001hello everybody hello hey thor it's kim salem joined us again i don't see her hi i'm here good evening there he is okay and then what about our two student representatives we have paris or axelon i do not see paris or axel on yet but they are planning to attend okay we've got another minute and then we'll start hello axel hello hey axel all right i've got seven o'clock so uh it's seven o'clock now i'll call this meeting to order roll call will show that all five board members are present and um one of our students um is attending at this point in time so at this time uh i would ask you to stand and join me in the pledge of allegiance i pledge allegiance to the flag of the united states of america
002and to the republic for which it stands one nation under god indivisible with liberty and justice for all all right at this time kim i'll ask you for any communication that you'd like to report out to the board yes this evening mr tom herman of the whitnall school district will be joining the meeting he is the consortium and youth apprenticeship coordinator for the 6603 carl perkins grant and will inform the board of changes to the perkins grant this year and going forward the district has had additional requests for wi-fi hotspots since the transition to virtual learning at the beginning of this month we currently have 155 hotspots at a cost of 280 for a required seven month commitment we are working to meet demand but may need to add costs we will update the board
003and budget needs after our decision about learning environments tonight winter break for greendale schools begins on wednesday december 23rd students return on to learning on monday january 4th 2021 the district continues to offer free meals on school days for children ages 0 to 18. in addition to the regular meal service offered tomorrow a limited number of three-day meal kits will be available first come first served at both college park and greendale high school distribution locations on monday december 28th food service will distribute five-day meal kits from the high school circle drive only meals are served 11 30 am to 1 pm or while supplies last multi-day meal packs are large and so families should come prepared to transport them greendale high school music students in the audition groups g harmony and the chamber orchestra performed
004a socially distanced concert last tuesday december 15th at the high school the event was live streamed on the district's youtube channel and the recording is posted on the channel greendale's sources of strength finished its quingo game a quarantine bingo activity today greendale community members youth and adult alike were invited to participate by completing the healthy activities shared on the group's quingo card individuals competing completing 10 or more of the healthy choices were invited to submit their card for a chance to win gift cards from local businesses thank you thanks to our students for creating this fun and supportive community activity and thanks to everyone who participated please join us in sending best wishes to jenny calhoun greendale high school main office administrative assistant on her retirement jenny has been in this role since november 2006.
005her final day at greendale high school is tuesday december 22nd also please welcome kristen hubach quebec who will be who will take over for jenny and has been busy training the past two weeks to honor the legacy of dr martin luther king jr and raise awareness about his accomplishments greendale welcomes diversity program committee and greendale schools will sponsor art and essay contests for our students the 2021 martin luther king jr contest submission deadline is january 15th winners will be invited to present their submissions to a digital mlk program on the evening in the evening on january 22nd at 6 pm entries may be submitted online or dropped off at any greendale school office complete details of the contest are shared on the district website the following donations were received by the district three thousand dollars
006from ctq inc of henderson nevada and the high school robotics program five thousand dollars from burkhard sporting goods of brookfield for the scoreboard the following donations were received by the park and rec department four hundred and three hundred dollars from two anonymous donors five hundred dollars from birmingham recycling llc to park and rec five hundred dollars from j j contractors to park and rec 366 dollars from the greendale women's club forty dollars from the adult co-wreck fall volleyball team four hundred dollars from the estate of san santa m delano to the greendale senior social club sixty-five dollars from an omni anonymous donor to the summer adventure club 150 dollars from greendale community church and 25 from marlene schuffner of to special olympics six hundred dollars from the ryman foundation for hollowings and four hundred dollars
007for movies in the park program and that concludes my communications all right thanks kim um at this time we'll take any comments from visitors and since we are virtual uh we've received some of those comments electronically so kim i believe will you be reading them again this evening yes so my internet connection seems to be better and so i will be reading them again this evening jonathan can you keep time for three minutes i do believe some of these may exceed so if you would let me know when we reach three minutes um then i will truncate the comments and continue the first comment is from scott and bernadette van lift as the parents of two elementary students we are pleased to hear that the elementary schools will be returning to the in-person hybrid model
008on january 11th as parents of a middle school student as well we have several comments on the yet to be determined plan for secondary students we would like to bring up our concerns with the full virtual option we do not understand why the previously used hybrid model is no longer a viable option based on the feedback you have received many families preferred some type of in-person learning in fact when given a choice only about 20 percent of families chose the virtual option for their students while a much larger majority chose the in-person hybrid model while we read in the report that there was some dissatisfaction with the hybrid model it is clear many preferred to have their student learning in person in some capacity if roughly 80 of families chose the choose the in-person hybrid
009model for their students at the start of the year and the district allowed families to choose between sending their student to an in-person hybrid model or a virtual learning environment then we aren't sure why you would eliminate the ability for families to choose what they think is the right learning environment for their student the criteria mentioned in the report to return to in-person learning under this option was based on herd immunity full vaccination and a community positivity rate of 10 for under 20 for 21 consecutive days which seems unrealistic at this point in the pandemic it is also not clear to us how this criteria fits with the already established criteria on the district dashboard which fits which determines a school's ability to allow for students to remain in person also it seems counter-intuitive to
010base in-person learning decisions on these criteria for middle and high school students while sending the elementary students back to school without meeting these same criteria as for the comparisons to nearby school districts we have seen positivity rates much higher than 10 percent much higher than those in greendale yet those districts remain in person as someone who works in one of those districts much larger than greendale the community positivity rate has been as high as 47 percent and the community burden rate has been in the red or at the highest level for the majority of the year we have only ever needed to close the high school one time for two week period in fact their health department issued a statement that the community spread and positivity rates did not directly impact school-age kids as a
011majority of positive school-age cases had have been the result of direct contact with another positive coping 19 person outside of school there has also been a recent article tweeted by the milwaukee journal sentinel dated december 18th that provides data showing that in-person learning is safer than expected and is not driving case spikes the article references several medical experts agreeing with the data presented and recommending schools return to in-person the general discussion is in this in the superintendent's report referencing the discussion with several area superintendents teams to paint only a negative picture of the current situation in some schools we are sure the superintendent could also find some positive data to share and point out that there have also been students who have not had to miss any school for covid related reasons for those of
012us who chose the in-person hybrid model we fully just three minutes okay then um i'll finish that sentence we fully expected there to be times that would prevent our students from attending in-person learning consistently the next comment is from yoga yogaslav zernik i would like to express how disappointed i am and the way you are handling high school in person classes during the pandemic you are continuing to ignore parents and students wishes for five days in person school instead of actively working to in fulfilling the community's demands you keep replying with politically correct emails that consist of a lot of words and no common sense we all know that in-person classes are possible during the pandemic our elementary schools operate in this manner neighboring school districts larger in size are also able to handle five-day
013in-person instruction our high school students are not learning and failing their classes the grading system is being adjusted to create the perception that virtual learning is effective when it is actually having negative consequences parents and students who are afraid of in-person school receive their option of virtual school so all i'm asking is the students and parents who want in-person classes be granted that option i bel i like to believe that greendale is a community of smart educated people who do not stop where there is a problem but will work hard to resolve it by continuing with virtual learning the only message that we are sending to our kids of how to handle a crisis is to do what you're told and not think for yourself instead of thinking for yourself and fighting for what you
014believe is right i would like to conclude with a reminder that you are here to listen and serve the people of this community and not the other way around the future of our students should not be determined by you making decisions according to your personal fears and biases the next comment is from david allison who identifies as dr i'm sorry i'm dr daniel allison my name is dr daniel allison md i'm a family practitioner and the father of three greendale students in second fifth and seventh grades i'm writing to encourage the decision to return all greendale students back to full-time five-day in-person learning the current virtual platform is extremely detrimental to the students mentally socially and academically myself and my partners have never had as many pediatric patients coming in with depression and anxiety as
015we currently do i have at least one pediatric depression or anxiety patient per day now and these kids mostly express reasoning being largely related to the virtual platform and being isolated away from friends the covid19 virus is a serious health concern however as patients under 18 show and demonstrate minimal symptoms we are actually causing severe mental and psychological damage to the future of this world i actually have had one middle school and one high school patient attempt suicide due to being virtual in the past two months we need to step back and let our kids be kids again and get them back into school if teachers are worried about contracting the virus then the teacher should be put virtual and possibly have a student teacher in the classroom for assistance in supervision i hope you
016all make the right decision based on our children's health and that your own personal reasons the next comment is from sandy mixick i think that it's also signed by tom yes the american academy of pediatrics the world health organization and the cdc all recommend children to return to in-person learning that somehow this board knows better and follows its own path unconscionable while we all are sensitive to the concerns for teachers it is time to remember they are essential workers as much as doctors police officers firefighters postal workers grocery store workers truck drivers all of whom have been working in person since day one of covid we moved to greendale four years ago strictly for the school system to say we are disappointed how the board has handled the response to the covid situation is an
017understatement back in august when we were presented with a choice of in-person learning or virtual little did we know that when we were voting for in-person learning it was going to only be two days a week every taxpayer that is using the school system should have a choice if their child is going to attend school five days a week in person or stay home for virtual schooling if the district is safe enough to let our elementary students back in school five days a week why isn't it safe for all grade levels the teacher note the teachers know this virtual learning is not working the response to failing grades is lowering the grading skill which is almost funny if it weren't reality the board's response to depression and suicidal thoughts with our children is we will
018offer counseling ridiculous when the obvious answer is to open schools our sophomore is so unmotivated and bored that with this virtual learning it is time to get it's time to get the gets back to school five days per week stream the classes for those families who wish to keep their children home you were elected by the citizens of greendale to represent us you in essence work for us you know what the constituency wants you yet you follow some other path why listen to our pleas to open schools and of course give the other families the choice if they need to stay home next comment is from jermaine murray the african-american and ethnic studies elective is essential for all students within greendale school district this conversation dates back to the early 90s when the first african-american
019studies course was introduced and students primarily african american took this elective as the years progressed the elective was ultimately dropped from the curriculum students need cultural enrichment that encompasses all races history classes have been skewed to teach slave trade important figures in the current world of europeanism greendale school district must adapt and understand that hidden figures exist in all races the course is just a first step in revealing some of the most influential people who have paved the way for black and brown people history is not only about slavery civil war us history civil rights or dr martin luther king jr it is about those who continue to sacrifice without recognition it's time to learn about historically black colleges and universities african americans in politics kwanzaa great african-american women african-american fraternities and sororities african-american inventors
020and the list goes on and on in addition we cannot forget about the native american among asian and other cultures their history is so valuable that we must continue to shed light on positive contributions within these ethnic groups teachers must step outside of their comfort zones and realize that if we continue to teach history in its current form our children will only see one side of history that doesn't depict the diversity of the village city state country and world finally this course must and i repeat must be evaluated and elevated for graduation requirements within greendale school district in the future if greendale school district welcomes diversity and not incorporate change within course requirements from a diverse history perspective what model does that provide for black and brown students in the future the next comment is
021from carolyn hottinger my name is carolyn hottinger on behalf of my family many school-aged friends greendale parents and neighbors i am begging you to open our middle school and high school buildings for in-person learning 18 area school districts are keeping their doors open one of these schools is right down 76th street here in greendale martin luther high school they have made it a priority to keep their doors open with only a short closure in mid-november as everyone did they have kids coming and going but instead of looking at that as a disruption they have shifted their mindset to celebrate the hundreds of kids that have the opportunity to be in person our students deserve a prudent decision-making process however you are feeling all of us using stale parent survey data from july and or october
022i'm cognizant of how dynamic all of the variables are but it's your responsibility to obtain relevant and inclusive data to make and support your decisions others are finding ways to adapt and move forward given the same unpredictable circumstances i understand what's right for my family might not be suitable for others however i also understand it is in your published mission statement to create multiple opportunities for learning to cater to our students unique abilities our last count of how many times the vision statements are being followed are embodied by our leadership to name a few a quality public education includes a broad range of experiences for social physical emotional intellectual and creative development and understanding different perspectives and collaborating with others are essential for success in conclusion we need to shift our mindset to open the
023doors and know it is okay if contact tracing leads to temporary quarantine with open doors you can provide opportunities for kids to come and go while developing their academic and social skills the mental health consequences many of these students are facing could perhaps be one of the most unspoken unfair and preventable results of your decision to keep doors closed please listen to your community and realize it is impossible to inspire minds with closed doors the next comment is from dale nelson i'm an 84 year old 50-year resident of greendale i want this board to know how angry and upsetting it is to see our schools closed you know the right thing is to have the children of greendale back in the classroom virtual school is shortchanging our students return to face-to-face learning the next comment
024is from pam jim poyak members of the greendale school board i am writing to express my wish that students be allowed to return to in-person learning for second semester beginning january 2021 i'm sure you've heard these themes multiple times but here are my thoughts in no particular order sports are in session school should be in session altering the grading skill to accommodate remote learning is not acceptable that just proves that students are overall not thriving in this environment various school districts in our area are open why exactly is greendale different my understanding is that martin luther high school less than a mile north and in the same village is open again why is gsd different don't we all get the same guidance from the same health department mental health of our students must be taken
025into consideration and made an absolute priority it doesn't matter what grade senior junior eighth grade it's all in it's impacting all students i don't sense that enough consideration is being given here acknowledging that there will be quarantines kids will be coming and going we simply need to adapt until the virus is under control what exactly can grades why exactly can the grade schools attend in person but gms and ghs cannot sure there is movement in the hallways between classes that the grade schools don't have but we must find creative ways to mitigate that movement thankfully my son attends the dual enrollment academy at wctc and has had in-person instructional semester i'd hate to think how he would have fared had he had a full load of ghs classes this semester let's find a way to
026open our schools the next comment is from adrian roche hello i'm writing to voice my concerns regarding greendale schools our kids are suffering they need to be in school to learn to socialize to feel normal again we have changed our lives enough this year and now we need to move ahead we all hunkered down for thanksgiving and the big scary rising numbers didn't come as expected and at the same time some of the sports teams began playing still no spike please allow the kids to resume to normal life next comment is from jennifer brest i have some suggestions for the meeting tonight maybe just have juniors and seniors go back after break because they are the ones that really have to focus on getting into i'm going to college and getting prepared for college these
027last years of high school my oldest son went to greendale high school and he was very prepared for college from greendale high school and so i think these kids need that and it's very important that they get that if juniors and seniors just go back monday through friday that's a thought another thought would be why can't they use space in other areas of the school if space is an issue because i know a lot of teachers aren't there if they still need to have a large class and there wasn't space could they use the auditorium the library the band room lunchroom a lobby that is not being used for anything during the day there are these are big bigger areas and could be used by a large amount of students that could be spaced apart
028i just really think and i'm speaking for many parents and kids that these high schoolers especially juniors and seniors need to be in school monday through friday they need the structure they need to be in person to see their teachers learn from their teachers face to face and to be prepared for college because once they get to college their professors don't care they're not going to make it easier for them it's going to be a struggle if they don't get proper schooling that is needed right now which is in person i really hope that you will consider my thoughts the school board is wrong the school board rushes their judgments the school board isn't doing oh i'm sorry this is from tony jacobson who is a voice administrator the school board is wrong the school
029board rushes their judgments the school board isn't doing things exactly as they should be done and the school board uses unqualified people let's start a petition to have people removed this is what people will say that don't want to see progress happen the school board should get used to criticism the school board has been and continues to do great work in some cases making history along the way nothing will ever be good enough for some people however the voice recognizes your achievements please don't stop don't let the naysayers slow you down if you did nothing at all there would be something negative to say however every time you're criticized about what you've done we know you've done something and are trying keep up the good work the community sees everything you do for diversity and
030our children thank you the next comment is from eric steele as you are aware a petition has formed to demonstrate the number of families that support the full return to five-day a week in-person learning the body of the petition is below and can be seen at this link i've attached pdf files with the list of signatures and comments we will be looking forward to discussion of this topic at tonight's meeting next comment is from adela smith according to kim a the superintendent the cases of covid during thanksgiving was not as high as anticipated thus she stated that it is safe for the grade schoolers to go back full time if it is safe for them then it is safe for the rest of the kids which includes middle schoolers and high schoolers our neighboring school
031districts franklin muskego and 16 other districts are now open this includes martin luther high school who works with our own health department if they can be open then we can be open to as a result of stay at home learning students grades have dropped rather than recognizing that stay at home learning is not working and finding ways to reconcile the issue we instead lower the grade system this actually will hurt them in the long run since they will be ill prepared for the actual standards required when they go to college the cdc in our very own governor evers recommends that kids should be in school and that we need to put away our fears and misconceptions that kids have to be home we have learned a lot about this virus and how to protect us
032and our students following the cdc guidelines we feel that we can safely send our students back to school as parents we fully support and reinforce these guidelines to our kids we understand that an outbreak can occur and some kids will be sent home or quarantined but the majority of students will still be in school learning we believe that this does not disrupt the learning process of our kids we should not overlook the emotional toll and devastation that stay at home learning has inflicted on many of our kids giving a 1 800 number is not a solution when there is a better way of solving the problem by sending kids back to school we hope that you will reconsider all these factors that clearly show that sending kids back to school is the best option the
033next comment is from heather godley i would like to urge the district delegate at the january 2021 wasb convention to support resolution instruction on indigenous tribes i would further like to encourage our district to ensure that we meet and exceed all act 31 obligations by collecting and tracking compliance with this act regardless of whether the resolution passes or not i am pleased that miss olsen will be rep will be presenting quarterly equity reports and feel that these reports will be would be a perfect place for updates on how greendale provides instruction at the elementary middle and high school levels on the history culture and tribal sovereignty of the federally recognized american indian tribes and bands located in wisconsin i would also like to urge greendale to vote for resolution 2110 school district mascot logos and
034imagery to ensure that wisconsin schools evaluate and take steps to eliminate imagery practices or processes that may create a school environment that is not safe and welcoming to all students i would furthermore encourage our greendale wasb delegate to take an active leadership role in encouraging other districts to support this resolution given the failure of a similar resolution to pass it last year's wasb delegate assembly thank you the next message is from dale gilbertson please open up the expletive schools think about it liquor stores are open walmart is open neighboring schools are open you guys have made this political you are being selfish you aren't thinking about the kids let's get back kids back to school think about their well-being and their mental wellness i just really think you're not thinking about the kids i remember
035maybe you do too when you were in high school those were the most impressionable years of our life and some of the best times i made a lot of good friends let's just open up the schools i'm even willing to compromise let's figure out something but to say no you can't go to school let's keep it virtual again i think you are thinking about yourselves and not kids everything around us is open open up the schools the next comment is from carrick pocious i am writing today in support of returning to in-person instruction this should be done as soon as possible as the parents of two high school students i can report that they have suffered academically and socially as a result of the current educational structure they would benefit from being with peers and
036adults on a daily basis to the extent there are challenges it should be noted that other area schools public and private franklin new berlin whitnell martin luther for example have been able to do it there is about this is about the health and well-being of our students all of the data indicates that schools are not spreaders of the illness dr fauci supports schools returning to in-person instruction as does the american academy of pediatrics for the same reasons no one knows when this particular virus will go away if ever waiting is not a strategy or a solution to the extent that there is risk in returning to school the risk of not returning is far greater the next comment is from john and nicole summerfeld as parents of senior sam sommerfeld at greendale high school we
037write to you with our concerns regarding the five day of virtual learning that is in place until january 15th and possibly thereafter it is apparent that our district is looking for ways to avoid impersonate class instruction a plethora of excuses continue to be presented to our community it is a smoke screen for what is really going on there is clear evidence that five days of virtual learning is creating an abundance of learning difficulties amongst our students critical changes to the grading skill along with extended accommodations to assignment deadlines is setting our students up for failure in the real world not success the greendale school district has always had pride in their exemplary report card at the state level you successfully prepare our students for the next level in life after graduation however the way that
038our district is handling this pandemic is doing the exact opposite instead of making excuses about why students are not in school you should be focusing on ways to keep them in school there are more students and staff that are healthy than those that are not utilizing extra space within the building such as the band room the mpr and the gym allows additional space for social distancing of students the mental health aspect is detrimental to our students as well we check with our children on a regular basis as to how they are mentally handling their lives being turned upside down as you know people appear normal on the outside but struggle deeply on the inside we would hate to have a suicide within our community that was avoidable being ins being in school socializing participating in
039school activities is necessary to every student's mental health this is equally important to learning that happens in a school environment not only have you allowed students to not be in school you have also taken away every other factor that relates to their daily lives as a senior the greendale school district has stripped our son from the memories that everyone has as a student in high school the lack of those memories started last year when our son was a junior sure we didn't know the impact of covid last spring however prom sports and social gatherings became a figment of their imaginations the loss of these memories has continued into the fall and winter of 2020. not only were they told that they would they could go to school based on the letters of the alphabet they
040also had no football under friday night lights homecoming pep rally socializing with school friends with within school with friends and teachers plus they are not being given the education that is expected in our district the list goes on and on a multitude of surrounding school districts have figured out ways to keep students or at least being given an option to remain in school learning and participating in school functions unfortunately greendale has decided that the best option was to have the kids at home this has created problems this has created more problems than having students learn in person apparently figuring out ways to keep students in school was more difficult in nature and perhaps the easiest way out the information in the previous surveys is obsolete a lot has changed since october and the kogan 19
041perceptions and logic have changed by the cdc other health organizations and community leaders too no decision is easy but it is important that you look very carefully at all information statistics and opinions from community members going forward we are hopeful that you will wisely choose to keep our students in school starting in january 2021. it is imperative for the mental well-being of all students there is too much to lose by keeping them home the next comment comes from faith wooden i am the mom of three kids in the greendale school system i cannot express how grateful we are that our kids are in this truly wonderful school with such amazing teachers that really care about kids the future and really strive to make an impact and difference in their lives in regards to the thoughts
042on making african-american and ethnic studies and mandatory graduation requirement i have just a couple of thoughts as a white woman with children that are biracial first off i just wanted to mention that i never thought that i had any issues for goodness sake i married and love a beautiful black man well 20 years into our marriage although i had a pretty well-rounded exposure to his family and culture i was not prepared for this year at all when the george floyd incident occurred it erupted a whole lot of conversation in our household and i started getting nervous and shifty i could not believe how much i felt the need to defend myself and my own white family and the belief system that made me feel secure and who i was there was a small amount of
043time that i panicked and wondered if our marriage would sustain through this then i decided to dig deeper and try harder to understand wow am i glad i did my entire thought process of how i see our country has changed my heart has changed and in some ways i feel like everything has changed this is all of our history we need to be willing to face it grieve it and move it forward in it without ignoring it we need to learn how to be better be to be humble to listen we teach our children all kinds of things to prepare them for their future a class like this is only going to make them better informed more empathetic and just better people to send into society as a whole how can we not want this
044for our kids to be better than we have been all parents want that for their kids statistics say that for racism to truly end it would take a hundred years let the hundred years begin today let us be better and be humble and grow together and most of all keep the conversation going and one final comment um my name is ken kenyatta i'm sorry is that correct pronunciation paris it's kenyetti and yeti thank you i want to say it correctly ken yeti wouldn't first off i want to say thank you to paige for having enough courage to step forward in trying to make grindel a better place for everyone i currently have two students in the school district and had one who recently graduated from greendale high school it is my opinion that african american
045and ethnic studies should be a mandatory course for several reasons the cliche of out of sight and out of mind seems to be the answer when anyone wants to bring up history of african americans in us history there is a lot of ugly truth that is often glanced over or swept under the rug when the mention of slavery systematic racism or equality for all needs to be discussed there also is a lack of general knowledge of the positive contributions that african americans have provided in everyday life all of those things could be addressed in that course one definition of history is the whole series of events connected with someone or something another is a continuous typical record of important events martin luther king stated nothing in all the world is more dangerous than sincere ignorance
046and conscientious conscious stupidity most people have heard dr king rosa parks and jackie robinson many do not know about clennan king jr sarah rector or louis r purnell jr as an african-american teen i was never taught about them in school i know what it feels like to have been judged by implicit bias from others i've been mistreated or treated differently due to the color of my skin i constantly have to be calculated and how i act speak or respond to everyday life situations it is very alarming that my children are being raised in a society where i have to have tough discussions about gene bottom ahmad aubry and george floyd my three kids were in greendale schools in 2018 and 2019 when the news stations were in front of the high school broadcasting a protest
047due to a racial comments being made stereotypes and division will continue in our society until we learn that we all have 206 bones heart that cares and a mind that can choose right over wrong when the day comes that our children will be able to go to school again hopefully they will thank sarah boone as they are ignored as they are ironing their clothes they will remember garrett morgan in driver's education class be glad to hear school announcements compliments of james west and when they are doing school assignments on their laptops give mark dean his props if you have to google any of these names that's a good thing education should challenge us and make us better people i feel that african americans and ethnic studies class should be a requirement because it will prepare
048this next generation to be better people overall thank you for your time and consideration and that concludes the citizen comments all right thank you kim we received a lot of good feedback from the community we will discuss um some of the items that are brought up at tonight's meeting so there's some discussion about some of the course changes we'll be discussing that in item 4.1 where we talk a little bit about the proposed course changes for the next school year we will talk about um in section 5.3 and update on learning and reopening planning so many of the comments were related to that and then i also heard a comment regarding some of the wasb resolutions that is slated for one of our january board meetings where we will discuss that and give direction to
049our board representatives um at this time we don't respond to the comments but we will discuss and and take to heart um some of the comments as we go through the the items on the agenda um all right then uh continuing on with the agenda the next item on the agenda is approval of minutes we have both the regular meeting minute and the closed session meeting minutes of our last board meeting on december 7th is there any questions otherwise i'm looking for a motion to approve i move approval of the regular meeting minutes of december 7th and also the closed session meeting minutes of december 7th as outlined in agenda items 1.1 and 1.2 is there a second a second there's been a motion a second to approve the regular and closed session meeting minutes
050of december 7th 2020 any further discussion did i call for a roll call vote kim yes noelle yes kathy yes or yes and i am yes motion carries uh next item on the agenda is the financial report so um jonathan anything that you'd like to highlight in this month uh financial report um so the financial report for the month ending november 30th of 2020 the revenues were comparable with prior year so revenues were at seven point three six percent of what was budgeted that compares to seven point six six percent in the 1920 year i mean then on the expenditure side through the end of november 27.47 of budgeted expenses that compares to 27.30 in the 1920 year um so we're still tracking on pace with our our budget for this year all right any
051questions otherwise i'm looking for a motion to approve this month's checks and disbursements questions i know well i think there was a question from thor just one one question i know that this year is obviously a very different year for a lot of reasons with um you know what we budgeted and what's actually happening but i noticed there was a few items in particular that were a higher percentage within our area even though our overall budgets were it should be and i just wanted to confirm that we're not necessarily worried as of today around some things that are going on within our budget in those different areas even though they might be a little bit higher in some line items and lower in some other items uh correct store so we are going to find
052that there are things that came in higher than expected so one example would be wireless hotspots we've seen with some of our periods of virtual learning that the requests have exceeded the numbers we thought we would be at the beginning of the year so it's definitely an example of an area where those costs have been higher this first part of the year but there are areas where we're trying to maintain that budget and we certainly did a lot in being creative this year to provide a balanced budget with the additional cost of providing hybrid learning this first semester so at this point when we look overall at the budget would not have that that concern if i could add um this is probably for our discussion a little bit later when we talk about the
053schools and reopening um but i'm just curious as to implications to the budget with different decisions that we might have to make moving forward and if there are i don't know if there have been projections or not yet i know this is november we're talking about but um as we move into january february um just wondering what types of um adjustments that we might be looking at um so i'm not exactly sure how to respond to that one depending on what the discussion is this evening we can certainly provide that financial impact but at this point we've done our budget based on our hybrid learning environment and identified the three quarters of a million that we had to align in new expenditures one-time expenditures to stay in budget and any new expenses would be dependent
054on the the type of learning model that we're trying to provide and what that may bring in new costs does that help with your question kathy yes it does and i know our discussion later will probably bring to light some of the other questions that i have great all right thank you any other questions otherwise noelle i'm looking for a motion to approve sure i approve checks in the amount of 335.45 disbursements of 2 million seven 464 fifty eight dollars ninety nine cents for a total amount of two million eight hundred and seventy three thousand eighty nine dollars and forty four cents as outlined in agenda two point two is there a second i second there's been a motion and a second to approve checks and disbursements totaling two million eight hundred seventy three thousand
055eighty nine dollars and forty four cents any further discussion call for a roll call vote starting with kim yes noelle yes kathy yes thor yes and i am yes motion carries um continuing on i'm sorry i've got so many windows open um continuing on next time on the agenda is new business so this is our course changes for the 2021-2022 school year we heard we had a discussion about some of the new courses for next year there was some community conversation there's community feedback regarding the proposed course um to the social studies program um so you know kim if there's things that you want to share and talk about i know you you um went through the the course program last month or our last board meeting um so anything else that you would like
056to highlight yes i think that maggie has uh maggie olsen has a few things that she wanted to highlight in response to some of the questions and comments before the board takes action thank you yes thanks um there were some comments tonight in our last board meeting regarding the addition to the african-american and ethnic studies elective course and i want to speak to their comments tonight several community members students staff alumni and families want us to do more and i agree we need to do more and that's why we are taking this step and it's not the only step we're taking this class edition is just one part of the greendale welcomes diversity plan and we're not stopping there this work is too important for us to do that there were two themes that have
057surfaced regarding the addition of this class that i would like to address one is the need to have a broader representation in our school social studies curriculum and i agree historically greendale like many school districts nationwide did not have the curriculum understanding and comfort with material to teach history with representation of all voices in 2018 we adapted a new curriculum and it gave careful attention to showcase narratives and perspectives of ethnic and racial groups that have typically been minimalized in historical representations we also have worked with our staff and anti-racism training from nurturing diversity partners ubuntu ymcas on learning racism ongoing training with columbia's teacher college and many more to increase our teachers understanding and readiness of authentically teaching these important histories in every social studies class that being said we still have work to
058do in this area and we're committed to continuing to evaluate our work the other thing that i saw that came up is addressed in our district scorecard and echoed by many there is a need to diversify our teaching workforce we are partnering with tntp to come up with a strategy to address this and i've asked rashida evans who is a partner at tntp to speak to the work we'll be starting with them in the new year rashida thank you for coming can you just share a little bit about how um greendale is partnering with tntp sure uh so we're excited to partner with greendale on this work um it's something that our organization has been working on for quite some time um the idea of teacher diversification i want to lead by saying that one
059we know that when we have a diverse staff all students benefit from that and so i think it's important to name that on the front end um to the work that tnt tntp is going to be doing with greendale we want to understand we're going to begin the work with the landscape analysis to understand what the conditions are right now i know in talking to julie that that the district has made some efforts to diversify the staff in the past so this is not necessarily a new effort but we want to understand what the barriers are as well as the context surrounding greendale so thinking about like the number of candidates that greendale even has access to so the number of candidates of color that exists in the surrounding areas and then we and so
060that's like one piece of it uh we want to understand what the processes are within greendale there might be barriers um to getting teachers uh candidates of color to apply to greendale so looking at um like is your website inviting uh looking at what what are the questions that are being asked what are the processes how are we prepping the folks who are actually doing the interviewing how are we accounting for uh in implicit bias and unconscious bias like all of these things are things that we want to understand in order to be able to leave greendale with the recommendations that they can then take and put into a strategic plan specifically around hiring practices and so our work is going to go um through through uh just through the the landscape analysis piece we'll
061also do some training with anybody any of the folks within the district who actually impact the teacher experience so anybody from the recruitment end to the interviewing side and then those who are actually managing and supporting teachers in schools because what we know is that when we talk about teacher diversification it's one thing to get candidates to apply it's another thing to even hire those candidates but then the real work is going to come with retention and so the work that we want to do is going to look at the entire spectrum so that as you get more access to candidates of color that they actually come to greendale and they stay at greendale and they perform really really well at greendale um so that's really the gist of our work um just to give
062you a just a little bit more uh color to what the work is gonna look like we're also going to be doing some interviews so we'll talk to current teachers um if they're current uh their current teachers of color within greendale will want to learn more about their perspective and just some things that we can do more of within greendale to make the environment a place where more teachers of color will come and will stay um there may be some surveys so we'll work with uh with the senior staff at greendale to really talk about what that process is going to look like but we wanted to be one that is not just like looking at numbers but also really like specific to the context of greendale it really speaks to the realities that uh
063greendale is facing so that's sort of the work in a nutshell and i'm happy to answer questions if you have them thanks rashida um i appreciate that so board members any questions for ms evans i guess i would just like to thank you for coming tonight um you know i think we've talked about it several times over the past couple of years how important it is for our staff to represent and look like and sound like um our student population so i think that is a key goal we've seen that in some objectives and some goal setting that we've done we're obviously not there and i think what i heard you say rasheeda that i appreciate is we're not just looking to update our equal employment opportunity statement on our job postings um that that's
064the minimum that we can do nor are we sitting back and saying well there are no people of color who are applying the candidate pool isn't there we're not saying that either we're saying how do we partner with organizations like yourself to really go after this and figure out ways to maneuver through this process so that it will take time but you know we we start um growing that student popular i'm sorry that that teacher population so that uh we have uh better representation and more representation for our uh teachers um because it will only make us stronger as a district and it will only make us better for our for our students absolutely so thank you for coming um i have a question go ahead thank you ms evans again for coming tonight and
065speaking to us i was kind of wondering what um a timeline might look like for the implementation of some of the processes and procedures and um some of the great things that you spoke of sure so the work that we're doing with greendale right now um we're looking at about three months to do the landscape analysis so the the contract that we have right now will take us through the analysis part what i may not have said but i think it's really an important piece is that we're also going to do oh i think i did say this do trainings with the staff members who interface with teachers um so what we're doing right now is going to take about three months where we end with this contract is with our recommendations for the next
066steps that greendale can take um so we but like we would be of course we'd be happy to work with greendale through implementation that's not what what we are sort of contracted to do right now but would love to be able to do that work with greendale so we'll take them through the point of like understanding here's the context here's everything we've been able to learn and understand about the context of greendale here's some recommendations that we would make for you guys to take um as next steps and then of course we would offer to be able to do to develop that out and put that in the form of a strategic plan that and then offer implementation support after that okay thank you my my question and thank you rashida too for being with
067us tonight um and and for the work that you're about to endeavor with us um i i kind of had a similar question to kim and maybe you kind of answered it already but just in terms of what what does that look like not just the timeline but um like who who from the district are you all working with i assume it's the admin team um and like how does that get laid out and will students be part of this process also yeah um it's a great question um so we started by working uh with this i'm going to go by titles and now my name's superintendent hr and uh director of equity and instruction so that's what's sort of where we've kicked off this work um and then over time like we're going to
068work with that team to identify who else needs to be in the in the picture so what we know is that the first part we're going to do some vision setting and so the three the three folks that i just named are going to identify the folks that should be a part of that vision setting one of the things that we believe when we discuss this um just just friday i think um is that we want the community to be a part of like something with vision setting we don't think it should just be top down we really want to engage the community and what's important about this work to them so that you have some investment um and you have voice what i believe is that whenever we're doing work like this is that
069we always want to ask the question um whose voices are missing whose voices are not at the table and really try to pull those voices into the room and so we'll start with vision setting so that will be a core group of people that may or may not include students uh kim and maggie and julie i'll let you speak to if students are going to be there but definitely when we get into some of more of the anecdotal data so like talking about the experience of the greendale community we definitely want to include student voice um we've talked about including parent voice as well as teacher voices so um we want to hear from them as we gather the data and then when we get into the training portion of it uh we want to
070include hr um principals aps and if you have instructional coaches or folks that are really supporting teachers we'd love to include those people as well as in the in the trainings that we'll be doing great i and i'm really happy to hear the community aspect as you probably already have think been told about our community is very tapped into our school district and uh we already have some very um strong voices in the community that i i think will be very important in this process as well so thank you you're welcome thank you for having me all right any other questions for ms evans otherwise um maggie is there anything else that you'd want to point out or highlight yeah i just wanted to thank rashida for being here and then just acknowledge that we
071do have these challenges we are still requesting approval by the board with an understanding that this is not an isolated act um but part of a larger larger movement we all have a role in working towards the um the green now that was laid out in the greendale welcomes diversity action plan one that is welcoming one that is inclusive one that is kind and one that eradicates racism and racial inequities in our village and i'm really excited about the role that greendale schools is playing today and in the future so i'm really hoping that it does get approved today at this meeting thanks all right thanks maggie uh a couple other comments that we had heard um at the citizen commons was making this a required course and maybe kim or maggie if you could
072just kind of speak to this you know tonight's board meeting is we're looking at some changes to our high school classes we've added a handful we're deleting some we're modifying the the ap chemistry class um my understanding is you know we're not setting graduation standards but can you may speak to that and kind of differentiate this piece versus some of the other uh work that um the community is asking about yeah i'll start kim and then i'll throw it to you um uh yeah so this is just the first step in the process is to get the course approved and then um looking at high school graduation requirements that comes later on and looking at if we could add some um elective um requirements and kim when does that fall into the board so we
073it would require a policy change policy 45.1 is our graduation policy that outlines all graduation requirements so if the board would like us to explore the possibility of expanding our required courses for graduation then it would happen through policy committee and recommendations like uh your approving board policy tonight so we would reopen policy 345.1 and review our graduation requirements as a whole all right thanks kim any other questions about the course edition or any comments that people would like to share so as i said you know there are a number of uh changes uh some additions we've spent um you know we heard some community feedback and had some conversations talking about the african-american and ethnic studies course that would be added to the social studies at the high school level as well as a
074number of other classes um as well as some deletions so any other questions or comments people would like to to share at this time i have a question regarding the um ethnic studies course um i'm not sure if the board receives any updates on like student enrollment or marketing efforts of courses but i would be interested in hearing um specifically for for this course um some of that information yeah steve do you want to speak to that a little like we will definitely we can bring that back him um and what we're doing to do the recommendations i know historically um steve you can kind of speak to what that looks like kim i heard you say one thing for sure that was the marketing piece to this which has not um started yet um
075all the students when we get back from break we'll start getting materials and uh and explanations of all opportunities that are available for them next year so the the course selection process really doesn't start up until after exams are over for um the first semester and could you remind me your other part of your question please sure uh mr lewis i was wondering down the road if the board receives any updates regarding to what avenues were used for marketing and class enrollment um updates on courses like this i'm not sure if that was something that had been reported in in the past to the board or um a couple things one is uh that that used to be part of the report that was submitted last um at the last board meeting we used to
076have updates um from all of all of the previous approved courses it was becoming a very lengthy addendum and so uh i think that uh maybe through board communications and uh through miss amidzic we could give an update after the course selection process is over to give the board some information about the new classes and the numbers that uh came from them hey thank you ms salem i could also address that in my equity updates as well and give a um kind of a overview of what that would look like and how we marketed and the numbers for that class as well in that update as well thank you miss i think that will be very very helpful so i think yeah so great questions kim so i think what i heard is you know
077as maggie as you provide some equity updates that'll be just part of the conversation so i you know we have um something on in april scheduled for an update on the greendale coalition for diversity equity and inclusion uh and then perhaps steve you know given given the attention that we want to keep on this that when you report out again next year so next you know november time frame um you know perhaps you could just give us an update as to what of these classes that were off that are added this year uh did they did they um did they uh contin you know were they offered or were they how many students enrolled in it um just we can guess then for there like you said it had it was something that we had
078done in the past given the attention that we're having we might want to bring that back next year just to see i think by this time we'll have we'll know how many students enrolled or are taking this class in the fall of 2021 because that's the first time that any of these new classes will be offered correct it's the fall of 2021. okay i can certainly do that and i'll make a note to put that back on this report thanks what other questions or comments does the board have regarding these course editions i just wanted to point out once again what you stated earlier maggie which was there was a revision for crossed history courses which brought forward many of the hidden figures that weren't part of our courses in the past and then this
079course that's being requested is a course that essentially sits as a capstone opportunity for those that are in taking going through that track um so this is um not replacing um or we're not extracting any of that content that's already been put into our new curriculum it's rather building on top of that and giving a much deeper dive much more deeper dive style course for folks to dive in that shoes that's correct thor all right unless there's any other questions kim you also shared a listing of estimated class they're related so these would be part of the curriculum budget for next year's budget any other questions uh regarding these uh course changes yeah so just one thing because with the estimated cost i i notice it looks like it's um standard across that 500 summer
080curriculum hours is that pretty standard for our summer curriculum for different courses is that kind of a district um like number or because i and and i'm wondering is that 500 like in total or is that for each participant we're budgeting based on what we anticipate would be the time commitment it is not a guaranteed here you go here's 500 to plan it is based on actual work completed based on the courses that are running so those are estimated costs not um guaranteed distributions of funds all right thank you all right then um if there's no more questions i'm looking for a motion to approve i move approval of the course changes for the 2021-22 school year as outlined in agenda item 4.1 one second there's been a motion a second to approve the course
081changes for 2021 2022 school year any further discussion did i call for a roll call vote kim yes noel yes kathy yes or yes and i am yes motion carries uh thank you everyone for the work on that uh next item on the agenda 4.2 of proof policy so we have two items on the agenda for a policy approval i think at last board meeting uh there was a quick request to break these out so the the first one is a number of policies regarding school board administration or operations of it as well as the purchasing um so any questions or discussions when we went through it there were some modifications to some of the policies um not significant and material so i don't think there was any material changes since the last board meeting
082but any questions then i'll look for a motion to approve policies as outlined in agenda m4.2 a move approval of policies outlined in agenda item 4.2 171 172 policy 173 174 175 175 rule 178 184 uh 185 190 222 and an exhibit one of 222 as well exhibit two of 672. um i'm sorry i thought those were those two separated out or not i'm sorry not the not policy 222 but the exhibit exhibits one and two yeah one and two the policy is separated out yep yeah so exhibits one and two but not the policy for 222 and then the policy 672 purchasing is there a second second there's been a motion in a second to approve policies that is outlined in the agenda item 4.2 any further discussion all right then i call for
083a roll call vote kim yes no al yes or yes kfb yes and i'm yes motion carries uh sorry to throw you for a loop there i called you guys out and then the next item is the superintendent of school so again this is a policy that highlights um you know the policies of what we would do uh during replacements and there's some conversation so we separated these because there was some questions about some of the requirements so any first comments or questions on this one otherwise i look for a motion to approve so i just i wanted to reiterate that i i just wanted to separate it out because i did feel that the one qualification for the superintendent to um i'm trying to look for the wording that that they will um what
084was the wording there you removed the eligibility that there's eligibility to hold a wisconsin license to teach so i just feel that it is critical for our superintendent of schools to have eligibility for that holding a teaching license and and i would think that's standard in other districts as well i i haven't really gone to look but that's something that i would like to see not changed in the language all right and thank you kathy certainly wanted to respect that and and you did share that feedback last board meeting i think the consensus was that we would uh remove that language to allow for a broader um broader pool of candidates uh you know in the future as we look to rep you know to hire a superintendent uh and some of those may come
085from other administrative roles whether there's like a director of hr or a business services director um or even uh individuals who are in the schools but maybe don't have a teaching license like a school counselor so i think that's why um we talked about leaving it in there and i don't know did anyone else have any thought on that or might i just wanted to know if anybody else had any input on that if anybody feels that's necessary or not i think we discussed that at the last board meeting and i think we went around the table and and and i think there was um agreement that we would remove it um you know and and certainly recognizing that we may not completely agree on that but any other questions about the superintendent of schools
086policy all right i'm looking for a motion to approve um policy number 222. a move to approve agenda item 4.3 policy 222 superintendent of schools do i have a second a second there's been a motion a second to approve policy number 222 for superintendent of schools any further discussion then i call for a roll call vote starting with kim yes noel yes kathy no thor yes and i am yes motion carries um so thank you everyone um regarding the the old business there or the unfinished business then we'll move on to new business so the first item that we're here to talk about is education for employment and use of perking grants um so uh kim you mentioned the beginning of tonight's meeting that mr tom herman is joining us and i believe you said
087from the whitnell school district right yes he actually is a shared employee and is paid for through the consortium grant for youth apprenticeship coordinator and perkins mr herman joined our team in 2019 and he spends one day a week in our counseling office to support our career and technical education opportunities he has been instrumental in recruiting and training mentors for our connect program and he is works with students directly to find apprenticeship opportunities and support that as well as recruit for dual enrollment academies and other school to work opportunities so we have four years been working with the consortium of five school districts to collaborate on our school to work and work with matc on that as well and one of the things that we do is we apply for perkins grant as a consortium
088and so i welcome tom to provide you with some updates on changes to perkins funding as you're considering our 6603 agreement with the consortium hello everyone uh thank you very much for having me tonight my name is tom herman um i do work with the five schools all of their logos are up here um in order to provide for a regional approach which is the very forward thinking model that greendale and these other school districts have bought into to really give our students experiences and what i mean by that is is to get them out and doing things like an apprenticeship so we have a number of our students that are doing apprenticeships within our schools our goal for this year was 50 for all the schools happy to report that we're at 51 already
089this year last year for greendale high school we had three uh youth apprentices and this year we already have seven and uh and the numbers keep going up so um a lot of good things are happening there um the most important thing that was discussed uh for tonight is the shared classes and uh the students of our five schools are offered 63 shared classes and kim can tell me otherwise but i don't believe that there's another five districts in the state of wisconsin that band together to offer classes to each other's kids it is a very forward thinking policy it's extremely fiscally sound and it just as we talked about earlier tonight in terms of equity and access it really opens the doors for a lot of kids to have classes that they wouldn't otherwise
090have which is fantastic so along the left side of the the document the slide you'll see all the shared classes offered at each of those respective schools this year was a little bit odd because of covid but we normally have you know several students that take up the opportunity the biggest class is usually the rotc program that usually draws students from every school over to greenfield and and then the rest of classes kind of fill in every year that list of classes change based on you know what each of the schools can reasonably offer but it makes a lot of fiscal sense in that those classes are already going to be offered anyways so why not fill them up uh and get opportunities like i said to other students regarding the whole carl perkins grant
091in addition to the shared classes there's a couple of other things that are there there's a couple of pictures right in the middle there it says trades day and summer institute the summer institute was where our students of greenfield about 20 to 25 students as well as six other districts came together and each of the kids had a chance to go and visit 13 different trades so in the morning they would say they would go and visit the plumbers uh we'd feed them some pizza in the afternoon they'd go and visit the electricians now the next day might be the ironworkers and the roofers and uh so they got a very very um hands-on you know week-long you know summer camp based on the trades um and what a great experience uh mr bly was
092uh leading that and uh when i say leading that he was knocking kids out of the way so that he could get himself in front to do welding and all these other really cool hands-on things the trades day is a micro version of that we did that at whitnall last year it was just a one day deal it's kind of the same thing all the same faces uh the mentors of these uh of these uh trades are just phenomenal working with our kids and obviously it's a recruiting thing but they're you know they're talking to kids about you know what do you want to do what are you thinking about you know and just giving them another option you know in addition to the trades day in the summer institute we also do the mentorships
093as kim mentioned uh we have 36 kids in connect uh we're going to talk about connect next month so i won't steal a thunder from that but uh my stake in that was to make sure that we had mentors for each kid and uh you know there was a you know fairly easy in some cases and other kids uh it was kind of difficult uh one student wants to be a uh um the person that draws you know medical um that like creates medical uh textbooks and does the drawings for them um so that was a little bit of a challenge but fortunately there's an actual uh professional organization for that and the president lives in east roy wisconsin of all places so that was like a gift that landed in my lap all right
094um in addition to that um there's carl perkins grants there's a youth apprenticeship grant i helped maggie and brandy vang on the incentive grants and then we just got a new information from the boys and girls club about the wioa the workforce innovation and opportunity at grants there's some money there for us as well um the last thing i just want to point out was the apprenticeships our students are in healthcare there's a very robust healthcare pathway at greendale high school but we also have some kids that are entering into um construction trades as well and uh even one that will be in i.t so there's some exciting things for those kids that have an opportunity to do things applying the learning that they have from the classroom in a real world setting it really
095gives them an idea of whether or not they want to do that for for the long term if we could go to the next slide um prior to this year there were a number of um ways that you could spend carl perkins money and typically school districts went to their cte teachers and said hey what do you need and this is how much money we have to spend and let's kind of dole it out the accountability with the carl perkins grant has gone up significantly and the major changes is that all of the money needs to be tied to what are called career pathways and they have to be in uh certain criteria in order to be actually considered quality uh career pathways um so you can see there there's like five different criterion for
096career pathways that students uh need to be kind of driven towards and the money has to be spent within those um so and ultimately the goal is you know we're trying to drive students to see the opportunities based on labor market data so our labor market data in you know southeastern wisconsin wisconsin in general really kind of push construction nursing advanced manufacturing i.t and business as five career pathways now granted we have more career pathways than that at greendale you know uh kayla carrell built a fantastic culinary pathway um so it's not like students are only driven to those five but we know that those are high growth high demand areas uh where students can actually get jobs and so that's why the federal government says this is kind of where you need to be
097sticking your money for a kid to go through the pathway they're obviously going to be taking some classes they're going to be exposed to some college credit opportunities they'll have an opportunity to get some industry recognized certifications maybe as an emt or in firefighting or child care or as a cna we have actually quite a few cnas um and then lastly um hopefully to build up uh career clubs uh you know within the consortium as well as within each of the schools so kids have an opportunity to to do those um so right now the expectation is that if you call yourself having a quality career pathway you have three of the five criterion it gets a little stiffer in 2022-23 where you need to have four of five so that's the first major change
098the second major change is that for a couple years now um across the state they have been creating what's called regional career pathways and that is uh based on the idea that industry as well as large sections of the population so within our region it would include all of the schools in sisa 1 all of the schools in sisa 2 and all of the schools in cesa 6. so if you i mean that that's a massive portion of the southeastern wisconsin it's kenosha county racine county milwaukee county waukesha county ozaukee sheboygan county i mean there's quite a few people in that group the idea is instead of having each individual district try to create these pathways to try to do things on a regional level so the reason why our consortium got 26 000 left
099is that that was our portion that was put towards these regional career pathways fortunately they're all based on kind of things that we know the construction nursing advanced manufacturing i.t and business ideally we'll get some hope we'll get some help i spoke with the person that is in charge he was newly hired his name is eric hilly works out of cecil one i spoke with him today uh about his role and his vision uh for regional career pathways um because you know we want to be a part of it obviously as much as we possibly can um and um and participate you know and get from this you know this regional model um additional you know industries that are interested in working with our kids for job shadowing for internships to have you know as
100many companies out there that can possibly mentor our kids in the connect program and you know also for possible youth apprenticeships as well so those are two major changes to karl perkins um and that's a little bit about the job that i do uh i thank you guys very much i know that kim wanted to leave some time for questions so if there are any uh please fire away all right thanks tom uh any questions or or comments uh for tom tonight with respect to the different the five pathways that are down below there construction nursing advanced manufacturing i.t and business is it just nursing or is it health sciences more generically i know that for example home aids and veterinarians are too the fastest growing areas for example in the state of wisconsin right
101now so i wasn't sure if that's only talking about nurses or is it actually talking more about health sciences it's uh it's all wrapped under uh what is it called therapy uh so it is nursing is kind of their main thing but it's also broader than that um for example um you know cnas uh there's such a demand for cnas that you know many of our local hospitals as well as nursing homes have actually changed their requirements and now just call them resident aids because there's just such a demand for that so yeah based on the needs of health care it's it's broader than nursing when you talk about um what's offered at like an matc because they're a part of this higher ed as a part of this um you know they want to
102put a name on something like uh dual enrollment academies for nursing you know because that's something that you know resonates with them but it it is nursing but it's it's broader than that you know it's it's farm techs it's environmental service people surgical tech it's medical office staff medical assistants um the thing about it is i'm really happy for being with greendale is that they're they're very strong with healthcare actually all five of our schools have really spent probably the most um uh money and time and effort and certainly in offering classes in that pathway so there's quite a few of our kids that are coming out with a really good exposure to it if that's what they want to do all right thanks all right oh sorry just just touch briefly on how the
103grant money actually works is it um equally divvy between these districts did you say or um is it based on the enrollment per district uh per student um well it's it's different um it's based on the enrollment uh primarily based on the uh the socioeconomic status of of the students within the the district um that is a big portion of it so for example um roughly about twelve thousand dollars is is greendale's uh contribution to this um and then it varies you know saint francis has smaller numbers they you know have 400 students in our high school so they have about 8 000. uh greenfield is significantly higher it's about 23 000 or something like that so it's not all perfectly the contributions aren't all perfectly matched but through among all five thank you all
104right thank you tom um you know i think a lot of this work ties in very well with what greendale has already had in its vision 2020 where we talk about project-based learning or authentic learning um and just providing opportunities for students to pursue some of these these opportunities outside of a typical classroom so i think this uh really plays well so thank you for your work on that and glad to hear that we continue to engage with our community to find ways for like you said mentorship or um you know field trips i think is another thing that we we've seen some some local businesses open up their doors to you know what is clean manufacturing look like these days so i think those are all things that we continue on to offer to
105our students and we want to educate our families so that there is a perception that you know there are other are other pathways you know it's not just an automatic that once you finish high school you go on to the university you go into a college it's let's look at what these other programs can provide and by offering this these types of programs in high school so many of these students have a leg up or a jump start to a technical college or a certification based on some of the work that they've done they may find that that's exactly what they want to do but they also may find out that they want to get completely away from this program because it's not anything that they had expected so thank you for your work on
106that so consistent with the board norms we brought this forward for information tonight and at our next meeting we will bring forward the 6603 agreement for approval so that we can continue to partner with neighboring school districts to find efficiencies to offer these programs to our students thank you thank you very much happy holidays thanks thank you um all right next item on the agenda is a benchmarking report so i think julie uh you'll be sharing this benchmarking report for some of the non-instructional staff and where where we greendale school district is at sorry about that i had to find the unmute um hopefully you can see my screen there i have prepared a presentation to talk about our support staff and look at some comparisons so i last gave this report specific to support
107staff in 2018 and shared some statistics around our staff numbers at that time so our custodial fte has declined over time we were at 20.5 fte in the 13-14 school year at 18 fte 1819 we are stable at 18 but we have had some fluctuation in reassignment within the custodial department as to we have an additional custodian at highland view this school year based on cleaning protocols as well as the increased square footage as a result of the referendum construction there when we look at paraprofessional staffing and the number of paraprofessional staff we have eight classroom math and reading paraprofessionals that comes out to about 13.25 hours at canterbury 15.5 at college park and 15 hours at highland view and we've seen significant growth in the area of special education paraprofessionals so it's gone from
10822 to 34 to 40 over this seven year time frame and in reviewing that with tim we have seen the number of students with special needs increase over that time period as well we went from about 280 students in 1314 school year we're up to about 340 students with special needs in the current school year in addition to that we have seen an increase in the significance of needs both medical and other support needs for those students and so that's where some of that increase is coming from but it is a pretty dramatic increase in our special education support over this time period in looking at our special education paraprofessionals specifically and paraprofessional staffing we have seen a higher rate of turnover among these staff members we're at about 17.5 percent compared to less than
1098 percent for our certified teaching staff industry-wide turnover is about 12 to 15 percent so certainly that 17.5 is on the high end and seems to be increasing for this group we've also talked about staffing shortages and so we're seeing fewer applicants overall for the number of open positions that we have available this year for the first time we have engaged with a contracted support humanist is the company that we're working with and they are providing currently two paraprofessionals special education support paraprofessionals one at the middle school and one at the high school because we have positions that we've been unable to fill internally so in looking at the increased turnover this is again specific to support staff we did have four support staff members retire some of that was related to or attributed to
110covid and changes associated with that so we have seen some some change there the other big area that i when i talk with staff about why they're leaving is around benefits the cost of benefits for the paraprofessional group is prorated based on full-time full-year employment generally that's about 50 of the cost of the premium that the employee becomes responsible for so depending on their personal circumstances and availability of other benefits they sometimes have to leave our district to go somewhere where they can obtain full full benefits and full-time employment the other positive that we have here is that two of our paraprofessionals obtain their teaching certification and went as took a teaching opportunity in another district so that's a positive for them and their own professional personal growth next steps as we think about our
111support staff i would like to reinvent invigorate and reinstitute our support staff mentoring so we launched it in 2000 we developed it in 2018 launched it in 2019 due to many circumstances it never very successfully launched we had a packet of paraprofessionals that served as mentors and that received mentoring as a new pera within the district but it didn't take off and get the legs that i would have liked for it to have gotten some of that was the amount of turnover that we saw in that group we didn't have enough trained mentors to serve as mentors to that group um so we need to rethink that a little bit and take another look at that mentoring program i'd like to relaunch it again for next school year i mentioned the benefits being a reason
112for some of our staff having to leave we have explored alternatives to the benefit offerings with our insurance broker and looked to see if there were other plan designs that would be more cost effective for this group of employees we were unsuccessful in obtaining or securing that type of insurance arrangement but we may want to rethink how we prioritize and budget around these key paraprofessional positions like i said most of them right now are part-time without benefit eligibility so we may need to look at that as part of the budget process to allow more full-time benefit opportunities julie what is i'm sorry what does full-time for this paraprofessional staff look like because i mean obviously they're working with one-on-one with students which means they're not you know there's they're there during the school year starting
113roughly january i'm sorry september through june yeah so most of the positions are six and a half hours per day um and so it they work seven hours plus a half hour unpaid lunch um so to be full-time and qualify as a full-time employee for the full-time benefits where they would pay ten percent of the premium cost that's based on 35 hours per week most of these positions are at 32 and a half hours and part of that is just the budgetary reality of what we have available to to offer and provide we have that has been an area where we've reduced over time that we haven't had full-time full benefit eligibility for those positions and i think we're seeing that in our retention rates as a result the last thing i have here is
114extend exit interviews so i have been doing exit interviews with our teaching staff that have left the district i have not um formally done that with the support staff on a regular basis so um could look to do that to gather more information from them if they've made the decision to leave we are looking to i mentioned that we had two teachers that left or two paraprofessionals left to become teachers in addition we have six paraprofessionals that are currently pursuing their teaching degree three of them are paraprofessionals of color that we have supported through the department of workforce development fast forward grant we partnered with carroll university monotonomy falls school district and elmbrook school district for that grant eligibility and that provides tuition it's covered by the grant their tuition rates and we prioritize that
115for paraprofessionals of color to move them into teaching positions so they are able to student teach while they continue in their role as a para that helps to remove barriers because oftentimes student teaching is an unpaid opportunity we've been able to support them to continue to work while they complete their student teaching requirements and we do have the three um that completed programs one of them is retained in greendale schools and is serving as a special education teacher in our district we'd like to celebrate and recognize that we have support staff many support staff members on site that are providing child care for the elementary students during this virtual learning period they are all working out of college park and they have shown very high levels of dedication and flexibility to support the changing learning
116environments both supporting students virtually supporting students through the day care and working with the students in person as well so um their schedules and their expectations have really changed for this year and they have stepped up to that and done whatever they can to continue to support students and we appreciate their work and that is the end of my report i'm available for any questions all right thanks julie what questions or comments did the board have for her i would like to join in in celebrating our support staff that are helping um with the child supervision at college park my daughter attends there and she is really thriving in that virtual learning environment with the help of our support staff so i really want to thank them for going above and beyond to support that
117programming it's a great recognition kim so thank you for sharing that your experience any other comments or questions all right so this was just a report that kind of gives us an idea um you know not nothing to approve or or vote on tonight but you know i think as we hear as we go into the next budget cycle you know you'll you'll certainly will certainly talk a little bit about okay so are there anything that come out of this report that we would anticipate to see in in that budget cycle or that staffing updates as we go throughout this year into next year so thank you julie all right continuing on next item on the agenda is uh the update on learning and reopening planning um so kim you want to walk us through
118and i think um you know we certainly recognize that a number of community members have shared their feedback so you know once you you share your report kim the board will provide some commentary and some feedback and offer you some direction thank you so i want to begin by acknowledging that this has been an incredibly difficult year for everyone um some of our families have lost relatives and loved ones to the coronavirus disease and others have struggled with the health impact of the virus our staff and our students and our families have had to change how they live and work and learn and socialize very rapidly and we heard some of those pains and requests of desperation from our families who have really bore the impact of the pandemic and the decisions that have had
119to be made we know that our schools are an opportunity for our students in the community to come together and this year those opportunities have been restricted as cases of covenant 19 have risen so too have our cases of depression and anxiety everyone has been faced with difficult choices and it honestly it feels like a real life game of would you rather this year we all want the same thing there's been a lot of discussion about disagreement but i'd like to bring us to our common ground which is we want all of our students to be able to attend classes with their peers and teachers in our school buildings and for students to engage in all of the social aspects of learning and activities that develop a sense of belonging that is evident in our
120strategic priorities and all of the work we have done to develop robust opportunities for our students the question that we are discussing tonight is when when will we be able to resume typical classroom instructional activities i'm the superintendent of schools and i'm approximately eight weeks away from conferring my doctoral degree from the university of wisconsin in educational leadership and policy analysis i've developed an expertise in education learning and educational policy when i am not i am not an expert in epidemiology or public health and yet my first year as superintendent has been dominated by decisions tied to these topics as a result i have spent a lot of time working with experts in these areas including sue shepard who's our public health official in greendale sean johnson with the greendale health department public officials and
121surrounding communities as well as other medical professionals that includes our school nurse kelly cranninger in our discussions they bring knowledge and expertise in the disease transmission data on case counts and percent positives prevention and mitigation measures and risk following the cd got cdc guidelines to fidelity makes the decision obvious and yet we have more to consider than just physical health what is our threshold for risk and how does it weigh with other factors so let's take a look at the current conditions and the spread of covid as that has been shared by public health officials so when we made the decision to transition to fully virtual in our schools was around here on november 17th and november 20th and it was a time at which in our community we had exponential growth and had a
122an incredibly high number of community spread and we were anticipating that because of that community spread and the expected growth as predicted by the public health officials with whom i was talking as was our team that it would continue to grow after thanksgiving break and as such we thought that we would trip our indicators of not having enough staff due to quarantines isolation and illness and have groups that required quarantining that would transition our students out of the schools and those two indicators would cause this abrupt change in learning environments and so for a short period of time we felt it was prudent to transition our students to virtual learning in the same time period this is milwaukee county's positivity rate and we saw high rates of positivity around the time that i brought information
123to the board to make a decision last month i know in covid time that four weeks ago feels like six months ago but it was only four weeks ago that we looked at this data and made a decision in greendale we've seen a similar trend to milwaukee county and we peaked at 166 the week before thanksgiving when we were making decisions and we've seen a steady decline in cases um with a slight uptick last week but overall the trend is down and we are not seeing that growth that was projected after thanksgiving and here is the percent positive in greendale and we are returning and approaching that 10 threshold that um is an indication that our disease spread is lower all things that i never thought i would discuss as i was working on my
124education degree case counts and percent positivity rates for virus spread and here is where we the information that the public the greendale health department provided last week in terms of our status with covid what is not being provided by public health and is not is not something that can be found it is referred to by some of our medical professionals is around increased rates of depression and anxiety and we do know that there were um elevated numbers of depression and anxiety precursors in our youth risk behavior surveys in and the state has not conducted that youth risk behavior survey for 2020 and therefore we don't have statistics on the impact to mental health that we're seeing tonight in our comments and um throughout the headline in the milwaukee journal sentinel says schools are safer than
125we thought and schools can safely reopen and effectively and that is the headline and we've done so at our elementary level and we've done so at our middle school and high school level what the cdc says within that same information that extends the understanding of what it looks like to reopen schools safely is that it recommends opening in phases with elementary starting first and offer an online option for students and staff that we require masks and social distancing that we track school-based cases of covid19 do contact tracing and quarantine close contacts and we develop a plan for moving back to online when virus spreads beyond certain levels and these were all factors in our reopening plan for um in our reopening plan that was presented and adopted in august when students were making decisions in
126comment tonight and throughout this time the question has been why is it safe to return elementary and not middle in high school and i want to speak to that so with this information we believe the time is right to bring our elementary students back into the format developed at the beginning of this school year the predicted spike that would have forced our school's virtual did not manifest and parent surveys and staff surveys in october and november respectively told us that it was effective and safe so we we will return to this in-person learning plan on january 11th i know that sounds like a long time from now but it is five school days to make the transition some have asked if we can resume five days per week in order to transition to five days
127we would need to increase class sizes and return specials teachers to their regular assignments teaching all students in person this would impact students in their classes asking them to switch teachers mid-year and not consistently provide for six feet of distance in the classroom i believe that the 4 4-day in-person and virtual specials on wednesdays are the safest and least disruptive return to in-person learning for our elementary students and so i i speak to that physical distancing as the one mitigation strategy that we have struggled to do during this time we will continue to use the learning moving learning environments dashboard to make decisions about learning at the elementary level we will transition for the least amount of time possible to return all indicators to green or yellow students and families attending in person can anticipate
128disruptions and interruptions to in-person learning but we do not anticipate that we will see that it will rise to the level of frequency as it did in november right now the dashboard is blank because all of our students are learning in a digital format i will be updating the dashboard with current case information by wednesday january 6th cases and staffing are the most likely indicators that will move towards yellow and red as we see um cases um in the community and but we were able to successfully conduct school in september and october at the elementary level and only had some case spikes at highland view in november that forced a virtual transition so as we consider the middle school in high school i have made decisions this year with input from students families and staff
129and in consultation with the team and the board in august i brought forward survey data and public health recommendations to present a learning plan in november survey data indicated that students and parents had low confidence in their academic progress in the hybrid model i reported that approximately 60 percent of students had at least one d plus or below compared with which is twice as many as in the previous year with the support of the board i move forward with recommendations as decisions one parent who works in healthcare told me we know what to do to be safe which is true it includes washing hands watching our distance masking and escalating positive cases and those are consistent with what cdc says is a safe way to reopen schools we have been able to plan for all
130of these measures for our elementary learning plan at the middle school and high school we can definitely continue washing hands masking and isolating positive cases as all schools return to in-person learning have done the one recommendation that has proven to be a challenge is consistently supporting six feet of distance in schools the recent plea from parents asks us to disregard one of the four safety strategies arguing the impact on students socially and emotionally is greater than the impact of cobin i believe that is true in some cases physical distancing is one of the four safety protocols consistently provided by the cdc and all healthcare providers to achieve consistent physical distancing greendale schools evaluated classroom and lunchroom spaces the safety team determined that we could support physical distancing with class sizes of 15 to 17 depending
131on the classroom and the lunchrooms would be opera would operate at approximately 50 capacity to provide for class sizes of 15 at the high school level five days per week it would require an additional eight to nine teachers at a significant cost if we could recruit and hire high quality teachers the hybrid model was one solution as well but we now recognize that the inconsistency did not support learning as effectively as we had hoped based on our student and family responses to the survey sent seven weeks ago only two school districts in milwaukee county offer five days in person waukesha and ozaukee counties have higher number offerings five days a week in person at the middle school and high school they are making it work by dropping the safety mitigation recommendation of watching your distance
132this has resulted in higher numbers of quarantines missed school one parent in another district reported that their child was in person five days per week but had been sent home on quarantine based on close contacts multiple times and during quarantine there was a lack of instruction and it was not good at all if a student in a five-day in-person environment had two quarantines in september and october and the school was virtual in november the student only attended school for 30 to 40 in the 70 days of school to date there are other students who did not who were not identified as close contents tax and did not miss school so it is really a luck of the draw as to the impact on their learning environment this creates a significant disruption to learning in an
133unpredictable way in citizen comments martin luther was cited as an in-person learning environment as a private school they are not one of the ones that i compared to and the health department reported this week that last week reported 40 positive cases not quarantined positive cases i'm struggling with the notion that frequent disruptions to learning is better for students than a predictable learning structure we know from prepare that a crisis response requires predictability students who are most vulnerable to mental health complications are not well served by repeated in and out of school without predictable interactions with teachers and peers that being said we also know that isolation and lack of physical activity does not serve the needs of our students who are vulnerable to mental health disorders in speaking with my peers in neighboring districts those
134who are fully virtual now are looking for in person for how to return their students in person second semester just as we are a parent wrote to me and this resonated the struggle of so many students in this covid era are multifunctional factorial i'm sorry are multi-factorial however although school may only be may be only one component it is arguably the most important for our children's well-being it is essentially their job their role in our society it is a huge source of self-esteem and a lifeline of social connection in years when this connection is critical i am afraid that by transitioning to online learning we have severed this lifeline as adults we adjust try to harness the positives do our best to adapt kids on the other hand although tremendously resilient simply don't have the
135tools we do and for some kids for whom social interaction is vital i'm afraid we've essentially left them stranded without the resources to adapt in this new environment we find ourselves offering incentives to do what our kids previously did all on their own and when that doesn't work getting angry and frustrated encouraging them to adapt to learn to deal with situations they can't change perhaps these are good life lessons but are they really in a place to learn them when they're in a crisis mode i think it's important to note that there's this assumption that everyone who said on the survey they would like in-person learning five days per week would choose it if we change the variables this is not true either i have spoken with parents who want their kids in school daily
136for learning and mental well-being but if we choose to disregard a safety recommendation they would make a different choice for their child my role and how i apply my expertise is how all of the public health factors can be navigated to maximize learning and minimize risk how to balance the factors for staff and allow each family to weigh their own needs and i want to restore that choice to families with all due speed administration can prepare to return students to in-person learning the health department and the reopening greendale schools team discussed some criteria to do so that included a decline in case counts for 21 consecutive days maintain a positivity rate below 10 for 21 consecutive days and hurt immunity through vaccination i've heard from several parents who work in health care note that the
137vaccine is not approved for children and therefore herd immunity will likely be unattainable this school year this is true given the statistics quoted by many families and the cdc children are less vulnerable because it is more feasible to offer families a choice based on personal health situations in the home than staff perhaps we could consider this connect condition to be vaccination available to teachers and staff yesterday a federal advisory panel recommended that teachers and staff be vaccinated in the group after healthcare workers and nursing home residents reports indicate that could happen in january or early february we know learning is more than sitting and consuming information learning is a social process and students need to be a good physical and mental health to engage in learning this year the administration has sought input from stakeholders
138through the course of the pandemic by surveying students families and staff by engaging a staff a team of staff and public health officials in the planning process and by reporting to the board regularly for feedback and direction each time i have made decisions i have done so with the guidance and direction from the board tonight i'm asking the board for their direction as we plan for a return to in-person learning and so i'd like to open it up to the board for discussion around when and under what conditions we should plan for all students to attend in-person instruction specifically at the middle school in high school so thank you kim for for this report um you know i i think the way you've laid this out is a clear indication that you're being thoughtful in
139your approach that you're looking for ways to navigate to that common goal where we know our goal is to have students in the classroom so i appreciate your leadership in sharing this you know as a board we have received feedback from the community emails phone calls petitions we've heard from both sides you know tonight during the citizen commons we definitely heard a strong support for returning in person for five days a week we also have gotten some feedback from others who appreciate what we're currently doing so i want us to have this conversation as a board and provide this direction to kim you know i think about how effective school boards operate we we effective school boards operate by maintaining a clear vision with high expectations for quality teaching and learning that supports strong student
140outcome so i i just want to make sure that our we continue to focus on student achievement as as we have these conversations and not focus on personal opinions and i know we don't because most of our decisions are data driven so with that i'll open it up to the board for any questions or feedback that they want to share i had a few things um i know you just talked about opinions but um i think i represent like a lot of students so in some ways it does matter that i give one um i just wanted to say first off um i appreciate all the work that's been done i know as educators your guys's main goal is to get people to go back to school that is your whole premises of your career
141and what you strive to do in life um as a student in this perspective i totally appreciate what mr mintzik has done and she's laid out clear neutral based evidence and the way that she's making her claims um i'm a very extrovated extroverted person i love to socialize with people that's one of my highlights of going to school something i miss very much so and i would love to go back um however um my heart is telling me i don't think it's going to be the wisest choice i think it's almost like you're the pig um making the hay the house out of hay instead of brick you're putting all these children in a vulnerable situation because of um somewhat their feelings and i think their feelings are valid i'm a student myself and i
142think student voice is extremely important but when there's um risk of people's safety i think that's something to really consider i don't think anyone on this earth um had planned for a global pandemic and for school to be out for so long and um things like this to happen and i feel like in some sense we're all guinea pigs and trying to figure this out so i don't really think it's people motivated towards not wanting to have people come back to school it's more so is this a wise choice um is this something you want to move forward to is it going to benefit students um and yeah just i guess yeah that's what i'm trying to say so sir certainly appreciate that that feedback and thank you for the courage of uh you know
143sharing sharing your voice paris i i guess i would like to speak to the fact that we we have received dozens of emails and phone calls i've had some very meaningful conversations with some uh residents and family members from greendale um i do appreciate the respectful conversation that's been taking place there has been um unfortunately some finger pointing and blaming and and i want to let the community rest assured that we as a board me as an individual board member are um definitely taking this matter seriously i have participated in additional school board meetings with other school board members from across the state of wisconsin twice a month over the course of this entire pandemic and have been privy to the conversations that are going on with all the school districts in the surrounding areas
144this is definitely as paris said not an easy situation and is not something that anyone ever could have planned for as miss amidzic said earlier it's not something we necessarily signed up for as board members as administrators as students as community members as parents what have you um this is definitely a curveball that's been thrown to everyone so um i guess in in speaking first tonight i would like to say again that i appreciate the conversation and the dialogue that's taking place it's clear and evident to me that the residents of greendale do prioritize our education in this community and want to see more than nothing else for students to get back in person when it's safe to do so um the big question that we're we're having loom before us right now is you
145know how how feasible is that to go from the model that we are currently in to um a five day a week type of a situation and and um what would that look like in moving forward and as um paris so eloquently said and um use the example of the three little pigs it it is uh it is a gamble of taking that house that's maybe not the strongest built and seeing how well it will weather weather the storm um so so i have some very strong feelings on this and and i i appreciate it as i said the conversations with some family members especially those um who shared their their stories as far as their own students and how they've been impacted um and and i just wanna um i'm gonna kind of open
146it up to other board members here for a bit and then probably chime back in but i i just feel that this is a very difficult decision that um it's going to take the entire community to wrap our heads around together and move forward together no matter what decision is made we're going to have to try to to band together this should not be a polarizing issue as much as it has been become but more um we we need to continue to strategize what's going to be best for our students um so with that i'm just going to step aside for right now and see what my other board members fellow board members have to say thanks kathy so one uh i think it's been just really kind of a greendale thing to see the
147amount of communication that has happened over the last couple weeks around this issue it showcases that the community cares they want to see and and do what's best for our children um obviously it doesn't always manifest itself uh in a productive conversation but nonetheless it showcases that the community wants to see what's best for children i think your statement um came around um you know what we all really want more than anything else is to try to get our students back five days a week you know if that ideal world that's what we want to do that's we want to see so um taking that into consideration what i tried to do is pull together some of the different comments and make sure that we address different areas i think a lot of those were
148addressed in in the conversation that you started off with on this and maybe i'll preface by saying before we dive into some of those specific areas what i'm seeing is is this prioritization or kind of juxtaposition of the potential risk health risks that are associated with you know coronavirus and the potential health risks that are associated with the social emotional behavior mental health issues uh seem to be the number one uh concern or conversation and there's other things that were tossed into there as well i would also include that that includes other critical services that we provide students to help mitigate you know those health disparities but um to serve children in need you know so the uh there's programs we know that our accounts are down on school lunch programs uh for example and
149so you know how is what we're doing affecting or not affecting um uh folks being able to have food for that program you know in the us the schools are leveraged as a as the food program for their communities and so are you know how does that impact what's going on special education services is another one you know after school programs um and and a different allotment of different health services so those seem to be the kind of juxtaposition to the academics and saying how do we make sure that we're also looking at those different areas if i'm summarizing um correctly and once again there's a lot of different comments i was trying to boil these down into different areas some of the um concerns that i think you know i want to make sure
150are still addressed and are part of this conversation that i'm not sure if they were and and forgive me as i scroll down because there was lots and lots of comments and i was putting them in place and trying to mark them off as we were going through but i am not that quick um with my mouse as as i should be here so um one one question that came up was also around the the items that we laid out with the declining decline in new positivity rates the cases for 21 consecutive days um 10 or less for 21 consecutive days and how that correlates with our current um dashboard i don't know if that's something that's easy to talk to but that would be something that i think would be worth at least addressing
151a high level and as you're doing that i'll read through the other ones and and and bring those forward too yeah so um we have not used um case counts and some of the other factors burden rights there's a couple of pieces to decide how to safely offer school and those are not conditions to return to elementary learning because we can apply all of the cdc guidelines for coronavirus spread mitigation in the learning plan that we developed and that makes it safe because those mitigation strategies are able to be employed fully the reason for the discussion around those factors of decline in community spread and vaccination of teachers and staff is because if we're talking about a return to in-person learning as modeled by some of our surrounding districts that have been highlighted we are
152not able to provide six feet of distance consistently and so without that mitigation strategy we need to think about other factors before we make that transition to in-person learning without one of the cdc recommendations around distancing and i do know that i've received a couple of communications from families that are appalled that we would consider ignoring that guidance and we're not looking to ignore that guidance but in terms of finding the balance of risk reward that we've been encouraged to do by some of our community members those are conditions that would in that would decrease the risk of being in closer proximity so um i don't know if that helps i think i think that does and one um um one thing i also did is i looked up some of the different neighboring school
153districts that i was curious what their spreads were and that had a f a five day in person um and so for example um franklin has 126 of their high school students in quarantine right now which is nine percent yeah and that's a low number for them right now significantly higher and whitnel has 130 um students and this is actually i apologize quarantine or isolation so obviously that includes some that actually are isolated versus just those that are quarantined because they were close contacts so whitnell has about 15 percent of their 850 students that are currently quarantined and i know that there was some comments or conversation around from community members i don't believe they were part of the um the emails but i didn't think these were part of the phone conversations i had
154but around the with nine or 10 or 15 percent you know that still means that there's you know upwards of 90 that would be benefiting from the in person while those are quarantined and i think we've addressed some of those conversations through i think even your anecdotes um kim where you mentioned that people are quarantining multiple times and i think you gave an example from franklin where one student essentially has missed through quarantine or school shutdown half of the actual in-person days that were being offered and that's one student but at the same time with 130 students every day being quarantined that's something to be considering or thinking through the um the juxtaposition to that was and once again this is a smaller school but i was just curious if there was any schools that
155were doing in person that had lower rates and one school that i found was a private school in kenosha uh shoreland lutheran which has two of their 411 students that are currently um uh quarantining um and and and not part of their school system so they have a point half percent when i asked them you know what was the difference of what they did there i don't know if this is typical for the in-person cases but just something to consider was that they mentioned that assigned seats and all their courses so that if anyone was um pulled out even if they weren't within the six feet they could easily quarantine those students so that they weren't picking and choosing their their sections i'm not sure if that's what we were doing and to be honest
156from our our hybrid model or if that's what we would be considering considering to do and then the other one they said was to they were eating in a homeroom style event where they were also next to that same group of students so that when they were on mast eating they were only close to a certain small percentage of students our in-person attendance both at the elementary school and in the hybrid students were assigned to seats and desks were spaced six feet apart at a minimum and in our lunchroom students were spaced six feet apart so we had two to three students at a table when we had a positive case typically the two or three students at their lunch table would be included in a quarantine based on close contact because even though they're
157sitting six feet apart the natural course of conversation they were drifting and and hanging over each other which is not a bad thing i mean they're social beings and they should be having good conversations at lunch but we were able to limit the number of students with whom they were interacting in that close proximity to reduce the number of kids who would have the disruption of a quarantine and then the other you know comments to mention i know that there was a letter that had some 130 students that signed on and i'm um to that letter kind of expressing their concerns with the um the virtual model versus the hybrid or in person from the social interaction perspective with their peers and the mental and physical health that comes with that model i know that
158that's also kind of opposite from what we've seen from an academics perspective where the hybrid model we were obviously not achieving the academic standards that we wanted to see within our students and as we transitioned to virtual the feedback that i heard from the teachers with over 50 teachers from the high school was that it was a much better learning experience for the students i don't know if there's if there are student representatives have anything to say about that from an academic perspective or if they felt like the hybrid model offered anything or if the virtual model was still not satisfying kind of there i'm gonna let um axel go first to see if he has anything um uh one of the things i actually did notice was actually something mr kazuki mentioned during our
159physics class the other day he said that our scores went up when we met virtually every day because he noticed that he was able to explain everything daily to everyone and it was less of a you get this portion you get this portion you get this break in between and i hope you understand because our grades were suffering when it was just the hybrid model so now that we are meeting every day he just personally noticed that our scores have gotten better and they're not only better scores but there was a better understanding of the content yeah i'm going to agree with um axel's point i know many students were disappointed when we decided to go fully virtual obviously i've already expressed i'd rather be in person it's just easier for me to learn i
160love socializing that kind of thing um but the consistency was a huge thing for me going from maybe waking up at 11 a.m to start my homework on a monday um waking up at seven to attend virtually waking up earlier to actually go somewhere all within the same week can be like very tedious and tired um tiring for a student um i also think just if there wasn't a ability to actually meet in person which obviously at that time there wasn't that was the best thing for students because they have somewhat of a consistent schedule instead of um constant changes in some an environment that's already changing evolving and very unpredictable so and then um the uh the other comments i think fall back into our overall question um you know as i was looking
161through these the there's one question around i'm sorry there's one more question and then there's the last one is more around this common question of kind of consistency of schedule and certainty is that more important than student mental health and so one of the questions that i think is worth addressing or at least talking about is you know what would we do or how do we how would we improve any of the things that we're currently offering in those additional services um regardless of what model we were gonna we choose right so if we go back five days in person i i for some reason i think there's there's this automatic um thought that that's going to fix any and all mental health problems um which i don't believe it will i think there's still
162going to be some and that we need to be cognizant in thinking through that pro that process i do think that it will potentially alleviate some for sure and it may cause others too that we're not thinking about as well and so i want to be cognizant of the fact that just by switching modalities of learning that that's not going to solve all of these other issues it's just going to raise different ways in which we need to address those issues i also want to address that and it was loud and clear and i think we all are are sick of of not having um kind of ownership of our lives all right i mean we're being held hostage by a global pandemic and uh a pandemic that's now been in the us for nine
163months that we are trying to deal with and navigate and so what can we possibly be doing to make sure that we're we're addressing this issue you know do we need to be considering um you know how to get back to the five day sooner and if we do what does that mean that we can do um to mitigate these risks in different areas as much as possible um so that wasn't maybe the most eloquently stated but that was that was the kind of larger question and then the other question was uh just some reiteration there's a few comments and even phone calls around how come hybrid is not an option and i believe the comments that i've i've heard tonight and i've talked to others and yourself came about earlier was the uh basically
164what was happening from a learning perspective and what we were hearing from the teachers and what we're actually seeing on the grades is that kind of the correct summary of why hybrid doesn't seem to be an option that would work for for us to move forward with um that is my understanding from the survey results that we had um based on the survey that we gave seven weeks ago and i think that's what i was hearing from both paris and axel as they were reflecting on the transition at the beginning of this month so um your first question around support for mental health what we know is in 2018 between eight and ten percent of our students had contemplated or attempted um suicide and that was when we were five days a week in person
165and we looked into what was contributing to those feelings of anxiety and depression which were also elevated and i shared in the report that was given to the board and shared with families and the public on the website and so absolutely returning to in-person learning is not going to cure every mental health disorder that students are facing right now um the second part of that is that this covet is a crisis and we've done a lot of training around crisis response and how to minimize the impact of a traumatic experience for students most of the time when we're thinking about a traumatic experience or a crisis response it's something that happens over a short period of time and then we begin the recovery process immediately there are some crises or traumas that are prolonged and
166sustained over time but typically only impact a small number of students racism has been identified as one of those prolonged experiences of trauma and crisis and that would be the best comparison to the experience of the pandemic for our students and for our families in that the crisis and the trauma experience endures and continues and it drags on and so as we're responding to that crisis um it is difficult because there's this re-traumatization that continues to happen and um so if you think about experiencing or experiencing racism and experiencing the trauma of the pandemic that is prolonged it will have an impact and when we recognize this and we hear the stories of the students and specifically what they are asking for one of the strategies in a crisis response is to train uh caregivers
167in how to support recovery to minimize the impact of the trauma and support recovery when the crisis and or the trauma is concluded and so that is something we haven't done and we need to do because there are caregivers throughout our school community that are responding and they need support too and so some of the comments and requests that we've had from parents are because they don't know what to do they've tried everything and they don't know what to do and you heard that in the communication from this parent that when all else fails we start to do these other things and so we are planning and the people services team is working with uh a regional speaker through the health department to provide parents with some support about how to manage and how to
168support their students not just now but as the pandemic closes and there's a return to in-person learning so when we return to in-person learning those strategies are still relevant because the recovery from this collective crisis this collective trauma will take time and then maybe tied in with that one of the questions that was also fairly prevalent was timing you know how fast if we were to move to a five-day in person model could we actually move to a five-day in-person model and there were some questions around why that would take time and i know that obviously one of the areas would be a survey to find out what students and their obviously the parents um would choose um would have to happen and have to occur and then obviously there's all the work that would
169happen on the teacher side of the fence to be re connected to the different students that are in the different options and preparing those lesson plans and so on and so forth so it's not a it's not a 24 hour transition period it's a much much longer transition period to get that to happen can you speak to a little bit more sure so we are um when students and parents made a choice in person or virtual they made a choice based on the learning plan conditions that we laid out in the original which identified safety strategies mitigation strategies that we would follow if we return to a five day per week instructional model that increases class sizes to 22 to 28 students depending on the section in the course that is a different condition and
170parents and students may make a different selection based on those changes in the condition and so the first thing that we would need to do is to offer families that choice again yes we told parents that they could make that they could change their choice at semester and we did offer them a chance to make a change in mid-november and there were about 25 to 30 families that made a different choice at that time however with the changing conditions a new survey would need to collect information from everyone to confirm their choice and selection based on the new conditions um i am not planning to send that survey the day before break um so that would we would the reopening team and i'll talk about that next step i'm meeting with them tomorrow so i
171am meeting with the team of staff on the afternoon before break which is not always a great time to meet with people but it is necessary so that we can move forward with all due speed um so we would begin work on surveying families that first week in january um giving them the week to make some decisions from there we need to distribute students and set schedules and that process may take a week or two for us to get students in classes there were some suggestions that we could put students in the auditorium and we can put students in the cafeteria and we can put students in the band room and those are all options for physical distancing but it does not match the kids with the courses and the teachers who are teaching those
172courses in spaces and in a given class period we have 50 uh to 60 courses being taught simultaneously in our building and so we just don't have 50 to 60 spaces that allow us to spread out 25 kids with physical distancing so it would be a puzzle that we would be solving to get kids assigned to the right classes based on their selections so that takes a little bit of time in a typical um process it would take months but we would focus on one thing and one thing only which is getting them into class and expediting that process so um it's really if we were to start second semester it would be a 10-day turnaround and um i think that the team would need about um 10 to 15 days to get that turned
173around and get the students in the proper classes so that they're with the teacher who's providing instruction for that class if we wanted to put all students in groups of 15 and spread them out throughout the school and have them learn through a virtual learning delivery model while just being physically present in the same building that wouldn't take time but to get them positioned in the right classes with the right teachers will take a little bit of time based on their choices and i guess to that note i i would wonder like what the benefit would be to to have that if there was going to be in person but they're going to be virtual it it seems to me that that would be counter to what everyone's looking for and i think i think
174wrong that is not what i'm proposing no no and that's i mean i i just want to highlight that that i i i don't think that's a viable option to bring students in only to be virtual um i mean that's my my perception on that is i don't know what the rest of you think but i i don't see the point in doing something like that i i'm not proposing that and i would not recommend it so i i don't think that we need to spend time discussing it i think that what we're looking at is when and under what conditions the board would like administration to be prepared to deliver in-person instruction for our students so is that a timeline or that a set of conditions and so i'm looking for input from the
175board so that i can take that and move forward with our team i just had a question um so you're saying how like locations would be a problem if you were to try to get the whole school to come back like 25 kids in a room we just don't have that um capacity for social distancing um i just want to like ask the question whatever decision is made um that decision being made forward is that going to help us prevent and stop the growth of this pandemic because it's brought so much damage to student academic learning mental health and i'm so happy for the restorative things that are going towards the mental health aspect um but it's like what we're going to be doing forward going to help students in a way that there's a
176possibility we can end this pandemic there's a vaccine coming out we don't know all the evidence on it yet but it could be a hopeful option we don't know yet um or is going forward with the decision that's made only going to expand this traumatic experience make um learning more difficult increase mental uh mental health risk and um other problems that have come from this i'm really just trying to ask is are we making preventative measures or are we making um decisions that will only like increase the problems that have come from this pandemic that's a good point paris um so there's been some really good conversations um so far um you know i started off the conversation by saying for me top of mind is to an achievement and um supporting strong student outcomes
177and when i look at some of the information that we've had you know you know we've talked about you know our ap scores from last spring there's been a decline in some of our ap scores um we've seen a grading policy that um isn't you know that may has a perception of lowering standards and and accounting for things we've seen a higher number of students requesting early graduation we've heard from families and i think during our staffing update at our last board meeting that some of the interventions that they would have expected are limited you know today either because uh they're not in person or um or we've we've taken those teachers um we've taken those interventionists uh to do other things so when i look at that you know i'm supportive of you know
178going back in in person five days a week um i i think you know that's you know that's where we need to get toward um i think as a district we've already made some great investments whether it's in the personal protection equipment uh the hvac review and consulting that has come in the additional thermometers that we've brought in you know we've hired building subs we've changed some of our class staffing so we could have smaller class sizes i think we need to continue to make the investments that support that um you know we we are currently using our our buildings for for child care for athletics um even swim lessons have happened in these last uh nine months um so we're finding ways for those things to happen safely um so i i want us
179to really challenge ourselves and find okay how do we make investments that will allow students to come back into the classroom knowing that that choice is not best for all families i'm glad to see that we will continue to offer choices for families that that will choose to go virtual and i'm glad to see that we continue to work with staff you know there's some staff that have uh taken leave there's some staff that have requested to teach virtually we'll still need them uh even in the second semester but when i go through everything you know i i i want to advocate for getting back into the classroom and if that's something we can do for the start of the second semester or as soon as practical from that that's what i would uh be
180a strong advocate for i'd like to kind of share my perspective next um so thank you joe and thor kind of summarized a lot of the the comments um and things that we've been hearing from different families this it's a tough decision and i know that there is no answer that is going to make everyone happy and meet everyone's needs and every decision that is to be made will come at the sacrifice of something else and that's just the the challenging and unjust reality that we're living in right now um i i also realize that some students are going to learn and thrive in any learning environment whether it's virtual or in person because that is the privilege that has been afforded to them but i also know that not all students are afforded that
181same privilege and as i speak to parents and students every day not all of our students have a quiet safe uninterrupted learning environment at home in which to learn and the students that might be most affected our students that are facing racial economic and other inequities that have only become more pronounced since the pandemic so i feel that that if we fail to get our students back in the buildings that we are compounding that trauma and loss and all of our students and our most vulnerable students who may be english language learners have a disability or have been traumatized by the the racial violence that we have seen this year and then to be disconnected from probably the only um support or universal support system that they've had could be a disaster and um like
182as we see it's manifesting in the in the higher rates of of suicide depression mental illness um so i completely um support getting our middle and high school students back into school five days per week as soon as we are able to for the students that that choose to do that to do so and i'm also i'm thankful for the the fully virtual um option for the the students and families that that choose to do that also um and i i worry about um what will happen to to our families that have already had to deal with the trauma and the marginalization prior to the pandemic and what it will mean for them after the pandemic i guess i'll go last um listening to everybody uh i i just want to reassure everybody who's sent
183comments emailed comments or i've talked to and listened to the comments this evening again i have heard everything everybody said and this is not an easy decision no matter what we go do going forward this is not an easy time for anyone particularly for our students and i thank paris and axel for their feedback because that's really important i wonder if there is some sort of compromise to the five day going back all day kim and i kind of briefly discussed it earlier and i don't know if this would work but if we did uh if we offered the opportunity to do like we did the alphabet i'm just going to say this a through l in the morning m through z in the afternoon and they went five days except wednesday when they did
184the cleaning like we did before there was an hour for lunch so there could be cleaning could be done um we wouldn't serve lunch but that way students would have five day contact we could keep class sizes small um and and the students would get the contact that they would need but yet we could meet the mitigation strategy of small class sizes i don't know if that would work kim can you offer any feedback on that i think that it's something that i would take to the reopening team for discussion in terms of the impact and how um you know this is this has been a balancing act for everything which is something solved some problems and create new problems and so i really want to understand from the reopening team um how that works
185so is it possible of course anything's possible but then we need to weigh the the um what problems it solves and what what problems it creates and i certainly don't want to create more problems i'm just trying to find a balance i would appreciate in paris or axel what you think of that idea um i just find though i think it could be helpful there are just some balancing aspects to it since i mis did you you mentioned that there would be like more like half days in a way and out of that comes shortening classes and the the main bonus is that we'll have access to our teachers and that's lovely that's great seeing them in person but at the same time giving them less time every day to actually teach what they need
186to teach can cause like people to fall back fall behind and especially with ap classes if you fall behind a little you fall behind a lot and then it's just rushing to get all the content and not everyone will be prepared for a lot of things that are that are to come okay thank you yeah i'm agree on that sense i think if you shorten the classes it's taking out of the curriculum so many teachers have had to cancel many plans of teaching certain um topics and concepts just because of the way that the um years been so having half days would just only shorten the curriculum and i don't know if it would necessarily be um helpful to all students i know i'm probably get lots of hate for this but i almost feel
187in a sense that if you were to allow um in-person learning it should be prioritized to the students that i think would benefit the most from it and that's students struggling with mental health as well as um i know people are getting mad at me but seniors i know that they've advocated in the past and there was a public comment from a parent talking about upperclassmen going back i think in that way it's a sense everyone has been affected by this pandemic it sucked literally for everyone but i think in a sense it's worth not going to school for a year to prevent this in the future and allowing seniors to have that last semester and that opportunity um with their class one last time um everyone else under them junior sophomores freshmen people in
188middle school still have more semesters to come they still have more years to come and hopefully this pandemic will be over by then um but based on the capacity that we have the social distancing concerns and everything else i think that's just something to take into account and be respective of um and we would be able to do that if they were allowed to go back and um i hate to say it but everyone else kind of just sucks it up and has to do with this cruddy this credit um time in their life just a little longer for the long run which is to um get back everyone to go into normal school without any pandemic happening at that time so yeah so i i choose i struggle with going from the hybrid to
189the um to the we're fully virtual right now to all of a sudden going five days a week i struggle with that a little bit um i i'm not certain that now is the time to go to a full five day a week um without i i just feel like it's a great experiment we're gonna just swing the pendulum all the way to the other end and um i i had a lengthy discussion with uh tim lemke this afternoon about our special ed students and about strategies for making sure that their needs are met because i think that's extremely important in this discussion and um he said there were ways in which they are currently reaching out and working with families and that they would continue to work with those families including the potential to
190have in person for special ed students who who need the the resources in person um so so i'm i'm still on the fence that i i feel like we're not at a point where we can fully go back at this point and in hearing a lot of the parents today i i fully understand and appreciate uh um the difficultness that it must be at this point um with students being home um i'm just not certain that we're at a point that we can just fully shift that pendulum i guess so i you know i kind of defer to what noel said that if there was was some sort of a happy medium i know the hybrid is not going to be it doesn't appear that the hybrid is the way to continue this um shift
191but i um comparison what you're saying i've listened to several senior parents over the last couple weeks about the concerns about what senior students are losing in this in their final year the culmination of their experience in greendale there was even talk about juniors and seniors coming back and how well that could be socially distance i don't know kim if you can speak to that um but i i think whatever is going to happen out of this you know there's going to be people that are going to be perceived winners and perceived losers no matter what decision we go with um i just i hesitate to say that we're ready for full five days until the vaccination can take hold a little bit look happy in my understanding that now is not the time did
192you have specific conditions that we should be targeting well i def yeah i definitely feel that the the social distancing aspect to take that away after we've worked hard at the elementary schools obviously that is a factor and i spoke with sean johnson from the health department today at length and she did say that at what's working at the elementary school is because of you know in large part because the ability to social distance that is not something that's going to be feasible with all students in attendance at the high school um my understanding is even with those spaces that parents and and you have discussed you know auditorium library lobbies and so forth with the amount of students we have i just don't see that being feasible for the entire high school anyways so
193we've kind of gone all around i think you know what i'm hearing is the consensus is everyone's saying um we want to be back in schools and i think there's um you know you know there's there's some of the boards saying let's advocate for that let's do that um there are some concerns and you know i guess i would ask you kim to to see you know are there additional things that we can do to to mitigate that you're right we're still going to require masks in in the classroom we're still going to require masks at the schools um you know i believe we have plexiglas for for the the staff uh in their classrooms uh maybe on an animated basis i think all those things help mitigate it um you know i heard you
194know a need for maybe one-on-one uh learning for for students with special needs um i really think that applies to all of our students based on where we are we um we are at today and the success and uh i think games kim salem you know rob a lot of really good points that say we're going to have some families that are going to be successful regardless they they are in a home environment where learning is encouraged takes place but there are too many of our students that aren't in that environment that you know schools can provide that so you know again that that's where you know i said it earlier that that i would be a strong advocate for you know returning back to school five days a week so joe i to be
195clear i'm understanding from you and from kim that an in-person return with all due speed meaning as early and second semester as we can feasibly make it work i'm hearing from kathy and noel that they are not ready for um foregoing the distancing and so now is not the time so either remain virtual or find another time thor i'm not clear so yeah and i didn't necessarily speak kind of my mind i was more kind of sharing feedback from the community on my my portion before you know looking at all the things as everyone said there's not a great option um to move forward with and i think that's the um the conversation that's in front of us but i do you know realize that the parents have spoken very very loudly in this case
196that they want to see their students return back to school as soon as possible and and they know the circumstances that are in front of us they're part of this pandemic along with us right they're living in the same world that we do we are and so that you know brings me that pause of saying how do we make sure that we provide opportunities to our parents and what is that going to look like i don't think it's going to be the same percentages of students that are parents and students they're going to choose the options that they did in the beginning of school year um so that might actually be a very powerful or positive thing for us because depending on what the percentages of students that want virtual full virtual or want to
197come back five day in person that actually changes what and how we plan um but you know there was a you know within the petition and granted the petition didn't have uh just folks from greendale but there was 292 people from greendale to 852 that signed it um you know with the parents and the information that we heard before you know what can we possibly be doing to expedite that in a safe manner um or a safe a manner as humanly possible there's three criteria that that the cdc and the national academies have laid out around kind of mitigating risk and one was assessing the likelihood of covet cases coming into our schools so that becomes a community a responsibility right we all have a responsibility to play in this so what can we do
198as a community to make sure that we are mitigating that risk as much as humanly possible and how can we put that challenge forward to our community and all fronts of our community to make sure that we're doing the best possible job we can the likelihood of onward transmission number two is likelihood of onward transmission within school settings i think you know from what we've seen yes we had an issue that seems to be and we brought in two different groups of experts to look at and help mitigate that issue in that one school um you know it appears that we are doing a a really good job or you are doing a really good job of of thinking through that school setting and mitigating it as much as possible granted that included social distancing
199and we want to make sure that we can do that as when and wherever possible and then the other one which is the third third is this idea of the consequence of the risk assessment right so that's the consequence of transmission so the who's the best to make that decision on on what consequence outweighs which is it us globally as a as a district or is it to put that responsibility back into the parents who know their students best and understand what is uh going to be the larger detriment to their sons and daughters and the one area that concerns me around that is i want to make sure we're doing everything humanly possible to ensure that transmission is not happening to our teachers so are there additional migration step techniques or strategies that we
200can employ you know maybe we can't keep the students always you know within six feet and if you're making that decision that you want to send your students still to school just like they're going to franklin or whitnall or muskego and they're not abiding by those rules um that's a decision that they're making but from a teacher's perspective how can we make sure that we're providing them with a minimum of six feet of space and i know that that's not always easy when you're trying to teach or instruct a classroom of students but um you know can we somehow figure that part out and use that as a kind of a design process as we're setting up our class sizes and who's where and understanding who wants to go in person versus virtual so that's
201that's kind of where i am right now um you know and then obviously we each are going to make our own decisions on on how we will send our sons or daughters to greendale schools but i think having uh the parents input on what is the worst of two evils is is not a bad idea in this situation and where we are right now um and then the other kind of silver lining or hope um i guess is the teachers are part of the what is it b1 criteria for vaccinations so that's coming hopefully sooner than later i think they were looking at the end of january beginning of february is what they were saying last i looked for firefighters police and teachers uh to have vaccinations so that opportunity now becomes accessible almost at
202the same time potentially that we would be ready to transition to a in-person model within the schools if based upon what we just talked about with a three-week-ish you know turnaround time frame to get everything organized and and and students back and teachers organized and so on so that was a long way of me saying um i think we should provide that option i think you know this the community has spoken loudly and i think we should do that so thor if i could just uh speak on a couple of things you just said one one i'm fully in agreement um that i i think we do need to take our teachers and our educators and staff into consideration with this even the custodial staff they're exposed as well um i definitely feel that is
203something important i was a little hesitant with the um with the petition that you referenced as well and i noticed that um even some of the people that were greendale residents were not necessarily families but rather just other citizens don't have kids in the school um i was concerned there that there were uh a majority that weren't even from the area so that you know our focus should be on what our community needs um kim i know this is late in the year to even be asking for this but um i think this conversation should should have been had or should be had with the village board as well because uh unfortunately there have been many community events that have been supported in our community over the past several months ever going all the way
204back through the summer um that i feel have been to the detriment of our school district and our community um that offerings you know and i've spoken to all the trustees and i've reached out as much as i could to members that were on committees that were forming some of these activities but this is this is really a situation where we have to be looking at what we all need to be doing and um i don't feel our community of greendale has been on board with that right up right from the get-go and and so i have some strong strong reservations with a five day a week at this point when our community is not really working towards these things that we need to do to mitigate the problems and and so i mean ideally
205i would love to have like an immediate meeting right away with the with the village board to talk about ways that we could work together to ensure um you know the health director has has her opinion on things and then the village board has their opinion on things and and so without getting into finger-pointing or anything i just feel that our boards need to come together and our community as a whole needs to come together to determine what our best course of action moving forward with this pandemic in general is um our school is obviously being a big part of that but our community as a whole is being impacted by a lot of these things that are going on thank you i just want to clarify something um i i guess um i i
206i do want to see the kids come back to school i just don't know that right now is the exact time two months from now we might have numbers that are great you know i don't know i'm not i'm not an epidemiologist either i'm just watching the community i'm watching it as a whole if this vaccine comes available to the teachers that would certainly help a lot so the when is the question and i can't you know i'm not going to try to answer that but i but i i think for now virtual is where we need to be how long we need to be virtual i don't want to just say till june because i don't think that that would be fair if there is a point in time between now and june we
207can go back five days a week if that makes sense so one question maybe on that note it can before before you go um if i may is one of the issues that we are we obviously are running into is class sizes um you know actually the issue we're running into is the amount of space that we have in our buildings um number one issue then obviously there's also a staffing issue once we find the space there's got to be someone in the space if we don't have those people are as well um we have spaces we don't have enough teachers so yeah we do have facility space we just don't have the right it would be a cost is that correct yeah there'd be a significant cost to it so you were saying yeah
208i was just trying to think too is that you know is there going to be certain circumstances where you know there is the the virtual class down the hall you know even in the in-person um setting which you know or something of that nature other other strategies that we could employ to make sure that we are trying to keep our distance as much as possible in our settings and i think what i would liken that too is at the elementary school level they're cla they're meeting with their classroom teacher four days a week but they're meeting with their specials teacher you had it in the last presentation you know spanish and and art and music i think they're doing those things virtually um and again not to minimize those those those correct those um those
209classes those specials um but the priority has been let's get the elementary school students in front of a teacher for reading writing mathematics you know those parts of the the curriculum and that uh spanish and and some of the other classes uh can be delivered virtually maybe not ideal but that's that's the trade-off as we prioritize things so i think what i'm hearing is is there an opportunity to do something similar at the high school level that um that looks like that and i think that might be something that we're not going to solve in tonight's meeting you know we can throw out all different kinds of ideas but kim as you uh meet with the the reopening schools and and the the team are there ways to get to something like that does that
210help alleviate some of the the um the social distancing concerns so what i i serve the board and the board is a representation of the community and tonight what i'm hearing is that kim thor and joe would like us to present an in-person option um that weighs all the the mitigation strategies and presents to the community a learning plan in which they're making a choice as to which mitigation strategies or which risks are more um which which risk they're willing to take the risk of um virus spread or the risk of the consequences of being isolated from their peers and then i'm hearing kathy and noel saying that it's that they want to be in that space but they don't think that now is the right time and the conditions that they're looking for is
211some sort of protection for teachers in that space and so i think that speaks to the division in the community and the the division of opinions within the community but my the direction is is that i should move forward with exploring what it looks like and doing what needs to be done to offer an in-person option to our students and families at old school and high school with that direction i will be meeting with the reopening greendale schools team tomorrow we will develop a new survey for parents to be distributed once that learning plan is solidified so that we understand their choices and then we will transition to the updated learning plan based on the conditions outlined by the board tonight and the time needed to make the adjustments necessary to get our students uh
212that option in place i i think kim you've you've summarized that very well and uh the next steps are reflective of the conversation tonight so thank you so i i do appreciate the discussion and i do appreciate the direction thank you thanks kim and and before we we move off this subject i'd be remiss if i didn't thank you again for helping us uh navigate and and lead uh the department or the district through this um i also want to publicly acknowledge you know julie your work to getting the staff hired and you know you were hiring people you know up until the day if not after the semester started so thank you for that uh kitty you know the communications the family have been spot on jonathan your work for the personal protective equipment
213and the hvac system you know again it's a team that's looking to do right by the the school district and by the students um cindy and eric aren't on the call but even from our food services they've continued to operate the meal program and cassie and jack you know they've continued to operate the daycare program that so many of our families have taken advantage of it maggie and tim you know the whole team has really come together and what i heard earlier then some of the comments from kathy and from thor was we as a village need to make sure that we're working toward this now we certainly can't speak for the village board we can't um you know we don't vote on behalf of the village board decisions us we we have to focus
214on what's in our control but i think the message here is we as a village need to understand what we can do because i think everyone has said let's get our students back in the classroom so are there actions that as a village we should be doing we can continue to do to ensure that that happens safely so thank you um continuing on with the agenda that was a a great uh discussion but we still have a couple of items on the agenda um student board member update um axo in paris we have this on once a month uh for you guys to share any updates uh anything that you'd like to share again more of an informal um update that you can provide us with what's happening axel do you have anything um not
215really i guess it's just um a lot of concern over how we're gonna go back and what we're doing from here especially since you know students aren't just going from school to home it's a lot of like parents coming in with possibly bringing in the virus i'm going to work them seeing friends it's kind of like a lot of things that are concerning everyone yeah i mean i'd somewhat agree um other things outside of just like their pandemic concerns i know a lot of teachers are being lenient and doing exam exemptions which is really um just exciting for lots of students because it's been difficult to learn in this kind of setting so that grace period was nice um also that people are just looking forward to this break coming up and um i know
216our school i think just announced an announcements today that they have a live streaming service now that's now available for our school district until 2024 and um it does cost money on a monthly fee or there's an annual fee but no matter what the outcome is in the future there's availability for students to still feel somewhat involved if that's seeing a live athletic competition music competition something that's related to their school in person or virtually so that's just nice to have that option all right thank you both uh legislative updates um kathy anything from a legislative update that you'd like to share at this time sure i've got a few things i will try to condense it just in the interest of time last week thursday december 16th uh governor evers and lieutenant governor barnes
217had a virtual budget listening session i did attend it um i listened actively i did not um heard too much because i do reach out to our representatives as i can um but i did want to mention that majority of the participants were requesting additional funding for public schools as you might imagine mental health being the key area i think this pandemic has really raised the awareness that we need services in those areas um and so the pandemic itself was discussed and um you know it's just been a challenge for everyone across the state um there was a bipartisan group of federal lawmakers that unveiled a two-part uh 908 billion dollar covid relief package on december 14th um they the the proposal is said to include 82 million dollars for education um which includes about
21854 or i'm sorry 82 billion for education um which includes about 54 billion for k through 12 education there were some provisions that earmarked some of this money for private and parochial schools as well also the wisconsin policy forum reports point to challenges for schools in the upcoming state budget as we've been discussing and i know we will continue just discussing as we move forward the first report suggests that the state will face its toughest budget challenges since 2011. and the second report shows that the 2020 school district property tax levies uh may be rising significantly faster than inflation so that is a result of that the office of school safety has some deadlines that i'm assuming our district is aware of december 31st uh required trainings for three hours of trauma informed care and
219aces and trauma sensitive schools training for all um staff is round one and then round two is a threat assessment um team training and i know that greendale is doing a lot in this area um uh i was just trying to see ten percent oh never mind yeah uh well ten percent uh full-time teachers and counselors i guess are um gonna hopefully take part in this and then i just wanted to make mention to the fact that senator luther olsen has retired from the state senate um he's being replaced by senator alberta darling as the education committee chair so she'll probably be someone will be wanting to reach out to over the course of the next biennium all right thank you kathy um so jonathan you know uh it's being reported that at least the
220house of representatives at the federal level have passed the the um their portion of the the covid relief package and there is money set aside for public education as more information is made aware if you could provide updates to the board as to what uh what we can expect or what what that money is going to be earmarked for thank you um coming up at the end of the agenda board calendar review um you know we're at the end of december i think kim you already mentioned that winter break starts on wednesday unfortunately we do not have the concert season although uh we did have a couple of the orchestra and choir students perform earlier um on a live stream in paris thank you for sharing that update on the live stream anything else that
221we should be aware of from a calendar review perspective okay so we are at the end of the agenda like to adjourn this meeting to our next board meeting which is scheduled in the new year on monday january 4th for those families that are celebrating christmas wish everyone a merry christmas and for all of our students and families and staff uh looking forward to a happy and healthy new year in 2021 thank you for your time this evening and we are adjourned right thank you take care everyone