001School Board um of on April 23rd to order with a moment of Silent reflection please Mrs galante would you call the role please Mrs fee here Mr Jose he is excused Mr croner here Mr Meer here Mrs Mel here Mrs Randall here Mrs Weber here at this time I'd like to um introduce any public comment uh on a non-agenda item if anyone wishes to speak to a non-agenda item would they please come to the microphone and give your name and address seeing none is there any member of the uh board that would like to have an item on the consent agenda excuse me I have to read one article before I do that members of the wossa school board value the input of students parents staff members and community members the board regularly excuse me
002the board's regularly scheduled meetings provide an opportunity for opinions and concerns to be expressed publicly the board values all comments and will respectfully cons this input in decision making the board requests that individuals limit their comments on each item to 3 minutes following any comment an individual board member May respond to on the agenda raised however it is not the intent of the public comment portion of the agenda for the board to enter into a debate with a member or members 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 at this point is there any board member that would like to have a item on the consent agenda pulled for separate discussion or action yeah Mrs Randall do you
003have a clar I had asked Dr ear a question during the day so I think he's had a clarification on that under Human Resources where it says it is recommended the school board approve the issuance of final notices of non-renewal that should read preliminary notices of non-renewal not final that's that's it y thank you board members any other comment or question okay if not is there any public comment on an item on the consent agenda seeing none may I have a motion to approve the consent agenda so moved Mrs V second board members any further discussion in any way seeing none may we have a roll call vote Mrs fee yes Mr croner yes Mr Meyer abstain Mrs milfeld yes Mrs Randall yes Mrs Weber yes Mr Meyer would you please read the first recognition
004yes East High School honored 102 student Achievers at the 19th annual Achi I's breakfast in March seconde recipients included three sophomores two Juniors and four seniors two Juniors and one senior were third-year recipients the breakfast saluted those students who have shown marked improvement during their school career and honored them not for what they have achieved but rather how they have achieved it students receiving awards were given commemorative programs and pins or certificates of achievement two students from wos East High School won awards for their artwork in the Scholastic art and writing Awards national competition founded in 1923 the Scholastic art and writing awards are awarded by The Alliance For Young Artists and writers and is the longest running most prestigious recognition program for Creative teenagers in the United States the awards recognize student achievement in
005the visual arts and creative writing senior Zora Martin won a gold key award for her silver bracelet and Bryant Kimble beerock won a silver key award for his painting gold key awards are given to students whose work demonstrates the highest levels orig of originality technique and personal Vision gold key artwork is forwarded to New York for National adjudication students from Longfellow Middle School and Lincoln Elementary School competed in the Wisconsin future problem solving program 30th annual state bowl from April 19th to the 21st more than 34th through 12th graders from around the state participated in the global issues problem solving component working in teams of four or as individuals students analyzed challenges and developed solution ideas for a situation set in a fictional future and related to the global topic of trade barriers Long Fellow
006middle school students were Molly alinger Moren coffee Matt doberstein Janet fee Abby gford Emma Hudson Meritt Ian Schmidt Ernst Brody spoler and Ma Williams Lincoln Elementary School students are Frank Lee Emma gford Nina Gordon Emma Herson Natalie Mai Lizzy Mo Katie Scallan Judy Schmidt Ellie Stefan and Emma th the students coach is Dr Renee mccuen Lincoln fifth grade teacher Global issues problem solving a component of the future problem solving program International is a year-long educational program in which students learn a six-step problemsolving process and apply it to Future situations in the three practice topics they have researched the future problem solving program International is global in scope involving over 200,000 students from more than 45 States two Canadian provinces and five foreign countries in Wisconsin more than 150 teams from 25 school districts participated in
007this challenging program during the school year Jenny Kats Underwood Elementary principal was recognized by the Civic Music Association of Milwaukee CMA as outstanding educational administrator of the Year Kats will be honored at the CMA annual awards ceremony on May 2nd at the Humphrey Scottish right Masonic Center Honor are chosen from nominations made by music educators administrators parents and more as one of Milwaukee's oldest Arts organizations the CMA has been active in developing the musical life of Milwaukee since 1918 the cma's mission is to honor educational administrators who have shown outstanding support for music education and teachers of Music the CMA Works closely with Milwaukee Public Schools the University of Wisconsin Milwaukee Milwaukee youth Symphony Orchestra Milwaukee Symphony Orchestra and the Wisconsin Conservatory of Music CMA award recipients will also be honored by the Milwaukee Symphony
008Orchestra at the salute to education Night concert on June 2nd at the market Center for the Performing Arts the Suburban Women's Club of wossa awarded four scholarships totaling $3,200 to four Wawatosa school district teachers each scholarship is in the amount of $800 one from the Charlotte stab Memorial Scholarship and three from the founders and members fund recipients are Stacy Brun Underwood Elementary School social worker K through 12 diversity and Equity Advocate Carolyn Curley Roosevelt Elementary School grade three Linda Landis Lincoln Elementary School and Senior kindergarten Christopher lazarski West High School and social study the awards will be presented at the Suburban Women's Club of wosa's May meeting teams from five schools in the wossa school district competed in the Destination Imagination activity held March 24th all teams placing first or 2 Advanced to the state
009competition on April 14th the Wilson W Stem Elementary School team of Abby chisa Sydney holstead Ali Holton Maggie Holton Eva calar Mary Katherine McMahon and Kaden renel or the dots placed first in the Fine Arts Coming Attractions challenge teams from Longfellow Middle School placed first and second in their challenges the pet people took first place in the project Outreach challenge with Christina dry Anna Felton Emma Kesler Evan canow and Carmen prantel the genius super llamas took second place in the structural challenge with Elizabeth Beckers Jacob sinata Emily rapetti Adam shell and Matthew St Amore the clerks of sing and Mart took second place in The Improv challenge with Sarah Jensen singen kimbal Beach Kath Caitlyn lassard Liam McMan Ben rnel and Louisa zabowski the East High School team of Alonzo Garza Margaret Smith Megan Jensen
010Nora grade and Wes zibrowski placed second in the Improv challenge at the state competition longfellow's team project Outreach the world canvas community service plays second out of eight teams and is advancing to the global competition which will be held in Knoxville Tennessee on May 23rd through 26 a high school team which included five wosa East students Maggie Elliott Evan Patton Alex growth Ross Janice Julia Armstrong competed in high school Team Challenge e hold it structural problem they placed first out of 11 teams competing and will also advance to the global competition Destination Imagination is a nonprofit organization providing educational programs for students across the nation and in more than 30 countries to learn about and experience creativity teamwork and problem solving the Afterschool activity gives students an opportunity to work in teams solving mind-bending challenges
011and presenting their Solutions at tournaments thank you I'd like to commend each one of the young people who have again done some excellent work it's always so rewarding to recognize these young people I'd also like to SP special uh tribute to Jenny Keats for her work with the um her award from the Civic Music Association I know she is highly respected because I've heard from some of her peers here in the district and um the Suburban Women's Club longstanding given scholarships to our teachers and that's truly a fine Community Asset that we enjoy in wosa if we can move to Student Learning Please Mr Mayer it is recommended that the school board approved policy 2221 virtual programs as presented and discussed at the March 26 board meeting it is recommended that the school board approve
012the termination of the charter agreement with the tosa school of the trades governance board and the wossa school district at the end of the 201112 school year as requested by the TOA School the trades governance board due to insufficient enrollment to successfully operate a public school and I so move is there a second second thank you Mrs muel uh board members discussion questions Mr croner I have a couple of comments on the virtual programs policy 2221 um I'm glad that we're that we will have a policy on Virtual programs but in reading it over and thinking about it and based on comments at the last meeting I think it's incomplete um and the reason I think that is that this policy doesn't contain any procedure for the board adopting course courses of study that will
013be taken and according to policy 2220 it says all courses of study taught in the schools of this district will be adopted by the board so I understand that there might be some limitations where you might not be able to bring every single course that's different or new to the district before the board for approval but it seems reasonable to me to have some kind of procedure where the programs that we use whether other school districts or if there are for-profit companies that we hire that those decisions go through the curriculum Council and come to the board for approval and it just seems odd to me that we were going to have a major course of study that gets approved um out outside of the board uh consideration and in saying that for me this
014is just purely a policy issue and it doesn't reflect on the decisions that any of our curriculum um any of the people working on curriculum in the district May because I know I know they do a very good job um the other thing that this doesn't address that concerns me is that it allows students to have a a complete online education while wosa and receive a high school diploma and the board hasn't really discussed that and it seems to me that it would be worth having some discussion and something in the policy that reflects you know what is the reasonable number the maximum number of online credits a student can earn and if they go to beyond that is there going to be a procedure for how that's approved it just seems kind of odd
015to me to have a policy where one year we could have five students can take a complete online curriculum and the next year could be 30 could be 20 the year after that and they could take their entire wossa curriculum online through a company that's that we've hired and they would not have actually taken a wosa course so those are a couple of issues I think could be addressed in the policies but overall I support having a policy since it is it adds to something that we did not have in the past you Mrs uh Randle um I would just like to comment on the uh trades Charter the solution um and um I'm disappointed that it didn't work out but I I believe everybody made their best effort um I know there were really
016um Earnest attempts to enroll students um and you know we knew and this is why it was a charter school um we try it out and and we see what happens and I hope and I believe that there will be elements of that um process that we'll be able to to bring forward in our in our regular learning environments so but thank you to everyone who is involved in that I know we've had a couple kids who successfully completed it and we've heard from them them that um it was beneficial so um again I'm I'm sad I'm disappointed but I understand the reason so thank you further comment uh Mrs Randall I share your concern your disappointment um but I truly believe that we have learned from this and I would hope that um we
017will be able to have another Charter School again I think we learn for ways that we might improve on this uh one of the uh questions or concerns that I've heard expressed is the young people really do not like to be separated from their peers and I think that's something we'll be looking at that it could be in another location where the young people could take full uh part in their um in the high school either at East or West High School so I I I'm I'm pleased but I'm disappointed that we have to take a break on that so Dr ear do you wish to make any comment at all I would agree it's disappointing but I also know that it's um not something we're going to give up on we we have students
018that can excel in this area and some of our students have excelled and I think there's some things that we've learned and we're going to continue to find ways to meet the needs for these kids we have a commitment of a large number of people to stick with this process and to create those opportunities so um it's not the end of the line it's just a change in a different way of doing things and maybe even a better way of approaching it I hope so thank you any other questions um if there are no other comments um is there a community comment on these two items yes please um just a real quick question can you can you tell us tell me what um the initial enrollment or maximum enrollment uh was at School of
019Trades and what it use now Mr Anderson addit check at its high point uh the enrollment was 22 uh this year we started out with 17 and we're uh at about 13 so um we in in our recruiting efforts we recruited seven Juniors um in coinciding with our current six seniors um you know the board and everybody together felt that it was an insufficient enrollment um to properly run the school so um that was the decision I went uh into making that uh recommendation thank you Mr Anderson and we know that you put a great deal of time and effort into this so again thank you any other community comment seeing none may we have a roll call vote Mrs fee yes Mr croner yes Mr Meyer yes Mrs muel yes Mrs Randall yes Mrs
020Weber yes uh superintendent please it is recommended that the school board approve the addition of sixth grade for the wosa monor school for the 2012-13 school year as presented and discussed at the March 26th board meeting it is further recommended that the school board approve the individual teacher contract form as discussed at the special meeting on April 16th and I so move is there a second second thank you board members Mr Meyer Mrs Weber may we please have separate vote on these two items surely thank you okay uh if that's agreeable with the board thank you Dr you yes under the on the individual contract I just wanted to point out a change that needs to be made it has Mary Joel Randall listed as secretary and that should read as clerk that was discussed
021prev previously but it was not put on the form that was presented for approval so that will be changed okay board members any further comment or question can we take that um the uh let's do the uh contract as long as we're talking about that a little bit let's do that first if that's agreeable with everyone that actually item number two okay board members do you have any further comment or question seeing none is there anyone from the community that would like to speak to this again please come to the mic and give your name an address if you wish to speak on this um perhaps we should take a separate vote on that right now see um that there is no Community coming um Mrs gante could we uh vote on item number two
022the individual teacher contract form Mrs fee yes Mr croner yes Mr Meyer no Mrs meld yes Mrs Randall yes Mrs Weber yes now if we could uh address the wos mon 6 mon montor sixth grade is there comment or question on that um Mr Mr Anderson do you know or Mr hoist I don't know which one I should ask how many children did apply for the montauri school this year this year sorry we had 70 applicants this year and that's for the total School correct and how many do you know how many for the sixth grade uh we had none for the sixth grade since it it wasn't an offering and what we had discussed was that for the first year we'd roll up our current fifth graders and have sixth grade available um for
023our current fifth graders which are two right now and then the following year since we currently have 10 fourth graders they would be the first class of the sixth grade for the monor could the sixth grade have additional enroles could that if someone moves into the community for instance and wishes to or from Milwaukee could apply or are the applications closed at this time what we've done in the past and what we could be doing this year as well is have supplemental application periods in the summer um what we'd have to discuss is the fact that um to do monor for one year prior to moving on I think we'd like to have a situation as you had alluded to if you had someone move in who has considerable monori experience and um we new
024to the community and and want to sustain that monory experience even if they knew it was just for one year um that could certainly be a possibility um but given monor or predicated on what happens years before that to just have a standalone one oneyear monu year would be I guess we'd have to have some discussions with the family about what the um what the goal of something like that would be um but if they've come from a montor school it would be easier to move into our sixth grade monori is that correct I would yes I'd say that would be an assumption to make okay and you had a lottery um do you know how many students were in that Lottery that you were able to accept what we did for the lottery was
025we knew we would have 13 spots at the junior kindergarten level um and then I believe between the upper and lower elementary levels uh there were four additional spots that we know of at this point that we have room and if a student for some reason is not able to continue can you draw in then those who are on a waiting list or invite them to become a part of it or is it in terms of mid year or in terms of just we took like for instance in Midsummer or the beginning of the school year if they oh we did that this year already yes so if we got late notice on probably two families that had originally agreed to attend and when they couldn't um in August and even the first week of
026September uh we just went down the wait list and contacted additional families who had expressed interest to it applied is is that what you're getting at okay I had a received a very complimentary call uh today about the montauri school um they're new both they're two children and they are new to to uh the schools so uh they were really excited about and happy that wos is doing this so thank you for your efforts thank and to Dr Earl for planting the seeds for this school for our district is there any yes Mary Joe um I'm sorry Mr O I I think I'm confused um how many sixth graders will be enrolled in the program in the fall it depends on whether the the two current families accept the spots or not they know it's
027an option um I believe both families are also looking at um Middle School stem and one of the middle schools as well the traditional program so they haven't committed yet one way or another if they'll be continuing on but so are you saying that's the only interest you have is is the two present fifth grade students families right now yes because um based on the fact that we're having the vote tonight we really couldn't promote that will have that will have a six grade I do know that in terms of future in interest is pretty um considerable for our current families about having the sixth grade here um and as I said at the other meeting um to kind of keep the Integrity of the threeyear cycles for the lower elementary and the Upper Elementary
028um so had you considered this proposal for the 12 or excuse me the 13 14 year instead of the 12 13 year because that that would be the kids that are currently the larger group in fourth grade right right we we did but you know if we can move forward and and kind of roll this in such a way um and like I said if if we do a summer supplemental application period and there is a situation as Mrs Weber talked about if if we have situation where we have a family who would be interested in sixth grade um and they're coming with monor experience or uh there's a younger sibling that gets into the monor school and they also have a sixth grade student then we I think we'd certainly consider you know those
029situations uh we just thought earlier rather than later to get a foot in the door with sixth grade um just in terms of um uh materials kind of curriculum activities if we can can kind of get that going next year in the 1213 school year as an option um it would help us out when we do have that larger batch of uh of sixth grade students during 13 14 okay um so there may or may not be a sixth grade next in the fall is that what you're saying we we could approve the the program but may or may not I am confident that we'll have at least one sixth grader I can I can say that okay because that affects how we group the other sections correct we'll be changing right the existing configuration
030right for this for 1213 knowing that we've already been doing some creative configuring um and knowing that the potential sixth grade class could be on the small end um we're certain that the Upper Elementary classroom is is prepared to have third fourth fifth and then sixth as they're multi-age for 12 13 okay so that doesn't change the current younger two levels no but ultimately ultimately will do that right okay okay Mr croner um in thinking about this and listening to what you've been saying it's not clear to me exactly what we're approving when we vote on this um are we also approving the curriculum and the materials are we approving the teacher costs for it are we approving modeling costs what exactly are we approving when we approve addition of sixth grade you're approving the
031additional um the possibility of two students or several students but it would begin the work of having sixth grade students in the school so you're approving the additional similar to what you approved last year when you approved it through fifth grade this is just a simple addition to the fifth grade it's adding sixth grade you're not approving Renovations or anything like that it's the grade configuration thank you any further questions or comments is there any Community comment are there any question excuse me your name and I'm sorry Jim Price wossa patch are there any costs associated with adding sixth grade even if there's only one or two students many of the materials and things in the classroom for that age level are able to be utilized by a potential sixth grader as well given his
032multi-age um s seed is pretty minimal um obviously the teacher stays the same it's it's basically another grade level but it's still in the same classroom right thanks CH Mrs gante roll call please follow surely thank you sorry um I'm still a little concerned about one of the basis for um introducing this was to get to the true monu model at the lower levels um and we can't go ahead with that right unless we know we have a sixth grade I mean that was one of the criteria for introducing the next level so and I and I we heard some parents speak to that right so to keep the grades first through third for lower fourth through six for the upper and um that's that's the plan and we're going to attain that though much
033like this year um where the lower elementary um is first and second grade uh we're going to have to keep that configuration just based on based on basically the number of of kids um in the classrooms and then 13 14 um um look at an additional section of of lower elementary um where we can have first through third um in both sections then so is there any chance that in the fall we'll have the true monor model for the Children's House the lower elementary and the Upper Elementary in terms of having having the three grades the the true model that that were which is uh ages 3 to 6 well in our case it would be 4 to 6 6 to 9 and 9 to 12 well we're going to keep we're going to keep
034the age four to six children's house um we're going to have to stay in a holding par in the way we are now um and some of it is the fact of if we wanted to to make that shift we'd be looking at potentially having an influx of of older students who only be in the school potentially one year at the sixth grade level if we could attract any just to do one year I mean it's as the teachers and I have discussed we know we know where we need to go and the teachers are pretty um pretty confident as they have been this year that okay if we know that in our configuration we have two grades at the Children's House level and we can do an additional year of two grades at the
035the lower elementary level which is basically a result of just how the applications came in last year um that we'd be able to still make that um make that work um until we get to the point where we do have pretty pretty even numbers at each age level so that we can sustain um the three grades at the lower and the three grades at the upper what's the benefit to doing this now as opposed to this time next year as I had mentioned before the idea of at least getting in the mindset of having sixth grade to promote for the teacher to get um you know to kind of get used to the idea of having kids that age or child that age in the classroom um we just thought it'd be another step of
036of moving forward versus versus holding off yeah and I understand that and I do understand what you're saying but I did see it as as a um all All or Nothing kind of thing where we would at the same the sixth grade would be added the lower L would be reconfigured reconfigured to the true monor model but it doesn't sound like that's what you're describing yeah we I mean it's it's basically another year where um where we'd be doing things the way we're doing doing this way and again um I did talk a lot about the Integrity of the model and quite honestly there's um there's schools out there that do monor in certain ways where um it's not as true you know um we want to do better than that but we also realize
037that in the interim um this is actually a a thoughtful way of moving forward that the teachers feel pretty confident about thanks thank you thanks sorry Is there further question seeing none um we still need to have Community comment on the montauri school is there anyone who wishes to speak to this from the community I need to say thank you again to you Mr hois I know you have put in a great deal of time and you are so kind in answering all the questions that we have sometimes it sounds confusing but you do make it clear so thank you and I would just ask that if we could have a report as the year goes on how things progress because I think changes are coming would you agree with that oh absolutely yes okay
038good thank you um BR call call vote please Mrs fee yes Mr croner yes Mr Meyer yes Mrs muel yes Mrs Randall yes Mrs Weber yes um now Dr lle um thank you the the report that I or the presentational report that I have in front of you regarding school start times um stems from a number of years back where uh we've had some concerns throughout the community with u student safety one of the things that we uh addressed is the issue that we have three schools right on Center Street that are all within 5 minutes of starting and ending and actually we had a accident in the parking lot today by a West student backed into an Eisenhower parent so we hope to alleviate some of that with our our start times and how
039we looked at it also you look at our start and end times throughout the district and all of our elementary schools and they're kind of scattered and they start at 818 813 808 8 3 and just trying to bring some standardization to the times which will also help with our U our scheduling for our our teachers and for uh collaboration as as well with our teachers but the recommendation it's it's actually re revised recommendation from what was originally sent out to parents into to the community and we got a lot of feedback on and mainly the concern that that I addressed by changing the revised proposal was people didn't like the high school starting 20 minutes earlier so we were able to still um meet all the criteria we were looking to by having the
040time spread out by moving everything forward 20 minutes where the high schools will start at 8:00 the middle schools at 8:10 and the elementary schools all at 8:20 um and that's really it's rather a a simple simple proposal and I guess I appreciate all the feedback that we did get because it did help to guide the revised proposal and um um I think it's a a positive change actually there's only one school that has I don't know if I would call it a significant change and that's Eisenhower Elementary is going from 803 to 820 start that's the largest variance of of any of the change the changes so it's not a big change for most of the schools but it does bring some coordination um to our school schedule does this not help somewhat at
041Lincoln East the traffic on 76 Street in the morning is really tremendous and with the little ones going to Lincoln in East will that address some of the concerns that parents have we hope it will parking is a big problem we hope it will and I think if we can get the high school kids off the streets before the Elementary starts dropping off I think that's one um positive of this schedule and both high schools will be started when the drop offs start for elementary schools but it should alleviate some of that traffic as well well there um how about the uh I've had some calls with respect to um the young people that are at Whitman in West the um particularly Whitman because of traffic concerns uh bicycling walking um there are very few
042that walk because it's just too too long a route but bicycling in um a horrendous as one lady spoke trying to find a way a safe way to get two Whitman in West will this help that concern I don't know if this will directly help the concern with students biking to school but I think it'll reduce the amount of overall traffic on in that area I know there's a safe schools um group at McKinley that is is looking to write another grant that will involve Whitman and Longfellow so they can have those safe routes from McKinley to Whitman and from McKinley to Long Fellow so we're going to be supportive of that as a district and hopefully that can help to address some of those concerns as well I'd really like to thank um Dr
043Earle on this we've had calls we've had concerns and he and his staff have listened very carefully and I think have tried to address all concerns um this has been a problem for some time with the um getting to and from particularly some the schools on the West Side uh when Madison was open there was a lot of concern about CRA Crossing white uh Highway 100 and it took some time to figure it out but it was solved um board members any further comments or questions or concerns yes Mrs meld um Dr erle can you talk to us about the traffic study that is being done or has been done around 114th and Center 76th in Milwaukee 76th in North those are in my mind the three largest bottlenecks all converging within 20 minutes to
044a half hour of each other for school start times currently the city we're working with the city on a traffic study that's being done in several different areas um across the district and I think the ultimate outcome would be some recommendations that they would have for traffic flow as well so um we're we're waiting and hopeful that something good will come from that traffic study as well well I'm just going to throw at a suggestion here because um a couple of those intersections are on my route daily um and I am very concerned about behavior of traffic and I don't think that the starttime proposal will address that and maybe it can only be addressed by having somebody directing traffic at some of those major intersections for a period of time during the morning it
045just doesn't seem as though um the traffic lights the crossing guards who are trying to do an excellent job considering everything they're working with um in those bottleneck intersections but I really hope that we can consider putting some kind of uh traffic flow person there to kind of alleviate some of those bottlenecks and Mrs Weber was pointing out 76 in Milwaukee is a huge um intersection where a lot of traffic converges in a very short period of time and it doesn't always flow with the lights and and with the kids needing to cross the street and um I'm you know hopeful we don't have any more safety concerns between now and the time that happens but it's it's quite alarming as I know 114th in Center is as well well I think the issue over
046at Long Fellow when we had a student hit that the driver I mean this proposal certainly is not going to change anybody's erratic driving behaviors but when the driver pulls around actually a crossing guard to hit and hits a student um you know those are those are some real challenges yeah it's I I mean it's uh it's incredible to see the volume uh that can happen at those intersections and it just creates a very unsafe situation and I don't I don't really see it alleviated unless a person is helping to direct that flow I mean the crossing guards in my mind just they're there for the students and the p and The Pedestrian safety they're not traffic people um you know maybe a stronger presence in that regard and I do know that school districts
047across the country probably deal with this um and I know when talking with relatives over spring break and um the Cincinnati area suburban school district and also in the Augusta Georgia area they do have actual people that monitor some of these larger intersections um and police do control the traffic at certain times so I hope we consider that is there further comment Ken you open up a a big factor to me and it's I don't know how it can be solved and yes I do you're talking about a person it bothers me on North Avenue in front of Longfellow where motorists double Park and they sit there for five minutes and I go past M uh Whitman it's the same thing over the overpass there's to be no parking people are parking there and sometimes
048double parked I don't understand understand how that is possible and I hope that we that through this we can begin to address that and see if that can't be solved the 70 excuse me North Avenue with that triple parking is so bad I think and that's adult that we have to change the um habits of adults okay is our community common please okay uh I think we can move on to the next item and drle unless you have something that you wanted to add on this as a closer closure on this just that it'll be right back for the board's approval at the next meeting okay thank you Mr proner thank you Mrs bber uh a few weeks back I had the opportunity to attend a conference at e Madison uh called safe schools safe
049communities the state superintendent conference on LGBT Youth and LGBT is L for lesbian gay uh bisexual transgender and sometimes you'll see a queue on the end for children who are developing a sexuality but have questions about they're not sure what their orientation might be um this was sponsored by the DPI uh counseling psychology student Association at ewm uh organization called diverse and resilient uh an organization called gsafe which is gay straight Alliance for safe schools and W Milwaukee um we received a an address by uh s State superintendent um Tony ever and so it's nice to see uh that level of important put on there and we also received an address from former lieutenant governor Barb lton so this is an issue that I think is being taken seriously um at the state level and
050uh I'm glad to see that it's reing that level of important importance um at the meeting we received a list of Statewide resources and organizations um that can be useful for people working in this area so I'd be glad to share those with board members or anyone in the in the district that would like that um I just want to highlight a few things that impressed me about the conference um the keynote speaker was Dr Dorothy espelage and she's a professor of child development at the University of Illinois and she's internationally known researcher on anti-bullying programs um and one of her in her CV it said that she wrote the two she wrote a 2011 White House brief on the bullying among lgbtq Youth and attended the White House conference on that topic and interestingly
051it's common for her to be in Wisconsin because she's using Dane County um as one of her counties for her research where she does uh surveys and sampling on bowling programs and issues related to that um some of the things that she said that were interesting was that bullying itself has not increased but what she's finding is that the bullying is starting to occur at younger and younger ages um for example she found that homophobia is emerging as early as third grade and she says this is significant because General bowling generally involve um using words about sexuality you're so gay things like that and and that it's important to address those kinds of issues if you're going to address bullying because that starting off with words like that generally leads to to more uh severe
052bullying in general um the other thing that impressed me that I hadn't thought much about she stressed the importance of uh addressing gender issues beginning in elementary school and that there are children who as you know is it in the Elementary grades that have a pretty clear idea of what their sexual identity is and it might not match their physical self and and this can create problems among students in school lining up going to bathrooms things along those lines so it was interesting to me that that that's an issue that teachers at least be made aware of and have some idea or training on how to deal with if it comes up and I know that we recently uh redid our modified our health um education policy where we're going to introduce age appropriate gender
053issues throughout the district and so I hope that's something that that will fall within that area when we um modify that curriculum um another thing is that LGBT issues are really important for the middle school age that there's an LGB risk profile that includes depression anxiety uh delinquency aggression poor school performance and the like and that risk profile starts as early as seventh grade okay so if we're educating all the students in our district it's important to be aware of students that might have issues related uh to their sexual orientation so that we can address that give them a place to go people to talk to so that their school experience is as positive as it can be um the good news is that the majority of LGBT youth are not at risk for all
054of these things but there's a much higher percentage of LGBT youth that are at risk for you know attempted suicides um delinquency poor performance in school than other students so it is a population that needs to be um focused on um the other thing she said that was really I thought important that there is an increased emphasis throughout the country on addressing bowling and many districts are purchasing commercial anti- bowling programs and in her view many of these were good programs but deficient in the areas that might address gender issues and so she thinks that they should be supplemented with uh material that um includes bias based discussions so there are many good programs out there but she thinks additional materials need to be added so that you address gender issues in a more complete
055way because in her view if you don't address gender issues then you're not addressing one of the root causes of just bowling in general um and so just to conclude on that section I I would highly recommend that the district consider bringing her in since she's so close by um to either talk to all the teachers maybe at an inservice or maybe even consult on our revising of our health curriculum to see what it is that we need to olude based on her research to really address the problems that we're trying to solve um after the main speakers there were variety of breakout sessions um there were parents of lgbtq Youth having a discussion panel about how what parents face and how they might um deal with these issues uh special challenges of lgbtq minority
056youth um being minorities and gay or lesbian offer you know give them special problems more difficult problems to deal with so there's issues on that um there was a section on the history of legal protection of LGBT youth in Wisconsin um and there was a section that I didn't get to go to which I mentioned before was what role does gender play in the classroom and that was a discussion on understanding and solutions to dealing with gender issues in elementary schools so again just something that we need to be aware of uh the breakout session that I went to that I really enjoyed was called and I support the imms GSA how we started Middle School GSA and this was uh run by David witty who was a principal at Indian Mountain Middle School in
057McFarland and Abigail swatz who used to work at that school but is now an eighth grade teacher and GSA adviser at Madison O'Keefe middle school and GSA stands for a gay straight Alliance student club and it's a club that's not just for U gay students it's for anyone so if anyone that that wants to talk about those issues or anyone that wants to to join and have other people to talk to um are are free to join and what was most interesting about this is they tried to start a club the way they start most clubs at Middle School it was a big failure and what they did instead was they launched the GSA by filming their own Public Service Announcement essentially with school and District staff um they the reason they did this is
058the the teachers themselves weren't quite sure how to talk to the students about this or introduce it so they filmed a video that all the teachers would show to the students in their home room and they invited the students then to write questions and their tactic was everyone had to turn in a piece of paper if you didn't ask a question you had to write I don't have a question and turn it in just so everyone would ask a question um but what was so neat about this film was that they defined lgbtq they explained that GSA was for everyone that it had complete staff support and what was nice about half of the it's a 10 minutes long about half of it are faculty members some of them explaining how they were bullied for
059some of these issues when they were younger uh the principal was one of those people um and but most of them were faculty members just saying I would for example I would say I'm Phil croner and I support a GSA Club at Longfellow Middle School and so when the students watched this there were like 10 or 15 or 20 different teachers that were just showing their support for the formation of this club and the other thing that came out of this is is the principal wrote letters to all the families in the district explaining why they were doing this and how useful it was and it turned out to be very successful um this last Friday there A Day of Silence which is a a yearly event where students that support lgbtq issues um take
060a vow of silence for the day and other people can wear stickers of support even though they're not silent at this Middle School 6 weeks after they launched this club 34s of the students participated in This Day of Silence so I think that that was a pretty amazing show of support um for board members I made copies of the video that he showed and that's what the IMs imms GSA disc is that I gave you and I urge you to look at it just to see what it looks like when a a principal and a a faculty support an organization like this and how how it how it can be done um I have to give a lot of credit to David witty because he um gave me a copy of the video to show
061and volunteered any help he he could give us if we wanted to move in this direction our district um I also gave board members a handout that are copies of the letters that he sent out to the families in the district just to show how an Administration can support this kind of thing and the first page of the handout are just the most common questions that the students in the Middle School ask about lgbtq issues and the answers that the staff provided to the students just to help them understand the issues they had questions about so that was just for uh your information to see how this could be developed um as far as in wossa I think think we've I'm been making progress in this area and I'm pleased about that and we have
062active GSA clubs in both of the high schools um as I mentioned we changed board policy to include discussion of gender issues during in the health curriculum um a couple of the students in the GSA Club at tosa East approached me last fall about the possibility of creating gender neutral bathrooms in the high schools and I mentioned that to Dr L I think that's under consideration so that's a positive thing and that's something I think we might also consider exploring in the middle schools and the final thing is I think we ought to think about and explore the support for establishing a middle school GSA clubs in our two middle schools um you don't just suddenly decide you have a gender issue when you you're in ninth grade right and so these things are developing
063in the kids that are much younger I think approach the right way they're very ready for that kind of a club and discussion within the school and I think it would be a very positive thing so again it was a very interesting meeting about 300 people attended the you know the ballroom was really full uh there were a lot of good ideas and I think it's uh we got I received a good education and received some good information from that thank you Mr croner board members any questions of Mr croner yes Mrs Randall um just thank you very much for attending and for the report um I I agree this is very important and I know we're reaching these kids or providing opportunities in a couple different ways but I think Mr Cron's Point um
064is well taken that um you know and I know that's going to be part of Mr um Anderson's charge as a result of the um advisory committee but to um make sure um that we kind of pull this together so that you know they don't have to just know that Mrs Foley is an adviser at East High School um and the charge from the from the committee and the teachers on the committee and it's interesting when you talked about teachers not knowing how to talk about it because there was a lot of discussion about that on our committee teachers that were on it and who knew of other teachers you know that were uncomfortable so that's a big responsibility that that the um advisory committee handed off to Mr um Anderson and Mrs arenberger um
065and I know uh on our diversity committee um Stacy Brun I believe attended the same conference um so you know there's some discussion there about it but I think I think we should really think about pulling this all together all of these pieces and somehow making sure kids um have a way to get the information they need there comment or question see none is there anyone in the community that would like to speak to this um Mary Pat Foley I'm a resident but I'm also a school counselor at wossa East and the adviser of the GSA at wosa East um it is our 11th year since we have been in existence it's started very small this year we meet every Monday we have over 20 kids that come every Monday and do not want to
066miss GSA last year year um we allowed some middle school students to come down because there was such an interest and um I think there is continued interest we had to um make a decision not to allow the middle school kids to come because there was a a couple of conferences we go to and they wanted to go as much as the high school students but I'm here to tell you that that Middle School component is almost as vital as having the high school um program because they're going through that development Al stage of even identifying who do you like who do you dislike and they're really struggling um with that identity identity and orientation are two different things and you will learn um as you work with these kids more and more we have
067now um a prominent group of transgender kids in our school who um identify as the other uh sex other than their birth sex and we're discovering things like participating in sports has become um a difficult thing for maybe an athlete who um is born one sex but identifies the other and what sports team the gender NE neutral bathroom would be awesome in our building um we have kids that are gay that aren't part of our club but they coexist and yes we did have our Day of Silence last Friday and um we talked about it tonight that it's almost antil climatic CU it's not as radical anymore as it used to be and we had easily half the school participating in support we make our own t-shirts and wear the stickers and our staff in
068tribute to um former principal Mr stad who was around when we started and Mr Hughes I think our school is just a very warm accepting it's a it's an easy environment for kids who are lgbtq and um our staff it's taken time we go slow but we do offer every year safe stickers the teachers can display in their classroom at least that identifies a safe person to talk to we generally have some kind of um discussion every year at a faculty meeting to let kids know or I'll put out an email to teachers you know what might be going on but um again I am urging and I hope anyone who hears this from the Middle School it doesn't have to be a school counselor that's the adviser there will be somebody in that building
069who would help coordinate but the interest is there the demand is there and middle school is vitally vitally needed needed thank you any questions I would like to pose a question to both you and Mr koner how about contact with parents that's a really awesome thing Lois we've talked about um having a parent component because that's often even something like having your picture in the yearbook some kids may not still want to have their picture as the club picture because they um assume Mom and Dad don't know um so I think that might be the next step maybe to have a parent support group or couple times a year anybody of um if a student had the opportunity to invite their parent to a larger group it might be more comfortable I have met individually
070with kids and their parents you know to talk about issues but maybe it would be a good idea to do that do you know of any schools that do have that app parent group a session for parents or someone they can go to within the school many parents once their kids have and they're very comfortable and supporting have been um involved in P flag it's a parent Organization for kids of um lgbtq kids um I don't know of any schools really as often as I've gone to conferences about having a parent support group or a listening time or anything I don't really think I can say I've heard of that no I think that that's a wonderful thing to organize can can it might be a little tricky at the high school level because many
071children don't talk to their parents about this maybe till they're older and so you know the parents might not know that they should be or might want to be interested in in a club like this so it's it's an interesting situation where the children are developing and trying to figure out where they they fit into the world and but they might not be discussing these things openly with their parents so yet so it's you can't just reach out and talk to parents because their children are in the club the kids are almost and even Middle School it might be hard to have it be a club it may have to be kind of a support group that might meet during the day just for that reason to make it feel comfortable to begin with that's
072how we did start off truly it was through guidance that we kind of ran a support group and it grew beyond that it still is somewhat of a support group but um it to be out there we've gone gradual we were in the homecoming parade for the very first time this year as a as an organization and that was a another big step to be out in the community but I I think we're we're doing it in the right manner um and like you said Mr croner to just throw it out there like the first time that that GSA at the middle school tried to put it together that's kind of not going to I think catch on it it's got to go really gradual and kind of slow I think the reason it was
073so successful at Indian Mountain Middle School is because Mr witty got all you know the entire staff to be involved and the staff created the video that they showed to the students so every student in the school knew that the entire staff supported this project and so I think it reduced whatever stigma there might be with the club and just made it a more common place so in creating a student group like this at the school what goes hand inand with that is completely changing the environment of the school so that it it just becomes another club and it's really nothing that people notice are concerned about there anyone else who wishes to speak to this board members yes Mr Mayer it it it probably would be helpful for some kind of awareness opportunities for
074parents about you know how to navigate through some of these things when you know your daughter comes home and a GU with her and and and she says oh don't worry dad he's gay and and that's fine but I don't know what to you you know there's certain practical questions that they assume you understand and it's okay and about you know sleep over rules and you know changing with people in the room and and and these are delicate questions but as parents we like to have figured this out before we get into the situation where we're expected to be good parents and we haven't thought through some of these questions about now what are the etiquette here with with these things and and and so this these topics are not just certainly the emphasis has
075to be on the the people who are you know um having the the the um questions for their personal lives but for you know the other 80 to 90% we we'd like to be a little wiser and on these things as well and and so it I believe it would be helpful if there was awareness in general for everyone to um know what's the you know how to work through this so that we um don't do anything that's insensitive um and by the same token that we know you know where it's still okay to have certain kinds of limits um with with the kids as well and it may sound peculiar but I've been through it and it it's like oh I never thought I'd you know the the questions and the situations with kids
076they have a a way of becoming things you didn't anticipate at and we'd all like to do a better job as parents I'm sure is there any further comment on any item or an agenda item excuse me a comment that we have not addressed okay seeing that um motion to adourn is in order unless there's anything else so move okay thank you is there a second second Jo thank you roll call Mrs V yes Mr croner yes Mr Meer yes Mrs milel yes Mrs Randall yes Mrs Weber yes thank you sh is that hiring process process