WSD Board Meeting, Regular, February 24, 2025

001I call the February 24 2025 school board meeting to order it is 6:02 p.m. we are in conference room C of the fiser administration building at 12121 West North Avenue Miss Summers please call the role Mr Morris here Dr Ho here Mr wer here Dr Worley here miss Hammer Rolland here Mr Meyer here Dr Jessa bener excused all right we will now move into public comment that's me sorry members of the wosa school board value the input of students parents staff members and community members the board's regularly scheduled meetings provided an opportunity for opinions and concerns to be expressed publicly the board values all comments and will respectfully consider this input and decision making the board requests that individuals limit their comment on each item to three minutes following any comment an individual board member

002May respond on the issue raised however it is not the intent of the public comment portion of the agenda for the board to enter into a debate with members of the community because non-agenda items are not publicly posted in advance no action will be taken on public public comment regarding non-agenda items this evening all right anybody in the room feel free to step forward and get started yeah pH are you please go quickly uh you don't step up right away oh it's not even turned on yet just gonna do the use this thing on Joe don't think that's gonna work so it work now yeah okay mhone check all right so um I'm not going to get into like a bunch of detailed stuff but uh the question that I kind of wanted to raise

003uh in part just to let people know that well first of all I'm a w stem parent and I know that there hasn't been a whole lot of discussion about W stem at least publicly for a couple of weeks um but that doesn't mean that there's not still discussions going on in the background and I guess the one thing that I want to emphasize or I want to ask just for sort of hypothetical purposes or just rhetorical is there was a lot of discussion about W stem's closure and and the name of that for fairness and equity and and I can understand some of the arguments for that uh I guess the question that I have is uh do the ends justify the means and do you actually think that the process of getting to

004the point where we are at now was fair and Equitable to the people of w stem um they're I think there have been quotes about it's only 5% of the population of of the toasta district um if you use other slice and dice it's a percent and a half um but it's still 100 plus families that have been pretty significantly affected by this and uh I guess I would ask you know how many people don't matter in terms of fairness and Equity so that's it thank you any other comments in the room J do we have anyone online no we have no hands raised I will end the public comment portion of today's meeting then uh are there any items on the consent agenda which board members would like to remove for separate discussion and

005action yes I'd like to move that the um the budget um updates be moved to uh uh when presenting that was um not supposed to be in the consent agends e second agre any discussion we might need a motion to move in the in yes so can I make a motion to move 2425 bud you can I make a motion to move item E from the consent agenda into the um financing operations portion so I second discussion on that there was a motion by Rollin second by Mr Meer I was ready for discussion yes okay Miss Summers will have call roll Mr Morris yes Dr Ho yes Mr wer yes Dr Worley yes Miss hermer Rolland yes Mr Meyer yes Dr Jess inry all right um so it is recommended uh that the school board

006approve the remainder of the consent agenda it is recommend the school board approve the right of the consent agenda and I so move second any discussion on or comments anyone wants to make on this I just like to point the community uh they're the very generous GI given to wos East for their music perance so thank you to that member donation all right Miss suers please call the rooll Mr Morris yes Dr Hoy yes Mr wer yes Dr Worley yes m hmer o Rolland yes Mr Meyer yes Dr Jess anger all right um we are moving into uh strategic goal six operations Mr eer do you want to start with the monthly financial report yeah I think that flowed better into the budget adjustments than the other way around okay I'm just let me get

007set up here quick okay we're seven months into the fiscal year um and we're now reviewing January financials a video was also posted I think it just got posted today so um if you didn't have a chance to see it yet I'm sorry for the delay there uh but that would be the essential what I'm presenting right now you are seeing something different than I am it's not up there is it on everyone else's screen but it's just not oh we go oh I think we're good now oh there we go okay sorry about that uh as I was saying we're seven months uh through the year um also as part of this presentation we have uh cesa 5es review uh cesa um Mike pus from ca5 joined us virtually at our uh finance committee

008last week um so we'll be reviewing here uh the um um data he gave the finance committee as well so we have uh shortly we'll be making after this making some recommendations relative to making budget updates in our federal revenue salaries and benefits and purchase services so again we always start with these pedometers uh checking where we are in our revenues relative to expenses uh last month um we noted that uh we had finally received some of our state revenue that's a December we get significant amount of state revenue uh this month what we're seeing is a jump in our local Revenue so that's why I have that highlighted that is about half of our property taxes that uh come in so that's why we see almost nothing last month on the left-and side of

009the screen to you know a big jump this month on the right hand side of the screen on the expense side we're you know as you know we're tracking all of our expenses month over month relative to where we think we should be um we are are have been month over month slightly ahead in our overall expenditures um in particular in our purchase services and slightly in our salaries and benefits U that Trend stays the same uh this month this again is just another view again the key that we're looking for here is uh the light blue line is someone else getting go ahead thanks um this light blue line is our total budget uh the dark blue line is where we would be where we want to be projected through this point and the

010purple is where we actually are so we're looking the key is is the purple close to the blue so just a reminder we've talked about that every month here's our revenues and expenses to date current year on the right hand side compared to Prior year on the leand side and then finally we're looking at what what is our forecast uh month over month here on the top half we present the prior month the bottom half the current month and we're typically looking at those yellow and red flags uh a couple months ago I started showing I'm sorry this is uh I should say expenses through January um I started showing what our projections would have looked like had we had the software last year as kind of a point of reference for the board uh

011so the top half of this slide is where the projections uh would have landed last year what would have been presented to the board at this point last year uh versus this year here's our running um kind of monthly tally of of where we are and this is the same information with the orange line being you know again had we have the software last year so here's cfi's report um there so just as a reminder their objective is to be a a call it a third set of eyes on our on our our monthly financials and where we are with our budget relative to actuals um it specifically focused on uh fund 10 and fund 27 so those are operating funds and they have spent the most amount of their time on our salaries and

012benefits that being about 75 80% of our total budget so um Mike shared with us that they tried um they they use four different methodologies to estimate where we would end with our salaries and benefits uh first they tried what's called payroll encumbrances um they quickly abandoned that uh primarily because our our setup from HR to payroll isn't um as ideal as we'd like it to be so that that is something we're working on uh you'll see as one of his future recommendations is to get things set up so we can use that but they abandon that course of action the second thing they tried was um knowing what our salary increases were for staff um last year compared to this year they just did an across theboard increase to see where things came out

013he called me up and he said hey this doesn't look right at all and I said well that's because we also made Staffing reductions so by using that methodology was really um it was kind of pointless frankly but it was something they wanted to test ultimately where they landed is giving us uh two projections they're they're most comfortable with one is instead of taking um in large group all celeries they looked at celeries by objects so essentially celeries by type of personnel teachers principles Etc and that's that was able to pinpoint for them a little better and then really where they landed is they decided they're going to just look at our each of our payrolls how much essentially each person or each group gets paid each paycheck and cast that out over the remainder

014of the paychecks this year and that's the um methodology that they felt was tightest and they're most comfortable with oh good this does show up okay so um the recommendations they have for us uh and we talked about this at length at finance committee um there's some things we can do in payroll uh just relative to um how frequently we so I'll give an example um the easiest one to think of is um curricular coaches for instance at most dist probably nearly all like the basketball coach or coaches would get paid once or twice during the winter the track coaches would get paid once or twice during the Spring um in our district we're we're paying what we the these we call them extra pays um starting in October and running through the end of

015the year so it makes it difficult because we're paying people oftentimes before they're doing the work and so if there's people coming and going in some of those positions it it it just creates extra work and it makes it harder to track so some examples like that that from an efficiency standpoint it would be adjustment um culturally but would result in some efficiency if we wanted to pursue that um again already mentioned getting tighter with what's in HR versus what is in payroll so an example there would be we can track every person um by an ID code It ultimately we can get to the point we want to get to um what would be a little better is if every position had a position code so um we would have let's say we have

016four social studies teachers right now they're this all called social studies teacher and we could create a code that says like social studies one social studies two social studies three and budget by both the position and the person and that would make our tracking a lot easier um I mentioned the payroll encumbrances and then um there's some things also kind of efficient efficiency wise um with Summer pays I think that's more of a cisa had their trouble getting their arms around we switched two years ago from 26 pays a year to 24 pays a year so that's also complicated the projections a little bit I can only really go back and look at one year of History uh as opposed to you know 10 years of History to to project um these are I mentioned

017that cc is a series of you know projection uh the the top figure is showing each of those um options they use you can see they they abandoned um what they were calling method one and then what the bottom is where they uh ultimately landed this CFI projection in yellow is this is kind of a blowup of of that so that's what they would recommend that we update our budget to this is simply a graph showing the last um three years of you know how payroll expand payroll I mean salaries and benefits how those expenses happen month over month and again just kind of highlighting you see it's um in most school districts this is the trend you would see it's pretty stable all through May and then um what happens is in before June

018ends we have to on our books we pay out the teachers for the remainder of their contract um that cash actually stays with us and then teachers receive paychecks on the normal schedule they would but on our books it hits essentially it's five payrolls all at once so that's why we see this jump that concludes uh January's financials questions for Mr derer how are you feeling about the relationship with cf5 and is it providing the oversight that we intended um I'll so we'll see in um on on the budget assumptions update I give um a the answer is it's been super helpful because it's another set of eyes to PR angulate where where I thought we were um ultimately they're a little more bullish than I am uh um so I'm maybe I'm a little

019bit more um conservative than than where I think they're going to land so or where where they're suggesting so you'll see in the budget adjustments I'm bringing forward they're I'll say less optimistic than theirs um it would be great if we end the year where they said I'd rather not they'll be coming back to the board in three more months and saying hey um we we we chose the the most optimistic option um we we've got a multiple triangulation here I think we're picking a reasonable option and cisa would back it up and say you know we actually think you're going to end up a little better um the next phase they're going to be able to really help us with is some of those recommendations they gave us uh so that we can um

020they run payroll in HR for no districts our size but um smaller districts and we'll be able to replicate many of the things that they do in those districts to U make our our uh HRM payroll U much Mr rer um so I know a lot of the things that I have written out are coming in next next thing um but I think uh something that may not be on there that I I know we brought up and talked about in the uh finance and resource meeting um their uh substitutes and how it relates to uh payroll data um just to to relay on to the rest of the board that um I had asked the question and the the consensus was that where we're at with the adjustments that were made for substitutes is

021we feel that we are stable we're at yeah um I'll answer that in a second but I if you don't mind I think this is a really good example of um the board is so in tune right now to some of those things that you know we've seen throughout the year are things we're we're watching um you should be proud of that that you know you we we I think collectively we're we're very on top of things and so it's a this is a great kind of conversation to have is hey we've been watching this Scott what's going on um Sarah was able to report at the finance committee uh and I know this is what you're getting at so I'll just repeat out kind of Steal Her Thunder I suppose um but the the

022bottom line is uh our our fill rates are as high as they've been all year long our need for Subs is is down so the what we put in place is working in fact uh December is that's what we paid December in January right is that yeah so December was when we put our kind of we tap the breaks on Subs um and for the first month since last year year-over-year was down so and our fill rate was the same so what that tells me is really what's happened is we've kept our teachers in classrooms with the kids so um I think it's a win-win Mr one question there just you had up there on the slide there with Skyward is our payroll Payroll Company the uh with the size of our district is that

023the appropriate software that we should be using are there any advanced or changes that would make that more efficient um so I've I've used multiple different softwares I think Skyward is really good um they um they have about 95% of the market maybe more in Wisconsin now part of that is because they're a Wisconsin company probably um they're a nationwide company I they and they manage or um they work with school districts up to about when you start getting near a billion dollars it they're they're they're probably sized out and you're looking at something more like an oracle or something like that um significantly higher price point you need programmers for our purposes Skyward is is pretty darn good and me OPP to that we'll be coming off but we did do have a lot

024of discussion about um the kind of the the breakdown in the codes and that we wanted to um you know number 250 320 350 like this those are what's in there and um and they have kind of more generic words with them and that and then kind of going forward we're try to give a little bit more context to what some of those things are um yeah maybe from the from the finance and resource side at least sure to but that if um if people have questions and then are looking back at some of that data that it will be a little bit more descriptive I guess one thing I did I think it was two months ago the board had asked about posting to cleargov to kind of a uh called a translation or

025a crosswalk so that that is there now um so sounds like I we'll talk more about having more detail it was specific to when uh Jess identifies sort of those red flights okay that instead of just saying Which object that red flight belongs to that will be a sentence or two describe um why it was identified and what your team is doing to mitigate that moving forward so for those of you that haven't been to a finance committee um our finance director Jess hanker is I mentioned cisa was the the third point of contact in terms of reviewing budget so Jess is the second and at finance committee she has a separate report she goes through with the committee at at a more detailed level than you're getting here so what Jason was talking about

026like Jess will say we're watching Code and and then she'll have kind of a narrative about that so what we're talking about is instead of her having just the narrative having maybe a sentence or something with that and about what she's monitoring and what 324 means is that now I remembering yes yeah because it's just looking back at the the red and yellow flags and and kind of seeing it's it's more of a if you want more detail on what what consists of what's inside of those red flags and you try to drill into that you might get some very obtuse data something that's confusing and um that the that we're going to make an effort to make it as clear as possible that we can yeah and those are in the minute that's in

027the agenda items for the resources you mean if anybody's interested in seeing those specific objects thank you um should we move into does it make sense to go into our budget revision approval sure it doesn't matter the order for the next two but whatever we'll need a motion yeah we're gonna need a motion for that anybody wna I move to approve the um 2024 2025 budget revisions and updates second okay go ahead I'm going to try and pull that PDF P PDF here quickly sry what am I doing wrong I'm just pulling up what's in board docks or a visual we can see it it's it's you can't see it in here though oh there's a second screen a second screen think you put it in like presenter mode maybe that's what the other one

028the last one was I think we looked we saw it as presenter mode on our computer [Music] okay now it's showing on there but not on our but now it's here not yours yeah not there we wait it's happening it's happening okay I should have added if you see me squinting at this um I get my eyes dilated like two hours [Laughter] ago so I I mostly memorize but um so I presumably you've you you've reviewed this uh really the the main update is you know we're now in best practice with what the we we found out in the audit is you know when we get to a point in time of the year where we feel like it is appropriate to update the budget that's something the board should see and the board should

029approve so there's uh four main areas of budget updates uh federal revenue I referenced uh last month um we've now closed out eser we actually had a report at the finance committee about the eser close out uh apparently there had been some conversations in the community about whether money was left on the table or not uh when we did that study again that's in the finance committee board dos I think it was about $100 that went unclaimed um so essentially it was all claimed uh and so we're updating our federal revenue now to reflect uh all of that below of the end of October uh we've been talking about salaries and benefits and reconciling that again that's related to the work I've done on projections in cesa5 and then our purchase Services uh increasing that

030budget to reflect um One is because we got that additional federal revenue from Esser we we spent it um so it's C it's catching that it's catching um legal fees uh some uh additional expenses that uh have been incurred with Communications and the gap of people there um and we're still um anticipating that we'll be able to reach our budget in in Subs so that's not one of the increases here um ultimately I wanted to give you know kind of refresh the board and community on the timeline of where we've been with our with our budget so as a reminder our starting point uh back in May was fund balance use of about $9.3 million in August um after I re re essentially redid the budget we were looking at about a 13 and a

031half million doll deficit the board instructed Administration to to bring forward uh budget reductions to um you know offset that that got us to about 11.1 million uh we were able to get it down to about 9 again 9.3 um using uh onetime money that we wasn't guaranteed uh prior to October um as well as really getting super duper tight on our Sol and benefits um in hindsight might have got a little too tight there uh but we had reported to the board this budget had zero room for any kind of um unknowns right uh so now in February our are once approved the new fund balance use will be $10.9 million and that's the timeline there um as far as our total fund balance goes um tracking that too uh what was uh adopted

032in October uh would leave us at an ending fund balance of about 11.4 million this will leave us uh with an ending fund balance of nine nearly 9.9 million again we've talked the last few months about our main goal next year being to honor the referendum and build the fund balance back up and then finally is simply uh a break down you can see a chart here the original budget is what was approved in October the revision is you know what I'm recommending at this point which yields an updated budget and then you can see the uh how much was changed in each area so the recommendation would be that the board approve the updated budget as um presented discussion on this item so just uh two questions where I I know legal fees are

033something that we are have been over budget for a while already where where does that what number does that sit under that's going to be in the purchase Services the 300s so it's part of the additional 1.1 million that I'd like to increase that bu because I know since day one of being on the board you talked about purchase services and having an eye on it you thought going to have it under control um would it be fair to say that the that legal fees are likely a big a contributor to why we're seeing a spike in that that wasn't anticipated yeah there they're at least a third of that and and you know among among a school district's budget I suppose probably any budget um there's things that the the the spender can control

034and some things the spender can't control and this is one of those things that in large part you know we make our best estimate for but but we don't have a lot of control over legal fees in particular as it pertains to uh open records requests you know of a certain um student issues or yeah exactly um okay then my my second question is uh because I wasn't I wasn't here at this time last year is this something is like is this the thing that that was not being done for years prior it so this is our our first like this is the thing that should have been happening this this kind of report this kind of transparency this kind of coming to the board and saying well things aren't where we expected them to

035be here's our updated budget what do you want as a board want to do about do you want to approve it or not correct yeah this is this is exactly what should be done um I I don't know if it's never been done here uh it wasn't done last year um it's surprised me if it had never been done but certainly last year it wasn't there are things about legal fees that aren't necessarily visible to the board an example from the past is um a student with disabilities asking for 30 minutes of Therapy Services per week the um School District refuses parent hires a lawyer um parent pays between 10 and $20,000 in legal fees to appeal to DPI parent wins you can probably pretty much bet that whatever legal fees the parent paid the

036school dist District paid so poor judgment on allowing a service can be very costly in legal fees and the board wasn't explicitly told that this happened it came to the um board from a parent input this was before your time Dr meets so I I doubt those things happen now but some of it is management driven some of it is how combative and belligerent are we as a culture or or or you know whole peace and love let's get along and try to solve this you know try to solve this problem I don't see that now that that's happening but just as I'm gone in a couple of months going forward that you know there are things where we decide to fight or not fight and maybe it wasn't such a good idea or maybe

037it was a good idea but those fights have a cost and would kind of looping back to what you've talked about a few times already in I think in my in my opinion like if this is a trend that's going to continue I think I would agree with you Mr Meer that may we do need to take a harder look at in House Council for certain services like this where um we don't necessarily need to go out to outside of somebody who could be dialed in on that I agree I think like for example the finance committee we have now would be very capable and of doing that kind of sort of managerial economics assessment to say you know this is you know how this is going and um you know there's different payment models

038for Legal Services there's flat flat contract for a year we're different you know we it's not doesn't have to be one monolith hourly agreement there are things you can look at and you'll become very wise and educated about the legal services industry when you do this because there there is sort of a management science to that stuff and corporations do that would agree with you I think I think it's worth keeping in the back of our minds and um especially just seeing see how everything trends like if the trend continues that it's gota there's got to be a price point where it makes sense so um yeah I just want want to kind of loop that in there and say that that my mind is still open to that one question I have and I

039asked I think in finance uh briefly um it seems like legal fees and the salaries and benefits we don't have a ton of control over um at least where where we are in the school year um but Communications that seems like an area that we could take a my perspective is that we could take a closer look in there and see is there anything that we could you know reduce there and then in addition to how optimistic cesa is I think I'm hopeful that that number will be um lower coming out of f ER the difference that's coming out of fund balance but something I would just ask um your staff to look at is that communication because I know we're going to put out a survey and we have some things that are high

040price items but to me that seems like somewhere that we could make adjustments we have asked our cabinet to um assess everything that they still want to spend this year and only spend Mission critical so um time roll and all I would just add is as we talk about legal fees being in in house what we've done is we started to do a deep dive on what we are Outsourcing with Communications and we're paying the equivalent of a position for outsourcing these positions or these services and so I I think as we look at reducing costs we also think that there's an ability to bring some of those Services inh house instead of continuing to pay vendors um the the amount of what equates out to be a a a full-time position so I I

041we've already um put back on some contracts since Miss Tuttle has been on staff um that's been her initial response to looking at the current state of affairs with Communications yeah well I would like to give her I think she's doing a fantastic job should she start here tonight but um also I think for a district our size it's um U not common that we would have one person um doing Communications and she does some internal and external and so she's got it's un it's uncommon it's uncommon for a district our size to have one person in Communications yes it is so as you go forward with looking at these areas like Legal Services I think I would suggest you do well to communicate total cost of Legal Services when you start this like total

042compensation because you're if if you bring um a person in house your Administration costs are going to go up and people are just going to look at aditt which is fair people are going to look at that so you need to explain it like look our total cost of Legal Services was X and now it's 70% or 80% of X and yes the component of that is higher Administration but we also have lower purchase Services right prepare to message that which I think is fair fair and appropriate and healthy that people look at an Administration and then we do that job of messaging what actually you did bottom line L loop back in with the comment about the descriptions essentially object 300 would be reduced quite a bit however object 100 would go up but

043the two would net out to be a savings for the the district because those those purchase service should we should we hire someone should should we move forward with anything like that um we we we would see you know the um if someone wanted to look deeper into the salaries U they would see that increase from the district level or the administration level which is often the first thing that someone asks me is what where can we cut funds from there and and my answer is that's a complex question uh and it's things like this where we're this or a future board might make a decision uh to do something like that which saves US money from here until the next 10 years but it if the community was said if the communication doesn't happen

044then it gets lost in the community and it never really resurfaces as to like why why it's there and um it's it's a good thing that it's there but it's not recognized as such Mr rier my response to your statement question is that the wallsa school district is one of the most complex school districts in the state of Wisconsin a city of the first class like the Milwaukee Public Schools they have access to the City attorney so their attorney costs are offset because they are city of the first class they have access to consultant fees and they have inhouse positions when you have complexity and sophistication to the type of things that we're dealing with there are costs and if you don't handle them well you will pay for it one way or another so

045you either have people on staff who are prepared and have the Acumen and the professionalism and the degrees to handle it or you Outsource it or in some cases as things continue to get complex you pay for both and and so I think you know as we talk about legal fees we can hone in on legal fees we can hone in on other services but the overall message should be when you are dealing with a district of our size and complexity there will be cost to go along with the overall efficient operation of the system if you don't have efficient operations of the system then you're going to deal with it either in pain in in not handling things from a reputation standpoint or from a service standpoint so I I just think what Mr

046eer and I have talked about is that as a school Community we have to continue to um Elevate for our community that there are costs to handling our services well um and and and that's that goes for our Universal system um and we've talked about those things ranging from having updated curriculum to having well prepared and well resource principles to having last week Tuesday you were in this room and you heard from our principles around their school growth plans when those School growth plans don't happen automatically by themselves prime example is Mr Jordan Stein at ishower can't do what he's doing without having a dean of students and having instructional coaches all of those things if you want the school system to be what we all Aspire it to be will have a certain cost

047to it but what you're seeing I hope you're recognizing and I think you you've elevated as board members if we have a CFO who is mon monitoring things well you can you can keep track of the cost and make sure that there's a return on investment of your your uh your your funds question oh I'm sorry yes so so just to review your chart um the use of fund balance is lower than we anticipated in August but it's higher than we anticipated at the end of October um just for you know the benefit of ourselves and the community what is that what do we think happened um between October and February or the end of the year that is you mentioned in the memo that Skyward the reconcile some things is that you've got a

048better um detail on the on the data um or something else happened well when I when I went through and looked at every person that we had hired in the district um and trying to align that's a thousand people right uh including hourly folks um when a budget our size um comfortably would have maybe a one% cushion in payroll um to offset ins and outs that might happen during the year um we had no cushion so frankly that's the answer is years ago um Mr Myers told me about um oftentimes the budget would would in June um my predecessor John Mack would have good news to share often that we had um uh hey good news we underspent the budget now we can put money in fun balance and that served the district well for

049many years we were able to use that fund balance um the way that you're able to do that is you're limiting your spending during the year so so for all those years that we came in under budget you that many people would say that was great and then you might have other people saying well look what we didn't do in order to have that savings account I think we're still try to find that balance between being so tight that there's no flexibility and so loose that there's no accountability so some of this might be a change in the staffing needs and that might be students Ser serving students as well during that time that's it could it could I we don't really we you don't have all that detail here we I mean Sarah really

050did does an excellent job putting together the Staffing plan so the people that are here who was on the Staffing plan okay so what we did we yes we operated that way we were very conservative with the budget and we knew what fund balance we wanted to maintain which was also conservative and if at the end of the year we had more than that Target level that we would spend that money on things that weren't you know maintenance items that were lower on the priority list or you know buy something that we knew we knew we wanted but so the board always felt like oh we'll never run out of money well we kind of were lulled into thinking that because at the end of the year we could always vote Yes on happy things

051and everybody was always happy and thought that you know no bad things will ever happen here we're always happy and so we didn't just keep building the fund balance we we sort of had this wish list that we'd wait till the end of the year to see what money we had left and then we'd start to and it was likely onetime expenses right right it was always a onetime thing that we wanted for you know typically it was well you know we didn't waste it it was for the kids for the buildings or or something like that it wasn't a boond never a boondoggle thing but it was often went into the buildings or to buy a curricular thing that was a you know once in so many years kind of purchase I don't want

052to be l this conversation because it's healthy for the community to hear it but I think there was a a paradox that was happening here on one hand you the district was um supplying its fund balance it was growing its fund balance on the other hand we were hearing things such as staff were not being compensated we were hearing that the curriculum was not being updated we were hearing that there wasn't enough support to um to to be that was in place to uh to help children as they were navigating social emotional needs so there was this Paradox of on one hand we weren't investing in what the organization needed in terms of his complexity on the flip side we were investing in growing a fun bals and and so the the organization and the

053community has has to continue to Grapple with so what do you want to become um I think that conversation took place on November 5th of 2024 the community needs to continue to do that when you then look at the fact that the state legis legislature has not continued to finance public schools at the rate that inflation is showing that it needs to be funded at it is putting even more stress on the local taxpayer and local school systems that's what we're that's the the Paradox so what was happening here prior to our arrival I I'm not here to judge it I I I don't I don't want to judge it but let's go back to Communications work for example while we're spending more in Communications I consistently hear that people want more from Communications well

054if you want more from Communications you can only put so much you can only put five pounds of stuff in a five pound bag we put 10 pounds of things in a 5 pound bag in this district and that's just not with Communications that's with everything if people want their school to be safe years ago I came to this board I said I can make your school safe I need deans of students in our secondary schools you look at where you're going to hear it in a few minutes the schools are safer when we talked about making sure that the schools were safe and I heard that the the the Clarion call from the community I can make the school safer but now I need mental health specialists and social emotional learning specialist I can

055create a space I can create a school system where one elementary school isn't teaching one curriculum and another one's teaching another I can do that but that costs money and so at the core of it I I appreciate the the monitoring that this board has put in place I am thankful for Mr Ecker and his Clarity of allowing you to be better stewards of the funds but the community needs to continue to recognize what does it want to become so when Beth aronburg was here yes long long before your time we did regularly update curriculum and she departed maybe eight years ago then we stopped yep and that was what you so that was the chapter that came after she was here and we didn't grow the fund balance we maintained it but our core

056purchases annually were too lean it started to cannibalize our operation and so I think that's I'm trying to frame this up it our our core expenditures just weren't enough and we kept having to reduce and reduce and reduce on our annual spend that was a recurring spend and um yes and in in metropolitan areas across the country like Milwaukee there are first ring suburbs like wall chosa and in those school districts they don't call them they they in some cases they call those school districts the city the city school district of you know so so and and they they call those school districts the city school district of in our case we would call it wosa because the complexity of being a first ring suburb is drastically different than what our colleages are facing to

057the west of us it's not even the same it's it's not the same uh I i' I've told some of our school board members as the WIA is starting to have conversations about realigning athletic conferences the only reason the only reason I'm interested in in finding what conference we are aligned in is because I think it's critical that the High School principles are sitting in the same conference with other High School principles that are facing the same issues that they're facing so I don't need our high school princip sitting in a conference meeting that those high schools don't face the same issues that walos East and woso West are facing so if if our with all due respect to the the high schools to the West they don't see on a daily basis what Dr

058Plank and Mr G see and and and so what I'm continuing trying to up with for our community is wosa is a unique school system in that we have more elementary schools than most uh the most uh districts are size and we have four very complex secondary schools that I would rival that we have secondary schools that are somewhat like the school systems to the west and we have elements that are very Urban education driven as well when you have that combination of complexity you have to invest in resources but what Mr eer and I are coming to you and saying is that we we'll hold us accountable we will show you the return on investment but we need to start at least with an investment of some sort and and we have and I

059guess I I I don't want to give the impression the the community has been very gracious the the board has you understand our theory of action that we need to continue to refine our professional practices in order for children to have experiences you you see our theory of action your your North Star highlights all of this and so we're going in the right direction but it's and tonight is an important night March 10th uh when our division of academic performance is an important night it's important for you to hold us accountable to say okay we've invested so where's the results um and and we believe that if we can continue to invest and sustain the level of Personnel that we have that we can provide you results not for results sake but because then we

060can change the trajectory for children and their success academic and social I guess I'll just add one more thing um to that point I would add March 14th as a really important meeting to see where our investments are really taking hold on our schools um and I would say that um Scott and his team have already started um looking at building next year's uh budget and hopefully we won't have to come back in March or February um to to approve an updated budget I mean of course there's always going to be those situations that we can't control but I know you and your team are doing a really good job at trying to see what should the legal L budget be and maybe we just didn't do a good job or you know it wasn't

061it wasn't enough in the original budget um so I know you're looking back at historical data and and and hopefully next year's budget that we need be more uh closely aligned with where we're actually spending so Mr eer has started the process mron of more of a zero based budgeting process because what we've been doing and I think the tension has been really healthy this year we have we've created a budget but we were not utilizing the budget as a line item budget for each department that that's just so we've had budgets that just rolled over historically but in some cases departments and administrators and schools they didn't know what was in their annual budget going into the 25 26 school year we're asking everyone to justify before we get into July 1st of the

062new fiscal year what are you buying what are you going to spend money on and then we can hold you accountable um for for the use of your budget and no longer will there be a culture we we've We've Ended the the era of well we need more money for this and so I'll ask for it but I didn't budget for it ahead of time that has to stop um and we've deliberate that message internally I think that that's going to be hard for some people to understand as Mr as Mr Meyer has highlighted there was a there was a time period where there was I think the terminology when I first arrived about budget was people called it poof that money would just show up and literally I mean they they said I would

063say well where's the bu and I see Dr marel looking at me like yes and they called it poof and so what we're saying is that the era of poof is over um and and uh but I'm really pleased with the zerob based budgeting process that has been introduced Mr eer went over that with our principles uh last week or two weeks ago uh he's reaffirming that with our cabinet we're in as Mr wer said maybe 30 minutes ago we're in such a better place in terms of process structure and the ability for the community to monitor where we are but I also want to just make sure that I'm emphasizing the point of as we aspire to be the great District we want to be it will continue to require a level of investment

064I I have no doubt in your statement that the term poof was used it it was not a term used within the board so I'm now learning what people said about what we did so that's curious as I head over the hill here thank you yes sir thank you Mr all right let's go ahead and call Ro on this specific action item Miss Summers Mr Morris yes Dr Hoy yes Mr wer yes Dr wiing yes Miss HR Rolland yes Mr Meyer yes Dr Jessa Banger all right and we are now moving into our next action item to approve the Wisconsin investment series Cooperative resolution Dr Worley have you on is recommended that the school board approve the Wisconsin investment series Cooperative whisk resolution and ISO move second uh we talked about this item um at

065our last meeting and we've also talked about it um I believe it was in January's Finance meeting so essentially um when a referendum is passed uh we get those funds and we spend that referend we spend those funds down as projects or timelines um come to a close in the meantime we can invest those funds um and there's a couple different organizations that um school districts uh use and we use uh bimo and the local government investment pool um Mr eer is uh recommending that we add whisk as an option if we approve this today it doesn't mean that we have to invest um in whisk it just opens up another opportunity and another space for us to invest the referendum dollars um I understand this is a better option to specifically manage referen funds

066ummm yeah just as a reminder specific to referendums there's um really tight statutes as far as when the money has to be spent um as a reference we will be shortly um in March the board is going to actually find out what our interest rate was on our first sale of bonds um we get we we get that money all up front obviously we don't pay it to the construction company all at once so that allows us to invest it uh and then pay those you know invoices over time there's very tight restrictions on what you can invest in how long those Investments can be for um when you have to spend the money uh for those of you familiar with e economics or accounting relative to like first in first out last in first

067out uh whisk keeps track of all that for us so that way we'll pass an audit with flying colors any questions on this item when do you need to have the board officially act on this resolution yes um well it's up for Action today when do you need this to happen today prer happen today I want to empe that again thank you thank you we might get it done early here today seeing no questions Miss Summers Mr Mar did we have one I'm sorry one question here and it's just just for general knowledge for the public inside of uh the WIC and I know there's a lot of betting and all the people that are on their boards and all those things with the PMA and all the different moving Parts with the current economic

068climate and all the things that happened where people are just worried about their finances their money things being invested with everything that's in the economy are there any safeguards or any insurability behind those Investments any other protections out there so that way if the worst thing in the economy happens that the funds we have in there that haven't spent that have invested are still safe so both lgip and whisk are um state approved investment vehicles for municipalities and school districts um they're they they Frank they're not backed by FDIC so it's a different vehicle um those Investments are limited to what they call Commercial paper generally that's bonds um treasury notes government back Securities so provided we believe in government back Securities um they're safe uh they can't be invested in stocks for instance or

069Bitcoin correct um so they're as safe as us government back Securities are just want to go out there thank you thank you all right M Mr Morris yes Dr hoik yes Mr wer yes Dr Worley yes Miss himer Rolland yes Mr Meyer yes Dr Jessa Binger all right thank you Mr eer all right we are moving into strategic goal for high quality staff MOSI do you want to um and while she is making her way up Jason do you want to read the action item uh it is recommended that the school board approve the 20242 administrative contract for Matthew tro tro tro thank you as interim associate principal of Whitman Middle School effective Fe 12th 2025 for 221 days per year at an annual salary of $96,000 uh pen work days and salary prated based

070on start date and pen and ISO move second okay um good evening um I feel like we've had this H similar conversation a couple of times this year um in wosa we've been really fortunate um to have uh many emerging leaders in the organization Mr tro served as the uh Dean At Whitman Middle School um prior to this uh recommendation um he previously has worked in administrative capacity uh has the certification for it and this seemed like a good way to go ahead and conclude the school year um we plan to go ahead and advertise for now our um two Middle School associate principal positions uh for candidates um prior to Spring Break um to go ahead and and um secure permanent um Replacements in both of those positions unfortunately Mr tro was not feeling

071well uh today so he did ask me to share um a few remarks on his behalf um Mr too says I would like to express my sincere gratitude to the school board and Community stakeholders for entrusting me with the opportunity to serve as Whitman Middle School's interim associate principal I fully embrace the challenges that come with the midyear transition and I'm eager to work hard in continuing to build on the strong Foundation our leadership team has laid over the past two and a half years thank you for your trust and support I look forward to getting to work for our wonderful students and staff any comments or questions on that all right Miss Summers Mr Morris yes Dr hoik yes Mr wadier yes Dr wory yes Miss hmer Walland yes Mr Meyer yes Dr Jess

072anger all right thank you missk you okay moving into strategic go five culture and Community yes bring everybody up good evening School Board in W TOA Community I'm Luke piton your chief of pupil and family supports I'm here with my amazing team of division of pupil and family support leaders I will go ahead and have them introduce themselves Shonda Holland director of diversity and inclusion Emily OK coner director of Student Success Laura gesler director of school safety Stacy clam director of special education all right so in preparation for tonight you have reviewed the attached slide deck and the reported AKA presentation which includes a behavior and discipline data review from semester 1 of the 2425 school year alongside comparable data from the last two school years while we remain low on our data protocol the

073ladder of inference as we review this data tonight please know our division continually moves up the ladder and utilizes these data to assess monitor inform and improve our work and Associated outcomes also of importance is to remember that our buildings consistently experience quite a range in a wide wide range of diverse needs resulting in some buildings trending lower and or higher in their behavioral data um and this can be relative to their counterparts cross town counterparts and or District averages we have and will continue to work with individual buildings as needed when Trends do not match the overall District average or going in different directions I wanted to start um although all of this is in our presentation just kind of pulling out some highlights of not only celebrations but also opportunities to continually improve

074we are excited to say we're for the most part sustaining the reduction the dramatic reduction we saw in overall major discipline referrals from the 2223 school year which was our Base Line we see a continued decrease in the severity of major office discipline referrals we'll talk a little bit more about that later um as the severity of behaviors has decreased the capacity to tend to other some minor behaviors does increase um so you might want to remember that as we get into conversation tonight we've seen a significant decrease in behaviors that necessitate an administrative hearing the utilization of the Champions program to better meet student needs has resulted in greater Student Success and effective reinstatements for students who otherwise would not have had that option or may have been floundering in a virtual environment or

075just sheer lack of options we've seen continued improvements in data integrity and accuracy across our sites that will always be a work in progress um just with human element of entering information and and thresholds as it relates to Milestone 8 we have a continued positive trend in students feeling safe at school from our Baseline in the winter of 23 uh related to Milestone 9 we have a continued positive trend of more students at uh with attendance at or greater than 90% from the Baseline of spring of 22 we have a reduction in the outliers or peaks of instances of restraints and conclusion Clarity on expected adult behaviors and system expectations to Target dis proportionality um has been continually reinforced intentional planning processes and professional learning to support students proactively in following our systems has resulted

076in significantly fewer special education evaluations that's not uh displayed in the data you have in front of you but I felt I had to say it because it's I believe one of the first years we were actually seeing less referrals for special ed based on the trend for many years is indicative of our systems really working in Universal level we have an increase in opportunities for targeted mentoring and social emotional learning groups for underserved and marginalized students and we've expanded um mentoring program to numerous sites um thanks to director Holland's work U with the good we must also accept some of the negative and understand and assess and problem solve around it we were observing a very desired positive trend in our decrease of risk ratio um regarding our federally identified disproportionality which is around

077out of school suspensions for black students um as you noted in semester one of 2223 was our Baseline the state and the federal government is typically looking for a 025 reduction every year we had a dramatic decrease from that Baseline to the following three semesters this past semester broke the trend that we were seeing which requires us to further hypothesize collaborate and plan according with ourselves and our school leaders this work is well underway there are more opportunities for us to make stronger connections regarding the disproportionality action steps we have articulated and reinforced and taught and expected of schools and School staff alongside the specific disproportionality goals articulated in individual School growth plans and their own Associated action steps and I hope as you're hearing last week and in March School growth plans you start

078kind of building that connection into what you're hearing here what you've been hearing around what we expect what we report to the state and federal government and what you're seeing come forward and come to life in those individual School growth plans and making those connections I think we can make them stronger continue efforts to increase representation in clubs activities and ath ICS and we will continue to work more closely with school leaders and teams who have trends that are moving in a different or undesired direction to better understand collectively problem solve and I say all this with the utmost appreciation and respect for our staff who have had to really make some major shifts in how maybe they View Behavior um see it as communication how they approach it the lens in which they bring

079when coming to behaviors that might be not completely regulated and um leaning into evidence evidence-based practices that maybe feel different than historical punitive um action in isolation without the actual restorative or positive pieces that we know in research move the dial better than our traditional Standalone suspensions with that we welcome questions again those were some highlights certainly not all um but we are here to to answer your questions oh I question out there this is from an email that received from the community uh they noticed in the slide on the in school suspensions that didn't include a data point for students with disabilities um but the out of school suspensions does have the state of Point were there any in school suspensions for students with the disabilities or yes it's been updated here has been

080updated okay check gu so you mentioned that um we all acknowledge that we want the disproportionality to be goinging that was a hard data point after all the work and and and the positive results we were seeing y I agree yeah I agree and and drine shares the data with us on a weekly sometimes or monthly basis so you said that there are steps um that you're T of taking place what you an example sure Beyond um the articulated work that you're seeing in the slides the dis Pro slides that kind of talk about adult behaviors system behaviors and then really specific targeted groups do you want to talk about some of the work you do or our team has done when we go to teams to kind of unpack that data with them I

081can start with um for special ed so we monitor every suspension every week with my coordinator team so if any student is suspended um within the last week we take the students name down then we bring that back to the team we ask about have you we have some expectations that we're reviewing is this part of the students's disability or not and then um is there other areas of need are there other supports that we need to be um having and as a result of that we have we're seeing fewer students with multiple suspensions um so that is really helping us to have that and that and that teaming is really part of it I think there was a misunderstanding that there's an an answer or a solution and really it's coming together and teaming

082and really looking at what what is the child trying to communicate what is the pattern that we're looking at um really getting a better understanding of how to collect data around behavior um I would say when we first came looking at the behavior data it was often a list of all the things um or if we asked for ABC data maybe we would see a as being a low-level behavior and a b as a high level Behavior rather than maybe what a root could be for what that behavior is so we've been spending a lot of time around that I would also add we're queuing up for our administrative team meeting in March to really dive into individual school buildings risk ratios now that number can become a little bit more volatile for buildings that

083might have the sample size to accurately have a risk ratio um so certainly all of our secondary schools will be diving much deeper into their their results and then a few elementary schools that have enough sample size as well um but we want to keep tying it back to our how we're spending the money we have uh comprehensive coordinated early intervening services that we must spend directly to uh impact our identified area of disproportionality um a lot of that is systems level work and if you think about the two areas one the federal identified is suspension we do have control over that that is the adult Behavior the adult Choice uh we are still working through individual cases where we might or Shonda might get an appeal and and kind of unpack how many days

084was that yes it was in line with the framework but what other you know there's always something else happening behind the scenes of that suspension but it's the question of was that also needed and this is also battling a perception a perception of some staff of some community members that that is the answer and we need to do more of it um so this is where our call continually comes back to mindset how we View Behavior what we know works when when teaching Behavior discipline and disciples a learner not just a recipient of a consequence um but we're looking forward to the March te to dive deeper with our leaders um what is the like the federal goal to be but what's the risk ratio of federal government years of a 0.25 reduction and then

085a third year of sustaining it um and then they kind of release you now that may all be up in the air right now we don't know impact uh federally of of these measures civil rights office I mean a lot of this could evolve with recent federal administrative decisions but what is the uh what was the number that um got us on that list they don't it's not as clean and easy as that um it's really a calculation they run every year um and then they will kind of let us they don't unpack the way we've unpacked it for you here on my last question for this one so I appreciate the focus on adult behaviors and adult perceptions because I think that hugely impacts how we treat individual students um when we're looking at

086individual schools and this goes back to some of those difficult conversations that we have to have with staff um is your team and the leadership teams at individual schools ready to have those difficult conversations with staff if they notice there's an outl we are very comfortable having uncomfortable conversations but I wouldn't say that that is the case for all all individuals when you say all individuals who are you speaking of I don't think 750 staff are fully all ready for that conversation many are and many like I said are doing great work we've seen amazing outcomes over two years we cannot discredit that that means adults are changing Behavior yet we would be be remiss if we didn't say we do still see evidence and we'll have those hard conversations that are not in line

087with that it's important that we have the leadership that we do though that's willing to have those conversations and in meaningful I'm sure very professional way have hard conversations without um you know M HR Rolland I I'm sitting here near my inner voice is saying don't say anything but I have to I think we have a leadership team that's prepared to have those difficult conversations I'm really proud of our staff because I believe that the vast majority of our staff are embracing these conversations but when we talk about individuals that's why I was asking about individuals it goes beyond the people in inside the organization I think some of our principles would ask what about some of our families that I have to deal with um I I think this is a more of a

088community issue as well um and do we want to have these conversations as a full community because um I've had a few of our our principles pull me to the side and say Dean I know you support me I think the board supports me in this work but it's really frightening work to do um when there are um there's angst in your school community and so I I just I raise that up um because as a full community we have to have those discussions and make sure that that's what we want to aspired towards I know you and I Mr pinion we've had that conversation so I want to invite you to maybe take that and and run with it a little bit more right I mean I bring this slide up for a reason

089because this is collective action Collective work to seek the outcomes that we're looking for and again we're making great progress yes we've had a setback with one data point um however it's a call to action for all community members and parents and naturally in our world we get pulled in when things aren't going well so we don't often get the benefit of seeing all of the great things all of the good work we know what's out there we know what's happening we're seeing the outcomes yet we also need that same mind shift mindset shift with our parents and Guardians as well in that understanding because we will also be the first to call to say this kid needs to get out of this building right now and so I just I'll conclude by saying thank

090you thank you for raising the question because this this is change Miss HR Rollin is one of those moments where I can then go to our principles who are fright frightened in some cases to even have these conversations to say but we have Schoolboard members who support this work and and they want you to continue to do the work and um it's lonely sometimes to do this work um and uh if it's easier to know that there's a level of support from your governing board or from your District leadership team when these kind of conversations are happening in the boardroom I would give Equal Credit to our our leaders to that point our principles do a lot of really really hard work and we had to write a trespassing letter today because of one getting

091a cost you know really verbally attacked by parents like these things are happening um in terms of not the partnership we want to see and even when things aren't going right like there's a way to engage and and we can get there together um but that mindset and approach makes a huge difference before we move on the screens are not mirroring anymore so I just want to make sure because oh there we go now they're back I have a comment as well yes um I think Dr Bley had her hand up first and Jason also up go this way back I know I and so I'm gonna ask this not out of a criticism but just to continue um forward with the great discussions we've had when I look at your list which has now

092gotten much smaller but um um non-exhaustive by way no no no I mean in terms of print size yeah um the feedback loop for the students so the ways in which the students are responsible for behavior in the building beyond the individual themselves um what is their role what kinds of you know I know there's some schools that are doing more some are doing less but do we have more space in that work to continue to bring in the student um voice and responsibility so you know I see when we see these monthly reports it tells us these different things that happen and something that's been jumping out to me is the insubordination um and that speaks to me of you know often that is a it can be a bell weather for feeling a

093lack of voice or participation and I'm not saying that is the case but I just wondering what else we might do in that area to to make students more responsible and involved in setting the standards in their own building 100% I do not want to steal any Thunder from my team so um I think we can always do better engaging students I think this concept in this conversation around like even the student survey results I know Malik brought up some good points at the last board meeting um yep there's been some Focus point or focus groups you know study things like that but I have a vision in this goal of like every student not just our student Schoolboard reps that these data about their school are not a surprise and they're engaged in it

094um so there's lot of almost like a fourth bullet point because we have the students as reporters you I don't know what the words would be but a responsibility that they have um to setting the standards in in the building along with with this obviously the staff thank you so um Mr pinion I am extraordinarily hopeful and confident in your abilities and those of your team and what you're doing and I wish to remind everyone that we have Internal Documentation internal reports for examp example from 12 years ago where strategies from central office were being used and the strategies weren't working and we had an external investigation and it found that explicitly strategies are not working and children are being harmed and then going forward a couple of years ago and you know I credit

095Dr means for um commissioning the study we found out that one of our buildings was not using the strategy that was dictated by the Fisher Building and that was an administrator issue in the building so we can't put it all on the teachers and Dr means determined that there should be additional training for staff in that building so this is why I have this confidence in you all and Dr means is that you're willing to call it out when a strategy in a particular environment is not working or is not being executed in the manner that you know it should be executed and with part of the hard conversation is from the bottom up that what you're giving me here it might work everywhere else but it's not working for me here today and I'm

096willing to self-reflect on my role as a teacher or as a lower level administrator that it doesn't work but I need you up the chain to self-reflect if it's not working you recognize it you own it with us and we we've looked for another strategy which is part of your data driven approach um so I thank you for that I've had a confidence with you all in your chairs that I did not have ever before your arrival thank you and one more thing there also is the balance of impact on the victims and sometimes a strategy is a good strategy in isolation and might work with time but we also have to balance the the needs of victims as well that they aren't just you know experimental subjects for our efforts and you have acted

097to solve those kind of problems as well which was the root of the thing in 2012 is that it wasn't working and victims were suffering and the strategy from fiser was just keep keep keep going with the strategy and parents said my child doesn't have time my child is emotionally damaged here now I haven't seen you do that kind of thing so I want to say thank you and I hope none of you ever do uh so this is just more of an observation uh I I was looking through it and it just struck me as I don't know maybe a little bit of a an outlier or maybe this is just me not not seeing enough of a time delay on it but the uh the the surveys uh and and what's posted for

098I feel safe in in in my school um relatively flat the last few few data points um the number's high and that and that's good um but then a little ways down I'm looking at the administrative hearings by offence um which I I guess to me those kind of probably equate um on a pretty linear level of of how many versus like if I was a student like these are the things that would make me feel not safe at school like definitively um I see that for the the first semester um we we're we're on Pace to end the year roughly 40% in reduction across the board on on those um specifically with a big reduction in the physical and and and fighting endangerment area um so the the observation is that it looks like

099the the if I'm measuring it by this metric of administrative hearings it's looking like like everything is trending really really well everyone's doing a really great job because these are these are the you know ultimately the results but there is that I guess a little bit of a disconnect why to me why why did the survey results not from Winter not go up my initial response is I don't know if hearings have the sample size compared to the sample size that you're seeing represented in hundreds of students in the surveys okay so it would be hard for me to make that correlation now what I would love to see is the hearing numbers dropping violence dropping and that number skyrocketing for safety um yet the hearings are such a small slice of of of data

100I understand it's that's just one narrow way of looking at it you've got a lot of other ways to look at it here it was just one of the the only ones that just kind of stuck out and I thought um after you've answered my question so thank you well just I'm gonna come back to you but also to add that I don't I don't know that we entirely know what students are thinking about when they answer this question you know are they are they really thinking about things within the school are they thinking about more like sort of I'm safe from people coming into my school and there the context in the day or the week they I mean a lot of factors complain to it which is why we look at Trends right

101know how to have the negative you know sorry go ahead um I wanted to I I might just be betraying my ignorance here um but when I'm looking at the in school suspensions by school um uh I imagine that generally speaking uh when we're comparing schools and their different rates uh we're looking at elementary schools against each other middle schools and then high schools and I'm uh a little bit surprised to see uh West High School having uh a uh a a disparity of that magnitude as far as insal suspens uh suspensions I'm just curious if I can get a get a better sens to why that is so we made a push and and we keep making a push about OSS versus ISS that is a point in time decision it is also heavily

102rooted in resource because that involves a person who is skilled to be there all day I will say West has really ran and resourced and leveraged ISS more as an alternative to out of school suspension where we're still working with East around how we resourcing this what options so from my perspective in Feld free team that's kind of been the push pull in the struggle okay can I just add a follow-up question to that what are the what are the differences and outcomes for in school suspension versus out of school suspension they're huge when you talk about access to resources educational material support um a lot of the research that I'm familiar with with the discipline is centered around out of school in term time out of the building time away from resources and some

103of the outcomes associated with it um now that said I haven't doped deep into like recently into ISS as well but and how does Staffing impact this data as well in terms of how the school staff their personnel sure can you just follow up on what we were just talking and then I'll get to the Staffing one yeah I mean I think that's why this does take time to develop because not only are we looking at who would support that type of space where is it going to happen but then how do we make that time purposeful so it's not just you're essentially suspended but sitting in the office for the day um instead what kinds of supportive approaches can we put in place what type of um access to additional counseling or student services

104might the student need uh can we bring in some coursework to be done in that time and even do some uh one-on-one supports with academics during that so it it has just taken us some time to scale this up in the last year and a half that we've really leaned into to it as a system and to Dr mean's question this is not a POS like the individual that would be monitoring and providing support in that space is not something that is needed every day all day because of the intermittent nature of ISS so it's really about repurposing kind of in real time staff that you have who is available while respecting roles and responsibilities as well where you're not you know a counselor sitting in there I mean we all have roles and responsibilities

105so we need to be careful about how that is staff who's there to Emily's Point what is happening in that space um and that's a that's a real challenge um in some buildings to configure that um so this is sort of a follow up from what I said last week but I really appreciate how digestible this whole presentation is and again I would say like if there's a way to you know bardocks is not the most accessible thing to to most students um if there's a way to make this even more accessible and maybe to still this down even more um I think this valuable information for all students to have easy access to um and I think it would be valuable even if it was just like a one or two page document as

106well um I think especially the um how can all stakeholders help uh especially when it comes to what parents and Guardians can do it seems a bit you know more Elementary but it's still very like appropriate and I think it's very helpful um and also seeing I think it's important as a stakeholder to see the expectations or at least the the opportunities for growth of other stakeholders um and helping in help I think that's a good way to facilitate everyone as a community like it says under students contribute positively to the school environment um to collectively fulfill these goals so again thank you for how really concise this whole thing is thanks for the feedback it's helpful Mr p i as I look at this and kind of to back up what Malik says uh

107thinking about the visibility of this in the classroom or in the in the buildings period I think of this like from a a business standpoint uh when you're in like a uh construction zone you've got those things that remind you of this many days without an accident you know that was something many days without a major the job on the job how many days without how many days without a suspension a building goal that's right buildings do do that there are several buildings that will do that absolutely and they are they are celebrating that and updating it and communicating it I absolutely think we could do that better with students as well and love these suggestions um but yes that is absolutely what we are trying to build just greater visibility around and awareness of

108these decisions that we're making on a daily basis and the impact in the school Community which is really great to see that we're even at that point those of you that were here two and a half years ago that would have not even been on the table when it came to data and what we were working with the consistency so it's been a really good Evolution to even have actionable information like this um and to get this kind of feedback from students and in the board no I I think that's great and and I'm very very happy to hear that it's in some places but to the students points I think that I just think about you know I've got three that are at Lincoln that would be excited about hearing about these things of

109you know how much they could as a group make things feel more safer you know and talk about these things they have lots of conversation at the you know second grade and fourth grade levels about all these different things but why not at the middle schools not why at the high schools you have those classrooms where it's coming from the bottom up and being something that's very visible it's like okay we talk about this beginning of the day once a week it's check-in on Friday whatever it might be so it's just ever presentes in their minds where it's like okay we're doing great we know that we're we have something going on you know they don't get the emails and all the text messages that the families get and you know not everybody reviews those

110with their kids but I said that could be something that starts that way that they're bringing home you see the Friday folders of that's awesome that there were no instance this week or there were no new school suspensions in this grade level that everybody's aware of it maybe you can put it on the M like launch pad like a resource for that Mr P before we we before we maybe come to a close with this conversation I don't know if we've had an opportunity to meet the full team and provide their titles um and what they do in the overall division of people and family supporters sure so kind of reintroduce again while we start on here and say your connection in what we're kind of presenting here um so yeah I serve as your

111director special education so I oversee what's your name again oh thank you that's part of introductions um my name is Stacy Clen I serve your District as your director of special education so I oversee our service delivery I oversee our communication our um as you were speaking to like how we're making connections with families um building relationships with families um also then the legal guidelines like special education is a law so I want to make sure that we are legally compliant but I also want to want to make sure um that I see myself as an advocate for the student and I find that um whenever I keep students at the center of our conversations regardless if it's a family who's feeling frustrated or a school I really find that when we keep the student

112at the center of all our conversations that we can come to a really good um Next Step even when there's tension at the table all right U I'm Laura gisler I'm the director of school safety so my role kind of bridges over a lot um the brick and mortar of the building how we are managing our hallways supervision within the building to decrease our fights and things happening in the hall always um in addition I work really closely with the buildings and grounds Department to make sure all our doors or structures are safe for everyone um and then work really closely with Athletics the 80s just to make sure that those events are safe for everyone um we've really put a lot of systems in place at our athletic events which have been great this

113year our East West games have been so fun for students and it's just such a good environment to see kids having so much fun as a community and I would add I mean the data has been remarkable around just safety at events that we've had from again a two and a half year span and Laura also facilitates an internal and an external Safety Committee to engage stakeholders uh as well in that process hi Emily o Conor I serve as the Director of Student Success um which means that I support our student services department um our school counselors social workers um support School psychologists with director CLM um social emotional mental health specialists as well as really thinking about how those our our amazing team um actually team together within buildings with classroom teachers and administrators

114how they review um data and inform student plans as proactively as possible um so it's really um quite a gift to be able to team with this team up here so that we can work together to serve students hi my name is Shonda Holland I'm the director of diversity and inclusion I oversee all of the DIA Advocates that are in each school I work directly with the building principles to ensure that their environments are safe and the environments are Equitable for all students I also um work directly with teachers that need direct coaching on how to provide more Equitable learning environments for their students that are inclusive and and I really just have the opportunity to make sure that Equity is seen in all aspects of the district and I make sure that our principles

115know how to elevate and Implement our Equity core beliefs in each Space Mr I supervise these lovely people um no truly I feel like in my golden age of of my career with this team they make me look really really good um and we're doing really good work so a huge thank you to this board and Dr means that made this structure happen I think we're doing really good things for kids can always do better um always get new ideas and I guess my ask for the board is to is to keep a focus keep holding us accountable um know that we do have to say no to good ideas as well to stay focused and to do good work um but we are up for all the challenges that we has and here to

116celebrate when we are having the winds that we're having something we hav't discuss from this report is um uh the activities in clubs so what is your team doing right kids who are more involved in their school are going to probably have better AIC and their outome so to me not low at all but like what are some of the things preventing um some of our students movs take this one so as they're deciding who's going to take it um I I'll give them some time to think that is one of our Milestones that we have deemed that if a parent or family member of a child monitors the Milestone progress that students are making in our district you'll see success and and so we've identified within our strategic plan that Milestone ten is representation

117of of clubs and and sports I will also add as we were pulling this data there were some data barriers as well to getting it clean and accurate um so although this is the best we have right now um it's hard to make ad adequate comparisons right now in terms of how much movement has happened I think a lot about the work Shonda leads in terms of sense of belonging and then uh Emily's work the school counselors as a conduit but admittedly this is an area that we need to spend more time on directly with our school leaders to understand how this is coming to life in the actual building if anyone else anything else to add yeah I mean there there are a number of barriers that could prevent the student from joining an

118extracurricular or Club um we certainly work through them on a case-by Case basis leaning into Community Partnerships um limited funding that we have for students who are um living in families that are experiencing housing insecurity um all of those types of one one unique individualized circumstances we do work with the student service team and try to lean into exhausting all possibilities um so that has been great I do think um you might have heard a couple of school growth plans even reference this as as part of their strategy because this was an important Milestone and as Mr pinion said I think we can do better leaning in in the next year listening to how we can systemically grow this a little bit better um yeah our student services are more poised to work one to

119one and our principles are working actively to really get student input to create um clubs and organizations that the students are interested in at Long Fellow specifically and monor they are allowing students to like pose opportunities and suggestions for um clubs and then the students are running them with advisers that are just kind of overseeing them so it's a really good opportunity to have things that students are interested in and more um schools are trying to follow that lead and just provide more opportunities that students have showed interest in participating if if I may please be ever Vigilant about participation fees yes and um even um for example years ago one of our teams was in the State basketball tournament in Madison and we um charged a fee to ride the bus and teachers were

120donating money to kids on the side and that shouldn't be you know something like that if you if you're not included in something like that you feel left out and you feel like you don't belong um I'll go to bat here forgive me but um my understanding is that the interest in absy at East High School has skyrocketed over the past year and they need a second section so I'm want to go to bed for that because those kids are busy they I don't think they have time for much much trouble anyway so I mean if you don't mind I'm not yet what it's especially important for absy is more the district provides a considerable amount of support but more financial support is always very helpful I mean it's very difficult especially as a TA

121to um fundraise and I'm sure Ben can also touch on this like it's a very serious Endeavor to it's about like 2,300 a person this year um and you know multiply that by 24 students that it's an absurd cost um and you know local businesses are very generous but it only goes so far so you know again when uh we're thinking about future budgets and speaking of equity are are those things uh when there's more interest than what there are seats is it by try out or is it you know I mean to in some respects an equitable approach would be you know somebody who couldn't make the cut in the tryy out but maybe it's the start for something in their life so I think participate in something like that I I think the

122uniqueness of a school board meeting is that you never know what the topics are going to turn into um what I would share with you is that Miss El oosi would share that we are in the beginning stages of Staffing and that U Final determinations on how many sections we have for American public policy special emphasis will be determined in the next 6 to8 weeks U so there's still more to come um uh Malik I appreciate your question around budgeting uh Mr eer about 40 minutes ago shared that we are now moving towards a zerob based budgeting process I'm confident that the principles at wosa East and wosa West are putting into their budgets a line item that will address absy um financial support and that that's just going to be right in their their

123their line items and then they're going to russle with so what do they not do um as they put those those funds in because that's what we mean um there's there's no shortage of good ideas in wallos there's no shortage of where we can invest more funds um but uh what the board has been very clear to us about is that we're going to have to start prioritizing things as well because we can't do everything and so I'm I'm and what I'm what I also tried to emphasize is that no longer can we do poof so poof that that's a perfect example of poof of someone coming to administration at the district level in in March and say oh by the way we need x amount of dollars if we don't plan for it and

124budget for it um it's really difficult to support it doesn't mean that it's not a good um it's not a good um cause or something that we don't want to support but I'm I'm confident that for 25 the 25 26 school year those types of um Endeavors will be they they'll be budgeted for I just oh no I'm I was gonna wrap it up so I'm gonna just let if you have like one more question no I was just gonna it's just a comment confirm that aligning the the student interests with the clubs that we offer it would be a very timely moment from that from the feedback that I've heard um giving them more opportunity to Le that and speak up on that really pertinent like maybe I think we shouldn't go further into

125absy right now no no it's it's very quick okay um I really appreciate the comment you made about um the launch pad I think that's very valuable like if you can create a dashboard inside of that but also like incl if that could also be extended to Infinite Campus or possibly a canvas page as well like student services at least at to East has a canvas page yeah um I did have a question regarding the the data that you guys pulled for the clubs and sports is that data coming from like students who said I participate in this or is that coming from like going and surveying the advisers within the clubs and the sports at the schools like where's like just I'm I'm speaking to it with like one person remove so our data

126team had kind of articulated that evolution in the the struggle of getting these data I want to say a good part of it was rostering so we've been really working with advisers to make sure there are rosters and that's repli uh identified in Infinite Campus so the majority of it I believe is pulled from rosters okay which may not be 100% you know there's still some some evolution of practice to get there the answer right yeah that's cool I just wanted to know if that was more of a like a student saying I I I participate in this or maybe the club they're talking about isn't necessarily at school or maybe outside of school compared to if they're pulling from a roster get tighter about it I think you're raising a really good question as

127a former High School Club advisor I didn't have a roster you know there would students will come to my classroom and it would it would change over the year right if we're really going to get serious about Milestone 10 and try to figure out who's in these clubs and who are not in the clubs then we do need to start asking our in in particular our secondary schools but all of our our clubs who's who who's part of the club um are you keeping attendance um so then we can figure out how we can better address this Milestone yeah which like actually as a student at this level I have seen that over the past couple of years change I know that triam the triam Honor Society has made an effort to do that I

128know that student council has made an effort to do that and there are talks about with student council adjusting at least at East how that works and how that like is going to better impact the community but like um like I know my frisbee team makes an effort to keep a roster more and knowing who's on the team and who's in the group me and who's being an attending practices and I think that the work you guys are doing is going to be super super important as time goes on to see that representation and we we've created this Milestone Out close Dr Ho because we know that we have children who are entering the same Schoolhouse door and then are having very different School experiences and and that's not what we want for all of

129our students and so this Milestone along with the nine others is a way for us to to monitor things I'm sure that Dr marille and her team will go deeper into the other Milestones on March 10th correct and this is a huge protective factor for students as well as being involved in a collab activity um can do a lot of really great for students social emotionally academically um before you all go I just want to say thank you so much for this data you know we get a lot of questions especially you know questions around the referendum of you know why is why is the budget at fiser so big and there's so many people there and I want people to be able to I to see that this is this is the return on

130your investment this is what is happening because we have people in place who are creating systems and structures that we then see last week in our school growth plans we're going to see in our in our academic performance data next month this is what this is how well-run school districts look so thank you so much for that and I I hope again that people can join us next month for some really really important meetings um that will continue to show their return on investment thank you team thank you all right we are moving into I think the rest of our policies from last meeting all so all the policies you're looking at tonight just to clarify our first readings which means this is an opportunity to comment and give feedback to um the policy committee

131we'll just go in the order that there there and you also have a handout so 3120 employment of Staff we are um removing uh changing the language to start with District support alternative licensing programs because and that removed because the policy is and below is removed from the policy that's on page two is all [Music] um it's all the law already it doesn't have to be included anymore so that's where a lot of stuff is redlined out starting on this bottom of the second page it doesn't it isn't important to keep in our policy at this point um but we're open to any comments or suggestions on 120 um questions that you might have sorry go ahead um so if I understand correctly this is just sort of getting rid of extra language that is

132um redundant with what is already in statutory law there's a couple things that are going on here when you look at a policy um you'll see a lot of those spaces that have the pink highlights and then an empty box in the front um just so folks know who um haven't been through a policy committee meeting the policies are first reviewed um by the staff in the district with um our representative from niola um they make some decisions about what reflects um how how we do things or how we want to do things in the district many of these empty boxes that then are crossed out you know like those those brackets those are options um the the district could use but we're not going to use them so we don't include those and then

133what I was referencing on the bottom of page two where it starts District support alternative licensing programs the material that comes after that there everything is crossed out and that's because it's now um already included um elsewhere in the law so we don't need to repeat it and theni Epi has a regulation that takes care of all that great the one other question I'd ask is um uh what the idea is behind take uh uh omitting the word professional uh in uh the titles the policy and in other VAR because this and um staff can speak to as you want but because if you um think about it there are different types of Staff in the district um and we this is supposed to be inclusive of all staff that's why thank you yes other

134questions or comments All right so then we will take that back it will probably come back on the consent agenda um the next time that we have room on a an agenda so we will move on to 3120.4 Etc it's because it's a related policy to the um the number okay just to order so um in 3120 um1 [Music] um is that um we have once we approve a job description for certified staff we have to approve that but once approved HR is not required to bring job description revisions to the board specifically to the board for approval um so we were uh updating our policy to reflect that um that fact so essentially just kind of taking out micromanagement stuff right unless I think was our assumption there drle is that unless there's something

135substantive of a major change that was that would be contradictory what was already approved yes any comments or questions there's also some updating of language alignment with the names of the other policies that's some of the green whenever you see green that's a change that's happening within it okay right so 3120.4 employment of substitutes we are um having this written in a way that the superintendent is authorized to make decisions on the substitute hiring process that gives us more um flexibility meaning that we could cover um use of ites internally or externally questions U just a comment down at the bottom U the the prior to the end of the school year District employees Subs students who District intends to employ over the ensuing school year will receive a letter of reasonable Assurance of continued

136employment um is is that written in a too narrow of a way where those who are not are are kind of left they want it to be clear that if someone is is not going to be asked fact that they're that that's made clear to them because they may be planning whatever they're they're going to do on that so this is more about um eligibility for unemployment benefits over the summer than um than like employment status so if I mean so if we if there's a substitute that we don't want to return we're not just not going to send them a letter of reasonable a letter of reasonable Assurance we're going to you know we'll as you would with any employee discuss with them whatever your concerns are address them and and have some I've

137seen other organizations opposite to what you just described so I just wanted to make sure that we are clear on the language of yeah yeah we are going to treat everyone with respect 100% um public school districts um to avoid play paying unemployment insurance for out of season workers provide these letters of reasonable Assurance saying that yep we expect to have you back expect to have whatever position for you next year otherwise you can imagine the considerable costs that would be added um any other comments or questions okay so we'll move on to 3120.4 also an updated policy um that includes that we've gone in all our policies to using the term board instead of Board of [Music] Education we didn't have a lot of notes on this one we just needed to align with

138what um what is uh practice of what is allowed and what's practiced um within this area of uh Staffing okay 07 employment of temporary employees this is just a note this is you don't see the neol at the bottom you see W School District this is a specific um policy to wosa school district and um we wanted to this time around we are updating it um to make clear uh what kind of temporary employees um we can have within our policy and how those um temporary employees would and you know under whose um decision that would happen how this temporary employes would be brought um forward and that it also has to be within the budget questions or comments okay hearing none 3120.4 employment of personnel for co-curricular extracurricular activities this is a new policy

139so anything you see crossed out is not because it was there and then it's taken out it's because um as the policy was developed we had different choices and this is what um aligned um with the district and was recommended by The District staff and administration um all coaches this is a new policy all coaches and advisers or support staff and at will um moving forward our plan is to have those hires not be part of the consent agenda just so you know that action items for approval and should only be an an should be an item of information not of action so shifting here to um they don't they're not going to approve the board's not going to approve each single hire in this area make sure that you're aware of that but rather

140um we uh that that is a decision within um the superintendent's office and uh HR okay so policy um 3120 point10 we've updated this policy this is on job sharing um so um we have a process to go ahead and consider job share request that was creating a you have one but but what we're doing is putting in policy that there is a p there is a process until we match the administrative guidelines I just want to personally say I'm really glad we allow and offer job sharing I think it's really important um to our employees and to retention of employees over the [Music] time okay 3120 um 11 this is a ruming from 31205 employment of Personnel in community services programs this policy has been renumbered um in references specifically the recreation department the

141policy committee recommended changing the title um uh to this use it was it something else um now it's Community Services because we want to make clear that it's employ employment within that um area that the recreation um department covers and fund 80 covers again that's wosa specific not a lot of um districts have a recreation department so okay um 3121 Now we move on to a new uh group of numbers um criminal history record check and employee self-reporting requirements this is updated um and you'll find the areas that have been updated or added um have to do in the middle of that with um the time frame uh we can do this more um we were asking for more quickly um if something shifts in someone's life [Music] um and that the district get told

142um when this happens in a timely manner does I think I understand the reason for the language change but does it also eventually bring in the negative side of that where if we're on break for an extended period of time we're now seeing um we're seeing business days as opposed to calendar days uh if we're not in session does that mean that employee could potentially have weeks or months to um you I'm just asking do does just open us up to that um so so practically speaking um first um we've had this language in our employee handbook since prior to my arrival here about notification within one business day um second um one of the services we receive is notifications of um of if staff members are are charged with anything um so we're asking

143for employees to be accountable and you know and Report things to us um but my office is myself and um I think one other person gets those notifications anyway so but to J to Jason's question though the the district isn't really close much here uh I it's not when employees are off it's a business term right so y Mak sense thank you for clarifying yeah right not like we have like long periods of business days that we're not doing we still communicate with employees over the summer when they're not working yeah so it's not their working days it is strictly literally the definition of a business day like on Monday through Friday okay any other questions good question so far um okay 3122 non-discrimination equal employment opportunity this is a policy that complies with the

144office of civil rights um rules and one point that was removed we also took out in reference to a policy that um did not wasn't supposed to did not no longer need to be in here basically the update um is to keep us in that ignment um with the um rules on equal employment opportunities you want to say uh exactly and so one of the other you'll note that one of the areas that's not included are the names of the individuals to whom um concerns can be reported that is reflected um elsewhere in policy and our employee handbook 20 22 make sure I'm not missing one2 non-discrimination based on genetic information of the employee um this is new this is required by a 2008 law um yes I know it's 2025 I didn't read that

145wrong was required by 2008 law um and you can find that on the second page title two the genetic information non-discrimination act of 20 eight so this is bringing us into compliance and also um making sure that people have access to how they would um you know there's a phone number on the second page where they would need to contact information questions or comments yeah so just to highlight maybe I didn't read this carefully enough but what could that be relevant to how about um provision of health insurance and based on you know we don't have pre-existing condition issues now but as genetic testing becomes more and more insightful about people's conditions we're going to find out that people are destined for higher yes higher risk and this just says you for example everybody you're

146going to be able to get the same health insurance no matter what your genetic test says yeah there's many points at which people we're making sure people aren't being asked or providing it um you know genetic markers for um pancreatic cancer for example such things okay thanks clarification there Dr Worley we are not asking no but we're if we're working with providers in medical or or insurance providers that do their own research and have those things in the other side of my bay job that's one of the things that we're seeing now is that because of your information sold in all these different places and attached so many different things nobody has to ask they already have the information so the decision never happened at our level that somebody may not qualify for health insurance

147or life insurance what it might be because something else they've already done this doesn't provide any protection that because that's outside of our but we are the insurer health insurance we self-insure now we're a public employer as well so we have other rules that keep us from discriminating but I suspect this is going to this topic is going to rear its head someplace unexpected sometime okay okay um Employment contract 31 policy 3124 yeah the update here um is literally taking out of Education we had this tonight Dr Worley so in this instance on these maybe Dr meemes this isn't a technical direction to remove that single word that doesn't change anything with policing it could it could be it could be so any those like that could be like this we could we have another

148process we found out about yes learnings today yes this this would qualify as a technical correction it doesn't change the substance or the tener of the policy it's just a technical correction of eliminating of Education okay so um policy 31 24.01 repes policy um this ising this references back to the substitute language as well and really the um the chain taking the word professional out of the title of some of the policies um and making some of these numbering changes we used to have have um duplicated policies a set for our teaching staff and a set for our um our support staff and now we're just trying to get one set of policies that is relevant for all questions or comments okay um Al see 31 30 uh assignment and transfer again we're moving to

149talking about staff in general um you know I guess one would say that if you use the term professional one wonders who are the unprofessional staff right so um we strive for our district to be fully professional across the board right um so so taking out that word is not um NE necessary um and then um being clear the superintendent shall establish um an audit procedure [Music] um and we've been learning also in policy that if you capitalize the word superintendent then it can it automatically includes or their design just so you know that so we don't have to write or their design in every policy where the word superintendent um comes up questions or comments okay they have to have a teaching certificate all right getting close here policy 3131 reduction in staff the

150details of our process reduction in staff live in our administrative guidelines so some of this is not needing to be here because we have it's it's really belongs and thank you for that in the administrative guidelines as well as we don't use all the options that Neola has depends on your District your size of your district and how you do things and how much even needs to be spelled out in policy depends upon a specific district and how big they are um or how much of an HR department they have 3132 copy of um so vacancies is the title of this one um again this would be taking this the policy saying we're going to use the district's procedures and those procedures are outlined within HR right questions or comments it was being removed to

151something that is L language that would happen within an administrative guideline rather than within a policy I can ask one question maybe Mr salowski just in the first sense they're the person best suited to perform the duties how does that vary or differ from qualified to perform is there so um within our hiring practices we have um an explicit rubric for um for teachers to determine their qualifications um and and really we're looking for not only someone who is qualified um but someone who like fits with the team so for instance like we're able to designate someone who who um demonstrates um um potential and they they know all the right things but maybe they're they're fairly novice versus someone who has actually done it and you know in his 30 years of experience so

152um so that rubric is is like the perfect example of it allows us to find people who are talented um and get the right person for the the position that we want them to fit in excellent thank you okay staff discipline policy um notes we have is that this is a significant update um we're we're have some policies at this point that are so large um in their update and sometimes like this one driven by um the legal um background that um rather than green line everything for you um we're looking to replace this with the alignment to um Neola in 2023 policy but please any questions or comments again the things that have been um hash marked out that say option um those vary by district and the process um of the work between

153the Neil representative and um in this case it would be um Miss El zasi with the HR department is to um determine what is um an alignment with our district and how we do things um and what we need in this case we have explicit um guidelines and um and process that is provided to all administrators in terms of investigations what they look like the support gets provided from our division Etc questions or comments okay Al 3160 so we don't employ um bus drivers or other positions that um um that would um be relevant for mandatory or um um or intermediate intermittent drug testing you can see that that section in the middle of the policy has has been struck um we do have of course reasonable suspicion drug testing uh for all staff members

154the other change in this policy is related to um there used to be a requirement that all new staff members had to have a negative tuberculosis skin test and now um public employees just need to have a tuberculosis screening unless something additional is warranted Aly 3161 unrequested leaves of absence Fitness for Duty yep back to the word taking the word professional out because all our staff are and I guess the other is um the report of the medical examination to be released to the superintend is how we do this in a district that's a selection questions or comments okay hearing n 32 10 staff ethics this is an often referred to policy uh in our division it's um it's uh very important to us um and again minimal changes to make it applicable to all

155employees so when we remove the word professional then it covers everybody who works to the district any comments or questions okay we can move on to policy 3211 whistleblower protection this is a new policy and not since 2008 it's new from 2023 it's really new it's actually new we're benefiting from um now once in a while we're benefitting from not just updating our policies but from actually being only a year behind Okay questions or comments in case that so I I see we we're changing from pursuant state law to just the board that expects um is the the case that state law has changed on this and that it uh that's why the language is changing that's not I don't think it's meaningful to the policy itself I'm just curious as to the nature of

156the change we didn't have this policy at all so a why why use that language yeah rather than um pursu it to state law I think it's to go ahead and include whether or not state law does change we would not want to retaliate against someone who is trying to bring to light a a matter of concern to the organization or to the public good question it's a great question okay policy 3213 student supervision and Welfare um again this is being revised to cover all staff um so the word professionals taken out in several places and um also we're in the process of making sure when we do these policies that we don't just say the number we also um put the title of the policy so um that has been added in as well

157[Music] um no I I guess I wouldn't even all the policies that are including that change related to professional staff member all of our staff members did fall under all of those policies in the past it was just the policies themselves were duplicated and now we're trying to keep things more streamlined and have them be relevant for all classifications okay we're all for fewer policies if they cover the exact same top policies to update next time around they cover exactly the same topics um then we can we can work as a single unit okay and then the last one for tonight um policy um 3214 uh staff gifts we had a lively conversation on this one um in policy committee so I'll give you a moment to um review it in case you have some

158questions or a desire for um some additional conversation I will say [Music] um we had some discussion about what uh uh what nominal means um and um we talked about the option of uh discussing here whether we should um put that in um and one suggestion was uh $25 per student so it's kind of up to the the board how much um Direction you'd like the the district or the staff to have on this the reference to policy 3220 ethics and conflict of interest the dollar amount we're suggesting to be specified in that particular policy and that will come for the board's review I believe at the March meeting so you still have time to consider the uh the definition of nominal yeah so that's actually yeah other policy but but part of was the

159Lively conversation is just that we really we always appreciate that the staff get gifts but there's a lot of unevenness in the district um and so that discussion came to light about um the the thoughts that um that we had about how important it was to really figure out how we would um make it more even um if there's going to be gifting to staff how important that is is this um does this include or is it separate where a parent might um recognize that that their child's classroom room may have a a need of of I don't know um five boxes of crays or something buset tournament yeah or so so that's different if a parent would want to donate to because it's not necessarily to the it's not a gift to the teacher

160it's more to teachers yeah okay so not just teachers but staff if it's a 3214 is a gift specifically to the staff and it's governing what gift the staff memb is receiving if staff members are receiving in general a gift during teacher appreciation week that's different so bunch of food shows up in this teacher Lounge that's not what we're talking about we're talking about um gift cars for birthdays or direct gift direct gifts I've seen teachers who are planning to get married the classroom provides a gift um is that okay is that included in this policy that would govern that that would be governed under 3214 so Mike I think I know what you're saying with this policy and I agree with what I think I think you think um I some redundancy there I'm

161sure but you know individual gifts from the staff M to students are strongly discouraged I believe that's a really good idea to have that strongly discourage there's a lot of ideas of adults giving gifts to teenagers that is a a step we don't want to talk about where in very ugly situations where that goes now if it's the teacher who wants to you know as I said the the bus ticket to the state championship game the kid doesn't have the money and the teacher finds a way to buy the ticket I wouldn't want that included here but you know is it included here is that I think it' be a gift to the school right technically that's a gift to the school well I don't know they can name the student well the gift that's

162that would be I wouldn't I would hope our teacher wouldn't a teacher would to just give a student like $25 and this is the ticket cost well we work through a lot of those situations right within student services too in terms of removing those barriers and um so I know a lot of that comes to our office well if you work through them now that's great it wasn't worked through in the past we're pretty diligent about making sure that all students have experiences experiences and Mr ping and his team does a nice job in working with their principles now I'd rather the teachers spend their paychecks on themselves right but we know teachers they're pretty selfless about their kids yes and so is their guidance to staff to say if you would know a student

163has a need please reach out to your opinions team or on so that would be help I can I can understand if you see one student in your class isn't able to afford it's kind of wrapped into the beginning the like how we talk about any student need Student Services is here to help you know remove barriers and assist we can put that in in our administrative guidelin for 34 that that's good coun you almost kind of need a hotline for some of these things because they're going to unfold at the last minute you know not a real true hotline but a welcoming number to call we often to your point Mr Meer Miss hmer Rollin so during the holiday season is where this really is pronounced and I think again that's what I mean

164of it's informal I think we can place some I we appreciate the council we can put some direction and language in the administrative guidelines for 3214 to give more Direction Mr Mr pinion can remind staff on an annual basis of how they can support students if they need it that's what administrative guidelines are for not not the policy okay next um so as I read it uh it only really refers to individual students or individual parents how does that work with like a group of students or like a student or parent organization that's different that's not govern under the staff gifts in terms of either receiving or giving we did talk about classroom gifts like if there's a if there's a a um a a parent who organizes gifts and things like that the the

165contributions from Individual parents to a classroom gift should not exceed um the the nominal dollar amount so there's is there a policy on this for like groups of individuals I think this would be something that we would want to communicate with the you know ptso area Council [Music] or I think the the intention of this policy is so that there's not favor or some sort of Advantage being given on by either party or even appearance or just an appearance that causes people to think somebody has an an edge that isn't fair so let me ask then this is a hypothetical um that let's say my absy class is well it is very grateful to Mr mateski um and we collectively want to put forward a gift if that comes from the class itself that would

166not be covered under here this says individual great as long as individually this is exactly what we discussed at policy level so contri now becomes now we're being cross reference with 3230 and the staff member has to make sure that the The Divided value of it is not exceeding $25 so if a class of 20 students provided $2,000 gift to the teacher that that staff member has to make sure that they know that that's exceeded the the dollar amount per student I see thank you no and I got to say you all are also fundraising and the money supposed to go to you for your trip there starts to be an appearance was this money funel back give to I this is the kind of messy complication we get into then full disclosure and what

167we also discussed at the policy committee meeting is that there's a difference between schools across our district this goes back to the complexity of who we are um in terms of the just the different neighborhoods and schools and cultures of the schools and um and so as a district that's why we took such a um an important line I believe of referencing 3230 um because some schools May exceed that $25 per family or per student um threshold While others can't do it and and so we want to make sure that we have some level of equity some schools don't have room parents even doing that at all right that's space Dr mean in this policy here is this per occurrence is this an aggregate is if I say hey there's 24 kids in the classroom

168he has 205 so I got a $600 Max is that per year is that per birthday is that per we good in the fall we didn't specify that in us um so the way I would interpret this would be if that classroom then wanted to give that staff member and give quarterly right they could do so that's the way I read it not to exceed $25 per student per per gift per gift per gift per gift yeah they could do it quarterly would like us to talk about that at the next policy prous know what school your kids go to so Dr h i mean and that happens I think there are instances throughout the school year where a staff member especially at the elementary school level I'm speaking as a envious former High School

169teacher um that it could happen two to three times a year easily um that's we're not to Dr Worley's point we're not governing how often what the level the frequency is for this I think it's worth in that next community meeting to at least look at what those Gils are so we don't have that that inequity from school to school especially and I can only speak from the elementary level I said but I know that the I know the differences when I see the parents and the families that of the neighbors I have that teach at other schools yeah they they will reference other schools like it'd be nice if I was over here because I saw because I talked to our friends what they received in March what they received for Christmas what they

170received for their birthday but they received here and we're lucky if we get a box of picture of donuts hey those are good we love those but they're not the difference of you know baskets and gift cards and massages and all these things that sure go around in certain schools does that go um like class of 2026 like each class gives a gift said that's um How would in terms of like looking at this being um community members and students giving gifts to staff members how would community members and students be told that when you give a gift if this is being given by individuals that each individual being a part of this gift should only it should be under a value of 20 like how would we could put this in the handbook the

171family and students guard handbook once it's decided and traditionally every so the first the first day that teachers come back they dread that first faculty meeting they dread it um because the principal sits down with them um and we the district the people at Fisher has a list of policies that we tell the principls you have to go over with your faculty annually so they can say that they were informed so this policy 3214 would be one of them that we would say just for your your edification this is how you are to receive gifts and or give gifts and that happens every that happens every August I um I almost think this policy is like is too open for staff like in my opinion a staff person should never give a student a gift

172and so even the word strongly discouraged to me isn't strong enough yes fair enough I'm put B I'm gonna endorse that would you have some would you like to see that then um would you like to suggest what the language is Dr Worley may I may I or we could do it there may I request that I allow Mr pinion and his team to give some guidance because I think there there are instances where there that staff are giving gifts but typically you met Miss OK Conor again this evening typically it's through our social workers our counselors got it so a process a student has been identified and so there's there's traditionally a process in place okay go ahead well uh I ended up getting distracted by a policy idea for that um but it

173sounds like we're going to let that go through uh subcommittee of some kind I'm yeah I just I think of there are instances where staff members will say we notice that Dean doesn't have a winter jacket okay um and it's December and I've seen faculties then rally around and and purchase winter jackets or they they go to businesses so I but I think typically that is funneled through a principal identifying something or the the student services team at a school identifying I would like Mr our team could just think on that a little bit deeper there could be some nuances that if we create really strong language all of a sudden put a really big Barry up so let us think about maybe language or some it might just be pointing to the language the

174language that points to following the guidelines correct and I'll bring it back on this and that would give you more flexibility I said I was done but I'm not I want to emphasize that board member hmer rollin's instincts on these things I think should be heard and listened to um we I've heard her judge her Assessments in the past and on this type of thing they've been spot on and it's at sometimes logic isn't everything as a parent you kind of say I don't know I don't think I like that and so that's what I hear don't want to put words in your mouth they know you wouldn't let me do it anyway but I'm just I think it's important as board memb if we hear something we strongly believe in we speak to it

175and say it I agree with what she just said on this topic all right thank you for another journey through a lot of we have many more to bring you so no no fear that we have run out all right we are going to adjourn into close session miss Heimer Rolland it is recommended that the school board adour and to close session person to Wisconsin statute one 19.85% .85 parents 1 parents F of the Wisconsin statutes considering Financial medical social or personal Personnel histories or disciplinary data of specific persons preliminary consideration of specific Personnel problems or the investigation of charges against specific persons except where parent B applies which if discussed in public would be likely to have a substantial adverse effect upon the reputation of any person referred to in such histories or data

176or involved in such problems or investigations specifically to consider a proposed resignation agreement with an individual District employee and ISO move second Miss Summers please call the RO wait please um note of discussion I could be wrong on this but I believe there was in the past few days a Wisconsin court decision on specificity of Clos session notices and discussion like there is now and it was clarified that they expected more specificity I believe this complies with that I'm not to express a legal opinion here but I know we're talking about legal advice before but this this will be one to let the board know going forward that the the rules are more clearly laid out now um from the recent decision and that would be worthwhile to be sure we all know this I'm

177I think this is I'm not sure but I think it's okay so I'm I'm gonna okay the community should be have the ability of knowing what you're going to go into close session for without knowing the details and then we believe that this is fairly and we used to be able to have a very general kind of a thing and this looks more specific as to what kind of thing we're going into okay thanks thank you m Mr Morris yes Dr Ho yes Mr wer yes Dr Worley yes M Rollin yes Mr Meyer yes Dr Jess Banger and we are adjourned in to close session