001all right it is now seven o'clock and we will begin this meeting um roll call will show that all five board members are present uh and kim i assume this has been posted it has all right i invite you to stand and join me in the pledge of allegiance well that all five board members are present uh and can i i pledge allegiance to the flag of the united states of america and to the republic for which it stands one nation under god indivisible with liberty and justice for all so kim starting with any communications you'd like to share with the board yes on june 30th i sent a message in a survey to all greendale schools families to inform them that administration was evaluating options for reopening greendale schools in the fall and ask
002questions to help understand parents comfort level with the various possibilities for scheduling and health and safety precautions being considered the team has been meeting with the greendale health department since may to discuss the various frameworks for how school might look no decisions have been made for the coming year at this time a report will be provided to the board this evening on the survey results and considerations for making decisions in the coming weeks greendale high school cheer palms boys basketball softball and football began summertime in person practice on july 1st jared gallante provided coaches with information on the wiaa and district health and safety precautions his slideshow with the ghs returned to play protocol is also shared on the district website back to school check-in for the 2021 school year began on monday july 6th
003families are in the process of registering now with the deadline of august 7th for completing the forms and september 1 for submitting fees the high school will host two student readiness days to take student photos distribute yearbooks and hand out parking permits on july 23rd and 30th from 1 to 7. the district office reopened on july 6 with staff on a rotating schedule an administration has been working with the health department with contact tracing for some recent coven 19 positive cases in greendale with guidance from the health department and continued closing of the marcus center greendale high school will not host the prom scheduled to take place on july 16th the decision was made in collaboration with the junior class officers and consideration of student survey results graduation plans are finalized for july 18th and
004details were provided to students and families board members are invited to participate in the student-only ceremony at 4 00 p.m and will take part in shifts during the student diploma distribution part of the day miss olsen and i recently met with paige and the voice at their request to listen to their request to reconsider the school resource officer partnership per the calendar of reports the board is scheduled to hear an update on school safety and school resource officer at the august 3rd work session input from these meetings will be included in the administration's update and finally open houses and self-guided tours of the new school spaces will be held in conjunction with homecoming weekend on october 9th and 10th details and times will be included in the save the date in the summer issue of
005the school connection at the end of july that concludes my communications all right thank you kim and now um talents are questions from visitors that you've received yes we have received quite a few and so i want to remind the public and the board that while the safer at home order has been lifted and gatherings are allowed in person we continue to meet in an online environment to ensure transparency while there is construction occurring in our normal meeting location so we have um we meet at the high school in the library area and that is under construction so until that is completed which is anticipated to be at the end of april or august i'm sorry we will um meet virtually and return to in person when that allows so the first comment of the
006evening is from mary grogan in response to your explanation regarding your legal right to silence all live chat during your virtual school board meetings i would like to read the following into the public record school board president joe crepito and kathy vincent were both seen marching in the george floyd black lives matter protest here in greendale on june 5th 2020 though crepetto and vincent were exercising their first amendment rights freedom of assembly as citizens of the united states and residents of greendale when they are seated at the board table as elected officials they choose to silence the first amendment rights freedom of speech of their constituents by eliminating live chat options during their virtual board meetings hypocrisy is the hardest thing to reconcile the extended school closure order put in place by governor evers and
007the department of health and human services ends on june 30th 2020 at that time the municipal and county public health orders backed by local ordinances take over therefore the board of education should resume in-person socially distant school board meetings as of july 1st 2020 the next comment is from paige the milwaukee and madison school districts voted unanimously to end their police in schools contract as have other districts across the country and others are discussing it such as green bay similar conversations are happening in nearby suburbs like waukesha and burlington it is time to reconsider this greendale school district's contract with the police department to have school resource officers in our schools greendale school district can lead the way with this effort here are some realities to consider the presence of police officers does not increase
008safety for students and administrators the evidence points to the presence of school resource officers and schools increasing risk for students not decreasing them disproportionately criminalizing discipline issues among students of color particularly black and brown students creating an environment of fear for students and not decreasing the risk of school shootings or other violence the 2018 shooting at marjory stoneman douglas high school in parkland florida which left 17 people dead occurred while there was an armed officer on campus there were also officers present on the santa fe high school campus when a student shot and killed eight students and two teachers in 2018. the presence of school resource officers does not improve relationships between students and police especially among students of color according to a study by the brookings institute research shows that increased frequency of interactions
009between students and sros were not related to feelings of safety at school rather student experiences at school were better predictors of a feeling of safety female students black students and those who have experienced school violence felt less safe even with sros present this study indicated that sros did not increase safety in the middle schools the research studied increased the risk of criminalizing students of color and alternative investments in smaller middle schools and strategies for improving learning outcomes might have accomplished greater school safety outcomes police from the greendale safety center are very nearby to schools in case of emergency given that gsd has two school resource officers for seven schools it is likely that the sro won't be on the scene when conflicts arise the greendale safety center is 1.4 miles a three minute drive to
010greendale high school this is the same distance between college park elementary school and ghs and a shorter distance than highland view elementary school to ghs the presence of school of police in schools increases the criminalization of students of color including in districts with similar demographics to greendale black students are most likely to be punished despite often being one of the smallest populations in many school districts across the country black males are three times more likely to be arrested at school than their white male peers black girls are arrested 1.5 times more than their white male peers of the schools that referred students to law enforcement 17 of their enrollments were black yet 26 percent of all students referred to law enforcement were black across the majority of states no other group has such a high
011arrest to enrollment ratio our students of color 25 of greendale students are disproportionately impacted by police in schools often impacting their ability to thrive in school according to several recent studies police and schools have a direct impact on lower test scores for black boys from new york that's a study from new york and may be responsible for lowering graduation rates and attendance rates in texas wisconsin has the highest opportunity gap for students of color in the country on the forward exam in 2018 2019 for example 63.3 percent of white fourth graders scored advanced or proficient in the english language arts compared to 13.8 percent of black students tax taxpayer dollars could be better spent in the community for counselors de-escalation training and other efforts for the 2019-2020 fiscal year over 165 thousand dollars is being
012spent toward the school resource officer positions in greendale schools teachers and administration are typically the first on scene during conflicts for example in 2016 a tennessee middle school counselor take talked down a student who came to school with a loaded gun and extra ammunition in milwaukee as well as other towns and cities across the country mental health counselors right along with police to help de-escalate conflict and reduce trauma the next comment is from kathy pod i would like to bring attention to the subject of sros in greendale schools our village is very small and the safety center police station is close to all the schools it would be quicker to have officers come from the safety center instead of another school if they happen to not be at the school that would necessitate a need
013for intervention in the moment example to travel from martin luther high school to highland view elementary is eight to ten minutes here are the times it takes to get from the safety center in normal traffic to each school in the contract greendale high school three minutes greendale middle school two to three minutes canterbury elementary school two to three minutes highland view elementary five minutes college park elementary six minutes saint alphonsus one to two minutes and martin luther high school five minutes thank you for your diligence in this matter the next comment is from ben hubing representing the greendale education association has asked the district administrative team to reinstate just cause language for teacher termination and non-renewal as part of the district's employee handbook prior to act 10 the standard that greendale and the vast majority
014of districts used was just cause the standard required the district to that the district have documented in legitimate evidence and reasoning for firing an employee evidence of poor performance ineffective evaluations blatant violations of school guidelines or teachers failing to succeed after being placed on plans of improvement were among the reasons that teachers could be terminated under this standard the standard the district currently uses is non-arbitrary and capricious a significantly lower standard that does not require compelling reasons for terminations and non-renewals that lack supporting evidence are far too harsh and involve no warning or chance to correct or improve can meet this standard while district while the district has generally acted in good faith and maintains that they hold themselves to the just cause standard when possible we would like to see it codified as an
015official practice leaving the district flexibility to only use the standard when they prefer is confusing and consistent and unfair teachers deserve to know during a global pandemic that the district stands behind them as educators and one way to do so is to hold themselves to a higher standard when it comes to termination and non-renewal of the hard-working teachers in the district just cause is not a bulletproof vest that lets teachers perform ineffectively and egregiously it simply requires that administrators have a fair and clear standard teachers are on the front line in our classrooms and deserve the peace of mind knowing that their performance will be assessed fairly and consistently we have submitted examples of language in other district handbooks that currently use just cause language to the administration and board members we respectfully request the
016board make these changes when updating the staff handbook this summer the next comment is from michael gijo after submitting the parent survey i believe open questions remain which may not be covered with milwaukee cases rising i would submit this list of questions for consideration of the school board and administration if a teacher tests positive are they required to quarantine for two to three weeks if so are they going to be protected and motivated to do so in other words provided paid sick leave without the use of their paid time off if a teacher tests positive or requires a day off will a substitute teacher be used substitute teachers move between multiple schools and classrooms how would their potential exposure be tracked between multiple schools and potentially multiple districts what can the school district do to
017address children with fevers administered tylenol and sent to school there will be parents who do not distinguish between covid19 and a common cold who will also be comfortable sending a child to school with a perceived cold if a child shows symptoms fever or coughing will they be immediately sent home will the other children be sent home and the room cleaned will the child showing symptoms be allowed to return the next day with the doctor's note or is a confirmed negative covid result required will a parent or doctor claim that the child suffers from allergies or has a cold be adequate to return a child showing coughing or sneezing symptoms to the classroom if a teacher or student receives a positive result for themselves or someone in their household will all students from their classroom be
018quarantined for two to three weeks how will the school keep up with testing with the delays showing symptoms in the time for positive test results five to seven days other students could be one to two weeks behind testing how will testing be handled if a positive test is found will testing be handled in the school itself or will parents be responsible for handling testing on an individual basis how will parents be informed about positive tests for teachers or another student students and teachers interact with specific other students and teachers will the name of an infected student be shared so other parents can evaluate the true likelihood of exposure from that student will students suspected of direct contact with the infected individual be informed directly of their higher risk will the specific classroom where the case
019was found be divulged to parents what additional measures are being taken for high-risk students such as those with compromised immune systems over the age of 60 and will alternative education options such as digital learning be provided to elect to those electing to not send their children to school for parents uncomfortable with district policies some of those questions will be addressed tonight in the report the next comment is from cindy and keith laneman we are alarmed by the number of area schools that are announcing a full five-day in-person return to school this fall especially as we read in the news day after day about record-breaking new covid numbers i hope that greendale will be an area leader in protecting its students and faculty by opting not to follow suit with neighboring districts such as franklin a
020hybrid option seems to be reasonable as long as masks are required to be worn by teachers staff and students let's set an example of making decisions based on science and not be swayed by other pressures the next comment is from jennifer seifert identifying as a highland view parent i'm just writing to urge that some things be taken into consideration as you continue to plan how our schools will reopen in the fall as you know cases of coven 19 have been rapidly rising across much of the nation including wisconsin while children may not be as vulnerable to contracting the virus now mis-c is also coming into play in a number of children who have had the virus at some point but been asymptomatic including a handful here in southeastern wisconsin this should bring up a worry
021and opening schools at full capacity i know many districts have already decided to open in full with some precautions in place i am worried about our district following suit i am worried about the teachers and how stretched thin they might end up being i don't see an easy way to have a good social distancing in our schools it may end up being more traumatizing to young students to have to deal with not being able to play with their friends or wear masks or be behind plexiglass all day or deal with the potential of a teacher or friend getting seriously ill i personally have a child who will be needing a 504 plan and will need to have a teacher a staff member help him get a back brace on and off throughout the day which
022brings concerns for him and other students in the same situation i ask you to consider either some sort of staggered reopening plan or a shortened school week or keeping high school students in virtual learning so younger students can spread out more properly according to guidelines the option for parents to keep their kids home for virtual learning should also be considered opening schools in full on september 1st is only going to lead to closures within a couple of months especially when you add flu season into the mix please go away by what the majority of parents want in the survey that was sent out and not by what other districts are doing and absolutely not by what politicians say schools should be doing please do what is best for the safety of our children and teachers
023the next comment is from heather godley well over a year ago page members shared our concerns about adding a second school resource officer to the district as school board members you are in uniquely positioned to ensure that all greendale school students walk into school and feel safe many students do not feel safe with armed police officers in schools while we may not be able to control negative experiences with all levels of the unjust criminal justice system outside of school we can make sure they are not potentially re-traumatized by having police in schools sros and schools are often a major step pushing students into the school-to-prison pipeline we know that implicit bias leads teachers and administrators to notice black students misbehaving while they do not notice why students engaging in the same behaviors when law enforcement
024is involved the stakes are even higher and the effects can be more detrimental to students having police present create present creates a pathway to the school-to-prison pipeline by enabling ticketing and arrest of juveniles for classroom behavior issues in u.s schools 15.5 percent of students are african-american but african-american students are referred to law enforcement at almost double the rate and they are and they disproportionately make up 33.4 percent of those arrested even leaving aside cases of gross misconduct by school resource officers such as harming children and leaving their weapons unattended the very presence of an officer in internal discipline issues may well escalate the situation especially for students who've had trauma involving law enforcement and lead to unnecessary tickets arrests for such things as disorderly conduct and resisting arrest this is particularly important as sros do
025not have enough training for de-escalating situations with children especially those with special needs we need to fully train counselors and teachers on mediation and de-escalation as well as restorative practices rather than involve sros and discipline issues freedom inc in madison whose school board just voted to remove sros from school argues that having sros in schools leads to an over policing of black students and students of color they cite arrest and citation numbers in the district in madison during the 2017-18 school year 27 of 33 arrests and 65 of 74 citations were black children of the total number of students in the district 18.6 are black angela harris director of the black educators caucus in milwaukee another school board that has just voted to remove sros from school further states that those things even if it
026is a juvenile record still follow you through adulthood and it becomes difficult shape shake we need to do everything we can to stop the school-to-prison pipeline which includes removing sros from greendale schools the next comment is from submitted by zack geiger in light of neighboring school districts announcing reopening plans confirmed cases of copit among student athletes and employees in our district spaces skyrocketing copig cases nationally and in the state many states are pulling back from reopening and the federal government weighing in on the necessity of schools reopening without guidance or support the greendale education association held an emergency meeting this morning to discuss the ways in which staff believe we can most effectively and safely reopen school greendale schools with 70 members in attendance the gea appreciates the collaborative way in which the greendale administration
027has included teachers and staff in the process they have shown genuine good faith in listening to questions and concerns that staff have about creating a safe environment for students to learn we believe the pandemic has worsened significantly and many responses staff made weeks ago in the survey results you will not hear tonight no longer reflect what staff are comfortable with the gea collected more more current survey results from 169 teachers in the district complete updated survey results and comments can be found here there's a link that i um can open during the report there's a significant concern that regardless of any precautions there is no way that schools can reopen safely in the fall many staff fear that even with distancing and cleaning precautions there is no plan that adequately prevents the spread of coronavirus
028and that schools that choose to reopen will lead to a surge of infections and deaths that could lead to prompt closure what we said over 75 percent of those surveys are uncomfortable or very uncomfortable with returning to school facilities while there is some evidence that younger people are less likely to contract the virus staff and teachers can and even asymptomatic students can spread it to older siblings parents and grandparents potential spikes from reopening schools will only contribute to the negative impacts on the greendale community and its families and businesses 51 percent of teachers surveyed today believe that starting the year digitally and gradually reopening as conditions improve is the safest way to reopen and provide continuity and support for students only 4.9 indicated that returning to full capacity was their first choice we know that
029students need social interaction and face-to-face learning and some staff believe that these needs must mean we must reopen schools in some way however most staff believe the risks are too great and that the anxiety produced by the pandemic and efforts to minimize it will interfere with learning anyway we are professionals and we can learn from our experiences this spring to improve the quality of our online instruction with greater attention to synchronous experiences and students social and emotional needs prior to face-to-face instruction resuming staff favor vigorous contract tracing in greendale decreasing case in milwaukee county decreasing cases in greendale and to a lesser extent no new cases in milwaukee county or greendale we urge the board and administration to look seriously at a delayed reopening of the physical buildings and beginning the year digitally before jumping
030back in hastily when we cannot vouch for the safety of students and staff if and when schools open teachers surveyed today believe that believe strongly that significant insisting precautions must be implemented to lessen the likelihood of coronavirus spreading through the school buildings almost 65 percent of those surveyed support for mandatory masks for all people in the building including teachers and students with over 50 percent support both partitions and masks science has shown that without a vaccine one of the most effective ways to prevent the spread of coronavirus is that all people that come into contact wear a mask it is unfortunate that wearing a mask become has become politicized because if students refuse to put them on puts other students and teachers at risk other precautions that teachers see as essential to reopening schools effectively
031and safely include transparency for positive tests within the district clear provisions for staff who need to be need to quarantine appropriate custodial staff to sanitize and clean throughout the day and clear response to positive covid tests we understand that there are no easy answers to reopening schools there are economic considerations and input from families is very important but it is not hyperbole to say that asking staff to return is asking us to risk our lives and the lives of our students there must be careful and serious precautions made so that we as educators can support students and their learning while balancing the safety of our students and staff the next um comment is submitted by aaron sweeney with the dramatic increase of covid19 of coping cases it is essential that greendale learn from the missteps
032of other states and districts by doing more to protect its school community as a parent and a teacher i urge the board to begin with the year with online instruction exclusively not only is the current covet situation worse than it was when campuses closed last spring but making this decision will grant all stakeholders valuable time to plan and the certainty of what to plan for why wait for people to get sick before doing what we already know will protect them the most if greendale chooses to be reactive instead when students and staff enter the buildings and covet and inevitably strikes many if not all will be thrown overnight into home instruction and the juggling act of work and child care stress levels and community frustration will spike no 2021 reopening plan is ideal and yes
033online instruction poses weighty challenges however known challenges are easier to plan for and confront than those sprung upon us making the proactive plan to instruct digitally focuses decision making and resource allocation it gives families district personnel and community support institutions time to strategize reflect on the lessons of the spring term and learn and implement best practices reducing the stress of the unknown on the larger village the next comment is from chad the aquisto we are graduates of greendale school district and we are thrilled to purchase a home in greendale so our children can benefit from the same high level of education that we were so fortunate to receive in the spirit of setting a standard for putting people first we have some questions regarding the 2021 school year if the teacher tests positive for coping
03419 are they required to quarantine for two to three weeks is their sick leave covered or paid if a teacher has five classes a day with 30 students each to all 150 of those students need to then stay home and quarantine for 14 days do all 150 of those students now have to get tested who pays for those tests are they happening at school how are parents being notified does everyone in each of those kids families need to get tested who pays for that what if someone who lives in the same house as a teacher test positive does that teacher now need to take 14 days off work to quarantine is that time covered or paid where is the district going to find a substitute teacher who will work in a classroom full of exposed
035possibly infected students for substitute pay substitutes teach in multiple schools what if they are diagnosed with coven 19 do all the kids in each school now have to quarantine and get tested who is going to pay for that what if a student in your kids class test positive what if your kid test positives does every other student and teacher they have been around quarantine do we all get notified who is infected and when or because of hipaa regulations our parents and teachers just going to get mysterious may have been in contact emails all year long what is the stress what is this stress going to do to our teachers how does it affect their health and well-being how does it affect their ability to teach how does it affect the quality of education they are
036able to provide what is it going to do to our kids what are the long-term effects of consistently being stressed out how will it affect students and faculty when the first teacher in their school dies from this the first parent of a student who brought it home the first child how many more people are going to die that otherwise would not have if we had stayed home longer thirty percent of the teachers in the us are over fifty about 16 of the total deaths in the us are people between the ages of 45 and 65. the reality is that we we are in the middle of a pandemic this is not forever like generations before us have been called to do it is our time to show our children patience perseverance and that most things
037worth doing are not easy it is clear that the time for reopening in-person instruction is not now the decision to hold virtual school until it is safe to reopen would save lives making that decision now would also give staff time to improve the virtual learning experience opening in-person instruction in a handful of weeks would be making the choice to put our teachers students their families and the entire community in more danger please refrain from following other communities and making the wrong choice the next comment is from ashley rutzloff in the year 2016 in ashland tennessee a school counselor named molly hudgins prevented a school shooting at sycamore middle school the student who is about to change his life and potentially take others wore a bla a large black coat on a warm day he stopped
038by molly's office because she reached out to him as a school counselor earlier in the year and made him feel cared for wearing the large trench coat on a hot day struck her as bizarre she talked to him for 45 minutes by the end of it molly has de-escalated the potential crisis by talking the student out of harming others he surrendered his weapon to her molly wasn't a school resource officer she was a school employee who functioned as an effective and caring school counselor she won the citizens medal of honor for her heroism please consider the power of proactive care for our students and staff at our greendale schools it is vital to ensure the mental and emotional health of our students an sro did not stop the school shooting a school counselor did please
039ask yourself if policing our schools is equitable for our bipoc students no one ever wants to be in the situation molly was in but she had the adequate training support and knowledge to prevent her students from becoming another statistic let us imagine what is possible rather than sticking with the status quo the next comment is from dr christian patnode i have many concerns with school reopening as a medical doctor a doctor of veterinary medicine parent and greendale employee working through covid19 and spouse of a public school teacher it is my sincerest hope that the school board will follow the science if we truly want schools to reopen in a safe manner and not see this disease spread through classrooms quickly major changes need to happen i would like to see a one to two week
040rotation if in school versus online learning to spread out students and allow for some sort of social distancing i realize that distancing is not always possible or practical for this reason i hope to see masks at a minimum being strongly encouraged or required unless there is a strong reason for a child not to be able to wear one i know that there is always going to be exceptions as this is a highly controversial topic but even if the majority of students teachers and employees wear them the disease will be slowed thank you for your time the next comment is from eileen boos first thank you all for for all you are doing to open safely you have extremely difficult decisions to make and a lot of really vocal local opinions i'm a greendale sub and
041i would like to know if there is increased compensation compensation for subs and paid training for effective online teaching how soon will that happen temperature check should be required will there be a bus monitor who does this in addition to someone at the school door who will handle irate parents and their reactions when they do read a temp and the parents need to go to work you know this will happen and be terrible for the monitor how will teachers pivot to teach some children online and others in person will they be compensated for all of the extra work this will take to effectively exit to execute effectively is a best practices in online learning expert being consulted finally can funds that we're going to sports and marching band that won't happen be diverted to pay
042for all the health precautions i appreciate that you want to open and keep working parents happy but anyone following global news knows this is an absurd time to open as our coping cases rise students in populist urban china are still online learning because there is a severe threat the next comment is from scott bowie i would like to note we are all meeting virtually discuss to discuss allowing our children to physically attend school this fall my family and i live in the b section and my children would be attending in quotes canterbury this fall i am torn on the subject of my children attending school in person this fall i understand and agree with many of the factors leading us to strongly consider in-person school this fall kids learn better in person child care mental
043health etc however i believe that the risks outweigh the benefits of in-person learning who among us is willing to volunteer their children to be the unlucky ones to get sick and suffer long-term health implications or worse die all in favor of returning to school which teachers and staff are willing or are we willing to volunteer for the same fate which of us are willing to step forward in the event our children become sick and pass it to us recently the american academy of pediatrics and the american federation of teachers the national education association and the also revised their guidance on returning to school stating that safety is the number one consideration i feel that before considering any in-person learning we should have fully considered and created plans around this topic such as airflow and filtration
044within the schools mandatory mass usage what will happen if a student is ill or assumed to be ill will coven 19 testing be readily available and utilize regularly what will the classroom layout and capacity be we are currently at the point of virus spread where we are witnessing new case records set daily far above the levels that resulted in us shutting down schools prior to the statewide shelter in place order we did this out of an abundance of caution i feel a similar approach is warranted where we use the lessons we learn learning from our brief stint of virtual learning as well as best practices from the business world and implement a highly structured virtual learning program for the 2021 school year with each day including a mix of virtual live structured lesson learning sessions
045and unstructured learning time only when a vaccine is available or other mitigations are more readily available should we consider a return to in-person learning if we choose not to follow the example of school districts such as atlanta los angeles or san diego and insist on in-person learning accommodations must be made to allow successful virtual learning for vulnerable vulnerable families and families not comfortable with putting their families at risk the next comment is from laura miller here is a proactive alternative to sros in greendale schools let us hire instead of sros trauma informs social workers or therapists to be available for our students in the greendale school district these same trauma-informed social workers and therapists can also be used for our community by assisting our police and fire departments when they are needed for our community
046just as sros are used at this time funds from fund 80 would be perfect for this sort of partnership between the school district and the village for our entire community of greendale i believe greendale police often wish to have have a social worker or therapist assist them on certain calls milwaukee utilizes this sort of partnership between trauma and formed therapists and police and fire departments known as the trauma response team if there is an appropriate call they will ride together and upon arrival the officers restore safety and the trauma-informed therapist starts the healing process immediately the therapist will process the trauma event and give the family options for support this is not new and is not and has been used in many communities across the united states please consider this forward thinking option which is
047much more equitable than having sros in the greendale schools and that is um that is the time allowed for uh citizen comments all right thank you mr midsick um a lot of good feedback to the community uh i i think this is important that the community is engaged and sharing feedback i know we've surveyed staff we've surveyed families so thank you for continuing to engage with the community we don't comment about topics that are raised during the citizen comments uh but just want everyone to be aware that we will be hearing at tonight's board meeting as well as at our next board meeting some discussions about the current plans for reopening schools as well as understanding what's happening in in schools today at our next support meeting we will also be hearing district safety plans
048and the school resource officer so we are in year one of a three-year mou with the disc with the village uh so we'll be talking about that at our next board meeting and then at tonight's sport i mean we will be hearing um some information on just cause um for the employee handbook so i think most of the comments aside from the the topic of the social media and the youtube uh will be discussed either at tonight's board meeting at our next board meeting so thank you for sharing kim kim i just had a question uh were there more citizen comments tonight there was one additional comment but the commenter said that if it was over time that it could be excluded but i believe that all board members have a copy of that communication
049okay thank you all right thanks uh then we'll continue on with the agenda um the first item on the agenda is approval of our regular last regular board meeting minutes so are there any questions or comments otherwise i'm looking for a motion to approve i move approval of the regular board meeting minutes from july are from june 15th as outlined in agenda item 1.1 second second there's a motion a second to approve the regular meeting minutes any further discussion can i call for a roll call vote kim yes noel yes kathy yes thor yes and i am yes motion series uh next on the agenda is the monthly financial report so jonathan any anything that you'd like to highlight at tonight's meeting yeah so for the monthly financial report report we are starting to put
050in the final entries for the year end for fiscal year 2019-20 our auditors will be on site the week of august 17th so you think about the time between now and then about the next three three to four weeks we'll be working on wrapping up the financials in what was presented to the board the expenditures through june we're at 82.4 percent um so the year-end adjustments there will be for our fund 27 transfer so those general operating dollars that need to go in to cover the local share of the additional cost of special education services there's our debt payment that happened at the end of june and then our other post-employment benefits our transfer for the year so we have flexibility on that until the end of the month of july but that'll be added
051to the expenditure amount on the revenues we were at 63.7 percent on the document that was presented so again there will be year-end adjustments for taxes that will be receivable for state aid that's receivable and grant income there's some grants where we will get the final payrolls together and final payments to vendors put in claims and then we'll get those dollars back after the june 30th timeline we anticipate those revenues um being over 99 of what's budgeted and close to that 100 percent um threshold so that that's the financials on the accounts payable checks just to highlight a couple of the questions that i received um from board members there was one question that dealt with shelving that's being purchased by the district for construction so it's true that we had a number of units
052that we were able to use and load up books for the libraries and so there was a good question about what we will do with that there's a number of areas we've identified beyond just storage areas there's our band workshop there's needs for our summer school materials storage in the pool wood shop storage at the middle school we've identified some areas and when we did a cost benefit on purchasing that shelving it would have been more expensive to rent um than to buy so we will put those to good use then after the fact but we were able to save money just by going out and buying those there was a question regarding invoicing for the west allis health department so there's um subcontracting of services there's a partnership with the greendale village to have
053health department services for inspections through west allis so specifically our food service program that we get certification and licensure to be able to run that through west allis and so that's why we have invoices from west allis there was a question regarding work done by robinson brothers and that is abatement related to the construction for that work we pay robins and brothers directly versus a lot of the construction project it gets rolled into the general contractor budget but those specifically are still being identified by our architect and general contractor what needs to be done and then we're making those payments and then there was a question about invoice that was ics a cornerstone and that's our integrated comprehensive systems for equity training and we had 22 staff members that were part of that training that
054were on one of the invoices so it was significant but um just pointing out that there were 22 staff members and that's a continuation of the work that we said we were continuing to do in our efforts around equity within the the district and i know the team was hard at work on that in the month of june so with that i'd be happy to answer any other questions the board has on the monthly financials all right thanks jonathan any other questions um for this month's uh financials jonathan with the ics um training that was um done locally right at the school district is that right um were or was there travel involved with that i think we've got some team members here this evening i believe they were facilitating online based on social distancing
055so maybe one of my team members can help me describe how that was all facilitated correct jonathan that that was uh completed in a virtual environment with a bunch of team members from greendale and then some other area uh school districts participated as well thank you all right thanks any other questions otherwise i'm looking for a motion to approve this month's checks and disbursements now while i think you're unmute sorry i moved to approve checks in the amount of six million nine hundred seventy four thousand seventy eight dollars and sixty two cents and disbursements the amount of four million five hundred and twenty three dollars and nine hundred about four million five hundred twenty three nine hundred and fourteen dollars and two cents for a total amount of 11 million 497 993 and two cents
056is outlined in agenda item 2.2 is there a second i second there's been a motion a second to approve total disbursements in the amount of 11 million 497 993 dollars and two cents any further discussion can i call for a roll call vote kim yes oh well yes kathy yes thor yes and i'm yes motion carries continuing on with the agenda um under new business we have uh personnel so this evening we have some personnel for teacher appointments for our family in consumer education a special education teacher at the high school and a social studies teacher at the middle school so anything from administration to highlighter to call out don't believe there's anything to call out we did extensive interview processes and involved staff teaching staff that would be working with the new teachers and
057administration in the process and the three candidates that we bring forward are highly qualified candidates all right any questions for administration otherwise i'm looking for a motion to approve a move to approve agenda item 4.1 approval teacher appointments for family consumer education special education and social studies i second there's been a motion a second to approve personnel any further discussion all right then i call for a roll call vote kim yes noel yes kathy yes sir yes and i'm yes motion carries dead item 4.2 approval of the 2019-2020 parent transportation contract so this is an annual payment um it's paid out twice a year during the school year and this is this for um parent payments made to parents and families of students who attend um private schools um so anything more from administration the
058only thing i would mention is that there was a proration based on the actual days of instruction for those schools so those amounts were prorated and we did some verification with those schools for days of instruction so that we could pay out for the appropriate per day rate for the days that those students attended all right thanks for that clarification and it also is based on the number of students that family has participating um or attending that private school so it's it's not per family it's a per student so any questions from the board otherwise i'm looking for a motion to approve motion to approve the 2019-20 parent transportation contract for the payment second payment as outlined in agenda item 4.2 a second there's been a motion a second to approve agenda item 4.2 for
059the parent transportation contract any further discussion and look for a roll call vote starting with kim yes noelle yes kathy yes thor yes and i am yes motion carries uh so then item 4.3 uh approval of the math curriculum for grades six through 12. so this is um we did receive an update at our last board meeting talking about the curriculum uh and now we are posted this evening to approve the curriculum for math in grades 6 through 12. so um kim anything from administration that you'd like to highlight one thing which is we updated the report and had some additional conversations following the board meeting about leveling up and eliminating tracks from our middle school program um and we had given some nebulous timelines but we are committing to level up and eliminate the
060tracks by the 22 school year for the sixth grade and then to progress through with those students in order to make that happen in a cost effective way we're working with the textbook vendor to allow us to essentially exchange the resources to make sure we have appropriate materials and supplies to level up and have all students in the same curriculum all right thank you any other questions from the board are there within the math curriculum are there um [Music] have they looked at different modalities of learning and and do they have suggestions on how to leverage that for different modalities of learning versus just in person curiosity yeah there are online all of them have online resources that are there and they are able to work um both in an in-person and a virtual environment
061for each of the with the resources that are recommended any other questions or comments if none then i'm looking for a motion to approve the curriculum cycle for math for grades 6 through 12. i just had one other quick question um regarding regarding the textbooks um the the numbers that are uh the quantity that's listed is that um are there extras or is this taking into account the current students we have or is there wiggle room with that at all it's taking into account projected um projected enrollments any other questions otherwise i'm looking for a motion to approve i make a motion to approve the um curriculum cycle for math grades 6 through 12 as outlined in agenda item 4.3 second okay there's been a motion in two seconds to approve the curriculum cycle for
062math in grades 6 through 12. any additional conversation or discussion all right then i start with a roll call vote starting with kim yes noel yes kathy yes store yes and i am yes motion carries uh next item on the agenda it's being brought as an information as well as being posted for action so this is an update on our open enrollment seat so you'll recall in the winter i believe it was january we posted and um for open enrollment seed space are not based on projected enrollment uh we skipped one approval before this four point four right standards and we can come back to the conversation about open enrollment yep thank you kim uh so next item on the agenda is agenda 4.4 approval of the curriculum alignment with that with wisconsin academic standards
063so this is an annual item where state legislation requires that we notify the community and our families of what standards we are aligning with so kim or administration is there any additional comments no as you uh just approved the math curriculum cycle and we approved alignment with the wisconsin academic standards the state law just requires that we affirm those standards alignments annually for all the reports so every set of standards that you're being asked to approve have been approved in a previous curriculum adoption and we're asking to affirm the wisconsin academic standards and all of our curriculum are updated and aligned and once these are approved uh we will notify families in the community um regarding what what standards we're relying on yes we um put those on the website under our notifications just to
064verify this so science is the focus then as we look at this next um year correct that's correct and and i know it was noted in in our packet but um the business um looks like 2009 was the last year that it was um up for a revision or what have you um so is there because it says here that it's going to be after the science um will that be next year or when will that be yes that will be next year so 2021. okay so yeah two things going on one is you know we approve the curriculum uh based on the the calendar uh and then this is just um approving the standard so we can notify the community correct i moved to the move to approve uh agenda item 4.4 which is
065approval of the curriculum alignment with wisconsin academic standards as outlined in 4.4 is there a second second there's been a motion in a second to approve agenda item 4.4 any other questions or discussion all right then i call for a roll call vote kim yes noelle yes kathy yes thor yes and i'm yes motion carries so now getting to agenda item 4.5 as i mentioned previously this item is being posted for information as well as action so you'll recall that this past january we voted on a number of open enrollment seats that we would be opening for the 2021 school year um based on the projected enrollment at that time that period has now closed we the state legislature kind of requires us to keep it open because of the the safer at home orders
066it was extended to june now that time period has ended we can reevaluate and take a second look at our enrollment projections and see if we want to open any additional open enrollment seats so kim is there anything more that you'd like to talk about or highlight for us tonight yeah i'll let julie take the lead on this and then i'll add comment sure so as joe mentioned normally we would look at this in one meeting and then come back at the following meeting for approval but given the extension and the timeline um we're asking the board for to consider approval this evening so that notification can go to the families for any open seats that would be approved by the board so in looking at what our current enrollments are at the elementary levels
067our projections have shifted a little bit since that january initial approval and with that we are looking we base it on board policy and our class size targets to look at capacity at each grade level so with that capacity district-wide capacity we have room for four open enrollment seats at the kindergarten grade level that is taking into account additional families that may move in over the summer so we added some additional projections and space for new enrollments beyond what we have to date um and then at the second grade level we have availability for four seats and at the fourth grade level um similarly four seats at that grade level as well so we'd be looking for approval of of those 12 total additional seats this evening that still keeps us at a net loss
068of open enrollment compared to our 1920 open enrollment seats but it does provide some additional revenue within board policy for places where we do have open availability to that minimum class size target which is where we would be filling to and as we consider in a normal year this would be something that is just we fill to the minimum and there's there's no question that filling to the minimum um gives us very small manageable class sizes but in light of some of the citizen comments in the report that we will hear tonight on reopening and our plan for learning in the fall i want to highlight that in all three potential scenarios an online option splitting the classes and doing a hybrid half the students in two days and the other half the students in
069on the other days and switching or in a full attendance we are able to accommodate the additional open enrollment seats in an online environment we have no concerns about social distancing and filling our classes to the minimum class size targets is completely appropriate if we're splitting the classes and we're filling to the minimum which is at the largest that we're looking to add seats fourth grade 23 when those classes are split into when the class would be split into two we would be looking at numbers of 11 and 12 per classroom which would provide for social distancing and then when we look at the possibility of all students returning but spreading out in our open spaces we have looked at the spaces within the schools and are able to take three sections and split them
070into four or five spaces and be within the social distancing guidelines so while it seems counterintuitive that adding students would we'd be allowed to distance and spread out we have looked at all three potential scenarios that may or may not be selected and are able to accommodate the additional students in the seats it is unusual for us to add at kindergarten however following our policy and as we're looking to open seats we need we must follow policy and fill to the minimum we have projected for potential increases in kindergarten and resident kindergarten enrollments and there is still capacity with the projected enrollments of additional resident enrollments to add some students at the kindergarten level the other pieces is that if one of the things you'll hear in the report tonight is we offer families a
071choice these class sizes may be smaller given some of those families that choose virtual return if we offer a choice that includes a face-to-face option so as we're looking at our plans for reopening there is capacity for the numbers that we are recommending go ahead thor i was just going to state in case someone hasn't read the report with the kindergarten piece the that also includes keeping all three it has the three teachers in all three schools which i know was a late ad last year um at college park so that's you know when we look at the kindergarten enrollment that might be the um the college i'm sorry the college park um kindergarten projections have us at two kindergarten sections at college park um based on the current resident enrollment it's at 32 students
072at uh college park kindergarten with our current residence got it with the projected 20 20 21 sorry i was maybe i just need to read the report the 2019 2020 is the number i was looking at okay so even with that drop we're still we still have the the space um with the for the four students across the district yes okay i think just from a budgetary perspective jonathan maybe you could chime in we are we are targeting to go down a section at the elementary level so from 49 sections down to 48 sections and that's how our upcoming budget was set uh and then secondly um does our budget account for these additional should we decide to approve these open seats does our budget um based on that or is this additional revenue that
073we are currently budgeted for joe if i could i'll jump in first just with regards to the staffing piece when we originally did our our staffing projections and our enrollment projections our first grade numbers at college park were above the class size targets so we were originally projected at either 49 or 50 students and so we planned for three sections at college park first grade in looking at our actual enrollments since then they have dropped so some of the kindergarten students have moved out of the district and we haven't replaced those resident students at first grade at college park in looking at that then based on our numbers now falling below the target numbers we do have an additional staff person employed and under contract who essentially is without a assignment at this point knowing
074the current situation that we're in and and the staffing replacements that we'll need we we will still have employment available to that teacher um possibly as a virtual teacher possibly supporting at other schools and filling in where there are vacancies so just to be clear we do have that position maintained both within the budget as well as we have issued a contract and staffed for that position so in other words we're staffed for 49 teachers but there's only 48 sections and we are budgeted for 49 teachers and the on the budgetary piece um joe the 12 seats would represent about 97 500 so that's beyond um the the listing when the board approved the preliminary budget the listing of all the items that we would use as the state budget came into focus these would
075be additional dollars and i think what we've focused on throughout is just creating flexibility for for us to be able to balance the budget knowing that costs will change as we get deeper into our planning for the year so that we can bring back students in a safe manner and because we still do not know what the state will do in terms of balancing the budget all right thank you kim you you mentioned you know our policy and and help help the board and myself understand what flexibility we may or may not have as as we look to approve these seats um you mentioned you know that our policy is to fill to the the target class size targets um so again you know what flexibility if any may we have or maybe not have
076so um if we are evaluating and our projected enrollments show that our class sizes are below the minimum class size targets and you can see on page one of the report we list the class size targets so for kindergarten it is 18 to 22 so if we have fewer than 18 students we would fill to that 18. if we at first through third grade have less than 20 students per section we would fill so that every section has that minimum of 20. and we look across the district if there is space available and we're opening seats at one grade level we have to consider space available at every grade level we can't arbitrarily say oh we don't think we can add seats here even though we're below the minimum class size targets we are obligated
077if we open seats to look at our enrollment projections and fill to that bottom number um we're required to do so in january and if we choose to do so at this time it's we must fill to that bottom number um if we're looking at projections and julie you can correct me if i misspoke on some part of that that was all accurate we need to follow policy to fill to that minimum number we do have the latitude at this point in the year whether or not the board wants to approve additional seats we don't have to do that but if we do we have to follow policy and fill to that minimum number so it would be approving all of them or not approving any of them we couldn't say we want to approve
078it fourth grade but we're not sure we can approve it kindergarten we would have to approve either all or none and based on your previous conversation kim regardless of which scenario we move forward with what in in august when we have the reopening uh plan being presented we still have the capacity to support either of those any of those three plants so by filling to 18 for example in kindergarten our class size structure goes up to 22 so that means that we have four times each section potentially of additional space in some of those different buildings because we're only filling to the minimum so that's where we get the additional capacity in case someone moves in tomorrow to greendale or somewhere else we don't fill any higher than that minimum capacity that's more of a
079clarification not not for anyone on this call or on the zoom call but just for people listening in so that's where we get the additional capacity on that side of the fence but um did that answer your question joe though around the capacity for the different plans is that what you were asking yes um yeah yeah that was my question i i think what i wanted to understand is you know if social distancing is something that we um will be implementing um in the fall how does adding four students to a classroom um allow us to achieve that yeah so if we are in one of two scenarios that would accommodate social distancing one would be half the students attend in person and half the students attend online and then they flip that's the a
080day b day schedule that we talked about filling to 18 students or 22 students when split in half puts us at about 11 or 12 students maximum within the classroom and that is within the social distancing guidelines as we've looked at the class size the room sizes and the number of students that can physically distance within that space if we are looking at having all students attend school we would not be able to have them in three classrooms as they're as they're set up now we would be breaking them into four or five groups of students with different um with additional teachers adjusting we'd be allocating our teachers differently so that we could have students in more spaces than the three classes allow and those four students are not going to suddenly push us over
081when those students are spread out among four or five sections so in looking at it it is feasible to add these students and still accommodate the social distancing requirements um we're not looking to add a whole class we're adding four students that it might be two in one building and two in another building and we um in looking at it believe that we can still practice the social distancing that would be required with the additional students in the in the school all right thanks for that additional feedback kim what other questions does the board have all right so kim this is the administration's recommendation um at this point in time we are posted uh to approve that um any additional questions or comments from the board otherwise um if we're in agreement with this and
082this is the administration's recommendation but we are ultimately approving it i'm looking for a motion to approve so where are where are people at with this then i guess i i'm hearing silence i don't know what that means i was just switching over to the screen but if people have comments or questions i can pause otherwise i was going to bring it up for approval are there any other comments or questions from the board all right then i'm looking for a motion to approve if this is the direction we want to move into a move to approve agenda item 4.5 open enrollment seats for the 2020-2021 academic year as outlined in that agenda item a second been a motion in a second to approve the additional 12 open enrollment seats um any third discussion just
083to clarify so there's 12 seats coming in but it's actually a decrease of 11 from last year so even though we have this correct that is correct yes yep yeah we we we approve the additional seats and you're right so this continues a trend where we've been decreasing over a number of years yeah i just didn't want people to think there's 12 more than there were last year so all right any other discussion all right then i'll call for a roll call vote kim yes noel yes cassie yes thor yes and i'm yes motion carries um all right now moving into new business where we're going to hear a couple of different reports the first item being the welcome diversity action plan so this is the community plan that the schools have taken a lead
084and kim sits on that steering committee and and kim you'll share a little bit about what the good work that's been happening with this uh group in the community yes so um the welcoming diversity action plan was established and supported and aligned by the community in october of 2019 so the work around welcoming diversity began in april of 2019 when we had a community building event and there were invited leaders and there were some questions about the timing of the event and and who could come and whose voice couldn't come there was a large group that was there and a desire to move forward with improving equity and diversity equity and inclusion efforts community-wide so the superintendent at the time engaged and invited the village and community leaders to work with the schools to invite
085community input and understand what it was that the community wanted to do around diversity equity and inclusion and at that time a steering team was formed following up on that may event the steering team took input from community members and organized a community alignment event in october 2019 i believe many of you were in attendance at the welcoming diversity community alignment event in october and four goals were established at that event that were supported by both the village and the schools and while the school is the lead entity um the village and community members are active participants in moving towards the goals so in november 2019 teams formed from those four action goals and are led by community members and village leadership so the steering team includes three co-chairs i have um replaced the former
086superintendent as one of the co-chairs deanna marriott and todd michaels are the other two co-chairs for the steering team and in may between may and october team chairs were identified for each of the goal areas nat godly leads the education team todd michaels leads the policy team diana marriott leads the programming team and kevin zubota leads the representation practices team and then there are other members of the steering team that include amy ali tom combs jackie schweitzer and kathy vincent and in the seven months since that welcoming diversity action plan was discussed quite a few things have been achieved and accomplished as you saw in the report so um in the report it's there and then that report was taken and in the life in the village magazine there is some ex explanation of what
087happened and there was a little bit of language that that led to some confusion around a couple of the things that were achieved with one of the teams but i'll clarify that tonight so the education team has organized some community-wide education trainings one of which was speak up at school and in the community that was led by amy mellick of teaching tolerance in the southern poverty law institute this is a picture of the event that happened in november and they the community members learned some strategies that our staff and our students have learned about disrupting and interrupting biased and racist language in our schools where they can interrupt they can question they can echo someone who has questioned or they can educate on facts and reality additional activities that the education team has been working
088on there has been collaboration with the education team around some curricular changes in 2018 the board approved a social studies curriculum which increased the number of narratives around non-white and various communities diverse communities within our global society and we continue to work on that restor that representation within our curriculum and the other curriculum that has been addressed and you've heard some updates on this year that the education team has been advising on has been around around representation in our texts for english language arts and there is a desire to continue to look at representation in all areas of curriculum one of the things that the education team is looking for and there will be some work done and you will see in november a presentation of a new course at the high school or a
089redefined course at the high school that focuses on ethnic studies or african american studies i'm unsure of the title at this time but we're developing a capstone curriculum within social studies focused on a representation of narratives beyond the traditional white narrative in our school curriculum and finally reggie jackson is planned to do an assembly there are some um that in the plan there is a request to do assemblies that really elevates and amplifies some of the the practice the historical practices and helps students and community members to see how we can evolve and welcome diversity in our community reggie jackson was looking to do a history of housing we were originally scheduled for april 1st but that has been shelved until we can gather again or redefine how we do that and the education team
090will be extending that for the community to also see the presentation that the students see in the assembly the policy team has taken up a few policies there is um a dish the village of the village board approved an anti-racism policy and you as the school board has have taken action on three policies that were reviewed by the welcoming diversity policy team one was around school police relations that you approved in may the bullying and hate speech policy which you approved in april and we took a look at equity agreements at the end of april and are continuing to develop that within an equity policy that we'll be bringing forward in the near future excuse me and um there this team has not met recently but there is a desire to continue to examine policies
091both at the village and the district level um for equity and language within those policies the programming team has been very busy uh leading programs uh the goal has been to have a program each month that highlights diversity within our community in january there was the walking with mlk event and that is reverend joseph l winger presenting to the group and then you see the students who whose essays were selected for public reading in february the nefertari dancers performed at all three of our elementary schools and you can see some of our students getting involved and learning some of the african dance moves that the nefertari dancers had performed there was a latinx event that was planned for april that has been postponed and there was a hope originally to include that with village days
092but that is continuing to be postponed but the programming team has been creative and looked for ways to engage in online and virtual events so there was an online event where families could share how they what made them unique in their diversity and there were quite a few facebook posts on that in addition the library the public library has been um hosted a book club and the programming team helped to promote that so that that could be that was out there for families to participate and then finally the representation practices team has worked with the public library to increase books in various languages so there is um i believe it's spanish and arabic that they've made some purchases and those purchases are coming from village resources and the representation and practices team has been helping
093with that but one of the big and upcoming events for the re the representation and practices team was around and i hope that you can see my link here um an artist in residence that would create a community mural representative of the diversity and our community and this is the artist that there it that the representation practices team is in discussion with um her name is tia and she does community murals in which the community contributes to the ideas of what is on the mural and then also participates in collaboratively painting the murals so there's been discussion about location for the mural and a celebration and representation of the diversity in greendale so that is upcoming work that the representation practices team is working on so um within the report that the board has seen
094there is a specific green yellow and gray if it's green it means that we've accomplished what we had set out to accomplish in that goal but sometimes you'll see that we had some new ideas that got added yellow means that we're working on it and it's a work in progress and gray means we haven't gotten to it yet so in seven months we've made quite a bit of progress the team is meeting again this thursday the steering team is and we'll be trying to prioritize what our first next steps are going to be so that we can take it in manageable chunks and continue to make progress and i did invite other members to present with me tonight but in the in the interest of not having chaos they they um contributed to the report
095and said you can go ahead and present on our behalf so i hope i did them justice well if i could just add um i want to say a special thank you to nat godly to deany marriott and kevin svoda um for their work with this it's been an ongoing process and they they have truly dedicated themselves to this work so i just want to say a public thank you to them for their work all right any other comments or questions i do i have one question um kim are community members still able to join one of the four um groups and if so how might they join i received a couple questions um that information so one of the things that was created is there's a welcoming diversity facebook page that got created and
096so every meeting will be posted there so when a group meets they will post that there but they can ask they can ask the facebook page or they can send a message to the district any one of the three co-chairs and we will get them the information so they can send me a message directly and say hey how do i join this team when's this team meeting and i will respond to them they can ask todd or diana or with this report they have the names of the team chair and they can reach out to any of those team chairs so the goal is to have that publicly posted within the facebook page but if they're not seeing that facebook page or they're just they just miss it and they want to ask the question
097they can reach out to any of the steering team members great thank you great question because i think like kathy said thank you to everyone that's worked so diligently and hard on this important work um there's been a lot of success in the past um year or so i think as we kind of move beyond that core group of people that'll be important and i'm glad to hear that you know we continue to invite and encourage new people to to join and participate because i think that's kind of like the grassroots effort that we're we're hoping this um begets you know so that now that we've seen some great success how do we get more people excited and more people involved so that we don't just have a core group of people doing all the
098work um and um viewing it as a a passion of theirs you know that how do we turn this into a grassroots movement and make sure that uh others throughout the village um hear about it and become made aware of it and all that and i know that maggie olsen is interested in um taking the lead on some of the work and so she'll be meeting with and introduced to members of the welcoming diversity steering team and each of the teams so that she can begin to engage in that work as well and elevate additional people into the work because it is a community effort all right great any other questions at this time all right and then i think we also said that so this is a great community-wide uh update uh but then
099throughout the year uh we will have some um diversity and inclusion updates that are we will be more specific to what is the district doing and and what are some of the things that the district has uh achieved so those will also be reports that are shared during our board meetings kim i i haven't recently looked but is this um is the ability to get on these committees is it also on our website at all or like the facebook link is that um is that present somewhere so somebody if they're looking at the district can actually find it there that's a good question and if it is not then i will make sure that it gets there i know that we turned over the website and the intention was to have it public and i
100know the welcoming diversity action plan is posted on the website and i will um work to make sure that link includes how to join a team if you want to if you want to participate and the link the facebook that's a good thing to add right on the top of their of the action plan because people that look at that are curious not only what's going on but maybe how to get involved so i agree that would be perfect thank you great good stuff um so next item on the agenda part of new business then is the employee handbook review so again this is an annual review and our la at our board meeting last year um kim alluded to some conversation that we're going to share during a public comment uh about you know
101some of the some of the language that's currently in in the handbook and i know that uh we'll get an update from administration as to um what that exactly means um from uh from administrations and a legal perspective um and then we will take action at our next board meeting on the employee handbook so um kim i'll ask you to kind of talk through things i know that chrissy hamill is is has joined tonight's meeting as well yes so and julie is has been working on this so i'm going to let julie walk you through it and then she'll invite chrissy to comment on some of the pieces that she is here to advise on this evening so i'll start um and just reference that each year uh the board reviews the employee handbook and
102looks for any updates or changes that need to be made and i'll note that we certainly will be having some impact with the pandemic planning and covid um looking at different handbook language obviously specifically around sick leave as well as employee leaves but we're looking to create that as an appendix to the handbook as opposed to changing the existing handbook language around that so likely once we have a learning plan that shared with the board at the next board meeting the employee handbook related to the pandemic language will be shared either at that meeting or the following meeting so that is something that i'm actively working on but it's really separate from our annual handbook review with regards to the annual handbook review um similarly we have a few changes this year and one um
103that i'll jump to in in the report is related to cash handling and that's with regards to some of our updated policies around cash handling and asking that employees have complete documentation and receipt of the cash that they're collecting for example for a field trip that they're documenting that they've received the either cash or check and the amount of that so that there's additional accounting and accountability um as they're turning those deposits into the office so that's a minor change with regards to cash handling and language that we would like to add there just regarding that additional documentation the larger part of tonight and part of why we invited chrissy to be part of the presentation is that the gea has requested from administration that we modify the standard that is used in the handbook
104when the handbook was originally developed post act 10 we worked with legal counsel at that time and developed and adopted a non-arbitrary and capricious standard in the handbook and i invited chrissy to talk with the board about what the difference between non-arbitrary and capricious which is our current standard going back to a just cause standard and what that would look like with regards to our grievance procedure so with that i will turn it over to chrissy for additional conversation and information around those standards thanks julie and um board members thank you for having me this evening to talk a little bit with you about the standards that um we commonly see here in wisconsin for um termination discipline situations with respect to employees of local governments of which a school district is one um i'll
105start by just briefly talking about your current standard which is that non-arbitrary and capricious standard julie outlined things very well in the memo that she prepared for the board as far as what is required of the arbitrary and capricious standard um that the disciplinary decision isn't based on unreasonable grounds or without proper consideration of the circumstances proper evidence if you look at just straight dictionary definition of arbitrary and capricious when we're looking at arbitrary that means based on individual judgment so non-arbitrary we want to make sure that the decision is not based on individual judgment of the person ultimately making the recommendation for termination and ultimately that decision for termination but that it's based on some legitimate policy proclamation or a legitimate basis that an employee has not performed up to the standards expected by
106the school district when we're looking at capricious again straight dictionary definition of what capricious means it's impulsive or unpredictable so non-capricious we want to make sure that it's not an impulsive decision that there's some level of predictability with respect to if an employee engages in ex behavior we can't expect that that would be the type of behavior that would be subject to disciplinary action um there is still uh despite what it is often portrayed as there still is a level of fairness that comes about when we're talking about the non-arbitrary and capricious standard generally speaking although wisconsin is an employment at will state which means employees could be terminated for no reason or any reason at all um generally speaking that's not how employment at will works um the non-arbitrary and capricious standard ensures that
107you have a policy violation or again that egregious conduct that underlies a decision to discipline employees still certainly have levels of job protection in that sense in that there is a requirement that there is evidence uh documentation that supports a reason that is put forth by um an administrator when they're making the recommendation for termination and ultimately when um if it comes to the board for a decision on discipline specifically termination that there is documentation demonstrating a policy violation demonstrating conduct that's contrary to the expectations that the district has set forth as applied it certainly does require that there is compelling evidence for an employee's termination it doesn't rise to that level of just cause which i'll talk about in a minute but that non-arbitrary and capricious standard really does provide flexibility for a school
108district or any employer for that matter when you're making decisions with respect to um you know that difficult topic of discipline termination of employees sometimes i think it might be easier to um think more in terms of what just cause is and what just causes not when making that ultimate decision as to what is the employment standard that you are going to apply with respect to discipline and so julie outlined in her memo those seven tests of just cause and when we start to impose a just cause standard for employee discipline um these seven tests of just cause are generally what is followed um when we're trying to assess whether or not an employer has demonstrated that the conduct of the employee rises to the level of meeting those tests which would allow the employer
109to impose discipline as i mentioned wisconsin is in atwell uh employment at wells state um again that generally means that an employee can be hired or fired for any reason so long as it's not um discriminatory or illegal and that is absolutely true if you want to terminate an employee because you don't like the color of their hair under an employment at will um state that is generally allowed however that doesn't mean employment at will is without absolutely any legal protections there certainly are legal protections associated with employment at will and some of those that apply to employees specifically for local governments the public sector like a school district are things like anti-discrimination provisions the ada constitutional protections the first amendment when we're talking about employee speech fourth amendment search and seizure fifth amendment the
110right to protect against self-incrimination 14th amendment with respect to due process principles so even though you may have employment at will that doesn't mean it's not without legal protections for employees and so there certainly is a broad panoply of legal protections that are out there and that are available to employees and when we're talking about discipline of employees of local governments um because there are a lot of legal protections it's already a complex process um and there are those protections that certainly apply that don't just make um any decision that isn't subject to a just cause decision um a decision that's on a whim or a decision that is solely at the discretion of the administrator that's recommending uh the discipline or at ultimately the final decision maker and so when we're talking about just
111cause it generally creates a series of procedural obligations for in this case administrators of a school district who are trying to effectively manage employees of the school district when we're talking about just cause there is a significant documentary burden because again those seven tests have to uh be satisfied again not to say that there's not documentation that would be associated with a non-arbitrary and capricious standard but because of the seven tests of just cause that are applicable the burden for producing documentation increases with a just cause standard um one of the concerns that we have with the just cause standard is it um it can start to allow employees to develop a sense of job entitlement and what i mean by that is again the seven tests of just cause are pretty substantial it's a
112pretty hefty burden that employers have to satisfy and um because there are a lot of hoops the administration would have to satisfy for the just cause standard um low performing employees oftentimes understand that there are a lot of hoops and rather than jump through the hoops it's far easier to let lower performing employees just kind of sit and languish as long as they're not doing anything that completely violates the law or endangers the health or safety of fellow employees or students it's easier to just simply let them languish as opposed to trying to satisfy that very high bar of just cause so oftentimes we can see where poor performers have this sense of job entitlement and they're just kind of allowed to languish and skate on by without taking action um because of this again
113high standard or because you have a series of smaller employment performance concerns with respect to how an employee is operating in the classroom or responding to students but the behaviors alone aren't enough to satisfy the standard where you're able or you're not able rather to move forward with imposing discipline or taking action to move those low performers out of the workforce on the flip side of that high performing employees um if you have high performing employees in your school district a just cause standard is not going to be the be-all end-all in keeping high performers in your school district high performing employees want to feel valued um and they feel valued in other ways without the protection of added just cause language oftentimes again with a with a just cause standard because it is such
114a high bar and those lower performing employees um have historically been allowed to languish in workplaces high performing employees don't like that they don't like to see that the sort you know low-hanging fruit is allowed to stick around simply because there's this high standard they want to see that if employees are low performing that something is done to bring up their performance and if they're not meeting expectations that they are going to be moved out of the workplace in favor of somebody who is going to meet the uh standards that you should be expected to have of your employees at the school district and so sometimes instead of just cause being used as a tool to retain high performing employees it can cause high performing and employees to flee a workplace where they see some
115of those i guess i'll call them differences in how lower performing employees are allowed to stick around even though they might not be meeting the expectations because just cause provides that high bar um again because we are in employment at will state here in wisconsin when you impose a just cause standard it can create a property right where currently with your non-arbitrary and capricious standard if an employee is subject to disciplinary action or termination their recourse is to utilize the district's grievance procedure which provides them an opportunity for a hearing before an iho and ultimately an appeal before the board of education if a just cause standard is imposed there is the potential um again it's not a guarantee but there's the potential um that the just cause standard having that in the contract leads
116to increased um litigation because it does create that property right there's constitutional additional constitutional uh protections that come into play with just cause and so oftentimes what we see is in local governments that do employ that just cause standard we do tend to see an increase in litigation costs for those entities because of the additional protections that it can provide um again we have the seven tests of just cause um and those tests uh give rise to um a situation that becomes very confrontational um and what i mean by that is because you have to as an employer meet these seven tests of just cause if you look at test number four that test is was the investigation conducted fairly and object and objectively what that does is it shifts the focus from the conduct
117of the employee or the performance concerns that you have with the employee to the individual doing the investigation and that puts that individual conducting the investigation the immediate supervisor or the next level administrator under a microscope and what we oftentimes see happen is instead of the focus being on the conduct and whether or not that's that's employee conduct that you want in the workplace it shifts to an attack on supervisors what this can do and you know we all know public employees they're under the microscope anyway you're in the public spotlight because you are seen as an employee of a public entity but what that that um shift in the responsibility from employee conduct to supervisory responsibility can do is lead to supervisors having the the thought that you know rather than being subjected to
118very personal attacks on the manner in which i conducted the investigation i don't want to go there um i want there to be harmony in the workplace i don't want to come under attack i don't want to be out there in the public eye being subjected to further scrutiny this performance concern isn't that bad we're just going to let it slide and so you um have a bit of complacency that starts to take over with supervisors again because of that shift in who the burden is on under that fourth um test of the um seven tests of just cause um also if you look at the sixth test were the rules applied fairly and without discrimination um this test certainly looks reasonable um on the surface of it but one of the things that um
119we start to see a little bit with this test is the problem of um weak supervisors because you have to apply the rules fairly and without discrimination whatever the lowest bar is that is set by one supervisor that's that's the standard that then all supervisors have to hold employees too so where you might have variability amongst your schools just simply based on leadership styles or within even specific departments within the within a school for example you might have at the high school various distinctions in the way supervisors handle the different curriculum areas at the high school what happens under that seventh test or excuse me the sixth test is that you have to apply the same standard evenly across the board and so it doesn't give supervisors as much flexibility within each employee group whether
120it's divided up elementary level whether it's across departments within a particular school building and so there's a couple different um issues that can come about that make it just a little bit more difficult for the employer to administer disciplinary and action ultimately move employees out of the workplace if they're not living up to the expectations often times when different groups or employees and sometimes i even see employers that advocate for a just cause standard because of the benefits of just cause we see that the benefits that are often espoused is that it's going to improve excuse me improve rather employee morale um certainly sometimes just cause could serve as a positive motivation for employees because they know they're a little bit more secure in their employment um it's not as easy for an employer to
121move them out of the workforce for some minor performance issues um again i indicated the problem of those high performing employees that see low performing employees able to fly under the radar a bit when we're talking about a just cause standard the other benefit to just cause that we often hear is that supervisors who abuse or unfairly treat subordinates are allowed to make disciplinary decisions based on that favoritism or can make inconsistent decisions on the basis of how that supervisor is feeling on any given day um counter to that however is that there are certainly ways to combat that favoritism and and without a just cause standard you still are able to combat favoritism or those concerns simply by holding your supervisors accountable and so if your supervisors aren't um implementing policies as they should
122be if they're not holding all employees to the policy standards or the rules that have been set forth for the workplace um your supervisors your administrators can certainly be held accountable as well and so they're while there are benefits that can certainly be espoused as to why a just cause standard um might be appropriate there's always the flip side of the coin as well um by and large one of the if not the biggest reason that a school district would want to uh ensure that they use a lesser standard than just cause that non-arbitrary and capricious standard is the flexibility um as an attorney who represents school districts i can tell you that when just cause comes into play and i have a situation where we're looking at imposing disciplinary action and there's a just
123cause standard it's very very difficult to make any progress with respect to a termination or disciplinary action when we have to ensure we satisfy those seven stages of just cause and that's that's not because just cause um isn't achievable when you have misconduct um it's very easy in the situations when you have educator or staff misconduct i'll give you a very obvious example which is um you know abuse sexual physical abuse by a staff member of a child it's very easy in that particular case generally speaking to reach that just cause standard but oftentimes that's not what we're dealing with when we're talking about employees in schools and trying to impose discipline or trying to move an employee out of the workplace it's for those performance concerns it's this individual is not a good fit
124within the district or there are some areas where the employee is not meeting the expectations that have been set forth for the employee in the handbook it's a it's a policy violation but again might not be that that uh very obvious policy violation those are the situations in which it's helpful to have flexibility to um allow administration to apply the policies to a particular set of facts and circumstances with that i know i went kind of quickly through you know a brief summary of non-arbitrary and capricious um a little bit i didn't go into the standard of just cause again julie has it laid out nicely in the memo that she provided to you but i gave you a brief overview of some of the concerns that i encounter from a legal perspective when we
125start to talk about discipline and termination of employees um so i will open it up to if board members have questions that they want to ask of me or obviously administration anything that might be helpful for you as you're considering what standard uh to to continue moving forward or to change moving forward thanks chrissy um so so any clarifying questions or any um information that the board still would like to to ask and chrissy i don't know if you're able to answer this or this is maybe more of a julie um kim question but what caused our what caused the language to need be changed in the first place we we have high quality staff in greendale and um this seems like was it just part of act 10 or what what was the cause
126or the reason for changing it the language it really goes back to what chrissy was talking about in terms of the added flexibility so post act 10 we looked at where the district might have struggles or run into issues issuing discipline and in looking at at these factors this is a very common change that was made by by many districts post act 10 to allow administration more flexibility and i think i would just echo what what chrissie said in terms of the seven tests of just cause offer good practice in terms of documentation ensuring that we have policies and expectations are known by employees and so those are all factors that we continue to implement and follow as we consider discipline for employees but it allows the administration additional flexibility by not having to meet
127all all seven um and and the focus being specifically on those seven tests of just cause there's certainly good practice that comes along with that and ensuring that we we meet those standards as we work with our employees and and outline expectations and looking for improvements so that's not to say that we disregard that or that we don't have documentation because we certainly do but it allows the administration additional flexibility to impose those those the simpler disciplinary issues when they become apparent so the staff handbooks were established they were new and established after act because it was no longer a subject of bargaining and so the staff handbooks were started from scratch and it was not taking of the teacher contract and making it a staff handbook on account of the fact that the staff
128handbook applies to all employee groups not just the teachers is there any additional considerations that we need to take into account with the current pandemic to provide additional protection to our staff as mentioned in in the comments kim i think that's a really good question and obviously very timely would it be great if you could impose a just cause standard and make sure that your staff continue to have employment and are gainfully employed throughout the duration of the pandemic certainly it would be great if you could make that guarantee i don't believe that just cause language is going to be that golden ticket that provides that level of security for staff members because regardless of a just cause standard if school district gets into a situation where there are budgetary concerns and we certainly know
129that that is a very real possibility coming up you certainly can still impose layoffs on employees i think uh kim to answer your question having a just cause standard during the pandemic might be an even greater detriment to the district because again it eliminates some of that flexibility that a district has in moving those lower performing employees away from the workplace um kathy as you said you know greendale's a district of high performers you have high performing staff members you've set very high expectations for your staff members and you know as far as i can tell in terms of contact i've had with your human resources director you don't have a lot of staff issues you don't have a lot of disciplinary issues and so in the event during this pandemic where it becomes apparent
130because of the changing dynamic of instructional delivery methods or the manner in which staff members are able to uh perform services for the district um there there might um some of the the deficiencies in performance might be exposed and so if you end up having that just cause it's again going to make it more difficult for the district to be nimble and for the district to be flexible um with their staffing decisions if you have um that just cause standard i'm not sure this question goes to um some of what i read from what ben was saying um is that there might be some concern because there's been a turnover in superintendents obviously and although each of the superintendents that has come in has followed precedent it doesn't necessarily mean that's guaranteed for the future
131so i don't know maybe julie this is a more of an answer to you a question to you um looks to me like we've always followed precedent in terms of if we needed to kind of go through the steps of just cause we've done that um but in the future if a superintendent principal whomever would be the hiring or firing person wouldn't follow that is that would that create an issue or would we go back and follow president no matter what if i'm am i making sense sure i think i understand the question and um i think it goes back to what chrissie said at the beginning which is arbitrary and capricious is a standard and there are laws and legal protections in place for employees so from an employment practices perspective following those having
132documentation not not discriminating against employees making sure that there is a fair and just investigation prior to issuing discipline following due process all of those factors come in from an employment perspective so that's not a a personal decision and really i think that that's part of the oversight of the board and implementing that that standard that does exist and so the board is responsible for approving those those disciplinary decisions and issuing the the discipline and termination to teachers um specifically and so i think that that becomes a employment practices hr uh philosophy and and practice of how how things are being implemented in the district chrissy as we look at the staff handbook we're looking at a variety of employee groups what additional protections do administrators and teachers have based on contract law because they
133have a contract as in in comparison to a work agreement so are there additional protections there above and beyond the arbitrary non-arbitrary and capricious just based on law around their contracts good question kim with respect to the contracts there is some courts have found that there is at minimum a um partial property right um in their employment so there are certain levels of minimal due process that would have to be provided to staff who are under contract certainly staff members that have contracts as well you can write different language into contracts but there i mean there's a certain level of due process and when i talk about due process i'm not talking about in every instance where due process applies or where there's a property interest that you are subject to conducting a full-blown evidentiary
134hearing a mini trial that's not what we're talking about in each instance but generally speaking when we have staff that have contracts there's the the minimal protections that we might be looking at where it's notice employees are given notice of what the misconduct is they're provided an opportunity to be heard to explain the circumstances that might be applicable their side of the story and then what we call post-deprivation remedies so after discipline might be imposed there's procedures that an employee can utilize to ensure that um an appropriate decision was made in compliance with the standard that applies as well as district policies so there are some um protections that certainly apply for those employees that are under contract not necessarily in every instance um but there's there are certain the contracts do certainly um offer
135a little bit extra protection that wouldn't otherwise be there um and certainly with respect to the contracts we always have to be mindful of the non-renewal provisions of 1 1822 with respect to teachers 118 24 with respect to administrators and so again that's an additional protection that applies to those contracted employees that doesn't apply to other employee groups so as we look so one of the things that the gea shared was they shared several staff handbooks that had language around just cause and i believe they shared seven with us a couple of them did not have just cause universally across all but just cause in certain circumstances based on number of years of service and satisfactory reviews in previous years so of the 420 some districts in the state do you have information on what
136number of them have some form of just cause language in their staff handbook i do not kim have a sense for how many districts in the state are divided into which particular category i know that generally speaking i'm a member of the school attorneys association the school attorney's bar in wisconsin is quite small so attorneys that practice school law and what i mean by that are attorneys that represent schools and primarily public school districts uh we're a small group and we get together and we talk with one another we often rely on on our colleagues to bounce ideas off one another much like you all do with your various um content groups as well and i can tell you that as a group um we encourage our clients not to put just cause language into
137handbooks again because it uh inhibits the flexibility of districts to to be nimble and make quick um not quick but make decisions that are in the best interest of the school districts and so by and large it's not a standard that is favored by attorneys that represent school districts because it makes your job more difficult again in the situations where we're dealing with lower performing employees out of the districts that i work with and i can tell you of the 420 districts at any given time we may represent 20 to 25 percent of those districts we do have very few that employ a just cause standard and those that do have a just cause standard in their handbooks i'd be willing to bet that their legal costs associated with employment matters are substantially higher than
138districts that do not have a just cause standard received from a from an evidentiary perspective regardless of the the standard does the district still need to provide some evidence as to that support the the decision i mean the short answer joe would be no you wouldn't necessarily have to provide evidence now that said um julie can tell you the first question that i ask uh when i am consulted on employee disciplinary matters is what evidence do we have in support of whatever the issue is and i do that because um number one in fairness to the employee um you you should have a reason uh for terminating the employee it should be supported by evidence and it should be compelling evidence it shouldn't just be pieces of evidence that you pull out of the air
139because you know you might you as an individual might not like that that particular employee and so you should have evidence not only that but on the back end because employees could file discrimination actions against the district for discrimination on a protected class race sex sexual orientation religion national origin i want to make sure that if an employee does take further legal action that there is a sound basis that supports the district's adverse action that is taken so you know joe short answer to your question as long as as you have a reason that's non-arbitrary and capricious you could you know rest on your laurels and rely solely on that but that um that would not be good practice and um it certainly is not the practice that we have seen out of greendale by
140either administration or the board um now noel to your point is that something where if there is a significant turnover in administration or at the board level where you might see that shift certainly you could see that shift if there's a complete cleaning of the house and there are five new board members and a new administrator at every position um at the administrative level but your the the likelihood of that happening is very slim and generally speaking when you look at the crop of superintendents in the state um human resources directors people services directors business service managers and directors they all understand what employment standards are out there they all understand that best practice would not be to move forward with excuse me employee action without a sufficient basis and without supporting documentation question for
141you chrissy i'm not as familiar obviously with the school law and how that works but i know or i'm somewhat familiar with particularly in new york more than wisconsin and indiana if it is an at-will judgment so if it's at will state and you go to a summary hearing um that is where that typically stands true but then if it goes to a trial typically the considerate the standard for consideration switches to just cause or at least in the cases i'm familiar with i don't know if that's typical so is you know does that get back to maybe that that comment around evidence so if you go to a you know i don't know how often that would ever happen um or has happened but when you go to a trial just then just cause
142kick in anyways if there is something that was that um you know that that warranted to go that far in through the legal process it's not necessarily a just cause standard that kicks in thor but your point is well taken in that if an employee would proceed with further litigation whether it be a discrimination action whether it be a violation of an employee's first amendment free speech rights a violation of the prohibition um against you know fourth amendment search searches and seizures um generally speaking as a school district you would need to have something to support the decision that you made in taking adverse action against an employee it wouldn't be checking the boxes of the seven tests of just cause and ensuring that you check those boxes but generally speaking it's it's something more
143than we just decided to move forward with dismissing this particular individual and as julie said you know generally speaking although you're not explicitly requiring or excuse me not specifically following the seven tests of just cause there are certain elements within those tests that i know julie is looking for when she's looking from a documentation perspective of what evidence do we have in support of this individual's termination you're looking for policy uh violations you're looking for okay what are the the facts specific to any given situation or performance that's that uh support the decision and then what documentation do we have of those facts so it's not it's not a a direct um application of just cause as you might get further through uh litigation there are certainly different standards the standards that would apply to
144specific legal actions but you certainly need something tangible that we could rely upon in defense of a district's decision okay and with um on a separate note you know as you think about maybe an example um and i'm not i don't remember exactly but i think it's the you actually referenced the wisconsin statue in 1822 or one of those that i believe calls in the contract if you're doing layoffs based upon in enrollment it is in order of hire date so if the last hired i think is the first that goes off usually or something unless there's some other um reason or rationale and so does if we had a just cause language in there but let's say i'm just throwing out hypotheticals here just to kind of think through like how this would actually
145come in this to bear so if you had somebody who had like a improvement plan but they were hired 10 years ago and then you know someone who was hired eight years ago didn't have an improvement plan but the enrollment came in and there wasn't the need for one teacher in that grade level or something the person with eight years would potentially be the first one to be released of duty versus the person that maybe had an improvement plan um if you had just cause because you wouldn't have all seven stay i'm just making up i don't know if that's maybe that's too much of a hypothetical but is that would that be potentially an issue that we would run into if we um offered a just cause and there was something where grade level
146shifts or other things happened and now we'd be you know relinquishing someone based only on a number of years of service or is that still not is that lessened after act 10 i guess what i would say is it is likely lessened after act 10 and julie you can chime in here as well with respect to layoffs just cause isn't necessarily going to apply to layoffs i don't believe that it's written in your handbook that layoffs have to follow the seven tests of just cause but generally speaking layoff language that existed prior to act 10 it was bargained between a school district and the union and so there was a process set forth in the collective bargaining agreement as to what factors were considered in what order they were considered and often times seniority was
147at the top of that or rather at the bottom of the list where those who were most senior were not the first to go it was those who maybe had a year or two of experience as opposed to the 35 year old 35 year employee regardless of performance now um the way we generally we being school law attorneys across the state and likely across the nation to the extent they can be flexible write those layoff provisions to allow a school district to make decisions with respect to layoff based on criteria that meet the needs of your particular school district so oftentimes that criteria is going to include things like licensing and licensure and whether or not employees hold a particular license or a particular certificate that might allow that employee to um move uh throughout
148different positions within the district or take on additional responsibilities where they have more flexibility than another individual um it might be you know again licensure based on on grade level um it might be uh might be based on years of experience that's certainly something that uh schools generally still consider but it's not the be all end-all criteria i accurate i'm sorry kim that's accurate and consistent with the changes that we made regarding our layoff language um seniority is one of several factors like chrissy just mentioned um that we would consider in making a layoff decision it's at the bottom of page 19 and all of page 20 in the handbook um speaks to layoff and recall of contracted of certified staff so it is outside of and separate from uh just as in a grievance
149procedure the one area thor um as i'm thinking through this where just cause could come into play is one of the criteria that often is in layoff policies and i would assume that it's in yours without having it right in front of me um is is that performance piece and so if you have a just cause provision again because it is a higher standard that a school district has to meet you might have an employee again one of those lower performing employees where disciplinary action just hasn't been imposed because of that high bar where it's not going to come into play in a layoff decision um which which could be good or bad um you know depending on any given situation but that's where perhaps just cause could come into play in a layoff is
150that discipline wasn't imposed where maybe it should have been and therefore in making that layoff decision you don't have that piece of the puzzle to factor into um which employee might you know be on low end of the totem pole so to speak for uh conducting your layoff is there you know one of the big things you mentioned earlier on too when differentiating from at will and and and just causes that property right um and i know that you know for the most part that shifted and that's i think even when wisconsin became an at-will state was the great depression right so when that happened it switched to property rights to employers versus the employees is there also additional burden from the employee e-perspective with just cause in having that property right do contracts typically
151have larger um you know does that create a potential additional burden on the employee um with just cause versus at will and what they need to do to exit a contract um with the schools no it really doesn't um the just cause provision is really with respect to employer making um decisions with respect to adverse action against an employee it wouldn't it wouldn't necessarily provide a higher hurdle for an employee to have to jump over if the employee was choosing to leave the school district that's where that's probably where liquid damages come into play more than anything else okay so there could okay so as the board has heard um some of the information around just cause you heard the public comment at the beginning around a request to consider just cause and this has
152provided you some background there is there any guidance from the board as we work to finalize the staff handbook and bring it forward for approval on august 3rd um that you would like administration to consider or work on i'd be i just i i'd be interested in in like scenario or two um to kind of outline where this would put us in you know different circumstances um to change from just cause you know i think we we talked through some of the specific issues that around here but i was just kind of curious if there's like a scenario where just cause would actually come back to actually harm us from doing our duty as a school district um because obviously i don't think that's any of the intention here but if it's you know intentions
153and don't always line up with what we're actually the actions that we're making so if we would move to adjust cause and now all of a sudden like you said we're stuck with a teacher that maybe isn't the teacher that could do what's best for our kids um how does that create an issue and where would that kind of come into play so is there you know that would it would be helpful perhaps um at least to me just to think through yeah i would agree with uh thor you know maybe some examples of why it would be detrimental i guess um chris your explanation has been excellent tonight too just going through the details um but you know if we i guess it would be almost a form of back pedaling if we did
154go that route um what what could be um what could be the the result of that i guess or what what are some examples of what we could be looking at and i i i don't know i don't know if i'm making sense but kind of to dovetail off of thor um just just how that could be a detriment to do that no you are you are making sense and i think it's a fair question i think the um the biggest area of concern that um that that gives me the most heartburn is legal counsel when it comes to the just cause standard is again not the easy cases where you have that very clear uh policy violation or you have a violation of the law those generally speaking we can ensure that district has
155the documentation it needs to support the decision but where just cause really makes things difficult for school districts is when you have situations of the under underperforming employee um the employee that um there's not a real um problem as far as a policy violation you don't have the employee who has you know again violated easy policies the um drug and alcohol policy you don't have a violation of drug and alcohol policy you don't have improper seclusion and restraint that has happened but they're just not connecting with kids they're not bringing material to an age-appropriate level where students are able to understand and achieve in the classroom you have a perform a staff member who merely comes in every day lectures to the students gives a test every two three weeks to the students grades the
156test and sends the students on their way but there's no real learning in the classroom those are the situations where you know again you have a you have an employee who isn't living up to the district standards you're not providing that robust educational experience for students that you expect your educators to provide um those are the situations where just cause makes it very difficult to um discipline that employee or really move that employee out of the district because it's just a good fit that doesn't always mean that the particular educator is is a bad teacher and is unfit for the profession sometimes it just means that that particular educator doesn't fit with the philosophy with the mission with the values that you as the greendale school district have they may have wild success in another
157school district but they're just not living up to the standards that you have set for your staff member that's where just cause becomes the problem again not when there's a situation where there's that clear wrongdoing that policy violation that violation of the law but where you just have an employee who isn't making the cut um those are the situations where we very likely will never meet that just cause standard we we can't get there for the the poor performing employee which is why oftentimes we see poor performing employees languish under a just cause standard because it's so difficult to to exit them out of the school district so sounds like culture is actually the biggest issue potentially with just cause it could be right so if you're thinking about it from two different aspects so
158one you have potentially a culture that you're going to have to create almost a um machine-like process to deal with issues and take out any thing that could be considered emotion or human because you have to follow process and you want to make sure you're following the process and the process of the process versus the circumstance the other and then you have the other part of the potential issue which is that um kind of the how do you you know the compliance i guess maybe you know versus continuous improvement you know the setting of a stand a higher bar which could be detrimental if you shift it to a just cause versus a our current non-arbitrary and capricious state statement and i think all those other things i mean obviously you have costs you have
159all kinds of other things that could come in from a legal standpoint in addition to that but you know inadvertently that could be an interesting you know i i you know if you think about it from the teacher's perspective and it'd be an interesting thing to hear from you know you know about that too how does that create uh could that potentially actually backfire you know having the just cause language versus the way we currently operate creating a culture that is less conducive um for kind of thriving teachers because of that more machine orientation that you'd have to implement to essentially live up to that standard otherwise you have a weakest link if you will i think is the term right if someone else does something that's different that becomes the the bar is then
160set at the bottom and that's the bar that is set for just cause across the district so okay and i think the other thing that i'd like to add quickly is you know if we do come up with some scenarios could we talk a little bit about what the district does uh before we get to um you know a termination you know so if there is someone who isn't a fit or someone who's teaching methods are not maybe alive with our expectations what type of performance improvement plans do we do we put them on what type of coaching and mentoring do we offer them what type of professional development do we offer um what is our practice what is our policy um because i think we're getting down to the point where we're saying well
161we've got someone who we need to terminate but i think what it sounds like is from a practice perspective you know we're going to be coaching them we're going to be putting them on performance improvement plans um prior to getting to a point where that's a decision that we would need to make one other piece maybe to tie into that you know as i think through this and maybe this is maybe i'm maybe this is too simple of a thought but if you get to that process and someone retains their employment after going through this entire thing has that ever turned out fruitful to the employee and or the employer at that point in time i mean i i just i wonder if it ever got to that point i mean do you really does
162all of a sudden okay we got through this process and no matter let's say the district loses and the teacher wins on something and they come back does i my assumption is that that would probably be the start of someone looking for a new job immediately regardless of if they want or lost that case um but i don't know how that fits into this scenario um either way i guess if it was me i know i would be doing that right if i i'd be like if it's got to this i probably need to be going somewhere else if this is the what we're dealing with are you talking about a situation in which a district has a just cause standard and an employee goes through the entire process what ultimately is is end result
163yeah and then the end result is that the district was you know didn't have the proper documentation for just cause um so now that person's still you know employed or the district's getting sued or you know what i don't know you know whatever's happening but ultimately i can't imagine that that would ever end in a thriving relationship that benefits students it generally does not um and generally speaking that's why once we see a litigation process play out um rather than the employee returning to the workplace that's oftentimes if the employer is in the wrong it's oftentimes an award of um monetary damages as opposed i mean depending on the type of claim at issue as opposed to um returning the employee to the workplace okay so administration should bring back in the handbook existing language
164or you would like to see new language or you would like to see existing language with examples of specific just cause benefits and problems that we face and just so that we're clear with what we're bringing back in the handbook um what you're hearing from chrissy and from um julia and i is that the just cause standard can cause us to have long-term performance problems continue with the district in a way that's not beneficial to students and having that in place is not necessarily beneficial to our high performers and so we're bringing you the language and looking for some guidance on what you want us to bring back with the handbook right so that that that is the the question you know our current handbook has the non-arbitrary and capricious standard i'm sorry and there
165there's been some discussion to understand what it would take if we would lower that threshold um so i think tonight's discussion helped gave us some good understanding but as kim is saying we're at a point now so what do we want to see at our next board meeting um you know we talked a little bit about some scenarios but getting back to the employee handbook i think administration is looking for guidance as to should we continue with the existing verbiage uh based on the recommendation based on the the feedback and the the learnings that we've learned tonight um or or what do we still need and the gea has expressed an interest in going to just cause but has also discussed the possibility of some level of compromise either identifying some of the questions and
166incorporating them into the expectation on administration or setting a threshold with performance standard that has to be met before just cause is considered so there's some suggestions by the gea and so the question is do you want us to explore those suggestions or are you ready for us to bring forward the handbook without changes or to address some options i'd be interested in the suggestions as well just um hearing hearing their input obviously we're having this discussion now but um any additional concerns that they might have i mean i my understanding with this whole change in language is it caused a trust issue probably more than anything with with staff feeling that they maybe would be targeted or what have you and so i i guess just in in terms of their input i'd like
167to to have you know a better understanding of where they stand with with this language and the discussion i'm assuming they're paying attention tonight as well and i think part of that is is looking at the record and looking at the fact that the district as christie mentioned has very few issues that even rise to the level of discipline or that are impacted by this type of decision we've had a very trusting and collaborative relationship with our teachers and continue to seek their input referencing even the the reopening plans and as we're working with teachers along those lines so this just cause language versus non-arbitrary and capricious comes up very infrequently and we don't have a lot of disciplinary issues that rise to this level so it's you know looking at over the past nine
168year period what impact has has the change had um i can say from a human resources perspective it hasn't had a significant impact because it it very rarely rises to that level um so many grievances have we had julie in the last nine years because this is a grievance procedure so it only comes into play if we have a discipline issue and we um it rises to the level of a grievance how many grievances have we had i believe there's been two in the nine year period since this was enacted so we're not talking about a frequent exercising of this portion of the handbook some years it's not even touched so um it's not that we have a lot of willy-nilly discipline happening where teachers are feeling uh threatened there is it's happened twice so
169i think that's important to note and i think there's a really good point kim and julie is that like you said it's happened twice um how often do we have performance improvement plans with our staff in an average year we have one or two performance improvement plans that are happening sometimes the employee makes significant improvement and sometimes the employee recognizes that there is some performance issues and they have a change in profession or or opt for another um they app to look for other employment elsewhere so we have um i don't know how many we've actually brought to termination but we have in an average year we have one to two employees on an improvement plan is that i don't know if chrissy or anyone could answer this um or maybe even just from previous
170experience other folks but in a district that is using just cause i'm assuming that the performance improvement plan are much higher than one or two just because you're covering all bases or is that a misconception thor i think it's actually the opposite of that going back to what chrissy said that if there isn't belief that a performance improvement plan will have an impact on an employee or make a difference in terms of improving that performance districts hesitate to even move in that direction which has been the culture of high expectations in greendale since i've been there and before that we do work with employees to perf to improve their performance and so and and look to bring their expectations up to district standards and provide the support and coaching that goes along with that so
171so really i think that um we probably have have more performance improvement plans than you see in in districts that may have more of a just cause standard or belief system around that interesting okay so again yeah it almost seemed like so it'd be one of the other that would end up happening for me i was just thinking it would be the other way because you'd have you'd want to have the evidence to showcase that someone wasn't improving so you'd actually have more people on that if they felt like they were slipping in those areas but i guess if you're if you're getting back to the thing the the term you that was thrown out there complacent if you're thinking that it's there's enough there's no hope that it'll ever work then you're not you're
172not issuing those improvement plans yeah and i've been involved in a number of improvement plans in which the employee has made significant improvement appreciated the feedback and is actually a high performer at this point okay okay i'm not sure i'm not sure that we answered kim's question though um as to what what do we need to see going forward um i i agree with kathy i would also be interested in seeing a kind of um hybrid of the two with a compromise of language added i think with the pandemic and all of the uncertainty that it brings it also brings maybe fear that things could arise in the future so i would be interested in seeing that also right so so what i'm wondering is we talked about for specific to this upcoming school year
173with the the coven 19 and the this the global pandemic that that there would be there would need to be an addendum or some type of uh supplement to the employee handbook that kind of outlines many of the questions as to how this would work so i think that's something that we're probably not going to see before the next meeting to approve but that is something that we would expect to see um you know or either by the start of the school year or early into the school year so that we could outline what we would expect is that some is that would you agree kim yeah the the pandemic addendum you will definitely see before before teachers return in the by the september first date before students return into the buildings if that's in
174fact how we move forward so um that addendum won't be ready for approval it would be ready for review either at the august 3rd or the august 18th meeting or 17th i can't remember what day that monday is so for the employee handbook i'm wondering if we asked the administration to bring back the the current language you know the non-arbitrary and capricious but that we we ask administration to continue to work with our staff and our teachers to make sure that our policies and our practices uh outline um have enough information that kind of it talk kind of codify and talk a little bit about you know what we would expect from evidentiary and what we expect from expectations and what we would expect from improvement plans and things like that that we have that
175um in policy i i'm kind of putting that out there as an option because i want to be able to bring this to some conclusion tonight okay so um what i'm hearing is that you'd like us to bring you back the handbook language as it's written with um some samples of practices that you want to consider that you could discuss at the board meeting around the handbook approval that makes sense are others comfortable with that approach i heard thor say that makes sense yeah i agree i think that that would be helpful to our discussion at the next meeting i agree me too all right all right thank you everyone thank you chrissy um and julie for putting us together um a lot of good thought has gone into it and and again you know
176a lot of this information we talked about is hypothetical and anecdotal i think at the end of the day we all recognize uh the staff that we have and i think it's important that you know we do appreciate and trust the staff and we do continue on to collaborate with them so that's important all right continuing on um i know kim you're pulling up your slide deck talking about an update on learning and programming so what is happening today given the the safe red home and the the the current global pandemic that we're all living in absolutely so park and recreation has returned to programming and these are some pictures of programming that they've um that they've moved forward with this summer this is within the last couple of weeks so you see swimming lessons
177with increased safety precautions so the um the swim instructors are wearing the face shields to protect from that and you can see the students are at a distance our t-ball has practiced social distancing so park and recreation has also continued to run a child care program taking temperatures daily and has helped us to think through our protocols as we return students to a level of activity in person the high school athletics have also returned to practice so you heard in our my communications that on july 1st they returned to work two in-person workouts this is the palms team doing their first performance of the season that was shared on facebook during the fourth on the fourth of july in lieu of their fourth of july performance there are protocols in place for health screenings and
178masks and a weekly checklist that athletes complete prior to coming we have had to work with the greendale health department on some contract tracing based on in person um and there have been some limited exposures but we have quarantined we've worked with them to where and they've recommended quarantining and which groups should not be in person for a period of time summer school has uh started on july 6th and all classes are online for summer school at the k through 8 level we have 360 students taking summer school classes online one of the big changes in summer school online for our elementary students is that it is synchronous meaning that teachers are real-time video you have a student a picture of a student there who's in who's uh participating in class and so there is
179someone real time having a conversation in other classmates online and we figured out contact list pickup options from the library for both books and for materials and resources that students need to participate in the online real time and face-to-face instruction so some of the things that that summer school online has done is we've taken our learnings from the virtual environment that was providing students with information once or twice a week and they were watching videos and following up and we've received feedback that kids really needed that interaction in an online environment and so we're giving that a go with our online summer learning for students to be real time where they have a class time they meet with the class online other kids are involved teachers are involved and it has been a welcome shift
180both for the teachers and for the students so our goal is we're thinking about our return to school on september 1st our return to learning i should say um is that students and staff return to a safe environment it's both physically safe and they're socially and emotionally supported in that and we've been working with the team since may you heard some comments today that there's a that there are there may be changing perceptions based on the um the reportings of cases in the community and the rising cases that we're seeing and we're continuing to work closely with the health department on their recommendations for what's safe and the greendale community continues to be in phase c of reopening which is many of the facilities are at 75 percent capacity so one of the things that
181we did was we surveyed staff and then we followed that staff survey with the parent survey their um one of the citizen comments today you heard that there was a new staff survey um that was done over the weekend and so that may have some different results than what you're seeing from staff um but our survey was conducted three weeks ago for staff and a week ago first due for parents and families so with that kim is there any um will there be any intention of uh having an additional survey because obviously things are changing by the day right now will will you be doing any additional surveying of staff and parents we'll continue to be in communication but if we are repeating a survey weekly we won't be able to make any decisions and
182we won't be able to move forward with where we're at so we've collected information from staff we'll continue to engage staff i don't think we'll be doing any large scale repeat surveying every week to figure out what's changing in terms of perspective so as we look at the family survey demographics we had a very high response rate um our our family survey had over 1300 responses i think there was probably some duplication of responses given that um there's 1255 who shared their demographic information and there's differing numbers in each one but we can reasonably expect that this represents about a 75 response rate which is very high when it comes to families um and in our staff we had 241 responses to our staff survey so very high response rates um and hold on as
183you look at the the breakdown um about 50 have students at the elementary level and 50 percent have students at the middle and high school level so there's different combinations but by and large we're seeing about 50 responses from each level and as we look at the demographics part of the reason that we asked for demographics was to determine if it was representative and what we see is that students with ieps and receiving special education services are slightly over represented as 15 percent of the responses were students with special education needs and our overall population is i believe um our english language learners are slightly underrepresented there are about five percent of our students have english language needs support needs and only three percent of the respondents were there so that's how we were trying
184to gauge and it does appear that we have a mostly representative sample although there's some slight variation from our population as a whole so as we looked at questions of safety that if we are reach when and if we return to in-person instruction what's expected and we see cleaning and sanitizing is highly desirable with well over 80 percent almost 90 percent saying that must be in place so they'd be more comfortable in place as we look at face coverings what we see is for staff there are students wearing face coverings at specified times during the day we have about 68 percent of families saying that that would be that must be in place or would be more comfortable if it was in place and then if we look at face coverings the entire school day
185it's a lower percentage that would require that but about half are saying that that must be in place or they would be more comfortable with that in place with staff face coverings we see similar expectations over 50 percent must be in place or more comfortable screening for symptoms is very important taking temperatures as students enter the building is must be in place or more comfortable if it was in place so we're seeing high percentages of responses with many of the safety procedures hand washing is a must hand sanitizer is a must and then as we look at that compared to staff responses we see some of the very important so limits to large gatherings hand washing is very important temperature screenings very important although less so than hand washing but still important very important face
186coverings are required for students more than half say it's very important and then we see the same there so there's a high interest in that as we think about visitor limiting visitors high support for limiting visitors and volunteers being brought into the building separating students belongings cdc training for all staff on how to on the spread and how to reduce the transmission so in general what we're seeing overall is that the safety mitigation strategies daily sanitation of classrooms and frequently touched surfaces sneeze shields at points of interaction daily screenings for symptoms by staff and students before coming to school restricting volunteers and visitors staff training on cdc recommendations and safety protocols and continuing to follow the greendale health department guidance for quarantine of positive cases and close contacts the areas that are still being discussed
187and considered within the based on survey responses and based on health department conversations and dpi guidance is around face coverings with a strong lean towards um expecting face coverings of those who come into the school temperature and symptoms screening upon arrival and or boarding buses will we do that on site or will that be something that needs to be done before people leave their homes limiting movement of students within cohorts within the building there's some discussion around that as we saw in the comments for the survey around that level of restriction being less desirable but definitely something that we're considering in terms of reducing the spread and then a reduced class size and how we will manage that so that's the area where we were looking at on safety mitigation strategies kim this is a
188great slide how many of those mitigation strategies are in place for our um i guess summer school is all online but for our like summer adventure club so you know some of the the park and red classes that are going on what what are we already of this list what is being practiced today correct um jonathan i'll ask you to to pipe in as i speak here so you can correct me if i'm mistaken on some of this stuff um all of those things that are planned or in place face coverings are an expectation for employees and staff at this time but not for our children um but there is discussion about whether or not that should change we do have symptom screening upon arrival at child care so there is someone who goes through
189the covid symptom checklist and takes temperatures upon arrival of all children and there is they are cohorted and there's a limit to the number of students that we can accept in summer adventure club jonathan is that am i miss speaking on any part of that other things in place that i'm missing no i don't think you're misspeaking at all i think to give additional detail to it so if i'm a parent i come into the vestibule area i don't come into the building and there are times where that area is locked i may have to call because we want to control that flow of traffic and then i'm coming to an area where you have that plexiglas shield um and the student is going to do that symptom check and get forehead scanned for temperature
190um like kim had mentioned they're then going to go into a small cohort when they come into the building when it comes to daily sanitation we have a checklist of all the things that we do on a daily basis and then there's protocols in place for the staff members to pull aside equipment that's being used during the day so that can be wiped down so i think we were pretty aggressive with that and we've certainly learned a lot because i think we were one of the first to try and tackle something like that if you recall in late march we were taking on child care on a very small basis about 15 to 20 students per day for our emergency care workers of students that were already part of our school system so we we've
191been working through that for three and a half months now but we are pretty tight in terms of those procedures that we use right now so one so one of the areas um the under discussion is this idea of face coverings and there are some that believe they absolutely must be in place for you saw over half of our parent survey responses say muster more comfortable if it was in place this graphic shows the idea of masking and the chance of transmission and the reduction in chance chances of transmission by wearing face coverings this graphic was provided by the greendale health department and you can see if neither person is masked and there's an asymptomatic coping carrier and an uninfected person the rate of transmission is very high i've seen other graphics with percentages but
192that hasn't been provided by the health department so um i'm sticking with theirs and if both if this asymptomatic carrier is masked um it reduces the rate of transmission so in all of those cases you see a reduction very low chance of transmission if both an asymptomatic carrier and an uninfected person are masked and there is six feet of distance and sometimes i've seen that percentage as like a one percent chance of transmission but i don't know the level of accuracy on that so that is something that we're taking into consideration as we're understanding um whether or not we should be expecting or requiring face coverings for our students and our staff other areas that we asked about was cafeteria food being packaged if we were serving meals the number of students the in the
193physical classroom space being reduced we see percentages of 58 percent um who say it must be in place or more comfortable if it was just interacting with students in their class so this idea of cohorts there is a high a must be in place or more comfortable in place we're seeing about 50 percent with a number of people who are concerned about that lack of movement and then um child care also being available 16 percent are saying that must be in place if we're at reduced capacity and 10 more comfortable if it was in place and then um bus is running at limited capacity a small a smaller percentage is interested in doing that so then the next area is uh thinking about schedule preferences and considering all of those safety measures so families with
194elementary students the highest preference was every day in person with smaller classes with a significant percentage wanting the choice of in person or online and some a very small percentage wanting fully online but an interest in fully online and as uh the the school age the age of the children gets older the everyday return to small in-person classes percentage goes down and the alternating days where fully online goes up um but still seeing a favoring of in person with smaller class sizes so that gives you a sense so what we're seeing is um when we ask staff when they think about returning to the school buildings physically reopening how comfortable do they feel uh and we have eight percent that are extremely comfortable eight percent that are extremely uncomfortable and then um even split of
195comfortable versus uncomfortable well what you heard in citizen comment today is that that number of uncomfortable may have uh grown i don't know the response rate and um it includes only teachers as opposed to all staff so there's going to be some variance there but there seems to be an increase in the level of discomfort from staff based on their citizen comments and communications with us today and then as we look at staff again this is from two and a half weeks ago the hybrid with alternating days is the most preferred among our staff members um and fully online 50 supported that um with 27 not supporting fully online so you can see that people are truly divided and split on what they're they're ready for so one of the questions we asked families was
196if that we offered a choice for how they returned to school in the fall 68 would return to in-person daily instruction with safety precautions in place 13 would choose to continue learning at home in a digital environment and 18 are unsure i did see comments and um received emails from people in that 18 saying i want some return to in-person learning but fully in person is not okay and i don't want fully online either so i believe that 18 percent are those that are saying they would choose some sort of combination of in-person and online learning um if that was a choice but they did not see that choice and so chose unsure so um as we're thinking about student attendance and schedule considerations what we're seeing is there's not a one-size-fits-all or an obvious
197this is how we should return or this is how we should return so what we're discussing with the teams is can we provide an option for families to choose some form of in-person or virtual attendance model and over the next three weeks we'll be talking about how and if it's possible to manage those choices we'll be looking we'll be considering our ability to staff the impact of potential quarantines on classes and you heard a lot of questions about that in our citizen comments tonight what will we do if there's a positive case will people be quarantined and what will that look like and those are things that we have to consider when we think about the feasibility of returning to any form of in-person instruction we have to think about the quality of the programming
198and the instructional delivery and if we offer a choice to families what is the duration of that choice what's the expectation for how long uh choice will be in enacted one of the concerns that um some systems had is that um a number of of families in european countries selected to stay in a virtual environment and some family selected to go and as they set up parameters many of the families that had chosen an online distance after a couple of weeks said oh we're not seeing an increase so we want our kids to go to school now and some of those logistics that were worked out with the number of students who had elected to return to in person were now up in the air and changed because more families were opting in so if
199we offer a choice to families and we can plan and schedule around that so that we have physical distancing and safety precautions in place that are acceptable to staff and families who are choosing an in-person delivery model is there an expectation that they stick with that choice for an extended period of time to maintain the plans um so not really sure where we're going to land or how we're going to resolve some of the conflicting information that we're getting from the surveys but we are working with that team and having conversations about it the scheduling decision will be made and communicated by the first week of august and so um we're continuing to work with that team one of the things that i put in here that is by no means something that is well
200vetted but there are districts that are offering families a choice of either daily in-person attendance a blended uh where half of the days are in school and half of the days are independent online and then fully digital attendance so i just created this graphic so that people could see that it wouldn't be that every classroom would have some kids choosing to be blended and some kids choosing to be fully digital because from a management perspective by the teacher that would be very difficult to manage the three learning platforms within one classroom so this idea is that um some schools may house some in-person classes and that there any students that would be choosing um an an online a fully digital option would be assigned to a classroom with the teacher and so the entire class
201would be a digital class and then if there's a blended class it would be all the students who are choosing a blended option would be um in that same delivery model so that a teacher who is assigned to a class would have the same delivery model for all of the students who are assigned to their class and so those choices would be made before students are assigned to a teacher this is not necessarily the direction that we're going to go but i wanted to to show that if there's a choice made that all students making a given choice are assigned to one teacher and a teacher is only managing a class of students who have the same instructional delivery choice made so we asked the question about their um family's priorities for what uh they
202wanted to see for their children and what we see is the highest priority the most important for the highest number of families is around furthering their academic learning with protecting their physical health being the second highest most important followed by attending to the social emotional needs and getting support for the pandemic the trauma that they've experienced during the pandemic i don't think any of these things are not at all important um i just was looking to say what is the highest priority for our families and we see furthering their academic learning and protecting their physical health as being the most important to the most number of families we see a high number of families that are going to require child care if we do not really reopen at full capacity currently our summer adventure club
203is serving 50 students on average per day and if there are 352 families saying yes i will need child care it will be at a cost to families and i'm not sure that we have capacity to house that and so we've been talking about our child care offerings and what our other options may be in terms of exploring facilities outside of our school buildings where we could provide child care if that becomes necessary based on our decisions and we see about 11 of of our families that responded to this survey are depending on us for meals and food on a regular basis so we'll need to think about how to support that need if we're not returning to daily attendance as we think as we saw the comments there was um quite a few distinctions
204um the themes that emerged from the comments a desire for students to return to school for socialization and mental well-being was a comment that was a common theme there was concern that the spring plan around how instruction was delivered was inconsistent and that they worried about student progress if we stayed in that format and as you heard me talk about summer school has been working on real-time video instruction as opposed to that i post lessons and you go and grab it in your time and so we're exploring that shift to a virtual learning environment if that's the case there's been questions and you heard it in the public comments the citizen comments tonight what is our response if we have positive coven 19 tests for stu students or staff so we'll continue to work on
205our procedures and our protocols in that environment there was a sizable number who noted that the risk to children is low and statistically insignificant so please don't keep kids out of school with the contrasting conversation about how important it is to consider the safety and health of employees and their families as well as those of the children in our care there's concern about the cost of child care concern about vulnerable members of family and their exposure by having in-person instruction concerns about supporting children in the virtual environment given families work expectations and there was discussion about con families that were considering plans to pay for private school or open enroll to another district or consider paying for uh instruction if the option that they preferred was not available to them through the greendale schools so
206those were comment themes that we saw and our next steps then are to you to use the survey data and the input that we're receiving as well as guidance from health officials and recommendations from the dpi and our our local and state health departments and have preliminary plans by the beginning of august and to communicate those plans to staff families and students so what questions do you have are we gonna be i assume you're gonna be watching the the numbers uh working with the health department to see the whether we spike is there a number that you're looking at or that needs to be considered to say look this would be too high for us to return to school we will follow the health department guidance on what those numbers are they have gating criteria
207i think i've shared that with they have five gating criteria to move through the phases of reopening and if certain gating criteria are not met that there could be a potential return to phase a which is safer at home recommendations so we will continue to work with the health department they are a part of our team so when we're meeting on a regular basis with a staff team of about 35 to 40 the health department is included in that conversation and we will follow their recommendations if they have recommendations in terms of safety and i didn't see it have there been any consideration to a phasing in as opposed to a hybrid where uh mps rolled out their plan of phasing in over the fall would that be something is that something that's been looked
208at we can that's certainly something that we're seeing in the comments and we're seeing in the data and is part of the conversation what other questions do we have or any other feedback well we've i think we've all received several emails today from concerned citizens i think some staff some residents and i i guess my question would be just you know again kim i know you said that there's not going to be ongoing serving of of um people but um i guess the com there's no magic wand here i mean let's face it there's not not a magic wand to say how this is all gonna pan out um but you know we where do we how fluid are we gonna be with this is this gonna be something that we at a moment's notice
209can change directions in the fall or you know are we going to at some point in the process of deciding what the reopening is going to look like are we going to be locked into to a specific model and then that's the way we have to go i know it's going to be important for every teacher to be prepared to work in an online environment we have had staff development in our june time frame around using digital tools and enhancing that we've had some expanded experience in our summer online learning and will continue to provide resources that way because regardless of the plan at any point a rapid community spread or a spike or an outbreak could force everyone to be in an online environment regardless of what choice is made so and i think
210that you heard that referred to in some of the the citizen comments about shouldn't we just go there if we're going to be forced there eventually um and so that's something that needs to be discussed so it's going to be very difficult to to know what is the right plan and the right balance of in person versus online attendance and so that is why we're going to use the survey data the science and the um the conversation with our staff who are professionals and trained in in instruction and developmental readiness to make some decisions around what our options look like but there's going to need to be preparedness to transition whether that be from an online environment to an in-person environment or vice versa on that note across the board i mean everything that i've
211been hearing and talking with you kim and the whole team it's working on this you know thinking about this from every angle and looking and keeping your eyes and ears open to what everyone else is doing not even just locally but nationally and and internationally best practices things that we can leverage things that we can employ to really figure out what we can do that's best for kids and families in greendale i know this is no obviously easy task and nothing that any anyone imagined we'd be doing but we are and and just wanted to you know say thank you and and continue the the the hard work of thinking it thinking through this from every single different perspective so we can make the best possible choice um i know we will continue to hear
212from you know residents on on on where they have thoughts or issues and i think in the day we we welcome anyone sharing those thoughts with us so that we can incorporate that make sure we're not missing anything as we're developing these plans so i think um just once again kudos on on the work that you're doing and uh you know keep up that work as we're looking forward over the next few weeks there's a lot of hard work in front of us to think through plans abc and and how we can provide some choices and make sure that we can educate the children and keep them safe and their family safe and the teachers safe and the staff safe so thank you yeah thank you and i think what struck me from the presentation
213is the thoughtfulness that has gone into it uh the different perspectives you know what are our families telling us what are what is our staff telling us what is the science and our health department telling us so um i appreciate the fact that you're looking from it from multiple angles and multiple perspectives um i heard choice a lot in your conversation tonight so i think that'll be important as we look to say okay what like you said one size fits all is not the right approach here so what choices will we be able to uh allow for our families um and how do those choices maybe stay fluid so that a choice that they choose today now on on july 13th may differ once we get into september 13th so i think that's important that
214we offer them choices um anything at the end of the day the two important things are how do we continue to expect high achievement in a safe environment you know we've talked about safety whether it's bullying or physical safety now we're talking about health safety so i think those have always been conversations that we've had um and i'm confident kim under your leadership and the team that you have in place and the the voices that you're listening to and and the the welcoming um perspective that you have um we're not going to make a perfect decision no one's making a perfect decision but we are going to make the best decision uh for greendale so thank you for the hard work here and i did fail to mention in my communications this evening that one
215a decision that was finalized today is that um one of our co our classes activities is going to be limited in their scope this year so our marching band will not be hosting a competition and will not be participating in competitions this year because there was no way that we could ensure safety given the number of students and the risk of the activity with playing of instruments and the um projection of respiratory droplets that happen when you play as part of a marching band so the decision was made that that we will not be competing in the marching band season and so that those are the the difficult decisions that we know that we have ahead of us kim i'd like to echo too that i want to thank you for the hard work that
216the the team has been doing i think it's every wednesday you've been meeting since may and um you know i know that feelings are getting heightened as we get closer to the start of the school year so obviously there'll be you know input from individuals but the hard work really that you guys are doing is very important to all this so i just want to thank you for that all right thank you kim um [Music] continuing on with the agenda i know it's getting late and we do want to get into closed session uh any legislative updates kathy that you want to share other um at this time yeah i'll just keep it brief because we are running so late um there um the majority of the legislative updates have to do with covet 19
217right now and legislation as it pertains to that um the the um most near to us uh decisions going to be made in august um that there's an emergency response bill that congress is working on right now passing and i think we've already kind of chimed in with our legislators but they are just saying that it's very important for wasb members and other school leaders to educate congress on the cost that school districts face during this pandemic and um so i think that's important congress will actually not meet after its august 7th meeting until september 7th so um any additional information that we want to provide to our legislators should be before this august 7th meeting and then um the other the only other thing i had was just that attorney general josh call has
218joined several other state attorneys in filing a lawsuit in opposition to the interim final rule which issued by the united states that would reroute millions of dollars of coronavirus aid money to k-12 private school students and so um he's challenging that right now um and stating that we we need that money to come to our public schools so that's what i have for tonight all right thank you any additional um committee updates anything that we need um to be aware of at this time i i just wanted to men mention that um the wasb has its governance and advocacy online workshops um there is a board rate for that i did reach out to marianne today to let her know that i was interested in attending both of those there's um two different nights for
219each session so you can pick which night um and i believe kim is actually attending both sessions kim amidzic is attending both of those sessions as well so i just wanted to put that out there because we we do get a group rate if more than one board member attends i think um there's a cost savings all right thanks cassie um and wsb always does some good um provide some good professional development so thank you okay um we are at the end of the agenda um we are going to go into a closed session so i just uh i'll need someone to make a motion to move into closed session and then we will not return to open session after the closed session um and just remind the board members that there is a separate
220zoom length for that closed session so we'll um i'm looking for a motion to approve or motion to adjourn to closed session i moved to adjourn to close session under wisconsin statute 1985 1g immediately following the meeting for the purpose of conferring with legal counsel for the governmental body who is rendering oral or written advice concerning strategy to be adopted by the body with respect to litigation in which it is or is likely to become involved i second there's been a motion a second to move into closed session under wisconsin statute 19.1 19.85 subsection one subsection g any further discussion all right the nice call for roll call vote kim yes well yes kathy yes thor yes and i'm yes motion carries our next school board meeting is scheduled for monday august 3rd thank you
221everyone thanks