid time off stuff so we'll hold off on that until the next time and then there's a bunch of blue and then a little further on there's some yellow down here um Family Medical sorry we we it says in the part that struck out that we make up one day and we don't make up one day and the rest of the days are added that's just not what we're doing if that was the case this year we'd be going to school on the fourth of July and we might still I don't know the Family and Medical Leave action portion says Family and Medical Leave Act and Wisconsin Family Medical Leave Act provides certain employees with up to 12 weeks of unpaid job protected leave per

141year they also require that an employee group health benefits be maintained during that leave that's just formality based on FMLA language and that's federal law which we're trying to match that language uh again got rid of the FMLA stuff because it's no longer applicable more blue and then I think there's one or two more there is sub plans um certified staff are expected to have complete and updated sub plans on a given day for a substitute teacher and they need to be housed in an area where the sub can find them it's very frustrating for sob and equally frustrating for the supervisor to have no plans that's hard at best so that's the notion for that clause the work day appointments uh this is new to the handbook it says it is the expectation of

142the school district of Emory that employees will make every effort to schedule appointments outside of their work day if it is necessary to schedule an appointment during the workday the employee is required to use paid time off for their absence an employee may arrive late up to 8 30 a.m or leave at 2 45 PM for a scheduled appointment with prior approval from their building principal or supervisor or employees who arrive after 8 30 or leave before 2 45 will have to use a half day sick day potentially PTO if that's the change that's made here we understand sometimes you got to get to name your place by 3 15 and if I left at 2 45 it can happen we want to be we want to work with people but we also need people

143here in front of kids so that's the nature of that and I think that might be the last of the last on that feedback comments questions I'm gonna wait for some more data from you oh no I guess I just procedurally how to how do you call in a sub and how do you pay them and like all that stuff like again well if you have a declared absence as a sub for instance we've already had a couple folks turn in for state track which is now it's on June 2nd and now we have school on that day so they fill out a sub form turn that into their building principal or a supervisor they sign it secretary grabs it it's disseminated three ways one's kept in that office one's given to the employee and

144one send to Pam roll bars Pam then schedule the in the sub earlier is better for Pam she's got you on the list you're going to get covered now if you all of a sudden get sick the morning after the night before you simply need to send Pam an email or give her a call and she covers you with a sub and uh it's usually on first come first serve Pam's got a lot of working knowledge of who's available when and where can they work where do they want to work and she plugs in and we continue pressing on we've got some standbys that we have sub all the time whether that be long-term folks are in certain spots typically for maternity leaves it's a matter of Pam just covering those bases and if the

145system works well some have gone to automated systems we're starting to talk about that that automated system is is great in regards to logistic of logistics of it but you lose that personal communication thing like the system's got to know that certain folks aren't available to solve between January and April because they're snowbirds Pam just knows because they've done this forever and that's the benefit of having a Pam though we won't always have Pam boy she'll call at 4 30 in the morning or on Sunday night Pam will take care of business yes so that's in general form how it works Joe I mean there is obviously other details and perhaps the building principles can add to it that's just my general description of it yeah and if if the Call Comes in the paperwork

146still gets done it's just when they return but yeah so it's all contaminated encoded early is better and then they just have a time card I think that they uh well it's been a long time since I did that it's just a paper that you filled out but I'm sure it's all is it electronic now Pam's got it all documented all that and then it's just run through payroll and then they just get their daily subrate minus their withholding there's constant communication between the billing secretaries Pam Twyla and Becky so it all gets tracked out of cpam talk to Pam I know I just think it should be the key I was just thinking how many years ago it's been since I substitute Todd here and Pam was the lady then I was thinking that's

147about a lot of years sorry Pam you're not old it's been here a long time okay any other comments before we move on to the next items okay we'll go to our support staff Becky's on it no pressure I know support staff the yellow stuff and the blue stuff yellow again our hope is to move folks forward the um hope is to move them forward the support staff that is by the same rate of pay as the certified staff uh three percent so for instance if you were a level two para educator and you're at fifteen dollars the hole would be that we would move you forward and you'd be at 15 45. that's the hope but we don't know what's going to happen with State Finance so we don't know what's happening with our

148budget we are not presently competitive in the area of support staff and that is a problem because you can get work elsewhere and we're losing out on those folks now we could also price ourselves right out of the market if we went too aggressive but we got to be more competitive than we are and remember we move forward this forward last year we're seeking to move forward again there's actually a proposal that Becky and Twyla and I are working on which is a dramatic departure in regards to the number of levels here that we might actually run past you when we see you next um but that's a work in progress right now hoping to move forward it's the long story short so is the hope to really move forward more than the 3 3

149I would I would like to move the support staff forward the same as the certified staff percentage-wise and if we need to move forward again we will do that what we're looking at doing and Jessica Smith sits on this committee with me and working meeting with not only certified staff but also support staff to create a three-year growth model for support staff where we don't have one right now we have one for certified staff and thankfully we've been able to follow it at least the first two years that's been helpful so at least you have a Target to create another one that Parallels for support staff and then in addition create a three-year growth model for certified staff like we just had that will perhaps be timed out on so to move forward and do

150that in an equitable way across the job categories and uh to be competitive in essence I've seen support staff scale some other neighboring districts in some cases we're competitive in other cases we're simply not right so I guess that's my concern is you know if they're only moving approximately three percent that that's not going to really put us it might not competitively with other it might not the cost comparisons that I look at are usually Baldwin some are set in Osceola because they're similarly sized districts that are geographically where we are it's probably not realistic to look at Hudson or prairie farm because those are two different ends of the spectrum but three percent might not get it done but you also have to remember that budget impact if you take three percent on level

151two employee is 45 cents 45 cents on on a dollar for 2080 hours as a price point times however many support staff people you have if your budget increase is four or five hundred thousand you might not be able to shoulder that so you have to do it a little more incrementally what I like to just trash the whole thing and say we're starting at 18 bucks an hour across the board I mean sure and that's not even to mention what do we do with mechanic and computer tech those two columns likely won't be there when we see it next because neither of those are competitive wages and we don't have any people in those categories you're not going to hire a mechanic at 18. I mean that's reality I don't work that world but

152I'm thinking probably not or a computer tech for that matter so we're not competitive but we got to be careful about budget two right obviously we do but it's just you want to pay people yeah I think we all feel that way but if we got a bottom line we'll go forward we could get a bottom line go ahead Joe yeah I think again and like I said earlier too you know to you is like I used to be on a union and we used to do three-year contracts it allowed a lot of you know because doing this every single year brings up a whole bunch of issues it does ship wise and um but I I mean I also get now again that I probably didn't understand before was you don't even know your

153budget right now we don't so it's the craziest thing like it's in a that's a pickle yes so so remember the the incremental changes to this because when I first arrived in 1819 I was one of the first orders of business in the district office the levels were 1 2 4 15 and 20. so you went from year four to year 15 in the para educator category the total number of dollars that you move forward from year four to year 15 was nine cents in 11 years that seems like a bit I know it's 27 cents in 11 years that seems like a bad idea so we added one through nine and then what we did last year is we matched para Food Service custodian and Clubhouse and then there's a demarcation there to secretary

154and Van Driver sort of an anomaly and now the next incremental move is to add on top of what we presently have here and potential eliminate mechanic and computer tech so there's these various iterations of this to get it where it needs to be is not a fast eliminated mechanic and computer tech where do they go they're just not on here and you contract them out separately because it's technically three people four people no three people you have two it and you have mechanic three people total you need to send you into a contract with them which is what we do now they're just off I think right oh I suppose it is and then the assistant yes you're right so they're sort of they're they're sort of Off the Grid with how many there

155are Paris there's 30 35 of them so you'll see more of this when we meet in April for board meeting and then other board meeting we're seeking to schedule bus driver same we're seeking to move them forward as well we just move them forward dramatically last year to this year remember what happened in years past every bus driver no matter how long you were here made the exact same wage so if you're here 25 years or one year you're making the exact same number of dollars unless your route is significantly longer or shorter and that didn't seem right to anybody so this was a huge step forward and we're looking to make another step forward we don't have a ton of bus drivers around we're all competing for the same people so that's a change

156and we're also going to look at longevity pay moving that forward so all of those are considerations that you'll have pricing on I hope and formal numbers on let me be next a director Personnel word change payroll dates same deal don't sit at your computer waiting for it to be posted at 6am seems like a bad use of time temporary summer employees need to work five days before in five days after the Fourth of July to be paid it's impossible to track Twyla said I I don't even know why it's there I don't know why it's there Becky doesn't know why it's there you probably don't know why it's there so we crossed it off it's it's a rare occasion that had been addressed or used Health Savings Account prorated rate is what's noted there

157workman's comp same word changes as you saw on the certified staff reimbursement compensation for training time may be provided in the form of wages or in professional development hours that's just further Clarity on the two sentences before that because some folks construe if I'm required to do training it's I will be reimbursed for all of the wages that I've that I'll read it'll be easier rather than Patrick and just sentence fragments all employees who are directed to attend approved workshops or require to attend training in the field of work shall be reimbursed for attending these workshops trainings for actual costs incurred including wages meals lodging mileage and registration fees so if you go to the Dells for a training at PowerSchool you get reimbursed for your meals your lodging your mileage and your registration Fields

158fees the wages people were thinking well I need to get paid for all of those hours every hour that I'm away that's not the intent the intent is you won't lose wage for having gone you're still going to get paid that next sentence clarifies it compensation for training time may be provided in the form of wages or in professional development hours which can be cashed in for time off so that's the notion of the change the retirement 56 to 55 15 to 10. um PTO days well sick days will not be paid out if an employee resigns from their position or is terminated so if you're you're the end of your time and you're get terminated you would you wouldn't be paid out it would seem if you're not leaving the district on good terms

159you probably ought not be paid out uniforms this is a topic that the support staff brought to the committee and um they brought it a couple of times staff who work Outdoors to perform their duties are eligible for up to a 100 stipend for a winter attire the request may be must be made in writing to their immediate supervisor and approved by their supervisor and the district administrator there are folks that are spending a lot of time outside but we have to be careful that this doesn't end up being 60 people because all of Clubhouse goes outside it's not just one person but if you're working the day shift you're doing snow removal all day some days I mean I'm here at this building and I see Cody driving all over the place scooping snow

160so perhaps we can help him being properly fitted he's not asking but some are and perhaps that's something we can work with them on so uh Wisconsin retirement system language employee employers and employees are each required to pay one half don't lose sight of the fact that if you make you know 18 an hour and you work a 40 hour week of 720 dollars six point five five percent of every one of those dollars from the employee goes into the Wisconsin retirement system and 6.55 percent is paid into the Wisconsin retirement system by the employer as well that's the law so that's the pension that folks make reference to that Educators have the Family Medical Leave Act change that language to mirror what the certified staff language was got rid of the other one because

161it doesn't exist anymore and then the blue stuff is paid time off and I think we might be getting near the end here and that's that so those are all the perspective changes for both of those compensation documents and um again the blue stuff the conversation would occur here when we can nail down when we're gonna meet and talk about that it's just it's too important a conversation to hurry through um I want to go I want to go Farms go ahead and we did talk a question staff who work Outdoors to perform their duties are up to a hundred dollar stipend for winter attire obviously I'd like to see some language in there that one time per how many years one year two years something and doesn't need to be like who work outdoors

162more than 50 of your duties I don't know it feels like like you said maybe there needs to be a percentage or something so that it's not just I mean you can't just shovel one sidewalk in February right and we talked about that too we didn't know how that would look of who qualifies for that and who doesn't um I guess if it's a if it's a major Duty in your just in your job description of being an outside supervisor sure I think Megan Cree from the intermediate office she's outside all day right I mean literally all day right and then um how long do they have to be employed before they're eligible for said hundred dollar stipends because we do have people come and then don't show up for work after a couple days

163and then and then they've gotten their hundred bucks and they got their new boots and they're on their way right that doesn't seem right I have sure we will make the necessary adjustments good feedback all right anything else all right you should probably have to wait till winter yeah it'll work yeah well you should let them buy it now because it's on sale you know good call all right action items we already dealt with the bus purchase so now we'll start with start college now okay we have start college now and early college credit program if you remember the days of all this is the old youth options program yeah which we're going to bring that to you as well we still have a youth options policy it doesn't exist anymore that will be an

164easy change for you all to make it doesn't exist so we have a couple of applicants for eccp and snc do we have how many that were approved did uh send that to you okay I don't have the number but for all those who applied for early college credit program in style start college now I can't provide you the names by law but I can save those who have applied it would be up to you to approve them if you notice the column on the left the column on the right it looks a little different based on the finances of it if you go down a little bit uh the cost of course Heist for the First Column the cost of the course the high school and post-secondary credit the school district pays 75 the

165state pays 25 when the people pays none whereas on the second column the school district pays all of that and that's not a cost that we can negotiate that's just the cost we have to pay and remember youth options we paid 100 every single credit every single time so those who have applied I'm simply here on Josh's behalf to ask that you would approve those kids to do eccp or start college now and if you want to wait until you actually hear the number I can certainly bring that number we can do it next month I believe we don't have really an option though right now we don't have an option we don't have to approve you don't have to approve it no but then you're going to have an issue but we have to

166follow the pay structure that is reality That's the Law yeah and it's I contend it's a good thing for kids if they're ready to get started on their lives college kid do your thing yeah I really appreciate to get absolutely classroom that that's been increasing and go ahead Joe Mr President I make a motion to approve the College ready now uh made and seconded and all in favor say aye aye aye opposed no here we go next we got donations to the district donations to the district so you know if I created these slides it would not be thematic in the way that you just did there that's awesome I feel like I'm at the elementary school all of a sudden uh we have the warrior pump downtown remember this is a Dick's Fresh Market

167uh Doug Reinhardt brainchild from oh so long ago Doug always calls us what four times a year when the quarter is up and says we've got a donation check here from our Warrior pump and we want to put it in the angel fund but if you've got something specifically that I can donate it to let me know well this was an example we were able to receive this money from Dick's Fresh Market thirteen hundred and eighty one dollars and fourteen cents in the perfect part of this the timing lined up right before the high school kids went to powerlifting team State and so we donated it to them for their travel for their lodging and for their food and they are power lifters so they probably eat that'd be my haunch so that was awesome

168that Doug was able to do that First Lutheran church thank you for donation of clothing to the Intermediate School for students in need Cardinal last thank you for your donation of 55 thesauruses that was a hard one I don't think it's the thesauruses I think so for fourth and fifth grade classrooms uh thank you for the 100 donation to the Intermediate School Angel fund anonymously don't know who that was but thank you and I don't know how this one slipped past me about a donation of Girl Scout cookies for the Intermediate School staff perhaps it's because I've been hit up by other girls in my life and I've eaten plenty it was a good month there's plenty of thin thin mints to go around myself I got a complaint this weekend that Dad was eating

169too many of the thin mints like okay sorry so you'll need an action to uh approve those donations motion mad make a motion we accept the donations to the district with many thanks second second sure all in favor say aye aye but was done thank you so much it just it is wonderful every every meeting yep I can't I can't remember the last time we had a meeting that we didn't have donations yeah yeah pretty much just like yeah we're doing it right I guess Personnel action new employees and extracurricular contracts Brianna Iverson special ed Pera Nikki landfire for para Ed para educator race Rowling high school track assistant coach that's a real name we've talked about it already race rolling for track Laura van blericom for para educator resignations Brittany Miller effective end of

170school year for lower elementary Montessori teacher and Emily Schindler a special education para and you'll need action to accept these Personnel items I'll make that motion Aaron a second all second Joe all in favor say aye aye aye opposed go there we go then you need to go closed no sir all right motion to adjourn second here all in favor say aye aye we're done