001all right welcome this is the school district of Prescott Board of Education regular meeting we have been in closed sessions since 5 30 p.m uh we are now on item five Pledge of Allegiance Pat would you I pledge allegiance to the flag of the United States of America and this is the Republic for which it stands one nation under God indivisible with liberty and justice for all thank you move to item six recognition of visitors is there anybody that would care to be recognized coming up and state your name and your municipality please Magnuson uh Prescott Wisconsin um one kid graduated thank goodness and one is a junior this year so you all know me as a parent um I also am a national expert in school board policy especially related to libraries in 21
002I've been working with two national organizations to support books and schools and authors and libraries as a professional who spends my days reading board policies which I know you all want to do um and collections management policies I want to encourage you to move forward with the policy proposed tonight this policy does what I consider two key things necessary for a successful reconsideration policy one it maintains the necessity of considering any challenge material as a whole which is standard a standard set by Court precedence commonly referred to as the Miller test two creates a clear process through which objections to books can be evaluated one that balances the Constitutional protection of students rights the professional expertise of Educators and librarians and the individual character and composition of the Prescott community Library reconsideration policies for those
003lucky enough to study this is a moment where constitutional rights and in particular the power of the First Amendment shines this policy protects First Amendment rights of students and parents and ensures that professionals are deeply engaged with discussion alongside of invested community members having read literally for real hundreds of policies this is a policy that will support protect and strengthen the Prescott School District Libraries thanks thank you thanks awesome anybody else all right we will move on to item 7 News around the district starting with Dr spakuza's update yeah tonight um we specifically changed and words matter and it's news around the district as many of you know I received a phone call on Saturday morning 7 30. you know it's not good it's nothing like what I can imagine that four parents received a
004phone call that on Friday Night February 10th four adolescents four adolescent males were involved in a tragic vehicle accident on Highway 61. know that those were individuals from our community and we know that four families are in grieving and hurting along with many of their friends our community members students and staff I've been sharing that we will heal together and we need our strength today so that we can hope for tomorrow I could not be more proud of my administrative team our counselors who were acknowledged last week have done an amazing job in a very difficult tragic and critical time the outpouring of community support from districts superintendents that have lent and shared personnel identifying counselors that could be here with secondary level of work from the Minnesota side and Hastings to our neighboring districts
005on this end again thank you in addition for the amount of food and drink and flower arrangements and you can see that there are flower arrangements here that were given to the school board that we will now donate to our High School staff it's very difficult also to try to communicate out information when social media and information is going faster than information is given to us in an official capacity understand that the accident occurred site not because of a district event and impact minors who are protected both in a legal standpoint and are not all connected with the Prescott Public Schools therefore unless there is information that is shared publicly through the state patrol in Minnesota or with the families directly with the school system we are not at Liberty to speculate or give out
006information that we are not legally able to do we are legally bound under the federal educational Privacy Act FERPA and so what I can share with you is that we are aware that for adolescents we're in a tragic accident three of those individuals names have been released to unfortunately have are deceased the first Memorial is taking place on Thursday afternoon at 3 P.M at Ulta tax and information is available through both of the websites with regards to the obituaries in addition another student is having a visitation on Friday night in a celebration of life on Saturday one individual um was severely injured and our understanding has been released from the hospital a fourth individual 16 years old is still unnamed it is therefore I do not know whether or not it is a Prescott public
007school student our Focus since Saturday when we were here on site was to make sure that we were providing the support that we knew our staff and students would need as well as trying to reach out to the families and continue to support them through this journey what I do want to say again is thank you to our community thank you to the individuals that are stepping up and know that the Prescott Public Schools as an organization are filled with professionals counselors and individuals that can support not only this week but will continue to support those in need in the coming days so I do continue to ask individuals to out of respect for the families that we give them their space to grieve as a family and provide the supports and Outreach where and
008when the time is right again a very very tragic experience for our community and unfortunately it is not just specific to Prescott and over the weekend our neighbors in Spring Valley and also Somerset are experiencing very similar tragedies as well and with that I would just ask our hearts go out to those families and individuals and anyone hurting know that we are here and if we could just have an honor a moment of silence oh thank you Rick okay uh we're we're gonna move on here um next up is Ryan any updates from the student Council um like I said last month we're following through with our t-shirt protest um which will be taking place on February 20th against Osceola um along with that to my knowledge there's a group of students planning a memorial
009I think mostly aim for PHS students but also I think we'll be open to the public uh hopefully next week just to commemorates our classmates that pass on Saturday okay thanks Ryan and administrative team Rick next at this time we're going to pass okay all right we're gonna move on to school business uh first item on the agenda is the consent in the consent agenda we have the board minutes from the regular board meeting on January 25th board checks and finance we have non-licensed personal retirement resignation employment change of non-licensed staff granting District administrator permission to join in mass action lawsuit with Franz legal firm on students Mental Health and lastly board policies technical updates from Neola well not not lastly we still have a couple more here in next one is the increase to
010the bank wire limit to a sufficient amount to cover the new debt payment amounts to 4 million and an increase to the bank ACH limit to a sufficient amount to cover the bi-weekly payroll which amounts to a 450 000. that's everything in the consent does the board wish to have anything pulled out of the consent no I will then adopt a consent agenda are there any objections all right consent agenda is adopted thank you we'll move on to Item B consider retirement resignation and hires of licensed staff we have one retirement yes at this time Miss Sandy Glenn who is a speech and language teacher who has had a long uh tenure here with the Prescott public schools has submitted her retirement any comments questions from the board on this all right we can take
011a motion I'll move to approval retirements just listed above second we have a motion a second all in favor aye opposed that carries move to item C considered second reading of updated board policies 31.2 so um all of these were listed and discussed last month the Administration has not heard or received any feedback from the community and we did want to call attention specifically to 2460.03 which is the independent educational evaluation it is currently posted up on the screen for you though we made one primary adjustment and that was following up from last month we were looking at independent evaluations are when a family believes that they're not sure that the district has conducted its assessment and would like uh an alternative evaluation done it does have to go at the cost of the district
012but when you look around the cost of conducting that is a little bit higher than what was in there so we are asking to elevate that to 650 from the 400 that was initially in there this again is the limit that is placed under e just to kind of clarify is that um an ie that exceeds that amount must have been identified and given it alerted to the district ahead of time and if and obviously it's a case-by-case there has to be some discretion that I would have based on the case and the severity if we can't come to an agreement then by default the relief that a family would have is that we move to what's referred to as a due process hearing where a third party independent hearing officer would look at the
013case and finally determine whether or not the district is responsible for covering the independent educational evaluation so those were the two points that I really wanted to point out is that it's linked to that we've increased up to 650 to be more Market uh comparable to what the market rate is and then just understanding that there are some reliefs that families would have um in that process the other one is that the public comment policy was something that the board had worked on um I as the superintendent has have not heard any other feedback I don't know if the board has received any feedback and I can pull that up for you if you wanted to emphasize again kind of the rationale of why it's being put in place and the changes and I think
014Tanya you had made a comment that was more about the protocol of why a board doesn't respond at the time and so we added that clarifying language so I just have to chaos for you and Mike I'll turn it over to you to lead yep um again the emphasis on the public policy on the public comment policy was we're still seeing it three minutes which is already in policy but we're capping at 30 minutes of public comment that was kind of the big change and then two along with some along with some more teeth around kind of what what examples of programmatic conduct there are amongst other things time of the year point Rick if you want to go down to the district administrator response after public comment um we added the rationale in parentheses
015there so I can just read this rationale school boards are required to provide public notice on topics that will be discussed therefore we will not be addressing public comments at this time well if that covers uh kind of the concern there was there anything else that anybody wanted to talk through on this one I haven't had any feedback either on this one and I mean it is it's policy we can change it if things if if we find holes in it and we want to make changes to it down the road we certainly have that the right to do so it's just got to go through the process but um I think this is ready to go if if there's no objections Rick are there any other updates on any of the other policies that
016you want to call out uh no all right if there's no questions or comments on any of the other policies or anything that you've heard we can we can entertain a motion here I'll move to approve the second reading of updated foreign policies 31.2 I'll second we have a motion in a second all in favor aye aye opposed that carries all right and we'll now move on item do you consider first reading of updated board policy starting with that too yes so um last month we kind of brought forward this policy um and it is a major shift and I'll kind of bring it up and then we are going to have um our two competents highly competent media specialist Joan Simon who works at um both uh the middle school and or high school
017and Erica Keyser and then Michael kosmowski with teaching and learning we wanted them to be able to kind of share not only that prior to Neola we had a policy with regards to if there was a book Challenge and things like that it did not move forward when we shifted from our own homegrown policies to Neola and obviously you've if you've been paying attention to kind of national press and things that happen within the state they came they brought it to my attention that they although they had no formal um challenges in the recent years that we've kind of handled it informally but we were worried that without a formal process it would be really hard for us as administrators and individuals overseeing our media centers to be able to kind of um figure out
018how to navigate those Waters and so they have been working on this since last summer we thought it was now time to kind of Bring It Forward and I'm going to allow them to talk a little bit about the Journey of how they got to this point and the work that they've done before and then allow you to kind of follow up know that we did last month have a long discussion with regards to that there would be a committee that would respond to and that they would be called together and a lot of you asked well who would make up that committee and so we've identified individuals we also know that you can't run a committee well if there's too many members and so we wanted it to be representative but not too large
019and then you wanted to know about the selection process so I'm going to turn it over to the three of the individuals in the room to kind of walk us through both the policy who the committee members would be and how we would select them so come on up to the mic foreign [Music] we had policies previously um to when we switched over to Neola that dealt with um one how do we select the materials that we have in the library into how do we deal with if there are challenges as well so informally we've had those processes in place and this fall we spent some time together on it and gave the feedback here you know some of the wording changed um and some of that the board you identify you did not care
020for that wording of um like a Community member and who specifically is that and how are we going to pick and things like that so we we met again since then and tazlin was part of that process as well she offered to come in and give us some guidance from her perspective as well so we we met together and we can see the new um list of who those individuals would be if a challenge could not be settled in the informal between the teacher or the um librarian and the administrator of that building so we've identified who the potentially that would be one of the things that you can see at the bottom you know the school board talked about having a member on that committee however the appeal process goes to the school school
021board so we felt it'd be inappropriate to have a school board member on it at that time because the school board member or School Board would want to be part of that appeal process the other part is again we have like a number eight the word may we may choose to have a high school student from the student council and those areas where we're identifying either from the parent committee a parent to be on it or the student council that they would have to choose from their group who would potentially be on there we didn't want to say it has to be the president or or the vice president we feel that if this Rises to the Top Again depending on when it is you may have students that are on the student council that
022maybe they're in a sport um or its AP testing season and they're getting ready for that then maybe there's a junior member that would be part of it so we didn't want to put those too many restrictions on those different groups we just identified we wanted to include those groups into our process so you can see that it's been changed a little bit we do have the formal director of teaching and learning position now so we thought that would be important to add and then either the reading Specialist or a language arts teacher that could be one of the two teachers selected above and that's why we don't have a hard fast number of the committee will be this exact size it'll vary in size depending on sort of the situation and which members we
023have in there on top of that I know we do have a formal process where if a parent were to reach out could not have it settled informally that they would then take it to the next level and they would get in contact with our Librarians so I'll have our Librarians talk about that part and how a Community member or parent or student would engage in that part because that is not part of this policy it's more part of our practice administrative guidelines and they know those a lot better than I do thank you Michael so the process as I understand it is that basically the person who has would like us to consider um reconsideration of a material that's used in the school um if as Michael alluded to um we would try to
024do it in an informal way where we would talk to this individual and then also involve the principal than if they would like to take it to the next level we have a form that they can fill out which basically asks them um their questions as far as you know who are they are they representing a group what exactly about the material giving specifics as to what they would like us to look at and so that form can be filled out at the time that basically it's gone from informal speaking with whoever would like to talk to us between us and probably the principle of whatever building it is so the next step would be to actually fill out a form where they would identify what they object to what they would like us to
025think about so that's our next step and then then at that point in time the reconsideration committee would probably be enacted one thing that we talked about as well is that the final decision would be made by the committee not the um not the school board or the superintendent that what the committee decided if they did decide to pull the book or if they decided to keep it that would be the final decision and so then there's a I take it you're asking taking questions now is that sure okay sorry I mean so the final decision coming from the committee but then if there's some kind of appeals process that would go up the ladders that how that how would that work [Music] yeah so so the decision with a summary would be given to
026the to the superintendent superintendent would share that with the person that made the complaint along with the school board so you just be informed of it I believe they have I think it's 10 days five or ten days in the policy to appeal that to appeal it they would then be in contact with the superintendent back and say no I want it appealed and then the superintendent would pass that on to the school board president the summary along with the findings and then at that point and one of the things that we added in there is that the board would consider looking at that but the other part is also the board considering reading because nowhere did it say that the board in the appeal process would actually read the material we think that's very
027important so we added that you would need to read the material in order to as part of that appeal process so if there's no appeal the person a suggests our request to ban a book and the committee then says yes we agree we're going to ban this book yep no appeal happens in that in that scenario but the information then gets bubbled up to the superintendent and then the school board sees that yes okay and then I believe that that decision stands for five was it five years yeah five years that decision stands for okay so they it automatically when they are informed by the superintendent it starts their the timeline of them being able to appeal they can't wait three months later and then decide well I want to appeal that it's a quick
028timeline and Rick I don't know if you can find that I believe it's 10 days just like the committee has 10 days from the time of the um complaint comes in there's 10 days to form and meet formally that doesn't mean we're gonna have our decision made we're just gonna meet formally make sure we know who's on the committee make sure we know what we're reading you know give the librarian time to order the book so everyone on the committee has the book and the material um so that process there's no timeline in there of how long that process is I would assume that process will probably take a month maybe even two months depending on when it is to be able to read the material and then have that committee come back together and
029have conversations at that first primary meeting the person who filed the complaint can also this is all done in open open meeting laws so they could also be there to voice any additional concerns they have that maybe it just doesn't make sense the way I've written it or I can't write it as easily as speaking it so they can be there too and um add that to the committee's information to look at as we read it as well and just a one point of clear clarification is um number six is that the committee um after they finalize their decision he has to have it written up and given to the superintendent within 10 days then the district administrator advised or would share that with the school board and the person that put forward the challenge
030it's the requester then would have five days to submit the way we've written that right appeals which is uh basically one week from receiving it we're kind of looking these as not business days but school days right and it and just also clarify it says the uh information and communication will be to the school board president not the entire school board so just as clarification there for us um do you think we can add five school days in there instead of I think it says just five days at this point um that's kind of an easy tweak I appreciate the feedback on I'd uh I mean more intentional I didn't find the committee members what does that mean um I I like that that's been changed I think it makes sense that school board members
031aren't part of that um we had some debate I would say our conversation about whether or not a student would be involved I think it settled well a member of student council would be involved with that so that's great too I also think this is really timely and I wanted to add that we talked about this last time it hasn't been brought up here but that the book would stay available in the media center until after this process was completed too yeah the only caveat to that is if the superintendent decided that it was needed to be pulled in the meantime the superintendent has the right to pull it while it's being reviewed okay and the other part at the beginning of this policy it talks about who can formally file a complaint because there
032are National groups out there that are doing this and it has to be someone within our community can't be an outside group that's um targeting a specific book okay you have any questions yeah so what you got up on the on the board seems to be slightly different in here so maybe just a housekeeping comment I see sometimes we call it school days and sometimes we call it business days um so and this was the one it says clean copy because it's harder to help us so the clean copy one we are using school days for the main reason that business days school days sometimes we have holidays sure sure and I got I got a bigger question to make this relates to what we just approved and consented uh consent agenda um are all
033of our policies when we talk about days are they all business or school do we need to look at a consistency there I'm not suggesting we go change other policies because of that but yeah maybe we should be moving forward we should sometimes they do differ uh for because of the statutes so sometimes institutes calendar days and sometimes it'll say school days okay so sometimes there is variation on that this was the first time we had seen Neola use business days and it just didn't feel right for us so we yeah right to school days and primarily because like uh next week Monday yeah it'll be President's Day and technically we wouldn't really be working um on that day on receiving like a a contest right to book because we'll be doing professional development so
034I got two other quick ones because I'm kind of torn so you guys are are making a recommendation right now that they're there there is a parent for sure and there may be a student talk me through why the committee why you guys feel that's important I'm struggling a little bit with um when we say there may be a student does that is that too open to say hey wanna we'll do it if we feel like it I don't know just talk me through why those two might be important yeah yeah so we talked about that in terms of age appropriateness so let's say there's a kindergartner first grade material that we're using um does it really benefit to have a high school student on that maybe not but if it's a middle school or
035high school book that is being again they're closer to that in age and where it's being used in maturity so that would be the time where we'd probably ask a student to be on that committee at that time where if it's something down to Elementary level probably not but again it gives us the flexibility that we could and that's why again the committee size isn't set to it's going to be exactly this number because again one of the staff members could also if they're an Ela member really fulfill two of those positions as well we either thought for the age-appropriateness of it that we would but that we sometimes we want them and other times we don't know that they'd add a lot to the conversation and just can we get our student rep to
036you I think had shared a little bit about why it might be helpful and why it might not be and I just thought it'd be good to hear your voice too yeah um I think I I think I agree with what you said for middle and high school level books I think student input is necessary just to understand how it affects the student body I think I'd have to place more than the elementary level things just because I haven't necessarily thought about it very much um but I definitely think that student input is very important overall so I just struggled with word may a little bit hopefully you guys understand but I understand your reasoning I'm wondering for maybe the same reasons or maybe the reasons I'm not even thinking of because it is a
037parent volunteer on our parent committee do we apply the word may there as well but that's this is the first reading maybe just something I'll throw out there I honestly don't know where I land on it and then the last comment I had is um so I don't want you to lose your thought either but the other reason we went back and forth is I think our premise here maybe it's Wordsmith if you guys could help us is we really do want to include student voice so we do want it but we also recognize that sometimes these committees are challenges can be let's just say lacking Civility and students if we said we have to and a student says I don't want to be there then our policy would be locked up because we're forcing
038we would have to force a student to be part of it for this committee to go forward so we want to be inclusive we love students voice there but we also didn't want to stop the process because a student or the student council says hey this is we feel uncomfortable completely on board and I think my suggest even more strongly than maybe that it gets applied to the parent Committee Member as well the word may okay last thing that I have then is um and I don't even know how I feel about this but I I don't think I see in the policy there's not really like a public notice section of hey there was an appeal or a decision that has been made and and I'm okay with that um I think did you
039guys have any conversation about that at all I'm just just out of curiosity well all the meetings that this committee has have to follow open laws so that means we will have to post an agenda for it with a notice um you know in on our website at the minimum or whatever that class one notice is so it's sort of the same notice we give for a school board it'll also be a meeting of that committee because anyone from the public could be there to um engage in that dialogue and conversation as well or at least hear the proceedings as they go through that makes a ton of sense did I miss that in here is it um I'm not I can't remember exactly where it says it it does say it in there though
040that does it has to be an open meeting but it wouldn't be they wouldn't engage in the dialogue maybe they're no no right there don't observe they can observe it and watch it and make sure that you know we are following and yeah okay and and doing the things we need to do cool thank you anything on the side Steve Vicky no question Ryan do you have any other questions or comments I think so um one one other scenario and again I'm not sure where I land on this I'm asking if you guys have talked about it but if a book is a decided to be banned and there's no appeal because the person Wanted the band right so is there what happens after that can can another person come in and appeal the ban
041have that has happened within the five days basically and I'm not saying she'd be part of this policy but it's just I think you know you know what you mean so if the committee decides to abandon can someone now appeal the band yeah like wait a minute I don't want this book bad what are you doing so then you know to me that would be at the five year when it expires that's when they could appeal to have it put back onto the Shelf but again it doesn't clearly lay that out in here so we'll bring that back for your second reading next month I'm not sure right and that's the other thing we don't want an argument one way or the other because of it so and that's why again you have a very
042broad representative group so that way we're making a Sound Decision the first time um and again not trying to limit anyone's First Amendment rights to to be exposed and to read some things that others may find controversial I also think Miss Simon teaches a library and media class that my daughter is in and I know that they study like children's books and stuff like I mean I also think that you have other avenues we had a whole chapter on this yeah so we looked over the policies they looked over all of our materials and um how these policies came to be kind of the guidelines that were there first um ala's a right to read the LA policies that I'm sure were what the original policy our first it was board approved in 2009 and
043those definitely came from them so yes yes we are talking about it all right any other questions bored we'll just point a clarification so Pat to your comment um number two up there yep right it does have to comply with open meeting law and because it's a report made to you that's the rationale for it cool good question yeah thank you if there's no other questions or dialogue we can take a motion here I moved to approve the first reading of updated board policies 31.2 I'll second we have a motion in a second all in favor I opposed and curious all right we're on the item e consider moving March board meeting which means we're near the end of the agenda that's always the last thing on the agenda well before information and the rationale
044Rick is during spring break right that is correct so the spring break is the third week um and we wouldn't be prepared prior to spring break so we're offering the 22nd or the 29th um let's start with the 22nd if we can get a quorum there works for me any concerns with the 22nd oh my God making any concerns with the 22nd nope uh none from me right now either but did you say Steve you're out of town I'm out of town so can we look at the 29th it just see if that's better yeah I'm just looking so if we do the 29th we're still doing I mean because it's the third Wednesday in April we that gives us almost four weeks in between meetings so we're probably fine 29th worked any better for
045anybody or the same still works for me still works you make that so do you want to make it or do you want us to do it for 20 seconds be careful how you respond uh you want to make it I'll let somebody make the motion on what uh what the date is let's let Steve I will move to move the uh March meeting from March 15th to March 29th at 6 pm Central Standard times I'll second we have a motion in a second all in favor I opposed that carries all right we are on information discussion first item is middle school trip good evening members of the board Kyle I go uh from the Middle School I am here to ask for um approval to take our um current seventh graders next year's eighth
046graders two Washington DC in June of 2024 so it'd be about the week that they um that we conclude or the week after we conclude school we are going this year with this current eighth grade class and we are looking to make this somewhat of an annual trip um this is about a month earlier than I came up and proposed last year's trip and a couple of reasons for that um first and foremost Dr spukuz if you want to just hit the the next slide first and foremost we'll talk just a little bit and briefly why DC DC is a pretty common eighth grade destination trip U.S history is taught in the 8th grade classrooms here in in Wisconsin so it follows our social study standards um Mr waski all throughout the the year so
047far has been pointing out different parts and pieces of the curriculum that we will be seeing this upcoming June so it does have a direct tie to all of our our standards um next slide and we will continue to use Education First we've had a great experience with them so far this year and the one difference from the trip that I'm proposing tonight compared to the one that we will be going on here in 2023 is the price difference and the end price difference is going to be about 400 more so for a student it's going to be about eighteen hundred dollars the rationale that EF has given me for that is because um of the inflationary costs that they have seen mainly in hotel costs they said um the prices of the monument tours
048and things like that have gone up a little bit but not nearly as exponentially as the hotel cost they said there is a chance that things come down a little bit depending on the economy and a variety of other things so this is the the tour price that they're quoting us today for 2024 knowing that that price may drop a little bit all prices are solidified by the end of October or end of September beginning of October uh one of the reasons so the reason that I wanted to get this out a month earlier is because they do have a payment plan and it runs right through Education First and so if I if we can approve this in uh or at the March board meeting I can get it out to families in April
049and if they want to start to set up their payment plan for April um it gives them an extra two months really to make payments for our 2024 trip than we've had for this year's trip the itinerary will be similar and the requirements for travel are going to be similar obviously students have to be in good academic and behavioral standing we have to sign up and agree to ef's code of conduct in May I will actually be going through with all of our Travelers the code of conduct rules and trip expectations and then we have to follow all of our school and rules and regulations at the parent meeting we'll go over a couple of other things we also have security and security guards that are part of our payment plan and they are they
050come with the trip so each floor will of the hotel has different security guards we have security guards that travel with us on the buses so um it they make it as safe as they possibly can also next one so when we look at this oop go back one more if you could when we look at our itinerary the one change that um I have proposed and I've chatted with our parent committee is the addition of Gettysburg we'll do all of the same itinerary that we're going to do this year it'll be in a little bit of a condensed fashion because then we'll spend one day at Gettysburg as well um we're going to keep it at a four day trip just like we are going to for the but would like to squeeze in
051a little bit of Gettysburg's action just to just to expand on what we we get to see and what we're what we're there for so again 2024 I get gonna try for the June 7th through the 10th range and that's the week after we're done um and again we won't know our exact dates until we still don't know our exact dates for 2023 yet so it's really close to the date so it's it's either a day before or day after is leaving her departure or arrival so either one of those two so we're just asking for permission um again to do this and we're going to look like I said to to probably propose this to be a yearly or an annual trip Mr wusky handles all of our student side of it I've been
052doing a lot of the the background in the paperwork side of it so we've kind of tag team it for this year once we go on it once or twice then I will be handing it all off to her um that way I'm comfortable with everything that's taking place and going on and know a little bit about it myself so we'll be back next month to get formal approval any questions any questions from the board I have I have a comment that it's very brave that you're bringing this back already before you even have been at first middle school trip so that's brave but I was curious how many kids signed up and just kind of what was um how many the interest level I guess the first trip this year we have 44 students
053in that is like a third of our class probably more um yeah we have a 98 students so almost half of our student population and then we have 18 adults attending wow that's wonderful that's great so see big interest from our student body yes big interest from our student population um and as I have chatted with our parent committee and our seventh grade students the interest teams high again I wanted to wait and I told their parent committee and I um that I was going to wait to propose the second trip but then once I started talking with them and the price was higher than it was this year I got a little nervous that I don't want to be pricing families out I want to give people opportunities and so if they can start
054their payment plan a couple of months earlier I maybe that's adventitious for for some of our families absolutely thank you any other questions or comments from the Lord all right thanks Mr thank you thanks go on Item B Board review and Public Presentation of superintendent evaluation eoi 2021 2022 that would be me so we've done this for this is the third year that we've done this now uh we've gone through the review process with Dr spakuza and come up with a a public summary that we read into into the the meeting so I'm gonna read this if you wanna do you want to maybe post it yeah I see her so I'll read this verbatim if Tanya wants to bail me out anytime in the middle she sure can um and you can keep track
055of all the notes I know you're gonna do so my reading skills the Prescott School Board met with Dr spakuza on December 21st 2022 for the purpose of delivering the school board's annual summative review of the superintendent's work over the 2021-2022 school year ending June 30th the review scores highlighted retention and or improvements in all core areas of the evaluation the following categories continue to be high performing areas for Dr spakuza Financial stability which contains a continued increase of contributions to the district's general fund which has eclipsed 6 million dollars and near the recommended ceiling per board policy and be continued increase of contributions to fund 46 the capital maintenance fund which is now up to 1.2 million dollars licensed staff were able to receive a two-step pay increase plus additional hero pay for all
056non-licensed staff while our state funding remained at a zero percent increase and a successful passage of a 15 million dollar Bond referendum to be used for Capital maintenance projects within the district number two instructional leadership overall this is a consistently one of the top areas from year to year for Dr spakuza he is displayed exemplarly exemplary leadership in times of Crisis I knew I was going to do that I'll write it down uh dealing with an unprecedented increase in district-wide negative student behavioral issues coming off the pandemic a statistic that is not unique to Prescott Dr spakuza advocated heavily for built-in teacher collaboration time expanded the hiring of targeted interventionalness at the high school and middle school extended one-to-one Chromebook initiative to grades six through eight and with regards to academic performance our state report
057card places Prescott in the top 15 percent on the state in math and reading in comparison to neighboring districts which are district competitors Prescott scored the highest in ela mathematics and science and scored second highest in social studies and lastly a record number of college credits were earned by high school students last year saving families thousands of dollars and number three Dr sakuza continues to display an exceptional level of understanding and execution of Financial and legal issues along with communication around current and possible changes to federal state laws furthermore the following areas of girls from the previous evaluation were met with a noticeable Improvement number one the district office is operating at a full capacity for the first time in several years roles and responsibilities and a reporting structure have been clearly defined and functioning
058at a significantly higher level number two there has been an increased level of Employee Engagement and satisfaction this is an area that we encourage Dr spakuza to continue to build on number three increased delegation of responsibilities to direct reports including the emphasis on use of the communications team which was evident in several key areas one of which was a community engagement phase of the referendum the review also highlighted the following opportunities for doctors because it's the lead in the upcoming year execution of the capital maintenance project for using the dollars secured by the referendum passage initiate the effort to develop a strategic building and grounds plan for the district with engagement from the community and number three a continued focus on building and maintaining staff relations with both direct and indirect reports in summary Dr
059spukuza has consistently maintained a high level of excellence in several key areas Financial stewardship of taxpayer dollars is near the top demonstrated by his ability to increase the district's general fund balance and capital maintenance funds to all-time highs and highlighted by his leadership efforts to successfully pass a critical Capital maintenance referendum he continues to put his administrative staff license and non-licensed staff at the top of his list of priorities displaying his advocacy for collaboration time and pushing for pay increases above expectations across the board all while not receiving any additional dollars from the state the board will continue to encourage Dr spukuza to be the best at getting better giving feedback and Direction on areas of growth along with providing the support he needs to effectively perform this challenging and complex role this commitment of
060support and oversight is the responsibility of the board in our pledge to the community Dr spukuza has done an excellent job leading our district through a very difficult and volatile era and the school board looks forward to partnering with him in the years to come none of us could have read that better Mike so with that said is there any other additional comments that any board members want to make as far as the review or the summary itself anything to elaborate on I do good job covered it all and I only made one mess up well maybe two yeah I'm sure you got more I'll have to I have to review that okay so I just would like one comment uh this could not occur without great leadership team and I am very humbled to
061work with them and my goal starting with one of the goal areas you wanted me to do is to make sure that we retain our administrative team and we will work tirelessly to make that happen so that we can also retain our other staff throughout this District thank you excellent we're going to move on to item C Steve seismworks assignment to cesa 11 board yeah my volunteerism did you want to tee this one up right or okay go ahead Rick no I'm gonna uh I really do appreciate uh that Steve has agreed to share he not only sits on this board but he represents the Prescott public schools and Prescott and public schools up through season 11 that represents 39 other districts um with him uh no longer seeking another term with our school board
062um he has to step down from season 11. and I wanted Steve to be able to share a little bit about the importance of that role how it is something that we have the ability to retain and no one better could speak to it than Steve so I'll turn it over to him yeah about that um yeah so cease 11 works with multiple districts one of the main things they do is Head Start An Early Head Start that doesn't directly affect Prescott but it certainly affects the communities in this part of the state so a ton of work goes into that relative to our district and many districts like us Cecil Levin offers tons of Cooperative services that we use some of there's coordination with monthly superintendent meetings uh I don't know how many teacher
063trainings they do throughout the year but um they cover a ton a lot of bases that that our smaller districts can't afford to do um cc11 helps cooperate you know work cooperatively with that and it's um just offers a lot of services that that otherwise wouldn't be available I've held the seat on the sea supported control for six years so someone from Prescott's been on that board for that long it's a good place for us to be represented um it gives it's given me at least more insight into what else is going on in other school districts some of that I've been able to bring back not all but the the conversations are really good in that regard um so if someone's interested in that I'd be more than happy to speak to what that
064entails but Prescott owns that seat until June when they have the annual meeting CSO 11 annual meeting um then they'll do elections again so you know it's kind of a volunteer situation but but it's worth it remind me did we elect was that something we voted on as a Prescott School Board to have you be on the season 11 board no what we do annually is we we nominate someone to go to the annual convention in June and then out of that board members who attend essentially are either nominated or I guess a nominate themselves okay technically but what's the commitment look like like how often are the meetings how involved is it um every second Thursday of the month we meet um with my schedule last year probably eight out of 12 meetings on
065Virtual so I can do that from anywhere and the meetings in Rice Lake or excuse me in Turtle Lake and there is a small stipend that comes along with it as well as a mileage paid by sea salt levels so n is your role kind of policy governance like what is what is it the work that you're doing it's similar to what we do here in that regard policy and governance I hold the vice chair position um within the border control right now um you know it's a lot of oversight as far as um you know Jerry Walters the current director um kind of give him guidance um we also look at facilities for example and um you know review recommendations and make decisions on those types of things for the for the facilities we
066review staff Editions resignations retirements on a monthly basis as well and approve those so similar work here meetings typically last 90 minutes to two hours depending on what we're doing we've got a little bit more activity Jerry Walters is retiring this summer so we're in the process of doing a uh a search for a replacement right now but that should be concluded by I think the schedule added is April and May it's an interesting group there are I think it's 11 of us on the board um you know currently we have several representatives from our conference so St Croix central Ellsworth Somerset Prescott so it kind of gives you an opportunity to meet some board members from neighboring school districts as well what's the makeup of male female curious um I would have to look
067at that Tanya it's about 50 50. so it's pretty pretty represented pretty good yeah good question though sounds like you're interested not really yeah no I I mean I would like to hear more about it but I'm sure so anyway I'll be there until I'm no longer there um if Prescott isn't able to put a person there for the main meeting though there's a hierarchy that it will drop to to see if they can find someone and the advantage that you really see of having our representation at the table is is kind of a little bit of networking learning about what's happened with other districts being able to be kind of on the Forefront of some change and stuff that's happening yeah to uh to get a little uh additional Insight on our superintendent as
068well from other people that work with it or workers great all right so anybody interested you guys have Steve's number I do as well okay we'll move on item D update on referendum projects I'll give you um kind of a bird's eye view um yesterday Mike koika again I work with a fabulous team um here in Prescott uh yesterday we had a day of love three and a half hour meeting with marketer Johnson Apex engineering River Valley Architects and then our District staff just wanted to kind of share kind of the detail of all the infrastructure and the work that's been going on since the beginning of the year with all the notes this is important so that every bid that goes out all the details are specified this is a bird's eye view of
069Malone Elementary both Malone Elementary and our Intermediate School we'll be having significant work with regards to just the parking lots per se and this is going to be work that'll be taken undergoing uh this summer of 2023. they did a full uh boring sample uh report Mike Quick and I laughed about trying to read it and interpret it but basically they have identified uh the primary reason for doing the boring reports are is that we have specifically behind Malone Elementary where our staff Park kind of in the back end is there are some storm sewers and those storm sewers predate when they had kind of cast concrete and they are becoming sinkholes and so we're what's happening is that we have a underground erosion and kind of sinkholes that have been created they did sore
070soil samples and boring so that they could identify whether or not they had to add more if you will fill stone or if they could just Mill and replace what we've been able to identify is that it's not as bad as not a worst case scenario but there are some areas that they're going to have to take care of we did find out that there is going to be some additional um uh drain tile that will be added that was not anticipated on the Outer Edge before it kind of slopes down to the houses behind us the primary bid is for the parking lot where the buses come in at door one and taking care of some of the concrete sidewalk and then the back area would be part of that an alternative bid is
071between door one and the right hand side which is by the kindergarten area is one area that if it fits underneath the 15 million dollar budget that we have that would be also completed the blacktop where our Portables were had initially been replaced and so that is not identified on this the yellow is just kind of showing the security fencing that would be put in place so that PCR and our baseball games could still use our Fields as well as the playground that we're investing in over the last 12 months this is just an example of the level of detail that's gone from the water pipes the roofing the taking out the built up roofs all the way down to the platforms adding back insulation and again a lot of hours and emails back and
072forth I believe that we're in a very good place with market and Johnson and River Valley Architects the bid packages the first package will go out for the intermediate school that will go out on February 28th there will be a intermediate date in which they will be on site to answer any questions of vendors that want to clarify or come on site to see the site work that would be entailed for all of that work and then the bid packages would be open um on the 21st and that would be a two o'clock and in a room to be identified they are willing to come on site as we kind of went back and forth um we could have gone to their site I thought it would be easier for us especially given that some
073of you work if you wanted to be present at the bid opening it would be within the Prescott public schools and since it would be the first one would be related to Mis we would have a room there the second uh set of bid packages for Malone go out on March twenties uh on the 7th and then they would be questions on March 20 I'm sorry on the 7th and then on March 28th we would be opening those the bids uh specifically for Malone Elementary this summer is the primary 1988 Wing which is door one all the way to the back uh replacing all the windows uh tearing out all of the unit ventilators that are kind of um kind of no longer are in use and so they were just disconnected and then we
074would be rebuilding the gaps there once the windows are installed that uh in a nutshell is kind of just an update for you with regards to kind of the level of work and um we will know by the end of March and beginning of April kind of where we sit with the amount of work that the facility advisory committee assisted us with and how it aligns with the 15 million dollars there when alternate bids come in it may be a decision that the board will have to decide is when you have this much construction Mis will have water and electricity off and also staging for the move and so that building this summer will be 100 offline and so one of the things that we may want to consider is whether or not fund 46
075or fund balance would address any other identified high priority infrastructure since you're going to have staff and vendors on site so again that's a decision Point not one that you can make now because we don't have all the information in but I just did want to kind of give you some foreshadowing that those are some things that might come available to you Mike koika also separate from the referendum as we talked about moving and reconfiguring our grades Michael kosmowski and Kyle iGo have been working with their teams they've walked through the sites during professional development time they've identified kind of furniture and Cabinetry that'll be taken out because of asbestos and that is my quick has put out four bids and we just signed off on that work and so some of the lockers and
076all the science cabinets and um uh what do you call it the countertops that are hot for asbestos will be removed this summer and reconstructed and that is coming out of our district money that we kind of talked about uh last month when we said what is the true cost of this move so that's the update any questions kind of in the process or where we're headed Pat anything from you no no questions I'd maybe record recognition though Dr speccuzza and and Mike koika and YouTube gentlemen and everybody else who participates this is this is above and beyond normal duties of of your job descriptions and your roles so thank you very much um it's it's a ton of work um that uh that is not your normal jobs so um I appreciate it and
077and I certainly hope the community does as well thank you um Dr spekuza earlier today there was kind of an invite about was it the bid packaging the openings okay do you want board members to be there is that kind of oh good uh good question so we did send out a calendar invite just so that you knew that that is when the envelopes are open um you are more than welcome to be there and uh it is set though in the bids of kind of that timeline and that's uh so you we will have a room identified all you have to do is tell us that you're interested in coming and then they will be on site two hours prior to two o'clock and one hour after thank you see uh no thank you
078for the update Vicky um I don't have any questions but my schedule at work is fairly flexible so I'll see if I can at least come to one of them I think it would be interesting to see where we're at since I participated with the community in the beginning of it so thank you Ryan any questions on this um no no questions Rick uh things look like they're progressing along is there anything that you're concerned about or any what anything keeping you up at night I guess besides other stuff yeah well uh Pat I think you identified it's uh this is really detailed work um it's a lot of uh kind of fast and furious intensity and then it goes away and you got to get back up to speed and it's on top of
079people's uh regular educational work so um just acknowledging uh again it's the two gentlemen that are sitting here in the room and working with their staff and every time we get information it then changes kind of our calculus of being able to get information out to people and then the Ripple effects so when you take a look at just uh Mis what we did learn is that if you look at between the kind of the school and the football field the whole drainage system is going to be dug out so they are going down and Excavating to put in all new sewers and so that will also include some additional drain tile that will be right at the fence line that where you go in to enter the football field so it will preclude the
080ability for us to use that road to get over to The Varsity Softball field and so we just learned this yesterday about the extents uh how extensive this work will be and so we now are working with PCR and also looking at alternative ways where people could park and we are going to try to partner with some allies within the community to see if they would share their parking locations so each one of these each kind of building has its own story own timelines and we'll have a lot more information in March so those are the things that keep me up at night is just trying to juggle that many balls and not have any of them fall but I and blessed again to work with a great team and give us some patience if
081we do miss something we're pretty darn good at problem solving and uh making up the time right all right we'll move on that's information discussion now we'll move on to recognition of visitors anybody in the audience care to be recognized all right we'll move on to item 11 the board will consider a motion to convene in closed sessionary exemptions 1985 1C and that Prescott high school conference room considering employment compensation or performance evaluation data of any Public Employee over which the governmental body has jurisdiction or exercise's responsibility and in particular the superintendent contract second so should we set a time I mean do we want to say like closed session at 7 20 20. that works so I'll move into closed session at 7 20. perfect so I moved second all in favor I opposed
082that carries see you in closed session at 7 20.