Board Meeting 9-8-25

001All right. I'd like to call this meeting of the West Alice West Milwaukee School Board to order. Um board member Carr, would you lead us in the pledge of allegiance, please? >> Absolutely. >> I pledge allegiance 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. All right. And then Sarah, would you call the role? >> Yes. Mr. Becker >> here. >> Mr. Keller >> here. >> Miss Carr >> here. >> Mr. Verbos >> here. >> Mr. Lee >> here. >> Miss Kaiser is excused. Miss Deal >> here. >> Miss Lee >> here. >> President Burns >> present. All right. Proper notice of this meeting has been posted in accordance with the open meeting laws of the

002state of Wisconsin. Uh are there any modifications to the agenda tonight? Uh tonight we actually do have some modifications, one modification I should say. 10.3 we're going to ask that we table that particular item and remove it from the agenda tonight and we'll bring it back up um next meeting. >> All right. Thank you much. Um, all right. That will take us to section six, which is going to be our public budget hearing. Um, and so those of you who aren't familiar with the process uh for the public uh budget hearings of the Wisconsin uh Wisconsin law requires all public school districts to hold an annual budget hearing. Uh the West Dallas West Milwaukee School District hearing typically takes place about a month before the school board votes on the budget for the current school

003year. The annual budget hearing offers the public a chance to review and provide input on the proposed budget for the 2526 school year. Uh with that, there will be two uh sections of public comments tonight. Uh the first section will be focused specifically on the budget uh with the second section uh consistent with our normal public comments uh sections that we have. Um so then following the presentation by assistant superintendent Mr. Norris, there will be an opportunity for those public comments and questions specifically related to the 2025 2026 budget. Uh we will do our best to answer any straightforward questions at that time and then any more complex or detailed inquiries will be addressed in uh the period that leads up to our formal action on the budget at the end of October. So with

004that said, I will turn it over to Mr. Norris. >> Great. Well, thank you and welcome to our public budget hearing. So as Mr. uh Burns, President Burns said this is an annual thing we do and it offers the school board and the larger community kind of a glance into the state of the district's finances and kind of what we what we're intending for in the 2526 school year. And as a note, everything we're going to discuss tonight is is still projected um school finance in the state of Wisconsin is odd in that in that we are nearly a quarter of the way through our budget prior to the board formally approving um our finalized revenues. So, uh with that, we're going to jump right in. Uh first slide here is our our mission statement.

005So I know this is subject to change given the strategic plan workshop this evening but uh currently our mission statement is every day this West Dallas West Maki school district focus on equity through deeper learning fostering a sense of belonging and educates the whole child so every learner achieves success. Next slide is is again a lot of these things are required to formalize and outline the board of education. So you can see everyone that's here this evening. Our administrative cabinet here um everyone in the room kind of the budget adoption timeline kind of what I just mentioned the projection here uh is subject to these following dates. So really the the next big date for us third Friday in September the pupil count is really the revenue count. So that includes students who attend our

006schools that are enrolled as residents and students who are resident members students who live in the community who are attending other public schools. Um that is also um that's the biggest date for the school district in terms of revenue. Um on October 1st the school district finalizes equalized property value. That's important as it outlines kind of the mill rate. Tonight we have a projection that comes from Baird. Um and typically it's pretty close but that doesn't get finalized by the state of Wisconsin department of revenue to October 1st. On October 15th that's after school district audits are finalized with the state of Wisconsin. The state of Wisconsin can then finalize state aid. state aids contingent upon two things equalized value increases more property poor more property rich districts sometimes they get you know opposite can

007happen and then also the final year spending the more districts spend the more aid they receive in the subsequent year so those two things are huge components and ultimately impact our tax levy which is approved by the form board of education October 27th and then certified to the state of Wisconsin November 10th and then we jump right back in a month later to outline the budget calendar for the following year. So, um, you know, budgets never sleep. I guess that's kind of what the joke in the department ends up being, but that's kind of the next 3 months at a glance. So, again, revisions from the preliminary um, budget hearing that we had a few months ago. Here are the things that have changed. Updated equalization aid uh, based on equalized property value. Obviously, that

008updates the mill rate, updated AGR or adjusted AGR. And then the big one is going to be the uh, formalized um, uh, benial budget. So, we have those numbers. Now, we can run what that looks like for our school district. So, this is what this looks like for the 2527 school years, the next two years. Uh, on July 3rd, Governor Rever signed Senate Bill 45, which outlines the 2527 state banual budget into law. Um, this year that continues to include the 325 per pupil per state law until a change in legislation were to happen. The low revenue ceiling remains intact at $11,000 per pupil at or better known as categorical aid remains at 742. Um special education aid reimbursement went to 42% this year and to 40 um to 45% the following year which is

009up from 30%. But again I want to mention that some that's not some certain that's some sufficient. So that those dollars were as you see tonight are being budgeted at 40%. Um that's consistent with what we've seen in the past few years. So, um, prior year dollars get inflated, meaning the 42% actually comes in closer to 40, right? And then, um, an increase in the mental health or the school-based mental health grant from the, uh, state of Wisconsin. Um, at this point, we're proud to, uh, present to the board a balanced budget tonight, and we'll talk through what the changes have looked like over the past three months to do that uh, with the administrative work on getting that balanced. So to kind of give a quick timeline, I think it's important for our staff

010and our community to see kind of how these things progress because obviously how they happen sometimes dictates what that looks like, right? So on June 9th, the preliminary board workshop at this time the state budget had not been announced yet. We were at that time planning for 325 per pupil because that's state law. That was a balanced budget. Okay. A month and three weeks later, a lot of things have changed, right? At that time, we'd received the state bienial budget that increased that contained increases that fell short of our estimates. And at the same time, title two through four had been frozen from the federal government. That was a half million. Our health insurance renewal was at 23.9%. That is a deficit of $360,000. The state bienial budget has an increase of expenses for the

011school district here about a little over a million dollars by increasing open enrollment. We have a net difference out than in. That's a net expense the district. And then we also given the uh the commitment for special education through the transfer of service process, there does exist a firstear loss in that because we receive aid in the following year. So the way the state does if you spend if you get reimbursed for $1,000 expense, they won't give you $1,000 in the first year because you're going to get 40 cents on the dollar back the following year. So if they gave you a,000, you'd end up actually getting a,040. So they won't do that. So the first year you take the $40 loss and the next year you're made whole. So, all those things in a

012bucket led to the $2.65 million deficit that we had previously communicated to the board and to our staff. So, fast forward about a month uh later, where are we at today? So, a couple things have happened and a lot of them just happened as part of the normal budget cycle. One, health insurance, as you guys know, came in at 11% with changes. That ends up being about a 700 and or $800,000 swing from a 360 deficit to 480 surplus, right? Um, title 2 through 4 was released. We looked at um running school budgets elementary and intermediate from 100 to 75% that saved $250,000. Uh moving our SRO to fund 80s 325,000 working with school services to reduce a bus about $70,000. The mental health schoolbased services um that was part of the bilenial budget is

013about $150,000 of added money for one year which is good news. Uh we had a $200,000 flow through carry forward that'll help this year uh moving um $175,000 of custodial time and effort to fund 80. We'll talk through that. Essentially the time the custodians spend cleaning breakfast and lunch can be booked to fund 80 or fund 50. Thank you for the correction. And then uh reducing our fund 46 transfer from a million to four a million dollars um to 500,000. So all of those things together brought us from 2.65 to balance. So that's um really really good news. So to get into how the school district um calculates their revenue limit, it's really a a straightforward calculation. So the first thing is we get resident membership which happens the third Friday of September that gets

014multiplied by our per pupil and that is essentially the amount of money you get recurring. Beyond that there are two other functions for which school districts get uh added revenue every year. One is called the non-recurring exemption. The first one is the declining enrollment exemption, which essentially is the amount of money you received previously, however much you got last year, they they tier you down. So your three your enroll your memberships on the three-year average. So if you had 8,000 kids 3 years ago, then 7,000, then 6,000, your average would be 7,000. Well, they're going to fund you at the three-year average. So it allows school districts that when they're declining in enrollment, they get kind of a soft landing with revenue, right? So at some point you will be down to your enrollment but

015it will take three years to do so. So that declining enrollment for us this year is 1.57 million. Um and that's why that's part of the reason why our one-time non-recurring exemptions is so high. About 9.6 of that is private vouchers. Okay. Um our ongoing recurring exemptions which this year is 7.24 million. That is that 5.8 of that is the recurring referendum. Next year that will be baked into our per pupil. So next year at this time that number will be down to whatever our transfer of service number is but this year it's considered a recurring exemption been kicking the can down there on that. Oops. Sorry. And then the following year that'll be in our um per pupil. So the total revenue limit authority is just over $109 million for school district. So what

016happens is once you have your revenue limit authority it's subtracted by your equalization aid which this year is projected to be 60.8 8 million and what the difference is is 48.196 million which is the total allowable tax levy to the community. From there the tax levy is broken out into four buckets. Uh number one is the revenue limit. You can see in the bottom left corner that's the 48.196 million. The other three ways that the community is taxed from the school district is fund 39 which is referendum debt which you can see the top left. The debt payment for the um the calendar year is 4.25 million and then our fund 80 levy is projected to be 3.825 million bring the total tax levy to 56.271 million. So to calculate the mill rate it is

017the total schoolbased tax levy which is 56.271 271 million divided by the total equalized property value which is 6.99 billion times a th00and gives you the projected mill rate of 805 for the school year. The reason part of the reason the mill rate is higher is because our equalized value as you'll see here is projected to decrease by 2.42%. So this is a good example of how levers in school finance can work. If your equalized value goes down your mill rate goes up. But if your equalized value goes down, you may also see an increase in aid, which will also make your mill rate then move the opposite way. So the mill rate is really uh it's important if you're interested in calculating your the amount you will pay from your property value in taxes,

018but really be really it's it's kind of an irrelevant figure because the mill rate moves as equalized value moves, right? So for example, when we projected equalized value at 7%, it brought the mill rate down to I think it was 772. So just equalized value can substantially move that number. The more important number is the tax levy. You can see here um on the far right kind of a graph of how the tax levy and aid have moved together. And this year you can see the tax levy in yellow, far right in yellow moving up and aid not changing. So the one of the biggest issues with the most recent bienial budget that you'll see in the news is that the state allocated for the first time in over a decade no new money into

019state aid which is a tax levy. It's a way to manage property taxes, right? Um that along with the referendums is part of the reason the tax levy increase that we're going to show tonight AC that'll be across the state of Wisconsin for most districts. The mill rate here, this is to show kind of the history here. Um you can see our mill rate in 1516 was just under $10 and most recently in the high sixes and now uh near eight dollars but again um most of that is due to the equalized value dropping 2%. The state average was eight. So we're a net difference of 10. So 10% difference is 80 cents there. So it's a big that's a big reason for that. Okay moving into fund 10 the general fund. So fund 10,

020fund 21 and 27. Fund 10 is our general fund. 21 is our special revenue trust fund. That's going to be our um special revenues of the schools. That's our fund 21s our schools use for uh when they book receivables, fees, things those go into school fund fund 21 accounts. And then fund 27 is our special education fund. Um this slide shows our fund 10 revenues and fund 27 revenues. um about 80% of that is from property taxes and state aid. Other factors that we do receive categorical aid uh for special education or for categorical aid is going to be for all students. It's a kind of a per pupil basis 7.42 per pup per per pupil. Open enrollment revenues for the students that we receive and then federal grants and other funds um alike. So

021our total fund 10 and 27 revenues are 135 million which is made up mostly of property taxes and state aid along with federal dollars. Those include title money flow through Perkins that's federal. State sources are going to be mostly state aid. That's going to be 60 million of that 75. AGR we receive for it's called the um achievement gap reduction formerly known as SAGE. That's uh used in elementary schools. That's about 3 million. categorical aid is 5.6. Then you have common school funds in there at 700,000. So what does that include? So in terms of kind of focus and highlights, obviously um this is could be a long list, but kind of some quick quick uh things that'll be going on in the district this year. Um we were able to give all staff a

0229% salary increase through the referendum. 6% of that's from the referendum. 3% is from the CPI from 2024 or 2025, my apologies. um the funding of our current professional educator compensation model. That's two different buckets. A $200 annual increase for returning employees. And then the micro credentials which is by uh it's a voluntary participation. Um district and school budgets 75%. I mentioned that that excludes Halen Central due to athletics. Um community wreck center construction project phase two will be finishing up I believe midy year this year. So that's good news and look forward to seeing that completed. We have our technology refresh that includes uh student iPads, elementary student teacher iPads, keyboards, and the new line panels uh districtwide. Um some of that I believe the panels mostly all of that was paid for out

023of title dollars which is great. And then lastly, curriculum refresh K12 social studies uh 68 uh CTE courses and K12 music. Those are some of the highlights from different areas of the of the school district. In terms of expenses, um, fund 10 and 27, about 66 and a half% of that salary and benefits, pretty consistent with previous years, ranges from about 63 to 66. Um, 18% of that uh, expense though of the school district's expenses. Um, is OE and vouchers. So, we'll talk through that. Um, again, that's a a number that we see a significant increase every year due to both the state budgets and also the the WPCP Wisconsin parental choice program cap, which we'll talk through that in a few minutes. When you look at fund 10 and fund 27 projected expenses broken

024out separately, one thing I want to mention, this does not include the annual transfer because to fund 10, it's an expense and to fund 27 it's a revenue. So, you can't double book it. You'll actually be double booking expenses and revenues. Um just kind of a quick note. Um but that ties out to be the 135 uh million that we showed before. Given that this year we we've taken the approach of trying to formalize our case loads for special education to try to support our students and our staff across the schools. I thought I'd take a moment because this is a a big part of what we'll be doing in the next few weeks. And locks here, she's been working with our team on trying to develop and make our claim for transfer service this

025year. So again, I know we talked about this I think in the spring, but again to recap just quickly, the transfer service is a mechanism that allows school districts to increase their revenue limit when taking over services previously provided by another government entity. So what that looks like is, you know, the board formalizes a budget, we plan for 10 special education teachers. If post the approval of that budget, um, 10 more students move in and we have to hire another teacher, it's outside of our ability to plan. and we're federally required to provide services. So the school district on this on the 10th student in this example assuming the case loads are 10 is able to file a transfer of service claim for the teacher they have to hire to service the students. So when

026that looks like across you know our school district um formalizing that process can can make a substantial claim with the number of staff we've had to hire in the past year uh for that need. Um so anyway I wanted to show that to kind of walk through what that looks like. So the process for that is we have written guidelines that are based on DPI and school district standard case load ratios to determine if we would require additional staff. That way there's almost a trigger student when the x number of students come into the district with an IEP that gets filed with the state. The district they came from has to certify they have an IEP that it's for that reason and then we're able to get um additional levy dollars up to the 42%

027because that's the one year we lose the the 42% on. So the areas of toos that we're focusing on are really um I would say pretty thorough here. Early childhood, crosscategorical service, intensive services, speech, SLP, OT's, PTS, uh visual impairment, hearing impairment. Not every area is hit by transfer service. It depends on who moves in and where they come from, right? Um but how that works is case loads are set at the beginning of the year with the number of students that we plan for and really that's based on how many students we had the previous year, right? Um and then as students transfer in, we manage the ability to have case loads at those levels and then anything beyond that requires a transfer. Any transfer of student midyear last year becomes a claim in

028September. So what that looks like this year, you can see across um the district here is about 25 additional staff this year. So um we had about 193 students move in with services that they came from another public school district. So that is far beyond our average. I think the previous year was a little over a hundred. And so these claims can vary. I think a couple years ago was 500,000 which really is about $800,000 claim because you don't get funded for the categorical aid, right? The previous year was 280,000. This year it's going to be much more 1.95 less that less the categorical aid is about 1.2. So that's what that looks like. So every year is a little different. Um just to kind of give the board an update on that. Okay, shifting

029into funds 38 and 39. Funds 38 and 39 are going to be non-referendum debt service fund and fund 39 is our referendum debt service fund. This year we do have both. Fund 38 is going to be our energy efficiency. We're nearing the end of this. This is the second to last year. This year our um our revenues are 1.7 million and our expenses are 1.73 million because the expenses are uh paid on the fiscal year and revenues are on the calendar year. Essentially we're le we're levying for spring and fall but our expenses are fall and spring. That's the reason they don't match. This year is our second to last year. Next year it'll be about 800,000 and those dollars will shift into fund 39 to help pay the referendum debt. Fund 39. As you

030can see here, similar story. Our our levy this year for fund 39, our refer debt is 4.25 million. Our projected expenses for the um the I always mix it up. The fiscal year is 3.658 million. Um and that's that helps start to pay off our $70 million bond. This is kind of a timeline to show the debt service levy history. So you can see in blue in blue the fund 38 debt has been taring off and you can see in 267 will be our final payment for that and then in fund 39 the payments will decrease as we make them over time. Okay, shifting into our debt service and credit rating. So this is kind of I think another good a good story to tell because this is a great example of the district's financial

031position. So our credit rating had been previously at a double at double A and S&P AA minus sorry with S&P when we the referendum was passed and went to bond to get the to get the referendum formally into the district's uh finances we had to get a credit rating update our credit rating jumped to a double A high grade which might not seem like a huge jump but that that that credit rating increase gave us a interest rate of 3.78 which was a almost a whole point better. You can see in the bottom left corner here when we were planning in May of 24 we were booking at 5.25%. Rates did fortunately come down a little bit towards the fall and when we went to referendum finally in November the interest rate that we were

032projecting was 4.75 and it got a whole point better because of our credit rating. So that saves that's a significant savings. I mean, a lot of people look at bond rates similar to mortgage rates like 3 point a whole point is a big deal, especially even like in in in personal finances, right? So, great to see that and ultimately it saves the the community money. Um, which is great. Fund 46 is our long-term capital trust fund. So, as I mentioned, part of the balancing of the budget, we reduced the transfer to 500 or from a million to 500,000. Our planned expenses are about 1.25 25 this year and those are just projections based on what could happen. So that could be less, that could be more, just depends on, you know, what things happen this

033year that are a facility needs. Um, you can see our beginning fund balance this year is about 8.78 million. Given the revenues and expenses, the planned or projected fund balance um, at the end of year be about around 8 million. And this is a nice table to show kind of where we've been historically from, I guess, the inception of 46 um all the way up to today. So, we've been working really, really hard to grow that fund 46 to be a nice place for facilities in case things come up. And it was really originated to help um manage the W uh the whack, the the track, the turf field, the the complex essentially. So, having a sizable foam balancer to manage that in case things come up is is really needed. And as you can

034see, we've been able to to maintain um you know, that sizable balance. So last year, essentially all the projects we did um we ended with a a positive surplus in 46 with getting a lot done, which is great. So all right, fund 49. This is our um capital funds project for referendum. Our beginning fund balance with the referendum funds is 75 million. Again, we have around 4.8 8 million in fund 149 already. So that's the reason that the number is higher than 70. We're projecting to make around $1.2 million in interest from the money. Um with whisk and we have planned expenses this year of just under 21 million with an ending fund balance of about $56 million that count. Um the planned projects are here as seen and I believe there's a workshop coming

035up on the referendum here end of the month to give an update on kind of what we're finishing and what we're planning to start. So that's that'll be um coming here in the next few weeks. But rate ranging from roofing and repairs from Horseman Irving, West Milwaukee Hail and Central. Obviously the fieldhouse is is is about 50% of that 20 million is that project and then looking for AC units and things like that coming in the spring uh in the summer with bathroom remodels and other structural repairs. All right, moving along here. Fund 50 is our food service fund. As you guys know, we're in our um I think it's our fourth year now or third or fourth year getting uh all students eat breakfast and lunch free through C, which is great. And what's

036what's even good news is we've made a bunch of shifts and we're still able to financially sustain that. So, I think it's a great opportunity for our families. Um our revenues this year are projecting about 3.7 million. Our expenses were projecting 3.8 million. That $100,000 loss really is of no issue given the fund balance we have in 50. One of the things DPI is kind of recommending to all school districts is you only really should have about three months of carrying expenses, which is about $900,000. So having a plan to cut into that is all is required from the state if you have a fund balance that exceeds three months. So this meets the obligation to the state. And again, we're trying to find creative ways to uh eat into those dollars um that kind

037of helps the district at the same time. So all right, fund 73 is our employee benefit trust fund. Most of what we'll talk about tonight is our OPED plan essentially um which is made up of two components. Undefined benefits for grandfathered employees and HASS for active defined employees when we went through that plan in 22 23. So the this year the projection for revenues is about a million. We'll have we're projecting about 675,000 of forfeertures. We'll make about 75,000 in interest and have 250,000 of contributions. It's kind of a interesting thing to plug here. So the 250,000 in contributions is due to our OPED liability, our expense every year decreasing. So if you can go back to 201819, our expense every year was about $4.4 million for people who didn't work here, right? And so

038that number now is down to two and a half million which is great. And so trying to find a way to shift those dollars in real time to keep this to keep this funded has been kind of a priority. And as you can see balancing revenues and expenses which that is pretty close to balance is a good thing with our fund balance at 2.176 million. Uh you know the plan is really I think really working well and underway. Um, currently we have about 67% of employees on the defined benefit plan. So, you know, about 30ish% left to go. Um, but really moving in the right direction and I think it'll help fund other areas of compensation for staff um throughout the district in the coming years. This is a required slide um from the state

039to provide the board with kind of what that looks like formally on a statement. So, that's what this looks like from Mid America, which is the administrator of the OPED plan. And one thing I want to mention here too, I kind of hit on this here. So, um, Milman just finished their B by annual study. I think that was shared in a board update to everyone, but the one thing I want to mention here is when the actuarial firm Milman looked at all of our liabilities different than expenses, expenses are what you pay every year. Liabilities are what what do you owe at some point? So, that's going to go up every year with inflation. What they found was that um in June 30th of 2025, this past June, our OPED liability was 27 million

040and they're projecting at June 30th, 2026 it to go to 24 million. So $3 million decrease with increases in expenses in health insurance shows that this is working. It just takes time. So I think in 1819 that that liability was at 50 million. So um significant decrease. I think uh making small changes can have a long uh long impact. So, all right. Fund 80, community service fund. Finishing up here, I think. Um, so, excuse me. Our revenues this year, the fund levy 3.825 million along with local source fees puts the revenues at 5.4 roughly million with our expenses at up just under 9.2 with a third of that coming from construction capital, which is going to be phase two of the gym, which will be done, I believe, mid year. Looking at the fund balance,

041kind of a similar flow here with the other funds. The beginning fund balance in fund 80 was about 5.7 with the revenues minus expenses leaves the fund balance at just under $2 million, which is a pretty healthy fund given the annual uh levy. So, okay, shifting the property tax levy for this year. Kind of the breakdown as showed before. Um the total proposed property tax levy obviously pending uh finalized revenue and aid and equalized value is 56.27 million of that um about 82% of that goes to the general fund. Obviously there's a portion that goes to debt service and community service as as previously presented. The tax levy increase uh for the year is about 18% from 47.3 to 56.2. of that. I want to talk about private vouchers here because that makes and we'll

042get we'll get into specifics of where did the increase come from specifically with the mill rate adjustment for each one. But I want to show this because this is this is a really important thing for the community to hear. Of the 56 million, just under 9.5 of it are private vouchers. These are what are called pass through dollars in school finance. So what that means is we receive really really we aren't even receiving it. it's withheld from us from the state and then awarded to the schools where these students attend. So, um this is an expense to our community and it makes up about 18.17% of the non-referendum levy. And the reason it's non-referendum is the way you can compare apples to apples. So, every year comparing it, that makes up 18% of our tax

043levy. So, it's important to note. The other thing I want to note is that we receive 11, roughly $800 per kid. You'll notice on that slide that for high school students, we're actually taking a loss on revenue. So, we're expected to pay $13,000 per student and only receiving 118. So, for every student that that enrolls in a private voucher school that is in high school, we actually we actually see a a negative expense there. The last thing I want to note is that this is the last year of an enrollment cap. So, next year at this time, that enrollment cap is unlimited, right? And so at this time, the current state law is students who participate in private vouchers have to be under an income limit to receive a voucher. Well, we're one of a

044few number of districts who are maxed out with that limit. So, we hit the 10%. So, what that looks like next year is really unknown. I've asked for guidance from the state and from Baron. There isn't any. So, um we'll be it's something worth watching as we get into the middle of the year next year. So, okay, this is the mill rate at 805 like we showed before. And to finish up here to kind of show where the increases are from a mill rate and levy perspective, the $47 million was last year's tax levy and the mill rate was 661. You can see a breakdown of kind of what moved the needle each place, right? So the 325 expense is about 2.4 million. That's 35. The private voucher increase from last year this year is

045about 17 cents. The transfer of service amount is 16 cents. The the 5.8 8 million operating in the $70 million capital bond. If you look at the numbers, you go, "Well, why isn't that higher?" It's because the 80 levy was reduced. So, you actually have to take 2 million off of each of those to get it down to 54 cents and 32 cents because that was part of the promise. And then the state aid projected increase lowers the miller rate by 10 cents. That gets you from 661 to 805 and the levy from 47.3 to 56.2. And I want to show this because this is important as well is what did we tell the community versus what is. It's important that they know that what we shared with them during the referendum campaign is what

046we said was going to be. So the $5.8 million operating referendum came in at 54 cents, which is under what we said. We said we it' be 56 cents. And the $70 million capital bond we have at 32 cents, which we communicate at 44. uh that will go up likely closer to 44 cents in future years from the payment increases, but again a lot of that um about $900,000 of that is going to be shifting from energy efficiency to here. So the community is already paying part of that, right? Um so I feel good that we met the obligation we set out to the community. So that's good news. So areas of continued budget consideration from now until we meet in uh end of October. number. The big one's going to be the third Friday

047count and getting the numbers from both um our schools but also from students who are open enrolling across our district in and out because that's a that's a number that counts for membership for us. Uh certification of equalization aid in the final revenue limit authority. Getting updated private school voucher numbers which will result in an updated property tax levy. Uh finishing up budgets, we have a um open enrollment starting for employees where employees can elect benefits. That's a big that's a big deal. If more employees elect single coverage or no coverage that impacts our budget, has huge impacts. So that's important to know. Um and then just continuing continuing to plan for the future. Energy efficiency. This is a required report just to show it shows the um the utility savings which is 185,000 a

048year comes off of the resolution expense. So we actually receive 1.5 million which is less the debt. So if you see the 1.7 here, that's actually what we pay. We received 1.5 because they don't let you double dip the expense savings. So, and I think that is all I have. I'm going to check my time here. It's pretty close to 30 minutes. So, >> thank you. All right. And so, then we have board member questions. Anything that you'd like to know about any Okay. Yeah. So, thank you for breaking down the um the expenses for the vouchers and we talked about kind of a lot of different things. So, we have increase in voucher costs from last year of 17 cents makes up 17 cents of that mill rate. Um >> and we have an

04918% total um revenue amount subtracted from removing the referendum dollars. >> Yep. So, with the referendum dollars, I'm just trying to look at it from the perspective of an average >> community member. Um, do we know what percent of their tax bill, property tax bill from the school district is due to vouchers? >> Yeah. So, if the if the tax levy is projected at 56 million is what it ends up being, >> it's going to be the 9.4 over that. So, roughly, >> you know, 18 19% is what we're projecting at this point. Yeah. So similar to what it is without the referendum >> pretty much. Yeah. Okay. It's it's a it's a it's a confusing statistic, but I was trying to compare apples to apples. I didn't want someone to say, "Well, you're comparing

050two different things." >> Right. So it it'll roughly be the same. It's just that if I change that number, it'll change the rest of those. >> Sure. >> Because I have to add that on for every single one. Yeah. >> Yeah. >> And then for just to clarify another part of it. So when a student attends our district, the cost for that student to attend our district is split between state aid and property taxes. Y >> but when a student attends a voucher school, um is it true that 100% of that cost comes from property taxes >> in in the first year? Yes. Okay. >> The first year, so whatever increase we show here, which I believe is just under 1.2 million, 100% of that 1.182 million will come from property taxpayers. Now after that

051subsequently there is an aid component to that but yeah >> is it the same amount that we get at the split it >> it is yes but it it's it's it's more complicated because it depends on when the kid enrolled there's factors to that but there is some state aid we receive for that I don't believe it's up to the 60% but depending on the year it's 40 to 50%. Yeah. >> Okay. Thank you. >> Yep. >> Thank you. Any other questions about the presentation? No. All right. Well, then that will take us to 6.3. So, public comments uh on the budget. So, at this time, if anyone would like to address the board regarding the budget, you may sign up at the back of the room or in the Zoom link uh that is

052in the chat. You have three minutes to provide comments on the budget. The board cannot discuss, debate, or act upon any of the items addressed during the public comments portion of this school board or budget hearing. Um, but follow-up may be provided uh if it can be answered quickly, otherwise by uh the time that we get to uh updating or voting on at the end of October the budget itself. So, uh, at this time, we'll see if anybody is signed up, which I do not have anyone signed up currently. So, I'll wait for a moment. Three. All right. Uh, seeing nobody, I will close public comments for this portion of the meeting and, uh, move back to Mr. Norris for his concluding remarks. At this point, I don't have any. I just appreciate you guys

053uh the support through the budget process. It's a full year effort and a lot changes. So, I know every time I come back, you're like, "What's going on now?" But I assure you it's uh done with all the accuracy and and work that goes into it. So, I appreciate your time. >> Thank you. Yeah. >> All right. Um that will conclude our uh hearing public budget hearing portion of the meeting and that will move us to item seven in our agenda which would be the superintendent report. >> So good evening. I have an abbreviated report since we have a pretty busy night tonight. Every time I say that it never comes out abbreviated. So I realize that at the time I'll try to make it quick tonight. Just a couple of things. Legislative updates. Senate

054Bill 389 rescending the governor's 400-year veto. Uh we are we're aware of the the situation with courts and and how that's been challenged over the last couple of years. There's legislation uh to resend that. Uh there's also legislation around immunization waiverss. Um school bus drivers over 70 with medical conditions. also equipment of uh school buses with audiovisisual recording devices as well as legislation around driver education uh instruction related to bus uh school bus safety. So those are pending um bills that have already been filed for the upcoming session. Our back to school bash I want to thank everyone in the in the community as well as our board members who attended. We uh we broke records this year. Great turnout, great enthusiasm. We had representation from uh both high schools and every single one of

055our elementary and and uh middle schools as well uh for uh throughout the night. Uh it was a lot of positive feedback. So want to thank everybody for for just coming out. We had um uh DJs from the radio station. Give me the radio station. I'm bad with that. Kiss FM. Um I I appreciate uh them keeping their word. They promised me back in May when they were at Wilson that they would come to the back to school bash and so I really appreciate them uh being um being people of their word and and we have a true partnership. My daughter and wife wife were um were riding to school the next morning and and they said all they talked about was the school bash on their on their show. So um hey free publicity

056you we'll take it. We'll take it. Especially when it's positive, right? Uh first day of school greeters. I want to thank the following groups from our community. Uh, the West Dallas Rotary, uh, Knights of Columbus, our board member, Miss Jane Carr, Ridge Church, Mark Marquette Women's Basketball Team, United Healthcare, PTA members, the 414 Church, Luther Memorial, WM School of Education, Wisconsin Athletic Club, WAWWM Rec Department, Fruity Fusions, uh, Growth Architecture, CG Schmidt and WAC Construction Crew. all of those uh organizations or companies volunteered at various schools on the first day to welcome our students back. And so this is something that we want definitely want to build on. I I did not u mention the hail staff as well as the other staffs. I'm sure they were outside of the building. I happen to run

057through the the hell staff line uh greeting line. So I just wanted to send them a special shout out for their enthusiasm on the first day as well. Our student advisory committee uh group this year. So we have three students from Daki, Nathan Hail, as well as Wes Alice Central. From Daki PBL, we have Victoria Sunquist, Joseph Dumbrossski, and Toby Wymer. From Nathan Hail, Elena May, Brandon Landis, and Jera. Uh, I know I was going to mess this up. Anybody want to help me with this one? Divid. Yeah, there you go. You got it. I'll practice that. I promise I'm not going to mess it up next time. Quinton Crumble, Zahara Price, and Toby Jesse from West Dallas Central. And we'll be starting that in October. That's the first time they'll they'll participate. So, a

058couple of events. Our district-wide opening day uh event at Nathan Hail, a back to school bash EMLSS uh meeting with ASA met with Dr. Anthony Cruz, president of MATC on last Wednesday. So, thank you Sarah for setting that up with me with us. as well as one-on-one meetings with cabinet members Nathan Hail JV varsity boys and girls cross country meet at Greenfield Park on Friday as well as the Nathan Hale football game versus Riverside and Germantown the last couple of weeks. So that concludes the superintendent report for tonight. >> All right, thank you. Uh that'll take us to our general uh public comments section for item eight. Um, so at this time if anyone would like to address the board, you may sign up at the back of the room or in the Zoom link

059in the chat. You have three minutes to provide comments. The board cannot discuss, debate, or act upon any uh item addressed during the public comments portion of the school board meeting. Follow-up may be provided by the superintendent at the next regularly scheduled board meeting. We'll see if anyone is signed up yet. Um, seeing nobody, we'll just give it a couple seconds in case someone is rushing to sign up. All right. Uh, seeing nobody at this time, I will close public comments for tonight and we will move on to item nine on our agenda, which would be our board reports. Uh, starting with the review of our board calendar. And uh pull that up here if I have it. There it is. All right. So, tonight, September 8th, uh 2025, we have a regular board meeting

060which includes a workshop on our strategic plan uh focused on our destination west uh mantra, I guess. Yeah. Uh and then what we'll do is we will move over to uh September 15th. We'll have another board workshop meeting on athletics which is will be a review uh of our year-end survey data and high school athletic culture and goals. And then we will have on September 22nd another regularly scheduled board meeting that will uh have the 2024 referendum updates workshop number three. Uh and this will be used to sh uh share any of the updates that we have accomplished so far with uh projects and the progress on the use of our referendum money. Um so with that then that'll take us to 9.2 which would be our committee reports and I believe that tonight we

061just have the college and career readiness. Uh board member Becker. >> Thank you Mr. Burns. Uh the college and career readiness committee met tonight before the board met. Uh we spent some time learning about the Carnegie adoption uh the that's the curriculum for uh mathematics. Uh we are currently on year three that's the implementation phase. Uh we're pretty deep into that phase three. So looking at into year four uh activities which would be continuous uh monitor and continuous improvement. So there are four keys. Uh we're looking at focusing on professional development and teacher coaching looking at supporting that implementation. um engaging the staff in regular review um and gathering feedback. The an interesting point I thought with the um the review was the use of Matia uh as opposed to uh Alex, which is a

062supplemental resource that I'm sure we've all heard of with kids being in the district. Uh the good thing to hear there is that Matthew aligns a little more closely with our instruction than Alex did and it provides grade level learning. So if a student is not achieving at grade level, they're getting a little bit higher level instruction with the supplementals. Uh we also spoke a little bit about the some of the collaborative learning efforts across schools. Uh there there was time spent on differentiating between the buildingwide things like sale where it's more the leadership type learning. Um what we were looking at more today was uh professional learning communities where you have teams. Um sometimes it's grade level for younger uh elementary grades and sometimes it's content area and that's more towards the the secondary

063and middle levels. Um the focus there is making sure that the that the meetings that are set up like at the beginning and at the end of units are really well directed, really structured. U making sure that they're uh that they're efficiently run. um and really focusing on just establishing a culture of excellence. Um it was a really good discussion. We got well into the weeds, so I'm trying to avoid going too far. Uh after that, we did spend time on a bus safety question I'd asked a little while ago. I think I'd mentioned before there was a safety concern in another district out to the west and I was asking what does our audit program look like? what kind of protocols do we have in safe uh in place to protect the kids? Uh

064so Connie Bergman was kind enough to reach out to the vendor. We learned about some of the background checks that uh first student runs. They have a first student has an entire safety department as well. Um they've got policies in place um like a one strike policy for some violations. They have uh drivers must report the traffic violations. They have two or three cameras in each of the buses with random audits of the footage. Uh the camera performance is also monitored. So if a camera breaks down, it gets replaced and dealt with right away. Um there's an iDrive app that monitors driving habits in addition to the GPS making sure there are no unscheduled stops. Uh and what we think we would all would expect is a child safety check after the students are off

065the bus. So all in all, I think that the the committee was pretty pleased with the robust uh reporting on that. So again, thank you Connie Bergman for for reaching out on that. Um the items for future discussion, we spoke a little bit about some of the transitions from uh elementary to middle and middle to high school and just making sure that we're supplementing and uh and identifying gifted and talented students. Um uh we'll be reporting back on that one after the next meeting. All right. Thanks. >> Follow up real quick. Yeah. Just want to follow up on the bus tracking. We're encouraging all of our um parents to please use the app to track buses. We uh we understand that um usually there's a it's been a habit over the years just call the

066district and find out where the bus is. But in real time, they can actually track the location of their kids bus by use of that app. It's um it's pretty much up to date. So they can see where the bus actually is instead of trying to really worrying that the bus is late. They can actually see it on the app. So what's the app? Uh you want to first student? Yeah, first student. So it's the first student app and it's uh it's pretty a unique uh feature for the years. >> Yeah, I can vouch for that. I used it last year for my kids that ride the bus as well. So it does work pretty well. >> It's called First View. >> First view. The company is called First Student. I knew I wasn't wrong.

067That's why I asked the question. [Laughter] [Music] All right. Um, so with that, do we have any questions uh for the committee? Yes, Mr. Lee. >> Mr. Becker, with the change over to Matia, are we no longer using Alex anywhere in district? >> Uh, that I don't know. I can ask. So, we'll let you know. >> Okay, great. Thank you. >> Mhm. >> Did you No. Okay. Are there >> were the Oh, you look like there was another >> Melissa, you want to go ahead and respond to that. >> Yeah, >> I don't think that's anything. I don't think there's anything that that that we need to wait on. >> We we still have that contract for two more years. So, we are using it as a supplemental resource. It um will be able to

068be used for more targeted lagging skills of students and math will be more focused at the universal level. So, if a student at grade level is struggling with a specific skill, it aligns really closely to the lesson they're receiving um with their teacher. So, we will be able to use both. >> Okay. Thank you. Is it helpful? Is either one helpful for helping students work ahead? So, those that aren't lagging but maybe are ahead of where their classroom is. >> Um, both can be used for that purpose, too. Yep. And teachers have the ability to um add extension or accelerate. >> Very good. Thank you. You're off the hook. >> All right. Are there any other questions for this committee? Seeing none, that'll then take us to 9.3, our board member reports of community events.

069Is there any community events that members would like to report on tonight? Pretty quiet tonight. Okay, Mr. Becker. >> Lot of volleyball with the Hail kids. Uh, lot of volleyball. One of the nice things to note there, uh, I I did my duty as a parent in the concessions during a JV 14, what do they call a quad and and I have to say that the kids who came to to there's a half dozen kids who came up uh to the window from Rufus King and every single one of them was more polite than the next and it was really just wonderful to have some guests come in and uh it was really noticeable. So that was nice. Um, beyond that, did the the teacher first day, uh, always fun. Uh, the new teacher first

070day, always fun. Really great to see the energy. Good things. All right. Thank you. Any other reports? >> No, not at this time. All right. Well, I think then what we can do is we can move on to our other updates, which uh, currently I have none. So then that would take us to our consent agenda. Our consent agenda includes 10.1 the approval of minutes and 10.2 the employment summary. Does anyone need anything separated out? No. All right. At this time I would entertain a motion. Move to approve 10.1 and 10.2. >> Second. >> Uh all right. We have a motion to approve 10.1 and 10.2 two for the consent agenda. Uh is there any further discussion? All right, then we'll move to a vote. And so all those in favor? >> I >> those

071opposed. >> All right, that passes. Uh that is the end of our action item pieces and that will take us to item 11, which is our workshop for the strategic plan. >> Uh do we need any time to set up or anything? And everybody's that's going to sit up here. >> So yeah. >> Okay. >> And Robert, Alyssa. >> Well, then if we're going to take a moment to set up uh we will need to adjourn for a moment. So if there is no objection to or not adjourn, we will need to take a recess for five minutes. Uh unless anyone has any objection, we will recess for five minutes. Seeing none, we are recessed. uh we have our strategic plan presentation and so I will turn it over to Dr. Robinson and his team

072uh for their presentation. All right. So, good evening. This is um a day that we've been planning for a long time and really will be glad when it's over with. Uh a lot of time has gone into uh getting into getting here. So, I'm looking forward to the feedback from the board as well as um some of the comments that will allow us to get to a a finished product of sorts. And so, uh can't wait for that to happen. So, just to kind of give some context, uh strategic plan is a long-term road map that outlines an organization's vision, mission, and values along with the strategies, actions, and resources needed to achieve specific, measurable goals. And so this is the purpose of the strategic plan. I wanted to first thank the board for uh

073entrusting me with this um unique opportunity to design a plan uh of this magnitude and and thanks for their support for leaning in at times in committee work and helping with the KPIs and we'll kind of talk about that um what that what will happen moving forward if we're successful tonight and receive approval. Uh I want to also thank our principles uh for their feedback. Um many of them are here tonight. I did not force them to come. I just asked them to come and uh and so I appreciate them being here uh tonight. I realize that Monday is a a tough night to be here. So thank you from the bottom of my heart for being here and supporting this effort. So um couple of things. So I wanted to provide sort of the

074goals of tonight. So, it's to introduce the district's new strategic plan designed to guide our work over the coming years. We're going to provide an overview of the process used to create the plan. We're going to um have an emphasis on the plan's role as a roadmap for continuous improvement aligned with the district's mission and vision. We'll also have highlights of the year-by-year focus areas, showing how each year builds on the last to achieve long-term goals. and then we'll discuss next steps and look ahead uh to work needed for subsequent years. So how did we get to this particular point you may ask? Glad you asked. There's been a lot of data collection, a lot of conversations, a lot of small groupoup discussion, a lot of feedback from various individuals. And we started this process

075um in February of 2025 through stakeholder engagement survey that was sent out and I believe we had 1,200 responses in that particular survey. That would survey was uh done by school perceptions. We um also had a data collection analysis period performed by uh school perceptions that concluded in April of 2025. Vision and priority setting uh steering committee that started work around April 2025. Focus groups for the month of April and May which consisted of students, teachers, administration and parents. We worked on developing board goals in the months of May and June and then uh board committees developing KPIs which will guide their supports throughout um this period moving forward. So just to kind of provide uh sort of who's on the steering committee. So we had union representation, we had city representation from the village

076of West Milwaukee as well as the city of West Alice. We had building principles. I Mr. Somerfield and Mr. Harris in particular were representatives from the administration side. We had teacher um leadership special ed and CTE as well as uh regular education. We had parents, students as well as other community members. We met three times over 90 minutes each. We uh went through a plus delta assessment of the current strategic plan. We provided an overview of the strategic planning process for them. We um had a role identification and timeline for their work and then we reviewed the goals and performance indicators uh for practical implementation following the collection of data and then the um the creation of the plan. Next slide. So I am going to pause and allow um Dr. Gotap from school perceptions

077who's going to lead us through the work and he's going to talk about all the robust data that we collected over the past uh four or five months. Say it that way. Dr. Gotautle, thank you very much. It's great to meet everybody. I'm Derek Gotautle from School Perceptions. The way that these presentations tend to go is give some background information on us, uh talk a little bit about how data collection took place, go through some results and analysis, and then field questions uh from you. So, we're a company that has been around since 2002. Uh we've conducted millions of staff, parent, and student surveys as well as community surveys for uh to help districts improve. We've done this for over a thousand school districts, nearly everybody in Wisconsin as well as nationwide uh as well.

078You just saw this basically in Dr. Robinson's presentation, so I'm going to skip this. These are like here's when we did the community planning survey. We did the whatever you saw this. This is the community planning survey information. There was a March 21st deadline. 1,200 over,200 total respondents plus or minus 2.88% 8 8% margin of error on any given item. These are you're going to see slides that look a lot like the following shortly. We most of our items are on a one to five agreement scale. We don't use a three-point neutral. We sort of force people to either agree to some extent or disagree. There's a there's a don't know doesn't apply option and that those are just not factored into the overall score waiting. So in terms of community indexes, our individual items

079feed up into these indexes. Communications, climate, leadership, and academics, West Alice's current scores, that is the average on a 0 to5 scale are, as you can see, 3.62, 3.63 in the mid3s. And you can see the comparison scores. comparisons. Uh a comparison set of districts is uh compiled or comprised of every district that has taken a community survey using these items over the last two years. It is over a thousand districts that matches uh West Alice West Milwaukey's demographic breakdown by NCES standards. So enrollment size and uh percentage of students receiving or eligible for free and reduced lunch largely those are the criteria. So it's this is just to say this is an applesto apples comparison is what you're looking at when you're saying a comparison average strategic planning item analysis. These are all respondents

080again 0 to five scale or a one to five scale on agreement success in life through college and career. The each item starts like the West Dallas West Milwaukee School District prepares students for education after high school 71% agreement. Uh overall score 3.49 the comparison score 3.79. I don't need to read each one of these. I will say that whenever you see an NA, it's because something like delivers a highquality education is a customized question for this district and isn't generally asked in these uh in these surveys. For employee engagement and culture, West Dallas West Milwaukee School District employs high quality teachers and staff. 80% agree. 3.74 uh average score 3.96 comparison maintains safe and secure schools and so on. A reminder as I go through these that this is an aggregate of all respondents

081which includes it includes staff, it includes parents and it includes non-parent non-staff community members as well. The bulk of the respondent pool is parents and staff as is typical in community surveys. Communication and community relations. West Dallas West Milwaukee school district provides me with opportunities to offer feedback. 81% agree 3.75. Comparison 3.69 and so on. Financial stability and efficiency clearly communicates of West Milwaukee school district clearly communicates facility needs and challenges. 73% agree, score 3.57. These are not like this is a pillar of West Dallas, West Milwaukee, what what the district is trying to do, and these are all customized questions. I will say that these agreement percentages on similar items are above the comparison average in general. This is in West Milwaukee is doing better in general on these items than in others or

082than other districts. No one statewide, certainly nationally as well is happy with school districts and managing funds appropriately, it seems. Now, we've broken these out by respondent kind. So, this can get overwhelming in terms of the amount of text here. We asked uh respondents to we like presented respondents with a a long list of possible strategic planning items, items that they'd like to see the district focus on. And we asked them to choose four uh or up to four. And here broken out are the top five for staff, for parents, for non-parents, non-staff. And what we've done is highlight in blue any place where those three or any item that is in the top five of all three groups. And for the top five strategic planning items, it's just we would like to see West

083Dallas West Milwaukee employ high-quality teachers and staff. That's the area of agreement. You see a lot that are shared by two of the three uh stakeholder groups. Um for some reason I can't seem to find one right now. There might be a different slide. Overall, how would you rate communications from the district? 18% great, 39% good, 24% fair, 10% poor. Overall score 2.71. This is a one to four scale, so not apples to apples. What topics are you interested in learning more about? How our district is performing compared to other districts. That's why the comparison numbers are in this report. Student achievement and success, school safety and security, facility improvement plans, district goals and plans, school finance and budgets, and everything else is below 50%. The reason that these are again people can choose as

084many as they want on this particular list. That's why you see these weird percentages. Top five communication topics items by subgroups. What do you want to hear about? And here we have quite a bit more overlap. School safety and security, how our district is performing compared to other districts, and student achievement and successes. Every one of the uh subgroups that we surveyed wanted to hear about those planning priorities. Again, please choose up to four areas. Where do you believe we should focus our improvement efforts? Career and technical education courses, life skills, recruit and retain high-quality staff and mental health services for students are the top four. I'll get to the rest of the list in a second, but I will just pause and say that those no matter what district I'm speaking to or what

085district we have surveyed, whether it is uh a suburban district, an urban district, a very rural district, those four in some order are always at the top. It is consistent. I guess I didn't go through the rest of them. I will say for the record that like people being like we should teach our kids how to use AI better is always at the very bottom of every list when we do these surveys. Top five planning priorities by subgroup. Here it is again recruit and retain high quality staff life skills career and technical education at the top of everyone's list. When I see non-parents, non- staff, this is just a comment, say like reading and literacy achievement should be a priority, my sense is that that uh reflects some unfamiliarity with how much reading and literacy

086achievement is already being stressed in the district in a way that staff and parents are more aware of and so they will substitute something else in there. So, graduate success. We understand uh WAWWM students need to be proficient in reading, writing, math, science, and social studies. Beyond these foundations, please select up to four skills you believe students need to be ready for life after high school. This is in the survey still. We use the focus groups to really dig in on some of this. Communication, conflict resolution, self-control and regulation, time management and prioritization. And then below that, growth mindset, perseverance, empathy and perspective taking, integrity, collaboration and so on. Top five graduate success items by subgroup. Here are the two big agreements across all these are conflict resolution and communication, which stands to reason. Overall

087satisfaction with the district. We ask a net promoter item on this, which is essentially how likely would you be to recommend the district to a fam friend or family member. This is on a zero to 10 scale. Obviously, we do offer a neutral because that's how net promoter scores tend to work. What you want to pay attention to is the number of uh eights through tens. Those are your proactive proponents who are going to like the kind of people who are going to bring up how great their experience in the district is unprompted with friends and families. And you also want to pay attention to the zeros, ones, and twos who are really unhappy with the way that uh things are going in the district and are likely to play the opposite role. Current score

088is 5.74. The last time we did a similar survey for West Dallas West Milwaukee, it was 5.65. This is better. So now we also like each one of these included like a staff survey page that would go specifically to staff to ask more in depth about uh their uh work environment and it also included like a parent breakout as well. So parents could reflect on their uh kids school experience. Same one to five scale indices for staff academics engagement support student experience staff experience. Uh you can see the current scores and the comparison scores uh there everything right in the middle of the pack. The top I'm rather than going through the entire survey the top five staff scores that is the top five averages. I have healthy working relationships with my co-workers. Our staff

089does a good job of educating our students. Our school supports students from diverse backgrounds. All students in our schools are respected for their values and beliefs. and I have access to the technology support I need. Those are big and in general better than the comparisons. Bottom five staff scores, the amount of work I'm asked to do is reasonable or manageable. The social and emotional needs of all students are being met. Our staff handle student discipline in a consistent manner. The district's pay practices are fair. Our school's student discipline practices and policies are effective. I'm going to say a little bit more about this in a second, but in every district, the two questions about discipline are always in the bottom five of staff scores. The thing to pay to to be aware of is that

090it's also not great in terms of the comparison there. So, like it is true that like for everyone discipline is a concern, but it's also and well, here we go. Top five staff comparisons. Our school supports students from diverse backgrounds. The district is heading in the right direction. Our school has a process to ensure every student has a connection with at least one adult in the school. All students in our school are respected for their values and beliefs. The school board is doing what it takes to make our district successful. Those are big and important items to be doing well on by comparison. Bottom five staff comparisons, pay practices, I feel safe at work. More on that in a second. Our school's student discipline practices and policies are effective. I have the materials and supplies

091I need to do my job well and the other oh wait the amount of work that I'm asked to do is reasonable and manageable. What we have found, this is the little sidebar. What we have found looking at over the summer, we analyzed all of the staff survey data that we have done over the last year, just hundreds of thousands of individual responses to items like this. And we just did a big lasso regression analysis to be like what items on our survey are the biggest predictors of that net promoter score for staff net promoter score like I'm I'm it asks the question is something to the effect of uh I am willing to recommend this district to a colleague to to move here. That's a big predictor of staff attrition. The number one thing

092that affects that score is I feel safe at work. It turns out our boss didn't believe us when we presented this uh this report to him. He's like, "No, I just hear about discipline all the time." I'm like, "Right, but everybody feels negatively about discipline." Like, we know that it doesn't start to be a problem for staff retention until it starts to affect feelings of safety is what we have found. So FYI parent index analysis same same informed included educational excellence atmosphere and experience. These are all more or less right in line uh with comparison scores. Top five parent scores. I feel welcome in my child's schools. School staff treat my child with dignity and respect. I have at least one school staff member I feel comfortable contacting when I have an idea or concern.

093I know how to support my child's learning and my child feels safe at school. Those are the ones that you want. Bottom five parent scores. There's a healthy culture at our school. My child gets help when they need it. The school has high expectations for my child. I'm satisfied with how much my child is learning, and I'm satisfied with our school's effort to address bullying. It is odd to see, but this is the second time I've seen this in recent surveys to see my child feel safe at school. Hi. And also, I'm satisfied with our school's efforts to address bullying in the bottom five. Those are it's that's interesting to me from an academic standpoint. Uh top five parent comparisons. School communication is both timely and transparent. There's a healthy culture at our school. I

094have opportunities to provide feedback. Your school provides opportunities for parental involvement. And I feel welcome in my child's school. That's great. Bottom five, my child feels safe at school. My child gets help when they need it. the school has high expectations for my child. I'm satisfied with how much my child is learning and school facilities are clean and well-kept. For some of these I I want to point out like my child feels safe at school. If 86% are agreeing, it is, you know, it is significant that like that's below the 4.11 comparison score, but it's a 3.98 with 86 whatever. I'm trying to debate like it's also important to like keep keep that in perspective that it's not like it's 40% of people being like my child feels safe at school. So after this uh

095we I uh conducted focus group interviews with on designed to try to inform a portrait of a graduate that the district was interested in creating and adding some depth to the survey data. So, as you heard, we I uh sat down with teachers, students, parents, and administrators in these uh separate groups to sort of dig into some transcribed the conversations and qualitatively coded those to identify convergent and divergent themes. And it turns out that no matter which group I was talking to, I was asking like what should a West Alice West Milwaukee graduate have ideally? What should they what kind of skills, dispositions, what should they leave here with? And uh and then I asked some questions about like what do you feel like is getting in the way of the district achieving that stuff

096right now? And that's what provided the really interesting data I think. Anyway, here's what we found. Like everyone converged on these things. Foundational academic competency is what graduates should leave with life ready skills and dispositions, communication capacities, collaboration skills and empathy and self-direction. You you saw those reflected on the survey a little bit. This is where they all sort of came together. Current district performance. When I asked people how the district is doing and what's getting in the way, people, this is where people sort of opened up about uh frustrations that they had. People said that like people would spend time talking about what wasn't working, where it wasn't happening, and then everybody would pause for a second and be like here are the places where this is really successful. It might sound like we're

097being negative, but like we really believe in the district. We can point to these examples of success. The issue that is that they're happening in pockets and that it is not happening everywhere. That's the issue. People pointed out, all groups pointed out wide variation between classrooms and buildings. Students talked about how they could have excellent uh experiences in one classroom uh and a totally different kind of experience in another. Teachers and parents talked about how there seemed to be quite a lot of variation in terms of their kids' experiences or their own experiences in one building versus another when they moved at one level. uh versus another. And a lot of people across groups again use the word pendulum to refer to the district's sort of recent uh efforts to focus some energy on social

098emotional learning, problem based learning, and then to take a more rigorous focus on academics. people who were just responding to a little bit of unclear in terms of what the district was supposed to be valuing and how that was supposed to be delivered in terms of making improvements to these things. This is uh this is compiled for from what all of these groups said that they would like to see. A strategic plan was at the top of everybody's list. Not necessarily in those words, but a plan, a roadmap was the word that they used. So check family and student communication. Parents wanted to know wanted some clarity and consistency in terms of knowing what performance and behavioral expectations what those were from classroom to classroom and building to building. They wanted more ready access to

099regular progress reporting. and they especially, I'm speaking specifically for parents here, wanted a better sense of the way that curriculum and programs are mapped out. A lot of parents voice some frustration with not understanding that like you have to take this class in order to get into this elective, but maybe these two electives conflict with each other, or maybe this program is offered at this building, but not at that building. They felt like they their or their kids didn't know until it was too late. There was a lot of talk around vertical and horizontal alignment. Making sure that transition points between elementary, middle, and high school were smoother, providing a little bit more time for administrators in those buildings to get together and understand what was happening in each building so they could help uh

100smooth those transitions. Getting better horizontal alignment across say what's happening in sixth grade math across the district. providing more time for those uh teachers to get together and share what is working in particular buildings at particular times and additional support for teachers and staff which means for uh the folks that we talked to consistent strategies for managing student behavior. Allocating time for authentic collaboration is what uh uh teachers talked about a lot. Not necessarily the kinds of professional learning communities that have become relatively common in districts everywhere, but time to get together and talk in more genuine, less scripted kinds of ways and sharing internally in the district and within buildings. What is working with the actual students that people share in common to help spread really effective practices? That is what we did in

101the service of uh the strategic plan. Questions that I can help you answer? I realize we didn't. >> Are there any questions from the board about this section? >> Okay. None at this time. Okay. So that was a lot and now we want to kind want to kind of um I want to provide a translation on all of that stuff that he just said and make it uh what I would say practical. So what how do we take this information and the feedback that he's collected over the past four or five months and put it into practical use and where our community can understand, our students will understand, parents, board, everybody's on the same page and that was the work of this team uh over the past couple of months once we received the information

102from the focus groups as well as a survey. So we created what we consider to be a portrait of a graduate. In other words, we want every single one of our parents when they're sending their kids to school from a 4K all the way to 12th grade to understand what we're uh putting into their into their child and what are they going to get out of an education here in our district. And that's what we're going to kind of go through uh over the next couple of minutes. And so my first job was to kind of translate some of those findings. And so we narrowed it into what we considered five traits of a portrait of a graduate. Uh we want our graduates to have core strength and unlimited potential. We want our graduates to

103have the the traits of working together and at the same time thriving together. We want our students to have a voice and you use their voice as power. We want our uh students to um be exposed and have bridges and not barriers. So if there's a barrier that exists in our district, we we owe it to every single kid to remove that. And at the same time, we want them to own it. If we believe they own it, take accountability for it, they will achieve it. So those are what we and and translation of of what he said or the findings. That's what we came out as um our our traits for our portrait of a graduate. Now, this will serve as a shared vision for student success that reflects community values and aspirations. It's

104going to help our students be prepared for college career and life readiness in a rapidly changing world. What worked 30 years ago, yeah, 30 years ago when I graduated from high school does not work anymore. And we have to understand that. But how do we create systems that allow for our kids to thrive? And that's the challenge that we have as a district. And at the and lastly, uh we want this to allow want allow this to act as a tool for communication with family, staff, and community about what it means to be a successful graduate from WWM. So, what we've kind of created, uh I can't take uh credit for the the graphic. Uh Carolyn and her team, uh have um have really uh done a great job in trying to provide a visual.

105This is a road map that we've created that goes step by step from 4K all the way through 12th grade through the assistance of our cabinet as well as our principles in trying to mold this into what we would say as a Picasso. The the purpose of this road map is to outline the the key skills and learning milestones students should achieve by the end of each grade level. provides families with a clear accessible guide to their child's learning journey. We also want to ensure consistency and alignment across schools so that all students have common expectations. We heard that in the results depending on the school, depending on the class, sometimes it's different. We want to make sure that we get that more aligned. We also want to help parents and caregivers understand how they

106can support learning at home. Parents have to be partners. We have to give them the tools in order to be partners and and help them understand what it is that we're trying to do so they can help us at home achieve that and then serve as a road map for growth showing each grade level fields towards a long-term readiness for college and career. So this is an example of some things that we identify for 4K and K parents. their their kids should uh develop and enhance listening, speaking, writing, and reading skills, participate in structured learning routines and classroom expectations, recognize and name emotions, build early empathy, and learning foundational self-regulation strategies. You're going to see throughout a lot of the the SEAL language. We wanted to define what that looks like at each level, though,

107because I think we get caught up so many times in using acronyms, but we really don't know what that means. I ask that all the time. So what does that mean? We say, what does that mean? It looks different at each grade level at each grade level band. So we want to define what that means. Uh growth supported through activity based learning. Develop independence, responsibility, and problem solving and academic benchmarks and assessments are used to target support. Yes, we do assess for for students in kindergarten. When you talk about reading levels and and are we on target? Yes, assessments are part of that. Next slide. Our first through third. Uh not trying to read every bullet point but just to give you an idea. Strengthen core academic skills of reading, writing and math. Uh learning

108phonics and vocabulary to uh extracting meaning and information from uh complex text. So seeing how it builds on things, that's the the purpose of how we're going as we expand through our grade bands. Uh expand critical thinking and problem solving skills through the use of depth and complexity. That's the gifted and talented framework builds independence and uh learning responsibility. Also expands emotional vocabulary developing uh problem solving with peers and uh building persistence. Apply academic benchmarks and assessments to guide support. Our fourth through fifth graders, some of the same things but just at a different level. In this one right here, we we're looking at uh more uh rigorous activities on blooms through problem solving, research, critical thinking uh with the depth and complexity model as well as deepen perspective tech uh perspective taking manage more

109complex emotions and build independence and decision-making. That's that language. Provide interventions and enrichment opportunities to ensure mastery in reading, writing, and math for content area learning. Notice interventions is not mentioned without enrichment. How do we advance and how do we provide more rigor and opportunities for our kids to explore? That's in there on purpose. Also, prepare students for increased academic expectations and transitioning to the next educational level. We want our parents to understand what they their kids should have by the time they leave the elementary level because when Mr. Fish and Mr. Thompson received them at the intermediate level. There's a certain certain level expectation that those teachers are expecting from uh that their kids will have and that's what we want to make sure that we identify what those are. Focus on college and

110career readiness and post-secary career interests. Uh starts a little bit at fifth grade but is is even more emphasized at the sixth through 8th level. Introduction to high school credits, GPA, and graduation requirements. If we wait till high school, it's too late to start having these conversations. So, this is going to be embedded within the 6th through 8th framework to make sure that we're building um that skill set in kids so that they have this awareness and they're planning according uh right now uh at the middle school level or intermediate level as we call it. Uh strengthen critical thinking and writing across subject areas. Uh Matt Leser will tell you that third bullet, sorry, fourth bullet up there. If we strengthen that, we don't have to worry about ACT scores because that's going to come

111with it. So just thinking like how does this impact at a later level directly impacts it through the critical thinking and writing across subject areas creating habits of success uh attendance homework collaboration and life skills and then at the same time strengthening uh selfidentity there's that stuff again uh language again navigating peer relationships and practice uh responsible independence. So here here we are to our freshman and sophomores. I would say um these are the most important years of a kid's life. I often tell uh kids in in ninth grade, you know, the decisions you make in the next four years will determine the next 40 years of your life. And that's a true statement because um you know, sometimes we we make those bad decisions, it is hard to bounce back. And so we have

112to make sure at this particular level that they understand what those decisions are and they're exposed to positive reinforcements. Uh establish an academic identity and long-term goal setting in the academic and career planning process. Uh applying SEAL to academic and social challenges, balancing independence with responsibility and building resilience. Students align their interest to college career and post-secary pathways. opportunity to advance for uh for advanced courses, dual enrollment and extracurricular involvement and as well as continued growth in academic benchmarks with alignment to graduation requirements. A lot of the the slides you saw that last bullet is always around assessments because if we believe if we do the other stuff good, guess what's going to happen as a result? The assessment success will happen. So it it that's intentional uh on a lot of these slides. And

113then lastly, uh, academic choices be become personalized and impactful for future endeavors. Uh, we we have to at the same time as a district, and I don't think I would have said this 20 years ago. Every kid is not going to college. I I I don't think I would have said that 20 years ago, but I say that comfortably as a superintendent because I understand that as a district, we have to start molding our kids to be successful in whatever their endeavor is in life. And that's okay if they they choose not to go to college. But how do we prepare them to come out making more money than me? There are ways to do that and we have to do that as a district and invest in that. Um uh expand our academic uh

114opportunities and academic choice. So AP dual credit and technical pathways expand exposure to real world experiences, internships, work studies, job shadowing, career exploration. ACT is administered as a part of academic journey connected to college and career goals. This is something I added as I was thinking as VAB testing for our kids who are saying I'm not I don't want to go to college. Well, how we preparing them for military if military is their choice? They score so high on ASVAB. Guess what? They're going to go in racking up money at certain skill at certain jobs. And that's okay. I rather them do that than to be walking around here saying I don't know what I'm going to do for the rest of my life. That's an option. So we have to keep that option open.

115And then again final steps are towards graduation application senior projects as well as celebrations. This is not the what I would say classify as getting them to the finish line. That's not good enough. So what we're trying to do is create a plan that gets them through the finish line. Then they can start the next leg of the race. and the next leg of the race as we know is life. Like we we we do a pretty good job of getting them there. Some some of them is a struggle to get to the finish line. I will acknowledge that. But we have to look past that and and and let them and help them realize uh what's out there for them and um what what the potentials are for success. But that requires a lot

116of planning. Let me stop here. Questions? I said a lot. Sorry. Questions. Questions from the border. Yeah. >> So, as I listen to you and I think about strategic plans and the profile of a graduate, um I I I understand how powerful that can be. And if you really think about it, we potentially have 14 years with a child to get them ready for life. And I think that statement alone, so beyond a five-year plan, we have up to 14 years. And how lucky are we to have that opportunity? And so I'm just wondering as I look at all of these things um when we start in 4K and we have some some things that we are using in 4K get getting them ready then 5K then first grade do you feel that this plan

117spirals back so all of those skills that they're learning are they spiraled through again and again. So, does the sixth grade or that level know what was done previously and are we continuing because again >> Mhm. >> we don't want to lose those skills. >> That's a great question. So, I I think and I say this confidently that's a discussion that we've had uh in in uh in receiving and seeking principal feedback. We focused on that like as a as a secondary um principle. what are the things that you want to happen prior to you? So that was a serious discussion with our our principles as well as our our DLC's. And so we just try to we didn't try to do this in isolation. We tried to do it with the the practitioners on

118the ground to make sure uh that we had what was needed. So let me also say this to you. Um without a doubt, you can look at each one of these bullets and say there's a different language, but they're very much connected. >> Okay? >> They're very much connected. It just builds on the previous year. It's just a stronger word and some things have more of an emphasis because it's grade level more grade level appropriate at that time to have a, you know, you can have a much meaningful discussion with a ninth grader versus a third grader about college. It becomes real. When I told my daughter, you only have four years and you got to go. >> She's looking at me like, no, that's that's crazy. No, baby, you're nth grader. You have four

119years. >> Like didn't even realize it. But that's the reality of it. And as a parent, I wanted to cry saying it out loud, but it's just the truth. So, what are we doing uh to get her and and her her classmates prepared for that? Um there has to be discussions at the earlier grade level where we introduce them to that concept. But when they get to the ninth and tth grade, it has to be very much a a real conversation about what are your next steps and how are we going to get you there. So, it has to be a plan. So would you say that as I as I look through for common threads? Sure. Throughout all these are are we more generalized in that all of them have some SEAL things within

120them? >> Sure. Every every level has an SEO component. That's correct. Okay. >> And and I was and we were very very intentional though to define what that is. >> Okay. Because I think I think gets bottled up >> and and I every time I hear oh we using okay so what does that mean? Tell me tell me what is it that you that you're doing like what's the action and that's why we try to be very specific at each level to define what that means because seal to a high school student versus a 4K is totally different. It's a different approach. It's a different strategy and and that that was very much intentional in the language that we tried to use with this plan. >> Yeah, I think that this is going to be

121very powerful and I I look at it as a parent, you know, like you start off teaching your kids manners and you different levels of manners and you you know, you're constantly reinforcing that until they become an adult and they just automatically please thank you, all of those things, right? So, we've got to start in 4K and we've got to build every single year until we leave them at 18 years old with every skill set. >> I agree. And I'm >> When you think about when you think about plans like this, it's unfortunate, especially with graduation. >> For some, it doesn't become real until they get to 12th grade year in March, >> when all of a sudden they realize that they're credit deficient. >> And now what what can I do? And you know,

122this is a conversation that we've as a team, we've started to have after that first semester of nth grade year because we're starting to track. Okay, these this amount of kids are are not on on on task and on track to graduate. What do we do? How do we how do we get in there and work with those kids? But it's all about like the support that those kids are getting. But it's through identification and through those supports that we're building. Is your vision still you I've heard you say over and over um like I think fifth grade's a good time to start with >> Absolutely 100%. And and and the reason um that that that's that's proven um Robert Joyce is right here. That was one of his questions on his interview. I asked

123that question when when when do we need to start having conversations with kids about college? And he responded fifth and sixth grade. And I said you're hired. That's a joke. That is a joke. But but what what what he what he expressed to me during that particular interview was we shared in that understanding that we have to get there early >> and not wait until kids have uh the these ideas in their minds of what they want to do but no plan to execute it. Every one of our kids, especially our boys, wants to be an NFL player. >> When I when I go into elementary school, what do you want to be when I grow up when you grow up? I want to be in the NFL. Okay, great. >> Yep. >> Are you

124playing for the Junior Bulldogs? you playing for the junior huskys? No, no, no. I'm going to wait till I get to high school. >> Uh, not probably not a good idea, right? That but that's an example of how we have to help our kids develop sort of a plan for things like that. >> And and and at the same time, so okay, you know, if you're looking if you're if you're looking like little Terrence Robinson looked in fifth grade, uh, football is probably not in your best interest. Okay, I was a little skinny little little kid, right? So I I I knew that I couldn't do that. like I had to find something different. So what are you good at? what what what what do you excel at and under and helping them realize that

125if they're excelling at a certain subject then maybe these are the careers that will be go oh you're great in math okay engineering is probably your you know your your thing then let's look so this is what we have to do for our kids that that's the conversation >> thank you uh any other questions at this time >> okay I'm telling Carolyn feel feel free to chime in if I'll be horse in the morning all So, so as as we progress a little bit, we we kind of wanted to um to spend a couple of minutes on this mission and vision a little bit and you're not going to probably understand or realize any discrepancies or differences between the previous one. You probably won't. Okay? But what we really wanted to uh change it up

126a tad bit for a specific reason and and I'll kind of explain in the bullets right now. So we wanted to place a stronger emphasis on academic excellence and results ensuring every student is wellprepared for the future. Okay, regardless of what that future is uh to clearly articulate our commitment to college career and life readiness uh as essential outcomes for all learners. I I remember talking with Mr. Lee our first time and he says look he says I just want to know that all of our kids when they graduate are going to be successful in life whatever that is. And that's that that has been in the back of my mind and I'm paraphrasing that comment, but that's in the back of my mind as we were writing this. It's like how do we create

127a plan for kids who need the interventions for the kids who are excelling very well and and and we want to create AP more AP opportunities for those kids. But what about the kids who, you know, who saying, "Look, this is just I just really want to go to the military." Fine. How do we create a pathway for those kids? That's that's been very much intentional. Miss Lee has been on me about this as well. Okay. I take Yeah, I've I took it to heart. No, and I and I'm saying that jokingly, but you you made it personal when you said, "Look, I I I want something there for my son who doesn't want to go to college." And that's okay. And and that that that's been very much the the goal of this plan

128is to create what that opportunity looks like for that kid. uh at the same time to strengthen our focus on belonging and community highlighting the importance uh of educating the whole child. That's that component as well. And then to ensure our mission and vision reflect the district's current priorities and align with the goals of the new strategic plan. You will not see again unless you just do a sideby-side comparison. You say, "Oh, he took this out. He took that out." We tried to be as specific as possible to make sure that we understand what the mission is and what the vision is of our district in order for our kids to be successful. Not just um when they get across that stage and graduation, but when I see them at the hell football game or

129the Central football game, what are you doing right now? I attend this. Oh, you know, I'm signed up for this. This is that those are the conversations that I want to hear. Uh I I had the the the thrill I call it the thrill of this week when I had to do a letter for one of our students who asked me for recommendation letter for college. Like this is what I I want to do. She wants to go to college. Absolutely. Not a problem. I'll write that letter for you. Um that that's that's what that's what I believe we're here for is to uh allow for our kids to excel and to create opportunities for them to do that. So this is the mission and vision statement that we've kind of refined and and they

130are aligned to each other. Um mission is pretty broad. Vision if you think about glasses is what is what's right in front of you. It's it's what's within view. And so that's what we tried to do with both, right? Our beliefs. What what I I I did a little shift on this one and I'll kind of explain uh the thinking behind this one. Um, I want us to define ourselves what it is that we believe as a district that we will do and that we promise to do for every single one of our kids. So, that was kind of the change that we we we used with some of the language in this particular one. We we decided to do to be more streamlined using simpler, more direct language to convey uh key commitments compared

131with the longer, more detailed statements in the old version. Okay. I think the old version had 14 beliefs, right? So, we we tried to condense them a bit, but at the same time be more specific. Okay, we didn't want broad things. We wanted things that we can actually go to and say, are we doing that well? Um, emphasize academic excellence, college, and career readiness, as well as whole child development, and making student outcomes more explicit. uh equity is framed not just as a responsibility but as an active commitment to eliminating barriers paired with clear emphasis on belonging as central to engagement and success. So let me park right there and say something to you. Um, I think a the word equity in our district has been used sort of as a slogan. Okay. And I

132think it's a slogan that is lacking actions. And so what I wanted us to do was to not get away from that, but we wanted to define that within our beliefs if we believe in that. And so they don't stick out. We don't have what I would in the past we've had equity beliefs. I don't think that's necessary. I'll tell you why. Because uh in our time, my my my two years here so far, we've doubled the number of minority employees that we've had in our district in a short period of time. And that's without even trying to do it. Okay? That's without even that's what I'd even go in and interview and say, I need somebody who I need some diversity. That's not what we're trying to do. But we we we've been very

133successful with that and just making sure that we go out and hire the best people. and we've done a great job in attracting talent. The better we're doing with communication, the better we're doing with messaging, the better it attracts the better candidates that are attracted by what we're doing as a district. And we've been very successful in in doing doubling that number uh this past year. When you when you attend our our um welcome back ceremony opening day, a lot more uh faces in there that you had never seen before. and they and know and and that's a good thing. We need more kids, more more adults that look like our kids. Uh I was in um Daki the other day, visiting Daky and um uh the the uh the IC Miss says, "Hey, I

134had to stop one of our kids from running up the stairs a few minutes ago and I asked her, "Where are you running to?" And she says, "I'm going to go see the the new teacher." And she said, "Why?" She says, "Um, because we have somebody actually looks like me around here. I want to see her. I want to meet her." And Hayes says she was blown away by that statement. That's not the first time I've actually heard that statement. I heard it at at West Milwaukee when we brought in tutors to assist with math last year. Um, Mr. Thompson was uh bombarded by students that says, "You finally listened to me. You you brought in more teachers that look like me." like it just the simplest of things that I don't think we really

135are paying attention to. We've been able to do that organically through our actions and through our our work. And then at the same time, uh highlight student voice. Um that's that's been something that I've been committed to. Um I I I love the opportunity to engage with students when I visit campuses. Uh at football games, I get to hear about everything that's going on. I'm like, "Okay, make it quick. Okay, good, good, good. Glad, glad, glad." And hey, I smile and I keep going. But you know what? Next time I see them, I won't I won't forget about what they told me. And so it is about trying to um engage and and and have and give the give kids that audience. I want to be that person that that superintendent where these kids can

136say, you know what, I actually talk to him and he knows me. That that that makes me feel good because I I think every kid is important. I really and truly do. But I think a lot of our kids don't feel that way. And so giving them that opportunity, that voice, be approachable. I've encouraged all of our administrators to do the same thing. And at the same time, then um looking at uh our our family partnerships, uh district-wide collaboration, uh we we we focused on building cohorts of learning throughout our elementary schools where we can share uh across buildings the the work that we're doing. our principles uh will be engaging very very soon in in learning that's going to go from building to building where they can observe as well like we've been very

137intentional about collaboration uh with the over the last two years. Um and at the same time um not necessarily just focusing on uh responsibilities but looking at how do we do this as an organization and creating organizational excellence. If we create organizational excellence, it will trickle down into the schools. And we we strongly believe that. >> Next slide. Did I miss anything? I feel like you're not helping me out tonight. I swear we prepared. We we practiced this. And And who who are who are we as a district? Okay. We thought this was important. Uh just keep in mind these are the stats from last year's um uh third Friday camp. So they may be slight slightly off a little bit. Uh 6938 kids. Um, we have and that that's pretty small up there, so

138I'm not going to dare read that. Uh, thank you. Thank you, Carolyn. You got it. So, students with disabilities is around 16.7% are economically disadvantaged at 65.7%. A multilingual learners, which is a growing population, is at a five 5.7%, which is roughly around 6%. We have 66,000 residents in all four uh municipalities that we service and we have 900 plus staff members. Real quick, um I think what this these numbers tell us is that we are a diverse district. We we are we are the melting pot. When somebody ask me, tell me about your district, I say, look, when there's an election, national election, this is the place to be. Okay? this is the place to be because everybody who's running for these offices, they know that that we are um we we are a

139force in this particular area. And that's a force of diversity, a for a force of of varying opinions, a of a a voice of open-mindedness that I think a lot of areas around us are closed to. So, I think we're lucky with that. Um provides important context of understanding the environment in which our students learn. uh supports equity focused planning by ensuring that the district initiatives or resources are tailored to meet var needs and demonstrates transparency, accountability and giving family, staff and community a clear understanding of the student population. All right, the road ahead background city of Milwaukee. That's the background. That is that is Milwaukee, right? All right, I just want to make you double check. Okay, I I see I see the little lighthouse on the air. Yeah, that's Milwaukee. Uh the road

140ahead. So, so this this map, this road map, it builds on each other uh on a on an annual basis. And so the first year, which is building our future together, if you saw the videos, if you were at the the opening day ceremony, we all had on the the neon shirts that resemble sort of what a construction crew would wear. because in so many instanc so many examples or ways as a district we are under construction not only through our referendum success but also the direction that we have right now as a strategic direction of the district that we are sort of rebuilding ourselves and making sure that we have a plan in place for our kids to be successful. So that's the first year. Next year in which we're already starting right now

141accelerating access and achievement. We're working behind the scenes and we'll talk about that a little little little later on as we uh go through the pro the the presentation about building partnerships, increasing those opportunities for students. I want every single kid to have uh access to AP classes, dual credit classes were available. Um and so that's the plan that we're looking for the next year. and then deepening our impact uh for 2728 elevating the experience for 2829 and then thriving futures and measurable results kind of go into that keep going next slide real quick I feel like I'm going a long long time to break down a little bit more 2526 which is this year strong foundational academics we built a a portrait of a graduate and as well as universal seal screenings for all

142of our students through sabers and then 2627 Seven, uh, accelerating access and achievement, increase academic opportunities, enhance interventions and enrichment, uh, advancement for all students, deepening the impact. 2728, increase staff diversity, school climate, improve school safety and wellness. You heard it in Dr. Gotley's per presentation. That's a focus. We're going to work over the years to to make sure that we focus, but each year has sort of a different framework of of narrowed in focus to to build on. uh elevating the experience advanced educator retention. Uh we we've done a I would think is a great job. We we started the year with um little bit over 1% vacancy rate just a tad bit over and that was because we had two individuals who resigned the day school started. So that threw everything in for

143a loop. And so uh if you know anybody out there in LA, I think Harris man has a fourth grade uh position and Nathan Hell has a math math position. Algebra, right? Math. Yes. Algebra. So, it's good as a superintendent when you can I can tell you where the vacancies are. Okay, that's a great thing. Okay, it's a pretty big district. Those are the only two I think in a in a um in a regular ed setting that we have vacancies at. So, um and that uh next uh maximizing family and caregiver uh engagement and then lastly is thriving futures and measurable results. We want to uh build on this and make sure at the end of five years that we are successful uh with the goals that we've set. All right. How do we

144Let me stop. I feel like I need to stop. Right. Any questions? Any questions? >> Any questions? Yeah. From the Lord. >> They're all right, Mr. Lee. I'mma call on you. You got a bunch of them over there. I'm ready for you, though. I'm ready for you. >> All right. digesting. >> You're digesting. Okay. All right. All right. So, as we built out the board goals, I wanted to kind of walk you through what I would say is the process that we undertook to to get here. I I I had a couple of phone conversations with a gentleman named AJ Crarabel. And AJ Crrael is sort of the guru of governance and board goals nationwide. He is the director of governance for council of great city schools. I had a I hit him up on

145u LinkedIn. I said, "Hey, can I get on a call with you?" He didn't charge me. I said, "It's free." So, I took took advantage of it. And and we talked through how do we go about building goals? And he told me, "Take a take a step back. You need to get the data." Which I knew that already. We had already worked with Dr. Gotley to to get all of the data we needed. and and he walked me through how he would have us to or suggest that we build out board goals. And so I'm going to kind of walk you through that particular process and what he advised us to do to that I kind of help you understand how we came about with these particular specific board goals that we developed. So we

146wanted to start out the the board goal and I'm this is just an example. Okay. So just just just go with this example. So this example that we that we use is early literacy the percentage of third graders reading on grade level on the school that's blocking it. What does that say? >> School systems uh summitive assessment will increase from 45% in July 2019 to 68% by July 2025. This is the example that he gave me. And he said this is the the the the board goal. He said but what's important about this go board goal is you need to establish an interim goal. So what is the going to be the goal that you're going to measure say in a two-year period to make sure that you're on target to achieve the goal up

147top. So our interim goal for this particular goal would be an example would be uh the percentage of third graders who began the year below grade level in reading uh on school system benchmarks but who are on track to grow by at least uh 1.5 grade levels in reading will increase from 20% in September 2020 to 50% by 2023. So if you notice this interim goal is set up so we can be successful on the top goal. Okay? So it's not working blind. You don't know you're not measuring as you go. So that's an example he gave. And then he said, well then you have to make sure that you identify what the inputs are. In other words, what are the strategies that you're using as a district to not only make uh your uh

148outcome, which is your board goal, come to fruition, but also that you're meeting your interim goal. And so these are examples of what he suggested are inputs, which would be the percentage of targeted second grade second graders would will receive a monthly average of additional two hours of support. So he's talking about the interventions that they will provide. literacy coaching. The percentage of targeted teachers, teachers who are teaching targets first through third grade and who are not rated highly effective in literacy instruction who receive at least 20 hours per month in classroom coaching and modeling. So that's a professional development that you're providing to teachers who you've identified as needing it in order to make your goal come true. This is just an example. This is not what we're using. But I wanted you to

149understand the process that we had to take as a team. all these people to my left had to help me create these goals based on that particular format. Okay. So, let's get into our our specific goals. So, we set and established four goals. Goal number one is built around early literacy. Goal number two is built around mathematics. Goal number three is college and career readiness. Remember that was a key point in uh the portrait of a graduate and understanding what how we're preparing our kids for life. So we uh implemented that or included that I should say then our students with disabilities if number four is better guess what happens to the rest of our data that also improves. So just understanding how important our students with disability the growth that they achieve is important

150uh to the bottom line of our student success overall as a district. So uh the schoolboard goals are an integral part of the strategic plan guiding decision making at the district level. These goals serve as a reference to ensure that the board decisions align and contribute to the district's long-term uh priorities. By using these goals as a guide, uh the board helps drive progress toward achieving key outcomes. And the goals provide transparency and accountability, making it clear how each decision supports the district strategic plan. So, let's get into these really quickly. uh early literacy uh percentage of third grade students in West Dallas West Milwaukee school district earning proficient or advanced which are the highest two levels on the state w state of Wisconsin's forward exam in literacy will increase from 30.3% in August 2025

151to 45% in a 5-year period which ends in August 20 2030. What we're saying is the highest levels of achievement will increase from 30 to 45%. That's that's what that goal is in early literacy bottom line. Okay. Um you have anything you want to add to that at all? Okay, you're good. All right. And if you look at the process that we have right here, um the interim goal we set uh is around fastbridge because uh research shows that fastbridge uh should have a correlation with forward or at least that's how it's marketed to us. How about that? But there there's a correlation between uh th those particular assessments and uh with with our correlation that we're trying to make. We're we're saying um where we're basing our fast bridge on growth. And so then

152what are the inputs? We're looking at interventions. We're looking at coaching and we're looking at curriculum implementations. So for interventions and monitoring, all students in K through five who receive intensive instruction will have personal support plans. We talked about that at previous meetings. When we identify uh a certain percentage of our u score on our our our uh reading inventories, they are already cued to have personal reading plans. Okay? And we're doing the same thing from mathematics this year. We're identifying who those kids are and providing them supports they need to be successful. At the same time, uh we're looking at um from from a from an instructional standpoint, uh learning walks to ensure that 80% of our classrooms are teaching curriculum. That's important because guess what? Curriculum is aligned to the actual assessments, everything

153is aligned. If we are teaching what we want to teach because that's what we want to teach and we have no method to that madness, then our results are going to be just as all over the place as that idea is. So, we have to make sure that what we're teaching aligns to what the kids are going to be assessed on. That's just bottom line. Uh, at the same time, coaching, understanding um how are we coaching our our people to be successful? Uh, I was at um Horus man this morning. I want to pick on her. And we were talking to Dr. Mensloff over there and she reminded me of a quote I told her. I said, you know, every every player can't be coached the same. She said, "I have that written right here

154on my sticky note, right here on my computer and I keep it there." That's the same thing with understanding coaching. Like how are we identifying the areas that of support that each person needs and making sure that we lean into that? If they don't need that, then what do they need? Understanding what they need and then providing that for them to be successful. And then curriculum. uh we we spent a lot of time over the past four months in trying to sh uh shrew up uh our curriculum and to make sure that we have a true guaranteed and valuable curriculum for our students to be successful. We spent a lot of time with that and uh Alyssa and her department have done a a yman's job in trying to make sure that we have alignment

155uh that is vertical and horizontal as he as as Dr. got spoke on that work has has happened as well as um professional development. Not only are we creating u a new aligned curriculum, but we're making sure that every staff member is trained on set curriculum so we can uh have that support out there in in the field to make sure that they're successful in its implementation. That's been a a lot of work uh over the past four months to make sure that happens. Now, we go to go to I won't repeat a lot of the stuff because a lot of the strategies will be the same, but for mathematics in particular, we're focusing on uh early literacy with third grade. Uh mathematics, we're going to focus specifically on eighth grade. And if you know

156anything about the the Ford exam, eighth grade, it counts twice in eighth grade. So, that's why we're focusing so heavily on third and eighth. counts twice third grade counts twice eighth grade uh for accountability and so uh we're looking at um the the earning uh proficient or advanced so students will increase from 41% to 55% in a 5-year period. That's the the goal that we're setting. Many of the strategies we talked about are the same with the uh the personal uh support plan as well as the professional development. We also uh talk about um the the use of of new curriculum with Carnegie. I think it's going to be a huge shot in the arm for our secondary schools that they have uh curriculum that's up to I'm sorry textbook I'm sorry adoption that's up

157to date and more relevant now uh and and aligns more with the way the kids are going to be assessed on forward. We it we you know when you hear from teachers and they say yeah um we we we we saw the forward exam and our kids some of our kids struggles. I didn't spend a lot of time on that section because that hasn't been any emphasis in the past because in our adoption it doesn't really go into that adoption after the 8-year period is really really out of you know out of use in a sense because these tests are are updated in about a three or four year cycle. So in order to stay relevant and to make sure we're doing the right things that was that that Carnegie upgrade was definitely needed for

158that. Anything I'm missing on that? Okay, we're good. All right. Um, goal three. Um, when I tell you the opportunity we have with this area right here is it's a there's a lot of opportunity for us. I think this is this is what I would consider untapped potential in changing the lives and trajectory of a lot of our kids. Um, I have I am um admittedly a dreamer. I have I have dreams. uh I wake up at 3 in the morning and say, "You know what? That's a great idea." Okay. Unfortunately, I admittedly I don't always have the skill set to make it happen. And so that's why I think I I have to lean on a team to say, you know, let me tell you about this crazy dream I had last night. Can

159we do this? And so, uh, a lot of the the the the goals that you see, the goals you see on on our, uh, college and career readiness, uh, in talking with Robert, I say, "Robert, don't don't run out of here because we we want to increase, uh, percentages for, um, our report card for participation by type of uh, post-secondary preparation. So, there are four different categories that DPI looks at. That's advanced courses, industry recognized credentials, dual credit enrollment, and workbased learning. According to the 2324, right, report card, I said it right. We only had 21% of our kids that were involved in one of those four categories. Okay. So, my my uh our goal for this particular um area is that we will increase from 21.3 to 45% in a 5-year time span. And

160I would tell you I think that's the easiest goal that's up there. That's very doable. It's just a matter of us investing and making sure that we are we're we're using our money where you know where we can get more bang for our buck. Are we offering kids opportunities to to have more options for their success? Uh I've been on this tantrum for the past three or four days. They'll tell you I have not been happy. And and I say that jokingly because I just don't I I believe that at times as school districts we are our own worst enemy and nightmare because we create barriers that we don't intentionally create but it's the result of things that we do. And so when we when I visit Daky and and they tell me that hey

161you know the kids are going over for to catch the bus because they're not certain offerings here at Daki and Central kids. My question is how can we do better? How can we remove those barriers? And so we we we're not quite prepared to to tell you what we're going to do in the immediate future, but we are really trying to be creative in how we remove those barriers for kids to be successful. I told you guys when I interviewed, I don't believe in necessarily the achievement gap. I believe in the opportunity gap, and I want to close it. I want to close opportunity gaps by increasing opportunities for every single kid in our district to be successful and finding out what that what that is. So, be looking for that because when I come

162to you with that idea, don't don't look at me crazy. I we we we have to do better. We have to do better. We have kids right now who who are who are missing school because they're on buses. They're late for their third period class. To me, we can do a lot better than what we're doing. And at the same time, increase the number of kids who are having those offerings. So, that's the dynamic that I've been fussing about. I say that jokingly, but they know um that's all I've been on lately. They probably tired of hearing from me. And the last one is our our our students with disabilities, our our most precious commodity. Those kids who um you know that their parents send send us their very very best. And it's it's our

163job as a district to make sure that they're successful. And and looking at this particular goal, this is what we try to do through growth. Every single kid is expected to grow at minimum one year with solid education. We want to exceed that if possible, but that's where the the aggressive growth comes in with our our math fast bridge that we are we're we're we're uh committed to making that happen through with our students with disabilities. All right, I'll stop. Pause. I should say been going an hour and 15 minutes. Go ahead. What questions do you have for me? I'll stop before I get into the key performance indicators. >> Questions from the board. >> An hour 15 minutes. Jesus. >> I I'll give you a little just to digest just we good. No questions.

164Okay. >> I don't see Well, I do have one. I do. Do you you want to go first? So, >> I just said it's pretty. >> Yeah. >> What we're getting? >> Yeah. Uh as me as well. Um the question that I have and as we're going through and maybe we haven't gotten to it yet and or but the the piece that I have is that in education you may have the best laid plans and then they go sideways. >> Sure. And so kind of what I was wondering is what kind of feedback loop do we have to adjust and tweak because when we we don't want to necessarily get pigeon holed into these goals if they aren't necessarily being met or uh we find that we need to actually focus on something else in

165order to achieve our end. >> Great question. Great question. I think that actually leads into the next section and I'll I'll talk about that and then I'll if I don't answer it directly then I'll just just tell me that still didn't get it. I I'll I'm good. I I can take that from you. >> Okay. >> You tell me that all the time so I'm used to it. Uh our college and career readiness and so we look at our um key performance indicators. KPIs are are used uh at a committee level to understand and measure whether what you're doing is successful. Okay. Uh our committees as they as they exist right now will continue in that same form and fashion. And and when we look at our committees, we will break them down into college

166and career readiness, communication and engagement, talent acquisition, employee engagement, and financial stability. and efficiency. Those are the committees that will work uh into and to measure whether we're successful. Each board committee will have key uh KPIs as we call them key performance indicators. Uh the KPIs provide measurable uh benchmarks that help committees assess whether uh they are meeting their goals. These indicators promote accountability, ensuring committee work aligns with the broader objectives of the district and tracking KPIs. Uh allows the board and community to see tangible progress over time and informs datadriven decision making. So we want to kind of go into this really quickly for the public and the board and well what's what's the board's role in in trying to uh evaluate as we go whether we're successful or not. the board has a

167a a role in that. So, go ahead and go to the Caroline's going to walk through her demonstration. >> Yeah. So, this is just an example of how we'll keep track of our KPIs just at the beginning of the year, the middle of the year, and the end of the year. You can't see the end of the year because I cut that out of the snip, but just identifying where the goal is at. Is it in progress? Is it not met? Or is it completed? And then taking down any notes and feedback. Um obviously as we get started most of these goals will be in progress and so the notes and feedback section is going to be really critical so that we can adjust our plan accordingly um if we're not making the progress that

168we need to make. Um and so this will be filled out three times a year over the course of the next 5 years. So 15 times total. >> Does that answer your question a little bit? >> Little bit. Okay. I think I think what what I would add to that is um this is a living document. Okay? It's not something we'll put on the website and say, "Hey, here it is. We we'll holl at it in 5 years." That's not what how we're going to use this. This is going to be um sort of a again, it's a road map uh to to let us know if if we're heading in the right direction, if we're meeting everything that we say. And there there's not going to be a hesitation on my part to say

169this is not working. we need to make an adjustment. I think that's what um in this in this particular business, if we can forecast everything to be perfect at the end, I think we're fooling ourselves to say that everything will be perfect. But we have to uh understand what the data is saying to us through our KPIs and then evaluate that and we'll determine whether that that needs to be changed. Our principles will play an important role in that. Our PTA will play a important role in that. our union will play in all of those groups who we brought in to get feedback from will will provide us feedback as we go along. In addition to surveys like Dr. Gotautle and his team, this is not a one-time shop thing. They will be in charge

170of creating which they have already started our surveys that will go out next month, right? October. Next next month. Yeah, next month. So we have our first rounds of surveys that will be going out for parents and teachers, right? Staff. Yeah, parents and staff will go out next month. So we we are really trying to make sure that we keep our our ears to the streets in a sense and and we understand um whether we're doing you know a good job of what uh the direction that we we want those numbers that he showed up there. We want those numbers to improve. So those are sort of like u you know those are benchmarks in a in a sense and we'll we'll have um more data as we as we progress to to assess whether

171we are being successful or not. I just wanted to kind of highlight a a couple things. So with the college and career readiness in particular, we have goals around ACT attendance rate, graduation, safety, SEAL, special education, those other goals that you saw earlier with math, ELA, those are included. Communications and engagement have goals around the monthly newsletter. Uh is it the the uh the open rate of those weekly newsletters, parent engagement, as well as our social media, talent acquisition and employee engagement. We'll be able to understand our diversity uh within our district, our employee engagement through the survey excess surveys and Mr. Lee has been on me about that one too. We'll be able to do that. We we've uh engaged with Frontline uh now. And so Frontline is going to be assisting us with

172with creating systems around how do we collect that that data? How why are people leaving? We just can't say it's salary. we really will understand through the work through the support of frontline why uh teachers are not being retained and then our vacancy rate we talked about that uh a little earlier that our when I I think my first year we're at 7% to start the year and through um through through D Janet and Zach to to say that we are within 1% to start the year for the last two years I think that's that's that's a great thing I want to be below that 1% was a little upset at at those people that left the last minute. It's not it's not HR's fault. Um it's these are new people we hired and just

173did not show up. So it is what it is, but we we already found new new candidates to fill those positions. So just a process and financial stability and efficiency. This was an interesting conversation with Aaron because he's he I think for the past I would say five years he's been so focused on improving uh our financial status and I think he's done an excellent job of doing that and but but his was the hardest one to push because he you know he threw out um first he was talking about well we we we the audit that's a that's a data point. Yeah but how does that deal with the goals though Eron? So I was like, Aaron, what are the how are you improving goals? So I said, Aaron, what about the amount of

174money we spend on literacy? What about the amount of money we spend on mathematics? What about the amount of money we spend on CTE? How can we increase the amount of funding we have for special education? These are specific funding mechanisms that we're trying to improve over a 5-year period. If we expect results, we have to invest in in those things a little bit more. those results for CTE will not happen if we don't invest those those dollars into creating new programs, new opportunities for our students. That's just an example why how every committee will be supporting the four goals that are up earlier around uh within our strategic plan. So next steps our board committees uh will will meet and um quarterly to discuss the key performance indicators and evaluate those. We we have

175implementing a new curriculum uh centered around priority standards this year scope and sequence as well as common assessments. We have win time built into the school day visiting schools last week. Um we we I saw it in action as well as some of the the collaborative work. um that that uh school started on day one just trying to make sure are we having those conversations. Are we building the best lessons for students when they show up in our classrooms and building that camaraderie within their teams, our sensory rooms uh within uh our buildings? Trying to make sure that those those things are up. Now, how are we using them? How are we using them to deescalate problems? We we know that students who who have autism u they definitely need those sensory um activities to

176to deescalate them and calm them down. So that's what we've uh tried to do within our elementary schools and uh some of our secondary schools as well. And then our EMLSS redesigned to support academic and behavioral needs. We'll be fully rolling that out at the end of this month to our principles because at that particular time we'll have new data from our first round of our fast bridge this year. So we'll be able to identify which kids are flagged according to uh the new data. And last um I put up here closing gaps by creating opportunities. Um this is uh I I I I think an area that our district um everybody in our district wants to happen. We want our kids to have opportunities. We want our kids to be successful. And we are

177a a system that has to be committed to making it happen and to expose them. So I met with Dr. Cruz uh on last week. He invited me to his office and we had a nice cup of coffee and good conversation and we both committed to uh to having a true partnership and um some of those the things we talked about is strengthening our CNA program um with within our district. There's a need for that. Also, we've discussed um possibly having cosmetology uh infused within our district. So, those are some things that we've having some serious conversations around and how do we uh provide students with with that. Um, you know, again, I I I pay $45 for a haircut. I think it's ridiculous. Okay, it is ridiculous. Like, you don't even see any evidence

178of it. I don't have any hair. Okay, but that is the going rate. Like, this is ridiculous. But I'm not even mad. I pay my barber because guess what? I have an appointment. I know what time I'm going. I get in get out on time cuz my wife has not have to text me where are you? I'm out on time and you know it's a going rate. Why can't our kids come out making $45 an hour? $45 30 minutes, not even an hour. So these are some things that I'm thinking about and trying to figure out how to how to get done. I think that's where we are with the point of execution. Um also uh our dual credit offerings within our high school buildings. These are the conversations that are going to be built

179into year two. That's why we're doing it right now. So, we have course selections. All of this stuff is already done. So, we're working a year out to make sure that that happens. No excuses. I'm talking I'm tired of talking about this dream I had. It's time to make these dreams come true. Okay. So, we have to be about action at this particular point. Increase the AP offerings for students through uh through the use of flex AP or as I call it uh fusion AP AP fusion. We'll have more details on that because as you the definition of fusion is uh mixing two or three things together to make you know one one one thing and we have the capacity within our district to make that happen. There should not be any excuse because a

180kid attends central or attends docky they can't take a class. That does not sit well with me. I'm not and vice versa. A kid that goes to hell shouldn't be can't take a class because it's not offering help. that does not sit well with me. How do we remove that? We are our own worst enemy when we come to the barriers we create. We create those for ourselves. So, I'm I'm committed to knocking those down. Also, the big conversation, specialty programming within our schools. We will start that conversation very, very soon because if this is going to happen, some are going to be more on a two-year implementation. Some will be on possibly next year. We're we need to evaluate through uh our community uh participation and feedback what are the programs that they they

181would like to see happen within our schools. We have um programs I think that are what I would say are self-sufficient right now. Our fine arts program I think I would put them side by side against anybody, right? Um but just imagine if we we did a better job of just really investing in that. I don't think Mary Pat Michaels would disagree with that. like invest in it and make it a priority. And I think that that that needs to happen. Our the our theata program the same way like there are ways that we can strengthen those things uh which we say are the best part of our district. We need to strengthen those programs and I'm looking at programming within schools, making them specialty schools. Can we make it happen? That's part of my

182dream. I'm a dreamer, guys. I'm sorry, Miss Carr. What's your question? I'm sorry. >> All right. So, now it's time for my plug based on what you just said. Specialty things, maybe even a fusion of something. Um, I have not heard the sciences mentioned at all. And I know that, you know, literacy and math are the fair-haired child, and I get that and we are we're tested on that and so on and so forth. But um is there a way we can incorporate the sciences and bring them to the front line? And I know that if we make it a goal, we're going to pay more attention to it. We're going to give it uh more credence. So just wondering. >> No. So I I I agree with you 100%. I don't think it was

183mentioned in here because quite honestly um it it was not in uh on purpose that we left it out. It was not. But I think honestly if if you have someone who's good in math then they will be successful. They probably have an interest as well as science. So it kind of goes hand in hand. A lot of science is math. >> So I think we were trying to tie it that way. >> But with the specialty program and I can't disagree with you. I've seen uh STEM programs. I've seen engineering components. I've seen various components of that. It's something that we can look in. Is Aaron still here? He let >> Okay. We need some money. Okay. All right. I had I had to say that like it's going to it's going to require

184some investment. >> Yeah. >> When when we do So, I'm thinking to be honest with you on a you know, if we we if we're able to make something happen next year, it will be it won't be that big of a shift financially. Two or three years. it'll be more more complex and will require more much more investment when we talk about money and resources. So, um on a long-term plan, absolutely it it should happen 100%. But I will say this too, I think it's important also to get feedback on what I don't want it to be a Terrence Robinson decision. I want it to see to I want it to be interest of what this the kids and the community wants as well. Mr. >> Lee, go ahead. Yeah. Um, so I know we

185did a a community survey about this. Um, I don't know if you're aware of it or not, but we did do one three or four years ago asking that very question. And the reason why there was no um movement on it was because there wasn't anything that was overwhelmingly by from the community parent student perspective um something that they wanted to do. A STEM academy was one thing that was brought up. it was one thing that a subset of um parents and students had a very big interest in. Um but because there wasn't a high enough percentage from that feedback, that's where there was kind of no movement because yes, there is an investment and there would be I would think partnerships. So we'd want to look into with um you know instit other institutions

186in other institutions of higher learning as well as maybe some um companies and businesses that would be um hopefully willing to put in some money to help establish something like that. >> Absolutely. Um but yes, so I think having a fresh survey of that information um could be helpful to then direct because then I think there you're taking subsets of the the district to then say, "Okay, we need to get business partners. We need to get um higher partnership trips from higher learning um and community partnerships as well to be able to help >> fill this out because the finances there unless things change at the state level are probably not going to be extra that we can do um exactly we'd want to do. But if we compare that with other monies that we

187can get from uh other entities, I think that that is something that we certainly could absolutely do. And it builds excitement within the community when you can do something like that. So we we we've already made contact with Wei Energies and Aurora in particular when we talk about uh sciences and engineering um and and they're they're they're they want to talk to us. They they really want to have a a discussion in particular we energies they have a shortage of and I' I'm I'm I'm going to mess up what the title is but it's the person that runs the lines the power lines. There's a shortage, but it's well it's a well- paid position. Okay? And you probably know why it's a shortage because it's dangerous, right? There's a shortage. And I was speaking to

188um one of the gentlemen who's my fraternity brother who's actually a manager of customer service with Wii Energy. He says, "Look, we got to talk. This is an opportunity where we can pay for kids to go to school and then hire them after they finish." And I said, "Yes, we need to talk." So these are conversations that that I've already uh had and again when I mentioned earlier the CNA program I have this invid this vision Aurora is probably um next to us or right by close to us one of the largest employers in this city and I think it's untapped potential when you talk about that the CNAs nurses there's a shortage critical shortage okay how can we help you fill this shortage and you help us at the same time, this is a

189win-win for everybody. But of course, we need we need some support, you know. Uh when when I when I visited along with with Jod and Alyssa and and other people, we visited U Brookfield Central, right? Is that Central or East? I'm It's East. I get the schools mixed up. Thank you. East. And I saw their CNA lab and and if you know Mark Hansen, Dr. Hansen over there, he's a showoff. So he says, "Just let me take you in this lab." And I said, "Okay, doc, what you got?" And I was like, "Wow, it look like a real hospital." And he said, 'Yeah. And I said, 'Okay. So, what do they use these hospital beds for? They have mannequins. Oh, this is like real work. Like, they are really, okay. He was in real showout

190form. I want to be at that level where I can show off something like that. And and know that we are benefiting a a a a a field that is short on people. And you got to think about it, too, that's actually a win-win for us cuz if they're a CNA, guess what? they can come work for us as an EA for a C with a CNA license and get paid at the highest levels of an EA. Like, it's a win-win. So, thinking along those lines, I I just think there's there's some untapped potential in in what we have to do. But that will require us to make some commitments though. As far as the data is concerned, um I think the four years is probably too long and and Dr. Dr. Gobbley would tell

191you, yeah, it's old data. A lot of things have changed since then. Um, I think there there is much more uh positivity towards us. I don't get as nearly uh crazy emails as I used to get. Uh I think they actually like us now, you know, just being funny. But, uh, you know, it's it's just a good it's it's a good vibe that goes on. I mean, are we there yet? Absolutely not. We have a long way to go. But um we've done a pretty good job in trying to build trust back in the district and I think engaging them in another opportunity to provide some feedback to us will be beneficial for us. >> Oh, go ahead. >> Just one more thing. Are we um when do we approve the strategic plan as a

192board and uh are what is the plan for um communicating this to the community once it's approved and then as you said these way points that we're checking in on what we're doing or not and communicating that to the community as well. >> Okay. So great question. So, I'm asking for approval tonight if possible. If if we if you need time to digest and we move for approval at the next meeting, that's fine as well. Um, that's the first question. The second question is we will go on sort of a a tour of sorts to roll this out to let everyone know. It will not probably I I'm just looking at time. It won't be every school, but we'll make a commitment to get out to as many schools as we can to roll out

193the plan. how that will look, whether we will focus on, you know, after school with parents or focus on staff meetings, we really have not decided that, but it will be some format of communication uh verbally as well as this will be full full on the website. Um, in fact, uh, if you go to the road map real quick, >> the your little cars, >> what's traveling west? >> I know they are traveling west. Yeah. So this right here will not necessarily be as visual. They will be able to just click a grade level and these they'll pop up. The the the the goals for each grade level will pop up. So that'll be sort of like the visual. This will be on the website. Um but again we're we're at the point where we're

194not having listing sessions. is more of a in information and talking about, you know, how they can use this as an at home tool to to uh make their make sure their kids are successful and on the track to being successful in life. >> Okay. Um I would I would just make a possible suggestion of maybe including us as part of our annual report as well. Um when we're doing those, you know, we're checking in on those goals. >> Yeah, >> the annual report for this last school year is already completed. um we did allude to it in that but it wasn't approved at the time. So um this will certainly be included in the next annual report. I would add in addition to um connecting with staff and families in person via meetings um

195this will live on our website. We do have a section in our rights and responsibilities handbook specifically on the strategic plan. So it's already in the rights and responsibilities handbook um and then a communication and social media posts and all those kind of typical channels that we use. >> Great. And I think the the whole strategic plan is is one piece. But again, I think for the annual report specifically, I was thinking more lines of, you know, this was the goal that we set and here's the check-in that we did and this is where we're at. >> So like I see that as part of the annual report is like reporting like these we had these goals. Did we get there? Did we not? If not, here's the things we're trying to do to try

196to address that. And if we did, awesome. Now we're moving on to these next steps to try to expand upon those things. >> A lot of ways for transparency. So I agree with you. >> Yeah. And then that it allows people to then who have no idea what's going on in their schools to kind of see the things that we're doing if they're getting that that report. I guess that's where I was kind of looking at it >> cuz it's it's very lengthy. I don't know if they would look at it if you had the whole thing in there, but if you're like here's the goals that we were that we throughout the year we looked at and this is what where we're at for the first year of the strategic plan. >> As far

197as approving it tonight, um it wasn't noticed for and I don't know if we can because we can't take action on it because we >> you're correct. So, it'll be an action item next meeting. You're correct. >> That was all. Thank you. >> Yep. >> Um All right. So, thank you. And yeah, I was going to ask the same thing after you mentioned. Um, but are there any other comments or even maybe celebrations, likes, accolades of what what we're seeing uh and where we are uh with what's been presented tonight? >> Good. >> I appreciate the effort and if I didn't say it on camera before, I thought the uh the annual eval looked great. So, thanks to the committee and and to the team for the work on that. >> Okay. I would ask

198if um if there's something that you see as you go through it, just send us a note and um you know, the more eyes we have, the uh the better the product will be before it goes out. We want to get all of those those things. So, if there we'll we'll take your feedback and that's that's that's still open because it hasn't been approved. So, still open for business here. >> Okay. Uh could I ask also then that any of the questions or things that come back any response gets sent to all the board members so that we keep that continuous with that? >> Yeah. So so what I'll do is um if if if I get a question or comment from a board member I'll include it in my Friday note to you guys

199so everybody's aware of what the question was and I'll try to provide an answer. >> Excellent. Thank you. >> All right. Anything else? >> Yeah. Thank you for the hard work. I think that brings us to the end of the workshop then. Thank you so much and thank you all of you for being here. >> All right. And I guess with that, hang on ladies and gents, board members for a moment. Um, if there is no further business and there is no objection, uh, the meeting will be adjourned for this evening. >> Yes. hearing objection we are objourned.