001at this time i will call this meeting of the board of education to order welcome to the members of the board our administrative team the district team parents and members of the public may is the month where the board annually goes through the process of reorganization the process for reorganizing the board consists of the election of officers the first office selected is the board president do i have a nomination for board president i would like to nominate keith anderson do i have a second second okay i said do we need to do a roll roll call don't you need to ask for any more nominations any more nominations there we go any more nominations at this time i'll move to cast unanimous ballot and close nominations for board president for keith anderson second okay thank
002you thank you for your support we'll move on now go ahead and ask for a vote on that do i need to or just to just to make sure just to announce that it's a unanimous vote yep uh all those in favor say hi hi hi opposed thank you now we'll move on to nominations for vice president are there any nominations for vice president go ahead i'll nominate chelsea whitley for vice president is there second are there any other nominations any other nominations i'd move to close nominations for vice president cass unanimous ballot for chelsea whitley for vice president all those in favor say hi hi [Laughter] give me a second for that no no no it's a cast it wasn't a motion gate there uh chelsea is our vice president uh nominations for clerk
003board clerk are there any nominations for board clerk and i'm a nate dale johnson for board clerk at second that any other nominations i'll move that we close nominations and cast unanimous voice ballot for dale anders or dale johnson as board clerk all those in favor say aye aye aye aye aye dale is our clerk and now for board treasurer are there any nominations i would nominate char glenna for clerk or for uh treasure sorry yeah they're all one behind it second i'll take that nomination are there any other nominations any other nominations and any other nominations i make a motion that we close nominations and cast the unanimous ballot for stargelina as treasurer all those in favor say aye aye okay and your director thank you yeah here we go you do next on
004the agenda is our meeting dates in our pamphlets our booklets for the 21 board meeting dates please note them i don't think anything was different only one word of mention march 21st was selected rather than the 14th which would typically be the date that's because spring break would be that week so it was selected march 21st other than that they are at the same times of years every other year all right is there a motion to accept those meeting dates so moved a second motion made in second any other discussion all those in favor say aye aye aye motion's carried next we have our designation of district depositories if you want to explain those or the official depositories that we've used for for decades here are brember bank wisconsin credit union wells fargo bank associated
005trust company chase jp morgan wisconsin investment series cooperative and mg trust those have been the same for a long time i make a motion that we approve the official depository list for 2021 to 2022. second motion made and seconded to uh designate the uh below listed uh the official depositories for the school district or amy all those in favor say aye aye if you could get closer to the mic so our translator can hear what's being said all right thank you for all of us not just you thank you i will uh next is our appointment for our waspa which is the wisconsin association of school boards and cesa 11 delegates in the past i think aaron you were cease-11 yes i am i'm on the season board of control so i um do actually
006go i you know need to be there for the meeting which is right after the um csa 11 delegate meeting so um i would be willing to fill that role again for our representative from our school district okay and i think um you were wasbee last year but then i've been wasbey all past like four or five years i don't mind doing that being the delegate for was being if for some reason i can't attend then you would be the backup kind of like what we've always done sounds fun okay and that's an appointment i don't know if we need a motion or not it's an appointment it isn't yeah so so you go ahead and appoint them all right they're appointed now we'll go uh authorization for use of independent hearing officers for expulsion
007here is held in the current next year that would be the attorney we have used wild riley since the time i've been here which is at least 15 years so weld rally is who we've used and i would recommend we continue to use them okay is there a motion to uh authorize for those i would make a motion to uh continue using well dryly all right as our independent hearing officers in a second a second that all right chelsea all right all those in favor say aye aye aye opposed okay then we have our board appointed committee advisory there have been some changes to the board appointed committees and you'll see them listed on the screen the committees that is building grounds community ad curriculum oversight human growth and development information technology and outdoor education
008the changes have been folks that have either retired or departed from the district for another reason and we have resupplied the committee with a new person if you will but that's really all that really has changed and we can have more than one board member on one of these up to two because once you get past two it's a quorum and i believe since keith is president he would be a member of all of them and then i would um be the buildings and ground committee and i know i've always participated in that yes on that committee in the past anyway so nothing's really going to change yeah that'll work okay so do we need a motion to put chelsea whitley on there or just to point it is this appointed yep these are appointed
009yep and if at some time you feel so moved to join a committee you certainly can so that's it for that uh the consent in general items were this month and so i will make a motion to accept those i'll second that all those in favor say aye aye aye aye opposed emotions gary now we'll come to our community comments section we have a list of people that would like to speak i glad that you're here we are here to listen to you and so please when you address us i'm going to read this kind of guideline that we have for our community comments welcome to this meeting of the board of education of the school district of amory we are pleased that you are interested in school district education issues your input may be
010very beneficial to the development of appropriate educational programs you may address the board only during the community comments time on the agenda amy 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 flow smoothly we would appreciate that the following guidelines be followed by anyone wishing to address the board of education 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 sheep is deemed to be out of order the presiding board member will inform the person wishing to speak prior to the meeting start of the meeting thank you comment time is limited to five minutes per person
011however the time limit may be increased or decreased at any time by the presiding board member the time allowed for community comments may also be ended at the determination of the presiding board member comments and suggestions related to the school district of operation are welcome personal criticism of members of the board of education or employees of the emory school district is out of order please stand to be recognized and after being recognized please give your name and address for our 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 next week if your concern requires board action it may be placed
012on the agenda of future board meeting and i want to thank you for your cooperation so a reminder when you when you speak if you're getting close to the mic so the translator can hear thank you yes our first speaker is donna anik hello i'm donna anik 145 highland street in emory i have two letters one is from myself and one is for from a community member that cannot be here so i just want to thank the school board thank the administration um all the people that run our school for getting us safely through this school year almost safely we got three weeks to go when this school year started neither the school board nor dr durfler nor the principals nor the parents had a manual that said in case of pandemic turn to page
01343 or whatever i think we all know that this was uncharted territory and as a teacher i just appreciate so much all the work that was put in for all of us to stay safe i think everyone did an amazing job including our students i look at our students and i watch them come in they don't complain they come and they do what they need to do and we've been able to be in person which has just been amazing so i'm so appreciative of that so we have three weeks to go and i'm really hoping we can just keep going in the same safe way that we have done it's it's been amazing what everybody has done and pulled together second i just have a letter from a community member also pretty short and this
014is what it says we would like to thank the emory public school administration and school board for keeping the staff and students safe the past 15 months by following the public safety guidelines pertaining to covet 19 provided by the cdc and dhs sometimes in life you are called upon upon to do what is best for public safety and by doing so put your own desires aside that builds character and compassion and helps make a safe and respectful community of citizens we should thank those who come up with ways to keep everyone protected and provide the best education and safest activities possible during a pandemic signed marty and wanda rimstead in amory wisconsin thank you thank you next up i have april bowl [Music] uh april beau 912 sunflower away amory wisconsin good evening i wanted
015to start by taking a moment to publicly thank my children's teachers for all they have done to make this school year the best it could possibly be your hard work and dedication has not gone unnoticed and i support you and the entire staff of the amory school district by speaking at this meeting in no way takes away from that sentiment i stand here tonight asking the school board of amery to at minimum publicly declare and vote for our children to not have to be subject to mandatory masking in the fall of 2021. is time for the school district and board to acknowledge the need for mandatory masking of our children is over what started out as a questionable public health measure has turned into an experiment of complete social control i'm going to start with
016the basic assumption that masks have actually worked in slowing the trajectory of this virus although it does feel good to believe the mast did help the reality is it's all about theoretical hypotheses and assumptions by our medical community some say but think of how much worse it could have been if we didn't have the mass mandate it's pretty hard to prove a negative but i can share with you the data we do have between wisconsin and minnesota the data shows two different stories to date minnesota has both more cases per million and deaths per million than wisconsin does and i don't think i need to remind anyone about the very strict lockdowns minnesota enacted over its own residence and the mass mandate that the governor put in place on july 25th although wisconsin technically had
017a mass mandate it was never truly enforced in our county or surrounding counties and the stay-at-home order was shot down last may this meant wisconsinites were allowed to live their lives so tell me what good was the mass mandate and strict lockdowns if you cannot even show a better outcome in case count or live saved or how about an example closer to home on march 31st the day the wisconsin supreme court overturned the mass mandate a neighboring school district unity schools made the choice to honor their students civil liberties and do away with the mass requirement again if mass truly were effective it would be expected that unity would have seen an increase in cases this was not and continues to not be the case in fact if you compare america's cases to unities since
018then and control for this district size by comparing cases per thousand unity has had six cases per thousand and emery has had 14 per thousand more than double the cases in a district that has continued to force a mass mandate policy i believe in public health i have dedicated my life's profession to promoting public health but at the end of the day i have never let my passion cloud my judgment of what makes america so great freedom to make our own choices for ourselves and our families the cdc recommends many things for americans to keep them healthy but they are just that recommendations not requirements it is with all of this in mind that i was very saddened to see the slides for tonight's meeting still include the same verbiage as what parents received in
019an email communication from the district administrator over a month ago mass will continue to be mandatory for students and staff for at least the rest of the school year and undetermined for the fall again it is explained this is largely due to three underlying reasons face coverings are deemed essential by polk county health dhs and cdc to remain in face to face trying to keep students eligible for school activities and lastly our students staffs families and community are not yet fully vaccinated i personally don't agree with those reasons and now the cdc is saying any adult who is fully vaccinated which i am no longer has to wear a mask indoors or outdoors another big change and the most impactful in my eyes is in response to that last reason the staff and community are
020not fully vaccinated this is no longer the case we are there the vaccine was made available to every person in the state of wisconsin the week of april 12th anyone who wanted a vaccine could have gotten one by now and it is my understanding that the district's own offering of vaccines to its staff concluded with dose 2 on april 23rd and they were considered fully vaccinated and protected on may 7th and with staff members who are fully vaccinated comes the freedom of not having to quarantine them this should help significantly with the fears of having to shut down schools based on staff shortages and lastly i do think it's a little funny to list a reason for math face mask to ensure all students are eligible when you continue to quarantine healthy students anyways it
021is now that i must ask who are we trying to protect by forcing our kids to wear masks if it is the vulnerable they have been vaccinated for months if they chose to be is it the teachers they too could now be fully vaccinated is it the kids themselves if that is the case we would be better off sending them out the door every day with a life jacket considering more than one thousand kids die every year from drownings compare that to the 277 u.s deaths from cobalt since last january of 2020 for those zero to 18. i'm not here to minimize those deaths but if we are turning into a society where the goal is zero sickness and death we are in trouble i'd like to end by saying my speaking today is meant
022to support everyone in this community including those district staff members who feel like they can't speak up for their own personal beliefs i'm not asking for there to be a policy against masks i'm simply asking for my children's freedoms to be recognized as well and drop the requirement the same discussion is happening in countless school districts across the country and many are choosing choice instead of mandates for their students yes our kids may be used to them and some even feel might you know okay about it but i'm willing to say most kids wouldn't choose to wear a mask if it wasn't required again i say it is time for the district to recognize the need for the requirement is over and please vote for ending the mandate and say yes to bringing back those
023beautiful smiling faces thank you next up is mark andrews mark andrew 773 75th street um i was fortunate enough to have gone to school at amory um i attended amory k through 12 and felt honored to be a graduate of amy high school i feel so strongly about the great education learning opportunities and athletic programs excuse me that when it was time for my oldest son to start school we moved back to the district to give our children the same opportunities growing up here and working in law enforcement the past 10 years here i felt a lot of close relationships with many of the teachers coaches and support staff here in the district when a school district employee messaged me privately and told me that they fully support the efforts of myself and others but
024they cannot add their name to a petition or feel that they can even like a post on social media due to level of level of pressure they feel from the school district i feel that is wrong when i hear the staff members are told that they represent the school even on their own time when they're in public to have to wear masks in public i feel that's wrong our district employees should be free to decide for themselves how to best keep themselves and their families safe they should also be able to express their opinions publicly through open communication and social media as well as many in this room feel free to do some of you may know that i left law enforcement beginning this year after receiving my nursing degree in the last year at
025work i'm required to wear a mask i get it i wear it patients are not required to wear masks in their own room regardless of our presence in the room this includes covet patients the difference is level protection if i have a covet 19 patient i am required to wear an n95 mask gloves disposable gown eye protection i'm also required to wear a new mask for every shift not keep recycling the same mass due to buildup of harmful bacteria or respiratory concerns how many of our kids are giving a new mask every day that said we have recently seen a downturn in cova cases with the polk county public health department report today on their website that in all full county there are currently only four patients hospitalized with code 19. the school district of
026waukesha town with 80 000 plus residents recently suspended the practice of quarantine so-called close contact students rather they have trusted the parents to monitor their children keep them home if they show symptoms school districts in our area who have reversed their position on masking have seen a decrease in coping 19 cases we need to make common sense decisions for our district and common sense to take the mass off the kids any student or staff that wants to wear a mask do so i feel like the teachers should have the same freedom to choose how to best protect themselves as well back in november my wife and i both tested positive for covert 19 as well as our oldest son who was home from college that meant our youngest son a sophomore here had to stay
027home for the 10 days of the last positive test we had plus 14 past days past that 10 days which was a total of 24 days and then the school district shut down and he was home until i believe was december or january at the time he was in the house with us and was tested several times during that period and after as a part of his job he never tested positive um cole's grades during the time at home dropped dramatically d's and f's when he returned to school within two weeks within two weeks his grades were back up to a's and b's there's a huge difference between learning online in person for some kids there's also been a lot of talk about curriculum in the district lately and as a parent i'm definitely concerned
028with some of the things i've seen coming from our schools my biggest concern however was a comment a board member who stayed on social media and i quote in light of the recent events i want to make people aware that they are still free to choose they are free to choose a public school district that suits their needs and expectations they are free to homeschool their children they are free to enroll in private school they are free to enroll in an online option this is a message that we should be receiving from any member of the school board if you don't like it leave i know many parents are strongly considering it based on that statement however there are many of us who would rather work with the district because we do feel it is
029the best place for our kids otherwise we'd move them already i also want to say that i report i also want to say that i support each and every teacher coach and every other staff member in the district it has been suggested on social media in the local newspaper if you don't want kids to wear masks you don't support the staff that could not be further from the truth thank you [Music] and next i have ella williamson ella williamson 1123 little fall circle amree wisconsin good evening my name is ella williamson and i am a senior at amory high school i stand before you all today with four days left in my career as an aimee warrior on sunday i will walk across the stage with my classmates gather our diplomas and move out into
030the world as the adults we have grown to be tonight i would like to offer my thanks to the school district of amery thank you for the excellent education i have received over the past 14 years as well as the life left lessons learned by participating in multiple extracurricular activities many people in the school district have had a positive impact on my life and have helped make me who i am today i would like to thank dr durfler the school board and the school administration for making hard decisions this school year to keep us in school as much as possible and to offer participation in our normal extracurricular activities even if some things had to look a bit different this year two years ago i decided to run for the miss amery royalty court i
031have always been proud of the community i grew up in it was small but it was friendly and kind with great schools and community resources and because of this i wanted to represent my community as part of the interview process i was asked what would draw people to the community of amory i echoed my previous comments about amery being a close and tight-knit community where people were always talking interacting and making you feel welcome however some members of our community are putting that at risk by talking negativity about individuals and the school district regardless of what the school district does it never appears to be good enough it is one thing to feel strongly about an issue it is another to personally attack and post that on social media we have learned in our schools
032that social media bullying is not only unacceptable but very dangerous specifically attacking individuals is not the way to solve the problem we are a better community than that i realize that wearing a mask is a very controversial issue for some what is disappointing to me is that the lesson in empathy seems to be lacking in conversations regarding mass use nothing in my life has taught me more about empathy than my job at a local nursing home since august i have participated in activities meals and numerous window visits one resident could show me a calendar she used to track the dates between in-person family visits it had been one year three weeks and two days since visitors were allowed in every time the county coven numbers rise we have to put restrictions on guests which is
033challenging for some of our most vulnerable community members although the cdc recommendations are changing for vaccinated people empathy needs to be part of the conversation occurring in regards to continued mass use and social distancing so in closing i again want to offer my thanks to the school district of amory for making tough decisions and compromises throughout the school year please continue to be diligent in protecting the needs of all in a safe and socially responsible way like everyone i am hopeful we are back on the path to normal i am hopeful that unlike the class of 2020 my classmates and i will be able to attend in-person classes in college in the fall but for now i will do my best to enjoy the rest of senior meet senior week and prepare for the first
034home track meet which is tomorrow because of even if things aren't perfect i am thankful for the opportunities the school district of amory has given me thank you for your time thank you next i have melinda johnston give me a minute here aaron can you help me out please um i believe you have five board right this is a petition thank you [Music] okay hello um thank you for having me here today um my name is melinda johnston and i'm a mother of two children i have a daughter who go to amy intermediate school and son who go to liam elementary school my husband is supposed to be here but he unfortunately might not be naked but i'm gonna just take a few things first of all we want to thank you for some of
035the decisions that you have made in the past for keeping kids in school by revising the stay in the green requirement and letting summer school kids attend without mask i have been happy with this experience with the amy school system teachers and staff have been great this is my husband quote so i'm gonna do it for him because he thought that soccer was a kid so i apologize so um for his quote is it's past time to remove the math policy remove the quarantine of the kids that are not sick let the family decide what is the best family's best interest if they want to wear math or not in this petition here i'm just going to read the beginning petition and then just keep it we the parent resident and taxpayers of the amy
036school district are requesting you to immediately remove the requirement for faith covering in our school district we believe that parents should be the one making decision regarding the individual health and safety of our children not the school it is unlawful and unhealthy to continue through cardio or choke indoor face covering faith covering our emergency and authorized products for medical youth in a declared state of emergency they are not fda approved in federal law title youth sorry used sc 360 bb-3 read the emergency youth authorization state all unapproved products are optional by law you must allow students staff parents and visitors while on public taxpayer school property the option to wear math or not to wear math we are asking that dr sean doffer and the amy school board immediately start a hoping upholding excuse me
037the oath that you took and start following the law we also request you to immediately revise the policy for those for close contact important and according healthy student who showed no symptoms at the time of contact roughly 50 percent of angry 6th graders who are healthy are currently home in quarantine unnecessary quarantine of large number of students has had negative impacted students and family life in the area of social emotional mental physical and financial health we the under sign believe that parents should solely be making the medical decision for our children no medical device or intervention should be forced upon student by entity outside of their guardian by signing this petition we officially and respectfully as you do immediately in the requirement of the math and to revise an overreaching quarantine procedure in aiming school
038we remind you to uphold the oath that you took and follow the law as it is written thank you [Applause] so i take it kevin's not going to make it for this melinda the next one i have then is mero stone hi i'm mars stone 1219 45th avenue amory um i want to start off by saying i am very thankful to all of our teachers and staff and kids as we have all had a difficult year that being said it has also been a very frustrating year for parents we have elected a school board that was supposed to be the voice of our parents and community but instead of being our voice they have let us down by not listening to the majority of parents it is time to get our kids out of masks
039yes i know that summer school is optional but why not give the kids the freedom they deserve for the last few weeks of school and what does fall look like as parents we need to know what the decision for fall is going to be sooner rather than later yes all we know yes we all know that we have choices and a lot of us will be making our choices as to where we send our kids next school year depending on the mask policy it is not too early to make a decision it's time to eliminate the mask policy completely we as parents have a right to make decisions to mask or not to mask depending on what is best for our kids and our families our right of choice has been taken away we have
040been told over and over again that amri has been following the guidelines of the health department the hospital and the cdc the cdc has lessened their recommendations and the key word there is a recommend the health department and the house hospital also recommend but amry has chose to turn that word into required i know many children are struggling mine included almost daily when i pick my kids up they have headaches their moods have changed they get frustrated easier they are overly tired and it is weighing on them i used to have kids that loved school and now most days they tell me they hate it when will we start considering the psychological and emotional damage we are causing these children the other aspect i would like to address is what is being taught in school
041it is not the school's place to teach our children politics critical race theory gender sexual orientation ethnicity religion or how we see each other by race which are all questions my eighth grader was asked this year these are the things that are dividing our students not uniting them school is where you should they should be teaching english social studies math science gym music the good old-fashioned school subjects the other matters are for home it is our board's job to know what is being taught to our children and to review the curriculum in our school it is time to step up and do what is right despite feeling uncomfortable or pressure from others i know many of you on the school board do not believe in masks yourselves and it is time to stand up we
042elected you to be our voice so far none of you are standing up for us as parents and for what you know is best for our kids what is best for our kids is for our kids and their parents to have a choice thank you for your time and god bless uh next i have uh melissa verkin [Music] melissa veerkant 1181 45th avenue uh the first thing that i would like to say is those of us trying to get our kids out of masks we aren't stomping our feet because we aren't getting our way we're trying to protect our kids we're trying to do what we feel is best for our family as a school board i thought your job was to represent the voting public who up there is representing those of us against
043this policy i would imagine there's at least one of you now that the mask mandate is over as board members can you honestly tell me you still wear your mask if you get together with family and friends or have a play date with your kids and their friends while going to the grocery store or even play bingo at the local bar i don't think so can you honestly tell me you think it's a good idea for a healthy child to wear a piece of cloth over their face for seven hours a day when all it does is collect germs masks are causing even more bullying and division in the schools if we want to work on lessening that getting rid of the mask policy would be a good place to start why can't we let
044the kids be kids why can't we just let the teachers teach instead of being the mask police we need to come back together as a school and a community and not keep dividing ourselves i also understand that not everyone will be happy with decisions that are made however if people were given a reasonable choice it would ease a lot of the stress and anxiety that parents are having our kids have suffered the most and long enough and i believe it's time to be done with the mask policy thank you thank you and uh now i have julie beerkin julie beerkant emory wisconsin good evening we the parents are demanding that the board retract the face covering policy from our school's manual this oversteps civil liberties established by the god by god and constitution we do
045not forsake our liberal civil liberties due to health crisis that does not mean we mandate that no one wear a mask but leave it up to everyone's personal choice we are given facts and data then decide what's best for us and our families what is the definition of a public health pandemic from the cdc website 2018 there are 868 deaths per 100 000 people 2019 there are 870 deaths for 100 000 people last year for 2020 there's 829 deaths for 100 000 people we had less deaths last year for 100 000 people than over the last three years does this make sense that we have to shut down and do the mask mandates top quarantining for a lesser death rate than the last three years the cdc has now granted adults who are vaccinated be
046indoors and outdoors without wearing masks this means everyone should now be able to go freely covert vaccines cannot be mandated due to the emergency use authorization act everyone who wants one has opportunity to get one those who choose to not be vaccinated take on the risk of contracting covenant as those who did get the vaccine should now be immune to catching covet as that as what vaccines are meant to do children have not have been proven to not be super spreaders as the media likes to portray they've actually shown to be buffers for adults their bodies are awesome germ making and germ fighting machines and shed the good germs to us adults stop punishing them for being children my kids ask every day when they're done when are they done wearing masks they come home
047tired crabby and with headaches my son suffers from allergies that have been especially brutal this year and my daughter has had a cough for the past month she can't shake i called the cdc last thursday to ask where the science is behind the recommendations the girl was on the phone for me for 20 minutes she was very nice i was on hold for 15 of those 20 minutes she had escalated my call to a higher up because she could not answer my questions i have not heard back yet i have another one two seven days to hear back from them please ask please stop this the kids have suffered enough thank you we will now move to administrative reports yes the first item on administrative reports are run through a powerpoint uh there you will
048see the slides up on the screen the first is the uh matrix that you've seen many times before our last window was last week wednesday and that window is our last window we didn't feel it a good idea to do another declaration on the 26th for a june 4th end of school year so the message went out that that's our last checkpoint if you will for in the green and thankfully we've been in the green since we came back for christmas break uh the second slide is the polk county number in the district number since last week we are still tracking numbers uh we haven't in any cases in the district and you'll see there in blue the cases in the county the next slide are in please interrupt or ask questions however you see
049fit board i'm just gonna keep tooling along and you can chime in wherever you want the positive case in the cases in the district this is a tracker since september 1st which is the first day of school up through the 14th which was this past friday you'll see them broken down by area by staff by students and then total and then at the bottom the percentage of each of those groups the next slide covet cases in polk county this is each window so that's each 14 days since september 2nd which would have been our first day that we started tracking this way back in the fall of 2020 and you'll note the number of cases in the county spiked when we went remote at the middle of november through christmas break you'll see a high
050there of 8 48 and thankfully we haven't returned there at any point close since the next slide mirrors that previous slide these are the cases within the district from the same time frame beginning way back in september through the present last window we were heading towards uh 20 and the reason 20 is significant because that would have put us in remote again and i don't know that anybody wanted that we ended that window at 15. um in the district and thankfully we haven't had any since that window ended last week tuesday so any questions on the statistics because it's sort of a logical break point before we get into policy and words and so forth any questions that anyone has for me at all about the statistics okay the face coverings policy by no means
051am i interested in reading it to you everyone is capable of reading that for yourself on the board and i think that most of the folks in the room are pretty familiar with what is there in the face covering policy this was adopted way back in july of 2012 and this is where we have been at for this policy since that time any questions anyone wanted to ask about or talk about in regards to the actual words there of the policy wanted to make a point of clarity in regards to board action in regards to a policy if the policy is changed as in you change the words of the policy that takes two readings to do this meeting and then the june meeting so if we change this policy the first point at which
052we can go away from mass if that's what you choose to do would be june 29th meaning that summer school would start with mass but in the first paragraph it gives the board or the district administrator discretion to go with or without mass that's why the policy was written that way you can't make a decision by changing the policy quickly the other way it has to take two readings that's the way it is will all policy so i'll move on since there weren't any questions there the april parent community sorry yep uh just as a point to people who may or may not know that summer school that it has already been determined summer school face coverings are optional correct yes and that's covered here in a couple of slides down the line the april
053parent communication this was regarding face coverings reiterated from the board uh the three reasons why we were remaining with face coverings through the end of this present school year in the spring of 2021 there are 39 school districts that make up sisa 11 which in essence means northwest wisconsin of the districts that are located in this part of the state there are 30 that continue to have a face covering requirement there are nine that do not and you'll see that breakdown there on that slide you'll see this slide mirrored two more times one for summer and then one for fall any questions about the c sub the way that this information was derived was by survey from csa11 to all the district administrators in this part of the state any questions about that list okay
054over the course of the last call at nine months since we've been in school we've been in constant communication with polk county health and then thereby with department of health services and also with the centers for disease control not in word but in email from them we're in conversation with polk county health because we're in polk county so what polk county health has listed for us as their guiding factors are when in public wear a face wear a cloth face covering over your nose and mouth stay at least six feet away from others avoid crowds wash hands and stay home if you are sick this does not reflect vaccination but please know if the reason it does not reflect vaccination is that information is new and that information is not been supplied from polk county
055direct in direct form let me say in addition to that in order to make decisions as a group based on who is and who is not vaccinated you're going to need to know who is and who is not vaccinated and that's not a question that i've ever been interested in asking unless you are interested the first point at which the district would ever seek to ask whether someone is is if we were required to do so by a state local or federal authority stating that you have to let them know whether they're vaccinated or not the department of health services and centers for disease control mass should be worn for people two years and older anytime you're in a public setting when you are around people who do not live with you including inside your
056home or inside someone else's home when you wear a mask you protect others as well as yourself and mass work best when everyone wears one dhs is the governing agency that polk county health takes their cues from dhs takes their cues from centers for disease control updated guidance from cdc this is from thursday of last week i believe that was the 13th it notes regardless of level of community transmission which is tracked by the county and in this state it is critical that schools use and layer prevention strategies five key prevention strategies are essential to safe delivery of in-person instruction and help to prevent covert 19 transmission in schools universal and correct use of mass physical distancing hand washing and respiratory etiquette cleaning and maintaining healthy facilities contact tracing in combination with isolation and quarantine
057schools providing in-person instruction should prioritize two prevention strategies universal and correct use of mass should be required in physical distances should be maximized to the greatest extent possible further support for face coverings the wisconsin department of public instruction which guides what we do here and emory hospital and clinic both have stated to me both support the recommendation for face coverings made by polk county health dhs and centers for disease control our law firm world rally supports the recommendation of continued use of face coverings i in other words following what county health is telling us employers mutual company emc which is the umbrella governance for our insurance provider which is lead home insurance also supports the recommendation for continued use of face coverings in that they are telling us to follow county health now they are
058not saying have or do not have a requirement lead home emc or weld riley they're simply saying follow what your health department tells you to do the next two slides are research these are research studies straight from cdc in regards to the mask mandate that many have chosen to have this is the supporting evidence for face coverings these 25 sources and if you go to the cdc site you could go into any number of links there are dozens of links there are hundreds of these types of references there i didn't want to put hundreds in the powerpoint so i didn't the new quarantine option this is approximately two three weeks old now we moved from the 14 which is recommended by cdc to the seven and ten and you'll note the specifics there if on
059the sixth or seventh day there is a negative cova test the student returns on the 8th if on the uh if there are no symptoms that is and on the 10-day quarantine if there is no test they may return on the 11th again with no symptoms summer school face coverings will not be required for students in summer school clubhouse child care is under different governance clubhouse child care the wisconsin department of health services requires face coverings for students in clubhouse child care ages five and up if we don't follow that guidance we could lose our licensure to provide child care and we certainly don't want to have that happen students in summer school under different guidance i guess i stole my own thunder that's on the page that you see the slide that you see
060here so i won't repeat myself the next slide face covering requirements for summer school this is broken into three categories face coverings required you'll see this the school systems noted there face covering is optional you'll notice we're the first alphabetically of the 17 that have made that declaration and the last group is really two different categories either undecided and they've said they're undecided or they simply didn't respond to the survey so i don't know what they're doing and that was another 17 schools to make up the 39. many of these schools could very well have dropped their mandate many of them have kept it in place i just don't know the timeline for fall to make mitigation decisions i.e what you're doing with mass we have a district team meeting an administrative team meeting on
061june 8th there's a board meeting on the 28th and then reboot that on the 6th and on the 19th if you're interested in making a decision in regards to fall prior to the 26th of june and that's a significant date because that's the date upon which people who are open enrolling to other districts need to let that district that they're coming the 26th is that date and the 28th is after that date so if you wanted to have a special meeting on just that topic you could do that before the 26th and then you could sort of free the docket potentially for what's happening at the actual meeting on the 28th but that's up to you whether you want to do that well we don't there the other districts don't know what they're doing well
062that's the last slide i don't i don't know what other districts are doing i had a csun meeting a packed meeting which means all the other district administrators in the 39 school systems and the question was asked who's made a decision about the fall and this is the list there are 39 undecided districts at least in that room there could have been someone in the district that didn't say something or someone in the room or someone wasn't in the room that had decided to have mass are not at mass i don't know but most have not and according to the survey none have so those are in addition even if we i think it doesn't make it doesn't even make sense to meet before june 26 because last july we we voted against masks in
063the fall and then we changed it in august so even if we had a special meeting and made a decision it could easily be changed again that's up to you i'll simply schedule a meeting if that's what you want to do or leave the timeline as is when i think chelsea that brings up a point not only um you know have we changed policy but districts have changed policy across the board all year obviously and there's nothing saying that what we're going to decide even in july is what anybody would decide in november if there was another state mandate or another recommendation um any district at any time that even decided that they weren't going to have mass could decide to have mass so yeah that's a good point either way you know in the
064country and the county and the school districts yeah i mean i guess i wish we all had crystal balls sitting in front of us to make that decision but i yeah i don't think we do no well i it may be though that we need to um to say what our intention is understanding that things can change but we have numbers that are looking better throughout the whole unit you know throughout the whole us and i think you know by saying that we are not requiring masks for summer school we'll have that information to to look at but we won't have that information to look at if we're trying to make a plan before june 26th so um i think that if parents are dependent on what our plan is for the fall and what
065we expect to do as long as numbers continue to stay low in our county and in our district and maybe that means you know we make a new matrix or i don't know but you know i'm not sure what that exactly looks like but um it seems like that would be a good thing to do to to make a decision based on what we expect to do and what we plan to do i can only say for myself i'm not prepared to make a recommendation about the fall here this evening i'm not maybe you are but i'm not for the summer we've already done that i would hope we wouldn't have to wear masks but i wouldn't be prepared to vote anytime soon yeah i think we all i think the sentiment is across everybody
066doesn't want to wear these i don't think we want to be engaging in having kids wearing masks eight hours a day if it wasn't necessary i mean i don't like you said i mean hopefully we will have some information with summer school but we won't have that information by june and i certainly wouldn't be comfortable to make any kind of work based on that you'd have two weeks of data if you will because summer school starts on june 14th but it'll be interesting to look to see what our numbers are too for summer school versus numbers of when we have kids back in school those numbers make a huge difference of how many kids we have together how many staff members we have together all those things make a difference the number of kids and
067some kids and staff in summer school would be about a third of what it would be in during the school year about 500 versus 1600 yeah well i still think that we should make a plan um for the fall and we you know we can decide on june 28th although i feel like if parents are looking for that guidance before they make a decision about open enrollment on june 26th you said or 25th 26th is the date the line they draw on the sand but if the truth be told about open enrollment there are two windows there's the traditional window where the 26th is a date that you must follow and then there's the non-traditional the alternative application period you can open and roll to any wisconsin school any kid can go to any wisconsin
068school on any day of any school year in a year all year long it doesn't have to be the 26th it's just a different application right so then they would have to apply again like if they've had already applied right it's not a great deal more than what the other application is i think it's two pages versus one page what do you mean you'd have to apply again you have to fill out a different application you have to fill out a different application if there's a slide for enrollment now but they have to decide by june 26 then if they you know decided to say we're going to stay in amy or we're going to go to clear lake and then they wanted to change their mind then they needed to fill out another one
069the traditional window has one application the alternative has a different app i would just guess that if you're going to apply to leave the district by june 26 then there would be no reason to i mean if we decided that mass would have to be in the fall then i would just i would guess that you're not filling out a different application you're just going to leave the district if we decided to not have mass then you would just not follow through with the application because then you would stay they have to declare to the district they're going to by june 25th if they're coming does that make sense so does so do we think that all the rest of the schools will have an answer by june 25th so that they would know i
070don't know well that's the hard question is where are you going if if it's a moving target for everybody it's kind of hard to pick and choose which district may or may not do it right my hunch is most every district is going to make a june or july decision that would be my hunch okay this is this is not a time you can this is not a time you can talk right now it's that during community comments so june or july june or july is what would what most districts would do all right anything dale well i would just say you know we're intending to go with uh mass being optional in summer school i think that would lead us to believe would be hopeful that they will be optional in the fall of
071the year but it's may 17th right we have uh i think it's way too early to make a decision for august or september um it could change you know it would seem like you know evaluating in june you know we're later in june um we'd have maybe a week or two of summer school under the under the belt at that time that would maybe give us a little better indication so i would look at june and july before we would know for sure if people would want to leave if they want to leave and we have the june 26 date i think is that right that's the first intended date that they would need to fill out paperwork by but sounds like that's not the drop dead date they can make that decision at any
072time and at that time the june 26 time frame perhaps other schools that people might be looking at going to um could have decisions made by that time as well yeah i guess i just um i feel like to make a decision um about where a child goes to school based on a mass mandate a plan um i guess that's um seems like jumping the gun to leave a district that provides a lot of opportunities for kids um we love our kids here we want them to be here and um i certainly don't want to send that message um but i recognize that people have choices but i just i just don't know how we could how we could guarantee what we're going to do in the fall as any other district could guarantee what
073they're going to do in the fall so i think by leaving the district based on that that decision alone um i guess they're not guaranteed anything so from any district ours or otherwise so um i don't know i don't know how we come up with a plan at this this early stage but i think i think it's all of our hope that this will all covet will go away and we won't have to be doing this yeah well it's not going to completely go away i mean but obviously the need for all of this will will die down so i don't know i i don't think i would feel comfortable making a decision about that yet i think we should discuss fall at our june board meeting um and what you guys have discussed at
074your district team meeting and your administrative team meeting and what our intentions are and we can certainly look at our mass policy at that time although we've left our mass policy open-ended so that it is at the direction of the district administrator on the board so that we have that opportunity to be flexible with what is required yeah i would guess that these discussions would be ongoing as they've been all year right i mean this has been very fluid all year well it was outside of our control for most of the year well the administrative team meets every tuesday and they can attest the first item on the agenda every single time has been called district team two so it's not not discussed anyone else [Music] well so i guess you know the only other
075question is what we do with this these last couple of weeks of school and um you know we have 13 days left um and with the new cdc guidelines you know a lot of our teachers that have been vaccinated in staff you know if they're following the cdc got cdc guidelines would be able to have that choice according to their recommendations and we've said that we've been following the cdc recommendations obviously businesses and schools and everything still can enforce their own policy or their uh direction um and that um that you have to you know cdc says you have to follow the policy of the business or whatever it is that you're going to um but i guess i'm you know would like to hear from the administrative team what uh what they feel like
076would be the best for uh these last couple of weeks of school i think that the cdc recommendations were actually to continue through the end of the school year with facial coverings for schools for schools yes for schools that was the cdc recommendations as of yet this morning um to the end of the year so regardless of vaccination status and we don't not know um and nor will we ask i'm not interested in asking anybody if they've been vaccinated or not no no i am not either the only point at which we would do that is if a governmental agency said you gotta ask like for other various vaccinations but no one said that to me and i've not read anything like that not for us not for schools but if you wanted to hear
077from administrative team members i'm not sure who wanted to step up to to address that but well if i can when you get your piece at the microphone to to make any comment like that while you're doing your report one more time are they doing reports or is that was that the only i one there are other topics that they have to discuss but aaron had asked how how the administrative team members felt and i was simply cueing you want to have them come up separately for that i you know i feel like we're discussing this maybe right now so if we continue this discussion and then they can give their reports sorry to me moving so yeah he's got his nike's on tonight got your nike's on tonight you're ready to making you come
078up and twice all right well i was hoping just to talk about a lot of positive things here today but we'll hit it all first off i'll go through my information and i'll answer any questions that you guys have i think we just would like to know what about the face coverings and then we'll we'll bring you back up for a second round for the things happening wonderful yes all right first off um and and hopefully i don't forget any of the wonderful things that have been going on uh prom 2021 was extremely successful our kids had a blast certainly made the most of it and lots of good memories were made we did finish up our ninth in our 10th grade act aspire testing so that is all done in the books and every
079single kid at emory high school is accounted for on our assessments this year students have completed their class scheduling for next year we just finished that up on friday and as i explained to a lot of people you know we're a small school that tries to act like a big school and that we try to offer so many darn opportunities for our kids but we can't run an infinite number of sections of everything and we certainly try our best and and every year that's a challenge but i feel as though we did a great job for our kids we had a wonderful fine arts concert a few weeks ago highlighted our art kids our music kids a bunch of talented individuals ffa was able to pull off a modified version of food for america so
080shout out to mr meyer and the kids who put together a wonderful performance or program for our younger kids we have a number of sporting events which are going on every single night i just got a notification that we had another huge event tonight uh kale hockey just broke a 75 year old school record he struck out 19 ellsworth panthers tonight and a 6-1 win for the warriors so 75 years ago i saw the name of who it was but i don't know who the sure it's an old amy name future events we've got our senior picnic on wednesday taking the kids to interstate park for their traditional event if you guys want to come and crash the party i'll be grilling brats and burgers and we'll be ready for you around 11 30. seniors
081have their last day of school on friday we've got graduation practice followed by our traditional senior walk weather looks nice the plan is to do most of the senior walk outside this year at the receptive respective buildings so lots of hard work have gone into planning that out we have graduation here on sunday at 2pm and we have we just recently had our senior awards night two last wednesday what a great night that was too and a huge thank you to our community lots of money given that to our kids so awesome night and then we have our last day of school in our underclassmen awards ceremony on june 4th that's the high school and if you guys have any questions about those items i'd be happy to answer where you can address the facial
082covering situation would you think in your what your recommendation is looking at the high school sure well you know this is certainly going to sound like a cop-out but i'm not as smart as the doctors and those who work for the cdc i the last guidance i saw came out on saturday that said they recommend that schools stay in base coverings until the end of the school year this part of the school year is the compulsory attendance that you are required to be here part summer school is not required attendance and i'd like to think i'm a pretty smart guy but i don't think i'm as smart as the doctors working for the cdc so that's where i stand on that how is your building atmosphere towards the mass uh the kids have been doing
083great everybody's fatigued i'm fatigued i'm not going to lie to you keith do i have high hopes for next fall absolutely nothing would make me happier than to show up and have nobody in masks next year nothing would make me happier maybe the lottery no i don't think so you know if you win it can i bring up with you all right do we um do we i guess have ideas of what it's going to look like in the weight room or you know other kinds of summer activities it's not summer school but their summer activities absolutely yes you know mask will be optional for those that do want to wear them we'll certainly be doing our best to spread things out but once again it is optional for them to be attendance here you
084know are we going to spray down the bar every single time after no i do not anticipate that we will we're gonna do our best but we're gonna get them in and let them participate okay thank you yeah thank you josh thank you i'm assuming you want me just to talk about the mass man this time okay personally if you ask me what i would think i would say i would support the cdc and maintain mass through the rest of this school year i strongly supported not wearing masks for summer school if i were to talk to my staff about how they felt about it i would say that and i can't speak for all of them but we do have these conversations quite often in team meetings and individual meetings i don't have exact
085percentage but i have staff that probably would support us not having mass i would say majority of them do support the masks don't have exact percentages but i would guess it's probably 85 to 15 but i can tell you that i do have teachers it would probably be happy if we didn't continue but i would say the vast majority of them strongly would be upset if we moved away from it knowing there's 13 days left and that's the how i would feel as well i do feel for the parents that got up here today they have extreme passion for their children and i respect that and um i understand what they're saying too you know i understand what they're what they're trying to say is that we we care for our kids we want the
086best for our kids and i think all people do want that and i would hope that early in the summer we could have at least an indicator of where we're moving for the fairness of everybody i don't know when the dateline what that would be i'm not so worried about the the summer school or the mandate as far as declaring for open enrollment because even if you still live in a district you can un you can move away from that decision my understanding is that if you say i'm going to be i'm going to commit that i'm going to go to x district but i still live in amery you can change your mind and come back because you're a resident and so that whole deadline isn't as strong as people maybe think it is
087i did get a chance to talk to a lot of kids recently i had a conversation with a parent two months ago or maybe a month and a half ago and i said i hadn't heard a lot of issues from kids on the mass that's not unheard of you know they they're not going to want to come and talk to me about mass and that would make them nervous and i wanted them to know though that they are heard and i and i do know that probably most of students don't want to wear masks but a lot of them do as well um they're not fun to wear but i do feel that they're they're they're doing what we're hoping they're doing i know there's been a lot of data and and statistics thrown out
088there on maybe they aren't working and some people feel that way i strongly would support the science that shows that from the cdc that they do but i want those kids to also know that they are heard too and um so i guess i would kind of just take the stance that um i strongly support maintaining the mass through the next 13 days i support not having them for summer and i'm hoping we can make a decision sooner than later and at least where we're moving we can always move and change if we decide just like we did before that's kind of how i feel i guess thanks thank you thank you [Music] my response is going to be much shorter than that one although it was great information mr benson i totally support the
089mask wearing my students and staff have done an absolutely amazing job this year i have not tallied my staff so i cannot tell you a percentage they have all been extremely cooperative i've not had anyone in my office saying that they absolutely cannot wear a mask so i would just say at this point i can't give you a percentage but everyone at the intermediate school students and staff have been outstanding thanks [Music] and i'm going to echo what everybody else said if if the public could have been at the front of the school on the first day of school i sat there in anticipation wondering what was going to come across the sidewalk i was blown away the staff the students the parents were all 100 percent from my perspective behind the fact that we
090wore masks we are now on our about 167th day of school 13 days to go i want to get to the finish line the children are amazing i am so proud of our little babies in the elementary school they come with their cute little masks every day nobody throws a hissy fit um the teachers are behind it i agree with what mr benson and miss shock said i haven't polled my staff but they are completely supportive and have been completely cooperative so 13 days let's get to the finish line thank you i think that the uh administration brad sorry mr pumpkin i don't know how i missed you back there it's the podium you're right there i can't see you well first of all thanks uh to everyone who came out tonight because you know
091this is about communication and ideas and i just really appreciate the passion of folks on a night like this to come into a board meeting express their ideas and opinions and communicate with the school district in terms of his coverings really again i would echo i'm certainly not a doctor i need to look to my local federal and state agencies as far as recommendations and so i would go with those recommendations but also when i think of expectations and norms as a teacher and how you start a school year and we had a really unfortunate norm to start the school year with and that was with wearing a mask so it's you know my hope and many folks have echoed here that that that's not the norm we start with for next school year but
092i know that from my days somewhat longer ago now as a classroom teacher that it's it's a good practice in teaching not to change the norms and expectations in the middle of the school year just in the same way if we're writing a new policy or making a change in a handbook we probably wouldn't implement that with 13 14 days to go on a school year so that would be i haven't i haven't asked my fellow colleagues were busy talking about any number of things and so that's not something that's come up i i don't have any numbers in terms of other staff's thoughts but i would agree that everyone has cooperated and done everything that they could so that we could make it through the school year with our students and be there for
093our students as much as possible thank you now mr benson you can come up and finish for us okay well i also just want to shout out to the staff i think people sort of understand what it's like but you know the kids come in every day we greet them we support them as much as we can every day people have to understand too that when kids come into class and they sit down when they get up that teacher has four minutes to transition from one class to the next that includes cleaning every single desk cleaning the door handles you know we're staggering lunches we've maintained an adjusted curriculum and and adjusted the schedule to make things work this year it's been incredibly difficult it's one of the hardest years i think for every educator
094they're teaching kids in person at the same time they're teaching kids that are at home to do that they had to master and maintain a live stream and learn new systems to teach remote land and person at the same time well we also then support kids that chose to do virtual school through the american school at the same time as well at the middle school we did it after the unfortunately this all came down at a timeline where we decided to completely change and adjust our schedule system while we also adjusted our grading system and every one of those things would be daunting and they've done it all and really really worked hard for the kids in this community and i'm so proud of the staff and i know that every principal here would say
095the same thing about their staff we had some really cool events though that happened over the last couple weeks we just had our eighth grade youth gym it's our 22nd annual youth jam sort of an eighth grade graduation party we held it outside we had a lot of fun events and competitions and music and food and um we've typically held this at different places last couple years we held it at north park and that just wasn't an option with all the tran the traffic going through there so we moved it over to jorgensen field and it was a huge success and i i think we'll stay there it was great we had the memorial day parade coming up the cadet band that's sixth seventh and eighth grade now we'll be marching and playing at the
096memorial day parade on may 31st followed by the parade in clayton and clear lake in june and are we're excited for the you know getting ready for the last day of school we have some activities plans for the kids there we're getting ready for summer school have a lot of really fun activities for kids and we're looking forward to working with our kids again in the fall any questions all right thank you [Music] okay we just finished our walkathon which is our only fundraiser that we do at the intermediate school and it was just a huge success and what i love about it is that the kids um get donations and it's a physical activity for them so we're not selling pizzas or cookie dough we're selling good activities for kids and a big thank
097you we had many different supporters uh katie and the hospital for power up and aaron osserel for organizing everything she just did an amazing job we had our fourth grade band and music concert last week once again the music staff did a great job and so did tracy hendrickson of videotaping it for release to all it was the speakers that came to the mic i told dr derfler i have over all these years i have never heard the kids so clearly be able to give their parts it was it was wonderful aim did their trout release to the willow river last week and um we've had a little bit of a struggle with our trout this year and so they were few but they were big they were the biggest trout we've ever released so
098that was very fun coming up at the end of the year all students will receive a paper copy of their report card and that will be coming home on the last day of school before that though we are sending our fourth graders to interstate park because they study wisconsin land forms throughout the whole year and then also the fifth graders are going to camp wapo we're not staying overnight we don't get to ride the horses but we are going to be able to do a lot of the activities out there intermediate and middle school track day will also be on june 1st any questions thank you thank you [Music] i would like to share with you one of the goals from our pbis committee this year which focused on teaching our students culturally responsive practices
099we believe as a staff that learning about cultures help us understand different perspectives within the world in which we live we this year we focused on learning and celebrating about asian pacific americans hispanic culture black history month native americans just to name are a few we taught our students about the people their culture their customs food heroes artifacts entertainment and much more students learn through morning announcements displays in the hallway classroom instruction and the media center with support of the mental health grant teachers were able to purchase a variety of books fiction and non-fiction that supported student learning a special thank you goes out to our pbis tier one committee for their time energy and creativity in organizing this important work learning to read so students can look to so learning to read so students
100can read to learn is the primary focus at the elementary school and i know that you have heard me say that before our second graders aardvark club went into full action and this transformed our reading loft into arthur's clubhouse and our second grade reader readers joined the club students were encouraged to read a variety of books about arthur and his friends club members also participated in a variety of activities that bring books to life such as arthur's ears cootie catchers bookmarks arthur's drawing with the culminating activity of having the opportunity to visit arthur's favorite place the sugar bowl also known as chutz chet johnson's for an ice cream cone the beautiful thing about our reading program for second graders this year is all students participated so we are very excited about that we have a
101lot of work coming up with summer right around the corner we have our ela adoption work curriculum work pbis tier one in tier two committee work compassion resilient work so even though the summer is coming fast we still work all summer long to get prepared for the upcoming school year i do want to send out a very special thank you to our parents as partners at the elementary school it is our volunteer group they sponsored a luncheon for the elementary staff on friday and it was a sandwich from jimmy john's and potato chips and we had the family and consumer education department at the high school make desserts and they all got a small gift and that was all sponsored by our parents as partners so thank you to our parents as partners that remember
102how the important work that our staff does thank you the threat of of reading here from sheryl's report we use read 180 which is an intervention reading curriculum at the middle school in high school and at the close of each year we do benchmark testing we do that three times per year and then the company helps us pull a data report and really look at what the numbers are how that connects potentially with changes that we want to make in terms of our instruction whether students are appropriately placed those sorts of things and so this year's data will be pulled within the next couple weeks and we'll schedule a meeting in early june so this is one of the advantages of having a a digital curriculum and partnering with the company to provide an evidence-based
103intervention you do get the data and uh that's helpful to make decisions um collaboration it's exciting that we've been connecting with a local business owner and on a potential partnership to provide work-based field experiences for students with disabilities at the high school so this would look like out in the field in a business students working and being taught by a certified special education teacher vocational skills and activities those that align with their iep goals it would be you know an unpaid internship at least for the moment but the goal would be to prepare these students to increase their skills so they can be competitively employed because we know that internships are great that's that first job that you get working alongside with somebody where you might not get paid or you get paid very little
104but what we're really focused on are outcomes and this directly relates to dpi's indicator 14 about post-secondary transition for students with disabilities and all students quick update community members may have seen signs around that say all are welcome here those signs were sponsored through the school-based mental health grant and they've been offered for display by school district employees local business owners and community members living within the school district of amery boundaries and finally we held our last pk through 12 special ed staff meeting we'll continue that model we kind of always do a discussion about how we'd like to continue to collaborate we will replace a few of the monthly meetings with a small group more discipline driven curriculum work activities so folks were excited to work you know either as speech therapists or ld
105instructors those sorts of things so that they can share information so we'll be um keeping that model but replacing it just a little bit with a couple new activities any questions are there any signs left i think there are a few signs and then how how would you connect what is that the pupil services office okay okay all right thanks yeah i do yep so before we move on to um the informational items i guess i would just like to um you know i i guess address the masks again one more time before we kind of move on with the rest of our evening um you know we've heard from our our uh administrators um we've heard that their recommendation and i completely understand that there are teachers and staff that probably are on both
106sides would like to see us us change the masks for the last few weeks as well as ones that would like us to continue with keeping the masks in place for the last um 13 days and so and of course i think there are parents that are on both sides um i i think that we have a stronger or a larger population that would like to see us change masks even for these last couple of weeks and so you know i i am open to changing things although i don't think that we can change it tonight for any kind of immediate taking action tomorrow um but and i think there there needs to be some information about about changes if that was a possibility um i don't want to see um i don't want to
107see bullying or or problems in the school with kids or adults but especially with the students kind of why are you wearing a mask why are you not wearing a mask you know kinds of those kinds of things i've heard of that happening in some other school districts that have changed their mass policy and i really would like to have um you know the school year end in a peaceful and positive way and so if um if we entertain the idea of changing anything in the last couple of weeks i think that we would need a few days to kind of give out that kind of information and expectations for our students and i do understand that there are only a few days left in our in our year um but i understand that there
108are you know lots of parents that feel that um they would like to make the choice and that they would like them to be optional even for these last couple of weeks well i think you um there is a way to change it if you want to make that motion isn't that correct sure if you want to make a motion to end the mandate for mass and the district it isn't a change of policy it's your discretion as a board to say we're no longer doing that or we are doing that that's up to you the five of you yeah well it sounds like that's what aaron wants to to is getting at i mean it is yeah i guess you know i am open to that like i said i don't think that it
109could take place immediately um but i'm open to that to leaving that as as optional but i feel like then communication would need to go out um district wide as well as you know teachers and staff kind of explaining what that would look like and ex you know telling kids and students that it's going to be optional but they're really i don't want that there to be problems about that um and discussion really i don't want you know i don't want kids to be bullied and i feel like kids have already you know i know that kids have already felt like you know especially at the middle school i have two kids there who feel like they've been asked you know how come you're not you know joining us in not wearing a mask or
110and signing this petition saying we want to end masks or um you know things like that so kids have been feeling kind of bullied or pressured or whatever you want to call it but um like they're kind of are being you know challenged um and not the challenge challenging is a bad way and i'm glad for students and parents to be involved and to be discussing this um but i don't want to see a divisive and uh problematic and uh bullying kind of atmosphere for the last few days of school i guess i would agree with that and i think that the reason i think that the way that we curb that from happening is to stand with the cdc recommendations to end the 13 days it's 13 days to do what we said we
111were we were going to do keep the school doors open not have that bullying take place i think you do make a good point aaron that we are here to represent taxpayers not just parents of people enrolled in the school but of all taxpayers and i know it seems like there's a lot of people who would like to end the mass mandate and or this policy um but we don't hear from all of the rest of the people in the community either who don't have facebook and who don't have kids in the district and many of them are elderly and we get handwritten cards in the mail thanking us for trying to do our best to keep a safe environment um these elderly people um you know are taxpayers too and they also have to
112go to the grocery store in the pharmacy where our kids work that are in school and so by the mitigation efforts i feel that we've taken i feel like we've been able to help those people stay in their homes not be in the hospital with covid i sat in this chair in august very concerned about what it would look like to have kids wear masks very concerned about have the mental health toll that it would take on kids and i have to say i am pleasantly surprised that i was very dead wrong back in august and i think we can look at all of the measures that we've taken we do have schools who have dropped their mass policy or never had one so they just had to do away with what the state said
113they do have a high amount of kids quarantined and we don't know if they're positive or not because just schools aren't testing i mean they're not every kid that goes out sick gets tested so we just don't know what those numbers look like um i think us ourselves here found kids that were positive just on trying to come back from a quarantine so we have to look at those numbers too in our data and i i think that we have to make good informed decisions with the data that we have um i think amory has been excellent for so long this school district um that it it's it looks tired it just looks effortless our teachers our administration we have had a heck of a couple of years and this school district has not faltered
114once in those two years and i think we all know as a board what we went through in those last two years and like it or not we are an employer as well and i think that was lined out in the district administrator report of the weld reilly recommendation of going with what the cdc recommends because we are an employer if we decide to drop this i feel that we could be charged with providing an unsafe workplace and i think that as an emory school district we've really spent a lot of money in just the last couple of years on security and school security and providing a safe workplace and a safe atmosphere for all of our employees our students and our parents to come and visit we have had kids participate in sports there's
115been masks worn by some of those same kids who didn't want to wear them in school they've worn them for sports i just think that 13 days isn't a huge ask i know kids are crabby i'm crabby everybody's crabby the administration is crabby the teachers are crabby they don't want to keep telling kids to put on their mask or they get to go outside they get to have mass breaks i think we've done it a heck of a lot better than some other school districts who i know make their kids still wear masks even outside for 13 days to end the year on a positive note and to to prevent all of that and just calm everything down i think we're going to do more harm for everything than good if we go ahead and
116just change everything now and i think that was exactly what mr baumgartner was saying that um we have expectations and rules and you do as a parent and i do as the parents and you guys have raised kids as parents and and the way that we're successful about that and and having teaching kids is having those expectations set out and being firm in those guidelines um and the consequences that go with them and i think to end that now and change everything and get information out i just don't see it happening in any kind of timely matter for kids to not just be in a total disarray i you know i heard i i sentiment i i second the sentiment that mr benson said these parents that come here give up a night give up
117two nights um you know formed a petition they definitely have a passion in their heart for what they believe is right and i will never criticize anybody one minute of one day for standing up for what they believe in it never crossed my mind because i do exactly that and but in this chair we are responsible for thousands of people literally thousands of people sixteen hundred students staff members we have to make those decisions sitting in this chair based on all of those people and not just what's what we think is best for our family or if we wear a mask or we don't wear a mask to the grocery store and whatever people do we're not here to judge what people do in their life on any given day on any daily basis to
118any event just here because that's our responsibility and that's the way i feel about if we would change anything in the next 13 days but god bless us master optional for summer school i think just to add a few comments to that um i i respect the people who came tonight and have their comments and thoughts and opinions and are willing to share those it's not easy to do so i i give them credit for doing that and i would just make the comment that as a board member sometimes there seems like uh there's a lot of opposition to masks here tonight maybe but when i go out or when i get emails or calls or people stop me in the store there's just as many people that want to keep wearing those masks that
119don't and so i get it and it's it's a there is no easy answer i look at this as um you know two three weeks to go 13 days i guess right and summer school the masks are going to be optional if i was a parent that had concerns i would look at summer school as um if things look good and go good in summer school with mass being optional i would feel pretty confident and expecting that they would be optional in the fall if things go south in summer school then it's probably a different conversation or another conversation at this point being so close to the finish line um comments from our administrators i would just i i would just my feeling is just let's just get to the end of the school year
120as we have been and hopefully summer school goes much better with uh mass being optional my thoughts um yeah i mean i agree with uh dale and char we are so close to the end we don't i know probably the majority of the people are fully vaccinated two weeks past their second shot but we don't know for sure and this is mandatory compulsory school attendance we've had this discussion every single month about lifting the mask mandate and i've heard both sides pretty much equal i mean i don't know like tom said i don't know the statistics of how many people are pro mask and how many people are anti-mass but it seems it to be split down the middle um and from my understanding from you know i have four kids in the district and
121and i've asked their opinions and as well as their friends and none of them nobody likes wearing masks i bet if we asked or took a poll or a survey of everybody everybody i bet there would not be one person who says i love wearing a mask i don't mind um no not one person but we do and um we just it's 13 days left and actually four days for seniors so it's it just seems silly to change it right now but if um you know that's what you know the board wants to make a motion to do i guess i'll vote it down i'll take my cue from spending the morning at uh the middle school with mr benson and a morning with miss shock when the students came in and we can all
122take a cue from these kids they accepted it they came in like it was just another normal day that they had a mask on they really didn't fight it or anything else it was just part of the protocol and you know some went to the office to get a new mass and and they're they're available and it's it's they're so good an example to us that this is what they where they want to be they want to see their friends and everything and so they just wear the mask and they don't make a big deal out of it and i thank you too for letting me you know come to your school and and watch them come in thank you i do think that we have so much to be thankful for in this district
123to the fact that we have been in person for most of the year other than when we had the really high cases in the county as well as in our district we've been in person in school we don't have little plastic have you seen those pictures of the plastic dividers between each child in the lunch room or at their desks um we have not required masks you know outdoors for recess and um and you know mask breaks the older kids have had mask breaks and things and you know the kids are i think spending more time outside right now with the nice weather we have a lot of outside events coming up for our kids and i do think we have a lot to be grateful for and thankful for and i know our teachers
124have worked and our staff not just in classroom teachers but our staff everybody has worked exceptionally hard this year and i am very very thankful and grateful that we've had really for the most part a great year um obviously it's had challenges but when i look at other school districts and either even like i have a niece that you know just started going to school in person like last month i mean it's quite amazing so we have so much to be thankful for and um so yeah you know i've talked to other board members from other school districts and um in particular the the districts that um have mass optional right now and they you know they say in their school um is just as much of a mess as if they had it so
125they have parents that didn't feel comfortable with their kids in school because there was no longer mass so they took their kids out of school that puts pressure on teachers then to provide more online learning opportunities for the kids more virtual kids learning at home instead of in school and i think that sentiment has been echoed even in the community comments tonight that kids you know for the most part by and large learn best in face-to-face education and we would hate to see the other side um have to leave because they didn't feel protected or they they felt like um that this was going to be a problem for them or their situation um in the immortal words of dark star and dan barrero and my husband it's all about whose ox is being gored
126and we would hate to see that other side too we represent we represent those people that want to stay here too i think we have people that you know we say that yes the vaccines have been available to everybody there are people on the fence still about being vaccinated and um you know if those people chose today to be their last uh vaccine date then you know two weeks they would be they would be at their full vaccination point and i think we could we could do a lot of good just to hold strong to that 13 days and i think there's a lot to consider here and nobody thinks this is an easy decision and i don't want anybody to feel trounced on that they didn't they didn't what they wanted certainly didn't happen
127this time but but we are trying and that's my my feeling to that and i appreciate taking the time to have this discussion because i think that we needed to have this discussion i have i don't know that everyone understands that as a board we don't we are not allowed to discuss these things outside of an open meeting i mean i can talk to the board members but we can't say what do you think about this let's decide how we're going to vote or what we're going to think we we have to have these at scheduled meetings that have been posted um and and so you know we i don't know what you know other than comments you've made in the past i don't know what you all are going to say or how you're
128going to vote on issues and things like that and so i just think that we needed to take the time to have this discussion and to hear from our administrators so thank you anybody else action that you wanted to address i don't think we need to take action at this time i i think that um [Music] the outcome is pretty obvious anyway and i think that we really should support our uh the recommendations from even especially our staff okay well i think we'll move on then and we'll look for our summer school update from laura shobrin good evening as you can see in the display we have summer school planned starting on june 14th we will have three full weeks of summer school offering both academics and enrichment classes swimming lessons will begin during week
129c in the afternoons so students will be able to attend academic or enrichment classes in the morning have their lunch here at school and then get on the bus to go to new richmond to have swimming lessons in the afternoon having essentially a full day in july the if we could go back just one slide thank you in july the swimming lessons will continue on july 5th 6th 7th and 8th also during that week from monday through friday so including the 9th we will be having pioneer school the students will be bused to balsam lake for that event and now if we could go on to the next slide please in august in the first two weeks we will offer both enrichment and and academic classes in the morning again and we were also able
130to schedule swimming lessons a second session in the afternoon after the lunch time so we'll be able to bust them there again to have a full day for our classes we have academics for welcome to 4k through 8th grade english and math we have six weeks of 69 different enrichment courses i was very excited about that i was not knowing with our crazy year who would be confident about teaching in the summer i was very glad that a lot of the people who had planned to teach summer school last year when we needed to cancel were willing to run their courses again we are also having the pioneer school in that authentic one-room schoolhouse in balsam lake our classes for enrichments range from arts to we've got physical activity classes science and technology cooking literature
131world studies and six different levels of swimming lessons for first through eighth grade students we can go on to the next slide please i'm very proud of the teaching staff that we were able to to draw from for the summer we have 52 different wi wisconsin dpi certified instructors ranging from waiting for their their initial certification for from wisconsin they've blocked they've passed their tests and they're just waiting for that actual license copy to come we also have quite a few instructors who taught for us throughout their career and are returning to teach in the summer we also have some current quite a few current amory teachers who are joining us visiting instructors from unity clear lake and washington dc and yes she is dual certified in wisconsin as well i think this year we
132have more visiting instructors than we've had before um it's really catching on and i think it's because of our generous compensation so i appreciate that it makes it easier to convince people to come over our way we also have some school specialists not classroom teachers but they are allowed according to dpi to teach in summer school and we also have a lifetime license holder who actually began her career in a one-room schoolhouse i think that's something to brag about all right we have 458 students who are registered for welcome to 4k through 8th grade classes this year but we are going to be able to add some to that number because at the high school and at the middle school teachers report to me that the numbers who are participating through band and weight training
133we get a lot of hours through egg add driver's ed and orientations i did listen to some of the comments of the board members concerned about mask shaming and bullying which we know is an issue and i've already planned in the summer school confirmation letters with schedules which always does include our behavior policy that was adopted two years ago i am planning to make a very clear expectation about respect when it comes to the mask issue that no matter where they're wearing one or they are not bullying isn't okay here it just doesn't work do you have any questions regarding summer school yeah what is that washington dc teacher teaching it's a former student of mine she's going to be teaching with her mother and her grandmother for pioneer school right and erica lead home
134has taught that now for several years with her mom and grandma got it yeah wonderful any other questions i appreciate that you're addressing that before summer school begins with the masking being optional you know i i think you know that's a good word is respect and um that we need to uh empathy el ella williamson brought up earlier but you know we need to need to have a respectful attitude here um especially when masks are optional in summer school yeah we just that's our culture here at the emory school district of respect and it just it needs to continue no matter what changes come at us all right anything else thank you thank you we'll move on to action items and the first one on the list is a school calendar change okay the school
135calendar change the start of school remains as you see on the calendar itself september 1st by law you cannot start school prior to september 1st of 2021 we are not proposing to start before that what we are proposing is an additional optional student contact day on august 31st which is tuesday prior to that wednesday start and what we're going to be doing on that day varies by building developmentally at the elementary we're going to start our day with responsive classroom teach and review lean elementary warrior way rules which is the pbis feature teach the routines recess specials in lunch and lastly school pictures and school pictures during a school day is a good two three hour chunk of the day and it is a bit difficult to have a smooth day when your kids are
136in and out at various times throughout the day at the intermediate sort of mirrors what the elementary is doing in regards to warrior way pbis teach and review daily routines similar to the elementary and then again school pictures at the middle school we have students rotating in meeting going over expectations procedures syllabus information the students attend a full applied arts class to start the year gym lockers art supplies tech ed safety etc students are going through pbis expectations there outdoor team building activities doing a warrior way celebration in the gym and lastly school pictures and at the high school again it just looks different based on developmental level welcome assembly intro of new staff and they are also going to work in pictures again this is not a required day we won't even be taking
137attendance on august 31st but what we have found in the past when we start prior to september 1st our attendance rate looks just like it is september 1st where 95 percent of our kids are there but the official first day is september 1st so to make this change you would need to have an action to do so and if you have any questions i will try to help so this is all kind of new with this the school pictures then on day one yes we have met we've uh booked that in with cahills already uh they'll simply have a couple crews and they'll knock it out pretty quick they do they go pretty fast anyway they have a really smooth operation there it's kind of nice because everybody seems to kind of get dressed up
138for the beginning of the year like on day one because you know like by september like whatever 20th if when they have it they're like yeah whatever we just rolled out of bed like oh my god it was mixer day so this is this guy's right the uh the request from the elementary intermediate was to make sure they go first right away in the morning obviously because they're not going to keep her together until 2 o'clock i don't think yeah cool and do we have a motion i'll make a motion we approve the school calendar change and a second bet sure any other discussion would open houses still probably be on the wednesday before we have got open houses scheduled at other times it's not going to fit to do an open house during a
139school day because parents by and large aren't available to do that and staff once you start doing an open house they're locked in wherever they're physically located so those will be done different times we talked about it but logistically it just wouldn't work okay all those in favor say aye aye aye opposed motions carried next we have uh covid language in our and we have we adopted colby language way back before the school year began it's been the proposal is to revise it as part of the certified staff handbook and also as part of the support staff handbook and the revision you'll see there there's only one item that's been changed so if you're looking at the first document which happens to be the certified it's the second to last page page eight i think
140i got it yeah that's the certified on page eight it's noted they're in yellow and basically what it does is it eliminates the cold leaf language which what the covent leave language did if you were a person that was positive for covert or you were a close contact or you had a family member that depended on you for care you would then head out and you would be covered you would be paid during the time that you were gone now we've gotten to the end of the school year we're going to do away with that policy so in the spring staff wouldn't be covered if they had to leave for colton most districts dump this on march 31st because that's the point at which you could no longer get a tax break we're one of
141the very few that's left standing in the cisa so that's the proposal you can certainly keep it in there if you want as well that's uh your discretion would this take effect before the school year is over it would no it would not take effect until after the school year is over in essence it takes effect on july 1 all the handbook changes take effect at that point okay and it doesn't really matter right what was that that's contract renewal right it is contract renewal and it really doesn't apply until you get to the point where we're back in school in the fall and who knows what that picture looks like at that point yep and this is something we can always revisit yep you can put it back in you can eliminate it for
142good however you see fit okay is there a motion i'll make the motion to approve the uh changes to the uh compensation and benefits and that's for both servers for both certified and support staff second that okay any other discussion all those in favor say hi hi opposed okay now nina you've been sitting there patiently patiently we all want to take a 15-minute break [Laughter] oh all right so the last time we that i we adjusted the clubhouse child care fees was as far as i can tell january 1st of 2019 so it's been a while so this is what after meeting with mr derfler looking at child cares in new richmond osceola saint croix and there this is the increase we are proposing so from is it about a five percent increase ten dollars
143per week across the board yep other than i just like to keep it the numbers even so it's only a nine dollar increase on the two-year-old side and in our contract we also have an option for um families to do a half day i found no one really takes that option and it's not cost effective at all for staffing-wise so i'd like to scratch that out as well um which wasn't on there but and this wouldn't become effective until july 1 yes into the new budget year okay yeah and the increases um you know to support staff retention staff salaries um as you know turnover is one of our biggest issues with clubhouse so i will make a motion to accept the new clubhouse child care fee increase and contract change a second any other
144discussion all those in favor say aye aye opposed motion carried thank you thank you thank you [Music] next we have uh elementary and intermediate device purchased by clint wallin and i'm gonna handle that one i don't think clint is with us i i'm gonna handle that one okay this changed a great deal about the middle of last week what we were originally set to do as you see on the slide is to purchase on rotation devices for the elementary and intermediate school students we were set to do that we received we put out the call for bids we received one bid and we were set to take action on that then approximately wednesday of last week we found out that there is a possible reimbursement for devices the district may be eligible for funds to
145purchase student devices through the 7.1 billion dollar emergency connectivity fund devices funded through this program cannot be ordered until july 1. the recommendation would be to put this device purchase on hold while we explore this option and await more details long story short if we wait and we apply and we get accepted we could purchase all of our devices at the elementary all of our devices at the intermediate school for zero dollars and it wouldn't cost the district and the taxpayer is a dime that's an option we can wait a month to find out about if you want to proceed forward with the bid that we've secured we certainly can do that as well but my recommendation is to table this until june and then we'll know whether we've been accepted or not well i'd
146move the table this decision until our june board meeting yeah that makes complete sense yeah potentially a lot of stuff right is that a second 200 plus go ahead my question is well um first of all do we own the devices that they're currently using will they have devices available if we wait yes they'll have what they're using now they'll have in the fall we'll simply wait until the new ones arrive whether we order it through our budget or we get this through the federal government it's one way or another we're going to get them september 1st is looking sketchy in regards to what technology looks like nationwide as in we can't get the devices because the vendors can't produce them and get them here not because the trucks aren't running there is a really
147big shortage nationwide but these are for the elementary school and the intermediate school so these students aren't usually like taking them home every day or not they're staying at school and there's classroom sets typically that are used while they're here and when is the last time we purchased the devices that we're planning to refresh the devices are always on a three-year rotation a three-year lease typically with a buyout option at the end of it so that's what it looks like for student or staff devices at any building level and just my understanding too i work with clinton china too that it's there's some logistics to work out where the purchasing versus leasing and and that to be determined and probably discussed when they found out more about the it comes through e-rate so we work
148with somebody that helps us with the e-rate program and she'll have more information for us coming soon so and that's uh probably will get more advisement we just don't know yet but hopefully we'll know a lot more on june 28th well motion made in second and two i second it yeah yep to defer table this uh i apply action item until our june 28th meeting all those in favor say aye aye aye opposed okay we'll table that until june now we're looking for our english language arts curriculum this is always an exciting time of year to bring before you a lot of work on behalf of the teachers and the administrators we have our sick of nine sixth through twelfth grade reading language arts have been working since last spring and we had our curriculum
149oversight committee meeting um char was at our meeting and all of the materials were passed and so now i bring them to you for final um okay the first sheet is an is a just a cover sheet and then i will go into each one but the reading language arts at the high school is requesting a little over eight thousand dollars reading language arts six through twelve a little over seventy one thousand and then because our middle school science seven years ago purchased a program and they have been using a digital license through that program and that has stopped at the end of this year and they don't plan on continuing it and so our middle school science teachers looked for a new product and i'll be showing you that and this is for a
150three-year quote for them because in three years they will once again be up for curriculum money and then every year the intermediate and elementary have those consumables and those are the things that we use up every year and need to reorder and that's just a little over ten thousand so our total bill um ninety just a little over ninety one thousand so if you go to the next slide that is our high school and i also wanna tell you that mr gould supported his reading language arts teachers last fall and they purchased you know actually it was last summer wasn't it and they put materials through the high school department so that's why their request is a little bit smaller than the middle school they had already spent quite a bit of money so they
151were looking at a number of new books as you can see over 300 in total they like some little dvd drives a number of other things to support their awards and then they have what it's called lit charts and that's a subscription and that's for 10 years because that's what our rotation is currently on is the 10-year rotation and then we've been working with a company called grammarly and um i have to say that lisa rilo has really tried very diligently to get a clear picture from them and it has been very difficult and so we're thinking that this is a three-year subscription with this cost involved but it may not and if it's over that we're not going to purchase it if it's that number or under we will purchase it but as of
152tonight we do not have a quote from that company they've been a little hard to get a hold of middle school is doing a whole new program and it's called study sync and they have had it in district and have been working with it we do have laura here tonight if you have any questions about it but study sync for 10 years is at each grade level 6th 7th and 8th as you can see the total is just a little over 56 000. and then keep if you keep going there is the mcgraw-hill additional digital subscriptions for the 1656 and that is for a larger seventh grade class and then they have something called vocab vocabulary which is an online program and they were able to get a five years subscription that's all the further
153that they will go into the future which is kind of nice because you can see if you really like it or not so the total there at the middle school is a little over 71 000. right below that is the digital license from kessler science and that is a three-year um and danielle and ariel did quite a bit of research on that it met it doesn't match exactly to the old program but they felt very comfortable in recommending that one and then consumables for 21 22 um are all typical consumable use up notebooks and and different things like that do you have any questions for me or for the teachers that are here and we are also under budget as of right now which is that's exciting isn't it thank you yeah i um set
154in on this meeting um as i'm part of the curriculum oversight committee and everything was extremely well laid out obviously they've done their due diligence looking at the curriculum that they feel is going to really benefit our students and a lot of work clearly has went into picking the curriculum that our students will be using and have a good quality of education so i think i would feel confident in approving the curriculum and consumable materials for 20 20 21 and 22 school year motion for me is there a second second erin any other discussion all those in favor say hi hi hi thank you thank you early thanks for all your work everyone on the committee and get all the research george george and i will tandem this piece this is the building and grounds
155update you've seen this slide deck a couple of times before the first slide you'll see the pie chart that's from april of 2017 when we passed the referendum it was a 1.9 million dollar recurring referendum the slice of the pie that you're looking at is the 700 000 piece for maintenance and security that's what that's the the dollars from which these items draw from the 2020 2021 all of these items were proposed approved and are all done the carpeted hallways vinyl tiling tennis courts pas clocks and auditorium lights that's all finished so that's been budgeted for and wrapped up the next slide is in most cases stuff that you haven't approved yet you have approved the playground equipment the gym floor and the through wall flashing the pieces of the pie that you have not
156the small vans flooring and classrooms terrazzo an update of a middle school classroom those are all proposals to be done in the 21 22 school year meaning they happen after july 1st those are all items that would need to have your approval you don't need to weigh in quite yet because there's a couple more slides the 2223 these are all proposals these numbers will change in that were a year and a half almost two years removed from this these are all items that are on the deferred maintenance list still from way back in 2017. these are all items that we would like to address through referendum dollars switch gear football scoreboard gym floor standing skid steer tuck pointing man last baseball press box entryway doors and new bus cameras and then there are i'm not
157going to be labor the point other than to say there are things they do not fit in the budget the items that are on the high school list remember again the high school is a 1976 building built for 3.7 million dollars just to do through wall flashing at the high school alone all the way around the building would probably cost you about three million dollars so you'd only have seven hundred thousand dollars left to do the rest and that just would not work there are tens of millions of dollars here in deferred maintenance in the district much of which is at the high school middle school's got some issues that need to be addressed as well i'm not going to go through all of them because you're going to hear a lot about it in
158the month of june school it's i've said this to orally many times we keep referring to the intermediate school as the new building this building is 20 years old so it's not new newer than the other three certainly and in the elementary school there are a variety of items that we're looking at there as well and lastly there are grounds items it's not a building specific item but rather something that's just on the grounds of the school district of amery so the only thing that you are approving as part of this item on the agenda is the the items that are proposed for building the grounds in 21 22. those are the items and three of them you've already approved so questions that you might have for george or for myself if not you would
159need to take action however you see fit what upgraded middle school classroom is that a specific classroom yeah it's a it's a special ed classroom that they're putting a glass wall in there basically noise for noise disruptions [Music] so basically her office within she'll have an office within her classroom there and can work with kids without the disruption out in the classroom and cabinets and flooring in classrooms at the intermediate and middle school can you is that like all of them or no no not all you wouldn't think so tom and i have worked on that today we're going to shoot for 10 classrooms at the middle school there are four here that'll be carpet tile i've i've kind of loosened my grip on carpet i'm not a carpet guy but at least the carpet
160tile if there's a bad one we can pull it up and replace it i'd like to say that it's kind of 50 50 around here as far as people wanting the tile compared to the carpet but more people still want that carpet it's the classrooms are a lot um the noise levels are you know so we have one tile vinyl tile going in over here and four classrooms of carpet tile okay and that number is big uh it basically did kind of include a lot more um and once we get into this depending on the installers and how much they're able to do we may do some more yet this summer or we may do some thanksgiving break or over christmas break they figured they could probably do a classroom a day at the middle
161school but one company to tie up for two and a half months for their work that's there's gonna be a lot of lake owners and homeowners that are mad that their living room is not getting done so um yeah that that number could be uh used elsewhere if we uh we don't use it all so again you would need to take action if you wanted these projects to get done in the two small vans are they being are we replacing replacing a couple um and we anticipate those to be 21 000 a piece yep we're working local and we are hoping to get a package deal two of them for 40. are we going to be able to get them well they're not available no there's nothing available i can't say yes i'm hopeful but
162we can't control the market on that one okay good question though yeah and where is the terrazzo at the middle school is that the main cafeteria area yeah when you walk in the main commons area and that long hallway they call main street that's that has coats of wax on it since 1992 so it basically has to be ground off just like we did at the elementary school the plan is is we won't put wax back down we'll just polish it with a diamond we'll be able to save money on waxing [Music] and i think that it holds up and looks better wax doesn't yellow like it used to but if you don't do a good job of scrubbing and re-coating it that dirt finally starts to show its darkening and we kind of did
163a test patch out the north end if if you're ever there you wonder why that one's a little brighter we ground it down just to see what it would look like because that is a different animal over there it's trazzo but it's trazzo squares so our fear now is is in the in the grout joints that's even got thicker pooling wax and it's it's really a son of a gun to get up so but that's yup that that's a lot of travel that number's a pretty good one i actually did get one bid and it's very close to that but i was able to use the elementary school school square footage and kind of gauge it by that okay right i make motion did we already make a motion yes sorry that's just discussion aaron
164is made in motion is there a second dale any other talk all those in favor say aye aye aye opposed there you go george and thank you for turning the fan off uh well so bad i thought oh and then when that gal was here in the front i thought i'm not gonna yeah i'm not gonna turn it on yes next time i will because andy will be mad yeah it's been a struggle to hear sometimes when she kicks in and goes and that so thank you update on that elementary school you want to see a cool room it's unbelievable how that how big that room is now that those two air handlers are pretty much out of there so is that your new office now there are hiding places looking at it thinking because
165he doesn't no we're gonna move cheryl there [Laughter] all right no one will bother you you want me to hang yes next up is the professional services provider okay the manner by which you create a deferred maintenance list is by having a professional performance contractor come in and do that work with an architect with a district person and that person is here george in 2017 that's what occurred in the outfit that did that was kraus anderson they came in and worked with are adopted by your approval architect lhb troy miller specifically and george r maintenance guy for our buildings now they are not the only outfit that does this work as you see right there on that first page cross anderson does this work myron does this work and marketing johnson does this work those
166are really the only three in this state but there are others that do this work but just not as big a scale these are the three that have expressed interest in doing the deferred maintenance list as we move forward into 2021 and beyond now just to run through those a little bit with you we have an existing relationship with cross anderson and it's not 2017 the existing relationship goes all the way back to the point at which we added on to the library or added the library and added the auditorium and that was 1997. they are the outfit that built this building here they worked with miss shock actually and you'll see there's a list of schools that they have worked on in this part of the state there are a lot of schools all
167of these schools are sisa 11 schools this is their area this is their neck of the woods in so many ways the second outfit is marketing johnson you'll see again they do work in this part of the state and to the south and certainly to the east we don't have a relationship with market and johnson we have not worked with them in the past um we met with them last week but that's as far as our relationship has gone and then lastly myron their list is certainly long they are headquartered typically out of the appleton area with an office in eau claire most of their work is to the far east part of the state in moving towards the south part of the state and you'll see by the list of schools if you know
168your wisconsin geography that that's where they're located my recommendation based on the information that george and i have received we've met with all three is to go with the outfit that we have the existing relationship with which is cross anderson if you feel differently you certainly as a board can go a different direction we can bring them in and you can see what they have to say or you can act another way if you see that so i'll turn it over to you for questions and however you want to go it was quite a lengthy uh proposal list project that they went through kraus did when they were here you took them around they did well the deferred maintenance list that that's that's pages and pages and pages deep yeah it was at a point
169of please stop stop telling us all the things that are bad that we need to work on yeah i i've i've actually done quite a few studies from focus on energy um the assist study jim had uh met with krauss they started a study um so i mean it's it's nice to have and then basically i use that study as part of that 10-year plan for fun 46 so that was kind of nice um but yeah i don't they're they're all good companies i've never you know kraus anderson we see him at milwaukee and myron down there but i've never really officially worked a project so it's nice for me to i don't have to i don't have anything that's glaring at one person that i'm going to pick one i would be fine with
170any of them in in the bid dollar value the second lowest very small margin was krause anderson the lowest was myron only slightly and marketing johnson was higher so if you're talking dollars and cents that's part of the picture too but again my recommendations based on who we have a relationship with we've done all of our work with cross anderson for a better part of 25 years what was the bid on like was it on the bid on on the work to do the deferred maintenance and also if we decide to do something about the deferred maintenance which would have to be a referendum that they would do that work obviously a general contractor doesn't do that work for free that's their business so that's what the bid was on why make a motion that
171we um go with carlos anderson as our professional performance contractor second that motion made and seconded for kraus anderson to be our professional performance contractor all those in favor say aye aye opposed there we go thank you thank you thank you everybody thank you george you're up andrew all right first of all i want to thank everyone that stuck around to hear me speak you know how to clear a room it's a very exciting time in the business office getting close to the end of the fiscal year you know so yeah this year i'm not nearly as stressed as i have been other years so because i just don't know what's going to be going on so why be stressed right no next year's going to be an interesting time for funding the state but
172anyway one of the most exciting things we get to do is renew our student insurance and if you look at the slide i guess the the handout you'll see that we had very little benefits paid and i think you'll probably figure out why that is we didn't have uh sports or or uh limited sports and and and kids in school and for different times and just and because of that we had actually a decrease in our uh premium this coming year along with is based on enrollment enrollment with down as you know um and so really it's pretty straightforward as to what we're looking at uh as always so any questions on the student insurance nothing's changed about our policy or anything like that so you just need to approve it i would make a
173motion we approve the student assurance services as pres presented second second motion made and seconded to uh uh uh approve our student assurances services so all those in favor say aye aye aye opposed okay that was a short moment in the sun wasn't it yeah there's all of that build up for the four months coming up next month with the preliminary budget will be interesting so just because you know yes next month and next uh open enrollment okay open enrollment is always an action item open enrollment in and open enrollment out you'll see a two-sided sheet there we have 18 students that have declared the intent to open and roll in to the district and you'll see on the back side of that sheet you have a total number of 40 that have applied open
174enrollment out the most common destination two-fold new richmond and clear lake which has pretty much always been the case so you would need to approve those if that's what you want to do and do we have a motion to approve i'll move to approve the open enrollment applications in and out of the district for the 2021-2022 school year okay i'll second that all right motion maiden seconded any other discussion all those in favor sorry i have one question so yes why does it say like for example 4k clear lake unity is that they cannot they can open it all to more than one choice yeah okay so that's like their second choice first or second choice at the very top of the page it says they can submit up to three applications so that's just
175what they are yeah and some do yep yep sorry thank you good good for clarification all those in favor say hi hi hi opposed that motion's carried now we have staff contracts this isn't merely a i don't we don't have a visual for it it's an item that you need to act on we are doing staff contracts and letters of appointment for certified staff bus drivers and support staff those contracts are basically ready to deliver and then staff sign up and they come back for some more action here in the school district of amory but this is contract season so you would need to take action on those contracts [Music] i think we'll group them all together as one motion i think so i'll go ahead and do that and i'll make a motion to
176approve the 2021 2022 staff contracts and letters of appointment for certified staff contracts bus driver contracts and support staff letters of appointment and a second second deal any other discussion all those in favor say aye aye all right opposed we're good to go now welcome back personnel action we're at the bottom we made it we made it so personnel action you have new employment contracts extracurricular contracts resignations this is the hiring season so the list is lengthy i thank all of our building principals and other supervisors it's been a lot of hiring we've had some pretty sizable retirements but i think we've done really well and i couldn't be prouder of the work that they've planned and there's not much they do that's more important than hiring good people so these are the personnel items
177before you for your approval or denial is there a motion to accept the personnel i'll make a motion we approve the personnel action items second air second yeah thank you any other discussion all those in favor aye all right all those opposed they're approved good and now i will look for a motion to go into a closed session considering employment promotion compensation or performance evaluation data of any public employee over which a governmental body has jurisdiction or exercises responsibility in order to take personnel action a pursuant to wisconsin statute 19.585 paragraph one sub-carat c move sure second second dale all in favor say aye opposed we're in closed session