001how are you wes is here but he doesn't have a computer did they not set one up for him yes but they're gonna [Music] five to meet you all right is everyone ready you can use it all right good evening we'll call this mean to order has wrote has this meaning been posted mr mitzik yes it has and roll call will show that our five board members are present and this evening will be um we'll be approving our newest board member who will be representing the class of 2023 right all right at this time i invite you to stand and join me in the pledge of allegiance i pledge allegiance to the flag of the united states of america and to the republic for which it stands one nation under god indivisible with liberty and
002justice for all all right dr mitzi is there communication you'd like to share yes there is on behalf of the athletic and activities director mr jared gallante we'd like to say congratulations to senior track and field athlete miguel smith after a great showing at the wiaa's regionals and sectionals miguel qualified for the wiaa state championship in the 200-meter dash miguel traveled to la crosse wisconsin in late june for the state championship where he finished sixth in the preliminaries qualifying him for the finals and in the finals of the 200 meter dash miguel finished fourth overall congratulations on a successful season governor evers signed the state budget on july 8th at a press conference in whitefish bay from a k-12 education standpoint the items that were passed by the joint finance committee the assembly and the
003senate were signed into law by governor evers wisconsin act 58 these include the increase in general aids 398 million increase in special education of about 83 million to reach the 30 percent reimbursement rate and some additional categorical aids including dollars for mental health sparsity aid and high cost transportation the governor has earmarked 100 million of federal dollars to wisconsin to go to k-12 education in the press conference governor evers said that there were no strings attached to these dollars so districts can use them as me as they need them no it's important to note that these are one-time dollars and not increase in revenue limit or per pupil categorical and it is unknown how they will be distributed at this time the general aid increase represents a property tax cut for wisconsin taxpayers since there
004is no increase in the revenue limit to go along with it the additional dollars in special education are intended to reach the 30 reimbursement rate that was set in the last biennium and pending open enrollment registrations the greendale schools will be able to balance the budget within the current budget greenville schools was happy to come together with the community to celebrate america and freedom by marching the 2021 greendale fourth of july parade the panther mascot you the board members and i marched along with the greendale high school palms the greendale marching band and the cheer team marched and performed as well last week the aclu sent a letter to district administrators regarding several legal requirements to address race in schools administration is reviewing the reference legal requirements to confirm compliance and the cdc has re
005released updated guidance for schools in the for schools focused on covet 19 the in the coming weeks the team will review updates as well as the success of revised school safety protocols during summer school administration will update the board on safety plans for 2021-22 school year in august there are 30 families requesting virtual attendance and we are are in the process of developing plans to support those students and families and that concludes my communications thank you dr midsik at this time we'll move on to can any comments from visitors and welcome to those who will be speaking this evening and we'd like to remind you that school board meetings are for the purpose of carrying on the business of the district they are official business meetings held in public and through school board policy 186
006the 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 meeting laws please be aware that although the board of education welcomes comments from the public it cannot discuss or debate items brought up during public comments and in order to hear from all citizens who wish to speak and to ensure that the official business of the district is addressed board policy sets a time limit for citizen comments we'll be adhering to those policies and its time limits at tonight's meeting persons wishing to address the board are asked to come to the podium and state their name and address for the record and comments are limited to one time for each meeting and individuals speaking will be limited to three minutes
007this time i invite you to the podium for any comments tonight i always end up going first and checking the microphone so now it's working thanks jonathan good evening my name is alan bingenheimer i live at 6058 oakwood lane in greendale i rise in response to the visitor comment from the june 21st school board meeting by laura miller in her comments and i'm paraphrasing two at a time she stated that the curriculum should be truthful and well-balanced about the nation's history i don't know her motivation and other than a good parent and while i don't attribute it to obfuscation about teaching the tenants of critical race theory i would hope that we do in fact teach truth in a fair and balanced way so here are some truths one many more democrats owned slaves both
008in the north and south than republicans did there were black slave owners democrats enacted jim crow laws and made it difficult for black citizens to vote racist remarks and acts by democrats are routinely covered up by the media the worst cities in america for crime and violence are all run by democrats for decades the most affected by urban crime are minorities admittedly these truths are not unifying but laura miller is right to say that we must have meaningful talks about race the question is are you comfortable telling the whole truth or only the progressive democrat anti-american censored truth the objection against critical race theory and equity programs by concerned citizens is not to hide the truth we object to the truth not being told and children being harmed by progressive center censorship and division of
009citizens instead of uniting as americans and learning how to avoid the hell hole that has been made of this one once great country where did all the classical liberals go remember you are not alone the doubts you have about what your children are learning in school are confirmed by many the future of the country is of always at stake we looked the other way when the left took over our universities now those brainwashed graduates are teaching our vulnerable children after twice electing a black president somehow we are still racist and need indoctrination and diversity social justice is a scam don't fall for it there's an election coming up for school board members now is the time to step up and stop indoctrination and start educating i have attached model language that this uh board should
010adopt to make it clear that they do not support the divisive tenants of critical race theory and you all have a copy of that thank you any other comments tonight thank you for your comments mr b nightmare miss miller is here tonight so if you'd like to have a conversation with her directly perhaps that might be an effective way to um start that conversation please good evening good evening and wow talk about not school related um my name is melissa goodbear i live on 1933 west grange avenue i just wanted to tell a little not story but a little thing that happened here at school at the high school my family my family and i we took a vacation on april 13th through the 20th we went to the dominican republic we went there to
011celebrate our two younger daughters birthday and our daughter amarett gonzalez graduating a year early upon returning back to school she was she's the only child in my household that goes in person because she doesn't have a risk medical risk like the other children do upon returning to school a girl i'll say caucasian caucasian girl told amarett that she didn't know if amarette wanted she said something like uh i'm sorry i'm i'm so nervous about this she didn't know if amra wanted to be hispanic or a and upon that omar got upset and shoved the girl and i believe one of the principals came out and told amarett that she would have to serve a two-day in-school suspension amrit was very offended because amrit's grandmother on her father's side is an afro puerto rican so she
012looks black and so she amarette was very upset and she said i refuse to serve this suspension because she called me a and then omarette walked out and then well the principal told her if you don't say anything you don't have to serve the suspension and on top of that she asked me not to report it until after graduation so i obliged her by that and then on top of that i had a medical i had to have a surgery on my neck so i couldn't i was couldn't do anything anyways and then my son told me after that and he gra he's graduating this year he he said that when we went to mexico three years ago that other kids were calling him a burnt chicken nugget black panther and a and i was
013like why didn't you say anything and he says what is it going to do to say anything so i just wanted to say that in this day and age it's unimaginable it's disappointing and unacceptable and that's all they say i'm not compatible combative i just wanted to let you know and hopefully something can change because i have two other children in the district and i don't want them to grow up and be confronted with the same problem if we take our kids on vacation and because they're dark complected and have that last name good bear i know that they'll be subjected to some kind of negativity i apologize for those comments um that you heard and uh as you said they are disappointing and they are unacceptable and we don't discuss student discipline here in
014the school board meetings but if you'd like we could have someone reach out to you and just follow up with you sure all right thank you good evening good evening [Music] good evening i'm here to speak on behalf of melissa and her daughter amarett it's a topic i know too well it is the reason paige exists i came to this board and asked for you all to look into how my daughter is treated after being called a the board missed an opportunity to do what was right i hope this won't be the case this time racism is more than bullying racism will continue to exist in greendale until parents and students feel like their voice matter my daughter was called the and the administration was angry that she got upset amarett was called the and
015she was told if she doesn't tell anyone that her two-day suspension could go away her brother was called several racial slurs and no one came to his aid when kiki was called the n-word in class she was afraid to report it because she felt she would be in trouble when she did talk to the vice president principal she was told oh that's how some students talk what kind of climate exists in greendale schools how many racist claims have to be reported before we look at who is in the leadership position i have received several emails from parents and students who are not happy how racial incidents were handled at the high school it does not matter how many policies we have in place if the principal is telling victims to internalize their pain what other
016back room deals are being made did the girls spewing racial slurs have a consequence how can we believe any reports or data coming out the district if this is how we handle racial behavior as the board considers hiring new staff it is time to look at removing staff that continue to put bypass students lives in danger it is clear that many minority students do not feel they can go to faculty or administration to report racial incidents and those who were brave enough to report did not receive adequate support so if anyone has experienced racism or discrimination please reach out to paige we will listen and we are here to support you look for our website at pagegreendale.com or feel free to call us at 414-208-4188 we are also on facebook thank you good evening hello
017my name is heather godley speaking on behalf of people advocating for greendale equity whether we're black or white latino or asian native or newcomer we want our kids to have an education that encourages them to dig deeper into who we are where we came from and what we're capable of being we want our kids to have an education that imparts honesty about who we are integrity and how we treat others encouraged to do what's right not to adopt policies crafted by white right-wing organizations that are looking towards the midterms and trying to censor teachers and stop anti-racist teaching the same lawmakers who have blocked funding for our classrooms are now trying to turn us against our schools they're spreading lies about lessons in our history on our history culture and political system that our teachers
018deliver as part of an accurate and holistic 21st century curriculum hoping to divide us as greendale parents and community members we know that our children must have the tools and guidance to honestly face and understand our past and present in order to create a better future there is a long and painful history of racism in education in wisconsin including incidences incidents like what melissa and d'annis spoke about students are ready students are ready for systems and institutions to change for the better creating a just and equitable learning environment that embraces the history and experiences of its learners is not only good for students but also for our communities and our shared future we need to stand up to those politicians and professional pundits from outside our community and outside our state who are trying to
019turn us against each other by stoking fears about our schools trying to dictate what teachers say and block kids from learning our shared stories of confronting injustice to build a more perfect union they push for outdated and inaccurate lessons redlining the realities of our history in order to justify the harms of our present what a good teacher knows is that we can't just avoid or lie our way through challenges we must find age-appropriate ways to tell hard truths about our country's past and present in order to prepare our kids to create a better future and americans of all backgrounds and political affiliations agree according to a recent survey by the farley dickinson university and the american historical association over three-fourth of respondents believe that we need an honest reckoning with our history and that in
020doing so it might be necessary and acceptable to make some people uncomfortable school is a place where children develop their understanding of the world and their ability to make meaningful change in it page recognizes and thanks thanks the district for the work that greendale administrators and teachers have done in recent years and urges you as board members to continue to support teachers as they work to meet every child's needs with a curriculum that helps all of our students reckon with and reshape our nation we also urge you as a school board to strongly and vocally reject the division that self-serving politicians are stoking and make greendale schools a place where every child black white and brown can learn grow and thrive on a personal note i'm pleased to see the new handbook includes portions for
021one's gender identity and i also read the report on strategic visioning the strategic visiting session and look forward to hearing it at home as i watch thank you again for streaming always thank you miss godley good evening hello hello my name is joanne obau 5153 maplewood drive greendale as a minority and former teacher i do not want crt taught in any school to my children or any crt is a discipline founded on marxist principles to promote systematic racism it proponents and teaches that american culture is a conspiracy which is false and offensive crt is to achieve unifications of the working class certain races must recognize and denounce it again offensive to me crt equity replaces equality though they sound the same it couldn't be further from the truth equality means equal treatment for all americans
022crt equity demands race-based discrimination again offensive to me as a minority what we can do oppose crt to the most and any teaching to this effect violates several statutes including title vi of the civil rights act of 1964 and the 14th amendment thank you and just to clarify critical race theory is a graduate level theory discussed at the legal at law schools and graduate schools and now by some politicians it is not a course that's taught at greendale all right seeing no additional comments we will continue on with the agenda and we're here to celebrate one of our students so um tonight we are going to uh issue a commendation to eagle scout mr eddie evans so i've got a little uh biography a little bit about what uh what brought eddie to here tonight
023uh eddie's trail to eagle began in 2008 when as a first grader he joined the cub scouts at saint anthony's elementary school in kalua hawaii in 2010 eddie and his family moved to wisconsin enjoyed scout pack 506 at college park elementary in greendale enjoyed the activities the active pack that had many campouts pinewood derbies and events at indian mountain scout reservation he then went on to complete his era of light award in 2013 and became a boy scout by joining greendale's troop 506. in boy scouting eddie was able to become a part of a group of scouts who enjoyed many of the same activities he liked such as year-round camping hiking exploring and learning new things and eddie loved to go on week-long camp outs during the summer during his climb through the ranks eddie's
024leadership role continued to grow in the troop in middle school eddie started out as a troop historian which then transitioned into him being a very young senior patrol leader as his skills in scouting grew stronger he was appointed assistant senior patrol leader and then senior patrol leader again one last time eddie attended a one-week national youth training leadership camp at indian mount reservation in 2015 and was selected by his peers and award the order of arrow in may of 2018. eddie also enjoyed going on many high adventure campouts with troop 506. he went on a wisconsin river's canoe troop trip in 2014 up to the porcupine mountains in 2016 and to the apostle islands in 2017. he also attended the florida key sea base out island adventures during the summer of 2019. on eddie's path
025toward eagle he was fortunate to find a well-deserving beneficiary at autumn leaves assisted memory care facility in franklin wisconsin he began his preparation for his project in the fall of 2019 which consisted of constructing outdoor wooden benches for the residents and visiting family members to enjoy for the residents and family members to enjoy eddie planned and facilitated this project during the senior year of high school with the help of numerous volunteers for a total of over 200 hours this coordination of manpower was eddie's biggest challenge but he was a welcome but it was a welcome obstacle with the help of his family and friends eddie completed one project in february of 2020. unfortunately during this time coven 19 was at the start of the global pandemic and eddie could not deliver his finished benches to
026his beneficiary until the spring of 2020. this was a socially distanced delivery and eddie was unable to connect with the residents and families during the delivery as he previously planned but despite these obstacles these benches have provided countless enjoyable outdoor moments covert 19 also posed some challenges when it came time for eddie's eagle board of review rather than going to his interview with the support of his troop and leader eddie logged onto his computer the evening of april of 2020 and had the troops first virtual board of review it's on this date that eddie became troop 506's number 95 95th eagle scout in troupe 506. eddie graduated from greenville high school in may of 2020 and has just completed his freshman year at the university of wisconsin in stevens point where he is pursuing a
027degree in natural resources so congratulations eddie and we wish you the best of luck thank you um is [Applause] [Music] all right congratulations again eddie uh then we'll continue on with the agenda next item on the agenda is the board meeting minutes of june of 21. is there any questions otherwise i'm looking for a motion to approve i move approval of the meeting minutes of june 21st as outlined in agenda item 1.1 second there's been a motion a second to approve the board meeting minutes any further discussion can i call for a roll call vote yes yes yes yes and i am yes motion carries um next sign in the agenda is the financial report so this is our monthly financial report for checks and disbursements um so with the monthly financial report we are
028through the month of june 2021 that's the end of our financial year and so i've made note that we will have our auditors from schumacher sama that will be coming in in the week of august 16th to conduct our financial year audit so at this time our financial numbers that we're reporting are preliminary because there's a number of year-end adjusting journal entries that we need to do to close the books out so when we do our financial report in the month of august we'll be able to present the board the financials as we're handing them over to the auditors for that audit week so they'll come through and do testing of entries reviewing our state and federal programs ensuring our compliance with that looking at our internal controls and then reviewing overall our numbers financial
029numbers balance sheet so that we can finalize our annual report to the department of public instruction so that's coming up the week of august 16th we also had an update in terms of the asser stimulus funding the sr-1 stimulus we're at 96 of that allocation that's been expended sr2 was 30 percent or 329 thousand dollars and sr3 we believe we're very close to getting the final allocation on that there's a portion of that funding that's being reallocated on a statewide basis it won't have an impact on our district's allocation but in order to get things completed across the state there was some additional work that had to be done and so we're waiting on that to be completed and then we'll be able to report out that work we're planning on having those funds available
030in terms of programming that we're getting into place for the 21-22 school year so with that i'd be happy to answer any questions the board has jonathan um how many times a year do we get paid by the village through the property taxes uh we get paid it's either four or five times during the year so like january right january i think small portion in february april and then july and august i forget if that's split into two payments or if we get that all all in one but there's a portion of that that goes through the end of the financial year okay then on our our audit books we show that that's accrued that we're going to receive it and then our auditors verify those payments once they come through they get documentation on
031that for our financials okay thank you any other questions about this month's financial report otherwise i'm looking for a motion to approve the checks and disbursements for this month i make a motion to approve the checks in the amount of 949 753.51 in disbursements in the amount of 5 million 32 32 153.99 for a total amount of 5 million 981 and 907.50 cents a second there's been a motion a second to approve total checks and disbursements of five million nine hundred eighty one thousand nine hundred seven dollars and fifty cents any further discussion and then call for a roll call vote yes yes yes yes and i am yes motion carries continuing on then um under new business we are scheduled to approve the parent transportation contract this is the second payment so by state
032law families who live in greendale but send their students to a a parochial school a private institution a private institution are eligible for air transportation you're eligible for transportation and we used to provide a bus to two of our private schools and then parent contracts for the remaining and we discontinued bus and so this represents all of our students who are transported by parents to their private schools so it's a cost of about um just under ten thousand dollars and this is the second of two payments so any questions otherwise i'm looking for a motion to approve i moved to approve the parent transportation contract um as stipulated in the minutes my second agenda under 4.1 there's been a motion a second to approve it item 4.1 parent transportation contract payment 2 any further discussion
033may call for a roll call vote yes yes yes yes and i am yes motion carries then continuing on um we are scheduled to approve the world language for our secondary levels 6 through 12. so we heard a report last week regarding some of the the changes in the curriculum and then it was being brought tonight for approval so any discussion or anything from administration to add you have a detailed copy of scope and sequence this more than most curriculum come forward there are some purchase approvals as resources only german is requesting specific textbooks the others have resources embedded within the the scope and sequence documents that you will be approving as part of the curriculum adoption and we're requesting approval i just had one question um middle school spanish sixth and seventh grade um
034it it appears that the yearly fee is 15 75 and i was just wondering do they ever offer like discounted rates for the fact that we're doing this for six years or anything like that that is the discount that is the discounted rate okay all right any other questions otherwise i'm looking for a motion to approve i move approval of agenda item 4.2 which is world language grade 6 through 12. oh second there's been a motion a second to approve the world language curriculum for 6 through 12. any additional discussion they look for a roll call vote yes yes yes yes and i am yes motion carries next item on the agenda is approval of the academic standards so this also is an annual requirement it's part of state legislation that was passed back in
0352015 that requires schools districts and school boards to approve this academic standards and communicate with the the families in the community uh the the standards that we use so you see the the the um the cover layer that that maggie shared and and the standards that we align with so anything else from administration or no in all of the um curriculum review processes we always are going back to these same standards so you saw those on the world language you saw that with the science you saw that last year with the math and they'll see it this year with um business phase pe that we're doing this year in tech and technology um the only one that we have we are looking at social emotional learning for next year so that those standards will be
036included in the curriculum review process and then when we were to come up with the academic standards that would be added to this document once they're approved by you through that process and business hasn't been revisited so i think that's being revisited this year as well with the yes business as well thank you i have that i have that there there's a lot there's a long list of ones we're looking at this year and and science six eight as well so with business uh can you kind of explain to me this afternoon because it's been a while since we've revisited can you maybe just touch base on that again we have a very small number of business courses and it's taught by a single teacher so the last time that it was up for review
037there was a transition in teachers so that while they've enhanced and updated their teaching practices it was not formally reviewed at that time they were new to the profession and we just haven't revisited the way that we should have so okay that will happen this year yeah and um the new business teacher has al also added some classes that you approved from the course description so that is also going to be kind of revisited in this review as well thank you so so tonight's approval is an annual approval that allows the community to understand what standards we use correct and as noted we are aligning all of our curriculum review and you see in the covered memo when the most recent review has occurred but all of our curriculum is aligned with wisconsin academic standards
038is that a new uh term for common core standards no so are there is it a different set it is what is approved by the state of wisconsin and the department of public instruction publishes the wisconsin academic standards so some of there's only the only area where common core was addressed was math and english language arts and the state of wisconsin reviewed and adopted many of the common core state standards in those two content areas our curriculum is aligned to the wisconsin academic standards they did make some modifications at the state level based on their their standards review committee when they adopted the model academic the wisconsin academic standards in 2014-15 i believe is when they made those adjustments so we are aligning to the wisconsin academic standards and if you go to the wisconsin
039the department of public instruction website they articulate the standards as interpreted by the state of wisconsin which has a foundation in the common core but it's not a flat common core adoption and to your point i'm sorry go ahead no go ahead sorry and to your point common core only is aligned with i'm sure common core only addresses math and language arts correct so you um we talk about where what standards we use for all the other social studies sciences world language things like that and they are very loosely based on the common core i mean they're if you look up the common core they're almost exactly the same there is some differences they just updated the english language arts um and there's some tweaks but if you were to teach towards common core and
040and look at you're going to hit all the wisconsin academic standards they're very similar sure and i would imagine that they're that you know i know there was a great debate over common core state standards and i'm just wondering then to clarify so the standards that greendale school district is using are the wisconsin academic standards i hear both of you saying correct which are very similar to the common core state standards in math and ela but not necessarily a hundred percent common core state standards correct the department of public instruction reviewed and used those as a resource now each of these curriculum have been approved by the board and adapted these standards in the years that were there and we have reaffirmed these standards annually as the state law requires that we take action to
041reapprove the standards on an annual basis sure and i'm wondering uh what's behind that why does the state ask us to reapprove this it was legislation that was passed in 2015 to ensure transparency and curriculum alignment okay and then to that end these standards are published where on the department of public instruction website they have the wisconsin academic standards and in each of our curriculum it is linked to the standards are aligned so what you saw in your document tonight for world language that is how they are displayed within our work okay and so any parents listening could just go to the greendale school district website and find them there that some of them are listed on the curriculum website but the curriculum website is under revision at this time oh okay okay under construction
042they're all there it's we're just making it we're doing some updates because we've had some curriculum reviews so we're updating it but in general you'll get all the information there and we'll have links to the dpi standards as well there sure okay and you're right the dpi does have a website dpi.wi.gov forward slash standards yep and that's linked right in the memo so if you go from this memo you can find them the question i had was just regarding the national standards how does wisconsin align with that then are we are we on target with the rest of the country then i mean i know wisconsin's asking for this it doesn't sound like we're required federally to the department of public instruction does a standards review on a cycle and they are aware and use
043may launch but if you go to that website you can see how they have interpreted used or adjusted any set of national standards or research that's out there and they also use educators niche statewide to help with those standards as well thank you one other question maggie since you brought it up the social emotional learning does that fall under uh school counselors curriculum in terms of delivery we're looking right now we don't have a curriculum so we're looking at different models that will work and we're going to be following up with that right now we're in the decision making of even piloting a program so we're trying to see what that would look like in the future we don't have all the details yet once we do we'll share with you okay thank you does
044that have something to do with the character strong that you talked about at a previous meeting yeah that's correct one one maybe just request in future years i know sometimes we approve different grade levels and we don't approve other ones i don't know if we could turn this into maybe a chart just so we could see it easier to see which grade levels are in which areas and then that way if we like for example i know we're doing science in six through eight but we have approved it in high school just to make sure there's no confusion on where we are it's a good call out like a grid kind of yeah all right good good discussion good quick questions um any other questions otherwise i'm looking for a motion to approve i move
045to approve action item 4.3 the academic standards well second there's been a motion a second to prove the academic standards for the 2021 2022 school year any further discussion can i call for a roll call vote yes yes yes yes and i'm yes motion carries um then continuing on next item on the agenda is a review to review an approval purchase of health insurance contract so the board recently revised policy on purchasing and purchases greater than 150 000 require board approval one of the items uh we know salary and benefits are the lion's share of our um costs and one of those areas in which there is a contract that exceeds 150 000 is our health insurance program and we are sharing with you this evening the plan to transition our health insurance in order
046to find the best cost and continue to provide benefits to our staff that are consistent with their expectations to attract and retain high quality staff i'm going to let jonathan walk you through the proposal so i'm going to highlight some items that were in the background document and then add in some visuals that support the recommendation that we have on this evening so as we described this is coming forward due to the purchasing policy requirement for everything over 150 000 we've requested a renewal for a fully funded health insurance plan from wea trust based on claims for the first half of our first year with wea we're at a 73 percent loss rate so that means for every dollar that they're receiving in premiums so far they've had to spend out 73 cents for claims
047medical claims prescription on the on the plan and so that savings through the first six months would be about seven hundred thousand dollars below those premiums and that can ebb and flow as months go on so through negotiations with our broker r r insurance as we look forward to the renewal on that plan wea has proposed a 2.9 percent increase that would be fifty 156 thousand dollar increase versus what we're paying right now um so wa did not offer a zero percent renewal despite the trending that we have because they've identified that they project that that second half um would end higher rnr has worked diligently on our behalf both in negotiations with wea trust and also considering other options that would be available with our new strategic plan which will be presented this evening
048one of the focus areas for the financial portion of the the focus is supporting innovation or to stay competitive and remain a district of choice for families and so as we think about having a robust benefit plan that attracts and retains team members to our district we want to ensure that we're able to maintain the rankings that we do have so that we're a district of destination and doing so we want to make sure that we're exploring all options that are available for our benefits plan so that we can be as cost effective as possible so when we're thinking about that we're considering both the fully insured and self-insured plan in our renewal process approximately one-third of districts in sisa 1 have moved to a self-funded offering so that would be 14 out of 44.
049we believe that that can be innovative for a number of reasons by adding value to the district through retained savings so in a year where the district would end up below the full premium percentage there's an ability for the district to keep those savings within the the financials to be able to reapply those to programming and that could be areas of need like curriculum technology or capital planning it could be in order to sustain benefits into future years and in a year where our plan is currently running at of projection that's that's a pretty substantial dollar figure the second item is the ability to remove the health reimbursement account hra so that's an item that we have in our plan in order to get more aggressive pricing for fully insured proposals if we were to
050move to a self-insured model we would navigate by having an administrator that would process all claims and that would be umr under that proposal and that would remove that responsibility from staff and continue to provide an out-of-pocket max of 250 dollars for single and 500 dollars for family coverage we believe we have the ability to minimize risk by looking at a self-insured plan so there was a bid process that went through 15 different stop-loss carriers and through that aggressive work the team at r r insurance believes there's a 90 percent likelihood that we could beat the pricing for a fully insured plan over a five-year period so the idea being that we would make the decision for a long period of time not for a one-year trial period but with a commitment that we want
051to try to do this for the long term number four is connecting this to our on-site clinic so the district has invested for a number of years in on-site clinic for the the district i believe a decade or more so it was a very early adopter and was on the cutting edge in terms of bringing that on site and i know was on the cutting edge in terms of making that care available to students as well as a value-add but specifically as it relates to savings on our insurance plan under a self-funded model we're paying for every claim that would be incurred and so we would be able to calculate for those visits that are running through the on-site clinic to ensure that we're making a calculation and that that's providing value back to the
052district that what we're saving by running that clinic pays for the cost in order to operate it we know that that's got high value to our staff members because it provides convenience to be able to do it between class periods in the middle of the day jumping over for a couple minutes to get checked out but there's also the financial aspect of that and we can more directly account for it under a self-funded model and the last item is being able to access utilization data on a real-time basis so if we were under a self-insured plan the district would have the ability to see that that medical trending information on a high level on a monthly basis to ensure that the plan is supporting the health needs of our our staff members throughout the district
053and that our utilization for preventative care urgent care emergency that those things are all in line with trends that we would expect but we'd be able to see that data within weeks of months ending versus time periods that can take 12 weeks or more right now before we're able to see that data because it needs to run through the fully insured plan before it can get down to our individual user level so we provided additional information including those districts that utilize the self-funded plan in the background item i think just to provide a couple other a couple other items i'll jump over so financially that proposal under our current plan this column to the left the renewal or i'm sorry the current plan the costing is five million nine hundred and thirty eight thousand with
054that two point nine percent renewal in the middle we were to stay with the current plan structure structure we would be at six million ninety four thousand one hundred and seventy five dollars on the right is the proposal under a self-funded model with the preferred bid that was provided by sun life insurance for a stop loss premium and there the total expected premium so estimating what claims would be would be five million five hundred fifty four thousand eight nineteen with the maximum exposure being six million seven hundred and twenty one thousand two hundred and seventeen dollars and so the team went through the likelihoods of hitting that financial number and whether or not the district would be more or less likely to beat that fully insured renewal of 6 million 94 000 over that one
055three or five year period in trend and so at the very bottom you see they estimate after one year it would be about 73 percent chance at three years about 84 percent and at five years right at 90 percent of trend we got some additional data in terms of what the individual claims are that make up those amounts and they have projected conservatively in terms of looking at what that total expected premium would be under a self-funded model essentially the district would need to average over a million dollars more than what we do currently in order to hit that maximum exposure that's shown on the right under a self-funded model essentially what that means is we would have stop loss coverage that would hit a maximum level meaning we got to 125 percent of what
056our premium was during that that year and the stop-loss coverage would cover all claims beyond that amount so that's why it's important for us to know which is more likely getting to that expected premium or that maximum exposure and you see there the likelihood that we would trend towards the lower rate the other item just because the board is reviewing under policy in terms of our going out to bid so we mentioned that the the team went to 15 different carriers and so here you show they went to anthem barton berkeley berkshire hathaway hcc iat mrm qbe reliance standard rockport benefits sun life swiss symmetra unum and voya and so there were various responses to that based on the information that was available we're currently a fully insured plan so there's some information that wouldn't
057be available as we would have in the future so it's possible that that bidding process can become even more aggressive in the year-to-year basis as time moves on and more data is available but we are very happy that they were willing to go out aggressively to a number of different carriers so that there were multiple options and the preferred choice from those was through sun life and what's in the recommended motion [Music] so with that there were a couple items thinking through impact on current physician access on our plan so the district would be under the choice plus ppo network which is a wide network across southeastern wisconsin includes all major provider systems it's unlikely that any doctors that staff are currently accessing through the wea trust would not be covered in that overlap and
058then on the prescription drug plan we again did that review and the new drug pbm reviewed that more than 95 percent of those current prescription drugs utilized on our plan would be covered so while we can't guarantee there aren't any drugs that are impacted that would be a very minimal number if any if we were to make that switch so we've reviewed those two items in terms of the impact so for this evening we're presenting the contract for stop loss coverage through sun life for 891 thousand six eighty eight for the 21 22 plan year with the estimate that that full health insurance plan for 21 22 would come at 5 million 554 000 819 if we were to move forward with that contract and move to a self-funded plan we would plan to keep
059our current single and family premium rates the same as what they are in the 2021 school year so those would stay the same and then we would see how the plan would run in the first year so with that i'm happy to let julie and kim add what i have missed here or take any messages or feedback from the board on this i think it's important to note that from our staff perspective this what their access to health care and insurance coverage would not look different than a fully funded program it is really which account pays the bills um so the the plan design and the administration of the plan will happen through one of the um current carriers that offers fully insured and that right now is proposed to be umr so from a
060staff perspective their experience would be the same as if we were making a transition to umr insurance so first off um i think i challenged you jonathan at a previous board meeting because you had 150 000 in savings since i said uh maybe next meeting you can come up with another 150 000 in savings and instead you came up with the potential for 539 356 dollars so you have 3.6 meetings left um of savings so you don't have you can take a break for a few more weeks and then come back in the fourth meeting another 150 000 in savings that would be great in all seriousness i think this is i mean also with your back background and seeing what happened from saint francis uh when you were there and how this worked out
061across that district and how it's worked out across numerous districts in this area our size of the district allows us to really kind of flex into this appropriately and i think the risk is warranted based upon what we're seeing from these constant confidence intervals so the work that you all have done to kind of think through this and really figure out what we can do to actually take control of health insurance which is something that's impossible to do in today's world um is appreciated greatly and then i going back to some additional opportunities you know this is now assuming this moves forward this is our plan which also means that the more we do to you know leverage that data and understand how we can incentivize and encourage folks to live a healthy lifestyle within
062our network that actually has real benefit to greendale schools versus benefit to whoever we choose as our insurance provider [Music] so this puts us in the driver's seat literally um as the district in a self-funded plan so i think that also is another potential incentive that doesn't kind of weigh into the confidence intervals that we're seeing even in the percentages that's just based on brass tax versus you know the reality of us having a pretty engaged and just wanting to do well on staff i think that'll even go a little bit further when they see that by doing some of these routine things and preventative things that it actually will help us uh from insurance in the future well then we're not changing providers i don't want anyone getting we are yeah we are the
063everyone was going to have to change their doctors that's what the network is that there is they've done a an analysis of who's in network oh okay okay all right well that's an important thing to clarify that yeah so that everyone knows that with this change they might need to unlikely we're what we're seeing is a very low percentage of interruptions there's enough overlap when we compare the umr network to the wea trust network there is a 98 or 95 overlap of providers the provider network is the same so there may be one or two providers sometimes with these types of switches depending on the carrier there's an interruption but all of the major health systems in southeastern wisconsin we've been contracted with both we've we've had the umr network in the past and it
064has been comparable to the networks that we've switched to since then okay so it would be more that we're switching networks which isn't unlikely to switch providers it is unlikely that providers will not be covered as in network providers okay yep just a thing okay so in terms of people's lives as you said kim not they're not likely to notice very very low disruption and i just for the record wanted to state that i did reach out to greendale educators association and to see if you know they had any questions or concerns and they did not so the teachers don't seem concerned um which is probably a good sign you know in terms of this change because i usually when you're dealing with health insurance people get nervous and get worried and i think you
065mentioned kim there were staff members that were actually part of this whole research that went into this correct correct there was a process that that included uh represent cross-section representation of staff it's the same staff that participated in the budget uh planning process last school year and this school year so so i i you guys presented on friday i stopped in and you explained quite a bit of this but i just had a question like with unitedhealthcare then there's nothing they can do to like like they're typically known to do in other settings where they're not self-funded they raise their rates every year this is not something that we would see with greendale so we can still be subject to medical trending so if every doctor in southeastern wisconsin raises their rates nine percent annually
066that will be up to umr united healthcare to try to negotiate those rates those discounts across the system but as a plan and whole we won't be negotiating an increase like we would with the fully insured plan or it's all all in one and they're estimating what that that cost increase will be so from that that standpoint the the self-insured versus fully insured would be very different what we will be renegotiating on an annual basis will be the administration of the plan which any increase would be a very low dollar figure from year to year so who's going to process and pay the claims and then the stop loss coverage and that will really depend year year to year on high the number of high cost claimants versus what is projected but that 891 thousand
067dollars when you look at that versus the overall cost that we're spending you can see that that's a smaller portion but our goal is obviously to keep that renewal as low as possible does that help yeah no that explains it i just insurance as you all know is is kind of touch and go as we go but this um the other thing i was going to ask is just the the the districts that you did put down as examples of currently using um self-funded how long have by average or like how long have they been doing this it's going to vary in the last five to eight years you've seen an increase in those mid-sized districts that are the three to five thousand in getting into this before that you would see larger entities like
068a milwaukee public school that would go to self-funded based on their size but we have confidence because we are going out to a wide network of options for stop loss coverage and have gotten aggressive pricing and as you can see within this model that's going to be the biggest driver from year to year is whether you can continue to get aggressive rates and stop loss coverage and that would be my experience for seven years managing a stop loss or i'm sorry a self-funded plan is that that change in the stop-loss cost is what you're seeing in the the year to year and that's what's making the plan successful or not when you're self-insured so when does the stop-loss coverage kind of kick in is that per claim is that overall good question so there's two
069times it kicks in one is at 75 000 per individual so if i if it were me and i had 75 000 in claims if i then had another you know half a million in a in a plan year the coverage would pick up everything from 75 000 and up then in terms of that possible max that we showed the 6.7 million that's where we would hit 125 percent of expected premium across all of our staff members so it isn't that everyone is necessarily hitting the 75 000 but we have high number that are getting a high level of claims at 125 then the plan would pick up all claims across all members that's a very rare um situation uh to occur but you will see that it's going to pick up a number of
070staff members each year that hit that 75 000 threshold so you also want to go into designing the plan um at a low as low a dollar figure as you can and that was of the what was proposed that was the lowest dollar figure because once you agree to a certain level the stop-loss carrier isn't going to want to provide you a lower level in future years they're going to want to try to negotiate that number to go up to push more risk onto the district and so we appreciate that rnr worked diligently to try to keep that level as low as possible again ways to minimize risk you said out of the list sun life is the one the district is choosing i just found it interesting that um you know some of them
071in the red there that you showed that some of them weren't willing to even tell you an amount and just kind of keep their cards turned over and and obviously that's important that we look for someone that's willing to be transparent with the district and in my experience that's very typical that you're going to go out to a wide network and then some are going to choose to bid but others won't and again that'll be in a variety of factors one is is that we're not able to provide all the detail because we're under a fully insured plan right now and so that gives some hesitation when they're doing kind of the actuarial calculation but two is they're just looking at book a business and time to be able to quote and so it will
072just vary from from year to year of who will bid and who won't so that's why it's important that you have a wide array of options so that you can get down and make sure that whoever your stop-loss carrier is is honest costs competitively year to year so that that would be important going forward is that something going forward too that if we felt sun life wasn't the company we'll bid every year and you will have to approve every year because it is unlikely that our stop-loss coverage would drop below the 150 000 threshold you set um so even if we were to change stop-loss carriers the impact on the employee would not exist because they don't interact with sun life right the other thing to just reiterate that you pointed out in your account
073in your preamble jonathan was the you know this is a long-term solution we're not looking at oh pivot if something happens after one year the reality is that when you make this decision you know obviously we're going to vote on it every year but we shouldn't be giving whiplash because we're never going to see the the benefit of the plan if we do that so kind of leaning into it and understanding we're making a decision this one year but we should be thinking about it also long term versus just a short-term decision that's a good point all right so very good discussion uh we are posted to approve this evening the health insurance contract for the stopgap coverage so any other questions or comments then is there a motion to approve i'm moved to approve
074agenda item 4.4 purchasing health insurance contract as outlined and required by board policy second there's been a motion a second to approve the purchase of health insurance contract per revised board policy 672 any further discussion and look for a roll call vote yes yes yes yes and i'm motion carries thank you um the next agenda is personnel so um tonight we have approval of personnel both some non-renewing teacher appointments so that's because they're non-renewing it's for just for one year and then we have some teacher appointments both full-time teachers as well as part-time staff so anything else from otherwise we have that in front of us any questions or comments otherwise i'm looking for a motion to approve i just was going to mention um i talked to sue before the meeting too but um
075we typically do get the letter to go with this and that i wasn't seeing that tonight so i know we don't talk individual personnel but are budgetary-wise are we in like the realm of where we should be as far as the offers that were made yes yes okay okay any other questions otherwise i'm looking for a motion motion to approve um personnel action is outlined in action item 4.5 is there a second second there's been a motion and a second to approve personnel any further discussion may call for a roll call vote yes yes yes yes and i am yes motion carries continuing on under new business so um next item on the agenda 5.1 the 2021-2022 employee handbook you'll see in the cover memo a few edits and then this will be brought back
076at a later board meeting for approval but tonight we are seeing some of the changes that administration is recommending for the upcoming school year the first changes around um the equal employment opportunity that is based on a recent court decision that gender identity be included and i'll let julie speak to that yeah so the first one that we have listed is the mission statement so that is just to update and align to the strategic plan recommendations so that the handbook would reflect the current mission statement um number four equal employment opportunity and number 41 harassment and discrimination are both related based on the bostock supreme court decision that was issued last july i believe just updating policy to reflect the changes required as part of the bo stock decision regarding pregnancy sexual orientation and gender
077identity that language is direct from the eeoc so we used to have pregnancy listed separately and it's recommended that that's just included with the within the parentheses around sex number 35 the use of social media that is a ad what has been in place and has been stated within the acceptable use of technology policy just further clarification to staff in terms of the use of technology and storing items so that they're available to colleagues in the collaborative teams have access to them within the shared drives is the update on mission is that doesn't seem to be aligned with what our new mission i didn't update it yet based on the report that's coming next um so so whatever is approved as part of the report will then be um encompassed in the recommendations that i
078bring forth at the next meeting okay that makes sense there will be alignment with what's in the employee handbook and what the mission statement is approved one thing i brought up to uh kim this this afternoon when we spoke um was just the question of like teachers pay teachers and how teachers do go out and and sell at times um lessons that they've created and so forth so this this policy actually prohibits that correct this policy isn't specific to that particular platform or others however when they're performing work and developing curriculum in their role and their contract with the district that is district property i think anything my understanding is that anything you're creating during the work day on your school profile google classroom or otherwise belongs to the school district is that that is
079correct is and i heard you say school workday is that is that qualifier or is it really just any instructional materials which you are compensated to develop for your classroom okay so you could go beyond the call and and this is on their own time on a weekend and so forth they are able to very much in the same way that they may be an adjunct professor at a university and teach outside of the school day and not interfere with their professional responsibilities separate and apart from their role with the district that's a different type of contract a different type of agreement okay okay good questions yeah i i just had a and i'm just looking at the handbook you know skimming it i just so i just had a couple general questions about you
080know how important the employee handbook is especially after act 10. so in the beginning of the school year um do employees get a hard copy nope just a digital copy it is provided digitally and all staff are expected to review it and sign off that they have reviewed it as part of their safe school's annual training okay and then um and maybe this is a something you can answer at a later time if because i know i didn't bring this up earlier but um under the termination under um item 30 employment termination and non-renewal of employment um you know i see all the general uh normal renewal of contract you know this wisconsin statute 118.22 and just you know people decide to resign or you know have a medical issue but i don't see anything
081in particular about like term you know terminal offenses you know or things that people would do that would be automatic in terms of termination is that list somewhere else or that would be subject to number 29 discipline and the employee discipline board policy what is outlined there as well as the code of conduct which is also in the handbook i'm not exactly seeing right now where the what number it is but the code of conduct outlines behavioral expectations uh work rules that employees must abide by okay thank you for clarifying that i just know that obviously that's where the rubber meets the road in an employee handbook so it's good to know where it's located yep number 18 is the code of conduct where is the quote i think it's 17 isn't it um 17
082is performance expectations i believe and then 18 is code of conduct which outlines prohibited conduct yeah prohibited unacceptable work performance and there are no changes to that that's the same as it's always been kind of thing okay yep so when we bring the handbook for annual review we just highlight the changes that the board would be approving sure for the upcoming year sure yeah and i see that'll be in august right yes so we'll review it at tonight's board meeting and then we'll approve it at the next board meeting in advance of the new school year sure so if there is anyone that has any issues with the employee handbook that they would want the board to know about to bring up or raise or discuss they should do so before august 2nd is that
083and that's why we have you know that's why we review it today and um at our next board meeting okay thank you all right any other questions otherwise like uh like we said we will be bringing this back at our next board meeting for approval all right next item on the agenda and we have our guest presenters um along with dr mizik uh the strategic plan proposal so i think this is exciting i think for a number of years now going back several superintendents you we've greendale has always had since 1993. yeah greendale has always had a strategic plan which helps guide the district and keeps it on course so that as things pop up you know mary you mentioned common core and then we heard crt and you know the strategic plan keeps us
084focused and addressing the key area so excited to hear us talk about tonight's presentation the strategic plan is really our long game and i'm gonna and jonathan's gonna cast for me in a second here it's our long game and intended to um help us see where we're going over the a long period of time and some of the things that that we've done with previous strategic plans we transitioned to one-to-one technology so every student having access to a chromebook is something that was visited and set in our 2008 and then repeated in our 2012 plan until it came to fruition in terms of equity of access to digital tools in 2015 another area that we had in our strategic planning process was in 2008 we looked at how we engaged students in a global community
085as part of our mission at the time and one of our goals was focused around access to different cultures and spanish at the elementary level manifested from a strategic plan in 2008. so this strategic plan really does guide our direction and our work as we are moving forward so for the strategic plan that we are recommending it will actually be 2021 to 2026 but jonathan you can go to the next slide the process that we used and was shared with the board along the way we've spent the last four months engaging the community in conversations about their preferred future state of the greendale schools we had a community visioning session in march in which we did a youtube broadcast and and community members could engage in interact real time are reacting to some of the
086data around our current state in april dr schroeder conducted community listening sessions and we convened the strategic planning work team for the first time based on work that came out of that there was a community survey conducted in may in which we had over 800 participants and you can see the results of that in the report and then we reconvene the team in june to review the community survey results and make the recommendations that you have before you today excuse me next slide one of the things that's important as you're looking at your strategic plan and your vision out into what your future's preferred future state will be is to make sure that you have a very clear and concise statement of why you exist and where you hope to go the last time that
087we revisited and revised our mission statement was 2008 and as we looked at that we realized that it was pretty lengthy and not something that was really embedded in the hearts and minds of staff as they worked so we revisited that to make sure that we continue to focus on that and the recommended vision mission statement which was shared with the community and received 85 percent support is that we exist to make sure all students belong and are empowered to learn grow and engage as part of a global community and i bolded some of the areas that were important as the team suggest discussed the strengths the weaknesses and the opportunities and challenges within the process of identifying what we believe the mission to be so this did take into consideration the ideas of the
088community the next piece that we took a look at was our vision so next slide what are we striving to become and it should be something that guides our work and going forward and what was identified as the vision what we hope to do is we hope to cultivate excellence in every student and so this is our recommended vision we in the survey we asked about some components what the community valued in terms of what we wanted to strive to become and this does incorporate those highest valued areas within the community and actually incorporates three of the four so we were able to do that in a very concise way so this is the recommended vision the team then took the recommended vision and mission and use that in conjunction with the community input to
089identify some focus areas for efforts to continue to change so there are six areas that were identified and i have bolded and accentuated some of the words that were critical these were vetted with the community and the highest valued areas were the ones that rose to the surface and were refined based on the comments within the community feedback so the first area is to provide every student access to a challenging balanced and equitable education that sparks curiosity and engagement the key words here being access and making sure that it's challenged challenging balanced and equitable some of the conversations that we talked about was what are those high expectations how do we make sure every student has access to ap coursework for example every student has access to not just reading writing and math but also
090a balanced curriculum that is robust with music access and other areas that are important and that we are seeing equitable access to that those educational opportunities so that is the first strategic priority area the second strategic priority area was around college and career pathways in that we are preparing students with the skills to explore and be ready for the college or career pathway of their choice there is a lot of discussion around both in the survey comments and within the team because of those survey comments about not predetermining what pathways students choose but to make sure they all have access to get to whatever they choose so that you aren't relegated to a career that wouldn't necessarily be of your choice because you didn't have access to rigorous curriculum so this was our second priority
091area and this is an extension of the one of the strategic priority areas from the 2012 division 2020. next slide the third strategic priority area was around strengthening relationships with families and community to promote a sense of belonging mutual respect and safety for all families inclusive of all racial and ethnic identities this rose to the surface and the way that it was worded in the survey was around especially families of color or people of color there was some significant discussion both within the community survey and within the team around who identifies as a person of color and what do we mean when we say that uh and so we vetted and identified that this meant that we that that sense of belonging and that mutual respect should be inclusive of all racial and ethnic identities
092and that's where that came from so next one is to provide appropriate training to support student well-being for our staff and then also to make sure that we're providing appropriate staff to meet student mental health needs and you're starting to see us work in this space as we are having a mental health provider on-site clinic that is coming forward and making sure that we we've recommended that we increase school psychologist and social work um in our budget this year that we did discuss so that is what we mean by appropriate training for student well-being which is a social emotional curriculum review and then also appropriate staff to address this specific mental health needs next slide the next area is recruit and retain quality staff including staff representative of our students this is the work around
093tntp it was important in the community survey that we recruit and retain high quality staff and then the representative of our students did surface in quite a few areas and was prioritized as the highest priority for about 20 percent of our community so that was important that that be represented there and then finally in order to manage our resources responsibly it's to support innovation to remain competitive and a district of choice for families one of the things that you are seeing in our budgeting process this year is that there are a lot of school districts that are in a declining enrollment and that's going to impact their funding going forward greendale has had not seen that reduction in enrollment at the same rate that other school districts have and then our ability to continue to
094open seats and have sufficient applications for open enrollment to fill those seats is representative of us being a district of choice and in order to remain competitive in the marketplace we need to remain innovative for that purpose and so this was an area that was highly supported in the community survey and is being recommended as a fiscal strategic priority so with these pieces uh what we're recommending is that the board adopt this mission vision and set of strategic priorities at the april meeting and then we will be bringing forward this meeting august meeting what did i say april sorry and so well i don't want to wait until april to do this so august sounds good and then we will be identifying specific metrics that will measure those things so there were quite a few
095administrators present at the strategic planning process and part of the reason i bolded and accentuated some of the words was to help us help remind us what aspects of this priority need to be measured so we will identify metrics and bring those forward annually in the form of a scorecard for board approval and i do have dr schroeder here tonight with me so that he is able to help respond to questions when we think about comparisons to other districts or process or or on next steps um so i appreciate him being here and with that we will take questions did you want to say anything dr schroeder before we well first off congratulations dr mitzit great to see that in person actually really nice to be here in person because if you weren't tracking this
096all that work that was going back through march was all done virtually which is quite a testament to the quality of the product you got in the process as well so i'll just start with that honor to be here with you and uh just a moment of background here so he knows in front of you so i've i've been milwaukee metro area as a school leader and a system leader since the late 90s i came as a madison principal to be a principal at brookfield east and then worked in the elmbrook school system and then muskego as both assistant superintendent later on in elm brook and a superintendent at muskego norway and now just starting my 10th year working for the wisconsin school administrators association which and we're very happy to have a lot of
097greendale administrators part of as well and and my job is really help with leadership development in those roles so long story short i've done a lot of work in strategic planning uh also on the side and which brings me here with you all is i work occasionally when i can fit it in as an independent consultant usually doing strategic planning work and facilitation and so i've done a lot of work for systems across the state and you know a few things i would just say and you know with that kind of background in mind is you have a very uh you had a very transparent and and highly engaging process if you just look at your executive summary that doctor midsize wrote i think you have somewhere probably 900 1 000 people in your community
098interface in one way or another multiple ways maybe but lots of folks whether a survey a public you know kickoff session in march uh the strategic or the work team the you know listening sessions maybe listening right now watching recordings there's so much engagement in this and so um and i also just think that uh one of the things that we look for whenever i try to do this is that brevity is a gift and you have a very concise plan and um in looking at what the very best in the world do in education and and other sectors of our economy and i've spent a lot of time looking at that and particularly strategic planning is where it doesn't break down isn't so much in strategic planning where it really breaks down more often
099is in strategic implementation and and to have a concise plan as dr misich says you have a mission and vision now which i would challenge all of you to commit to memory there's no reason not to and if you can do that that's one of the biggest game changes for any organization because they start actually applying the mission and vision why they exist and what they want to become to actually do daily decisions and i also applaud um you know these sorts of efforts you're part of that board the administration the staff the community you know disciplined people applying discipline thinking to discipline action and you already see it today i celebrate i'm i'm here i've had a chuckle jonathan that little smirk i gave you a little bit ago was because you're already put
100into place one of the very strategic priorities of this with what you put forward with your health care self-funding pro i think that's a great example of trying to use innovation to really be public wonderful public stewards of what you're here to um really ensure which is your great your community's greatest treasure is is served well and you you carry the torch with great um discipline and great responsibility until you pass it off to whoever follows you so anyway it's basically an honor to be here i'm happy to talk about any um things that you have questions about but again just want to thank you for the honor of serving with you i've had a chance to be in the system in different roles over the 20-some years in different times first time before the
101board but i've been i came away from this process having even more respect for the people that you have working in your roles the community itself um getting at the real issue of equity and and um service to every kid under your care um so it's again an honor and privilege to be part of the process thank you dr trader any questions or comments i have i have a question i'm uh the newest board member so forgive me if this is a you know if my question reflects that but is it customary for uh school districts to hire an expert such as yourself to help them with their strategic plan or is are there some districts that you know have a have a team in place that you know sort of revisits it and um
102i mean i know there's always a team working on it but um is it is it customary to always have a expert such as yourself or do some districts sort of do it on their own i'm just curious i don't i mean it varies but it's i think my my understanding my experience has been that most people have an expert help with at least part of the process whether it's the development of the plan or whether it's the implementation plan the monitoring of the effort to make sure it gets executed well so i'm very very standard process here um i i literally have to turn work away personally there's a lot of demand for facilitation of this work and people understand it's pennies on the dollar and it's a fraction it's a fraction of a
103penny on all the all the investment so you want to do it really well um because you're making commitments in the long term and you do it well and it transforms the place so sort of think you're positioning you're in a coach in a way i mean exactly i mean i think well and again it's just i think making sure you have a good process so again i said earlier um that quote i was using was actually from jim collins wrote a book called good to great very familiar with lots of folks here and we actually the team actually read a um a sequel to his original best seller that was around for the business sector this was written for the social sectors for folks who have a mission focused rather than a dollar focus
104and so in in the essence when they did their research he's a standard emeritus professor he said the the the the essence of places that made the good the great transformation was that it was they found they got the right people in the right seats and then it was a matter of getting disciplined people applying discipline thinking to discipline action and get really clear on a few things they're going to do really well and then to just turn the flywheel and i'm seeing no else you read the books i mean you're nodding but you know that's the whole part here that's what i see underway um it's it's it's um about simplicity of focus without in a very complex way and doing it really well over sustained time so when i heard thor earlier today
105saying we make this decision for the year but that's around self-funding but we're actually we have to be really mindful now we're actually making a a pivot for the long term um that's this the kind of thinking i'm going to say an action that would be in alignment with a strategic plan clarity so again it's in my view somebody's i'm in my 34th year of this 25 years in administration worked for lots of school systems around the state it's reckless not to have a good plan and i can speak to our local history because i've been engaged in the strategic planning process in greendale since 2003 and in all but one of our processes 2003 2008 and 2012 we did engage with consultants okay thank you i would like to add too i i think
106probably hiring an outside consultant helps us look outside of ourselves a little bit because we can you know you can become complacent if you're doing things both the greendale way always the same so so i think it has been helpful just from what i've seen and heard from some of the community members involved that um that we have had an outside person come in and and your experience in so many districts i think is gonna you know help us as we we move forward um i had a question just um because there were 32 people listed as stakeholders here that's a large group not that i want you to walk through all of it but how did you go about orchestrating that so that the conversation could be meaningful and that all voices were heard
107well again we're in virtual environments so we had a lot of we had zoom and we had breakout sessions so you know if you would imagine like if it were maybe we'd do it this fall maybe it would have been maybe more typical where we had a large space like this people around tables so we we tried it uh again dr mission team did a great job of getting as diverse a group as they could really they could make the commitment to the time and for the folks who couldn't make the commitment to the time they got input through some of the other aspects of the process you saw but what we try to do is then then the even within the diversity of the group you try to have folks with different perspectives and
108different stakeholder roles in what in in real time it would be on different you know in table groups for table talk discussions that then come back as thematic kind of analysis and discussion for the full group and zoom it went into breakout rooms so you know we'd have so you give them a task you'd um ask people to have a conversation and then you know very very strategic or systematic sort of gathering ideas the top ideas from each group and then once we got on the board we did a lot of weighted scoring we always we had we had one of our norms was about identifying um making all the decisions by consensus um and way we defined that was you had to send consensus when two things occurred first on any given issue and
109any varied opinion on it had an opportunity to be heard usually that was you know two to three different ways of looking at the same issue or um and then once every perspective at an opportunity to be heard then we'd say are we ready to to see where the will of the group is and then we would find more that is sometimes it was rated weighted scoring sometimes just a hands up or a yes or no but that's what we work through it step by step and then sometimes like any process we had a we had you know and i think our first weekend that we were together we had um one issue we want to get more input around from the from the community before we made a final decision i think kim alluded
110to that another time we thought we had a potential solution and we came back and gave another another refinement because we felt like um maybe we'd do a little better job if we had a little time just to get give some more oxygen so there was a lot of pieces we did you know i think part of it is just the design i'm a big process person though i've done this a lot of times a lot of places and it always works out i mean i don't even get worried about anymore i used to get a lot of sleepless nights about it especially with that many people um but actually 32 was kind of a middle range i've worked with larger groups smaller groups i've never worked with a process that's had so many people
111involved though like you did here i mean with the various pieces that dr missage worked through so again i come back my opening statement lots of transparency lots of engagement from whoever really wanted to be involved in the process and whatever they could commit to it thanks and i i just want to say on a personal note i was actually very happy when i heard your name come up as the facilitator and um the person behind you know working with our community to come to a strategic plan just for my personal experience with my kids being in the elmbrook district i know that you really were big shoes to fill after you left the district and that you you've really been impactful everywhere you've been i i know people in the muskego norway district as
112well and um so i just want to thank you for the time that you put in as a consultant and um just working together with our community yeah well i i appreciate that again the point why it's why it continues to work is because the it's a bunch of people coming together around committed effort like everything and that's what you see here your ministry of team and there's not one thing i hear tonight where it's one person it's a bunch of people putting a team effort together um and that's what you're in position to do here there's no un undoubtedly you have i think a very clear now mission vision you're keyed up to have a group of people really kind of rally around uh focus and make it bigger than any one person and
113that's the lift it's going to require so i i feel really great about your future i mean you already have a very good system it's been that way for a long time i've admired it for a long time i understand better now why i should and watch out because i think your next chapter is going to be better for you i really do and i think that's a really good point what i heard is this is a community vision this is our village's vision for its schools and we we've seen you know over the past several months um year we've had a number of community members come in and speak to the board and and i think we've all recognized that that that comes from a place of passion for its schools uh passion to
114see that its students our students achieve so this is really the village's vision for our schools so i think that's that's really important to acknowledge and i think um speaking to the transparency there are numerous ways for our community to get involved whether it was being part of an action team being part of the the listening sessions um responding to the surveys uh there are multiple ways to to get involved and to react and respond to to different things and and and as dr mitzik said earlier things were tweaked you know some people had certain reactions to it some people had a positive reaction to things negative reactions things and things were tweaked to get the consensus and make sure that we got the word incorrect um my one question is so we talked about
115the the pillars and and kim you mentioned that at a later date we'll come back with a scorecard that talks a little bit about um the different metrics that we want to measure will that show us like the action plans you know so it's not only going to be metrics but there's really going to be an action item in that metric correct so um we will take these priorities and break them down into what is actionable in a year how are we going to measure we're getting there and what are the actions that we're going to take to get there similar to what you saw in this year's scorecard around our equity so what are the metrics the disparities in outcomes in certain spaces is the metrics that we're using and then we had specific
116action plans around eliminating segregated classes and um some pieces there so yes there will be both um metrics to know if we're making progress towards that goal and then specific action steps to hold us accountable for how we're going to move towards that goal and i think the other thing that will be important is that then once we have that all in place then that becomes an alignment for how we measure ourselves as a board how we measure kim's performance to make sure that we're focusing on what we said we're going to focus on in the next year three five years again i go back to you know common core and crt and there can be a lot of noise in public education there can be a lot of noise that can distract us can
117take us off course i think it really serves the community and serves us well by having the strategic plan and these action items and these metrics to say this is what we want to focus on and are we getting the results that we would have expected dr schroeder is it okay if we continue yeah yeah i didn't know i worked on a few i wasn't trying to cut that i didn't know if you were done yeah and i know sometimes you speak last so as a sort of a wrap up so i just wanted to um dr schroeder would you recommend then i you know i heard you say we should memorize the new mission and vision would you recommend that we you know maybe you know read it or recite it at each of
118our school board meetings in the beginning as a reminder you know i'm a teacher so you know my learning objectives on my board so i'm constantly you know referring to it would you recommend something similar to that for us i mean that's a strategy i'll leave it up to what you all want to decide and doctor the message and such but you know i'll just say this so when i was at elm brook and and i was i was got the role of assistant superintendent my my boss um asked me to be our leader for our continuous improvement methodology and i because of that and the folks on the committee know this but i had the opportunity to go to this annual convention of the top performers across our sectors as an economy healthcare business
119manufacturing education etc and what i heard at some point you can't miss the patterns and one of the key patterns with this that made a difference between good to great organizations regardless of sector was that they had a concise mission and vision that truly drove what what the people again disciplined people applying discipline thinking discipline action they made that that sense of why they exist and where they're trying to go come to life so that's what you're asking is one way of doing that there are many ways of making that happen the the big thing me isn't so much not so much the strategy is that are we actually bringing this to life to the point where we can recall it in our working memory so that we can actually apply it when we have
120decisions that could go one way or the other like so way i saw it in both systems i just referred to what i worked at at some point it was a different from what they had been what i saw us regularly do and it was not beyond just you know administration it was in the teachers it was in our support staff custodians even you know i mean so i and i um and i said even because sometimes people think there's a problem maybe folks in that role or maybe a bus driver or the lease may be connected to this but we start having people in every kind of a role that we're finding a connection to it and they were they would say they could see the the way they connect to the line we
121call a line of sight they had a line of sight to what their role was and how they could help make that north star get closer and um so whatever you're going to do to do that make it come to life actually have it inform your decisions on a regular basis at board meetings and every daily work and you'll see the that flywheel start to turn and you'll get more you get closer and closer to what you want to become and i have just one more follow-up question i'm sorry now that i realize i'm in the presence of you know such an expert um would you you know having been in all these other districts and and having been through the year we've been through would you recommend that there's some sort of a planning
122ahead strategy team always ongoing you know nobody expected a global pandemic but who knows what's coming next um you know i i'm not saying we should you know amend the work you've just done but just as in in general would you recommend something like that um first off i i always bristle at expert so i'm just i'm a learner like everybody else um renee brown says well i'm i'm a i'm a journeyman just like you i'm not a map maker um so i'm on the same path but i would say that um i think you have to be careful about having too much plan plan plan i think you gotta again the thing i've learned is that it's a it's a balance between strategic planning and now strategic implementation and monitoring and so i think
123you're at the point now in the process where you definitely want to what joe was just talking about here it's like great we're clear about what we're trying to go that applies to us now it's a matter of trying to make sure that that's you know we're not chasing the next shiny thing or that you know because it's very easy that's and that's the default i think and you know we're we want the best lots of good ideas come forth daily weekly monthly you know you see them in your roles next email next idea next phone call and it's about ultimately i think getting clear about a plan and then having a commitment to sustain the course more than get um turned off track so yes you want to be ready i think that's part
124of what you have a team for and you know you'll you'll do that but i don't i i wouldn't advise like a regular strategic planning like yearly process i think what dr mr just said is what is the what is the five year plan three to five year plan look like in the next year or in the next hundred day cycle and that's that's kind of the iteration that's the level that you want to do um i'm more concerned i see it all the time with the 400 some districts in the state um the biggest problem isn't about i'm having good intent it's about chasing too many intents and you're in a point right now of getting clearer than most systems are about why you exist what you're trying to become and what you're going
125to do about the next three to five years i would really advocate for i'm sustaining the commitment now and really following through and executing well and i think we have our trimester reports when the um different uh heads of departments come before us and if i recall right from the last strategic plan um that was embedded in their presentations most often wasn't it i mean it was coming back to trimester reports were um aligned with the yes they were aligned with it and so so i think that's important that we continue that you know that it it's transparent through the process and it sounds like that's what's going to happen here and one of the things that i mean sorry this uh strategic priority here around supporting innovation there may be a team that is
126working on like what innovative strategies can we use or how can we promote innovation how can we encourage innovation how can we be prepared for something a major turn in the road like zoom um but that doesn't mean that we've shifted our focus which is how do we remain competitive and how do we use innovation to remain competitive so yeah and i think that was something i know that it's really important to me because i so often have seen strategic plans as they should be focused on incremental change right you're taking something from here and you're trying to get it to here and that's important you need to be doing that and that's why i was happy to see the prayer one of the six priorities be around innovation which i would as i look
127at this side of the room you know use that to your advantage to not necessarily just follow others but to truly be that leader that greendale is and can be in so many different ways and so don't be afraid to take some of those bold risks as long as they're calculated and save 150 000 jonathan no chicken but but uh if they they don't have to always save money but um don't be afraid to take those bold risks and and kind of lean into this because i think that's what's going to really allow greendale schools to be even better than it is you know today and i think one of the other things that i've learned over the years is that you always overestimate what you can do in a year and you underestimate what
128you can do in three or five years and so as you're looking out that year and trying to take on the world you know realize that that's not just uh what happens at greendale schools that's what happens everywhere so continue to have those bold ideas and push the envelope as much as possible but realize that um that's how the world works and then i think that implementation team that you mentioned dr schroeder uh was just so critical as you're thinking about how to make this happen so as you're coming up with the specific items that you're going to do you know what is that who are those group of individuals that are really taking the bull by the horns if you will and and driving this forward so that it becomes part of the responsibility
129of everyone here at greendale schools but it has leaders in each one of those different priority areas if i may just because it bridges the last two comments so thor just brought the idea of glad to see and you know the innovation piece and mayor you're asking a question about do we need to prepare for the next you know thing that might be surprising um i actually again you one of the adjustments you made you may or may not noticed it but you actually have four pillars now and um that came out of again kind of my watching the patterns of these high performers across sectors but particularly in education sector um there seems to be four buckets of work if you will about teaching and learning you know you can look at the names
130of them but you have those four pillars in teaching and learning in human resources because again i'm guessing it's around 85 percent of your budget or somewhere you know 80 or more anyway is around you know because it's a labor-intensive world in this field um so that the human resources part your community engagement and development part and then what you do with finances operations and facilities the operational side so you have you have work in each of those core pillars which gives you what what i saw those that you need to do that to make sure you're not missing a major aspect of the operation and i think it particularly has board members that you should feel um get some confidence and come and maybe come for as much as you can in your in
131your stewardship role knowing that you know you're not missing a major area of educational system and i've seen some plans without one of those four and i think it's a blind spot that can often can come back and bite them so for example they might work in all but community engagement and then that comes up and something surprises them or they're working really well on innovation in education and developing really good people work with kids and all that but they aren't minding the operational side and then that bites them so again i think um the plan that the administration's bringing forward is a balanced approach um and it's aligned with a really high effect highly effective organizations and again i just want to share that point too i hope that gives you some comfort there
132mary and thor thank you and i think you know it's important i'm sorry it's important to um this continues to be a living and breathing documents so you know last month we approved the calendar of reports so we're going to hear a report this next year on the communication and that relates to you know connecting with families and community we're going to hear a report on you know teacher compensation and benchmarking competence you know benchmarking that that relates to our cultivating exceptional effective staff so i think as we hear those reports we'll always want to tie back to the strategic plan and and make sure that we're hearing the things and we're we're highlighting things that will move things forward anything from the students i think paris would maybe be online or online yeah and
133wes you know i don't i don't want to put you on the spot or anything i know today's your first meeting but any initial reaction to to the the strategic plan or the um the vision and the mission that you saw tonight and heard tonight um i think the strategic plan looks good um i think that one of the better parts of it is that you can adapt with it and that we can change along with it if things aren't working and i think with that that's probably one of the more helpful things for students is just being able to consistently adapt to their needs all right thank you that's a good point paris anything that you'd like to add i think you're joining us virtually tonight she's up there are you on mute paris
134or we might be a mute so she might perhaps we'll make sure to connect with her at another meeting anything else um but otherwise we will bring this back at our next board meeting in august to review and approve um at that time just again a thank you to all all of the um stakeholders in this because i i know it took a lot of time and effort so so i don't know that they're out there watching right now but the entire list including two of our board members helping uh be part of that process um danny i was here earlier too she was on it as well i saw her yep it was intense it was an intense 24 hours yeah it was broken up it wasn't like 24 hours straight no sleep they
135got they got they got water occasionally right right all right thank you again thank you thank you thanks all right um then we are at the end of the agenda any additional comments from visitors this evening seeing none we are adjourned and our next board meeting is the