Board Meeting 3-11-24

001all right I'd like to call this meeting of the West sou Milwaukee School Board to order Ste would you please lead us in the pledge to the flag of the United States of America and to the repice very much suette would you please call the role yes Miss deal here Mr Sage present Mr Keller here Mrs car here Mr Becker here Mr Burns president Mrs Lee here Mrs Kaiser here president Lee here proper notice of this meeting has been posted in accordance with the open meeting laws of the state of Wisconsin do we have any modifications to the agenda this evening there are no modifications all right we'll move right into the superintendent's report thank you we're going to go ahead and get started with uh some legislative updates so property tax increases but tax

002uh tax credits cushion to blow uh Wisconsin school districts will Levy 297 297.00 uh fortunately though um with the Lottery tax credit that that increase will be offset so it won't be as much of a blow as uh as it could be Governor iers approves Sen Bill 971 now 2023 Wisconsin Act 100 with line item vetos so Wisconsin Act 100 creates new appropriation to fund literacy coaches provides early literacy curricular grants for schools and supports the schools uh supports the office of literacy at DPI so we're excited uh with the possibility of getting funding for uh additional staff persons specifically as we carry out act 20 uh with the science of literacy implementation that will begin specifically uh for next January that's state by state all by state 9 91 school districts referendums on the

003ballot uh for April 2nd we are uh currently scheduled for November however we we'll be watching some of the results as they come in as it will have some sort of impact on us and give us some guidance as to our direction for November our district recognitions DOI would like to recognize the entire school on a very successful first semester exhibition night that took place on the evening of January 18th exhibition nights take place at the end of each school semester and act as a summative assessment for all do students on the night every student shared out the project or student run business that they are proud of students prepareing brief presentation that lays out the class uh lays out the project uh as uh as implemented and with the ican statements that were mastered

004what uh driving questions that were aimed to answer and what was the most challenging about their project and more uh I'm proud to say that I was one of the uh 490 persons in attendance as well as several of our board members it was an excellent night and I actually purchased a couple of items from students so um just um just a great opportunity to provide support for them as well FLW web leaders the back of their shirts say it all FLW web where every everyone belongs leaders lend a helpful hand encourage always listen do the right thing energize respect others and serve they plan and facilitate sixth grade orientation serve as Role Models throughout the building and most recently facilitated a full day social media takeover at Frank lyd Wright thank you to Mrs

005Clark the FM l w we leaders advisor for recruiting these young adults and thank you to Mrs Ferell for organizing a wonderful day this occurred I believe it was last Thursday where these particular students took over all social media components uh with FLW PTA Council Carnival we want to uh thank everyone for coming out to the cornival many families and community members came together to enjoy games solid auction crafts bounce houses food and much more it was great weather outside it was actually so so good that day we could have actually had it outside so uh but it was an overall good event I did not get a chance to do my time I was going to do my little Sprint time but uh they actually put it out before I was getting ready to

006start so that's actually a good thing I didn't get I didn't hurt myself so huge thank you to our PTA Council for organizing the event again and thank you for everyone who came out it's hiring season and one of the things that we've been very intentional about this time around is making sure that we're getting the word out and we're uh controlling our narrative so we have a video we want to show uh the community tonight um and encourage others who are watching to join our team the time is now to join us on an incredible journey of growth and success welcome to the West Dallas West Milwaukee School District where every person and every position contributes to shaping minds and shaping Futures the Westway the Westway is not just a slogan it's a commitment

007to empowering our students to succeed in our diverse Community academic Excellence isn't just a goal it's our way of life we are committed to creating learning environments that work where each and every student can Thrive as part of our team Your Role is crucial we value your unique perspective and contributions to our Collective success our commitment goes beyond the school laws with strong ties to the community creating an enriching environment for all together we can shape a future where every student has the opportunity to grow and Excel so are you ready to join a community that values diversity Embraces excellence and is passionate about creating learning environments that work now is the time to be part of something extraordinary apply today and let's lead learn and grow together the West way really captures uh the

008essence of our district and and gives out reasons why people should join us and those who are here should stay this is a great place to be and so we want to uh definitely get the word out and be our own spokesman and um I I am holding uh everyone uh in our district accountable for helping get that word out that this is a truly a great place to be um we we do have and um want to go to the next oneide the time is now this particular video with Taylor who was a teacher at Irving was released last month and I just wanted to kind of highlight some comments that were uh posted about this video and I think this also kind of captures some of the things that that are going on

009our community are a spokesman they they they see the great things that we're doing so thank you for all the kind words it means uh so much this is comment from Taylor um one comment was amazing so proud of you oh my God so cute everyone needs a Taylor in their life Taylor is amazing coach Taylor is the reason my girls got into competition cheered she's the absolute best uh while thanks for speaking so highly of my daughter is I guess Dad is pop she is amazing and full of energy just just wanted to kind of mention some comments and let you guys know that the word is getting out I remember U last week Mr Becker and I were walking um I think it was F and we we we're really trying to invite

010others to come in our schools it's one thing to talk about schools on social media but another thing to come and see it and so we we're definitely inviting anyone who would love to come on the tour with me I'll be a tour guide I'll walk you through the C c walk you through our our schools our our facilities and show you in person the great things that are going on in our schools other updates participated in school visits uh with board members West Milwaukee walker uh Frank lright elab Shark Tank presentations at Hoover and Mitchell attended the West alas rotary club meeting student advisory committee and I think we're going to be having our presentation schedule for SE uh April second I believe uh instructional round at jeffersona number one pack meeting principal advisory

011committee meeting all City orchestra concert I actually had the opportunity to uh to perform and um funny story about this one um look I it was intense I was trying to make sure I did not mess up that night playing the band and so um I know I did a good job because and I'm not bragging about myself my neighbor bragged about me he said I said yes sir Mr Tom he said play a hell of a bail I appreciate the comment but um also um Dr lexman and I we did a quick du it so it was a great night pizza parties at Wilson I I owed three classes of pizza party because they won in bingo at bingo night for PTA uh about two two months ago so I finally paid up so

012they reminded me that I had not paid up I had a meeting with MATC we we're continuing to talk about our future Partnerships and then lastly um you know I'm almost in tears talking about how proud I am of the central boys basketball team I if I didn't think um you know certain people were watching I probably will be crying right now uh Ju Just to be very very honest with you um you know going down this this traveling with them and and watching how they matured and and then to to see our students just represent us in the right way in the right Manner and and wishing and and cheering out our boys on was was definitely a thrill for me as a superintendent I happen to be the loudest one I believe in

013the stadium and it's okay the superintendent is the loudest one I was the one that was ringing the cow bell uh on Saturday and I just saw a parent in the store he said man you were ringing that Cowell I saw you on TV so it's all good but I was truly fired up as I as I walked out um unfortunately uh you know we did not come on top out on top on Saturday we lost by six points to Mark net and when I tell you uh I just can't I'm just over the hills proud of these these kids in the effort that they put up and at the same time uh they Carri the community on their backs and and that is a quote that came from a Community member as we walk

014to our cars she said to me as she was crying she says I'm so proud of them they Carri our school community on their backs and that that was a strong statement from her and I told her I was going to use that tonight as I talked about them hopefully we'll be able to get them at our next meeting to come and then the community can truly celebrate their accomplishments on on uh losing out in the section in fins finally we have our educators of the month that I want to recognize so I have to tell you a quick story about uh Mr Matt lesser Mr Matt ler if you know and visit his campus he he's he's all up in the work there's not a lot of things that happen on his campus without

015without him being aware of it okay but when we made the announcement an introduction that he was the the uh the educator of the month for February he didn't know about it and so as I walked in and I started talking during his meeting he had this look on his face like what in the world is going on and why why don't I know about it I saw the look on his face and he kind of backed up a little bit he's was kind of looking a certain way and so then when I announced that it was he was the educator of the mother he had this reaction like like wow like okay you got uh but I I'm so proud of him and the work that he's doing uh he he's he's Johnny on

016the spot he told me I have to leave here and go back to the school and get ready for ACT tomorrow that that's just Ma and so I want to formally recognize uh one of our educators of the month Mr Matt leser come on up Matt the cell I didn't get [Music] inv Oran very well congratulations there no I'm a second chair our final educator of the month is Lindsay Parker she's a English teacher from central high school and I don't believe she's here but I wanted to recognize her and her absence she was actually recognized and recommended by her students I I don't know of a more powerful compliment than to hear it from your students the dedication that she shows on a daily basis and making sure that they G what they need

017and the quality of Education that she provides on a consistent basis so I want to recognize Lindsay I'll Del little this on tomorrow to her so congratulations to to Lindy concludes my report record all right thank you very much so move on to uh it set public comments this evening uh currently there is no one signed up for public comments as because C I'll wait 15 seconds for anyone who might be in the room who wanted to provide public comments and wants to sign up in the back or anyone who is on Zoom there should be a link in the chat that allows you to sign up to do public comments all right not seeing anyone scrambling to the back right now in the room and no one has signed up online either so we'll

018close public comments at this time move on to item eight our board reports for this evening starting with 8.1 review of our Board calendar so today is uh Monday March 11th we have our regular Board of Education meeting then we have two college and cadness workshops one gifted inail program one on human growth and development immediately following we have a closed session meeting then Monday March 18th 6m we have school showcases Horus man Walker Elementary Nathan hail dokey and deeper learning Virtual Academy will be doing school showcases next week Monday then on Monday March 25th at 6 PM we VIR the Board of Education meeting and then a college ofous Workshop transitional education center redesign and then on Monday April 8th at 6 PM with work of the Board of Education meeting and then a

019financial stability in Workshop rep post 2425 budget andary tag L be number one moving on to our board committee reports starting with 8.2.1 College and Career Readiness Miss Carr thank you uh we the meeting was called to order at five o'clock to today before this meeting and we had two agenda items the first one was um we wanted to talk about senior privilege and so we took the opportunity to provide Laura Sage with specific data and information that we would like provided for the next meeting we gave her specifically five questions that we would like her to report back to us so stay tuned next time I report I will have that information and then um tonight we will be having a full workshop on gifted and talented and so uh the the committee got

020a sneak peek at a possible a recommended board policy that was shown to niola and Savon earlier and um that we might use when we vote at a later date and that is my report all right thank you very much does anyone have any questions for Miss car regarding her report or any suggestions for future agenda items seeing none thank you very much Miss Carr I'll move on to 8.2.2 our Communications and community relations report Miss steal all right so we met on February 26th um so first um that was our first meeting with uh Carolyn Han so she introduced herself as the new uh director of communications and engagement and just kind of provided a background on her educational experiences um we then had a referendum communication update so a new referendum flyer um

021is being worked on to provide her community members um so the emphasis of the flyer will be about investing in our people and our schools um a revised address list is being developed to make sure that all community members are receiving our mailed Communications um our district website um was also recently updated so it's easier to navigate um one one-page information sheets about the needs of each of our schools and or facilities are now available on the website along with a uh uh faq's frequently asked questions section uh we'll be adding 30 second videos to the website answering our most frequently asked questions all referendum information will be available in both English and Spanish and there are plans to have Administration and school board members at upcoming District events to answer Community questions about the

022referendum we also have three referendum sessions coming up April 16th May 1st and May 7th and mailers will be going out for that and then uh we just got an update on the newsletter platform migration so the district transitioned our newsletter over to the small uh platform uh feedback has been positive about the switch to the new platform as it provides translation into many different languages the platform is also live at all times so it's possible for uh District administration staff to do in time corrections to newslet that is my report thank you very much anyone have any questions from Miss de regarding her report or any suggestions for future agenda items for Comm seeing none thank you very much Mr deal I'll move to 8.3 board member report of community events do any community

023events where MERS attended Miss car I attended the youth art month kickoff at both the public library and the recreation department and I had you know the thing that really stuck out to me was first of all I enjoyed seeing four-year-old kindergarten represented all the way up through 12th grade it was amazing but the thing that really struck me is when you think of artists and you you think of drawings mainly and there were so much more to uh representing our students we had two-dimensional artwork three-dimensional artwork we had um things that were built of wire things that were um papier-mâché so many different mediums used and uh so I thought it was delightful and it was such a um you know um you know take I take my head off to the art teachers

024because they're the ones that really plann those experiences for our kids so it was Delight and then the other thing that I did was I went to Walker Elementary last week with um Dr Robinson and we did a walk through into all of the classrooms and it was it's really important for us as board members to get into the classrooms if we can um to really see what's going on at the day-to-day and um I I'm going to just say that as I was trying to think of a word that to describe the delivery of the instruction um it was it was sophisticated and and I I say that because being a teacher for all those years it was very sophisticated we they were so seamless in the way that they did they did whole

025group and seamlessly went into small group collaborative efforts partner efforts um individualized learning that always went back to that whole group instruction and for teachers in the room you know what that means and so I was really impressed and it was also um very much like throughout the whole building it wasn't just like a pocket of Excellence it was throughout the whole building and so really enjoyed that I'm andna try and do that more I love that pocket of Excellence that you just said yeah that's like our district y That's far like you know right I love that right thank you very much M car anyone else want to report on events that they attend I would excuse me I'd like to give a shout out to miss pluta and the St at Wilson they

026invited me over to read uh some Dr Seuss books so I had my cat and hat hat on and I had my red bow tie and I was all set to go I read from uh 10 o'clock until two o'clock there W it's been a long time since I've done that much talking yeah need a lot it was a lot of fun I'm sure I had more fun than the kids did very good thank you m second m no um I was actually able to go to a couple different things so I went also to the youth art U month reception actually I wasn't able to hit the uh Rec Center yet but I have been to the library and it was like Jane said it was it was it was phenomenal and all different

027types of mediums and it was just really cool to see a lot of families there and our art teachers there and the kids excited to you know point out their art and all of that so it's it's great if you haven't been there check out the library check out um the rec department some um really great representations of the of the Arts uh our students art um I also was able to volunteer at solone Ensemble um the second that was my first time doing it I was a little nervous but uh I think I did pretty well as a room monitor um I was not you know I did not play music or an instrument when I was a kid so this is kind of like living vicariously through my children so I really enjoyed

028it it was a lot of fun um it was really just our music department is phenomenal and they put together a really great event and it was really cool just to see all of them there and just really you know being there for their students and supporting them and like the the Middle School teachers you know guiding them in this is the kids's first time doing you know a solo so it was just really fun to do and then of course I attended the uh All City Orchestra then all City bandfest on Wednesday and Thursday um and once again I'm you know Blown Away by the the talent of our students it's always what I love about it is you get to see that progression like Mary you know Miss Michaels talks about how you

029see like they start in elementary and then they end in in high school and then they see them hear them all play together it's just it's and to do that to bring together what 16 schools and have them all playing sounds you know phenomenal it's just it's it's always amazing to me I always end up tearing up and my husband always like rolling his eyes at me but um it was it was a great experience so that's all I have to all right thank you Miss steel Mr Becker oh I made it out to the I saw the regional game with with the central boys basketball ball team a couple weeks ago uh really fantastic game uh it was absolutely worth the drive um and I don't think anybody mentioned I think Dr Robinson did

030not mention that we we heard from an administrator at that school at uh West oia Central uh who who commended us on our conduct on the players on on the crowd being being really Pleasant and cordial throughout so that was a really nice Testament to the community I thought um also made it uh walk through a couple schools uh did a full on a full instructional round I didn't duck out after an hour at Jefferson um so that was nice to see the the beginning where we started with data went through the classrooms had the observations Reflections and then to bring it all back in the end and to have just a a more Global reflection on the state of the school um I thought it's really great to see how uh from the building

031to the to the central Administration we're really thinking about how to support our teachers whether you know like everybody knows the story with each of these teachers in that building they know if it's a new teacher if it's a returning teacher uh I think it's really a great step in the in the right direction toward uh but really supporting them fully and helping them to do better work um also made it to the to the All City band concert and and just as everybody said it's always great to see and I was reflecting on that and comparing it to the to the basketball game I went to and like our our Arts system our Arts programs we kind take it for granted how well they function what flourishing programs they are um and just really

032looking forward to seeing more extra curricular is flourishing the same way with the right support all right thank you very much Mr Becker anyone else want to report any events they attended as always I go last um so there is one different thing I did I did attend Jefferson's presentation of learning and I was able to um uh listened to one student to tell how they designed their shoes now they they uh were responsible for thinking like a consumer and figuring out what was going to be about their shoes that would make them want to be purchased by somebody and what was unique about them and then there was a little red carpet where they got to uh like display their shoes in action and so I thought it was really great um I also

033was able to talk with the staff at Jefferson there too and they also commented on the improvements that they've been seeing since some of the changes have been made so I think that that's a a good Testament to hearing feedback and then providing um new support as needed for that so I thought it was a great great event um I also was able to uh attend the art showcase at the library and I think the greatest thing about this um other than just showcasing the work that our students is is having average community members who may have nothing to do with our schools being able to see that work so having it at the rec center and having it at the library I think is is a fantastic thing to do because lots of people

034go to those ations that may have no idea what's going on in our schools and they can they can see that work and that can make them start thinking about especially we're talking about something like a referendum where we're going to ask for support for our community uh to support our schools so I thought that was a great uh great event and hope that something will continue in spaces like that as we move forward I also attended so Ensemble um my son was was playing was able to listen to his ensembl um was running uh it was a busy day that day uh it was also uh conference wrestling was also that day so we were moving back and forth between Brookfield and here uh for him to do that so the the Franklin right

035team did a great at conference and then were're was able to do well uh watching the eighth grade and the pops strings perform as well at Soul Ensemble so again it's a testament to uh Mary Pat Michaels who puts who is responsible for organizing all of Soul Ensemble so that is an event that is held uh at at our district every year um because we have so many students that participate in it and then there's also an opportunity for area students who miss their regular solo Ensemble wherever that might be um to be able to come and participate with that as well so a kudos to her and all the volunteers that participate including M steel uh to be able to help that event go off without a hitch um so many judges so many

036room monitors and so many students were able to uh participate and I know Mary Pat will give us a uh a rundown of how many medals were gained after after everything has been tabulated uh then I also was able to attend the um All City Orchestra and band concerts um and there's not much more I can build upon what was said already but it is always a great Testament um it is a great opportunity as well for the community to um help support um Dr Lex's music scholarship which is what has there buckets that were being filled up and so that's something that's been continued on and always good to see Dr lexman still uh involved in that and obviously Dr Robson be able to participate as well and carrying on that transition with our

037superintendent uh so I think that's everything that I attended maybe I missed something but uh I try to get out there uh and then for 8.4 I don't have any uh additional updates at this time so move on to item nine our consent agenda this evening starting with 9.1 approval or minutes from regular Board of Education meeting on February 26 9.2 our employment summary and 9.3 our supplementary contracts does that mean anything separated out if not I'd look for a motion so moved second moved and seconded any last minute discussion all those in favor opposed all right that passes then move on to our action item this evening starting with 10.1 technical Excellence scholarship recipients Mr Carr welcome well thanks for having me this evening um this has become an annual thing uh the higher

038education AIDS board I began awarding this scholarship in 2016 and it's really a great opportunity for students who meet certain criteria um and I'll get into that in just a second to really um jumpstart their opportunity at the at one of our technical colleges it's strictly for students who are going straight into the technical college experience um and uh they have to meet criteria involving they're being in a at least a two-year sequence of instruction in a career in technical education program the singular program um uh they have to have been involved in one of our uh ctsos their uh Career and Technical uh student organizations that's hosta skills USA FCCLA fpla any of those um and from the pool of candidates that we uh that uh submitted applications and transcripts and we did the

039review uh we have four uh four students from each of our Comprehensive High Schools uh both Central and hail um who were selected to be recognized with this uh award three of those uh students are um going to get this scholarship scholarships uh $2,250 per year for up to three years it's a big chunk of change it pays for almost the whole of a um tuition boat for them so really is worth it um and so I'm I'm really pleased that uh we go through this process every year um Christine petski at Hae and Nate rice over at Central are instrumental in making this happen they go through the vetting process with us and uh our CTE teachers uh advocate for uh the scholarship with their seniors so it really it's a team effort you

040know I I um but I'm really pleased that from with all of that um I'm going to just say the kids' names because I think they um we invited them to be here this evening um not surprisingly a lot of the kids have jobs and they they're working right now so um from Nathan hail um Preston Connors he's planning to go to Milwaukee Area Technical College and go to barbering school there uh Kristen Fryar is also planning to attend Milwaukee Area Technical College in in culinary arts uh Joseph morowski uh is going to Milwaukee Area Technical College in culinary arts and Jaden sulfur uh is planning to go to WCTC Walkershaw Community Technical College and get into electrical engineering um from West Dallas Central High School we have Aliana given uh she's planning to go

041to Milwaukee Area Technical College and interesting wants to be a firefighter and get into EMT she's done the medical sequence um at uh West Central but she's going to take that em take a different route which I think is interesting Andre Diaz Owen uh is going to uh is currently going to wer Shaw Community Technical College and is really pleased that we're going to help pay for him to finish his diesel technician um not we but but we've given him the scholarship the uh higher education AIDS board is going to pay for it and then uh Emily Thompson is going to Milwaukee Area Technical College um and is interested in getting to Medical Diagnostics which is uh fascinating kind of uh aspect of the the area uh medical field um our alternate from Central uh

042is Johan Diaz uh he's also going to Milwaukee Area Technical College and is also going to be an electrical engineer um you know it's interesting how this all shakes out um we've had students who've come back and and been very thankful and appreciative and I always say it's well you're you're welcome but it's not us it's you know it's you uh making the effort to to uh actualize yourself in these career Fields so uh thank you for giving me the opportunity to recognize our students uh in this uh in this tees Endeavor and uh do you have any questions anything that I can go ahead one um did did we just not get any applicants from dokei or is it only any it's a really good question um the way that they tell us who

043they're um who we can submit and they uh because of both high schools are a thousand or more um we have three uh candidates and a um an alternate so that's the largest group DOI has not they didn't grant us any positions for docky they didn't say that that we for whatever reason um and and frankly um because of the way the criteria are for the scholarship you have to be a com uh a concentrator in a sequence of instruction um in a career and technal education program we will eventually get to the point where we can put in for them to do that up to this point we haven't had students who completed a concentrate have a concentrator status they pull that straight out of our Skyward system so that goes into our um

044yeah our wise profile and they just don't there there's no one there to really offer the opportunity to but we're going to get there because we're sharing uh our students at DOI with uh Central and hail and since we already now we have The Culinary Kitchen next year they'll have the opportunity to have a completer a concentrator profile so that's going to show up so that's good I figured there was a reason but to ask absolutely any other questions from the board I look for a motion otherwise moved second moved in seconded all those in favor post right that passes thank you thank you very much appreci sir yep all right so move on to 10.2 uh approval of the referendum survey with Mr Norris so Mr Foster is going to be jumping on Zoom

045here so Brandon's getting them connected right now second I'm there down I see I see Bill on there he's on there okay perfect are we ready to go can you hear me okay well while those circulate around those are the updated versions I want to just thank the team that's been working on this we last visited the board about a month ago the first meeting in February to discuss kind of the draft version and in the true form of a workshop to kind of go through with the board kind of what the initial thinking was kind of the elicit strategy and then discuss kind of timeline in that so um with that I think I'll turn it over to you Mr Foster to start with the timeline and we can go through that briefly before

046jumping into the full-blown survey all right can you hear me can you hear me testing testing hello hello we can hear you we can hear you okay thank you all right um so let's go through timeline first and does everyone have a copy of the timeline or should I you can see that okay um so in a nutshell we're already to March um March 11th um tonight's the night the board reviews the survey actually for the second time if the board approves it tonight um we can send it out for external proofing takes a day to get it back uh we would then send it out for printing and mailing and uh our goal would be to have the survey land right after spring break on April 4th um the survey will be in addition

047to snail mailing the survey to every household in the district um we will also email it to parents for their convenience because we have their emails and then with a deadline of April 22nd um and then it's going to take us a few weeks to create the report and the goal would be to be back in front of the board on May 20th to present the survey results the board then has really the month of June and July to decide if there's support to do anything and if so what would you consider and then ultimately your resolution has to be approved by I believe it's August 27th in order to have a referendum on the ballot come no November any questions on timeline good all right then on the survey itself U we um I

048thought that the board meeting we had last time was actually quite helpful and uh so we integrated a lot of that feedback back into what you're viewing now I think which is draft number 16 um the big changes there were that we wanted to move up um the language that the consolidation of the high schools is not being considered at this time um and that there's two primary um challenges one being the school funding budget shortfall and the uh second being the Aging buildings and that was those were the big ones are you okay with the opening letter any questions on that here's here's what's been happening then transitioning into kind of what this isn't because I know we've heard a lot of feedback around what this ref is this ref item the same as

049before and so like I think getting it out there right away uh we talked internally and I certainly the feedback from you guys was like it's like important to say that early and then leading that into the rest of the survey I think uh is helpful to combat that narrative I think so oh then on page two this actually changed quite a bit on page two um so the the big change here was I think uh Noah's suggestion I don't you know if people support this I don't want to end up still being at um as one of the lowest funding funded um districts in our neighborhood create two options for folks so basically that led us down the road to have option one which would provide that $4 million um even if that was

050approved it would be still be second lowest compared to our neighboring districts and so what we came up with was a $5.8 million operating referendum that if approved uh would put us in the middle of our peer group and then from that we then calculated the corresponding tax impacts U for each of those those two options and then we asked um what option if any would you support there's quite a bit of discussion about that I was concerned about um getting a successful referendum that doesn't achieve the goals of having a referendum in the first place which is retaining staff that at least this portion of it is to retain staff yeah so I pushed that and I appreciate the work to figure out what that number would be because we didn't know it was

051a guess I guessed six million so I wasn't too far off um and to really have something that if it gets approved obviously the Sur will tell us the the community support that but the point is to keep staff so getting four million to just kind of keep us where we are it's and I hope that comes across I want to make sure the language is kind of clear on that that yeah let's do four million that just keeps us where we're at it makes us not worse basically because other other districts will most likely pass referendum if they don't pass them in April they'll be passing them in in uh in uh November with ours so we could really get far behind and really be in a bad situation if we don't get something

052on the board but um I think this language is clear in that to show that if we do four we're still second worse we do 5.8 we're in the mid middle I think and that gives us the opportunity to compete that's really what we need to focus on we need to compete for talent and this I think would allow us to do that at least at least in the short term defending what else gets passed sure and this is the time to ask right the community what would you support and ultimately if they say no then that'll be a discussion you guys can have around what we do moving forward so I don't think there's this is there's no harm in asking here this is the time right to find out what the community wants

053and what their appetite is so and I think when you're having your individual discussions with people to make sure to point that difference out it's not just because we just want to pay teachers as much as we possibly can it's about our ability to retain talent talent that we in many instances have trained and provided the experience for and then lose other districts that can pay them more so we really want to retain that Talent here in our districts we can reduce that turnover and keep those good structures here all right move on then to the next page uh yeah so page three is I don't think there's a lot of changes here this was the cost cutting section so this would give the board um in I guess relative order if there is not

054support for a referendum then what what what rocks do we look under to uh make Cuts uh this is pretty much the same list I believe we reviewed last time at the board meeting and it speaks of academic support mental health student counseling so that say student support services so second from the bottom ACS uh student Support Services yeah yeah okay we can make that change thank you Kristen any other questions on page three all right page four is simply really uh background information um and what we did there was we went out to each school and added that column of the high priority maintenance needs so people could see how much money was being proposed at each of the schools as well as the total maintenance needs at each of the schools which really

055creates a context for when we're asking for um the 111 million or less than that just kind of how it would be allocated and then there is a link provided that for folks that want more detailed information of exactly how that money would be spent um that uh there is a link that uh takes people back to the website for more information I it's because we replaced a lot of the lighting with the energy updates that we had I mean I know there's still probably some lighting that needs to be replaced but I believe most lights in all of our school buildings were updated tele delay yeah nearly all yeah so I think maybe take that off as an option okay because I could see someone saying hey didn't you just do this I need

056to do it again yeah just replace the light bulb already You' done with it okay just wondering I am I'm back on this cost putting wage W in the first one again specifics should the district increase class sizes and reduce staff why teaching staff okay should we just say staff are we I I feel like you know there are a lot of people that might be affected Beyond just teaching teachers sure I don't know just sta is yeah what I would right that's good one yeah I agree I can add that any other feedback on page three four five what's that any other feedback on from page three4 five good good comment so far and I think if if not we're on to page six which is facility funding support we had dollar signs to

057this the middle column yeah page four you mean on page and and um I think two Bill if you see that page four the middle column to be consistent with total maintenance needs good feedback I will add those y that's certainly doable good catch all right then on page six is the prioritization exercise um against the scale of addressing immediately important but addressed in future projects and not a priority uh really the goal of this page is really twofold one is to educate folks on the sorts of things that we need to do this is not this is not fancy stuff this is um literally um bricks and roofs and things like that um and uh so the exercise will be to ask people to kind of help try to prioritize those things and at

058the same time learn about what we're proposing at each in each of those what I would call a bucket this list is much more narrowed down to support some of those Focus areas that we found from the community already so this will be just another area where you know the community gets a chance to kind of weigh in what are their priorities and then certainly should the board approve a resolution part of the work this summer will be to put a plan by school together that meets the needs of these go these these these areas of uh facility Focus so go now one question about the the air conditioning piece is this dollar amount only for updating existing air conditioning systems or is this for adding also adding air conditioning to buildings that don't have

059it at all yeah I asked that question to Steve and CG Smith this this dollar amount is inclusive of adding to other buildings as well so yeah um then it might be worth putting that so that it's not just up because because we're talking a lot of this is is fixing updating things we that already exist sure that would involve adding something that doesn't exist so maybe just imp parentheses after air conditioning air handling units including adding new to building without existing or something to that effect I air handling units and air conditioning at all schools huge point that people have multiple times we got positive feedback on the first question around HVAC upgrades and air conditioning so people seem to think that that is a need so I think maybe splitting the hairs there

060is important so the dollar amount that we're looking at the dollar amount that this would maybe entail sure it could be a very good thing to do immediate impacts on sure both staff uh and students as what's happening in our schools sure we all know how warm it can be the beginning of the end of the school year yeah okay I've got that anything else on page six right hearing none we're going to go on to page seven which is a essentially a tax tolerance question so the the case has been built built that we've got in excess of it's actually 111 but more than 105 um and uh a total of 275 million of potential projects so we're ask asking people what amount would you support assuming the projects included were acceptable use starting

061at 45 million which is what we learned from the first survey going all the way up to right now 105 which still wouldn't cover the entire high priority list by close that when you include the $50 million discussion and the f$4 million operating piece it was a little bit too rich so scaling down to 45 gives people the opportunity like yeah we're we're being consistent with what we heard back and giving people the option to select something that their tax appetite would like meet so and then again scaling all the way up to kind of where our needs really are today which is about 105 million so again this is giving people options and not you know trying to bring include as opposed to exclude so that's kind of the thinking all right on the

062no changes on the Dem graphic page and no changes on the overall satisfaction questions again those are normed and used on virtually every Community survey we do and then on the last page the mailing panel um we did schedule three informational sessions and are promoting those um during the survey they'd be April 16th May 1st and May 7th and then we're also making accommodations for the survey in Spanish and I can't read those other languages I know we but I know there were three languages we we wanted and uh so we're making a combination for those three I'm not sure what they are and then a deadline I know Noah had a question so feel free to jump in wherever Noah I'm I'm just thinking about um so talking about school funding and EG buildings

063that's operational and capital yep I don't know if we want to tie those words to those things and then make sure that as you're moving through the survey that you know that this part is about the operational part and this part is about the capital part because when you look at page like page four facility changes like Capital like in the header you mean like pointed out you like on the first page you're saying Ag buildups and you're talking about this in parentheses Capital you're talking about school funding and parentheses operational because count these Pages wish they were yeah like on page two the top we do Define it there but you mean like being more explicit in the actual page about what that is that you may know it says facility funding support property

064tax increase for each referendum amount makes seem like you're talking about all the referendum but if fact you're only talking about facilities yeah and so I don't want people to be confused thinking like I support 45 million toods sure instead of 45 million for Capital and you know .8 million for for funding schools sure what are you guys' thoughts like on page four five and six just after each header so like page four top it says facility challenges you could put in parentheses like cap capital reference like Capital question or C something like that and then on each page it had the same thing and then on page two really would be like school funding operational yes yes that way like it's keeps it very simp at the top I don't know so so they

065can see the difference and they know that looking at two separate things that are two dollar amounts that would be added together sure essentially at both right I just want to make sure that's very clear to people no I think that's a good that's a good piece of feedback thank you other final questions or thoughts we we're hoping that the the plan in just so you guys can kind of connect these two here the last page where it shows the Community spring engagement sessions essentially some some of the intent here is that the first crack in April we can we can talk about each one will'll talk about the five question question your results I want the community to know that even if you think this might not be you may not support this there

066are a lot of people that do and so like bringing people in to explain that's important but then also getting an opportunity to talk about this like you have a chance to take this please engage with us so part of the messaging what we'll do prior to spring break to invite people with a postcard of this is to talk about that like please engage with this we need more feedback we want to talk about you know to have to layer them together then in May when Bill comes back with his full report you know to see kind of how things have changed or what hasn't or things like that so really looking forward to that I'm looking at the calendar and I'm just wondering because it does end in November with the referendum um would

067there be a third opportunity for um community these sessions like in the fall yeah yeah they'll def they'll certainly be yeah yeah so once we get a question board has decided on a question then that's when we're like this is what we're doing we'll know exactly what thing we picked for Capital dollar amount is for school fund and what we're going to use those things for and then then it's again the information this this is what it's for this is why we need it and so right now it's to get it's trying to get that feedback and then once we get all that feedback okay we heard from you this is what think you guys would be willing to support this is what we decided on here let me talk to you now that this

068is going to be on the ballot like where right now there's nothing on the B there nothing guaranteed to be on the Balon at this point okay yeah preliminarily teren that we talked about like you know that's where like the ground game starts right in the fall and Terence had the town halls last year maybe there's a a similar version of that at each school or something like that followed by canvasing events and things like that so trying to meet people or they're at right we're inviting them to come out and then you got to meet people who aren't coming out where they're at so that's that's going to be the goal so or electronic signs having information about when we're having sessions ATS people d by they can see them like basically as many

069different ways as possible to notify people about this I don't want to hear from anybody that they didn't know that there was a referendum unless they've just been in a coma they just woke up and they just realized that there's an election going on so that's only only acceptable excuse in my mind from what we're looking at trying to do yeah um kind of keeping with your thought on having the capital and operational obvious would it be wise to repeat the capital and operational and actual check box option in the blue box which page that yeah I wouldn't go there and then page six yeah like right here Brandon on the screen kind of like at the bottom right there yeah right in there so like in the which operating option option which operational option

070that's pretty just to help reiterate that this is a separate question I don't unless bill you B thoughts I don't think that'll be like we talk about landscape like the how much geography you have on these pieces I don't think that'll change anything we're push it to Page Three so I think that's perfectly consistent what we're trying to do again being very transparent and clear this is for this reason which can be directly tied to whatever that's for so yeah that's that's good thank you brenon would it be would it be helpful to State somewhere that that you can support one or the other or both or neither you know what I mean like we were talking about two questions you could vote Yes on one and no on the other you could vote Yes

071on both you vote no on both sure and so sometimes I think people think it's an all or nothing thing when you're putting everything together like I have to either I have to be agree with and I'm board with the taxes on everything or nothing and so if I'm not on board with everything then I'm just going to say no I'm not gonna I'm not going to support it at all sure so there's any way that we can put like clear language in there that basically states that these are two questions that are independent and you vote on them independently okay I wonder if in this box it said I would not support an operating referendum ah because then it's not any do you see the difference here what I'm talking about like it's hard

072to see I know I just wonder if maybe that is the the specifics you're looking at I don't know I'm just wondering I that was yeah there might be people who don't care about our buildings but they do care about teach yeah I think that's the data you guys are going to want to see in may like how many people supported option one of the operating question versus wouldn't support it at all vers you know what I mean it kind of like if you supported 5.8 you'd probably support four like that's you're going to be do the same thing we just did about a month ago you know what I mean um is that yeah okay just I know people aren't paying too close attention they is they see a big number like there's no

073way I can support that they just don't even go sure and so I just want people to understand that you know we are two questions and we are looking for separate answers they're not together yeah um so that they like you I can't do that man I really want to help the staff work you know right sure uh I really think we need to update the school so yeah I'll stretch a little bit but man I don't I can't do them both you know so I want to think that they have to commit to both basically by bying specific things on so if we can add if that if we can fit that in there I think so I mean we can support certainly change the box sizes too or something shift that line can

074format that a bit Yeah lines on I know it's in the middle right now but maybe just make it lopsided so you can fit it in and then the same thing for the when you get to the facility yeah yeah right here too any I think the word any might be could be misleading you know yeah so yeah catch I appreciate you guys like diving in and going Beyond inch deep because the people that you guys speak to are the people that are goingon to go hey hey what's this Jen car you know you know and so if you you've gone through every page it's like well what page are you referring to and Jane's reading it off the top of her head at this point right so I appreciate you guys doing that because

075it's helpful and we want people to be informed that's kind of been this this the the theme of this this referendum is just information and so we want people to be informed and I think this is just another way to do that so you know it's got to be repeated yeah it's GNA feel like we're saying it a million times and we're bothering people but that's just going to have to be there yeah yes yeah yes yeah so are we approving the timeline and the survey together that's that's at this point that's what I'm looking for is approval of both with your feedback obviously going to be included with the Amendments that we discussed if you guys are comfortable with that second any last minute discussion on this is anyone have any other questions or

076concerns or things they want to discuss now we're talking Printing and all other sort of stuff so we kind can't go back y so we're good so we have a motion we have a second as amended right as amended all those in favor post thank you much you for your work on this as well um good all right so we diving right into our Workshop that finishes our business portion of the meeting uh so we have our first Workshop 11.1 giit in talent and programming thank you thank you thank you cool thank you way I'm just GNA grab a water so need to give like a stand up instruction I know let everyone get their get s we good okay um so just a little introduction this evening um to get going with the first

077Workshop gifted and talented uh we are looking for two things we are looking to adopt a program in gifted and talented and currently we do not have a policy and so we're also going to be taking a look at a potential policy which so far has been reviewed by niola and actually just before the meeting when I got called up here uh that was uh because it has been run by legal and so we've already made some shifts and changes to that so that'll be our new draft uh policy that you'll see on slide six in the presentation this evening Dr Robinson's going to be doing some introducing and then Dr Greece and Kim K will be letting you know what our plan is for our programming so I'm going to kick us off lead

078off here tonight with this particular presentation throughout the the fall listening and learning sessions a lot of the feedback that I received were a lot of concerns about our gifted and talented um program and uh the need to S of revise it put put more emphasis on it as well as uh in increasing the the number of students in the programs and dis quality overall so we've done uh the team has done an extensive job and trying to make sure that we look at what research shows also trying to uh model and uh look at examples that are out there kind of put my two sense in a little bit in the experience I have with gifted and talented but I also but I want to kind of start us off with uh with as

079always with the Strategic plan and uh en tying it into um success in life through uh College and Career Readiness our Learners are empowered to demonstrate evidence of deeper learning competencies across multiple measures so they our college career and life ready and some some of those multiple measures in this particular goal would definitely be within the GT component so uh the goal is to develop an extensive program plan that explains all of the processes and and procedures is for approved and accessible on all food District websites so what I what I'm I'm going to pass it on to the team I'll come back towards the end and talk about specifically professional development it's one thing uh to really create a a program but it will fail if we don't provide professional development for staff so

080I think that's a key component that I'll I'll kind of hone in on towards the end but at this particular point I'll shut up and I'll allow the ladies to go through the presentation thank you I think one of the other pieces to Just note is the terminology gifted and talented that is directly from dpi's language so we want to make sure that what we are the terms we are using are matched with dpi's language and what they're asking us to do so the state so the state of Wisconsin has um two um statutes that pertain to GT um this is the first um it gives the definition of gift and talented in the state of Wisconsin as well as um that every District um has to have a program plan in place Additionally the

081state of Wisconsin has Administrative Code um that states that um that every district has have a GT coordinator in place running the program as well as guidelines um for us as to that Al guidelines as to all identification guidelines for all students so here is that propos proposed board policy fresh off the press this afternoon at about six o'clock still in draft um but just so that you can sort of see that it is here for you um and so we as part of our program plan are proposing this policy um which is in draft right now um that really focuses on the programming for our GT students um and it will focus on um sort of what those programs are for our students as well as that we would use multiple measures for assessment

082measures for identification so those are kind of a piece of the Highlight as well as the student acceleration would be um part of that policy and sort of the guidelines that we would use when we are looking to accelerate a student either by subject or grade level um and that would sort of come out of our GT Coordinator would then sort of have those discussions and make sure that all that criteria has been met if we were to accelerate a student and so we are um this has looked at dpi's language as well as like our the lawyer has looked at this just to make sure that everything is there um and so we will look for this um approval of this policy later this spring when we bring all of it forward do you

083have a question Amy so I know they cut out a huge part of the policy since we met as a committee I think that it's important though it's the beliefs I understand I'm I'm guessing I'm kind of thinking I have an idea why saon suggested taking it out I think it needs to be part of somewhere in our student handbook so I think it's important that it outlines what we believe as a district and providing kids who are in our gifted intelligence program so from what I understand it's recommended that that be more part of the program versus the actual yeah okay all right okay so our GT philosophy here is that we um service all students kindergarten through 12th grade in all areas of giftedness um and those criterias are multiple criterias we'll go

084through them all with you in just a little bit so this just kind of looks at some of the changes that we have made already this year and that we will continue to kind of move forward throughout our program plan so really the biggest goal is that um for our GT program is that we are challenging all students and their learning every single day like we do want it to be happening every day for those students that we're moving them forward and in order to to do that we have moved from that pullout methodology where there may be serviced once to two three times a week depending on when Staffing was available to more of an inclusive everyday programming model which is daily in the class rooms where students are being getting what they need

085at their right level and so we're really looking to do that we've expanded our mlss process um to include GT and we'll show you a model of what that sort of looks like we are have moved from servicing students in third grade through 12th grade to kindergarten through through 12th grade which is based on the um State Statute um and that acceleration is an option at any level and so we are looking at where students levels are and accelerating when necessary um and we've also just made sure that there's that collaboration between our gifted and talented Department our special education department student services and our schools it's a large collaboration to to make sure that we're servicing the whole child and um we've also ensured that our teachers are supported through this process with enrichment

086materials and professional development so that has already started this year and Dr Robinson will talk about how that will continue moving forward with the adoption of the program plan so with our changes already this year we've heard some positive feedback from parents um a parent from Wilson States um the GCT program offered this year is a significant over previous years the new level of classroom engagement better serves my kids unique needs and talents so we are hearing some positive things and so sorry the wording is a little blurry on that slide but when we look at our mlss model and know that in the center there is our Universal instruction so we are really looking to know that that's where we service most students within that Universal level tier one is another terminology you might

087have heard um and so we've sort of expanded that model previously we've had the target instruction intensive instruction and specially designed instruction like in that format of adding layers of support for our students who are struggling and this year we've expanded in the opposite direction and we're providing extended instruction and accelerated instruction those layers of support when students are in need of something more and so that's already been in place through our problem solving um meetings in our schools where our where cim will go and meet with those teams to provide like that expertise and like things that can be done in order to extend instruction differentiate instruction as well as accelerate instruction if needed so overall our um identification process um starts with universal screeners those um are tested three times a year fall

088winter spring um then um those students who score at the 95th percentile or above um are added to a if they're if they're hit the 95th percentile one or two times they're added to a watch list those students who um have hit the 95th percentile three consecutives um they would be um put through some additional assessments um that would start with our referral form that parents and teachers could fill out um the scales which is what you have in front of you um would be used yep questions now or after you can jump and that's okay in step two who's administering the um the assessment this the scales assessment or the yeah um that is a collaboration with Kim and the classroom teacher and really depending on the area all teachers that that student sees

089so the scales you'll see it it looks at the whole child so um and then um so the writing scales will be part of that and then after the additional assessment um would be completed it it would be anal it would be analyzed by the GT department and then a school-based team made up of gift and talented coordinator teachers parents um and staff would collaborate to define the best program for that child um students who um work accelerated in any way would have a d written a differen differentiated education plan um for those students um to really outline what their program plan States um it's hold on one second I want to make sure did you have a specific concern or reason why you ask question yeah so um and I think you're going to

090talk about um staff development and and how we're going to get our teachers able to do this so again I have to ask just one question because so we don't have GT teachers anymore we have we have a coordinator correct and we're not going to have a specific GT or are we we will talk about this we'll talk about that yeah we'll talk about that inom teacher supported by you so so what we're what we're the model that we're going the model that we're going through is to train teachers in the GT components okay so it won't be just one teacher who's GT trained in multiple teachers we're hoping that every single teacher at some point will have GT training okay okay I'm I'm gonna listen with an open mind I'm just wondering if for

091DPI like like where I teach our high fers we call them tier one plus here it says tier three so tier tier three are the highest yes tier one is universal only take oh okay High School does it differ okay tier one is universal is is like a is like an enrichment and tier three is are those are those kids who need something a lot more oh see my school is clearly opposite so okay want to make sure I this is a I I understood that thank you so then um moving on to the teacher or um caregiver referral form so part of that um is a is a virtual or um like a survey like a questionnaire Google form yeah a Google form um it encompasses all areas of giftedness because we don't want

092to forget some of the parts of giftedness so we look at the whole child um um and it's a ranking um around every area of giess so the scales which is what you have in front of you um um it looks at for a variety a variety of characteristics associated with qualities of giftedness um it focuses on the whole child um the rating skills are filled out by a team of teachers um and um um it looks at all areas of giftedness you'll see in your pages so each page kind of is an area of giftedness in the scales um these are all the different rating skills that are in your booklet I just wanted to comment that this is the top tier when it comes to testing I worked for Dr vuli Dr Reese

093and Dr sley at Yukon I worked for them for three years and I took their courses in graduate school I went to confer 2 and like I'm very excited my saw zulie because they are the top tier everything when it comes to gift and talented so I'm very very happy we saw that makes me happy to see their faces so um we we're um identifying all the five areas that are illegally bound to identify these are the five areas that that we are identifying for the first area is General intellect um a student who is General usually has an advanced in all areas um most often ided by the by an IQ test are School SES will be taking care of those um IQ testing specific area is a second area um a student who

094has has a specific area of giftedness um usually hits two um areas of academics um and usually identified through Universal screeners and sometimes sages the sage test um is an assessment that looks at all areas of giftedness um it also looks at um verbal and non-verbal as well um the academic tests are together Math and Science language arts and social studies are together and that would be administered by the GT staff creativity um area number three a student who is creative is not just an artistic creative kid um often um as we often think about them um Creative Kids are um those kids who think out of the box um have a lot of great ideas um they're ID through a Torrance creativity test um administered by the GT Department um the Torrance test um

095measures students ability to think outside the box um it measures their fluency flexibility and original thinking um the GT Department admin is the test it's scored by the Torrance Test Company leadership area number four a student who is gifted in leadership assumes responsibility makes decisions and um influences others um this will be ID through a portfolio that students submit on their evidence um of their activities and letters of recommendations from outside area number five is um visual Performing Arts um a student who is gifted with visual Performing Arts expresses themselves through feelings S Mode um of Dance Art drama and music um they're ID through a portfolio of student evidence um in either art music or performance those those portfolios will be um the open time will be will be open them to twice a

096year um and that experts in that area will be will be looking at them we also understand that students can be double exceptional and um so that's important to add um double e are students who have a special at IEP as well as an area of giftedness in these areas um this special department works closely with GT Department um creating a plan that's appropriate for that child we also understand that um both parents and students need some special support sometimes who are gifted um we have started this this work um currently we are sang trained um we're going to be offering sang trainings for um parents um actually they're s community group say stands for the supporting the emotional needs of gifted um for parents teachers at some point um and um we have started

097to offer social emotional groups um we're piloting right now at Frank play right um adding the rest next year so professional development before I kind of get into the nuts and bolts of this I just want to kind of lay out some uh some important differences in the direction that we're going into uh versus kind of what we've been um I tell you the inclusion model provides for uh more rigorous instruction inside of the classroom okay versus pulling the kid out and the kid missing other things it it provides that inside of the B uh with with that particular instruction you're also allowing other students to get get that as well so it's not just kind of isolating things but um the only way that we're going to increase performance is to increase our rigor

098inside of our classrooms that's the the true idea behind it uh is to increase that within our our specific rooms how do we do that it's a huge task because it is uh really a change in the way that we've done it okay uh I was trained in in GT uh instruction and I'm GNA datee myself probably it was 2002 okay um it was a long time ago but but I when I tell you it was some of the most powerful professional development that I've ever had I'm not uh exaggerating when I say that so I don't take this particular part lightly I think it's probably one of the more important components in order for this to be successful like our teachers have to be prepared to go to into War battle classroom whatever uh

099example you want to you want to give they have to be prepared for that and uh in order to provide our students to type of instruction they need they have we have to give them the tools to be successful and so what the what the proposal is to create minimum of two cohorts this summer these two cohorts would go through uh one in June and one in July so those those individuals who are going on vacation in June sign up for the one in July those who are going in July sign up for the one in June we are prepared to compensate those individuals for doing this in the summertime okay uh not only are we prepared to compensate prepared to provide them um the the instruction professional development over several um of the topics

100that are listed here okay really targeting and focusing on the depth and complexity of I want to hone in on that that part that's where you're talking about uh for us old school people here Bloom's taxonomy and teaching at the highest levels of balloons versus at the bottom the the lower levels where we're more comfortable but our kids deserve to be taught at the higher levels of of uh blooms and complexity uh and then bringing both cohorts together in August when our teachers come back having a specific day sort of a launch day for both carts to be together and then uh also the continual professional development throughout the year uh where we're providing supports from our from the walkthroughs and seeing where we are and seeing what changes are are adjusts we need to

101make to make sure that we're we're meeting those levels uh within uh the gifted intal of oppon that's in a nutshell professional development I say I say that um tried to wrap it up but it's robust it's robust it's not a it's not going to be a Light Lift is said heavy lift who we are currently looking for outside Consultants to come in and provide this okay yeah Miss Carr I'm G stop stop right there miss Carr come on let's talk question so you know um all right so let's look at our model for um our our special needs we've really probably got a great model going don't we and we we stop the pull out of you know pulling out the you know for special need kids and pushing in and working together in

102Tandem and what a lovely model and and everybody takes ownership of that child and I'm not seeing that for the gifted the gifted I'm seeing the teacher doing it I want to know who's going to be supporting that teacher in other words you don't ask a general surgeon to do heart surgery right but you know like they're there with you in the operating room but that that person has to be there so 40 and I I don't I don't see that with this model even if so now you you I go and I'm there in July and I take in all this information um and I'm like oh this is really great now I'm might have some tools in my toolkit and I'm GNA go what is this a program is this a what is

103it that we're we're going to be equipping our teachers with we're we're we're trying to equip our teachers with the skills to provide high quality rigorous instruction on a consistent that anyway that's tier one instruction well I mean everybody should be doing that but but more focus on at the highest levels stuff okay okay so that's where I think the integration or the differences are going to occur or expected to occur uh I I personally think a lot of the the the the work that we're doing around Project based learning are learning competitions we're already at the cusp of a lot of these things guys we really are we're kind of ahead of the curve I think it's all about putting everything together though and I will tell you that pulling kids out kind of

104inconsistently hasn't been really providing you know age we agree on that right I program it's broken yeah so I I think this is the the model I I will tell you that um from personal experiences I I've worked with this model for well over two decades okay this is the model I I think as far as looking at what what works research shows this is probably the better approach to take okay as a fourth grade classroom teacher who last year had a fourth grader scoring in Collegiate level math it's doable you do have to have support you have to have training but like you know HC based learning I currently have three students in my class who are off the charts gift and in math but what we do is my my thing is I

105take a little extra time to make sure I'm prepping for them there's tons of resources out there for you know extension activities based on what you're learning about the girls stay for five minutes in my classroom they hear the for opening of the class because I want to make sure they know where we are um they do Beast Academy during Intervention which is a really nice high level math program um but my thing is when I'm differentiating for these high level kids five minutes they stay with me to get the general idea I give them a problem the day related to the work and then they go work on their extension project let me tell you what I got three boys now who want to be with them I said got to do the work

106so it's nice having in the classroom because those kids I'm not Hands-On with them because they want the high fight they also want to do it themselves most of them want to do it although there are some Underachievers in the general GT world but you know it's doable and it's exciting to find those extensions for the kids so this is doable like just like I have to teach my tier three kids or which is the opposite for but my low level my low kids you have we just do it and if you're given supports and we're given training which is not what I've had I I'm lucky that what you work since the ruli but if we're giving these things I think you're gonna get a lot of excitement and here it says we're gon

107have a GT site coordinator at each school so you'll have a point person to talk to and we'll have we have a coordinator so I don't think this is above and beyond it's almost like as a teacher give me this because oftentimes we're looking everywhere to find information to support our High Flyers and it's just always every year you have parents advocating as they should I'm advocating for my son all the time but what's nice is with this I'm very excited that there are professional developments going on because we need that Lifeline you know what I mean am I making sense at all y yeah okay good for that Insight yeah the other piece I will add to is that alongside that it's not just the teacher having to go out and search for things

108so Kim has been working very hard in addition to working through our program plan this year to develop like a bank of different things like that teachers can go to and there's videos so we have it's called bird seed TV where there's videos that teachers can use to for themselves to for professional development but also things they can use with their students we also have been piloting Beast Academy um with our students in the area of math as just another option that we would have available that can be used in the classroom that students can be doing and so Kim has also been meeting when students are the teachers are bringing students like problem solving meetings as part of the mlss process Kim is there with that expertise to say here are the strategies and

109things that you can try so she is willing to continue to be a part of those meetings right and be at one person she's been in all of our schools this year in those meetings helping support our students so it can be when you have the person with the expertise of the coordinator and then having those site-based people I think a two is also really important to have that um acceleration piece in place um we really want our kids to be in a classroom that's that's at their level and sometimes the acceleration is what we need um the administration here has been very open to that it's been a very good experience um yeah I think um that's that's key and that's been successful and I guess keep in mind when you're saying like similar

110to our model for special education um you know there's five areas of GT right like so we are going to have like our our teachers as a part of this and we are going to have so it it kind of depends on what's that specific area as well that that we're building that Community around the kids as well as that that the individual plan for that student I think is also an important politic right um where I I just think that our GT kids are often forgotten about not plan for I think this is a an intentional effort to to definitely plan to meet their needs I I I wish I could take credit for this presentation I had absolutely nothing to do with it but it it matches a lot of my my research

111as well as my experience so I'm in full support knowing uh what what works when it comes to this but I will also tell you guys this is a we we're in a fight right now to keep our GT kids so that tells you that what we've been doing just has not work worked or met the expectations of parents so this is a direct result of some of the feedback that we've received and kind of going back to TA saying okay what are we doing is it working if it's not working and what do we do now this is what we are with this I was going to say the same thing it feels like we're raising the bar and it only makes sense to to keep raising the bar across the board um but

112but to miss car's Point um have we are we getting feed back from uh from the teachers presumably some are hearing a little bit about it and providing feedback are they are they generally amendable to the to the in-classroom model yeah it's really a lot of Education right and talking through them I haven't I've been working with teachers all year I haven't had any naysayers um I've we've been teaching together or working together to collaborate but um I haven't heard any any any negativ this so I mean I think this is long overdue um I think it only makes sense we have fewer teachers now not more and it's getting harder and harder to find staff and so to be able to go back to the days when we had a plethora of teachers to

113pick from um to fill every position that we had open may never happen again unless some major things change in how education is funded in our state and so I think that um although I understand and appreciate this is going to be more work on the average staff member who does the work initially but once they hope the hope is that once they get that Baseline knowledge and understanding of how um how to identify and then how to support those students in their classes that it will make their job easier because they aren't doing it on their own or or just not doing it then the kid is bored and then actually being distraction to the rest of the classroom because they're you know like I don't know how to do this I don't need

114to do this anymore yes to Resource spot you know what I mean like so we don't have to search down or like other you know like I'm just right now looking at the GI and talented Center there's resources in there and there's parent support groups which I think people really um don't know about like parents kind of feel like they're spreading water for their child that they're advocating for so I'm glad that you that's specifically in there yep so I I am I was trained this year in Sayang I'm a m I'm a trainer so soon when we have to have two people um trained to offer Community groups once our second person is trained we will start offering Community groups to families that's great so I think the community groups are are doubly good

115because number one parents might have no idea like you know my kid seems bored I don't know why you know it could be a behavioral thing like they think it's a behavioral thing but it's really just because they're not being challenged yeah the number one thing we hear of gifted kids is they learn nothing in school yeah and we don't we want to comat that and this is the way we think we can combat that but then it provides support for the parents too so they know what to ask for so for for special education students there are a lot of groups out there that say you need to ask for this and no for that but you don't see as much of that with for gifted and so I think that that is another

116good thing to bring into our community as something that would just be the norm you know that this is something that's an evaluation that can happen this is the process that you need to go through and then the education piece so once the education piece once this is B approved and once the education piece for the staff completed then we definitely want to have those education pieces for the the parents and the community as a whole to understand that this is the process that we're using and if you think that one of your students should be involved that process this is how you how you do that because right now if you ask anybody You' be like I don't know I got kids you know kids in District for a long time my my son

117was in pull out for a for a little bit until that teacher had was assigned somewhere else because you know we didn't have enough and I'll tell you that is our goal our goal is to have everything on the website accessible to everyone so starting point is our goal to to teach parents and I'd love to see this added to the let's talk thing as an option once we get it up and running yeah it is I believe G you can select gifted and talented as an option because we've received a couple of let's talk already this year so webite right [Laughter] yeah excellent so any other questions I think that's kind of our Mr um so with this program is it it says that we're servicing students K through 12 if we take this

118on but um what focus is being given to high school teachers who don't know necessarily see those kids for more than a couple hours a week versus you know the elementaries who have them all day um because I think it's it's a different lift for gifted and talented program at the high school versus the elementary schools and middle schools so typically um gifted and talented servicing happens by your class choice in high school so um pushing those kids for AP classes um and other higher level classes that fits their need and challenges them along the way so class is that as well as we we we we will be offering at some point other activities competitions and things inment pieces um for for academic areas so be filled in those exactly haven't been figured out

119yet so then are we what about at the middle school level because they do select some of their classes there as well as that so we're working on math Pathways right now that's a lot that's a lot it's math Pathways but also a GT work um getting kids to take higher level math classes so math identified kids would be would have a math Pathway to take that would get them to a high level math um Ela I'm writing usually is typically done in the classroom it's easier to differentiate in the classroom than it is for math um so that just means reading maybe a different novel um a higher level novel um that could be done in the classroom okay and then um some of this with it being limited by our school year are

120we looking at expanding options into our summer school so that students can actually get credits or work on things during summer that would help them stay accelerated and continue on so they can pick classes that they want or can push themselves into classes that they would like to be in at the high school level because if you're behind and but you maybe you're a classic underachiever that just was like ah but then you find your fire you can we actually have found um so with the new math Pathways there's two there's two onboards toel already classes um one will be at the at the um intermediate schools and one will be at freshman year option so we have two um onboarding options to The Accelerated math classes and the works but I don't can't answer

121sure I mean there's lots of other space besides math that they can be GT so like can can we look at some extended options during the summer schools I think you bring up a a conversation that you guys are going to hear more about probably in the next month or so and that's summer school because we have to look at how we sort of reimagining how that looks so that's a different conversation but I agree with you 100% that some of these things could be extended in there into there um but I don't want to touch on it now because I I I'll start bringing up another conversation with you guys but I want you to know that I think you're bringing up you're bringing up a great a great topic though all so of

122the concerns that I've expressed at the team while things that I've saw at summer school last year okay um and I guess then the other piece is that I had with this is with the um training that we were looking at putting into place um we have high turnover are we tracking then the new teachers coming in and then getting them trained and making sure that we're whoever's in charge or what are someone's track so that we know that everybody is actually staying up with this because as I'm looking at this and maybe I'm sure with this group I don't really have big care for GT what I really care about is that the rigor for all of our students is high and and so if that means that you know a lower achieving kid

123is being pushed towards that middle where the highers are being per high like I don't need the tag of GT I just want that rigor out there and so if we're looking at this as deeper learning understandings as we're doing that depth as we're building on our blooms tax taxonomy whatever we're doing are we tracking so that we know who's going there and as that part of like what we're observing as we're talking with people and feedback and yeah we're laughing because you're touching on a lot of things that we're working on right now Prof profession development lab and so we're we're we're right now trying to uh construct and create a way for tracking of course completion transcripts course offerings I I asked a question uh rtin well how do we uh track that

124someone attended a training and the response to me was Google doc okay we gota we got to do a better we have to have a better way of doing it so that's what we're working with power school right now we already have uh we already use them for Messenger for schooly and so we're working with them to uh hopefully design a professional development library for us would it be a One-Stop shop where our teachers would be able to try their completion as well as the administrators as work that's end the work yeah and I think just adding on to that like it's we know we would start with these cohorts right like and start training but it's an ongoing process to make sure that all teachers are going through that so yes we have to

125track who who these who our new teachers are and make sure that we're thinking strategically throughout next year like how those trainings continue as well into the following summer right like it's an ongoing piece as well as like continuing to go back and do that and and I guess the reason I asked the sen wasn't to be insulting or that you haven't been thinking about it but in our last round table with all the different groups that we had here uh for the school board meeting there were several where it was like they never had any of the training for their books for their resar resources for their other things and no one knew where it was no one knew how to access it and so it's like well we've spent money on those resources

126why aren't we getting that training so I just want to make sure that we're that is a focus as we move forward it is thank you so as I sit here as a a parent of a eighth grader at FLW the high school so instead of flooding you with all the questions that are running through my mind um maybe I can generalize it into one big question so for parents like me listening to this and thinking oh gosh so the classes she picked for next year are these all okay you know because I know there's a lot of change over and a lot of things happening as you guys are figuring this all out because I've gotten numerous emails about the G you know the GC program and all that and I will admit I

127maybe wasn't I didn't throw myself all into it because I thought oh she's got it it's all good but now I'm like looking at her her courses for next year and and just wanting to make sure it's right for her and that it's not too much but it's enough you know that kind of a thing and you know and she's in some of the accelerated you know groups in her classes and whatever and um so what would you suggest to other parents listening that have eighth graders going into high school um to make sure that what was picked I mean yes I saw you know like I see it on schooly but I mean I just want to make sure like that that is good and sufficient for her and where she's at and things

128like that and not that she's setting herself up to be so over that she freaks out is not just being a Freshman but then with quite a heavy hor load you know what would you [Laughter] suggest um I would say listen to your counselors listen to your teacher advice okay they know best okay y sounds good thank you so a couple of things we're going to have this presentation available for the community we're also going to create an FAQ where we'll have sort of some running questions because this is a lot of conversation and um what I am going to going to ask all of our board members if they could just just emails questions that you can think of this car is looking at me I know she has a million of them and

129I know she's gonna hit me at some point with no but I um please we we we're trying to make sure that we have the best product for our communities and so if um your feedback is definitely needed and that's not only to the board but also to the community who who watching us at home uh please send us any suggestions or questions that you may have but look out for that for this presentation as well as the Epic one the thing that I would would suggest is we talk about these trainings and talk about other things to with the staff turnover that we've had which we're hoping we're going to start seeing reversal in um both the understand that you're never going to have no staff for turn over that when we have an

130onard boarding of new staff that this is something that is included in that onboarding you have required trainings bloodb pathogens all those things that you have to do um and and I granted I don't know how in depth or what you know how lengthy the this training is but what I would Envision is that all new staff would undergo it automatically it's not like oh yeah I got to get on this is like part of what you're doing at least for those staff that are coming in new to the school year with the understanding that obviously staff coming in halfway through you might have to do something a little bit more but with the same understanding that we want to get you in this training as soon as that we can so that you can

131service your students that you are teaching currently the best that you can um so that's how I would Envision this and with other things that we are doing we have these things that everyone has to we expect all our staff to be able to do when we get to that point that training should be worked into what that onboarding is absolutely I think that then you don't have to keep track of it because you know hey new new staff well you went through all the training okay good we know that it's done um and now we can evaluate as how that's working and then help support as they move through because it might be different GT programs are different in different districts or what if they even had anything if they're coming fresh out of

132school so it's something that I think is important that we this is the expectations sty is going to work this is who you go to in your building if you have questions that sort of thing absolutely thank you for those suggestions any other questions from the board well thank you so much for bringing this to us I know know I've been waiting and with eager anticipation um ever since we had that one uh that one discussion after you joined shortly after that you were there for 10 days when we first talked so uh thank you for all the work that you're doing um and helping support this and develop this plan and we'll look forward to seeing uh the proposed policy come before us here in the next few weeks hopefully thank you thank you

133thank you so much you thank you thank you thanks so I um do we need to pause or do we want to move right into our second workshop for the evening one let's take a five a five a hard five minute recess that's you Mr President welcome back from our brief recess moving on to our second uh workshop for the evening on human growth and development with have Mr hangle and Miss Sage again welcome do you have any pre uh quick introduction Adam is gonna take it away since this has already come to the board a number of times previously um and just a reminder that what's here is based on the national human sexuality standards um so that's the basis of where this information's come from and it's also a part of what we're

134trying to do to create a safe space for all students all right thanks for uh the opportunity tonight so I'll just get right into it um like Laura said we've kind of been working with um the nses uh and also working with our own uh Wisconsin statute so I put in the in the PowerPoint a number of statutes that kind of guide our work as if you look on dpi's website they have like a 424 page kind of guiding document um for all of your needs for human growth and development um so um as as many of you know we have an ad hoc committee that's meets pretty regularly over the past year year and a half kind of working on some changes that is going to be uh inclusive for all of our students

135and um develop some programming that's really going to be impactful for for our students that attend our school district so um just a couple of State statutes really really high level um that you know we have this advisory committee that set up but ultimately the decision lies with the school board um so I'm going to kind of talk about the process a little bit and we have healthc Care Professionals on our committee we have myself um our PE lead we have community members we have parents so there's a number of different people that are that are in attendance when looking at this um and so there's just a couple of really important statutes I know this is kind of small so I'm GNA I'm going to look through that if you can't read it um

136but there are um a couple of things that are required for us so this idea that Laura was talking about of safe space for all of our students so this is one of our important factors in our elementary programming is um creating an effective means by which pupils May recognize avoid prevent and Hal physically or psychologically intrusive or abusive situations so we talk a lot about like what does a safe person look like and what do healthy relationships look like when when they uh our students are young um also uh again this is from a number of years ago but our our programming is abstinence is the only reliable way to prevent um pregnancy and STDs so that is like at the Forefront for all of our programming we're looking to provide medically accurate information

137around HPV HIV AIDS pregnancy prenatal development and child birth what the parental responsibilities are and um the socioeconomic benefits of marriage of marriage sorry and again um you know absence being that Preferred Choice of non-married students that's the the Forefront also um criminal pen penalties for engaging in sexual activity um involving a child uh also um you know this is currently we have our programming that's up on our website is that's uh our due diligence to parents we usually email out parents are able to see this um as we have always in the past we send communication home both at the district level for a preview and also at the school level so um parents are able to um request that information or also um request an opt out if they feel the need for

138their um for their child um so here's the opt out piece again I we I think there a number of you were still on the board but we have you know an opt out piece versus an opt in there are um other districts in the state that haven't opt in but you know we we hold the opt out piece so that's available to any to any student in our district so um our committee process so what we've spent what feels like a couple of years now um evaluating our our current content across our grade level So currently what we have right now is we have programming in fifth sixth seventh eighth grade uh and then we have our health course in that's taken by 10th graders um and human growth and development is a it's

139approximately a 9 to 10 instructional days within Health course but then there's also other things that are delivered in health like aoda mental health um you know just basic physiological pieces as well so what we've done is we've worked as a committee to build some consensus on our topics delivery and what appropriate grade level material is so what we use is we use um like a stoplight feedback system and we've gone through multiple iterations of this I know some of you have been to some of these me I'm trying to find so what I what we typically do I'm looking for some with some dots on it um what we typically do is we've we've made some slideshows over the year and what we do is we just lay lay out all of the slides

140and we have our committee members Place either green yellow or red dots on there and then they write feedback right right on there I go in with um our PE lead with Mr Marks we go in we make those those changes if we come to consensus around that and then we bring that same piece back the next time um and then just kind of get a fresh read on it fresh set of eyes um this has been pretty pretty powerful for our group because it keeps our conversations really grounded um in the work and we're constantly into that grade level programming um at all of our meetings so that's um really the overview of our committee process um and so some some pieces that we want to focus on in some shifts from from our

141committee's kind of recommendation and this is an opportunity for feedback from you all um is we have had a lot of feedback over the years on shifting um lesson delivery from fifth grade down to fourth grade um seeing students bodies mature um a little bit earlier and um wanting to get out in front of some of those changes wanted to get out in front of some of those um those hygiene conversations which is also Ultra important coming into fourth grade so looking at um essentially delivering that content in both fourth and fifth grade very similar content kind of Builds on each other um but the introduction of um you can kind of see from the proposed handout here think it's two it's like about two 30 minute periods um during the course of a student's

142um fourth grade year where they're focusing on like my body what is my body um and then also again the hygiene pieces which is is is also super important so um this in when you look at this this is like um uh boys and girls are separate it's taught by a counselor or um or also a classroom teacher dependent on on the Staffing Personnel within the building um so that is is one of our key shifts again this is based on feedback from teachers based on feedback from parents um and I know that we've kind of talked about this before within committee yeah um is there an opportunity for like teachers who are not comfortable teaching it letting let teachers know like if they want to counselor to do it or something that's okay yeah

143usually um we've seen people pair up too um so you have like it might be counselor and teacher um again sometimes that you get the dependent on Personnel because sometimes in some of our elementary schools you might only have one or two male staff members um so we've seen some sharing there um in in staff members as well sometimes it might be um you know PE teacher because a lot of our PE teachers have that additional Health license so they have the experience in that which is great um for our students to be able to learn um you know what's happening happening in their bodies thank you Mr any other any other questions on that okay perfect um again the um the the our main pieces is as much as it is human growth and

144development we're talking about um you know there's a lot of hygiene pieces in here all through fourth through e8th grade um also there is we're working to work on our inclusive language so I printed off our um our board policy on um non-discrimination guidelines related to students who are transgender and students non-conforming to gender role stereotypes so that's 411 um and this is really also a recommendation from the national um sexual education standards is to have an inclusive programming that um where my language I use it's come it's in eth grade here um understanding how intersecting identities can play a role in influence and beliefs in expectations around around gender gender identity gender roles gender expression and sexual orientation um so this has has come up as a group and we've talked about um where

145this fits appropriately for for our students to learn about where gender roles gender expression gender identity come from um and we've kind of placed that the national sexual education standards give you a range should be somewhere between Sixth and eth grade we've kind of talked about it in eighth grade um as an ad committee kind of seems like where we would put that um we all kind of agreed on pieces like that I think one thing that we're kind of working on and um figuring out how to be respectful where you're not just listing terms for things like gender identity and expression but how are you able to um draw this into uh a learning experience for all students so we kind of looked at the board policy for this um and some of our

146our key terms that you know we're recommending that we cover are basically just the bullet points and the definitions so um in that policy we have sex or biological sex gender identity transgender gender non-conforming gender expression and preferred gender program pronoun or pgp um so this is kind of what what we've talked about as a committee where um we're also doing some research with some different organizations um our one of our community partners that works for um Aurora Medical she sent me some things over the other day on how we can be inclusive in our language how we can be inclusive in our communities and how we can welcome all students so that they feel respected and welcome into our classroom communities because that's you know ultimately um the work of of all of us

147as board members as as curriculum people as student supports so we want to make sure that that is fully forward in our in our programming as well any questions on that so eighth grade is where we're looking at talking about this the suggestion is six to 8th grade to me I would put it in seventh grade then if the range is in the middle of that the other thing is that when you're dividing people by boys and girls U that becomes a difficult thing for someone who may not be true identifying as or a girl or maybe their biological sex is one but they're linking more towards each other and what um what strategies we have in place to be able to address that so then when they're asked to divide up you know they

148they don't have to as a child have to try to figure out how am I going to navigate this that is something that actually hasn't come up in our committee so um I can take that back to our group too and have a convers ation around that and and kind of feel feel out what's best practice from uh surrounding districts National experts things like that I I got all sorts of things too um one of the things that I don't see on here is consent um and I see that we have respect in there but respect something different depending on your cultural background beliefs I think consent is more certain um and so I would I really like that consent piece but I don't want it in fourth grade we've already talked with our four-year-old

149about consent so like that should be something that's constant up through um I think to the terminology for the parts we're talking about it at 4 grade here um but I think that that's something that for our Educators we should make them aware of that this is the correct terminology because my children have been scolded for using correct terminology at school and say no that's our pivate parts which then that goes and puts forward where it's harder than to talk about abuse and other kinds of things because they're shaming so um that might be something that we need to do further down and for all of our staff and educators um but the other big thing that I'm actually kind of curious about um is why we have girls only for like six different things

150and we have boys only for like one and I understand that girls have you different needs to be covered than boys but I also know that boys think that when girls have their masteral cycle they think it's magic because they've never been talked to about it why don't we talk with the boys always about understanding mental CS why don't we talk to them about what would be expecting because that's that's important for them to be aware of as well because otherwise it creates this taboo of like wait why is this Happ what's wrong with you yeah uh that would happen in sixth grade so right but I think it would be easier to get it to happen sooner so like when you have girls only girls only in fourth grade because they have three girls

151only things there's no boys only thing there why don't the boys get that there too because when they're younger it's often easier because there's less awkwardness at that point just curiosity where if we do it at sixth grade now everybody's going to be giggling because they're talking about things and cycle starting fourth grade now right scary enough can I add the consent consent what was that in relation to that you were every consent consent to touch someone consent to approach for Conta consent to be in their space consent because there's there's all of those things come around whether or not you have permission to do something and and and then we kind of go into where well it's like when you're trying to date someone well you just keep going after maybe they'll say well

152no they've said no so you your consent is revoked like yeah that should be that top piece of consent is there of like you have permission or you don't if you don't we're done like that's it and that's for you that's for towards an adult that's towards someone you're interested whatever I was just clarifying because there's some consents that given age there is no consent right right no but I think we talk about that right keeping your hands to yourself like that's part of you learn about that as a child like you keep your hands yourself right you don't do that so that is you know in a way learning about consent that's different like can I give you a hug say yes or my body is my space what I'm saying is the idea

153is already there the idea of of you don't touch somebody unless you that you know it's okay to do that yes but I want the work right set but I think it's important like you need to put it in terms that they can understand them yeah they understand consent they understand consent means um Mr Burns I'm going to have to disagree with you on this one I as a parent of a fifth grader of a 10-year-old I don't know because if you're saying that we should be teaching them about girls and periods well then I were're going to teach about uh girls about boys and erections and I don't know if I would I don't feel that I I'm telling you as a parent I don't know that I would feel comfortable in the elementary

154level and I don't you know and I'm not trying to sound like a prud or anything but I just uh sixth grade I'm good I I just I don't know I feel like that's something that I would I feel that's something that I would want as a parent that make that decision if I wanted to introduce an information to my child before sixth grade so you'd have that option to opt out right yeah well yeah you're op out for one so much when you opt out for that I have to agree with Miss deal working with four creators and F fifth grade J of my house I I do agree I mean just since we're throwing it out there I've got a second grade and a sixth grade and I've got threey old so like

155we've already talked about those things we've talked about erections with our three-year-old like this is it's not taboo something Tabo but we all understand we all have our own to we all have our own ideas of when things should be introduced and I'm just telling I'm saying it's my personal opinion as a parent right now of a 10-year-old a fifth grader I wouldn't feel comfortable now some parents might that's I'm just providing that feedback that that's where I feel it's sixth grade I think is an appropriate time so and we've talked about in our um our communication that's drafted that goes home is it's really the partnership between the school and home so like yes we play a role in that but um you know like we've talked about a committee you're you know when

156you're talking in fourth and fifth grade you have 60 minutes out of well how many well 174 instructional days times eight hours a day you know you're in the thousands of hours and we're talking about 60 minutes so um you know more as as a staff member whether it's a counselor or a teacher they're creating like that high level piece um and we've we've talked about also in our parent communication of um even just like sentence starters and questions that families could be asking at home um that way if they feel that it is appropriate that they want to talk about that you know with with their with their family members um then they then that's kind of like their choice remember Brendan that we represent with our district and um we I understand represent

157our disc get that like don't do that to me what I'm saying though is that we ALS we represent this whole no it's not my personal it is this is a public thing that needs to be out there we need to have this as an open conversation right so I am representing the public when I say that we all need to talk about this boys need to understand about menstrual cycles I'm sorry they do because otherwise they get to high school and they have no idea what's going on stff because no one they don't they're too busy giggling at sixth grade so like I think that we should be engaging them more I don't like seeing girls only boys only I also don't like it because of the same issues of like if we have

158a student that's not identifying as one or the other where do they go what do they do and if it's girls only boys only that limits us whereas if it is everybody gets it then it doesn't matter if it's girls only boys only or it's everybody in there there's still getting all of that information now we also are dealing with a lot of people in the public who aren't necessarily trained on talking with students about this we're dealing with parents that may be uncomfortable themselves talking about this and so we're offering this as something for everybody so that we can fill that Gap if they can't even if we send home questions they may not be able to ask those questions because of their discomfort right I see pros and cons on both sides of

159the argument here but here's my concern if we get a little bit too aggressive in what we're talking about and when we're talking about it then yes opt out is an option but if we see the number of opt outs increase then what good are we doing anyway because then we're having that conversation with less students anyway so that would be my concern if we try to start doing a little bit too much in bigger groups or or not separating is you're going to have a section of families that might say hold up too much too soon yeah yeah and ultimately they're the ones that make that decision so that would be where my concern comes in because then then we're back to the drawing board to a degree just want to give them as

160much as we they will allow us to give them and and that's the other piece of this and I think it's been touched on numerous times but this really is a partnership really a lot of these conversations should be had before they're even having this conversation in school right um so if this is the first they're hearing about it that's probably a different issue um but we have to keep that in mind it is a partnership so while to your point we we have 30 minutes twice right or 60 minutes total whereas these children are are living with their parents and should have uh more conversations around these topics so when it comes to what is T one I always defer to whatever the experts say so uh if was it the national SE was

161it sexuality stand education standards in fourth grade this is how it should be divided up in fifth grade this is the this is the appropriate topics that's where I would lean towards because this is this isn't this is less individual more like this is what research has shown to be the best time to do that where it's where it's most acceptable for for students to hear this information um my my concern is when we start dividing up what is taught um when and ensuring that we're we're talking about 4 411 but we're then using very binary terms we're talking about how we do this and so I think that that has to be thought about sure so that when even when you're outlining something like this we're not using boys and girls no we're using

162other terms and I think that that would make it simpler when you're trying to make that division now hopefully this is not something that is coming all of a sudden when this is happening and maybe it was something that's already known about so that a plan could be in place for when these days come about but I don't know we don't know and I think that um it's important to think about so we don't ostracize and ensure that we are being as clusive as we can when we do this work yeah there's notification that is done ahead of time so that gives that time and space to be able to you know as as things are growing and Chang in and and for us to be able to have those conversations with people to decide

163like what's the best way to handle new things that are coming our way that we haven't done before I I was going to put my two cents worth in as far as like somebody who's actually taught this in the past and a number of our schools um I I see it from the standpoint of there's a limited amount of time that you have and I believe that what it is is a progression of like what is my body and what do I learn about my body and that progresses to other bodies and what happens in other and then bodies together and how that all all kind of works from that level um but but with that understanding exactly what you're saying as far as but are we separating this to start with what is my

164body like so we definitely need to come into a space where we start being open to those conversations and making sure that as I said in the very beginning we are providing a safe space for all students so my other thing is is abstinence and I know what no I was myself um so I understand and agree that absence is the the best way to not get PR not to get scds 100% agree with that um however we talk about absence AB absence where do we talk about birth control eighth grade so they talk about failure rates acceptance rates um there's some prevention second bullet point causes symptoms it kind of Falls in with STDs STI um around and it's like looped into that okay so but also um we talk about failure rates but

165we don't talk about success rates so we talk about the negatives of birth control is that what I'm hearing no he said that he said noiles prevention failure rates of prevention method should also talk about success rates so when when you're talking so is the failure rates of prevention options is that literally what you say um I think it says like you know um using a certain type of contraceptive is this % effective 92% this type is this 97% this is 99% abstinence 100% okay change the word then to effective Effectiveness maybe instead of failure sure it just makes it sound really bad f word so we'll use the e word I mean I get kind of why it's with the STD but that also just kind of seems like a like a fear-mongering tactic

166rather than this is something that lots of people use all the time sure and then you know STDs are there and they can happen because of but yeah but were trying to scale yeah and part of it too is I metim when you and and what this was brought up in one of our committee members like yes you know this would be where where it fits kind of in like the progression of eighth grade is like understanding that these are pieces but you're you're still 13 you are still under the age of you know if you want to go with consent or you know you're you're under the age to to Really raise a child yes you're a child but it's happening correct yeah but we don't want to say that yeah why because our

167goal is to prevent it before it happened I don't wantes cut down but they're still going to get cut down we're trying preventative measure I mean we all know preventative measures don't by not saying something that doesn't prevent anything people but again your only have 60 minutes I'm just I'm just saying separate separate that piece of like this is something that lots of people use if they are sexually active and that's what it can be if you are sexually active these are the consequences of some of the things that can happen and like they should be separate not as part of the same piece it's like hey this fails you're getting AIDS like that's that's fear-mongering Ence only and sex education doesn't work that research is very very clear so for me it's all about

168knowledge is power right knowing about things obviously we don't want these kids to do that right it's not an instruction manual right but if children make poor choices it's better to have all the information than half of it and I almost hate saying it but that's why I would almost argue that um birth control should be talked about before eth grade I almost feel like that's too late in today's day and age but that's just a personal thought I guess I mean I mean I think stats kind of show that and that's I haven't seen updated stats but I know that's kind of how things were trending um that more middle school students were active um and as such e8th grade might be a little bit too late for some of those conversations but but

169again parents should also be having some of those conv like saying that just opens up a whole other with then the parents and acknowledging things and doing something about it and I mean that takes on so many other I know well they out of IND individual lessons within programming as well so they could still pick the comprehensive one and say but I don't want to learn about birth control right that's probably G to be up one of the sessions one of the four because both seventh and eighth grade are 120 Minutes yeah and yes still kids can go on social media and find all sorts of crazy stuff which is why it's important to have taught by someone who actually was taught pres trained how to do it you know and how to speak to

170kids this age instead of just find on hope that they listen yeah exactly yeah is there any guidance from the national organizations um when talking about birth control so I I have that here it's all a window it's all they just say grades six through eight I yeah healthy relationships consent Anatomy um you know it's all kind of but it again it's it's with it's within the window doing it yeah that too um one one of the other conversations that we did have too is um you know typically this happens in the spring um that's just kind of How It's really always been we have talked about um maybe moving it to a fall conversation okay um like you know for this year in our remodel it's going to be a spring conversation but we

171talked about like you know what if because when you think about um you know as we've heard several pieces around like a a fourth graders body developing if that conversation happens in October or November versus April or May you know that's a big it's a big difference um so that um you know that's one other shift that we could make is to have that conversation earlier in the year um you know you're basically that's that's also another option that's car so I feel like this committee has met several times and you said that you had many iterations of this and you went through a process and you're bringing it to us and I feel like in the moment we're like hey well what if we move this to seventh grade I don't feel that that's

172our job right now I feel feel like you guys have done your due diligence and unless there's something very glaring that we would um that we would be opposed to as a board I think we need to say they've done their their job their work we listen to it and I think that we should not be willy-nilly making changes like let's now make a note let's teach that in seventh grade instead of eth I I I don't agree with that I think we should keep with it if if we're overall generally agreeing with it yeah who knows we got to go with what the experts say and what the committee said that's a hard pinpoint I agree however this is also our only opportunity to make any comments on any feedback right because we're not

173part of that committee so if we have thoughts not necessarily saying changes need to be made before we vote on anything but it's good information to have in terms of what we're thinking long term right right um that's why we have discussions uh and I think it's important to get those out no matter what way shap reforma goes yep I think it's this is wonderful Rich discussion I love that we're taking the time to talk about this it shows that we care and we really want to make sure we get this right but what I'm saying is getting it right is not going to be in this moment for us well it's Workshop right so the next step would be the approval of this process yeah so I mean I think I think it's important

174to get this conversation out because that way when it ComEd for the board we're not then doing it again yeah right yeah and you know the other thing is that you know we had very Antiquated um human growth development methods in fact I believe the 10th grade piece we're still trying to get a new curriculum adoption for that uh yes so I've recently had some conversations with um DPI who is doing a little bit more on their end where they're coming out with um their own pieces because they're finding you know um we look at textbooks a lot of textbook companies are kind of out um the one that we liked was published in 2014 that's you're already 12 years old um so I've had some conversations with um the I believe she's the director

175of uh physical education and health and her approach is invest in people um professionally developed people and have more of a homegrown that fits what your community fits your board policies and things like that rather than going out and buying a textbook um she's her her guidance is kind of like invest in the people and dpis come out with a number of different um resources that have available to us prior to this year so the plan to do that then or that's the plan that's yeah and this curriculum what is this home this is all homegrown so what we've done is um in all of our slideshows um you know we've used some pieces that we've had from the past um a lot as you know we haven't had this process in a little while

176so some of our facts were you know CDC 2012 so we've updated some of those pieces as well um and kind of matched our objectives especially with the guidance from the SN SNES and also the state statutes yeah to exagerate this real quick um is there do we teach kids that birth control can be used for other things as well other than oh like other health benefits of birth control it's prescribed so often now to help people on their very or even like um acne so I just want to make sure like you know someone's like oh my God they're I was going to say because our pediatrician brought it up you know that's why I was like as far as putting an age on it it's really kind of hard to because it is

177bought up for so many other reasons than just sexually active kids yeah at that point you'd be better you know talking about using condoms and you know contraception that way might be easier you know what I mean just because they do use it for multi-purpose I'm GL yeah that's a good point I think that's a really good point yeah it was her idea I just I just spoken into existence because that is true yeah a lot more than they ever used people suffer unnecessarily and they could take very simple very safe medication and be able to learn better those you not in pain one last c um it's not bad actually comes off of what Noah said the um with the experts and with this going on has is there any recommendations on dealing with

178the social media images of what kids are seeing because part of the reason that the conversations have happened in our house is because they've seen kids social media things going on like is there something out there because that tends to put a very yeah skewed view of of human sexuality out there yeah I think um you know in in fifth grade there's some pieces on the promoting self-esteem and healthy body image um I believe in sixth grade also we talked about um you know the idea of the self-respect and respecting others so in terms of but that is something that we can kind of amp up in terms of the social media pieces we you know it's it's interesting when we you know when we looked at the the lessons that we've had in the

179past it only said like TV you know talked to my sixth grader I'm like what do you think TV is and she's like well like Netflix and Disney plus I'm like no like you know like when we watch tele like the television where you have to watch commercials and she had like no concept um so I think that's that's important too is to to have some of those pieces in there well I'll I'll make a note of that if fth grade the first one Med at least I think too um you know is oh sure yeah okay yeah yeah some of that gets covered though through the different lessons through SE when I think about that is that there's areas where it's like taking into consideration what do you see on social media um not

180just as far as sexuality but bullying you know the whole the whole G like kind of sure just I I I several of the Articles and reading about this because this is something having it'ss thinking about to converse with them yeah that social media Point specifically yeah um in what people are showing what they're doing then they have access to things at a much younger age than what we did I mean and there's the safety piece to it there's the safety piece and there's you know what's okay and that's also where that consent piece comes in because they might see people doing things there it's like nope that's not okay yeah um typically how how what we've looked at for the programming is you're really like developing it's kind of like a spiral you're taking

181what you have in fourth grade developing a little bit more and adding a few things take fifth grade put it into sixth grade and add a few things take sixth grade moving in set so we've kind of but I think that is um you know definitely warranted as as we see I mean that's that impacts so many children um we'll put a heavier emphasis on the social media piece good call any other any other questions yes not uh when will come back um okay so so our hope um will be meeting again as an ad hoc committee sometime between now and April 88th um and that is when our goal to have come back is April 8th um and then when we have approval it'll be a quick process for for us um to be

182able to post this up on the website um so parents can review send out the grade level specific pieces for the preview as we've have those those preview pieces um so those individual Communications go home to families from the district level at at that higher end um and then the school level communication will happen after that and then that's where they'll say here's the specific date and the time in which your child's going to receive programming or times I guess depending on what grade level you're in and then the opt out pieces attached to that um and that that's kind of our goal um so you know sometime between now and um you know obviously the end of the year I think too um you know moving moving forward with our Comm committee piece is

183this year this might be a spring piece but I'll bring it up back to the ad hoc Committee of of rotating this to the fall so then we're catching things six seven months earlier in some cases um I think that that that is something that had come up we had had it in some notes before and I'm I'm glad that it came up here because I think that's a a good move on our part yeah I think earlier is better yeah um in those grades yeah good all right thank you very much thank you oh yeah here's my timeline next next SL any question I'm glad you got that I have a few all right so uh that is the end of our uh work our workshop for this evening and we do need to

184have an executive session so before we uh break for that I would look for motion a second to convenience executive session Pursuit pasca statute 19.5 parent one parent f for the purpose of considering student disciplinary exposion orders which have discussed in public would be likely to have a substantial effect on on reputation of the students involved so moved second roll call please yes Mrs Carr yes Mr Burns yes Mr Becker yes Mrs Kaiser yes Mr Keller yes Mrs Lee yes Miss steel yes Mr sikit yes Pres yes all right we'll take a short recess to get into executive session