Greendale School Board Meeting 4/8/19

001smeeting been posted dr. kilts it hails and roll call will show that all five board members are present as well as our two student representatives so at this time I invite you to stand and say the Pledge of Allegiance all right any communications to share this evening doctor kilts yes we have some good news to share with the board and community first of all we had about 30 parents attend the previous parents as partners session on date safety the session provided parents with insight on what students learned during the day and some helpful tools and conversation starters to use with their children on safe dating and protecting themselves from sexual assault thanks to the Greendale Education Foundation for the grant that supported the speaker for the district and for the community Highland View is presenting

002the Panther pride moment tonight so I appreciate their attendance here look forward to hearing their update on the great work being done at their school so thank you we also have an update on the equity plan that serves as an opportunity to share out key professional development student leadership and playing community workshops and sessions that are planned appreciate the community partners students who are here tonight to share out the great work conversations that are occurring so thanks to those who are here for that fiber-optics project for Greendale is being completed beginning this month in cooperation with Franklin the installation of the fiber cable tell vernal is tentatively scheduled to start Monday April 15th it will be installed spliced and tested by May 23rd so we're excited that that project is finally moving forward a community

003Wellness Fair will take place Tuesday April 9th at the high school from 5:45 to 7:00 p.m. followed by panel discussion on mental health and growing resilience in our youth so we invite the community to come to that wonderful event commendations are being presented tonight to retiring board members Tom's Laura and Melanie Kuzmanovic for their many years of service to the school board I thank them for their advocacy of an involvement in public education and certainly thank all the people organizations that are here tonight to help us commemorate their service on our school board the middle school will host a digital citizenship parent night on Tuesday April 16th at 6 p.m. in the library with a focus on how parents can be proactive with students on the use of social media and all district orchestra concert

004will be held on April 17th at 7 p.m. in the high school gym district jazz band concert will take place at the high school on April 24th at 7 p.m. and finally the following donations were received by the district for the theater department $200 from Jackie and Harvey Schweitzer and $250 from Jane and Sean Blaine are so we thank them for their donations to the theater department thank you doctor kilts at this time we've got some commendations that we'd like to recognize so as dr. kills mentioned Melanie Kuzmanovic and Thomas Lord are both retiring after very successful careers here on the board so we will wish them well and at this time I'd like to invite Johnny Ashley and dr. Mary Gavigan to our podium from the Wisconsin association of school boards as well as

005the local sisa to recognize our retiring board members good evening can I also invite the president of the WSB border yes please sorry about that right Norway these things are very bittersweet but in this particular case extremely so this is a district that I've been familiar with for many many years there's always been an emphasis on education this board should be applauded for its focus on the achievement of the students in this district and so tonight it is my distinct pleasure to present to dr. Thomas Lauder in recognition of your service to the children and Wisconsin public schools for 32 years now let me stop some of you in here aren't even but that's a long decades plus service and I rarely have and that's is that one of yours they're excited we're all excited

006for you doctor slow des dr. Tom we know how much you have meant to this district and to the students in this tissue and so this plaque is a small token appreciation for the efforts that you've made on behalf of the school district of Greendale but also the staff in this community it goes without saying that he loves kids and I want to thank his family where's the family I know that they're in here some of you probably didn't mind that he was here but we know that it was your generosity and allowing him to serve 32 years that has allowed this district to prosper so doctor now do you want a few words because we also don't want to ignore that we have another retiring board and that is Melanie customizable cuts mana I

007got it yes but seven years of service that's also something that has to be recognized by this community because again her family loaned her to you to make sure the business of this district would be focused on students and that is something that you've done and I want to thank you publicly on behalf of the WSB there's there's an old saying that the most valuable thing to a citizen of the United States is their vote and for 32 years the people of Greendale haven't given me their vote and it's the highest thing they can entrust me with and I have always tried to live up to that make myself worthy and justify their their trust in me I think everybody has a chance to do this kind of thing because one of the greatest things

008I think our district has ever done is emphasize service-learning and this is what sort of kind of borders but there are so many other things everybody in the room can participate in their community and I highly advise that you find some way student Ethel children's athletics boards get involved with the schools anyway everyone can do that they can involve their community this is how I chose to do it but you know please do emphasize it here anything for a very good reason as far as people to think it's everyone that I can imagine one of the things that the thing that makes the school board look good is the schools and the schools look good because I think in Greendale we have wisely made sure that the right people were in the positions of power

009and then let them do their professional work we've brought in retained developed the best people I think teachers administrators starting with Superintendent and going on down I think we've done an excellent job of that we know what we know what the school board in green do I think always knew what to do and we did it and we let the professionals be their professionals I think that's one of the reasons why we've done so well here so I like to thank all those people other people here my family said I did not expect to be here we were at the brewer game yesterday together but I didn't think they'd show up here that's it's very nice sandy there you go sandy thank you so much put up with a lot and those probably as much

010about the school board as I do because they would complain about things after the meeting and finally the board members I've served with I've served with a lot of people and the board now and the board coming on by the way are just the best people we can possibly imagine for this for this district I've worked with everybody for the last 32 years all these board members and they've all been they've all been good they've all had things to add to the equation also by the way they come from the whole spectrum of right to left and center and what happens when they've come on the Greendale schools is they've dropped the ideology and worked for students I think when the when the people who wrote the state constitution did so one of the wisest

011thing they ever did was make schools and nonpartisan office because you come here and you're not a Democrat or Republican or conservative you come here and you're here to help kids another good reason why we're succeeding so I've enjoyed that the 32 years on the board so much I get to see instead of every other Monday Night Football game every for 32 years I have missed the fourth of July parade and the in the village parade because I've been in them now I get to actually watch them so I'm looking forward to a lot of other things I will certainly gonna stay involved in the community in many different ways as much as I can but thank you all for making Greendale great and thank you all for first I'd like to add that I

012don't know who slow does kidding he's looking forward to watching The Bachelor on Monday nights yeah I go everything tom says I'm he really summed it up beautifully I I spent some time in a school in Kenya for a while and they have wonderful pillars this these this girls school and I left so touched by what these women young women were trying to accomplish but one of the pillars that I think stands true I mean many of them to Greendale is leave a place better than you found it and I I'm hoping in these last seven years that I'm actually leaving a great school even better and there were some really tough things that we had to deal with and still are dealing with because schools are a microcosm of society and being such society's

013problems infiltrate our schools and society's celebrations are in our schools and we've got some things to tackle here in Greendale without a doubt but we've done some wonderful things here and especially in the last seven years and one of the things I can say I'm really proud of it's not just our students successes and passing a referendum and those kinds of things but I couldn't be prouder that while I was on this board during my tenure that we became several times over I think three times a best workplace I identified as a best workplace and that as an educator myself not too many schools can say that and the fact that we are a distant a district of destination for teachers and we are considered a top workplace you know that is a direct parallel

014for our student successes and that infiltrates our classrooms and so that's something I hope I left the place a little bit better I hope our teachers know that we were a teacher friendly board and it reflected in our decisions and our policies and and all of that so so there's so many things to be happy about I am looking forward to some new adventures I will always be in Greendale I will always be pestering a lot of committees and trying to make it a better place so I've not gone I'm just doing something different now so thank you everyone we are we are going to continue to commend you so you can join us back here you can stay there at this time I'm going to invite village president Jim Birmingham and I think there's

015a couple of village trustees as well as the village manager if you want to join him at the at the podium good evening everybody Tom had ten years on me before I got even started in the village he had ten years well into the school board when we started so we are happy to that tom was on school board and doing what he's doing so we have a proclamation we're actually have a day for Tom as doing the village doesn't mean a lot except with the end it's almost it's almost the end of that day but it does mean a lot to us as people in Greendale so let me read this a little bit cuz you're gonna learn a few things that you probably didn't know but job so this is a proclamation here

016April 8th 2019 as Tom slow today in the village of Greendale first Tom served on the village or the school board 32 years in held various board position so listen to these knowledge he was the school president vice president clerk treasurer medical advisor board legislative liaison board policy committee member lwas be delegate village board liaison CES a number one delegate and MATC representative so all those things in your 32 years whereas tom was elected the school board 12 times on one in three year various terms since Tom Florida has been with the school board there has been six superintendents that have served 17 individual board members and six thousand students have graduated from the school six thousand so and and ghetto to you now therefore beautiful claim that the entire board commandments and graduates tom

017soda and his many years of service to the village of Greendale he had further claimed I Jim Birmingham village president proclaim April 8th 2019 as Tom slaughter day in the village of Greendale as a recognization in appreciation of his dedication the village of Greendale dated March 19th [Applause] [Laughter] all right thank you to the village board at this time we also have state representative Ken Skowronski and State Senator David Craig who are here this evening it's a pleasure being here and the state of Wisconsin is very honored to have a dedicated person such as Tom the school board and education of this community Greendale has a very high standard and you always meet it and with the board in the students the staff the staff faculty we are so proud that you're here unfortunately you're

018leaving now you can watch your Monday night football games and you can be in the parade and you walk your legs off and have a good time and we're so proud of that but for Senator Craig and myself we're very honored to be here to present the plaque to you and we'll will kind of make it sharp because I know there's many of people here and I want to get at the rest of that cake and everywhere as Doctor Tom saw had served 32 years in Greendale Board of Education and whereas dr. soda was elected to serve the people are being deal to 12 different terms whereas the doctor has tendered the Greendale Board of Education oversaw the stewardship of six different superintendents I bet that was a chore with it kept him like yeah

019and the doctor has leadership the Greendale Board of Education says definitely led the graduation of 6,000 students or that's a family I tell you you there that's great and the doctor has worked with 17 other board members over his 32 years of service now and that's great when you get a team together like that and work and has success that's leadership so whereas dr. Sora has held the board position of president vice president treasurer medical adviser Ward legislative liaison port committee member lwas be delicate village board liaison see Sawan delegate and MATC representative did I miss something thank you therefore the members of the Wisconsin State Senate represented by senator Gregg and a motion by Senator Gregg and myself as a representative of the assembly we commend dr. Sola on the allocation of 32 years

020of service the Greendale Board of Education congratulations [Applause] yeah please and I guess it's probably a little bit read done redundant tonight - Melanie - dr. slow to our state thrives on the the fuel that is citizens servants so thank you both thank you all for doing what you do for taking the the arrows the barbs that come with elective office it is it is a hard grind particularly for loved ones and so I just want to say from from the bottom of my heart thank you for having the tenacity to do this for decades and we look forward to more work for from from you Melanie in your next endeavor so thank you so much again and we as a school board also have a commendation and that we'd like to share with you

021and this is just a small token of our appreciation so Melanie we've we've heard that you served on the board for seven years that only tells part of your story yeah I think I want to thank you for all that you've done over the past seven years and even beyond that when you think back being part of the Canterbury PTO having three children graduate from these schools of being a school counselor in a neighboring district you have been such a strong advocate for public education and whether you were a parent or a board member you are integral to why public education works in places like Greendale strong community commitment strong community support so I thank you for that service it's been an honor to serve with you for these past 70 years and I look

022forward to just seeing what you do going forward so thank you very much thank you so much [Applause] and in dr. slaughter thank you for being such a strong advocate of public education in case anyone didn't do the math 32 years takes us back to 1987 I could read all the the committee assignments and the the roles that you've had I think what's important is you have been an inactive and a vibrant member of this community and this the school board for over 30 years you've been a mentor to me and many other board members along the way guiding us into the future but making sure that we were grounded in the past so I want to thank you for that I know it's exciting to see your family come out and congratulate you they

023have like like what said you know they've been supporting you all these years we get to see you every Monday night so thank you for sharing your father with us it's been a pleasure like I said I you have been a strong advocate for public education here in Greendale for all that as being everything that goes well here so thank you for your time and we will miss you [Applause] so many flats I'm gonna have Melanie I'd like and the rest of the board and any past or future board members they're here tonight how about we take a picture with when it's a job [Music] I'll tell you one one more round of applause for our board members so this is the last official board meeting we thank you for your your many years of

024service all right at this time we will continue with our agenda and take any comments from visitors this evening so persons wishing to address the board are asked to come to the podium and state their name and record for their name and address for the record and limit comments to one time as well as three minutes or five minutes if speaking for a group citizen comments shall be limited to a total period not to exceed 30 minutes so I bite anyone that has a comment to come to the podium and again if you could state your name and address for the record please good evening my name is Mary glass I'm the chair CEO and CEO of Milwaukee Professionals Association and I'm the executive director host of public policies with River West radio congratulations to

025the new members of the board as well as the retiring board members I am here to introduce myself the public policy organization I represent a very serious issue racial disorder racial slurs I am here to introduce and support the petition tell grand Greendale Wisconsin school board Shanice Knox Deanna Meredith all Greendale students and parents need their help through transparency accountability health and wellness now we will deliver to this board the new board we had first thought of tonight but knowing that there was a new board I have decided to submit the talent the tally debt we have next meeting and the petition will run until then this petition by the way started March 29th 2019 and as of now wars of my last checking we had 496 signers I suggest you read that those of

026you I've heard some very wonderful things coming from those of you who are representing everyone I suggest you read that you have people that have gone to school here parents and you have taxpayers making comments you will hear more as the week's go by the press releases press conferences articles contacts to you and as a planned forum with dpi today's visit was to say it's about business we're not the enemy but we're serious it must stop as you know it's happening to many of the schools I thank you and again congratulations to those who have put forward services and I hope you continue please help with racial slurs thank you and hopefully you'll be able to stay this evening there will be an update on our equity plan that will be getting this evening so

027you could hear a little bit more about what's happening the school disciplined the students sent out a letter immediately they did not wait for students or parents to complain they saw the issue and addressed it Oak Creek had an issue recently where a black student was threatened you probably didn't hear about that because the school called the police and the situation was handled the media wasn't called because the family thought the school handled the situation appropriately Franklin had a racial incident where a white student led coloured science on front of the drinking fountain the school at least admit it it happened this year I heard they had a very successful Black History celebration Greendale school suspends my daughter for being caught the n-word when I tried to work with the district they caught my daughter

028a liar they denied even happened once media was caught dr. Kiehl it's again denied it when more students came forward the district hired dr. Moultrie and dr. Smith 7 months later what has happened in the district the students will have a buddy club in a culture night our elementary school has a culture night put together by one teacher how does a buddy with freshman deal with race how does eat a mexican race allow me to know a person of Mexican descent we have also since the hiring of dr. motor and dr. Smith had racial graffiti written in the boys bathroom too racist videos the n-word thrown around the school halls almost daily we have a workshop in April that no one can attend and even if they want to it is by invite only if

029you can't admit that there is a problem how can you change it I am positive under the current administration nothing will change I am asking the community to stand for what is right we cannot allow another student to be mistreated there is a race problem in this district and it will not go away because someone says it's fake news in the end Greendale School Board would not be remembered by their words but by their lack of action as for the community he who passively accepts evil use as much involved in it as he who helps to pepper ate it he who accepts evil without protesting against it is really cooperating with it and as you are aware miss Merritt we did not discuss student discipline issues I will correct a couple of things for the

030record that excuse me we are not interrupting this meeting we are taking action and we do not take issues like this lightly we will hear later about some of the plans there happening is part of our equity plan that involves more than just eating Mexican rice hello everybody my name is Kendall Curtis I live at five three one six Olympia Lane in Greendale Wisconsin I'm here because I'm just like everybody else here I'm a neighbor like I'm the one that you would see walking down the street or anything else you would never know me unless you actually met me in person I'm here because of all the media coverage and everything does happen with the individuals with the racial slurs and things are going on and everything else like that I myself I've been across

031the country I've had 35 I've been in business for 35 years I've had about 58 businesses across the country from state to state from Atlanta to New York to Chicago to Wisconsin everything else and here at Greendale when I got here I actually purchased a home here and when I got here I felt very uneasy do I belong here is this the right place for me I don't know and now from what I'm seeing in the media from the racial slurs and things like that I'm wondering are our students being treated the same way when there are students in our schools are they being made to feel uneasy am I on the right place should I be here should I be in this school or what if situation maybe or a lot of individual was

032speaking regards to the percentage of people graduating and things like that from Greendale schools and that's a great thing because we want people to graduate there's no question about it however we never talked about the attendance rates are the attendance rates equal of minorities as they are to majorities or is it lopsided is it way more majority than areas minorities and when you look at those statistics there and you then you start to really look at the graduation percentage of minorities I don't know that it would be equal I don't know if it would be the same but I just wanted to speak out just because I'm a neighbor just like everybody else here in Greendale you'd never know me from front start but however I think we need to start tracking what's happening in

033our schools I think we need to start tracking and asking questions of parents of their kids before they attend our school because we're just allowing folks to come to our schools and we don't know they come from a race or background have they been involved in racial clubs or things like that or what have they been involved in or are we just allowing them in for attendance reasons and things like that and again my name is Kendall curse my son has already graduated college and everything else but I have a daughter that will soon go to Greendale schools and as she stated before the racial slurs they have to stop and they have to stop right here and right now right now as a as it stands right now it seems to be one-sided although

034it could be two sides but what's being reported is it's all one-sided towards minorities and that's something that I definitely would like to see stopped I've been here for about seven years now I haven't ever spoke out about anything else but when we see this this is when I have to stop and this is when we have to speak out and say hey look enough is enough we're not gonna go tolerate this because I pay taxes just like everyone else in Greendale so if we're paying taxes I don't want to contribute to something that's involved in racial slurs and race or things like that we've got a great record with Greendale schools and that's super that's just great can't wait my daughter actually to attend Greendale high school but by the time she gets here

035I'd like all this to be stopped and that's my time and I'll yield back thank you sir in thank you for your feedback I want to make sure that you're aware that we are hosting a a community discussion on Tuesday May 7th from 6:30 to 8:30 here at the high school in the library here so I invite you back to attend that because like you said we're bringing the community together so that neighbors can talk with neighbors and share their feedback so please come back at that time good evening my name is Linda Larson I live at 55 86 minute simple square congratulations to Mel and to Tom and thank you for your service Greendale is a special community they have excellent schools my kids both graduated from here I'm not from Greendale but I

036have found a lot of special opportunities across years that I've been here also I'd like to special thanks to dr. hill and Brian Brian is still here they are going to be adding on to some of the schools and due to the demand for more classrooms and at College Park I lost my niece 25 years ago and the school district graciously planted a tree not only for my niece but many other students that have passed away in the district so I appreciate that unfortunately it's going to have to come down for the new classrooms but they're going to replace it with two new trees and we're gonna save the tree trunk and make a bench so that my sister can take that home with her to Florida but I just wanted to I'm a little

037bit nervous because I'm not there's a little bit of negativity going on tonight and I'm not I don't know what side anyone is on I can go by my own experience you know please let's let's respect all speakers miss Larson please address the board and I'd ask for the audience to give the respect to everyone that was given to previous speakers so I just I just I just hope that this can be resolved shortly thank you thank you for your feedback and we will continue to work with you and your family regarding the tree that was planted there so thank you it was a great recognition so thank you any other speakers this evening and again you state your name and address for the record please Karen Birmingham 5711 carnation court Greendale I just want

038to say thank you to Tom and Mel for your years of service and I have three kids that have graduated and the last one just this past year Tom's been there for all of them and I'm very very proud to say that my kids have gone here and went through the school district through different superintendents all the way down to board members Mel and I'd pop popcorn together at Canterbury when our kids were young and I have a lot of great memories with a lot of the school board members and more to come and again Tom and Mel thank you so much and we hope to see you around the village thank you thank you any other comments from visitors hi my name is Heather Godley and my address is five three three one Millbank

039Road in Greendale today however I'm not here as an individual but rather as a representative of a brand new group called Paige which stands for parents advocating for Greendale equity we are a diverse group of Greendale community members and parents with children in Greendale elementary middle and high schools we want you to know that we are concerned both about our kids and others we have seen that racism is a systemic problem in Greendale schools in addition to the personal experiences many of us have had with our own children over the past months members of our group have had many current students and recent alumni share their experiences of racism in all levels of Greendale schools many times we've heard alumni and parents say that their experience was that the school did nothing they feel that

040administrators have consistently ignored parents and kids statements that they do not feel supported denying that racism is a problem in our own school district will not help us fix the problem we are asking that the district acknowledged that there's a problem and work in a dedicated and authentic way to listen to affected parents and students and to develop a plan to address these issues and change the culture in Greendale to create an environment that is safe and positive for children in Greendale schools Paige's mission is to represent and amplify the voices of those students parents and community members who are not adequately heard or respected in Greendale especially in public schools to help Greendale school district and the community at large to embrace its growing diversity to become more aware of the systemic racism in

041its past and present and to become a more welcoming community for all as an urgent priority we need to be able to trust that the schools are protecting and supporting our kids and all kids this will entail real honest self reflection on the part of school leaders and require that administration show ongoing commitment to re-evaluating how they deal with issues of racism racism and bullied we know that sometimes kids make mistakes our concern is with how the school's handle it we are asking that the district proactively evaluate its policies and procedures to ensure that we are not just welcoming of diversity but also but will also revise both policies and procedures to ensure that they are both léa anti-racist we need validation and assurance that when racist incidents happen staff administration and all adults within

042the district will respond swiftly and appropriately according to those policies and procedures we need the confidence that these policies and procedures spell out clear expectations and consequences and that the administration will follow through and enforce those expectations with strong consequences in cases where racism or bullying is perpetrated it's the district's job to lead by example and establish a culture where there are clear expectations for behavior it's the district's job to provide all staff and students with the tools to be anti-racist appropriately addressing safety issues or racism as well as reporting racism and safety issues should be a top priority it is only when every adult in Greendale schools from the superintendent through administrators to every teacher substitute and volunteer is trained by experts in anti-racist responses and committed to acting on them that we will

043be able to change the culture the district should also ensure that every student knows the racism and bullying will not be tolerated and that every student will not only know that they are expected to stand up to such incidents but also that they will be heard and supported when they report them our village was founded over 80 years ago as a deliberately whites-only community despite Eleanor Roosevelt's request that it be inclusive and despite the fact that legal segregation is no longer permitted we are still living with the demographic and cultural impact of our founding our schools must be the agents of changing this past and leading us forward into a more diverse and inclusive future Greendale is wonderful in so many ways but we also know that people fear making waves or drawing attention to

044areas where we are not excelling we know that it's embarrassing for the district to have racist incidents be reported in the media and that talking about race often makes people uncomfortable it's also often hard for those of us who have not personally experienced racism to see its pervasiveness we love the band we love the academic excellence the opportunities for dual credit and service-learning in the small-town feel of Greendale but we deserve to know that every student is being supported we can't do this by just hoping that the issues will go away we need to be committed to actively creating change on a continual basis this year and every year and it is necessary that together we all parents students administration and community members work together to turn over a new page in Greendale that will

045help us support students all students and ensure that every student has the safe welcoming and supportive school experience that they deserve thank you [Applause] Judy fun 70 60 - Darnell lien I just want to say thank you mil and Tom Tom you and I go back a little bit further and we know what being a board member means and I think at this point in time everyone sitting here has absolutely no idea what a board member goes through you come to the meeting and you work as you will be tonight but it's the time in between that you spend a lot of time thinking of the community thinking of the children and thinking of the work that you do here on Monday nights and I have to say right at this point we've had our

046ups and we've had our downs over the last 30-some years and at this time we've always come away doing the right thing and I truly feel we have a great community a great school system and you as a board I have great confidence in you and the new board members who are coming in that you will also do the right thing thank you thank you for your comments [Applause] didn't he good evening my name is Tiffany Jackson I live at 67 43 Hill Park Court in Greendale um I think I just want to start like I don't think any of this is sides at least I'm hoping um I think it's gonna take all of us you know obviously work together so unfortunately I just don't like that sense that people feel it sites cuz

047I don't think anybody's meaning to do that you know I really don't you know Greendale has been receiving a lot of bad press lately and I know that these bad marks on a district that historically has been praised and should be praised by many things it's not well-received by stakeholders in our district what I know is that is the district can continue to receive bad press by handling these issues that are present in a way that tries to quiet or make people think that the district is doing something or the district can start to hear press that praises praises them for acknowledging their faults and taking immediate and effective action to deal with the racism that is obviously present in Greendale schools I think it's a lot bigger than we're even discussing I have a

048daughter that we came to Greendale specifically for the high school actually when she was going into her freshman year she is biracial she's mixed race service Skinner start can you know she looks different um she's never experienced racism racism until she came here I was really excited about the IT school about the education she would get what she's been struggling she's a junior now and continues to struggle and I know that there's a lack alarm that goes on that doesn't get reported so I just don't want to concentrate on the stuff we've seen it's bigger than we even know I know there's a lot of kids that don't report my daughter was one of them so I just don't think they they feel like they have the confidence enough to tell sometimes so you know

049the district I just believe they need to handle issues of racism and view these issues with great magnitude and understand the time and effort it will need to take to improve acceptance and equality for all students or equity for all students at a time grade ales School District I know it's going to take more than a minute a day or a couple meetings this is gonna be a while and I think a lot of planning has to go into this and a lot of discussion someone uncomfortable discussions I mean talking about race is uncomfortable but it really needs to happen and we really need to do something about it I only have 30 seconds probably time but I think I got up yeah I got out what I needed to see so thank you thank

050you very much and hopefully you'll hear and if you can stick around you will hear from the students and some of the work that they've been doing as you said this is not something that's going to be a one-time event or or solved in a single meeting so you'll hear from the students and what they've done what they've planned in doing and again I invite you to the community conversation that we'll be having on Tuesday May 7th at 6:30 here at the Greendale high school library thank you any other visitors she nice knocks Greendale I want to talk about the environment in Greendale high school it's very difficult walking into a school not seeing many people that look like you being judged because you look differently seeing teachers that don't look like you share any

051common interests with you administration School Board who don't look like you I have been told by administration that when the N word is said to walk away and ignore it how can you walk away and go to class hearing that word and be totally fine and ignore it like it never been like it's never been said I was denied a Black Student Alliance for a long time until they got an email from my mom and all of a sudden they can make the group happen I had been told I'm not going to be arrested this time because I stood up for myself when a girl had called me the n-word I'm just struggling - the fact of the ignorance in this room I just don't know what it will take for you to just simply

052listen and take action I'm just to the point to where you don't want to which I would just like you to send an email out and say you don't want to because we're wasting our time coming here speaking telling you to take action and you won't do it I'm sick of it I'm here every single day I hear the N word every single day and I'm tired of going to report it because nothing will be done I don't know what else I have to do to get you to get it together that's all I have to say any other comments is evening all right seeing none we will continue with our agenda and as I mentioned I hope people can stick around and hear an update on the equity plan because there are things that

053are being done in this community and you'll hear some information so next on the agenda personnel there is an approval of Canterbury Elementary Principal appointment teacher resignations and support staff retirement request so is there a motion to approve I move approval of the Canterbury Elementary School appointment to serve teacher resignations and support staff retirement request as outlined in agenda item five is there a second ago there's been a motion a second to approve agenda item five personnel any further discussion I call for a roll call vote yes yes yes I am yes motion carries and we'd like to thank miss Jeannie lovest for her years of service at Highland View Elementary and we'd like to congratulate Miss Sarah Derek for her appointment at Canterbury Elementary and thank you for your years of service at the

054high school thing this promotion is a recognition of the good work that you've done here at the high school so thank you very much then moving on to agenda item six the regular meeting minutes I move we approve the regular meeting minutes from March 18 2019 as outlined in agenda -6 I second there's been a motion in a second to approve the regular meeting minutes of March 18 2019 any further discussion then I call for a roll call vote yes yes yes and I am yes motion carries continuing on to agenda item 7 approval of policies so there are a number of policies that are being presented now for a second reading we reviewed some of these at our last board meeting and made some changes so any questions or discussion anything from administration that

055you want to highlight for clarification I do not believe there were any recommended changes from what we presented at the last meeting all right so is there a motion to approve I move we approve agenda item 7 files number 3 for 2 programs for students with disabilities 3 for 2.8 section 504 plans and services 3 for 2.8 pupil non-discrimination rights under section 504 file 3 for 2.8 rule people non-discrimination rights of procedure 3 62.1 interlibrary loan for 31 attendants and excuses for for 3.3 student use of attract devices for 3-4 I'm sorry 4 for 3.5 student use of and possession of electronic communication devices I second there's been a motion a second to approve policies outlined agenda item number 7 any further discussion then I call for roll call vote yes yes yes I am

056yes motion carries next on the agenda we're here to hear we are here tonight to hear a panther pride update and miss Tracy Slater and some of the staff from Highland View are here this evening so miss flater if you want to come on up to the table with your team and you can do some introductions do we have a PowerPoint as well that oh it's not cooperating so we'll go ahead and have you get well Nadel continued to work on it we also do we have it on your computers I am sure it is Nate's a magic man so I'm sure he'll get it up and get a stepladder in truth you want to introduce yourselves just so we are we are here tonight to present some of the work we've been doing in

057our building this year around inclusive practices through a CO serving co-teaching model in our building so here with us out I'm Tracy flater principal of high love you Kimberly white glint fourth grade at Highland you Amy stole third grade at had in view Erin shantel third grade and special education at Highland View Denise Burnett early childhood teacher at Highland View and also helping with the presentation but she was not able to be here tonight is Carrie Gleason who is a fourth grade special education teacher and co-teaching with this is why Clint this year all right so Co serving is when a group of educators and we say educators we're talking about regular educators special educators math and reading specialists therapists our English language teacher all working together so that they share equal responsibility for the

058planning and delivery of instruction for all of our students the classroom setting includes children that are typically developing and students with special needs use me so at Highland View logistically we have five classrooms that are currently in Akko serving model so we have two of our 4k classrooms working with mrs. Burnett and we have one third grade classroom which is mrs. Stoll and mrs. shantel and we have to fourth grade classrooms so mrs. white Glen and mrs. Gleason and then we have mr. Rivera and mr. Osinski who could not be here tonight so five classrooms currently we've done a lot of different professional learning and support around the co serving model we started back in summer reading a book from disability to possibility the power of inclusive classrooms and we worked through that book and

059with our Co serving consultant mrs. Peggy black and she is with us it's a about every other month she comes and works with us and and is in the classrooms visiting the students talking with the teachers helping support them as they plan for specially designed instruction for students as well as working on their relationships as Co teachers together and along with the summer book study and our Co serving consultant there is a lot of collaboration that happens on an hourly basis in order to be successful in the classroom and have the partnership work together another thing that we've done differently this year in our Co serving classrooms is the scheduling or of our paraprofessionals it's been very consistent and purposeful so we've really worked at scheduling pairs to be in classrooms for consecutive hours each

060day which provides further opportunities for the building of positive relationships with trusted adults it allows for increased communication between adults around student successes and needs and it's another perspective to support students and the needs that they have one of the most important pieces of our co serving model though is that it's a value-added it's not really about the teacher being next to the student but the systems that are put into place the presence of the co serve the co teachers in the classroom really gives students the opportunity to actually be less teacher dependent than they would be if they were being pulled out of the classroom for for their learning so Co serving is we really want you to understand it's more than just extra hands or an extra body in the classroom its strategic

061it's thoughtful it's purposeful planning around student academic needs as well as student social emotional needs so I'm going to share a little bit about what's happening in 4k so I have taught with Amy Bushman and Kelly rechlicz the last three years and we've had the opportunity to build rapport with one another and we've all grown professionally and what I mean by that is that as a special education teacher my job is oftentimes to deal with behavior first and and take care of that and our regular ed teachers their job is to teach the entire class but now we've been able to switch those roles and there's times that I'm teaching the entire class and our general ed or regular our teachers are handling behaviors so that's been right because we've all learned over the last

062three years more about each other and how we can effectively teach all of our students another thing that we had talked to Colleen at the end of last school year that we wanted to meet where as an entire team so she's given us the opportunity to meet with our paraprofessionals our 4k assistance and our ot and our speech paths and all of the teachers that work in 4k and we're able to weekly talk about strategies and best practices and really figure out what we need to do to meet the current needs of our students what we've learned about inclusion is that it's always ongoing it's changing daily what you think you have in place today could look different three days from now or three months from now and our students I'm there are looking beautiful

063they are having fun they're doing exactly what we want them to do in a 4k environment and what we're seeing from them is that they're advocating for one another they're learning they're including each other in activities that we wouldn't have seen if we had self-contained classrooms so when we look at the pictures we're doing all of the things that we want all of our children to do we're working on social skills we're working on cooperative play we're working on learning we have students patterning at a light table playing instruments and really oops it went away oh that's okay they're doing all the things that we want and the problem-solving that they're displaying and they're learning just so much and they're sharing that with others and then the last example I just wanted to give about

064how we know that inclusion is working so effectively is that because our playground equipment can be a bit slippery we have kids playing on the wood chips and on the blacktop in the winter and we had students playing duck duck goose so they still play that today and they were excited and they were playing and then a couple of days later one of the students that I support came up to me and said duck duck goose and I said oh you want to play duck duck goose with your friends and he's like yeah I'm like okay well you have to ask them so he went over to probably ten different children in both 4k classrooms and he said duck duck goose and they knew that meant he wanted to play and they all sat down

065on the blacktop and they played duck duck goose and that's what we want from kids we want everyone to feel part of the group and we want that community to start at 4k and continue through high school so I think that's the exciting part another thing that we did as a group we decided that it would be important to see what parents thought because we know how we feel we know that we see what's happening and we've seen the positive effects but we wanted to find out kind of what our parents were thinking so we sent a survey a couple weeks ago and we asked them what the impact of their child being in a inclusive classroom was so we're just going to share a couple and we all have some to share so the

066first one is that thank you for having an inclusive classroom I think it is important for all kids to learn together she loves school and all her new friends I believe in inclusion for all students or excuse me children so much learning and growing happens in these environments by all students every day I pick up my child I am grateful for the time patience and love all these kids receive and then the last one that we shared is that I think it's great that my child can sit beside is typically developing peers and participate in the same lessons I also like that his peers are exposed to him and other special needs children so that they begin to understand that some children learn differently than others I expect that many of these children will share

067a classroom with my child for years to come so I appreciate all of the effort that goes into fostering early friendships and community acceptance so really when we heard the positive response from parents that just confirmed what we were doing and we want to continue that going forward okay so that was Denise sharing us what happens in 4k and so Amy Erin and I are now going to talk about our third grade and fourth grade experience since this was our first year doing a co serving model together so I hope you guys don't mind but I'm gonna share a little antidote I was actually on the jog I used that word very deliberately just fill my body forward and see what happens but I was on a jog thinking about what we were going to

068talk about tonight and it kind of came to me that our service models are a lot like running and here's what I mean by that so we all know that running is supposed to be good for us right it's supposed to have a positive impact but we know that sometimes because of bad arches or you know of the wrong shoes that stress fractures results right so structures aren't an entirely broken bone but they're little cracks that ultimately result in destabilization and sometimes injury so it's kind of a bummer right it's something that's supposed to be very positive for you you created with the best of intentions doesn't work out the way you thought it would so consider it a metaphor for a system like special education and the reason we're talking about is because we

069want to kind of talk to you about some of the challenges so we can really celebrate what's going on special education was and is designed to impact our students in a positive way so whether it's implementing interventions or providing additional support or instruction you name it they've been created with the best of intentions but pulling students out of their classrooms to deliver specially designed instruction it's just not a fair trade and it's sometimes resulted in stress fractures if you will destabilization and ultimately a few of our students are able to finish the race the really good news is that you know just like a stress fracture our system is not completely broken and the great news is over the past year we've been able to do something really beautiful and a lot of our students

070are winning the race Kimmy and Amy are gonna share a few observations that they have comparing how students performed and an inclusive co-teaching environment compared to how they performed when we used previous models hello we're gonna start talking with the difference that we've seen we've talked a lot Aaron and I being in the same classroom have noticed a great deal of difference from this year compared to last year with kids getting pulled out and kids stayin in the classroom now no pull out goes on in our classroom or in the fourth grade classroom at this point we noticed that last year there's a lot of frustration for teachers as well as for the students when they're getting pulled out at some point they're missing something they're missing either the lesson or they're missing the time

071to work they're missing time to interact with their peers they're missing hearing how their other peers think seeing how their other peers work and when they come back into the classroom the teachers have to stop what they're doing supporting other students to try to get those students caught up to what they had just missed in the classroom which is frustrating and you trying to in a five to ten minute time block make up for possibly 30 minutes that they missed being in the classroom and this year since they are not getting pulled out we don't see that level of frustration anymore the kids are excited they're excited to be part of the group work if mrs. C is what we call her mrs. C er I walk up to a child and ask to see

072them they are sometimes saying no I want to do the work like we just need to talk to you for a brief minute you can get back in they're so used to the pullout that they don't want to miss anything anymore so it's been a wonderful wonderful thing to see this year I think my example leads right into that where we have a student in our classroom last year was pulled out for every single subject and so his day was so disjointed and so he would be coming back in the middle of whatever their class was doing and so now this year with our model of inclusion he's with us full-time he doesn't leave the classroom and at first the school year was a big shock for him I think some of these kiddos were

073getting so used to being pulled all the time that they weren't actually engaged in what was happening within the classroom and so their expectations of getting any schoolwork done didn't matter to them and so now being in the classroom full-time this particular child his expectations in mindset had to change we have high expectations for him and he had to do the work because typically he was used to just waiting for somebody to come get him out of the classroom all day I guess we can throw some data at you I always love our data right behaviorally so we've talked about academics another kiddo in our classroom we call it downtime as in he's not engaged in any academics happening within the room he could still be present in the room but not mentally present or

074he was being taken out of the room due to some behavioral issues for an eight-week period we tracked and this was during trimester to his down minutes that we call it were 1628 in the past four weeks since we've implemented some strategies and my co-teacher and I have worked tirelessly together and supported each other with new strategies helping each other out he has only been down 315 minutes which is significantly less than what had been happening in the beginning of our school year as cami yeah we're almost there but it's Kimmy kind of reference sorry as Kimmy reference you know there's a huge social impact as well in addition the the co-teaching model has really had a huge impact on student social emotional competence and I really think that it can't be overlooked some of

075the outward behaviors the acting out behaviors a lot of times result in students missing out on learning opportunities we sought we used to see those because they worked you know if you left the classroom well there was only one person and and they're not coming for you you know and what we've seen now is that when a student is struggling with something and we're able to work together and stick with it stick with that student to help them use a different strategy that serves the same function but keep some in the room and you just can't do that consistently when you're on your own and so that's something that we've been very very happy to see I know Kimmy talked about data we had a student last year who was leaving the class between three

076to five times a day most days of the week and this year all we've had to do is track the number of times that he chooses to use a strategy within the classroom to give himself a break and regulate and it's been less than 20 for the entire year he hasn't left once the other thing I just wanted to say in previous years when we're talking about students who were working on teaching them what social interactions are supposed to look like we expected them to do that in a session and then carry it over in the classroom some of the skills that I work to develop with several students I've worked with for a couple of years the same skills it took about 6 months for them to start demonstrating it once we were in

077the inclusive classroom and I guess and it's all because of a shift between discussing something and seeing's and seeing something and the amount of opportunities that they get to practice a skill and be successful with it so and some I guess I've seen that this year there's not any lessons or tools or strategies that can replace like the quality or the quantity of authentic trials that kids get in a co-teaching environment so we have a few pictures this year and we'll end with some feedback on our parents I've 270 so what you will notice in the pictures or may not notice is all the pictures we have up on the screen our special education with regular education kids and you may not be able to tell a difference with that these are strategy groups that

078Aaron and I do on a daily basis they're very fluid some days we stay in whole groups and some days we pull we base it off of the kids needs we are in constant communication so as I am teaching a lesson for example I'm the lead teacher for math and reading Aaron's the lead teacher for writing as I'm teaching a math lesson she'll approach me and tell me which kids she sees our having trouble she'll pull them in the middle of the lesson continuing to follow what I'm teaching but scaffolding it so that they can keep up with us the pictures that we chose to actually put up here we wanted to highlight community building I know we'd pull strategy groups and we group kids heterogeneous Lea and we you know foster relationships between kids

079but we really wanted to highlight that we truly are a family and I love that Amy said when you look at these pictures you can't physically see that somebody has a disability or somebody is different and that the bond that they've created and things that they're learning from each other by everybody staying within the classroom this year has just and I'm quoting Aaron to use the word beautiful and I feel like I say that all the time like our classroom is just beautiful just to see the relationships that they formed and how well they work with each other no matter the ability I don't know I mean you can see just different groups the differentiating we do with each other and the fun we have yeah we just wanted to give you more because we

080love picture we just wanted to add also a picture about character building some of the best sees that Amy and I have are when we watch what the kids do when nobody's looking a lot of these pictures we didn't take they were sent to us by people who caught the kids in action you know if you I guess that you know if you look at the top left corner there's a student I won't say which one but there's a student in that picture who last year wouldn't engage in recess at all who would stand next to the teacher the entire time and now that student is running around with friends and wants nothing to do with me which is fine and then the other one that I think is one of a me a nice

081favorite pictures is the picture in the center we have a student who has a routine and he and he's going on that teeter totter every day and someone actually took this picture of all these kids working together because he'll go sit on it even if nobody's there but all of these kids who just take it upon themselves to go over and make sure that he gets what he needs and we have probably the littlest one in our class like trying to stabilize the teeter totter which we thought was pretty great so those are some things you want to share with you and we we also had some positive parent feedback yeah we could thanks Denise what did the kids call it the wheel of the spinning wheel no you're good so one parent said I

082have no suggestions my son seems to be unaffected which to me means he has been positively affected by the inclusive environment previous generations haven't embraced or thought to create I had the opportunity to chaperone a field trip this January and was so heartened to see the support and camaraderie the children displayed toward each other another parent said it gives him the opportunity to interact with all types of kids not just ones that have similar capabilities of his own he also has been able to experience that everyone brings their own gifts and struggles to the classroom my only feedback is that Highland View should continue to have inclusive classrooms I have only been in the classroom a few times and I can see that almost every student has some type of adaptation to help make the

083learning process easier they they showcase that during the learning process another parent said my child isn't positively impacted by being an inclusive classroom because he's been interacting better at school this year he loves and enjoys school he really loves the staff the level of professionalism and caring for the students and the school and staff is unbelievable this is the first school I have seen this in thus far and then our last one is I've noticed a change to my child for the best my child is getting extra attention in the area she struggles in but more importantly she sees that all children have worth even with differences having an inclusive classroom is exactly what my kids need and what I want for them she is more aware and thoughtful of kids with differences she's excited

084to go to school and be with her friends of all kinds and her teachers have told me in numerous occasions how kind she is to everyone if there's an opportunity for an inclusive classroom in first or fourth next year I want my daughters to be a part of them fourth grade is short and sweet we just have a couple she has become more confident and able to ask for help without fear he's more social and excited he has help when he needs it always available keep the children involved with special-needs children as it helps to deter bullying and learn from each other as well to be better adults later I think it's beneficial for kids to learn early that not is the same so then just hearing what our teachers have had to say about

085co-teaching I do have some hard data to share as well when you look at our our star scores both in reading and math the the table on the Left shows our data from last year fall compared to winter if you look at like the red and the yellow there really isn't too significant of a difference but the table on the right shows our our star assessment from fall of this year to winter of this year and you see quite a change between students that were in the red not meeting grade level proficiency and how that's changed just in in a few months so I chose to do our this is our full school data and I'll answer that well that was reading I'm sorry and then math is very similar as well I chose to

086show you the whole school data because what's happening in our Co serving classrooms is really transcending and impacting our entire school community and so as a school community we are really looking at our inclusive practices and and the amount of times we're pulling students out of class whether they're in a co serving classroom or not and what we can do to work with our specialists to push in to the classroom more and really work with students within their tier one instruction so moving forward we know that strong co serving relationships develop over time so as we move into next year we're looking at exploring a continuing to explore explore Co serving partnerships for next year looking at continuing our close serving classrooms in 4k and moving into fourth grade and to fifth grade and possibly

087having Co serving opportunities and other grade levels that might Co serving doesn't always have to be for a full school day you can do subjects as well and so we could do some kind of like spotlight code and coach serving within specific ten areas also for resources and professional develop development we're going to continue our partnership with Peggy black she'll be back to work with us again next year and most importantly our work is is never done we are always adapting and being flexible in order to make changes based on the needs for all of our students thank you thank you very much any questions or comments from the board I want to applaud you on your efforts it's really important that this inclusion happens at our elementary schools my question is so there's one

088co-teaching classroom in third grade out of how many third-grade classes there's three current third-grade classrooms and then similarly with fourth grade there's two co-teaching and then how many total 3:30 okay is there an issue because I've been researching this at the time of day where you have math or reading is that the same in every grade yes and if that's the same doesn't that limit how our specially special ed teachers can co teach if they're only in the one classroom at that one time how can they be helping the reading and the math and the other classes it fluctuates from it fluctuates from year to year so obviously we always communicate with Tracy regarding scheduling obviously it is more difficult if students are spread out and the same subject is taught at different times often

089that's why we do sometimes have to resort to group them or do a pullout model sometimes people say sometimes people work with within classrooms and say well we're all coming over for for this lesson this particular year it just doesn't happen to be an issue as the student students with identified disabilities are in our classroom in our classroom alone does that make sense so that's why it's I mean it's it's it's a really beautiful thing it's difficult to sustain but yeah if it fluctuates from year to year and it is it is a challenge but sorry and I want to correct something I probably sent mrs. Slater in the wrong direction because I nodded yes it is the same time fourth and fifth grade math is currently but this was an issue actually we all

090brought up as teachers in our summer PD session when we were all creating our schedules we did say exactly what you're you know quoting the research on that we wanted our subjects to be different from each other so we can have that support from especially like our math specialists in our reading specialists so currently only right now fourth and fifth grade math is at the same time okay so I'm sorry if I anything so as Erin said our students in third grade who have IEP SR all within mrs. Toland mrs. chantell's classroom and then within our to fourth grade classrooms there they are within those two fourth grade classrooms as well I just wanted to comment - having a son that had special needs going through school he started in the non-inclusive kind of settings

091and then it was in the Elm Brook district they finally got with you know the program like you guys are doing and he saw himself as more of an individual that was accepted by his peers and it wasn't till later in his schooling that we found out that he was feeling not at ease with you know the pole outs and so forth he had dyslexia so he went through a special specialized Wilson reading program that being said I wanted to compliment all of you because as an educator myself I do understand how how difficult and challenging it can be to plan for your own sake but also to be working with another person in a kho-kho serving model as you as you're calling it I think you know it speaks volumes to you as individuals

092that you're able to kind of put it out there for what the other teacher there and that you're willing to compromise and do some things that maybe wouldn't necessarily be the way you would do it but for the best interests of the kids so I think not only are the kids benefitting but I think the teachers are benefitting in that setting and and when we met recently at the State Capitol with our legislators one of the things we talked about was the early childhood you know k4 even k3 you know interventions and so forth and I think it's really important that we continue to have that focus here in Greendale where we catch those kids early and so I just wanted to compliment all of you I know this is not easy work it takes

093a lot of work and and I think it's great that you're doing this for those students so thank you thank you for coming this evening I think you know as you heard earlier you heard from of the people that that commended Tom and Melanie just about the focus on the students and how we really want to make sure that all students achieve and and I think this is just evidence of that so thank you for for your work in that and and thank you for making sure that we we focus on all students all learning abilities and I just want to share my appreciation as well because this isn't easy to shift the model and you guys are doing a tremendous job in your first year so as you continue to develop your capacity I'm

094just I'm really excited to see what this looks like next year in the year after that right so thank you for being courageous thank you for taking this on and setting up a better environment for all of our students I just have one last question what kind of time do the regular and special ed teachers have to meet in the week what kind of time is given to you because that must take a lot of work obviously outside of class I mean in the current year that we're in correct what how often do you need I don't know if we could put a number to that I mean no what I mean is during any given week what how many hours are the two of you during a prep hour it's a blessing so we

095have we're usually there before school so we'll meet before but like in terms of what time the school provides us we have about 50 minutes we were able to plan together during the school day and we'll work through our lunch sometimes so I mean we have to Aaron's been very humble she doesn't like to say what she does she gives up part of her prep time to help a student that has special needs so our prep time does get cut a little short so we usually check in with each other every day before school we have conversations but our prep time is when we try to do all of our planning so the first 20 minutes is that quick check-in if our students don't have any other needs at that time so we'll just do

096our we good for today everything is set because we have our long term plan for the week and then after that 20 minutes Aaron goes to get that child to work with him so then I continue my prep while she is working with that student on Thursday is when we have the full hour so that will be the time that we will do the majority of our planning is on that Thursday but our check-ins it's it is daily it is every morning it is after school it is sometimes even in lessons like we need to hit on this or that our dedicated time I would say would be our Thursday I know that's a lot of work so again yeah thank you very much yes thank you good question anything else I thank you again

097for coming this evening and thank you for sharing your story all right at this time we're gonna continue on with our agenda and move on to the equity plan update and invite dr. Smith dr. mu tree and a number of our students here who have been working on some of the equity plans so I invite you to the table up front so I'm just going to start as the students get into position I want to start by first of all thanking the community members who spoke up tonight I certainly appreciate your voice and appreciate the opportunity to work with you because we know that equity work is not easy work and it requires shifts and mindsets or requires shifts and behaviors and the district is committed to that work is demonstrated I think by what

098Highland View shared with us related to that Co planning Kosar V model with students that work is about equity and giving all of our students access an opportunity to learn and develop the skills and content we want students to walk away from Greendale schools having we also have opportunities for improvement moving forward as you've all also heard from community members who have shared some of their perspectives with you and it requires certainly partnering with our students who are here tonight and sharing how they've been involved in some of this work it involves partnering with our parents giving them opportunities to have a voice which will provide May 7th through that community forum that's going to be hosted by us but moderated by the Zeidler Center and we also are working with other key community partners

099and leaders because this is more than just Greendale district it requires us working with key village leaders key leaders through our different organizations like Lions like the village club like the library to get involved so that we can do a better job in terms of welcoming the diversity increasing diversity we have here in our community one of our key kin unity members before I turn it over to the students to share their work with you one of the key community organizations we are working with is WCS and community partners and I want to invite Jim Bartos up to join me to introduce himself Jim works with WCS and he's been working with us in putting together the three-day workshop next week that is going to take a community builders model to have those really authentic

100at times difficult conversations with key community leaders moving forward so please give a Greendale welcome to Jim thank you for having me so just very briefly the people that are going to be coming to this workshop are going to experience a workshop model that goes back to about 1980 it was developed by dr. M Scott Peck he's a world-famous psychiatrist and author his most famous book is the road less traveled and the experience that people have in these workshops is designed to have three three goals first for the participants to be able to overcome personal obstacles and barriers to authentic and effective communication secondly for the people in the group to be able to build and deepen interpersonal relationships based on trust and third for the entire group to have this experience of true community

101which he described as as one of unusual safety and trust and restore an extraordinary respect so that people can have those courageous conversations and can be vulnerable with each other and shared you know their deep personal feelings about issues and and come to this sense of acceptance of one another through that process and it's taking place over the three days and in the afternoon of the third day after they've gone through this experience the group will do some work together doing some brainstorming and then prioritizing of some ideas that they come up with for moving forward to make Greendale more inclusive more welcoming as Garry put it to two people that don't look like themselves and and to have a very inclusive community so that's that's what we're gonna be about and then we'll also

102several of us will be here that for the community forum and the one of the people that's a facilitator and training of this workshop will be part of the facilitation team is the director of the Zeidler Center for public discussion dr. Catherine Wilson and their facilitators will be helping with the community forum on May 7th so so with that said mr. Lotus are you introducing the students or dr. mu trees so also excited to have dr. mu tree and dr. Smith here this evening to help us with the student presentation they've really been working over the course the last four or five months to frame the conversation to focus on solutions and so tonight what they're going to be sharing are their two key priorities to help us move forward so with that said dr.

103mu tree good evening again dr. Lee shamu tree I reside in Milwaukee Wisconsin dr. Ramel Smith Brown Deer Wisconsin as promised we decided we told you we would come back kind of give you a report out of some things that we were going to be working on just wanted to remind you before we get into the today's presentation that that when we described when we were coming we were like we're not coming with a magic bullet we're not coming with a solution because if we had that magic bullet we probably would be on an island vacationing somewhere I'm just being real right so what I wanted to remind you though is that when you begin to think about science of implementation for anything to be implemented with fidelity it literally would take two to four

104years for some things to happen now doesn't mean you wait until 2:00 to 4:00 to begin some action steps but for the to see it um implemented with fidelity it takes some time so I mentioned to you that we were coming in and we were working on the first two phases the first two phases of science of implementation exploring and installing so right now I want to tell you a little bit about I'm gonna let dr. Smith say a few words we're really going to get into how do we how do we go about exploring so we did about seven different focus groups as we promised we worked with some student groups focus groups with students they're going to tell you about what resulted from that parent groups teacher groups community groups happy to have

105one of our board members to join our community focus group from there we ended up having about five sessions where we literally came during the day work with students and again it's not about us this is this is student-led work we are a neutral party we don't have to be here but we choose to be here to try to figure out how do we make Greendale a better place for all students and especially their students of color based upon what's happening so we so had one meeting with our alum group and so today's presentation will be student-led and I think you'll be pretty impressed you guys gave us a pretty fine group of about thirty plus students and we've got some volunteers today and dr. Smith he wanted to add one thing I think yeah

106I had a presentation planned but based on today's meeting I changed it just a little bit if we're over 25 in this room we should all be a little embarrassed for the example that we're showing for these children we had a young lady said she had caught the n-word I saw no empathy from any adult in the room dr. Moo tree said we came as neutral parties and that's absolutely the truth but let me tell you how I became personal for us I Drive her here every time we come to our meetings with these students they they don't even know this because she was pulled over and unfairly harassed by the police to the point where she's scared to drive here by herself she has a PhD she's a law-abiding citizen but she's afraid to

107drive here alone ma'am you had a very eloquent speech and I applaud you for everything that you stated and the biggest thing that she stated is that sometimes when things are invisible to us we don't see it and sometimes we don't see it because we choose not to or because we don't have to Derrick bill to father critical race theory said the more things change the more they stay the same I was feeling a little hopeless and I thought of the words of the great James Baldwin and he said I can't be hopeless I have to be an optimist because I'm still living and the reason why I'm optimistic is because of these 24 young children that we got a chance to work with when they first started working it was pretty stereotypical kind of

108scattered out by race and as they started to work together we saw something magical and what we saw is the beauty of life before tainted by the world and so what I hope you do and I think what we did is we missed a great opportunity to allow these young children to speak first where the room was crowded and I think that's a microcosm of what we have to be able to do was to to hear the voice mister village president I applaud you for staying here but so many other people have left these children are going to give you some dynamic words and I hope that they don't fall on deaf ears but I also sir hopes this serves as a turn for us to know that we have to listen but not only

109listen but listen at the critical time as I'm Lee I'm have you come up and I want you to start this so I just like to start off by being abundantly clear that in America racism is everywhere and unfortunately as of now it's inescapable for the majority of the minority something that we cannot change that ignorant begins in the home we do live in a community that is predominantly white that's something that we cannot change we are afforded a great education and we are afforded so many great things but something that we cannot change is that in the home people are taught to think a certain way about certain people and although it's terrible the only thing that we can truly do to change that is that when we are met with ignorance we teach

110our children how to respectfully address it and we teach our children what resources we have to combat the situation so I'd like to start off with why we are here as a group there was a concentrated incident that did break the camel's back in my opinion it did in effect to just bring out every single thing from under the rug and one of the bigger problems that we found was that there was a lack of a representation and there was a lack of making sure that all voices matter there was when talking about certain incidences people it was very easy for people to just write it off thinking that it's a one-sided argument that someone is just being a teenager and they just want to make their voices loud but it's it's truly a problem

111and it has taken a very terrible thing to happen for us to see it a solution that we have found is not to quote unquote solve racism because unfortunately we can't but a solution that we found was just to try and increase the social awareness that our community does have more depth to it than no pun intended being just black and white we do have resources that we are afforded and we do have resources that we can create to help make sure that everyone in this community does feel valued and welcome so something that we that we learned in the beginning well just on personal experience the people that I surround myself with are very diverse group of people I make it my personal goal to make sure that I try and include all people

112and people of all walks of life that I surround myself with so that I get a holistic view of the world around me and something that we learned when we started this focus group was that the majority of the kids a part of this focus group did not think that way we did divide ourselves the majority of us thought all of us we did divide ourselves based on who we relate the most with and unfortunately we based that solely on the color of our skin what to to combat this what we did was a series of tests including the myers-briggs test that just showed us that beyond what we can see with our eyes we have so many things that can unify us and I find that super important because it did show that even

113when we came to a group that we knew was meant for us combat this feeling of disunity we still inadvertently divided ourselves and I think it's just a great thing to show that dr. mooi and dr. Smith showed us that we do have more to us than what meets the eye and just something else to just reiterate is that there's a lack of feeling that all people matter at our school and it is something that you can't just with one snap of your fingers fix but it is something that we can work towards and Madison will now read to you guys about the Scott analysis Thank You Amelie hello so with our group we did many activities like she was talking about the myers-briggs test where we got to learn about one another but we

114also talked about why we thought we were here and through doing the sky analysis which stands for strengths challenges opportunities and threats we talked about how that is at our school from the sky analysis we were able to break it down into four other themes which was survey communication belonging and diversity from this we went into different groups and we talked about how those were in our school what the problems were in those groups and how we could fix that from the sky analysis I have some examples of some challenges and opportunities that we do have one of the challenges that we have at this school is feeling like we have a voice a lot of people at this school don't feel like they have a voice to be able to speak and say how

115they feel and we have a lack of empathy shown through discrimination prejudice and racism at this school but other than that we do have opportunities we have many opportunities at this school for example we have leadership programs opportunities for open dialogue with other students for example this group and from that we made many different choices of why we want to be here today so from these pictures and these groups we broke down into the four groups of survey communication belonging and diversity and here are the pictures of us just an action we weren't just sitting there being lectured about these like we actually participated in making these decisions and so from here we're going to go into more detail about these four groups and so we're gonna start off by talking about survey thank you

116very much hello as said we are working on where we did a survey and that was our first like activity that we sent out so our job was basically to create a survey with questions focusing on things like diversity and belonging and whether people feel comfortable in our school and we collaborated with staff to like make sure that questions were relevant and good to use and we use the Likert scale so that's like strongly agree disagree neutral agree disagree everyone probally knows about that but yeah so based on this response you can see that seventy about 73% of the responses were from white students and out of the nine hundred kids in our school seven hundred forty four kids responded so that is a very slanted demographic obviously so specifically one of our questions was

117do you feel like you belong at our school and sixty four point three percent feel like they do belong and twenty percent are neutral so belonging is high but considering the skew that we have in our data here it is definitely plausible that there are significant numbers that do not feel they belong and in addition ten percent of people another question sorry I'll be back check another question we asked was whether or not you feel racial tension in our school and ten percent of responses agreed to that question and out of seven hundred forty four responses that's seventy five kids so that is a very significant number and with this kind of data we hope to make sure we are catering to even what may seem like small percentages of people because they everyone at

118our school matters and we want to make sure that everyone is being catered to Thank You Mason High School and the communication aspect of the problems that we've faced here and what we've kind of come up to fix for these situations so we came up with five key points that were involved with miscommunication that we've been experiencing so one was safety for everyone and respect is a huge aspect within that because respect is something that you want to keep safe because from respect branches all forms of trust and bonding within personal person and we really need that so the students should be respected and feel respected to know that they are treated seriously and that there is respect between staff and students equally the point two was comfortability which means putting the students first and

119letting them know that they are put first again connecting with staff and students making sure that there is that connection the trust three knowing how to address issues this was brought up for by some other people and this also is very important because some students feel like the issues aren't really addressed the right ways so that's why we also have reporting personnel like dr. Smith and dr. mooch are here to help us through these conflicts then for was access to resources we have a lot of resources here at Greendale and that's a good thing that's like something that should be applauded for but no one knows that we have them so that doesn't help much at all like a lot of people here don't know that we have a social worker like that you can

120go to and talk to for these it's like for personal reasons you know like people don't know so like these important aspects that people don't really get to see on a day-to-day basis like should be presented and advertised to the students and then the last point was increase awareness school-wide before significant conflicts arise that's a huge one because making sure that because all of the students know that something's going on before all of the adults know like that's kind of a given so this is also learned through student-led groups like this one like a lot more problems we're known before the huge conflict that broke the camel's back there were a lot of them but kids didn't feel comfortable that's all so going back to the comfortability of communication and why it's so important so

121with these student-led groups there should be open dialogue between the students and the administration or the staff just to make sure you know that like they are being heard because communication is very important sort of end off here a wise woman once told me communication is the best thing in the world if you think about it most conflicts arise from miscommunications and like just think about that like how many problems you've had in life like they're all miscommunication based what communication is also a huge part of belonging and I'm gonna leave Emma to thank you at Kayla so the next overarching theme that stemmed from our brainstorming and all the experiences that came together in our group is there's a huge issue in our school of where do I belong and how do I belong

122in this school because when a new freshman comes in without any connectors or anyone any sort of activity or club that they know they're going to join it's hard for them to be like oh yes that's where I belong right so the other side of that is and something that we really want to address is not only new incoming freshmen but also students that are just new to Greendale and so with this lack of belonging and feelings of exclusion in our school we wanted to create some type of program that could address it and so what we came up with was a program called brothers and like a brother and sister program which would connect upperclassmen and underclassmen and new students with students that have been in the green dog program the green dough School

123District for a while and so what I really feel like is important with this program it's not only connecting new students and old students but also connecting students that have been in the school district for a long time and connecting it in the same way that we have been connected in our focus groups by having social events and discussions around issues in our school we can connect people just like the way dr. mu tree and dr. Smith connected to us with that I'm going to hand it off to Annie Thank You Emma all right then I get to finish off and speak to you all about diversity and that's really what has brought us together in this focus group is being able to appreciate the diversity of the students that we have here in Greendale

124and I know that our demographics don't reflect the largest cultural diversity but by delving into the similarities that we've had we've really been unable to bridge any gaps that we've had and come up with some solutions that I think I speak for the entire group when I say that we're all very excited for so in the group um labeled diversity you when that came out of analyzing any challenges and threats from our Scott analysis we saw that there wasn't a I mean although it was a diverse group we couldn't hear the voices of a lot of students and we saw that being a large problem because we really wanted to get that input and we really wanted to get that diverse opinion of the student body as a whole outside of the walls of our

125focus group so that's what Mason so eloquently was talking about in our survey so we saw that problem and we were able to work through it and come to a solution where we were able to build off of those results in order to move forward additionally we saw that there wasn't in the beginning a feel of administrative support and so we reached out and we were speaking to this Lotus and we presented to a group of administration about our concerns and the next meeting was run by mr. Lotus and he was talking to us about our concerns personally and we went through the results of the survey with him and we were able to speak candidly at that moment and I feel like that was a great moment for him and other administrators to step

126in personally because we had spoken a lot with dr. Mu tree and dr. Smith and it was time to bring it to that level of speaking with our administration and talking about you know what can we do with this we've recognized the problems we've recognized some challenges and we've recognized some opportunities so a lot to act on those opportunities with that in addition to that we saw as a Kayla was saying we have a lot of resources at this school to build some community and that's what we had really seen in our diversity group if there's one thing that I could say about the group speaking for diversity is that we saw that there was a lack of community and that we wanted to build this community with students who didn't feel like they have

127a voice we were all given the opportunity the amazing opportunity to use our voices and to use our votes as dr. Soto is saying to be able to change things in our school but we want to build that community where every student when they have a issue and when they have a problem they feel like they have appeared to talk to and they feel like they have a teacher to talk to you and they feel comfortable speaking up and saying I'm not okay and I'm not okay with how things are going so that's what led us to be begin building some resources as Emma started talking about with building community through grade levels and building community to be able to help support students who may feel like they don't have a voice in addition to

128that we'd like to use the resources that we have to build in appreciation for different cultures we felt as though there were probably some students well there are some students who feel really left out and ignored by the way that um our school is sometimes and so we wanted to really put a focus on how we can appreciate different cultures um as dr. Smith was saying we know that this isn't something that's going to solve racism we know that this isn't something that's going to in one month be like oh alright great we all feel included we all feel great this is something that we saw that we hope will just build community and will help make people feel like they matter more at our school and as a group of student leaders we really

129hope that we can use this to be able to build a sense of belonging through students who haven't felt that sense of belonging in Greendale schools so with that we are planning to implement that next at the end of this year bringing out a survey of students additionally more specific to on that goal to be able to implement it next year at the beginning of next year with some amazing student leaders and I have the utmost confidence in them as I'm graduating and I really I really do feel like this is in great hands and I really do feel like you're going to be able to see a change in due time so with that conclusion we took an issue and we spoke about it and we were able to find some challenges and it

130was a hard conversation it said it's been said a lot tonight this is a difficult conversation to bring up it's uncomfortable and we honestly if we wanted to have a 40-hour school board meeting we could tell you all the ideas that we came up with what we've really whittled it down to be able to build some community and to bridge some of those gaps that we've seen through the research that we've done um so with that we would be willing to take any questions and comments that any of the board members or administration has thank you so much first of all I just like to thank all the students Amelie Madison Mason tequila Emma Annie thank you for being here tonight you all spoke very eloquently I think one of the things that we try

131to do here in Greendale is to get student voice and your voices were very loud and clear this evening we'll have some discussion but what I think what's been said this evening is we're not gonna solve things at tonight's meeting we're not going to solve things at next month's meeting this is going to be an ongoing conversation an ongoing discussion and I think you have this board's commitment to continue to making the investment of time and energy and resources to continue this conversation as dr. kilts always said we are a richer community we are a richer school we are richer village for having diversity here so I think that starts off our conversation now how to do we all get along how do we all interact how do we all have conversations with each other

132when we may not look the same we may not have similar interests there's enough similarities just living in Greendale just going to school at Greendale high school there's enough similarities that we will find that and continue that conversation so I just want to thank you again for you for your you being here tonight and staying a little bit longer I don't know what time people told you you were going to be presenting at hopefully hopefully you got some cake and punch along the way but with that than any other comments or questions from any of the rest of the board I think the questions of the survey are very good it's a nice array of questions the data sort of cries out for disaggregating that by race size have you thought about that sorry um

133so when we first sent out the survey we got all of the data back and we as a group analyzed it and that was one of the first things that we pointed out was that we did need to separate it because like we said the results are pretty disproportionate we would like to further send out another one but again that survey that we did send out was quite lengthy so then we'd have to further just take that apart and then find different ways to send that out but yes we have sometimes students coming in from different environments [Music] Highschool that explains some of the different experiences they've had and it helps us to know with whether systemically as a district are we what we're implementing in the elementary schools are we seeing some of the

134richness and the good the good effects out of that or is it you know I mean we always take the kids where they're that student but I think it sometimes helps just might give us a picture we just like to say one thing with that because that's a great point I bet you put out we got a chance to do focus groups with parents with the teachers from both the elementary middle school and the high school we also got a chance to do with community and alumni one of the things that we found that was consistent throughout the board was a lot of these issue weren't just consistent at the high school level but they were also prevalent at the grade school level there were some teachers who had utterly talked about some disdain that

135they had and they thought that things should change I think the group that probably taught us the most was the alumni group and these were students who had went here 10 years ago 15 years ago 20 years ago and they said this was going on when we were here and that was very distressing and so what we said the more things change the more they stay the same and so what I think what we have to do is to be really honest with ourself a lot of it comes with self introspection between each individual what we do and the things that we saw it wasn't just race what we recognized it was a lot of other isms and a lot of other others with people who felt uncomfortable from religious values things of that nature

136and so when we talk about the issue I don't think it's just from people who came here it seems to be an issue that's kind of been here you see the men that the lady had exclude him sorry I don't know your name she kind of alluded to the foundation of Greendale and still having some of that residue there and I think if we're ever gonna have change we have to kind of omit some of those hurtful things that that might be present within our culture and density like I said what we can do as an individual and then move on to a systemic level to try to change I just want to thank all of you again we all said thanks but it takes a lot to be a leader but it takes even

137more I think as a student leader to stand out amongst your peers you all touched on it I think a little bit when you first came together you didn't have a full understanding right of why you were coming together and that was I think deliberate because even the community session that I attended I recall several of the community members saying well why are we here and I didn't provide any answers either because I'm also part of the learning and the growth that needs to take place but I think what what struck me the most is this survey coming out from you the students as opposed from from adults from you know from the board from the administration I think the survey does need to come from within and because you guys know the question that

138you're faced with in the challenges that you're faced with and we as a board and as a community need to hear that loud and clear and so it is important and in I hope hope you understand that I I'm very empathetic towards all of the students voice in this I do this for 30 years now I've been in a classroom but but more importantly this community is my heart and soul and and the students in this community you sitting right in front of us today are our the the future you're not that just the future of Greendale but you are the future of our society and and so what you take out of here academically is great but I think what you're going to take out of here and share with the world on a

139social level I think is so much more important so I just wanted to ask you your feelings about when you first got called in and how did you feel about that at first and was it awkward was it was it fun was it what was it so when we first got called together it's true we were all very segregated I mean it's the truth there were a few that would sprinkle away from their little groups and talk to others but it was definitely a new experience for everyone in the room it definitely got all of the attention of everyone when we realized when they pointed out to us that very day do you guys realize that you guys are already separated right we called you here to get you guys together and like that moment

140that they said that like that really moved me because I've been in a lot of moments and times not just in Greendale but all over I've gone to what five different four or five different schools I've seen it everywhere Waukee Waukesha Greendale like it's it's a thing it's happening so when they pointed out that we naturally separated ourselves that was a turning point for me realizing that I should probably realize like wow it's not a choice it's natural and that's not okay because everyone should feel like they should belong together we live we live on the same planet okay we can't be gay we can't take a rocket ship and split ourselves apart so you're gonna have to deal with everyone that you have in life so it's more important to just love the people

141that you have and people that you surround yourself with instead of naturally segregating yourselves so I thought it was very eye-opening definitely because going into that room I I recognized many of the faces in there but I had never necessarily taking the time out of my day to like say hello or get to know many of them and this whole experience has been really great like personally for me because I've it's great to know how many like brilliant minds are at her school in the student body and like working with these people and just seeing like their passion for this kind of thing and like everyone in this group wants to see change happen and it's so inspiring to see it come from the kids like people like me you know some of its just

142amazing to look at and be like wow you're my age and you're saying stuff like this and it's really impressive and it's so cool so I'm very honored to be a part of this group and like thank you all so going off what they said like when I first went in it was kind of surprising to see how many people actually kind of cared in a way cuz like in the hallways you walk through and people know about the problems that are happening at the school but no one speaks up like no one acts on them no one comes to be like oh are you okay like I heard about like no no one does and so like going into this group and seeing all these people that actually cared about this and wanted a

143change was just amazing because like I never knew that it actually existed here so yeah just to speak on what Madison was just talking about I think it puts a great deal of responsibility on high school students to stand up for something that they know is so inherently wrong it's again that embarrassment inside of us that we feel that if we say something outwardly that we're gonna in turn then have that backlashed on us and I'm very again very proud to be part of a group of people who I mean even some adults don't want to speak up when they see something inherently wrong and I'm very proud to be part of a group of teenagers who have taken it upon themselves to put themselves out there and to expose themselves enough to not be

144scared of what might happen if they do raise their voice so I came into the group recognizing that I haven't felt personal racial tension towards myself and I feel like that's an important thing for Greendale kids to feel every once in a while like this isn't centered around problems that are going to hurt me but it is because it hurts my community and it hurts my friend and it hurts my peers and I just came in really ready to make that change and to really focus in on what are some biases that we see every single day that it's so easy to just walk into your class and put your head down in your desk and really just not your desk your book and really just focus and on you know high school but it

145it was just really important to me to have this group to be able to hear different perspectives and to really be able to work with an amazing group of people to be able to make these changes I completely agree with what everyone has said so far and something like exactly what Annie just said I came into this group kind of feeling like I wanted to hear as many ideas and perspectives as I possibly could because I knew that I wasn't personally affected by racism in the school but my friends and I've seen a lot of people now that have been affected and I wanted to do as much as I could to take that all in and work with them to make solid action plans and also work with adults and dr. mooi and dr.

146Smith to make sure that those action plans continue even after these seniors graduate so it's been really also really important for me personally because I've had to look at the biases that I've had and really take a look at how that affects my day to day life so yeah you see we're the lucky ones actually yeah and like you said earlier you didn't come in here to give a speech or to lectures you facilitated what what these students were so so thank you and please know you're always welcome in Greendale schools one of the recommendations from the students also is that you know they are a diverse group of what we've recognized is that this group needs to have even some further voices that are represented at Greendale's you know just so you know as

147you talk about being a part of the group they've come up with the idea that we also need to expand it meaning getting some other voices at the table that are represented in Greendale so we're happy to again we we choose to do this work because of the children this really is why we're here so any final comments for you we love them and I'm so proud of you all and the world will be better because of you're not afraid that the toxicity of us it does don't affect you and that you really do a facial a real change in the world dr. mu tree dr. Smith on behalf the students thank you very much for being part of this work I know that each and every one of them who you've worked with loves

148you and appreciates the time that you've put in to help us move forward as well so thank you very much for your work one final thing I will say to the students who shared tonight is we are committed those two priorities you brought forward those student mentoring as well as as really the the cultural experiences building those in for our students so know that you've got the full support of the administrative team and the school board with those two priorities as well thank you again to everyone continuing on the agenda the next thing a 10 a.m. 10 we'll hear an update on the school resource officer report so I'm going to ask mr. Lotus to come on up and I think he's going to have I'll serve lied join him as well there is very

149little chance that will be as inspiring or as elegant as what you just heard right here so I once again if your students are I know their head no now they've been here a long time but really appreciate them their voice in the report that they gave and watching this whole process unfold over the last couple of months Jeremy and I are here today to talk about school resource officer update and I don't know if there by way of any introduction I mean the din the board report you see a lot of information we're going to take a little bit of time to just let you know that safety and wellness obviously are continue continue to be a huge priority here in the district and and we and one of the things that makes this

150happen is our relationship with the village and with the Greendale Police Department so the goal of our brief report is dealest rate the benefits of the SRO position it's a better to find the role and to speculate what a second position within the village of Greendale could bring to our schools and our students and in our community one of the slide that you see right now is if with the addition of a second SRO officer one of the things is that this these officers they serve the village of Greendale and and within the village of Greendale is not only the schools in the Greendale schools but also with Greendale Martin Luther high school and also Saint Alphonsus and so a second position with a school resource officer would allow would look something like this initially

151this is part of the initial collaboration about how the how the schools might be organized with the officers but in no way does this mean that they're solely responsible for it it would just be some initial responsibility when you think of a school resource officer it's easy to stereotype what they what they might do and some of what they do is stereotypical and some of it is things that black people don't know about some of the things that you would you would guess that the officers help us with our school any school safety processes our violence risk assessment process has Jeremy and other officers as needed very real participants and at the table with us to to bring their unique perspective and the resources that that they can give obviously with our Alice process and

152with the trainings that we do with our students and our staff in the schools Jeremy was at the initial training with me and Brian Coe fairness and also continues to be a very vital part of what we do with school safety as we start to look at prepare which is the part of the school resource kind of school safety three-legged stool of how do we how do we support students during and after a crisis and and how do we with a special emphasis on on mental health and re and recovering that is also something that our resource officers have been involved with and will continue to be and then SRP is the newest acronym for the standard reunification process which we're working on right now which is if we did have to leave our school

153and in a moment of crisis or just need evacuation for some reason how do we get students back to their families in a safe manner in a manner that is is focuses are not only their physical safety but also their their mental health and also the recovery the school resource officer also works it's our gap committee greendale assistance plan really looks at the whole child and some of the social-emotional learning that you've been hearing about over the last couple of years but the officers have a very real seat at that table also there's some community outreach that goes on within the position for example with specific student I tried to think of a couple of examples so if we're in the middle of a violence risk assessment process and let's say it's around weapons one

154of one of the important things is that we have the collaboration with Greenville Police Department who can work with the families and and go to the house and conduct a home visit and really talk and really make sure and ascertain that that that family is safe and is keeping their students safe and enhance keeps the school safe but the officers often reach off are involved with specific student situations they also provide a lot of supervision for our games and for our our dances and and all the different things that we like to do with students outside of school too and so to have that have the officers there at those events and working not only with the students but um but also the community and if you've seen the way that Jeremy works um at

155the games and the other officers work at the games they're really they are on the whole time talking with the community and talking with people and and remembering a lot of things that have happened over over the students careers at Greendale and then we also have general things on the day that they help us out with for example unfortunately one of the very real things that that that we deal with quite a bit now is a it's in the report but it's called the mud team it's the is a mobile urgent treatment team and really a group of mental health professionals come into the school around some sort of crisis situation usually with a single student and to have someone who can coordinate the with us the resources of the school and the in the

156needs of the school with the needs of the student and also within the needs of the law is very very helpful to keeping all of our students safe also the position is an instructional piece to it I included a lot of examples in the report Jeremy's going to talk about one of those examples um today and then really just the visibility I think you have to know that the officers here they come into the school and they're viewed as a to the adults in the building as a staff member and hopefully to a number of the students like it's just another trusted adult that's in my building and and I can I can go to him or her for resource and I so there really is a visibility factor that we enjoy from that position

157also some anticipated benefits from an additional SLO officer I think for Jeremy's sake or anybody that's in that position is you now have someone within it with a similar role and with a similar Job Description to collaborate with and communicate with and when you have two people everyone knows here you can rely you can take two different skill sets and then apply not only what's best to the situation but also each of the different skill sets raises the other and and so there'll be an opportunity for more collaboration that way I mentioned before we have some very very real work and a lot of work to do yet on our school safety and and so they will be participants in that resources for student wellness in attendance along with some of the mental health challenges

158that we're seeing within the schools comes truancy incomes attendance concerns and and other supports that students need so when they make when they get to school they can attend to being a student for the most part and having a partner to do that is also very beneficial and then also just some more visibility in classroom school integration I think one of the biggest things when you hear Jeremy talk on the next slide is that we need more collaboration within the classrooms and so one of and in getting the getting all of our resources including our school resource officers into the classroom into the learning and and find their spots to provide the type of experiences in education we want for Greendale graduate and and part of that is going to be what processes can we

159put in place so if a teacher has just an inkling of an idea of something they could relate and use the SRO for how do they take that idea how do they collaborate with them how do they cultivate it so it turns out to be a meaningful experience for students and there will be not only more time with with few officers involved what also like I said different skill sets and different expertise that that can be used well let Jeremy talk to you about two of the things that he was able to do I was going to embarrass him here with a slide of him and I McGruff costume dancing across the gym floor but I feel like in the sense of time we'll just get right to the slide here so good evening it's

160always a great opportunity to get into the classroom with the kids it affords us to be seen in different lights or a different light and to be able to share our experiences and our knowledge with laws or you know everybody likes a police story and stuff like that or they have many questions or comments and stuff like that so it's definitely something to allow students you know to start making those inroads or relationships with those kids and a very great level and it's always a privilege to get into the classroom with it with the teachers and stuff like that so some examples or an example is for the health class for the freshman miss Carell was you know going through some of her curriculum and whatnot and some of her topics and she reached out

161to me and asked if I could provide any other insight or information regarding drug prevention and/or awareness to her to their classes and so you know what we did was we worked together Miss Carell and I work together hand-in-hand on developing you know a PowerPoint presentation and information to share that was obviously appropriate and everything like that for the kids but obviously educating them in what you know the dangers are of of narcotic use drug abuse everything like that and it doesn't just stop there I mean that was one example there was other different other classes that I would help participate and presenting to whether it's driving whether it's mm-hmm constitutional law rest search and seizure things like that because there are kids that do come down in the office sometime during their their day

162or their break to inquire about law enforcement as a career so again it's definitely a huge opportunity to get in speaking with the kids so basically again mrs. MS Carell and I would would go back and forth with with this with the slides or the PowerPoint presentation and then you know present it to the kids and the students and you know the biggest thing that I really enjoy is having them be able to have a lot of time for questions and answers and stuff like that because that's where kids kind of start to open up and that's where you start to get those relationship building relationships built and stuff like that and then you become approachable and a lot of different things and they start building that trust so I think those are all integral

163parts of the SRO position and again the bottom line is is developing those relationships with our with our kids so what we're going to do is with the fall safety report that that you hear each year we're going to build in our progress and report out the new opportunities that we've been able to come up with to benefit our students in our schools and ultimately the whole Greendale community we'll take any questions you have at this point well first of all thank you for being here I've been pushing for this report for a couple of years I think it's really important for our community to hear what our SRO does in our schools there's been a viral video that I'm sure you've seen that shows a police officer with a chest cam talking to a

164student is that is that done every time was that done in this instance for any particular reason well policy indicates for our for us that it's going to be more along the lines that if there are you know a suspect or under arrest or something like that it's not always required but it's it's you know dictated by our policy mr. Lotus do you want to speak to them in terms of police officers being involved with the advisory sure what and soul risk is and in school investigations in any sort of a discipline situation are just that they're their school investigations there are some things that can happen that you would guess within a school that would immediately go you know report it to police but I would say 95% of the things that we work

165with it goes through the administrative team first and we make a recommendation and sometimes we involve the police because there is a ticket because of what we've investigated and found out or there there needs to be some sort of some sort of a contact but other times we want to use the police officers to be part of the learning process too and so if we can bring a police officer in on an advisement is kind of what we call I guess for lack of a better term but to kind of talk about you know it's in very it's used in it was very certain situations but it really comes down to besides the students seeing that this is something that that I shouldn't do in school how would this affect me if I did this

166when I 20 or 22 or 24 and I know that we have to be very cognizant of students and and and where they're at I'm socio you know and where they're at as far as are they able to receive that and listen to that and and kind of pick our moments for that but I think that there's a there's a lot of power in in having that kind in some situations having that that message with students and I think that one of the the failings of that sometimes is that it's it's it's a one-time thing and I think a lot of that has to do with time administrative time and that's our old time and I think that's one of the things that as Jeremy said as we continue with the relationship building students will

167be able to better receive that and benefit from that type of discussion and and we'll we'll continue to look at how we use it and and when we use it and why we use it but I see a lot of benefits from it when done right I've also had a lot of parents approaching with concerns and saying oh geez I don't know if I'd want my son or daughter to be questioned by the police so what is the process for letting parents know when you're when you're questioning a student what is what does that look like or what scenarios do you not tell the parents before in tell them what's the process of telling them after we did talk to your son or daughter dave was concerning this how does that work it's a case-by-case

168basis aren't gonna be you know and it all depends obviously we definitely wanna if it's an urgent what I mean by that is if there's an urgency to handle whether it's safety or some kind of mental health crisis we definitely want to make sure everybody stabilized or the person to stabilize a situation is stabilized and get everything you know under control as quickly and and and safely as possible at that point you know we we will and again depending on the urgency we'll contact parents as soon as practical so I know that sometimes you know we try to do it sooner rather always want to do it sooner rather than later but sometimes given you know circumstances that's not always the case but we want to do it as soon as most possibly as soon

169as possible so obviously you can't always get a hold of the parents but I also wanna lay a whole investigation because correct it's still got yeah especially if there's urgency and and exigent circumstances and stuff like that absolutely yeah and I and I don't want it it does not look there's a lot of different forms to this I mean there are there have been some times when there was a larger situation where administration and and in the officer collaborated beforehand talked about some talking points the learning that we wanted to you know to Empire down the students called the parents beforehand we even before even and just said listen this is the way that were that we're going to approach this and this is what you're gonna hear and this is what this is how

170you could help us out at home and as far as any sort of a follow up and there's been times where it's very very casual you know and the officer might catch the student you know in the hallway you know as their head not as building for that day and so it's not always it doesn't look one way you know and and there's just a lot of different opportunities to do the ultimate this is what we want to do is to have another voice in the learning process for students thank you part of this equation are we talking about a cost sharing sort of with the second I can speak to that and and part of this is making sure that the officers we have serving in these roles are really seen as community service

171officers and in order to do that and fund it under fund 80 we need to make sure that we're incurring the cost so when you do it as a cost share with the private schools all of a sudden you're saying this isn't necessarily a community officer we're gonna pick for the section that's in our schools and parochial schools are gonna pay for the section that's in their schools so to make it truly a community officer where we can tap into fund 80 as a way to fund this or we're not asking them to take on any sort of roles or responsibilities with funding this particular position so that would be our recommendation to truly see these two positions as community officers who regardless of what may be happening serve all of our schools parochial and

172public in the community and to see this as a community benefit that we're going to fund through fund 80 any other questions perhaps in all of education is something that's there's hardly anything more misunderstood than the role the SRO because everyone thinks I think out there that you're roaming the halls at all time looking for crime you're proactive you know you're preventing these things which is what you want to do for any you know the best the best serial killing or mass slaying is the one that never occurs because it's prevented by Aceros and by students who who are acting responsibly having said that I want to ask you about altercations which is not proactive altercations physical altercations between students can range from one push to all-out a fight when do we get police involved

173what is what our teachers told the administrators and and police told about the one when these get involved there what levels I could speak to that I'm so the it's the school's responsibility to bring an officer into the situation if we feel like that because we are the complainant in those type situations most often and and so it really tom dr. slaughter it's really a case-by-case basis I mean the the one shove could have been preceded by months of work and warning and and you know in a mediation for students and or it could be a one-time thing where someone just loses their cool and and and there's there's an altercation so it's hard to say that there's a certain point I believe from a school point of view the point usually comes when he

174gets disorderly and disrupts our learning environment and and and so that's that's kind of but it's definitely and you could never there's no if then type of a situation in in this we just we try to remain as consistent as possible make a good team decision and and keep our school safe any other questions in comment and question I guess first of all I I'm happy to see that Greendale is moving in this direction I currently work in a school where we have an SRO just in our school and as an educator it makes me feel a peace of mind as you know they were at one point even talking about educators you know carrying guns and all that kind of stuff and I'm so glad we're moving away from that kind of mentality and

175as Tom said more of a proactive measure because I think when we start looking at ways to reach students it's going to be through through those relationships as you said the question I had is the the role is gonna be split between Greendale high school and I don't remember it off the top of my head that the three elementary schools and st. Alphonsus I believe and then Martin Luther's in the middle school or did I get that wrong I guess the question I have about that is will there be crossover with these SROs so it's not specified a certain amount of time in one of these places or any of these places it's it can there be crossover with this Errol I think we're we're banking that a real strength of this we'll be able

176the ability to have that crossover and I mentioned before the different skill sets just like you to teachers and classrooms next to each other they have different experiences different skill set different training different expertise the two officers that are there although they get a modicum of training to be an officer but they're specialists within the department also and so certain certain positions can be more effective in situation so I think we're really and I'm glad that you kind of stumbled over which schools would be together because I don't think that we're quite sure exactly where the strength of that is and how that all interplay is going to go but the main thing is is we want to create time for these officers and I think you said at the beginning of your comments is

177is they're seen as a staff member and just as that we really appreciate the expertise and the kind of the legal things that Jeremy can bring to us to help us learn about that I chair amis gained a lot from being a staff member in Greendale schools - coming to our trainings helping out with our trainings and has really helped him and his job and so it mean so it's really a a win-win situation for both sides I know this is a total separate topic but do we still have the DARE program at all in Greendale and or is that just completely eliminated no that was that was eliminated I I don't remember what year it was but officer Bob Windler used to be the DARE officer and and we had the DARE officer then

178we had the school resource officer and I know there was a lot of dedication and classroom time that that Detective Windler did years ago with SI nails and and all of our Elementary's and even high school and stuff like that so Greg Daniels at one point was also very involved at the middle school so okay I'm good thank you any other questions so I think this was being brought to us at this time as mr. Lowe said we'll have a an update as part of the safety update but I think we're looking for some type of consensus so that as we put together the budget for the 2019 2020 school year that the intention is to have to fund to resource officers which would be new from this year so just Rex so the the

179current officer would be funded the way it has been funded 50 percent by the district 50 percent by the village the second SRO would be funded 100% through fund 80 any questions thank you for coming tonight officer fly and and I think this is a good example of where the village and the school's work well together and and share resources and I think you know as one of the students mentioned earlier there are a lot of resources within the school so I would see this SRO as just another resource to say okay these types of questions you go to the social worker for these types of questions you can certainly go to the SRO for so thank you for being part of that team absolutely thank you thank you gentlemen president corporal my recommendation to

180you and the board is to table and item 11 to the next meeting I'm ok with that is that melody at tab you'll have to come back if you I would say let's talk action on it was really nice what is really nice is at the at the end of our time on the board to see to read at least read the benchmarking thing and to see just how well the district is that we are leaving yeah thank you so we will bring that back in there an export meeting then so then we are at the end of our agenda any additional comments from visitors this evening and again I invite you to the podium and please state your name and your address for the record and again Birmingham Greendale 57 11 carnation court I

181just want to say thank you for this meeting tonight a lot of things were addressed a lot of comments were made a lot of questions were asked I wish everybody that was here in the beginning would have stayed for the whole meeting because some of those questions were answered with the different groups everything that was on the agenda went right down the line from the hilum view all the way some of those questions were answered and I hope that everybody will listen and pass it on everybody that's here right now can pass it on to everybody what's happening because it's all good thank you thank you it's important for the community to know that these meetings are being live-streamed now and to help get the word out if you do know people that have left

182I think it's important to share that they could find out watch what took place afterwards it's a good point thank you hello my name is ELISA Jones I'm the co-chair of red racism Milwaukee and I'm not new to anyone in front of you before the board and I just wanted to hear exactly what the equity team had had had to say and and I did listen to what they had to say and I'm glad that there were students involved and things like that that that for the process of going forward and I think that what we heard our beginnings and I say beginnings baby steps into the individual piece of racism what I didn't hear because that's beyond what can be said by students who are here every day what I haven't heard I haven't

183heard the piece about the institutional racism that happens within the schools in the school's policies and things like that that I have not heard I have not heard that through the process because a lot of times people think that racism and strictly has to deal with individual acts and we know but that is not necessarily true we do know that yes there are individual acts that do happen but how do you respond are all the policies and procedures that you have you know in place when are the police called what all of these kinds of things those are the policy ends that talk about the institutional part of racism and again you know to create Beloved Community it requires that we face that part of racism and actually when we don't have the policies and

184procedures in place it allows more of the individual things to happen and people don't realize that because it gives a free rein to those types of things to do happen and you have to face those kinds of things head-on I mean I heard the updates today of just like the work that they were they were doing it would have been nice to have known the process and get that engaged you know weeks ago we're going to be doing an update but didn't hear any kind of things of these things that were going on behind the scenes but wasn't told really up until today and I know that you know talking about what's going on with with racism and talking about you know responses to the video saying that that's that's not true it's we care

185about people being called the n-word and talking about it being something on social media where people in the community are feeling that there is no transparency here of how you are acting as as a board and it's interesting that I was looking at one of the things that was on one of the presentations character is what you what we do when no one is watching character is what we do when no one is watching and I'm just trying to figure out exactly when I'm looking at the board that transparency is vital to really combating things that need to be done and it still feels to me that that still hasn't been done I feel like there's just being pieces of things that folks are still trying to do trying to control the narrative and that

186community voice is still not being heard now I also wanted to I know that after this meeting there will be a closed session talking about you know dr. kilts and you know the review we were regarding that and I have a question for the board I would like to ask the question for the board I know that cannot be answered here but what type of anti racism and anti hate training has dr. kilts had that's a fair question that is a fair question to ask of anyone that is in charge of a school district that's a fair question to even ask yourselves I have come before that even asking that again I ask you what kind of anti racism training have you had that means that's more than just talking about equity equity talks about

187trying to let's get along and include everyone anti racism and anti hate meaning we are not going to be that do this we are going to have we're going to learn we're gonna have policies in place we're going to be this and we're going to name and claim that that's what that means and I'm asking you as a school district that it's time for you to be able to do that all children should be your children and as Shanice said it's time for you to get it together thank you for your comments I think what you did here earlier tonight is some of the developed professional development that will be taking place next week as well as a community conversation that has taking place in May so so that is some of the information that

188is being shared with the community with things that are happening and the other thing that I will say is our policies I reviewed on a consistent basis so we do review policies and approve policies probably every other month or so good evening I won't take up too much your time my name is Stephanie Rhodes I work with a group called showing up for racial justice we primarily work with white people's roles in anti-racism work and I just wanted to call in a couple of things that I heard from this meeting tonight several times there were comments about this group how eloquent they spoke and that they weren't here to lecture and I just want to remind this group that all black voices need to be heard right now even the really angry ones even the

189ones that aren't coming at this from and being described as being nice we can't be leaning on respectability politics on this topic because we wouldn't even be having this conversation if people hadn't been very angry and very loud and very persistent so please don't discount those voices because they're very upset racism is violence and that is gonna come out as violence sometimes so I just encouraged this group to take all voices into consideration as you heard from their survey even alumni are very angry about how they were treated here I'll just read something that Martin Luther King jr. said once which is when he called out white moderates who prefer a negative peace which is the absence of tension to a positive peace which is the presence of justice so we have to sit in

190discomfort and we have to sit in tension in order to get to justice and we see this a lot in schools I get called in to work with schools on a weekly basis because of just this exact thing it's not specific to Greendale it's everywhere and there's always a focus of comfort especially white comfort over the harm and trauma that students are experiencing in their schools so I encourage you to sit in this discomfort and learn format when you're uncomfortable that's a moment to walk in that door and not close that door that's where the learning takes place and I also encourage the school to work on bystander intervention training's so that students can be allies and they can step in and help support each other when there's bullying or there's harm being committed my

191organization will offer that for free I spoke to some of the students your group you'd like to come I can come and teach those skills to your school and adults need that training as well - thank you thank you any other comments from visitors this evening all right seeing then we will go into closed session for the purpose of performance evaluation mid-year of the superintendent so is there a motion mu we're still in the meeting please thank you and is there a motion to go into closed session I move we go into closed session under Wisconsin statute 19.8 v sub 1 sub C in principles conference room immediately following the meeting for the purpose of concerning the performance evaluation of the superintendent is there a second okay there's been a motion a second to go

192into closed session and we will not be returning into open session after the evaluation any further discussion they call for a roll call vote yes yes yes yes I am yes motion carries