001okay we're now live thank you all for being here at our regular board meeting uh I call the August 26 2024 school board meeting to order it is 5:00 pm we are in conference room C of the Fisher Administration Building at 12121 West North Avenue Miss Summers please call the r Mr Morris excused Dr Ho yes Dr Worley here miss Rolland here Mr Meyer here Dr Joseph anger here and we do have quum this evening uh we will begin with an opportunity for public Comon members of the wall withf the 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
002requests that individuals limit their comment on each item to three minutes following any comment an individual board member May respond on the issue raised however is not the intent of public comment portion of the agenda for the board to enter into debate with a member of members of the community because non-agenda items are not publicly posted in advance no action will be taken on on public comment regarding non-agenda items this evening uh we've got 30 minutes at the outset set aside for public comment uh Dr Wy can I ask you to do the three minute timer and Jenny can you do the overall 30 minute timer um and then Dr will if you can let folks know when there about 30 seconds left uh when we want to wrap up uh I'll start with any
003public comment we have this evening in the room so I'm really said about the revelations that over a year-long period we were spending more money than we had budgeted for and somehow no one noticed I'm upset because it was occurring at exactly the same time as Administration officials were touring the district to ask community members to raise taxes on themselves to entrust the public schools I'm upset because these Revelations happened at the same time as teachers are learning that their health insurance premiums are rising in such a way that it'll affectively be calling back much needed raises that the district has given them I'm glad to have Mr eer on board his explanation of the budgeting discrepancy makes sense to me and his plans to do things differently ought to prevent this kind of problem
004again in the future I'm glad that the board has clarified for the media and the community that no one covered up this mistake and that we went public now rather than waiting for confirmation from an external audit after the referendum vote commendable but about that referendum vote I am of the opinion that it absolutely must pass especially the operating referendum if anything and I know Mr eer is working on this the recent Revelations mean we have likely lowall ourselves and that 64.4 million that the district is asking for won't go as far as projected if anything we need the referendum more than we thought we did having to cram ourselves within our Revenue limit number will mean severe reductions a steeper drop in our spending than we thought it would we in this community as
005a whole whether we like it or not need this referendum to pass we cannot afford to underspend our neighboring districts by thousands of per pupil we may as well put up Billboards all up and down the interstate saying we're cool with being the Miami Marlins of the Milwaukee Metro districts people make a lot of noise about leaving the district if the referendum passes but I don't think anyone is prepared for the scale of the Exodus if it fails the largest barrier to passing a referendum has always been the community's abysmal level of confidence in the district's financial management obviously this doesn't help I would like to see the district take immediate steps not only to correct its internal budgeting and reporting procedures as Mr eer is already doing but to actively build faith in the
006community the board ought to establish standing advisory and oversight committees made up of community volunteers one for the administration in general and one for finances in particular so that emergeny issues can be addressed right away rather than mingering and poisoning the well the district needs to be absolutely clear and proactive in its Communications in putting out correct information about its plans and in addressing any misunderstandings around the community installing guard rails around budgetary procedures and Reporting is a good step but it's also the absolute minimum District leadership needs to be worthy of the community's trust and it needs to show the community that it is and it needs to do that now thank you good timing thank you hello my name is concerned wosa citizen I am here tonight with a Midwest nice smile on
007my face not asking not demanding but a step just below demanding that a forensic audit is initiated within the waos school district I believe this is the only way we are going to be able to build trust in this community let us not forget that the motto started by the school board is trust but verify this was started by former School Board member Leanne fry when she was vice president and Eric Jess Banger was was pres was President let us not forget that the recent survey done Citywide of residents showed that only 33% of wossa residents felt the district is doing a good job with managing finances this cannot be the external audit that's done yearly that is not enough of a deep dive into the finances and practices of this District it cannot solely
008be the information shared by our new CFO who is now an empy toy of the district this must be an independent investigation Schoolboard policy 9140 should also be enacted so that a citizen advisory committee can be formed to point out some of the areas that should be looked at in a forensic audit we had an indepth investigation by Amanda St hir on the Scandal involving avot and what was it100 100 million plus payouts and wasted money on that what about the payouts to the former CFO she may know something and could be interviewed so that we can make sure that we can trust what we're learning this also must include the SR funding that the wosa school district received we need to see how particularly the sr3 funds requiring 20% expenditures and certain populations of
009students to include those with disabilities with spent speaking of those with disabilities we also need to investigate the 2018 referendum and how that was spent on Ada issues we've already established here is the document telling the community by this Mr Morris brought this up live in a in a board meeting and that this is the document telling how our money would be spent I pointed out there are discrepancies there are things on this document from 2018 referendum money that show up on the 2023 8 facility assessment I want to correct myself I said the Fisher Building but indeed it is the monor building so um we need to look at this in order to have any trust I've already expressed that I feel the language on Ada in the facilities referendum I've already shared this
010nobody should trust that language they should not that's not even language used in the law um okay let's see here why were we informed on or not we the public was not informed until August 22nd of the issues with the the district okay well so in conclusion the only way people can move forward in this community to trust what is happening is a forensic audit we must trust trust because it has to be verified Barb Shaner concerns Citizen and taxpayer no I don't have kids but I care about all of yours so I'm going to be here and call this out I said in this room talking about not raising the limit on spending before scrutiny in the school board uh for individual expenditures it was deemed to be expedient to raise that limit without
011oversight in hindsight I think that was a poor decision because here we are with the elephant on a dining room table and the elephant's rather rotten uh looking at Mr ecker's work I thank him for his wonderful work as far as digging into this it's a horribly uncomfortable subject I would formally ask request this board and I will be requesting my legislators for a forensic oversight from the state as I I know this happened with uh mpfs uh there is a contract with an accounting firm already in place that would likely not result in charges for the wossa school district but I believe that it's in the best interest of the school board of the district and of Mr Rec's work to offer a second set of eyes that may have additional insight as well
012as uh uh suggestions for solution I find it reprehensible that I see money spent 11,000 on furniture 50,000 on offices I want our kids educated I want our teachers looked after and paid accordingly so that we have quality education uh it is not anti referendum it is calling for accountability so that we spend that money responsibly and looking at Ada issues we're bringing that up in a second referendum really that was the whole point of the first referendum I was told I opposed access for disabled kids absolutely a lie but you know we got to do a false equivalency when we don't have valid points to stand on I wore a brace I was one of those disabled kids how dare you so I want those kids to have disabled access they should have had
013it already we shouldn't be asking far down the road for something that was already paid for by the taxpayers and we can do better in this school district and I would ask for that for to audit formally please hi my name is Kristen Hagen I'm a parent of four kids two of whom are at Washington two will be there later um I'm here for them um I've been hearing the statements made tonight and kind of following along the many comments on various online forums that have been kind of floating back and forth lately um and I'm really happy to see that the majority of our community kids or no kids we all seem to agree on quite a lot um first it's clear that we all really care about and want what's best for our
014kids and our teachers and we also expect accountability and transparency from our District administration and School Board I've seen many though opposing the upcoming referenda questions based on the recent budget developments calling for accountability first referendum later my sincere question for the people shouting that particular battlecry is given what we know that our district needs needs funding how does a failed referendum benefit anyone especially the kids teachers and community that we all claim to want the best for how would a failed referendum benefit our kids a failed referendum will mean cuts to programming our kids enjoy increased class sizes and backward progress in terms of behavior and social emotional support that we've gained how would a fill referendum benefit our teachers many have already pointed out the teachers are already unfairly bearing the burden of
015these budget issues that we have and this is only going to get worse with a failed referendum teachers will be expected to do even more with even less and as someone pointed out online why would teachers continue to stay here if teachers are already leaving our district and if morale is already low how is a failed referendum going to improve any of those circumstances how is a failed referendum going to benefit our community people move to these communities like I did in part for the schools strong schools increase property values they make communities Thrive they attract families and businesses it's all the same ecosystem and if that starts to deteriorate it's just as much as a deterrent to new families coming in as our greater taxes and let's just say that changes are precipitated on
016the board and our Administration what can a new Administration and board do without funds no matter who's at the helm we need funding to run a district if we say no to the upcoming referendum questions we're backed into a corner and we're going to be forced to make cuts that are no doubt going to adversely affect our teachers and our kids so let's say yes and push for some more accountability and transparency if we all claim to care so much about our kids teachers in our community let's vote like it thanks my name is Kate Bertram uh 38-year resident in the district 21e homeowner and taxpayer it was an unfortunate an unfortunate accounting error it was a bad budget it was a human error something fell through the cracks this is what we've heard this
017week due to an egregious accounting error when Keith Brightman was brought into the role taxpayers were told of his great depth of experience and that would serve TOA well now Brightman is being blamed I'm questioning was it lack of oversight or did he stop using micr offic Cel formulas don't lie but formulas and cells can be manipulated it's not a surprise blame is placed on someone who's left the district that's too easy and when the district reported that only 33% thought you all were managing funds appropr appropriately in a good or great manner they were Bamboozled at even 33% of that thinking accounting errors have no room in school districts and they have no room on any other board or any other business in the world I'm asking today for a private external audit of
018the accounting worksheets this flawed math brings extreme pause and concern by the taxpayers and we would be irresponsible to conduct anything without so it's not about question one or two collectively to answer your question it's about a budget that we can't trust from the top and that's what we're asking for is let's start with an audit to ask questions let's support the teachers and the students with an operating budget that we know we can trust the numbers thank you my name's Kathy Campbell I've been a resident for 43 years and a taxpayer and what's disheartening to me is to hear people think this is new and we moved here because of the school system and it has not been that school system in years and the other thing is to financially I read the audits
019that were done the last couple of days and in the footnotes for the last three years it has talked about that the district hasn't been doing financial statements you've deferred it to the company to do it the auditor and they've asked it to be done here in the school district and that they weren't being reviewed on a monthly basis and they suggested that too so it's not just what happened a couple of months ago or whatever that's being revealed this has been an ongoing issue that has been neglected as part of what the Auditors recommended so I too am asking for accountability and with that accountability I don't know who's on the finance committee I should say I did look but I just hope some of them are accountants and that they understand what needs
020to be done because a few people that I know out hand um I know they're not and it's a a big budget and some of these oversight should have been caught if if you're looking at a monthy financial statement you're supposed to be looking for variances too so there was a big miss here again not just this year I I'm just was in awe reading this going this is three years in a row in the footnotes that the district was asked to do something about this so I am for the kids I am someone who says accountability first there is money being taken out of the fund balance we were told for this next year but it's also in four years we're going to be back at the referendum because the costs are recurring teacher
021salaries teacher health care I'm all for them having that but we need accountability first and then we can get a good budget and I'm also want the board to be a 15 seconds thank you my name is Nikki Eder and I'm a waa parent I've got one child at Longfellow and another at East and I'd like to share a statement from yes toosa kids that we shared with our supporters recently yes to TOA kids is a Grassroots organization of parents and community members that is independent of the school district and School Board we shared the community's Deep concerns about the budgeting errors that led to the recent discovery of the district's operating budget shortfall is even larger than expected cutting even more into the district's Financial reserves based on last uh last week's finance committee
022meeting of materials the district's new Chief Financial Officer has shown that he's committed to rectifying the errors improving transparency and procedure going forward and has a plan to account for the overage though an overspend is never desirable we're encouraged that the spending was all appropriate and improved the prompt remedial action that the new CFO has taken is the type of measure that will enhance accountability and build confidence going forward and as we've seen tonight that's clearly vital with this budget analysis shows us is that it's even more critical to support our schools through the referend of this fall so that the forward momentum started this past year can continue the next year and into the future the plan to invest in our teachers and staff is showing results we learned this past week that it's
023more expensive than the district initially thought but the decision point for the community is the same as it has been for a community that values and invests in our public schools that is what truly is on the ballot this November hi Margaret Bri um just really disappointed in the budget issue that came out um my husband was on the task force which had been meeting for a year started a year ago and constantly asked for a budget and never got one and if he was asking why weren't any of the board members asking if they never saw a budget that's your responsibility to be a Fiscal Agent for our district and to your point um over here about accountability first before a referendum there's several things that have shown we need accountability starting with the
024budget starting with the um issue with the curriculum that it hadn't been updated for 10 years when you're supposed to be doing it every 3 years and the issue I don't know if it was West or districtwide but the calculation of the school hours that wasn't done properly there have been many instances where we need accountability we need to see changes at the district level not put the blame on the students or the teachers so until we can get our Act together here then let's look at a referendum but we're not ready hi um I'm new to the district since 2018 referendum passed um my daughter will go into uh senior kindergarten this year so we're invested for the long hole from here um my understanding is that the as a concerned parent the school
025referendum is needed now more than we expect than we expected it to be um I do have a question though about addressing the community's level of distrust in um in the in the board and in the district um I'm pleased to know that the funds over spent recently um acknowledged that um they were not for things outside of the required for staff students in the actual district there was nothing you know negatively um seen there however um passing the referendum is so important and I just feel like the level there might be a level of distrust in the community now that I would really like to be addressed through communication or availability of the board or other people to answer the questions that I'm seeing online me personally and within my friend friendship group we
026love the district we want to support the staff and students we know it's more vital now than it ever has been before um I am concerned that the outcome of a failed referendum will affect our children and our teachers and the I understand that we have questions about accountability but we have a responsibility to pass a referendum so that our staff and our district are able to have the means to be able to address the problems that are already occurring and that need our help now more than ever any final comment in the room this evening Jamie I don't see any hands online either my hands raised with that I'm gonna close public comment um but make a comment myself um I'm glad that the community is here you are demanding to know exactly what
027happened you're demanding that this should have never happened that it can never happen again and that we have to do all we can both in our systems that we have and our own accountability um in communicating in a completely transparent way what has happened everything that happens going forward to ensure that you are all completely confident in absolutely everything we do I completely agree with all that I'm glad you're demanding it and we will do everything we can to meet those expectations we are going to come back to this topic uh on an agenda item um later this evening uh where there will be some additional presentations significant information shared some statements from the board an opportunity for the board to ask questions um for now we are going to move into selection of a
028new board member we have three individuals who have put forward their documentation uh including resume uh notice of intent uh possible letters of recommendation and they two are here with us this evening and one is here virtually with us this evening um before this evening uh started uh Miss Julia Summers did a random draw uh with the candidates and the Order of which they will uh be able to questions and do presentations the following uh first is going to be Robert helig Second Jason wattier and third is our virtual candidate Leo Watley um board members I believe you should have questions in front of you uh Dr rley I'm gonna have you start with the first question for each candidate Mr President at this time I move that we this is a formal motion I
029move that we table this matter and the reason for that and I do this with a heavy heart that the board was informed on Wednesday August 21st that uh board members had requested legal counil provide a legal opinion on reorganization of Milwaukee public schools and wosa school district boundaries which is essentially a merger of part of MPS with what TOA schools no I do not want to be a part of this kind of private process so I believe that the board should agenda a vote to release this legal opinion to the public now because of how the board is operating I prefer that we don't make this selection tonight that we wait and let the voters elect the new member of seat 7even that's all I have to say I would say Mr Meyer I
030have not been involved in any of those discussions or requests or conversations sir you are board president and access to legal legal services is managed by you so I don't understand how this happened without you knowing about it I will take you on your word if you didn't know about it the extent of anything I knew is that there was board member curiosity about the top well we have paid money for this while we're cutting health care benefits for teachers maybe and okay I can handle whatever topic we choose to talk about but there's all kinds of talk here at the microphone now about transparency and what this board is doing and they're been rumors over the years about some wild proposal to merge MPS in wossa schools and it was always said well that's
031silly that's silly well folks we have a legal opinion now addressing the question and I think we need transparency and release it to the public and I think this directly relates to referendum question number two which is the capital referendum we have two referendum questions one for operations to pay salaries that's a different question from the capital referendum to maintain nine elementary schools so we have a capital referendum to maintain nine elementary schools while somebody on the board wants to know about for whatever reason we don't know because there is no transparency here about why would we want to bring on part of MPS into wosa my response Mr Mar would be I have no concerns releasing any information that legal counsel I have not seen any of this information I was not party to
032making any specific request um I don't necessarily see the connection between that item and the selection of a board member who will carry out this term okay so the illegal opinion was provided to the full board on Wednesday and you say you haven't seen the opinion I'll be honest I have not read that yet okay and I and the the problem is secret operations and Trust so how many people have asked me whether this selection of the replacement board member is rigged whether it's been pred decided because people are suspicious of our processes this does not help um there is a motion on the floor I will entertain a second with no second that motion do thank you you want me to say anything I was wondering could I I ask a question Mr Meer
033were you at the retreat last board retreat or we were at um here Wilson no it was the elementary school it was the elementary school were you there with us no I wasn't able to be there and you held it in a room with um limited um seating for the public and you also did not live stream the meeting so no I wasn't there I didn't think it was appropriate to operate it like that for example um that's how we've always done board Retreats and there were members of the public there okay what does this have to do with my motion that has now failed and it's not up for discussion anymore um what are you suggesting here that you had some planning to merge MPS during that meeting happy to answer my recollection is
034that we were doing some brainstorming about the dropping residential numbers at a time when a lot of community members wanted to see all of our elementary schools stay open so I don't even remember who it was but somebody in on the board or maybe a few people said well there are some communities in which the um the residency in a certain city does not always match school districts and so we said oh that's really interesting I know for myself I didn't know that there were cities that set up that way so that then ensued in a question of would there be some many there are many streets um in around Wawatosa where in fact there's a Street near my house where four of the houses are wossa and the rest are Milwaukee and so that
035ensued in a conversation of we were sure that the people who owned those houses would have to be the ones to come to some conclusion about whether they wanted to switch districts but was that even something they could consider and so my understanding is that was you know something that we at that time in that room talked about wanting to learn more and one of the things we would have to learn more in order to do anything else about that was is it even something that could be practiced between these two cities in Wisconsin and the legal opinion that we received was that it can't and that that is not something that we can pursue Dr worle I may yeah please um that's what I remember as well wait wait excuse me when was that
036meeting that you say and I missed I know I missed it when was it I just know I drove here and it was over there okay well why wasn't the opinion released to the board until Wednesday August 21st of 2024 why not why wasn't it released to the full board why did not I not know anything about that actual legal opinion I don't so if I'm if I may um Dr rley that's my what I how I remember the situation as well and I was asked to get more information on it I did not feel comfortable just giving my personal opinion so I saw legal a legal opinion and I think the retreat was actually in February feary um and and handedly it was not a priority considering all the other things that we had
037in the district um we eventually were able to work with legal counsel because it took them some time to research it as well they finally completed their research and as soon as I received their completed report I sent it to the entire board I just didn't share it with one person I shared it with the the full board okay so you understand that there's a theory out there now that the board knows that we don't have have enough resident students to keep Jefferson School open yet we have a referendum question number two to um do deferred maintenance on Jefferson School and therefore we're going to put taxpayer referendum money from this November vote in the Jeff Jefferson School and lo and behold after we have the money we fixed up the building now so whatever
038this like it has a bad appearance folks it looks like we're planning something for later February 10 I looked at February 10th by the way thank you February 10th and Mr Mar I think for for someone who's a skeptic that what you just shared is absolutely true and I I mean it's it's the board's um document so you have to decide if you want to release it um publicly or not but even if there were board members who wanted to pursue that theory the legal opinion shared that it can't happen legally it is not plausible I think what Dr rley shared was there was curiosity from some board members because wosa and Milwaukee is one of those unique communities two Comm unique communities where they they border one another but the legal opinion clearly stated
039that since Milwaukee is a city of the first class there's no way that uh there's any opportunity to take a portion of that community and include it into W okay now I've read the legal opinion I cannot in any way shape or form speak to the content of the legal opinion because it's privileged unless the board votes to release it I note here though that some two three years ago I as a board member was told we had a legal opinion that the Avid purchase was ethical and I trust it and lo and behold when you read the opinion later you go uhoh this is not good so I think I you know I wish I could say I agreed with the opinion or that it was makes sense that the idea is ridiculous or
040it's a good ide but I can't say anything about the opinion now sure because it's not in public so I think we owe it to people who are going to vote November 2nd on referendum question two that the board as soon as is practical at the next regular meeting agenda of vote to release this opinion and then then whether it's a Kur fuffle all to do about nothing or whether it's something then people can form their own opinion about that but right now without it being released it just has this non-transparency feel again and and I go well here we go again you know the way to be transparent is to be transparent and so that's my advocacy here that's all this is about and like I said I do this with a heavy heart
041but and so that's thank you for hearing me I Mr Meer my my struggle is in the way that you present these pieces of information or your concerns in that it becomes an accusation regularly becomes an accusation against the board that something nefarious has happened regular what regular what why did you pay me $132,500 because nothing was going on P and suffering for your mental anguish I'm not going to speak to that because that you are speaking to it because you're saying regularly here you're saying ask irresponsible behavior I'm going to ask for order right now there was a motion we did not take it up Mr Meer if you'd like to request that as an agenda item I still request thank you um he has a question Dr just is there an opportunity for
042the board to make a motion tonight to vote to release the the legal opinion I should be talking about this you're not aenda to do with it has nothing to do with the person being on the board either which is part of our policy so because I don't think there's anything in that we should release it as soon as possible so I just I I would just urge the board utilize Robert's Rules of Order find a way to release the information as soon as possible because as the board memb stated there's nothing nefarious or uh any any plan um that I'm aware of that that is associated with that legal opinion I I in my role I was simply following up on a on a curiosity for board members and I wanted it to be
043factual and so I didn't want it to be what the superintendent thought we had a legal opinion provided but I also understand and respect Mr Meyers uh concern and let's put it on the table I mean the and and let's let the the the the sunshine of transparency be the disinfectant that we all need so as soon as we can get that out there I think the the better we will all be served maybe we should schedule as soon as possible a meeting so it's on the agenda so people can have notice if I think you can do it today Rob well you have to I think I'd rather just make sure we have the not po it that's fine I I have no concerns about as I shared before I have not even had
044a moment to review that it's not on my radar and so I'd be happy to release that to the public um I agree I think it should be I think that it's certainly something that is available and should be available I don't think anyone ever intended it to not but it's pretty much as I agree but but also Dr rley do you not agree that we were in a brainstorming session our school our schools are in a dire position the community has looked to us to say figure out a way out of this we sat in a room for hours as we do all the time volunteering our time racking our brains to try to figure out how to get out of this position that we're in and then to be accused of things that
045are nefarious is just I'm so you have not been accused of anything I'm going to but I'd say did you do something that you're worried about being accused it no we have no problem it was I I absolutely agree that it was an response to a community the community wanting a better option than closing elementary schools and this has nothing to do with voting the next it has to do with trust and transparency and secret secret dealings of the board because it's not agend has nothing to doar colleagues colleagues appointing one of the three candidates I think it does have I think it does have everything to do with it oh shame on you for you who have called me a liar in the past shame you and shame on you Dr Hoy who has
046called me unethical in the past I am going to ask us to pause take a five minute recess and we will return to vote and hear from our possible new board colleagues um I was just asking if folks could if you want to continue conversations if you could step uh into the hallway that would be appreciated um I'm going to ask us to do better in terms of our decorum um in terms of my colleagues on the board uh for the remainder of the evening uh sometimes we are more formal sometimes we are less formal I would ask that you wait until I recognize you and call on you um I know we've often been good at that but we certainly have gotten away from that this evening uh from those in the audience uh
047I would ask that you uh refrain from um kind of loud commentary um and and let's be our best for everyone watching for our community um let's be our best selves for who our community is um I'm sure we can get there um we are returning to the opportunity for three individuals who are willing to take on uh a substantial role in responsibility as Community leaders and community volunteers um the board has a series of questions that was available in the packet at the time it was sent out all three of the board members as I shared before submitted information uh related to uh resumés possible letters of recommendation and a commitment to uh and a intent to serve on the board um we will this evening after hearing from each of them uh then
048have votes all of the votes are public uh and recorded with individuals names on them um and all of that is done and can able to be reviewed and requested as the community wishes um the individuals selected will then be immediately seated uh and take the oath of office that will be administered by Mr Meyer our board clerk um and we will then continue with the rest of the meeting um Mr Bob heling is our first candidate with us this evening you're welcome to come uh sit at the table or stand at the mic whichever you prefer I can stand San everybody hear me okay good good good evening I'm Bob hellig and I thank you for considering my appointment to the school board this board is facing many challenges and nobody knows that better
049than you my hope is to offer you my time and energy as a doer as a collaborator as a leader to help you make some important decisions I want to briefly share with you who I am and who I am not I've lived in wossa for nearly 30 years I have two adult daughters who attended TOA Public Schools I'm a Serial volunteer and a problem solver when people ask me what I do for a living I say I'm in the people business I enjoy working with other people to do great things my volunteer work has included 10 years as director of the wossa shock Youth Softball Club president of the wossa Council of PTA president of the TOA West PTA president of the Whitman Middle School PTA and treasurer of the Madison Elementary PTA I
050was also co-founder and director of the junior Trojans youth volleyball club I mentioned that not to sound like a do gooder but as someone who's been deeply involved and in a leadership position to get things done I'm not a crusader I don't come before this board with an agenda I'm not partisan I'm not a politician I'm focused on finding Solutions and working with others my background is in journalism I spent 20 years working as a reporter and editor at the Milwaukee Journal Sentinel and the Milwaukee Journal I'm trained to ask questions gather information and to communicate what I know also train to sweat the details most recently I worked for a company that gathers research on the employee workplace experience I understand High performing organizations and what workers need to achieve their best in short
051I'm offering myself to this board because your work is hard I can help this works very serious and requires laser focus attention if you were to ask me why I want to do this I would say because I want to Simply help good people make good decisions and I'm happy to answer your questions drle please help us understand how your background will expand the expertise of the board sure um as I mentioned I was deeply involved in tosa schools as a parent for 15 years as a PTA leader um very involved in the community especially Youth Sports I mentioned my background as a as a journalist background in workplace research and understanding how organizations work uh also served as a union president at the Journal Sentinel for 5 years and served on three bargaining committees
052and helped negotiate contracts there um I also have an appreciation for teaching having taught part-time at w Walker show thank you yeah Mr Meer no questions of all the things the wosa school district is responsible for what are the three that are most important to you I think the decisions I made will be through the lens of uh responsible use of tax dollars for everyone in the community we heard from some folks tonight who don't have kids in the in toasta schools right now but are very passionate about the decisions made here and I respect that um making sure we offer an exceptional education for our children and make making sure we're creating a thriving work environment for teachers and staff thank you uh commitment to diversity equity and inclusion is frequently identified by District
053stakeholders as a key priority how have you demonstrated such a commitment in previous work or volunteer experiences thank you um I'm a big proponent of diversity equity and inclusion for many reasons Chief among them is that it creates better organizational outcomes um companies committed to diversity equity and inclusion outperform those that don't I think on that basis alone Dei is incredibly important um the company I work for identifies companies that have strong Dei policies and I work with our Media Partners to share that information the shine of Spotlight on companies that are doing great work I think critics of Dei often don't understand how it works or what it means Chief among them people will refer to quotas or mandates when in fact Dei policy is really just a systematic way to ensure everyone has
054a chance at opportunities a chance to contribute and a chance to advance when faced with a controversial topic within the district Community how would you arive at your decision well things got a little uh spicy here tonight and what I can say is uh through my my leadership positions I've learned to focus on the issue focus on Solutions um it's not personal uh focus on the facts um listen we all have to be good listeners listen to hear and not just to respond um and make the best decisions we can I can't control how other people react I can only make the best decisions based on the information I had Dr will the wossa school board is a policy and governance board describe how you excuse me describe how you will balance being knowledgeable and
055contribute to oversight while allowing the superintendent to guide day-to-day operations and strategy implementation yeah the board establishes policy the administration carries out that policy and and oversees operations I thought a lot about this uh uh leading up to this meeting and it strikes me that outside of this room none of you have a lot of authority over stuff your Authority happens in here as a group it's a group process and so the board's power is as a collaborative group not as individuals so I Look to contribute to that collaboration Mr Mar do you want to read the next yes um please share what you find important in the board's Northstar and District strategic plan please also share have you reviewed the board bylaws policies and ethical standards and are you committed to following them uh
056very importantly in those last questions yes absolutely um follow those to the letter um regarding the the Northstar uh objectives um I believe in them they make sense um obviously we're all here committed to academic achievement supporting our Educators and holding ourselves uh accountable absolutely thank you Mr H any final questions from my colleagues in the board um what's something that you can say that um has made you proud um as a wosa resident in terms of uh accomplishments from the school district in that school year you know I'm proud how passionate people are about our schools and our community I'm proud of of all the the voices we've heard here tonight that we can be together in a room and hash out some of these issues and and hopefully leave here better for it
057um I want to do this and there's space for you to give an a closing statement uh just thank you for listening and uh I hope to have the chance to work more closely with each of you thank you thank you um our second candidate uh that is here with us tonight Jason watch here and again you're welcome to sit down or stand can you hear me okay all right so I've uh Rewritten most of what I'm going to say uh in order to keep uh myself on task and also to uh be able to just say what I it is I want to say um I'd like to start off just saying how much respect I have for all of you the ti tireless legely often underappreciated investment you've made in the community I
058don't say that like lightly either that compliment that comes from a place of trying to put myself in your shoes to better understand the challenges that you face if I'm candidate um and you've read my reasons for applying for this position you will know that I made several assumptions based on my past experiences and frustrations after the 2021 2022 school year um for anyone who didn't read it the short of it is that we did not see eye to eye with the district ultimately my wife and I decided to withdraw our daughter from Whitman we moved to a small specialty school practicing an emotional social Project based learning model this model is designed for kids with higher support needs including a focus on the support of emotional regulation and accessibility these were the two things
059that we saw that the district was lacking as as a whole at that time however over the last few weeks I've gained A New Perspective and appreciation for what the board Dr means the task force and the other community members have done uh it kind of just blew my mind when I thought about it I can decisively say that I could see in real time all the reasons that we had left the district have been the core issues you have taken on since we have left left the district I'm not an educator but I've taken as many steps as I could to educate myself after deciding to apply I didn't want to be a resource train but rather a valuable asset to the board to serve this board effectively I knew I needed more re
060a more recent frame of reference I needed the context and the background as if I've been involved the whole time so off to the internet I went and uh I dug into the district website board docs and more importantly the YouTube channel I arbitrarily picked the first of the year of 2024 um fast forward roughly 40 hours of recorded content and countless pages of reports studies surveys and dashboards later it truly did humble me um like I said I kind of got to see it all unfold in real time to State you've had a busy winter and a spring would be a vast understatement likely even more so given the current information from the last finance committee meeting I attended I'm sure you've had an influx of negative attention put toward you it's a reminder
061of just how thick skin someone needs to be to hold on to this position so from the bottom of my heart thank all of you your job is to make hard decisions based on the information presented to you I've made a career out of critical thinking challenging the status quo and asking questions when someone something feels off in the business World being the leader of a team that identifies optimizes and develops solutions for real world problems which often closely relate to financial systems and processes I hope to be able to bring some of that here thank you thank you we'll now move to some questions from the board Dr thank you if you could please help us understand how your background will expand the expertise of the school board um I think my background will
062help the school board because I because I bring in an outside perspective from the private sector um a lot of of the especially the financial and the and the budgeting um those come a lot in my day-to-day duties at work um I've done IRS audits I've done um some forensic accounting um while I'm not an expert at it I do bring some of that background in and I think right now um that's Sly needed Mr Mar of all the things the wossa school district is responsible for what are the three that are most important to you so I kind of took this question a little lit early and I picked um from the numbered list so I put engaging listening interpreting the needs of the community uh as number one and my response to that
063is my written statement to the board shows how important it is to listen to advocate for and Supply mental health physical and most importantly emotional support for all the students to be a whole person one must give attention to all three aspects we need to focus on more attent more of our attention on emotional regulation and support I continue to learn through my own life experiences that we cannot have and maintain high levels of both mental and physical performance without ensuring emotional support and accommodation number two was uh consistently and strategically planning for the short-term and long-term needs uh the long-term goals strategies uh should reflect the goals of the students and their families as well as uh other community members of course um and to support that the student as that whole person that
064is My Philosophy I've done my best to learn as much as I can about the current strategic plan I've watched all those meetings I've I've started to learn about the the tosa 2025 task force I've done everything I could in the time Al audit so while summarizing the key information from that plethora of documentation has been a challenge um I will continue the commitment to educating myself I'm open to advice and information from others more knowledgeable about where we are where our strengths lie and where we're falling short my ability to learn quickly and Orient myself on technical projects I think will help me adapt and lastly number three reviewing prioritizing and adapting the annual budget um this goes hand inand with the strategic planning the short-term needs uh May often change as we're all
065aware right now and um we have to adapt and be able to set up for long-term success uh I have already begun to read and analyze the 2024 budget and uh Mr ecker's released internal Financial audit thank you a commitment to diversity equity and inclusion is frequently identified by District stakeholders as a key priority how have you demonstrated such a commitment in previous work or volunteer experiences well I feel that throughout my career which was Prim which was and has been primarily focused on being a technical and process oriented leader I gravitated towards focusing on the needs of the project stakeholders in this case it's the community we represent you can't have a successful project if you don't take the stakeholders needs in mind first my experience and commitment to this can be seen by
066those who know me personally the way I parent how I treat others in my neighborhood and importantly the grace I've learned to give when I don't immediately agree with somebody and even when I do to disagree I believe respect a calm demeanor and empathy can go a long way thank you when faced with a controversial topic within the district Community how would you arrive at your decision I would do exactly what I did with my opening statement in the time that I had since submitting I'd gather information listen to community members and examine the topics through others eyes then based on the data the facts the sentiment available I would make the most informed decision is possible simply applying the knowledge available can fundamentally alter someone's perception and de decision-making strategy that's where I'm at
067right now um I have a very fundamentally different perspective than I did just a few weeks ago with with the proper education if something falls out of my area of expertise I'll seek out the opinions of other board members and any industry professionals that I may know um on that topic thank you the W joa School Board is a policy and governance board describe how you will balance being knowledgeable and contribute to oversight while allowing the superintendent to guide day-to-day operations and strategy implementation in my profession I've helped guide and create policies for both small and large businesses I can draw on the knowledge as a a solid foundation to make the right choices look to existing policies and precedents when available and help formulate new policies and guidance when needed I believe in the
068power of Delegation and allowing people the freedom to enforce policy while holding the superintendent accountable if the policy and governance recommendations are not followed also a realist all problems typically fall under what I call the good fast cheap triangle we have to pick two of those things maintaining all three is not sustainable and I think that's what's been done for quite a while it's how I describe um why we absolutely need to get those referendums passed previous board iterations I'm guessing have prioritized the good in the fast by deferring building and Facilities cost down the road to keep the budget balanced we need to get out of that practice I'm not sure how we do it but I believe that's the way forward thank you and the last question from this list please share what
069you find important in the board's North Star and the district strategic plan also please share have you reviewed the board bylaws policies and ethical standards and are you committed to following them so just briefly I I I do believe in those same principles they're up on the wall I've seen them and read them countless times um it just makes sense focusing on obtaining and retaining excellent Educators uh it's really the same as what we do in in the private sector employee retention um all of these things translate exactly to what we strive for out out in the business world as well um for the Strategic plan I have read it I agree with its its spirit I expect to be directed to the uh proper interpretation of the current kpis there was a lot of
070dashboards a lot of spreadsheets a lot of information that um it's just going to take some time to settle in and um you know I'll need to know how to properly interpret uh what I'm looking at and as far as the bylaws policies and ethical standards I have read them and will abide by them thank you any final questions from I'll just ask the same question what's something that's happened in the last school year that's made you proud to be wos residents um really just uh watching and seeing the residents come together um I live in the Sheridan law uh neighborhood and one of my neighbors um Works closely with the es for toosa kids um I've consulted with him and and just kind of gotten General philosophy and just to see that Grassroots movement
071go from zero to where it is right now and hopefully continues to push through to help get the referendum passed um I want to be a part of that you have an opportunity for a closing statement as well all right so uh short closing statement in closing giving the timing of the vacancy and our situation I feel my most important roles will be to listen learn more about about the pressing issues become more familiar with the parliamentary procedures support other board members and to ultimately uh properly Orient myself to confidently run and maintain the board seat in the spring 2025 election thank you it was appreciated that you put your name forward and that you here with us tonight um our final individual is joining us virtually uh if we could make sure that we've
072got her up on the screens and highlight it please that later okay Le Watley uh okay yes outstanding thank you for being with us tonight um you can begin with an opening statement hello everyone my name is Leah Watley I am a proud mother of a middle school student at Whitman Middle School I am a small business owner as well as an educator I've always loved wossa and I'm grateful to have purchased my first home here as an active parent and Community member I'm passionate about staying engaged and helping Foster a strong supportive environment for our children and our neighbors I look forward to continuing to contribute to the Vibrant Community that makes wos is such a special place thank you very much we will now ask a series of questions Dr Worley yes thank
073you please help us understand how your background will expand the expertise of the board my background as a passionate parent a educator and a child care provider uniquely equips me for the to contribute to the board's expertise having had my son in the district I'm driven to represent all parents particularly those who want to be more engaged but may face barriers in doing so my experience in special education and child care allows me to bring a vital perspective and advocate for families who need additional support additionally serving as the vice president of the PTA At Whitman has provided me with firsthand insights into the daily needs of our students and our families thank you Mr of all the things the wossa school district is responsible for what are the three that are important to you
074um and not in any particular order but student services ensuring that all students regardless of ability have access to support they need to succeed is my top priority equity and education should be at the Forefront making sure that every student especially those with disabilities receive the quality education and resources they deserve my second is finance and budget responsible management of finances is essential to ensure that the district's resources are being used effectively to support both students and staff proper allocation allows the district to maintain programs services that directly impact students success third Human Resources having a strong team of well-qualified diverse staff is key to achieving the district's goals by recruiting and retaining top talent we can ensure that the needs of our students are met by passionate and skilled professionals who are dedicated to
075the success of every child thank you so your third question diversity Equity inclusion is frequently identified by District stakeholders is a key priority how have you demonstrated such a commitment in previous work indoor volunteer experiences in my career in volunteer work I have demonstrated a deep commitment to diversity equity and inclusion and accessibility as the owner of Childcare Center I fostered an environment that Embraces children of all backgrounds and abilities my role as a foster parent has also given me a unique perspective on the challenges faced by children from underserved communities reinforcing my dedication to providing Equitable Quick Care additionally I hold a special education license ensuring that children with diverse learning needs rece receive personalized support volunteering with the make a wish Foundation has further solidified my commitment to fostering inclusive supportive communities for
076all thank you when faced with a controversial topic within the district Community how would you arrive at your decision my primary goal would be to ensure that every voice is heard I believe in creating an inclusive environment where all stakeholders students parents teachers and community members have the opportunity to express their perspectives most importantly F would be promoting Unity amongst all stakeholders so that we can move our school district forward thank [Music] you the W chosa School Board is a policy and governance board describe how you will balance being knowledgeable and contribute to oversight while allowing the superintendent to guide day-to-day operations and strategy Implement implementation as a board member I would focus on setting clear policies providing strategic Direction and ensuring accountability while respecting the superintendent's role in managing daily operations I would stay
077informed on key issues ask thoughtful questions and support the superintendent's expertise in implementing the board's vision fostering a collaborative partnership thank you please share what you find important in the board's North Star and District strategic plan please also share you bylaws policies and ethical standards and are you committed to following them I sign the board's North Star and District strategic plan crew showing its emphasis on academic Excellence equity and Community engagement these elements in sure that all students have access to high quality education and the support needed to thrive while fostering strong Community Partnerships they all closely align with what I mentioned before human resource Finance student engagement it all supports each other yes I have reviewed the board bylaws policies and ethical standards and I fully committed to following them thank you Miss hmer
078Rollins would you like to ask your sure um what is something uh that you've seen in the last school year that's made you proud to be a wosa resident um last year the principal at Whitman uh decided to do something called a web and it's called where everyone belongs um my son is a part of that and it's something that she's working towards getting to the other schools this is a group of students who welcome any student that needs help any new students transferring in um who just need some assistance some guidance throughout the school I think that was such a a great idea because it made everyone feel welcom um especially the students I know my son was really excited about it and uh as was I um and also the physical altercation rate
079has dropped which created a safer environment for both teachers and students and I feel that that increases uction and fosters a better sense of belonging for all which then impacts positively on attendance and grades thank you yes thank you I'd like to add one more question um in reviewing your materials it's clear that you have a strong commitment to both business management um and you're working also in your master's degree um could you talk a little bit more about that decision to be um in both those sectors of business and education and how they come together for you so my uh Business Degree I went for that to start my own small business which is a child care center it's an inclusive child care center and that was so that I could gain knowledge on
080running my own business um with that I was also an educator and wanted to continue my knowledge um on education and also received my teachers license as well as uh special needs um those are things that I'm really adamant about is teaching so I wanted to make sure that I had all of the knowledge that I could with gaining my masters and I'll continue to go back to school until I'm learned everything that I can learn thank you thank you seeing no other questions um Miss Wally thank you so much for joining us uh for having me forward uh spending the time on your materials and being here with us tonight um my colleagues oh wait I was gonna say you have a chance for a closing statement as well um my closing statement would
081just be that I appreciate everyone who is on the board everyone who attends the board meetings and um speak strongly about their feelings and I I just I I like to hear that everyone is being heard and everyone is everyone's ideas is taken into consideration um that's something that was big for me was knowing that everyone would be heard and I just think that it's a great thing I think that you guys are doing a great job and I I thank everyone the parents the community and everyone for having me tonight thank you uh for my colleagues in the board uh we will have five minutes of opportunity for review of materials silent reflection uh and consideration and then we will have an opport begin votes a reminder uh each candidate uh there are six
082of us here this five of us here this evening uh so under normal circumstances you would have to have four I believe it's the majority as a board um but I will majority of the board so so the the candidate uh who receives three votes will be seated on the board um after the first round each candidate who receives at least one vote in the previous round will move forward to the next round Mr Meer so I'm just trying to follow what it says here it says here that candidate wins on receiving a majority vote of the existing board the existing board that is not the same as the board in attendance so the existing board is six members and then it goes on to say here that If no candidate receives at least four
083votes than any any candidate etc etc so our writing here says four votes am I misunderstanding what's written down here okay okay I'm just ask yeah and that's what it's articulated here I was also under the impression that it was the majority um yeah until I read this and then we could look it up on our policy uh during this moment of Time Dr me can you pull up this policy and we'll review it uh while we're doing that if the board can um review materials and consider your possible F before we p it's by toward St statute than 17 a vacancy in any elected elected vill office may be filled by by majority maity by by the remaining members [Music] should be think it should be for what everything that we're seeing is majority
084can you can you read this language to us please sir so everybody can hear it yeah um for my board colleagues we've uh reviewed our policy and we've reviewed State Statute um and so Dr me can you can you share read out the under statute 1726 of state law state stand and a common unioni or UniFi School District by appointment by the remaining members an appointee under this paragraph or sub shall hold the office until successor is elected in stes office under the the subsections of 12.06 and 12.42 so it references remaining members does say majority does not say majority remaining members and what does it say in policy I understand majority a a vacancy shall be filled by the remaining members of the board in accordance with 172 this majority the assist fine with
085four I'm fine with three or should okay so the candidate selected will be be four votes for those or we have another round questions so next step so what was the statutory number please 1726 so that and this was written with the assumption that there would have been six of us here yeah that's where l Mar yeah should just say majority Dr I don't believe there's additional questions that we have per sec that we're prepared we just have set of questions prepared one any analysis pardon me any analysis from what you're reading no I'm you need case citation and I don't have that here so colleagues do we want to go with majority which would be three or what state is would be for I we like to go that we'll go on for so
086to be selected to the board you'll need more V four votes okay um Miss Summers could you prepare the vs a reminder to my colleagues to sign uh these will be collected by Dr means and reviewed by Dr me in this and then shared of the community e my only comment is we wait is good luck to each of the candidates and thank you again for being M we have one vote for Miss Watley three votes for Mr wer and one vote for Mr helig we have one additional question all three candidates will continue to the second round um and Dr rley I'll ask you to answer the question and would the board be okay if we go in reverse order I think that makes sense order we'll start with Miss Watley Mr wat here
087so let's give Miss Watley a chance to miss a chance to come on and spotlighted perhaps again thank [Music] you Miss Watley based on what you've heard tonight is there anything else you'd like to [Music] add I would just like to thank you all for this opportunity and let you know that I am invested in this community my family my business my home and my son's education in this community I hope that I'm given the chance to contribute my many skills to the board as well as learning from you all and that is allk you next up is Mr wer Mr wer based on what you've heard tonight is there anything else you'd like to add yes um roughly 10 months ago uh almost to the day uh I was diagnosed with heart disease a
088few short uh days later I was in the O and uh had a triple bypass surgery fast forward um I'm happy that I'm recovered uh and it's making it's made me take stock in where I'm at in my life and one of the things that I realized was I've been really focused on my professional career but I have not given my fair share back in volunteer time so that is my primary reason for being here for my my personal reason for being here is to um give something back to the community and if it's not this that's okay um and I'll find something but that's my intent here thank you thank you Mr hellig Mr hellig based on what you've heard tonight is there anything else you'd like to add uh I just add you've
089got seems like three passionate people here seeking this seat appreciate the time you to consider this I think what I have to offer is someone who's uh passionate about uh working through problems and working collabor collaboratively to find Solutions and uh I would look forward to doing that uh on this board thank you thank you Mr M please can the vote count be read again with the first names this time so I'm sure I'm hearing it I think heard it correctly but my hearing isn't so good so if first names are in there then I'll be sure what the count was okay one vote for Robert hellig three votes for Jason wer one vote for Leah Watley okay thank you we'll have our second round of voting I we have zero votes for Leah Watley
090one vote for Robert helig and four votes for Jason wer Jason congratulations um if you can come on up um Mr Meyer will uh do the oath of office um Miss Watley and Mr hbig thank you very much for putting your names forward uh there will be for the community and for each of you um four seats up this spring election ironically I believe on April 1 um and if this is something you want to continue to pursue uh I would encourage you and others who want to be of service to the community to do so Eric I'd like to say how lucky our community is that we had three outstanding candidates for a seat that's going to have to not just be appointed tonight but run again and again so I just think it's
091fantastic I want to thank those who weren't appointed tonight for putting the time in and like you were saying I hope that you'll consider service to this board in the future I would say at the main microphone it's the standing microphone M maybe the mic everyone can hear that standing the standing one maybe over there then you can just pass it back I'll I Jason wer I Jason wer having been elected or appointed to the office of wosa school board seat number seven having been elected or appointed to the office of wossa school board member seat number seven but have not yet entered upon the duties thereof but have not yet entered upon the duties thereof swear or affirm that I will support the Constitution of the United States that I will s sorry swear
092or affirm that I will support the Constitution of the United States and the constitution of the state of Wisconsin and the constitution of the state of Wisconsin and will Faithfully discharge the duties and will Faithfully discharge the duties of said office to the best of my ability of said office to the best of my ability congratulations thank you we did Miss before you before you sign sir we did miss an order of operations okay I'm gonna ask Jenny I got a little excited to get you on on the board uh Jenny can you read the motion it is recommended that the school board select Jason wadier to fill the school board member seat number seven vacancy may have second second okay M Su please call the Mr Morris Dr Ho yes Dr Worley yes m
093ham Rolland yes Mr Meyer yes Dr Jess iner yes now congratulations well for good for should he read it again go forward you want to just read it straight out out right leave sure I Jason wer having been elected or appointed to the office of wossa school board member seed number seven but have not yet entered upon the duties thereof swear or affirm that I will support the Constitution of the United States and the constitution of the state of Wisconsin and will Faithfully discharge the duties of set office to the best of my ability thank yes but it doesn't have to be notorized because you're the clerk it does not have to be notorized because you're the clerk observing okay so do I yeah I see so but I I go [Music] um Mr wer
094we will following the meeting connect with you quickly and share a little bit about onboarding materials so that you can any know you've been doing a lot of but we'll make sure you've got additional information to help F uh um I remember when I was in your shoes at a meeting um a little bit quieter evening than we have this evening um and I was asked to vote immediately on some big topics uh it's a lot so please feel free to ask any and all questions that you feel need to be asked uh for you to feel comfortable and confident certainly that's true for all of us in the board but um we'll make sure you've got the information you have to is is it acceptable with the Parliamentary procedure to abstain from any of
095these yes if I don't feel comfortable yes sir okay um we are going to move into our consent agenda um and then I'm going to be asking for a motion from the board to move forward um an item from that's on the back of the agenda up to the front of the agenda um as I know that there's a lot of interest in that topic and I would if folks so that you can have have access to that information the conversation earlier in the evening but for now uh our next item on the agenda is the consent agenda are there any items on the consent agenda which board members would like to remove for separate discussion and action yes I would like to put one forward for C I would like the approval of the
096school resource officer mou not to be on the consent agenda it happens to fall before we even get the report and when the community participated in this report or the setting this up initially one of the things they asked for was an annual opportunity to review it and comment on it thank you um to clarify would you like it removed for separate discussion and action or would you like it removed for a pre we can remove it for separate discussion action in which point if one of us wants to we could also ask to not vote on it or consider it tonight I think first it should be moved to separate consideration action from the consent agenda you understood thank you any additional removal from the agenda consent aenda this evening seeing none um Dr
097Lin Worley has requested the SRO memorandum of understanding be removed for separate discussion and action um there being no there being no objections to that um it is recommended that the school board approve the remainder of the consent I need someone to make the next mon Mo of recommending that the school board approve the remainder of the consure so moved thank you Mr Meer may have a second second they're quick um thank you m hmer Rolland uh any further discussion on the consent agenda from my colleagues minus the removed item M hmer Rolland on the rest of the consent agenda correct please call the Mr Morris Dr Hoy yes Dr Worley yes Mr H Rolland yes Mr Meyer yes Dr Jess Banger yes Mr wadier yes the consent agenda passes with the removal of the
098SRO moou Dr worly the floor is yours for your okay thank you yes I've asked for this to be removed um again just to reiterate that um we have a we have a report coming later this evening that has um data on it and we haven't had a chance to ask questions um or hear further that report we've had a chance to review it um but I'm not um thinking that I think it's not really we haven't been properly prepared yet for this um vote number one and number two there has been a lot of community interest over the last few years um in this mou um and uh one of the things that has run through that is there's a few kind there's a few wording that they've really wanted to see um there's
099been some concerns about getting access to the data regularly and mostly it's the expression was that we like to be part of this conversation each year I know this was put on the agenda but I don't think there was um broad uh awareness or or of that this other than the notice that went out that this was up again for discussion um so I just let encourage us to um open that space I know we need to talk and get this mou in place but I don't want to hurry um if it's something that before we've had requests to have more Community participation we as a board I think have been doing a great job the last year in bringing the community in um to help us open our minds and think more broadly um
100about the big decisions we have to make and I do consider this a big decision um that we are making and would say does not belong in a consent of genda environment and it does belong with some Community feedback on what we have thank you um Dr means and Mr pinion I know uh can you share the process that we did go through so both the board I I my this was reviewed quite some time ago and we've been holding it yes we if we can walk through that for kind of a board refresh and if the board would like to uh pause on this until our next meeting uh certainly I would I would support that if if that would make people more comfortable but I I want to kind of level set us
101to see so can you hear me all right all right this mou has beenen many hours many days at different collaborative tables um not only with our wooda police department but also internal stakeholders as well and we really haven't looked at it since the end of winter we had a lot of revisions mostly in the um realm of aligning language to laws for example act 143 the previous mou iteration had language spelling it out in our own language versus just referencing Act 43 for repeting reporting threats of violence uh we increased Clarity around when SRO may get involved if they suspect a crime or something might happen and that it needs to be a safety um underpinning for that to happen we provided Clarity on outside agencies coming in and how the SRO May interact
102in that way and then of course we removed the four-year rotation based on conversations that happened internally as well as externally as well with the wa to police department and then also a lot of energy time and resources went into this so um we were looking to approve it for a three-year span although there is a clause in the mou if there's any entity that wants to remove there's a process and a path to do that as well um certainly happy to give the board more time to sit with it or the community more time I'm happy to provide additional context we did have to redact the yearend report that we received from the police which is essentially the contact log that you'll see in our slides later today's in today's presentation that is a
103a manual process to go in and remove student names um so we are happy to answer any any unanswered questions about how we define success with the program what we're looking for in terms of private school involvement what community building our SRO are engaged in that isn't really visible in all the data that you'll see and then um the year end report as well so I'd be happy to give the board more time and answer any other questions as well as Laura Geer our director of school safety Laura I want to invite you up in case there are questions then you'll you'll be ready and I will give the board an opportunity to answer questions uh on this item if we get to a point where we're comfortable passing it that's okay if we'd like
104to make motion to table um or to to place on our next uh regular board meeting agenda Dr whle are you comfortable with that as process yes and I want to say I know there's been a lot of work and this is my my request is not to lack of acknowledgement for that I really want to thank Mr for and also the wilda police department um for that work I just want to make sure that we're following um that process of community feedback um so that we have that opportunity and I I I'm going to assume that I getting haven't heard from anyone because they may not have noticed that it was on the consent agenda so that's that's my only motivation I know a lot of work's been done I do have some questions
105those could come either at the report or um now I would I I would say because this the SRO mlu is on this agenda point it would be appropriate to do it I think if we're going to wait we would need to pull this unless it sounds like you're uncomfortable voting on this until after the report the placement on the agenda places it before the reporting so I think I'm I'm gonna leave it up to you to deter if you'd like to make a motion to remove it otherwise I think we can talk about it now and then if you after after your questions are answered in a way that you're comfortable or not encourage you to make a motion or not okay um so I understand in the comments that Mr opinion just shared
106about some of the difficulties of um sharing uh the data um I had just really some specific questions about more about the process um the monthly reports um that we've been supposed to have for a number of a couple of years I'd like a little bit more information about um how those monthly reports are going to start coming and where we will find them um can we be alerted to when they're ready uh so that we can review the data on a regular basis be happy to answer that um so these will be coming generally in the monthly written updates one thing we were working out and I don't know if it's appropriate to welcome the while police police department they would likely be able to answer some of this better than I can as
107their data um was just ironing out the mechanism in which we are getting the contact log and then scrubbing not scrubbing wrong word um reacting student names for confidentiality purposes um disability status all those things that we don't want to make visible or known that it was a student or specific student in a building but really that data would is now accessible in a live document um but it can't be made live to the board because of the redacting that needs to happen um so we'll make a promise to get that in your Britain monthly update starting September and so those will be in a place that the public can review obviously without individual names or identification yes we can make that happen Okay thank you um I'm just asking that and it's not to
108be hardcore since I know people were have been wanting to see those reports and have been waiting for them um a second question more specifically to um 3D in um the SRO uh agreement um I would like this was one of the um Clauses that uh had a lot of community questions as well as board questions and so I think it would be really helpful um not just for me personally but for a better explanation of what has been adjusted in this in order to um because this was a place where there was not agreement as I remember in the earlier con conversations what has been adjusted or helped you to reach agreement and then my second part of my question related to 3D is what does the term appropriate mean specifically do you want
109me to you want me to pull it up and read it out or and and I would be happy to read I have it right here uh this specific item is as soon as practicable and it's it's a subo underneath the item students should not be taken into custody at school except where a youth poses real and immediate threat to student teacher Public Safety or pursuant to a warrant for a significant crime there's several sub points here but the one in question is d as soon as practicable and appropriate the school administration will collaborate with law enforcement regarding contacting the parent guardian of the student who is subject to an investigation or potential witness if the administration is unable to make contact with the guardian questioning may continue and the administrator shall continue with follow-up
110attempts to make contact so my ask was yeah you can feel free to add in my ask was what has changed about that um given that was a sticking point for community members and parents previously and then what does the word appropriate mean and Liz I'd be happy to have you add in this as well and I'm gonna go and give an opportunity for Mr opinion to respond um and again if if W Jose Police Department staff would like to if you're so inclined to come on up if I'm not sure if folks have specific questions but that one I know there's a collaborative conversation going on and then miss hmer Rolland I'll recognize you and come back to you after after that Mr pin sure I'll start it off to give some context of
111the conversations that happened and what changed in the iteration from the operating under this last year which did speak to language about conferring with the principal um law enforcement before that Outreach to the parent where the current language is a little bit stronger and gives the administrator The Authority when appropriate and practicable which is subjective and I understand that this is one of those areas that we want parents to be engaged whenever possible but it is not always safer to do that and I think think the chief might be able to explain the nuances around that a little bit better than I can thank you sir for being here thanks for having me um when we talk about appropriateness um that's also subjective um when it comes to taking somebody into custody that's something we
112take very serious and obviously we don't want to disrupt disrupt School operations but we also have to look at the safety of Staff look at the safety of other students and look at the safety of our officers we try and keep people's dignity but we also have to balance it out with safety needs as well so appropriate again as subjective if somebody is very violent and acting out we may have to restrain them in the line of sight of other students or staff that's something we absolutely want to avoid at all costs but it is a situational type of decision that has to be made the SRO are very well trained as our other officers on the wosa police department to understand that dynamic in a school environment um so that answer your question Dr
113whle yes that's helpful thank you [Music] m um first of all thank you I've been working with Mr penan Dr mean since I um joined the board on this I think this iteration is significantly better and more student focused by a um than when I first got on the board my concern isn't so much um that I'm going to ask about I guess I should say isn't so much the resp training of a violent student I understand that you have to make the environment safe for all of our students and sometimes that does require um a student being removed from the situation I am more concerned um with not having a parent I don't think the language is strong enough yet when we're talking about having one of our students being questioned by an officer
114I want to say that when we're making policy we have to make policy um for any police officer who will be in our building any SRO I've heard amazing things about the SRO um and about your cooperation with the school district I'm not speaking to an individual officer or your District of the pool I just want to make that very clear I appreciate all the work and I've seen great work from our officers here um my concern is if we have this broad policy I don't think that the language is strong enough yet when we're giving access to our students to police officers so I know um through conversations that I think this is the um most compromise will be able to come to with the district and with um the police department I just
115um I would never want my own children to talk to a police officer um regardless of the incident without me or my husband husbands um I would hate for any of our students to be in in a situation where they are needing to talk to a police officer and I know we want to hope that due diligence will be taken from the administration to contact of the uh parent or Guardian but does that mean one phone call and if nobody picks up then the police officer is allowed to um interact with our students um with no one there really protecting them um I actually wouldn't talk to police officer if I was being probably without security present um so I certainly would not want um our underage students um speaking with one of our officers
116um so that is really the biggest and brightest concern that I have with this um by me please I get confused I thought I was used to being Eric yes that would be respectful um so your concern I understand it um so first thing I want to address is that our job is to keep young people out of the Criminal Justice System well sro's and the regular wosa police department officers that are out there on the street if you look at the model of what the juvenile justice system is modeled after or what its true intent is to keep juveniles out of the criminal justice system so they can become responsible adults um as far as accountability goes um were held accountable by Statute um the onus of protecting individual rights of individuals falls on
117us whether it's adult or juveniles so we would actually compromise a case if we stepped over the line or if there was that um perceived concern that we were doing that we want to have parental involvement we want to have staff involvement that's why we worked so well withc miss Geisler and luk pinan where we talk about these critical issues um is it an administrative violation or is it a criminal violation um officers are well versed in utilized restorative justice um processes that try and keep young people out of the Criminal Justice System but again just to be more reassuring to you ma'am it it's focusing on protecting the individual rights of all people especially students understanding that they're cognitive and their decisionmaking and not even understanding what their rights are it's we have to
118weigh that out if we're even going to try and glean information or conduct our investigation I hope that answers your question it helps us wage some of your concerns because your concerns are also concerns of other parents so I think that I just to me that is the point is that without a parent there or a guardian or an adult I don't think they've been prepared I don't think our history classes prepare them or I don't think that our curriculum has prepared them um to answer and I I just add that there's a similar issue with threei um because mainly because it calls in a witness not just a suspect and I think that's part of what's holding this up as well is I think about um you know uh perhaps you you know you've
119mostly given the scenario of this could be someone who um you know we need to um they might be dangerous there might be a problem but this this also language also includes people who are witnesses um and so it's not there yet for me either um I just have some concerns and I understand your concern as well Dr Worley um again it's incumbent on us that onus falls on us where we weigh out the cognitive and the um the ability of somebody to understand based off of age otherwise we won't engage and that also includes Witnesses but statutorily if there's been a crime if we have probable cause or reasonable suspicion that a crime has been committed we have to investigate whether there's a parent present or not in fact sometimes we find parents sometimes
120intercede in a way that's not beneficial in the protecting of the rights of the individual uh it's a delegate balance um but again we're trained to assess those situations if it's an administrative violation that clearly Falls with on on School staff but it's a violation of law that's why we have a communicative and collaborative relationship to talk about um the minutia instance by inst very instance specific um a lot of the concerns are the same ones that have been articulated already and and you know we've had this conversation a few times um and it's and it really continues to kind of be a sticking point about how we the fine-tuning of the language to make sure that our students are safe and I hear what you're saying and um and in fact that may absolutely
121be the case I think part of I want to come back to what Dr lle was saying about how this is kind of the the order of events for tonight that this is coming before we get to the data um from reported from last year and you and I know we'll talk more about that but even looking at that data one of the things that I really struggle with is that it's it's so um it's so Bare Bones that I can see where you know what the calls were for where the like generally kind of what the complaints were but I can't see things like disaggregation of data so we can look at you know sort of um if there's disproportionality in the students that you're um that are having more interaction with the officers
122looking at disposition you know how many of those um interactions went on to become um tickets or arrests I mean those are the kinds of data points that I think would be really helpful because then it then we can see what you're saying is is proven out in data um so that we know you know I guess that we have a mutual understanding and we're seeing we're we're defining kind of what this questioning looks like together and we're um agreeing on that understood Dr Hoy and in one of the slides you'll see data that sro's generate the lowest amount of calls for service little foreshadowing this slides I'm sure you looked them over already that we have the lowest amount of generated calls for service but we also are trying to track data of contacts
123that CS have within the school we give that data in real time on the server so it is accessible to staff but obviously there's that issue of protecting people's personal identifying information obviously there's juveniles involved in pi is a very sensitive thing we have to protect that if that causes a little bit of a lag that's that's more of a process issue um so that's a little bit of the foreshadowing of the slide slides coming up based on the questions we're getting might I suggest and part of this is recognizing the length of our agenda this evening that we move this to an agenda item on week or our next regular meeting scheduled meetings agenda um and I would ask any board members who have kind of perspective or feedback after this evening of hearing
124the next report and anything else share that information with Dr means Mr opinion um and then we will place it not on consent agenda um there will be seven votes not everyone has to agree but everyone will have an opportunity to hear more information tonight ask questions again next week and either see changes um that you'd like to advocate for in some communication or certainly during the meeting next week and kind of vote your for your perspective you like a motion to that effect I would I would like to move that this agenda item come back l in two weeks after we've had the opportunity for the really thoughtful and deep presentation that we are scheduled to have tonight thank you may I have a second second I'm gonna give that to uh Jason watch
125here uh Dr Jer yes Mr I have a question after you the board receives the information what are you in a best case scenario what happens um and and the reason why I'm asking is because I am aware that miss gisler Mr pinan in the police department worked for months to get to the language that we're currently at and so I guess for clarity sake I just I just need Clarity for for our team are you seeking language change in the current mou are you seeking to have the ability to sit with the data that hasn't been provided yet to then better inform your vote I I guess in between now and the next time this this is on the agenda as an action item what are you what do you want to see happen
126I'd like like both of those and the opportunity for the community to review the report that is being presented tonight and share any comments that they have with us but are you but you're not seeking to have any of the language of the M Mo modified I'm not sure yet okay I mean I think we've started that discussion but I understand there's been a lot of work I just know this is this is a really was really significant to many people and I also have a huge respect for the wild Police Department especially for our chief um I know that this is the intention I know the way of how he works um and how he works with youth and everything I just this is something that is beyond the individuals involved this is a
127contract um and it's what we will work with going forward so I just want to make sure that we've done our due diligence and I understand it's been a long time but a lot of people haven't had that access to that conversation or the opportunity to hear about it um the last time it was on the agenda um it was also fairly short notice um to the public and I don't present the questions with any judgment or any leanings I'm just simply asking from a Clarity standpoint and Mr opinion you had your hand up y um I firmly believe in doing it well and and giving it uh the attention it needs and I would just add as well that changes that are made in the language depending on the the degree of the change
128could take some time because then our legal reviews it city council or City attorney believe reviews it so there is a lag so just know that that will mean like we will be operating without anou which we did for decades prior to that being implemented but just wanted to be clear that if the timeline gets stretched out that's why and just to bring your attention in two weeks I'm going to be on vacation but Sergeant moral um I'll see if he's available to sit in my stad I come everyone motorcycle yes sir learn Mr Meer uh Chief what what data does your department routinely collect and report for example to um the Department of Justice in Washington or the FBI I mean I I Used to Know long ago 40 years ago but but is
129there data that you're collecting now that's at the ready that you already send up up the chain that maybe the school board doesn't know you already have certain data and but maybe there isn't more data um what is there something you have that is already shared out to the um Justice Community that's the right way to say it that the school board if we knew you've had it and we might find that useful maybe would answer some of these questions yes we report up uh to the Department of Justice our arrest data that's for statutory violations um there are certain categories of crime as classified by the FBI for all agencies to report up to their state arm of Justice um that data has to be looked over frequently it's audited frequently to make sure
130we don't have duplication of our numbers data those types of totals so that is our repository for arrest data so is there anything in there and I can only think to the like the traffic world like traffic stops and then how many stops produce tickets and how many you know tickets produce convictions you know is there anything like that already tabulated related to interactions of the SRO with the school Community um that data is captured um daily weekly on that U server that's on the school system okay so it's already there but again that information is shared there but again that also presents an issue with yes cleaning the pii out of it yeah because it has to can't be discernable by the Numbers the ends have to be large enough and that was a
131promise I made to the school board that you would have accessibility to that data um as close to real time as I can get it to you because I I want to keep the school board informed about what the SRO are doing um maybe what they're not doing um so you can make informed decisions or ask critical questions of what this mou means okay thank you I know last year we received ell doc that every that the SRO is reported to we haven't yep that's what we have ready for you yeah okay and that was in the executive summary yeah there's a link andm for that next item the agenda we're coming up soon there was a motion there was a second any further discussion saying none just call the r Mr Morris Dr Hoy
132sorry what do we vot what what's the motion motion to to move it for two weeks yes Dr Worley yes Miss Hammer Rolland yes Mr Meyer yes Dr Jess Banger yes Mr wer yes and that item will be back in two weeks um I would now like to ask for a motion to uh adjust the agenda to bring forward item number seven strategic goal operations uh all subjects subject a un audited 2324 year and financials 2425 budget update and uh the monthly financial report may I have a motion I'll move that we bring that to forward to do that next may have a second second thank you any board discussion seeing none please call the RO Mr Morris Dr Hoy yes Dr Wy yes Miss H Rolland yes Mr Meyer yes Dr Jess anger yes
133Mr wer yes um and we will move forward with that um Mr eor yeah um before we begin um I have a statement I'd like to read um and Poss comments and then we'll move into each of the the items um mmer Rin is going to cover the first part seconda school commun during its meeting on Thursday August 22nd 2024 the finance and resource committee discussed the district's 23 24 budget which included an error this letter aims to inform community members about that error and the board's next steps to resolve the issue it was affirmed after care ful review by The District's new Chief Financial Officer Mr Scott Ecker that the 2324 budget was miscalculated this miscalculation was initially affirmed on June 11th 2024 the board was notified of the situation immediately Mr eer noted
134that these expenses were all appropriate and had been approved by the board of education but that the previous chief of operation and finances budget was poorly built and miscalculated the budget Mr eer summarized his audit findings in a memo that we will share tonight the previous CFO provided a preliminary year and projection of the 2324 Budget on June 27th at the finance and resource committee meeting Mr eer the new CFO has spent the past seven weeks rebuilding the 2425 budget and attempting to reconcile the error in the 2324 budget we now have a better understanding of this miscalculation the previous chief of operation and finance had reported no material variance from the budget within each monthly report due to this the budgetary discrepancies were not known until Mr eer onboarding in June at which point
135his internal audit began it is important to note that never in any of the financial reports provided to the superintendent or the board were their material erences identified in other words there was no indication that the this error was evident in the budget once the problem was identified the vard was notified and the issue was discussed in the finance and resource committee meetings wosa Schoolboard Administration are deeply committed to making the most of every single dollar that is invested by taxpayers we are also committed to providing transparency to community members and keeping you informed and involved in our processes moving forward we regret that this error was made and while there is no evidence of fraud or malicious intent we understand the community members faith in the district's budgeting process may be shaken we are
136committed to earning back the community's trust in the coming weeks the board through the finance and resource committee will Implement new measures to increase transparency in the budgeting process as always all board finance and resource committee meetings are held in public and agendas are posted in advance the district's budgets and audits are also posted on the district's website through this process the board and district will seek new ways to provide greater transparency to the bud the public thank you for taking time to be here tonight uh this uh the I believe the statement is available additional FAQs and information will continue to be available on our website and as we continue to uh find ways to be uh answered you're very very loud very real and I completely agree with uh the call for transparency
137uh we will rise to that and we will make sure that you have everything that you absolutely need to be able to review everything and to feel confident that your tax dollars are being spent um as appropriate Mr May I a word one word I'm gonna go to Mr eer right now and then there'll be an opportunity for okay B conversation okay I much of what you've uh the board has already shared was part of the memo so um I wasn't planning on reading that again if you'd like me to I could um I think what I'd emphasize for the board and the community is that those that are interested in the in the actual numbers please go to board docs um those are there that's I think easier to understand than me reciting uh
138things um maybe I'll just talk briefly about my analysis and kind of an overall schema of of um the findings that I had that would be helpful sir I I know the the finance committee last Thursday covered this in great detail and that's available for public review on the website um but I know the rest of the board in the community U many Community MERS haven't been there so I think that would be a wonderful place to start great so just to reiterate I started here officially July 1 um I received access to the financials during my onboarding uh that was probably late May early June um typically um in in August board meeting with it would be typical at an August board meeting to have a prior year review and a current year update
139on the budget agenda um typically that would be what I would strive for that to be is a very boring and fast conversation um the the way I've always operated is that I don't ever want the superintendent the board or the community to be surprised at um anything with the budget so um this is unique uh situation for me to be in um generally when I began an analyzing the budget it appeared that um primarily salaries and benefits were going to be overspent from I saw is the budget and the way I did that is I was tracking how much was spent each payroll and then adding up how many payrolls were remaining so in a school district um teachers receive all of their pay before well all their pay is booked uh before the
140end of the fiscal year um what that means is there's usually four five or six payrolls um that all get booked at the end of June to cover July August for some districts some of September and so you can um look at your payrolls you know how many are left and you can essentially um you know project pretty accurately where you're going to end the year uh on your salaries and benefits and since that's about 75 80% of your budget um if you're on track there and you're on track at your at your building s you're you're going to end um about where you uh budget it so when I started looking at that um it would have been the first month the the I began looking at in May for the end of April
141and it appeared that at least to me from the outside that we were going to be overspending in there areas based on how many payrolls were left um it was difficult because I was sort of shooken my confidence um you know having only just looked at the financial uh a little bit um it wasn't a budget I built um so I contacted the prior CFO and I I said you know here's what I'm seeing and um we kind of had to agree to disagree on on where the projections were um I reviewed them again at the end of May uh I'd say became more confident in where I thought my projections were at that that's essentially where they ended I talked to him about that again um at his uh um there was a finance
142committee meeeting at the end of June I believe June 27th uh he updated his projections uh but they they weren't where um to the point where I had alerted him so that's kind of where we are now um again what I the primary thing at that I found is that the salaries and benefits so total compensation for staff um as approved by the board wasn't what was budgeted and and so um that that's where the major Gap is uh essentially the board said budget this and track our budget based on this and that's not what happened and so the Staffing was appropriate based on uh um board action uh pay was appropriate based on board action uh unfortunately the budget wasn't updated or brought to the board for update to show that uh that anything
143was um for term out of whack and then monthly as it was noted um there were no updates given um nor any indication given as far as where the school year might end or fiscal year might end with expenses we have an item for 2425 that's next but I think I just want to touch on that because um part of the issue of 2425 and what we're talking talking about with the budget shortfall that we're working through now and how we're trying to address that is U because of the poorly built budget in 23 24 so essentially some of those errors in budgeting were carried forward to 2425 and so now we're having to reconcile those things um so that we uh have our salaries and benefits budgeted correctly our substitutes budgeted correctly um I
144went through every line item to ensure that's budgeted correctly and uh we're putting in place extra internal controls in our office so that we're going to have a triangulation of budget to actual to projection I think that's the piece that's really been missing and frankly is in most school districts um I I think I'll stop there um I want to give the board opportunity to ask questions uh and I want to start with uh Mr morand and Mr Meyer uh as members of the finance committee and then open up to the rest of the board I'm U so just one clarifying speak um so you were saying you said that the board was not receiving monthly updates to the budget I just want to be clear that the finance and operations committee was in fact
145receiving updates from our CFO at the time of the budget with actual numbers and he was reporting that there were no monthly variances so the the board has been receiving regular updates from C I just want to make that there's some confusion yeah thanks for the clarification if uh what I meant was if we went back and looked at the um memos provided um there's a line that says here's what the budget is that was approved um that was never updated to show the Salan benefit true costs and so um the line said hey here's the budget uh from when the when when the board adopted the original budget or preliminary budget whatever you want to call it to June 30th uh that never changed I think what's helpful maybe for the community to understand
146is that this board approves a preliminary budget in May or June um and then we finalize our budget for the year in October my um I've come to understand where I think the Gap came from here is that there was a preliminary budget approved in May and then board took action on various items um and approved a budget in October that was based on the June approved budget and not um the actual budget that we would be operating under or 20 yeah the best I can tell um I wish I had the numbers in front me I'm not going to try and recite that because I don't um yeah the board approved I don't remember if that was May or June of 23 so a little over a year ago now um I would say
147now I wasn't here but I would characterize them as material updates to Staffing costs uh primarily um the the wage increases that were given to teachers and um my understanding is that there was some health insurance ideas brought forward to the board uh the board ultimately decided not to move forward with those um the budget had been built as if those would be uh approved by the board so those are material things that happened sometime between June and October and when we look at the budget the board approved in June versus the budget they approved in approved in October I believe the difference in the expenses there was a few hundred or few thousand so certainly nothing at Material as what had been approved by the board any additional questions Mr thank you there's there's
148two things going on here in my assessment the first thing is not the errors the first thing is the um budgeting to that spent down the fund balance the fund balance is there for risk contingency and so our annual Financial practices the last two three years brought us close to the Limit and without as many risk reserves for risk contingencies as we had before and then a bad thing did happen and the these errors so it took both of those things to push us to where Mr eer you said in finance committee we we might start the short we might have to short-term borrow for a period at the end of this year or beginning of next year or cash flow so um it it's a bad mistake and it's a bad mistake that caught
149us with our um risk mitigation strategy weaker than it has been in the past um it is I iall when I started on the board and Phil erle came on as superintendent and Phil erle figured out what a great business office manager we had and Dr came to me and said you know directly told me do not mess with this business manager guy because there's there in this big a district with this complexity they are rare said I I know that and so I hope we've returned to what we had in that era with you Mr eer it seems that we have um and then finally um I think the community deserves and and is entitled to hear a word here and I I I am on the finance committee so I was there with
150um Liz Harel Rollin our Treasurer and I said the word last Thursday apologize and I think the community is entitled and deserves to hear it said from the full board table tonight um I apologize for what happened and it doesn't matter how or why it happened and we are in charge and I say the word with hat in hand to the community I apologize thank you other board questions and comments Mr W um so please pardon my ignorance on on anything and I'm not I'm not a lawyer or uh claim to to know any of this but I had done some contemplation on this and just wanted to know some of the background um in your professional opinion was there any willful negligence of the previous District employees such that something like um a district
151Fidelity Bond and or any you know policy would uh would help the situation out so I talking about insurance yes yeah okay um so there's uh it sounds like there's two questions there um the the first one I heard is in my opinion um essentially for lack of a vum was was was uh spending inappropriate um our audit didn't reveal I expect that the external audit that happens every year also won't reveal any inappropriate expenditures um we we we overspent on approved items primarily Staffing and I include substitutes uh in that those are two major areas uh legal as certainly couldn't have been anticipated um now we we did get a question um whether our errors and Emissions Insurance might help us with this um I haven't had a chance to follow up with the
152insurance company on that yet and so I I don't want to comment on that with because I can't speculate but we will follow up and find out um thank you that's I I really just wanted to bring the idea out to light because I think knowing there may be some sort of something uh might help the community feel a little bit better at least at this point so thank you so um I did serve on the finance committee last year so I do want to say that um I'm sorry to the community that we didn't have uh Stronger better um more regular uh discussion of this I also want to really highlight two things one is that has been mentioned tonight that it would have been very very difficult to have figured out that we
153weren't actually using the October um the October numbers were not accurate um for what this would cost us um and I've also been reflecting for the last few days about how I look at what it was spent on um and this was some of the public comment I think tonight too um that there was a it was definitely what needed to be spent as a board member um I would have had to do a lot more deep thinking if I'd known that we were going in the direction of digging much more and more into our fund balance but when we sat here in 2023 shortly um after some of us had joined the board I felt that around the table there was very strong support for improving teacher salaries um and also there was very
154strong support for maximizing um Staffing that we knew that our children were facing real challenges in terms of disregulation we knew that teachers were exhausted um and that they needed to have full Staffing um we even went to the point of making sure that some schools had some additional Staffing the data we got as was mentioned under public comment the data we got last week suggests that these were good decisions but they weren't good decisions from a financial side because we didn't have the true cost of what this would be um if we had we would have had to deliberate much more as a community and as a board about whether we were going to spend um at that level on you know towards these goals that we had set for ourselves but I just
155want to say so I'm I'm sorry that we didn't do a better job on that side in the deliberation but I still really value where we have come this year as a community um and as a board in terms of what we've been able to provide I want to thank you Mr eer for helping us to do better as we go forward um and come up with better systems to make sure that we are more fully informed each time we have to make these difficult decisions we have more on the agenda tonight that then comes back to how will we use our resources uh strategically um effectively um and towards what the community wants and the students need because that really is what we are responsible to as board members is to make sure that
156we're representing what the community wants and that we're making sure the students are getting what they need thank you thank you um so I came back from vacation last night to this and I'm honestly like really I I feel really sick about it um I feel like we were faced with a lot of questions about where to spend money last year we were working with a CFO that we've been working with for a couple of years whose budgets we thought were in line with what was proposed to us we got these monthly updates that looked transparent we would ask specific questions with each of these things that would come before us whether it was a salary increase or a curriculum change to say how's that going to impact our bottom line where are we at
157with things and then we were told we're okay we're we're on target for our budget and so we made decisions based on what we thought was appropriate and I was really proud of the the things that we were doing I was really proud that we um gave raises to our teachers long overdue raises to our teachers um I was really proud that the board fought for holding that line for health insurance knowing that that was something that our teachers really valued um I was proud that we were focusing on socio emotional learning and making sure that the needs of our the mental health needs of our of our students were prioritized and so to find out that we were making these decisions and what we were doing was digging this hole that now puts us
158we were already facing a really difficult position with the referendum and now puts us in this position where it looks like there was some inappropriate you know budgeting by the board um and I guess I come to all of us to say we are where we are we have more questions in front of us about how we're going to spend our money um my big question is like as a board how do we prevent this from happening again I mean I know you've talked about or have you know shared that some of the ways that you will present the data that maybe will be different but for a person who doesn't have an accounting background or isn't a you know an expert in that how do we how do we know that what we're seeing
159is accurate so that when we're making decisions we know we're really making a decision based on data yeah so there's a a few answers to that um the the first thing I'm goingon to say though is um I don't think any of my peers are envious of the seat I'm in right now um and that's because this is highly abnormal this and so I understand the where the community and the board are um but this is not a spot anybody should be in the board or uh the community or or me um and but I understand that um be because of where we are um a level of whether we want to call transparency or deliberateness or double and triple and quadruple checks are what is going to have to happen to to um I
160guess reestablish trust um that unfortunately it wasn't me that uh lost um some of the things that we want to put in place though uh I mentioned um multiple budget projections out of my office that will be triangulated and shared with you uh to me that the main Gap that was missing and and again that's not just here it is for lots of school districts but um most business officials when they budget they they end up near their budget so um best practice would be to have a projection we're going to add that in so you'll know um starting at the end of the first quarter and every month after where we project all of all of our expenses and revenues to end to me that's more important than knowing how much do we have
161left or uh because that doesn't say where we're actually going to be um I reached out today to cesa 5 uh cesa 5 one of the services they provide um normally is to school districts that are um missing a business official um May maybe someone retired abruptly or they're uh uh a district can't find someone um they'll place um uh licensed people oftentimes uh people that are have been retired um that are looking for additional work uh to be their business manager um I inquired at of them whether they would be interested in um essentially being a I guess I'll call it a third set of eyes or second set of eyes uh on our budget um on our budget to actual and projections each month as well as working with us on validating our
162our future forecasts um I hope that that's a level of added Integrity U that would you know it's uh it would be unusual but it's the I think it's that level that is probably what people are asking for is you the more eyes on things and the more validation and the um you know a single point of failure is is difficult and that's what we had here and so that's what we want to um not have anymore and so to have a partner like cesa 5 if if they won't do it someone like that there's lots of cesas uh I I I hope that that's a road that we can um our partnership we can build Dr I want to just Echo some of the things that have been said I am deeply I'm angry
163that this occurred um it I was chatting with one of the members of the finance and resource committee from last year who shared with me Dr means how were we supposed to know that this was even happening and that's been a question I've asked Mr eer since he alerted me on June 11th that this was the case and the systems were not in place that we would have been alerted to it until our external audit so if we didn't have a Mr eer this would not have come to light until our external audit which would have come after the referendum um and can you imagine can you imagine if this information wasn't in front of us on August what is today August 26 but it was actually provided post referendum it would it would look
164like we were concealing things so while this has been uncomfortable for all of us we've been extremely transparent but again I want to I want to express my my deep regret for this I've shared with the cabinet that this will have a chilling effect on how I work with them and what I expect of them I have to have that cesa5 group no offense Mr eer but I I I need that group to oversee whatever budget is presented um because I can't be in a position where I just trust one person's numbers because then we find ourselves in this pace but it's just not in the business office it's going to be across the board I have two other things I want to say quickly the first is Mr Meyer has brought up the the
165issue of the issue of deficit spending and is deficit spending something that we should have even done in the first place did we even did we go down a bad Road in the first place by even using deficit spending and I just I would urge the board and the community to remember that if we had not utilized deficit spending the the either we would have had to implement massive reductions immediately or an operational referendum would have come to the community earlier than November of 2024 I don't know which one would have come first um but I think the con I think it's a fair question to put on the table of if we should utilize deficit spending But realize we were in a tight spot when that state budget came out and it was such
166a gap the last thing I would say is nothing inappropriate was done with the funds nothing illegal was done in fact as you said D Dr Hoy where the Investments were made and they were they were made in staff and compensating staff that was long overdue it was to lower class sizes it was to ensure that all the dreams and aspirations that community members have said they want for the school district we felt that we needed more resources to make it happen I've heard the calls for us to be more prudent with our financial resources moving forward and we will heed to that word but I think then the community has to just understand that when you have limited resources when I hear administrator ERS teachers Administrative Assistant say that they are burnt out that
167they are they're stressed that's part of it and so we we have to reconcile we have to reconcile what this community wants to be in terms of a school system it it requires resources um and we can't continue to have dreams and aspirations of being a certain district and not have the same level of resource sources those are deeper conversations for later on I don't want to have those messages get lost in what I have to say which is I am deeply regretful that this occurred I am going to make sure that it never happens again it will have an effect on how I engage with the people who report to me the level of my trust has been violated my trust has been violated because there's a a level of trust that I invest
168and professionals to do what they're hired to do and to show their expertise I can't operate that way anymore um and and I publicly state to staff I regret that that's the environment that we're now working in um but I I I will heed the word of the community um you have my word that there will be structures in place where they're we're always double and triple check checking out work and if that's not happening there will be consequences Mr F i'mna make a few questions and comments me I'm should go oh I'm sorry oh because do you want me to go or not yeah I just haven't got okay so you know on the question of what could the board have done well I'll say I have three things here and this is hindsight
169okay pessimism and fear on financial matters those are our friends pessimism and fear that stuff can go wrong then what will we do um and I don't mean irrational pessimism and irrational fear but a healthy fear of what happens if it doesn't work out the way we think the and I've thought through this and I've I've said you know the two issues that I that I believe are the two issues on the first issue about the budgeting and such we did have at the high level a steady drip drip drip of um estimate revisions for the deficit it it seemed like a regular thing that the deficit was bigger than the a few weeks ago a month ago two months ago than what had been stated out of the business office at that time and
170this goes back even to the the pre-election two years ago you know the representations of the Financial Health of our district well it didn't quite work out that way and so that's kind of a that's a heartburn thing and so if the business office is regularly putting out Ros than Rosier projections on anything that is the outcome maybe we need to start to ask is could there be other kinds of Errors going on as well um and the third question and I don't have an opinion on this but this is a question you know should the full board spend more time on finance when I was taking classes years ago for the um School District business officer certification the instructor who was a veteran superintendent said well typical school boards around Wisconsin and I don't
171whether this is still true or not they have two they meet twice a month and one meeting is all about finance and this comes down to you know time is scarce but we leave in what do we take out from our agenda I don't know I I do know that it's a tremendous responsibility to be in the finance committee and as you know board member har Rollin our Treasurer is leading the thing um boy we don't want to miss anything and there's we only have two sets of eyes as a board and then the rest of the board in full session trusts us as you should or but still with that pessimism maybe we need to look differently at how we spend our time in the full board room that we need to spend more
172time on this and give it a higher priority and that means we'll spend less time on something else and that's that's always the problem so no conclusions there just some observations from me thank you couple comments uh and then a few questions uh the board has really high expectations of ourselves um of of what we are delivering to our kids um and we didn't meet those collectively on this one we all had roles to play um our accountability is to the community to ensure it never happens again Mr eer I am grateful that you uncovered this I'm grateful for the items that you have put in place as I shared with you when we met on Friday um this is both not your fault and like all of us it is our complete responsibility to
173ensure that it both never happens again and that our community regains by our actions by consistently delivering by being utterly transparent and by doing things that maybe no other board or district is doing in Wisconsin but we have to lead the way on this and I understand that and I fully support it um Mr Meyer your comment I think is um important um my answer would be we certainly need to carve out more time at our board meetings we receive Mr you noted this there's a lot of data coming our way um and we both need to continue to receive the data we need to receive the reports and I would ask and I I believe this is a plan in the finance committee uh information for us to make sure that everything is really
174easy to find and available for the community in a single spot um so that we do the work we are transparent with the community so that they can follow our work um and that we continue to do that um what I said to community members when I was out talking to folks over the the weekend at a couple block parties was not only do we need to have a microscope be excellent and perfect but we need to put a highlight up a spotlight on this so that we are doing everything we can to be excellent um and we need to hold ourselves to that and I will certainly hold myself to that um I'm sorry that this occurred it should not have occurred we owe it to the community to be excellent and our finances
175and what we really need more than anything is to be able to know strategically as a board with limited and finite resources that are getting less and less how do we maximize and Dr rley you talked about this I think incredibly thoughtfully I'm confident our values were what they were when we made the decisions that that were significant teacher compensation curriculum but there would have been likely different decisions made had we had completely accurate information and we have to be data driven and we have to be on deep understanding of the finances um I want to thank um Dr means um and I want to thank Mr eer I want to thank the finance committee um for the work that you have done and will do and my board colleagues who will be spending a
176lot of time spending time no doubt with the community answering questions being accountable uh and continuing to push Dr Dr jph anger I I would be remiss if I didn't say this so I think the regret and the feeling of the mixed emotions are they they're they're there they're here and I hope theyve finished bre what I'm struggling with and I think the community is going to have to continue to talk about that last board meeting Mr pinion demonstrated and shared some data that was outstanding regarding the change in student behavior and how what was once a concern at our schools around own behavior has subsided and it's changed uh in the next few weeks you'll hear from Dr marble and her team on the success we're seeing academically there is a correlation between the
177investment in resources in the organization in the results and and so I believe it is important for us to be proved I believe it is important for us to make sure that we're using every dime appropriately I appreciate Dr Worley's comment [Music] of it's hard to think about how you would have voted on what we recommended differ if you had known all the facts not after the fact but in front of you and if those figures that none of us really knew were off if they were accurate my question to you would be would that have changed the values that led you to making the boat that you made I I don't know if it would have or not I don't know um but what I do know is that children are having a better
178academic experience they're having a better social emotional learning experience in our schools now once we've invested in resources versus prior and and so again may maybe you're maybe your vote would have been different I I don't know um but I think that's and that's the theme that I heard this evening at the microphone as well that um we have to make sure that we're continuing to be prudent that we're doing the right work um that we are putting measures in place where this never happens again because it's regretful Beyond imagine but my question is when you think about what we invested in and how it was to support teachers and to support low class sizes would that have changed your vote and Dr M thank you for for articulating that you I don't know and
179for me our values our north star star that is sitting behind me our investment in teachers and kids and curriculum the data is indicating the choices we made in the Investments that we have made are having an impact they're also telling us that we need more resources to have that and we need to prove to the community that if we have more resources we can be trusted and we will show our work and we will showcase that like no other District in the state and two that the investment will have the impact the community expects and demands of a really excellent school district of which I continue to believe that we are excellent in getting better we are not excellent in every school for every kid yes any board other comments or questions before we
180get into some of the specific um budget review see [Music] N I believe are we talking St is this your first presentation to the board by the way welcome to w we uh yeah I think the last time I was sitting up here at my hiring was approved so um yeah this is my first presentation so I frankly I could use a little help on on which direction you want me to go as far as um the documents that are this is first presentation so um so we have a variety of different items on the agenda for this section um it is the 2425 yeah I'm I'm I think what I'm looking for is do you want me to project the things that we presented to the board okay yes all right um I'm gonna
181need some help with that then too Tim do you mind helping Mr erer with uh with the the the laptop perhaps we should take a five minute break so he can set up let's take a 5 10 minute recess and we'll be back me perspective I think he'd be fine if we start um Mr reer we're all gonna be back Jamie are we ready to go yeah you're online outstanding Mr reer proceed when great so maybe just uh since this is my first time you know actually presenting numbers and budges in front of the board um and also it's a little unique and that we've had a lot of narrative and so now I want to move at a pace that everyone's comfortable with um as we work collaboratively together here I'm going to have
182some ideas of new ways to share things and report them I also don't want to give you whiplash so if if it's like hey too much change at once or we need more we need less I'm I'm going to appreciate that feedback too um I have things that I worked for multiple boards and different things work for different boards so I'm going to need that feedback too so this is at least a starting point um what I'm sharing right now is really the specifics of how 2324 ended and just kind of really uh Basic School Finance um I'm on page I think it's page two that would be the first kind of graph and chart and you can see we're looking here at a combination of the general and special education funds so these are
183uh what I would call our operating funds um essentially two separate checkbooks that have to balance each other um and that's why I net them together when we report to the state we report them separately but it all comes from the same sort of Revenue cap available money so um just detailing here for you by Revenue source so uhour is where's the money coming from uh in this case uh we break it down to local and state federal and other local and state in Wisconsin are the two primary drivers uh that's going to be property tax and state equalized aid are GNA be the big ones there on the expenditure side we've talked earlier about saries and benefits being the the primary driver uh and so at least on this s you know real high
184level report we're just looking at expenditures as far as salaries and benefits and then everything else so this gives you the detail uh of where our budget actual was again in the narrative uh it says exactly where those overages occurred that's the first graph the second one then and then there's some visuals here for you relative to our surplus of deficit going back uh three years in this case and then our actual fund balance uh you know as it stands uh historically and now the next two graphs I simply break out the general fund uh from the special ed fund so instead of netting them together you can see that the two combined uh when the only thing I'll point out is when our audit is complete right now we have a $1,243 positive Surplus
185in the General on the special ed fund we'll actually have to code that back to special ed that always has to balance at Z zero so that change you'll see uh as part of the audit any further questions on on 2324 you talked about uh VAR things special education can you talk a little bit about that one uh we've had folks in in our come to our space and really talk about there both a moral and legal obligation that we pay for that um can you share a little bit about I'm C that number surprised me as well of where we were budgeted and then the actual yeah yeah uh and I I'm curious about that again so it's it's hard it's some of these things are hard for me to speak to um when
186I look at this the first thing that stands out to me is what what what looks well it doesn't look like it is a significant investment in Staffing from 20121 to 2024 so that's the the main thing that stands out to me we were spending about 11 half million dollar on Staffing in 2020 fiscal year 21 um and we've steadily progressed and uh and then we we talked earlier about some of the results we're seen because of that so that's what stands out to me um that is probably a combination of again um some increases in staff but primarily uh for teachers the The Dilemma we've had a little bit with Esser that every school district has had is um there's both supplement not supplant and then also maintenance of effort so as Esser funds
187went away um you had to be very cautious and careful as far as what you could stop paying for uh and you would also have or have to keep and so we had to be very deliberate um as we move forward with uh not voling below maintenance of effort essentially saying in a big picture you can't spend less per student on special ed in year two than you did in year one questions from my colleagues on the board you asked about special education I just want to highlight that Miss clim has done a wonderful job in looking at our staffing ratio for our special education program and she realized upon her arrival that we were under resource and not serving that population as well as we should have and I think there's an added component
188of not only the the moral imperative and the values that drive our work in that Staffing area but is also legally binding through the IEP process and when families appropriately advocate for their child uh through that process we have a legal obligation to make sure that that staff is Prov I'll move on to 2425 please I I think the the main thing I want to emphasize is that I see uh any budget the board adopts but in particular this time of year as a as a budget is really formative uh it's it's not summative it's got to be a working document uh things things will come up um and and anything material um in my opinion that should be brought to the board so the board can adopt a new budget regardless of what time
189of year that is so kind of the steps in our budget process that as I would see them is you're getting an updated budget now that's um what you're seeing is cabinet suggestion as far as closing that approximately $4 million budget Gap that we have um and on what you're looking at right here is in the blue columns this is the preliminary is what was approved by the board in I think it was end of May and revised is uh our our our best estimate at budget now um you'll be getting this this is not for approval today we're still using the preliminary um but you'll see something very similar to this uh in October when you approve what we'll call the final budget although you can always approve another budget after that too the
190the main levers that'll change between now and October uh we have our September count um so when we uh on our students on the third Friday in September uh we'll know uh that'll lock in our Revenue essentially so then we'll know you know where our revenues the other piece that we'll be updating um in October is uh Sarah and I will be sitting down going through our staff uh essentially person by person and making sure that uh all the staff we have is everyone we planned for and you're less concerned about whether they're budgeted in the right place but that's something I I like I always pay attention to um so you'll see modifications perhaps in not the I'm sure it's not gonna be the exact same budget number it's going to be something you
191know we planned on hiring someone with 10 years experience we hired someone with 12 and somewhere else we hired someone with to so we those are the things that we will reconcile all back to the budget so you'll see those types of updates um and then depending on what the what the board approves with health insurance that's going to be a um right now what's what you're seeing here is if the board approves a change to health insurance um if the board does not that will increase the budget Gap um so just to be very you know um transparent about that and you would see that um there's a line item here on health insurance it's this code is that's that's a wfar code a state code what you care about is the description is
192health insurance and approving that change will save the district you know roughly $1.3 million the number I have always looked at that I felt was the most reliable as to the financial health of the school district is the resident enrollment account excluding County grounds and beginning four or five years ago the reporting of that to the board has not been so constant shall we say like for tonight there's an enrollment projection spreadsheet that is all students and um for a while in the past two or three years the business office would report um resident enrollment that was the outcome of of the formula of the leveling that's done with the state kind of a whole harmless thing so we're not swinging up and down and I always asked for and pleaded for and have kept
193have had to keep asking for I need to know the count of actual human beings in each of our buildings by grade because that tells us so much about are underlying fundamentals because of the state aid that is eventually produced by that and of course then the argument well you want the leveled out number because that tells the aid for the year like no no no no I want the actual number of human beings because that eventually ends up in that leveled out number like the average of three I don't know you would have to tell us how they do it though okay but I always thought that was so important and you know decisions as to what's the capacity of a building and are should we move Elementary boundary lines and are we um
194you know attracting students to join our school district in ninth grade I mean it just told me all those things you know how many senior kindergarteners do we have because they tend to stay here um through for the next 12 years on the whole so I just ask for my opinion for what it's worth that number is a very important number by building by grade that we can see that consistently from year to year so it can be compared from year to year the resident enrollment count the number of human beings actually sitting in the classroom excluding County grounds and that that's my golden number for me that's my key performance indicator for the school district yeah that I asked for feedback earlier that's that's perfect um I don't see any problem with being forward
195now I'm likely only around here for eight more months so I'm throwing that out there for the you know institutional knowledge of people that for 20 years that's what we used and or for 15 years in the beginning of my time on the board and that following that number has served served us well other comments and questions from the board in this budget so just to reiterate in September your going to get from there'll be a report about third Friday count um I don't know if we'll have it by the detail you want yet but that'll be in September or October in October updated budget um the state certifies equalized aid on October 15 um then we run all our numbers so that we can um um with our our anticipated tax levy and then
196the board traditionally approves the tax levy and the final budget in the second October board meeting um two other questions uh the board always receives a monthly report and I know it's discussed in the finance committee the full board receives it uh tracking I know you're also adding projections into that right across the top of that report is a box I believe in a mustard color something along those lines that says um it would alert the board if there's any material variance um can you share a little a bit about how you would alert the board if there's any variance for what has been the approved budget I just want to be kind of yeah really clear both with the community and with us so I I think that's a perfect time to transition to
197where we are with July yes um because that's exactly what you're talking about so uh this is my July report um you can see here uh I'm not going to explain how I would describe it because I that a pretty good example here um you can see on the narrative um I'm talking about where we are with our revenues where we are with our expenditures I'm pointing out here that among our expenses our purchase Services um to me stand out as something that's higher than we would have projected through this point um so then that's an alert to me uh I'll show you where you can where where that will alert you too I want to spend the bulk of my time not the already spent the bulk of my time um I want to
198spend a little bit of time showing you how to read this um but that narrative is going to include hey here's what I see and here's why in this case uh we're ahead of peson purchase Services um that is things like um basically it's uh in large part staff that arms ours um or it can be like software things like that so we've made earlier than normal purchases on technology and also finished some facilities projects earlier than we typically would have which means we've sent checks to people earlier than we typically could have um and so our July expenses are more than they have been the last five years we use an algorithm um showing where we would anticipate and so we should see that even out over the next couple months because we made
199the made the payments early that means we won't be making them you know in future months so that's that's the narrative how I'll point out you know here's a variance couple things for the board um there'll always be a link to the video of how to read the report um right here I think we're talking about well something Dr mean has asked me to do in the future is also essentially give this report both at the board meeting um and just to record it ahead of time so that we have multiple kind of avenues um I just want to show you how to read this report and again we're only one month into the year and so I mean now we're almost two months but the report is only one month um so we we're
200not going to you wouldn't typically see something that would be alarming um and I like to explain this actually using the second graph Dom I think that's well we'll use the top one um I'll show you how to read this on the revenue side and then the expense side is essentially the same so you're always going to see at the top this is always going to be our general and special education funds to our operating funds right um and you can see for the period ending so each month that'll be different obviously and then what I'm keying in on is we've got these speedometers and I I think of the kind of um narrative down here as being the speed limit and then our speed is where this little black line is so uh in
201terms of revenues right we we get almost no Revenue in July August September so revenues are very low but that's about where we'd expect we don't get our revenues you know it's not one 12th the revenue each month so we would have expected to receive about 0.18% of you know our entire budget uh through July we received 0.16 um you know there's there's a little bit of uh sometimes people will say to me well what what's relevant or what's material there and and a little bit of it is culture if you're driving five miles over the speed limit in one County that might mean nothing and in another County you might get pull over um generally though I like to be within a percent or two uh to that's kind of the the the dipstick
202test being over or under doesn't mean anything's going wrong it means I need to be able to supply the board with an explanation of why that is um like I did with uh uh to services tonight so you you can see the total revenues and then we have in the uh the red Dash red speedometer is our local sources So eventually that'll go way up when we get property taxes in the winter as well as state sources will go way up when we get equalized Aid if you're interested in if you're interested exactly where that revenue is we've received so far it's it's in these things that um by the end of the year probably won't even been on this list uh because that's when we start getting Grant revenue and state revenue for instance
203you can see right now student fees are fourth leading Revenue at $3,800 um that'll fall off the list pretty quickly so this is updated every month the next two or the next three charts essentially compare either the prior year with the current year or the prior year I'm sorry prior with the current year or where we are compared to where we're projected I honestly um put more of my effort into reading this would be the the key chart I'd be looking at right here is our projection is the red where we currently are is the purple if those two things are you know close that means we're right on um if the purple and and the Revenue side it's great if the purple's ahead of the red on the expense side you don't want the
204purple ahead of the red and so we're looking at this uh by Source on the revenue side and let's go down to the expense side and look at that same chart and that's where I was pointing out what I saw with purchase services and here's how I saw that right here I can see in this case we're using blue instead of purple but blue for where we actually are red for what was projected and this was material enough that I wanted to jump in and take a look at what's going on question so if uh if you saw that in Pur services and you couldn't come up with a reasonable explanation you would then point that out in finance committee point it out again board what then would you anticipate in Next Step from either
205the administration or board that so um um just from a process standpoint I I think um what I imagine I'd be doing is presenting this at the finance committee meeting and then again also at the board meeting um and so you're saying something stands out like this and I can't find what the issue is what Thea I guess you have what would your suggest be to the board what could we do then to not be where we are now so I I was actually thinking what would like to do is bring the board a report like this as of like last December so you can see what it would have looked like um what it would have looked like and and I haven't actually looked at but I anticipate it would have looked like your
206salaries would be way up here and your projection would be they would just been a skew um the idea is this should stand out like a sore thumb um and like I said sometimes that's okay if there's rationale behind it um like I'll give you a good example uh we used to be on used to be on 26 pays for teachers um we're not anymore so I'm not worried about that but but back then if if uh there would be a month where there'd be three pays so that would temporarily for one month skew the salaries and that' be I would come to the board and I'd explain that and I'd say here's why next month it's going to catch back up did I answer your question okay I I don't anticipate a time where
207I wouldn't be able to find what the issue was if if that's the other I guess it would be what's the next step that because then OB had to make Cuts somewhere in the rest of the year's budget or I mean so is that something you would talk to with cabinet and then we the board would get a recommendation at that point if there was something that was standing out like this like the salad I'm trying to understand as a board member when there's something that stands out what's the next step then well um I mean it's a little hard I'm I'm saying trust me um but but the way I've operated so far is as soon as I saw something I I notified you know my supervisor who notified the board so that's the
208normal process I would use um I guess the one thing I would add on the on the front end is um it's also my job to cost those things up before the board approves them so like we were talking about with health insurance uh it's incumbent on me to say you know the board ultimately is the decision maker um but I need to put in front of you if you choose path a it's this and if you choose path B it's this and path C is this so I think it's a fair question I I can sense your response is a little uncomfortable may I use a normal collaboration and paraphrase what I think I'm hearing you say which is please correct me if I'm wrong I think I'm hearing you say you would never
209be in that position where you could not explain it that you would have the foresight to have recognized it on the front yeah I I mean that's why you hired me well as the case may be we also are now putting in place there's your information there's the cisa ca ca 5 uh additional review there's new additional reporting there's a variety of information that's presented so I if you are projecting correctly we have we will have the projections available to us the community will have projections available to us uh and if something were to catastrophically happen that is unforeseen that that we were not covered by insurance or something that something had occurred that would have then be articulated to the board and if we needed to make some substantial midyear adjustment that would be
210a decision strategically that we would make along with our strategic plan of priorities but the the the data in this one the data day projections failed to provide accurate expectations for what was approved versus what was within the budget and then we were not updated on what on the variance between those two things that should never happen and we have multiple checks and balances that are that will be in place that the community will be able to review the board can review multiple levels can review I think the uniqueness to what we're going to put in place that most school districts won't have in place is that we're using a independent agency that will verify the information from Mr eer and and I think that's where that's what I mean by I'm regretful that we're
211here I'm regretful to Scott because he's a good professional but I think some of the the information I've heard from the community is we can't just throw out compliments to people we're gonna have to prove it to people and and so um cisa that that external approval should be your reli your Reliance of you just don't have to take one person's word for it in their numbers there's another set of taking a look at the information in my understanding that will be monthly so it'll be trailing a little bit as all Financial things are but we will get a report on a monthly basis for that each month we will continue to have clearly the the annual audit that is done by an external third party to have a third review but we don't ever
212want to be in a position where we're waiting for the end of year audit which is quite tra yeah I guess as a board number my ask would be if there's something that's uh showing that we're over budget then the cabinet works together and brings recommendations to this board to get those numbers the back I guess but it's not what happened that year well right what we discussed so my hope would be as a board member is that what that's the kind of recommendations that we would then receive if these lines aren't equal at any point one of the things that's happened last weekend I think on our on our most previous meeting Mr Fountain came to the board and shared we have a substantial issue with um it's a safety heating issue in Washington
213Elementary and one of the questions that I asked to him is is that within the current budget and I think that's a time where I would ask that we'd be really explicit of saying this is an additional expenditure and we will adjust within our budget so that we will remove something as opposed to adding more this will be an additional unplanned expenditure and we will bring the in youor Artic updating the budget accordingly um or this is when this was this wasn't planned but we have money set aside for these types of things within our budget and we will use it for that and so last that felt when Kevin articulated all that it kind of gives you a sigh of relief of like okay it's never good when something unexpectedly falls apart and I'm
214glad that we we had professionals reviewing everything analyzing it making sure kids were safe and that we could respond to it quickly and we knew we had the money where it was coming from I don't want to be labor of this because I think we've discussed it but the situation that we're facing is not due to the hiring of significant more staff can you just go over again your analysis of where it landed because I think it's really I think on the surface people will hear this and think well they just hired so many more people than what was expected um but your analysis yeah not what so to me the bottom line is so I'm I'm I'm fing back to our 23 24 now and while it's at a higher level this isn't so
215dissimilar to a financial report that might have been given to the board um which it just doesn't tell you that much and that's one of the difficulties with it in FY 23 the total spend on salaries and benefits was 75 million the amount budgeted was 81.7 Million for compensation essentially that's ballpark 7% that that wasn't enough to cover it wasn't enough to cover health insurance frankly um so in accurate budget would have would have again what I'm going to do in October sit down with Sarah go through every person what health insurance they chose and when that happens or had that happened something would have come forward to the board saying hey we need to update our budget to a number more like this I think that's really important again because I think on the
216surface when you hear what occur for 23 24 the impression is there was just much more hiring that took place than than what was expected and that's not I think your analysis has been that the the amount that was budgeted for salaries and benefits just did not match what we actually were planning to utilize in particular benefits um when we look at what was budgeted was actually a decreased cost in health insurance from the prior year which um could have been there's no way that could have happened lands us back to the question of how were what what were the warning signs that would have alerted either the cabinet or the board that there was something a mess and it I think what this so thank you for bringing it up I don't want to
217be laborate it's just it's just another illustration of if there were warning signs we would have heeded them yeah mrar something you just said that I really liked was that you sit down and you project out the cost for every employee that takes a lot of work but it produces really good numbers so that's a that's a good indicator there that things will be better um now I want to I want to go back to I'll try to explain it this way you have a crystal ball and a calculator and our first problem I alluded to was the budgeting and you know the projections and the crystal ball and you know past couple years before you were here the business office would pull out their crystal ball and set it on the desk and and
218say well here's three possible outcomes and the worst outcome is the one we ended up with I I believe and tell me if I'm wrong but but and but we as a board not on the the me but on what what funding would we get with all the State Surplus and we as a board we don't want to be pessimists we don't want to believe that that worst outcome is the most likely and then when the business office says well we think from our experience in this line of work that the other two outcomes are more likely but just in case the worst outcome happens here are the numbers so the backside of the business office was covered because those numbers were presented so I think we um you know and I think the quality
219of your office's work will come down to you know how you know what is going to happen with um healthcare costs what will happen with energy cost what will the legislature do you know right I mean there there is that tough territory to get that stuff right it's like what will the stock market do you know um so I i' ask that you and I'm sure you will from here listening to you'll be very careful with your scenarios from the crystal ball that you have to have one of some sorts that you rely on and what you present to the board as likely outcomes from the prediction of the future because those things you know we got burned on health care costs we got burned on what the legislature did um and there we go
220and then there's your calculator and I think most of this discussion has been how do we know that the right numbers are coming out of your calculator thanks um I just like to add to it FR so with a brand new obviously fresh perspective on it uh what Mr AER has set up I just want to relay my confidence to the rest of the board members of looking at this um this is part of what I do my day job is building tools that measure make these measurements and what he's put together is it will become second nature for everybody um this is a really a really good setup especially if this is what we're going to get every month so um I have a high degree of confidence and what we're going to see
221here and I think that what he said before was it will become pretty apparent if something is out of line if we those variances will with these tools will will definitely show up so I feel very good about that thank you thanks TR continue okay um I want to go to the last page so for those of us that like numbers um and not charts or both I like both so um sometimes I want to see the numbers uh this page has I'll call it column one is last year and column two is this year so here we can see through July 31st of 2023 this would have been the actual activity kind of where my mouse is hovering bu actually means where Did We End and then this would be what percent were we
222through that point in time so for instance on our salaries after July of last year we had spent 1.44% of where we ended for the current year we spent you know about a million dollar our budget's just over 60 million and we spent 1.6% so we're only one month into the year um beginning with the end of the first quarter I I really don't like um putting year end projections in front of boards before the end of the first quarter um that that there's just not enough activity to um give a full projection but what I will do is give salaries and benefits projections I think there's enough there but when you start getting the full uh report there'll be another column between these two that will show current year to date and a column
223that says essentially what's projected the rest of the year so in this case what that would mean is here's July and then here's a total of August through next June there'll be a column that says there's the total of all of those and how does that compare to the budget right so then you're going to get something that says there'll be a variance amount if we're if we're doing this well the variance amount at the end of the first quarter should be very similar to where we are at the end of the year um you know ABS us making any changes questions from the board this makes a lot of sense thanks and I um as you have questions please let me know I I can modify things um you know I I just I
224know we're all in this together so Mr reor so you will be producing these on a monthly basis you'll be sharing them with the board they'll be discussed at finance committee and at board meetings there'll be a flipped presentation so the community can view it in advance come with questions if they have any during public comment um they can attend finance committee meetings uh those I believe going forward will be uh available to to to view uh online um and we will have a third-party individual reviewing this ongoing the cisa yeah so that's our goal yeah um I reached out to cesa 5 just today and we need to hear back from them but we we're going to be persistent about finding we're efforting in that one yeah okay um in process uh and we
225will have this information the community can while the board is reviewing it they can do it in real time they'll also be able to find it online on our okay Mr Mar I'm just GNA throw out this as a brainstorming suggestion do we want to put a third board member on the finance committee um I've said multiple times my likely the lifespan on this board is going to end in eight months it's not a legal announcement just say and um I know a lot has learned sitting in that room and um just to put it out there not agenda for that discussion right but just to put it out for an agenda discussion okay thank you for noted putting guard reils on me there I appreciate that any final comments or questions from the board
226on all the a reports with that um Mr eer my my goal for us is to be thorough deliberative and boring um and I suspect that's your goal as well um we again pushed this up earlier on our agenda so we are now moving back to what was previously noted as strategic goal five culture and Community uh it's a review projected student enrollment report a safety audit and review of bullying harassment and investigation process um in our items here um thanks for everybody who stuck with us a good evening everyone uh you get uh both Luke and I to talk a little bit about where we're at from an enrollment standpoint and then diving uh some more into people and family supports um I am pleased to share with you this evening um that our
227enrollment projections from back in January of 22 2024 are within one half of 1% um of our current enrollment um there are some variations um most specifically related to JK the the group that we know least about every January um and as of this afternoon um our teams at our schools and our teams at the Fisher Building um reported to us that our online student enrollment um is over 93% complete so we are very close to that fin line we've been exceeding um our enrollment um goal uh every day this past week um and we'll be ready for kids on on September 3D and my office is still receiving many enrollments as we speak so um we're still busy taking enrollments Luke do you want to just do a a a push out there for
228if if a parent hasn't enrolled yet but is watching the school board meeting what do they do tomorrow morning go to our website access um the enrollment tab it'll all be spelled out for you the sooner you can get enrolled the more quickly we can get your child what they need to be ready to start school Mr P can you speak about this set we' met with registration so far this year yeah so online registration as you know was newer um this is our second year proceeding with online we worked out a lot of thumps that you may have experienced registering your own child last summer um and we've worked out again this summer right we will debrief when it's all done um but really meeting our goals we set pretty ambitious goals compared to
229where we were last year in terms of annual registration percentage and we far surpassed those it was a collective effort with academic office the data team HR operations so there's a lot of hands in the enrollment pot so to speak um but we are really proud of the work that's been done in getting students registered and ready to go as soon as possible so minus the Virtual Academy we have a registration rate tonight of 93.5% so 93.5% of the students that we expected to come to school people have registered we know that they're coming they their parents have signed them up that's that is that far surpasses what we've done in the past that allows us to use the remainder of this week to call that 7% or so they ask are you coming back
230or not and also to receive new families and so we're we're we're I think our administrative assistance at all the schools deserve a great amount of credit uh for putting systems in place where we were gathering things I ALS want to thank our PTA PTO leaders across the district because they've worked with us hand inand to make sure that this process worked well it took a lot it took a village but to be at 93.5% we're we're very pleased um couple couple comments um one thank you for your good work if I recall we have two high schools both ranked in the top 37 in the state of Wisconsin tosa West is I think 37 35 37 somewhere in that range that's out of well over 600 high schools in the state of Wisconsin wosa
231East is number 13 and number 11 out of any non-sp specialty high schools um these are not an additional $20,000 you'd have to spend these are you you go to them as public schools that the constitution requires that we fund and and provide resources my kids have gone through these schools and they're excellent we're always going to strive to be better and if I recall many of our elementary schools are some of the very best in the state of Wisconsin often have been literally the best elementary school in state of Wisconsin all of them are striving to get better we'll see next week our data from Dr marble that we're all we're seeing growth we're investing in curriculum we're investing in teachers and we'll continue to push for that might I add please if you're
232watching or listening to this tonight or recorded and you're um a family that isn't certain that public school is the answer for you of of course we we want to tell you all the great things that are happening here and all the work we're doing to support children but also know it's never too late um you can register or enroll at any point in the year you have a right if you live here to go to our schools we welcome you with warm arms it's fantastic communities in our schools um and we are continuously striving to be better [Music] um anything else on this item you typically see that that JK number my increased throughout the year is it where it starts typically at the beginning it usually stays pretty close to where we are
233um if you would like to keep monitoring updated enrollments uh the Staffing reports that are on the district website um are updated Real Time by Luke's team we we'll get a third Friday count as well so just again melosi if people are interested in knowing where the numbers are at the end of this week what can they do uh they should visit the district we site uh go to the division of human resources and click on the Staffing plans every school every grade level um is all up to date which school's in first place who's got the highest percentage they are all winning good answer good answer uh next up on this if there's nothing more is the school safety audit and school safety plan and I would invite two of my colleagues up for
234this next present ation um Tim could you help pull up the slide deck I'm struggling as an Apple user to navigate the Androids yep thank you so I'll introduce uh to my left Laura gisler our director of school safety to my right Kevin loundon our director of building and buildings of grounds and it sounds like our chief Millis is online listening as well should do we have any questions specific to him I want to just set the stage for the pieces that you'll be hearing in this presentation one is the school resource officer log review the SRO log um you have access to that data I will say it was like we we spoke before it's timec consuming to redact but it's an important exercise to make sure we're protecting student confidentiality we went through
235that list we double check triple check um to make sure that names aren't inadvertently in there I'd also like to say that the way we present the data to you in the public looks different than the spreadsheet that has all the details and that by design that spreadsheet will not be released through the public because it would be very easy even with the information redacted for a member to identify and find a specific incident or what happened um so that is protected to protect individual children as well as famili we'll look at that we also will speak to the safe haven school safety audit this is a very comprehensive school safety audit the district report is about 160 pages each school report is 50 to 60 Pages times every school that we have um we
236are deep in the process of analyzing those working with our administrators we spent some time with them already unpacking that that will guide our safety work for five to 10 years or more possibly it could be overwhelming when you hear different parts of it and we are very conscious of we've presented it tonight as to not inadvertently share information or weak spots um with ill intended audience members um again presuming positive intent but they will caution this is why you won't see it shared uh in its existence with 160 Pages because it's a very sensitive document that in the wrong hands could be used in a bad way and then lastly we wanted to provide with you provide to the board just the structure of our school safety plans again similar to the last statement
237I just made we can't give every single detail to the public about school safety plans for safety and if they were to fall in the wrong hands however you'll see structurally the components that are built into each school safety plan and how they're personalized for those sites so we will jump in first with the SRO log data as you may remember our first year in 2022 2023 we did make a revision to how the police department was categorizing these data of the contact log so we don't necessarily have Apples to Apples to compare to last year however we're looking at this as a baseline though I will say in looking at the data from last year we see similar Trends in terms of school or District staff being the general complaintant and complainant really means
238that person that is initiating a contact or a need for law enforcement you'll see the breakdown of our high schools and our middle schools and where that number sort of Falls in terms of the total complainant categories and counts by the district and by school so again by far school and District staff are initiated and then you can sort of see their student and SRO initiated are about even and then other um could be community members followed by parent and then lastly unknown could be anonymous tips and such when you break that down by percentage this is what we're looking at in terms of more often than not it is a school Personnel that is initiating the need for law enforcement I'll give you a minute to just digest this there's private school parochial data
239as well which looks different in terms of the categories that are initiating context at our private and perate schools can I ask a question about that yeah um have you had an opportunity to I guess just look at some of those School Personnel calls I know one of the challenges we've had in the past was the overuse of SRO in our buildings do you feel like we're moving in the right direction where our staff are now utilizing SRO at appropriate time points rather than when it should be handled by School administration anecdotally I would say I'm seeing less inappropriate use however I would say Laura might be best positioned as she is often if there is a question about do I need a law enforcement officer here in there on the fence often she receives
240that call yeah I think that now with the teach chart for staff like more classroom managed behavior that are being managed in the classroom and not immediately calling an SRO or the classroom so I think it I I definitely agree with it is definitely better okay and some of these called you know they could be meeting with the students what will be good is when we get to this next slide it sort of breaks down the reason or the purpose of that call now again new categories we're looking at a baseline here but we could draw some comparisons roughly to previous years but this is really telling me what are those calls for we know a good majority of them are for communications or they have it as PR but really that's athletic events proactive
241participation at games being a presence not necessarily called because there's a problem but doing it as a community service and then disorderly um behaviors conduct is are as well one of our top items followed by assisting and assisting there's a link to service definitions there is is assisting another department or a citizen so for an example assisting a citizen is sometimes generated when someone from the school calls for a non-urgent matter um so those are the carriers in the suspicious that could be something along the lines of there's a suspicious vehicle outside of the school we would like an officer to explore and look into this um narcotics is any drugs in school and then theft being dead 29 so you kind of see the breakdown here which again to your point Dr Hy this
242doesn't tell the whole story right you in the details is where um more information is but on the whole appropriate categories being used when it comes to calling for S support I don't know Chief if there's anything you'd like to add this is your data I feel like I'm I'm speaking to it more than you would might be able to um can you hear me okay yes um I agree with the assessment that um staff are being more in the classroom management Lane versus calling the police to handle things that have pre that's how it was previously done and through our relationship and through those discussions and through training on both sides where that delineation is between an administrative code school policy violation versus something that requires an SRO being involved and the sro's have
243been empowered to do some gentle pushing back here this is really your l not really ours will be assistive and provide some guidance on it but I I think we're in a much better place than we were a year ago and I do I know we've said it already this evening we've said it before but we have some really incredible amazing school resource officers in our system that are building really incredible relationships with students that have been able to see firsthand and is really really great to see thank you I concur thank you thank you Chief um any other question specific to the calls for service and by complainant or category yes go with Dr sorry apologize I realize given the size of the population this might not be possible but we do have a
244goal with the board around disproportionality um how would we read that in this report are we making progress or not we you mentioned at our last meeting how we were in terms of some of the areas of um discipline making progress how are we doing um in the Soro realm I believe Chief you may have a statement or or context to speak to this in regard to the data as it relates to race and ethnicity yeah and this is something that I've said um last year as well our SRO are focusing on behavior um as far as data collection goes that's part of the pii information that we collect as well um but again not for this format but again our SRO are focusing on behavior that rises to Reasonable Suspicion or probable cause and
245you can see from the low numbers that are generated by SRO self-initiated calls or calls that they come across that number is incredibly low on that previous slide to the point of only being 3.22% of any of the call for service types of calls that we have I would add caveat that would make it a little bit trickier as it relates to how we monitor disproportionality from a behavior and discipline lenses a lot of these that we spoke to that Community Support are proactive for large groups of people um so that would be a difficult pinpoint data piece yeah I that one would be hard because they're being asked to come to events and I didn't just mean um towards the chief's Point um SRO Behavior I meant in general as a community as a
246as a w as a school district have we made any steps forward um in addressing the disproportionality and maybe we don't have the measures on that yet but I know we're trying to do that on the discipline side um and so sro's respond not just to their own calls but to other people's requests and so that could be the SRO are doing an amazing job there but um other people aren't um I don't know I just was looking at the data and trying to understand if there was any way that we could um put this in you know our measures of disproportionality going forward I certainly think it's worthy of exploring further I'd be really interested to see what metrics would be possible to that end I know we we just got that Excel spreadsheet
247emailed to us and so like I don't know we have probably all haven't had time to digest it fully um my very quick count is that something like 85 citations were given out during last school year and 23 of those were for [Music] um hold on I have to do it math 23 of them are for white or Asian students which leaves uh two 62 that are African-American I think those are the only three categories I'm seeing on here for today there's some missing data yeah there is some missing data so I think that's important like we could do something with this data to give ourselves another measure I think so because I didn't know how that compared to last year I I think we had this level of data last year we kind of
248evolved it last time I presented so the data changed like mid year after we okay we met okay and you guys have some suggestions and then I'm met with Sergeant Mor we added some additional um areas so I think like Luke said this is definitely a benchmark for us and now you know we can goow and stting next week what the data we want I think the other piece we'd probably want to look at is the disability number of our students with disabilities who are getting citations economic might be then yeah there is a disability category it does look like it's a fairly I mean again quick eyeball it's a fair number of students with disabilities want to go back to Mr Martin so over time and starting long before the other six board members
249were on the board my view of this is that um it was a problem that school admin building Administration was relying too much on the SRO and the reason for that we twofold um the intervention skills and strategies of the building administrators usually not the teachers and also the availability of of Staffing from the central office and um Dr means has tried to address all of those things which is why we need the operational referendum to continue those things so and I've um and I also say the the skill of the person who's sitting in Luke's chair right now and um Luke has very much impressed me with the um depth and breadth of his approach to getting things right instead of just trying to fix the data because just trying to fix the data
250you don't get the root causes and you don't fix the right problem so I have um developed a high degree of confidence in in the um in your offices over there as we've had conversations so um I just want to emphasize as well it the SRO aren't typically making the calls it's somebody calling them and and so the SRO typically are you know they're not looking for business right they're they're you know looking to have a good day for the kids just like everyone else is so the root of it is I believe the things that Mr pinion and Dr means are are trying to fix if I may highlight that point is yes we have deans of students now that was a huge addition that would help that inappropriate use alongside developed guidance systems
251processes for the operations of Deans for the operations of our APS for our principles for discipline for behavior these are now clear and structured for our staff so I believe that formula of all those pieces is how we're getting to a better place of using school resource officers all right with that I want to shift gears again because this was a really large lift for not only safe havens but for our our building principles Administration who gave tours answered lots of questions and it was able to pull off the school safety audit um I'll let Laura sort of take it from here but I just wanted to give the statement again regarding confidentiality so this is all but a slice of the full reports um stve paven is the company we use to do our
252districtwide audit so they did a districtwide audit and then they did each building had their own assessment done um really we do these so that we can see what we can improve on or what we're doing good um for safety in our buildings um like Luke said it's very thorough it's very long but it really gives us a good look at where we are at with safety um items within the district so when we when we got the assessment it's really there's an area that we break it down by different categories so technology and Facilities improvements is our first category I'm not going to go over all of them um but just a few highlights is establishing a 247 365 day Communication Center um currently our current stats we don't have that but all our
253administrators and our SRO um have access to our cameras and they can archive the footage and view it there uh something that maybe on the road map would be in two to five years having an um inside a building like a commitment center with all the cameras up and then longterm goal would be a dedicated person at the district office that would be able to access and R and watch video if need be oh also preface as you hear a lot of these you'll be thinking cost this is expensive again this is reminder long-term work five to 10 plus years and there may be opportunity for safety grants year by you know in subsequent years so there will be opportunities as you hear Laura review these items just keep that in mind and keep in
254mind as well there are things that we are able to do that are low to no cost that we've already taken action on um as a result of some of the information we've received so just keep that in mind we're highlighting just a few pieces but it's important so the next one on here actually is one so with our new phone system all phones in every classroom office are allowed um they have the availability to make a PA announcement so as we grow on our phone systems we can also um in our visitor management system we can integrate all pieces within that so we can have it would integrate with our PA and our portable radios so all those things can is on in the road map of what it and I will work on
255um emergency buttons and for office staff and school administrators again this is something we already have with our phone new phone system so every classroom teacher and has a button on their phone or a number they can they dial a number and it will ring the office until someone answers uh so growing that more would be to get you know texting administrators so that just as allows them to respond quicker and then we go into facilities improvements um Kevin probably will have to answer some of these but um just making sure that as we are renovating buildings that were including some of those High higher cost technology things like having magnetic strips holdbacks devices for stairwells and hallways that close automatically for fire that will close automatically if we have to go into lock down
256um equipping schools with HVAC systems and emergency shut off buttons so the status is I mean we're in Exploration Kevin right you to to this yeah um and we'll just keep exploring different capabilities that we can improve upon and anytime we are planning for any remodeling or potential reference related to this work ined um do we have those doors in the new in the new elementary schools so in our new buildings those doors automatically closed and shut and during if a lockdown is happening they lock and everything's turned off and then the other one is improving emergency preparedness items such as emergency diagrams so we just completed for a state Grant uh digital mapping of all our buildings and this Al we have them but it also ties with the police they're in all of
257our police cars on their computers um and as we any and then basic so this is a Cass that we've already covered and anything will just be updated if we make any Renovations and then the last um section is our behavior and intervention improvements um and you'll see this is a lot of like what Luke talked about those low cost no cost items that we can really and a lot of things that we've done and we are still doing in terms of refining threat assessment continuing to train people um you know responding to Anonymous threats they're all things we're actively engaged in and continually refining now that we have systems and process and written procedures to move through a lot of these pieces Yeah so basically everything on this slide talk we are in the
258process of already doing um and then same thing with this last um section is we already are doing those we already have plans to do that um so I think I think these are great that we can do them without any additional cost there's a lot of intervention I want to speak a little bit about the student supervisor practices we are moving toward um a different schedule for some of our student supervisors to cover after school we realized not only is it not sustainable but it's not a best practice to be using external security who are not our staff not trained don't know our students don't have relationships so we've just reworked um through attrition this schedule of student supervisors at our secondary schools where possible to have coverage so that is individuals who know
259the children we can train we can develop uh versus paying extra for an external person without that same established relationship and then the family reunification plan um in the new visitor aware system that we use um for checking people in the office part of that is we also manage our drills through that app and we can um account for students within that same app so that would be part of the reunification Pro process so I would like to see that as we're using that more for our drills we are also training and staff to take attendance on that so then we can see who is accounted for okay Personnel yep and then Personnel um we know we we have a pretty good pre pre-employment and post hire Child Check protection we do a pretty thorough
260background check um we do our safe scho training so we are cover that and we contined update that annually um and our handbook is updated and approved every year okay any questions on the lits that's a very quick version of a very thorough multimon process in every building that has a lot of detail um we didn't want to inundate even though it may feel like you're inundated with a lot of information of what we could or should be doing um but I'm pleased with what we've done in two years around safety and I would say our outcomes are evidence that it's moving Us in the right direction if a board member wanted to do a deeper dive over the next few months would we be able to kind of schedule of time either during a
261one Dr means or another time to kind of we had some specific items absolutely okay and I know you've utilized resources and grants to do some really creative things and I know a lot of I would Echo Mr Meyer's comments about how far we have come in a whole lot in a whole host of different areas um when I first entered the board I'm feeling reflective tonight tonight as Jason joins us kind of Midstream I came in at a at a at a similar point with where we were with the referendum of 2018 uh the work had been done there was I think Mr Meer correct me if I'm wrong about $350 million if if we had everything we wanted it would have been $350 million so we we identifi and not we I I
262I was it was done with a a large community group Mr Meyer was the L on to that group and I identified a breadth ofes that were happening so it's not unlike where we find ourselves now where we've got a variety of things we now need to find money for it [Music] um one of the things I I want to be really clear as we communicate to the community when we say in tonight Ada came up and accessibility issues we identified a lot more Ada and accessibility issues in 2018 than we had the money with $14.9 million that we could ever address we did everything we could to spread the money out as efficiently and effectively to deal with issues of safety Ada uh managing lots of kind of crumbling infrast structure um and we
263didn't do I'm not I'm still not aware and I'll keep digging into this I'd like to kind of hear more from Miss phel palac uh what she spoke to tonight of things that we specifically said we were going to do that we didn't um but we I want us to make sure that we're kind of clear as we think about some of these things of there's a lot that we want and need to do and there's limited resources to do it so I think you said this will guide us over the next decade we will not have the resources to do everything that we would like to do if we had unlimited resources so decisions will be made and we know this is a big priority not disimilar from other budgetary priorities we have so
264I I'm thinking all about this as we kind of bring things forward everything is a way and I think it speaks to the importance of as we think about referendums what the community ultimately will decide is are these schools how do we invest in them around all the different issues and here's what we're going to say that we're going to do I'm Ram it's 940 so I'll stop and I would say I appreciate the structure of having Laura's position in the division of people and family supports nothing against building and grounds but some District structure it that way she has a nice connection um with with Kevin and in collaboration there but I feel like with her being directly connected to our division she's a part of a lot of conversations that move beyond the
265physical brick and mortar in safety and into more of the social emotional safety as well so thank you for that can I just make a quick plug um as we go into the school year one of the things that came up last year that I noticed a lot of was you as a parent you get these emails if there's something going on in your building um and I think I talked with you about this last year Dr means and I think it got better but can we please when we're calling it a lockdown or secure can we please explain in the email what that means people Miss understand those or or switch them around and get very scared when they get those emails like as a reminder a secure is been doing that but I
266think it's really important yeah and we always do link the signs that we have hung in every classroom so that parents can see what that looks like also keep going on that um next we want to again talk about the skeleton of our safety plans that are reviewed updated annually in what they all consist of knowing that they are very personalized to that physical infrastructure of that individual School and what they're working with so our safety plans we've moved to um in the last five years where each building has a crisis team so each crisis team in the building each crisis team member has specific roles and responsibilities of what to do in every any type of emergency we call um so they're all trained in first aid in CPR anded um they attend meetings
267for crisis teams and they are the ones who are responding to all emergencies uh this has helped us with having more specific people ready to go when we call an emergency so the plan really walks through each crisis team member's roles and responsibilities and then it gets into our SRP which is our standard response protocol um and the language is a lockdown so that's anything harmful Tri or inside or out it could be inside or outside the building um so we would that's when we fall lockdown that's when students would hide or run um we call a cure if something's happening externally and we just make sure the doors are locked we keep everyone inside we have business as usual we passing classes are passing um we shelter for tornado we hold for many medical
268altercations in the with students custodial needs um we just hold the kids in the classroom to keep them at the hallways and then we evacuate for many different reasons um and then always for fire so the shell of every temp foot looks like that um and then it discusss our drills that we go through every monthly drills that we run monthly drills so it's really the bulk of the our plans really are focused on what the crisis teams do so and I train the crisis teams every year before school starts and then I meet usually attend one of the first um staff meetings in the beginning of the year to review emergency procedures with all staff and is it fair to say Laura you may all be familiar with like the red binders that are
269in offices or in schools that have like the flip of different scenarios that might happen we would be working on digitizing those over time um to make them more accessible and not just a binder that's sitting on a shelf um and incorporate those in some way as well so that's another layer of planning and preparation that exists currently right now um yeah also in the plans like I discussed we we drill monthly um sometimes we have two drills a month sometimes we it's one just one so monthly drills and we make sure everyone's participating and then we also the younger kids we make sure we have a conversation with them following the drills any questions on our safety okay um just some updates for 24 25 school year um celebrations our audit our Safety Committee
270work was great this last year um our external Safety Committee was great uh increased State we or increased our safety measures at athletic events which is continued on this year um we had our first event last week it was great uh we do a digital Hall Pass management system in the secondaries which is helpful with Hall control during um class time um we are working this year on some high school open Campus Management more so the kids will be scanning in and out uh for when they leave for first Fifth and seventh hour um and then we just our our threat assessment process buling investigations and suicide risk process just continue to grow on those uh I think we really took threat assessment process a lot further last year which was great uh some of
271our challenges that continue are that the hallway and after school supervision just the culture of that um finding filling those student supervisors positions it's a hard position but when we get the right person it's great and budgetary constraints that we have with safety items uh our goals would be to prioritize our safety items audit items and what we can do now and then what we're going to do in the next five to 10 years uh we'll continue to review and support School level safety reports and continue to decre decrease violent behaviors resulting in suspenstion uh the impact on our classrooms at school buildings is that we the t- chart like I mentioned earlier I feel has really helped with managing those behaviors in the classroom versus sending the students out um so just being consistent
272with that for students um an improved behavior in the classroom setting and in the hallways and more predictable hallway proc procedures so that that goes to our hall passes our open Campus Management and the monthly meetings with our student supervisors on a schedule for them during passing time and during class time last SL all right so our Outlook um we're going to continue to review our data Uh Kevin and I are going to start uh monthly site walkthroughs so we're going to go to a different building we're going to walk through together and just anything we see that needs you know addressing we will work on that it'll just be that that joint both of us going will be really helpful versus just me um we're in we're in the buildings but for different reasons
273and I'm like we need to be there together um we're going to continue to work with our committees our both internal and external safety committees um you'll see here these are the areas that our external Safety Committee has voted on wanting to cover our Hall Pass management will continue um and we're GNA like I said earlier we're going to maintain athletic safety protocols and we sh like Luke had mentioned we're going to shift that super student supervisor role so we have more coverage after school and then our open Campus Management through campus and I'd end by saying as you've been helpful in our safety work when we brought different items to the board for consideration I would say as we navigate um the road ahead that we would just do the same keep allocating resources
274keep maintaining safety as a priority for all of us again not just physical but that psychological safety as well and keep pushing us to to do better within the realm of what we're able to accomplish in any given year or questions or comments move on to the next item great that's me I would invite director Shonda Holland our director of diversity and inclusion to my right and director Clen thank you for being here tonight our director of special education they've been patiently waiting for this presentation I don't have a fancy slide deck for you tonight what I have is information and you've already seen my presentation if you watched it in advance for tonight what this is um is really us helping not only parents and it's it's purposely LED from parent perspective and and
275I'll plug the parent Guardian guide that we're creating and will be released in the near future as well because it'll speak to this as well alongside many other items but this is really showing not only our legal obligation but our ethical and moral obligation Our obligation as well um as P your policies that we have and our administrative guidelines around different areas that unfortunately we have to to help families navigate and help students navigate and it's it's difficult circumstances and I want to just really bring light to the intention of building this it starts with the parent perspective we want parents to understand there are Outlets when things aren't going according to expectations specifically when it comes to bullying harassment discrimination suicide or threats of violence um and we start in my presentation I don't
276want to get too redundant otherwise we're kind of eliminating the purpose of a flipped presentation but I want parents to understand and we've been working really closely with our Administration on how those conversations should unfold at that school level first and that that is what this first page does is it explains what the parent should expect when they're bringing forward concerns that fall into these categories and that is an honest conversation an honest opportunity to be heard on what's Happening and then the ability to explain to a parent here are the paths that we have available that might be applicable based on the concerns that you're articulating um so again we're working on training Administration we've had several sessions on this we have a legal session coming up in September as well with them but
277then it goes on to explain a few more components one is the ultimate goal is to keep students safe learning and the community safe as well where does the board come in well there's several policies that I mentioned in the presentation that guide not only the District organization the board superintendent relationship but also policies around bullying harassment threat assessment suicide and threats that's where this table comes into play the table is really articulating what is the category so bullying for example what are the policies laws and guidelines that exist that we are required to follow when we hear allegations where does it live bullying investigations will generally live at the school administration level and then what are tools training and guidance beyond the policy beyond the guidelines we've also done ample trainings with different stakeholder
278groups we've provided tools or resources to help move through investigations in a way that is supportive we provided expectations and guidelines for administration on writing the the findings and reducing the writing reducing the findings for writing sorry it's getting late um and so on so I won't go over what I went for each of these categories but I think it's important for the board to see that we are doing what is needed when it comes to Shonda is here she's a compliance officer much like I am Stacy is here because she supports students particularly students with physical mental impairments or or disabilities which has also created guidance for if they're the perpetrator of the victim what happens then what does the IP the 504 need to do what what do we need to consider what
279conversation should we be having so we're intentionally here in case there are additional questions from board members to bring forth these different lenses and how we move through the work now not only from a compliance standpoint but also a supportive standpoint I added outcomes it's not data you haven't seen before but I would be remiss if I didn't say what we're doing though we can't draw just one one correlational line to the highest lever but what we are doing with the work around this concept with the work around safety behavior is yielding results lastly we took the 16 items you'll see at the bottom of this are actual responses that came out of actual investigations of these nature these were not made up these were not theoretical these were pulled directly from reports or directly
280from responses that were done by myself by Shonda Stacy may have hand had a hand in it our legal councel Renee Alana who I believe is on Zoom right now if you have any legal questions um these all are things that happen as a result of Investigations um there is no time limit we will listen and take concerns and act on them regardless of how much time is lapsed um and parents have a right and need to know that there are paths for these specific concerns when we hear about them and staff are trained to make sure they come to compliance officers when they hear of them now that said like anything and you've been paying attention to our work the last two years people were using codes like harassment and discrimination fairly Loosely because
281they were available in ic they're still available but we've train people this is an investigation don't pull bullying down unless you've contacted x y andz and done X Y and Z that said we're humans they're still happening we're getting better but we're still working on that as well I'll try to stay on the topic that is inched but earlier this meeting I expressed my disappointment and flat out anger with the situation we're dealing with miscalculation the anger stems from the fact that the work you've just heard relayed over the last 30 minutes is excellent work and I don't want our culture to get poisoned from not acknowledging good professional work or acknowledging the need for us to continue to strive for good work because of a challenge that we're facing and so I I I
282would just ask the board and the community continue to hold us at a high level of expectations but also realize that we're humans and also realize that these humans are doing really amazingly good work thank you to you Mr pin and your team I think this document and I know Miss Alana um helped author this as well yeah we should give her moment too I want her that's my my point of letting her speak in a second that this document um is you won't find this in a lot of school districts that gives guidance to parents or concern community members on how to handle a concern if you see it um and so I'm really proud of the work that we've developed here to give Clarity so you don't have to rely on a person
283that you know on the school board or you don't have to rely on talking to a staff member that you're comfortable with there are protocols and structures in place that we are relying on that you won't find in other districts but Renee thank you for sticking sticking uh sticking with us is there anything that you would add that would profit the board from hearing so good evening everybody I'm I'm happy to answer any questions that you have I can just add right now before any questions that the policies are all there in the materials they're Guided by and grounded in the law and the district's obligation to create environments that are free of harassment discrimination and bullying and so the message tonight really is here are the policies and and and making sure that anyone
284who has concerns knows that that they exist but not only do they exist but that the implement ation efforts that you've seen are are here in these materials like like Luke said there's there's no limit on a timeline um if something happened a while ago we it's important to know about it so that we can address it and so that we can make sure that any effects are are remedied to the greatest extent possible we want to make sure that everybody knows um where you know H how it works but that it's actually implemented and then that's a that's a community effort and and we need for um we need for that collaboration and so we hope that this is helpful but we're happy to answer any questions that you have thank you um Mr
285before I take any questions um is this a good spot to take questions on your pres presentation okay um Mr Mar so um just to so we can hear it from the the true experts you know attorney Alana and luk and his his staff there is no complaint that's too old that if if if a student with disabilities was injured and it was a number of years ago if those parents come to us or we hear about it in any way shape or form we are required to and if we're not required we want to investigate in in casee there's something we can fix that's still you know latent in our culture or in our staffing or in our training we we want to know about stuff even if it's old yeah Renee if you
286want to answer that legally and I'll answer it morally and ethically for for me not only is there a legal obligation but it's really about is there something still lingering in our system whether it's a staff member's belief or mindset or actions might looking at something that's several years old teach us something now or cause us to intervene fix something so no and my second observation is that um parents of students with disabilities or anyone else advocating for them there is not a requirement that the complaint or the report be worded according to a certain policy number or a c right I mean it's it's like in the public records requests if you say Foya well there's no fo in Wisconsin but the courts have said everybody knows what that means that's a that's a
287Wisconsin public records similarly here you know if if if somebody you there shouldn't be a thought that if you don't or maybe a thought that you should file for example a 9130 General issue resolution complaint no if if if you all learn about a problem magic words don't have to be used by anyone yeah we say that lot there there are no magic words that trigger this and that's where that conversation with a parent becomes really important because they might be saying words that are defined differently by them than they are by us or by law so it's about that conversation and creating space and time to hear the concerns and to articulate here are potential paths that might be applicable what does this path mean what's the timeline there who's doing it what does
288that mean is it an attorney the principal you as a director or chief in explaining that so it isn't about a magic word a path it's about listening to the concern and helping the parent sort of identifying this is the path we're on or multiple paths and here's how we're going to get through it or even if a board member out of ignorance voice is a concern and uses doesn't use the right magic words it it's still just as much advocacy for those students as anyone else and it and and I talked with you Mr pinion I've talked with um attorney Alana over something that I I brought to you and I have the highest respect for how you've hand it and how you educated me about these things and I think we will certainly
289be far better board culture to know these things moving forward I thank you for that and I think part of the frustration Shonda and I might share is that when we don't know about it we can't act in alignment with some of these right some of bullying and other things might not involve us every time but if if we don't know or parents aren't coming to the right Avenues but that doesn't excuse right right School staff not directing them they're trained they understand if there's harassment discrimination it's coming to a compliance officer um so there's a human element in it but that's where we come in to provide again I hate banging on the systems and process drum that this is really about does everyone understand that system in the process of how you move
290through these types of concerns and and I feel so good I I had a phone conversation today and um it wasn't good that there was the substance in the conversation but I felt good that I had a better sense for what to do and the Supreme confidence that there's people inside who won't apply the rules and the practices and the techniques clerically that you will all use professional judgment and balancing tests about rights I mean somebody said well I know somebody who knows somebody who um their child is is being um on a recurrent basis bullied well school years just started and I said well they need to talk to the building the building Administration just like you told me then it goes to you it goes to Dr means and so as a board
291member I will hear them and direct them to to the appropriate resource and then they let me know is it working out well if it's not working out then well then I know well then you need to talk with you know somebody from your staff there there's a a an escalation progression here for handling things and when we do it well you know we often will get appeals to things like a bullying investigation it is very easy for me to call up that principal or associate principal and say where's the paper like show us the work that was done and and then it either happened or it didn't so again it's about setting the expectations and process for people to follow and sometimes don't we find out that the perpetrator alleged perpetrator themselves are engaging
292in undesir behaviors because we haven't served them as well as we should that they maybe have disabilities as well or maybe they need some kind of interventions and it's not an excuse and it doesn't mean we should let the victim continue to be a victim but we're serving both ends of this thing now professionally and effectively using you know analysis and judgment rather than clerical Road step by step absolutely and that's why Stacy and her team helped develop the guidelines for students with disabilities who are involved in these types of Investigations regardless of which angle they're involved from thank you um I just like to add to that and this is more of just a catchup uh question for myself uh do we have policy in place for if we have like an altercation or
293there's bullying between two students that have an IEP or two students that have uh disabilities where something within those Frameworks Works conflict like how how is that handled or and or do we have a general plan for that yep so we have board policy that's spells out the bullying investigation itself and then the administrative guideline that accompanies that bullying policy spells out a three-step process so that process the investigation will look the same in terms of the components and the structure of the investigation Stacy do you want to speak a little bit of what you developed to his other part of that question regarding if it's students with disabilities and and what You' developed internally to guide yeah anytime we have a student um with a disability identified or not yet identified could be identified
294um we really want to treat that child and just think about the supportive measures and that can be do we have the right goals in place how can we how can we set this child up for Success regardless if they are considered to be the um the victim or not we want to make sure we're setting them up to um not get into those situations again so we now have procedures where anytime the child or a child um at risk could be um part of an investigation a safety investigation we call that regard it's bullying any any of the harassment any of those we we follow the same process of holding an IEP looking at the situation how can we protect the child one so that it doesn't happen again but also is there more
295we could be doing are there needs that we have not yet addressed so we do that for not not just one child but all all children so both children side of it's two children with disabilities we hold IP team meetings with both set with parents and both sets of teams to say how are we supporting this child we have processes in place now um and we've done multiple trainings with our special education staff what's needed for those those times samples of ways that we can do protective measures what does that look like what are possible goals we could consider so and this is just one really specific concrete example of a process in a system that didn't exist that we're now refining because it's in place we train people on it now we just have
296to make sure we're we're doing it well and that people understand and are following what we've set in place but this you'll learn quickly our division maybe not unique in the sense that we've had to do a lot of foundational process and and guidelines of that nature over the last couple years and this year we're hoping to not need to introduce much more but really refine what we've done great thank you um one of the questions that I have is or request I have is can you send the this document to the board as just kind of a I would love to have this in my starred Google doc like kind of like sitting in the background so I can easily quickly find it uh if somewh to come forward and review um my context
297that I operate within is uh within higher ed there something called the clear act that requires on a on college and university campuses where there's several folks who are mandatory mandatory reporters um so you may report and then it's investigated by various different offices so I think the key piece is for both certainly the board and it sounds like you've done really thorough work with all of the different administrative groups you'll continue to do that and then I'm curious my question is how can we make sure that we're communicating with families um and and and I suspect you've got plans for that but I think it would be it'd be helpful to to give you an opportunity to amplify that well we have a really good communications director who may or may not still be
298here but um really working falely with her I think the guardian guide is going to be a really great example of us trying to work with and connect and Empower parents with information that will help them navigate the complex cities of school territory in student services special education um but really it's about getting it in front of students beyond what the district is are getting in front of families beyond what the district is doing as a whole districtwide ensuring that our schools right I think a lot of families pay particular attention to those School Communications so making sure it's replicated in those formats as well and for students with disabilities we formalize that through an I meeting and sit down and talk family they're part of that so they're aware of what we're doing to
299protect their child they're engaged in that conversation um so it's really important that they're part of that process with us Shonda also has a couple parent groups that you may wanted to speak to other avenues and getting in front of families that night um another one is through our meepa organization the multiethnic parent organization and this this topic was discussed and it'll be discussed in the upcoming years as well how about kids how does the kid self report they're being ping typically they will go to any of their school support adults but they know most recently that if they are having a situation that's bullying a lot of kids will go directly to their Dia Advocate and request advocacy from elementary all the way through High School yep and then we have done or initiated
300investigations from speak up speak the anonymous tip reporting line that has given us leads to look into different items I think it really comes down to the trusted adults the student have someone they feel comfortable telling or oftentimes it's a peer that might be sharing something they heard from the student affected only just being Broad in our understanding we're talking about safety investigation so any child who is not feeling safe we should start as adults asking the right questions to make sure we are looking into that we're not looking into B we're looking at a kids feeling safe at their school so I would also say this is a lot of the work of administration that people don't see or know is happening behind the scenes just one followup to that just curious uh how
301do students currently self-report if if those students um have a disability where it makes them hard makes it hard for them to uh advocate for them elves or um even remember what happened throughout the course of the day um so we not only is it reporting but then you also are a thanks to the board and the identification of making sure we have really solid good case loads for our students it's knowing your students looking for the things that are different it's not just about their reporting but their difference in their behavior like most of the remaining curious and everything that we're witnessing and observing for students more than just the words that they say um so really going back to those cultural responsive um learning um techniques of building strong relationships knowing your kids
302knowing I mean that's that's the foundation of all of that is that the kids feel safe with trusted adults at school so it's it's perfect seeing no other final questions thank you for your work and up forward to continuing to hear about the impact of the the efforts that you have in place thank you and thank you Renee for being here tonight absolutely thanks everybody um we are now moving into strategic goal for high quality staff evening good evening the first item uh on our uh go four report relates to our staffing update uh and we have many things to be very proud of um we have six calendar days away from the start of school our admin team um has done an amazing job of uh filling uh the fewer vacancies that we've had
303this past summer um our retention rate uh for teachers as well as all Educators in wosa remains about 90% uh 89.9 I think is our voluntary teacher retention rate and we filled about 99% of our teaching positions I sent out two more offers during the board meeting this evening uh and we have 97% of our educational and operational um positions filled as well um those represent uh the highest levels that I've seen during my tenure um in the district um we did make some adjustments uh in our staffing plan um over the summer uh we had um a couple changes in our support staff positions where we uh changed an allocation from one building to the other or Chang the type of position we moved around a couple sections based on Elementary uh in particular
304enrollment and we did have some challenges with a couple of positions that were ultimately um very hard to fill we looked for a French teacher practically the entire summer and did not end up with um a single applicant um through our application management system so we had to make some hard decisions to go ahead and clap some sections and make do with our existing um certified staff that we had in the district um the only place that we made additions to our staffing plan is for our um our school at Vel Phillips um you may recall that that particular program um is fully reimbursed by the state of Wisconsin uh and so adding Services there to grow the program and meet the specific needs um of those students um while we do uh run those
305funds through our books we receive full reimbursement for that and are excited to about what we can offer there this year too thank you can I ask can you share a little bit more I I I heard some Rumblings from families who who are were under the impression that we are getting rid of French uh at the secondary schools and can you share a little bit about where we're at kind of what the future holds for this efforts that will be in place um in this speaks to I think what you described it as and as you've shared this in the past the challenge of getting hard to fill in unique positions French secondary language teachers are not in abundance I I shared earlier we found a physics teacher and physics secondary teachers are not
306in abundance uh and it is hard to find recruit and retain them can you share a little bit more about kind of where we are that that's one specific example but that's facing not just us but I suspect not French specifically but just about every District in the state and Across the Nation sure um another example of a position that we were not able to fill was our um tech ed position that served both East and West um and so in those circumstances we were very fortunate um uh that that we only had two positions like that um where I started my education career in northern Wisconsin have had those challenges um for even longer um and so uh with the resources and um the options that we had in wossa working with our academic
307performance team and our schools um we made decisions then on based on the Staffing the FTE that we do have access to what sections can we offer and what sections did we need to go ahead and collapse so um at this point in time there have been no decisions related to the future of French or World languages in wossa but we did come off an audit this past year and the academic performance team um has has planned and had even some conversations this spring about future recommendations related to World Language offerings in the district but it's really the Confluence of our two teams in terms of when we see that we're not able to go ahead and you know fill that assignment based on the interest that's coming in for student registrations you know how
308do we go ahead and move forward and make the best decisions we can currently um and in the future as well thank you absolutely or questions or comments in the staff and Report got sounds like very few positions I know when parents get that the the who's your teachers and it says staff there's always a little bit of a golf how we communicate uh to families when we're filling positions and kind of kind of sharing what what's the plan for making sure kids are getting a good quality education in that class um typically those Communications come right from the buildings in terms of so again I said I sent out a couple offers this evening I certainly hope that those staff members are are in place on June 3 there's some Logistics to move through
309um but staff members at the school are communicating with families not only who those teachers are and when they're going to be ready um but how we're supporting them and getting them up to speed so that'd be a good one if if a parent has concerns or anx reach out to the principal for sure seeing No Other Board questions or comments should we move into B action to approve W School District employ health insurance plan and Dr M I'm going to ask that you read this I pass and someone else with is someone else can blank read this one that the school board approve the wall School District emplo Health and I have a second second thank you uh who aski yes um thank you um I would just share um some information and about
310some questions that have Arisen um you know over the past week or so since last we talked um one of the questions that arose uh related to um uh some of our conversation this evening um was about whether or not the financial challenges that we're experiencing with the health insurance plan are related to uh the budget miscalculations um and and that is not the case um last August it was actually August 12th I sat in this very similar position and shared with you the fact that um we were estimating our health plan to run um over budget by about 16.7% um and that was equivalent to um to just under $2.3 million so we we have been seeing um the fact that our health plan is not running in in a way that we can
311sustain financially um for a year now um and so while while the the budget challenges on top of that are um unwanted um the health plan in and of itself has needed some correction um and um and uh last year we we took an extra piece of time to go ahead and look at some other strategies the strategy that we used last year by implementing a second tier of coverage uh for our health insurance providers was effective um we're not facing a 16.7% increase right now um we're facing about uh an 11 half to 12 % increase right now um so so we were effective in stemming some of those increases in costs but we could not keep up with medical and prescription inflation uh the more employees who were on the health plan um
312and um and the increas in costs we had in that way you also may remember that last year when we were faced with that 16.7% increase the strategies that we brought to you were also related to employee cost sharing they were things like adding co-pays increasing the deductible um strategies that again shared the increases in costs with employees um we did not last year recommend uh an employee premium contribution um the um employee premium contributions um are are very common um I remember uh back in the 2000s uh we had employee premium contributions on my School District health insurance plan in northern Wisconsin um neither myself uh nor our benefits Consultants know of any public school district in Wisconsin that does not have some level of employee premium contribution typically cost sharing for school districts
313is some balance between um employees paying the deductible and employees sharing the premium contribution and in those respects that is the cost share and each school district has a different level of that um in the most recent survey that I did of southeastern Wisconsin school districts employee premium contributions are somewhere between four and 20% uh some school districts like we're proposing offer multiple plan options so that employees can choose um where they think their dollars are best spent than others and other school districts offer just a single plan um and really um they manage that plan um to best meet their financial needs again pulling the those levers of cost sharing or co-pays co- Insurance whatever they are um so that they can often times avoid substantial increases both for employees as well as the
314school district um one of um the the questions that we've been asked fairly regularly is when our health plan is running better running more in a more financially sustainable Direction you know what are we able to do um and I look forward to getting to the point uh where financially uh we can go ahead and provide some relief to employees um and so whether that means a premium holiday um or some type of a rebate um or additional Health Savings Account contributions um we are committed to doing that once we rightsize what our health insurance plan looks like um it has been a luxury um that we've enjoyed to this point to be able to not have an employee premium share for health insurance um I don't think we can continue that further hence the
315recommendation that we've prepared for you um I would also um uh commit um to the fact that our our very odd um uh Health Plan year that runs from October 1 to September 30th we will absolutely work with our benefits Consultants USI to go ahead and better align that um to our fiscal and contract year um so that um that there is not this question of of when we're going to know um what our health plan um renewal looks like um again it's we're going to have to use some strategies to make that work based on the design of our health plan but we can come up with some options and bring those forward once we get through this renewal questions and comments from the board Mar thank you I I think you've done an
316outstanding job describing the situation and your opinions are for my mind outstanding um we're lucky to have you as all the these other directors as well uh my struggle and it's quite a struggle inside me um and you specifically pointed to it at the end of your discussion the the need to align the the fiscal and contract year with our health plan year and when it comes to money I'm pretty cold because if you're out of money you're out of money and that's that's a Cold Fact um and told by Mr Ecker that we will have we will be out of cash by maybe December or January and then therefore we will have to short-term borrow and I'm sure we will short-term borrow so we won't go broke and um but my my struggle is
317you know and I've said in the last meeting that everybody was warned at least by me that if we raise salaries and we need to instead look at total benefits and if assumptions don't work out predictions don't work out then um benefits will have to be cut and that is at hand now and they aren't bad benefits but they are cut benefits and to me if I were an employee and I believe this myself if I signed a contract in the summer or sometime and I did my household budget and I looked at the health care well technically I know that the health plan could be revised in October but you know I've taken new job before and there's the technically and then there's what you actually understand and I'm a pretty smart guy and
318I took a couple jobs from time you know over my career that I didn't really understand or I just didn't get it and I should have but life was busy and kids at home single parent all this stuff you know so to me it comes down to this is a bait and switch and not on purpose but it is and it feels wrong and um now we have a problem and somebody for those employees who are living paycheck to paycheck and I was one of those employees way back in the day what are they going to do here and because they've signed the contract they've committed to come to work for us we've promoted ourselves as this teacher employee you know supporting employer and it comes down to we have a problem now and for
319this current year who's going to have to pull out their credit card is it going to be these employees or is it going to be the school district and I'm 100% opposed to short-term borrowing I think is a long-term solution it's wasteful and more management but on a occasional emergency basis maybe it's not wise to say absolutely no short-term borrowing because then you end up parking more money than you need to park and your money isn't being utilized to some extent so for this I I have to say that I have to as I think as an employer we should stand up and back those families those employees who trusted us or at least whether it was rational or not is another conversation okay whether they should have known or not is another conversation but
320they believed in US and now this is happening and maybe it should be the school district that does more short-term borrowing this year in order to get these employees through this current year and then make it really really clear the next time you sign a contract this is what's going to could happen or we're trying to realign so that's my perspective I I in no way do I disagree with you in no way do I disagree with you it comes down to what kind of of an employer are we now and is this right and my answer to that is I don't want to be that kind of employer that does this if we can help it and because I don't think it's right you know just thank you Dr first of all I want
321to thank you for all the hours dedication you put in you answered a lot of questions for me today um I'm also finding this one of the hardest votes like last year at the time I think that we did get some warning um I think we we knew um or were told and needed to pay attention to where this is going and and so I want to go slightly a different path because what I'm starting to understand with your helping others is to break this as an ongoing cycle we need to move this kind of employee cont tion um because it's hurting us more and more each year compared to other districts around us and that to me is a really key aha that you helped me to get um as I was trying to
322compare PL what I could get a hold of from other districts but I also am very struck that it's I'm not hearing I don't want to pay anything at all what I'm hearing is this jump is so much that it's going to make really difficult situations like you're speaking to um so we need to get out of that zero contribution is I know we're already trying to do like the HSA maybe you could speak a little bit to how that will help potentially alleviate this but what I'm seeing is that the it's the you know 82 to $139 a month it's like if that were 50 or 60 it's a stepping stone and I don't know how to get there and I know we're running out of time um but I'm the feedback I'm hearing
323is not so much no contribution it's the jump in terms of for some of our staff being able to make that change um from one pay year to the next pay year and so I'm just I hate to make more work I just feel like there's um a pretty strong message out there that we're putting some folks at um high risk and I know you feel that too I can imag imag how you are managing through this so thank you for all your efforts may I add thank you yep I understand um I mean I have very similar feelings about this this is this feels terrible um and we heard from a lot of uh staff over the last week or so about their personal experience of how this is going to impact them and
324and while we can look at means and medians and that you know like when it comes down to the individual educator or the individual employee and it's they had banked on this amount of money being you know part of their salary and now it's not and that changes how they can pay their bills um like I have a really hard time because teacher contracts had to be signed before we were able to give them this information and I understand now in a way I think I didn't a couple of weeks ago like why that is and I would love to see us align that better so that in the future we we don't have that um sort of discrepancy in time so people know what they're committing to before they sign that contract I'm also
325looking at like where our fund balance is and what we thought it was going to be compared to what it is and I I was trying to look back to I feel I have like a recollection that we had a recent policy or or conversation around a minimum fund balance that we were it was proposed it was proposed we didn't go we didn't pass it okay um yeah but we're well be I we're well below that number now um I think like Dr Worley I would my struggle is is there anything is there anything different anything that again doesn't cost us the sort of full almost four million I think it is for this year but also doesn't put all of that on the backs of our Educators I think somebody had emailed us and
326asked about like tiered options don't know if that's ever possible or if there are exemptions for certain employees who make a certain level or there's anything else we can do for those employees that are going to be really financially impacted particularly I'm thinking about our our newer employees who you know are pretty low on the pay scale still [Music] um uh one of the the challenges of um of implementing premium contributions is that um if if we look at our employee group as a whole um we don't just have teachers who are newer on the salary schedule but we have hourly employees who don't necessarily work the same number of days in every pay period and and generally speaking those are our lowest paid employees education assistants etc those employees are already having to go
327ahead and pay up to have access to family insurance if they need it because their their benefits come with single Insurance um offered by the district but not for a family so we have work to go ahead and create some language so we're not charging again our lowest paid employees you know the 10 or 15% employee contribution plus then the extra cost of what a family plan is so so we have you know so we have looked at some of those things um I guess I would I would share two things um the uh I do not I do not like making any of these changes I've worked very hard to go ahead and put together plans for compensation that um that make compensation um more competitive with our Pure districts um and I think
328there are many indicators showing that we're that we've moved in the right direction the argument that I wouldn't have stayed or I would have not signed my contract had I known about this change begs the question where would you go to find less of a payment than we offer and there is not any place you know some districts offer higher premium contributions or lower deductibles or some combination thereof but we're all within a you know a similar range in terms of what employees are paying for insurance the reason our premiums got as high as they did is that we didn't make these changes years ago when other school districts were doing them so now when you look at 10 or 15 % of the cost of that monthly premium It's a larger number than we
329want it to be that is absolutely true I don't have anything to offer in terms of other options that we have um the one of the premises that we took to coming up with this proposal was what are the simplest adjustments that keep us on par with other public school and other employers um that move in the direction we need to in terms of how upside down plan is running right now and that's how we came with these options um we have a very short amount of time um to go ahead and run our open enrollment and get ready for October 1st we could look at co-pays we could look at co- Insurance really honestly those are kind of nickel and diming our way you know to to get rid of the deficit um the
330these are again what I would say would be the simplest most consistent changes that other school districts have implemented long before us and I wish there was something more than that Scott I don't know if you have anything to add I I think I'm just reflecting on um how difficult it is to balance the discussion we had earlier uh about sticking to a budget and the ramifications of that and and and then um at the same time honoring our employees and um and um being competitive and and you know kind of all those conversations but what it comes back to for me is I I truly feel like to maintain this level of I mean frankly we are we are now um basically at the meting of pay for most employees to about 20 years
331we have probably the most expensive health plan we have the best or very near the best class size ratio it's not sustainable to have all of those things and frankly it um if a choice is made to those are the levers we have to pull and and what I hear is hey Scott make sure you make sure the balance the budget gets balanced and if we're running an Old Bridge let's fix it I could see myself then coming to the board in January and saying hey now we have to have fewer people and so it the choice kind of becomes not kind of It ultimately will at some point be do we want fewer people so that we can provide health care for everyone that's still here or do we want to keep the people
332what was what was said earlier this evening was the Triangle cheap good or what what was it good cheap fast pick two um and and in this case to jump on what Mr ERS had said personally I like I've followed a lot of this discussion in all of the the previous meetings and review that I've done I'm not as aware as as everyone else but I am quasi aware of of where this thing is at I mean number one I would I personally would take either option in a heartbeat this this is almost in order of magnitude less than what others have to pay um although I do understand that it's also in an infinite order of magnitude greater than what people are used to paying so it's it's a hard discussion that's it's it's
333an inevitable thing it's going to have to happen um it's whether we do it now or whether we do it later and with health insurance we all know that the prices do nothing but go up and that that Trend will continue so um the good fast and cheap part of this is that if we want it to stay really good which my perception is this is probably one of the best current plans I've ever seen um want it to be really good and we want it to be really cheap to our employees well then the fast component is the performance for us and how does it how does it perform for the district and which means it's not going to perform well that's that's the part of that triangle if we're going to increase two
334two sides of the triangle that third side gets really really short and um and where it's at right now I don't I don't think it's sustainable I couldn't cast a vote on this uh because I'm not informed enough however it's it's just I know it's something we're gonna have to deal with at some point because the route it's on is is not going to work I um so we're 14 years in to a basically two years of zero funding school districts of Wisconsin where the states that state employees School District employees start paying different amounts for benefits and I want to we'll celebrate how we've approached this and wish maybe years ago there would have been a slight this would have been a slight slight bump I have I remember after Act 10 occurred being
335a state employee working at the University of Wisconsin Milwaukee the variation and our our benefits flip in the calendar year so from between December and January and I think it was about an $800 cut in take-home pay and how hard that is and how much I want to avoid doing that and many of my colleagues are thinking the same things of how do we smooth that for those who have the least um and I would ask that we continue to explore that um in as creative of ways as possible my biggest solution is that we need to pay our teachers more and we need resources I'll keep coming back to this we have a choice we know that our teachers need need salaries they're competitive I'm fine for about this moment being at the median
336I'd like to see us in the top third of of of compensation I would love for teachers a year from now to say yep we were not happy with how this played out but that we've showcased that we've changed the the year of what the benefits are available that they have the information um I still am hopeful that the community will uh put the money and resources they need that we can pay our Educators at a higher level um and I'm certainly committed to making that our our primary priority uh I want great curriculum in front of our kids I want great teachers teaching our kids and I want the resources to do both uh so the teachers are supported and the kids are supported the things that Luke and his team talked about tonight
337that they've the teachers are have the all the resources they need to thrive so I don't think we can I don't know how we do everything with the current resources we have and that's why we've gone to the community and we need Community Support to do this I understand that not changing the benefits right now is going to create ongoing Downstream impacts that next year will be even a higher percentage and it it could be substantially higher that this will and the question I have is will we see a smoothing are we likely to see a smoothing out what do our kind of our benefits Consultants say about I I know we all pay insurance we all experience it creeping up in different ways or slightly higher deductibles or slightly higher premiums my experience is
338that it was a big DOL the year one and then it's little little bits here and there never enjoyable to pay more of but that we need to double down on continuing to push greater teacher compensation RI I recognize that you've done incredible work at fixing a lot of broken things in pay scales in compensation structures for all different types of employees all over the organization and I celebrate you and your team for doing that I just need to to publicly state we're not where we need to be yet so that when our teachers feel like okay this feels like a step back for what our values and priorities are we have to take continue to take take steps forward and I I don't doubt that there's not a single person in this room that
339doesn't believe that that's the case but I remember who said who amongst my colleagues said it we have to be a place where teachers view I think it was Mr Meer that this is a place where teachers have great support they valued in the community they're celebrated for being uh being great teachers and producing excellent results and they're compensated as exceptional professionals from their degree that's a little more than I said but it sounds good so if you want to give me credit I'll at least a little part of I was tring all right so part of the larger conversation tonight has been the budget the overall I do just want to remind the community that this board did vote to go to a higher referendum than the administration suggested and the big spend in
340voted for was for an additional $2 million per year that would go directly to classroom student basing positions so I know that um this may this is going to be the hardest vote I've taken probably since I um have started my time on the board um I've also asked um T me a lot of questions about how we could lower the impact on our staff for this year and some of um the responses I've received is that because this is the first year many SP to this too um that were increasing um employee C share we'll have more options next year so I had suggested like can we even have a higher deductible clment some families um don't anticipate that they're going to have high out cost I'm one of those so we don't we
341take a high deductible plan and we don't we pay a little bit less than the premium um we sort of have that option but so I think much to Eric's point this is um if this passes is going to be a really tough point for our staff and I know that um you have thought a lot about that part of this decision too but I am hopeful um that will have better options next year I really hope that you can get this to align with the calendar year instead of October um I think that makes it really tricky um especially for people who um have spouses and they can't switch to their spouses F because W ours is lined up so I'm hopeful that you'll get that done I have faith in you and your
342team um and just a reminder that um this this shines a light on the operational referendum what what we get from the refer referen it's like the operational referendum passing um is that extra $2 million to go to help pay our St thank you for all of your work um and your team's work I I want to emphasize chief of talent saleski I think you've done your job you've done it extraordinarily well and you've made the right recommendation and now it's a board decision and that's as it's appropriate so the board doesn't want to take your advice it's on the board if the board takes your advice that's on the board too so either way that's what it means to be the buck stops with us it's our decision now and um it comes down
343to the basics that I said do who's going to borrow here to get through the year until we can fix this next year as we're alluding to and are we even as a district in a position to borrow given the spot we're in or or to borrow more more than we're already going to need to you know so okay so thank you very much for what you've done are you ready to call the roll on this item Mr Morris Dr Hoy yes Mr wer uh obstein Dr Worley yes Miss Hammer Rolland yes Mr Meyer no Dr Jessa Banger yes that item passes thank you for your direction uh I look forward to um uh bringing more options to you in the future uh we have two other um action items for you uh the next
344would be approving um self funding for our uh dental plan it is recomended that the school board approve the change to self funding for district employee denel insurance benefits and second any board conversation on this item it saves US money with no disruption Summers please call one m Mr moris Dr Ho yes Mr wer yes Dr Worley yes Miss H Rolland yes Mr Meyer yes Dr Jesse Binger yes and that item passes uh next up action to approve health insurance stop loss carrier for the 2425 plan year it is recommended that the school board approve the health insurance stop loss carrier for the 2425 plan year and ISO move have a second second thank you any board discussion on this sir uh saves US money uh no disruption Mr Morris Dr hoik yes Mr wadier
345yes Dr rley yes Miss hmer Rolland yes Mr Meer yes Dr Jess anger yes and that item passes it is 10:51 p.m. um couple housekeeping items uh for both the community and the board we have scheduled a 6:30 pm meeting tomorrow evening uh we will have a single agenda item uh it has been posted publicly uh during this meeting uh you are welcome to be here virtually or in person for that um is that for the board is I forgot what the rules are for our virtual attendance it's open yeah we can attend virtually okay I'm sorry you just have to put your face on and you have to have hon the environment that you're in that like dogs on parking it's not that so much because you can time off it's like oh I
346I get it right right okay okay all right I just wanted to be sure I was operating appropriately tomorrow night yeah there's a policy um in tomorrow morning Bri and early is Staff uh we'll be welcoming all the staff back for the board who is able to attend uh opening day at w class um is that I think breakfast starts at 6:30 6:45 6:45 program starts at 8 yeah um may have motion to adjourn I move to adjourn may have a second second the summmer Mr Morris Dr Ho yes Mr wer yes Dr Worley yes M hmer Rolland yes Mr Meer yes Dr Jess Banger yes and we're adjourned at 10:53