10-2-2023 School Board Meeting

001foreign for your patience it is 706 I'm going to call this meeting to order Dr amidzik has this meeting been posted yes it has and roll call will show that all five board members are present as I said we will be going at the end of this meeting back into a closed session uh we will not be reconvening an open session after that we'll stand for the pledge please I pledge allegiance to the flag of the United States of America and to the Republic for which it stands one nation under God indivisible with liberty and justice for all all right good evening um we are going to start with Communications Dr amidzik do you have any Communications this evening I do this week we honor and recognize the Greendale board of education for the vital

002function and elected Board of Education plays in our community and we are grateful for your service and dedication to our students and staff um I'd like to you have something at your table that is a token of our appreciation for your work uh Greendale celebrated homecoming last month a week of school spirit events included themed dress days an outdoor movie the traditional Powder Puff game bonfire pep rally athletic contest Food Truck Friday and more the week culminated in the homecoming dance at Greendale high school on Saturday night students staff and families enjoyed the entire week a ribbon-cutting event for the Courtyard at ghs was held recently approximately 50 guests including project donors community members and ghs staff participated in the celebration thank you to Nick Galusha Eagle Scout candidate who spearheaded the Reconstruction of this

003beautiful Outdoor Learning space for our school and Community it will be enjoyed by all for many years to come and you might see the plaque that's hanging on the wall by the entrance to the courtyard many thanks to the Greendale lions for the ways in which the organization generously supports our students club members recently delivered snacks for students at all elementary schools and the middle school and have provided monetary donations to the marching band the courtyard project Highland View all abilities playground School clubs and organizations and more the community connections celebration of Hispanic Heritage Month is set for this Thursday October 5th from 5 30 to 8 at Highland View the event will feature free music and dance exhibitions art activities and more a variety of Hispanic owned vendors will be present selling food and

004other items this special education advisory team is sponsoring a sensory friendly space to accommodate all Learners needs and the Greendale schools is hosting an Internet safety informational workshop for families on Tuesday October 17th from 6 to 7 30 in the Greendale High School library presented by Special Agents from the Department of Justice this session will provide strategies and details for what parents and Guardians need to know to keep their kids safe on the web it will include information on the apps you thought you're using how kids interact online and how parents and Guardians can monitor their children's activity and now I turn it over to our student board members for updates hi um the student council had its first meeting last week Tuesday we saw a huge turnout we probably will need a bigger room

005for next time we had overflow of students and then on top of using after school time we're going to be using our Flex time that we have during the week to make sure that committees can meet or just also we're not taking away from students timed after school if they want abuse for other things and then student Equity team had its Retreat recently and then we're also We additionally had a meeting last week to plan for the community movie night happening and our Greendale source as a strength group is going to have its first meeting tomorrow and will include a multi-hour interactive training with a representative from sources of strength the Greendale High School chapter of National Honor Society also had its first meeting two weeks ago introduced our new Junior officers and had a

006presentation on requirements of membership and service hours and yesterday on Sunday the Green Hill marching band participated in the Oak Creek marching Invitational taking home first place and all caption awards next Saturday we will travel to Illinois for our last out of state competition with our state tournament in two weeks on Saturday the 14th excellent thank you both Nick I don't want to put you on the spot but if you want to say a word or two about your project that you spent so much time on it we'd be happy to have the public here and the board here what you accomplished yeah of course so uh recently with the finishing of the project I've been working on a lot of paperwork with eagle scout and uh we recently tallied the total hours to be

007a more than 250 total hours from across all the volunteers and a total fundraising effort of uh more than sixteen thousand dollars which a lot of that coming from our community and all our support so it's been a great Learning Journey and I've been very thankful to work with school districts throughout this entire project and be able to present to the school board about it and having the support of value the entire way so thank you very much for that excellent thank you for sharing and for anyone that has not seen it uh please get out there and check it out it's a really great project and an asset to our school to have a area that students can utilize like that so thank you all right we're going to move on to comments and

008questions from visitors tonight I'm going to welcome all those who will be speaking this evening we would like excuse me to remind you that the school board meetings are for the purpose of carrying on the business of the district their official business meetings held in public through school board by law zero one six seven point three the board allows citizens to make comments by scheduling two opportunities on the agenda to receive citizen comments in accordance with the intent of the open meetings law we will be uh we will I'm sorry be aware that although the Board of Education welcomes comments from the public it cannot discuss or debate items brought up during public comments in order to hear from all citizens who wish to speak and to ensure the official business of the district is

009addressed board policy sets a time limit for citizen comments we will be adhering to that bylaw board by law and its time limits at tonight's meeting persons wishing to to address the Border asked to come to the podium and state their name and address for the record comments are limited to only one time and individuals who will be speaking will be limited to three minutes citizen comments are limited to a period not to exceed 30 minutes so anyone who's interested May step up to the podium if anyone's here to talk tonight got a student awesome good evening Adeline Miller 5231 Morningside Drive hi my name's Addie I'm nine years old I play sua soccer in Greendale mostly at Highland View I have been playing for five years I am here because our fields are rough

010thank you for painting the goal post recently I have a request to fix our fields too my first reason is my friend her her ankle because the fields are bumpy and have holes another other kids have gotten her to including me when you fall it feels like concrete also when it rains it becomes a mud pond because so much grass is missing if you fall you get muddy and the ball does too way more than other fields another reason is it's hard to dribble the ball because how bumpy our fields are there are lots of kids in Greendale who use the soccer field at our school could you please fix them fix them fields to make them safer for us thank you for your time thank you Addie that's great of you to come and

011share with us tonight and we will definitely look into that and I'll probably ask Dr mizik if someone from Administration can get back but it's excellent to hear from you Addie and your voice is going to be heard so thank you for being here tonight we will definitely get back to Addie what grade did you say you're in fourth grade well you did a great job speaking and your teachers I'm sure will be proud of you Mr Mitchell and I'll come out thank you good evening good evening my name is Dan Miller the father of Adeline 5231 Morningside Drive just to Echo why Addie was she put that together 100 herself and we've been part of the school district since Dave entered the the Pre-K or 4K and in comparison our fields are in rough

012shape compared when we travel to other school districts and play games there Highland View in particular College Park's a little bit better but Highland View it's like after the construction they just never really leveled out the field and so it's it's disappointing to see but we also know there's probably some Simple Solutions and off season to repair the fields and make it ultimately safe it's really not safe and I'll be happy to send in photos or encourage anyone to walk the fields of Highland View because they are very rough and it's just a matter of time and he actually has a sprained ankle I can't really tell you where it happened or when it happened but she played Saturday and at Highland View and it just one of those things after the game you know

013it's acted up so I encourage everyone to get out there and take a look and hopefully there's a little room in the budget to smooth out the fields this upcoming season thank you great and if you I know you mentioned the address at the beginning but if you can leave your contact information so we can follow up with you okay thank you all right anyone else thank you again for coming any anyone else interested in speaking tonight okay good evening hello my name is Heather Godley 5331 millbank Road in Greendale I am extremely disappointed and appalled in the Middle Middle School's administration's response to a teacher who is following best practices in being welcoming and supportive to all students my understanding is that when this teacher followed the best practice guidelines of asking students their

014pronouns optionally that the principal immediately deleted the survey and all its results it seems that the principal went even further by encouraging or requiring the teacher to remove a rainbow flag that showed support for all students in the most recent yrbs data from our high school LGBT students plus students are more than twice as likely to be bullied on school property more than twice as likely to be bullied electronically and while the Middle School chooses not to collect the data that can be disaggregated for lgbtq plus students which is in itself problematic we can assume that it is even more of a problem at the middle school not less given that lgbtq students in Greendale at the high school level are and these are data from the most uh the most recent yrbs survey they

015at the high school our high school they are four times as more more times more likely to self-harm almost twice as likely to have problems of anxiety more than four times as likely to have made a suicide plan in the past 12 months and more than six times more likely than cisgender students to have attempted suicide in the past 12 months given all this and given that this is the same population as in our Middle School even though you don't collect the data on Middle School lgbtq students it is even more crucial that staff members verbally and visibly support LGBT students in a recent training the districts shared several reasons why we need to be vigilant in ensuring that we are supporting lgbtq plus kids one one supportive adult decreases suicide attempts by 40 percent

016two compared to students who have zero to five supportive as adults students who have 11 plus supportive adults feel 30 percent more safe it's and this is again from uh from the district it's our job to affirm our kids identities as we equip them with the tools to succeed in the world we live in I applaud that statement and I hope that we can actually Walk That Walk because the principal or Administration asking a teacher to take down a rainbow flag and delete a survey that provided students the opportunity to share their pronouns clearly tells LGBT students that they are not valued and that they are not supported in this school this can result again in higher suicide risk and a dramatic decrease in a sense of belonging you should be asking all teachers who

017are comfortable to put up rainbow Flags not encouraging teachers to remove them thank you thank you anyone else wishing to speak at this time good evening not godly 533 on Milbank road but I'm speaking tonight on behalf of and as the vice president of page people advocating for Greendale equity are you just concerned to hear that the administration appears not to have supported and perhaps even disciplined a teacher in the Middle School who shared a survey with students that included asking about their pronouns following this a student and or parents apparently complained that they found it offensive based on their religious beliefs and soon after the surveying question was removed followed by the removal of the pride flag that the T-shirt placed in the classroom to make lgbtq students feel welcome while students religious beliefs

018should obviously not be deliberately and wantonly attacked in the schools nor should individual students and parents religious beliefs guide school policy especially not in ways that create a hostile learning environment for other students age encourages the school administration to revisit this incident and indeed to re-examine its overall guidelines to building administrators on situations such as these this re-examination should follow the U.S department of education's guidelines on supporting lgbtqi plus Youth and families in schools which include using welcoming and inclusive language facilitating opportunities for students to find support from peers teachers and staff providing professional development opportunities for educators on ensuring Equitable and supportive treatment of historically underserved students including lgbtqi students adopting policies that clearly affirm students right to be free from a harassment based on gender identity and expression or sexual orientation adopting policies

019to reduce and prevent bullying including that of lgbtqi plus students and expanding Mental Health Resources that meet the needs of lgbtqi plus students and there's a number of other recommendations they give I just wanted to pick out the ones that seem particularly opposite here for all the reasons that Heather just mentioned the schools must remedy both this specific situation and also ensure that its practices and policies are updated to prevent such a situation from again creating a hostile School environment for other students in future using welcoming inclusive language and identifying safe spaces on campus are research-based best practices for ensuring lgbtq students have equal access to education opportunity we're concerned about the removal of this inclusive messaging and the message that it might send to students we want to ensure that the district is taking

020other appropriate measures to support and include lgbtq students Paige is eager to work with and support the district on measures to include those students thank you thank you anyone else wishing to speak tonight okay seeing none we're going to move on on our agenda to action item one excuse me which is the approval of the regular meeting minutes of September 18th 2023 any uh questions if not I'll be looking for a motion to approve I move approval of the regular meeting minutes of September 18th 2023. a second so we do have a motion and a second to approve action item number one the approval of the regular meeting minutes of September 18 2023 any further discussion if not we'll take a roll call please yes yes yes yes yes yes and I'm yes motion carries

021on to our new business um tonight we are set for item 3.1 uh to take action on the resolution authorizing a taxable tax and ref Revenue anticipation promissory note for cash flow purposes in the amount not to exceed one million dollars so we received some information in our board packets Dr Mystic would you like to speak on this okay excuse me I will begin and then I'm going to turn it over to Jonathan for more information as you are aware we have um communicated with the community that based on the biennium budget that was approved we are entering into this calendar year with a deficit budget and we have sufficient funding within fund balance to um cover the deficit that is projected we also have communicated over a number of years that our current fund

022balance covers cash flow from June until December when the majority of our funding comes in at the beginning of January and our low point in cash reserves is in November and December We Believe based on our budget and based on our experience that we are not going to need to short-term borrow however action to short-term borrow needs to happen now so that is available to us and should we need it at the low point in December that we have an Avenue to borrow that money and make payroll and I am going to let Jonathan address what that funding looks like and what our recommended resolution is [Music] so included in the board background is some historical information to set that perspective and there's two charts one chart shows the total fund balance amount at year

023end by year going back to the 2010-11 school year and I wrote that that fund balances varied between 6.5 and 7.6 million so it's gone up and down over time depending on programming and other activities the board was doing during those years but the on that chart there's an orange line that shows that relative amount as a percentage of the operational budget and so in order to avoid cash flow borrowing a District's going to need to be somewhere between 20 to 25 percent to do that and you'll see with the fund balance at the end of the 2223 Year we're kind of at that red line at 20 fund balance to have that ongoing ability to know that we have sufficient dollars at our low point in Revenue to cover fund balance and so the

024second chart that we showed is a typical school year and what that amount looks like because when somebody hears well the district has 7 million dollars and fund balance they may think like okay all year long the district has that 7 million when in fact the first four to five months of the school year we have very limited revenues and we don't see the larger portions of those revenues until the first week in December when we receive a large state aid payment and then the middle of January when we get our typical property tax payment and so that's a typical year with a deficit budget we will utilize more of that cash Reserve than is typical and as I put in the notes in the background document we're also operating a self-funded health insurance plan

025and so during the year you have Ebbs and flows as actual claims are coming in and cash may be needed and so we're really happy that the Village of Greendale is opened to partnering with the school district because they're in a different cash flow position at this time of the year where we have this need and so they're open to having a conversation of issuing this Tax and Revenue anticipation note and being able to set this up essentially as a line of credit and so we've worked with legal counsel with Quarles and Brady we would use with other debt issues the district has done to come up with a template of language that we could get into an agreement with the Village of Greendale and then setting the barometer of the local government investment pool

026lgip as the barometer for the interest rate that we would pay on this so just with the intent that the village wouldn't lose any revenues they would ordinarily get on those cash reserves but this is a way to keep that borrowing in-house in the community to help save tax dollars between both entities the village and schools so this is a way that we can work together with approval tonight the village manager Mike Haws is going to work with corals as well to come up with the similar resolution The Village would take up to enter into this agreement that that information I provided we anticipate anywhere from not utilizing this as zero dollars up to half a million dollars of need depending on these actual fluctuations of expenses as we get into the later part of

027November and early part of December and we would anticipate by the middle to late part of December that we would have sufficient revenue from the state to then get the district through for the rest of the year but this this is being set up essentially as a revolving line of credit so it leaves open that ability to take out money between the village and School District as needed and then to pay it back at the time that the district no longer would need that for operational expenses and so you wouldn't need to hold it like other dead instruments you might take out we wouldn't have to hold it any longer than is actually needed so what we're looking for for the board are questions that you would have and then we would recommend approving this

028so that we can get it into place so that we have assurances if we do need it for operational costs that we would have it in place okay so board members uh any questions on this is been laid out for us in the board packet but obviously we have the um Dr mitsik and Jonathan here to help answer any questions we have I guess I'd just like to say first of all thank you for presenting this um I have a couple of comments I want to share is that first of all I think this um by working with the village I think this is another example of the collaboration the partnership that the school district has with its Village so I commend you and Mr Haas for for working on that and and um I

029think that that goes a long ways is for the two boards to be working collaboratively and and Trust in each other I think that shows a community that we're in it together and that we're we're looking to make sure that we're efficiently using the funds that they they give to us so thank you for that um I am in favor of this resolution so I will support it um but with that said I reluctantly have to show that you know I'm a little bit reluctant to have to do this I think what we've heard you know in August is you know we are we had a resolution for General obligatory bonds so that was one time where we we know that we have to borrow money this is another time where we anticipate being in

030the position so I think these are great uh short-term Solutions and and great short-term issues you know I I think we need to start looking forward and saying what what are the long-term consequences and what are the options that we have in the long-term uh to do this because what we are doing now is great thank you for the effort but it's not sustainable so thank you for that feedback I've been transfer transplant over the course of the last year about the concerns we have of reaching a balanced budget with inflationary costs and academic needs of our students and the programming and services that we provide I appreciate that all five board members came to the Capitol to lobby for increases allowable under state law to ensure that we could continue programming and we entered

031into this year's budget in a deficit situation anticipating and waiting for the budget Bill to come through the state legislature there was a significant increase but the increase was not inline or as much as the inflationary increase that would be needed to sustain and so that put us in the position we're in now the board has asked that we bring options forward and our goal you have put it on the scorecard goal for this year is that we will have a balanced budget for 24.25 and there are two ways that we can get to a balanced budget ask for Revenue increases from from our community or significantly eliminate costs and given the amount we will need to bring forward some options on how we can eliminate costs so that is forthcoming we've been talking about

032it for the last 8 to 12 months and anticipate having um some suggestions and potential solutions for the board to consider in the next month I just have a quick question about fund balance what is um what's the ideal or the normal or the average fund balance for our school district so board policy calls for fund balance of at least 15 percent but as I stated earlier in order to eliminate cash flow borrowing so fun fun balance is a snapshot as of June 30th not a snapshot of every day during the fiscal year so as of June 30th that's the amount that's in cash reserves when the Auditors do their financial reporting so in order to avoid that cash flow borrowing which the district has done for many many years you would need to have

033a fund balance that equals 20 to 25 percent of operational costs and the exact percentage will vary a little bit depending on timing of certain revenues during the year but that would generally be the case and so there are many districts throughout the state that try to hit that Target to eliminate short-term borrowing but I would not have like a standard of what each each district is set at it is based off of local policy and practice and kind of financial goals of the district thank you that's a great question our fund balance as of um November going into December will probably be at its lowest then is that correct yes reserves correct correct when we run the second payroll in November which is on or around November 30th that's the point at which we

034could be close to zero dollars in cash flow and so the point of having this in place is if there's concern that we're going to actually hit that number then we have an option to go to whereas in the recent prior years we've been close but had enough in cash reserves in order to make that payroll if you once you get close to that date there's nothing you can do immediately to go secure short-term credit this is something that you have to have in place before the date where you need it and so this particular structure of making it a revolving line of credit creates a lot of flexibility to wait until all that need happens and potentially we can avoid it but if we need it it's there and available and so it's my

035understanding from what you've explained too that it's not a nuances to Greendale but other school districts are probably faced with something similar where the cash flow November December there needs to be more money but there's not as much flow and then back in January when the taxes come through then then we're sitting better is that correct that's a good point yes okay any other questions or anything from board members so I will Echo with Joe said I you know this is obviously not something you know we want to have to rely on every year but it is I I think it's a great opportunity for us to work with the village I think they're in understanding of the circumstances that the district is in and their willingness to work with us I think is a

036great partnership and so I I also will say I'm going to be in support of this at this time I do believe that you have been transparent with us and you know especially with the the circumstances with the state funding and everything we're going to have to strategize and figure out what our next steps are going to be as a district so anyone else so if not we are set to take action on this item tonight so I would be looking for a motion to approve item 3.1 of the resolution authorizing the taxable tax I won't read all of it but uh the note for cash flow purposes and an amount not to exceed one million dollars I move approval of the resolution authorizing a taxable Tax and Revenue anticipation promissory note for cash flow

037purposes in an amount not to exceed one million dollars is outlined in agenda item 3.1 a second so we do have a motion in a second for agenda item 3.1 the resolution authorizing a taxable Tax and Revenue anticipation promissory note for cash flow purposes in the amount not to exceed one million dollars any further discussion if not we'll take a roll call please yes yes yes and I'm yes motion carries um all right we are on to item four which is our new business uh first is the re review of the summer school report we have some of our staff who are uh with us tonight so thank you for your time and being with us in the evening and we'll go right to um Emily doe how are you doing I'm good how are

038you good nice to see you tonight thanks so um as as you said that you do have a report um that was sent in so during the summer school of 2023 we had a total of 889 students which was an increase of 26 students from last school year um we also increased for our k through eight school or students an increase of 42 students within that program which is um great to see those numbers increasing kind of getting back to where they used to be Mark Pollux Chris Del Ponte and Emily Hansen administered the day-to-day and and got the summer school for the 8th or the 9th through 12th grade summer school up and running um Mike Brock and myself we coordinate the K-8 summer school and get the programming together and the registration and

039then Jessica Bradley was able to handle the day-to-day pro at college or at excuse me Canterbury and at the middle school for the K-8 program um within the report we gave you the list of class offerings for the K-8 um K-8 summer school programming with the number of students out enrolled in those classes and then as well as the high school classes that were credit impact and then enrichment courses um that they offered we talked about next year um within the K-8 within the k k through a program some of the things that might look similar but then also we would like to cohort again for the K through third grade however I'm just looking at switching up some of the classes that we offered to just increase that and hopefully increase some of the

040numbers um that we're looking for some of those other enrichment opportunities and activities and then the high school um is looking for additional personalized Credit Recovery opportunities for students that are grades 9 through 12. we will continue next school year to offer transportation we did have an increase in the number of students that that took advantage of that we did have 88 students that used our transportation for the k through eight summer school and then um Jonathan do you want to touch base about the financial piece or do you want me to just kind of if you guys you guys have any questions for Jonathan regarding that um with the FTE I didn't want to put you in the spot I'll uh yeah I can I certainly can take care of that so actual FTE

041for summer school is based on the total minutes so for each class you're taking attendance every day and then you take the number of days of students in a particular class times minutes and you get this conglomeration and so that number is divided by forty eight thousand six hundred minutes which is considered a full-time equivalency for a revenue limit and that gives you your total and so the total FTE was up slightly for 2023 at 80 and that compares with 78 in 2022 but then I showed the financial impact so you the FTE that you earn for a summer school program does not count the same way as it would during the regular academic term so there's a formula and you receive 40 percent of whatever that FTE amount is because that's a determination through

042the way the statute's written of how much you'll receive in Revenue so when we do the math on that that equals 32 FTE and that would be total revenue of 399 712 dollars and that's just multiplying our spendable Revenue amount so I did that comparison for the summer of 23 three those total revenues included the amount that parents reimburse for transportation expense share and then subtracted the specific coded summer school expenses so Staffing supplies that we have for summer school we don't break out how much in utilities we're spending or how much custodial cleaning we have because we're already doing those tasks but just utilizing those specific summer school amounts the net is about 202 thousand dollars which is good so any questions on that I'm so lucky to answer those yeah what questions board

043members do we have I believe the student board members this is a great opportunity for them to share some input yeah it'll be great there we go it's on now perfect so I did some digging the last few days and uh prepared a little something so something that I would like to see implemented into the summer school course offerings at Greendale high school for the summer of 2024 is the expansion of online asynchronous courses for earning ghs credit I've spoken with students in multiple grade levels and there's been a great sense of support for this possibility for example an incoming senior having the opportunity to work towards their fourth credit of English this would allow for greater access of curricular opportunities such as our art business music and culinary programming during the school year and

044with the classes being asynchronous it would allow for the greatest amount of accessibility for students with a busy summer schedule I took economics during the summer of 2022 which is a district acquired class and was able to complete two weeks of instruction well thousands of miles away and across the ocean additionally I believe that a partnership with a program like cap through UW Oshkosh giving students the ability to earn college credit during the summer while simultaneously earning VHS credit would increase access to post-secondary education and credits thank you to kind of build up that idea we were understanding of the challenges that may come with that and the concerns that come with being online as we know it's pretty much proven its students better learn in the classroom than a digital aspect and sometimes classes

045online are taken just to get done and over with instead of actually retaining the information but we think for those who are actually interested in using this as an opportunity to knock some of those classes up but still gain the information that's required of them and proving that they can practice it and remember and remember it um it's a good way to free up their schedule to do more elective based things I think that it's another thing to explore if we have more details we could ask students a survey how they would actually feel in the realistic part of students signing up for those things because we understand that it would be a big bummer if all this was planned out and not enough students sign up for it so we are both willing to

046get that information get that feedback if this is something that is realistically able to happen okay and that's good good input and feedback from both of you um any I think Joe were you going to say something yeah go ahead thank you um thank you Emily I think this is um it shows the breadth of our summer school offerings and I think what what I like seeing about it is we offer enrichment classes we offer recovery classes at the high school we offer you know phyad um Health economics that allow that are requirements that allow students to have more flexibility in their High School career you know so I think that's all great we offer Fine Arts programs so I think you know we're always looking for other ideas but I think just to applaud

047you for the the breadth of the the topics that we already have so thank you my one question has to do with the summer trades Institute so we have small numbers there is that due to interest in that program or is that due more towards seats available because I think that's one of the summer summer trades Institute is one of the classes that we we combine or we collaborate with other area districts so I guess my question is is are the small numbers there due to interest or are they due to the number of seats that are available and I'm sorry Maggie do you have that information otherwise I have a little information all I know is that most recently it's been about 50 kids um from Franklin Greendale uh Greenfield Muskego and Whitnall have

048been part of that and typically those are students who are already participating in our dual enrollment academies so it's not just open to any student to join Dr mizik is there anything you would add to that yeah so we have two new courses that have been in place for about four years that were introduced after the intro to the skilled trades which are after this skilled trades event summer program was offered and that is intro to the skilled trades carpentry and intro to the skilled trades Home Improvement and part of that there is some on-site learning from these same trade unions that offer the on-site they are coming to and working with the classes as well so you might see some students who would have signed up for that who already have some access to

049that over the course of the school year and so we're seeing less interest in the half day when they have a full semester to explore that I do not believe it is currently limited and it is open to anyone who expresses interest but we've also expanded our access and opportunity and that summer program was really intended to bring kids in and explore before choosing a program and we have many students who have chosen and engaged in courses and programs so I'm I don't believe it's because of limiting access so thank you and I think anything that we can do to communicate with the community as well as to families to make sure that they understand the availability of that because I think that's a it's a good opportunity any other questions I I did have

050one does anyone else have any questions first so a joke kind of touched on this as well but Emily as I was looking at the cohort classes so it looks to me like students are given an opportunity to have some academic but then some also maybe enrichment type classes so that they're not just having academic is that is that what I'm saying we built we built the cohort so that they would always have a literacy in math within their class and that within their that cohort and then two enrichment opportunities but we're looking just to expand what those enrichment opportunities could look like besides just the art or Legos and games things like that so in the past we've done cooking with small groups and I know that's one of our most popular classes at

051the older grade and so just what are different things that the students are looking for or to increase some of that participation no and I I just want to compliment you on that because I I know many summer school programs from other districts and so forth will oftentimes Focus just on that math and reading and and I don't want to demean or downplay that but it is summertime and kids also want to be kids so I think it is great that you have this flexibility in there and that you know in one I was going to go down one of the classes I noticed that's probably the highest attendant and I know there's even offerings to the park and rec as that is that is the cooking it seems like you you probably reach a

052maximum in that yes absolutely um that is offered all four sessions and it is definitely one of our most popular classes that along with the woodworking class we we do Max those out um and that's why if we can offer something like that for our younger students as well it wouldn't be as in-depth as what um Melissa fonte does with that with her kids but um just some kind of introduction with that that's great right other questions any any comments or questions on the list um and I I do appreciate this chart that you put together just giving us a snapshot of some of the past years and where we're at it does it kind of gives a picture of what the trends are I think that students you know are interested in certain classes

053more than others so that's helpful um all right I don't believe we have any other questions anyone going once all right so thank you for being with us and thank you for this great report um we're going to move on to um is that everything for the summer school report then right I see let's see um Mr Lotus here as well and uh 4.2 and I think Mr Curry's back there too right good evening um so we're going to move on to the review of the student survey results and I know that's what you guys are here for tonight so we're anxious to get some feedback on how that's gone so one of our strategic priorities is around strengthening relationships with families and Community to promote a sense of belonging mutual respect and safety for

054All Families inclusive of all racial and ethnic identities and in order to uh know if our efforts are having an impact it is important to ask students and so on this survey is a nationally normed tool that we invested in last year and this will be some information on the results and I apologize if I stole your thunder Mr Lotus good evening my thunder is meant to be stolen so thank you um the uh um that was kind of little synopsis of the first two slides but uh Mr Curry and I are here to talk about the results that just for mine were given last week in I think the week before for uh the middle school and so we're giving you not only a snapshot of what the student said very recently but also

055some historical context as far as since we've started using Panorama and uh and uh so I'll go through high school first Kim did say that you know we surveyed for two major areas right now in that school climate and sense of belonging it's uh it's guiding a lot of the work that we're doing in the schools and we want to make sure that we're um our efforts are reaching all of our students so we do use panorama and uh as Kim said it's nationally normed um and there there's a variety of survey topics within it we've decided to like I mentioned before climate and belonging are our Focus areas we give them three times a year basically beginning middle and end and we're able to compare that data um after we get those results so

056the high school which I will start with here if you take a look at the first um get my notes sorry so I'll do I'll do high school first and then uh followed by the middle school we'll pause after the high school results and give you guys a chance to discuss it and ask questions before we move on and then we'll do the same thing with uh with the middle school so if you look at this this is the school climate slide and it shows us that uh 57 of our students responded favorably to um what the questions around school climate that 57 percent put us in the 70th percentile of all high schools like us that uh that took this survey so um that that is our our number overall at the high school

057for September for the September survey so one thing that we'll do Within These quests that I'll do within these questions um that are coming up is I'll pick out certain demographic categories that are significant uh there's a significant factor to them for each of the questions and and talk about it Ray and I tried to um um structure this where we talked about two glows two good things that are happening and then one grow area for for each each of our schools here so the first question in the school climate category is how positive or negative is the energy of the school and I kind of think that's more like uh what do you what do students feel like when they walk through the door of the school and when they uh go about their

058school day what kind of energy is there is a positive or negative and we favorably at the high school went up to our highest percentage which was 70 percent of the students and we if you look at the negatively results we got those down to the lowest at nine percent and then we have the neutral thing so and the neutral is at 20 so I kind of wanted to talk about kind of take a second if you look over to the left of the slide and look at the answer distribution uh basically for this question and I wish that was bigger because I'm even having trouble seeing it but uh um the uh they talk about you know it's very positive it's someone positive or it's uh it's slightly positive and um and so those

059go into the uh the the number 70 of uh of positive responses and uh and then if you look then we get different demographic areas and so the one thing I wanted to point out for this question is it's pretty consistent across all the demographic uh groups with a significant um lower score for our black students and um that's a theme that you'll see in a couple of the slides that we have and and definitely part of um talking about some of the Improvement efforts um that I'll talk about for the high school uh but uh the uh if you look at the 20 where it's neutral that's kind of a student saying you know it's neither positive or negative it's just school and uh and so that 20 in the middle um is a

060number that we really think that we can affect and uh and and pull those students um into the favorable category so that's the first one and uh um it's followed by another question that is how fair or unfair are the rules for the students at the school this was a really interesting one to us um as you take a look from September 2022 that was last year we came back and we started uh and you've heard me talk about it last year we started our our reset um initiative here where um we were really taking a look at uh students use of electronics in the classroom uh student attendance get students out of the instructional setting due to hall passes and we put forward some new expectations and new rules that we rolled out to

061the students last fall they were extremely happy of course and uh 40 uh so we had a bet we had a we had a score a favorably was 40 um last uh um last fall but if you take a look at it we grew it all the way up until 62. and I think that's a great number and a significant number um that uh 62 of our students uh responded favorably um and think that those rules seem fair they might not like some of them but they seem fair and that's something that's what we are really looking to do one interesting piece is if you look at uh and it's the one of the the bar charts um down below is our freshmen and our sophomores um responded higher than our upperclassmen so that probably

062shouldn't surprise you as they're used to certain expectations at the school and then uh they get changed when their Juniors or seniors but uh the number that's that that's to be thought of and that's something that we expected but uh to see those numbers at the Freshman and sophomore um level they're really encouraging and uh um and and I think if you take a look at the heist school learning environment in the classrooms over the course of the last year I think you'd see a significant difference as we get back to the business of being at school in person and uh having engaging classes and uh a great instructional atmosphere uh if you take a look uh at uh um so it seems fair the grade levels are interesting once again um we um our

063most significant decline or or least favorable um measure comes from our black students again the last question under climate is at your school how much does the behavior of other students hurt or help your learning so this is an interesting question and we talk about it a lot in our administrative team and and really just what what does this question mean and it's supposed to get at the type of atmosphere that you have in your classrooms and and the other students around you are they are there is the engagement and the atmosphere in the classes is it helping you academically or is it taken away from your academic experience we've defined it that way I'm not so sure when you give a survey like this that that all the students understand the question but the

064uh but I think that the the um the numbers show and they stayed they stayed flat um I mean it's slightly up in the positive um we got the negative numbers um down a little bit and I think that's probably goes hand in hand with um the the rules are fair and uh and what they perceive as being a well um a good learning environment so those those are good but overall um it's low and you look at that huge neutral middle and uh and they're basically saying uh kids around me I mean it either hurts nor helps I just do my thing and I and that's the student that I am um so we want to create a culture here where there's collaboration there's there's assistance and and the students are working together towards

065a common goal and it's not an individual effort all the time it is uh something that uh um can help a student do better in classes so those three areas in school climate for the high school kind of lead me to the next steps and that will continue to expect obviously positive behaviors in a positive learning environment and work towards that uh we'll continue our reset work and reminders the students definitely had a chance uh to talk about that and hear about that at the beginning of the school year um definitely working with teachers on behavior and one of the things that we hear from students when we did focus groups in the past and uh and some of the comments that we've received is um is that um there's a large number of students

066which can get frustrated when teachers um are are not I guess what's the correct word are not expecting um that all students are behaving the best their ability and that students are are and some students are taken away from the positive learning environment and uh and students um become frustrated by that so we worked a lot with teachers on appropriate um intervention with students in the classroom um we talked about at the beginning of the year about um positive and and the informative phone calls home and uh really kind of doubling down on uh expecting that that high expectations learning environment and we've spent some time working on that this year uh we also as an administrative team when we work with our families on Behavior attendance that it's more of a personal touch and

067there's more phone calls going home uh talking about that from Administration from our people Services than simply an automated message from from IC on some of the things so um so we're working on more of a personal touch there so we can so we can really have positive uh results for Behavior attendance and engagement we're definitely going to continue belonging activities sources of strength is firing up their first campaign they're getting trained tomorrow I believe and then we'll we'll see the campaigns after that our new uh our new um component of advisory Flex is is really going well and uh um teachers working in different ways having time within their day to work with different ways with uh with their students and we look to see not only an increase in the academic relationships but

068also um the uh um just the simple relation the positive relationships between adults and students and then also just Improvement efforts in representative participation across our our programming academics Athletics and clubs and really importantly leadership positions uh you know perhaps that huge turnout that Kaya talked about with student council we can take a look at new engagement efforts and new leadership opportunities for all of our kids so that is the first part of the uh of the high school for school climate I could stop there and take a question and then I could go into the second half of ours yeah I think I think that would be good um Dr Mythic were you going to say something I was just going to suggest questions from the board and we have students who may have

069some insights as well to share I was going to ask the same thing maybe we'll start by hearing from Kaya and Nick maybe your thoughts on on your your own personal experiences with this but also any suggestions that you might have do you remember when you took the survey or how it was given yes we took the survey Center advisory period and just kind of reporting on that as I've kind of been progressing into the later years of high school I've kind of realized that uh our advisory spaces really happened building a community in those different spaces and I think that's kind of contributing to our positive growth of belonging in the schools that it's really a good place to kind of get to know people and it's just kind of you're tossed in there

070and you get to meet other people and learn about that and that's been really beneficial uh like Mr Lotus says I think the main reason for the uh lower rates of approval of these new rules on Armored glass and is because uh we're not allowed any longer just going to the hallway seven times a day but uh it's been positive overall we're having a lot more engagement in our classrooms and a lot less people just kind of going on their phones which is positive for all the obvious reasons you'd expect it comes to a sense of like building community and a sense of belonging I think our advisories are either hit or miss with some students um if you really don't like your advisor you really are in for a tough time for every single

071day now and especially last year it seemed like a lot not to be there every single day this year to some people seems like a house and something they do not want to be in which is understandable because not everyone's gonna get along all the time and not everyone is like we're not all the same people we don't think the same we don't have the same lives all the time but most times I would say an advisor were able to come together from those different parts of life and backgrounds and flourish off of that which is an incredible experience I love my advisory so so much um but I've also heard some of my other friends or students saying how much they wish they could switch to this one person's advisor so they would at

072least have like one friend in there that they could hopefully tackle community building with at least like a one familiar face because I also think that I had two of my best friends in my advisory by chance and so I definitely think that helped it so I can see where that comes from coming to the survey we took the how fair unfair the rules for the school I don't think that our students respond to this in a negative way talking about or for the most part in a sense that the rules themselves aren't Fair I'd say how they're enforced and when they're enforced is unfair because I've heard of many times and of course I mean kids are kids and like to so like I didn't do anything I didn't do anything and sometimes like

073that's true and it's caught by the wrong person or just like doesn't look right and sometimes that is the truth it just does not look right how it actually is and I think um that's where the slightly unfair on what are somewhat unfair results come from is that they think the rules are fair themselves but when they see them being enforced unfairly that's when they start to question their sense of belonging because if they're being forced to this rule but another person who did the same thing didn't have that same punishment that's when it's questionable but otherwise I think also our School climate being very um 70 favorable like how positive the energy is I think that has a lot to do with our homecoming time as well because that was an amazing week we

074did a lot that was a lot of planning but it was all worth it and like kids were always running into each other that we I feel like people were constantly at the schools for an entire week which I mean why would you want to be at school 24 7 for entire week but there was always something going on you wanted to be part of doing which I think really contributed to um that number jumping I'm I'm wondering Kaya and Nick how accurate do you think these results are I mean do you think people in advisory took the survey very seriously do you think they all took it you know do you have any ideas from that from a student's perspective from questioning if everyone does take it I think our teachers do a good

075job ensuring that every student takes it at least trying to check in I mean the student can always find a way to life they really really want to I guess but when it comes to the survey I see little reason why people rely on it I um I can see why some people would just click like the in-between option over and over again if they really don't have an opinion which if they don't have that strong of opinion that's negative I feel like that's better than having a negative opinion put on here if I really felt that strongly they would have put it on there versus if they're nutrible at everything they'll neutral and they will don't have that much to say I also think that our positive increase in a lot of our Focus

076areas is kind of proof that we have been making progress in this views again they would just all put the middle but we've been seeing in almost all these categories uh almost sometimes doubling in progress of our levels of belonging and our school community so I think that we've been making great progress there so I think people are taking it truthfully yeah I mean I know the other survey we do during the year the kind of longer one word ask more personal questions that's an easy one to lie on because it's asked questions that kids are afraid like they're going to get in trouble for and they don't really trust that it can't be tracked down to them um and I mean it doesn't really matter how many teachers tell them it's not gonna that's

077not more convincing if like a teacher's telling you you're not what I think just to add on that that's one of the reasons why we took the Panorama which is shorter and is still National normed because the yrbs is only given every other year and it seems like sometimes by the time the state gives it to us we're not able to react but we were able to get this survey and now we can look at some of the concerning things that we have um and some of the positive things so we can make those choices and it isn't a super long survey so we're able to get that information and react to it and be transparent with it like we have some work to do and we're not afraid to say that I definitely do

078see the value still though in the other survey I mean you can safely assume those numbers aren't as accurate as they display themselves to be but I do think that information is important because all that's connected to that stuff and like those behaviors that are on that survey or what people do and like react and how they put their emotions forth and how they act out when the sense of belonging isn't there and I feel like this is a good way for us to constantly check on that so that we can see those other numbers when we do take it that those are lower and um we say that our students are having safe behaviors outside of the classroom approximately how long does this survey take you and do students talk about the questions after

079the survey I would say it really was just about like a five minute survey no more than that I know it was pretty private afterwards one only a concern that was voice is that it wasn't ever really uh made transparent that the survey was Anonymous especially with the survey asking for our lunch number there wasn't really any uh explanation given as to whether or not it was Anonymous so there was a concern about that in my advisory specific so I think that'd be a good thing to mention next time we were taking this survey I think our information publicly it is an anonymous survey that's why we go through a third party vendor their student ID number like this to the demographic information and the student information system which is how you can get the

080demographic distribution but they're not linked individually or visible to the school it is housed externally at the vendor yeah I also thought that on our advisory slideshow when they put it up to let us know like our agenda for the day um that it said it was a nominee or Not Jesus anonymous thank you um and this teacher is actually also like reiterate that too my teacher said it multiple times but it definitely wasn't like a hush-hush survey like everyone wasn't quiet in my classroom we were taking it like most kids are still talking sometimes because like an excited maybe it was five minutes okay thank you for the feedback and I I was curious as to how you gathered the data because obviously to keep it Anonymous you know you have to somehow get

081the data um my concern and you kind of touched on this is our our black students in most cases um we're the lowest one uh category and um just wondering what steps potentially will be in place to help address that so so that we will hopefully see those numbers climb you know I think you could I mean one thing is is that we're going to uh um give it multiple times this year so we can we can track our progress um I think you're I'm not we have not we just briefed enough to give this report and be real uh um out there with uh the results and um as an administrative team I think we could start talking about things like some of the um some of the activities that we're doing within our

082advisory um you can talk about focus groups you could talk about interviews and that sort of thing we just haven't uh um decided what that that it's going to be yet right in this thank you Mr Lotus I appreciate that you haven't determined what our students of color need that asking them is the solution that is excellent and I was going to say that I just gave a survey to my students today too similar to this um in that this is kind of a baseline I'm assuming for the year and this going back and checking a couple more times really helps keep a pulse would you say that as well this is the first is this the first time Kaya that you are taking it was last year as well yeah we took um it

083three times last year or twice three it's like three times every year right um and I think it's a good way to see it's you also have to consider what's going on during that time of year because you can see like September 2023 was homecoming so it's probably going to look a little different than February of 2024 because there's not going to be a lot of things going on and so you might see like um the energy and the school number going down good point that's gonna be very exciting yeah but um so there's influences on that but still it's I do think that as later on in the year there's a lot of potential for growth and change and to see those numbers that we want to see higher go higher excellent and just

084for people who haven't seen the survey it is interesting that there's on most questions seven possible answers so very unfair somewhat unfair slightly unfair neither unfair nor fair slightly Fair somewhat fair and very fair so that's a lot that's a lot of thinking it's not it's there are a lot of gray areas there you know so a question that I can't be black and white can't you see it's fair not fair so on the slideshow we are able to see the breakdown by student race but I'm wondering if we have any information on whether or not we've been improving over the years with these different groups or if it has been decreasing so I'm wondering if we have any information on that excellent we do but there's a limited time and so we did not

085present all of it just the highlights but yes we have the ability to dig in and um that will be part of the work to determine best course of action to impact the perceptions yeah I'm going back to the um answer possibilities I think it's really good for kids actually to have all those options because I mean like sway that easily or something like that happens I I personally agree with the fact that it goes up a little bit each timer goes down a little in increments um it also ensures that like the complex thinking and we want truthful answers in people's real opinions so I think having all those options appeals to every single person if even if they feel a little bit this way they still get to tell that they feel a

086little bit this way versus if you had like even two on either spectrum and then one middle one I feel like that's a little harder to choose from and I mean granted it's like one word difference but I think the meaning behind the word really matters good Rob for the for the last one here uh the behavior of the students how does it help or hurt your learning I see that that one obviously came in at the lowest at 28 percent uh the way I view this uh I would actually grade this the highest at 74 74 percent because if you take the 46 percent that say that it neither helped nor hurt that's a neutral option so if it's not hurting them I would say it's positive that's just yeah that's good point I

087would say that's very accurate like in a in the school being in the school I think it's also a good thing when students aren't doing anything and being considerate of her classmates to not cause a distraction and so especially if you look at it that way like because the the 28 that's obviously a drastic drop off from yeah the first two but if I was going to grade it I'd actually grade it as the highest just my opinion good good point anyone else like we do have Middle School results if you'd like to see them yeah we definitely will think really we're only a quarter of the way through and no maybe well then you better get moving that's great questions and uh um it is only 10 questions to be real specific about it

088and we choose those two areas we don't want survey fatigue we want to be treated seriously and so it is 10 questions and Kaya keeps bringing up a great point which is uh we're three weeks in and a lot of our uh our our freshman results were really good and uh and part of it could be it's been a fun three weeks um or they're off to a good start and they're just excited to be at the high school so that's the kind of data you look at mid-year now now how not how you're feeling and uh so thanks for for pointing that out um so I'm going to give a similar breakdown maybe quicker um of the uh breakdown of the belonging data um and uh take a look at the first one here

089there we go uh so the sensory belonging numbers are you know I think of belonging now we think of things like uh do they the students have a feeling of security and support acceptance uh inclusion identity and really um kind of one way to think about it is I can bring my authentic self to school and be respected and uh and be a student here at Greendale High School um so 45 of our results were favorable which puts us at the 60th percentile um for uh nationally for this uh this area of the survey so that's compared to 70th percentile for the school climate that we just got done I'm talking about and uh I'm going to show a couple of the demographic as far as race um comparisons stay similar um throughout this uh

090up until the last question and I'll talk about that but the first one about sense of belonging is how connected do you feel to the adults here at the school and um and so we look at it and it's kind of a flat number as far as favorably um but in the category what's interesting and uh Miss Grogan was talking about it whereas slightly um counted in the first group um somewhat doesn't count and uh so we haven't dug in far enough to know what that what that metric is but uh um they don't they don't talk about somewhat as uh as positive now I know quite a few of us here either have teenagers or had teenagers and if you get a somewhat that's pretty good um but yeah something I want to dig

091further into because I have substantially increase these these numbers and uh but still as you can see here um work to do the this has stayed uh pretty flat in all areas um through uh through all four of the administrations of this um one interesting thing obviously when you're talking about how connected you feel to the adults at your school uh the bottom right looks at grade level and um and so this the Freshman being here for three weeks and just getting to know our staff um and then as as you would guess that goes up uh throughout as you meet more staff meet more coaches and people feel more connected with the school so um I think some of those some of the things and I'll have it on the last slide is some

092of the onboarding of our freshmen that might be something we could take a look at um the second question in this category is how much respect um um do students in your school show you and if you look at the number here and we've slightly increased um the favorably we're able to uh decrease um I'm sorry decrease uh somewhat substantially the negative responses and then um and so when you when you take a look at this um 36 percent of them say some I I get some respect at my school uh so you know kind of talking what Rob was talking about that's really not a negative in my book but uh it's definitely a number it's the mid number that we could uh improve upon to really get at our scores so uh um

093the third one in this is uh how much how much do you feel um you belong at your school so a great you know question as far as uh um just overall how much do you feel you belong at your school and one second here there we go um so our favorably um um it took a swoon last year at the end of the year went up to 56. um the negative scores were able to drop significantly down to 12 and once again we got that that large middle and uh um but it's interesting here is the demographics for race um changed our Latin X numbers were way down um in this uh for this question uh two or more races were down but the black population was representative uh pretty much of of the

094data and so that that one I mean we get through all those questions and it's the same it's the same it's the same and then this one um swings a little bit um that's something that we want to take a look at a little more deeply and I think uh getting back to what someone mentioned is take a look at some of those breakdowns in last year's data go for deeper into it and uh see if that's always been a trend or if that's something that uh um that we need to look at Anew here so taking the three questions um we're going to continue and the next steps for the high schooler and continue our positive climate work we're going to use the advisory for the sense of belonging the connection to school activities

095that we are doing um um and uh and and increase that connection to adults and also do some Community Building uh within the school that that's something that we've been doing advisory and something that we'll continue this year sources of strength as I mentioned before uh will promote it's is one of its main missions is promoting belonging in connection with the school and really identifying strengths and building our student leaders the student student Equity team building leaders and increasing the sense of belonging for all students with the work that they do and once again I think I really think that uh um we're going to get some really positive benefits of the adult student relationships both academic and interpersonally as students spend more time with adults in assistance situations through our through our flex and

096that is one of the goals of of that program I think we can move on to Middle School data I think so are we good yeah thank you Mr Lotus good evening Mr Curry hi everyone Ray Curry proud principal of Greendale Middle School we're going to look at some Middle School data for the purposes of what we're doing tonight just so you're aware the the slide deck that was sent to you was not as much detail as I would have wanted so I did update some things so if you just move your eyes over that would be helpful as we're going so for our school climate the middle school was in uh 60 percent favorable which put us in a 70th percentile nationally and there is our data in terms of race one thing to

097note at the middle school is um is the four and two is uh blocked off but that's because we don't have it's considered confidential but it just means that we don't have 20 of those students in our building so we have 17 African-American students and two uh Native Indian or Alaskan native students so that's why they're clumped together in that piece okay right all right so one of our glows is how positive or negative is the energy of the school so we were at 70 percent favorable um with our lowest negative uh point in the building um with you know we I'm not gonna go too much into the neutral part of things because that's a frustration at the middle school we had PD today and talked quite a bit about that and the teachers

098are uh iffy about that neutral they want it you know one way or another but um it is what it is at this point so uh Lois for us um in terms of demographics we 57 for our um our black and African-American students however I wouldn't note that it was 38 last year so we're up to 57 percent this year um there's continuous growth throughout that as I'll talk about through our time here um the energy of school one thing that's not up there that I'll that Steve kind of alluded to was freshmen coming in and everything's great sixth graders for us same idea right 79 of them um feel the energy of the school is positive right now um another glow for us is how fair or unfair are the rules for the students

099at the school um we had our highest favorable at 65 percent since starting the survey um with only a 20 negative in there for us um in terms of grade level as you see sixth seventh and 8th uh sixth leading and favorable results at 73 percent and then in terms of demographics again um our latinx students were the lowest at 55 African-American at 57 but I I want to note that last year they were at 23 percent so some of the work and efforts that we're doing are working a lot of voice and choice what works for you in this space uh what would make you feel that what we're doing is fair at your school how much does the behavior of other students hurt or help your learning is a grow for us similar

100to the high school we're at 32 percent favorable although thank you rob for pointing that out at the 40 neutral there I would love to say that that's 72 percent um that would be an awesome statement um but I feel like same thing a lot of kids just kind of answer like I'm I'm doing my thing it's not helping me or hurting me on what's happening around me um so we have gone up in that um you know similar to our September numbers the first time we took this our Latino and Latina students as well as our African-American students were the two Lotus at 25 and 29 although again our African-American students were at 15 last year in terms of grade level it's not up there but um that was interesting as well to to

101find out if there's any specific behaviors in spaces sixth grade was at 41 7th at 27 and 8th at 29th so it kind of gives us a little Target again our teachers met in teams this morning to kind of disaggregate this data and talk about it a little bit in depth that's where we are in school climate so we are re-teaching reteaching reteaching expectations in the Middle School right so we spent the month of September really focusing in on reteaching expectations to start things off we did not want to come in with a heavy hand at all our students um just as we are reteaching learning expectations we want to re-teach behavior expectations and make sure that not only in classrooms but in all common areas as well we have the start of our PBIS

102team this year with events to highlight positive behaviors that are happening we have our responsible October starting tomorrow where I'll be on announcements talking about the um the uh what it looks like to be responsible at GMS we will be doing some things in the cafeteria as well having little table competitions so kids can earn some incentives there to to exhibit positive behaviors and expectations in in the lunchroom we also have we had a teacher who um Liz Berry shout out to Liz who had did a grant for us and had uh got positive postcards um that we um got the postcards printed and the postage paid for as well so every student has a postcard with their name on it um a self-addressed postcard all the teachers have to do is I really want

103to shout this kid out fill it out hand it into the office and it gets mailed out so our goal is by the end of first quarter having all of our students receive a positive postcard home and that would help with our climate as well and then character strong every Friday we have our character strong time that is allotted at the middle school which is an all school program with the intent of developing thoughtful healthy and kind human beings in the Middle School for the sake of what we're doing in time I'm just gonna keep going if that's okay all right awesome student belonging School belonging all right so we scored 50 in this 60th percentile um uh nationally for us our latinx students and our African-American American American Indian students are the ones that

104were the lowest in this at 40 percent um one of our grows was how much respect do students show in school to you we were 53 favorably which is our highest so far we also posted our lowest negative which is a um a win for us and again that neutral number being at 32 percent um from a respect standpoint our latinx and our African-American American American Indian students um they were at the lowest at 40 and 43 respectively those are numbers very similar to last year from a grade level standpoint um uh sixth grade was the highest on students showing respect to each other follow closely by eighth grade so that's encouraging for that group as well um and and both of them showed gains from the previous year in their data overall how much

105do your do you feel like you belong at the school so this is a glow for us our students do feel like they belong um to our space and that they are um all are welcome and what is happening 67 percent are favorable in that with our lowest single digit negatives of only eight percent there um which is very encouraging for us with 25 percent being neutral from a demographic standpoint our african-american-american Indian students were the lowest at 50 percent however they were at 31 last year at the end of the year so um a big increase for us at that point as well and um again growth among our grade levels through sixth seventh and eighth with sixth grade being the highest in terms of belonging how connected do you feel at school we

106had a long conversation about this one today uh during our PD because one thing that we notice at the middle school is uh we have to do a better job of defining these terms respect belonging connected what that all means to them to you know a 12 year old brain and how that looks to them so um connected for us uh is a grow however we're from a favorable standpoint at 30 uh seven thirty eight percent is pretty good for us and uh with negative at 26 our uh latinx students came in at 29 so that is something that we need to make sure that we're focusing in on uh they were at 18 last year and then uh a huge growth force in this in terms of connectiveness is um our African-American students who

107are at 50 uh so they're the highest they feel the most connected throughout the building and they were only at 15 percent last year so that is uh that's a massive jump in um in growth there um in terms of our sixth seventh and eighth graders um sixth grade again they feel connected things are good um they're they're coming in and uh our eighth grade is the area that we need to make sure that that although they feel like they belong and they feel like good things are happening they're not necessarily connected to adults in the building that's good information for us to know so our next steps at the middle school we have our connect the dot survey that went out to students as well it's usually identify connections between students and adult in

108the building and what we do with that information then is we do our two by ten strategy so for two minutes ten days in a row our teachers get together with a certain student catch them in the hallway catch them in passing and they have a non-academic conversation and make connections and at first in Middle School those middle school students are like why are you talking to me right like and by the end of it they're looking for them oh I didn't I I was I thought we were going to miss you today like and they have that conversation and the two minutes sometimes turns into three but um but they they feel that sense of connection strong um Bond there again our character strong as I mentioned before and our belonging is a big

109part of what we do at the middle school and then sources of strength we have at the middle school as well um where we are identifying um young leaders that help with the voice and choice of what's happening in our building and that's the Middle School right thank you so thank you Ray thank you Ray um do you have anything where are you going to add I was just going to add that the survey is an important uh tool to get real-time feedback on the impact of the efforts being made by Administration and by staff to ensure students feel connected supported and a sense of belonging at their school and so the feedback is a gift and we Face the um the glows and the grows with hope that our actions do have an impact

110on how students feel in school I'm going to give a shout out to Mr Curry because if you've got 60 to 70 percent of your customers happy to be there and they're in adolescence that's pretty impressive yes it is any uh other questions or go ahead I was just I just want to thank Ray and Steve for coming out tonight I think your presentation shows your commitment to our students so thank you very much uh that energy was um palpable so so thank you there um I learned a new term glow versus grow so thank you uh Ray for sharing that because I think that's exactly what we need to do you know we we want to highlight and celebrate the areas that we're we're looking at or that we're doing well at but we

111also want to focus on and figure out what opportunities exist and how we can go about that so thank you for highlighting that um so so I think it just it shows that we have a strategic priority to talk about you know strengthening our relationships um but you guys are walking the walk so thank you thank you thank you any other questions coming to Altus Echo to both Steve and Ray and Emily all three of you taking your time to be here tonight and share some of the highlights as we're getting into new school year I know it's exciting uh probably things have settled down with that initial excitement and I'm sure things are underway but these reports are very important we want to know how our students are feeling their sense of belonging is

112very important because if they're not you know wanting to be here it's going to be hard for them to succeed in their learning so I thank you both all three of you as the leaders in your buildings for what you're doing to help our students acclimate to another year and we look forward to hearing you as the year goes or from you as the year goes so thank you all for being here tonight all right we will move on to 4.3 which is our legislative update Tasha um the assembly committee on education held I guess an executive session and they we're going to vote on Two Bills 108 and 293 and if approved it will go to the full assembly for vote um but 108 was related to the definition of a strip search for

113purpose of the pro prohibition against strip searching of people um 293 was defining what critical mapping for school safety plans entails there's also public hearing and three other bills 403 which relates to restrictions on Revenue ceiling for school districts 223 which relates to maintaining supply of usable opiate antagonists at school and finally 342 which allows school boards to hire District administrations or administrators who are not licensed by the DPI that was it [Music] all right thank you Tasha for that we now are on to 4.4 which is the board committee updates any updates from our committees meetings or anything that's taken place so I I'll start by saying um I have been serving on the policy committee since I was elected so I served with Noel yours yours janish from 21 to 2021 to 2022

114then Joe stepped onto the policy committee and we served together from 2022 to 2023 then we continued serving into this year for about seven months uh the policy committee is very important committee but it's also a very taxing committee there's more there's a lot of meetings there's a lot of policies to read and understand and during that time we had the Neola adoption which was extra time consuming and so I just feel that it's time for me to personally to take a break from the policy committee I would now I feel that the policies they're all legally vetted they've all been you know updated they're on a really good schedule for reading and revising and updating and so I would ask one of my fellow board members to consider joining the policy committee and finishing

115out this year with Joe capito it's a good experience to be able to read policies and understand them and then obviously the school board's job is to enforce them and to make sure they're being followed so um I'm gonna use this opportunity to officially resign from the policy committee I'm happy to trade spots with someone on another obligation I'm still serving as the village board liaison and that requires quite a few meetings as well and so that's my policy update committee assignments are appointed by the board president so if anyone else has interest in the policy committee let um Kathy now as president and she'll be making an appointment to that and we will make that appointment an open session on the 24th sounds good and Mary I did I want to thank both you

116and Joe for the work on the policy committee as you mentioned Mary that it's really at the heart of what we do as board members to understand the policies so that we can you know help the district move forward in ways in which we are you know keeping everybody on the same page so there definitely are extra meetings in that and I appreciate both you and Joe taking that time over the last couple years together especially as we work through Neola and your time on the committee is definitely appreciated so I just want to thank you for that we will have an appointment then at the next meeting I'll check in with my fellow board members and see if we can confirm someone for that but thank you and I do think it's a great

117opportunity for other board members to see the work that goes on at the committee level and it will be a little different now that it's Neola but it's important that we constantly review all of our policies and you know we we used to have to approve them at every single meeting I don't know how that's going to go moving forward we will still make approvals of revisions to policy as we did in August right okay but again thank you for your time and service on on the committee and I welcome one of our other board members to consider that and we'll go from there so um thank you any other board updates thank you Mary for your the heavy lift this past year I know as we transitioned the entire booklet of policies it's been

118a heavy lift so thank you for your service there you're welcome and so I'll go ahead Dr mitsik well not a school board not a school board committee a school board member is serving on the committee and I've been remiss not to mention that uh step up to Better Health is happening on Sunday October 22nd um and the board did a wonderful job of donating to support and sponsor the step up to Better Health a fun run roll and walk rolling because we want to make sure that our students who are unable to walk or run are included in the event and festivities and if you don't know Mr College Park reached their goal of 400 entries by the way there's only there's less than 300 students in the school and they have 400 entries

119and so Mr Brock will be slimed oh make sure we get that on video so when is when is that step up to Better Health again I know I have it on Sunday Sunday October 22nd the 22nd Okay so so yeah so hopefully I'm looking at Rob Kasai yeah Rob do you want to add anything with that I'll have to pass that on to Canterbury because they wanted to be College Park they were not close yes the last numbers I got so gotcha I'll have to send anything we like to call it Coop attrition yeah I found out there's a trophy I didn't know there's a trophy there's a trophy for the I think it's the most participant which school yes wow so we're hoping to bring that over to Canterbury this year and which

120school is the smallest School inside College Park thank you Joan all right I think maybe Joe should get bored maybe you want to get slimed hey that would be nice because I'm supposed to do push-ups so excellent any other committee updates I um I want to touch base on my experience with the policies and resolutions committee through waspy but I'll leave that is there anything for park and rec or library or anything like that no meetings uh park and rec we canceled the last meeting uh due to unforeseen circumstances so we have not had another one since okay June July all right somewhere in the summer excellent anything else no so um I attended this past weekend Friday and Saturday I was asked again to be on the policy and resolutions committee for wasby and

121I am kind of a um I don't know what you would call it a little craze with policies I love uh being a part of that the policy and resolutions committee does not set law by any means but it does take our voice to the state level to have our lobbyists go and talk collectively about what the Wisconsin Association of school boards would like to see Dr mizik and I were in some conversation about a couple topics one the pipeline for teachers and one for 4K I think we brought that up the last time we did actually bring or I did bring up those topics at our meeting on Friday because we are allowed as committee members to introduce new resolutions but as of this point the language as we discussed in the room is

122where we need it to be we just need the state to act on some of these things things in particular 4K is not fully funded and we're looking in other school districts are feeling the same way that that is something we want to continue to advocate for and then as far as the teacher pipeline Dr mizik I think you touched on that earlier that there's a little bit of a I think you called it a quandary for me but um that the DPI and the Department of Workforce Development are the ones that really need to be getting on the same page but we'll continue to advocate in both of those ways so I will be going again in November to Green Lake uh it'll be a Friday night I want to encourage all my fellow

123board members if you're able to attend that Saturday there is a legislative session mine is actually covered so the district will not have to incur any costs for that because of me being on the policy and resolution so that's all set but if anyone else is interested I'd love to have you join me and go and learn a little more of our legislative matters with the the state of Wisconsin so with that there is no other committee update so we we are at the end of our meeting open to any additional comments or questions from visitors so is anyone interested in speaking yet tonight and if not I'm not seeing any we're on adjournment as I mentioned at the beginning of the meeting we are we were on Recess Recess is what I meant where

124yes so we're on recess we will be adjourning from closed session our next meeting is scheduled for Monday October 23rd at 7 pm so thanks for everyone joining us tonight this meeting is adjourned yeah this meeting is adjourned we will be going into closed session and adjourning from there thank you