Board Meeting 1-12-26

001Good evening everyone. Good evening. >> Hi. >> Good evening everyone. I'd like to call this meeting of the West Dallas West Milwaukee School Board to order. Um let's see. Going to our uh pledge of allegiance. I pledge algiance to the flag of the United States of America and to the republic for which it stands. One nation under God, indivisible, with liberty and justice for all. >> Right. Uh Sarah, would you call the role, please? >> Mr. Lee, >> here. >> Mr. Becker, >> here. Miss Kaiser >> excused. Yes. Mr. Keller >> here. >> Miss Deal >> here. >> Miss Carr >> here. >> Mr. Burbos >> present. >> Miss Lee >> here. >> President Burns >> present. Uh proper notice of this meeting has been posted in accordance with the open meeting laws of the

002state of Wisconsin. Uh do we have any modifications to the agenda tonight? >> We do have a modification. We are uh respectfully asking to remove 12.2 two and that uh workshop will be held on January 26 during the uh scheduled board meeting. >> Okay. Excellent. Any other changes? >> Nope. That's it. >> All right. Well, then after that, that'll take us right to our student showcase, which I believe we have our Nathan Hail students presenting for us today. Yeah. Go ahead and take it away, team. Okay. Well, welcome everyone. Thanks for having us. Uh, I'm Matt Leser and appreciate us having this opportunity this evening. This is >> better. Okay. Uh, and so we appreciate spending a little bit of time with you. Uh, we'll keep it short and sweet like a few of my

003announcements at school. >> Okay. I knew that I'd get a chuckle. Okay. >> Right. You already clicked me on >> time. All right, he clicked me on already. >> All right, so uh today we uh have the opportunity I have a number of students with me. I'm going to get to their introductions in a moment. Uh but we'll have them rotate through to to share some uh input from their perspective regarding what we have to share. Uh the first thing I want to do is we we always talk about this theory of action piece. We bring our attention to the academic focus. Uh all the board members are familiar with uh theories of action from each building. Uh obviously uh the intent is that all our students uh increase their student achievement and we want

004100% of our students to meet the benchmark on uh on our ACT and get the appropriate growth on the fastbridge uh testing as we work through the year. We're actually going into uh winter testing now this week over the last two weeks and that'll be my our midyear kind of dipstick to see if we are closing gaps uh moving kids towards the college pathway appropriately. And like I said ultimately at at the bottom it says 100% of our students which includes our black and African-American students as identified in our JFN uh will score meets or advanced on the ACT by the end of the 2526 school year. And uh we talk about that leading to a value added score of three on the state report card meaning every student is growing at least a year

005in a year if not more to close any achievement gaps. So that is our theory of action. Uh we were identified uh uh as a joint notification federal notification of closing gaps with achievement with our African-American subgroup. So that is a focal point in our plan throughout the year. Um, and much of the if then statements there has to do with high quality teaching, uh, teachers in collaboration, uh, knowing their students, moving them forward, uh, and, uh, getting them to that achievement level that we're looking for. So, that's that's our theory of action. Uh, a little bit about the hail data story. Okay, I'm not going to dive completely into this. uh our state report card. You can see over the past three years uh we met uh expectations uh the two years prior this

006year we exceeded expectations which is awesome. So congratulations to the students and the families and in the district overall. Um you can see there that we we've looked at overall achievement growth targeted group outcomes uh and and at the bottom it talks about on track to graduate and it speaks to chronic absenteeism. All right, those are two key points. And you can see there that I have all students in one column and we we speak to our black or African-American students because we're trying to close some gaps and make strategic decisions on what we're doing within our building to make sure that everyone is moving ahead appropriately in all those categories. And so in working at this one key thing is that bottom piece. You can get at the achievement, but without students attending regularly,

007you you you got to get them in the seats. You got to get them into school. You got to get them connected. All right. Uh and then we can then we can get to the teaching and the learning. But so the group I have before us today is really focused on building an environment, a culture and climate to get kids to school so that they feel good about being at Nathan Hale. They feel connected in different ways. And it starts with a positive culture and climate. All right. So, if you look there, I just want you to look at the uh the columns there on uh across on the yellow where it says seven-year graduation, and it says uh 90 94.9% then it says 97.4 and then 97. So, we're getting at that 97 number,

008okay, percent uh graduation. If you look at the green number, that is the black or African-American subgroup and it says 971. All right, which means we are in line as a building now. Okay, at this point now we have to keep it there. All right. Uh when you look at the chronic absenteeism, which means you missed more than 18 days in a school year, more than 10% of the days, that's not good, right? How can you educate? How can you move forward your your uh academics and achieve uh highly with chronic absenteeism? If you look there, you look at our numbers across at the yellow. Once again, that's all as a building. 31.7 three years ago, okay, one in three kids almost had more than 18 days at that doesn't mean they skipped school. That

009just means maybe they're out ill or what you whatever the case may be, okay? But they're not present. Then it went to 28%. So, it reduced and then it went to 20 uh 3%. And now we're at it's black uh we're at 18.9%. All right. And so that's moving definitely in the right direction. If you look at the green number are black or African-American students three years ago, 50% of them. Then it went to 49.6 and now we're at 28.8. All right. And once again, we're a year out from that data. It's always a year behind on the state report card. That's why I said 2526 is 18.9. Actually, that 18.9 will be part of that data next year because we already know it. It's last year's data. It just doesn't get part of that.

010So, I have the Renaissance leadership team with me today. Okay? Because the bottom line is that we have to have kids connected with school, build a culture and climate where kids feel accepted, wanting to be there and uh part of the school community. And this is the core group that does that work. And really talked about should we bring some presentation from a class? Should we it should really be something that's highly impactful at Nathan Hale. And I don't think a lot of people know about this Renaissance leadership team. Okay. Okay. So, I thought it was really an important thing in working with Mr. Kosk. So, the Renaissance leadership team before us today, the adviser is Justin Kosk. He's a dean of students. He would have been here. He's got three children of his own.

011One in MYSO, one in basketball, and one is in a play. So, he's busy tonight. Two people are taking three people around. So, he uh sends his best as well. So, this is our Renaissance core leadership team. Okay. What makes up our Renaissance leadership team is our student councils grade 9, 10, 11, and 12. Our mentors, our student voice members that are here once a month with you, and then our our BIPO group, as well as our salt team members, our student athlete leadership team. And that's new to the building this year where we're bringing athletics into that culture and climate piece. Okay. So, with us today with the council, Zoe Ziski, Evan May, uh, raise your hand a little bit. Esther Candeleria, okay, with the juniors, seniors, Violet Gross is back here. Uh, yeah,

012she changed her hair for the picture. That's a senior senior that's a senior privilege. Okay. She said, "Should I wear it tonight?" I said, "Go for it." Uh, uh, we have mentors. Kaylee Jansen and Bella Royce are behind here because they'll shift up. voice. Uh Georgia Devidovich, so she's with us. Brandon Lannis is there. Elena May is here. Uh and then we got Isabella Barios with BIPO. She'll get up here as well. Amaya could not make it. Uh and then Lena Becker is our freshman salt team member that's going to present tonight as well. So, little bit about the journey and I know I'm going to turn it over here because they're going to do the speaking then. Just wanted to lay the groundwork here. Prior to COVID, we did some visits around uh at

013different uh events around culture and climate and uh at different universities in there like Carol College and uh when we got to co it kind of took a back seat. So started with eight people like four years ago and then Mr. Kosk came onto the team took that group and added two students from every club. All right. And so he made about 50 students that he worked with. And then two years ago uh added on the mentors and the student councils and each council was about 30. And then this last year we added in BIPAC as well and uh this core team and we have over 200 students on this on this committee now and they represent their subgroup and they report back they come forward and they do do the hard work. Okay. And

014work with their team. So, what I'm going to do is I'm going to turn it over to Georgia to talk a little bit about the Renaissance leadership team, how it kind of melds into the alignment with the district portrait of a graduate. Okay. Uh because that's our connection with the strategic plan with this group. And then she's going to talk a little bit here. So, all right. So, one of Renaissance's biggest missions is to be in alignment with the district portrait of a graduate. So we take skills or things like academic skills, collaboration, voice, persistence or self-direction and communication. So we are able to promote academic skills and positive academic behaviors by recognizing effort improvement and achievement. We show collaboration by having studentled and team-based uh programs requiring students to work together to plan events

015or to share responsibility in ways that they can improve the school culture. We show voice by elevating the student voice and giving students leadership roles like me and my other peers on the core team. Then we show the persistence and self-direction by developing goal setting. We do that in advisory a lot. And persistence and accountability as we plan initiatives or goals. And then communication. We emphasize clear and respectful communication and collaboration with staff and and administration to help us plan through different things. Then our goals as a Renaissance team is to increase the number of students on honor roll by 5% and decrease the number of students with Fs by 5%. So little switch and then we want to reduce chronic absenteeism by 2%. So we were able to reduce it by 2% going from

01618.9% to 16.9 and we are on track for by to have 15.2% this year. So a big drop and then we want to improve character by reducing the number of loitering incidents which we were able to do by taking it from 24.4% to 19.4% 4% which is a big difference which was an 18% reduction in loitering so I think that's pretty good and then last year for the whole year we had 1,067 total referrals but this year to date we've only had 382 and I say only compared to that number so that was a 30% reduction in behavior referrals which is pretty great. And now I'm going to pass the mic to Zoe so she can talk about what the freshman council is doing to help improve the school. Hello. I'm on freshman council and

017I'm a part of like helping with staffulty recognition. Staffy is staff and faculty. Recognition is the intentional practice of acknowledging and appreciating all adults in our school community including teachers, support staff, and administrators. By recognizing staffy, we help build a positive school culture where adult where adults feel valued which directly supports student success and engagement. Two of the things we've done so far is a room service. So what we would do is we put a like a form on every teacher's dorm that they could fill out. We ordered all the items and like tallied it up and we gave it to every one of the teachers. That was one thing that I did with freshman counsel. And we did this right before break, which was curbside coffee. And essentially, we gave a form to every

018single one of the bus drivers and they had the option to choose between like hot cocoa, coffee, water, brownies, cookies, donuts, etc. And it's to like show appreciate appreciation for them taking and just protecting the kids essentially. And upcoming events is a hot cocoa and coffee bar. We'll see how that goes. Fun fizzy Friday and paper plate awards. Um, yeah. I'm gonna pass it over to Evan. >> Hello. I am the representative for sophomore council. We are in charge of peer connections at our school. We like getting students together and out of those clicks and uh get them interacting with each other, doing positive things for our school. Um, as it says on the slide, it creates a safer and more inclusive environment and it encourages a lot of good things. We have some events

019like winter formal. That's a really big one. All the students have a dance, spread the love. It's a lot like the gratitude wall. Students can make good comments about each other and put them up in the hallways for everybody to see. Um, we have the compliment clothes pins. We write names on clothes pins, click them to people, and give them compliments. And then we have the sophomore lockin, which is more for the sophomores, but it's still to get all the sophomores together and working together. And then I'll pass it to one of the best of us, Esther. Uh, hi, my name is Esther. I'm uh a a representative from junior council, which uh really focuses on student voice. I think student voice is really important because it gives students meaningful opportunities to share their ideas,

020perspective, and concerns about their school experience. When students are heard and involved in decision-m, they feel more connected, empowered, and invested in the success of their school. Um, in the beginning of the year, one of my first tasks was to get the poll survey out that just sent Hail. Um, and that survey really just has students answer how they think teachers are doing on getting to know them, how they feel, you know, like uh, school recognition is for like whether it's sports, you know, getting your grades, maintaining grades. Um, but it has like the students themselves answer it. So it's really helpful to um see I guess how the major population of hail feels about it because even though there is a large population who's on this core leadership team, we are coming from councils

021and from other groups. So a lot of people don't get that recognition just because they're not in these groups and they don't get their voices heard. Um, another upcoming events uh with just is we're going to send the survey out again to see if any of the changes we've been doing uh have been noticed by the students and are getting positive recognition. And then a student town hall which will be collecting all those survey answers and then getting students to talk about why they feel like that and what they think the school can do and put into action on how to make those things better. And then of course we have prom upcoming this year which we are dedicated on planning. Um, I'm gonna pass the mic to Violet now. >> Okay. So, I'm Violet

022Gross. I'm the senior council representative in senior council. Our whole mission with Justin's is to work on school spirit. And I think that school spirit it's like pretty important because it's able to build a pride and a shared sense of unity among the school because students and staff and faculty they're all able to come together and connect through school spirit and it encourages a positive and like more just happier like climate in the school. So what we've done to encourage that is we do high five Fridays. So, when you come into the school, I'm sure you've seen it already on the district page, but um it's like music and everyone's high-fiving and fist bumps. It's just really fun. And then for homecoming, which is one of our bigger events, we have pep assemblies and then

023we had our big spirit week and we have more smaller spirit weeks throughout the school year around like Christmas and like different holidays and stuff. And then some of our upcoming events, we have snow blast and it's a big like leading up to winter formal. It's a whole week event with different challenges and everyone gets to make a team. And then there's a bunch of fun spirit weeks as well. And then we have our second semester pep rally to really start off second semester and make it more fun and acknowledge all the winter sports and what people are really doing during the winter. And then we have our rock paper scissors tournament. So then each advisory has a representative and then it goes into grades and then it goes into a like one winner and

024then at the end of the year we have our senior walk because we are still senior council so we are like mostly dedicated for our seniors and wanting to wish them well before they graduate. So I'm going to pass it to our mentors Bella and Caitlyn. >> Hi. We are the mentors. Uh, I'm Kaylee. >> And I'm Bella. >> And our job is student recognition. And student recognition is, well, what it sounds like, where we recognize students for their hard work and things they do that we think are very recognizable. Um, so I'm going to kick it off talking about our well, it's still work in progress, but working working on um setting up these student appreciation cards. Um, excuse me. So, we're going to have we're well, yeah, we're going to have like maybe

025like once a month have like the teachers pick a students where they get to recognize them and they write like a personal little note and then we will make like little like goodie bags with like some candy or whatever that they can give along with the note. And we're just hoping to have a more meaningful and like personal recognition for the students to push them to work harder or continue whatever they're working on. >> Why we are doing this is because of the pulse survey. So the pull survey has shown us that kids don't kids at Nathan Hail don't get enough like they don't feel like they don't enough appreciation from the teachers. So we are taking that data and we are using it to make little things that the teachers can show appreciation to

026students. Another thing we do is student news and that's where we recognize students for their club they're doing athletics and um nice behavior like kind things. We're also the mentor. So we are from the mentoring group and if you don't know what the mentors are, mentors are we basically take the freshman under our wings and take and teach them lessons every week and we teach them how what is going on in the school, how they can study better, how they can learn better, and how they have us to lean on if something's going on. Um, sorry, I don't know what's wrong with my voice today. Um, we also do the birthday board. So, in our cafeteria, we have a a board that we normally do it two months at a time, but every student that

027month who has a birthday, their name is up on the war, the board. Um, and it's just to like so it's just so students kind of feel seen and they be like, "Hey, I'm kind of like a part of this community." Um, and then we also do honoral recognition. So, it's a little certificate that students get for like academic achievement. Um, again, just to encourage them to keep up their hard work. Um, yeah. Any who's next? Yeah, I'm going to pass it off to BIPO. >> Hello. Nice to meet you. My name is Isa Lavarios. I'm here representing BIPO. For those who don't know what BIPO BIPO stands for, it stands for black, indigenous, people of color, and Hispanics, which is me. Okay. So it represents students from diverse racial and ethic backgrounds within our

028school and a mission to promote understanding presentation and yes we're not looking for only representation. We're looking to serve the community and you know to create at the same time to create an awesome community around the school because many of our students which can be um the black student union don't feel like they're being recognized or me as Hispanic. So that's why there is um black student union which is one group that they meet on Thursdays and larpana which is the Hispanic group that they meet on Tuesdays. Both of both of sorry both of our groups are trying to you know serve the community by smile small details. Right now it doesn't seem like like it's a lot but like they say everything starts with a beginning. Okay. So basically what we trying what we're

029trying to do is to you know make sales. Sorry I'm very nervous. >> Okay. We're also trying to create a a moral in the cafeteria that can represent all of our students, which can be Hispanic, uh, the Black Student Union, all of us, ask for more questions later. Now I'm gonna pass the mic to you. >> Um yeah, I could just add like one kind of like small additional thing um for like the for BIPO Union. We just recently, it's kind of in that top corner. It's a little bit blocked, but um we did do a holiday food drive. So, um our what our goal was is we had um all of like the any like anybody throughout hail and we tried to just raise as much food as we can and then we packed

030that up and then um dropped that off. We partnered with a local church I think out in Brookfield and then also um like some food pantries to be able to get that food back out in the community because um I do know like you know there was like some SNAP benefits canceled so that's like I think something that greatly affects like the community and like I I'm like I received those benefits and I know lots of other people who do as well. So that was something um very important that we wanted to make sure was seen and like something was done about. Um and then just some like extra stuff that's up there for like the upcoming events is that we're going to be doing like hopefully some like cultural meals like um to provide

031at like parent teacher conferences. So like we would possibly like some of the people from our club would make some things that they would be able to eat there and then um also possibly bring that community outreach to places like nursing homes and then also increase um parental involvement within our community as a school. So hi I'm Lena. I'm here representing the salt team. the student athletic leadership team. It's like a group of some of the athletes in our school. There's two from each grade. We have people from volleyball. It's me, Sophie, and Savannah from volleyball. We have people from basketball like Case and Lee. We have people from football like Romeo and stuff. And we just try to better the athletic environment at Hail. Like we personally again I have a lot of friends

032in athletics so I'm asking around hey what do you think we could do better with this? What do you like need? What did you dislike? Just trying to make sure that everybody is still feeling welcome in sports and everything because if people again if they want to do sports and they're going to want to come want to come to school which helps with our attendance and everything with our athlete experience obviously the school and athletic bridge that's huge as well as our community engagement trying to get people to come to games helping us do halftime shows and everything having like interacting with the crowd and everything. My program development, we are trying to get more of our teams in the weight room, helping do offc court conditioning, helping build strength and everything. Just trying to

033um better our athletes. Also try figuring out scheduling. That's a big thing as well because we have so many teams especially during fall sports when you have what is it? It's like football, volleyball, cross country. They're all trying to get in. It's just difficult. So scheduling and communication is always huge. Um and then who is it? Elena next. I'm going to pass it over to Elena. Um, hi. I am Elena May and I'm representing the student voice at Nathan Hail and I'm here to talk about a leadership training that went on with the whole school district. Um few years ago, me and some other students throughout the district uh went to the Illinois Holocaust Museum and attended a leadership training and one of our dog key students, Melody, um planned one as a passion project

034kind of relating to the one that we did when we were at that museum. Um it really had focus on universal um excuse me, universal human rights. Um it had students looking at all different rights that people believe the entire world should be um available to um like the right to life, liberty, property, um the right to education and things like that. Um, we were able to do a couple of different uh breakout rooms with um West Alice Rotary Club as well as as well as some of the West Alice um coordinators of different neighborhood associations and such. Um, and that just taught us different ways we can network with people around the city and not just necessarily in our school district, but even further outreach. Um, and then the last part of that was

035that we were supposed to come up with something for our school to maybe implement that would be a project um to better the school or to do community outreach. Um, we actually came up with three. Nathan Hale came up with three. Um the one that is looking the most promising right now is the peace garden and a peace garden would be a garden outside the front of Nathan Hail. Um we have possible PTSA funding and possible funding from Rotary. Um it would be a place for students to go out and sit and maybe we could figure out a way for some students to do lunch out there. We're not sure yet. Um, but that one actually looks pretty um pretty attainable. Um, and then another one we thought of was high interest day. So maybe

036instead of like a career day, a high interest day. Um, I mean decently similar, but more based on what students um say they want to do, maybe in some sort of survey. Uh, and then the last thing we came up with was a theoretical WAWWM reach where we were just trying to find out ways that maybe we could become more connected with our community. Maybe one club one weekend wants to do shoveling and they have slots for people in the district to sign up and they go shovel their yards. Something something along those lines. Um, so maybe at some point we might start something along the lines of that and I think that would be really good, a way to um connect with neighborhoods and um different businesses. Um I thought one way we could

037maybe connect would be through uh allocart because that's a big one with all different businesses. Um, so that was a really informative uh training that we did. We also did individual training with Mr. Cosk at our school which just taught us about different roles, how to deal with maybe people who don't want to cooperate with you. Um, and how to be better leaders. >> Ladies and gentlemen, it's good to be back. Okay, this is a flyer for a a conference that would be held at Hail. Believe the date is March 2nd on there. Um, we would have two guest speakers from Just and it is a workshop to get other people interested in just the Justin's leadership team and we can help more schools and obviously it's helping us. We're going to have all the

038students coming to the um the gyms. We're gonna have two guest speakers. John Jensen is good at finding um I guess a summary for your school in a way. A good a good image, a good um Yeah. And then we have PC who is more of a um he's a figurehead for the project. He's good at getting students working together, people working together. And that's our goal on Renaissance leadership. We want people working together. We want good grades, good academics. So these are just some different ways that we as a team have seen um changes through Renaissance leadership team. Obviously there were numbers that Mr. Leser showed us before that may or may not have correlation to the leadership team. I think we like to believe it is because um looking back that's one of

039the major changes we've made since the um lower attendance and such. So we I think we we can see some correlation there. Um two of the main things I just wanted to point out were increased involvement in BI bipok and fashion club and just other clubs overall. So, we're we're having more involvement as a result of this Renaissance group. And then we're also um yeah, we're having improved attendance, reduction in behavioral referrals, um and increased academic success. Um Hail now exceeds expectations as a school rather than just meeting expectations or falling short. Um yeah, and then those are just some comments from all of us saying how we think it has affected the school. Does anybody have any questions? >> Thank you everyone. Um, yeah. Are there questions from the board? >> I don't necessarily

040have a question, but I want to thank you all for your a for being here tonight, uh, but also for your time, your dedication, and just throwing so much back into the the culture of your school. It's very important, and I I think we've seen some examples of that impact. So, thank you very much. Thank you. Other comments, questions, Miss Carr, >> I was just curious about, you know, some of you are seniors and as this continues, how do you get chosen to be part of this? Do you apply? Do you work with um the adults? How how do we do this? >> Sure. Go ahead. I didn't want to I didn't want to steal anybody's >> I am her brother. >> Um the way I was chosen I was I'm a sophomore this year.

041I was a freshman and before we have what we did now specific people from each council. We um well in each group we just picked two people. I was literally just rounded up but we did refine the process. We're making it better. You had to apply this year from what I know. Um you had to apply this year and COC would sit down with you, talk to you and um pick you out of a crowd for skills that he wanted. Thank you for the question. >> Some students were also just chosen by um teacher recommendation through their clubs. So the leaders of those clubs recommended them as good representatives. Thank you, Mr. Lee. >> Uh, so this is great. This is something we talk about as a board is culture in a school. And a

042culture in a school, it helps students come to school, but it also helps adults come to school. Because when you have a good positive culture in a school, people want to work there. They want to go there. If it's negative and there's a bunch of conflict that's happening, it's not a a positive experience for anyone involved. So all of you are involved in increasing that positive culture in your school and it's you're an example to the underass and the other people that are not involved in this maybe thinking they want to become involved with this. So thank you for putting yourself out there in that regard in doing that. The one question I did have though was being this is new challenges did you guys come across when you were trying to put this together

043and you know if you could pick out one maybe and then how maybe you solve that challenge. So with my group, I work with the senior council a lot. And before, this is one of the bigger years that we've been involved in this. And a lot of the senior councils before their main goal was just homecoming. So then afterwards, they didn't do anything. So there's been a slight uphill battle of trying to get more of the senior council involved. But there's now a larger group. I'm going to say three fours are pretty much involved and when I come in after my meetings with COC and I'm like here's what we should be doing and like here does anyone have any ideas I have people that are like willing to volunteer and answer. So it's more

044just communicating with them and saying here are some goals that we need to follow and here's our main goal we need to achieve. >> So that's great to hear, right? you have a historical way things were running like it's always been kind of done this way and now you're changing that narrative and saying well I you know homecoming is in the beginning of the school year we have a whole rest of the school year to do let's not just sit back on our laurels and and rest which is probably easy for seniors to do because they're almost done uh so that's great to keep them involved more seniors involved too that probably also helps with attendance right might be easier to go somewhere else when you have a license and maybe you're 18 and you

045can come and go as you please so that's great to hear thank you for sharing >> any other questions questions. Yeah. >> Um I actually have two questions. So the first one is um I would assume that each year um like for the kid at least for the groups where kids are either chosen or voted on or whatnot that is something that every year then is done. Correct. It's not like once you're on you're on like if you're a sophomore or a junior you stay on or is it like an every year kind of a thing? How does that work? Um, now that we're under this new system, I'm not exactly sure, but in the past there has been some like if you're on it, you've pretty much continued to stay on it. >> Okay.

046>> Yeah. So, as you saw, like that slide said, how we how we kind of grew over time. It's going to be something we talk about. How do we how do we cast that net further and things like that? >> I asked my son was on this all team and he wasn't really sure either. So, that's why I thought I'd ask. Okay. And then the other thing I wanted to ask is um and whoever wants to answer is just is there any since this has started and you guys are kind of really getting at it now. Is there any one particular moment or event or anything that really just kind of struck you like aha or like this is really good? You know just any moment that really just kind of caught your attention. Sorry.

047Um, so along with the pulse survey, there was a part of it where it was about uh student recognition and how students feel they're being recognized by the school. And how it usually was beforehand was that you'd get a shout out on the announcements and you'd be put in the Husky happenings, which gets shown to every advisory, which again is good, but students felt like um that it was just kind of like a throwaway comment like congratulations, you did this. >> So, uh, Mr. COC did a really good job at not only reading the survey uh what happened in the survey but also changing it. So he started going to classes like individual advisories and congratulating the person in person um kind of like just shouting them out in their advisory so everyone was well

048aware of it and I remember in the comments hearing that someone was shouted out and she just like I just thought it was so cool and I thought that was amazing because it was a recommendation that we all had and we all thought we should do it but just seeing it like happening in the moment and then seeing that it's creating a positive change is really nice. that whole coming to fruition is kind of like you said that aha moment and whatnot. So that's wonderful. Very good. Thank you, >> Mr. Becker. Thanks, Mr. Burns. Uh on the just observations on how it's impacted hail like uh you were saying it's kind of difficult to quantify, but it is one of those things that you just start to feel the buildings is a little bit different.

049And I think as you put more energy into it, as you start to buy into it more, it's a little bit contagious. So that's really good to see. Uh the specific question I kind of locked on to early was how as students do you see yourselves uh ensuring that fewer students have an F? That seems like a difficult thing to do. As an educator, I think you have like some metrics and you have strategies, but as a student, um, I just wonder how you would go about doing that on your end. >> Um, I think a lot of that is just making the kids want to go to class. Um, um, because like they have to be there to learn. Um and we have had like a lot of issues with like kids skipping or

050whatever. Um so that but then also like with like us we work with student recognition. So we try and like notice when like even if a kid is like like we're trying to work on ways that even if a kid like is struggling academically like if they're still putting in effort we're trying to find a way where like maybe instead of just like oh this benchmark like oh we're seeing growth >> and to be like hey we see that like keep it up like you're doing great. Yep. Should I go back to like our student recognition cards? Um, we made those cards specifically for like me and Bella saw that we only have like rewards for like honor role or good attendance, but you got to think about the other kids and other groups from

051where they come from and what they think is good. And for we want kids to feel like more inclusive at our school. So student recognition card shows like shows how teachers are seeing growth their students if it that's like coming to school like 3 days a week instead of like once like as a senior class you can start seeing as the year goes on how hard it is to get to school and how like your fellow classmates are slowly slipping. but just like just like a small reminder of like you're doing great, keep going, we're proud of you. Like it's kind of like that. >> Thank you. >> Sorry, just to add on to um Bella's point, I think preventing the Fs, I feel like occasionally, personally at least, I feel like when PE teachers

052put too much pressure on you that you need to get something done, I mean, obviously you do need to get something done. I think it's just sometimes when you're so overwhelmed with work from your other classes, you're so focused on just one class that it help that you kind of forget about your other ones. So, just making sure that you have time to do all of your stuff and you're staying up at least in one of your classes instead of putting all of your work into one class and just falling behind in the other ones. >> I did want to say something to add on to Kayle's point. Um, with the student recognition cards that they're doing, I feel like it's helping students feel a lot better on like my teacher sees me and not

053that they're just teaching to a classroom. I feel like in a bunch of classes if I'm not genuinely like not genuinely interested in the class, but if I feel like a teacher doesn't like see me as a person or care about me as a person, I'm not going to try as much as I would in other classes that like the teacher knows my name, the teacher asks about my weekend, you know what I mean? So, I feel like with the student recognition, like it's helping students not only feel more seen, but they're feeling more comfortable in these classes, and that invites them to try more. >> I I was gonna just in case. Um, any any other questions from the board? No. Okay. Did you have >> I was just going to say I'm real

054proud of this group. They've made a great impact. You can hear it, you know? I mean it was like I know it took some time and I and I know that that you know we only get one shot at this and this group has major impact. It's over 200 kids in our building that these are students are leaders of and there's 200 other worker bees out there that are you know out of out of 1150. So, that's a good impact when you have already 200 kids all bought in already. And just really proud of their efforts, the time, uh the commitment, and they're just really special kids and and uh really uh happy that they're part of the leadership group. And like I said, uh hats off to Mr. Kosk. He's done a wonderful job

055the last three years uh taking this and moving it from kind of administrator directed, which it had to be at the beginning, to now you can hear they do their thing. They got their goals, they go back, they make it happen, and they meet once a month just to notify and and get the information out. But keep it up. Way to go. Proud of you guys. So, >> definitely. Thank you. >> You guys see? >> I did. I I saw it. I saw it. >> I was just laughing. >> Thank you guys. Thank you so much. Um All right. As our hail students are getting out of here, we'll >> Good job. >> Yes. Very nicely done. Um, >> we're going to move into our superintendence report. So, Dr. Robinson, >> I'm I'm going to

056give you guys a scale down version since Mr. Since Mr. Lester took a lot of my time tonight and then now he's leaving out of the door. Isn't that something? So, uh, my legislative update for tonight. Uh, on January 8th, the Assembly Committee on Education conducted a public hearing at and an executive session on bills affecting K12 education. Some of the bills that were mentioned are in involve crime or violation reporting by districts, open enrollment deadline extension considerations for military families as well as lensure um lifetime lensures for options for uh teachers who work with American Indian language and and mandate on blood and organ donation etc. So those are some things that are coming down the pike as far as uh state legislature is concerned. uh recognitions have a couple of celebrations and one

057that's not mentioned. I just want to give a shout out. National Thank you Month. Okay, that's a new one. I didn't know that existed. National Mentoring Month. Happy New Year to every single person uh who's who's hearing this. Uh we hope that 2026 was just as good as 2025. And of course, we have the M Martin Luther King uh day national holiday on January 19th. This is also National School Board's um month for uh January. So to my uh nine bosses, I want to say uh thank you for your continued support. This is truly this month nationally is the month that you are recognized. I know Wisconsin does it in October, I believe. So, but nationally it is January. So, I just wanted to send a special shout out to you guys. I I know

058Mr. Pard is in the audience. We have uh our next production which will be The Crucible is uh January 29th, 30th, 31st, and February 1st. We do have a couple of cast members who are here. So, Mr. Pard, I'll turn it over to you. >> Oh, good evening everyone. Um, as Dr. uh Robinson said, we have our next play coming up at Nathan Hail. Um, it's in about three weeks here. And so, um, we have a new to us director for this production. His name is Christopher Orth. Um, and he's very involved in the theater scene around the Milwaukee area. He's also the academy manager of First Stage. Um, so we're really uh fortunate to have him working with our students. Um, we had over 50 students audition for this particular production. Um, and we

059were able to cast 21 uh in the show. Uh, so here with us tonight we have Lyric Reed. He plays Reverend Samuel Paris. He is a senior at Central. We have McKenzie uh, Lozy uh, who plays Betty Paris. She's a junior at Nathan Hale. And then Maggie could not be here. She's out ill. Um, but instead we have Payton Williams. She is a junior at Hail and she plays Anne Putnham. And so, uh, each of these students is going to tell you a little bit about the show. Hi, my name is Lyric. Um, I haven't done as many shows with WAWWM theater as some of my other castmates, but the ones that I have done, I've really, really enjoyed, and it's become a really big part of my life. So, today, uh, if you don't

060know a lot about The Crucible, I have brought a summary for you of the show. The show is a fictional retelling of the Salem witch trials in the late 1600s and is also an allegory for 1950s McCarthyism. A group of girls is caught dancing in the woods to avoid punishment. They claim they were bewitched and start accusing people in town of witchcraft. Abigail Williams used the growing hysteria to exact revenge on John Proctor, a local farmer with whom she had a brief affair, hoping to replace Jon's wife. To save his wife, Jon exposes the girl's lies, but is himself accused instead. Um, this is a classic. It's one of my favorites and I hope you come see the show. Thank you. >> Hi, I'm McKenzie. I play Betty Paris in The Crucible. Um, I'm here

061to answer the question why you should come see the show. Um, I believe you should come see the show because it is a very important historical piece about the dangers of scapegoating and the detrimental effects that ripple throughout history. As a cast, we have been doing a great amount of research behind our characters and understanding the documented background of our real characters or the people our characters were based on. Aside from that, we've also been really growing and bonding as a cast to be able to produce something impactful on and off the stage. Thank you. >> Hi, I'm Payton Williams as Mr. Pard said. my characters and Putnham and I have been asked um what have you learned during rehearsing the Crucible. So um rehearsing The Crucible hasn't only taught me how to be a

062performer, but it's also helped me to learn how easily a community can be effective affected negatively by not telling the truth. Um this show this shows us the importance of being truth truthful especially for the better of the community. In addition to this, I've learned how to look for good in especially devastating situations. The Crucible is a really heavy show and so it can be difficult to find happy moments or breaks where everybody can just laugh. However, I found with my cast and crew, we just we've had a blast doing this even though the show is so happy. So, thank you. >> That's uh what we have. Any questions? Or >> can you just remind us again? I see the dates. What are the show times? >> Um, so all the January dates are at

0637 p.m. and then February 1st on Sunday is at 2 p.m. >> Thank you. >> Any other questions? Yeah. Thank you. >> And and I just wanted to just say congratulations to you, Jordan, on receiving a new position. So, thank you for for joining us as u overseeing all of this the great things we're doing with our theat program. Thank you. >> All right. >> Next on the uh item, so I just wanted to kind of put it out there for the public. We are going back to snacks with the soup and cabinet. Adding cabinet this time. I will be arranging visits to schools. Uh and from 11 to 1, myself, Aaron Norris, uh Alyssa Barrage, and um Lisa Lisa Laura Sage, sorry. Laura Sage will be um sort of the primary people that will

064be doing these visits. And then any secondary people such as Carolyn, uh Shellyley, Connie, and D, those people if if schools want those individuals to come and request they come with us, then they'll come as well. We'll post up from 11 to 1. I'm saying post up because we're there. You want to come talk to us, we're more than welcome to do that. we have a variety of topics we can talk to to our teachers about and we want it to be sort of an open forum but you know on their time with with their comfort level. So be looking forward for that and that's for our our our school communities mostly for our teachers and staff and stuff. All right. Want to thank everybody for coming out for the fieldhouse grand opening. It was

065a great event. Uh it was a bad pretty bad weather day. So I'm glad everybody uh who was able to come out did come out to our board members who supported as well. Well, I want to send a special shout out and congratulations and thank you, I should say, to Bill Smith, our facilities project manager, for overseeing the project uh from start to finish, as well as the entire community for their trust in getting it done. There have been we we're kind of hit the ground running as far as having programs and events there. So, we've already had a number of a basketball games. Um uh w a wrestling tournament was about two weeks ago, two or three weeks ago. And I I showed up. There were a lot of people here, a lot of

066people. And so, um, we we're just excited. I do also want to thank Mr. Joe Stanton from, uh, Threeleaf Development as well as Shiji Schmidt for their support in throughout this project. And now to our guest of honor. All right. Uh, Mr. Brandon Landis. Let me tell you something about Brandon Landis. I left the production of um, You're You're a Good Man, Charlie Brown. Did I say that correctly? >> Yep, that is correct. >> Couple months ago. >> And all I could talk about was Brandon's performance. >> Brandon was Snoopy in the the the production and you were awesome. I I remember pulling up dropping my daughter off for school and I had to stop and I saw Brandon and I had to tell him how good he was that that at uh that night.

067I'm just telling you, man, it was awesome. So, uh, Brandon is someone who, um, you know, I've seen over the last couple of years, but we've gotten to know each other, uh, during his senior year. He's a vice president of Rotary, participates in theaters, I just said, choir and orchestra. He's dual enrolled, uh, dual enrolled student, as well as, uh, uh, co-star by Bipac Union, which you heard about today. So, Brandon, what's going on at Nathan Hill? Um, so as I said earlier, we do have we had the BIPAC food drive and then um going just a little bit further into detail. We're planning on making like a cultural mural that will represent all cultures in our cafeteria cuz currently we just have like we have like kind of like little like flags up um

068with the names of the countries. Um but we do not have like literally every country flag. So, I thought we thought a a more meaningful way to like kind of represent that is instead we're going to paint a mural there instead and not specifically represent each country or try to represent each country individually, but represent people as a whole instead. Um, because that's what we're trying to do with BIPO. Um, we also obviously have we have final exams coming up quite soon. So, it's getting it's getting down to the wire with grades. I believe we have like six more school days until it's final exam time. So, that's we're nearing that. Um, some sports things, we did have our Hail vers Central um basketball games, I believe, on the 9th and 10th of January. And

069then we also had our varsity hockey. Um, we won, I believe, 9 and0. So, good for us. Yes. Um, and then music-wise, we also have our band concert coming up on the 14th. Um, our winter concert. So, that'll be great. We have an amazing band. Um, Dubs is a great director and we have amazing students like other people like um, Georgia who's on the voice who's a um, drum major or Yeah. >> Yeah. drum major. >> Perfect. Yeah. For the band. Um, and yeah, I would say that about covers it at Hail. Um lots of the kind of other like um important pieces I feel like we um were covered like when my fellow peers were here like fun upcoming events like Snow Blast which was introduced last year which is I think my personal

070now like favorite Nathan Hale event because I I was I was I got I made it to the top like five last year. So hopefully maybe this year I can go a little higher. But it's like cuz it's fun. you just like get to get a team together and then like compete in fun things like trivia. Um it could be my favorite one was actually um a race. It was like it was just like a relay race in the school like in the gym. Um and then like you tally up your points and then just like you get to see who wins at the end. So it's really just like a fun like spirit building thing. So I would say that's my thing I'm looking forward to most on the like horizon. So >> thank

071you my report. All right. Thank you, Dr. Robinson. Um, that will move us into our public comments section of the meeting here. So, at this time, if anyone would like to address the board, you may sign up in the back of the room or in the Zoom uh link that is in the chat. Uh, introduce yourself with your name and address. You have three minutes to provide comments. The board cannot discuss, debate, or act upon any item addressed during the public comments portion of the schoolboard meeting. Follow-up may be provided by the superintendent at the next regularly scheduled board meeting. Um, at this time it looks like we just have one person signed up. So that would be uh Mr. Mulling and everything. Uh John Ming 3 old drive in Fland Wisconsin. I found this

072article in the national news publication called Daily Caller. I'm going to read it directly. No add or subtract. The heading is >> start over. >> If you'd like to. It might have >> 15 seconds. >> We can restart it or let you go a little longer. Anyway, the heading is school district cares more about hiring diverse, culturally competent teachers over effective ones from the Daily Caller, January 8th. Wisconsin school district has been hit with a federal complaint for allegedly using race-based hiring practices and prioritizing diversity over qualifications. West Dallas West Milwaukee School District 2025 2030 strategic plan details explicit goals of increasing staff staff diversity and prioritizing hiring and retaining a diverse workforce that better reflects our student population. Protect the public trust uh filed a federal complaint against the district on Thursday with the

073Department of Justice, Department of Education, Department of Health and Human Services, which has been shared exclusively with Daily Caller News by creating a goal of increasing diverse teachers. The implied and logical goal is to reduce the number of teachers that are not diverse. This is discriminatory, the complaint reads. Furthermore, assigning a numerical value to the goal for race-based hiring, as the district has done, represents an even more direct and egregious affront. The district has its diversity-based hiring metric as the main goal for 2027 2028 school year, stating the goal will deepen our impact. It also states an explicit goal to increase diversity in the workforce according to the across the demographic categories from 10% in August of 2025 to 20 to 25% in August 2030 under the talent acquisition and employee engagement. Uh West Alice

074uh West Milwaukee did not respond. The district's 10-point we believe statement lists quote equity addressing biases and eliminating systemic barriers as its second point. Equity begins with us. We acknowledge and address our own biases and commit to eliminating systemic barriers that hinder student access. It reads the third bullet point promises to provide students with rigorous, inclusive, and culturally relevant learning experiences. Our team must reflect our values. Another point reads, "We recruit, retain, and develop a workforce that is culturally competent, inclusive, and committed to equity. It mentions equity in some form, a total of four times. The district states state plans to increase student success as well, but in doing so admits that 33% of the third graders students are testing proficient and advanced in literacy and 33% of its eighth graders are earning the same

075status in mathematics on the state exam. If it isn't clear to everyone yet what is happening in Wisconsin, Ohio and many other states, it is unfortunate symptom of how our education establishment has lost I got 15 seconds. I'm I'm almost done. Um, reading, writing, and arithmetic has been pushed to the side for ideologies that discriminate against certain students and pit students against each other among other based upon characteristic they cannot control. The fact is happening in areas of the public would loathe to accept such dogma and evidence of a group think and sus susceptibility to fads that are far too prevalent among those in charge of teaching our kids. The district is clearly continuing its practice of imposing DEI diversity, equity or inclusion on its pupils and staff in some form. The very mention of

076the words diversity and equity signal that the Department of Education should con conduct an investigation to determine what exactly their usage of these words translate to. That's not my comments. That's just an article and this is around this has been on the radio today. This is this is in the news and this national and DEI has been told by the I believe the Supreme Court not to pursue. We do not pursue people on basis of race, color, or creed. It's kind of the opposite of Mr. Thanks. Thanks for the extra. >> All right. Um, I'll look to see if there's anyone else currently signed up. There is not. So, I'll wait just a moment just in case anyone's rushing to the link in the chat. Seeing nothing coming up, I will at this time close

077uh our public comments section and we'll take us on to our board reports uh item nine and starting with 9.1 the review of the board calendar. Um so today is January 12th. Uh we have a regularly scheduled board meeting uh which has an FS financial stability uh and efficiency workshop uh with our enrollment projections. Uh we are also going to have another workshop but that has been rescheduled for the 26th. Um so then on January 26th we also have another regularly scheduled board meeting uh which will include a CCR workshop and um this will focus on the state of postsecary opportunities for our students as well as what's on the immediate horizon. Uh as well as a referendum update. We'll have that and then we will also have our um student services workshop discussing uh

078the high school bag restriction that we are looking at. Um that is our calendar. And so from there we have our committee reports 9.2 starting well and only uh college and career readiness. Mr. Becker. >> Thank you President Burns. Uh the college and career readiness committee met this evening before tonight's uh board meeting. Uh we had two items that we discussed. Uh one was a parent concern. Uh there was a study abroad and a grade point impact. U some parallels to what we have with the jazz ensemble uh about the grades that were impacted. the gray points that were impacted by something that should be um enriching uh kind of stretch goals and uh somebody pushing themselves in a way that they didn't necessarily have to outside the core. So um we had a really

079good engaging session. There are some follow questions. Um we don't really have any answers right now, so I don't want to get too far in the weeds on it. Um, but it was a really really great con uh conversation and uh I appreciate uh everybody in being involved in it. Uh we also had a conversation uh we had a presentation that's going to be a board workshop in a couple weeks on a backpack policy for our high schools. Um uh just real high level. I don't want to just uh wave your arms or something uh Dr. Robinson if I say too much. um uh more or less it's going to it would mirror what we do at the middle schools right now. Um again, I don't want to say too much, but it was again

080a good p good conversation. We had all three of our high school principles there. Uh Mr. Fish from uh uh FLW was there as well and had some input and some thoughts. So again, a really engaging conversation. We ran I think just a little bit over an hour on these two items. So, um, really appreciate everybody's time and input there and we'll have more for you guys in a couple weeks. Thank you. Uh, are there any questions for the CCR? >> No. All right, seeing none. Thank you, Mr. Becker. Um, and then that'll move us into 9.3, our board member reports of community events. Is there anything that anyone would like to talk about that they participated in in the near past, Mr. Becker? >> Since the mic's right here, uh I was able to

081go to a couple wrestling meets. I haven't been to one in about 30 years. So, that was really great. Um the the one was the the Stack Invitational at the at the New Wack uh the updated fieldhouse. It was really great. I really enjoyed seeing uh I say it all the time with athletics. Anytime I bring it up, it's the same thing. It's these kids pushing themselves in ways that uh they just don't necessarily in everyday life. And if anybody here has wrestled before, it feels like you're fighting for your life. And those kids, they fight and fight and fight with every ounce they have. And then they shake hands and then they shake the hands of the opposing coaches. And it was absolutely beautiful. Really appreciate all those kids effort. I appreciate the coaches,

082their late late wonderful stuff. Thank you very much. Uh, anyone else uh events that they've gone to like to share? >> No. All right, a little bit of a light week here then. Um, so that'll move us on to 9.4 other updates and information items, which I currently have none. And that will take us to our consent agenda, which >> Oh, yeah. Yeah. So, >> just wanted to there's a word that you use. I just want to make sure for the public we're not looking at a policy. We're looking at a restriction. Okay. A policy will require a vote from the board. We're this is sort of like in the weeds which which goes to how schools function daily. So, this would not be a policy change. It would be more of how we look

083at on a dayto-day. >> So, I just wanted to be clear with that. All right. We're getting text messages like you said policy wrong word. It's not a policy. >> That's why I as a policy from the district currently around back that does not exist in our district policy. >> Okay. Just want to make be clear. >> All right. Thank you for the clarification. Um All right. That will take us to our consent agenda which is 10.1 our approval of minutes, 10.2 our employment summary, and 10.3 our supplementary contracts. Uh, does anyone need anything separated out? No. Then I would entertain a motion at this time. >> Uh, move to approve >> move to approve uh 10.1, 10.2, and 10.3. >> Second. >> All right. I have I have a motion and a second. Uh,

084is there any discussion on the motion? All right. All those in favor? I >> those opposed. >> All right. And that will pass. That will take us to our action items. Uh starting with 11.1, the February 2026 extended travel to Orlando, Florida. Uh and we should have >> I'm going to do it. >> Are you going to do it now? >> Of course. I am a Palm Dad. I handle this. It's all you. >> You asked me last year, I was like, "No, I can't do that." So th this uh this request is for the Nathan Hill High School Palms dance team to travel to Orlando, Florida. Uh the students, young ladies qualified for this national uh opportunity uh from their performance at previous camp. So, um, this is sort of like the reward for

085even though all of the young ladies are not going, it's still a huge opportunity for some of our students who would like to attend. And so, um, um, they're they're going to be featured performers in the Disney parade. I know you've all kind of seen that that and it's through the Badgerette Allstar Talent Tour. So that's the title and we're they're we're we're asking for approval from the board for their request to attend. Are there any questions from the board? No. Then I would uh at this time entertain a motion. >> Move to approve action item 11.1. >> Second. >> All right. I have a motion and a second. Is there any discussion on that motion? Seeing none, uh, all those in favor? >> I, >> those opposed. All right. And that passes all them,

086congratulations. Um, and that we'll move to 11.2, our WASBY resolutions. Uh, Mr. Becker and Mr. Lee, is that going to be >> Yeah, I am the, uh, the WASBY representative this year and Mr. Becker is my alternate in case I uh am ill or something. Um so everyone had received a copy of the was resolutions that were passed that came out of their um resolution committee that they have and so there's 12 resolutions that are being considered. Um I went through them and a lot of them seem like common sense things that I think that we would support. There is two that well there's four that I would like to get some feedback from the board on. Um the first one is the second resolution which is revisions to the school district and school report

087card process. uh and in in this uh resolution essentially what they were looking to do is change how the school report card is being calculated and they want to take so currently right now for the school report card which I happen to have right here is a handy dandy handout um you have target group outcomes which is 25% on track to graduation which is 25% that's the same for everybody and then you have achievement and you have growth growth, which is the other 50% of what makes up that report card. So, right now, depending on your free and reduced lunch, amount of students in your district determines how much achievement is weighted versus how much growth is weighted. So, as you know, for our district, growth is weighted more because we have a higher percentage

088of students who are on the free and reduced launch program. Other districts have achievement weighted more because they have less. The proposal is to basically make achievement and growth equal. So basically 25% for each one of the things. Okay. And then they also had a few other things. They wanted to um they also wanted to eliminate the practice of waiting student proficiency based on free and reduced lunch populations and take into account AP classes, international balorate, dual credit, career and teched and extracurricular offerings. They wanted to include fiscal efficiency and report card scoring. and they wanted any changes to the scoring be basically they wanted to have DPI create a committee that would work with all the CISAs or have representative from all the CISAs in the state to essentially put these changes into place.

089I have concerns about this. If this were to pass, it would negatively impact every single one of the report cards for our schools because number one, if you take away the waiting for free and reduced lunch, that makes any achievement that we have basically meaningless because our students are are free and reduced lunch. So, it takes away a lot of that for us. Making growth and um the achievement being the same also would negatively impact us. I think personally this uh really would help affluent districts who do not have to work with they don't have special education populations. They do not have to work with uh the the challenges that students that are coming from lower socio economic statuses have to deal with and I think for us this should be a no. But I

090would like to hear from other board members their thoughts on this. >> All right. Thoughts on that Mr. Beckard? >> I locked on to that one as well. Mr. Lee, uh this is a repeat. It's the one the same one we had last year. It's the same district and I looked up their report card too. They're completely couldn't be more different from our district. It's your assessment is pretty spot on in my eyes. >> Does anybody have any issue if we would be a d on this one? >> No. >> Disagree. >> Yeah. So, so we're we're I would vote no. So John just so I'm representing the board at the as Roby delegate and so I'm basically saying our board is saying like we would be no on this amendment. So if it would

091pass then basically put a resolution for and saying like this is what we think should happen. It isn't saying it is what's going to happen because that that's up to other people to decide. But this is basically trying to say like WASBY as the school board um Wisconsin Associated School Boards which were a member of is saying these are the resolutions that we support and um so we would not be in support of that. So I'm hoping that it would not pass. Okay. So I'm going to put an A on that one. All right. And then the um the next one I had um wanted some feedback from the group on was the next resolution which is amendment to resolution 5.22 funds distribution. And really and and Aaron maybe you could um because I wasn't

092really sure how this would affect this. I'm not sure why it's it's even being come forward, but basically what it's saying is wise as we recommend that DPI would be responsible for distributing federal grants as well as state grants instead of them coming directly to the district from whatever those granting agencies were for. And I don't really I don't know if you're familiar with this resolution, Aaron, but I don't really know the point of why it matters if DPI is distributing those funds versus it going directly to the district. to me just seems like another like barrier like don't wait for DPI to release it and then instead of it just coming right to us. So Aaron, do you have any comments on that? >> Yeah, I'd have to check more specifically into what exactly

093um the background is on that, but typically a lot of the federal grants that come directly from the federal government are released to DPI and then we have to submit budgets to DPI that certifies what we're going to spend the money for. Is the money that we're spending it on restricted? Is it allowable? Etc. So I'd be curious to dive more into that. >> Okay. Yeah. >> So let me just read. So the rationale is the state education agency has expertise, experience and efficient structure to handle the allocation and dispersement of state and federal funds and they want to amend existing 5.22 um to read. Dwazi recommends that the state education agency be assigned the jurisdiction to supervise the distribution of all funds intended for educational programs serving youths of elementary and high school age

094in any school system receiving public funds in Wisconsin. Additionally, WASBY supports state educational agency supervision and distribution of all federal education funds if federal funding from the US Department of Education is changed to be federal block grants or other funding sent directly to states from federal agencies. And it would repeal resolution 2.62 flow through which basically states that was supports all federal grants flow directly to school districts and cooperative educational service agencies or ceases. >> Interesting. Could it could it be around some of the discussion happening federally with the federal or the department of education? Maybe it's in maybe it's like in advancement of some of those decisions that are getting made. I'm not sure. I'd have to >> Yeah. where where they're basically passing the responsibility on to the local state agency versus it

095coming directly from a federal director. So, it's almost like the federal state is having. So, I have some some mixed feelings on that. Uh I think If a state agency were on the ball with this kind of stuff, I wouldn't have any hesitation. Uh because if you're depending on them to filter things out and cascade it out uh at at the current rate that they're working up there, right? >> That'll block. >> That's be a problem. >> Okay. U but ideally it would be a great uh vehicle for these grants to be to come down the pike and we would know where to go. Hey there DPI site we have all the grants that we can apply for that but that's not currently where we are. >> Okay. So I'm hearing like maybe a nay

096on this one. What do you board members feel? >> I might I might advise Mr. like hear out the conversation on that to see what explicitly like what was the issue that brought this forward and then >> depending on the board's feedback >> is the board okay well I have to make a decision there so is the board okay me using my best judgment on what that conversation might be whether we vote yeah or nay on this >> yes >> okay all right I'll put up to me okay then that fine the Other one was um so there's two different resolutions on decoupling the voucher school payments from property taxes. So there's one saying to do it and one saying not to do it. So basically one of them will pass. So what I need

097to know is where should we be? What should I vote yay on and what should I vote nay on? And these are like I think 11 and over 10 and 11. So the first one says support the coupling of public and private school funding. It would create one that says WASBY supports legislation separating funding for parental choice and independent charter schools from the public school equalization aid formula and instead supports the state taking full responsibility to fund payments to these schools. Currently taxpayers must offset the loss of equalization aid used to pay for a resident pupil's voucher to attend a school a choice or independent charter school via increased property taxes. Um, so reassigning responsibility for funding private school choice programs, independent charter schools to the state would keep equalization aid focused on public schools,

098mitigate reductions to equalization aid to schools experiencing declining enrollment, provide stability in funding, and increase transparency by allowing debate of the program in the state budget conversation. The exact opposite opposite of that is saying opposes legislation separating funding for parental choice and independent charter schools from equalization aid and instead supports all publicly funded schools being funded by a combination of state and local tax dollars. Rationale for this is under current law funding for schools receiving public funds must adhere to the state equalization aid formula from which is a statutoily required combination of public funding streams. Single stream public funding for private independent charter schools did not adhere to the uniformity in in education requirement of the Wisconsin constitution would create inequality in school systems. The equalization aid formula was meant to correct and would further

099erode transparency and accountability for public funds used for private schools. So those are the two dichonomous options that we have here. And actually I would like to hear Aaron's thoughts on that. So from our perspective of a district, would we be benefited? Do you think from a public standpoint in decoupling? So, so conceivably I see this as well, it maybe would reduce property taxes from our perspective because we wouldn't be essentially levying property taxes under our name uh for private schools, right? So that would reduce our property tax burden for our constituents. Um but is there a negative connotation to that in that that now which which with other there's some charter programs which are fully funded by the state currently. Um not all there's it's a small amount. So it kind of put all

100of them into one bucket and they're basically saying like well then they could be it could be argued about or discussed from a statewide perspective which is kind of where it's being uh uh determined really and we're just collecting those funds on their behalf. So Erin, what do you think? Yeah, I think in general I support the separation of of the funds. >> Yeah. And I think there a lot of things can play out down that rabbit hole as you alluded to, Mr. Lee. I mean, how they change funding alongside the legislation is always a question. You decouple and then it's not just one thing happens and it's left alone. So, it's hard to go too far deep. But in general, I think some of the conversations we've all had for the past two years

101is where does the where's the money go? and tax increases and the conversation is what's under the rug. And so I think just the transparency for the taxpayers across the state is is something that I would support. Now what happens alongside that is a question. You know, school districts receive state aid on things like that too. So there it's a it's more of a it's hard to calculate exactly and with the cap coming off the WPCP this year, that's a question too I have. But I think in general people should know exactly where their tax dollars go and right now they do not. So the contract that is that if the decision is at the state level, they probably still don't know where their tax dollars are going to because it's being basically taken from

102all of the collections that they get at the state level and then they determine legislature determines how much they're going to allocate to that private system. Right? Right now at least we could delineate and we can say, "Oh, we know that this much percent of our levy is going towards this." Um, and each school district would be able to do that and we can numerate for people. People who want to have see reductions in their property taxes are probably in favor of it, but the money is still coming from somewhere, right? It's not like it's going away. >> What do you think board? I mean, I would say that as you said, like our our first oblig responsibility is to the constituents and if this is a possibility of reducing the tax burden on our

103district, then that's probably beneficial. And and you know, unless there was a magical situation where the state decided to break those things out in the tax bills that shows where that money is going, we're just left standing here trying to argue that that that money is going to places that we can't account for. as it is right now. If it's broken out, at least we know what what we're actually using versus what we're being blamed for using, which is the way it is now when it's coupled together. So, I think that, you know, yeah, we're going to we're going to gamble on whatever secondary effects there are. But I think that in the in the short like in in the immediate context, it's to the benefit of of us, I would think, especially given the

104the conversations we've been having with people the last month and a half, two months. >> Yep. Go ahead. >> Yeah, I agree. Um I think decoupling probably is the best choice. Um again, we to John's point, we've got to worry about our local constituents. That's one of our biggest priorities here. I I do worry about at the state level what that could end up looking like though. Um I've I I don't know that they have a plan for that and I'd be a little bit worried in terms of what unintended consequences there are from that. But I still think, you know, we have to deal with the information that we have. And I still think that decoupling is probably the best choice based on what we know now. others. >> No. Okay. >> All right.

105So, what I'm hearing is we would be a yay on 10 supporting decoupling of private uh public and private school funding and a nay on opposing decoupling. All right. Okay. So, those were the four that I had um just questions on from reading through and thinking like, well, I'm not sure uh will be best here. But did anyone else have any uh questions or comments on any of the resolutions that are being put before? Again, this is not saying this is what's going to happen, but WASBY does advocate on our behalf and these resolutions that are passed are part of the things they advocate on. So, we always want to make sure that what um resolutions are being passed. Uh oh, there actually is one other one that isn't a resolution. It's a change to

106the bylaws, which I did want to discuss with you guys. Um, but what uh anything else on the resolutions? >> No. Okay. So, I will make sure that those are uh voted accordingly and I'll make sure to report back to the board on how I vote on that one regarding um uh those changes to uh the flow through of the grants. federal versus DPI, what what that actually looks out to be. So, the other thing that's in here is a proposed change to the bylaws for WASBY. And essentially what's being opposed is they want to create two different membership types. One is a full member which basically has all the rights and things that we have right now. Um, and one is a member which is full in everything except for the resolution. So basically

107they want to create a class of membership which would allow them to be a member of WASBY but not from the advocation standpoint. This is coming out of Kettle Marine and New London. I think that wanted to they didn't uh based on their community didn't feel that all of the positions that WASBY was presenting reflected what they their community wanted. And so they wanted to have the ability to basically say, "Well, we don't we're not being advocated for by WASBY from our district perspective, but they're still members. They can come. They can't vote on resolutions. They wouldn't be able to be on the resolution committee, and they wouldn't be able to like propose amendments and things like that, but everything else they'd be able to do. and essentially would get like a rebate back if

108the board would the board would have to basically pass a resolution saying we want to be um I don't have the exact terminology with me um but this particular type of membership for WASBY >> limited active member okay limited active member um and then if they did that then they would get like basically some of their um membership fee back because they weren't doing it so my concern that I thought of initially is like well if they're getting their membership fee back. What does that mean? It's probably going to be spread around everyone else who's still a full member. So, that might increase the fees for everyone else to be part of that resolution. Um, so, you know, I don't know if you're familiar with this uh if you guys read it in the packet,

109but this is something new. They don't do these bylaw changes uh very often. And so, what do we think about this? >> I'm a little suspicious. Let's see. reasoning. >> So, so the reasoning is they um they feel that not all the positions that WAS takes for it's like so like for instance, you know, we're not in favor of changing the report cards, right? So, say that that amendment that resolution passes and we're like, well, we're not in favor of that, right? So, we could say, you know what, we're going to pass a resolution says we're going to be a limited member and we're we're not going to pay our full membership dues to WASBY because we don't feel they're representing our community um in the resolutions that they put forward. That's why a couple

110districts have put this forward as a different membership because right now you're either part of WASI or you're not. It seems like the beginning of a fissure to have a parallel competing sort of >> entity. >> Um it just seems like the first crack in the wall and then it just >> Yeah. >> Right. Right. that that they want to >> Yeah. Yeah. I think I think that's my fear, right? You have two now. Um what's to say that if you know some of the other things being voted on go against other districts, they're like, "Well, wait a minute. If this is an option now, we're going to do this." And I can see the threat of that being potentially used to influence things as well. Like I it just seems like a very slippery

111slope and doesn't make a lot of sense. Like you're either in or you're not. And >> that's how I feel. Okay. Other comments, questions. Yeah. Anybody? No. Um I have I read through this and then I I wasn't sure what I thought and um but I it strikes me as taking my ball and going home if you don't do what I like. Um, and but the other the other part of it is like what what's the benefit of being part of WASBY if you get your money back because they don't do like you're still getting all of the other components with it, but you're not the resolutions don't necessarily reflect your immediate community which we deal with as well. Like so like >> well it's not like when they advocate they'd be like we're advocating

112for everyone except for these school districts. They're still advocating for everyone. They're just basically saying well we're not going to be we're going to get some of our money back and then we can't we won't be able to be on the resolutions committee and and we won't the delegate assembly. They won't basically have a delegate at the delegate assembly. That's basically what they're saying. Well, we'll give that up if we can get some of our money back because we don't like all of the things that WASBY uh is advocating for. But WASB is not saying like, oh well, here's a list of districts that we are advocating. Yes, you're right. They're paying they're still paying something. Now, it didn't enumerate how much the rebate would be if it's going to be a per because I

113I believe we pay per like based on the size of our district is kind of like how much we pay. So, I don't know if it's going to be something like that or what. That wasn't enumerated at all in here. But to me, I kind of smacked at the same sort of like you know, one or two things you don't like and everything else you do that well mean we're really focusing on these one or two things like even if that would pass, right? And we were like this is not helpful for us. Um there's a lot of other things they do that aren't helpful to us, right? And it would make a lot of sense for us to then try to like nickel it's nickel and dimming in my opinion and saying like well

114you know the these two things we don't like and so as such you know give us some of our money back because we don't want to be involved in that. So, >> hang on. We got Brandon, did you have a question? >> Yeah, I was just gonna say um >> I guess I'll turn this on, but um I feel like from my understanding of this, cuz I never heard of WASBY before this meeting to clarify. Um, but from what I'm like picking up from this, I feel like it would be to me I feel like it'd be like a disservice cuz it's like if you're supposed to be working like together and everybody's like in like this um community or like I'm not sure like the exact title of it. Um, but what is it

115called? >> Organization. Perfect. Sorry. Thanks. Um, so if they're if we're all supposed to be part of this organization, I feel like to then go and say like, well, it's not like fitting us. And I understand cuz like um that can be like a problem when like things are voted on that you're not always represented. But I don't think just because there isn't an immediate represent representation of like a certain district that that means they can almost just like like you said like nickel and dime and be like well actually let's just give up our like voice to like vote and then also get like a reduced payment. I'm kind I'm kind of with the feeling that it kind of should be you're all like in on it or maybe it's not for you is

116my viewpoint. >> And if I could, President Burns, my my other comment too and I think for those of you who have been at that delegation, certainly Mr. Lee, you have I believe for well you haven't before, but I >> I I believe part of the process is the discussion. Mhm. >> And so I think in the meeting part of your stance on voting no is to provide your rational basis potentially to swing other people's opinions. So I think like the sum is greater than the parts. And so to have the conversation to be at the table is important and we're all stronger from dissenting opinions sometimes to at least have understanding and empathy towards why you may disagree and why we still may go this way. So I think to like let for WBY

117to let people weigh out is like to me like defeats the purpose of the group. >> So that's just my thoughts. >> Miss Carr, did you have >> I'm good. >> You're good. >> Let's clarify. >> Okay. >> So, um, Miss Lee, >> well, I was just going to say just to kind of piggyback on multiple comments is just I feel like it's opening up a can of worms. You know, just that whole you can pick and choose what you want to have an opinion on or vote on or whatever and then when you don't, you can say, "Well, now I'm not, but then I want this back for it." I just feel like it is going to open up something that we're later going to look back and regret. I think it is you're

118all in or you're not. >> Mr. Becker, >> I was going to say since uh Miss Kaiser is not here, I was at the assembly last year and it is a fascinating uh experience of democracy and it's just what Mr. Norris said. Uh people will come up and make their points and you'll have multiple microphones around the room and they make arguments against or for and it really is very instructive. Uh it was it was very interesting last year because the the the tech went down so they had votes just by hand count. It was really, really neat. Um I I will probably go again just to sit in the back and observe it because I found it that interesting. Um I'd be curious what the conversation is too on the decoupling just to hear

119what other folks have to say. And just like you said, it it may help you think things through in a way that this group hasn't. Is there a way to get back to a full membership once they reduce? So my understanding is they would they would have to pass a resolution again. So if you pass one to to not be a full member. So we pay every year. We pay annually, right? So I think every year would then be a decision for that board to say we're going to be a full member this year or we're not going to be a full member this year. Um and so then they would could become come back. So like what they could every other year for whatever reason decide that they wanted to do that is my

120understanding. The bylaw would create that ability. It's not like, well, you're locked into like a three-year contract and you got to be a full member for a three year. >> Yeah. No, it just it seems like then they would be able to um well, the coming and going then it's like, well, I'll support you this year because you agree with me. I won't support you this year. Which means that then that's mayert authority because it's like, well, these other districts won't be in us if we support this. So, we have to go this way. >> Right. Yeah. Miss car. So, because this is not a resolution, we're really not voting nay or yay on it? >> No. Uh, so this is a bylaw change, right? >> So, it will be a vote. >> So, there

121will be a vote. >> Yes. Yeah. I have I'll I'll have a vote to say if I agree with that bylaw change or not. >> Oh, okay. So, yeah. >> So, that's why I wanted to get your guys's opinion on it because of that. >> I'm innate on that. I wish I >> so we're we're thumbs down on that and and obviously as you guys know I'm not uh shy to to give my rationale for why I'm voting nay. Um I think that's you learn a lot by by understanding even if it's a minority viewpoint. So I will definitely if people are not saying what we what we think and why I will definitely make sure to give that. So >> Okay. Uh that was Yeah. Go ahead. Uh, just something else that I just

122wanted to jump on to is if we agreed I'm glad we're going with Nay because if we agreed to go with it, I just have concerns also about funding. Um, you know, if if somebody's a non-member but they're allowed to go to the uh the um >> the convention and get basically you're benefiting from everything from that and the only thing is you don't have a vote. >> You might not have a vote. >> I mean, you're still you're still I mean I don't know how you you know differentiate like well because you don't have a vote you pay you know $300 less. Well, you're still benefiting from pretty much like 95% of what WASBY does. >> Mhm. >> So, anyway. >> Yeah. >> All right. Well, I will vote I will vote nay on

123the B bylaws >> and I've noted the other thing, so I'll make sure to do that. So, thank you very much for the feedback. That's all I had. >> Great. Thank you. All right. Um and so then we will move into our workshop for financial stability and efficiency uh for enrollment projections and open enrollment seats. So welcome >> welcome. It's that time of the year. Can you believe it already? January. >> All right. So I I am here to talk you through and work through the enrollment projections and staffing for the 2627 school year. So we're going to go ahead and get started. So, first I'm going to go through how the objective of what we're going to go through tonight and des we're going to first describe the enrollment projection process used for the

1242627 school year. Outline the 2627 enrollment projections districtwide and by school and then forecast how the projections impact the available open enrollment seats for the 2627 school year. Um so our timeline tonight I will do the workshop. Uh January 26th, I will come back and ask you to vote on the enrollment um open enrollment. And then February 23rd, the FS workshop will happen. Staffing will happen at that workshop. There will be a pupil count um for second Friday, which happened January 9th, and we'll have clear numbers for you on January 9th. Um and then the revenue and the preliminary budget. Um how the enrollment projection process works is that the enrollment we roll the current students up for the next grade year for the 26 27 for example the sixth go to 7th 7th go

125to 8th um we look at the enrollment projections and transition years for like sixth and 9th. So we take the seniors out of 25 26th and roll like the 11th grade up to 12th grade. we um advance each grade up to the next year and then we use the historical data to make um adjustments. So this year we made adjustments in ninth grade, there was an 11 uh% adjustment in 9th grade and an 18% adjustment in kindergarten. And then we use the historical data to make those adjustments. Um and then we make open enrollment adjustments for those grades at all grades up to 92% when we're asking for open enrollment sees. So, we only um st uh take seats up to 92% so that we have um seats available for families that move into the

126district. So, when we look at the numbers in future slides, um we're never going up to our 100%. We always want to make sure that there's room for families to move into the district um during the summer or during the school year. So, when you look at those numbers, you'll see that it's only up to 92%. Um here's our numbers by grade that we're projecting for the 2627 school year. And I like this chart because it's visual so that you can see um that we are projecting stabilization across the elementary grades and intermediate grades. Um in the past we've been as high as 600. um for next year. We have we used to always be in the 600s in the high school, but you can see as we're stabilizing into the 400s, and we've talked

127about this previously in um past meetings that we are stabilizing in the 400s. Um here's an important slide. Um what you'll see is our high schools are in yellow, our intermediates are in green, and our elementaryaries are in blue. To the left are our actual numbers. So this is our numbers that we gather from our third Friday counts. And then on the right are our projections. So the ones that are 2025 26 are our numbers from our third Friday count. And then 2627 is what I'm projecting for the 2627 school year. And you'll see those that 8th grade 455 that shifts over to the 505 that has that um that transition year built in. And then again with the blue going to the green to the intermediate from for 25 26 to 26 27 you'll

128see that built in. Um and then below are our grade bands and the colors coordinate down there as well. So you'll see um you'll see for the grade band 9 through 12 for 25 26 there's 2,237 kids for actual and then we we project for the 26 27 2091. And why these grade bands are important is for total numbers for 2526 we are we were actually at 6449 and we're projecting 2 or 6,258 which is a difference of 191 kids. What's important about that number is if when you break down the bands 146 of the of the 191 difference comes from the high school. So we're losing 146 kids in high school. only 23 are at intermediate and only and 22 are at the elementary. So when we look at our open enrollment ask later

129keep those numbers in mind. So how do we determine like what our staffing and what our open enrollment ask is for next year. So we determine the projected enrollment for the 26 27 by applying the approved sections that we need based on these numbers by the matrix that was approved by the school board. We project enrollment at each school to determine the number of sections required to make classes fit. We determine the number of staff required to teach those section resulting in the number of seats or resulting in the number of open enrollment seats that I'm asking of you. Each year we've done this. We have our projected enrollment. Then third Friday comes in at our actual enrollment. And here is a chart that shows the what the difference has been for the last five

130years. As you can see, in the last five years, all but one, we've been in we've we've projected it out and we've only been 1.5 difference for our projected enrollment. So, we've been pretty close every year using this process. So, I just wanted to show you how how we've been doing it. So, here's our actual 2627 projected enrollment by school breakdown. So I'll go through Franklin so that you can kind of see how this is broken down. So for Franklin their current staff for this year they had 12 staff that they had and then for projected for 2526 they had 255. Their third Friday count was was which which was actually what we counted in their building was 239. their third Friday count was or their second Friday January count which was just done January

1319th was um we will probably have for you when we come back on the 26th I hope to have those numbers filled in for you um and then their projected for 2627 is 222 and so that's how each line of that works across so if you go through Hoover that tells you what the staff they have this year what they were projected for this year their third Friday count we're still working on the January 9th um enroll enment and then what they're projected at for the following 2627 school year. Any questions about that? Okay. So, here are the section size and student rate teacher ratio that is was approved by the school board. Um so, you can see there's an L elementary um and a secondary planned class max. what it when it's filled to

13292% and what the 92% of class max is and what the optimal optimal number is for that. And then for open enrollment seats for 2627 is broken down by grade. So we have if you look at the top the desired class size the sections that we need the capacity that those sections will allow the projected enrollments um the tuition waiverss. A tuition waiver is when you lived in our district, move out of our district, and then apply for a tuition waiver at the enrollment center so that you can complete that school year. Um, and then the residents who currently live in our district. Um, and then the first column is the number of open enrollment seats that I'm asking for from the board. The white column is the number of tuition waiverss that we need.

133And then the final column is the that those two columns combined together. So that we're asking for a total of 160 open enrollment and tuition waiverss. So oftent times we like to know where we've been so we can know where we're going with open enrollment seats. So open enrollment over time um for the 2526 school year we had um open 421 students apply for open enrollment in and 1376 open enrollment students apply out. Um last year we had 156 seats approved 75 and appro students accepted seats. Districtwide we have 421 open enrollment students um districtwide and then 55 of those are seniors. Um, for the 2526 school year, we had 514 students apply for open enrollment applications out and then 1,376 total students apply or out of district. And often one of the questions that

134I get most is where are those students going? And so here we pulled the report where and they are all over the state. Um, so we have some going to Milwaukee and some going as far away as Grantsburg. So, and that apply that is our 1,376 students. So, you as you can see there are just no not one specific place that our students that are open and rolling out are going. Um, so what we are asking for at the uh January 26th meeting is 160 open enrollment regular education seats, zero special education seats due to capacity of special education. There will be 225 DLVA regular education seats grades 6 through 12 pending our January 9th count that the numbers come back the same. Any questions, President Burns or board? >> Um, yeah. Are there any

135questions from the board about the presentation here? >> I just take a look at where Gransburg is. Um, >> it's a virtual school. >> Okay. Thank you. >> It's past Minneapolis. Some of the ones you see around >> that are really far away are virtual schools. >> Yep. >> All right. Um, you had a question earlier. Did you want to >> Okay, Miss Carr, go ahead. >> And I I'm you might have said this. How many open enrollment seats did we have last year? You're asking for 160 this year. >> And how many last year are you asking for? How many did we approve last year? >> 156. Okay. And we're asking 160. >> Yes. >> Got it. >> Yep. >> Okay. Other questions from the board. >> Mr. Becker. >> Uh I did mean

136to ask uh for the projections 2.5% is a pretty nice outlier. Uh but but just curious if we know like like what how do we what's the the difference between that one versus other years? Do we have any idea what the what the cause was for the I think it was about 60 or 70 total seats of the next nearest >> you talking this this slide Mr. Becker the projection difference. >> Yes. Yeah. Yeah. You know 16 versus 117 at the as the closest. Just curious about if you if you had any idea why >> why it was 2.5 that for 2425. >> Yeah. Yeah. Versus >> No. >> Okay. >> Yeah. >> Okay. Other questions? >> Mr. You had a couple. >> Yes. Thank you. Um, I just want to point out, and I

137know this is partially my fault because I brought this up before, but the column, uh, on the open enrollment slide, uh, 2026 27 slide, they don't add up to 160. So, I know that must be, uh, yeah, that that's correct. So, the the the rows like 9th grade is a good example. You see 51 seats, two, and then 51. The two is baked into the 51. So, the first two kids of the 51 that get those seats are going to be kids on waivers. >> Okay? If you go up to first grade, you see zero and then you see a three and then a three. You go, well, if the board approves zero, the three kids on waiverss won't get in. So, the board's got to approve. If the perspective of the board is anyone

138that attends that applies on a waiver and it's not habitually truent, should get in, then those three kids should get in. So, we're asking the board to approve three seats. >> So, that's why they don't add up. >> I just wanted to make sure that um we went over that. um historical data for the percent uh for our K4, K5 and um 9th grade. How many years is that that we're looking historically? And are you taking X amount of years and averaging it or how are you coming up with that percent? >> You mean this slide, Mr. Lee? like the transition slide that says >> it basically said that it's 11% >> bump for 9th grade and 18% bump for kindergarten right and that's based on historical data. So my question is >> how many

139years historical data and how are you coming up with that percentage? Is it an average of the years? Is it it was just last year's data and so we went with that. So let me know that information. >> We're able to go back. We usually look back for the last five years when we do our five-year projection >> and and and sometimes there's outliers too. I don't have it directly in front of me, but I do know when I was working on this a few years ago, like part of the process looking at like uh COVID years when enrollment was lower. It's like, do you pull that out because that brings down averages. So, >> you know, that could be some of the conversation to Mr. Becker's question, too, like how are you off that

140year? we maybe included a transition year we shouldn't have with COVID and weird things were happening with enrollment at that time. Yeah, >> because with the 5-year analysis when when I look and I and I see the numbers and I look, okay, like for the last five years, I usually shift like the 2021 school year off the chart and then we just kind of keep track and then I'm able to keep looking back and saying like, well, why was why was the the fifth fifth grade this way? And sometimes like I know there's been years where I'll just look at if there's a a year that's really off, I'll kind of do the numbers for fourth grade or third grade just to see like why was that class so high or why was you know

141why was the enrollment in first grade so high that year and I'll just kind of run the numbers for that as well. So it's this cycle we did kindergarten and nth grade. We always do those transition years but sometimes there's a class that just warrants you know a cycle of day to two. Okay. Well, I think that the num month the number of years is important so you can smooth out those >> peaks and valleys that you would see over time. >> We always do at least five years and if it needs more, we can look back at that. >> Yeah. Good example like uh six or fifth to sixth grade just fell off. So if you look back, you'll actually go, "Oh, fifth to sixth went down, went down, went down, went down every

142year." But if you look back 10 years, the aggregate average would tell you you'd have a delta increase. >> But historically, we're not seeing that more recently. So I'm like, well, we probably should not even have it. We should probably just leave it flat at best. And then if we see that again next year, you might see the opposite. You might see a reduction. >> But it's hard to it's hard to imagine the kids you have today won't be here tomorrow. It's just a weird kind of thing to think about. We don't do that anywhere else, >> you know. So, >> okay. >> Yeah, good question. Um, I noticed on the on the slide for open enrollment out that New Berlin's on that list, but New Berlin doesn't have any open enrollment seats. Where are

143those from? So, so the open enrollment is a sum accumulation of the past however many years of a kid's grade eligible. So, if you approved a kid approved seats 10 years ago and the student was in kindergarten, they would still be on this list because they still could be enrolled. >> Okay. So, you you think this historical? Yeah, this is historical. This is not Well, these these these these numbers are active. They're active, but the student could have been active for 10 years. >> Do you follow what I'm saying? They >> This is Neil. >> They could have enrolled as a >> Yeah. So, so those 832 in Milwaukee could those 90 those 196 and 9 through 12 could have been open enrollment for the past eight years. >> So, they could have approved those

144seats 10 years ago and those students could still be in the system. Now, they could be approving zero seats going forward. That could happen, >> right? >> But they they might phase out those 30 seats they approved 10 years ago, five years from now. >> Yeah, they approved 50 seats five years ago. So I'm looking at the grades one through five. This is there's eight in Newber now. Is this private and public? >> Oh, just public. >> It's only public. >> So I would expect next year that that number goes to zero. If it doesn't go to zero by next year, I would have questions about it because >> if they all graduate, >> well, this is grades one through five. I'm looking specifically grades one through five. There's eight students from our district >>

145that are listed as open enrollment to them. They open 50 seats >> uh five years ago. So, this should be the last year they I'm presuming they're all fifth graders. Um so, if they are here again next year, I would have questions about that because they haven't opened any seats. Okay. Okay. I know every year they don't since that they were trying to get Sam Flippo to give them the >> the special treatment up at the state legislature. So, um I just had questions about that >> for the virtual schools in the future for this. Can you just put like a V in parenthesis? Absolutely. So, cuz Yeah, cuz Maril and stuff like that. That's really far away. No one's driving that. So, absolutely. I think that if you could just put a V, that

146would help just >> for the readability of the chart. Um the other thing I had was about the distribution of open enrollment students at our district. So historically the reason that we went away from interest to transfer is because a lot of our open enrollment students were majority showing up in our east school eastern schools. Do we know percentwise how many are in each school and how that distribution is happening and every year that we're opening up these open enrollment seats? Where's where are they going? Is it being distributed somewhat evenly or are they going to more one group of schools over another? >> Yeah, that's a good question. So, we I was talking to Connie kind of whipped it off quick. We we'll likely have to bring that back that question because you're asking

147where are our students the 421? How are they spread across the It's a good question. >> Yeah. >> Um but typically Connie looks at well just because there's 13 seats in 4K again it's up to 92%. So you might have to your question it could happen where Hoover Walker Wilson and pick another school Irving all are at 93%. Well how do you get 13 seats? It might mean that Franklin Horus man Jefferson are all at 90. So those 13 seats are going specifically to those schools. Now kindergarten could be the opposite. Mhm. >> So we'd have to bring back kind of a school by school analysis, but generally we've tried not to fill any grade at any school or any school over 10% open. That's been the goal. Any It's should be less than that

148per school. >> Okay. >> So, >> but to your point though, I think you bring up a good question because I think we often have parents I encounter a lot about the open enrollment. They're they're like, "Well, that's okay. I don't want to see because that's not the school I wanted to go to. I wanted to go to this school." Mhm. >> And unfortunately, you have schools that that you know that they probably don't desire to attend that have the the vacancies that have the space. So, it is sort of like, you know, that this this uh I don't want to say that parents sometimes play a game with it, but they they really are trying to position themselves to get what where they want to be >> versus where we have space for. >>

149And and that's part of the story here that you can see. That's why the board approves 156 seats last year and only 75 accept. That doesn't mean that there wasn't 120 people that met with Connie. >> There likely was. It just I wanted to go to this school and I got that school and that's just how it shakes out. You know, >> that's a good point. >> And I understand it, but I want to make sure that we don't end up in the same situation where we did before where I remember Central I think they had like 30% open enrollment or something like that. It was a large percentage of that. And it's hard when you're building a culture in a school if a lot of families are from outside the area because they're less

150likely to be able to participate in school events that occur after school, before school, on weekends because it's further for them to travel. >> And so um you from a culture standpoint is trying to make sure that we're being aware of that. So that's why I wanted to ask that. I haven't asked that for a while. That's a good question. But I do remember before we we um changed that in district school practice that was a problem that we had. after this after it's approved I go through and all of the seats are offered at where there's openings and it's we divide it out you know where all of so we hit 82% at all of the schools >> right and I know I'm not I'm not saying that anyone is within the district is

151preferentially putting students somewhere I understand it's where there's space >> y >> but then that might that mean there might be there's space in schools that are people think are less desirable y >> uh which I don't think is true but some people might think that and that's their opinion And but I don't want to then as a as a result of that make the culture in the school more difficult because well there's space there and we're trying to we have these open enrollment seats so they have as such they have to go there. >> To me sometimes it might be better to not fill that open enrollment seat so we can maintain um students within our district that are residents of our district more so that we can again build that culture in our

152schools. >> The balance certainly is a goal of ours as well. So I think for the 26 we'll bring back a table for this year to show enrollment by grade with the amount of seats that are filled by students who are open enroll. I think that might help. >> That'll be great. Thank you. And the last thing that I had was just the open enrollment seats 26 27. If you can go to that slide for me please. >> This one. >> Yes. So 36 and 51 to me seems like a lot. Now I understand 51's over technically three high schools. Um I don't know how many uh how many dot you might have but majority are going to be split between ninth grade for hail and central. >> Yep. >> And something I want to

153bring up as a consideration and would probably have to go through committee is looking at what our agreed upon class sizes are and look thinking about reducing it and thinking about trying to have smaller class sizes for our students and for our staff. and giving up what that potential open enrollment money might be. Now, I understand there's probably a costbenefit analysis that has to happen here to determine where would be like, man, this is going to be painful to do if we go to 29 instead of 30. Um, and then how that changes all the other calculations. But I think especially with where we're looking at and our our larger high school classes are graduating out, it might be worthwhile to look at that again from a perspective um from a financial perspective as well

154as from a staffing perspective. Again, we're trying to recur rec recruit and retain staff. Smaller class sizes, I don't care any teacher there's ever been, if you have a smaller class size, it's probably easier to teach. Uh, and for families, it's also a benefit for families, right? They understand their their students are going to get more attention because there's fewer of them that that staff member has to pay attention to, has to address, and has to educate. So, you know, >> you think reducing it by one may not be a big deal. I understand it might be a big deal because you don't know how many more sections that might create uh in doing so. But I would like to look at that because when you see the bigger numbers in nth grade especially when

155we know we're already giving 11% bump to that >> because we think we're going to get people coming back after um from other schools. We're still allowing 51 seats. >> You know, we're opening 51 seats in that, right? And how many will be selected? I get all that. But then if they're not taking it, we're not getting the money anyway. So then maybe it's less of a pain point >> if we're reducing that total amount. Sure. >> So, I think that'd be something that worthwhile to look into and see if we might then overall again reducing those open enrollment seats and and then focusing more on trying to improve what's happening in the classroom. >> Yeah, I can certainly uh once we get the course request from Conniey's department, I can certainly run that on

15625 and see what that looks like. Bringing that 30 to 27 and 27 down to 92. I can do that. >> That'd be great. Thank you. >> So, so Mr. Lee, can we tag team on this one? Because this is what I've been fussing with Aaron about as well. Oh, so uh yeah, the tag team on this one. I'm with you on that one. Lowering class size. >> Awesome. Thank you. That's all the questions that I had. Thank you very much. >> All right, >> Mr. Keller. >> Yeah, I just had one clarification and it started off as something different, but in looking at this chart ends up being this. Um, if New Berlin has not done open enrollment in 5 years, how do they have somebody in kindergarten or 4K? >> Do we know

157the answer to that? >> We we can certainly clarify to ensure that the this is pulled out of Opal, >> okay, >> state website or state program that's used to track open enrollment students. So, I don't know >> that just clarify that that's correct. um if it is correct, we we don't we have unless we'd put an inquiry into the state to make sure that'd be the only way to know. >> Okay. It just kind of jumped out because we've >> it's kind of been a conversation that's come up multiple times in different formats. So, just interesting to see that number there. >> Sure. >> All right. Any other questions from the board? >> No. All right. Thank you both for the presentation. continue. >> All right. Uh and so at this time then we're

158going to go to item 14 here. So the board will convene into executive session pursuant to Wisconsin statute 19.85 parent one parent F for the purpose of considering a student disciplinary expulsion order which if discussed in public would likely uh would be likely to have a substantial effect upon the reputation of the student involved. Uh, at this time I would entertain uh a motion >> move into executive session. >> Second. >> Sarah, would you call the role please? >> Mr. Berbos, >> present. >> Yes. >> Steel. >> Not. >> Mr. Lee. >> Yes. >> Mr. Becker. >> Yes. >> Miss Kaiser is excused. Miss Carr. >> Yes. >> Miss Lee. >> Yes. >> Mr. Color. >> Yes. >> President Burns. >> Yes. All right. Then if there is no objection, we will recess for five

159minutes while the boardroom is set up for close session. There being no objection, we will recess for five minutes.