WSD Board Meeting, Regular, February 10, 2025

001good evening everyone I call the February 10th 2025 school board meeting to order it is 6:02 p.m we are in conference from C of the Fisher Administration Building at 12121 West Avenue M Su please color Mr Morris here Dr Hoy here wer here Dr Worley here M Rolland here Mr Meyer here Dr Jess anger here we have quum this evening thank you all for being here uh we will begin with an opportunity for public comment members of The W School Board value the input of students parents staff members and community members the board's regularly scheduled meetings provide an opportunity for opinions and concerns to be expressed publicly the board values all comments and will respectfully consider this input in decision- making the board requests that individuals limit their comment on each item to three minutes

002following any comment an individual board member May 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 a member or members in the community because non-agenda items are not publicly posted in advance no action will be taken on public comment regarding non-agenda items this evening is there any public comment in the room tonight seeing none Jamie is there any public comment online there are no hands raised we will then close public comment for the evening and move into our consent agenda are there any items in the consent agenda which board members would like to remove for separate discussion and action this evening see none Mr Mor y it is recommended that the school board approve the consent

003agenda and I so move you may have a second question thank you Mr any board discussion on the consent agenda this evening as always a thank you to those who uh kindly donate uh to the wall with school distri very thoughtful gift uh on our consent agenda this evening Miss Summers please call R moris yes Dr Hoy yes Mr wer yes Dr Worley yes M Rand yes Mr Meyer yes Dr Jess yes and the consent agenda passes um one item on the consent agenda this evening is a list of uh retirees from the W FSA School District this is one of those lists that is always both celebratory folks who given and had an incredible impact in our community and our children and also sad uh probably more so for us than them uh they're

004moving on to do something I hope fun and celebratory in their um in in their next stage of life but I want to read the names of the individuals who are retiring uh and thank them um and would invite my board colleagues if anyone has anyone they'd like to comment down as well um but a big thank you to each of these individuals uh the first is Jennifer Lee from McKinley an art teacher Elizabeth mtit from McKinley a JK teacher Tamara Nelson from Lincoln a grade one teacher Sonia Phillips at TSA East a social worker Elizabeth Schmid Roosevelt SK teacher Susan schz Longfellow math teacher and William olich Washington a music teacher um thank you all we will have a outstanding celebration for them a little bit later this spring um but congratulations to each

005of them uh Dr means any here all fine Educators and I want to wish them congratulations can I offer my thank you and congratulations to uh Tammy Nelson she taught both of my kids to read um especially uh thankful for my older child who had a little bit of difficulty um in his early reading and she was so patient and put together these like beautiful books that were so meaningful to help him be motivated to read so we are forever grateful Miss Nel I suspect there are dozens of stories from parents all across wsa for each of these teachers so if you're parent washing uh now or you see this in minutes please do reach out and thank each of these individuals for the impact they've had on your children and so many others um

006we will move on to strategic goal six operation discussion regarding the resolution to participate in the Wisconsin investment series corative Cooperative so this is a discussion about a resolution I'll be bringing forward for Action at the second February board meeting um we anticipate having the board authorize the sale of the first portion of our bonds honor about March 18th um and with those bonds comes an obligation to spend them with certain time frames and invest them in um things that school districts can legally invest in there are a lot of criteria around when uh dollars had to be spent relative to when you borrow so one of the things that uh we're investigating is a third party typically that would be someone like faed or PMA um to help us navigate uh both investing those

007funds and then spending them uh without um hitting Arbitrage laws and uh making all of our um Financial disclosures correctly in order to open up the opportunity to use those third parties one of the things I'm asking is that the board uh at the next meeting passed a resolution to join what's called whisk so whis is an investment series Cooperative um it's used by municipalities and school districts across the state there we right now belong to something called local government investment pool this is essentially a competitor to the local government investment pool this doesn't require us to put any money into whisk it simply allows us to put it there if there is a better rate of return at whisk than there is in the local government investment pool so it gives us options as

008we move questions from the board the second this will come forward if there's any questions over the next twoe window uh please reach out to trer um otherwise this will be on the agenda for Action correct the next item is discussion of proposed 2526 budget initiatives so this is my item as well um the district and the board have been on a trajectory of investment in education and I I I've kind of likened it to the phases corporations go into when they're in a a research and development phase and uh that's required uh you know significant investment in both Staffing how we help our students and we are now at that um time of evaluating those Investments and um we don't we don't um the the through the operational referendum the community has supported those

009Investments but we don't have any more to make right now so um I know in years past we probably having conversations about you know what are the significant Investments or additions we're going to be um bringing forward to the board in the next budget season um this budget season is going to be somewhat less complicated in terms of this is a maintenance time now to begin reaping the rewards uh of of those Investments so kind of generally speaking the areas that that we'll be focusing our budget on uh number one will be rebuilding the fund balance so that will take um essentially we will under budget right our our enses will be under budgeted from our revenues in order to uh create a budget for fund balance so that that's priority I I suppose number

010one although maybe one a or 1B is you know obviously we we need to live up to the obligations of the referendum um so as we outlined spending the money the way that we told taxpayers we would spend it so increasing those areas relative to the referendum we have a few budget line items that we have historically um that that we haven't budgeted enough for historically so I want to evaluate those deeply and if necessary increase those budgets so that we rightsize the budget to what we anticipate to spend those would really be the only budgets I see bringing forward as a potential increase this year to match where we've historically spent uh one example for instance would be substitutes example is what would be substitute sub two teachers as we've talked about um one

011of the things we've learned is the reason that we have um spent more on our substitutes than we had budgeted is our fill rates higher so um throughout Co we essentially didn't couldn't fill the the empty slots so we kind of underspent there we reduced the budget thinking we're not going to be able to fill the subs and now we've been able to fill them so we need to evaluate that and right siize it those are really the only budget priorities that we bringing forward to the to the board this year so again that's fund balance it is right sizing and it's obligations of the referendum Mr chair board members uh just to emphasize what Mr eer is sharing you've made the Investments now it's something that we have to do that that something is

012to on the investment you've made um and in some cases we made that investment prior to the referendum passing hence the use of fund balance but that was done in the name of honoring the board's Northstar that was done in the name of executing the Strategic plan but what Mr eer and I are presenting to you this evening is we're not asking for you to invest in more personnel and in fact we're going to have to start making some decisions on what we can't continue to sustain um because our priority is to rebuild the fund balance our priority is to follow through on things that we promised to the community that is our our senior exchange uh tax program uh where we said that we would give seniors the opportunity to uh volunteer in our

013schools so then they can offset the the increase in their taxes we've said that we are going to engage engage in a CommunityWide process on identifying what the next step should be with our secondary schools and I think what we what we've learned over time is that you have to budget for those things they're they're not they're not free um and this this process that we're going to go through for our secondary schools will include taking trips to Exemplar um facilities so the the committee can go and see what other facilities look like either brand new facilities or um retrofit facilities kind of like what we've done with um with Lincoln for example there are examples of retrofit facilities across our state that we want to take uh our committee um to but that's going

014to cost money and so this is the type of budgeting that we're doing now where we're considering those things we're not saying well let's do it and then and then pay for it later um the other thing is that we we have to engage in a community survey again so we'll be working with school perceptions um to develop a a survey and we want to launch that survey this spring so when the committee comes together in the fall they have the data because one of the feedback uh mops that we we received from the task force that that did their work um about a year ago was that they didn't know what the community thought they so they were in this space of saying so what does the community want us to do um we

015want to get that that Community survey launched this may uh so our committee can sit with that data um and come into their work um starting September 2nd we already have the date laid out U so they can come into that work um ready to go um so we're really excited about rectifying and reconciling I should say not rectifying but reconciling our work and our budgets around our substitute teacher CA and our legal cost we we know we need to to adjust those two things but we also have made a commitment to engaging our community around our secondary um schools we've made a commitment to our community um to allow our seniors to volunteer in our schools to offset the increase in taxes those are the four major components of of cost that we're going

016to invest in and then um we are we are very focused on rebuilding our fund balance and um that that's clearly an objective of ours that that's this this is a very um simple budget because candidly you've done the you've done the heavy lift in our work already questions from the board Dr means with respect to the um budget priority with legal services yeah you know we know I've suggested a number of times that we examine that and consider what our purchasing Paradigm is for that I'm not saying we should change but there are as I'm sure well sure you know there's different strategies that we could employ that might we find save us money and that sacrifice the quality of the services um Mr M you deserve lot of credit because you've been saying

017this for a while and I think you've been a um a leader in this phase what Mr Meyer is suggesting is that the the the district look at um at the dollar amount that we're spending on legal cost and consider having some type of entry level attorney um have an in-house attorney for the district um Mr eer and I have started that process of doing a deeper examination we've asked our legal council bu better to start itemizing their their um services to us in a way where we can identify where we're paying for for services we will identify or I should say we should we will study that U new itemized Bill and determine of those items what could potentially be moved to a what I would call a junior associate someone that can be

018an in-house attorney I think there's some components of our work um that is very complex that that probably cannot go to uh an entry level in-house attorney but when we suspect we presume that a a large amount of our fees are going towards open record uh request um and so it's really a a a catch 22 if you will our our community wants us to pay attention to the budget at the same time there are significant open records requests that come into our district on a weekly basis and best practice legally in in public policy uh when it comes to a school district is that an attorney must go through all those records and redact those records before it is released to the public and we are we are piling up a lot of legal

019cause we do believe that that's one of the major cause centers that perhaps we can bring that in house um I think there's a lot of um basic level Personnel issues we're dealing with that could potentially come in house but but to start the process Mr Meyer um we have not um we're taking uh heed to your your Council the first step in that process is for us to itemize the the legal bills differently to get a sense of what we're paying for and then we can make a determination on if we can bring in House Council or not or you may find you can negotiate a better hourly rate for those specific items yes yeah yes that that is that that as well yes that that that is also an option thank you thank

020you thank you Dr me and Mr eer uh next item underneath strategical six operations is Recreation Department annual so I I just want to point out um I'm going to share a couple slides that Matthew put together for us but I'd really encourage you if you haven't already to take a look at his present we also added about a I think it's about a 58 or 59 second intro that Matthew put together for you too um but just to highlight for the board right now in the community that might be watching there's a couple slides that I that that really stood out to me really just regarding participation in our Recreation program and this is this is the first one um so throughout the last year we've had over 10,000 enroles in in our Recreation

021programs um you you can see this 337 activities and 742 classes so we we are having a major impact on our community and again we're we're one of the few communities in the state that um the the recreation department has run through the school district so another real point of Pride for us another connection uh that we have to our community that we wouldn't have otherwise couple other things that stood out to me um I don't know if I'll find the right slide but uh they they had the wreck had a record number of senior citizens involved uh in the last year and Matthew is hoping to break that record again for the third straight year I know that's one of his goals and finally I this one really stood out to me just the

022number of um and a lot of these are students um but the number of or or probably former students as well um the number of of people that we employ um and a lot of that is in summer work with our our either current students or former students mentoring Young students through programs um classes and uh just another I think real big point of of of Pride we have several members of our full-time Rec Department um that are grew up um going to you know participating recreation activities then becoming counselors or part-time workers and and now work there full-time so it's really an ingrained part of this community our recck department um if I may our recck department is in good hands with M Matthew Vander Camp if you haven't had a chance to meet

023him he he does great work he means every word in terms of uh his his goal to try to best his his uh production with our seniors I think there's a very good uh programming arm that we have with our seniors and and Scott's absolutely correct I'm I'm really proud of the fact that our rec department for many of our teenagers in the community Comm tends to be their first job um and I think that is just was that was it your first job there you go right um and so that that is something that we're very proud of um this community um I'll throw out a name of um of history and lore but we shouldn't forget people um Rick batty was the Mr Meer will remember that name Rick batty is our former

024uh recck Department um director and was a state leader um with the rec department I think a lot of if you talk to Matthew he will say that a lot of the the work that Mr batty put in place decades ago Still Remains uh the same I think if there's any opportunity for for growth um and band withd it's probably our our our pursuit of being more entrepreneural um in our efforts but that takes more Personnel um and that takes more um that takes more people um and we want to make sure that we are monitoring how we use our fund 80 as much as we can but I think there's always the challenge of trying to find new programming and growing programming uh so we can increase our Revenue but that that's difficult I

025think well we are in a season of sustaining something that is very special with our rec so while all of my kids have now outgrown summer adventure camp I want to ask if we've been able to expand the capacity at all again because um it is well known lore among parents that they put a calendar invite on their calendar and make sure that they are signed in and ready to go and tested everything and some of them close within about one minute 30 seconds something like that so anywhere we can I know it's it's a great program I know it takes a lot of capacity to run it but um it seems like something that anytime we can figure out how to expand it it's probably going to fill we'll definitely take that back to

026Matthew I think we're always that is a constant uh request of our families and trying to expand it as something that we we want to do I'll jump in Dr means and ask I appreciate everything here and I think our rec Department's doing a really good job it looks like the focus is growing with the seniors as well um not that I'm discounting the seniors because I know we want to have more uh stickiness with all of our community there but do we have a strategic or long-term plan for the rec department uh to pursue and think about that growth because I think about all those families including mine and most of my neighbors we don't even try to Dr whle we don't put the calendar invite on there because it's not an option and

027so I know there's a large contingency of our community on regardless of what side of town you live on that participate and send their kids for the summer programs or even Rec programs outside of the community I think it's worth at least trying to look at a way maybe not now but in the future as we think about the growth of the rec department and even I would say put feet to the fire with what other Partnerships can we have in there is it something we partner with the city further something we part with the senior commission further something we partner with other partners to expand for everybody so it's not we're trying to grow for the seniors in this point but sacrificing those that are in our system that the school board should be

028looking at first I think that's fair I think um you know what what I'm thinking of as you're as you're talking is actually Matthew's got his hand up too he's watching um we we're in the season right now of our um updating our strategic plan and maybe that's a spot that um hasn't had as much light shown on it and naturally would be a good time to incorporate what do we want out of direct firment as part of the uh strategic plan I saw Matthew's hand was off so I don't know how to let him in but seems appropriate jie just Ed into the panelist so he'll be in in a second welcome Matthew now he's in okay wonderful I don't know if everyone can hear me thank you for having a chance to me

029the um audio low in the room Matt you may want to just speak up a little it's very possible that it's not working correctly I don't know if everybody can hear me yeah we can hear you now all right wonderful um thank you for the comments thus far um continuing to work on Partners within our own local community and outside of that is always at the Forefront to see how we can continue to provide to the community so thank you for that and we'll continue to forge ahead we're currently at four sites for our summer Adventure Club we traditionally we're at three we added a fourth one uh to kind of help accommodate um a weight list uh that has appeared the last couple Summers um but we do have an eyeball on how can

030we continue to expand that um with appropriate facility space that would all for the site so if we would add a fifth site we're making sure the experience the facility um opportunities for those campers are going to be consistent across all those uh facilities so um but yes it's a very popular program that we take great pride in so thank you for the comments thus far question Dr means in there along with think about just summer programming I know we have our our partnership with the WR at school program um are there opportunities there I know it's a space issue there but because the rec department hasn't had anything we have been I say forced we could go outside the community but we have utilized the right at school program for their summer camps uh

031at various schools you know some that were you know not convenient but we did it anyway but looking at the you know potential options for what that might look like for to rebalance you know the rec department over the r at school space considerations yes I I think the r i school um partnership is something that Mr has started the process of taking a look at um and we've been pleased with r school I think the last 18 months or so they've really made an effort to strengthen the relationship not only for the during the school year um partnership but also in the summer um but there are other models that are used I think we're one we're the only public school system in Wisconsin using right at school there's some private um schools that

032use right at school in in Wisconsin but we're the only public school now right school is a larger um player in this space of providing Child Care nationally but in terms of Wisconsin we're the only Public School System there's a couple Charter and private schools that use right at school but there are other models like the YMCA is a model um but there are other um when when you have a Rec Department in your school system that that is also a model and it becomes a money-making model top for the school system but that takes a lot of um that takes a lot of bandwidth and and frankly as we have um a staff member who dedicates their time to promoting senior programming those all those Rec departments have someone who's focused on uh building

033youth um program there are other Rec departments that also focus on Youth Sports uh and and developing Youth Sports in their community so there's a lot of different angles um that that Matthew could um move in and believe that the strategic planning that uh he and and Mr eer will start engaging in will start developing a pathway I think that what's coming up at this this board table right now will be very useful direction as they continue the work thank you Mr mors were you asking if the rec department could move into the right at school space so if the W Department could um provide child care after school or is no not necessarily that but just think when the WR at school programs have their signups and their different things they're located located at

034certain schools throughout the summer and I just always think of you know that one wasn't if say last summer if Underwood hadn't been used for that and had been used for the rec department to use that as a summer Adventure Club or summer school series or something like that with that free up space if right at school could be at another school because I don't believe Dr me it's not at every school it's typically we have maybe three two or three schools at right schools at yeah so something I've always thought about like how could we utilize our rec department so that the money kind of stays in-house in our district um and then a little bit more long term I always um been pushing for child care for our staff as a benefit for

035our staff is the R department an Avenue which we could um consider that long term these are all really ambitious and fun initiatives they really are and and and I think the first com that that Matthew would come back to us and say is that in order for us to expand and do that type of research and development it's funny that uh uh an agenda item ago uh when we were preparing for this meeting to uh uh this morning Mr eer and I said that your investment in our staffing um was in essence an investment in research and development to make sure that we are moving in the right U Direction and I don't think school districts use that type of terminology of research you R&D um I think what Matthew would say is that

036he's going to need that type of personnel to just explore um but I can tell you Liz we're excited about looking into Child Care um candidly not only child care for our staff but maybe even becoming a provider um now I also understand that that becomes uh we're treading on people's Financial world when we jump into that space of child care and providing it because we're we now become competition to people who are providing it in the community but I to to Mr Morris's comment earlier but there's a lot of need in in our community and as our community continues to uh see younger and younger families with children move in those options become more important so the quick succinct answer is we are open to all of those Concepts but I think we're going

037to um we would be coming to the board for some level of investment of personnel as well to help lead that R&D work so to to what extent for example if the rec department provides child care that you have to provide it for if if it's for teachers do you have to provide it for teachers of the private school within the city as well because our rec department is a city jurisdiction not school department you you know what I'm saying there's there's there's other things where we have to consider like certain health things are our Citywide like our SRO have certain Citywide responsibilities and that's a kind I analogize to that they have certain Citywide responsibilities in order to allow us to fund them the way we fund them so it would be similar I

038would think maybe with other services that we have to consider beyond the wossa public schools that might be fine but we just have to consider that if that's any kind of a requirement I think R would would make the argument that offering child care as an option in our community would be helpful I'm I'm not arguing against it or for it I'm only picky back up what Mr Moore shared because we we just have more needs in our community and I think L would then go on to say U without her saying it is that um if we were offering that universally for all community members the the opportunity to then provide a discounted rate for our employees would be a benefit I I believe that that's what she would say right I would not

039extend it to teacher schools necessarily I would see it as an internal benefit for our staff but obviously this is aspirational yeah I would I would point out right right at school maybe Matthew right can we check in with Matthew has he have in place since the meeting started he seems to I actually asked Matthew about a month ago about his bandwidth and the ability to um look at before and after school care and he doesn't currently have the bandwidth um I I would point out that right at school does offer discount uh for our our staff so well not free um there is a discount to them and here's where we are with legal fees I'm I'm not promoting one thing or the other thing I'm only saying there could be legal requirements because

040of how the taxation works with the rec department where we are required to do certain things or not do certain things and I don't know what those are I'm only saying that would be something to understand as we move forward with a design could we put that in the survey a question I think the survey Dr me was talking about before is really focused on secondary ad I had a similar question about a CommunityWide survey um the nature of tosa is really changing right now um and there's this growing number of young adults um that I'm also intrigued of like what their needs are and they're a tough group to find I know they're in the village between 8:00 and 11 on Friday and Saturday night um but there's there's a whole kind of subset

041of things where they haven't engaged the school district yet maybe as parents um that I I think it would be interesting all of this would take more bandwidth but I think there's things to be curious about that maybe that's I I presume as you're doing the Strategic plan there's information gathering and so on as well so that I I have no doubt that you're working on that one of the things that Matthew included in his um presentation did include some of those things that I think would be in that sort of bucket like kickball I was on a kickball league and it was super fun and when I was in my 20s so I could see that being a way to reach our kind of young adult free parent population and it looks like he's

042you know already thinking about that I'm sorry Dr while we're adding to the potential list um also thinking about there are some wck departments that have been able to reach um teens by having open Play spaces in those times like you know from right after school until like 10:00 at night there are many families that need that kind of support um and you know not necessarily going home and coming back but actually having those spaces that um that could be supervised kind of like we do with the three times a year with our middle school students it's a great program um I just know it's it's more bandwidth and I think a youth a youth director and youth could be youth young adult um early adult type um way of thinking about that we could

043definitely serve serve the community in that way one of the reasons why we wanted to place this agenda item on the full board agenda was to get a sense of what you wanted and you have a lot of ideas um and that's good I think that gives Scott and and Matthew and I an idea that um we can be creative and bring some ideas to you and that creativity um manifest itself in developing um positions that can then lead the research and development component of things so we can explore these these um these ideas in more detail um I also just mentioned one more thing that driver's ed is insanely expensive yeah insanely expensive and I know that one of our neighboring districts has put that back into place through the rec department just to

044think about that because it and and what's interesting is my experience is that the driver at school we have is using people who are integral to like our high schools as the teachers right so they're all the teachers are already here in the community um so just to add to the wish list I I don't want that kind of experience to be prohibitive to families that just can't afford to you know put the the money into that um teaching is wait Mr Meer are you about to volunteer to teach no I'm I'm I'm gonna ask how many of of of this board who grew up in Wisconsin had driver's ed from your school system I did in i i Dido I did it was it it was we had a inclass in the building and

045then in the summer you know we'd register and they put the registration list on the wall and U my own um driver said teacher was um my um Junior High fied teacher Mr Voss who was 6'8 and um um and no yeah no no no actually my B but anyway why that fell by the wayside the school district provided driver Z I think that's been just a terrible thing I had had illino if I may add that the state um stop funding drivers that in 20 for yeah okay do it so there we go but rather than sending all that funding you know even if people still to pay for it sending all that out of the community is Gee there's something from 55 years ago that well and so thank you Dr Marvel for

046that addition this is all very healthy um we will take all of these ideas back to Matthew please know that and I appreciate it truly because I'm have all these ideas bottled up in my my thoughts as well and poor Matthew is is um is trying to hold me back at the at the gate here I think you sharing your ideas is also helpful um we have ideas and it may mean that in order for us to execute we we're GNA have to expand our band and and expanding our bandwidth means and you do have the authority under fun 80 to create new positions so then you can create a a youth director position or a different type of Youth director position um to expand these types of programming the success we're having with our

047seniors I believe is happening because we have someone who's dedicated to senior programming um and so when you when you have Personnel that's dedicated to that type of work it it does a ban um and then the last thing I would just say on driver's ed because I think we were so close to the city of Milwaukee we all deal with the um you know soon um despite the the weather reports this week spring will be here and then summer will be here and then the the reckless driving is something we're going to have to be defensive about again I I think this is something that we can bring to the legislative advocacy committee to consider our legislature is good at giving us unfunded mandates if we want to create a safer safer streets um

048for our our our our society perhaps bringing back driver's ed of some sort would be something that is reasonable to to at least impress on on our new citizens are our our our emerging citizens that is is dangerous to to get behind the wheel and drive race imagine of all school districts in Wisconsin including MPS offered driver's ed how it might be safer in some of those cities as in wossa I know in front of my house there's a four-way stop and those driver ed cars stop every time yes they do I can't say that about everybody else Dr Marvel yes I was just going to say that a concern that the board elevated is um for families that might not have the financial funds um the Department of Transportation has $6 million set aside

049in the banal banal budget to be able to pay for students that are on free and reduced lunch so just thank you FYI um couple items that I had in addition to uh there's about 17 so we'll just just kiding Dr um couple things that have been added that I think have been really cool uh tree climbing there's just that's an example of some of the really interesting creative things uh that are available for for um kids and teens in the community um the summer camp programming I think has been really creative and interesting um and if those who have kids who probably particularly the like 9 9 to 13 age range I hope folks really do check those out and in future reports one thing that would be helpful is any trends that we

050see so I I appreciated the the reporting of the raw numbers I'd love to see kind of over the last three to five years uh where we see uh where the data is uh for programming because I think it would be helpful particularly for future boards and decisionmaking where do they want to make additional Investments um and if if that's if we've got data that says this is what the community would like to see here's what the data is telling us of where people are having and any programs that are so Adventure summer Adventure Club was raised up as one but are there things that if if we had a few thousand dollars extra if there's real Community need already because we know that there's signups that folks can't do uh I would love that

051Community feedback of what things where where we are both certainly doing well but what are the areas where we have growth um and so on and then um an item that I'll I'll follow up with Dr M on later but I I I think I'm looking forward to seeing what the the Strategic report has uh kind of lays out and I think there's a lot of opportunities Hast is a really Dynamic place um and certainly there is a lot of community turnover right now with folks moving into the community so I think whatever we can do and think about in advertising uh and getting this information out through various new social media our social media has been fantastic the last several months so um this might be a neat place to continue to to bolster

052um some Community engagement as well but great job to the team I the number of times that I've met with and spent time with parents and various locations and basement of elementary schools and um there's some really neat stuff happening um any other final questions the only thing that I would add is I know um I didn't see it in the report but Matthew's done a really great job at increasing opportunities for our students and community members with special needs um so I think that's a highlight that was missed and something we should be proud of okay we will move into strategic goal one academic performance School growth plan process presentation um board members as uh our our team makes their way to the microphone on February 18th and also on uh March 18th the

053board will receive updates from our school principles on progress made on on their school growth plans and that's a very important process that we're very pleased that we can bring to you um we're we're excited about the process we we want to use this time this evening to um give you some insight on what that will look blank and and and also um ensure that um you're prepared for those two dates this work is in alignment and in accordance with policy 2605 um the title of that that policy is academic program accountability and evaluation it states um specifically the district will develop and Implement a a systematic plan for continuous evaluation of the educational program align with the district Mission Vision for values strategic plan the Milestones within that strategic plan and school growth plans

054so your monitoring and and oversight of the school growth plans are are really important um we've used and talked about the fact that often there are concerns uh from families and and community members who will say what's happening at my school um what can what should happen um and and we have concerns about my school and often those concerns are leapfrogged and brought directly to this boardroom um that's not how we we function as a school system it should start with uh in accordance with 9130 as a policy you go to the place where you're having um the the issues first and foremost and if you're not getting resolution then eventually you come to the superintendent of the board but you don't you don't start there and we believe that if our families had a

055better understanding of what each school is trying to accomplish with their school growth plan that there will be um Clarity um around what we want in our learning environments um we will make sure that there's greater access for all students uh we'll make sure that there's there's true rigor occurring with within our schools and so with that in mind we I'll turn it over to Dr Marvel and spot good evening um marble Chief academic officer joined by Miss Jennifer fch um our director of continuous Improvement I'm going to turn it over to miss fch um here as she is the individual who really Shepherds us through um the school growth plan process so much good evening everybody thanks for setting aside the time this evening to discuss the school growth plan process that process is

056a vehicle for continuous Improvement which is reflected in one of our core values as an organization the Crux of any of our plans is the theory of action that if adults improve their practices then we will see improved outcomes for our students the district leadership have set the conditions and provided resources for all of our schools to develop and Implement a two-year School growth plan our principls have been working with their school learning teams to implement plans that were developed in the summer of 2024 common to all the plans is a commitment to improving academic achievement eliminating disproportionality and improving culture and climate how each School approaches that work may be different and it's going to be tied to different needs in each building um as Dr mean's referenced on February 18th and March 18th

057you'll have the opportunity to um hear the presentation from each of our individual schools um and ask some questions there but at this time um certainly welcome your questions about the process uh development and execution of the plans and for those viewing um there is a flipped presentation um online on boards um for the first set of student growth plans for the last previous two years something that was somewhat disappointing to me was um they weren't updated consistently across all the schools so some of the schools um they had two years of data on there and other schools had only the first year um and the data didn't really align so what they showed at the end of year one wasn't the starting point for year two so how will the second iteration of these

058student growth plans be different and hopefully better yeah so as as we learned uh over the last two years we needed to be a little bit more concise uh around our reporting um so we developed um with the help of an external resource that was provided to us um a scorecard um and that's what you see on our website now um which articulates the goal areas where those goals are at in in reference to the change Continuum so where are we in that change process relative to each goal and you'll see how our schools are monitoring that change what um the change in practice that they want to see in those buildings and um you'll see a stop light indicating so um literally red yellow uh green as to where they are um in the

059implementation of that particular um goal area and then you'll have some student outcomes that they're using to corroborate the impact um so a little bit more concise um and linear uh to view so thank you for that feedback we we recognize that that was not as clear as it could be and that'll be updated um at the end of each year it's been updated twice so far this year okay here um just to kind of go with that uh so is as far as all of these um these dashboards that are are on the website like they're they are starting to come into alignment with each other but um I still see just a lot of visual differences between them are are we going to be able to kind of more like standardize even further

060um I know it it's uh it's often easy to start with a Google or a Google doc or Google sheet like this and um start with something simple and then all of a sudden it becomes very complex harder being hard to navigate our screens aren't are 30 inches wide and um I personally you know I've looked through these and um it's really hard to keep in my head what's what um especially when I have to swap between multiple different sheets [Music] and uh can we look at a better way to quantify and compare this data because I think um at least for me me personally uh measuring success is is a year-over-year type of thing and um being able to kind of look at those data points over a longer period of time uh and

061have them be more standardized I think would be extremely helpful thank you for the feedback the scorecard was a standardized format shared and so schools may have made some tweaks to that format um but we can certainly um bring that feedback back to our administrative team uh to try to standardize that so thank you for elevating that the presentations uh will be will they be in this space or will we be in the schools doing those you'll be here in the [Music] boardroom other questions are they going to put together presentations to give to us or are we doing those in advance and then we're just asking questions during this so uh they have uh a presentation to give you and they've been Limited to 10 minutes um to address uh five aspects that was

062outlined in the presentation uh and then you have 10 minutes to ask them questions so we've set out a schedule um that's pretty tight for those two evenings um because we have 17 growth plans to share with you will the board receive the presentations ahead of time so we can review before the night we had not necessarily our principles for that so some may be working on them in real time maybe in the future that's something that we plan to have absolutely thank you merch presenters can get them to us in advance potentially you do have though access to their actual plans that's all on the district website too so they're going to be highlighting those plans but they're not going to be presenting necessarily anything that's counter to what's already out there but thank

063you for that suggest app maybe maybe is something that is achievable yeah I look forward to these uh I think this is my third iteration uh and from what was present previously to the first iteration was a nice jump and I suspect this would be as well um once they're presented at the board space um how how do these filter out into the community into the community in different ways beyond that I know several of our principles are meeting with their PTA uh regularly to share that information and sharing things in newsletters um I they have held in the past sessions specifically to give updates Unfortunately they weren't as well attended and we wanted we want anytime that they're bringing the community together to be um had a little bit more engagement so we are

064definitely open to ideas as to how to expand engagement around the growth plan I can just be candid I have to be we've had some School principles who have told us well we don't get AC I don't get an academic question at my level and and and what's been interesting is that Dr marble and I get questions from families about the academic Pursuits or or the the lack of achievement from certain schools we get those questions about the schools but the principles do not and it is incumbent on families who have children attending those schools to attend the presentations of the school growth Plans by their principal V in their schools it it it it doesn't help us if the questions come to Dr marble and myself or Jessica Eber if you don't start with

065the building principle you just need to know that principles are when I Elevate those issues because I do Dr marble we we we take the concerns that families are giving us and we're bringing them we're bringing them right to the principles and the principal response is well this is there's a disconnect for us because because the families that we see every day at pickup and drop off the families that we see at basketball games and at other events they're not they're not pulling me to the side to say what what's happening academically in our schools and so if that what I have learned over my my career is that the riches the the best academically focused school systems they start that conversation between the families in the building prin and when there isn't movement happening

066at that level then they elevate it to the district but when we leap forall to the district it it creates a disconnect where then the system is not quite sure how to respond and I would add that the classroom teachers can always are always the first place to 9130 be able to ask questions have to grun ourselves in policy I'm sorry Dr Marvel but if we're not focusing on that that process within 9130 then we're um that policies there on purpose I know Mr Morrison and Dr Worley would agree that that's that's why we have the policy so can we say the dates again for those who are interested in tuning in or being in the room the 18th of both February and March and what of course absolutely it's a regular board it's a

067special board meeting so I I would assume but that's a good point fair question that a fair question I would assume that virtual is an option as well and I think Miss Miss fot just for um for the public that's watching there is a requirement that the principles are providing updates to their school communities and communicating this correct yes what is not it is it is requested that they do have some level of communication um now every school Community might have a different means of of going about that but um the school growth plan should not be in any way inaccessible at any of our buildings for the community but they do are they do live on our website thank you both very much I'm really looking forward to the presentations thank you as they're

068transitioning I think the feedback that you've provided in terms of how we can improve the process is helpful I often in school systems the development of these plants in some cases are paper chase and they're just you're you're putting things on paper because the superintendent requested it we want these documents to be living documents and so as we continue to refine this again I want to ground it in the work of for policy 2605 that that's why we're doing this um we will we'll move into item number six board governance just one um I'm looking at board docs right now and there's nothing that's been posted on it um for that meeting on the 18th so if that could I would imagine it's also at the same time as these meetings that's correct yeah so

069if that could be updated five to eight each of those two dates so the February 18th 5 to8 in this room on February 20th February 18th and then March 18th 5 to8 so just again it would be helpful if it was on Bo docs thank you um will that go out pretty widely in terms of communication to the community that something we' put out on social media and and I don't know if we've got a monthly newsletter going out between now and the 18th we do we can we make sure that it's part of the newsletter uh for governance discussion presidential executive orders and their impact on the Wildwood F School District our students staff and families uh board members uh it's been an exciting and unique time um to be a school administrator in

070in in the United United States and um it's been drastically interesting to me as a former social studies teacher just to Monitor and watch how this is all how democracy is working um but there's a lot of change and the change is uh being impacted through executive orders um those executive orders are creating a lot of questions um for our community um and so um Miss Holland and I sent out a letter earlier today um to to let our our families know where we stand as a school system as we continue to navigate um uh the executive orders we felt that it would be healthy to um have our um legal counil Rene oon to to come and fi any questions you may have I know that many of your questions may be questions that

071you are receiving from um your neighbors and from uh families in our school system I I and Serene if you want to make your way to the microphone that would be great um uh as as our legal council is making her way to the microphone what I would tell you is that our goal as a school system is to is to protect children and to make sure that we are ensuring that the needs of all of our children are being addressed we're not interested in being um in the midst of a of a political partisan issue that that's not our goal that's our our only goal is to make sure that children are are taken care of and that we are ensuring that the safety and the well-being of every child is um is the

072the the goal of and the the focus of our school system I I know that there's some school systems that may try to they may attempt to try to make a a statement of some sort that's I want to be very clear and and let you know where I stand that's not my goal U my goal is to Simply to make sure that every child feels safe in their school environment um and there are policies that are currently in place regardless of the executive orders that allows us to do that work um and and I'm sharing that with you because I've I've received feedback from both ends of the political Spectrum some people who have said those executive orders are from our our the chief executive of our nation you should honor them there are

073some there are people who have said you need to you need to take up the mantle and fight these and so um we believe that the the most prudent U pathway is to keep in mind the goal and the goal is to protect children and make sure that our school environments are safe for all children um and and that's that's been our our Focus so but um Miss odonna thank you for being here let me start uh there first and foremost we have a board that as you can tell they they're very very interested in this and they they take their jobs very seriously in advocating for children so they've received a lot of questions I guess we would just love for you to kind of give a opening statement if you if you're so

074if you're so inclined or you or you can just start answering questions but I know you've been keeping you've been keeping track of all the happenings with this there so many happenings so um by way of opening statement I'd say that our role as um legal councel and my role as a student services attorney is to find out what your goals are and to help you to accomplish those goals so um as you heard there's a lot of different responses and reactions to the executive orders and um I've been in a spot of being able to listen start listening to some of the um concerns of the the administration and they've articulated concerns of the community and so we've been working together but um there's a lot going on and most of it as you

075can see from the statement that went out today from the administration is related to immigration and gender issues and um rather than review all of that I'm happy to answer questions that you might have anyone wants to start that conversation so many questions um can I start with so you laid out in this really great document which is really helpful um kind of where we were at as a Friday which might have might be a different place than we're in now um and then in kind of two different major kind of buckets or topics immigration and then gender identity two two spaces where these executive orders could potentially impact how we practice and our students so um my first questions are going to be about the immigration bucket um and then maybe I'll stop there

076um that way in case if we want to kind of keep it topic I don't know otherwise I'll just jump back in and keep asking more questions um okay so one of the executive orders um protecting the American people against invasion in section 18 under information sharing there's a specific statement that says it's um the Attorney General Secretary of Health and Human Services Secretary of Homeland Security shall take all appropriate action to stop the trafficking and smuggling of Alien Children into the United States including through the sharing of any information necessary to assist in the achievement of that objective so I wanted to my first question was like how does that align with furpa and what can and cannot be shared about student private information so one of the responses you're going to hear from

077me a lot is we don't know yet and we can talk a little bit about what fura says and what fura doesn't say and the fact that fura protects confidentiality of student information but that there's also exceptions to that directory data is an exception health and safety emergencies are Exceptions there are exceptions to F and so um how those are going to interact is going to be in many cases dependent on circumstances if there's a particular request we're going to analyze and assess that request on the spot and see how we can strike whatever balances we will need to strike but the answer really is we don't know and in part it's because we're waiting for more information from a variety of different sources we have executive orders we don't have yet specific guidelines or

078guidance from schools coming out of some of the federal agencies that we might see but we don't have those specific marching orders like we typically do so it really will become down to Case by case basis do you is it just a matter of time and legal filings that some of that information will kind of unfold and some of it might and some of it might not and so you know earlier talking about policy and grounding in policy so is is law enforcement right so um most school districts are looking to their policies regarding law enforcement and so you'll see different districts responding in different ways and weighing out whatever guidance we've received as recently as we've received it there could be guidance coming down right now as we're talking um anybody who can Google

079it and maybe something happened while you and I have been discussing this that would change the response to that but um but really when we're looking to what what what are we going to be what Guidance Do we have we have fura we have the executive order we're probably like you said GNA we're be watching for any additional details and we're going to be looking to board policy to see how to interact with law enforcement so then that did that actually brings up my next question which was around these directives from the Department of Homeland Security which I think was part C of this one of these this bill or executive order I mean um where specifically it's called out criminals will no longer be able to hide in America's schools and churches to avoid

080arrest so I was looking at what I what I thought were relevant policies and then contracts or agreements that we're in that might be affected by this so one of them is is our SRO mou one of them is policy 8847 which I can look up and remember what that one is um it one of them is around like law enforcement that comes in that's not our SRO and then we have a policy I believe that also just lays out like essentially what our mou says which is in one of them is 5540 one is 8407 I don't remember which one but happy to look them up um but what I was looking through I was trying to look at it through the lens of of the policy that we have and how somebody might

081read that if like some law enforcement just showed up at our door um so and I guess maybe I don't know if this is a legal question or this is more of a school question but we have kind of called out that real and immediate threats to students teachers and Public Safety are sort of emergencies you don't have to follow those same policies so does a child's documentation status present a threat like an immediate threat it's a combination of both right it's an it's administration's decision as to how what the process will be for handling requests um and then I can weigh in on different ways to handle requests but Dr means do you want to start out with what the district has decided in terms of the preliminary action items when and if the

082building is approached we would utilize 5540 which is uh how governmental agency I think that's what you're referencing in terms of policy it's U let me give you the proper title it is 5540 the title is the schools and governmental agencies and it goes through a process in which uh if a outside governmental agency wants to have access to our students they have have to go through our our school resource office but I'll call your attention to that specific policy so under B one so it says this procedure will not apply to circumstances where a serious crime may invol a serious crime may be involved or where imminent threats to persons or property may be involved or where law enforcement states that it's not feasible to interview a student outside of the school due to

083the nature of the allegation or nature of the investigation so I feel like there's wiggle room in here and this is where maybe either we need to tighten up the policy if we don't feel like the policy covers what we intended to cover I think there's interpretation is the key um and so deciding if Homeland Security or ice um is that if that's a imminent threat right that that's all up for interpretation for sure I would just draw your attention to the fact that when we tried to have this conversation around policy 5540 there was some concern from legal from our our law enforcement in regards to not wanting it to become too tight and that was prior to the executive order so I I I would just caution us to not to not bring

084back an issue that may then you know we just we just had the SRO mou sign and I think it was because of Landing in a in a place where this policy specifically be one um is something that we can navigate and try to talk and and reasonably work with law enforcement local law enforcement Mr ping thank you I would just add that and you'll probably hear whether it's for me or Renee or Shonda a lot of like she said it depends Case by case because this is all very fast and furious but we're kind of leaning on some preliminary guidance if there are an agent that were if there were an agent to show up at one of our doors we've been working with administrators and kind of following the standard process of confirming

085identity confirming their request if it hasn't been shared consing the basis for their request contacting district office immediately so it's not going to be a quick in there's a process that we're trying to lean into district office design would work with legal council if needed in that moment um and then contact parent Guardian as appropriate so it's it is going to be Case by case if it happens um until we get new guidance or something else changes or there's a new directive or more guidance from other agencies I think we are prepared and we feel comfortable in knowing what our process will be and also understand that every case will be unique and different um but our principles know that they can contact us and then we will evaluate the issues as they come forward

086like live and in the moment live and in the moment I have one more question about that so um when we talk about like confirming the identity of the agent and deciding if something's like a valid warrant who who is doing that is that just like our front office staff who are answering the door because I would have no idea what a valid warrant would look like we would ask the administration to be involved in that and then they'd be reaching out to us if they had any questions as part of the process they're reaching out to us anyway but I would not put that solely on um an assistant okay so people wouldn't come into the building until we verified that they either had a valid warrant and that they were they said they

087were they may be in a holding I mean every building is a little bit different in terms of secure entry veses but we would not be just giving them full access to the entire building nor would they know where to go anyway we're ready to it sounds um reactionary but we are prepared to react if we need to at the district office level we are prepared to jump in our vehicles and go to the schools so we're just not leaving principles to try to figure these things out in their buildings that in our in our calculus of what needs to happen next if this emerges that's how we're going to respond so we have a process we know how to respond we're not asking administrative assistance to make these determinations frankly we're not even asking

088principles to make the determination we're we're we're suggesting we will be thought partners with you contact us immediately I would also add that you know from advice that we've gotten as well as other things I've been reading it could be ill advised to have a process that is any more prescriptive than what we currently do um not only because every case is different but it could change and this leans into some ability to be responsive In Case by case but I think there's a lot more risk in trying to spell out something that is much more concrete and could backfire as well that's the Nuance that we're speaking to when we say our goal is to keep students safe if we become so binary and say here's our process it may flag our district as

089being a district that the federal agents are going to test um that's not our goal we we we understand that we need to take each of these uh by a case by case um situation we also understand that there will be some in our community who will be frustrated with that answer um but we we believe that this middle of the road approach is the the right way to to protect our students and just I'm sorry can I just this last one yeah this last um and have those conversations happened with our sro's to make sure that they're on the same their interpretation of our policy and practice is what you're describing very preliminary ones but yes and this will be ongoing as well as we partner and as Mrs gisler meets regularly with the

090supervisor of the SRO I would just give you update that our cesa1 as you know cisa stands for Cooperative Educational Service Agency they bring together all the administrators who work with SRO and Sr together on a quarterly basis and I I think that meeting is happening this week it's on Wednesday correct and I'm sure that this is on the agenda for our cisa uh all the different uh SRO and school administrators to discuss this issue it's h clearly one of those uh Just in Time moments that we're all right now yes we will be there with Miss gisler myself and a few of our SRO well as supervisor I believe and again this is this whole topic tonight there was likely a lot more questions than specific answers and we're all sort of in the

091same space trying to figure out and new best for kids I'm gonna ask that we stick on this first half of the MEO uh and then we'll just move our way around the table starting with tomorrow um the first question I have so um reading the general respon guidelines I don't see that um uh Guardians are contacted I know that's in our Sr mou and our policy but I don't see here on these guidelines that my hope would be like immediately a guardian of that student would be contacted so is that has that been considered is that part of the process and it's just not in this document just okay [Music] no that's side um couple questions uh I've gotten several from um concerned citizens parents uh I think I think a lot of them

092can be uh I was going to try to ask each of them individually I don't think that's necessary I think a lot of them can be kind of summed up with with this so I just uh first a clarifying question and then I'll ask the actual question uh do we collect the um the immigration stat for our students we do not and no District of Wisconsin does so we don't even have that information on file which I I I guess I would say in my opinion um provides an extra layer of protection for those that may be worried about it we do not have that information okay great so um knowing that then and and hearing what heard so far um essentially as far as our policy goes nothing is really changed it's everything is

093still in place what's really being kind of talked about right now is the sense of urgency um the the procedures are still followed as they're outlined we may as a board choose to look at or revisit but as as it is uh we we follow like 5540 and um basically our are now just more cognizant of um immigration and and ice and and what um we have to treat that it's always been an equivalent government or the equivalent of some other body other than the to of police wanting to have access so we would we treat them pretty much exactly like anybody else is that correct that is correct I think what Dr Hoy was getting to with her her very insightful questions was now we live in an environment with these executive orders where

094we have to have hidden awareness of what policy 5540 means and without her saying it I think what Dr Hoy was trying to say is we've tried to have conversations about the Nuance of all these policies is now we are living in an environment in a time where having a more binary clear explanation of what's going to happen with the carry uh the carry through of policy is more important is that a fair yeah I want to make sure that on the-fly nuanced decisions align with what the board intends them to be whatever that might be so almost um almost like trying to flowchart out in very basic terms what what should happen in what may not have been a common situation and it may not be a situation that happens to us at all

095um but uh but I I think I think um I'm just kind of asking for confirmation of a lot of what what you were asking Dr H that we have we have the things in place but we probably need to make sure that everyone um staff-wise is is aware and that um nothing should be rushed every every step in the procedure and policy needs to be followed and if anyone has questions not to let anybody steamroll and just step back and ask Administration what do I do here that would that be a fair assessment of it there's a very fair assessment can can I use an example yeah if tomorrow a representative from the DNR the Wisconsin DNR wanted to come in and talk to a student because they felt that that student over the

096weekend was hunting illegally that could happen we would utilize policy 5540 to say wait a minute before you come in to talk to our student about if they were hunting deer illegally or illegally we would use use that policy what we're suggesting is just because there's this heightened attention to the executive orders that we have politicized the executive orders because there are partisan opinions on the executive orders we should not lose sight of the fact that we already have policy in place that governs how we protect our children perfect because that's that's the goal is that a fair analogy it is I'm sorry to anyone who's a fan of the DNR but I I just I wanted to I think I that's what we mean that's the Nuance of what we're saying let's not get

097into the the PO the political Fray um our job as Educators is to make sure that students are safe and so it doesn't matter if we're talking about ice or the Wisconsin DNR we we have a policy in place that governs how people have access to our students right so I so my my my real my intent there was to to to really kind of reiterate that um while there's urgency it's we have a plan um and and it's the same as what we've had and it it's just really I think we we need to treat it like we would for anything else and um and I I think that's great that we've got that framework to build off of I do have one uh one other question that I would like to read directly

098uh um because it's it's of tangential to it so if for instance something like this happened and whether it would be I guess let's let's say ice or the DNR or any type of thing um and I'll just read the question verbatim so I don't get it wrong um what support services such as counseling or legal resources uh are available or would be available or are not or are they not available to students and Families affected by immigration enforcement actions or I guess we also say the DNR and uh and and how does the district connects families with local community organizations that provide immigration related support that's a really long question I'm sorry but I can try to provide a concise answer and um our director of diversity inclusion Shonda Holland is here as well

099she supervises our English or multilanguage Learners um department and this has been a lot of content that's been centered with our ml teachers naturally um we've been really working on empowering those um individuals to have knowledge of resources where they can direct people to reputable resources for just um what you spoke to in terms of access to potential legal advice access to agencies that help kind of Shepherd or navigate that area and then all the school supports and services that are available to all still exist so we still have our social emotional Specialists Mental Health Specialists school psychologist school counselors School social workers to bridge The Homeschool Community um divides um those are all still readily available and our ml teachers just happen to be in a position at least for some of our migrant

100families to be well connected and to be another bridge for families to access said resources so there's plenty that exist there's a lot that's out there um and plenty of individuals to help center um families and provide access great thank you and and just so uh everyone's so so I know and everyone else knows what is the most direct way for someone to or who should someone contact or if they H if they have need of this or have have need to talk to is it an email address is it a page on the website the district what what's the most direct method for somebody so again it's going to depend what the question is or what the need is that they're looking for I'd say start with your ml teacher if it's a student

101who um is receiving ml services and just like any issue when they're looking for something kind of work that way up so if you've if you've started with that teacher who may have access and knowledge and expertise then I'd go to your leadership at the school then certainly you can reach out to our director of diversity and inclusion as well um we kind of walk and work through that same path as you would for any need um starting with the individual closest to it thank you that that covers mine on next um I have two questions but neither both of them pertain to the Department of Education and not Immigration and Customs Enforcement so hold them up acur the board ask questions yeah we're just going all the way around there were so many um

102I'm curious if our uh in school advocates have been trained um with the de Advocates not yet this has all been quite fresh is that in the plan I would defer to miss Holland it is in the plan to have a conversation with would like for them to defer like serious situations to us okay um I'm also going to say I actually voted against the SRO um mou for this really pretty much for this reason that I felt like we didn't have enough um protections and parental involvement but this is um increasingly or more so challenging because um it's it's not unusual for the parents to actually be the target um as part of this too and I know the parents are outside of the school but I'm more thinking about um what can we

103do um within the guidelines we have so far in terms of making sure that um the students and families are still getting and leveraging public education um while perhaps maybe being uh fearful of coming to school at all and I will share that I know a situation in another city out um in Wisconsin where um a high schooler was picked up on the way home from school um in order to be asked uh to show proof this was not a immigrant at all this was somebody who was looked at and assumed to be an immigrant and I just think about the challenges that our families are facing um in terms of you know once they leave once the student leaves the school building I know we I don't how far out we can go in

104terms of school property but then it is actually that time traveling to and from school that um has a fair amount of risk so yes everything that you said Dr Worley I would also just uh bring your attention to and it may be employees we may have employees who are also under um or are feeling that they're they're underwat and and how that's impacting them what I would say bringing it back to 55 40 you're always I the work of the board is grounded in policy and so if the board feels a need over the next few weeks and months ahead to reexamine 5540 um that that is within your purview to do so just keep in mind um what the potential the potential reaction will be but hey social studies teacher and me again

105that that may be healthy for the community that had to to watch the the entire conversation um and to see where the community wants the governing board of their school district to land on on that topic um we we I don't want to give you the impression that we're un willing um to have those conversations if the board re elevates 5540 to look at uh B1 um but but just keep in mind we're just sharing with you the potential reaction from from our local law enforcement so just to follow up on that if if we did look at 5540 and we did add some pieces to it um what happens in terms of theou um if 5540 goes a somewhat different direction so local law enforcement may say they don't want to they they may

106not want to be part of theou um that that we're infringing on the their their rights that they are you've heard it in the room that that we would that policy would then be infringing on the rights that they believe they already have as legal as the legal representation uh of the the local community it it would bring the the the very um stimulating and fiery conversation we had um about a year ago would would be re-elevated again well and just to add that our law enforcement agencies across the state are actually some of them having some pressure being put on them to actually align with um for sure yes with the federal um agents and you know I think it's absolutely important that we as board members be made aware if there starts to

107be a shift in the alignment of local law enforcement agencies that we need to know that that's really important Dr Worley so the unique Ness of my my career path is that I I was I've served as a superintendent in a district that had a high Latino population during um um the 47th president's term as the 45th president and and so I I've I've seen um I I have literally seen Ice uh raids I've seen it and and I've seen the conversation uh in a local community of asking their law enforcement so what's your stance um are are what are you going to do if you're you're you're asked to to go into the schools because I think the community understood this now is not a school issue um it it's really more of a

108law enforcement and how they're going to enforce um what's being requested of them so I I again your role in this community conversation may be if it is the will of this governing board to talk about 5540 again so it's a real interesting path thank you go to Mr Morris Mr Myers so with respect to our memorandum of understanding that was a voluntary agreement that the police department entered into and they were delicate but they were clear that they were not going to seed their police author through Poli powers to us and um so then take it over to the federal government I would guess it's well settled law but maybe not what is the power of a federal law enforcement agency to enter a public school is that a new question or I we're

109talking a lot about it but they have the power they have and there's nothing we can do about that if they show up at the door with proper papers or authority to enter the building is is there I'm I'm not telling I'm asking I I don't know well as we mentioned before we'll be looking at each situation if it to where to occur individually we'll be looking at all of those pieces we talked about before making sure that there're um identification finding out what the request is and then when we find out what the request is finding what the legal basis for the request is and assessing it so there are circumstances where um there may be a legal basis for to to honor the request and there's other circumstances where there may not be

110and so it depends on what's in front of us at time so someone shows up at our door at one of our buildings and unless they're executing on some kind of no thing I'm assuming they introduce themselves they identify themselves and they present credentials and that's a case by case matter as you're saying but you know we just can't let anybody in because they flashed a badge and then put it B in their pocket real you know I wouldn't know an ice agent from a treasure you know from anybody you know so but at the same by the same token you know we can't lie in the doorway and obstruct them either if they're federal agents so I wouldn't want to embolden anybody to think we have more say so in this than what we

111do um so can we go into process then to say you know are we solid on our process Dr means you say you've seen an ice rate so let's you know kind of a scenario say we have a a building approach we know what we're going to do and we're going to comply with the law as state law says we must comply with federal and state law as a local school board so you know it's not whether we agree with it or not they have the power they have so this is where m is a American public policy special emphasis student would uh would highlight what we're finding in a in America right now is that the executive branch and the legislative branch has made it fairly clear what their pathway will be what Americans

112are also saying is that the traditional branch is still up for debate and and that this now may position and be taken to the traditional Branch with with injunctions and other sorts and that's why um our our legal council has said she can't give you an answer right now because we're we're not quite sure how this is all going to materialize I believe that at least two board members if I had to paraphrase uh as I'm listening maybe three maybe four board members have said but we understand as the governing board of the school district we have some say so through policy 5540 that if I had to use a normal collaboration and paraphrase that's what I think I'm hearing people say and what our Mr opinion and I what we would say back to

113you is yes you're you're absolutely correct just proceed with caution understanding that your local law enforcement May respond by well they've already responded in the past by saying we don't care what you want to try to put into 5540 we have the legal authority to do what we are going to do as law enforcement you can't stop us just because you put it in policy it creates a tension that we've had in this room before but as Dr really appropriately and astutely shared but maybe the current circumstances have required you as a governing board to reexamine and lift up the policy well I think this board has in the past and seemingly now gone down the path of some misguided belief that our local policy is superior to state and federal law and it's it's

114not as far as I understand is that correct so if we can write what we want in a policy but if the federal law enforcement shows up at the door with um author legal authority to do what they're going to do that's what's going to happen and there's now we may have you know if if they operated outside of legal Authority we may have recourse of some sort in the courts afterwards but not to stop them in process I don't know how we would do that how I don't know how we would know what would be proper to object to or not object to because we're not Staffing Attorneys at the desks at the school buildings you know is there was there a question for Mel Donna in there or just a well I there

115were some questions we we yeah sure it's well settled off I would assume correct or not that it's known what Authority federal law enforcement officers have to enter our buildings and that is in flux right that it's in flux right now that's in that's as I mentioned at the start at any time there could be more guidelines there could be additional orders um so but in terms of the idea that the board policy is a starting point and then board policy can be superseded by state or federal law that's accurate yes that's accurate okay well thank you class just expand on um just a moment the the thing that I I'm finding perplexing about some of these is the executive orders are coming out fast and furious and they aren't bumping into the legislature so

116normally they'd bump into the legislature because there's also law on the books that the executive orders I believe fall under that if if a law was in place an executive order couldn't to proceede if the legislature has legislated it so there's so many moving Parts here um and layers that the kind know the courts are beginning to uh and the courts move slower um beginning to examine so this is an incredibly complicated piece and I understand why we would look at it on a certainly on a caseby casee basis um and so that was the the comment I wanted to make is I for for everyone kind of like watching and observing there is so many things that I think we'll see we'll have Clarity on this in about five years I'm confident so uh

117this just Builds on the the case by case basis it's um it's clear we have we have something in in place for the case by case basis um I agree with Mr Meyer we we have to follow the law and follow the authority when when it's presented legally and and shown um I guess the thing I haven't heard is any talk about the worst case scenario of um what if what if 10 agents show up and storm up building but the answer maybe we just don't know right now I understand that but um I feel like I I wanted to throw that out there of it may not be a case by case singular event it may be something coordinated all at once and do are are we sure the answer is yes but are

118we paying attention to that angle of it as well so Mr W here I I'll jump in and let legal council kind of think of a an addendum to my statement I think what Dr Worley stated is the grounding of how you the district would respond in communities that have dealt with this before their question isn't to their school system their question is to their local law enforcement to say are you going to support that type of action are we coordinated because then that informs the school system on how to respond and how to structure 5540 so then it elevates it to it's not a school board School District conversation it's more of a what is the local law enforcement going to do how how are they engaging so I think it was really interesting

119as we have these conversations is that the pivot has to become so if there is a decision to to show force that way what is the coordination between local law enforcement and and a federal agency and and the community as they they've expressed their concern with us at the school level should then Elevate to your local law enforcement to see how they would respond thank you I just add that case by case doesn't necessarily mean Child by child or family by family it means situation by situation as well and so one of the things that we've done um in support is that there's a process that we've talked about a few times and Luke reviewed it and part of that process too is that people won't be left their own to try to sort out

120or interpret warrant or a legal basis that an agent might provide we're there to support and provide assistance and so we' be part of that discussion and I would add I know we all envision this worst case scenario of like this big storming I would like to add that don't know where they're going they have to work with us like we have the ability to slow things down and POS they don't know our buildings they don't know where students are like there is a lot that would have to happen so I know it's like in everyone's mind this like really terrible scene um and I would be remiss if I didn't add there's some layers there that we would follow a process still even if it were 10 agents or one so um as we

121were talking about before the police have certain um RS and they have certain things that they can do and now with the executive orders um that we've seen in the last few weeks um some of those abilities that that ice agents have that immigration agents have have been been expanded and for example one of those pieces is that schools used to be Sanctuary spaces where immigration enforcement efforts didn't occur and that's just one example of um circumstances that have changed in the last few weeks so I've been you know there's a lot of um guidance out there for families and business uh businesses to follow if ice were to come your door and I know that there's this distinction between public areas and private areas of your business or your building do you know what

122that would constitute for our school district what would be a public Space versus a private space so the school district as a whole I mean it is an entity and it's a public entity and as I just mention we're not missau anymore when the school is a sanctuary face um it again it would be process that we mentioned it would be whatever your processes are when law enforcement approaches um but in terms of trying to designate private or public spaces there isn't authorization in the recent guidance or the orders that would suggest that there's an ability for the district to designate those types of spaces should we move to the second item I just St that that's that's interesting because I work for an entity that's educational where that is okay sh I did wonder

123this name Dr Worley I don't know that's because I know at the hospital yeah like a hospital I'm not sure that's stay in a public school yeah I don't know either but I know in our Hospital like our lobby is a public space but our Hospital floors are private spaces right and I would say that in public schools it's different but I'm happy to talk with you about what your options are and the and give you some pros and cons of taking a different direction than what you've taken in the past I just think if there's some places where that is still being enact in others where it isn't whatever we decide to do it's important that people understand so if a Federal Officer shows up at the door with a a warrant signed by

124a judge you'll want to our attorney will want to read the warrant we will review the warrant and then we'll assess that that's correct we'll help you to assess that and nobody was suggesting not to listen if not to do something if a warrant comes to the door I know you're assumtions about what the board believes or doesn't believe but that's that does not have anything to do with any of the arguments that have been made but but that that is a basic process item they will they will show the warrant we will have somebody who read the warrant and the warrant will say what it says and then that's the case by casee analysis what does the warrant say yes okay thanks just one other thing what I know we had a little discussion

125about attendance what are we doing about impacted School attendance I don't believe we're agenda to have that conversation well I mean related to this are there laws right now that are shaping that or it's just that so the attendance laws have a lot of different options for student attendance and um and school districts are utilizing those options to make sure that if there needs to be a different type of school program that students participate in and by participating in that program they're attending lots of options both children with and without disabilities I would be I would fully welcome policy committee taking that up and examining that with the administration um and think it would be important that to go with each of our students I'll start with so this probably is more of a board

126question but under the current policy for dealing with law enforcement do those who work in the office like especially those who are actually Manning the door I I know at East we have secure doors that are opened with the Press of a button are do they actually receive like instruction as to like what they're allowed to do what they should do and like at what point does that does their action or inaction become obstruction of justice I can answer that so we do train our administrative assistants regularly they meet monthly as well as our health room clerical AIDS um and again I would be remiss didn't stress that the burden is not on that individual alone they are instructed to connect with their leadership to make sure that they're not facing this decision and isolation

127uh we are going to move into the gender identity item on the end which is the second of the two areas um I can't remember do we start with an overview of what's happening with the last F or do we jump right into question overview let's do the overview again oh okay so you've got in materials some excerpts from the executive orders regarding issues the second of those is a little bit more specific it's the same situation where we have a lot of questions that are not yet answered and this one is um more familiar I think to schools because it's something that's typically um administered by the Department of Education so as many of you know we have a new head of the offic Civil Rights the Department of Education trainer and um he's

128already been active in sharing information by way of um statements we haven't seen yet guidance in terms of Department of Education will typically issue guidance that says specifically how to implement a policy how to implement regulations for example and we expect that there might be more regarding the Department's expectation is to how to implement the executive orders there are a couple of things that um oh and then of course don't yet have a confirmed Secretary of the Department of Education in that hearing will OCC on Thursday of this week so we do expect that after Thursday of this week there might be some more information coming down the road in that regard but as you can see from the excerpts there's um a great deal of information regarding the role of gender we have specific

129directives as part of those executive orders to um refer to instead of gender there's a definition of social transition that directly relates to conversations and um interactions with psychologists and guidance counselors in the school setting so those are pieces to be aware of as well and then um information coming out of the Department of Education recently that was specific about there was a memo it was replaced by another memo last week that was specific about the return turn following not only the executive order but also there was a case in state of Kentucky and the Nationwide effect of essentially way that they described it is taking off the books the title 9 2024 regulations and returning to the 2020 regulations we also received notice recently that um the Department of Education will pursue enforcement action

130not only based on complaints to the department but in addition based on media reports and so you can see that in Denver public schools where the department has already initiated an investigation um of the Denver public schools for a violation of the orders and um that is ongoing right now so those are just a few things that um have come down the road and I'm happy to answer questions and combination with administrators who can talk about impact here Renee just a Qui question based on what you just said there what is is the outcome when when a school district or anywhere in the country is under investigation what does that mean for everybody listen like is there under investigation then they say what they're gonna say and they expose the schools or do they bu

131everybody do you change the curriculum what does that mean it's an excellent question so a lot of people are very focused on what's happening in federal court most of the time in schools you're not in federal court every day right instead what we see more frequently is complaints to the office for civil rights US Department of Education and um when they start and and this is all how it works down this is how the case processing manual now the last time I looked at the case processing manual which was earlier today it looks like this you could Google it right now and it could be that there's a new case processing manual that is not what I'm telling you at this moment but um the way that it's worked and the way that it appeared

132today uh is that they start an investigation and they ask decide whether or not they're going to proceed with the investigation and one of the first things that they do is offer the opportunity for mediation if there's a complainant it's potential that you can find a resolution with the complainant in mediation if that doesn't work or you skip that step then the next step is um just a resolution with the Department the department will say here are the types of things that we think we might want you to do you can sign a resolution agreement with the Department after that sometimes there's a full-blown investigation and they think really where you're where you're going with this is what's what could eventually happen and they would issue directives they would say either do X Y and

133Z and if you don't we're going to withhold Federal funding from you um so most of the time when we're involved in an investigation with OCR the result is one of those first um outcomes that I mentioned mediation or resolution or you know they'll say here's what we want you to do and the district will will do it um because the districts generally don't want to risk losing Central funding so in that in that process it sounds like from the federal government side they would be bleeding the the local districts for money to essentially fight for themselves to continue with their policies on things that have already been in place just taking money from the schools and basically in the end threatening to take even more money and funding from them that is that is

134the um that's the The Authority that they have and um so we expect that yes that that would be the result of potentially some of the investigations that occur you know uh J Banger had said earlier about um sometimes uh local legislature can supersede an executive order or is is this does Wisconsin have something in place where where any of this would apply or are we kind of looking at the whole executive order in our case and saying we have to deal with with whole thing or there parts that we we can kind of put off to the side right now and deal with other other parts of it I guess does that make sense Jason just declar a federal law who supersede executive order okay question this may be more of a question for

135Mr eer but let's say that secretary McMahon comes into office and then just says I mean the Trump Administration already released seven executive orders pausing Federal funding on a variety of things um and even those those though those were ruled unconstitutional they're still parts of them are still being enforced so if secretary McMahon under the direction of the Trump administration were to just say we're pausing all funding completely from the federal government do we have is there like a contingency plan is there like an emergency fund that we can draw on to supplement that thankfully we don't get much money from the federal government in terms of overall Revenue um my that said um the the state government gets a lot of money from the federal government and then it blows down to us so

136but really what we're talking about is cash balance um and in that case we would should that happen we would I suppose and every other school district in the state would be looking to borrow money to meet payroll so Malik in Ence your question is more of a DPI Wisconsin Department of Public Instruction issue to start yeah but also as far as I understand we re for like special education we receive that directly from the federal government special special education Aid comes from the state um our title grants come from the federal government uh directly but yes the state receives money from the federal government that they then sent us so ultimately this we would be forced to borrow money in that case if it that just ceased and trickled down through the state and

137they didn't use their emergency fund if all if if all those things happened and we didn't receive the revenue we anticipated getting then yes um well I guess first of all I am thankful that we've had communication come out from our district to our families and students um acknowledging that these executive orders can be negatively affecting their mental health um their feelings of safety so I am thankful for the guidance and the messages of support that have come out from um I know Mr pinion um Mr um Holland and Dr means um so thank you for that um my question is a lot of these executive orders and one specifically um are being challenged actively in court and like you stated they haven't come with guidelines that would typically come with executive orderers so how

138um how rushed do you think or how quickly do you think the School Board needs to adapt our policies to align with um our values especially on this one is this something that we should be looking at policies immediately when do you think the guidelines from the federal government will be coming down and how quickly does the enforcement of those guidelines start taking place those are great questions and you know typically when I say typically there's guidelines it's because there's typically a body of Law and then there's guidelines that follow it but it's not like it happens immediately right and but but we really don't know how quick like I said I think after um the confirmation hearing on Thursday there may be there may be guidelines that follow from that and and maybe not

139um that's really difficult to predict in terms of enforcement um it depends District to District on a couple of things one it depends on whether like in Denver there's media reports that would prompt um the attention of the office for civil rights the other issue is that if there's a parent complaint then that also initiates initiate a response and so you know in some districts there may not be any media reports and there may not be any parent complaints and so the um policies aren't immediately amended then if there is no impact in other districts there may be more attention media attention or a complaint and then policies would be under scrutiny or quickly so it is it it really is um an individual determination that every school board is making and some School Board

140as you know there's school boards making decisions from here to here um some will engage in anticipatory compliance and make changes quickly others will say they're going to take a wait toy approach and then others will um will hold hold out for quite some time or even maybe decide that they're going to intentionally not non compliance so um in terms of a recommendation the question that I have is what's the goal of Bo and then once that's established then we can help you to accomplish your so I was thinking um is a kind of a followup to just ask so just as a offthe cuff specific example um if if if I'm understanding what's in this order at least partially correctly um but we have to roll back several things possibly in policies if we

141want to follow this the letter of the law um and just for instance looking at the uh policy 55 17 on bullying um there be direct language right in there um where it it has language um saying under harassment it um definition paraphrase here uh physical nature on the basis of sex including transgender status change of sex or gender identity race color Etc and so forth so um I guess the the the question is do we do we need to go through all of these again with a sign to comb or are we um are we looking at I don't want I don't want to say the word taking a stand but like as as the as a board we need to represent the value of the community but also we have to follow the

142law um I'm just I'm I'm lost on on where where to go if somebody were to ask me or if um you know if I saw that that happening uh right now today or tomorrow if if a if a teacher sees that they need to follow the policy we have right now or do they need to refer to what's listed here what what do we tell our our staff that's that's the decision the board or the administration if it's delegated to the administration would need to make I think M I'm Rollin that that answer your question said it well you have to decide how how urgent this is from a policy perspective in terms of how you want to communicate with your policy committee to FASTT track certain policies um that's but we we have

143an obligation to follow policy as it stands if I if I may I'd like to add that just G to give perspective and it's really difficult topic I think at a lot of levels for a lot of us um our policies around harassment bullying discrimination are welldeveloped as they are right they came from our Northstar from our values as a district I lean into them almost every day um I think I would just offer into Rene's point there may be a gut because of I I know our values as a community and as our board um as a whole I would just offer and it's hard to say that to the point we're trying to make here is how much you want to either intentionally non-comp or to fight something could be contraindicated If it

144creates a civil rights complaint that then is open to Student Records and is open to then Target our children so um in my own work earlier today I leted a conversation about the importance of doing the work even if that meant changing what it looks like at the name level so I mean there's a lot in this policy for example that is is very strong and I think the assessment would be um how much how which parts of this would stand up anyway even if those words were gone so that's that's what I have board members thinking about that like the actual use of it um when we see bullying that everything's on the list that happens with bullying and we still know how to identify it as bullying um you know so that to

145to me that's where where we've be thinking about and I I appreciate my mindsets very much there too it's it's the work of protecting our children um in school day to day that has to be key um and if that means that we have to remove some things in order to not have that Focus bring unwanted unwanted interests then I think that's that's the feedback the policy committee is going to need to have from from people and that's not I mean there's at the same time to balance sort of in that process of taking terms out there are people who are going to be hurt by that um and we have to really keep that in mind about how if if we did it how we would do that so I would agree very much

146with what you're saying and trying to build on what what Liz said now Dr means you know the details much more than me but there's there are a great deal of things that are in our policies that have to do with what DPI requires that we report to them so if DPI for example requires you know certain reporting to them on um actions or safety situations with regards to people with disabilities well we have to record that and it's going to be in our policies that you can't bully based on um you know disability status okay so I would say let's look to DPI to guide us about what are dpi's reporting requirements how are they going to change and we'll follow that lead because of course they have to follow the federal requirements for

147their school performance plans just like we do okay so all that said I suspect there's a lot of things in our language that weren't born of us and wossa they were born of all these reporting requirements up to the state and to the federal government and as those things shake out as there's all this planning going on okay fine then to me a separate question is bullying it is not to my thinking it's just my opinion not indoctrination to say we don't allow bullying with regards to a lot of different stuff because bullying is like an aggression so if you know we could say I don't allow bullying for wearing you know blue black check shirts and we could put that in there and maybe our bullying policies would be stronger because we wouldn't be

148required in I'm not supporting anything or or opposing anything I'm just saying that we shouldn't throw out protecting safety for fear that it might be confused with the executive orders prohibiting in doation in order to have federal funds we policy committee could go down the details on that to say well what is here just because we want it here to keep children safe not because we're trying to promote any idea but because the only condition we really care about is safety in this conversation yes but bullying for any reason whether it's it's sex or gender or you know color of your shirt or anything like that we can I would think we can continue to have such policies the definition of bullying um from a state law perspective is not based on any projected category

149there we go thank you but it wasn't a question but I'm glad you you help me out there with why statement so um before you ask I'm gonna I have a question on title my policy um have we we approved two policies we approved the policy for about that was in place for maybe 15 minutes and then we had the 2024 policy that was in place for about 45 minutes have we now reverted back to the 2020 policy or do we need the policy committee to act on that in order like that one seems particularly Timely just to that point what are like the main points like what has changed from the 2024 to the 2020 so I'll tell you two things the first thing I'll tell you is that that is the the change

150from 2024 back to 2020 um is a change that most districts are making because it's not only the executive order there's also the um the order from the district court in Kentucky that has a nationwide effect and takes 2024 literally off the books say that never existed and so most districts are reverting back in terms of the specifics in terms of the differences one main difference is in 2024 um covered and protected gender identity in 2020 didn't in terms of the other differences I will 100% and always refer defer to Emily trinsky of our office who is our Title Nine um expert and if you have specific questions or would like for her to um highlight that then we're happy to give that information to you um can you I'm trying to read through like

151the executive order and where they talk specifically about like the social transition since to me this really stood out um because the way they Define this is that includes things like psychological care which I was really surprised by and wondering how they would how did they do that when Hippa should cover what happens in a session as a private thing but it also includes uh names modifying a person's name which they give a specific example which is a very female identifying a name to a very male identifying name but like where does that where is that line drawn if my name is Moren and I want to go by Mo is that allowed or am I not allowed to use a nickname because of this um and then pronouns or or calling somebody non-binary was

152also another thing that is included in this definition of social transition so can you explain like what does that specifically mean in like a in the school setting and what what does that look like right no I can't and what I can say is a couple of things we anticipate that when there's guidance that there will be um additional information regarding that but we see that the extent of the prohibited activities and designations includ all the ones that you mentioned and also including use of facilities um that that the the order expects that those types of activities won't be undertaken by School staff and specifically um as you can see counselors are mentioned and psychologists are mentioned and there will be a tension and there one of the tensions like you mention will be between

153fura and how does one know what's going on in the context of sessions with they psychologist can say from a practical perspective that when OC conducts an investigation they interview people and they ask questions and they have access to information about what's happening so um that's one piece that we'll see how that plays out um the other question that people oftentimes ask is about um parent parental rights and how parental rights are going to um be reconciled with those directives and so that's more questions than they are answers um but certainly there are many districts looking to make changes in their policies and their procedures and their guidance in terms of practice to staff based on that order and the extent of it okay it's just so it's I think to Jason's Point early it's

154so complicated because like how do you how do we guide I mean I guess we have our policy in place now although I don't know that we have any policy that specifies anything around like chosen pronouns or your chosen preferred name or whatever I don't know that we have anything like that in place so I assume it's based on what our families and children ask for yeah I mean we have our standard anti-discrimination harassment policies bullying policy that spells that out not to the Nuance you're talking about but we also have a lot of training within student services that has been ongoing over the last two and a half years about gender support plans or student support plans how you operate through them what you know what reach you do it don't have how you

155communicate a lot of that is very personal and very specific to individual students where they're at their comfort all of that so there's been a lot of training centered within student services is there really an integral part of helping students through that I mean does it make sense for us again while all of this is up in the air there's no clear guidance there's going to be lawsuits that are being filed and have already been filed with all of these different executive orders does it make sense to just status quo One op doing whole Contin option what happens right so there are like I said there's districts saying we're gonna anticipatory compliance we're going to change things right now we're going to try to get in line ones that take that approach wait and see

156approach and then other boards that decide side that they're going to intentionally not comply so there's that whole Continuum and it really depends on each Community well and it's always so interesting like in in a normal course of action we would adjust policies when we have a chance to adjust policies or maybe a wait and see Norm but this moment feels so hyped so I'm going to go with uh m can move Mr Mars now um on the same topic of the executive order under the name ending racial indo or radical indoctrination in K12 schooling this may be more of a Dr marble question but through as curriculum goes through our curriculum review process and as far as I'm aware there may be some social studies curriculum that will go through that process within the

157next four years has is there are there any steps that as an administrative team you have to take to confine yourselves or to conform with this policy and preventing in the administration's words radical anti-American ideologies um and making innocent children compelled to adopt identities as either victims or oppressors so based on their skin color or other immutable characteristics like does that have any influence on your actual adoption of curriculum not exactly um we have a pretty robust process that we go through um that has a wide variety of it's a wide wide betting process um and there is a cultural component into it making sure that we are um representing the school that we serve so umik we'll teach history we'll teach history the way that it unfolded and uh the the study of history

158hasn't changed we'll continue to teach the facts I I remember vividly um a few years ago this was a topic that came up of of the state legislature was asking are we teaching um critical race theory if you remember there was a few years ago the issue race Theory came up and our position has always been we're going to teach American history uh all this richness is uniqueness and the opportunities that we have to examine how we have evolved as a nation so let's say that Trump Administration determines that um new course uh AP African-American studies promotes anti-American ideologies and they and then as a result they pressure DPI and then DPI comes to you and says we don't want you to teach this anymore first of all can they do that and second of

159all what do you do then like how are there measures that you have to take to properly comply with that that's where I would lean on our legal councel to be able to guide us on what our course of action that's three steps ahead of where we are right now yeah um what what we can tell you is what we said a few months ago we are very proud of being one of the school districts in the state of Wisconsin that offers AP americ or African-American studies very proud of it um what's embedded in that curriculum is that we know that we teach the journey in the the rich history of African-Americans in the United States That's History that's not indoctrinating someone that's not making someone feel bad about who they are and what they

160are it's just simply teaching history right and to be very clear like I I would agree with you yeah but and I guess what I'm say and this is goes back to the beginning of our conversation I'm not looking for anyone to agree or disagree with it what we're simply saying is our strategy is to be down the middle we're we're going to teach African-American studies we're not trying to indoctrinate anyone so our statement earlier of our goal is to keep students safe what Mr pinion said is absolutely true so we could be that school district that's on the bleeding edge and we'll say we're going to fight this orders there's some school districts that are they're conspiring as we speak to to put together their position to to mount the resistance if you will

161to the executive orders there are other this is what Miss Alana is telling you there are other school districts that are calling their legal counsel and they're saying tell us what we need to do to comply now to the executive orders our strategy is in the middle we want to observe we want to see what happens what folds until then we will lean into our policies our very astute and and smart board is saying ah wait a minute but these are our policies and so maybe we need to configure some of our policies now to better represent our community and then once the executive orders kind of unfold we are now at least not continuing to react but we are standing up for the values that we believe our community stands for that's why we

162wanted that that that is the exact reason why we wanted to have this conversation tonight as a as a starter um to what we consider to be something that will be ongoing discussion for the next four years so if I think what I what I just heard from your do means is that so I'm I'm looking at specifically the the term patriotic education I have no idea what that means nor do I I I I believe I do I believe pet education is absy well isn't there a state exam um that was mated a few years ago that's a that's patriotic education but there there is language in this executive order that or book defines what it is and it doesn't make any real sense um so I think I'm just reiterating I think what

163I heard was we're gonna teach history and we're going to teach our curriculum and we're going to try to stay stay in the middle until definitive legal guidance is there to tell us one way or another and and that we're we're we're not the we're not the district that's saying we need to comply immediately right now we're also not the district that is going to say of our dukes and I take on the you know well there there's going to be a rul making process and some of this stuff says in the directives that agencies under executive Authority will now commence the rule making process well we stand ready to see what the rules are I think that the only what I I think what I heard tonight is the only one where that isn't

164the case is with the title n policy is that the title n policy for the moment while not settled is we need to align our policy back to the 2020 and that should happen probably at the next policy committee meeting to come back to the board is that that is that accurate yes yes many layers in terms of the Kentucky case and the executive order and the Department of Education directive all of those pieces coming together make that one an ex the one thing Mr W here I would articulate is that the district that what what wasn't stated your thing is the district is also pushing very hard to teach history better stronger student outcomes in more extreme growth so I would suggest that whatever words you're used there's a certain amount of resources and

165services that are good for all of our students and that is having a depth of mental health services available or whatever is there needed for um teaching our students uh the process of inquiry these are the things we should be doing and all of them have how depending on how we do them have the potential to build resilience um within our schools and among our school children and where we can make sure that our resources are directed towards um the need that's identified um to build that that resilience uh provide you know what I guess what's good for one potentially having it there could be good for all of our students so thinking about not necessarily the egorical but rather what kind of school district do we want to be for all of our students

166and making our sure sure our resources are landing in those spaces um as of course we also have to be adjusting to the policies as they shift but that doesn't mean that we stop doing what we do well which is educating our students to have a patriotic open mind um and to um treat each other with respect and dignity I mean I think we can just really lean into those strengths that we have as a district um and and try to you know listen when to our community of how we're doing on that and what else we need to shift in order to make sure that's happening in all of our schools Dr Worley as a former US history teacher I used to always say that there was diversity of thought when John Adams and

167Thomas Jefferson debated what should be in our Constitution that that was that was the height of showing tolerance towards one another and and being diverse I think those are principles of our nation that we're grounded in however we will teach the history as it has unfolded um I think our our main point that we wanted to express to you this evening is you in the community you're getting pulled in a lot of different directions as the governing board there are some people who are saying as Mr wer said put up put up your dupes we wanna we want to be that District on the bleeding edge there are some other districts that are saying no we want to comply immediately our council is that we need to take a weit and see approach uh with

168the goal of making sure that we are addressing each unique situation um for its uh its uniqueness um and we'll wait to see how all of this unfolds you do have the authority as the governing board to step back as you look at some of the policies that will ground us and anchor us to say we want to reexamine things you've talked about 5540 um at length this evening you you can look at your other policies and you can you have the right as the governing board to reaffirm what you believe are the the values that the community wants your schools to represent you always have that right our guidance to you right now is that we believe that your your current language positions us well to respond administratively I have a couple questions about

169things that haven't been discussed tonight I and I there's been so many has anybody seen anything on we've got a a massive number of school shootings that have occurred has there been an executive order of school shootings or school safety not specific to schools but two SE related to Second Amendment and uming in Direction okay like to to make school safer and to tighten up uh the two related to the Second Amendment have to do with increasing second amendment rights okay interesting um has there been anything around Mental Health Resources in a crisis facing our adolescence and children but the federal government stepping in and advocating through executive order for Mental Health Resources have not seen that interesting we have a crisis of learning in our country and I remember after Sputnik went into space

170first believe it was Eisenhower it was uh articulated a desire to want to push and make us number one in the world the only time we've ever focused on being number one in the world in math and science has there been anything that we've seen in executive orders around Math and Science Education the Getting Back to Basics if you will have not seen that at this time I'm sure it's coming um May I add an addendum that there actually some of the money around title one may actually be reduced that that's a potential is there anything around special education cost coverage I know the idea we I think we get some possible funding from the federal government that comes to the state is there anything executive orders around that item not time huh um okay

171I am [Music] I'm okay I should say not that I'm aware of since we started okay but I haven't had my phone in front of me so if anybody cares to and and I and I just want to articulate the mission the core mission of what we do is over my right shoulder and our board Northstar Mal would you mind reading it to me we believe in a Relentless commitment to the academic achievement of all students no exceptions we will ensure we have excellent education in our school schools and that they have the support and resources they need uh to thrive in ensuring students learn and grow to their potential we will hold ourselves and the district if you could scoop this accountable by developing the resources structures and systems for our children to thrive

172sir I was alive for Sputnik but but I don't remember a thing just put some in the conversation but you know I would agree um we need to focus on kid issues and educate kids and um we hope everybody else will too right I I hope so uh I look forward to our federal government joining us uh and advocating and making sure that every school in our country has the support and resources and high expectations uh and would welcome coffee or a McDonald's trip with anybody who would like to talk education policy um I want to ask us to take about a 10-minute break uh before we get into policy and dig into that Donna thank you so much you were such a wealth of knowledge thank you so much to see everybody and we'll

173keep you posted thank you is everybody ready to go please okay uh let's come on back uh we are at number seven second readings and or action to approve policies um we have one action uh if policy 5463 credits from non-public schools uh and Dr this you is recommended that the school board approve policy 5463 credits from nonpublic schools and ISO move you may have a second second thank you Mr Morris um colleages in the policy committee can you walk me so we took this back [Music] um yeah but on this on the last meeting um we had a discussion about um what has been done in the past what you know what's existing and that's different than what we had in here so we want to highlight that for the board um and Dr

174means or Dr Marvel if you want to jump in on that at all I think our our sense was that we just our policy our policy committee felt that we shouldn't be shifting what we were doing we should be keeping what we're doing and which would mean um that we actually would be accepting the grades so this is the practice that we currently practice and we have no compelling um data to say that we shouldn't shift um at this time and so we would like to continue with our current practice and then it has been updated um just with the new Neola language um is what's in front of you so for transparency when we brought it to you at the first read we suggested a change to not take them but as we discussed

175what we were doing and the fact that there wasn't a good reason um to shift we thought it was better to bring it back to reflect what we are doing now but we're open to discussion of course as always more discussion or comments I thought when we discussed this the last time I was just one that I asked if this is what the other districts the districts around us yeah I misspoke so okay okay I was just trying to remember was the right on the right policy yes okay so this is aligned with what okay yes thank you seeing none Summers call Mr Morris yes Dr hoik yes Mr wer yes Dr Bley yes Mr Rolland yes Mr Meyer yes Dr Jess yes and the board has approved updated policy 5463 uh then we have

176a lot of first readings of policies uh I will turn this over policies you walk us through batch as we go I just want to remind people that on most of these you well two things there's the dashboard but there's also at the top of each policy under the after the word code there are often some tips for what it is um that is why this is being looked at so as we flip through these um we'll just go in the order of the agenda to make it as easy as possible for for Jamie as well um okay so our first one on the agenda is 2464 um which is a new policy um and if you so you're not going to see any green on it because we don't have this um but we've

177been being asked um to have a better statement of our Advanced learning instruction um which many people um will short will use the terms gifted and talented um we've only left that in there in order to um help people who are looking searching through policies for something along those lines to be able to find it um that's why it's I will just add if I may yeah yeah this puts us um into greater compliance with the changes that have been made um statutorily as well so um it's all updated language that is in compliance with State Statute so we've not previously had a a policy like this or for exceptional Learners no we have um it is just extremely outdated um and so this one is it's a full full remodel full remodel yeah brought

178us up to uh D with Neil has said the guidance was to get us uh in alignment with what dpi's actual practice is um Dr means and Dr marble to what degree is our current practice aligned or not aligned with this policy aligned standing um the one thing I really want to call out is I really like and we talked about this with the the the audits on Advanced learning oh I don't know if that was three years ago or a year and a half ago uh but that the five domains um the general intellectual specific academic leadership creativity and Visual and Performing Arts I'm really glad to see that the broad view of this um this is an area that we've been challenged as a district to rise to the occas on I know

179we're doing work on it so thank you policies the course police supportive I have a question um Dr Marvel can you give a brief overview on the current state of gift and talent in our district um to kind of piggyback off of air is that's beyond what we're okay in it would take agenda for something in future but I think it's beond I think it'd be helpful to agenda that at some point if I may offer a friendly idea um to put on the table we could we'll have that in our March update oh perfect thank you I exp my thunder when I was gonna ask you later anything else in oh view I'll stop um oh in this policy it outlines identification um guidelines but for something like and it also refers to standardized

180test data rating scales classwork portfolios nominations and demonstrated performance for something like Visual and Performing Arts that we don't often see directly in the classroom how especially at an elementary level how would you identify that in the first place so we uh task our Educators with constantly seeking out talents in our students and so um if a an educator sees a particular Talent really helping to build on that uh a parent can also uh Express that they have seen a talent in the visual or performing arts or leadership quite frankly and how do we work together together to collabora collaboratively build um build that capacity with the students so so the instruction part of this would be focused on continuing to develop that gifted Talent even further yes just comment um I I I really

181like and want to commend you for adding in um the uh the end part of identific ation where um specifically outlining that students with Advanced learning needs in one area but learning challenges in another um shall be included I think I think that's really important there maybe somebody with u um disability or or some other factor that uh prevents them from one thing but they're completely exceptional on something else and they should be celebrated for it Dr marble question I have on here and I think we talked about this in policy um the more I look at it is in that identification kind of piggybacking off what Malik said there what measures do we have in place to make sure that this policy does not create um identification that's subjective and not objective or we

182have something that is uniform for all because I know we've got whether it's the educator identifies something they or a parent but I think of in our district depending on where you are the social capital you have and who's identifying what someone could say that their kids are more in any of these five domains more than someone who doesn't have an advocate or somebody that may not be seen as regularly by a particular educator versus another educator in the classroom or on in on the campus so I just want to make sure I'm understanding your question you're wondering what are the objective measurements to identify students yes in these five domains um so it's a really Antiquated practice to I to label a student gifted and talented um so we we are we are not

183labeling any students gifted and talented so that was a practice that has existed in the past that this policy um and state guidance does not promote um we do have very specific guidance that we do follow that's very objective when we're looking at grade level acceleration um as part of this process um when we look there there's not a lot of defined criteria for us to be able to pinpoint and say this student the uh students of this particular profile will have access to leadership um development so I a quick example that I can give is um some of our targeted learning that's taking place this school year is um with our electives and Elementary specials teachers around leadership and creativity and so they are weaving that into their daily instruction to build up those

184characteristics in all of our students um so that's one way in which we're targeting those two um items in particular that have long been under um underutilized and ignored okay so just so I okay I I agree and I get all that but in that I just so for this policy in here we're not physically it's it's theoretical identification this doesn't show up anywhere it's not in any system it's not tagged to any student for any of these five domains yes we do not label any student with a specific gift in one of these areas can I move forward question I've turned it over to you so you okay I I'm reporting everything I heard I just want to add not everything can be identified objectively and you I'm sure you're not right we all

185agree I had a friend in sixth grade and I was glad he was my friend because he was the the best fighter in the school so nobody I was bullied and nobody picked on me because Peter was my friend and his artistic skills were just magical and I don't think there was any anyway you're saying the Arts and you know there's some people that just have something and it was very clear he had something no one else in the room had and I don't know that we did or didn't do anything with it as a school system but it just would be nice if there was a way to highlight these things and give them opportunities yeah absolutely I I was just trying to get to the the concept there of some of the things

186I I hear from the community there of if all are special or all are gifted or all are talented in any of these five domains at any given time across the classroom across the school than are any gifted and talent at all is that just a reflection of the curriculum and the academics that are there and so just I was just making Clarity for both myself and the community there to make sure that we highlighting those things to your point there Mike yeah and I'm of course I'm not promoting fighting I'm I raised the the fighting skills as the played this was a kid who is a tough kid who I don't know that there were objective measures based on I he was a good and decent person but he he was tough and traditionally

187you you know he's not going to score in any of those objective things and there's a lot of Reason maybe for somebody not to you know help him help him out but he certainly was you know a person you'd want to help if if you had the capacity to sound like he might have also had some leadership qualities there he he was that as well people were safe on playground with you the methods weren't sanctioned by Administration though he may or may not have been a full in that policy may have no he actually no he wasn't actually ultimately um he ended up working for the school district tell you the truth this a great story we love these stories about oh this was from the sputnic days this was before Dr me was around

188I I think two though this is trying to obviously say trying to say is just the that um if you only have a singular program called gifted and talented then there are there are a lot of gifts and talents that are very strong and individual students that might be missed and this is rather trying to look for those ways to highlight what what is the best way to get to a particular student and their passions um and pull those out and challenge them to p harder in the areas yeah go ahead Mo I want to as the chair of the meeting yeah we have to time Li ourselves note that we have 50 policies to move brid approximately so I share with that so that everyone can think to themselves when it's 11:30 and they're

189eager to go home we only did this to ourselves so if you have a story that really needs to be told tell it otherwise no go ahead Malik please um so obviously like with the nature of selecting out I guess this is clearly more inclusive policy than the more Antiquated previous gifted and talented but obviously with the nature of it there is a serious concern for like in bias intruding into that and an inequitable application of this is there like how is there a desire to further create a structure to implement this especially equitably across schools at the same level I would say that this is more Equitable than anything we've ever had in place before and it is picking up more and more students um from that have diverse backgrounds um and more students

190that are twice exceptional uh where they have a learning disability in one area but are gifted in other places um also by not having um barriers to like our AP classes is also beneficial to students that are looking to stretch themselves so if somebody if a student wants to take AP Art Studio they take the prerequisites and they can get take that class there's no testing into that so to speak right I guess more specifically like what is preventing let's say Madison is like they really don't want to use their resources they don't even have the resources so like accommodate a leadership gifted child whereas like Roosevelt is just you know everyone's gifted and talented there how do you uniformly implement this I guess I'm struggling how it's not uniformally implemented I because our educators

191are charged with differentiating their instruction when they see student needs or where they see student talents it's the preparation of the Educators and all in the building that's you know really so this isn't like a school administration level thing for the implementation primarily it's this is the policy right and then they develop the guidelines the school administrators develop the guidelines okay well the administrative team no yeah I understand but then the next part is then dispersing that to everybody who might have student facing contact and that's growing the culture of this policy right this is this creates the place where the administrative team wants to be and then it has to be everyone participates in that whether that's from the parent to the student to all the people in the building who might potentially identify

192by the students talents if that's what you're speaking to that could be uneven from one building to another and then that becomes right an ongoing process of making sure that people in all the buildings that's that moving away from the you know single points of light to having it across the district and it's important but that's you know that's an implementation yeah that was my question yeah it's a good question Dr would parent know if their child had been or was receiving Services Under This policy or is it just sort of like meeting the needs of the student in the classroom and that might involve some of these things yeah it's we have the the motto of see a need serve a need and so a a student for example a student might be charged

193to do some additional leadership work where they maybe are serving as a room buddy they're a fourth grade student that's serving as a room buddy in junior kindergarten so that would be an example of elevating a student's leadership qualities that have been noticed um and I I if a student is being removed from the universal instruction to be able to serve in that capacity the parents should be notified um where there's probably going to be the most conversation is in grade level acceleration um so whether that be for General cognitive development or um in terms of uh moving going from fourth grade to fifth grade for mathematics for example but that's what you said you have some specific and that we have very specific processes that we follow yes all good anything changed requests for

194changes then we'll move forward um we're going to have some of these throughout the evening that are resins and please note under the next to the word code it tells you the policy that is um it is being replaced by and I'd like to recognize um Julia Summers for a huge amount of organizational effort to put these together because we talked about how to present these to you and we wanted to make sure that you understood that these things that are being rescinded are being rescinded because there's um new or existing policy that already um doing a better job of reflecting who we are as a district any questions on the volunteers okay 3123 Wisconsin Quality educator initiative again this one's replaced by 3125 um so the ideas behind it are not gone they're just

195somewhere else now and so then right after that you'll find what 3125 this was the work of organizing all these together 3125 replaces 3123 so if there's any adjustments to questions comments caring none we'll move on to 3141 which is resend to be rescinded and to replace be replaced by 3340 policy this you know poliy 3340 um is entitled grievance procedures also so it covers the same material okay 3142 this is replaced by 3140 as is the next one and then 3140 will be the third page so if you kind of look through you got in your pile 30 342 to resend replac by 3140 then you've got 3143 to resend replace by 3140 and then you've got the updated um policy of 3140 [Music] questions okay 3170 resend is followed by the next page

196of its replacement which is 31221 and Dr do we just want to note in 31 22.01 um we have all there it should this just an updated policy it's updated and you'll also note at the very end the reference to the legal guidance the drug free work flights Act of 1988 um but the main updates are you know that we've done are in green as usual just to clarify the language a little bit but this one doesn't have a lot of changes we can make to it because it has the legal guidance attached to it but if you have questions don't hesitate to ask um is registered as outdated um and as I recall in our discussion of several weeks ago [Music] um that things have changed about what the expectations are for staff development

197and it's much more in-house at this point and so um the policy really doesn't reflect the practices of the district I don't know if you want to say anything else that means okay I got that one feel like it's like a test do I remember we said um 3243 is similar um situation uh we're not actually giving um well this defines the professional meeting um but it doesn't actually show the practice of what we're doing in the district at this point and um one of the points was raised up uh there's not really a reimbursement process at this point comments okay 34003 is replaced by um policy 2266 um so it needs to be moved into the 2000 you'll see that change um and we passed that one a little while ago that one was

198entitled non-discrimination on the basis of sex um and we already talked about tonight how Title Nine work is going to come back to you um but this one isn't impacted by that because this is the resending of what we put into place as our policy so this is just taking out something that needed to be numbered in the 22s not in the 3000s right so it's shifting it to where it needs to be the existing policy um we already passed and then obviously if there are any updates that we're required to do we'll be doing that as well 3410 3410 B 3410 01 um this is not how we do compensation um anymore with uh part-time staff we have a different policy on that so this is being rescinded because we no longer need this

199one 34902 this one's coming because um HR has determined that this one is outdated and that we have other policy about our health plans that um is actually reflects what we do so they've been doing a little bit of cleaning house so they asking to resend this one 3420 so um 34 3420 is is redund it because this is covered in the employee handbook and benefits policies so we don't need it in our policy our board policy okay so 3422 3422 F I should read that properly um we do not use this classification any longer so we're pulling that asking to pull that policy okay and then we get to look at something actually new um 3112 bo staff Communications um I will add as we it's maybe one that we want to talk through

200I will add that I will just throw out that I had a one communication um related to this policy being on the agenda tonight um about a re response that it felt like it's not specific enough and there's some lack of clarity um so you know if there's anything I didn't um the only only piece that I could look at I was thinking in terms of that being said is that I didn't have a lot of understanding about what was being asked but I do know that many of our staff members play multiple roles um some of them are residents some of them are parents as well as being staff members um and that may be where they're search in for some clarity I'm not sure if others have thoughts on this um yeah go

201ahead L um first of all what um prompted adding this policy it is usual on customary for school district to have this policy already in place fact that we don't have it is M Val wire this is the Neola template I it is and I also went there's a couple of court cases um at the bottom of I actually went and read some of that okay um and you know they do speak to the expectation that some a policy like this especially the second one would have um would be in existence uh so that's one level question the second is what does it have to say um and are there things that you'd like it to say that it this doesn't so this is a neol template that that we have talked so I had

202a couple um people reach out me about this one um and I just I had some general concerns about it when I initially read it as well so we already we have a policy on board communic email communication and that already includes that we copy the superintendent on that communication um which when we passed that I brought up some concerns about that as well um and this is as a PO this is not personal to Dr means um I hear a lot of times that staff members don't always feel comfortable sharing their opinions necessarily with uh administrators I think this puts another pretty big um gap between the board and staff I think it's important that as a board we hear varying perspectives on what's happening in our schools um specifically like the social interaction

203one I think in this community is especially difficult because I run into and talk to staff all of the time um I can be walking my dogs I ran into a couple people at restaurants this weekend um I think that this puts a bigger Gap in between ustin staff and I think that the staff will I think the staff will be concerned about that I don't know what this policy addresses um that's not already addressed in the email correspondence except for the social interaction which is really hard to avoid um and like you said like I'm friends with or my kids are friends with staff kids in the districts um I did go through like I looked at like six districts policies today and like I'd say half of them don't have anything about this

204and and other half either had the email or the or this one this exact wording so I guess I don't understand the necessity of this policy and I can maybe explain a little bit more because it comes under the policy of staff and so it's an HR policy and I think what Neola would tell you because there's a template from noola is that there is there's confusion in a school system when staff members go directly to the governing board and don't work with their let's say say for example their building principal um I frankly we're dealing with some of that issue right now um and so when there is when there's a lack of clarity on how the organization functions and what the the proper Pathway to deal with issues is outlined it goes beyond

205the email policy it goes into a spirit of what is the role of the board engaging with staff as it pertains to working through challenges they may have as an employee because as the board I'm your sole employee the the the the staff members may come to you but to reconcile their issues they have to work with their their building administrator or in some cases Miss Sosi if that isn't happening and there's a pathway where where staff are able to communicate with the board it does create even more confusion in terms of how we're supposed to deal with issues that that's the spirit of the policy me I guess I would say if a staff person came to me with a specific complaint about their leader there's nothing I can do about that like you

206just said so what I would do would be to either tell them to talk to melaz zazi or talk to their building principal and escalate it from there I think that's like the professional response as a board member I don't think that taking away the option for a staff person to talk to a board member solves the chain of command issue I absolutely agree with you I think this policy is a grave mistake because I mean I'm 21 years I don't want some prohibition that keeps people from talking to me and they could be residents like were elected by them so I just I don't understand and to their job though I don't know where I don't know I don't want to talk over anyone I don't think this policy is preventing a a staff

207member to communicate with with the board it is just simply stating that if you're it's eventally let's just take the the concept of a staff member who's also Community member if they're raising issues around their job that doesn't that's not preventing you from talking to him I think it actually says this procedure is not intended to deny any staff member the right to raise matters of concern regarding the District Operations to the board through established procedures when no resolution is reached by Administration so in in other words it's saying and maybe we need to cross reference it it's not saying that policy 9130 is not available to them it's just simply stating that if there if there's a concern and Liz you made the statement that you would tell them to go to their building

208principle to go to Melle isasi but that's you there may be some staff members some board members if this policy is not in place that may send a chill over the district to then the principal themselves to say hey wait a minute I spoke to staff member X and staff member X said that there's a problem going on at school why what's going on there that that if without this policy in place that could happen so someone calls me and says I need to tell you something but I want you to keep it confidential my first answer is there are no secrets from the superintendent that's my rule one then I say what do you have to tell me and then and then the person says there was an administrator who physically intimidated the staff

209during a staff meeting with what could be considered an act of a physical action I don't want to divulge anything here and I'm afraid to talk to HR and I'm afraid to talk to the superintendent and you know what I'm a senior teacher and I'm the only one with the guts to actually tell you that this happened that's reality and I did go to the superintendent and the superintendent took it the HR and it was investigated and I was board president and the superintendent comes to me and says do you want to see the investigation report I said no that's a management issue you handled it but I needed to know what was going on in our buildings and so um there's been other things over the years now miss hro Rolland my gut seems

210to be the same as yours I am getting really uncomfortable with this elected board telling everybody don't talk to me and I think this is a step too far especially in this school district where we're a community and we go to TOA Fest and we go to the parade and we go to conferences and this specifically says failure to do so may result in employee discipline I was going to point out Mr Meer I think that it's the chill at the beginning that might make it harder is creating this interpretation further and and that is a very strong statement yeah it's pretty tough and now if you want the teacher to go to law enforcement first if you want him to file um an office of civil rights complaint first well that's what you're going

211to get here if you don't give people outlets now as a board we have to be responsible mature and use common sense and we can't be interfering but to make a Ironclad rule that says don't talk to the board member okay just so respectfully it's I'm in an awkward spot because there's push back on the policy and I'm just simply asking you to consider everyone is responding by saying I wouldn't respond this way to to these issues but that the policy are not in place to address how you would respond to an issue it's in place to ensure that the the district operates efficiently and and this I think some of the language this is boiler plate from Neola but they clearly have created this policy because there are problems in school systems when the

212chain of of communication is not adhere to um and so for all the benefits that you've identified for our community being a a close-knit community it also it holds challenges um and and it when you talk about the chill of the board or staff members being able to talk to to our staff members being able to talk to board members there's also a chill if this policy is not in place for administration because and we're see I'll in on this note and we're seeing it we're living it right now in our school system right now and so when there are Pathways where staff members can go directly to the board and express their grievances with and it's not about having to come to us because we we want to hear it first it's because that's

213how most organizations function if there's an end around being done through the communication then it does send a chill on the opposite end so are we saying and I'm speaking a little bit here for for Neola in general for the policy committee are there ways that we can massage this language absolutely but the general consensus of why it's in place doesn't go away yeah I want to say the downside of not having it is the is the conflict that can evolve from someone not going through the chain of command so I think yeah I would suggest that we look for some wording that reflects who we are but also respects that a well functioning organization you know that people need the nudge to use the strategies that are within the organization and if those aren't

214working then you know going to the next step I think it's very similar to what we've asked for our families to do which is first start with your teacher then go to your principal all we're asking is I think what this policy is indicating is Staff should do the same thing because I think you know if I were using your example Mr Meer the challenge is if this staff person says something really bad happened but I can't tell anybody else now what are you GNA do like what are we what are we individually as a board member going to do if that person isn't going to tell anybody now we're just holding this piece of information like it has to go through appropriate channels and typically I do tell the super I I not typically

215I tell the superintendent but in this example that they said don't I don't want to even tell the superintendent but my first sorry my first answer is there are no secrets from the superintendent if you tell me something I am going to tell the superintendent so I guess what would be the difference between us saying policy says you need to go to the Super intendent to share that concern so I really I would encourage you to talk to Dr means about that sure because that's kind of what this policy would suggest my problem is the Ironclad failure to do so may result in employee discipline that is quite the chilling statement there's no there's no judgment there's no nuance and what if the problem is the superintendent yeah I'd be fine striking that well well

216maybe not but but something here that lets us go out in the community and people aren't afraid to talk to us but again it's not that they can't talk to us it's that if they're coming to us and they're having a specific complaint about their job we should be deflecting and saying this is the chain of command you got to follow the chain of Comm it's asking them to deflect themselves first well it is asking them to do that because it's and it's also but it holds both sides accountable it does holds us accountable it aligns that was part was brought up is it aligns with what we have in our board and my answer another answer for me is you must file a formal complaint that is how you handle this yeah which is

217that's what the polic but no a formal complaint to the board sure using policy 9130 right well but then we have contrary language in 3112 so you know because it's saying you can do that it says it doesn't this procedure is not intended to deny any staff member blah blah blah through established procedures when no resolution is reached by by the administration that's why1 made the statement maybe we just need to cross reference 9130 yes so there there is a formal channel right that they're not this doesn't look like a total Stonewall yeah for my policy committee colleagues I'm curious what the legal guidance is there's two core cases cited That's Unique for a policy that raises the question for me what legal issues have emerged that by not having this policy in place might

218we be inviting we did ask that if it does come to a formal hearing the board member could be accused of bias it looks like both First Amendment cases and then the second one is the one I said that was most aligned with the actual School District yeah the other one was like a yeah like a criminal law case but this other the second second one talks about that that School District staff can have opinions and like speak to but under but but within the policies as set up by the school district so the school district can have a policy like this and that people need to follow but that policy as we've been trying to parse here is not um strictly limiting a a staff member being able to pursue Pro problem or speak

219up so I think it's finding those words Jason so um I I think I would I like I like how Mr Meer put it I I don't like that failure to do so may result in employee discipline I think that's too hard out of the gates and also down in C and I think maybe Liz this is what we were touching on a little bit um I also don't like the I don't know the the second half of that first sentence they will informally discuss matters such as so on and so forth I mean that to me looks like a potential First Amendment issue there too like why how does this board have the authority to tell the employees and the board member like um what what they must as I'm reading it as this

220is what you're allowed to talk about in in a is the word informally that's the emphasis there if you think about that as rather than formally so if you meet into those conditions you're you're not discussing formally the following things but I want to that in language that's just my yeah okay yeah that's how I read it as well Dr Worley that it would be it's like it's basically like if I saw you at a party I could ask you if you're a Roosevelt teacher I could ask you hey how are things over at Roosevelt going but I couldn't but you want to keep it like you're keeping it Loose you're not saying I'm a board member you're a staff member tell me what's happening with the principal I need to know what's going on

221in that building I think that's where this this comes to that place to give protection for that checks and balances so that way we don't run into that I said because I think in our district in our community period I think that's what gets weaponized in there is that when we go places anywhere we don't know what capacity we're going even we're going out there in a social capacity we walk in as friends and neighbors but people when they see us come in you're automatic you're you're on the job there's no off switch there's no build there's no business hours so everything that comes to you that said and Mr Myers's point there I don't want that and I direct people very cleanly based on our policy on there said because there's well Mr W

222here there's a reason I don't go to coffee shops as much as I used to because every place in every video becomes official place of Schoolboard business I had it two weeks ago at Junior raer night to the other side of the gym so to avoid those conversations that'll still come up I so because people see they know who we are and they want to go and engage very specific things even though we don't have that nry in out but we can listen we can always listen but using the proper channels and having checks and balances so they don't keep going around and going away from the building principal or Administration or directly to the superintendent puts us in a position where they tell us too much and then it's well you didn't do anything

223about this the way that I thought you would and now there's bias when something happens on the other side because now you're in a tussle between what was said but was done informally versus going through formal channels that's interesting so in essence we shouldn't view 3112 as limiting conversation in some ways is protecting you as as board M that's what we talked about at the policy yeah so if you go to the red and white event and someone push you to the side and like I don't like that coach 112 can be utilized to say I hear you I don't want to to to chill your conversation but here's the process that you should utilize to express it but when you position yourself as the Arbiter and the the per you insert yourself in that

224that chain of communication that that puts you in a bad position it puts the organization in a bad position but it's not you're right I mean we can clearly um massage some of this language I I I agree with the the chill of failure to do some may result in in point I agree with the social interaction component and making that more General but the but overall the purpose of 3112 is to just clearly help again I'll be and I'm sorry for for sing in so so much on this it's to address some of the cultural issues that we've been dealing with in the district right now um and and it is it's been hurting uh people um so that that's the the logic behind the and it doesn't stop someone from saying I want

225to talk to you as a parent or I want to talk to you as a community member so someone is in those multiple roles just like we as board members know that we need to say I'm speaking as a school board member or I'm not speaking as a Schoolboard member there's this you know call for clarification I I meet with staff members who are also parents in our district a lot and and ask them I'm you you are not going to have to deal with the retaliation from the person that you're speaking to you you you have the right to wear your parent hat if you have that hat on um but what I try to clarify for people was that if you then start moving into the category of I'm also you can't you

226can't have Duality I guess is the point if you're coming to speak as a parent then speak as a parent but then you can't make the pivot and say and also as a community member um I'm looking over at my colleague here Dr marble is a parent in the district and there are times where she has come to me as a parent I don't talk I I and we have this conversation where I I say time out Nicole you're I'm talking to you as Nicole Marvel the parent not the chief academic officer and she she respects that division uh we just need everyone to do that um so I appreciate this I just I um I'll conclude by saying I think I I I just I'm seeing some of the hurt in our culture in

227terms of not having some level of clarity around how we communicate with one another it's not to it's not to put a chill on any one that that is clearly not the case and if that if some of the language needs to be massage we should do it but it is there is also a level of ambiguity and confusion with communication that it would be helpful if we can work thank you we've taken some notes we will bring it back um we want to pause I know that we've got a 10 o'clock we want to stop where we are right now okay bring bring the rest of the back the next board agend I can't stay late so good we've got a yeah section as well I I make that suggestion recognizing yeah one of

228the just on that note one of the things that Dr means has said a few times and I would throw this out to and leave this also up to you Eric to think about um we could we have a lot of extra meetings which is why I've kind of resisted it but we could look a little bit later in the spring at like just the policy meeting you I think you would enjoy the process a little bit more it was just one meeting that you knew was focused on policy and we could just really hone in on challenge we're focus on is that where there's already policies that we've done last year that we now need to redo again and we're not even through the whole group yet so we need to get all the

229way through get caught up to like 2020 2023 and then from there it should drop off a little bit and the challenge to Dr Worley point is and you have so many extra meetings that you already have on the agenda it's just it's another another challenge for sure thank you I will look at probably somewhere uh second half April for that meeting [Laughter] I know we have a couple a couple candidates who are online who were with us to see if they getting a b c do it early future future board um if the policy committee has any dates you'd like to um I'd certainly entertain that I I agree that um it's hard to many of these policies are minor changes and some are meteor and deserve our our review um it is 9:48

230p.m may have a motion to adjourn into executive close session it is recommended that the school board adjourn in post session person uh to Wisconsin statute 1985 parents one parents C considering employment promotion compensation or performance evaluation data of any Public Employee over which the governmental body has jurisdiction or exercises responsibility specifically to review the superintendent's completed evaluation and I assume I have a second thank you Mr please call the r Mr Morris yes Dr Ho yes Mr wer yes Dr yes M her Rolland yes Mr merer yes Dr Dinger yes I hope