001under God, indivisible, with liberty and justice for all. >> Item number four, approval of the agenda. >> Make the motion. >> Got a motion by Bower. >> I'll second. >> Second by Gorman. All those in favor say I. >> Opposed. Motion carries. Item number five, approval of the minutes. Uh we have the regular April 21st and then the reorganization. Let's do one first. The regular school board meeting April 21st. Any discussion? Motion by Kaiser. >> I'll second. >> Second by Nest. Any discussion? >> All those in favor say I. >> I. >> Opposed. Motion carries. Item B, reorganization schoolboard meeting April 27th, 2026. >> Make a motion to approve. >> Motion by Bower. >> Second by Nest. Any discussion? >> All those in favor say I. >> Item six, special presentation. discussion the FCCLA presentation.
002>> Ruby, you're back. >> You know, I knew you I knew I knew you really didn't want to leave. >> Pull up a chair. >> I got to sit in. >> So, I'm going to start by handing out this. This is my presentation for my project that I took to the state competition and it's the one that I will be taking to Washington DC this summer. I think it's going to speak for a lot of the things that I have up here. So you guys can all just feel free to look to it. Good evening. My name is Ruby Slowiki and I'm here to share with you Mosi FCCLA's experience at the Wisconsin FCCLA State Leadership Conference in April this year. Family Career and Community Leaders of America or FCCLA is a national career and
003technical student organization where students can address important personal work and societal issues through family and consumer sciences education. They have opportunities for students to apply concepts from the classroom into actionable projects called students taking action with recognition or star events where students explore an area of interest following a rubric and compete at the regional, state, and even national conferences. We arrived at the conference a day earlier than usual, so we were thrown right into the chaos of checking into our hotel, registering attendees, and registering for our individual star projects. Our also submitted a pin for the statewide pin competition. And while we didn't win, we had a lot of fun using pin trading as a networking opportunity. This is a wellestablished tradition that chapters from all over the state participated in. And it's even done
004at the national conference as a way to create a sense of community and connection between members. In fact, I'm wearing all of my pins from state this year because it was so special to get to know people and carry a piece of their story with me in all of my future journeys. Three of our competitors, Alyssa, Malik, and Sophie, were also ambassadors for the state. They attended online meetings throughout the school year, presented at the regional conference, and announced breakout session leaders and bread talk presented at the state conference. Their assistance throughout the conference made it more welcoming for new members and allowed them to take on more leadership roles in our state's FCCL. That evening, we all attended the opening general session where we were able to hear relevant for the next few days
005and some speeches. My favorite along with many other members came from Logan Gin, National Vice President of Public Relations. In her speech, she shared with us how important it is to use our voice even when it shakes. Malik and I had the privilege of being voting delegates where we voted on the state executive council for next year. In previous years, it's been up to the voting delegates alone to make the decision on behalf of our chapter, but I personally encouraged Mosh to instead host a chapter caucus where Malik and I shared about the candidates and we discussed how they would fit onto a team. This involved each member instead of only two people and we learned of in action how representative democracy selected to end the day. Mosin masterminds competed in the knowledge bowl for
006the second time ever. a team- based competition that tests six content areas including personal finance, consumer rights and responsibilities, technology, health and safety, environment, and FCCLA knowledge. This year, we had to take a quiz beforehand to even qualify for the on portion onstage portion of the competition. We didn't place as a chapter, but preparing for the event taught us many pieces of information that we can carry with us to adulthood. The next morning, we carved out results for the state executive council where we learned that our very own Sophia Caneter, a rising senior at Mos High School, was elected as the vice president of development. This is a very long and difficult process, but Sophie tackled it with determination and grace, representing our school well on the state level. It's the first time a Mosley
007student has been a state officer. We can't wait to see what she can accomplish over the next year. Throughout the rest of the morning and early afternoon, we all competed in our star events. Malik, Riley, and Laura competed in chapter Service Project Display, where they raised money to buy Christmas gifts for a local family in need through the women's shel or women's community. Kira and Josie competed in chapter Service Project Portfolio, where they prepared and served a meal to community members in need through the task force. and Kylie competed in Focus on Children where they went into our elementary school and taught a lesson plan about kindness. Madison competed in Focus on Children where she raised awareness about water safety and raised money to donate life jackets. I competed in leadership where I assessed her
008leadership and created smart goals to improvement. And Sophie competed in public policy advocate where she advocated for youth entrepreneurship, education, and funding. Before After competing, we had the opportunity to explore lots of different events of conference. Sophie and I presented red talks, Sophie's about entrepreneurship, and mine about managing commitments through a planned analogy. They were presented to members from all over the state. The FCCLA expo had information about different colleges and careers. The community connections room housed a service project that members were able to participate in. Breakout sessions were presented by local business professionals, teaching from driving through construction zone safely to networking effectively with others. There are free professional head shot available and there are lots of opportunities to meet new people from all over. Sophie also had the unique opportunity to speak with
009Dr. Jill Underly, Wisconsin State Superintendent of Public Instruction. She talked about her star events over the last three years and the impact they've had on her as well as entrepreneurship advocacy. This year in the afternoon and evening, we attended the say yes to FCS signing ceremony where we were taught about the ways that SCS education can become a future career path. After that was the fashion show where we saw outfits designed and created by high school students. To end the evening, we had a closing general session. This was where Sophie was inducted as the vice president of development and we began to wrap up an incredible conference. Just on this day alone, I walked over 22,500 steps, a large majority of which were in heels. With very little downtime, we were all exhausted by the
010end of the day. In the morning, we attended the recognition ceremony where we found out that three of our students received silver medals, 10 of them received gold, and 10 competitors qualified to compete this summer in Washington DC. And yes, before you say, I am crying in that picture because I was really proud of myself. This is an extremely competitive opportunity that requires lots of hard work, perseverance, and dedication. And we are so proud of each and every one of them. These conferences are so much more than what they initially seem. They provide learning opportunities about college and career readiness, ranging from eating in blazers without making a mess to public speaking as I'm doing here today. I would not be nearly half the leader that I am now without these kind of opportunities. They've
011been a beacon of hope for me as I explore my passions and possible career future career choices. And I can speak on behalf of all competitors when I say it has changed our lives. We're so excited to compete with BC this summer, representing not only ourselves, but our school district with pride. Thank you so much for your time and support. Any questions for >> just real quickly uh yesterday me and I sat in last night on a conference call Zoom meeting with all the state officers, administrators and parents. So they outlined all of uh Sophie's commitments for next year and it's a pretty uh it's a pretty big time commitment and on her part. So kudos to her and Ruby and everybody else for qualifying. >> Thank you very much. I can leave that if
012you guys are still looking for the future >> or you could just leave it here and show up. >> Save it for next year. >> All right. Item 6B, discussion, student service presentation. Good evening, guys. So, I came in the fall to talk to you about the goals we are working on within the special education department. So, this month, I'm going to talk to you a little bit what the student services department has been working on. So, really this year, as we know, mental health is becoming a larger concern across all districts. So, we really wanted to build our resources to say, how are we helping students? How are we helping teachers as that need for mental health increases? So, one of the two things we've really been focusing on are community partners and ways
013to get that. As we know, mental health professionals are in high demand and there's a long wait list to access mental health professionals. Then the other one is there was a grant for a best universal screener that we looked into that would give teachers ideas based on their relationship with students and say I'm seeing this in the classroom. What can I try? So these were two things we really worked hard to implement. Um one of the things we in looking at community partners, we are members of the Marathon County Schoolbased Counseling Consortium. Um, and what that group does, we really work to provide counselors in the school setting so that way kids are not missing time during the school day. And usually it's about a half day to leave school, go to a counseling appointment,
014then come back. It you're talking about a half day of school. And we want to lessen that for kids. So at the start of the year, we had just a high school counselor. So kids at the high school have been accessing Carmen is her name. She has been here for a few years and is doing a fantastic job. So she continues to see students. In November we did get one at the elementary level who is coming in to see students at school and then we now have someone reserved for the middle school for next year. So we will have one at each building which is very exciting. We keep it confidential and that's part of being part of the consortium. We do not identify who is going to counseling. We make referrals. It's very much
015like a doctor's office. They have an office. We make sure kids are called down, but they're not identified. But it's a great way to save family so they're not missing work. It's still built through their insurance. It's not something that we as a district pay for. we just have this partnership and it goes through the family insurance. Um then in looking at second semester but we realized in not having people kids were still needing to reach out and they were still looking to connect. So through our Google suite we did have access to something where we added a contract with what's called reach out and what kids can do from their Chromebook. And that's where I kind of had a picture to show you guys. So we use class link and under class link there
016is a student support folder. Kids can literally click on this and this is the next thing they see. It says let's start chatting and they can go in there and start chatting with a crisis counselor immediately. So and what they can talk about is stresses of school, suicidal ideiation or suicidal thoughts. um having issues with friends or things like that because our counselors are great, but some kids don't want to have those conversations face to face. They're comfortable having it this way. So, the nice thing about this too though, A, it's confidential. B, when we signed up for this, we did give these counselors information about, okay, phone numbers to Mosan Police Department, Marathon County Sheriff, the crisis center in case it is suicidal ideiation because if a kid can access this because it's on
017their Chromebook after school hours because they're going through something, they do try to get a hold of us, but if they can't, they then have numbers for people in our area to connect a kid to resources. So, go ahead. >> So, we get a monthly report and it doesn't say who has accessed it. It just says what type of interactions did they have with students? If it does get to that level where it's concerning like suicidal ideiation, the call comes to the district. We know who the student is. So we can then connect with the family to let them know that they are communicating with someone and something very concerning is coming up. So there is a way for those very concerning conversations to get back to the parents. So and hopefully that way too
018you're hearing it from us and not just having a police officer show up on your doorstep, you know, because I think you parents would want to hear it from someone at school first. But that's getting that out there. So, we do we just launched this second semester. I'd say our monthly report we're averaging about 10 students using it a month and it is the wide variety from peer conflict issues, social media issues, suicidal thoughts. So, it's all the variety is there but kids are tapping into it. Not a large amount. So what we're talking about as a student services team is how do we send out communication to say hey for next fall we remind them that this is here this is something that you can use if you're not seeing a counselor yet but
019you just need to talk to someone this is an option there. Um the last piece that we did participate in was the best grant. So, the best universal screener is a mental health screener to look at students and it rates them on three different scales. But how it works is teachers complete a questionnaire on students. It's about 20 to 25 questions and they're meant to respond quickly. Where would you rate this kid on this slacker scale from 1 to five? But what it does, it looks at a student. you will see at the where you see the little people in the middle up above you'll see a CG and P scale. So a C scale is conduct things like are they rating high for physical outward behaviors. The P scale is that personal are they
020rating high for depression and things internally and G scale is a combination of the two. So a kid gets a rating in three different areas. So, as you can see, here's example of a rating for a student. Um, but then it breaks it down into teachable skills of things we can work on. Where are they scoring high? If they're scoring high in depression, what can we do about it? But you will see that each behavior is highlighted and it's linked to give teachers a further definition of what that behavior is, what is meant by it. And then what the program does as well after you score a student, it will then give you here are three interventions to try with the student that are most likely to be successful. And when you click on it,
021I know you may see that and say praise. Well, we do that all the time. You click on it and it gives a further definition of what does it mean to use as an intervention. So, it means you have to be very specific. You can't just say, "Hey, Diane, great job." You have to be specific and how often you should be doing it for it to count as an intervention. So, that was one thing that was very nice that it's like it gives the details. So, as a teacher's wondering, well, how do I implement that? Because we think about teachers give a lot of praise every day. What does that look like for this kid who's struggling in this area? So, in thinking about the best and next steps, we really are looking at there's
022a grant that you can apply for every year. We applied for it this year. So, this is something we are getting for free right now. So I if we want to continue it's just putting that application in but we would like to look at trying to implement this at one of our schools whole school level to really understand the data how it works and the interventions. So that's looking forward with it. And I just got informed by best one of the things they're working on at the 612 level because right now it requires teachers to go through each student and say where are they at? But at 612 students know themselves pretty well. So they're working on having a student side where they can go through and answer the questions and we can see where
023they're landing and the research they're getting because they're doing some pilots with other districts is really with that P scale that personal side some kids are getting identified because they are rating themselves. You know from a teacher side you can just only see and maybe infer something you might see to get that P scale. So that's one thing they're working on to also have that student involvement on it. >> And the best screener was written, designed, implemented, and >> follow through on and everything is Dr. Eric Hartwick who used to run Marathon County special ed. >> Um Dr. Hartwig is one of the preeminent special ed behavioral type people in the country. Yes. >> Or even the world. He speaks all over the world. Uh he just he lives in Wasau. His kids went to
024Everest. So he's he's local to us and he's they've screened over tens of thousands even hundreds of thousands of kids they're up to now is how this has slowly been refined. >> He's a pretty good person. >> So this is the work student services has been doing this year. Do you have any questions? >> Um for a student to receive the counseling services, how how do they go about getting that? Does a parent contact someone? Do they need a doctor referral? >> That's a great question. So, all you do is call the school and we will refer it to our school counselors and they have the referral form and the school counselor then puts the referral in and then we our partner through the consortium is Compass Counseling. >> Then Compass Counseling talks to you
025from there, but the referral comes from us. So, they just have to call our school and connect with their child's counselor. Other questions? >> Thank you very much. >> Thank you. >> Item 6C, discussion, presentation of family engagement survey results. >> So, at the end of April, um, Clamper had asked that present on the the survey results. So, I I pulled out some of the highlights for you from that big spreadsheet. Um when you look at the respondents and the demographic makeup, we received 215 responses. Of those, 78 uh were families with kids in multiple buildings. The rest had single building households. So 62 middle school families, 32 high school families, 43 elementary school families. So, um, some items that I pulled out, one very positive score was 8 out of 10 was the average
026ranking for my child feels safe at school. Uh, so when we talk about the the need for belonging, the need to feel safe when they're at school, uh, it wraps up into that score. That's not to shy away from. there were comments about concerns regarding student behavior and and in their their child's classroom, but despite that, they still responded eight out of 10. So, when we think about how we can improve, right, there there is opportunity to to raise that score and we shouldn't ignore that that concern is also there. Um, another great uh score with room for improvement but as a foundational score is uh the average recommendation rate. So would you recommend Moses school district to another family? Um average score of seven and a half out of 10. So what does that
027tell us? It tells us we have uh several very vocal supporters that that rank that uh up really high. We have a very strong um I'm happy with what I have. Maybe not as vocal as others with their happiness. And then there's some detractors. Um, and so when we look at that as an overall rate, we know that there's room for improvement, which I'll highlight. Um, but that as a foundational baseline score, we have a pretty supportive family and community for the the role that the school plays in their children's lives. Um, when looking at uh some other key statements that I pulled out, our school supports academic learning and personal growth, a 7.1 out of four out of 10. and I feel welcome and valued as a partner. Um, I pulled that one out
028along with just communication as a general trend because um, you know, later we'll talk about strategic plan and one of those pillars and goals is to to change our relationship with families from simply communicating to collaborating, right? How do we welcome them into their child's education? Help them be a bigger part of it. Um, and so when I look at a score of I feel welcomed and valued as a partner, as a seven, I think there's a lot of room to grow that with shifting some of that narrative and the role that parents play in their child's education and how we can fix that and improve that in certain elements. When we looked at uh communication, we talked about a strategic area of focus. Uh overall there were a couple questions about like if I
029have a question I know where to go find it. The response was overwhelmingly positive that they know who to reach out to where to find an answer. Um overall the communication scores were solid. Uh one of the trends was as at the younger levels they rated district level communication a little lower than classroom level which we would right assume to be true based on the relationship of communication and then as the kids got older that flipped right. So when we we look at areas of ways to improve, how do we maintain family engagement in our students school journey as they get older because that signals that maybe there's a trend that there's a drop off at certain age um right or wrong. Uh another area was so uh around the area of our learner of
030a profile, we asked families to rank the importance of those skills. And when simply ranking the importance of those skills, all of the major skills that we included received a score of at least four out of five or some were higher. Right? So that average landed there. So we're in unison and alignment that these skills are really important to teach our students. But then when we flipped that question and said, "How good of a job is the school currently doing building those in?" That score dropped. Right? So now our scores were closer to the high twos and low threes. So when we talk about a strategic area of focus, that is an area that we need to do a better job of is explicitly teaching communication skills, explicitly teaching how to be a a resilient
031problem solver. And there was alignment within this family survey to support that it's important and that we could do a better job doing that. And then I've highlighted already the strengthening family partnerships. Go ahead. >> Yeah. Um just in your opinion if you took these surveys again, how much variation do you think there might be? Just >> probably around the same standard deviation variance you would expect from any survey. Um, you know, you have your 215 responses. When we've, you know, hired people to do surveys, they say somewhere between 10 and 15 response rate is pretty average. When we consider multi- family buildings of 78, that 215 represents more than 215 students. So, we're we're probably at the upper edge of that response rate to indicate >> a smaller margin of error. So, I would
032suspect that >> pretty close. It would be pretty close. >> So, did you say that you uh interviewed 250 people? Kids? >> No. 215 families responded to the survey? >> Tom, just to back up this question, could the same family of answered more than once if they weren't in the same household? >> It is it's tied to email. >> Okay. >> So, every you could only answer once per email. Got it. >> So in theory that I could not stop a mom and a dad with different emails from answering representing one child. >> We had talked about doing something similar for the whole community because this really just went out to parents, not the community as a whole. >> Yeah, >> I thought that was kind of maybe one of the next steps we had
033talked about too. Yeah, I think it'd be great to see that perception of those without kids in the district just as much, right? And compare the two experiences and I think that would be a great indication of how how are we getting to the community without ties and what is the perception that we're building and how do we improve that communication? >> Well, just one more. >> So, if you were to do the survey again, would you try to get the same families? No, I would still send to the whole district. Um, you know, the the hope is that we build trust within our families, uh, that we develop plans of improvement and we directly tie what we're doing to some of this feedback so they trust it. Maybe we can increase that response rate.
034But I think you would want to send it the whole district. Maybe it was a bad time for my family and I next time around I want to respond. I would want that feedback. Anything else? Do you think the timing could vary? I think when did when did you do the ser? >> January. >> Christmas time. >> Um >> yeah, I mean in an ideal world, it'd be nice to do a fall and a spring, you know, see see do we see improvement? Do we you might get a variance of families, but that's not a bad thing either. But I don't know the answer to that question. >> Anybody else questions? >> Thank you very much. >> Thank you. >> Item seven, public forum. Um the public forum provides the public with an opportunity to
035speak, ask questions about or address issues including the schoolboard agenda or data on the agenda. General operating rules for the public forum will be determined by the board president once the number of people issued to participate identified. Anybody? >> No. >> Okay. Item eight, consent agenda. I think with the exception of one item, we one item did pulled out. Did finance. Did you have any items pulled out? >> Nope. >> Curriculum, just the one item. >> Yep. 5A is pulled out. >> Can we make a motion to accept the consent agenda and then we'll talk about the one item after that? >> Right. You just pull that out. >> Yep. Pull that out. >> Yep. >> Can somebody make a motion? >> I'll make the motion. >> We have the motion to accept the consent
036agenda. with pulling item 5A out of the instructional curriculum meeting. I have a second second by Zebro. Any discussion? >> Diana, you're the first. >> Yes. >> Okay. All those in favor say I. >> I. All opposed. >> All right. Motion carries. All right. Item number five, which was the adoption of the K through8 um math curriculum. And Tom, I think you have a presentation for us, correct? >> Yep. >> Okay. So, uh, I will go through this. Um, know that we have a a team of teachers here that were a part of the process at both the elementary and middle school level. So, if you have specific questions to them, um, feel free. But, I will run through all of this quickly and then we'll get to that question. First thing I wanted to
037do was start with just a a short two and a half minute film that we started with all of our teachers when we started this process. They watched this. It was a point of discussion. This is just simply a trailer for a documentary um that is being released this spring talking about the integration of math in our lives at a deeper and deeper level each and every day and and what that potentially means uh for that. So I don't know volume >> if you think about the 20th century then you're thinking well you need to know If you think about the 20th century, then you're thinking, well, you need to know enough math to function at the post office. But in the 21st century, we're in a different ball game. The world that we're moving
038toward has math everywhere. And I don't mean this in like a there's math everywhere, kids kind of a way. They need something concrete and kind of dark. >> You've seen the math just fly out of control with this virus, social media privacy, >> carnage on Wall Street. >> When you consider the issues that we as a society face, most of them are fundamentally mathematic. The algorithm, AI, health insurance, climate change, there's no way to think about gerrymandering without thinking about math. Math is central to what democracy will or will not become. We have a math crisis in America because we have taught math in a way that alienates people. >> It made me not want to go to school. >> We mispredict who can and who can't do what based on socioeconomic status. We mispredict
039based on race. We mispredict based on gender. for as long as this algorithm misrepresents me, I'm going to be denied parole and I'm going to I'm going to stay in prison. >> There is a view that if you're not going to go into science and engineering, finance, and accounting, then you don't need to do math. And that is a very narrow view of what math is. >> Social media platforms are trying to limit the spread of conspiracy theories. What we need now is the ability to discern what counts as good information and what doesn't. >> That's what math brings us. It's a language for proving things. We need to be able to understand when people are making particular kinds of arguments. Whether or not there's data to support them. >> 99% of the ISIS and
040al-Qaeda content that we take down on Facebook, our AI systems flag before any human sees it. Did you know that if you insert a single statistic into an assertion, people are 92% more likely to accept it without question? >> Everyone is capable of mathematical thinking. It's like an inheritance you get just for being human. >> It's not just about numbers and equations. It's about thinking logically about the whole human world. Whether you're trying to win a basketball game, find a cure for cancer, everything ends up being a math problem. The question is, how is it that we can begin to use math to actually understand the world and then to also change the world? >> So, what we wanted to do was have a conversation about how math continues to integrate itself into more and
041more of our kids' lives. And when we talk about the advent of technology and programming and and the power of ones and zeros programmed in a certain way and what that has created with these algorithms that AI can generate, more and more fields are requiring a complex level understanding of math, making it even more imperative that our students are proficient in it before they leave our our school system. So, um, we wanted to have that conversation, uh, right away to set the tone as to why we were starting to look at this, why having math as part of a a conversation is important. Um, and the the video said, we we do have declining math rates, and in a world that is becoming more and more dependent on math, we need to address that. We
042need we need to make it part of a conversation. So um why review what the context is of what we currently use from K8? We use uh engage New York which is a product of Eureka math. We adopted about 10 years ago and had a really strong implementation and saw a really strong math scores. What we see though is engaged New York was an archive became an archived program because great minds bought Eureka as part of their product and so they archived engaged New York which makes it still accessible to our teachers. If we want to go find it, we can still go find it. We have to print it all ourselves. We have to organize it ourselves. Um there's no professional development from a company. Um and what we've seen is in especially in
043our areas where higher turnover rate that onboarding of teachers using that resource has become difficult. And so what we're seeing is a strong adoption starting to wear off as we turn over teachers and where we have new newer teachers. We're seeing that um that's a struggle. In 2021 DPI updated our math standards. uh that was an update from 2010 and we didn't look at our the we didn't look at the standards when those were updated. So whether we adopted a new resource or not, it was time to take a look at math and understand what those new standards are, make sure that the the material we adopted in 2015 was still meeting the needs of what our new standards in 2021 were. And so it was time to just look and review that process and
044audit what we were currently doing. The other part is we wanted to take a look at our data. What did our data say? So I broke it apart between our Mosing and elementary school. This is school not grade level. I would again remind us that achievement and proficient is difficult to compare because of the change to those benchmarks at DPI. The growth score can continue to be used as a comparison. But if you remember in 232 24 they changed the proficiency line and then froze that achievement score because they didn't want schools to look bad or good based on that. So 23 24's achievement score is frozen and not accurate and 81 is pertaining to the new standard. So comparing 2425 achievement to 2122 is not necessarily apples to apples. the growth is and so
045this was alarming to us when we looked at our growth in 2122 our middle school had a growth score of 81.3 and last year it had a growth score of 66. So how the growth score is measured is you take a student's uh test score from the year before. They're grouped into the students that had the same exact test score and then it compares how are they the next year compared to those same exact students. So 66 would mean that they kept pace with all students who started at the same spot. Anything above would mean they exceeded that growth. Anything below would mean that they trailed. Um at our elementary school we they don't have growth. It's important because remember only third grade tests and so they can't have a previous year to measure. So
046they just have their achievement scored. But even with the change in proficiency, we saw a decrease. So we knew that we had to at least look and monitor what what we were doing and what our resources looked like. Uh so what this process looked like and this has spanned multiple years. Um some decisions I was involved with and some I was not. So the process started way back in January of 2024. there was a K12 meeting addressing the need to look at and adopt materials. Um about a week later, the decision was made to split up that process by building, which means the it was decided that the high school would start and then it would move down. So, the high school reviewed, piloted, uh that decision was made in spring 2024. In the fall,
047the high school did their pilot in high school algebra. Then middle school slowly started their process at semester in January. Um, but that process fell off in the spring of 2025. So it was intended that they would make a recommendation and it did not come back with that. So once the high school decision was made this year, we combined the two processes to catch them up. So that wasn't part of the original plan, but the middle school stalled out last spring and so we brought them back. We started them this year. So that was the original plan and timeline. What actually happened was this year we combined the middle school and high school or middle school and elementary process together which is why it's K8 today. Um what this process looked like when we did
048it uh we took a look at the state standards understanding what are these how did they change? We did some professional learning around a segment of the state standards which is known as the math practices. So beyond simple concepts, what can students do with the math that is presented? We did some instructional look for us. So looking at these standards, looking at those math practices, what does a math classroom look for look like uh when all of this is going really well? And then we developed a rubric around those instructional practices. So when we actually looked at the resources, we were evaluating it on lesson design. Um not necessarily if you've ever sat through like a presentation done by a curriculum company. It's like uh buying a card. You know, they highlight every bell and
049whistle. 90% you're never going to use, right? So it's really easy when you get into that presentation. So we wanted to develop a rubric that really highlighted the lesson design part that we felt would change math outcomes for our students. Then we took a look at started looking at materials when that was done. So we reviewed selected materials analyzed using those rubrics. We practiced designing lessons. We designed sample lessons to see how easy was it to do this? Would is the material easy to navigate? Is it easy to actually put in front in a a coherent lesson? Uh we assessed what do the assessments look like? Does the lesson design match what we're going to be asking kids to do? Is there coherence and alignment there? We did some school visits where applicable uh and
050then tried some lessons in units to see if it actually worked. Um here are the different materials we reviewed at the K5 level. They reviewed Eureka Squared which is the updated version of what they are using. They reviewed Illustrative Mathematics. They reviewed Envision Reveal Bridges and I Ready. The middle school took a look at Illustrative Math, Math Nation. Envision, reveal and Eureka squared. And after this process today, what we are recommending is a K8 adoption of illustrative mathematics which would give us a K12 alignment through algebra 2. Why illustrative? So if we look at the local data we collected through this process, uh the teachers who were involved in the team, if we add up all of their scores on the rubric, it was the highest rated curriculum for our rubric. It had the most
051number one ranks among our teacher and the highest collective score. It is also the highest rated on ed reports which is a third party curriculum rating uh company that uses their own rubric. Uh and what we felt was the lesson design is the most aligned to the math instruction that we currently do and the and the improvements we would like to make. It is an open-source model that provides a lot of resources for our teachers as well as strong professional learning around it and it aligns to the work already done with Eureka. We have a strong implementation and those teachers that were part of that the the learning that they did fits this curriculum and enhances it. So we feel like it is a fit to the math journey we've already been on and a
052natural transition to the next part of our improvement. And then bonus is it gives us a K12 alignment which we've seen success the last 10 years using Eureka in a K12 alignment. Additional data we collected is uh when we look at our 24 25 the largest subgroup jump in improved achievement we saw was our high school 9th grade math score which would correspond to algebra which piloted this math curriculum that year. With the help and collaboration of Wisconsin Math Institute, I was able to collect a spreadsheet of all districts who have knowingly adopted illustrative math. And we took all of their test data from 2020 to and 2021 to current. We did our best to find and the ones that we could tell what year they actually adopted. We were able to collect some some
053data. The average growth score for those districts is 68.99. The average change in proficiency after implementation was an 18% increase. The average achievement score increase at least three years after was a nine uh 8.2. And when we think about that drop that we saw in our growth score, uh it was more significant in the middle school, but our district one was 75.2 and last year it was 62. That growth score is something we're really looking to highlight as as to a reason. Some other instructional design features that we really like. There are really strong predictable math routines built into every lesson uh and really highlighted through the daily warm-up that's relative relevant to the grade level standard that creates a not only a welcoming environment but encourages mental math, builds fluency. Uh it's a segment
054where they encourage students not to even do the math on their pencil, really fight through and use their brain to me mentally compute. um and work through that part of it. There is a a strong low floor high ceiling lesson design, meaning it's a lesson design that all students not only have access to, but can thrive in regardless of their current level of understanding. The way that it's designed is every student can have access. There's a very strong coherence in the design between and within grade levels. When we look at why units are organized the way that they are, why lessons are designed the way that they are, and how they structure from year to year, there's just a very strong coherence that we feel is going to really benefit our students. It promotes and
055prioritizes tasks that promote deeper thinking. Uh it's not going to be a surface level understanding of math. It's going to be a very deep and rigorous understanding of of math and the concepts at grade level. There's strong standards alignment. So when we look at those updated standards in 2021 and increasing the achievement and growth scores, uh this should do it. It should hold us accountable to the le level of rigor that our students are expected, not necessarily the level of rigor we think that they should be expected. Uh, and then they have really strong formative and summitive assessments built right in for our teachers. They don't have to design their own stuff. Another benefit is uh if if you're not familiar, our current middle school has an accelerated pathway in math for our students who
056uh excel. So after fifth grade, depending on their scores and achievement, they're able to to hop into a sixth grade accelerated pathway. If they do really well, then there they're able to hop into a seventh grade accelerated pathway so that they can take algebra in eighth grade for high school credit, which gives them access to higher level math skills. What this does is it it actually has a prescribed accelerated middle school unit for our teachers. Right now, what they've done is they've created their own to make it the best for our students and have done an incredible job. Now, this curriculum has one built for those classes that's standard aligned. Make sure that within that accelerated pathway, there's no holes in instruction. We're not missing standards, and that our students are truly designed and ready
057for algebra 1 when they hit eighth grade. Um, I included a sample lesson if you wanted to look at what they look like. Uh I have a sample teacher one so you can kind of see. Uh the other thing that the teachers really like is uh again all of this is built for them. It's editable for them. So if they have students who need certain things, they can edit it. This is what a grade six lesson would look like. So we talked about um you know they're going to find equivalent ratios. So, how you would design this, what what they would tell you is you should only put one of these up at a time. So, what this warm-up looks like is kids talking about math. Now, this is a concept that they've been introduced
058to before, but it's a concept that's going to help them later in the lesson and it's promoting fluency. So, if you read the teacher guide, and I printed one off, uh it's extensive teacher guide. It's going to tell you put one up on the board at a time. No pencils. This is 100% mental math. And students just do the best that they can. And so after each one, you have students, you know, signal that they have it. And when they do, they're going to talk with a partner first to see if their partner has it. And then the teacher is going to go through the different ideas and ways students mentally thought of how to solve this. Show how each one of them solved so they can work through it. If you see, there's a
059pattern being built within this warm-up. So then the second one, you can see instead of 1/3 of 21, they're calculating 16th of 21. Then the third one is going to give them a different look to challenge them, wake them up. But then you can see it goes from 5.6 * 1/8. The next one is 1/4 * 5.6. So they're they're building patterns. And as you see, once you get done with that, now it's going to take them into the lesson in which they're going to use that exact same concept to now build up and use this when creating equivalent ratios. So, this warmup invites them. It's it's a low stakes warm-up. It takes five minutes, but when we talk about low low floor, high ceiling, all students can participate in that. All students can hear
060the different thinking that's going on in the math classroom and the teachers involved in direct instruction at the end of each one to make sure that they understand how to do it before we get to this. So then we would put this problem up and again this is lesson 12. So it would be building off the day before. So the students would either work by themselves or with partners depending on teacher discretion. Um, and they would go through this. At the conclusion of students being done with this, the teacher then would go through how to do it, solicit feedback from students, and it follows that pattern all the way through um what the teacher's guide is going to present to you. Then there's going to be a lesson synthesis. There's going in the student workbook,
061there's going to be a worked example that shows them exactly how to do this. And so this is guiding the teacher how to wrap up that lesson and and show them exactly what they just learned about creating those uh equivalent ratios. Uh there's a cool down with every lesson. So when we talk about our teachers needing to give formative assessments and some kind of pulse check on where students are at, this has a built-in cool down for every lesson. And then each unit is built up into sections and at the end of every section there's a quiz. When I talked about the teacher guide, there's a very robust explanation of of just about everything for every lesson in that teacher guide. So, there's a section that says, if you have special education students with a
062math goal, here are some strategies to engage them in this lesson. If your students are struggling with this concept, here are some questions to probe them and guide them in the right way. There's guidance on the cooldown. If your students don't do well on the cool down, this is how I would start tomorrow's lesson or this is a small group activity you could do with students who didn't get that. When we look at the research uh on on math instruction, this lesson design follows uh a you do, we do, I do model, meaning students need to be engaging in the math process. They need to be getting feedback directly along the way from a teacher. They need to be talking about their math and their thinking. And then they need a wrap up or a
063synthesis of that lesson when it's all said and done and a formative check with feedback following. And when we looked at all of the resources, this lesson design was the most coherent and what we felt the most um I guess conditional to strong and rigorous student learning. Here's some additional information. So, I I shared one of the nice things is as an opensource material, there are there are honestly too many resources for us to use all of them. So, they have a fully open family information spot. So, every family can go in and and read about uh what it what it is their kids learning on math. There's a family section for every lesson that provides parent assistance on how to help your student what questions to ask if they're stuck at at home. Um
064that's in that lesson support. Khan Academy is a free online learning platform that is fully aligned to this curriculum. Uh there is an in-depth scope and sequence to help our teachers understand not only why lessons are designed to be ordered, but if you're running short on time, this is a lesson you can skip. If you need to combine two lessons, these are two that you can combine. Um dependency guide. This is something that I think is really strong and what and something that not any I didn't see from any other curriculum we looked at. So when we talk about the coherence uh in the design of this curriculum for every class they have a dependency guide. So it goes and each unit shows this. So I'm trying to zoom in but let's say I'm teaching
065third grade uh and I'm teaching lesson 3.7. It's going to show me that uh actually that's a well a good example for an accelerated learner. Let's say I have an accelerated learner and I'm teaching 4.7. It's showing and telling me that the fourth grade lesson in this unit, lesson eight, is the same concept but at the next grade level. And so you can look to there for problems to challenge that that student. On the flip side, uh you can see the other lines help us with how to intervene with students. So if I'm teaching sixth grade and I'm on 6.4, 4. I know that that lesson and concept corresponds with 5.3. So if I need to go grab a problem to get a student going who's struggling at the grade level covering the exact same
066topic, but now I know that it's fully aligned and coherent to the standards and where that instruction is. And so this this is available for teachers for every uh unit. And it it just shows the thought process and how strong the design of the different units are. The hub is a a resource that they've compiled with resources that are there to help teachers. So for example, in the middle school, there's a short five minute video for every section of a unit explaining the conceptual understanding of that math concept. So if they're entering um fractions, multiplying fractions, uh there's a video that talks about this is how conceptual understanding is built. If you have misconceptions, here are things to go back to. Here are some strategies to try if you have an advanced learner. And so
067there's videos there. Assessments is a free uh assessment portal that we will have access to that is fully aligned. So let's say um we wanted to create uh an alternative summitive assessment for a unit. The teachers could go on there, it's fully aligned to our curriculum and build. Or maybe the first one didn't go well, right? and they want to retach to students and give a second assessment but not the same one, they can go in there for free and recreate a second one that's fully aligned to the curriculum. Um, with any implementation, regardless of material, uh, your professional learning surrounded that implementation is is the most important piece. And so, uh, with approval, we would contract with Math Insights Consulting. They're certified illustrative math consultants. They have a 68 representative as well as a
068K5 representative. They're all certified through IM uh and have extensive experience helping districts implement and uh adopt. And then we were approached uh by West End which is a educational research company that studies specifically uh they're they're undergoing a specific middle school math adoption research project. Uh, and what they would like to do and what we would like to partner with them is come in and do surveys and empathy interviews with our students and teachers as to how this adoption is going, how their opinions of their math skills have changed since adoption from a teacher standpoint. Do you feel supported? Did you have the level of learning? And then they'll be able to give us that data, help us cross reference that with student achievement to determine if our implementation was strong, what are other
069areas? In exchange for our participation, they would give us a $7,000 stipen to go towards that coaching piece and that professional learning to help us with that cost. So, what does that what does this cost? So, um when we look at these numbers, the first thing I I would draw your attention to is I I've already said it's open resource. Adoption is free. What these numbers are is printing costs from the company. Um so for the last 10 years for example we have been doing our own printing and copying. Uh what this proposal is especially in year one is using the company's resources for workbooks in that first year and then deciding from there what we do. So, for example, on two school visits we went to, they said after year one, they decided at
070the K1 level no longer to do workbooks because so much of what they do is whole group at the board, especially early on, that they just printed what they needed to print and it was much cheaper. Uh, keeping in mind when we look at this total cost, about half of that we already spend on copying, right? So we'd be taking that out of the budget um because of the copies we currently make uh and then applying to that. So new cost is not that full as we would be um taking from another area. And even with the cent's kits I this is us getting from them. I talked to two districts that said they just made them their own and they were way better. So, but the reason I put asterisks there is those total
071numbers could change depending on decisions on whether or not we print certain things for ourselves. Um, and then from year to year, what we would choose to order to go along with this, we uh are proposing at at grade levels four through eight a supplemental math resource. Um, as part of the staffing plan, we no longer have an interventionist in our middle school. And what this does is it replaces some materials we're already using. Um, our math block in fifth through 8th grade is 80 minutes and fourth grade is 75. The core lesson of IM is designed for 60 minutes. And what we want to do is be able to provide personalized and direct intervention to students around math skills because we know when we get to high school, while there's certain concepts that students
072can do, they do develop certain holes of skills that we want to backfill, especially in year one of how to build a really complete mathematician. And so what we're looking to do is use programs we're already using that we don't want to anymore that we don't feel have the the impact that they did. Uh, and revert that for a very specific Alex math program. The nice thing we liked about Alex is not only can our teachers assign grade level specific content for extra practice. So, if they're doing multiplying fractions, they can assign extra practice multiplying fractions and then it's adaptive to students. But there's also a diagnostic test that assesses where every student is at. And then there's a personal pathway along all the skills that they don't have as they try and build those
073up during that time. So with that, I would open up for questions to either me or the teachers here. >> Tom, we use this at the high school already, right? Yeah. >> Um, has that been as advertised? Is it gone? We adopted this is the adopted that last spring, correct? >> Yep. >> And so, has that gone as you had hoped? >> Yeah, I would say uh there's been some bumps in the road in certain areas. I I would say that we were shortsighted in the learning needed for the teachers not a part of the pilot. And so when we realized that and were able to get them the learning and help and support, things have gone much better. But to start the school year, we did not support them the same way we did
074the teachers who piloted uh because we just assumed it would transfer and that was a big mistake. >> So that I'm going to assume you're that that learning is built into how you would implement this understanding >> 100%. So go ahead. >> A few slides back you had said that there are fields that are more complex in terms of math. What career fields are you alluding to? >> A few slides back. >> Yeah, I was about a quarter of the way through the presentation. It wasn't any particular slide. It was just you were talking about it and stating that we have this need for change because math career fields are becoming more complex in terms and the need for math. So that was after the video and what I'm what I'm referring to is math
075is integrated at a deeper level in more careers and when we look at technology and how algorithms are built the the the role of AI and understanding the the logic built when we learn math at a deep level needed to discern information misinformation financial literacy when we talk about um even on a financial literacy standpoint of the need to understand compound interest rates always been there. But when we talk about the the wealth gap and and where people are at financially, it becomes even more important to discern differences between pennies and how students are doing. So I guess that's what I'm referring to is it's the complex side of math has moved into more careers as the advent of technology and some of that daily stuff has been adopted by technology. >> So Ben, why
076I'm trying to understand like why you think this concept works better than the basics the fundamentals of math. >> The academic research around it tells us it does. Is that supported by test scores? >> Yeah. >> Okay. >> I think it's supported by our test scores. >> Good. >> I can I can share with you the top top school in the top school district >> test score wise in the state of Wisconsin uses this White Fish Bay. >> If you don't know anything about White Fish Bay, they are considered possibly in the top 10 in the nation. >> I went and sent you a list of all the school districts that are using this now. And when I saw white fish bay, I went and dug a little bit deeper and that's they've been using
077it for a while. >> Have you um this in the elementary school at all? >> You so that is the concept that like you said students kind of do it first then they teach it. Do you think implementing that in the elementary school level could be challenging? >> So I mean >> students work together. >> What I would what I would So it's not every time students working together, right? Every teacher has the discretion. I've seen this taught incredibly well with very little partner talk. Um because I think the coherent design is so strong. However, when I when we talked with our K52, they were a little worried about it and they went did a school visit and and after seeing it and after experiencing what they've done already with Eureka the last 10 years,
078they feel like this is probably a much smaller jump than what they originally thought as far as a change to what they would do compared to what they're already doing. >> Do do you feel that all students today need this depth of math nuance if I want to call it that. I mean there's obviously people a lot of people out there uh functioning quite well in society with the old if you want to call it the old or however I want to put that without and the other thing is Tom what do we say to the parents that say their kids are strong is that just because they're not ever going to be achievers in math or we leave them behind I don't want to be mean about what I just said but >> I
079I think I think First, we have to consider the baseline. There has always been kids that struggle in math. >> All right. >> Right. And and I would argue that that percentage is that percentage has always been there. And so that baseline isn't changing. And as what we do know though is to get more people above that baseline is we do have to change the way we teach. explicit direct instruction where we just simply show an algorithm for 20 minutes and then say go do 20 problems. It doesn't work. It works for a very small percentage of the students. And so regardless of re resource just about every resource is moving to some form of model like this because the research supports that that's how more students are going to learn math at a deeper
080level. Now, to your question about parents, that's why I like this one so much. The the parent and family resources are abundant more than any other one that there is. And so, okay, it's there. >> You got some good answers, Tom. Um, but there are parents that have kids that I don't think the ones that I've been exposed to are not unintelligent and they're still seem to be struggling. What program do we have to make sure that we minimize that? And I know there's always going to be kids that struggle with math and they won't all be proficient. And and do they all need to be as proficient as what this program is trying to get them at? I mean, I know I took a lot of math and when I got out of high
081school, I never used it again, you know? And I'm not trying to be a hard ass. >> Yeah. I just want to make sure that every kid has a good chance to survive here with new math. And I mean, we had new math when I was a kid, too, a long time ago. But the the the state tells us every kid has to get to this level of math. The state standards say every kid has to learn this. So, we we can't we adopt those every July. We can't say that not every kid needs to be here right now. Do I agree there's a serious conversation we need to have about high school math options? I do. I don't think that every kid needs to try to get to Cal, >> right? I you know
082what I mean? I I think I think that's where the conversation needs to happen. But at a K K8 level, we need to make sure every kid has the foundational knowledge that these standards say because they're being measured outside of Mosan, right? These standards are across the state. We have to try and make sure that we're >> so part of what we're trying to do here, Tom, is make sure that we can achieve some standards that the state deems necessary. >> Yep. >> Are they necessary in real life? I know a lot of things that the state requires that are just BS >> I can answer that for him because me was there. We had the privilege of having two green neck workers come in with some technology and um have the kids weld and
083do projects. So, one of them was a former student and he played football for me. So I went to see what he was doing and him and I were talking and he goes he goes I really had to learn practical math to build these projects and work at Green and if I didn't I wouldn't have the job that I I have today. And he was telling the kids that that you have to know how to use applied math and they were making all kinds of projects. And we were fortunate to have Green donate the equipment and the workers to come and show them that these skills are important to have. Now, if you would asked this kid in high school, he'd told you, "I don't want to learn math. I don't want anything to do
084with math." >> That didn't he wouldn't learn math. But in the depth that you're talking about, >> well, he he basically said he he had to learn some math real fast >> and wishes he would have paid attention. >> No matter where you go in in a job, you're going to have to learn new things. >> Yeah. whether it's math or >> I think we're trying to get ahead of that curve for kids. >> I don't I don't think we can if our the parents can't even offer help and support at home. I mean, I know just this past week, I've asked six different families and not one of them had anything positive to say in terms of their children struggling and they're very frustrated. Their children are frustrated because they don't know how to
085help them. I asked you, Tom, how would you what would you tell a parent that can't help their kid and the kid's struggling and and it's questionable whether you need this level of math in the job that they might end up in? I mean, >> so are you saying then that we should dumb the system down? >> No. No. But >> we give certain students that really want to excel in math a chance to do this. >> This is K8. So this is what is universally taught to every kid. So if we're going to change the system >> right now though, right? >> Correct. >> That's what we're proposing. >> But I but I would argue we're we're using a program that isn't drastically different. This this has >> been done for 10 years. So
086the the problem you're describing is not new. >> And I got to apologize. I always mention to you that I wanted to get in and really get in depth and I haven't had time to do that. I don't know. And um and another thing I keep talking about is how do we educate the parents that this isn't as tough as they're maybe making it look, you know, Tom, I'm just getting the parents on board. Go ahead. >> Okay. A comment and then a question. Um, I work in different districts and I've worked in math in another district. what you explained here with the parent resources and and things that go with it, they did not have in their map. not as comprehensive as what you've and yes when I was working with the kids I
087had a struggle because I had to find where you know you come in in the middle of a math you know lesson and I had to find places to get the answers or help them through it because the resources weren't there >> so I h have to say this seems to have more help for for parents or for people that are helping within, you know, the school district as helpers. Question. Um so with this program um is there like um during this 80 minutes that they would have so is there time where the lesson is presented you have the warm up you said and the lesson is presented and then um the students have probably a lesson that they have to so during that time is there time for the teacher to maybe take a
088group of kids and work with a group of kids, you know, where and some can maybe be going ahead on some other things. They've mastered this, they can go. So, is there time where the teacher can actually take a group and work with the group separate that might be struggling or might need extra help? >> I'm going to I'm going to answer that question from two angles because it's different for two age sets. So our our K3 teams only get a recurrently 60 minutes for math. So that core lesson is going to go right up to the end. Um now what's nice is that that teachers guide helps them plan with that and it says through this lesson if you have students not getting it, here's a day where you skip a lesson and do
089small group instruction and work with those students. So, it helps you plan strategically when you stop and work with those students. They also have their win time. And then that's where that dependency guide can come in where they can say, "I'm on 3.2. My students don't understand it. I'm going to go pull the lesson from 2.7 to to remind them." Or if I'm a special ed teacher, I'm going to maybe pre-each that lesson right the day before so when they come into the core class, they're ready to go. The four eight group is going to have a lot more flexibility. That math block is 80 minutes. So they can finish in 60 minutes and be able to pull groups if they need to um to work on that. And then that's where that pitch for
090that Alex comes in so that every student has access to high quality resource during that time. >> One more question. >> I want to just tie into her. So, when you're talking about how that teacher might be able to come back down to that one lesson plan, is there a way to maybe because these are younger students that maybe it's the way the question is proposed? Like maybe they're having a reading issue with that question and is there a way to determine that they're not understanding because they're just not grasping the question properly >> 100%. And that's that's the art of teaching. Um, and our our teachers know their students so well. They they are able to discern that. And then within the teachers guide, it even talks um students with struggling learners. There's notes
091in every lesson how you can adapt your lesson. If your class is or you know some districts it if you have less than half of your kids able to read at grade level, here are your modifications that you're going to make to your core instruction so that this is accessible. So there's notes um for every lesson on how to address that. >> So I have a few thoughts. Um, you know, we discussed this a lot the last time you implemented this in the high school. First of all, I have a question. Um, so we talked about the ninth grade, but what other high school courses are using this >> now? Geometry with the full out uh full adoption. Now, geometry and algebra 2 is anything above algebra 2 is directed by college courses and AP
092courses. Um, and it's two or this is year one. So, we have local data, but if you're looking test data. We don't have that. And and the local data again, I would say early was shaky because we didn't provide the right support and how to read these. The the teacher manual is thick and and being able to read and know where to find all of that stuff. Once you know, it's easy, but if you don't provide that in that training, which we didn't, and then when we modified the way we did things, we've seen much better success. So, I think that we talked a lot last time about just, you know, the common core math and not necessarily just in our district, but I and I know that aligns with the state standards and we
093need to, you know, fall into place with that. However, it just seems not just our district, but nationwide like scores have kind of declined. And so, you know, to talk about going back to just a basic understanding, I think we do need those foundational skills. Um, but I I have heard some feedback from parents that have struggled with, you know, a students in this math with this math curriculum. So, that concerns me a little bit. >> Was was that at the high school level? >> At the high school level. Okay. and some students that I think have maybe even been piloting this in the at the middle school level. And these are good students. They're not students that typically struggle with math and they're struggling with it. >> They're all good students. It's just >>
094well agreed. But you know what I mean. >> Students that typically >> I can just tell you 20 years ago when I was teaching parent teacher conferences, I would have parents come to me and say struggling in math. I don't understand math. So that is a probably a problem. We need to address that. Maybe we need to find better resources, better assistance for our our parents. But this style of teaching is totally different than probably everybody at this table was taught. This isn't about memorization. This is concepts and application and creativity. And to Tom's point, if you look at AI and all the job creations and even what Jason Nuda told me about Greenick and his welding, this is it. This is what's happening and forcing people to function in jobs and society. >> I
095think the complaints we hear as a board member, we have to first look at what are the themes of it. There's a lot of issues with math that are getting compounded. You've got elementary school parents upset because of they show so many different ways to get to the problem when we're used to just memorizing it and that's how you get to the problem. You have this particular map that albeit a good program the implementation stumbled and so that left a bad taste in in parents' mouths in teachers mouth you know so you're you're conf when then we've got this old math back to the basics new math doing right so there's a lot of vaguess about what we're talking about and I think that when parents come to you that that's where the disconnect that
096we're talking about in communication how does a teach a a parent know how to help their child that disconnect just exacerbates the entire situation right in terms of this curriculum clearly you know fness and panel is a cautionary tale for every bold best curriculum there could ever be that has amassed a cult following of of schools and teachers who are who are in it. Um, so I always keep that in the back of mind when you're looking at a curriculum. But when I look at the work you've done and how thorough you've vetted these and that top statistic alone really like gives me pause and thinks, well, there's something here. I think it's unfortunate that the implementation didn't take off and now you took one step forward only to take two steps back. But I
097do believe with the right professional development, this could be great. I want to ask is it two third grade two sixth grade teachers here >> and Dan okay so you guys piloted the program all veteran teachers though the program could be the best program in the world but if the teachers don't believe in it if the teachers cannot develop deliver that lesson with fidelity it's nothing right there's there's no meaning to it so do you feel not at your level of teaching because you're all veterans and you're all some of the best teachers that we have in our district. Let's say I'm a brand new teacher. Can I come in with the limited amount of time, resources, you know, supports that I have and deliver this lesson in the way it's meant to be delivered.
098>> That's that's a pretty tricky question. >> Well, I think that's what it comes down to. >> You obviously have to put the time into it daily to get a good handle on it. teacher, you balancing a lot of things as it is >> right >> now. In terms of this math curriculum, it's laid out really well. And once you kind of get a a hand of a routine, things just kind of go really well. >> When we met as a middle school team, the number one thing that we told Tom and Mr. Spike when they were in the room was we need the professional development. We were a part of this pilot 10 years ago and without that professional development as a math department, it will not be as successful as it could be.
099And they told us that was top priority. And we've seen that with a few of us that have piloted already. We've had in our classrooms. We've had math coaches from Whis. Like we've had more people in our classrooms this year for that support for those of us that were piloting than ever. So I believe in that commitment too and ask for that commitment from the board too for that prof professional development piece because that is going to be huge in this implementation. >> And I'll say 10 years ago is when we began the program that we're currently using, >> right? >> That was such a very well done PD piece for us as professionals. >> You'll need to first >> the I mean on my team I am the only one left on my team
100who is still here who had that de professional development nine 10 years ago. So many of our staff have turned over so many of the who are teaching math at the K level in our district have turned over probably I would say at least half of them didn't get that original development when this was implemented. This sets everybody on a fresh page with this program >> to move forward and I recommend I mean the initial professional devel but we have gone and seen it in action And when I look at it compared to what we're currently using, there's stretches and changes that we will be making, but it is doable. Like it's not like Tom said, it's not initially when we looked at it, we thought, "Oh, this is really pushing us." And it it
101is, but it's pushing us in a way that will help us grow as teachers and help our students grow, too. But the and we emphasize that over and over. The professional development is what is critical and key just having quality um development that is ongoing and not just one time. >> And just to speak to that, 10 years ago I switched from teaching title one reading, right, which is very different from teaching third grade. Um and I was part of, you know, that professional development and some with me things and got that m background. Um, and that's what made a difference in being able to grasp the program. Any new program that we take on is going to take extra work and extra time, right? Um, and and that's that's what we should be doing,
102right? That's good quality education that we take on that learning. Um, but it also is exciting. It's empowering. It brings us together as, you know, a K8 um staff, right, to say like what can we bring to kids and how you know, how's it working for you? What have you noticed? I mean, it's the conversations are really valuable to grow our learning as teachers and our learning from our students. >> And one more point, the those conversations and that development isn't just for math. I mean, that's what the purp you know, that's what the initial um thing will be for, but it actually is goes across teaching. So, it's not just for that one purpose. Anybody who's participating in quality development actually can apply that to other subject areas too and become better at what
103we do also across the board. >> I I can I comment again? I I don't think we're questioning the teachers commitment and skills at making us work as best as it can. We're just saying is this the best program for our kids? And I I know you're going to say yes, but how do we know that? And and maybe there is no answer there, but we have to go out we the board members have to go out and deal with the parents. You you probably don't get that that much. >> I And what do you tell them when they they are just who down on the whole thing? I mean, is that a certain casualty rate that we have to learn to live with? and what's our story? >> I I think we need to
104address that that I don't care if it's math or whatever it is, we need to talk about how we're going to deal with parents that are struggling. And Tom, I would I don't care what curriculum is, it's some kind of plan we need that parents know that if they're struggling, they can get this help. Can I ask the teachers that have implemented it, have you seen like a large increase in parents that have come to you with more students struggling than what you had in the past? >> No. >> And then as far as one of the resources, like I said, no offense to the third graders, but I need another pink worksheet on math, like a hole in the head. Um, so like I said, the resources you guys have seen that are available
105to parents, have you seen parents engaging with that and using it um to help their students? Maybe not at the high school level, but more like Mr. Lesnic with at this resource yet it older grade levels they've had experience with it. So are are we say are you guys saying that there's no major issues with this curriculum math curriculum? >> I don't think you can say that about any curriculum. >> I know that. >> So what are what are the things we have to overcome here as we move forward? Do we have a plan? Is that in the strategic plan? Because I do hear this math thing all the time and I don't know enough about it and I say I apologize. I talked to you multiple times, Tom, about coming in and really getting
106a better grasp on it because I think if some of us can get a better grasp because we're not teachers, so some people trust us more. Sorry. Because we're not teachers and teachers are smarter than the average person. We all know and I've had some great teachers and I think Mos has a lot of great teachers. All we're trying to do to make sure is we're doing something that you can be successful at because the parents, the kids buy in and prove to oursel that it is really the best program. I don't know what the answer is. H how do we how do we talk to some of these parents and really understand where they're coming from? Are we are you too smart on this stuff to really get down and dirty with these? >>
107No, I I do it on a daily basis with my kids, right? But we have to understand that the way we were taught math is different than the way our kids are. We're not going to be able to pick up a worksheet and and at first glance be able to say, "I understand exactly the way they're leading you to this problem." That's a that's a good point to make with the parents >> and but I also think that when we talk about right that there's a a difference between curriculum design um foundational belief on how math should be taught and what actually occurs in a classroom. Right? So, I will share I've had zero parents contact me from the high school with concerns about the curriculum. >> None. >> Okay. >> I' I've had I've
108had parents concerned about instructional practices that are not part of this curriculum, but not a single complaint that comes back to the curriculum. And so as we talk about as we talk about why curriculums are designed or what it's designed around what we know about learning and what we know about learning and the science of how our brain learns now is very different than what we understood or knew 35 years ago. And there's also this really dangerous national conversation around math that it's either or that either we're putting problems in front of kids and not supporting them and helping them and they're just going to get it or we're just explicitly talking. Right? When we do either of those, it doesn't work. But this this curriculum is designed to to to do both. Right? It's
109not either or, it's when. What we know is that if you introduce an algorithm as the fir in the first five minutes and you show them exactly the stepbystep method that they're supposed to do, half of the kids don't have context and they're not allowed to put in their own way. They will try and solve it the same way the next problem you gave it. And then when you switch the numbers, they don't know how to do it. But if we give them a problem that allows them to work through it and then we provide immediate feedback and then we come back with a different problem and give them feedback and then we come back with another problem and give them feedback and then we synthesize they learn. If we do that they're going to
110remember it tomorrow but in two years they're going to have forgotten that concept. That's what the research shows us. If we build slowly and we follow this idea that they need to talk about the math that they do, they need to get their hands on it and then they need to be provided immediate feedback to help correct the mistakes they just made but then share the way that they solve their problems. They're going to retain it at a really deep level and then it's going to go further. I think last time Tom you gave us the example of talking about perimeter and area and these kids built miniature golf holes and and showed their knowledge by doing that rather than just doing 10 problems on board. >> But is every kid going to be able
111to do that? >> Well, they're going to try. >> You're saying we shouldn't do it because >> I mean every kid couldn't do 100 problems in a minute. They made me that way everybody can. >> I'm I'm not saying we should dumb it down, but maybe there should be alternatives here. Not every kid is in the same program. >> But that's what happens at the high school level, not at the elementary school level. >> Well, okay. >> In the middle school. >> So, I my question would be anybody that would be opposed to this, what's your alternative and what's the proposal to do something different? >> I'm ready to seek a motion. >> I'm not opposed. >> Anybody want to do? We have a motion to adopt the second first by motion by Senowski, second
112by Desk. Any more discussion? >> Okay, we're going to do a roll call vote. >> Right. Start with >> yes. >> Nest. >> Yes. >> No. >> Zebra. >> No. >> Corman. >> Yes. Kaiser. >> Yes. >> Maple, >> it's common core. No. >> Motion carries. All right, let's move on to item number nine. Discussion possible. Well, first of all, thank you for coming everybody. >> Can I make a comment too? Thanks for coming and putting up with us. >> Um, I'm not going to make a comment. >> Go ahead. >> All right. No, no, no. I would say some of us, but discussion and possible decision approval of monthly voucher list. Roll call vote or take a motion. >> I'll make the motion. >> Motion by Gorman. >> I'll second it. >> Second by
113Kaiser. >> I would like to just make one comment. There was a expense on there for the gyms for 31,000. It was actually 13,000. >> Okay. >> I I was through all of them though. R. >> Was that a donation? >> It was a donation, but uh the numbers were transposed. It was 13,000 31,000. >> Okay. I was wondering >> buying that many hats. The heck's going on? >> Paul, I'm going to abstain from check 155283. >> Jackie, did you get his abstension? >> Okay, so back to that donation. It was a donation for 13,000. >> Well, it was 31,000 on our breakout >> on the voucher list. It was listed as 31,000 >> but it was >> the voucher list is correct but my typed up summary oft >> so you don't have to
114adjust anything because it's right in the >> oh on the vote >> his little cheat sheet was >> I just want to call it out in case anybody >> and B is saying from one check you got that one okay and we need a roll call vote Yes. >> Yes. >> Nest. >> Yes. >> Basler. >> Yes. >> Zebra. >> Yes. >> Corbin. >> Yes. >> Kaiser. >> Yes. >> Stayowski. >> Yes. >> Motion carries. Item number 10. Discussion. Possible decision acceptance of monthly treasurers report. >> Make a motion to approve the monthly treasures report. >> We have a motion. >> A second. >> Second by Gorman. Any discussion? Anything we need to know about? >> No. >> Okay. All those in roll call vote. Pardon me. >> Yes. >> Nest. >> Yes. >> Zebro?
115>> Yes. >> Orman? >> Yes. >> Kaiser? >> Yes. >> Maple? >> Yes. Motion carries. Item 11, new business. Discussion. possible decision 26 27 student handbooks. >> Yeah, the assistant principles and the principles did a lot of work on the student handbooks. They're trying to create one that has different uh district one that has uh anything that's similar between the three buildings and then appendixes that have some differences. I know the principles are prepared to answer any questions about it and I see Mrs. Taser's here as well. Uh that was part of the the creation of it. So, um, administration is recommending approval of it, but, uh, if you have any questions, they'll be the one to answer it. >> So, I have a question. Um, they listed the address as the highway 153, the
116district office. Is that part of is the district office going to be there? >> No, that'll get changed. There's Yeah, there's Yes, that would get changed the new address once we Right now, it's we have it moved, so that's why that's still in there. But the new address will become 1,00 High Street and the high school address will become >> 500 >> 11th >> Street. Any other major changes we need to know about anything that is major folks? Anything? Okay. Anybody else have questions or concerns? I'll I'll take a motion then. >> I'll make a motion. >> Motion by Kaiser to accept the 2627 student handbook. >> I'll second. >> Second by Zebra. Any more discussion? >> All those in favor say I. >> Opposed? Motion carries. Item B, discussion, possible decision, strategic plan. >>
117Gez, Tom, you're popular. Um I would just highlight uh most of what was presented to you in April came back. Uh there wasn't a lot of feedback on it. Uh the changes were an amended mission statement based on feedback you guys provided. Um from that uh we picked the vision statement and then towards the back I added the appendix uh to add in a deeper description into those portrait of a learner competencies. Um and then a sample aligned school improvement plan. So, one of the things we talked about with this strategic plan was the plan itself being more visionary uh guiding a direction and being able to annually set goals directly aligned to that assess during that year and then readjust. Um setting a goal five years out might get accomplished in two years might
118get changed in year four. Right? So, what I did was I attached a sample template that we would propose to create um that each building and the district would create that has measurable goals aligned to each pillar. Um that would be presented and accepted by the board each fall, reviewed at the board meeting. Uh we talked about an annual check-in with that community group in the spring to to show progress we've made to make sure that they understand the feedback they gave us as far as direction was listened to, heard, u be able to present those measurables and to be able to make this applicable um on an annual basis to each stakeholder from there. So those are the changes from what you saw in April. >> Any any questions? Any concerns? Again, I would
119like us as a board to be constantly reviewing that how far we have we accomplished this and that be our guiding force to make decisions. >> We um and just a update as far as working with Heather Her is super busy with graduation and all the concert programs. So, she is now working on a visual. Um we would like to hang a one pager in major parts of our school to hold us accountable. that would include mission, vision, that portrait of a learner as well as the pillars and major ideas. Um so that along with a visual appealing PDF plan, you know, this simple document. So she's working on that. Um she's waiting for uh the approval to keep moving forward as well as get through her busy season >> and and then obviously action
120steps >> y >> about what we've accomplished and what we not need to be involved. >> Anybody anybody else. Thank you. And you might want to rest your vocal cords. >> Um item motion. >> Oh, sorry. Thank you. Um can I get a motion then to accept that? >> I'll make a motion to accept >> motion by Bower. >> A second. >> Second by Stanowski. Any other discussion? >> All those in favor say I. >> I. Opposed. Hi, >> we have one for opposition item 11 C discussion possible decision date for June special board of education meeting. >> Yeah, there was a lot of conversation around uh uh screen time kind of uh AI usage and uh kind of intermingled into uh I don't know what you would call teaching methods or or curriculum direction
121kind of things. Uh and so I was just wanted to throw it out to the board. Do we want to do a special board meeting where we can dedicate time to that versus cram it into a meeting we already have with other things on the docket? Would we rather just have one meeting where we just focus on those two or three major topics and have an in-depth conversation versus having it here where we are having other things on the agenda. So, uh, that would be my recommendation as we look to have one. Doesn't, I guess, have to be in June. Um, but that would be my recommendation that we look at something. >> Unless there's for discussion, I'll make a motion. I would do that. >> I'll second that. >> We have a motion by
122Conver, second by Maple. Any anybody discussion? >> Yeah, certainly. >> I mean, >> jump in. >> I think we should probably throw in a bunch of dates because people have vacations and things and and give people options, you know, that that would be the best, too. But I think that's a great idea because that could turn into a a major discussion. >> It should. I think >> what other resources would we want here for that meeting? Well, one of the things, right, one of the things that we are putting together, Christie, uh, and the rest of the admin team are putting together is a technology, >> I don't want to say a tech plan because a tech plan has a whole new connotation what we have to turn in, but more of a technology guideline
123that is going to focus in on possible technology tools available, uh, recommended screen time. So, we're utilizing some resources. Uh, the screen time really isn't anybody else. We haven't found a a sample out there, but we have some data that we can show you. So, that's kind of the first thing that we're looking to get together, and it's obviously this is a really busy time for everybody with graduation and end of the year. So, that's going to be kind of our our early June project. >> Do you have the results of the screen time from securely or will we have them then at that time? >> That we would have them by then. Yep. Yep. That was kind of our plan was to try to get them out at that time. >> Okay. So Christy
124feels like she'd be prepared by June to have what we would need to have good discussions. >> I know you've got a lot going on with the building and everything else going on. >> Yeah. >> Me and Tom are actually meeting tomorrow to start working on. >> Okay. And and I would >> I would suggest just I don't want to set the stage for the meeting, but >> that we we make it an effort or the goal at the first one is to come up with some things to further research and not try to answer all the questions right there because I know sometimes we get rushed into a vote wherever and maybe not because in my opinion AI and technology and screen time is a big issue >> and I I think Joel my
125my personal plan on that would be there would not be that would all be discussionary items. I don't think there would be a discussion and possible decision there. Everything would be a discussion. >> That's all I'm suggesting. >> Yep. I I would not plan on I think it's just a conversation to kind of get some direction. >> Conversation. >> Yep. That would be how I would plan it, >> but it's your guys's meeting on mine. Are are we okay to make a motion to have Greg come back with some times and dates >> and and location and go from there? So, I'll just need a motion for that. We got a motion. >> Second. >> So, all those in favor say I. >> I. Opposed. Motion carries. Item D, discussion, possible decision. Second reading, new
126policy 4140, termination, resignation. >> Yeah, there wasn't any uh comments from the last one. from last month. >> Huh? >> I'll make a motion, too. >> I'll second. >> Motion by Glory. >> There. I'm saving your >> second by Greg. >> Gotcha. >> Second by Kaiser. Any more discussion except telling Greg or me to be quiet. Um, okay. All those in favor say I. >> I. >> All those opposed. Motion carries. >> Might need your voice. Yes, please. >> Item 12, administrative reports. Uh the only thing I want to touch on is I know I put in my report about that looks like there the state came to an agreement on the surplus. I typed this out because Jackie needed it by uh Wednesday and it fell apart on Wednesday. So what I you can
127just ignore everything that I put in there because the state did not come to an agreement. Um it passed the assembly did not it passed joint finance passed the assembly did not pass the Senate. I just want to thank our administrators for their time and effort. I know it's not easy giving up a Tuesday every to listen to wonderful people talk. >> I appreciate it. Um any other anybody else want to speak? >> I just had a question for Christie. >> Okay. >> The the - application. So is that a couple years back when you got like the $600,000 >> what was it? >> That was ECF. emergency connectivity fund. >> Okay, so that one but this one you did you apply for this one too? >> This one we get like a we get
128a certain amount every five years. >> Oh, okay. Cool. But still grant funded. >> It's fally funded. >> Awesome. Cool. >> But I will tell you for the last decade that's been talked about getting rid of - funding. They've had to fight to keep it. Um, and schools rely on it greatly to increase connectivity and upgrade technology in the building. >> Anything else? Okay, thank you very much. Item 13 of the reports, the Wasby report. >> Um, yeah, Greg has in here with the the upcoming symposium in Stevens Point. Just let Jackie know >> and anybody attend. Just have to let Jackie know. >> Or is this from Jackie? >> Type this out. >> Sorry. >> I'll take credit if you want to give it to me. >> I didn't do it. Jackie did it.
129>> Um, anything else, Glender? >> Thank you for doing this. Uh, item B, Ca 9 report. >> Okay, two things. Uh first thing is um to the Mosin board of education, thank you for thinking of us during this difficult time. Pete will not be forgotten. Thank you from Lauren Navinski. So for everyone thought >> Okay. Well, um, CISA, um, this in April, we had a presentation, uh, from Jenny Seymour on the Wisconsin virtual school, which is something I wasn't very familiar with when um, I got on the CISA board. And, um, anyway, if anybody'd like to see the brochure, learn more about it, I do have it and I would share it. And other than that, um, next month we go to eight. So, so that's our meeting for June. >> Well, thank you. Thank
130you for doing that, D. Okay. Item 14, future agenda items. >> Yeah, I have a couple of them on here. Number one would be the annual WA membership renewal. Uh, we actually just got it, but it'll be on next month's agenda. We have time. The SIP and DIP review. That really is going to be the the admin team's analysis of how we did on our school improvement plans and district improvement plans, which as Tom mentioned earlier, next year will be tied to those strategic plan pillars. Uh we'll need approval of transfers to zero out accounts. That just uh allows us to zero out the accounts that can't have a balance at the end of the fiscal year. Our fiscal year ends as school district June 30th. So, we need your approval to do that. Uh,
131and then we'll look at the preliminary board of education dates for next year. >> Okay. And I would like to add if we could bring back look reviewing our board norms. I think with some of the board members, you guys probably never even seen them. >> Um, and then also policy 3112 um, which kind of ties into the evaluations and the feedback we got >> and how this is tying in and maybe some feedback from the admin team. on how this policy are we following it? Are there changes that need to be done to that? >> You got that? >> Yep. Yep. Policy 1 3112 and board. >> Anybody else? >> And again, if you want anything on the agenda, you have just email me and then we're going to put it on unless it's
132illegal, we're putting it on the agenda. Okay. Item 15, moving into close executive session. We will um section 19.851. 851 C reads considering employment promotion compensation or performance valuation date of any public employees