December 2023 Committee of the Whole Meeting

001it done well good evening everybody and welcome to tonight's Committee of the whole meeting Monday December 4 2023 this meeting is a meeting of the Board of Education held in public for the purpose of conducting the school district 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 they do so by signing up on the public comment signup sheet the enterance prior to start of this meeting Bo request refraining from making any comments involving personal personally identifiable information about students staff or Administration comment should be respectful focused on the items being considered by the board and will

002be restricted I will open up the Open Session agenda first thing is comments by members of the public and are there any next up is the report of Steve do a roll call sorry roll call please Smith here Nick Olson here Nick Schumer here Brook Taylor here I'm here a here thanks first update is report all right I have a handful of informational items I'm gonna start with um principal Haroldson and his uh board update regarding Great Lakes I know sorry good all right um glad to be here tonight I just want to give you some uh General updates for great l I'm hoping um celebrations I I guess I want to highlight two things Contin continuing to raise student achievement every year um I'm going to show you a little bit of data and

003we're well above the state averages in math and reading overall and also some above the state averages and some key subgroups um another celebration I continue to be the luckiest principal on the face of the earth I work with a staff that works really hard um I trust them if I was a quarterback I'd be I feel comfortable trusting them to catch every ball I roow um and the whatever it takes mentality this is the foundation for any of the success that we've uh we've had the past few years um talked about achievement being one of our um important data points so I pulled our achievement score on the school report card and it it it's actually it goes off of the last three years and I believe the school report cards the last three

004years are somewhat comparable I I know they've done some different uh formulas so I think we're kind of on the same uh same ground here what this is is it takes math and reading and it takes your past three years of each of these and it calculates a score um you can see that our overall achievement is going up um for math and reading something we're really proud of something we've really emphasized a lot at our building um I I guess I'm just talking to like I run a staff meeting I'd like to I'd like to see uh Great Lakes be the highest achieving uh school in the state of Wisconsin and we continue to make progress toward that and according to this we're about the 65th percentile in the state of Wisconsin um so

005we still have a little bit of GR left to cover but we're going to keep working to try to do that um why is achievement so important to me because we on this is forward testing State Testing uh information and we test probably 180 to over 200 kids depending on the year with our enrollment fluctuations so every half percentage point this goes up means we have another kid in a statistical category where they've got all of life's great doors um open to them um just want you to look at overall so I took the state averages which now the this is all public and we could do some comparing um you can see we're overall we're above the state average by about 14 points um a subgroup we spent a lot of time really focused

006on at our building making sure these kids uh students who are in the low socioeconomic uh status range uh we're up to 46% proficient Advanced um double what the state average is and then disability we've seen some really awesome growth this is English language arts 34% of our students with a disability are at proficient or Advanced compared to the state at 14% um another point I want to highlight here if we took our low socioeconomically disadvantaged students um we're still seven points above the overall State average and that that that state average involves all the students so um really just proud of my teachers and my support staff and my counselors and my kitchen staff and everybody that plays a part in um getting this data where it needs to go um similar pattern on

007the math um we had a math goal for sever several years and we finally have broken through um getting well above the state average you can see that's the overall um socioeconomically disadvantaged students again were almost 50% of those kids are getting to proficient or Advanced um and to get to profish or advance means they're outscoring individually about 60 to 65% of the students in the state that's really hard to um again we're seeing the same pattern with our kids that have uh disabilities um I pulled this I guess I think this combines everything including speech I pulled it from um the wise Dash uh State data I mean I could further break this down too um and again we are students who are low socioeconomically disadvantaged that group alone is also higher than the

008overall State average so just really um prideful with that um challenges I want to talk about I know as a board you've heard this again and again and again in fact I was just listening to Mr kin I think last uh um uh board meeting one of the ones that involved the the boundaries mental health continues to be a challenge um I think it just needs to continue to be communicated that we have next and no resources outside of our counselors at our school um it's and I would also say too like I know Mr kin talked a little bit about this but I've had a school that's fluctuated between all 350 kids now all the way up to like 460 kids I've done it with one counselor I've done it with two counselors um

009having two counselors is a game changer and I think we have to make tough decisions I want to um keep this in mind um I think this also has helped with our data Resurgence the past three or four years um the one resource we do have when it's in place is a great resource we Superior Community Health I've had a couple awesome therapists there but over the last two years I can count probably on one hand the number of months they've been there because they leave for different positions um we have uh we had we had our current person we had working with a full day full Cas Lo worth of kids we're ready to add a second day so we had a wh list ready she took a different position there's nobody there um

010so I just think it needs to be mentioned that these counselors are handling our day-to-day needs of all the kids um in our situation uh the students who don't have homes regular organization of food bags calling and connecting with Community Resources organization of all the paperwork required in educ climber they've got 30 plus social academic groups they are key when we have higher behavioral needs or emotionally social emotional needs in sped to stepping in and helping um they're regularly out at recess supporting um those kids and really I think if we don't value this piece we're going to throw a lot back on the teachers and I'm fearful um that some of our data success won't be quite as easy to achieve um school goals um we did I showed the data for math and

011reading um the past several years we've been focused heavily on the math I've gotten math to the point where we we have tabled that not that math isn't a priority but we had about a 24% gain in proficiency over the time that we started that math goal I think in like 2018 on our continuous Improvement plan um we are now straight up focused on reading you can see up there about 69% of our kids uh met the 40th percentile on the decodable words in the a reading which is part of our fast Bridge testing Suite we want to get 90% of the kids at the 40th or higher by the end of the work end of the school year on either the winter the spring or or both so the forward data the state testing

012data I showed you there that's one piece of testing data this is uh I would say a more useful piece of testing data because we get this information in fall winter and spring and if we can get that up to 90% I'm pretty confident our state testing data will also keep um moving in the right direction we we also have a climate goal 100% of our students and families will feel they belong um in our school um that came out of some of the survey data that was collected at the district level um where we thought maybe we need to connect a little bit better with some families I don't really know which families had some of that feedback it's an it's an anonymous survey but there was enough of it that we wanted to

013focus on that um as far as action steps um for reading maximiz maximization of the systems we built PLC teams our RTI teams um systematic phonics in the core core instruction K through3 that aligns to what the science says about um decoding um we've also put a lot of effort this school year into vocabulary instruction and getting kids I guess simplifying the writing process and really focusing in on the sentence level and eventually the paragraph level so those kids can write clear and coherent paragraphs if they can do that one thing I am I'm thrilled um the climate goal we've used our our staff meetings regularly at least on a monthly basis to go through our discipline referral data and also our Savers data which is more of the social emotional academic piece um to

014make sure we're intervening with kids um that need uh our support um we put emphasis on every staff member having a positive communication with parents of all the students they work with at the beginning of the year and then the treny piece um we had some conversations about just keeping positive and ex exercising patience with those kidss who are Trent because it's usually not the students fault that they're Trent it might be frustrating when they're gone three days in a week um but just trying to maintain that positive relationship with those pigs and all right sorry a lot of information questions what questions do you have five here five there do you know what is your true anded percentage trcy percentage last year and I'm gonna I'm going to defer a little the cap but

015we had like 25 to 30% by grade level that missed the 10 or more days that are allowed by State Statute I don't know what that percentage is right now actually it seems that it's better only because I'm not having a lot of meetings yet get into that time of year we sent the letters that kind of the gentle reminder and then it's time to you know to sit down and talk and meet but I've only had a small handful of them um I tell you what I probably have an answer for you tomorrow I the system I didn't I don't yeah anything it sounds like it's a little bit lower for great LS yeah right now I mean yeah but then last year we had a fifth grade that had um a fairly high

016percentage of Fairly significant TR and Z even to the level we had to go to the county and such things Brian as you developed the action items for reading are they somewhat aligned with or relatable to some of the new items that'll be coming up with act yeah they should be aligned to the umie of act 20 and in fact we've been we've been doing some professional development on that probably going back to the start of the emls position with some of the trainings we did there so like we we kind of knew this was coming I I didn't expect it this fast but it should be aligned to the science and um some of the requirements that'll be coming to with the state and the state law isn't isn't all bad some of it's

017going to be frustrating and maybe a little bit of extra busy work but um I think the emphasis they put on the science and how kids learn to read is going to be really um a great thing for us as a state thank you thank you very much all right I have two other informational items and they're not here so we'll table those for next week is that okay y it is um my first action item is um the calendar for the 2425 school year so like to give some background do you want to ask for a motion first or do you want me to talk through that okay so we would motion to approve one of these options to why don't I give some background and then does that sound okay okay can I

018do that and then you can motion on the recommendation okay so I want to give you a little bit of background on how the calendar options came to you tonight um this actually started last school year at the conclusion of the school year I always get lots of different conflicting information about how snow days are going virtual snow days those kinds of things and so last year at the end of the school year we pushed out a survey um parents filled out the survey and staff filled out the survey and I have the results of that survey from last year and um the question we ask is um you know is this plan for providing virtual snow days been a good option as oppos instead of having to add days um at the end of

019the school year and extending in the school year um the trying to see um of the parents that filled out the survey 83% said yes and of the staff that filled out the survey 93 said yes that they're preferring that we keep this virtual option um instead of extending the school year um we actually received tons of really good positive feedback about the virtual I was just expecting not as many positive um uh responses just because it tends to be somewhat of a div divisive issue but a lot of positive and then we asked for some feedback on how we can make those things better and we met as a um Department of teaching and learning this summer to really look at our plan and we made some adjusts adjustments particularly in the secondary level

020um to add some additional teacher time um for students so we made some adjustments based on the feedback there so we kept that plan moving forward um additionally when um about five years ago we tried to have a calendar committee come together when one of the things I learned pretty quickly with a calendar committee well first of all one of the things i' I've been doing school calendars for over 20 years in any role I've been in in District administration and one of the things I've learned is you don't make everybody happy with school calendar so um we tried a calendar committee about five years ago what I learned really quickly in that process is the six or 10 people that come to the committee um have their kind of personal preferences emphasized and it's

021not necessarily representative of all of staff so then we started pushing out surveys and then as part of listening sessions that we had this year and and from last year as well um I decided before we even started drafting a calendar this year I would do an overall survey and just kind of do a reset like what do you what do you think is going well what are your um your opinions of different aspects of the calendar um I was just ping head it up there um so some of the things that staff had said when I sent out the um uh survey this fall was that they prefer um that we have half work days in August as opposed to full work days that they prefer the Tuesday through Thursday for staff development days

022as opposed to like Monday through Wednesday or um Wednesday to Friday so they have those Monday and Fridays off they prefer having a professional development day earlier in the year so they can work on their slos and look at their their um School Improvement plans um we also survey staff at the conclusion of our professional development day as and that kind of helps guide the decisions we make and where they get placed um the feedback um was very clear that the week of um March 10th is when people want spring break and I asked the question about whether we wanted to start before September 1st more and more school districts across the state of Wisconsin are asking for waivers to start the school year before September 1st and so I asked the option of staff

023is this something we're interested in hands down no they're not interested in that so um all of those uh all that feedback was really helpful and we drafted that calendar based on that feedback the one area that was not clear was how long we should have winter break the staff are very divided 45% want a shorter break so that the school year ends earlier 44% wanted a longer break and 11% preference so um so I drafted two calendars that kind of showed longer break and shorter break and that's the same results um so I wanted just to share with you uh kind of what staff had said with these two options that we put together 64% of Staff prefer having a longer break over a shorter Break um did I do that right no hang

024on a second sorry I said that wrong 55 55% of Staff prefer to have um a longer break and get out later in June and 45% prefer to have a shorter break so the results are relatively divided again however there's a couple points that I want to bring I want to have this discussion at the Schoolboard level for transparency purposes so people know how decisions are how the decision comes to be um there's a couple issues one is I feel like we should lean towards what staff have asked and that the majority of Staff have said can we have a longer break and get out later but there's two challenges with that option one at the high school is when we do that we have more days with without sen without seniors at the high

025school level because they will graduate on that previous Friday so that gives them four days without seniors as opposed to three I think it is that one of the biggest things with the Union to that was the that was the biggest thing we heard at the high school listening session the other issue that comes with getting out and having longer breaks is hourly staff go almost two weeks in that calendar without pay and that can be a hardship for support staff but when you look at the folks who completed the survey teachers and Paris primarily are the ones who identify that they like the longer breaks so I bring this for this discussion as to how we want to proceed um we have two options in front of us and that's kind of the data

026that we have does that make sense any questions okay so now I would call first US y so if anybody wants to make a motion on either of these options make a motions I move to approve option number two for the 2024 2025 academic calendar there's a motion in a second to proove option two discussion option two is the longer break and getting out later in June and so that one had the bigger percentage that is what more people wanted at 55% but that creates a couple additional challenges took this one survey I get a pretty good although there's only like two questions which one do you want um first of all I want to thank you for snow day clarification as well because I had asked Steve I know last year um you know

027it was I think the day of that I asked about that and so it was too late to talk about adding an additional snow day I do think this far north it is um 2 days isn't probably enough but if so many feel it's going well then I'm happy with that so I'm glad that you shared those surveys and they provided good feedback on how we can make it a little bit better so that was good that's good about the snow days quick so how do teachers like I know there's probably a lot of barriers for some kids to get their work done on those virtual snow days so how do the teachers or what guidelines do they have to determine whether that's an absent or present for the students given all like the TRU

028Andy goals you want to comment on that at all just because you're a big part of it different at each level but in general the guidance that we provide teachers and the like attendance instructions part of their like directives for that day is that to consider that each family might have different circumstances sometimes older siblings are babysitting younger siblings you know there's there's a lot of things that to take into consideration for each family that students depending on the level have between five to seven days to complete their work and if they complete their work that would have been assigned to them and they did that if they were at school that day then that would count as a present okay does that make sense that totally makes sense I'm just wondering like if they

029don't get it done at home do the teachers help them throughout that week like if they go back look a little bit different at each level right whether kindergarten or Y well then they're not absent just because they had their older sibling watching yeah the attendance guidelines I think really take into consideration that we want to make sure that it's Equitable depending on what a family circumstances might be if they're not able to do the work that day I'm glad to hear that clarification as well because sometimes I was under the impression that it was meeting once on a Google meet or something with their teacher that then that would mark them present and that worried me about internet connections about time you know who's caregiving in that moment so so I I'm glad to

030hear that they have a little bit of a leeway there and those are the what I just said are the same attendance guidelines that we had last year we got good feedback about that um making sure that we're just considered of every family's situation so we'll keep that again for this year is that two week window in December January the same page period or two different page periods good question Molly do you that two we window on option two December and January they go two like do they go two straight weeks without payers is at one week and then one one week is that what you mean well is that a full pay period or is that two different pay periods they get paid on December 20th and then on the 3 and so it

031would be split between two because the 30th through the 3D would be paid on January 17th but they do get the four holidays in there too just so you know those are paid the Christmas Eve Christmas Day New Year's g and's day yeah so would be full full two weeks they get paid for four so out of 10 they get paid for four correct okay um I can't I'm really surprised that most want option two because remember that was like the biggest points with sft well only really the high school session the high school was the high school yeah they said I mean and remember you know all employee groups filled this out as well as all buildings obviously so so in in their discussion or I guess argument against option two with those three

032days into the next week I guess what's it look like in the high school it's got to be same instruction going on still happening just without seniors there and some classes I'm assuming some classes are just seniors and some have a of seniors with other grade levels so it depends on your course and your department how that plays out I think the biggest challenge that we heard is if you have a course that has seniors and another your students but J and might just be Juniors you know it's not necessarily 9th 12 then they have those the teachers who teach those courses have to be sure they do a wrap up of what they're doing and have final summative assessments and all that stuff for their seniors and probably the rest of their students so

033it's just more of a but I did meet I did meet with the Department chairs after the listening session I explained how this all plays out and I said really the biggest factor that determines how many days you're without are without seniors is how long our wi to break is so that's the determining Factor um so maybe they've preferred the longer Break Even yeah so sure yeah and it's really interesting because when we first pushed these calendar options out five years ago people wanted to get out sooner in June but since Co people want longer breaks it's just an interesting change and I think it's you know looking at it I can sort of see it make sense I mean you're coming back for two days and then having a weekend again um as far

034as planning maybe people that take vacations want to go some their kids after hard like to start up two days and then you kind of have to redo the routines all right on that next Monday so that does so option two has four days without seniors and option one is two so it's only two day right good and the department I mean I felt like the high school staff understood and they just wanted to be sure they UND were part of the conversation so I think they they'll be okay with either option but I did say you know I would bring it up here for discussion I do want to add to that one of the positives of having the L session so early was that you could take some of the feedback and make

035some of these changes and things um early enough so that was good too any further discussion all in favor of option two signify by saying I I oppos motion car thank you consider yeah consideration of overnight field trip requested by Caitlyn null for your high school to attend Superior days in Madison Wisconsin hi Caitlyn need a motion n motion to accept second motion a second to accept the field trip request by Caitlyn null per your days Madison Wisconsin you pretty much done this annually right um last year year we've done it since PR right yeah and how many students are you talking about bringing down this year 15 okay and it's what we hear from the superior days uh people who go down this is the best part of the superior dates is having the

036kids with them yeah yeah so last year we brought three um this year we're planning to bring 15 um which is you know overtime historically like there were groups anywhere in that range really um and so we're we're excited to have a a bigger group I think the rest of the delegation is is excited as well um we're going to share Transportation with um the other doulas County students who are going um so that helps a little bit with our Transportation costs but yeah we have 15 students who are very very excited about the opportunity to go I want to thank you for the thoroughness of of your report here there wasn't aing ey question at all happy to answer questions if there are questions there any further discussion hearing none all those in favor

037signify by saying I I oppos motion carries consideration of overnight field trip requested by Pete Conley Superior high school for Chicago Illinois from February 28th through March 3 2024 AP biology Evolution field trip motion to accept second and second to accept Mr Conley's Chicago trip discussion this is an annual trip I believe that con has taken last year I think so a total of four teachers will be sign on this trip as well discussion hearing none all those in favor signify by saying I I now time for the committee agendas first up is the teaching and learning committee all right ni action item one Administration recommends the addition of new courses at spor High School in the 2425 school year move to approve second Andor okay so the first part of the action item is

038about um a specific new course and then changing um the credit bearing part of two other courses so I just wanted to give a little bit of background though before I talk about those um so newer board members kind of know why we do this um the board is required to approve things that are related to credit bearing forces at our high school um our high school departments as you can imagine are always always in the works of planning for the future on their courses and as I was telling Nick when I met with him to explain this sometimes ideas for new courses come up and never come to life but there's always a brainstorming process that goes on kind of year round usually when a course a new course comes up for approval the

039department has been thinking about it or working on it for usually up to a year um our high school students register for their courses and the month of February which means that our course catalog at the high school needs to be available and ready for kids and families to be looking at in January so if we back the train up another month that is why we typically ask for approval of any new courses if there are some in any year during the month of December um the items tonight are specific to our English Department um for those of you who are here last year you probably heard me say this then our English Department has been working really hard for several years now to shift what their classes are like in their Department um as

040with many high schools uh in the state of Wisconsin probably in the country there's a very traditional way that you could have your high school English courses probably the kinds of courses we took when we were in high school we of course continue to have a very traditional pathway which is English language arts at the nth grade level world literature at the 10th grade level American literature at the 11th grade and brittland at the 12th grade level that's a traditional course set of coursework which again is available in students take but what our English Department started to talk about um five or six years ago is not all of those courses are of interest to all students and so what could we do to think outside of the box and think about engagement and what

041our students are really interested in so they started changing some of their courses some new courses have come to be some changes to current courses have happened and also sometimes even just changing the names of courses or one or two standards within them changes the interest level a little bit so I'm gonna pause before I talk specifically about the action item tonight and ask do you have any questions about what I just said so these new courses they're put together by teachers complet schol yep by the Departments so they create the curriculum too they create the curriculum usually it's a team of people that work together often um in order to even get to tonight to become a new course they spent a couple of months making kind of an outline of the course and

042um the principal and I so Aaron and I have been sitting with the English Department you know for several meetings this fall talking about what specific standards would be taught in that course we brainstorm what some of the units might be Etc and then the bulk of the curriculum writing happens usually in late spring and then in summer when teachers are not trying to do that and and uh teach their courses during the day um so it's a team of people that do it um our department chairs are often heavily involved usually our shared leadership team members that are from that department are heavily involved kind of no matter who teaches what course um another thing we always look at when we're thinking about um are we even going to bring new courses forward is

043the ler that's required for specific teachers to teach courses um English is a pretty broad open area so that's not usually a problem in that department but if we were talking specifically about a new Physics course for example we would need to be sure that we have people licensed specifically in teaching physics and that there's like sustainability in that um so we didn't you know we're not putting a new course in the catalog that might only be there one year if it's really dependent on if we have a staff member or not so we definitely take a look at that when thinking about that too did that answer your question Ed yep okay and my other question is do you have the ability to allow us to see what the Cur um is before we

044approve it next week I could show you an outline of what's planned um because they have to fill out a a form kind of an outline form to talk about are there any prerequisites for the courses what the course description is going to be in the course catalog um and then we mostly focus on talking about what standards are going to be taught in that course so I could show you um all those would you just like me to email them well you can send to me and I can include them in the week you update yep sure thanks yep so the alignment then with colleges accepting these new type of courses in comparison to the traditional four and then um is there a check on the NCAA guidelines if we were to have a

045student go to division three two or one yep Wendy Nelson kind of one of our league counselors at the high school always does that part we really only have one new course that's being introduced for next school year there's some Chang to the to the others but Wendy has done that work and checked on that so we'll be good on that on the NCAA part um you ask another question the the colleges and stuff so then the acceptability of Y of the advanced mass media and journalism yes what what alignment is that in their acceptance of a student needing for high school or three high school credits in order or yep that's a really good question um something that's interesting about Ela um that's a little bit different than our other content areas is that

046in order as per state statute in order for a course to be considered an English course it just needs to have a balanced set of standards and especially a component of writing composition so as long as it's an Ela granted for credit and there's four of them on a student transcript colleges aren't um giving more weight to a transcript that has British literature American literature in fact um Trends are kind of Shifting because that is a very traditional I'm not gonna say outdated model but it's a model that not um a lot of students are always interested in taking so students definitely want more of a a well-rounded um course load in the English Department often instead of just literature-based courses so that I we don't expect there to be a problem um and as

047we've made the shift over the last five years we haven't gotten any feedback differently than that that's a good question something we of course need to take into consideration thank you very much yep um I'm just going to explain if it's okay so you have the bigger picture what this all is um before you do some look at the stuff I'll send you over the next week so the one new course that we are proposing for next school year is called Advanced mass media and journalism it's been prop proposed as a half credit course in the English Department that students could either take for a core English class or they could also take it as an elective course that's one the changes The English Department has made is making more of their courses flexible so

048students could take it as an elective or a core um two courses fundamentals of grammar and style and public speaking are both classes that already exist at our high school and in the past have only been allowed to take for elective credit but the English Department would like to round out all the standards that are taught within that course to include them from all the reading writing speaking listening and language standards and have students be able to also take it as a core credit for up to a half credit and then the second part of this should I kind of talk about that too that good are we taking these separate I I don't know I think I take them I mean you can talk about it but I think they should separately okay I'll

049just mention what the second part is there are three current courses all listed on the left there that the English Department is proposing they have changes to their names um sometimes the name of a course really matters and um we not only want it to represent what's actually being taught in that course but also be something that sounds like something students would be interested in taking especially on the elective end so Spartans spin one which is a course that's been at our high school for quite some time we would like to change the name of that course to intro to mass media and journalism because it would be the introductory level to the advanced new course that we are proposing um just a little bit about that um last school year we had 48 students

050who were taking Spartan spin one this year we have 90 students who registered for that course plus 18 additional students that wanted to take that as an English course so that course is growing and if students want to take that class at the 10th or 11th grade level which they are able to do the English Department would really like to offer an advanced option especially for students that want to go into any field that's really related to mass media or journalism um so that's why Spartans spin one would be changed to have the name match the advanced version and then literary Arts from graphic novel to film The English Department would like to change that to graphic novel film and radio drama and then cits public spe speaking cits stands for college and the schools

051was a class that already existed but we no longer articulate our courses with Lake Superior College so we just need to remove that part so we can still offer the public speaking course any questions about that okay then I will send to Amy so she can pass on to you like the I will pass on to you the forms for the courses that's English Department filled out with info about the courses okay thank you any further discussion hearing none all in favor say I I oppos cares the second part of this is Administration recommends the following course named changes at SP High School beginning in the 2425 school year as C stated approve we have a motion in a second discussion hearing none all those in favor say I I opposed motion carries no discussion

052items information items Kate Tes director continuous Improvement and assessment update on the 2020 2023 student achievement data and DPI report cards and act 20 Q&A everyone uh Ryan did some nice foreshadowing now that our data is public but I am here with our yearly official report on our student achievement from last year and also the ensuing report cards that the state publishes um it always is pretty delayed obviously we're into 23 24 uh but we have some exciting news to share and it's exciting to be able to do that publicly not just within our working groups at the building so um just a very brief recap a a large portion of the work that I do and I believe you all know this by this point but is supporting the continuous improvement process not just

053the assessment data and not just school report cards but how uh teachers and principles and shared leadership teams are looking at data making sure that it's accessible building their identifying what their needs are and building continuous Improvement plans that they are all very highly functioning uh teams at doing by this point so we really start with our strategic plan I know you've seen this many times but it is really I think the the visual of student growth being at the center of all of the big components that are at play in a large organization like the school district I think it is really important that we continue in all of our tough conversations to be focused on student growth and student achievement um in the work that we do and the Strategic plan is uh

054nearing its completion in 2024 and uh will be to start over and kind of revamp where we're headed in the next five years so that's exciting as well I did include a um two a few links on this page the dock on the left is just our summary of all of the buildings goals this year year it is not new that was created this fall but I always like to bring that back out uh all the principles do a really great job of sharing their goals and it's much more meaningful coming from them uh but those are all summarized here and then the links on the the right are the school profile links that I've shared with you uh previously as well as those two pieces are really important not only to the goals and

055the work that's really driving um our teachers and our staff at each of our buildings but also those connections with parents in the community and our our kids getting our kids um connected to what they're here and and what they need from our buildings uh a quick uh overview of all of our state assessments uh we are in planning for assessment season which starts uh it never really ends actually but um so just familiar familiarizing yourselves with kind of our state assessment language the Wisconsin forward exam is the largest assessment that we give because it encompasses grades 3 through 8 uh grades 10 in just social studies and then um in that's language arts and math but also our fourth and eighth graders take science and then our fourth eth and 10th graders take a

056social studies component as well so we administer the most uh forward exam Assessments in the district of any assessment the dynamic learning Maps uh is the alternate assessment which is typically administered to um less than 1% of our district students with significant cognitive abilities so that is a very specialized assessment but it is the replacement and that data is reported within and the the comparable State assessment so if you had a fourth grader taking the dynamic learning Maps their data would be included in the forward exam assessment results so it is a the state considers it uh the partner assessment the ACT is our state assessment for all 11th graders um English reading math science and writing the writing is optional if kids take the ACT on the weekend but as the state assessment it

057is included in the assessment suite and our ninth and 10th graders now take the preac secure um we just last week I did a correlation between our 55 Juniors who opted to take the ACT this fall on their own and pay a little bit of money and then I covered the rest first time we've done that uh it was an amazing correlation the predicted scores from their 10th grade preac were within 0er to point4 points of what they ended up getting on as a as a group in Mass some gained more some lost a few points uh but I would say it was pretty statistically significant which is helpful in planning for kids um as they work through kind of that 9th to 10th to 11th grade and and wanting to use that act potentially

058for scholarships and in college uh admissions there is a there's been since Co a lot of discussion around schools taking not requiring the act as part of applications and I think we're seeing a a a swing back to what it was preco where schools are now starting again to require or highly suggest that the ACT is a part of applications where they weren't really for a few years so um really my work is trying to get kids as much support as they can to be as prepared as possible uh with that assessment and then ask question the dynamic learning it's saying alternative so if they take the dynamic learning map they're not taking the Wisconsin forward correct yep yep so their cognitive ability and that's written into their I AP uh documentation so it's very

059I think we have a good process now through our collaboration with our special ed Department as well thank you yeah absolutely good question so then at the district and classroom level we have a a variety of Assessments and I think Ryan said it really well earlier that the state assessment is great in terms of giving you this really big picture and being able to compare to the state of Wisconsin but it's not helpful along the way one because the assessment happens typically March April and we don't get the results back until June July sometimes August um it's not very helpful in a planning or uh delivery of what we need to change or how we need to support kids in a different way we don't get an item analysis out of that assessment uh which

060would say you know X number of kids got number 15 wrong here was the question on 15 just so you can plan from it we don't get that information back from the state so it's a it's a pretty broad picture we can look at standards and that's as drilled down as we can get from the assessment for planning purposes so these assessments that we purchase in house and utilize in our buildings are much more useful to teachers principes um for that building level data picture and fast Bridge you've heard it mentioned a number of times is now used uh grades k through eight prior to that we use TS gold which is an early childhood um assessment at the prek level and then um also along the way common formative Assessments in courses are measuring

061specific standards to the to the course so that kind of gives that big achievement data platform we use a lot of information to plan with our continuous Improvement we're using demographic data attendance data Behavior data perception data um from surveys and then implementation data on how we're how we're working through uh pieces that we are implementing on our CP and principles are really coordinating that work with their shared leadership team so I think it's important sometimes we never no one ever wants to be judged on one data point on one day and nor do we ever want to do that to kids so I think it's it's really important that we have a big picture um many data points that tell the story I for sure would want that if someone were telling my story

062not to just be judged on one data point on one day so lots of information and using that to make decisions as we go along I ask a question um so State Testing is obviously mandatory um is that something that the district pays for or is that the state pays uh well the state pays for the assessments um not not the time the work and the time that uh my assistants and I put into the coordination principles teachers Etc sure okay yeah but then fast Bri those are not required but those are ones that we've chosen as a district we are we paid correct yep the state does does some reimbursement which is actually a little tied to act 20 so the state requires us to have a reading readiness screener okay and because of

063that requirement they do some reimbursement in grades 4K through three 4K through two they're going to expand it to three within act 20 so beyond that it is not a requirement but it is a I don't know anywhere that doesn't also assess Beyond grade three okay y yeah I was just going to ask if there was any correlation with act 20 then if there were any testing things that we could get rid of but it doesn't sound like we could really so um in relation to act 20 the the assessment piece of the puzzle um is pretty stressful to me as we have now created a K8 picture of data right so it's really hard to talk year to year about kids when you're saying well in this grade they take this assessment and then

064next year's teacher doesn't really know that assessment because they give a different assessment so it's really nice to have this Continuum which we have now grades K8 which is a pretty long time to be able to say I understand as an eighth grade teacher what they took in fourth grade because I'm giving the same test but now we're in eighth grade so we have this nice continuity of that assessment as part of act 20 the state is going to mandate an assessment that has yet to be named and we will be required to use that assessment for K through grade three so I really you know would I it could they pick fast Bridge they could um if they pick something else then we'll have to determine if we pick that then to change um

065we'll have to re uh train all the teachers all the new materials Etc and implementation date is August of 2024 so like I spent two years mapping all of the fast Bridge implementation out and this is stressful um but I will do whatever we need to do so that our teachers have what they need to do what they need to do in August and September but um that timeline is a big component of unknown right now do you know how common best bridges in Wisconsin good question it's a really good question um I was just actually at a Midwest um I was was working with other leaders around the Midwest uh that use fastbridge and it it was developed in Minnesota so it's very common in Minnesota it's the probably pervasive in almost every District

066in Minnesota um and we I thought we were some of the early adopters in Wisconsin and we are not so between Star assessments and fast Bridge assessments those are the main two assessment Suites utilized in the state of Wisconsin they're actually owned by the same company which is kind of interesting so um through acquisition so uh there are a few other products out there but those are the primary two assessment tools that are used in the state so okay pretty heavily used um so logically they pick one of those logically email of theal cons at DPI if you'd like to just ask what their plans are um so that that is a big component that may change some of our assessments here and um I think our em LSS teachers have we have such a

067progress monitoring data warehouse now of all of our kids as they're going through interventions and all of that as our fast bridge data and they have asked what can you do to make it not change and so we're doing what we can um I have included so you could I could no one like this but I could be up here for hours going through every grade level so what I've What I've Done historically and I think it gives us a snapshot is sh sh fourth 8th and 11th grade big picture districtwide Ela and math data with you so that you can see kind of a Continuum obviously we have all of this information drilled down similar to what Ryan did earlier by disability by socioeconomic status Etc um but for today's purpose I just kind

068of a snapshot of where we've been how we compare to the state and then um you know questions from there this is going to lead into a little more specifics on the report code this is the information that then feeds the report card source as Ryan set up earlier so you can see that we are trending great uh with our fourth graders making some significant gains in the past two years so you can see we are the blue bar graphs this is our fourth grade ELA on the left math on the right you can see that we've made some pretty significant jumps since 2021 um and now are I would statistically significantly outperforming ing the state especially because again we continue to test 98 to 99% of our kids the state is testing 92 to

06994% of state population so we we have tested the vast majority of our students um and it's Up For Debate where that extra 8% of the state's kids where they would fall but one could you know guess where you split the difference and you would have a pretty different uh bar graph on State performance and these are I should have mentioned these are students performing proficient or Advanced and you can see in math um we are not yet we have not yet closed the Gap to the state but we made a nice jump closing that Gap uh over the last two years as well from that point in 2021 coming back from covid uh our eighth grade shows our biggest concerns uh districtwide in terms of our gaps with the state and the decline and

070we continue to work extremely hard um Mr lever and I and the whole team at the middle school shared leadership team teachers everyone is working really hard and so this information when it comes is hard to process because it is not a lack of hard work by the staff that we have in our buildings um so we continue to really we have a pretty significant focus on math districtwide but especially at the middle level and we also have a pretty significant Focus I believe in the building how are we working with kids to take the test seriously put in a really good effort it's hard when you're in eth grade this isn't that big of a deal how do we make it be about their personal growth so that there's a connection here and we're

071getting the results that we can see in a classroom basis also transfer to our state assessment so a lot of work people are working hard um and it's not the data we want to see so we continue to work and and plan learn things um through our professional development Etc so go ahead question y so like 2021 2022 the 2021 2022 8th grade would now be a ninth grade class corre right yep and so 20202 that's like a 10th grade are you tracking like the since like 20 and 21 is so low is that group of kids yep and they are making gains that they are seeing that grow the hardest part is the the assessments aren't Apples to Apples because in nth grade they start taking the prea so now we have like in

072general yes we I am tracking it and we do look at that information it's just always hard to say they scored basic on the forward exam which equates to a whatever 16 on the prea so we are tracking by cohort as well what about from seventh grade last year to this year is it they are making gains it is the Middle School level is the most difficult level and this is reflected in their report card to to see the gains we see gains through elementary school and then we have this low six seven eight we are seeing gains and we are seeing kids make gains but we're seeing in Mass not what we're not moving as a group so I think about math in particular and it's such a subject that you build on and

073so when there is a drop especially in 2021 how do you make that up was there a four piece that was missed was it retaught because that was what that was virtual year right and so how do we go back but we have to keep moving forward question super good question and this is not a this is a national Trend that math took a harder hit during the pandemic nationally than reading so kids lost a little bit with their reading but we're able to gain it back faster and I think to your point and as a former math teacher I mean skills build and if you're not doing it repetitive on a daily basis taking a semester we also had kind of a interesting schedule when we did have cohorts in the building following the

074virtual year our kids didn't necessarily have math every day all year long because we were in our cohort AB so we have lots of pieces to overcome and I do think um as you look at math data nationally obviously the state is still outperforming us but we are seeing some similar at a national level in case this is kind of what you were asking about to um our teachers or all of us you know we always analyze the data and you actually always hope that it just shines at you the one strand that like wow you know data analysis or statistics or algebraic thinking or measurement like you're always looking for that one that oh wow then we can really address that or readdress that in the curriculum or do some additional teaching with that

075one of the things that been super challenging at the middle school level the last few years there's there's no pattern within the data to kind of give us that clear answer sure so it's it's across the board so and Crystal can speak more to this too but the work that we're continuing to do with uh CA 12 math Consultants our math teacher I mean it is not for lack of learning trying talking implementing best practices working with kids can conting with kids um at the building too so I think we're on the right track and we're hoping that the the pieces putting in that we're putting into place this year in their CIP plan are going to show up in the data and we can we can have some celebrations our secondary math teachers are

076like that area is the biggest priority to us in terms of professional development and support coaching in the classroom sure um right now so and you can see I think this speaks Ed to your point too about as you look at a cohort of kids so this junior class going back a couple years from covid now they're they're at kind of last year that group was kind of at the they were in the midst of covid pretty significantly before they took the act and I think you can see that um we are again we stayed pretty stable with our Ela data which was a celebration and math continues to be that area of focus so act data here leading into the report cards um Ryan gave a gave a nice overview of the work that

077they've been doing at Great Lakes one of the things that's really difficult about the report cards so the state releases report cards on every not every but most schools uh some private schools have the option to opt out we do not have that luxury um of opting out but I do think we have some things to really celebrate so it is a chance for us to celebrate the state gives you a score on four priority areas ultimately those four scores are factored in and averaged to become an overall accountability rating the goal is five stars 100 would be the top score um in the range it's not a percent um which is easy to think it would be um and so that significantly exceeds expectations rating of five stars is the goal for buildings um

078and we have buildings uh from meets few to exceeds expectations currently this year a majority of our buildings made great growth the hard part about the report card reporting is it's not as simple as it appears so some schools have Target groups which is a quarter of their report card score some schools do not so now you've already made it extra complicated when you're comparing schools if I'm a school that has the same scores every year I can compare my scores but if another school has a Target group but I don't now 25% of my score is based on a on spread out between my achievement and my growth so it gets really complicated really fast I would be happy to sit down and show you all the intricacies of this I don't know that

079you need that except to know that it isn't super clear cut um in order to compare between schools I think this is just a nice graphic to celebrate all of our schools surrounding our district our district uh report card score grew uh as did all but two of our buildings this year so that's a real celebration um we also have four schools now exceeding expectations which is a huge celebration um including the the buildings that have in the past and hadn't for a few years so um the principles have been really excited to celebrate this being public the last piece I've talked a lot about these things already in our conversation but I think um the work we continue to do is to make sure that the data is available and accessible um helping buildings

080and teams use it um making sure that we're supporting the information that we need on our kids our districtwide actions really continuing that em LSS structure we've talked about that a number of times it's pretty solidified in 4k through five we're working right now really hard at the middle school um to create a structure there it gets really challenging when you don't have a specific person like the elementary buildings do and the schedule presents lots of challenges but I think we've got some great they've got some great things started our credit recovery has really continued to support that graduation goal at high school and then we've talked about the math piece our Focus really is districtwide on our math and our math instruction especially at the secondary level and our social emotional learning work with

081our districtwide PBS and our bar program in grade six 12 so that kind of is the summary of the work we're continuing to do this year lots of information um but hopefully a snapshot just into some of the achievement and the school report card scores for you happy um if you think of other questions you can always email me too as this you know settles in your brain and you're thinking about data feel free any questions right now I haven't asked thank you thank you thank you all up next Carrie saers director of diversity Equity inclusion DPI 5year School self- evaluation summary and Department update do you want us to pull up the report that was submitted to DPI I mean it's available uh the self assessment I think talk about it as attached to

082the board agenda if they have any questions yeah it's the self assessment um item that is on there is something that districts do every five years and really um we sit down as like a doal team and we're uh doing a self assessment on the status of non-discrimination and equality of educational opportunity so what the DPI asks us to do is to ensure that we have uh policies in these areas and that we're being Equitable uh the team reviewed everything and we didn't have to make any adjustments um it was due um uh December 31st so we brought it to your attention and then they extended the timeline until May 31st still bringing it to your attention because we are overachievers and it yeah finish um and you does require that we look at data

083so all of that is included in the report that was submitted to GPI um and they just simply say that you have to do this and make the report available to anyone who would request it questions about that okay so I am here tonight to just give um a highlight about the diversity equity and inclusion Department in in the district which it's a small Department I do work with everyone in this room um and how do I left click there you go okay sorry uh I want to just give a little oversight of what I do in my role as uh the director for diversity equity and inclusion I work with a lot of these different um parts of student services and so I provide oversight to all of the areas listed up there I'm

084not going to highlight all of those tonight um there's a lot of great things that are happening all over uh a lot of what I do is Provide support and oversight for the counselors social workers um this is our sack group I have um Heidi sigfred at the high school who helps with that uh Bren larby is part of it Carrie Hennessy who is our mental health coordinator um and then the the Deans and check connect mentors also participate in this sack group as well as um some of the more specialized um programs teachers at the high school so that's been something new this year and it's been really beneficial to have all of us getting together to work through um some of our our main initiatives that we've been focusing on so I really

085wanted to highlight tonight for you we we we know that there's a mental health crisis um and a shortage of providers that's not something that's unique to Superior it's it's all over the United States um so what we've really been focusing on um this school year and some of it started last year was making sure that all of our staff are trained in something called QPR and basically um that is a system designed uh basically to increase the chance of survival just like CPR um and it stands for question persuade refer it's less than an hour training and it doesn't ask teachers or any staff member to provide like therapy or to make a decision it just helps anyone identify whether a staff a family member anyone that they know might need to be referred

086or need a little extra support and so it just has a really nice outline for that and there's other school districts that have also been training staff in this area um by the end of the school year all of our district all of our schools will have been trained we've done um coaches the coaching staff have had many opportunities to have this same um with administrators our school sites our nurses um so it's really really taken off we've also done work uh with our school district suicide threat protocol and that came as a direct result of something that our mental health um Professionals in our buildings asked for because you know they can't be the only person that knows the steps that need to be followed if we do have a student who's in crisis

087so I have a visual to show you that as well um we also trained key staff to use the suicide severity rating scale that's called the Colombia um and essentially that is using a universal tool when we do have kids in a mental health crisis we're following the same exact protocol it's a checklist it's something that a school nurse can do if the counselor is not available so all of our counselors and all of our uh School nurses are trained in this and so when we then send the student off you know with the parent to go to the ER um that is sent with them and given to the doctor that sees the student and has been something that's really streamlined what we what we do um another really big celebration is um three

088years ago when I was hired counselors had really been asking about dialectical behavior training DBT training um this last school year we partnered with with Miller dwan foundation and they gave financial support for our counselors and social workers to be trained in providing uh DBT skills to our students um that was optional and it was a year-long commitment but we did have um all of the middle school high school and several of our elementary um counselors take that training finally um this is exciting we were awarded this um school year $116,000 um for a comp ative Grant to fund um opioid awareness at the high school so we are in the works right now of putting together some um community events and they'll be open to anyone in the community but really focused at our

089high school so I'll be excited to share that info February and March is what we're looking at for that um just to to go into just a little more about the QPR um we do share in our QPR training the resource that the district has and it's available um for free to anyone who needs it and that's our employee assistance program and we have seen an increase in the usage by staff since promoting that so that is a support that our staff have for their own um mental health and so that's that's good news to see that um this is the uh protocol that I was mentioning that we have and that was created in response to our mental health professionals this is shared with everyone in the district um it's part of our you

090know emergency plan it's in the sub plans uh it's a quick look at this sheet and you have a kid in crisis here's here's what you need to do um you know we don't want kids left alone we don't want the teacher to send an email hoping you know that the counselor sees it is they're busy they cannot be the only people that are responding to this so so that has been something that we um keep coming back to each year and we make it better and make revisions as needed is that something that we developed as a district or is that uh we had a work group create of social workers and counselors came together that was before you were here I was facilitating that group and they requested that yeah and then from

091there we had the suicide um taskforce which is where that Columbia screening QPR and a lot of that were came but yes this has been really um helpful so we want everyone to know what that is and where to find it uh the DBT skills I just wanted to to talk a little bit about that um DBT teaches mindfulness interpersonal Effectiveness emotion regulation and distress tolerance um we have had and we're one of the we are the only School District that is working with Amber wi in that that when students need an after Care Group in the past they would have to have transportation and someone to take them to these groups in the evening they don't need that anymore because we're partnering and offering the groups at school so our staff sits in a

092virtual group with students who want to be in there that have been in amberwing and need to continue practicing the skills and then a amberwing therapist provides and runs the group but we also you know have an adult in there who is benefiting really from how the groups are run uh so that's a huge celebration started that last year and started up right away at the beginning of the school year there are uh small group intervention at the middle school and the high school focusing specifically on these skills um there's also Universal and small group intervention happening at some of the elementary schools and again the middle schools doing even Universal DBT skills um and then four corners Elementary and Northern Lights have partnered they have been working together and had time outside of the

093school year um to work on using the skills to address some of the data that we were seeing in our Savers screener so that's a lot of info um okay so switching into some of the equity audit action steps the um Equity audit showed that we really really needed to focus on some sort of universal learning for all staff you know we have lots of great optional offerings we also know time is an issue um this year I've been working with the administrative team focusing specifically on microgr training and then kind of modeling what they can take back to their staff also very excited we will have um implicit bias training for everyone in February at our PD day we also um Crystal sent out a survey to all staff about you know what they

094want from professional development and they definitely like the choice sessions so our theme for Choice sessions in February will be um focused all around equity and so there'll be staff all across the district that will be doing those one hour sessions we are in our third year of Steed um speaking educational equity through diversity we have 24 participants in that and of course we'll continue with book studies that um have a focus on Equity we had a lot of um participation in that last school year over well last summer okay black student union uh still working with the black student union we have about 10 students coming on a regular basis um and the club is kind of evolved they're not so much wanting to teach their their peers about black history they're wanting to

095to learn it's like a mini um mini session they're really focusing on implicit bias and so that's what we've been doing um they're also gearing up to have a meeting with Mr fezy like they had last year for a student um you know voice session and that is a goal that the high school has so each year um well the last two years Erin has done that with the students and they've really appreciated okay uh you've heard me talked a lot about our American Indian education that's a big part of my job we have a parent committee meeting that meets monthly um the main focus that the parents have really asked for is to bring cultural um awareness you know have some events and then um really look at um College opportunities for our native

096students uh we received $3,000 each semester from this American Indian college fund partnership which has been great it's really allowed us to have a couple um very specialized events for our native seniors um something new this year is a student affinity group at the middle school um an affinity group that's a space where students with shared identities or experiences can come together to connect share and support one another in a really safe and res respectful environment um this year we're focusing on seventh grade right now there's four students we meet weekly it's a pilot the kids can come in by referral um optional participation and then there's a lot of ongoing parent communication which has been um very very positive parents have appreciated this are you the one that's leading this group as well or

097I am yeah yep I am are these all after school like all the things you've gone through are they kind of they're they're great question so the the black student union is during club time at the high school and then with the Middle School um it was just going to be over the lunch hour the the kids really do like to eat lunch with an adult um they email and ask I'm coming so so that's that's great um they asked if I could come every day I said no we're going to do it once a week um and so we'll do lunch and then either the class before lunch or after lunch so that they're not always missing the same um same class it has been um impactful there's been fewer um Behavior referrals and

098it's just been a really good support so we'll continue to get some feedback on that and um just have that space and then sorry on the last Slide the seed was yes was that a student thing I I missed that sorry yeah that is a professional development force staff at the district and so they commit to a year-long course we meet once a month it's like a graduate course they yeah closed off to 24 participants or can any we take like up to 30 and so we had a couple people who had to leave at the you know right when we were starting up because they had some conflicts and it's really important that you're able to make that year-long commitment and not just like pop into one or two sessions so yeah great great

099questions okay um I'm really excited our students our native students have really taken initiative um they wanted to do a table during Native American heritage month so we had all kinds of information for their um Piers to look at we had a trivia game and a lot of kids visited the the table it was awkward to take pictures of all of it but I did try to capture a few um lots of support from the high school in that that was over all three lunch periods and we had books and and some prizes um and these are some of our student leaders that you can see here who helped organize that we had a rock your mocks event where information went out about like what it was or what it is why it was important

100and then uh one of our students also fish was rocking his Ms that that day and finally uh family engagement the committee held in uh Native roller skating event the day after Thanksgiving and um there was a nice turnout for that and just a time for people to get to learn a little bit about our program and then just last week we actually had six seniors who came to this um learning session to find out about some changes with the fasta um there's a lot that they have to do to even start that process of applying for financial aid so we we've um started that it's a small group but they were very appreciative and we be continuing to meet every few weeks weeks to make sure that they're ready along with their parents to

101fill that information out on December 31st when it comes available that is something that the American Indian college fund um kind of sponsored so they they they held the webinar we you know interacted virtually and then they had like food and prizes for attending okay lots of information questions there were some during it but yeah thank you Carrie yeah thank you um if you have anything that comes up reach out any time that's it for me um Ed you're not gonna be able to go tonight sorry am we don't want to talk about your section thank you Mr Schumacher next up Budget Insurance committee Mr Nicholson I just have one action item Administration recommends approval to accept gifts grants and requests rece received in October of 2023 motion to accept second heing a motion and

102a second is there any discussion hearing none all those in favor say I I opposed motion carries um there are no discussion items in AAL items update on staff meeting so we had our budget staff meeting last week um pack two weeks ago two weeks ago yeah um hopefully you guys are able to watch the video and see what it was about um think we've had good a good amount of people that have viewed the video um you sent out a survey we've gotten a lot of results from that one thing I did like from it is a member from the teachers union sent me an article last week that said hey this came out from Wisconsin Public Radio it had to do with a teacher salary he said right down there and goes this

103is exactly what you've been telling us you know we appreciate for let us see this ahead of time so it was uh was good I think the biggest thing as we go through this budget is just getting that information out to the all the staff we fully understand where we're coming from so we can all work together to figure out a a solution so overall I think was really good received so thank you then fund 10 revenue and expenditure preliminary reports this can I say something since I never say anything about this so go all one thing I want you to guys everybody see is the what causes stress for me every day if you look at this right here we got $5 million in Revenue that we brought in so far this year and

104it's to the expense side you spent $17 million it's just the unfortunate way that school Finance is built you get a bulo of money towards the end of the year you don't get much money at the beginning of the year so you just gota to move the money around you got to manage your cash flow to make sure everything's all right the reason I'm in a good move today is we got 9 million today so good for a little a little while there are different periods of time when we have different amounts of cash flow go down down one thing that even a principal when I was Mee with two weeks we're sending out $1.5 million in salary benefits A5 million so even that $9 million we got s is going to up really quick

105just by salary and benefits that we're paying out and that doesn't take into consideration all the bills we're paying same time so now we wait till thank you thanks well that ends my report Mr President well thank youson next up Mr Gallagher with the officing and rules committee I said it's exciting style all right so we have several action items each item will need its own Motion in second just to throw that out there now Administration proposes the approval of changes to the following policies based on Neola recommendations in order to be in compliance with State and or federal law updates so the first one will be the first reading of policy 5113 open enrollment program inter District to approve second all right we got seconds can I add a little context you may discuss

106this okay um this is a policy that is driven primarily by changes in state law so this is an important one that we need to adopt um this is the process for people to request to enroll into a different school district and some of the language around what we can and can't do as a school district has changed within there so that's why you see those changes this was a Neola recommendation all of them are Neola recommendations um except for the attendance and we get to the attendance I'll tell you why we're making those changes anybody have any other discussion on 5113 right hearing no discussion all those in favor samei by saying I I any opposed passes next one is first reading of policy attendance second a motion of second any discussion so this

107recommendation comes to you um at a result of some of the work I did in preparation for the Douglas County truancy committee work that is required every four years so uh a couple years ago uh we wanted to really clarify the procedures around what's excused and unexcused it was very unclear in our handbook it was unclear in our policy we did a lot of work to clarify that and put that in our new uh student family handbook we'd like the language that we worked through a couple years ago to match what's in our policy the policy recommendations from niola very much feel like an attorney and not a practical use sorry Kyle um not a practical use for parents and principles uh so this is a little bit some of this is our recommendations like

108around the language around what's excused and unexcused and then there's some other Neola recommendations as well but that's what kind of prompted this change so are excused and unexcused absences determined by each district no there are State guidelines that outline uh could you move up a little bit and I'm sorry when I say up I mean the other one like I want to show the excuse right um so this is all really uh covered within the state statute around attendance and then when it talks about where that second from the where it says parent and students May request up to 10 days those are examples of all all of that came from the state uh language how it was organized though in the previous policies was not not very helpful so we try to make

109it more organized that's why it looks like this M Edition not big deal if you scroll up and I mean up just go all way to the top um Governor the attend of by P C ordinance 86 D2 being a county guy and having Four Corners in the county do we want have the county ordance in there too 4.24 4.25 if you want to throw that in there would catch up all right yes you can add that just so it covers all the schools we'll we'll add that for next week and then we'll add that also to the uh we have the guidelines also on the bottom here so we wanted the as you know the policies board approval the administrative guidelines are more around our district procedures for how we implement the policy so

110we've made the same changes to the um administrative guidelines down below so we would make those also add to to that hope as well any other discussion on this one heing no other discussion all those in favor signifi by saying I any opposed right passes next one first reading of new policy 5461 children at risk of not graduating from high school to approve yes Mo second any discussion is it it's not intended to mean new children right no okay it's intended to be new policy okay Jack any other discussion no discussion all those favor signifi by say I I any oppos passes next one is the first reading of new policy 6108 authorization to make electronic fund transfers move to approve second second any discussion not hearing any discussion all those in favor signified by

111saying I I any opposed passes next one is first reading of new policy 6114 cost principles spending Federal funds Mo to approve second motion to Second any discussion not hearing any discussion all those in favor signifi by saying I any opposed passes next one is the first reading of new policy 52.2 waver of school fees and fines motion to approve motion a second any discussion not hearing any where where does the money come or how do we deal with it when I guess the um are waved I guess I should say or fines are waved I mean finds I mean ultimately it comes from we we we pay I mean do you want both things to say specific okay students that we were actually obligated to allocate a a certain percentage or a title one

112funding to support homeless students so if a student um a fee wage it's probably a bad example like a year book or um to be in an activity it's allowable that that could come from Title One funds okay so that's specific to L sure good know and then we already plan on waiting fees for reduced and free y Lun so it's not going to be a material amount this it's more to support our community to make sure fam is going through a very tough tough situation we don't want to CH in this own on something because of f because I can't afford that good okay thank you any other discussion on policy hear no other discussion all those in favor saying saying I I any oppose passes next one first reading policy 7100 facilities planning

113to approve second Mo second any discussion hearing no discussion all those in favor same five by say I any oppose passes last policy first reading of policy 83 10 public records to approve motion a second any discussion right hear no discussion all those in favor see I was saying I I opposed all right passes there are no discussion items two informational items the first one is Administrative guideline 5200 around attendance that's just to match policy just approved yep anything more understand that no okay and then the next informational item is Doug County treny committee convened on November 1st 2023 for Wisconsin State Statute 2018.1 162 the group came together for discussion and collaboration these were their findings and their recommendations which are all attached covered a little bit uh last month one of our meetings

114I don't really have much to add besides what's on the attachment so unless anybody has any questions love that I picked up on we got questions or comments on this otherwise we did touch your own pace all right that being said anybody have any other matters please come in Hear n i concludes the policy committee yeah you're next up legislative committee with Diana Smith um I have no action items discussion items and one informational item um Capital watch Senate and assembly took four action on several K to2 educational Focus bills the Wisconsin legislature took action this week on a number of bills focused on K2 K to2 education the Senate yesterday voted to approve s sp41 relating to a school psychologist Loan program the bill will now move to assembly where the assembly education committee

115already voted to recommend their version of the bill for passage in the other chamber the assembly voted to pass several more K12 Focus bills including AB 223 relating to maintaining op tagonist in schools in AB 575 relating to a DPI Mental Health Training Program the Senate has not taken any previous action on either of these bills however according to Senate rules a committee does not need to approve a bill chamber to consider it in addition to their individual action both Senate and assembly voted to pass sb27 relating to recovery High School grab program the bill now moves to the governor's desk for his signature and click click more for more information on these bills other matters may be brought before the committee that concludes my report next we have our operations committee there are no

116action items no discussion items one informational item p take her over okay well start off we uh instituted a new policy his through the transportation department we not allowing any snow we have made an exception for weekends and holidays have white uh we also had uh this year it was our second annual haunted bus and uh that's a program for it's all volunteer driven by the drivers and they actually do all the donations themselves for decorations and they actually volunteer on the buses uh to uh scare the students as they go by we also have people to uh assisted loading and make sure that if anyone gets too scared they SC disced off we were able to stop at uh three locations for schools this year and then we also did the spray the superior

117spec Spooktacular and I think it went very well we had positive feedback for everyone and I think it's going to continue to grow as wife we also instituted uh last week a new loading process at the middle school and uh it involved our second group of buses that originate at the high school what they had been doing was loading behind the Middle School in their own individual stalls and what that caused as we had our students lined up waiting to quick quickly walk to the buses as they're parked on the asphalt what we changed up was now we the as the buses leave from the high school they stay with the same morar and they drive up right on the uh next to the sidewalk the students don't have as far to travel uh so

118there's no running involved so it's a lot safer and also cut down our loading Time by in about a half so the good it was the suggested by one of our drivers as well so it's very good idea uh next is our Park stops are going uh full swing right now um so what our Park stops are is the idea behind it is to just have a bus that's going to pick up anything that's within a two mile radius for the students that uh for the schools and uh the idea is we put our Park stops around where the students shouldn't have to walk more than a mile and that is in conjunction with using GTA uh so right now we have three that uh we've been using for Northern Lights and there we see

119a lot of a lot of use for that we have one for the middle school with a little bit of use and one for the high school so um if we ever we can't Institute more we just need to know of anyone that needs it so and then finally uh our seven new buses that uh we did purchase over the summer they are now all on the road they all have their cameras and they all have their new GPS modules so they're in use and everything is going well all I have thanks P thank you that conclude the operations committee report personel iations Brook I have one action item Administration recommends approval3 new hires and separations report motion to approve second motion and second is there any discussion I told Mr F I was going

120to vote no yeah retirement people that I've been with district for very very long time any further discussion oh Erica yeah when end of the school year a very special person in not only the entire District but well yeah a travel time for you yeah it's been a great really apprciate thank you very much hearing none all those in favor please signify by saying I I all opposed motion carries I have no discussion items and no informational items so that is my Mr President and tonight's meeting and stuff Remer next Monday evening 5 clock will be the regular school thank you