Board of Education: 4.20.26 (Rescheduled)

001Thank you. I know. Jean, are you on? Jean, can you hear me? Thank you. Jean, can you hear me? Gene can you hear me now? That's better. Gene, can you hear me now? I can, thank you. Okay, thank you. Good evening I'd like to call this meeting to order. The required public notice of this meeting was sent to Community Newspapers Incorporated and Metropolitan Press on April 15, 2026 and posted on the doors of the district office. Additionally, meeting notices and agendas were posted on the district website and distributed to the City of Brookfield and the Village of Elm Grove for posting. Let the roll call show that all board members are present, with the exception of Jean Lambert, who is joining us by speakerphone. Jean, are you there? I'm here. Okay, great. Would you please

002join me in the Pledge of Allegiance led by Lucia Brewer? I pledge allegiance to the flag of the United States of America and to the republic for which it stands, one nation, under God, indivisible, with liberty and justice for all. Thank you. May I have a motion to approve the agenda? So moved. Second. Thank you. A motion made by Jean and seconded by Preetha. Is there any discussion? Hearing none all those in favor of approving the agenda, please say aye aye aye any opposed Thank you that carries on voice vote Our first agenda item of this evening is the celebration of excellence mark. I'll give this to you Thanks, Scott pre-fin Sam. We want to thank you for your service to the Board of Education State senator Hutton was able to present legislative citations to

003salmon pre-fill last week while we were waiting out the storm representatives nayland and vining are unable to attend this evening but will send along their thank you and appreciation for your service mayor Ponto was not able to attend this evening but Scott will present of mayoral proclamations on his behalf in addition to that we will have another opportunity to recognize Sam and preetha later in the agenda this evening thank you again Scott see here got that on so I will take this one at a time Sam if you'll come and join me here at the podium We have several things. As Mark mentioned, Rob Hutton was here the other evening and presented a nice commendation to you for your board service. I have a plaque recognizing from the Board of Education your three years of

004service on the board. And along with that, a certificate of commendation. This one is from WASBE. There you go and then this is the mayoral proclamation which is quite lengthy. I won't read the whole thing but I do like the last paragraph it says, now therefore I, Steven V. Ponto, Mayor of the City of Brookfield, do hereby thank Sam Hughes on behalf of the community for his many contributions as a member of the Elmbrook School Board, commend the public spiritness he has so amply demonstrated and wish him the best in his future endeavors. I just think that's well said so round of applause for Sam, thank you. Now Preetha, if you'll join me. As Preetha's making her way over, I have another plaque of recognition from the Board of Education recognizing Preetha for her three

005years of service. There you go. That will look nice on an office or a wall. And then, again, the same certificate from WASBE. Certificate of Common Day. Where are you at? Behind me. I couldn't see you. A certificate of commendation from WASBE for Dr. Pritha Kudyar, recognizing your three years of service on the board and the mayoral proclamation. And again, the last paragraph, so wonderful, where Mayor Panto commends you for your community service, your many contributions as a board member for the school district of Elmbrook, and being willing to serve the public so willingly. So thank you so much. A round of applause for Pritha. Our second celebration of excellence is for national board certified teachers. It is a significant achievement for any school district to have educators reach the pinnacle of the professional certification.

006In a high performing district like Elmbrook, celebrating these milestones reinforces the community's commitment to academic excellence. We have 27 nationally board certified teachers on our staff. We are here to celebrate Alexis Ganos and Kristen Zetting for earning their national board certification. 2025 state rankings show that Wisconsin's percentage of educators with active national board certification is 1.36. We far exceed that. By earning this certification, these two individuals join an elite group of educators nationwide, and they strengthen the fabric of our district. They haven't just proven they are great teachers. They have committed to a lifetime of self-reflection and professional growth. Congratulations to Alexis and Kristen. I would like to introduce the principals of the schools where Alexis and Kristen make magic happen for our students. From Wisconsin Hills, Principal Matt Schroeder, where Alexis teaches orchestra at

007Wisconsin Hills while also traveling to Pilgrim Park. I'd also like to introduce Brandon Buckman, Principal at Swanson Elementary School, where Kristen Zetting teaches general music and choir. Matt and Brandon. Thank you, Dr. Hansen. It's truly an honor to recognize both of these amazing teachers. I had the pleasure to work with both of them. Alexis was one of my first hires over at Wisconsin Hills as an AP, and just outstanding. I'll let Matt talk glowingly about her. But it's truly an honor to recognize Kristen Zetting for her National Board certification. The hard work and dedication she puts into her work each day matches the prestigious nature of this award. Kristen has served for 16 years and specifically in her system for the last 15 teaching general music. She started her career in Elmbrook as a student

008teacher working with Cheryl Lavender, who's a local resident and amazing author of many musical publications, and Brookfield East, at Brookfield East with Mary Biggis, another amazing educator who retired in Elmbrook. Kristen is someone who kids are just drawn to. Students frequent her classroom before school, at lunch, and at the end of the school day. Just as I was chatting with Kristen about this recognition last week, we had to shoo out a few of her students who wanted to continue to hang out before the bell. Another example of the reach that she has with student engagement is our choir program. Our choir program is an elective program for fourth and fifth graders, and they meet before school for an hour on Wednesdays. our approximately 225 fourth and fifth graders over a hundred participate in choir it

009says a lot about our kids love for music and you know we know they're they're talented but it's the right relationships that Kristen has built with her students throughout her time at Swanson that makes them excited coming to the building early in the middle of the week Kristen is also extremely thoughtful in her lesson design, constantly looking for ways to engage all of her learners, even finding ways for more reluctant learners to be leaders in the classroom. She plans special experiences that are relevant and meaningful. One of my favorites is her piano lab that runs about six to eight weeks. Similarly, Kristen is connected to our families and works collaboratively with them to support our students. We have experiences like Music Me, the Spring Sing, and Eagle Extravaganza, where families are invested and involved in

010their students' learning. She's very reflective and constantly thinking about how she can make each experience in her class and concert special for students. Her leadership goes beyond that, though, as she's committed to leading curriculum writing teams, leading our peace team, and other district projects. She's always instrumental in assemblies and other special events that we have at Swanson. Kristen is simply a special human being who's dedicated to helping kids. Even as we prepared for this recognition, she was humbly giving credit to her family. her almost eight-year-old her and her five-year-old and her very patient and loving husband who helped her achieve this goal we are truly grateful for all of Kristen's efforts her leadership in our building and the impact that she's had that she has on her students each and every day congratulations Kristen good

011evening everyone Matt Schroeder principal at Wisconsin Hills very excited tonight to be here to celebrate Alexis Ganos how about another round of applause for both of these two Alexis has grown our orchestra program. We have seen numbers that we haven't seen before. After following a model that we've instituted in the last couple of years with Kristen Witek. You may know that she and Kristen or Krista are splitting their time between Pilgrim Park and at Wisconsin Hills. So they have the opportunity to teach full group lessons along with small group lessons. And I think their dedication and their vision for that program has really helped it grow. Alexis is... She builds great relationships with her students. She also has students who are constantly knocking on the door, ready to practice. She does a great job in

012her small group lessons. I am always in awe every time I'm at her concerts at the level of play. She's pretty hard on herself, if I'm being honest. And I think every time I say, wow, that concert was incredible. she's kind of like yeah you know this is pretty good we can we can always we can always tighten up and I think that's that's that's one thing that I take away from her and it's kind of resonating with this national board certification is she's always looking for the next thing she's always looking for that opportunity with her students and what they can do and and how they can play a little bit better so we're really proud of of alexis we're really proud of how the program has has grown we're really proud that she's

013a nationally board certified teacher it's incredible for what it says about her it says a lot about wisconsin hills and it says a lot about elmbrook that we have alexis and others who are are dedicated to to reaching this goal so congratulations again to both and thank you alexis So thank you, if I could invite Kristen and Alexis up here to the podium with me. We have a certificate for you from the Board of Education publicly recognizing each of you for and congratulating you for your board certification, your national board certification, which is just, it's not an easy task. Hours and hours, a lot of artifacts. I don't know all that goes into that, but I just know that it is a lot of work. It's above and beyond, and for you to do that

014so that you can make a difference in our, for our students in our school district is just outstanding and again on behalf of the Board of Education I just thank you so much so Kristen and Alexis thank you now we'll let's take we'll give them another round of applause we're gonna take a picture right over here and if you guys want to join us that would be great and then we'll have board member questions and comments Come over here and join me by the podium because board members will have questions they want to ask you and I'll give you guys a chance to answer. So board member, questions or comments? I'd like to start first. Cheryl? Congratulations. Thank you. How much time? It sounds like it was very daunting, but how much time did this

015take? I mean, I... We have to put in professional development hours and I would always max out. So I don't know. At least, I mean, I would be working in the months of January through April probably every weekend. So it was... Yeah, it's a lot. It's easier to do when you have little kids at home rather than trying to do like a master's or something like that. So this was something that I thought I could fit in my schedule better and also just get to know my students better and get to know me as a teacher in my classroom with my current students. So it was a lot, but it was worth it. That's great. Yeah, I guess. There's a lot of time away from family. My 11 year old is here. She knows how

016much I guess, you know, was like, no, mommy has to work on her paper again. I've got to work on this. I'm almost done. I'm almost done. And I think for me, it took four years for your process. So it's not like a one year and you're done kind of thing. I guess you could if you're. really dedicated to finish it a lot faster. I did mine in three, and still would put in that every year of 40 plus hours on just your national boards. But I would highly recommend it. It was a great process to go through, especially to just build your reflective practice as an educator. I have not experienced any professional development that caused me to dig in. the nitty-gritty details of the choices that I make in the classroom and there's

017a lot that we do very naturally sometimes that we don't pay attention to but we are intentional about them and it's important that we recognize how that intentionality is playing out in our classroom because it helps you make adjustments a lot easier when you need to to benefit the kids in your classroom so highly recommend it it's a lot of work but it was a great thing to go thank you and thank you to the families it's a lot thanks other questions or comments I want to say thank you to both of you congratulations on all the hard work and dedication Kristen I've not had the chance to have either my children have you but congratulations everything that I it sounds wonderful and Alexis I this is my sixth year with you teaching a child

018of mine and I will just say that you are amazing and we are so lucky to have both of you in this district No questions but big congratulations and I hope you realize that it's your work that makes us look good, and we appreciate that very much. Music keeps kids in school. You often get multi-year learning of a child as they grow, which is a tremendous gift that you give our kids. I just can't, and I know the hours that a music teacher puts in outside of the classroom, so even without working for national board certification, thank you, thank you for sharing your gifts with us and our students. Wes? I just want to say congratulations. Obviously a lot of work and effort went into it and it just shows the dedication to our community

019and it's great to have people like you to keep teaching our students and moving it forward. The one question I had is from a maintenance standpoint, is this, how long is it good for? Do you hopefully not have to put this level of time into it every couple years? I'm told that the... Renewal is not nearly as intense. Yeah. Yeah. So I do want to point out, though, that for any of our teachers or community members that don't know, our district does support some national board coaches and a cohort, which... For me to work with one of our coaches at Pilgrim Park, Tom Friesmeier, was absolutely instrumental in me achieving this and being able to lean on colleagues and having that supported from the district level has truly made all the difference for me in

020being able to work through that. That's fantastic. Yeah, and to piggyback off of that, I also worked with Amy Digman and Chris Wenson, who have been their champions of National More Teachers certification. And yes, the cohort that is offered through the district is incredibly helpful. Congratulations, and thanks for making Allbrook better. It's really, really awesome that you guys took the time and dedication to do that and encourage more teachers to do it. And my question is again congratulations to both of you. Mark how many teachers do we have in Elmbrook that have achieved this milestone? It's significant. You're looking at number 26 and number 27. So the state average is about one and a half percent and we're about five percent. Yeah so that's pretty incredible. So it's great that we have whatever team supports

021you and then teachers that again are so dedicated to their craft. So thank you for being number 26 and 27. Appreciate that. Let's give them one last round of applause. Love the high five. That's great. Our next agenda item is the high school student representative's report. Mark. Thank you, Scott. We're going to start with updates from both high schools because these are very busy places. And then we'll turn to our topic tonight, which is grading. We had a grading policy change a couple years ago, and we wanted to get your take on that. I know you had a chance to talk with your classmates, and you have some information for us. So let's start first with updates. How about Brookfield Central goes first? Sure. All right, so starting it off with academic highlights from Central.

022With the recent conclusion of Term 3, BC students are looking forward to exciting fourth-term school events. And to kick off the new term, our library staff welcome students into the library and encourage them to pick up a new book for the start of the term. Exciting participation in... excuse me school-wide silent reading on march 13th bc hosted 50 career speakers from a number of diverse professional fields allowing students to explore career opportunities at another successful career day the avid class of 2027 just returned from their college tour road trip where they visited five midwest universities and with may fast approaching ap students are starting to feel the pressure and ap exam review sessions are underway during lancer block We are excited to highlight that this year Lancers are officially registered to take 1,347 total exams.

023We also want to recognize the three BC seniors who are current youth apprentices, Cara Nell at Elmbrook Schools, Jay Gumadi at Bank 59, and Rihanna Woloszek at Walgreens. as well as senior Brady Heisman, who has passed certification exams to earn seven industry-recognized credentials in media production. Moving to arts highlights, BC Theatre just wrapped up performances of the spring play, The Man Who Came to Dinner. The show opened this past Thursday in the BC Black Box, with shows through Saturday. In other exciting arts news, BC's True Blue Acapella had the opportunity to attend the Port Washington High School Acapocalypse Showcase and Workshop on the 11th, where they performed alongside acapella groups from across the state. Lastly for arts, 90 Lancers have qualified for state solo and ensemble and are looking forward to competing at UW-Milwaukee on

024April 25th. Kicking off activities highlights, the Wisconsin State Bar recently announced this year's mock trial top 10 attorneys and top 10 witnesses in the state, and four BC students were recognized. Attorney awards went to Tess Pierce and myself, and witness awards were earned by Julia Christian and Josie Seiler. In other exciting state performances, BC HOSA competed at the State Leadership Conference and had 18 events placed in the top five and eight events qualified to compete at the International Leadership Conference held in Indianapolis this June. Science Olympiad had their state competition this past weekend with eight students placing in the top four, as well as Beast Robotics who competed in state this past weekend. And at that competition, Junior Andri Mathur was selected as a Wisconsin State Championship Leadership Award finalist. BC FTC and FRC teams

025are looking forward to the World Championships held in Houston at the end of this month. And after a full council effort to put together this year's Spirit of Excellence portfolio showcasing the best of BC, BC Student Council was named the Region 7 Spirit of Excellence winners and just wrapped up an exciting weekend at the Wisconsin Association of Student Council State Convention. Finally for activities, BC DECA is excited to compete at the International Career Development Conference held in Atlanta April 25th through 29th. There isn't much to report for athletics this month since spring sports season is just getting started, but we do want to highlight senior Henry Gritzmacher, who was recently recognized as first team all-state. And other than that, we're wishing luck to all of our spring sports teams that are officially up and running

026and looking forward to cheering them on throughout their exciting and successful seasons this year. Anything else that you wanted to add? I think that about covers it for this month. Well done, well done. Thank you. How about at Brookfield East? Yes, okay, starting with our arts highlights, Brookfield East sent several students involved in Red Gen and Hope Squad to the Animal Wisconsin Mental Health Summit. Beast seniors also recently submitted photos to be played in a video collage played during graduation. Additionally, the spring play, The Crucible, is playing this week at Pewaukee High School on April 23rd to the 25th at 7 p.m. And additionally, on the 26th at 12 p.m., tickets are on sale now, so make sure to go get them. The Beast Orchestra also performed the national anthem before the Wisconsin State Robots

027Championship this past weekend. Looking at our athletics highlights, just like Central, our spring sports are also kicking off. Our Spartans baseball team took down the number three-ranked New Berlin Eisenhower 5-4. Great performances from Shane Kimo, Yoel Markuski, and others. Additionally, the girls' soccer team have officially begun their season, and they've... already been ranked as the top scorers in their starting weeks and already ranked as the top 10 WIAD1 team. In our activities highlights, three students powered into the final round in the state congress tournament. Beeswere Boggs held the state competition in our field house on the 18th and the stands were packed with spectators. Seven student council student leaders also attend the Wisconsin Association of School Council's Leadership Conference and then in our academic highlights AP students are preparing for the upcoming AP test and

028are gearing up by studying and doing practice sessions. We are having hubs so those are required excellence periods on Wednesday through Friday to set up our Chromebooks for hybrid and or completely online exams. Initially we also have multiple students in the youth apprenticeship student spotlight with Andrew Armbruster in finance, Sophia Balshiri also in finance, Sam Cohen, Skyla Bukowski, and Amy Moore in healthcare. Thank you. Awesome. Great update. Anything else that you wanted to share? That's about all. Busy places. Thanks for all that you guys do. You're amazing. We had a topic of grading, and we wanted to talk a little bit about the change from a 7-point grading scale to a 10-point grading scale. Why don't we start with Brookfield Central. What did you guys find out? First, addressing the reporting to parents policy and

029the grading policy, we found that students value these reporting structures. They feel it helps them remain held accountable, and it can help them make sure they stay focused on their studies. And then for the 10-point grading scale, we found some more mixed reviews. We found that some students feel that the 10-point scale is easier to understand and reduces academic pressure while making grades feel more attainable, while others feel that this shift weakens academic rigor and makes distinctions between performance levels less meaningful. As for how the grading scale changes are affecting students, we found that students report the updating grading scale has had... their academic motivation to make them more motivated where some students feel very encouraged and engaged by this additional flexibility and other students feel less incentivized to exceed minimum expectations for a high

030grade on an assignment. Students have concerns about inconsistent implementation of the updated grading scale with changes to grading practices waiting and feedback varying across classrooms. And then for improving the grading scale, we found that students would appreciate more consistency across classrooms in terms of grading practices, weighting, and expectations in response to the updated grading scale. We also found that students would appreciate improvement in feedback practices, ensuring that students are provided with timely, specific, and actionable feedback on assignments. And we found that students hope there continues to be an appropriate balance between rigor and support in the classrooms maintaining high academic expectations. Thanks, Abby. How about at Brookfield East? What did you guys hear? Okay, starting with our first question and the general response for the new policies. Students are generally supportive of both the reporting

031to parents policy and the 10-point grading scale by the manageable, easy to understand, and beneficial for student success. Specifically with the 10-point scale in particular, it was praised for reducing pressure and encouraging students to take on more challenging classes without ultimately sacrificing the grades. However, some high school students feel like the parent reporting policy conflicts with the independence they're being prepared for in college. And there's also noted confusion around how grades on the new scale affect their GPA calculations with certain points But next on to the next question students are in support of switch the 10-point grading scale with many feeling it reduces the pressure of needing a perfect score while still motive motivating them to aim for an A Several students noted that the change is not lowered their personal drive for academic excellence

032and that hard work is still rewarded for Overall, for our last question, for suggestions, overall many students were satisfied with their new grading scale, although there were questions and or remarks on if our new grading scale is retroactive for past grades, that would be a grade letter higher in today's new scale. Thank you. Great. Thank you for that. Thank you for the research you did with your classmates. With that, I'd open it up to any board members who have questions, remembering that this policy was changed about a year ago. Any questions or comments for our representatives? Thank you for being here guys. I know you're very busy Feel free to duck out and get on to your next thing in your schedule. Thanks again for everything Thank you for being here. Our next agenda item

033is the citizens forum, which is the opportunity for Community members to address the board on items that fall within the purview of the board but are not on tonight's agenda If people would like to speak, you can go over to your right over here where Christy Westphal is sitting and get a form. You can speak on here in the citizens forum or on any item that's on our agenda this evening. There's a list of expectations on the back, talking about decorum, that the board will not respond back. to the comments that we received during citizens forum and explaining the time limit which is three minutes tonight i am without my the assistance of gene on timekeeping so i'll be watching the time and and letting you know as you uh if you go over the

034three minutes you need to wrap up your remarks we do have one request to speak tonight that is leanne weed a resident of the district leanne Good evening. I'm here to talk about community engagement and transparency I was hopeful during the recent election that both the candidates and also long-serving board members prioritized increasing community engagement I'm here to ask for two no-cost ways to increase board engagement and transparency Full board meetings are recorded and provide an opportunity for the public to engage with the board committee meetings provide neither In my opinion committee meetings are where the real work is done where decisions are considered researched finalized and brought to the board for approval this is the point in the process where stakeholder input can be tremendously helpful and consequential it was only a few years

035ago that the public did have an opportunity to speak at committee meetings ask questions or provide a valuable perspective that may not have been considered by board members This input helped the committee make well-informed decisions before they came to the board, which benefited all. Recently, there have been board meetings in which concerns were raised by members of the public on different agenda items. If these community members had been able to provide feedback during the committee meetings, those board members would have had the opportunity to realize and address those concerns before bringing them to the full board. My first request is to allow public comments and questions at committee meetings again My second request is revision to posting board and committee meeting minutes The city of Brookfield publishes meeting minutes shortly after a meeting the minutes

036are clearly labeled draft so unofficial Presently anyone who wants to know what happened at an Elmbrook school board meeting has to wait until that next meetings agenda is published Sometimes more than a month later To give an example of how helpful this would be, consider the March 10th board meeting in which a new policy, 9125, was discussed. It will be voted on tonight. That new policy was introduced eight days earlier at the CLE committee meeting. However, that policy was not listed on the CLE agenda nor attached for review. It was handed to committee members in person at that CLE meeting. There's no documentation of the CLE policy agenda item for that committee meeting, and since there has not been another CLE committee meeting since then, no meeting minutes exist to inform the public or even

037other board members as to how it was voted on. having draft meeting minutes available soon after a meeting and in this case before full board discussion would improve transparency engagement and trust in summary i ask that you return to allowing public input and questions at committee meetings and publish drafts of meeting minutes soon after each meeting these cost nothing but would pay large dividends thank you for your time and consideration And that concludes our citizens forum for the evening and brings us to our consent agenda. I'll start with a motion to approve the consent agenda and then ask if there are items that board members would like to pull. We'll start with the motion. I move approval of the consent agenda as presented. I'll second. Second. OK. Thank you. We have a motion and a

038second by Preetha. Are there agenda items that board members would like to pull? Sam? Aye. I. Oh I. That's funny. I thought you were in the middle of a sentence. I would like to pull. Okay got you. I. There. And then Wes? E. E. Thank you. And we do have a request to speak on B and C so I will pull those as well. Anything else? So we have a motion to approve consent agenda items A, D, F, G, and H. All those in favor of that motion please say aye. Aye. Any opposed? Thank you. That carries on voice vote. We'll take these in alphabetical order. The item B is personnel matters and we do have a request to speak. I would invite Angie Pingel. to the podium to speak on personnel matters at which

039point we can have question or discussion on that good evening i'm always concerned when i see so many resignations from our special education teaching staff four teachers just this month i hope that leadership is taking this seriously investigating what led to these resignations and determining what if anything can be done to address the reasons behind them as a parent of a student who spent 15 years in Elmbrook special education I can't stress to you enough how detrimental turnover is to some students It prevents consistency and proper transitions if there does need to be a change to a special education teacher. This population needs that to be successful. It can take months to learn complex students and all that time learning a student means less time for that student to learn. So I really hope that

040you'll take a look at that and ask some questions as to why we lost four special education teachers in one month. Thank you. Thank you, Angie. Are there any questions or comments on 5B personnel matters? If not, I consider a motion on that. Move approval of item B under the consent agenda. Thank you. We have a motion by Mary and a second by Preetha. Any further discussion? Hearing none, all those in favor of personnel matters as presented, please say aye. Aye. Any opposed? Aye. Sorry, Jean. Any opposed? Thank you. That carries on voice vote. Our second item that we do have a request to speak about is item 5C which is the Fairview South which is the agreement for Fairview South Angie Pingel a resident of the district would like to address the board Angie

041I'm gonna be brief even though I could sing the song of Fairview South for hours I know we have a long meeting I just wanted to express my appreciation for this board's support of Fairview South Fairview South is truly a remarkable place words cannot begin to explain what it means to my family even before the recent and well-deserved facelift the school was beautiful because of the amazing staff and the incredible work that they do They help students that are the most impaired by disabilities have a meaningful school experience designed to improve their lives after public school My son is doing things I never thought were possible because of this school and its supportive environment He has a job cleaning menus at the Capitol Cafe that he's able to do with the support of his special

042education teacher and his teaching assistant. He also participates in the Fairview South Meals on Wheels program with Waukesha County, delivering meals to community members in need. He's so proud of himself when he's out there doing these activities, and he loves it. Fairview South knows him so well and as a result they're able to use their experience and that incredible environment to make small miracles happen we should be very proud to have this school in our district and I thank you for your continued support of it Thank you Angie Any questions or comments about item C or a motion to approve that agenda? I make a motion to approve item C Second Motion by Sam and a second by Mary. Any comments or questions? All those in favor of approving the agreement for Fairview South, please

043say aye. Aye. Aye. Aye. Any opposed? Thank you. That carries on voice vote. Our fourth item that was pulled from the consent agenda is item E. Wes? My mom works for CESA 1, so I just wanted to abstain. Perfect. Any questions or discussion before we vote on item well we need a motion can I get a motion I would move approval of consent agenda item E I'll second Thank you motion in a second is there any discussion or questions before we vote on that agenda item No but I want to clarify that I am no longer on the board of CESA 1 as of after as of last week so I feel like I wanted to just say that before I go ahead and vote on this All those in favor of approving consent agenda

044item E, agreement for services for CESA 1 and the CESA 1 contract, please say aye. Aye. Aye. Aye. Aye. Any abstentions? Aye. Any noes? Thank you. That carries on voice vote. And brings us to our fourth and last item pulled from the consent agenda item, item I. Sam. Thank you, and I want to say thank you for Leanne pointing that out. This whole policy from the very beginning was, I think, exactly what she said. It was brought before the committee on paper. It wasn't presented officially, and I think it's a stain on Elmbrook's transparency. This policy is intended to direct and directed to punish minority board members to go along and not publicly disagree with the majority. This is not designed to bring order to the board. but to restrict board members from sharing with

045the community what is going on in the boardroom. Does not each individual have a voice to talk to community members? When I talk with people in the community, must I say, I am not speaking on behalf of the board, but as an individual member of the board? If I make a comment on a social media post, must I state in each comment, I am not speaking on behalf of the board, but as an individual member of the board? This policy is dangerous to free speech and I cannot support this policy. Nothing in this policy encourages open and honest dialogue in the community, but as a noose around our free speech right. For that reason, I will vote against that. I encourage you to vote against it as well. Thank you, Sam. We'll start with a

046motion and then I'll ask if there are other questions or comments about the policy. Okay, well, I'll discuss that. Okay, yeah, we'll discuss that. I'm sorry. I move approval of the new policy as presented. Second. i think we have a motion by preethan a second by mary questions or comments before we vote so i would like to clarify that this What you read as a policy here did not come to CLE labeled as a policy. It came as some hand-typed notes that I brought in because I did not have time that day to send them to you all. It did not come labeled as a policy. During the time of the meeting, I saw and asked for any feedback and had none, as it was then voted forward to the full board. It was brought

047to this full board for discussion last month, and in that time, while I asked for any... concerns, questions, rewritings, anything at all. I've heard nothing. So I would say that I disagree with what we've heard here from you, Sam, today. I think that when you are speaking to the public, particularly when your voice carries a lot of weight and may matter, I think it's important to clarify if you are making statements on behalf of this board or as an individual board member. I stand by that, and I disagree with you. that it is impinging on your First Amendment right. You may say whatever you want, but say that you're speaking as yourself. So again, if this policy is voted to go back to committee, I question all of you on this board as to what

048concerns you had with it, what you would like to see, and I strongly encourage you to continue the work. that we in CLE attempted to bring forward with this policy where we make sure that we also have in place as do other school districts policies that allow us to keep check on ourselves as well I think that's important for us to do and again that's what I would have to say I'm sure we will have comments so let anyone else speak other questions or comments Mary I still support this policy for two reasons one is that It doesn't just extend to the most recent conversation that we're having about a piece of paper being walked into a committee meeting. In my opinion, committee meetings are work sessions. They're places where we build things, and I

049think we have to remember that. When we start to restrict that, we have to really take a look at what our committees are there to do, because my understanding is that they are there for us to do work that does not have to be done in its entirety at the board level, although the work that is approved is approved by the entire board. Second, I don't find anything more transparent than saying I'm just one vote of seven on the board, and I do say that when I talk to people in public. So I don't see that as in any way lacking transparency, but rather lending transparency, and that's why I support this. Thank you. Cheryl? I would like to see it go back to committee. I think there's a lot of gray area in it,

050and I would like to see it clarified and strengthened and just take the... the grayness out and make it more clear I was on the committee that looked at this I understand concerns I guess I when I look at it I think it's kind of a balance of both ends I worry without guidelines and parameters that depending on the board we could end up in slinging contests if we don't have guidelines and parameters in place if there is things that are insinuated in this way or that so and I didn't personally find anything particularly objectionable about the policy there's always a risk that things can be used in a harmful or wrong way but I do think that This at least from my purview probably increases transparency or encourages transparency and Hopefully helps us become

051Better board members and more accountable and treating each other well if we ensure that we're always speaking for ourselves and not not Insinuating that we could be speaking for other members of the board. So for those reasons I'm in favor of the policy as it currently stands because I don't find anything particularly objectionable here. Thank you, Wes. We do have a request to speak, which we're going to take in just a second. I wanted to ask, I don't know if this question, maybe start with Preetha, if you can answer it, if not, Mark. I'm interested to know a little bit about what legal counsel said. So at our last meeting, we were talking about the legality of what happened at the committee meeting in terms of bringing some notes and then developing a new policy

052when it didn't fit into the existing policies you're approving that day and then the as legal counsel reviewed the text of this policy itself do you want to speak on that oh sorry Was assured that this information was brought to the committee meeting appropriately and noticed appropriately for our last board meeting Mark, please. Let me know if there's anything else Sure I think there were two things that were brought up at our last meeting related to legal counsel's opinion first of all was the policy in alignment with current case law and we have affirmation from our legal counsel that it is in alignment with current case law and Then secondly did we have any open meeting issues? in either the committee or the committee of the whole, which is what this full board is called.

053And our attorney has indicated that we are within compliance of both of those legal issues. Angie Pingel, a resident of the district, has requested to speak. And then I'll circle back around and see if anyone else would like to speak. Jean, I'll get to you, too, if you've got some comments. Angie? Well. There is a difference between legal advice and being in compliance with the law and actually being practical and being able to communicate. And when you read this policy, the question that I have is, are all of your opinions tonight about this policy allowed? Because none of you said that you were speaking on behalf of yourselves. So I just think that you really ought to take another look at this policy and make sure that not only does it comply with the law,

054but it's being implemented from a practical and a business perspective in an appropriate manner. Because I have some questions about that, and I'm sure that if you really looked at that carefully the way I did, you might see that as well. So thank you. Thank you, Angie. Jean, did you have any questions or comments about this policy? Well, I'd like to highlight the fact that this policy speaks specifically to board members engaging in individual conversations. And other than that, I have nothing new to add that hasn't already been said, and I do support this policy. Thank you, Jean. Any other questions or comments about this policy? Sam? Just one last final statement and you know I think the languaging they used it just signifies further that this is a dangerous policy like you know when

055when my board member Wes spoke about this puts guidelines and parameters on board members which again I think that's dangerous I think you need to give board members freedom to speak in public i think secondly the community knows it's called a board which means it's more than one person which means no one person is speaking on behalf of the board because that's not how any board works so if a board if an individual in the community doesn't understand what a board is well then we have another whole issue to deal with the reality is is this isn't about you know trying to you know put guidelines or parameters on what's being said but it's a guideline to limit and to point out the right to have an opinion. And if you don't do it the

056right way, then you're going to be punished by your other board members because there's a policy now for that. Thank you, Sam. Anyone else? There is a request for a roll call vote on this. So I'll invite Christy Westphal to the podium to do that roll call vote. Just to confirm, the motion on the floor is to approve the policy as presented. There is a motion. Yep. Right. The motion on the floor is to approve this agenda item as presented. Jean Lambert? Yes. Mary Wacker? Yes. Wes Silla? Yes. Sam Hughes? No. Preetha Kurdiyara? Yes. Cheryl Mills? No. Scott Wheeler? Yes. Five yeses, two noes. Thank you. That carries on roll call vote and concludes our consent agenda for the evening. Brings us to our first action item, which is middle school programming. I invite Lisa

057Rettler and team if there's a team or just Dr. Rettler oh we'll start with Dr. Mark Hanson and then we have presentation we do board members have a couple of requests to speak before board member discussion and one request to speak after so we'll just manage those requests to speak at the appropriate time but we'll start with the presentation first Then go to the request to speak before board member comments mark. Thanks Scott. This has been quite a journey since June of 2024 we've had four work sessions to teaching learning committee meetings and also a variety of different discussions at the boardroom including last month's At one of those work sessions the board defined two strategies that they wanted us to focus in on cross grade level elective experiences and prioritization of ela instruction Based

058on evolving thoughts, leaders developed three options and conducted feedback sessions with staff and students in March and April. I would like to introduce Emily Greiber and Lisa Rettler to talk a little bit about what they have found out, and they will be joined by administrators from our middle school to talk through the programming direction. Lisa. Thank you, Mark. Okay, so as Mark just said, this has been a board goal. As we know, our board sets objectives and goals annually. and three years ago there was a district goal to do a complete and comprehensive middle school programming study that moved into more of action and so for the last two years we've been putting various things in place and the final piece that is the board goal for this year is by april 2026 finalize the

059district's plan for school start times and middle school programming so this comes directly from our district strategy map Mark also talked about the many touch points we've had with the board to go through this programming goal. There's been a lot of various pieces where we have shared our initial data story from three years ago. We shared celebrations, barriers, solutions. And then as Mark had said, most recently this year, there were two board strategies that helped us develop the prototype that was shared at last month's board meeting. I just want to re-emphasize again, those of you that know me know that I always believe in... celebration first and this slide has been shared two times now with the board and in essence it is talking about the upward trend we are seeing with our data story

060and that happens with great leadership and great educators and we're very proud of what our teachers have been doing and what our leaders have been doing we are taking two high performing middle schools in the state of wisconsin and making them even better regardless of decisions that are going to be made tonight about structure we will continue to focus on deeper implementation with literacy in all of our subject areas we will continue to increase our responsiveness so it matches student needs and we will continue to create a culture and climate where our students feel a sense of belonging and they feel authentic connection and so this is really truly a celebration of the work we've been doing for the last three years as was stated we had two strategies that were decided in september and

061last month our admin team had delivered a prototype that matched those two strategies. During that discussion, our board indicated potentially some evolving thoughts on those two strategies, and so based on those evolving thoughts, our admin team developed three options and conducted feedback sessions. Tonight we're going to present the three models for a board to consider, but we are highly recommending the hybrid model. This model is an incremental change that delivers on one of the strategies so that our students continue to have diverse learning opportunities and that they we can better serve their unique academic and social needs so the feedback loops that mark had referenced we started with individual board member meetings to discuss the advantages and the limitations of the the three schedule options you will see tonight we then in march and april

062conducted student focus groups we randomly selected 95 middle schoolers from 7th and 8th grade and 60 high schoolers from 9th grade and in small group sessions we got their feedback on various things that i will present tonight we have in previous years conducted focus groups on the same topic in 2018 and 2021 and 2024 and there definitely are common threads from the student feedback most recent to those years mentioned in addition in april we conducted teacher listening sessions to gather feedback on the three models in terms of risks and concerns benefits modification ideas and ideas for continuing to create a culture of belonging. I also noted on the screen that we've had previous feedback sessions on scheduling conducted in 2018, 2019, 2021, and 2024. In addition, we had informal feedback loops that occurred in 25

063and 26 during science leaders, ELA leaders, social studies leaders, and department chair leader meetings. We highlight these feedback sessions for a few reasons. We know that the potential for change has caused angst in our system and we are hoping tonight we can start to bring closure to that with a decision. We know that there are predictable concerns and that doesn't minimize those concerns Whenever you take minutes away from one area and put to another we know that that's going to be a concern Change is hard and we are dedicated to supporting our students and our staff and our communities through the change So the first model that I mentioned is the hybrid model and this is the model that we are recommending this is an incremental change For this model our core minutes and our

064elective minutes are the same as they are right now So it is a familiar core and elective structure 64 minutes for all core and then shorter time for our electives in addition this model includes the house system for sixth grade it supports the fifth to sixth grade transition where students are coming from a small environment into a little bit bigger environment The changes on this model include a staggered resource and that is so that we can better support our students whether it is intervention needs or extension needs and we can leverage our available staff throughout the day. When we have it during the same time frame staff is limited on the the reach that they can have with students. In addition, this model looks at seventh and eighth grade as having mixed electives and mixed

065lunch, which increases or sustains the programming that we have right now with elective choices. And it increases school community while decreasing grade level isolation. I'm not going to go over a lot on this slide because this was shared with the board members and all teachers during our feedback sessions and some of the talking points I just mentioned were highlighted on the last slide. I did want to share that during our research stage of our middle school programming project, we dug in deep to belonging research. And our recommendation for the hybrid model is rooted in research showing that the number one driver of student belonging is teacher support. And you can see that peer support is very close after that. This research does talk about how the impact of the house system is indirect. It can

066enable relationships, but there are other ways to replicate how you enable relationships. The junior high model does aim to maintain belonging through relationships, through having teachers of different content areas still connect, as we do now, to ensure that we're wrapping around students. And also the junior high model is helping support those common interests with students. So our student feedback loops we asked them many questions The first question was to talk about places and people that made them feel the strongest sense of belonging You can see on one side our middle school responses and then our high school responses on the other side Students tell us that belonging happens Right what the research said when there is that teacher support? You'll see on the slide our high schoolers talked about the school moms that create that

067environment. Our middle schools talked about those teachers where in the classroom they feel they're nice, they're chill, they're approachable to use their words. Our students told us that there are social hubs such as elective spaces, cafeteria hallways, and supportive environments like our counseling office or the library. that increase their sense of belonging and they also told us that common interest is a driver so having that in classes like electives or having that through clubs Another question that we asked, when you think about the house, what role does it play in your daily life? And as you can see, again, we have some common themes. The feedback was really mixed on the house. Some students talked about how it's a family feel. Other students talked about it depends what house you get in and that it

068also can be socially isolating. So that was a common thread between it. It was socially limiting I should say and They all recognize that it probably has some organizational benefits for field trips or for school assemblies and Logistically just being close to your classes Another question that we asked our students, if we want to make the school, the middle school, a place where students want to be versus have to be, what's one change that would make you more invested? And again, you can see there's some similar things between middle school and high school. But what we learned from all of these questions, when you think about change, is it meaningful? Is it manageable? We believe the hybrid model hits both of those. The hybrid model is meaningful for our students because it decreases social isolation,

069it prioritizes interest-based belonging and increased choice, and it supports developmental autonomy and scaffolds that transition to high school where it is a much bigger learning environment. we also talked to all of our teachers and gave them opportunities the targeted concerns have been predictable they have been shared in previous in previous sessions that we've had and we take that very seriously we've had many behind the You know when we're planning behind the scenes talk about how we will support our staff with something that changes such as the house model or not having morning recess at the same time We also asked our teachers about what are some of the benefits and you'll see that on the right side that came from teachers they did notice that this could be a good opportunity for a culture of

070mentorship when you're mixing seventh and eighth grade and the dynamics of mixed age grouping could actually foster a more positive community so lots of they did our teachers did a fabulous job of kind of sharing concerns but also thinking about what it could look like for the future So as we support changes of this recommended hybrid model, like I said earlier, we know change is hard, but we also have looked back at the one piece that we keep hearing, the house model. The house model has existed in our system since the 1980s. That's when it kind of came out. However, it was in the last three years that our student engagement data was really starting to grow. and so when you talk about why is that happening what you see on the screen are some

071of the shifts that we've made that we believe is having the greatest impact with our student engagement so knowing and valuing our students getting deeper with certain relationship building strategies or processes like early warning system making sure that our students who need us the most are on our radar right away and not after term or a semester we've also increased based on student feedback some of the engagement activities which could be school-wide events it also can be more diverse choices for student clubs In the middle talks more about some of our learning shifts that we have. Explicit instruction is for everyone. When we talk about strategy groups that happen in the class and they also happen during resource, our students tell us that that small group gives them a sense of belonging and they feel

072like they're getting what they need to get. our staff collaboration has been something we have focused on four years but over the last three years in particular we have gotten deeper with what we mean with the clarity around analyzing student work and how we function together so that we're better for students together and in the final column fostering respectful cultures of learning and supporting positive student behavior we've gotten better with goal setting with students and celebrating that at school-wide events and through other venues that we've created In particular we have dosed our system with high quality professional development and supporting complex academic and behavior needs and we are in the process of developing effective behavioral frameworks and systemic intervention strategies all of this is the strategic work that we believe is why we're starting to

073see a positive trend with our student engagement The second option I'm not going to spend a lot of time on for schedules is the extended literacy model. This is the one we had talked about last month in detail and essentially this really is the biggest change possible because you're taking instructional minutes from one area and you're adding it into ELA. model does adhere to the two board strategies and it does align to best practice but this was a model that requires the biggest change for many people you had that summarized with the sheets we gave you during the board engagement that was also given to our teachers And again, targeted concerns from teachers, many of them were the same, but with this model, some of the concerns we heard most about was the curricular integrity

074in science and social studies, as well as the caseload change for science and social studies teachers. And then the third option is the current model. We know, as we've shared with the board in previous touch points, there are barriers with this model in terms of you're running five unique schedules, three grade levels, an elective schedule, and a math schedule with a house model. So scheduling is not a simple thing. It's complex, and we could keep... with that current model, it is something that we know and this would represent very, very little change. And so we have included with here the advantages and the limitations with the current model. At our last meeting, I believe it was Jean who asked, how do you monitor? And I don't think I did a good enough job of really

075explaining what we do. So we do have key performance indicators already in place on student achievement. And that could be using our state testing as well as our system checks. And one of those key metrics is also if students have an adult to talk to about a personal problem. So those are something that are embedded in our... continuous improvement frameworks at the district and at the building level on the right side of the screen both of our middle schools have very comprehensive continuous improvement plans that include that student engagement and engagement or excuse me student achievement and engagement goals they also have a focus on monitoring what's happening in the classroom through learning walks through PLC's and dosing the system with coaching and they have support student support systems in place target group planning and

076early warning system our educator effectiveness is our teacher evaluation and we know that that aligns with the planning that we want to see for all of our learners the learning environments that are created and the principal teaching and learning experiences that we know have the greatest impact and then finally we have a new schedule implementation project plan and you can see the categories that we that we've been focused on as we plan for potential change that includes stakeholder communication the logistics of putting together a master board potential changes in staff roles and responsibilities ensuring our instructional designs and our curricular alignment is where we want it to be making sure our teachers are supported through professional learning and that our operations facilities and logistics are also supporting the work of a new schedule So once

077again, we are recommending an incremental change of the hybrid model, but the board also could choose the extended ELA or the current model. So with that, I'll open it up for any questions to support your action tonight. Thank you, Dr. Rettler. Before we start with questions, we do have a couple of requests to speak from our community. First will be Chloe Mitchell, who's not a resident of the district, but one of our amazing teachers. She'll make her way to the podium. And following Chloe will be Julie. So, Chloe. Hi, I'm Chloe Mitchell, a seventh grade case manager at Pilgrim Park. I teach and support students with disabilities. Our district's mission emphasizes the importance to educate and inspire every student to think, to learn, and to succeed. However, I cannot help but think of how the

078proposed changes within the new models would adversely affect the students I have a responsibility to advocate for. The house system is integral to the success of the students I serve. The presentation states the impact of the house system is indirect. As a professional who has worked with and without a house system, I can say in full confidence that I disagree with this claim. The support the house system provides is critical to all students and staff. With a house, I know I can lean on a team of teachers to consistently wrap around a student with me and foster the inclusivity Elmbrook strives to achieve. I cannot count the number of times I have relied on house meetings to brainstorm and problem solve. The system allows staff to be direct, cohesive, and effective with our student support

079so we can intervene faster and see results quicker. Removing the house system will create more obstacles for students with disabilities who already are trying to find their place in a world that is not naturally accessible to them. I have personally seen the amazing outcomes a house system can achieve. This supportive approach has caused students on my caseload to feel accepted in the classroom. I have seen them foster friendships, grow in confidence, and find their voice to self-advocate. The house system is what makes this possible. A common resource time also contributes to this by allowing them to participate in unified sports, practices, and house celebrations, which cultivates a steadfast and accepting culture at Pilgrim. Again, as a district, we emphasize the importance that every student achieve success. This should include all students with disabilities. I do

080not see how the newly proposed models accomplish this goal. especially the extended literacy model. Instead, I fear that we could begin to move from inclusion to assimilation, since other structural changes are not being made to support these students, especially for those with more complex needs who already struggle to remain in class for its duration. We'd be disturbing them if we did not then make additional adjustments to the schedule to accommodate their needs Students would need to attend to tasks for longer time frames Which directly opposes what has been taught what has been taught about gen alpha? The sample break within the schedule is insufficient if we hope to meet students where they're at Rather than making them fit a mold that does not meet their executive functioning and emotional regulation needs Increased amounts of instructional

081time would be lost due to more frequent breaks and a rise in and dysregulated behavior we must prioritize supporting students holistically and equitably education is for all that includes a schedule that enables students with disabilities to flourish rather than conform thank you thank you Chloe and then Julie Hargraves resident the district is next to speak Julie good evening everyone thank you for hearing me again on this middle school programming proposal I wrote this before I heard the new options so bear with me as I try to modify this on the fly. I understand the desire to learn from our excellent neighboring districts but before we make this change let's pause and ask is it really needed right now? As someone who is very numbers and data driven, I rely on clear evidence to guide decisions.

082If solid data shows this approach is truly better for our kids, I would support it. But right now I'm not convinced. Our middle schools are already strong. PPMS recently earned its highest DPI report card in school history. Cedarburg and Whitefish Bay perform very well too, but correlation does not equal causation. Any small differences in achievement could stem from factors we aren't considering and not course object time. Our balanced approach is working. We should protect it rather than assume another schedule is automatically superior. This change feels premature. Four years ago, we strengthened early literacy by fully incorporating the science of reading. The first kindergartners who benefited are only in third grade now. We haven't seen the full long-term impact on ELA proficiency. In science, we change one variable at a time to isolate what actually drives

083results. Changing too many at once risks losing track of what truly made the difference. Let's give this recent shift time before adding another major variable. I'm going to kind of sum up the next paragraph in a way that says I think that option one, while it provides some great suggestions as to what I was going to propose, I do think I have a few more suggestions that could be incorporated that I cannot fit into the time allowed, but I would be willing to discuss those more in the future if this was postponed. Strong literacy opens doors to understanding and expression. We all value that, but science and social studies equip kids to solve real problems. Words alone don't build bridges, cure diseases, or tackle global challenges. As Sam Hughes noted in the last discussion on

084this issue, it's crucial to develop better thinkers, but ELA isn't the primary place for that. Data analysis, experimentation, historical perspective, and civic reasoning the core of science and social studies build those skills talking about issues matters but preparing kids to innovate and decide wisely shapes their futures elmbrook is exceptional because we've built a thoughtful balanced education that honors the whole child let's not disrupt that balance without stronger evidence it's needed Please pause this initiative and explore smaller tweaks that keep science and social studies strong. Our students deserve careful, deliberate consideration. Thank you for listening and for your dedication. Thank you, Julie. We do have one more request to speak after board conversation. So at this point, I'd open it up to board member questions or comments. Who would like to begin? I would love to

085comment if I could. Okay, go ahead, Jean. Thank you. First, I'd like to acknowledge the hard work of our middle school leaders putting together and bringing this proposal forward and the multiple iterations. Most importantly, the staff and students who are responsible for gains in literacy that have been accomplished over the past couple years as this project has been underway. I appreciate the fidelity of the science and social studies staff in terms of their contributions to literacy gains. While research and benchmarks would support changes to instructional minutes in favor of ELA, it's hard to argue with success. The needle is moving. We're making progress. We equalized minutes across all core courses at the middle level beginning in the 22-23 school year when the resource period was introduced. While continued professional development around intentional literacy-based instruction will

086be required to implement this hybrid model, I believe it's the right path forward. We're in slow motion of that. Well, I don't know that it's slow. Probably it's not slow from the perspective of staff, but we're in the motion of that at the current time as we have. embrace the science of reading, certainly fully loaded. And those kids are in third grade, as Julie mentioned, but we've done that across the district and the science and social studies teachers have told us they are contributing to literacy and within their individual disciplines. Secondly, I can support the hybrid models. I believe there are advantages to balanced enrollment, staggered resource period, increases in elective choices, and the opportunity to leverage relationship building, which is so critical to a sense of belonging. I believe preserving the house model for

087sixth grade will reap benefits during the critical transition from elementary to middle school. Moving to the junior high model for seventh and eighth supports the depth of elective choices. offerings and recognizes these students will soon be transitioning to high school. Now that said, the comments that were made earlier by Chloe in terms of concern, or maybe I've got the wrong, sorry, and my notes are a little, a little. cloudy um yes it was chloe who mentioned concern around students with special needs moving away from the house system could be uh present problems that maybe we haven't considered yet and i would encourage that we take a beat and do that and then finally i'll conclude my remarks by saying that I'm pleased to see that KPIs have been identified to monitor success. I think it'll

088be helpful to not only monitor ELA and math proficiency, but science and social studies as well, even though we aren't going to change the minutes with the hybrid model. I think we need to have, and I'm sure we do keep track of all of that as we go, but I'd like to support the fact that we're going to be doing that. I do have a couple questions. I would like to understand at what intervals these KPIs will be assessed and reported out, whether we have specific targets in mind or envision how we will be seeing improved achievements over what time period, for example. So if you could talk a little bit about that, I would appreciate understanding. what you envision and it seemed to me it would be helpful if this would come back at

089least to the TLC committee and or the board for an understanding of how it's moving on, moving forward. Thank You Jean from the board level at our TLC committee and we report out on our KPIs every year we do that in various intervals based on what the data is and for example in the beginning of the term i want to say november ish october november we report out on the wisconsin state assessment system where those kpis many of those kpis come from our teaching and learning committee have additional team-based or tlc-based metrics that we report on throughout the year at a building level we do our continuous improvement planning in 100-day cycles And so Matt and Kelly are continually looking at that data through classroom assessment data, through universal screening data, and then also through

090our big state assessments. So it's a pulse. It's something that runs through our continuous improvement planning. We're always analyzing how we're doing, small growth, large growth, and trying to celebrate and also trying to identify what are the strategies that are going to have the highest impact. So it's definitely... embedded in our continuous improvement frameworks and embedded in our TLC reports. Wonderful. So glad to hear it. I would also like to talk about the last KPI talking that indicates students have an adult to talk to about a personal problem and how and how often do we evaluate this? That comes from our student engagement survey where that goes out in March correct March and And then I don't know if you two want to talk about some of the things you do with your continuous improvement

091plan with some of the data from the student engagement survey Sure so we periodically do check-ins with students quarterly as well just to take dipsticks to determine how kids are doing and if they're feeling successful at school and that they belong so we have those they're called how's it going surveys as well that are just more informal to determine what our next action steps need to be in terms of continuous improvement planning we are committed to making sure kids belong so that's at pilgrim park a big part of our theory of action and a part of our goals so we will take different steps for instance one year it was you know we were going to do a two by ten which is to spend two minutes each day with a student for ten days

092that you don't have a connection with that you don't think has a good connection in our school to help support them and have them grow so we are always thinking about different strategies that we might utilize in order to help students feel connected in school and connecting that to our continuous improvement efforts Matt Jim Moore Thanks Kelly hi again everyone I would echo principal Cisterniak's sentiments we do pretty much the same thing we have quarterly student grade level meetings where we are talking about resetting expectations and fostering our sense of belonging. We talk a lot about engagement through our ignite plans, our continuous improvement plans. We have grown quite a bit. We are typically setting achievement goals and we're typically setting another goal that has to do directly with our students sense of belonging. We're

093using the data and the dipsticks that we get along the way. to continue to adjust. We do 15-day challenges where we have students that are, we have teachers that are making very intentional daily connections with kids. We are often talking about what safety, respect, and responsibility means and how we can reset those expectations. We know that if students are feeling safe, if they feel like they belong. if they feel like they have a connection to their peers and if they feel like they have a connection to adults, they're in a good place to learn, which is going to help us with our first goal of achievement. So it's been very intentional work. Lisa talked about our belonging data going up over the course of the last three years. That all is a result of very

094intentional steps that we're taking to continue to create the kind of culture in both of our buildings that we're looking for. And really, ultimately, that's what students are looking for. Thank you. So just to follow up then on Jean's comment, you guys would say, I mean, that work is somewhat independent of the three schedules we're considering tonight. Like, that's been something we just do and are wanting to maintain in our buildings no matter what schedules. Yes but that also a lot of those strategies when we're doing the analysis in year one of the board goal of middle school programming a lot of that what you're hearing them talk about came from that initial deep dive into what's happening in our middle schools what's working what what do we need to maybe find a new solution

095for Some of the other things too that we the way that we go about solving problems right now is in the structure that we are currently in so we will lean on the house and say hey we want the house to do this we are confident that if the house doesn't exist in seventh and eighth grade that we will find other structures and we'll plan around that as well that the work we're doing will continue it's just rethinking how it works and when that work happens Thank you for the clarification other questions or comments Cheryl and then Mary I'm curious in the current system of the houses. How is it working? transitioning to high school and Do we think that the junior high model will create a more ease of transition to high school from

096eighth grade to ninth grade I think that came out in our student feedback on some of the slides that I shared when you look at what most of them said they talked about really either mixing up so you're not in the same house they talked about inconsistencies from teachers to teachers in the house but many of them said as you approach high school it would probably be better not to have them because they are going into much bigger environments And then my second question is on slide 14 you mentioned the AVID program. How long have we had that in the middle school? I'm a previous principal in the middle school we started exploring that I would say nine years ago and then when Kelly and Matt joined our team those were the first year that

097we implemented it and so that was seven years ago yeah so two years of exploring and then seven years ago is when we first implemented it thank you for this presentation and thank you for bringing forward this hybrid plan, which There are a lot of things that I like about My greatest concerns about the first presentation we had with the the greater change have been pretty much resolved with this hybrid plan they had to do a lot with um teacher loads and minutes that were reallocated before i thought we may need to be that extreme with ela so i realized i wasn't there at the start of this process when that goal was set for you so i understand why it evolved but i like this better And I appreciate hearing that this is the

098administratively supported plan, which leads me to believe that you believe that hybrid plan could be very successful. So I'm looking heavily at what the students said here. There's a lot I like about transitioning from the sixth grade house to the seventh and eighth grade I don't know if it's really I don't know why we call it a junior high model because junior high didn't look like that when I went to junior high but that the more transitionary combined model of seventh and eighth grade as these students progress to high school where they will Probably become more connected to their affinity groups the music kids, the people who are in classes where there are multiple grade levels. I think it's nice to be in what's probably the safety of a middle school to make that transition

099and see how that goes in a gradual way. So this, to me, is kind of the best of both of those worlds. The other concern that I had about not accepting a change was that we would lose the ability to hang on to some of those low enrollment classes. as a latin student you know i i know that the programs that often get hit when there's just not enough but when you can combine the seventh and eighth grade we can sustain some things especially at a time when we may see our enrollment flattening and that becoming increasingly difficult i think this solves that for some of the electives and maybe allows us to offer those more robustly as we go forward if we combine seventh and eighth grade so I do hear the concerns and

100I know change you know I'm not gonna say change is hard because that sounds really dismissive of people's concerns and I don't mean to be that but in the evolution of our academic program of students going from elementary to it increasingly Co responsible and more adult process of going through their k-12 education I like I like the transitions that are created here. I Hear a lot. I wrote down a lot of words that were important to me here support growth connection safety adult connections Those can be called belonging and they can be called all of those things. But those are KPIs for me test scores are The way we measure the world like it or not, but these are the things that... are about human success and they're about mental health care and well-being middle

101school is a tough time those are lofty goals when you're just trying to figure out who you even are so that's the kpi i'm looking for and i think knowing the people who are involved in delivering this instruction i'm confident that we do that well and i'm confident we will monitor monitor it and i'm confident that More than I who you know was only a mom of some and a teacher of others I'm not in the trenches in the middle school every day to know and to see in action how much that's being addressed and cared for. I love the how's it going survey. I'd love to have somebody give me a how's it going survey every few weeks. Who wouldn't? But that you're paying attention to that. That's not what junior high looked like

102when I went there, and I'm sure glad that's what middle school in Elmbrook could look like now. So thank you for the work, and I support the hybrid model. Thank you, Mary. Sam? thank you um i appreciate that night was it lisa or miss hargraves sorry i didn't write it down i should have It's my last board meeting, so I don't have to write this down anymore. I'm just kidding. I do appreciate your comments. I do want to say that there was strong evidence presented. The facts were studied. I mean, the administration has spent three years. We saw the incredible amount of work that Kelly and Matt and Lisa and Emily and her team put on researching this, studying it, and bringing the best option to the board. As Lisa stated, through extensive research performed,

103thoughtful recommendations were made. The performance of our middle school has consistently been, as long as I've been on the TLC, below our desirable level. We see an often degrading that seems like to go down in seventh and eighth grade and then start to go back up ninth through twelfth. And this option two, which extends ELA and extends math, is something that our students are in need of. They've put... time into it. They have presented real evidence and they've brought back some extensive research. The arguments that were presented to us a few weeks ago by some of the community members and some teachers, I went back and listened to it. It was primarily anecdotal evidence and personal opinions and personal options. And I respect that, but it wasn't brought with scientific proof. This group initially brought

104like-minded people to share their opinions. Again, nothing that was presented was scientific evidence. This model isn't fringe thinking. This isn't like, let's go some extreme and we're going to try the newest and greatest thing. I see this model and option two as getting back to the basics, getting back to focusing on English, writing, and math, and that will serve them for the rest of their life. And they'll have plenty of time to learn the other subjects. And also, like Mary said, I appreciate that a lot with giving the option to combine some of the extra classes with the seventh eighth graders so we can keep important subjects like Latin in there I would 100% agree with that as well I get it and I don't want to downplay it is a big change and it

105would be hard to implement but the research has been done and the best option was presented to us the hybrid option is not the best option it's an alternative option modified because we had some complaint people come in and share concerns and complaints about this change without anything based in evidence from what I heard. And I truly appreciate the passion and the teachers and community they came in to share with us two board meetings ago. Well, I guess one and a half because the last one wasn't really a board meeting. They're all wonderful people and admirable. They're passionate about this community. I do want to say I was sad by their conduct. You know, they brought into the boardroom the clicking, the interaction was really painted some of our community members as unprofessional, and I

106was really disappointed in that. Ellenbrook stands above the rest, and to bring that behavior into a boardroom really watered down their message, and I think it was unfortunate. I believe that option two from that recommendation that we had from a couple weeks ago is the best option. We've done the research. This wasn't thought lightly. This was three years plus of work done into this. And we owe it to our future middle schoolers and middle school students to give them the structure that will allow them to really thrive and grow in ELA and math. And so I encourage the support of option two. Thank you, Sam. I'd like to talk next. Wes? Sure. I appreciate all the work that was done by administration. This has been a long time coming, and hopefully the finish line is

107here. I know it's been a long three years, so thank you guys for all the work that you have done and continue to do. I think ultimately, for me, I think the hybrid model does meet, I think, the challenges and the balance between... I think what we've heard from a change perspective, for me, I think the continuation of the house model into sixth grade provides consistency for students in the sense of what they're used to from elementary school, keeping it a little bit smaller, and then providing the greater crossover potential in seventh and eighth grade, including the opportunity for more electives. I ultimately think that we could be successful honestly with any of these models with the staff and administrators that we have I think it's about the implementation and How we do that? I

108think that there's from my perspective You know, you know whether it's including ELA as part of science and social studies Whether it's having longer ELA periods. I think our teachers are able To adapt and provide a success no matter what the approach would ultimately be decided but I do think that for me personally the hybrid model provides the balance of Consistency with the house system into sixth grade. I I've lived the house model that's what I had when I went through middle school here and I know some people are really Really like it for me. It was not something that I remember particularly in any particular way but I do appreciate that it will continue that smaller smaller feel into sixth grade and then provide a lot more opportunities I think for our students in

109seventh and eighth grade so I am in support of the hybrid model thank you Wes Preeta I want to thank everybody for their comment I am also in support of the hybrid model Almost my entire time here in Elmbrook I have had a middle schooler at WHMS except for one gap year. So I feel like I have a personal lived experience as a parent and I, Wes you stole my thunder a little bit, I was going to say that I really think that all of these models could be successful. I, again the current model that we have I know I speak anecdotally but my children have thrived and I appreciate everything that has been done to make all students feel included and again I as we've discussed this over these many months I appreciate all

110of the comments that have come forth And again to go back to why I support the hybrid model I do see this as a transition from again having watched my children go through it recently from fifth grade to sixth grade with the house model and then continuing to mature in the way that students may interact with each other and maybe have mixed grades as we then progress on to high school I think I see that as an advantage and that's one of my main reasons for supporting this but I also just to reiterate I really do believe that we have fantastic staff in our middle schools and administration and I can't speak positively enough about my own experiences in this district so I do believe that implementation is the important piece and I think that

111Again from what's been presented tonight and all of the comments that we've heard from educators, which I appreciate, from community members, from parents. I just want to say that I've heard all of it and I very much appreciate it and at this point I am in support of this hybrid model. Thanks, Preeta. Sam? Just so I'm clear, option two is sixth grade isn't changing at all, right? If you mean the house model still yeah option two still has the house model in sixth grade So we're not looking at getting okay. I just wanna make sure because it seemed like there might have been some confusion Cheryl I do want to thank you for all your work and I know it's been a long time that you've walked through this in the hybrid model It's my

112understanding that the science of reading will be used in both science and in social studies so we're not really losing minutes from the ELH just moving to other areas All of our teachers including our elective teachers have been trained in science of reading and so all models we would continue that work the difference was having ELA teachers in the extended ELA own some of those explicit routines or supplanting some of those literacy efforts in science and social studies our science teachers have done an amazing job with vocabulary instruction teaching word parts all of those things they also are using a common writing framework that our social studies is using and our ela is using those are some of the efforts again regardless of what structure we use that is what's moving the needle for our

113student achievement and we'll continue to deepen our practice with that okay thank you i like a couple of comments and i have a couple of questions we do have two requests to speak and then board members will circle back around to The option to make motions, at which point we can have more conversation, more questions once we have some motions on the table. You know, when the board makes, I have 11 years of experience, when we make a big decision, I try to think of it from all angles. It's almost impossible to predict everything that's going to happen. Gene, I appreciate Gene starting us off with the questions about how are we going to evaluate the change? You know, how are we going to look at this down the road to make sure that what

114we thought was going to happen with changing to any of these models is actually happening? And is it too much? Is it too little? And so I appreciate and want to express my confidence in... the assessments that we use to really evaluate what we're doing and that we're gonna be looking at that real time, no matter what option is voted on and approved by the board tonight, that we're gonna be looking and continue looking at that. For many years on the board, I've just had concerns about middle school. Part of it's just the age. It's just hard. I haven't really spoken to any adult that loved the middle school years. You know, where the middle school was like their opportunity to shine. It was the people really enjoyed their high school time, their college years.

115Middle school is just hard. Peer interactions can be hard. Hormones can be hard. You know, we've got a start time for middle school in our district that makes it hard. There's just things about middle school that make it hard. those years are just often difficult and so for many years again going back to when we first started these projects like the board's really interested in making middle school better and i have to say that the work you've done in the last three years on a belonging really since the pandemic on thank you to our building leaders because that intentional works made a difference I think that's helped move the needle in our academic performance and certainly in a sense of belonging. I've had kids in the system as they've gone through these middle school years,

116and I just know it's hard, and you've made some good changes. My two questions, I think I know the answer, but it kind of informs my thinking on which of these three options I lean towards. My first question is related to something that Chloe talked about in her comments. But just, and I don't know who wants to take this, Lisa or anyone else on the team. How does the hybrid, so I'm specifically looking at option one, if we were to go with that, how would it support students that have needs? I mean, I know right now we've got that resource period and it's all at one time. We talked about teachers not being able to push into that, but especially students with disabilities. What do you see as the advantages or the drawbacks to like

117really, because I think that's a big part of what's needed at middle school is kind of those interventions for kids that need it. Maybe even like that bottom quartile, not just students with disabilities, but kids that just are struggling at that time period in their life. I'll start and then Kelly will add to it. For our students with the highest needs one of the out of all the feedback loops that we've done our ELA teachers say I want them in my class so when you talk about inclusive our ELA teachers want them in their class and oftentimes they're required minutes they're getting pulled from their ELA class by staggering the resource we have more access to those students so that they're not getting pulled from an elective class or they're not getting pulled from their

118ELA class and they can actually be learning more time with their age level peers Yes, so in alignment with what Lisa said we have typically one math interventionist one reading interventionist and then several special educators in our building So having three different resources throughout the day means we can pool those adults in order to intervene with many students during that resource period Whereas right now all of those adults are competing for the same kids within a 30 minute time frame during the day so that is one of the challenges i mean there's certainly drawbacks to you know any change but one of our big challenges is accessing students and this would help solve some of that i can tell you one of the things i'm a middle school science teacher so that's what i do

119seventh and eighth grade and i didn't look closely enough a month ago when we were considering this i did briefly look and think man that's not a science schedule That's not what I would actually like to teach and I didn't think enough to kind of translate that into Elmbrook but one of the things that is hard is when students are pulled from science. You know any class, any core class and they are getting services. But now they've missed a science lab and if they come in at the tail end of class It's very difficult if we've completed the lab for them to get caught up on that day's work You know, they're missing some core instruction My instruction happens at the beginning of my period and then the students often are working in small groups

120So they can join the students in the small group work but they've maybe missed the instructional piece that went preceding that or They get the instructional piece, but they missed the lab and so That's important to me. When we're polling our students to provide services is actually an important piece in middle school. So I appreciate you speaking to that. My second question is... scheduling we've heard I've heard some board members talking about it this is one of the things that I think is a benefit to the hybrid model to making some adjustments being able to combine and offer classes that have smaller so this is probably a principal question and when you do scheduling and you're reaching out and you're trying does which of these models helps with scheduling and in what way specifically is

121it going to be easier or harder to schedule if the board picks one of you know maybe we've seen to all three like pros and cons of specifically scheduling because I didn't I saw that kind of talked about but again from a teacher lens or a student lens they're probably not thinking of scheduling and putting all those pieces I'm going to turn this over to principal Cisterniak thank you Scott thank you Matt for your candid response I'll piggyback well so In terms of scheduling, the hybrid model does create more options for scheduling. We've talked a lot about combining 7th and 8th graders in certain elective experiences, but another challenge we currently have in our schedule is we have three different grade-level schedules. So if you have a teaching assignment where you only have three sections

122for a teacher and they need that fourth section, that very often is, oh, you're a science teacher, but you're going to teach social studies too because that's what I have for you. In this schedule, they could... be teaching an elective it could be a science teacher teaching a medical detectives elective instead which would be more in alignment with their skills we would certainly as always we take teacher input every year on what do you feel you are strongest at in terms of grade level and content area but there is some flexibility that is created in how we assign staff members so that i think we could potentially assign them even better you know teaching assignments based upon their skills depending on who we're working with within our within our house system right now just to

123kind of say what Kelly said it may be a different way we have we have less flexibility to be able to it's just really hard to teach multiple grade levels for example in our current schedule instead of having teachers teach ELA in multiple grade levels which might be a better fit they might end up teaching two ELA classes and two social studies classes because that's what fits, that's what we need, and we need them to stay in the same grade level or we need them to fit into this alpha, beta, or gamma house. So the hybrid model gives us flexibility in seventh and eighth grade to be able to match our teachers with their content areas or with what they would really prefer to teach more often. We do have a couple requests to speak

124and then board members we can ask more questions make motion Says after board discussion Okay, let's start with the motion. So maybe there these comments are more relevant So someone like to start us off with the motion Mary. I would move that we adopt the hybrid model I'll second. You have a motion in a second. So that's the motion on the floor. We have a request to speak from Matt H Sorry, we're not pronouncing your full last name Matt. You can pronounce me you come here. He is a resident of the school district Matt. I'm Julie's husband Hargraves So you guys were mentioning the hybrid model and I heard a lot of the oh, we're gonna lose our houses I Maybe I'm weird on this but it seems like it's a simple solution just to

125combine the houses for seventh and eighth grade It gives the eighth graders opportunity to be leaders, and it gives the seventh graders the opportunity to have mentors to help them through any difficulties and solves that problem pretty neatly. From there, the idea of the extended ELA, while I'm sure a lot of people like it, I have a lot of concerns on that. English language, the last innovations we had outside of some new genres of... writing is the double negative back in the 1950s, I think, and the last innovation in science probably happened since I started talking. And it's very concerning that we're talking about reducing the science time that we have when every minute we take away from our children in science is just going to put them that much farther behind. I provided a

126handout with the degree outcomes by field of study and when you look at the debt at graduation for college graduates, English and social studies are very top. They are kids and the young adults in their 20s and early 30s are buried in debt and moving them Forward in the areas where they're going to potentially pursue that with and looking at the early career earnings also earn less than the science and math degree holders seems very dangerous, particularly when we consider that our job or your jobs as educators are to prepare our children for a future as adults to be productive and have a good life. And if they're buried in debt, that's depression. That's not good. And then even after that, when you flip over the page, you look at the field match rates. The

127probability of even getting work in the field that they want in English or social sciences is 20 to 25%, whereas those who are in math, econ, and sciences, including computer science, approach is 60%. I have a lot of concerns, and I would really like to see the hybrid model move forward. And like I said, if you want the houses, just combine them for 7th and 8th grade. It seems pretty simple, straightforward. Thank You Matt our last request to speak to the board on this is Jose Galvan a resident or not a resident the district but Jose one of our teachers Hello my name is Jose Galvan I'm an eighth grade social studies teacher at Pilgrim Park So over the last five or six weeks or so, it seems, I've thought a lot about this. And

128even leading up to this particular school board meeting, I've written like three different speeches. I've written like three or four different versions of the letter that eventually I ended up sending to all of you. And then just now, after hearing all of the debate and the talk, I ended up rewriting what I was going to share. And so... And so I really appreciate this opportunity to speak because it is something that I feel very, very, very strongly about, so strongly that I'm compelled here. So some people criticize schools for not changing, that we don't stay with it with the times. And I think that that's misplaced. I think that really what we see in schools is that we change all the time. And I think what ends up happening because of that change is that

129this illusion is created, that that change comes without a cost, because we've become very, very good at pivoting. And so in my letter and in the things that I've spoken to in previous board meetings, I think one of the things that you really, really have to consider is the cost of this particular recommendation. And I understand the arguments, but... to really live the experience of the house is to know that it is a community. It is a safe place for students where they are seen. But it's more than that. It's also the mechanism in which we do our wraparounds for 504s and for IEPs and the work that we do regarding target groups. So much of the work, the minutia, the nuts and bolts, the way that we do things is because of the house

130system. And yes. I've heard all of you say that we have the most capable teachers in the state, and I truly believe that we are. I'm so incredibly proud of the teachers at Pogrom Park because of what we have been able to accomplish in Kelly Cicerniak's tenure as principal of our school, what we've been able to do together. And so I just think about what it is that we lose when we eliminate the house. And all those systems... and all those ways of doing things, those rhythms that I talked about in my letter. And I know that that's not science-based, and I get it. It's important to look at the research. But there is a way of doing things at Pilgrim Park because of the house system. And once we eliminate that, there will be

131a new way that we do things. Whether it will be as successful as the old will remain to be seen. But I would argue that as you think about this, think about the cost. think about the time and the effort and the expertise that will be required to create new systems when we already have systems and rhythms and ways of doing and being and teaching Thank you Jose any board member questions or comments before we vote on the motion which is to approve option one the hybrid schedule Sam I probably should have made a motion to option two first I'm gonna vote no on this one because I do think option two is the better option I'd love to know if they're willing to answer what each of the leaders believe what is best for

132the long-term students of the middle school option one the hybrid or option two is best but we're settling for option one because of some Kick back or from some complaints. Would you guys be willing to answer what one you think is better for the students long term? I'd love to hear from Liz and Emily as well Thanks for the question Sam I think that the hybrid model I recommended model is is the one that I believe is is going to be the most impactful. We heard loud and clear from our staff that a lot of pride in shared ownership around how we are approaching literacy and I think there's something to be said for that. The hybrid model allows us to continue that momentum that we've had over the years, allows us as a team

133to continue to dig deeper into the science of reading and structured literacy. while at the same time providing opportunities for students to take elective classes that maybe they haven't been able to take in the past expanding their social circles by allowing seventh and eighth grade students to take classes together allowing for a one and a two woodworking one a woodworking two for example instead of a course that that might be very similar to the one that they took in seventh and eighth grade or in seventh grade if they take it again in eighth grade i think there's there's a lot of really great opportunities Change is hard. I want to recognize Chloe and Jose's comments there this if we move forward with this I think there are some things that we will be giving up.

134Hopefully we've communicated our our not not necessarily a plan but but the thoughtfulness that we've been putting into students sense of belonging and how we work together to um to try to come up with new solutions for for our students with our staff um so i i believe the the hybrid model is the the best way forward based on our feedback and the pride and the commitment to um to the science of reading that we've heard from our staff thank you man I would echo Matt's sentiments that the hybrid would be the model that I would recommend as well when choosing between the extended literacy and the hybrid model for many of the reasons that he stated I think something the biggest concern that has come to me many times is the answers to all

135the little questions how will we collaborate around that student and how will we PLC together and That's why we are asking now for this decision so we have a year to a year and a half of planning because the people that spoke today and the people that work in our building are the people that need to help co-create those plans and those structures as we rethink them. I think we can do the hard work I obviously hear that there are concerns about it but I also think we're really great at problem solving and working as a team as evidenced by all the work we've been doing over the past several years to improve student outcomes and belonging and in achievement Thanks Sam I also agree that the hybrid model is the best model I do

136teaching and learning so when I think of what we've built in the system phenomena based approach in science and having the time to do that and hearing from people who support in those spaces talk about how we are capturing more students with that teaching and learning framework that's huge when I hear about the cross content collaboration happening with writing how do you do it in ela how do i do it in social studies how can we have common language that's to me that that's what the where the lovers are how we're teaching students and how we're learning through literacy and not just content because they're paired together to me those are the levers that we're going to see make the biggest continue to make the biggest difference structure has never been the lever it's important

137but it's never been the lever it's always about how do you engage the learners in literacy and how do you create that environment that they're going to feel seen and heard so to me the hybrid model is the best choice i would also share the sentiment i think As many of you have said I think we could make any schedule work I think our teachers are phenomenal our students are remarkable and together we would be able to make anything really work I think the hybrid model is the best option for our system at this point in time I think the benefits that we see with the extended literacy opportunity we can right size some of those different structures with the science of reading that we can't leverage in the hybrid model to the extent we

138would in an ela extended block we can do that through our science of reading in core content areas of social studies and science so thinking about how valuable it is to build on academic vocabulary and all of those pieces that are in authentic non-fiction text will expand on those opportunities without reducing the time that they have, the minutes that they'll have in those content areas. So I don't feel like there's any perfect schedule. I think we talked about that last time when we were together also. If there was such a thing, every school would have it. So it's really what we do with the minutes once we've determined that. So I look forward to having. decision that we can move forward with so we can start planning and making those decisions so you don't have

139the angst and wondering that's happening in our system and we're ready to to move forward and really do what's going to be best for our kids hi everyone i wasn't planning on talking so thanks for calling me out thanks for calling me to the stand um i echo my colleagues um i am an ap so i'm a scheduler um it breaks my heart to cancel classes that i know that kids want to take um this would solve that. It breaks my heart when we have an eighth grader transfer to our system and I have to tell them, oh, sorry, you can't take this class or that one or that one. Let me just tell you what your schedule is, actually. You want to talk about community and belonging, welcome to Elmbrook. So now those aren't

140system-wide problems. Those are small examples. But this change would solve that. I know that the loss of the house would be a loss, but I am confident in our team and our ability to support students running the feedback sessions with kids. I helped run that myself. It was really interesting to hear there. Thoughts on the house they're Almost in the groups that I ran kids talked about lunch Being where they find the best community because that's where all their friends are And Lisa mentioned that sometimes the house can be isolating and that's what they were talking about if you're a kid who has one or two best friends and Your best friend is not your house That can be make middle school hard so I Kelly and I have a feedback link in our newsletter

141that teachers can give us feedback just to keep the door open and I already had teachers sending us some ideas of how we can support kids if the house were to go away so I'm confident in our ability as leaders and also problem solvers to solve this and as Kelly said having a year and a half to plan around it would be helpful Sam to your point I do look at our comparative districts that do run a 90-minute ELA block and they're getting great results that's intriguing to me I would feel more confident moving to a model like that if our data was plateauing but it's not So at this point I feel the hybrid model changes the things where we are plateauing and keeps the things where we're growing the same and I echo

142Scott's sentiments that we will continue to evaluate our data and If and when we do plateau then maybe more or less change is needed I also was in planning on speaking which is why I was hanging out in the back over there. When I started at Wisconsin Hills people asked me often what was different about where I was or what I liked about the transition to Hills and I resoundingly told people that it was the community that brought me to Hills that helped me love being there already and I think course in support of everything that's already been said I think the community piece and the sense of belonging that we can help build within the hybrid model was important to me in supporting that over the extended ELA block model or extended ELA model

143within the hybrid model we see opportunities for students to still be seen and heard and be valued by teachers as they would be able to like be with their friends and also the caseload for our teachers in the hybrid model is more manageable versus the ELA extended time model. In that model, our ELA teachers would have fewer sections, fewer kids away, different caseload than what they have now and our science and social studies teachers would have like very large increase in their caseload from what they have now I think it's better for kids to connect with teachers that way and while I'm a student centered person our teachers are really important to us and I think that helping that be a part of a positive culture change for us would benefit all staff and students

144in our building as well well thank you that that was good feedback to hear from you guys I really do appreciate that it helps me rethink my opinions any other comments or questions before we vote i'd like to uh ask whether we need to amend the motion as the um original suggested motion uh says that we're looking at implementation for 2728 or are we fine understanding that we aren't going to be able to get this done for by fall of this year and we just move forward with the emotion on the table It would need to be the 27-28 we're too far along with our scheduling process to make that flip for next year so that it's it's worded I believe as it is It just wasn't stated it's written correct it just wasn't stated

145the 27-28 So technically we need an amendment that would be accepted that would reference the 27-28 school year I just didn't read the whole thing let me be more clear I move approval of the hybrid schedule for the middle school schedule starting in the 2027-28 school year as it's written in the minutes or in the agenda second and pre three seconds as that is the motion we're considering that's what I had understood so Jean thanks for the clarification now it's been stated clearly any other discussion before we vote Hearing none all those in favor of the motion. Please say aye aye aye aye Any opposed? Thank you that carries on voice vote and thank you everyone who came tonight for that agenda item Welcome to stay we have some other exciting things to talk about

146or you can head out if you need it Our next action item is recent gifts to the district gene. Will you take this one? Yes? Christy's just played the slide for the Gifts to the district for the month of January. Correct? January. Sorry. Yeah, January. That's correct. And the slide's up. Okay, great. The slide shows the donors for the month of January to the School District of Elmbrook in the amount of $70,743.64. I'd like to express gratitude on behalf of the board for these gifts that support continued excellence in Elmbrook. This slide will be posted on the district website for a time to come. And with that, I move approval of the gifts to the district for January 2026. Second. Thank you. We have a motion and a second by Sam. Any discussion? All those

147in favor of the motion, please say aye. Aye. Any opposed? Thank you. It carries on voice vote. Our next action item of the evening is school start time. Chris or Mark? Mark will start this off and then we do have... a couple of requests to speak but we'll go with the presentation first in october of 2024 the board of education commissioned school start time committee to attempt to align our operations with adolescent sleep research and academic performance while their original tier swap recommendation was not feasible upon community feedback we have identified three alternatives scenario 5b offers perhaps the most ideal times that match the recommendations from the research But the $600,000 to $1 million annual budget increase and the need for up to 18 additional drivers makes it our least preferred option given current labor

148constraints. While scenario two aligns our high schools with regional benchmarks, it does the least to address the committee's primary charge, sleep science. Therefore, if we move forward, the administration prefers and recommends scenario 2A. It provides that critical 15 to 17-minute start time delay for our older students, but we must be clear that this will extend the elementary day by seven minutes and could exacerbate the end-of-day absence problem we have at the high school level already due to co-curriculars. If these trade-offs are too steep, we remain fully prepared to maintain the status quo. Chris Thompson is joining us now and is here to answer any questions or provide clarity to any motions. But first, we have five folks that have requested time to speak to the board. I'm sorry, eight folks that have requested time to

149speak to the Board of Education before board discussion. Scott. Okay, our first request to speak is Stephanie Stone, a resident of the district. Stephanie. Good evening. My name is Stephanie Stone. I'm an Elmbrook resident with two students in the district. Over the past year, I've closely followed school start time discussions. My husband served on the Elmbrook committee, and I attended the February meeting in his place. Since then, I've read articles, researched, and attended or watched every Elmbrook board meeting and work session on this topic. I even watched a Greenwich, Connecticut BOE meeting where the board voted to roll back a later high school start time going from 8.30 to 7.45 to save $1.9 million in busing expenses. I believe the science on shifting adolescent circadian is real and I would like to see change for

150our middle schoolers. I share all of this so you understand that my comments come from an informed perspective and an appreciation of the issue's complexity. To revisit the question asked during your March meeting on what the recommended start times are and to help anchor my comments, tonight's presentation materials actually hyperlinked the American Academy of Pediatrics 2014 position statement, which stated that middle and high school should start no earlier than 8.30 a.m. Note that none of the scenarios presented to the committee or board would get us there for both, including those under consideration tonight. Fully aligning with sleep research recommendations has many barriers and those guidelines should be one input the board considers when contemplating adjusting start times. There is still, however, an opportunity for us to make progress on a long overdue start time realignment.

151The discussion must now shift from sleep research to what best serves our middle schoolers with the fewest trade offs or risks for other populations. As you move towards the decision, I agree with Mark that scenario five needs to be eliminated. It requires more bus drivers during national shortage who would also receive less take home pay and risks reductions in transportation access families who rely on bus service which will not be popular looking at five and two a side by side you are effectively spending six hundred thousand dollars to nearly a million dollars on buses and that actually moves high school ten minutes in the opposite direction of aap guidelines the bus cost of this option and all the other downsides relative to the minutes gained to 2a is wildly out of proportion scenario five should

152absolutely be eliminated that leaves us with two and two a either are an improvement i would support but i advocate for two research from districts in seattle and outside of the twin cities shows improvements start to come around the 45 to 60 minute time change mark studies actually concluded that 50 to 80 percent of a start time delay becomes additional sleep minutes gained scenario two actually delivers the strongest chance for middle school benefit at a start delay of 52 minutes or an estimated 26 to 42 minutes of extra sleep while asking high schoolers to give up a manageable 10 to 16 minutes by contrast 2a yields much smaller gains only about seven and a half to 14 minutes for middle and high school times unlikely to drive meaningful outcomes. I understand scenario two may impact

153morning high school clubs or sports and elementary gets out 15 minutes later and adds five minutes to the day, but trade-offs here are unavoidable. There is no perfect solution. In conclusion, scenario two is an opportunity for one big win for middle school instead of two small, potentially immeasurable ones like in 2A. It aligns the tiers high, middle, elementary, which is also more consistent with the regional districts and allows students to gradually adapt to an earlier start time. instead of ping-ponging back and forth as is in the current model in 2A. Thank you for your time and I look forward to- Thank you, Stephanie. Our next request to speak is Amy Benz, a resident of the district, and Mary is on deck. elmbrook school district as we all know is a phenomenal school district i feel

154lucky to live in a great school district even though i choose not to send my kids to public school i have no problem with my taxes going to support such a great district because i recognize how it elevates the entire community i admire the accomplishments of the students in the district and that comes down to your leadership and dr hansen's leadership so thank you This school board goes to great lengths to do justice for the kids entrusted to your care You're here because you want what's best for our kids and that's why I'm here, too I want what's best for all the kids in Brookfield We all have a responsibility to make sure all our kids are set up for success Even if we make different choices when it comes to the best way to

155educate our kids I hear you that sleep is an important factor in a child's success at school I agree. I think it's a great idea to find ways to help the children in public schools be more rested and ready to learn when they arrive at school. I'm so glad to have a school board who's taking active interest in what's best for our kids. I just want to make sure that we remember that adequate sleep is an important factor for children in both public schools and private schools. Your past presentations on the topic of changing the times of the school days to accommodate children's sleep needs say the impact on private school kids is negligible But I beg you to please verify the accuracy of this in each option presented before making a decision of this

156magnitude Please be sure to remember the thousand kids who are educated outside the public school system in this community a Private school family contributes financially to the district and we trust that our kids won't be forgotten or worse Intentionally left out of discussions that impact their ability to be successful I'm here because I want a solution that's good for all the kids in Brookfield and Elm Grove not just the ones specifically entrusted to the care of this school board I'm not an activist I'm not political I've never done anything like this before I'm just here because I'm a mom who doesn't want to have to wake up my kindergartner at 5 45 in the morning in order to make it to school on time and I don't want any other parents public or private to

157have to do that either I believe there's a solution that will positively impact all the children in our school district and set all of them up for success in school. A solution that requires one group of children to make a sacrifice for another group isn't what's best for our community. This board is full of intelligent, caring individuals who care about our community as a whole. I know a solution can be found that doesn't require that sacrifice a solution that allows all the children to thrive it isn't us versus you or private versus public when we work together as a community we all benefit thank you thank you Amy Mary Harmon a resident of the district is next to speak and Olivia is on deck My name is Mary Harmon and I'm a mom of five

158children in the Elmbrook School District. Currently three of my kids attend St. John Vianney and they take the bus to and from school. My school-age children are 10, 8, and 6 and are picked up at 7.03 a.m. every day. This means we're up by 6 a.m. and getting ready for school. I'm curious if anyone can help us understand what negligible means as it relates to the private and parochial school impact. We were told it will mean private school bus routes are elongated. First, is that the only scheduling consequence? But second, if bus routes are elongated for our schools or school times have to shift earlier, I cannot imagine having to get my young elementary age kids up any earlier or having them wait in the dark for their bus to arrive in addition to being

159on the bus for longer periods of time. I also think I had to high school which will be just a few short in just a few short years for us at Brookfield Central. If high school age kids have their schedules pushed back, I think about what that means for their clubs, sports, and job schedules, and what's left over for homework time and time with friends and family. Pushing back their start time would in turn mean they're up later because of their commitments in life, and it seems that defeats the purpose. Not to mention the many high school students that are currently leaving school early for sport obligations. How much more school time will be missed with these changes? I do think it's really important to spend time evaluating processes, making sure that we are doing

160the right thing for all of our children, but it seems like the current system is a series of trade-offs for all age groups and school populations that works. If we change to any of the proposed solutions, there will be unforeseen consequences that could outweigh these positives. It seems the proposed solutions don't adequately meet the needs of all student bodies appropriately. At this time, are you making a change for change's sake? Is the more appropriate path forward to remain as is for now and continue to work towards the right solution for the entirety of the student bodies and not rush the decision? That's it. Thank you. Thank you, Mary. Olivia Batsner a resident of the district is next to speak and Jennifer is on deck Thank you I'm Olivia Batsner I live in in the district

161with my husband and four children the oldest of whom attend st. Mary's visitation in Elm Grove I have some concerns about the shifting of the schedule with interests of all the schools in the district I'm particularly concerned about the option that I forget the number but it proposes changes that involve hiring more bus drivers and we already have routes cancelled so often just due to shortages due to bus problems and as parents of private school kids living in the district we support the district with our tax dollars all the same and it's just very frustrating to see a further strain on this system that's already strained I'm also concerned sharing Mary's concern that elementary school kids would be getting up earlier just wanted to note the statistic from the AAP it cites that elementary school

162kids need to get between 10 and 12 hours of sleep this puts bedtime for elementary school kids at like 6 to 8 p.m. if they're getting up at 6 o'clock to catch a bus I'm here at 8 o'clock at a school board meeting not putting my kids to bed so just think you know these evening obligations we all have been there families you know are in different directions in the evenings i think that's really important to consider that it's not always possible to get kids bed to bed for adequate sleep lastly these changes will have large and lasting impacts on school resources budgets tuitions and families and this is just not something we should take lightly and i really believe it requires more consideration so just in closing this matter requires more attention discussion so

163all parents and schools interests in the district can be heard I would encourage you to keep the schedule and postpone a decision until more of these interests can be addressed Thank you Olivia Jennifer Bates not a resident of the district is next to speak to us and Angela is on deck Jennifer Good evening thank you for the opportunity to speak tonight my name is Jennifer Bates and I'm a third grade teacher at Burleigh elementary school Over the past several months the direction of this school start initiative has shifted multiple times more than months actually Scenarios were introduced discussed and then changed or removed altogether There were long stretches where communication felt limited and many of us were left unsure of where things stood and what the next steps were That uncertainty has made it difficult

164to stay engaged and to feel confident that our input as teachers is truly shaping the outcome. In particular, some of the scenarios that seem to resonate more with elementary staff are not even on the table anymore. They're gone. That's been frustrating, and it also raises concern about how our feedback is being weighed as far as the decision-making process. I also think it's important to step back and consider the bigger picture we are part of a highly successful school district our students achieve at high levels our schools are strong our community is supportive what we're doing is working so the question becomes is this the right time to make significant changes and if so how can we ensure that the changes are guided by people who are in the trenches doing the day-to-day work Teachers want

165to be part of the solution we want to collaborate we want to share our insight we want to help shape the decision in a way that continues to support students but for that to happen we need a process that truly values and incorporates elementary teachers voices all teachers our hope is that as you move forward you will take a moment to slow down to re-engage with staff and to ensure that the path ahead reflects the strength of our district and the perspectives of all the people who serve the students every day thank you thank you jennifer and i failed to mention that you're one of our amazing school district teachers Had a big impact on the Wheeler family personally so thank you. Yeah. And humble too. Yeah. Mark and I have exchanged war stories over

166the years. What our kids put you through. No war stories. What our kids put you through. Angela Graff, a resident of the district is next to speak to us and Kate is on deck. Yes. My name is Angela Graff and I am a resident. I'm also an alumni. I've had three kids graduate as well and I teach second grade at Burleigh. kind of wearing a lot of hats right now as Jen said the original survey and options that many elementary teachers favored kind of disappeared and we kind of lost sight of all that we do feel strongly that a longer day even five minutes is not really what's best for our elementary kids the day is long enough and elementary is well over our required minutes the other thing I think we need to consider

167in addition to that is the domino effect that it has on many more than just the teachers and the students right we also have office staff we have hourly special ed support staff like people are going to get paid hourly so those minutes are going to have to get paid more our paras food service staff just there are a lot of different people that this is going to be affected by I don't know that the ideal can happen. When we think about the times that are best for kids to be educated, the financial implications of the busing just seems to be outweighing everything. I was a middle schooler that stood out in the pitch black. My children were middle schoolers that stood out in the pitch black. No, it was not ideal. I also had

168elementary kids that were up at 5.30 ready to go. You know, we just don't have, I don't think, the ability to have the ideal time. So rocking the boat right now, I'm just not sure it's the best option. Again, the best option that we kind of felt maybe was there kind of disappeared, and now at this point I kind of just feel like. sticking with what we have right now as much as it's not ideal for everyone is probably the easiest solution when thinking about the financial implications thank you thank you angela k angle uh one of our amazing teachers not a resident is next to speak to us and shelly is on deck Good evening thank you for the opportunity to speak tonight I'm echoing Angela and speaking kind of as two hats I'm

169an elementary teacher at Burleigh and I'm talking as a dedicated educator but also a mom of an elementary school child not in the district I'm deeply committed to the well-rounded development of every child in my classroom and in my own home. While the minutes added to the instructional day may seem minimal on paper, the cumulative effect on the lives of the students and the families of our staff are going to be significant. I'm dedicated to this district, but as a parent, I can't be expected to absorb additional financial costs and sacrifice time with my own child to fulfill uncompensated work requirements. In any other professional field, a mandated increase in hours necessitates a corresponding increase in compensation. For many of us, extra minutes means new out-of-pocket child care expenses for me and other teachers with

170young kids. Beyond the financial impact there's the human cost more time at school inevitably means less time with other things that children need to have like sports hobbies medical appointments and most importantly family downtime My son like many students is heavily invested in sports like soccer With these ad minutes, he would be consistently late to practice which starts before 5 o'clock again. I don't live in the district I need to get home to get him and get him to practice It is just about sports though. Him being late to practice or other activities cause anxiety and that lateness is just going to add stress to his own little life or the cohesion to the teams or the things he's doing after school. I would ask, and this might have been an option, but I'm not

171sure, was there consideration to swapping the middle school and high school start time? That way it doesn't upset the elementary minutes or hours at all. I guess I would just urge you to maybe pause this vote, think about some other options. and just to make sure there's balance in everybody's lives whether it's teachers students and the families in the district thank you Thank you Kate and our last request to speak is Shelby Cousins or sorry Shelly Cousins one of our teachers and not a resident Shelly Hello, I'm Shelly Cousins. I'm a first grade teacher at Burleigh Elementary. First, I wanted to acknowledge that I know a lot of time and energy has gone into this issue, and I am certainly a huge supporter of all students' mental health, as I think it's a growing concern

172in our world today. That being said, I'm unsure if the proposed options considered the mental health of elementary staff and students, extending an already longer day. Five to seven minutes may not sound like a lot, but it does seem to have a domino effect, and it hasn't really been laid out what that would look like. I believe a 9 o'clock start time would require many people to secure extended... childcare which further lengthens the day for younger learners speaking specifically from the teacher side of it if the school day was lengthened it has not been clearly laid out how that would affect building hours and compensation my best guess would mean our hours would move from 8 to 4 30 however note the discrepancy on the documents that have been shared that the start time listed

173does not accurately depict when students enter the building and it's portrayed like it's it's not portrayed accurately in this scenario our students at the elementary level enter the building 15 minutes before that listed start time so that is not prep time and it is also when teachers are meeting to prepare for the day collaborate and get ready so the um that would no longer give us a full hour before school to do our weekly PLCs because students would possibly be entering the building around 8.45. This cuts into our prep time, which is already less than our middle and high school counterparts, and is an issue that we continue to be concerned about. Ultimately, if any worker is asked to work a longer day shift, some type of compensation needs to be attached to it. It

174should not work minutes, should not be further taken from our current very precious and much-needed prep. I'm speaking for myself and many colleagues when I say elementary teachers are starting to feel like we are not equally valued as stakeholders Thank you Shelly our final request to speak is Hillary Ammon a resident of the district Good evening thank you for the opportunity to speak today regarding the proposed schedule changes my name is Hilary Amone not only am I a member of the district but I'm also an elementary school teacher I have two students in the district as well and I am an alumni so this gives me a really unique perspective on the time change discussion tonight As a parent in the district, I am deeply committed to the well-rounded development of our children. While a

175small time shift may seem marginal on paper, the cumulative ripple effect on our family's daily lives will be significant. I would like to highlight three primary areas of concern regarding a later dismissal. Community programs. My children and others in the community attend Elmbrook United Soccer. Today, they had practice at 4.30. To get there from Burleigh after school, I almost didn't make it. Then my next child had St. Dominic's Child Ministry at 4.45. With these established community pillars that our families rely on, it creates direct conflicts to get to these. activities and they're not just extras they're essential to my mission of raising healthy active and socialized individuals furthermore shifting school sponsored clubs like girl scouts and running club later into the evening places an undue burden on the parents and teachers who volunteer their time

176to lead them secondly the erosion of downtime and well-being My children are up early and they work hard. Pushing the day back even slightly consumes the narrow window they have to simply be kids. The opportunity to ride bikes with neighbors, play outside, or take a family walk is lost when it is pushed too late into the evening. In a society that is already move, move, move, this unstructured time is grounding and imperative for their mental health. We risk trading restorative play for a rushed, high-stress evening routine. Thirdly, the impact on literacy and family connection. There is a hidden cost of a later day, academic enrichment at home. Many families, mine included, prioritize reading together for 20 to 30 minutes each night. If children return home later exhausted and facing meltdowns from a prolonged day, these

177foundational habits, reading together, reviewing homework, and connecting as a family, are the first things to be sacrificed. We want to be teammates in our children's education, but we need the time and the cognitive bandwidth of our children to do that effectively. We move from one thing to another so quickly in modern life. Family time is the only thing that keeps us grounded. I ask the board to consider the holistic impact this shift has on our children's safety, their extracurricular growth, and our ability to maintain a healthy homeschool balance. Thank you for your time and your dedication to our students. Thank you, Hillary. Are there board member questions or comments? I would like to start I'll start Go ahead Sam Just a quick question I'll let you go are we okay with eliminating option scenario 5B

178at this point or do we need to keep this on the table still is that something we have to decide We haven't made any proposed motions. I mean, board members haven't suggested. Someone could suggest that, and then if it was seconded, then it could be voted yes or no. Jean. Thank you. First, I'd like to say that I believe it's my role as a board member to create an education schedule that provides the opportunity for students to attain. sleep goals as optimally as possible. I fully acknowledge the many competing demands on kids' time that might take away from their sleep, but decisions around these other demands really fall to the responsibility of parents to determine what's appropriate for their students and how that impacts their sleep. My role as a board member is looking at

179that from an educational standpoint and a school district standpoint, what can we do to most optimally prepare or allow our students to be prepared to accomplish the work that needs to be done within the school day? I can support option two for the following reasons. From an overall standpoint, it seems reasonable to me for a student to move from an elementary start of nearly 9 a.m., so 8.50, to a middle school start, excuse me, I guess we're looking at 9 a.m. is the new start, to a middle school start of 8.10, and then a high school start of 7.35. As Stephanie noted in her remarks earlier, it's a gradual adaptation to an earlier start. With this option, high school kids will lose less instructional time as they'll get an earlier start to their day. The

180co-curricular impact of fourth block, when you look at the number of instances where students are missing from fourth block, it's far and away exceeding any of the other blocks during the day. Another reason for my support, there's negligible impact to the private and parochial schools. I'm sensitive to the remarks of a number of our parents of parochial students to understand what that word negligible means. I don't currently understand it. I take it to mean very little, but it would be helpful to understand that a little bit better. The financial impact, there's no additional financial impact to option two. There's no need to find 20 additional bus drivers. As I look at the walk zones required for option 5B to work, there will be a subset of kids who will need to sleep less so they

181have time to make the journey to school. And I don't think that's the right answer. And finally, the comments from our elementary teachers around the additional five minutes per day at the elementary level, I believe there's a workable solution to that. I don't know that it's been identified yet, but I believe we can get there. So thank you. That concludes my remarks. Thanks, Jean. Sam? Thank you, Gene. I will echo similarly what you said. I think scenario 2A is such a minor change, I think it would be unnecessary and counterproductive to make that big of a change for such a few minutes difference. And also, you know, certainly more sensitive to elementary teachers having to add on, you know, even the extra two minutes there can make a big difference as well versus... recognizing option

182two or scenario two definitely helps with the middle school. And I know it adds five minutes onto the elementary day. I'm confident that we can find some good options that either provide more prep time for the teachers or maybe even just extending the lunch time of the students or something to help give the teachers not to have any more class instructional time as well. And I think lastly, Like like Jean said it would definitely provide the least impact of high school students being in the school because they're because of the coeds and the extracurriculars after that and I think the comment I heard several times brought up as well was the impact for Early programs or early clubs that can I'm certainly sure they could figure out how to do that in the afternoon as

183well I think they're probably meeting early because they have that time in the morning to meet early So I think I'm sure those can be shifted to the afternoon to some extent so I would agree I do support option scenario 2. I think that's the best option it fits within the the studies are showing that you given that given the students more sleep time and i would stand behind that one thank you sam mary thank you for everybody who came and spoke today um You get a little taste of what the task force dealt with If this was easy to fix as I think Emily said about other problems tonight everybody to fixed it by now My count has been 35 to 40 years that this community's been grappling with primarily the start of our

184middle school Not necessarily knowing what we know now, which is that adolescents and that includes high school students circadian rhythms change it's hard for them to go to bed early and it's very hard for them to wake up early and as such we have a sleep deprived generation school start time is not the only reason why that's happening there are a myriad of issues in our community in our world right now and in the choices good and bad that our students have available to them that Cause this sleep deprivation epidemic to have occurred, but we do know more now than we've ever known before we've spent more time as a community on this discussion than probably ever before and We are as close to a good solution as we have ever been before I Haven't

185heard let me start with a couple things here I'm not a fan of extending the elementary school day I think it's too long to begin with discussing what goes on in the elementary school day is a wholly separate conversation and I don't think five minutes or seven minutes is going to fix what may already be wrong with the way we administer that that's another conversation for another day I know that we can't change one thing and then say all of our data is going to tell us whether this one change made our students better learners or made them sleep better because we do many things in our schools to try to accomplish students who are mentally healthy, physically healthy, and great learners. And we've done a very good job, and that's not lost on me.

186It is not lost on me that our students are doing well now. But if it is becoming at the cost of their physical and mental health, as data tells us, then I do have a concern that we are making a decision not to consider... what some at least think would be the optimal plan we've come up with just because of the cost. And just because of an estimated cost when we haven't really got the hard data because we haven't dug into the details of how we could get that cost down to a more affordable. number and so at this time I'm gonna share a couple other comments, but I'm going to propose a fourth option motion tonight a lot of the researchers on sleep and adolescents have said Many things are going wrong. But as

187schools and as as institutions There's one thing we can control and that's when our school day begins and ends. So No effective change in the health of our children comes from us throwing in the towel on a good solution And if we fail to do our part because we haven't solved the funding challenge, it's like saying well There's nothing we can do about it. I didn't hear that from dr. Hansen tonight I heard that he's willing to have his administration dig in and dig deeper on this and we would then have data to tell us whether or not this is something we can truly afford. I don't know that we have all that data yet. I do know that after months and months of discussion, we've got scenario five, which I've heard a lot of

188people criticize the cost. I haven't heard a lot of people criticize the solution. A two-tiered plan, which was preferred by the majority, not every single person, not somebody maybe sitting in a room, but the majority of the task force. Was was pretty consistent about a two-tiered plan The majority of the community the majority of the task force started with the status quo is not an option That's where we began the work and that was based on research I'd like I'd like to end appreciate what the parochial school involved families are saying tonight because I I think I would wonder what negligible means to I'd like to think I'd like to agree with Jean that it probably means not a big impact but now I'm hearing that five to seven minutes at the elementary school is

189not negligible where somebody might think it is so we have different different definitions here that conversation hasn't been fully fleshed out in my opinion but most of all full exploration of are there better bus solutions are there better routes are there ways to incentivize are there ways to even know why so many people drop it off and pick up their kids which we've never discussed and because we We may be able to look at some other factors here that will either say yes, absolutely We can make five happen or no, absolutely not. We cannot make five happen because it's just too expensive I don't feel I have the data to make that decision and so at this time I would move postponement of the approval of school start times for the 2728 school year to

190December of 2026 to allow the administration to prepare a detailed financial impact report on the cost of scenario five and present it to the board. So Mary just made a motion. Is there a second? I'll second. I'll be the second of the motion. So that's the motion that's on the floor for us to consider. Other board member questions or comments? So I... Guess looking through the options I actually I think scenario two or scenario to a kind of are the ones that fall to me as The ones that make the most sense at this time. I don't disagree that scenario five has some benefit, but I I've struggled along the way when it comes to seeing that ultimately none of these options are gonna adhere to the recommendations and one of the big struggles I

191have between 5 and 2A or 2 is what I see is our middle school start time would improve to 7.50 our high school start time would move to 8 but as opposed compared to 2 or 2A and my preferred option actually is 2A High school gets 10 more minutes and they have four years and it provides the opportunity for them to get more sleep. We can't guarantee that anyone gets more sleep. But based on what I've read when it comes to the research, we know that the circadian rhythm changes over time and as students go into adolescence. And we don't necessarily know that it's necessarily in sixth grade. We know the transition sometimes happens. It could be at some point during middle school. It could be before. You know, there's not one pinpoint for every

192single individual. But I think it's relatively fair to say that. By the time they get to high school, that change has occurred. And so one of the things I do like about Scenario 2A is that it provides an additional 10 minutes for a time period that we know that their circadian rhythm likely has shifted. And that's going to be for four years as opposed to three. I recognize that we wouldn't be able to... Those 15 minute changes if we had a significant change for middle school going from 718 to 810 we have a much better Opportunity to measure that impact But we'd be going high school from 755 and we'd be losing 20 minutes and while I recognized that a lot of our I think peer districts we would say fall within that time period

193that means we're potentially losing the opportunity for sleep for high school students when they're very busy with activities before school after school and when it comes to a lot of our students that will one day go to college if that's impacting them their academics because they are losing on sleep as well that concerns me a little bit so my prefer option would be option 2a I see the benefits of option 2 as well and I I don't have a problem with option five but I just don't see it as a significant enough benefit to justify whatever that additional cost is going to be if it was the same maybe but if it's going to be even five hundred thousand dollars I don't think the additional five minutes that we would see when comparing middle school

194and high school times would justify it for me I would like to say that I've heard everyone's points tonight and I appreciate that I appreciate all the feedback that we have gotten from again educators and engaged families in this district my concern with 5B has always been the walk zones I'm just not a fan of that however I agree with the comments that we heard here tonight from Mary that I think we could take a deeper look into the actual budget impact. I think there are several factors that have been brought up tonight that make me question whether or not I have enough information to say that I can truly rule out 5B. I do see the advantages to delayed start times. I'm an adolescent medicine specialist, so I can... very familiar with the research.

195However, again, there were concerns that I had with 5B. Now, I am interested, I mean, again, scenario two of the other two was where I was leaning towards, but I will say tonight after hearing some of the points that have been brought up, I am also in agreement that we, I personally think, would need more information. To make this decision. I I would want to know more and so for that reason I I'm in support of what I think is now option four I Don't give it a number. Okay, it's option. Well see The fourth option tonight, yes, it's called the motion on the floor. I think that we have done ample ample research I think what they've brought here is very clear. It's $500,000 if we do walk zones. It's going to be closer

196to a million if we don't. I haven't heard from anyone saying we're going to come up with this extra million dollars. So I think it sounds great in theory, and I'd love the thought of... I do love the thought of optimizing the perfect times for, and maybe 5E is better times for students, I would agree. But the reality is that we're also constrained by money. And so since we have to decide that, I think it becomes clear that that's not an option on the table. And I think that the main biggest reason for me as well, okay, let's say someone donated a million dollars a year for that, fine. The other biggest problem is still getting bus drivers and getting them to now not even have the ability to have a higher paycheck. All the

197bus drivers are going to take a paycheck, pay cut, in order to stay working. And now you're going to lose even more people because I needed the eight hours a day I was driving a bus or six hours. Now we're cutting it down to four. So I just think that that's a really bad option, and it's completely not realistic. So I cannot support 5B. Cheryl? I'm leaning towards either doing nothing and just staying the same or scenario two. My biggest concern in all of this is what it's doing to the elementary day. The extra 17 minutes at the end of the day I think puts big strains on the elementary families. And I find that very concerning. as far as 5b goes when i was a student in sixth grade i was on a school

198bus with high school seniors and it was not a very good thing so i would be very concerned about that for one thing and also where would we be getting the extra million dollars to cover the cost of buses and get the drivers that we would need. So I guess I would lean towards either doing nothing and staying with our current system or going with scenario two. Could I make some comment? Go ahead, Jean. Thank you. Once I appreciate the points that you raised that I hadn't really considered. from the perspective of 2a that middle school years three years high school four years secondly that we don't really know when students make that transition to needing more sleep but definitely by high school they have made that transition And the work that's done by students

199in high school has the biggest impact on the next steps they take in their lives, be it at whatever level, technical or college or whatever. That work has a bearing on. perhaps what college they are able to get into or what next step they might be able to take if they don't have as successful a high school career as they might otherwise having sufficient sleep. So other than the end of the day concerns that I have, I can see that I... I could certainly agree with 2A as an option. I just can't see 5B. I just can't see the need for more bus drivers, the extra funds, the things we've been kicking around all along. It just and walk zones. I'm not a fan. I don't think it's an improvement frankly for kids who need

200more sleep They're gonna have to get up early to walk So at this point I would say I could support to a I don't support further study of 5b. Okay, so I have a couple of questions and ones for Chris To maybe just answer any of the questions you heard tonight, but I'm particularly interested the private parochial disruption being negligible in in terms of specifically scenario 2 and 2a what does negligible mean just to kind of revisit that point and then a follow-up question for dr. Hansen and Chris maybe you address this too what are some of our thoughts in terms of that elementary day being lengthened in terms of teacher retention teacher culture workday what are some things that some practical thing I know Wouldn't be a commitment and it's not set in stone

201yet, but some ideas that are possibilities so state statute Allows the school board to determine when buses will run for our private parochial schools You can't determine when they start school, but you can determine when the bus is going to arrive at the school and drop students off negligible For many will be plus or minus five minute arrival It may mean that some of our private schools who have extremely short bus rides right now so that our buses can get to our elementary school, thinking specifically of Brookfield Christian, some of their routes are eight to ten minutes long. Our shortest elementary route is probably 20 to 25 minutes long for our public schools. So it might mean that the private parochial routes are more calibrated to what our route times are, but they all are

202guided within the same policy that we have for both public and private routes. So the route time might extend, but the drop-off time in the school... going to be plus or minus five minutes from where they're at now if that makes sense. Mark did you want to? So and then the yeah addressing the culture I mean I guess or the work day and leave it to Mark. Sure, I think we need to recognize that our elementary teachers face the greatest demands for teaching time and also the greatest demands for teaching subjects. So they have the fewest amount of minutes of preparation time. So in many cases, they don't even have time to go to the bathroom during the day. So creating more minutes of instruction is not ideal. You could mitigate that by bifurcating the

203school calendar to have an elementary school calendar because we are over by how many days? We're over plenty of days. Thank you for the feedback, everybody. Appreciate that. We're over plenty of days, and you could bifurcate that like a neighboring district does already where they have a different calendar for elementary than high school. We could do it that way as well. So there are strategies that you could use to mitigate the demands of instructional time that are already very heavy on elementary teachers. We looked at, you know, just to kind of answer some of the questions that have come up. I mean, you know, start time committee happened a long time ago. remember that the charge was to better align sleep research with start time I think we're some of the even those suggested options

204right now move away from that charge but you know there are systems certainly we looked at many of our benchmark districts or at least our regional districts that do start high school time at 7 20 at the earliest maybe 730 at the latest I've lived that with I've got three of our four kids have passed through high school or in high school now With an early start time the I also have lived in the middle school or elementary end time of 4 p.m. So it's it's in middle school and time of 4 p.m. So you know in the area all of the times that we're talking about exist so I think it's possible it's disruptive and really the recommendation that was first made by the committee the original recommendation of swapping elementary and middle school

205start times and starting elementary close to our private and parochial schools when they start at 745 especially our parochial schools Was maybe the best recommendation on the table it was low cost it was Certainly disruptive better aligned to the research and really what? This board asked the committee to recommend I know we're far past that now and the reason why we abandoned that And what the elementary teachers were talking about is just because we prioritize the work around our facilities fall and and really tabled any continued conversations about start time until January when we had our work session and then a couple of those options were taken off the table so that's the history maybe that was missing for some but it's possible and Cheryl to your point we did also talk about middle and

206high school students riding on the bus and I believe that both you and I rode buses before there were air pods and if you ever ride a bus with a high school student or a car for that matter right now they are not talking to anybody on that bus including their families and their friends they are listening to something else so the motion on the table mary will you just restate the wording i think you have it written sure christy i think i sent it to you too i move postponement of the approval of school start times for the 27-28 school year To the end of the year. I've said December 2026 to allow the administration to prepare a detailed financial impact report on the cost of scenario 5b and I'd be you know Willing

207to amend that to look at other facts that we don't have that we may become aware of now even revisit that first plan But at this time if I may just elaborate a little further I really agree with the person in the audience who said I believe there's a best solution that doesn't require other students to sacrifice I think that was where the task force came back to time and time again when we talked about swapping times or making insignificant changes and I just see scenario 2 and 2a as not enough gain which is not to say the status quo is in any way acceptable. I really do believe scenario five, and I'm not a walk zone fan. I would not want to see walk zones. But I also, when I was a kid, if

208we're playing the when I was a kid game, was in a neighborhood where there were fewer bus stops and we gathered at particular, you know, I might have to walk two blocks to my bus stop, but there were more. People getting on at the bus and maybe there are ways I don't know not had a conversation with the bus company or any other bus company To see if there is a way to make other bus scenarios work. I don't know that I don't know that we've spent the money and time it would take to research that or or Get harder data on PM usage versus am usage of buses. I've spent a lot of time thinking about this I'm not going to rehash it all here But I think we don't have enough hard data,

209and maybe we need to spend a little more time looking at ways. that we can afford a best solution rather than just, you know, I think the two-tiered system ultimately, it may be something we can improve over time in terms of how we afford it and realizing solutions, but I think we need to get there if we're going to do what's best for kids. You know, as I said, I know our schools are doing well. I know they're performing well. But the fact is that may be coming at the cost of their physical and mental health increasingly, and that I cannot accept because that means that perhaps we have to put some money on the table to solve this problem. So we do have a couple of requests to speak before we vote on the

210motion that's on the table. And I just failed to kind of wrap up my comments in terms of where I stand. My heart's in the two-tier system. but I can't do it because of the cost I just frankly I mean it's just cost prohibitive I I've liked the idea for a long time it just isn't there for me scenario 2a is the scenario that I lean towards the most because at least there's gains for every group but there's some negatives for elementary school we've heard that and maybe I haven't weighed that enough and so frankly Mary I'd support your motion and I don't want to, we need to get to a decision, but I think the spirit of your motion is that we're going to do some more work on this over the summer and

211into the early fall so the decision can be made and implementation would still be on time for the beginning of the 27-28 school year, I believe is the spirit behind your motion. I could be wrong on that, but that would be what I see being a benefit is that maybe there's, maybe we're looking at cost a little bit. Maybe we're revisiting that elementary question. It does mean we're bringing two new board members up to speed pretty quick on a complex issue. And I don't know that the start time committee would be reconvened because their charge is pretty specific in terms of specifically about sleep and aligning the best reach. I think that's been done. I think I understand that piece. So I could support your motion. or scenario 2a that's where I'm at personally so

212I just failed to mention that in terms of for the benefit of my fellow board members uh do you have can I make one more comment yes and then we do have a couple requests to speak and we'll have more comments before we vote I'm sure I would like to say that when I made my comments I am currently given the information that we heard tonight from specific members of the community I'm uncertain as to which I support I frankly feel like we need more information I have heard from community members who are parochial school or private school parents I have now heard from elementary school teachers about their impact the impact on their day and I frankly just don't feel like I don't have enough information to be able to choose so i want

213to just say thank you to everybody who raised those concerns tonight and that i hear you and i um i understand you okay thank you our first request to speak is julie hargraves a resident of the district and elizabeth is on deck everyone i just wanted to say thank you so much for all of the work that you have done on this issue i think it's a very difficult issue and i think in the world of unlimited money and unlimited bus drivers we would certainly choose the most obvious, aligned with science solution. I do think that everybody has raised some valid concerns, especially regarding elementary, but one thing I have not heard tonight is what... the later end time might do in terms of safety, especially in the winter months when the roads are terrible

214and it's night very, very early, sometimes at 4.30. I have some concerns about the safety of the kids in elementary walking home. I know the last stop of the day already gets home in the dark and extending it 17 minutes or 15 minutes. more and more kids are gonna get home in the dark and walking You know without any reflective gear potentially in the dark when the roads are awful Is scary to me as a mother and I've already had a run-in with the bus in this system a couple years ago Where a bus rear-ended me? So I don't necessarily have a lot of faith in the safety of our bus drivers so that additionally just raised the concern of safety so thank you Thank you Julie next request to speak is Elizabeth Tice a

215resident of the district and Angie you're on deck Hi my name is Elizabeth Tice and I'm representing myself I think that we have enough information or you all have enough information this has been studied by our administrators our staff to almost no end these are the options we have to make a decision yes 2 and 2a it is improvements at the expense of elementary school going longer it is what it is those are the options in order to go to a two-tier system it is going to cost almost a million dollars even if you look for efficiencies and you work at and kill it to death that is the option the other option is to not do anything we know well two things one to kind of complete Chris's story of the evidence-based best option

216was pulled off the table again to complete that story that was because that got elementary school out at 2 30 or something like that and young families moving to Brookfield this was what was discussed at that time It's expensive. Most families are two working households. It's very difficult to have elementary school, and we don't have the systems in place in our community to be able to handle that change. So here we are with these options. In order to move middle or high school to a little bit of a later start time, as in 2 or 2A, you're bumping back elementary school. That is the option. 5B, you're spending a million dollars. I really strongly encourage you to make a decision tonight. That is what it is. Thank you. Thank you, Elizabeth. And our final request

217to speak, it's time, Angie Pingel, resident of the district. Good evening, and I'm sorry to come up here and speak, but I feel compelled. Despite the fact that I don't have a horse in this race. My 19-year-old son is at Fairview South, which will not be impacted by any of this discussion. So I'm here just as a community member to talk a little bit about what I have seen and what I've heard. First of all, we've been discussing this for a very long time, and we have not found that perfect answer. We are never going to find that perfect answer. And families in our district deserve certainty. They do not deserve to be subjected to months and months and months of more stress and wondering how they're going to manipulate their schedules to find a

218way to make a new schedule work. With childcare and after school activities, all of it, they deserve certainty and not additional delays in this decision making process. Even if we could find the money to do 5B, That's a million dollars coming from somewhere. It's taxpayer money, has to come from something. In a time where we have extraordinarily rising healthcare costs, we have cost of living increases, we don't know what our budget's gonna look like in 27, 28. But what I do know is that money has to come from somewhere. It has to come from somewhere. So what are we going to cut or what are we going to reduce to try and make our budget work? Even if we could find a way, we are going to continue to make sacrifices. So when you look

219at this decision... You need to look at what families accepted when they moved to Brookfield When we all made our decision to run to move here, we looked at the school schedules We looked at how well the schools were doing we made the decision based on the information we had at the time Which was the existing schedule? It's been in place as long as my son has been in this district, and he's 19 years old today and would have graduated if he didn't have special needs. So you're disrupting something that we all bought into, and now you're making it uncertainty, and you're creating stress that doesn't need to be created for families. Give them the certainty that they deserve. Make your decision tonight. Try to keep things the way they are. Don't try to reinvent

220something. It's been working for years Maybe it would be a little bit better if school started earlier. I don't know or later I don't know but what I do know is that we deserve certainty. We need an end of this Discussion and these delays and we need to know that our money is going to what we want it to go to Which is students. Thank you Angie, okay Any further questions or discussions before we vote on the motion on the table? Put that up. Chris? Can I just ask a question about the motion? Are we talking about transportation costs, or are we talking about what money is going to fund, could be used to fund scenario 5B? Because I'm happy to explain the very simple math related to the cost of transportation that was used

221to evaluate how many buses we need how many drivers we need and how We get kids to school that is known and we've talked with right way about that many many times over if we're talking about The restructures and reallocations that might be needed to fund it then obviously that's more of a budget conversation But I think that's also why we wanted the converse the decision now because this board's put in the work so that we could Figure out how that was going to be financed Over the course of the next year and execute next year. You want to clarify that your thoughts at least? Well, I appreciate that there have been conversations with go right way I could give you a list, and I'm not going to go through this tonight, of ten bullet

222points that I've looked at about potential cost savings. Some have to do with bus costs. Some have to do with incentive. I'm not going to go through them all. I've probably mentioned them before here. The intent of this motion is to, as Dr. Hansen said, If this was what we planned to do, how would we pay for it? And with a more specific answer to the impact it would have, I would then have something to compare to the impact of continuing to allow a 7-18 start time for early adolescents that is negatively impactful to their mental and physical health. And, you know, I think that's worth investing in. So it's not just the buses, but it's a deeper dive into the buses and a deeper dive into savings as well as funding. Does that answer

223your question, Chris? Yep. Wes? I always appreciate the opportunity for more information I do like that I think one of my big struggles is we know that we have to make a decision to implement for the following school year by I think it was October November I think is what we talked about last year when this came up but it's been a while so now I'm not really remembering exactly when that was I think that's a part of the struggle here is like we spent We're all the way till April now we started talking about this and it's been going on for about two years and We know that this is one piece of our larger puzzle and we know a piece of our larger puzzle is continuing to on go And so I'm not

224certain It's not clear to me how we're going to dedicate the time to this some more when we've struggled over the last year to dedicate the necessary time to this when we have other big items. And so it's not that I wouldn't appreciate more information, but I'm not confident with our other items ongoing that we would, if we waited until October or November, that we would be able to spend the necessary time. The capacity, it's not certain to me that it's actually there. Anybody else before we vote? Okay. All those in favor of the motion that's on the screen behind me, please say aye. Aye. Any opposed? No. No. No. No. Okay. So that motion fails on voice vote. Make a motion to approve scenario two. Is there a second? Is there a second? No

225second. That motion fails. Is there another motion? I'll make a motion to approve scenario 2A. Is there a second? Second. Thank you. We have a motion and a second to approve scenario 2A. Discussion or questions? Hearing none, all those in favor of approving scenario 2A. What did you say? Sam, Sam Hazzard. I'm not going to take up long, but I'll have to vote against this because I just think the changes are so negligible and for the disruption to the system, I think I would rather keep it as is. So I would not be voting for that. I would agree with Sam. I am very concerned about the safety of the elementary kids getting home late, especially in the wintertime when it's dark. So I would have to vote no. Mary? I'm very disturbed about a

22615 to 17 minute increase in the elementary school day. And as such, I couldn't support either 2 or 2A. However, the reluctance I'm hearing... for us to robustly accept one of these indicates to me that while you didn't want to look at five as the reason to postpone a conversation perhaps there's a future motion here to refine one of these two scenarios in a meaningful way that would make it more palatable as far as the elementary school end time between scenario two and two eight it's a two minute difference mean basically elementary school is going to a four o'clock in either scenario the length of day in one increases by seven in elementary school and the other it increases by five that's meaningful over time there's no question we need to do something with that

227and the administration would have time to figure that out and that would be a board conversation I assume to update us and we would do something I'm still in favor of this because it moves our adolescents. Again, I think of high school being four years. It gives those high school students more sleep, potentially. It's just a later start time. They could fill that later start time with more before school activities. They could. We don't control that. But it does match the circadian rhythm research a little bit better because both middle school and high school. later which again could match the circadian rhythm so that's why I prefer 2A over 2. If 2A fails, 2 is my second choice but they're both the same in my mind pretty much for elementary school. Both the same. Other

228questions or comments? Okay all those in favor of the motion to approve scenario 2A please say aye. Aye. Aye. Aye. Those opposed say no no no Okay, that's four nos and three yeses or ayes, so that motion fails Can I make a motion again for scenario two? Sam is making a motion that we approve scenario two. Is there a second? Second we have a motion in a second further discussion or questions before we vote all those in favor of approving scenario two Please say aye aye aye Any opposed say no no That's three nos and four ayes. So on voice vote, scenario two carries. Motion passes. Thank you. That concludes what's been in the works for a long time. Chris, appreciate your work on this project. Okay, our next action and final action item of

229the evening is the second reading of policy 3534. Mark. So this is a policy change that has to do with the... Tax sheltered annuity concept for the school district and I wanted to offer a little bit of background You have a policy change in front of you that will help us educate our employees on Future retirement needs including planning for dramatically rising health care costs Which is the biggest driver of individuals retirement timeline? This policy will allow us to shift from a multi vendor Commission driven sale environment to a fiduciary partnership That allows us to educate our workforce in a more meaningful manner The Finance and Operations Committee has reviewed this policy twice and has agreed that the change is beneficial to our employees per their unanimous support of moving the policy forward. Ben is

230moving to the podium and the desk, or has moved to the podium and desk area to answer any questions. We have not received any questions to date, but would welcome questions or clarity-seeking comments before a motion. And before we jump into that... Question and comment period. We do have a request to speak. Leanne Weed, a resident of the district, has requested to speak. Leanne. Good evening. As you know, I spoke at the February board meeting about the proposed change to policy 3534, which directs employees to a sole 403B vendor, eliminating the vendor choices they currently have. At that meeting, I asked the board to continue to offer employees the present choices they have for investing their own money. Sam, thank you for asking for this to go back to the F&O Committee for further discussion.

231I was at that F&O Committee meeting in March and I want to thank you, Mary, and Jean for further discussion. I am not here tonight to repeat my previous request. Rather, I wanted to share with you publicly my experiences and concerns regarding transparency in the process surrounding this policy and vendor change. I'll be honest when I spoke against this policy change in February the response I received left me with even more questions at that board meeting administration stated that the district had been through an active RFP process with current vendors I did an open records request on February 26th for the RFPs from these vendors and was told on March 16th that it would cost me $126, perhaps more, to produce these records, a cost I was not willing to pay. I then did an

232open records request about a month ago, simply requesting a blank copy of the RFP that was sent to all vendors. I still have not received this. The district hires private sector consultants and brokers. I hope that this outsourcing does not give the district immunity from producing open records. I had also sent emails with questions about this policy change, metrics, fees, etc. I never received a reply to my emails. I learned at the F&O meeting that board members received an email with answers to my questions. So I did another open records request about a month ago, hoping to see this email and get the answers to my questions. I have not received this either. At the F&O meeting, fees for one of the vendors, WEA Trust, was mentioned but not shared, and there is no opportunity

233to ask what those fees were. I do wonder if this vendor has the lowest fees and if it is the present vendor of choice for employees. It was also stated at the F&O meeting that the board has no role in choosing or approving the contract for the new vendor that administration has sole responsibility I am aware that the role of the board is not to micromanage But I believe there is a fine line between micromanaging and oversight I ask board members to continuously reflect on the difference and on their oversight role I realize that some listening may find my request to be intrusive but I remember when every board and committee meeting had reporters who attended to report on Elmberg board agenda items that no longer exists we now have to be the ones asking

234questions and educating I truly do want to thank you for your time on this agenda item thank you Thank you Leigh Ann start with a motion or questions and discussions Cheryl have we already implemented this policy with just the one vendor For the employees we have started that process we have yes like to make a motion I move approval of the policy as presented Second, I think you have a motion a second by Jean comments or questions a follow-up Why did we start implementing before we passed the policy? It's been our interpretation that a policy change is not necessary to go ahead and move toward a one vendor status. And Ben, do you just want to highlight, I wasn't at the F&O meeting, or someone from the committee could certainly talk about it, the benefits

235of going with one vendor. I'll defer that to Ben. Sure. The goal of this was to educate our staff. As Dr. Hanson had mentioned earlier, we had low participation in a multi-vendor setup. One things that we gained from this process is as dr. Hansen mentioned more of a fiduciary partner Boya who was selected their representatives are not paid on commission. That was not the case in our previous setup with the six other vendors Oftentimes some would just walk our hallways and that's how they would set up a 403 B for some of our teachers. So Don't know that the best advice was being given, whether there was just annuity contracts with a lot of fees built in. We did a RFP through R&R Wealth Management Team as a third party so that they could help

236us evaluate this. Nine vendors were contacted. We brought in three top bids, interviewed them, and had a second interview with their regional executive team. to verify we were going to get what we're looking for, which is one-on-one assistance for our employees. And to date, we've seen over 64 new employees indicate they're going to begin at 403B. I would add to that that at the committee level, we did discuss, and it's anecdotal to a certain extent, that we've been in workplaces ourselves where there's one. Vendor that's offered that has a multitude of plans, which is the case with the vendor that's been chosen here and that and in the case of Elmbrook given the fact that we had low Involvement there was an opportunity to educate now as people become educated and if they do decide

237to use it more robustly They may hate it. They may love it. We'll get some feedback but I don't know that I don't believe we heard an outcry of people who use the system not wanting to continue to use it with a single vendor. And it sounds like we've gotten some increased interest from people who hadn't used it previously. Those are positives to me. When I was at Marquette, it was TIAA. That's what you got. And so I don't know that we're really out of step with what's apparently becoming more common practice according to our vendors and according to R&R. And I guess time will tell whether there's a need to make a change, but I think the administration did their due diligence on a rationale for. Going to a single vendor. It makes our

238job easier and there's potential in the future for us to use that vendor and Retirement plans like this to incentivize teacher retention. I'm in the education field both of my last employers only had a single Provider for this unusual to have multiple and they do offer you Perks is the wrong word, but you know cost savings or you know benefits to your employees if you choose us you get this this and this I mean They're selling themselves. They're competing So it is what's normal in the space for sure Yep, okay other questions or comments If you have a request to speak after board discussion so hearing no more requests to speak I would invite Angie Pingel a resident of the district to the podium Angie welcome back this is I don't know what the record

239we should keep track no it's good yep well this is on the agenda so it can't be a part of citizens I don't know first of all again I'm not a teacher I don't have a horse in this race but I'm deeply troubled by the fact that this just doesn't look well for what I've told all the time is the most transparent district in the state. I'm just really struggling with how this has been implemented I'm also struggling with why this is part of F&O and not personnel because technically Being able to participate in this 403 B plan would be considered an employee benefit So it seems a little misaligned with your committees Being approved by the Finance Committee and not the benefit committee in my opinion again, just my opinion But I am really

240troubled by the fact that it was started to be implemented before the board has approved it and I really think that you should be troubled by that too as board members If we had a policy we have a policy we discussed it at a different board meeting and talked about all the things that we talked about at that meeting it just shocks me that we would go ahead and implement this after the conversations we had at that board meeting without first getting the approval of this board i'm deeply troubled by that as a as a resident of this district deeply deeply troubled and i i really hope that you are too That shouldn't be happening. We have a board that oversees the operations of our district and that the community expects you to be responsible

241for the decisions that are being made. And to have the conversation we had at the February board meeting and have this implemented without your approval first is shocking. And that needs to be addressed. Thank you. Thank you, Angie. Sam? Thank you, Angie and Leanne, for speaking. I think I'm not going to argue about the process, but, you know, this is the policy was written to match a decision that the administration had the right to make. You know, the only thing I would say if we have a problem with that going forward, then, you know, we'll have to set different parameters or guidelines of where the board would be involved or not. So I do appreciate that this policy is being written to match. the decision process and I think that that is the right thing

242to do. I've kind of gone back and forth on it. I only have one option in my 401 plan to choose and I can't imagine as an employer having to manage four or five or six or ten different vendors. So I can respect the simplicity of it and And I also can respect that, you know, some teachers that are more involved into their finances would have, you know, less options and maybe in some cases paying more fees than where they are now. But I think what I see is a greater good in this. And so the decision makes sense to me and the policy makes sense to me. Yeah. The process maybe could be slightly improved, but I think it makes sense. I'd like to make a comment, if I may. Go ahead, Jean. The

243current policy allows for a list of vendors to be provided to staff. You could argue that one is an option as a list. It's not a long list, but it is an option that is presented to staff. So I agree with you, Sam, that this is well within the rights of the administration to make this decision. I also... was part of the health system for a very long time. And over that very long time, we changed vendors, but we only had one option at a time. And I agree that having multiple options is unwieldy and believe our administration took positive steps to select a vendor that was going to give good service to our staff and good advice to our staff. and I support its policy as it's presented Thank you Jeanne and I was

244going to add so she made one of the points which is in terms of implementing this certainly the administration's been in constant communication with the board on this and the committee's but individual board members as we meet with the administration have been talking about this our list was going to be a list of one so we're matching the policy language to the fact that in practice we're gonna be doing a list we're gonna have a list of one and that list of one is coming because of recommendations by the third party insurance vendor we said hey we're looking for efficiencies we're looking for cost savings and simplicity we need to be smart in the healthcare space we're self-insured So here comes R&R with again no financial benefit to them we pay them a consulting fee

245that's paid and done and approved looking across all of our offerings and they make this recommendation go to a single payer system and we've added nine different plans for consideration finalized it to three and the board actually had a big hand in selecting going from the three to one so That process was good. And again, we're just aligning the policy rather than have it just be a list and just be a list of one. This is, we're just changing the wording of the policy. to match that mary well but no we're really changing the policy i i take your point that a list can be a list of one and while i find that a little unsavory it's probably technically correct but we're changing the policy to say the district shall designate a sole provider

246which means the list can never be more than one from now on so it is a change to policy it's not just a loophole okay thank you good point mary thank you Any other discussion before we vote? Okay all those in favor of the motion to approve the new policy 3534 as presented please say aye aye aye any opposed thank you carries on voice vote and concludes our action items for the evening discussion items Ben I'll start before Ben kicks off I'll start before Ben kicks off. I wanted to talk a little bit about what we have in front of you. We've told our vendor partner not to necessarily be here tonight because of the late hour. You may recall that this was originally scheduled to be on the agenda for the meeting that had

247to be canceled because of threatening weather. Ultimately what we did was we had the vendor present to the Finance and Operation Committee on March 23rd So F&O has seen this presentation The item and received unanimous support to move forward to the full board and as we have done that in the past We are taking corrective action steps to mitigate the three-year rolling average for the experience Modification rate or mod rate, which is your multiplier for workers comp insurance We will need to get better in this area and expect a significant modification of this rate next year. Ben and I are here to answer any questions you may have. Again, this is our only discussion item, and we'll be back for action next month. With that, any questions that folks have? Just real quick. We talked

248about the 7-0. It makes sense. It's unfortunate that there's such a big increase in the workers' comp, but that doesn't even include a rebate, though, right? No, no the dividends not dividend so I mean that's not a guarantee but there is some dividend that we get back which does minimize that as well so the way life is And mark would you just clarify for me? I wasn't an F&O the moderate in terms of obviously that's the rate We're being charged a bit more because we've had more claims So what's the idea then on the three-year-old? I don't know that the volume of claims has gone up as much as the severity of a couple claims has been pretty significant in injury status. That's a fair way to depict it. Also, as part of the moderate,

249the state changed the formula. They increased the average state wages, which is part of that formula when you're calculating the workers' comp. So part of that wasn't in our control, and the other part was we did have some injuries that could have been prevented that the safety committee has already looked at. They meet monthly, and Rick told me tonight we're looking good this year. So we're hoping it's on a three-year average. We're hoping going forward, bring it back down to a more typical orbit. So that's the hope. With safety education and better safety practices, that then we would have less accidents. Yep, yep. participate or don't participate demonstrate you know like you just tell them about don't go play them in one-on-one tell them how to shoot free throws or something you know yeah but

250that mod rate is regulated by the state so there's not much we could do about that Any other questions or comments As Mark said that will be back next month our next agenda item is the board president's report this is the Time of year when I always give a big thank you to our involved community for voting and making your voices heard I started that practice. I don't remember exactly when but I believe the year we had the recount I just am super appreciative to Board members who are willing to run people from our community. They're willing to step up This is largely a volunteer position and to our community members our constituents that that turn out and vote I know the spring election has a lower turnout than say a presidential election but it's

251still a significant turnout and it's great I also like to just publicly thank Kevin, Bob, Sam, Jen and Elizabeth for running It's not easy. It's a sacrifice of time, treasure. There's a lot that goes into running for the board, and so thank you for that. I do have a little bit more that I'm going to include in my board present report this year following the election. In the run-up to the school board election, many people received a flurry of text messages, and I've received a lot of questions about them. many of the text messages I think were generalized maybe they were used across the the nation or the state of Wisconsin they're not necessarily specific to our district but I'd like to clarify some points that were made so that our community has the most

252current information in terms of Elmbrook school district specifically so some comments some texts suggested that facility planning is being fiscally mismanaged to clarify the board's currently looking at two planning options those aren't the only two options that may eventually be considered but those are the two on the table right now one would result in no change to your school debt tax by continuing the current uh debt payment and the other would add about eleven dollars per one hundred thousand dollars in assessed value that's our best understanding of the current time so surveys have gone out to gauge community opinion on whether that's the best approach whether that's uh good stewardship over the facilities Where our students learn every day if we want to make those improvements so the voice of the community will speak loudly

253and Help the board choose the best path forward Other text messages made comments to suggest that student safety and parent communication and transparency are less than optimal I just want you to know that we value and deliver on open communication to keep parents informed. We have a robust safety program. It's led by top-notch safety director. We just talked about the safety meeting they have every month. We have shared responsibility across our system for all staff and student safety. comments in another text were made about literacy I'm proud to say that literacy in Elmbrook is on a steady upward trajectory with 83% of our third graders reading at or above grade level as of spring 2025 and that's a significant age because the science of reading would say that's where you need to be making gains

254to make a difference in literacy is third grade that's where they need to be at that proficiency so Again, just like to thank the significant efforts of our leaders and staff that have made that statistic possible and to point out that we are on track to exceed 90% in the coming year. So that's a work in progress, and it's something to be celebrated. Comments were made that fiscal accountability and prioritizing academics in the classroom are at risk in Elmbrook. I can assure you that fiscal accountability in Elmbrook consists of a rigorous annual budget process, looks closely at spending, and reduces and or reallocates funds to match current and strategic objectives. The board sets those objectives. We currently prioritize academics in the classroom. Administrative expenses in Elmbrook account for 4.19% of the annual budget. That's the

255second lowest in comparison to our 11 regional benchmarks, meaning we want the majority of our money in our budget going to classrooms, and we try to make that happen. Comments were made that there's no accountability for student misconduct and I'd like to point out that we have an extensive array of student policies. We have a lot of policies but there's student policies that exist and are enforced to optimize student conduct. And finally comments were made that parents are shut out of decisions and parental rights are lacking in Elmbrook. Parents are not shut out of decisions. Several dozen school district policies clearly call out parent rights to shape and guide their students education. Parents are in charge of their students education in Elmbrook. And that concludes my report. Our next agenda item is the discussion by

256exception only. Are there any items that board members would like to discuss from the list? Preetha. I would like to discuss. Okay. Anything else? Preetha, the spring election report. So I would just like to say that on. Sorry, I just have to light this up. On April 13th at 5 p.m. the Board of Canvassers met at 5 o 4 p.m. and we confirmed the required I'm sorry we confirmed the results of the spring election for the area 1 area 3 and at-large seat you will see attached the results there and I want to personally thank Dr. Mushir Hassan and Catherine Wilson for their willingness to serve on the Board of Canvassers I want to thank all of the candidates all of who ran for office and congratulate the winning candidates and with that I will

257say that I gladly conclude my term as board clerk and happily say that we certified this election Thank you Preeta are there any questions for Preeta that concludes the informational items agenda item and brings us to recognition of board member service this is a tradition that we've upheld for as long as I can remember being on the board that we honor board members for their service in their last meeting. Excuse me. Sadly, we have two board members that are serving their last regular, at least scheduled board meeting tonight. They do serve through the, basically the last Sunday in April. but we'll take these alphabetically and I'll kick it over to Mark Hanson to start with Honorary Sam Hughes and then we'll go around we'll have board members be able to offer comments About Sam and

258his service on the board and Sam you'll get the final word on that and then we'll move to dr. Prita Kudyar I'm gonna address both of you at the same time. First of all, thank you for your commitment to public service I know being an elected official and today's hyper partisan times is not an easy job It's not easy on anyone or any family to your family. Thank you for sharing you with us You helped us be better. We do better work for kids because of what you guys asked us to do. So thank you for that And I would also say that you helped me be better as a leader, so thank you for influencing me to be better for kids, for staff, for our entire community. You have been amazing to work with,

259and I wish you the best as you continue your next journey in life. Thanks for everything that you've done. With that, I'd open up to other board members who may have anything else to say. Let's take Sam first. Comments for Sam as he concludes his service. I'd like to speak. Go ahead, Jean. Thank you. just a minute i have to get to my notes i'd much rather be there excuse me but of course i'm enjoying being here but anyway it'd be easier to be there um sam thank you for your service to the omburg school district while we had our disagreements i have always appreciated and admired your dedication particularly to the teaching and learning committee as a member for two years and as chair this past year, it's always evident in the boardroom that

260you have a good command of what's going on in that committee and all the efforts happening on the teaching and learning front. And I've always appreciated the effort that you have put forth in that regard. And the other thing I've... I've appreciated your perspective, particularly around topics concerning facilities or construction or leases and that sort of thing. You have a wealth of knowledge and a depth of knowledge that you willingly shared with us as we have journeyed through those types of conversations this past three years. So thank you. Thank you for that. And I wish you the best in your next endeavors. Thank you, Jane. Your words are kind. We spent three years together as school board members and I just want to say a couple things that I appreciate about you I appreciate that

261you always speak passionately about what you believe in and that you genuinely advocate fiercely for that which you believe in and I respect that so much we have I don't want to say rarely but we have not often agreed but I feel that we could be respectful to each other and I want to say that I appreciate that too. Thank you, Preeta. Cheryl? Sam, we've been on this board for one year and on teaching and learning for the one year and I just really appreciate your viewpoints and your speaking out honestly for what you believed in and I for the most part agreed with you. and you have been a guiding light for me to see how to speak out boldly and I really appreciate that thank you Sam I am grateful for the time

262that we've spent together on the board I'll miss having you right next to me And I've greatly appreciated, you know, one of the things I always value when it comes to board members, I think, is the variety of perspectives that we bring to the table, whether that be professional background, our personal background, whatever it may be. And I always feel that you and I, I think as a whole, us as the board, we agree many times, even though it seems like our disagreements are loud sometimes. But I always appreciated that you brought to light perspectives that I might have missed otherwise. It's why I always very much valued when you spoke up and raised points that either I might, even if I disagree with, I might not have thought of. And I think that that

263was always additive. So I'm greatly appreciative. To the time that we got to spend together. I do hope that you remain engaged because I do think that you have something to offer to this community and so Best of luck as you continue forward. Thank you. Yes. I appreciate that very much. My comments will sound repetitive Because people have gone before me but Sam as a board member you personally pushed me to think of issues in ways that I sometimes hadn't thought of I think there's many times where we've agreed on things, and it's been easy. And there's times where even if we were agreeing, you were making a point and maybe a justification that I hadn't thought of. I'm like, well, okay. But that's something different that I didn't think of, and I really do

264appreciate that. I appreciate your financial knowledge. I think a lot of that comes just from your years of experience being a small business owner. But just thinking about the dollars and cents, we had for years on the board, Glenn Allgaier was our financial guy. I just trusted a lot what Glenn did. And when he was no longer on the board, I felt that loss keenly. And for me largely, a lot of that role has gone to you. When you talk about financial things, when you talk about bids, things like that, that really makes me listen, pause, and think. I respect you on that and your experience there. And as a small business owner and someone who's running a company on the side and hopes that to be my full-time job someday, I've appreciated the personal

265mentoring you've given me. And lastly, I don't think anyone in the community could doubt you as a man of principle, as a man of faith. That's been something that you've discussed a lot. That takes a lot of courage to do that. It's not always well received. But that didn't change what you did just because something wasn't popular. You are who you are, and you stuck with those principles, and I admire that. I think the world would be better off for people having a strong moral foundation and being willing to apply that in their lives more broadly. So I appreciate that. Thank you for your time on the board. You're very kind. I appreciate that. Anyone else? Okay, Sam. So I just want to say thank you for the opportunity to share this community. I've got

266three people left in here. I was hoping that. This is going to be widely viewed, Sam, widely viewed. So I'm going to share my thoughts into the ether. But Eric, maybe you'll post them online for me. I appreciate it. It has really been a true honor. I have to say this has been one of the greatest honors of my life. I didn't realize stepping onto this board how much I would have been shaped by it. God has certainly shaped me through every season of my life to lead and to serve others, and I have just felt his hand in this role from the very first day, and I serve him first. I definitely want to say thank you to my wife, Joanna, who stood by me these past three and a half years since I

267committed to running, who reluctantly stood by me to consider running a second time and serving on this board, and then, of course, during our 24 years of marriage. I love you, and I thank you for your support, Joanna. To my daughters, Zanna, Eden, and Charlize, thank you. They carried the weight of the service alongside me, and often quietly, and often without recognition. Their support is the reason I could stand in this seat for three years, and your love is the reason I can walk away from it whole. So I love you girls. To Dr. Hansen, Mark, thank you. From the very first day you served with a servant heart, and it was clear to anyone paying attention that you deeply loved the children of this district. I've learned a great deal watching you, watching how

268you adapted, how you navigated tough challenges, and how you responded to difficult situations and difficult challenges in a way that always reflected your passion for the job. That will always stay with me, and I have learned a ton from you and your team. To Emily, who left here. Emily, maybe she'll listen to this later, but it has been such a true honor to serve you. You and your team, Lisa, McKenna, and Liz, are just extraordinarily talented. Emily, you showed me grace when I brought passion to this table, and you still had the courage to stand firmly by your beliefs and convictions. You were patient, you were deeply caring, and your love for this school district is evident in everything that you do. My time serving alongside you will always be remembered. To Ben, Rick, and

269the teams behind the work, Ben, you're super talented. I watched you solve problems, look for ways to save this district money, and to take real pride in your work. Mitzi and Barb are a tremendous compliment to your team, and this district is better for all of you. Rick, this district is lucky to have your talent, your hard work, and your dedication. I was really glad to learn that your parents are thriving well into their 90s because I fully expect another 25 years of you serving this community. We're lucky to have you. And to the many, many other wonderful teachers, staff, and support staff who live day by day serving the students of this district inside these walls and far beyond them, thank you. You're the ones that make this place work. Chris, I appreciate your

270thought process. You really bring a unique perspective to this administration. They need someone with your leadership. And I've appreciated your humor and fun that you brought to the boardroom and the meetings. To my fellow board members, I have truly appreciated working with all of you. We've certainly not agreed on all issues, but I can promise you I think I have respect for where all of you stand, how hard you work, how you're dedicated, and you share that passion for this school district. And I just really appreciate that. I know that we all share that same fundamental desire to serve the students and the learners of this community. I have learned a great deal from each of you and every one of you. And I am grateful for the time given that I've had to serve

271alongside of you, time that you've taken away from your families and your work and your lives to serve on this board. And thank you. I truly appreciate that. Serving this role again for the past few years has been one of the greatest honors of my life. I've learned so much. I walk away with my integrity intact, knowing I always did what I believed was right, even when others may have disagreed with my decisions. I could have done the process differently at times. Admittedly, I'm sure of that. I was a little fresh at the beginning of this first three years. But I like to think that I leave this board a better man than I was three years ago. And I hope and believe that this school district is stronger today than it was when I

272arrived. If the mark I leave on this board and this district is remembered as a positive one, I will be grateful. but i can tell you with certainty that the mark left in my heart by the people i served within this church district will always be remembered as positive you have left a lasting impression on me and i will never forget it and of course to the elmbrook community you're deeply engaged and i've truly appreciated every conversation every email some of you have emailed me every meeting every doorstep that i've visited you've shaped my growing admiration for the work being done in this district and you have reminded me over and over why civic service matters it's been a privilege a lifetime and i thank you for this opportunity to serve thank you thank you

273let's give sam a round of applause dr preetha kudiara mary well this is a real treat to get to share a few words um It's been an honor to serve alongside Dr. Preetha Kuretiara. Now I'm doing that. I haven't screwed your name up once, but I just did again. Alongside Dr. Preetha Kuretiara for the past two years, your intellect, your preparation for board meetings, and your problem-solving abilities have made the work of this board better. You've given freely and stepped up to leadership roles, and in some cases I've been the direct... beneficiary of the improvements that you made. I've been fortunate to follow you into leadership roles as treasurer and F&O, and you've served as a sounding board and mentor to me in those areas. As clerk, Preetha, you did a remarkable job that I'm

274not sure everybody knows about, bringing district records up to date. You cleaned up unresolved issues in your first term as clerk, making my work the following year much easier. We both learned that board clerk is a working job, and the work of the community and legislative engagement committee is vital. I saw firsthand how you took those responsibilities seriously, although sometimes tedious, they are always important, and you did a great job and used true professionalism. But Preetha, you engaged with your peers and leaders in other school districts throughout your tenure, and that made a real impact on me. Your work with SWSA, with CESA 1, and as a delegate to WASBE's Policy and Resolutions Committee, you've gone out of your way to learn from others, introducing me personally to many school leaders I would not have

275otherwise met. You're a connector. Attending the January State Education Conferences and the 2025 WASBE Day at the Capitol with Preetha gave me a new understanding of how much we benefit from getting out of our own little corner of the world and sharing experiences with others in our state. Preetha, you're a model of relationship building, and I appreciate it. Grace under pressure defines preface approach to challenges Throughout her tenure which began with a recount of her electoral win She has conducted herself with dignity while some without full knowledge of the challenges She faced made that more difficult than it needed to be But throughout your tenure, you've accepted and met and exceeded board responsibilities while balancing a challenging work schedule and all the demands of daily life. But on a personal level, Preetha, you and I

276have bonded over shared experiences as mothers of musical daughters, our love of competitive trivia, and especially our love of theater. You've been a kind and supportive person and friend through the challenges I've faced in the past couple of years. And I'm going to miss you as a board colleague, but I am so grateful that I can now call you friend. So thank you, Preetha, for your work, for your kindness, and for your example. I know that our paths will cross again outside the boardroom, and I know you get Tuesday nights free from now on. Until then, I wish you all the blessings that life has to offer. Thank you, Mary. Are there other comments for Preetha? Sam? Don't take this personally the rest of you but by far you are the most fun board member

277here Preetha so no offense Now you you are you brought a lot of fun to this boardroom and a lot of passion and I I have a lot of admiration for you you've gone through some hard things in life and You've shown through and you've continued to just dedicate your work to the school. I know the things that you've been passionate about are very clear You're not someone that takes things lightly you think through things and really put forth your best and so I admire that and I just respect your time that you put on this board and thank you for maybe I can call you my friend too now so Jean Thanks Thank you Preetha for your service to the students and staff of Ellenbrook your time in office was marked by consistent and

278thorough preparation a tenacious spirit driven to understand proposals made and their impact a clear understanding of the value of active involvement in, as Mary said, WASBE and CISA and SWSA, you really, you tackle everything with an intensity and a desire to thoroughly understand. You have a commitment to quality. exemplified by your work as board clerk and treasurer, I too understand what you brought to the board clerk role in your first year. Something that all of us before you didn't take to the level that we could have, perhaps should have, but you were the one to clean it all up and make sure the outstanding financial reports were submitted. and did all the work to get us in line. Sincere thanks for your commitment to excellence, and I wish you all the best in all that

279comes next. Thank you, Jean. Wes? Pritha. It's been a privilege this last year getting to serve with you and getting to know you both inside the boardroom and outside the boardroom. Serving on CLE with you, it gives a different perspective having had all that opportunity where I think, unfortunately, I don't think everyone else always sees it all the time, but the passion you bring. enjoy all of the board members but there's something unique about you that I don't think anyone can replace we will lose some of the passion not the passion for the work but the energy that is brought by you and I think it's just a testament to who you are and you've added so much to not only our board but I'd say the community because I know that this this might

280be the end of your board service, but our community will not lose you. You will continue to find an outlet for your energy and your passion, and it's clear that our community benefits because of you. And beyond that, the connections that you've fostered in your work with WASBE, I don't know if it comes from your background as a doctor, your desire to know, but... I think it helps provide a perspective that we can all learn from and the desire to continue to seek out differing perspectives, differing ideas, and to continue to improve not only ourselves but the school district as a whole. So thank you for all of that, and thank you for being a friend, being someone that I know that either I or my wife could call and you would be there. It's

281been an absolute pleasure serving with you, and I can't wait to see what you do next. Preetha, thank you for taking me under your wing at WASBE this year and just teaching me a lot of different things and how to navigate at the convention. I just really appreciated it. And I appreciated the time that I got getting to know you better, hearing about your family. I just wish you well I hope that you spend a lot of time with those wonderful daughters especially through this next summer before you have to send one away to college but I just appreciate everything that I got to learn from you and to serve with you on the CLE this year thank you So sometimes I can think of a good story but I've heard several people talk Preet

282about your passion and early on in your board service you probably don't remember this but we had a phone call on the day of a board meeting you were checking about something and you raised your voice you were very animated about an issue is actually very small I remember what it is, but it was just so small. But I finished that conversation thinking, oh, man, I'm going to have to repair this relationship. Like, I don't know, like something's wrong between me and Preetha. I thought things were good, and I didn't know. And I came to the board meeting a few hours later, and you were just so friendly and kind. And I realized I had caught a glimpse of the passion, the fire. And sometimes it's so animating for you that, I mean, just even

283the volume of your voice, it's something that I had to learn about you. Because I am even. I don't have a lot of facial expressions. It probably makes me good for sitting in this seat. But that passion, that fire, that energy that people have been talking about is a real thing. I admire that because it's something I don't have. And so it's a benefit. It's a positive. And it's something that's made our board better. another thing it's already been mentioned but the way you represent Elmbrook regionally and in other groups you've wanted to take that work on you feel strongly about it and as you get in these groups Another thing I've noticed is that in these regional groups and communities is you network, you have a natural leadership ability. People look to you, they

284value your opinion. All of a sudden, you know, you give me a call or send me a little note. By the way, I've been elected, like I'm kind of the, you know, on this board now and I'm doing this special thing and like, holy cow, like how many things can you take on? But it's just something that comes naturally to you because of this natural leadership ability. And again, this... you're working in areas that you're passionate about so legislative priorities and just things you want to do in terms of the state and region it's made a difference not just in the community of elmbrook but the way you've represented our board and our community has been good and that's something that frankly and work sometimes we live in our little bubble and do our little

285thing and we're excellent but to spread that around a little bit and help other districts catch a better glimpse of that and and be better is a benefit. I really admire you for the way you deal with challenges in life. I have often thought if I face the challenges that you face, and there's been some significant personal challenges in the last few years, I'm like, oh, I would make a different decision, or I would bow out, or I would shrink, I think, at the challenges, and you did not. You taught me a lot about the value of family. Family is so important to me. It's important in so many ways to me, but you have really taught me the value of family, and you're a wonderful mom. And just thank you for sharing those things

286with me. I know you don't share everything. I mean, who does? But you've shared a lot of personal things over the last three years, and it's helped me be a better man and a better husband and father because I'm like, oh. Like, I am not doing what I need to do in terms of being a father like Preeta is a mom. And so thank you for your relationships with your family and making me better because of that. And we'll miss you. It's been great working with you these last three years. Any other comments before we conclude this agenda? Oh, no, you would get it. You get the last word. I almost skipped the most important. You guys made it really hard. Now I got to get through this. But OK. So if you'll excuse me,

287I left my phone at home. So I'm now about to read from my watch. But I can do it. I found it. OK. So I know. OK. So first of all, good evening to everybody. So I just. it's a little bit out of order but um my hope as a new school board member was to be quiet and capable and get the job done and oh no hold on technology glitch was to be quiet capable and get the job done and as it turns out the universe had different plans for me so my school board term started with the hand recount of the spring election spring school board election of 2023 as was referenced earlier and um Let's see 2023 soon after that my car was stolen for the first time My house was damaged

288in a fire my family faced some My face during scrutiny of my personal life, but I just want to say that throughout the entire time I made it my priority to continue with the work that made me feel fulfilled and to honor the commitments that I've made to this board in this community and I've spent the last weeks looking back at the last three years of decisions and committee meetings and discussions and on some really serious topics that I'm so proud that we worked through. And then all of the discussions that could have probably been summarized in a couple minutes, but we chose to spend a lot of time discussing the word ordinarily or, you know, other things like that. But it all matters. I just wanted to say that I loved every minute of

289it and I hope that was the parents. As I step down, I first of all want to say that I hope to remain, wait I'm gonna skip that part, okay. first i'll come back to my fellow board members i just want to thank you for teaching me the true meaning of leadership and friendship there have been moments when we disagreed and the process didn't go as planned and when the weight of responsibility felt heavy and at those times i appreciate the leadership of the board and that we found a way forward to the teachers in our district you are the heart of this district you make sacrifices of your own to teach our children you work longer hours than anyone sees putting everything you have into our community to keep our children safe and engaged

290i have my own stories that many of you have heard on repeats i have rarely been able to speak about principal brandon buckman without recounting my experience of the virtual middle school of the 2021 2022 school year where the kids were the whms webcats i mean this is just one of my amazing lived experiences here in this district and the guidance support and generosity of spirit that my family has experienced in the school district is what i will continue to talk about to anyone that will listen Mark and our senior administrative staff, thank you so much for your example of leadership. I have learned so much from you. And I want to say thank you for your kindness and your mentorship and for so many people that work here in this office. I'm not going

291to be able to get through all the things I want to say tonight, so I will reserve some words for later this week when I hope to connect with everybody. But just a couple more things. Christy? I just want to say thank you for every phone call, for every gentle reminder of a deadline, for every email informing me on the latest response from the Wisconsin Ethics Commission about our campaign finance questions and what piece of paper something should go on. Thank you for being, in addition to all the other things you do, the best deputy clerk I know. So you are amazing and I am lucky to call you my friend. So to our community and the engaged parents that I have been so lucky to know in our district, I want to say thank

292you. It is that engagement that I seized upon when I came into this district and the people that I've met supported me through all of my decisions that led me to become a board member and people who coached me through my first campaign and provided a sounding board throughout all of these years I hope you know who you are and that I am so grateful and always will be so as I stepped out I'm not gonna say goodbye I'm gonna remain a part of this incredible district and continue to support our students and families in any way that I can. I will be returning to parent network from where I came and I will spend more time, I'll get to spend more time engaged as a parent volunteer. I'll finally be able to attend the

293monthly applause meeting that takes place every Tuesday night at the same time at this board meeting. And for the BCHS staff, I'm your hospitality chair for PTO for the next few years and. I've got extra time now to think of themed teacher appreciation events and I love a themed event. So anyway, I just I want to say to my children, I hope someday that you realize I did this all for you and my older daughter made me this lovely board here it's a quote from Lucy van Pelt from peanuts that everyone is entitled to my opinion so that's that's my gift from my 17 year old who some of you had a chance to meet in the emergency copy room shelter the other night where we she was so pleased to be standing with all

294the board members talking about her future plans so yes but I do appreciate the questions it helped her to come to a decision and be able to adequately articulate that so I appreciate that. I just I want to end with a quote from Jane Goodall the famed pathologist. What you do makes a difference and you have to decide what kind of difference you want to make. So I am honored to have served this community in this capacity. It is a privilege and I am filled with gratitude for your trust and support and I hope that I've made a difference. You guys made that hard? You got through it. Better than I would have marked. Superintendent report. So as Christy pulls up the 60 slide deck that I'm going to be using, I wanted to, first

295of all, congratulate the three folks that were previously mentioned who won board elections. To Scott Wheeler, Jen Roscoff, and Elizabeth Tice, congratulations. You will begin your term, or whatever you want to call it, on April 27th, which is a week from today. So thank you for your willingness to run for public office and your willingness to serve the community that we are a part of. Congratulations to all of the folks that were named finalists in the Engage in Excellence. If you're looking for more information, you can click on that hyperlink on the bottom right-hand corner and get to the Engage in Excellence webpage where you can see who the finalists are. We will have that event on May 4th, Monday, May 4th. It will be our 11th annual Engage in Excellence evening. Raise your hand

296if you've been to one of those events before. If you get the chance to be there again, it's an amazing celebration. Think of it as the Oscars for education in Elmbrook. It's incredible. We will be honoring eight alumni there that are pictured here right now These are folks that work in variety of different capacities in our organization from teachers all the way to Food service to support staff and everything in between we have graduates all over our district that are making a difference so we really have really leaned into this build your own, grow your own kind of concept, and here's an example of a variety of different folks in a number of different capacities that have helped us be better. Speaking of being better, we are proud to announce that we have the middle

297school liaison to HOSA. HOSA stands for Health Occupations Students of America. It's an organization that's been around for 50 or so years, and really their major function is to host health occupations competitions. throughout the state of Wisconsin, and we have the middle school liaison to their executive committee, which is a pretty amazing, amazing opportunity. As was mentioned before, we had to pivot the upcoming Crucible performance that Brookfield East Drama is putting on. We are now hosting that from the Sherin Lynn Wilson Center. We had to move it to the Pewaukee School District Theater because the Sherin Lynn Wilson Center was closed due to flooding. You couldn't get to it. We will probably anticipate that reopening before those shows start, but we had to pivot because the show load was yesterday. Congratulations to Isabella, who's pictured

298here. Isabella is the national champion for the German Olympiad, and she will be representing the United States in the International German Olympiad in Mannheim, Germany this summer. Congratulations to Isabella. Amazing story. We also had a number of teams compete in the little and big robotics. This is a picture of our FTC teams. We have four of the top-ranked teams in the state for FTC, including... one of the two qualifiers for the World Championship. Elmbrook was host this past weekend to the first, which is the Large Robot, first competition. We had the state championship at Brookfield East. Meanwhile, we also held the first LEGO competition, which was the first time ever there was a postseason invitational for LEGO League. That was held at Brookfield East. They had to overcome a number of different things, including tornado

299warnings, network outages. minor road flooding and room changes but wanted to thank all of the folks involved including ben westfall sarah liski rick domach scott bassett and a whole bunch of other folks that helped make this happen as we go to the next picture you'll see the pictures of the competition this is the large robot competition and you can see the audience behind it it was full house as was mentioned before this was an amazing event and thank you to everybody that made that happen As many of you know, we sent a community link home to Holmes that was to announce the candidates for the school board election and also to talk to our community about the different facility planning for our future that is underway. In addition to that, we have a survey that

300has arrived at Holmes. We are getting hundreds of responses to those surveys as we speak. that survey response rate is blowing our expectations away. So if you have not had a chance to do that survey yet, we'd encourage all watchers to make sure you go to your email where you will see a link or go to the paper copy and scan the QR code to make sure you get your voice heard around our community plans. Another area that has received some questions is, is there a legitimate reach going on to our graduates and our alumni around updating our alumni database? This is a real project that we're in conjunction with the Elmbrook Education Foundation, making sure this is an up-to-date database. So when we look for mentors and job shadowing experiences, we have people's area

301of expertise. So when you get that note card, that postcard at home, or get that email. that has my name attached to it, it is real, it's not fictitious, it's not false, it's not a scam. So do remind folks that this is a strategy underway to update our database. If you've not been following Mikey's Minutes, you would not know that there was an update for Mikey's Minutes at the visit to Swanson. I'd encourage you to watch that. You can link to that through this. In addition to that, we had another author visit. Elmbrook is unique in the fact that we have author visits all the time. We are able to help support our authors from around the country because we sell a lot of books to families. When they have authors come into schools, we

302offer our families the chance to buy these books in conjunction with Boswell Books. We are able to host authors like Alex Willen who visited Tonawanda. I had a chance to participate in this author visit. The student pictures, because he's also an illustrator, the student pictures were absolutely fabulous. Congratulations to all of our students involved in the Launch Innovation Challenge that is sponsored by Milwaukee Tool. The picture that is of the first place team. is a picture of a snowblower modification that they made. Milwaukee Tool makes electronic snowblowers, and our students modified it to have hand warmers in the area where you put your hands to operate a snowblower in the middle of winter. Very cool project. If you want to learn more about those top 10 teams, certainly reach out to me and I can

303get you more details. But they were amazing projects. As was mentioned during the Brookfield Central update, Brookfield Central received the WASC Spirit of Excellence Regional Winner Award. This is the second time they received that award, and congratulations to Brookfield Central. You get this award by having a super active student council, and Brookfield Central, led by Matt DiPello and others, has a very active student council. Congratulations to the Burleigh student who qualified. This is Jeremy Dong, cute little picture of Jeremy as he qualified for the junior division of seven to ten year olds. He will be participating in that competition in Boston. Congratulations to Jeremy and all of the folks involved in the Elmbrook Speed Skating Club. Speaking of speed skaters and Elmbrook Speed Skating Club, they were instrumental in getting us to be the only

304host. of the Olympic speed skater visits to schools in the state of Wisconsin. So this is a picture of the Brookfield Elementary School classroom and speed skaters that presented to each of our school classes at Brook L. Our kids had a chance to interact with them, ask them questions. It was a really cool event. I had a chance to watch our fourth graders participate in that Q&A. It was great. Many of you know that there's a ton of work that goes into Dixon's gallery night. It's also known as empty bowls night This is a picture of four of the events The far right picture is a picture of the large group instruction room or the LGI room It was turned into a art studio for that evening amazing event. I know many of you had

305a chance to attend that event or have attended it over the years congratulations to amy jacobson you'll see at the bottom that they raised over six thousand dollars to support the milwaukee rescue mission that is pretty typical of that event is about it's about a six thousand dollar fundraiser from walkie rescue congratulations to rick domach for being recognized by the city of brookfield police department this recognition will happen later this month he is being recognized for his incredible contribution and positive impact on school safety in the collaboration with the city of brookfield police department we're very proud of rick and the relationship he's built with the city of brookfield police department In addition to that, we're very thankful for all of the staff that were involved in the planning and execution of the 10th annual

306Ed Camp. This is a voluntary item that comes up every year. This is our 10th annual one. It happens on a Saturday, so people give up a Saturday to come in and learn how to be better teachers from other teachers around the state. There are hundreds of people that participate in this. We had over 50 teachers participate in this. It's just a really cool event, and wanted to thank everybody for making sure that we have... an incredible ed camp opportunity for our staff interested in being better speaking of being better we had elmbrook students earn some recognition for their literacy competitions from wemta battle of the books in the book trailer contest this is a picture of those winners And as always, a reminder that our Pilgrim Park road construction is still underway. The bridge

307is just about done, but if you're trying to get from north to south or from south to north on Pilgrim Road, you'll note that the bridge by Worth Park is still out and will be out, we anticipate, through the end of May, maybe into the beginning of June. The art in the back of the room is a product of Mrs. Smith's classroom at Brookfield East, and we thank all of the students that contributed to the beautification of this room. With that, that concludes my report. Any questions for me? No, 24. Don't feel sad. Everyone's just ready for Sam to make the next motion, Mark, so don't feel bad. I figured I was going to get out of the way of the motion in a second because we have two outgoing board members. I would love

308to do that. Last one and I'll second. Thank you. We have a motion in a second all those in favor of adjourning. Please say aye aye