001Good 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 May 9th, 2025 and post 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. Will you please join me in the Pledge of Allegiance led by Isabel Perry. I pledge allegiance to which it's hundreds of 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? Thank you. I have a motion by Jean and
002a second by Preetha. Is there any discussion? Hearing none, all those in favor of approving the motion, please say aye. Aye. Aye. Any opposed? Thank you. That carries on voice vote. Our first agenda item this evening is the celebration of excellence, and we have several things we're going to be celebrating tonight, but let's turn it over first to Brett and Andrew to introduce our valedictorians and salutatorians. This opportunity to introduce our valedictorians and salutatorians of the class of 2025. Josh, if you want to come on up first, please. So Josh Wang is the BC class of 2025 valedictorian. A little bit about Josh. He took honors pre-calc as a seventh grader. Now, I took it as a sixth grader. He waited until seventh grade year. I'm not sure why. Maybe a conflict in his schedule.
003He has also taken 12 college classes, not credits, classes. And when I say classes, it's either at MSOE, Marquette, or UW-Madison. And most recently, he's taken... Logarithms, Intro to Solid State Physics and Quantum Mechanics at Marquette. And I looked before I came here, those are 4,000 level classes. So you come in at the 1,000, he's at the 4,000. I would imagine most kids were scrambling when they wanted to pick partners for group projects. They probably wanted Josh in their group. He currently has a 5.338 GPA. He'll be studying physics at MIT. His SAT score is 1580 out of 1600, which is pretty awesome. His activities at BC Robotics Science Bowl, which he and Kartik and three other BC kids took sixth in the nation this past month, which is pretty outstanding. And he's also been
004on tennis. His best memory of BC is playing on the tennis team. Teachers had the greatest impact were Mr. Wilkinson and Mrs. Evans and some thoughts from some of his teachers. Josh is an outstanding student. He possesses the vocabulary of a college professor and comes to class enthusiastically and ready to make connections between his classes. This includes incorporating his knowledge of science and technology in his AP English time essays and examining his readings through historical and sociological lenses. In AP language, Josh dominated trivia competition and vocabulary games. When he was selected for the prestigious US Physics team, he modestly told me he'd be missing the last week of school because he was at a physics camp. But it is the US Physics team. Additionally, I had Josh in both AP Stat and Calc 3. I
005joked in class that if Josh got anything wrong, it'd make me feel a little bit better about myself. His peers used to say that in 10 years, we'd all have the Josh Wang proof for calculus. All joking aside, Josh is an incredible young man. I'm honored to have him as a student, and I'm excited to see what his future holds. Josh Wang. Evening, everybody. Shilpa, I'd love to have you join me for our first Celebration of Excellence, valedictorian at Berfilis, Shilpa Kumar, going to Duke, majoring in biomedical engineering. She actually should be at WCTC tonight. She's going to leave right afterwards. She's got an emergency med tech course tonight. A lot like Brett said, her impact in academic achievement, the depth, and then her reach of her leadership. is really exceptional. So Shilpa is a
006certified nursing assistant, passed her exam in March. Latin five at our recent state convention, gold medal as well as a perfect paper award winner. That's the highest percent ranking that you can earn. State tennis champion this year for the first time in school history. Shilpa's team won our state championship. Certainly a passion for science and math, linear algebra and physics. are on her schedule currently mentioned the wctc course tonight and then our advisors and teachers talk about her reach and her leadership impact so that other kids have exceptional learning experiences as well so you see that in a lot of the clubs whether it be national honor society and peer tutoring systems and volunteerism throughout the community student council principals cabinet latin i mentioned our smart team atomic habits club she is a semi-finalist for
007the presidential scholar only 600 in the country right now so congratulations and then teacher comments from her public speaking teacher it is rare for anyone working with shilpa to walk away from the experience without a smile i've seen her validate students work and efforts more than most students have ever taught she's willing to ask questions about a student to get to know them and really truly listen to their answer she helped students foster their own voices and cheered on their ideas this is the definition of a leader of and human excellence. It's also a graphic arts designer muscle that Shilpa has built having accessed and taken successively three of the five courses that we teach at East and her graphic design teachers said she sets the model for the classroom and for the program. Hard-working,
008diligent, exceptional graphic designer always went above and beyond and her work and original creativity shines as a result. So really excited to introduce Shilpa Kumar, valedictorian, excuse me, for the class of 2025 at Brookfield East. The salutatorian for Brookfield Central is Kartik. And I did a little chat GPT as to how to pronounce this. So give me some grace here. Rama Chandrula. Pretty good. All right. Very good. So Kartik also took honors pre-calculus as a seventh grader, and he's taken 12 classes at MSOE, Marquette, and UW-Madison as well. Most recently, he took data mining. Lot there and quantum mechanics. Those are all 4000 level classes as well He currently has a GPA of five point three one two He'll be studying physics at MIT and that will hopefully lead to engineering He had a 36
009on the ACT his best memory is competing in the Science Bowl. That's the team that took six in the nation Teachers that had a great impact on him were mr. Wilkinson and dr. Seharth And their thoughts on on him Kartik possesses an unmatched intellectual curiosity. He's fascinated by so many diverse subjects from the humanities to technology. Not only has he taken an astonishing number of college STEM classes as a high schooler, but he also studied multiple languages, including Sanskrit. Kartik values his education makes the most out of every minute he spends in school. attending so many classes that sometimes overlap. Reviewing his writing with his instructors and reading extra Shakespeare plays just for fun. Additionally, Kartik is a joyous experimenter. He delights in the practical side of physics and has taken advantage of so many
010different opportunities that have come his way. Kartik is always one to ask how to better optimize experimental design and how to apply his knowledge in new ways to better... better the world around him. Kartik will lead the world in research someday and I look forward to seeing him grow in college. Kartik, congratulations. Melinda Gia, excited to introduce Melinda as a salutatorian for Brookfield East class of 2025. Gonna major in biology and public health in Brown University in the fall. Like Shilpa, depth of academic achievement is really impressive and really broad and really inspiring. AP art history student, editor of the Spartan Banner, member of the Supremes program at the Medical College of Wisconsin where she's studying currently malaria and the genetic sequencing affecting the susceptibility of malaria transfer to humans. All right. We're worried about
011that one all day. Latin 5, celebrated for excellence at the Latin Convention. As the editor, she's an exceptional writer, a capstone ELA programming. She's accessed and led throughout her experience at EAST. She's also a HOSA leader for the Brookfield East Chapter, HOSA state officer as well this past year. Forensics leader, physics C and linear algebra here in her second semester. A highly successful member of our highly successful swim program. Couple of comments that talks to Melinda's impact throughout our classes in school and community. First, from Tyler Saxon, Spartan Banner advisor. Melinda has been the driving force behind the Spartan Banner. Her strong leadership, innovative vision, unwavering commitment to excellence maintained a really high standard for the paper and producing reliable, high-quality publications. She not only brought fresh ideas to the table, but held the team
012to high standards, ensuring every addition reflected the best of Brookfield East. And then Ben Westfall, our athletic director, talked about Melinda being a leader in our hosted chapter in our school, but also at the state, which is really an exceptional leadership experience. She organized meetings, guest speakers, local competitions, and state competitions at the end of her junior year. hosted chapters from across the state, elected Melinda to one of seven state officer positions, allowing her to represent Brookfield East at the state level. Thank you, Melinda, our salutatorian for the class of 2022. Okay, at this time, I'd like to invite all of our valedictorian salutatorians back up here. I've got a certificate. from the Board of Education publicly recognizing you and extending you congratulations on behalf of the Board of Education for being the valedictorian and
013salutatorians this year and we're going to hand these certificates out and then with that background we'll take a picture with the principals and I know mom and dad will want pictures as well. Are there board member questions or comments for these amazing young people? Start with Preeta. First of all, I just want to say congratulations to all of you for all of your hard work and your participation and everything. It sounds like you guys have had very well-rounded high school experiences, but I would like to know, what are you most looking forward to in college? I'd say that I'm really excited to continue my academic journey and to have more course options and the ability to explore more subjects outside of what you would get from a high school education. Well, congratulations again. Those were
014great answers, and I wish you all the best with anything that you do. Jean? Short and sweet amazing absolutely amazing all your hard work and Wow look where it's where it's taking you I wish you the best and congratulations Mary? Just very quickly, I'll add my congratulations and encourage you to soak in this victory lap you get to take over the next few weeks because we're very proud of you. You've shown us what can be accomplished, and I'm sure you've been a role model to people you don't even know you've been a role model to. Wish you all the very best in college. Wes? Yes, congratulations to all of you. It's really impressive all of all of the things that you've done not only on the academic side which is obviously impressive and Pretty amazing
015by itself, but the impact that you had on your school as well based on what we've heard is just incredible sure Congratulations, I can just say wow. I'm really impressed with what you guys have done in your four years at your respective high schools and just have the best of luck this next year as you're going into your new campuses. Congratulations. You guys worked hard. It's really cool that you came here to share that and just that you get to see your accomplishment after four years plus of hard work to get you here. So good luck on your next step. Thank you. We'll see you again on the stage at graduation. And hopefully we didn't make you too late for your class tonight. So if you need to run, thank you for coming. We have
016another celebration of excellence at this time introduced by Brett, the 2025 Junior Achievement Young Entrepreneur Competition. That's a mouthful. Thank you, Scott. I'm proud to introduce Aidan Liu. Junior at Brookfield Central High School. He takes a regular course load. Currently has a 4.5 GPA. He's in several clubs at BC, ranging from Tyro, which is our school newspaper, to Science Olympiad, to our AI club. He scored a 36 on the ACT. And while he's still unsure as to what he wants to study after high school, he'll certainly have countless options. His transcript speaks for itself. But the comments that his teachers had to say about him are truly special and heartwarming. Aiden Liu accomplishes more in one day than many people do in a week or a month. His time management skills are extraordinary. In addition
017to his amazing achievements in speed skating and other extracurricular activities, he's a pleasure to have in class. He's a wonderful participant in discussion and a talented writer. He recently won a Scholastic Writing Award for his memoir, What is Speed? Another teacher said, Aiden is the type of student that everyone dreams of having. He's self-motivated and desires not just to learn, but to understand at the highest level of the intricacies of science. He has a great ability to lead from the middle, as his personality makes him make fast friends for all the diverse lab. groups that I've seen him with. Aiden's work ethic is exemplary and he looks to complete the assignments and tasks before any conflicts arise with his publishing, or punishing, excuse me, competition schedule. The work that he does outside of BC is
018equally as special. He's a 2025 grand prize winner of the Junior Achievement Young Entrepreneur Statewide Competition. He earned a $5,000 scholarship for his non-profit organization, Let's Skate. Junior Achievement of Wisconsin is a nonprofit organization dedicated to preparing students for success through financial literacy, career readiness, and entrepreneurship. Each year, its Young Entrepreneur Competition highlights high school students who have launched their own businesses. In 2025, four finalists across the state presented their ventures in a televised event in Milwaukee. He earned his top honor for the founding of Let's Skate Foundation, a nonprofit that began as the Elmbrook School District Speed Skating Club, co-founded with his older brother Aaron, BC grad of 2023, during the pandemic of 20 in 2021. What started as a small student-led initiative has since grown into a dynamic organization committed to making speed
019skating accessible for all children in any school district. Through a free trial and low-cost programs, Let's Gate has introduced over 300 kids to the sport, many of whom would never have had the opportunity otherwise. The foundation was recognized for its social impact, innovative model, and deep roots in the community service qualities that helped it stand out to win the grand prize. We're proud that Aiden's accomplishments exemplifies the innovation, determination, and community focus that we strive for Elmbrook. Whereas that might be enough to bring Aiden to the boardroom for a celebration, there's more to his story. Aiden is an international level speed skater whose dedication and discipline extend well beyond the classroom. He's proudly represented Team USA on the world stage as a member of the 2025-2026 U.S. Speed Skating Junior National Team and the 2024-2025
020Developmental Team. This past season... Aiden competed in the Junior World Cup in Italy and at the 2025 Junior World Championships in Calgary, Canada. A three-time national champion at the U.S. Age Group Nationals, he is a recipient of the 2025 Dedication to Sport Award from the U.S. Speed Skating Athletic Advisory Council. Aiden embodies perseverance, excellence, and leadership on and off the ice. Ladies and gentlemen, Aiden Liu. Thank you, Mr. Grutzmacher. I'd first like to mention that winning JA was not an individual achievement. It was rather a team effort that took a village of people and years of effort to build into something truly magnificent. Next slide. There's a clicker. There's a clicker. Thank you. So here's a quick timeline of the foundation. I still remember being in the empty BC library during the spring of 2021
021in the height of the pandemic when me and my brother presented the informational session of the Elmbrook Speed Skating Club to an empty audience. But what was a setback in the beginning turned into inspiration as right after the meeting, Mr. Kurth pulled us aside and said, don't be discouraged. Kids will come. And he was proven to be very right, as in just a year, we spread to across the entire school district and were celebrated at the Board of Education meeting for this achievement. And as of now, we've expanded to over nine school districts outside of Elmbrook, while moving almost 300 kids into the sport and elevating 10 skaters to the national level in long and short track speed skating competitions. So what's next for Let's Skate? Because I won't stop here. So first off, we're
022planning on bringing the sport to underrepresented minorities in the greater Milwaukee area. And I've also talked to philanthropic foundations for potential funding opportunities that would help us bridge that gap. We've also began to seek out partnerships with organizations based on helping special needs kids. For instance, this Sunday we're going to have a session dedicated to special needs kids to see their interest in the sport as well as expanding to another base of students. We've also reached out to Unified Sports about potentially opening the avenue for a winter sport into their program. But I also lastly would like to thank so many people. Like I said, it was a village to succeed. First off, I'd like to thank the whole school district for their utmost support along the whole way. I'd also like to thank Mr.
023Kurth, Mr. Grutzmacher, and Mr. Westphal for being there during the foundation process. You guys were there when we were about to give up, and look at what you contributed to. I'd also like to thank Mr. Hagen. Every time we needed a tryout to be posted online or any promotional material whatsoever, Mr. Hagen was there to send it out right away. Thank you. And I'd also like to thank my coach who's in the audience with us. He was there during the entire journey and his valuable advice is what kept us maturing and improving over time. And lastly, to all the board members, I still remember being there in the fall of 2022 for the celebration of excellence. You guys told us it's a great idea. Keep on moving. And I moved. I kept on moving. Thank
024you. Aiden, absolutely amazing. I mean. The list of accomplishments is incredible and it may have taken a village but certainly your leadership and your passion has carried this to fruition so got certificate recognizing you publicly and extending you great congratulations on behalf of the Board of Education for winning this prize and we could add as Mr. Gritzmacher said a whole list of accomplishments to it you've made us so proud you are living the Elmbrook promise and making a difference and It's exciting to see. It's going to be exciting to see what you do next. So let's go ahead and take a picture. We'll have Mr. Now, something I'd like to interject. I was looking at my Google calendar and then the. The spring of 2020, I had a Google meet with Aiden and his family.
025They were living in New Jersey at the time, and we did a virtual tour. Really, we just talked on Google meets about them coming to Brookfield Central. And the draw was not to come for academics, which certainly we have, was our location close to the Pettit Speed Skating Center. So I'd like to have Aiden kind of shed some light on what it means to be a speed skater in high school. as to what that means um i think we know what it means to be a basketball player or swimmer swim before school after school that kind of stuff but he's got a unique story as well that kind of ties into his award as well so aiden so i think i speak for all the student athletes when i say that our schedule sucks So
026here is a quick overview of my year and what it's like. So the bulk of the season is the competition season from August to March. And unfortunately, this also overlaps with the bulk of the academic year. So another reason why our schedules suck. And from what you can see, I train 25 to 30 hours per week. And the day starts with me waking up at 5.45 and getting to the rink at 6.30, where I train from 6.30 to 9. I then go to school where I go to Lancer Block or Excellence Period for Easter's there. And blocks 2, 3, and 4 before training again the afternoon from usually after school to around 5 to 6, maybe 7. And that's for six days of the week with one rest day. So I'd like to mention also
027that for block one, I don't have one. I set up an arrangement with the school where I would have block one as a study hall and excused for my activity in the morning, which is again another reason why I can't thank you guys enough for making this arrangement possible. And next up, after the grueling season's over, which includes various international competitions in Asia, Europe, Canada, as well as selection competitions in the U.S. and age group nationals surrounded off at the end of the year, there's then the nice rest period that all of us athletes enjoy. So here, but it's not really a rest period. I still have to keep moving so I don't, you know, come to the offseason out of shape. So it's a light commitment, only about 5 to 10 hours per week.
028And in that period, I just keep moving, usually running and biking, as well as refreshing my mental spirit after the absolutely taxing season that was the last few months. After this about one month of total break, we go back to the off-season, which again sucks. It's back to 25 to 30 hours per week, and it's usually conditioning or just building that volume in my legs so I can get ready for the season, the next competition season. And overall, I'd say... It's a lot of physical suffering, but I think time management is what got me to this place. You don't come back from training and lie on your phone on the couch from 7 to 9 and then don't do any homework and then go back to sleep, right? You have to prioritize what's important and
029what's not. And all the fun stuff can be after everything's done. And then this is just a closer overview of my weekly schedule. So as you can see, Monday through Friday, all the normal, the training in the morning, followed by school blocks two, three, and four, and then more training in the afternoon. And Saturday is what I like to call the hell day. Basically, we get there at, we get there around an hour after, but this session sucks. It's first an ice session, which usually is the hardest of the entire week, followed by a dryland session, which is even harder. And then after that, I'm just completely done. I don't want to do anything but just lie on the bed for the rest of the day. So, yeah, thanks, Coach, for making that one bad.
030And luckily, Sunday is the most needed rest day. I think if you train too much every week with no break, it will just be bad for you. So it's good to have one rest day. So yeah, that's my schedule around the year. And this is for the competition season, but also the off season. Pretty incredible. Are there board member comments or questions? Aiden, let's start with Mary. Aiden, you kind of take my breath away. Thank you for sharing the life of a premier athlete with us. Your family must be profoundly proud of you. Your coach must be profoundly proud of you. We are profoundly proud of you, not just for your athletic excellence, but the ambassador that you are for this sport and for what it can bring to the community at large and the
031initiatives you've started. I just... I'm incredibly grateful that we've gotten to be watching and be part of your journey, which I'm sure has more great chapters. Congratulations. Thank you for your kind words. I like to believe my family and my coach are always supportive. Sometimes they can be critical, but it's a part of all of it, right? You don't grow without some failures. It's fine. It's fine. Sam? Thank you, Aiden. I echo a lot of what Mary said. I can certainly agree with that. And it's impressive to hear that I have a thousand questions, but I'll limit it to one. On the Let's Skate Foundation that you are looking to continue on to pursue, what does that look like? And then the big question is, what would be a determination that this has been successful
032for you? I think just launching it was already successful. going on that mission statement of promoting accessibility and lowering the barriers to entry of this very I'd say weird sport. I'd first say that the barrier to entry is really high, unfortunately. The high equipment costs with, you know, the shrinking of ice rinks across the nation, it's brought the attendance of the sport to an all-time low. And I wanted to, you know, push against that while also promoting the fun aspect of this sport. Although I'm an elite athlete myself, I don't think sports is just necessarily suffering. It's also, you know, having fun. before you become an elite athlete, and I want these kids to experience that. So seeing the joy on their faces when they zip around on the ice, it kind of reminds me
033of what initially attracted me into the sport, and I want to continue to strive for that same look on those kids' faces when they get on the ice for the first time. And as for how I would expand my ultimate goals to have this kind of model across the nation, I think that once people saw that it can be done once, it can be done multiple times over every state, right? We're fortunate enough that in Wisconsin we have such a nice Olympic legacy in the Midwest as well as the foundation that the Pettit has set. But I think this can work even without the magnificent resources that the Pettit has given us. And so I think it can work nationally. It just needs that one crazy person. In this case, it was me, but there
034are other people like that in other states, and I feel like they will do it too. Congratulations to you for all your hard work and for your promotion of this amazing sport. I've appreciated being invited and having the opportunity to see it in action, and I wish you the best as you go forward. Wes? Congratulations. Also just want to say really appreciate the humbleness that clearly comes through. Focusing on everyone else in the community that it takes to do something like this is really incredible when you are a premier athlete. And it would be easy to probably have an inflated ego, and it's clearly not the case. So I think that's really incredible by itself. I also don't know how you do this. I am curious, how long have you been doing this schedule? Plus,
035like, this is a... What, probably 60, 70 hours a week at least? No, it's only 25 to 30 hours per week. Well, with the classes. Well, yeah, but classes compared to training, it's like a rest, you know? You can just sit there. You can just sit there. You don't have to, like, move around. Aiden, I'm right here. I was going to say, we're not doing enough here. No, no, no. That's fine. I don't need more exercise. And to answer your question about humbleness, I feel like, yes, it's super easy to brag about it. you know sometimes maybe i do but i also think that you know acknowledging that other student athletes and other students like all of us we all have things to balance whether it be extracurriculars or other sports there's always a second
036or third task that's always running in the back of your mind and i think that everyone has done such a good job at balancing those tasks appropriately so that's what keeps me humble knowing that other people are doing things and i'm not and i'm not one to judge them so We're all doing different things, but we all should acknowledge that we're all doing things good. Really appreciate that perspective. Thank you. That's great. Cheryl. Congratulations. I really enjoyed the video. Which video? The one that you made about the program. The skate was it the lighting that amazed you I it was it was just very interesting and Because I didn't know a lot about speed skating and I really enjoyed that What is what are some of your goals in the speed skating realm coming up?
037So right now I'm continuing to try and improve my ranking on the junior international level. And next year when I'll be eligible for senior races, my goal is to qualify for senior level international competitions and get some experience on that field. So those are my two short-term goals. And in the long term, the 2030 and 2034 Olympic Games, the 2034 one's actually held here. Well, not here, but in this country, in Salt Lake. So that's like a long-term goal I really want to work for. Anyone else? Preeta. I just want to say congratulations. This is impressive. You are very well spoken. Thank you so much for telling us all about this today. It was wonderful to hear. You're welcome. I like talking about it. It's easy to talk about it. It's like I help kids
038skate. Who doesn't want to hear about that? We're very proud of you. You do it well. I'm jealous. I really can't ice skate. And my three hours in the gym, I thought that was good, a week. I'm not anywhere near this. And so thank you for being an inspiration. Thank you for representing Elmbrook so well. And again, one more round of applause. Just congratulations. Oh, Preeta, yeah. I just want to let you know also that I have an email from April 2nd of 2021 about the speed skating club. My daughter came to one of your sessions. I just want to say I remember it from back then, and I am so impressed to see what you've done with it since then. Thank you. Make sure to tell her to come back. That's right. Juggling other
039stuff, it's okay. I understand. Okay, our last celebration of excellence Andy Farley making his way to the podium to celebrate the state congressional debate champion Who will be a familiar face is a familiar face? I love the leadership characteristic of humility because Jake Zang is really gonna struggle with this over the next Two to three minutes. Jake is so good at celebrating and recognizing and lifting the leadership capacity of all others. He never takes credit for that influence or impact. And I think about my career and I think about transformational leaders as a junior in high school. and what Jake does every day to serve at East in Elmbrook, our state, and now certainly on the national stage too. That picture's worth a thousand words at the Capitol in Madison here a couple weeks back.
040Just as an overview so everybody's aware of his amazing contributions to our school and system. Jake serves as a junior class president, student council leadership representative, which you hear from each board meeting, principals, cabinet, executive leadership, national champion last year of future business leaders of America, captain of our tennis team. He's certainly a Hope Squad leader for us, Senate scholar this year in partnership with State Senator Rob Hutton. He's served as a research assistant at UWM in finance, which was incorporated. throughout his AP research project. And now as the picture highlights, he's a state champion in congressional debate. So you're in that title in 2025 as the Wisconsin State Champion in Congressional Debate at the Wisconsin Forensics Coaches Association back in April, hosted by UW-Madison, held in the historic chambers of Wisconsin State Capitol. Jake
041demonstrated his exceptional skills in legislative debate. Next up for Jake, it's not a... Small summer. No, it's an aggressive, rigorous, robust summer. First, he completed Project Pitch It, where he recently appeared on WISN a couple of Saturdays ago for his business proposal, Minds Connect, inspired by his work in the Brookfield East and Albrook Hope Squads. And then this summer, Bank of America, he's one of the National Student Leaders Internship Program, which had a 2.6% acceptance rate. Within that, he'll work with the Bank of America nonprofit to share a mission. to positively impact our community he's going to attend a leadership summit in washington dc with the bank of america executives to discuss policy and leadership and the synergy between those two jake as i mentioned in my introduction service driven leader he helped create the
042first ever burkefield east day of service set for saturday may 31st all students are invited So congratulations to Jake Zhang. Would love to welcome his debate coach, Coach Flynn, to the comments as well and turn it over to questions for Jake. Congratulations, Jake. Thanks, Mr. Farley. Appreciate it. Oh, yeah. I'll picture first. Sure. On order. So Jake, again, we could add a lot of accomplishments to the certificate, but we are publicly recognizing you tonight on behalf of the Board of Education for your outstanding performance as the state champion in the congressional debate by the Wisconsin Forensic Coaches Association. It's a mouthful, but congratulations. Any questions for Jake? Mary, kick us off. OK, question and a comment. Didn't you also serve as presiding officer? No, not quite. Not this time? Maybe I can give an overview
043of kind of the process to get there, and maybe that'll give a little bit more context. So our Brookfield East congressional debate team, we sent 10 to 15 members to state this year. Our team headed up to the Wisconsin State Capitol, beautiful building, amazing, and we had the privilege of actually debating on the real Senate floor. So where our real state senators sit and go give speeches, we had the privilege of standing in the beautiful chambers there, and that was awesome. So there's preliminary rounds. There's 10 bills on our docket. And through the preliminary rounds, which is maybe between four to five hours, we debate through these 10 bills. And of those, let's say, 75 state congresspeople there, the final 12 make it to the final round. It's called the Super Congress. And we have
044three bills on the docket. We debate these three bills for three hours. And we end up coming up. Yeah, so it's a super fun experience. I love it. Another member from our school, Lily Sun, she's a sophomore. She served as a presiding officer in one of the preliminary chambers and was named the best presiding officer. So our Brookfield East Congressional Debate Team, under the great guidance of Mr. Justin Flynn here, has... Yeah, I'm going to get to that in a minute. Oh, yes. Yes, yes, yes. Jake, did any of the legislation pass? In the super congress? Yeah, so, oh yeah, and this will probably help too. So Congress, it's like a mock legislative assembly competition. So all of our students, we draft bills, we debate the bills on the floor, and then we end up
045either passing or failing the bill. And so our three, maybe I can go over the three final bills. One of the bills was a bill to let Ukraine into NATO. The second bill was a... bill to ban plastic shopping bags and the third bill was on a an adjustment to the visa policy around our borders and so I believe do you remember which bills were passed? I don't quite remember maybe the visa one? I think so Yeah, so it was awesome. Well, there you go. You must have been instrumental in that. I do want to congratulate Justin Flynn. I know how hard it is to coach debate. Debate is a highly academic activity that is not taught in our classrooms. So it is a new skill for some of our best students to achieve excellence
046in this area. They may be great at many, many things. This is something to learn that is new. As a member of this society, we need your generation to reach across the aisle, to know how to write legislation, to know how to respectfully... debate, congressional legislation, and having been at those state and national congresses, it gives me great hope for the future, knowing what is going on at that level. While I'm sure it was daunting to stand in the state capitol, the state capitol... itself should be honored to have been stood in by you and your colleagues at the State Congress because I know the level of debate and discussion that goes on sometimes is probably more productive than what goes on there during the workday. So thank you for that example. Thank you for
047excelling here. I'm just, this whole presentation tonight, to see The possibility of your generation and what you can do for this country is astonishing, and you make us very proud. Deep congratulations for the work you do. Thank you for being in the trenches, Justin. I know the work is hard and often thankless. And I know that too. But congratulations. Thank you. And I just definitely need to piggyback right off that, as Aidan was saying before, it really does take a village of people. And Mr. Flynn, he was one of the most instrumental figures for our whole congressional debate team. From debate strategies to just being an amazing leader and guiding our team forward throughout the competition. Mr. Flynn. You're an amazing coach and thank you so much. Alongside that, I definitely also need to thank
048some of my congressional debate team members who aren't here, you know, helping from supporting me at the competition to also helping draft all the bills and writing a lot of argumentation. Team members are also big support. And also finally, again, this Brookfield, this Elmbrook Board of Education is really amazing. You know, the trust that our board members here have in allowing our students to go after these opportunities and facilitating these amazing events for our students is really unparalleled throughout the state. So thank you all as well. Thank you Scott one final comment This is why we have to find pathways to yes when the aid and lose and the Jake Jang's and The leaders that we've seen tonight come to us and say hey, I've got a great idea The we don't get here until
049you take that risk there, so I'm gonna remember that as we make decisions Thank you. Thank you Mary other questions or comments for Jake Thank You Jake. It's super impressive We know you may want to stay for the rest of this very exciting meeting, but we understand if you want to head home. Although our next agenda item is kind of exciting. It's not a highlight. We always look forward to our high school student representative reports and discussions, so I'll turn the time to Mark. Thank You mr. Wheeler we are joined by representatives from Brookfield East and Brookfield Central we're gonna go through updates from each school and then we'll jump into a little bit of celebration we have a couple questions that we want you to report out on and then we want to offer
050our thanks and gratitude to you guys as well would central like to start John you ready Yeah for sure so starting off with our academic highlights obviously May 1st was the big college decisions day so we've had a great number of commitments from our seniors going to countless incredible higher level institutions and universities as well as different students committing to the workforce right out of high school or going into the military so it's always great to see what our senior class is going on to as they start their next adventure We had Alice Chen have the honor of being named a Presidential Scholar Semi-Finalist. So that is obviously an incredible academic achievement that reflects everything that she's done in her high school career. And then we are currently in our second week of AP exams.
051And then next week we have those makeup AP exams. So this is kind of the culmination of a year's worth of studying and preparation for all of our AP students. It's a stressful time, but it's very rewarding to see all that success. Moving on to our arts highlights. We have our BC Fine Arts extravaganza coming up next week Friday Which is where all of our different musical clubs art clubs and art awards are presented to get to give the overall school body a Good idea of what we do Through different clubs and classes in the Arts Department. We had a successful band concert a couple weeks ago Tuesday Always great to see what the band students are able to produce through their spring semester. And then we have our choir concert coming up next week,
052Wednesday, May 21st. Moving on to activities, we had our Science Bowl recently compete at Washington, D.C., which is a great accomplishment to be able to reach that level of competition. Our DECA students, we sent about 15 to the ICDC competition in Florida. And then our Key Club and NHS members are wrapping up countless different volunteering hours, completing events, and really making an impact in the community. And then we have our BC picnic, which is our end of year celebration with the whole student body on the 28th. So right before our spring fling dance, which is also coming up on the 30th. And then finally, some athletics highlights. Our boys track team won the GMC conference relays and their Burlington invite. So they're having a lot of success early on. They also won. indoor conference for
053GMC so they're having a great start to the season and then we're in full spring full swing sorry for all of our spring sports so boys tennis boys and girls track and girls soccer they're all having great seasons and we're excited to see what they accomplish as we wrap up thanks for the comprehensive report John our high schools are really busy places and it's pretty awesome let's hear from Brookfield East what's going on at Brookfield East So to start off with our arts highlights, the Brookfield East Drama Department had four successful shows of the musical Comedy Murders of 1940. Don't be confused, it was a play and it was awesome. We had the 59th annual Elmbrook, well currently having the 59th annual Elmbrook Student Art Show, where Brookfield East art pieces are currently being showcased
054at the Brookfield Public Library. The band had their concert last Wednesday, and additionally will be having their Jazz Night hosted in the Black Blocks this Friday, as well as orchestra and choir concerts happening next week. For our athletics, we have spring sports in full swing, like Central. This includes boys tennis, baseball, softball, girls soccer, lacrosse, boys golf, and track and field. As a special shout out, our Lady Spartans track and field team won the 2025 GMC Relay Team Champions. For our activities highlights, the Wisconsin Economic Challenge State Champions, which was a team of Augustia Baldoria, Anish Gowda, and Parth Jamakari, won and will continue on to the semifinals nationally. For the first time ever we will host an all-school service day as mentioned prior in the meeting This will happen on May 31st and all
055Brookfield East students are encouraged to engage in acts of service both in school and out of school For the first time ever as well, we will be hosting a Spartan Fest on May 29th. This is a way to bond the school together right before school ends. We will have food trucks as well as a color walk around our field back. And then lastly, we have 16 Brookfield East debaters and forensicators heading to the Grand National Tournament, or NCFL, over Memorial Day weekend. Lastly, for academic highlights, we have two Brookfield East students named Presidential Scholar Semi-Finalists. You met one of them earlier today, Shilpa Kumar, as well as her twin brother, Rohith. Twelve Brookfield East students placed in the National German Exam, winning both awards and scholarships. Like Central mentioned, we are in the second week
056of AP exams. And we also have, we had post-grad decision day earlier this month, and many of our students are heading on to post-grad activities, such as four-year colleges, military, and straight into employment as well. We also end our time together tonight. This is your last student rep report. We want to spend a little bit of time talking about how your year went and focus in on a couple different questions. Gratitude is a big part of our community, as you guys know. We heard a lot of it tonight. What are the most memorable parts of your school year so far? And then what ideas for celebrations do you have? Who would like to start? I'd love to kick it off here. Brookfield, we asked each of our 140 student council members their thoughts around this
057idea of gratitude and celebrations of excellence around the end of the school year, and here are some common trends and themes we analyzed. In regards to the first question, it asked what the most memorable celebrations of excellence are and how our students are really able to connect with our teachers. And this kind of comes through in three key ways. First, last week we had the... we had the privilege of having our National Teacher Appreciation Week, and this provided the opportunity for both our students and our student council to show our gratitude for the amazing work that our educators do. And this looks like thing, and this is things, for example, our student council helped provide some crumble cookies for our teachers, we got some Spartan Union orders for free for them, and also students writing
058some handwritten notes to these teachers that have really made an influence in their life. In addition, as the school year begins to wind down, a lot of our students are looking forward to celebrate some of our curriculum-based field trips. And so this is, for example, in my AP government class, we'll be heading over to the state capitol, actually, and taking a tour and learning from some of the employees there, as well as another example would be in AP environmental science. They'll be heading over to local bodies of water, doing a little bit of canoeing and also analyzing the ecosystems there. And that just provides another great avenue for our students to really connect. with our teachers and finally you know as the school year begins to wind down it provides more opportunities for our students
059and our teachers to really make a more genuine and personal connection and kind of segueing straight into that second idea of how we can really bridge this not gap but sort of bridge this up more opportunities for our students and our teachers to connect is Flunch. This is a faculty lunch and this happens over at the college level pretty frequently as well. But this is an idea maybe once every two weeks or once a month or have all the teachers come down to our lunch and really sit with our students at lunch and get to talk to them on a basis that's outside of the classroom setting. And I personally really like that idea. But yeah. And additionally, one of our keystone moments for our seniors is the senior sunrise and our sunset. This really
060represents a full circle moment. moment for our students. At the beginning of the year, our students watch the sunrise, and at the end of the year, on one of the last days of school, we see the sun set together as a class and see kind of the progress that they've made as a class together, and inviting the teachers to that, especially maybe these underclassmen teachers, would be a great way to kind of bring that full circle, really, together. And finally, our picnic, as Isabel was mentioning, our Spartan Fest is right around the corner at the end of May. This will provide a great outlet for our students to connect. with our teachers, eat some lunch together, and also have our teachers throw some colors at us on our color run. So it's a great opportunity.
061John we'll stick with the theme and turn to question one but I sense food is a big theme at Brookfield East huh John how about Brookfield Central Yeah so what we got from our student council is that our dances and support for our sports teams were the most common answers for this we feel that at BC the school spirit surrounding those and kind of the sense of community that it builds to support our sports teams and have our big spirit weeks surrounding dances really brings everyone together whether it's different student groups who may not interact all that much all the staff so kind of an abstract way of approaching it is they they thought that those big events are kind of our best ongoing celebrations and also as east mentioned our teacher appreciation events that
062different clubs host obviously this past week we had our teacher appreciation week so there were different events during lunch or other periods for teachers but other things that clubs do including student council throughout the year whether it's hosting a breakfast or a sort of secret Santa thing around the winter holiday so All of those are things that our students felt were great ways of celebrating either students or staff in the community. And then some ideas that our student council members came up with were creating things that kind of mirror our fine arts extravaganza at Brookfield Central where we celebrate all of our arts achievements, but tailoring those to other clubs, maybe faculty accomplishments, for example. Our environmental club has made strides in composting. They have sort of a thrift drive to collect items that people
063might think of throwing away, so they repurpose those. Different accomplishments that our student body might not hear about and go unnoticed, but that other clubs really are probably proud of, and so it would be a good way to celebrate those different achievements. Awesome. Thank you for sharing that. We'll stick with Brookfield Central. What accomplishments did you hear that students are most proud of? So our students this year had one big theme, which was spirit and input from the student body. We felt that this year we did a really good job of pushing out our different events, getting people involved, bridging gaps between different groups of people, also the teachers. And then we also got a lot of different input as a student council from our student body through surveys, different... kind of groups that went
064out and asked questions so we felt that this year we did a good job including everyone in the decision-making process and in all of the events and we think that we did a good job uh catering something to everyone at brookfield central great thank you what did you guys hear at brookfield east Yeah, there's a lot, our students have a lot to be proud of at Brookfield East. You know, the drive and grit that you see within the walls of Brookfield East, and I'm sure Brookfield Central as well, is really unmatched. The drive of our students is really amazing. And so, we looked through a lot of responses, and they kind of broke down into three big buckets here. So first, Our students are very proud of their academic excellence this year. There are a
065lot of strong GPAs out there. A lot of our students have challenged themselves with some advanced coursework at the Honors, AP, and college level, as well as, especially for our junior class here, we were able to complete our standardized testing across the state. That ACT, it's a big monkey off the back, so our students were proud to get through that and just, in general, some amazing academic growth for our students. In addition to that, in terms of leadership and service, our students are so engaged in our community. It's truly incredible. So, for example... Many students cited their volunteering and community service, helping out with the community and fostering that Brookfield and Elmbrook togetherness. In addition, from our student council specifically, they were very proud of organizing some of these big community building events, our proms,
066our homecomings, our events, our community events. In addition to that, a lot of our club leaders in our student council were very proud to help lead some fundraisers for some great organizations throughout the greater Milwaukee and southeast. Wisconsin areas. And finally, our students are incredibly involved. You know, as Brookfield East continues to move toward that big goal of having one student involved in every extracurricular or sport, this was, we were really taking some big strides in our student involvement. And that looks like things like, well, not exactly involvement, but we had a great time at homecoming and prom. There were something like 30 to 40 new clubs. started at Brookfield East this year, as well as our sports teams having some amazing successes and our arts department was excelling as well. Before we turn to
067one word to describe the year, I want to just offer some additional thoughts. First of all, thank you for taking the student representative role so seriously. You guys have done an amazing job. Second of all, some of you have heard me say this before, but I'll say it again publicly. This generation of students that are in our high schools right now are the most service-minded, civic-minded group of kids I've ever seen in my career. So congratulations on making a dent in the world and making it a better place. With that, what did you guys hear about the one word? Jake you want to start? Let's do it. Boom boom boom. Fast paced, rewarding, but also fun at the same time. And again just kind of echoing what Mr. Dr. Hansen said over here. Very impact
068service minded and also again that overarching Brookfield East goal striving towards academic and human excellence. That was a really big theme throughout our responses. I think Isabel's making fun of you talking with your hands. I actually put down excellence as my one word. John what did you hear at Brookfield Central? yeah so we had three words that came up very frequently in our student council survey and those were exciting first and successful as east mentioned we've had a lot of new clubs created different experiences that students haven't had before whether it's different competitions participating in different events that haven't been at bc before so that's a lot of different firsts which are also very exciting all these things were really successful so students felt like this was a special year because they got to do
069a lot more than they have in the past and get involved in different ways whether it's in the community or in our school our high schools are amazing places you guys are really really lucky so congratulations and thanks again for all your hard work as mr wheeler makes his way to the podium i would open it up to any board members for questions comments i would like to say thank you and echo what dr hansen said about the seriousness with which you approached this responsibility that you've helped connect what's going on in the boardroom and helping us understand what happens on the ground it's it really makes a difference to me as a board member as we make policy and we make changes to then hear from you what's happening and how could it be
070better and gathering that information and putting it all together so thank you thank you very much for the work that you've done for us this year and to make this district the best that it can be I want to echo Jean's words and just say thank you so much John Isabella Jake you guys are wonderful and Evan who's not here and any of the other representatives we've been so honored to have you here and be part of our board meetings it's great to see and are any of you seniors this year John you're a senior well congratulations on getting through all of this and thank you so much for giving your time to come to our board meetings and inform us about what's going on in our schools we are so appreciative Yeah, I am
071currently planning to attend the University of Notre Dame next year. Yeah, congratulations, John. This has been a multi-year experience for you, and I really appreciate your work, all the things that have been said before, but thank you for being our colleagues. You've been our colleagues at the table, and without what you have brought to the table, we would be less aware of what's going on on the ground, not just the celebrations, but... The thoughts underneath the things that students tell you, you've been really good couriers of that information. I wish you the best at Notre Dame, even though I'm a Marquette person. Thank you. We'll see you at basketball. It's similar. No, it's not, but that's okay. Sam. Thanks again, guys, for your leadership. I'm sure it has been an impact in the school and
072the community that you're with within the student council. So hopefully you walked away with some skills that you've learned here and take those leadership to your next year and then to college. So thank you for that. Yes. Yes, thank you not only for leadership and providing all this information but the excitement and engagement that you guys bring I feel like I don't know if everyone else feels the same way, but it brings an energy You know that it can be hard to replicate whether you're walking through the schools you see it but Coming on a Tuesday night and seeing the energy that you guys bring something always look forward to Thank you for the time that you've spent here you're giving up time and and we recognize that and thank you for all your great
073words and Being a part of this community Okay, so we've got some awards Jake Isabel and oh did I miss one? I just want to throw a thank you back out, and I think I speak on behalf of all student representatives. Thank you for allowing us to have this opportunity, and I believe that true success from our district comes from the strong connection that we have between our students and our board and our staff, and I think just the opportunity of us being here has really helped and guided that. So thank you. And then if I may add on to that I would just like to add that you guys are incredible listeners obviously you guys make changes every year and it's a reflection of the idea that you guys are always in tune with
074the student body and paying attention to what we have to say so not only thank you for giving us a voice but thank you for actually listening to that voice and responding to our input so well which is what makes our district such a great place to be Thank you, and I took notes tonight on some of the ideas that you guys are talking about and made some notes I'll connect with dr. Hansen on it. That's how it works. It's a great system now. We have a list I mean a stack of certificates there that dr. Hansen will get to other people, but we do have Jake Isabel and John here tonight So we'll give you a certificate Recognizing you for your service and even if you continue next year, I guess you can get
075another one but you'll join me for a picture right out here and That's a great idea. Let's have all the board members do it. And as always, you're welcome to stay, but we know you've got a contest to leave, so. Good job. Thank you so much. Thank you guys for coming. Our next agenda item is the citizens forum. There are no requests to speak tonight, so we'll move right into our consent agenda. We'll start with a motion, and then I'll ask if there's items the board members would like to pull. Can I get a motion on the consent agenda? Move approval of the consent agenda as presented second. Thank you a motion by Dean and second by pre thumb Are there any items the board members would like to pull? Hearing none all those in
076favor the consent agenda, please say aye aye any opposed Thank you that carries on voice vote Brings us to our action items. We have to our first action item of the evening is the committee assignments This is something we do annually as we restructure our committees and also incorporating the new board members that were elected at the April election. It is my opportunity to suggest committee chairs and committee members. This year started out by... Just assigning board members their first and second choices and seeing where that takes us and everybody we were able to assign first choices and honor that we have we asked board members to rank their preferences on committees and My apologies to Cheryl and Wes but you're the only ones who didn't get your second choice Everyone else got their second
077choice. So their first and second choices generally were honored but But we are still very excited to have Cheryl and Wes with us so you can see in this part of this agenda item or as part of BoardDocs, what the proposed committee assignments, chairs, and liaison assignments are. So we'll start with a motion on this, and then we can take discussion and questions. Can I get a motion? I'll move approval of the committee and liaison appointments as presented. Second. Thank you. A motion by Sam and a second by Preetha. Are there any questions or comments? I'll add one more thing I wanted to say, which is... I'm very excited to work with you because this, in my mind, is a very capable, talented board. And so I do appreciate your strengths, the individual things that
078you'll bring to your assignments. And so I look forward to accomplishing a lot of work. We have a lot of things actually pretty robust year ahead where we're going to be making some big decisions in terms of school start times and schedules and facilities. And this board is going to do a lot of great work. So I'm excited to serve with you. With that, all those in favor of the motion, please say aye. Aye. Any opposed? Thank you. That carries on voice vote. Our second and final action item of the evening is recent gifts to the district. Jean? I'd like to express appreciation to those who presented gifts to the district during the month of February 2025 in the amount of $79,130.86 There's a long list of donors we are grateful for your donations continue
079the excellence that we've come to expect in the school district of Elmbrook and it is through your donations that we are able to continue on this journey this list of donors will be posted on the district website in that section that acknowledges donors of gifts to the district and with that I move approval of the recent gifts to the district for February 2025 Just by way of discussion mark. That's a high numbers. I one of our higher months of donations almost $80,000 Incredible Wow other questions or comments just the comment that again We're so used to seeing so many great contributions I have incredible gratitude to this community and the people who over and above find that they can contribute resources to all of the things that we do and see and hear from our
080students. Awesome. All those in favor of approving the recent gifts to the district, please say aye. Aye. Any opposed? Thank you. It carries on voice vote and concludes our action items for the evening. Our first discussion item is the employee handbook. Pam, welcome. Thank you. Each year the employee handbook is reviewed and revised to reflect updates to board policy, district procedures, and compensation and benefits initiatives as needed. Feedback is gathered through senior leader listening sessions and from discussions with staff roundtable groups. The following recommended 2025-26 employee handbook changes were presented to the personnel committee on May 6th and unanimously advanced to the full board for consideration. changes in this draft proposal fall into the categories of modified language deleted language pay rate clarifications and pay rate adjustments there are four modified language proposals one teacher
081discretionary day this would have flexibility to allow the use of a discretionary day on a teacher records day a teacher records day is a grading day between school terms teachers already have the ability to work from home on these days allowing the use of a discretionary day does not change the requirements for grade completion and recording the advantage to the district is the elimination of an absence day when a substitute is required second change is liquidated damages after a teacher signs a contract for the following school year and then resigns in breach of the contract liquidated damages are imposed these amounts have not changed in several years and the number of late summer and mid-year resignations are increasing this proposal increases the rate effective July 1 to $2,000 and also increases the August 1 and
082thereafter rate to $4,500 this amount is more in alignment with area districts rates three comp days teaching and learning specialists can earn comp days for summer work including the ignite continuous improvement days and new teacher orientation days the language is being updated to specifically mention the new teacher orientation days and finally teacher training requirements math recovery recently changed their AVMR requirements to no longer require AVMR 1 as a prerequisite for AVMR 2 language as recommended by the teaching and learning group is being updated to reflect current requirements the second category of changes is deleted language and this would include just language referencing other post employment benefits in tier 1 exceptions are no longer needed as remaining tier 1 employees meet the full age and service requirements which currently is age 59 with 17 years of
083service there are also pay rate clarifications several rates of pay printed in the handbook are no longer in effect and the new rates are reflective of correct rates being currently paid and finally there are pay rate adjustments two items are being proposed for adjustment and have been accounted for in the preliminary budget one is teacher overloads teachers who are assigned a teaching assignment during what would otherwise be a scheduled prep period are paid a flat dollar overload stipend the rate does not vary between middle school and high school despite the length of the block varying from 46 minutes at middle school for an elective period 64 minutes for a core period at the middle school and all high school classes scheduled at 85 minutes The proposal is to increase the rates at the high school
084level only from $12,000 for a repeat class to $15,000 and from $15,000 for a new class to $19,000. Additionally, clarifying language to demonstrate the proration of an overload at the elementary level is being added. The other pay rate adjustment proposed is to the athletic coaching schedule. While the extracurricular club rates were revised a few years ago, the coaching stipends have remained constant. Based on extensive benchmarking with area districts, rates that lag the 75th percentile are being recommended for adjustment to that level. Other coaching stipends that do not lag the 75th percentile are being increased by 2.95%. As a final side note, the handbook will now contain active links to all board policies referenced to ensure consistency between the handbook and ever-changing policy language. Thank You Pam great summary are there questions or comments for Pim
085so just how I'm trying to understand the overload so that is a if they're taking on an additional class that would normally be their break period or their period right so then take on that and that it doesn't matter where they're fall into the the teacher comp model that you're looking for just a flat dollar amount yeah it's currently a flat dollar amount Why would we not correlate that to where they are in the teacher teaching model It's always been a flat dollar amount Sam It's a great question, but it's just something that is constant and paid At that stipend level and there's support for that among the teachers Mark do you do you know the history of that why that was done that way or Why we wouldn't want to look at that to
086compare that to the comp model where they are currently I think it would be best described as a legacy practice that predates Act 10 most of the collective bargaining agreements had that as a negotiated item so it would be negotiated from an equity perspective so anybody who does it gets the same thing not somebody who's more senior gets more money or less senior gets less money the approach to collective bargaining was everybody treated the same and so it's probably a carryover from the legacy era certainly something we could look at changing we just have not heard a demand to change it makes sense and then um the coaching stipend increase that's more in alignment of where what are the schools you compare that to all over southeastern wisconsin mainly the cisa one schools okay so
087they have that the formula that they look at or to pull out or aggregated to pull that data together and it shows it to you yeah it's it's a survey that we was sent out asked everybody just to complete the information um and that also what's the connection with that again to the impact experience points They get both for coaching and so they get impact. What's the dollar amount about for the impact experience points for that? Is that like 2,000 or something? Impact points are used for banding to the next band, and being a coach provides with four impact points. Okay, so did you take that into consideration too, or you look at those as two separate issues? I look at them as two separate issues. One's the base pay. Okay. Some of our coaches
088don't teach here in our district. Right that I was gonna make that point too a lot of these don't have impact points attached to them because they're going to non teachers in the district I want to again at the committee level Pam did a masterful job of explaining this taking our questions making the adjustments that we agreed upon and I cannot thank you enough when we're looking at revisions to a 90 plus page document to have the proposed changes document highlighting what we see and if everybody could do that i'd be a much happier camper thank you thank you no mark i'm always about mirrors happiness and i appreciate Other questions or comments? I would echo your comments. The work that we went through in committee was just really smooth, well organized, made sense, and
089ties to the document, but you could really see where we're headed and good rationale for the changes. So thank you again. Thank you. Question about the discretionary days. So I could have gone to the handbook. I didn't look at page 42. It's three discretionary days. In your first four years of employment, it's two. And then in your fifth year and beyond, it's three. Okay. And it comes out of your sick bank? Correct. However, you know, 11 or 12 days a year that are given there. May I clarify? Yeah. It's every teacher each year receives a combination of nine days between sick and discretionary. Got it. Okay, so nine, and so the discretionary comes out of that. On the comp days, it wasn't clear to me just in the summary, are they paid extra for the
090summer comp days, or are they exchanged for time during the school year that they could take a day off? Correct. They're exchanged for time when they can take a corresponding day off. Okay. So they're going to work three to five days in the summer, just kind of looking at the summary, and then they could use a fall break day but not have to use a vacation day or sick day. Right. It's almost the effect of having an additional discretionary day, but they're called comp days because they're directly traded up to three days for summer work for school year time off. Okay. Got it. Thank you. I like that model. I think that's good. How many, and maybe you don't have a sense of this, how many teachers do you think will take advantage of comp
091days on grading days? How many teachers are far enough ahead that they're like, my grading's done, I can use the day? Oh, how many, we use discretionary days on grading days? That's okay. Discretionary. I think a fair number because they're already work from home days. So I think just the thought of being able to not be at home doing grades, have your grades done, and then have the ability to go and. Find a family activity to do will be appealing If I could just add to that, we did have a small conversation about that at the committee level, that this policy was probably written before grades could be submitted electronically. So you couldn't work from home and do the work. And some of our policies beyond this may not really have been adapted to the
092digital world that we use for grading and a lot of other record keeping now. So I think it makes it easier to say. Take the day because you really don't need to be on-site Okay, any other questions or comments? It'll be back next month as an action item. So Thank You Pam direct any in the meantime any questions you've got to Pam and she'll be able to help you out with that Our next agenda item our discussion item is the first reading of the 3000 policy series. So we'll go to Preet there for this In our F&O meeting on April 23rd we discussed some policies that we that need we're up for reconfirmation or revision you can see here we have policies 3140 the public review of the budget along with its practice statements again
093we are simplifying some of the language no major changes recommended reconfirming the practice statement Again, you can see policies 3171, 3172. These are being rescinded as we now have the WUFA report, so we no longer utilize, I mean, these policies just don't apply anymore. So those are rescinded. 3173, again, is revised with the unnecessary language and sort of updating, again, updating the references. Similarly with 3260 and 3532, once again just revising and streamlining some of the language and then reconfirming policy number 3534. No change is recommended. So again this goes along with our sort of self-imposed cycle of reviewing policies on a somewhere between three and five to seven years so again we look to do that to continue with our cadence of doing that during this past month in F&O. Anyone has any questions?
094Questions for Preetam? I have one, and this is going to reveal my lack of financial understanding. So I assume, I'm looking at the two policies that were rescinded, which is fine. WUFAR is like the accounting standards. Do we have a policy that says we adhere to those? Sanders has stated some other place that we adhere to them so we can just nix these. I have to be honest. I do not think we have a specific policy saying that we now utilize MUFAR. Woofer. Woofer? Yeah, it's woofer. We got told that. And it's the state standard now. I'm not sure if that's mandated or not. So all reporting that we scale up to the state has to go through those codes. Right. So there's not a policy that says it. It's just a practice. Again, if
095we're going to rescind the policies totally in favor of streamlining policies, I just think it might be worth adding a sentence. I'm not sure what policy it would go into, but just. consider Mary as you're looking to maybe put that on the agenda for some time that you would insert the appropriate line that says we follow the DPI codes or we use standard accounting practices or just someplace that and then we were say Oh Chrissy knows 3410 is that where it's at again I I'm definitely revealing my ignorance that I don't know the financial policies as well and if it does it already say it okay Great. Okay, so it's done. Yeah, perfect. So then I think it's great to rescind those if we've got that other policy that states it. So perfect. That was
096my only thought. Thank you, Christy. Any other questions for Preetha? Okay, this will be back as part of our consent agenda. So in the meantime, if you think of anything or have some corrections, capitalization, anything like that, just forward that on to Preetha. That concludes our discussion items for the evening and brings us to the Board President's Report. I do have a little bit longer of a report. I'll try to be reasonably quick. So we did have the opportunity last week to celebrate Teacher and Staff Appreciation Week. We heard the student representatives talking about it. I'll just share an excerpt of the letter that I wrote on behalf of the Board of Education, which I know you received. But we know firsthand that our teachers are dedicated to educating and supporting students in Elmbrook. Whether
097they're teaching in the classroom, supporting instruction, providing meals, maintaining our buildings, or ensuring the safety and well-being of our students. The work of our teachers and staff is essential, and their impact is profound. I said to them, you are not only educators and professionals, you are mentors, caregivers, advocates, and champions for opportunity for all. Every day you change lives, and those lives go on to change the world. Thank you for the amazing work you do, and I know that we feel the same way, and it just was a great opportunity last week to celebrate and honor our teachers and staff. We did also have the Engage in Excellence Awards last week, which was just a giant celebration of not only teachers and staff, but communities, volunteers, organizations, all different kinds of people that make our
098schools great. One of the highlights of the evening for me was honoring the retirees. And Mark, I believe it was over 450 years collectively of retirees. And again, just the experience, the impact of these teachers. And I have to tell you that I was... I had a chance to come on stage and say some comments and leave and the teachers were coming off stage. One of the teachers was a special education teacher and one of her former students was waiting in the wings. She was over the moon. She was so excited. And maybe on stage they even heard it. I don't know because I was off to the side, so I don't know what it sounded like in the audience. But this girl was just screaming, crying, so excited to see this teacher that she
099had had for years in her life that had just made a difference. And I thought, wow. Our retirees and all of our staff they they make this happen for kids every day And so it was just so incredible they were trying to kind of get her out in the hallway And you know she could talk to this teacher. It just is so Incredible and was an emotional moment for me part of the evening The end of the school year is fast approaching Our students are having the opportunity to enjoy the nice weather with high interest days So most of our elementary schools do that to do our middle schools do high interest just elementary Would have been field day. It was field day for me when I was in elementary school. But as I've had
100a chance to just join for just part of some of these high interest days, I've been impressed with the parent and community support. So we saw an amazing donations in terms of money, but sometimes we don't credit the time. So here were parents bringing in their hobbies and interests from gardening to sports to their live chickens. The students could hold the rock wall. It makes an appearance at all of our elementary schools, I think, from Adventure Rock, which is a great community partner. And that's set up in the parking lot and is a favorite of all the students. And I just thought. It's a fun day for students. It's a fun day for staff. But but wow we have so much parent involvement and so many volunteers giving their times and a time and it
101was just fun to go through the schools and get to shake the hands of parents and thank them for being involved in our schools because we could not do what we do without families, of course and then the last thing I want to say in my president's report is that next month will be full of promotions, fifth grade promotions, eighth grade promotions, awards nights and events, scholarship nights for seniors and spring athletes. who will all culminate in graduation on Sunday, June 8th. So I look forward to being with my fellow board members at many of these events and hope the community will join me in celebrating our class of 2025 and congratulate a senior if you know them. And next month as part of my board presence report, I'll have some excerpts from what our
102seniors did say at graduation. And that is my report. Are there any questions, comments? Thank you. Our next agenda item is the informational items that are discussed by exception only. Are there any items that board members would like to discuss? Dean and then Preeta. I would like to acknowledge the efforts of the Elmbrook Education Foundation in particular. Last month we had Thank You Thursdays all the efforts of delivering I don't know how many hundreds of pizzas to all of our sites and Danielle Lightner Baxter coordinating all of that is pretty amazing Engaged in excellence as Scott said was sponsored by the EEF funds were provided by them to make that go and and Besides thanking them for their efforts or their sponsorship Chris Thompson and his team put together yet another I've been to many
103of these and think, well, how could next year be different and better? And it always is, so kudos to them as well. As Scott said, coming up, lots of celebrations. Most influential educator, if you have not attended one of these, I would strongly encourage you. One is coming up Sunday, one's coming up on June 1st. They are amazing events, acknowledging our educators and the amazing work that they do. And Scholarship Night has been... has been identified as a different evening this year for the first time it used to be always part of the senior honors night and now it is its own event on june 2nd um and you've likely been invited to that as well and lastly the golf outings coming up on the 10th if you have not yet found a foursome to
104attend the golf outing with please do you can still sign up just go out to the eef website i understand i've not been i'm not a golfer i'm gonna be out of town probably this year but um I've understood that it is an amazing event and that you might not want to miss it. So thank you to our Elmbrook Education Foundation and the work that they do on behalf of supporting excellence in Elmbrook. Thank you. I don't you don't have to be a good golfer because they let me participate so I'm not good But it is a fun event. So yeah, so if you haven't signed up you don't have to be an expert It's it is a lot of fun. Preetha? I'd like to give the report for parent network. Mm-hmm. That'd be great
105So I just wanted to let everyone know that there is a parent network meeting tomorrow Wednesday the 14th from 12 to 1 p.m. It is you can join in person in the district in this room or remotely via Google Meet. You only need to register for the meeting if you want to attend remotely and you can do that if you look up the Parent Network site on the Elmbrook webpage. And again, at this meeting, they will be voting on Parent Network board positions and programs for the 25-26 school year. So I encourage everyone to attend. I have a continuation of the meeting. They had a idea generation meeting last month. Chance to kind of firm of those ideas. It's good Mary Since I've been the liaison to the city of Brookfield for an hour now
106I have Information about an event on May 28th the the proposal for the Subdivision going in at the hillside site is on line and will be presented that evening like you I will be at the Brookfield Central Honors Night, but The proposal is there for 15 single family homes. It looks pretty impressive. And if you're curious, you can go on the Brookfield website and take a look. Any other items board members want to discuss? All right, superintendent's report, Mark. Thanks, Scott. One of the great things about going last is much of my thunder has been taken. So I would like to, first of all, open up by publicly recognizing and thanking Wes and Cheryl for their interest in being an elected official. It's a hard time to be in the public eye and really appreciate
107you having the courage to do that. And congratulations on being a part of this amazing experience. As many of you know, we had one of our associate principals named National Middle Level Associate Principal of the Year. Liz Nelson, who's on leave right now, welcoming their second child into their family, but we celebrate her loudly and proudly. As was approved at the last board meeting, I wanted to make sure our public knows that Brandon Buckman has been named Swanson Elementary Principal, and as was mentioned multiple times tonight, we have three Presidential Scholar semifinalists. Remember, there are only 600 of these in the nation, and we have three of them. We have had a presidential scholar. There are only two or three in the state every year. We've had one of those in one year. We had
108all of them. Over the last five years, we've had a winner every time. So kudos to our students for their amazing accomplishments. We also had a milestone involving our library. On the inclement weather day earlier this year, we had our millionth checkout of a digital book. Yousef, who's pictured to my left in that picture, Yousef was at his home, and we had canceled school that day. He beat his sister to checking out the book and became the one millionth checkout because she also checked out a book later that day, so it could have been his sister as well. Many of you had a chance to join a great celebration at Brookfield Elementary School where we rededicated the outdoor classroom space thanks to the generosity of the students, staff, and the PTO. Many of you were
109there, and it was just another example of a sense of community. The Bobcat Den is up and running. As has been referenced multiple times, Jake Zeng continues to crush it. And Sam Slowick is back. He's making videos that are award-winning. You may recall that he won the short video competition for the school district that is run through the Sheridan Wilson Center. He is back making short videos as well for private sector. Speaking of performances, our choir from Pilgrim Park had a chance to do the national anthem at the Brewers game, and our Brook Elk Choir performed the national anthem at the Admirals game. So our Elmbrook presence is all over the place. Many of you had a chance to attend the first robotics event at Brookfield Central where they welcomed a number of political entities
110and legislators and the lieutenant governor to talk about how their advocacy could help impact robotics access across the state of Wisconsin. That led to celebration of our world championship efforts. This is a picture of Team Alpha Geek. We also had a top 10 finisher in the FTC competition and we were able to celebrate that at a robotics picture that will come up in a little bit as Jean referenced we had our 10th annual engagement excellence award this picture is of all the golden apple winners from students to staff to volunteers to parents and everything in between bus drivers it was an amazing night and as Jean said right when you think it can't get better it gets better During that night we celebrated two alumni for their excellence in in their efforts in the medical
111space Gopika and Christopher are both graduates of Brookfield East and Brookfield Central and are going on to do amazing things. During the celebration of excellence, not only do we celebrate the alumni, we also celebrated the retirees. If you've not seen the video of the retirees, it's really, really good. You can find it on our webpage. And as Scott referenced, we've seen a collective 450 plus years retire from our organization. During that same night, we honored a community partner, the Wisconsin Athletic Club, who provides a number of different partnerships for our Elmbrook Transition Center. and has built out an amazing partnership there, and we really thank them for their efforts. We also honored Megan Fisher. She was named the Elmbrook Rotary Outstanding Educator. Megan Fisher is a teacher in our launch program. She was a business
112education teacher at Brookfield Central before moving over full-time to Launch. The Elmbrook Rotary Outstanding Educator may be recognized by others because it replaced the JC Outstanding Educator Award. The JC gave up the awards for a firefighter, a police officer, and a teacher for outstanding awards each year, and Rotary has picked that up. So we thank the Rotary for doing that. And pictured on the left-hand side are the Rotary folks. Christopher Seltzer who was in a previous picture. That's his dad standing next to me So we have lots of generations that are certainly experiencing excellence in Elmbrook We continued our author visits with another award-winning author Visiting Brookfield Elementary School in this case Annie Griffiths visited Brookfield Elementary School in the middle of April We joined partnership with the city of Brookfield to celebrate Arbor Day
113where they plant a tree at one of our campuses. This is a picture of our students that were involved in that. Brookfield has once again been named Tree City USA and it's an award that they get for taking their arbor efforts seriously. Choir concert is in full swing if you've not had a chance to take advantage of the amazing performances that are free around the school district. These are pictures of Swanson, Burleigh. I had a chance to attend concerts at those schools recently. As I was mentioning before, the FTC robotics team excelled at the state and world. We had a top 10 team. There are over 8,000 robotics teams in the world. We had a top 10 team. they had a chance to celebrate at Brookfield Central with a Award ceremony that many of you
114had a chance to attend. I also had a chance to attend the Marquette law education reform Symposium that was really informative. This is hosted by Alan Borsuk who is partner with the Marquette law and their efforts to shed light on educational reform it was very informative and we heard a lot from local practitioners and national practitioners earlier today we had a chance to recognize the Science Bowl team from Brookfield Central for their sixth place in the National Science Bowl competition you recognize a number of those faces because they were in our boardroom just a few moments ago so congratulations to all of them and thank you to congressman fitzgerald for recognizing student excellence As has been referenced, this is a slide deck that will appear in the superintendent report, but these are the important events
115that you may or may not have on your calendar yet, but I would encourage you to consider. As Gene referenced, the most influential educator event is pretty rare to have a dry eye in that place because of what the students have to say about the adults that influence them from our school district. And then, of course, we have graduation on June 8th, which is a culmination of 13 years of work for our students. The display of student art in the back of the boardroom is from Tonawanda. We thank all of the students for their display of their artwork. With that, that concludes my report. And there's a Statue of Liberty artwork. And the Statue of Liberty. Yeah, I might add that the Statue of Liberty comes to us compliments of the students at Dixon, Go
116Dragons, and I was happy to donate it to the boardroom, at least for the time being, because I won it in the raffle. Okay. Can I have a motion to adjourn? All those in favor of adjourning, please say aye. Aye.