001You do not need to app. All right. Good evening everybody. Um we have two purposes at tonight's meeting. The first is a special organ reorganization of our board and uh we have met official compliance with this and roll call please. All right. Kelly mowen. Catherine Gan here. Lord Gowski, Nick Olsson here, Nick Schumacher here, Sarah Schubert Mccon here, Steve Olsson here. So, first of all, we'd certainly like to welcome our two new board members, Katherryn Gamand and Shelley Mowen. Congratulations. Really all look forward to being part of a team that that helps look at everything. It always makes our super superior school district the best that it is. We have a lot of work to do, but we're excited to have you on board and just a big welcome. Thank you. Thank you. All right.
002So, the first is the election of officers for 2526. You can nominate yourself or you can be nominated by someone else. The first I can preside over this particular meeting until u if you remove me then I will hand it over to the new president. Okay. So president will preside immediately after the election. The new president. So call for nominations for president. I nominate Steve Olsson for president. Second. Call for nominations of president. Are there any nominations for president? Hearing none. All those in favor of Steve Olsson as president signify by saying I I I opposed. Motion carries. Thank you very much. I look forward to not only this position but uh being part of our wonderful school system. It's kind of humbling. I thank you a lot for that. Our next position is vice
003president. I nominate Nicholson. Are there any other nominations? Nominate Laura Gabsky. There any other nominations? Hearing n the two nominees we have for vice president Nick Olsen and Laura Gapsky. As per our policy 0152 and as per WASBY on the election of officers when there are two or more candidates you may go to secret ballot. So we will go to secret ballot. You will each get a ballot. You will fill out the person's name that you wish to be the vice president. Hold your ballot. hand it back to me and then I will bring them to an Ann and Amy will count them. Ann will provide me with the name of the person that has the most votes. It is a secret ballot. Um thus it it stays secret, I guess, is what I'm trying
004to say. um some of the elections before the person that did not receive enough votes could ask to see the ballots or challenge the ballots, but that is not what the secret ballot is. So, at this time, You have all of them in supervisor. You can take them probably into another office, please. Can you do it in the other room? Yes. Oh, it's secret. Thank you. It's not. You don't have time to win. Laura Gapsby has been elected as vice president. Thank you everyone. Appreciate it. Next are the nominations for treasure. Are there any nominations? I nominate Nick Wilson. Second if needed. I need a second. Okay. Are there any other nominations? You going to nominate something? Are there any other nominations? Hearing no other nominations. All those in favor of Nick Olsen as our
005treasur signify by saying I. I. I. Opposed. Motion carries. School clerk call for nominations. Are there any nominations? I nominate Nick Schumacher. Are there any nominations? Are there any other nominations? Hearing none. All those in favor of Nick Schumacher as the school clerk signify by saying I. I. I. Opposed. Motion carries. Appointment of secretary deputy clerk. This one is either volunteer nominations. I nominate Annne Schultz is our secretary deputy clerk. Are there any other nominations? Are there any other nominations? Hearing none. All those in favor signify by saying. Anne Schultz is our SE secretary deputy clerk say by saying I. I. Sorry. Congrats an Thank you. appointment of representative to the annual CISA 12 convention andor this person is the representative as well for CISA 12. You want to give a little bit of a
006description for the new vote a CISA 12 rep. Um this is the board of controls, right? This is who sits on. So every every school board has a rep who um kind of represents each of the districts and CISA 12 each our state is divided into 12 different CISAs and so um that rep do they do have a virtual option or is it only in person? There are a few times a year in person I I had to pass it on to Steve because it's on Tuesday evenings I believe still. Okay. So I know that can be a challenge because it's in Ashland and it is on Wednesday night. So, and they did throughout the year offer it online now. Okay. I did virtual probably three times. Oh, okay. It's good to stay connected to
007what's happening in our CISA with other school districts. I think they also look to us for many leadership. So, amongst our board members now, does anybody want to volunteer for that position? been there. I would, but I have a conflict on Tuesday evenings with another board obligation. So, I would Nick Spender, I would nominate Nick Schumacher. Yeah, you said you attended some. No. Oh, yeah. I went I went to three or four in person. Yeah. Okay. Is that a No, Nick. Any other nominations? Are there any other nominations? Nick has agreed to take position of CISA 12. Appointment of the delegate and alternate to the annual WASBY convention January 2026. Is there anybody that is interested in volunteering that for that? I am interested in volunteering as the delegate and this is to speak on
008behalf of our district's priorities when it comes to some of the legislative priorities moving forward to WASBY. Is that an accurate way of saying it? Yeah. So there's, you know, two different ways like definitely taking a leadership role if we wanted to do any resolutions ourselves like we have in the past and then also uh bringing that in and sharing uh everyone gets a packet of all the resolutions and voting on behalf of our board as one voice at that meeting at the state convention in January. There anybody else interested in being a delegate to that convention? You did an alter alternate too, right? Yeah, I think you might take that next. I would volunteer to be an alternate. Alternate. Is anybody else interested in being the alternate? All right. Hearing none. All those in
009favor of Laura Gabsky as the delegate and Shelley Moan as the alternate to the annual WASBY convention January 2026. All in favor signify by saying I. I. Opposed. Motion carries. Appointment of school board representative to the scholarship foundation board of directors and nominate Sarah Schubert McCome. Are there any other nominations or volunteers? I would volunteer. All right. So this one secret to this one is secret to there's no alternate here. There is no alternate to this. There's only one one position. This is highly controversial. Let's do it. How many years I don't think to do this. We wouldn't need any more ballots. Thank you. Thank you. Who wants to be outside right now? Miss this. And tomorrow it's warmer in your area already. Sarah Schubert Mcome will be the schoolboard representative on the Superior Scholarship
010Foundation board of directors. I think there'll be a couple people on Michelle Baden will probably be the first one. Congratulations. Board committee preferences for 2526. Um, you've all now filled out the document that I sent you and everything. I'll be going through these. We have a number of people that want to serve on the same committees, whether it be the first choice, second choice, or third choice. So I will appoint and then uh inform you prior to next Monday's meeting so that you'll know which committee that you will be chairing and then what other two committees you'll be on. Okay. All right. Final thing that we have to do in this reorganization. We have to look at the meeting schedule for 2526. I'll provided with that in front of you. As we look at the
011dates, do you see any discrepancies, any issues? Can I point out a couple things? Sure thing. Um, one, you'll notice that the a budget hearing is um that has to happen before the end of October becomes our November cow. So, that's that's a unique date to normally we meet the first two Mondays, right? So, you'll see that is on there as a different date, which means our um our regular meeting then will be the first Monday of November instead of the cow. We don't have um a cow in July and you'll notice the spring break change. Um we won't meet during spring break. So there'll be a gap at cow and regular agenda. And then the Tuesday after spring break and then the Tuesday after um not spring break, Tuesday after school starts and then
012um the Tuesday after the Easter break. Also a change. That's not a problem. That Tuesday the 7th will be Uh, voting night too, I believe. Oh, is that going to be a problem? Should we not do that? Maybe. I think that's a bad idea. I think that is a bad idea. Should we go back to Monday? There there's not a reason we can't do it Monday, right, Ann? Well, I think there's no school that day. So, staff So, for staff, if staff present, they just have to come back on a day off. I don't like that either. Um, what could be some other potential options? We could push it to like the 13th and the 20th. Yeah. Any objection? Fine by me. All right. So, let's make a change in the schedule then. And the
013call committee of the whole will be April 13, 2026. And the regular board meeting will be Monday, April 20th, 2026. Steve, yes. Need a motion. I'll make a motion to amend the board of education meeting schedule for 2025 2026 specifically changing the date on April 13th, 2026 at 5:00 p.m. and for the committee of the whole and changing the date for the regular board meeting which includes close section for April 20th at 5:00 p.m. Second. Motion and second to accept the amendment of the schedule 426. Is there any further discussion? Hearing none. All those in favor signify by saying I. I. Opposed. Motion carries. Thank you. We will now move to our regular committee of the whole meeting. This meeting is now called to order. We have met compliance with official notification. Roll call, please.
014Kelly Mo. Gman here. Gabsky here. Foulson here. Nick Schumacher here. Sarah Schubert McCone here. Steve here. This meeting is a meeting of the board of education held in public for the purpose of conducting the school district's business and is not to be considered a public community meeting. There is a time for comments by members of the public during the meeting as indicated on the agenda. Members of the public wishing to address the board on any of the topics included on tonight's agenda may do so by signing up on the public comment signup sheet by the entrance to the start of the meeting. The board requests refraining from making any comments involving personally identifiable information about students, staff or administration. Comments should be respectful, focused on the items being considered by the board and will be
015restricted to 3 minutes in length. Do we have any speakers for this evening? No. Okay, we shall move forward on the agenda. Action taken at today's meeting is to forward the recommendation for final approval at the next regular school board meeting on Monday, May 12, 2025. So, our first part of our agenda is comments of the public. We did not have any. The second is the report from our superintendent. I have a handful of items. Uh myformational items are several presentations from students and staff. They'll be coming to our meeting next week. So, that will happen next Monday. And then I have two action items. I have two field trip requests. I have some folks in the room who I think want to speak to that as well. Um the first one is our annual
016overnight uh field trip with Mr. Horic uh to Washington DC in New York City in the spring of 2027. So it's a great experience. Hello. Um Mike, hang on a second. So item first motion to approve. Second. Motion and second to approve the overnight field trip request from Michael Horic for eighth grade students to attend Washington DC and New York City during spring break of 2027. Any comments? My name is Mike Park. I'm uh been 13 years at the middle school. Um this will be my sixth trip to Washington DC. Um Sarah Biancit and Shauna Anderson started it about 10 years ago. um really built the program up really nicely. Um we've averaged about 50 kids um every trip and it just is getting better and better every year. Um goes really smooth. We've got
017a great uh group that we work with through EF. They plan everything. They keep everything going really smooth and I think it's been been a great opportunity for kids and questions. Please tell me what EF is. Oh, EF is um Educational Frontiers. They're a tour company. They've got uh headquarters all all over. Um but they they're they're a tour company and they plan everything. Um they get plane tickets, hotels, meals, they they run everything. They run the buses, the tour guides, everything. Yeah. Um they've got 247 um emergency contacts. They keep everything. Um any any problems we've ever had, they are on top of things. Um and they keep things going really. We usually run into other EF groups when we're down there. Yeah. Yeah. It's well it's a well I mean there's it's in
018a lot of schools. It is. Yeah. Um great great program. I I I appreciate their their hard work and everything they get done. Um and and it helps me out. Any any questions? I know last year we talked about this a little bit and I'm trying to rack my brain thinking about this, but I remember Brooke saying something or somebody did on the board. What real liability do we have as a school board on these type of trips? Um, is it something that we really should be approving or is this just something that goes through the individual building, the individual principal? And then I even sometimes question, should the principal be doing because it's it's not on we're not we're not paying for it. It's but it's our students and our staff. So I don't
019know how the districts do So EF also has a I think it's like a $100,000 liability program that once you sign up for it's it's don't want to use the term insurance but liability um any any medical um issues on the trip um they take care well in the United States it would be through through the insurance um but they um get in there and and would take people wherever they need to go. Um, so I I think they really take care of that. Steve, was your question uh President Olsen, is your question more about like why these come to the board? Why does this Yeah. And I think that that's been from the from the beginning we've come to the board just um transparency, transparency um letting you know what's going on so that
020um there's there is that cooperation. I think um we've been really good about getting um subs for teachers if the the trip runs longer. Um two years ago we had to use the middle school um in order to get everybody organized because it was a huge group and we were leaving at a certain time. So um just that that transparency and that cooperation and I don't I don't want it I don't want it excuse me I don't want it to be said that I'm not in favor at least. I just always wondered about our really our liability as a board on this. Yeah. And a lot of it would boil down. We've had other trips over the course of time and it depends a lot on what he's talking about, what the what the document
021is that underlies. I think there's two different things. There's a liability piece, but then there's also does this fit within the context of field trips that the board approves. I think there's two kind of separate things. Um, what were you gonna ask, Catherine? That is the only financial impact to the district staff time. Well, and they do it um actually during spring break or summer. So, you're doing it on your Yeah. two years ago that the the group came back on a on a Monday. Um and so we needed subs. Yeah. Um and and but wasn't that because of the Wasn't that because the the the plane was displayed or something? It wasn't scheduled that way, was it? Um it it was so there's there's always a window like I give them our spring break
022dates and there's always a window on either side that they can say, "Well, we're we're getting you back this day." Um and and it it's worked out really smoothly. It's always only been one day and I push for that to limit it to that one day. Thank you. Any other comments? I'll make a motion to approve if um we do have Just kidding. We do have a motion in a second to approve the overnight field trip request to for student eighth grade students to attend Washington DC and New York City during spring break 2027. All those in favor signify by saying I. I. I opposed. Motion carries. Thanks, Mike. Thank you. Oh, and the other field trip request is um regarding a trip in in June of 26 to Greece. So, I'll let you Well,
023first they'll need a motion first. So, let's do that first. Motion to approve. Second. Motion second to consider the overnight field trip request for students grades 9 through 12 to attend Greece in June of 2026. I'm Leah Gunderson. I teach at the middle school. I started um being an EF group leader last year. I was a chaperon with Mike on the VC New York field trips. Um probably did Sarah too. And there was a lot of interest in international travel. So I looked into it through the same company. Um we went to Italy last year. We had a group of 48. Um a number of parents came with as well and we're headed to Peru next month. Um again I have a few parents. Um a first dad that's come with. We have a dad
024daughter group. Um same kind of liability. Um there's a $50 million million dollar general liability coverage and I put that on this application as well. Um we did have to use it in Italy. We had um an issue with a traveler having her her plane ticket and the EF covered us and um me and her had to do just an extra night in Paris and they covered all the expenses and it was really easy to work with. I try and take some shops that are experienced um and then also do it in the summertime. they don't have to miss school, have them back before the 4th of July and then like a lot of those sports start up in July. So talking with families what works best for them kind of was the cons consensus
025do are you concerned that this is less No, this is a year away. So it's a year away. Is there enough time to earn money? So, I want to start planning it um a little bit more in advance because the last time I did it in September um so they have from September to like end of this month to make their payments and if I can extend their payment plan, they'd have smaller payments. So, I'm hoping to do a parent meeting by the end of this month and they'd have, you know, extra um three to four months ago in July, August into September for those smaller payments. Um lot of interest in Greece. It's far, but there was just a lot of kids asking, "What about Greece, Greece?" And I'm like, "Okay, I looked it
026up. It's a travel one advisory, so looks very safe." Um so, yeah. That would have been my question about the travel advisory. So, thank you for Yep. I looked it up and um it's a level one. So, is this incoming freshman or is it open online? Roll it out by the end of this month with our 8th, 9th, 10th, 11th graders. And then I just hold anformational meeting. There's a QR code. Parents scan it if they want to sign up. Um no money would go through me. And again, I make it really clear to the families like this is school supported. It's not sponsored. It's not sponsored through the school at all. So, they're very well aware. It's supported, but it's not through our district. It's who we are. I think that's part of our
027role, too, was we're supporting the educational part of the travel. We'll say I was in a different high school in Minnesota this weekend, and I saw an EF poster um in another high school. They were going to Greece, I think, really. I can use um Proctor does Hermantown does up the shore they use as well. I'd still be curious to find out if other boards are approving or if it's just something they advertise through the school like that all the schools treat but it's not necessarily important thing. I'll look more curious. I think maybe maybe I'll ask EF if there's any I don't know. Well, I'll talk I'll talk to you guys after because if we're telling kids it's not a school, why are we dealing with it? for the shop is covered by the
028district or by EF. Yeah. Every six travelers, it's a shop room spot. The domestic one is every 10. Great. Thank you. Then with the parents that have signed up, our groups have been like like four to five kids in a small group. Yeah. Yeah. It's been Any other questions or concerns? Hearing none. All those in favor signify by saying I. I I opposed. Motion carries. Thanks, Leah. Next on our agenda are board committee reports. We we have a smaller group this evening. Um teaching and learning committee, Mr. Schumacher. All right. No action or discussion items tonight. We have a fewformational items. First up, Lori Dan, school force coordinator, school force update. Lori, blow us away as always. How you going? Everybody else has to follow her. Sorry. So, okay. So, um my name is Lori
029Dons and every few years um I just update the board on our school forest program and what we're doing and and uh give you a chance to ask any questions if you have any about our program. So that is why I'm here tonight. Okay. So, um I think I'll try this one and and I did give you 15 minutes, right? Not a half hour. I haven't done a lesson in an hour. Okay. So, um yeah. So, uh I I'm in this role. I feel comfortable here. I just really believe um that that immersion in the outdoors is an excellent uh place for learning. And that's what we try to do with the school forest program. That's my dad in the bottom. And I always have to say hi to dad and thank him for uh
030for getting me where I am. He's my first most important teacher in life and still is. So here's what we'll do in um 16 minutes. Okay. So I'm just going to ask you this. Can you This is interactive. Everybody tell me first thing that comes to your mind when things go forth and he's over here too but just what's what what's the first thing that comes to your mind? Mental health. Mental health. Wow. Okay. Enjoy. Wow. Oh, yeah. Nesty peanut butter sticks for bird feeders. Oh, good one. Good one. Okay. So, I love this because you're kind of picturing some of the activities that we do out there. Um, a lot of people will say things like um identifying trees. They will say things identifying insects. And they're very science focused. The one thing I
031want to impress on you tonight is that's part of our program, but it's a very real part of our program. Honestly, it doesn't take any more precedence than any other part. So, let me ask you this. Outdoor education, what's first thing comes to your mind? Exploration. Exploration. Okay. Let's just keep on going then. Okay. Um, hands-on learning. What's that word again? Experiential learning. Yeah. Okay. Good. And I bring this up only because um um I think uh there's this misconception that school forests are for environmental education only. Um and what we try to do is really outdoor education. And what outdoor education really is is taking the content that we teach in our classrooms, whether it's math, music, writing, uh you name it, we just have a different setting. Instead of being in the classroom,
032we're doing that outdoors. Um, so we'll try to give you a few examples of that. So this is how I identify outdoor education. I think you it's similar to what you would see otherwise. It's kind of like organized learning um but it just happens to take place outdoors. That's why I say outdoor education is really not what we teach but where we're teaching it. So we're teaching the same content, same material in a little different way um in the outdoors with our students. Um there we go. Okay, there it is. I put in too many animations. And so here are some photos from here are some photos from our school course. Um Oh, there. There she is. We have our our um um was not trying to butter up. I know. I was myself. So
033we every year we have our middle school and high school uh orchestras have a day of immersion out there. I'm happy to say that um one of the greatest areas of participation I've seen in the past couple years are our high school classes. So what they do use uh the site a lot for kind of a full day of immersion in their subject and some team building amongst and and bonding between the class. So this is always a really fun day. It's almost magical when you're out there and you hear the they aren't filled. You know what I biological and there we go. I was in band. Um it's literacy. Uh so it's a great uh place to I think um inspire and motivate our writers out there and our our teachers do just a
034wonderful job of uh using our site for writing. We do a lot of service work out there. Um why does it matter? Um and it goes to what Laura was just saying direct contact contact and experience. Um, we call that experiential learning, I think. And something the learning comes alive. So, you notice that little salamander there, huh, Lori? Lori, Lori, we do that every day. Every year we have a this year where it's kind of become a tradition where I trap salamanders and we do lessons on amphibians and stuff like that. So, let's try something, shall we? Okay. I'm going to ask you to look at this. Here's some salamander information. Okay. And right there you see the life cycle of the salamanders. A lot of you know this. Um they're amphibians spend part of
035their life in water, part of their life on land. Most common ones around here in northern Wisconsin are the blue spotted, yellow spotted. They have a red back, things like that. They like to burrow under leaves in the summer. Turnover logs. You might find them. Okay. So, I'm going to ask you, write, do you have a place just to write some notes? You all right, Amy? All right. Are you all right? Yeah, I'm all right. I know what's happening here. Introduce you to salamanders. Like, if you're reading a textbook or whatever, you might read about salamanders and see some pictures about salamanders. There they are, some pictures. So, just kind of focus on that a little bit. Um, I'd like you to, and we're going to move quickly, so if you don't get them all
036down, that's okay. Just five things you see. You know, when you learn about salamanders, what you just read, what would you see? Five things you see about salamanders, maybe four things you feel. It could be an emotion, could be physically, you know, sick, happy, slimy, maybe three things you'd hear if you were brown salamanders, couple things you'd smell. We usually say one one thing you would taste, but in this case, we'll change that a little bit. heads kind of like salamanders. It doesn't matter. I'll be right back. Was she bringing it? Oh, yeah. And uh we had a salamander day. So what we do at the forest and being outdoors and sitting on the forest floor and hungry. We have some salamanders. Who wants to hold one? It does. I'll hold them. Let's do it.
037Okay. Is just ask you to spray your hands a little bit. Lauren, maybe you could put a little squirt on mine, too. Cuz we learn that salamanders, they need to be kept moist, right? I'm sorry if I leave moss behind. There we go. Spray those little butters down a little bit. Keep them nice and wet. Shelly, welcome. Would you like to hold a salamand? But I'll give it a try. I'll give it a try. Give it a try. Okay. [Music] You have to eat it. Spray my hands. Spray your hands just to keep the sail. There we go. You got a squirmy one. Come on everybody. Stop moving. Big one. Don't look in the eye. Amy, Sarah. Sarah, you okay? Are you ready? I'm so ready. Thank you. That was so fun. You don't have
038to do it. Laughing. They should have to do it, too. Oh my god, you the biggest one I've ever seen in my life. It's almost purplish. It's not slimy. Do you want to hold them a while or should I There we go. Thank you, Nick. Some people like Oh, you have my big old fingers in your way there, Lord. Did you get it? Sorry, buddy. Here we go. Washing hands. There we go. Okay, you lost your audience. They're all leaving. Um, this one. Yeah, still doing fine. I think that happened a long time ago. So, so fun. Now, if I asked you to do this again, would you add to your list? Yes. Like, if I asked you to do this again, would you add anything to your list? What are some things that you
039would now add that weren't there before? Wiggly. Wiggle. Wormies. Wormies. Quick. I'm trying to burrow. Like, I'm trying to get into my trying to burrow. What? Okay. Okay. Did any of you feel hesitant to take that salamander to start with? Amy. Okay. Um, so it's it's like um when you are handling something, when you're immersed in that learning out of a textbook, when that comes alive, um the brain just starts going, the brain starts clicking and you we you create an experience that's memorable. the next time kids learn about amphibians, what are they going to hopefully think of? Um so whenever a group comes out to the course, one of the goals is um teach the content but create an experience around that content. We know um if we can do that. It's a little
040hard to read, but it says phone of learning and then if you read that top left heading, it says after two weeks we tend to remember and then it breaks it down like 10% of what we read, 20% of what we hear. If you go to the bottom of that pyramid, it's like 90% of what we say and do. And that's the power of active learning right there. Okay. So, we like to use the school forest as either a pla it's just a place to build on what's happening in the classroom to either introduce new ideas, reinforce things that are happening in there or to follow up on something that was just previously taught as kind of a foundational summary of that. Does that make sense to everybody? Okay, thanks for being good sports everybody.
041Um going back to the if you were hesitant to hold one um what we find also is it might a little thing but I do believe that experiences at the school forest build uh students confidence um and not only their motivation but their confidence because there are a lot of students when they come out big old Jersey people and I have to remember that it's a risk for them to go out there and if we and support them. Uh, show them that it's okay. We never make anybody do anything that they aren't comfortable with. But almost always, just like all of you did, we see other people go, "Oh gosh, I don't want to. I'm not going to do it." And then I'll give it a try. And we're always there to support them in
042that. And they leave feeling maybe a little bit more powerful or something. Okay. So, a couple misconceptions I've encountered um or that I will hear in my role is um it's just a field trip. It's just a place to play. And the first thing I'll say is I think play is okay in learning. I think it's a it's a great way to learn. Um but do know that it's a place where we do teach content. We do it in I hope a fun way for students in a memorable way. It is not just science. We have that up. And then the new one that I'm hearing is forest schools are becoming a really big thing in the world. And um Wisconsin is so unique that we have the school forest program. Forest schools as I
043would define them are are like um full-time schools outdoors in in the outdoors someplace. School forest um you know what they are. They're these sites that we that school districts have. But what's so nice is they combine uh traditional types of learning with your non-traditional and each support each other. Um they help build connections. I think the content and what's happening in the classroom. We don't have to do this right now. Um but I do believe uh this and I think you can you can look at this. We I'm kind of into the brain science of what happens out at Fors now because something intangible seems to happen with almost every group of students that are out there. They're different when they leave. Um you just see this kind of bonding. You see a lightness
044of spirit usually. Not every day is perfect, believe me, and I won't try to make it sound like that, but um something kind of happens between those students and teachers and the content they're learning. Um, and it's like why or what, but I think that this gets into it a little bit. You're you're kind of getting that brain in a place that's ready to learn. Um, so once you I don't have to read that to you. I think it's we try to support students so they feel safe. Um, these are just some images from this school year, I believe, of our high school students. This, I think, was our journalism class that was out there. The Spartan spin came out for a day here. Once we have our emotions in kind of a positive state,
045then we bring in the content. So the first thing you want to do is get the brain in in that positive relaxed state. Then you start bringing in content to learning. And research does show that when there's an emotional connection to learning, that content is retained longer in long-term memory. Um, okay. just going through a few pictures. And then finally, research shows that nature fosters the development of soft skills. We know when students are walking on a trail or sitting around the campfire or involved in an activity together, that conversation and discussion just seems more natural and seems to flow more easily than um nothing against traditional classrooms, but when you're in that traditional seating of seats in a teacher at the front of a room or whatever. Okay. So, why does it matter? Academic
046learning with the with the long-term memory, physical health, we know they're moving around. And um we we research also shows the benefits, the mental health benefits. Okay. So, there we go. Is that okay if I'm just flicking through these? Okay. All right. Making connections. So the question I started asking myself is um how can we can we duplicate what happens at the forest in ways in the classroom like can we make some something similar happen so um with the support of the administration this year um we're starting this idea called one plus one to connect and the idea is to encourage teachers um to take one regular classroom lesson that they would teach um outdoors one time a week and that to connect so it's one one lesson one time a week. The to connect
047is simply um to build connections between the students and their content the curriculum to build um connections between the content and the environment. And the third one would be to build connections um between the students themselves because that just seems to happen in a real easy way. So we introduced this to the elementary teachers and the idea is if they do one of these lessons I have a real basic form that they can write up or that I will do for them and we're starting like a Google file um so that teachers like let's say it's a beautiful day like today and they're like well I want to teach a man lesson outside. We want to build that so they could go in there quickly and say, "I could do this outside today for an
048hour coming to the middle school and high school." So, okay, there we go. So, that's kind of the idea. These are some pictures of teachers who've done this this year. Um, I know Julie Tig at four corners, Stacy Burfield at um Bryant have been really good at uh submitting their ideas and lessons to us to help us with this. The other thing that um I set up is a Google classroom page for teachers. Um I have to get a little more active posting of this. I get a little busy and forget. But what this is, it's teachers sign up as students and we have different units in there um that kind of correspond with different times of the year. Uh different links and resources on different topics. And then some are just quick hitters like
049game camera videos like here's something that happened this week if you want to show your students. And then some teachers will take that and give their students a writing prompt. Some will use it just as a quick coming back from recess, you know, let's get everybody focused again or whatever. So it's another way um just to take ideas from the outdoors and bring them have help teachers bring them into their classroom. Okay. In summary, I'm debating. This might be corny. Should I? I'm going to do it. Oh, cool. Maybe corny. Oh, we're going to do right alongs and so here's kind of how I see it. And I could be, but let's say that our job as teachers is to teach the standards, okay? Okay. And they're kind of like an outline of big ideas,
050right? So, you got that outline there. And our goal at the end is we want our students to just fill those in. We want that that content filled in, right? So, give them the outline. Let's hope that we can fill it in. But then like I think of the outdoors, we still have that content, but I think that nature kind of frees the students up to let their imagination run wild. And so you know those kind of they're still there. They're still there but all my goal at the end is let's get it all. Yes for your time today. Any questions about forest and what we do out there? Yes. How is um I was looking at expenses and reports and how how is funding funding going for the school forest? Um David what we
051are doing is seriously um what I can say and Crystal help me with this giant um what I can tell you is this year we've had our highest number of trips in several years. Um so our transportation budget is pretty tight. Okay. Um, and we get uh half of our transportation budget from the Hoff Foundation every year and then the district manages or matches that for us. Um, my salary is part of that budget. Um, we have uh in terms of materials and resources, I would say relatively low. We try to do a big service project every year with our ninth graders. That's a tricky one because to get 300 students at the forest working for three days, you need big projects. So, so far we've been reaching out to the community to get it
052funded for that. Has David helped with some of that or has have you done that on your Yeah, David gets the PR out there for us. Okay. Um there's the there's the maintenance of the buildings. Um one building is especially old to doing just fine, but one is pretty old. Um it's hanging in there, but you know there we put money into I think the septic last year. I think there was some big crack in that. Um Crystal, you want to add I think one of the things that we're going to try to do more of in the future is see how my curriculum budget can help support some of the things if all of the students are doing this anyway. I guess Talis is a good example. Yeah, there's sort of like what you
053call like seven. It's no different if you were doing that last one of our schools and instead of always just relying on donations and can we make it work to be able to needs to do or is doing with the students how supports all kids help support some of that anyway. So that's we're kind of playing with that a little bit this spring around some of the um to see if that can be more of a partnership between the budgets instead of it's just relying on donations. Right. What we've been to do this year is very purposefully kind of record where where are we spending money and on what so we get kind of a handle on you know what what what is it costing us out there. Is that what you say? Obviously the
054heat for the buildings and things like that. The one of the benefits of of being out there. So, uh you know like there are yellow pellets the kids love. We we have purchased most of the big ticket items like way back then from donations like uh snowshoes and things like that. We have that and so so many of our resources are just nature. Let's go collect some leaves. Let's do this. Let's do that. Um there are a few that come up every year though that are popular activities out there that cost a little bit. Yeah, it wasn't, you know, um I I was just I was asking because I just I think it's such it is rather such an asset and not all school districts have that. Um and it's valuable to learning. So I
055just want to hope and continue to find ways to adequately fund it. Um, and it's helpful to know how mindful you've been, of course, um, with that budget. It's also looking at this, like you said, this is an asset. Um, and I was going to touch on the school course is something I was going to touch on in part of my thing. I'm going to talk about um, enrollment and try to increase enrollment. The school course is something really neat that we have that we have to leverage that to get out there. Yeah. And when Lori um, says the expenses, you know, are relatively low, the expenses are really, really low. when you look at the budget that we have out there and it's looking at ways I know PA has really leveraged because transportation
056is a huge expense to drive kids all the way he's figured out ways to um piggy back rides so we drop off with kids at the middle school we go pick up some high schoolers go to the school force and they go park at four corners and that's way we can significantly reduce the amount of transportation expenses out there and Steve um who's the new buildings and grounds guy talking with him today one of the priorities is to go out there and get a really hand on what are the needs are in school force because I do think that's something we really need to to push to the future so we can show that to prospective students you know may not be attending our school you know you're you're homeschooling in town come to the
057superior school district your kids are going to be able to put a sound the Hartley that Hartley preschool and it's like all outdoors I mean that is very attractive um to wonder leverage uh summer school opportunities out there in the future. Well, I know um it's funny you asked that because this past week Jen and Willoughby a conversation and not for this summer it's a little too close but yeah starting to think about next to be there but it kind of goes back to kind of those experiences that some of those kids are getting into little company models for that hair and it's such a program that's recognized statewide. I mean, I'm thinking back two years ago at the state convention when the three of you presented and everything and the and the eyes and
058the ahas and when I introduce myself to people at DPI, they say, "Oh, you get Lori." She's kind of a celebrity. Seriously, no. Um, but what I what I will say um what I want the board members to know is um from the bottom of my heart, the only reason this program is where it is today is teachers believe in it. Like I'm looking at Robin over there and your sixth grade teacher. So it it started very strongly with like sixth grade teams as I recall. This is like 15 years ago in elementary. Um and I learned from those teachers every time they're out there like I've never thought of doing that that way or that's a great connection. You know, I might be kind of that in between person uh teaching what I'm comfortable
059with. um but learning from from our teachers and that's where superior force is a little different from what I'm hearing from so many in the state because so many have a staff where the teachers go out the staff takes over here's just such a joint effort between everybody. So um and it takes a lot of work. It takes a lot of time to plan those. Well, you know, my hats off to the teachers who continue to believe in that and the and the value of the time out there because it it takes work to plan those days. So, yeah. So, thank you. But if ever you have like a question comes up, email me or ask or and I invite you all to come out anytime. Seeing some of you out there as chaperones and
060all and it's fun. So, I was going to say maybe then trip out there. Let's do it. Okay. That would be fun with pizza from Jamie. So, and okay, I guess somebody else. Hopefully, it's good. Crystal Hitzman, director of curriculum and instruction, math curriculum update. Hey, Matt. Yeah, it's sorry, but your time is done. Lori took this. That's my time. I have to say um one of the one of the things that I think is uh beautiful about what Lori does for our district is we talk a lot about what the kids get or the kids learning at the forest. She really does truly teach our teachers, too. And that's that's we're super lucky that we uh we have her to help with that, too. Um one of the things we do every fall is
061we do take the new teachers every fall out to the forest. Lori has team building and trivia and makes them walk the trails and does all this stuff and we have found that it's a really great strategy so teachers those new teachers then feel comfortable bringing their students there for the first time um when they then have the opportunity to do that. So that's more of the good stuff that she does. Okay, Matt. Um, I wanted to provide a little bit of an update for veteran board members who kind of know we've started a journey at the secondary level around some math PD and some shifts and also try to provide a little context for our newer members. So, if you have any questions, let me know. I'm going to try to give a little
062bit of both. Um, so as many of you know, we are ending the third school year of I we're calling it a journey that we've been on with our secondary math teachers trying to make some really big shifts in how the teaching and learning and assessing and feedback to kids looks like uh in the math classrooms. So in the 22 23 school year um we started doing some professional development at the secondary level. We have included um all of our sixth grade through 12th grade math teachers along the way with this. We haven't just focused on middle school or high school or kept them separate in these conversations. We felt it was really important that as a larger team they do the PD and the learning together. So we started doing that in the 2022
06323 school year. Then last school year, we took it to the next level and we started having conversations around based on current research, based on standards, based on what's going on in our state and guidance from DPI, where do we need to go with what we really believe students need in our math classrooms here in Superior. So it was a great experience when our 6th through 12th grade teachers came together and said here are the things that based on that information we value. So it was things that I'm sure you've heard before making sure that we have a curriculum that spirals a scope and sequence that clearly lays out what's taught at each grade level etc. So throughout the 23 24 school year that was worked on and the culmination of that last school year
064was a committee came together. Every secondary math teacher who wanted to be part of it got to be part of it and they did two and a half days of work to evaluate resources and determine that we needed a new resource at our secondary level. So, I came to you, I think it was May, maybe June last year, and you um approved Amplify Desmos as our new resource to use. So, this school year, our sixth, seventh, eighth grade, and algebra 1 teachers have been implementing that resource. We intentionally waited to implement geometry and algebra 2 the next school year, which is where we'll be going uh in the fall. So throughout this school year, we've had 6th through 12th grade PD together again on all of our staff development days. We've also included our principles
065and all of those trainings and had separate trainings for our principles based on the observations that they're doing in the classroom with the teachers. We also provided every math PLC at the secondary level. That means every like course or grade level team of teachers with a PV day prior to the start of each unit. So, we do what's called unpack the unit. Talk about what are the big outcomes for this unit, the standards that we're going to teach, what are the assessments look like, where are we headed here for this unit this first time that our teachers are doing it. So, we've had 19 and a half of those pull out days with our secondary math teachers to help them become familiar and confident before they started those units. So, here are just a few
066pictures of some of those things. Um, our instructional coaches lead those PD sessions and they do a great job modeling for our teachers. Our teachers don't just math teachers don't just sit and look through their manual. They do the math just like the kids are going to be doing uh and the kinds of problems and standards that our students are going to do during those upcoming units. And our instructional coaches do a great job of that. You can see Aaron Fezy in one of those pictures. Our principles join those times, too. So, a little bit about next school year. As many of you know, MAP is an area of focus on some of our actions and our new strategic plan. And we'll be talking more about that in the future. Um, so knowing that, we've
067got some really specific things named for next school year around observing our math teachers and giving them feedback and really helping to support their PLC's. So, we will continue training uh both on our PD days this coming school year, especially for our geometry and algebra 2 teachers who will now be using a new resource. Also, um and uh providing pullout days for them to unpack those units before they start them. Two things that I just wanted to make you aware of that we're adding into the mix is we're going to do some deeper PD now around tier 2 instruction for our students that struggle don't get it that first time and need some additional support um not outside of the classroom or not separate from their math class but how does that happen in the
068classroom during tier one core instruction as well. So that's going to be a big focus this fall. And then we also have been doing some work with our high school math department around the pathways of courses our students take at the secondary level. We're trying to shift to a model of really helping kids and families think about what their goals are after high school and how that can help you determine what math pathway is best for you. So I will be coming to you actually teachers will be coming to you. They'll be doing most of the presenting in the fall to share that information with you because that work will include us adding a new um a few new math courses at our high school level um to kind of fit in those pathways to
069fill in gaps that we maybe have been missing in u mathematical modeling data science. So I'm going to pause before I kind of share one last item. Do you have any questions? Can you just quickly just explain what tier one, two, and three are? Yes, everybody. Tier one is the instruction that we give all students when a teacher is teaching a lesson. If there are students that need a little bit of support, they don't get it the first time, they need a little reteing or maybe a little longer to get those concepts, we call the support we give them tier 2 support. So when a teacher is teaching a lesson, they might have some small group activities and pull a small group into one, you know, area of the classroom to do some extra practice
070and support with them because they need a little extra time or to have it retaught in a different way. So when I was in the seventh grade math classes last week, um there you there was a very hard lesson. It was on cross-sections. It was very hard and and then then the period ended and the kids had to leave. And so when they come back the next day, they're going to be on to a new lesson. And yet we still need to go back and kind of circle back to those kids that, you know, I would that are going to need some extra support and and reteing and helping them understand some of those concepts. So how do we create time and space for teachers to be able to do that um within that classroom
071structure? Yeah, because you can't just keep going through the lesson after lesson without being able to kind of circle back. Good question. Any other questions? Okay, the last thing I just wanted to share and there'll be much more to come on this in the next year or two and two um is that you know I sometimes get the question you know we've we are doing a lot at the secondary level for math when are we going to be having some conversations about some shifts at the elementary level um I think I've probably said this to you before act 20 the literacy law in Wisconsin um forced us to put literacy at the forefront of PD and training and time that our elementary teachers needed to spend on learning new things. So, we are letting our
072elementary teachers continue to get PD and support on that new literacy piece um now and throughout next school year as they use their new elementary literacy resource benchmark advance. So, plan is in the spring of 26, so a year from now, we are hopefully ready after some work this coming year to talk about shifts and maybe a different resource at our elementary level. But the it got a little pause because of act 20. So any questions. Okay. Thanks. Thanks. Kesh, director of continuous improvement and assessment giving us an update on state assessment updates and a strategic plan update. Hello everyone. Uh couple quick updates. I want to make sure that you are uh aware of some things that we've been taking care of lately. I do the state that's just a quick quick update. Uh
073all of our state assessments have uh been completed. So, we have some celebrations in terms of our test participation, and I think they're important to celebrate with all of you because of the hard work of our teachers and our staff and our principles in making sure that we test as many students as possible. Uh we are held accountable for test participation um from both the DPI at a state level and also federal accountability um with a number of grants that we do receive. And I think it's important. I think it's really hard to look at a large amount of student assessment data in a formal way if you're not representing your goal student population. So I believe it's an important statistic in what we do and how we use the data. And I believe that
074our staff and our teachers, our principles take it very seriously. So I think uh we have some big celebrations to uh to share with you tonight. So, in terms of our three big state assessments, our forward exam, just as a recap, is our third through 8th grade uh students in uh English, math, science, and social studies. ELA encompasses reading and writing. Uh so, all of those kids have those assessments. In addition, our fourth, eighth, and fourth, and eighth graders have science and social studies on top of that. and our 10th graders just take the social studies component of the forward exam. So, we tested 97% of our kids in on that assessment this year. Um, and if you remove the 10th grade social studies component, which is a little clunky because they also have to
075take the preac, so you kind of are doing two test sessions for our 10th graders, uh, we were pretty close to 99% of all of our kids tested. Uh those are the best statistics I've seen in the six years I've been in this job. I mean, we've been close. We've been in the 90s, 95 plus, but when you consider the thousands of kids we're testing um and with our attendance and some other, you know, mental health concerns of our kids and families, it's impressive. And just because sometimes this is a confusing uh piece of the statistics, if parents choose to opt a student out of state testing, that still counts as if we didn't test the student. So, we acknowledge that. we say you have the right as a parent to do that but it
076impacts our test participation. So um that is sometimes not understood in the way that it's calculated. And then uh the preac is our state assessment for 9th and tth graders. Um and we you can see there tested 97% of our 9th and tth graders. And our ACT, uh, it is the actual ACT that is a college entrance exam, but in Wisconsin, it is our state test for 11th graders, which is different than a lot of states where it's still an option. Um, and we have successfully tested over 96% of our kids on that assessment. Our kids, our juniors have received their scores uh on the ACT back. They come back relatively quickly with the online test version. Our preac score reports will be sent to guardians at the end of this month electronically. Uh as
077well as our forward exam. This is the first year I believe in my history of 20 plus years uh in this district that the DPI is releasing forward exam data prior to the end of the school year. So it's a big celebration and hopefully it will be a little more meaningful than in September when we've already we're in a new school year and it's not as helpful. So, um, some I think a lot to celebrate just with the administration. On top of this, I know I've said this to those uh board members who have been here, but on top of our forward exam this spring, we've also had our assessments for ACT 20, our early literacy assessments, uh which impact our third grade teachers and students in a big way because we were assessing the
078forward exam and the the window with our EMS web act 20 assessments over overlapped that window for our third graders. So they've had a lot our third grade kids and teachers have had a lot of assessment management happening um and they've done very well. Any questions about just follow up from the state assessments. Today was the very first day of our AP exams at the high school. So I was able to proctor the uh AP biology exam this morning. 50 about 50 45 kids. Worked super hard. Everything went great. So we we are now in AP testing season. Um Heidi Sford's at the high school has done a very nice job coordinating this and I love the proctoring. I will do that all the time. Coordinating is the is all of the hard work. So
079uh that was just a little update on state testing. Uh strategic plan. I just wanted uh to catch our new board members up to speed as to where we've been this year. We've done a lot of work around our new strategic plan. Uh and you have copies of that in front of you. other members. I know I've shared this with you previously. Um I think it's important to just reflect a little bit on where we've been and catch you up to speed on kind and of what's happened since we chatted last. So we uh did a lot of work. The whole board was present this fall. Uh and we worked uh our work was facilitated by a consultant Joe Schrader. Um we worked through a pretty intense evening and full day process the first time
080around uh looking at data looking at a needs assessment. I think a lot of the things Crystal just shared around our math data um it was a something that stood out to all of us. We had parents on our uh in addition to board members, teachers from all levels and subject areas which was helpful uh principles at the table directors at the table. I felt really pleased with the work of the team that came together. So we worked very hard and Joe helped us through the process um with a number of steps in creating our new mission vision and then the pillars um you know things that we're aware of but it helps to ground us in the work that is ahead for the next five years. So, as we have come together, I just
081summarized a little bit of the work that we've done recently with all of our administrators and directors. Last Friday, we had um we kind of did a mini uh experience that those of you who are there experienced. I created a mini version of that for the administrators and principles so that they could experience a little of what we did looking at data, creating a a SWAT analysis. So, I'll show you a little bit um share a little of that and and talk a little bit about what's next. So, I think the the piece of the puzzle around strategic plan and Amy says this frequently, uh it can't just be words on a piece of paper. We have to make sure that we believe in the words and that they help see help us see a
082future for our school district when we have difficult decisions to make and when we have um new ideas coming forward. And this five-year plan hopefully is going to help ground us in what do we want to be known for in Superior. So, this was the team that came together um during the 2425 school year and I think we had a very nice representation. Um it's always helpful to have different perspectives uh brought to the table as you are processing data and and opinions on where we need to go next. So we as a team and then as an admin team we have worked through what are our strengths. This is a SWAT analysis. The acronym is strengths, weaknesses, opportunities and threats. Uh and again this was facilitated by our consultant but I think we had
083a lot of uh great conversation looking at district data and really trying to be concise around how clear it's difficult to be clear. Um I think so that clarity is really helpful when putting words on paper so that we all have the same understanding of what those words mean. Um, so that was a lot of the work that we did in figuring out our strengths, weaknesses, opportunities, and threats. And from that, really creating the why do we exist and what purpose do we serve? That's really the goal of your mission as an organization. And our vision is really what we hope to be widely known for and respected for in the next five years. So think a lot of um power in the words we chose as a team around the mission and vision. We
084also on the back of this um have indicated our commitments and those are really you know what do we what do we stand for? What do we believe in and how are we going to use these commitments to solve problems and make tough decisions as a district in the future. Those are the pillars. Um, we did, you know, use a lot of the work that had been a part of our previous strategic plan. Um, and we were able to keep many things that already existed and and make, you know, update them, make them a little unique. And I think the communication is important. So, where are we now? So, our our important next steps um are in progress. So this is a this is a snapshot draft of uh the template we're using to create
085the district level scorecard. And the scorecard is really a tool for all of you to measure the current health of our district. I have I typically am here presenting different data points throughout the year um specific most often to student achievement. Um and our student achievement or student engagement growth and and achievement pillar is the first pillar in the strategic plan obviously similar to most districts. Uh but this is really the system of accountability at the board level. So this be a dashboard for you um to monitor the health of our district. And so we will have metrics and we're working through we have some some of this is very typical. We've got assessment data. It's a pretty typical metric that's used for student achievement, engagement, and growth. But we're we're working through um being
086even more specific around some of our family and community partnerships, our staff. We're using some survey data. We're working on creating some of those things within our action plan. So, this is something that I'm going to be bringing and and have in front of you throughout the year. Obviously, a lot of these metrics aren't going to change by month. They're going to be annual objectives. Um, they often Joe referred to it kind of as like you're in your car and the dashboard in your car tells you all sorts of pieces of data. And I think this is something similar. We're not looking for anything to change necessarily in a certain way. We're just using what's in front of us to gauge our health of our district. So, um I'm hopeful that this will be a
087helpful tool for all of this new kind of process through where we at as a district um and and help with those decisions. Do you Yeah. Can I just say one? Um so, I think you know, one of the questions we asked Joe is how often and what capacity do we bring this information to the board? And so, he kind of said, you know, summer and probably January would be the time. So that alen annual calendar that I had developed that kind of talks through the different things we plan over the course of the year for schoolboard. I've added that to our calendar. Um we'll need some baseline data going into the school year. So I anticipate kind of the first update will be in January of 26. Y that will be able to kind
088of give you some updated data on our scorecard related to our different pillars. like you said, um we're still working on what are those data points that we're going to bring um that we're going to bring to the board. Um you guys have provided a lot of different examples. So, we're kind of pe, you know, going through those to figure out what makes the most sense. The committee in our work that we did uh this fall, uh we have a list of these would be important things to consider. So, we've used that. Um, and then of course we also don't want 15 metrics in each kid and that's just too much. I think the committee also recommended a one-page scorecard was really nice to be able to look at. It was clear. We use lots
089of different district examples and since then I've uh found other examples too to help kind of guide us. And I think this is a really nice clear way to demonstrate that. Um, we will have some baseline data from this year that we'll be able to use as a starting point and other pieces we will have to create create so that we have real clarity in what we're measuring. Um, for example, some survey questions where we're going to measure a specific question and the growth or the the results of of a specific question getting at what we want to make sure we're measuring. Um, questions about the scorecard. I feel like before I move on from this slide, where will this live? It's like a district website or Yep. I anticipate that it would live on
090the district website. I think uh again, it's not part of me would love for something to be updated more frequently even, but that's not the purpose. It's it's a you know, twice a year, so it's an easy to update. I mean, I share that information with you typically twice a year anyway. It'll just be housed in one central location. So to me that makes you know I will share it here and then it will the updated version will go on the website as soon as I share it with you. Also an action plan is created question. Good segue. Here we go. Um so the the action plan is called a continuous performance report card. A CPR card. It's really our internal document as directors and administrators to identify what do we need to do to
091um monitor the health of our district. What are we doing to change or uh maybe not even change but to maintain change anything that we've identified in the scorecard. So the scorecard is your accountability tool. the CPR card, the the action plan is the what the what and how what defines the work that we're doing. And I think this is just a snapshot of kind of page one of our draft so far um through the 30th of April and most of this has identified work around math specifically and many of those points were ones Crystal just shared with you. So it's we're really trying to be intentional about the alignment between our strategic plan, our action plan and the the metrics that you will see and the work that we do on a daily basis.
092This has taken a lot of time the background to try to get some of this and I will I mean Kate's led this work also trying to lead this work um during the middle of assessment season is challenging. So trying to kind of balance what's currently happening in our district but still trying to get this ready for summer because we have to we start the ground running on our planning come August. So, so the goal here really will be um this work, our strategic plan and the actions really need to align right to the school's continuous improvement plan. So, it it it's like a it makes sense. It it flows together. So, from this work, then I will redesign kind of the layout of our school continuous improvement plans. And in August, we work with
093our strategic or our shared leadership teams um with all of the principles for two and a half days in August. And principles will I will facilitate Crystal and I will and they will principles will direct their teams and and work through creating their building continuous improvement plans as a direct um result of what our strategic plan is. And the work we're doing at a district level will filter down to a building level. It's just important to note this is brand new to us um and so much more robust in a a tight way for the the board and administrators and principles and our staff for everyone to hold themselves accountable um and and see that progress like also celebrate again um very clearly because I I do value the presentations and the data you always
094put together for us Kate but um this will just be it'll 0. Yeah, absolutely. Thank you. Yeah, and I talked about this a little bit, but basically our next steps, we need to finalize the actions and the scorecard. Um, we've worked with principles. We brainstormed lots of great ideas last Friday, principles and directors around kind of our systemwide roll out and making sure we know that the power is in our staff. All of us hold the power of making things happen when we really focused on our graduation rates. That's a really great current example. Um it became meaning personal to everyone regardless of their job role. And I think the power here is it it we have the same power here. So that if this if I can connect with this regardless of my role
095in the district and I see myself in how I'm impacting kids in our district. I think that is really we need to do this well from the beginning. And I think that's a really important piece. I also think it's really important to not only engage with our staff, but our community, our families, and and make sure that we this is an important part of our community in terms of our strategic plan as a district and and how we look to support future community members as they graduate from our school system. I think Joe said it best too at the session when we were all together that, you know, some of the best the highest functioning districts with the best success have a really strong strategic plan. And I think having a solid plan that everybody
096can buy into and be committed to is is really powerful. And I was really excited about how our meeting went on Friday with our administrative team. I just felt like there was a lot of energy and inspiration on where we're going to be in five years and a lot of um we're going to go from great to greater. I think that I said awesome to more awesome. Yeah. Awesome. Yeah. Any other questions, comments? Thank you. You've done a lot of work and we can see that. We appreciate that. Tell you that sound like he remembers all of you. Yeah, I bet he does too. He actually does. Probably does. Like trying to describe and he's like, "Oh, yeah." You know, I know. I was like, "That's impressive." Some good skills. Very good work. Thank you.
097Thank you. Thanks, Kate. All right. Up next, Jen Willoughby, director. She's gonna be next week. and he's going to speak next week. So that's it. That's President Olson. No, Jan J Olson. Yeah. Thank you. Operations committee. Uh got that. Sarah's got that. Uh no action items, no discussion items, information items. Introduction of new buildings and grounds director. Steve, say your last name for me. Gustin. Perfect. I'm Steve Gustin, new building and ground director. the job so he gets to come and do I guess there's a few things uh that we're have in the works for this summer. Um we have the Bryant window and Tuck Point uh project that's kicking off our kickoff meetings uh May 28th out of the school. We plan on having uh the project completed hopefully by mid August and late
098August. Um and another projects that we're working on is various entry doors. Um different schools that have been corroded out through the you know salty weather over the winter times that and then obviously going out to the school forest and taking a good assessment of material condition buildings out there. We're glad to have you aboard. Our two new board members uh we do what is called a power clap. In fact, some of you in the audience know it on three you know what it is. One, two, three. Good job, Steve. Welcome. Um, one of the things, you may not even know this yet, but one of the things that I know that we've talked about at a board level is really trying to articulate our long range facility plan in a simplified way that we're
099able to kind of put some of that information on our website and use to be able to communicate with the community. So, when we're doing things like we're doing this summer with Bryant, people understand it's part of a long-term plan. So, I don't know if you know that yet, but that's something we'll be working on. um hopefully in the months to come with some reps from our facilities committee to try to put something together that's meaningful to our community and our board. So yeah, Ella, I have people asking about turf. What's our ETA in the future for that? I'll just uite too well. We are Yeah, we're at 10 years I believe, right? Or is it a little longer? 12. And I thought we had funding set aside for that. So yes, so last year
100with the donation from NBC, um that's been invested in, right? Um right. No. Um so there's I mean there's a large chunk of that that's that's there. Uh Gabe and I just met last week to talk about that too. But um yeah, and then working with the other data that uh we we had a somebody that knew somebody who knew somebody came up and spoke with us um the other two weeks ago um Carrie Palace who works full-time on the turf when it's not full snow. Um he does really really great work. Anytime everybody's come I say you know he's gotten us multiple years more than what it should be. um for the usage of it right now. Um is it wearing? Yes, it's it's used. Um we'll get a little less usage now that
101EWS has their own field um of you know grown adults playing on it. So that could help us. Um are there wear warm spots that are going to eventually become unsafe and that you know we're tackling kids or falling kids and don't have it proper there? Yes, there will be eventually just because we're using it. So um but it is something that you know we want to make sure that we really look at. some years down, but I don't know. Is it safe for the upcoming the current spring and the upcoming fall? Absolutely. Um and there are some donations that we've gotten in the past few years for scoreboard spots that we've taken that money for this in between of complete re, you know, resurfacing. So, um is there stuff this summer we could do
102kind of like a reconditioning of the field? Yes. So, we'll try to do that as much as we can. Um but that's a good question. that that takes a lot more planning and budgeting and stuff that we're we're we talk about it a lot. Yeah, it's and it's not good timing. I know it's not, but when I'm thinking about facilities and just trying to always prioritize and and think long term about where do our funds need to be prioritized and then how can we be mindful of those future. It's on our radar and I think the NBC has been a huge obviously asset that that we'll be needing to support. Yeah. And we talked a lot working with David Coy and and um our department is one that we're able to go to those sponsors
103and the businesses in this community that that want and need their names out there. So, um, we'll try as hard as we can to try to get as much of that as possible so that the tuck point whatever that is and the doors and all that the roast of, uh, buildings and that can take that money. Um, unless we want to start putting branding on top of roof. Um, yeah. So, we'll we'll work hard. We'll continue to do that because there are businesses that are continuing to reach out. When is that scoreboard going to be ready? When can I put my name on the field? So, we're going to do that as much as is there a is there a cost analysis put together yet of what replacement of the turf on that's changed. Um,
104you had one a couple years ago, this guy that just came up to kind of look and talk about the reconditioning of the turf and then the future he's also he could give I I get emails weekly about, hey, it's coming up. Can we come give you a quote? So, it's hard now because if it's three years down the road, we know you could add another year probably. Yeah. So, but we did have somebody give us an estimate a couple years ago. Was it the same vendor that we used in the first place or is it another vendor? And have we reached out to a couple of the other communities that have just put turf in? I guess I'm I am a little concerned about it and stuff because I do not want our school
105district get in the same situation that a school district just to the east of us got into u with the wear and tear on their their particular field. So, um, is because of that NBC and I'll be the one that and I talk about it quite a bit. Um, is that we have that NBC donation that's sitting there. So, we have the ability to do that field, but that NBC donation is making interest for us right now. Then we use that money somewhere else and million dollars means piece of interest out there. Um, how it and then it's not just the the football, but we have to take into consideration all the other fields that are out there. Exactly. And that NBC donation is that's that's 15 years. We're not going to touch anymore. You
106know, there's not a donation like that. And we as a district really lucked out that we pulled in that large sum of money. So it's in my mind we have to maximize in that maximize that field as long as we can and then create that plan of that transition and but also on vendors because I know there's been discussion that we might not want the same field like I guess there's different types of fake field out there that we might want to use a different type of so that's when we get to that point it's going to be a big evaluation and that's um we I've already spoke with Ellen as creating a long-term facilities plan just for that complex itself So, and also one thing um and I spoke last week was we rent
107that facility, we rent a bunch of stuff out, we rent our fields out, we rent our gyms out. Um what I want to do or want to start doing next year is we're going to take a percentage of that rental fees that come in and that's going to get reinvested into our facilities. So, was it the original plan that any rental facility, any any outside agency, teams, whatever, renting those outdoor facilities that their payment was supposed to go into a set fund for that purpose of for that purpose of refurbishing? Now, I I I know that you two were not involved back then on that, but I think we need to look We've had those conversations a couple times. Yeah. Where is it going? I don't my understanding is it's going into a capital fund
108to be able to to be a to what am I trying to say to replace it. So we can I mean those are some specific questions we might have to double check on but this is not a new conversation. I think it might be newer for you but I I can remember previous conversations around this. Yeah. Anything else? Welcome to operation Stephen. That concludes the operations report. Don't think you're off the hook because you're going to do the negotiations committee. All right. One action item. Administration recommends approval of the May 2025 new hires and separations report. Motion to approve. Second for a motion and a second to approve the 2025 new hires and separations report. Any further discussion? No further discussion. All those approving say I opposed. Motion carries. No discussion items. Uh noformational items.
109And does anyone else have any matters to be brought before the committee? No. That concludes that report as well. Thank you. Our next up is the uh legislative committee. Thank you, Mr. President. I have zero action items, zero discussion items, but I do have oneformational item uh which is the joint finance committee update from Dr. Amy Starzi, our district administrator, and uh potentially Nick Olsen, who also attended. Yeah. So, I just thought it would be good to give a update uh in open session just letting folks know that I did have a opportunity to testify on Monday last week. Um and then I provided written testimony as well. I think you know we've really tried to encourage staff and our community to voice their um concern uh recognizing that we know that property taxes are
110going to go up next winter uh because we're going to receive less aid uh less equalization aid. Um and so being able to talk to the people who make those decisions I think directly is very important. So I don't know do you have any thoughts or I mean maybe it was your first time. What was your thoughts or experience? Um there's a lot of asks for money, that's for sure. But the people there from the various school districts, it was a lot about uh special education funding. Yeah. Uh that was the main topic. And there was the number one topic was K12 education. That was number one thing for sure. That's that was most of the speakers. Um I did not get to testify. I didn't get there early enough. Yeah. I believe. But it
111was uh very informational and I think very informative for everybody on that joint finance committee. Seeing the process I think is interesting. Yeah. Good. I'm I'm aware former board members writing. One board member wrote as a parent and also as a board member. I've had the opportunity to write a couple letters. Uh one directly to our representative. um not always impressed with getting back a canned letter, but know that that's part of be part of the process on a response back, but Okay. Yeah. So, um any other matters uh brought before the committee by board members? I guess I want to say please write, please call, just flood the phones. This is really not looking good for public education and I'm very very worried uh about all students and school districts. Uh and I have
112no other nothing else for you. That concludes my report. Right. Thank you. Budget Insurance Nick Olson. Last but not least David. Boom. Boom. Purple action items. Gifts, grants, and bequests. Administration recommends approval to accept gifts, grants, and bequests received in April 2025. Motion to approve. Second. Wonderful. I have a motion and a second. Any discussion? Thank you to everybody on that list. We Everybody appreciates motion and a second. No further discussion. All those in favor signify by saying I I opposed. Hearing none. Motion carries. Our CISA 12 shared services contract administration recommends approval of the 202526 shared services contract with CISA 12 in the amount of 1,100,18. Gez, you can do it. I can do it. 101,892.94. The cost for 2425 was $151,889. Motion to approve. Second. Motion and a second. Any discussion? Just that
113the reduction from one year to the other is a uh a result of a reduction in special education services required. Just in needs basically needs have changed. Okay. Any other discussion? Hearing none. All those in favor signify by saying I. I. Opposed. Motion carries. I have no discussion items andformational items. Update on student recruitment efforts. Start. You going to start? You going to take it? Go for it. Sure. All right. So, uh, for when we're looking at the budget, of course, it comes down to how much this money is the state going to give us per kid and how do we get more money or how do we get more kids? Um, at the beginning, we looked at, you know, what are the options we have out there? One of the ideas that was floated
114out there was do we become an online school um and do an online charter school. Um after we did more research um that isn't a viable way. Um one thing I was told by I brought in some consultants and they said what makes you better than all the schools that have been doing this for 15 years. You're going to invest a whole lot of money to try and be just as good as somebody else and nobody else is going to help you because you're going to be their competitors. It's not like you can go and ask Sun Purer how do you do this? somebody's going to say um so we're kind of looking at a different direction and then the other side of note too is when Crystal and I had a meeting with DPI
115about this um we would have to create a whole another basically it's creating a whole another school district where you have to adopt another school board and like Dave said there's an there's a significant investment that would need to be incurred on the front end of this you wouldn't make money because you'd need to do all the planning and the work on the front end of this so there was Um we had some meetings with DPI to kind of talk through what this would look like from our end. Um so then the other one how do you again how do you bring in more kids? You have you know our bordering schools are Solen and Maple. Those are small rural schools. There just isn't a lot of kids to to pull in. Um you have
116Duth but of course they can't cross the border. So we can't take those kids from from Duth. If if we could pull kids from Duth, we would be in a much different situation just because of the way the superior school district is. And we just can't we can't draw revenue from kids who don't live in our state. So it's it's a that's just kind of a a state rural that's um so then it's how how else do you get more kids? Well, the way you get more kids is one let's focus on the kids that are opening out on us and those students that are homeschooled or private schools and how can we focus on that? So, um, with the help of David Koy, Casey Smith, um, we got together, we created a a flyer
117that we're sending out to all those students out there saying, hey, come and look what Superior has to offer. Um, I think we're I don't know if we finalize what our slogan is going to be, but just something where it's like, you know, hey, we're, you know, a big school district, a small district. You know, we really need to push the the assets and the resources that we have here that other schools districts. The school forest um is one of those. Um our college credit courses that we offer to students, all the our our sports complex, everything like that to say, "Hey, you should come to this school." Um and activities manufacturing going. So, uh and we sent those letter. I think we got some feedback already from people saying, "Hey, this is great. It's
118an open invitation to come and just tour our school. Come and have a lunch. Come and sit in a classroom. come and see what it is about. And the letter was drafted from myself and the principal with the intent that they reach out to the principal and they schedule a tour with a principal and come and see our facilities and come into the building. So, we tried to personalize it is what I'm trying to say. It wasn't just a form letter. We all signed it. We all sent it from our different schools. Yep. So, and it's we are going to make that push and I hope we do see a difference on it. But, it's going to be a long journey to get there. Um, we're going to get people that do, you know, maybe
119we get a couple this year. Then we use them as, you know, hey, can you provide some some input on this? I think we do that with a student, somebody that transfers from private school into into our school and say, hey, how what's your experience been? And she's they said it was it's been great. I think the big thing we got to get past is the stigma. If you talk to people out there and they and they've never been in the middle school, I mean, they think it's like it's a prison. Amazing. That might be some but so I think that's the big focus that we have going forward is trying to figure out how we can bring those kids back and recruit those other kids to say look at you can come here you
120can take the AP courses test right now if you get a four on it then that's you can start your college career as a sophomore which you know I like to tell the kids if you're a sophomore when you go to college you get to pick a dorm room a lot better than what those So you got to sell the kids. Um the other thing I just wanted to mention about the virtual option. So we met also with our virtual online coordinator um and kind of talked through what this would look like. We we all kind of decided collectively it wasn't the right time to do that work. But we did talk about the number of students who have who are leaving us that are our students where we don't need to create a charter
121school to educate them online. how do we bring those students back into our school district if they're currently um accessing online services through other um platforms or other school districts. So, that's on our radar. We have meetings still coming up this spring to kind of work with her and kind of talk through how we're going to engage and reach out to those families in particular. The other thing is working with David Koy. We've been trying to also um create a small budget just to kind of get word out a little bit better and more intentional this year and getting um the enrollment process in front of all of our families. So you might see some stuff at super one or things like that. Um just trying to be more intentional this year than we have
122in the past about how do we get the word out that it's an option to enroll here and we do great work. So excellent for one today and they are they are airing. So there there's three TVs right in front of the checkout area. People see it happen and I hope about once a month once a minute. So you'll be seeing us a lot. Nice. Oh we're not doing a billboard. No we're not seen. Yeah I have. Mhm. We did look at it though. Yeah, we did look at it. Pricey. No way. Dave, when did those letters go out? About a month ago. Okay. Yeah. Anything else on that? Health insurance. 4.3%. Health insurance. Yeah. 4.3. So, our health insurance is going up 4.3%. Um, I wanted a lower number. Their original offer was 8
123something. Um our cap was 95. So this is this came down quite a bit. It's just the unfortunate world that we live in on health insurance. That 43 is a really good percentage, but 43 means in, you know, 14 years our insurance will double. That's just unsustainable. The other part about it is deductible. The deductible went up for $100 for a single and $200 for family. Nothing we can control. That's the IRS that came in and said, "This is how much it's going up. you're going to have a high deductible HSA plan that the employee employer contributes to, then this is the minimum that it's going to be. Um, we did meet with we actually met with Medicica, Marshall, Mlennon, who's your broker and then the SFT union last week to try and figure out
124how we can get how we can get better coverage. I think it was a good meeting. I think it's nice that we had Medicica there. We kind of put them on the spot. So, I think these are the issues we're running into. we really need to figure out how we can make this better. Um, I know like I don't like to compare us to other districts or ending, but there's a district that's near us that is going to make a change as well. Um, and you know, this is kind of the way that school districts are going. It's um, but unfortunately we could not get a rate cap for next year and that's one thing I really push hard. So, it is up in the air what's going to happen next year in that rate
125cab, but that just puts more puts more on me unfortunately to figure out if there's other solutions that are out there. Um, hopefully Medicaid or Medicica is a long-term plan and long-term partner, but we have to make sure we keep our options open. So, I expect we'll have to look again early into the school year next year. Oh, they didn't shop it out at all. They just worked with Medicica then. Yep. So, what usually happens is you go two years at a time. If you become a company that shops out all the time, you don't get a very good rate. Um, when you go two years, um, what you see a lot is insurance company buy you. They come in with a really low rate that first year. They raise you up a little bit
126the second year and that's that third year is you need to go make sure that they're not going to come back with a a monumental increase. Um, when you look at districts out there, I looked at some, they were hitting that 25% 30% increase on healthcare. And I looked at like how are you going to pay this? And they said we have no idea. Okay. Fun 10 revenue and expenditure. I didn't seem to be glaring. Do you have any thing that's um that happened? July one is when I want to change up this report. Um and I already created the report, but I want to be consistent throughout the year. Um so come July 1, I want to change up the report. The plan is to get to the the finance committee, the small group
127on the board so they can look at it, provide their input. Uh I just didn't want to change something the middle year, but it's going to include a fiscal year to date. So from the year prior, so you can go in and see like, hey, we spent right around that money. The hard part is those numbers get to be so big that if somebody's just looking at the difference, oh my god, that's $100,000 difference. What are you doing? And then you go back and the percentage is 1%. or when the payrolls if you hit an extra payroll in the month of April numbers going to inflate because all a sudden you got an extra two million in there so it's just I think that'll be good though just giving you a sense of what's this
128is a very old report we've been doing time and I when David first started I said when you're ready I think we should kind of talk about refreshing you're ready yeah I mean I use the report because like you said that doesn't show I can't see what's going on on especially at the beginning of the year that's been told. Uh I don't have anything else. So that concludes my report. Very good. Thank you very much. Long meeting with a lot of information. We will meet next Monday, May 12th. Right now we're scheduled for 5:00 p.m. That concludes tonight's meeting. Motion to adjurnn. Motion to adjurnn. Second. Second to adjourn. All in favor signify by saying I. Opposed to carry a roll.