WSD Board Meeting, Regular, July 25, 2022

001good evening everyone i call the july 25th 2022 school board meeting to order it is 7 p.m and we are in conference room c of the fisher administration building at 1 2 1 two one west north avenue ms newman please call a roll miss fraley here dr hoyt here mr meier absent miss beaufeld here mr phillips here miss willis here dr jessepanger here thank you everybody who's in the room and watching online we appreciate your attendance and participation tonight we will begin with a public comment on any non-agenda items members of the wauwatosa 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

002making the board requests that individuals limit their comments on each item to three minutes following any comment an individual board member may respond on the issue raised however it is not the intent of the public comment portion of the agenda for the board to enter into a debate with the member or members of the community because non-agenda items are not publicly posted in advance no action will be taken on public comment regarding non-agenda items this evening do we have any non-agenda public comment items to see me you're welcome to come up to the microphone and share your name thank you an address this yes yes sorry i'm nervous my name is julie peterson i'm at 2473 north 73rd street in wauwatosa and i wish to speak to the chaos created from a social media post

003by first grade teacher jake daggett stating that a discussion on gender ideology specifically pronouns was held to his students nowhere in first grade curriculum sources could i find gender ideology mentioned as proper teaching nowhere the response and censorship of tosa schools was just as concerning as the conversation itself in the initial response you state that mr deget's post did not occur as an educator for wauwatosa but you do not state where this conversation did take place this is a crucial piece of information for the community to judge whether or not mr daggett's teachings and abilities to stay on task mitosis current curriculum is even possible you also state that the grade level essential outcomes as it relates to human growth and development for the upcoming school year that begins in four and a half weeks

004has not been determined and that currently teaching of pronouns are not alignment to these essential outcomes that have not been determined this perhaps is the most concerning line of your statement and that it can be perceived that teaching and pronouns can be or may be added later on i feel this is a good time to state in the days of school boards especially in light of this particular ward's problems saying trust us on this have passed your censorship of comments criticizing this entire situation proves you are not in fact trustworthy he finished a statement with declarations of diversity of our schools and community which is nonsense go bs diversity simply stated is variety and no amount of overuse of the word will make it okay to bring a variety of teachers into our district that

005intend to bring gender ideology into our classrooms that is not diverse that is grooming the statement by you dr beans in the js online article regarding the large amount of negativity both the schools and the teacher itself received after the post was exposed comes down to a simple concept learned in childhood that i'm guessing hasn't been passed on to this generation if you condition it out you can take it the teaching of pronouns too as perceived first graders is extreme it is an extreme point of view which will in turn garner extreme disagreement you dish out the extreme now you have to take it according to your own website 50 of tulsa elementary students tested at or above professional level for reading and 60 from half ms peterson you have about 30 seconds left by

006high school these numbers drop to 36 percent and 42 percent ladies and gentlemen you don't have time for gender ideology in your schools your students become less proficient in core subjects as they move through your school systems you don't have time for the controversy although with all due respect dr means where you go controversy follows but we don't have time and more importantly our children don't have time thank you very nervous any other comment on non-agenda items this evening yes hello uh paul fuchs 4080 north 99th street uh proud whitman parent to give every citizen the information he needs for the transaction of his own business to enable him to calculate for himself and to express and preserve his ideas his contracts and accounts in writing to improve by reading his morals and faculties to

007understand his duties to his neighbors and country and to discharge with competence the functions confided to him by either these were the sentiments of thomas jefferson our public education system was founded on the critical notions of strengthening intellect and citizenship citizenship or to put it more colloquially community has become an increasingly complex and diverse affair generation over generation reading writing and arithmetic alone will not suffice we achieve more as a society when we connect with and value one another i want to commend wauwatosa school district and underwood elementary leadership for their stated support of teachers who understand the role that compassion plays in building a successful citizenry within the classroom and beyond tonight as a taxpayer and a parent i would like to add my voice to amplify that ignorance and intolerance are not welcome

008in our schools thank you thank you other public comment this evening 2733 north 73rd street i was not prepared to speak tonight at all so i'm also feeling a little nervous um but i just wanted to speak up as uh the parents of a roosevelt student and a long fellow student and uh the parent of a tulsa east teacher um i'm always thrilled when the district adds another fantastic teacher to its ranks um and it looks like later in the agenda we're going to be adding money um i was so sorry and heartbroken to see uh that mr negative arrival in the district has been marred by such ugliness online um and that the district has had to deal with to follow and i feel like there were probably a thousand other more important things

009that we could be focusing on i really appreciated the district's uh second statement which i um felt like you know i think it's important to call out online bullying and to show lgbtq students and staff with the district stands with them so i just want to thank the district for doing that and for what it's worth at the chelsea resident of 15 plus years i really believe that the majority of our school age community would appreciate and celebrate a teacher with modeling inclusion with students of all ages and as the district evaluates its human growth and development curriculum i hope it will keep inclusion in mind thank you thank you jamie do you have any public comment online tonight we have one hand raised john etter please state your name and address you have the

010microphone john enter 2733 north 73rd street um and uh wauwatosa east high school during the school year um i just wanted to uh to chime in and again uh you know and uh thank the the school board um and the district for uh for hiring uh teachers who um support our students identities who are supportive uh of all students regardless of of race ethnicity uh creed um gender identity sexual identity and things like that um and i am sorry to sorry that a new hire uh has been so marred that this uh talented uh you know seemingly talented young educator has been kind of dragged through the mud uh so unfairly when all he is doing is again making sure that he is being respectful of the identities of his of his students um which

011is what we all should be doing in the classroom um and uh one final note the term grooming has been thrown out a lot um it is inaccurate in this case and in case where we're talking about people's identities it is uh it is hateful it is hurtful and honestly it is i think a great insult to survivors of sexual assault thank you we have no more hands raised thank you jamie um any more comments reactions i would state um thank you dr means for the comments that you made in support of the teacher i was very concerned um when this when this issue came to light and the amount of um negativity um attacks um possible threats um i'm not sure kind of the content of all the emails but i think what we

012need to make sure is that we're creating an educational environment where people can do excellent work in support of our children um and as a community i think we need to support that so i understand that there's different opinions uh and i can respect that and what holds accountable to a high standard of how we treat communicate with all our neighbors our teachers our educators okay seeing no other public comment we will shift gears to the w stem update uh huawei tells the stem report will be presented by principal mike coyne with justin ducks w stem governance board president and brooke colossus w stem secretary you're welcome there you are i think we can grab another chair or ones to come up sure okay thank you everyone my name is mike hoyne helping me present

013tonight is uh justin dukes who is our w stem governance board president i just want to start by saying thank you to all of you uh for all of your your hard work and all of your support uh with all the students and staff uh and what again has been a difficult year uh but also a very rewarding year so just want to thank all of you uh and for giving us this opportunity to present tonight just wanted to give a little bit of update on some of the things mainly again the mission and vision of wstem from our governance board standpoint it's an innovative and dynamic environment paired with a challenging and evidence-based curriculum rooted in science technology engineering and math to meet the individual needs in a cooperative and supportive atmosphere again a

014place that we're fostering curiosity critical thinking multi-faced literacy to again really discover inquire about and investigate the world around them we are a public charter school uh that's focused really on science technology engineering and math uh listed below are some of the things that w stem provides i think uh some of the things that really we want to highlight is the engineering and design process the multi-age classrooms are very unique to our school district we have a high sense of parental involvements not only in our governance board but within classrooms and again just trying to figure out multiple ways to figure out partnerships uh in all the ways that all the great things that milwaukee and wauwatosa has to offer us a little bit of history because i know not all of you have been

015part of some of these updates that we provide annually but in 2007 uh the wild tell school district group teachers supported by parents set out to pilot a new model of education um and the tosa school of health science and technology charter school was launched with 42 students the school has been at full capacity really for the last eight years with 136 students what we are this chart really just tries to talk a little bit of what an instrumentality charter school really is and how that looks within our district so as an inch mentality charter school we do not necessarily necessarily need to follow the district curriculum the non-instrumentality charter schools that are not programs of the district really do follow that governance again we have a governance board that meets monthly and with the

016oversight by the school board approves a five-year contract with the school board um and again that contract is then given to the department of public instruction funding we receive the same amount of funding from our building-based budget as all the schools uh as to the rest of the schools in the district what might be different and the need for some of our fundraising efforts is not always has there been equal funding provided when we adopt a different curriculum as might be within the rest of the other schools when our curriculum adoption takes place staff salaries provided by the district staff development again provided by the district yet again sometimes myself as the principal needs to work with the governance board to possibly provide some additional support from what our staff might need um the enrollment

017uh is probably one of the larger things that's very different um our enrollment is done by a lottery uh that takes place in april uh applications are taken in march charter school law says that all charter schools need to have a sibling preference and the number of vacancies are determined by the school district in consulting with student services and documents non-instrumentality charter schools enrollment can be ongoing throughout the school year and is not set with the lottery so obviously families that move in anytime after april would have those opportunities to attend some of the neighborhood schools but that might not necessarily be the case with the charter school as well as the school programs at houston as well as with montessori or amsterdam very good so yeah certainly one of the reasons i wanted to

018join in um the governance council was really this kind of unique insight between the teachers the parents and the community um our school works with the government council is really composed of teachers community members and parents we have a variety of different committees that are led by teachers and parents including the curriculum and innovation committee resource recruitment our outdoor classroom and technology we use these guiding beliefs as well as the mission statement that mike had mentioned previously to help us kind of guide how we work on a day-to-day basis but then also how do we innovate and make sure that our um we're supporting the school with effective um financial planning this uh graphic was developed by previous governance uh council members which again kind of highlights the variety of different committees that teachers parents

019can participate in and again it really kind of um highlights the focus of the different areas that our school works in our makeup of wauwatosa stem this school year was 136 students 73 feet 73 males 63 females we have a 85 percent of our students were white 10 students receiving special education services 14 students economically disadvantaged and 11 open enrollment students uh to look historically at uh w stem as it's expanded this is uh just a graphic uh not gonna go into all the details uh but mainly we do have more students from the east side that are applying uh than the west side male and female again there have been years in which we have had more female applicants than males but again tends to be a little bit more towards the male side

020historical lottery numbers um one of the things we did this year was a little bit more um work with the district trying to put together a flyer that really speaks to that we want more racial diversity um and i think with some of the increased communication we came back to a high number of applicants this year we had 160 applicants and that number has not been that high in the past siblings applying uh is another puzzle piece in that uh quest to try to get more racial diversity um we had 19 siblings applying this year and again if there are not spots available at other grade levels those siblings don't necessarily give in for our recruitment efforts again we we worked with the district communications specialist on a new flyer the flyer really talked about

021we can do a small part in trying to increase diversity because we know through nationally that that becomes an issue we have a large number of graduates not going into stem fields that are non-white we also know we have a lot of females not necessarily looking into some of the stem fields and getting as much engineering degrees as well we have increased communication to non-white families through emails to try to get more reminders we developed the w stem committee to again explore ideas of trying to get a more diverse applicant pool we also had tom hanley came to a governance board meet in april just to provide some insight into some possible ideas that we could consider into the future a little bit of some of the teachers perspectives they feel that they do have

022an amazing team and i agree with that as well [Music] the parent involvement is a great thing that they think about with the school and they love having you know some of their inputs into some of the big curriculum decisions they love the multi-age setting as we um [Music] have embraced the last two years that was very difficult so having that opportunity to to have some of that back at towards the end of the school year i really saw an increase in their their energy level and their ability to work with each other in a collaborative setting and again really just believing in the fact that learning's everywhere it's not just within the walls of the classroom so trying to get great learning experiences love having guest speakers engineering teams and again just finding ways

023for families to continue to volunteer within our school i like the slogan of uh really two great schools and one amazing building so there aren't too many uh schools that have two distinct schools that that co-share a building um we have the ptsa that supports both schools we have classrooms that have partnered up for different activities such as coding working in the outdoor classroom making posters and lessons for school expectations we did some different things with wilson elementary as well during the winter olympics and trying to use ideas our band orchestra and chorus um are not separated by schools um we have recess at lunch split by grade level not necessarily by school and again just that openness to share ideas and collaborate with other schools i know wilson elementary started a wilson wildcat committee

024so just trying to figure out along with justin and the leaders of that wildcat committee and the ptsa how can we come together and coordinate different things and then how can we also realize that not all things might exactly work completely together to embrace that that there are some differences between the two schools this is just a overall look at how we've done on the forward exam over the last couple years again extremely proud of the work that all the teachers staff governance board have put into that as well as the students hard work yeah and to kind of hide off what mike said it's really the main reason that i joined the governance council is really just to help support the the teachers our teachers do a really fantastic job um of educating our

025students i've been fortunate to have three of my girls are in um at least have been part of are currently in wauwatosa stem based on the department of public instruction state report card w stem is currently tied for fifth um in the state that includes all elementary middle and high schools um the governance council supported new math curriculum based on the recommendation from the teachers as well as we've also updated lucy calkins units of study um our students participate in the first junior lego league they've um the second third and fourth and fifth graders have come completed in a competition and we just recently purchased new k1 lego league sets david stokes was also able to come to our school and provide some additional environmental education for both our students as well as the wilson

026students when we think about some of these successes again uh i couldn't be more proud of our teachers um certainly this year they were able to develop a science fair um they will kind of show kind of extreme flexibility and develop kind of on almost on demand a new pearling curriculum that we're able to to participate in at the curling center once we're able to get busing we were able to go over to milwaukee zoo and as well as first stage and you can see the different activities that were presented there students also love coding so they do a lot of work with beebots and spheros there's been a lot of parental support from that standpoint and from a technology standpoint the governance council has helped support additional technology to kind of replace some of

027the aging technology that's been present over the last 15 years in engineering um very fortunate certainly one of the unique things that i learned as having a student through w stem is the multi-age groups we're fortunate this spring to kind of bring that back which i think the students really enjoy and again um i think from a life skill it's a tremendous opportunity to work on a multi-grade level to be a leader and also participate in some of these activities the curriculum and innovation committee really kind of went above and beyond this year and developed um what's called this recycled regatta through a variety of different um you know recycled materials were able to make a sailboat that the students had to sail across a little rain gutter again really something that kind of brought

028the school community together um it was a kind of a great event certainly we continue our singapore singapore math support as well as additional online supplements that you see listed there again from our statement mike had kind of touched on some of these points already but we've worked really closely with the ptsa and the newly formed wilson wildcat committee to really develop activities that can be present for all students such as high interest day service learning day and continued care of the outdoor classroom um we have shirts that we work together that says team together and most recently the school mural as well as the grand opening of the new school which is really kind of a special event um over the past few years certainly there's been a variety of different partnerships that have

029been developed such as medical college wisconsin the zoo general electric first stage milwaukee county parks one of the things that historically had done and unfortunately weren't able to do this year but looking forward to doing next year is continued integration with the m stem teachers help kind of share best practices and really kind of help that transition from elementary school into the middle school continue planning with you stem teachers stem engineering cards are present in all the schools um w stem again in the in the past i had a continued relationship with innovation specialists recently mike had mentioned that there's a couple area schools that wanted to come and visit to see how wstem operates we have additional service learning opportunities and again really trying to support our school by making sure we have open

030houses so that everybody in the community is aware of what we do as we kind of look you know going forward again i think there's some really important partnerships that w stem can develop with some of the local area businesses um in science technology engineering and math continue to support our cooperative and hands-on learning again supporting the multi-age classrooms supporting our technology in an appropriate setting and really kind of updating that as we needed developing new um ideas based on place-based learning and again a lot of these ideas come from our teachers and so whatever we can do to support that i'm all for um and again working within the school district between the ptsa and the wilson wildcat committee to again support our entire school district um this year really looking forward to developing

031uh success supporting some additional professional development for a w7 teacher certainly i know it's been a little bit difficult um to do that over the last few years and i think ultimately developing a sense of you know school community and belonging certainly again tobacco what mike said appreciate the opportunity to speak today and look forward to any questions questions from the board that's really great i'm going to go miss me phil then i'll swing all the way around yeah okay thank you thank you and welcome so how's it going on the governance committee is it just a one-year term or do you serve two years yes so um certainly each term is about three years um we uh you can leave at any time if you want so there's no um um formality to that

032but yeah i think the goal ultimately based on our buy loss is about three year term i was really excited for this report and to see some of the new things you're doing the curling i did not expect i mean this is we're doing that at the ice arena and yeah i mean just the um i've done it it's it's fun and you learn a lot it's amazing so nice tie-in and uh and what you're doing i also ask about business partnerships but the tie-in with ecology is fantastic and of course you know a lot of the work that we're doing with the classrooms with the new space and um and that work to expand the program and it's ongoing i i mean i wouldn't expect to see i would expect to see the split

033we're seeing right now um and because we developed the program with you stem so that we have more seats for children all over the district so well those are my initial questions excellent i was wondering if you could talk at all about the collaboration that happens between w stem and and underwood's stem program i think that that collaboration was more on the front end of the schools coming together i think moving forward uh that's definitely something we'd want to continue to think about i think there are times in which we're together at professional development days but as as far as some of that planning um together that's still an area that really i think could could offer some a room to grow for sure yeah i i i'd really love to see how we can

034capitalize on the long-term high achievement at w stem and to transfer some of that knowledge and vice versa um new ideas and you know remembering what it's like to just having a program get its feet under itself um because their start was you know a little challenging with cobit right on the heels and everything um my second question is more so i think dr means to you and dr marvel and we don't to discuss it right now but i would love to hear um in future reports like how does singapore math play into our broader math curriculum um i'm a big fan of singapore math i think it has really high expectations for students and and how it's taught and everything um and i i noted that you raised it so i was curious like

035what in particular makes you feel like it's such a good fit because if we we think about the comment that we heard earlier in um public comment about need for the growth in reading and math across the district y'all are doing amazing so you raised it in the conversation why what do you think you know that connects to etc when it comes to math yeah i think one of the the big parts of singapore math and our approach to that is really the students being able to again see some of that on on the district side as well but i think with with us it's a lot of being able to explain explain their thinking the reasoning uh the abilities of working within groups um and then again kind of that mastery approach you know

036from the get-go and going back to that's where our students are very comfortable with being able to explain either to each other or to the whole class like how they came up with with certain answers and being able to show through model drawings in different ways you know their mathematical thinking yeah when i think about our vision of a graduate i think the stem program is a great example of being able to make really explicit connections to all of those pieces and just something i want to make sure that we're doing in all of our classrooms so thank you so much for coming i too like miss neville i look forward to this report every year not just because of great results but i hear really happy parents and kids and and what they're experiencing

037so thanks to the teachers as well who aren't here this year okay um yeah i didn't so i'm new to the district as is my family so it's really exciting to see w stem i actually looked into it quite a bit having two boys entering wauwatosa i did have a few questions i wondered a little bit more about how emails are sent out to families to non-white families is that something the district does is that something that you do how are those families identified and targeted yep so i work with student services just to try to figure out our main group of families that we have spots for every year our kindergarten so we mainly try to get as much information that we can gather from the current jk families and then normally district posting

038you know that that goes out above openings and things like that and then it's taking um those families information uh normally uh i work with my administrative assistants and then just periodically uh reminders on a weekly basis so don't forget you know please fill an application you know to be considered chairman so we having two black students and a jk student we applied for the program but didn't receive any correspondence you know about openings or anything like that we did enter the district later in the year but i was just curious as to how those families are targeted you know just to increase some of the racial diversity of the program um i did wonder is there a way kind of what leanne was saying to transfer some of those successes that you've had even

039at a building level like even to some of the wilson students right so maybe to get them involved in the engineering fridays or some of the more project-based learning or have even place-based learning that the w stem students participated yeah i think that's always um and a thought of how do we engage or again how do we share you know information of what's happening in different ways i think that's always something that we're thinking and considering um i know within our new building we didn't quite get there this year but we have one of the really long hallways can be completely opened up the idea there is looking for different ways you know that we can partner and try to have different things with with the school and again it's a small example but when

040their research projects um for countries and olympics you know that was something that involved you know kind of both industries and kind of a different type of project and the mural was another one in which you know there's different different groups of stem and wilson students providing that input and then everyone getting a chance to kind of paint and different things so i think that that idea of community building and how we can share uh especially within our building is important and i'm trying to think up of you know with our with our work uh trying to get back to some of the things with the volatile outdoor classroom that's how we can share with that can be used you know by different people and being able to model that as well so i think

041as we get going and starting off a school year um fingers crossed with uh not necessarily needing to stay within just your classroom and different things knock on the wood plates i think because i have heard from you know when i saw this on the agenda i was able to talk to some parents mostly from w stem just about how there was a disparity especially in like you know um field trips you know so so w stem students are going on you know quite a few um field trips where their counterparts in the building are not and um you know just that perception and i think the way that it leaves some wilson students feeling you know keeping in mind of course that wilson tunes may not want their kids in the stem program but

042just making you know some of the stuff and successes that you've had of project-based learning um you know more accessible to to some of those other students then my final question is you know i was glad to see that there were students with disabilities that participate in your program are there licensed special education teachers that collaborate with your general education teachers to support those students yeah so um and that that wasn't really covered so any of the staff that are at wilson w stem really aren't separated so our special education teachers and their assistants would help and support students at wilson members and are there things in place you know there are students maybe with more severe cognitive or physical disabilities like is that is that taking into consideration when a family advised to be

043at w stem no no the only thing for you know it's open to to all students the only thing that um is kind of a caveat or first door is the whole civic preference sure well thank you you know i was trying to look at things you know with an equitable and inclusion lens and i appreciate you answering this question thank you sir the only thing i would just add um is that mr hoing mentioned that tom hanley spoke to their governing board tom hanley uh works with the district on a part-time basis to help in that variety of different areas and needs but tom is a retired milwaukee public schools principal who led a very successful city-wide school he let him go to my ear so it he had techniques and strategies that i

044think he shared with your governing board of how he worked to try to create a very diverse recruiting pool that he pulled from a much larger metropolitan area of milwaukee uh i you know i'm talking with not principal and that was that was a very beneficial conversation to have to have someone with the lens of understanding what do i need to do to cast a wider net um so that and i know we mentioned mr hanley but i want to kind of give more context as to why he was there and and i think mr owen mentioned the fact that we've seen an increase in the numbers but um we've talked and we know that this is an area of growth for us and we'll continue to to expand those numbers that that's really my

045goal for us sure so aside from the emails or other strategies that you've learned the district or even w stem has learned from mr hanley on how to i think it's really about being more and i think this is where we partner with w stem so when we say the district we we want to be careful we want to take their lead because of the charter moniker and so we want to remind ourselves that they're they're a little different than the rest of our schools because they do have their own government board and their own vision and so forth but what we've tried to do is to be more explicit in our communication and that it's not an afterthought in our pupil services department i think we did a better job of that this year

046um knowing that we can even get out of this process even more so we've discussed it's a larger this is where it does become a district issue there's there's a larger district issue and i think we can be more deliberate around our junior kindergarten registration process most of you look around those most school districts in the months of january and february they're very aggressive around the registration process that's typically also a time where we can be more aggressive in our partnership between w stem and in the district in the recruitment of students as well the downside for us is that there are limited open enrollment seats if any it's a very popular destination for open enrollment families it's just it's it's really heartbreaking at times where we have to say we don't have any seats

047uh so i think we're we're getting there we're creating some traction but also acknowledged there's not what should be done are there so many you know just me understanding the process are there some barriers maybe that we can eliminate with the open enrollment process because does a family need to be enrolled in the district before they are able to even apply for a stem program sometimes they they don't necessarily have to the problem is with the open enrollment process in the state of wisconsin if they use w stem as one of their three schools that they apply to then they can't apply anywhere else so people are very um conservative in terms of where they apply the other component of it is while you apply to wall of tilsa school district for open enrollment it's

048hard to then navigate yourself into the w stem program as well so there's challenges that we have to try to navigate candidly i think the process of talking with some of our families who are already in the district and they are families of color maybe another you know another strategy that we're going to have to deliberately approach it and try to adjust thank you doctor thank you mr phillips um i think to that to that question about equity has there been any discussion or consideration of just intentionally enrolling non-white students to sort of move that process forward instead of doing the point through the sort of lottery that other students go through can you repeat that question has there been any discussion of of intentionally enrolling non-white students so choosing sort of prioritizing from an

049equity standpoint non-white students to help increase our numbers in the stem program but also to recognize that as you said those are very underrepresented groups in stem programs and in stem careers and so that could be sort of an equity expense to take to say let's let's purposely recruit and enroll these students yeah my conversations historically the previous human resource director was that by law we can't allocate spots just for one particular race and or gender we wouldn't be able to do that but again i think i think those that thinking and thought is what we need to continue to brainstorm and talk about and think about you know again for example you know we had again it doesn't match quite with our elementary demographics but we had 28 of our applicants this year you

050know non-white um and again then from everything that i saw um elementary's district-wide um you know that's a little bit behind the you know 37 i think non-white families that we have so we're still not getting that representation at least of what even the rest of the district looks like so i think it's trying to figure out how we can continue to tell that story um trying to get more word out communication wise um and then you know from from being in this role you know over the last 10 years it's it's that complicated measure of how are we making families feel included how are we talking to other schools about these are just some ideas not necessarily saying these are the best um and i think you know working with the other principles of

051you know yeah are there ways that we can communicate it but i know as another principal shared with me that's a really difficult conversation when i want to try to embrace all as many of my families to talk to them about leaving my school to go to a different school and i think that's in my work too like i know everyone's doing such such amazing work and and doing some great things i can't say that this is going to be something that's specifically going to work but i think it can be conversations of you know this is what some of the benefits we see from a multi-age classroom is that something that the district would possibly consider and these these are some of the things that that my teachers love about it and it might

052not be for for all all buildings but there might be some that would say yeah that's something maybe we should explore you said you had 160 applicants this year yes and how many open seats or how many spots did you end up filling we had 20 open seats just in kindergarten so pretty much it's very rare um that families would that spots would become available in first through fifth grade normally it's just filling that kindergarten and are most of those or do you have maybe you have an actual number of how many of those 160 applicants were already wauwatosa like in wauwatosa schools students enrolled in other schools many keep making sense majority are but we do have some some families from their private schools that will apply i mean it just speaks to as

053you were saying i mean clearly the stem program is desirable to a lot of families it's sought after um and not attained by many families and it's a really high achieving program that's outperforming a number of or perhaps all of if i didn't i don't have the numbers right in front of you but a number of the elementary programs that we have and so i think it speaks to like you know what is it that stem is doing how do we take some of those things and maybe wilson and underwood are some of the first schools to identify because they're right there the teachers are there together um the technology that maybe needs to be in different buildings is right there but you know i think it certainly begs the question of how do we

054take what is clearly a program that is successful and bring it to more of our students um i sat in your seat not too long ago but in a different district where my kids were at a non-instrumental charter school as a parent board member and i remember my conversation to the mps board and being like this is a lot um thank you for being here um i i would i would concur with some of my colleagues one great just the outcomes that you're continuing to produce um [Music] i would i would also concur with my colleagues about kind of like how do we continue i know this is the challenge of the charter school is there's a lot of charter schools that are really successful the failure of the charter movement has often been how

055do you spread those good ideas more broadly and it's not a failure of your school because parents like you're trying to figure out how to navigate it but like the system of education isn't necessarily great at spreading innovation so keep pushing at it think of creative ways to do it um you all have hit it out of the ballpark with a lot of different things that you've done i'm confident that you'll continue to try to think about this and figure it out and kind of spreading innovation across whether it's to you stem across wilson and keep centering that in your presentations um i think this is stuff that you could probably present down at conferences you could if you can solve the um how do you make the school as diverse as you would like

056to make it with the structural barriers that exist in the state of wisconsin to doing that the sibling preference makes a major challenge of flipping over because once the school's all white it's hard to shift siblings with you when you got sibling preference following kids through but keep pushing at it keep reporting on it um and i would love to kind of hear your ongoing successes um what i would also say is you've had a lot of success in parent engagement and this is something that i'm paying a lot of attention to and really caring about i would love to hear the things that the school is doing and i know the charter creates a unique context for that but what can we learn as a community as a district for how do we engage

057and hyper-engage parents in being involved in really productive ways in schools it's probably unproductive engagement to parents at times in some places but how do we get parents connected making sure that they feel included that these are inclusive places and i would love to kind of hear different things that you might share um upward to doctor means to the board of things that are feeling good things are making parents feel like okay this is the place i want to contribute my time and energy i think that's a great thing so those are some of my comments and um i was pleased to see a lot of things that you spoke to uh in your stuff are things that we've talked about in previous years keep working at it it's not going to get stalked overnight

058but your effort and energy and kind of the incremental changes and outcomes i appreciate that the progress is being made and keep pushing out enough i can support anybody please let me know i think ms b feld has another commenter question yes so w stem is limited in a number of different ways and this is the point that comes out i think almost every year so as a district is that part of our strategic plan to expand the charter school or would we support w stem expanding in whatever method they so want to i mean those are the issues for us as a governance board and every year they come and present to us and are doing amazing things but we're still in the same spot we were and i don't i don't think it's

059going to move because unless we expand it will stay the same and kids will lose out on amazing opportunities if we think this is one amazing opportunity then we need to look at expanding it in some way if the charter wants to is there a capacity to expand space we would have to look at it i think with the capacity of breakout rooms and so on and so forth that we have within the new building i think it could be a possibility but i think that would be in coordination with buildings and grounds before i would speak to say that yeah it's possible may ask how many classrooms does wilson have at each grade level wilson and w stem have one classroom at each grade level there have been times in the past that wilson

060has gone to you know just as we more common sure you know just as we talk about you know expanding it possibility and we you know i think there's always this lingering idea that we don't have enough enrollment for elementary schools and we might have to close one but you know is there an opportunity maybe to expand wilson stem or w stem into all of wilson and you know families of course who don't want their kids to participate the stem program may have to find another another building but it just you know to sharon's point you know we're going to keep i think this cycle of you know you're doing these amazing things but you're limited and your resources and capacity are limited how can we kind of rethink that and make it more accessible

061to more students yeah i mean i think there's there can be some unique challenges of of having two schools within one building but i i love it um you know being the principal of both um that to me would be sad to see you know like a restructure of our redistrict i think i think we can learn from each other i think there's other things that we can do of sharing ideas um but again willing to work and collaborate with with other ideas of different thoughts but um i would [Music] as much as sometimes there are there are some of those things it's it's really an enjoyable part of it um to do different things so to me i i would be all in favor of you know having wilson w stem still co-sharing that

062building i think to then again sort of discussion for the board but you know mr meyer has repeatedly talked about winning the enrollment game and that we have to have something that brings students into our district particularly private school students or students who would other guys go to private schools this is clearly a very high demand program it's something people are wanting they're trying to get their students into it and are otherwise selecting private schools i i do think it's something we should really [Music] be thinking about as we talk through the potential of declining enrollment and how we're going to continue to get our resident enrollment numbers higher here so it's your [Music] belief that school within a school can work and does work yeah i believe i believe it is working there so

063w stem could then potentially go to another school with schools and a school possibly it would also push us as a district further along in our secondary engineering and math technology programming so i mean i have a daughter who's an electrical engineer and uh she attended wilson not w stem but but she attended wilson so um obviously i'm very supportive of these types of careers for all children and we're seeing more students interested and if you just go to the schools and engage at whitman they're doing a lot of the same examples and they're solving problems they're in the hallway i mean we are doing this in our regular education but you know really formally having a pathway for students to these careers and that students believe in themselves that they're able to have these

064careers where they otherwise may you know may think oh i'm not able to do this so um i think we should think outside the box if w stem wants to expand i think that's a conversation for a future board meeting i like the big thinking um any closing cons gentlemen okay thank you for joining us i see a lot of uh parents here as well and thank you all for being here and for your engagement with the school with the kids and helping push us forward thank you have a great night [Music] next up is a human resource report good evening uh thank you for the opportunity to provide you with an update related to retention um and hiring in the wauwatosa school district um as of our last calculation our teacher retention rate uh

065is just over 85 percent conversely gives you an attrition rate of just over 15 percent um as we try to think about and learn more about why employees leave organizations um the research really pre and post coven are very consistent in terms of the the reasons employee employees leave um and and there are three uh primary reasons one is that employees don't care for or get respected by their supervisor another is that they feel that they're limited in their opportunities for advancement and the third is that they see opportunities or they want to have opportunities for higher wages that support a different type of lifestyle experience when we look at our exit survey data that we're gathering from um staff members who are leaving wauwatosa schools our participation rate for exit surveys right now is

066about 60 and we're working on increasing that so we have a a wider scope of information and feedback from our former employees i would say though that the reasons that um that our employees are giving our former employees are giving for their um departure are fairly consistent with those with those three reasons that we see in both research from harvard business review as well as the pew research center they rate their the ability of their supervisors to resolve their complaints and concerns as well as their supervisor's ability to recognize their accomplishments that's coming in at about a 2.7 out of a four point scale so not feeling a lot of confidence um and then my predecessor ms spot shared with you um at the last meeting in june um some of the data related to

067compensation and how that is consistent with our employee experience survey shared this past year i look forward to continuing to provide you with not only updates on our data which will continue to change between now and the start of the school year um really our our retention data will have a final number for that uh when the school year starts and then once the school year begins any other attrition will start accumulating towards the next year's retention rate and i believe um uh the update that i shared this month um included a summary of just how we were adjusting that calculation to make sure that we're consistent from year to year with when that cut off date is um i will also be able to share with you more data related to comparisons to the

068experiences of other local school districts as well as some national benchmarks in terms of not only what teacher retention looks like but also what what employee overall retention looks like across sectors in this strange new world further the report or the update this month included information on where we're at with hiring for next year um we have about 36 some fte uh teacher specific fte that we are hiring for um since friday we have about uh 12 uh pending offers um and we try our goal is to go ahead and make sure that we're updating that that higher data once individuals are post background checks so once individuals are going to make it on uh to the consent agenda that you see that's when we're updating the data related to hires so so what we

069have um again 36 ish fte uh 12 of those folks are in the pipeline right now um we have some buildings you know based on back to the idea of why are employees leaving their organizations we have some buildings that are really close to being fully staffed and we have other buildings where we really have a big push to go ahead and hire um and i'm regularly in contact with those principles and strategizing ways to go ahead and get those positions filled so i look forward to having more updates for you in that respect as well [Music] more questions and comments mrs franklin so first thank you for the depth of this report i've been sort of like pounding the drum for a long time about uh retention data and i love how this has

070been laid out not just in terms of the big picture but also in terms of individual school i'm curious if in your work other places you've looked at school retention year to year as well like i know we look at year to year across the district but have you ever looked at like the real like east by year west by year are there particular types of positions that we're more likely to lose etc yeah absolutely um so uh um i am excited to go ahead and look more closely at that data for wauwatosa schools um i have not dug in quite as deeply at this point looking at longitudinal data in that respect but certainly that is um that is data that we can maintain and collect to be able to have those comparisons year

071over year as well as to external agencies and other school districts um we certainly do know um and some of the work that i did with this patch prior to my transition was looking at which positions are harder to fill than others in the district and so part of the compensation plan that was approved this spring included an annual payment for hard to fill positions and so with the data that we have internally based on retention and attrition as well as some data that we have access to through our application system which is called we can we're able to see the rate of candidates for jobs in the wauwatosa schools compared to overall in the state of wisconsin all the 500 plus school districts that use we can in terms of the certification and the

072level of applicants they have so we are able to go ahead and track some supply and demand information again it's important for the compensation system in terms of what are hard to build positions but it also helps us go ahead and look at um where that supply is less i can share with you with without data at my fingertips the generally speaking um uh positions that would be within our family and student supports um division are going to be harder to build positions there are just fewer candidates and fewer educators coming out of their training programs in those areas than others and given some of the other work that we'll be doing as part of our strategic plan related to creating a pipeline of educators for the organization we know that overall there are fewer

073educators looking to be employed right now in education than there has been in a long time so again part of the work in the strategic plan is to help us develop that that source that we can continue to look to to help us fill our positions with high quality staff thank you you answered my second question before i even asked which was i find and using this data to drive that thank you absolutely as we presented strategic plan board member freely one of the things we'll be looking at is tracking the success of our efforts in that respect so i look forward to sharing with you key performance indicators and other ways that we'll be able to measure our progress great the more data that i feel like the board can see related to you

074know what are the recruitment strategies that are working where are the places that we're getting teachers where they're successful and staying so that we're making good choices long term um that that i think is crucial especially right now as we look to the next 10 years in education k-12 thank you phil thank you uh yes i also appreciate the level of data from a you know parent perspective i mean people worry when their teacher changes and um or their administrators change and then education we like stability as much as possible um so i guess that speaks to we've been doing some things too i think with stay interviews i think dr means has shared with us um that those are ongoing and also how do we um i don't know how we can make the

075educators uh not me this is a i'm just not finding the words here but i mean cross-training but not really it's just uh assure that comfort level that if a classroom teacher leaves and mid-year that there's someone that's going to be there that they can rely on and be confident with and and sometimes because subs are not that solution um especially at the younger grades you know it just worries them to parents so whatever we can do to ease the transition of any of those mid year departures or you know placements which we know we're seeing a more transient and i'm i guess i'm mentioning this because we are seeing a more transient uh workforce basically even leaving mid-year and this is not just in wauwatosa so i i don't know how from an hr

076perspective we're going to approach that maybe that's the strategic planning [Music] lens but i think that would really help if we could somehow develop stability and uh you know in their recruitment phase if we could you know have a pathway for students to get into education while they're still in school you know similar to nursing and obviously that's a bigger undertaking [Music] offering offering help with scholarships for school you know all kinds of different options that you know we could keep students engaged beyond just their learning that they will come back and we do have a lot of returning students that come back and work with us but speeding up that process i don't know all the all of it but it's big and we we have a lot we could do i think yeah

077thank you i i think you um touched on several aspects of employee experience and increasing retention and especially for educators giving them the runway to be experts in their grade level or their content area that's going to require some time and some professional growth opportunities in their organization as we talk more about the strategic plan we'll touch on some really important aspects of that employee experience and how it contributes to a more stable workforce than organization thank you [Music] dr oak do you have thoughts about how we can ease the hiring for or maybe entice our long-term subs or our part-time ftes to consider some of these positions that are open or just as an on an ongoing basis if these are people already sort of invested in our district how can we use that

078pipeline to make to move them into um longer term positions yeah i appreciate the question i don't think there's a single um answer to that um but i think that um you know folks come to subbing in particular from a couple of different routes maybe they're early educators and they're looking for some initial experiences that can provide a great opportunity for them to learn more about your schools and and see what they like the best right other folks come into subbing as a you know post career opportunity that allows them to really give back and connect with you know the most important segment of our population which is our kids um and so i think um depending on that that inroads and to why um folks are coming in to do subbing there are certainly

079opportunities and there are more and more programs um now for an accelerated teacher training program and there have been before and certainly more opportunities for different licensure options from dpi so dr when i hear you say hey how do we how do we bridge that that gap between someone who wants to be in our schools and folks who want to be regular employees i think it really becomes about you knowing the individuals that we're working with seeing what their skills are and then encouraging them to look in those areas the new compensation system with um hard to fill stipends or the potential for tuition reimbursement for instance if uh if someone wants to go get a post back um program to complete their certification we have more options now than we've ever had before any

080other board comments or questions i would just reiterate that the data um and your all the questions i have on my list you've answered uh this evening i'm really we're gonna have to be creative and i'm glad you're in the seat um i know the challenges facing it i've talked to colleagues at madison uw milwaukee and marquette about the teacher education programs and their state of student levels and i think doing everything we can to make this profession i think for all of us for the state of wisconsin and for the country that education is a place where people want to spend a career but for us in wauwatosa which is our kind of sphere of influence whatever we can do um i will look forward to kind of hearing of what the data tells

081us and our recommendations moving forward thank you sarah do you mind if i please i did you know i can't i try to stay out of hr but i appreciate your efforts um i i would just ask the board and the community to be aware of i think some of the best research that's happening nationally right here locally it's a gentleman by the name of curtis jones out of the university of wisconsin milwaukee and he does research annually on how teachers interpret the educator effectiveness program in their schools he first started this research around the concept of how do you keep urban teachers in our urban centers in the state but dr uh curtis has gone deeper uh curtis jones excuse me uh mr dr jones has gone deeper and now he's surveying all teachers

082in throughout wisconsin and the concept of feedback and the quality of feedback we've talked a lot about compensation this evening but the research shows that people stay when they know that they're getting really high quality feedback and that their their principal knows what's happening in their classroom and that they can anticipate the problems that they're going to have i just share that because if you really do and maybe we we can provide a link to to that research we actually have the breakdown of dr curtis jones's research by district and then by building by each of those components and sarah and i ms zelozovsky and i have been starting to look at that data because there's a lot of overlap between what we saw with the culture app data and what that information provided as

083well so there's more for us to do strategically i think there's always anecdotal things that we talk about um we're hoping to be creative with you that's why we hope you're you're starting to get creative with the strategic planning opportunity i will leave you with this opportunity because i think dr it goes to what you were referencing there's a group that used to be called intec now they're known as the urban learning collaborative and they license they they can they can take someone who's a current educational assistant and get them licensed and they've they want to work with wallace hill so we couldn't really do it last year we thought of all of our turnover but they they want to create a pipeline for people who are committed to our district who are already educational

084assistants but they they need help uh getting to that licensure component of things some districts have to make a financial move so we talk about that pipeline so we hope that you're you're thinking that way i would encourage you to go out to the urban learning collaborative and then the last thing i want to just give a shout out because he deserves it uh mr stephen oliver has been our summer school principal all year he's been working hard he reminded me today that it ends on thursday i think he said it multiple times on the call i don't know why um but i'm really proud to say that mr oliver did a nice job in hiring our current teacher our current students who have articulated that they are interested in going into education so we

085have a lot of young people who who are serving as hall aides or they're helping with young young students um so that's just another way we're trying to build the pipeline but i think you you're you're getting a sense of how deeper ms elizoste will go in this this is just um we'll make this as as you requested we'll make this a monthly report so you can continue to ask your questions i would encourage you to reach out to ms zelazovsky between now and next meeting just to ask deeper questions um and your questions will help us refine this report i i'm really excited about the link in her report that allows parents to to to ms meanwhile some point that allows parents to go into that that breakout to see your school and to

086see what vacancies there are um we're providing that for a few reasons one we want to be clear in our communication but two if there are parents or community members who want to talk to their friends who are educators and encourage them to work in a really forward thinking exciting school district we encourage them to help us with the recruitment process thank you sir thank you next up is our financial report and good evening good evening so tonight we have the june financial report and june is a little bit different month than most um from a cash basis point of view um all the cash disbursements and cash receipts are fully accounted for and completing the reports uh we're completing the year-end accrual and journal entries and financial accounting that happens at the end of

087every fiscal year so we'll bring back to the board of full accounting of the entire 21-22 fiscal year which will include all those things so june's a little bit uh different in that respect um i just wanted to make those comments prior to the board uh reviewing i guess the report in detail um so like i said we'll bring that to back to the board next month people full accounting we'll look at a bunch of variances the key areas and that'll inform our budget planning for 2223 as well as beyond so any questions beyond that generally speaking mr bregman as you look at how we performed and how we're tracking right now what's the financial health of the district yeah we're still tracking the way that we've talked about previously um with the expected budget

088surplus and that'll provide some uh provide the board with some flexibility and planning to future budgets so i'm kind of excited to fully vent those fully complete those um i hate to get too far ahead of myself until i see the full accounting because there's something to do at the last minute that truly kind of bridge those gaps but um but again a month from now i think i know we'll have a very clear picture of where we're at and bring that back to the board and that is the full report so i'm sorry mr brighton i guess i have another question so traditionally the summer is time for vacations and audits um and so how is the district audit going along and if you can just give us a high level overview of what

089that process is yeah so we went through a kind of preliminary preliminary audit with cla audit findings on the purchasing scope um so we're following up with those um recommendations and the management responses that we had in those we had our preliminary field work for the the annual financial audit uh two weeks ago and that all went really well the auditors were pleased with getting information in a timely basis there were b bumps last year with getting things and this year they did not have those we've gotten that feedback already um and the final field work happens uh second or third week in august and that's when they do their final audit and all of our accruals and everything we'll be updating over the next next week or two weeks so um all going very

090well and as expected seeing no other questions thank you so much thank you [Music] our next item is the consent agenda are there any items on the consent agenda which board members would like to remove for separate discussion in action seeing none may have a motion to approve the consent agenda move to approve i think you may have a second second we'll give it to as well uh any board discussion on this item i do uh thank you the consent agenda looks a little different than he this evening can you help us understand maybe i'm glad you're still here at the microphone help us understand some of these other financial items that we have on yeah so that's why i came up here also to and stayed here for this item there are a few

091additional items we're trying to work through right now with having the full transparency of these items along with streamlining the process for approvals we've gotten for feedback from the board also that some of the discussion action sequences for some of the items seemed a little bit unnecessary given that they're recurring items they're within budget scope um the renewals they're not new items for the board to vet the only item on this report that doesn't fit that category are the two-way radios but those were approved as part of an esther spending plan the board did earlier and this is just showing the bid results for those radios as we report the purchasing side of that um so that's the reason for an extended list here i guess we're getting we're wanting to get feedback from the

092board about which types of items to put on consent which one's not to um as you're aware our spending threshold is twenty thousand dollars or above comes to the board for review um and discussions requested and so we're again looking at which ones would consent which ones wouldn't um as part of our responses to the cla audit report we hope to bring uh bring the board we'll bring the board recommendations on decision rules about what items come on consent which ones don't and of course the board always has the ability and authority to pull something off consent for further discussion so um if we edge on the side of putting too much on here they can be played after discussion get word request that thank you miss benfield for the question thank you for the

093detailed answer good evening this evening's employee transactions included in the consent agenda approves the employment of two assistant principals new to the wauwatosa school district the assistant principles for both long fellow and whitman middle schools i've invited them this evening just to say a few brief words and to meet all of you good evening to everyone i would like to take this opportunity to take to thank dr means members of the board the whitman middle school team [Music] and principal deonic for entrusted me with the role of assistant principal most importantly the students who won me over with their excellent questions and genuine care and concern for who was selected to lead at their school i am excited to serve our school community and to contribute to the work of school improvement welcome [Music] hello

094everyone hear me i don't have my teacher books yet my name is alicia gilbert ewing but i go by ally gilbert i am honored to be the new assistant principal at longfellow middle school i actually have been in the district for four years at tulsa east as a high school english teacher so i'm really excited to make this transition also get to feel what my students are feeling right now on transitioning into a new school i'm really honored to work with the families and parents and continue to work with and serve in the community in a way that's different than my traditional role but i'm really excited um we've already started doing some work so i'm really excited just to and go on this new journey and kind of embark in the community in a

095new way thank you both for being here i know there's at least one proud whitman middle school parent in the room uh who previously introduced massachusetts and i have a middle schooler starting at longfellow so um it's it's such an interesting and complex moment in time to support kids in their education uh in those ages and that in that development so thank you for undertaking this uh thank you for the principles for being here uh i am really excited to see kind of what exciting things you've got in store for these middle schools and where we're going to take them and look forward to kind of hearing more as we go throughout the school year both from my sixth grader and from from y'all and i just want to say i also want to give

096uh some kudos to miss zelazovsky for getting some mental health specialists hired that is not an easy task this day and age we talk about teacher shortages but mental health shortages are i think perhaps even a bigger problem so um kudos to you for for filling some of those esser positions i'm really excited to see that eric if i can also add i'm just thrilled to see you know diverse leadership in our middle school so great job hr and welcome to the team i'm excited to see what you guys do welcome to both of you and uh miss gilbert i'm sorry to see you leaving the classroom um as my child had the benefit of having you but i'm really excited to see you both at the middle school as a middle school and high

097school teacher and middle school of like a whole different breed of kiddos and they need loving folks with firm clear expectations and i'm sure they're going to be excited to see some new faces um and just we wish you not good luck but good work um and please let the board and your principals you know let them know what you need because we really want to make sure that you feel successful so we're here for you um i am excited about the quality of the educators that we have coming in uh and i know we are going to continue to push and find creative ways as we just talked about to maintain our educational workforce and to make this a district that educators don't want to leave um that they are supported that they are

098compensated that they feel that they are um valued in a way that is maybe unique among other districts uh hopefully all districts get to this way but i'm going to be a little competitive with this um so continue to push at this uh and thank you all for your continued work is there any community comment on this item is cool yes yeah you can just introduce yourself and share your address hi i'm laura wind passenger 11805 west oxford place um i have two well soon to be first graders at underwood and i just wanted to um within your consent agenda tonight um of course is the appointment of jake dignan i just wanted to say thank you all so much for um such a great hire and he's got an amazing reputation and um as

099an underwood parent i couldn't be more thrilled that he will be at the school and hopefully working a little bit with my kiddos so thank you all so much and thank you for the second response to me um whatever so i don't i don't go off like written things so anyways thank you thank you jimmy do any of any comments online yeah we have a few hands raised kendra kovar you have the microphone please state your name and address kendra kovar 2405 merlin way brookfield wisconsin i'm an 8th grade teacher at whitman middle school i've been in the district for 16 years now and in that time i've been a mentor to many new teachers and i just thought i'd chime in on a couple of things possibly affecting teacher retention um with a lot

100of turnover on hr the onboarding of teachers in august has been a little inconsistent so i'm really looking forward to the new leadership really getting a handle on that and making sure teachers transition transition into the district in a very comfortable um way in a very supportive way and then i'm also asking that maybe we look at the mentoring program and how it's set up i know sometimes it's very difficult to get mentors so maybe um providing a different kind of setup or training maybe more specific in buildings rather than always district-wide um i think each building has its own little culture and i think new teachers would um appreciate a lot more time maybe with all the new teachers in the building i know our building is going to have over 10 so it

101would be really nice to get support within the building as well as district wide and maybe to increase more people to want to mentor perhaps an extra stipend taking a look at the financial situation with that i know um teacher coaches are paid pretty substantially compared to new hires for teachers um but they don't always have the time to meet with a teacher on call and usually your in building mentor can get to you within 24 hours if not the same day to um have a conversation with you and be supportive of that new teacher so perhaps some better onboarding um or maybe just reconsidering the structure of the mentoring program and then possibly more financial incentives for more teachers to come forward um to be mentors as well thank you thank you okay next

102is uh john eder please state your name and address you have the microphone uh john etter still at 2733 north 73rd street uh i just wanted to uh to say that from what i know of uh a number of the hires uh that uh and that we're looking at proving tonight um we have a wonderful uh and an amazingly talented batch of educators coming into the district or transferring within the district and specifically i'd like to say that ms gilbert is going to be an amazing addition at longfellow she's done just tremendous work at east over the past four years i was really looking forward to my children someday having her as a teacher at east um i'm sad that we're losing her but i am so glad that she will be part of their

103lives at longfellow so thank you they're not mohan's race [Music] uh thank you our educators calling in this evening and those maybe pursuing uh national board certification uh good luck um any other items i could make a comment um you know i was super thrilled of course you know seeing um these these assistant principles but also want to um just make a point to say i was also thrown as a jefferson parent to see that we're getting more male educators especially in elementary school and the same goes for mr daggett um you know i think that's an area too that we sometimes overlook you know we often see female teachers in elementary schools and it's just so critical and important that we get more male educators so i was thrilled to see that jefferson was

104getting a gentleman and that also that uh mr daggett took that position at underwood so just wanted to make that comment thank you um ms newman i think we're ready to call the role mrs fraley yes dr hoyt yes miss neufeld yes mr phillips yes ms willis yes dr jessica finger yes and that item passes dr baker i i would be remiss if i didn't thank our principals sarah thank you sarah the brand new principal to whitman um dr boyd mentioned that we're hiring a lot of mental health specialists that's through a lot of the hard work of miss emily o'connor who is our director of student success people are it is july 25th and i think part of what we've done and this is coming from you in terms of messaging is that we

105have to hit the ground running and people have been working around the clock and really hard so i'm thankful that we're bringing good candidates to you for approval but i also want to just thank our new team they're they're learning their way around the community in their schools but at the same time diligently working to accomplish the tasks that we all want them to accomplish so thank you sarah and everyone else thank you next up academic performance action items first approval of the proposed purchase of computers for the west high school arts studio and a reminder on these we had pretty extensive presentations and discussion opportunity for both community questions and comments as well as board questions and comments on any follow-ups um mr phillips sure it is recommended that the school board approve the

106proposed purchase of the computers for the west high school art studio in iso move second outstanding uh any reset that you'd have for us or do you want us to if we've got any check in with questions first uh the only thing that i thought i might offer is um last time we maxed the form had asked a few questions about how these computers might serve diverse learning needs so i did reach out to david peach with our special education department head here's what he had to say about that topic uh he said that it would be a great format for students to use an ipad as a digital communication device because it's another familiar platform um he also said that it would have potential for students with fine motor limitations um assuming that stylus

107that would be part of these waycom tablets um would allow them to have a consistency um in learning to use that fine motor skill um but also to feel different than drawing with pencil and crayon like some of the things they might be commonly using and that the vibrancy of the colors on the screen would be really engaging and so he was really excited about that possibility um he also suggested i reach out to our occupational therapist uh mary magdalene so uh what she had to say was that apple products are actually known for having the most accessibility features and universal access compared to other companies uh she also said that she is one of the assistive technology specialists in the district um and that she could see a lot of different applications for our

108students we do have disabilities to use basically so that was just a little bit of further research i had done since our last week thank you so much for doing that and bringing that forward other board comments or questions on this item i could just say thank you for your thoughtfulness and for reaching out and i encourage you to continue to collaborate with those teachers and specialists you know to make it as inclusive as possible we do have plans once the school year starts to really sit down and once the equipment's all set up to really brainstorm how further we can use it yeah great yeah it's a good opportunity awesome thank you again yeah it is fantastic that you're here and you did the follow-up and i'm just very excited about this proposal [Music]

109any community come onto this item [Music] jamie we don't have any in the room any online uh no hands are raised ms newman please call the room ms fraley yes dr hoyg yes miss mielfeld yes mr phillips yes miss willis yes dr jessepanger yes on this item passes thank you both and i hope you have a great start to the year the next item is approval of the textbook subscription renewals it is recommended that the school board approved the textbook subscription renewals as presented at the july 11th 2022 meeting and iso move we have a second a second thank you [Music] any reset for us on this one i do know that one point of conversation there we go um one point of conversation was um accessibility to um printed out text and uh we

110confirmed with all of the publishers that we can print out um any of the pages from the textbooks um so that students can have a hard copy of it and that is the preferred mode to go down because part of having the online textbook is that it can be updated in real time in case there's an error that's found or there's new um information to be added to the to the textbook so um all of that checked out so um that's what i wanted to update all of you with okay any other board comments or questions again thank you for the thoughtfulness and getting those uh questions answered that's great to hear absolutely any community comment on this item in the room anything online no no hands roast scanning this freely miss braley yes dr

111hoyt yes miss neufeld yes mr phillips yes as willis yes dr jessepanger yes and that passes thank you very much approval of the edis license renewal it is recommended that the school board approve the edis license renewal as presented at the july 11 2022 meeting and i still move second and i have nothing new to bring forward to the board um there were no questions lingering the last time so unless there are questions that have come up um i have nothing more for you today anything from the board anything from the community in the room anything from the community online uh they're not hands raised is anyone mrs braley yes dr hoyg yes ms mufeld yes mr phillips yes miss willis yes dr jessup anger yes and that item passes next up is technology department

112action items approval of the microsoft services renewal it is recommended that the school board approve the microsoft services renewal as presented at the july 11 2022 meeting and iso move may have a second second thank you any reset on this item um no there are no updates on this these are both just basically renewals okay any board comments or questions saying not any community in the room comments or questions seeing none any online they're not hands raised ms newman please call her miss fraley yes dr hoyk yes miss newfeld yes mr phillips yes miss willis yes dr jessica pinker yes and this item passes and then approval of the blackboard services renewal it is recommended that the school board approve the blackboard services renewal as presented at the july 11 2022 meeting and iso move

113you have a second second thank you any board discussion or questions any community comments any online community comments they're not answerized okay please call the role ms fraley yes dr hoyg yes ms smithfield yes mr phillips yes miss willis yes dr jessepanger yes that item passes last item we have is any further public comment on items on the agenda or items not on the agenda tonight seeing none of the room do we have any online they're not hands raised okay it is 8 39 may i have a motion to adjourn still moved in a second second thank you mr man ms braley yes hector hoyg yes miss newfeld yes mr phillips yes miss willis yes dr jessica banger yes and i hope you all have a beautiful evening we're turning