001Hey hey hey. Good evening. Call to order the board of education meeting for Monday, March 23rd, 2026. Call >> Bridget >> here. >> Tracy >> here. >> Eric >> here. >> Mark >> here. >> Brian >> here. >> Ann is absent tonight. And Aaron >> here. I'll verify we have a president. Please rise for the >> flag of the United States of America and the stands one nation indivisible and justice for all. >> Brian, would you please read the school board mission statements? Certainly. Working together to ensure high levels of learning for all. Thank you. Public notice was given to the requesting news media. The agenda was posted in school district buildings and on the district's website. >> Were there any revisions to tonight's agenda? >> No revisions. >> I will move to approve the
002agenda as presented. >> Second. >> Motion by second by Tracy to approve the agenda. There any questions? All those in favor? I >> tonight's agenda is approved. We do not have any requests for public input on the published agenda and we'll move directly into recognition item. >> All right, Mr. president and board. It's with great uh pleasure and honor and gratitude that we share that we had a donation of $500 from Beer by Bike Brigade for the Honability program. And as you've all all are aware that we've received many great donations from uh this great organization. So we thank them. >> Yeah. Very much very much so consistently being recognized by that organization. Great. Thank information items. We have a tripy and team are here. So, welcome Mr. Be. >> Thank you so much. So,
003is it working? There we go. My name is Andy Bero. I'm Spanish teacher at the high school and I have Lauren Maveronus and Valerie Mum Jansen here. And yeah, we just want to come to say thank you for approving the Panama trip that we did. Uh we did that in late February, early March and it was a huge success. The kids did unbelievable job. I felt like we represented on Alaska very well and there were no major issues at all. There was everything went perfectly and the kids had an awesome time. So, uh, thank you for approving it. It was an amazing trip and maybe I'll turn it over to Lauren here and you can maybe mention a couple or three of the things that we did. >> Awesome. Um, a couple things that I
004thought were really cool is that we got to go to this orphanage in Panama City and we got to spend two days with the kids. for about three hours and it was super fun and we got to bring different stuff like we made some bracelets with them like I brought some face painting stuff which they really enjoyed. We got to play some games with them and it was really interesting to see the Spanish that they spoke. It was probably the hardest part of the entire trip since it was like Spanish talk but it was like from babies and toddlers and they were a lot of help with translating some of that and in the end I don't think we quite got the message but doing okay. Um and then another part I really enjoyed was
005the stayed with host families and that was super fun. My host family um both of them were grandparents but they had a little grandson that was like five and he was super fun and he really liked to play Una with us but he would only play Una with us if we separated out all the plus4s and the plus two in the wild and the skip cards and then gave that entire pile to him and then he played with all the regular cards. So then he could just spam plus fours and plus twos and we did that for about five hours. until like 11 p.m. and then his parents made him go to bed. But overall, it was a super fun trip and I think my Spanish improved a lot. >> Thank you for sharing. It's
006always nice to see the backside of the approval and the experience. Thanks for sharing. We're gonna move directly into students. >> Um I have a bunch of things to talk about, but they're all pretty interesting. Um so first is the forensic schema on Alaska. Um they recently changed it name to speech team. So this team advanced from the sectional competition then to district competition which took place last weekend and then advanced the state competition which happens at WMadison. And this team of about 15 OS students will be competing with their plays, homes, speeches impromptus speeches and acting pieces in Madison on April 25th. So that's really exciting. And then our school also has a competitive renewable energy team and this team builds a small scale wind turbine and develops their advanced electrical mathematics skills to
007compete in the Kidwin competition in WMadison early March. Um and the an Alaska team which my sister and I founded a few years ago prevailed over many high school teams and we will be competing in the world competition in late May which we're really excited for. Uh, and then also Dancing with the Oak Stars is coming up April 13th and many students and staff are excited to see their peers perform at this. This is actually the same event as their next board meeting and I won't be here for that because I'm going to be in Washington DC um as a part of a team of four youth from Wisconsin to attend a National Department of Agriculture conference for you. So, I'm really excited for that. And then my last thing is that our choir and
008orchestra departments will be departing from an Alaska on Thursday to head to New York City for an experience of music, culture, theater, shopping, and food. Those are all my things. >> Thank you. >> Um for my board report, I'm going to show a quick video. I've mentioned to you the uh the class of 22 graduate who came back. Um we actually watched this as part of a staff meeting last week as a celebration. Um it's only a minute and a half, but I think Eli some great messages in here. >> I'll start with when you were in high school all since senior year things kind of fell apart. What happened? >> I came into a bad crowd of people that had poor judgment on life, I guess. And you know, you you really are who
009players say, you are who you hang out with. And that truly what affected me the most and prevented me from graduating. um you know jump ahead of your five uh four years later. What was what was the thing that made you decide I want to finish and get my high school diploma? >> I want a better career for myself and a better life. And living this past four years, being able to find a job that allows you to work there without even a high school diploma has been pretty hard. Um without that diploma, it's just everything's a struggle. Daily life, it's always a thought in my head. So, I just messaged you. I figured that's the best way. Well, G, best way to contact or get started is just to talk to the people that
010had your back on the beginning. >> And you mentioned that your younger brother is a senior in high school this year and that you're telling him, hey, you know, don't don't rush to get out. Tell me a little bit more about that. >> I just think that people should cherish the moments that they have in the school while they have it. Hey, it's going to come by fast and next thing you know it's 10 years down the line or for me four and you're looking back at all the memories that you had and all the things that you could have done. You're going to miss it. We all do. >> And looking ahead, you mentioned that that once you have a diploma, looking ahead, you you're looking at maybe tech school, college, something. >> Yeah.
011Yeah. Um, there's a lot to experience in life and I want to try to experience the most I can whether it's work or traveling and you can't do the second without the first. So, last question. Back in high school, what was your favorite memory of high school? And and I know you were here during the co stretch, but what was your what was your favorite memory? >> It was definitely co during co when I was able to come in here to Gresner's room and be at the school. It was a small group of people and Some of us knew each other, but by the end of it all, we were all really good friends. And I think that's one of my favorite memories from being here is just the social environment of it all. You
012know, it was a hard time, but we made the best of it. >> When Eli mentions CO, he's talking about early in September of that year. Um, the board gave permission for students to that were struggling to engage in a virtual environment to work from school. And so, um, when he was talking CO, he wasn't talking about laying at home in bed doing classes. He was talking being able to be part of a a small group working in Mr. Gner's room. You know, when we give out diplomas in two months, um one of our counselors, John Horman, always reminds people that, you know, getting a high school diploma doesn't mean you're going to have a charm life. And he's 100% right, but not getting a high school diploma almost guarantees everything's going to be a
013challenge like Eli shared. And I think Eli did a great job verbalizing that. So, we're very, very, very proud of Eli and uh other students that we're working hard with in the next few months. I thought it was really impressive. >> There you go. >> Okay. Sorry. Okay. Maybe it's just me. I'm so sorry. Any It was very impressive that he was willing to be vulnerable and share his story with everybody because, you know, it's really intimidating to talk to people about stuff like that, especially when things don't go as planned. And so, like you said, proud is I mean, just the just like the little blood. I'm just it's just amazing. Like, it's just I super appreciate that he took the time to do that and share his story. And I really hope that
014it helps influence other students who might be struggling in school or they just, you know, they think, "Oh, it'll be fine." Like real life experience. I mean, that makes a difference. Yeah. with my public relations committee hat on. There's a lot of opportunity there to share that, you know, with teachers and a strategic audience that is a parents and those that are considering the school district of choice like that is that's a readym made real to the degree that Eli's comfortable with that and we throw Nick at that type of thing and then I as a parent I'm extremely heartened by the fact that we don't lose track of those people that come back in those types of experiences. So to the degree that we can shape that as a district that's a powerful statement
015that go well beyond those two in general like you know we celebrate. It is a little echoey. We celebrated our middle level ed week, which is a celebration of middle school and middle uh age learners. Um we had a various dressup days throughout the week and on Thursday we had our middle school dance and on Friday we had our uh traditional student staff basketball game. the more the years go up for me, so the older I get, the longer it takes me to recover after playing in that game or sore for a couple more days than I was last year. And then I'm thinking, you know, um it's the recovery is longer. So, just thought I'd highlight that. Um our art show is currently happening. In fact, today was the opening at the an Alaska
016Public Library. Um m March is youth art month. So, if you have a chance to get over to the library, we have um middle school art all over the library, and it's just a celebration of um our art teacher um Mrs. Hannah Carson, and then just our middle school artist who have uh pieces in the show. um recently. So in the past two months, we have taken um Ash Dockery, who's our resilient learner teacher, and I have taken small groups of students to UWL for what's called couch conversations. So um the uh WL puts on these couch conversations and we um took advantage of the Black History Month couch conversation in addition to the women's history month couch convers couch conversation. We took five to six students to these conversations. Um it's really interesting to
017and um rewarding to give kids the opportunity to experience higher education institutes. some of the students that we went along with have never been to UWL before and just seeing them look at the student union because it was in the new student union and just um the fa the fast food places that are there and all of these different things and just exposing them to WL has has been um a great experience for myself and Ash Shakri and then uh one of the presenters actually came to meet to MS to meet with a group of our students after they saw that we had a group of middle schoolers there. They came and met with our small group of students because we can't take everybody with us, but they wanted um the presenter wanted to come
018and meet with a a small group of students. It was awesome for the students to be able to experience that personal connection with that presenter. Um lastly, we had um our we had our spelling bee representative placed third in the state. So he won our school spelling bee. Then he moved on to regionals at CISA and he won the regionals at CISA and then he went to state this past weekend. He came in to the library today because we're forward testing. So he came into the library today to get some of his materials. I was like, "Oh, how'd it go?" And he was like, "Oh, I got third place." And he looked a little sad. I was like, "Why are you why are you got third place in the state for spelling? Why are you
019sad?" And he goes, "The first two go to nationals." So he's just bummed because he just missed the cup for nationals, but I we should still celebrate him as a learner because he got third in the state in the state spelling be. So we're really really really proud of him, too. >> Um just so a couple of things for elementary. Like Jana said, we are forward testing as of last week Monday. So just thank you to all of our tech team nutrition for bringing us snacks. all the staff who have done training to Lynch to help coordinate, make sure everything's happening um efficiently and effectively, which it has so far. That's good good news. Um also, we're entering interview season. So, we have some positions posted with just all the um changes taking place and
020we're doing some screening. So, just looking forward to to um welcoming our new team members as we do that part of our process and interviewing and such. And then finally, across our elementary schools, we do have March Music Madness. Um, it's a battle of the decades that each of our uh music teachers have uh organized. And so, for example, we have the 60s versus the 70s with Arisa Franklin Respect versus CD Wonders Superstition. And then the kids listen to each song and then vote for their favorite. So, more to come on who wins that competition. >> Yes. We'll move into action items and first Um, so first off, thank you to everybody that came to our event. It was really successful. Um, we had a lot of good feedback that it was back in on
021Alaska and seemed like everyone had a good time. So, we're going to continue that on next year at same location. And thank you for promoting it so much on the internet, all your videos that you did. And yeah, we really appreciated that. Um, so when we did the claw deck grant um, for the fall, normally we do only do it like one time a year. Um, but the amount of grant applications that we got in the fall was pretty low. Um, compared to the funding that we had available. And we did get some feedback from people um, in our on our board that like it was kind of a time of year there was a lot of changes happening and teachers were maybe like a little bit occupied with that versus worrying about what they
022need for their class at that time. So we decided to open up a second round um which we got a lot more applicants for. Um so the total GRA grants that were applied for for just spring alone for just public schools were 16 um in the amount of 20,000 491 and then the total grants that we were able to fund for public schools was 10 of those 16 at um 10,546. Um, so I think most of like the ones that we weren't able to fund were either just like outside of the scope. I know there was a lot of requests for um like funding to go places um and that's a little bit outside of the scope of what like the innovative grants are for. So um we typically aim to do something that's innovative
023and sustainable too for classrooms like year after year. Um, so I'll just quickly kind of go through like the grants that we did fund, um, and what we funded with that money. So, um, for the first one, it was for Hannah Carson. Um, she had asked for from the Analaska Middle School. Um, she had asked for funding, um, for a space in her room to do like puzzles, like kind of like a maker she called it. So it was um puzzles, seating, um button maker, loom, yarn. Um we partially funded that. Um typically furniture is just like outside of our scope, so that's why we didn't fully fund hers. Um Carolyn Hatlig um at also the Alaska Middle School asked for a grant for robotics um in the in the amount of which we were
024able to fully fund. It sounds like it's robotic kits um for the classroom that they will be able to recycle and reuse every year. Um next one is for Philip Scholer. Um and my understanding is he's at like multiple or all elementary schools. Um and he asked for like a bar. It goes on the bottom of chair um for students to kind of like fidget with if they're struggling to pay attention. We fully funded that. Um next one was Ann Marie Doll at Irving Perch. Um she had asked for funding um to do like kind of podcasting material. Um so it sounds like the students would be the ones doing the podcasting. Um, and that was for 500 and we were able to fully fund that as well. Um, the next one was Melissa Benzing
025at an Alawaska High School. Um, she asked for something really cool, a ceramic 3D printer. Um, we all really loved that and that was $1,300 which we were able to fully fund as well. Um, Bethany Carlson at Northern Hills. Um, let's make story champs. So that is like a program that you purchase that you're able to like make stories verbally through. Um and there's no like subscription fees or anything for that. So just onetime purchase we were able to fully fund at 62322. Um Emily Perry at Northern Hills Elementary. Um this is for like a community garden. Um which yeah we were able to fully fund as well. Um, so the it sounded like startup cost would include everything seeds and then obviously like the beds to do it all. So yeah, that I thought
026was pretty cool. Sounds like most pools now kind of have that type of thing. So um, all right, bear with me. Denise Kie. Yeah. Um, on Alaska Middle School. So they have a crochet club there and she just for materials um to have more students be able to join that. Um so we were able to fully fund that as well. Um Ashley Benson at Northern Hills um asked for I it's like a cardboard cutter for kids that have aren't able to use like a regular scissors. Um so we were able to fully fund that at $500. It seems like it's almost like a little table saw that they push the cardboard through and it cuts it. And then last one, Randy Kettle Hut at an Alaska Middle School. Um he titled his project making math
027more meaningful. Um so it sounds like they just asked for some like updated equipment on this. They already do some sort of like YouTube videos um that their students can watch at home on math subjects, but I guess their equipment it's hard to record with slash hard for students to be able to like hear that at home. So, um we also funded like some headphones and stuff for the classroom as well, so they're able to listen to it there. And they asked for some like math game equipment as well. So we were able to fully fund that as well. >> Yeah, >> that's awesome. Thank you for that recap. >> Just just a comment. You know, it' be really easy to go through your fall process. Say we did our process, right? But >> well,
028you didn't do that. No. >> Like we're here to make an impact >> and we normally, you know, this amount, so let's do another round. So just thank you for the thoughtfulness and the commitment. >> Yeah. We are very glad to be able to help all the teachers. We realized with a lot of the grants that we received how hard it must be sometimes for these teachers. Um a lot of them were requesting stuff to keep like students occupied like during class. So we were like okay you know how can we help best of the way that we can and yeah we felt like it was a good outcome. So yeah, >> it's really great to see how the foundation has evolved. >> Yeah. >> Since the beginning, >> so much great things that it
029has helped with. >> Yeah, it's definitely seems like every year there's more people that show up for events, fundraising, you know, budgeting always seems to like go up every year as well, which is really great to see. I'll make a motion to approve the an Alaska Education Foundation deck grant as outlined in enclosure 12 and detailed by second. >> Motion by Tracy, second by Bridget to approve the Alaska Education Foundation grants for round 12. Is there any further questions? All those in favor? >> I gladly accepted. Thank you. >> We will now. >> Okay. Thank you very much. And we'd like to invite Carrie and Kelsey up um to the table. and maybe we'll have you introduce yourselves first so the board uh knows who you are. I'll start I'll give a little kind of
030framing of this is uh for us to be able to even consider uh having an online school here in Alaska. Uh it requires us to do that by opening up a charter school and there are many requirements associated with that. One of which and most importantly is you must create a governing board. Right. And uh we have two of our governing board members with us and we'll ask them to introduce themselves. >> Sure. Kelsey Gly. I have two teenage boys at the high school. Grie Marcos and I have one um son at the high school and a daughter that graduated two years ago. >> Awesome. Thank you so much for being here. We do have two other uh members of our governing board who are not employed by our school district. We also have other
031members of our governing board officially. Right now it's myself and Lis. Um all of this may we may expand this over time. Um you'll see in the contract that there's been references to uh bylaws associated with the governing uh board and uh you know as we evolve and grow those bylaws uh may be modified and those are the kinds of things related to like how many members we have. There's only one requirement and that is that the governing board must consist of a majority membership of non u employed uh people from the school district. Okay. So, we've met that requirement. Uh so, board uh we're asking you to take what I would consider a historic vote um in terms of starting a a new school in the school district of an Alaska. And uh our
032intent uh here tonight is to just share a little bit of of the story of how we've gotten here. Um some items related to the contract, although um we've had that the opportunity to view that. I have received I received a couple of questions from board members and I felt like we were able to answer all of those. Uh so hopefully there aren't any more, but you'd have the opportunity to ask those here tonight. Um and then uh share with you a little bit about uh where we intend to go from here. Um you know, as a new superintendent coming on board, uh I know how important our mission is to our school district, right? And that uh that word all means a tremendous amount to us and all means all. And we know that
033uh every student in our community has their own sets of gifts and talents but also struggles and everyone's different, right? Which includes uh the need for some children to have different educational experiences, right? We have a a great amount of pride in terms of what we offer here in our brickandmortar school. We consider ourselves uh to be one of the premier districts in the area for sure and we're pleased with that and proud, but we're not satisfied and we're going to continue to grow. But we also see that there's opportunities for us to serve other students that u historically we have not been able to. Um, we also recognize that our district has had decline in enrollment over the course of the last several years and that trend will continue uh because we are so
034proud of what we offer uh our students and families. We hope to be able to serve more children and families. And as we've discussed here in this room many times, um we don't have the ability necessarily to just magically put more children in the homes that we have in our school district. Um so we have to be creative and innovative on how we might be able to attract other students uh from not only the Kulie region but across the state of Wisconsin. We're very proud of the fact that we are, I believe, the only school district in the Kulie region that is on the positive side of open enrollment, but we know that there's probably a ceiling to that, right? So, how can we attract students from outside of the area and online uh education
035is one of those ways to do that. Uh coming in as your new superintendent, having experience uh in starting and creating an online school in a previous district, it only felt natural to propose this as an as a viable option for us to consider here uh to grow an online program here. And uh we started having those discussions with the board uh with our administrative team to see if there would be any support for us to move forward with that. And there has seemed to be support all along the way which then allowed us the opportunity to explore and analyze the feasibility of this which we have done. Um and as part of that process, we needed to determine what are the necessary requirements for us to create a school. Uh I shared with you
036already it has to be open as a charter school. This will be one if we add this as a school, it will be one of our schools. So, um this would be an additional school for us, but it technically on paper would be listed as a charter school and it would be the the um Alaska online academy, I believe is is what we're calling it. And uh we created that governing board. We needed to create what's called a contract between the charter and the board. And that's what you have in front of you. As part of that contract, we also had the requirement to become incorporated. That was kind of the last missing piece of the puzzle that we needed to uh figure out how to do and we recent actually we accomplished that task
037last week. Therefore, we were in a position to bring this contract to the board. So, you'll see that in the in the name of the title, it will uh say incorporated after it or INC. Okay. Um, so I guess to summarize what we are asking the board to vote to approve in this online school would be uh a K8 program, right? that uh we would contract out for services with an organization called Venture Upward who has a strong reputation nationally amongst home educating families. And um that partnership with uh venture upward would provide us the learning management system which would be the whole infrastructure for the online program would be the curriculum that is aligned with Wisconsin state standards and many other supplementary kinds of uh curriculum. All of which uh our director of instruction
038and her team have been working with venture upward to analyze. Um admittedly we have been on a little bit of a holding pattern because we've done as much work that we possibly can until we are actually officially a school and we're not officially a school until the board votes uh tonight if you choose to support us. So that work will continue on and Lis you know certainly can speak to that uh if you have questions there and will uh likely provide additional uh background on that as we take you through the journey. Um Venture Upward also will do some marketing and u some uh you know getting the word out kind of things. They do have what they call a recruiter to go and meet with u kind of organizations that where many families gather
039for that home educate and uh they also will facilitate the process where a family can get some level of reimbursement for their educational expenses. for example, a computer uh or internet or some of those kinds of things that are needed to support uh in terms of supplies for home educating a child. Our uh our responsibility as a school district would be um to hire the teachers and basically run it as a school. Um we have the infrastructure set up in terms of a website right now. Uh we have uh some tentative plans for some marketing and communication strategies. We will continue to work on the curriculum side of things. We'll be working with HR to uh start the hiring process. We do feel like our first hires would be an elementary teacher and then a
040a middle school teacher because this would be a program. Uh we would uh need to hire some level of leadership, although that's yet to be determined what level of time we would need for that position. And uh then we would kind of get things u moving off the ground. Um, we just kind of been a little bit disjointed on that, but Kelsey and Carrie, do you have any commentary that you'd like to share on your perspective as uh charter board members? >> Yeah, well, we're happy to to help and give our advice and um the parent, you know, side on, oh, what about, you know, when a parent has technology issues or um will it be, you know, asynchronous or synchronous? So, we've had a lot of discussion and feedback. Um, and just >> teach
041and um, yeah, just the background. Um, we don't need this option for our kiddos. In fact, I don't see it at all for our kiddos. Um, but we know that there's a need for others. Um, some unique situations and there's untapped homechool population as well that we could maybe reach out to. Um yeah, happy to be on the board and same um I teach online and I like being able um for students to have an opportunity another option um like students that I serve and instead of possibly losing them to retain them um to bring to give families another option. >> Yes. And I'm glad you referenced homeschool um you know really our target audience to start is to try and attract already existing home educated families. Um that is what we found is maybe
042the largest population growing population in our state is the number of families that are choosing to homeschool or home educate. And uh we we feel like we can be a partner with families that choose to do that to provide some value to their experience by by providing a service of some guaranteed viable curriculum that's aligned with the state standards and to have a strong you know infrastructure on online and to also have that caring adult teacher to help the the students on their journey. um you know and also just provide that level of uh respect to families that choose to home educate, right? They have that choice. Um and we want to lock arms with them and and be able to help them do that better than they already are. And uh we all already
043know that we have the number has been growing. um about 60 uh students in our district that homeschool that just live in our small geographic area. And we also have um 50 or so maybe plus that choose to uh open enroll to other districts uh to go online because we don't have an online option. That's just in our district. Uh through our discussions and kind of exploring this as an option, we found that just in this region of Lacrosse and Holman and West Salem and and Toma and Sparta, just in this little pocket of Wisconsin, there are many many families that choose the home education. Um we certainly hope that we would that some of those families would consider us as a viable solution. Uh but that's we're not going to stop there, right? will
044be reaching out to the farthest borders of our state to attract as many families as we can. Uh, you know, starting a new school is a risk. I will admittedly say that. But we're betting on ourselves and we think that, you know, we have an honor away and a recipe of of high performance and we will put every bit of our being into make this school, this new school, as every bit as good as any of our other schools in our school district. summarized for us. >> So, like Ben said, this is a little bit of a risk. So, we're asking right now for the board to consider this charter contract for two years. And then, of course, if things are going well, we will ask you to renew. But we figure that two years
045should be sufficient for us to know if this is going to work. And as Ben shared, our mission is to ensure high levels of learning for all in a flexible home educated environment is specific to this charter. So, the online will follow all of our district policies. It will be non sectarian. So we are not starting a religious private school and we will staff it commensurate with enrollment. So as our enrollment grows, we will add staff. They will all be appropriately licensed for the assignment and evaluated the same as we do with our district currently. As Ben mentioned, I have had the opportunity to take a look at the curriculum, specifically ensuring that it meets our early literacy standards since that was new last year to all of us and uh venture upward has done
046a lot of work in Minnesota with a very similar law. So, it all aligns really well there. The only piece that we haven't completed yet is social studies specific to the Wisconsin standards that are different from other states. But again, didn't want to go too far down that road unless we knew this was going to So that would be the next big piece for curriculum. But otherwise, uh we will be meeting all of our state standards in all those core academic subjects as well as including health and PE where it is required at those grade levels where the state requires a certain number of minutes. Students will all take district and state standardized assessments. So this will become another entity that has its own report card just like our other schools. And they will also
047follow our district promotion and retention guidelines. So students don't just go to another grade without having done anything. They would still follow our same guidelines. Uh as Ben mentioned, we'll partner with a third party to provide that learning management system at like at present we're looking at venture upward for that third party and funding will come from the district for the staffing and services but the governance board can choose to fund in the future if they desire. We will provide an annual report to the board probably along the same lines as our report card reports for all of our other buildings to ensure that the charter schools meeting standards and if there are any improvements that are needed and the governance board will have regular meetings that will be open meetings similar to how school
048board meeting is held. The reasons for revocation or severability in the contract are if any of those provisions are not met, but most specifically if students or program are failing to make sufficient progress or they're not maintaining sufficient enrollment, if there's any failure to comply with applicable policies or laws, if there's an emergency risk of student health or safety, or if the governance board decides to dissolve, then that would contract. Ben already mentioned a lot of our next if this is approved. But if you choose to approve this this evening, we would submit our contract and benchmarks to DPI to be assigned an entity number. I already provided a provision copy to them to ensure we weren't missing anything and the only thing that we were missing as I mentioned was the incorporation, but we
049were granted that last Thursday. So I think we'll be on track to be approved. We will keep you updated on progress and then uh we have very specific department task finance and business services will finalize the contract for the third party and further develop our financial strategy. I will continue to finalize curriculum offerings and keep meeting with the governance board to create handbook guidelines and our family student information. Uh Lori and student services will keep working on the enrollment and open enrollment and then as if any enrollments come in with special education that we need to take a look at the IEPs and ensure we can provide those services. Sonia will keep on working on recruiting and hiring staff for us and Nick and communications will finalize website and branding and marketing communications to families.
050So with that, if you have questions for us, we'd be happy to comate a longterm vision, but it's not very often that we get considering moment. to be able to consider that. Nice to see some familiar faces as I sit down there. Great to see both of you and and so I think the information that we together over the last number of months I don't have questions but uh but I do have a very clear minded view of where where I stand next. Thank you for preparation support. You didn't mention anything about a possible addition going into high school if this was all a successful process. Yes. I mean, you know, we're taking this one step at a time. So, our our focus has been, you know, getting the charter started, our focus in our
051our K8. We are aware uh that we will likely need to consider a 912 option. And my hope would be once we kind of get our feet under us and and we get rolling with our K program that sometime maybe next school year, we would create a a group, if you will, of team members that would be most relevant and have the most expertise as it relates to high school and a high school online program. And we would come together and we would create what that would look like. it would still fall under the umbrella of the charter, right? But I do envision the high school model being much different than uh the model in K8. Mostly being I do not see us recommending to contract for service with venture upward for the 912 programming.
052Um as there's just different nuances and complexities to a high school that we will need to have. um some partnerships with a curriculum provider that will offer many many course offerings that will be aligned with graduation standards. And um we will also need to be much more um collaborative with the high school administration and the high school team members because I do see that there will be a little bit more intertwinement if you will um at the high school level. That's why we'd like to kind of build that um with high school I guess ideas. uh around what we're going to do. But yes, we know that's something that we're likely going to have to do and we want to do. We're just not prepared to go there yet. >> Right. Yeah. One step at
053a time. >> We did outline that in our intent to form a charter that hopefully by year three at the latest we have that high school option, but as early as we have the ability to do what we would like to do. >> Yeah. Okay. And and this is beginning next school year. >> Do you want to go ahead Tracy? >> Well, I was just gonna go off of what you just said. It's it's good to hear that, you know, you do have the plans in motion or ideas in motion for supporting the students who want to, you know, we bring in we need a solution for >> Yeah. A thousand%. So, I appreciate that all of the work that you guys put into this and the time and the giving of your time to
054even make this happen because without this governing board, you know, it it was a requirement to make this school happen. So, I super appreciate all the time and effort you guys have put in to make this happen. So, thank you. >> Yeah. All right. Thanks. I mean, just going through this process and, you know, learning all about it to become much more comfortable with it and really excited about this option. As Aaron said, this is a pretty phenomenal step for us to take. I really appreciated the presentation of Venture Upward. I think that they were very straightforward and upfront with exactly how they operate. I have a number of questions about the contract, but I've I've become comfortable with all of those after my discussion with Ben yesterday. And um yeah, I think probably you
055two would agree, you know, with what we kind of discovered through COVID and online learning that some students that's just the best way for them to learn >> and some not. And And I know teaching online, I've had several students tell me that they wouldn't have graduated had that not been an option. So that's that's nice to know that we're giving them. >> I have a question. I feel like we've simultaneously this has gone really quickly, but also we've been talking about it for a while. Um, and I know when we first started this, there was not anyone else that we were aware of in doing something like this. Is that still the case as far as we're aware that we would be the only one? >> Well, the only um to help serve that
056home educator population as well. There are other virtual virtual charter schools, but um not necessarily with the same type of learning management system that venture upward offers. And thereides Yes. Yes. There are many many online programs in Wisconsin. I don't you probably look it up, Google it, and maybe there's 50, right? It's been my experience that there's a lot. Um there probably very few really good ones, but every different online provider and school is different like in terms of their requirements and expectations and some of those things. And that's where I think um homeschool families or families that really want to home educate their children, they they do their research and they find which one is the best fit for them. Okay. And From the get-go, uh we knew that our partnering with Venture Upward
057was unique and kind of had its own niche because it was highly focused on families that are already existing home educated families. Families that um are choosing to home educate their children because their value because of their value systems, what's important for them and what they want in life, right? And um you know we're trying to provide extra support to those families that are already doing that. And a big part of venture upward is just the flexibility uh that the program offers. >> And I think that was the biggest eye opener for me then is that the focus is on home educated families. >> So I had one question. Um, so we're referring to the school as the online an Alaska online academy and then in the contract it says an Alaska online academy charter
058school and then you did say incorporated. We're adding that to so is that technically like the full legal name includes the word charter school >> and the incorporated. >> Okay. I just let me clarify that >> and I will tell you and and the board that you know what we have to fulfill a a formal requirement in a contract is different maybe than how we would market ourselves. I you know we will call ourselves the an Alaska virtual academy >> online academy online academy okay >> online >> yes that's but we're not going to say charter school incorporated you know we're it will be on our website it will be branded it will have the honor brand and uh yeah we're just going to be another school >> perfect I just want to clarify that
059for like the website and our >> some of the things that are in that benchmarks that you have to submit to DTI there's like specific words that have to be in place there someplace and the word incorporated or inc with a period is one of them has to but no we're not going to call it incorporated everywhere we market >> very much a whole district and district staff effort like higher levels of learning like where the rubber meets the road on this right so there's broad consensus that we're disappointed about talking about this in a lot of meetings it's good maybe to high five like great idea um for governance like 51 paragraph 511 talks about they can let us know midy year that there's price increases unforeseen and then it's submitted but it doesn't
060say anywhere in there that there's approval or a vote or board involvement so what control exists when they submit to us like the costs are unforeseen so it's not just an equal sign of district writing a check >> that's part we're working with that part of the contract we're working through right now just to us today and we're all commenting on that and those are those are the exact comments that we're asking about that just make sure that we've got that >> is the organizational risk in signing the contract for the those types of costs are identified in terms of relationship and who owns what >> this is this is a different contract right this is for the charter contract not the venture up is the provider Sure. So that will be looked at then
061before we go into Great. Yeah. Thank you. I make a motion to approve the contract for the Alaska online academy as outlined in enclosure 13 contract. Second by Tracy to approve the Alaska online academy. Are there any further questions or comments? >> Yes. >> Well, yeah. Well, thank you so much, Carrie and Kelsey. I mean, we couldn't have we couldn't have even considered this if we didn't have a governing board and that was that was a huge requirement. So, we thank you for your service and you are right. Now, we're moving on to phase two and and we'll keep you posted regularly in in our in our updates to the board and and also along our journey of board meetings. >> Thank you. We have a request negotiations. >> Well, I'll start. I mean, we're
062actually um >> I'm sorry, Sonia. Were you going to speak? >> Well, we're actually requesting that we start um wage negotiations um because we did uh feel like we want to get going on it and uh you know, we don't feel like there's going to a ton of complexities and we would just rather um get moving. So then we can move on to other things, right? Don, what else? That sums it up. Ideally, we'd love to have it so we can put any wages on our teacher contracts which go out May 15th. >> I would move to approve that we open base wage negotiations with the Alaska Education Association. >> Motion by the opening of wage negotiations with Education Association for the 2020 2017. Are there any questions? All those in favor? >> I approve.
063Now turn to forest to approve the sale of alcoholic beverages related to the celebration. >> Okay. And I would like to acknowledge and uh Bridget who uh has represented our school district uh in some city on a city task force if you will. Um that and maybe we'll start off with is there any comments here you'd like to share with the board? >> Yeah, the party planning task force kind of task force. So, um on Alaska celebrating its 175th anniversary this year. So, they're doing a big extra big celebration of celebrate on Alaska. So, I've been um meeting every other week for the better part of this year um with that group down at city hall. We actually just met this afternoon. Um one of the big question marks we've gone through a lot of
064had to adjust our policy and get that approved so that we could even get to this point of this evening. Um, so right now the policy states that we can have alcohol on school premises with approval of the board. And so that is why it's being brought to you this evening so that on that at that event on June 27th that we have the option. It has not been decided yet that they will for sure serve or have a beer tent. The thought would be that as part of that 175th celebration to get more people there to have a really good fun party and have responsible consumption. This would be the next step. >> Where whereabouts um where would the tent be? >> Okay. >> But by the So in the in the in the
065green space on on the other side of the Omni Center that we own that property >> sales and consumption would be in space. >> Sounds great. I think we should do it. Big celebration. >> City will take care of the insurance. that is being looked into right now what that will cost but they will absorb that cost and they did open it up to to be determined but they would allow a group from the school district to be responsible for the sales of the beer tent and be able to keep the funds that are raised >> yeah I think I mean from my perspective we want to work with the city as much as as possible and you know look for win-wins and um there's so much crossover between what we do and the city
066does then we want to do our part, you know, to help out when they ask for things when we can. And this is one of those things that we felt like we certainly could modify our policy to allow an exception for this special event that doesn't happen all the time in our city. >> It doesn't sound like it's modifying the policy, though. It's just using the policy for >> newly updated Thank you for that. >> Well, I'll make the motion to approve the sale of alcoholic beverages on the district writers clubs for the celebrate on Alaska event on June 27th, 2026. >> I will second that motion. Motion by second by Mark to approve the request for sale of alcohol beverages on the district's writing. Any further questions? All those in favor? >> I thank
067you Bridget for your work on that. I didn't realize every other week. Everybody >> we have our consent agenda. Are there any request to remove items from the consent agenda for separate consideration? >> I'll make a motion to approve the consent agenda as written. >> Second. motion by second to approve the consensus. >> Well, Mr. President, if you'd allow me to share just a little commentary because it's kind of special. We have u one of our newest team members in the audience this morning, Tyler Hogum or this afternoon. I'm sorry. >> How long have we been here? >> Okay, >> it's seven. >> Tyler, welcome. and Tyler bride is with us as well. Jenny and both on Alaska Hilltop are graduates. So that's super exciting. What are you willing to share what years you graduated?
068Oh my goodness. after a uh yeah a very intense rigorous uh process uh to find our next uh director of finance and business services uh to replace the position that Janet is in. uh we uh selected Tyler and uh after a full vetting and screening and uh second interview and and and uh follow-up discussions, uh Tyler has accepted that position and uh we're excited to be able to bring him on board a little bit earlier earlier than we we anticipated uh to allow him the opportunity to work with Janet and just have a really strong transition which I think will be really good for him and for us then it will just be mutually beneficial for everybody because we understand the significance and the importance of the role that Tyler will be fulfilling for us.
069>> Tyler, you got any comments? Anything you want to share with the group? >> The mic. I just wanted to say thank you for the opportunity to join the team and uh serve the community that has been so good to me and my wife and now my kids. I have two kids that are in the district. Um both at Eagle Bluffs, one in second grade, one in kindergarten. So very excited to help uh excel our excellence that we already have here in the district and um help put on a stamp that I'm proud of. Um so thank you again for giving me this opportunity. I look forward to working with Janet and uh and learning so much from her. So again, thank you and I look forward to it. >> Yeah. Well, let's give a
070hand. And Tyler, you you could just mark your calendar right now for the next like forever. Every Monday, whatever Monday this is, the second and fourth Monday for the rest of your life, you're going to be right here in this room. Maybe not the rest of your life. >> Again, welcome a favor. Hi. Second by all those in favor. All right. Thank you all.