Board of Education meeting June 28, 2021

001i'm hoping with all the time together i'd like to welcome everybody here and uh open the meeting for the school board of amery board of education and tonight we'll start out with we were in closed session we'll start out now with a regular meeting and first thing we'll start is consent agenda items i had the consent agenda items i'd make motion we approve of them as presented i'll second that sure all those in favor say aye aye aye all those are approved next we will go to our community comments section and i'll read the guidelines for addressing the board of education so you can please follow them welcome to this meeting of the board of education of the school district of amery we are pleased that you are interested in the school district education issues

002your input may be very beneficial to the development of appropriate educational programs you may address the board only during the community comments session time on the agenda the emory school district residents district employees and guests invited by the board may address the board at the discretion of the presiding board member in order for the meeting to flow smoothly we would appreciate that the following guidelines be followed by anyone wishing to address the board of education first for those wishing to speak before the board a sign up sheet will be available prior to the start of the meeting if the topic noted on the sign up sheet is deemed to be out of order the presiding board member will inform the person wishing to speak prior to the start of the meeting comment time is limited

003to five minutes per person however the time limit may be increased or decreased at any time by the presiding board member the time allotted for community comments may also be ended at the determination of the presiding board member comments and suggestions related to the school district operation are welcome personal criticism of members of the board of education or employees of the school district is out of order please stand to be recognized and after being recognized please give your name and address for the record the board normally receives citizen input and does not respond or debate if there is a need for an answer or response to a concern or issue the district administrator or one of the other administrators may get back to you within the week if your concern requires board action they may

004be placed on the agenda of future board meeting and i want to thank you for your cooperation all right and we've got a few here uh first one is paula how do you pronounce your name thank you paula stucci amory school district i have sons who will be going into 11 seventh and first grades first thing i would like to address is the critical race theory curriculum this is very personal for us as we are raising both black and white sons in our household and i'll add that my husband is a assistant coach to the wrestling team and he is black as well what i would really like to say is how dare anyone try to make my white children feel ashamed of who they are because of the color of their skin that's racist

005and what and that deep down without them even knowing it they have racism in them racism is not inherent it is taught and how dare anyone try and convince my black children that they are oppressed and that any encounter they might have with law enforcement might be deadly we don't teach that in my house and how dare anyone try and convince my boys that they are anything other than what they are and that's brothers they are brothers my children will not be participating with any of this curriculum at all it is not even an option for us so i would suggest that there be an alternative curriculum for the kids whose parents will not allow their children to be any part of this racist indoctrination because that's exactly what it is secondly i would like

006to add that we have something in this country called freedom of religion in my religion god created a man and a woman with that being said what people do in their life is their business it's not for me to judge i teach my children to have respect for everybody and if sarah wants to be called matthew or vice versa i'll instruct my children to do that because the name is just a name but when children are being punished for calling her a girl her and a boy him when that's really what they are that is an infringement on our religious beliefs and i'm not okay with that i don't understand what happened to science and biology we are literally teaching our children lies and there our children are being forced to live in somebody else's

007delusion and and being punished if they refuse to do so it seems like there has been a move away from facts and reality to fantasy and feelings and i think it's best for us to stick with facts thank you thank you next uh we have emily stahl nobody stole richardson okay my name is emily stahl richardson and i live in lincoln township in the emery public schools district first i'd like to say i can't imagine how stressful and challenging this past year has been for the school board teachers and staff of amory public schools i want to take this time to thank you for your dedication and service to our children families and community sorry i'm here tonight because i have two children that attend amy public schools and i want to express my support

008for school curriculum and library that reflect a diversity of life experiences one that is inclusive of race ethnicity and lgbtq identities one that shows our students the multitude and variety of lived experiences in this country i'm going to mention a couple books to clarify i haven't seen any curriculum lists they're just titles that i am using as an example this is not a zero-sum game a tale of two daddies being on the library shelf doesn't mean that farmer boy can't also be there little women in a good kind of trouble can be on the same middle school reading list and i imagine they would make for a constructive and interesting discussion and i would argue that because there are so few families of color and lgbtq families in the community that is even more important

009for them to be represented in the books and texts of our schools important to see themselves and their lived experiences reflected in the libraries on the pages of books to address comments made at an earlier meeting just because people may not see actions or hear comments that are racist or homophobic doesn't mean they don't happen or that community members aren't hurt by them and you know in the rare case that they aren't happening here at all it doesn't mean that experiences of race or gay people are irrelevant to our community i believe that to intentionally exclude books and texts that are lgbtq positive or discuss different experiences of race is in fact more harmful than the discussions they might elicit we need to be we need to prepare our students for the larger world to

010be comfortable collaborating with co-workers neighbors employers and community members who are different from themselves we have many interconnected social and economic challenges facing us and in order to solve them we will need to work together our students need to be able to listen to and be compassionate towards people of different races and different identities when we intentionally limit our exposure understanding and ability to listen to voices that are different from ours we are setting ourselves and our students up to fail so let's spend our time and resources creating an inclusive school community teaching our students how to have constructive conversations that build compassion and empathy these skills will be necessary as we tackle tough issues such as public health disparities i'd like to thank a previous commenter and another school board being for bringing this

011up because it's an important issue and a good example of how lgbtq and racial inequalities are relevant to us as a rural working class community by taking a look at lifespans of different demographics we see that all our populations are facing serious health risks people who are gay and lesbian do have the same life expectancy as heterosexuals but recent research indicates that if they live in communities where citizens are less accepting of gay relationships their lifespans are shorter in fact in anti-gay communities lgbtq people's lifespan was shorter by 12 years in the study not because of any diseases they caught but because of the environment in which they lived interestingly to measure anti-gay sentiment one of the questions in the study was whether people in your community have suggested that a book in favor of

012homosexuality should be taken out of your library but perhaps the most interesting result of the study was that people who were in heterosexual relationships also had shorter lives if they lived in high stigma anti-gay communities black men and women living in wisconsin have a lifespan that is six years shorter than average people living in rural areas have a lifespan that is three years shorter that date is from 2010 so i think that sadly that number might be higher due to the opioid and meth epidemics and people in the lowest income in the us have a 10 to 14 year shorter life span in 2019 42 percent of our students qualified for free and reduced meals so what does that mean a large percentage of the families in our school community base health risks beyond the

013average these are the challenges before us they are interrelated rather than isolated i ask that we give our students a curriculum and a library that broadens and reflects a diversity of lived experiences one that recognizes that race and sexual orientation and rural communities are not independent of one another but intersect in significant and compelling ways let us be inclusive rather than exclusive because ultimately we all do better when we all do better thank you and next up morgan olsen nope danielle mccall i'm sorry she got there first [Music] mccall township of blackbrook 16-year veteran teacher at avery middle school and parent of an incoming first grader and fourth grader standards-based grading numbers instead of letters as some call it is the same concept that has been used at leon elementary for many many years in

014aim for several years and is now being used by the intermediate and middle schools emory middle school started really digging into the process of researching the implementation of standards based grading during the 2018-2019 school year this isn't something that was done overnight it typically takes about three to five years we worked tirelessly to see what research had to say about standards-based grading we sought out details from other school districts using this system in the middle school this transition wasn't taken lightly also during this time frame mr benson held several informational meetings for parents about the transition process any and all questions were fielded and answered i encourage individuals to take a look at our emory school district webpage specifically the middle school page to find out more information on standards-based grading are essential standards and

015rubrics used to score assessments for each subject and grade level learning is a process a process in which students are trying to reach a learning goal or several over the course of a school year thus students can retry assignments and assessments to show what they have learned i would bet that everyone in this room doesn't learn anything the first time they are introduced to it some may some may not therefore reteaching and retrying is part of the learning process a part of the teaching and learning process is formative assessments from the wisconsin department of public instruction website i quote formative assessments provide students with information on the gaps that exist between their current knowledge and the stated learning goals by providing feedback on specific errors that help students understand that their low performance can be

016improved and is not a result of lack of ability studies emphasize that formative assessment is most effective when teachers use it to provide specific and timely feedback on errors and suggestions for improvement when students understand the learning objectives and assessment criteria and when students have the opportunity to reflect on their work i would also add that formative assessments help educators form our instruction to meet the needs of our students learning is always has been and will continue to be a process it is quite amazing to watch the learning process unfold when students have a goal to achieve work hard during the learning process yes sometimes fail and pick themselves up and reflect on their own learning and possible failures in order to achieve that goal they've had in sight all along i would like to

017give an example of how a student may earn the numbers so in my science class if we're going to study the standard of develop and use a model to describe that waves are reflected absorbed or transmitted through various materials if a student is able to simply use a model to recognize that sound waves um are transmitted by by vibrations they would be at the point of beginning in this process they would earn a one at that point if a student is able to show a little bit deeper depth of knowledge and investigate changes in vibrations of sound in everyday life they would be at the developing point of their learning through this process to be proficient for example a student would then be able to use a model to show how light waves or sound

018waves are reflected absorbed or transmitted through various materials because those were the components in that very first standard i explained they would be proficient in order to earn a four which is possible it is exemplary they are showing the highest depth of knowledge they can show and they would then either create their own model to show that waves are reflected absorbed or transmitted through various materials or possibly could use a variety of models to show this in different ways again the step up as for deadlines and accountability these items exist students and parents receive feedback every two weeks through our powerschool grading portal in each class on the following personal accountability components we look at do the students use their time wisely and do they meet deadlines does the student follow classroom expectations and do

019the students treat others and property with respect they can earn a one for needing improvement in any of those three areas a two for the fact that they're approaching the expectation or a three and that fact that they are meeting those personal accountability expectations we are a public school we are not pushing any certain agenda as a parent and an educator it is my job to prepare my children and my students for what lies ahead in a world that reaches far beyond amory our children and students should leave the school district memory of as well-rounded individuals who have the ability to think critically problem-solve and make their own decisions based on all of the information they have been exposed to over their educational career from the department of public instruction website meaningful learning happens in

020environments where creativity awareness inquiry and critical thinking are part of the instruction i would ask those of you that think you have issues with what is happening in our schools to ask seek the truth talk with our administrators talk with those of us who are in the classrooms each and every day do all of this and don't assume you know the spreading of misinformation to the public has to stop converse with us then we can all understand where each is coming from so we can do what's best for our children in our public school community country and world thank you daniel now morgan you can go i'm sorry uh morgan olson 501 south street west deer park um i looked at the proposed district calendar online recently and i was quite surprised to find that

021yet again this year we are taking a full week for spring break it was my understanding that this would be an alternating every other year process given how the past what 15 to 18 months have been with kovid i personally can tell you i'm a little tired of my son being home all the time um and maybe that's just because of his special needs on top of everything else but i would like to know why the families weren't questioned on whether or not they want a full week off do they want two days off do they want three days off because it would ideally starting before labor day it would be nice to be able to be done with school by memorial day because i personally feel after having family that have worked in the

022school district for countless years that sending students to school for those last couple of days after memorial day is fairly ineffective the children just have no desire to learn at that point and they've checked out so my personal opinion was after being told and basically constructive feedback with other parents that i talked with why wouldn't we use the spring break days in april around easter time we were told so many times over the last several months to stay home stay home you're not allowed to spend time with people outside of your immediate family why not be able to utilize a day or two before easter aside from april 15th i think that would be a nice way to do things because we were told for so long we can't spend time with our family extended

023family and having my grandparents having been educators in the district for as long as they were my grandma complains awful lot about the fact that students are getting a full week off of school because that never happened in her day whether that's true or not grandma might not remember correctly but i i have heard some concerns from other people within the district so that is what i thought about the calendar another thing that i also wanted to talk about was a little bit more of inclusiveness with special needs children my son has severe autism orally's got to see him and you get to hear him here when he's walking in off the van he's quite loud and can be abrasive i think that maybe since we had done an abuse month within the district it

024would be nice to do an inclusivity day with children with differing disabilities or abilities we have students within the district that have things like cerebral palsy we have children on all degrees of the autism spectrum we have children that are learning disabled but not considered special ed we have students that have dyslexia i think it would be nice if we could incorporate a day where the students and staff got to learn a little bit about some of these different abilities and disabilities so that they could understand how to interact with these people in the real world world excuse me personally i don't sign any permission slips from my son to go on field trips because that would be a nightmare and a half he is high energy and somebody would literally have to leash him

025so i think just being able to understand that all children are different but they should all be accepted within the school is important and i think it would be nice to see that so those are my two pieces thank you morgan uh next we have uh soon gunter um good evening my name is soon gunther thanks for your time tonight i live in alden township and i have two young kids in the school district one heading into first grade this fall i want my kids to learn in an environment and from educators who can navigate the past and present with integrity adults that can help them study the good the bad and the ugly of our nation's story i want my kids to seek truth in different narratives than the one they have grown up

026with i want them to develop critical thinking problem solving and analytical skills when we know more we're able to connect and celebrate our differences it is divisive to want to remain unaware of anyone else's history i hope my kids are given many opportunities to ask questions at every age they are capable of critical thinking what does it demonstrate when parents are afraid of children learning about our country's history of structural inequities do we uphold our constitution that states all people are deserving of equal treatment under the law well we can learn and so can our kids about laws and social norms that exclude people or criminalize behavior based on a person's gender sexuality religion ability age membership in a racialized group or class laws and policies such as redlining indigenous land theft and slavery because

027these laws still need to be re-examined if we're working towards equality for all people what does it demonstrate when local law enforcement repeatedly brings the latest conservative boogeyman talking points to the school board they've been swept up in a national political conversation a trend to reject truth and they want to pressure our district administrators and educators to revert to teaching a watered-down and whitewashed version of u.s history a mythical story the deniers do not speak for me or everyone in amory i'm not afraid of new books hurting my kids feelings i don't fear them learning about our country's true history or viewpoints that oppose their own i see this group has begun a recall campaign for some members of the board primarily because of decisions about masking and the new books purchased for the high

028school english department why does this group propose measures taken for the safety of everyone in our community why do they oppose diverse viewpoints are learning about the reality of racism both your tiers and your threats made toward the staff and the board members are completely inappropriate it's retaliation performed on behalf of personal discomfort i support the school board teachers and school staff for the care taken for our kids and community during the pandemic i support the purchases of anti-racist literature by our schools and i support a curriculum and library that expands and deepens our kids understanding of history social studies and identity inside the celebration of many cultures and the changing country that we call the usa thank you [Music] and that is the last one for our community comments so we will move on

029to our administrative reports i'm not sure if you want me to go first or you want the building principles there's uh the elephant in the room of alicia monson i think we ought to recognize obviously [Music] under the water thunder go ahead i i watched like many of you did right from my living room with my boys i told the board this in closed session ahead of time the commentators kept saying stuff and i kept answering and my kids said they can't hear you it makes me feel better to respond on her behalf she's working hard so i was i mean i can josh and i have talked so many times about this we saw this girl grow up and the building principles did too we saw her great promise on the track and we

030certainly saw it this past weekend i mean we have an olympian that graduated from from emory and that's amazing josh did you want to say anything well i know she certainly feels the love and support from the entire community um i got a message back from her today you know tell everybody thanks what a crazy weekend haha she always puts that under messages uh but super excited to see what i can do in tokyo so i'm yeah we're all very proud of her and she's a first-rate kid too yeah she is woman yeah she's grown up now yeah yes she's still a kid in my house i still remember the days of her walking up to mr gould and myself and asking what time her race starts thinking well we should probably tell you a

031different time because no one stands a chance if we give you the right time so she is you i have run on the treadmill next year too haven't you oh well i have been on the treadmill prior to her and she's admonished me for my error of how i'm preparing and so forth and i i remember just distinctly saying to her i said alicia no one cares if i get hurt we care if you get hurt very much so i'm oldham has been you're not yeah way to go what an accomplishment well i just if there's you know a lot of all of the things and we've just listened to community comments of all over the board of everything and there's just absolutely just one thing i think that this community could all just agree

032on and how just overjoyed we are for having olympia going to tokyo from amory crazy and there's a a young gentleman from rice lake also going and how just super exciting that northwest wisconsin is knocking out of the park and turning out olympic athletes i just who would have guessed i mean we just don't know what these kids are capable of and to watch them really grow up before your eyes and see them i saw bob johnson had posted a picture of of her six years ago i think it was the day of her just running her little mighty bite with her glasses on and then you watch her at the olympics just stride in the glory with her sunglasses on the whole time and and hotter than you know wear and crazy just i

033mean shows you the the adversity that these these young people have we've prepared them for and that i think sitting here knowing what we've done the educators that we've seen the watch these kids grow up just the pride that we all take of watching these people get to where they go that's what we do that's why we do what we do that's it's just it can't be any better it just can't be any better anybody got anything else to say that sounds wonderful all right so that's my report go ahead josh good report wow talk about the josh mann model short version all right i've kind of got the tom benson model here a little longer list than i normally have but um they all know it's true all right so we we kept pam

034robarge in the building darn near until just recently here because our spring sports were still going uh officially wrapped up last week and of course with the prolonged schedule nobody was complaining about all the opportunities the kids were able to have so we officially wrapped up our spring sports season last week with a couple of kids down at the state track meet so that was a lot of fun yeah that was great i'm just going to say it was a tremendous end of the school year in general the students were great right up until the end our staff worked tirelessly to get a number of students who were you know on the verge of some academic problems but just tremendous effort by students and staff at the end there our gym floor project all the

035wood has been removed and the floor is in the prepping phase right now so we're hoping to have that done probably within the next month hopefully i got the thumbs up from jeff there if you as you drove in today you probably noticed outside of the library in the north end of the high school they started the wall flashing project today so that's rolling um our summer custodians have been very busy with seven new staff members at the high school and several people jocking for their rooms and room changes it's going to look very different there and the custodians have just been doing a fabulous job taking care of that summer strength and conditioning program has been absolutely fabulous um we have received so many positive comments from parents we have kids in there who

036would never be in there participating and they're getting solid instruction and it's been absolutely fabulous we're running four different sessions daily uh it's been absolutely awesome we've got some remedial summer school programs going on at the high school we haven't done this for a while and we're seeing a lot of positive stuff there students are extremely motivated right now to get their work done so they don't have to come back after fourth of july so that's going great session one and two of driver's ed currently going on wrapping up we've got some new staff mentor sessions have been going on already for our all of our new staff at the high school we've had some committed meetings also and i guess i'd just also like to make sure everybody is aware that mr fern got

037married last friday i talked to somebody that was there last week and they said you did a nice job but you got a lot to learn that's what she said exactly no you know who it was all right thomas your turn all right uh lots happening at the middle school we're just we just finished our second week of summer school started our third week today i'm excited for that we have two more weeks of summer school in august plus additional weeks of swimming lessons so things are moving along we're busy cleaning every room that is not being used for summer school at this time abandoned parades our bands have been out and added and having a lot of success and from the importance of our memorial day parade which is our first kickoff to the

038clayton and clear lake parades i believe the high school is going to be marching again additionally in july and the middle school doesn't march again until fall festival hopefully down main street a lot of trainings going on fastbridge software strategic planning district data retreats where we're looking at our data and analyzing things and so a lot of stuff that will also be happening this summer i also want to throw out a date uh our sixth grade orientation and seven and eighth grade open house is august 24th i'm sure everyone's really excited to hear that at this time i also wanted just to take a few seconds to clear up a few misunderstandings about the standards-based grading at the middle school intermediate and mrs mccall did a nice job covering a lot of these items so

039i'll just cover a few more spots but just so everyone's aware standard-based grading is tied to a professional learning community focus we call that a plc and it's a district-wide initiative and it centers on three big ideas a focus on learning collaboration and results so it's a system where teachers work to answer four main questions what do the students need and must know in my class how will i determine if they have learned it what will i do if they haven't learned it or how will i extend learning if that's necessary if they're already are proficient with standards-based grading grades are way more specific than traditional grades rather than just earning a b in english which i will oftentimes ask parents okay you got to be what does b mean in english what did they

040do well in what did they struggle in and i have yet to have a parent that can answer that question under standards-based grading students receive several different grades for each class so in english a student may get a score for speech and language reading for fluency reading for comprehension reading and citing text to answer questions writing grammar convention spelling all of those things are components that would make up english they get assessed in all those areas and scored now in each area so a student may be an amazing reader and get really high marks in reading but may need a lot of extra help to be a proficient writer so this parents will know in this teacher and the student exactly what they're where they're doing well and where they need extra work we evaluate

041those kids in a lot of ways it's not just testing maybe they do hands-on projects lab work papers write papers and theme paper speeches there's multiple ways to assess that learning and yes students can earn from one to four on any specific standard area or that skill that's being assessed there was a misunderstanding that kids cannot earn a four or a one and that is absolutely not accurate we have many students the middle school and the intermediate school and i'm sure the lean elementary school who earn fours and show extensive learning in their specific areas on the various learning targets we also have students that earn a one but it is true if they're performing below proficiency we ask and expect and require teachers to intervene so they have to do re-teaching and they have

042to work extra with those students that aren't showing growth and they need to get more help to make sure that they are learning and then we assess them again and if the student can show with that extra help that they have learned it then we do improve their grade it's like taking your driver's test if you fail the driver's test the first time you go back you study you drive again and then you take your test again and if you pass it they don't average your two scores they say no now you showed me you did it now i'm going to show you and grade you on what you absolutely learned that's because our goal is to teach kids not just dispense information so if they're not learning we need to help them two other

043misunderstandings i just want to touch base on that students can't fail despite teachers providing additional interventions and reteaching some students still fail to meet benchmarks and do earn a one and then we have those students many of them will get notices there might be parent meetings where they're required to do additional after school time to get more help or attend summer school to earn bad credits so i want to make sure that people understand that that's that's not quite accurate the other thing is that students don't have to grade or turn in work every teacher in every class ties their learning to each specific skill but they also grade students on homework deadlines responsibility and turning things in and if students also aren't meeting those expectations then the teacher teachers expected to get to start

044intervening and helping teach them the skills to get that stuff done standards-based grading is not a new concept we've studied and transitioned to this system over a three-year period as daniel said i personally held 12 different parent meetings over three years and then two more last year to make sure that everyone understood this process of the seven different middle border conference schools six out of the seven new richmond has left the middle border now but six of the seven amory osceola baldwin synchro central ellsworth and somerset are on a standards-based report card every one of these schools is a high achieving school off the dpi report card site everyone was rated exceeding state expectations in fact if you really study the standards are the state reporting system the middle border conference is by far probably

045if not the most and highest achieving conference in the state and we're proud that amer has always had high levels on that state report card there's been multiple years the middle school was ranked in the top three to six percent out of 380 plus schools in the state on how well we achieved and how well kids grew so the decision to move to standards-based grading was definitely tied to continuous research with a focus on high achievement and if anyone has further questions about standards-based grading um i would sure invite them to come in and sit down hey generally don't talk during your time to talk but i'm gonna because it's me and i just i wanted to have a conversation a little bit about that after listening to mrs mccall and listening to what you

046were saying and reading some of the things that were put in letter to the editor i think anybody will know uh who's watched any of these board meetings um i wasn't a strong proponent to standards based grading i think i asked many many many questions of you when you brought it here i asked many questions in a meeting that we sat together personally during a rollout a pre-rollout um but i'll use my own kids as an example for that i mean i don't i've had four kids go through the middle school here and it's just never been regardless if it's a standard-based grading system or a letter based grading system it's never been this district's standard to let kids fail teachers here care about the kids they don't care about the grade that they get

047they want to make sure that the kids actually learn my kids were given so many opportunities to turn things in late because taking a zero really teaches them nothing and so if they're given a chance to turn in something after a deadline jen helbig sat and held one of my kids hands more times than i can count going through his locker looking for homework making sure that he had his stuff there they were given chances this is nothing new um kids want our teachers want our kids to succeed when you really look at um like you said a letter grade what is it is it is a standard is it just overall my daughter placed well in middle school math very well and went to the high school in advanced math and struggled mightily and

048it was because there was no real way to figure out what she was proficient in was it just the things that they taught at the middle school but wasn't ready to learn a higher level i think that standards-based grading really digs into what they need help with placement you'll see it when kids leave high school and go to college they have to take placement tests to figure out where they belong i think this really moves us in a direction of really helping kids succeed and learn um yes it's a lot of work it's actually more work for the teachers it's so much more work for the teachers but um you know we rolled it out in a covered year we rolled it out with a a schedule change it was um probably not a great

049way to roll it out everybody's learning change is hard but i think after time and people really get into this and have a normal year everybody will see a shift a mindset change things that their kids are really learning and our teachers really need to be commended for taking their extra time to really drill down with these kids and make them learn anybody can regurgitate information and earn a letter grade learning a concept is a totally different issue i was not a proponent of it i asked a lot of questions i did a lot of critical thinking about it i've looked and see what happened this year and sure we have bumps to fix we'll fix them because it's amory and we always do so um i think your examples are great i think everybody

050if anybody has questions go to the source find out uh there's information there it's there go to the webpage it's there so thanks for clearing that up hey yes thanks char and mr benson for that great explanation the intermediate school has a web page exactly like the middle school and it has our rubrics and the formative assessments as well so can easily be checked out on the website just a few updates our purchase orders for next year the 21 21 21 22 school year are all ready to roll out we send those out on july 1st so christy has them all ready to go mainly in the area of 6 through 12 reading language arts and then also as the other two principals have talked about during the month of june we had a variety

051of curriculum projects that were going on teachers working on reading math standards-based grading pbis which is our um positive behavioral program was worked on by many of our teams and not only just at the intermediate school but they crossed over between buildings which is really that's the summer gives you that opportunity to be able to do that and like um josh said as well summer cleaning is underway and our custodians just do a fabulous job so we thank them for their help thank you okay um as i've shared in the past the ela adoption for grades 4k through grade 5 is underway we are next on the curriculum cycle but we have spent this current school year and will be spending all of next year in preparation for this major decision for the intermediate school

052and the elementary school we have identified an english language arts leadership committee with representation from both schools who have committed many many hours already in this journey we have used research to help us vet highly effective programs and as a committee reduce the number of programs we review to four we've done all kinds of research on june 23rd and 24th the leadership team spent time interviewing these different programs four different programs and i was amazed by we had 100 participation of all the teachers in the middle of the summer to sit on a zoom and just listen to publishers give us additional information about their programs and at the present time we've narrowed it down to four two programs and they are not traditional basil programs and what we have decided is we're going to

053dig deeper into those programs and then possibly if we don't like what we find after digging deeper we may go back to a traditional program but all all four programs that we vetted were highly researched highly effective programs and oral lee and jessica and myself were part of that leadership team so i'm very excited and as we journey through this we'll be providing updates and anybody in the community that has questions about the programs about the books about anything please reach out to one of us we want to make sure that people feel comfortable and we want to make sure that we're able to answer questions that that parents might have it's a very big decision for both buildings as everybody has stated there is a ton of curriculum work going on and you know

054i my mom and dad my my mom is 87 my dad is 89 and they're like honey what do you do at that school in june july and august well i'll tell you what there is a lot happening and again kudos to our staff that want to do the best they can for our district we have had pbis meetings compet one of our goals next year is going to be compassion resilience and i'll be talking about that throughout the year we had our 4k teachers in to talk about their support system it's called a teacher assistance process we are there's essential standards work happening throughout the building fastbridge is our assessment our benchmark assessment program that we used at the inter at the elementary this year and it's going to extend through the high school

055we had a training on that the lean leadership team will be meeting we had virtual learning preparation and norm settings so just all kinds of amazing things are happening throughout the um the year and or throughout the summer so i just want you to know that we are busy and um and it's all good i do like tom i'd like to clear up some misunderstanding on this of the circulation of books in our district and specifically at leon elementary school amory continues to offer a wide variety of books selections for our students there are nearly 100 dr seuss books in district specifically at leon elementary school there are 59 in in circulation in our library we have 20 copies each of little house on the prairie books and 10 specifically 10 at leann and 20

056books of the lion the witch and the wardrobe series in our libraries these books have not been removed from circulation specifically dr seuss is one of my very favorite days of the year you know at lean we do a lot of talking about authors and celebrating authors and specifically this year dr seuss day began with announcements in the morning i always share some tidbit or learning and it started with a dr seuss poem we had green eggs and ham for lunch that was served and dr seuss books were on display throughout our library our library does a fabulous job of that and not to mention the learning that goes on about dr seuss who is really theodore gazelle the author and that happens throughout our classroom so i just wanted to clear that up because

057i i was saddened last week when i read that letter to the editor that said that they've been removed and that the kids aren't exposed to them because that is so far from the truth so um that's all i have to say thank you thank you i see brad is not here with us he is not so his uh report is posted there uh just some items there that he had mentioned there and so with that i guess maybe my job is not to make you cry or leave but that was your last report you know as in she's going to cry later don't do it now oh wow i thought well not too easy it wouldn't be better get through the meetings yeah one more report take heart we are going to make brian

058cry mr millberg is going to cry because he is this is his last different difference yes so with that cheryl and early would you give us the report on agr performance oh yes i thought you were going to say more about orally because she has been crying oh my goodness don't start okay so you caught me off guard there okay um so the the agr report is it's um an accurate it's it represents achievement gap reduction and you're somewhat familiar with this because we're required to give you an update twice a year so i won't bore you with a lot of information it's basically talking about the primary program the primary intermediate school program in reading and math so the next slide becky a lot of writing on it um thank you you can't you

059probably can't see that anyway but essentially we have to report our spring benchmark scores and so i'm going to give you our fall benchmark compared to the spring and just the percentages so in the fall um kindergarten reading we were at 61 percent at or above the 30th percentile our goal is 80 percent um throughout everything that i say today our goal is 80 percent and we fell short of that goal this year and i'm going to blame covet and i think it's um very very true that covet impacted what we are doing but i can tell you we've made some great gains so um in the spring we're at 74 at or above the 30th percentile in reading in kindergarten and 81 percent at or above the percent the 30th percentile in math so

060um we were excited about that in first grade our we started out with 40 percent at or above the 30th percentile and ended at 57 percent in reading in math we were at 69 at the beginning of the year 69 percent and ended with 79 percent at or above the 30th percentile and second grade our reading started at 69 at or above the 30th percentile and ended at 76 percent and in math at or above the 30th percentile and 77 percent is how we ended the school year uh as i have um and orr's going to report on on third grade as i have stated though with our reading language arts adoption and with the the essentials or the um the changes in the foundational skills in reading that is one thing we even beefed

061up this year and so we are looking very forward to adopting a new basil or reading program but we have to get through this next year so we're we're doing a lot of meeting and talking about that as well thank you third grade in the fall our reading score was and once again we're looking at 80 percent of our students to be at or above the 25th percentile and so in the fall we had 62 percent and in the spring we had 79 so just a little shy of that 80 percent in reading math we were rock stars in the fall 78 and 90 this spring and that's something as you know we have been working on for a number of years and it's just been creeping up and up and we were just ecstatic

062with that ninety percent so that looks good but as cheryl said we have some things to do with reading and we're looking at that very intensely and it's reading used to outshine math very much so and i but you know what i commend that to see the numbers actually jump from the fall this spring and we have to remember that these kids were not here from march um and then all through the summer that is a long break to take and this just i honestly think this really solidifies why in-person education is so important and not only in-person education but in-person education with educators who know what they're doing with a curriculum that looks like it's obviously working and teaching standard teaching strategies that look like they are making a difference so work to do

063but we'll get there so we will okay next we will move on to our informational items we have the deferred maintenance presentation okay i'll introduce john and george here they're going to tandem this but mostly john at our at our may board meeting you took action to adopt a performance contractor which in essence means for someone to come in and to look at all of our deferred maintenance needs remember we have two of our buildings that are 50 years or so plus a new ish i'll call the intermediate school at 20 years and middle school that's 29 years there's going to be issues over that period of time so krause anderson who john represents is going to share with you their findings and they're going to and i'm not going to steal your thunder here

064john they're going to prioritize because you can't put everything down there are priority ones twos and threes if they were all the priorities we'd be here all night long so we're going to look at the ones and believe me when you get done you'll see that there are plenty of items to worry about just in priority one if you have questions you certainly can ask them now but this is not the last time you're going to see this information you're going to see it repeatedly until these issues are remedied whenever that is and however that happens so john i'm going to turn it over to you okay great thank you good evening everyone a few things going on in america looks like great um welcome to the park and myself and i'm delighted yeah happy

065to be back again john heunik with carl sanderson a little bit about myself uh don't hold this against me i'm a baldwin woodville graduate right um so but it is nice to be in amy i've been here a long time i got a hug for more lee she's retiring i almost teared up been at carl sanderson for 26 years now doing k-12 schools everything from what you're looking at today and moving into the future so with that i'll get right into the to the powerpoint i think a lot of this you've seen already on the dollars on operational referendum where your dollars are going from technology to maintenance and security to curriculum and resources and staff and this is the pie chart i think you've seen this in the past okay george is working on

066your 2021 projects from carpet to vinyl the tennis courts to clocks the pa systems and clocking auditorium lights again i think you've seen these in the past um from your last referendum on your 2122 projects you have some playgrounds gym floors you've heard about some of these um some bands through all flashing we're going to talk more about through all flashing in a little bit at the high school flooring in the classrooms travel and upgrading some middle school classrooms up 700 000 okay 22 23 projects we have some switch gear at the high school football scoreboards gym floor sanding skid steer tuck pointing man lifts um press box entry doors and cameras and we're going to talk about some of these too this is just more of an update right we'll get in a little

067more granular on on what's to come here next page please becky so now we're going to talk about what krause anderson did and lhb was part of this too we did a walk-through i've been through your buildings many times luckily i brought a mechanical engineer with me along with lhb has been through your buildings and these are the items that we look at from i won't read all of these from site work to mechanical systems interior finishes to code and safety items and we organize these onto a spreadsheet that will get prioritized and budgeted and that's going to be a living document we'll use with administration on the school board and then what we're going to do with that in the future on the priorities priority ones are items that boy they should be done

068in the next three four five six years less than seven because remember that the school funding system school districts just don't have dollars to take care of deferred maintenance especially on a building that's 50 years old plus right so what has to happen is deferred maintenance report you prioritize these items and start taking care of your assets priority twos are items that are you know in the next seven to ten years we're going to take care of these items and priority threes are further out and we'll talk about those in a little bit more so the numbers you're going to see they are not bids they are budgets they're from cost history from experience from calling contractors we know or george knows and and getting budgets for those when and if the school board and

069a referendum passes all projects will be publicly bid whether it's parking lots or mechanical systems or roofs in these costs you're going to see you have to also include what we call an owner cost or a soft cost those are your permits if you have design fees and management fees testing inspections required by the state contingencies right for those unforeseen conditions there's bonding costs legal fees there's always insurances equipment costs and things like that so that qualifies if you ever hear me say owner or soft costs those are what those items are okay so i'm going to go through these quickly because there's a lot of items here um and if you got a question about one of them just jump right in and i can answer maybe that's why george said he's here for

070color so but he can probably answer the questions so i'm going to be going through these quickly uh there's actually quite an extensive excel spreadsheet where we put these budgets and prioritize them we actually obviously simplified it for the powerpoint so i'm going to concentrate on some of the bigger ones obviously we have caulking roofing right roofing's not cheap uh in the 1967 this is the elementary building 1967 portion and there's flooring the restroom upgrades and code upgrades okay obviously when a restroom gets to be much less 30 40 or 50 years old they need you know they need some help just the cosmetic part of it but then a lot of them don't necessarily meet code either so there's code upgrades also the classroom cabinets because of the age same with media center another

071man lift that it's needed and the hot water piping and then heating coils flushed and added chemicals so that's the elementary school can i ask a couple of questions what is a one-man lift it's just uh take one person up so it's just that you would have it at the building for whatever needs like onto a stage or something okay and then what's the hot water piping to classrooms uh believe it or not in 1967 all those classrooms cold and yeah they have sinks in each one of them they never in hot water through the tunnel they have cold water on cold water so it's hard to sanitize kids hands when you're telling them they got to wash for so long in warm water they have that right there in their classroom and they're not

072able to use it they got to go out in the hall so and that was an issue at our high school as well right in our special education rooms that um for a while kids teaching life skills washing dishes things like that there was no hot water there correct fix that i know you didn't that thank you accomplishment it was a big accomplishment yeah it was a circulation issue but uh yeah that was i'm pretty proud of that one you should be here thank you i was very happy about that okay intermediate school so we have parking lots um fair amount of money there this is remove and replace this is more than just seal coating okay this is something that's gonna seal coating for those who you know do your own driveway three years

073later you're like didn't i just seal coat that you know so this is a lot more intensive than just seal coating there's tuck pointing even if you walk in the front doors here you can see the columns that need repair and there's stucco repair there's some miscellaneous roofs gym floor another lift heating coils flushed building automation upgrades uh to district standards so that might even help this room cool down a little bit maybe if the codes or the controls are improved and led lighting throughout the rest of the building for energy savings okay any questions there we did do some replacement in this building and shut some lighting down yeah yeah we're uh about two and three-quarter buildings we got a good start at the middle school but it's just this one and about a

074half of the middle school yet okay we use the energy levy exemption at that time which is great uh middle school we have the gym floor um some more tuck pointing miscellaneous roof repairs flooring in the remainder of the building ceiling scoreboards the cooling tower replacement and heat pump replacement so no i mean they're big ticket items but not as big as some of the other okay what would all be involved in the gym floor we finished there still stand it right here on the bare wood and then repaint and polly there you go never striping it those heat pumps uh the life expectancy on a heat pump is 12 to 18 years 1992 that building was built so we've done real well with them there's 65 of them and chuck and i honestly cannot

075say this enough because we took that to her last january and i am amazed i don't even i don't like to even go down to my furnace and replace the filter but you i can't like where these things are and how they work you are really on top of that and i i honestly just really can't say that enough because just the district is very lucky to have somebody that's very dialed into four buildings is a lot and it amazes me all the time so i really wanted to point out that that's a heck of a job with those so thanks george and i echo that george is great to work with we work with a lot of school districts in the midwest and you're lucky to have to have a george everybody should have

076a jerk yeah everybody should have a george um so now we'll go his head's swelling yeah yeah right i'll help him get out of here hey you just stop the grounds we have a press box and we'll you know let's verify the type along with the scoreboard scoreboards you can spend less than this to if you've been to a football game in hudson it's about four times that but just just for reference um the service road and sewer line tie-in for the concession stand i believe okay now we get to the high school okay um and you know buildings do get to a certain age uh when you walk through as many buildings as i have in a 26-year career you can get a feel for a building and how it was built at its

077time were they tight on budget or not you know you can feel where the corners were cut and maybe it's just the times right for the referendum and that's okay and and of all the things i'm going to read here and i'll get i'm stealing my own thumb or thunder but the mechanical system is tired and it's tough and expensive to fix and george is chasing issues constantly if not weekly several times a month i'm sure so the high school adds up quickly but from sidewalks to parking lots there's more tuck pointing a little bit of story the tuckpointing you're doing some work right now and there's a lot more work to be done we have a drone with a infrared thermal camera so and it's a newer camera so i asked george if we

078could do a thermal image of the high school um at no cost because it was a new toy for us um and it's it's amazing the story you fly it through in early evening like right now and you can see the images of where moisture gets into the wall so you're taking care of the worst parts this summer which is good but let's address the other parts before it gets too bad so that is a big number um exterior door replacement the roof there's a big number there flooring science room upgrades restroom remodel same thing modernizing fixture improvement ceiling and general painting locker room upgrades fire sprinkler george keeps asking do we have to fire sprinkle our building do we have to uh today's code if you do that much remodel in a building you're

079likely going to have to put in fire protection okay now your insurance companies like that so that might help your rates for whatever it's worth plumbing and piping and airflow in the shop area let's bring that up to code other exhaust fans in the building there's the building mechanical system replacement what's being recommended right now is a low volume displacement or a from much more fresh air getting to the classrooms fresh air is great and also filthy filtering the air is great so to be a completely different system than what's there today and new and improved and we'll talk more about that in future meetings but you can say see at almost 9.8 million that's a healthy number to replace that mechanical system there's always cutting and patching when you're putting in new mechanical systems

080whether you're cutting floors or walls and ceilings uh improving building automation uh the electrical just to the age of the electrical and the switch gear and then when you upgrade the mechanical system you're gonna have to upgrade the electrical too that's a healthy number along with the generator and some other light fixture uh work with mechanical upgrades so the next slide this summarizing to you and this this is the wow this is a lot of money discussion and we'll talk about that more in a little bit what this page shows you is an fci a facility condition investment so a lot of professional building like a honeywell or 3m or other large companies they'll take what's our deferred maintenance by our building replacement costs because people are going to ask well should we should we

081be investing in high school right we're going to ask ourselves the community is going to ask us so this is a way again you take your deferred maintenance how much would be cost to replace that building and you get you can see from the far left in the green which is good 0.05 all the way to divest which is 1.0 so this is how we measure where your building is so in the elementary school intermediate school in the middle school they're fair shape okay they need to take care of your assets so they don't move into that red zone uh and the totals are there and the high school is in that critical stage okay and i'm not recommending you're building a high school right now i'm just saying it's getting to that point it

082can be brought back down to yellow if this work is completed um and we'll have to prioritize these together and i'm gonna talk about that a little bit and then we have our grounds so i do show the priority ones and the priority twos okay so and maybe i'll talk about this now since this is up so what we're going to want to do at future meetings so with the priority ones we looked at it professionally lhb looked at it professionally with engineers george has looked at it other administrators have looked at it we still need to meet with a larger group and maybe some board members it'd be tough to go through 100 or more line items in a board meeting like this but we need to prioritize these together is it 32 or

08333 million needs maybe it's 29 million maybe it's 28 and you know and they move just to it doesn't mean they go away it just maybe moved to a priority two or three and then you got to put it on the calendar like okay in 2030 we're gonna have to start you know we have some of the needs that are coming so we're gonna work on this list together as we move through time okay any questions about that does that make sense yeah you have the cost um estimates not not bids which is cost estimates um working with other uh on prior knowledge and what things probably priorly cost in your experiences with covet and anybody that knows it's building anything or repairing anything um those numbers are significantly higher now were these costs adjusted

084to reflect some kind of current pricing of what that would cost or are we still kind of operating under pre-covered situational numbers that's a really good question we did include inflation in these numbers okay and we ourselves are still figuring out covert and what the effect is on prices um in the com residential is crazy right don't go by two by four right now at menards right um you can't even afford plywood for a fair sign out loud no it's crazy um the but the commercial industry is different there a lot of in the world i live in is which is k-12 there's not as many referendums going out or passing because of covid um some health care projects were put on hold so the commercial industry contractors are slower but then the steel prices

085are still up here so but there's we have a lot of we have a new elementary school in hugo minnesota just that came in on budget and we were thankful um the lead time is you know six months you could steal but that's another problem but you're right and what we also see happening is a lot of school districts like yourself may be going out for referendum in the next six months to a year and that really can create inflation too so we have to be aware of that and and keep an eye on these numbers because the most stressful thing to a project is have a budget pass a referendum and then the budgets be tight so that's a great question and not only just the numbers obviously that and that's what we're working

086with obviously now and what we'll continue to work with but if all of these things are moving forward and we end up being able to go with these projects and do these things do we have any confidence that we'll be able to get the supplies yeah well and that's part of our planning and yes and part of it may affect schedule and allowing those lead times you know to get things i mean there's just all types of crazy even ceramic tile if it's coming from somewhere different you know i can come sometimes they come from italy or mexico you can imagine getting those materials out very easy i mean just egg parts alone some things are on back you can't get them for a year yeah so um and that's obviously right now and obviously

087this wouldn't take place until hopefully well passed i agree we get to that point but that's the worst thing to think about that we're looking at okay exactly so that's deferred maintenance okay it's a big number and we'll continue to work together on that so the more and fun and exciting stuff right um and opportunities that and this will be at your next meeting i just want to talk about what could be next so when you're going into like the high school and maybe other work at any of the buildings so i just want to talk about educational advocacy a little bit and maybe you've heard a little bit from lhb on this but look at the quantity and quality of your classrooms look at your building organization look at your curriculum delivery models are

088there other programs and opportunities you should offer career tech that that is the buzz right now we're working in a lot of districts from all the way up to hayward who's doing i know not flipping the program upside down but they're going to add a lot of other opportunities in their career tech um what are other best practices um we heard i think her name uh young mother mrs olsen talk about special ed okay are there special ed opportunity in need and space is to help with those students what are their opportunity for flex learning spaces still student teacher ratio spaces that promote learning as in lady smith and then well the last one and then i'll tell a story about lady smith and then create a space that staff and students want to learn

089in and you have a lot of great buildings including the building we're in but it depended on the classroom i was in lady smith wisconsin doing a student task force we're doing a adult i'll call it um [Music] parent community task force and a student the students are more fun actually made up of juniors and seniors there were a couple sophomores in there and one of the young gals asked me and we were sitting in a classroom and she raised her hand and we were going through a whole bunch of neat stuff like this and she asked would you want to learn in this room and like well i mean that was that hit me and it was just a boring grade classroom that needed some work not all your classrooms are that way but

090some of them you know have that flexible opportunity for students to learn i mean today's learning isn't lining up in a row and teaching right it's a lot of student on student small group large group and do they have that opportunity in your buildings so there's a lot more to work to do in that but let's take a look at that and find out what those opportunities are and then also let's look at community education early childhood before and after school programs other community learning opportunities you know let's let's hear what are they looking for for in terms of opportunity and let's look at some campus planning is the traffic working the way it should or any community access and things like that and in conclusion i talked about this already let's refine and realign

091our priorities and our deferred maintenance let's you know work with the school board and administration and find out what those are let's bounce ideas off a community group let's consider a survey in the fall okay highly recommend it it really helps tell the tale when there's something you just don't know what to do why guess about it let's ask in the survey and it's kind of an opportunity for that first mark and maybe you know this already but it's your first marketing piece right to say hey we're interested to know what you think you know and so it's a really neat thing for the community and then we'll refine the plan and then you'll consider what you can do from there so that was the report any questions i hope all right clear as mud

092so when so in july what you'll hear is um a little bit more about the what's next slide in the in specific dates as in when we're going to start engaging with the community and we're looking at the last week of august that first date of engagement and then after that in september a couple more times into october and then we're looking at a community survey with school perceptions we've used for the longest time here in october and we'll see what our community has to say about how they want us to address these needs and it's the gamut from one end of ideas to the other end we're not going to do this apart from their feedback is this is after all their school system where their kids go to school and where they live

093we want to know what they feel so we'll ask so maybe just a question we have priority one two and three but i guess our list i'm seeing all priority ones correct so there's above and beyond this is just the priority ones yeah we've actually got a feasibility study that i started four years ago and i change it sometimes by the month depending on two moving to a one we just didn't bring any of the twos or threes but okay anytime you want to see that that usability i think we've talked about it and looked at it maybe on our tour you know a year or so ago but um there's a lot of things down there because i know you'll leave and you'll say why didn't you have that on the list that should

094be fixed well it might be a two that could become a one right there let's be honest about the high school i mean not everyone is fully conjuring the reality of the high school that building was built in 1976 that makes it as of right now 45 years old and it was built for 3.7 million dollars the through wall flashing was 3.3 million dollars so it was a long time ago yes and the prices were different then but was it built on the cheap absolutely and it's lasted 45 years but it's starting to stumble that's a reality we've got some issues you know you bring up a really good point that we saw that you know inside but we don't really as a parent i've walked through that school many times many hours many kids

095and really didn't see the issues that were pointed out to us the structural issues that are pointed out to us because honestly our um our staff our janitors our grounds crew have done a really good job with our schools even as they age making them look very presentable to the public making you feel very comfortable in our schools i've walked through some schools that aren't very friendly and very nice or inviting and that's a real tribute to what you've been able to do but unfortunately you've maxed it really really well that the public doesn't see it so there are three things that happen at the high school you drive past it you go to the gym or you go to the auditorium yeah and your ship shape on each of those counts usually yeah right

096but but it's not sure going into the science rooms in the you know it's that's a different story so yeah we should consider you know maybe later summer fall of having like a community walk through absolutely i think we did maybe talk about it at one time and it didn't cover it and then take anyone through that wants to go through it's a trip all four buildings i really think we'll host a show-and-tell night i think with george if you're willing to do that one night and uh dr darfler if you're willing to go through that absolutely we could be there or have a have a board a special board meeting scheduled that all of us could be there with them and that would be an open yeah a lot of that stuff you don't

097really if you're not looking for it you'll never notice it and um when we had her walk through it's that you'll notice well if you open doors you're barely in the science classroom open cabinet doors then you find brings up a good point that when even kids find out that we're starting to pay attention to some of those heating things when they sit in that classroom and they they realize that isn't a helicopter landing on the road we'll i'll probably find out things i didn't even know were going on um that will be added to the list because they'll they'll start being planned yeah and i think you know we need to really bring up the point that um to your story of the young lady and lady smith who said would you want to

098learn in this classroom our janitors certainly don't get enough credit for what they do here to make our classrooms and our school clean and a nice learning environment that provides an environment that kids are ready to learn in um and that goes beyond being clean but also being a welcoming environment where kids we've seen this with covid that the learning that takes place in between students student to student it just cannot be replicated and our classrooms need to reflect that so it's really important to the it's not just cosmetic it's not being about who's better than the joneses or the next district but that this really has an impact on your children's learning the environment in which they are for eight hours a day has a real impact on the learning capabilities of your child

099so classrooms are not designed uh like we have them now things are modular or they you know they'll have a cluster of classrooms and a teacher in a separate area it's almost like a college set up the way they do it now or even just the lighting to the lighting or the the ventilation systems that you're hearing that residual noise that maybe the kid in the back of the classroom who's sitting back there because they don't want to engage they're they're shy they can't hear the instruction that's going on but they're not going to be the kid that raises their hand and asks because they can't hear it over the you know they're afraid that they're going to be made fun of that they weren't paying attention or it's just such an impact to kids

100with disabilities disabilities that we don't even know exist those things make a difference lighting makes a difference to kids ventilation systems the noise it all makes a difference it makes a difference to adults you know in a room with a meeting so yeah yeah we found that in the intermediate or or even like when we were in the yeah in the boardroom in the in the gym it was it was hard to hear super hard physical space is one thing to have proper space to teach and learn in but like you the indoor air quality and lighting that's a proven fact that that's not guessing that's they've tested students and they do much better obviously with better indoor air quality and better lane it's just a fact okay i won't be so gentle so we

101we need to replace the high school what what a ballpark figure would it cost to replace that high school and build a new one oh the answer to that i know i do know the answer that's well that's it yeah well and i'm going to qualify my answer right because there's a lot of things in planning in high school right you know um in terms of is it 100 replacement or do you keep the auditorium in the gym and tear down academics or do you start from scratch or is there a 1000 seat auditorium 500 seat auditorium three station gym running tracks pools you know right so you can go from visa let's build a but you're good yeah it's not going to take long to get to a 60 70 million dollars for your

102high school yep so everything's on the table when we start engaging with the community and what i mean by that you run the gamut to do nothing status quo stay as is all the way up to a new high school and everything in between yeah so certainly no decisions are being made here tonight and certainly no decisions we made apart from them because it is a big big conversation and again and i'm i'm here to give you the message and and listen right for yourselves and the community staff and the survey and we'll follow that direction i will tell a story all the way in new wall minnesota and we were in a community group and we were talking about deferred maintenance and remodeling the high school and we had a big task force together

103and we looked at a lot of items we looked up here tonight and one of the said i have a question why don't why don't we replace the high school and i put my foot in my mouth and said you can't afford it and i didn't mean it that way but the tax impact was a lot and so the next meeting came and a different person asked the same question guess what they went for a new high school in the past i'm not saying that's for amy but i've been wrong before so so i that was a lesson that was probably ten years ago already maybe nine you know it's my job to listen and follow your lead and guide to a point yeah more to follow yep yep need to know okay thank you

104john thank you george that's not good information it's information it's good to know it's information that makes my stomach upset next up we have our first reading of board policies the first is the non-district transportation policy and the second is district wellness okay for the non-district transportation policy i'll have jeff join me for some assistance uh this is an entirely new policy uh the policy reads and it's new i'm going to read it to you the expectation of the school district of brambly is that all district sponsored athletic teams extracurricular activities field trips competitions and other events utilize district transportation and transportation staff the use of non-district transportation i.e chartered bus and motor coach service shall be approved by the athletic director booster organizations seek to use that seek to use non-district transportation for school-sponsored

105athletic teams must have the approval of the athletic director as well only trips which exceed 75 miles one way will be considered for non-district charter and motor coach bus transportation meaning we don't take a bus coach bus for baseball to osceola would we take a coach bus to appleton to play state baseball that's a whole another conversation now it's not happening often but we want to have some guidance in regards to how how it happens the only item on the sheet or on this policy that we might want to revisit is that altoona is joining and they are exactly 76 miles away so we might want to change it or we or we can't go to altoona and that's not good um we can change it to whatever we want but they are new to

106our our conference and uh we can do whatever we want there if you draw a circle around amory at 75 it's gonna encapsulate most of what we do in regards to athletics is that a safe assumption job yep hayward's another location 77 miles away um we did take a coach bus there twice last year for hockey we played them the last game of the year and then our first playoff game and really we did that because the kids weren't able to do their overnight trips they weren't able to go out for dinner like they could as a team and coach wanted to make them feel special and just kind of a nice gesture remember the coach bus travel is not a district expense it's booster organizations paying for that not the taxpayer and this this

107student transportation policy only revolves around athletics it states there um when looking at these athletic teams you've got athletic teams extracurricular activities field trips competitions and other events all that utilize district transportation so it all falls under the auspices of that but this is the first reading it can be whatever you want it to be right now and then so like extracurricular activities field trips all that stuff then um if they're using non-district transportation would that like even just fall under like personal vehicles um [Music] if we have an event that everyone's traveling on their own to it would be a rare occasion because it's really hard to keep track of everybody when we do that we usually travel together participate in the event and travel home so that typically doesn't happen i guess i'm

108just thinking like ffa where we go to state um ffa convention and then there's personal vehicles used for transportation sure that's a smaller number and a further distance if they wanted to coach bus that that would certainly be eligible but for decades we have done that in the way you just described what we're trying to cover is we don't need coach bus travel to everywhere that we want to do that for we want to do it for just special events like state travel or long distance trips we don't want the appearances for our district that we've got money land around so we're taking coach buses to osceola because we don't right i get that i guess it just the policy just seems a little ambiguous that way of the use of non-district transportation um and

109then just example of chartered bus and motor coach service um i guess that just i think i think for for clarification char the the idea was to reap instead of taking a school bus not so much parents driving their kids or anything it's at what point do we allow something besides the school bus to take the students and you know as as schedules were being made you know in previous years that 75 was kind of that magic number like okay if you want to go to a tournament in rhinelander wisconsin dells whatever that's fine the district will will cover the cost up to 75 miles but beyond that you'll have to pick that up so consider that when we make the schedules so it hasn't just been for the the bus itself it's also kind

110of been that this is where the district says okay this is kind of where we're drawing the line with what we're willing to pay for in addition to that we want to make sure we're not taking money out of the pockets of our bus drivers these are this is their check if we're contracting coach bus services they're not driving those buses they're driving the yellow variety that we typically take and we're taking in lieu of a bus were there enough people that would have to get on a bus and go i guess i'm not following our van is what maybe you're if it was enough people that were going to an event that it would require a bus sure like state golf or any golf match for instance but they would take a van typically

111unless there's too many kids but where there is a yellow bus being taken usually we want we want them to go in that method if it's a special occasion like a state trip for state soccer you can certainly contract out a coach bus and that wouldn't be a surprise okay well that is our first reading so okay are we talking about changing that mileage uh i mean given that altoona is now in our district i would change it to 80. and those are common trips for multiple they are different athletic teams yeah so we're talking 80 85 what are we doing wow do i hear name whatever whatever you know 80 will cover it right yeah 80 would cover it okay i think 80 would come back with that one there's no other districts that

112are kind of on the verge of 80 yeah or or a field that's five miles down the road from school there's no other what if there's a detour that's true there's no other country there's no other conference realignments on the horizon because the one that would by enrollment drop off would be prescott but there's no conversation about that right now and i don't know what's press got 50 or so probably yeah i don't like that yeah i think we could just go 85 and what i think 85 is fine all right okay thank you all right next will be the wellness the wellness policy that you see here is a revision of an existing policy they do a tri-annual review and we have to do that based on state mandates so every three years we

113revisit so where you see red is an additional recommendation that's come from the state that we want to add so the first addition is that all students have access to physical education throughout the school year some policies specifically specifically state the number of minutes but that's not realistic for instance at the high school not every kid has fiat every single term and at the intermediate uh elementary middle and high school there's only so many it's so many minutes in the day to have physical education but we want them to have it so that's that states just that uh opportunities that promote physical activity should be made available to community members we do that through community education we have pickleball and basketball and many other activities uh school breakfast program national lunch national school lunch if

114you go up a little further that's been stricken because that really isn't the verbage for that anymore it doesn't look like that so that's a recommendation from the state all of those words and acronyms all food items served are offered for sale to students during the school day from midnight prior to 30 minutes after the end of the school day we'll meet federal state local and standards for all nutrient and competitive food guidelines but then you see the rest of the verbiage there that's in essence meaning we turn off our vending machines and they're not accessible to kids during the school day and we've done that for a long time it just wasn't in the policy water fountains inner water filling stations are available in or near all cafeterias that is true after obtaining food

115students will have at least 20 minutes to eat lunch that is certainly true it's actually a few minutes longer applications for free reduce should be sent to everyone they are they are kept incredibly confidential i mean building principles can attest to the fact when we do our state testing we have to do the demographic data for all of our students they don't have access to the information i don't have access to the information it has to be explicitly asked for for a specific purpose so it's under lock and key so to speak the usda professional standards to state and local nutrition programs are followed to ensure that professional development all areas of food nutrition have provided for food service directors and managers and staff we do that we've done the serve safe training for the

116better part of five or six years if not more that's a mandate in order to be working in those environments under nutrition and wellness all food items served or offered for sale during the school day should meet the guidelines of the federal government this does get tricky because you have a variety of fundraising because sometimes fruits and vegetables don't sell as well in your in your uh fundraising efforts as does pizza and other things i get it but we have to follow the rules of the usda and they're stating we need to have smart snack standards so we try and keep an eye on that it's usually at the middle in high school that they're canvassing the students during the day to do that elementary and intermediate it goes home mom and dad and they

117can buy pizza that way so i'm just kidding of course snacks and aftercare are served via child and adult care food program and meet the requirements of the program meaning that clubhouse follows the same standards as the school system and they do food should not be used as a reward teachers may use non-food alternatives are we in violation of this policy i would say absolutely we are in places food does turn into be a reward at times i spent 13 years at the high school and if you're going to get a classic kids a pizza they're going to get excited about it i can tell you that marketing strategies such as taste tests and signage and cafeteria should be used to promote healthy food and beverages throughout school i know at the elementary intermediate they

118do taste testing in order to determine what's on the menu i have three elementary school kids believe me if you're going to put it out the vote they're going to have an opinion about what's going to be served that's the first question they ask me every day when we get in the van what's for lunch so they want to know it's recommended that schools avoid participation in fundraising in corporate incentive programs to promote a message inconsistent with the goals of a healthy school community this is a constant battle certainly almost there the triangle progress report will be posted on the district website so when this policy is done it will be posted on the website just as it has been in the past and i think that might be the end yep and then the

119date so this is a first reading through an existing policy so no action is needed but you certainly can have some conversation about it if you'd like the um food should not be used as a reward does that have to be in there for it doesn't have to be these are recommendations from usda it's not the mandate of the law and you're going to get trouble if you do it wrong no um just given issues is there any reason that we couldn't just strike it you can if you want to i would recommend it's not going to be a problem i just i i know like teachers will you know you have candy bars or i don't know stuff right even all the way through the high school so it might be written all over

120josh's face maybe been some ice cream sandwich would have to be like all three sentences then not just that yeah it might be unrealistic all that yeah well teachers may use non-food alternatives as rewards i don't i guess there's no problem with that that's true but it's time but it doesn't like make sense like why would they what would that even be so first reading whatever we want yeah we could take it out i just if we could yeah take out we're definitely not in violation of the policy yes not okay any other items on that if not we'll move on okay [Music] we did that we'll go to our action items first one is the donations to the district okay we have a couple the library donation from heather green and organizers from the

121fall story walk donated funds to lean in intermediate school libraries for purchase of books the second angel fund donation of five hundred dollars from dr and mrs nickim uh to the angel fund the staff appreciation bags the emory women's club prepared a staff goodie bag for staff appreciation week for every staff person and then lastly the school forest pergola this isn't a donation but a previous donation and that's a picture of the finished product and i'm not sure if you wanted to say anything about that or because you've lived that more than i yeah everybody came together to make that happen and it was just um it was a great great project yeah it really is beautiful really beautiful they did the class did such an amazing job making that it just i mean that

122was dollars that just really benefited a lot of education and a lot of education to come and a lot of just quiet space and a reflection and what a what a beautiful gift in a memory for a apparently a really great guy chelsea out of your class and yeah thank you very much you know one of the highlights in the interview process for oralease position everyone from out of district marveled at the fact that we had a school forest ride out the back door they couldn't get enough of that idea and all of the uses that that idea has and we have done so we don't we should never take for granted how fantastic that property is yep right next to us right next to us yeah we have great resources here well i want

123to thank everyone for their donations the women's club and dr nickim and heather greene and the fall storywalk organizers for all those donations we appreciate it cool stress balls food motivator as a reward [Laughter] absolutely all right well i will move to accept the donations the district as presented here with many thanks second here all those in favor say aye aye all right easy one all right you're up again mister all right the next item is a is in in many ways the first is very connected to the second first we need your approval to renew our membership in wiaa if we don't want to do that then we won't have to worry about conference realignment because we won't be in a conference so that's your wiaa renewal becky and i struggled with this we

124were a little slow on the uptake to try and figure this out where it says non-contact co-op that doesn't mean it's a non-contact sport there's no such thing as non-contact hockey it's non-contact is and we're not the lead on that particular event rather someone else is in our case for girls that summer is our non-contact so i'm confident the year will look different we won't have two tickets four tickets masks live stream links for every level i'm hopeful i mean it feels like five years ago we were planning fall sports and then pushing it to after school started and there's a lot of great things obviously that happened but believe it or not the wi tournament series is culminating this week with baseball and softball and it's almost july 1. so we'll be a little

125more efficient next year i'm confident without a pandemic but you know girls tennis went to stayed we had a couple state champions in in wrestling and team state champions obviously and juleson and wentz when went to boys tennis and then we just had the state track um three participants there that went to state so we did it it looked a little different appreciate your guys's support um but uh it was a marathon that's for sure so honestly with this we have ten boy score 10 boys sports nine girls sports on here the 10th sport for the females is uh dance it's endorsed by the wi it's not a wis sport technically so that's why there's a little difference there but there's no changes to this just asking for your blog so you would need a

126motion to renew our membership in wia i'll make a motion that we renew our um preview our uh enrollment in wiaa in a second second dave all those in favor say aye aye aye aye and then as we've talked the middle border conference has changed and that's the change we are the richmond is moving on they're moving to the big rivers conference they're a school of over a thousand kids it's time for them to to move on they are ready to make the move and we will welcome in altoona we already play altoona in a number of different sports uh in non-conference action so it's a good fit for altoona the big rivers is a good fit for enrichment especially as they prepare for their postseason play this will begin this school year so that's

127that's the update there altoona will not be in our conference for football wrestling in girls golf we will actually be welcoming rice lake into our conference in 2022 2023 for two years they are not thrilled about that uh but it is what it is we have two year conferences or two-year conferences for football so and please know this was not new richmond being kicked out this was new richmond's decision they've been pursuing this for a long time they are twice as big as every school on this list and three times as big as prescott i mean it's getting to be a competitive disadvantage they're moving into the big rivers with schools of like enrollment if not bigger some of those schools are pushing 2 000. so it was time and new richmond will not be

128the smallest school in the big rivers conference nope um rice lake i believe will be the smallest rice lake is yes you might even be smaller with river falls i'm surprised it didn't happen earlier i mean this is they've been out of our league for a long time i mean yeah i think it's just it's ridiculous it's not even fun to go to games they were 230 in the positive in open enrollment in the district 230 kids that's a lot of kids we had a parent actually contact us actually mr gold this spring and uh it was a sport that we were playing enrichment in and they were unhappy why are we scheduling the richmond well we don't have a choice about our conference teams but they were right i mean it's not a good

129fit for them it wasn't a good fit for us to play that game they're not going to get anything out of it neither at least so we will schedule them in some non-conference sports but uh not most okay so so there's no action needed on the middle order conference realignment it's that's happened it's independent of us thank you thank you thanks joe congratulations all right up next mr wallin i wish this was cleaner smoother and easier but if you're going to involve the federal government it's not going to be clean smooth and easy but there is a good opportunity potentially sitting here for us so i'm going to let clint explain that and we're going to have to do a hurry up and wait kind of thing so to speak yeah it's government it is

130um it's hard to believe i was here three years ago talking about the intermediate and elementary devices but we're three years into it time to refresh those devices and over the course of the last year for this year i should say there was building meetings and they've become the conclusion and the recommendation is to go chromebooks for them two buildings we had multiple issues with the internet with the ipads and the laptops at the intermediate as far as management and web filtering when these things are at home during covet and to fix those issues chromebooks was the answer so the recommendation the board is to purchase 750 chromebooks for both buildings that would leave us about 75 to 100 spares to float between the two buildings for damaged ones or something forgot at home if

131they took a walmart broken ones or just we'd like to have spares around them so the kids have something to use um i did request four vendors for bids only one responded due to availability and it was so bad one vendor told me that the manufacturer was not taken anywhere so we were lucky to even get a bid from dell was the one that gave us the bid back they said we can have the devices in a week it remains if you've seen but we'll see but the recommendation is to purchase the devices through dell 750 of them now here's where it gets gray um we have two recommended options for purchasing the devices the normal lease be a three year lease and it'll be a dollar buyout so it'd be the purchase price would

132be 228 540 dollars at seven seventy seven hundred fifty quantity and three year lease or some interest on there so the payment would be seventy eight thousand eight hundred forty six a year and then we'd pay a dollar at the end of the lease and we'd go on the devices the recommended option too the government has uh part of the american rescue plan has given the opportunity for education and libraries emergency connectivity fund which is 7.1 billion dollars and in that fund there you are allowed you can apply for up to 400 per machine per student or staff as long as you can it's used for remote education you can still use it in school but it's got to be able to take home and use it at home as well for homework um i'm

133trying to i lost my train of thought i'm sorry um there is some stipulations with it that you can't like we did the high school middle school last year another school can't just say i want to apply for this grant or this fund and they're going to get the money there's got to be a reason why you're getting new devices and we are proving in when we do the application we have to prove to them that we need these devices and one it's our normal refresh which qualifies the two the big one is internet filtering the web filter we couldn't filter these kids like we can with the chromebooks it was filtering but it wasn't doing the best we want to do so those two are those two qualifiers for this fund now the problem

134is with with the 7.1 billion dollars is every at every school in america could apply for it and library and they made these stipulations so people aren't just going to pull these ideas out of their hand and try to get this money it's kind of kind of they got a reason why you're asking for it but if there's more applicants and money requested what they will do is base it on your free and reduced and your e-rate discount would start at 70 percent so if there's above and beyond the applicants the money requested we're pretty much guaranteed seventy percent of the cost of the chromebooks we've paid for so we'd be looking at probably about sixty eight thousand five hundred dollars would be responsible for it if it goes above and beyond the amount that's

135available but the savings would be some 150 to 175. would be 160 000. there you go the other thing with this grant or this fund is the application window opens tomorrow and closes august 13th we will not know what we get until the middle of october but the way they make it sound is we're guaranteed at least seventy percent i wish i had a crystal ball but i'm very confident we will get that i'm almost confident we're gonna get the hundred percent the way they've been talking but they just want to make sure everybody's aware that potentially you might have to you're going to go by your e rate discount to what you're going to spend the downfall of it as well is we have to buy these out right right now so basically we

136you're kind of rolling the dice but i'm confident we're going to get at least 70 percent off so it's going to cost us about 69 000 if the requests go above and beyond the fund so the recommendation would be to purchase them out right from dow because there are only bitter if you will and get it paid for through the federal government emergency connectivity fund if you will and save some hundred and sixty thousand dollars now we could play it safe and go ahead and lease them and get them from dell and call it a day but the opportunity to save a hundred and sixty thousand dollars i think is too good to pass out well and with this fund they're only allowing devices and internet connectivity that's all they're allowing it for and how

137many schools have bought chromebooks in the last two years so i mean we were one of them but that was just middle school in high school those people don't qualify from what they say so well the price of the lease is the same as the purchase price it's just we get to pay it over three years so it doesn't i mean the cost is going to be the same regardless so it doesn't make sense to i mean and if we're i get it but i would i mean it makes more sense to purchase them if there's interest in that lease right yeah yeah you're comfortable thinking that we're going to get at least 70 of 228 000 so yeah yeah to me it's yeah not yet well i guess we're using the wrong words that

138it's covered by the federal government that portion of it we're not going to get it i'm assuming correct right we get reimbursed because we already have to spend the money now right now it's not an additional it's your money back i'll make a motion that we purchase the devices and apply for the grant and we have a second second fail any more discussion you know this comes out of your budget if it don't work you understand that there's contingencies of that so we're all right yeah all right thank you all those in favor say hi opposed okay there we go now somebody wants a bus oh yes we we typically schedule a bus first purchase each and every year we get bids for that purchase you see a bid here from mid-state truck at 119

139nelson at 107 and wisconsin bus sales which is the redbird bus 105 which is what the recommendation is and that's what we've gotten in the past it's up to you whether you want to make a motion to purchase a bus we certainly can defer that cost but eventually then you're going to be getting two or three or four buses and that's not always a good budget line item to have to incur so we have tried to make good on the mission to get each a one each and every year so the recommendation again is wisconsin bus sales at 105. what do we do with our old bus like if we retire one we race it at cedar rapids yeah we're no longer racing at cedar lake actually either consult for a nominal amount or parts

140you know um usually a combination of both so that's pretty much what we do with them or when the new one dies on the road because the death's frozen the old one starts up and goes did that happen are you interested with all those kids you want to vote for him sometimes i need him you're looking for a good well ever since we've been on the board yeah it's every year you just you keep up with the fleet and it always looks great and that's a plus for our person i would agree yeah absolutely i would make the motion we we uh approve the bid from wisconsin bus sales okay a second that all right motion moved in second any other discussion all in favor say aye aye that's passed now let's hope they can

141get us a bus yeah it'll take a while to get here it's a good four to six month process yeah yeah now we have insurance okay this is the lead home insurance renewal andy and i met with jim lead home last week uh the premium there from 2021 is listed right next to 21.22 you'll see that it is a price difference of approximately um 18 ish thousand there are a couple of differences the um biggest difference is probably workman's comp that's not a number that is really within our control i mean things happen over the course of a school year and that's going to change your rate um so that the recommendation is to go with lead home into re-up and this would be the premium the second page breaks it down even further um

142there it's really pretty straightforward uh what i'd like to draw your attention to is the third page the chrome and forster which is part of the renewal at lead home this is an item that we had to actually do some research on this is an environmental quote that you're by law you have to have environmental insurance back in 1998 there is an undescribed according to jim event that occurred on campus where there was a leakage of a product over by the where the bus garage was where the gas tanks are and now everything's been put underground jim didn't remember that occurring there's no document that occurring all he knows is it happened in the summer of and that's the reason you have to have insurance for events such as that we would opt for the

143two-year in that it results in a better rate over the over the two years so it's up to you whether you want to go with lead home we've gone with lead home for decades my recommendation would be that you continue to go with lethal and while you're looking at i'll point out one more thing too on the second page the experience modification that's really what the benchmark for that is a 1.0 and we've come up a little bit but we're still well below the comparison to anyone else in the industry for how we and that's a reflection of safety practices in the district among other things but that's really a good number still from what jim was telling us and jim would know he's been doing this for a long time we're in good standing

144in the insurance world yeah we are doing really well according to jim um the property excuse me the property premium for the 21 21-22 year um is just about seven thousand dollars there uh increase is that just due to what did jim speak it was well we purchased some land that went into that goes into that and then um just didn't normally increase based on our modification or modern percentage so um if you want to get it a little further we can have them come in and speak but i think it's pretty in line with what we're actually doing better than other districts uh for where we're at for increases so um like i said he's very happy for adam's negotiating negotiates with them and he does a really good job for us with negotiating

145with him because that's a big part of it so i guess i'm not questioning that i'm just questioning why i mean what went into that seven thousand dollar jump if it was buildings up you know upgrade or is it the last i saw that land yeah i can't imagine that that was the full seven thousand it's just a normal increase plus additional addition for that land i would say would go into that without i can find it certainly find out for you what the increase was for and get that to you it's not a problem do we need to make a decision today because it has to go into effect in july first we do need to make a motion if this is what you want to do this is typically been at the june

146board meeting in each each school year that it needed to be done but if you wanted to table it we would make those accommodations to do that no i guess i just had it it was just a general question okay andy and i will hunt down i'll get started i'll make a motion that we um approve the uh insurance premium with leave home all right in a second second jar all those in favor say aye aye all right opposed no all right now we got the budget proposal yes uh this is unfortunately um a fairly complicated topic trying to i'll try and boil it down the best i can the way that a state budget works it's on a two-year biennium we're at the tail end of that two-year biennium the 2019-2021 budget so the

147next one obviously is 21-23 it begins in the joint finance committee joint finance committee meaning it is the assembly and the state senate together democrats and republicans together having a conversation about the budget they get a proposal from the governor they look at what the governor has to say they make a proposal of their own and then it goes to the assembly and the senate and they vote on it it has gone through joint finance committee they have made their recommendation and now the assembly and the senate have to weigh in on this it's said to be the case that within the next two weeks they'll make a decision there is a dramatic difference between the governor's budget and the joint finance committee's budget as it relates to school finance so i'm going to walk

148through this and you'll see what those differences are before i do that please know that the budget is also connected to the federal government the e-s-s-e-r money that federal stimulus money that school districts have received across the country it's connected to that as well so in march of 2021 congress provided wisconsin k-12 students and schools with the opportunity to receive one point billion in pandemic relief to combat the learning disruptions caused by covet and help pay for other pandemic related expenses we are one of those districts we have used money from the federal government to pay for covert expenses whereas in order for the state of wisconsin to qualify to receive that funding for its students and schools congress required the state to maintain the same proportion of expenditures for k-12 education that it had

149provided in previous state budgets this is where we go off script so to speak the state of wisconsin clearly has money available in the treasury they actually have 4.3 billion dollars in the treasury presently wisconsin's legislature budget writing committee chose not to approve enough state funding for k-12 education to meet this federal requirement so we are not eligible to receive fund or federal re federal government the e-s-s-e-r dollars unless they change the budget that joint finance committee has passed the 128 million the wisconsin legislators budget writing committee proposes to spend on k-12 education over the next two years is not even half of what the non-partisan legislative fiscal bureau reports is is necessary to secure the federal money and this proposed level of state funding for k-12 education jeopardizes the very covid relief federal covert

150relief funding that lawmakers are counting on to fund schools over the next two years and to re to relieve them of the obligation to further invest in schools with state dollars many lawmakers were quick to put out on newsletters to their constituents claiming credit for securing 1.5 billion dollars in federal money to for their students and staff and the wisconsin legislature's budget writing committee placed 350 million dollars of state dollars into the state's budget stabilization fund rainy day fund for available in future for to fill future education funding gaps for education or and this is in bold any other purpose so let me stop there and i will say it as clearly as i can we are not eligible to receive the federal stimulus money unless the state does something different with the budget in

151addition to that the money that they are setting aside may very well go for something altogether different and in addition to that the state has proposed a zero dollar per people increase in the state of wisconsin all of those factors combined if all of those factors occur this district would be some one million dollars in debt as recently as two or three years from now one million dollars in debt is staff in programs so we as a district i believe should be strongly strongly opposed to the present state of the budget so i will continue from there the u.s department of education has warned the state of wisconsin that placing 350 million dollars into the state's rainy day fund won't help wisconsin qualify for 1.5 billion dollars in federal stimulus funds the wisconsin association of

152school boards has been asking wasp members and lawmakers to support four state budget priorities inflationary spending increases significantly higher special education reimbursement additional mental health categorical aid and steps to mitigate pandemic driven enrollment drops the state enrollment in public education is down 15 percent we're down approximately 15 percent whereas the if the legislature were to rework the rework the proposed state k-12 funding plan and use a portion of the 350 million directed to the rainy day fund to meet these priorities this potential loss of massive amounts of federal funding for k-12 in wisconsin could be avoided lastly the school district of amory edu board of education calls upon lawmakers to rework and pass a state budget bill that provides the state funding for k-12 education necessary to qualify for the state's state of wisconsin to

153receive its rightful share of federal covet relief for k-12 education and properly fund our state's public public schools so bottom line what i am saying is a recommendation to all of you is that our lawmakers and in this case state senator rob staffssold and state assembly person gag magnafishi to vote no for the present state of the budget increase per pupil expenditure for per kid and do what is necessary to get the federal money if we don't do that us and everyone around us in the state of wisconsin is going to face a budget cliff the budget cliff meaning the federal money is gone and there's no 350 million dollars 350 million dollars waiting you are going to have to balance your budget by cutting staff and programs or going to referendum and neither of

154those is a good idea so it's time to go back to the drawing board and fix what's done that's what this resolution says and i'd be happy to take any questions but the question should better be asked for our elected representatives because this is a really bad idea what they're seeking to do here can we take back that house the bus would not cover the shortfall that we would have if this is what they do if they indicated any reasoning for this because the federal government has got you covered but here's my inclination about that when have states including the state of wisconsin relied on the federal government to balance a state budget that's completely contrary to everything we should be about as state rights states rights and in my mind this isn't political because

155both sides need to step up but the joint finance committee is controlled by the republican party and i know how they feel about states rights and they know full well how they feel about it as well it is a bad idea to rely on the government the federal government to do this for us we should take care of our own business so we have 4.3 billion dollars in our stake offers to be able to take care of this so it's up to them to do their work and where is that the 3.4 billion dollars it's just sitting there it is sitting there that is correct they haven't allocated that it's 4.3 billion which will become property tax relief for taxpayers and we want that but i don't think our property taxpayers our taxpayers want that

156at the expense of public education i don't think they want that maybe they do but that would not be my hunch and and the thing to remember that even if they do vote to spend enough money to meet the requirements to get the federal money it gives no new money to school districts it's just shifting the money that's kind of what we're talking about shifts the money from taxpayers to the state you're not getting any new money no increase people that that's the big confusing part too i think a little bit as it seems like they're spending more money to get this federal money but they're they're not it's not any new money for districts and i guess that's the thing to remember as well so so this money would provide um property tax relief

157um would that provide tax to property tax relief to everybody across the state that's up to the state they haven't said what they're going to do with it that's the inclination that the lobbyists have heard that they're going to use that for property tax relief but there's no formal plan for how that's rolled out i don't know and out of all the property taxes collected of all the property in wisconsin i can't believe that would be a huge savings to each individual property owner i've never seen a cost analysis of what that looks like i'm simply coming at this from the perspective that you can't cut cut us off at one path and then cut us off at the other and expect us to have good options i i guess i'm thinking of the heart

158you know the stark reality is if that if somebody's thinking they're going to get a property tax break from the state but then we can't have enough to cover our budget and if we have to levy tax increase does those offset does it actually end up impacting our local people more than it will it's impacting us more because there's a revenue cap limit we can only ask for so much not so many dollars from our taxpayers so what you have to do then is go to referendum and people go to referendum for other reasons we just did that for a half hour here yeah and so we have in the in the 1.9 million dollar recurring referendum that we have went to to back for we have and we have always designated those areas certain

159amounts of money in each area is that possible that we can shift from one line item to you can thing you can but my my estimation is this when you go to referendum you ask your taxpayers to help you as a school system you tell them what you're going to do with the money and you do exactly what you said you were going to do which is what we did in april of 2017 and i wouldn't want to stop doing that now but if we're forced to we'll have to let our public know here's why i'm here right now we're here right now telling our public this is a budget cliff that's being created by our estate and it is not a good idea it is universally been condemned throughout all school systems in wisconsin

160people are very fearful of this action it's not a good idea and also every school's different and what aid they're getting it through esser some are in a lot worse shape than us some are in a little better shape than us then like i said that's there's no uniform with that and then there's also say you qualify for the esser that we get that there's so there's a lot of stipulations in how you have to spend that too so i understand just saying oh yeah we're gonna use that money to balance our budget isn't that easy it's it's you have to spend twenty percent on this you have to spend five percent on that you have to you know that's just it's not i guess i and i'm not i'm not this isn't a discussion

161about what are what we're going to do actually here but i mean we have we have people here that would be very nervous i i'm very nervous about balancing a budget and and making that balance but making that budget balance with regards to staff and cutting staff so what i'm throwing out here right now is options and if we had to move money if this doesn't because we have no control we're just asking but this is in the legislature's hand so this seems like a good time with any that's throw out some options and some questions to say if we had to can we ask the public to say yes we have designated this amount of money for these projects but this is what has happened and we would like to maintain our staff retain

162our staff because it's it's awful hard to just cut staff for a year or two because those budgets change so much and then bring them back i'm not interested in balancing the budget on the backs of the state my first interest is to get this budget to be a little different than it presently is if they pass this that'll be an item on the docket in july we'll start that conversation we're fine for the existing year the end of this budget year is wednesday and we will likely be fine for next year it's beyond that where there's a lot of question so we've got some time to make those decisions but they have limited time to make a change in what they're presently doing in madison and i've heard that they did come up with

163a new recommendation that would um ensure that we have those get those esser funds they have not received confirmation from the was from the uh uh federal government from the department of education stating that i have not seen that that's not a for sure but i definitely call i called you know our representatives and um expressed my concerns about their uh you know this budget and and expressing that i really needed them to consider supporting our public education our public schools so do what i can and this is another thing i think we can do i think we can pass this resolution and just be let it be made known that as a school district we are calling upon our legislators to fund our our schools public education wisconsin so i'll make a motion that

164we sign this resolution again it's just a matter of making our wishes known but i think as a school board we can express our desire for their support is that sharp second okay any more discussion the only thing i could say is usually when the government gives money there's a string attached and i'm i'm just wondering what what if that's what the state joint finance committee is wrestling with i get nervous when they say for other reasons i get very nervous when i see that that doesn't sound so certain to me yeah yeah but we need to send our voice there so well i've talked i've talked to both of them yeah all those in favor say aye aye aye opposed best all right now we go to our staff contracts staff contracts these are

165administrative contracts and non-certified staff contracts meaning they're not teacher or support staff contracts so it's the folks sitting in the room and it's other service administrators on the administrative team are on the district team such as transportation food service etc so those contracts you need to approve they're issued and then they become active on july 1st which is i think thursday of this week i will make a motion that we approve the staff contracts administrative and non-certified staff second and second any further discussion all those in favor say aye aye aye okay and now we're going to go to closed session oh we got a person sorry good try though personnel we have new employees deborah handy for bus driver a resignation from george fowler jv softball coach and stacy nelson direct nelson director of

166school nutrition um so that's the personnel that you would need to approve thank you for coming to we are always appreciative of a new bus driver and then lastly a couple of months ago you did accept a retirement letter you can i guess reneg on that now if you wanted for orally but she might be going anyway and she wanted to say something so go ahead or i do i wrote it down it has been both an honor and a privilege to work for the school district of amery for the last 34 years i've had the opportunity to work with many school board members teachers district staff and of course thousands of students the emory school system is an exceptional educational program we have und we have overcome many obstacles both expected and unexpected it

167is what we do best always with the common goal of we do what's right for kids the amory administrative team's drive and accomplishments are second to none dedicated intelligent compassionate and hard-working are just some of the adjectives that would describe this group of individuals i have complete confidence in this team with the addition of mrs d ambrosio will continue to excel to new levels of excellence i was so fortunate to have been surrounded by these amazing people way back in 1987 yes tom was in middle school the first year i taught third grade at leon elementary school was also my mom's last year of teaching between the two of us we have dedicated over 70 years of service to the school district of amery she was as well as i am so very proud of

168the work that we did and the people we were able to work with several years ago i found a quote that truly describes how i feel about my educational career it goes something like this it does not matter where you go in life it's who you have with you i have had the extreme good fortune to be surrounded by many many amazing people along the way i thank you for all of my opportunities and i will always and forever be a proud amery warrior thank you [Music] well we are going to greatly miss you with shock you have been fabulous so thank you and right in your last meeting you got a zinger in on tom i mean seriously that is awesome right to the end he's so easy to pick on no really a

169heartfelt thank you i mean this is what we're about and you exemplify that you just you raise the bar and you meet it again and again and it is about the kids here yep and we will continue and you'll keep watch over us won't you i will yes good good thank you so much i think that brings us to the end yep uh i need a motion to go into closed session on personnel oh i'll make a motion to approve personnel item second nail all in favor aye aye aye and then i'll make a motion to go into closed session and the second second aaron char and roll call aaron yes yes