001foreign your patience so mr rasmussen for does he need to make sure he's unmuted looks like you're good to go all right so good evening mr president members of the board and support staff i am joseph rasmussen a licensed educator a coach and a resident of milton to recap at the last board meeting i asked you to consider relooking your policy on public comment especially when it comes to citizens like me though it is unlawful for you to demand this information especially under hipaa i would like to know how individuals like me those with medical conditions may participate in meetings of this school board i cannot breathe in masks i am prescribed medication i prescribe dietary restrictions and the effects of mask wearing on me especially for long periods of time are physically debilitating before
002during and after the last board meeting i asked how i may participate i was told by a board member to talk with the president i was told by the president to talk to mr donald initially he told me i could not participate that i could only watch on youtube which i'm not for sure if it's on right now then when i spoke in my medical clinician i was in essence given a wink wink i was told to simply lower my mask on cat my water bottle and with the bottle uncapped catch my breath i kind of appreciated that until i told the story to a pile who said that is just bending the rules and i said yep you're correct i was told by a distant person behind the rules there was a time during
003your coveted response when this board was and graciously so accepting the policy regarding public comment your exception allowed emails and letters to be read during the district's bounce back time i appreciated that small gesture and i think it would be nice to have that exception once again if you are going to restrict attendance better meetings by not granting medical and or religious exemptions then it is incumbent upon you as a board to figure out how to be inclusive in fact the standard in education for those with special considerations is the respective environment watching on youtube is actually the most restrictive environment because it's a one-way feed you sit behind your gavel you do not read letters and you want to borrow me from this public place of gathering and as you do so you silence
004my speech 30 seconds and you look like red coats and speaking not only for me the metaphorical t is about to become others are afraid to be here and speak because of the bullying tactics of both some in this community and because of this administration so i am here though i would rather be home watching monday night football and i'm here to speak for them your time is up mr rasmussen and my notes say smile breathe and say thank you thank you tracy hannah is next on the list good evening my name is tracy hanna as you all know and i have a son who's in seventh grade i would like this board to review in action what is in their power to remove the mandate that requires the wisconsin dpi behavioral risk survey to
005be given at the middle school level as part of our second step curriculum as i feel the questions are inappropriate to ask our young children as we try to keep our children innocent more and more is being presented to them that goes against this effort i was grateful that i read the email and was permitted to opt my child out of the survey as though some of the questions were mundane some in my opinion have no basis to be asked in school as parents we were advised that this was an anonymous survey which i find hard to believe when the survey is taken on a school-issued ipad a truly anonymous survey would have been given via pen and paper as we all know anything digital can be traced who in this room young and old
006the public or the board would feel comfortable answering the below in front of the entire administration during the past 30 days on how many days did you receive send or share nude photos or other sexual images have you ever had sexual intercourse during the past 12 months did you ever seriously think about killing yourself during the past 12 months did you ever make a plan about how you would kill yourself these are 12 and 13 year old children and my opinion should not be faced with questions like this in a school setting the dpi website even highlights that the survey covers sensitive topics it would concern me that a child with instability who may not have thought about harming themselves may now consider it has been put into their mind what value does this add
007to our students especially is as stated it is anonymous i personally as a parent went through the questions with my child to show why i was opting him out i hope all parents were educated on this survey as well before allowing their children to take it i still wonder what the reason is that the survey was given is it for metrics is it given to help a student who may be at risk but it's anonymous we can't have that both ways i don't think a sensitive survey should be given for metrics only if the school has a concern about a child i think it would be best course of action to talk to them or look at them you can tell a lot more from a child's face their eyes their behavior or their smile
008than you will ever see on a survey especially one that makes them uncomfortable thank you next on the list is dan dufour hello i'm dan deformer resident of janesville and i live within the milton school district i'm very interested in tonight's scheduled presentation on the second step curriculum which according to their website is a holistic approach to building supportive communities for every child through social emotional learning knowing of this presentation i went to the secondstep.org website is this the same second step which will be discussed tonight is the question i hope not because i read very concerning content the content included topics which have been widely identified as highly controversial by many parents and citizens across the united states here's what i here's the little of what i've discovered by spending less than 30 minutes
009on this website first the second step curriculum is supported and guided by some of the most left-leaning non-profit organizations in the country today many of whom have a distinct presence in the second step website itself and provide reference material for adults and teachers what i first learned was our current systems perpetuate inequity by design it goes on to say that these inequity systems were not created by accident and they will not be undone by chance they clearly state they want to transform the education system why does it need to be transformed perhaps we'll hear that tonight due to the time constraints here here are just a few brief examples of the controversial topics i mentioned earlier for example the group learning for justice one of these nonprofits provides training materials on the following facilitating critical
010conversations with students where you will learn how to communicate about such topics as white privilege police violence economic inequality and mass incarcerate incarceration here are a couple other lessons they offer let's talk discussing whiteness or how about this what about critical race theory what about critical race theory is and what does it mean to teachers also on the website i listened to a youtube video entitled to sell cares casella is one of these non-profits it's entitled sel as a lever to equit for equity and social justice it was presented by the president and ceo of casal in this video ongoing systemic rate in in the highlighted video ongoing systemic racism and violence against the black community we discuss equity and racial justice through the lens of sel that's social emotional learning in conclusion i will
011listen very closely to the second step presentation to see if these controversial beliefs and lessons will be taught to our children and why in the event these topics are not discussed tonight i would like to ask the three school board members on the curriculum committee why not perhaps there's a good explanation i just can't think of lastly to the parents and citizens of the milton school district i highly recommend you do your own research on this controversial curriculum by going out to the secondstep.org website and find out for yourselves what they're really planning to teach your children thank you okay moving on to item number two we have some ninth grade students from the high school here to talk to us about the avid program so we we welcome you thank you for giving up
012your time to be here to give us some information about this program we appreciate that sure thanks so i talked to several of you uh probably about a month or two ago uh and we talked about doing some some program highlights a couple years ago we came with you i came to you with uh this new program called abbott and we we're really excited to bring abbott to our school district and we've had some new faces now on the board so we thought you know what this would be a good time to bring an update to the court but instead of listening to me we thought we would point some more leaders here to tell you all about it what it looks like in the classroom and uh all the great things they're doing so
013first off i'm gonna introduce mrs who is our added elective teacher at the high school all right good night everybody i'm so excited to be here i'm glad that we this is my first year as an avid elective teacher um usually i have been teaching english and spanish at the high school but i have been trained in avid for the past couple years and so this is my first year really getting a whole elective class for myself we have 23 students who are in the program right now and three of them are going to be here with us tonight telling you a little bit about what are some of the strategies we use in the classroom things like that to really maximize learning writing writing is used for organization of thought to reflecting learning and
014communication staying attentive and taking notes during the lessons allows students to review any needed information at a later date for me i take a lot of notes in my biology and biomedical courses citing and supporting many points allows students to deepen understanding while communicating clearly and confidently in avid in the sava course this year we did a time for formative expository essay and i know this will benefit me in my latest later english courses this year [Applause] inquiry is asking big questions or asking questions about things that confuse you inquiry is often used in core classes such as english language arts algebra science and social studies these classes often require us to use costa's level of thinking there are three different levels gathering processing and applying application is the highest level of questioning that can
015only be found off the page it relies on your individual experiences connections and thought processes [Applause] collaboration is the sharing of ideas information and opinions we all keep on and we all keep positive group interactions everyone works together putting in the same amount of effort because teamwork is a shared responsibility you listen to others attentively and work to achieve a common goal for example in my biomedical class everyone has to work together to test and get results in avid 9 we also pitched and completed a community service project trash and collection of milton wicker is organization what is organization it's more than just staying organized in your class and having everything where it belongs um not only do you have to manage your materials but you'll also plan and prioritize goal setting is a big
016part we recently did some things with goal settings um strategy and taking responsibility is another thing that ties into organization and you develop and use this use a process for avid our process is our binder and our notes we have special ones that we try out every once in a while like recently in class we tried out the sketch noting which is easier for people who are more visual where you draw pictures instead of actually like write notes we also another avid requirement and thing that i think everyone really needs is a planner it's paper planner is usually best um it can be you it can be personal and school related to time to both and you have to have organized goals and smart goals or short mid and long term goals we we recently
017our timed essay like riley mentioned was um our short term our long term and our midterm goals and we basically just picked a few and we summarized them um organization is also a lot of self-reflection planning on what you can do better and just whatever you can do better on and stuff we have summatives of that just to reflect and see how well you think you are doing um reading is the r of wicker and what is avid's take on reading avid really wants you when you're reading to be interactive with the text really like think about it mark it up highlight it um circle things um it also builds on vocabulary summarizing and rhetorical thinking no taking graphic organizers we also do that while reading and another big thing is after you take notes
018or read a paragraph or an article of anything you summarize it basically group all that information together at mhs this year we've been reading of mice and men in english and in my english class we've done some reading in the avid nine course to prepare for socratic seminars so credit seminars is not your normal like speech circle um it's usually two circles but on friday i believe we did on where it was three you have the main group of kids who are talking and the people behind them are passing them notes so if you want to add something you pass them a sticky note they can speech it and whatever um and then the last circle is um like basically grading the speaker so you mark up how many times they reference the text and
019stuff like that alright so as far as the value of avid i have a few questions for you friends you ready yeah all right can you tell me a little bit how you feel like avid has made the transition to high school better or easier for you it's kind of like a good way to wake up in the morning i guess instead of just like going straight to like one of your core classes you're just going to have it and you're just you're getting your thought process ready for the day and then you're going into school so it's more of like an easier transition from going straight to classes yeah they're with me starting at 7 35 in the morning so it's awful early for teenagers anything else transitioning to the high school um i
020feel like people that are new to avid this year it's really helped them like because high school like in middle school all the teachers say they're not going to hold your hand which is true and i think avid is kind of like a waiver wake-up call and if you do need that extra help it is there for them yeah yeah how do you believe you are preparing yourself for what comes after high school organization that's been huge for you yes okay i don't i have organized chaos and so avid has like helped me change that to more of like a medium of organized chaos to actual organizations you're organized neutral now yes so it's gonna like it it's gonna help me in college when i have to like take organized notes because i'm not really
021good at that so let's give me all ready for that riley how about you what about for what after comes um planning ahead so you know like you're not running behind or being late you're always prepared and just ready awesome how are you becoming the best citizen that you can be um well this year uh the picture on the board the third one the last one on the bottom there's actually a few of our classmates pitching like community service ideas which i guess kind of ties into the next question but we are doing things around our community like for instance we picked up trash and later in the school year we were planning on doing like a collaboration with the humane society because they're looking for people to like adopt pets like really badly so
022it's just preparing you and getting you like help with your community because lots of jobs um one of our guest speakers who we've had this year already has mentioned that um he's like the owner i guess of a company and one of the things he looks for when he's hiring is having to be involved with your community that's awesome thank you all right so i know you guys were just thinking all of us who've been avid teachers of course this is my first year as an avid but we also had miss took who was with you for both years um and then of course miss harvard also started with seventh grade last year so you didn't get to have her as a teacher but you know that she's been serving the program which is awesome
023um and then i know y'all are willing to take questions so anyone at all for the girls that have been in there for the three years or whatever do you feel like your um academic progress has been better than maybe it would have been or i feel like you guys gained a lot of confidence you know one um academically how is it hamstring sorry um it's just overall it's been helping me be more prepared more organized and then i can get like um just better manage my classes um for me i in sixth grade when they came to us with avid i was kind of unsure about like what it was but i think evidence really helped me because i was never a note taker i absolutely despised taking notes but now i realize that
024like they helped me and stuff so yeah i feel like i've been doing better in school what is the criteria for choosing students to be a part of this program oh that is such a good question it's kind of complicated students actually apply to be part of the program um and so then we do wind up actually starting in the middle school to go through some of those things do you want to answer that question a little bit better that might be easier with that uh so there's the application process because part of avid is the individual determination part so uh students need to have that internal motivation to want to go to that next level um so there's several different criteria points it's a little bit different from district to district what we're looking
025for is kids that might be a first generation college student and again that that that might be a little more prevalent in a highly urban setting or a highly rural center versus where we are right now uh but that's that's one of the things uh often they are students that are historically underrepresented in college um they might be more in the academic middle or a kid that as we're talking with teachers i said boy this is a this is a good student but with just that tad bit of support or skills would be just college bound so so those are the kind of students that we that we target for private how many students do you choose every year i believe that we can have up to 25 because the goal the goal is an
026average class size so it would be 25. um and so we we're going to have that cohort every single year and so this group will will grow up all the way up to seniors so within a couple years we will have an avid elective group in every grade level from 7th grade through 12th grade um i i will say beyond just our avid cohort of students that so 25 at each grade level um both the middle school and the high school if you walked into any classroom right now you would see evidence of avid all over you would see it on the walls you would see it on the desk it is part of their their school improvement plans so we we kind of look at it for two two different ways we want avid
027for this cohort of students to help them be college ready help them move on uh but we also want it for all of our students to teach them these these college readiness skills and the students the elective just are going to get it in a in a bigger dose i'm just going to ask one more thing is it a highly competitive um application process or do you or is it more like teacher recommendation than the student applies it's sometimes the students are nudged a little bit on on on application so we will reach out to the students about hey you know we think he might be a good avid student and will present to a wide variety of students and then from there they have the choice of whether they want to apply or not
028so yes we end up turning kids away and we maintain a a list then that if if a student would decide hey is down the line they don't want to continue on with avid that that we would have some students that we know that might be a good fit to come into the program very good thank you all right thank you so much so ryan just a quick question do once the students are in from one grade level do they automatically progress to the next grade level and stay in avid uh they have the choice every year um and also they have to maintain certain standards every year as well uh so a student might go on academic probation or on a contract if they're not meeting the grades or if their behaviors are not
029of that of an evid student thanks any other questions all right thanks thank you so much for your time appreciate it [Applause] moving on to our our next presentation um we'll invite susan jenn and john lyon to the podium for the presentation on second step thank you for um giving us this opportunity to talk about second step uh jen and john and actually tara sirwinsky will answer questions after a brief overview by me and then we have a 10-minute video to share with you okay second step is our universal curriculum for social and emotional learning uh second step has been in the district longer than 10 years i don't know exactly when it started but i know when i came to the district we were using it what we've done over those years is we
030we've expanded it the the administrators student services as well as gen ed have worked together to create it as the best predictable environment within the school by using same the same type of language uh second step addresses skills that fall into a number of categories including self-awareness relationship skills responsible decision-making and self-management units include things like problem-solving strategies goal-setting and recognizing bullying second step is as much about staff learning how to be consistent with their language is it is about teaching students strategies to pick for problem solving so they can pick the strategy that best fits the situation we have a 10 minute video that was created by east learners north side learners and the middle school learners and when we finish our three administration uh administrators are here to answer any questions that you
031might have resources for second step have been shared by either the administrators in their newsletter grade levels or individual teachers sharing with their parents so that they know what's going on all right thank you [Music] many changes too many roles [Music] children practice in a variety of ways that are incredibly engaging and developmentally appropriate they practice with songs we play lots of games there's stories the most impressive part of the second step program was seeing the students implementing the strategies that they learned through sentences for instance that they had difficulties with another student asking if they could go and talk to each other to work things out how in classrooms going through the critical second step i not only became very familiar with the four units the first being teaching kids how to be a
032learner what does that mean the second game how to recognize emotions and notice what others are feeling the underpinning of empathy which then we move into what am i thinking how do i control my emotions when they start to get too big and the curriculum wraps up with a problem solving it it's not just the units that are all thought out so the lessons within are so developmentally appropriate and things that sometimes we don't think the explicit teaching during the day for example in kindergarten there's an entire lesson waiting patiently how often are our computer partners expect to stop and wait patiently it's important that they're taught in the classrooms because that's where they get reinforced and that's when it gets practiced there's a power behind the program such as second step it provides common
033understanding and expectations and common terminology throughout our entire building which also makes our building an amazing place to be see when you partner explicit instruction with a universal curriculum that's research based then you can take that shared learning it was spreading across the building we trained everybody in the building around these common language and around common strategies then we cultivate an environment where students understand what the expectations are and then they have strategy to be able to meet them and guess what we just find every student in our building to be ready to [Music] i [Music] it [Music] um they're like their bodies showing you what they are doing and what they're saying their face and their bodies [Music] then it laid out here number [Music] um i would say like talk to them [Music]
034for all of [Music] on seeing us step not only our primaries but also in the intermediates and have to testify in the real power that this curriculum has in helping students develop a common language around academic skills for learning managing their emotions developing empathy and kindness as well as problem solving i'm seeing he has developed that required step looking at setbacks and challenges and mistakes as opportunities for learning and that growth from kindergartners through more ciders have been really neat to see additionally the common language that it gives us to be able to problem solve and navigate challenges as students is exceptionally helpful on solving good concepts and problems so one example that i'd highlight is the step process where students are taught to seek the problem without blaming the conflict to think of solutions
035um they're both safe and respectful to explore the consequences of those as well as picking the best solution um so really has had a positive impact not only on primary students and emotional awareness and strategies early on i believe it can equip students with those resources that they can access whenever they need it and this awareness can become natural so they have these strategies and are able to help in a productive way [Music] at milton middle school we are in our second year of using the second step curriculum to meet our students emotional funding please or sclp one of our eighth grade teachers shared some feedback from the experience using science stuff second step allows for great conversations in my classroom i use the lessons to help guide further discussion and personalize the lessons learned
036to reflect part of my own life experience second text provides the framework for constructive seo in the classroom without it as a guide i would not really know what to be doing specifically with my teaching to students in the area of social emotional learning second step also provides background information on what each of these things are as well as examples to get through decision-making processes and personalized reflection that is geared toward the lives of the students it is the personal connections that kids really learn from applying these concepts to the lives that they live rather than just hearing of other people's lives thank you something to learn about myself is that it's better to be kinder than everyone and hurt people for fun and including people is the way that we're going to do and
037make them feel left out some skills i've used have been helping others when they need help some skills i've learned have been that gain time to people goes a long way and that you never know what someone has going on who should never judge them i think second step is important because people can find ways to help others when in need it is also important because some kids might not know how to stop being people or how to not judge others an understanding that there is always a trusted adult therapy through these lessons i've learned that i am capable of great things and then in order to do that i need to calm down and refocus on the task i feel that middle school is a difficult time for many kids we are all experiencing
038changes and are completed by situations that challenge us second step gives us the chance to refocus and learn useful skills that we can use in our everyday lives [Music] do you have questions for any of the principals yeah um so i had a conversation with miss rebels earlier today uh and uh i just was wondering if i could get your take on how are the lessons chosen are they are they set are they yeah what so the way that the new digital materials work is there's the four big units that were highlighted in the video and each one of those units has five digital lessons that go with it okay so it's fairly prescribed and easy to use for teachers to guide those conversations with their students okay um so is there any room for
039teachers to add any lessons that they wish or like are we set on those topics and just those lessons that are within that the universal curriculum are those lessons that john just spoke about um but there are examples like in the video you know pure conflict let's say there's a bunch of problems happening outside in second grade just to pick a grade um we might dive a little deeper into problem solving conflict resolution revisit some of those things okay but just the focus would be about that language from the universal curriculum okay yeah about 30 to 40 sure continuously but teachers are going to seize upon that teachable moment throughout the week okay kramer was describing there's a problem at recess maybe we can revisit this as a class right so those kind of natural
040opportunities present themselves sure um and i guess my last question do do we use so according to the website there are resources that um that could be used to teach about things like racial justice white privilege anti-racism is that what we use second steps for or is it primarily just for behavior issues you know to mitigate those within the classroom yeah i'll give you first off i think really it's about teaching life skills and it's been called a lot of different things over the years right but seo social emotional learning and life skills are really one of the same um so teaching empathy and perspective taking is certainly part of the scope and sequence of second step your question specifically i have not seen at north center immediate school same cool thank you thanks guys
041i was wondering if you could um just talked about how second step meshes with what guidance counselors do at the at the lower levels um does it does it coincide with that does it mesh with that and then just also second step is taught by classroom teachers correct yep and i am going to let jen take this because she'll give a lot more detail but when i when i first started in the district our guidance we call them school counselors now spent a lot more time in the classroom doing the teaching but what the students were starting to do is saying oh when the counselor's here i have to behave a certain way when the teacher is here i behave a different way it's something much like probably kids at home versus school when mom
042and dad are there i behave a certain way and when i'm at school i try on a few different behaviors so we we moved to have second step implemented by gen ed teachers which was what it was designed for because if the teacher teaches how to be a good friend and then during math class somebody isn't being a good friend the teacher can intervene right away and talk about what did we learn about being a good friend instead of having to call the counselor down to try to have the conversation about a good friend that then allows the counselors to do to assist teachers with some of the coaching when they're when they're doing some problem solving but they also get an opportunity to to do some tier two so you have four kids in
043a classroom that are really struggling with grasping the concepts that counselor can now spend some time in re-teaching in a small group and reinforcing those skills but i bet jen has something to add what she said no the only other thing that i would add to that is the benefit of having that school counselor they have a deep understanding of that second step universal curriculum so that when they do that tier two type example that susan had given they are familiar with that vocabulary and what the students have learned from the universal to then re-emphasize that um you know tier two thank you they're a good check for each other because we know the development developmental milestones of a four-year-old or a five-year-old change throughout that year and so those teachers can check each other
044the counselor and the teacher can check each other to make sure we're not expecting too much from somebody at a certain age and that we push them hard enough because we want them to be capable so i as a teacher in my last years of teaching had we had just started implementing second step in seventh grade in eighth grade and sixth grade at our school uh and our guidance counselor can't get to all the kids in the middle school so it was easier for us to we did it once a week 30 minutes and i noticed that in the five lessons of each unit there was a lot of repetition so there was a reminder of what was going on yeah stress relationships but at the seventh grade level so again we used examples of
045what was going on within the classroom or maybe within the school um different things like that and then when they went to the guidance counselor with issues they followed through with the rest of it because they just couldn't come into our classrooms anymore and um there was a lot of road cleaning scenarios and it got the kids to really talk in my room um sometimes too much you know because everybody wanted to talk and participated and they got kids who normally wouldn't speak up maybe to share with the partner or share with the group and then come back as a whole group and it went really fast in those 30 minutes so sometimes we could have used more time but we only had it once a week but it seemed to be working just like
046opening up the dialogue with kids thanks shelley any other questions for the team thanks very much great video thank you for your time tonight moving on to item number three on the agenda human resources committee uh um report i will turn it over to mr mullen okay thanks mike the hr committee met last week on wednesday the sixth first item on the agenda was the benefits advisory group meeting review and i am going to ask chris to give me a hand with this one that school uh and we are planning to meet uh four times throughout the year the team has made up of 13 staff members and hrc sorry all right i'm gonna go back so we started off a wellness group uh for the 21-22 year and we're planning to meet four times
047this year um we the group is made up of 13 staff members dean representatives and the hr team we are planning to hold four meetings uh the in october november march and april the next item that we talked about was a wa trust life insurance the human resources committee reviews the district insurance on a yearly basis throughout the through this review we look at our current benefits compare with other school districts that are similar in size and geographically located near milton this review is done with al jaeger and the usi team as our third party administrators for the 21-22 year we'll be reviewing the district's life insurance benefit trust is the insurance policy holder and they have issued a two-year rate freeze for the school district of militants life insurance plans and this freeze will
048end in june of 2022 the district will review other school district life insurance plans and also consider other companies life insurance bids the next item that we talked about was the school district of milton's other post-employment benefits and in this conversation the item was focused or this conversation was focused on the education of the benefits advisory group members and their retiree health insurance and at a future benefits advisory group meeting we will talk more about district comparables reviewing the cost as well as the district's unfunded liability the next item that we talked about was a staff wage discussion the number of payments that school year staff are paid on a yearly basis a school district of milton staff that are school year employees have two choices on the number of payroll checks that they receive
049we are considering stepping back from the two-year choices to improve efficiencies and be consistent amongst our school year staff the business office and the hr department are aware of the impact on financial planning for our school year employees and additional conversations will be had at future benefits advisory group meetings the last item of our benefits advisory group was our school wellness clinic the school wellness clinic has been operating since july of 21 and serves seven other school districts um and their families that's for our benefit eligible employees and their families the school districts include cambridge edgerton evansville stoughton whitewater fort atkinson and milton as of mid-september 70 individuals throughout the seven school districts have utilized the clinic and as of october 4th the school district wellness clinic began administering the pfizer kovitt 19 booster shot
050to staff we don't have any kind of numbers yet but we're hoping a future meeting with the dean representatives of that clinic will have more of a idea of how many people are utilized in clinic for those booster shots your fives are boosting fats and that's the benefits devices all right thank you chris anyone have any questions or comments about any of that thank you chris um next item on the agenda was the 2021-22 nutrition team staffing in the past few months there have been 10 new staff hired for the nutrition team however that does leave us with five current vacancies still hr team is still looking out i'm still trying to hire people to fill those vacancies that hasn't been going super great they have reached out to a couple staffing agencies to help
051the hr team fill things such as leaves of for medical purposes or long-term long-term absences the hr team is uh currently working with these agencies to get tours scheduled of the facilities and we are optimistic that these will help fill these vacancies and uh we will keep the board updated as to how this is going any questions or comments about that or chris you have anything to add to that i do have anything to have add been able to deliver lunch assimilating so many additional employees and five openings and lunch going on as planned or is it starting to present some issues and just the delivery um we've had with being short staffed we've had a number of members of the district office team hr the business office payroll have helped serve food um and
052uh well i've tied it with a few meetings that i've had at the high school and pitched in to help do some dishes in between meetings so we've uh when mr gazdeck is short we try to help out where we can from the district office level in addition the high school administration has stepped in to help serve as well so we are feeling confident that once we have fully staffed those needs will not we won't need to have our administrators from the high school or from the district office head over there sincere thanks to you and the other administrative staff that have helped out to make lunch happen successfully thank you worries any other questions thanks so much chris thanks rick moving on to item number four uh first item is new business is discussion
053and possible action on the 2021-22 milton high school extended field trip requests mr billhorn all right well good evening everyone the first item i have there are the extended travels so in your packets you have the list of the trips that are planned for this school year uh and each of those uh they are with a different student organization uh each of them have the appropriate number of chaperones planned or and in some cases they've been working on some fundraising for some time if some of the larger trips that are the summer trips they start working ahead of time on fundraising activities we bring them in the fall of the year that they go some of the overseas trips we've actually backed up a little bit because of colbit uh and and to that point
054too with all of our extended travel uh well uh board policy does require that uh you approve us to take these trips this year uh we've added another uh layer this year each of these trips um the the advisors meet with rich and i we review where we are at with covet safety procedures and for example the history club trip that's going to be going to philadelphia we review the covet uh the the the pregnancy numbers that are in that area the vaccination rates in that area and we have a determination rich and i determine uh if that's going to go so while we're approving these tonight this year we are also having another layer that we have a set date where we review all those numbers as well work with brittany uh coots our
055district nurse to review uh if we can take that trip uh we have those dates set so that if we do have to cancel that trip we can do so at a time where there's a full refund for the students as well what are the requirements for students to be able to go on these trips given the current situation with kovid so with regards to what are the where the cove with the safety mitigations are the being able to participate in the trip yeah i mean are they required to have their vaccine are they no so uh no we do not require vaccination we follow the same rules that we have at school and that's kind of our mantra uh we do require masking except when they are eating uh we overnight trip on the
056bus we do allow them obviously to take the mess off while they're sleeping one item that we have actually added is that before they get onto a bus we're actually going to be taking temperatures before they get onto the bus as well but that's the one added procedure that we put it to put into place this last week but otherwise it's following the same safety procedures that we have for the regular school day because the strips are an extension of the classroom extension the activity so we follow generally the same the same procedures any other questions i'll make a motion to approve the 2021-22 milton high school extended field trip request as presented a second there's a motion on the floor made by rick seconded by leslie to approve the 20 21 22 milton high
057school extended field trip requests as presented any more discussion on that hearing none all in favor respond with i i and oppose nay motion carries thank you thank you next item discussion and possible election on early graduation requests all right so uh per board policy students have the opportunity our seniors have an opportunity to apply for early graduation they're able to do so at the end of the second trimester the students in your packet the 21 students that are in your packet have all met those requirements they've met with their school counselors and have applied their provided all things go well first and second trimester they'll be able to uh graduate in the first week of march they have the opportunity to get their transcript that indicates that they have graduated that point they also
058have we welcome them to participate in the graduation ceremonies in june as they walk across the stage uh the one other items for some of our newer board members as well is that while some students choose to apply to graduate early uh there's it does happen every year some students will say you know i part way through second trimester i really do want to go out for that spring sport i really do want to finish with my class can i get a schedule uh we always allow them to do that sometimes they do wish to finish the year out in which case we get them a schedule they're able to do that even if their early graduation was approved any questions i'll make a motion question hearing none all in favor respond with aye and
059oppose nay motion carries and mr billhorn lastly early college credit program start college now all right thank you very much and this is for information for the board uh this evening but twice a year i bring to you the start college now and the early college credit uh applications so those students are wishing to exercise those state programs star college now is an opportunity for students who have exhausted our curriculum to take courses at a local technical college blackhawk being our region or through the start college now or excuse me the early college credit program through the uw system or university wisconsin whitewater at rock county as well there's another location where they can go both cases students will have to have exhausted our current curriculum they have to apply by a set date they
060also have to maintain a certain grade point they have to pass the classes but we do pay up up to 18 college credits per student who qualify for those programs that's it done on their semester system so we do work that in our schedule because we're on the trimesters but these are the students who have applied for the second half of the year for both of those programs i've indicated there both with the number of college credits that they would be earning and also the high school credit that they earn as well would you say this is a typical number it is it's a little bit less we actually with the wired program uh and edmentum we actually have a few more options of courses that sometimes students would not have been able to we
061would not have been able to have the course and sometimes students took that at blackhawk tech we actually have uh like sociology some economics courses we have those available now online and that are available for students all right any questions for jeremy thanks so much mr billhorn thank you moving on to item number d third friday in september student count mr dahmen i'll turn it over to you thank you there are a couple things that i want to share uh regarding the third friday count we we did get the official numbers uh from dpi uh over the last week and uh kim i think we'll start uh we have a few different documents inboard docs let's start with the the 917 2021 number in buildings document the rainbow and there's a couple different things that
062that the documents that we're going to look at track one is the actual number of students who are in our our schools and in our in our classrooms uh and the other is the the the count for dpi purposes um this one this chart shows our total count in each building you can see listed down the left hand column are the different schools down the right or across the top are the different grade levels and then on the far right column the totals in each building and then in that bottom right hand corner that grade total across all of our schools uh and this is from this includes uh preschool special ed 4k and then all of our grade levels from kindergarten through 12th grade and you can see that total is at 3425 uh
063students um i'll look at another document that shows a comparison to uh previous years but that's one of the things that we look at those are broken out at each grade level and at each school by the number of resident students those are students that live within our school district non-resident open enrollment students those are students that live outside of our district but choose to attend our school district and then jedi residents are our residents of our school district that are are doing our online programming through our jedi program so again there you can see each of the different schools at each grade level the number of students that we have and i'll i'll circle back to any questions after we've looked at all of the different pieces of data then if you want to
064do next kim the resident dpi count chart this is excuse me this is a little bit different this shows all of the schools across the top uh the different grade levels down the side and this is what is actually our third friday count and this is the number that's used by dpi to determine funding for future years you can see if you look all the way again down in that bottom right hand corner the total dpi count is 3467. again that's for preschool through 12th grade and the september 21 total in the building is that 3425 number again in that bottom right hand corner uh in the boxes down below on the right you can see some descriptions of of those numbers and for comparison's sake in the bottom left hand corner you can see
065the 2122 number reported to dpi uh this year that 3467. last year that number was 3553 so that's a decrease of 86 students in that count from last year to this year and then you can see that broken down uh by each of the buildings in the bottom right hand corner that's the number in each of our schools again that comparison between september of last year and september of of this year there's also a document included there that we won't reference but it is last year's chart that shows the dpi count people can reference that for comparison sake but the other item that i do want to walk through um is the uh september totals yep kim has it up on the screen now and what that does is takes a look at each of
066our grade levels from last year's september count to this year's september count and notes the difference so to make sure that that's being interpreted correctly this is this just lists kindergarten through 12th grade so it doesn't include 4k or or special ed uh preschool but it has listed in that first left-hand column last year's number of students at each grade level and that total of 3 337 students in kindergarten through 12th grade uh in the next column it's the this current years as of september of 2021 number of students at each grade level from kindergarten through 12th grade that total of 3 280. and then in the far right column it shows a cohort plus or minus so what that's comparing is what happened at each grade level from last september to this september so
067for example last year's kindergarten had had a total of 226 students those same students this year in first grade there are 224 of them so there's two fewer first graders than we had in kindergarten a year ago it's a way to look at gains and losses from year to year looking at the same group of of students we know that as you look at that entire list there's some ebbs and flows from one grade level to the next uh so comparing this year's fourth graders to last year's fourth graders isn't that always the best way to compare because each grade has a different number of students but comparing this year's fourth graders to last year's third graders the same group of kids uh gives us that look at what those changes are from year to
068year in that far right hand column you'll see some of those grade levels go down uh some of them go up kind of in the middle grades there you see some increases of 8 8 and 16 students from last year to this year and other places it's gone down third grade into fourth grade is a decrease of nine students another place where it decreased was last year's ninth grade into tenth grade but overall if you look at that right hand column you'll see an overall increase of 23 students in that kindergarten through 12th grade from last year's kindergarten through 11th grade becoming this year's first grade through 12th grade a logical question then is if those cohorts overall went up why is our overall attendance down and you can also see the answer to that
069on this chart if you look at last year's senior class we have 301 students so a large group that at the time was our largest group of students uh that graduated out of our system and if you circle to the top of the next column at the incoming kindergarteners it's 219 incoming kindergartners so just taking the graduating senior class compared to from last year compared to this year's incoming kindergarten class uh there's 82 fewer students and that's a bit of a trend if you look just in general at this year's numbers you can see uh the highest numbers um actually the four largest classes are our are 9th grade 10th grade 11th grade and 12th grade currently over the upcoming years those larger classes are going to be gradually not graduating out of our schools
070and the trend is that they're replaced by smaller groups uh coming in now we do take a look at and try to anticipate how many students are going to be in that incoming kindergarten class and those incoming 4k classes we never know for sure how large those groups are going to be but we can get a pretty good idea but in general we can anticipate that unless we have new families moving into the district or additional students choosing to attend our district we can anticipate that our enrollment is likely to continue to decline based on those large groups at the high school graduating out and typically smaller groups coming in to replace them we know from our work with our budget that that the the fewer students that we have long long-term that means fewer
071revenues coming in from the state so we have to look at ways as we're planning for the upcoming years look at ways that we can mitigate that decrease in revenue we do know that when there's fewer students there's fewer expenses too some of our programs are based on a cost per student obviously in our classrooms if we have fewer students there isn't as need for as many staff so those are things that we want to continue to keep an eye on so any questions comments thoughts on [Music] enrollment and third friday rich at what point do kids who attend parochial or private schools in that kind of k-8 range at what point do they i guess signal their intent if though if their kids will be coming to the high school is there generally an
072uptick in the freshman class to see if i'm reading this right there was one this year a little bit is there any kind of projection with the the change or bounce or whatever that is anticipated in the future typically do pick up some students at a couple different grade levels you mentioned ninth grade is one uh where we'll we'll oftentimes add students to the to the cohort uh in particular because of some students that go to uh may choose a private school up through eighth grade and then and then uh public school for high school uh i think in the past uh sixth grade seventh grade in that range has been a time when uh some students who have had other have chosen other options up up until that time will transfer into our school
073district so we look at we look at the history of that and try to anticipate what that will be from year to year any other questions for rich carry none thank you mr dalman we will move on to item number e action on 2021-22 open enrollment alternative applications which are inboard docs removed to approve the 2021-22 open enrollment alternative applications as presented there's a motion on the floor made by leslie seconded by rick to approve the 2021-22 open enrollment alternative applications as presented any questions hearing none all in favor respond with i i and oppose nay motion carries moving down to miscellaneous item a action on staffing reports i move to approve the staffing report as presented there's a motion on the floor made by leslie seconded by rick to approve the staffing report as
074presented any discussion on that hearing none all in favor respond with aye aye and oppose nay motion carries upcoming board and committee meetings mr dawman i know we have a curriculum meeting on wednesday the 13th at nine o'clock correct nine a.m for the curriculum committee uh committee on on wednesday the 13th that'll be in the second floor conference room uh we had talked about but hadn't finalized a finance committee meeting we'd talked about october 21st uh at noon for that meeting i know that joe wasn't here tonight but for the other members of the finance committee maybe we can circle back and see if that date and time does indeed work for everyone uh the next regularly scheduled board meeting is on october 25th two weeks from tonight here at 6 30 p.m and then
075we'd like to schedule an hr committee meeting for the week of october 18th and i see chris walking up is can maybe share some information about that upcoming hr committee meeting so uh finance committee members did did uh the 21st at noon was that going to work no no do we have to have it that week is that the goal if we could have it earlier in the week sure so this is the um preparation for the levy okay okay and what happens is i don't get all the information until october 15th and then i have to turn around and prepare for the board meeting so that's why we're looking at that friday in preparation for the board meeting on the 2010 right right correct yes could we move it to the wednesday is that
076too much frosting oh what time let's pencil that if we're not just to clarify that's wednesday october 20th at 1 o'clock for finance yes okay and how about hr committee members the week of the 18th could you do the 22nd at 7 30. does that work for the rest of the committee well i don't think i'm not sure about uh check with joe but but yes i'll have to oh yeah okay all right so we can check on that date and time friday the 22nd at 7 30. wow chris if he had that um let me work on that now okay well okay i think that the tricky thing with that friday is that our board meeting is that following monday so we would need to have a really quick turnaround on any agenda items
077and make sure we get them in the board docs i think we could do it depending on what the what the agenda items are going to be but if there's something that needs to be prepared for for that following mondays forward meaning it doesn't give us much time to make sure we get that in board box by the end of the day friday okay let me reach out to joe and i'll touch base sounds good that covers it thank you last on the list is the adjournment all in favor respond with i i and oppose motion carries thank you oh