Board of Education Meeting: 7.8.24

001I'd like to call the meeting to order the required public notice of this meeting was sent to community newspapers incorporated and metropolitan press on July 3rd 2024 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 Scott Wheeler who is away on a family vacation please stand and join me in the pledge of allegiance 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? I

002move that we approve the agenda. Second. I have a motion and a second. Is there any discussion? Mary yes, I'd like to make an amendment to the agenda Given the fact that I believe we have a number of people in the audience who are here to speak on a single Issue gene you can verify that because you have the list. I would like to move discussion item a up Prior to the consent agenda. I have a motion a second and an amendment is There a second to the amendment to get that item forward Now we will vote on the amendment all those in favor of the amendment. Please say aye aye aye opposed no No, all right. Did did everybody vote? Could we get a roll call on that? Oh, and can I just say?

003It's out of respect for the people in the audience so that they don't have to sit. That's my only motivation You you're voting. No getting no Sam. No fails all those in favor of approving the agenda as it stands, please say aye opposed no any abstain That carries. The first item on tonight's agenda is the Citizens Forum. By board policy a Citizens Forum period is allotted for participants to provide input to the board on matters within the jurisdiction of the board to not appear elsewhere on the meeting agenda. If you wish to speak to the board during the Citizens Forum or address a specific agenda item please review the ground rules as they are presented to you. There are quite a few of them. What we're after is some civil discourse and there's a time

004limit of three minutes that will be displayed on the screens around you. The first speaker this evening, I'd like to call Kevin, excuse me, Sam. I just want to clarify, so people speaking right now should not be talking about AP literature, correct? If it's on the agenda they should be waiting for their discussion? Yes. So not repeating? Okay great. Yes. If you're here to speak about AP Lit that will be handled later on in the discussion section. First up this evening is Kevin Matthews who is a resident of the district who's here to speak on the topic of censorship. Hi, my name is Kevin Matthews and I'm representing myself as a district member in Elbert Parent. I've come here today because I've heard that, once again, some members of this board are attempting to censor

005books from the elective AP Lit course. In accordance with the meeting rules. Correct. Can I finish, please? Correct. Can I finish, please? Just a minute. Hold his time, Christy. Please. Please. If it's your intent to speak about the books included. It is not. It is not your intent okay so if you could continue with the portion of your comments that Yes in accordance with the meeting rules it will not be specifically addressing these books but the general issue of board overreach and censorship is that acceptable for you Yes go forward You were all were elected to this board to support the educators and administrators that make up this district the ones who are there every day not a few hours a month the ones who are paid trained professionals that have put in countless hours

006to hone their craft the ones who have elevated this district to the top of the state and Your response to them for all this success just to say as an as a non educator I know children better than you so I will not allow you the curriculum that you want because I don't want you to hear it want to adhere to the state approved reading lists Now you can try and spin this censorship any way you want. The standard model is to claim that you're protecting our kids. But ignorance won't save them from the realities they soon face as young adults, assuming they haven't already been facing them. Censoring books of supposed adult content from being taught in a controlled environment doesn't erase the existence of the Internet, which they all have readily available access

007to. Having your delicate sensibilities offended at the content our high schoolers are learning won't stop the shift in our culture towards one of awareness instead of ignorance. And stepping on the toes of our educators doesn't instill your confidence and trust in their capabilities. But that's the point, and that's the problem. Book bannings are just a political tool pushed by conservative groups like WisRed, Will, and Turning Point USA, groups that back and financially support the candidates who are pushing for this censorship. It's all part of a much larger organized effort to defund public education and push the funding to private and online schools instead. Now, I support freedom and democracy, so if censorship is what you think is one of the primary roles of this board, or if you want to defund public education, then just

008say it. we don't need your hypocrisy you can't pretend to support our teachers while hamstringing them with your personal morality let them do their jobs in the best way that they see fit thank you for your time Our next speaker this evening is Angie Pingel is a resident of the district wanting to speak on the topic of board member Good evening. I've been speaking regularly about what it's like to be a parent of a child with significant disabilities to provide you with a little bit of insight as to how challenging our lives are and that kids like mine need special supports and environments. But tonight, I want to spend my time on something just as important. I've seen that Elmbrook has been in the news again, but not for our amazing educators and kids, but

009instead of the personal conduct of one board member. The headlines this summer have involved hit and run at the Waukesha County Courthouse and, most recently, the escalation of her pending criminal charge from a misdemeanor disorderly conduct to felony substantial battery with intent to cause bodily harm. This board member should not be responsible for our children or our taxpayer dollars. She does not appear to be making prudent decisions in her personal life. It's not the accident that concerns me, but the failure to take accountability and report it. It's not that she has trouble at home, but the example she allegedly set by resorting to violence. And I am not a lone voice with this opinion. Many in our community share my view, but aren't comfortable publicly speaking about it. I again urge her to resign. She

010likely won't continue to be in the news if she's not a sitting school board member. Get out of the public spotlight, rebuild your life, and allow our district to focus on educating our children without using our taxpayer resources on your personal challenges. How much has the district spent on legal fees researching the district's position on these criminal charges? Will those expenses be reimbursed? For the remaining board members, you may not be able to remove an elected board member. But you can hold another election for her officer position, which you should do immediately. Regardless of the outcome of her criminal proceeding, it's embarrassing and concerning that we have a person with a pending felony charge serving as our treasurer. While I do feel for this board member, And this is not a personal attack. This is

011based on questionable decisions to engage in hit and run, not to mention pending criminal charges that could carry prison time if convicted. Continued silence by the rest of this board can be construed as condoning domestic violence and a lack of accountability. Thank you. Thank you, Angie. That concludes the Citizens Forum and we'll move on to the consent agenda. May I have a motion to approve the consent agenda? I move that we approve the consent agenda as presented. Second. Is there any discussion? I just noticed a typo of one of the contracts. It says 2026. I think it was meant for 24. That's the only typo I saw. You'd like to pull personnel matters? Are you speaking of no? Yeah, I mean do I need to pull to correct that okay then yes I don't know

012if I need to pull it Yeah I think we should put we should pull that and we should approve the rest of them and then move back to that one so That would amend the motion to approving consent agenda items A C D and E I'll second Let us vote on the amendment all those in favor say aye aye opposed that carries Now we'll vote on consent agenda items A, C, D and E All those in favor say aye Aye Opposed? That carries Let's move back to personnel matters Cathy Just the third full-time contract Adeline Swalby it says 26, 2026 Vacancy date and hire date so I just saw the typo Good eye thank you That's all thank you We'll revise that to reflect 2024 move forward anything else on that item all those in

013favor of approving consent agenda item B please say aye aye opposed any abstentions that carries thank you we'll move on to the action items the first action item of this evening is the TPA for self-insured health insurance plan and that will be good evening at the last board meeting we had a discussion item on the renewal of the third party administrator contract Joellen Thompson from USI is here if there are any additional questions that might be directed toward our benefits consultant Does anyone have any questions for Pam or our benefits consultant with respect to the TPA as proposed? Second Any discussion on this item? All those in favor say aye Aye Opposed? That carries Thank you Pam and thanks Joellen for being here this evening And Pam you're up next right on benefits strategy for

0142025. At the last board meeting we had a discussion on the proposed benefits strategy for calendar year 2025. There were several questions that needed to be addressed again by our benefits consultant and Joellen Thompson from USI is here to answer some of them for you. Pam had shared the questions that were submitted one of which was options one two and three in the proposed strategy and whether or not you could pick or choose from them and The answer is yes, however Picking option number one for sure as the Nexus ACO is going to give us the most savings To meet the budget objectives for the next year Regarding the CPE, those are a process change and the savings aren't gonna show up in the first year. They're probably gonna show up more in year two

015through four. But it's the next progression in the wellness and CPE program. We also provided you in the strategy document with some additional data points about the impact of the proposed changes highlighted in green on the grids and how the benchmark would be impacted regarding those changes. I don't know if you want me to pause for questions or keep going. Could you pull up that second? And it's down about six through eight slide six through eight. Thank you. Yes So the request was you know, what does it look like if we make these changes on slide six? What's in blue? What's in blue is what the district has today. What is in green is what is proposed for the strategy. And so the plan design value isn't changing significantly, although it does get better at

01692% compared to the Wisconsin Public School peer group of 88. So you're keeping a comparable and rich benefit. even with the changes that are proposed if you go to slide seven we haven't finalized any of the employee payroll contributions yet because we aren't finished with the budget and all of the factors that impact that but if the changes in green were to be made on slide seven and you compare that to the wisconsin public schools halfway down on each side for both single and family the district contributions would be half of what other school districts in southeastern wisconsin currently have and continue to keep elmbrook extremely competitive in the benefits that you offer And the final on slide eight is the total employee cost. What this does is it puts together what is their out-of-pocket

017cost by using the plan along with payroll contributions. Again, the blue is... what the district has today and the green is what is being proposed and it makes it even more generous to the employees and when you compare it to the wisconsin public schools it again is half of what other districts are again keeping the district in a position of being able to say that they have great benefits to offer their employees any questions about those slides Then there was a question regarding the CPE and the revisions and add-on and whether or not there could be a modification to the breast exam other than a mammography machine. The answer is no. In order to identify and diagnose in the most efficient and effective way for women, it is to use a form of imaging you

018are not going to capture those types of sensitivities that may come out early simply through a self-exam either by the woman or by the woman's provider what we have come to conclude is that although skin cancer screenings are really good to have and we're going to continue to encourage them through education that would be one of the five we would recommend removing from that and keeping the other four that are on the list for the board's consideration Then the final one was a concern about the change to the Nexus ACO network and the 30% disruption to the network based on the claims utilization and analysis that was done with 2023 data. It is a big number and the last time the numbers were presented to the board, it was based on dollars. We went back

019and said, what is the impact to membership, meaning belly buttons, employees, spouses, and family members? And the impact, 70% of all members on the plan today are already using a tier one provider. We want to do extensive education about what the options are. They have a choice to make a change and or use the clinic or they can remain with their current provider and they still get a tier two benefit, which is better than going out of network. This particular item is going to save the district the most money. And we looked at all strategies that had the least amount of impact. to the district employees with the best savings opportunity for the district budget. I think that answered all of the questions, but are there any more? Sam. So some of my questions really

020are looking back to last year. Were you a part of that? Yes. Okay. So I'm trying to understand that a little bit better here. So we're showing a current deficit for this fiscal year, correct? Correct. Of about 1.3 million? Correct. With an expected to go up to 1.6 million by the end of the fiscal year? Depending on how things settle out, true. Okay. So it seems like what we put in place last year isn't quite covering what we were at hope for. From your perspective so far, where were the budget shortfalls or where did we miss it from? What are the primary reasons why? One of the strategies that we put in place was carving out the specialty medication from CVS Caremark, the PBM program, and shifting it over to OptiMed. That hasn't shown the

021same level of savings as we would have expected because not as many people that needed those medications were eligible for the programs based on the parameters for eligibility. So that created a bit of the shortfall. In addition to that, every year is a little bit different, and this year has been a very big challenge for HR and for USI with the high-cost claimants and everything we have going on with the high-cost claimants. We have stop-loss in place, and there are some stop-loss reimbursements that are pending, but we need to wait and see how the next couple of months bear out and where we end up with final recommendations. So the number you guys provide, and I know that's just the best guess, so at the end of the year you best guess $15 million for

022total costs, but we're pacing $15.7 million. Is that about right? After 11 months, yes, $15.7. That goes through July would be the end of the fiscal year for that number for you? Through June 30th. The new fiscal year July 1. We're just getting the June numbers in in the next couple of weeks. Do you have a best guess of what the PBM or whatever it was, the pharmacy benefit is showing in savings? Not with me. We're only six months into the program so until we actually have a full year and can do the comparison between what actually occurred and what could have occurred it's very difficult for us to come up with an actual number Arguably when it comes next month when we look at premiums there'll be some adjustments that we'd have to look

023at at that time to help cover the difference is that what you're projecting There's a good possibility there will be yes And today I just want to clear we're looking for permission to begin These strategies of moving what tier one network only to take a while to put that in place Is that why we're looking at doing this now versus August? Yes, we we need to make sure that we notify umr it requires a different setup in system because of the narrower providers in the tier one and the earlier we can give them the decision the easier it'll be to have it ready for all the employees and the members and it'll also give us an opportunity during open enrollment to work with everybody and educate them on what this all means thank you that's

024all i have right now any other comments or questions thank you john i appreciate your being here and uh so well informed about all this thank you may i have a motion please i move that we um accept the benefits strategy as presented I have a motion and a second. Is there any more discussion? I just want to make one more statement. We talked about this last month and this came up and you explained it. It's just that I talked with Pam today about this as well, but about 30% of our team members here will be affected by going to Tier 1 only, where they'll lose out on the primary care provider they are now. And I guess according to what you talked with people, it was supported. pretty heavily on that so people understand

025that there's going to be upwards of $1,000 more for 30% of the people if they want to stick within their current network so I just want to make sure that was understood Yeah I think it's unfortunate with the way costs for health care are continuing to rise that we need to figure out different ways to mitigate those costs and some of the those with the biggest bang for the buck will have these kinds of unintended consequences if you will where folks need to make those choices based on what's best for them and their family's medical care any more discussion on this item all those in favor say aye aye any opposed any abstain this carries next we'll move to the first reading on the 5000 policy series kathy we bring to you this Policy 5127.1

026and its practice statement. We defer the policies to meetings, so now this one has become time sensitive. And Lisa, you could maybe help me fill in the blanks. So basically, UW University systems are now accepting students by ranking. So top 5% and top 10%. except for because now they start asking for this so I said okay to make it a discussion action today that they are starting to ask our students information for the enrollment and maybe you could go into details of which school I think are clear and the cross are not participating but I'll let you speak to that Madison is looking at direct admit for the top 5% and our other UW schools for the top 10% with exception of I believe La Crosse. Is it Eau Claire or La Crosse? I thought

027it was La Crosse but we can look back for that. So one of them are not participating in this but I think once they start and then the ranking comes out and then they are asking for their GPA at the time of request and it's starting to come in so we thought we will discuss here because it was deferred twice. If I could clarify. Yeah. It's actually a state statute that we put on our transcripts by the end of their junior year. What if they are in the top 5% and the top 10% we indicated on their transcript. So we have the update to the policy and practice statement to reflect that. That's the policy. Only change was that we added that we will share the GPA at the time because they're asking for both

028the ranking and the GPA and that GPA piece was not discussed Emily had brought that up and I mean it made sense to if you asked for ranking you're gonna ask for a GPA so that's a little change that came from the TLC that was passed two months ago so any questions I can I'll take and Lisa can answer Are students aware of this and are they told by the counselors that it has to be by that time Yes, this is new and we in since this law has been passed earlier this year We've been communicating with students and families so that they are aware of this and we are hoping to pending policy this policy being Approved we would be communicating that out by the end of July early August But we have sent

029a lot of communications via our counselors and on our website regarding this And I think somewhere along the line because staff changes and people have a lot to remember that there would be some way that we communicate or remind counselors even when kids are freshmen when they're starting to talk to the students when they meet with them their freshman year and their sophomore year. So they hear it more than once. I wanted them to know this year but I think it would be nice to have an ongoing reminder to have them have that conversation or post it several times you know maybe a couple times mid semester and beginning of the year so students are reminded of that because I know it's really competitive out there and it would be a big deal if someone

030says well you know I missed that one notice at the beginning of the year or something that would just be my recommendation This is new so the counselors have been working on it and it will be rolled out and incorporated into part of their work once it passes the board so they won't be communicating to parents or students until it's passed here so we bring to you for discussion and action tonight I just had two things. I wondered about the statements that are common in both the policy and the practice statement. The 3A through H is in the policy and it is so the same in the practice statement. And I wondered why we duplicated the language in both places or if that was an oversight or something. Lisa? Do you know where the... Yeah,

031this policy was unique in that the policy and the practice statement had a lot of duplication, and so I kept that the same. And we can go either way if we want to keep the policy at more high level and get more into the details with the practice statement, we can do that as well. But this one in particular had previously had a lot of redundancies between the two. It would seem like your policy statements might be a little more higher level and then these A through H maybe could reside in the practice statement and be mixed out of the policy document and then also I forgot to send you this ahead of time but in 3b the second sentence it talks about further identify each students more precise individual ranking within those percentable bands

032and I think I think that word needs to be percentage band it's noted in C excuse me E below so with that little tweak to person because I don't think percentable is what you mean right so that percentage band needs to be tweaked but otherwise Thank you for pulling this together so quickly and for suggesting it for discussion and action in one fell swoop any other comments Do you want to just basically make an amendment to strike that out of at least a through H then out of the practice statement then because it has to be approved to kind of move forward Right. Whoever would like to move could certainly do that could move the the striking from the practice Excuse me policy document and the correction of that one. So if someone would like

033to make that motion I'll make that motion I just want to clarify what the motion should be so are we wanting to remove it out of the practice statement which seems to be the most practical you think out of the policy out of policy and details in practice you're talking about three right and sub points A to H you could leave three but A to H you recommend be removed because it's in the practice statement All of it's in the practice statement isn't it? It all is but I think that top statement is really a policy statement And were you looking to see the motion Mary or were you looking okay? I would like to see the amendment so I know what we're voting on So we don't need to say and keep it in

034the practice statement because that's status quo right? All we need to say is remove duplication And it's specifically A through H that are being removed not the header not that initial so I can make the motion I'm sorry needs to be tweaked isn't a statement that provides us with what we need to say You might want to clean that up before we or if you want to do that on the fly Kathy that percentage band needs to be corrected in the second sentence of 3B The spelling The spelling right the word What needs to be corrected we should put it explicitly in the amendment I don't know if you're on the Paducah 3AH that sounds like we're removing 3AH completely so I would read a removing I don't even think we need to say duplication

035because we're not addressing the practice statement we are just addressing the policy so we could say approve of the recommended as presented with removal of points sub points a to h under three then they'll make it clear that we're not removing three we're removing a and h from policies policy and 3b second sentence but it is is it point three sub points a through h so i think it was correct as it was written because it's section three sub points a through h I move to approve of the recommendation as the policy as presented with removal of point three sub points A to H from policy and 3B second sentence percentage band spelling needs to be corrected Second I have a motion and a second is there any discussion do we get the practice statement

036approval in this motion So 3b second sentence in the practice statement Okay, we're not making that distinction because we're we can't put this as one sentence then because one is dealing with a policy change And one is dealing with a practice. Oh So and practice statement 3b What you pulled out is from the practice statement not the policy Well it's in both but now we need to fix it in the practice statement because that's where it will live I'll make them one motion to address both How about that That's fine Well that's what we've got up here but all we need to do is say policy amendment remove point three sub points A through H and practice statement correct spelling in 3B So I move to approve the policy as presented with removal of point

037three sub points A to H from policy and From from the practice statement 3b second sentence percentage band spelling needs to be corrected Kathy can I give a friendly amendment here just so that it's grammatically correct and from the practice statement 3b what and correct spelling in practice statement 3b sentence 2 So when I say needs to be we're saying it's done and correct spelling in 3b sentence 2 and then the rest can go away I might say we have a recommended approval of the policy and the changes but we need a recommendation on the practice statement approval of the practice statement as well Right, but we didn't second my what I read so you don't need to amend anything because we didn't vote on the motion So okay, but what that percentage band spelling

038needs to be corrected can be taken out as it's rewritten. We need to do we need to specify we're correcting the spelling Unless we're just correcting all the spelling in that 3B so that it's all correct I mean if it's correct already we're not changing anything There aren't any others so if you'd like to specify it you go right ahead I just would like to make sure we get the policy recommended approval and the practice statement recommended approval So I approve of the policy as presented With removal of point three sub point a to H from policy and from the practice statement and correct spelling in 3b second sentence and Correct spelling in the practice statement in 3b Because it reads now that you're taking out a through H in both. Yeah in yeah, all

039right it should really be sentences it probably should be two amendments, but Removal of point three sub points through H from the policy and correct spellings or correct all spelling Correct spellings in 3B second sentence of the practice statement is that good Mary All right. Thank you for that Wordsmithing I have a motion and a second On the amendment. On the amendment. Is there any more? We didn't make the motion. It's not an amendment. So this is the only motion. This is the motion. All right. Sorry. Thank you. I have a motion and a second. Is there any more discussion? All those in favor say aye. Aye. Opposed? Thank you. That carries. Thanks for your work on this, TLC team, and Kathy, your leadership on it. We will now move to recent gifts to the

040district. That's my item. On the screen in front of you you will see the list of gifts to the district that were received in the month of April 2024 in the total amount of $44,748.31 sincere gratitude to all the donors of these gifts to support educational excellence in Elmbrook This list will reside on the website and will be viewable by anyone who takes a look at our gifts and donors in perpetuity and with that I recommend approval of the gifts as presented Second there have a motion in a second. Is there any discussion? brief acknowledgement that we almost do this as routine and it is extraordinary the support we get from the community and from individuals and it is going noticed and it goes with tremendous thanks Well said thank you any other comments Linda

041I'd like you to shout out the total I think that's impressive Shout it louder $44,748.31 All right I have a motion and a second is there any more discussion all those in favor say aye aye opposed thank you that carries all right next we are moving into the discussion section Lisa will be presenting the English elective curriculum and primary resources we'll do the presentation first and then we have quite a number of folks who would like to speak before board discussion and then two that will speak after Okay, thank you So tonight we are talking about our curriculum for AP literature as well as for one of our CAP classes lit and film we had brought back two of these that were pulled in in our fall curriculum renewal when we brought all of our

042elective curriculum I'm so part of the background I'm just want to make sure everyone understands that we do have a graduation requirement for for one full credit for electives and these are two of our courses for electives also wanted to highlight our elmbrook promise our elmbrook promise is really serving students and that we are trying to equip them with the potential to have up to 30 college credits as they when they graduate high school which is pretty amazing and we've had students who have accomplished that The recommended curricular documents that we have tonight to be presented, those represent some of those access points when we're talking about our English department. So really providing access to college-level rigor, helping our students be consumers of their education. and helping them discover pathways and opportunities for their future.

043So a little bit of the history of the curriculum and renewal design process. As I said, we have taken our ELA and English curriculum in a couple different cycles. Most recently we brought our elective curriculum for our high school in November TLC voted to move all of those options forward with the exception of two courses at that time we were asked to add additional titles so that we have more diverse literature collection with it and we're also asked to look and ensure that we have followed all bits of policy and practice when we are recommending new anchor text So part of the rationale then for tonight is to look at our curricular documents. Those are what we teach, what we want kids to know and be able to do for AP English Literature and Lit

044and Film. Those are linked for you. And then the second piece of that is to look at the material selection and adoption process and the anchor text that we are proposing to support our curriculum. If you wouldn't mind opening the link. That says recommended primary resources. It's scroll down a little bit. It's under number two So on this document per request from our committee chair we went through and looked at all of the policies and practices that govern the selection of anchor texts anchor texts also known as primary texts are those that we typically do with all students in a given class these texts are selected based on their serious artistic literary or educational value and our subject area committee our teachers are the primary people who are are digging in and finding those texts

045that are going to bring our curriculum along live. educators who teach these courses have a great deal of expertise in order to teach a class that not only is for high school credit but for credit from potential universities they go through additional training and they are renewing that training very very frequently so that they are approved by our partner universities to teach these courses so this first page here is a list of the primary resources and the courses that our educators would like to use them in in addition we included rationale from our teachers in terms of what the key literary features are as well as the age appropriateness so using professional reviews to determine the age appropriateness we have listed all of the ages that you see there if you scroll down just a

046little bit at our TLC meeting earlier this in June actually it was in June in June two were asked to be removed from the list so we struck those through we did that intentionally if the pending approval we want to make sure that our educators understand that those would not be titles that they can use any longer they have been in our curriculum for over 10 to 15 years If you scroll further you will get to practice statement 6113 this practice statement on page 3 essentially talks about the process for curriculum renewal to do a needs assessment to really dive into what we may or may not need to get to bring our curriculum to life for our students and that was followed as indicated by the check mark The next policy statement is 6156,

047Instructional, Educational Programs, Instruction and Curricular Resources. And you can see from this policy, our subject area committee has really dug in to come up with a list that meets all of the criteria that you see up above. In particular, the development of each individual student, ensuring that they can see them. They can really dig in and... increase their own critical thinking but they also can find books that are engaging and relevant to them and that are aligned to the standards that are in the curriculum that are up for approval tonight the next is the practice statement that is in much more detail in terms of having an evaluation rubric that our subject area committee uses to for each one of the selections to determine that this is a selection that meets board policy Following that

048we looked at policy 6144 which is controversial issues. This policy is not curriculum specific and it talks about the open discussion of controversial issues, how it's the heart of the democratic process and shall be included as part of the curriculum. The study of controversial issues helps our students develop abilities of critical evaluation which are needed for responsible citizenship. and you can see the two check marks there the second one in particular no student shall be required to read a book if his or her parents or guardian has objections for the reasons mentioned we are very transparent with our communication and on a weekly basis our teachers are sharing with our families what's happening in the classroom what they're learning and what they're reading to date we have not had students opt out of our books

049It hasn't been reported to the principal, so there might be one or two who have found a different path, but really we do not have a lot of opt-outs. The next policy is not required for curriculum materials, but we just thought it would be good to cross-reference this, and this is the library policy and the library practice statement. The library practice statement talks about what we do typically for elementary and middle school purchases. We don't have language in the library policy section about high school age groups. So we have typically looked at the majority of reviews for elementary and middle school and making that determination. We don't have that for high school. And then you can see the criteria for the library policy. We have followed all of that as well when we're looking at

050these books. So if you could go back to the original agenda item. So again we have two things tonight we have the curricular documents themselves which we locally designed based on the college level rigor and standards and then we have the materials to support understanding what we want kids to know and be able to do the budget of this would be not exceeding $20,000 from our teaching and learning budget with that I'll open it up for questions Audience comments before board discussion which would start with questions Can I ask why the change on that we've typically or I know it's gone back and forth with Scott Sometimes we do that I feel like with the number of comments It looks like you have that maybe some of the answers can be resolved by a board

051discussion So I'd like to have the board discussion first and then followed by community comments I'm gonna correct that that form says they asked to speak before the board discussion that's not a change that's the way we've always done there's a section on the forum that to speak before or after discussion so we're an honored folks request I would like to say thank you to the teaching learning committee for bringing this forward and thank you Kathy for your careful policy comparisons and making sure all the boxes are checked I appreciate that's very very in-depth We have multiple requests to speak this evening. As mentioned in the citizens forum introduction earlier in the meeting. We have a number of ground rules that you all had the opportunity to read if you flipped the form over The

052general idea with the ground rules is that we would have civil discourse within a time limit and that it's respectful and that the audience will refrain from commenting or having discussions during the Comments that are being made by audience members if you need to have a conversation if you click please, take it out into the hallway and complete it there. We'd much appreciate it. There is a three minute time allotted. Certainly if you can trim your comments to less than that, we'd appreciate it, but you will have that three minute time allotment and I'd like to ask Krista Allenstein to come to the podium. She's a resident of the district and would like to speak on this AP Lit English elective. Krista. Hello. My name is Krista Allenstein and I'm the mother of two Brookfield

053East graduates. My youngest son took AP literature and graduated this past year. The issue in question is about the way we educate our young adults. Our children who are only a year or two away from leaving high school and entering the world. Our AP literature students have chosen to take a rigorous college level course. And are therefore entitled to read any book approved by college board, no matter how challenging the content of that book may be. College board believes that the books, The Handmaid's Tale and The Kite Runner are appropriate for a college level class. And we as a school district believe our students are mature enough to take college level classes. However, the proposal to remove The Handmaid's Tale and The Kite Runner from AP literature reading list suggests that these young adults are

054not. mature enough to handle the content of this college-level class and that these books are not relevant to their education. Neither is true. Both novels are world-class and offer countless life lessons that our students deserve. Just because a book is uncomfortable does not make it unnecessary or unimportant. On the contrary, the unpleasant content of these books is the very thing that makes them important. Covering the eyes and ears of our future leaders is folly and a terrible disservice to the brightest minds in our English departments. Please keep The Handmaid's Tale and The Kite Runner on the AP literature book list. Thank you for your time and your service. Thank you, Krista. Our next speaker, Scott Lynch, please come to the podium. He is a resident of the district and would like to speak on this

055topic. Dr. Hanson, members of the school board, Scott Lynch, district resident, district graduate, father of four district graduates, including one from the class of 2024. The problem with this discussion of book banning and censorship under the guise of curating an AP English lit reading list without the kite runner and the handmaid's tale is how curated some of the talking points are. The talking points may sound reasonable at first, but they become downright unreasonable upon inspection. One of the board members responsible for tonight's discussion says that they have heard from a lot of parents who are concerned about these two books. Interesting. Every single parent I've heard from supports these books and objects to censorship in dis-including them. This is the problem with small samples. They are easy to manipulate to try to make a point.

056All the board member needed to do was stay in their own echo chamber. In an email newsletter, this same board member supports their case with ratings and reviews from booklooks.org. Sounds reasonable? The problem with that is that booklooks.org is a website with a partisan bias founded by a former member of Moms for Liberty, with web content seemingly developed specifically for challenging books the operators of the site deem objectionable. Additionally, the board member points out that the number one high school in the state teaches AP English Lit without using these books. Well, that's interesting, too, because our school district was voted the best in the state. Brookfield East was voted the top high school, and Principal Farley was voted the nation's best principal, all while these books appeared in the AP English Lit curriculum. So perhaps

057the referenced ranking of the number one school in the state had nothing to do with their disinclusion of these books. As I know from my own son's experience in AP English Lit, these books offer invaluable opportunities for intellectual and personal growth and family discussion, preparing students for the rigors of college and the complexities of the adult world. By keeping these books on the AP English Lit reading list, we ensure that students have access to rich, thought-provoking literature that will challenge them to think critically and engage deeply. with important issues. Thank you. Scott, I appreciate that. Can you define censorship? No, no. No, we aren't going to be having conversation. Yeah, we are during the discussion time, but just during citizens forum or not, but this is an agendized item. Scott's asked questions during this before.

058This is an- Agenda, yes, yes. I guess we can have discussion during an agenda item. You're right, it's the citizens forum because it's not on the agenda. So you could- Sure. So I do have a right to talk to you Scott so if you would like to answer what censorship is that'd be great if you can come up here and define that for us Our next speaker Melissa Turner is a resident of the district and would like to speak to this agenda item Hi my name is Melissa Turner resident of the district for 18 years I have two children currently at East High School and one freshly minted graduate from the East class of 2024 I want to express my thanks and my support for approving the English electives curriculum as it was originally proposed

059including all materials and resources First thank you sincerely to dr. Hansen and mr. Farley and staff for the incredible graduation celebration last month I'm still in awe from the quality of that ceremony and the quality comprising this year's graduates the achievements of our young people are staggering The opportunities afforded our children our district are incredibly special something we all should support and protect My son Matthew accepted an appointment at the United States Coast Guard Academy a highly selective military academy in New London, Connecticut How did my child? achieve this a $300,000 education at a top stem University that he will attend at no cost with built-in internships travel opportunities and a career waiting for him upon graduation I know in part it was due to the education he received here And the many people who

060cared for his growth and development here. For any parent who has or will experience the bittersweet season that is your child's departure from the nest, I feel your pain. We dropped Matthew off one week ago today, and I'll be honest, it's been difficult. So how is a parent to get through? One way I know is with the comforting knowledge that Elmbrook has prepared my child for what is to come. Calculus? Got it. Resilience? Got it. Service to others? Got it. We are so fortunate. Which leads me to the English electives curriculum. My son took six AP classes at Brookfield East. The rigor and applicability of our district's curriculum is a key component of what makes this place special. We know that for those students who want more, optional electives and optional college level courses with

061advanced material that there is a place for them here as someone who is watching in real time how her child's education matches up with valedictorians star athletes and prep school standouts from across the nation i believe we should continue to maintain standards and diversity that prepares our children Please consider passing the recommended English electives curriculum as originally proposed. Striking materials from resource lists based on personal preferences overreach. Let our teachers teach with the full breadth of material they need to help our students shine. Thank you. Thank you. Our next speaker is Wes Silla, who is a resident of the district, to speak on this topic. Good evening. My name is Wes Silla, and I'm a resident of the district. I'm here tonight to better understand the TLC's recommendation to remove The Handmaid's Tale and The

062Kite Runner from the primary resource materials for AP Lit. Prior to hearing about the primary material revisions, I had not read either of these books, though I've read about attempts to ban them from school districts across the country. Admittedly, my predilection is against book bans and censorship generally, but I understand that some books are only appropriate for a certain age and maturity levels. In the interest of negating my bias and speaking as an informed constituent, I read both books over the course of five days to better understand why these books don't belong in the curriculum. I expected obscene language, graphic and gratuitous sexual imagery, and themes that would be outside the scope of a high school student. My expectations were not met. The Handmaid's Tale contains elegant prose, challenging vocabulary, and for me, a surprisingly

063engaging storyline. The Kite Runner addresses coming-of-age challenges, how life isn't always black and white, and expands cultural awareness. I am baffled by the recommendation to remove these books from the primary materials. Based on my understanding of the course objectives and my reading of the materials, I can only imagine that this would aid with comprehension and AP test scores. In my research, I understand that objections to The Handmaid's Tale are generally for profanity, vulgarity, and sexual overtones. In reading the book, I was surprised at the tameness of this book. Additionally, any passages that might fall into one of those categories are rendered tame when considered in the context of the whole book. Perhaps there are concerns that religion is maligned. If that's the case, I'm not sure we read the same book. If the book has

064religious concerns, it is about overthrowing of the Constitution in favor of a theocracy. Since we take an oath to the Constitution, that can't be the reason. Perhaps the restriction of women's rights is controversial. It seems particularly relevant today and something 16 to 18 year olds will need to think about. So I find that particularly relevant in the terms of our 6,000 series policies. The Kite Runner deals with serious themes. According to statistics, 14.3% of girls and 6% of boys, 14 to 17, indicate that they have experienced sexual assault during their life. This is a tragic statistic. Considering the statistics, though, this seems like the age cohort that should be reading about the effects of these actions. Neither of these books should be pulled. These materials align with our 6,000 series policies. I asked the board

065for three items one include these materials two let us know whether you read the books cover to cover as I did I spent five days while I had three kids to myself reading these books to ensure that I was informed I asked you do the same and finally be transparent and honest about your opinions thank you for your time I appreciate your service Thank you Wes our next speaker is Ann Duthie she is a district resident speaking on this topic As you just said my name is Ann Duthie and I've been in the district for 43 years I'm very proud of our school system to remove a book from a curriculum is to silence not just the voice of the author but it silences the voices of all the potential readers Both of the books

066under consideration for censorship have much to teach our students Who we are told are the best and the brightest in all the land Let these young minds be taken out of their comfort zones and be challenged to confront important topics current in today's world. The objectification of women, political repression, misuse of religious ideas, the loss of childhood, etc. While I question the reasoning behind protecting our children from established, widely acclaimed literature, I yield the point that parents have the right. I will never yield the point that these parents have the right to ban particular books for the rest of us. To paraphrase the words of Khalid Hussani, author of The Kite Runner, let our students walk in the shoes of Alfred. Let our students walk in the shoes of Amir. to broaden their experience of

067the human community and to take a small step in becoming fuller, better expressions of themselves. Thank you. Can I ask a question? Thank you. Ann, I'd love to ask you a follow-up question if you're available. Thanks for sharing. I'll try to answer. You used the word ban. Can you define what ban is? I didn't come tonight prepared to engage in a conversation with anybody, so off the cuff. Ban to me means to restrict To ban a book from the library is to remove the book from the shelf To ban a book from a curriculum is to remove the book from the curriculum Books are removed from curriculum on an ongoing regular basis over and over and over again and then in addition to AP Lit there are hundreds and perhaps thousands of books to choose

068from are we banning those books by not choosing those as available primary resources for our students All I know sir is that we're here tonight because someone has threatened to ban The Handmaid's Tale and the Kite Runner from the AP curriculum of the Elmbrook school system That's why I'm here. Thank you. Thank you Jean yes, can I make a comment since Sam has asked for definitions twice now the definition of censorship is the suppression of words images or ideas Okay Our next speaker is Pat Redham who is a resident of the district who would like to speak on this topic Good evening. It's nice to see everybody here. I've lived here in Elm Grove since 1982. Three kids, two came through. One came through this district. I want to thank you all for your service.

069I'm here to talk about the AP Lit because I understood the two books were questioned that we would remove them. You know, to me, books have been banned, it seems to me, since the first one rolled off the press. Words are important. Literature matters. They have power. We all agree on that. That's why we're here tonight. To me, though, it seems this is an elective course. It is given for 17 and 18 year olds. Nobody is forcing a student to take it. When the student takes it, my two boys took AP English. It's a rigorous course. You read a book, you write a paper. You read a book, you write a paper. These are rigorous courses that teach critical thinking. I don't have a problem with the curriculum as written. And if I'm concerned as

070a parent or as a student about either of these books, my understanding is I can go to the teacher, I can meet with them, another book will be substituted for that. My request will be honored, as it always has been. So I don't, it surprises me this has come up because I don't see why. And as a parent, If a board member wants to say, I don't want my child to read this book, that's fine for that board member. But I don't believe that that board member has a right to say, my child can't read that book. So that's what's motivating me to come here today. I thank you all for all you're doing because I think we have a great school district and I support it totally. So thank you. Thank You Pat our

071next speaker is Diane Larson who is a district resident to speak on the topic AP Lit hello my name is diane larson i am speaking on behalf of alyssa estrada who cannot be here today thank you in advance for your time this evening unfortunately i'm unable to attend tonight's meeting in person in relation to the recommendation from two members of the tlc what problem is the district trying to resolve by censoring two of the books in the high school english curriculum Is the problem parents of students taking these elective classes have expressed concerns with their students reading these titles? No, this isn't the case. Even if this was the case, Elmbrook already has a policy that offers an alternative assignment at any parent's request. So there's no problem there. The only other possible answer is

072that this is part of a political agenda. Please keep politics out of public schools vote to approve the curriculum as presented by our educators as A parent of a child who will be taking an AP lit class next year The goal of the class is to prepare students for college level academics and hopefully earn some college credit the list of the recommended study tiles to Titles excuse me to prepare for the exam is presented by the College Board not the district In order to best prepare students for the exam, why would we limit our teachers ability to provide our students with thought-provoking reading to prepare them for the exam? Again, what problem is the district trying to resolve? There appears to be no issues at all, but following a politically charged trend to restrict our

073educators from doing what they do best, teaching our students and helping them grow into critical thinking, well-rounded adults. We have some of the best administrators and educators in the country in our district. Listen to those who have dedicated their careers to guiding and growing children and approve the curriculum as presented. Please keep political agendas out of my child's education here in Elmbrook schools. Thank you. Thank you, Diane. Our next speaker is Kate Woodson to speak on the topic of AP Lit. Kate is not a district resident. She's representing the English department. Yes? Yes. Thank you. Hello, my name is Kate Woodson. I am the AP Lit teacher at East. I'll be entering my 10th year of education and will have taught AP Lit for eight of those 10 years this upcoming fall. Just today, our

074numbers for the 2024 test were released and we had a 97% passing rating with 70% of students scoring a four or above on the exam. I bring up these statistics not as a point of merit for my teaching, but as evidence of the effectiveness of the texts that are being censored from the curriculum and are up for discussion tonight. Not only do these texts have merit in and of themselves, but they appear frequently on the AP test. In the course of AP test history, the kite runner has appeared eight times on the exam, with five of those times appearing in the last ten years. The latest appearances would be in 22 and 24. Subsequently, The Handmaid's Tale has appeared six times, with four of those times in the last ten years, the latest appearance in

075back-to-back years of 23 and 24. These books are important for student preparedness, so it is logic-defying that they would be removed from the curriculum and censored for student use. These texts are ones that I selected out of our book room, meaning that they have been approved by school boards in the past within every curriculum renewal process up until this point. These approved texts are foundational pieces of the curriculum I teach. I could extrapolate on the minutia of why these texts were selected, how the literary elements scaffold on each other, how the characters, the discussions, and the themes coalesce with specific and thoughtful intent. However, I previously provided that information to the Teaching and Learning Committee to no avail. In our teaching and learning committee this fall, meaning this fall, there were concerns about these texts,

076initially raised by Mr. Hughes, specifically the protocol if a student objected to the text. I would like to take a minute to address this concern to the board. As previously stated, there is a policy. If a student objects to the text for any reason, they will... be given an independent book. According to this policy, I would be responsible for accommodating and providing an individualized unit for that student. In theory, this could be discussing a resource, it could be alternate assessments. I say this in theory because there has never been an objection to either of these texts in any of the courses they have been used for. At the meeting, Mr. Hughes, you expressed some skepticism of our willingness or ability to differentiate in this way. But I want to say in front of the full

077board that this is an accommodation I can and will make. I accommodate and provide alternate curriculum often in my other classes. A vote and willingness to approve these texts as an anchor seems to hinge on the protocol. And so I want to again remind the board that this is a reasonable procedure that I would follow given any objections, objections that we have yet to receive. Finally, I want to implore the board to vote on the side of intellectual freedom and against the idea of censorship. Objecting to the text for the whole class because of personal discomfort, limiting the accessibility of texts for every student due to hypothetical objection is an effective censorship of these texts. Thank you for your time and consideration. Can I ask a question? Thank you, Kate. Thank you, Kate. I appreciate

078that. You use the word censoring. Can you tell us how we're censoring or what this would be doing to censor our students? Yes. So again, by definition, the suppression or prohibition of any parts of books or films that are seen as obscene or politically unnecessary. Now, you have expressed that you think these are obscene. And so by striking them from the record and preventing the teaching of that, that would be a prohibition and therefore a censorship. So the students will no longer Because right now these books will remain in the library and they have full ability to read them on their own, correct? They are not able to be taught them in the AP Lit class. They can read them on their own. Okay, that's all I was asking. Yes, and potentially then they can

079bring them to their text with their own merit, but they wouldn't have my guided education. And then the 97% pass rate, is that for both Brookfield Central and East together? I only have my scores, sorry. Is that for your particular class? These are my scores as of today. 97%, 70%, four or more. And then to follow up, because this is brought up, if a student opts out and wants to choose a different book, is that at a detriment to them passing the AP exam? Absolutely not. Okay, thank you. Do you want me to expand or no? Oh, okay. Yeah, yeah, I would like to. So, I mean, I don't know because, again, this is theory and it hasn't happened. The thing is that they could probably get by, but the Kite Runner and the Handmaid's

080Tale are two of the primary texts that go back to back and scaffold on each other. So it could be a detriment. However, it depends on the year of the test. So it's kind of iffy to say. I do want to say that it could be detrimental, but I am confident that... If they object and I give them individualized and accommodated units, that they could still pass. That book is what you're saying? If I accommodated for them in an individualized unit, yes. Thank you. Appreciate that. Yes, thank you. Can I ask a question? Kate, can you expand a little bit on the difference between reading the book independently and in the context of the... the learning experience in your classroom? Yes, so independent books while they are reading them independently is important. However, it's really

081within the discussion that I think the merit lies within the classroom. We treat AP literature like college level class students bring their own conversations they bring their own questions and so it's through their dialogue and through their discourse that really effectively allows them to learn it's not necessarily something i'm doing i provide the feedback on their writing but they provide the the conversation with each other And are those conversations typical of what some of the prompts look like on the AP exam? Yes. In fact, often I give them, and I'm looking at former students right now, but I give them the prompt in advance, and then they have a discussion about said prompt so that they're prepared for the writing, so that they get feedback, and all of those things. Thank you, Kate. Yes, thank

082you. I appreciate it. Thank you for your time and consideration. Our next speaker is Stacey Berry-Coffee, who is a district resident, to speak on AP Lit. Good evening members of the school board my name is Stacy Berry Coffey and I have two children that attend the Elmbrook Public Schools I'm here tonight for the third time in the last year and a half or so to express my concerns over members of the school board wanting to disregard teacher and librarian expertise and input into approving English curriculum and instead propose censorship In response to members of the board misrepresenting and then voting against including the breadwinner, a story about a daughter who saves her family from starvation. By dressing as a boy to evade the Taliban and obtain food from middle school curriculum along with two other

083short stories where it was implied the books were about transgendered. children when in reality one was about someone who had a brain transplant and felt odd in their new body and the other was about a boy who was uncomfortable in his body due to a medical condition and tried to hide that from a girl he liked. During the discussion of the English curriculum over the year, members of this board have also expressed that Elmbrook should not include Canadian writers in the curriculum and should restrict books with vulgar language. The last time I spoke before this board was about a book series my student wanted to read that was suddenly unavailable on Sora due to this series being about a gay couple. While some board members insist removal of books from the proposed AP curriculum isn't

084censorship, it meets the definition by Pan America. PEN America defines a book ban as any action taken against a book based on its content that leads to a previously accessible book being either completely removed from ability to students or access to the book is restricted or diminished removing books from AP Lit due to a board members personal views on pornography and vulgar language does not meet the Miller test which is a three pronged obscenity test the work as a whole must be considered not just picking and choosing lines out of context and objecting to it For the AP College Board, students could end up losing AP credit if instruction is censored. AP Lit is a college level optional course. Students who take this class have the ability to opt out of assigned literature as per

085district policy. I spoke with the central teacher who teaches AP Lit, and while he currently chooses not to teach the Handmaid's Tale, he has in the past. praising albrook teachers for their excellent teaching abilities and then limiting their ability to teach and discuss ap board approved texts is disingenuous on the part of the board i ask board members to follow district policy listen to the teachers and educator recommendations and approve the curriculum without the opposed amendment censoring the handmaid's tale and the kite runner thank you thank you stacy our next speaker is jackie reinisch-knap who is a district resident speaking on 5A which is the AP Lit and then later on on 5F we'll call you back up My name is Jackie and I have three children one at WHMS one at Brookfield Elementary and

086one who's two and a half years old and in daycare and we will be in the Elmbrook schools for quite a while so I'd like to express my opinion like I said on two topics tonight I'll start with the AP Lit written word is when the written word is used properly it's a powerful tool which can be used to paint beautiful pictures it takes true skill to write beautifully My 13 year old has excelled in literature and is in the gifted and talented program I am sure he will be in the AP lit class during high school During an email conversation with his lit teacher. Miss tellner wrote Owen is a reading machine He has been enjoying one of my favorite nonfiction authors Steve Sheineken So I'm having fun handing him books He is flying

087through as a parent that is great to hear that she is reaching him at his level And that's what we want as parents. He's being challenged reading things at his level But if I were to receive an email or even worse walk by a classroom where they are reading or discussing the handmaid's tale and hear a passage such as this, which is taken from page 93 in the book and I'm reading verbatim. My red skirt is hitched up to my waist, though no higher. Below it the commander is fucking. What is he fucking is the lower part of my body. I do not say making love because this is not what he is doing. Copulating two would be inaccurate because it would imply two people and only one is involved. Nor does rape cover it.

088Nothing is going on here that I haven't signed up for. There wasn't a lot of choice, but there was some, and this is what I chose. I would be very concerned, and actually I would be very angry that an adult would be reading to my minor child like that. this is talking about abuse statistics from the cdc website show that one in four girls and one in 20 boys in the united states experience child sexual abuse so i'm sure there are children in the elmberg school system that have been victims which is horrific and makes me very sad if those students were forced to read this book doesn't that feel like abuse all over again What other learning opportunities are there if a student is not allowed by their parents to read this book? And

089they are in AP Lit. Miss Kate had alluded to some of them, but maybe those options should be considered instead of this book. This is not a political issue. This is purely a moral and social obligation, and the board must protect our minor children from reading inappropriate content. There is an amazing array of much better age appropriate literature that can be taught. This has been shown by a district not using this material right now which I am now confused because I'm not sure if we're using it or not. The final question to consider is what is the point of making minor children read such profane literature? What would the district be trying to teach our children and what is the Elmbrook learning goal does this meet? And I'm under the impression this is being removed

090from the AP Lit class so they still can read it. Thank you Jackie. Our next speaker is Ruba Ahmed a resident of the district speaking on AP Lit Hi, my name is Ruba and I graduated from East last year and now I'm attending the University of Southern California. My senior year at Brookfield East, I had the privilege of taking AP Lit. Out of the 17 AP classes I took, AP Lit ended up being, without a doubt, the class that left the biggest impact on me. More specifically, I want to address the prompt that was just read. The day in class that we went over that was, without a doubt, one of the most memorable days of my time at East because of how important it was to have that discussion with classmates and in that

091prompt when We read it out loud right now. All you can take away is a girl who is very clearly naive and very clearly being tricked by the society around her. No one who reads that prompt is seeing it as someone who is excusing abuse. We are, in fact, discussing it as why it's important to have these conversations so that no one is naive about it as Offred is in the book. Anyways, what I was saying is that The Handmaid's Tale discusses... invaluable lessons of how education is so, so, so important and how governments strive off of naive individuals who lack the knowledge to know the rights they deserve. As you're reading The Handmaid's Tale, it's hard to believe that a society could ever reach these extremes. I thought to myself, I would never sit

092back and watch as my government, which promised to protect me, did the opposite. However, I've come to realize that this is a gradual process caused by small acts of oppression against groups of people. It starts with things like book banning. The Handmaid's Tale is based on historical events and mirrors things we see shaping up in our modern world. Atwood herself has stated that she didn't include any events in the book that hadn't already happened somewhere in the world. This makes every part of the novel important to discuss and critically analyze. Now that I've finished my first year at college as a legal studies major, I found myself applying these challenging themes and messages from The Handmaid's Tale to the complex political conditions of our world. The book has given me a framework to understand and

093critique power structures, gender dynamics, and the erosion of civil liberties. My AP literature experience would not have been the same without this book. The opportunity to close read and discuss it with my peers was invaluable. It sparked deep, meaningful conversations about society, politics, and human rights that have continued to inform my thinking in college and beyond. I truly don't see a valid reason why this story should be banned. Its themes are relevant, its warnings are timely, and its ability to foster critical thinking is unparalleled. Banning The Handmaid's Tale would not only deprive students of an important literary work, but also have the chance to develop critical analytical skills and social awareness. Not to mention how unbelievably ironic it is. In a world where understanding complex societal issues is more important than ever, we need books

094like this to challenge us, make us think, and prepare us to be engaged citizens. At the moment, my 13-year-old sister is reading The Handmaid's Tale. All to say, you need to stop underestimating students' capabilities and instead recognize ability to not only handle challenging materials but to provide insightful and valuable perspectives on it in AP Lit one of our tasks is to ask so what we can't ask so what without books that are thank you our next speaker is Jacob Malin and not a district resident to speak on AP Lit hello again a long time no see So I just have a couple of questions for the board obviously, you know I don't know if you guys are allowed to answer but I would just like to ask the first is have you guys ever removed

095books from curriculum before If so, what books were they? Was there a legitimate reason, say for instance, the topic matter no longer applied to the world today, which obviously is not going to be all circumstances for books that are removed. But yeah, have there been books removed? Additionally if I remember correctly there was a mention that the books had been replaced with two other books What were those books and what were the reasons for the what were the what was the decision for the replacement? That's all did it for today. Thank you guys so much for what you do Thank You Jacob we can take this up during discussion section or discussion our last speaker prior to board discussion will be Nina Englund a district resident speaking on the topic of anti-book ban Hello everybody.

096My name is Nina. I graduated the class of 2023 at Brookfield East High School I'm currently an English major at the University of Wisconsin-Madison. So this discussion is extremely important to me after hearing a lot of the voices that we heard today none of which are any more important than the others they're all extremely important I figured the students voice is something that we really need to think about in this discussion I wasn't planning on speaking today that's another thing that I'll just mention right off the bat but I just wanted to take some takeaways from listening earlier and some things that I think are important to note I read The Handmaid's Tale in fall of 2022 in Miss Kate Woodson's class, and I am not one to deny that this story is devastating, disturbing,

097and at times extremely difficult to read. However, Those discussions about the text, about the passage that was just mentioned, were some of the most respectful, careful, and delicate discussions I've ever had in my academic career. Everyone in that room used the themes with extreme maturity, and if I hadn't had that experience, I definitely would not have been able to continue my English career, but even just my moral and ethical beliefs in this society, navigating that in a time like this. I actually wrote my question three AP Lit essay on The Handmaid's Tale and after crossing out two other starts with two other books because it was the most prevalent and most important in my mind at the time. Again, just to mention the English major thing, I had to read texts like Never Let Me

098Go and other extremely difficult texts at Madison. I realize that's not a super maybe popular course and that's an extremely niche opinion to share but as a student those conversations were extremely pivotal to me and my academic career and the last point was accommodations frequently came up and how Feasible that is in a classroom as far as accommodations go I didn't have I never asked asked for a different book But I have severe food allergies and as a student in Miss Kate Woodson's classroom She always brought a different treat for me to eat as opposed to the one that she brought for the entire classroom So if you are doubting maybe that at least miss kate woodson is able to make those accommodations if it's not for book banning she can definitely do it for

099food and that's at least something to say to her name in the first place so thank you for your time thank you for everything you do thank you nina that concludes the pre-board discussion comments thank you all for respecting the time limits and for your respectful comments we will now proceed with board discussion comments please I'll take the lead on that. So thank you for all the hard work, Lisa, that you've been able to do for this. And I know you spent a lot of time on that. I'm going to ask a few clarifying questions. And I apologize if some of these have been answered during the discussion here, so I'll try to skip over those. So I want to help the audience to know the process of what it takes to get curriculum and

100primary resources approved. Could you give us just a very high level of the basic steps that are through that process? So when we are in terms of curriculum we first start off by digging in and understanding what the standards say what we want kids to know and be able to do from that we prioritize those standards and develop our local curricular documents We do an evaluation of the program that is shared to TLC to see what's going well, which typically is a lot, and how do we build from that strength, and where are there opportunities to get even better. Part of that evaluation includes a needs analysis where we look at, in this case, the literature that we put in front of students, and we want to make sure that we have literature that reaches

101all of our students since we have a continuum of learners. and a lot of diverse learners in our system. From there, after doing a TLC discussion around the evaluation, we start designing. And in that design phase, we're writing curriculum and we're looking for which... books are going to bring our units alive part of that in terms of the material selection we're using the policy to guide there's criteria in there um to guide um you know what we choose and the subject area committee is a is a huge part of that in part as as part of the policy um we are always looking at the artistic the literary value of um collection or a book as a whole. We're looking at that. Our AP, as we have spoken tonight, we are looking at how many

102times that book has been brought up on an AP exam, for example. I know Kate spoke to that. because we want to ensure that they're complex enough texts where they have something to draw from not only for that ap exam but also when they're going off into post-secondary and using that um as part of their you know their knowledge to draw from so once we have that list curated and we've followed what i went through earlier in terms of ensuring we have we have met all policy and practice statements we present it to our teaching and learning committee and from there it comes here for approval and then we work towards implementation And there's also typically now a pilot program and that pilot program will walk you through the steps of you know teachers trying

103out the material the curriculum and the primary resources to see if it's a good fit We may pilot it's not a required step. It's a may so this typically the subject area committee decides if they need to pilot it So the subject area committee are there the ones responsible for the input of the primary resources? the subject area committee and director. So for instance if we wanted to bring algebra in you know and the existing book is outdated or no longer reprinted would they go out and just pick one book or they pick multiple books to bring in for that primary resource typically? in that scenario we if we were looking for one textbook we would pilot multiple textbooks to get to one but there's been times when there haven't been multiple good ones to

104pilot so we've only piloted one and and then recommended that one for adoption So when there are multiple primary resources do each teacher committee have an input on which one they like the most It's set to board criteria and we determine in the needs analysis we do team developed criteria of what we're looking for so it's not like a majority wins I'm sorry so do the teachers have input like which primary resources they're going to be looking at or trying out or reviewing yes okay so there's multiple books they have input in that do the teachers always unanimous on what primary resource they want to try no they're not Have you ever experienced or observed where curriculum and or primary resources have been selected and implemented only to find out down the road that the

105curriculum or primary resource didn't perform to the given results expected? Have you had that happen? It's part of our continuous improvement to always ensure that the primary resources are delivering our curriculum in a way that's going to be... up to our standards. So sometimes we've had to pull like I know with the Teachers College for instance was something that we tried had implemented for a while Decided it wasn't good. And so that's why we went out and got the science of reading, correct? That's kind of an example of something we've done that didn't always work. We saw it was negative results a lot of Yeah, it wasn't negative results. It wasn't getting us to the results we wanted and so we looked for a primary resource that aligns to the research on science of reading

106thank you i appreciate that so and then going back to what was the conversation For AP Lit, two questions, I'm sorry. A good percentage of the children are 17 or younger in there, correct? No. In AP Lit, we have 98% are seniors, so they would be 17 or older. When I looked at the rosters for this past year, I think we had one person under 17 for AP Lit. For Lit and Film, there's about 94%. At the end of the year or at the beginning of the year? At the beginning of the year. And then for lit and film, it was lower than that. It was like 94% were seniors. So there are some minor, okay. And then I know what was said before, and I'm going to clarify that, but if a parent of

107a minor child would like to have their child take AP literature but disagree with their child from reading, for instance, The Handmaid's Tale, what are the parents' options? The parents can opt out of having them that book be read and Kate mentioned that when I asked her if kids are at a disadvantage from opting out She said absolutely not I'm curious about what are your thoughts? Is that something that you've seen as well our kids at a disadvantage from opting out of that from being able to pass the AP? No, I have a hundred percent confidence in our teachers that they will find ways to make it work. I think speaking to that point What what? goes missing is the nature of the dialogue and we heard that from students as well that the conversations

108and how to have those conversations in a safe environment is what could potentially be missing okay thank you i appreciate that so um in summary i think what i just want to say is to to the fellow board members here and to scott who will be here for next month on this hopefully he watches this i do urge you to pass the ap lit curriculum and primary sources as presented Our process to curate a collection of wonderful AP primary resources has proven successful without mandating our minor children to read sexually explicit materials such as what Jackie shared with us. In addition, these books will still be available in our public school libraries for the children in the district or of the district to read and check out. No banning is happening. Very clearly a ban

109is removal of the book or preventing someone from reading it. This is not going to be the case. In fact- The other thing it's important to remember, there are thousands of books in AP literature that we could choose from. And we are not censoring those books that we don't have by not having them in our available list. We narrow down a book and a list of primary resources that are the best for our district and our children. And with such an array of an amazing literature in the classes currently being successfully taught in our district and outside our district without these books. The curated literature for this course can flourish with these excellent options. And to clarify the earlier, the number one private school in the state of Wisconsin that teaches AP Lit without the

110use of either one of these books with well over 90 to 99% success rate of passing the exam. And very clearly, we were told by even Kate that one could pass this exam without having to read these books. Our state laws have carved out one specific area of instruction, human growth and development. There are more rules and regulation around this one area of instruction than any other topic or instruction. It is because parents have the right to know what is being taught to their children. These topics are reserved for human and growth and development classes, not AP literature. And lastly, as Jackie mentioned, and this is a hard statistic, one in four girls and one in 20 boys in the United States experience sexual abuse. Let's continue to be sensitive to those most vulnerable children,

111including those that have experienced that sexual abuse and further traumatize them through this sensitive topic in AP literature. Let's reserve that for the human growth and development class. Thank you. Thank you, Sam. Other comments? Yes. First of all, I'd like to thank everybody that came and spoke tonight. There's nothing I could say that would be more eloquent than the variety of conversation you provided for us today. magnifies the nearly two dozen emails we've received from community members almost 100% of which are in agreement with including these two books in the curriculum on the basis of many of the things you've said so I am the person who is the vote from the Teaching and Learning Committee that did not support this amendment. I still do not support the removal of these two books from the

112curriculum for many of the reasons that you said, but primarily because... Such an action goes far beyond the appropriate scope of the Board of Education. We are here to ensure an excellent curriculum, and Kathy, we talked about that at committee. In order to do that, we aren't... teaching the classes. We aren't the we that's sitting on this committee vetting these books. We hire a district administrator, an administrative team, and we trust that they will bring in instructional excellence in the form of our teachers to do that work. They are the experts. To not respect that is a very slippery slope if we are concerned about the teachers that we will employ in the future. I'd like to paraphrase author Salman Rushdie, who's written much more eloquently than I on the subject, and the danger of

113censorship. The creative writer, and I would say the effective teacher, requires not only freedom, but also the assumption of freedom. If our teachers worry if they will be free tomorrow, then they're not free today. If we are not confident in our processes, in our experts, and in our commitment to intellectual freedom, then we're not free now. And I think we have to think about that. We have no evidence of damage. Lisa I appreciate all you've said but you honestly can't tell us if it would harm anybody taking the test if they've had an exception because we have no record of anybody having had an exception and thank you to the students that came back to share your experiences with us because you're the product you're the you're the rubber meat in the road for us

114and I really appreciate what you said When we open the door to this kind of censorship, we really are setting a dangerous precedent. We run the risk of losing or failing to attract creative and passionate teachers at a time when it's going to be increasingly difficult to fill our teaching ranks because of low availability in the career. We will not seek that we will not attract the teachers who see their work as a creative and passionate passionate Livelihood who are looking for the opportunity to engage in free and open debate of complex issues that promote intellectual maturity and critical thinking skills of a well-educated adult We're the number one school district in the state our students are doing great There's no evidence of harm, and I see no reason to start down the road of

115censoring our curriculum on the basis of a couple of opinions that have not been founded in any kind of reason. Thank you. Thank you, Mary. Anyone else like to speak before second? We'll just wait until everyone's had a chance. Do you want to first answer the question about have the books have been removed and added over a course of I mean I'm sure it has because I know for even history, science, literature we have so if you have that answer I'm sure it has I don't know as to quantify when and how and why would be something if you need we'll need to get back and then second part of the question what was that what were they I have a question here any removed replaced with others and what were they if they were

116replaced there were two books that were added correct yeah we they weren't replaced we were asked by the committee to include more and so we added more and it was more than two that we added from when we presented this the first time at TLC in fall so we added more titles and then at the time when our our subject area committee was going back and looking at the list in preparation for the next time we took it they recognized that there was one title that we had not been teaching in our Lytton film class so we removed that based on their recommendation because it wasn't being taught no other reason than it wasn't being taught No that was the Kite Runner from Lit and Film because they one of the process pieces that we

117did when we were determining our primary list was we were trying to reduce the reduction of some titles in different courses if they've read it earlier so we hadn't been using it in Lit and Film and they took it out That's because you are using it in AP Lit Correct I'm just going to share some comments and feedback and some of the things that I've shared at TLC. So censorship, banning, whatever, you call it political, we've heard it, it's fine. And it's interesting that, yes, we are honest. All seven of us have our opinion and values and morals, and we don't land in the exact same spot. A lot of the things that introduction to this kind of graphic sexually explicit crime against children is considered crime against children. And to say why we are

118so bent on keeping it and as if in the beginning I was kind of in the middle and more I thought about it, everybody has opinion. Yet the board is by the statutory law have the responsibility, 100% responsibility of the curriculum. And that's the WASBE legal council that Linda and I had attended back in February. Library books have different oversight. Curriculum, 100%. And whatever we, so we all have our opinion, morals, and values. But seven of us have to vote. Whether I think some of us read the book one time or 100 times, I don't think we will ever land in the same spot. Yes, we hire professionals, experts. I'm considered an expert in my field. We all have expertise in our fields. The boards, we spend, I think just by our HR programs, our

119benefits, that we spend close to 80%. benefits in this district of $130 million budget. I think it shows how and what we think of our employees and how we value our team. But to say, but our job as a board is not to listen to everything that our employees say and say okay with our critical thinking and having to judge against our own morals and ethics and we all differ. No one is saying right or wrong, but apparently the views that differ are political and it's wrong and it's prude. So the board really needs to understand what our job is and what our responsibility is. And to read our children, whether they're 18 or not or younger. to have to read through crime against children and women. And yes, I understand there are a lot

120of other themes that it teaches. But you're telling me that in the last 10, 13, 15 years there hasn't been a book out there that can teach the same content and the issues that we need to discuss other than this. And these two books, yes, they're highly discussed. I'm sure there are a lot of other books. But yet they seem to come into curriculum and it's always the hottest topic. And it's really not what other people say. It's not what you say or whoever is saying about what. But to as a board, as a district. of education, educating our young children and their young mind to have to and have to fight and to insist that we use and have them read profanity, sexual explicitness, crime against children and women and sodomy and rape. To

121discuss this, how to handle these things, to me, is why, why? So we all can have our opinion, but the board has to eventually vote. We have different responsibilities and accountability. And the college board list of approved AP reading, I'm seeing between 40 and 109 books, Lisa. I don't know what's really. True I was looking up how many approved books are and I'm seeing somewhere between 40 to 109 books Our teachers submit their curriculum or their our curriculum I should say to the College Board to get approved and So they don't have a master list. They have recommendations and so forth But they there's an approval process to get our curriculum and that includes our book lists and again we we track what they're using on the actual exam itself all of the different books

122that they're using and the ones that are frequently being used we're we're trying to incorporate into our curriculum as well so yes literature is to walk in the shoes of the the characters and if we take the author of the kite runner to say walk in their shoes now i don't know i don't know if i want my child to read through to walk into the shoes of a 11 year old boy being raped We have opinions. We have to vote. We have legal accountability, and no one's ever going to agree. And regardless whether two community members says yay, nay, all, I don't know, 8,000, 9,000 that voted, 16,000 people voted, at the end of the day, we take feedback from both sides of the aisle, different opinions, and we have to vote. our conscience

123and our oath and that may differ in our definitions but that is where I stand with this and as a board that has approved outside if the exemption of the rule of library and education system Any introduction to this material under Wisconsin statute will be listed under crime against children. And to me, just morally and ethically, I'm sure there are tens of thousands of books out there that could teach, especially in the last 10, 20 years, can teach similar stories. And to say that if these two books are removed, our wonderful solid curriculum and our entire identity of our district hinges on these two books then i have to kind of question why and maybe look into how removing or reconsidering adding different book is gonna have our district fall apart i don't think so

124and those are my opinions and thoughts thank you Linda? It has been said that by assuming and or insisting that the only means to reach students to achieve a passing score on the AP exam is to expose them to this vulgar content is a myth. It's been stated it's not necessary. So I question why is it being presented as essential and necessary? this concern regarding the two books was brought forth several months ago did the english department and the committee follow through by reaching out our benchmark districts and other area school districts to ask what their texts are being taught and used in their ap courses do we know what their results on the ap exam are by using alternative texts why not Are our instructors willing to design lesson plans for another set of

125books? We heard it. We said that alternative texts are available. And so by having the means of insisting students must expose their minds to this material is just not. 100% literature based by exposing minds to explicit sexual content in order to achieve a passing grade on the AP exam is not necessary and by stating students can opt out if not an appropriate it's really not an appropriate solution because by doing so you're denying a group of individuals equal access to gain dual credits and must I say one of the strongest drives of students at this age are to be accepted by their peers. So even if a student, in my opinion, would not want to read or be involved in that content, they're, you know... socially and emotionally how are they going to feel being

126the one that says i don't want to read that i need an alternative text you're kind of putting the student at odds with being socially accepted by their peers and being part of a group to me that's discrimination it's not book banning any student can read these books outside of the instructional setting if they so choose we have to keep in mind that once images are placed in a person's mind they cannot be erased the question is does every student need to be exposed to this content in order to enroll in this class we said no well then if the answer is no then let's take a good strong look at the alternatives this should be individual choice but as I said kids are gonna feel very awkward requesting another book when their peers are

127all reading the same source and discussing and what happens during the discussion in which they're not part of that group I feel very confident that we have very competent professional staff and they are more than capable of executing the same themes by using books from the alternative list which is listed in Wisconsin there are many theme books out there that can attain the same objectives and prepare students to be able to pass the AP exam like i said they're state approved optional choices and which you already mentioned but i already had in my notes it's not unusual to have alternate or new curriculum adopted we in the elmbrook school district have changed math social studies science phy ed lea and other areas of curriculum text materials on an ongoing basis the tlc has reviewed and

128made a recommendation to adopt, modify, or change these texts, which is used in this case. There are several options to select from, so I don't feel it's unreasonable. But please note, it's not a form of book banning. It's just a curriculum change. That's all that we're asking for. And I also am concerned about some of the content. material for a few reasons one of them is that by state statute we are not supposed to expose minors to certain material and we have to be held accountable for that and i forgot my other thought at this point but if you don't come back to me so i would ask that you take a look at using some of the other books and i like what I will piggyback on what Sam said. There's a lot of

129other books that we are not using, and by not using them, if you want to use the word ban, then we're banning them from being used because they're only on a list. The other point is, too, if we all spoke in a very vulgar language and swore up and down. wherever in public or in our schools it would be unacceptable so I don't see why it's essential or necessary to be included as part of our curriculum and I guess everyone as stated has different ideologies everyone has different set of varying moral codes but if I were gonna ask someone or You know if they wanted to read a Playboy magazine or if they wanted to go to a strip joint and it was a group of Students or a group of people I'm sure I

130would get different people saying whatever they say. Yes. No, maybe and It would be unfair for me to insist that they Read this type of material or go to that type of venue and by having that and insisting just because we've done it we have to keep doing it doesn't make sense to me thank you for your time Lisa quick question on the AP exam where it mentions those specific books our students that take that exam are not able to answer those questions because they haven't read that book would that prevent them from answering that question I can't answer that question Seems to be an important question we'd want to find that out because if I I haven't taken AP lit exam for a long time in fact I never did so I didn't know

131if in that AP Lit Exam if the questions are more talking about they give you the subject or they give you information then you answer based on that or is it specific you have to have read the book from what our educators have shared in past TLCs and what our students have shared because some the the books we're talking about have such a complex they have lots of complexity it gives our students a lot of material to work with when they get to certain questions on the exam oftentimes from my understanding and please correct me if i'm wrong kate there are questions that will have them compare There's a prompt that you know, they're looking at handmaid's tale and they're also using bringing in another selection to answer that question so Again, I it might

132be better to have one of our AP instructors answer that question. I love it Please bring in the expert Can you just reiterate your question for me? So when the AP Lit exam has specific questions to like these books of any book in nature are the students not able to answer that question because they've not read that book or is it how is the questions is it So an important, yeah, so to understand what is expected of AP, we'd have to understand what is expected on the question three. So I'm just going to kind of delve into that and then answer your question. Does that make sense? So on question three, what happens is there's generally a thematic prompt that is given. And so they give a thematic prompt. I'm thinking one that dealt with

133home and the issues of home. And then based off of that, they give the theme and then they ask questions of, talk about a text that deals with this. you know, the nature of this as a whole. And so then on that same prompt, they are given a selected work of text or it, you know, it'll list the Kite Runner or the Handmaid's Tale or Beloved or whatever, or texts of equal literary merit. So your question, if they haven't read that question or read that text, would it impact their ability to answer that question? If the Handmaid's Tale or the Kite Runner are the only two books that they would have. read on that text list and they're unable to come up with a different response, then yes. I can't say definitively, but I know

134that Nina said that she wrote about two other books that we had read in class and decided against that because of the merits and the complexity that The Handmaid's Tale brings to the table. So to answer your question, like I said, we'd have to look at every single prompt to know. Theoretically, yes. It could definitely hinder their ability. Okay. Thank you. Yeah. I guess what I hear from that is that, no, it necessarily doesn't. Like, theoretically. Order please. Thank you. Theoretically, I mean, I appreciate that. So you have multiple books and options. What percent chance is it going to be that the only two prompts are going to be those two books? I don't think that's realistic, so thank you. And then my question to. Linda asked it earlier I guess this you mentioned censoring

135these books Mary I'd love for you to follow up on that just are we censoring all the other books that are not added as primary resources I'd love for you to answer that one and that's all I had Thank you Mary go ahead Well I have no idea what your question is you want to reiterate that I'll repeat that for you so all the books that we could have our children read for AP Lit that we're not using as a primary resource. Are we censoring those books by not having them available as a primary resource? Well, we, you and I, aren't doing any of it. Our experts are doing this. Just answer the question. I am, Sam. You know what? Don't badger me. And don't lie about me. And don't misrepresent me. Point of order

136please I'd like to just make a few comments I think we need to stick to the topic Sam asked me a question I'd like to respond I do not believe that every book in the universe is considered for every curricular offering I believe our experts have a vetted list and I trust that so censoring means taking that vetted list that experts have reviewed and removing based not on the recommendation of those experts but on some ancillary reason such as Can I finish? such as insinuating that we are committing criminal acts by teaching these classes which Kathy you alluded to you thought that teaching about these books could be tantamount to a criminal act do you think we've been committing criminal acts all this time would be a question I might ask you in the future

137the mandatory word I keep hearing completely a fallacy nobody is mandated to take AP literature not one single person and despite the fact that my colleague to my right sent out an email last night indicating that I am a person who is bent on mandating sexually explicit literature in our curriculum That is a lie. That is simply not true. And it's one of many lies that have been told about me in a public way by my colleague. So I want to clear the air on that. But I also want to go back to policy 6144, which Lisa articulated for us, which is the policy regarding the importance and the necessity to discuss controversial issues in the classroom. You all have a favorite teacher from school if I said who's your favorite teacher everybody gets a

138picture in their minds I've heard from two teacher two students from our recent past who would probably put their AP literature teacher on that list right now and they told us why and the why had to do with what I heard was the sensitivity that controversial issues were discussed the means by which Controversial issues were discussed with sensitivity and openness in a classroom that is Invaluable to every student and I appreciate that that that needs to be highlighted again We are obligated to teach our children how to handle controversial issues and we are obligated to let them have those conversations in a safe space in high school and that to me doesn't have anything to do with mandating sexual content. We could have a long debate about whether I think that's the literature that was

139read is sexually explicit because I think it's violent. I think it's culturally provocative, but it's not. It's not what I would call sexually explicit in the sense that it's not there for its sexuality, but for the power of the violence and the statement that it makes within the context of the book. And I'm just going to end with somebody. in their comments asked the board to say whether or not they've read these books. I am a yes and yes, and I have read almost every other book on this list. And I've gone out of my way to read a lot of books that come up in the news over many years that are banned in grade schools and banned in middle schools because I'm curious about what it is that the concerns are. And I

140would encourage you to do that too. Thank you, Mary. Any other comments? I just have one more. So Mary, just to, and all the comments is, yes, like I said, whether we read it once or a thousand times, we're not going to land in the same spot. And if you don't consider this actually explicit, but you do admit that it is violent crime against children. And if we have to, if we, as the number one district, cannot find a way to teach the thematic. Lessons that it involves in the entire book without having our kids read through powerful words of sexual crime and trauma and PTSD. I like to ask, are our teachers licensed therapists? Are they licensed to talk through this imagery that is put in their minds when they read this? So yes,

141our teachers are great. we trust them but this board comes up with the list comes up with what is okay and not okay to have our kids exposed in our district once upon a time 13 14 years ago it was okay by the previous board whether knowingly unknowingly i don't know But again, we read this one time, thousand times, we're not going to land in spot. So it's not, we can probably talk through midnight till tomorrow, we're not going to land in the same spot. But if we're going to have our children or kids, students read through these explicit scenes of crime, are our teachers trained, licensed therapists to help them cope through this? Because like you said, words are powerful. It creates imagery that you will never forget. And if our district cannot get

142through our kids through AP courses, and yes, it's an elective, but we the board says these books that are on our board policy, we are saying it's okay for them to read. And I am saying. That it is not for me that we would induce and introduce such trauma to our children. If they are so, some of them have mentioned, I have three children, it's a battle with social media, everybody, every family to each their own. And yes, and that is why according to the statute in this state, those conversations belong with the parents, with the family. We have human growth and development. This board years ago, adapted that to specifically talk about those things. So again, we will agree that we'll never lend the same way whether we read it 1,000 times because admitting

143it's violent, admitting it's a crime, it's not sexually explicit, I disagree. So we're not going to debate about what is sexually explicit, what is not, because obviously we all have different standards. But this board says, yay or nay to what we introduce in the four walls of our district and say yes, our minor children, I'm not talking about yes, they turn 18. We as educators, the board of education are saying yes, it's okay for our children to read profanity, sexually explicit crime. against children and women in the name of literature and there's no way that we can have our kids pass AP class without reading those, then I have to question everything. Thank you. Thank you, Kathy. I kind of feel like that was a question addressed to me and I would just like to

144respond that yes, I agree that you and I are likely never going to agree on this. However. You are not the board. I am not the board. We'll vote on this next meeting. I'm listening to parents who feel completely different than you do, and I'm hearing students who feel completely different than you do. And I'm basing my opinion. Less on my personal opinion about the books which I have read in their entirety but also on the long track record of success that we have and the absolute dearth of concerns so When we look as a board as individuals on the board about whether or not we are in sync with our community on this I'm listening I'm listening and that's all I have to say I would like to make a few comments and then

145I think we need to move along I would agree that starting off with the AP College Board setting this as part of their recommended materials the length of time we've used this in our district without anyone opting out the fact that this is an elective It's a choice that students and families can make and the topic of parent rights has come up in this boardroom many times before and I think many spoke to this evening the right they retain to make choices for their students we are not requiring this course if it's a central core course perhaps there would be much more different discussion however it is an elective course and parents want the right to choose for their children to take this course and read these materials and if there are those who disagree

146there's a process to opt out and choose other materials I would support our staff as they recommend this book I hear I've received many emails from folks over the last couple of days about this topic most would agree I as a parent want the right to choose for my student or as a student want to be able to continue this was an excellent course that exposed me to issues that I was assisted to process to comprehend to critically think about so I would stand in support of the recommendation for these books to be included going forward and we will talk more about this next time we have a couple of requests to speak after board discussion I'd like to call Corita Twyndham up to the podium if you're still with us thanks for hanging in

147there with us it's been a long journey I'm still awake no no no I meant that you're still in the room I'll just make a couple real quick points because so many people have made the points previously but I did send an email to each of you i do think there are people on the board to me this is not a question of whether you personally like these books This is a question of what is the best interest of our students I was lucky enough to have a daughter who's brilliant who went through Brookfield Central School system did extraordinarily well and she will tell you that she was extraordinarily prepared for college because of all the AP courses she was allowed to take and in those AP courses She was challenged in her thinking, and

148because of that, she increased her critical thinking skills. Having those critical thinking skills is so important, and I could not more vehemently disagree with the analysis that because these are difficult topics, they then should be... not allowed to be discussed with these kids you are not giving them enough credit and you are also preventing parents from having the opportunity to discuss these issues with their children as they're going through this growth process while they are still at home as opposed to having our children exposed to them when they're in college and they don't have our assistance to talk through the issues as readily as they do when they're living in our home. And I'm totally mystified by the whole concept of there's any legal issue with it. Being an attorney myself, that made no sense.

149The only other thing I would recommend for the people who are trying to ban these books. Do me a favor and go back and read at least one book on the history of Germany in the early 1930s and What you're discussing and the way in which you discussed your issues is exactly the same what was discussed in Germany in the 1930s and that horrifies me it makes me say perhaps it's time we move out of this community thank you for your time Our next speaker will be Myra Molthen resident of the district speaking on open forum book banning Hello, I would like to introduce myself. My name is Mira Moulton and I would also like to thank all of you guys I was a recent graduate of class of 2023 of Brookfield East High School

150and My twin brother and I both had the opportunity to be students in this Woodson's class and we both stand in opposition of censoring books Unfortunately, he's not here. He's actually working at Best Buy Yes, so Right now I'm currently studying neurobiology and philosophy at UW-Madison and I would like to just talk a little bit, yeah the classes at my college have, or the classes at my high school have definitely prepared me, specifically AP literature, for the advanced classwork I experience in college. But I think that there are more prevalent topics I would like to talk about. So the first topic I would like to talk about is censorship. So currently I'm a YMCA camp counselor, and I have actually had to have more talks about censorship this summer than I would have thought. So

151I work with seven-year-olds primarily, and the censorship... talks we have with them are quite different than the censorship talks we have right here. So with them, they don't necessarily know how to use vulgar words and words that are brought up in these books. And I think that it is fair to not allow them to use those words in camp because they might use them in wrong settings and those words can hurt people, especially at camp. But... I would like to juxtapose the words we use in an AP literature classroom. These are students who are just on the cusp of adulthood, and we use these words very well in our discussions in class. We are very mature about what we discuss, and like my classmates have said, our discussions are handled really thoroughly. The last thing

152I would like to talk about is what literature has enabled us as readers to experience, and that is empathy. I believe that reading The Handmaid's Tale and The Kite Runner have both led me to experience empathy in the characters. They do not make me feel necessarily disgusted or disturbed by the talks that, or the... the things that are written in the book, but they lead me to understand and experience what happens to those that are less fortunate and what other difficulties they experience in their lives. So that is all I would like to talk to you guys today. And I would like you guys to think about how empathy challenges us as readers and as people to vote. Thank you. Thank you, Mira. And finally we have one more request to speak Catherine Ryan a

153resident of the district censorship of AP lit texts Good evening. My name is Catherine Ryan. I am the English department chair and an instructional coach at Brookfield East So one of the most rewarding elements of my coaching role is serving as a resource for teachers when they hold student-led discussions in their classes. So whether it's a Socratic seminar, philosophical chairs, or a Four Corners debate, I have always left those discussions feeling so proud of our students and hopeful for our collective future. For it is during these engagements that students years of training around academic inquiry evidence-based argumentation critical thinking and respectful disagreement are on full display Through their use of engaging texts stimulating prompts and clear expectations our teachers have become master facilitators of dialogue where student thinking and student leadership has the spotlight While

154the public speaking component may not be every student's cup of tea, I routinely observe all students coming thoroughly prepared to engage in discussion. Their questions are well-formulated, evidence neatly tagged. Our students naturally make space for all students to speak up and have their voices heard. They ask if anyone else has something to add before moving on to a new topic. They build naturally on one another's ideas. They comfortably and confidently share new perspectives. They respectfully disagree with their peers and challenge one another's thinking. I have had the honor of observing a number of student-led discussions in the AP Literature class at Brookfield East, and as an observer, I have seen students walk across the aisle, both literally and figuratively, when they want to acknowledge a point well made during a debate. I have observed students

155democratically selecting which topics would most engage them in conversation on any given day. I have listened as students make unique personal connections to the literature that deepen their classmates' understanding of the text as well. It is truly magical. The magic, though, does not happen naturally. It is because of teachers like Kate Woodson at East who creates a classroom community where students feel safe enough to engage and express their thoughts with one another and challenge each other. So censoring these highly engaging and thematically rich and relevant texts would, I am certain, remove some of the magic from this senior elective. and it would diminish students' opportunity to hone the skills of respectful discourse that we so need our next generation of adults and leaders to demonstrate. Thank you. Thank you, Catherine. Well, thank you all for

156your comments this evening and for our lively discussion at the board table. We're going to move along. We're running about 40 minutes behind in our agenda, so we'll see if we can make up some time. The next item is AP Government Primary Resource Renewal. Lisa. Yes, so the background of this for discussion tonight, our current AP government and politics course has a primary resource that was approved during the last renewal cycle, and we have learned over the past year that it is... going to be discontinued by our vendor due to a new a newer version so we went through meeting the subject area committee we went through the process that's listed in the agenda item to determine that we would like to move to the updated version so we would move from the fifth edition

157of the textbook to the seventh edition of the textbook to support our ap government and politics when our subject area committee looked at the newer version they they characterized the changes as minor the order of the chapters had changed to better align to the updated AP framework they had added some additional assessment practice for our students to be more successful on that new AP framework they updated some of the charts the graphs and so forth and then the content was updated based on the passage of the time when the fifth edition was released versus this edition so our subject area committee would like to continue using it and moving it to the newer seventh edition and just to note that this is typical of more college level textbooks that they update their versions a lot

158more frequently than what we might see in our regular curriculum So this is open for a discussion topic tonight. The budget would be, the quote is linked, the budget would be about $22,674 to move to the updated edition, and that's on par with what we typically pay. Thank you. Comments, questions? I'd be interested in the TLC's. Thoughts and opinions, Kathy, can you summarize? So this was unplanned renewal because the publisher decided to update and whatnot. So the content wise not changing, I don't think our curriculum is changing because it's just a version, what do you call it, edition. Based on the same book, just older edition, we had to change it because the publisher basically saying they're not renewing and they came out with the newer edition and because it's a college right AP government

159so in the college level they change more as we know like college textbook changes every year with minimal changes so we didn't see any concerns at TLC so it's more of a purchase of the newer edition And curriculum is not changing because it's basically the same Thank you much any questions or discussion on this topic Have the people from TLC had the opportunity to like review the changes Yeah, I mean it's a book and then online so it's not They added more to it to make it more current I don't know honestly it's the order of change like order the table of content I don't I didn't see because if they change Significantly our curriculum would change because they would you compare it to our UBD and things like that So again, it's just a

160just new edition of the same book So is it just the text or are there other materials that they're updating? It's just a text that we're updating and then in the in the board doc there is a correlation guide so you can see everything that is included in that resource so they're not charging us anymore for doing this because we're buying oh we're in the cycle three right but but we're at the end of the they're discontinuing it so we have to we have to buy it buy something to support it yeah i got it so so my question is a lot of times we have contracts with publishers so is this the end of our publishing contract? yeah we would have been expired yeah because we that's how we came across it because we

161were going to renew it and then we realized that they were no longer going to give us the fifth edition so it was we were updating it because it was expired and then they said we can't give you the fifth edition anymore so how is this affecting or are you going to get into that next week how is it affecting the amount is it the same that we Yeah, it's on the $22,000 that's listed in the budget. That's on par of what we would have wanted to pay. That's what we would typically pay. So they didn't have a significant pay increase with this new addition, blah, blah, blah? No. Okay, thank you. All right, thank you very much. So let's move on to item 5C. Sure, these are legislative priorities, which we have used this

162strategy for well over a decade. It's presented in a checklist after a suggestion from former state senator Dale Clinga who recommended that we give him a checklist of things that we wanted to see accomplished Legislatively and so there are really three buckets that we present the checklist in one is funding the others operations and the third is Accountability in the funding bucket the first two are carryovers from the last couple years And the third one is a new one. In the operations bucket, the first four are not new. They are simply carryovers. The directory information one is new. We're asking for a legislative fix and protection of directory information such as addresses, telephone numbers, emails, because under public records requests, those would be unprotected. In the accountability one, there's nothing new. We're simply asking for

163increased transparency on performance and funding. You may recall that we issued, during our budget hearing, we issued an update on the property tax impact of the voucher charter. In 2015-2016, that was a $17,000 impact in our district. Last year that we accounted for it was $22,000-$23,000. It was $1.3 million tax impact. So we're just asking for increased transparency on that perspective as well. This did go through CLE committee. I'm looking at Linda for anything that I missed. With that, I'd open it up for any questions or comments that folks may have. With the timeliness of hey give us a heads up right increase like what was it like was it more like hey FYI next week next month and do we have specific window as to what we would like because I know sometimes information

164is not they don't know when they're getting it but also I know part of it is controlled As Jacob can attest to legislative perspective can take days it can take years in the case of some of this accountability this has been a long play for well over a decade of trying to increase the accountability for folks that receive taxpayer funding for schools voucher charter public schools the request is to have everybody on the same playing field so if we have to do a district report card then should anybody who receives taxpayer funding have to do a district report card those kinds of things it can be a really short play it can be a really long play at times Any other comments or questions on legislative priorities? Appreciate that. Once it's approved, we'll get it

165to you. Yeah. Next meeting, we'll talk about it some more. I appreciate that the effort is made, that we follow in the invitation of former Senator Coinga to help them understand what our priorities are so that as... Laws are being proposed. They will pick up the phone and dial dr Hansen to say here's what we're thinking Are there any intern? Unintended consequences and there's some opportunity for dialogue that starts with this kind of a document. So appreciate CLE pulling this through and Setting us up for at least a trajectory of success the timing as you said we've been looking at school start date since I've been on the board and it's time that we have the opportunity to have some local control so thank you all for the development of it and bringing it through

166and can we keep going retiree hiring you had the conversation with them i was just wondering if it looks optimistic or like a long shot i think the scarcity of educators is going to have to increase we're going to have to have fewer of them before that law changes right now there does not seem to be interest in making exceptions to that yet okay so we're just gonna have to get worse we're seed planting at this point that might take several years thank you There's nothing else let's move along to agenda item 5d which is the draft resolution for the WSB Conference Delegate Assembly in January coming up So another opportunity to communicate priorities to legislators is through the WASB the Wisconsin Association of School Boards we have the opportunity like all school districts do

167to present resolution drafts for the whole body to consider at its January convention we have not typically engaged in the front end of that process in recent years but I think process improvement standard perspective we Brought the conversation of do we want to consider any resolutions to CLE and then work through the resolution? That's in board Doc's tonight a Similar resolution was considered by a state legislature This past year did not make it all the way to the finish line But I think there was support from the committee members about issuing our support for it and again just to increase flexibility for teacher pathways teacher licensure pathways and in this case Our language in here says paraprofessionals. We would typically say teaching assistants, I think, in our system. I feel like paraprofessional may be the

168more generic term that other districts use, so not to get confused with how we classify paraprofessionals. But I think the broad point will be understood by most school districts then. So that's the proposal. The board can consider... Supporting this or not. I think we have to submit it sometime in September Christie's really the expert here. I'm just speaking on her behalf and and so we would need approval by August if if we want to submit a resolution and I Think that's it Yeah, thank you Chris so The premise behind this too is that, just adding a little bit more to that, is the incredible staff and teachers we currently have and the paraprofessionals that the theory behind this is that This would not necessarily follow that paraprofessional or you know to become a teacher to

169different schools It would only be really applicable to us. So each school district would be able to to set that standard or criteria So that's what was presented at the last Legislator so like with our awesome teachers and staff if we identified a paraprofessional that's you know achieved X criteria that we've established we could allow them to then teach a class if as long as they've you know whatever criteria that we create so there's a lot of power behind that for us and it can also make a really big difference in just giving us more opportunities or more more more people to choose from or more teachers to choose from to teach classes so I think this is a really good thing that we should really be getting behind on for our current staff and

170teachers and the eventual paraprofessionals Are you saying that this would not apply outside of Elmbrook or that this would be something we would look to all districts across the state to model and it would be specific within their district and within ours or is this an Elmbrook thing? Dr. Anson might be able to add to that. From my perspective of listening to the bill. the Capitol it was it would be unique it would be each school district would then decide and yes there there could be criteria where they could not take that license to a different district was that about right There's a couple different versions of it and one of them includes it not being portable and another one includes it being portable we would probably side on the not portable because our local

171standards may not match somebody else's yes they might be higher they might be lower you never know Is that worth identifying if we're going to put this into a legislative agenda? Are you talking about like the provisional license for somebody that would be transportable? That could be a pathway, right. Yeah. So DPI has a number of different procedures that are in place already. It might be augmenting some of that. It might be building a whole new pathway. We'll let the resolution and the folks at WASB figure out what's going to be best to leverage. Great. I have a comment about how it's worded that I have a question. If you look at... Down in 2025 to 7 one of these priorities includes the teacher pipeline Designing and implement sound public policy that helps develop attract

172retains Such as open enrollment exemptions for district staff Including but not limited to pay raises student teacher stipends. I don't understand the open enrollment exemptions is in the leading part of it and instead of being one of the laundry list of possibilities is there some reason that one's isolated out in the beginning and then not included as part of the long list of options that staff would have it would seem to me we would say that we would move that open enrollment exemptions for district staff after including but not limited to pay raises, teacher-student stipends, open enrollment exemptions, scholarships and grants. Do you know what I'm saying? It kind of reads, I think. So for your consideration as we look at it again next month. I sent you an email about this earlier this week,

173or in the last couple days, I should say. Other comments? Yes, Mary. District staff. Can you elaborate on what they talked about there? So over the years we've heard from staff that do not live in our school district they would like to be able to send their children here but because we are closed to open enrollment we do not want to jeopardize our denial of open enrollment because we deny hundreds of students to open enroll to us we would need a carve out from state statute we've worked with Senator Hutton and others and we just have not found the sweet spot yet but that could be a retention strategy and attraction strategy if you were able to say you can even bring your kids here if you wanted to Do you have any idea what

174numbers today would look like if we flipped the switch? 20, 25 maybe, but I could be way off. Thank you to the committee for crafting this it'll be our first attempt to bring a resolution forward to the Delegate Assembly at the WASBE conference in January and you might know that WASBE has a entire policy manual that has I don't know if hundreds is right but a lot of resolutions that help guide their lobbying process to say these are the kinds of things we will work on on behalf of school districts so it's it's a precursor to something getting into the legislative process but it's but it's a start so thank you all and if there's no other comments let's move on to the budget hearing and annual meeting notice agenda and location and that would

175be my item As you know we have an annual meeting that is scheduled every year by state statute requirements In the prior year we set the date so this year's date of September 23rd was set at last year's annual meeting The proposed agenda is attached to this item as well as the legal notice which will be posted Agenda is up for discussion this evening if there's this is very typical of our past agendas in fact is probably a copy-paste from prior years as items that we have considered and are voted on by those electorate that are present as advisory to board decisions as we make these decisions going forward so any comments or concerns about the annual meeting agenda and budget hearing agenda If not then let's move on to the first reading of the

1761000 policy series Linda and then we have a request to speak before board discussion so if you want to present what it is you'd like to the board to know and then we will ask Jackie back to the podium and hear from her and then we'll commence board discussion because this was the first review of the social media policy 1114 that was formed in 2020 there are many changes to reflect current practice new social media tools capabilities and develop district knowledge of how this policy works additionally it's recommended that the practice statement 1114.2 titled social media employee and board member use be rescinded with partial content distributed to the practice statement 1114.1 and practice statement 9682 grouping board member use with the board electronic messaging policy 9682 and practice statement better organizes the content and

177the guidelines for the board members the key changes to social media policy 1114 include Throughout, there are several deletions of unnecessary statements. Section 3, the reference to practice statement for account approval guidelines, rather than restating the guidelines right in the policy. And Section 5.C, more flexibility to use social media to engage public if desired. That was for the social media policy. Now... to the social media practice statement 1114.1 section 1b stated preferred practice of using district email accounts to create social media accounts section 1.e training requirements of students with social social media access section 2 including guidelines for purposeful use states use as optional for all students restricts any student district media use with the intent to engage elementary or middle school students section 3c removes the content related to booster clubs and parent organizations

178that the district did not have any control over and it also references sponsorship and advertising policy for guidance section 4 ABC reflects current audit practices and it clarifies monitoring responsibilities section 5a slash b and 6a through f added content from the former practice statement 1114.2 regarding the employee use and the personal use are there any questions or discussion on that particular policy That's fine Take what you need take what you need This is gonna be really quick again. I'm Jackie three kids in the district. I'll be here forever Um, but as far as the social media policy I prefer the district try not to engage my children on social media me and parents in our my network We try to have kids just meet together socialize do all that kind of stuff as a parent

179I want communication coming from me from the district and that's that's basically it I and then just one thing I'm just under the impression that public schools are here to support education such as reading writing and arithmetic let's focus on teaching our children in these areas excuse me and leave the moral and social learning and guidance to our parents caregivers thanks So just a couple things first I I don't know if we missed it or what but I and that practice statement one one four point two the The very, yeah, part 1B, it says when possible, district email addresses should be used to manage administration. That should have been scratched and I believe said district email addresses should be used. Mainly because if it's going to be a district social media site, then it should

180be a district email for access and for security. Should that person leave, we'll have access to get to that account and just for a record. So that should be, I'll make that proposal next month just to make that amendment on that. Help me know where you are. I'm sorry. Practice statement, section one, part letter B. 1114.1? Yeah, 1114.1. B. district email addresses should be used to manage that's what it should say just for the backup and security because right now it says when possible we should strike when possible and just put district email address that should be used and you would change that to what I just get rid of when possible I couldn't think of any I mean I I can change my email address on any social media site I have access to

181I would imagine so I'll check with Chris again on that but I think that that's if you'll check that and verify then we can and make that adjustment before it comes back next month okay okay and then the the other big section that Linda was talking about was under 1114 the practice statement as well section 2 If you look at that section there, there's basically a carve out that says, because, and if you look at section A, the very last sentence, it says, because middle school students often bridge the age requirements of various social media platforms, social media use for the engagement of elementary and middle school students is prohibited. So we added that in there. I thought that was safe. But the more I've thought about it, the more I've altered my opinion on

182that a little bit. And this is where I'm at. And I just want to share it with you. I think initially I thought we should follow the policy for what the social media platforms, which mostly prevent children under 14 from using their platforms. For instance, TikTok, Instagram, and Facebook, etc. Not that kids use Facebook anymore, but nonetheless. We included that carve out to remove the engagement of social media with our middle school students. In my research, I began to find information that was alarming and concerning, and that we as board members should be aware of when it comes time to make this decision. For instance, Just a few weeks ago, New York City issued, now it's been a few months, but New York City issued a lawsuit against five major social media platforms, alleging the

183companies behind them are responsible for fueling a youth mental health crisis across the United States. In that suit, it states, quote, borrowing heavily from the behavioral and neurobiological techniques used in slot machines and exploited by the cigarette industry, the defendants deliberately embedded in their platforms an array of design features aimed at maximizing youth engagement to drive advertising revenue. And then I came across this article. And I'm happy to share that with you if you are interested. It's November 2020. Lori Schott, the mom of Anna Lee Schott, received a life-altering phone call. Her daughter took her own life on the family farm in Colorado. Confused and reeling with the pain, Lori and her family went through the grieving process and confusion as to why this happened. After 18 months, Lori accessed her deceased daughter's TikTok page.

184She discovered that her daughter watched a live streamed suicide on TikTok. TikTok took over her brain and her daughter's feeds were filled with anxiety, depression, and you have no future text. The U.S. Surgeon General, Dr. Vivek Murthy, wants to add a warning to social media sites just like cigarettes. The founder of Twitter, Jack Dorsey, warns social media algorithms are draining people of their free will. Our most vulnerable children need us to protect them and do nothing to encourage them to be on social media platforms that are draining them of their free will. I think as a school board and as a district, even though it might... be different than what we've done is we should eliminate all social media interaction with our students and not be not do anything at all to perpetuate that I

185know we can't stop them from using it of course that's a parent's decision to do that at their home but as a district I think we should be free of that that encouragement of using something that is not not beneficial and has a lot of a lot more downside than upside And I just as a district would never ever want to be receiving that phone call of a kid that was bullied or mistreated because it was a funnel through what they saw on one of our district sponsored websites that were really appealing towards the kids. I'm not saying remove social media for the district. I'm saying only on the area where it's geared for directly to the students on social media. We have a duty and obligation to foster and facilitate the education of the

186children and the district and do no harm to them. So next month I will make that simple modification to the practice statement to state that the district will not support or encourage the use of social media to the children of the district. So Sam are you recommending that this go back to committee? I would just say in that I would just strike that one paragraph section two. or I would just rewrite it with a simple statement that the district will not support or encourage use of social media to the children of the district I don't think it has to go back to committee I think we could just make that as an amendment next month Policy has extensive references to how we're going to use social media Yeah and that's the only spot on there

187that talks about that for the children is that section two so that would just be a simple amendment to section two striking a b and c and stating that one sentence So similar to what we did tonight that was real simple but even simpler than the outcome with the right languaging I'm looking at the policy for example district employees should obtain written approval of their departments prior to establishing a district sponsored social media site is one of the statements district sponsored site shall be established using applications that have been approved there's a lot in the policy that if you're not That's for employees the only spot it talks about the children is in section 2 of the practice statement guidelines for district use of district sponsored social media sites for student engagement Right but if

188you're going to not allow the kids to access the sites then why would we have a policy that allows our professionals to develop those sites Because those sites are for parents it's for updates to people all across I'm on LinkedIn I see all the updates of what's happening for for the district on that social media site I'm not on Instagram but I would imagine all that else The majority of the guidelines are for staff to guide their engagement with students. It's not targeted towards parents. Not targeted towards parents? Towards parents. I mean, the majority of this policy and the guidelines that are in there, including their approval, monitoring, all of that is guiding adult to student interaction. So I would suggest it goes back to committee as well. That's a more significant and the minimum

189age for a lot of those applications is 13 Based on what Chris just said maybe number two in the big bold black print up there it should say guidelines for adult to student use of district sponsored social media sites I think we're gonna take this have you take it back to committee rather than trying to wordsmith it because it's going to be an extensive I mean it'll it's a big decision to say we're not doing any staff student social media interaction that will need to be reflected in policy and the practice statement I'm not following that but I mean I read this a couple times and I and I see what Chris was saying but I don't see it seems like most of this is geared towards social media sites and then with that one

190section excluding that so I would vote not to take it back to committee I would vote to just push this through next month but I think the sooner we act on that in my opinion the better for our students Is this like an octopus a little bit are there gonna be other policies in other areas that are touched by this in terms of community relations and I'm just I I probably concur but it should go back to committee just to look at how pervasive that it's not just this one change but this one change may generate more changes in policies that we're not really thinking about right now because it's It's a pretty sweeping change not no right or wrong on it we have to talk about it but I think there may be more

191layers to this that we haven't considered yet and we should know all of that before we move I agree that it's a pretty significant change what you're proposing Sam so if that is what you're proposing then a discussion should be had back in committee so I would also move to take that back to committee if that's something you'd like to consider I remember working on this policy two years ago, but I think the clarification I think Chris we talked about was we wanted to make sure that when this So this is obviously during 9th well school hours obviously and we wanted to make sure that students weren't being like joining their personal account with teachers outside the whole minor to adult and then we wanted to make sure that that we were using strictly our

192approved email not using so like Kathy Lynn my Gmail like I wouldn't be using it as a teacher to I don't know some activities engagement and social media for whatever we're doing so the conversation we want to make sure it's strictly district you know just to keep it clean that we're not in our mingling our personal email to our work so that was a separation that's how I read it but if there is something significant I think if you want to go back I think it should who's are you the chair Linda then maybe it would just go back and have a discussion on that I would propose because I personally don't want to keep policy wise don't want to bring it here and then kind of change it mean unless we vote on it

193I know the board can override the committee work because it's majority that that has happened but I think any amendments then I I personally would like to recommend take it back to the committee you guys willing to take it back or should we have a motion about it or what's we can do if you're willing to um that's fine if i guess not if you bring it next month and we'll deal with it again we can yeah well linda's the chair would you be willing to let us take it back to committee well if we go back to committee and i'm looking at the purpose statement of 1114 that would have to substantively change yeah i mean what would have to the purpose statement of 1114 policy right a policy sorry 11 14. Start over

194again or what? Well, we have to decide whether we still believe that's the purpose Yeah, I think it all relates to if if Sam's proposal is to eliminate social media access across all levels Then the policy flows from that and the practice statement falls from that as well So we take a look at what you're thinking at the next board meeting or you know after the committee has crafted it and come back to the board for for another discussion probably discussion action sequence I would expect because it would be really I think it's major changes you disagree I know but see what you think in committee if you want to do it all right Do you want it to go back to committee I think it needs to I mean again if you look at

195the purpose of this I think if we are to entertain as Sam is considering removing access or use of social media to engage students throughout our district this entire policy will need to be overworked it's not a very simple strikeout so I do think it would need to go back for some significant work even the purpose itself doesn't work anymore for that high school so I don't see Then what is the purpose then I mean if you're gonna add that then tell me how that purpose works It's not a major rewrite but I hear your point I hear I understand I don't consider it a major rewrite it's it's that one section that refers to students it's all covered right there but you know you're as the chair can decide and that's up to you

196guys I'm just telling you my thoughts Sam if if I read this it says effective communication is a vital aspect to ensure staff, students, family, and community are engaged. The purpose of this is about engaging students. So if we're talking about eliminating that purpose, we really have to go through the entire policy to determine that. It's not just a simple strike out of a line. Perhaps, I mean, if you read through each of those things, they really all apply to students as well. I think we'd also, I didn't mean to interrupt you. think we'd also have to take a look at usage at the high school level and find out who is affected and where we stand on that because it seems to me there are a lot of athletic teams use social media clubs

197that use social media to communicate with students and that that would change the way they do business it's not just the committee it's do other people feel that that's necessary to take it back to committee or are they willing to agree to that one change I think consensus I see what you're saying but again I think you do need to understand what does that mean if we include all age level what does that mean day to day I mean maybe it makes sense but I think If we put middle school we add in middle school so if Chris I assume you know yes this we do this in middle school it will not impact XYZ if we add high school what does that mean right there's the academic portion there's the athlete portion and whatever

198else It may add it may not change the purpose but I think to your point I think we do have to do because we don't want to add and then realize we hamstring them something without understanding what that is so it wouldn't hurt I think just to dot your i's and do your leg work a little bit about understanding usage and how much academic usage is there today and how much extracurricular usage is there today and what will be the if that's not the way we're going to do it going forward what's the plan how will the communication take place so thank you for taking that back and we will move on to oh wait do we have another policy here besides custody and access of official school records Retention and access statement 1340 retention

199and access to public records reflects the current practice and updates the language to be more clear and concise while also broadening the retention portion and changing the title that's all that was done on that one Any questions or concerns on this one let's move to the first reading in the 5000 series Cathy i don't think i could read anymore okay here we go so this well you could move to defer to the next meeting no this is no we'll not defer third time no this will have to go again okay it's pretty simple and i know uh lisa and emily you're here so i will we'll punt okay so practice statement 5124 reporting to parents This basically is, it's a discussion we've had in TLC, I think since last October or November, regarding our grading

200scale. And I know there's attachments that was presented. And it came to us, I think in TLC it was agendized four or five times. We just discussed informational. Lisa did a lot of work on looking at our districts around us how they have moved uh forward with the grading system and then so the proposal that we're bringing with the reporting to parents is a lot of the edits are to reflect the two ways so there's the integer part which is one two three four and then the percentage range the recommendation that the the tlc committee has approved is to instead of seven point scale to go to ten point scale because in reality our our students uh when they get 91 it's a b and instead of a 4.0 like the most of their peers

201across they are competing for the same next level they come out with 3.5 versus 4.0 they lose out on their opportunity in my opinion to get to the school of their dreams or a possible scholarship opportunity so when you have a let me see here when you have a 80 like the 91's a B you know 80 it used to be 85 84 was a C and our kids are really coming out with to me at a disadvantage and competing for the next level for a multi-level so a lot of the words that are inserted are that from the TLC and the board we wanted to make and sometimes people do things for right reasons and I don't think it happens a lot but there are a lot of stories from students here like oh

202we'll take that teacher and we'll drop this teacher and I don't think it's anyone's fault I think every teacher we all want our kids to be successful but when we kind of curve and we kind of manipulate the system a bit for good reasons I don't think anyone's doing it for bad reasons we just want to make sure that as an organization of learning that we stay this is the bar we measure our kids and our success teachers and as a district that we are consistent we're accurate purposeful and meaningful in our grading and that we're not just giving doing a lot of extra brownie points um just so that kids could get a higher grade so those are some of the words that were added um and i know lisa you have also said

203that It's not an expectation of the district or administration that there will be a bell curve and things like that to grade kids. Our curriculums are excellent. Our teachers teach. We just want to make sure that we set our students up to compete with their peers outside this district for the next level. So those are the reasons and the rationales why this is coming forward. And I don't know if you have any questions for me or Lisa. this policy I noticed was at the grading scale which is the PowerPoint 3 there's like a seven point range seven point they're all seven point seven point seven point but then when you get to the D to make it seven point it would be 69 and below 69 You're looking at the presentation right the grading scale

204that's PowerPoint 3 you go to the actual edit of the policy it's in there with a strikethrough at the bottom so where is it a bottom slide or what yeah Christy has them up what slide number is that Actual policy I'm just going through the policy the links to the presentation that's been shared in TLC and been out there so I didn't really want Lisa to be present particularly for time purpose but everything that we're proposing is in that policy so me or Lisa can take any questions you may have Thank you. So yeah, this went through TLC. And when Kathy first brought this up and the team brought this up, I was like, yeah, it makes perfect logical sense. And I think we should definitely do that. I have heard some feedback from the

205community and even just myself thinking through this. What will this do long term to Humbrook? And I just want to be very aware of that. And so I struggle with that change right now. And we like to hold our students through the incredible teachers. administration to a higher standard and at the same time make sure they have the same opportunity as students at other schools and the concern is by lowering that will we then lower the students' Drive to do to do better and to perform and to continue to push for higher standards So I think that was probably the premise of why this seven-point scale was originally implemented and and it still used at other schools as well So I'm I'm kind of torn. I'm on the fence right now how I feel about

206it, but I just I would I wish we knew, you know, is this going to lower our standards and lower the quality, or is this going to, you know, maintain our same standards and then at the same time, you know, give the kids opportunities that weren't open to them before. So, you know, I'd love for the community to continue to share their thoughts on that as well. And, you know, if there were some study that would show that that change could be detrimental, but I don't know if that exists. Probably not, or Emily would have given it to us. If you're looking for a little student perspective you may want to go back to the April student representative reports where they were asked about the grading scale and they had some I know many of

207you were taking notes it was pretty interesting insight from a student lens as to how they view grading that might be worth some time to watch again April board meeting student representative reports I think when it comes to competing for scholarships all around not all the scholarships are local so there's a lot of out of local scholarships that kids get they're also competing for you know admittance into certain colleges and when our standards are higher their gpa is is skewed because they're not on the same grading scale as many of our cohorts so it in most of the districts that I've been in this has been the grading scale I think it would encourage kids because they know they got an A now instead of a B so they like you know their own self-perception

208as well hey you know wow I got a B not a C because I missed B by three points so Self-perception is like I'm a C student You know it's like and I think I can go to college versus and if that happens consistently Their GPA is going to be affected in their admittance and to certain universities It's going to give them you know a kick up as far as I'm concerned So I think it would only encourage kids to continue to work hard and I suppose when you're talking about closing the achievement gap some students who may maybe not quite as have quite the aptitude or whatever it probably would make them You know feel better about you know that they're not the F student that they're this you know, it sounds silly but

209you know when you're stuck in a rut and you think you're a failure then you Start performing like a failure and you give up. So I think it has a lot of It's tied into the social emotional perspective of students. So I only see it as a plus So I've heard that a lot and grading why we why would the standards go lower? And we are compressing our kids. So on this note, I have argued. because this impacts the junior high as well. You have kids who, among other districts, they're like 92 and 91 and they are B students. They're B students in this district. Doesn't mean they're not learning. That is the concept I don't understand. Why would our standard be lower? And then going back to the high school report, I mean, they're

210sampling student council members. They didn't sample all high school and So at the end of the day, we have a lot of opinions about viewpoints from perspective from students, teachers, staff, community. But as a board, we have to make sure our kids are set up for success. There isn't a, again, I'm just making a general statement. I am not saying our teachers are doing it. Great manipulation. There are brownie points that happen so that kids could earn these extra points. Learning doesn't change, standard doesn't change, our UBD doesn't change. But we're setting our kids up. So you have kids who graduate with 3.2, 3.0 in our district. Other kids, other district, they're 3.5, 3.6. What does that mean for as we as a district that we push for college, we push for next level. It

211has a lot to do with self image. I don't think we're lowering standard by saying ten point grade. But again, at the same time, we have things like regular chemistry. If you're taking regular chemistry or honors class, however, the grading scale should be the same. They pass in Mr. Hughes' class. with 64 with a B but in Mrs. Lim's class they're a D it's reality it happens and why does it happen and we really have to make sure is that really truly learning because number is grading is always objective right it's just a point in time where that student is learning for that topic I think consistency as a district having accurately measure with reality and realistic expectation of our kids. And we're compressing our kids right now at D, 70 to 76 is a

212D. And after certain classes, you don't get credit for those. You have to retake those classes. So I don't know what we're messaging. I think we need to look at, it's a high, so it's our standard versus are we setting our kids up for success? Now I think you could say are we lowering our standard if we say, hey, let's make 85 an A. or 80 or 80 but I think adults really need to look at and I believe Lisa for college entry it's all leveled at four correct for GPA and again our kids to me come out at a disadvantage with our grading point system I think what you're asking for college admissions, it's really up to the college, but many of the colleges will deflate a weighted grade so that it's trying to

213compare apples to apples, even though they have expressed it's very difficult to do that because as we found through our analysis, there are so many different grading scales, and many districts like ours have multiple grading scales. So I think we're okay doing integer which translates into this percentage so they could do integer and then between that they translate so I hear the concerns I do believe this is you know doing right by our students and my it's my conviction to do so set our kids up for success and why do our kids have to go through eight steps to get the same grade as other kids who go through six that are we just pushing them harder is that a higher standard I don't think so I'm interested in your comments about different teachers grading

214differently and that to me would be work on fidelity to our current model versus switching off the model to do something else because you couldn't guarantee that fidelity to the new approach unless you had some method to do that and I'm thinking that We're gonna rescale our approach so that if I have a 92 today and I just missed that a I'm That's not a work. So I'm still gonna get a B If it's 89 or whatever I'm gonna get assigned it would seem you'd have to rescale everything otherwise you're just pushing more kids into the a grouping and you're inflating you're basically inflating grades then unless you're going to monitor in the past our a range of student grades has been like this and you'd see what's relative frequencies you'd have at each level

215so you'd know we're not just inflating our grades I don't think it's inflating grade we're setting the bar for them to compete against their peers outside this district to the next level So today if a 92 is not an A tomorrow it would be even though it's B work today and in the eyes of the teacher it's B work It's the eyes of the Elmbrook School Board who set that yes it's a board policy Okay, but teachers would assign grades based on this performing to what my expectations are and right so so our current situation says 93 to 100 this 92 didn't make the a cutoff would it next week when we put this in place Or are we going to rescale to say that's not an eight. That's not a work. So it probably

216ends up at an 89 You know where I'm coming from on that Or do we not rescale I'm understanding other places who put from seven point to ten point scales they did significant teacher training to recalibrate But if they're teaching so let's say this resets tomorrow it's not gonna reset tomorrow when it passes it's going to be a year of work to go through how to recalibrate and make sure you know it's because it's because it has to start somewhere right some school year it's never gonna be clean for six years of our seven years of school but if you're teaching today I'm giving you this exam today it's the same test teachers are not teaching it they get 91 that's an A why would we now make that into something different you're not changing

217the curriculum our standards the same we're teaching what we're teaching so I guess I'm not understanding why teachers would say okay now that it changed I am gonna further downgrade you then you're you are again doing the bell curve to the new grading scale that's the whole point they shouldn't be so flexing teachers are teaching we assume teachers are teaching and whatever they reflect is reflect but 91 in our district is a B 92 is a B So compared to their peers across other districts competing for college X, college B, our kids are a half point disadvantage so kids who could graduate with 3.0, 3.2 in our district graduate with 2.8 so it's just number I don't think standard changes I don't think teachers should be calibrating them down that's B worth work because the

218curriculum and exam will Still be the same and kids will do what they do and teachers will still teach what they will teach I suppose in the circumstance of a you know you have a hundred points on a test and if you get 90 of those points you get an A but when you're grading a paper and it's more subjective then if this is an A work it isn't A work tomorrow either do you know what I'm saying and how do you Start thinking differently way of grading a paper I don't think so I'm just thinking that some recalibration needs to take place otherwise we're just pushing more kids up to get A's essentially or B's everybody's moving up because of what they're doing today we're not By this point yes kids who have 91

21992 their GPA let's say they start fresh they will not be getting a 3.5 it'll be a 4 Another way of looking at it is the student who is the A student is not getting the A because if they would be sitting in a classroom 10 miles away, 5 miles away, whatever, they would be an A student. But here they're a B student. So I don't think anything changes other than they are put on the same level when they are competing for scholarships and GPA. And, like, the difference of those points add up on their transcript in the long run. So and and in light of what was said today that the top it could make a difference of who are the top ten students who get to go to the universities to Which means

220that if I was in another district I'm a top ten student here and I get to go and get admitted to the you know the state schools but in Elmbrook, I'm not in the top ten because I it made you know quite a difference i have a point instead of 3.5 or whatever it was i'm a 4.0 or whatever so when it comes to competing which is you know significant um like like kathy said they're still getting the same content they're still getting the same instruction they're just um on more of an even scale with their when we say peers we mean Wisconsin peers. Okay, thanks Mary. I agree with the point you're making and A is an A. If we're either going to make work that is now B level work an A and

221that is grade inflation or our teachers are going to recalibrate their rubrics so that now here are the 10 points between 90 and 100 to get an A as opposed to the seven points. One way or the other. the teachers are going to adjust their grading scale and we're either going to give more A's which means we're inflating grades or we're going to change the rubric by which we measure not every class is going to give a hundred point test English you know I've graded English papers I know an A paper doesn't usually get a number but there are numeric I understand that there are data points that we come to to calculate a metric in what is always going to be a partially subjective environment whether or not that's going to make a student

222here More competitive with a student in the Milwaukee Public Schools with the same a I think is a fallacy Because I'm probably the only person at the table who has actually reviewed undergraduates and graduates and admitted to a university and there are a lot of factors that come into play and our reputation as Elmbrook schools and an A here is a known commodity. I don't think it matters. This is not a hill I'm gonna die on because I don't think it matters that much. I think it'll make a little work for our teachers to adjust the way they grade but An A is an A. I don't know if it makes people feel better or feel like they've got a better shot at a scholarship. Great. I don't think, though, that we should pretend we're

223solving problems that we're not solving. Okay. Sam? Thank you guys for that. Just to add on to what Mary and you said, Gene, as well, the inflation. What helped me understand this better was comparing us as, the analogy is Elmbrook, the number one school district, 70% of our kids have a 4.0 or higher. You compare us to, this is made up numbers, you compare us to the 10th best district in the state and they have 70% of their kids are 4.0 and higher. So you're not inflating it, you're just now taking apples to apples and comparing them. So there should be no changes in the grades and yes you will see an increase in that because it's now when we're comparing ourselves to other districts that are fighting over scholarships and fighting over you know

224placement into colleges we're now giving them the same criteria to line them in and I'm I know I'm sure Mary's right that there's some like people that recognize our book school would would say yeah we'll rate them higher but there are a lot of colleges that probably don't know the quality of Elmbrook schools that our kids are applying to and to leave it on that they're just gonna look at the cold hard facts what is the GPA you know what is your ACT score okay they're in you know so I think that unequivocally I think that we're definitely helping our kids be compared evenly my still question is is it the standards changing but that's that's a different topic so I don't know if that helped So I've looked into this quite a bit over

225the last few months and I think it's important to realize that there are other states that have gone through this. The state of South Carolina in 2016 converted all of its public schools to a 10-point scale. The reasons that they gave were that they wanted to align their public education's grading system with that of most colleges and universities across the country, which are ten point scales. Which eliminates confusion for students in dual credit courses, and it removes the need for higher education systems to convert grade point averages when considering admission. And frankly, it makes the entire system seamless and easier for students and parents to understand. So. I do not think that this converting from a seven point scale to a ten point scale for grading necessarily equates to grade inflation. I do believe that

226it's a process of scaling. As some of the other board members have mentioned, an A work will be, excellent work will be rewarded as excellent work. If it is not quite excellent work, it should be rewarded as that. It will involve scaling how our educators grade. However, I think that the end result is a smoother transition to colleges and universities and the application process is smoother for students and parents for those that are applying to second post-secondary education for those reasons i think that we should consider it I currently am leaning in favor of a ten point scale for those reasons. I do not feel that we can necessarily say it will be grade inflation, but again, because we would have to scale, it would involve some work on the part of our educators. But

227again, given what I see as some advantages, and frankly making the whole process easier for students and parents to understand in that transition. to post-secondary education if that is what one desires. I think that that would be my reason for advocating for a switch to a 10 point scale. I'll just make my comment, we can move on to the next policy. But if you look at the flip side, it's kind of saying we don't want to make sure that at some point adults say, oh, higher achiever, we'll have a higher thing. But you have to understand there's 80% of kids who are the majority of kids in this district. that are compressed by this. Not everybody's top 5%, top 3% kids, and kids that are in the lower 10%, it is what it is. This

228impacts majority of our students. And in these teen years, it has a lot to do with their self-image, their confidence. It does affect that. And I think that if you look at the flip side of it. We're kind of saying our quality of education is not good enough that our kids have to actually be 93 in order to get A. Because you have to get that much higher because our quality is not that great. If you look at it from the flip side of it, that they have to achieve that much higher because our quality of education is not that great. So they need to get a lot more points because then that will equate to some kind of standard that we feel like is we're lowering so as a board as adults we have

229responsibility to make sure that our kids have equal playing field when we are preaching to them to work as hard they do and that they should be able to compete reasonably and this impacts 80 percent of our average students which is core students All right, so it will come back next week. Next week. Next month. Please. Next week. No, no, no, next week. Next month. Next policy is a release of student records and directory. There is a major changes, but one thing I noticed, Chris, is it's an opt-out form attached to practice statement 5125.3. The United States military is still crossed out and I think according to the policy parents because it is required So parents need to bear there a lot of information directory there by default that I shared with certain agencies And

230one of them is military and there's few others. So if you want to opt out This is the form that we should be using but that military They still can opt out but it's still crossed out. So that should be corrected with the release of student record we got rid of some redundancy repetitions and cleaned it up a little bit with that and the practice statement reflects the amended policy so with that i'll take questions and chris We passed on from there sorry we're on student record answers no it's not supposed to now either so Anything on student records Title 9 so Title 9 with the expansion there's a lot going on across the country but our attorney I think he wrote and I think we had a quick call on that and I think

231they did a good job of just kind of laying a basic ground rule because it is required to update for Title IX and where it ends up before and after this time, we'll see how things pan out. But the attorneys did revise the policy and made more specific procedural. steps and I think they did a good job of high levels of editing the nine as it stands today so with that any discussions or questions I probably can't not answer Because it's basically a change to federal law and we need to follow federal law is kind of the bottom line and so this is our attorneys view of how we can do that and be compliant and so it's hard to say Mm-hm, change it, but if you got questions? Yeah, is this a time sensitive

232one too? Because with all the litigation going on right now and that's all been stopped, does that now make it moot? So there's some in different states and state federal courts are doing that. Some are state specific. I know there's some couple that's going up to SCOTUS and then there's some other. I think what did Brian mention about Kansas I think was Kansas that is more on the secondary learning When was your last conversation with them because this is all happened within the last week Yeah, yeah, okay. So I didn't receive any questions from TLC remember I said we're gonna have a conference just to ask question just so that because we couldn't ask questions So we moved it forward per you know attorney purview but there so it's required to be a amended at

233this point effective august 1st and he states that because our board meeting falls second week of august it's not a hard step but sometime around there as long as we adapt now whatever is happening across the country how it's going to affect wisconsin at some point and when it comes to that point we'll address it So if you have any questions on this, please direct it to Scott and Mark. And you could CC me. Yeah, but it did come from TLC, so I am presenting it and just for three of us, your questions. I think, Sam, to your point about the courts, Wisconsin's not been joined on any of those cases yet. Okay. And we do not have a district court ruling that impacts the district court that we belong to. Okay. until that happens

234we just have to get into compliance with the recommendations and if the recommendations change because of a court action then we'll bring the policy back and change it again I wasn't sure if it did but I'm sure you'll clarify that Thank you much let's move on to item H the first reading on 6000 series Kathy So 6-1-1-2 it's a reconfirm I think only thing we were yeah this is just reconfirmation any questions on that Okay, and then there's the practice statement of 6-1-1-2. Same thing. Here, hold on one second. I'll go here. I think only thing we changed on this, we were going to change normal start time to regular start time because normal start time sounded kind of, I don't know, 80s. I don't know. So we were going to change to regular, so

235I don't know who's supposed to change that. That was passed in the TLC. Who's supposed to modify the policy has changed So that should be regular So at the bottom the practice statement 9 1 1 2 school day only thing is just it says normal start end time The practice statement. Yeah, it was gonna change to regular And the rest, any questions on that? No. On 4K. Okay. And then 6142.1, and practice statement and copyright, the 6156, I need my reader, 6163.2, practice statement 6163.2, and then 6177.1, the Children's Internet Protection Act, Internet Safety. It's all reconfirmation. except for minor grammar and spelling changes as you can see in the attachment. Any questions on those? Anybody, anything on the 6,000 series? All right, thank you. We'll see them next month. Appreciate it. Thank you. 9,000

236series, Linda. All right. The first reading of 9,000 policy series, Board of Education. Recommending renaming policy 9682 from... board of education use of electronic communication messaging services two change the title to electronic and written communications there are key changes to the practice statement in 9682 section 2a through h we added social media content from social media practice statement one one one four two related to the board member use to this practice statement. These additions address official posts as district spokesperson, conducting business on social media, reporting of harassing or discriminatory behavior, and records retention requirements. because of the records retention requirements we are adding a reference link to policy 1340 custody of and the access to official school district records are there any comments so this is all coming out of 1114 well yes it's tied

237into the social media practice statement Two things to fix. 1114 isn't referenced here. Can we shorten this to say guidelines for use of social media will comply with policy 1114 and not repeat all the language again? Or is there more in here than just a repetition? If I could clarify for you Mary, the reason that we moved it to this is that we wanted policies that affected the Board of Education to be in the 9000 policy series so we basically teased that out of the previous policy So if 1114 changes that won't necessarily affect this? No I'm just there's no I don't believe so no okay it was really to take anything to do with board members and put that in the 9000 series Thanks Any other comments or questions? There was extensive conversation in

238regards to the board member one should versus are encouraged to How about will? What line are you on? Underneath the practice statement for 9682 again this was just a board members can't be forced to do anything that's by the law right so this is why we put those standards in there is they should do that you know so it wasn't versus encouraged to get it we had a good conversation about that one so that's why we landed on that and you wouldn't consider making it say will well that's the problem it's wishy-washy all the way up to there should keep in mind may be perceived it's not exactly a tough rule Any other comments on this one? Questions? Hearing none we are on to the board president's report and I promise it won't be real

239long I think you'd agree it's common knowledge here at home in the district and frankly across the country that Elmbrook students excel within and outside the classroom we rightfully credit skilled educators motivated students supportive parents and relatively plentiful resources tonight I'd like to take you behind the scenes for a brief look at the infrastructure that supports Elmbrook excellence first the board sets the strategic plan for a great place to learn a great place to work and a great school district board committees propose work to be accomplished each year and the board approves that plan targets are set and the work begins senior leaders set the tone and expectation for excellence followed by ongoing progress monitoring by them and the Board of Education committees each building leader works with school staff to establish a continuous improvement

240plan based on recent achievement data agile methods with 100 day cycles have been implemented to accelerate positive change educators get the training is huge as a component of success in any endeavor Staff receive regular professional development to implement changes that will support student success Professional learning communities at the building level regularly meet to review student achievement data at the department level, which guides changes and interventions in the classroom and with individual students. These PLCs are groups of staff from the same departments, let's say all math teachers, for example, who gather together to review achievement, create plans to address student needs, implement the plans, and evaluate the outcomes. They might also look at gaps from year to year. For example, did the seventh grade student get what they needed in sixth grade as a foundation to

241build those seventh grade skills? As standardized test scores are available at various points during the year, district office teaching and learning leaders gather to evaluate student data, identify areas for improvement, and set teams to work to make it happen. Just after the conclusion of each school year, and this happened a couple weeks ago, right? A two-day IGNITE, which stands for Improvement, Goal Setting, Networking, Insightful, Transformational, Evidence-Based Academy retreat is held to set the stage for continuous improvement. I'd like to give a huge thank you and congratulations to Emily Greiber the teaching and learning team principals and the hosting staff at BC for a wonderful two days and thanks to the over 100 teachers from across the district that contributed to their schools 100 day continuous improvement plan the ingredients are important skilled educators motivated students

242supportive parents and relatively plentiful resources but the infrastructure that provides the necessary inputs and processes for coordination of all this and sustained success along the journey to excellence is equally important kudos to our skilled educators motivated students supportive parents and leaders relentlessly committed to excellence on Elmbrook and all that it takes to achieve it and that concludes my remarks Mark First of all like to congratulate the two new assistant superintendents many of you interacted with one or both of them tonight Many of you have had a chance to meet Ben Prather who will be our assistant superintendent for business services And you heard from Pam Casey tonight. She's our assistant superintendent for human resources so thank you to both of them for joining the team and look forward to watching them continue the great work

243that their predecessors started our largest school is off and running we have three sites for summer school which has our largest summer school enrollment ever in district history at 2,800 students at Brookfield elementary school where our littlest learners are at and Swanson where our elementary age kids are at and then Brookfield Central has some of our upper elementary to high school programming going on. So thank you to everybody involved in that. If you're looking to learn more about the aforementioned Elmbrook Promise, there's a great podcast that features Amy Farley who oversees that programming for us. Very insightful. What is happening in this space is unprecedented right now. The volume of college credits being earned by our kids is really, really stunning. So credit to the board for having the vision to get this up and

244running. Hiring season is in full swing. This keeps us really really busy This is probably hard to see because of the color schemes, but it represents the different job categories on the left and the number of folks that we've hired so far the number to pay most attention to is the total number of hires that we've had so far this summer is 88 with our largest section being our custodians Remember we have a lot of seasonal employees there that help us with buildings and grounds in the summer They help us with cleaning projects and we have a lot of part-time kids this group of kids that Exiting high school is the first group that we started to employ as 15 year olds because we couldn't find cleaners They're now all going to college So we

245have about 20 or so vacancies in the part-time custodial ranks that we need to fill We're gonna fill them with other high school kids because that's what the market has right now. So it's really really visionary of Rick Dunlop and his team to create a space to get kids opportunities in our schools to see the insides and outs of it. Finally, this is late-breaking news. You recognize Jake Zhang. He is a student rep from Brookfield East. He is the national champion in public speaking. national he competed with 12,000 students across the country and he won the whole thing I had a chance to connect with him earlier today and this is what he communicated to me I have to thank the Elmbrook community for this achievement the skills I gained at East and throughout numerous

246opportunities across the district such as serving as a representative to the school board have been instrumental in my success so I thought you would be fascinated to see that in the next slide You can watch one of his more famous presentations. We won't play all of it here, but this is Jake running through one of his updates. And you remember Jake, he sat right next to Kathy. Arms always moving. He was just, right, just awesome to see that he won the national championship. So if you get a chance to connect with Jake, do pass along congratulations. That concludes my report. Are there any questions? I was remiss I blew right past informational items discussion by exception only anybody in need of discussing any of that One quick thing as board clerk July 15th is the

247deadline for July continuing reports there are three people in the room who need to get those reports in and since since the person that knows everything is going to be on vacation on deadline day Earlier would be great but I will be available here on the 15th if you want to drop things off but no need to push the deadline they should be really easy this time There's an extra fee for bringing it Monday huh? You have to bring me a donut All in favor say aye