001e he [Music] he [Music] he e for e I sure e we after e good afternoon everyone the March 25th 2024 Final Act board Board of Education meeting is now called to order could we have the roll call please certainly Godfrey here penel here cor here motor here Pau here yelman here Scher here thank you we have established a quorum and for uh the secretary's point it was called the order at 5:00 pmk you um please join me in a moment of reflection um and then by the Pledge of Allegiance thank you Al to the flag of the United States of America and to the rep for it stands na indivisible andice all uh we have one announcement two announcements uh the first one is following a German of the Reg meeting the board will
002convene in a workshop to discuss District benefits renewal planning um and for the second announcement I am going to hand it over to Dr flag thank you president schrider uh I just want to share with the board and with the viewing audience um who are at home as well as the audience that is here this evening that um I to make a statement regarding the spelling be cancellation that was announced uh last week um I received communication from community members stakeholders all of you have and and some of you talked to me about that I think the important thing here is that we're I'm willing to have a conversation on reinstating the spell andb I've tasked Matt steinbarth and Brad n to meet with our partner schools who are not in our district to share
003in the responsibility of directing the spelling be it takes an enormous amount of time and effort and our partners will need to step up to help keep this going and um right now with Mr narat running it he has an obligation to his school and to ensure that students are learning and um this pulls away from his day-to-day duties So to that end I've uh as I said before Mr steinbarth and Mr ner going be reaching out to our partner schools to uh to uh gauge their interest in uh in going on a rotating basis of directing it and putting this the uh spelling be together every year and uh we will be more than happy to host at Tyson um each year but I think we all have to share in the responsibility of
004putting this together so thank you for giving me the opportunity to share that thank you thank you um we have now come up to our first um public comment session um before we get to the public comment I will once again reference 016730 person may address your question board members individually uh letter G the presiding officer will interrupt warn or terminate if the participant statement is too lengthy personally directed abusive obscene or irrelevant the presiding officer will request any individual to leave the meeting when that person does not observe reasonable decorum 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 and finally the presiding officer may call for a recess or an adjournment to
005another time when the lack of public decorum so interferes with the orderly conduct of the meeting to Warrant such action with that being said um please remember five minutes per person 10 minutes per topic the Das is now open for those that would like to approach the board my name is Richard gemer of 49er orlane Fondulac Wisconsin hello Fondulac and Fondulac school board and the members in this room tonight I do actually want to say directly to a person because I can't come here next time thank you Linda I want to say good luck to you in your future um you know I I I look back on the three years that I've spent with you on the board and I have to say that some of the highlights of uh my time on the
006board were spent interacting with you I hope that in your future brings great things to you and your family and I hope that uh collectively some point in the future you'll meet other people like me or my friend Jim back there um because I think we represent diversity and and uh it was good good challenging conversations at times um I think if uh overall if you look at the last four years on the school board I think those are some of the most important years for the school district things have really changed from my perspective they've moved to a system of management that's based on quantitative analysis in utilizing uh utilizing data to manage and try to help the students achieve and I think that that's great and I think that sets the tone for
007future Generations so you know I look back fondly on the three years I spent and I wanted to come down here tonight and say thank you Linda thank you for your time on the board and uh thank you for listening to my comments thank you Mr y Jim H thank you I just want to also say thank you Linda for uh the years that you've uh served on the board uh you've done a great job and I'm not sure if you're going to be here next meeting or not but I want to just make sure that you know that I appreciate what you've done the Federal National Education Association with the state weak teachers union push programs to create a safe School climate for students and sta St all part of Dei a Marxist indoctrinating
008machine these unions offer opportunities for educators to practice dismantling systems of Oppression like white privilege that affect lgbtq plus and bipac black indigenous and people of color students but who's offering a safe place for academically excelling white kids when they have to be put in with slower students in order to have an equal playing field Dei Marxism is equal opportunity for academic ineptitude now I'm going to touch on the spelling B because thank you Dr flag for sharing that but from How I it it was going to be terminated it was actually deemed racist from my understanding of the article in the reporter even though the 2024 B winner was a minority even though spelling has been a value component of our academic culture even though spelling is an essential skill even though the first
009official spelling B sponsored Bill Graves 1976 editor of the reporter stress the importance of and Power of Words especially those in the Declaration of Independence that was in that article but what was the reason for the termination I know according to the article finac District mission is inclusion uh the i in the Dei number two was spelling bees require rot memorization that excludes some students but studies show students that memorize do better academically number three was stress and pressure on students who didn't make the spelling competition contribute to anxiety in their life and negatively impacts their overall learning experience did you did we ask the students that have difficulty memorizing whether they felt the spelling be competition negatively impacted their overall learning you would have found out that most kids accept that they're just not
010good spellers I mean I was not a good speller I just accepted it I didn't get upet with students who were good spellers but they should be encouraged to applaud the success of those who have that gift just like we applaud and encourage an athlete on the field um the statement fin finally in the finac report it goes on to say the finac district would rather quote would rather allow students to explore their strengths without fear of failure unquote Administration and board and thank you that you made but um you know you are taking away if you would students that excel in spelling the ability to explore their strengths and making these academically excellent students feel like they are the oppressors when in reality you are the oppressors if you would have kept stopped this
011and our children would have been the oppressed thank you thank you Mr hes anyone else wanting to approach the board during this time good evening good evening Dan Ireland Sally Avenue vac um I've heard here in the meetings at the University of Virginia is helping with bringing the grade levels scoring levels up on Reading Writing and arithmetic in the F laac school systems but there's another thing going on with the University of Virginia that amazes amazed me and what I haven't heard it anywhere else but the University is of Virginia is currently spending $20 million on Dei employees with some making way over what anybody here makes way over 500,000 the top the top salary I'm not going to read all our salaries that'd be kind of boring but they did [Music] say that it
012would take nearly a thousand graduates or undergraduate students to bankroll their salaries this uh information comes from openthebooks.com from Illinois um they have besides the 235 um employees they they also employ students and um the University of Florida evaluated this situation and they decided to dismiss dismiss the bureaucracy the Dei bureaucracy they've save the taxpayers per year $5 million so far that had to terminate 13 full-time Dei administrators no such luck though for learning at the University of Virginia Flagship school started by Thomas Jefferson the university has become deeply involved in the Dei infrastructure reform or abolition must wait this to the summer to anticipate changes in the school board of visitors at least until then the very highly compensated generally non-teaching Dei staffers are safely embedded in the entire University system of Virginia our
013team of auditors reviewed their payroll in 2023 and sorted out the head positions and besides the salary that they are getting they're also getting plenty of fringe benefits too vehicles moving expenses housing and in summary in summary in summary University of Virginia founded by Thomas Jefferson the author of the Declaration of Independence Jefferson's work presented the moral case for common Freedom among all men the university had a historic opportunity to promote the time tested principles of Freedom that we hold these truths to be self-evident that all men are created equal that they are endowed by their creator with certain unalienable rights and among them are life liberty and the pursuit of happiness maybe the pursuit of Education too but Dei staff are not giving them education instead of working towards the ideal of a shining
014City on the hill 30 seconds Mr Jefferson's principles his university embraced the divisive quote quotas of Neil Marist thei crowd tens of millions of dollars and students tuitions are being and taxpayer money are being wasted at the University and I thought you might want to know that thank you thank you hi everybody Megan STP I work at Parkside School I was here a few months ago and I was able to brag a little bit about Parkside um but one piece that's really instrumental and important is to also brag about our special education staff so if I can just bend your ears for a few minutes I'd love to um share with you some amazing work that our special education staff is um doing this year um there have been some there have been many reports
015of some of our non-verbal students who are beginning to engage and respond using their communication devices um so we have non-verbal students that uh they have these uh devices and um these devices have the use of pictures as well as words teachers can communicate with students this way students can communicate with teachers and um peers can communicate with each other as well they take these devices home and they're able to use them at home um I'm I am actually the aunt of a student who used to to go to water or used to go to Parkside and now goes to Waters she's used the this device since she was four um and not to get emotional but it's it's a huge deal uh so at Parkside we have some students that are using these devices
016as well um and they are res they're doing a beautiful job of responding um they're de demonstrating increased Independence um throughout the school day with these devices and um something that's really amazing and I've seen it in action um we have staff members who have been working um actively to make sure that um there's some collaboration um in which students all students can better understand how what these communication devices are and what why they're being used and so that all students can communicate with students who are using these devices so it's very inclusive um special education staff are also reporting that student behaviors are improving wonderfully with the use of visuals um so that's very important uh academic growth is being seen across our our 3 five students our third through fifth grade students who
017are receiving Services especially in Reading um one of our teachers reports that two of our students have grown by two reading levels so far which I know it's amazing it's really um just something to be proud of um and then our special educa excuse me special education staff is collaborating with our occupational therapist to develop a sensory space uh to help help our students with regulation um and just on a well I guess on a professional level personal level I just want to give a special shout shout out to our special education staff but most especially our instru instructional assistants um they a lot of the work that they do uh you know it's it they just they do it so efficiently and so well um but it's not necessarily always seen or noticed how
018instrumental they are to make sure that the flow of the day within the spe within the general general education class class room um continues that learning for every single child so that every every child is getting the education that they deserve and that they should be getting every single day um and then I just want to end with it um so that's what I have to report on special education um but since I'm here um we are well underway with Wisconsin forward last week we started we're continuing this week um and our third through fifth grade students are just walking through our halls with like complete confidence they are very prepared for these tests um they keep telling us after they've taken it you know what that was really easy we are so prepared um
019so I just want to give a shout out to everybody who's been involved with that throughout the community but most especially to our students who are doing the the work at hand um they're working extremely hard thank you for your time thank you thank you for all you do is there anyone else I'd like to approach the board during this first public comments session seeing none we'll move on to individually considered the uh excuse me approval of consent resolution agenda uh the board members have been provide a background material and information on each item or have discussed it at a previous meeting these items will be acted upon with one vote without discussion any board member May remove an item from the agenda this item will be discussed and voted on separately under the agenda
020item of individually considered resolutions I move to approve the consent and general as follows a chief of Finance operations number one resignations Amy Banky first uh grade teacher at Parkside Elementary School affected June 10th 2024 Lisa Hawk lepine uh toet Evans Elementary School effective June 10th 2024 and Bailey Mitchell special ed teacher at Tyson Middle School effective March 15 2024 second we have motion by Mr henel seconded by Mr Godfrey to approve the consent agenda could we have the rule please yes Godfrey yes henel yes cor yes motor yes panau yes uselman yes shrider yes thank you motion carries 70 we will now move on to individually considered resolutions I mooved the Board of Education approved the 20242 4-year-old early learning program provider agreements with the following providers model 2 sites Camelot Children's Center Christian
021parents for kids Mary lindmore School YMCA Hope Lutheran preschool Kids Choice Learning Center Lily Pad Learning Center shiny stars Learning Center model 3 advocap Head Start second we have Mo Mr gu for you seconded by Mr henchel Mr G thank you Mr shreer this is uh for those of you that been on the board and this is a model that the district's engaged with for 20 years uh roughly of where we have Partnerships with providers in the community to offer foury old kindergarten Services primarily for the benefit that education that that provides that early learning experience um and there's two models uh you may recall last year we we uh made a commitment to allow um some of the ones that have been model three where they employ the teacher to convert to a model
022two uh where we employ the teacher and that's for you know the educational purposes and to you know enhance the programing and so I that's why you see the majority are in model twos this year again and Terry Lair our director is Report with Dr FL and and our team and a lot of positive success with that so reimbursements we're holding at the same rates as last year and include the enrollments below the district spends last year a little under $500,000 providing these this fouryear old provider System Program so at that point I'll entertain any questions you may have any questions at all this pretty yearly update straightforward seeing that there are no questions could we have the role please henel yes horth yes motor yes panau yes yelman yes Godfrey yes Shredder yes thank
023you motion carries 70 uh next up was to consider the director of English language and bilingual programming recommendation I move the Board of Education appr an administrative contract for Dr Joseph Mone moin Mo as the Director of English language and bilingual bilingual program effective April 3rd 2024 at a PE rated salary of $3,615 which is 63 days based on an annual salary of $16,234.73 are established for the 24 25 school year second motion by Mr henchel seconded by Mr Godfrey and we're going to turn this one over Dr flag thank you I just um it's a pleasure to bring Mr moand before you tonight for for considered for your approval he has served as a teacher counselor principal and most recently assistant professor at Cardinal stretch University prior to working at Cardinal strich he served
024as high school principal for 17 years at okonak High School Dr moan believes strong that each and every student should have an outstanding education in additionally he has experienced and leading change the high school and Collegiate level will be an asset to our district and I'm really pleased to bring him before you for consideration for approval for this position question respons absolutely it's going to oversee all our um English language learning um programming as well as our bilingual programming that we are um building right now as well as will assist with the supervision of principles and whatnot in terms of um ensuring that our students who are emerging bilinguals are getting a great education that's absolutely respons absolutely also can we just clarify how this position was chosen it was an interview process correct absolutely
025it was an interview we had a couple interviews for this uh uh job um they had a couple interviews one with our principal group as well as one with our um administrative group so it was it was done a while ago and we are just right now getting to the point of of where we can bring it to you so we did this back at the end of February yes any other questions like to remind the board that uh we are changing each day uh linguistically in our district we are becoming more and more linguistically diverse we need leadership in this area more than ever right now and it's kind of always been passed around to different administrators but we've just had such a change in our in our demographic the last two years where
026our numbers have shot up and um right now we have one school Parkside 40% of the students are emerging bilinguals and we need leadership and we need um professional development planned and whatnot for our teachers so they can be successful teaching our students if I remember uh correctly uh when we saw the number we're over 600 uh students that are in that program I remember correctly District wide m is that correct I believe so 675 for next year y yeah definitely I need yeah any other questions can we have roll call please certainly hor yes uh motor yes panau yes yelman yes Godfrey yes henel yes schrider yes motion carries 70 Dr Morin next up will be the consider the Woodworth Middle School principal recommendation I move the Board of Education approv administr a contract
027for Mr Michael little uh or Lidle as the principal at Woodworth Middle School effect of July 1st 2024 at a salary of $6,850 which is 261 days based on the 2324 Administrator salary plan with the salary for 2024 25 determine when salaries are established for 2425 school year second we have a motion by Mr henel seconded by Mr Godfrey to approve a contract for Mr lle Dr flag yes we are very fortunate to have Mr lle uh uh coming to our district or for you to consider for his approval he's been a classroom teacher um and for 12 years as an elementary high school principal most recently he served as a superintendent for the past seven I believe in Lakeville school district in Michigan he is relocating to Wisconsin um his wife has received a
028a different position over here so they are uh moving here this summer I think what really drew me to him is you know in addition the interview process he went through with with members of the Woodward staff and our administrative team was um while serving as superintendent Mr Le was able to lower the percentage of students with disabilities in the district from 18% to 11% and did this through collaboration and creation of systems to exit students with disabilities from special education and his his interview was uh very well received by the committee of Administrators and staff from Woodworth and we look forward to working with Mr liel to continue improving outcomes for all students of Woodworth middle school so we're fortunate to when I read that and I saw exit special at you know that
029that was a negative where he graduated them from 18 or how no they exited from that they no longer needed uh uh services in my head I was like all right exit yeah yeah when you see exit it's like all right you just push them out no no no no I'm sorry okay that's that's education jargon I'm using no it's educ I apologize that's education jargon so yes yes they were able to have their I they met the goals of their IP and were able to be dismissed yeah I just wanted to I had to read it like two three times for like this a good thing not a bad thing sorry about that any other comments or questions regarding Mr Li seeing none can we call the role please motor yes Pano yes yelman
030yes Godfrey yes henel yes forth yes and Shredder yes motion carries 70 like to welcome Mr Li to Woodward Dr mland the Final Act School District um next we would consider the approval Neola policies volume 32-2 second reading I move the Board of Education approve the suggested revisions to Neola Neola policies in in Vol 32-2 as presented at the second reading in the attached listing second motion by Mr gu for you seconded by Mr henel Dr FL this is the second reading this evening uh just for the viewing audience I'd like to review we had a first meet reading at the previous meeting and then we also had a workshop so this is the final reading these policies that the minute you approve them will go into uh effect immediately and then we'll be on
031to our next update coming soon I'll let I we don't know when yet but it's coming soon TR trust me it's coming soon so anyway tonight's the final reading any questions I might get it in Linda just for you to have one reading we'll see I don't want you to miss it easy I don't want you to miss all the fun and there'll be a cake afterwards questions thoughts concern for approval all right can we have the call yes Peno yes yelman yes Godfrey yes penel yes horse yes motor yes schrider yes thank you motion carries 7 Z Now we will move on to board and administrative report Dr flag well good evening and I just want to um I've shared uh the slideshow with the board oh why I'm not doing share hold on
032I got to do a a slideshow here here we go okay so I just want to share with you right now some highlights from the student and parent and caregiver survey report so a couple high level um results in regard to the student experience we had 3 , 744 students take the survey this year that's down from 5,187 who took it a year ago and this is doing large part we to not survey in kindergarten through second grade all right we uh for the grade levels they what happens is we put a smiley face if they strongly agree and an unhappy face if they strongly disagree and I think most of the students select the positive face so and it's a lot of work for them to also log in and navigate the survey so
033we just decided to start in third grade so you're going to see at the elementary that the numbers went down and and that's also why we had less students take it that's where um because you'll see in the middle school and high school it's about the same participation from a year ago um the high school student experience survey all 20 Questions we improved on everyone from on the student experience and at the middle school level 18 of the 20 improved from a year ago so that's just oh it's great when they're positive and then on the overview on the parent satisfaction from a high level we had 946 parents take it this year which is up from 614 over you know roughly 330 and all 15 questions on the parent satisfaction survey improved too so
034um I'm going to take you through the slideshow here and um you all have the slides in front of you so here we go so just a quick reminder especially for the viewing audience here the uh this is we we use this survey the uh student experience survey is is used to measure our safety pillar and the parent satisfaction is used to measure our our collaborative culture pillar which are both um part of our scorecard so once again just a reminder the with the board that that the the student administers these surveys they've also helped us develop our strategic plan our scorecard um you know we started with them in January 2022 um they they work with our district to create a culture of Engagement execution and Excellence through the implementation of systemwide continuous Improvement
035through evidence-based leadership practices um as I said they administer our surveys and I talked about them uh assisting our development of the scorecard rounding and we hope to implement stoplight reports in the fall so just a little bit of background in our partnership with stter and also you know we really are trying to you know hardwire which is hard we talk about hardwiring which is which is behaviors to achieve results and we really have three uh facets to that it's our partnership with student education it's a partner with the Darden School of Business at the University of of Virginia as well as initiative one which is our our leadership development process that we are using and then the results so we're going to go over the you know what's what the plus minus change in
036experience for the student experience as well as for the parent and caregiver so here we go overall student experience this is overall for all the students our top three most positive changes you're going to see this doesn't look very good because we it's everybody you know and I said our elementary went down quite a bit but I I feel it went well went off four point small children like smiley faces yeah they yeah they do they do um but we we saw some positive movement on I feel safe at the bus um went down a little bit I believe my principal's a good leader still are very positive results there and also I believe my learning is important went down a little bit both very positive results overall but I think next year we'll get
037a better gauge of that so let's go here to the um top three negative change I like going to school each day our K I think our K12 kind of carried us there from a year ago um shout out to those teachers and um and then I feel our students are nice and show respect to each other at school that went down quite a bit there down to 30% agree or strongly agree and I think my school is clean went down to about four almost 41% so I I said it's a little you can't compare it to last year because we pulled out K2 Dr fler it you might be getting into this later but did you find when you looked at the middle school and high school that it these questions continued to stay
038high but that bubble was the elementary for these three specifically that's coming in the slides perfect so the student experience at at the elementary here are the and like I said here are the top three most positive change they all were negative as you can see they went down I believe my teacher challenged me to think went down from 4.4 to 4.29 um I believe my principal as a good leader went down from 4.55 a year ago to 4.42 and then I feel my family is treated nicely or with respect at school went down from 45 to 437 even though they they went down all those are very strong wrong numbers from a from the standpoint of of the student perspective top three negative change like I said I like going to school each day
039went down from 3.97 to 3.44 we talked about students being nice at the elementary level that went down to show respect and are nice to each other went down from 368 to 319 and I feel like I belong at the school went down too in the elementary from 4.15 to 376 so as I said we we have to do some we'll we'll get some better dat in a year ago to really gauge what exactly we are we're working with there so I think it gives us a good starting point and then I have one other clarifying question can you desegregate the elementary by grade level no okay Middle School experience you're the top three positive change I feel safe in the bus went up a year ago from it was 3.44 year ago to 3.85
040uh really great positive change there up from 54% of our students agree are strong agree to 69% I believe my principal's a good leader went up from 4.24 to 4.36 um which was great to see and I believe learning is important at my school went up from 4.05 to 4.14 so very positive results at across our three middle schools top three negative change there wasn't was I think my school is clean went down 0.005 from 3.28 3.23 I like going to school was exactly the same as a year ago from a from a means but that we had a little bit more of kids who were in strongly agree and strongly disagree not much from 30% to 31 and lastly I feel like I belong at the school went up just 02 so it was
041it was great to see the positive movement at the middle school high school I feel safe at school shot up from 3.03 to 3.22 uh went from 34% agree or strong agree to 41.5% I believe my principal is a good leader went from 3.37 to 3.5 four which was great to see up to 56% who agree and strongly agree and I think my school is clean shot up from 2.56 to 2.72 so just a well done at the high school level our top three negative change I enjoy specials or electives there was it was very positive to start with but it still went up a little bit up .004 um from 3.84 to 3.88 I believe teachers challenged me to think went up from 3.63 to 3. 68 and I and I receive I regular
042I regularly receive feedback from my teachers about my academic proc uh progress went up from 3.27 to 3.33 so still some positive movement which is great at the high school level as I said all all 20 Questions improved from a year ago parent caregiver survey so a year ago we this was one area we wanted to focus on was parents receiving feedback from School staff and how well their child is learning so a year ago was a 3.38 it went up to 3.63 this year 51% agree or strongly agree almost up to 60 that is outstanding I believe my child is recognized for good work and behavior at school went up from 379 to 3.94 from 68% to 71% and then I received positive phone calls emails or notes about my child from school went
043up from 3.31 to 3.42 up .11 which which was outstanding also top three negative change um once again they're all positive but this was a the where the we had the lowest change was I believe my child has necessary classroom supplies and equipment for Effective learning went up 03 still have 85% of our students agree or strongly agree that's a just attribute that we are able to have the the right equipment textbooks uh technology for our students to use I believe the school is is clean and wellmaintained went up to 4.33 from 4.29 88.9% and I believe school um School administration makes decisions in the best interest of of Children and Families went up 0.005 from 3.81 to 3.86 so so once again our top three negative change were all positive so we're we so
044we grew from a year ago and also we had outstanding participation from the parents like I said the the purpose the results roll out is really is to connect with those we serve to increase trust and engagement we'll post the results on our website it's to build trust transparency and awareness for the organization and by focusing on the data allows leaders to drive the work of of the Strategic plan and once again we will use the results will be used to develop new goals for our scorecard and um we will share the the results will be shared publicly in the near future as schools get an opportunity to share with their staff um they just the the schools just shared their Employee Engagement they will share these results by by buildings or by their individual
045schools and once again just to be a little redundant we will use it to develop new scores for our scorecard and just a a reminder of the progress that's been made in three years I think it's really a transformational for the school district as I shared this at the last meeting is that in 2021 five of 14 schools in the fondel like school district is seated expectations on the state uh report card 9 of4 14 exceed it now three of 14 schools in 2021 failed to meet expectations now one does and then in 2021 our school district was ranked 375 out of 420 we were in the 10th percentile of all school districts of the state of Wisconsin we are now ranked 286 out of 420 and we are now on the 31st percentile so
046I'm excited to see how we perform this spring and we'll probably move up even more just based on on on our early um data that that we've been looking at this year so that's a huge celebration so once again just a tribute to our teachers and and our principes for the work they're doing our schools to really drive the Strategic plan as well as ensure that there's a priority and safety and learning for our kids and this presentation will be on the district website for correct we will post yes we'll post results yes so one question or one clarification um just if you can touch base on that um from the elementary level not having the K through two even though um those numbers did go down and and we know where that went down
047there is still going to be some discussion around those numbers based off of the results that they've gotten from grades three through five um in each of the buildings to ensure that we are looking at moving forward and improving them and not just relying on well we didn't have K through to absolutely so the um each principal will get their individual School results and they'll be able to see where the areas that they need to to work on and then they'll they will um write goals from there as well as be strategic just like they did with the uh one of the big goals was the feedback this year to parents okay good any other questions or thoughts for Dr flag all right see then thank you Dr flag yeah uh second part write back
048to Dr flag yes um I just this is an annual notification um each year uh a group of students and some staff from uh Riverside go down to Indianapolis for the Cardinal Skippers so they are going down over spring break I have to notify you because they're traveling on a state and it's just an outstanding opportunity for the student to compete in a jump roping competition so anyway um it's not it's more than that but anyway it's but it's really a great opportunity so it's just a I have to inform the board of that that they're going out of state okay so that's that's all I have for you there this evening all right thank you Dr we'll now move on to board member student staff activities Mrs or um I think two weeks ago
049was fine arts night at Lakes Shore so that was um a couple of the grades had like their spring concert singing songs and then um all of the art was on display which was neat to see and interacting with all the kids who were super were excited to show their parents and grandparents and neighbors and whoever was there all of their art um and then also they had the choir and the orchestra and I did not realize they had Orchestra at the elementary level so that was an interesting experience that's all I got okay my daughter did Orchestra in grade school well um actually I was fortunate this last week worked from home a couple days so I actually got into more schools so visited fond Central Saw what we were doing over there some
050of the um uh Acuity grants that we invested in some different uh tables and chairs and things like that uh I got to interact with some of the students it was kind of fun a couple of them I actually coached in their younger years um so seeing that they're making progress of getting their degrees and uh moving forward so uh from there I was able to go to Parkside they were testing that day so uh I had well I nor Gina Marian but Gina Schneider was uh monitoring the Halls as we were walking through making sure that we were quiet uh as we walk through but uh I did get to see some of the special ed um and I appreciate that Mr they're doing amazing things over there at Parkside so thank you guys
051for doing that uh the other one I got to go chiguin I was fortunate they were doing the afternoon performance for their uh Fine Arts with the chorus orchestra band and um they're doing it for for the other students which was kind of nice especially middle of the afternoon or middle of the morning um it was good to see the participation we all hope it gets better and have more kids involved and I like that they perform for the school because hopefully other kids will say well can I do that you know and get more involved in some of those activities then I also was able to get through savish um and got to stop in a few uh rooms there and uh so that was fun to see what they were doing too so
052excellent um yeah I just got to see the our Student Art is being featured in the Langdon divers Gallery at the library if anyone did not know that and um we also did Bubble Mania for the last time for Pi Day and then also other Ros no volunteering and a couple of visits over to fondy high right Mr Cy I got I've been working in doing other things this so I have not been done anything so um I want to thank uh principal uh Mr ml kavich um I had some questions regarding um the tardy policy at the high school and uh what that information looked like how um and so he met with me and went through we went through some data together that cleared up some information and uh he took time to
053desegregate some of that data that I had questions regarding and took some feedback um so he's really happy about uh what he was able to share um it was good and the amount of students in classrooms learning um and he shared a story of a student who uh started out as a freshman and was tardy 35 time um 35 times and in uh is a sophomore now and was tardy only once in a month and so I thought that was pretty powerful the student in classrooms and then um he also shared with me I'm not going to get the language correct and so maybe Mr steinber can help me but there is some ACT prep work um that they do at the high school level or maybe maybe you conductor flag it's where um students
054can go on and practice taking shorter tests and then practice um to see what the questions are like and from um what Mr Mel kabage showed me is there were a number of students that um interacted and practiced um either in classrooms or on their own which will make a big difference and even from that practice um it Compares how other districts are doing as far as their practice and how students are performing and ours were above the average just in the Performing that was done there so I that was really great um both both pieces of information was really great so um thank you to the high school teachers for focusing on that and supporting kids in that work thank you well um I was able to meet with Jessica Hughes and um I
055have said many times to many people that I believe uh that our schools in education is second only to the family on and it's uh in its development of society as a whole and its development of the individual so that is what has sparked my interest in the uh academic teacher parent uh teams and uh in my discussion with her we reviewed and we talked about this briefly last time uh the process as well as the findings and the findings um in my mind well the findings are reported in the report card but uh and they have been all very positive with the exception of three years when you look across the last 10 years um and I can give you specifics if you want to see your specifics but what I see it is
056in the AP TT they create an opport Unity for a strong school bond and a commitment to Mutual goal setting between the parents and the teachers um all of this which is evidenced in the uh Riverside report cards uh strengthening the learning of the uh students at Riverside however when you look at for instance between the year um looking after after the pandemic uh there was a 133% after the second year after the pandemic uh between in 21 and 22 year of 133% which translates as we know into a 22% increase so all of this data is correlational and you cannot say that it is causational but the school the Riverside does have some case study data which is uh evidenced by parent conf uh communication so I'd like to read a couple of these
057more than a couple parents can feel that this is coming from parents the uh responses from parents were both um beneficial comments as well as concerned comments and the parents feel that Riverside cares more about their more has a better sense that Riverside cares about their children opportunity to get to know the teacher and other parents uh relationships with parents beyond the school walls they get to see uh what P what the kids are working on learn techniques to help children at home provide provided with specific strategies to support learning at home uh great to learn that CH what children are learning instead of seeing the final product enjoy sitting in the child's classroom it makes me feel more connected to the school gives an opportunity to connect in know more personal level with the
058school and some of the concerns expressed by parents were um I wish there would be one more time to talk oneon-one with the teacher the uh Team program allows for one one-on-one teacher parent conference but this is an expression of wishing for more um could we condense the uh three nights into two nights and that I think is kind of a parallel comment with could we have maybe one more uh parent teacher conference there were also two concerns expressed that there's kind of a lag time during the last 10 to 15 minutes when the families are practicing activities to partake and to transfer to use it at home and they they said the last 10 to 15 minutes tend to be downtime in the classroom with the parents could apt be 10 to 15 minutes
059shorter we get uh through stuff quickly so there is a time frame in which we sit and lastly the concerned comment was more of an explanation on the concepts that are driving the classroom activities so that the parents can have a deeper understanding of uh what is being taught so all in all I see this as a three-way win a win for teachers a win for students and a win for society and when you can bring these two the two groups the parents and the family the parents and this teachers together uh enhances it and I know that as you know the this the meetings the parent team meetings are three times a year and so I'm going to be able to get to see them in May so so I look forward to the
060uh May opportunity and the other thing I did get to do was as uh Mark did was attend the Chuan B orchestra band choir and the thing that one thing that struck me and Beyond what Mark had said was there was young one young fifth grade fifth grade lady that appeared in both in all she appeared in the orchestra she was in the band she was in the choirs so awes good for her and and good for chy awesome um I myself did not um get into any schools but I did visit the Fine Art Exhibit at the library for the second time I'm just blown away by by some of the some of the stuff that is done out there by our kids is is you don't you know you don't think that you
061know what I mean um these guys are doing that but it's been a little bit transformational for me to go and see that now twice so um great job so um that being said it will close board member student staff activities we'll move on to our second public comment session of the night um anyone wishing to approach the board please do so uh just remember five minutes per person 10 minutes per topic hello Shi hi troter um we all know just in life that when you feel like you belong usually have better outcomes you do better get along with others just a lot of things when you feel like you belong so as many times as I I sat in the back as many times as I filled out that survey for all my kids
062I cannot remember if race is one of the things that you can check I didn't think so so I don't know if that can be something that can be changed in that in the future because when you only have 48% of your whole student population feeling like they belong it's time to find out who and why like that was that put another dagger in my heart so we need to find out who and why we're not even at 50% for the kids feeling like they belong in their school or their classroom that's really sad add and disheartening to me so I hope that's something that we can um delve into further not that we haven't been but I'm saying we need to find this out and I feel like if we put a race category
063in there that might help out a lot thank you thank you Charlotte anyone else want to come forward I guess I would like to just comment further oh just just hold next agenda [Laughter] y uh seeing no one we will close the second public comment for the for the evening and we will move on to additional appropriate matters Mrs P I was confused about surprised and um and very concerned and there's been a lot of concern expressed so I am glad uh that the school district has had the opportunity to remove the stumbling blocks from the uh and take another look and hopefully resurrect this Bell that's all thank you I also had a few thoughts about that just the comments that we've been getting um I just want to make sure that people understand
064that that's kind of a false equivalence to draw with sports and artart music and those kinds of things um there is not competition as part of trying to build understanding of those things the practice time is private and it is um you know something that kids can take their time with so to throw kids out you know and expect them to be learning as they're doing a spelling be might be a little bit um disingenuous and also just the rot memorization aspect of it that is absolute bottom of Bloom's taxonomy which is the ranking of the difficulty of knowledge that's going on when when students are interacting with subjects um when you don't want to hit the high points of Bloom's taxonomy you're talking about understanding and application analysis synthesis evaluation so as far as
065spelling that's finding patterns that's trying to figure out things that from Context I'm always um a little bit um giddy when I have a student who will say uh pronounce words like epitome and quinoa and kot and Salman that means that those students are trying to challenge themselves with reading texts that are harder than they know and they're learning while they're doing that and take someone like someone reading with them or someone um to to say the words out loud with them so that they can learn words like those um and learn their pronunciations it doesn't necessarily mean that they will learn them during something that they're trying to practice wrote um memorization and I just made a note of a few words that some students that I was reading with this morning learned Albuquerque
066camouflage audiovisual compot graffiti capera decipher now those are things that you know they were read reading in textbooks or reading and actually story books as they were going along so they they do get um they do learn to spell by reading and um I just wanted to point that out and the whole idea of um all men being created equal well I think that's the argument we're making here isn't it some people aren't good at sports some people aren't good at other things some people are good at spelling so yes let's give all of our students a chance to do what they excel at but let's keep the competition maybe as an extracurricular aspect thank you I I was just going to uh if I can jump in um number one they should just read
067the names of when I have to read names of resignations and new hires that's the harder than so um one thing I wanted to ask because I'm you know you had news articles that said one thing about the spelling be then we have uh different I'm actually I guess I just want to ask a direct question it was cancelled and because is the newspaper said one thing I don't you know I did not hear he that from you can you be very clear Dr fle on why it was cancelled and now why we're going to reconsider I think there's a a there's a philosophical piece that we just do not um we struggle to see the value of it from an educational standpoint um and and a and I think it also was um you
068know what we deal with is when students you know it's a lot of pressure on a student to deliver this word to get it right in front of folks so we had so we struggle with that philosophically that's not learning second part here is um it was really uh a lot of resources and I think that that that's what I was hearing earlier yeah that Mr n it but there were there were other reason we just didn't agree philosophically we just don't agree with it right now where we're at and I and I think that the uh the other thing is I just would like to challenge our you know our stakeholders is that you know 35 36% of our students can read at grade level I wish I would get this kind of feedback
069with that as equivalent over cancel and spelling be because that's really what we do here is we teach the kids how to read how to write how to do math how to think critically and I think that is um but you know to that end I think it's important the stakeholders have spoken and we're going to bring it back but we're going to have to share but I think there's I I I we're have to share the responsibility to keep it going but it's not a good use of our human capital to put this together every year at the end of the day um I'd like to say some more things that are about what the spelling DB does provide for the kids that are interested in this and wanting to participate in it it
070does require um a lot of it does require a lot of strength a lot of practicing a lot of commitment uh goal setting and commitment to a goal and then following through taking the time doing the sacrifice and persevering and because of that um it also provides courage and uh courage to is an experience that people need in life and if this is uh we're I believe that teachers teach themselves and their Valu as well as as focusing indirectly and focusing on focusing on the um academics second not second but their discipline as in addition and so the courage aspect alone is important because Babe Ruth said it better I think and he said uh never let the fear of stri in out prevent you from getting up to bat so this is is the
071reason that I think it provides an opportunity for some kids that would never have that opportunity otherwise same thing is not only do as you don't think it's for academics but I think all of those things are required for academics I think all of those things are required for athletics band Orchestra require play participation I see your point I think I think there's other ways for children to push themselves to higher levels even without the competition aspect of it so yeah okay and I just I look at it as another opportunity for engagement I just want kids engaged in activities and and and like you said one thing might not be a strength for them but another might and the more opportunities we can create for them to be engaged in something AB you know
072uh that's why I look at it and they you know both my kids are I think three of my four participated in the school one and it was fun you know they didn't go on beyond their own individual grade school but right um it was it was fun for them to participate and it was exciting to do and but I that's my biggest thing is engagement how create opportunity for engagement for everybody at all levels I mean if find something for somebody to do something with so well in my strength I come at this from a math nerd perspective where the wrote the wrote learning kind of um competition when students are trying to learn if you have I'll think about think back to time tests and around the world that was phen I loved
073it ate it up but that was scarring for a lot of my classmates I find many college students come with math phobias and things like that because of experiences like that so I would not want reading to be become a thing like that that students are being held back by there you go okay yeah but um yeah so the competition aspect when kids are start trting to learn does not generally Advance their learning it generally take takes some a step back so that was my experience I just want to share that thanks okay anyone else all right we'll close additional appropriate matters uh move on to adjournment to the workshop I'll move that the Board of Education adjourn the regular meeting and conven in a workshop to discuss District benefits renewal planning second seconded by
074Mr Godfrey we have the role please pel yes yelman yes Godfrey yes henchel yes cor yes motor yes schredder yes motion carries 70 we are adjourned at 6:07 p.m. we will be back at 6:25 p.m. for the workshop e for e C s there's you notice there's like a pretzel bun new bun and that was that was going on so all right I'm ready whenever you are Mr shrider workshop for fin like Board of Education call to order at 6:29 p.m. can we have the role please yes uh let me hit there we go Godfrey here henel here four here motor here panel here uselman yes and schrider here we are all here we are going to turn this over to Mr gerlock in discussion of the district benefit renewal planning uh thank you Mr
075Sher I'll be at the podium as the presentation is going to be on uh the my device here so what I'd uh like to introduce to you is uh Mr Jay Scott of uh USI our our excuse me employee benefits um uh agency and so um we've been working together as a board finance committee Mr henchel Mr Godfrey um and tonight I'm going to turn it over to to Mr Scott to walk through a presentation that was shared with you as well and um and we'll have a discussion on uh District benefits planning and uh the as this time of year is we typically bring renewals and uh benefit plans to you so with that I'd like to invite Jay up to uh we'll go from the our presentation good evening good evening hope I
076don't give any of you indigestion Mark already did that to me he's got a habit of doing that so the agenda will also be part of tonight's workshop and and of itself so update on the Court's medical renewal for July 1st of this year the they calculated the renewal at a 9.26% increase if you recall we did negotiate a cap of 8 and a half% uh at last year's renewal time and I was able to negotiate the increase down to 5.9% it will be a short year with a 4.5% rate cap uh as far as the renewal going to one one of 25 and the reason why we negotiated a short year was so that we could thoroughly explore self-funding in the coming months with hopefully or hopeful to have a January 1 adoption date
077of that and we'll talk a little bit more about that later so any questions on the renewal and the strategy there Jay What's um the loss racial Target 93.6 what's what's trending right give us a little background on medical Trend what that means and what you know when you look at 8.5 5.9 and you know versus so right now at 5 the average employer rate increase for 2024 nationally was probably six and a half 7% okay and when carriers measure Trend or calculate Trend and a renewal calculation the medical Trend right now including prescription drugs is probably at 10 or 11% that's the their expectation of how claims are going to rise over the next 12 month period so 5.9 is good in the general scheme of things from a comparable standpoint and with a
07895% loss ratio it's also good but again that's their loss ratio calculation all right uh we also negotiated the long-term disability program with NIS to be a no rate increase or another year of pass um and that will be for a 12-month period 71 of 2024 to 71 of 2025 I will uh point to an exhibit in a couple minutes we did take the long-term disability insurance out to Market either carriers uh declined to quote or did not match the benefits or would not match the benefits as far as your % benefit level and a couple carriers did show US savings but that would drastically be changing the benefits to either 60% or 66 and two3 all right so we also looked at well uh what would we save if anything if we changed n
079asked from 90% to 60% or 66 and 23 and the Savings in the general scheme of things was pretty minute as far as why disrupt a good benefit like you have today with the staff especially since we probably are are planning to save or excuse me change service providers and other areas in the coming six months so any questions on that and this is the spreadsheet which I believe you all have showing the alternative programs with NIS and also the quotes from four carriers that did submit a proposal so again my recommendation was to keep it where it is um and not dis disrupt the the benefit with the staff any questions on that okay then we'll go into uh the main part of this evening and that's the Self Insurance Workshop or exploration and
080what we' have done is we did a detailed analysis of the claims and premiums you paid over the last three years and from that we were able to calculate a visualization of what it would have meant in the last three years if you would have been self-funded versus fully insured like you were we're going to talk a little bit how we can capitalize from a fiscal standpoint on being self-funded uh I'll do mention a couple of other groups here size that are local school districts that are self-funded have been self-funded for years and also talk about what responsibilities if any would change for the school district but really nothing and just to put this in perspective um today you're really not fully insured because you have your HRA or health reimbursement account benefits so you're
081buying a high deductible or a higher deductible from quarts you're putting in the middle a health reimbursement account benefits so the staff sees actually a deductible that's about half of what you're buying so that on the spectrum that would put you right in the middle at a carrier partially self-funded program and so really what we're talking about is the next step and that is going um partially self-funded with a third party administrator but actually when it's when I say partially self-funded it's because we would buy reinsurance to protect the school district self-funded plan against catastrophic claims so and and way at the end where it says totally self-funded those are very large employers that are self-funded but don't buy any reinsurance don't have any catastrophic coverage whatsoever they just assume the risk for any and
082all claims that come in so the savings I'm going to show you in a minute this is where it comes from so on the leftand side this is you today as far as the financial makeup of your plan you've got your medical claims you've got your Pharmacy benefits bundled with courts you have administrative fees and you have pooling point charges pooling point charges are really what reinsurance is in the self-funded world that means that at a certain level if a claim is say $200,000 some of that claim would not be counted against you or calculated in your renewal rates so think of a pooling charge as the same thing as buying reinsurance except you're paying for it inside your fully insured plan and then you have risk margins that's the carriers profit even if they
083are non for-profit and then you have ACA premium taxes that they have to pay on your behalf to the federal government accountable care act Healthcare reform taxes when you go self funded and we move to the right we can unbundle your PBM and not have it be um In Cahoots per se with the insurance carrier as far as making money that way not being transparent and how they're making that money Etc so we get to pick the best PBM out there for you besides a medical plan administrator you would have your administrative fees which would basically be the same as your administrative fees today from a cost standpoint and then we would also shop the marketplace for your stop loss so we wouldn't have the TPA tell us who the stop loss carrier is going
084to be or quote that stop loss we would Market that and also have that be a free freestanding entity connected to your self-funded plan and you can see then you have a rather large margin from a prediction standpoint or objective standpoint compared to being fully insured and that margin is where we would save the money can you explain the difference between the pharmacy bundling um on the fully insured versus the unbundled what does that mean for our um staff who doesn't mean anything for your staff it it means it's an impact to your to your fiscal well-being so today for example courts partners with optim as your prescription benefit manager and optim is giving 100% of rebates back to courts and courts is keeping those got it all right so that's why when we unbundle
085that relationship and there's other ways they're making money in regard to drugs too as far as spread pricing and that's a whole Workshop in and of itself if you ever want to learn about that but that's why the unbundled solution is smaller than the bundled solution because what we'll end up doing is negotiating a contract with a PBM where the school district gets 100% of those rebates back which right now is probably between 650 and $700,000 so are there a lot of choices of those out there the unbundled okay and then would they and they work with our locales if people want that it doesn't have to be like like a by mail kind of a system or anything okay no you you'll see um again assuming we do go down the path to self
086funding you will see no difference in your network as far ases that you have today and most likely you will see an expanded medical plan Network okay thank you so Mike asked me to make this purposely small big numbers make them smaller right um I'll cut to the chase though if you go to the far right and that middle grid over a three-year period what that is saying based on our analysis the school district had they been self-funded would have saved over $2.8 million and that 2.8 million of savings would not come out would not have come out of any staff's pocket that was that's not a assuming any benefit changes any change in contributions Etc the only thing that assumes is being self-funded versus fully insured or setting up an alternative funding arrangement with
087your plan with the objective being to secure a sustainable uh from a fiscal standpoint a sustainable budget to continue offering a high value high quality benefit plan with again the savings not coming from benefit changes contribution changes the savings coming from what courts is keeping today and getting that money back for you so self-funding in and of itself does not cause a change in benefits and does not disrupt anything except for a few minor minor areas um from the standpoint that you would have different service providers than you have today and that does cause some changes or differences up and down is there um and this might me be a question for you Mr gerlock but how do we knowing that um a lot of our employees do go to our local um have we
088looked to see if they accept or would accept um if we go down the PRI uh go down this road so for examp example um SSM Aurora um I also think about we have our founding cares program um another mental health providers that are in our uh that come to our schools and we worked hard to ensure that they had courts so that our teachers could access that so then how to um that's maybe it's now maybe it's later on but um we set that up really specifically to ensure that our our um staff would be able to access that and so just is there a way we can look ahead of time or ensure that we set things up ahead of time so that there'll be continuous services for children that are accessing that
089so um since this is your first time changing the funding of your health plan we're going to keep it somewhat simple and not get too crazy with how we set it up and so there's a good chance after we're all done with the RFP and the quoting process and financial analysis you'll probably wind up with either United Healthcare as your TPA or Anthem Blue Cross and Blue Shield as your TPA and again like I said earlier you'll probably have a broader Network than you have today it includes SSM includes Aurora um includes freighter children's beautiful uh pra if you go north includes Bell includes Gunderson great so thank you kind of Piggyback in on what Katie was asking then would we still have an employee Clinic where they could go to yep okay y yeah
090again there's no there's nothing about going self funding that's going to change or take away any benefits in and of itself from the staff okay and I think you know being self-funded and being more in charge of your own destiny per se with proper guidance from firms like ours um it'll even be that clinic will be even more important to have from a Health Management cost management standpoint okay thank you any other questions on the financials so again today being fully insured you're bundled so everything is coming from one entity one way or another and when we talk about unbundling when you're self-funded and the proper alignment of different areas of the self-funded program you can save money from prescription drug coverage placement stop loss coverage or the reinsurance and also the claims Administration so
091you're not going to take on any um significant risks you'll be Prof properly M that'll be properly mitigated with the reinsurance um but you'll know that you have something more competitive than what's built into your premium today for those pooling charges and also um you're going to reap considerable monies from having a different prescription drug setup than you have today without disrupting their Network without disrupting the benefit plan and Dr flag you should have told me to come back at 6:30 instead of 6 want to make sure we're early all right you never know apologize for that Mr schrider if I may uh for the board tactically this is just a this is a workshop tonight this is a a chance for you to have this presented the fin both members of the finance committee
092have been um working through this for a number of months already this analysis and so uh really what we're looking to do with the you may recall last year we moved our Dental the district Dental employee benefit plan to a self-funded model with Delta Dental our former fully insured carrier partner who we pay bills really being the third party administrator for it so I think it's an example of what Jay has mentioned is we're going to have that chance to pick that Network so to speak now we don't at the granular level Mrs motor say that provider's in that provider's out and that's once in a while we'll get that feedback like well don't you just pick each individual provider no we're talking systems level okay so we can work through that process but I
093think that's an important consideration that you need to understand you have some flexibility and we'll have like Jay mentioned probably opportunity to really maybe access maybe perhaps networks we don't necessarily have right now when we move to the HMO but that's not a guarantee so what we're presenting tonight is is really a six-month renewal uh with our current fully model you may know our Health Plan Renewal runs from July 1st to June 30th we will be presenting at the next meeting uh a renewal with our fly insured model of Courts from July 1st to December 31st with the idea that we are going to be working through this process that Jay described on sell funding uh in terms of the network and plan design uh for members so this is not effective for July 1st
094I want to put that out there so that there isn't any misunderstanding uh that we're really presenting a six-month renewal of the current health plan at a 5.99% employee premium in or at overall premium increase and so um and and that's what's going to be presented and the board would have to take action on and the only thing at that time that's the only action item or commitment you would be asked to make at the next uh ensuing board meeting I want to kind of be clear about that but intentionally we do believe it's it's important to to move the direction of self funding that's not you're not acting on that at the moment um but at the same time uh we do believe it's a more F fiscally sustainable model and as the board
095I know you've been you're grappling with with budgets and this is part of that process you can see the dollar spend that the district has and could have possibly saved that could have uh been provided budget relief over the past several years we just believe it's really fiscally important and prudent to to really do this thorough analysis this is why we're presenting this tonight it's to preserve a really high quality benefit with the goal of fiscal sustainability which in improving outcomes you know of Health outcomes for our members so uh I just kind of wanted to reiterate that point of what we're putting forward and I'd entertain any questions on what I've presented to you at this point with that go ahead Mrs just something coming to so the premiums now when you figured the
096savings that was like with the employees saying paying the same premiums that they were paying to courts then they would same contributions correct and they would have paid that to us and that's how we would have come out okay um so if we like courtz is a major company or whatever they can take a little bit of a fiscal hit if you know inflation is huge or whatever it may not trickle down to us as I know they do still try to hit you with that but um are we going to have trouble if we have um lots of costs as a district are we going to have to pass that directly on to our employees as premium increases that in the year the upcoming years unfortunately I don't have a crystal ball right um
097so all I can say is we'll set your plan up as much as possible to succeed uh but then also do things whether it's employee education communication um other types of benefits that we don't have access to today because we're insured records um to and benefits that are actually a win-win with the staff and I'll give you an example in a second um in order to mitigate that from happening but at least you have at least you have control that you don't have today yeah so that was my second question was if we do come out ahead and employees are really engaged and really doing great things and not we don't we end up with fewer claims than we expected and such and so can we return some of that back to the employees then
098if we have a good yeares decide to do okay but you always want to keep when you're self-funded one thing you don't do today so from a financial standpoint or fiscal standpoint one thing that will change you have to maintain a reserve on your balance sheet okay kind of like our general fund reserve on your balance sheet is just in case someday your plan goes away and you pay claims that were incurred but not yet processed so you do have to maintain that Reserve now normally in a perfect world that Reserve is established the first three months you're self-funded okay because your plan isn't paying hardly any claims yet oh yeah okay because claims are there's a leg mons a right okay right that makes sense thank you but then other than that Reserve excess
099funds or coming in under budget you guys can decide what's the best thing to do from a fiscal standpoint I I do want to piggyback on what you just said though Linda is yeah uh it it's now more important that our employees or as we go into this that our employees get more engaged than what they have been because now we own the results if we have a really good year now you know maybe carts would say would give you a 3% increase or Z Z you know and and they made a bunch of money on us now in the future if we own this I always say fully insured like renting Insurance self funded like owning it we own it now so if we have really good years now that is a discussion versus
100courts just packing or a carrier P it so I encourage the employees as we start having meetings you know we're not going into this model yet but we are going to have open enrollment in May we're going to have educational I think last year we had what five people show up there's been minimal attendance it was five was it was it recorded so people was it not recorded oh could could we record it so people could watch it later if they chose to well and I'll address that uh Mr henchel is absolutely right um we will you know it's driven by claims the costs are D driven by claims among primarily some of those and really what we're trying to do is get into a a a more SU aable fiscal model with our health
101insurance and we wouldn't do that if we didn't believe there was an opportunity to get into that uh I I know it's no secret uh in the state of Wisconsin that districts are struggling uh financially you just have to take any news story of districts having to consider you know whether it's referendums or expense reductions this is our second largest budget item and we are it it deserves serious consideration but it's a very impactful budget item taken very seriously so we as you recall we've St tried for stability uh a number four years ago when we made the switch from a really wide Network to an HMO model that was to put us on a more sustainable track and it did do that we need to do it again is where we're at and we
102wouldn't do that if we didn't think we could have an opportunity to provide fiscal stability so to at the heart of the matter is we want our members to be healthier and more engaged like Mr Hena said and so to have that is to try to continue to provide a high quality benefit and not you know to be straightforward Linda I would not probably recommend a savings in one year simply be turned over uh to to to other budgetary areas but to try to provide stability on the health plan in the form I have colleagues in other districts that say you know what I haven't had to raise my employee premiums my monthly premiums on the district for years because our self-funded plan has trended positively right now we members will still realize an employee
103premium share less money um in their net paycheck because of the increases so that would be our our recommendation to provide a try to get to a stable increase in a high inflationary market and so that's really the reason we're exploring this um but it's going to take member engagement and we're going to have other strategies that go forward into that uh so it's and it's it's I I look at it's a true partnership between membership and administration it doesn't it's not successful unless we do it together we all kind of control it together we do we're we're in it together you know where if you got an insurance carrier they hold a lot of the pull the strings where now we you know because I always said to members wow if I go here
104you know versus there does it really impact and going forward yeah it really does impact because those dollars are the school's dollars now not the insurance carriers dollars you know so we really want to educate we're going to invest in education you know uh for employees on how to purchase Healthcare you know maybe a little bit more wiser than before you know what are the options a lot of people didn't know I didn't know that was an option you know that I can access it that way so we're we're going to we want because we want to be able to offer a really good Benefit Plan going forward so we can attract and retain employees I mean that's critical I we're all fighting for employees right you know in our Healthcare or in uh education
105so it's important to maintain it good yeah so to that end and I said I'd give you an example so about things we can do that we can't do today with courts because of our limited flexibility with them so if I was to ask you what's the one what's the number one maybe two or three but it's always in the top three health care cost an employer or claims cost an employer has their plan what would you guess cancer nope babies nope mental health nope Falls huh Falls like white boat you're getting you're getting warm yeah well I remember that like injury I so mus so muscular skeletal care that's what I said most you just you use the accurate that spells false so believe it or not muscular skeletal care for most employers is
106their number one healthare expense as far as total claims goes and so what's really popular now we've done it for a lot of employers employees love it we've put in Virtual muscular skelet or virtual PT programs we are actually and and everyone right now with sword yeah sword's a carrier we use hinge Health what do you think about it good it's great it's cool isn't it yeah because technology today is unbelievable you're at you're at home you're at work with time off you get your uh physical therapy in it's hard to see a physical therapist it's 100% benefit for the employees right get get it sent right to you yep and you avoid you avoid Poss you you know 30% of the time you'll avoid having surgery that way so so that's the kind of
107stuff we can do and it's it's a win-win it's a value added benefit because it benefits the employees and it benefits you it's all done so you learn the exercises online or something or so let's say what are you getting done your rotor cuff knee rotator cuff rotator cuff so they sent him a kit for that particular type of therapy yep and that kit has sensors okay yep and so either on your phone or on a laptop when you have a self-appointment you're going through that and doing that and the AI the artificial intelligence read what you're doing and tell you're good or not good okay interesting I'm monitoring everything so you better be doing it right it's not but he volunteers it okay I've been through a lot of I mean you probably got
108a iPad was sord too didn't you nice okay interesting I have one more question until I think of another one um did we still able to do cash in L with this system or would we so right now uh what you're mentioning Mrs yelman is the alternative benefit for members that elect not to enroll in the district health insurance plan they receive a m a benefit in move of taking that we are currently proposing maintaining that um it's not a I know there's been in the past that we've coupled that conversation together with this right now uh presented before you tonight and at the next board meeting is going to be uh as I mentioned before a six-month renewal reflecting a 5.9% premium increase with our current fully insured carrier of quartz uh and we're
109we're workshopping telling you the intention for that six-month renewal because in the past we would have presented a 12-month renewal and we're not doing that tonight so right now we're not bringing forward a change to the maintenance of insurance benefit and if we so if we adopt the six month there's no going back can we if we decide that Self insurance is not the way to go can we grab courts again in January and move along with that or no yeah we have a 4.5% rate cap for January 1 as a safety n okay all right that's what that okay that's what that extra lineman thank you I want to be clear I and I agree with you we cannot predict the future that way but um we would not be bringing this forward to
110you and the committee would not have grappled with this for a number of months if we didn't think this was the right step forward all right and I I I if there are members or people that are concerned um we it's in coming on us we will be working on that education part of it um and and if they have a specific concern they can always direct that to me and I will do my best to respond to their their question or concern the intention Mrs yman is not to not do this and that's why we're talking about it now here uh at the end of March for you so um but we we we understand that there could be questions and and concerns about it and we just we want to provide the resources
111that USI can have at availability we can have members connected with them as an agency um and we can we can work through any questions they have but back to probably Mr hench's point I I do believe members actually attending our open enrollment meetings and asking questions or making or getting questions that we can do a frequently asked questions that we can help build that that's the level engagement a lot of times what I've found is many members have the same question and it's just it's an easy question to answer and and we just it's the fear of the unknown that holds them back and and and we want to assuage them of that so so Mr gerlock are you is this something that we could do then because I know questions are coming in
112already and I know we have some um employees here and so could we is that is it could we almost start a Q&A already with some of the questions that we've already asked because um there seems like there might be some angst and if we can take care of that right away certainly I I think that's completely appropriate uh and that's part of the feedback we were looking to get tonight uh absolutely we can be working on that as Administration and I I just want to uh just so help help with that this is a true different approach on how we fund Healthcare we're not changing benefits right you know and the nice thing is with this we have more control on that versus you know you switch from one carry to another oh we
113don't have that benefit available or that co- pay available or that deductible available you have to switch it now you got to go to this or you got to go to that as a self-funded model we we can get to control that now as a organization which is nice because then we can work with the employees and with the members to maintain a good benefit so most members are going to how is it affecting me how's it affecting my pocketbook and things like that um our intentions is not to change benefits and so I think we have to have that in writing if these are questions we're asking that we know the answer to I know there's going to be a lot of questions we don't know the answers to but for example um some
114of the answers that you shared already tonight I know will make some of our employees feel better so if we can even put that in like I said just a Q&A and then I had a question Mr Scott you had said um and maybe this was coming at a different meeting but that there were other districts um that participate so just if we look um shaben school district manit school district they've probably been self-funded for over 20 years okay ashkash why we a free m as small as they are but again I think this is good for our employees to hear that their neighbors are participating in something like this um Le B I think is s funded if I if I may point out and I know a lot happens in one year you
115may recall you you grappled with a decision last year on the benefits renewal even with a rate cap that was fiscally not viable for the district because of the budget situation I just I it's my job to remind us all that and put that toward this is this is part of that motivation uh of having to address this large issue and you doubled the deduc last year uh you voted to not not in a negative way but because that was the type of decision you wrestled with and and had to go you know we don't have a lot of options when it comes to that fiscally in a fully insured model besides putting to you what you had to act on last year which is well if I want to lower my increase and save
116or reduce expenses I have I have to change plan design there's just very few levers to pull I've used that analogy in the past and we want more of those at our dis osal um I can't guarantee that there isn't change to that uh but I want you to understand that's the motivation here is really to get the District Health Plan in a pointed in a more fiscally sustainable direction to preserve it you know on the two key words as you talk about any of these programs is education and engagement L and simple because any questions that are out there can be answered or we'll find the answer for it and that and that's what it is for one we all have to be willing to engage in those conversations um and I know what
117we do for the company that I work for in those conversations and how long of a process that is and I know the education that goes behind it um we're no longer at a point where you can just drop something in and expect it to be okay you know and I think we've done that for a long long time as it's okay especially when it comes to benefits it's it's all right I have benefits you know what I mean and and and you kind of put that to the side so I think for any of this work to work from any standpoint those two words are huge is education and engagement we can do and and the district can do all their part in terms of educating and getting all the information Mr Scott Mr
118gerlock the finance committee um you know and it's engaging with people it it really is so um I'm yep I'm excited about to to learn more about this and how this can help all of our people in the district itself I do want to say one more thing just to piggy back or follow up to some stuff that Michael said um we could do this July 1 because nobody's asked the question yet why we're not doing it July 1 but what we're really doing was we're fixing something that's been broke here for a long time what you're gonna here I retracked mine go ahead so when you when you so your your renewal has been July 1st to July 1st your benefits have been January 1st to January 1 so every time you had to
119make a benefit change you're damaging a staff member right because they could have satisfied their deductible already and now they got to start all over again Midstream so the reason why we're not looking at self funding J July 1 is because we also want to change your r rual date your budgetary date let's call it to match your benefit period so that so that kind of stuff goes away so that's really a we doing the timing is really to benefit your staff instead of you know the way we're doing and and it gives and the other thing if we did it July 1 we'd have a mess because people would have so much satisfied to the deductible toward their autop pocket we'd be dealing with those accumulation situations trying to get all that data into
120a new admin Ator so claims are processed properly and then you would see some complaint chaos well and and I would add uh J of that is we also want to take the time to educate the employees you know going into that new year and helping them understand you know more about their health insurance and more about healthare and we feel it's important to take those extra six months to spend that time to educate too in addition to all that other things that he said and I can share I you know um prior to my current position I was part of the insurance and have moved to um the place where I work not right now is has is on um we do have our own our I'm sorry thank you self-funded and and as
121um an employee who switched companies I didn't feel any difference between the two being um the district taking care of it and self-funded so any other questions thoughts Mr Scott Mr gerlock just want do we you need any additional staff to help make us happen well uh you know I I do believe we have a very lean business office staff um and we've had transitions in that um I would always ask for probably some more staff because you know it's my responsibility to be responsible for1 million operation I think when you compare the two uh I would say we could use more staff there if I'm really being honest now we have great Partners um that that say maybe I I don't think it's going to be as bad as it is but uh and
122you but I do I do want to put out that I we may have to address that um now we're not actively got a job posting looking for that um but this is a serious operation and the education component is something we've grappled with for a long time as well to engage members and there are different districts you go to the WB uh conventions and you hear how they address Employee Engagement when it comes to employee health I mean there's just a certain amount of time that organizations have to commit to this and our staff is lean and I'm not trying to complain about that but it's difficult to ask them to do that deep level of Education with employees and this is our most important ass asset and so I uh I would say
123I would I could Envision a space if we were really an Exemplar model and a self-funded model where we have Staffing dedicated to this to really make it effective because members have a ton of questions and and they need a lot of support as they should so that's a long way to say Mrs Usman is yeah I probably okay well but but I I want to make it clear it's not just because we're going to this type of funding it's truly because he's already a short staff and if we're going to own this as a district it's our money now it might be worth the investment where if we did it for quarts all we're doing is helping them we're not helping ourselves you know in that sense pardon me I'll give you an example
124um we talk a lot about employee wellness and employee engagement and It ultimately comes down to individual member decision and when we talk to members most of them say you know I just either don't know where to start how to get started I need a helping hand what do I do I need some of that education and that is best done best done in the on toone building that relationship we've talked about uh for example popular now and highly effective mental health Navigators helping people navigate something that's really personal very difficult there are programs in schools that have health Navigators highly successful ones to help people navigate that now we have some of that for support through our fully insured model but it's not like having that person that's here and so I agree with
125you mral it's not just because we would be approaching self-funding we probably could have used that for a long time uh and so I think if we are truly committed to getting better that might be something we're going to bring forward uh but it's not at this moment I want to put it out there because I do see it as a need and I think I think we could really improve and move the needle with that so great question you something before is it appropriate at all to let the back of the room shout questions if they have them Shout anything you want to know I'm Wonder biometric and Survey that would s around I know there's direct answer that now uh well I'll repeat the question for uh because we have the microphones and
126I don't know from the the audience uh the question was regarding the current District Health Plan um for members at elect to take the district health insurance only uh they the subscribing employee and their adult uh spouse not adult children uh we incentivize uh we have a benefit program that incentivizes them to earn a reduced premium share of 133% instead of 25% uh by doing two components in a calendar year which is taking an online health risk assessment uh as a way to gauge uh Group Health and practices and then a strategy several years ago at least two years ago that we moved to uh is engaging with getting once in a calendar year a visit with a primary care provider uh and the rationale as before is at USI and their their Benchmark group
127said if you engage with a primary care provider having that conversation about preventative care preventative age gender appropriate screenings statistically you avoid long-term high cost claimants early diagnosis of of cancer early change of metabolic risk syndromes diabetes heart disease diet and lifestyle uh before the district did short brief onsite biometric screens which are great but they only measured a very small amount of biometric factors there's so much more to a person's individual health that you can talk to with a primary care provider uh frankly we felt that that was a good investment and and I and I can't prove this out Jay but I've seen our our our experience rates in the 90% when they were in the 120% with our other carriers I have to believe some of those efforts have some positivity of
128avoiding a single two three four high cost claimants so it's a long way to say I'm real passionate about this uh mostly because I I've seen and heard a number of anecdotal stories of man I'm so glad you had me go to that primary care provider because I caught this I screened this I don't look for this people stop in my office and tell me these things and it's it's really it's really compelling not only on the data side so yes uh to to to the question we would propose keeping that for those reasons uh particularly the the visit to the primary care provider engaging with them I I don't see I don't and we would certainly consult it's not up to me as the individual but we don't see it right now as a
129huge upside of moving away from that that model getting primary care we want to expand primary care and enhance use at our employee Clinic because we want members getting Health Care uh Access to Health Care in a positive way sooner rather than later not avoiding medical conditions um so that's a long way to say yes we'd keep that program so one of the barriers uh could be uh or may have been in our area it was impossible to find a new provider if you needed a a new uh practitioner or family provider um but um now that Freight 's opened as well as Aurora as well as SSM um I know that there are more um opportunities which I think is nice as well as we do have our clinic so um I think that's
130expanded from where we would have been a year ago but I mean two with technology possibilities with virtual medicine are crazy because now we're starting to see being able to have a virtu so never see them in person but have your exams virtually have they'll order the blood work send to a local it back to him or her behavioral health behavioral health is such an access problem today I can tell you from experience there doesn't seem to be an access problem with tele behavioral he you can usually get to see a health psychiatrist psychologist or MSW within 48 to 72 hours and we can't put programs like that in place either of course they don't want us to do of employes helpage out has heard me say this over and over and over about educ
131and so I need question the FDA able to help collaborate how we canuc our employes that we've just had ideas here or at least not the FBA just some staff members be able to help collaborate yeah well I'll repeat the question again with the microphone situation a question is is regarding you know how to improve in collaboration with our our employee groups uh and it's noted the district had had has had uh had a committee and um and we we're committed to doing that collaboration is really the point uh uh and certainly uh uh we're open to I'm I'm as as the administrator leading it I'm open to to collaborating with that and I do think there's a space for a level of collaboration um and and and so I think that's going to be
132important especially when it comes to the communication um it's probably not just enough to you know email this out or say hey watch this quick video um this just back to I guess my other point is that personal connection is is is really important and this is a complicated topic uh that people have a lot of emotion and anxiety attached to and so I think it's important that we I I welcome that kind of feedback so I will be connecting with our employee groups the leadership uh to to try to build that and it's not just one person um we do need to find out ways that what is really the best way to reach members from now so one thing I suggest to that end instead of calling it a wellness committee or a
133benefits committee call it an engagement and Communications committee yeah you I like that because you know those other committees get stale really really fast to tell you but education and communication is endless and and I I wanted to add a couple things to that number one is once we go self-funded we'll have more data to more transparency we'll understand what's going on I sat in that Wellness committee for a year it it was stale I mean there was not you know they do some competitions but there' be like 10 15 people participating in them there weren't it wasn't truly engagement you know in that but the people that were there were highly engaged that was the best part if I'm like if I can take you 30 and have 500 of you that'd be awesome
134they were Champions some of them were great as far as champions in their buildings but they just weren't getting the engagement um but being able to have that data I love that retitling uh Jay on on how to engagement because yeah you didn't copyright it all right but I I really think that that collaboration is would be big it would be helpful absolutely you know and I'll Echo what Mr gerlock said about Staffing and investment to do that it is a painstaking process to get that message out and it and it needs you know it it it needs people to be able to answer those questions it needs people to be able to um to talk to it that that know even indepth about it you know and and Mrs balwins what you said about
135that collaboration that is important you know and and and that's kind of what you know the business that that I'm in when we look at these health care benefits things each each single location has its own meetings for their staff it's not just rolled out as a company it's it's done at a storeby store basis um where they have the opportunity to go in and do that but that takes Manpower that takes time that takes everything so so the education part and the engagement part is is very important to to get this right and to get us set up where we need to go you know what I mean and and I just think that's vital and you have one advantage that a lot of employers don't have all of your staff have email addresses
136that I I know there's probably some people that still don't read their emails but I would say your staff is more apt to read their emails than a production worker at Mercury Marine you know because manufacturers do give their employees work emails but they never read them they don't they don't use them so any other questions or thoughts from Mr Scott or Mr gerlock I hope not it's almost 11:30 that's am thank you thank you Mr thank you Jay thank you for your patience Mr gerock thank you very much you yeah it is motion I move the Board of Education during the workshop second we have a motion by Mr henchel seconded by Mr Godfrey can we call the role please uh Godfree yes henel yes yes motor yes Pau yes yelman yes shrider yes
137we are adjourned at 72 thank you for your time and efforts this evening [Music]