WSD Board Meeting, Regular Feburary 23, 2026

001I'm going to call our meeting to order. I call the February 23rd, 2026 school board meeting to order at 602 p.m. We are in conference room C of the Fiser Administration Building at 12121 West North Avenue. Miss Summers, please call the role. >> Miss Bzinski, >> here. Mr. Bower, >> here. >> Miss Faul here. Mr. Morris >> excused. >> Miss Himer Rand >> here. >> Dr. Relief >> here. >> Mr. Wier >> here. >> Thank you. Um we're going to go first to uh one of the things we one of the uh opportunities we enjoy most which is to be able to uh share some recognitions. Tonight is arts night. Uh did you want to say anything Dr. means before we >> I think a sign of a strong comprehensive academic program is that uh

002is when the school system can offer a number of different outlets for students and tonight uh we're going to elevate and and celebrate our our our artists, our students who are really thriving in that area. We really appreciate the beauty that you're bringing to our school system. It is a um the the form of art is as old as our our civilization. And so your ability to continue to do it is something that we're proud of. I'm also very proud of the fact that we we offer so many different options, Dr. Worley, for young people to explore their talents within our our course offering. So I want to thank our our teachers. um without them, our students wouldn't thrive and grow and and have their boundaries um stretched and expanded. So, uh a great deal

003of credit belongs to not only our students, but clearly our our our teachers. They they do a wonderful job dayto day. >> Excellent. Thank you all for being here. We're going to start with Tossa East and Miss Himer and has kindly agreed to um read out about the Tossa East art and arts awards. >> Thank you, Dr. Lorley. My daughter is a senior at TOSA East this year. So, I know many of these young people and I've seen many of them through elementary school and all of the amazingness that they have um sort of done throughout their time with us in our district. And so I am very excited to read these names. Um and very I would like to um follow up and say thank you to all the um staff who work with

004these students um many hours past what they are doing in the in just the classroom time that they have together. So for the first award we're going to um and I'll ask that everybody just kind of holds their applause until the end. Um but please students feel free to stand up so that we can all see um and recognize the wonderful work um that you have done. So for um honorable mention we have Isabelle Bay who had five awards in this category, Nina Dallas, Sophie Ericson, Joy Farnsworth, Claire Gford, Alex Hoverman, Lee Lawson, Morgan Macy, Theo Martin, Priscilla Monroe Skyberg Greer who had two awards in this category. Elise Ost who also had two awards in this category, Amelia Foust, Anna Riker uh who had two awards in this category. Emmy Jackson, Carmen Valier Ares

005>> be here today. >> Okay. Well, thank you for being here um and representing for her. >> Yes. Thank you so much. >> Paris. >> Yes. Um who had three awards in this category including her portfolio? Lily Olan also for her portfolio and Paige Sergeant for her portfolio. So if we could all give them a round of applause. The next award that was given is are the silver keys. We had 16 awards um from 13 students. We have Isabelle Bay who had two awards in this category including her portfolio. Also a Mi Mosski family cash award winner for her embroider embroidered portrait. Sorry, I just woke up. Satie Wesky, Sophie Ericson, Joy Farnsworth, Lilia Lucente, Sophia Cocha, Lula Coler, Emma Cole Meer, Lisa Leash, Brooke Macy, Morgan Macy, Cortu, Carpet, Can you say your name

006so I don't last name? Okay. Um, and then Isaac Brooklyn, who was also um a Mazaki family cash award winner for his portraits, Kids These Days. And then for gold keys, we had 10 awards from 10 students. Isabelle Bay, who is also a Peter and Deborah Johnson donor cash award winner for her painting an angel is Near. Alex Hoverman also a Sycamore award winner offered by donors Sue and Ray Kemp for their piece measuring pants. Owen O'Neal, Sophia Conl, Kora Anderson, Sophia Ericson, who had two awards in this category, including her portfolio, Priscilla Monroe Skyberg Green, Anna Riker, Peter Schultz, and Sophie Ericson. So again, congratulations to these young people from Watossi East. I did want to remind the community that these pieces are um available for all to see at the Milwaukee Art Museum.

007Uh currently, >> thank you, Miss Hammer, and congratulations to all of you. Um I'll just talk a little bit about the the Watso West awards. um uh also for the Alliance for Young Artists and Writers um and in the honorable mention category. Um and so our principles sometimes give things a little differently. So, um if anyone wants to see it, we have some >> images on this one and I'll pass that around to board members as well. Um LOL and we'll do the same thing. Please stand up if you hear your name and we'll hold applause for the end. An honorable mentions lol is Froot Loops was an honorable mention um an illustration that was made in arts foundation and it is three um images of of beautiful birds that look like they're in the

008rainforest. Um, and many of you may have eaten Froot Loops, so you can kind of imagine perhaps. Um, Mary Phillips, thank you. Uh, bananas and strawberries, honorable mention. It was a painting also made an art foundation. Evelyn Canavan, thank you for being here. Um, you had it looks like two pieces. One of them was called Leaving Home. Um, honorable mention or maybe it was a combination. Were they the same? They're part of Okay. Are they the same thing? It's called Leaving Home and you had an honorable mention in the comic art category. Uh, so those are our honorable mentions from Wata West. >> Congratulations. We'll talk about silver keys. Um, and as mentioned, these are also on display at the Milwaukee Museum um until March 15th. Bella Gaglaniano, you here. Um, everyone is watching a

009silver key in ceramics and that was made in ceramics one class. Alexandria Green uh had a figure drawing study is the title of their piece. It had a silver key and it was a drawing made in a drawing class. And then Evan Blazerstein. Uh it's called it's a photograph. It's called In the Spotlight and it was a silver key award in the photography category and it was made in AP digital media class. Jack Sherry and Jack Sherry um had a drawing that was titled My Sister is a beautiful mermaid. It award it was awarded with a silver key in the drawing category and it was made in art foundations. Let's go ahead and give a round of applause for our silver keys even though they picked me. And then the gold key which um recognizes

010uh the state level award as one of some of the strongest um art uh works in Wisconsin also on display and their work will go to compete in New York in a national competition. We have um Sarah Thompson here. It's her piece is called their piece is called Evidence of Life. Uh, it received a gold key in drawing. Alexandria Green, their piece is called Gone Fishing. It received a gold key and it's a sculpture and it was made in art medals and fibers. So, those are two gold keys from Motos West. If you could give them give them a round of applause. Thank you. We also have one other um mention from Wawaossa West and that is um Jorel Peterson uh who um goes to Watosa West and had the 2025 Congressional App Challenge. You

011may have read about that on our Facebook media um created an app that um was very award-winning. So, let's give a round of applause for Doral as well. We also have on our list um academic allstate team for football and straight A's with four AP classes, Aaron Craft from Maossa East. >> Congratulations. We all want to know how you get that done and still get sleep. >> I I just I would just conclude this portion of our agenda by saying there's so many good things for us to celebrate and uh I just want to thank the families and our students and the teachers who work with them every day and coaches who work with our young people every day. There are so many good things happening in Waltosa that should be brought up. So, thank

012you for carving up this time to celebrate our students. >> Absolutely. Thank you all for being here and again encouragement to stop by the art museum um and go see our students work on display. Now, we always say we know you have homework. So, please don't feel like you need to stay for the rest of the meeting. Though, of course, you are welcome. It is a public meeting or >> AP classes all Everything Dr. Beans will go ahead and turn the microphone over to you for the superintendent's update. Yes, ma'am. I may need some technical assistance here. >> While he's doing the technical assistance, I just it is amazing to see in a district where the the staff really just continue to encourage students to take the chances to put their stuff out there like

013>> it. Absolutely. >> Yeah. Just that acknowledgement they they go beyond their workday to make sure that those things happen. That's really >> Thank you. That's a great point. So many times it's the um there's a lot of extra effort that goes into moving students um student work into forums where they can be appreciated and and noted. Thank you, Mr. Bzinski, for talking about that. Oops. Well, again, good evening everyone and what what a nice way to start our our meeting with uh celebrating our students. Tonight you're going to hear about where we stand with our most recently approved by the board strategic plan. Um it's really important for the community to know that my number one priority and my role is to make sure that our strategic outcomes that you'll hear about this evening

014are being met. um that we are achieving what we've set out to to do um from a strategic plan perspective. The board stamped the strategic plan in August and the vision and mission statement around the the strategic plan is really important. It drives what we do. It it serves as a reminder of who we want to be and who we strive to become. And so it's really important to make sure that we are identifying um the implementation of the strategic plan with vigilance that we are monitoring our our progress through clear outcomes and we'll talk about those outcomes a little later this evening that we make course corrections when the data tells us we're off track. Um and with any enterprise where you're educating young people, you're not going to always hit your marks right

015away. It's important for us to to learn from the data and to make course corrections to ensure that the initiatives that we do ask our staff to take on are aligned with our stated priorities. We don't want to have initiative overload. We want to make sure that staff have the space to tell us what's too much um and and create environ create an environment where if there are too many initiatives happening that we can really hone in on what's most important. And then to finally resist distractions that dilute our focus. We can't get caught off guard. We can't lose our focus. We can't make sure that the the noise and the different distractions take us off of our strategic plan. It's really important that we stay focused. So, our strategic plan really identifies not only

016for um each student in each classroom, but ultimately for our community, which the board set out to do in August, it it clarifies what we have said, what success looks like, how we measure it, who should be responsible for it, and what actions will move our needle. It's really important again as a community that we really hone in on making sure that we stay focused on our strategic plan and and hone in on that clarity as much as possible. Often we talk about equity work in the Waltosa school district. Just a few weeks ago we had uh a nationally renowned author come in and talk to us about the importance of being an equity focused school system. Equity work is grounded, I believe, in being strategically focused. Making sure that resources are allocated based on

017student need, not just equally distributed to every school. Making sure that systems are evaluated for access and opportunity gaps, and that every student is afforded u the the benefit of having high expectations and high quality instruction. every student um regardless of their zip code, regardless of who they are, um what they bring to our schools every day. That's equity work. And you will see that that's embodied in the strategic plan that this board has adopted. And so ultimately, the work of our strategic plan moves from this boardroom where you approve the strategic plan down to every classroom. the quality of instruction that students receive, the supports that our struggling students um receive, the enrichment that we offer to our advanced students, and the culture and climate that we have in each school is ultimately what

018our strategic plan should usher in and make sure that we are truly uh living out day in and day out. Measuring what matters. Measuring what matters really is critical to an organization as moving forward. It's important that we track leading and lagging indicators. You'll hear about some leading and lagging indicators a little later this evening that we identify the areas of progress and focus on those areas of progress and that we address the areas that need acceleration that needs our attention. And I'm really um I want to just pause here and say thank you to the board because not only are you having this session this evening, you had another one in December. And then you also on um throughout the school year, you meet with each principal twice a year to go over their

019school growth plans. That is a level of policy governance that wasn't here when I arrived. And and so I appreciate the time and attention that you provide to being a strategically focused board. But it's just not the board that has a responsibility in ensuring that we move forward our strategic plan. It it's everyone. It's the school board. It's our district administrators. It's our school leaders. It's teachers. It's our family and and community. Everyone has a part in making sure that we're paying attention to the components and the outcomes that are outlined in our strategic plan because our promise to our students is that we will meet these outcomes that we will work hard as an institution, as an organization to get to the place that we want to achieve. Our foundation is clear. It's it's

020in our theory of action that if adult practices improve, then student outcomes will improve. that if adult practices improve then student outcomes will improve and so on. It's almost March, Dr. Worling, board members, and this is a time where college basketball becomes very popular. Um, and one of my personal heroes is an equity leader. Um, some would call him a basketball coach. I call him an equity leader. His name is Dean Smith. He's passed away now, but Dean Smith was the the head basketball coach at the University of North Carolina. He he actually um integrated the athletic uh the Atlantic Coast Conference or the ACC by having the first African-American player uh play for North Carolina and was just a champion for diversity, equity, and inclusion. I have a video clip that I would love

021for you to listen to because this, I believe, embodies what we're trying to live out in every classroom in every school in our district. He was to me it was like playing for Gandhi >> like you know what I mean? He was it was surreal about his inner person who he was. >> My favorite story is is not even with me. It's uh it's with MTA who played at North Carolina. He was from Africa >> played at Michigan transferred in. Mack was um you know having a tough time in practice. So Roy Williams was assistant coach at the time and he's and Bill Guthridge and so they're getting on Matt like Matt what's wrong with you blah blah bl coach Smith never cussed ever ever never cussed. So they're getting on him and so they

022throw him out of practice. Right. So Coach Smith after practice goes to him says Matt is everything all right? like homesick like and he's like, "No, coach." And he's not he's not looking at him. He's like, he's like, "Matt, look at me when I'm talking to you." He's like, "No, coach. I need to stop feel Matt look at me as I talk to you." He said, "Coach in my culture. To look uh an adult in the eye is sign of disrespect." So, coach says, "Oh, okay." Walks out. So, next day in practice, there's no coach. threw him out of practice. Coach Gus is not there for a week. >> So Max said he gets a call cuz from his mom. She's like, "Matt, there's this man here in Africa says he's your coach, assistant coach.

023I know it's coach Smith. I don't know him well. He's been here for a week saying he's learning our culture." He sent Coach Guthri to learn his culture so he could never make that mistake again. That is what ultimate is. That's the >> I I share that quote with you because when I think about our theory of action, that's what the theory of action should look like and that's how we should embody it. It's really important. >> It was to me. >> Oh boy. Um test my skills here. I think I have it. There we go. So I think it's important that if we have a theory of action where adult practices if adult practices improve then student outcomes improve then what we have to all presume about the adults who are working in this

024system to improve things for students that we have to presume a positive intent. I firmly believe that when people are coming together to try to improve a school system, we all may have different opinions. We may have different thoughts. I think that's healthy. But if we don't come at it with a positive intent, then then we're not putting our best foot forward and looking internally first to figure out how can we change to then better serve our students. That's our goal. That's our theory of action. That's our strategic plan. And so I I end my presentation this evening by sharing with you that I'm really excited about what you're going to hear about our where we are with our strategic plan. We've made progress. We have areas for growth. And I want to thank our

025staff for doing the hard work. They're in those classrooms every day with students really making those changes. I think there's a ton of stories like what you just heard about, Coach Smith, where people are trying to find the very best in our students so they can grow and become the very best people they can be. That is the strategic plan that you've outlined as a board. I want to say thank you for the vision and the guidelines and the guidance that you've provided for us. I'm excited to share with you in a very clear way where we're making progress and where we have room for growth. But ultimately, it's is really important that we stay focused on our strategic plan and that we stay um committed to implementing this with fidelity. So with with that

026u madam president, board members, uh I conclude my report. >> Thank you. board members, any comments or questions? All right. Thank you. We'll then move on to item number four on the agenda, public comment. I'm going to read um our policy on public comment and also let you know that um Mr. Bower will be keeping our three minute timing and Mr. Watt, thank you for keeping our 30 minute timing. We'll be starting with public comment first with a couple of opportunities in the room and then we'll go online. Um and then we'll come back to the room and then if we need to we'll go back to online. So, the school board um uses policy 0167.3 public comment as at board meetings uh as our guidance for taking public comment. Members of the board value

027the input of students, parents, staff members, and community members. The board's regularly scheduled meetings provide an opportunity for opinions and concerns to be expressed publicly. The board values all comments and will respectfully consider this input in decision-making. The board will take public comment on both non-aggenda items and agenda items at each regular board meeting and may take public comment during special board meetings. The public comment period will occur near the beginning of the meeting and shall not exceed 30 minutes in length unless extended by the presiding officer or a vote of the board. Individuals must limit their comments to three minutes. Participants must be recognized by the presiding officer and will be requested to preface their comments by an announcement of their name. Public comments submitted to the school board email address by 10:00 a.m.

028on the day of the meeting of the board will be added to the online meeting documents to become part of public record. Email public comments must include the name of the person submitting the comment. As public comment shall be directed to the presiding officer, no person may address or question board members individually or direct statements, comments, or questions to staff or other meeting participants. Board members are obligated to follow the Wisconsin Open Meeting Law, which requires advanced notice to the community of the board's intent to discuss or take action on an item. If a public comment concerns an item that is not on the current of meeting agenda, board members may not respond other than to thank and acknowledge the speaker for their input. The presiding officer may a limit the number of times a

029speaker may comment on the same topic, b interrupt, warn or terminate a public comment when the statement is too lengthy directed to anyone other than the board presiding officer obscene or disorderly. C. Request any individual to leave the meeting when the person engages in conduct which is disorderly. D. request the assistance of law enforcement officers and or security officials in the removal of a disorderly person when that person's conduct interferes with the orderly progress of the meeting. E call for a recess or an adjournment to another time when the disorderly conduct so interferes with the orderly conduct of the meeting as to warrant such action. F wave these rules with the approval of the board when necessary for the protection of privacy or the administration of the board's business. Recording, filming, or photographing board meetings

030is the person operating the equipment should contact the superintendent prior to the board meeting to review possible placement of the equipment and must agree to abide by the following conditions. No obstructions are created between the board and the audience. B. That interviews are conducted in the meeting room. No interviews are conducted in the meeting room while the board is in session. C. No commentary, adjustment of equipment or positioning of operators is made that would distract either the board member or members of the audience or otherwise disrupt the meeting while the board is in session. The board encourages all residents to be well informed about school affairs. Therefore, regular board meetings are livereamed and the recorded schoolboard meetings are available for viewing online from the district's website. Executive sessions and inservices for board members are not

031recorded. Okay, so we're ready to begin our 30 minute um time period for public comment. Uh I see one person in line in the room. Please step forward to the mic. Give us your name and your comment. >> My name is Seth Landers. I'm a Wawa Tossa resident and parent of two children in district schools. When I saw that the long range facilities planting was on the agenda tonight, I wanted to come forward and talk to it. As the old saying goes, the best time to plant a tree is 20 years ago. The second best time is now. How we got here isn't relevant unless it helps us learn and get better. But here we are. I looked at the information in the agenda on the facilities planning and I think it's a very good

032start, but I would encourage the board and the administration to go further and do more. In other words, I would appreciate it if the board could direct the administration to go beyond and develop a 20 or 30-year facilities maintenance plan outlining what needs to be done over that time period as that is the approximate length of time that it takes to pay off the bonds. I would also like to see a 20-year improvements plan. What are we going to do to improve the spaces beyond just the maintenance? How are we going to do that? What is it going to take in order to do that? That may not be able to be done in as a 20 or 30-year plan because things do change, but at least something on the order of a five or

03310 year plan for the improvements. What I would also like to see in conjunction with this is a plan for redistricting on a schedule, understanding that we will do this every two years, 3 years, 5 years, whatever the right time is, so that everybody knows it's coming. it's expected and we can take a little bit of the emotion about it out of the equation. Also, at that same time, what are the lines that we won't cross when we do redistricting? Will we say if school X gets redistricted to this length that implies that we have to do this and we don't want to do that because these other things might happen. So, understanding those lines that we won't cross while we're redistricting is also important. Understanding those implications is critical. Also, what would the criteria

034be to close a building? Let's lay those out ahead of time. Take the emotion out of it. Understand again. What lines are we not going to cross? What are the implications if we close school X and that means that students have to go that much further to get to their next school? Is that not a line that we're willing to cross or is that something we're willing to take into account? And I would furthermore like to see this on the board at least once a year. This should be always part of the budget cycle so that the maintenance, improvements, redistricting and closing decisions are discussed during that year and everybody has that opportunity. As I said, second best time is now. Please, thank you. >> Thank you for your comment. I don't see any other

035current um public comment in the room. So, I'm going to switch to online. Uh I see two hands. Jeremy, do you know which one is first? Would you >> Nicole had her hands raised first? >> Okay, let's go with Nicole Eder then, please. >> Nicole, you can talk. Hello, my name is Nicole Eder and I'm a parent of students at Longfellow and Tossa East and the spouse of a longtime TOSSA teacher. I was also part of the 2018 and 2024 yes referendum committees that advocated for needed investments in our schools. I'm calling tonight because I'm concerned to the administration's facilities update on tonight's agenda suggests possibly revisiting the Ksix decision and our number of elementary schools. To be clear, I've always been open to reducing our district's building footprint. However, the 2024 facilities referendum put

036us on a path to preserving our neighborhood elementary schools, and our older elementary schools, including my neighborhood school, Roosevelt, were specifically named in the referendum question that was passed by a wide margin of voters. Before our community voted on that plan, the administration made an educational case for moving to K6. And that case made sense to me irrespective of any decision on our secondary schools. As you know, the state defines sixth graders as elementary schoolers, which has always complicated the schedule for our middle schools. And I know there's also some educational research that says that building transitions can affect student outcomes and the delaying a building transition is better for students. The facilities update also notes equity concerns between our newer and older elementary schools, which is certainly a factor to consider. However, I think

037it's the quality of teaching that happens inside our schools that matters most. I want our schools to be safe and functional, but modernization is not a major priority for me, and I don't think it's a high priority for my neighbors either. I think the renewal of the operating referendum in 2028 is even more urgent than our facilities. As you discuss the future of our school buildings, I urge the board to consider carefully what our community values most and what is best for our students academic and social emotional needs. Thank you and happy public schools week. >> We'll go to the second hand. >> Chris, you can talk now. >> Okay. Good evening. Can you hear me? >> Good evening. >> Yes. >> My name is Chris Murker. I am a school board candidate and a

038member of the 23 slate. Back in September 2024, I spoke in public comment after the $4.2 $2 million budget error. And I said something simple. Before you ask voters for another referendum, you need a forensic level audit and basic process discipline. You did it anyway. And taxpayers are now living through a tax shock and widespread disbelief. Now we're here again. The December 15th DPI audit deadline was missed and tonight reviewing a draft. It's February 23rd, many, many months after the books were closed. With a major 350 million to $457 million facilities recommendation coming March 3rd, please confirm on the record the exact date the finalized audit will be submitted to DPI and publish a one-page public timeline. The submission date, why it was late, and the corrective plan with dates and an accountable owner. Meet

039the deadlines. Show the work separately. Please confirm what documentation exists for the superintendent's required annual evaluation and the board actions approving any compensation changes. This has become a point of public concern and residents deserve to understand how the board is exercising oversight, especially given the number of governance and process issues that have surfaced and continue to surface over the past two years. Thank you. Thank you for our comment, your comment. Um, I was going to say that the second item that you're asking about is not on the agenda, but I will be happy to follow up um to your comment with an email giving you the process. We have had the process made public several times this year and so I'll be glad to share that with you, Dr. Marker. You can be looking for

040that um information a little later this week. Any other public comment in the room? I see no other online. Seeing no other public comment, uh, I will close public comment. Thank you everyone who commented tonight um for engaging with the board and bringing your concerns and thoughts. We move now to the consent agenda. This is the time um when I say um board colleagues, are there any items on the consent agenda which board you would board members you would like to remove? So separate discussion and action. I'm seeing none. Uh, so may I have Jason the motion to approve the consent agenda? >> Find the content. >> Um, or somebody else. >> It ised that the school board approve the consent agenda and I assume roles. >> May I second? >> Second. >> Thank you,

041Mr. Wier. No problem. It's a lot of uh clicks through to get to this point. Miss Summers, could you please call the role? >> Miss Bzinski? >> Yes. >> Mr. Bower? Yes, >> Miss Faulk. >> Yes, >> Mr. Morris. >> Excused. >> Miss Hammer Roland. >> Yes. >> Dr. Wley. >> Yes. >> Mr. Wier. >> Yes. >> And the motion carries. Thank you. Um, we then move on to item number six, board governance. So, now we get to the strategic plan update that was teed up earlier. Thank you, Miss F, for being with us. The presentation keep Good evening everybody. I'm Jennifer Foch, the director of strategy and continuous improvement here in Wawaossa. Tonight's presentation is the second of three interim reports on our progress towards meeting the outcomes of our strategic plan. The update

042resents represents a snapshot of salient data points that feed our end-of-ear outcomes. Our strategic plan is grounded in our vision to ensure an exceptional and equitable learning experience for all. As shared in the executive summary, our outcomes are driven by educator practice which is connected to our theory of action. If adult practices improve, then student outcomes improve. The district sets the conditions by implementing systems, structures, expectations, etc. that foster educator practice so that our students reap the rewards of teaching and learning. The crux of the presentation tonight is in the following three slides which show a comparison from fall to winter data in our interim metrics. This slide represents our interim metrics connected to the instruction and leadership goals. Universal screening results show positive trends in both reading and math. Additionally, the exit rate for

043intervention currently exceeds the target. These are complimentary metrics because student screening results should improve as skill gaps close. While oral reading fluency data has fluctuated slightly, there are areas of growth within this larger data set. The percentage of students at risk is well below the 20% threshold in the metrics. Within this large data set, third grade proficiency is holding steady with no change from fall to winter. Fourth grade saw gains in all student demographic groups, particularly when the data was disagregated by race and ethnicity, disability status, socioeconomic status, and students who are learning English. Across grades 1 through 5, the current median growth percentile on this metric is 65, exceeding typical growth of 50. The median growth percentile for our SK students um with respect to the metrics of letter naming fluency and letter word

044sound fluency is 75. It is also worth noting that approximately a quarter of the students in grades 1 through 5 have a growth percentile of 95. All of this is to share that students are growing, which is a leading indicator of future proficiency and long-term achievement. Metrics that have prompted further investigation are the letter naming fluency and the letter word sound fluency. These assessments are administered only to senior kindergarten students three times per year. The letter naming fluency accounts for how many upper and lowercase letters a student can correctly identify in one minute. While letter word sound fluency measures a student's ability to produce letter sounds, two letter sound combination combinations and consonant vowel consonant words. It should be noted that the difficulty in the task increases as the year progresses and the number of

045correct to be proficient on both these assessments increases substantially from fall to winter, exceeding the increase we see from winter to spring. For reference, a senior kindergarten student in the fall is considered at risk on the letter naming fluency assessment if they name five or fewer letters. To reach the 50th percentile in the fall, a student must correctly name 17 letters. To reach that same percentile in the winter, a kindergartener must identify 39 letters. With respect to letter word sound fluency, a student is considered at risk in the fall if they are not able to identify a single word sound. And they are considered to be at the 50th percentile if they can identify up to five sounds. Proficiency on this assessment in the winter increases to naming at least 29 sounds. The DNF data

046represents a celebration as students with grades of F are below the target. Additionally, the total number of grades of F issued in semester 1 was the lowest in the last three years. The percentage of A grades increased by 7% compared to last year. Evaluators are also spending more time in classrooms engaging in the cycle of observation, feedback, and reflection with our educators. Time spent in classrooms is vital to improving instructional practice within our goals for systems and structures. Financial operations are tracking as expected. The employee health utilization appears to be a more promising metric at this time, but it's important to note that this metric can fluctuate monthly. The updated metric here in the slide deck represents information current as of December 2025. As mentioned in our executive summary, the 2024 referendum spending can be

047tracked on our website and provides our community with up-to-date information. The most recent recent financial audit contained no material findings and will be unpacked in further detail this evening. The recreation department experienced a slight uptick in winter registrations. To reach a larger audience, the rec department will transition to a paper catalog. Within our c culture goal, we have celebrations and fill rates for teachers and uh for both teachers and operational staff as they are both exceeding the target. Our employee attendance is stable and just below the threshold identified. And as shared in the executive summary, the division of human resources continues to work with supervisors to address employee attendance. Our student attendance rate grew by 2.7% which is just shy of the goal. This metric is trending positively. Office disciplinary referrals rose significantly when compared

048to last year. However, the cause is twofold. Personal communication device violations and the increase focused on attention on attendance and student engagement. Upon further data review, the code of insubordination accounts for 32% of all referrals. The division of pupil and family supports is working with individual buildings to calibrate around the use of this code so that appropriate support mechanisms are put into place for our students. The staff retention metrics have not been updated as they are only calculated once per year and will be moved to end of year metrics in further present in future presentations. The end ofear outcomes are here simply for reference. They obviously have not changed as we are still moving through the school year and will be updated in August of 2026. And at this time the executive leadership team is

049here to answer any questions that the board may have about the strategic plan. Yes, Mr. Bar, >> I always have questions. Um, so let's take it through. Uh, in the academics, um, our rate of students who are above the 50th percentile and most of these are a lot higher than uh I would expect when I take a look at say our school report cards or the forward exam. um when can we see that start to translate into the forward exam and then into uh our school reports? >> All of that all of that work on the interim metrics leads to the forward assessment and to get students ready for that grade level assessment. So as we're seeing student data trend positively in that direction that is that is the leading metric that gets us to

050the forward exam. >> Um >> oh I think Dr. Marbar wants to weigh in. >> Absolutely. Sorry, the lights went on. Um, I also just want to remind uh the yourself and the greater board that when we look at the report card metrics, that is lagging data from three different years and so it's not representative of um the most recent end ofear metrics. So, not only will we see the forward exam start to reflect and improve those those scores to improve uh as we get those results, we'll see the school report cards continue to improve over multiple years based even only on just this data. >> Yeah, that's that's exactly it. for so for example um uh and Miss White can correct me if I'm if I get this wrong but on the school report

051cards um for example we are still picking up attendance data five years out and we have done significant um work around improving attendance and how we're monitoring and addressing attendance and so the most current report cards we still had five years out of data hanging on similarly with our academic data We have three um actually it was just two years this last year of academic data. This next year we'll I'm assuming that we're going to go back to three years and that'll be the most recent three years. Um and like you all know we have done significant work around aligning um curriculum um to standards, our instruction to standards, our assessment to standards and are a much better position to respond appropriately to student needs. >> Thank you. Uh next question I would have would

052be uh on the behavior portion. Uh you noted that the ODRs are higher. We expected uh them to increase this year with the uh cell phone policy that we instituted. Um do we have any insight in the trends over the course of the year? Like did it spike in the beginning of the year and it's starting to trail off? Uh do we have any further insight into that? >> Yep. It's more than just that. It's the use of all of our codes as well. Um so insubordination is the code that is being used. Um but when um we investigated it further, our building principles are also not um holding children to lower standards. What I'm finding is um with the more consistency and fidelity of using our student support teams where they're coming together and

053talking about students and putting proactive measures into place. Um, one of the things that we found was students um who maybe weren't as engaged in their learning or were truent to class were being noted under attendance and not under behavior. So, they started using other codes in subordination for students that were in the hallway. Now, yes, in the summer when we update our disciplinary framework, we're going to look at is that the right code to be using, but I do appreciate that they had an answer of why they were using the code and they were using the code to be more data driven in their student support teams and they were trying to put plans in place and wanted a better understanding of what students were in the hallways and what weren't. So um the

054the numbers are rising but it's also they're not afraid to collect the data and they want to use the data and they want the data to make informed decisions which is a celebration um for our system >> and not the answer I expected. So thank you. Uh the final question I have is uh on the culture. Um you noted in your report that there's uh the teacher retention is an endofear type summitive uh indicator that we keep in mind. Um but there has to I would imagine that there should be or there can be some sort of indicator of where the staff culture is and how it's developing over the course of the year. Um, so what tools are we putting in place to monitor that so that we can engage staff and make course

055corrections if we need to? >> Uh, good evening. Thank you for the question. Um, uh, this year, um, we are revisiting our employee, um, survey workg groupoups related to five critical areas that were identified in last year's employee survey. Um we did not survey uh employees again this year as we felt that uh direct contact feedback and conversation in the employee workg groupoups along with our expanded building hours by our educational leadership team um would help us to make meaningful change according to the priorities and the um the preferences expressed by staff members. Off the top of my head, I don't um I can't list off all five of the areas. is I know one of them is um compensation and total rewards, one of them is recognition, one of them is decision- making um

056I think one is >> professional learning and then one is work life balance in terms of um time and um demands on the job. So thank you for everybody the group effort. So we got all five. Um, we plan to go ahead and revisit the employee survey next year, really focusing on asking questions that allow us to have actionable um, responses um, to the feedback that we're getting employees. Um, our um, our employee workg group um, conversation um, the first one for this year is scheduled on March 25th. Um, and we will continue conversations. >> Mrs. I know you measure teacher retention one year over the next. >> What have the trends been over the last three years? >> Um over the past three years um so for instance from the uh uh let's see

0572526 the 2526 school year. Um so in September of 2025 we exceeded our goal of 90% voluntary uh teacher retention in the organization. uh in September of 2024, we were just below our goal. I think we were about um 89.5ish uh% of our teacher retention, our goal being 90. Um and then for the September of 2023 measurement, we were around, I want to say about 86% um voluntary employee retention. Um, so our our trend in terms of att retention rates has improved and this past year we met our goal. >> Yes, Mr. Wy, please. >> Mazowski, I think you said that something similar in the last uh finance and resource meeting. Uh, and I've got a note written down here about um a lot of people in this room and a lot of the metrics

058that we are currently talking about and looking at. How far back do go? I know the answer from the meeting, but I just wanted to bring it up. >> Yeah. Um the data that we're tracking um probably the the uh most longitudinal would be employee retention goes back to approximately summer of 2022. Um and that that represents the the most historical data. Um the other data has um we've created um longitudinal records since that time including employee attendance and others. Mr. Salazki if I may >> please. >> In September of 23 the ret teacher the voluntary teacher retention rate was 85.2. >> Thank you. >> In September of 2024 the retention rate was 90.3. >> We exceeded our target two years ago. Thank you. >> We did. >> The number for September of 2025 was

05990.5. And so our goal is to always retain 90% or more. We exceeded that metric two of the last three years. >> Thank you. >> You're welcome. >> Additional questions, Mr. >> No, that was all. I just I just wanted to make it transparent that a lot of the things that are on the strategic model that we're we're tracking the metrics um this is a vast improvement in how it's presented based even from a year and a half ago when I first sat here and um and that a lot of this data does not have a a long history. So, uh, some of these readings may look off, but, uh, I would say to the public, give them a little bit of time because, um, two points make a line. We we need a few

060more data points to get a trend. That's all. Thank you. >> Thank you. Anyone else? Yes, Miss Hammer. Um, my first question is regarding D's and Fs. Um, we had a pretty I'm trying to find the slide. I would say especially looking uh at last year's data, it looks like we had a pretty significant decline in FS this year. Um, which is fantastic and should be celebrated. Um some feedback I have heard is that um there's less FS because there's less rigor in our buildings. And so um Dr. Marvel, can you just speak a little bit to that sentiment? >> Yeah. Um I would actually argue that there's a lot more rigor in our classrooms. We have uh as I mentioned earlier, we have worked very diligently to um provide our educators with standards aligned

061materials so they can have more standards align instruction and standards align assessments so we have a more accurate pulse of uh how students are functioning at the grade level that they need to be functioning at. I I attest our reduction in FS to a more diligent effort on the part of our educators this last um semester to be in more frequent contact with families. Um we every 60 40 um 20 40 and 60 days there is an uh a message that goes out to families to let families know the progress of their um of their child or children. And um prior to that notification going out, it is the expectation that educators are reaching out to families uh in particular families of students who um are not yet meeting the mark um that we would

062like them to meet. So I would say that that effort in of itself has really helped students find greater success. So, it sounds like the the hard work um of our teachers and students are why we've seen a pretty significant decrease in apps and buildings. Okay. Thank you. Um and I was just going to ask a little bit of followup on the behavioral metrics. um is there plans with like the SLT teams to like they're looking at that data closely and other than just coding it differently or or finding the correct code sort of what are they doing in real time with those students um uh if they're you have students who are repeatedly being sent to the office um for coordination. >> Yep. So it's the SST team, not the SLT that is looking

063at that. And the challenge without having the data is all they had was attendance data. They didn't know the students. So they want to make proactive plans of finding who the students were. Once they had awareness of who the students were, then they can plan around making individual plans for the students. And when you aren't tracking the data, you don't have it to action around. So um they're tracking it. um keeping also they're going to continue to use that code for this year right now because that's what we have to use and then they want to make sure that they are seeing improvements with students. >> I forgot to ask about the D's and Fs. I haven't looked at our G's and F um dashboard in a while. How um how are we doing on

064closing that gap between our um >> the disproportionality gap though? My question >> for E and Fs, how is that looking now? And if it's still trending um that we have a lot more work to do in that area, which I'm assuming it does, like what specific things are we doing there? >> Um that's a lot of the work that our building principles are doing at the at the site level. um really having as uh Stacy was talking about the really targeted SS SST conversations um or student um student support team meetings wrapping around particular students who are um not finding success in one or multiple classes and so what are we doing to um what are we doing at the site level to support them? I will say we have a lot of work

065to do yet um from all different facets of the organization be it um our tier one, tier 2 and tier three instructional approaches, how we are making sure that we are providing uh welcoming and inclusive learning environments for students. Um how are we making sure that students uh know that we want them to be at school? how are we listening to the feedback that they're giving us to provide a better experience? Um, it's multiaceted as to how we improve student academic success. It's not just academic related. >> I try to paraphrase what I just heard her say. when the board has the opportunity to talk with building principles when they present their school growth plan updates. I think I'm going to par I'm taking I'm paraphrasing what I heard you say. That's a prime opportunity

066for you as a board to ask a building principal directly, so what are you doing to close opportunity gaps and the gaps we're seeing with D's and Fs as we disegregate the data? Is that a fair paraphrase? >> Thank you. >> So, if I could follow up, um my request would be to have the disagregated data from the fall um shared to the board. I' I'd like to see it. We've done it in the past and I'd like to continue to see um those trends if that's possible. Um I guess one of the things I would also ask about is one of the places that besides you know understanding the multi-layers of experiences these students have um the other piece of it seems to be or potentially is the the flexibility or ability to differentiate

067um in the classroom. So is there any update on on how that's going? We have a lot of new curriculum. I know that the first year it's really hard to differentiate, but um how is that looking for instance in English and sciences now that we've had the curriculum a little bit longer? >> I will start and then I'll also invite Miss Eert to um weigh in as well. It's a constant work in progress. Um I think our educators are feeling a lot more comfortable and efficacious in how they are leveraging the instructional resources. there's been really great movement. Um, in particular, I'll I'll shout out to our high school biology teams on how they are really collaborating with one another and looking at evidence of student learning to change the way that they are then

068engaging students in um in their learning based upon data that they're collecting. Um similarly I would say that with our English teachers as well they're getting better at collecting evidence of student learning to be more responsive um at the classroom level. Um so I would say it's it's an evolution. One of the barriers that we do have that I want to name is just how much time we have with students especially at the high school level. the really short class periods are problematic and making sure that we can uh provide students with the learning experience on a daily basis that we want them to have. Uh typical research will say we want to have at least like 60 minutes of instruction in an area and our class periods at the high school level are less

069than 60 minutes. So to be able to have a built-in responsive block of time is not where we want it to be quite yet at the at the high school level. We are finding success at the middle school level with um being able to provide our instruction in our 75minute classes and then also have some additional time for some really targeted structured retaching. So that's been um that's been some good work that's in progress. >> Those are great examples. The only thing that I would add is um part of the planning, the high quality planning that our educators are engaging in is ensuring that from the onset um they're planning with misconceptions in mind. Right? So we want to limit the amount of responsive and additional teaching that needs to happen. We want to get

070it right the first time. So I think that's another really important effort that has gone into the work of curriculum implementation is thinking about planning for misconceptions, planning for um student understanding and you know pre-teaching approaches that can happen before um before we have to respond. And then as Dr. Marvel illustrated really helping our teachers use data to make really informed decisions. um really excited about the work of our math curriculum because some of the resources that coincide with the universal instruction will be um responsive teaching kind of platforms and resources to support our educators with the tools. So it's not just time but it's tools and resources to be responsive that exists in our benchmark curriculum at the elementary level and even within our common lit curriculum. There's something called target lessons. So, it's

071just really helping our educators understand how to use the data, providing them with the time, and then also the tools to be responsive. So, there's a lot, but we have all that, and it's just helping um everyone make sense of it. So, and I would just add that a um a stakeholder group that is paramount in helping teachers be able to better differentiate and respond to data. And the the people that uh Miss Eber is talking about supporting our educators are our instructional coaches. um they have been absolutely paramount in making sure that our um ELA curriculum for example has gone into implementation with um great fidelity and that it's taking um taking hold. Uh when we uh when we implemented our last English language arts curriculum for example um it was the the units

072of study with Lucy Caukins. There are still um when we had to collect all of that and put in our new benchmark curriculum, there were still schools that didn't have the units of study out of the cellophane. And because we have our instructional coaches helping with the fidelity of the implementation, we can say that 100% of our students are getting the the standards aligned uh resources that they deserve. So again, I want to practice a norm of collaboration. I'm going to try to paraphrase what you just said. So the title instructional coach may be a misnomer in itself. And that I'm hearing you say that the instructional coaches are the individuals who are actually helping teachers in schools implement all of this new curriculum that has been ushered into our school system over the last

073four years. Is that an accurate paraphrase? >> Yes. I don't know how we would do it would have done it without them. >> Yeah, this these are really helpful examples on that on the um implementation. What um processes are you using now that some of the curriculum have been around for um few semesters? What processes are you using to also to get the teacher feedback um and their input for uh coming? because obviously teachers teachers go into the profession often because they want to have some leadership and input and meaningful work and so I know what when curriculum goes in at first it's very you know it's important to be very structured but what is the thinking on um on teacher input given the last couple years of really intensive um demands that we as

074a board and as a administration have made on our teachers >> sorry I was going to tell you just to I was going to say you might just want to stay up for this one but >> no it's a really great question. Um I think it's it's always there's lots of different opportunities right through professional learning. Um because once we kind of implement we've done surveys before to get capture both student and educator feedback on how that's going. Um, and then as we continue on the journey of of change, it's been through professional learning, you know, taking off bite-sized pieces and refining our craft and then seeking feedback because that feedback then helps um to support our decisions, right? So, teacher feedback through through professional learning has been one um really important way to capture

075next steps and and direction. I would also say that we do lots of different learning walks as a collective administrative team. So, we seek feedback through that um lens as well, both with administrators um as we're just in classrooms with teachers asking them different questions um and kind of more anecdotally collecting different um feedback opportunities. So, those have just been a few different ways that we've kind of captured um evidence through surveys, through learning walks, through professional learning experiences. Am I getting to your question, Phil? >> Yeah, those are good examples. Thank you. >> So, I have one other um question on the report. Um back to Miss Elzoski, what you were saying about um the staff surveys. Thank you for explaining what the thinking was and the process that's in place. Um how are

076people um how do people become part of those work groups? >> Yes, thank you for the question. So, um, last year when we first initiated the workg groups, uh, we sent, uh, predominantly via email, but also was a conversation that, um, last year, I know Leah and I had during our building visits at all at all the school sites, um, invitations to go ahead and be part of the the groups. Um, so again, there were multiple emails that were sent out last year with invitations. Staff members could complete a Google form to indicate their interest, so we knew how many to plan for. Uh this year I did send out awide invitation um and have continued to talk about it not only um um at um our stack meetings um but also when I'm um

077at building visits at schools and and just really promoting staff members to come and have um a a two-way conversation and dialogue about how we can continue to make Wawaossa an even better workplace. >> And I'm a big fan of qualitative data mixed with quantitative. So I think it makes makes a lot of sense. Anyone else who hasn't? Yes, Mr. White. >> U one clarifying question. I think you've answered it before, but I just want to remind her the um the coaches um people doing the implementation are they classified uh like in the org chart under the teachers section uh within payroll or under the administrative section? Is that instructional coaches? >> Yeah. The um the people that we're we're talking about helping roll out the curriculum and y u and do do these tasks.

078>> Yep. They're uh they are classified as teachers. >> Okay. >> Uh instructional coaches, academic specialists who do interventions as well as kind of curriculum coordinators. >> Miss back, please. Um, I know a couple of years ago the district decided to move away from using interventionists and hiring academic specialists and um, I guess I noticed the in the report there's a 30% exit rate for intensive interventions for students receiving those. Is would you do you think that that had a direct effect on those numbers improving so much? That's only one piece of a puzzle for the entire student body's data because we serve about I want to say off the top of my head maybe around 350 student seats each cycle. So that that's a very small pocket compared to our entire student body. It's

079about 9% by doing the math right. And I'm talking K8 only. Um but when a student's having this the success they have and they can exit intervention that is the work of an academic specialist. It is also the work of the classroom teacher and the instructional coach working with that team. So we can never say it is it is because of just X that the student improved. So when I referenced in the report earlier that the universal screening metric improvement is also correlated with the exit rate. So students are closing their gaps and then we're seeing that data improve. As I look at the data of just the students who are receiving tier three intervention, there is a high rate of growth among that student group. So that is pushing that forward. But that is

080it is it is not done simply in isolation. >> So those teachers the classroom teachers and the the um academic specialists are all kind of working together to target those students. >> That is the goal. It's the students getting layers of support not something in isolation. It's not it's not as simple as like I have illness X and I need this treatment and only that will make me better. It is the the layer the nuance of the intervention and the specialty the academic specialist um is they're they pull in their craft and they receive a lot of training to do that but it is also just as important that they're receiving support in the classroom as well and that strong tier one instruction. It's the combination that produces the results. Sorry, just to for clarifying

081um what percentage of our K through eight students are in a tier three um >> I believe in the first cycle it was 9 or 10% right off the top of my head >> and that significantly is a okay because we were around 25% I believe when I first started on the board around three years ago. >> Yep. I think last year yep it was incredibly high. >> Okay. So, so we have just to make sure I'm understanding 9 to 10% of our K through 8 students >> K through eight >> are receiving uh tier three intervention support >> literacy or math >> liter thank you and then do we track that I know it's a little bit trickier in the secondary space but are we tracking how many of our students do you have

082that number available >> the the number I that I've been sharing is at K through 8th grade so middle it's middle elementary and middle What happens to students in the secondary level or sorry high school that have those additional support needs? >> There are a couple of support options at our high school. Um we have academic literacy seminar and math emphasis structures. We also have the academic resource center in both of our high schools. Um to echo something Dr. Marble raised earlier, um the length of the instructional period at the high school is a barrier to providing layers of support to students. um at a high school that would be the most effective place to deliver those services and our schedule does not currently allow for us to do that well because the period is

083simply quite short. Um and I know our instructional coaches and curriculum coordinators have been working at middle school with their extended periods in the core subject areas to provide dedicated time within the period to address learning needs for students on on all ends of the learning spectrum. >> Yeah, thank you. I appreciate that. Um, I think one of the biggest barriers and and things that are preventing our closing our achievement gap is that time that our high school students are able to to have getting extra support. Um, I think it's a huge inequity that of our district because I think some families can't afford to pay a lot of money for a private tutor if their student is struggling or um a private tutor to help them do better on ACTs or SATs. Um, so

084I know that's part of our strategic plan is improving um, secondary planning. I just really want to continue to push one um, to do a better job at providing services for our our high school students who are who are struggling. So, thank you. >> Yeah, Mr. Follow to Liz's question. Uh so what I've heard is is that the longer periods is is we're seeing better results with learning. Um what are some of the barriers of or challenges we would need to face if um if it was decided that we wanted to try to implement the same kind of thing at the high school level. What this what would be preventing us from from putting it in next year >> for next year >> just hypothetically like pretend you had the resources to to put it

085in place. What what is what is the thing that is preventing us? I I would say the we started working with um our two high schools last year around um what would we around a model of um of the the schedule that would better support students and teachers quite frankly. Um and there was a lack of um readiness to really go further than just having some discovery and exploratory conversations. Um so could we revisit that in the future? Absolutely. Um we can. And um I would also say that in order for us to properly prepare the system to be able to have our educators in um working with our students for a longer period of time, there is a degree of professional learning that needs to um take place. And so we would I I

086would say at minimum we would need a one-year runway to be able to help build the system and build teacher capacity around what it's like to teach in a um more than a 50-minute block of time. >> So the limitation is the ramp up time. >> Correct. >> Yeah. Mhm. >> So what if it would be fair to say that if we wanted to explore implementing it in two years from now, that would be something a board or any board could say at any time. Uh we would like to get that implemented in two years or three years or whatever whatever the case may be. I just want to make sure that that's that is the barrier and because time is something we can we can work around. Uh other things that cost cost money

087or technology barriers or equity barriers uh are are not uh so I I would like to see those learning periods increased. Um if that means a few years from now so so it but I think Um, I I've I've been in both shorter and longer and I've always done better when you have that long period of time and you can really let your mind sink into it. So, thank you. >> You students, you got any questions or comments on the strategic plan? >> Sure. Um, >> you're saying like, "Do I want 75 minutes in a class?" >> I I do think that's a good idea. And um, like what you're saying with letting your mind sink in and also going a bit back to what Miss Himmer Roland said about uh, was talking about with

088um, less D's and Fs. I I just have like my observations being in class, but I think it's very possible that the phone policy contributed a lot to that cuz just the change from this from last year to this year where there's been better enforcement so students don't have their phones out. I think it's very clear there's a lot more just like engagement and paying attention. So I I doubt there's like a statistic correlating those or like finding causation between those, but I think it's very possible that contributed at least somewhat to that >> would require multiple >> survey research. So yeah, the what you're suggesting is there might be multiple factors. So thanks for bringing that up and you have the um inhand observation opportunity that many of us don't have because you sit

089in the classes. Thank you for sharing that. >> It sounds like there's some interest in exploring. Um, typically when we do something like this, maybe we want to know what other districts are doing or if there models. I know at one point we talked about looking into the longer class periods, but I also would want to, as you pointed out, there's it's it's again creating some um additional request and stress on our staff potentially in the short term even though in the long term it might be less. So thinking about um their input and uh what they would see is you know along with yours what what they would see as a reasonable way to explore this you know how would they like to go about learning about this model um and potentially uh implementing

090it in the longer term. That's sort of how we do things long longer term. But I think I mean that is definitely something that that makes a lot of sense especially if it's working well for seventh and eighth graders. I think about then the the change that the current seventh and eighth graders are going to have as they go into high school next year. Um and then especially those students who are either getting um they're getting extension on one end or the other. I liked um that sort of model that you had of you know like there's there's different instead of saying one's going higher and one lower but rather we're extending out the big switch that that will create for our eighth graders as they move into ninth grade to not have that same

091sort of system where regardless of whether they're looking to push into other kinds of concepts that take them further that they weren't expecting or if they're looking for um or needing more time with reteing and revisiting um concepts for whatever reason that they may not be seeing that. Um right now in the high school some of that is done in separated pullout spaces which definitely carries some level of stigma um for students as well. And so thinking through there's lots of reasons I can see for thinking through um can we address these multiple challenges that high schoolers face um by looking at this. So, thank you for being willing to I think I hear I don't know if other board members are hearing a hearing kind of that you like some more information about this,

092some more discussion, some learning. Okay, thank you. I don't see minski, you haven't had a chance yet, so please dive in. the other end of our uh group of learners, our younger learners. Um it's been I think about a year since act 20 has has come upon us. Um what is the and there was a lot of learning involved in that. Um what are maybe some updates on how how those processes and outcomes are showing up in our in our classrooms for our younger kids? Yes. >> Um I think one of the the major benefits of implementing act 20 um was then another layer of support came for our students. So we have students not only receiving intensive tier three intervention with an academic specialist, they're also receiving intervention at the classroom level and that

093is dictated by what skill a student needs to work on. and our student support teams that operate at our ele elementary spaces are are sifting through that data with the help of our MLSS coordinator and our student growth coordinator to make sure that decisions are made in the same fashion across all of our buildings. So we have a really systematic structure for identifying student need and we have weekly progress monitoring which is not something we had prior to act 20 particularly for inclassroom uh interventions. So that's been a a huge improvement. So our teachers then have more data to make decisions with to improve student learning. >> Wow. So again, that's an example of it's not just one person's responsibility in a tier three situation to provide services around a reading plan, but it's a

094group a collaborative effort to layer on multiple bits of of support to really bring these kids to be strong readers preparing going into fourth grade. It's awesome. The only thing I would just add on to Jenny um statement is just the professional knowledge that our teachers have um built with ACT 22 like all of our teachers went through training about 28 hours of training this summer around evidence-based and systematic instruction through Cox Campus. We had a donor that helped to support our educators in that learning. And then Miss Brenda Jones is here this evening, but she has been instrumental in helping our educators and our administrators be able to transfer that professional knowledge because we knew a core program was really important, right? But we also knew it was equipping our educators with knowledge and

095information um to be really positioned to be strong educators for students um especially in those early grades. and seeing that the fruits of that come to life too. And we're seeing through our data um significant growth and we know that if we're looking to close gaps, we need to accelerate growth and um we're we're seeing that in our in our screening data too. So >> that's great. Are you able to observe a ch a shift in practice when you when you're in in these learning walks? Do you see things >> amazing? Yes. and just the quality of student work samples too, the amount of writing, um the kind of conversations that they're having, it is vastly different than what we have seen. I was just telling curriculum council, we have members here from that, um

096that we've hosted other school districts to come and see what's happening in our schools, in our elementary schools around benchmark advance. There's been three different school districts and they have all adopted benchmark advance. We're not in the business of um you know marketing it but they're coming and seeing what's happening in our schools and being so excited about the outcomes that they're seeing that they themselves are um adopting this curriculum to support their their students. So when we we hear from them they're like wow how are your kids writing the conversations that they're having. So not only does our quantified quant quantitative data showing growth and improvement just just those qualitative um aspects are also communicating that. >> So thank you. >> Okay. Thank you. Okay. >> And if I may, you know, I I

097opened up with this. I want to thank Miss Botch for continuing to shepherd this process. Um I would be remiss if I did not just point out for the board and the community that the systems and structure outcomes that we have identified for interim measurement are going well which is an indication of fiscal health and indication of our human resources health. Um, if you want to learn more about where we're where we're going from a fiscal standpoint, please take a look at the recorded uh finance and operation meetings where all this information is provided. Mr. Eer will give you an update in a few minutes as well. I think overall um I'm reminded um constantly of when the board approved this this uh strategic plan. It may have been Mr. Morris who said, "So, Dr.

098means if I look at other strategic plans in the Milwaukee metropolitan area of other school systems, would I see outcomes as clearly outlined as we have in Wall Tulsa? And I said to Mr. Morris, I said to the board, and I would say to anyone, I would I would encourage you to take a look at what other school districts list for their strategic plan and then take a look at ours. We are very explicit. We're very transparent in what we say we want to uh achieve for outcomes and we're reaching them and we're reaching them because we have hardworking staff and students. We believe that our job at the district level is to set the conditions to provide the resources and the materials and then we need to get out of the way and allow

099the work from the boardroom to get to the classroom. That's what's happening right now. When you give teachers standardsbased curriculum that is new, that is supported um through proper implementation, when you have curriculum coordinators who are the some of the state leaders in in their their uh content area, this is what happens. And so if people want to look at what we're doing and how we're doing, I would encourage them to continue to monitor our strategic plan and our progress. Thank you. We move to um the legislative advocacy committee and you have I believe three items for us to look at. >> Lucky me. >> Uh thank you Dr. Worley. Uh members of the board. Um a quick update uh from the LAC. Um what we're seeing uh Mr. Morris and I what we're working

100on is actually transition and strategy. Uh for the majority of this year, what we have done is we've identified several uh topics that we expected to come up in uh at the state level or at the national level as the case may be. Um we developed resolutions around it and then we use that as a way to communicate with our electeds what the will of this body is. Um, one of the great frustrations that both Mr. Morris and I had was that things would show up and that we did not have or we needed more time than was given to us in order to go through that process. Um, so the advice that I would give to whomever is on the LACE next year would be to get guidelines in place, get that approved by

101the school board uh, generally and then use that to um to then execute more independently and communicate with our electeds the will of the board. Um so for example uh I have included uh the state surplus letter uh for those of you who might not be quite aware uh the state collected about 2.6 billion with a B dollars tax dollars that they were not expecting. Um so hooray for them. Now the next step is to figure out what they're going to do with that money. And the talks are currently ongoing. uh Voss uh just mentioned that they might have to call a special session to then figure out and get something approved uh officially um once talks conclude with uh the governor. Uh I created this letter based on the resolutions that we have already

102passed to then say hey uh to our electeds which would it would be sent to all of our electeds saying hey this is what our stance is based on what we've already passed. Um the MO in that case would then be to provide notification that hey the LAC is speaking on technically the behalf of the LAC. That's how we would word it but we would be sending it out uh with Guawaossa's name on it which I think is the right process there. Um, the other uh example of how we're trying to set up our next LACE to be successful is by developing a candidate survey um and to invite the candidates that are going to be elected in November to tour um some of our buildings to see what um is going on. This would

103likely be done over the summer. uh but just to see the the status of the buildings, how we're working with it to meet with uh individuals that might be around at the time. Um again, no particular action uh necessary from you, but that would be the update that the LAC is providing to the board at this time. >> Questions or comments? I mean, I think I would say there's a bylaw, so we need to think about the wording of the for the action if you want the LAC to have a particular way of doing things. Maybe it's thinking about um how to spell that out in a bylaw so that you all are comfortable >> um with that process with with doing that because it is a little different than policy which has you know

104we need to do it but we aren't often urgent. um or trying to move quickly and we need to be a little bit more both thoughtful and resilient um in terms of making legislative commentary. So yeah, maybe it would be good to set aside just you know some ideas, pull that um and have some board discussion. >> Absolutely. I would be conversation. >> Okay. Um on to the next one. Uh so this is just a first reading. Um Mr. Morrison and I both noticed that the description of the LACE as it is worded as we were formed um is out of date and not in line with how we're actually operating. Uh so we drafted new um new verbiage that more directly uh defines how Mr. Morris and I have been operating again to kind

105of set the next LAC up for success. So, you're kind of doing it then >> a little bit. I'll look more into the >> That might be worth checking if there's anything in particular you want in here to make it easier to do what you're >> I think I'm pretty confident in it. I will double check. >> Yeah. Yeah. No, you sound like you weren't sure, you know, that you wanted a discussion of how to make it easier to do these letters and reflect because we have the other bylaw that says, you know, only the president speaks the will of the board, right? Even the president is pretty limited because an action has to take place, which is because we all we might not all have the same take on something. Just having a single

106spokesperson doesn't very work very well. The only time we can really talk things through is at our working board meetings, right? So, um it's a little bit of a a challenge to figure this through. It looks like you're looking for some wording on that. >> Absolutely. And that would be the purpose of not only this, but um I'll double check as well. So >> I was just going to add because when I was looking through this um I think because I've sat on resource finance and resource I think we could probably do the go through the same process for that committee um and then I've never sat on policy but perhaps you would agree that um updating the description would be helpful. I would recommend um maybe um doing a board review on these in

107the off election years. You know, we have four candidates one year, three candidates another, and then no candidates one year. I would recommend that we look at it that year just to help oncoming um board members um transition into this role. So, I appreciated you guys in LAC um kind of starting that process and I think it would be a good one for the rest of the committees too >> just as course of, you know, hygiene, right? We always want to look at what our founding documents are and create somewhere nice and clean and updated. So, >> you're suggesting possibly looking, you know, putting this on an agenda in June. Yeah, maybe like a board retreat talking about it or something and just coming up with some sort of cadence that's expected and >> we

108know onboarding um as a new uh >> board member is intense >> intense is the is a good word. So I the more that we can build to help new board members I think anything we can do to make this a less intense experience when you're starting is great. That's a good plan. Thank you for getting us started. You bet. Um, moving on to D. Then, um, this actually, uh, is from the older ideology of where we're trying to identify a problem and then pass a resolution so that we can talk about it officially. Um, so this is actually a bill that's in committee and it's been locked up in committee for the entirety of Mr. Morrison and I being on the LAC. Um it is a bipartisan bill. It's just happens to be locked

109up in committee. Uh effectively it talks through um the choice of um public school employees after they retire. They get into the annuitant system and they are they then have to choose whether they get the annuity or they continue working um even afterward. Um so getting that bill passed and passing this resolution to encourage that bill to pass um would help unlock this problem so that our teachers can continue working and collect the annuity uh the in the annuity. Thank you. Um even after they technically retire. Um, it should also be noted that they could in theory go collect their u annuity and then go work in a voucher or private school um under current law. Uh, and this bipartisan bill would bring it in line. So that doesn't matter. Um, so that is the

110first reading of that and I'll ask for approval for both this and the committee description. So, opportunity to give feedback um at this first reading or ask questions have a question. Um first sentence says whereas Wisconsin D school districts including W chos district are facing unprecedented staffing shortage across all g grade levels and subject areas. Sorry. Um that seems counter to what we learned from our lovely Miss Alazki earlier. Yes. So, the first thing I noticed when I read I'm absolutely not dismissing that as a concern across Wisconsin. Um, I don't know that flagging it as a concern for our district as I don't know that we would identify as having unprecedented staffing shortages. So, I think we could take that sentence out and um focus it on the state. >> Uh, that's fair. I

111could absolutely make that change uh in uh by the second reading. Uh the spirit of that sentence is that the pipeline, the teacher pipeline is >> much smaller than it was, let's say, >> and I'm 100% behind this resolution otherwise. And I hope that our state legislators do their work and pass this soon. So, thank you for bringing this to us. Yeah, it's a good a good edit else. >> You look like you're formulating a thought. >> No, I I just >> it's hope. It's hope. >> It's open. Yeah. >> Yeah. Yeah, I mean thinking one way to to to speak to um Liz's thought is to even start with the value that retired educators have as you know as a as a opportunity for districts to strengthen um their pool of potential. I mean

112you just start I guess maybe you can start with that is we're we're losing the entire first paragraph and I just move right to the second paragraph. You could you could um or or stick the shortage piece in under >> the idea that um that we have a pool of educators that when and if we face um low hiring uh ability in a particular area. We can't at this point turn to >> our experienced educators um who've been part of the district previously um or other public school districts uh to to potentially. So you could just kind of flip it and maybe that would make people aware of really that more that this is about so this is about trying to open that space for retired educators. So that could be your lead. >> Yes,

113sir. And our district specifically has been um benefactors of retired educators coming back and really um in some times really shifting a whole dynamic of a school building. So just another reason um for anyone even listening to support this um and hope that it gets passed. >> So feel free to bring it back for um believe we have an agenda coming up that we'll be back on again very quickly. So >> sounds >> can be done. >> Bringing us forward. Um we are ready for our discussion of the next item. Um seven uh strategic systems and structures. board members good continuing with this or do you need to stretch break stretch break five well they'll say seven minutes to be fair >> so let's be >> we start seven strategic goals systems and structures with

114letter A presentation of the long range facilities plan thank you all for being here >> sure do you want us kick this off Dr. Means or did you want to get us started? I'll >> start go to the first slide. >> In this presentation, you'll hear that there's two major takeaways. The first is that the Waltosa School District needs a clear financial plan, long-term financial plan for its legacy facilities. We call any building that is not that has not been built since 2018 a legacy building. But what you will hear this evening is that the state of our secondary schools are so concerning to us that we need a plan to address the condition of our four secondary schools within the next 12 to 18 months. You'll hear from Mr. a fountain in a few

115minutes that the condition of those facilities are in dire need. You'll hear from Dr. Marble in a few minutes that instructionally we are not positioning students and teachers in a positive position to do strong academic work. A second takeaway is that the state of our secondary schools and the legacy elementary schools are simply inadequate from an instructional lens. That this is no longer an issue of we can just do without or we can manage with aging buildings. You will hear this evening that from an instructional standpoint, we have significant concerns. I would be remiss if I did did not share that the district clearly had a strategic vision for how to proceed with this work. In October of 2024, we presented to the board a recommendation to um move the sixth graders to our existing

116elementary schools. We also put um the board elected to put a um ballot question out to the community um in November of 2024 to address the deferred maintenance of existing elementary schools. It was with that vision that we were under the assumption that we would retain our elementary schools and that we would utilize that space um that we would have in those buildings um through having sixth graders go to those buildings. Un fortunately, I continue to hear in our community a an interest. It's not an interest from our administrative team, but there's an interest from people in our community to revisit the number of elementary schools we have in our school system. You'll also note that our administrative team recommended many months ago now moving to a 712 model for our secondary schools. So we

117felt that we were on a pathway of trying to solidify what the next step should be. We wanted to get the opinion of a um group of stakeholders to give us more direction. That's where the ad hoc committee came into play and and assisted us. Um you'll be hearing from the ad hoc committee next week. uh we're very thankful for their their commitment and their civic duty that they've given to our school system. But I think that there has been we're going to need the board. I think this this work of the ad hoc committee will pivot away from this group of of citizens and volunteers to the elected school board where we will need you to be definitive um around what we've already recommended where we believe that you have weighed in what you

118weighed in on. But I think it's really important for those in the community who are using I believe coded language to just be very clear in saying if they want to see an elementary school closed or not. That's not our preference administratively, but I believe that that that talk continues to linger in our community and at some point we just need to address it once and for all. Uh and and we'll get to that that issue in a few minutes. But those are the key takeaways. I'm going to turn it over to Mr. uh Ecker to talk a little bit about how funding works for new and remodeled schools in Wisconsin. >> Sure. And before we get to the I guess will be the second slide, um I I would imagine there are going to

119be lots of questions after we finish uh the presentation. Some we might be able to answer today and many others maybe not. Um, that's one reason we're recommending the board have a runway here of a s, you know, a relatively significant amount of time to do the due process and also give us time to answer some of those questions that may take, you know, more the knee-jerk kind of answers. Um, so just kind of want to level set I I know for sure I'm not going to have many of the answers that to questions that might come up. um and expect that we will be able to, you know, put those things together over time. So, this is a slide I shared with the ad hoc committee. Um, and I really see the work we're

120doing today complimentary to that. I I'm not part of that committee, so I don't really know what the outcome's going to be. I just know that I need I need to know from the board some kind of financial plan no matter what comes out of the ad hoc committee. And the slide I presented to them was just kind of level setting um the community on how schools are paid for uh in in Wisconsin. So um you can see uh you know there's some X's through things indicating that that we can't pay for schools that way. Uh and then the O's indicate that we can. So um some people think that state grants or federal funding can be relied on to pay for schools. Um in Wisconsin that's uh not the case. Um there was a

121short period of time that federal funding was available uh with ESSERT. It wouldn't have built a whole new school, but it could have been used for things like HVAC equipment. Uh that has, as you know, since expired. Um in Wisconsin, we can use general operating funds. So, this is rare, but it can be done within the revenue limit. A board can choose however they want to spend that money. Um, realistically for that to happen, that would mean reducing whatever you're already spending your money on to pivot towards spending it on facilities. The only district in the state that I know of that has done something uh in a material way like that is New Berlin. Um, the school board cannot arbitrarily raise taxes to pay for schools. um the only way the school board can

122raise taxes is if a community approves a referendum that gives the board the ability to raise taxes. So, kind of a little nuance there. Um even if the community approves a referendum, the board doesn't have to um move forward with the referendum. The it simply gives the board the ability or the authority to do so. And then finally, it's possible to do a combination of both referendum and operating funds. So, let's say for instance, let's say you were going to build a $2 million building, I don't know, some shed or something. Um, you could do a referendum for $1 million and and take 1 million from your operating funds as well. Again, you'd be reducing something on your operating side to pay for that, but there's certainly nothing that disallows a board from using a

123portion of operating funds to pay for something. So, how did we get here? Um, so I went back and I looked at uh the the debt levies in these three school districts since 1984. That's the furthest back I could find data. And this is the total dollars collected in debt service uh for these three school districts uh over time. So you can see uh we've collected roughly $90 million. Uh Elbrook a little over $120 million. West Alice, West Milwaukee at we'll ballpark that near say 55 or 56 million. So that's what is that 40 years now of time. Yeah. So 40 years of time total debt uh collection and all of that would be towards facilities. The other way to look at that is um the impact each year in terms of of rate. So

124the way that that money is collected again is uh they call it a levy rate or a mill rate. And um what stands out to me here is you can see the uh purple line is West Alice, the blue line is Wawaossa and the orange line is uh Elbrook. So if we look back to 1984, the district collecting the most every year uh in ter for debt levy was West Dallas. We were right in the middle and Elbrook was the lowest. Uh you can see over time then um I'll point out uh kind of what's interesting to me is our line and Elbrook's line. So Elbrook drops down uh at about 86 87 and has almost nothing right for about a decade until 1996 and then they begin taking on some debt. So you can

125see the orange line increasing at the same time. uh we continue decreasing and then we take nearly I'm going to say 15 to 17 years off of paying any debt. So essentially I'm going to say that's maybe a generation of of homeowners, maybe two generations of homeowners that weren't paying any any kind of facility um debt towards uh facilities in Watossa. Um, as you can see, Elbrook was kind of in a similar situation from ' 86 to 96. Um, they passed some referendums. Uh, we did not do anything with our facilities from a referendum standpoint. Uh, and you can see, um, West Dallas, West Milwaukee also, uh, kind of began that trend of declining and, um, not going to referendum. Then you can see in 1819 that's the year that we passed the referendum for

126the uh the four elementary schools as well as work to um actually every building was touched in some way then. So a birdwalk here quick case studies. So um looking at what Elbrook did. So it's I couldn't believe how long ago this is now. It was February of 2000 that their referendum was approved. So just for context here, uh they approved a referendum for $31.8 million in 2000 to build two buildings. Um the enrollment at each right now is about 650 students. Those are elementaryaries. So their capacity is around 700. So each building cost $15.9 million. They're kind of identical buildings if you've ever been there. Um, in November of 18, we passed uh 124 roughly $125 million referendum. Uh, 93.5 million. It went towards four new elementary schools. Uh, our average enrollment is about

127300, so we'll say half the size of those two Elbrook schools. And our cost was 23.3 million. So, um I I bring this up just kind of um I I didn't know the public comment that was coming obviously, but I I like that phrase about the best time to plant a tree and the second best time. I think this really outlines it here. The the bang you get for your buck, right? Over time. Uh one more case study. We passed a referendum uh or the community passed a referendum, you know, about a year ago now, a little over a year ago for $60 million laid out at our uh this is how it's um going to be spent at each school. Uh essentially committing to keeping them open, right? We're putting money into them to

128keep them open. Um Walka uh if you were following the news last November um made a different choice. They chose to close some elementary schools. Presumably, they could have gone to referendum or done something to try and get money, but probably would have been a referendum. Um, they're estimating an annual operating savings from closing those of $3 million. Uh, there's been a lot of talk here about what we might save if we were to close an elementary. A lot of work would have to be done to figure out exactly what that would be. Um, the main things being how many of those teachers would be kept. Uh but I think $3 million is a probably a reasonable figure that Wacaaw came up with and something that we could at least benchmark against. Um the two

129things you'd save on would be to the extent that you don't replace those teachers and simply shift kids to a another school that would it would increase class size of course but there may be capacity and then you'd also save on the bricks and mortar costs going forward. Um the main difference uh if we were to let's say we had chosen to close one of our elementarymentaries instead of have the referendum, we wouldn't have much bricks and mortar savings right now because frankly we're not putting enough money into them. So I wouldn't have any money to take back that we were putting there. We would of course save money down the road, right? Um when an emergency happened, we wouldn't have to address it. For instance, >> thank you. This is coming to you mine.

130>> Okay. Thank you. >> Just want to remind the community and the board that in 2017 there was a group of citizens that formed something called the facility advisory committee. And the next slide will show what that facility advisory committee created in terms of what they said was needed in Waltoso. The recommendation from the facility advisory committee and then eventually the board was to go to referendum in 2018. There was a referendum for 20 $124.9 million that successfully passed the building of the four new elementary schools and deferred maintenance issues that went across the district with the remaining funds from the $124.9 million referendum took place during a very troubling time and and challenging time uh for school systems and that it happened during CO, but the final ribbon cutting took place in 2022. Um,

131then we we had the pleasure of hiring our our current buildings and grounds director um who updated a dated facility study plan. Um, so we've been looking at our facilities since the 2018 referendum just to get a sense of what was the remaining deferred maintenance that we needed to address. It was through that updated facilities assessment that we went to the community and identified deferred maintenance needs that would allow us to continue to keep the five legacy elementary schools open and address ADA issues at both uh our two high schools and our uh five elementary legacy schools. Uh the community u resoundingly supported that referendum. I think it's important to note again for those who are in the community and are who are suggesting maybe we should revisit closing elementary schools. Part of the premise

132of the 2024 referendum was to maintain the current elementary school footprint. But we would be uh you know we we constantly hear that the the issue of being transparent. We wouldn't be transparent if we did not raise the issue at this board discussion that there are some and I'm sure you hear it that there are some in our community who are asking us to continue to revisit this issue nonetheless. I referenced if we can go to the next slide I referenced the the the pyramid here. I think it's just really important to know that back in 2017, so nearly 10 years ago, the facility advisory committee identified that there was a need to build seven new elementary schools and to heavily renovate Madison and Eisenhower. So again, there was a there was a call nearly

13310 years ago to build seven new elementary schools. We we only built four. Um and and so those five remaining uh legacy schools, their needs haven't gone away. We believe that we were able and we're so thankful for the community for rallying around uh the 2024 facilities referendum, but we we acknowledge that there's work to be done there and what you're going to hear in a few uh minutes here from Kevin. And there's we believe a crisis brewing with our four secondary schools. Mr. Lefountain, I'll turn it over to you. So in short, this slide will will show you the work that was done from 2018. As we talked about, four new elementary schools were built and the remaining uh funds were dedicated to the building systems outlined at those individual schools. So moving forward,

134we've we've heard Dr. Means talk about the 24 referendum and what it's its intent was to keep those buildings open. Essentially, it will provide work that will provide functional stability as it relates to the building system shown there. Um the four elementary schools shown the Monasuri Fischer building and then ADA um and safety improvements at both high schools. Um the four elementary schools, nothing to do there except just operate them and and enjoy them. Um you'll see later on in the long range presentation how we're going to in addition to the secondary school state, we're going to identify the work going into these buildings. um the new buildings and how that can be part of that living document I'm going to show you in that long range plan. So, for instance, uh a Wilson Elementary

135in 25 years, it may need a new roof. We're going to try and identify that in a long range plan um so that there's u transparency, future boards, future administrations can recognize what that work is. As we said, there was over 600 uh end of life issues in those buildings that led to the 2017 work and and the 2018 referendum. Uh but in short, the work that we're doing in 2024 will allow the district to address half of uh the remaining work identified in the 24 assessment. Um what the work does not do is shown on the previous slide doesn't do anything for the instructional learning environment adequacy of these legacy schools. Go back a slide. >> Uh so just to set the stage before we jump into uh what that means around the the

136academic adequacy portion of this um as Mr. Le Fountain has discussed really up to this point it really has just been about what do we need to do to keep the buildings um open and functional. Um we have not taken into account the actual pedagogical impact of our learning spaces and in a lot of research uh the the classroom space is called the third teacher and so it really does have an impact. um as part of my ongoing professional learning. I'm currently working on um getting certified as a learning space specialist through Ed Market and that program has really helped me understand uh what really needs to be in a in a learning environment to help support students. Um I'll talk a little bit about the secondary learning um a secondary analysis and learning spaces

137that I conducted alongside um Dr. Melissa Thompson um from P and some members of our district team here as well uh around our secondary spaces and what we found with that. Um but I just want to present a couple of ideas and thoughts on how our academic facade spaces actually do impact teaching and learning. For example, for example, biofilia. So um elements of nature being in a classroom space is research shows helps reduce stress on the prefrontal cortex of the brain and when our students are less stressed they are better able to engage in their learning. Students also need a level of territoriality to encourage intellectual risk-taking. So that means there needs to be space for them to be private in their thinking and in their learning. And I'll show an example in a little

138bit of what I mean by that. Additionally, when classrooms um have poor acoustics, it leads to lower executive functioning um increase in cortisol levels. It lowers reading and math achievement and impacts memory. So, I won't be able to physically show some of the poor acoustics that we have identified in our um in our secondary schools, but I will just note that Longfellow Middle School um is exceptionally poor at its acoustics with the noise pollution that the HVAC system produces in our classrooms. Um so, again, these are just a few features that are important for us to be considering when we're looking to maximize the student learning experience. So I did an analysis of learning spaces study like I mentioned with Dr. Thompson and some other um individuals in our organization and we found that there's

139no instructional space um we found that no instructional space was found to be sufficient um for the level of learning that we were uh the learning environment we're looking to produce. And how did we come up with that? We used a number of we developed a number of different rubrics that were anchored by North Carolina's univers North Carolina University's school of um architecture. We put we dug into a bunch of research uh around each content area and what that content area elevated beyond just the basics of um just the basics of what the North Carolina model had taught us. We also looked at the overall school. We went into every single instructional space and we evaluated the spaces on the spatial layout uh furniture, fixtures and equipment and then the physical attributes. So spatial layout

140that's around like square footage and circulation access which we know is really important for teachers to be giving feedback to students. And then physical attributes. Um some of that includes the um just the overall aesthetics of the space. Um how well the and like for example how well the technology might um support the space. And then we evaluated whether or not the components were either missing in a space partially or minimally present sufficient or exemplary. Um and again what we found was that we didn't identify a single uh learning space that was sufficient with the spatial layout, fixed furnitureures um furniture fixtures and equipment and physical attributes. So um lots of thoughts and considerations moving forward. Here is an example of a world language classroom at East High School. This classroom is just over 500

141square feet and it regularly accommodates up to 30 learners in this classroom. When I talk about uh territoriality, there is no place for a student to have a private moment to be able to uh as a former world language teacher, we always called it playing with the language. Um, we want to be able to have students have those opportunities to be very private but then also very public. There's there's no privacy in this in this space. Um, and when we think about a a content area in particular, world language, this sort of a learning environment does not foster a student centered learning space where um students are able to really work with one another. the teacher is if you the teacher's ability to circulate through the space is very compromised. Um thus again not allowing

142the teacher to be able to give that frequent um feedback to students as they are working and playing with the language. This is uh a the ceramics classroom at East High School. And one thing I want to point out here are the giant pillars in the middle of the classroom. not only from an instructional standpoint, but also from a safety standpoint, the sight lines in this classroom are highly problematic. Um, if a teacher is on this back side, they cannot see what's happening on the far right side in the classroom. when we're talking about ceramics and we're talking about using different tools that also have safety features um within that there it's it's not the proper learning environment for our students to be most successful. This is a science room at Wawaossa West High School.

143The layout of this classroom really makes it very narrow and very long. I have been in this classroom during instructional time and even standing in the back of the classroom I cannot hear what is prop what is happening at the front of the classroom whether that be the teacher um instructing or a student sharing an idea it is again wildly problematic. The other point that I will share here is the lab spaces are around the periphery of the classroom. Why is that problematic? When students are engaging in uh in labs, their backs are all towards um towards the teacher and the teacher also cannot see what is happening at the lab station. Um so again it creates an environment not of only a physical safety of making sure that students are properly handling uh space

144and whatever lab work they're doing but also for teachers to be able to circulate and see where they might need to give some corrective action um or provide feedback to students or stretch their thinking. And then last but not least here is um the culinary arts space at Whitman Middle School. Um not very state-of-the-art in terms of um helping to produce uh future chefs of our area. Uh very outdated uh counter countertops and cabinetry. Also, it's a very small crammed space and so to be able to um really leverage uh a true culinary and home economic experience is uh very problematic. We have uh we have sewing machines that we don't get to even use because the time in between students coming in and out of the classroom is very short and there's no place

145to store them so they don't get used. Um even though it would be something that our teachers would love to be able to do. Uh, I took a look at what other school districts in the greater metro area have done to produce more student centered learning environments. And us and West Alice are the only school districts that not have have not yet jumped into making sure that we have student centered learning spaces. All of the other schools in the greater metro conference have. So it begs the question of are we properly preparing our students for what their peers in other school districts are experiencing. So, uh, going off the work that was done from 2017 and follow-up assessments done in 24, we dug deep into, uh, working with other professionals, um, listed here to pro

146produce a new long range capital plan. As I mentioned before, the plan will identify all facilities uh, going out through their life cycle. Uh, we're our strategy here is to look at this as a living document. So, the the link uh to the long range capital plan and I don't know if I click on it. I can make a list back out. There we go. So, um this is similar to something that Scott has developed before for referendum tracking. I'm just going to minimize this. Excuse me. So, what this will give us the capability to do is to look at each um building um in detail. Uh you'll see that for right now we have the secondary schools identified from the current assessment work we're doing. However, if you manipulate and you play around here,

147you can do the drop down menu for the schools. Every one of the school facilities and the portfolio is listed. Everyone will eventually have its own assessment so so to speak or long range plan for capital investment um outlaid. And then we uh have priorities labeled from uh one through four, one being imminent life safety related and four being beyond 10 years. Again to that example of the new buildings needing work over the next 20 years. One of the reasons Kevin put this together is so that like he said it'd be a living document and quickly build a reference. You can see across the columns here uh categories of work, what the building is. He's going to show you in a second that it is um even built by priority matrix. So questions that we

148were getting from uh the board or different committees over time have been well what what is imminent? What is an emergency? what what can we wait 5 to 10 years on and so he can quickly um categorize things this way and we we'll this is going to be an internal document but we'll we'll be able to give those answers and as needs arise over time we'll just be able to add that to this living document as opposed to having a you know a 50-page booklet that we need to reprint every year and then you know reference via tabs or something. So uh next I'll point you to the executive summaries that are completed for the secondary school. So these summaries are backed up by the data shown on that table on that dashboard. Um and

149if you I can also go there. Um East High School in particular. Um, as you read through this, what I like about this is instead of anyone having to look through an extensive list of what's wrong, the professionals highlighted on this document, um, engineers, architects, and and the like essentially just give each building system a rating. And you can see architecture-wise uh out of a scale of five, one to five uh east is a one and a half. Um plumbing scores very low. Uh some of the the food service layout score is very low when you look at what uh some of our other facilities can provide and electrical and mechanical as we've talked about before with some of those old systems uh scores very low too. And in addition at the end we they

150provide an overall matrix of how those ratings are developed. And because of it's difficult to just say like if you had a new building and nothing ever happened to it and it was 75 years old, you could say everything's wrong because of the investment made in 2018 to some of these buildings. there are some things that stabilize those those systems and then the rest of it has been sitting since that time degrading and getting worse. So I find these assessments very helpful and I I hope that um everybody else that reads them will as well. Um moving on. So this is just a screenshot from that dashboard just to demonstrate how we can play with that. um communicate data to you. Plan out projects by identifying them by building type and priority. Um priority one,

151imminent life safety need. What does that mean? Imminent life safety. Life safety essentially is upgrades to meet building codes. ADA compliance. The systems work. Now, the buildings are not ADA compliant. Now, that identifies how much are they're out of code and and the severity of it. Um, imminent, I would just simply say imminent is issues that used to be manageable no longer are. They're they're escalating into a higher risk of exposure. Um, if you want to say the urgency at our secondary schools, it's directly rooted in the fact that all that work that was identified in 2017 that is not completed yet has gotten worse and therefore cannot be managed reliably. um that will result I don't know what it will be um that will result and can threaten um continued learning and operations because

152of a failure of a system. Um no one can predict what that will be but we all can reasonably agree that the longer these things go on our exposure to risk is much higher. Uh, additionally on this slide, there's a a note on the lower right hand corner. In this assessment, we have intentionally uh included the work from the 24 referendum for the high schools, the ADA and safety work just to make sure we're identifying it. And the reason why that work is scheduled for the summer of 27. If for whatever reason there's a decision to do heavy renovation at the high schools, it would be throwaway work so to speak. If we would to uh expedite that work in and then have to disturb all that work again two years later, let's say to

153do a heavy renovation of one of the high schools. If the direction is to proceed, we will proceed with that work and it will be completed in 27. But that's why it's intentionally included in there. As a result, if we expedite that work and completed 27, the dollar value here will be reduced by the corresponding amount of work that will be pulled out of that list. And again, priority two emergent. What does emergent mean? Well, those are systems that they're not imminent, but in the next 5 years, they're going to rise to that level of exposure of risk that the priority ones will. And priority 3 just takes you off 5 to 10 years. We highlight the priority one through three for one simple reason. A lot of that work is heavy renovation work. And

154it's important to consider the full scope of all of that because the opportunity to provide other modernization in the spaces as you're disrupting all that space with the heavier renovation would be an efficient use of that money and um making a better building overall. Oh, this is still you. >> All right. I don't have a bird for this birdwalk, but uh case studies longfellow to so to my point earlier, what will happen? What does imminent mean? What will go wrong? This is a good example of what eventually uh happened. Nothing bad happened. We just decided to close the pool. Um, when you look at the the history of Longfellow's pool in that 17 assessment, it was identified as needing a significant investment or considered closing it. Um, April 24, uh, because nothing was done, uh,

155the structural decline had, uh, had, um, increased significantly. A follow-up professional assessment recommended that uh the pool be closed or uh invest money immediately. U in July the administration decided to close the pool and December of 24 the pool was closed. Uh again the case studies a proof concept for cost of inaction um and where we have moved past the point of if these systems will fail, we are now managing when they will fail. So, I'll just correct one thing there. Kevin said we just decided to close it. Um, the reason we decided to close it is it wasn't safe anymore. So, um, it wasn't an arbitrary decision. It was we can't have it open. We closed it and then we decided to drain it. So, that's where we stand right now. Um, relative to

156finances. So, again, back to can we do nothing? Uh and this is what I have to think through in my head is well what what kind of this is the what if right so um if if there were no referendum funding whether that is because there's not a referendum or a referendum doesn't pass the issues don't go away and so then I I have I'm I'll be tasked with bringing the board some kind of solution to how do we deal with these problems I don't know the answer budget is hund00 million and we have $150 million in needs as Kevin just identified, even if we did those at what $15 million a year, that means taking that from our operating budget somehow and and taking 10 years to finish those things in today's dollars. So,

157we probably wouldn't even finish them, but that's what I'm thinking through. Um, so here's kind of the conclusions I reached and and um you'll need to reach your own. Um, but as I'm, you know, I I hear from Kevin and I hear from Nicole and I'm trying to think through how do I bring kind of financial um considerations to the board. Uh, and these are kind of oversimplified, but I had to put them in a structure to so that I could understand them. Um, I I think it's a given older buildings require a greater level of investment to to maintain as viable, right? They're older. It takes more money. Everyone with an older house knows that um over time it's less expensive to maintain fewer buildings. That is right. If we if I have no

158house, I have a lower cost than if I have a house. So, uh same applies to um the footprint. Um I don't think the projects and funding, so the list of items Kevin has, I've been in districts where that would be debatable. I don't think that's debatable here. So, uh, which is kind of nice. We we don't have to debate the data. Um, and if if the intention is to keep all the buildings open, we know what we need to do. Um, kind of back to uh what our community members said earlier, I I agree that the time for additional taxes is never right. Um, the best time is when someone else paid for it. Um, construction costs get more expensive every year. uh the minimum funding, you know, that that Kevin has talked about,

159of course, doesn't touch the things that uh Dr. Marble um emphasized and and is the expert at. Um we also know the most fiscally responsible course of action, this is kind of what Kevin was just saying, is to complete all the needed projects at once. So, it would be a shame to um throw some money at one of the secondary schools, two years later, tear down a wall to now redo a project. So, um while we have while we want to be deliberate in the board's decision-m on this, we also don't want to be foolhardy in the amount of time we take be because we know that we're scheduled to do some work at those at those buildings. And from my perspective and I think the community and board also creating some kind of predictable

160financial roadmap is imperative even if even if uh and you're going to see in a couple slides I'm recommending um potentially further referendums down the road for you know the next 10 or 20 years even if those things weren't um approved. I I think having the idea of a roadmap toward that end um builds a plan financially. So here's kind of the uh my my proposed financial roadmap. Um in October uh October April 2028 uh I'd recommend that we move forward with an operational referendum. That would be to renew the current non-recurring referendum. So I agree that our number one priority is maintaining our our programs and and staff we have and we need to put that priority first in in my opinion. Following that um some kind of uh facilities referendum focused on the

161secondary schools. Uh, I say that because while the five legacy elementaryaries aren't where we'd want them to be, they have gotten work more recently than the four secondary schools. So, a focus on the secondary schools. How many that is, I don't know what that cost is, I don't know. that it is would be part of what the facilities uh that ad hoc committee is going to be giving information to the board about that and then ultimately what the board would choose. Uh but obviously that cost could vary greatly based on the option chosen leaping all the way ahead to November of 2034. Um we we give ourselves some breathing time and assuming a referendum passes in 2028 this scope would take several years to complete anyway. Um so in November of determine the fate of

162the legacy elementary facilities and determine the footprint uh that we want to have going forward. The reason I say do that in 34 is because the debt on the 28 uh yeah 2018 referendum will be paid off in 2038. So to have a plan I'm going to go back a whole bunch of slides here. Ideally, what I'd recommend is that the board and community have a plan that doesn't settle the debt all the way down to zero. Again, um the districts that have put themselves in the best position uh time over time have been those that try and keep a a level set debt levy so that generation after generation are kind of equally paying their share and no one is getting uh shocked any one year. So since we will have debt being paid

163off fully in 2038, I believe it's prudent to start considering what is the board and community going to do at least by 2034 so you have a plan by 2038. >> So I will just regground us in our vision and mission and in particular I want to draw our attention to the second sentence in our mission statement. We will ensure that we have excellent educators in our schools and that they have the support and resources needed. I would argue that one of the key resources that they need to be successful is to have classroom spaces that allow for student centered instruction. And I just want to take this quote and juxtapose our mission and vision alongside this quote. And when we talk about building an academic culture, that's something that has uh really come through

164over the last, you know, couple of years of we need to build up an academic culture. Our facilities do play a part in how that academic culture comes to fruition because inequade school facilities do diminish an academic focus and reduce perceptions of order and seriousness. So if we want academics to be the the primary driver and we want students to be serious about their work, we need to reflect on are we providing them with the environment to do so. Research also shows that the quality of the built learning environment influences teacher attitudes, behaviors, and performance. Teachers working in poorly maintained buildings are less likely to demonstrate enthusiasm, exert extra effort for students, and have higher rates of absenteeism. In such context, principles attempting to strengthen academic focus may be perceived as authoritarian as they work

165to change school culture and climate. We have wonderful folks that are working very hard um and are looking to continually continue to improve their efforts each and every day and are the question I asked myself are we also doing them a disservice by not having um that third teacher really supporting them. So, it's not one or the other. There is a strong nexus between building maintenance, our financial health, and curriculum instruction that really leads to a strong student and staff experience. And then just to we talked a lot or I talked a lot earlier about our secondary schools and I just want to elevate our elementary spaces so we don't forget about them. Um when our four newer schools were built, it was around this model elementary school concept. And really the focus there actually

166wasn't even improving student outcomes. It really was around capacity and flexibility. So there are some things for us to even consider about our current model acade um elementary schools as to whether or not they're hitting the mark on where we'd want uh spaces to be to improve student learning outcomes. Um, but just taking a quick little tour of some of our spaces. This is a the music room at um Roosevelt alongside the music room at McKinley. This is uh an SK classroom at Madison Elementary alongside an SK classroom at Lincoln. On the left is an art room or is the art room at Eisenhower next to the art room at Lincoln. Here we have the library at Madison Elementary on the left and the library space on the right hand side at um at McKinley.

167We talk about um spaces for students to reeregulate themselves. On the left hand side is the sensory room at Washington Elementary and on the right hand side is the sensory room that's available to students at Underwood. And um our new discovery lab curriculum that we and programming that we've been able to implement has been um really wellreceived. And we also need to consider the learning environments that we are able to leverage said learning. On the left we have Madison's um discovery lab and on the right hand side we have Wilson W. STEM's discovery lab. And then something that exists only at the new schools and does not exist at the legacy schools um are different breakout spaces for there to be um intentional teaching and learning taking place um outside of the four walls of

168the classroom. So, I guess I'll just read this because this is uh from a from a financial standpoint. Um, so well, the development of needs assessment is is and was an an important first step. So, as a reminder, when Kevin got here, there wasn't even a list of needs. So, um, and one of the things I said to Dr. Means was, "Hey, we have a list, but we don't have a plan." So, this is about developing the plan. Now, it's it's financially critical that the board and ultimately the community understand that a tenative financial plan must be established to address those needs. Right? So, just having a list of needs doesn't mean we have a plan. Um, and we need to figure out how we're going to fund the construction andor major renovation of the

169remaining legacy schools uh regardless of how many schools ultimately remain. And I think that is going to be the core work of the board and likely the administration uh over as as we're recommending the next 12 to 18 months. >> Thank you. Board members, questions, comments? Mr. Bower, are you ready? >> I'm ready. >> Okay. Um slide six makes me angry. We'll start with that. uh the fact that 20 years ago when we had an opportunity to plant a tree, we chose not to as a community. Uh we don't need to necessarily show it, but it's already up there hopefully. Um I had a quick question on your case study regarding Wacaaw. You said $3 million per year. That's $1 million per year that they closed, right? Or is it three million per school? And

170they closed three schools. So they are going to save. >> So what what I read um is they're estimating $3 million per building per year per year. >> Uh there were earlier there was earlier work that indicated that it might be closer to 1 million per elementary school per year in when we were talking about task force 2075. So that would be interesting to see how much we could actually save. That said, I hear the concerns and the different elements that you are bringing forward. My question is, how can this board direct your um your creation of this long-term facilities plan? I liken it to how we construct the budget each year where we set up a list of assumptions. here are the things that we are going to assume are going to be the

171case until indicated otherwise. Right? So, are we going to keep all of the elementary schools? Are we going to move sixth grade down? Are we going to use open enrollment? And how uh how are we going to redistrict on a regular basis? How are we going to include in our budget and operating budget maneening school improvement? I would imagine that it would be a fairly simple exercise to get this board to give you a solid answers that we can hang our hat on. The next school board might be different and we might have to change our policy and or not our policy our plan for that reason, but it seems like a very simple thing. Is that a way that this board can help you as we execute on creating this plan for the next

17250 years? Yeah, I think what you're suggesting is some fence posts. Yes. That that we that that we can ground ourselves in. And Absolutely. >> And and may I just add I we have been operating under the assumption that there were fence posts. >> Um you we went to the the 2024 referendum for the elementary schools with the assumption that if it passes, there's a fence post. that we we recommended the 712 model because we felt that there was a way for us to be judicious with the remaining elementary schools and how to ma manage the the the secondary schools understanding as Kevin has now outlined the priority one and priority two needs. But clearly there are some in the community who continue to put on the table the issue of closure um for elementary

173schools. And so yes, we we do need the board to weigh in because it places us in a tough spot administratively when people will say to me, for example, well could the board change their mind about the sixth graders going to the elementary schools? My response is, well, I guess the board could do anything. That's not I haven't heard any direction that would say they're they're going to veer that you are going to veer veer away from the sixth graders going to the elementary school. But there seems to be this connection where people are saying, well, if we could, I think Scott said it, if we can close certain elementary schools, then maybe the dollar amount that we have to eventually invest could go towards maintaining secondary schools. I I I don't that's a calculus

174that I haven't done. Um, but clearly people have and I and I think it's going to be really important for us to when I say us, I mean the board and administrative administration to to really get involved in community engagement. I think there will be a need at some point for us to once and for all ask a question on a survey of some sort of where do people stand? And even if there is a survey, ultimately the board still has to make the decision. I I think sometimes we we kind of lose sight of it and and so it's important to have these conversations now of where do people stand on on the footprint um and and and and what's your your position because we believe that those those those fence posts have been

175established but there the question continues to be called and and and we we we need and it's not to say that the board hasn't given us a definitive answer, but it seems to be there's there's a certain segment of the community that doesn't that has not accepted that answer >> there. If if I could I'm sorry. I >> what what I was referring to more specifically was um since I've been here, I'm pretty clear in the fence post relative to decisions the board has specifically made. It's really the four secondary schools are the the the thing that um that conversation hasn't happened in 50 years. So it's for me that's the one of the probably the key decision point is what are the fence posts with those with those four buildings. Um, yes. I >>

176think maybe we might want to if you have more questions, you can continue to follow up on this one, but instead of going to like another content area, let's work through this question and see what other board members want to say once you're done. Just just so you can think about here. We'll come back to you for additional topics. >> Absolutely. Um, I would encourage this board to put those fence posts and sink them into concrete into the ground and let future boards dig those posts up and change them. Like, let's set it down. Let's say this is the plan and if the community doesn't like it, they can vote us out, right? Let's make it that clear. Um, that would be my encouragement. So, if we're talking about keeping or closing elementary schools, let's

177make that let's plant our flag and let's do that. That would be my encouragement because >> I'd like to follow that up. >> Having those conversations are getting tiring. >> I'd love to hear from newer board members or anyone why we don't feel we did plant that flag in September of 2024 because I was there and I'm pretty good about the concrete that was there. In fact, this report really surprised me. Um, and at many levels frustrated me. It came on a Friday. Um, it it had a lot of content that stirred up people in the community. I think that there would have been a much more productive way to have this conversation. And I understand that you're hearing, and I'm not dismissing people's opinions in the community about elementary schools, but there there was

178an important decision in September of 2024 because we were going to ask people for money. And I don't I feel like this this report started digging at the concrete that existed. And I don't think everybody in this community agrees with that decision. And I'm I'm quite sure that they don't. Um, but I'm also thinking about the precedent setting of um of now taking the shovels and digging at that concrete. Um, so I'll just be quiet. I'm curious about, you know, you asking like saying, "Well, we should do this now." How is what we did before not and and I want want to be really clear too that it was a facilities decision but above anything else it was a curricular decision and a lot of that unfortunately at a retreat is not always recorded but

179we spent a lot of time going through that decision at a curricular level and coming up with understanding why sixth graders have been moved out what challenges that creates Um, yes. So, I'll just stop there, but it it wasn't specifically a facilities decision, but it helped check that box from from my perspective of having been there. So, open it up to other people's thoughts. Heidi and then Jason, I agree the the board made that decision. Um, I wasn't on the board at that time, but um, I think the facilities referendum in 2024 was the cement that the community said we want to invest in our elementary schools. So, if we go back on that, then I feel like we're breaking that promise that the comm the community voted for that. So, in my mind, that

180was saying We want to invest in our elementary schools and we want to keep them open. Um, so changing that at this point seems like not honoring the wishes of the majority of WASA voters. >> So, uh, chiming in, I the only other board member here was also at that retreat. That retreat was kind of an aha moment where I think unanimously the entire board it everything just kind of clicked. It was hey if we do this then these seven other things could potentially line up and and I agree with you. Yes, there was we were trying to meet two needs there. the decision the decision and I I remember saying at the time that that decision of moving sixth graders back to the elementary buildings which is where I believe they belonged they originally

181were they were moved out of them out of them uh because specifically because we just didn't have space during a period of time I believe it's right to move them back there. I stand behind that decision. Uh I think since we've created a new board, uh maybe maybe this board and future boards should get into the practice of at the start being definitive of let's recap some of the major milestones from the previous board and make sure that we're all on the same page for it. Um we don't want to start chipping away at the foundation midway through a board term. Uh I think I I agree with Miss Buck. We we made we made statements during uh the formation of that referendum and during the voting process of it of here is what we

182are going to do with that money. And time and time again, we've seen things flip-flop. And it always seems as again my opinion uh that a lot of things just don't get finished or don't get finished in a timely manner. So I'm I'm saying we need to start finishing what what we start and delivering on the things that we promise. Kevin and I ask you at every FNR meeting where we're at with things and every every meeting you tell me exactly where we're at and you tell me where we're going to be at the following and we're always at that spot. Thank you very much for that. That's that's the kind of thing I'm I'm looking for. And I think anything else is a breach of trust because with the community because it's clearly been

183voted on. And to Mr. Bower's point, if that is no longer the case, then board members can be voted out at any point in time throughout the future. Uh, and just to kind of wrap it all up, I would suggest that maybe a future board think about adding to our strategic plan, possibly a fourth pillar that kind of encompasses all of this of every every board, every year. We we need to have that solid facilities. I don't I don't know I don't know the right word to call it but it's all of this the financial and facilities plan and that all fits in the theory of action. The adult practices the adults need to continue to do the repetition and and set the expectations that way they can be met and they can be passed

184on and knowledge transferred. I I've been talking too long. I'll stop there. this person's >> that's but and that's in there too Jason like I haven't looked there at that one bullet under systems and structures where even names prudent management through a long range plan for facilities budgeting and staffing rejections >> right >> lost something and and that's what I'm saying is it's kind of lost in there as it a sub item and maybe we need to think about making it a major item of vision. >> Level that up. So dire. >> Um no absolutely that was primarily the entire point to my trying to rise up to speak. But so the question then be still remains like what can we do as a board to empower the administration to say yes constituent you have

185this concern and you want to close an elementary school this board has decided not to do that right like what document what can we do to give you that power to say nope not this board you want >> that's what we need >> we did not take a shovel to your concrete >> what we said in the second paragraph of the section where it talks about sixth grade shift to elementary schools. I'll state it. I'll read it. As the board moves forward with community engagement, it will be important to first determine the number of schools to retain in their grade configurations until those decisions are clarified. The sixth grade shift risk complicating broader facility discussions because that's how it's being presented to us. We are not interested in having these conversations. We were the ones

186who made the recommendation in September of 2024 of moving the sixth grade to the elementary school. We were the ones who said we we these are our recommendations. So we're not suggesting to change anything. However, it continues to be placed on the table. This continues for some reason it continues to come up. And so what we were trying to lift up was when we gave you this m these materials and I think we gave them to you to you prior to Friday. They became public. They became public Friday. But what we were trying to lift up is to to be transparent for those in the community who are calling for this issue to be placed back on the table. We're just suggesting to you, Mr. Bower and board members, it would be beneficial for us

187if the board was definitive to say stop talking about this that we made a decision and we we're standing by it. So, I guess we're we're not asking we don't want to take shovels to the work that has already been done. What we're asking you to do is to solidify it and and to be definitive. So then when we're in because we are frankly we are in environments in the community where people are pushing and calling for this and they're saying well can't the board just make the decision can't they change it and we're really in a tough spot where we're saying well they made the decision in in October of 2024 they voted on this as of right now this is the plan. Uh, I think it would be nice to have an annual

188revisit to say no that not only did we make that that vote in October 24, but we're we're we're taking another vote under systems and structures under our strategic plan to ratify it and to support it. >> Sure about voting every time because I I see Okay. So, a couple of things. One is you did let us know in a memo that there would be something coming forward on sixth But the detailed report, we have not had that for very long at all. So, and a chance to ask questions and submit our own thinking in sort of like norms of collaboration. >> Um, and when it showed up, it it sounded and and I guess I'm struggling with because where I think this is coming from, but as a board member, I'm not 100% sure.

189Where I think this is coming from is a challenge in agreeing or deciding about secondary schools that and correct me if I'm wrong, but the sense I get is that one of the ways to try to address secondary school closure not necessarily being very popular or a clear way forward is to say, well, can we now reopen the pie? Because when you have a conflict, one of your options is to make the pie have more resources again. Um, so, so I I just I guess I wonder about and I'm trying to think of future board members, not me personal here, but future board members if we set a precedent that a board decision is going to be revoted on every year. I would just say as board members, is that the precedent that we want

190to set? And maybe it is and maybe it isn't. Um, the one other thing I was going to say is that you did talk to your board president and your board vice president about this concern around um the the voices of people of people wanting to have a sixth grade conversation. And I think we were pretty clear with didn't we didn't get an ask to bring it to the whole board, but I think we were pretty clear when we conversed with you that we didn't see bringing this, you know, that that that the secondary committee's um purpose was to then delve into reopening the elementary question. >> We agree there's no there's there's no daylight in between what you just stated and where we are administrative. zero. We and this is not about the secondary

191ad hoc committee. I think we have been very clear. If you look at the charge that the secondary ad hoc committee had, it was about secondary schools. Now there are some who are raising the issue of elementary schools. That's their prerogative. I'm we're we're clearly this portion of this of this conversation is about is not the secondary ad hoc committee is there are other people in the community who continue to revisit this. Um I I some of you may hear it in the in the community and we're not raising the issue to give to say that we support it but as the board starts the process of engaging the community you should be at least aware and and have a plan to state this is our position and frankly what we're so I Again, there's

192total alignment here. Um, and there should be a component of the board suggesting that you don't you don't see the need to continue to revisit the number of schools at the elementary school level that we have. It that that decision has been made. I'm we're simply putting on the table that there are some who are raising it and the board had you this is this is your first time having this conversation. We're not suggesting that you are behind at all. In fact, this entire process will con was constructed with this timeline that once the secondary ad hoc committee completes its work that this spring going into the next year, you will engage the community and you will engage with one another around this. So, the timing of it is not bad. In fact, I think

193it's very timely. Um, I think the the challenge has been there's been so much talk around it. you haven't had a t an opportunity to talk about it. This is your first time. Um and so again, just to summarize, there is no daylight u between where we stand administratively and where we believe the board stands. We're just simply raising the issue that there are some in this community who continue to raise the question. And frankly, we I'll go back to Mr. Bower's statement. It would be beneficial to us if the board and I don't know how often you want to do it. That's your discussion to have. I don't know how often you want to do it, but it it would be beneficial to us administratively if there was a reaffirmment of the decision that

194was made in October of 24. >> The last thing I'll say is I would preferred in this report to not have a question mark after sixth grade shipped to elementary school. I would have rather than this report reported what the board did in 20 in September 2024 because we have a lot of new board members who needed that history and needed that background who may or may not have been delving deep in that time period. Um and and I would have preferred that approach. It's not that the question around elementary schools doesn't matter, but every community pretty much across Wisconsin is making some really tough decisions and we are facing tough decisions and we have said that we want to have a good community engagement process and we also recognize that we may not get

195from that process the enough guidance for those hard decisions and we may just have to put ourselves out there. So, I guess I'm just I whether or not we read this the same way. For me, it was definitely a surprise. Um not a surprise to know that there are people asking that question, but um a lack for me in this way it was written, a lack of clarity about where exactly the district stood. >> But no one asked. >> We haven't we didn't we knew we are you asking me now? We haven't shut it down and I and I have >> Yeah. But in the reading just the report without that >> in fairness in fairness that would >> if you're ask I mean if there's questions around where we stand I'm I hope that

196we were definitive this evening. Yeah, it's very helpful. I think so far, and I'll let other board members have have space, but um I think part of it I've been thinking about over the weekend, just that one question mark >> um where there's no punctuation after any of the other headings had I think a big impact on how people read. >> It is not that was not the >> Well, thank you. I mean, and I if there's anyone in the community who's wondering where we stand, please ask us >> and and we've been getting some questions and comments. Yeah, go ahead. So, why don't >> So, you had started to touch on it. So, I I will ask I if Dr. means if you are up for the task, I would formally ask that the

197district, you as the the employee of the board, create a list of of these fence posts of the things that that you need for this board to reaffirm and say, "Here are the decisions that past boards have made. Where where are you standing?" And Dr. Worley, I didn't mean to imply that we'd need to revote on on all of these. It's more or less a here are the things that we that boards and pasts have agreed upon and put a decision to. Shall we reaffirm that these all these things are still true? Because I think Dr. Means and his team and anybody uh and and for us and reaching out to community members, I'd love to be able to say go to the website and look at the TOSA website slash uh top 10. Here's

198the top 10 things that we've we've all agreed to that these are not going to change. So, don't even bother bringing them up right now or do if you make enough noise about it. Sure. But like we've agreed that these are the things that are going that we are operating under >> like a premise that >> basically the assessions a set of assumptions. you we know that revotes create a certain level of angst in >> I'm not advocating for revotes I'm just I'm advocating for here is the definitive list of what everyone is agreed that we are operating under >> I guess the other piece I would say sort of to build on that and we'll go to Miss Bach is that when you're working through a deep conflict like this we have a division

199in community and every voice person's voice matters >> stating that there is a concern about this move of the sixth grade doesn't mean we then go and reopen a vote. It means that we are educated as listeners to that concern and it must mean that there are some additional shifts, tweaks, whatever that we need to do. But it's not, you know, questioning whether that maybe that previous decision to me it's like what is knowing that there are still people who are uncomfortable with that decision in the community tell us about the processes that were you like of like the way forward but not redoing it but rather continuing to look for the best possible space. Um I don't really have anything to add at this point. I I feel like we past boards and the

200community have planted those fence posts. Everyone who comes on the board has inherits a certain amount of precedence. But if if our staff are saying they need some sort of statement, maybe it's just some of that history and that capturing of what has happened and how that then shapes the moving forward. Um, as a nice conclusion to this, uh, I would point out, at least my memory serves, that the policy that dictates, uh, the facilities plan does make us as a board have to revisit it at least annually, once per year. So, this would be our annual review of the facilities plan that was approved last year. So, I don't remember if it says we have to take a vote on it or approve it or but we have to revisit it at least. I'd

201have to look at policy. Exactly. >> I think the larger portion that people should have paid attention to that we were hoping people would pay attention to is that with different elementary school programming needs. When we made this decision to go to sixth grade, our Discovery Lab um elective was not fully up and going, I don't believe at that point in time. So we had Spanish that was still Spanish on a cart. So there wasn't a need for an elementary school classroom to be uh designated in each school. So that I think the rest of that section talked about the fact that there are other configur considerations that we need to keep in mind as we make the shift and that every elementary school may not have the ability to go to two sections though.

202That was the the larger consideration. Let me be very clear. We are not interested in closing any elementary schools and frankly I'm everybody reads information differently. I'm surprised that people view that our position administratively is that we're open to it. That was not what we were trying to state. But what we are trying to state very clearly is that there are some in our community, some with voices who are saying no, the district should revisit this. And so we are very it is re it's very reassuring to hear at least five members of the board say no, we we're we support where that position is. We and and this is the first time we've had a chance to have this type of discussion at this level. It will be important as we move forward for

203the full board, whoever's on the board, to continue to emphasize and to reaffirm that there is no interest to closing elementary schools and that that pathway of closing an elementary school should not be a an off-ramp, if you will, to try to bring down the overall cost of addressing secondary schools. And we try to say that as well at the end of saying regardless of the configuration, you still have to address the secondary schools. >> So, and Dr. Marvel, you've opened my eyes to some some ideas. I want to look look into this idea of what did you say about the learning space you um you're you are working on your what is that field that you're studying right now? you're working on getting um a a learning space specialist, >> learning space specialist. And

204that there are these elements to a learning space that make the space the third teacher, make it a more like productive place to achieve our our mission. >> Yes. So something that stood out in a lot of what you shared is that in our secondary schools our spaces are small >> very >> we have large bodies in there. we have more equipment now necessary like more technology that we're trying to put into those spaces so than than when those spaces were built >> and to build off of the the technology piece of things the with the introduction of onetoone Chromebooks for example and students needing to have power in those there are um tripping hazards all over our classrooms because there are extension cords for students to be able to plug in and have battery

205life because the the schools the the classrooms were not built to have ready um power access. Okay. So, so even if we like you can't row those spaces and keep the same number of bodies in those spaces. It's it's very tight. >> We don't know how that would happen. Sarah, I we we don't know how heavy renovation. The architects are confident that they can heavily renovate the four secondary schools in a way where they are instructionally sound. But the I can't remember what slide number it is, but go back if you go back to the presentation, it clearly stated that none of our four secondary schools are quit that. >> Yes, I keep coming back to it. I keep it keep standing out in my mind. And then like so to even question changing our

206idea around our sixth graders like I can't like how do we reconfigure and and keep the same number of of bodies there like that like that the math doesn't add up to me you know the >> may I try to paraphrase it a different way? >> Yeah. And so, and because I've had this conversation with people that if your if your main plan is to not if your main plan is not to address the nine legacy schools, the five elementary schools and the four secondary school four secondary schools, because I think this is the the math people are trying to do. They're trying to say, well, okay, we want to keep all four of the secondary schools. So, instead of having to pay for five of these, maybe we can just have three of them

207or two of them. What the what we're trying to present to you is that priority one and priority two is so significant with the four secondary schools that by closing an elementary school or two or three isn't going to lower the cost for what you have to do with your secondary schools. And that's why there are some in the community who will also say, well, this doesn't feel comprehensive. this feels like it's peacemeal that you're doing secondary schools here and then you still have the elementary schools there and what we what we trying to express in this presentation is that the secondary school needs are so significant. >> Yeah. And that I think the language we've been using is crisis >> that that the secondary schools are in such crisis that we feel that we

208have to address this in the next 12 to 18 months. That the 2024 referendum gave us a longer runway to to determine what the next steps should be from a financial standpoint for the elementary schools. But our four secondary schools, if that's the number that we're we're going to keep, though, the four secondary schools are in crisis. That's why we use the the cautionary tale of the the swimming pool that the the swimming pool is a prime example at at Longfellow that if if you continue to kick the can down the road and the the swimming pool at Longfellow was identified as a need during the facility the facility advisory committee back in 2017, but we just never made the investment. And so if you continue to kick the can down the road, eventually you

209find yourself in a situation like we are with the pool right now at Mont Fellow. >> One of the challenges I had um and I I do want to say that my focus in the report actually did go more initially to the um to the idea that there might be a school that would be tight. And it's helpful to know that Discovery Lab is a piece of that. So I know I would want to know um what the what what would be the intervention um and not right now I mean I don't think we need to dig into those weeds um but I I also thinking about that you know you presented the Wakaawa model but Wacaaw is already busing students correct and we aren't and from what I hear that is a big cost

210although I don't have those numbers here in front of um and they might actually be saving um by busing to fewer schools, for example. I'm not quite sure how that works out, but I think that's it's really hard to compare ourselves to a district that >> 100% >> is that different. >> 100%. And one of the things that was missing from our survey that went out to the public that yes, the public could find it by traveling down through a series of clicks to the facilities page, but our survey did not present the cost, the savings um of each of the plans. And we had some public comment on that saying that people would have liked to have known, not that you can directly say exactly what would it be, but a ballpark of the

211savings. Um, and and one person who wrote said they did find out how to do that. Um but in general the public so that the feedback that we got on that survey did not include a calculus of the potential savings of of those plans for the very one various ones for the secondary schools. >> I think the last paragraph of the section has garner so much attention of a a a larger report. We do we do reference that regard I'll read it regardless of the future configuration decisions the need to invest in secondary schools and the remaining elementary facilities remains any closure of elementary schools would also introduce the potential for the need for school bus transportation a significant community consideration that must be weighed alongside facilities planning >> no it wasn't here but I'm

212saying if we're going to say I just hear the sound bite going out. Wauaasha saved three million per elementary school and it's so much more complicated >> very >> than that. Um so just have to be really careful about how we we put that. I think our footprint just does not lend itself at the elementary school level for there's a domino effect that it once you start even discussing closure which none of us are administratively or at the board level um >> it's a lot of cost >> and hours of the board when sister was there but also even before you were on the board the hours that we put into researching it the hours your staff put in to putting forward different models of of that and it was a lot of time in

213the 2075 committee how much time they put into it. It's not like it was like magically plucked out of the air this this decision. Um and there were a lot of struggles over it. We didn't all agree but eventually as Mr. Everybody said that we did come to this, you know, moment of yeah, there's this potential reason from a curric curricular standpoint. >> I think the community, it's not so much the board. I think the community has to start asking questions of their neighbors and leaders who are in who have a voice in the community. Where do you stand on the current footprint? And I would say we have another paradox which that we face that most districts are facing which is the number of families that have children in schools is going down and

214in terms of percentage of homeowners and so I am talking to a lot of community people and this is a really big issue. People are tapped out. They're tapped out at this moment particularly very sensitive to being tapped out because we also had a re-evaluation at the same time. So it's hard to think 20 years ahead for people because they just have seen a significant household, not everyone, but most a lot of people want those have seen a significant especially when they're speaking up significant household financial shift with the taxes that came through. >> I think slide six of this presentation says it all. So while there is a shock um I don't know if you can pull that up again. Yeah. I mean, people didn't pay for a long time, but home owners, >>

215we understand >> they're struggling to pay their tax. >> I guess this is our opportunity to to make our final statement of we felt as we planned around this. We felt that we would be negligent administratively if we didn't bring this topic to the forefront. that we could have simply, frankly, we could have just simply allowed the October 2024 decision to be made and not do anything else. We recognize that there's a crisis at the secondary level. We believe that that needs to be addressed first. That's why we've brought this to you to to first community group, but we are recommending that there are a number of different steps that the board needs to now engage in. In essence, there will be a warm handoff in the next week where the board then has to

216take the charge and you have to start engaging um the community. You will have to start having board workshops and having deeper conversations. this is just the beginning. Um, and and I think that it's been frustrating for certain board members because you've had this ad hoc committee who for the last nine months have been having this deep conversation around facilities. Well, it's going to eventually pivot to you. We believe that and we we believe that we're going to have to do a lot more um engagement of the community because to your point there are a lot of people who don't have school age children. They don't understand this. There is a tax shocking. We're going to have to really engage in community education. But this is in the next week or two. this work that

217has been sitting with a community ad hoc committee is going to warmly be passed on to you and I think board members have a lot of opinions and you have a lot of thoughts and you want to dig into this and I the the time for that kind of work is going to I think it's frankly if you do the work well is going to consume what you do over the next 18 months. It it should be a major priority of what you do and it will be helpful to not only us administratively but in terms of clarity for the community. It will be important for for the board to really make this um high level priority work for you for yourselves. >> So something that I'm hearing out of the conversation would be picking

218up of what Mr. your ass is are there guidepost for places that I mean so bring that to us? Um I'm not sure we're going to agree to vote, but maybe we would agree and I I just think that's something the board has to figure out, but maybe we would agree to, you know, we could walk through it kind of like it's the history of what has been decided. I mean, there was a guy there was a a post put in the ground when four elementary schools were redone, right? That's guiding what we're doing now. That was a decision that a board made. >> Yes, >> it was >> 100%. >> So, if I was put in the ground when we didn't when a previous board didn't do ADA updates in 20 >> I'm smiling

219because there is no daylight between us and and the board. I I want to be very clear for those who are watching. We are in alignment. And what I would say to that, Dr. really is I and because I say that in the community when the the the district made the decision to build the schools at the size of the four schools and there wasn't a deeper conversation around re redrawing boundary lines and and constructing these buildings in a way where you could then maybe eventually close schools. it it what's the the phrase it the dye was cast um and and that so yes I mean we we are simply the four of us uh are simply bringing to we've brought to this ad hoc committee who's done amazing good work um we're bringing now

220to you as a warm handoff that now it is your job um and there's an opportunity for you to come back with a different community survey in another year where you can it becomes your survey. It's not anyone else's survey. It's your survey as a board. Um and that you can get into how you want to phrase it. Um but we believe that that this is significant work and that in my I'll conclude by saying that I think there's two major things that this district needs to focus on. the strategic plan and what we're discussing with these facilities as when you con when I consider what I do day in and day out those are my two those are the things that I think about the most um and and and that's at a high

221level governance um perspective and and and so we are excited that you'll have an opportunity um to start planning engagement opportunities to start talking with one another because you haven't been able to um it hasn't been agended. Um and so we're we're really excited about how you're going to dive into this and continue to unpack it over the next u month or the next u 12 18 months. >> What else? >> We're planting the tree that should have been planted 20 years ago. We're planting it now. We're going to keep going and that's where we're standing. >> Yes. >> We're being willing to engage deeply in No, this is good. Thank you, Kevin, and and Scott and Nicole. >> Scott, there's a gift to leave yet, but >> yes, >> I suspect that a good

222portion of how I'm judged tonight might be based on my brevity in the next two items, >> but we did have a video and we did have some reports, but there are there are two items left. um both very important. I think you know we don't we definitely want to hear your sort of highlevel financial report because some people may not who are listening or watching us later. I don't think anybody's left watching us now >> to vote for a minute and I've already >> heard all so give us the the shorter version. >> Yeah. I um bear with me for a second because I have this thought in my head and I just have to get it out. I I we're talking about trees and planting them and and it made me start thinking

223about how long a tree can last and how long we've had our buildings and I currently have this beautiful oak tree. I moved to a new home about a year ago. It it must be 100 years old and it's about to crash onto my house. old kids are nice >> and and it makes me so sad because I I I just think of our old buildings, too. And it's like I'm I I'm faced with this decision of now I have to pay to get rid of this tree um that's going to crash on my house that someone lovingly planted probably 100 years ago. Um so 20 years might be the good timeline of trees and not 100 with some of them. Is is the first agenda item the monthly financials or is it the audit?

224the monthly financial aid report. >> Okay, perfect. >> So, um, yep, there's a video uh online. Um, we also presented this at the finance and resources committee. Um, I took the liberty of updating. Um, so if if anyone goes online and views our budget book, you'll see it's now uh an amended version of the budget. I took the liberty of adding the property tax chargeback expense as a new budget item. The board hasn't approved that yet. they I'll be bringing that to you for approval in March. I anticipated you would so I took the liberty of updating that account number. Um the major difference in the budget book now is someone will be able to see uh what was there's a column for actual uh 2025 so last year. There's a column for what was

225previously approved by the board uh for the um budget publication that's way back in July now. and the most recent budget update which was January. So you might remember um the the example I like to call back to is uh um I believe when Jess and I built the budget since we did not know exactly where every elementary teacher would be placed yet, we put all of the elementary teachers for our purpose into one building because that way we could budget them and have them allocated correctly. Uh but when the board approved that budget, we were approving salaries as a whole, not by a location. That's now been updated. So someone you're going to see a now you'll see a big reduction in one building and an allocation to all the other buildings. So it

226reflects the accurate uh allocation. Um the other thing I'd highlight with our finance our finances is we continue we we had an update from CISA 5. So they look at our finances quarterly as well as a triangulation. Um we are both um uh projecting that we'll end up better than budget on salaries and benefits which is you know again our main driver and this is the best month we've had with our uh not best month but the best point we've been um through this point in time with all our other expenses too. So, I'm I'm very happy with where our budget lies right now and CISA 5 has collaborated that as well. Any questions on the finance report? >> Thank you for continuing to make it easy to review and find data that we might

227want to know more about. >> I'm welcome to feedback um you know as we go forward to next year too. >> Thank you. We can move on then to letter C update re regarding the audit. >> So um both our finance committee members stepped out so I was going to call on them. The our auditor was at the finance committee uh last week. Um so just to kind of outline the steps of the audit and where we are with that. Uh so our I've got my notes written down here so bear with me while I look. Um Christina Domer is the principal. So that they the way the auditing works is they have a principal that reports to a partner and it's the audit's not complete until the partner signs off. So our main point

228of contact has been Christina. She and her team are the ones doing all the work and then uh Jennifer Mortonson is the partner. So Christina gave us an update and um part of this stems from well let me let me walk through what has been done. So in uh in August, so August 29th, the district um updated its uh aid certification to DPI. So that's a requirement. Um the auditor sent their aid certification on uh September 12th. So they completed their piece. Uh the auditor sent their fund balance certification also on September 12th. So these are all portals DPI has that we submit data to. um we're only allowed to submit our data and the auditor is only allowed to submit their data. So we they don't have our login, we don't have their login.

229We each have separate requirements with separate deadlines. Um we submitted our full annual report. So that's the full finances from last year. Um that's due in September and you don't get your state aid unless you submit that on time. So that was September 19th. Now, the auditor shared with us and we knew this um that they have not yet updated or uploaded their audited financials and that was due December 15th. That is not something we can upload. Um I have been in constant contact with them. This is the longest it has ever taken an auditor I've worked with to finish the audit. They have assured us and Christina assured us on uh I think was it Wednesday the meeting um last Wednesday that by end of day this Wednesday they would have the um audit

230uploaded to DPI that she is waiting on her um her partner Jennifer to sign off on the final audit. She shared with us there's no findings in the audit. Um, in fact, uh, she sat through our monthly financial, uh, meeting and, um, I guess I'll boast a little bit. She was very impressed with the level of detail that we give our board monthtomonth. Um, she said she hadn't seen anything like that before. Um, she was very impressed with our internal controls. Um, funny. One of the one of the recommendations they're going to have is that we get a little tighter on um, I'm forgetting the the word. Uh, do you remember Jason the appreciation of buildings? >> Yes. They they want us to tighten up um how we report our what what our assets are

231worth in terms of our buildings. And what was interesting about that is normally buildings are only depreciated over 50 years. So, we have buildings we can't even in theory depreciate anymore because they're too old to do so. Um, but that's an example of one of their recommendations. So, it's not a finding, but it'll it will be one of their recommendations. Again, um it's a difficult situation because this is a vendor we use in some uh the so the state requires us to have an independent audit. In some states, the Department of Education will hire an audit. They have a whole auditing team that comes out and audits school districts. Wisconsin doesn't do that. So, you have to hire someone that is licensed and will do that. Um, my understanding is one reason our old auditor

232left is DPI was getting so challenging to work with that it wasn't worth their while to do school audits anymore. That's so that has and they're not the only one. So, that's constricted the pool of auditors available to even do the work. Um, so I apologize that it's not done yet. I I wish there was something I could do, but this is a vendor that is they're assuring us they're doing everything they can, but they're also not living up to my expectation. And they're we've talked to Jennifer about having an called an audit autopsy uh when when we clear this hurdle, but right now I just want that audit uploaded to the state and then we'll deal with the autopsy after that. >> Uh oh, sorry. So, this is addressing somebody in public comment said

233something about something being not done yet. This is the thing and it's not done because the auditor hasn't uploaded the thing that they're supposed to. >> I I have to assume this is the thing. I haven't talked to that person, you know, directly. >> Okay. >> But that's the only outstanding financial item with DPI and it's not something that I can upload. >> Okay. Thank you. to clarify, I don't know if you had mentioned this before, but it was Christina had said that it was due to a shortage of industrywide actuaries was part of the reason that the delay >> they um yeah, she gave several reasons. One one was they rely on a third party actuary. Um my opinion and what she's told me is they um they might have not given her the

234large a big enough team to complete our audit in time and I think that they um they'll adjust that next year. So a couple of important points. One is that we are working with a new vendor um because the previous vendor was went out of this sector of the business. So that means they're getting to know us and it sounds like from what you're saying they may have um underestimated the capacity that they needed in order to complete our audit and that has helped stretch along with other factors that's helped stretch it out longer than it should have. But Wawaossa School District did its due diligence and had its documents in on time um to DPI. >> Yeah. And she has shared that with the with the finance committee that uh our our internal team

235has gotten has hit every deadline with them. It is purely louder aman that has not hit their deadlines. stating that >> will we get a chance to talk with Christine directly like will she >> yes thank you um so they are coming to the March 23rd board meeting I don't know if it's going to be Christina or her partner or both of them but yes they'll be presenting the audit and you'll have a chance for there's always chance for Q&A um as part of that agenda thank you else okay thank you very you still helped us meet our 10:00 deadline. Uh number eight, adjourn. Uh the time is 9:44. May I have a motion to adjurnn? >> I move to adjourn. >> Thank you, Miss Bach, for moving to adjourn. May I have a second?

236>> Second. >> I'm going to give it to Mr. cuz he's further from me and I heard you at the same time >> so we know sound travels. >> Thank you Mr. Wier for the second. Miss Summers, please call the role. >> Miss Bzinski, >> yes. >> Mr. Bower, >> yes. >> Miss Bach, >> yes. >> Mr. Morris, >> excuse. >> Miss Rolland left early. >> Dr. Worley, >> yes. >> Mr. Roier, >> yes. >> And the motion carries. Thank you. Thanks everyone for your work tonight. >> Yeah. Thank you.