001Good evening. I'd like to call this meeting to order. The required public notice of this meeting was sent to Community Newspapers Incorporated and Metropolitan Press on October 20th, 2023 and posted on the doors of the district offices. 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 Mushir Hassan, who is in the building and will be with us in a moment. Tonight, we're going to be led in the Pledge of Allegiance by Ella Kelsey. 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.
002Thank you, Ella. May I have a motion to approve the agenda? Second. Thank you. We have a motion and a second. Is there any discussion? Hearing none, all those in favor of approving the agenda as presented, please say aye. Aye. Aye. Any opposed? Thank you. That carries on voice vote. And it brings us to our first agenda item this evening, which is the celebration of excellence. I'm going to welcome Amy Farley and Bob Hall to the podium, where we're going to spend a little time honoring our business honor roll. Dr. Hall, Dr. Farley. Oh, thank you. to recognize some of our business partners. And as you know, we have a lot of different career-based learning opportunities where students can engage with industry and with our business partners. And so tonight I'm here to recognize Bank
0035-9. I have Derek. Baraby, Anya Wilkie, Ariana Bevis from Bank 5-9 here tonight. And here's just a little bit about the work they're doing. It's pretty cool. The team at Bank 5-9, North Avenue, and Capital Drive locations have been a tremendous partner in creating internship opportunities for our students. Students are hired for a full year, part-time internship, and work as tellers while learning about the banking industry. This is through the Wisconsin DWD Youth Apprenticeship Program. students work a minimum of 450 hours in a school year and meet employability and banking competencies on the job derek and anya have created wonderful work culture for our elmberg students fact this is our first year we've had students do this before class of 23 graduate and bank 5-9 intern lily hipshin who is successfully in her freshman year
004in college recommends the opportunities for other students she said Our motto at Bank Five Nine is to make lives better. She said that she thoroughly enjoyed the opportunity to do this in real life, and she's grateful for the youth apprenticeship program and the opportunity to work with Bank Five Nine. As you can see, she was entrenched in the corporate culture, which is all part of work. The other notable thing is she was involved in our launch program. and also is a finance major. So what better way to start your career path than a youth apprenticeship opportunity through Bank 5-9? And so with that, I'd love to welcome the team here and say thank you. Thank you so very much. I'd like to introduce Dr. Hall, who's going to... It must have been a camera angle
005issue. So I'm going to introduce Dr. Bob Hall, who has some more industry partners to recognize. Thank you, Dr. Farley. It's a pleasure to introduce Mr. Jim Leaf, class of 1974 of Brookfield Central High School, believe it or not. Stand up, Jim, so everybody can see you. Thank you, Jim. Had the pleasure to meet Jim a couple years ago. As you know, with launch, it takes a while for... people that run companies to really kind of understand our concept and through that process Jim has not only helped assign some employees to projects that inspire our students at his company but he's also reached out to different school contacts he's reached out to an organization called the IBAW he's given us a platform at a number of industry school functions I think the IBAW four schools
006we are one of those four schools just want to thank Jim not only does he have a passion to see different pathways for kids and to watch them pursue excellence but not only does he have that passion he does something about it and he's supporting our students and supporting our program and just want to thank him for that the second group here is Brittany Kulka and Mark Dreykosin they are from Husko I think when I started this program about eight years ago, I remember Dr. Hansen coming up to me and he goes, hey, Brookfield Central has a really cool alum that you should get to know. His name is Austin Ramirez. Again, another Brookfield Central alum. And through the relationship that... that the school district of Elmbrook and Austin have, we've been able to develop
007a relationship with Husco where they are not only influencing our manufacturing and engineering talent, but also our business students. They give incredible, inspiring problems for our kids to solve, which gets them to see manufacturing automation in totally different ways. As you are aware, this is our first year of our automation robotics and trends and IT strand where we've added that automation component in. Mark has been critical for us to learn more about what's going on in industry. So I really want to take that opportunity to thank Husco. As you know, one of the greatest experiences for our students when they leave our program is that chance to go in front of adults and practice a real live interview. And Husco sends people to help us with that process. We can't do that without industry and
008educators really collaborating. So just want to thank Husco again for their help of launch. Any questions? Comments? Linda. I would like to say that Bank 5-9. had a perk and the reason why I joined the checking and signed up with that bank maybe you'd want to share the promotion that you offer to people when they sign up and they're an Elmbrook person who does a deposit Oh sure absolutely are you talking about the mascot banking we have yeah we have a great program obviously we this is the reason why we partner with schools in Elmbrook and Brookfield it's called mascot banking it's a great way for our students to get a checking account and what we do as a bank, we give back to school and we donate for each student account that we open,
009$150 to a booster club. So $150 go to a booster club and $150 go to a student that opened that checking account. So great opportunity for everyone. It's a win-win. That's awesome. So thank you, Linda. And for people who do direct deposits who are members of the school board. Anybody qualifies for MESCAD banking, even if it's an adult. Anybody who mentions that, obviously, or we offer, it could be an employee of the school or a student, yes. Other questions or comments? Jean and Sam I don't have a question but my comment is to thank you for supporting our students and for each year that we come to you looking for business problems that need to be solved for coming forward with those that our students can manage and learn from it's an incredible experience that
010launch program I've been over there a few times watching students in action and to Instead of needing to sit at a desk in the building and imagine what it's like in an environment like that, you help us make that a reality, all of you that bring these business problems, if you will, forward and are willing to work with our students. So thank you. We deeply appreciate it. Yeah, thank you. It's our pleasure. And I just wanted to mention my intern, Ella, is here as well. So it's great. Thank you again. Sam. Yeah, just thank you for the business owners as a small business owner myself. I understand the sacrifice of Training high school. It's a little bit of a risk for kids coming out not sure what they want not direction Not sure what direction
011they're going and and it's just neat that businesses are taking that risk and investing in them So thank you for that. I appreciate it who's here I would echo what Sam said I want to thank all the business owners for the partnership that you have with our district But mr. Ramirez in particular. I always want to thank you for all the election work you do for education in our whole region with us being at Donnit Aug Prep at their fundraiser, seeing what you're all planning to do in Milwaukee. Our community is better because of all your efforts. Thank you. Linda? For Husco, if I was a student, what would my... experience be I'm not familiar with Husco could you give me a little background and tell me if I'm an intern what am I gonna
012be doing in lunch as a student it's kind of easy to know what a bank teller does but I please give me some insight Sure of course so Husco manufactures a lot of valves and like cylinder deactivation equipment, fluid power control, so a very industrial setting with a lot of highly automated equipment that does high volume assembly. Some of the projects we've worked on include customizing a video work instruction booklet for ourselves. So we have training to share with different employees. We've had a couple groups that have mastered that and share their programs. We've had some rework processes and things that are a part of a manufacturing and assembly system. So some great groups that have come through for that. A couple different, I'll say, winning presentations that are kind of crown jewel for that.
013It's neat. And, I mean, virtually it's every group that comes through has. unique students and just great experiences what we try to offer is similar with any other intern or entry-level type position is to give them an experience that they probably can't find many other places you know it's inclusive of something that they can put on their resume and you know the i'm hoping that a lot of times has met with like uh okay well you're a part of a team that did this but what did you really do you know and then the follow-up questions and the detail that they provide is really wow you knocked it out of the park that's an awesome experience i can't believe that you had that you know as a high school student um and now you're looking
014to enter the workforce and offer you know that type of an experience I would just add that we say it so often at the board level, we're grateful to the people who donate time. money to the district and opportunity cost of inviting students into your business and potentially You know mentoring them. I don't know how you put a price tag on that But that's honestly what makes our community great and the launch program It's a gem and the opportunity to have students experiencing these things in high school and figuring out hey is this a track I want to pursue Or is this not exactly what I thought it was I want to go a different direction in college I've heard mark refer to that as tuition savings And as a parent, I'm also grateful for
015that, where they figure out at an early age that maybe something's not the route. But whichever way they go, just thank you so much for the mentoring you do and the community partners, because it really is community that makes education work. And so, again, thank you for everything you do. And on behalf of the Board of Education and our community, thank you. Let's give them one last round of applause. And we do have a second group to honor tonight, Mark. We do have a second individual to honor. This is a great story about a board game involving chess, and I'm going to turn to Principal Christian Pleister to introduce and talk a little bit about this amazing story. Mr. Pleister? Thanks for the opportunity to recognize one of our amazing Burlis students. So, if you
016can recognize this, but behind me we have a... burgeoning grand master in chess. His name is Ojas Tsu, who first came to our attention last spring when he started winning at the state, local and state level, but his exploits have grown much larger over this last spring and into the summer and into the fall where he started to achieve at the national level. And Ojas is currently a fifth grader in Mr. Peterson's class and certainly outstanding member of our chess club which is currently around 90 students strong at Burl Ive and Ojas is definitely leading the charge there so I'm gonna hand it over to his family he is here with his mom and dad who are able to say a few words about his journey thank you it's an honor to be here and
017we are glad he's getting the recognition yeah he started chess like three or four years back and somehow he got interested in it and now at least he shows a lot of passion about the game and he likes to play multiple tournaments. So last year he competed in Wisconsin Junior Open that was held in Oshkosh last November and he got selected to represent the elementary school section in the national internationals. So where he... Secret a second position in the blade section in you 1400 section and he got like some medals and got to meet like Who's and who's of you know us chase Federation? So that was a great experience for him as well as to us So yeah, hopefully continues his journey in future. Is there a video? Oh, it's just a slideshow. That's
018gotcha Okay. Well, I've got a certificate. Let me make my way over here First of all, if you ever have three minutes, I'd love to play you in chess. It'll only take you three minutes to beat me. So if you just got three minutes to spare, that would be awesome. But on behalf of the Board of Education, we are so excited that you are in second place in the National Chess Tournament. So this is such a big celebrating that. Let's take a picture. We could all, all four of us stand right here. And we'll face this direction. Board members, what questions or comments do you have for Ojas? Congratulations, Ojas. It's really exciting to think that you at such a young age are doing such amazing work in a field of chess which requires so
019much brain power. I have to wonder though about your practice time. My son is quite a bit older than you and he spends a fair amount of time on his phone playing phone chess. Do you do that kind of thing or are you mostly doing competition with a real live person? I usually practice on the computer but I do play with real people over the board too do you and do you play at home with your family too or yeah sometimes yeah great to hear we'll keep up the great work that's great work good job Kathy well congratulations just quick question what is your favorite subject in school yeah math math what's your least favorite subject Reading. Reading, okay. And what's the, how do you say, the least amount of move that, how do I
020phrase it? What's the least number of moves you made to win a game at a competition? Congratulations. Well done. It would be less for me. Well done, yeah. Three minutes? Can you hold that? Yeah, congratulations. Other comments or questions? Oh, Jess, great job. I, for years, got to work with the Burleigh Chess Club. I'm sure no one probably wants to play you. There are always those advanced kids that are like, oh, do I have to play them when you rotate the advanced players? But keep up your journey. Chess, certainly the strategy of thinking one step ahead is a skill you'll need in life, and it does help in mathematics, and so no wonder that's one of the subjects you really like. But keep up the hard work, and thank you for representing Elmbrook so well.
021Let's give them a last round of applause. Thank you. And that concludes our celebration of excellence for this evening. You're welcome to stay and enjoy the wonderful meeting we're going to have tonight, but we understand if you want to bow out and head home. At the beginning of each year, Mark and I, by board policy, have the opportunity to visit with our student councils in September. we present them with a list of topics that they'll be addressing each month in their schools and they come and report on first the activities and highlights for the month and then address the question of the month and so this is our first time having our student representatives here so Mark maybe we can introduce the representatives and get to the report. Do you guys want to go ahead
022and introduce yourselves? Who would like to start? Sahil do you want to start? Hi, I'm Sahil Gupta. I'm a senior over at Brookfield East. This is my second year as a student rep. We are changing things up at East. We'll explain that in a minute. Yeah, so hi, my name's Ella. I was also the rep last year. But I have my lovely board members with me, the executive board of our student council. So this year, at every meeting, there's going to be a different pair of us. So we're going to take turns coming to these meetings and voicing what's going on at East. So do you guys want to introduce yourselves? Just come up to the microphone right here, the stand, and then. It'll be recorded on YouTube forever. Hi, my name is Clara Newman,
023and I'm a senior at East. Hello, my name is Jake Zhang. I'm a sophomore at East, and it's my first year on executive board. Hi, I'm Macy Clegg. I'm a junior at East. Hi, I'm Eliana Click, and I'm a senior at East. Hi, I'm Lucy Irwin, and I'm a senior at East. Hi, I'm Madison Haugen, and I'm a senior at East. Yep, so we're all going to be taking turns coming to these, so you'll see more of us. Hi, my name is Colleen Durham. I'm a senior at Brookfield Central, and it's my first year being a student representative. Hello, my name is Saria Bensliman, and it's also my first year being a student rep, and I'm a senior at Brookfield Central as well. Great, thanks for the introductions. We're going to start with an update
024from Brookfield East. All right, lots going on. We're just a little over two months into school. To start with arts, our student-run a cappella groups, Genesis and Unaccompanied Minors, had their first performance. I wasn't able to go, but I hear it was a hit. Our band is holding, we're holding our Spooktacular concert on Monday, this next Monday, October 30th. It's kind of a way to kind of close out the marching season. We have some spooky tunes, some classic pep band tunes, and we always end our night with our two marching tunes. We were only able to march one show this year because our homecoming game got rained out, so tears in that, but homecoming was still fun. And musical rehearsals are in full swing. I see them every day. They're working hard. Lucy is the
025lead aerial. And I know how hard they work. They always put on an incredible production, so I'm looking forward to that. In terms of athletics, our girls cross-country team won the WIAA sectional championship. They're now headed to the state championship. Our boys soccer team is doing awesome as well. They won the regional championship. And our girls volleyball team also won the regional championship. In terms of activities, student council, we hosted our annual homecoming dance on October 14th. This year we sold over 1,100 tickets and we raised over $22,000. And so that money all helps to fund everything else that we do throughout the course of the school year. National Honor Society inducted its new members. And the cheer team is going to hold a cornhole fundraiser on October 28th. And then in terms of academics,
026representatives from local colleges are visiting East and some are conducting on-site admissions interviews. We have Marquette, a representative from Marquette coming tomorrow to conduct on-site admissions interviews. And then we also have the college representatives visits that are more of an information presentation. And then of course, our amazing principal, Mr. Farley, was named 2024 National Secondary School Principal of the Year. hallway parade for him last night. It was loud and it was a lot of fun. So congratulations to Mr. Farley. How about Brookfield Central? I'll start with our academic highlights. We have about 15 merit scholars awarded this year. Margaret Frank, who's a senior at Brookfield Central, is a Coca-Cola Scholar semi-finalist, so she will get a scholarship about $20,000 if she wins, which is quite a bit of money. And then we have nine college
027rep visits coming through November 1st, which is very exciting. And then for our arts, we have three weeks until opening night of our fall musical, Mary Poppins, which I'm very excited to go to. And our marching band had their final performance. Unfortunately, they could not also perform because our game got rained out, but they performed on a Wednesday. And then for some activities, we had our homecoming. We're also having our trunk or treat on Saturday, so that's when elementary-level students can come and all of our high school clubs get a car and have a trunk, and they can go trick-or-treat around our front lot. We had a becoming a Lancer night for freshman athletics, and then we also had freshman orientation before school started, and we had our class officer vote. then lastly for athletics
028we just started a new eSports team at our school girls cross country is state bound and they came second to Brookfield East in their section girls volleyball won their regional championship game and boys soccer also won their regional championship game and girls golf came eighth in state great the school year has started we're gonna ask each school to give an update on how the school year has started what are you guys most looking forward to Ella you want to start Okay, so these are like questions that we gave to our student council members to get their feedback. And the first question was, what has been like the highlights of the school year so far? Obviously, the big one was homecoming, which was last weekend. Again, it was a hit. Participating in the fall sports. We
029also have our respect retreat in September, which every freshman has to attend. And then upperclassmen are kind of like the mentors for it. And we have like this organization. I can't remember what it's called. Youth Frontiers. Youth Frontiers come in. And it's just like a bonding experience for the freshmen to participate in, kind of get to know some of the older kids, get to know their class, stuff like that. two days long. And then people also said going to sporting events and then seeing their friends after a long summer. So then our next question was what are you looking forward to for this school year? We had prom and senior ball were big ones with the fall sports wrapping up. The winter sports are starting soon. And then first week of December we also have
030our musical The Little Mermaid which I personally am really excited to go to. And then our last question was what improvements or suggestions do you have to make the start of the school year more successful? So we started this new program where freshmen attend hubs during excellence period, which is like a mini study hall that we have every day. So some of the freshmen said holding a little bit less of those. I'm not a freshman, so I don't know what those are like to attend, but that's the feedback. And then we also had more pep rallies. We had one the day before our homecoming, and it was really fun to attend and be in, raise a lot of school spirit, stuff like that. And we're going to try to do another one in the winter,
031possibly, before some basketball games. So, yeah, that was the feedback from Brookfield East. How about feedback from Brookfield Central? All right, so similar to Ella, our highlights from the beginning of the year were mainly homecoming, homecoming pep assembly that accompanied that, sporting events, especially the football games, just the amount of spirit and amount of students who show up for that. And then our Lancer Lounge has been super successful this year. So yeah. And then looking forward to this year, a lot of students said the Fall Musical Matilda coming up in the upcoming weeks. The Spirit Weeks and school dances that will accompany those. Our Trunk or Treat, which is this weekend. And then our Thanksgiving dinner where all the senior citizens are welcome to join for a Thanksgiving dinner. And then our school-wide picnic at
032the end of the year, which is just always a highlight for everyone. And then what improvements or suggestions? A lot of students brought up silent reading and the possibility of reducing the amount of time we're spending on silent reading just because sometimes it interrupts classwork. Then another suggestion was moving random days off and adding them to a break so they could be a little longer. And then there has been an issue with the left turn lane and the front of the BC parking lot It's been closed and it's just caused a bit more traffic. So a lot of students brought that up and then We had the idea that all seniors meet with their counselor just at the beginning of the year to walk through common applications and just the fall things that come with
033the senior year. Great updates from both schools pretty busy places, huh? Any questions from board members? Who's here? So tell me more about the eSports. I think it was over at Central that we've got the team. Are you able to find competition to play against, and has there been any interest from colleges? Because I understand that eSports is now a scholarship support for some colleges. Yeah, I can kind of speak on that. So last year, one of our seniors actually committed to a D3 school for esports, and he was kind of the head of trying to get an esports team at our school. I don't really know much of the topic about if you compete or who you compete against, but I know that you can actually go to schools on scholarship for playing esports.
034So that was pretty interesting, the new fact that I learned last year. Sam? I'd like to elaborate on the... Amount of silent reading time. What's what's a normal week look like? Yeah, so at Brookfield Central we have, I think it's two times or one time a week we have a 20-minute period. And it alternates between our four blocks in the day. So they each kind of have the same amount per month. And it's kind of the goal is to increase reading scores and national grades in our English scores. And it takes up 20 minutes, so I noticed depending on what class, like some classes people are like, oh, I'm fine with missing 20 minutes to read. And some people really like reading. But for some of our more rigorous classes, I know for my AP
035Biology class, if I have to take 20 minutes out of my class period to read, sometimes I have a lot more homework than I am. There's a lot to catch up on. So over time, you can kind of start to fall behind. So I noticed that that was one of the concerns of our students, maybe reducing it to 10 minutes or 15 minutes or moving it to maybe once a week just to make sure that we have enough class time for our more rigorous classes. So do you get to pick which class you leave for that? No, it's like school-wide. So like if you have like third block, today third block, we'll have silent reading for 20 minutes at the beginning. So the whole school will be silent reading at the same time. So you
036don't get a choice. Thank you. They do get a choice on what to read though. Jean? I wonder if one of the Lancers could elaborate on the becoming a Lancer and what is that and who leads it? I can speak on that because I'm also on the exec board for our blue crew which is our student athlete leadership group and so we started a new activity or a new day that we held we started last year and it's just for freshmen who are coming into BC who play a fall sport or winter sport or actually any sport in the school year or like looking to your perspective team part of being perspective part of a sport and we go through kind of like The daily schedule in Brookfield Central, we take them on like a
037tour through the school, kind of showing them like, oh, if your classes are here, like this is where your English class will be, this is where your science class will be, just so they can have more connection with upperclassmen in the school. And we also go through different leadership, kind of like idealistic things that we have for like students coming in, like we want you to act like respectively, we want you to work hard in your sports, kind of different things and values that we want them to carry into the start of the school year. Thank you. And if I could also address your thought about all seniors meeting with the counselor at the beginning of the year, is that something that's been routed up through administration and you're pursuing it, or is that something
038that maybe that will happen later, or what's the plan with that? So this was suggested by a lot of the seniors this year just because once the fall gets started if students are kind of unfamiliar with like the common application and all that stuff it can be kind of overwhelming and you can kind of feel over like behind so some students just suggested meeting with counselors because they are just great resources and it would kind of save a lot of that stress that some students have been facing. Linda? So is that to say that typically I could be a senior and never meet with my counselor otherwise? Or is it that they always meet with a senior sometime during the year? So the only time it would be, like, mandatory to meet with your counselor
039would be if there was, like, a schedule conflict. But other than that, it wouldn't be. Like, you would never have to. Wow, I'm surprised. I was at a school where that was just. Commonplace that they would meet with the seniors every year. I was wondering dude do the counselors post Like scholarship openings somewhere in a central place at the school like the following places are now taking scholarship applications and They are doing such-and-such a date. Do they have any scholarship postings that go on? I can kind of speak on that. So our counselors, they host like a post-secondary night for Brookfield Central and Brookfield East, and then there is an option for one of the meetings or presentations to attend is scholarships. They kind of tell you where you can find scholarships, but I also
040know that our principal, Mr. Grissmacher, he has a weekly slideshow every Monday morning that he goes through, and then he also posts scholarships that are available. I know right now he's kind of stretching the Herb Cole scholarship that's due November 7th. Do those get posted during lunch on the big screen? I think, yeah, his slideshow is usually kind of going through during lunch. I've never seen if the scholarships are up there, but I know usually some of the weekly announcements are. Thank you. Kathy? For the senior in common, the whole college process, I know Abbott kind of does it structurally. My oldest son, he didn't go to school here, but... When his high school, we had a senior parent and kid network, like counselors presented how common that was, how different schools and gave out
041scholarship portals and kind of all those information. Do we have that kind of best focus for seniors? Yeah, it would be the post-secondary night this year was hosted at Brookfield East and then this past year was open for Brookfield Central It's open for any high schoolers and their families to attend but mostly usually juniors and seniors go as they're kind of looking into their post college or first high school careers It's not specifically for seniors who are walking through that path and specific scholarships that they're looking for Yeah, it's for more of like a general idea like this is how you would fill out your scholarships is how you could get like grants Stuff like that. Okay, thank you. And as the financial aid formula changes at the federal level, we'll probably be encouraging people
042to start that process much earlier than the junior or senior year because there's tax implications that can impact a family as early as ninth grade. Which I heard is not going to be available this December. We're still awaiting the window to open. Yeah, yeah. Okay, thank you. So, Hale, did you have something to add? I just want to say at East we do. We have ACP academic and career planning conferences where students are literally pulled during excellence period to meet with their counselors and they do go through a lot of this stuff so I don't know that's just something I know that's something that I obviously didn't know that doesn't happen at Central but I thought that something East has a protocol for that and they make it happen they usually try to do one
043or two a year with each grade level So there's a system in place to do that if Central wanted to implement something similar. It's not like it's nonexistent. That's awesome. Linda? Thank you. So to repeat. you're a freshman sophomore junior in your on your counselors management list they will just pull you and speak with you about what's going on and planning and things of that sort once a year Usually it's not individually it's in small groups but yes they pull it's usually like 15 to 20 kids in the counselors responsibility list range if you will. Okay. But they meet, they'll meet like, they usually meet, it's during excellence period, they go through common stuff like for seniors it's obviously a lot of college apps or post-secondary planning. For juniors it's, you know, making sure you're
044getting good grades, ACT, you know, freshmen, it's obviously just, so each grade level has different goals and topics of conversation, but our counselors do meet with. Meet in groups at least once a year sometimes twice and of course, they're always available to meet one on one Thank you for sharing any more questions or comments I would just add for Brookfield East that the boys team also qualified for state as sectionals just because my son's going I'll be there on Saturday and the Brookfield Central girls qualified for state as well So pretty exciting to see good representation across our district in cross country Thank you students for being here tonight and for taking time to connect with the other students in your school and bringing that information to us as a board. It is super helpful.
045And that concludes our student representative's report and you're welcome to stick around or we understand you have a lot to do that AP bio homework I'm sure is calling so you can be excused as well. Our next agenda item is the Citizens Forum. This is an opportunity for members of the community to address the board on issues that fall within the purview and the responsibility of the board, but that do not appear on tonight's agenda. There's a list of rules and expectations that are on the back of each paper and posted on the desk over by Christy Westfall if you want to speak to us. During Citizens Forum or on any agenda item, please see Christy Westfall and fill out one of these awesome papers. tonight we have two requests to speak the first request
046is from Angie Pingel resident of the district good evening everyone my name is Angie Pingel and I have a 16 year old son with significant intellectual disabilities who attends Fairview South I'm here tonight to express my concern about what I heard at a Friends of Fairview South meeting last week regarding the building for those who aren't familiar the Friends of Fairview South is our parent-teacher organization district representative joined our meeting to discuss two options being presented to the board to address concerns surrounding the Fairview South building which is directly behind our building option one was to stay at our current site and make renovations to the building option two was to move the program to another district building which would be renovated which is also located on a four to six lane highway We were
047told that the board would be holding a work session on November 8th to discuss these two options, although that session is not currently on your calendar, and I hope that it will be released soon so that our parents have extra time to make arrangements for daycare should they want to attend. First I'm concerned that these two options were developed without parent participation and there was no discussion of the criteria used to develop these options or other options that may have been considered and excluded All that was referenced was the building use report that was prepared for your recent master facility assessment work session on June 19th Which concluded that the building does not meet district standards No surprise to me I believe parents should be invited to participate in your work session. We have questions
048that are unanswered and knowledge of our unique students that goes far beyond the experience of any staff members, even as wonderful as the Fairview South team is. It also seemed to me from the discussion at that meeting that the two options might have been developed without the involvement of our Fairview South staff. I've been up here a number of times asking for transparency and involvement. How were these two options developed? What were the criteria that were used? What options were considered and eliminated? In my opinion, our parents felt that we would have more partnership, and that's just not looking like it's happening. So I hope my questions and requests tonight will be heard by our board. And then finally, I just want to end on a positive note. I want to give a special thanks
049to the Brookfield Central Band and our board member that attended our Fairview South homecoming. It's always a wonderful experience. Our kids love it, so thank you. Thank you, Angie. Our second request to speak tonight is Amy Zimmerman, resident of the district. Go ahead, Amy. All right, good evening. So the topic that I wrote down today, oh, my name's Amy Zimmerman. I am a resident of the Elmbrook School District. I'm also a current parent of a student at Burleigh Elementary. So I wanted to share with you today a personal book recommendation, actually, that I recently read. The book is titled Being Human, and it is a memoir written by Judith Heumann, whose polio infection in infancy resulted in quadriplegia and lifelong wheelchair use. As a child, Judy rolled her wheelchair up the block to her friends'
050homes and hollered at them to come out and play because she could not go up the two stairs to reach the doorbell. She was also refused enrollment in her public schools. The principal feared that her wheelchair would make her a fire hazard. At high school, her principal refused to place her on the graduation stage where she could receive her honors certificate. Again, because they did not wish to have her and her wheelchair present and visible. After college, she became a teacher. However, it was only after suing the State Licensing Board of New York, after she was denied her license for using a wheelchair as well. As an adult, she advocated for civil rights, legislation for people with disabilities. Her work involved people with vision impairments, without hearing or speech. with learning and cognitive disabilities, as
051well as myriad other considerations. It is thanks to her work that we have the mandate for a free and appropriate public education for all children, the prohibition of disability-based discrimination, and the requirement for an accessible public right-of-way. Her emphasis along her lifelong journey was to eliminate barriers for all. And all the while, she praised the slow, deliberate work of a democratic government, the broad stakeholder engagement, the committees, the drafts, the revisions, and the policies for implementation. Her memoir was fantastic, thrilling, but also reminded me of how much each of us is limited by our own experience and our own world views. And just how important it is that we reach out to others, be they in agreement or in disagreement with us, and understand the full picture. And I hope that you can keep this
052in mind as you continue to govern our school district. Thank you very much. Thank you, Amy. And that concludes our citizens form or we have one more request? Okay perfect okay that concludes our citizens form for the evening. Our next agenda item is the consent agenda. I'd entertain a motion. Sam? I'd like to poll B. Okay anyone else like to make a motion on the other items? I'll move approval of consent agenda items A, C, and D. Second. Thank you. We have a motion to approve consent agenda items a C and D Is there any discussion on the motion all those in favor hearing none all those in favor of the motion, please say aye aye Any opposed? Thank you that carries on voice vote Sam item B the 3000 policy series and 51 45
053Thank You Christy. I sent you an email that you may want to reference just in case there so The policies stated herein for this here have all included a nondiscrimination statement that is being added to the policy. One of the main changes for these policies, I think the exclusion is 5145. Looking at that, Allenbrook currently does have a nondiscrimination policy 6005, which covers sex, race, religion, color, national origin, ancestry, creed, pregnancy, marital or parental status, sexual orientation, physical, mental or emotional or learning disability. There are three reasons why I cannot and will not support. several reasons why I cannot and will not support these changes in this policy. First, this new policy provision makes reference to a non-discrimination statement on the website of the USDA, but has been modified from the actual direction of the
054law. The attorneys did provide us some feedback. They gave us three links. The very first link there, the USDA non-discrimination statement, is merely a link to a webpage saying that these policies, the statement has to be accepted. The second one refers to the same non-discrimination statement on the Wisconsin Department of Public Instruction saying according to the USDA you have to have this advertised or attached to all your literature. And then the third one is the actual Food and Nutrition Services instructions that is from the USDA. Now, in the search through the website, I cannot find any other direction. So from my belief and understanding, a mere mention on a website does not constitute law that we are required or should follow, especially when I believe it's in contradictory of what the FNS instructions do provide
055for us. If you click on that third link there, the FNS 113-1, if you go to page 5, I believe, you might want to download that and then post it. Anyways, she's working on that. The following is a list of FNS programs and their applicable protected bases. The first one is in regards to Indian reservations, which does not apply to us. The second one is all other FNS nutritional system programs. The protected bases are race, color, national origin, age, sex, and disability. And then it does say refer to the specific program appendices for exceptions to this policy. The exception to this policy is on page 47 and it basically says that the civil rights assurance is written and all written agreements must have specific to NSLP which is the National School Lunch Program and it
056lists the guidelines and directives and the protected bases in that. You're still trying page 15 if you pull that up there section in regards to section 9 Public notification, which is the direction that we are required to publicly notify Does state that all FNS assistant programs must include a public notification system The purpose of this system is to inform applicants, participants, and potentially eligible persons of the program availability, program rights, and responsibilities, the policy of non-discrimination, and the procedure for filing a complaint. In regards to where this needs or should be posted, in that same section, section nine, subsection three, it states that the non-discrimination statement, go into the last paragraph of that, is not. It is not required that the non-discrimination statement be included on every page of the program information website. At the
057minimum, the non-discrimination statement or a link to it must be included on the home page of the program information. I'll refer back to that in a second. Section 9, subsection 4, part D states this. For all other FNS nutritional system programs, which would be, from my understanding, the NSLP, state or local agencies, which we are considered that local agency, and their subrecipients. must post the following non-discrimination statement and include it in full on all materials regarding such programs that are produced for public information, public education, or public distribution. The authorized statements below or current applicable revisions cannot be modified. If a state authorizes additional language, it must be included in a separate statement. That, and if you go down to section 9.4.D sub-parenth one, The authorized statement should read as follows. In accordance with the
058federal law, the USDA policy, this institution is prohibited from discriminating on the basis of race, color, national origin, sex, age, or disability. To file a complaint, so on and so on. That is from that direction is given it which I believe is understandably the law I believe that the the the USDA is linked to a web page that contradicts the law that we are required to follow and I don't understand just because a bureaucrat in Washington said we should use this non-discrimination statement if it's a violation of the law that is actually the direction and the instructions that we are given I don't think we should be posting that on there And that's based on the documents that our attorneys has provided us. So as an elected official, I think we're required to create policy
059based on the law and from what I believe is the law. I cannot support those changes as they are to me from what I understand are contradictory to the law. Second, the post a non discrimination statement on the US state reads that and conveniently leaves out. religion, which I'm very confused as to why we would include a sex as a subset of sex as gender identity and sexual orientation when we're leaving out religion. And there's a lot of subsets to race, a lot of subsets to color, a lot of subsets to national origin. To me, that just seems confusing and unnecessary. Lastly, Lastly, the reason why I can't support this policy either is it does leave out religion as a protective basis. I think we're in a climate nowadays where we're seeing millions. In fact.
060You know, religion has been around for over 10,000 years. Millions and millions of people have endured extreme discrimination based on their religion. Tens of millions have died based on their religion. In fact, it's probably one of the most likely areas of being discriminated against, yet we are leaving that off of their honor school policy. So I find that odd. My suggestion is this. We currently have a policy in place for non-discrimination. On our Elmbrook School's website. for the school lunch program policy. It does have that non-discrimination statement from the USDA pasted on there. I think we should remove that. I think we should paste what's actually in the USDA FNS instruction 113-1 section 94D parenth one. And then at bare minimum link that to the USDA website and remove all the policies. Lastly, it is
061just Because the USDA policy non-discrimination statement could be changing every single four years, I think then we'll just be forcing us to update the policy. I think we should just undo the bare minimum on that, have a link to the site, and then have to worry about having to constantly update these policies. That's my thought. So when you say a link to the site, you're talking about the USDA site? Yeah, even a link to their non-discrimination policy would state there, for more information, visit usda.gov. We already have to post, and I think we should post, how to file a complaint. That should definitely be in there and cover the protected basis that is listed in there. Okay, so take out, you're suggesting take out the language, proposed language addition in the policy and just have
062a link. Thank you, Sam. Very comprehensive and well-researched. We shared at F&O, what was the rationale? I assume if our lawyers weighed in, did you see? Or do we have a recommendation from the lawyers besides just they provided the links? I believe they recommended adding that but they're the links and information that provided me contradicted that so I don't know if they were wrong or they just went along with the What's on there, but it definitely from what I understand the rate is contradicts with the law states We share so a couple of points the policy five one four five that I'm looking at does specifically mentioned religion. So I think that I'm confused as to maybe not understanding what you're saying about that, Sam. With regards to what was discussed at F&O, the discussion
063was more the attorneys had looked at this and basically this language needed to be included here based on the attorney's advice. Gene sorry I was reading Given what you raised this evening Sam I think it would make sense for us to take another look at it and send it back to committee have the attorneys take a look and Particularly all the detail that you have I hope you've shared that with Kristen before this evening so she could maybe look into it and we could have resolved this But we can do that after if that's not the case So I would move that we send this back to ethanol Okay, we have a motion in a second I'm forwarding these policies back to F&O for discussion is there any further discussion or comments from board members?
064I just would say that I'll probably follow up with Sam for some of the detail that you discussed tonight so we can make sure we have a thorough discussion at F&O yeah it's well researched yeah that's right it's recorded thank you and I am looking at the policy machine I don't I don't see religion I see that it is cut and pasted from the website but religion is excluded I'm in policy 51 45 oh practice statement I'm in the practice statement so anyway maybe we want to yeah make sure the practice statements matching that because there are saying different things than the other so I'm also in favor of that sending back to committee and just double-checking any further discussion all those in favor of the motion please say aye aye any opposed Thank you
065that carries we'll go back to F&O for further discussion That concludes our consent agenda for the evening and brings us to our action items The first action on this evening is the academic and career planning curriculum Amy Farley second appearance at the microphone tonight and finally I think Hi everyone so we presented a thorough report to teaching and learning first to look at the new curriculum for academic and career planning brought it brought back to discussion with the school board and now our Seeking approval for new curriculum we didn't have a lot of major changes and the areas of Change are listed and indicated in the in the write-up for the board here Happy to take any questions that you have prior to hopefully action Are there questions or comments board members would like to
066raise before we entertain a motion Linda? I just have a related question regarding the electives that kids are able to take at that level they're kind of consistent with this philosophy right have any of those electives changed? We have a lot of proposals that come through for part of our curriculum renewal process with every department as far as new electives that are proposed in order to keep enriching those different pathways for academic and career planning through curriculum. This curriculum specifically is not a course. It's a side from that that supports that academic career planning process. Yeah, so my related question was have you changed some of the elective? We just had a big renewal I mean with career and technical education you know a lot of those courses have come through Kathy there's more coming
067through I was just curious thank you Are there questions? I'm scrolling through and looking just in light of what I heard from the student representatives about hey how do we access scholarships and applying for college and I kind of think of that as part of the academic career planning I'm not I'm sure it's part of it. I just don't see it called out in the curriculum Can you just give me a high level about how that would happen? Is it just the the night the information night with parents? Is there more that's happening in the schools? There's a lot more. Yeah, it's similar to what Sahil was talking about. There's replicate programs at each high school and so I wonder if sometimes those are hard things to recall in a setting like this, but we
068definitely have a lot of communication that goes out. Our students actually make an academic career plan at Central. They even have it set up where if students put in their parents' email, it'll automatically send them a template of what their academic career plan is, and then we follow up with an email, and it provides talking points that parents can have with their students. about those opportunities. The way the curriculum is set up, students will have at minimum four lessons for no planned goal, and that's minimum. That would be rare because as part of our academic and planning process, we're also supporting scheduling, the scheduling process, and so. Parents get a lot of communication about all of that in the process and then students are taken through a pretty lengthy process. In addition to that, our
069counselors are meeting in small groups with 100% of our students. Sometimes they don't attend and they have to chase them down a bit in order to make sure they're getting the information. Appreciate that. Yeah. Mooshir? Amy, just for informational purposes, the academic career plan that you talked about that's developed, that could be emailed to parents? That's also available on Infinite Campus for the parent login as well. That I would call I would call that more of a scheduling tool an academic career plan is going to have more depth to it And so the course planning tool some of the language that infinite campus uses can be confusing because it'll say things like Your academic plan and that's really a course selection guide and that's sort of the technology tool that we use to navigate students
070We have other products like Zello, which is a career exploration, you know program that allows students to explore careers, look at pay, look at life balance, look at their interests, their skills and abilities. Infinite Campus is just a small part of it. And the Zello information, how are parents able to access that? Yeah, so parents can access the information. We have several parents who have already engaged in that. They can just email their counselor and they can be added and given in that column. I think our principals have that in all of their communication that goes out as part of the regular updates. Thank you for the clarification. So yeah, parents can look for that there. If there's no additional questions or comments, I'd entertain a motion. To approve. For the approval of the recommended
071academic and career planning curriculum as presented. Thank you. We have a motion and a second. Is there any further discussion? Hearing none, all those in favor of the motion, please say aye. Aye. Any opposed? Thank you that carries some voice vote Thank You Amy our next action item is Redistricting proposal after Chris is done presenting we do have a request to speak to the board before board discussion Thank you back for a third conversation about the district's recommendation to redistrict a new yet to be developed but already approved by the city a multifamily housing complex called the flats at bishops woods Along with existing multifamily units at bishops reserve and bishops Grove located in an adjacent to Brooke bishops woods corporate park from school district tract 184 Which currently carries a Tonawanda Pilgrim Park Brookfield
072East School pathway to tract 132 which is a Swanson Wisconsin Hills Brookfield Central pathway It's my brief overview on the first slide You'll recall in our previous conversations in July and August that we're making this recommendation to take advantage of the opportunity to better balance enrollment between elementary schools and high schools ideally before construction takes place and families make commitments to living in the flats at Bishopswoods in August the Board of Education asked for two additional pieces of information or action items prior to tonight's action item the first was that the board asked that notice be sent to all families in tract 184 making them aware of the board's consideration of this redistricting option which we did on October 6th We also invited families to reach out to the board president or attend tonight's meeting
073to share their concerns the second thing we did was update and Consider our new enrollment projections which were completed last week based on our recent 23 24 Third Friday enrollment numbers that will be reported out in detail later this evening by Kristin so the Sinski But I'll summarize them tonight now So I just want to highlight a few changes to this presentation since August. The first is the student profile for part of tract 184, specifically the families listed in Bishop's Reserve. You'll notice that the number of resident students and families decreased significantly since our July presentation. from 21 resident students living in that multifamily complex to 10 Significant I think because our recommendation is to move that tract but still honor the students existing pathways and I just think this is a low-cost effort to
074to continue past practice of honoring existing students and their pathway pathways while changing the new students in their pathways and Eventually, I could I could see that maybe all ten students move out of the multifamily Housing into some other area in Brookfield, which is often the case. So our long-term commitment may not be long-term in that case So the next thing I'd like to share nothing changed on slide 184 profile still 70 students in that attendance area you see the breakdown there as far as students and their grade levels slide 5 here I want to talk about all three of these bullets actually so As stated in the first slide, or the first bullet in the slide, Tonawanda's enrollment projections, which are presented in detail on the next slide, have gone down or have slowed.
075from last year's projections last year we projected Tonawanda reaching a peak of 96% capacity we are now projecting 92% capacity in the year 27-28 and then starting to decrease after that as well so while that provides less of an impetus for change I think there's still Enough unknown regarding the enrollments that could come from the new flats at bishops woods to redistrict now for that small portion of tract 184 I also want to highlight on this previous slide the If we were to Redistrict all of tract 184 and honor existing school pathways as has been our press past practice I worry about the additional strain on busing. We just sent a letter out on Friday to all families talking about how we are not able to meet our transportation expectations on a daily basis because
076of driver shortages. This would add an additional burden to that. that already to the shortage we were already facing we're not in any position to consider new routes or double routes essentially if we bus new students to one way and existing students another and and so you know that's why it's not included in the district's recommendation and the second reason it's not included is that you know in my 18 years in this district we've had two significant redistricting efforts some of you have been a part of those and we've never asked families to switch their high school affiliation we've always honored their high school affiliation or their current pathway many have told us time and again that we purchased our house or we live in the place we live because we wanted to go to
077that high school even if they were elementary school kids or middle school students So with all of that information our administrative recommendations is still to redistrict a partial tract of 184 to include Bishops Reserve the flats at Bishops Woods and Bishops Grove including an allowance for existing families to continue on their existing pathway for the duration of their Elmbrook attendance and I will stop there for questions Are there questions for oh that is that the interview presentation? Okay, perfect. We do have one request to speak before board member conversation or questions from Caitlin Windler a resident of the district Caitlin dated October 5th We moved to the Elmbrook School District four years ago and purchased our home in large part to have our children on the pathway that includes Tonawanda, Pilgrim Park and Brookfield East
078We are the parents of a future Tonawanda student who was here tonight but had to call it an evening and have another one on the way While we respect and value the Elmbrook School District as a whole and know that success happens across all of our schools we wish to remain in the pathway already assigned to our neighborhood we appreciate the forward thinking of the Elmbrook School District and understand that space constraints are real factors that can lead to difficult decisions The most logical and minimally disruptive way to settle the district boundary change is to proceed with what was presented here tonight, or option one, which splits the current tract 184, where a minimal number of families in Brookfield Reserve would be affected and the new, not yet built apartment complex would be changed. This
079way, the fewest number of families are affected and any new families moving into the flats at Bishop Woods are aware before signing a lease exactly what their pathway will be. Since this is one of the three viable options, this seems to be the solution that benefits the greatest amount of our stakeholders, including the School District of Elmbrook, the families already established in the current pathway or who intentionally purchased homes in their specific neighborhoods after researching the School District, as well as future families who will know their pathway before they move into the flats at Bishop's Woods. Thank you for your consideration. Thank you, Caitlin. Now, are there any board member questions or comments? Linda I have a question for mark What is the Wisconsin law regarding busing obligations of any school district like are we
080required to bus everybody or can you? bus just high schoolers and at grade schoolers or whatever the situation may be what is the law regarding busing So the law requires us to provide busing for students that are two miles or more away from a school or if they have to cross a dangerous intersection as defined by the Waukesha County Sheriff's Department then they would be able to access busing and with all of the main thoroughfares in our school district we have a lot of dangerous intersections by definition So if you have a dangerous intersection is there a A thing that where do Crossing guards come in they don't apply when it comes to Dangerous intersections you could utilize them for dangerous intersections But the challenge with crossing guards is we have a hard time people
081that are using crossing guards are having equally a hard time to finding crossing guards as they are bus drivers so it it would be option for some dangerous intersection I'm just wondering what the law is It could be an option that's probably a whole other topic Chris I would just add that in the 70s the district applied and was granted hazardous transportation zone for the entire district which then required us to bus all students and so that's been what we're operating under since that period of time we Will work with the Sheriff's Office this year to as we assess our approach to busing to see if some of those areas in Brookfield that have access to pathways walkways Can can no law can be deemed no longer hazardous and then we wouldn't have to provide
082Bussing for everyone, but right now our obligation is to bus everyone in the district. Thank you. Who's here? So Chris I just want to make sure I understand Caitlin's comment thank you Caitlin for the commentary if we have families that are currently in the tract for 184 but don't yet have students physically present in school they'll still be able to continue down the town of Wanda Pilgrim Park Brookfield East Pathway Yes and that's always been our intent that existing families in in those in that area had a pathway towards what they had intended when they purchased the home The easiest way is to say that the students that are here would still have access to the tunnel on the Pilgrim Park pathway to East. These students would be moved over to new students would be
083moved over to a new pathway but existing students would have access to the old pathway My misinterpretation was that I thought of a new student as a student who hasn't entered our system yet And what you're saying is, and I like the approach, which is that, no, no, as you said, young families that are buying homes are likely looking at the destination high school as being a major factor. Correct. And I go back to slide four just to piggyback on that. I think that's where that number, that was my question, the number. So this number. Yep. Kids not yet in school. You're saying, Chris, that's families that currently live in the household and we know that there's a birth. there's a child there or they could be connected to a they could have a sibling
084in the system too Absolutely more than likely they do have a sibling we often don't know of kind of the birth for connected to a family unit unless they have a sibling Okay gotcha okay which makes additional sense as well okay Kathy Just a few comments thank you for updating this My feeling is still the same from the prior meetings that I have said and thank you for updating the numbers and by school year 2026, 2027 potentially there might be a decrease in Tonawanda and I know we're looking at middle school and high school as well And I know the construction's supposed to be complete 27, if early 26. And I know a lot of what we do is like hypothetical. You can't control birth rate, we can't control moving in and out. But I
085still For my liking I just feel the presentation it's nothing that was presented but for my brand I just feel like it's not still comprehensive and detailed enough to the fact that I would like to have an overview of the entire district. Are there other districts or other school areas that split in a funny way in other schools that are not clean right so I think I was Brookell and then we're Pilgrim, we're Wisconsin Hills and we're BC, right? So it's kind of clear. Are there other areas that are not so clean? And when we're redistricting, you don't want to keep redistricting, right? I know it hasn't happened a lot, but could we look at are there other areas? Because if we're going to redistrict, are there other areas we have to look at and
086kind of make sense for that? These are just some of my thoughts. So for the number of families impacted and of course I think they should be grandfathered into if we move forward with this change. But yet with the busing concerns, we don't have a solution for that. And maybe we're hoping that we'll come up with a solution when the project is done. And I also understand that when you're marketing, you kind of want to put the specific schools. But to me, yes, we partner. Board of Education's priority to make this big of a decision, but I understand why they would need that, but not our priority. So for the information that I have and for the comments I have made in two previous meetings, I still feel like this is premature to vote on
087this and redistrict starting next year. Knowing that the construction has not started, we're going on everything hypothetical and then possible completion of year 2027, if early 26. So with that, once the discussion is completed, I would like to ask for a roll. Thank you, Cathy. Thank you. Noted. Sam? A couple things. So as an Elm Grove resident, I am seeing many, many more younger families moving in. I'm surprised by the number of elderly. I mean, just in the last few months, I've known several elderly people that have passed in their house have now gone to a younger family. And I think we're going to keep seeing that. I think we're going to keep seeing that more and more in Elm Grove. Then also knowing that a very large apartment complex is coming online I know
088they're they're factored in their projections But from what I understand the numbers projected for that are low because of it being high priced I know the I know how that builder operates and I can I Would I wouldn't be surprised if the rent ended up being a lot cheaper when it's all said and done and that could be a dramatic effect And I also, just looking at the way the map is structured, you have that one little part of it left there that's to the north is Blue Mound and UPS is above that, and there's really nothing on the north side. And then the south side, there's all the other families that their kids go to Swanson. And to the east, it's all, or to the west of that, it's all Swanson as well. I
089feel it's almost as a disservice to future families that are moving there. Very few of their neighbors are going to be going through that same school system. They won't even be able to go across the street and play with their friends because their friends are going to go to a different school. And I think also with your updated numbers, they're showing that from that existing apartment complex that instead of 21 resident students, it dropped down to 10. I would imagine that... It seems to be that those apartments are going to fluctuate in numbers a lot over time as well. And I would say either maybe similar to Kathy, but for a different reason, either postponing it to wait to see what the results are going to be from that or move all of tract 184
090over to tract 132. And I'm having a hard time understanding the thought of the increased busing because those kids are going to be bused anyways to. to Tonawanda, and if there's already a bus right there going to Swanson, it's an extra two stops, basically, on that subdivision to pick up those kids, maybe three. I'm not an expert, so that's how I would feel about that. Thank you, Sam. Other comments? All right, entertain a motion. Who's here? I'll move approval of registering a small portion of track 184 to include Bishop's Way and the west side of North Lone Grove Road to track 132 while honoring existing students school pathways with transportation Second Thank you. We have a motion and a second. Is there any further discussion Sam? Yeah I'd like to make an amendment to say
091to include all of track 184 to move to track 132 Okay, we have a proposed amendment to include All of track 184 so Sam is proposing Can you go to the slide that would show that it's not this one. That's yeah right here so His amendment would need a second is there a second so second on Sam's amendment do we have numbers for what would be then The pink area right now isn't under consideration. The pink area is where the 10 students are. The yellow area is where 70 students are. That's the difference. Is there a second on Sam's motion? Hearing none, the motion dies. The amendment dies. And we're back to the original motion. Is there any other discussion or questions? I know we're early. I know one of Kathy's concerns at a previous
092meeting, and I've been thinking about it because it does seem a little early where the construction is so far out. Excuse me, Linda, was there a question? Ask a question if you've got it. So for me, again, I know we're a little ways out. I think there is value in letting families know what tract they're going to attend. I think it does make a difference, surprisingly. Because we moved here I didn't actually know which high school my kids would go to and I don't think my wife did either so for us that wasn't the primary thing we were really looking for housing because our first offer fell through and so we were a little felt a little rushed and desperate as we were on the last day of our house hunt but for a lot
093of families they live in the area and they grew up in the area and there's some nostalgia and there's wanting to be in those tracts and If then it's just that we're talking about 70 kids in that yellow portion I'm talking about this yellow portion of 184 so the motion that the amendment that Sam made that died Isn't something that I can go with because there's just so many Redistricting is such an emotional thing and for the ten students. It is you know, it's a couple of extra bus stops, maybe one extra bus stop, and to honor that pathway for them and to just be prepared and let families know that are moving into this multi-unit housing. I think the place we're going to see them is elementary school. Generally speaking, I don't think it's
094the type of apartment complex that a family would move into and live there for 25 years as their family grows up and become middle schoolers and teenagers and graduate. So for me personally, again, it makes sense. It does feel a little early to me, but the idea of being ahead of the curve on this and just being careful with that Tonawanda attendance area does make sense to me. The intersection thing makes sense to me too. I mean, I agree that they're kind of, you know, they're in a different part of town almost with that busy blue mound there, but a lot of a student's community comes from the kids they sit next to every day in school. and it's the play dates, and they're not riding their bike necessarily to the house where they're going
095to play with their friend. Their parents are dropping them off, or they're meeting at Whirlyball or going to a movie together, and so you're already riding in a car. And so I just think of how my kids play with their friends. There are a couple of close friends where they ride their bikes too, and then there's many that we transport them. And so, again, I just... I feel that this just makes sense and it is careful with our resources in terms of busing. It's careful with the emotions and the lives of students, the people that live here, because that human capital is a very real thing. And it's careful with our resource, Tonawanda, which we want to be careful of because, to Sam's point, there's a lot of changes happening in Elm Grove and we
096may have to revisit. That down the road if those enrollment numbers end up being low if those projections are indeed low. So For those reasons I support the motion That's all I have to say about that Is there any other questions or discussion? If not, we have a roll call Kathy. Yep. You want to turn on your microphone? When you say new students and it says moving into Bishop about new students that's moving into The yellow current part and future yellow part yeah what if you if you merge it and if you vote if you want to move forward with it 184 it says new Bishop area so when you say they do mean just a pink area what if new families move into that yellow area The motion that we recommended and that's currently
097on the floor is is just the pink area It does not address new families to 184 because we're not redistricting that track that part portion of the track For now they stay at Tonawanda So new families moving into the current yellow part will go to Tonawanda same path But yet we're merging okay So just to be clear for indefinite we'll have to send the bus for Tonawanda All the way there, which is much further than the pink district is that would go to Swanson. So it seems like long-term the bus costs will go up because now we're sending a bus further away than, you know, once we get past the 18-year mark of two buses, right, we'll still be sending a bus there. So long-term we'll be paying more in bus costs because that's quite
098a distance from there to 184 from where the closest other Tonawanda bus would be. Sure. I disagree. I think that 132 is already going to Swanson, correct? So the bus cost that we're talking about is less than tenths of a mile. Because 132 is already going, so there's already a bus in the area that's coming through. That means there's going to be a bus in the pink that goes to Swanson and then a bus in the yellow that goes to Tonawanda, and that will always be that way versus... If they're right beside each other, one bus would pick up all of them. But you're sending a bus all the way from Elm Grove at the closest spot down there. Because if you drive that stretch of Blue Mountain in front of Trader Joe's or whatever,
099that's where you're coming to that area. The challenge isn't the one bus, it's the double bus. And it's honoring multiple pathways in the same neighborhood. So then you have two buses going through the same neighborhood every route, elementary, middle, high. Until those families are out of the system and then it becomes. Until 13 years from now those families are out of the system or more. Yeah, so again, the reason that I said in my comments to the busing, it's more responsible because right now it's one bus to 184 versus two. If we say, oh, we're going to redistrict it. But remember, those 70 families, 70 kids, however many families that is, they get to stick with Tonawanda, Pilgrim Park, and East. So that bus has got to go there. But now we're sending for all
100the new students that move into that tract, we're sending the Swanson. Hills and central bus Whereas we would be overlapping. I mean you're right It's on my mind that's why I made There's a shortage. Yeah There's a row any other questions or discussion. It's a roll call vote Welcome the amazing Christy Westfall to the mic Sam Hughes no Linda Boucher no Parita Carrudiera Jeanne Lambert Yes Mushir Hassan Yes Kathy Lim No Scott Wheeler Yes Four yeses, three noes Thank you that carries on roll call vote Our next action item of the evening is finally the final budget presentation for at least what six months you get before we start the next cycle Kristen Sobocinski Well as I mentioned at the annual meeting last month we'd be back in October to bring forth the final budget
101and levy So moving right into it the final levy for the 23-24 year is $74.5 million which is a $3.1 million reduction from last year it's a little over $4 million less than what we thought at preliminary so 4.1% decrease you'll notice the biggest change is in the general fund here and I'll get more into the why in a couple of slides That does translate to an equalized mill rate that's six dollars and fifty cents about a dollar less than last year a 13% reduction and the reason why it's a larger reduction than the levy itself is because our equalized valuation increased ten point 3% and in the preliminary budget estimate we used a 3.86% increase so you have more value to spread that tax levy over so it decreases even further it also results
102in a $1,950 equalized tax bill for a home valued at $300,000 which would be a $291 decrease if your assessment remained the same From a four-year history in 2021 our levy rate was $9.90 it's reduced to $6.50 and the property tax impact reduced from $2,970 to $1,950 on a $300,000 home that equates to about a thousand dollars less from 2021 to 23-24 The reason why we had this significant decrease is we almost have a 700% increase in state aid, state general aid, also known as equalization aid. So we had a low of $3.3, $3.4 million in 2021, and now we're expected to receive $26.7 million in this fiscal year. Why did our general aid increase as I mentioned before aid is inversely related to district property value per student So the higher property value per
103student receives less aid the lower property value per student receives more aid so that is a big Big marker as to how you move in terms of the the aid formula as well as what other districts are seeing in terms of their factors the key factors we look at our enrollment our equalized property value per student and our cost per student which are also called shared costs what has changed since 2021 is our enrollments increased seven percent while the state average decreased by 2.7 percent so our enrollment went up state went down Our property value per student as compared to the state average decreased 30% We used to be 183% of the statewide average and we're now 153% of the statewide average so we're less property rich in the formula our cost per student decreased
104by 5% and the state average increased by 11 so our costs are controlled we're less property rich we moved our capital projects to fund 46 to really make sure that we could control our cost which has resulted in additional state aid And then the chart I always show is going back to 1992-93 when revenue caps were put in place our mill rate was $13.60 and it's now $6.50 at the annual meeting the preliminary budget we estimated $7.29 so a decrease from that as well We do have final numbers on our Voucher and Charter students. We have 150 total. Our Voucher students are 112, they went up three. Our Charter students went down by one. So a total increase of two, but our Charter students went down by one. Voucher and charters impact us from a
105budget standpoint a little differently from charter students we add those to our enrollment for the revenue limit calculation and for charter for voucher students we are able to add the amount of tuition that's deducted from our aid to the revenue limit so we're able to essentially increase our property tax levy to pay for the tuition for these students to attend those schools That impact in 23-24 is about 1.7 million dollars Even though we didn't have a large number of increases in terms of students there the tuition per student increased significantly in the state budget and so that is the reason for the large spike so it's not necessarily the number of Students in some cases the tuition went up $2,000 $2,500 so that's the reason for the big increase Moving on into the budget timeline
106that is October we are talking about the adjusted budget and levy certification and we'll Start the new budget come November with the enrollment forecast. So you will see me again The adjusted budget we finally have the last pieces of the puzzle in terms of finalizing things our third Friday count in September is an important marker in terms of generating our revenue our certification of equalization aid came October 14th and our equalized value was set October 1st over the course of the summer months after the preliminary budget is approved we have summer hiring we're finalizing our insurance premiums there's other changes and expense adjustments that happen over those months that are incorporated into the adjusted budget The final fund 10 budget 108.4 million dollars in revenues this is 2.2 million dollars more than we anticipated the
107reason being that we have 122 more students than projected and 325 dollars per pupil rather than the 200 dollars per projected As I mentioned state aid increased significantly but as a reminder state aid is not additional money it is strictly property tax relief so it it is welcomed and we appreciate that but it's not additional money for the district to utilize We do have a balanced budget at 108.4 million in expenditures you may recall that our preliminary budget incorporated a $350,000 deficit for contingency positions which we needed and used so that was a good strategy the increase in expenditures is 1.8 million dollars the largest increase is due to health insurance we had a lot of conversations about health insurance and and our higher than anticipated claims our district share of fund 27 increased about
108$240,000 due to special education staffing needs from new enrollments our transfer to capital projects we increased that to $300,000 to our baseline we have always held a $2.3 million budget line item for our capital projects to transfer to fund 46 every year so we did increase that up to that baseline and then our other non-unit increased 670,000 but 260 of that was a shift from long-range operations and maintenance and 270,000 was an increase in grant related expenditures so it has a matching revenue and 135 was due to increase in open enrollment expenditures Changes in other funds included $660,000 for additional staffing needs and we did have another increase in the federal grant related expenditures so again a matching revenue to that The fund 46 I talked about reflects that capital funding transfer revenue and fund
10950 we had additional capital equipment replacement needs that we put into the budget there our fund 73 is increased about $65,000 to reflect higher than anticipated health insurance costs that's where we pay for our retirees health insurance that are grandfathered into that Total fund expenditures are 1.9 million higher than the preliminary budget and those are all the changes that we have any questions Thank You Kristen good news Questions or comments or emotion Sam great job. I mean, this is a lot of numbers She did a great job advocating for us and an understanding it and super thankful To see that levy that mill rate go down and just what you've been able to do in the district administration So it's awesome. Good job I move approval of the 2324 final adjusted budget and tax levy
110as presented Second Thank you. We have a motion and a second further discussion Kathy I just have a couple of questions on the slide for I just want to understand this correctly No, sorry, Christy, or Kristen. Six, the Elmbrook general aid, right? So it went up significantly from 2021. So you said this is strictly to do with property tax- Relief. Relief, okay. And then next slide says it's inversely related, higher property value means less aid. So and then lower property value is more aid. Makes sense. But since it went up or is it because our property value went down so we got more aid, but then our property value, I mean, it went up significantly since like 20. one two and I know that we were reassessed it may not be this but since early
11121 property values have been going up so I'm looking at it kind of opposite can you help me understand Sure so this is all in comparison to the rest of the state so our equalized value went up 10.3% this year which is a significant increase but the state average was 13% so on average our increase went up less than other districts and if you look at our enrollment went up so from a property value per student if you increase the number of students and your value doesn't increase proportionately along with the other districts we are going to look less property rich on the formula Kristen you do a great job of taking a complex subject and after This will be my ninth year of looking at the budget. I think I understand most of this.
112I just want to highlight a few celebrations. The increased student enrollment is no small thing. I know that Mark, that's been a marker that we put down for a while, especially coming out of the pandemic, worried that some students would stay remote or would choose other education options. It was said when I came on the board, I haven't heard it so much recently, but I think it's still the same. We live in... One of the most if not the most competitive education environments meaning there's so many choices available to our students in terms of private parochial charter schools, and so there's just Thumb works not cutting it for you There's just a lot of other things that you could places you could go to educate your child and so Increasing those student enrollments and along
113with that as a subset. I think the board's decision We can't overlook the fact that we started 4k and is how many years have we had it now is this our fourth or third? So it's our third. That's why I wasn't sure but in the third year we get the full benefit of that right meaning they take the average of the last three So as we started our 4k program, it only counted as the third of the students because we had two years of zero In the average in the last year we had one year zero two years of students this year We have all those students counted and so there's a part of the student increase and so again I know there's a lot of conversation a lot of work went into that decision
114most of those Board members are no longer serving but I would certainly as I sat around this table for me one of the highest Most motivating reasons to vote for 4k besides the early childhood education benefits, which was number one for me But the number two was the financial potential financial help and I think we can't Overlook that and so I say thank you to previous board members who had the vision to vote for that And then the third thing I want to highlight is just the fund 46 strategy There's been conversation over the years in the boardroom. I think we're going to talk about it again tonight. Do we set aside all the money we need to the end of the year to make payroll, or do we borrow from the city for a
115low interest rate? But understand that if we keep that money in fund 50? 10. 10, dang it. I thought I was understanding it well. Is 50 special education? Food service. Dang it. So I have more work to do. But that idea of putting the maintenance, funding into fund 46 so it would take it out of the formula. So again, kudos to you and your team for understanding the state formula, looking for a way that we could use that to our advantage to get that state aid. It's not up on the screen anymore, but that arrow just almost straight up has really helped us be able to fund these things and it really all goes back to the classroom, right? We want a staff that's paid in the upper quartile to attract talent and keep them.
116And we want money going into the classroom. And we have transportation needs that we've talked about tonight and are going to be continuing those conversations in the future. And we have facility needs. And all those things are possible. And again, the board certainly in the past has had the unspoken. Desire to not go to referendum, you know that we can live within the budget that our taxpayers have given us 108 million dollars is not a small budget So it seems like that would be fairly easy to do but it does it takes a team It takes a vision of the board takes a talented administration. That's responsive and again Chris. I just can't say thank you enough This is a very positive budget. And of course our state legislators who are put some funding towards
117increasing the per student Right, which I think had been on hold for two years was it it was zero the last two years Which is hard in an inflationary environment to say we're not giving you any additional money for students So that was nice to see too. So again, just there's a lot of real things that came together that worked out for us tonight and Just grateful to all those parties, but those are my comments Kathy I forgot to ask one question. We had 100 additional new enrollment new students Mark was it This year? Offhand? Like was it 100 more than projection? Just over 100 more than projection Do you know how many of those new students require IEP or ask for IEP? I would have to get that information out or have it in
118front of you but we did have a lot of move-ins that required additional staff Whenever you have that information Any further questions or comments? Okay, it's time we have a motion and a second so it's time to vote on the motion all those in favor of approving the budget as presented please say aye aye Any opposed? Thank you that carries on voice vote that brings us to our final action item of the evening Jean recent gifts to the district this month we are recognizing and thanking donors that made gifts to the district in the months of July and August this year in July a total of $24,482.35 was donated and in August a total of $64,500.66 was donated you can see the donors listed on the screen we have moved to a electronic way of
119keeping records and displaying these names on the website Kristi's going to navigate there that they won't just be available during the board meeting but will always be posted on the website so great thanks to the donors these gifts to the district who support excellence in education in Elmbrook and with that I'd move approval of agenda item 6d recent gifts to the district Second Thank you we have a motion and a second any further comments or questions Linda Yes I brought this forward at F&O because I was curious and other people might be that there were several donors to the weight room at East High School and collectively I think they said it was around $4,000 that they collectively raised, and I was wondering how that was collected and everything. And, Chris, do you want to
120tell us how that was done online, et cetera? We have a fundraising site online that parents, families, community members can donate to. The weight room project specifically, they've collected donations over the past several years and it's really to fix old equipment or replace equipment so they have their own account and all the funds come in and stay in that account and they're used as needed for the weight room. And you said it was decided the athletic director is kind of the one who directs where the needs will go. Right. So shout out for that effort and all the camaraderie and support that came in. But when I had that many donations coming for one cause, I had curiosity as to why and where and how. So that can answer some questions of the same people
121out there who might be curious, as curious as I was. Thank you. Thank you, Linda. Any other questions or comments? All those in favor of approving the motion to accept the recent gifts to the district as presented please say aye. Aye. Any opposed? Thank you. That carries on voice vote and concludes our action items for the evening. Our first discussion item is the third Friday enrollment report. Back to Kristen. I've mentioned in previous budget presentations enrollment is really one of the key drivers for our revenue each year so this is something that we track very closely and we try to project as we look at future budgets the third Friday enrollment report is the first report of the year that we send to DPI there's another one that happens on the second Friday in January
122as well The third Friday enrollment count is used for revenue limit purposes so that's the revenue piece. We had a total of 7,868 students in our buildings as of the third Friday count. This compares to the 2022-23 school year of 7,770, almost 100 more students this year and 139 more than we projected. From a summary standpoint we have 98 more students attending our schools than last year 96 more resident students and 115 more students included on our total revenue limit calculation than last year so every time somebody asks me what our enrollment is I always ask well it depends what do you mean and as I walk through the slides you'll understand more So there is a huge funding impact for us as I said our total four-year-old kindergarten through 12th grade students that are
123attending are 7,868 you can see that sharp increase here after the 2021 year is when we added 4k but we were increasing in enrollment prior to that as well so this you know sharp increase here has really helped us from an aid perspective So we start out with those 7,868 students and then we need to subtract our non-resident students and these are our open enrolled students. You can see there we have decreased open enrollment since 11 and 12 because the board has declared that we have no seats available because of our increase in resident enrollment and our building's capacity. In 23-24 we had 30 part-time students those are students that are enrolled in our launch program from other schools and 91 open enrollment students from other full-time open enrollment students so we have to subtract
124the 91 and the 30 from the 7,868 we would also subtract our chapter 220 students but this year we don't have any last year was the last year we had chapter 220 students as the program has been phased out And then we also subtract our nine-week waiver and tuition students. These are some tuition-paid students that attend the consortium. And some nine-week waiver, what that means is that some families may come to us and say, hey, I'm building a house. I'll be done building September 15th. And they can attend on a nine-week waiver, and then they have to come back and prove residency. So those are the students that we can't count as residents. That leaves us with 7,740 students that are attending our schools that you can see that difference from last year of 7,644
125To that number we add our open enrollment out students So these are the students that live in our boundaries that attend a public another public school through open enrollment Not private schools. We don't call private school children These are only public school open enrollment out or students that attend specialty schools and we had 138 of those so we add that to our total to give us a headcount of 7,878 now for revenue limit purposes they count FTE differently so our early childhood students are counted at 0.4 our 4k students are counted at 0.6 so that's why you have a headcount number that's different than our actually FTE or full-time equivalent of 7,711 Our total revenue limit FTE includes summer school so summer school starts the year for us this summer of 23 start of the
126year we had 87 that's a proration based on the number of students and minutes we had our third Friday FTE of 7,711 and our charter students that are added to our revenue limit total for a total of 7,836 students Our revenue limit history can be seen here So again, you have many different numbers depending upon if you're talking about revenue limit numbers or students attending our in our schools, non-residents, residents that we add back, a whole host of different numbers in terms of enrollment. That's the report. Thank you. Are there any questions for Kristen? Linda? On that one slide did you say 138 attend other schools are those like parochial or voucher? Those are students that attend other public schools so they open and roll out they live in Brookfield or Elm Grove they live
127in it within our district boundaries or they and they may attend a Hamilton or they may attend another public school or it's a specialty school that they're placed out So those 138 are not included in the 7,000 They're added in at the end that we get to count them because they're not sitting in our schools but they're residents of the district So they're not included in that figure 7,878? They are in the revenue limit total because we get to count them on our revenue limit because they're residents but they don't attend our schools We collect the taxes But then we pay open enrollment tuition to those schools. Yeah, we pay it two times. I know something. Other questions for Kristen? This is just a discussion item. It won't be back for action or anything, but
128it's an important piece of the funding formula, and it's important, obviously, for the health of the school district and for board members and the public to understand this. Thank you, Kristen. So our second discussion item is the resolution authorizing a taxable tax and revenue anticipation promissory note. Do you want to walk us through this? Yes I'll start with some background and give a little rationale for sort of the line of credit. The district has worked with the city for many years on a line of credit which has saved the district a lot money because they're able to borrow for a short time period just when we need it whereas if you were to issue a tax revenue anticipation note a tran that's like a year long and you have to pay that interest over a
129year so this is a this is a great solution for a time where we need funds because of different cash flow needs so one of the big reasons why districts have to to seek additional funds is because of the way revenues are received. So you'll see on this chart I have December highlighted because that's when we start to receive revenues for the current fiscal year, even though the fiscal year starts in July. This August and September payment are for last fiscal year. So we don't even get all of our property taxes for the current fiscal year. we don't get 24% of them until after, and then we don't get 15% of our general aid to after. So as you can imagine, we have payroll, we have other expenditures, and we don't get funds until December.
130And then January is when we get that full, not full, but 43%, it's our largest payment of tax revenue. I know this is really hard to see, but I won't stay on it long. So we always do a cash flow analysis. We use PMA to do that. Our cash balance at the beginning of the year is about $28 million. This is just to show you sort of, you know, this is when taxes and state aid are received. And this column is our ending balance. And so you can see on a monthly basis, we don't get in the red. We have a positive balance by month. The issue is come... the first week of January we don't have revenue coming in so we have to look at it by the week because the first week in
131January is when we have a payroll and we don't have any funds coming in so that's when we start hitting that negative balance where we just need funds for a short period of time in order to get us to this tax payment of 17 million so that's sort of the reason is the timing of the the revenue so why don't why don't you just use fund balance to pay for your cash flow needs well first thing is just to understand that fund balance isn't cash so it's assets minus liabilities equal equity what are assets that could be receivable so it could it could be that it's not cash on hand so you can't just look at fund balances and say hey use that because it's not cash itself Our fund balance as of June 30th
132was $34.7 million in Fund 10, but our cash balance was $29.8 million. We also have a fund balance in Fund 46 of $11.6 million. However, we cannot use that for cash flow purposes. We are required to keep it in a separate bank account, and we can't use it for cash flow. If we could, we wouldn't be having this conversation. But we have a combined fund balance of $46.3 million between the two funds. So why are we using the fund 46 capital project fund? Well, we had that 700% increase in general aid which pushed us into a different position within the state aid formula Being in the in the position we are in now we really have to make sure that we control our costs Because if you increase your cost sharply the next year the
133way the a formula works your aid drops Which means because it's property tax relief your taxes go up. So for every 1 million dollars in expenditures Increase we would lose five hundred and thirty thousand dollars in state aid So that is the purpose of using fund 46 for our capital projects is to minimize those increases in capital projects. If we do a $6 million project, we certainly don't want that to go through Fund 10 because it would impact our aid the next year. So for this reason, as we saw we were approaching that increase in aid, we slowly moved funds from our capital set aside in Fund 10 into Fund 46 because we knew this time was coming that we'd have this situation. In 21-22 there was 119 school districts about 28% that had interest
134costs associated with cash flow borrowing many had really high bond ratings There's only three districts in Wisconsin that have AAA There's Elmbrook, Mequon, Thiensville and I think it's Whitefish Bay and you can see two out of the three have interest expense associated with borrowing so it's not necessarily a marker of bad financial management or anything like that it's simply a matter of timing of revenues and strategy in terms of our situation and strategy. So why do we need a line of credit? Well, we have paid for all of our capital projects and maintenance projects out of our savings, $50 million since 2017. Most districts, they borrow for that. They go to referendum. So they don't need to use their fund balance for cash flow. They can use it all for cash flow. But because of
135our strategy that we've employed, we use that savings intentionally to get those capital projects done. So in order to, again, not have that negative impact on property taxes, we are utilizing that 146 that we can't use currently for cash flow needs. We also earned $370,000 worth of interest in Fund 46 for 2022-23, and the cost of the line of credit last year was $10,000. We are proposing this year a $2.9 million line of credit. That expense is estimated to be about $17,000. But just this slide here is to show that we do earn interest off of those funds, even though we can't use those for cash flow. It does offset, more than offset, the cost of that line of credit. So what are some considerations that the board can, looking ahead, look at? We could
136adjust the timing of our major state revenues that would change the district's need to issue the line of credit change that per pupil categorical aid timing that comes in March if we could get that six million dollars in December that would be that would be really nice that would solve all our problems accelerate when we get special education reimbursement or general aid disbursements but this would all require a change in law We could change our district capital funding strategy or limit it. That's another thing to look at If we could allow the use of fund 46 for cash flow, that'll be another thing to to lobby for Or reduce our operating expenditures for future budgets So this year if we weren't going to get this line of credit, which we have to at this point
137there in January We don't have the funds right now to cover that payroll. So we need that line of credit, but If we wanted to moving forward, we could certainly look at could we change our budget, reduce our expenditures, and set aside more in our fund balance. That's always a possibility. So this year we needed $2.9 million. We'd probably need that plus inflation next year to avoid any line of credit. However, we have to remember that we are self-funded for our health insurance, and we could always have high claims that may require a need. If we have high claims in November, December that go through the roof, we always have to keep that in mind. So the recommendation for this year is that $2.9 million. We anticipate we'll need it for about 30 days, mid-December
138through January 15th when we get that property tax. This is what the cash flow was based on to identify the $2.9 million, specifically the January slide that I showed. That shows it much better, but that's our recommendation for the year and then just some considerations We have to to look at moving forward if there wants to be a change in our strategy Thank You Kristen are there questions for Kristen this would be coming back as an action item next month So their questions tonight Jean you mentioned the change in categorical aid timing. Is that a city issue or a State state issue. So the state retains those funds Way beyond the point at which they collect them. I don't well, I mean this is all state budget driven. So You know, they're collecting Revenues through
139your income taxes and I don't know the timing of all that when these go out But you know the chart shows that we get aid at different intervals I don't know the rationale reasoning behind it, but it certainly would help if we could get this to move So that would be looking to our state legislators to take this forward perhaps that would be I don't know if CLE has Linda do you know if CLE has considered this issue in the past asking the asking the state to pay us our categorical aid in December instead of you said March Yeah, right now it's in March if you look at this hundred percent right here for people aid It's about six million dollars if we could get that in December that would help significantly. It's always an
140issue with WASBE. It's always something that Comes up. You gotta remember the state doesn't like to distribute that money because they're making money off the interest as well They probably put it in CDs and they don't want to release it out of their CDs. So I mean we can lobby for it, but To work with our legislators to see if there's an adjustment there? Perhaps that's you know our legislative priorities we issue every year maybe that's something we'd consider adding to that so that we could And any regular citizen can notify our representatives from whatever area they're in for me it's Hutton I don't know where anybody else it is but yeah you feel free to write in and lobby individually that always is Certainly helpful too Thanks other questions Kathy Kristen on page two
141the disbursement of you know three categories That state That's a state schedule correct and is that the same for all school districts or is it ours? school districts okay, and then I see that Fund Fund 10, 27, 50, and 80 are considered cash flow, correct? That's not tied to fixed assets. Right. Okay. And I guess one question I have is I know we've been borrowing from the city of Brookfield. Okay. So my thing is if we need to borrow, we need to borrow. I guess I just want to, I guess historically I know. whether it's better interest rate whatever but the district was borrowing from the city is there anything in the city code that defines a city council or the city municipal code says that they can be the lender entity to borrow from
142them I would have to ask legal counsel what the basis is but you know the resolutions drafted by Quarles and Brady and so we have all the legal legalese that we need to do it Because we have AAA binding and I know it takes a lot of work and you know due diligence and to get that So I just want to make sure we are doing I'm sure we are but I like to see where it says City can be a lender Just so that if it said so then fine, but you know, we have banks we got loans and maybe it is a better rate, but I'd rather do things with the lender, but if city is defined as Can be a lender then I'm fine with it But if you can look into
143that we did reach out to town bank on an interest rate and Mitzi Do you remember what that rate was? It was higher than the yeah Yeah, no I get it and if if city gives us 2% and the bank gives us 10% and if city should not be a lender We should borrow from a bank that gives us a loss and maybe city is can be a legit lender Then totally fine. I just want that clarification. Thank you Thank you, Kathy Jean Kathy I would think that the city with all their due diligence wouldn't put themselves in a position of I just want clarification I think I just don't know that so I just would like to see the code or wherever by law that says I can be a lender What liability do
144we have that would require us to be sure that they're doing it right? It would seem that we need to be sure we're doing it right and it's up to them to be sure that they are Act as a lender to loan out taxpayer money with the interest that's maybe it is and I just want that clarification written somewhere So so we're clear that they can do that. Thank you questions. I have one Kristen. I just want to Just make sure I'm understanding correctly because at the end of the presentation you talked about several things we could do in the future to you know considerations looking ahead if we Which you know some of the things requiring changing law I don't put a lot of confidence that's gonna change but we could hold on to
145more money in fun 10 But that would adversely affect the state aid meaning here If we used fun 10 to fund our capital projects, yes So right now we have about 14 million dollars in fun 10 and 11 million dollars in fun 46 we have Many more projects than 11 million dollars to do I'm almost concerned about if we want to continue the fund 46 strategy How are we going to get money in there fast enough? so that we don't run into an issue of we have to use Fund 10. So the minute that we're spending Fund 10 money to put a new roof or to repave a parking lot. But the idea is that's where our money would come from. So we've got this money sitting there. Hey, we don't need it for the
146new roof until summertime. So it could potentially be in Fund 10. But the minute we start using that, the state cares about what you ultimately spend the dollar on. Right, so at the end of the year they look at your total costs for that year and if we were to do you know a roof or a couple of roofs and six million dollars our expenses went up six million dollars we're gonna pay 53 percent we're going to lose 53% per million dollars in aid. So our aid is going to drop significantly. And our taxes are going to jump up that year. And then the next year, if we don't do a good job. Because state aid offsets taxes. So suddenly that 650 mil rate that we were so excited about in the state budget is
147significantly higher. So it's affecting the people who are paying the taxes. Okay. Well, and I do applaud the strategy. I said that earlier, and I believe it applaud the strategy of putting money in Fund 46 so we can maximize state aid, lower property taxes. I mean, let's use the formula in our favor. And I was intrigued by the fact that we earn interest on Fund 46. So that interest, you know, offsets the small amount of interest we're paying for two weeks. It's not an entire month's worth of time, but two weeks on that. Again it seems like a wise strategy and fiscally responsible to the taxpayers Kathy did you Yeah you just triggered a question I had I didn't know why I wrote it but okay so when we use fund 10 for something our
148A goes down If our costs were to go up from $100 million to $106 million the next year that would negatively impact our aid for the following year You want to try to keep your costs relatively constant or at least under what the state average costs are going up Otherwise if you have large fluctuations you're gonna have these dips and increases in state aid And we're at the point now where I don't think we're going to see that trajectory continue to increase. I think we're going to see it flatten. That's my hope is that at least it will flatten. So we're at a point now where we really need to look at Fund 46 if we're going to do large projects because it will impact our age. Is it because, oh, you have money to
149spend, you could use something else, you don't need our help? Is that their rationale? I don't know why they don't. Fund 46 is relatively new, and it came out of, the fact that there are a lot of districts that are considered property rich that are in the position we're in that get negative aid that takes away from us and if you're in that position and you you're the more you spend the less age you get other districts that are positively aided throughout the whole calculation if they spend more they get more aid so there's districts that have gone to referendum and built these you know beautiful big buildings and they're get and the state aid helps them pay for it whereas if we would do that we'd get penalized and so that's where they said
150okay we'll give you this fund 46 for the you negative tertiary districts and you can use that for your capital projects that was their solution from a lobbying effort Before you said that our state aid is depending on our properties right just in the our home values So how does 10 fund 10 spending because then it's negatively impact but then if our value is going up we got more aid so it sounds less than the state average Correct our per our property value per pupil went up less than the state average. So we're looking property one more Yep, and our costs went went down compared to state average. So those two things Helped us get where we are in terms of state aid. It's not a straightforward formula. And so that's why he takes a
151team. Yeah I think the easiest way for me to think of it is as property taxes go up and state aid goes down when state aid goes up property taxes typically go down now this year may be an anomaly for us because of the assessed value increases across the city of Brookfield it's like health care finance Sam one quick I thought I understood it but just make sure I'm clear fund 46 is not tracked by the state right so money we spend in there doesn't affect our what we have in there is forever out of their purview for the most part it's a no they they track it we have to report it to them um it just doesn't it's not included in the aid calculation okay that's what i was trying to so if
152we have a much larger budget in there this year or much larger find our balance in there this year at the end of the year won't affect the aid versus last next year so we could build that up for maybe a big project down the road or something we need without affecting us right and that's what our strategy is so we put that 2.3 million away so that's just a constant you know we're dribbling in funds year to year so that we don't have a big spike in costs it's just been in our budget for years now and then we shift it But, you know, we have $11 million in Fund 46 now. We have $6 million that we're doing. So that's going to dwindle that bucket down to $5 million. And we have a
153lot more projects to do. So we'll have to take a look at that strategy and see what we want to do. There's the quote of the night. Thank you, Kristen, again, for helping us understand a complex concept. Board members this will be back next month as an action item So in the meantime as you think about it as you think of questions, please contact Kristen So you're ready to vote on that our next discussion item for the evening will also be back as a action item next month it will it is the School board election and deputy clerk So I'll just highlight a few things here in this Content area of the Discussion item We have in the past appointed a deputy clerk to carry out non-discretionary school board election duties. The board clerk can
154always be in the district office unless you really want to be, Preetha. And so at those times when we're open for business and Preetha as the clerk is unavailable to fulfill those responsibilities, a deputy clerk can be appointed and we will take action on that. Next month we're proposing to again appoint. Christy Westfall to be the deputy clerk and she does an amazing job. This year two seats will be open for school board members to be elected on and the election is April 2nd 2024. One election is in area four. That's roughly the district's southeast quadrant. So think of we were down by Swanson. Yeah, Greenfield Avenue. Yep. So that kind of quadrant of the district is taking part of Elm Grove. Yep. And then we do have an at-large seat. And anyone... So the
155person running for Area 4 would have to live within Area 4. The at-large seats... person running for that can be just a resident of the district all the residents in the district vote on both seats you don't have to be a resident area for to vote for area for but you have to be a resident to run for that and that again is in board policy the idea being let's not have all the board members be from one side of town or one high school or something like that so there will be a candidate information session on Tuesday November 14th at 445 in this building that is just prior to Scheduled board meeting that evening. You also notice if you go to the election page on the website that there isn't anything there yet But
156sometime around November 1st You will see election information populated their forms things like that that you if you're interested you would want to download Again come to the information meeting you can get more information there The at-large seat is currently held by Mushir Hassan. The area four seat is currently held by Jean Lambert. Let's see, have I covered everything? Christy, anything else I should add? We're good? Board members can declare they are running any time. or not running any time for our two incumbents, no candidates, including current board members, can collect signatures until after December 1st once the paperwork is filed. So file paperwork first with Christy, then after December 1st. Even if you file the paperwork before December 1st, that's fine, but you can't collect signatures legally until after December 1st. Okay, did I
157cover everything correctly? Are there any board member questions or comments? Okay, thank you. This will be back next month as an action item as part of our agenda. Our next discussion item is the first reading of the 1000 policy series. And before we get to board discussion on this, we do have four requests to speak to us. Take these in the order that they are numbered here. Our first request to speak is from Mary Wacker, a resident of the district. Mary? thank you good evening i had to write things down i'm usually extemporaneous but not tonight um i have attended committee and board meetings where this policy has been discussed a lot revisions many revisions have been put forward discussed A number of questions have been asked and some have been left unanswered and some
158opinions have been proffered that have been left unsupported. So I really wanted to just lay out what remains unclear to me as a community member. And the first thing is why this significant rewrite of a simple policy that has served the district well. Here's what I've heard from members of the board and staff with experience in working with committees. there have no there have been no significant issues chris thompson reported that in his memory there was a single instance of a committee member who moved and was not replaced on a committee that had sufficient membership to complete the task i heard jean lambert say the last time this came forward and she is the board member who's got the experience here that she shared an opinion that this existing policy has served the board well
159and Committee chair Linda Boucher has noted when edits were presented that they were reflective of people's concerns But I haven't heard those concerns identified in a way that I can understand so I'm all for simple agile policies bare minimums as Sam called them tonight earlier and I don't think you should get bugged down in every what if, but allow the board and the administration the flexibility to adapt advisory committees to the tasks for which they are called to serve. And that's listed. There's three things. Accomplish specific tasks, be advised of public opinion, and help inform the public of district needs. I've been a member of this community attending board meetings for 35 years. I've served in a citizen advisory capacity on interview teams, reviews of the Gifted and Talented program, and even on a task
160force to reopen schools. I've seen citizen advisory committees discuss and inform the board on ways to improve our district, support referendums, and make decisions about redistricting and choices about how we invest our resources. I think I speak from an informed perspective that citizen advisory committees have been successfully deployed and served in the past with the existing policy and without the handcuffs that excess rules and regulations will impose on the board if some of the wordy and unexplained edits come to pass. The policy of calling for citizens to serve in an advisory capacity to the board should be encouraged, not bound by so many rules and threats of public expulsion that it will discourage the good people of this community to step up and serve. If you need to have your point of view represented on
161a committee, you ought to first think whether you really need a citizen advisory committee because they're intended to bring new ideas to you. Be careful with edits. Thank you. Thank you, Mary. Our second request to speak is Amy Zimmerman a resident of the district. Hello again. I try to be efficient when I attend so yes my name is Amy Zimmerman I am a resident of the district I'm concerned about some of the modifications that I see particularly in the citizens advisory boards and committees practice statement so the flowchart diagram provided and the specific items that allow the board members of this school board here to cherry pick advisory board members who are meant to be, as the previous speaker said, bringing in fresh perspective and new ideas is very concerning to me as a resident
162and as somebody whose children are affected by the policies and recommendations by the citizens advisory committees and this board here. And then further, to have the opportunity to remove specific individuals if they do not agree with perhaps the board's predisposed position, I think is also simply not a good practice to document and to espouse within that practice statement. I think that each of you as leaders is doing a tremendous service to our community on this board here. But it's also very important to acknowledge that as leaders, you are not called to do everything yourselves and rather to recruit and enlist others, hopefully from outside your specific close networks, as it's really those weak ties that bring a lot of value, new perspective, and innovation to the table. So I hope that as you look at
163these amendments to the policy and the practice statement, that you know keep in mind the mutual benefit for our community of citizens partaking in these committees and boards as well as the deliverables that they will be bringing forward to you on the school board and I it's my opinion that more time and thought is necessary to consider these revisions and As well the potential for adverse impact to our community from the operations that these policy and practice statement would enable so I would advise and request that you please renew the policy as it is currently written without these revisions but that's for another night so thank you very much Thank you Amy our third request to speak is Amy if you want to yeah yeah it's you Thank You Amy a resident of the district
164Thank you. I share the same concerns as the two people who came before me. And I looked at the changes that you guys have in what had been a relatively simple policy that gave you guys some flexibility to do what you need to do. And it seems that some of that flexibility is still in the written policy. But then when you look at the practice statement, that's where I see stuff that's a concern to me. self-nomination to a committee, a citizens committee, and then followed up with requests, board president and designated board committee chairperson review all applications and must select the top preference for each board member which could include a self-nomination. So that looks like on a committee that's supposed to be community members giving you guys information. Someone can say, you know what,
165I want my viewpoint as a board member to be the most important viewpoint here. So I'm going to nominate myself, nominate myself first as my first choice. And everyone else on the board has to go along with that because that's the System that we have set up here and you guys should really think about the optics for your community on that You know, I think a lot of people are so pleased and I can speak personally that I'm really grateful to what the board has done for our school district It's wonderful and we've enjoyed it You know the whole time my kids have been in school, but I hate to see changes that hamstring you guys into a burdensome process that might discourage you from using this kind of citizen engagement in the first place.
166So now we have to go through, we have to jump through all these hoops. Do we really want to set up something that we have to go through all of these steps when really all we need is five or six people in the community to give us their opinion on something so that it's not just the number of people on the board and their opinions. Yeah, I just, I fear that this could result in loss of community engagement for you guys because people will be concerned about it not being their opinions and being more like, okay, I have the committee chair is a board member and they're sort of dictating what everyone else is going to talk about here. And if what you're looking for is outside community opinions that will help you. make decisions
167about things in a way that reflects what the community is looking for. I think what you want is community members, not board members. And if you do need board members, the previous policy gives you the flexibility to leave those in. Thank you. Thank you, Amy. Sorry for not pronouncing your last name. Our final request to speak to us tonight is Beth Cleary, a resident of the district. Thank you, Scott. So I have the same concerns as the previous speakers as well and I was here in August when this was discussed and there was a comment that was made and I went back and I listened to it and I was like it did not sit well with me and I thought about it some more. The comment was these advisory committees do provide great and
168powerful influence into the decisions that we're making here. by the Board of Education, I feel and believe that we must take great caution and care in the development of these committees and what voices are on these committees. This policy must be rigid to ensure that each elected board member has a voice on these advisory committees and nimble enough to ensure that unproductive members can be removed from the committee, which is by the two-thirds vote. I could not agree more with the prior comments that self-nominations of board members I don't understand what is the purpose of even having a citizen advisory committee if you're going to have board members. You guys already have the authority to establish committees, so that's essentially what that would be. The two-thirds vote is a supermajority used in very specific scenarios.
169I don't understand why that would be employed either to make modifications. And the reason why I realize this didn't sit well with me is because i recently watched a presentation and for anybody watching and paying attention to the school board in general i encourage people to take note of this and to watch it themselves you can find it on youtube and it was entitled september 2023 citizen information forum public education This is by a political group countywide, and they have an initiative in the last two years. A big part of it is to recruit and to support and to get politicized individuals on our school boards. And in fact, if you listen to this, it's an hour and a half, and it is long, but I think it's really important for people to pay attention
170to this. essentially what struck me is it was an attack on public schools an attack on teachers and attack on administrators and yet there's this initiative to try to politicize our school boards and they even made reference to the fact that they were successful in doing it at every single district in our county except for one and guess which one that was ours And I think it's really important that we pay attention to things like that because if we, as a community, who we value independent thinking, we value collegiality, we value non-politicized school governance, if we do not pay attention to it with simple policies like this that could turn into something else, all we have to do is look to the west of us in Waukesha and we can see what they have, the
171national headline news with a song about a rainbow, right? Or we look to the north of us, Menominee Falls, where they just banned books like Kite Runner, Wicked, Slaughterpaws 5, The Bluest Eyes. I mean, that's where this could head if we're not careful. So I urge people to pay attention to these things, big and small, and connect the dots. Thank you. Thank you, Beth. Now we're to the discussion portion of these policies. Are there questions or comments board members have to make to the group in general or for Linda? I can comment on these policies like the concerns were brought forth at the last board meeting so if anyone did not hear these concerns please refer to the August 8th meeting CLA committee met regarding policy 1221 on september 20th 2023 the cle committee reviewed
172and discussed the comments that were brought forth from all the board members at the august 8th board meeting we went over each of those concerns one by one From which were brought forth at the meeting and Kristi took very good notes on that so we did not miss any of them These concerns were reviewed they were discussed and then they were incorporated or resulted in an omission in the formation of the policy that we bring forth this evening as Recommended some components of the prior draft were separated and are now stated in the practice statement 1221 The draft presented is a result of all those considerations that were brought forth at that meeting. Nowhere in it does it state that board members are committee members, so that is very misleading. That is not a true
173statement. To clarify, a board member, nowhere, it's not stated anywhere that they would be a committee member. However, every board member is. is a member of this community. So as you review that, it's very succinct. I think Chris did a very nice job. If you'd like to review that policy after we took into all the considerations for further discussion, I have the other policies outlined, but I don't know if you want me to go over them in my report or if you want me to do them now. Sure. Yeah. If you would like to make a report on the other policies, go ahead. Policy 1312 reflects a few minor adjustments regarding the wording with no changes to the 1312 practice statement and policy The policy statement I don't have the number there. We put the
174statute on I think that's the next one 1312 That's yeah, that's there were no changes to that one. But then the one before that I'm think 1312 where's the one that No Complain there was one where we listed the Statutes we put them as number one. Oh, that's in the thousand series. Sorry Okay, thank you Linda are there other board member questions or comments Sam? Yeah, I've got some comments Just to reiterate some of the conversations we had back in August, I think it's important to understand that policy 1221 is designed to seek community input to help accomplish specific tasks, sharing public opinion and or to help inform the public of the district needs. Relative agility is important. Historically, all CECs have been planned far in advance. The cycle can be as quick as six
175weeks through this process that is being proposed. A faster process can occur even with a special board meeting if some emergency comes up that we need to be acting faster. A couple examples of where this future policy may or may not apply is studying the feasibility of changing middle school start time, providing recommended options for both Hillside and the Fairview South buildings. We recognize that this policy must be rigid to ensure that each elected board member has a voice on these advisory committees and nimble enough to ensure that unproductive members can be removed if necessary. Since the recommendation of the Citizens Advisory Committee weighs heavily into the final decision by the Board of Education, it is critical that we have a balanced and representative group of citizens that properly reflect the values and perspectives of
176each of the seven board members we are not a democracy we are a representative republic and since the citizen advisory committees are there to serve the board and help making a decision it is important to have a good representation on that citizens advisory committee that is why this policy mandates that at least one citizen recommendation from each board member must be selected in the final recommended group is not a cherry picking option here because we pick all of the citizens because that is our job that we are elected to do. To further, in order to remove a citizen from the committee, we do require the two-thirds vote for the removal and it's because Robert rules has the basic premise that in order to squelch the voice of an individual, you must have a super majority
177to override that since citizens from the Board of Education. that are selected. One of them could be the ones that the individual selected from the board. We think that it's important enough to also in order to remove that you're removing that board member's voice on that committee. Like I said before these advisory committees provide great and powerful influence into decisions that we make as a board of education. As a board, we design the purpose and the outcome desired for this committee. We provide the role desired, the projected timeframes, recommend a number of participants, and the preferred education, professional, and or life experience to optimize this committee for success. The Board of Education President and the selected Board of Education Committee Chairperson have the duty to select the members and are required to choose the first
178option from each board member and may or may not choose a second or third option, depending on the recommended number of participants. That means the Board President and the Board of Education Chairperson have the obligation to work with the existing board members to change participant recommendations and provide the Board of Education the final list of recommended participants. In essence, the president and the board of education chairperson are choosing all of the participants this process still gives the most power to the president and the chairperson while also giving board members a voice on the committee naturally decentralizing the power which is what we want to design policies that will extend beyond today but into the future again the recommendations put forward by these committees do provide great weight into the decision made by the board of
179education Self-nomination was included to allow a current board member to also provide voting input to the direction of the Citizens Advisory Committee. There's good input as to why that's not the best option in the world. I can understand that, I think, but also on the same token, I think we wanted to say if a board member wants to have to help guide the direction of that Citizens Advisory Committee, providing valuable input, that's why we think that was important to include that as one option. This policy does contain the right balance based upon the input we got from August and from the this policy has been and the CLE committee for many months prior to that and I want to tackle a few of those. We did remove the citizen advisory committee can take any official
180action that was brought up as a concern. Number two, citizen advisory committees are designed by the board and seek direct input from the community and not additional input from the administration. The administration has the full ability to have their own Citizens Advisory Committee, in fact there's one that's going on now that was put together to help with reading, intergenerational reading. This is critical to making decisions that fully serve the community since we, as board members, are elected and we are required to. to get input that's apart from the administration, from the community. So not that administration is bad or negative, it's just a matter of we want to make sure it's pure and we're getting pure, as much as possible, input from the community without administration influence. We also, number three, we made some minor
181changes by removing meeting dates, examples, changed word, recruitment to recommendations. That was brought up in the last meeting. Number four, we removed citizen advisory committee chairperson has the same power as board committee chairperson. That was brought up as a concern. I think it was out of context, but it made sense from that, so we revised that to limit those powers that the citizen advisory committee chairperson will have in that committee. Number five, we improved the format and moved the more items to the practice statement to make this more succinct. Number six, district administration will have input to the citizen advisory committee by the district administrator or designee. So the administration certainly still will have a designee there, a liaison to serve on that committee. Number seven, the only time... The only time a citizen's qualifications
182would be discussed in an open meeting is if they are being asked to step down. To my knowledge, the only time that this was done in the past, it was done in a very public manner under the current policy. Should a similar situation occur in the future, it will also unfortunately be a public open meeting. I actually think that this will only keep the proper decorum and professionalism that we would want in the Citizens Advisory Committee. Number eight, public notice was brought up as a concern that this should be an overwhelming response on our discussion. I'm sorry. In our discussion, it was mentioned that this would be a very positive outcome and encouraging to our community if we had an overwhelming response of people interested in that. I think this policy covers those concerns. I
183think it's important to have a policy that... that will fully reflect our future, that will actually give us more agility and more structure to have a citizens advisory committee that will serve our community. That's all. Thank you, Sam. Are there other board member questions or comments? Then we'll circle around for seconds. Mushir and then Gene. So I'll start by apologizing. I was out of the country at the initial August meeting. I have some concerns. I guess I'm... Not getting the clear picture as to what is the problem we're trying to solve above what we currently have in place. My impression has been that any committee work that's done has to go through the board for any approval of any action. And if that's the case, then I think that our, at least for me, the
184goal should be to continue to encourage community engagement with as many community input mechanisms as we can to ensure that we're making an informed decision. I don't know that what I see in practice statement 1221 helps us to get towards increasing community engagement I have some concerns about the removal of quote unproductive committee members without having any sort of definition of what's considered unproductive because I think it can become subjective and so I have some concerns about that I also think that it's important for us just to look at what we have right now as approval process for the we have the concern we should have the ability for board members to be on citizen advisory committees to be able to offer opinion and weigh in on issues that's already in place now as a
185board when we have the discussion action sequence so I don't see how this is an improvement I have concerns that this is going to actually discourage folks in our community from being actively engaged looking at practice statement 1221 when I see the right corner Board President shares applicant list with the entire Board of Education. My concern would be, given previous history that we have seen as board members the last few years, will that be then publicly discoverable? And what will be then on that list, and what would then citizens potentially having concern about privacy that would be there as well, which would hinder them wanting to be engaged with citizen advisory committees? I have some concerns about where we're headed with this. I think that the process that we have in place right now allows
186for the board to be the hard stop to ensure that citizen advisory committees will be able to give advice but then have the ability for that advice to be adopted or not adopted at the board level. I was good with the board establishing purpose outcome timeframe qualifications and then ultimately board approval and that's what we have today and I think that putting all these other pieces in hamstrings us if I'm a community member and know that I might be removed from being unproductive I'm probably not going to sign up for that and it's a public process I'm not going to sign up for that so I think that's discouraging the two-thirds majority that's reserved for very particular circumstances I'm not in favor of adopting that piece self-nomination board members serving on we've typically had at
187least one board member serving on a Citizens Advisory Committee in the very distant past board member chaired that I was a co-chair at one point with a citizen member on a on a citizen advisory group but the self nomination process to assure your voice is represented our voice is here our voice comes once the group comes back to us with their thoughts and certainly board members are part of that process to advise a bit around maybe protocol or what happens next or maybe history that might have a bearing on what we're talking about I don't believe this in its form today is is an improvement on what we have today and I can't support this in its current form This policy started like 18 months ago I think discussion came up and the original intent
188and purpose because I was on CLE my first year and we went over this and the Basic premise of edits why we needed to clarify was that original policy read as if there was no even though it's board policy it was as if admin can function without oversight so we were trying to tweak that and just to the comments of Ultimately these are board policies. Okay, you seven of us are held to it, you know We take feedback, I get feedback from a lot of people that I agree with and I disagree with. And I don't always agree with people I agree with, and I don't always disagree with people that I disagree with. But ultimately, this is a board of education policy. And as seven members, we are going to do what we see
189is right, because we are ultimately held accountable to it. Having said that, so all this conversation started because we got to have some kind of oversight, okay? It was a board oversight, okay? It was just admin and, it wasn't even an, it was or the president. So I think the concern basically, which is from all spectrum of ideas, is that we don't want everyone in there that thinks like me, okay? Nobody wants that. We don't want here everybody that all thinks like say, Moshir. And that's a concern, and I think that comes from both aisles of whatever. And as much as we like to say. we are all but we are we i do believe that we as the board have the vision to make sure that we are doing the job that we were
190elected to do with the board of education that is the learning of our children period that's our that's our um that's our core business so um so those were the whys And then things like unproductive members, okay? So who handles that? And I think you're trying to address, and I totally get why that could be. So maybe that needs to clarify. But truly, this is advisory, okay? They're not making decisions. They're not going to say you're going to do this. These are truly advisory. So having said that, so looking at first statement, 1-2-2-7, I agree with some. I can't agree with some. I feel like the flow of the policy kind of contradicts itself. So, for example, the one that is highlighted on the first paragraph. This policy is not intended to apply to groups
191with effectively unlimited participation, loosely constituted groups, having a fluid and undefined membership, or to work teams or similar groups created or called together at the discretion of the administration as part of the day-to-day work or the operation of the district. What does that mean, Linda or Sam, maybe, and Preetha? I'm not understanding what that is saying is that can somebody explain that I think that's basically just making sure that we're very clear on that this isn't applied to groups that the administration puts together if they want to have like a citizens advisory committee for you know understanding internal processes or something else like that that would apply so that's this is not a policy for dictating what Dr. Hansen and his team will put together I think that's understood without having it because it reads
192like okay so then what and having said that what I add what admin advisory board can admins initiate on their own and where is that written You said there are advisory boards that administration can enact on their own without going through the board it relates to their operation like what would the example be I think recently there's an intergenerational reading group that's that was a established from community members and that was the goal of that group I believe is to better engage older people to be involved in reading to younger kids in school or doesn't have a direction or input on that type of group so that's that that would be an example is that answering your question Is that the committee that is in our classrooms piloting reading and math? I'm not familiar with
193that. Okay. Okay. And that's our school? That is our? So we can have, so that's what I'm trying to understand where and where is it that say admin can call citizen advisory group to bring? This is not it's not an advisory group it's not acting in an advisory capacity what this reading group is I'm trying to clarify I don't know that this policy fits that and I don't know that we would call a citizen advisory committee from administrative level we would always work with the Board of Education to define the success factors define the membership that's how we've always done it That's what separates this as a citizen's advisory committee and that statement kind of says that eliminate that type That part is confusing to me a bit because we're stating something that we are
194I don't know that part's confusing so I think So the intent and purpose was make sure there was oversight of the board it wasn't just one president and admin or it was that make sure all aisles of people whatever the topic was that is fairly represented and how do we make that happen right so that's been a discussion and the real key was also from all the work session that started last fall year ago was when does it get triggered like when does the advisory board citizen advisory board gets recommended from the board and that I don't think is defined that so those were the big things because we were like oh when do we call a citizen advisory forum and no one had an answer so that was one of the things that we
195would highlight that came with the whole work session that started I think fall of 22 or one I can't two so So I Understand why all these things are in I just think it's I can't I cannot support policy written as this is part some parts make sense some part seems Not the role of the citizen advisory committee and I get what the committee was trying to get it But I think it just has gone a little bit maybe Not as the initial conversation has intended. It's still not defining When does the citizen for citizen Advisory Committee get? Initiated I think that was the big question as well. So those are my thoughts I would like to also say that I cannot support this policy as written I voiced my concerns at the CLE committee
196and I will state them again as and as I stated our previous full board meeting balanced committees should be expected to consider cross-section of those directly affected interested and qualified as appropriate to the nature and function of the advisory committee I do not believe that this practice statement as we have here allows for thoughtful consideration of all community interests and allows us to create a committee that's fairly represented represented in its membership when we are hamstringed by a mandate that seven people chosen based on individual board members top picks will create a committee that We can be assured has that kind of balance and representation. So that's my that's my main concern as I have stated Regarding this policy and the the practice statement is written Kathy. I want to thank you for identifying where
197the original concerns with this policy come from. I feel like I have asked that question and have not yet received a satisfactory answer. If the original concern was to provide was to assure that the district administration would not solely be able to create a citizen's advisory committee as the language in the original statements that are in the original policy as it stands now says a statement that is an and it it says that citizen advisory committee should be made at the discretion of the board and or the district administration So if the original concerns regarding a revision of this policy had to do with that statement, I think that the simplest thing to do would be to strike out that statement and just say that appointments to the citizen advisory point you should meet at
198the discretion of the board. I don't feel that it's necessary to go through as we have in this policy statement a detailed step-by-step way in which that happens. As we can see from our current policy, The composition of committees can vary and again the board is tasked with that. The committee, the policy that we have as it writes allows us to be able to create a committee in any way that we determine as a board. I'm not sure why we need unnecessary language adding to frankly bureaucracy in our policies and as a result I cannot support this as it's written. I'll share a few comments and then we'll go back around if other board members would like to share additional comments. really appreciate the collective wisdom of the group and I really appreciate CLE for
199taking this on as I read in the agenda item it's been there and come and come back here to the boardroom a lot of times let's see if we were to count up as it eight times The committee has approved things and brought them here and I don't know if I'm counting that correctly, but It's a lot so it's it's a lot of work. I know that you know Jen son was working on last year We've got I'm gonna working on it this year and a variety of board members have served on that committee over the year and a half and so I don't want to minimize the work that's been done because I really am grateful, but I Do have a few concerns with this policy that would cause me not to be able
200to vote for it. They're not new. You've heard them said by other members. I don't mind board members, you know, if we really felt, again, Glenn Allgaier used to say, what's the problem we're trying to solve? So perhaps there's board members that feel, you know, I don't really get a chance to nominate people for committees, and I'd really like that opportunity. So then allowing board members to appoint a member. Could solve that problem, but the self nomination shouldn't be a part of that the fact the matter is we are the Board of Education We're elected by the community we meet here We make the decisions and the buck stops with us. So we we actually have the authority We have the authority to set the scope The mission, the membership of each committee, those committees
201typically have come to this boardroom and provided updates. We have a board liaison to each committee, so we're already involved in these citizen committees to a large degree. And I worry too about the legal ramifications of having two board members on the committee who are on the same, like on a different committee together. So if Mouchier points himself. Wouldn't be surprising. Linda appoints herself. They're both on F&O. And so they might be the facility task force. Well, suddenly, the other member of that committee, Jean Lambert, is not attending those meetings. They might discuss something. They might come to some decisions. And she wasn't a part of that discussion process, which, frankly, is illegal. It's a walking quorum in a sense and it's certainly gray area. It would be very difficult to justify two board members
202serving on the same committee dealing with facilities, serving on F&O together that could then have those conversations and one board member's excluded. We could not allow self-nominations and I wouldn't support that. The two-thirds vote to remove. Again, what problem are we trying to solve? If over the years... One board or one committee member on a citizens committee has had to be removed. That's not a lot Let's say it's five. It's still not a lot I've seen I have been on committees and I've observed citizen committees working Attendance typically drops off as the work goes on so you might start out with 40 Tenants is there 100% at the beginning and then life happens and not everyone can attend every meeting and Oftentimes, there's 25, 30 attending other meetings. People will miss for various reasons, and
203some people maybe don't engage all the way to the end, but I've never seen personally a reason that we've had to remove someone. So if that became an issue, we could revisit the policy. We could insert that language as needed, but again, not necessary. And then I've asked Christy Westphal to be ready to pull up Board Policy 9401. And I just wonder if CLE has considered this policy. So in my time on the board, there have been some citizen committees. And sometimes we call them advisory committees, advisory boards, task forces. And I understand that that can be confusing. This, in my time on the board, at least my time as president, has been the policy where committees have been appointed. And so I would just draw your attention to a couple of things. Sorry, I
204guess I'll read off my computer and you can look at the screen behind me So if we're looking at and again, I don't think I think this policy should potentially be rewritten It's not clear the the policy actually is talking about board committees and it starts out sounding like it's talking about our committee structure teaching and learning F&O CLE and personnel But but this is the I would just want to highlight the process This is where the process of currently appointing committees is from so I'll jump down so that first gene reminded me We're not agendized to talk about this policy. So I want to be clear that what I'm talking about is how we currently appoint citizen committees So if you move past that the first two paragraphs that talk about those board committees,
205then you get down to the language here in the third paragraph. The board may appoint a special board committee to research, deliberate, and prepare on an advisory recommendation for board consideration on a specific issue. Board member appointments to the special board committee shall be made by the president with confirmation by a majority of the board. Again, perhaps board members feel they haven't had a voice in that process and they say, hey, wait, I want to appoint one person. then we would fix that problem by allowing them to appoint someone but not self-nominating. And perhaps it's not the board president, perhaps it's the committee chair that would be most closely associated with the work. Whatever. Continuing on with this policy, this is again how they're currently appointed. If the board determines that a citizen participation on
206a special board committee is desirable, citizen committee members shall also be confirmed by a majority of the board. Special board committees shall be for a specified purpose and duration as outlined in the charge to the committee. Unless the board president is the chair of the committee, the board president and superintendent designee shall serve as non-voting ex-officio members of all standing and special board committees. They, along with all other board members, shall receive copies of meeting notices, agendas, reports, recommendations, and minutes. for each committee meeting prior to any consideration by the board. So that's typically been what we've operated on and I would be looking for some, perhaps combination of these policies. I would be looking for something like this in policy, oh gosh, I don't wanna get the number right. 1221, just something simple that
207outlines the process at a very high level. I don't see it, I do. Want our policies to be timeless. I want our policies to empower the board that has been elected to do the job and I Appreciate the work that's been done. I appreciate the thought but I'm not there on the current revisions to policy one two two one Were there board members that want to make additional comments or questions Linda? Yes I am a little bit confused because everyone on this board who does not support self-nomination approved the self-nomination of Glenn Elgeier, who self-nominated himself to the Medical Advisory Committee and was approved immediately by the same board members. So I just wanted to get that out. That does cause a lot of confusion. To me as to why people are adamantly opposed to
208that and I think they're getting hung up or confused thinking that if Committee members if each committee member has a say to nominate from the pool of applicants. It's not like they're just gonna Be biased there is already a set the way this is set out there. It's defined These are the type of people that could contribute to whatever this committee is Headed or geared towards it only gives them because this is a board advisory policy Okay, as mentioned by Kathy Lim, it's not limited to eight members It just it could be 25 members and it just says out of X number of members if you say we're looking for Maybe 20 or we're looking for 25 or 15 or whatever it is out of that pool of applicants Each board member could select someone
209who they think is in the qualified pool who applied for that Why well in the past there have been people who have been? Applying to certain committees and they do not get selected for one reason or another I don't know why I'm because I've never been involved in the selection of anyone any of those committees and I think it widens the scope of the perspective because if X number of people are applying and someone applies and you know like it's the same thing when you're applying for a job you screen the applicants this is what we're looking for these skills and someone might say well gee you know think there might have been you know in their mind they might think well this might be a good skill that I would think this person could
210bring to this defined committee therefore I think they would be a strong candidate and therefore I would like to nominate that person to be on this committee it's and and I think that way you do eliminate all political bias which was a concern that was brought forth tonight Which you are more apt to get if you have only two people Picking the whole committee or if you have the administration recommending the entire committee I think that's what are we trying to solve here? We're trying to solve exactly what was brought forth tonight We're trying to solve that. We have a well blending of the community of various skills that can come to the community And I want to say I think it's rather insulting to think that if a board member nominates themselves on the
211committee that they're going to drive the committee. I would hope people come with various opinions, but I don't think a board member would drive the committee up a road just so they get their end result. And we are all valued members of the community, and I would expect a higher level of trust in that regard. Sam? Thank you for the feedback. I enjoyed the discussion. You guys' feedback is critical to help us better understand a policy. I'll repeat some of these things because I think some of them might have been missed. I think that the concerns of why we're changing this, again, is to make sure that we're not only making decisions for the board make-up today, but we're making decisions for the board make-up in the future. I think that that's so important that
212we have... Because I know ultimately we will vote on the recommendation by the Citizens Advisory Committee. But it's very difficult to go against their recommendation. Or you don't even know if their process of going about that was looking at all facets and making sure that we understood all the concerns of the community. For instance, make up an example. If Scott's the president, he picks all the Citizens Advisory Committee because we want to determine if I don't know, I think your kids go to Burleigh. If every parent at Burleigh will now get free lunches, every kid at Burleigh will now get free lunches and five bucks a day to buy candy. And he only appoints people from Burleigh school to be on that committee. Well, think what's going to happen. They're going to vote for that
213because that will empower them. That's a ridiculous example, but the point is that when we leave the power to one individual to decide. the complete makeup of the Citizens Advisory Committee, we're hurting the representative republic that we are designed to be, which is why we're on here. I think that is anything less than that to say that we're hamstringing ourselves by making that mandate is taking away the rights of our community to have the input of each of us on that Citizens Advisory Committee. Second, concerns about removal of unproductive members, it has been done. It was done very publicly. It is a very rare circumstance. And I think that, again, I think it's fear mongering to say, well, I won't sign up if I'm afraid of being removed. That doesn't make any sense. I know
214that it's a feeling that we can say, but it's like going to Six Flags and saying, well, I'm afraid they'll kick me out because I'll have too much fun or whatever. And an example of just saying we don't live under that fear. We expect our community members. to provide valuable input. If they are being extreme or they are being very difficult to work with, well, they shouldn't be surprised that we're going to ask them to step down because they're taking away the productivity of that. And that's why we have to have that in there because we do want to have the right there. And the only reason it's a super majority is because, again, I don't want members being removed. That is a representative voice on the committee from an individual board member. It was
215also mentioned from Ben Shear listing the citizens are publicly discoverable. It's already publicly discoverable. The list of the citizens advisory committee, people that applied in the past, it can still certainly be searched from the school reopening committee that was put together. All of those people that applied or were suggested for that are all open records. And that's hidden record anyways. So I don't think that, I think that's a moot point. Self-nomination. I get the point of that, but I want to respond by just a couple things. First of all, we already have a process in place if more than three board members or more multiple board members will be at an event and it is posted as a public meeting notice. All of these are going to be posted as a public meeting notice. If
216three members of the board happen to want to be on that committee, which... Again, I think that is defeats the purpose of it I personally I would never self nominate because if I can have someone I know and trust it's going to be a good representation of that I've got plenty of other meetings to attend I've got plenty other things my life to be a part of I can't see many a board member self nominating, but if they do Then again, it's the same process we follow now or we post it as an open meeting. I see no downside I can't see any reason why that is a problem And I also am fine with that being as an amendment to this next month if we push it through there. The Citizens Advisory Committee gets
217activated only by us. I think that there doesn't have to be languaging of when we activate it. We just decide during a meeting we want to put together a Citizens Advisory Committee to study this, and then we would vote on that. That's the process there. I don't think we have to detail anything out. That's just how this when we decide that this is the process we have to follow We don't have to detail when we're allowed to decide that so I think that that's a moot point again to say that we have to have that Dictated in the policy of when we can activate the policy I Think that I don't know Scott about the legality you mentioned that your concerns with that being legal You know Again, like I said, because we've had multiple
218members, when we have the naming for the central, there were multiple school board members there. That was posted as a public. I know there's the tagline that we're not discussing official business. Those citizens advisory action committees are not there discussing official business. They're discussing the... researching what we would like to have in the community. That's not official business. That's why it's not a vote. There's nothing that could possibly go on there. So I don't know if that helps answer some of the questions of what the thought process was behind it. I think maybe with a few small amendments next month, we can push this through or at least vote on that and decide what the board wants. But I think that this is a well thought through process. That's where I'm at on that. Thank
219you. Anyone else? Cathy. Just final, just three points. One is, we do need to, I think, identify when we're going to, because then who decides, the board, in what situation? Is it a committee level? Committee level's going to take to the board, and the board's going to take to these discussion sequence item to do this? Or is it going to be during work sessions, or are we going into closed sessions? So when the board policy is saying, hey, this is when we initiate, I'm not saying detail, because it's all going to depend on. what the topic is and like, hey, this will be great to get input from the community. And when that happens, does it happen at the committee level? Does it happen at the big board meeting, which it doesn't because it has
220to get agendized. Then what's the pathway for the board member to say, hey, I think we need a citizen forum. It's not like I can say, hey, Scott, I call you up and say, I want a citizen advisory committee. So we need that pathway. And two is. How do we finalize the committee members? I'm not sure about self-appointing. I don't know if I'll be self-appointed, but I also agree with the fact it is an open meeting. It's not agenda voting item. It's a project related that is not agenda. So yes, you could post and members could attend. So it's a public open meeting. And then finally, I do understand unruly conducts that are unbecoming, which I think it's just as a society, I think we've gotten worse. And I think we've seen some of those,
221whether it's knowingly, unknowingly, we've seen those conducts, unruly behaviors during recounts. So I think we do need to find a way to address those behavior immediately. We assume that we're all going to be professional. There were both verbal and nonverbal unprofessional and just rude So I think it needs to do that. You would think that you volunteer and you get appointed to a citizen advisory committee, you would want to be there to work. Especially that we are going to ensure that everybody across the aisle is going to be represented. So I do believe that we need to address that and what that point of authority comes from and how to nip that behavior from the beginning and maybe it's a warning and then you're out. But yes, a citizen can be removed, I think in
222my opinion, if they're unruly, unproductive with non-verbal and verbal and professional conduct. It has happened and we just have to be planning for it. Do I agree in all these two-third votes as a committee, working committee, as advising and now applying the. So in that, I think it's just a lot of. Quagmire we get stuck in, so I just think there's a lot of mixture of things that this policy is intended to. So I think we need to figure out. the things that belong in there but I do agree these things need to be addressed it may be simple as first warning and the chair and then you're out and I think it does have to be there does it have to be to their vote then it becomes a board issue and it's a
223convening of a board meeting that is not intended for citizen reform so I have a lot of mixed feelings out of good ones some things I don't feel it belongs in there so I think it needs a little more revision thank you Thanks. I'll just share three quick things. The burlap lunch example, very good. It would have to be more than $5 for candy, though, inflation. I mean, it's really hitting us hard. To respond to that, just remember that currently the committee may be formed by the board president and maybe I stocked it with Burleigh parents, but it has to pass this room and I would hope that would be a 601, I hope it would be a 70 vote against it. That the board would say, we're not forming this committee, we don't agree
224with the mission and we don't agree with the membership. I mean, those kinds of things just don't get off the ground. And again, I'm not sure about the legal issues with having board members self-appoint and be there. It's one thing to be at a field naming ceremony when there's not board business happening, but an advisory committee is a subset of board business. I mean, when you're talking about the status of facilities or bus routes and you're getting into finances and things, I mean... Again, two people on finance and operations, and the third person's not there. That's a gray area. And Linda, I can tell that it bothered you about Glenn volunteering for the Medical Advisory Board. Correct. Point of order. Can I finish my comment? They don't believe in self-nomination, so that's contradictory. Linda, I'd
225like to finish my comment. Thank you. I can tell that it bothers you. I was one of the ones who voted for that, so I'd like to explain my vote. Correct. So I'd like to explain it. Linda, I'd just like to finish my comment. That vote for me, I actually wasn't happy with Glenn volunteering for that, but everyone on that committee was a medical professional, and I thought it would be good to have at least one person who wasn't. That's why I voted for that. Not that I liked the process of Glenn volunteering and kind of coming out of the blue with that But I thought there was wisdom in having a non-medical person and frankly in retrospect Hey, we should have had more non-medical people so for me that Wasn't it didn't make me
226happy and I'd like to prevent that from happening again by not having self nominations Yes, that's why The committee or members of the former committee and the current committee feel that they can bring more into citizens advisory committee as opposed to having all people from one profession that as it turned out there were no parents no staff no teachers no community output on that advisory committee which may have rounded that out a little bit better that's that's one of the purposes of or why people feel that board members should be able to select so we get a wide variety Sure, and I think it would have made a better committee, although I think the majority of the doctors on there were parents of students in the district. Just a final thought. Yeah, we can move
227on. Final comment, Sam, go ahead. I don't know at what point do we stop putting things like we want us to now put disciplinary action like what we have to do to a citizen's advisory. At one point, there's just common sense like, of course, the committee chairperson is responsible for keeping order, and we expect the committee chairperson to keep order in that citizen's advisory committee. If there's one person acting up, we don't want them just to come and complain to us. We say, well, deal with it, and if you can't, then we'll have that next process. So I don't know at what point do we stop putting more information in there of how to do it. to give direction on how to dictate when they can discipline, how they're supposed to discipline, and then when
228we advise, when can we put the committee in place. It's the same thing with anything else that gets agendized. You decide, the president puts it on the agenda. If we want a Citizens Advisory Committee, it's a recommendation to him explaining why, if it wants to be an individual. At what point do we stop adding more information to it? I don't know. So if you can clarify that, that'd be helpful. Simple is better okay thank you that'll be back next week for action or next sorry month for action our final discussion item of the evening is the 9,000 policy series Linda Wait is it going back for it's coming back to the CLE committee the policy No it was for discussion tonight so next month it'll be back in the boardroom for action right discussion action
229sequence so we discussed it tonight Is the committee taking it back? I didn't hear any suggestions that the committee take it back. Because I don't think it's going to go through next time. So do we have to make motion to take it back to CLE? Yeah, we would make a recommendation. Is it given or is it not given that it goes back to committee? Well the committee chair didn't volunteer to take it back and I didn't hear anyone say that the committee should take it back So in that case it would just be back here for action Can I make a motion to take it back because it's not gonna pass it's it's not gonna be as is We're not posted for action on this item. This is a discussion item Okay, but she wants
230to make a motion that the committee take it back. The items not posted for action. Oh, I see So it goes, okay So the committee chair. Well that's what we did last time we sent it back so how do we do that last time? You can pull it yeah you can take it back if you want. I'm a committee chair. I suggest sending it to another committee at this point like we've we've gone over this we're kind of banging our heads on it so maybe F&O can have a shot at it and they can figure that out. I'm sorry. It's a CME. You just need to hear what's been said around this table and put it in policy or say we're done. We went through everyone's concerns last month. We addressed them, and now we're
231back with all these different concerns, and it's like, okay. So you're in favor of just leaving it for action next month? I think it makes sense to leave it as action, but if it's not, I mean, you know, we can simply propose an amendment. If you don't like a part of it, make the amendment to change it. I mean, that's the simple process. Yeah. Next month. So next month there will be action. We won't put this on the consent agenda. We'll put this in the regular action portion of the meeting. And when it comes up, if someone wants to make a change, you'd make an amendment to the policies written. So we can't make changes if I put it on the agenda for CLE again? That wouldn't? You could pull it back and say I
232want one more time at CLE and then bring it back for discussion another time. I mean, that's happened with this policy, obviously. Look at the history. So it's been back and forth. So you could certainly do that again. Can I? If you'd like to. But Sam's saying it's been there and perhaps we just move forward with the action. Sam. Is there a policy that we have to bring it back through discussion if we're making minor changes just like we can push it through with amendments next month technically? So if we make minor changes and then we bring it back for action next month, why can't we do that? Yeah, that's kind of what I was getting at. We certainly have done minor changes and brought it for action at the next board meeting. It just
233depends on how you define minor. Maybe we need a policy to define minor. No. We don't. I'll let you write that one this time You write the practice statement please So board members look for this to be an action item next month May I say something I would like to not write this policy at the next board meeting with amendments and changes and spending three hours I really I really don't want to do that so please as you take it back to committee if you consider all the comments were made and that writing policy here is just really not a good use of the board's time It was a robust discussion tonight Okay, our last discussion item is the 9,000 policy series Linda. I think I had those notes I Jumped you started that one
234earlier. Yes, I jumped to the gun on those and I think the the only change that was made there was thing went blank and on Policy statement we put the statute number When you see all of the crossouts on that one Rather than having the policy statements listed at the bottom the policy all clumped together we suggested to put that particular statute that coordinates with that particular item right on the number one thing under that statement policy 9200 you're in the practice statement practice statement 9200 yes so it's highlighted in yellow Whereas the previous statement just listed all the statutes at the bottom clumped together, the particular statute that coordinates with the duties of the board president are number one, stated, they state the statute right there. And then if you go down, the duties
235of the treasurer, they stated the statute. In other words, if you have any more questions on this one, that's the statute that goes with this particular. person's job description and that's what we added rather than listing them all which basically was the statute itself and that way if the statute changes or if anything changes it just says we're following things according to the statute and my only suggestion was that's in the practice statement and I would bring it to the board to say, do you feel that we should also do the same thing on the policy itself in the event that somebody just brings up the policy? If you go to just the policy 2400, it lists all the statutes at the bottom. As a board, do you think we should put the statutes coordinating
236to be consistent with the practice statement or just leave them all listed at the bottom? It's to me like there's a difference between some of the duties are stricken in the policy but not all and then all of the duties look to be stricken in the practice statement Unless I'm not being it right It's stricken in the policy 9200 and also the practice statement I see so okay, so it's all out of policy and it's some of them remain in practice statement. Gotcha. Okay. Thanks for clarifying Kathy? I just have a clarifying question. I think this is good, less is more in policy. So with the striking out of the job description, is there a separate job description document that we can reference? Because I don't think we could say duties and responsibilities of the
237position and then don't have the duties and responsibility of that position outlined somewhere So either we have to keep it or it has to have a separate that's the reference the legal references at the bottom of Wisconsin statutes list all of those duties So these were all in the stat. Yes. Okay. These are all repeats We're pulling them out of our policy and just referring to Wisconsin statute to follow that way if you scroll down of 9200 That's exactly what they did in the past they listed all of them from the statute and then it was how many pages So the job description everything that you struck out is verbatim from Wisconsin statute correct okay thank you That was confirmed to me by the staff there I guess I didn't go line by line item
238but that was that question was asked and that was what we were given I like the simplicity since you asked Any other questions for Linda Hearing none, that concludes our discussion items for the evening and brings us to the Board Present Report. It's been a busy, I don't know, seven months since our last regular board meeting, not the annual meeting. Had an opportunity to visit the student councils with Mark, attend an EEF meeting. and make a board report there, which was awesome. Thanks, Gene, for the opportunity. Attended several PTO meetings with Mark. On Friday, though, for me, this past Friday was the highlight as I went to Washington, D.C. to honor Andy Farley as the Principal of the Year. First of all, I was impressed with Mark and Andy and their national contacts. They network,
239they know people, they know people by name from various states around, just pretty impressive. And Andy's reaction to the award was priceless. He was so surprised. Even though he knew he was a finalist, he was so unassuming and humble and really didn't think it would be him. In fact, afterwards he said, I'm so grateful that my wife asked me, so what are you going to say if you win? He's like, I don't know. I mean, he didn't really think. he would win because he knew of the talent in that room and was so impressed by all the what it is is all the state winners for principal of the year are there and then they choose one of them as the national principal of the year so After he was presented the award, he left
240the stage and had to be asked to come back and give a speech. We're all chanting speech, speech, speech. It was a huge celebration. Andy did a remarkable job, and we were so excited and honored for him, Principal Farley, being chosen as the National Principal of the Year. But it really got me pondering and thinking that the qualities that helped Andy win this award were academic excellence, the closing of the gaps at Brookfield East for students with disabilities, the Hope Squad that's making a difference for students that are struggling with social-emotional balance in their life, and also the way that Andy's successfully developing student leaders at Brookfield East. And frankly, this is not unique to Mr. Farley in the school district of Elmbrook. These are the very qualities that make a difference for students across
241our district every day. Caring adults, talented administrators, staff and teachers, engaged families. These are the recipes for success. So congratulations to Andy Farley as the National Principal of the Year and thank you to all of our talented staff and families that make education work in Elmbrook each and every day. That's my report. Are there any information items that board members would like to discuss in agenda item 9? Hearing none, superintendent report. CHRISTIE'S GOING TO LAUNCH A SLIDE DECK. THE FIRST SLIDE YOU'LL SEE ONCE CHRISTIE GETS THAT FLYING IS A LITTLE BIT OF A REPEAT OF WHAT SCOTT JUST SAID. It was a true honor to be out in Washington, D.C. to watch Andy Farley receive that award. When you think of it, there are thousands and thousands of high school and middle school principals. Thank
242you. Middle school principals in the United States, and Andy was honored as the best of the best. So congratulations to Andy and the entire team at Brookfield East. In addition to being named National Principal of the Year, Andy also was made aware that he was a Terrell Bell Award winner. So Terrell Bell is the gentleman on the left. He was the first Secretary of Education in the United States history. Ronald Reagan's presidency established the Secretary of Education position as a cabinet position. And they give an award out to principals of Blue Ribbon Schools. So Andy Farley got the Terrell Bell Award, the National Principal of the Year Award, and also... Blue Ribbon designation. I've been in this business for a couple years now. I've never seen somebody get two of those, let alone all three.
243So congratulations to Brookfield East for their incredible accomplishments. And as Scott said, the Hope Squad continues to be a place where you see student voice and student engagement at levels that I've never seen in high schools before. So kudos to both sides of our communities, both at the high school and middle school level for Hope Squad. As was referenced earlier this month, we also celebrated homecoming at Fairview South. Picture on the right, you will see the annual tradition of the Brookfield Central Marching Band coming down to put on a little performance. It's one of the highlights of the year for me. In addition to Fairview South having their homecoming, they're also the home to our hydroponics approach. We're attempting to put a dent in our food supply costs by growing our own lettuce. Salad bars
244are super, super popular in our schools. And when this thing gets to max, we're going to do hundreds of pounds of lettuce. for our salad bars at all of our high schools. So hats off to the food service team for making that a reality. As was referenced by our students that gave presentations at both high schools, this is the post-secondary night. This is the night, in this case, the pictures from Brookfield East where we had it most recently, where families have a chance to come and do sectionals from financial aid people. It's all external people, how to write a good college essay. Our guidance counselors facilitate the organization of it, and there are hundreds of people there. So if you have a child that is approaching high school, this is a place you want to
245spend some time learning from. You got to meet the second place national chess tournament winner. He is a fine young man. Wanted to also spend a little time talking about transportation. As Chris referenced, our transportation system lacks stability. We do not anticipate it getting stability for a while. We will have canceled routes and we will see that across this country right now. We are not the only school district facing significant disruptions to transportation and I don't know that there's an end in sight. So just be aware of that. I know Linda Boucher had a chance to see some of the author visits recently. Here's one that came to Brookfield Elementary School in Swanson. This is John Hsu. He's a renowned child literature producer and does a great job with engaging kids. Basketball coach at Brookfield
246Central, Dave Wandry, was recently inducted into the Hall of Fame for the state of Wisconsin, so congratulations to Dave. He's on the right, that's his wife on the left. And as was mentioned earlier, we dedicated the Brookfield Central Stadium field in honor of the two graduates from Brookfield Central, Kenny Harrison and Joe Thomas. Kenny's on the far right. Joe's the guy that's just a little bit taller than me in the middle. Thank you to pre thought Jean and Scott for being available to that. We also had the mayor. I'm sorry Sam We all said the mayor Attend that event and the two folks on the left are Joe Thomas's parents. It was just a great night We continue to see enrollment be a strength of our school district, and we appreciate everybody having the trust
247in sending their children to us. I just congratulate the entire community on creating such amazing accomplishments. And I don't want to just skip over this, but this is pretty stunning. We have the largest number of national merit semifinalists we've ever seen in our school district history. Brookfield Central has the most of any school in the state of Wisconsin. Now this is going to be the top 1% of high school kids in the nation. You can tell Mr. Gretzmacher spends a little time coordinating colors. Also wanted to spend just a few minutes talking about school safety because it's always front and center on a priority. We focus on school safety from three different prongs. We talk about hardening our facilities, we talk about training, and we talk about prevention. As far as securing our facilities, these
248are the things that we have done over the course of the last few years. I would highlight a couple of them as they are unique to our school district, as many school districts are still trying to catch up to this. We have security vestibules at all of our schools. That means you have to be double buzzed in to get into our schools. That's a really strong approach. When I first started in this district, all of our exterior doors were left open. Things have changed in our world significantly over the last decade. Now we have no exterior doors open, so we really want to harden that envelope. In addition to that, we also have panic buttons now in all of our offices. These are buttons that are basically a 911 button. We found out that they
249work really effectively when one of them was pressed by mistake during parent drop-off at one of our schools, and the police come, and they are coming in until they can confirm all things are okay. And they come strong. So we are doing a new initiative this year and that's to try to get to a point where all of our interior doors are also closed and locked. We've learned from a couple of the more tragic events in our country that having interior locked doors is also another layer of security. So that's a new initiative for us. As far as safety and awareness, our director of school safety, yes, we have that position in the district. We're very unique that way. He really oversees all of this training. And the bottom line is it comes down to
250if you hear something, if you see something, we want you to say something. Everybody's got to be eyes and ears for school safety. After a decade-long conversation with local, city, and village law enforcement, we are proud to say that we now have full-time school resource officers in both our middle schools and high schools. Again, that was a 10-year journey to get there. The police department continues to be an amazing partner in helping us do a wide variety of things, including helping us get better at safety assessments, at safety drills. You should not be surprised if you see a squad car parked out front of our schools because we encourage them if they have to do reports or if they have to do phone calls, go park at one of our schools because we're finding the
251research that if you have a law enforcement vehicle in front of a school, it deters any bad things from happening. And so we really have worked with them on informal and formal walkthroughs through our school. This language is really important and if you're watching this from home I would encourage you to spend a little time on the slide and I'll show you how you can get to this slide presentation These phrases and terms are are in our vernacular internally, but they're not externally so when kids talk about Sousa Sousa is it's actually speak up speak out that's a anonymous reporting app that our kids use and It's been really really effective all the way from mental health issues and self-harm to helping us head off some major crisis. So we appreciate folks speaking up and
252speaking out when they see something. We have parents involved in getting information around their child's web access and web research. So if you're a parent that wonders why your kid's searching NBA players like Giannis Antetokounmpo 42 times in a week, you can have that conversation now because you're getting that report. Not that I'm speaking from experience there. And you can see a couple other things. The bottom one there, collaborative response graphics, that's a new initiative for us. We attempted to take all of our school maps and turn them into a graphic response system that the police could use in real time by pulling up that graphic rate on their squad car and their computer that's in the squad car. And we are one of the few schools in the state that have done that already
253now. Additionally, as you know, on the school board, we bring the school safety plans into the board for approval every three years, and we have to submit those to the Department of Justice per state statute. We also have to do fire drills and annual weather drills, and that gets reviewed by school administrators, and then ultimately those drills are turned over to the chiefs of the fire departments. Terms that are super, super important, because this can lead to some rumor mongering that doesn't help us. When we talk about having kids stay in a secure position, that might mean we have a domestic situation at a home that's neighboring one of our schools, and kids can't go out to recess. That doesn't mean super bad things in the school. When we have a secure, it might mean
254we have a medical emergency in one part of the school that we need to get emergency medical services in, and we can't have kids changing during bell time. So these terms become really important. We had a situation over the last couple years where the terms were used incorrectly and created some rumor mongering in a county nicknamed Takasha County. We also worked with Tanya, Dr. Tanya Frederick led this charge. We worked with the Waukesha County Sheriff's Department and Waukesha County Department of Health and Human Services to co-create a threat assessment protocol that allows us to take a look at things like self-harm all the way to threats of others. We use this protocol pretty often in our system and in our schools now, but thanks to Dr. Frederick and the folks at the county that helped
255make this happen. We were one of the first in the state and maybe even the country to have those in place. A lot of this work has been supported by safety grants, and I want to give Greg Hobbock credit for pursuing these safety grants. Chris Thompson's been involved in these. You can see the things that it has helped fund, everything from safety bags and supplies all the way to radios and cameras and such. When we do have a situation, these are the practices that we use for communication. If it requires an all-school message, we use a system called School Messenger as a rapid communication system. And we also have a district response team that if we need to take communications over because the school's dealing with something else, we have a backup team here at
256the district that can go to phones and emails and such. What can people help to support school safety? Tell folks about the YouTube video that's linked to this. This presentation is going to be loaded up into the superintendent's report. You can access that YouTube video by just clicking on that link when you see the presentation. Ultimately, continue to ask questions. If you see something that is out of the ordinary, like a door propped open that shouldn't be, don't hesitate to drop an email, but know that email is not real-time communication. Know that if it's a real-time communication, pick up a phone and call me. Niche does a ranking every year. Last year, we ranked 45th out of 12,262 school districts, the top three-tenths of a percent in the nation. This year, we moved to 42.
257So, real congratulations to everybody involved. That concludes my superintendent report. Are there any questions that folks have? On the safety, you said there is the graphic monitoring mapping. Is that mapping of our students, and how does that work? Mapping of our school floor plans. Okay. So if we say to the police department, we need some assistance in door N1, they can pull that map up and find out where door N1 is and just drive right there. That student? Not where the students are, no. Okay. Yep. That's very impressive. I'm excited to see all the safety features. That's awesome that you've got your head of that. So is the other quick question, is the lettuce organic that they're growing there? Yes. Okay. I just wanted to make sure. Yes. Other questions? That concludes my report. Thanks,
258Mark. Can I get a motion to adjourn? Second. Thank you. Is there any discussion? All those in favor of adjourning, please say aye. Aye. Aye. Any opposed?