001All right. I'd like to call the Board of Education uh to order at uh 5:00. Um first of all, I'm sorry. I'd like to close the uh um uh guests that had come for the public hearing on the waiver at 5:00 uh p.m. and then start our uh regular scheduled meeting at 5:00. So, could we please have the roll, please, Mr. Laverents? Yeah. Frame? Here. Godfrey? Here. Henschel? Here. Laverents? Here. Mann? Trennel? Here. Motor? Here. Uh we have uh six I didn't go through all that. That was in the beginning. Uh we have six of our members present. Um Mrs. Mann apologizes. She really wanted to be here. She ended up uh uh being stranded in Chicago and was not able to get a flight until later and so she apologizes for not being here.
002So we have a quorum. We are going to move to a moment of reflection preceded by the Pledge of Allegiance. I pledge allegiance to the flag of the United States of America and to the republic for which it stands, one nation under God, indivisible, with liberty and justice for all. Uh there is an announcement of a workshop to discuss community education and recreation proposed fee structure, handbooks for 2026-27 and preliminary budget forecast. Uh that will be following the regular meeting and then the board will convene in a workshop. I just read that and um I thought we were moving into I'm going to go over here. I believe I thought we had it in closed session. After is that correct? No. There is not. Okay, thank you. Uh Thank you. We're just pausing as we
003get the screen up. Thank you. So we had a moment of reflection, announcements, announcement to a workshop to discuss community education and rec proposed fee structure handbooks for the 2026-2027 and preliminary budget forecast. Um also a reminder of graduation this year. Fondy High School graduation ceremony will take place at the Fond du Lac High School Acuity Field at 7:00 p.m. on Thursday, June 4th. Board members should arrive at 6:30 at the main office for their gowns and regalia. Uh the graduation ceremony for STEM Academy will be held on Wednesday, June 3rd at 1:30 at the Goodrich Little Theater. Uh board members have also been invited to promotions and 4K celebrations throughout the district. We're going to be moving into our first public comment section. The public may approach the board to make a presentation no
004longer than 5 minutes per person and 10 minutes per topic. Those persons exceeding these time limits shall be interrupted as deemed necessary by the presiding officer. Members of the board and administration will not respond or further discuss items from public comment at this meeting to remain in compliance with state statutes chapter 19, subchapter 5 open meetings of governmental bodies and the public notice requirements. I'm referencing policy 0167.3 public comment at board meetings. I want to remind participants that the presiding officer is guided by the following rules. Letter F, all statements shall be directed to the presiding officer. No person may address or question board members individually. Letter G, the presiding officer will interrupt, warn, or terminate if the participant's statement is too lengthy, personally directed, abusive, obscene, or irrelevant. Two, the presiding officer will request
005any individual to leave the meeting when that person does not observe reasonable decorum. Number three, the presiding officer will request the assistance of law enforcement officers in the removal of a disorderly person when that person's conduct interferes with the orderly progress of the meeting. Number four, the presiding officer will call for a recess or an adjournment to another time when the lack of public decorum so interferes with the orderly conduct of the meeting as to warrant such action. Uh and so as we welcome people forward, I want to remind the board we had a workshop in which we discussed um different rules regarding public comment. However, uh seeing we are looking at that, um we need to bring it to a regular meeting and have votes before we decide that. So, um as as you
006come forward, remember you if you do not want to state your address publicly, you can fill it out on a white slip. Please state your full name and then uh just a a comment disclaimer is that the board welcomes public input and values the opportunity from our community. Please be advised that the thoughts and opinions expressed by speakers during public comment are their own and do not necessarily reflect the views, opinions, or values of the Fond du Lac School District or the Board of Education. We appreciate your cooperation in maintaining a respectful environment. Welcome and uh please state your name and address. Uh my name is Megan Schwalbe. I will give you a card that has my address on it. Um I'm here to be uh a cheerleader for another uh uh Fond du Lac
007team. Um this time it is for the Fond du Lac the Fondy weightlifting team. So, the Fondy weightlifting team is excited to host its first ever competition at Fond du Lac High School. Fondy weightlifting is an Olympic weightlifting team based at Fond du Lac or based at the high school and led by coach head coach Chloe Allen. Um the competition will take place on May 30th from 9:00 a.m. to 3:00 p.m. Um it is going to be in the field house and it's going to bring together lifters from across the state to compete. Um spectators are welcome. The admission for that is $5 at the door. We are happy to see teachers or community members, board members. We want to see as many people there as possible. What these kids do, they work really hard
008throughout the school year. I mean, like I said, it's um competitors from all around the state. There are We still need a handful of volunteers, also. So, if anyone is looking for volunteering, um you don't have to know anything about weightlifting competition. I'm volunteering to just take money at the door. Um so, we still need people for that, also, and set up the Friday the night before. So, if you're not available Saturday, think about that, potentially. Um so, we just really encourage everyone to come experience this growing sport in Wisconsin and cheer on our athletes. Um I did give all of the board members little handouts with the information on it. And I will leave these the extras at the door, also, if anyone is interested. Thank you. Thank you. Is anybody else interested in
009coming forward? Hello. I am Bree Barthuly. I know most of you. I am the head track coach at Woodworth Middle School. I just wanted to share out that we have 17 athletes from Woodworth competing in the middle school state track meet on Saturday in Waupun. Um I want to share their names just to express the success they're having and how proud I am of them. We have two athletes, uh Mariah Ursery, an eighth grader, and Bailey Art, a seventh grader, competing in the 100-meter dash. Mariah is also competing in the 200. Uh Brailey Grit, eighth grader, is competing in the 100-meter hurdles. Arya Conkey, a seventh grader, is also competing in the seventh grade hurdles. And then [snorts] Alexis Atcher is competing in the sixth grade hurdles. Uh Honor Warden, eighth grader, is competing in
010the 400, as well as Sophia Gross, a sixth sixth grader. She's also competing in the 400. Honor is also competing in the 800. We then have a girls and boys 4x1 team. Our girls' team is a seventh grade group, Layton Hayward, Trinity Hall, Arya Kanki, and Bailey Arndt. And our boys' is an eighth grade group, Lincoln Schmidt, Landon Howe, Levi Zhang, and Andrew Bauer. Uh Liam Schaefer, seventh grader, is competing in both shot put and discus. And Jahara Posey, an eighth grader, is competing in shot put. And then eighth grader Lauren Gerlach and sixth grader Jackson Volgs are competing in the high jump. Uh many of these seventh and eighth graders this is either their second or third year now returning to state. Uh so it's very exciting for them. They've been working really hard
011all season. I want to give a shout out to um Seth Huttner up at the high school. He has so graciously allowed us to use the high school track this week for practice, which has been great for especially my relay teams to actually be on a track practicing their hand-offs versus the Woodworth parking lot. Um and for my throwers to actually be in a circle. And so we really appreciate the high schoolers sharing some lanes with us, letting us do some block stuff there this week. He is also coming to the meet with me on Saturday um to help me try and be in a million places at one time. Um we would love to see our community there. It's a super fun event. It's like a mini high school state, but just with middle
012schoolers. So for many of them, it's their first time that they get to race against truly other really fast kids. And some of them they don't usually have a competition. This is where they actually are running against others that are just as fast as them. Um it takes place right over in Waupun. So we're very lucky that's a short drive for us. Um my eighth graders will start right away at 9:30 in the preliminaries for the 100 and 200. Our relays will start at 11:00. They have to get through the preliminaries as well. And the field events also start at 9:30. Um there's a ton of information on adaasports.com about more about the meet, how to get there. Uh we'd love to see some familiar faces. We have a lot of great talent, and I
013think a lot of them are going to come home with some medals. And so I just wanted to share that success. Thank Thank so much, and good luck. Is there anyone else that is interested in coming forward for public comment? Hi, my name's Teneal Graf. Um and I'm speaking today to express some serious concerns regarding student safety at the elementary school my kids attend in the district. Um over the past 3 years my now fourth-grade child has repeatedly come home mentioning ongoing issues involving another student in their grade. On May 4th, 2024, this student reportedly told a classmate he was planning to drown him at a pool party being held by another classmate. This same student stabbed the same classmate right right next to his eye with a writing utensil during the 2023-2024 school year.
014I don't have the exact date confirmed. On May 20, 2025, my child came home visibly shaken describing an incident in which this same student was yelling, acting aggressively, using vile language, and physically attacking their teacher. My child stated this episode lasted several minutes, and multiple students were crying due to fear and having to witness this outrageous and volatile behavior. The entire class eventually had to be removed from their room during this outburst. My child's words, "I do not feel safe at my school." The week of April 27, 2026, just this year, this student was involved in a physical fight during recess in front of the entire fourth grade. From what my child described, the entire fourth grade witnessed this, and there was punching, slapping, and hair being pulled out. My child stated the fight was
015planned, and other students knew about it ahead of time. Now, just this last Friday, May 15th, this student this same student reportedly called a teacher a name, an inappropriate name, in the hallway. This This situation escalated, and the student became irate and physically dangerous. Due to the situation and his uncontrollable behavior, the entire fourth grade had to be taken outside for an additional recess period. Since we first learned of this student, my child has shared some of the language this student says regularly towards the staff and students at my school. It's absolutely disgusting and vile, and there should be zero tolerance for any child to have to hear this in the safety of their school. These are just a few of the many instances I've made aware of, but they are but these ones are
016documented with dates and confirmed with other parents. Who knows what all I don't know about. I already met with the principal during the last school year after my child articulated feeling unsafe and was assured that this student is being dealt with properly. This is clearly not true. In addition to the concerns with this child, I am now hearing from my first grade child that another student in his grade has inappropriately touched multiple female students on more than one occasion. The same first grade student choked a female classmate for a prolonged amount of time uh during recess, and the police had to come to the school to assist. Um get to the important parts. To reiterate, I have confirmed all of these instances with other parents. Um and I'm really sad that this is becoming the
017reputation of my school because I deeply deeply respect and I'm grateful for all the teachers who work there, and I feel that these stories, when they're told, are taken away from the amazing things these teachers do throughout the year. Um I guess I have to ask um how many chances do we give students like this? How much learning time have upwards of a hundred students lost because of one student? Why is this student still in a traditional school setting? What needs to happen before an expulsion is decided? I've parented my my kids a certain way to be kind and respectful. Why should my kid and his class classmates have to have their learning time taken away because of the lack of parenting another family chose. I've tried to be empathetic and understanding. However, now I
018need to put my children and their classmates first. I'm speaking today so other parents in the district can try to understand what our amazing educators are up against against. When will you all, the district, take meaningful action and truly stand up for student learning? Um We can't expect our teachers to function as crisis managers. Uh teachers should be able to focus on teaching their classes, not constantly managing this chaos that places both them and their students at risk. I was told yesterday by the principal of my children's school that each situation is variable and different factors determine the consequence. For me, there's no excuse and no explaining that would make me understand why this behavior has been tolerated up until this point. I don't feel confident that adequate measures are in place to protect students
019given the nature of these repeated events. In conclusion, after speaking with different parents across the district over the years, it is clear that our experience within our school is not uncommon. Many parents feel as though important information and concerns surrounding student behavior and safety are being kept from us. We believe that violent behavior is allowed to continue at the expense of our children. Some of these parents I've spoken to are beginning to look elsewhere for their child's education. I believe that if the district becomes more proactive in addressing students across the district who continually disrupt learning and harm others, declining enrollment may begin to improve. Thank you. >> Parents, sorry, can I say one more sentence? >> Sure. Parents want to feel confident that their children are learning and safe at school and I truly
020believe that there are people on this board that will help me and the other families in this district. I want clear, strong policies regarding violence and and um inappropriate student behavior. Thank you. >> Thank you. Is there anyone else that would like to come forward at this time? Seeing none, if I could have uh a motion for the consent agenda. I move the Board of Education approve the consent agenda as follows: May 4th, 2026 regular meeting, workshop, and executive session meet minutes, personnel recommendations, resignations, and bi-monthly financial report. Second. We have a motion by Mr. Henshall, a second by Mr. Godfrey. Just a reminder for uh those who may be um watching today's uh meeting that if you have any questions regarding the bi-monthly financial report, please reach out to one of the school board
021members as we do ask questions about those. Uh and then as we look at board retirements, resignations, and new hires, I'd like to uh congratulate Oh, I guess she wasn't on here. I saw Pat Bresser retirement, but that's because we have hired a new PT, which is outstanding, so. And thank you. If we could have the roll, please. Yep. Frame? Yes. Godfrey? Yes. Henshall? Yes. Laverents? Yes. Trennel? Yes. Motor? Yes. Motion carries 6-0. Moving into Chief of Finance and Operations individually considered uh resolutions. Uh if I could have a motion? >> [snorts] >> This is to consider the approval of the uh food service contract renewal for the 2026-2027 school year. I move the Board of Education approve renewal of the food service management company contract with Chartwells for this year. Second. So, we have
022a motion by Mr. Henshall and a second by Mr. Godfrey. We've had some conversation regarding this portion. Is there are there any further questions? Is there anything else you'd like to share any comments? Yep. Oh, if I may Mrs. Motor as you may or may not know the district is required to bid this every 5 years and every year you have an optional 1-year extension. And so every year the board is presented with a renewal consideration and the renewal increases are governed by the DPI and so the minimum increase that must be given this year is 3% with a not to exceed with of a 4% unless a board chooses to negotiate a lower increase. And we we've engaged with negotiations with Chartwells and we're recommending a lower increase than the DPI minimum amount which
023is 2% is being presented tonight and we're recommending that for for approval and we're committed to continuing to work with Chartwells for improved outcomes in our food service operations financially and we're we're stable and we but again we're always striving for improvement and want improvement in our outcomes so Questions or comments? So just clarifying DPI recommends the 3 to 5% and we're offering 2%. >> Correct. Any other questions or comments? Okay, could we have the roll please? Godfrey No. Hensley Yes. Laverentz Yes. Trunnel Yes. Frame No. Motor. Yes. Motion carries four to two. Next comes uh superintendent individually considered resolutions. Uh this is uh according to approval of a waiver requested to DPI to not make up the missed instructional days. Could I have a motion, please? I move the Board of Education approve the
024resolution authorizing the waiver request to the Wisconsin Department of Public Instruction not to make up the missed instructional hours due to the fire and relocation of Woodworth Middle School operations to Marian University. Second. We have a motion by Mr. Henschel, a second by Mr. Godfrey. Miss Superintendent Steinbarth. Just because I know there's been some families, some students, as well as teachers kind of wondering what the plan is um for the end of the year knowing that we have very limited amount of days left before that that time comes. Um the district always does put a three-day buffer for weather. We had two weather days this year, and then one of the days after the fire that occurred on May 13th, we used that and needed one additional on last week Thursday to make sure staff
025were ready and that Marian as well based off of their request that their facilities was ready to house our students, which means we are short by exactly one day of student minutes or hours that we need to do. In order to get that waived, we had to go through what we had earlier where we had public the opportunity for the public to speak on that. Then the board has to also either agree or say no that we need to make up the minutes. Then it goes to DPI with a write-up of all the things that took place, and they will ultimately ultimately make that decision if they will waive that that final day. If they do not, then we will be making it up at the end of the year for Woodworth alone. And so
026that's why I bring that forward to you today. Um with that being said, I just a shout-out to Marian University for partnering with us. I believe within hours after learning we wouldn't be able to be in the school uh in Woodworth till the end of the year. Yes, we are extremely fortunate to have people like Aaron Sadov, the president of Marian University. Um when I when I was woken up at 2:00 in the morning to kind of check out what was going on at Woodworth and the first thought in my head was our students are going to be missing days obviously because of what was going on. Um I waited till about 7:30 that morning and I'm like, "Okay, okay, I got to figure out what we're going to do." And I called Aaron and
027instantly he's like, "Hey, I always I always wanted to have a middle school that was that I was a president over." And he I mean, instantly engaged his his own staff that is left there right now because the nice thing is students are not present. Um which I think some parents didn't realize that Marian University is done for the year as well that way. So this the staff jumped in. We had our food service, we had our technology people, we had human resources, um curriculum, finance. Everyone met in different groups of saying, "What needs to happen so this can work?" And again, when you talk about partnerships in this community and people coming forward to help and support one another, um Aaron Sadov and Marian University and all of his staff were beyond exceptional with
028everything that they provided. And our students are flourishing. Things are going well. I checked in with Mr. Ladle today and Miss Olszewski and they're like, "We're we're going we're moving." Um I know some staff were hesitant when they said, "When are we starting?" And I said, "Friday." Because I didn't want DPI to have complete control of if we need to make those days up. Students like to be done at the same time as their colleagues that way or their classmates. So, we we got people in Friday and it seems like things are moving really smoothly. So. And a shout out to the staff the Final Act School District staff and Woodward staff and when you think about making up days, I almost think of it the upper the unfortunate situation that happened, but our students
029are learning what it's like to pivot and to how to quickly adjust to a new situation and so I think this was actually probably probably an amazing learning experience for them unfortunately and I believe they are growing because of it. That's just my personal thoughts on that. Any questions or comments regarding that? I just want to second what you both are saying about the partnership not only with Marion, but a shout out to the Woodward staff and everybody here at these tables too to be able to go from what could have been a disastrous moment to sort of feel like it's overwhelming, it's end of the year, like what do we recover to showing these kids how do you recover from these things? How do you come together as a community? How do you show
030that you care is huge and it's not just the lessons of the academics they're learning, but they're lessons of that resiliency and that the staff see that they're resilient too. Sometimes you you get to the end of the year and you're burned out and you just need this moment of like, oh gosh, this awful. Nope, we're coming together and doing it. So, and I think if anybody's seen the logo of the Woodward West Marion thing, it's hilarious and awesome at the same time. So, just a kudos to the community that we built. Thank you. Right. Can we have the roll, please? Mr. Lavers. >> Yep, Henschel. Yes. Lavers, yes. Trennell. Yes. Frame. Yes. Godfrey. Yes. And Motor. Yes. Motion carries 6-0. Moving forward, if I can I a motion to consider the suggested revisions to
031policy updates 35-1. I move that Board of Education approve the suggested revisions to Neola policies and update volume 35-1 as presented at second reading. Second. We have a motion by Mr. Hensley second by Mr. Godfrey. We've gone through these update or these policies in workshop. We had one reading and this is our second reading. Any new questions or comments? Okay. Can we have the roll, please, Mr. Leverenz? Yep. Leverenz, yes. Tranel? Yes. Frame? Yes. Godfrey? Yes. Hensley? Yes. And Motor? Yes. Motion carries 6-0. Moving on to the next, if we can have a motion regarding the policy regarding public comment. I move that the Board of Education approve the the revisions to 0017.3 public comments at school board at board meetings at first reading. Second. A motion by Mr. Godfrey is second by Mr. Leverenz.
032So at our last meeting we had a workshop up Can I make a comment? Yeah. Or a question? Yes. I was trying to find in there. I know we require people to write down addresses and things and I forgot to bring this up. Is that a a policy that we have to create? Why I had I didn't see it in the policy. I don't know. Is that something I just don't understand the reason why we got to put name and Yeah. Typically it was for follow-up. It was my understanding. >> Right. Oftentimes it's for follow-up. So if somebody does have something that they present that board members know that they can follow up with that person that way. And And there are a lot of government entities that also, because it's a local component, you
033don't have to have people from outside the the school district or city or depending on which entity it is, you don't have to allow anyone that's outside to to speak because it's for our community specifically. I know in the past the board has talked about you also oftentimes have extended family that take a significant role in their in a student's life. So you also want them to have the opportunity to speak as well on things that are going on within the school district. We we talked at our workshop too and if if if we vote and decide this moves forward, an opportunity for those who come forward, if they would like to have further conversation with a board member, that you're able to we'll we'll have a sheet up there where you can mark. So
034let's say you share whatever your thoughts are and it's a shorter period of time due to it was not on the agenda, but you want to have further conversation, then you would check a box on there and then we could one of the board members can get a hold of you and make sure that we have further conversation with you. So that was something that we had looked at adding if people want to have conversation with board members. Yeah, I just I I know we've done it forever. I was like I kind of ignored it. I was like is that a legal thing? Is that a why you know, because I'm kind of looking at you know, some people like I said they you know, I doesn't matter to me if they leave their address
035or not. I mean they got a right to speak and say their stuff. I I just that was my opinion. I was just in questioning if it was something we had to do or throw it out there. So. And I would add that prior years as well. Any other questions or comments? Mhm. No. So if we we will have our vote on this and if the vote determines yes, then does it go forward for one more reading before it's voted on? Okay, just wanted to clarify that. Okay, can we please have the roll? Tranel? Yes. Freeman? Yes. Godfrey? Yes. Henschel? Yes. Labrenz? Yes. Motor? Yes, motion carries 6-0. Moving forward. Uh we have superintendent reports. I'm going to go up to the podium so I can display it. Beautiful. Then I'll unhook this. And this
036worked earlier, so I'm really crossing my fingers that everything works today. And it is, so that's great. Um so thank you. Every year we do go over the surveys that we give out to our staff, our parents, and our students, and we report back. The last few years we've reported back on our top three, the three that we most need to continue focusing on uh for each group. And as you're looking, I can tell people are looking at them already. As you look at them, you might be like, "Wow, those are good results. Why is that one we're working on?" We've the results are exceptional right now. The only downfall I would say over a lot of the results is um we changed over from an organization that did the survey results to doing it
037in-house. Part of that is due to the budgetary constraints we're currently under. Everything still is 100% confidential. If anybody ever wants to see what the results, how they come in, how they look to us, um anyone that knows Google, it says like anonymous anteater or whatever else is out there. That shows us as the individual that responded. It does not give us names or anything like that. But with these survey results, we did have 1,951 students respond, 684 families, as well as 489 employees respond to the survey. That is down a little bit from last year. Part of it is due to, as we were going through the referendum, we had done surveys with that and we knew we had been doing a lot of different surveys with people to see what we needed to
038do as we move forward. One of the things we want to do, especially for our families, is during the parent-teacher conference time in the spring or in February, we want to make sure it's available at that time so that we get a little bit more participation. But again, having gone through the referendum component, um at that time they said if you get 200 responses, that's a pretty good sample size. So, with that being said, our student survey strength areas, students said that they really look forward to their elective classes, art, music, PE. That went up .11 from the previous year and is at a 4.2. Uh in the past, we've always said really anything above a 3.5 is considered good. If you're getting in that four range, it's exceptional. If you're getting 4.3, 4.4 or
039higher, that that's a celebration and it's something that we really need to be looking at that we're we're doing well and how can we maybe continue some of those things in other areas. So, with with students, they love again, they love their encore classes. For the next piece, my school treats my parents and caregivers with respect. Again, a 4.2. That went up also .05 points or .2 percentage points from last year. As well as I feel my principal is visible and welcoming. That's a big one for us in Final Act right now because as all of you know, um one of our expectations is that our principals are in classrooms and being truly that academic leader, which in my next presentation to you will will showcase some of the work that's happening there as well.
040And with anything though, we are not just about the strengths. We're not going to just share that. We need to also talk about the areas for growth that we need to be focusing on. Um students at a 3.1, not something I'm I'm happy with. We want to move that up significantly, but students at this school treat one another with kindness and respect. A point 01, it did go up and up 1.41 percentage points from last year, but something we still need to continue growing on. I generally enjoy coming to school every morning at 3.2. Again, but that did go up uh 3.01 percentage points or point 04 on the mean score. And as we just talked about as well, some of these things are very timely right now. My school lunch has healthy food for
041me to eat. 3.1, that was one of the few areas that did drop and it dropped a full half of a a point in terms of the mean score. So, point 59 it dropped, which was a drop of 12.42 percentage points. For the family comparison, uh things that families really thought are going well. The physical school building is kept clean. I think that also is a testament to our custodial staff and we've had a lot of conversations with them over the last few days and I do want to give a shout out to all of our buildings that have our custodial staff working diligently in making sure that our facilities look clean and well-kept for our students to learn in. For that to be a 4.6 as I stated before, that tells you just how
042exceptional that team is actually doing day in and day out. The percentage was 92.24. Um the change was up .23 from last year and almost two full percentage points as well. I feel welcomed and respected by the staff at the school from, again, parents and families. That was a 4.5, again exceptional for our staff throughout the district right now when a family does come in that we are working with them to try to make sure that we give them the best possible situation for their student going through the school day. Uh, that's an 87.7% up .14 or 2.14 percentage percentage points. And then the last was the school provides the necessary materials for my child to learn. Also a 4.4, 87.1% up .11 or 1.23 percentage points. The areas for growth from our families. I
043hear from school when my child is doing something well. Again, 3.8, a good score, um, but it's something we want to continue to work on, but it did go up from the previous year up .13 or 1.75 percentage points. I feel school policies are managed consistently for all students was at a four. That is a 74.15 percentage point or percentage level at somewhat or strongly agree, which was up .04 or .54%. And the last was I trust school leaders to put students and families first in their decisions. The mean score of that, even though it's a growth area, was 4.1, which is 75.59%, which is a .12 or .29%. Again, when we're talking about areas of growth and it's above a four, that's that's exceptional and that's that's the expectation for myself. I know my
044team here as well when working with any individuals that we try to really make sure that they feel heard and that we're going to continue to work on solving any problems that they they currently see. Our employees. Again, some some great results here. I feel that my daily work makes a real difference for our students. 4.5. I could not agree more with them, and again, my next presentation is is going to show exactly the pride the Final Act School District staff take in educating students. And again, I couldn't be more proud as a superintendent with those. That was a 91.2%. Um you can kind of read the the percentage changes on the side. I don't think I need to read those two each time. Communication with my colleagues is kind, direct, and respectful. 4.5, 91.01.
045Again, we've done a lot of work with initiative one and with other organizations about how we interact with one another and how we talk with one another, and that we don't always have to agree with one another, but you can deliver things kind, respectful, and direct as well. And then, I know exactly what is expected of me in my role. A 4.4. I do want to go back to that top one cuz I think it's it's it's huge. It's one of our biggest growth points. Um but the change of 0.59 or almost 17%. That's that's huge of people that agree or strongly agree. And then the last one, as I said, I know exactly what is expected of me in my role. A 4.4, 89.16, 0.17, 4.03. For the growth areas, and I've talked to
046some of you about this already. Um I believe the district organization uses its budget and resources wisely. It was a 3.4 with about 50% of staff agreeing, which was a drop of 8.3%. So, it's something as my team and I are looking, how are we transparent with delivering where we currently are at. Uh a huge portion of that, without a doubt, is when you reduce by 100 staff members. We have We announced that we're closing two schools. We have all of those things that makes people nervous. Um there's all kinds of things that go along with that. Anybody can look through different budget areas and say why isn't it spent this way or that way, but we have to make sure people know that their their concerns are heard and be even more diligent in
047saying this is how money is spent in the district. I feel empowered to manage my workload effectively at 3.8. It was an increase from last year and also I see the culture in our organization growing and improving um, even though it's one of our growth areas because of the mean score and that's why it's a growth area. That mean score was still one of our bottom three. It's a 3.8, but it went up 0.13 which I'm sure some of you are like is that is that a lot? If you get a tenth of a point up, that's considered a good amount of growth which is is relevant with the 6.93% as well. Uh, questions. Anything you are seeing? I know you also in your packet it was included um, all the results so you can
048kind of look through that and and see those. I don't have those directly in front of me, but if you have a question on any of them, please ask and if you want you can either ask now. If you want to get together at a later date and kind of go through some things, we can do that. I will tell you anything in the the bottom three for any group is something that we're going to work diligently on um, moving forward to to make sure we remedy as well. Thank you. Um, Mr. Yeah, I was going to say so are there there's written responses from the parents and the employees as well, yes? >> Yes. >> Okay. Is there a way to have access to those to be able to review that as well to
049give context to some of the results? Some of this is great. I just want to know like the coloring of what people are seeing for their responses. >> Absolutely. I can I know Haley has a lot of those and again as we're working with ClassLink and part of the the issue this year is ClassLink is brand new to us. So even as you disseminate the information into different groups, that was a little bit harder than having a company just say here it is, this is what you need to do, but we can any any board member that wants to see comments or things like that, I'm I'm happy to share as those many of those were were what we would expect with things, but I'm happy to share those as well. Yeah, that'd be great.
050That was my only question cuz some of this is really good. There's points that you don't obviously worry about parent concerns, the food food service those things are obviously concerns. Like you said, the budget people are going to have you know, be nervous about how their position looks in a budget. So, just to give context to what they're experiencing. >> Absolutely. That'd be great. Thanks. Yep. >> Thank you. Mr. Henshall, anything? No, it was it was good stuff. I like the the the positive pieces of it. You know, you look at the timing I think from last year to this year some of it's timing, too. I noticed staffing was right after the referendum piece of it. That's first thing that jumped out at me. >> Yes. Which obviously everybody's a little nervous at at
051that point. So, I think timing was really big and then if you look at the food services, we know what was going on during that time versus if you would have did it in February, it might have looked a little different, too. So, I it'll be interesting to see what it is next year because I think you know, are we going to change put the time back in February or we're going to do it in April? That'll be another discussion. >> Couple things and we talked as a team already. One, we want to get in February and two, we know on our end we need to make sure we're really pushing our principals to make sure every student takes it and does it designate some time. We we did not do that this year and
052I think in the course of a day for some of our buildings, they they other things took precedence and >> [clears throat] >> they simply forgot in different classes whether it was a staff member or the principal themselves, but that's where we need to make sure we're reiterating our expectations there to make sure everyone's taking it. >> when you look at data and you create surveys and all that stuff and I do them all the time is consistency and when you do it and all the variables that go into it Um, important to keep them consistent or else you're going to have skewed results. Absolutely. So. Mr. Frame? Um, yeah, the only thing that uh I really have a comment on. Uh, it's kind of sad to see uh I hear from school when my
053child is doing well and that was the lowest score for the family. Um, you know, cuz I feel it's important for kids to know when they're doing good cuz some kids, you know, they only get a call home when they're doing something bad, you know, so um, that was that score is the one that stuck out to me the most. Yeah, and I will say again, 3.8 is considered good, but for us in Fond du Lac right now we want to be four or higher in in every category. That that's what I'm shooting for. Yeah. And if we can get to those 4.5s, 4.6s Yeah. and you know, we're we're doing the work that needs to be done. So, I agree. >> And I'm not saying it's alarming. It's just No, I agree completely. >>
054that that's the lowest one, you know. >> Absolutely. Thank you. Mr. uh Godfrey, anything? Um, I don't want to be Luke stole mine already, so but that was that was my exact one and that that really was alarming to me as well that that number stuck out when cuz I mean I know as a as a former parent of kids in this district, I I I I a lot of the times I only heard from certain people when my my child my all my children were doing something wrong with the exception of three people. You know, they called me to tell me that they had a good day or they did this or something amazing. And but a lot of the people are parents are not contacted when their kids are doing something something good
055and you only they're only notified when they're doing something wrong and I I I I think that is that that Yeah, that's It's a bad number, but there's a lot of room to grow in that. So >> Absolutely. Thank you. Mr. Labrenz? Yeah. No, overall good, you know. Good to see you and just nice to see the growth in different areas. You know, some of the ones in the student side obviously would like to move up, but you know, that's obviously something to work on, right? Absolutely. It's always good to have things to work on, right? That It keeps me It keeps me employed. >> Exactly, right? Um so I appreciate um the importance of continuing to survey even though we made the fiscal decision not to pay for a company to do that, that
056we could use similar items so that we can compare. So I really appreciate the energy that went into creating this so we can continue to gather that data um because it's important to have multi data points as we know. And so when I saw these results, uh similar to what some of the other board members said they made sense. We knew some of the areas that are growth areas, we knew were problems. And so uh it just aligns that yes, and then it also made me think about updating our strategic plan which I believe we do in either July or August. Um and so the importance of using this data then as we create that and again, it just makes sense. So um that um and then um I was curious, do you disaggregate the
057data per building for principals and teams to review? That's That's what we're working on. So as you said um Ms. Motor, a huge kudos to and it doesn't surprise anyone here, Haley is instrumental in doing a lot of this as well as Gina Marchianda. So as they're going through the the the usage of it and actually I think it's a ClassLink before, didn't I? That's not ClassLink, it's it's NextPath. Thank you. As my my mind catches up um with NextPath, one of the things that they are working on with our feedback is being able to do that. Right now it's in a big spreadsheet, so we have to manually do that and we're working on that part of it. But yes, all of our our principals will see that. It's going to be by school,
058so they have that that knowledge as well what's happening within the schools. And that makes me up so also um think about so we might see a higher score or a lower score. However, we might have pockets of greatness um that we're not able to see. So when we disaggregate that data as well as pockets where we really need to focus in and in grade levels. >> And and that absolutely. So this this was K-12, which in the past sometimes we've reported on elementary versus middle versus high school as well. Because of the way that it has to be it is right now, this was overall. To see the gains across the board though was was really exciting, but it also is a way for us you know, all of us to be able to
059look at and say, "Okay, this school needs to work on this more than this one." And possibly use a colleague that has a high score in that same category to mentor or work with somebody else. Especially seeing we're doing so much of that already this year, so that's a natural >> [snorts] >> I was also so those of you who I are is the viewing audience able to see the full feedback? So >> [snorts] >> if you're able to glance at that, what I notice is you have marked everything that's gone up in green and then the parts that are white are not marked up and wow, like you look at every sheet in the majority of it is green, which means we're moving in the right direction, which is phenomenal. Um but I and
060then I do have a question that you might not have the answer on yet cuz I didn't give it to you ahead of time to look up the information. Um however, I was concerned on a question regarding bus rides was significantly lower and so my my thought was um so first of all, um, our First of all, how many students ride the bus? So, these are why you shouldn't be able to answer these yet cuz I didn't give them to you, but how many kids ride the bus? I'm curious how many kids answered that question although they might not ride the bus. And then are they answering that question based off of field trips instead of actual bus rides? >> And in the question it stated "riding the bus regularly to school." So, it it
061did It said if you do not drive ride drive. I hope they're not driving it, but if you do not ride the bus to and from school as your primary source, do not answer this question. However, we don't [clears throat] know who does and doesn't, but uh, 3 years ago this was was a concern. Yes. >> We put some concerted effort into it. The other problem that we have is we contract with a bus company which makes it really hard unless we start having staff members which we're going to have to pay then to be on the bus and help monitor that bus. Um, but it is something that obviously we we want to continue to work on and the schools that are our primary bus schools would be, um, Lakeshore and the high school
062and Sabish. So, that's something we're going to be able to dig into a little bit more and look at those routes. Again, just to work with Johnson Bus and and see what we can do to improve that that experience for our students. >> Sure. And then I know that, um, Wendy Burgess probably has the amount of kids that ride bus and I would be curious to see what that is compared to the number of students that answered that question. I think that would be interesting. Um, and then the other thing regarding that, uh, the bus question is previous years we've done some training for bus drivers in, um, like PBIS positive behaviors, uh, and relationships, and so forth. And so I wonder are we still doing that? And if we're not doing that, can we
063do that? I think that's what what I was referring to that it needs to be something in the beginning of the year. What that bus ride looks like, what our expectations are again. Um I do have at least a little bit of the data. 70% of our students that took Now, I'm not going to do the math that quickly. Well, it's enough, so it's about We had about 600 students that did take it then. Um but 70% of our students did not take did not answer that question. So, we had the results of that. So, a number of them didn't do it as well. >> that sounds like it could be accurate. >> Yeah, it is. We have another question or comment or I don't know what do you want to call it. Um as
064we dig into this and I think, you know, when you brought brought my head as we talk about different buildings and stuff like that. And I don't know because we homegrown this if how deep it, you know, do we have car cultural communication, you know, pieces where it'd be really interesting to know, you know, do we have a Hispanic population that didn't answer or did answer it and if so, you know, can we communicate better? Mhm. Uh you know, and is there a separation between the different ethnic groups as far as how we're responding to them and stuff like that, too, because I want to you know, cuz there might be cultural disconnect or something like that that we really need to uh address maybe with the teachers or something we could include. I don't
065think that was in the survey. Okay. >> Um but it is something that we could ask people to >> If they choose to. >> to identify that to help us. >> I think it'd be valuable information. >> information we get on something, the better we can do to improve it, so. >> Did we offer this in Spanish in months? Okay. >> Great. Thank you. Any other questions? Thank you for your hard work and uh bringing this forward. Absolutely. All right, then moving on, we have the scorecard. Yes. So, extremely excited and there's there's a component in there that you can be looking at that way, but I kind of want to share with the public um as I go through this piece just because and I'll try to get it so it's a little bit
066bigger for everybody. Cuz it is sometimes a little bit more difficult to read and understand, so I'll kind of go through, um, what that looks like, but extremely beyond ecstatic that the Fond du Lac School District once again got recognized by the, um, education scorecard for our significant improvements district-wide. Uh, this is the second year in a row that we've been recognized and this year we were, let me check what that was again. We were one of, I think, 6% of all school districts in the country to see the dramatic growth in reading and math, um, and that says a lot. So, I know we've talked as a board before about some of my goals that I want to be a destination not only for the state, but also in the nation and getting some
067of the recognition, not for me at all, but for what our teachers are doing each and every day with our students. And this is a testament to what they are doing. Again, when we're we're talking about having next year 100 less staff in the Fond du Lac School District, when we talk about a second failed referendum, um, some community members not feeling like the return on investment that we provide for this community is enough. And for me, it's a breath of fresh air to be able to look at something like this and say, and hopefully for our staff as well, to say we are doing the right work and we just need to keep doing that right work and people are going to start noticing. Um, people in the state are noticing. People in the
068nation are noticing as I just had an interview yesterday with Forbes magazine. Never in my life would I have thought I'd have an interview with Forbes magazine to talk about the the amazing growth happening in this district and that's happening. So, um, we also are looking at presenting what we do in this district at the Wisconsin School Board Convention in January, and we'll probably reach out even more and see if we can do the national one um as well, knowing again 6%. There There's people that want to know what we're doing. I've been on a lot of different news stations talking about it, but as you go through it a little bit, and again this is the Stanford um Education Data Archive. So, it's a report that they they do on just again data trends
069across the nation and state. Um in those first few pages, you can kind of just see uh a little bit where Fond du Lac lies, but I'll kind of go into some some details as well. So, the test scores are measured in grade levels relative to the national average, and these are from pages um two through four. So, a score of zero would mean students are performing exactly as they were in the 2000 national 2019 national benchmark. For for Fond du Lac specifically, um we are as I had stated, we are outperforming everybody almost in in math, we are in the 93rd percentile. So, we are right now ranked 410 of 5,468 districts for growth. In reading, we are in the 99th 99th percentile. And even though I'm a math person, I taught math for
070a number of years, if our kids can't read, they're not going to be able to do a whole lot for themselves. So, as our reading improves, we know our math is going to improve, science, social studies, all those areas are going to improve. We also um have the different demographic groups out there as well, and what you'll see is the average score and also what our trend score is. So, the average score is what you're seeing would see nationwide. What the trend score is is what we are doing. The exciting thing for me is we are seeing similar gains across the board for every demographic group. I say that as a a positive, which is great, but I also know we have demographic groups that started out significantly be below other other ones. But when
071we talk about that we're making gains for each and every student, we are making gains for each and every student. The work we are doing day in and day out is showing improvement for all students. We are not leaving anyone behind from where they were previously. We have similar growth happening. You can see as well some of the learning rates that that are occurring. Um with those learning rates, students in Fond du Lac are gaining 1.26 grade levels of skill for every year they are in school. Again, when you talk about closing gap, you'll hear a lot with that you want to have what is the the typical growth of a student that's at a level and what is the stretch growth. Stretch growth is happening across this district right now in grades K through
0728. Um again, 1.26 grade levels of skill for every year that they are in school. This is 26% more growth than the national average right now. One of the components that we are also still working on is chronic absenteeism. And that is something that is not where we want it yet, but again, that is something we are seeing an improvement on as well um in relation to similar districts as well as the nation. Um while Fond du Lac's absentee absenteeism increase as well below peer districts, nearly one in five students is still chronically absent in Fond du Lac. That's too many. If we want to see these scores continue to grow, we need to keep working with our families to have their students at school each and every day. Sustained attention to attendance through family
073outreach, early intervention will hopefully help improve this as well. But, again, I I cannot be more proud. The The graph that I'm showing right here is similar to the ones that are up on the wall over there, but you can see again, Fondulac, it's comparing the the free and reduced lunch eligibles families to the overall level as well. This one is math scores. You can see Fondulac setting the the bar for what we're doing in terms of growth. In reading scores, even more so. We have school districts with less free and reduced lunch rates that are not even close to where we are in terms of of student growth. This is why we do what we do each and every day, and I say that and at the same time though, and I want to
074make sure I point this one out. Um it might be in a different one. Let me pull up one of these other ones. No. Sorry. This is the one I wanted. So, here is math, where we were, and again, you'll notice we talked about the the scorecard started in 2019. So, it takes that mark, they did go back though all the way to 2017. My charge right now as the superintendent is we are not where we were in 2017 yet. Um although we've made tremendous gains post-pandemic, which is what we needed to do. We are not where we were in 2017. I believe at the end of this year we will surpass that level as well, which is going to be even an additional um celebration for for staff, for students, and everything else. But
075I also need you to see where districts similar to us are. So, the dotted line on this is where similar districts, how they're performing. Many of them at least a half a grade level behind, um if not if not even more than that. We are doing the right work. We're going to continue doing the right work because it's for our students. And you'll see again the reading as well where we are with with reading and how we've grown since 2019. We're back to where we had been and again the where other districts are continuing to drop further behind, we have we have changed that trajectory for our students, which is something we need to be extremely proud of throughout the district. Kudos. Let's start with that. Congratulations to all the teachers and students and families
076working hard together. Are there any questions or comments this time? I'll start over on this side. So, Mr. Laverents. No. No, it looks great, you know. Uh I mean, just the amount of improvement that we've had, you know, over the last couple of years it's just been amazing. So, awesome. Thank you. Mr. Godfrey. Um great job by all the staff, students, staff, students, families, and and the district as a whole. I mean, this is it it's I was overwhelmed when I when I saw this again and it just continue to understand that the work that has been done in this district and we're continually continuing to rise above a lot of different things. So, thank you all for your hard work and determination. Thank you. Mr. Frame. Um yeah, no, it looks uh very good.
077Um it is kind of uh humbling though too, when you show the scores from 2017, you know, it kind of makes me feel for the kids just cuz they're born at this certain time because of the pandemic and scores going down, they they they didn't have as much achievement as what we did pre-pandemic. And I know that's just um it it is what it is, but um it's good to see that and hopefully, like you said, we can surpass that, you know, because I'm always, you know, all or nothing kind of guy. So, we uh we want that to go higher than it did in 2017. Um you know, so yeah, no, just good job uh students and uh staff across the district. Thank you. Mr. Henschel. Yeah. Um I [clears throat] I do like
078that page three on the one attachment that showed all the different race, income levels, and you know, all the demographics of everything. It's telling, you know, across the boards on where we got to do some work. Uh I was talking about the graph one. That one. I'm a graph guy. Got you. There we go. That one. Um yeah, it it's it's interesting because we were already on the down slide before the pandemic, you know, and that's the part that stood out to me. It It wasn't a great drop-off. It was already in that projection. >> And and that's, you know, and we completely flip that motion going the other way, which is huge, especially coming It just didn't help us, that's for sure. >> It didn't help anybody. >> No, it didn't help anybody. But,
079um looking at I think this page here says a lot as far as, you know, some targets, you know, kind of what I mentioned before. This is what I was talking about where you can really say it, where can we make the big biggest improvements and help, and it is nice to see on the right side, the uh the reading scores, we saw some drastic increases, and like you said, you can't do math, you can't do science, can't do anything if you can't read. I mean, that's really, you know, critical. So, this this piece was probably my most uh piece I like the most to look at and to figure out, all right, how do we solve these issues? Cuz we do have some social economic issues in town. We got a lot of things
080that we can really work on. Thank you. Mr. Trudo? Yeah, I just want to say I want to echo uh Mr. Godfrey's comment. Thank you to all the staff and students and the families of this community that did this. I mean, this is work done on behalf of everybody. It wasn't any any one person acting by themselves. It was It was a group community. I think that the thing the district has done well is start to reach out to families and engage. We're looking at increased um or decreased fluency issues. Obviously, there's still people who are dealing with it. We want to reach out to those families. We want to make sure that they know they're part of it. And I think, like you said, Mr. Steinbarth, when we're looking at our past numbers, where
081we have our bar set, 2017 is our bar, and our goal is to not just meet it, but to to go past it. So, the nice thing is we've got a road map of where we're going. I like the idea that you have a goal that you're set. I like that you're moving toward these things. I just think it's a testament to the work that's being done by everybody in this district. It's It's awesome, and it's not just, you know, any particular space. It's everybody here. It's everybody in the community. And, you know, look at what's happening at Marion. These are the things that'll keep that going even as the year ends, just that that work together. It's awesome. Thank you, Mr. Trudo. I have um, a question. So, for example, the page that we're
082looking at, how do we know, so, um, when we look at the the trend in math scores, that makes sense, Final Act, Wisconsin, similar districts. When we look at scores by race and race and ethnicity, um, is there, so the national average is that gray line. But it's not broken down via >> No, the white is the the Sorry, the gray line is the for the white. Right, I'm sorry. Um, what I meant is the line that's horizontal. That's the national average, but is it ever broken apart by, um, race, ethnicity, so forth, by at the state and national average compared to what we are at? >> Right, and that the best thing we can do on that is is kind of this component right here, where it shows shows white, um, was 0.94 for
083the average. [snorts] Uh, our again, black was -3.02 across the nation, where we were at 0.25, um, for scores that way. Sure. >> So. So, thank you, that makes sense. Uh, can you scroll back down then to the graph we were at prior to? And I'm looking specifically at, um, well, I was curious, do we receive any breakdowns by students with IEPs, special ed? >> That again, this wasn't our report. This was, yeah. So, they they didn't do that. So, um, when I think of >> though. Yeah, it could be. I when I think about marginalized groups, and and I'm looking specifically at the trend in reading scores by student race and ethnicity, that, um, the line of our students who are black, how that's that angle is more so than the others. I mean,
084that's what we're really looking for for our marginalized groups, needing to learn almost twice as fast, um, to close that gap and continue to go higher. So, I like that that line is more, um, vertical than it is horizontal. And then, how do we do that with with the rest of the areas? So, um this report is really amazing to look at. It's um what's interesting, too, is I know you've shared you've had people reach out to you. I've had people reach out to me, too, and and what are you doing? And it makes me think back to um expectations and adult accountability in a kind caring adult accountability way. And then I think about how hard, just from talking to educators, how hard this work is. But once you do it and you see
085your students grow, how fulfilling it is. And you don't you want to have, you know Absolutely. And Mrs. Motor, I as I was standing here and listening to each person, it it made me come back to, as well, that the the board put effort into making sure that they supported the work that was doing. And I know at times that's even difficult for a board because it's hard work. And on a lot of the things I talked about Amy Ann uh 3 years ago, where she lost five staff members in October. It's not that we didn't want those staff members, and we keep saying to staff our staff was always working hard. Mhm. Um it's not that staff weren't working hard. It's just we did not have systems as a district to get the results
086we're currently getting. Um so now the work is still hard and they're still working on it. And as I've said, this work is never going to end because Mhm. our third grade teachers are having a better product of students coming to them in third grade. So, as they start looking at at um the formative and summative exams and saying what's our next pivot, it's different from what it was this year. And it's going to keep changing year after year after year. One of the the reporters that reached out just kind of said, like, what you hear a lot about you have to you have to build the culture to get something like this started. And for people that have gone to Oklahoma for with Paul Bambrick Santoyo, he said that's not what you do. You
087have to put the expectations in. You have to have the accountability, and then when people start seeing the results, the buy-in happens. That's what happened for us as a district is we put things in place, we had the accountability, and I will say this, we had accountability for ourselves. We talk daily about how are we going to make that next pivot. I had a meeting um with with my coach from UVA as well, who's a superintendent in Colorado that's done this for for a long time, and she really pushes me on, "Matt, you need to do this. You need to work with your team on this. What's your plan here?" And it's that constant accountability circle that goes. So, we are putting a ton of pressure and a ton of accountability on our staff, but
088we are putting it on ourselves as well to keep this moving forward. And as again, as we have reduced staff by as much as we have at the administrative level as I talked to you, Ms. Motor, at the end of this year, it'll be seven less people at district office in the administrative roles as what it was. That work that was being dispersed and being shared, that's that's piling up as well, and we have to keep doing this for kids. And that's kind of the message that I share with these people each and every day. And when I think about just how conversations have shifted not only at district office where it's, "Okay, well, if if people are disagreeing on something, the kind of the it goes right to what makes sense for kids?" And
089it's really hard to argue when we know that that's what our focus is. If we have to do things differently than what maybe we wanted as an adult, we're doing that with with staff, and I know talking to principals, they talk about staff are are hungry to keep doing better because they're seeing this momentum happening. And it's that's the exciting piece. And I will say this for people that wonder how we're doing things, it's not easy to teach in Fond du Lac. I don't want anyone thinking that what we're asking teachers is just it's happening because it's happening. There's been a lot of work done with DDI meetings, with backwards design, with looking at our data after a summative informative assessment, and really saying what is our next move in that teaching world to do
090that. That's what it takes, and I'm excited that again, we're getting some of that attention and we're doing the work that needs to be done, and we're going to keep pushing hard until we have 100% of our students achieving at at grade level or above, and that's going to be the exciting time when when we keep getting getting that closer. Thank you so much. >> more comments. Mhm. I You said a lot of really good stuff in that speech, by the way. >> [laughter] >> Number one, systems, right? Got to have the right systems in place. And support top-down, which includes the board Yep. to the administration, to teachers, And the accountability and what you talked about on you having a accountability culture and things like that, if you don't have the accountability, you create
091complacency. Complacency then doesn't get results. And when you get results, everybody wants to be part of a winning team. Mhm. And we're winning as a district right now. And I you know, 5 years ago, Studer came in, asked me that you know, the board, we are all board members, what I said, I want to be a destination district for students, teachers, and and administrators, and families. That's it. Want to be a destinate I want people to want to be here. You know, and that was my goal, is to make have people say I can't wait to go to Fond du Lac because of the things they're doing. And it's great to see the teachers and the staff and everybody embracing what we're doing. And so, >> [clears throat] >> kudos to everybody that's doing that.
092And it's heavy lifting. And everybody's lifting, and they're getting excited about the results, and they should be. We should celebrate the the results. Um It'd be really nice if we were to pass the referendum and have more money to actually have a celebration first. >> Yeah, I agree. That would have been That would be outstanding right now, but as as we are continuing to operate without those things. But but the other piece of it is when you look at some of these uh increases, you know, on the angles like Katie pointed out and we talked about before on one of our surveys about uh people reaching out and uh saying positive things and and there should be a lot of people making a lot of positive phone calls to to students saying, "Great job." Because
093we're seeing the the work there and um and we should be saying the same thing to teachers. That needs to happen at the district level saying, "Great job, too." You know, they need to be appreciated for what they're doing. Cuz Absolutely. And I've been trying to share every time we get any of those those media outlets with something that we've done, I share with the the the teaching staff instantly. Cuz again, this isn't us. This is the teachers are doing the really heavy lifting. And uh Mr. Henschel, as you talked about, you know, I look at our turnover rate at the administrative level. There isn't any. Um our administrators are excited about what we're doing. And will some people choose to leave for different reasons? Absolutely. But that that percentage is is very low right
094now. And I do believe even with staff that it would be low even though we've had to continually reducing by a large number. So, when when you have 100 less staff, that's less people that would choose to go somewhere as well. Um but I think staff are really invested into what we're doing. And when we have had staff that have left, they they come back and they're like, "Oh, this is this is very different what we're doing in Fond du Lac right now than what we're doing elsewhere." So, it's it's exciting. Thank you. >> [applause] >> All right. Moving forward, we have student staff activities. Um could we start with you, Mr. Frame? Yeah. Um so, I was able to go to the citywide track meet on That's all the middle schools that I I
095wasn't there for the full thing, um but I did get to see a few races there, so that was nice seeing uh all those uh I tried getting a T-shirt afterwards, but the biggest size they had was a large, and I don't uh fit into a large anymore cuz I got a body by barbecue. Um and then [snorts] I went to uh some different PTO meetings um trying to support um different PTOs across the district. Um and then also um I don't know, either either I didn't mention it last time or I forgot about it. Girls on the Run, uh that was at the high school. Um that's just nice that um we have a facility where we can have all those different schools and all those um um kids and staff and um you
096know um adults in their life um enjoy some exercise. And it was a beautiful day, it was perfect day for a run, it was cool. Uh I did not run, um >> [laughter] >> but uh uh it was just nice seeing everybody enjoy that. Thank you. Mr. Henschel. Uh went to the scholarship/award ceremony at the high school, which was amazing with We had four pages of people getting scholarships and awards. Uh you got I was really jealous the ACE Academy people and that got these really nice old uh like Milwaukee tool kits, Wow. >> which would looked really cool. >> [laughter] >> So, uh that was that was a great ceremony celebrating people earning a lot of different scholarships, getting a different words that were throughout the state, throughout the community, throughout the district. So,
097I did get a chance stop by Riverside. Also the high school this last week. Actually just today at the high school. And then also uh got to watch a couple baseball games. That was pretty exciting. We Our team's doing really well on baseball. Uh a lot of more sports actually. And then track I got to see a bunch of track meets. But last night was conference championship. We had the boys took second. Best placement since 2017 or something like that. We had like four or five conference champions. Uh So, they had a really good success and a whole bunch of them took second place. So, that's a big one especially in the Fox Valley when our conference in every sport is one of the best conferences in the entire state. So, it's tough to be
098successful. But yeah, a lot of good stuff. Thank you, Mr. Trainor. I started out with the middle school jazz band. So, the all three middle schools had the jazz band concert which was awesome. So, huge shout out to the directors. Want to just give a big like shout out to the middle school jazz band directors are awesome, right? Like they're not only just teaching band and doing marching band but they're having this additional opportunity for students to have a different experience with music and watching each of the schools present these students, give them an opportunity to play something. It was great. And we just appreciate the time energy that they put into it. The kids are great to watch. With everything that occurred, you know, at the Woodward with with the killing everything. I got
099to go to the art show at the high school and see some things and talk to the kids and you know, they were talking about all the things that are going on and there was a big hustle and bustle and they were glad that they got some of their stuff done before things shifted for them. And the art show if you guys anybody gets a chance go check out the art of the high school. I mean, that we have incredibly talented students in academics and in sports and all these places, but the art watching these kids come up with expressions of mean everything from pottery to painting to drawing to even woodworking. There's some kids that had presented some handmade frames where they did dovetail work. It was just incredible. So, if you get a
100chance, go check out our student artwork. It's, you know, second to none as far as I'm concerned. And then two things coming up, I just want to give shout-outs to tonight if you have a chance, at 7:00, the varsity girls soccer will be playing Nina and they are doing a they call it a purple rain event and it's for a student in our district who is going through a very significant and difficult situation. And so, if you have an opportunity to support that family and go and support that tonight, it would be spectacular. And then coming up on Thursday, the rescheduled hammer track meet is happening. So, I'll be there and I will be the MC for that event, so you can hear my voice being broadcast across the parking lot. So, if you want
101to come and participate with that, I encourage you to be there. Thank you, Mr. Tranel. If I could ask for Do you know how long that art show is going yet? Or is it over? Did I miss it? I I do think it is it's done. Yeah, I didn't think it was going too much beyond this week or last week, I should say. >> stop by the art room today and there's a lot of stuff. >> Okay, good. Thank you. >> just go down and just look at the art work. >> Awesome. Thank you. Appreciate that. Mr. Labrenz? Uh yeah, I'll say same thing about the art show. This art show is always great. Every time every time I go to it, I'm I'm always impressed with everything that's done there. It's just amazing. Um
102that was kind of my big event that I went to this this last time, so. Thank you. Mr. Godfrey? I don't have anything. I have been stuck in the house and this is actually my first venture out of longest trip out the house in the last 2 weeks, so. Well, we're glad you're here. We're glad you're here. Thank you. Um I had the opportunity to stop at the high school, and talked to some teachers there. I was able to attend the handbook sessions for one of for the teachers as well as custodial and maintenance, and really appreciate the great questions and conversations. And then I had the opportunity to go to the Evans spring concert, which I love the way they roll it out is a little different than I've ever seen before. Like there
103were three different grades, but a grade would come in, and their parents and families would come in for 45 minutes and then leave and so forth. And I don't know the art teacher's name offhand. Do you I'm putting it Oh, I'm sorry, not art music music teacher at Evans. She was phenomenal. The What was that? Okay, thank you. I'm sorry to put you on the spot. Her energy was incredible, and the way she had parents Can you say it in the Olivia Crocrammer. Olivia Crocrammer. Okay. Um her energy and she had literacy built into it. She had movement built into it. She had family engagement built into it. It was really amazing. Um so that was great, and then um so excited I got to attend um Parkside has received the gold star recognition, which
104means they are one out of 50 There are 57, and they're one of that out of the 57 over 100,000 schools across the nation receive this award. And um they had balloons blown up and cookies, and family members were involved, and staff was there, and it was just a celebration of the hard work of students and staff. And when I think about there's 57 in the nation out of 100,000, and in our Parkside was one of those schools that are received that I think is just outstanding. So, um I was so excited to be part of that event. So, had to celebrate that. Um moving forward, if we can look at we have some uh community or I'm sorry committee assignments and schools for the next school year. If you want to bring that up,
105I want to just double-check that this is accurate information. We're going to have to update the principal information, um but if there are any changes uh what I took people's feedback. Some people took on some new schools regarding um so they could see what some new schools were at. Some uh staff or I'm sorry board members had some relationships that they were doing some work and wanted to continue with. Does it look accurate and okay with you? Other than the spelling of my name. Which I didn't do. I totally did. I'm sorry, Mr. Henschel. I'll shout that out there, but I'm on the board the longest. >> Yeah, no. Spelled my name wrong. >> Thank you. I should be spending more time at Parkside, I guess. I should have double-checked it myself. Yeah, I apologize.
106That's why I don't take the notes. Thank you. Uh besides spelling Mr. Henschel's name incorrectly, uh does the rest of it look okay? And then um on our finance team will be Mr. Henschel and Mr. Trannel, and I'll be attending um when I'm available. Um meet and confer with FEA and ESPA, um Mr. Frey, Mr. Godfrey, and then myself when I'm available. Does that work for you? Okay, great. I thought Well, when you're available. Yeah, okay. I thought you had said you were open to any committees. Yeah, I am open to any committee. I am. Your voice is like this, which makes me think you're not. Okay. Okay. All right, cuz we can change that. Okay, and then CESA representatives are Mrs. Main and Mr. Godfrey, and then I know Mr. Laverents you said you'd
107be happy to, but with work responsibilities right now you're not able to. So, thank you for that. Okay. So, and and as always you're welcome to visit any school. We just ask that you let myself, Mr. Steinbarth, and Halley know ahead of time. As well as make sure you ask the principal as we are guests in the school space. Thank you. And now we are moving down to our second portion of public comment. We'll follow the same agreements or rules that we went through prior to. And we'd ask anyone to come forward who's interested. Good evening. Sherry Trotter. Um I wanted to just talk cuz I say many times that when you say stuff out loud it sometimes is better. So, going back to the graphs of the trends um they're actually fantastic um with
108coming back up especially by race. That's what I usually talk about. If you go to the next page, page four, where we go to the rankings then after the trends I just want to talk say out loud um what the rankings are by race. Which they're getting better obviously by the trends coming up, but and we know we have always work to do with everybody. But, I just wanted to put that into perspective. I know people have read it, but some people may not have. So, right now with this um score the math the white students in our district are at the 81st percentile. Okay? Black students are at the 22nd percentile for math. And the Hispanic students are 48th percentile. And then if you just go over to um the reading ranks, if you
109notice that trend for black students was like really literally going straight up better than anybody else's, which is fantastic. I just wanted to say that um the white students are in the 66th percentile. And with that big increase of the our black students, they're still only at the 17th percentile. But we're we're getting better, but I'm just saying I don't I don't know if you remember me being here a couple years ago when I was like uh 6% of black student like I couldn't believe it and I was like it does that put a dagger through people's hearts, you know? So, it's getting much better and I'm so happy about this, but it's still super low. So, and we know we have work to do. And then the Hispanic um population is at the 20th
110percentile. But I just wanted to bring that up cuz I like to talk out loud about stuff like that. Um And then another thing I was thinking of seeing as how we're going to be getting new athletic director, you know, um I remember Antonio and Mark saying that they had to do a lot of um help with getting kids eligible for different sports. And I was just wondering if maybe um seeing as how we're talking about all students all the time, you could also break all students down by like musicians, athletes, you know, they can be lots of stuff. Um I'm wondering if there's something that can be brainstormed in the district, and maybe it has been um and I'm not aware of um really reaching out to athletes because sometimes the sports they play
111are like their life as a student also. So, it breaks my heart when somebody's not eligible. Um and they've put in all the work, they still go to practice every day and you know, game day or track meet day or you know, soccer game day is supposed to be the pinnacle of, you know, your hard practice and and your and your academics. But sometimes we need to um come and hug them with, you know, like extra support and I'm just wondering if that's something that can even be looked at more if it already has been. You know, and I'm talking about even down at the junior high level so we don't lose, you know, by the high school level. But um I just thought of that so that's it. Thank you. All right. Is anybody
112else interested in coming forward? Seeing none other appropriate matters, just because you had asked the question and Miss Bowers is >> Oh, and it is other appropriate matters so you can. >> is on her game and I'm going to say this as well, that um Miss Wendy Burgess should not be checking her email at this time, but she is also a fantastic person within this district that is always going above and beyond for everything. So, um just because the question was asked and I would rather it answer it now because I will forget by the time tomorrow morning comes, but currently we transport approximately 243 students that access special education and then although we don't have the general education students yet for this year done, last year there were 633 um public students, final school
113district students that we transported. And again, if Wendy is listening at 6:15, she should be doing other things besides sending an email and I know Miss Bowers did not send it thinking she would get a response right away and she thanked her as well, but again, to be able to have that answer for you, I'm I'm glad to be able to get that to you. Which makes sense with the percent that completed. Thank you, Ms. Burgess. Um and then uh are there any other uh Mr. Frame, any other appropriate matters that you wanted to share? Yeah. So, I wanted to uh bring something up. I've been in um a few meetings back, we had a student uh come up and say how um student voices weren't heard, or uh they should have some kind of
114input on decisions being made. Um so, it's a discussion I would like to get going forward is um like a lack of better term, like a student council, but representing the district district as a whole. Um and I reached out to um um I think her name was Peyton specifically, and she said she would even be willing to be a representative. And maybe it it's something we could have uh conversations about uh vote at the school level. Um you know, I'd really I I'd be uh willing to spearhead it, you know, come up with agenda, um just different topics that are going on in the district, and just really hear these uh students' perspectives, cuz we do this for the students. Why not let them have a voice on these big decisions? I mean, cuz
115I mean even at high school, you know, they're young adults, you know, or soon-to-be young adults, you know, they they should have some kind at least a voice to be heard. So, what I I'm going to say maybe a good idea would be a a um committee that meets with a student representative. Yeah. And it could be like an advisory a school board advisory team. >> And I didn't get into some of the actions, but Hey, look at this. Engage students' voice. Use student advisory input to understand and so forth. Yep. So, yes. I would love to have some sort of student advisory component to to >> wonder if that's something we could have a workshop about um to really get that going. I I would like for it to happen next year. Um you
116know, really work on that over the summer um and get that uh going. I think we can add that to our next agenda as a workshop on uh different ideas. And then um prior to that workshop, I do know some school districts do I I don't know the specifics. That's why we'd have to do some research on it, but some school boards do have advisory teams. They also do have almost like I think they're like nominated Yep. student school board members. Yeah. So, if we could Does that sound good? Yeah, and I mean these are all ideas. I'd like to hear from more students though. I mean, even at elementary level, get some fourth and fifth graders voicing um you know, their opinions or just just just to hear what they have to say, you
117know? >> And that could go in student councils, especially that they're already created. They already have someone there, and a student council is um in a similar role, but yeah. >> Um you know, so that's just something I would really like to get conversations about going forward. Great. Um and then one other thing too, um I've been uh approached by some parents throughout different schools in the district. Um just And I know Karen had mentioned this once before, too. Um so, I really wish she was here today, but um just having conversations about how possibly more recess would benefit uh students, or what the pros and cons would be, or just just to have a board conversation about that. Um you know, because I had to ask my daughter what how much recess does she
118get, you know? And I just feel like that's something as board members we should understand and and grasp, cuz I mean not only are are we pushing academic success, but we're pushing just personal success and personal growth and stuff like that. They're the next generation. So, that's just something I'd like to have a conversation about going forward. You know, I did a lot of reading um over the past few weeks about how um you know, just kids getting more physical time throughout the day really helps them focus, stay tuned in, dialed in, and actually stimulates parts of the brain that benefits learning. Sounds good. Thank you. We um actually it was on the radio today about recesses including middle and high, which made me pause. I did not hear that. I don't have that >>
119Thinking about students being picturing my my personal children when they're in elementary, what play looks like at recess, and then my personal children at middle and high school where their recess would be where's my phone. And so, if we depending like where we have space for kids to unwind and and collaborate with each other and so forth that it's in a good meaningful manner. Yeah. So, thank you for bringing that forward. Any >> campus at high school. I got plenty of recess up there, trust me. If you're ever up there, I've seen them in and out all the time. Um any other appropriate manners? Okay. Seeing none, if we can have a motion uh to adjourn. Move the board Move Move Move to adjourn to a workshop to discuss the community education and recreation proposed
120fee structure, handbook for 2026-27 and the preliminary budget forecast. Second. Uh we have a motion by Mr. Godfrey, a second by Mr. Henschel. Can we have the roll, please, Mr. Leverenz? Frame? Yes. Godfrey? Yes. Henschel? Yes. Leverenz, yes. Tranel? Yes. And Motor? Yes. Motion carries 6-0. We will come back at uh 6:45. >> Mhm. >> I'd like to call the workshop of the Board of Education to order at 6:45. Mr. Laurance, can we please have the roll? Frame. Here. Gaffney. Here. Henschel. Here. Laurance, here. Mann. Trunnel. Here. And Motor. Here. We have six of our seven members. As so we have a quorum and um what we're moving into first is in our workshop is a discussion on the fee schedule. We're having some technical difficulties. Um that I would think not. >> [snorts] >>
121It's not doing what it did before, though. Yeah. What if we scroll down or does that matter? Did you do the public site you did? Oh, here we go. We're going to do it this way. You're right. This will work for what we need it for. Yep. Okay. So. All right. Yes, so we have the community ed and rec proposed fee structure. So, I do have Mr. Gramont here um to be able to go through some of those components then. All right. Um Why don't you go to the podium? We're seeming the microphone's not our night. On technology. Oh. There we go. Can you hear me? Yeah, it's green. All right. Uh fee schedule overall what we're looking at and we'll we'll address the 2016 question there. Um uh hasn't been adjusted since 2016. So,
122in the board documents for the discussion, I included the last document that was approved in 2016 with that set of fees and how it was structured. Um what we did since I came into the community ed and rec and community ed and rec is responsible for community rentals since facility scheduler our rental program um was acquired, I believe it's around 2012 2000 about 14 years ago. Um was assigned for approving outside school groups rental uses. So, when you overlap the rental use and what's happening in our scheduling of events, uh it kind of fell into my seat evaluate Uh So, with that we have been examining looking at the fees also regrouped the groups a little bit working 3 years ago with Dr. Blake and now that Nat's here we have this structure that we
123have followed based on the 2016 fees but we've also been researching and looking at other school districts and how they're set up and the time frame that our fees haven't Okay, got it. Our fees haven't gone up. We're having some trouble with the mics. We want the the outside world Batteries are dead to be frank. Why don't you just That mic should be no problem. If you don't mind, forgive me. No, thank you. We want to make sure that microphones are working. Thank you. rechargeable and yeah But they preferred to use them. So, we restructured the I think where I was at was we restructured groups, got that set up and facilitated online facility requests with facility scheduler um to book the groups and then also for the billing and the fees had been in
124multiple different locations, multiple different spots. Everything now focuses and comes to the business department for fees and payment and accountability for that. So, that brings us to the time it's time to update the fees and and do that process and really the highlights of the fee schedule are the base fees and the groups have gone up and it's a recommendation based on researching many other districts and schools and where they're at and where our original fees are at for a fair increase in the structure. But the key fees that are charged the most based on board policy and excess and the groups that use it are the custodial supervision fees. And right now that really goes during the school day, we have Monday through Friday, we have first and second shift. Our not-for-profit groups or
125teams based on that are are not charged for space and since the building's open anyway, they're not charged custodial overtime custodial overtime fees. Saturdays and weekends when we have groups and events and we have custodial uh it's a requirement to have a custodian in the building uh when the building's being used. So that's overtime. The groups are non-school groups. Um Um so let's use wrestling as an example. You have the wrestling tournament in December. That's a athletic department event. Yes, custodians are there, but that is not a non-school group that gets charged back to the community. Your wrestling event in March gets charged custodial overtime fees cuz that's the club wrestling team Can I Well, can I ask a clarification? Um so group one is a school use, group two is public school group three
126is private, is that correct? What are group four and group five? >> uh if we go through in the back room, group one all school groups, group two uh groups like PTO is just the best example. They have a tight relationship with the school and we work together for a common use. Um group three um non um Is there a non-profit youth groups really is the best group. Is yet is there a Is this written out anywhere? >> Yes, it is and it's posted to the facility website. But they're not on here. [clears throat] But it wasn't part of the fee structure cuz that had to been updated 3 years ago as an administrative guideline. Okay, I'm sorry to interrupt. I apologize. So when I look at the 2016 version, one said school related organizations,
127two said public, three said private. So, that's not accurate then. That's the old version. We've broken it up. And also that breakup also helps us make priority decisions when there's when there's conflicts for space between user groups. This more accurately reflects the user groups that that are using it. >> Sure. So, could you repeat them? Group Group one is schools. >> like like the high school wrestling team. Group two. >> groups is the best example. Highly rated Boys & Girls Club would fall into that. Uh use in cooperating with us. Group three, um nonprofit school groups. That's uh would be um youth wrestling, youth baseball teams, um youth basketball, Cub Scouts, Girl Scouts, um those are the best examples. Group four, nonprofit adults um groups. And if you see down there it says if they
128charge an admission, that's kind of based on what we'd said the past. If they charge an admission, they get charged the extra rental fee for the space. If they're not charging an admission, really the adult nonprofit groups fall into uh that. So, Fond du Lac Running Club might be an example of a nonprofit uh adult group there. And then group five, out of town nonprofit groups and uh for-profit uh organizations. Thank you. So, so it serves that purpose also. It also serves Group one is the highest priority. They always get the space. Group five is the least priority. Great. Thank you. I got a question on that one and I know we've talked about this. A group that goes into group five, an outside organization um that wants to bring a bunch of business in
129town and they're working with Envision Fond du Lac and all that stuff. Is if it's what's best for the community and stuff like that, um and it's in conjunction with another organization in town. I mean, it could we create a maybe a subset and say, "Hey, we know that there's a community benefit for for this situation." I'm just throwing that idea out there. I'm trying to figure out cuz I know we took a little heat on one of them. >> Yeah, we did. That's the only example in 3 years. And really what it was is the community group, that would be a nonprofit local community group. Yeah. >> We looked at what their fee structure was and based the overtime in the fees on what was happening there based on our policy. Yeah, I'm I'm
130just trying to be a good community partner, you know, where you got some organizations where you know, we want to pass referendums, we want to, you know, ask for donations for certain things. And you know, there's uh people that are tied in other organizations in the community saying, "Hey, we just want you to work with us on this." And and >> And I think the biggest thing is Bill and I talked a little bit though, too. We were taking a loss pretty much every time an outside organization used our facilities just off of our custodial overtime alone. And Mark, I agree. I always want to be able to work with with the community. But we also are not in a position right now to lose money as a district. Um we're always willing to work
131with outside organizations, but I think as as I worked with Bill a little bit on it is on that piece as well. When you have a outside organization making a lot of money off of the charges for It was a considerable sum of money. >> Yeah, I I know. I I know the one in particular. Yeah. >> Yes. I mean, if this is something and I always say this as well. If this is something that is directly benefiting, and I'll even use Fusion, which is an outside entity, but benefits our students in the Fond du Lac school district as well. Um if it's something that's that way, we're going to work with them to do it because they're not they're not making a ton of money. And the money they do end up making ends
132up a lot of times coming back to different things within our within our Yeah. facilities even and our community. Um when you have an outside one where really and I will say this, had one of our organizations wanted to do um a concession stand or do something like that, we maybe would have looked at something differently, but when we don't have anyone that wants to do that either, we're not making we're not making it worthwhile for for our part. And then when you talk about an outside organization and I'll be honest using any of our facilities, if our facilities get wrecked, it makes it really interesting trying to get reconciliation for for those those things and we've we've invested a significant amount of money into a lot of our facilities. Last thing I want to
133see is a true outside organization coming in and having something wrecked, but Yeah, I'm just uh wondering if there's like any rental agreement, you know, where that there's some indemnification of, you know, damages and things like that. I mean, that they sign off on. That's a little bit >> agreement. It is. All right, so that is we do have that in there then. Okay. And I guess >> throwing some ideas out. >> I guess my other my only other argument and I want to be a again, I've been in this community forever. I want to work with anybody, but I would hope a community partner, if it's Envision or Destination, Find Elect, any of those would also want some of that money coming back to us as a district that can be used differently as
134well. And so that's where I think it is a it really needs to be a partnership of going both ways of trying to to accommodate both components because I know right now as our organizations are trying to raise money in multitude of ways, if if we can get something out of it, we're more than willing to work with somebody. Any other questions or comments? I just more of a technical question. So, it's got on the field it's got additional light fee. What does that mean? Electricity costs money. Oh, it's just for the lights. Okay. >> Yeah, so if I got a couple I got a couple summary charges maybe that summary statements not charge summary statements about the new charges. How's that How's that sound? Oh, that works. Yeah. 500 bucks to rent that stadium
135that's cheap. Oh, yeah. >> [laughter] >> We looked around yes. We're at we are That's cheap. Um actually in my comparison sheet going through the comparable school districts >> rent it just for fun. >> to Well, that's per hour. Oh, all right. You only get an hour then. Yeah. Yeah. I only get one one hour of fun. It was middle of the ground compared to how some other some other districts are in the thousands of dollars just for a just a flat rate. Uh compared to that. So, really the big fees that we get back to is the custodial fee is the most common one. Uh to be able to cover um wages, benefits, payroll taxes uh to support the external events. We are proposing bumping that up from $40 an hour to $50 an
136hour. Um so that's a $10 increase from 2016. We're adding a new utility surcharge. I worked this out and I did coordination with Mike Blaskowski where he's he had the numbers. I asked him, "What amount between 20 or 30?" So, we're recommending a $20 increase as a utility surcharge for the weekends. That's for the heat and the electricity. Um that one overlaps. There had been it wasn't a new one, but there had been light charges in the old one. We separated that out to a $50 uh an hour light charge electricity to run. Not so much the new LED lights around the uh turf the northeast field, but any of those other lights that are the old gas vapor mercury vapor the the the meter just starts spinning really fast and it's very expensive to
137run those lights. So, um and really trying to use this format with the five groups uh versus the three for that, and then separating out uh updated setup charges and the new utility charges hopefully streamlines the process and overlaps well with how we're able to set it up in the online facility schedule system. Thank you for your work on this. Could we put a toll booth at the high school for the parking lot? I drove by it through there the other day. It's really bad. >> [laughter] >> I know. You look at outside organizations that charge people to park in the lot, and I I honestly, Mark, what I would say when you have your wrestling event, You charge? you'd make if you have someone willing to s- to be at the the entryways, you'd
138make a significant amount of money in even that plays um club volleyball would know if you go to Wisconsin Dells area, they make more money on cars coming in and out than they do on probably the facility itself. I never even thought of that. That's not a bad idea, actually. You're welcome. Yeah. But it doesn't fix the the parking lot. >> [laughter] >> No, but the past couple of years it's been good. No, I'm I'm wondering I I can Well, I'm wondering if, you know, of the ACE Academy. We do concrete and stuff like that. Is there something we could do with the ACE Academy to start filling some holes out there? Just throwing that idea out there. I know that has nothing to do with the rec department. And I know you can't hear
139because of this, I'll just make the statement. There is a significant capital expense that is needed to maintain Well, actually, you could say maintain. There there's some repair, and the concrete work isn't excessive. And as wonderful as ACE is, it isn't going >> Any questions specific to the fees or rentals yet? Okay. Thank you. All right. You're welcome. Uh next moving forward is uh the handbooks. Um So, I'll have you go through that. I just um I'm so glad that I attended the listening sessions that you had. Um They were really great, in my opinion. Teacher uh I'm I was at the teachers one and the custodial one, and they asked a lot of great questions, and um Yeah. And uh I know you're going to go through that, but I just really enjoyed that
140and was glad that you that was an opportunity. So, I'll pause. Yeah. Um couple of big big changes here for this year. Um we up to this year have kind of grown our handbooks to make sure that we had handbooks for all of our different uh employee groups, and we were at five separate handbooks. And then an additional handbook for the administrative group. And it was just it was overwhelming. There was too much information, and a lot of the information was repeated between the books. But we I was I was nervous that you're making important changes to things that, you know, are going to govern the way people um work, and all of the benefits and things that come with their their work, and between those six handbooks that there would be a mistake made
141in common information and that should not happen. So, we combined all of those except for the administrator handbook. We left that one separate because it's got some different parts to it. But all the other handbooks we did join into a single handbook. So, all the general information is the same for all of the employee groups and then anything that was specific to an employee group we have that sectioned out through the second half of the book. So, that people have everything that they had in their original handbooks and it's easier to find and everybody has that same general information. We really made some good strides toward um making things standard across the groups in as many ways as we could and then where it made sense to leave those things a little bit different depending
142on the the work of a different group, we have done that to kind of honor that as well. So, I think it's a good format. We got some good feedback on that as well that people appreciated it being all together. And then we um had we first sent it out and it was a Google form and we got lots and lots of feedback on that and then I created a form with all the answers to those questions and just answered individually any questions that were more of a more personal nature or individual nature. So, just a I I didn't want to put any information out there that someone would know who had asked that question. And then gave all the answers out so people could see those ahead of time and have a chance to
143read through those and then we had four four separate listening sessions for we had a teacher group, uh one for secretaries and instructional assistants and interpreters, one for the custodians and one that was just kind of general. And people could attend any of the ones that they wanted to but there was obviously information and questions that were specific to different employee groups that not everyone wanted to sit through for their own employee group. And then uh the attendance was pretty sparse at the very last one. And so I wasn't sure if that was you know, did people have things going on? Was there something going on at the schools? Uh there may have been you know, CT meetings or things like that. Or maybe everybody got their questions answered. So we went ahead and did
144one more virtual just to give people a chance to have one last chance at it. We did have probably 20 people that showed up, but maybe three questions. So I think people had kind of gotten the answers that they wanted and were just kind of checking in to see if there was anything additional. So I feel very confident that we got a really good sampling of questions um and feedback from all of our employee groups. Everybody had a chance to do it. I did get a bunch of emails as well in addition to those things where people had individual questions. Uh the biggest change in those books is really the move to PTO. So that's what a lot of the questions focused on was just how PTO was going to work. Um it's I think
145we've done personal and sick time for so long that just the concept trying to wrap people's heads around what is PTO and and how is it different? Um it just took a little bit of education and and kind of getting used to the idea. We got a lot of really good information uh from people with questions that they had, feedback that they had. Overwhelmingly positive. People are excited about PTO and just the flexibility that it's going to give people. And that's what I heard as a board member, too. Was just really once the questions were answered and um those regarding um what if what if I need what does that bank look like? What does it look for payout? And once those questions were answered, uh especially those who contacted me with questions and were
146like they were answered, this makes sense now. And so, overall, I had people tell me positive. And I agree, Ms. Motoran. I think the just so the board knows as well, the the initial, I think, response wasn't as positive. >> No. Because I think they felt, even with with us inviting people in to talk, that it was something we were trying to push through. And really, those talking sessions were here it is. Please have other eyes on this because, guess what? We have a million things coming at us. You start working on something, you get pulled away, something else gets put in. And the the questions that they they had gave us the opportunity to reflect on them and be like, oh, yeah, that should be done this way. And we mentioned that to a
147couple of the meetings, like, we want to have more opportunities for our staff where we present something even, and they they have an opportunity for input and feedback on it. They might not It might not change the way they want completely, and I think we saw that even with our custodial group um this this last week, that there were some things that we were able to work with them on to get things to to happen, but there are other things that we just said we we don't have the resources right now to make that happen as well. Um but I do want the the different staff groups to realize that we we will always take feedback. We'll take input, but it doesn't mean you're always going to get it the way you want it as
148well. Um but I think, as Marissa said, as we went through the questions and as we did engage people, it it was a general overall feeling of oh my gosh, thank you for taking the time to meet with us, you know, two of the mornings and two of the afternoons, and you actually did listen to things, and you made some adjustments, and that's just something that we we definitely want with our staff, and quite frankly, I the more staff that feel included, because the one thing we found out quickly, which was actually a huge success, people have not read the handbook for many, many, many years. And so when they knew that there was a change, it really forced people to read the handbook and understand what things they have at their disposal within the
149handbook as well. Yeah. And uh the the other uh the custodial group had brought up custodial maintenance, something that had changed in the handbooks a year prior, and wanted to talk about it again, and we talked about it again. And then um ended up changing um to meet their needs more than we had been. And so I received feedback from um the that specific team that had to do with snow removal, that they were really happy with the outcome. So, I thought that just showed um a partnership as well. Yeah. Yep. I think over overwhelmingly, it's a positive receipt of the of both the PTO and the handbook. And you know, as Matt mentioned, I think the for the first time for a lot of people, actually reading it and understanding what their benefits are,
150and understanding how their paid leave works, and why it works the way it does. So, that people had a good understanding of of pieces like the reserve bank that don't honestly always make sense to people until they understand the rationale for it. Thank you for all the time and work, and I think um it's going to pay off having all those voices doing things with people instead of to them, right? And so that's great. Any other uh questions? Comments? Like I said, in in my viewpoint, it was a appeared to be a good process for those involved. Mr. Trainor? I was just going to say, so the to the custodial point, I had several guys reach out about some concerns, and it sounds to credit to you guys, like it sounds like you were able
151to resolve it. Um I didn't get a lot of details, which is fine, but it sounded like that there was satisfactory answers. People feel like they were heard. It's a positive. I know there's still some questions out. Are you, and I apologize for negligence in this space, are you still accepting questions within the scope of this, or are you guys sort of saying like, "Hey, we've we've accepted what we've got for questions. Let us resolve the rest of this this book." Like, I've had a couple people reach out with more feedback. So, are you looking for more, or you like, "Nope, we're good. We need to process what we've got." I think we're at the point where we needed to be able to bring a final version to you guys to look at for this
152workshop. >> And if we continue to change Right. >> you're not sure what it is that you're voting on when we get to the next one. >> That makes sense. >> have questions about clarity. Yes. >> to understand pieces, they can always always email, and we will answer any questions that they have. Um if it would be something major, like we have totally missed we forgot to put in anything about insurance. I know we didn't miss that part, but if we had, you know, something like that, we could always Okay. So, clarification, yes. Ideas, hold. Always >> them, but yeah. Okay. We can consider them either for another handbook, or if there is >> possibly. Okay. Those are all things we can consider. Thank you. That's fine. I just had people reach out. I didn't
153want to like cuz I know you got a lot on your plate, so I don't want to inundate you with more, but I also don't want to discourage people from sharing, so I wasn't sure kind of where we're at. So, yeah. Yeah, always share those. That's fine. >> Okay. Thanks, Mr. Chair. >> Yeah. Yeah. Mr. Oh, I thought you had No, okay. Uh any other questions or comments? All right, thank you. Um moving on to preliminary budget forecast. >> [clears throat] >> Well, thank you, Mrs. Motor, and um No. No, I'm just bringing it up for uh notes and minutes, etc. So, um So, this time of year I I with my executive summary before you is a series of documents that was in BoardDocs. I'll focus I'll just kind of stick on the executive
154summary at this point cuz it is really at the high level. What's also reflected in the documents you'll share beneath these documents, as you see, we have a report out of our financial software, Skyward, a school budget proposal. So, it's not just what the numbers I put on the exact summary. These are the numbers that will show up in the 26-27 proposed preliminary budget. And so, there's a purpose behind the preliminary budget. Um the district's financial year fiscal year ends June 30th of 2026. In order to have spending authority before a final budget is known, like a final tax levy, final state aid, because that wasn't finalized till the fall, um we we have to present to you a proposed budget and get approval by you of that proposed budget in order to spend money
155in the new fiscal year. And so, we'd be looking at uh approval of a preliminary budget in June at one of the June meetings prior to that fiscal year. It's not the final budget. I've said this before. By voting yes or approving it does not mean you necessarily say yep, this is absolutely what's going to have to happen because those numbers do change, uh particularly as they go through to the fall. So, I don't I it really, as we've said before, budgets are plans. And that planning process starts almost at the end of last year's budget in October, November. Once that's finalized, uh we turn around and you may recall, those of you on the board at the time, budget strategy conversations. What kind of a budget do you want? A balanced budget? What is
156that going to take with our forecasting, particularly as it regards to the state formula factors, the funding formula factors, which we've had a lot of conversation. Um I know you've had a lot of that throughout the spring with the referendum and you know, one upside of that is I know everyone's getting really pretty versed in how the schools are starting to get funded. Not starting are funded and how that impacts the district. And so you charged us as management with a balanced budget. And then that immediately turns on to revenue forecasts and the need to without additional, you know, revenues like via a referendum which we did not realize for next year. So there's no new additional revenues in the tax levy. You also took the very, very difficult step to address the expense side
157of our house, which was you voted and approved the major expense reductions nearly 3 and 1/2 million that are reflected in the 2026-2027 budget. And that that's in the staffing side. I mean, primarily. There's others in some of the purchase services, but as you well know, as as Mr. Steinbarth and we've talked and been through, you know, that was a and Miss Lombardo and the team, that took place all throughout the spring and is very difficult, but that was what when you charged us with a balanced budget we sought additional revenues, did not get those revenues, had to address the expense side simultaneously in order to present a balanced budget here in the fall and we were able to do that. I'm happy to say we we are projecting and are presenting a balanced budget
158for the fall. And those numbers are reflected in really when you look at the fund 10 chart and the correlating fund 27, that's where the overwhelming majority of that district operational funds are. And so I just want to point that out that this wasn't made up in a in a short amount of time. It's actually a year-long process. So when the board sets that strategy and that plan, we have to take certain timely steps to implement that. And so again, it always comes down to money coming in, revenues, and the expenditures going out. And with the majority of the district's expenditures, 75-80% in the staffing side, the decisions you recommend and make in wages and benefits are the two biggest budget decisions you make all year. And so, uh you gave us direction to plan
159for in out of the community survey inflationary um increases on wage and benefit. Those are reflected in this 26-27 budget to be budgeted for, planned for. And we had to make expense reductions elsewhere. Um we also have inflationary uh expense increases in utilities and certain purchase services. Um but but really we're I'll be honest, you know, Matt and I talk multiple times a day and we make budget decisions as management every day. And at every turn, we're and I know this came out in the survey tonight, you know, we are asking the question, is this necessary for kids? How does this impact student achievement? How do these decisions support student achievement? And and and it's it's an everyday difficult conversation and there are things we say yes to and things we say no to within
160our parameters of the plan. And that is the management that we believe you've charged us with and so that's what's reflected in this preliminary budget. I do want to make final note before I open for questions and I know I'm going at a high level here, but I think that's where this starts to be managed out. District budgets and plans as they end as this fiscal year end is it gets audited this summer, which is in publicly presented to you as the board. And so, we hope that that's the accountability that you feel is necessary. Uh could Matt said it just minutes before, could you find somebody that says, "Well, I think they shouldn't have spent money and bought that book." Okay. We have a process for that through our chain of command to say,
161"Talk to your principal to talk to you understand uh the justification of that." The board, you set those big budget directors on big revenue. Should we seek a referendum for millions of dollars? That's a huge revenue direction. What are we going to do with wages and benefits? Those are major expense reductions. Sometimes, I kind of you get asked, "How are you managing the budget?" You set that through that big direction. We hear you and we implement that. And last but not least, a lot of conversation about the state budget recently. Uh It You know, that that would have changed the preliminary budget that I would have brought forward here tonight. Um would have added some significantly more revenues had that bill, the budget repair bill, gone through. You know, boy, on the campaign we talked
162all for months and and nights and every day about what a what a budget repair bill or something like that could do. And I'm not here to say, you know, take a political side, but I would just here to tell you publicly that would have added probably 1.6 million dollars I was projecting for next next year's budget to the positive in additional revenues. And you know, that's not going to that's not something we're going to plan for. Cuz that's not reality. That's not the current state budget. Um and it's a big deal. It's a big deal. So, uh in terms of when we say about managing the district budget, we're we're hands are pretty pretty tied. I mean, we certainly have a big budget, but you know, there's just going to be more difficult decisions,
163to be honest, because the enrollment projection I'm using here is still about 100 kids down from last year. And the obvious question over the summer is is that aggressive enough? If it's not, and fewer students show up in the fall, this budget changes and we but we believe we're in a position where we're we're going to be able to manage that and and and handle should that change. But there's variables unknown. Um the revenue limit I included those revenue limit formula factors. It still includes the $325 per student. That's state law. Um, we're still you know, in the low revenue camp for school districts. And there's no new state aid to offset the increase to local property taxes, which as you notice the I think it's important tonight that you see and you discuss there
164is a there is a projected property tax increase that is not referendum related. Referendum did not pass. This is solely under current state funding formulas. There's no new state aid in the formula, which if you get back to the basics, you have two funding sources. What the state puts in in state aid and the balance coming from local property taxpayers. When the state puts more in the state aid, which was in the budget repair bill, that reduces the pressure on local property taxes. So, I I think that's an important talking point cuz this is out that you understand and can talk to people when they ask, "What do you mean? How can taxes go up? I didn't support a referendum or XYZ." It is because of the state funding formula and I think that's important
165in our projection. Now, it's not the final tax levy. You know that. Tonight is just a projected number. It will change. I can guarantee you that, but I believe it's important that you hear that tonight going through to the summer and a lot can change. But, right now that's where we're we're standing. So, I will pause, turn it back to you, Mrs. Molitor, at your your discretion. >> Gerlach. Um, uh, any questions over here? No? Okay. Mr. Henschel? Oh, I got a statement. Okay. I'm [clears throat] I'm glad you pointed that out because that's exactly what I was I was doing the math. You know, if you look at the spreadsheet one, you know, and you go down and and I'm looking at revenues. Where are the revenues coming from in taxes and state aid
166being the two biggest ones, you know, out of a hundred and one million dollar um, total budget, you know, 31 million comes from taxes and 55 million comes from, you know, state aid and then there's a lot of other revenue sources in there. But when you look at that and you look at last year's versus this year, you know, your taxes, yeah, it's projected about 6 million, but you go down and and and it's about a pretty close to the same uh you know, number going down in state aid. So, you know, I can be um less politically correct than Mr. Gerlach. What that is saying is is our state is giving less to the district and shifting cost to the taxpayers. Is what it comes down to. And I've had many conversations in Madison
167saying, "You guys are are pitting the public against the public education system by doing what you guys are doing." And and I the 1.6 is what I saw. I was at a conference last week. And that that was final act was listed at 1.6 million. That was, you know, so I'm glad that that was accurate when I saw it. But that means a big difference in, you know, aid. And that's state money that they have a what? 3 billion dollar surplus or something like that or seven It's a big number. And it was supposed to get transferred down into some of the uh uh state aid to the uh districts. So, uh unfortunately, when that doesn't go through, yeah, it comes from the taxpayers. And it's just shifting It's shifting the pain, you know, to
168the taxpayers, which does not help us at a at a district level talk to our community. So, when he talks about, you know, your total revenue is your your bucket, it's state aid, property taxes. Less state aid, higher property taxes. They want to do a tax property tax relief and it's like, all right, then do something with school education and school funding and you'll give everybody property tax relief. You know, I mean, it's not rocket science, but they play politics with it. So, I'll get off my soapbox now. Thank you, Mr. Hensel. Um I It's I just want to clarify, I believe this is correct. If I look at that sheet, um we are receiving base revenue per member is $11,722. And then uh per member change of $325, which still keeps us at an
169extremely low level. Yeah, yeah, the base the base revenue and I'm not trying to play a uh semantics with the number. The base revenue in the last state budget by name is $11,000. That's the what the state says everyone should be at, 11,000. And should you get those options to increase if you're at that level by 325 in each of those budget those budget years. And so, the projection now is we might for the first time trip up over to that over 12,000. Um And and that's based So, Go ahead. So, like in What was it? Line five is where we were. Yep. So, in line five. Okay, so, my understanding and again, this doing the referendum work has been so helpful, is we were at that 11,000 and then we received $325. Whoever was
170that low got a bump that big and then the next year we got a little bump again that big um and then this would be the third time we get that 325. The correct >> that much. >> You're The base revenue number for next year for the district is 11,722.84. That's the >> But that's how that happened is we were at that low number. Yep. >> under state law, you're right, to increase above that by 325. That's a board decision within the revenue limit. If you chose not to add that, which you sometimes hear, but rarely cuz we don't recommend it because you're it it's not an advantage to you. You You could possibly have a maximum revenue limit of $12,047.84. That's in this upper right-hand corner in these lines. But, the base revenue number
171is correct, Mrs. Motor. And it's still extremely low compared to other districts. So, so the 325, that's that 400 year. I mean, we'll just call the elephant in the room. That's a 400 year tax that's going to get increased every year. But, when you do it on a percentage, but it's 2.7% increase. So, it's not even keeping up with the standard 11 over the 11,000. So, what happens is then the other side says, "Okay, you're going to do that. Well, I just won't fund that category." And so >> I was just clarifying. And then something else that I see here when I look at H and I, we're still looking at over 5 million 5 million like 800,000-ish that are going to parochial schools. Yes, um Okay. And yeah. It's It's pretty significant. And it's
172a And I think it's really important to note it's about 5.8 million projected. Right. >> part, and I know this is also part of the school funding formulas, you're making budget decisions and voting on budget formulas that aren't finalized until the end of October. That number does not get finalized, and we don't know that till October 15th, which actually can have a significant impact on the tax levy. And um all And so, that's coming out of our enrollment forecast model. It's a projected number. But, I would predict it's definitely not going to go down. >> Yeah. And we were at 5 million last year, right? Or over 5 million? Okay. So, I'm projecting a slight increase to that. And then the one other thing I wanted to just clarify and bring forward, and I don't
173know if this is on here, so you might not be able to tell me this answer. I didn't ask you prior to. Um when I think about and I was looking at the school budget proposal the one that have it has account numbers and so forth. Um this last year we received about 35% of special ed revenue or cost back. Um and the proposed bill and was to be 50% um Do you and again I'm putting you on the spot so I apologize if you don't approximately how much money would that have helped us? Oh that's the 1.6 is >> at the the reimbursement rate always a a management conversation like what's the right rate because it's not some sufficient some certain it's as if I gave everyone a $100 bill in here and said
174well we're going to divide that you know everyone's going to get $100. Some certain means we're going to divide the $100 between all of you. Some sufficient means each person in this room walks out with a $100 bill. fully funded And the bill was The bill was not it's still ironically was some certain It wasn't some sufficient the 50% >> use funding to effectively make it some sufficient. So the law still gave that flexible I know that's a little wrinkle but we talked as business officials lot of it said listen I either way I'm less concerned about some certain some sufficient as is there going to be funding to actually create the effect of some sufficient and that's what would have happened to our understanding a full 50% 1.6 million in additional spendable revenues. I
175mean that was real money that would have been a big difference maker for the district especially and I and I this is important to me. The outcomes you heard tonight take resources. Yes. And you know one of our It was a great moment on the campaign trail but and I it really I still sticks in my mind and I think it was at Tyson if I recall and a number of you were there and we had a a community member and it was no problem saying, "You know, I just don't know if the if the money ever goes to kids." And we responded, "The money goes to kids through the staff, through teachers, through the work they do, through what you see tonight." That is such a powerful correlation that this those resources would have
176meant outcomes, improved outcomes for kids. And I think at any point that that's and I know we're all on that page, but I just think that's an important connection to make from the money. This isn't a money to go for for for anything really other than student achievement. And yes, we spend money on fixing parking lots and other things that just have to happen in those cases, but really um anyway, to your point, Mrs. Motor, right now this next year's preliminary budget, I'm I'm using a even though the number for reimbursement under state law is 45%, I'm I'm at 40%. Is that the right number? Maybe not. Because it it's a it's a number that you got to project. Um that that's a number that's in there. Thank you. Thank you. I appreciate that. Um
177any other questions? And again, we're going to come back to this again and again. This is our first view. And I think and think it's important. Um you know, we want to bring it back. We usually bring it back again in in August and September when enrollment numbers become a little clearer because enrollment is such a powerful number in the formula. I think that's really important. And as we go in through to September. So, again, what we're going to then present, if you have questions, we'll present this for an approval at the next board meeting in June. And all you're approving is a a spending plan to go into the new year that gets finalized into the end of October. And the biggest decisions have really gone in already. So, And then um if any
178board member wants to dig into this further with you, um they just contact you and you would meet with them and go through anything? >> Absolutely. I know Mr. Tranel, you you caught me after the last meeting and said, you know, I really want to sit down and dig into this and absolutely and I we have to schedule that yet. Forgive me. We uh you know, we're working through a couple other situations in the district that involve perhaps like property insurance and things of that nature and that's but it's no excuse. I will meet with you. So Uh thank you, Mr. Gerlach. I just want to say thanks to Mike. I and I don't know about everybody else, but he was really kind talked to me about it. We are going to set up time.
179Do not worry. That summer time will be here. We can talk about it, but I also want to acknowledge with the chaos that is happening in Madison and the funding. I do appreciate Mr. Gerlach's work trying to negotiate this looking at the potential of of a big windfall but then also saying having a conservative mindset of well, we have to anticipate it might be there. So I just give you credit for processing it. So thank you. Thank you. Thank you. All right. Thank you. That was the last item. So if I could please have a motion to adjourn. I move the Board of Education adjourn adjourn the workshop. Second. Uh we have a motion by Mr. Frame, a second by Mr. Godfrey. Can we please have the roll, Mr. Laverentz? Uh Frame? Yes. Godfrey? Yes.
180Henschel? Yes. Laverentz, yes. Tranel? Yes. And Motor? Yes. Motion carries 6-0. The workshop is adjourned. It's 7:34. Thank you.