001Thank you. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you. presentation first would be our consent agenda approval of minutes of the January 27th board meeting as well as the statement of receipts and expenditures for January of 2020 we have a motion so move second first and a second any additional discussion all in favor say aye aye opposed and the minutes and statement of receipt passes That brings us next to our first action item in report, the John Long Middle School presentation. Mr. Weiss. Hello, good evening. Welcome board members and district administration and everybody in the audience, my students and their families and the public. Very happy to have you here for the John Long Middle School showcase. And we'll get right into it with the beginning of our presentation. My name is Chris Weiss, principal
002at John Long here for my third year. And this is my 14th year as a school administrator. It's hard to believe. And my 20th year in education. I started my professional career as a teacher at Germantown High School and I taught science there before wanting to become principal and eventually find my way to John Long Middle School where I'm very happy. Our presentation tonight, again, welcome to our show. And we are going to start with a John Long Middle School year in review video. Then we will follow up with what's happening at John Long. Turns out a lot. And fifth grade edition progress update, followed by a first Lego League Grafton Robotics presentation with the students. Very excited about that. And upcoming events. So we'll get right into it. So here are some pictures that
003are from throughout the year. And if you click the link at the top, actually, it looks like you have it open. We have a video produced by Mr. Brett Dimmer. I participated in Family Maker's Night. The thing that I volunteered for was finger knitting snakes and a lot of people they actually wanted to take some of the yarn to make more which made me happy. Hi my name is Tess Brule. I hosted the crochet booth at the Family Maker's Night and people from the community and people at JLMS hosted booths. I think people should join the Makers Night and other extracurricular activities because it's a very fun way to meet new friends and see other people's talents and get to know them a lot better. Hi, I'm Carter Halsey and I volunteered at Family Makers
004Night. My name is Terrence and I participated in Family Makers Night. I did straw missiles. Straw missiles are... Two straws put together with tape at the end and they blow into one of the straws and then the straw inside the straw goes flying. You help people find their interest in life. My name is Mashika and I participate in NJHS. My name is Ronan Burns. I'm the vice president of NJHS. Hi, I'm Callie Greaves. I'm part of NJHS. My name is Nora and I am on the NJHS board as an officer. National Junior Honor Society helped me to make new friends and like learn more leadership skills. We just... plan for the next upcoming month and what we're going to do with how to volunteer in the community and which and what places do we think
005need help. I love being in NJHS because I can volunteer and do different things to help my community. I volunteer at the Grafton Public Library and I'm able to help plan different activities for the teens. I think people should participate in NJHS because it's great to help out your community and When you help out your community more, you feel more like part of it, I guess. And I feel and I think that's an important part of when you live somewhere. This month we're doing a senior citizen bingo night. This is like an important thing that we're doing. Volunteering and like representing our community. A very small portion of the great stuff that has happened so far this year. It's great to see, to hear from the kids in their own words about Makers Night, NJHS,
006which Ms. Veronica is here to talk to us later. She also advises the NJHS program as well. So hearing from them really kind of brings it home and has been a very exciting year in all respects. So very excited that we could share a little bit of that with you. See, I thought I was missing the clicker. If you turn it on, it's one of those. You've got to turn it on. Can I do it? Should I have the power? Okay. We'll see. All right. So what's happening at John Long? So this is just really since we came back from Christmas break, from holiday break. So there's been a lot, too much to enumerate, but very recently hosted a mass assembly client visit. Mass assembly is our eighth grade course in the STEM program and
007they partner with the Chamber of Commerce and local businesses and this year's a raised garden project. The leaders of that project meet with the clients and talk about the progress toward their goals and just what else is going on, things that they need to keep going. So that recently happened. We had our winter formal dance on February 7th, which was highly attended by the middle school students. Having some of those opportunities is a really great part of being in middle school. Over 300 of our students attended out of a total of about 450 students. So two thirds of our kids showed up to that, which is really awesome. Girls volleyball and our dance team is in season right now. So we continue to have. the athletics portion of the co-curriculars going as well. You saw
008some of the pictures and a video from the Ability Center wheelchair basketball assembly. That was just a fantastic opportunity. I know across the district they were able to come in. It's a great organization, the Ability Center, and they did an assembly at John Long and then they had also the PE Takeover. where they go to all the Phi Ed classes. So we didn't do that at John Long, but I know they did that at other schools, and it was really great. They went to the high school after they were at John Long as well. Course signups, number five, are complete for 25-26 school year. So we're beginning to see what our school or what our classes are taking shape as, what our numbers are going to be, and it's crazy, but we're planning for next
009year already in all respects. This year was our Sunburst field trip for eighth graders. So they went to Sunburst and went tubing as part of their science curriculum and had that opportunity. And I'm told that the runs were very fast this year. It's kind of what happens when it's colder outside. It was really warm last year, but very slow times. So we're glad we could improve our times this year. The upcoming PD day, actually that already happened. So that was on Friday. So the teachers were hard at work at John Long, but also they were around, we did site visits. So we took two site visits on Friday. The math department, myself, and our instructional coach, Kim Yunker, went to Fox Point Bayside Middle School because they have very high achievement and also high growth.
010and we took the ELA teachers to Webster in Cedarburg. And I reached out to their principal and asked if we could come see the great things that they're doing within the ELA department. Because although our achievement is really, really good, we know that as a staff, one of our values is to keep getting better. And getting better every year is really important to us, so we went there to see what they had. So lots happening so far. Okay, so, and then Ms. Kane, would you refresh? I think that this might be an old... Okay, so I mentioned the professional development. Like I said on Friday, we just had a professional development day. That's why the kids weren't in school. And we've had kind of themes as we've gone through this year within our professional development.
011NextPath is a new tool that we use to house our data, and it helps our data talk to each other. It also makes a very usable interface for our student services, for our school leadership. but also our teachers and getting the data in the hands of the teachers allows us to be at the pinnacle of our craft and really customizing the instruction for our students. So it helps with planning and it helps react to what happens when learning takes place or what we need to do if learning is not taking place yet. So NextPath is a great tool for that. We continue to be focused on our target groups. So our target groups. are made up of students who have an extra emphasis in our school report card as well. So we want to focus
012on making sure that those students have what they have or what they need when they need it. And then also the growth while maintaining high achievement. Like I said, we're geared toward data analysis. We're also geared toward figuring what we can do to make sure our growth scores that we've all talked about earlier in the year are reaching higher and higher. Because we know that we're a very high achieving district. We want to make sure that everybody continues to grow and continues to build upon the really good things that are happening at our elementary schools. So that when they get to John Long, we're just accelerating. right into Grafton High School. Like I said, the site visits are a part of it. We've actually been conducting a lot of site visits, both incoming and outgoing
013at John Long. So that picture there was from the Redefining Ready Summit that the district hosted in the fall in October. And we did have presentations that occurred within the Redefining Ready Summit. John Long has been visiting, like I said, other high performing schools and seeing what else we can do. We also have had districts reach out and want to come see the great things that we're doing here. So I have three site visits going on. Well, actually, we have four, and one of those is a repeat visit from the Appleton School District. So they've come to see our science. They've since adopted our science curriculum. And now they want to come back and see what it looks like when it's been in action and done to fidelity. West Bend School District, they're coming to
014see a co-taught math classroom. And then Appleton is also coming to check out our math curriculum. So a lot of really cool things starting to proliferate a little bit out there. So the secret is getting out, and people want to see what the good things are that we're doing here. For the next portion, I want to invite our school counselor, Ms. Veronica, up so she can help me talk about what we're doing in terms of planning for the two new classes that we have joining us next year, both the fifth grade and the sixth grade. Ms. Veronica, I'll switch it. Thank you. Hi, everyone. So we're looking at scheduling for next year, as Chris had mentioned. And so part of that is looking at fifth grade and what their schedule will look like and determining
015that is. They're going to follow kind of a similar schedule to our students now with some slight differences. So every day they will have math and ELA and then alternating days of science and social studies is what currently our sixth, seventh and eighth graders are also doing so that core model will stay similar. And they'll still have the access to our advanced coursework so even this year we have fifth graders who are coming up taking advanced sixth grade math that will still be available to them while they're here and to continue on that path and the trajectory as they move through our math path. And then the related arts is where we're going to see the biggest difference for them. They're going to be on a six-day rotation. They'll have art. gym library which will
016be new for them technology essentials or techie as we'll call it general music and then they'll also have the option if they want to take band or an academic assistance or a study hall class so they got to choose if they with their families they were encouraged to talk to their families about that but if they want to take band or if they would like the study hall option instead as all students are required to take general music And then we have some parent opportunities coming up, especially as looking at the fifth and sixth graders coming up. So we sent out postcards to all families kind of looking at, you know, what's upcoming for them, including as we'll go through, you'll see the different things. But this February, I got to go and visit our
017fourth graders and fifth grade classes, which was very fun. It's always fun to meet them and see their excitement, and I always let them ask some questions, and their questions always involve lunch. It involves what classes do I get to take, what extracurriculars do I get to participate in, and then there's some of the other questions like, are the teachers nice? And I'm like, well, of course they're nice and they're helpful. Is it harder? And I say, well, it's matching where you are, right? So they're very excited to come up. I always ask them to... Are you nervous? Are you excited? Are you both? And the majority say both every time. And I say that's very normal because even when I meet with fifth graders and I tell them when I talk to our eighth
018graders and how they're feeling about moving to the high school, it's the same response. And I tell them that to kind of ease that. Thank you, Miss Veronica so what we have up here is kind of the full calendar of events and For anyone who has had a sixth grader in recent years your you may be familiar with kind of our series that we Have adopted to try and give people redundant and multiple opportunities to I think just kind of settle into the middle school mentality to feel comfortable in that they have opportunities to to come here to learn about things and just so that when they get here they feel supported knowing that they may not know everything all at once but there are people here to help them out so now you'll see
019an enumerated list of all the things that we have for our incoming fifth and incoming sixth grade parents and students. April 23rd, we'll have two sessions, one for incoming fifth grade parents and incoming sixth grade parents. On May 1st, incoming sixth graders will visit John Long, and that's during the school day. And that is an opportunity to just get used to the space that they'll be in. And we have done this for a number of years, like I said. After school hours from 6.30 to 8.30 p.m., we'll have an open gym event, and we have hosted that in various forms, last one being a movie night, this one being an open gym, and that is optional. May 22nd is actually when we get the incoming fifth graders in here, and although we will not have
020a fully completed wing for them to be in, they'll at least be able to be in the space. be hosted in our gym, whi social and some games. An The continued calendar of events goes on into June. So when we do have a completed new wing for the fifth grade students, incoming fifth grade tours will be during the school day on June 5th and 6th. And I'm working with the elementary principals to figure out exactly the choreography and timing of that. But that will be the incoming fifth graders' first opportunity to be in their new space. August 12th is the sixth grade middle school 101 summer school course that we've done over the course of the last few years. We are still developing the coming to fifth grade summer school course. So be looking for
021information on that for those incoming fifth grade students. On August 27th is our annual sneak peek, which begins at 6 p.m. And that is when we host our. parent boot camp sessions where parents can come in and that is their opportunity to learn more about all those middle school things that a parent should know like Skyward, Canvas, Lockers, all those things that have been questions either at one of the previous nights or just now that school is about to start we have the burning questions that are left over. We are maintaining the tradition of the Great Start conferences. for the incoming fifth grade students. So those will take place on August 28th and 29th. then ongoing are our John Long PTG meetings. So we do host those. Usually they are the second Thursday of every
022month and everybody is welcome. I put the dates up there because March is actually an exception. March 13th is our parent-teacher conferences date so we scooted the PTG meeting back to the 20th for that month but other than that April 10th is another example and then May 8th. So At those PTG meetings, I usually give a construction update, a programming update, and answer any questions that our group has. So that's a great opportunity to not have to wait for one of those other nights in order to ask a question or hear about what's going on. So that's an open invitation, and it's right here at 6 p.m. So all are welcome. And now, it's my pleasure to present Mrs. Eifert and our I Am Up to No Good First LEGO League Robotics Team. Come on
023up. Push that arrow to advance. I think we're even going to advance the slides here. So, all right, you guys can come on and stand over here. So hello everybody. My name is Katie Eibert and I am a parent here of three kids in Grafton School District. I have one at the elementary, the middle, and the high school level. I also have been involved in Grafton Robotics for almost 10 years. So I have coached at, again, the elementary, the middle, and the high school level. And I am standing in for Joe Riley, who is the district representative for First Lego League, which is the middle school. level and i feel kind of a little bad doing that because joe is like one of the most amazing people out there grafton is so blessed to have
024him he's really brought this program to the district and none of this would be possible without joe so if you see joe or have the opportunity to thank him please do that because he has been incredible in instituting this so we have four members here of our middle school team i am up to no good who on january 19th competed at the state championships in waukesha out of 300 teams who started the season only 28 were asked to compete at state so the top 28 teams i will say that these guys did something absolutely incredible they got not only the highest robots score at the competition at State. They blew it out of the water in the whole State by, did you guys win by like 85 points? Around there, yes. So they really got
025the highest robot score. And just like they're doing right now, this is actually very similar to what they do at the competition. There are four different areas that you are judged in for robotics. First robotics, you're judged on robot design, robot performance. innovation project, and core values. And they're actually used to presenting and being questioned very indepthly by a whole bunch of engineers, computer programmers, and software programmers. So Mr. Weiss said that they were going to ask questions, and I know you guys will be throwing much more softball questions than what they are used to. So at this time, I'm going to have Andy introduce his team. Thank you, Katie. So it's my pleasure to introduce our team in front of the board this evening. I'm Andy Siebert. I'm one of the coaches. Again, can't
026say enough about Joe Riley and what he does for the district with this program. I've had a lot of fun doing it. I've been involved for the past three years with this amazing group of individuals. We have four team members here tonight. So Kellen, Lila, Ben, and Katie are here to represent Team I Am Up to No Good and share what they've gone through this season as well as the things, what First Lego League is all about. about so kellen would you like to share with the board what first lego league is all about FIRST LEGO League is a global robotics program where we experiment and grow our critical thinking, coding, and design skills through hands-on STEM learning and robotics. Our season starts in September, and we meet two or three times each week to
027prepare for tournaments in November and December. At each tournament, we compete in a series of robot matches and participate in a judging session to present our innovation project, robot design, and core values. Only the top one-third of teams are selected to advance from the tournament. Thank you, Kellen. So first Lego League or FLL is the second of, again, Grafton's three levels. So Grafton offers a level before FLL at the elementary level. And then there is actually high school teams that take place as well. When this all started about eight years ago, we had just 11 students and two teams that participated. And now the eighth year of FLL, we've grown to nearly 40 students and seven teams. The teams could be as young as fifth graders all the way up to eighth graders. Some of
028them have a mix of ages on their teams. We also rely outside of Joel, all the coaches are all parent volunteer coaches and it's something that runs through summer depending on how far you go all the way until February. So it is a wonderful program, but again, the parent coaches really support. this each season of FLL there's a new theme so that teams come up with a new project there's also a new mission board as well so Lila could you tell us about your project this year this year's theme This year's theme was called Submerged. We learned more about ocean habitats and our innovation project was to dive into a problem faced by people who explore oceans. We focused on addressing the problem of giving people the ability to stay underwater for extended periods to
029research ocean life. The solution we developed was called Bubbleopolis, a modular underwater research lab inspired by the International Space Station and the Aquarius Research Lab. During this season, we developed and improved our solution based on feedback from experts in the field, including Dr. Breda Speck from Concordia University, Carter Wegner, a marine biology student in Hawaii, and three researchers from NOAA. Thank you. So one of my favorite parts of robotics at all levels is what we call core values. And so Ben here would love nothing more to tell you about core values. Sure. Sure. Core values includes concepts of discovery and innovation. We're working together as a team and respecting each other's points of view, all while having fun. We want to compete and win, even as we help each other and other teams do their
030best work. One big focus for our team this year was doing robotic demonstrations to help kids get excited about STEM and robotics through outreach events in the community including the KES Fall Fest, the Milwaukee Maker Faire at Discovery World, the Rockwell Automation Christmas Children's Holiday Party, and the Grafton Family Makers Night at JLMS. All right, and last and often the most exciting portion for students is the robot game. And again, just so that we make clear, you guys won first place at stake for this. So this is an exciting part. So Katie, while they are setting up to do that, why don't you tell everybody a little bit more about the robot game? For the robot game, we design, build, and program a Lego robot to complete missions on the game board. Each mission that
031we complete scores points, and the goal is to score as many points as possible in just two and a half minutes. Unlike some other robot competitions, FLL robots are not remote controlled. We can only program them to complete each task. The programming language we use is called Scratch. To help make sure the robot is reliable as possible, our code uses sensors like the gyro and color sensors to help the robot see where it is on the field. We also use mechanical features to correctly position the robot. Alright, you guys doing okay over there? Or is it malfunctioning? So I will say that this is a very normal part of robotics, having it not work, but it is also one of the best parts of robotics because this is where you learn to work through some
032of those challenges. Is it not working at all, Cullen? If it doesn't work, you could probably just physically push it to move it. Is it not? No, because it spins. Is it the gyro? This is like typical. This is how you do it all the time. So at a competition there will actually be two of these boards right next to each other and there will also be like a ref in an outfit and someone calling play-by-play we will save you the play-by-play but we will allow Kellen and Ben to kind of run this and Katie's gonna describe a little bit more so go ahead and run a couple missions Okay, the malfunctioning thing is normal, so we build a code for that. But our robot design uses different modular attachments for each launch. The robot
033operators can change attachments and reposition the robot when it returns to either home location. Since a robot match only lasts two and a half minutes, we work to make each robot action as efficient as possible. These first two launches can score us over 100 points in just 35 seconds. So I will say as a parent, one of my favorite things about FLL is the fact that everything doesn't always function. It takes a long time. Like each mission could take tens and tens and tens and tens of hours for them to solve. So they really have to stick with it. And it's wonderful. They don't love it, but there's a lot of frustration involved, but they have to overcome that frustration. We just wanted to say thank you, obviously, to the board for letting us come
034and share this, to Mr. Weiss for thinking about Grafton Robotics here, and again, for letting us come and share. But I think maybe you guys do have a few questions that you wanted to, yeah. I mean, you can throw out some of those hardcore coding, why do you use the gyroscope on line 23, but they'll have an answer. So how many sensors are you using currently for that one and which type are you using? You can tell she's a former robot mom. She knows to ask about the sensors. Yeah, I think we're using just a gyro right now. We use it because it kind of like, if you don't use a gyro, it can get thrown off really easily. And we tried to use a color sensor, but the colors are very similar on the
035board. And with the programming we were using, it kept confusing the colors. The gyro sensor has a position like yaw, zero, and then when it turns, you can set it to a position like negative 23 or something, and it'll turn 23 degrees to the left from where that point zero was. Who came up with the team? Do you want to share that story, Kelly? Kelly. Okay, so I was fifth grader so that's the reason Harry Potter so have you all been a team since fifth grade together or have you had new members? Katie's new this year. Um, so we had two new members this year me and Jack who is not here right now Jack, this was his first year being on the team. And I've been on a team since fifth grade, but I
036switched to this team. So with the total amount of points that you guys scored and the big win that you had, did you guys know that you could get that many points, or was there more points that you guys could have gotten? Or how does that work? There were a total of ten more points that we could have gotten. So what was your max score, Kelly? Our max score that we practiced was 450. We got 440. Wow. And you remember how high our second and third? Yeah. So what's interesting, although we had the highest score at the state competition, These kids were so amazing. We had the highest three scores in the state combined recorded. So we had the highest score at sectionals, which still would have been the highest score at state. And our
037second highest run at state was the second highest run out of all the teams in the entire state. So this team did an amazing job when it came to the robot and, you know, just. knocked it out of the park when it came to its performance. And it's all them. They had to build everything. The game pieces on the board are already pre-built, but the coding, the building of the robot, the building and the attachments, that's 100% done by the team. We actually do have a fun little day where we actually build the game pieces. It doesn't come assembled. Yeah, uh, there's a chance. Truth be told. Exactly, correctly is so important because when you get to the competition, that's how they're going to be. And so, I mean, you probably could get a small
038little idea there. If your robot is even half a centimeter off, you might score or you might not. So you're talking about needing very precise movements and where something like a gyroscope or other sensors is super helpful because it ensures or hopefully ensures more accuracy. Thank you guys again very much. I wonder about Calum's buttons. Yeah, I know. Pieces of flair. Minimum of flair. All right, so thank you to our I Am of No Good team for their demonstration. I think what you get a sense for is just a little window into one of those opportunities that the kids get to engage in and kind of find their niche. And middle school, there's a lot of that. A lot of, you know, where do I belong? What am I into? Who else is into what
039I'm into? And we have over three dozen students who participate. in FIRST LEGO League and it's a great thing to see the countless hours that they spent but also our adult volunteers. I know he said it's all them. It's not all just the students because you know it's after hours and on the weekends and full day of work and coming to practice at night so it really is. a lot that goes into it. You can see the graph. These are some of the slides that they put together for us. So that's where FIRST LEGO League Challenge fits into the sequence. The numbers of students participating from John Long, seven teams worth. So here's one team. There are six more who spend this time together, who compete, who go to the competitions, showcase their talents. Lila,
040I believe, had talked a little bit about the submerged aspect of this and what the theme was. And then Ben talked a little bit about the core values and what is involved in kind of like the whole sequence of how this rolls out throughout the season. Katie described the gameplay and how that gets put together. And you saw a little bit of a sampling here. So just some of the aspects that are really cool. And I think what's also very neat is it's not just put together a robot and put it on the table and see what it can do. There are all these different aspects of leadership development and public speaking and all that teamwork that goes into it, being interdependent, meaning they count on one another to play different roles and really pull
041their weight on the team. So thank you again for participating. I would echo the sentiment about Mr. Riley and what he has done. It is not uncommon to see him darting in and out of school, moving stuff around, dragging stuff down here for the competition. He's been a great partner, and I'm happy to work with him kind of like at my level to make this happen. But really it is on the parent volunteers, on Joe, on the students. So very cool. A couple more things as we finish up just that are upcoming with John Long. I'm excited kind of in this same avenue Wednesday and Thursday we have engineers from clean test coming in and talking to our STEM classes. So Miss Morgan does a great job with our partnerships throughout the community of just
042providing more opportunities for kids to go places and for people to come in and showcase not only what we can do at John Long, but also what Grafton as a community does to give back to our schools. And finally, March 1st, this Saturday, is Chili Day. And Chili Day is another exciting thing for the music and theater boosters. So I wanted you to be aware of that. And with that, I want to say thank you for allowing us to host you tonight, for listening to the presentation, and wanted to open it up to any questions of me, any questions of our First Lego League presenters tonight. Thank you very much for the presentation. Thank you very much. I think Mr. Nelson would like to get a picture with the League. All right. Come on up
043here. Let's get a picture with you guys on the board. That board? Yeah, which board? The game board? Carry it in the board. I really just hate guys. All right. No, you don't. I like that player. All those buttons that you see on the bottom side are from other teams. I got a screen in here. Why don't I come behind you since I'm a little tall. And make sure I can see your face. Here we go. Thank you. Yes, so for my superintendent's report, we have congratulations to the following GHS FBLA members who qualified for the state competition. Michael Pan in accounting two, Jacob Nestler, financial statement analysis, Maya Fredrickson, help desk, Megan Brouillette, intro to business communication, Luke Hansen in marketing, Kavi Hardison, public speaking, Tanner Pack, securities and investments, and Sashi Makani, social
044media strategies. Social congratulations to Maya, Megan, Tanner, and Sasha who took first place in their events and they compete in Green Bay for the state championship on March 31st and April 1st. And then we have a recognition for our own Carrie Walls who was recognized by WASB for a level three award and she earned this recognition by attending Wisconsin Association of School Boards training opportunities focused on improving student achievement and public education. The WASB's member recognition program tracks the professional development of board members who are awarded one of five achievement levels based on a point system. Members receive points by attending the state convention, participating in workshops, and engaging in other professional development activities. So Carrie is recognized with a lapel pin as well as certificate of achievement that says Wisconsin Association of School Boards
045awards level three to Carrie Walls for demonstrating a high-level commitment to Wisconsin public school students by participating in WASB professional development opportunities. So congratulations to Carrie. So thanks to her for the extra effort that that goes into that, and great to recognize her in that way. Mr. Weiss mentioned this as well, but a reminder that Chili Day is on this upcoming Saturday, March 1st, from 11 to 3 at Grafton High School. Musical performances, delicious chili, 50-50 raffle, and there is an online auction. So even if you aren't able to attend, they have some great things. That email just came out this week showcasing some of the items that are available on the online platform. But hopefully you can come and enjoy some chili and then see our fine arts students participate in band and choir
046and the various performances that they have. And with that, I'll turn it over to Topher for our construction update. Yes, so I'm excited to bring you an update on construction. Earlier we had a tour of the facility before the board meeting, and Tyler saw a little bit of thunder from this presentation. But I'll run through this. Just a quick look back. So you remember at our December board meeting? We had the foundation complete and then at the January board meeting the steel structure complete and then since that time leading up today we've completed the exterior steel studs and have had nearly all of the building envelope rocked in certainly on that north end. of the building. So we have, we have, we are going to be starting or did start the underground plumbing since our
047last board meeting. The air barrier, prep for the concrete, forest slab, which will start end of the week, and then as well as furniture. selection where we had a number of meetings with fifth grade and with developing what furnished selections they wanted it was numerous meetings over the course of the past few months those furniture furniture selections have been made we had our last meeting on Friday during our PD day we started our day here at John long with the sixth fifth grade teachers and we we got out to bid we'd selected Hendrickson as our provider It was our final chance to look at what we what they requested, what they wanted in their classroom for chairs, stools, standing desks, regular desks, all those different things. Final chance to have a visual of what it
048looks like in a classroom before we submit the final sign off on that. And we had a meeting then with Mr. Weiss that afternoon with Henriksen and so forth. So that was our final meeting. We talked to with the fifth grade teachers about. on march 31st when we meet for our next pd day talking about end of the year stuff they're already starting to look at what they're teaching for next year whether they've completed and packing it up and by march 31st we'll know are we going to be putting stuff into trailers are we going to be putting it immediately over here to the new addition So we'll plan out those last couple days of PD and what that looks like as we look at fifth grade coming over next year. So very productive meeting
049on Friday morning. A lot of time and effort over the past few months leading up to that and moving forward. What we have to look forward to between now and our next board meeting, we will be pouring the concrete slab. The interior layout and framing will occur, so you'll start to see walls be formed and be able to actually see the classrooms. The MEP, the mechanicals, engineering plumbing, electrical plumbing, that'll be roughed in. Roof install will occur. And the rooftop unit will be shipped out before we meet next time on March 17th. Last time those top four alternates had already been approved as an update the main office remodel has been approved So we have those five alternates currently planned for in the budget And when you look at this budget summary the thing I'll
050point out is that There hasn't been a whole lot invoiced to date. That's going to start to change. Our first pay app came through this week, so we'll be reviewing and approving that. So the work that's been done construction-wise. Will really start to flow in month after month what has been paid to date for the most part would be the permitting the design fees and then under construction a lot of the work that Jamie Put forward with getting those bathrooms done last summer so that we could get a head start on things So but you'll start to see the pay apps rolling in And those construction costs starting to really move forward and get paid as you can see the construction work being completed. Finally, schedule overview. As we've said, this is currently on schedule
051and under budget. And so nothing has changed in that schedule. Everything is pointing toward being ready for the start of the school year. With that, are there any questions? It was good to see that we were able to stay on schedule, especially last week. Obviously, a forecast coming up will certainly help as well. Okay. And with that, that concludes the superintendent's report. Okay. Alright, no additional questions. This brings us to public comment. So for the board, I have received and forwarded three separate emails that were sent to myself where I was copied on that the board has received. So you can see everything that I have received for full board awareness. And then just to align for the public comment, the board recognizes the value of public comment on educational issues and the parameters of
052public comment are established in Policy 0167.3, public comment at board meetings. Please note the following guidelines. Comments should be directed to the board president. Comments should focus on topics within the legitimate jurisdiction of the board. No action or discussion will ensue based on public comment unless the topic is being discussed as already an agenda item. Before speaking, please state your name and address or group affiliation if applicable. And then statements are to be three minutes in length. Finally, note that this is a public meeting and the meeting is being live streamed and will be posted on the district's YouTube channel. Anyone like to address the board for public comment? name is Robin Wiegand I live on Indian Hill Drive in Grafton I just wanted to come and I was at the board meeting last month
053at Woodview and I thought it was phenomenal I wanted to just specifically say thank you I don't remember who asked the question when it came up regarding virtual days about what do the parents think so whoever did that thank you we really thank you we really I really appreciate that and I think it's really important for us to be able to get some of that parent comment i know as a parent i struggle to figure out and i think i've addressed the board in this way how do i get my comments out there how do i get heard in a way that's not so close to the vote right so that it's far enough out But that also got me thinking. There's two things. We actually did do a school survey last year at the
054end of the year. It would be great to see the outcomes of that, if that's something that's possible. I know we tout how great we are as a school district. It would be great to hear what parents said about that. And then the second thing is there was a lot of feedback given at the fifth grade middle school. Mr. Weiss hosted that. Jeff, Mr. Nelson hosted that. There's a lot of feedback. I know virtual days came up. I know parking came up. So, and busing. So there's some more feedback from the parents there that I'd love to make sure that you get. And I'm happy to talk with you if you had any questions about that offline. So, thank you. Thank you. Anyone else like to address the board? Hi, I'm Tracy Potter with the
055Graduate Education Foundation. I'm sure some of this is redundant because we come every month, but we have some wonderful things coming up. We have our Night of Giving, which is one of our biggest fundraisers. That will be April 11th. We do have another event, which is our Give Back at Surzont that is now a new local. Place you can go to in Cedarburg to have drinks and good conversation. So that will be March 13th from 4 to 11 And then I am supposed to tell you about this wonderful reverse raffle ticket. If anybody wants any. This is a great fundraiser. You can win $10,000. Second is $750. Third is $500. And then every 20th raffle pulled will get some sort of prize. Maybe something that some of the children made in the high schools. It's
056very cool. So that is something. On top of that, we really want to make sure that everybody spreads the word. We've heard so many people this year say, like, Grafton Education what? Like, who is that? We're like, well, how long have you lived here? Like, my entire life. I'm like, okay. So we are really trying to come up with some more activities, events to really get our name out because we are a nonprofit and we only really give back to the schools. Like, we don't take anything. It's all the grants. So thank you. Thank you. Anyone else? Okay. Seeing none, we will move on to Item D, Personnel Report. Yes, we have a couple retirements as well as a recommendation that we would ask for board approval for and then we have some informational only
057so Michelle chop speech pathologist at John long middle school and Grafton high school and Julie Seibold speech pathologist at Woodview elementary school are both going to be retiring at the end of the year And then we have a resignation of Beth Sandy and ela teacher at John long middle school who will be resigning at the end of this school year um and then for new hires information only is madeleine corner the special ed aide at john long middle school and the resignation of joe payne special ed aide at john long middle school Below those areas you'll see our retiree information so for our four people that are retiring We have a little bit of a bio about each of them as a reminder in May We'll bring all four of them back for a board
058meeting at the high school We'll do a reception beforehand and with them and their families and administrative team and anyone in the community is welcome to attend as well to recognize them I won't read through each piece of their careers But I will highlight when they started in Grafton. So Michelle Chopp, a district parent, started here in 2014. Works in both the high school and the middle school. Mike Maloney has been here his entire educational career for 35 years. And as he says, he's in his second century of teaching. which sounds like a Mike Maloney comment. And so you can tell he wrote this and all the things that he was involved in. Shannon Meisner, who started her teaching career in 1994 and has stayed here for her entire 30-year career at the high school.
059And then Julie Seibold. who lists some of the work that she'd done prior to coming here, but then she started here in 2007 in full-time. 2008, also a district parent and puts up with Rick on a daily basis. And so, which I know is a blessing, right, Mr. Seibold? Yes, of course. But four really quality people, great instructors, teachers. people that will look forward to celebrating in May. But bringing these two forward for the retirements and then the resignation for approval, and then we'll celebrate in May with them. Excellent. Any questions for Mr. Nelson? So we'll do these in two. First, we will look for a motion for the retirements of Michelle Chopp, speech pathologist, John Long Middle School and Graff High School, Julie Seibel, speech pathologist, Woodview Elementary. So moved. First any additional discussion
060all in favor say aye aye Opposed that passes and then one resignation best seeing the English language arts teacher John Longville school to accept the resignation so moved second additional discussion all in favor say aye aye Mr. Nelson said to the the meeting in May to be able to recognize our retirees and we wish her a happy birthday as well and appreciate her time in our district. All right, Item E. A handful of committee meetings that we've had. The month of February, we'll start with the village of graft and school district and village for the liaison meeting. I'll take the 1st topic school resource officers. So we met on February 5th village. Some of the items for follow up and not yet occurred as far as our roles being community. Officers once we, that's the
061discussion that we're having at this point. So, Mr Nelson and. Administrator Tice will get together to have a discussion as well as to kind of try to finalize a few of the details that are remaining and the goal then will be to have something presented to the board that we will discuss next month in our March meeting. So I don't know where you're at with that. That discussion with Jesse. So I'm actually meeting with Jesse tomorrow. We tweeted emails over the last couple weeks, and we are meeting tomorrow to start that discussion in order to bring something for his board as well as our board in March. Okay. So more to come on that, but that will be a March discussion that we'll have. We'll review that as well, and we'll see what those details
062are. Mr. Nelson, do you want to take the second to the village development updates that were shared? Yes, so we'd asked the village for some various updates on some of the developments that we've heard about and read about and been working with them on. One is Hawks Ridge, which is an agenda item later tonight that was brought forward to the Finance Committee, so you'll hear a little bit more about that. The Triangle Project that we'd heard a lot about and haven't heard anything since and they'd shared there's no new information with the Triangle Project with that being directly across from the high school impact it has on us. We were wondering for an update on that. There's no new information. There was an item, the wooded land north of GHS. It's very north. It's almost
063like northeast off of Cheyenne is the land that they're talking about being developed. It's a commercial building. It's just next to the Regal Rexnord building off of Cheyenne, looking at being completed in March of 2026. Gave us an update on that. And then the 9th and Hickory lot, we'd ask for an update on that. And they said it's still anticipated for multifamily development. But no time frame on the project starting or finishing at this time. So those are the four areas that we'd ask for an update from the village on the various updates that were occurring that were relative to us as a district. Any questions from our meeting with the village? So at this point, we have nothing scheduled further other than just the meeting that Jeff and Jesse will have tomorrow when the
064board updated on developments of those items. Item F, finance committee. So the Finance Committee met we talked about a bunch of different things fundraising guidelines for athletics and activities Mr. Moore presented administration reviewed the guidelines for fundraising for coaches and advisors and how these guidelines are communicated and The program needs that fundraising is used to cover The process was outlined and the use of online fundraising forms was discussed We also discussed the boundary dispute resolution which I know is an item that Topher is going to cover later And this where we outline the issues of some of the plan lots In the development between Grafton and Cedarburg school districts We got a John long construction update Which was already presented earlier? By Topher and then 2526 revenue projection was covered or administration reviewed the revenue
065projections for the upcoming 2526 fiscal year Topher will appears on this later as well Then lastly on my update but first at the finance meeting was Kerry from the district auditing firm presented the 2324 audit and after having the opportunity to ask questions and to comment the Finance Committee recommended that the full board approved the receipt of the 2324 audit which Topher will now projections so it's February so we start work on the 2025-26 budget with our revenue projections and so I will begin so our revenue is primarily driven by the revenue limit which is primarily influenced by two factors how many students do we have and how much do we get per student We have had increasing membership over the past few years and are continuing to anticipate that our three-year average will continue
066to increase This along with current state budget which increases that per member amount were allowed to raise by $325 that's current state law And so putting those two pieces together, we would anticipate spendable revenue increasing by about $1.1 million in that revenue limit. Another piece that impacts our budget is open enrollment revenue. So as we've seen over the past few years with increasing resident enrollment, we have been limiting how many open enrollment seats we offer to students who do not live in the district. And so we have seen a decrease in that revenue as we make room for students who live in the district. So we are anticipating that that would continue as well. Another piece is that the amount of revenue we receive from the state for special education costs, we do receive a
067reimbursement of right around 28 to 29 percent. And so that has been discussed in previous fiscal state budgets. In terms of the potential of increasing that amount right now we're assuming that that will not change that that will stay right around 28 29 percent which does mean we would need to transfer Roughly three point six million dollars from fund ten to fund 27 to cover the cost of special Education that aren't covered by state special education aid or with federal funds Overall, we see an increase of about $1 million in our Fund 10 revenue. Again, we've seen our revenue increasing by around that million dollars or so over the past few years with increased membership and the fact that the state is increasing how much we are allowed to raise per member. This is going
068to be the first year of a new biennial So we don't know what next year's budget looks like at this time We'll probably have to wait till July to know what next year's budget looks like we are using Essentially current state law to build our budget assumptions as of right now that maximum revenue per member amount Right now that's 325 That could change that could potentially go up the unlikely to decrease the amount the minimum amount that districts can raise per member that could increase that could potentially Create additional revenue if that were to be increased per pupil aid amount that's outside the revenue limit. We're assuming that's $742 like it has been for quite some time if that were to go up That would that would make more revenue available Personal property aid last
069year. It was outside the revenue limit We are assuming that it's going to be within the revenue limit and so it would be actually a decrease in revenue That's available for us on that it would simply offset property taxes and then finally state special ed aid, which I mentioned before Right now we're just assuming that current state law stays in place and so that we would get reimbursed around 20 8-29% of our special education costs. So in summer in summer we have increasing revenue limit of about 1.1 million dollars in spendable revenue this is because of a membership increase of 36 projected per member maximum of $325 increase that's current state law no exemptions falling off but as always as we've seen our increased enrollment which brings in additional revenue that does often bring in
070increased FTE and so that's something that we'll be looking at moving forward. In fact, March and April, we'll be determining those personnel needs and we'll be bringing those to the board. Then in May and June, we will look at numerous occasions and approve our preliminary budget at the June board meeting. Then in July, we would anticipate the state budget would be passed, the new state budget, and so we'd get some clarity there as well. In September we have our annual meeting and then October we get our final budget information from the state where we're able to then approve the final budget and Certify the levy at the October board meeting any questions on the revenue projections again taking those first steps to develop the 2025-26 budget Yes, so we have the audit report as As
071Jerry mentioned Kerry gift from our audit firm came to present the audit report It was boring Which is what you want your audit report to be if it was exciting that might not be very good. So it was boring As typically, we cooperated, administration cooperated with our auditors. It was conducted with professional standards. I'll highlight that the general fund had its fund balance increase. That was primarily due to the delay of the transfer to Fund 46, where this year we would double that up. You have the debt fund actually decrease, but that's because we doubled up on those payments last year, so that pushed our fund balance in Fund 39 down. And then our capital fund increased by over $10 million, but that's because we issued the bonds to fund the project here at John
072Long Middle School. That ten point one four million dollars Findings were fairly typical those three typical pieces as well as needing to update license verification procedures and then No material weaknesses, which we haven't had anything like that during my time here. So we Certainly, thank you again showing up at the Finance Committee meeting presenting that being available for questions And then we did have, coming out of finance, a recommendation for the board to basically approve accepting or receiving the audit report from the auditor. So with that, any other questions or thoughts leading up to that? Good. Thank you, Topher, and thank you to the finance committee. With that said, I would look for acknowledgement of receipt of the 2324 audit report. Second additional discussion all in favor say aye aye Thank you H Hawks Ridge
073development the attachment Yes, so tonight Just to recap. I was something we've been discussing for quite some time many moons the Hawks Ridge development Which you can see on the left is is highlighted in red and then that that yellow line divides the Cedarburg School District on the left or to the west and then the Grafton School District to the east On the right you can see that the way development was put together was going to result in a number of properties of lots that would be that would straddle the boundary creating a challenge with creating the parcel in the first place and assign it to a school district but also creating some confusion as to which school district the students who would eventually live on that lot would actually go to So we worked
074with the Cedarbrook School District and we came to an agreement as to Redrawing the boundary lines so that all of the lots Existed either in the Cedarbrook School District or the Grafton School District and you can see that boundary right there Basically, we have had a legal description created for those two separate parcels, basically the Cedarburg School District parcel and the Grafton School District parcel. And so we're able to use that with it being certified by the village clerk. We noticed that to the owners of all those properties. And then we're here tonight after Cedarburg approved this resolution at their last board meeting. Now it's up to us to approve that resolution tonight. following an approved resolution, then we would send a certified copy to the Cedarburg School Board, to the School District Boundary Appeal
075Board, as well as the owners and electors. There are no electors. There's no one living there. But we'd send that to the owners just like we sent the sort of the pre-notification as well. Doing that then would allow for the these boundaries to take effect beginning July 1st So that is before you tonight a resolution to put this into place so that can be in place for July 1st comments questions question Related but not to this if we can go back to that original map the first one yet up with a yellow line. Nope one more back So that the stonewall farms to the south though Yep, because that yellow line really Extends straight south correct. There's nothing to the east of there So we don't have this straddling issue Any development here would be
076in our scooters, okay little questions Just a quick comment that I Appreciate Jeff's work on this until first working with the village and all the different players involved with this and Certainly highlighting the fact that if we have other developments in the future that this is brought to us a little bit earlier So it's not quite set in stone from the developer as it is in this case So thank you for all the work you guys did on that much So With that I will look for a motion to approve the resolution resolving the boundary dispute between school district of Grafton and Seabrook School District. So moved. Second. Additional discussion? All in favor say aye. Aye. Opposed? That passes. Thank you. Also on February 10th, curriculum committee. Yep, the curriculum committee met and we went
077over some just informational items to start off with, some career changes in career clusters. We're going from 16 to 14. Really, it's just updating it, making it more accurate to what's really the careers we have now. So it's five group clusters with 11 career clusters, and then you have the ones that just overlap, the three overlapping ones, which include things like digital technology. It's incorporating in some of the new skills that are now in every job that you have. And it'll be ensuring that we'll be surveying the high schoolers, make sure that they're all going through an experimental course in their career cluster, helping them identify and get practical experience in an area that they're interested in. We had discussion and information about the Grafton High School exam exemptions, and Mr. Manti is going to
078help come up and explain it. Yes. Thank you. Thanks, everyone. of our exam exemption program to Vision 2030 directly to COR1, which is our ACT achievement goal. So we completed a very successful first semester exam exemption process where students had the opportunity to exempt one exam based on achievement or growth from their spring test to their fall test this year. So that was a successful implementation. And what we proposed to the curriculum committee was to add a second exam exemption, which is on that next slide. Thank you. The second exam exemption for second semester, which would provide an opportunity for a spring to spring model. So spring is when our students take the state test, 9th and 10th grade pre-ACT secure, 11th grade ACT. So this would really allow our students an opportunity for true
079spring to spring achievement or growth. So we would keep the same two pieces in play. You can earn this through achievement. You can earn this through growth and you would have to improve or meet benchmark in three of the four content area tests. So while exemption number one is focused more on your composite score, exemption number two is focused on your spring to spring subject area test scores. The other component that we wanted to highlight is really in talking with our, so this went through our teacher teaching and learning building level committee. This went through our department chairs. leadership group prior to coming to Jeff and then the curriculum committee. But the piece of this was that our team really wanted to ensure that as many students as possible have access to this. So the
080academic component that we are having as far as the classroom grade, a student will be able to exempt with exemption number two by earning a passing grade in the class. So if they earn a passing grade in the class and they make either achievement or growth, they would be able to exempt the exam in the class. That's different from exam exemption number one, really encouraging all of our students to perform the best of their ability so that we can, as a school, perform as well as we can on COR1 related division 2030. So that is the brief update. We did take this to our staff on Friday. Staff was thankful for the process moving through, understands where we're headed. And then Thursday of this week is the introduction to our students 9 and 10. And
081then we're going to follow up with grade 11 as well. So that's our update. Thank you. You're very welcome. We also got a brief update on Act 20 regarding the required testing and reading plans, along with... Just updates of how many students are on reading plans and how it has been progressing and then as mr. Manti reference division 2030 survey will be coming out for grades 3 through 12 to support Life ready in communication and experience so it'll be going to our students So we do have an idea of are they connected to their school? How are they connected? Do they have it and also their experiences? So it'll be our first time having a survey of our students and we're looking forward to the results And then we also went over approval of bridges,
082which Julia is going to come up and talk about. And the teachers came and did an amazing job presenting on how they've been doing with bridges and the new updates coming along with it. Yes, thank you. So last year, Bridges announced that there was an updated version available to districts starting in April, and Dr. McMahon and teachers started the evaluation process. We continued that process this year with a pilot in two of our bubble classrooms. So Jessica Rosengren and Betsy Bergman have been piloting in third grade at Kennedy and kindergarten at Woodview, and they shared their experience at the curriculum committee meeting this past month. Their experience with the updated materials has been very positive. They shared how the Bridges has restructured activities to be clearer, as well as shortened assessments, created more engaging enrichment
083activities, and then also sticks with the visual models, classroom discourse, and all the things that we really like about Bridges to begin with. You will notice that there are some changes. Again, not anything major, so it's just an updated version of the curriculum that we already know that works really well. To upgrade bridges, we do have to purchase upgrade kits for all of our teachers. So to upgrade both elementary schools, we're looking at... $26,830 for next year. That does include though the workbooks, Bridges workbooks and Number Corner workbooks, which are annual costs anyways that we budget for out of the teaching and learning budget. Thank you. All right. Seeing none, we would look for an approval to purchase 3.0 upgrade kits and workbooks for grades K-5 with a mutation in the fall of 2025 totaling
084$26,830. So moved. Second. First and second. Additional discussion? All in favor say aye. Aye. Opposed? So thank you for all your work on that. Okay. Mid-year local data reports. Our local data reports from the winter. In the winter, our students in grades K through 8 took a number of assessments. You can see them listed here. We did eight-grade assessments in kindergarten through third grade, which is required for Act 20. And you can see that there were multiple assessments at each grade level, with kindergarten taking four different assessments, first grade taking two, and second and third grade also taking two assessments. We also still continue to give our I-ready assessment in grades K through 8 in reading and also in math. So to talk a little bit about our AIMS web, AIMS web has percentile bands,
085which is how they structure how students did on the assessment at any given point. You can see that they are colored. We have orange, which is well below average. That's any student who's performing in the first to tenth percentile. These are national percentiles that they use. And then going up from yellow, green, a teal, and then blue. Green is where we look at our average, so students performing on grade level, so to speak. Their average, they're in the 26th to 74th percentile, so anything in the green or above is what we would like to see for our students. As mentioned previously, our kindergarten students took four assessments this winter. This slide shows three of those assessments. We have our initial sounds assessment where we had 82% of our students scoring average in that green band.
086We also have letter naming fluency, which is that middle one, L and F, where we had 51% of our students scoring average or higher. And then we had letter word sound fluency where we had 86% of our students scoring average or higher. We did anticipate to see lower scores in the letter naming fluency because our curriculum uses a sounds first approach for kindergarten students. So they teach the sounds for the letters, not necessarily the name of the letters. They start introducing the names of letters in January, which is when this assessment was taken. So we do anticipate to see our scores improve greatly when they take this assessment again in the spring. This slide shows the vocabulary assessment for our students in grades K through 3. So you'll notice kindergarten, then first, second, and third.
087In kindergarten and first grade, they take auditory vocabulary where a teacher, where they say it out loud. And then second and third grade is a computer-based vocabulary assessment, but all looking at vocabulary. And you'll notice that our students did very well on the vocabulary assessments, with 85% of our kindergarteners scoring average or higher, 92% of our first graders scoring average or higher, 89% of our second graders scoring average or higher, and 90% of our third graders scoring average or higher. This is one of the areas that we know Amplify does very well in our curriculum, is building background knowledge and vocabulary. And we can see that in our winter results. The last assessment was given to our first through third grade students. It's the Oral Reading Fluency Assessment, or the ORF. You'll notice that we
088had 65% of our first grade students scoring average or higher, 81% of our second grade students scoring average or higher, and 75% of our third grade students scoring average or higher. When we look at these assessments so again, this is required by act 20 We do have to create reading plans for students who did not score average or higher on a number of assessments so any students scoring in that orange or yellow band and Depending on which assessment they scored determines the reading plan. So you'll notice in kindergarten, we're looking at a combination of letter naming fluency and letter word sound fluency, and that composite score is what determines if we need to do a reading plan for those students in kindergarten. In first grade through third grade, it is just the oral reading fluency
089assessment. So even though our students did very well on the vocabulary assessment, we are strictly looking at that one assessment to determine reading plans per Act 20. So based on our winter results, we have the number of students who have required reading plans based by on the state. You'll see that there's the number of plan per grade level and then the percentage of our students at that grade level as well. All students who are below the 25th percentile, again in that orange or yellow band, have a reading plan in place and they also will be invited to participate in remedial summer school if their parents so choose. Okay, in addition to AIMSweb, we also have iReady that we gave K-8. So here you can see our... iReady reading scores for kindergarten through eighth grade and
090this is showing our growth from fall of this year to our winter assessment that we just took. You'll notice that we had a 19% increase in students on grade level or above and a decrease in the number of students below grade level from the fall to again winter. When we look and compare this time to last year, you'll notice that we're in the same spot relatively. Now this data isn't apples to apples comparison because we do have our eighth graders who have moved on to the high school and a new batch of kindergarten students, but you can see that compared to winter of last year and winter of this year, we continue to have about 66% of our students on or above grade level. and we need to continue to work on that bottom 10%
091of students as we're not seeing enough growth in those students. Those are both reading, and now here's math. So again, math, fall 2024 to our winter assessment. You can see that we had a 24% increase in students on or above grade level and a decrease in all the categories below grade level. And then again, comparing to where we were this time last year, we're almost in exactly the same spot. in terms of our achievement. i-Ready also gives us projected proficiency and This is how our students are predicted to do on the forward assessment. So this chart shows the past two years of projected proficiency data. So the first section is winter 2023. We have the I-ready column that says this is what we project your students will be on the forward exam in the spring.
092And then the middle column is actually how our students performed in 2023. So you'll notice that It wasn't 100% accurate or even close to our projected proficiency for 2023 and was even worse in 2024. And a lot of that has to do with the changes to the forward assessment that we just saw. But this is for reading. You'll notice again, even though I already said we were scoring at the 50th percentile for third grade in winter of last year, we really had 73% of our students scoring proficient or advanced. And then the same thing for math. Again, I-Ready was predicting lower numbers than we actually saw. And you can see that in winter of 2023 and last year, we had significant increases in our students of actual how they did on the forward exam compared
093to what was projected. Now, the reason why I'm sharing this with you is they did update their norms. So we are hoping that it will be more accurate. I-Ready said that they collected data from over 15,000 students in ELA and over 17,000 students in math across 18 school districts. And they did notice, as they were doing this linking study, that across all subject areas in grade levels, the Wisconsin forward proficiency cut scores of a level 3 and 4, so again, that's meeting or advanced, is lower than the diagnostic mid on grade level cut scores, so they have adjusted that appropriately. This is our winter 2025 projected proficiency for grades three through eight. And as you can see, we are projected to be 71% of our students proficient in ELA and 78% proficient in math. These
094numbers are more in line with what we typically see when we get forward results than what we have historically seen. So looking at that projected proficiency, I'm going to break it down by grade real briefly. So here is our current third graders. You can see the gray bars are reading and then the orange bars are math. We have the fall projected proficiency, how many students are projected to score a three or four, and then the winter one as well. So we have projected proficiency of 83% in math in this past winter, and that is our highest projected proficiency of all grade levels. So our third grade math scores are expected to be very high on the forward exam. In fourth grade, we saw a slight dip in reading from fall to winter, but then a
095good jump in math for the number of students who are projected to be proficient from 67 to 75. In fifth grade, we saw an increase in reading and, again, a slight dip in math. Again, these are just projections on if students will continue with typical growth, will they be proficient, sorry, meeting, which is the new term, meeting or advanced on the forward exam. Sixth grade we saw an increase in both subject areas with a 13% jump in reading. This is the highest projected proficiency of all grade levels in reading at 79%. Seventh grade is relatively consistent from fall to winter with a 1% growth in reading and 2% in math. And then eighth grade, lastly you can see We have our projected proficiency for winter of 72% in reading and 82% in math, which is
096the second highest score, projected proficiency score in math of all those grade levels. So in summary, all grade levels in three through eight have shown growth in projected proficiency from fall to winter, with the exception of the two grade levels that dropped, with fourth grade reading going down from 66% to 63, and fifth grade math going down from 74 to 71. And then compared to our 2024 forward scores, we are currently projected to perform better this year in the following areas in grade levels, so third grade reading, sixth grade reading. Eighth grade reading and math and then seventh grade math. Are there any questions on the data shared? On the third grade and under spectrum. Yes. Are the reading plans working or are we seeing the same kids year over year? So this is the
097first year of required reading plans and but we'll continue to track and see how many students Required a reading plan this year and then moving forward next year with a lot of the students that had a reading plan established this year, we're on our radar already and receiving intervention prior to this required reading plan. Yes. Thank you for sharing. All right. Student overnight trip request. Yes, we have one student overnight trip request that we asked for board approval for. It's for May 3rd. It's the GHS Varsity Golf going to Riverside Golf Course with Phil Trottier and Ben or Jody Conrad. It's a varsity golf meet going to the last 13 years on the oldest high school golf tournaments in the state of Wisconsin. They'll be staying at the Janesville. Peace in the rooms are paid
098through their spring pizza fundraiser. So we asked for board approval for that trip. Comments or questions? I look for a motion to approve the GHS versus Gulf trip request. So moved. Second. Additional discussion? All in favor say aye. Aye. Opposed? That passes. M, gift reports. Yes, we have three different gift reports that are restricted gifts. One from the Backcourt Club with Joe and Michelle Hildebrand, a cash donation of $500 towards girls basketball, and a cash donation of $500 for boys basketball. David Bulgren donating a 2002 Honda EX sedan in the amount of $500 to Grafton High School Automotive Department. And then Grafton Gridiron Club contact person of Carrie Van Sluis making a donation of $3,000 towards additional coaches stipends for Carter Grant and Luke Benchwall. And then we have our Enhancing Our Future Athletic Complex
099Development Phase 3 Donation Report. The Demerath family in the amount of $250. David and Tamara Corr, amount of $250. Paul Skaleki, $300. Energy Consultants of Wisconsin, $500. Mika Lawrence, American Family Volunteer Hours Donation of $525.15. And Donatina Armold in the Blackhawk Donation level of $1,000. And former Board President Paul and Ann Largy. Blackhawk amount of $2,000. Question for a motion to approve the gift report as presented. So moved. Second. Additional discussion? All in favor say aye. Aye. Opposed? Passes. We thank them of that appreciation. That brings us to item number N. Our next board meeting will be March 17th due to spring break. I'll be back at the high school with Mr. Manti and the high school presenting number 17. So I look forward to that. And Mr. Weiss, thank you for today and for
100your presentation. So thank you very much. That brings us to adjournment. Do we have a motion to adjourn? So. Second. Additional discussion. All in favor say aye. Aye. Opposed? And we are adjourned. Thank you, everyone.